MUSKOGEE – A trial date in federal court has been set for a Rentiesville man accused of murdering, dismembering and desecrating the body of a victim who went missing April 29, 2022.
The body of Kolby Ingram, 27, is alleged to have been placed in a 55-gallon drum of muriatic acid after being murdered. The remains were found during a search of property in Rentiesville on June 14.
Fredrick Cody Burkhalter, 25, faces trial in U.S. Eastern District Court in Muskogee at 9 a.m., Sept. 6, before District Judge Ronald A. White.
The suspect, a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, has been charged with multiple crimes related to the killing of Ingram including: Murder in Indian Country. On or about April 29, 2022, did use, carry, brandish and discharge a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence in Indian Country.
Causing the death of a person in the course of a crime of violence.
Desecration of a human corpse in Indian Country.
According to the indictment against Burkhalter, “On April 29, 2022 (he) did knowingly and willfully desecrate a human corpse for the purpose of tampering with evidence of a crime, camouflaging the death of a human being, disposing of a dead body, impeding and prohibiting the detection, investigation and prosecution of a crime, altering, inhibiting and concealing the identification of a dead body, a crime victim, and a criminal offender, and disrupting, prohibiting and interfering with any law enforcement agency…” A federal criminal complaint filed by the FBI, the agency had received word that a victim in Rentiesville had been shot multiple times, dismembered and his body stuffed in a 55-gallon barrel of muriatic acid. According to the federal complaint, “Skeletal remains were located during the search of the properties. The remains were identified as human by onsite forensic anthropologists. The remains were found mixed with the skeletal remains of a dog,” the complaint stated. “(They) … include a fractured cervical vertebrae, fractured hand bones and a femur bone shattered into multiple pieces. The remains show signs of dismemberment, disfigurement, mutilation and of being devoured.”
At the conclusion of the search of property, Burkhalter was arrested and charged with Desecration of a Human Corpse in Indian Country.
The crime allegedly was the result of an argument over a gun stolen from Ingram by the suspect.
In different times the investigation would have been prosecuted in McIntosh County District Court. But since the U.S. Supreme Court’s McGirt ruling in July 2020, cases involving Native Americans in “Indian Country” are under the jurisdiction of the federal government.
According to the FBI, Burkhalter is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and he is accused of committing the crime in Indian Country.
