Man accused of murdering friend he thought summoned Bigfoot found guilty

ADA, Okla. (KXII) - The Pontotoc County man who told investigators he killed his friend during a fishing trip because he thought the man was summoning Bigfoot to kill him was convicted Wednesday afternoon.

A judge ruled that Larry Sanders, 55, is guilty of murdering Jimmy Knighten in July of 2022.

The conviction hinged on the concept of malice aforethought.

According to closing arguments, both prosecutors and the defense attorneys agreed that Sanders unlawfully killed Knighten, but a first-degree murder conviction in Oklahoma requires proof of “malice aforethought.”

District 22 District Attorney Erik Johnson explained that he and Assistant District Attorney Tara Portillo needed to convince the judge that Sanders intended to kill Knighten.

“In a first-degree murder case in Oklahoma, as in most other states, you have an element of malice aforethought, meaning that you have to have specific intent to cause the death of another,” District Attorney Erik Johnson said. “We were able to prove that Larry Sanders caused that death, and the issue of malice aforethought was what this case truly hinged upon.”

Sanders reportedly confessed to killing Knighten during interviews with agents from the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation.

Sanders took the stand Wednesday and told the courtroom about the fishing trip that turned deadly, saying he thought strange things began happening that July afternoon.

Sanders claimed to see a 12 foot tall Bigfoot downstream, and hear Knighten howl into a drainage pipe.

Sanders said that Knighten had pointed out a fish to him and was telling him to get that fish.

Sanders said when he told Knighten he didn’t want to get that fish, Knighten kept telling him to.

Sanders told the courtroom that he began to feel suspicious and believed Knighten was planning on drowning him and floating his body downstream to feed him to the Bigfoot.

Later on that afternoon, Knighten and Sanders got into a physical fight.

The defense team argued that when Sanders strangled Knighten, he was trying to take control of the situation, not kill Knighten.

The state argued that Sanders made sure Knighten died by waiting to let go of the chokehold until he turned blue.

“Yes, there was monsters in the wood that night, but it wasn’t Bigfoot, it was Larry Sanders,” Johnson said.

Sanders’s sentencing hearing is on June 18th. He is facing life or life without parole.

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