commentary by Patrick H. Moore
In the King James version of the Bible, Jesus says, “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.” — Matthew 10:34
Naturally, biblical scholars debate what exactly was meant by this and Jesus, who appears capable of contradiction, later chastises one of his prize disciples, Peter for lopping off a servant’s ear when some of the Saviour’s enemies are giving him a hard time:
“Then Simon Peter having a sword drew it, and smote the high priest’s servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant’s name was Malchus.” — John 18:1
A young Stillwater, Oklahoma self-styled Christian with psychotic tendencies appears to have taken the biblical swordplay passages as rules to live by.
Jonathan Sutton, Kyle Hinchey and Nolan Clay of NewsOK write:
A young Stillwater man was charged Thursday with first-degree murder in the near-beheading of a former high school classmate.
Charged was Isaiah Marin who police say has confessed to the killing.
Killed Wednesday was Jacob Andrew Crockett, 19, of Stillwater. Crockett is the son of an Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper, police said. Marin and Crockett were one-time classmates at Stillwater High School, the school’s principal said.
As is so often the case, now that the victim is dead, the assailant, Isaiah, seems to be regretting his actions. “At a video arraignment Thursday afternoon at Payne County District Court, Marin’s voice sputtered and he appeared to cry as he answered a judge’s questions.”
We’ve all heard the old saw about “not doing the crime if you can’t do the time”, but sadly, many a violent criminal doesn’t seem to realize the terrible blunder he or she is making until it’s too late.
Marin is facing one count of first-degree murder and apparently will not be getting out on bail, which is not necessarily unwise.
Stillwater police Capt. Randy Dickerson stated that Marin admitted to authorities “that he had fantasized recently about committing multiple homicides.”
Now it’s not that unusual to fantasize about whacking people, and I suspect many of us have toyed with the notion from time to time, but only in the most fanciful manner. Things get problematical when the borderline between idle fantasy and the actual acting out of murder get blurred.
Although what has happened is undeniably tragic, the backdrop to the killing is really quite fascinating, at least to a jaded soul such as me. We have heavy metal, Satanism and bizarre Christianity zealotry all wrapped together in a distinctly homicidal package. We also have the brothers of both the victim and the assailant describing what happened.
This was sort of an “all in the family” type of quarrel and Court records show that Isaiah’s brother Samuel Marin, the deceased man Jacob Crockett, and Jacob’s brother, Jesse Crockett, were roommates in an apartment at 416 S Oakdale, No. 6, in Stillwater, with Isaiah apparently a regular visitor.
The following information is all set forth in the police affidavit that forms the basis of the case.
1) The victim’s brother, Jesse, explained to police that Isaiah is a “religious zealot” and “heavy drug user.” (This is clearly a no-no. The first rule of Christianity is that you are supposed to eschew drugs and intoxicants. Thus, Isaiah is not really a Christian, or at least not a good Christian. He just thinks he is.)
2) Isaiah’s brother, Samuel, explained that “in the past Jacob and Isaiah had disagreements because Jacob and Jesse were practicing witchcraft and Isaiah had strong Christian beliefs.” [Again, we see the stark logical breakdown. Samuel is also convinced that Isaiah is a “strong Christian” but this is impossible because no true “strong Christian” is also a “heavy drug user”. the whole point is that when you become a Christian (are born again), you get off the damned drugs. As to Samuel’s claim that Jacob and Jesse were “practicing witchcraft”, who knows? The sons of a State Highway patrol man should not by messing around with witchcraft or Satanisn but you know kids these days…
But despite what I think, in Isaiah’s mind, he was a card-carrying Christian. In fact, Samuel told police, “Isaiah had been watching YouTube videos related to his Christian beliefs and the Book of Matthew” earlier.
Or as I stated at the beginning of this confused post:
“Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.” — Matthew 10:34
3) In any event, Samuel recounted that he and Isaiah Marin were playing cards there at the crib with Jacob in the room when “Isaiah picked up a large black sword and removed it from a sheath … and began swinging the sword around.” (Big mistake. Unstable people should never have weapons close at hand. Unfortunately, they often do.)
4) Samuel, who is nobody’s fool, told Isaiah to be careful and his loving brother replied, “I would never cut you bro.” (By the same token, a loving brother will never tase his bro. It is noted that I have a very close friend, who is kind of like a bro, who keeps a very scary taser device at his crib but I’m fairly confident he will never use it on me. Of course, I’ve been wrong before.)
5) It’s a little unclear what happened next, but according to the detective (we’re getting all of this second-hand so who knows what to believe?), Samuel reported that he heard the unmistakable sound of someone (that someone was Jacob) getting stabbed. Samuel then saw “Jacob stand up and blood gushing from his chest.”
6) Samuel then got the hell out of Dodge but Isaiah followed him, trying to calm him down. In order to get his Bro to relax and cool out, Isaiah very logically told him “he would explain why he killed Jacob from letters he would write while he was in prison.” (Thus, we see a kernel of sanity even amidst Isaiah’s madness which is not going to help him if down the road he tries to mount an insanity defense. Also, never name your son Isaiah. Being named for perhaps the most famous Old Testament prophet is just too heavy a burden for am unstable young man to bear.)
7) At some point, Isaiah called 911 and said, “I murdered someone.” He then began rambling about “sacrificing and magic.” When asked how he performed the killing, Isaiah answered truthfully: “I hacked them to death with a machete.” (If this were not a capital case, the fact that Isaiah almost instantly “accepted responsibility” for his actions might help him get a mitigated sentence. Given the nature of the hacking death, however, it may not do him that much good.
8) Isaiah Marin was taken into custody after he was found by police jogging along State Highway 51, carrying what was allegedly the murder weapon, i.e., the black sword.
9) Jeff Watts, the police officer who wrote up the affidavit, reported that Jacob Crockett had what appeared to be multiple deep slash and stab wounds and his “head was mostly severed from his body.”
10) Isaiah certainly knows how to draw attention to himself. Witnesses reported that they saw a blood-covered man walking near a car dealership along the highway. In fact, Trish Ellis, a saleswoman at the Janzen Toyota car dealership along SH 51, said “We saw him coming through the parking lot covered in blood. I thought it was a Halloween costume at first, but then people started to get frightened when they saw his weapon.”
According to at least one witness, notwithstanding Samuel’s claims that Jacob and Jesse had been practicing witchcraft, and they were reportedly in a “heavy metal band,” they may not have been not real card-carrying devil-worshippers.
“They were outstanding guys, they were always really respectful,” a neighbor stated on Thursday.
The police report that Jacob was a student at the Northern Oklahoma College campus in Stillwater. And, no one believes that the fact Jacob’s father was a state trooper was in anyway a motivating factor in this case (although it’s not likely to help Isaiah at sentencing).
* * * * *
Oh boy! Isaiah is clearly criminally insane, but the fact he came to his senses so quickly is not going to help him if he tries to mount any type of insanity defense. When you do something like this, you can’t keep flashing in and out of sanity. What he probably should have done is march into the Toyota dealership, all gore-bespattered and carrying the black sword, and told Trish Ellis, the saleswoman, that he needed a 2015 Toyota Camry fast because he was a handmaiden of the lord and was getting married on Saturday, all the while waving the black sword wildly above his head.
But he didn’t. Instead, he phoned 911 and turned himself in. It doesn’t look good for Isaiah. But at least he’ll get plenty of attention. Which after all is half the battle in this lonely world.