A federal grand jury has indicted a man who was convicted nearly three decades ago in the stabbing death of a 90-year-old Seminole County woman.

The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma announced this week that Robert Wayne Mitchell, 44, was indicted on one count of Murder in Indian Country and one count of Murder in Perpetration of Burglary in Indian Country. Mitchell is accused of breaking into the home of Myrtle McGehee and brutally stabbing her to death in early 1993. He was 15 years old at the time of the murder.

The federal indictment was a superseding indictment, meaning that it takes the place of any previous indictments. In November 1993, a local jury found Mitchell guilty of murder in the first degree and burglary in the first degree. He was sentenced to life without parole on the murder charge and 20 years in prison for the burglary charge.

Since the 1993 conviction, Mitchell has filed multiple applications for post-conviction relief. The first two requests, made in 2007 and 2013, respectively, were denied. In May 2018, his request was granted, and a new sentencing trial was scheduled for Nov. 27, 2018. That trial never happened, but in April 2021 District Judge Steven Kessinger ordered Mitchell’s sentence to be vacated and the case dismissed based on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma. Kessinger also ordered that Mitchell not be released from custody pending federal prosecution in the case.

Mitchell was also convicted in 2000 for rioting while serving his sentence in Comanche County.

The grand jury, which sits in Muskogee, returned a total of thirty-five felony indictments, including five superseding indictments, in two separate June sessions.

“The Eastern District of Oklahoma has experienced a dramatic increase in Indian Country cases for federal prosecution due to the U.S. Supreme Court decision of McGirt v. Oklahoma and recent Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals rulings. These opinions determined the reservations of the Five Civilized Tribes were never disestablished by Congress and, therefore, the United States has primary federal jurisdiction to prosecute major crimes committed by—or against— Native Americans occurring within the 26 counties of the Eastern District of Oklahoma. In response to the caseload rise, a second grand jury was empaneled in the Eastern District. This is a first for the Eastern District,” court officials said in a press release.

Of the 35 indictments, 33 were publicly filed and two remain sealed pending arrest of the charged defendants. All but two of the unsealed charges involve crimes arising out of Indian Country. Eleven of the unsealed indictments are for murder or involuntary manslaughter, eleven are for sex crimes, and the balance contain allegations of assault with a dangerous weapon or resulting in serious bodily injury, and robbery. The two unsealed non-Indian Country indictments involve possession with intent to distribute cocaine and rioting in a federal detention facility, assaulting a federal officer, and possessing contraband.