OKLAHOMA CITY – An Oklahoman who admitted threatening the lives of three state governors and a United States senator via the social media platform Twitter (now called “X”) was sentenced last Friday to a year and a day in federal prison.
Tyler Jay Marshall, 37, also was ordered by U.S. District Judge David L. Russell to participate in “a program of mental health aftercare,” and is barred from using a computer that has access to any online services “without prior written approval” of his probation officer.
Marshall was named in a criminal complaint filed May 19 in Oklahoma City’s federal district court, and was indicted June 6 by a federal grand jury here.
An FBI special agent reported in a sworn affidavit that Marshall emailed tweets in which he vowed to assassinate Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt and his family, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her family, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
Multiple tweets were sent to Stitt, including “Can’t wait to watch you die” and “Misplaced a bomb.” Other tweets included “I’m gonna shoot you soon,” directed to Cruz; “I’ll see you dead in your home,” sent to DeSantis; “You will look good with a hole in your head” and “Can’t wait to murder your family. See you soon,” sent to Sanders.
The FBI served an Emergency Disclosure Request on Twitter, seeking subscriber details associated with a particular Twitter account that was created with the email address of gopshoulddiesoon@gmail.com.
Additionally, Twitter and Google both provided the FBI with the Internet Protocol address associated with that email account. And the internet service provider informed the FBI that that IP address was assigned to an individual who lived in a house in Enid where Marshall moved after he was evicted from his home last December.
A search warrant was executed at the Enid residence on May 19, and Marshall told investigators he was renting a room there. According to an FBI agent, Marshall acknowledged that the Twitter account in question was his and that he created it to “troll people online” one night when he was drunk.
Marshall was indicted on two counts but pleaded guilty to one: interstate transmission of threatening communications (to all four individuals).
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