(NewsNation) — There aren’t many places where Justin Webster can find peace these days, but a garden planted in his daughter’s memory provides some solace.
Just 14 years old, Ivy Webster was one of six people killed after police say convicted sex offender Jesse McFadden shot his wife, her three children and their two friends at a slumber party in Oklahoma.
Ivy was one of the friends visiting for a sleepover when she was killed. Now, her father is determined to prevent a similar tragedy from happening again.
“I don’t have time to sit on the bed and cry like I really want to,” said Webster. “I’ve got to make sure this doesn’t happen to any other kid.”
McFadden, a convicted rapist, had been freed from prison early despite the fact new felony charges had been filed against him three years earlier. Those charges stemmed from allegations that McFadden exchanged nude photographs with a 16-year-old girl while in prison.
After his release, McFadden was arrested again, but let out on a $25,000 bond in November 2020.
His trial was set to begin just days after he allegedly killed six people and then turned the gun on himself.
Ivy’s grandmother, Shannon Boykin, took video inside what’s been dubbed the “sex offender den.” Police initially cleared the scene, but Boykin went inside the house and found shackles, drugs, electronics and other sex paraphernalia.
Boykin described the scene as like “walking into doom.”
Now, new questions are surfacing about whether officials at the Okmulgee Sherrif’s Office — who was supposed to be tracking McFadden — had a strange connection to the sex offender.
NewsNation obtained a marriage license from one year ago that shows the sheriff’s office chaplain performed the ceremony for McFadden and his now-deceased wife Holly, who had children from previous relationships.
The witness who signed off on the marriage is the sheriff’s administrative assistant.
No one answered the door at the chaplain’s house and he ignored NewsNation’s calls before eventually texting “no comment.”
Nobody at the Okmulgee County Sheriff’s office was willing to talk about the investigation or the marriage license either.
Cameron Spalding, the victims’ attorney, told NewsNation’s Ashleigh Banfield that these connections are just the tip of the iceberg.
“Less than a month after the marriage there was only one time that a sheriff’s deputy ever checked the house,” said Spalding. “That was after the wedding. There were no other checks before or after at the residence of this sex offender and the check was done by the sheriff’s secretary’s son.”
Spalding believes there is much more to the story that authorities did not want to investigate.
According to court documents, McFadden called his mother LaDonna on April 30 and discussed killing himself, The Oklahoman reported.
A few days later, LaDonna told NBC News that her “heart is breaking” for the victims.