Sara Gilson, the social media influencer who was killed after she publicly accused her husband of child sexual abuse, “couldn’t seem to get away” from Jeremiah Duffey despite filing multiple protective orders, Gilson’s ex-husband said in an interview.
“She had been stuck in a relationship where domestic abuse seemed ‘OK’,” Lyle Landers told People. “I had begged her for five years to get away from him. I had offered to help her, in any way I could, to get away from him. But he seemed to have some sort of control over her, and she couldn’t seem to get away.”
Gilson publicly accused her husband, Jeremiah Duffey, of child sexual abuse in a video posted to TikTok on 11 July. Twelve days later, police received a call from a screaming Gilson, in which an apparent gunshot was heard. Police found the bodies of Gilson and Duffey at her home in Owasso, Oklahoma – both with gunshot wounds to the head.
Police suspect Duffey killed Gilson, then turned the gun on himself.
Landers, the father of Gilson’s two children, told People he had for years urged her to abandon Duffey.
“She was a wonderful mother and would die for her children. In fact, her trying to protect children is what ultimately led to her death,” Landers added.
Court records reported by the local press appear to support Landers’ concerns. Gilson filed for protective orders twice in 2021, according to the Oklahoman. Judges dismissed them after she did not appear in court.
This month, Gilson filed for another protective order, which was granted. The judge ordered Duffey out of Gilson’s home and required him to stay at least 100 yards away from her and her house. Gilson wrote in her application that Duffey had threatened suicide and possessed a firearm.
In a separate case, the mother of a 15-year-old girl asked a court to grant another protective order against Duffey. The woman said Duffey, a basketball coach, was seen kissing and touching her daughter after another coach walked in on them. Duffey had also sent the teen girl inappropriate text messages, asked her to join him in his hotel room on a trip, and paid her money to keep her from disclosing his behavior, the mother said.
“Similar conduct by this coach towards this particular juvenile player was reported to have occurred over an extended period of time, in multiple law enforcement jurisdictions, across multiple states prior to this incident,” police said, according to NBC News.
The teen’s parent went to a police station to report the allegations. Police attempted to apprehend Duffey at the school where the allegations took place, but he had left, according to Nick Boatman, a spokesperson for Owasso police.
Over the next 24 hours, police across multiple jurisdictions attempted to locate Duffey by pinging cellphone towers. The Muskogee sheriff’s department attempted to locate him by flying a drone near a tower that his phone had pinged.
“He stayed just enough ahead of us that we couldn’t track him down that night,” Boatman said.
But because the alleged crimes took place on Cherokee land and Duffey was a member of the Osage tribe, Owasso police referred investigation into alleged lewd behavior toward a minor to the US attorney’s office in Tulsa, which has jurisdiction over crimes on tribal land.
Neither the US attorney’s office nor the FBI field office in Tulsa immediately responded to requests for comment.
