Three years after Pottawatomie County Sheriff's Office Lt. Bob Stewart was found dead, his family is still pushing back on the official narrative and asking why so many details do not seem to line up. Stewart was discovered on April 22, 2023. The medical examiner ruled his death a suicide, citing a single gunshot wound to the head. His relatives, pointing to handwritten journals, conflicting information about the bullet recovered, and what they describe as slow or missing forensic work, say they are not ready to accept that conclusion.
According to KGOU/Oklahoma Watch, Stewart’s daughter Morgan says a locksmith had to wrestle open an almost immovable gun safe at her father’s Shawnee home after his death. She recalls being told by the sheriff’s office that they needed into the safe to retrieve her father’s service weapon. Instead, she says, tucked at the back was a stack of handwritten journals. Those notebooks, describing internal turmoil and possible misconduct inside the sheriff’s office, immediately deepened the family’s doubts about what really happened. That early focus on the safe and on the weapons inside it has since become a key reason the family questions the investigation.
The Stewarts also cite what they see as basic contradictions in the paperwork. They say Shawnee police told them a 9mm round was recovered from Stewart’s head, yet the incident report lists a .38-caliber weapon. They add that the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation’s ballistics report, requested after his death, still had not come back a year later. “He wouldn’t do that,” Morgan said when asked whether she believes her father died by suicide. Detective Charles Swantek, in a recorded conversation with Morgan and her sister, told them a ballistics report was “being done now,” but the family says they never received one. As reported by KGOU/Oklahoma Watch, these mismatches and delays are at the heart of the family’s demand for answers.
New Sheriff, Same Questions
Freeland Wood, a retired Shawnee police lieutenant, won the Pottawatomie County sheriff’s race in June 2024 and took office the following January. His victory did not quiet the Stewart family’s calls for an outside review. The 2024 results were not close, with Wood defeating undersheriff Travis Dinwiddie by a wide margin. As NonDoc reported, Wood captured roughly 76.5 percent of the vote.
Journals Point To Internal Strain
Morgan Stewart says her father’s notebooks describe co-workers cutting corners on investigations, arguments over seized weapons and a hard-edged stretch of internal politics as Sheriff Mike Booth’s retirement approached. The family has shared the journals with reporters but, by their account, has not turned them over to law enforcement. Taken together with the disputed round, the missing ballistics report and other perceived gaps, those entries are why relatives say they want a new, transparent look at the case.
What The Family Wants Next
Morgan says she is asking for three basic things: the release of any outstanding ballistics testing, clear explanations for the discrepancies the family has identified and an independent review that does more than simply re-read the original file. Retired investigators who spoke with reporters said the combination of open questions about physical evidence and the contents of the journals is enough to warrant another pass at the case.
For now, the Stewarts say they will keep pressing local officials and state authorities until every report and test is accounted for. Three years after Stewart’s death, their message has not changed: they want proof the investigation was both complete and honest. How the new sheriff and other local leaders respond will determine whether those lingering questions eventually fade or force a fresh review of what happened to Lt. Bob Stewart.
