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Robert Chad Lansford-Barela was sentenced to three consecutive life terms without parole after pleading guilty to three counts of first-degree murder in the Feb. 17, 2009, shooting deaths of three people inside a Cushing home.

According to Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation affidavits and court records, Barela shot the victims before dawn and then tried to burn the house down behind him. The victims, all shot in the head, were Douglass Mason Peck, 27, who owned the house at 814 E. Moses St. where Barela had lived off and on; Albert Cernas, 21, Barela's cousin; and Elizabeth "Liz" Michelle Hueser, 19, who had once dated him.

The bodies were found inside the house early that morning. Police said the killings were reported to a Cushing Police Department dispatcher in a 911 call around 5:20 a.m.

Investigators said Barela abandoned Peck's car at a Stillwater Walmart and was walking into town when Oklahoma State University police picked him up about two hours later. Officers recovered a handgun from a Stillwater retention pond that District Attorney Rob Hudson said was used in the shootings.

Cushing police Sgt. Mark Jobe testified at a preliminary hearing that Barela admitted shooting all three with a pistol kept at Peck's house and said he had poured solvent on the floor meaning to set it ablaze, according to the Muskogee Phoenix. The fire never caught.

Testimony showed Barela believed Peck was an informant. Prosecutors said Cernas was killed because he had been telling people that an earlier shooting involving Barela was no accident, and that Hueser died because she was a witness. Barela told investigators he would "still kill" Peck and Cernas if he could, but might have spared Hueser.

Barela pleaded guilty on Oct. 22, 2009, with no plea agreement. Hudson sought the death penalty while the defense asked for life with a chance at parole. District Judge Donald Worthington sentenced Barela, then 21, to three consecutive life terms without parole.