Disagreements over a swinging lifestyle precipitated a Georgia woman fatally shooting her husband to death.
Cheryl Howell Coe was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison this month in the case. Coe had previously been tried in March, but that trial ended in a hung jury, the Newman Times-Herald reported.
Coe shot and killed her husband, Luther Coe, at their home in 2021. Testimony as well as text messages revealed a couple at odds over a lifestyle that involved Cheryl sleeping with other men.
The Times-Herald reported that the week before the shooting, Cheryl asked to see another man. Luther then asked if she intended to see an additional, second man on the same day. The newspaper reported that Cheryl indicated she could, ending the message with "lol".
Luther texted back that her response "turned his stomach." This prompted Cheryl to suggest that they should end the open marriage arrangement, but Luther replied that they just needed more rules, according to the Times-Herald. The couple had been in a relationship since 2015 following Luther's divorce and in an open marriage since 2020.
Also at issue was who the dominant sexual partner was in the relationship. The newspaper reported that Cheryl initially told police that she was startled awake and didn't realize who she was shooting. Later that changed to Luther being aggressive and her defending herself.
In her testimony, Cheryl described increasingly violent BDSM practices with Cheryl claiming that Luther would choke her and slap her breasts to the point of bruising. "I didn't enjoy the pain. He would coerce me and tell me I was doing this for him. That it satisfied him and made him happy," the Times-Herald quoted Cheryl.
However, Jason Brooks, a criminal investigator for the Coweta County Sheriff's Office at the time of the incident, said text messages showed other disputes regarding the lifestyle, such as Luther telling a friend about the issues they were having and Cheryl demanding screenshots of the conversation.
The newspaper reported that Brooks also pointed to conversations over Facebook where Cheryl discussed the lifestyle and how "in the lifestyle, the women are in charge."
