A Promising Young TV Star Was Sentenced to 92 Years for a Brutal Crime He Says He Didn’t Commit. Then a Prison Guard Delivered a Life-Changing Message.

Walters, a citizen of the Comanche Nation, had never spoken to this correctional officer, and he thought a private conversation with him or any other guard was a recipe for trouble. Besides, his 7:30 a.m. work detail was about to start.

“Whatever you need to say to me,” Walters replied, “you can say it to me right here.”

The officer asked if Walters knew a couple named Mark and Rita Roebuck.

Thirteen years earlier, masked men had terrorized the Roebucks inside their home near the tiny town of Comanche, Oklahoma. Mark was shot twice and nearly died. News of the home invasion spread rapidly across the rolling plains of southwestern Oklahoma.

At the time, Walters was 19 years old. He lived in his small hometown about 20 miles west of Comanche and was gaining something like fame as the youngest contestant on Mudcats , a reality TV series about Oklahoma catfish noodlers. Also known as grabblers or hand-fishermen, noodlers use their own bare limbs as bait to catch enormous flathead catfish lurking in Southern and Midwestern rivers, creeks, and lakes. The creator of Mudcats described Walters as the show’s breakout star. He seemed to have a bright future ahead: He was cast in the lead role of a short film and was finding production work on other TV shows, including American Idol .

Then, the month after his 20 th birthday, police arrested him. He was charged in the attack on the Roebucks.

From the start, Walters insisted that he’d never met the couple and had nothing to do with the brutal crime against them. A jury disagreed. Following a two-year investigation that saw charges levied then dropped against the victims’ own nephew and a break in the case that hinged on a cartoonish quest for a bag of marijuana, Walters was convicted on four felony counts, including robbery, burglary, assault, and kidnapping.

“I’ve been in murder cases and everything else, and I believe this is the coldest,” District Judge Ken T. Graham told the courtroom of the crime during the trial’s sentencing phase.

No one had died in the attack, but following a jury’s recommendation, Graham sentenced Walters to 92 years in prison. He will be eligible for parole if he can reach the age of 99.

“His life as he has known it for the past 21 years, or whatever, is over,” Graham said. “I feel sorry for him, but I feel sorry for the Roebucks too. Two innocent people minding their own business.”

Mudcats ended. Years crawled. Then came TikTok. Walters was incarcerated for a decade when he was suddenly discovered by online creators and reality TV denizens. Tall and elaborately tattooed, with a pair of long, dark braids draping either shoulder, he had informally adopted his grandmother’s last name, Red Elk, and was perfect for the role of a wrongfully convicted online sensation.

“Now, I know he’s very beautiful. Boy, do I know,” Shanoa Mitchell, a Native American OnlyFans model and influencer, said in a video, chuckling under her breath. “But we are not looking for people to be pen pals, which seems to be what everybody wants to do. We need real help.”

Rallying around the slogan “Free Red Elk,” Mitchell and others posted videos picking apart Walters’ case.