Cherokee County Woman Jailed On First-Degree Murder Complaint

A Cherokee County woman was arrested for first-degree murder Thursday afternoon, after law enforcement officials say she led them to a shallow grave.

Misty Colleen Richardson, 38, led investigators from the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office and agents of the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation to a rural property in the Lost City area of northwestern Cherokee County.

There, investigators found buried the body of an unidentified man, believed to be Herbert Lee Potts, 48.

Potts -- who has been in and out of prison since 1985, including time-served for first-degree rape -- was reported missing in May.

5/15/2012 Related Story: Cherokee County Law Enforcement Fears Missing Man May Be Dead

The body was sent to the Tulsa office of the Oklahoma State Medical Examiner for autopsy and identification.

Cherokee County authorities said Richardson admitted to investigators she shot and killed Potts several months earlier during a confrontation and buried his body on her property.

Richardson accompanied the sheriff's office investigators and OSBI agents to the shallow grave covered with rocks, and the body was discovered after the investigators executed a search warrant.

Richardson was booked on a complaint of first-degree murder at the Cherokee County Detention Center in Tahlequah.