By Jerry Fink

Managing Editor

RENTIESVILLE – Local Blues icon Selby Minner was found bludgeoned and stabbed to death on the floor of her popular Blues Club Tuesday morning.

Her brother Louis Carl Guenther was arrested after the body was discovered and he made his initial appearance in McIntosh County District Court Wednesday afternoon.

Associate District Judge Brendon Bridges ordered the defendant back to court Friday, June 13, to face formal charges. Because of the nature of the alleged crime no bond was set.

It is expected that Guenther will be charged with first degree murder.

Selby and her late husband, D.C., Minner, created the Down Home Blues Club, the Oklahoma Blues Hall of Fame and the famed Dusk Til Dawn Blues Festival, held annually on Labor Day Weekend.

According to a probable cause affidavit, Guenther was taken into custody on the grounds of the historic Honey Springs Battlefield, which is catty-corner to the Blues Club, a building that includes the Down Home Blues Club, the Blues Hall of Fame Museum and a small apartment where Minner lived.

The affidavit was filed by Kevin Branscum, Investigator for the District Attorney’s Office District 25.

The report stated that at the time of the arrest, the suspect was covered in blood and was holding a hammer.

Guenther allegedly confessed to beating his sister with a hammer late Monday night or early Tuesday morning and when she continued to move stabbed her in an eye with a knife, which was still protruding from the victim when she was found.

After the fatal blow, he walked across the street to the Battlefield site, where he sat for several hours, according to the report.

Branscum said a concerned citizen called and reported a man had been sitting at the location for several hours.

After investigators interviewed him, they went to the club where the popular Blues performer was found dead, the report said.

See complete story in the June 19 paper.