Cheryl Howell Coe, 55, was sentenced on Monday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the June 2021 shooting of Luther ‘Luke’ Coe III, 48, inside their home

Cheryl Coe was accused of fatally shooting her husband after argument over changing their open marriage agreement

She told Cowetta County deputies responding at 7.30pm on June 23, 2021 that she shot her husband when she mistook him for an intruder

Shel told deputies she drank four or five ciders while her husband worked in a detached garage, before she ultimately took a Klonopin and went to bed

Waking up a short time later to an unknown person entering her bedroom, she grabbed her pistol from the nightstand, and shot not realizing it was her husband ‘

Defendant’s story fell apart, after ME revealed Luther Coe suffered from a contact bullet wound, the firearm was pressed against his body, not fired from a distance as Cheryl claimed

Investigators also uncovered lengthy text message exchanges between the couple over issues with their open marriage in the days leading up to the shooting

Cheryl Coe who was facing one count of malice murder, one count of felony murder and one count of aggravated assault, ultimately was found guilty on all counts

Cheryl Howell Coe, [right], was sentenced on Monday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for shooting her husband Luther ‘Luke’ Coe III, [left], in their bedroom in Cowetta County, GA, 4 years ago

A Georgia woman will spend the rest of her life behind bars after she after she was found guilty of fatally shooting her husband amid a dispute over their open marriage in June 2021.
Cheryl Howell Coe, 55, was sentenced on Monday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the June 2021 shooting of Luther ‘Luke’ Coe III, 48, inside their bedroom. 
Luter Coe, a 48-year-old army veteran according to his obituary, and owner Platinum Demolition & Grading LLC, met Cheryl in 2015 and they wedded a year later.
Going on five years in their marriage she shot him dead claiming it was an accident.
Cheryl Howell Coe’s first trial in March 2025 ended in a mistrial with a hung jury.
Cowetta County Sheriff’s deputies responded to the couple’s around 7.30pm on June 23, 2021, shortly after Cheryl reported that she shot her husband of five years, when she mistook him for an intruder.
Police body camera footage from the scene, shows Cheryl on the phone with her mother stating that she drank four or five ciders while her husband worked in a detached garage, before she ultimately took a Klonopin and went to bed around 7.15pm.

 Cheryl Coe [photo], had originally claimed she drank four or five ciders before going to bed on June 23, 2021. Mistaking her husband for an intruder when he entered their bedroom, she shot at the figure according to her defense

In her initial version, she woke up a short time later to an unknown person entering her bedroom, which prompted her to grab her pistol from the nightstand and fire.
‘I was just trying to protect myself,’ Cheryl is heard saying in the body camera footage, which was played at her week-long retrial this month.
She went on to claim she did not realize the person entering the room was her husband until he said, ‘Cheryl, you shot me.’
The responding deputies arrived to find Cheryl applying pressure on her husband’s wound as he told authorities, ‘I can’t breathe.’
Luther Coe III was then rushed to the hospital, but soon succumbed to his injuries.

The suspect’s story fell apart, when the ME revealed that Luther Coe had suffered from a contact bullet wound – meaning the rifle was pressed against his body and was not fired from a distance as his wife had claimed

This account quickly fell apart however, when the medical examiner found that Luther had suffered from a contact bullet wound. The murder weapon was pressed against his body, not fired from a distance as his wife had claimed.
Investigators then also uncovered lengthy text message exchanges between the husband and wife, pointing to issues within their open marriage arrengement in the days leading up to the Luther’s death. 
According to the messages, Cheryl had asked Luther for permission to see another man later in the week.
Luther replied by asking his wife if she was planning on seeing a second man as well on the same day, to which she replied that she could – ending her message with ‘LOL’.
Luther then replied that her response ‘turned his stomach,’ at which point Cheryl proposed ending the open marriage, as she believed it was the cause of their marital issues.
But Luther apparently wanted to keep the open marriage going, to which the pair agreed after establishing more ground rules.
Other text messages detailed another dispute between the husband and wife, where he accused her of discussing their private disagreements over the open marriage with a friend.
Luther became enraged by the accusation and told his wife he needed some time to himself, prosecutors argued. At this point the defendant was asked if their disagreements ever escalated to the physical, and her response was ‘no’.

Cheryl Coe [right], confronted with her calling 911 just 11 minutes after she claimed she went to bed, changed her story, admitting she knew it was Luther [left], entering the room. They’d been arguing and he had become more aggressive, she said

Finally, on the day of the shooting, Cheryl said Luther informed her he was ready to talk. But when she returned home from work that night, her husband and his son were still in the detached workshop on their property and so Cheryl decided to retire to the back porch, where she downed several hard ciders.
She said Luther never came back and after an hour on the porch, she went to bed.
When the door then swung open, Cheryl said she fired two shots, aiming at the ceiling and behind the television, in hopes that the gunfire would alert her husband in the workshop.
But when Cheryl was later confronted by the fact that she called 911 just 11 minutes after she claimed she went to bed, the defendant changed her story and admitted she knew it was Luther entering the room.
She claimed she could hear his ‘thunderous footsteps’ and yelling before he entered their bedroom, where she said Luther told her to ‘get her ass out of bed’ and dragged her from the mattress.
‘I just wanted to be left alone and he wasn’t having it,’ Cheryl told police. ‘He was dragging me out of bed.’
When Luther then briefly left the room, Cheryl said she grabbed her pistol and fired a warning shot, which made him ‘angry and aggressive,’ at which point she fired a second shot to scare him off.
‘I wasn’t trying to hit him,’ she insisted. 
Cheryl also told police about her and her husband’s BDSM practices, saying she was the ‘submissive’ one but arguing Luther’s behavior that night was ‘different.’

Cheryl changing her story claims that in the middle of a row, Luther, [photo], began ‘dragging me out of bed,’ and when he briefly left the room, she grabbed her pistol and fired a warning shot, which made him ‘angry and aggressive,’ at which point she fired a second shot to scare him off

Taking the stand at her trial, Cheryl reiterated her self-defense claims as she described how her husband had become more aggressive with her.
She said he once pulled her leg out from under her as she walked down the porch stairs, causing her to suffer a tear in her buttocks and an indentation that required surgery to fully heal.
Cheryl also said their BDSM practices became more violent, even though she asked him to stop.
‘I didn’t enjoy the pain,’ she testified. ‘He would coerce me and tell me I was doing this for him and [it] made him happy.’
On the night of the murder, Cheryl said Luther began to charge at her when she fired the second shot.
‘I never told anyone anything about the bad parts of our relationship,’ she claimed. ‘Luke had a great reputation and [I] did everything I could to protect it.’
But during closing arguments, prosecutor Laura Lukat in debunking the ‘accidental shooting’ defense, focused on Cheryl’s changing stories. She noted that the defendant’s behavior throughout the trial was ‘inconsistent, self-serving and self-preserving.’
Even if her justification for shooting her husband were true Lukat said, it did not justify the use of deadly force.
‘She brought a gun to a verbal spat,’ the prosecutor told the court. ‘She brought a gun to a situation that might have ended with one of them staying at a friend’s,’ reminding the court that Luther Coe was unarmed, naked and posed no danger to the defendant when Cheryl shot him.
Cheryl Coe who was facing one count of malice murder, one count of felony murder and one count of aggravated assault, ultimately was found guilty on all counts.