Court filings show months of trial preparation ended abruptly when Kore Bommeli entered no-contest pleas in Talina Galloway’s death.
WAGONER, Okla. — A murder prosecution that generated years of hearings and a late wave of trial motions ended without a jury after defendant Kore Bommeli accepted a plea agreement that reduced the central charge in the 2020 death of roommate Talina Galloway to first-degree manslaughter.
The timing made the change especially notable. The Wagoner County docket shows prosecutors and defense attorneys were still litigating evidence and preparing witnesses in the final weeks of August 2026. A judge denied Bommeli’s motion to dismiss on Sept. 1, and jury proceedings remained scheduled. On Sept. 4, however, Bommeli entered no-contest pleas to manslaughter, desecration of a human corpse and possession of a firearm after a former felony conviction. The court struck the jury trial and dismissed 11 additional counts.
The agreement meant jurors would never hear the full prosecution case that had been assembled since Galloway’s disappearance more than six years earlier. Court entries show the state had given notice of DNA evidence and filed extensive witness and exhibit lists. Lawyers also argued over statements, photographs, eyewitness identification and other material that might have been placed before a jury. Defense co-counsel Bryan Cannonie later said some of the evidence and statements that would have surfaced at trial would probably remain outside the public record because the case ended through the plea.
Cannonie also stressed that the plea did not mark a change in Bommeli’s stated position about Galloway’s death. He told KJRH that Bommeli remained steadfast in saying she did not kill her roommate and that the defense team had expected the case to proceed to trial. District Attorney Jack Thorp took the opposite view, saying he believed the evidence pointed to Bommeli. He said prosecutors consulted Galloway’s family about the proposed deal and that relatives supported resolving a case that had remained open for years.
The plea resolved a prosecution that had looked much different when it began. Bommeli was originally charged with first-degree murder after investigators identified Galloway’s remains in 2021. By September 2026, prosecutors had agreed to amend that accusation to first-degree manslaughter. The distinction was substantial: instead of asking jurors to decide whether the state proved the original murder allegation beyond a reasonable doubt, the parties ended the case through Bommeli’s no-contest plea to the reduced offense.
The original murder charge grew out of an investigation that began in the first month of the COVID-19 crisis. Bommeli reported the 53-year-old Galloway missing on April 17, 2020. According to investigators, Bommeli said Galloway had been screened for COVID-19, instructed to quarantine and had left for a favorite lake. The Wagoner County Sheriff’s Office later said detectives could not verify that account. Officials said Galloway had not been screened at a hospital and had not contacted her doctor as Bommeli had claimed.
While detectives in Oklahoma tried to establish where Galloway had gone, a separate event unfolded in the woods near Mena, Arkansas. On June 8, 2020, a witness noticed a pickup towing a small enclosed trailer into a remote area. The witness recorded information identifying the vehicle and reported a strong odor coming from the trailer. Authorities were contacted, but the case did not break open at that point. The same witness returned to the area months later and found something different.
On Jan. 14, 2021, the witness discovered a white freezer whose lid had been taped shut. A strong odor was again present. Polk County deputies responded and found human remains inside. The vehicle information the witness had preserved was connected to Galloway, and the Arkansas State Medical Examiner subsequently identified the remains as hers. Her death was classified as a homicide, converting the Oklahoma disappearance into a confirmed killing with evidence located in another state.
Investigators had meanwhile grown suspicious of Bommeli’s statements and conduct. The Wagoner County Sheriff’s Office later said she gave inconsistent accounts and eventually stopped cooperating. Prosecutors filed a first-degree murder case in January 2021. Bommeli was located in Wisconsin and arrested by Dane County deputies. The Oklahoma case then became intertwined with a separate Wisconsin prosecution arising from conduct years before Galloway’s disappearance.
Wisconsin authorities accused Bommeli of trying to kill neighbors with ricin in 2014. That case eventually went to trial first. On June 27, 2025, a Dane County jury convicted her on two counts of attempted first-degree intentional homicide. She later received 25 years in prison, followed by extended supervision. Wagoner County investigators testified in that proceeding, and the Oklahoma prosecution remained pending while the Wisconsin case moved to judgment.
When Bommeli returned to the Oklahoma case, the first-degree murder allegation still presented the prospect of a lengthy jury trial. Instead, the Sept. 4 agreement amended the lead count to first-degree manslaughter. The final offenses shown by the Wagoner County court record are manslaughter, desecration of a human corpse and firearm possession after a felony conviction. Counts alleging additional firearm possession, financial crimes, evidence destruction and obstruction were dismissed as part of the resolution.
Officials have described the resulting Oklahoma sentence as 35 years, although the publicly accessible docket contains a numerical inconsistency. The Wagoner County Sheriff’s Office said the sentence consisted of 28 years for manslaughter, followed by seven years for desecration of a human corpse, with a five-year firearm sentence running concurrently. The Sept. 4 docket entry visible online instead lists a one-year consecutive sentence on the desecration count. It also shows 28 years on the manslaughter charge and five years concurrent on the firearm offense. The sheriff’s office, Thorp and subsequent reporting have described the total as 35 years.
The way the Oklahoma and Wisconsin sentences interact is also central to what the plea accomplished. Court records say the manslaughter term is to run concurrently with the Wisconsin imprisonment. Thorp said Bommeli is expected to remain in Wisconsin custody and described the combined practical consequences as keeping her imprisoned for a long period. The plea also gives Bommeli credit tied to time already served beginning in 2021, according to the Oklahoma docket.
The agreement carried different consequences for each side. Prosecutors secured convictions without facing the uncertainty that comes with asking a jury to decide a years-old homicide case. The defense eliminated the original first-degree murder charge and avoided a verdict on that allegation. According to Thorp, Galloway’s relatives accepted a negotiated ending after a case that had stretched across jurisdictions and consumed years of investigation and litigation.
It also means there will be no public trial record laying out every piece of evidence the two sides planned to use. Witnesses who had been identified may never testify publicly. Some evidentiary disputes will remain unresolved because the judge no longer needs to decide whether the material can be shown to a jury. Competing interpretations of the evidence that might have been tested through cross-examination will not receive that courtroom examination.
The result therefore does not produce a jury’s factual findings on the original murder allegation. Bommeli’s no-contest plea resolved the amended charges without a full trial, while her attorney continued to state that she denied killing Galloway. What the court record establishes is that the first-degree murder prosecution is over, three felony counts resulted in convictions, the remaining charges were dismissed and Bommeli remains incarcerated under sentences imposed in two states.
Author note: Last updated October 20, 2026.