THE WRITING ON THE WALL
…
As he climbed the stairs toward the second floor, another message appeared.
“You have paid.”
The meaning was chilling.
At the top of the stairs were three bedrooms.
Inside the master bedroom, officers found thirty-one-year-old Sherry Coleman.
In another room, they found eleven-year-old Garrett.
In the third bedroom, they found nine-year-old Gavin.
All three were dead.
The mother and her two sons had been strangled in their sleep.
The scene was not bloody, but it was no less horrifying.
To investigators, the absence of blood did not soften anything.
It was a house where children should have been safe in their beds.
Instead, Garrett and Gavin had been killed in the rooms where they slept.
Barlow would later say that the image of Garrett remained with him most strongly.
As a police officer, he had seen difficult things.
But finding a child murdered in his bed is not something training can prepare anyone for.
The killer had not only taken Garrett’s life.
He had desecrated the scene.
Spray paint was found on the sheet covering the boy, with traces on him as well.
From the beginning, everyone understood this would be one of the biggest cases of their lives.
The Columbia Police Department immediately called in help.
Chief Joe Edwards knew his small department needed more resources.
The Major Case Squad was activated, bringing in an army of seasoned investigators.
Crime-scene technicians began processing the house.
Warrants were obtained for phones, computers, and digital records.
Detectives began building a timeline.
The first question was obvious.
Who would do this?
The second question followed quickly.
Was the killer still out there?
The earliest theory centered on the threats Christopher Coleman had been receiving.
Christopher worked as head of security for Joyce Meyer Ministries.
Joyce Meyer was one of the most recognizable figures in the evangelical world, a televangelist with a massive international following and a highly successful organization.
Her ministry generated tens of millions of dollars a year and took her around the world, including places where a woman preaching a Christian message could attract hostility.
Christopher’s job placed him close to Meyer.
Investigators believed that role might have made him a target.
In November 2008, Christopher reported receiving a threatening email at work.
The message warned Joyce Meyer to stop preaching.
It said that if the sender could not get to Joyce, then someone close to her would be harmed.
The police took the threat seriously.
Extra patrols were assigned to the Coleman family home.
Officers paid special attention to the area.
The family had reason to be concerned.
Then, in January 2009, a handwritten threat appeared in the mailbox at the Coleman residence.
It was direct and frightening.
It demanded that Christopher publicly deny God or face consequences.
It warned that time was running out for him and his family.
The threats continued escalating.
On April 27, less than a week before the murders, another message arrived.
This one sounded like an ultimatum.
It claimed the writer knew Christopher’s schedule, knew when he left in the morning, knew when he stayed home, and was always watching.
That final threat made the danger feel immediate.
Justin Barlow, living nearby, decided to be proactive.
He installed a camera in his own house and aimed it at the Colemans’ mailbox, hoping to capture whoever might deliver another note.
But the next event was not another note.
It was murder.
To many investigators, the threats initially seemed like the best lead.
If someone hated Joyce Meyer or wanted to punish her ministry, perhaps that person had targeted Christopher’s family instead.
Detectives began looking into people around the country who had expressed hostility toward Joyce Meyer.
They tracked leads.
They interviewed individuals.
They tried to determine where potential suspects had been on the night of May 4 and the morning of May 5.
But as they investigated the threats, they also studied Christopher Coleman.
He had been taken to the police station after the bodies were found.
He was distraught at moments.
Officers described him sitting outside on the driveway, sobbing, saying he felt like he might throw up, and curling into a fetal position.
Yet inside the interview room, detectives noticed things they could not forget.
Christopher told them he left for the gym around 5:40 that morning.
He said he called Sherry several times to wake her and became concerned when she did not answer.
But he did not ask many questions about how she and the boys had died.
To investigators, that lack of curiosity stood out.
A grieving husband and father might be expected to demand answers.
Christopher seemed strangely restrained.
Detectives also began asking about the marriage.
Was anything wrong?
Were there problems in the relationship?
Was he seeing anyone else?
Christopher denied having a serious relationship outside the marriage.
But he did mention a woman named Tara Lintz from Florida.
He described her as a friend, someone he had been talking to a lot.
Tara was a cocktail waitress and an old high school friend of Sherry’s.
Christopher admitted that some of their conversations might not have been approved by his wife, but he insisted the relationship was not what investigators suspected.
That explanation did not hold for long.
While Christopher was being interviewed in Illinois, investigators contacted police in St Petersburg, Florida, where Tara lived.
Detective Shannon Halstead went to speak with her, expecting a brief interview.
Instead, Tara provided a Blackberry and a laptop computer.
Those devices contained emails, videos, photos, and other files showing that her relationship with Christopher was far more than friendship.
Detective Halstead quickly called investigators back in Illinois.
She told them she was not positive, but she believed Tara was Christopher Coleman’s girlfriend.
That was a major break.
Detective Barlow confronted Christopher with the new information.
Investigators now knew about the affair.
They knew Christopher and Tara had been communicating intensely.
They knew they had sent explicit photos and videos.
They knew they had met while Christopher traveled for work with Joyce Meyer Ministries.
They knew Tara believed Christopher planned to leave Sherry and marry her.
The relationship had begun in the fall of 2008, roughly six months before the murders.
The timing mattered.
On Christopher’s computer, investigators found a note marking November 5, 2008, as the day Tara changed his life.
About nine days later, the first threats began.
That coincidence became deeply suspicious.
Investigators learned Tara had wedding plans on her calendar.
She had scheduled vacations.
There were credit accounts and records that suggested the relationship had become serious.
Tara appeared to believe Christopher was leaving his wife and starting a life with her.
Christopher’s parents, Pastor Ron Coleman and his wife Connie, were stunned when they learned about the affair.
They insisted it had nothing to do with the murders.
To them, their son was gentle, quiet, and logical.
They could not imagine that he was capable of putting something around his children’s throats.
In their eyes, only a monster could do that.
Investigators, however, saw motive taking shape.
If Christopher wanted Tara, if he wanted a new life, and if divorce would jeopardize his job at Joyce Meyer Ministries, then Sherry and the boys may have become obstacles.
Still, police did not yet have enough to charge him.
After six hours, Christopher Coleman left the police station a free man.
But the evidence kept pointing back at him.
The community, meanwhile, was grieving.
Neighbors remembered Sherry and the boys as part of the fabric of the neighborhood.
Garrett and Gavin were polite and helpful.
They played football in the yard.
They had a heart of gold.
Many viewed the Colemans as the perfect American family.
The funeral and memorials were painful.
Friends such as Kathy Laplante described Sherry as a loving mother, loyal friend, and sister in spirit.
Sherry’s brother Mario and her mother Angela struggled to accept that she and the boys were gone.
Garrett was remembered as quieter and thoughtful.
Gavin was more outgoing, a social butterfly, much like his mother.
As sympathy for Christopher faded, anger grew.
News of the affair spread.
Friends who had loved Sherry felt betrayed.
Some said each new detail felt like another stab to the heart.
Investigators continued finding red flags.
The open basement window troubled them.
Christopher had reported serious threats, yet the window was left unlocked.
There was no forced entry.
The surveillance recorder from the Coleman house was missing.
That was convenient.
The autopsy added more concern.
Sherry appeared to have fought violently.
She had injuries consistent with a struggle, including black eyes.
Garrett and Gavin did not show the same signs, suggesting they may have been killed while sleeping or without the chance to resist.
Then there were the scratches on Christopher’s arms.
Officers noticed them at the scene.
During the interview, Christopher asked for a blanket because he said he was cold, but investigators noticed that the only part of his body he covered was his arms.
Detectives did not believe the interview room was cold.
Christopher later claimed he scratched himself the day before while removing a satellite dish from his roof.
Investigators were skeptical.
The digital evidence became even more damaging.
On Christopher’s phone and computers, police found explicit photos and videos exchanged with Tara.
They found detailed notes about her measurements, favorite things, and personal preferences.
The affair was not casual.
It was serious, planned, and obsessive.
At the same time, computer experts investigated the threatening emails.
The results were explosive.
The email threats sent to Christopher appeared to originate from his own laptop.
The account used to send them was called destroychris@gmail.
com.
Defense attorneys would later argue that someone else with access to the computer could have created or sent those messages.
But investigators believed the threats were manufactured by Christopher himself.
If true, the entire campaign of fear had been staged.
The messages at the crime scene became another crucial area of focus.
Christopher voluntarily provided handwriting samples to police.
When those samples were compared to the spray-painted messages on the walls, investigators concluded there were significant similarities.
The handwriting evidence gave prosecutors a powerful link between Christopher and the staged crime scene.
They also traced the spray paint.
One can of the exact spray paint used in the house had been purchased at a local hardware store.
The computerized purchase record showed the name Christopher Coleman.
The defense pointed out that if Christopher had painted that much inside the house, one might expect paint on his clothes, skin, or hair.
Investigators had collected samples, even cutting his hair and checking his hands, but did not find obvious traces of paint.
Still, prosecutors believed the totality of evidence was strong.
Two weeks after the murders, Christopher Coleman was arrested and charged with the first-degree murders of his wife and two sons.
The reaction in Columbia was intense.
Some people wanted immediate justice.
Others could not process the idea that a father would murder his family.
Christopher’s parents stood by him, convinced an intruder had killed Sherry and the boys.
Investigators believed otherwise.
To them, the crime was about greed, sex, selfishness, and narcissism.
Christopher wanted a new life, and his family was in the way.
By the time the trial began in April 2011, prosecutors had spent two years assembling what one described as a ten-thousand-piece puzzle.
The case was enormous.
Three counts of first-degree murder.
Massive public attention.
A community desperate for answers.
Because of the publicity, the judge brought in a jury from another county, about an hour and a half away.
Prosecutor Ed Parkinson understood the biggest challenge.
Jurors had to accept that a parent could murder his children.
That is almost impossible for many people to believe.
Christopher Coleman did not look like a monster.
He looked like a clean-cut father, a former Marine, a church-connected security professional, and a man from a respected family.
But prosecutors argued appearances meant nothing.
They called Sherry’s friends to the stand.
Those friends had waited two painful years to tell the jury what Sherry had confided in them.
They described a troubled marriage, not the stable relationship Christopher portrayed in his police interview.
Sherry had cried about Christopher wanting to leave her.
According to one friend, Christopher said hurtful things, including that he had never loved her.
Sherry went to counseling, but friends said Christopher behaved differently in front of the counselor than he did at home.
Prosecutors argued Christopher wanted Sherry to initiate the divorce.
If she was the one to leave, perhaps he could preserve his reputation and his job at Joyce Meyer Ministries.
Joyce Meyer herself gave a videotaped deposition.
She confirmed that an adulterous affair could affect Christopher’s employment.
That mattered because prosecutors believed Christopher feared losing his six-figure income if the affair became public.
Eventually, Sherry did discover the affair.
One night, she opened her computer with a friend and showed images of Tara Lintz.
She knew the woman having an affair with her husband.
Still, Sherry did not want a divorce.
According to Kathy Laplante, Sherry said something that would haunt her forever.
If anything happened to her, Chris did it.
Months later, Sherry and the boys were dead.
Prosecutors believed the trigger may have been Tara pressing Christopher to move forward.
Tara believed divorce papers were supposed to be served on Sherry on May 5, the same day of the murders.
But Christopher had never actually filed for divorce.
He had not spoken to an attorney.
The jury finally heard from Tara.
Her appearance was one of the most anticipated moments of the trial.
She entered under police escort, and the courtroom was packed.
Tara testified that she and Christopher talked or texted constantly.
They frequently professed their love for each other.
When asked whether they had plans to marry, her short answer revealed the condition she understood clearly.
The divorce had to happen first.
Prosecutors did not argue that Tara participated in the murders.
They believed she had no idea Christopher was going to kill his family.
But her relationship with Christopher was central to motive.
To drive that point home, prosecutors showed the court explicit videos and photographs the two had exchanged.
Christopher’s parents sat through the evidence, praying for strength and trying not to show shame.
Christopher’s defense team, John O’Gara and Bill Margulis, faced a difficult case.
They admitted the circumstantial evidence was overwhelming, but they emphasized what was missing.
There was no eyewitness.
No confession.
No murder weapon.
No DNA that directly proved Christopher killed his family.
One of the most important issues was time of death.
The prosecution argued Sherry, Garrett, and Gavin were killed hours before Christopher left for the gym.
The bodies were stiff, and evidence suggested they were dead by at least three o’clock in the morning.
The defense argued time of death is not exact.
They suggested the murders could have occurred during the hour and ten minutes Christopher was away.
If jurors believed that, Christopher could not be the killer.
The threats also became a major battleground.
The defense argued someone else could have used Christopher’s computer.
A coworker or another person with access could have created the threatening account and sent the emails.
Prosecutors countered that no one else connected to Joyce Meyer had received threats against their family.
The messages seemed designed specifically for Christopher’s narrative.
The defense also attacked the handwriting and paint evidence.
They argued there was no trace of paint on Christopher despite the amount used at the scene.
But prosecutors pointed to the purchase record and handwriting similarities as part of the broader pattern.
One image in the case disturbed many observers.
A surveillance video from the afternoon before the bodies were discovered showed Christopher playing catch with one of his sons outside the house.
It looked like a perfect suburban moment.
The next morning, the boy was dead.
The emotional weight of the case was enormous.
Some jurors cried.
Many struggled to imagine a father capable of such hatred.
Inside the jury room, the first vote was reportedly seven to five not guilty, not because jurors believed Christopher was innocent, but because some wanted stronger tangible proof.
They all suspected he had done it.
But suspicion was not enough.
They wanted evidence that convinced them beyond a reasonable doubt.
As deliberations moved into a second day, crowds gathered outside the courthouse.
Tension grew.
Sherry’s mother remained confident.
She said she had a mother’s instinct and believed justice would come.
Then jurors noticed a detail that shifted the room.
They examined a photograph of Christopher and Tara kissing.
On the back was a date: October 21, 2008.
Christopher had claimed the affair began later, in November.
The photograph suggested he had lied about the timeline.
For one juror, that changed everything.
If Christopher lied about when the affair began, he could be lying about everything.
The pieces began locking into place.
The affair.
The false threats.
The handwriting.
The spray paint.
The missing recorder.
The open window.
The scratches.
The motive.
The timing.
After fifteen hours of deliberation, the jury reached a verdict.
Guilty.
Christopher Coleman was convicted on all three counts.
Outside the courthouse, the crowd erupted in applause and cheers.
The verdict came on May 5, 2011, exactly two years to the day after Sherry, Garrett, and Gavin Coleman were found murdered.
For Sherry’s family, it was justice.
For investigators, it was the end of a case that had consumed them.
The judge sentenced Christopher to life in prison.
The death penalty was no longer available because Illinois was in the process of repealing it.
Even after conviction, Christopher denied killing his wife and children.
In a later phone interview from prison, he insisted he was innocent.
He said he had loved Sherry, even while admitting he had lied to Tara about serving divorce papers.
He claimed he had spent years trying to figure out who really committed the murders before giving it to God and trying to forgive that unknown person.
For Sherry’s friends, forgiveness remained difficult.
They were Christians and believed forgiveness mattered, but the innocence of the victims made it almost impossible.
Sherry, Garrett, and Gavin had done nothing to deserve what happened.
In the years that followed, friends and family worked to ensure they would never be forgotten.
They raised money to help victims of domestic violence.
They hoped to build a Little League field named after Garrett and Gavin, two boys who loved playing ball and had their entire lives ahead of them.
The murders left Columbia changed forever.
The threatening messages on the walls were meant to mislead investigators.
Instead, they became part of the story that exposed the truth.
A crime staged to look like an attack from the outside ultimately revealed something much darker inside the home.
Sherry Coleman and her sons were remembered not for the horror of their final moments, but for the lives they lived.
A loving mother.
Two beautiful boys.
A family that should have had many more years together.
And a community that would never forget the writing on the wall.
