The Chris Coleman murder case is the 2009 killing of Sheri Coleman and her two young sons, Garett and Gavin, in their Columbia, Illinois, home by Chris Coleman — a personal bodyguard for televangelist Joyce Meyer who was carrying on an affair and did not want to lose his roughly $100,000-a-year job to a divorce. He staged the scene to look like a stalker’s revenge, but digital evidence, physical clues, and a forensic linguist’s analysis of the crime-scene graffiti tied the killings back to him. He is serving three concurrent natural-life sentences with no possibility of release.
What Happened on May 5, 2009
Police went to the Coleman home in Columbia, Illinois, on the morning of May 5, 2009, after Chris Coleman said he could not reach his wife by phone. Inside, officers found 31-year-old Sheri Coleman, 11-year-old Garett, and 9-year-old Gavin dead in their beds. All three had been killed by ligature strangulation, meaning the killer used a cord or similar binding.1CNN. Suspect Called Baby Killer Outside Court The way the bodies were positioned suggested they had been killed in their sleep, in the early morning hours before Coleman left the house.
Red spray paint covered several walls. The messages were profane threats aimed at the family, meant to look like the work of an outside stalker who had been harassing the Colemans for months. But there was no sign of forced entry anywhere in the house. No door was broken, no window was pried, no alarm was tripped. Whoever killed the family had a key and knew the security system. Coleman was arrested on the night of May 19, 2009, and charged with three counts of first-degree murder.
The Motive
Coleman was having an affair with Tara Lintz, a Florida woman who had gone to high school with Sheri. The two had exchanged promise rings and were talking about marriage. But Coleman worked for Joyce Meyer Ministries, an international Christian organization that expected strict moral conduct from its staff. A divorce would very likely have cost him his job and his six-figure salary.
Prosecutors argued Coleman saw a way out: kill his family, blame it on a stalker, and keep the career, the reputation, and the girlfriend. Lintz later testified at trial about the promise rings, the wedding talk, and even discussions about timing a wedding around Joyce Meyer’s schedule.
The Fake Threats He Planted
Months before the murders, Coleman began building a paper trail of harassment against his own family. In November 2008, he told the Columbia Police Department about a threatening email sent to the family. In January and April 2009, he reported anonymous typed notes left in the mailbox. The messages warned of violence and appeared to target the family because of Coleman’s work with Joyce Meyer Ministries.
Police took the reports seriously at first. After the murders, cybercrime investigators found that the threatening emails had been sent from Coleman’s own laptop.2Illinois Courts. People v Coleman, 2023 IL App (5th) 200320-U The spray-painted messages inside the house echoed the language and tone of those earlier threats, connecting the whole scheme.
How Investigators Linked Him to the Killings
The case was built almost entirely on forensic evidence. Cybercrime investigators traced IP addresses and timestamps of the threatening emails to Coleman’s computer, and digital forensics experts testified at trial that the emails came from devices Coleman regularly used.3Illinois Official Reports. People v Coleman, 2014 IL App (5th) 110274
Spelling helped. The word “opportunities” was consistently misspelled as “oppurtunities” in the threatening messages, and the same misspelling turned up in several documents on Coleman’s personal computer.2Illinois Courts. People v Coleman, 2023 IL App (5th) 200320-U
Physical evidence backed up the digital trail. Coleman had bought a can of red spray paint before the murders, though prosecutors acknowledged they could not definitively match that can to the paint on the walls. GPS data from his vehicle showed his movements on the morning of May 5 did not line up with the account he gave police. And the intact doors and windows meant the killer had a key.
The Forensic Linguistics Evidence
Forensic linguist Robert Leonard analyzed the spray-painted graffiti and the earlier threatening messages, then compared them to 221 emails known to have been written by Coleman. The overlaps were unusual. Both the threats and Coleman’s own emails used “U” in place of “you,” a shorthand more common in text messages. Coleman also placed apostrophes in the wrong spot in contractions, writing “doesnt'” and “cant'” with the apostrophe after the final letter, and the same pattern showed up in the threats.
Leonard went further. The spray-painted messages at the scene often opened with the word “fuck.” According to the Communicated Threat Assessment Database, only about 0.8 percent of threatening communications begin a sentence that way. Both the graffiti and the earlier written threats used only two obscenities, “fuck” and “bitch,” and no others. Leonard’s conclusion helped prosecutors argue that the same person wrote the threats and the crime-scene graffiti, and that person was Chris Coleman.
The Trial and the Sentence
Coleman’s trial began in April 2011 in the Circuit Court of Monroe County, Illinois. The jury heard testimony from multiple witnesses and reviewed exhibits covering the digital evidence, the physical forensics, and the affair.2Illinois Courts. People v Coleman, 2023 IL App (5th) 200320-U Lintz testified about her relationship with Coleman.
The jury convicted Coleman on all three counts of first-degree murder under 720 ILCS 5/9-1. The court sentenced him to three concurrent terms of natural life in prison, with no possibility of parole or early release.3Illinois Official Reports. People v Coleman, 2014 IL App (5th) 110274
Where the Appeals Stand
Coleman has challenged his conviction more than once. His first direct appeal attacked the admission of expert testimony about the IP address evidence linking the threatening emails to his computer. The Fifth District Appellate Court rejected the challenge and affirmed the conviction in 2014.3Illinois Official Reports. People v Coleman, 2014 IL App (5th) 110274
Coleman later filed a petition under the Illinois Post-Conviction Hearing Act, claiming actual innocence and arguing that his original defense lawyers provided constitutionally inadequate representation. Post-conviction counsel filed an amended petition raising due process and ineffective assistance claims. A circuit court judge held an evidentiary hearing in 2019, then dismissed the petition. In 2023, the Fifth District Appellate Court affirmed the dismissal on all grounds.2Illinois Courts. People v Coleman, 2023 IL App (5th) 200320-U He remains in the Illinois Department of Corrections.
The Civil Suit Against Joyce Meyer Ministries
The criminal case was not the only proceeding to come out of the murders. In 2011, Sheri Coleman’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Joyce Meyer Ministries, alleging the ministry knew about the threatening messages Coleman had reported and should have done more to protect his family. In February 2013, Monroe County Circuit Judge Richard Aguirre dismissed the case, saying he could not see how the ministry could have foreseen that an employee would murder his own family. The Fifth District Appellate Court reinstated the lawsuit on appeal and sent it back to the circuit court for further proceedings.