Hello and welcome to Just Melissa.

On this episode, I'm going to be diving into the murder of Luther Coe, also known as Luke.

In a quiet Georgia town in the summer of 2021, a marriage built on trust and risk collapsed

in the most violent way possible.

Luther Coe III, who also went by Luke, was a veteran, a business owner, and a father.

His wife, Cheryl Howell Co., was charming, outspoken, and willing to test the limits of their

relationship.

Together, they stepped into the world of an open marriage.

But by the 23rd of that year, one thing was clear.

Their relationship wasn't opening.

It was breaking.

And that night, Luther wouldn't make it out of his own bedroom alive.

To understand what went wrong, we need to go back. Luke Coe was known as dependable and hardworking,

an army veteran who went on to build his own business, platinum, demolition, and grading. Friends

described him as down to earth. His son from a previous marriage said that Luke always seemed content, and in 2015, he met

Cheryl Howell.

By 2016, they were married, and to outsiders, they looked happy.

There's vacation photos, backyard cookouts, birthday celebrations. They fit the picture of a couple

building a life together. But four years later, that picture shifted. In 2020, Cheryl and Luke

decided to open their marriage. At first, the arrangement seemed consensual.

Mutual partners, mutual rules. But Luke grew uneasy. The boundaries they'd set together?

Well, Cheryl wanted to push them a bit further. Text messages later revealed their disagreements. In one

...