Torin Halsey/Times Record News Linda Green looks through mementos from her husband's career in the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. Trooper Nik Green was killed in the line of duty while making a meth arrest in 2003.

Widow of slain Oklahoma trooper Nik Green driven to eliminate methamphetamine

By Trish Choate/Times Record News
May 9, 2005

DEVOL, Okla. - Linda Green hasn't been looking too far into the future since her husband, Oklahoma Highway Patrol Trooper Nik Green, was gunned down in the line of duty.

She's still taking it one day at a time with their three young daughters, but this woman who has encouraged new legislation on both sides of the Red River knows exactly what she wants for the future of methamphetamine.

"I want it stomped out," Green said Saturday. "The drug is definitely dangerous, all consuming and evil."

She saw her 35-year-old husband for the last time the day after Christmas 2003. A man who authorities believe was deep into meth is accused of shooting Nik Green to death on a country road in Cotton County. Authorities think Ricky Ray Malone was cooking meth when the trooper tried to arrest him.

Jury selection for Malone's first-degree murder trial begins 9 a.m. today at Comanche County Courthouse in Lawton, officials said. If convicted, the ex-firefighter could be sentenced to death. The trial was moved in a change of venue because of scheduling issues.

Cotton County District Attorney Robert Schulte said two weeks have been set aside for it.

Linda Green said she'll be there every day.

Her husband's smiling face and brown eyes looked on from at least a dozen pictures in the family's living room. Linda Green and their three daughters, 10-year-old Courtni, 7-year-old Brooklyn and 3-year-old Morgan, were in many of the pictures too.

Courtni sat on the couch helping Brooklyn with math homework. Morgan carried a small, fuzzy puppy around. She had her father's eyes.

"We're just making it through it, and God's taking care of us," their mother said. "We just try to keep our focus on church and family, things like that."

A caring community, including the OHP, has reached out to the Greens.

Smiling, Linda Green said her husband was "Mr. Incredible, basically. Mr. Perfect." He was happy all the time and had "a servant's heart." He was a youth pastor at the Devol First Baptist Church and very involved with young people.

If he were still alive, people would still be saying the same good things about him, his widow said.

"When you said the name 'Nik Green,' you knew a character of honesty and integrity was what you were talking about," his widow said.

They had been married 12 years when she lost him. His tragic death brought her a new purpose. Before, she was a trooper's wife and a schoolteacher but knew little about meth.

Now, she's a crusader working to educate and to convince legislators and anyone else who will listen that something needs to be done about the pervasive meth problem.

To that end, she has appeared on "60 Minutes" and CNN. She and law-enforcement officers have spoken to local schools, churches and civics organizations - anyone who'll let them come. Next year, she hopes to have a full-blown speaking program.

Linda Green also went to the Oklahoma Legislature to help usher through meth-fighting measures. She and her two oldest daughters stood behind the governor when he signed the Trooper Nik Green Bill into law in 2004. It made it more difficult to obtain pseudoephedrine tablets, a key ingredient in meth.

She also visited Austin to explain the necessity of proposed meth laws for Texas.

"I want to see them get this legislation so their meth labs will just plummet," Linda Green said.

Oklahoma has already reported a sharp decline. Meanwhile, Texas law-enforcement officers noticed meth cooks were driving across the Red River for ingredients.

New laws in Texas would ratchet up officer safety, Linda Green said.

"People that take this drug, they're just basically out of control and violent," she said.

Nik Green's widow said she just wants legislators to do something before they have an officer to name a law after.

Senior Writer Trish Choate can be reached at (940) 763-7533, (800) 627-1646, Ext. 533, or via e-mail at choatet(at)TimesRecordNews.com.

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