Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders Part 2

Episode Description:

In this chilling continuation, Mike, Bree, and Heather dive deeper into the haunting case of the Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders. Picking up where part one left off, the trio explores the eerie details of the investigation, the mysterious occurrences leading up to the murders, and the tragic events that unfolded at Camp Scott. This episode delves into the police's handling of the crime scene, the pursuit of the prime suspect Gene Leroy Hart, and the unsettling possibility that he wasn't acting alone.

Join the hosts as they uncover the dark secrets and strange happenings that plagued this case, leading to one of the most infamous unsolved mysteries in American history. Was Hart truly the only monster lurking in the woods, or did he have accomplices who remain in the shadows? Prepare yourself for a roller coaster of revelations, disturbing details, and thought-provoking discussions in this gripping second part.

Trigger Warning: This episode discusses graphic details of a violent crime, including the murder of young children. Listener discretion is advised.

https://pictruecrime.com/recent-episodes/f/the-haunting-mystery-of-the-oklahoma-girl-scout-murders

Transcript

Oklahoma Part 2 (00:00)
Welcome back everybody. I know last time we left you on a little bit of a cliffhanger, but don't worry. We're finally back with part two of the Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders.

Last time we sat down, we took a look at the strange occurrences that happened at Camp Scott two months before the murders.

The days leading up to the murders were full of red flags, coincidences, oddities, and ominous predictions that, in hindsight, should have been taken much more serious than they were.

We heard about our three victims, tiny yet brilliant Lori Farmer, who was just eight years old, nine years old Michelle Guse who was fearless and kind,

And finally, intelligent, shy, and frightened Denise Milner, who was just 10 and wanted nothing more than to go home before camp had even begun.

The night of June 12th was filled with thunder, rain, lights in the woods, and most of all, strange sounds that were heard by the 30 Girl Scouts and their camp counselors.

On the morning of June 13th at 6 o 'clock, a counselor would make the discovery that shattered the facade of the safety of the 70s.

On the forest floor, bound, beaten, and broken lay the bodies of little Lori, Denise, and Michelle.

And now that the crime was discovered, police are about to arrive. From here, we look into the investigation and this one spans across decades.

If you thought part one was a roller coaster, get ready. What happens next just gets weirder and weirder.

Welcome to the PIC True Crime Podcast. I'm Mike. I'm Bree And I'm Heather.

Oklahoma Part 2 (01:49)
So dear Heather, did you enjoy keeping us waiting? I definitely did.

Well, you'll be glad to hear that it's been pure agony for us. Just so you guys at home know, Bree and I have been told very strictly that we weren't allowed to Google the case until we got here today. And Heather's been feeling pretty proud of herself for making us wait.

To be fair, we'd all heard of the case before, but like most people, we just got the headlines. I'd never heard of the break -ins beforehand, the weird notes left at the camp, or Denise's sister's prediction.

Yeah, that's true. Cassie's words still gives me chills. All I knew is that three kids died in the 70s and the guy was caught.

Like it's terrible and all, but when the details are laid out like that, you realize that the enormity of what really happened got lost in time.

I gotta tell you, it took everything to not sneak a look at what happened next. I have a feeling that Heather's not done with surprises. Not even close. I've got plenty more

For those of you just tuning in, go check out part one. It really is a little insane on how many weird things took place months before the murders. To understand the scope of it all, you really want to go and listen to all the details. There is a lot of them.

I've been racking my brain to figure out what we missed. Mom left us with a hint that me and dad didn't catch something. Now I know me and him both listened to part 1 again during editing and we still haven't been able to catch an easter egg or a hint of what it was.

Heather looks like she's feeling pretty proud of that, isn't she? So smug. So Heather, will you please continue? Bree and I are dying to hear

With pleasure. And before we begin, yes, it has been delicious to see you two suffer.

 that the bodies of the girls were discovered and the directors of Camp Scott had called the police...

Only after calling their lawyers first.

That's correct. They were getting the other girls rounded up on the other side of the camp and right off the bat we reach our first discrepancy. Some of the witnesses at the scene stated that Denise was found partially covered by a sleeping bag naked from the waist down and lying on top of Lori and Michelle who were stuffed inside another sleeping bag beneath Denise. And that's when the director of Camp Scott

Richard Day tried to lift the sleeping bag to cover her with it. He felt the weight inside, making him realize that there were more bodies inside, while others state that Lori and Michelle were bundled together in a single sleeping bag about 100 yards away from Denise.

The police reports corroborate that Lori and Michelle were found away from Denise, so we can assume that that's the correct placement of the bodies. Either way, it's certain that Lori and Michelle were killed and then placed inside the same sleeping bag, and Denise was taken to the scene separately.

I can't get over just how tiny they were.

Yeah, eight and nine year olds. mean, that's just so insane to me that somebody would do this to Them

Police arrived and took in the scene while they waited for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation to arrive. Unfortunately, by this time, counselors had gone through every tent, probably to make sure that all the girls were evacuated and to make a count of who was missing.

Tent number seven had also been entered, but when they saw the blood splatter that reached the roof and the pools that were beginning to leak outside the tent, they retreated. It's uncertain just how much more contamination took place than we already are aware of.

Let me guess with all the contamination, the evidence is just going to be totally messed up, right?

Sure is. The OSBI arrived and began to photograph the scene and collect evidence while the girls' bodies were released by the coroner and taken it to the morgue

Crime scene technicians and the coroner himself needed a break after processing and moving the bodies before they could continue. The brutal nature of the murders coupled with the fact that the victims were so young took its toll on every person at that scene.

The coroner, Dr. Hoffman, was sure that the girls were all sexually assaulted, and it was clear even from the preliminary exam that excessive force was used to subdue them. Denise had been so badly beaten that she was identified at first simply by the fact that she was the only child of African descent at Kiowa

Starting at tent number seven, it was evident that the attack happened here. The perpetrator entered through the back of the tent where he struck Lori and Michelle over the head with a blunt object, leading to the blood splatter that was on the roof of the tent and the excessive pooling on the floor.

Inside the tent and in the proximity of the bodies was a pair of prescription glasses, a red heavy -duty flashlight, duct tape, and a single bloody shoe print from a size nine and a half men's shoe.

Hold on, weren't their prescription glasses stolen from Kiowa two months before?

That's right, but we'll get back to that. Glad to see you're keeping

The rain from the night before definitely made identifying footprints in the ground almost impossible. The only reason that the shoe print was found is because it was inside the tent.

The killer had attempted to clean up the scene with sheets taken from the cots, but this was a weak attempt at best. He'd only managed to smear blood around a few times before giving up. Not surprising since there was so much blood at the scene that it would have been impossible to even make a dent in the amount with just a few sheets. The flashlight was unusual. Besides not being a commonly sold unit, it also had newspapers stuffed inside the battery cavity.

Apparently to prevent it from rattling and attracting attention. They did pull a fingerprint from it at least. They also found several pairs of prescription glasses strewn in the forest.

Apparently the killer had stole them all those months ago, tried them on, and discarded them if they weren't the right prescription for

At least this definitively ties the killer to the thief, I mean it had to be the same person wouldn't you think? I think so too, too much of a coincidence, but mom's probably going to make us sweat the details until the very end, you just watch.

And finally, reports of thefts in the surrounding area began coming in, most of them petty crimes that were so small that they were never reported. But with the news of thievery taking place at Kiowa and Camp Scott in general leaking out to the public, people began coming forward to say that their sheds and houses had been broken into. A surprising number of those instances included prescription glasses going missing too.

Three Sniffer Dogs were brought in. The trio was called the Wonder Dogs, and they were so good at their job that the handlers promised that they'd have the killer in less than 48 hours.

As the canines got to work, the rest of Camp Scott's scouts reached the bus stop. Most of the girls had only the possessions that they could grab on their laps. The parents were only told that there had been an incident that involved the death of a child. They were not informed of the nature of the incident, nor whose child or children were deceased Only that the event had happened at Kiowa.

When Angela Sweet got up to leave the bus, she dropped something and got delayed from getting off before the other girls.

When she reached the bottom of the steps, her mother was already hysterically crying, convinced her daughter, who she was sure was at Kiowa, was dead too.

That must have been the worst and the best moment in that woman's life. One second you're sure your kid is dead and the next they walk off the bus alive.

Oklahoma Part 2 (09:56)
The victim's parents were not at the bus stop. That morning they'd been notified in a very odd way of what had happened. At the Guse's police knocked on the door and notified them of the fact that their daughter was deceased, but they did not let them know that this was because of a murder.

According to their statement, Michelle had died as a result of a terrible accident that they would be filled in with the rest of the details at a later stage. The Guse's found out the truth after turning on the news that night. The directors of Camp Scott, Richard, and Barbara Day were the ones to notify the Farmer family, not the police. Apparently, as if we don't suspect them enough already, they were released from the scene

proceeded to call their insurance company and then their lawyers again. And only after that did they call Dr. Richard Farmer to let him know that Lori and two other girls had tragically passed away.

And when Richard demanded to know what had happened, all Barbara Day told him was that they were found some ways away from the tent in the forest and that police would get in touch with him

Before the day was over, the farmer's front lawn was swarming with reporters who refused to leave the property, leading to an altercation with the reporter and the distraught father.

Richard punched the obnoxious snoop in the face and the man later tried to sue the family for the assault, but thankfully the case was thrown out of court

It came to light that Lori was going to turn 9 that Saturday and the family with all of her siblings were planning to visit her at camp to celebrate her birthday.

What a horrible, horrible tragedy.

I've got to tell you, the way police just left the parents hanging made me more angry than everything else that they screwed up in this case. With no answers in the extreme emotional state that they were left in, it's a miracle that only one reporter got a bloody nose. No one, no one should have to find out about this kind of thing from the news and reporters. It was an abysmal handling of the victim's families.

Even if it was the 70s, there's no excuse for this.

There were no reports or articles on how the Milners were notified. I can only pray that they were given the truth about what happened to Denise and warned about the disgusting swarms of news crews headed their way.

Well, let's hope the police handled the autopsy results with more tact than just letting them know that it wasn't an accident.

Because the results was nothing short of traumatizing for the examiner and the OSBI's lead investigator Larry Bowels As Bowels and Dr. Hoffman looked over the bodies in the morgue, their original assessment that Laurie and Michelle were killed first was confirmed. Both receiving blows to their heads as they slept in their beds and probably died where they laid. Laurie still had her personal flashlight tucked in between her legs so she could reach it quickly in the night if she needed

Both girls were assaulted after they died and before they were moved outside.

Neither had duct tape or rope around their hands and mouths, but the state of their underwear and traces of semen on the remains indicated that they were molested at the very

After they were dead? That's just sick.

Apparently so, Lori's injuries were the least of all with only a single blow to her head.

Michelle was more severely beaten and also had the same state of disarray of her clothes and traces of semen.

Both girls were placed in a sleeping bag after this and they were dragged to the place where they were later found. But Denise was a whole other story. She wasn't killed immediately as she slept in her bed. Instead, her hands were tied up, her mouth bound, and she was assaulted more. Let's just say that the killer didn't stop at molesting her like he did with the other

She was beaten beyond recognition and finally strangled to death.

The duct tape on her mouth contained a single human hair and she also had DNA on her body.

It looked like the assault began in the tent and continued with the latter half of the beatings and the final strangulation outside where her body was found. She was the only one to be strangled manually.

I think we all need a minute after that. That's pretty horrific.

I had to go through it all. It's even worse when it's described by a physician. They're so clinical about the whole thing. For some reason, that makes it even worse. But I need to make a point here real quick before we go on. The semen that was found related to only one man, and it was a perfectly viable sample. Nothing about it was out of the ordinary at all.

In the 70s, we knew about DNA and the technology was being worked on, but it wasn't in use in law enforcement, nor was it accurate enough to match a sample to an individual outside of blood type and race back then.

Yeah, man, I forgot about the time that this took place in no DNA, no cell phone pings, GPS, I'm guessing no surveillance at all either, right? None at all. But we get into the investigation and all the suspects and tips that came pouring in. Firstly, the flashlight, duct tape and nylon rope were traced back to a farmer who lived just a mile and a half away from Camp Scott. They'd been stolen from his shed a few months before.

And he was pretty upfront to police about the incident and even agreed to a polygraph test.

But the man, named Jack Truff, got stiffed by police just like the parents were.

Instead of making a statement that he'd been cleared of the crime almost as soon as they had learned of him, the press got a hold of his information and printed Jack's name and even his picture under the headline that he'd been arrested and given a polygraph test. No mention that he passed or that he'd been cleared at all.

They called Jack a child killer outright without any evidence or statement from the police. He was so bombarded by the press, phone calls from people calling him a murderer, and very nearly attacked several times if he dared set foot outside of the house. It got so bad that he was later hospitalized for the stress that the situation had caused him.

Jack at least did confirm that the items were from his shed. The flashlight in particular was a point of interest for investigators.

According to Jack, the damage on the flashlight's casing happened years ago, and he could accurately describe it without being shown the flashlight beforehand. He also said that the batteries knocked around on the inside a lot, and it was very noisy when he walked around with it, but he'd never stuffed it with anything to silence it.

So at least the investigators were right that the killer used the paper to act as a silencer.

then one of the Wonder Dog team's members dropped dead. It was tentatively determined that the dog died of heat exhaustion, but in reality, no one had any idea why the dog suddenly keeled over and died.

The dog's death is pretty significant. A rumor began to spread among the large Native American population around those woods that a medicine man had put a curse on the police and that's why the dog died.

Harvey Pratt, an OSBI agent who was of the Cheyenne descent, was tasked to investigate these rumors. He was chosen because of his Native American background.

They needed someone who understood the suspect that they were going to name soon. More than a week went by with no more word from the police until they dropped a bombshell announcement. After 10 days, they finally had a suspect

And that was a man by the name of Gene Leroy Hart. And Gene Hart wasn't some unassuming farmer. He was a very, very depraved individual.

Gene Leroy Hart was a 35 year old convicted sex offender who had escaped prison four years before the incident at Camp Scott. How he managed to stay hidden for all this time is an astounding feat. But first, let's look at the crimes that Hart was serving for when he escaped.

He was found guilty of four counts of burglary and the kidnap and rape of two pregnant women. Details surrounding the attack showed that Hart intended to leave the women for dead after the brutal assault took place, but one of the victims managed to break free from her restraints and find help.

Given the absolutely horrific nature of the crime and the fact that Hart almost certainly intended for the women to die, the judge gave him the longest sentence that the law would allow outside of a murder charge.

And that sentence equated to 309 years behind bars. But Hart somehow escaped prison twice. The last time he escaped, he remained hidden for four whole years.

The woman who escaped testified that Hart used nylon rope and duct tape to restrain them, and that during the assault, Hart never spoke a word, but he did make growling noises like an animal.

and he also tried on both women's glasses.

dear, now I had my money on the directors or someone at the camp. Sheesh, this guy was a monster, but how on earth did he manage to stay at large for that long? I know this was the 70s and all, but still, that's a long time to keep yourself hidden.

There are several reasons for that. For one, he'd grown up just a mile away from Camp Scott, and Hart knew these woods like the back of his hand.

The Oklahoma woods are littered with caves. Most of them weren't even marked on the maps back then. If you didn't know the place inside and out, there's no way you'd know where they are. Then there's the fact that Hart was Native American, Cherokee to be exact, and his people had a hand in keeping him hidden from the authorities.

Oklahoma Part 2 (19:47)
Look, I get that the Native Americans don't trust the cops at all, and I totally get that, I understand. But to help somebody that did this kind of crime just doesn't seem like they would be okay with that. Why would you let them walk around the kids?

From what I've read, it's not like he was living it up in people's houses, and he certainly wasn't welcomed into the community with open arms. Hart just hid out in a cave, and everyone preferred to not mention that he was there. As long as he didn't show his face and he left them alone, they'd give him their silence and nothing more.

The only person that Hart actually came into contact with was a medicine man that he went to if he got injured or if he was in dire need of life -saving supplies. And even here, the medicine man was bound by a code of ethics. His position required that he help any man in need, no matter who he was or where he came from, just like doctors are bound by their code of ethics.

Gotcha, but still I don't think that I could go to sleep knowing that there was a rapist in the woods while my kids were in their beds.

It's even possible that the community didn't even know exactly where he was, only that he came in from the woods to see the medicine man every now and then. But Hart had a very unusual thing about him. He had terrible eyesight, and even when he was a boy, he refused to see an optometrist about it. Instead, he just stole other people's glasses, and if they weren't the right prescription, he'd throw the stolen pair away, break into someone else's house, and steal another.

until he found the one that matched his eyes.

That sounds familiar, doesn't it? It looks like we might have a guy. How did they even find him anyway?

Maybe. The two remaining dogs led investigators to a cave just three miles away from Kiowa. Inside, they found a scrap of newspaper that was definitively matched to the newspaper stuffed inside the flashlight. Several pairs of prescription glasses were stolen from homes that Hart had burgled over the course of four years. A piece of plastic that was used to cover the lens of the flashlight to dim its brightness and duct tape that matched the ones found at the scene.

The cave was undoubtedly linked to the crime scene. Of that, there was no doubt.

So what do you mean by maybe then? I mean, it looks pretty cut and dry to me. It had to be Hart We'll see.

Let me guess, it's about that thing that you said we missed in the last one.

Let's get to that later. For now, back to the cave, because there were some other disturbing things inside. Panties apparently stolen from someone's washing line and two photographs of women were found amongst the mess of old food, trash and some basic survival supplies.

At the entrance of the cave, there were the remnants of four small fires that were burned using tobacco as fodder.

They were arranged in a half circle and were too small to be of any use for cooking or light. It was assumed that they must have been used for some ceremonial purpose.

On the back of the wall, someone had written, the killer was here. Bye bye, fools. 77 617. The cave had obviously been lived in for a while, judging by the amount of trash that had accumulated over time. The two final nails in the coffin were that it was located just 100 yards away from Hart's childhood home, and they were able to trace the photographs to the prison that Hart had escaped from all those years ago.

Apparently, one of the guards did wedding photography on the side and Hart himself developed the pictures in the prison's photo lab, where he then stole them and carried them around for four years. The guard who took the photos and two of the three women in the photos were identified and corroborated the findings.

What about the numbers on the wall? Has anyone ever been able to figure out what it meant? Depending on how you read it, it could be a date. 77 was the year of the murders and 6 is the month of June when it happened. But then it would have been written four days after the killings if the 17th was supposed to signify the date. The date is too close to the murders to be a coincidence.

He probably hid out there for a few more days and then wrote that on the wall before he left to hide out at the medicine man's place.

So that's where they found him?

Not before another one of the Wonder Dogs had died. This time, the highly trained and obedient canine tore out of his handler's hand and just ran right in front of an oncoming truck

What the hell is that about? Does the weirdness ever end with this thing? Not yet. Remember that agent Harvey Pratt? He was able to confirm that the fires were ceremonial. There were four fires, and four is a very significant number in Native culture. The use of tobacco, the cedar wood, and the cigarette butts strewn around the fires were all indicators of it being made by a Native American, further implicating Hart.

Parat was also able to speak to the locals in a way that police couldn't, and they were sure that the curse placed on the dogs was very much real, and that the land where Camp Scott and the caves were was sacred ground. The curse had nothing to do with protecting Hart. It was to get all the intruders out of the grounds that were sacred.

The dogs dying wasn't the only odd thing happening to them. Throughout their tracking, they'd be hot on the trail and suddenly the scent would disappear and the dogs would lose it completely, only to find it again hours later and miles away from where Hart's trail was last picked up. The people told Pratt that they thought that Hart was a shapeshifter and that's why he was evading them so effectively.

So it's possible that they were more afraid of them than they were of keeping his whereabouts quiet.

Pratt certainly believed it and he sought out his own medicine man to help him during the investigation.

And to this day, he believes it's that medicine given to him that helped them catch Hart

The National Guard, OSBI, sniffer dogs, 600 searchers and helicopters and no one could find Hart. He was like a wisp of smoke or a shapeshifter like his people believed he was. While this enormous search was going on for the man that they were sure was the sole killer of three innocent little girls, the media was having a field day. Besides harassing the family members of the girls and falsely accusing innocent men of the crime, they were

incredibly critical of the OSBI's handling of the case. And rightfully so. From the way they allowed the crime scene to be polluted, to how they notified the parents of the deaths of their daughters, and to the fact that they employed a Native American agent that used magic of his people just as much as the perpetrator probably was, and how they could miss a man hiding just a hundred yards away from his childhood home in a cave.

Yeah, I mean, missing him in his own backyard. mean, that's that's insane to me that he was able to get away from being that close to them.

The OSBI brought in the wife of the medicine man that they knew Hart had been visiting from time to time, and she agreed to take them to the general area that she knew Hart to be hiding in.

And finally, on the 6th of April, after 10 months of hunting the fugitive, they found Gene Leroy Hart inside a cabin, wearing a pair of women's horn -rimmed glasses and a handheld mirror that was later proven to be stolen from the counselors at Camp Kiowa. When they cuffed him, he simply said, you'll never pin it on me.

I thought they were never going to find him. I mean, imagine the time he'd have in prison for being a child killer AND coming in with horn -rimmed glasses.

Pickings are slim when you're on the run. I mean, let's just hope whoever you stole them from is still alive.

Gene taunted the prison guards, saying that he was a shapeshifter and that he could slip through the bars anytime he wanted. But now the OSBI had a problem. All of their evidence was circumstantial

What about the items in the cave that could literally be tied to the crime scene? The cave could be tied to the crime scene, but Hart couldn't be tied to the cave. The stolen items, the flashlight and rope, well, no one saw him steal them.

The strongest piece of evidence they had was his habit of stealing glasses and discarding them. There were too many witnesses dating back to his childhood to deny that he had the habit of doing it. The photographs linked to the prison was probably the best piece of evidence since it could be directly linked to Hart, but then again, it could be linked to other prisoners who worked in the lab and the officer who took the photo.

The fingerprint on the flashlight didn't match Hart and it's highly probable that one of the counselors touched it or moved it, given how much contamination happened back

I mean, but they do have the semen still, Only thing it could tell was that the blood type and the semen sample were of a non -Caucasian male. They couldn't match the DNA to an individual. And given that he had a pretty common blood type, well, that's barely enough to prove anything. Hart's previous crimes were not allowed to be brought up as evidence in court either, no matter how similar they were.

They did have the hair that was stuck to the tape used on Denise, but even then it could have been anyone who had similar hair type to Hart's. They also had the mirror to at least connect him to Camp Kiowa. There was a moment of panic when Hart revealed that he'd had a vasectomy years ago and that he wouldn't have been able to expel semen.

Wait, what? That's news. Yeah, but when a physician confirmed that even though Hart did have a vasectomy, it hadn't been successful. So the live semen found on the girls could have been Hart's. But without DNA technology, well, there was no way to prove it. Don't tell me this guy gets off. No court would convict on the evidence this flimsy. Without DNA or at least fingerprints,

I don't see it being solid enough for a conviction, do you? I mean there's still a lot to go on. Item stolen from the camp, similar hair, similar blood type, his race and his glasses. I'm hearing the word similar used a lot though, it's all circumstantial. A good defense will tear that apart in court.

And they definitely planned on doing exactly that. But while Hart waited in prison to hear when his court date was coming, something unexpected turned up. Denise Milner's shoes appeared on the steps leading to the dining hall at Camp Kiowa.

The weirdness never ends with this guy. More traditional magic? Or, I mean, you know, somebody else could have been involved like an accomplice. They were wrapped in a plastic bag, no prints on the shoes or the bag. And ever since the murders, the whole Camp Scott and all of its 11 campsites had been closed down.

Since the murders reached nationwide attention, every Tom, Dick, and Harry wanted to go and see the place, so security guards were placed at Kiowa to keep an eye on things. They reported that they kept seeing people walking around in the woods, always just far enough away that they couldn't be identified. And when the men went in to investigate, whoever was sneaking around would disappear into thin air.

They heard rustling in the forest, they saw shadows, and it sounded like they were genuinely scared of the place.

I'd be scared just knowing what happened there. Now you add the shadow people and dead child shoes to the mix? Nah, I'd be out that place before my first shift was over.

Maybe Hart really was his shapesifter. This whole thing is so creepy. I wouldn't put it past

They never figured out who put the shoes there. The trial began and the defense jumped in attacking the evidence. They said that the bloody footprint didn't match Hart's size.

The print was pretty smudged, so the initial assessment that it was a nine and a half might not have been accurate. They successfully argued that the hair and the semen were not definitive enough to point to Hart Same goes for the cave.

The shoes, according to them, proved that it was someone else.

Then the defense brought up another convicted sexual offender, William Stephens that was seen in a nearby town the day after the murders.

The witness placed Stephens at a coffee shop and a boy scout placed Stephens at one of the surrounding camps on Camp Scott, just adjacent to Kiowa.

There were some other characters in the surrounding area too. They just wanted to prove that there were many more monsters other than Hart who could have done it. It's a little terrifying how many sex offenders come out of the woodworks in the event of a murder. The amount of sick people living among us is terrifying.

Stephens' friend testified that he'd lent him a flashlight the day before the murders, that he'd never got back from him, and that he saw Stephens the day after the event with scratches on his face and arms and wearing a pair of bloody boots. This friend also said that Stephens admitted to the crime one night while they were drinking.

And I'm guessing Hart stole shoes too as he needed it, just like he did with the glasses. So it could have still been him, right? I'd assume so.

And what about the Stephens guy? Was it always assumed that Hart acted alone or is this just the defense looking for a scapegoat? Stephens was cleared because of his hair, semen, fingerprints and shoes didn't match. Besides happening to be in town in the witnesses, there is no physical evidence to connect him to the murders. But you do bring up an interesting point about Hart acting with an accomplice or accomplices.

Oklahoma Part 2 (34:14)
Hold on. Angela Sweet said that they saw three flashlights in the distance on the night of the murders. And didn't that letter left at the camp say something about killing girls?

Yeah, we are on a mission to kill three girls in tent one. We plural Gold star for Bree Those are the details you missed. I was wondering if you guys would ever get that. Damn it. We're not done discussing the multiple attack theory, but first let's finish the court case. Not that there's much left to tell. The defense put up a good argument.

The jury, after just five minutes of deliberation, declared Gene Leroy Hart not guilty of the murders of Denise Milner, Lori Farmer, and Michelle Guse.

They only deliberated for five minutes? I mean, they had to know this guy was guilty.

Probably, but they were right to say that there wasn't enough to determine that he was guilty without reasonable doubt.

Just about every piece of evidence was put into question. Besides, was going back to prison, he still had 300 years left of his 309 -year sentence to serve for attempting to kill those two women.

At least we can rest assured that he'll rot in prison for the rest of his life. Not quite. Hart died of a Hart attack just two months after the trial. He was 35 years old.

Why do I feel like this is still some part of the weirdness though? I mean, like the dogs, the shadows and the shoes,

a guy in his 30s just dropping dead. I mean, that seems so strange. Where's the justice at here? And to die so short into the prison sentence, it just doesn't seem fair. He should have suffered for a lot longer.

Fast forward to 1996, a petition was organized to reopen the case, mostly to confirm that it was Hart now that DNA had caught up. It didn't matter that he was dead. People and undoubtedly the families of the girls wanted closure. There were some other suspects that the petition wanted a deeper look into as well. The petition never materialized. However, it was enough for the OSBI to look at some of the suspects

because they were definitely interesting enough to warrant a closer

And we aren't the only ones who thought that there was a possibility that Hart didn't act alone. The three flashlights that Angela Sweet saw, the shoes, the note, the fingerprint on the flashlight, well, it was definitely a possibility. William Stephens, the offender that was brought up at trial, died in prison in 1984 of suicide.

He was convicted of kidnapping, among other things. But he could never be tied to Hart. But a pair of crooks that did know Hart personally were questioned. They were an uncle and nephew team of just awful individuals. Both had rap sheets longer than my arm. Robbery and assault and that sort of thing.

The uncle, Frank Justice, was brought in for questioning after it came out that he bragged over drinks that he knew about the writing on the cave wall long before the police found it. He got very evasive when he was asked about his whereabouts on the night of the murders.

His nephew, Sony James, would have been 16 years old at the time of the murders. There's nothing specific that links Sony to the crime besides that he knew Hart too, and he and his uncle were almost always together. Sony James died in prison too, so he couldn't be questioned. There was more than one confession from various prisoners who were all cleared.

Why do the crazies always come out with high profile crimes? It just complicates things so much. They always do. And in 2008, a private company was allowed to take a look at the evidence taken from Kiowa and they found a DNA sample on one of the pillowcases that didn't match the girls, but it was definitely female. I wouldn't read much into

I mean, it could have been contaminated at the scene where they unloaded a bus or from one of the counselors or from being a storage for all those years.

There was one more significant witness that came out. It was a pastor from a nearby town who claimed to have given two men a ride in the morning hours on the night of the murder. Feeling the need to preach to them, he spent the night with them until they took him to the campsite before it got light and he saw the bodies inside the tent.

I personally think he was one of those crazies you talked about

Yeah, I mean, how were they supposed to kill three girls, hitch a ride, go for a joyride, only to go back to move the bodies out of the tent and then drive all the way back again?

You're right, probably just an delusional bystander who wanted his 15 minutes of fame.

And finally 2019, Hart's DNA was taken from storage and run against the DNA at the scene. All of the DNA was from one man, except for the female sample found on the pillow. It was determined that there was a 99 % chance that it belonged to Hart. 45 years after the murders, there could finally be some closure. Or was there really?

The Guse's, the Millners, and the Farmers all believed that Hart didn't act alone, and lead investigator Larry Bowles openly stated that he wasn't convinced that Hart was the only one to blame.

Besides the many men named as possible accomplices, there's also the fact that Denise's shoes turned up at Kiowa while Hart was in prison. The three lights in the woods and the note left indicated multiple people. Many feel that Hart might have had a female accomplice due to the DNA found on the pillowcase. And then there's the enormous undertaking to brutally assault and murder three individuals, no matter how young they

and carry them out several yards away from the tent and to do it all without detection. But what do you think? Do you think Hart acted alone or do you believe someone else was involved, someone who's still out there?

I don't think he acted alone. I mean, all the weirdness, cursed dogs, and shadows in the woods aside, the job just would've been too big for one man to accomplish without someone hearing anything or the girls putting up a fight.

But people did hear things and the cries for help. They just didn't do anything and the rest was blocked by the rain, kids, voices, and thunder. Still, he had to kill two kids before he would have moved on to Denise. How did he not wake the others while he was killing them? One of them would have had to put up a fight or tried to run, even if he caught them off guard. Then he had to move them across the campground too.

Why even bother? He could have left them in the tent

Unless they wanted to hide the bodies to avoid detection, but Karla Wilhite's perimeter check probably scared them off,

so they never got them out of Kiowa like they planned. I just don't see the extra effort being worth it for one guy.

The physicality of the crime is what sells me that there were more people involved.

Oklahoma Part 2 (41:44)
Okay, so I feel that there was only one person that did this and that was Hart because his DNA was found there. I believe that if there was three guys that would have done this, we would have found more DNA at the scene. Also, there would have been a lot more footprints, foot traffic through there because with all the blood throughout the tent, why is there only one footprint? I just, I feel that it was just Hart and a guy, I mean, I know that if I had somebody

in a sleeping bag, little kids, could drag them anywhere I wanted to. I I feel that this was one person that did

But what about you Heather? You're the one that gone through everything. What do you think? I believe it was more than one person. But I do agree with you. I don't think it was a woman. That DNA could have been from anywhere. And since Hart had a pretty extensive criminal background and plenty of friends made in prison who were probably just as sick in the head as he was, well, it could have been anyone. But for me, it's the prediction note in the counselor's tent.

the lights in the woods, the shoes turning up later.

The accomplice took a trophy, and to get the heat off Hart and hopefully his silence, he took a shot and left the shoes at Kiowa, knowing that it would be used in court to show reasonable doubt to the jury.

I don't see it being anyone else but an accomplice putting the shoes there. There was some talk in the Cherokee community maybe doing it to help one of their own, but I doubt that's true. They ignored Hart but they certainly didn't go out of their way to help or protect him. There's nothing in it for him. The guy was already going to serve life in prison with or without their

And I agree with your point, Bree, It was a huge undertaking for one man. The note, the lights, the shoes. It's just too much to ignore.

Had this happened later when there were better tools to process evidence with and a more strict system to process a scene, well, the only question we'd have is why this psychotic piece of human garbage and whoever else helped him killed three innocent little girls who had a million times more right to live out their lives than they did. And I think the female DNA was probably just a transfer too.

He had no girlfriend or any females that could be criminally tied to him, but given how many children and counselors and lab technicians could have handled that pillowcase, we'll probably never know who it belonged to.

I some of the points that you're saying because of the accomplice, but I think that it was an accomplice after the fact. I think that it was the medicine man who was helping him. He came across the shoes and he wanted to get them away from himself and then he put them out there. I don't think that it was an accomplice in the murder, but that's my opinion. Anyways, what happened to the families? Did they take their suspicions any further?

The Farmer family fought to change the Constitution by bringing in Marcy's Law, which is essentially an amendment of the Constitution to offer victims of violent crimes legal representation and to get police protection for them from their attackers during court proceedings.

The farmers also created a support group for parents of murdered children. Michelle Guse father began a Victim's Compensation Board to help victims and their families seek help to deal with their trauma, get access to legal representation, and to cover funeral costs.

The families did hire private investigators throughout the years, but nothing was ever dug up.

though all of them believe that Hart had at least one accomplice with the farmers leaning toward a female being present on the night of the murders. As for Camp Scott, well, the millners and the farmers sued the camp for $5 million, citing negligence, lack security, and poor planning when laying out the campground,

as well as their failure to report the theft and trespassing two months before the murders.

But the jury did not vote in their favor and the case was dismissed.

How on earth did they get off on that one? The defense argued that no matter what they did, Hart knew those woods too well. He would have gotten in and did what he did with or without extra security.

that he was an expert at evading detection by avoiding police, tracker dogs, and helicopters for nearly five years after escaping prison.

Camp Scott was closed down at least, though the owners never faced any real punishment for the lack of security and generally bad setup of the place. But it did at least cause the Girl Scouts organization and the Boy Scouts to overhaul their entire working system around camping, training of staff, and the amount of security and supervision that kids get nowadays. The buildings and the tents were left behind to the mercy of nature for nearly 50 years now.

The shelves of the dining halls and bathrooms are slowly being overtaken by time. Every now and then, someone films a ghost hunting expedition or takes a walk around. And let me tell you, even if you didn't know what happened there, the place full of dilapidated buildings and abandoned bicycles is still pretty creepy on its own.

The woods of Oklahoma have always had ghost stories and lore attached to it, so sightings of shadow people are nothing new to the place. What is new, since the murders happened anyway, is sightings of a black dog roaming around Kiowa. Every time people go closer or call out to it, it disappears.

One of the Wonder Dogs that got cursed still looking for Hart, maybe? Actually, people believe it is Hart. It's Hart spirit haunting the place. He was rumored to be a shapeshifter and they say that that's how he evaded police for so long. And the dogs on the Wonder Team were German Shepherds and a Rottweiler. So not the pure black that people say they keep seeing.

But other than local stories and kids vandalizing the place,

I'm afraid the murders themselves have left a stain on the place that's worse than any ghost story we can conjure in our minds.

Ghosts and shapeshifters aside, Hart did do it, with or without help. And after 50 years, we can only hope that if he did have an accomplice, that that person is dead or behind bars for some other crime. Hopefully not a crime that left child victims behind.

The ripple effects of the Oklahoma Girl Scout murders did at least bring us changes to the constitution that gives victims more rights and better protections,

and the new safety and security measures that are enforced by law for campgrounds in house children are much, much safer. The governing bodies that oversee the Girl Scouts and any outdoor activities for children are nothing short of anal about rules, regulations, and safety.

But it doesn't change the fact that three children died a horrible, tragic death at the hands of a predator or predators of the worst kind. A fiend that came in the night and stole the lives of Doris Denise Milner, Lori Lee Farmer, and Michelle Heather Guse.

Their faces are remembered now for one of the worst crimes in American history, a crime that defined an era

when they should have been remembered for their accomplishments, for their lives lived with love and joy, ups and downs by their partners, families, and their own children, and all of the experiences that they never got a chance to have.

Gene Leroy Hart was a monster, but maybe someone else was too. With that, we bid you goodbye. I'm off to have nightmares for days.

I won't be sleeping too good either.

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