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Hey everybody, welcome back to our podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. And I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband. Feels good to be back in our studio. It does. We're back. We're back home. We've been home for a little bit now. We were in Cali, well first Nashville, then California, and we had so much fun in California, but it always feels good to be back.
If you are listening on podcasts and can leave us a review, that helps us so much. Thank you for listening. And if you are watching on YouTube, please subscribe and then also turn on the notification bell so that you can be notified when we upload. Also for our YouTube watchers, the YouTube video episode drops
later than the audio version. So if every week you're like, wait, audio's already out. Where's YouTube? That's why. Okay, Garrett, do you have your 10 seconds? Well, I had a pickleball tournament. I went eh, eh. You did good. It wasn't bad, no. It turned out fun. It was fun. Yeah. I played with my mom, so that was super fun.
What else? Well, we were supposed to stay in California a bit longer, but Payne wasn't feeling good, so we flew back early. We've just been going through it. We have been going through it. What's going on? And then we had our anniversary yesterday. Five years. Married five years. Yeah. Holy crap.
It's a long time. It feels so long, but also feels like nothing. I know. It feels like time just flying by. I know. Especially because we've been doing the podcast for two of those years. Yeah. Which is kind of crazy if you think about it that way. Yeah. And I'm not saying MWMH is one of the best parts of our marriage. Just kidding. But really, it just feels like a dream. Also, got a new shirt. If you're watching on YouTube, like it. Where'd you get it again?
I think that one was Tilly's. I think it was Tilly's, which I don't really shop at Tilly's. Yeah, but we were there. We went in. And there was a cool shirt there. Yep. You know, I've kind of just given up on my lawn.
Yeah, me too. You know, I mean, it looks fine. Like I'd probably say it's a six or seven out of 10. Plus we know, we know all of our neighbors are spray painting their lawns in the middle of the night. There's no way. So it's probably a six or seven out of 10. And so I'm just going to leave it like that until next year. Before we jump into it, last episode, we talked about the HOA. If you don't want to hear that and you're bored and you want to get to the episode, you can skip, but you will want to hear this.
I said that our HOA hates us. I kind of slipped that in there. And they do. They really do hate us. Am I right, babe? Oh, they are the biggest haters. I see them driving around in their little cars coming and checking us off for everything we're doing wrong. They find us so much money. So Peyton and I, we go out of town a lot and we leave our trash cans out.
And it's usually like a Monday through Thursday sort of thing that we leave them out. Well, we pull them up to like they're out, just not in our garage. They're not like out on the street. Because we usually have a neighbor pull them into like this corner of our driveway for us. Right. Against our house. They are not happy with that. Every single week they find us, which...
Maybe we should learn our lesson. Maybe we should learn our lesson. I get it to the rules, blah, blah, blah. But I would understand if our neighborhood didn't look like crap. I mean, I think that's the easiest way to say it. There's potholes everywhere. There's weeds all over the place. Which like, I don't mind. But why find
what do you do with the money? So we're getting fined for our trash cans being in the corner of our house. Yet there's weeds and potholes and porta potties and trash. And so, you know, I don't know. I think that's just my little rant. I'm a little frustrated. If you're listening and you're from our HOA, I don't like you as easy as that.
If you want to talk, come over to my house. I'm happy to talk. Talk your crap. Talk your crap. Talk your crap to our face. Anyways, that's my thing. And I'll leave it at that. And I will keep everyone updated with the war we have on our... They're probably going to come just start fining us for random stuff. You're going to see us in like the Supreme Court on like a huge lawsuit.
I will win this. I will win. I don't. Yeah, we're not really that like we're not mad. We're not fuming about it. I'm pretty pissed about it. But it is just kind of funny to like have another fine for another. Like it's always like just like the weirdest things of like, oh, you guys had too many weeds here, even though that wasn't even part of our lawn.
You know, they need to get their neighborhood together and then they can find me. That's the bottom line. So anyways, we're going to leave it at that.
No more talking bad stuff. And we're going to jump into the story. I'll keep everyone updated maybe sometime in the next couple of weeks. All right. Our case sources for this week are the New York Times, Coemnews.com, The Oklahoman, DailyPress.com, Coco.com, NewsOn6.com, ClaremoreProgress.com, AllThat'sInteresting.com, AbandonedDoke.com, StrangeOutdoors.com, Oxygen.com, MoreLaw.com. So...
Summer camp. It's supposed to be some of the best childhood memories, singing songs together around the campfire, making childhood friends, hiking, canoeing, arts and crafts, and storytelling. According to Wikipedia, summer camp or sleepaway camp is a supervised program for children or teenagers conducted during the summer months in some countries.
I actually remember looking forward to summer camp since I was young. I was so excited to get to sleep in a tent with my friends. And you went to summer camp too, right? Yes, I am an Eagle Scout. Oh, yeah, Garrett is an Eagle Scout. So you did a lot of summer camps. I did do a lot of summer camps. And I just remember being so excited to get to spend every second of the day doing fun things with friends. That's what I always looked forward to. And I mean...
Come on, I can't think summer camp without thinking of the parent trap. I mean, summer camp basically reunited a whole entire family there. But what if summer camp wasn't all prank wars and baked beans? What if the spooky stories told around the fire at night followed some of the campers into their tents? What if one year at summer camp, it ended up being so haunted and troubling that the camp closed down for good?
And this is where our case this week begins in April 1977 in Mayes County, Oklahoma. Located in the dense woods about 50 miles outside of Tulsa sits Mayes County where there is a campsite. And this campsite first opened in 1928 under the name Camp Ma Del Co. But a few years later, they changed the name to just Camp Scott, which I'm grateful for because it's a lot easier to say.
Now Camp Scott was owned by the Tulsa Scout Council and actually was operated by the Girl Scouts of America. Camp Scott actually sat on 240 acres on the left bank of the Snake Creek and actually boasted 20 camp buildings and a pool. The very small town of Locust Grove sat just two miles away from the camp.
So what you need to imagine is just like your typical summer camp, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts. And if you ever went to one of those sanctioned campsites where there were these summer programs, there's like big buildings with stages, small kitchen, cafeteria areas. And then also normally the adults, at least when I went, got to sleep in actual small cabins, but everyone else kind of had to pitch tents. You know what I mean? So this is where we are. And
out there in the vast forest land in Oklahoma, Camp Scott was in the middle of those trees and it was pitch black at night. So the story begins here at Camp Scott right before the summer camp season in April of 1977.
Some older Girl Scouts who were actually going to serve as camp counselors for Camp Scott attended a special weekend training. You know, like where all before the little Girl Scouts get there, there's all the camp counselors and the older Girl Scouts who are going to learn about what they're going to be doing that summer, you know,
The rules and everything like that. And one of the girls that weekend, Michelle Hoffman, who had aged out of being a camper and was now going to be an aide to the camp counselors that summer, returned to her tent one night after a day of meetings to find that it had been ransacked.
Everything was thrown everywhere. Her sleeping bag was inside out and some of her stuff was even laying outside of her tent. Weird. A box of donuts that Michelle had actually brought from home was now empty. The donuts had been eaten. Oh, it's messed up. Don't eat the donuts. Right. But the worst part of all was someone had left a threatening handwritten note inside of the box, the donut box, written on a small notepad.
According to more than one source, written over and over again on the first couple of pages of the notebook was the word KILL. So like KILL, KILL, KILL, KILL over and over again. On another page of the notebook was a chilling message in all caps, WE'RE ON A MISSION TO KILL THREE GIRLS. It was signed THE KILLER.
Michelle quickly took the notepad straight to the camp director. But if there is one thing we know about summer camps, it's that pranks were born there. Literally one Google search of summer camp pranks brings up articles like best pranks to pull this summer at camp and 33 summer camp prank ideas. And come on, we all know that half the fun of summer camp was the spooky pranks.
The creeping on a tent after lights out, the stealing someone's socks. So this summer in 1977, the professional camp director took one look at the note and Michelle's tent and brushed it off as a silly summer prank. Oh, it's so hard because you're right. I mean,
Usually in any type of camp or even camp out with friends, usually people are pulling pranks. And I mean, go back to the parent trap. I mean, there's pranks all over and when they're at camp and the camp director told Michelle that she knew better than to actually be worried. I mean, come on. She's been coming to this camp for years. She knows that this is what happens here.
But something about we're on a mission to kill three girls just felt like it teetered a little too far over the prank line. It's all fun and games until it isn't. And this threat wasn't feeling very fun and games to Michelle. Either way, Michelle threw away the note, straightened out her tent, sulked over her missing donuts and went about the weekend, getting more and more excited for the upcoming summer weeks at Camp Scott.
So fast forward a month and a half. On June 12th, 1977, the buzz is in the air. It is the official first day of summer Girl Scout camp at Camp Scott in Oklahoma. 140 Girl Scouts were to spend two weeks at the camp.
That morning, the girls first arrived at the Girl Scout headquarters in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where they then boarded buses to Camp Scott, which, like I said, was owned and operated by the Girl Scouts. Michelle Hoffman, the same aide who had been there over a month ago and found the note in her empty donut box, was now watching as excited and giddy girls began boarding the buses for camp.
She immediately, though, noticed one girl, Denise Milner, one of the only African-American girls attending the Girl Scout camp in 1977. Denise looked nervous and upset because this was her first time leaving family and going away to camp for two weeks.
Michelle immediately introduced herself to Denise's mother and then sat with Denise on the bus, reassuring her the whole way how fun the next two weeks were going to be, all of the activities and friends she was going to make. Once the buses arrived at Camp Scott, Michelle helped Denise carry her stuff and find her tent.
And luckily, Michelle told Denise that she was actually assigned to one of her favorite tents ever because it was one of the closest to the bathrooms and the kitchen. If you were to look at pictures of the camp tents at Camp Scott, they almost actually look like cabins, but really they're just tents on wooden platforms. There's four cots, no lights, and a tent-like flap that serves as the door. There was no barrier, no lock. It was just like a normal tent.
When 10-year-old Denise got to her tent, she met two other girls, 9-year-old Michelle Heather Goose, who is different than Michelle, the camp counselor, and then 8-year-old Lori Lee Farmer, who would be bunking with her. There was another girl, 10-year-old Angela Sweet, whose own troop had actually overbooked, and so she was moved into their tent because they only had three girls.
but almost just as soon as angela moved her stuff in to the fourth cot and started getting to know michelle laurie and denise the camp director came back and informed angela never mind your troop has actually figured out how to squeeze you in and so she wouldn't be in their tent anymore so it went back to just being michelle laurie and denise
Michelle, Lori, and Denise were assigned to tent number eight in the Kiowa unit, also referred to as Kiowa Camp or Kiowa Sub Camp. This was basically just an area inside Camp Scott. Each area was separated like this to keep things organized.
The Kiowa unit was one of the most remote areas of the entire Camp Scott property. And tent number eight was the most remote tent as it sat on the edge of the semicircle of eight tents in Kiowa. And remember how I said it was closest to the kitchen and the bathrooms? That's because the kitchen and the bathrooms kind of sat in between their tent and the rest of the tents. So it was definitely like pushed back into the woods, secluded near those buildings, but not near any of the other tents really.
And not only was it the furthest from the counselor's tent, tent number one, it sat approximately 80 yards away. It was also out of sight of the counselors as well because it was blocked by the camp shower building that sat directly in the line site between tent one and tent eight. Okay. So how many girls did you say roughly are there? 140. 140. Okay. So not...
It's not like a huge camp. There's a decent amount of girls, but right and just in their little kiowa unit is um, Like 25 25 girls. Okay. Got it So michelle the camper laurie and denise did not know each other prior to that day But they became friends immediately They were all three excited for the upcoming two weeks and they just were like we're sharing a tent together This is going to be so fun. They clicked and they're so young 89 is so young so young
Three counselors were assigned to the Kiowa unit: 18-year-old Carla, 18-year-old Susan, and 20-year-old Dee.
Now, these three were obviously barely adults, but they were responsible for the 27 young campers that were in the Kiowa unit. At around 6 p.m. that night, the first night of camp, a thunderstorm hit Camp Scott pretty immediately. It came on so fast that it sent all of the campers scrambling to their respective tents for the night.
And in their own tent, eight, Michelle, Lori, and Denise decided that they would spend the night writing letters to home and maybe playing some cards together before bedtime. They had spent the whole day just like getting situated, getting to know their little camp, and then now they're in their tent. Camp counselor Carla actually noted upon first observation that although Michelle, Lori, and Denise seem to be super shy and quiet as individuals, they actually...
you know, came together and their tent ended up being just as loud before bed as all of the other tents. So she was happy because it seemed like they were having just as much fun. Around 7.45 p.m., Lori Farmer wrote her family a letter that evening that said,
Dear mom and dad and Misty and Joe and Chad and Kathy. We're just getting ready to go to bed. It's 745. We're at the beginning of the storm and having a lot of fun. I've met two new friends, Michelle and Denise. I'm sharing a tent with them. It started raining on the way back from dinner. We're sleeping on cots. I couldn't wait to write you. We're all writing letters now because there's hardly anything else to do. With love, Lori.
After writing the letters, the girls played cards and had story time before bed. As they climbed into their sleeping bags, Denise began to grow homesick and upset and asked her counselors if maybe she could call her mom before going to sleep. Okay. But instead...
Oh my gosh. Shut up.
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At some point in the night, the first night's sleep at Camp Scott, reportedly around 10 p.m., a counselor from a different unit near the Kiowa unit noticed a faint light coming from the woods. She got up to investigate and saw that it was moving towards Kiowa unit.
The counselor assumed that it was just another counselor out there using a flashlight and decided to go back to bed. While this was happening, D. Elder back at Kiowa decided to make a tent check around 10 p.m. to make sure that all tents were lights out and sleeping.
She found everyone to be okay. Around midnight, Carla heard giggling coming from outside and discovered some escaped campers laughing together in the toilet building. She escorted them back to their tent and told them, okay, you can't leave your tent anymore. These are the rules. It's lights out. It's time to go to sleep.
Imagine, you know, I imagine that on the first night of camp, girls are still giddy and excited and it's hard to sleep like they all just want to play. You know what I mean? So this would probably be one of the longest nights for every counselor as they had to keep explaining the rules saying, no, you can't leave your tent. Make sure they're being followed and check in on everyone.
Around 1.30 a.m., in the pitch black and between the sounds of crickets and the storm, Carla again heard giggling. She got out of her tent, made her way to tent six to tell the girls in there who were up still talking to go to sleep. At that same time, though, she heard a strange low noise coming from behind the tents.
And she alertedly shined her light out into the woods, but couldn't find the source of the noise, which she claims she continued to then hear throughout the remainder of the night. And it was kind of like,
a guttural noise, like just like a really low grumbling from inside the, you know, the gut coming out the throat type. That's weird. Right. So, you know, I'm imagining her telling these girls to be quiet and then hearing this noise and shining her light into the woods. And if that isn't straight out of a horror movie, I don't know.
know what it is because they're in the middle of the forest basically at you know it's scary a little while later another counselor in tent one heard strange noises in the middle of the night claiming that it didn't sound human but it also didn't sound like an animal she actually got up to investigate the noises but then they suddenly stopped when she got out of her tent so she just went back to bed
Again, around 1.30 a.m., multiple people reported hearing these moaning, guttural sounds coming from around the area of Tent 8. And those same noises from the woods kind of also behind Tent 1 and 2. So it's not just in one place. Around 2 a.m., a camper in Tent 7, so a little girl, suddenly woke up when someone with a flashlight opened the flaps to their tent.
but then the person just quickly walked away. So thinking it was a counselor, the little girl went back to sleep. Around 3:00 AM, a camper woke up to a scream coming from the general vicinity of tent eight and someone else woke up to someone crying out for their mom in the middle of the night. But as a little girl, hearing another little girl on the first night of camp feeling homesick or scared in the middle of the night and calling out for their mom doesn't seem that strange.
you know, they all are thinking, well, a counselor will, will surely go comfort her and it'll be over. But despite all of this commotion and all these times that people keep waking up in the middle of the first night at Camp Scott, most people stayed in their tents. Even counselors shine their lights in the general directions. But who,
in their right mind is going to walk into the middle of the woods in the middle of the night in pitch black to follow these guttural noises. You know what I mean? It's just really scary, especially if you have nothing to defend yourself against an animal or whatever it is that are out in the woods. Around 6 a.m. the next morning, Kiowa counselor Carla decided to get up early and take a shower before any of her campers got up.
But as she was walking to the showers, something caught her eye under a tree nearby. Something that shouldn't be there. One of the campers sleeping bags laid off the side of the trail. Now confused, Carla made her way over to pick up the sleeping bag. She's thinking, have these girls really ditched their sleeping bags in the middle of the night? Like, why? Why couldn't they just stay in their tents? She's like, oh, this is what being a counselor is.
But as she looked closer, she jumped back as she discovered Denise from tent eight was laying inside of the bag. She wasn't sleeping. She wasn't awake. She was dead face up and naked from the waist down. Holy crap. Okay. I'm just trying to wrap my mind around like what what is going on and what could have happened. That's what I mean. Like what what like what is happening right now? Right. Right.
So Carla panicked. She ran back the way she came to wake up her fellow counselors to check on the rest of the campers and the tents. Carla ran to the nurse's station so she could get the nurse to go check Denise's body for life, while Carla then made her way to inform Barbara Day, who was the camp director.
The other counselors came back from checking all of the tents and informed Carla and everyone else that all of the campers in the tents were accounted for except for one. Not just Denise, but all three little campers from tent eight were missing. All three sleeping bags were gone. And there was more. When the counselors opened tent eight to try to check on the girls, they found blood all over the empty tent. Wow.
The girls are missing. I don't understand how you don't hear that. Right. I mean, I get the noise. You were talking about the noises that the camp counselor heard or they heard. But...
That just seems like three girls. How do you not hear what's going on? Well, and how does one or two not scream loud enough? You know what I mean? It's not like it's just one victim. Yeah, I'm surprised no one heard anything. So at this point, Barbara Day's husband, Richard Day, made his way to Kiowa after hearing the news. And he began following the trail where Denise's body was found. And
And it wasn't long before he noticed two other sleeping bags close by, both zipped up. Also, that as well. Like they weren't found in their tent. Yes, they were found outside in their sleeping bags. On like a trail that people would be walking in the morning to get to the showers. He discovered that one of the sleeping bags was Lori's and one was Michelle's, the missing campers from tent eight.
They were both dead and dragged outside of their tent in their sleeping bags as well. The horrible truth was that all three girls occupying tent eight that night had been sexually assaulted and murdered sometime during the night of June 12th to June 13th. While almost 30 other girls and three adults slept nearby. So like Garrett just said, how does this happen? And everyone at camp is like,
Oh my gosh, it's the real life boogeyman. Like it's the stories we tell around the campfire at night come true. I mean, I assume after this, everyone just goes home, correct? Yes. So Richard Day actually used another sleeping bag to cover Denise's lower half.
while Barbara Day called Highway Patrol Officer Harold Berry to report the murders. Law enforcement arrived to Camp Scott by 7.30 a.m. on June 13, 1977. By 8 a.m., Sheriff Pete Weaver had requested help from the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, giving the magnitude of what had just happened at Camp Scott.
It was clear to investigators right away that at least one of the girls had surely been attacked inside of tent eight because the blood that was found pooled and splattered inside of the tent kind of they were like, okay, something bad happened in here. Which is so weird. I'm surprised you could keep all three girls quiet like we just talked about. Right.
And the blood was all over the floor, the mattresses, the pillows, the cots. It appeared that someone had tried to wipe up some of the blood actually using mattress covers and towels. Also, I know there's going to be a lot more to it, but horrible that the families were just sending their girls to
to summer camp and then this happens. It's disgusting. It's horrible. I am glad that you pointed that out because I pointed out at the end of the story, but it is something that you have to think about that, you know, and I do think this happens more often than not where you're trusting these people to take care of your kids. It's supposed to be a really positive experience. And this is what happens. I mean, it's not their fault, obviously. Right. It was reported that Michelle and Denise had been tied up
They were found with cords around their bodies and tied to their wrists. Denise had a rope and a towel knotted around her throat and Lori and Michelle's mouths had been sealed with black electrical tape. What in the world? When you're saying, well, how are they not screaming? I don't know how long they had before there was tape over their mouth. At some point, whoever did this made it hard for them to scream. Also, a red flashlight was found on top of one of the girls' bodies.
In addition to the red flashlight, which had a partial fingerprint on it, police found nylon rope, duct tape, and a crowbar at the scene. The flashlight had been altered in a couple of ways. Tape had been placed over the light portion of the flashlight with a small pinhole in the plastic, which significantly dimmed the light. Also, a newspaper was found jammed inside, apparently to keep the batteries from making any rattling noises.
Police quickly determined that the red flashlight with the partial fingerprint was obviously brought to the crime scene and used by the killer. They were like, this wasn't here. This is something that the killer had brought here and left here. The New York Times reported that police were not releasing details about their investigation, but also noted that it was widely reported that a large bloody footprint had been discovered on the floor of the tent. Police also discovered, and that is footprint, not shoe print.
Oh, like a bare foot. Yes. Well, that took me a second to kind of get that. And just the reality of what that, that's really weird and strange and creepy. That's extremely weird. Police also discovered that a 110 acre ranch property next to Camp Scott and that was owned by a man named Jack Shroff had actually been vandalized either before or after the murders. Various items had been stolen from the home, including food, tape, beer, and a rope.
The rope missing from Jack Shroff's ranch home was similar to the rope found near the bodies. So this led police to believe that whoever had murdered these three girls had also camped at the nearby home before or after it was empty at this time. So he, whoever had done this had broken in and camped there before or after this had happened. And,
After talking to multiple other campers, police also determined that someone had entered multiple tents at Camp Scott that night.
They figured this out because someone had stolen multiple pairs of prescription eyeglasses from various girls' tents and then placed them in random places throughout the camp. That makes zero sense. Which is so weird. So the same night this happens, someone comes in, takes eyeglasses, and then moves them around the camp, which means someone was entering tents while girls were asleep.
By around 10 a.m., just one day into the two-week summer camp, Camp Scott was entirely evacuated. 140 girls were put on buses without explanation and sent back home to be with their families. Camp Scott was closed for the summer and then closed the next summer.
And to this day, it has never been reopened again. Oh, of course. I mean, how could it? A story like this was not just a legend that would be told around the campfire late at night. Like this was real. This happened. Someone terrorized Camp Scott in the middle of the night, brutally assaulting and murdering three young girls in the process, and then dragged their bodies in their sleeping bags out along a trail to be found the next morning. So brutal.
After clearing the crime scene, the Mayes County Sheriff, Pete Weaver, was assigned to investigate the case. District Attorney Sid Wise was also heavily involved right from the beginning. The bodies of the girls were located about 150 yards away from their tent on the side of a trail. That's pretty far, actually. It is far. That's a football field and a half. Yeah. This trail went along... Wow, you're so smart. Thank you. Thank you. This trail went alongside the Kiowa unit and also led to the camp's back gate.
And although the front and back gate of the camp were locked that night, they were unguarded. So it's possible someone could still come through. In addition, there was no fence around the perimeter of Camp Scott. So basically anyone could make their way in. We already discussed the horrific state that tent eight was left in. But one tragic thing the police quickly realized was that one cot near the right side of the tent had no blood on it.
And this was the cot that Denise was sleeping in. And this led them to terrifyingly realize that Lori and Michelle were most likely killed in the tent near their cots while a traumatized Denise sat there.
in her cot, crying out for her mom, but too scared to try and run away or she was tied up, being forced to watch all of it. And this was probably the cries that campers reported hearing. They believe that Denise was either then carried or forced to walk to the location where her body was found.
And that was why her sleeping bag was unzipped and her body was out of it. Whereas the other girls were zipped up in their sleeping bags and dumped there because they believe that whoever did this killed Denise in the woods and not in the tent. Autopsies were performed on the three bodies and Michelle and Lori were determined to have died from blunt force trauma to the head. And so this led police to think that was that crowbar that was found. Is that what was used to cause this?
Denise had also suffered a massive blow to the head, but her cause of death was strangulation. Okay. Like whoever did this killed two the same and then one differently. And I'm not going to go into detail here, but trigger warning, we are going to be talking about sexual assault. All three girls had been sexually assaulted in different ways.
And some of these ways are inconsistent across coroner reports versus police reports versus media reports. So it's kind of confusing. We don't really know. We can't clarify what happened to who. It was reported that hair and semen was found on the bodies and in the tent. By June 16th, 1977, Sheriff Weaver claimed to have found the murder weapon, but DA Sid Wise denied this. Now, most people believe that...
a weaver was referring to the crowbar and we don't know why the da was like no no we actually haven't found it yet on june 17th 1977 funeral services were held for michelle by her family and her family had to be informed that after what you talked about after sending their daughter to girl scout camp for the summer this is what had happened and my heart just breaks for them
Because of everything they had found at the scene and the evidence that the killer had, you know, crashed at a nearby house, police soon believed that the killer was most likely transient. This is because they crashed at the house and also the bare footprint. Just kind of everything that happened, they believe that whoever had done this was a physically agile man who had been able to strangle Denise, kill the other girls with blows to the head, and then carry the bodies more than 100 yards away from their tent.
One idea that police leaned pretty heavily into was these caves that were near Camp Scott. They believe that whoever had done this could have possibly hid out or still be hiding out in these caves. And so thus began a massive and intense manhunt. And what can I say? The police were spot on. You are not going to believe this. Police dogs located in one of the caves two miles from Camp Scott where they found evidence linked to the murders.
a flashlight battery, a newspaper from the same edition that was found stuffed into the red flashlight, eyeglasses that were stolen from Camp Scott, duct tape that matched the kind that was used on the girls' bodies, and two photos of women. So he was, was he living there or just stayed there? They feel like whoever it was had stayed there for a long extended period of time. Okay.
But I think the strangest and the eeriest thing about this cave was not all of this. And despite how uncomfortable it makes me that someone was hiding out in these caves and then snuck into a Girl Scout summer camp, tiptoed into tents and stole a bunch of glasses, only to then go animalistic on tent eight and brutally attack and murder three young girls. It's the last thing that they found in the cave that makes me go, wait, what?
Additionally, on the wall of a nearby cave was written, the killer was here. Bye bye fools. With the date, June 17th, 1977. What? Right. So do you remember the note that Michelle, the aide had found in her tent? It was like kill, kill, kill. Signed the killer. Oh, it was signed the killer. And it said the killer is looking for three girls to kill.
And now with all of this evidence from the murder and a note from around that time written on this cave wall that's referring to themselves as the killer again. So all of this makes you feel like whoever had done this had been hiding in these camps since June, preparing this camp for the fact that they were going to come do this. And then the first night of camp, they came and did it. Yeah. I still think it's weird that he was barefoot. Right. Yeah.
I almost wonder if, and I don't know, I'm sure you're going to get into it, but my guess, educated guess right now is it's someone who's like not very educated. Um, someone who, uh,
Like you said, probably homeless, doesn't have a head, not living anywhere. Right. I don't know. Just it's weird. And I also think, you know, thinking of that it's a bare footprint. There's also a chance that whoever had done this had just taken off their shoes. Yes. You know, it's not, it doesn't necessarily mean that someone's roaming around the woods with no shoes on, but it is a scary thought. And I think the reason I say not educated is just because of the notes and the things he has written. Right. Um,
I don't know. It just sounds weird. It almost sounds like it's coming from someone not in the right state of mind. Yeah, someone who's crazy. Right. I mean, the easiest way to put it. Right, right. Okay, so now that we've talked about all of this, remember the photos of the women that they found in the cave? I said that they found two photos of women. So who are they and what do they have to do with these Girl Scouts? Well, nothing really other than the fact that these photos gave police a major lead.
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.com code husband cbdistillery.com code husband according to sheriff weaver the second he saw those photos in the cave he knew that he had one person one man who was the killer
And it's unsure how he knew it, but Sheriff Weaver said that the photos in the cave were developed by a man named Gene Leroy Hart while he was serving time in prison. The worst part? Gene Leroy Hart had never been released from prison.
He had escaped from prison back on September 16th, 1973, while serving a 300-year sentence. And he had never been caught still to that day at that exact minute. Oh my gosh, that's insane. Gene Leroy Hart was born in Oklahoma on November 27th, 1943. That would make him 33 at the time of the Girl Scout murders.
Gene Leroy Hart was raised by his mother and reportedly did not have much of a relationship with his father. Gene was known for his athletic abilities and had actually been a pretty talented football player in high school.
According to GirlScoutMurders.com, Gene grew up a mile away from Camp Scott, was married shortly after graduating high school, and had a son with his wife. They divorced a few years later. In June of 1966, Gene reportedly worked in Tulsa at Flint Still.
But one day, instead of going to work, Gene actually kidnapped two pregnant women from a parking lot outside a Tulsa nightclub and drove them someplace remote in Mayes County. He brutally raped and sodomized the two women, both of whom survived the ordeal. Gene then forced the women to ride in the trunk of his car and would take one or both of them out of the trunk to be inside with him in the car. He tied them up, raped them repeatedly, covered them in brush, and left them for dead.
Now, here's a weird part. Both of those women wore eyeglasses and Gene tried on their eyeglasses during the kidnapping to test out their prescription. And he told them that he needed glasses himself, but wasn't going to go buy them, didn't want to go get a test. So he was just going to take one of theirs if they worked. Now, remember all of the eyeglasses that were taken? Yeah.
Gene was later caught for these vicious attacks and charged with rape and kidnapping. He confessed and was sentenced to three 10-year terms. However, these terms were served concurrently, and as a result, Gene served only 28 months before being released out on parole.
Jean then began committing home burglaries. Apparently, he committed four burglaries before this new crime spree was detected. The first three were not reported, but the fourth burglary happened to be at the home of one of the only female Tulsa police officers on the force.
Police arrived quickly and Gene was arrested. He was convicted of the four burglaries and because he was already on parole for rape and kidnapping at the time of his arrest, he was sentenced to four consecutive 90-year sentences. Okay, got it. Now, I know this seems like a lot for burglaries, but I think...
For what seems like the first time in all the cases we've talked about, they went, oh, he's a reoffender. He's going to reoffend. We're just going to give him a lengthy sentence. In early 1973, while serving time for the burglaries, Gene Leroy Hart escaped from Mayes County Jail but was quickly apprehended by the police.
And almost just as soon as he was caught and put back in, he escaped again. And despite the manhunt, he was never found. That put him still on the loose at the time of the Girl Scout murders in 1977, where multiple victims were taken, eyeglasses were taken, and the murderer was living hidden in caves and in the woods in the Mayes County area, which would make sense for an escaped convict. I just can't believe that he escaped prison. Twice. Twice. Twice.
Yeah, I can't believe it. I looked up to try to figure out how, like how he was able to do this, and I couldn't find details anywhere. I wonder if they like hid them because they didn't want anyone else to know. It's a high chance because it was a county jail that he was escaping from. Twice. Yeah. At this point, police led by Sheriff Weaver searched for Gene for 10 months. I mean, this was a small town, small enough that Gene was able to escape twice. And now they believe that he has just brutally murdered three young girls.
The 10-month search for Gene Leroy Hart was the largest and longest manhunt in Oklahoma history up to that date. Police eventually find and apprehend Gene where he was hiding out in a cabin around 45 miles away from Camp Scott. So they find him. Police had actually had the assistance of 40 FBI agents and spent over $1 million on the manhunt.
They also may have received a tip from an informant about Gene's whereabouts, which is how they were able to find him. Gene was taken to the Oklahoma State Penitentiary and charged with three counts of first-degree murder. And although Gene had already served time for basically attempting to murder two women, because he had grown up in the area, he actually had many people who supported him and didn't believe that he was capable of this. That makes no sense. He was kind of described as like...
the hometown, really small town, hometown football hero. And people were like, we just don't think he could have murdered these three girls.
After he escaped prison twice. For kidnapping and attempting to murder two pregnant women. Come on. I don't get it, but this is like kind of the history of it. And so he decided not to seek a change in venue for his trial because he was like, these people like me. In March of 1979, the courtroom was packed as the trial of State of Oklahoma versus Jean Leroy Hart began. The prosecution's arguments and evidence were this.
They argued that Jean's glasses he was found with had been stolen from the Girl Scout camp, which like just 100% concretely linked him to the camp. He had been at the camp the night that those girls were murdered. They also argued that Jean's hair resembled hair found on duct tape in 10-8 was
The prosecution's first two witnesses were camp counselors who described the events that night. The main challenge, though, for the prosecution in pre-DNA testing was in establishing a solid enough connection beyond a reasonable doubt between Gene and the physical evidence found. Wait, why aren't they, like, what's up with this DNA testing? Why isn't this? It's the 70s. They don't test DNA.
they collected DNA. They found DNA, but they have so much DNA. It's just, this should be an open and shut. They have no way to test the DNA in the seventies. Like no way. Or it's just super slow. It's, it's not, um, a hundred percent. They can test it to like, well, there's a 60% chance the DNA belongs to him, but there's no way they can a hundred percent say for certain that it belongs to him. How do you even prove people guilty? That would be so hard. So hard.
So Dr. John from Cornell University Medical Center testified for the prosecution that the sperm found at the crime scene was linked to Jean. According to an article in Oxygen.com, physical evidence was used against Jean in the murder trial, including the sperm that showed only 0.002% of the population met the unique characteristics contained in that evidence. And Jean did. Wow.
So basically they say we don't have the ability to see if the DNA is for sure his. That doesn't exist. But we can tell you that only 0.002% of the male population with sperm have this specific type of sperm and he does. So that's the physical evidence they bring forward. But Gene's defense team combated this by insisting that the evidence had been planted because of the personal vendetta the city already had against him for escaping prison. How do you plant sperm?
Right. That's so stupid. I think they just said overall, all of the evidence was planted and there is a history like Sheriff Weaver did have a history with Jean. So they're like, they, they prove this in court. They're like, listen, these, this city does not, these cops do not like him because of everything he's done.
The defense also brought forth a different suspect to plant reasonable doubt, a man named William A. Stevens, who was already serving time for rape and kidnapping at the time of the trial.
The defense called forward a witness who testified that she'd seen William at her diner the morning after the Girl Scout murders. She claimed he was nervous, he was acting strange, and the diner was only 12 miles away from Camp Scott. She claimed that he drove up and changed his shirt in the parking lot and kept looking at his hands and putting them in his pockets at the diner. In fact, he was acting so strange that she had actually called the police.
but William left before they arrived. Another witness came forward and claimed that she had given the red flashlight found at the murders to William back in 1977. She recognized it because of the scratches and the tape on it. She was like, I did that to the flashlight and then I gave it to him and then that flashlight was found at the murders.
This is for a completely different man. This isn't for Jean. This is for William. This witness also claimed that William visited her home the morning after the murders and he had claw marks all over his arms and he had reddish brown stains on his boots.
but the prosecution then changed their case from prosecuting Jean to basically defending William. So instead of now trying to say, here's why we think Jean did this, the prosecution tries to refute these claims by saying, here's why we think William didn't do it. Well,
Oh, I'm kind of confused now. Yes, I felt the same when I heard that evidence. I was like, well, why would two witnesses come forward? But keep in mind, the only evidence they have is two witnesses who are linking William to the scene. But for Gene, they have they have physical evidence somewhat linking him to the scene. And apparently people like this guy in the hometown. Right, right.
And again, they tested the sperm samples and those did not match William. He was not part of the 0.002%. They were closer to matching genes. You think they both could have been involved? There's a chance. There's a chance they're working together. But they also said that the hair found at the scene did not match William's and was the same color as Jean's.
William testified and claimed that he was working in Seminole when the girls were murdered and his employer and time card confirmed that. In fact, one of the witnesses who actually testified for Jean at trial and against William would go on to later be charged with perjury.
would get off the charge. So one of these witnesses that came forward, yeah, the charges got dropped, but there was enough evidence to take it that far. After seven hours of deliberation, the jury came back with a not guilty verdict. Get out of here. The courtroom applauded as this was announced.
Their hometown football star had been acquitted of these Girl Scout murders. What? I mean, he's going back to jail, though, in general, correct? Yes. Yes. Okay, good. So according to GirlScoutMurders.com, Sherry Farmer, who is Lori's mother, reported that the judge told the families of the victims...
That quote, sometimes in our system of justice, even the guilty are permitted to go free. So even the judge was like, oh, he's 100 percent guilty and I'm sorry that he got off. And I do want to point out here real quick that Gene Leroy Hart was a Cherokee Native American. And there was obviously a degree of mutual distrust between law enforcement and Native Americans while he was a fugitive.
The cops claimed that he was putting curses on their dogs. So there was already definitely some, you know, racial overtones happening. And I just want to point this out. That's why I think that this is so complicated and why maybe this ended up going this way.
So Gene Leroy Hart is not guilty, but he still goes back to prison as an escaped convict. He has a 300-year sentence still, remember? But only two months after being found not guilty, Gene Leroy Hart dies in prison of a heart attack. Wow. Yeah. According to an article on Oxygen.com, in 1989, the state tested DNA from a semen stain found on a pillowcase in Michelle's sleeping bag.
but they were unable at that point still to get more than a partial match. It did not exclude Jean as the contributor though. It's unclear if a fuller DNA profile was developed from that or another sample more recently. So as the time went on, this is basically just saying that they kept trying to test the DNA. They kept trying, even though Jean was dead,
They just wanted to make for sure that it was him, that they didn't need to keep working this case. But now the reason that I decided in the first place to even cover this case this week is
is because I don't know if any of you saw, but the DNA in this case that has kind of lived infamously in the true crime world is like everyone thinks it's him, but there was never a for sure solid connection. That DNA was just retested in 2019. And we all knew that, but we never heard anything.
but those results were just released on May 5th, 2022. - Oh my gosh. - The 2019 testing for this DNA in this case cost $30,000 and the citizens of Mayes County raised all the money for it. They were like, we want this DNA tested. And this is what it said. While officially inconclusive, the DNA results eliminate several other potential suspects that they had, but does not exclude Jean Hart.
So this new sheriff believes that if this DNA testing had been around when the trial happened, Jean Leroy Hart would have most definitely been convicted, but it is still not 100% conclusive. How is it not 100% conclusive? I don't understand. So I'm not sure if this is what happened in this case, but I've heard of cases where
The more you test the DNA, the more you pull from the sample, the more degraded it gets. And they had tried to test it multiple times before 2019. Correct. So I'm assuming that what happened is that the samples are just too small. That they can't get a good enough sample. They can close the gap closer and closer to gene.
but they can't get a concrete sample. You know, I mean, he did die in prison two months later. If you don't believe in karma, then I don't know what that is. Right, right. I, you know, struggled with this because I, you know, I'm always on the fence of, well, is there a possibility it wasn't him? But the eyeglasses he was wearing were from Camp Scott. The two photographs of the women in the cave that even led them to Jean were developed by him when he was in prison. He was an escaped convict for attempting to murder two pregnant women. No, it was...
I mean, I'm no detective or anything, but it was him. It has to be. Most of the true crime community would agree with you that it is 100% him. William Stevens, the other guy who was brought up at trial, was actually stabbed to death in prison in July of 1984 when he was 27 years old. So both the two top suspects in this case have since passed, dying in prison.
Denise Milner was born on February 5th, 1967 in Mayes County, Oklahoma. Denise was known to be a friendly but not outgoing girl. Walter Milner, Denise's father, was a member of the Tulsa Police Department. Denise was a straight-A student who had been admitted to a Tulsa school for exceptionally bright students.
She had sold enough Girl Scout cookies to be able to attend the Girl Scout camp that summer with her friends. Oh, that breaks my heart. However, at the last minute, her friends had backed out and Denise reluctantly set out for camp on her own. She didn't want to say goodbye to her mom or her five-year-old sister and cried on the bus on the way to camp. Denise was buried at the Green Acres Memorial Gardens in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Michelle Guse was born on July 22, 1967 in Ottawa County, Oklahoma.
the daughter of Georgine and Richard Guse. She had a brother, Michael. This was Michelle's second time at Camp Scott, having attended the previous summer. She was known to be shy, but she was an athletic girl who loved taking care of plants. She was buried in Fort Gibson National Cemetery in Fort Gibson, Oklahoma.
Lori Farmer was born on June 18, 1968, in Little Rock, Arkansas, to Sherry and Charles Farmer. Although Lori was the youngest Girl Scout at camp that season, she was known to be quite mature for her age. She was an avid reader and had skipped straight to third grade from first grade.
She was the oldest of five children. Her father, Dr. Charles Farmer, had been the emergency room director at Tulsa St. John Medical Center. This was Lori's first time away at camp. She was buried in Memorial Park Cemetery in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And that is the Girl Scout murders. You know, killing people in general, obviously, I don't understand that.
But I think there's just something about killing, murdering kids, which is just, oh, it's just horrible. I mean, all of it's horrible. But murdering like children, like eight, nine-year-olds, seven, eight, nine-year-olds, they're just horrible.
Another level of evil. Yes. They're just, I mean, they're so innocent at that age, I feel like. Yeah. And I do, you know, I try, I tend to stay away from cases that have children murdered just because it does. It is. It's that next level of evil that's hard to talk about. Like it's, it's hard. It's hard for me to sit here and tell this story, these stories. Yeah.
But I feel like we had, you know, this information on these victims and also the story of these three girls just going to camp. And then this happening is so brutal. And I want to spend today honoring them and thinking of their families and
And remembering them that these three were bright, exceptionally bright young girls who had the worst thing ever happen to them. Yeah. Okay, you guys. So that is our episode for this week. And we will see you guys next week for a bonus Patreon episode and also just another regular episode. I love it. I hate it. Goodbye.