December 8, 2025 • 37 mins
On a Tuesday morning in late November of 1981, a newlywed met up with a man she thought was purchasing her wedding dress from her. She was scraping together any cash she could for a down payment on a house. Little did she know, the man had no intention of buying her dress. Her murder has stuck with the Tulsa community for over four decades, but with DNA advancements there is still hope.
TIPS: https://www.tulsapolice.org/cold-cases
Case suggestions: simplertimecrimepod@gmail.com
IG: @simplertimecrimepod
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Music By Universfield: https://pixabay.com/music/mystery-dramatic-atmosphere-with-piano-and-violin-143149/
https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/2005/10/27/tulsa-man-has-record-of-violence/61918519007/
https://www.kjrh.com/news/local-news/oklahomas-cold-case-files-denise-palmer
https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/1981/11/19/similarity-of-slayings-draws-the-attention-of-tulsa-police/60364788007/
https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/1982/01/06/tulsa-police-check-leads-in-drowning/62898218007/
https://www.tulsapolice.org/cold-cases/pamela-tollett
https://www.tulsapolice.org/es/cold-cases/lisa-henderson
https://www.newspapers.com/article/tulsa-world-wedding-dress-ad/186317803/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/tulsa-world-woman-found-in-bathtub-12/186340645/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/tulsa-world-body-found-in-bathtub-22/186340698/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/tulsa-world-new-home-goals/186355674/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/tulsa-world-police-release-description-o/186375029/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/tulsa-world-suspect-composite/186375199/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/tulsa-world-answers-elusive-in-old-killi/186375575/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/tulsa-world-reenactment-on-ktul/186375924/
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/a-simpler-time-true-crime--6665681/support.
TIPS: https://www.tulsapolice.org/cold-cases
Case suggestions: simplertimecrimepod@gmail.com
IG: @simplertimecrimepod
Youtube: https://youtube.com/@simplertimecrimepod?si=OlCWQ2Ky8qFaof02
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@simplertimecrimep?_t=8s31x9iCrNv&_r=1
Music By Universfield: https://pixabay.com/music/mystery-dramatic-atmosphere-with-piano-and-violin-143149/
https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/2005/10/27/tulsa-man-has-record-of-violence/61918519007/
https://www.kjrh.com/news/local-news/oklahomas-cold-case-files-denise-palmer
https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/1981/11/19/similarity-of-slayings-draws-the-attention-of-tulsa-police/60364788007/
https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/1982/01/06/tulsa-police-check-leads-in-drowning/62898218007/
https://www.tulsapolice.org/cold-cases/pamela-tollett
https://www.tulsapolice.org/es/cold-cases/lisa-henderson
https://www.newspapers.com/article/tulsa-world-wedding-dress-ad/186317803/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/tulsa-world-woman-found-in-bathtub-12/186340645/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/tulsa-world-body-found-in-bathtub-22/186340698/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/tulsa-world-new-home-goals/186355674/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/tulsa-world-police-release-description-o/186375029/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/tulsa-world-suspect-composite/186375199/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/tulsa-world-answers-elusive-in-old-killi/186375575/
https://www.newspapers.com/article/tulsa-world-reenactment-on-ktul/186375924/
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/a-simpler-time-true-crime--6665681/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
On a Tuesday morning in late November of nineteen eighty one,
a newlywed met up with a man she thought was
purchasing her wedding dress from her. She was scraping together
any cash she could for a down payment on a house,
but little did she know the man had no intention
of buying her dress.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Her murder has.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Stuck with the Tulsa community for over four decades, but
with DNA advancements, there is still hope to catch her killer.
I'm your host, Megan, and each week on a Simpler
Time True Crime, I cover older unsolved cases and challenge
the idea that a simpler time means a safer time.
(00:52):
This week, I'm bringing to you the unsolved murder of
Patricia Denise Palmer. On November seventeenth, nineteen eighty one, Patricia
(01:23):
Denise Palmer, who preferred going by Denise, got a phone
call from her mother. Her mother let her know that
she had gotten a response to the ad that Denise
had set up in the paper. You see, Denise was
a newlywed. She had just married her husband, Randy back
in June, and they were trying to come up with
money for a down payment on a house that they
(01:44):
were interested in purchasing. One idea she had to raise
a little extra cash herself was to sell that wedding dress.
There are photos of her in this dress, and honestly,
Denise was just so beautiful and this dress was stunning.
All have pictures on Instagram. A primary way of advertising
(02:04):
something like this back in nineteen eighty one was to
utilize the classified ads section of the newspaper, and so
that's what she did. She posted an ad in the
Tulsa World newspaper classified section and it read ivory wedding
dress with veil and petticoat size six, one hundred and
seventy five dollars, and then it provided a phone number.
(02:29):
Denise was smart about how she went about this. This
was not giving any contact information to herself. Specifically, the
phone number she gave was to her mother's business. That way,
if it was somebody who she didn't want calling her,
they didn't have her phone number forever. And of course
it went through her mother first, so she had people
(02:50):
who were in the loop on this. The ad ran
on Saturday, November fourteenth and Sunday, November fifteenth, and initially
on those two days there weren't any phone calls nor
were there any on Monday the sixteenth, But on Tuesday
morning of the seventeenth, a man contacted the phone number
(03:10):
and spoke to Denise's mother, Pat Carlyle. It was a
man and he said he was interested in going and
meeting up and seeing the dress. This caller in missus
Carlyle arranged a time for the man to meet Denise
at missus Carlyle's home at forty one twenty seven South
Sandusky Avenue in Tulsa, Oklahoma. So again, I don't know
(03:35):
if this was a safety layer for Denise of like,
this person's not going to know where I live, or
if it's just that it was simply was stored at
her mother's house. I know Denise was living at an
apartment at this time, and you know that can be
some of those types of details where mom just takes
care of something like that, I'll store your wedding dress
for you, honey. The neighborhood that this was located in,
(03:56):
it was a working class neighborhood in Tulsa. The houses
were pretty close together, picture little cape CODs and ranches,
and it would definitely give you the impression of a
lot of people being around witnesses, people who could hear
things happening, and that type of setup may have made
Denise feel a little bit insulated and safe. So Pat
(04:17):
carlyle phoned her daughter to let her know of the
meeting time, and Denise was working her retail job that morning,
but she was going to take a short lunch break
to meet the prospective buyer. In addition to the details,
Pat told her daughter one important thing. She said, Denise,
I've got a weird feeling about this caller. Please just
bring someone with you to meet this man. Pat couldn't
(04:41):
be at the house herself that day, as she was
working at her own business that morning. Now, reporting on
the next part varies. Pat recalled years later that Denise
couldn't find anyone available to go with her to the
house that day, so she just decided to meet the
man by herself. Other reportings said that people did offer
to go with her and she declined. Regardless, Denise did
(05:03):
go to meet the potential buyer alone. As I mentioned,
I doubt that Denise was really worried because it was
the middle of the day on a Tuesday, and it.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Was nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
There were plenty of people off to work, but also
neighbors who were stay at home moms or who worked
things like overnights and evening jobs, so there were definitely
people out and around. This was the house she grew
up in and when she was comfortable there, she and
her husband had only recently moved in to an apartment
about a mile away on South Indianapolis av On the
(05:37):
day of this meetup, there were people around, and people
actually witnessed the man arriving and they.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Got a good look at him. Denise had left.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Her workplace a little bit before eleven am, and she
told her colleagues she would be back within the hour.
She wouldn't take long, and so that was that. So
when she didn't come back within that hour, they got
worried because this wasn't like her, and they knew what
she was doing. She was going to meet up about
that wedding dress. So they pretty quickly called her emergency
contact her mother, Pat, and Pat just she already had
(06:11):
had that nervous feeling about this, and now Denise was
acting totally out of character, not returning to work. So
she actually phoned a neighbor and said, can you just
pop over to my house make sure Denise is okay,
make sure my house is okay, and just kind of
do a welfare check. This neighbor agreed and went over
to the home. When the neighbor didn't get a response,
(06:33):
the neighbor went inside the home and that's when they
made a horrible discovery. In the bathroom was Denise. She
was nude, floating in a tubful of water, and she
was clearly dead. That neighbor quickly alerted authorities as well
as delivered the heartbreaking news to Denise's mother. Her gut
(06:57):
had been right, there was something off about that collar,
and now her beautiful daughter, with her whole life ahead
of her, was gone forever. Police jumped into action right
(07:20):
away and began canvassing for witnesses, and they had quite
a bit of success. The neighbors, rightfully afraid, wouldn't be
identified by the press, but multiple people gave the same account.
The man was in his forties or early fifties, between
five foot ten and six foot two, and around one
(07:40):
hundred and seventy five to one hundred and ninety five pounds.
He was white with brownish gray hair that was more
gray than brown. The hair was flat on top and
longer on the sides, and he had no facial hair,
but he had a distinct what would first be described
as a discoloration on the left side of his but
(08:00):
later that would be clarified and described as a birthmark.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
The suspect was well dressed. He was wearing a.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Light colored shirt, a tweed overcoat, dark slacks, and dark
dress shoes. To me, that somewhat signals he either did
have a professional level job or he was coming to
purchase this wedding dress and he didn't want to show
up as all sloppy. He wanted to come across is
put together and really sell himself and sell the part
(08:28):
he was playing. The vehicle driven by the suspect was
dark blue, a four door nineteen seventy four Chevy and
Pala with a license plate from nineteen eighty one or
nineteen eighty two. I think that around that time Oklahoma
had shifted their license plate so they were able to
identify when it came and it had a prefix of
(08:51):
either ZC ZK or his ex It may have had
a black CB antenna, and the vehicle was very clean,
possibly recently repainted, and it had a chrome dealer detail
on the left side of the bottom of.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
The trunk lid.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
To me, that is so much information about a vehicle.
I just in my head, it was driving me crazy.
How could you have all of this information and not
be able to pinpoint who this person was? But police
weren't able to And I can't fault them because you
know that police were likely just pouring through DMV databases
(09:32):
and there's a lot that they've kept close in this case.
Possibly it's that maybe this car was stolen, or it
was a rental car where somebody had used in an alias.
You don't know. I just it's so much detail. But
at the same time, they weren't able to conclusively determine
who it was based on that. Based on reporting in
(09:54):
the Tulsa World newspaper.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
It appears that at least.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
One neighbor saw the suspect on the front porch before
Denise arrived there, like the person was just waiting. Other
neighbors saw him on the porch after Denise had arrived home,
and they saw the suspect on the front porch holding
a wedding dress and talking to Denise. Another neighbor had
a face to face interaction with this man and saw
(10:20):
him up close. They never released a lot of detail
on that. It was just kind of a short blurb
in an article in the Oklahoma which I've linked in
the show notes, But that is definitely where we get
that description of that birthmark, because that person was so
up close and actually had verbal contact with the suspect.
The timeline and the order of events and how this
(10:43):
took place, it's just a bit unclear. We have a
relatively short window that we know that she left work
just before eleven. We know her neighbor found her at
around twelve forty five pm, and that another neighbor reported
hearing a screaming sound at around eleven th This neighbor said, quote,
I was working in the kitchen and I heard this screaming.
(11:06):
I thought it was some children, and I found out
later that it wasn't end quote. Neighbors later recalled seeing
the man at around noon on the front porch by himself,
and that he left after that. A big question, though,
is what order did things happen in He was presumably
(11:26):
there before her.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Did he follow her.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Into the house when she got the dress, like with
the dress already in there? But if he did that,
the attack didn't happen right then because According to the
Tulsa Police Department's cold case website, neighbors saw Denise and
the suspect on the porch between eleven and thirty and noon,
with her, or rather with him, holding the wedding dress.
(11:49):
So the mystery here is how did he get her
into the house? Did he ask her to go get
something out of the house and then he followed her in.
Did he discreetly brandish some sort of weapon and then
forced her into the house. But if that's the case,
why did he do it at that point? Why not
immediately when she first went and got the dress. One
(12:10):
thing I thought of is that it was possible that
the dress was in her possession in her vehicle, But
it just doesn't make a lot of sense because I
think her mom called her at work. Some of these
things we are left to a bit of speculation, and
this truly is I feel one of those the devils
in the detail situations, because it really sets up for
how this took place and how they got into the
(12:33):
home together, because really there's no need to go into
the home to complete that purchase. The autopsy revealed that
once inside the home, the attack that unfolded was violent.
Denise was sexually assaulted and strangled, but her official cause
of death was actually drowning. It's believed that after the attack,
(12:56):
she was forced into the bathtub and strangled while being
held under water. Her body was found nude and floating
in the bathtub. Other aspects of the scene have been
kept pretty quiet, like were there signs of a struggle
in other parts of the house, where did it seem
like the attack first started taking place, where was the
(13:17):
wedding dress left, any of those types of things.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
None of that has.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Ever been released to the public, and as we know,
things like that are pretty common because if they get
a suspect in, they want to be able to guarantee
that they have the right person and that the person
who would know those details is confessing. What we do
know about the scene is that the following was collected
(13:41):
at the time. There was a piece of chewing gum
found in or around the bathtub, There was blood evidence
from the side of the bathtub that was thought to
possibly actually be her killer's blood, and there was semen
collected during the autopsy. But more on the semen later.
Because that ends up not being the home run. We
think it's going to be a composite sketch of the
(14:01):
suspect was released, which I'll have on the Instagram which
you can find at Simpler Time Crime pod. As her
family planned her funeral, they couldn't believe this could happen
to their beautiful daughter. Denise's father, Don Sever told Tulsa
World News quote, she was a practical girl who turned
down a loan from me to try to raise money
(14:23):
on her own end. Quote. The loan, of course, that
he was talking about, was for a house. Denise and
her husband, Randy, had only been married since the summer,
and they found a house that they really wanted. They
needed about one thousand, two hundred and fifty dollars more
for the down payment, and her father recalled that he
(14:43):
offered her the money on the spot to cover it
so that they would have it and they could just
pay him.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Back at their leisure.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
But he said that Denise and her husband they really
wanted to work for it.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
It was kind of a pride thing.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Randy had been working overtime and Denise just thought she
could sell her wedding dress to give them a little
extra boost towards their final goal. And now it had
all been taken from all of them. Denise had graduated
in nineteen eighty from Prior High School. Her parents were
divorced and her father lived in Prior and she would
(15:15):
come every weekend to ride her horse at his cattle ranch.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Her mother, Pat was.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Remarried to a man named Van Carlyle who lived at
the South Sandusky home. Denise had a brother, Jimmy, and
a stepbrother named Kel.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
She was loved by her circle.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Of friends, her family, and her coworkers. With their preliminary
investigation underway, it would take just a couple of days
for police to start making connections to another unsolved murder,
one that had some overlap that was still unsolved from
Tulsa from nineteen seventy nine. In June of nineteen seventy nine,
(16:03):
a seventeen year old high school senior named Lisa Henderson
answered a call for a model in the classified ad
section in Tulsa. She left her house in a flowy
white flowery dress with heels, as well as two garment
bags with outfits for outfit changes. Witnesses reported that she
(16:23):
got into a nineteen seventy six or nineteen seventy seven
Monte Carla with missing hubcaps.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
The driver was described.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
As a very pale, white male roughly in his forties
with thinning, dark hair. After she failed to return home,
her parents reported her missing. Ten days after she went missing,
her body was found in a ditch in rural Oklahoma,
twenty seven miles away. She had been shot set on fire,
(16:53):
and that seemed to be an attempt to conceal evidence.
She was so badly burned she had to be identified
through dental records. Investigators believe Lisa was abducted, sexually assaulted, shot,
and then her body burned after she answered what she
thought was a modeling job advertisement. Both women had similar appearances.
(17:17):
Both cases dealt with classified ads, with Denise placing one
and Lisa responding to one. Both were sexually assaulted with
attempts to cover up evidence, Denise with water and Lisa
with fire. Denise was nineteen and Lisa was seventeen. Both
lived in Tulsa, and the suspect in both cases had
(17:39):
a similarly described appearance. There was nothing directly connecting the
two cases, but it was in the back of their mind.
In nineteen seventy nine, there were two other cases where
women were abducted, sexually assaulted, shot in the head, and
dumped in a secluded area. Twenty four year old son
(17:59):
Travis was abducted on June sixth, nineteen seventy nine, five
days after Lisa responded to the modeling gig. She was
grabbed from the parking lot after returning from her late
night job at a bakery. Earlier, in March of nineteen
seventy nine, thirty one year old Pamela Tolet was abducted
from her apartment complex. She would also be found days later,
(18:22):
sexually assaulted, shot in the head, and dumped in.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
A rural area. And when I say rule.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
I should actually clarify that both son and Pamela their
bodies were found in places that were described as illegal
trash jumps, but not the same ones, different places. Detectives
were intent on solving this case. The original and ongoing
detective Clay Culin. He was said to be haunted by
(18:48):
it and he worked behind the scenes on the case constantly.
By January of nineteen eighty two, two months after the murder,
Clay Cullin said that the detailed description of the suspect had.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Proved a bunch of tips.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
According to reporting in the Oklahoma he said, quote, We've
got about sixty names, and that's a good response. We're
in the process of running checks on them. We're still
running them down end quote. But despite all these really
unique details about the license plate and the birthmark, and
the hair and his clothes and everything like that, the
(19:24):
case slowed down pretty quickly. The fact of the matter is,
as we all know, it's so much harder to solve
stranger cases.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
And at this point, there were no.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Additional cases they could locate besides the ones that I
already mentioned, and even those had enough differences, they weren't
exactly a home run. Because this is nineteen eighty one.
There wasn't the forensic advancements that we have today to
test in tie cases together or rule people out. But
Denis's case got some coverage in the media here and there.
(19:58):
It was featured on the Mari Povid Show, and then
years later, in the late nineteen nineties, a reenactment was
done for a local TV station.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
It then fell back.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Off the radar in the news media for a while,
but all of the locals in Tulsa continued to be
haunted by it because it was just unheard of that
a woman could place an ad in the paper agree
to meet with someone and then be killed by that person.
In the late nineties, one of the cases that was
originally talked about in connection with Denise's it was solved
(20:31):
with forensic advancements DNA from son Travis, and her crime
scene was tied to a convicted felon, a man who
had killed a convenience store clerk and who was serving
a life sentence for that crime. It was actually a
pair of people who were arrested, and they did not
fit the profile of Denise's killer because they were black men.
(20:52):
And of course everybody who saw the man at Denise's
mother's house that day said he was white. Time Denise's
case would come up again would be in two thousand
and five, twenty four years after her murder. In October
of two thousand and five, Paul Eugene Williford was arrested
(21:13):
after he brutally assaulted a seventy five year old woman
on his Tulsa World newspaper route.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
So, yes, you have that correct.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Remember it was the Tulsa World Newspaper that Denise put
her classified ad in. And before we get too far
ahead of ourselves here, he did not work for this newspaper.
Back then he only had for the past few years.
But he was someone who delivered newspapers, and when he
(21:41):
was doing his newspaper route, an attack was interrupted when
the victim's granddaughter arrived. So he was attacking this person,
this elderly woman, and he got interrupted. Once he was
in custody, Williford began confessing to far more than just
that one assault. He told him investigators that he had
actually killed two other elderly women on his route, seventy
(22:05):
five year old Geraldine or Jerry Lawhorn, and she had
been found dead in her bathtub on September twenty eighth,
and then also seventy three year old Donna Joe Staffer.
She had been discovered in similar circumstances just two weeks later.
Both deaths had originally been written off as natural, but
(22:25):
his statements prompted police to exhume Lamhorn, and her autopsy
confirmed that she had been strangled and drowned. Also, if
this is sounding familiar at all, this sounds so similar
to the Salt Lake City, Utah area cases that I
covered earlier on this podcast, when I covered the unsolved
(22:45):
murder of Bertha Hughes.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
And all of the elderly women in.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Her neighborhood, and those deaths were also getting ruled as
natural causes, nothing nefarious involved. And then and they started
putting it together, No, these women are actually all getting murdered.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
So Williford was.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Ultimately convicted of Missus Lawhorne's murder and he was sentenced
to life without parole, and he received an additional life
sentence for her assault. And although he confessed to killing
Missus Staffer, he later recanted that confession and a jury
acquitted him in her case, leaving her death.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Is officially ruled unsolved.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
But you know, investigators have this sense that he did it,
and they're still unsure what his true victim count is.
Something really creepy about Williford was that he claimed to
have planned the attacks.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
He said he would deliberately neglect to throw.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
A newspaper at his targeted home and then he would
wait for them to call for delivery, and then he'd
take the paper to the door himself and he'd force
his way in with the plan to rob and kill them.
So these cases took a high level of planning. And
it did seem that the wedding dress case with Denise,
(24:02):
that that had some planning involved as well, but at
the same time, she only had that classified ad for
a couple of days, and then it was just a
couple of days later that she met up with the person.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
So it's really hard to say.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
It seemed like this man who was doing his paper route,
he was really stalking these women he was seeing. Did
they live alone, would they be easy targets, et cetera.
In two thousand and five, Williford was sixty four years old,
and that would mean that he would have been forty
years old in nineteen eighty one, so that's a little
bit on the younger side, but still within a reasonable range.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
I mean, I.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Definitely sometimes get people's ages wrong. They definitely the witnesses
felt like the suspect was more like late forties, early fifties,
but still with the best tub connection. They questioned him
about Denise's murder, but despite readily confessing to the other attacks,
he vehemently denied any involvement in Denise's murder, and he
(25:00):
even offered to take a polygraph if that happened, or
what the results of it were if it did. There
was never really any more public follow up on that.
By this point, though, You're probably wondering about DNA testing.
The lead detective on this. Originally, years after Clay Colin,
(25:21):
his son Eric told News to Tulsa that his father
was haunted by Denise's case until he died in twenty seventeen,
and it always bothered him that he couldn't solve it.
Eric watched his dad's struggle and he told News Too
that he was trying to carry on in his father's footsteps,
keep the case alive and keep working at it. So
(25:42):
in that same interview with News Too, Eric gave some
information on the physical evidence, and unfortunately it sounds like
it wasn't properly stored over the years. The semen sample
in particular had a mold issue and it had been
discarded completely. So that's disappointing. But you know, at the time,
people knew what they knew, and of course DNA and
(26:06):
evidence and how to store it and best practices that evolves,
and in nineteen eighty one it just wasn't what it
is now. I am certain that if those cold case
detectives back then knew exactly how this was going to
work and how this evidence was going to serve later
and how to best protect it, they would have done
it because they were very committed to solving this case.
(26:27):
And this case does get a lot of flack for
how it was handled in terms of the physical evidence.
And I'm the first one to point out if there
is a really terrible reason why you should kind of
be throwing accusations at police and if they were just
terrible at mishandling it. But in this particular case, I
really do think it was possibly just a sign of
(26:49):
the times and what people knew. But despite the semen
evidence being destroyed, it does sound like there's still that
blood evidence and the chewing gum they value.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
I don't know. Again, not much.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Has been released, so we don't know exactly what's being
worked on, but we do know it still is being
worked on by the cold case unit in Tulsa, and
forensics could hold the answers. To me, it is just
so crazy that there was so much information on the
suspect but they just couldn't nail him down. This suspect
seems calculated, listeners, Perhaps he moved out of this area.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Think about it.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Were there any killers in the state that you live
in that had a birthmark on their cheek or they
fit this description? Because perhaps they were caught and it
was pre DNA collection. We've seen stranger things where police
believe a person who's in prison that their DNA is
on file, only to find out it isn't. So if
you lived in that area, or if you've lived anywhere
(27:47):
in the country and there's someone who fits that description
specifically that birthmark or how he dressed or anything like that,
I think it's worth at least bringing it up.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
It can't hurt.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Because these details it could a family long awaited answers.
Denise's father died in twenty fifteen, but her mother is
still alive, still waiting for that one piece of information
to solve her daughter's case.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
She told News Too.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
In Tulsa that she relies on her face to get
her through and this she is so grateful for the
nineteen years she had with Denise.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
I want to end this.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Episode talking a little bit about this case and how
it translates into how we act today. But first I'll
just say, please contact the Tulsa Police Department Cold Case
Unit if you have any tips or any information. I
will link that link in the show notes and how
to get there. It's a internet link versus a phone number. So,
(28:44):
as I said, I want to wrap up this episode
by offering up some practical tips for the modern day
version of what Denise was doing. Sure, classified ads may
still be technically a thing, but it's not really what
most people use. Mainly people use things like Facebook, Marketplace,
Craigsli and other types of buy nothing or neighborhood groups.
So let's talk about it. So first and foremost is
(29:06):
choosing the safest possible location. Meet, for example, at a
police designated safe exchange zone.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
I don't know if you guys have seen those.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
There's definitely some in my area, but many police departments
now have twenty four to seven camera monitored parking areas
specifically for things like Facebook, Marketplace, Slash, Craigslist meetups, and
all you have to do is search safe exchange zone
and your city and they should come up.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Sorry.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
For whatever reason, saying safe exchange zone is a tongue
twister for me. Try saying it three times fast. I
bet it will be for you too. Also, find places
that are busy public places. If there isn't an official
police zone in your area, first of all, I would
call your local police department and request it, because they
just don't know what they don't know, but it could
be just great for your area to have one. But
(29:56):
if you can't and there isn't one around, go to
someplace like a fast food restaurant, be a cafe, large
grocery store, parking lot, a bank parking lot, because banks
have a lot of cameras, remember, and there's a lot
of people coming and going, or inside a mall near security.
Avoid secluded lots or residential neighborhoods. The next thing is that,
(30:17):
whenever possible, control the conditions of the meetup. For example,
always bring someone with you have another person sitting in
the car. That definitely just creates a deterrence for someone
who might try to be engaging in criminal activity. Schedule
your meetup during daylight.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Sounds simple, but you know it's hard.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Sometimes with schedules you might just be available at night,
but really just stick to daylight. Keep the interaction outside
of your personal space. Do not invite buyers to your home,
especially if you're selling more expensive things like electronics tools
high value items. Not only do you put yourself at risk,
but they get kind of a look at the layout
of your house. They could come back and try to
(30:59):
rob you, or do more. Next is to engage in
communication safely before you ever meet up. Now, this is
something Denise had really tried to do. She used her
mom's workplace phone number. It all went through her mom,
so that was something she really tried to do. In
modern day, use the platform that you're on, like use
Facebook messaging. Don't use your personal phone number.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
It's really common.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
I've sold things on Facebook marketplace. There's scammers and that's
like best case scenarios. It's just a scammer and not
some sort of killer. But they will use your phone
number to scam you. So just don't give out your
phone number, keep your real number private, and keep the
communication flowing. Confirm details before you leave to meetups. Say
things like are you still coming, You'll have the exact cash,
(31:44):
correct your fine, meeting at xyz location at xyz time correct.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
No shows are common.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
This prevents unnecessary travel as well as keeps you safe.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Now, the next piece.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Is protecting yourself during the actual transaction. For cash deals,
count the money and plain sight. And then this is
more from a scam perspective, but don't accept checks venmo
from strangers, zell from strangers, cash app I'll send money
when I get home. These are some core scam tactics,
so just avoid these again. This next piece is more
(32:17):
avoiding scams, but don't let somebody inspect the item in.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Their car alone. Sometimes people will drive away with the
items and not pay you.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
So that's more just like from a don't get ripped
off standpoint and less about your own personal safety. But
back to personal safety, trust your instincts, cancel if something
feels off. Some of the red flags you might encounter
are people trying to change locations last minute, insisting that
you come alone, wanting to meet somewhere isolated, or offering
(32:46):
more money to come.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
To their house.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
And tell somebody where you are going. If you do
have to go somewhere alone, be sure that somebody knows
where you're going. You could even do the thing where
you have somebody your calling somebody and just have them
kind of in the background as you are doing this transaction.
Share the meet up details and make sure you check
in afterward with your designated person. A couple of special
(33:11):
tips for higher valued items. Again, meet inside a police
station lobby. Yes this is allowed, and yes it's common.
I actually talked to a couple of police officer friends
just to confirm only except cash, bring a simple build
checkpen if the price is one hundred dollars or more. Again,
that's just to protect you from getting ripped off. And
(33:33):
if you're selling some sort of electronic device, wipe it beforehand.
Make sure you're signed out of all of accounts. Make
sure they can't get into anything that is identifiable to
you where they could then, you know, do anything that's
kind of aligned with identity theft or.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Things like that.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Absolute one hundred percent red flags that are just do
not go. If this, if they refuse to meet in public,
if they ask for your banking information, if they ask
for any sort of verification codes. I know in this
modern day we are just inundated with multi factor authentication
or MFA codes.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
They should all say.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
I think one of the requirements of MFA codes is
like we will never like, don't share this with anyone.
We're only giving this to you to activate. We'll never
call you and ask for this things like that. I
would avoid shipping items whenever possible.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
I know that's there's just.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Certain platforms you can't avoid, but like whenever possible, that
is one. And if their profile is brand new with
no activity and just this one too if they ask
a lot of personal questions unrelated.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
To this sale.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
This has come up in other episodes that's actually came
up in like my real estate episode and even another
workplace episode recently. Sometimes these are the biggest things, like
you're there for a reason, you're selling something, you're there
for your job, and the person you're talking to is
dead set on asking things like.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Do you work alone?
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Or are you going to be here by yourself? Can
I step over to your house to pick up the item?
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Do you live alone? Will your husband be there? Things
like that.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Those are red flags, and our brains will sometimes tell
us to just ignore them because we're desperate to sell something,
or we think like that could never happen, But it
could and it will, and you gotta be careful. I
know this end of the episode format is a little
bit different than what I typically do, but the release
date of this episode is December eighth, twenty twenty five,
(35:26):
which means people are doing their holiday shopping. It's not
uncommon to do some secondhand goods and thrifting and things
like that and using Facebook marketplace to purchase items that
you plan to gift to people. So this is the
time of year that this goes up in risk exponentially,
so just be safe out there. Listeners, I care about
you and I appreciate you tuning into this episode. But
(35:48):
again going back to the beginning of the episode, if
you have any information about Denise's case or any of
the other cases I mentioned, because the rest of them,
besides the one that I mentioned was solved, the rest
of them are still unsolved, so please contact Tulsa Police
Department Cold Cases with any information. This has been another
(36:11):
episode of a simpler time true crime. If you appreciate
the work I'm doing, please leave a five star review,
share this podcast and your social media, share it with friends,
talk about it. It really helps. Word of mouth is
so helpful. And each week when I get a message
that says I just found your podcast and I'm binging,
it's one of my favorite things. So please share it around.
(36:33):
And also, if you want to support the podcast monetarily,
you can join my Spreaker Supporters Club. I haven't done
a ton unique to it yet, so anybody who has
joined and is supporting, thank you so much, because you're
really just supporting me doing this work, and I know
I haven't offered up a ton of extra things yet,
but that is the plan to do so soon. I
even have cases ready to go. Part of what I
(36:55):
plan to do on there is things like some cases
from back then that are solved but may have taught
us some specific things, some specific items that have really
carried through or impacted laws or change, as well as
just things that are really important in the lessons that
they have taught us, and I have considered possibly doing
some more modern day cases on there as well.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
As always.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Thank you so much for listening and tune in next
Monday for another episode.
On a Tuesday morning in late November of nineteen eighty one,
a newlywed met up with a man she thought was
purchasing her wedding dress from her. She was scraping together
any cash she could for a down payment on a house,
but little did she know the man had no intention
of buying her dress.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Her murder has.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Stuck with the Tulsa community for over four decades, but
with DNA advancements, there is still hope to catch her killer.
I'm your host, Megan, and each week on a Simpler
Time True Crime, I cover older unsolved cases and challenge
the idea that a simpler time means a safer time.
(00:52):
This week, I'm bringing to you the unsolved murder of
Patricia Denise Palmer. On November seventeenth, nineteen eighty one, Patricia
(01:23):
Denise Palmer, who preferred going by Denise, got a phone
call from her mother. Her mother let her know that
she had gotten a response to the ad that Denise
had set up in the paper. You see, Denise was
a newlywed. She had just married her husband, Randy back
in June, and they were trying to come up with
money for a down payment on a house that they
(01:44):
were interested in purchasing. One idea she had to raise
a little extra cash herself was to sell that wedding dress.
There are photos of her in this dress, and honestly,
Denise was just so beautiful and this dress was stunning.
All have pictures on Instagram. A primary way of advertising
(02:04):
something like this back in nineteen eighty one was to
utilize the classified ads section of the newspaper, and so
that's what she did. She posted an ad in the
Tulsa World newspaper classified section and it read ivory wedding
dress with veil and petticoat size six, one hundred and
seventy five dollars, and then it provided a phone number.
(02:29):
Denise was smart about how she went about this. This
was not giving any contact information to herself. Specifically, the
phone number she gave was to her mother's business. That way,
if it was somebody who she didn't want calling her,
they didn't have her phone number forever. And of course
it went through her mother first, so she had people
(02:50):
who were in the loop on this. The ad ran
on Saturday, November fourteenth and Sunday, November fifteenth, and initially
on those two days there weren't any phone calls nor
were there any on Monday the sixteenth, But on Tuesday
morning of the seventeenth, a man contacted the phone number
(03:10):
and spoke to Denise's mother, Pat Carlyle. It was a
man and he said he was interested in going and
meeting up and seeing the dress. This caller in missus
Carlyle arranged a time for the man to meet Denise
at missus Carlyle's home at forty one twenty seven South
Sandusky Avenue in Tulsa, Oklahoma. So again, I don't know
(03:35):
if this was a safety layer for Denise of like,
this person's not going to know where I live, or
if it's just that it was simply was stored at
her mother's house. I know Denise was living at an
apartment at this time, and you know that can be
some of those types of details where mom just takes
care of something like that, I'll store your wedding dress
for you, honey. The neighborhood that this was located in,
(03:56):
it was a working class neighborhood in Tulsa. The houses
were pretty close together, picture little cape CODs and ranches,
and it would definitely give you the impression of a
lot of people being around witnesses, people who could hear
things happening, and that type of setup may have made
Denise feel a little bit insulated and safe. So Pat
(04:17):
carlyle phoned her daughter to let her know of the
meeting time, and Denise was working her retail job that morning,
but she was going to take a short lunch break
to meet the prospective buyer. In addition to the details,
Pat told her daughter one important thing. She said, Denise,
I've got a weird feeling about this caller. Please just
bring someone with you to meet this man. Pat couldn't
(04:41):
be at the house herself that day, as she was
working at her own business that morning. Now, reporting on
the next part varies. Pat recalled years later that Denise
couldn't find anyone available to go with her to the
house that day, so she just decided to meet the
man by herself. Other reportings said that people did offer
to go with her and she declined. Regardless, Denise did
(05:03):
go to meet the potential buyer alone. As I mentioned,
I doubt that Denise was really worried because it was
the middle of the day on a Tuesday, and it.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Was nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
There were plenty of people off to work, but also
neighbors who were stay at home moms or who worked
things like overnights and evening jobs, so there were definitely
people out and around. This was the house she grew
up in and when she was comfortable there, she and
her husband had only recently moved in to an apartment
about a mile away on South Indianapolis av On the
(05:37):
day of this meetup, there were people around, and people
actually witnessed the man arriving and they.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Got a good look at him. Denise had left.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Her workplace a little bit before eleven am, and she
told her colleagues she would be back within the hour.
She wouldn't take long, and so that was that. So
when she didn't come back within that hour, they got
worried because this wasn't like her, and they knew what
she was doing. She was going to meet up about
that wedding dress. So they pretty quickly called her emergency
contact her mother, Pat, and Pat just she already had
(06:11):
had that nervous feeling about this, and now Denise was
acting totally out of character, not returning to work. So
she actually phoned a neighbor and said, can you just
pop over to my house make sure Denise is okay,
make sure my house is okay, and just kind of
do a welfare check. This neighbor agreed and went over
to the home. When the neighbor didn't get a response,
(06:33):
the neighbor went inside the home and that's when they
made a horrible discovery. In the bathroom was Denise. She
was nude, floating in a tubful of water, and she
was clearly dead. That neighbor quickly alerted authorities as well
as delivered the heartbreaking news to Denise's mother. Her gut
(06:57):
had been right, there was something off about that collar,
and now her beautiful daughter, with her whole life ahead
of her, was gone forever. Police jumped into action right
(07:20):
away and began canvassing for witnesses, and they had quite
a bit of success. The neighbors, rightfully afraid, wouldn't be
identified by the press, but multiple people gave the same account.
The man was in his forties or early fifties, between
five foot ten and six foot two, and around one
(07:40):
hundred and seventy five to one hundred and ninety five pounds.
He was white with brownish gray hair that was more
gray than brown. The hair was flat on top and
longer on the sides, and he had no facial hair,
but he had a distinct what would first be described
as a discoloration on the left side of his but
(08:00):
later that would be clarified and described as a birthmark.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
The suspect was well dressed. He was wearing a.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Light colored shirt, a tweed overcoat, dark slacks, and dark
dress shoes. To me, that somewhat signals he either did
have a professional level job or he was coming to
purchase this wedding dress and he didn't want to show
up as all sloppy. He wanted to come across is
put together and really sell himself and sell the part
(08:28):
he was playing. The vehicle driven by the suspect was
dark blue, a four door nineteen seventy four Chevy and
Pala with a license plate from nineteen eighty one or
nineteen eighty two. I think that around that time Oklahoma
had shifted their license plate so they were able to
identify when it came and it had a prefix of
(08:51):
either ZC ZK or his ex It may have had
a black CB antenna, and the vehicle was very clean,
possibly recently repainted, and it had a chrome dealer detail
on the left side of the bottom of.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
The trunk lid.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
To me, that is so much information about a vehicle.
I just in my head, it was driving me crazy.
How could you have all of this information and not
be able to pinpoint who this person was? But police
weren't able to And I can't fault them because you
know that police were likely just pouring through DMV databases
(09:32):
and there's a lot that they've kept close in this case.
Possibly it's that maybe this car was stolen, or it
was a rental car where somebody had used in an alias.
You don't know. I just it's so much detail. But
at the same time, they weren't able to conclusively determine
who it was based on that. Based on reporting in
(09:54):
the Tulsa World newspaper.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
It appears that at least.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
One neighbor saw the suspect on the front porch before
Denise arrived there, like the person was just waiting. Other
neighbors saw him on the porch after Denise had arrived home,
and they saw the suspect on the front porch holding
a wedding dress and talking to Denise. Another neighbor had
a face to face interaction with this man and saw
(10:20):
him up close. They never released a lot of detail
on that. It was just kind of a short blurb
in an article in the Oklahoma which I've linked in
the show notes, But that is definitely where we get
that description of that birthmark, because that person was so
up close and actually had verbal contact with the suspect.
The timeline and the order of events and how this
(10:43):
took place, it's just a bit unclear. We have a
relatively short window that we know that she left work
just before eleven. We know her neighbor found her at
around twelve forty five pm, and that another neighbor reported
hearing a screaming sound at around eleven th This neighbor said, quote,
I was working in the kitchen and I heard this screaming.
(11:06):
I thought it was some children, and I found out
later that it wasn't end quote. Neighbors later recalled seeing
the man at around noon on the front porch by himself,
and that he left after that. A big question, though,
is what order did things happen in He was presumably
(11:26):
there before her.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
Did he follow her.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Into the house when she got the dress, like with
the dress already in there? But if he did that,
the attack didn't happen right then because According to the
Tulsa Police Department's cold case website, neighbors saw Denise and
the suspect on the porch between eleven and thirty and noon,
with her, or rather with him, holding the wedding dress.
(11:49):
So the mystery here is how did he get her
into the house? Did he ask her to go get
something out of the house and then he followed her in.
Did he discreetly brandish some sort of weapon and then
forced her into the house. But if that's the case,
why did he do it at that point? Why not
immediately when she first went and got the dress. One
(12:10):
thing I thought of is that it was possible that
the dress was in her possession in her vehicle, But
it just doesn't make a lot of sense because I
think her mom called her at work. Some of these
things we are left to a bit of speculation, and
this truly is I feel one of those the devils
in the detail situations, because it really sets up for
how this took place and how they got into the
(12:33):
home together, because really there's no need to go into
the home to complete that purchase. The autopsy revealed that
once inside the home, the attack that unfolded was violent.
Denise was sexually assaulted and strangled, but her official cause
of death was actually drowning. It's believed that after the attack,
(12:56):
she was forced into the bathtub and strangled while being
held under water. Her body was found nude and floating
in the bathtub. Other aspects of the scene have been
kept pretty quiet, like were there signs of a struggle
in other parts of the house, where did it seem
like the attack first started taking place, where was the
(13:17):
wedding dress left, any of those types of things.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
None of that has.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Ever been released to the public, and as we know,
things like that are pretty common because if they get
a suspect in, they want to be able to guarantee
that they have the right person and that the person
who would know those details is confessing. What we do
know about the scene is that the following was collected
(13:41):
at the time. There was a piece of chewing gum
found in or around the bathtub, There was blood evidence
from the side of the bathtub that was thought to
possibly actually be her killer's blood, and there was semen
collected during the autopsy. But more on the semen later.
Because that ends up not being the home run. We
think it's going to be a composite sketch of the
(14:01):
suspect was released, which I'll have on the Instagram which
you can find at Simpler Time Crime pod. As her
family planned her funeral, they couldn't believe this could happen
to their beautiful daughter. Denise's father, Don Sever told Tulsa
World News quote, she was a practical girl who turned
down a loan from me to try to raise money
(14:23):
on her own end. Quote. The loan, of course, that
he was talking about, was for a house. Denise and
her husband, Randy, had only been married since the summer,
and they found a house that they really wanted. They
needed about one thousand, two hundred and fifty dollars more
for the down payment, and her father recalled that he
(14:43):
offered her the money on the spot to cover it
so that they would have it and they could just
pay him.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Back at their leisure.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
But he said that Denise and her husband they really
wanted to work for it.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
It was kind of a pride thing.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Randy had been working overtime and Denise just thought she
could sell her wedding dress to give them a little
extra boost towards their final goal. And now it had
all been taken from all of them. Denise had graduated
in nineteen eighty from Prior High School. Her parents were
divorced and her father lived in Prior and she would
(15:15):
come every weekend to ride her horse at his cattle ranch.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Her mother, Pat was.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Remarried to a man named Van Carlyle who lived at
the South Sandusky home. Denise had a brother, Jimmy, and
a stepbrother named Kel.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
She was loved by her circle.
Speaker 1 (15:32):
Of friends, her family, and her coworkers. With their preliminary
investigation underway, it would take just a couple of days
for police to start making connections to another unsolved murder,
one that had some overlap that was still unsolved from
Tulsa from nineteen seventy nine. In June of nineteen seventy nine,
(16:03):
a seventeen year old high school senior named Lisa Henderson
answered a call for a model in the classified ad
section in Tulsa. She left her house in a flowy
white flowery dress with heels, as well as two garment
bags with outfits for outfit changes. Witnesses reported that she
(16:23):
got into a nineteen seventy six or nineteen seventy seven
Monte Carla with missing hubcaps.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
The driver was described.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
As a very pale, white male roughly in his forties
with thinning, dark hair. After she failed to return home,
her parents reported her missing. Ten days after she went missing,
her body was found in a ditch in rural Oklahoma,
twenty seven miles away. She had been shot set on fire,
(16:53):
and that seemed to be an attempt to conceal evidence.
She was so badly burned she had to be identified
through dental records. Investigators believe Lisa was abducted, sexually assaulted, shot,
and then her body burned after she answered what she
thought was a modeling job advertisement. Both women had similar appearances.
(17:17):
Both cases dealt with classified ads, with Denise placing one
and Lisa responding to one. Both were sexually assaulted with
attempts to cover up evidence, Denise with water and Lisa
with fire. Denise was nineteen and Lisa was seventeen. Both
lived in Tulsa, and the suspect in both cases had
(17:39):
a similarly described appearance. There was nothing directly connecting the
two cases, but it was in the back of their mind.
In nineteen seventy nine, there were two other cases where
women were abducted, sexually assaulted, shot in the head, and
dumped in a secluded area. Twenty four year old son
(17:59):
Travis was abducted on June sixth, nineteen seventy nine, five
days after Lisa responded to the modeling gig. She was
grabbed from the parking lot after returning from her late
night job at a bakery. Earlier, in March of nineteen
seventy nine, thirty one year old Pamela Tolet was abducted
from her apartment complex. She would also be found days later,
(18:22):
sexually assaulted, shot in the head, and dumped in.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
A rural area. And when I say rule.
Speaker 1 (18:28):
I should actually clarify that both son and Pamela their
bodies were found in places that were described as illegal
trash jumps, but not the same ones, different places. Detectives
were intent on solving this case. The original and ongoing
detective Clay Culin. He was said to be haunted by
(18:48):
it and he worked behind the scenes on the case constantly.
By January of nineteen eighty two, two months after the murder,
Clay Cullin said that the detailed description of the suspect had.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Proved a bunch of tips.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
According to reporting in the Oklahoma he said, quote, We've
got about sixty names, and that's a good response. We're
in the process of running checks on them. We're still
running them down end quote. But despite all these really
unique details about the license plate and the birthmark, and
the hair and his clothes and everything like that, the
(19:24):
case slowed down pretty quickly. The fact of the matter is,
as we all know, it's so much harder to solve
stranger cases.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
And at this point, there were no.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Additional cases they could locate besides the ones that I
already mentioned, and even those had enough differences, they weren't
exactly a home run. Because this is nineteen eighty one.
There wasn't the forensic advancements that we have today to
test in tie cases together or rule people out. But
Denis's case got some coverage in the media here and there.
(19:58):
It was featured on the Mari Povid Show, and then
years later, in the late nineteen nineties, a reenactment was
done for a local TV station.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
It then fell back.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Off the radar in the news media for a while,
but all of the locals in Tulsa continued to be
haunted by it because it was just unheard of that
a woman could place an ad in the paper agree
to meet with someone and then be killed by that person.
In the late nineties, one of the cases that was
originally talked about in connection with Denise's it was solved
(20:31):
with forensic advancements DNA from son Travis, and her crime
scene was tied to a convicted felon, a man who
had killed a convenience store clerk and who was serving
a life sentence for that crime. It was actually a
pair of people who were arrested, and they did not
fit the profile of Denise's killer because they were black men.
(20:52):
And of course everybody who saw the man at Denise's
mother's house that day said he was white. Time Denise's
case would come up again would be in two thousand
and five, twenty four years after her murder. In October
of two thousand and five, Paul Eugene Williford was arrested
(21:13):
after he brutally assaulted a seventy five year old woman
on his Tulsa World newspaper route.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
So, yes, you have that correct.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Remember it was the Tulsa World Newspaper that Denise put
her classified ad in. And before we get too far
ahead of ourselves here, he did not work for this newspaper.
Back then he only had for the past few years.
But he was someone who delivered newspapers, and when he
(21:41):
was doing his newspaper route, an attack was interrupted when
the victim's granddaughter arrived. So he was attacking this person,
this elderly woman, and he got interrupted. Once he was
in custody, Williford began confessing to far more than just
that one assault. He told him investigators that he had
actually killed two other elderly women on his route, seventy
(22:05):
five year old Geraldine or Jerry Lawhorn, and she had
been found dead in her bathtub on September twenty eighth,
and then also seventy three year old Donna Joe Staffer.
She had been discovered in similar circumstances just two weeks later.
Both deaths had originally been written off as natural, but
(22:25):
his statements prompted police to exhume Lamhorn, and her autopsy
confirmed that she had been strangled and drowned. Also, if
this is sounding familiar at all, this sounds so similar
to the Salt Lake City, Utah area cases that I
covered earlier on this podcast, when I covered the unsolved
(22:45):
murder of Bertha Hughes.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
And all of the elderly women in.
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Her neighborhood, and those deaths were also getting ruled as
natural causes, nothing nefarious involved. And then and they started
putting it together, No, these women are actually all getting murdered.
Speaker 2 (23:05):
So Williford was.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Ultimately convicted of Missus Lawhorne's murder and he was sentenced
to life without parole, and he received an additional life
sentence for her assault. And although he confessed to killing
Missus Staffer, he later recanted that confession and a jury
acquitted him in her case, leaving her death.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Is officially ruled unsolved.
Speaker 1 (23:26):
But you know, investigators have this sense that he did it,
and they're still unsure what his true victim count is.
Something really creepy about Williford was that he claimed to
have planned the attacks.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
He said he would deliberately neglect to throw.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
A newspaper at his targeted home and then he would
wait for them to call for delivery, and then he'd
take the paper to the door himself and he'd force
his way in with the plan to rob and kill them.
So these cases took a high level of planning. And
it did seem that the wedding dress case with Denise,
(24:02):
that that had some planning involved as well, but at
the same time, she only had that classified ad for
a couple of days, and then it was just a
couple of days later that she met up with the person.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
So it's really hard to say.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
It seemed like this man who was doing his paper route,
he was really stalking these women he was seeing. Did
they live alone, would they be easy targets, et cetera.
In two thousand and five, Williford was sixty four years old,
and that would mean that he would have been forty
years old in nineteen eighty one, so that's a little
bit on the younger side, but still within a reasonable range.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
I mean, I.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Definitely sometimes get people's ages wrong. They definitely the witnesses
felt like the suspect was more like late forties, early fifties,
but still with the best tub connection. They questioned him
about Denise's murder, but despite readily confessing to the other attacks,
he vehemently denied any involvement in Denise's murder, and he
(25:00):
even offered to take a polygraph if that happened, or
what the results of it were if it did. There
was never really any more public follow up on that.
By this point, though, You're probably wondering about DNA testing.
The lead detective on this. Originally, years after Clay Colin,
(25:21):
his son Eric told News to Tulsa that his father
was haunted by Denise's case until he died in twenty seventeen,
and it always bothered him that he couldn't solve it.
Eric watched his dad's struggle and he told News Too
that he was trying to carry on in his father's footsteps,
keep the case alive and keep working at it. So
(25:42):
in that same interview with News Too, Eric gave some
information on the physical evidence, and unfortunately it sounds like
it wasn't properly stored over the years. The semen sample
in particular had a mold issue and it had been
discarded completely. So that's disappointing. But you know, at the time,
people knew what they knew, and of course DNA and
(26:06):
evidence and how to store it and best practices that evolves,
and in nineteen eighty one it just wasn't what it
is now. I am certain that if those cold case
detectives back then knew exactly how this was going to
work and how this evidence was going to serve later
and how to best protect it, they would have done
it because they were very committed to solving this case.
(26:27):
And this case does get a lot of flack for
how it was handled in terms of the physical evidence.
And I'm the first one to point out if there
is a really terrible reason why you should kind of
be throwing accusations at police and if they were just
terrible at mishandling it. But in this particular case, I
really do think it was possibly just a sign of
(26:49):
the times and what people knew. But despite the semen
evidence being destroyed, it does sound like there's still that
blood evidence and the chewing gum they value.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
I don't know. Again, not much.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Has been released, so we don't know exactly what's being
worked on, but we do know it still is being
worked on by the cold case unit in Tulsa, and
forensics could hold the answers. To me, it is just
so crazy that there was so much information on the
suspect but they just couldn't nail him down. This suspect
seems calculated, listeners, Perhaps he moved out of this area.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Think about it.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Were there any killers in the state that you live
in that had a birthmark on their cheek or they
fit this description? Because perhaps they were caught and it
was pre DNA collection. We've seen stranger things where police
believe a person who's in prison that their DNA is
on file, only to find out it isn't. So if
you lived in that area, or if you've lived anywhere
(27:47):
in the country and there's someone who fits that description
specifically that birthmark or how he dressed or anything like that,
I think it's worth at least bringing it up.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
It can't hurt.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Because these details it could a family long awaited answers.
Denise's father died in twenty fifteen, but her mother is
still alive, still waiting for that one piece of information
to solve her daughter's case.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
She told News Too.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
In Tulsa that she relies on her face to get
her through and this she is so grateful for the
nineteen years she had with Denise.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
I want to end this.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Episode talking a little bit about this case and how
it translates into how we act today. But first I'll
just say, please contact the Tulsa Police Department Cold Case
Unit if you have any tips or any information. I
will link that link in the show notes and how
to get there. It's a internet link versus a phone number. So,
(28:44):
as I said, I want to wrap up this episode
by offering up some practical tips for the modern day
version of what Denise was doing. Sure, classified ads may
still be technically a thing, but it's not really what
most people use. Mainly people use things like Facebook, Marketplace,
Craigsli and other types of buy nothing or neighborhood groups.
So let's talk about it. So first and foremost is
(29:06):
choosing the safest possible location. Meet, for example, at a
police designated safe exchange zone.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
I don't know if you guys have seen those.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
There's definitely some in my area, but many police departments
now have twenty four to seven camera monitored parking areas
specifically for things like Facebook, Marketplace, Slash, Craigslist meetups, and
all you have to do is search safe exchange zone
and your city and they should come up.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
Sorry.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
For whatever reason, saying safe exchange zone is a tongue
twister for me. Try saying it three times fast. I
bet it will be for you too. Also, find places
that are busy public places. If there isn't an official
police zone in your area, first of all, I would
call your local police department and request it, because they
just don't know what they don't know, but it could
be just great for your area to have one. But
(29:56):
if you can't and there isn't one around, go to
someplace like a fast food restaurant, be a cafe, large
grocery store, parking lot, a bank parking lot, because banks
have a lot of cameras, remember, and there's a lot
of people coming and going, or inside a mall near security.
Avoid secluded lots or residential neighborhoods. The next thing is that,
(30:17):
whenever possible, control the conditions of the meetup. For example,
always bring someone with you have another person sitting in
the car. That definitely just creates a deterrence for someone
who might try to be engaging in criminal activity. Schedule
your meetup during daylight.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Sounds simple, but you know it's hard.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
Sometimes with schedules you might just be available at night,
but really just stick to daylight. Keep the interaction outside
of your personal space. Do not invite buyers to your home,
especially if you're selling more expensive things like electronics tools
high value items. Not only do you put yourself at risk,
but they get kind of a look at the layout
of your house. They could come back and try to
(30:59):
rob you, or do more. Next is to engage in
communication safely before you ever meet up. Now, this is
something Denise had really tried to do. She used her
mom's workplace phone number. It all went through her mom,
so that was something she really tried to do. In
modern day, use the platform that you're on, like use
Facebook messaging. Don't use your personal phone number.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
It's really common.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
I've sold things on Facebook marketplace. There's scammers and that's
like best case scenarios. It's just a scammer and not
some sort of killer. But they will use your phone
number to scam you. So just don't give out your
phone number, keep your real number private, and keep the
communication flowing. Confirm details before you leave to meetups. Say
things like are you still coming, You'll have the exact cash,
(31:44):
correct your fine, meeting at xyz location at xyz time correct.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
No shows are common.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
This prevents unnecessary travel as well as keeps you safe.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Now, the next piece.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Is protecting yourself during the actual transaction. For cash deals,
count the money and plain sight. And then this is
more from a scam perspective, but don't accept checks venmo
from strangers, zell from strangers, cash app I'll send money
when I get home. These are some core scam tactics,
so just avoid these again. This next piece is more
(32:17):
avoiding scams, but don't let somebody inspect the item in.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Their car alone. Sometimes people will drive away with the
items and not pay you.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
So that's more just like from a don't get ripped
off standpoint and less about your own personal safety. But
back to personal safety, trust your instincts, cancel if something
feels off. Some of the red flags you might encounter
are people trying to change locations last minute, insisting that
you come alone, wanting to meet somewhere isolated, or offering
(32:46):
more money to come.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
To their house.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
And tell somebody where you are going. If you do
have to go somewhere alone, be sure that somebody knows
where you're going. You could even do the thing where
you have somebody your calling somebody and just have them
kind of in the background as you are doing this transaction.
Share the meet up details and make sure you check
in afterward with your designated person. A couple of special
(33:11):
tips for higher valued items. Again, meet inside a police
station lobby. Yes this is allowed, and yes it's common.
I actually talked to a couple of police officer friends
just to confirm only except cash, bring a simple build
checkpen if the price is one hundred dollars or more. Again,
that's just to protect you from getting ripped off. And
(33:33):
if you're selling some sort of electronic device, wipe it beforehand.
Make sure you're signed out of all of accounts. Make
sure they can't get into anything that is identifiable to
you where they could then, you know, do anything that's
kind of aligned with identity theft or.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Things like that.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
Absolute one hundred percent red flags that are just do
not go. If this, if they refuse to meet in public,
if they ask for your banking information, if they ask
for any sort of verification codes. I know in this
modern day we are just inundated with multi factor authentication
or MFA codes.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
They should all say.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
I think one of the requirements of MFA codes is
like we will never like, don't share this with anyone.
We're only giving this to you to activate. We'll never
call you and ask for this things like that. I
would avoid shipping items whenever possible.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
I know that's there's just.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Certain platforms you can't avoid, but like whenever possible, that
is one. And if their profile is brand new with
no activity and just this one too if they ask
a lot of personal questions unrelated.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
To this sale.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
This has come up in other episodes that's actually came
up in like my real estate episode and even another
workplace episode recently. Sometimes these are the biggest things, like
you're there for a reason, you're selling something, you're there
for your job, and the person you're talking to is
dead set on asking things like.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
Do you work alone?
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Or are you going to be here by yourself? Can
I step over to your house to pick up the item?
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Do you live alone? Will your husband be there? Things
like that.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Those are red flags, and our brains will sometimes tell
us to just ignore them because we're desperate to sell something,
or we think like that could never happen, But it
could and it will, and you gotta be careful. I
know this end of the episode format is a little
bit different than what I typically do, but the release
date of this episode is December eighth, twenty twenty five,
(35:26):
which means people are doing their holiday shopping. It's not
uncommon to do some secondhand goods and thrifting and things
like that and using Facebook marketplace to purchase items that
you plan to gift to people. So this is the
time of year that this goes up in risk exponentially,
so just be safe out there. Listeners, I care about
you and I appreciate you tuning into this episode. But
(35:48):
again going back to the beginning of the episode, if
you have any information about Denise's case or any of
the other cases I mentioned, because the rest of them,
besides the one that I mentioned was solved, the rest
of them are still unsolved, so please contact Tulsa Police
Department Cold Cases with any information. This has been another
(36:11):
episode of a simpler time true crime. If you appreciate
the work I'm doing, please leave a five star review,
share this podcast and your social media, share it with friends,
talk about it. It really helps. Word of mouth is
so helpful. And each week when I get a message
that says I just found your podcast and I'm binging,
it's one of my favorite things. So please share it around.
(36:33):
And also, if you want to support the podcast monetarily,
you can join my Spreaker Supporters Club. I haven't done
a ton unique to it yet, so anybody who has
joined and is supporting, thank you so much, because you're
really just supporting me doing this work, and I know
I haven't offered up a ton of extra things yet,
but that is the plan to do so soon. I
even have cases ready to go. Part of what I
(36:55):
plan to do on there is things like some cases
from back then that are solved but may have taught
us some specific things, some specific items that have really
carried through or impacted laws or change, as well as
just things that are really important in the lessons that
they have taught us, and I have considered possibly doing
some more modern day cases on there as well.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
As always.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Thank you so much for listening and tune in next
Monday for another episode.
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