October 18, 2022 • 56 mins
He hid in Oklahoma caves and secreted around Camp Scott until the night the Girl Scouts came. Then this cave troll spirited three little girls out of their tents and to their deaths.
Sources:
http://www.girlscoutmurders.com/Complete_Cherokee_Advocate_article.pdf
https://www.ranker.com/list/oklahoma-girl-scout-murders/cat-mcauliffe
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mark (00:01):
Like a demonic Santa Claus troll carried each sack one by
one to the spot he had selectedoutside.
He deposited them quickly andquietly as possible before
returning for the chosen one.
Marcy (00:14):
Welcome to Crime Raven; true crimes, real life stories
from law enforcement and issuescrime fighters face.
This podcast highlights crimesresearched by retired Detective
Sergeant Mark Rein, usingpublicly available information,
court records and personalrecollections.
Content may be graphic,disturbing, or violent.
Listener discretion is advised.
(00:35):
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Mark (01:24):
The troll was very comfortable in this forest,
particularly after sundown.
He felt as if it was his ownreserve, a sanctuary where a few
people ventured.
The woods held his caves, wherehe could bolt if there was
trouble or a sudden storm.
His mother's place was off toone edge.
A convenient excuse for why, athis age, he was haunting those
(01:45):
particular woods, caves andabandoned buildings in the first
place.
It wasn't that troll feltdiscomfort in town or even the
big city.
He'd worked jobs in Tulsa, evenfound victims in Tulsa.
Indeed, he was even attracted tothe excitement, the opportunity
of the city, but the forest ofthe Cookson Hills, a refuge for
(02:07):
his ancestors and bandits alike,was home.
When he left, he felt as if hewas leaving sacred ground.
The trade off was that when heleft, he could find the prey
that he didn't dare touch closerto home.
You don't shit where you eat andyou don't hunt inside your
house.
Recently, Troll had beenrethinking that maxum.
(02:29):
For a few weeks, each year, hisrefuge was invaded by outsiders.
The camp was usually abandoned,but in late May and early June,
the older people startedarriving.
Soon came the young women.
Then later, the girls.
Troll wasn't bothered by thesmall invasion, quite the
opposite.
(02:49):
He was tempted by it.
Troll wandered widely acrosshundreds of acres of forest when
no one was at the camp.
In the weeks the girls werethere, they captured all of his
attention.
He began to sleep during the dayso he could wander around the
buildings at night undetected.
Using the darkness as hisshield, he often crept under
windows so he could hear theirplans.
(03:09):
He became comfortable with theirroutines, even felt affection
for some of the girls, thoughthey'd never had a conversation.
So it was, that troll knew thedifference between the elders
and the camp staff.
The elders stayed in the biglodge, a fair distance away from
the young ones.
The camp staff arrived a fewdays after the elders, in time
for what they called trainingweek.
(03:32):
These were young women, andtroll was drawn to them as they
ate, drank, and talked.
From his nearby caves, heventured forth doing some
scouting of his own.
Moving amongst the women whofelt so safe.
He listened to their bedtimeconversations from the darkness
outside their tents.
Sometimes he would sit behindthe outhouse so he could listen
(03:53):
just on the other side of thethin wooden wall.
He imagined what he would do ifhe had the courage to risk
everything.
He considered taking one, butdecided against it.
A counselor disappearing beforecamp even started, might scare
away the main event, and hecouldn't have that.
What Troll did instead was messthem.
(04:15):
One of the things he couldn'tabide was how comfortable, how
confident these girls were.
With the knowledge gathered overseveral seasons, he knew when
the coast would be clear.
He broke into their buildingsand tents.
He took their food, he fondledand sometimes stole their most
intimate belongings.
When these things did not changetheir behavior, troll wrote them
(04:38):
a note, warning them exactlywhat he planned to do.
He knew these girls, despitetheir carefree confidence, were
powerless to stop him.
But he wanted them to know thathe was there and he was hungry.
It was arrival day of the'77camp season.
Troll didn't often observe indaylight hours, but he was
(05:00):
keeping his distance, the soundsof heavy engines and screeching
brakes echoed through theforest, announcing the arrival
of each load.
The buses disgorged theircontents of happy, screaming,
laughing, playing little girls.
Their noises would echo throughthe woods in the ensuing days.
As day one progressed, apowerful afternoon storm built
(05:21):
quickly, and girls from all thecamp groups, took refuge from
the cloud bursts and lightningin the Great Hall.
Troll temporarily retreated tohis nearest cave.
The excitement of the arrivaloverwhelmed him.
Rain, or no.
Tonight was the night.
As troll waited, theanticipation took him back to
one of his past adventures.
(05:42):
He was working a job in Tulsaand decided to skip his shift
one evening.
Recently he'd been keepinghimself busy with his nighttime
house burglaries, so he isdriving around casing places and
generally looking for anyopportunity that presented
itself.
He cruised slowly through anarea where there were a lot of
entertainment venues, movies,nightclubs, and dance houses.
(06:05):
In one of the large parkinglots, he spotted two women
getting out of a vehicle.
They were alone, and he couldsee no one else among the park
cars.
Troll pulled into the lot, andas he approached the ladies, he
saw they were both young andpregnant.
He was overwhelmed with theimpulse.
He had to have them.
Troll pulled up, jumped out, andbrandishing a pistol popped his
(06:27):
trunk.
He ordered one of the girls inpromising to shoot her in the
belly if she didn't comply.
When the first was secure, heforced the second into the front
seat at gunpoint.
As troll drove away with hiscaptives, his mind raced.
He was off the tracks of anyplan he had ever made.
In his panic, troll drove thetwo women home, not to his
(06:51):
mother's home, his home, hisrefuge, the Cookson Hills.
During the hour long drive, thegirl he had his front seat,
annoyed him with her crying andpleading.
He tried on her eye glasses.
He was always looking for theright prescription.
They didn't work, so he pulledover and swapped girls.
Neither girls' glasses wereworth keeping.
(07:11):
What troll did to those girlswas seared into his memory.
He loved them hard, used theirbodies every way he wanted to
and satisfied his lust for sex,domination, for vengeance.
When he was done, he displayedhis work, tying them both
splayed out naked against thebiggest tree he could find.
He assumed they would die.
It was a declaration and awarning.
(07:35):
The powerful reminiscence thatswept him into the past like a
tide, deposited troll back intothe cave's dark stillness.
The rain had stopped and as hestood in the dam night air, he
could hear sounds of girls onthe move.
Troll gathered his tools into abag and set out.
He moved quickly, confident thatthe wet leaves and the blustery
back end of the storm wouldcover any sound he made.
(07:57):
He arrived a few minutes laterat the wooded edge of Kiowa
camp.
He realized he didn't need toworry about his footfalls
attracting attention.
The girls were boisterous,squealing, laughing, yelling,
and he easily crept into hisfavorite observation spot.
Troll, giddy with anticipation,rehashed his plan.
This was to be the night of hisfantasies.
(08:19):
Helpless little girls deliveredto him by bus from the big city.
Those buses were like giant tincans loaded with treats, ripe
for the taking.
These were the brats ofoutsiders.
No one here would care aboutthem for long.
Besides they owed him.
He was a high school sportsstar.
They may have forgotten, but hehadn't.
All that adulation had to haveafforded him some credit.
(08:41):
He smiled, thinking of thewoodland bears.
It was natural.
If you left a morsel out,unprotected, it wouldn't be
there in the morning.
Troll remained motionless,watching and listening to the
girls and their counselors gothrough the rights of Girl Scout
Camp, reciting, singing andwriting.
They ended their evening aroundthe fire.
(09:01):
Then it was time for bed.
Some of the girls burnt out fromthe first day, plodded
zombie-like to their assignedtents.
Some would be awake for hours,riding high on sugar and new
camp excitement.
The tents were large canvasshelters, raised off the ground
on wooden platforms, largeenough to house four full size
cots and tall enough for a shortadult to stand fully upright in
(09:22):
the peak.
Troll was patient waiting almosttwo hours for the camp to quiet.
There were still occasionaloutbursts, but he knew those
would help cover the noises hewas about to make.
He took a slow circuitous route,ending up at the rear of the
tent furthest away from thecounselors.
It was the one he had warnedthem about in the note.
(09:42):
Shame on them for thinking hewas a joke.
He slid quietly into the back ofthe tent.
The wood platform creaked underthe added weight and in the
darkness he heard one of thegirls shift in her cot.
He paused listening for moremovement, but heard none.
No noise was good news, andtroll's attention was drawn back
(10:03):
to the little girls sleepingaround him.
He discovered that a cot wasvacant.
They were supposed to be four.
Worried, he scanned for anotherlittle girl.
Was one hiding?
Had she slipped out, maybe goingfor help?
Then, even in the darkness,troll could tell the extra bed
was lacking the requisitesleeping bag, pillow, and mound
of belongings that lay besideeach of the others.
(10:25):
Relieved, troll moved furtherinto the tent.
Standing in the middle of thegroup of sleeping girls, he
inspected each in succession.
He had fashioned a filteredflashlight just for this moment,
and now he held that in one handand a crowbar in the other.
He turned the light on eachface, just long enough to make
his decision.
Then troll raised the bar andwith precise, powerful blows
(10:49):
crushed two of the girls'skulls.
The dying girls made no loudalarming sounds, but the metal
bar's impact on bone andsubsequent thrashes and
convulsions in the beds woke thechosen one.
Troll dropped his body ontohers, firmly covering her mouth
with both hands.
(11:09):
As she made alarms, stiflednoises with her throat, troll
hissed into the girl's ear, allthe ways he would hurt her if
she weren't quiet.
After a moment, he felt thetension in her body release.
He told the girl he was gonnatake his hands away and he would
kill her if she made any sound.
She nodded an understanding.
Troll removed his hands, butonly long enough to insert the
(11:32):
gag and loop the cord around thegirl's neck.
He twisted until it was tightenough to make the point.
Non-compliance meantstrangulation.
Troll had a plan, but being herewith the girl caused him to
deviate.
He stripped the girl naked andbegan exploring her body.
After a few minutes, he changedhis mind.
(11:53):
He tied the chosen to her cotwith the warning that he would
be close.
If she moved or made any sound,he would kill her.
She lay in the co motionlessexcept for shuttering as she
cried.
Troll used the sleeping bags thedead girls were in as body bags,
and one at a time, hefted eachover his shoulder.
The girl inside slid down to thebottom.
(12:14):
Like a demonic Santa Claus trollcarried each sack one by one to
the spot he had selectedoutside.
He deposited them quickly andquietly as possible before
returning for the chosen one.
She hadn't moved.
Troll detached her from the cotand using the cord twisted
around her neck as a leash, ledher naked to the spot.
(12:34):
They were at the base of a veryspecial tree.
It was prominent in the camp,but more importantly, it was a
tree that he could see at adistance in the daylight across
a nearby clearing.
Part of Troll's fantasy was thathereafter, he would be able to
look at the tree from adistance, and remember this
night.
It would be a monument to hisrebellion.
(12:56):
Troll tied the chosen to thetree, and just as he planned,
brutally raped her.
He was in the middle of livingout his fantasy when he saw a
flashlight coming toward them onthe nearby path.
Troll was suddenly acutely awarethat he and the chosen had been
making sounds appropriate to theoccasion.
Troll fell across the girl,pinning her down, and stifling
(13:18):
her face with his chest.
From the ground at the base ofthe tree, troll looked toward
the light, which had stoppedabout 30 feet away.
A woman's voice called out,asking if anyone was there.
From under him, the girl triedto cry out, but all the escaped
beyond the gag was a gutturalmoan.
Troll cranked the rope aroundthe chosen's neck, closing her
(13:40):
throat.
She began to fight, twisting,convulsing under him.
She made more noises as shestruggled for air.
Then she shuttered and wentlimp.
The woman with a light repeatedher inquiry into the darkness.
To troll, it seemed like alifetime before the light turned
around and moved hurriedly backtoward Kiowa.
(14:00):
Troy was taking no chances.
There was no time to tie all thegirls around the trunk of the
tree.
His tableau was incomplete.
He wanted to be free to fightanother day, so he fled into the
misty Oklahoma morning.
Marcy (14:21):
On the morning of June 13th, 1977, police from across
northeast Oklahoma were summonedto the Scott Girl Scout Camp
located three miles south of thesmall town of Locus Grove.
The camp is located in theCookson Hills part of the Far
Western sweep of the OzarkPlateau.
(14:42):
The region is distinct from mostof Oklahoma in that the area
holds densely wooded, craggyhills, and hollers, very unlike
the flat dry plains commonfurther west in the state.
It was this distinct geographyand the wilderness it afforded
that made it a desirablelocation for the Girl Scout
Camp, which had been hostinggirls since 1928.
(15:04):
Indeed, the Girl Scout presencewas old enough to be a treasured
part of local culture.
The highway running south fromLocus Grove was nicknamed the
Cookie Trail in their honor.
The camp had never seen a reportof violent crime.
On that Monday morning, as thefirst of what would be many
officers began passing throughLocus Grove, turning south on
(15:25):
the Cookie Trail, and thenturning onto primitive gravel
and dirt lanes leading to thecamp, that was about to change
forever.
To the first officers arrivingfor what was reported to be
multiple dead children, whatgreeted them seemed surreal.
Ashen- faced camp administratorsmet the officers, while children
could be heard singing joyfullyin several locations of the
(15:48):
distant camp.
Met with quizzical faces, theadministrators explained that
the buses were on their way.
The counselors were keeping thekids occupied away from the
crime scene, which was betweenthe Kiowa Camp area and the
central camp buildings.
They added that the camp wasclosing and that the children
would be leaving as soon aspossible.
(16:10):
The officers followed camp staffto the location where they
confirmed that there were threemurdered children.
This began a days-long buildupof state and local resources
tasked with investigating thecrime and arresting the
perpetrator.
One of the first investigativetasks was filling in the blanks
of what led up to the crime byinterviewing the camp
(16:30):
counselors.
Counselors told investigatorsthat the previous day had been
chaotic because all of the girlshad arrived by bus.
The orientations had just begunwhen the camp was hit by a
significant thunderstorm andheavy rain.
Everyone in the camp fled to theshelter of the Great Hall.
Later in the evening, the stormabated, so scouts hiked back to
(16:52):
their campsites, where they weredirected to write letters to
their parents.
They then gathered around thecampfire, before turning into
sleep.
Most of the counselors said thenight was unremarkable.
The girls were excited.
Some stayed awake, talking,laughing, and making noise late
into the night.
Some had to be scolded intobeing quiet, but that was not
(17:14):
unexpected.
One counselor, 18-year-old CarlaWilhite, said she was awakened
early in the morning by strangenoises.
She left her tent taking aflashlight to investigate.
She said that on the path out ofCamp Kiowa, she heard
intermittent, low growl andmoaning sounds.
When she aimed her flashlighttoward the noise and called out,
(17:36):
it stopped.
Carla decided it must be a wildanimal.
She backed away and went back tobed.
Carla Wilhite woke just afterdawn, and made her way toward
the camp showers.
As she walked, she spotted asleeping bag just off the path
in the brush.
She approached the bag, lookedinside and saw a girl curled
(18:00):
into the bottom who wasobviously dead.
Carlos summoned the help ofother counselors who ran to the
main building and woke thedirector who was an ER nurse.
During the initial confusion,they discovered yet another girl
dead at the bottom of a secondsleeping bag, and a third girl
naked, dead, and tied to a tree.
(18:21):
The camp director ordered aheadcount to the entire camp.
Of the 140 girls, three weremissing from the count.
The dead girls were confirmed asthose missing from Kiowa tent
number seven, and wereidentified to law enforcement as
Denise Milner 10, Michelle Guse,nine, and Lori Farmer, eight.
(18:45):
When the deceased girls' tentwas examined, the most visible
indication of the assault werelarge red stains that had soaked
into the middle of the tentplatform between the cots.
A partial tennis shoe print wassmudged into the dried stain.
There were blood smears on twoof the cots and on parts of the
interior tent fabric, mostnotably on the rear tent flaps.
(19:09):
At the site where the threegirls were found, there was one
who was completely unclothed.
She had a ligature wrapped tightaround her neck and other
bindings.
It was clear that the girl hadsuffered physical trauma.
The positioning of the body andbleeding was indicative of
sexual assault.
It appeared that whomever hadcommitted the crime intended to
tie her to the tree she waslying under.
(19:31):
The camp administratoridentified the girl as 10 year
old Denise Milner.
The two other girls werecrumpled in the very bottoms of
their sleeping bags.
They wore night clothes andappeared to have sustained
significant trauma to the head.
Later at autopsy, it wasdetermined that one girl had
been struck with a heavy metalrod, probably once causing
(19:51):
death.
The second girl had a similarfatal head injury, but appeared
to have been struck twice On theground near the victim's bodies,
investigators found pieces ofevidence; a large flashlight,
the type that has a large squarebattery and a handle.
The lens of the flashlight wascovered by black plastic secured
(20:12):
with tape.
In the center of the blackplastic, there was a small hole
that aperture would allow a userto cast a narrow beam of light
from the large flashlight.
On the ground in the area was aroll of duct tape, a crowbar,
and a bundle of white cord.
The cord was the same as thatfound tied to Denise Milner's
body.
(20:34):
After viewing the entire scene,investigators were able to piece
together the probable sequenceof events.
They believed that the suspectcrept in through the rear of
that particular tent because itwas one furthest from the
counselors, a distance of about80 yards with a blocked line of
sight.
The suspect bludgeoned MichelleGuse and Lori Farmer in their
(20:54):
cots where they died.
The suspect took Denise Milner'sclothes off in her tent and
possibly began a sexual assaultbefore taking all three out of
the back of the tent and 150yards away to the base of a tree
he selected.
The girls were 60 to 70 poundseach, so it would be difficult
to move all of them in one trip.
(21:14):
It was probable that the suspecttransported the dead or dying
girls by slinging them in theirsleeping bags over his
shoulders.
This was supported by thelocation of blood swipes on the
flaps of the rear tent fabric.
Denise Milner was likely forcedto walk, unclothed between the
tent and the tree, with the ropeligature around her neck,
restraining her like a leash.
(21:37):
Based on the state of Milner'ssleeping bag and clothing left
in the tent, the investigatorsfound it likely the primary
physical and sexual assaultoccurred at the location where
she was eventually found.
Based on the statement ofcounselor Carla Wilhite, it
seemed likely that theunidentified sounds she heard,
which she attributed to ananimal, were the assault of
(21:58):
Denise Milner.
This was also Wilhite'sconclusion when all of the facts
were known.
With the scene information andbasic order of events,
established, investigatorsfanned out across the camp,
searching for anything thatmight lead them to the
perpetrator.
The counselors were allquestioned and cleared.
In their statements, several hadexperienced suspicious
(22:19):
circumstances over the prior fewweeks.
There were personal items thathad gone missing, notably
several pairs of glasses.
Someone had broken into one ofthe buildings, taken donuts and
left a threatening note.
The note said,"We are on amission to kill three girls in
tent one." At the time, the noteseemed so implausible, it was
(22:40):
taken as a misguided prank.
During a search of the campproperty, numerous items were
found scattered around, notablythe various pairs of glasses
that had been reported missingduring the staff interviews.
As the Girl Scout campinvestigation progressed, it
became evident that the suspectwas probably not someone
affiliated with the camp.
(23:02):
The investigators began lookingin the surrounding area.
The adjacent property ownerswere questioned.
Some were asked and submitted toa polygraph examination.
While the traditionalinvestigation was going on, the
county sheriff coordinated anoverland search in the open area
peripheral to the camp.
Numerous caves were discoveredin the area, three of which were
(23:23):
in the cliffs above the scoutcamp.
One of the cave walls bore afresh inscription that read"the
killer was here.
Bye buy fools.
77- 6- 17." In another cave, acache of evidence was seized.
These items included more stolenproperty from the camp, a roll
(23:44):
of plastic tape matching thatused on the suspect's flashlight
and photos of a woman in awedding dress.
Several pieces of evidence cametogether at once to point to one
particular suspect.
The photos from the cave of thewoman in a wedding dress were
identified as a wedding that wasphotographed by an inmate, a
(24:05):
trustee who was doing time atthe county jail.
The trustee wasn't a suspect,but his assistant on work
release was a man named LeroyHart.
Hart had been in jail forburglaries and had a violent
criminal history.
One of his past offenses stunnedthe investigators.
(24:26):
A few years prior, Hart hadkidnapped two pregnant women at
gunpoint from a Tulsa parkinglot.
He drove them almost an hour toa secluded location near Locus
Grove, at which point he tiedthem naked to a tree, raped and
beat them, and left them fordead.
During the kidnapping incident,Hart took both women's
(24:47):
eyeglasses and tried them on tosee if the prescriptions were
right for him.
The investigators discoveredthat Hart was very familiar with
the Girl Scout Camp area.
He was known to wander the area.
His mother's home was on one ofthe adjacent properties.
The only problem with Hart as asuspect was he had been evading
(25:07):
law enforcement for more thantwo years.
He had escaped from jail justafter the wedding.
shoot.
Hart was popular in thecommunity and well known as a
star high school athlete.
He was an American Indian livingin a community with a large
population of people from histribe.
Law enforcement blamed theirinability to capture Hart on the
(25:28):
community that was suspicious oflaw enforcement and willing to
shelter the fugitive.
Within a few days of the GirlScout Camp Murders, the
investigation began to focusprimarily on Hart.
A volunteer search Possenumbering several hundred was
formed to conduct overlandsearches for the man.
(25:48):
Specialized tracking dogs fromanother state were brought in to
assist.
The media closely covered themanhunt.
In the time he had been evadingcapture Hart had gained
notoriety in the communit.
Rumors that he was beingassisted in his escape by Indian
magic began to grow and assumemythic quality.
The legends grew even more asthe days went by and neither the
(26:11):
Sheriff's posse nor the specialtracking teams achieved success.
People were convinced that Hartwas a shapeshifter.
A couple of tracking dogs diedprobably from heat exhaustion,
but rumor spread it was anIndian curse placed on the dogs.
Hart's luck changed when aninvestigator with the Oklahoma
(26:32):
State Bureau of Investigationsconvinced a local woman to tell
him where Hart was holed up.
She led him to a cabin in thewoods about 50 miles south of
Locus Grove.
When the police rated the cabin,Hart attempted to flee, but was
taken into custody.
Hart was charged with threemurders, and the trial began on
(26:53):
March 19th, 1979.
His private defense attorneyswere paid for by the Cherokee
Nation.
At trial, the prosecutionfounded its case on evidence
like the glasses, items in thecaves, and proximity to Hart's
mother's home.
There was biological evidence,hair and semen, but relying on
(27:14):
1970s technology, the links wereless than definitive.
The defense's tactic was toattack the prosecution as
racially motivated.
The prosecution was crippledmid-trial when, during a
hearing, the prosecutor, SidWise, perjured himself on the
stand.
It turned out that Wise had beensharing information about the
(27:36):
investigation with a journalistand had a contract for a book
deal about the Girl Scout case.
Hart's defense team exposed Wiseas a liar, who was looking to
personally profit.
A new prosecutor was brought into salvage the case, but the
damage was done.
Shortly after the defenserested, the jury acquitted Hart
(27:56):
of all charges.
After the trial, Hart wasreturned to prison where he had
been sentenced for previouscrimes to serve a total of more
than 300 years.
On June 4th, 1979, two monthsafter his acquittal Hart died in
prison of a heart attack.
The investigators of the GirlScout camp murders examined
(28:19):
approximately 140 suspects.
None of those people were evercharged Beginning the discussion
on this case, since this was anacquittal, after having reviewed
this case, what do you thinkabout that result?
Mark (28:42):
Well, the good thing is there's the historical
information dating back to 1977,but also there's been a lot of
newer activity.
About nine years ago, there wasa new sheriff that was elected
in the county that this happenedin.
His name is Mike Reed, and whenhe was elected Lori Farmer's
parents, met with the newsheriff and asked him to look
into the case.
(29:03):
They wanted to see if somebodycould come up with a definitive
answer, whether or not, any ofthe suspects they had were
legit, whether or not thatsomebody had slipped through the
net or if it was actually Hartthe, was the suspect.
Sheriff Reid and some of theOSBI investigators went through
the case again As they wentthrough, they analyzed and
(29:24):
somebody had the idea of takingthe, case to NACMEC, which is
the National Center for Missingand Exploited Children.
A place where I've gone totraining.
NACMEC offers a lot of services.
And one of those is there's aboard of 23 selected homicide
investigators and FBI profilersthat will evaluate a case if
they accept it.
(29:46):
Sheriff and his Oklahoma StateBureau of Investigations
Associates went to NACMEC andpresented this board with all of
the information.
The board had, the opportunityto review the stuff for a month,
and at the end they came to aconclusion that, Hart was the
only offender that could havedone this.
When this came out, the, Sheriffexplained it, I'm gonna quote
(30:08):
him.
Hart is a textbook, serialrapist.
In addition to taking this caseto NACMEC, Sheriff Reid raised
private contributions in theamount of$30,000, which was what
was needed to have everything inthe case that could possibly
have DNA attached to it,including contact DNA,
evaluated.
In 2019 the results came back.
The full results weren'treleased until 2022, but the
(30:32):
families were told in 2019, andwhat they were told is the DNA
profiles they got, althoughthey're not definitive, they
rule out every other potentialsuspect they had, and match Hart
in the partial profiles theywere able to extract.
It's difficult to understand,but the bottom line is this,
They can't say a hundred percentits Hart because they don't have
(30:54):
a complete DNA profile.
But everyone involved in the DNAanalysis is convinced that there
could be no one but Hart.
The partials they have match himand it's unlikely they would
match anybody else.
Marcy (31:06):
You think the evidence is solid and that Hart wasn't just
a scapegoat?
Mark (31:12):
That's correct.
I don't think he was scapegoat.
We know a lot more about thesetypes offenders now than they
did in the 1970s.
There's a reason for that.
At the time, there was noblanket recognition that sex
crimes are special in terms ofrecidivism, but on a local
level, because the sentencesback then were short
investigators kept seeing thesame suspects come up over and
(31:34):
over again.
The sentences were abysmallylow.
I mean, like Hart served underthree years on a legit gunpoint,
double kidnapping, rape, andnearly murder, and was paroled
in three years.
In that environment, where he isalso doing, residential
nighttime burglaries, who knowshow many victims went
unreported, how many crimes werenot linked.
(31:57):
Now the nighttime residentialburglaries and what he's doing
with the women will berecognized as being related.
And the sentences on the crime,particularly with the two
pregnant ladies, probablywould've locked him up for most
of the rest of his life.
These type of offenders had arevolving door in the sixties
and seventies and those things,caused us to have things like
(32:17):
the sex offender registries now.
Marcy (32:20):
He ended up being acquitted for the Girl Scout
murders, but having 300 years toserve, where did the 300 years
come from?
Was that part of the violationof parole or cuz they didn't
have persistent felon laws then,did they?
Mark (32:33):
I think he was sentenced as a habitual offender.
He did those and then he wascaught with numerous residential
burglaries.
Marcy (32:39):
Those burglaries plus these time left to serve for the
original sexual assaults.
Mark (32:44):
He had a lot of hope that he was gonna get paroled again
in three years, but his time was300 years, and I think after his
trial, he had expectations thathe could whittle that, down.
In this specific case, I thinkNACMEC, the analyst there are
right on.
This is the kind of guy we'relooking for, and it's not chance
that he happened to be rightthere when it happened.
Marcy (33:05):
There was one discrepancy in the facts as, we were looking
at this case, and that waswhether the girls were in tent
number eight or tent numberseven.
Can you just touch on that realquick?
Mark (33:15):
There's several different sections in this Girl Scout
camp.
The girls who were murdered werein Kiowa section.
Something like 25 to 30 girls,in that section, four to a tent.
Many of the sources say theywere in tent eight and some say
seven.
I found diagrams with both sevenand eight tents in a row.
Actually the important part ofthe crime is that either seven
(33:35):
or eight was the end tent in anarc of tents kind of around
their campsite, with thecounselors way at the other end.
So they were, as far the girlsthat were murdered were as far
from the counselors, as youcould get and still be in a
tent.
The counselor who found thegirls, said they were in ten
seven.
So, I trust that she, havingthought about this for 45 years,
would absolutely know the factthere.
Marcy (33:58):
The tents all had four girls except for this one.
How come there were only threein there?
Mark (34:03):
So I found a news article about a girl who was supposed to
be the fourth person in theirtent.
It's not Kristin Chenoweth, theactress who did the 2022 series
about this crime.
She was supposed to go to campand who was sick, but, I think
she was supposed to be inanother part of camp.
But the girl that was supposedto be in their tent, was also
sick, so that's why they onlyhad three.
(34:24):
She's kinda like the person thatmisses the plane that later
crashes.
It freaked her out in ways thatechoed through her life for
years, depression, followed bydrug use and survivor's guilt.
Marcy (34:35):
The cops and reporters and residents describe this case
in superlatives, horrifying.
Never seen worst ever.
The attention on this case washuge and lasting.
Why do you think that is?
Mark (34:48):
I think some of it is the common camp experience, the
creepiness of little kids whoare vulnerable.
I think it's your parents saidthere's really no such thing as
monsters.
Go to camp.
You'll be safe.
Only to find out.
what a lot of the countryincreasingly became aware of in
the seventies and eighties andnineties, is that there are
monsters out there and they looka lot like you and me.
(35:09):
The camp was just part of it.
People who went to the scene anddescribed it in the media and in
the documentary were obviouslyaffected, and that's all about
the kids.
The fact it was kids.
Marcy (35:20):
I wondered if this case caused lasting changes in summer
camp operations.
In my camp experiences as acamper, as a counselor and as a
parent chaperone, there werealways chaperones or counselors
in the same cabin or tent as thecampers.
However, our son, who was alongtime camp counselor said in
his organization, they still putcampers and chaperones in
different cabins.
(35:41):
So maybe not as big of an impacton policies as I thought.
but there was clearly a lastingeffect on all those who were
directly involved in thissituation and the, local
community as a whole.
Mark (35:52):
Yeah, Well, don't forget, you were a camp, chaperone at a
Cub Scout camp.
So, they're closely related,with the, Girl Scouts so who
knows?
That might have been it.
It definitely a lasting effect.
A lot of the counselors openlytalk about having guilt for not
protecting the girls.
Some of the counselors are, justbarely adults.
According to, Sheriff Reed, Hetalks to people who bring up the
(36:13):
case all the time.
They have theories about who didit.
and he said that a lot of peoplehave no idea the facts of the
case.
which actually common whenyou're looking at police cases,
people have all kinds ofopinions.
According to him, it stilldivides people.
Some people believe that, Hartdid it.
Some people are firmly in thecamp if he couldn't have done
it.
Everybody mourns the loss of thecamp, and the implications of
(36:36):
the community as a whole.
And I can see why.
I mean, would you send one ofyour daughters to a place where
this happened?
Marcy (36:46):
No, no.
I, remember going to a 4- H campwhen I was eight years old and
the teenage counselor in chargeof my cabin took us on a
midnight hike off camp propertyto a country store to buy
contraband candy.
As a kid, I thought it was thegreatest adventure ever.
As an adult after hearing theGirl Scout murder story, it
(37:08):
makes me cringe at the potentialdangers that we apparently
avoided.
Can you talk about the effect ofkids on first responders?
Mark (37:20):
Sure.
It is what you'd expect.
Normal people, cops, paramedics,have an innate desire to protect
the vulnerable from harm.
They're negatively affected byany situation where they can't.
I was fortunate to work inlocations and times when I did
not come into contact with a lotof kids.
They're present and sometimesdirectly involved in, domestic
(37:42):
violence in the middle of thenight.
but for the most part, on nightsthey weren't the ones raping and
robbing and shooting andcrashing.
I gave CPR to more than oneinfant, who were found not
breathing in bed.
and not a single one of themmade it.
There were other heartbreakingcases, like the call the baby
who wouldn't stop screaming.
No one answered the door.
So I had to break into theapartment.
(38:04):
It was a hovel, and the mom isthe only one home.
She's passed out drunk on thefloor and the infants' across
the room screaming.
But I never had the stuff myfriends did.
Like on swing shift or days.
A long time ago, I woke up latein the afternoon because I'd
worked all night.
I turned on the evening news andthere's a buddy of mine in
uniform standing on theshoreline of a pond in a
(38:25):
neighborhood just south of ourhouse.
It's summer, and he's helpingwith the deployment of divers,
of fire department divers.
So what had happened is threelittle kids had made a raft.
They floated halfway across thepond and the raft broke up.
All of those kids were out therein the water, under the water.
(38:46):
A group of parents stood by myfriend on the shore waiting to
see their kids for the lasttime.
I'm sitting there, my couch athome thinking that is
heartbreaking.
I was sad for the call, but Iwas happy for myself to not have
had been on that call.
Some of the calls I did havethat had to do with little kids,
(39:06):
they stick with you.
Bad wrecks.
I had one where the mom died andbled out all over the kid, who
mercifully was onlysemiconscious.
There was the early morning callof a little girl, eight or nine
years old, who was spending thenight at a friend's house.
The friend had an uncle whograbbed the visiting girl as she
(39:27):
went to the bathroom in themiddle of the night and he raped
her.
The girl victim later called herparents who called 9 1 1.
And I was lucky enough to be thearea car.
If you run that through yourhead sequentially, me arriving,
waking up the whole family, justas the other girl's parents
showed up, you can probablyimagine how that went.
(39:48):
And the uncle, when the dick'sinterviewed him, he said he was
asleep in his bed.
The girl snuck into his room andthe next thing he knew she was
doing things to him.
Not a well thought out excuse.
He's off to prison.
In another incident, I had torecruit.
He and I were called to coverofficers in another sector
because they were gettingslammed that morning, and had
(40:09):
just caught a nasty homicide.
I should have been expectingsomething bad because recruits
are often called to performunsavory tasks under the guise
of it'll be good experience.
We were asked to transport twolittle boys, brothers, like six
and eight years old.
They were in their underwearbecause there was no time to get
(40:30):
them any clothing based on whathappened.
Their mother and father had beenin an early morning fight.
The kids have been close enoughthat when their mother was
stabbed to death, the boys endedup with her blood all over them.
As I said, it was early morning.
The staff and investigatorshadn't made it to the child
advocacy center yet, so myrecruit and I took them around
(40:51):
the corner.
and bought the McDonald's andthey ate in the backseat.
The image of those two boys,tiny bodies, shocked out eyes
huddled together with my greenArmy blanket around them will
always be with me.
I have other kid stories, but Iwanted to give you a sampling of
why kid cases in particular staywith you.
The common theme is theirvulnerability.
Marcy (41:15):
Talk about your take on Hart's personality.
Mark (41:20):
He didn't make a lot of public statements, unless you
count his horrible crimes.
In the middle of the trial, hegave a press conference.
It reminded me of the clips ofTed Bundy's, news interviews.
Hart was attractive,charismatic, a natural public
speaker.
After his acquittal, Hart gavean interview from prison to the
(41:42):
Cherokee Advocate Newspaper.
It was the only one he didbefore his death.
His answers were very criticalabout law enforcement.
He clearly was pleased that he'dbeen able to ellude capture for
so long, openly saying it wasn'tbecause he was some great
outdoorsman or woodsman, but hecredited the charity of friends
and his supporters, hisrelatives, who he wouldn't name,
(42:04):
and the stupidity of local cops.
His overall assertion is that hewas a scapegoat, and I guess
that's not surprising.
What stuck with me about hisinterview, which was far ranging
including the plight of theAmerican Native, was that he
seemed like a very intelligentguy.
He complained about running outof interesting reading material
from the prison library.
(42:26):
This bolstered my Ted Bundyimpression.
I mean, if you keep in mind thecrimes he had done for which he
was caught almost red-handed andadmitted to, the interviews he
did, were telling.
Keep in mind he isn't disputing,the serious prior crimes.
And prior to being caught, he'shiding out in caves and an old
cellar.
He's so bored at times he'sriding on the walls, almost stir
(42:48):
crazy as he waits.
What's he waiting for?
My point is, okay, I have adecent sized piece of property
boarded on two sized by fairly,deep canyons and on the sides of
those canyons are several caves.
And aside from looking in thosecaves, I spent like virtually no
time in them.
Why?
Well, as an adult man, there'snothing that interests me there.
(43:11):
So it occurred to me that Hartspent daylight hours in the
caves and maybe sheltered fromstorms like that first night at
camp.
He's doing so because he'sinterested in something there.
It's the camp and the victims.
Marcy (43:24):
There was definitely some overt racism in this case, even
when we believe that theyidentified the correct killer.
And both things can be true.
They can be racist and havefound the right guy.
Mark (43:36):
Yeah, unfortunately, I saw some pretty blatant racist
statements from the prosecutorand the unfortunate thing is
these taint the prosecution, orat least the trust, that the
investigation that comes from itis legit.
As far as the mystical medicineman, Indian curse stuff, one of
the OSBI investigators had itright.
He said that the searchers werejust covering for the inability
(43:56):
to catch the man by talkingabout him as having those
superhuman skills.
The reality is, and you can seethis in in the us, historic
gangsters, actually this place,Cookson Hills held several
gangsters, because of thegeography is easy to hide there.
In modern times like the OlympicBomber, Eric Rudolph, who hid,
in the Appalachian Mountains,Osama Bin Laden.
(44:17):
If there are people willing toharbor these people, it's very
difficult to find them,particularly in rural areas.
I think if I wanted to hidesomeone on our farm and we had
electronic discipline, it wouldbe very difficult to know that
any person was here.
Marcy (44:31):
Do you think Hart's acquittal was jury
nullification?
Mark (44:35):
No.
Okay, so jury nullification is,the jury is fully aware that the
crime committed as stated, andis a violation of the law, but
decides that they aren't goingto convict the person for
whatever reason.
Sympathy, or, there's somereason, like they think it was a
legitimate, thing to do.
That's jury nullification.
(44:55):
The crime occurred, the juryknows it occurred and the person
being tried did it.
But they aren't gonna convicthim for one reason or another.
Marcy (45:04):
This seems like it might have some things in common with
OJ Simpson's case.
Mark (45:09):
yeah.
When we were watching the Keeperof the Ashes, that's what I
said, and right after I said itto you, one of the mothers said,
this was like, to me, like OJSimpson case.
So I agree.
First of all, the defenses inboth cases made a great argument
that the evidence there wastainted, or was inadequate for
conviction.
And then they tainted that taintwith added layers of racism.
(45:34):
The cops, the prosecutors, thesystem is racist.
There was a lot of publicsupport.
There's a lot of, you know, thewhole, Mark Furman racist thing,
was very similar.
I mean, I'm not saying it's notlegitimate.
I mean, it's, they basicallypulled out the audio tapes that
Mark Furman was racist.
And, and when they showed theprosecutor in this case, same
way.
Hart can be guilty.
(45:56):
And the defense did a great jobof smearing the people, accusing
him, with legitimate issues.
That's why I think that, theparents of the, girls killed,
didn't want to hear any of that.
They wanted to hear that theperson, they were pretty
confident killed their girls,was gonna get convicted.
Unfortunately, didn't happenbecause of some of the problems.
The problems with theprosecutors.
There were problems with theevidence.
(46:16):
The evidence in this case, beingin the 1970s, collected in the
1970s, was not what it shouldhave been for a case of this
magnitude.
Marcy (46:25):
Before we move on from talking about Hart, the, let's
talk about the wedding photothing.
Hart was an assistant for aprivate wedding photo shoot done
by inmates, and so I guess somepeople will do anything to get a
good deal.
Mark (46:41):
Yeah.
it's strange.
It had to be cheaper, but howwould you feel about getting
discount prison labor courtesyof your local sheriff, only to
find out that one of the guyswho's been oling, your daughter
at the wedding, is a convictedrapist and the main suspect in
killing three little girls.
Thanks.
But I'll pay the full price.
Marcy (47:01):
A lot happened in your career as far as, the changes in
the way, technology advanced,the use of data and digital
media and dna.
So can you just sort of talkabout, all of the things that
happened from, the change fromthe beginning of your career to
the time that you retired?
Mark (47:21):
Yeah.
My first patrol car was a beatup 1986 Chevy Capris.
It was a POS.
It didn't even have an AM/FMradio.
No computers.
We typed out criminal complaintson the actual typewriter.
It's funny.
I'm not ancient, but I feel likea dinosaur talking about this.
All of our reports werehandwritten on triplicate, you
know, write'em and you get threecopies.
(47:43):
When we were dispatched to acall, it came over the radio and
you reached down on a notepadnext to you on the car seat, and
you wrote the dispatch down.
We're talking the earlynineties.
So DNA's just over the horizonat this point.
All our cameras used 35millimeter film, so you had no
idea whether or not the shotsyou were taking were any good.
Thankfully I didn't screw up anymajor cases.
(48:05):
Tape recorders were like thefull size cassette type.
Later we had mini cassettes,which were a pain in the butt
because our clerk typist onlyuse the full size, would only
type out the full size.
The digital revolution in lawenforcement changed everything.
By the time I left, everyone hada laptop computer; patrol cars
had the mounts.
You could be dispatched bycomputer; run your own computer
(48:26):
checks; do your own research inthe field.
All the photographs weredigital.
You could see if your shots weregood at the time so you could
retake'em if you needed to;change the lighting.
I had a digital recorder at theend that was the size of a pen.
It could hold hours ofinterviews.
And I could say as a guy whoworked undercover, the wires and
cameras, let's just say therewere no more giant wires with
(48:47):
batteries that burned the sideof your belly as you wore'em.
DNA, that all happened during mycareer.
The amazing thing is that itgets progressively better.
There are cases that can't beproven now that will be possible
with like contact justepithelial cells on pieces of
evidence that're sitting outthere, that will possibly be
analyzed in five to 10 years.
(49:09):
It's exciting.
We had a scanner that you couldset up on a tripod and it, it
spins and 3D scans everything inan entire scene.
And you do that because you canprecisely pinpoint everything
where it is and it's relation toeverything else.
You can go back and virtuallyrecreate the scene.
I expect that in the future,this type of scanner will detect
(49:31):
DNA and you'll be able to putthis up and it will DNA sequence
everyone who's ever been in theroom.
It's kind of wonderful and alittle bit scary.
In terms of technology, almosteverything's better in terms of
data, documentation, andresearch because of our move to
digital.
Marcy (49:48):
What were the issues that you noticed with how the scene
was processed and the initialinvestigation was handled?
Mark (49:55):
In the film, Keeper of the Ashes, the photographer was
amazed.
He shows up at the scene wherethe children are dead and the
sleeping bags have the kidsstill in them, and they're
closed.
And no one had, except for theoriginal counselors, had opened
up those sleeping bags andlooked into them.
So you have professionalofficers here that until the
(50:16):
camera guy shows up, who's notan officer, he's a newspaper
guy.
Marcy (50:21):
So nobody confirmed those girls were dead in the sleeping
bags.
Mark (50:24):
Yeah.
That was his point.
Like, yeah, nobody, nobody evenlooked at them to say, are they
really, truly, totally dead?
You know?
The other thing is, I thought ofthis at the time.
So there were, witnesses at,children at the scenes that were
shuttled off in the buses totheir parents.
No one ever questioned them.
They should have, since they had'em there, they should have at
least segregated'em off one at atime and soft questioned them to
(50:47):
see if anybody had any idea ofanything.
You might not get anything, butto never have even crossed that
off your list.
One of the girls that was at thecamp in the tent next to the
girls that were killed, saidthat she had to this date, 45
years later, never been talkedto about this and she had
observations.
She'd held observations for 45years about what happened that
(51:09):
night.
She said she heard a scream.
They should have gotten thatinformation on day one.
One of the things I, I noticedis they had, the Sheriff's Posse
was like, I think they said itwas like two to 600 people,
depending on the day.
And they're slowly walkingacross the field.
I don't know what they expectedto find.
And I said to you as watchingthis thing, you know, that's not
(51:29):
how they're gonna find this guy.
They're gonna find this guy witha detective who's got a source
and then they show the OSBI guywho did exactly that.
Good detective work, talks to asource, convinces the source
that it's in everybody's bestinterest to bring him in alive.
It's actually the wife of a guywho's helping Hart.
(51:50):
And she's worried that the guy'sgonna get implicated and
somebody's gonna get shot by acop.
That's how they got him.
The wife gave him up and he was50 miles to the south in
somebody's cabin and no amountof overland searching in fields
is gonna turn that guy up.
You have to have a source.
This case is a good reason tocatch, prosecute rapists.
(52:11):
It's also good to track sexoffender registry people because
they've put society on noticethat they have this proclivity
for illegal sexual conduct.
One of the problems with theseventie, processing is that
they didn't package for dna,they just packaged for the
technology they had at the time.
So a lot of the samples, thereason we can't get full samples
(52:33):
off even where there's semenpresent, is that the samples are
degraded to the point where theDNA has been damaged and, a lot
of their testing has beeninconclusive with partial DNA
sequencing.
Marcy (52:46):
So tell me more specifically about what the
problem was with the way theypackaged.
Mark (52:51):
You don't put wet items that may have dna, in plastic
bags because plastic bagsretain, moisture.
So if we had something in thefield that would be wet, say, I
remember there's a leather beltthat I collected.
It seems a littlecounterintuitive, like plastic's
gonna protect everything likeyou put in your refrigerator,
but actually you put that in apaper bag where it can dry and
(53:12):
drying versus rotting molding,mildewing bacteria, that
protects the dna.
You can get DNA from a liquidthat's dried, but if you have
something in plastic where, it'slike a little Petri dish and
growing bacteria inside.
Marcy (53:27):
You also don't want it to be sitting out in the sun or in
super hot conditions either.
Mark (53:32):
Sure, sure.
Marcy (53:34):
While we're talking about dna, another discrepancy in the
stories is whether all of thegirls were sexually assaulted or
just the 10 year old.
Can you talk about that?
Mark (53:46):
So one of the things that Sheriff Reed went back through
is a detailed, analysis of theorder of events and, the initial
investigators and he, believedthat, just like I wrote it, the
bad guy goes into the tent,bludgeons the two little girls,
and then, sexually assaults thethird little girl.
There's a lot of physicalcontact that can happen without,
transfer of blood.
(54:08):
But the way it was described bySheriff Reid is these girls
pretty much died, bled out intheir sleeping bags.
And if there had been anadditional, a sexual assault
with them in their sleepingbags, I think you would a lot
more blood transfer.
They had blood, seep down ontothe floor and there was blood at
the, basically where when he wascarrying'em out, the sleeping
bags, the tops of the bags werebloody, so they brushed up
(54:30):
against the tent flap.
But I think if there had beenmore, contact, the blood
would've been smeared.
Probably you would've hadcontact from the girl's blood
onto, the, sexual assault victimalso.
I think their analysis is righton.
That's not to completelydiscount the idea of some kind
of sexual contact with the othertwo, but I think it's most
likely he had one single targetand the reason he murdered the
(54:53):
other two is so that he couldhave access without the kind of
risk that three conscious girlsmight pose to the criminal.
I don't think anybody can saydefinitively that there wasn't
sexual contact, but I thinkcertainly the, at least the
primary sexual assault was onthe 10 year old.
Marcy (55:11):
The parents of these three little girls became
amazing victim rights advocates.
Mark (55:16):
Yeah.
Michelle Guse's father RichardGuse, helped establish the
Oklahoma Victims Bill of Rights,and also, the Oklahoma Victim's
Compensation Board.
Lori Farmer's family founded theOklahoma chapter of Parents of
Murdered Children, and SherryFarmer, the mother, in 2018
helped pass Marcey's Law, inOklahoma, which gives crime
(55:37):
victims access to, variousresources.
Camp Scott Girl Scout Camp hadbeen operated since 1928.
It closed the morning of themurders and never reopened.
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(55:59):
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(56:21):
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(56:41):
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Marcy (00:14):
Welcome to Crime Raven; true crimes, real life stories
from law enforcement and issuescrime fighters face.
This podcast highlights crimesresearched by retired Detective
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Mark (01:24):
The troll was very comfortable in this forest,
particularly after sundown.
He felt as if it was his ownreserve, a sanctuary where a few
people ventured.
The woods held his caves, wherehe could bolt if there was
trouble or a sudden storm.
His mother's place was off toone edge.
A convenient excuse for why, athis age, he was haunting those
(01:45):
particular woods, caves andabandoned buildings in the first
place.
It wasn't that troll feltdiscomfort in town or even the
big city.
He'd worked jobs in Tulsa, evenfound victims in Tulsa.
Indeed, he was even attracted tothe excitement, the opportunity
of the city, but the forest ofthe Cookson Hills, a refuge for
(02:07):
his ancestors and bandits alike,was home.
When he left, he felt as if hewas leaving sacred ground.
The trade off was that when heleft, he could find the prey
that he didn't dare touch closerto home.
You don't shit where you eat andyou don't hunt inside your
house.
Recently, Troll had beenrethinking that maxum.
(02:29):
For a few weeks, each year, hisrefuge was invaded by outsiders.
The camp was usually abandoned,but in late May and early June,
the older people startedarriving.
Soon came the young women.
Then later, the girls.
Troll wasn't bothered by thesmall invasion, quite the
opposite.
(02:49):
He was tempted by it.
Troll wandered widely acrosshundreds of acres of forest when
no one was at the camp.
In the weeks the girls werethere, they captured all of his
attention.
He began to sleep during the dayso he could wander around the
buildings at night undetected.
Using the darkness as hisshield, he often crept under
windows so he could hear theirplans.
(03:09):
He became comfortable with theirroutines, even felt affection
for some of the girls, thoughthey'd never had a conversation.
So it was, that troll knew thedifference between the elders
and the camp staff.
The elders stayed in the biglodge, a fair distance away from
the young ones.
The camp staff arrived a fewdays after the elders, in time
for what they called trainingweek.
(03:32):
These were young women, andtroll was drawn to them as they
ate, drank, and talked.
From his nearby caves, heventured forth doing some
scouting of his own.
Moving amongst the women whofelt so safe.
He listened to their bedtimeconversations from the darkness
outside their tents.
Sometimes he would sit behindthe outhouse so he could listen
(03:53):
just on the other side of thethin wooden wall.
He imagined what he would do ifhe had the courage to risk
everything.
He considered taking one, butdecided against it.
A counselor disappearing beforecamp even started, might scare
away the main event, and hecouldn't have that.
What Troll did instead was messthem.
(04:15):
One of the things he couldn'tabide was how comfortable, how
confident these girls were.
With the knowledge gathered overseveral seasons, he knew when
the coast would be clear.
He broke into their buildingsand tents.
He took their food, he fondledand sometimes stole their most
intimate belongings.
When these things did not changetheir behavior, troll wrote them
(04:38):
a note, warning them exactlywhat he planned to do.
He knew these girls, despitetheir carefree confidence, were
powerless to stop him.
But he wanted them to know thathe was there and he was hungry.
It was arrival day of the'77camp season.
Troll didn't often observe indaylight hours, but he was
(05:00):
keeping his distance, the soundsof heavy engines and screeching
brakes echoed through theforest, announcing the arrival
of each load.
The buses disgorged theircontents of happy, screaming,
laughing, playing little girls.
Their noises would echo throughthe woods in the ensuing days.
As day one progressed, apowerful afternoon storm built
(05:21):
quickly, and girls from all thecamp groups, took refuge from
the cloud bursts and lightningin the Great Hall.
Troll temporarily retreated tohis nearest cave.
The excitement of the arrivaloverwhelmed him.
Rain, or no.
Tonight was the night.
As troll waited, theanticipation took him back to
one of his past adventures.
(05:42):
He was working a job in Tulsaand decided to skip his shift
one evening.
Recently he'd been keepinghimself busy with his nighttime
house burglaries, so he isdriving around casing places and
generally looking for anyopportunity that presented
itself.
He cruised slowly through anarea where there were a lot of
entertainment venues, movies,nightclubs, and dance houses.
(06:05):
In one of the large parkinglots, he spotted two women
getting out of a vehicle.
They were alone, and he couldsee no one else among the park
cars.
Troll pulled into the lot, andas he approached the ladies, he
saw they were both young andpregnant.
He was overwhelmed with theimpulse.
He had to have them.
Troll pulled up, jumped out, andbrandishing a pistol popped his
(06:27):
trunk.
He ordered one of the girls inpromising to shoot her in the
belly if she didn't comply.
When the first was secure, heforced the second into the front
seat at gunpoint.
As troll drove away with hiscaptives, his mind raced.
He was off the tracks of anyplan he had ever made.
In his panic, troll drove thetwo women home, not to his
(06:51):
mother's home, his home, hisrefuge, the Cookson Hills.
During the hour long drive, thegirl he had his front seat,
annoyed him with her crying andpleading.
He tried on her eye glasses.
He was always looking for theright prescription.
They didn't work, so he pulledover and swapped girls.
Neither girls' glasses wereworth keeping.
(07:11):
What troll did to those girlswas seared into his memory.
He loved them hard, used theirbodies every way he wanted to
and satisfied his lust for sex,domination, for vengeance.
When he was done, he displayedhis work, tying them both
splayed out naked against thebiggest tree he could find.
He assumed they would die.
It was a declaration and awarning.
(07:35):
The powerful reminiscence thatswept him into the past like a
tide, deposited troll back intothe cave's dark stillness.
The rain had stopped and as hestood in the dam night air, he
could hear sounds of girls onthe move.
Troll gathered his tools into abag and set out.
He moved quickly, confident thatthe wet leaves and the blustery
back end of the storm wouldcover any sound he made.
(07:57):
He arrived a few minutes laterat the wooded edge of Kiowa
camp.
He realized he didn't need toworry about his footfalls
attracting attention.
The girls were boisterous,squealing, laughing, yelling,
and he easily crept into hisfavorite observation spot.
Troll, giddy with anticipation,rehashed his plan.
This was to be the night of hisfantasies.
(08:19):
Helpless little girls deliveredto him by bus from the big city.
Those buses were like giant tincans loaded with treats, ripe
for the taking.
These were the brats ofoutsiders.
No one here would care aboutthem for long.
Besides they owed him.
He was a high school sportsstar.
They may have forgotten, but hehadn't.
All that adulation had to haveafforded him some credit.
(08:41):
He smiled, thinking of thewoodland bears.
It was natural.
If you left a morsel out,unprotected, it wouldn't be
there in the morning.
Troll remained motionless,watching and listening to the
girls and their counselors gothrough the rights of Girl Scout
Camp, reciting, singing andwriting.
They ended their evening aroundthe fire.
(09:01):
Then it was time for bed.
Some of the girls burnt out fromthe first day, plodded
zombie-like to their assignedtents.
Some would be awake for hours,riding high on sugar and new
camp excitement.
The tents were large canvasshelters, raised off the ground
on wooden platforms, largeenough to house four full size
cots and tall enough for a shortadult to stand fully upright in
(09:22):
the peak.
Troll was patient waiting almosttwo hours for the camp to quiet.
There were still occasionaloutbursts, but he knew those
would help cover the noises hewas about to make.
He took a slow circuitous route,ending up at the rear of the
tent furthest away from thecounselors.
It was the one he had warnedthem about in the note.
(09:42):
Shame on them for thinking hewas a joke.
He slid quietly into the back ofthe tent.
The wood platform creaked underthe added weight and in the
darkness he heard one of thegirls shift in her cot.
He paused listening for moremovement, but heard none.
No noise was good news, andtroll's attention was drawn back
(10:03):
to the little girls sleepingaround him.
He discovered that a cot wasvacant.
They were supposed to be four.
Worried, he scanned for anotherlittle girl.
Was one hiding?
Had she slipped out, maybe goingfor help?
Then, even in the darkness,troll could tell the extra bed
was lacking the requisitesleeping bag, pillow, and mound
of belongings that lay besideeach of the others.
(10:25):
Relieved, troll moved furtherinto the tent.
Standing in the middle of thegroup of sleeping girls, he
inspected each in succession.
He had fashioned a filteredflashlight just for this moment,
and now he held that in one handand a crowbar in the other.
He turned the light on eachface, just long enough to make
his decision.
Then troll raised the bar andwith precise, powerful blows
(10:49):
crushed two of the girls'skulls.
The dying girls made no loudalarming sounds, but the metal
bar's impact on bone andsubsequent thrashes and
convulsions in the beds woke thechosen one.
Troll dropped his body ontohers, firmly covering her mouth
with both hands.
(11:09):
As she made alarms, stiflednoises with her throat, troll
hissed into the girl's ear, allthe ways he would hurt her if
she weren't quiet.
After a moment, he felt thetension in her body release.
He told the girl he was gonnatake his hands away and he would
kill her if she made any sound.
She nodded an understanding.
Troll removed his hands, butonly long enough to insert the
(11:32):
gag and loop the cord around thegirl's neck.
He twisted until it was tightenough to make the point.
Non-compliance meantstrangulation.
Troll had a plan, but being herewith the girl caused him to
deviate.
He stripped the girl naked andbegan exploring her body.
After a few minutes, he changedhis mind.
(11:53):
He tied the chosen to her cotwith the warning that he would
be close.
If she moved or made any sound,he would kill her.
She lay in the co motionlessexcept for shuttering as she
cried.
Troll used the sleeping bags thedead girls were in as body bags,
and one at a time, hefted eachover his shoulder.
The girl inside slid down to thebottom.
(12:14):
Like a demonic Santa Claus trollcarried each sack one by one to
the spot he had selectedoutside.
He deposited them quickly andquietly as possible before
returning for the chosen one.
She hadn't moved.
Troll detached her from the cotand using the cord twisted
around her neck as a leash, ledher naked to the spot.
(12:34):
They were at the base of a veryspecial tree.
It was prominent in the camp,but more importantly, it was a
tree that he could see at adistance in the daylight across
a nearby clearing.
Part of Troll's fantasy was thathereafter, he would be able to
look at the tree from adistance, and remember this
night.
It would be a monument to hisrebellion.
(12:56):
Troll tied the chosen to thetree, and just as he planned,
brutally raped her.
He was in the middle of livingout his fantasy when he saw a
flashlight coming toward them onthe nearby path.
Troll was suddenly acutely awarethat he and the chosen had been
making sounds appropriate to theoccasion.
Troll fell across the girl,pinning her down, and stifling
(13:18):
her face with his chest.
From the ground at the base ofthe tree, troll looked toward
the light, which had stoppedabout 30 feet away.
A woman's voice called out,asking if anyone was there.
From under him, the girl triedto cry out, but all the escaped
beyond the gag was a gutturalmoan.
Troll cranked the rope aroundthe chosen's neck, closing her
(13:40):
throat.
She began to fight, twisting,convulsing under him.
She made more noises as shestruggled for air.
Then she shuttered and wentlimp.
The woman with a light repeatedher inquiry into the darkness.
To troll, it seemed like alifetime before the light turned
around and moved hurriedly backtoward Kiowa.
(14:00):
Troy was taking no chances.
There was no time to tie all thegirls around the trunk of the
tree.
His tableau was incomplete.
He wanted to be free to fightanother day, so he fled into the
misty Oklahoma morning.
Marcy (14:21):
On the morning of June 13th, 1977, police from across
northeast Oklahoma were summonedto the Scott Girl Scout Camp
located three miles south of thesmall town of Locus Grove.
The camp is located in theCookson Hills part of the Far
Western sweep of the OzarkPlateau.
(14:42):
The region is distinct from mostof Oklahoma in that the area
holds densely wooded, craggyhills, and hollers, very unlike
the flat dry plains commonfurther west in the state.
It was this distinct geographyand the wilderness it afforded
that made it a desirablelocation for the Girl Scout
Camp, which had been hostinggirls since 1928.
(15:04):
Indeed, the Girl Scout presencewas old enough to be a treasured
part of local culture.
The highway running south fromLocus Grove was nicknamed the
Cookie Trail in their honor.
The camp had never seen a reportof violent crime.
On that Monday morning, as thefirst of what would be many
officers began passing throughLocus Grove, turning south on
(15:25):
the Cookie Trail, and thenturning onto primitive gravel
and dirt lanes leading to thecamp, that was about to change
forever.
To the first officers arrivingfor what was reported to be
multiple dead children, whatgreeted them seemed surreal.
Ashen- faced camp administratorsmet the officers, while children
could be heard singing joyfullyin several locations of the
(15:48):
distant camp.
Met with quizzical faces, theadministrators explained that
the buses were on their way.
The counselors were keeping thekids occupied away from the
crime scene, which was betweenthe Kiowa Camp area and the
central camp buildings.
They added that the camp wasclosing and that the children
would be leaving as soon aspossible.
(16:10):
The officers followed camp staffto the location where they
confirmed that there were threemurdered children.
This began a days-long buildupof state and local resources
tasked with investigating thecrime and arresting the
perpetrator.
One of the first investigativetasks was filling in the blanks
of what led up to the crime byinterviewing the camp
(16:30):
counselors.
Counselors told investigatorsthat the previous day had been
chaotic because all of the girlshad arrived by bus.
The orientations had just begunwhen the camp was hit by a
significant thunderstorm andheavy rain.
Everyone in the camp fled to theshelter of the Great Hall.
Later in the evening, the stormabated, so scouts hiked back to
(16:52):
their campsites, where they weredirected to write letters to
their parents.
They then gathered around thecampfire, before turning into
sleep.
Most of the counselors said thenight was unremarkable.
The girls were excited.
Some stayed awake, talking,laughing, and making noise late
into the night.
Some had to be scolded intobeing quiet, but that was not
(17:14):
unexpected.
One counselor, 18-year-old CarlaWilhite, said she was awakened
early in the morning by strangenoises.
She left her tent taking aflashlight to investigate.
She said that on the path out ofCamp Kiowa, she heard
intermittent, low growl andmoaning sounds.
When she aimed her flashlighttoward the noise and called out,
(17:36):
it stopped.
Carla decided it must be a wildanimal.
She backed away and went back tobed.
Carla Wilhite woke just afterdawn, and made her way toward
the camp showers.
As she walked, she spotted asleeping bag just off the path
in the brush.
She approached the bag, lookedinside and saw a girl curled
(18:00):
into the bottom who wasobviously dead.
Carlos summoned the help ofother counselors who ran to the
main building and woke thedirector who was an ER nurse.
During the initial confusion,they discovered yet another girl
dead at the bottom of a secondsleeping bag, and a third girl
naked, dead, and tied to a tree.
(18:21):
The camp director ordered aheadcount to the entire camp.
Of the 140 girls, three weremissing from the count.
The dead girls were confirmed asthose missing from Kiowa tent
number seven, and wereidentified to law enforcement as
Denise Milner 10, Michelle Guse,nine, and Lori Farmer, eight.
(18:45):
When the deceased girls' tentwas examined, the most visible
indication of the assault werelarge red stains that had soaked
into the middle of the tentplatform between the cots.
A partial tennis shoe print wassmudged into the dried stain.
There were blood smears on twoof the cots and on parts of the
interior tent fabric, mostnotably on the rear tent flaps.
(19:09):
At the site where the threegirls were found, there was one
who was completely unclothed.
She had a ligature wrapped tightaround her neck and other
bindings.
It was clear that the girl hadsuffered physical trauma.
The positioning of the body andbleeding was indicative of
sexual assault.
It appeared that whomever hadcommitted the crime intended to
tie her to the tree she waslying under.
(19:31):
The camp administratoridentified the girl as 10 year
old Denise Milner.
The two other girls werecrumpled in the very bottoms of
their sleeping bags.
They wore night clothes andappeared to have sustained
significant trauma to the head.
Later at autopsy, it wasdetermined that one girl had
been struck with a heavy metalrod, probably once causing
(19:51):
death.
The second girl had a similarfatal head injury, but appeared
to have been struck twice On theground near the victim's bodies,
investigators found pieces ofevidence; a large flashlight,
the type that has a large squarebattery and a handle.
The lens of the flashlight wascovered by black plastic secured
(20:12):
with tape.
In the center of the blackplastic, there was a small hole
that aperture would allow a userto cast a narrow beam of light
from the large flashlight.
On the ground in the area was aroll of duct tape, a crowbar,
and a bundle of white cord.
The cord was the same as thatfound tied to Denise Milner's
body.
(20:34):
After viewing the entire scene,investigators were able to piece
together the probable sequenceof events.
They believed that the suspectcrept in through the rear of
that particular tent because itwas one furthest from the
counselors, a distance of about80 yards with a blocked line of
sight.
The suspect bludgeoned MichelleGuse and Lori Farmer in their
(20:54):
cots where they died.
The suspect took Denise Milner'sclothes off in her tent and
possibly began a sexual assaultbefore taking all three out of
the back of the tent and 150yards away to the base of a tree
he selected.
The girls were 60 to 70 poundseach, so it would be difficult
to move all of them in one trip.
(21:14):
It was probable that the suspecttransported the dead or dying
girls by slinging them in theirsleeping bags over his
shoulders.
This was supported by thelocation of blood swipes on the
flaps of the rear tent fabric.
Denise Milner was likely forcedto walk, unclothed between the
tent and the tree, with the ropeligature around her neck,
restraining her like a leash.
(21:37):
Based on the state of Milner'ssleeping bag and clothing left
in the tent, the investigatorsfound it likely the primary
physical and sexual assaultoccurred at the location where
she was eventually found.
Based on the statement ofcounselor Carla Wilhite, it
seemed likely that theunidentified sounds she heard,
which she attributed to ananimal, were the assault of
(21:58):
Denise Milner.
This was also Wilhite'sconclusion when all of the facts
were known.
With the scene information andbasic order of events,
established, investigatorsfanned out across the camp,
searching for anything thatmight lead them to the
perpetrator.
The counselors were allquestioned and cleared.
In their statements, several hadexperienced suspicious
(22:19):
circumstances over the prior fewweeks.
There were personal items thathad gone missing, notably
several pairs of glasses.
Someone had broken into one ofthe buildings, taken donuts and
left a threatening note.
The note said,"We are on amission to kill three girls in
tent one." At the time, the noteseemed so implausible, it was
(22:40):
taken as a misguided prank.
During a search of the campproperty, numerous items were
found scattered around, notablythe various pairs of glasses
that had been reported missingduring the staff interviews.
As the Girl Scout campinvestigation progressed, it
became evident that the suspectwas probably not someone
affiliated with the camp.
(23:02):
The investigators began lookingin the surrounding area.
The adjacent property ownerswere questioned.
Some were asked and submitted toa polygraph examination.
While the traditionalinvestigation was going on, the
county sheriff coordinated anoverland search in the open area
peripheral to the camp.
Numerous caves were discoveredin the area, three of which were
(23:23):
in the cliffs above the scoutcamp.
One of the cave walls bore afresh inscription that read"the
killer was here.
Bye buy fools.
77- 6- 17." In another cave, acache of evidence was seized.
These items included more stolenproperty from the camp, a roll
(23:44):
of plastic tape matching thatused on the suspect's flashlight
and photos of a woman in awedding dress.
Several pieces of evidence cametogether at once to point to one
particular suspect.
The photos from the cave of thewoman in a wedding dress were
identified as a wedding that wasphotographed by an inmate, a
(24:05):
trustee who was doing time atthe county jail.
The trustee wasn't a suspect,but his assistant on work
release was a man named LeroyHart.
Hart had been in jail forburglaries and had a violent
criminal history.
One of his past offenses stunnedthe investigators.
(24:26):
A few years prior, Hart hadkidnapped two pregnant women at
gunpoint from a Tulsa parkinglot.
He drove them almost an hour toa secluded location near Locus
Grove, at which point he tiedthem naked to a tree, raped and
beat them, and left them fordead.
During the kidnapping incident,Hart took both women's
(24:47):
eyeglasses and tried them on tosee if the prescriptions were
right for him.
The investigators discoveredthat Hart was very familiar with
the Girl Scout Camp area.
He was known to wander the area.
His mother's home was on one ofthe adjacent properties.
The only problem with Hart as asuspect was he had been evading
(25:07):
law enforcement for more thantwo years.
He had escaped from jail justafter the wedding.
shoot.
Hart was popular in thecommunity and well known as a
star high school athlete.
He was an American Indian livingin a community with a large
population of people from histribe.
Law enforcement blamed theirinability to capture Hart on the
(25:28):
community that was suspicious oflaw enforcement and willing to
shelter the fugitive.
Within a few days of the GirlScout Camp Murders, the
investigation began to focusprimarily on Hart.
A volunteer search Possenumbering several hundred was
formed to conduct overlandsearches for the man.
(25:48):
Specialized tracking dogs fromanother state were brought in to
assist.
The media closely covered themanhunt.
In the time he had been evadingcapture Hart had gained
notoriety in the communit.
Rumors that he was beingassisted in his escape by Indian
magic began to grow and assumemythic quality.
The legends grew even more asthe days went by and neither the
(26:11):
Sheriff's posse nor the specialtracking teams achieved success.
People were convinced that Hartwas a shapeshifter.
A couple of tracking dogs diedprobably from heat exhaustion,
but rumor spread it was anIndian curse placed on the dogs.
Hart's luck changed when aninvestigator with the Oklahoma
(26:32):
State Bureau of Investigationsconvinced a local woman to tell
him where Hart was holed up.
She led him to a cabin in thewoods about 50 miles south of
Locus Grove.
When the police rated the cabin,Hart attempted to flee, but was
taken into custody.
Hart was charged with threemurders, and the trial began on
(26:53):
March 19th, 1979.
His private defense attorneyswere paid for by the Cherokee
Nation.
At trial, the prosecutionfounded its case on evidence
like the glasses, items in thecaves, and proximity to Hart's
mother's home.
There was biological evidence,hair and semen, but relying on
(27:14):
1970s technology, the links wereless than definitive.
The defense's tactic was toattack the prosecution as
racially motivated.
The prosecution was crippledmid-trial when, during a
hearing, the prosecutor, SidWise, perjured himself on the
stand.
It turned out that Wise had beensharing information about the
(27:36):
investigation with a journalistand had a contract for a book
deal about the Girl Scout case.
Hart's defense team exposed Wiseas a liar, who was looking to
personally profit.
A new prosecutor was brought into salvage the case, but the
damage was done.
Shortly after the defenserested, the jury acquitted Hart
(27:56):
of all charges.
After the trial, Hart wasreturned to prison where he had
been sentenced for previouscrimes to serve a total of more
than 300 years.
On June 4th, 1979, two monthsafter his acquittal Hart died in
prison of a heart attack.
The investigators of the GirlScout camp murders examined
(28:19):
approximately 140 suspects.
None of those people were evercharged Beginning the discussion
on this case, since this was anacquittal, after having reviewed
this case, what do you thinkabout that result?
Mark (28:42):
Well, the good thing is there's the historical
information dating back to 1977,but also there's been a lot of
newer activity.
About nine years ago, there wasa new sheriff that was elected
in the county that this happenedin.
His name is Mike Reed, and whenhe was elected Lori Farmer's
parents, met with the newsheriff and asked him to look
into the case.
(29:03):
They wanted to see if somebodycould come up with a definitive
answer, whether or not, any ofthe suspects they had were
legit, whether or not thatsomebody had slipped through the
net or if it was actually Hartthe, was the suspect.
Sheriff Reid and some of theOSBI investigators went through
the case again As they wentthrough, they analyzed and
(29:24):
somebody had the idea of takingthe, case to NACMEC, which is
the National Center for Missingand Exploited Children.
A place where I've gone totraining.
NACMEC offers a lot of services.
And one of those is there's aboard of 23 selected homicide
investigators and FBI profilersthat will evaluate a case if
they accept it.
(29:46):
Sheriff and his Oklahoma StateBureau of Investigations
Associates went to NACMEC andpresented this board with all of
the information.
The board had, the opportunityto review the stuff for a month,
and at the end they came to aconclusion that, Hart was the
only offender that could havedone this.
When this came out, the, Sheriffexplained it, I'm gonna quote
(30:08):
him.
Hart is a textbook, serialrapist.
In addition to taking this caseto NACMEC, Sheriff Reid raised
private contributions in theamount of$30,000, which was what
was needed to have everything inthe case that could possibly
have DNA attached to it,including contact DNA,
evaluated.
In 2019 the results came back.
The full results weren'treleased until 2022, but the
(30:32):
families were told in 2019, andwhat they were told is the DNA
profiles they got, althoughthey're not definitive, they
rule out every other potentialsuspect they had, and match Hart
in the partial profiles theywere able to extract.
It's difficult to understand,but the bottom line is this,
They can't say a hundred percentits Hart because they don't have
(30:54):
a complete DNA profile.
But everyone involved in the DNAanalysis is convinced that there
could be no one but Hart.
The partials they have match himand it's unlikely they would
match anybody else.
Marcy (31:06):
You think the evidence is solid and that Hart wasn't just
a scapegoat?
Mark (31:12):
That's correct.
I don't think he was scapegoat.
We know a lot more about thesetypes offenders now than they
did in the 1970s.
There's a reason for that.
At the time, there was noblanket recognition that sex
crimes are special in terms ofrecidivism, but on a local
level, because the sentencesback then were short
investigators kept seeing thesame suspects come up over and
(31:34):
over again.
The sentences were abysmallylow.
I mean, like Hart served underthree years on a legit gunpoint,
double kidnapping, rape, andnearly murder, and was paroled
in three years.
In that environment, where he isalso doing, residential
nighttime burglaries, who knowshow many victims went
unreported, how many crimes werenot linked.
(31:57):
Now the nighttime residentialburglaries and what he's doing
with the women will berecognized as being related.
And the sentences on the crime,particularly with the two
pregnant ladies, probablywould've locked him up for most
of the rest of his life.
These type of offenders had arevolving door in the sixties
and seventies and those things,caused us to have things like
(32:17):
the sex offender registries now.
Marcy (32:20):
He ended up being acquitted for the Girl Scout
murders, but having 300 years toserve, where did the 300 years
come from?
Was that part of the violationof parole or cuz they didn't
have persistent felon laws then,did they?
Mark (32:33):
I think he was sentenced as a habitual offender.
He did those and then he wascaught with numerous residential
burglaries.
Marcy (32:39):
Those burglaries plus these time left to serve for the
original sexual assaults.
Mark (32:44):
He had a lot of hope that he was gonna get paroled again
in three years, but his time was300 years, and I think after his
trial, he had expectations thathe could whittle that, down.
In this specific case, I thinkNACMEC, the analyst there are
right on.
This is the kind of guy we'relooking for, and it's not chance
that he happened to be rightthere when it happened.
Marcy (33:05):
There was one discrepancy in the facts as, we were looking
at this case, and that waswhether the girls were in tent
number eight or tent numberseven.
Can you just touch on that realquick?
Mark (33:15):
There's several different sections in this Girl Scout
camp.
The girls who were murdered werein Kiowa section.
Something like 25 to 30 girls,in that section, four to a tent.
Many of the sources say theywere in tent eight and some say
seven.
I found diagrams with both sevenand eight tents in a row.
Actually the important part ofthe crime is that either seven
(33:35):
or eight was the end tent in anarc of tents kind of around
their campsite, with thecounselors way at the other end.
So they were, as far the girlsthat were murdered were as far
from the counselors, as youcould get and still be in a
tent.
The counselor who found thegirls, said they were in ten
seven.
So, I trust that she, havingthought about this for 45 years,
would absolutely know the factthere.
Marcy (33:58):
The tents all had four girls except for this one.
How come there were only threein there?
Mark (34:03):
So I found a news article about a girl who was supposed to
be the fourth person in theirtent.
It's not Kristin Chenoweth, theactress who did the 2022 series
about this crime.
She was supposed to go to campand who was sick, but, I think
she was supposed to be inanother part of camp.
But the girl that was supposedto be in their tent, was also
sick, so that's why they onlyhad three.
(34:24):
She's kinda like the person thatmisses the plane that later
crashes.
It freaked her out in ways thatechoed through her life for
years, depression, followed bydrug use and survivor's guilt.
Marcy (34:35):
The cops and reporters and residents describe this case
in superlatives, horrifying.
Never seen worst ever.
The attention on this case washuge and lasting.
Why do you think that is?
Mark (34:48):
I think some of it is the common camp experience, the
creepiness of little kids whoare vulnerable.
I think it's your parents saidthere's really no such thing as
monsters.
Go to camp.
You'll be safe.
Only to find out.
what a lot of the countryincreasingly became aware of in
the seventies and eighties andnineties, is that there are
monsters out there and they looka lot like you and me.
(35:09):
The camp was just part of it.
People who went to the scene anddescribed it in the media and in
the documentary were obviouslyaffected, and that's all about
the kids.
The fact it was kids.
Marcy (35:20):
I wondered if this case caused lasting changes in summer
camp operations.
In my camp experiences as acamper, as a counselor and as a
parent chaperone, there werealways chaperones or counselors
in the same cabin or tent as thecampers.
However, our son, who was alongtime camp counselor said in
his organization, they still putcampers and chaperones in
different cabins.
(35:41):
So maybe not as big of an impacton policies as I thought.
but there was clearly a lastingeffect on all those who were
directly involved in thissituation and the, local
community as a whole.
Mark (35:52):
Yeah, Well, don't forget, you were a camp, chaperone at a
Cub Scout camp.
So, they're closely related,with the, Girl Scouts so who
knows?
That might have been it.
It definitely a lasting effect.
A lot of the counselors openlytalk about having guilt for not
protecting the girls.
Some of the counselors are, justbarely adults.
According to, Sheriff Reed, Hetalks to people who bring up the
(36:13):
case all the time.
They have theories about who didit.
and he said that a lot of peoplehave no idea the facts of the
case.
which actually common whenyou're looking at police cases,
people have all kinds ofopinions.
According to him, it stilldivides people.
Some people believe that, Hartdid it.
Some people are firmly in thecamp if he couldn't have done
it.
Everybody mourns the loss of thecamp, and the implications of
(36:36):
the community as a whole.
And I can see why.
I mean, would you send one ofyour daughters to a place where
this happened?
Marcy (36:46):
No, no.
I, remember going to a 4- H campwhen I was eight years old and
the teenage counselor in chargeof my cabin took us on a
midnight hike off camp propertyto a country store to buy
contraband candy.
As a kid, I thought it was thegreatest adventure ever.
As an adult after hearing theGirl Scout murder story, it
(37:08):
makes me cringe at the potentialdangers that we apparently
avoided.
Can you talk about the effect ofkids on first responders?
Mark (37:20):
Sure.
It is what you'd expect.
Normal people, cops, paramedics,have an innate desire to protect
the vulnerable from harm.
They're negatively affected byany situation where they can't.
I was fortunate to work inlocations and times when I did
not come into contact with a lotof kids.
They're present and sometimesdirectly involved in, domestic
(37:42):
violence in the middle of thenight.
but for the most part, on nightsthey weren't the ones raping and
robbing and shooting andcrashing.
I gave CPR to more than oneinfant, who were found not
breathing in bed.
and not a single one of themmade it.
There were other heartbreakingcases, like the call the baby
who wouldn't stop screaming.
No one answered the door.
So I had to break into theapartment.
(38:04):
It was a hovel, and the mom isthe only one home.
She's passed out drunk on thefloor and the infants' across
the room screaming.
But I never had the stuff myfriends did.
Like on swing shift or days.
A long time ago, I woke up latein the afternoon because I'd
worked all night.
I turned on the evening news andthere's a buddy of mine in
uniform standing on theshoreline of a pond in a
(38:25):
neighborhood just south of ourhouse.
It's summer, and he's helpingwith the deployment of divers,
of fire department divers.
So what had happened is threelittle kids had made a raft.
They floated halfway across thepond and the raft broke up.
All of those kids were out therein the water, under the water.
(38:46):
A group of parents stood by myfriend on the shore waiting to
see their kids for the lasttime.
I'm sitting there, my couch athome thinking that is
heartbreaking.
I was sad for the call, but Iwas happy for myself to not have
had been on that call.
Some of the calls I did havethat had to do with little kids,
(39:06):
they stick with you.
Bad wrecks.
I had one where the mom died andbled out all over the kid, who
mercifully was onlysemiconscious.
There was the early morning callof a little girl, eight or nine
years old, who was spending thenight at a friend's house.
The friend had an uncle whograbbed the visiting girl as she
(39:27):
went to the bathroom in themiddle of the night and he raped
her.
The girl victim later called herparents who called 9 1 1.
And I was lucky enough to be thearea car.
If you run that through yourhead sequentially, me arriving,
waking up the whole family, justas the other girl's parents
showed up, you can probablyimagine how that went.
(39:48):
And the uncle, when the dick'sinterviewed him, he said he was
asleep in his bed.
The girl snuck into his room andthe next thing he knew she was
doing things to him.
Not a well thought out excuse.
He's off to prison.
In another incident, I had torecruit.
He and I were called to coverofficers in another sector
because they were gettingslammed that morning, and had
(40:09):
just caught a nasty homicide.
I should have been expectingsomething bad because recruits
are often called to performunsavory tasks under the guise
of it'll be good experience.
We were asked to transport twolittle boys, brothers, like six
and eight years old.
They were in their underwearbecause there was no time to get
(40:30):
them any clothing based on whathappened.
Their mother and father had beenin an early morning fight.
The kids have been close enoughthat when their mother was
stabbed to death, the boys endedup with her blood all over them.
As I said, it was early morning.
The staff and investigatorshadn't made it to the child
advocacy center yet, so myrecruit and I took them around
(40:51):
the corner.
and bought the McDonald's andthey ate in the backseat.
The image of those two boys,tiny bodies, shocked out eyes
huddled together with my greenArmy blanket around them will
always be with me.
I have other kid stories, but Iwanted to give you a sampling of
why kid cases in particular staywith you.
The common theme is theirvulnerability.
Marcy (41:15):
Talk about your take on Hart's personality.
Mark (41:20):
He didn't make a lot of public statements, unless you
count his horrible crimes.
In the middle of the trial, hegave a press conference.
It reminded me of the clips ofTed Bundy's, news interviews.
Hart was attractive,charismatic, a natural public
speaker.
After his acquittal, Hart gavean interview from prison to the
(41:42):
Cherokee Advocate Newspaper.
It was the only one he didbefore his death.
His answers were very criticalabout law enforcement.
He clearly was pleased that he'dbeen able to ellude capture for
so long, openly saying it wasn'tbecause he was some great
outdoorsman or woodsman, but hecredited the charity of friends
and his supporters, hisrelatives, who he wouldn't name,
(42:04):
and the stupidity of local cops.
His overall assertion is that hewas a scapegoat, and I guess
that's not surprising.
What stuck with me about hisinterview, which was far ranging
including the plight of theAmerican Native, was that he
seemed like a very intelligentguy.
He complained about running outof interesting reading material
from the prison library.
(42:26):
This bolstered my Ted Bundyimpression.
I mean, if you keep in mind thecrimes he had done for which he
was caught almost red-handed andadmitted to, the interviews he
did, were telling.
Keep in mind he isn't disputing,the serious prior crimes.
And prior to being caught, he'shiding out in caves and an old
cellar.
He's so bored at times he'sriding on the walls, almost stir
(42:48):
crazy as he waits.
What's he waiting for?
My point is, okay, I have adecent sized piece of property
boarded on two sized by fairly,deep canyons and on the sides of
those canyons are several caves.
And aside from looking in thosecaves, I spent like virtually no
time in them.
Why?
Well, as an adult man, there'snothing that interests me there.
(43:11):
So it occurred to me that Hartspent daylight hours in the
caves and maybe sheltered fromstorms like that first night at
camp.
He's doing so because he'sinterested in something there.
It's the camp and the victims.
Marcy (43:24):
There was definitely some overt racism in this case, even
when we believe that theyidentified the correct killer.
And both things can be true.
They can be racist and havefound the right guy.
Mark (43:36):
Yeah, unfortunately, I saw some pretty blatant racist
statements from the prosecutorand the unfortunate thing is
these taint the prosecution, orat least the trust, that the
investigation that comes from itis legit.
As far as the mystical medicineman, Indian curse stuff, one of
the OSBI investigators had itright.
He said that the searchers werejust covering for the inability
(43:56):
to catch the man by talkingabout him as having those
superhuman skills.
The reality is, and you can seethis in in the us, historic
gangsters, actually this place,Cookson Hills held several
gangsters, because of thegeography is easy to hide there.
In modern times like the OlympicBomber, Eric Rudolph, who hid,
in the Appalachian Mountains,Osama Bin Laden.
(44:17):
If there are people willing toharbor these people, it's very
difficult to find them,particularly in rural areas.
I think if I wanted to hidesomeone on our farm and we had
electronic discipline, it wouldbe very difficult to know that
any person was here.
Marcy (44:31):
Do you think Hart's acquittal was jury
nullification?
Mark (44:35):
No.
Okay, so jury nullification is,the jury is fully aware that the
crime committed as stated, andis a violation of the law, but
decides that they aren't goingto convict the person for
whatever reason.
Sympathy, or, there's somereason, like they think it was a
legitimate, thing to do.
That's jury nullification.
(44:55):
The crime occurred, the juryknows it occurred and the person
being tried did it.
But they aren't gonna convicthim for one reason or another.
Marcy (45:04):
This seems like it might have some things in common with
OJ Simpson's case.
Mark (45:09):
yeah.
When we were watching the Keeperof the Ashes, that's what I
said, and right after I said itto you, one of the mothers said,
this was like, to me, like OJSimpson case.
So I agree.
First of all, the defenses inboth cases made a great argument
that the evidence there wastainted, or was inadequate for
conviction.
And then they tainted that taintwith added layers of racism.
(45:34):
The cops, the prosecutors, thesystem is racist.
There was a lot of publicsupport.
There's a lot of, you know, thewhole, Mark Furman racist thing,
was very similar.
I mean, I'm not saying it's notlegitimate.
I mean, it's, they basicallypulled out the audio tapes that
Mark Furman was racist.
And, and when they showed theprosecutor in this case, same
way.
Hart can be guilty.
(45:56):
And the defense did a great jobof smearing the people, accusing
him, with legitimate issues.
That's why I think that, theparents of the, girls killed,
didn't want to hear any of that.
They wanted to hear that theperson, they were pretty
confident killed their girls,was gonna get convicted.
Unfortunately, didn't happenbecause of some of the problems.
The problems with theprosecutors.
There were problems with theevidence.
(46:16):
The evidence in this case, beingin the 1970s, collected in the
1970s, was not what it shouldhave been for a case of this
magnitude.
Marcy (46:25):
Before we move on from talking about Hart, the, let's
talk about the wedding photothing.
Hart was an assistant for aprivate wedding photo shoot done
by inmates, and so I guess somepeople will do anything to get a
good deal.
Mark (46:41):
Yeah.
it's strange.
It had to be cheaper, but howwould you feel about getting
discount prison labor courtesyof your local sheriff, only to
find out that one of the guyswho's been oling, your daughter
at the wedding, is a convictedrapist and the main suspect in
killing three little girls.
Thanks.
But I'll pay the full price.
Marcy (47:01):
A lot happened in your career as far as, the changes in
the way, technology advanced,the use of data and digital
media and dna.
So can you just sort of talkabout, all of the things that
happened from, the change fromthe beginning of your career to
the time that you retired?
Mark (47:21):
Yeah.
My first patrol car was a beatup 1986 Chevy Capris.
It was a POS.
It didn't even have an AM/FMradio.
No computers.
We typed out criminal complaintson the actual typewriter.
It's funny.
I'm not ancient, but I feel likea dinosaur talking about this.
All of our reports werehandwritten on triplicate, you
know, write'em and you get threecopies.
(47:43):
When we were dispatched to acall, it came over the radio and
you reached down on a notepadnext to you on the car seat, and
you wrote the dispatch down.
We're talking the earlynineties.
So DNA's just over the horizonat this point.
All our cameras used 35millimeter film, so you had no
idea whether or not the shotsyou were taking were any good.
Thankfully I didn't screw up anymajor cases.
(48:05):
Tape recorders were like thefull size cassette type.
Later we had mini cassettes,which were a pain in the butt
because our clerk typist onlyuse the full size, would only
type out the full size.
The digital revolution in lawenforcement changed everything.
By the time I left, everyone hada laptop computer; patrol cars
had the mounts.
You could be dispatched bycomputer; run your own computer
(48:26):
checks; do your own research inthe field.
All the photographs weredigital.
You could see if your shots weregood at the time so you could
retake'em if you needed to;change the lighting.
I had a digital recorder at theend that was the size of a pen.
It could hold hours ofinterviews.
And I could say as a guy whoworked undercover, the wires and
cameras, let's just say therewere no more giant wires with
(48:47):
batteries that burned the sideof your belly as you wore'em.
DNA, that all happened during mycareer.
The amazing thing is that itgets progressively better.
There are cases that can't beproven now that will be possible
with like contact justepithelial cells on pieces of
evidence that're sitting outthere, that will possibly be
analyzed in five to 10 years.
(49:09):
It's exciting.
We had a scanner that you couldset up on a tripod and it, it
spins and 3D scans everything inan entire scene.
And you do that because you canprecisely pinpoint everything
where it is and it's relation toeverything else.
You can go back and virtuallyrecreate the scene.
I expect that in the future,this type of scanner will detect
(49:31):
DNA and you'll be able to putthis up and it will DNA sequence
everyone who's ever been in theroom.
It's kind of wonderful and alittle bit scary.
In terms of technology, almosteverything's better in terms of
data, documentation, andresearch because of our move to
digital.
Marcy (49:48):
What were the issues that you noticed with how the scene
was processed and the initialinvestigation was handled?
Mark (49:55):
In the film, Keeper of the Ashes, the photographer was
amazed.
He shows up at the scene wherethe children are dead and the
sleeping bags have the kidsstill in them, and they're
closed.
And no one had, except for theoriginal counselors, had opened
up those sleeping bags andlooked into them.
So you have professionalofficers here that until the
(50:16):
camera guy shows up, who's notan officer, he's a newspaper
guy.
Marcy (50:21):
So nobody confirmed those girls were dead in the sleeping
bags.
Mark (50:24):
Yeah.
That was his point.
Like, yeah, nobody, nobody evenlooked at them to say, are they
really, truly, totally dead?
You know?
The other thing is, I thought ofthis at the time.
So there were, witnesses at,children at the scenes that were
shuttled off in the buses totheir parents.
No one ever questioned them.
They should have, since they had'em there, they should have at
least segregated'em off one at atime and soft questioned them to
(50:47):
see if anybody had any idea ofanything.
You might not get anything, butto never have even crossed that
off your list.
One of the girls that was at thecamp in the tent next to the
girls that were killed, saidthat she had to this date, 45
years later, never been talkedto about this and she had
observations.
She'd held observations for 45years about what happened that
(51:09):
night.
She said she heard a scream.
They should have gotten thatinformation on day one.
One of the things I, I noticedis they had, the Sheriff's Posse
was like, I think they said itwas like two to 600 people,
depending on the day.
And they're slowly walkingacross the field.
I don't know what they expectedto find.
And I said to you as watchingthis thing, you know, that's not
(51:29):
how they're gonna find this guy.
They're gonna find this guy witha detective who's got a source
and then they show the OSBI guywho did exactly that.
Good detective work, talks to asource, convinces the source
that it's in everybody's bestinterest to bring him in alive.
It's actually the wife of a guywho's helping Hart.
(51:50):
And she's worried that the guy'sgonna get implicated and
somebody's gonna get shot by acop.
That's how they got him.
The wife gave him up and he was50 miles to the south in
somebody's cabin and no amountof overland searching in fields
is gonna turn that guy up.
You have to have a source.
This case is a good reason tocatch, prosecute rapists.
(52:11):
It's also good to track sexoffender registry people because
they've put society on noticethat they have this proclivity
for illegal sexual conduct.
One of the problems with theseventie, processing is that
they didn't package for dna,they just packaged for the
technology they had at the time.
So a lot of the samples, thereason we can't get full samples
(52:33):
off even where there's semenpresent, is that the samples are
degraded to the point where theDNA has been damaged and, a lot
of their testing has beeninconclusive with partial DNA
sequencing.
Marcy (52:46):
So tell me more specifically about what the
problem was with the way theypackaged.
Mark (52:51):
You don't put wet items that may have dna, in plastic
bags because plastic bagsretain, moisture.
So if we had something in thefield that would be wet, say, I
remember there's a leather beltthat I collected.
It seems a littlecounterintuitive, like plastic's
gonna protect everything likeyou put in your refrigerator,
but actually you put that in apaper bag where it can dry and
(53:12):
drying versus rotting molding,mildewing bacteria, that
protects the dna.
You can get DNA from a liquidthat's dried, but if you have
something in plastic where, it'slike a little Petri dish and
growing bacteria inside.
Marcy (53:27):
You also don't want it to be sitting out in the sun or in
super hot conditions either.
Mark (53:32):
Sure, sure.
Marcy (53:34):
While we're talking about dna, another discrepancy in the
stories is whether all of thegirls were sexually assaulted or
just the 10 year old.
Can you talk about that?
Mark (53:46):
So one of the things that Sheriff Reed went back through
is a detailed, analysis of theorder of events and, the initial
investigators and he, believedthat, just like I wrote it, the
bad guy goes into the tent,bludgeons the two little girls,
and then, sexually assaults thethird little girl.
There's a lot of physicalcontact that can happen without,
transfer of blood.
(54:08):
But the way it was described bySheriff Reid is these girls
pretty much died, bled out intheir sleeping bags.
And if there had been anadditional, a sexual assault
with them in their sleepingbags, I think you would a lot
more blood transfer.
They had blood, seep down ontothe floor and there was blood at
the, basically where when he wascarrying'em out, the sleeping
bags, the tops of the bags werebloody, so they brushed up
(54:30):
against the tent flap.
But I think if there had beenmore, contact, the blood
would've been smeared.
Probably you would've hadcontact from the girl's blood
onto, the, sexual assault victimalso.
I think their analysis is righton.
That's not to completelydiscount the idea of some kind
of sexual contact with the othertwo, but I think it's most
likely he had one single targetand the reason he murdered the
(54:53):
other two is so that he couldhave access without the kind of
risk that three conscious girlsmight pose to the criminal.
I don't think anybody can saydefinitively that there wasn't
sexual contact, but I thinkcertainly the, at least the
primary sexual assault was onthe 10 year old.
Marcy (55:11):
The parents of these three little girls became
amazing victim rights advocates.
Mark (55:16):
Yeah.
Michelle Guse's father RichardGuse, helped establish the
Oklahoma Victims Bill of Rights,and also, the Oklahoma Victim's
Compensation Board.
Lori Farmer's family founded theOklahoma chapter of Parents of
Murdered Children, and SherryFarmer, the mother, in 2018
helped pass Marcey's Law, inOklahoma, which gives crime
(55:37):
victims access to, variousresources.
Camp Scott Girl Scout Camp hadbeen operated since 1928.
It closed the morning of themurders and never reopened.
Please rate and review CrimeRaven wherever you listen.
It helps us get better and ithelps other listeners find us.
(55:59):
Also, if you email us ascreenshot of your review or
send us a question or a case,we'll send you a promo code for
$10 off our very coolmerchandise.
Send them tocrimeravenpodcast@gmail.com.
And if we use your question oryour case in an episode, we'll
send you a free Crime Ravent-shirt.
(56:21):
Remember, email us atcrimeravenpodcast@gmail.com.
Thank you for listening.
If you haven't already, pleasesubscribe to Crime Raven, so you
don't miss an episode Pleaserecommend us to your friends
too.
Check our website atcrimeraven.com crime Raven
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(56:41):
mark Rein and edited andproduced by Marcy Rein And it's
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