AR AR - Lori Murchison-Dunbar, 24, Fort Smith, Sept 1995

On Sept. 1, 1995, 24-year-old Murchison and her boyfriend, Jerry Cogan, were arrested during a traffic stop. Cogan was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated, and Murchison was arrested on suspicion of public intoxication, according to a September 2005 Times Record report.

The next morning, Murchison was released from jail. She was supposed to pick up a paycheck and return to the jail to bail out Cogan. Murchison went to the office at the Continental Motel in Fort Smith to get a key to her room sometime between 2-4 p.m., according to an April 2005 Times Record report. She never got her paycheck from the Oaks Lodge Nursing Home where she worked, nor did she bail out Cogan...

About 2003, details started to indicate that Lori Murchison had overdosed, and that someone with her had disposed of her body. Lockhart and investigators felt that they had a pretty credible suspect — a man who was incarcerated at the time in Oklahoma state prison on an unrelated offense. “Back then, there was enough evidence to file disposing of a corpse, but the statute of limitations had run over,” Lockhart said. “But we did have a strong suspect that we felt like knew what happened with her.”

Investigators interviewed the suspect at the prison but could not pinpoint a location to search for Murchison’s body. She may have been placed in the Arkansas River, Lockhart said.

Click to expand...