FL FL Shirley Elizabeth Whitten, 19, and Roger Dale Higgins, 26, Oak Grove Cemetery, 22 February 1972

[uburoi1]

Double Murder in Oak Grove Cemetery

...
Two miles southeast of Wildwood lay the Oak Grove Cemetery. Mostly scrub oak, pines, and sand, it was known for having the remains of 31 Confederate veterans interred there among the locals. But at 8:00 A.M. on February 22, a caller to the sheriff’s office breathlessly stated that two more bodies, uninterred and painted crimson, had joined the others.

Deputies from the Sumter Sheriff’s Department arrived with sirens and blazing lights. They found a dark blue Chevrolet Bel Air next to the victims. All four tires had been slashed. A man lay face down, bloody from numerous stab wounds. A female rested on his legs, wearing only a Union 76 smock. The two were quickly identified: Shirley Elizabeth Whitten, 19, from nearby Coleman, and Roger Dale Higgins, 26, a Fort Lauderdale resident.
...
more at link

 

[PayrollNerd]

Published 6/23/2011

https://ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/UF/00/02/84/20/00528/00006-23-2011.pdf

 

[PayrollNerd]

Published 6/21/2011

COLD CASES | SumterCountyTimes.com

COLD CASES

Enraged killer brutally murders two people in Wildwood cemetery
By Bob Reichman
Tuesday, June 21, 2011 at 3:02 pm (Updated: June 23, 12:12 pm)

This is the third story in a series of stories featuring 12 unsolved murders contained in the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office Cold Case File. During the upcoming weeks, the Sumter County Times will publish information about each of the murders.

Oak Grove Cemetery double murders

If she had lived, Shirley Elizabeth Whitten would be 58 years old. But Whitten never made it past her 19th birthday. She and an acquaintance were found brutally stabbed to death in 1972 in a remote Wildwood cemetery.

The two would become Sumter County’s most horrific murder case that remains unsolved to this day.

Whitten, a Coleman resident, was a clerk at the Union 76 truck stop in Wildwood back then. On Feb. 22, 1972, while at work, she met a man from Ft. Lauderdale passing through town.

His name was Roger Dale Higgins. Higgins, 26, stopped with his employer at the truck stop to rest. He had just accepted a job as a laborer for a moving company.
Higgins and Whitten drove in the early morning hours that day to the Oak Grove Cemetery, off Ice Plant Road, where they had sex, according to information from the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office murder file.

Someone either followed them or knew they were there, said sheriff’s Major Gary Brannen.

About 8 a.m. that day, about five hours after they left the truck stop in a 1969 Chevrolet, their bodies were discovered just outside of the car by a man who came to the cemetery to repair a gravestone.

Their bodies were found beside each other. Both Whitten and Higgins had been murdered by someone who repeatedly stabbed them to death with a pocketknife. Wound marks covered their bodies. They were no larger than one centimeter in width.

Whitten........Stab wounds in her lungs and aorta are believed to have caused her death.
Higgins.........The upper lobe of his right lung had been punctured, causing his death.

Investigators don’t believe the murders were the work of some unknown assailant or a “crazed serial killer,” Brannen said. Their deaths are believed to be the work of one man, someone who knew Whitten and became enraged because of her involvement with Higgins.

The cemetery was too remote for someone to just happen upon the pair, someone knew they were there, Brannen said.

And the murders aren’t believed to be random killings, the suspect won’t choose a pocketknife as a murder weapon, he said.

“Somebody knew they could find her there,” Brannen said. “Either they went looking for her at the truck stop and someone said she had gone to the cemetery or Whitten and Higgins were seen together and someone followed them there.”
“The suspect was probably jealous …in a rage,” he said. “He slashed the car tires and then things escalated from there.”

 

[PayrollNerd]

Published 9/14/2014

Index-a

 

[PayrollNerd]

This sounds like a love triangle or a jealous man who was rebuffed by Ms Whitten. I noticed there isn't much about Higgins employer, just that he had stopped with them. So what happen to his coworkers? Could it have been a coworker rather than a local? Seems like a local, in a rural area, would carry more than a pocket knife.

 

[Sleuthster]

This sounds like a love triangle or a jealous man who was rebuffed by Ms Whitten. I noticed there isn't much about Higgins employer, just that he had stopped with them. So what happen to his coworkers? Could it have been a coworker rather than a local? Seems like a local, in a rural area, would carry more than a pocket knife.

Yes, what happened to his employer? Also, who's car was it that they found? If Higgins and his employer worked for a moving company and they met at a truck stop one would assume they arrived in a moving van or truck. Did they save dna from Ms. Whitten? If so they should test the dna to determine if it was Mr. Higgin's. Seems like an odd place to go park and with someone passing through who was with his employer going to or from a job.

 

[Zuune]

I agree with the fact that the employer should at least have been considered as a possible suspect. It seems weird that he's brought up, but hadn't seemed to be questioned, it's possible he was, but I can honestly say I haven't started digging further into this, and wouldn't know how to start.

As PayrollNerd pointed out, the article mentions the angle of the murders being motivated by jealousy, do we know if anyone else working at the truck stop was questioned, especially about possibly amorous regular customers? Did the police question family and friends of the victims to see if perhaps one of them had a relationship end badly?

There are so many possibilities, but I don't want to bring any undue speculation that doesn't already have any consideration in this case.

 

[Stella]

Good article and photograph of murder scene but leaves me with a lot of questions.

1. The bodies are right beside the car as though someone had forcibly pulled them out of the back seat and killed them on the spot.
2. They appear to have been caught in flagrante delicto; her panties were off.
3. Was Miss Whitten a part time prostitute? I'm having trouble with the idea that she would go "parking" with someone she just met. It's not like today; this was 1972.
4. Was her family, friends and co-workers questioned?
5. Was the cemetery used as a lover's lane? Perhaps a local, whose ancestor was buried in this war memorial graveyard, took extreme umbrage at what he felt was "disrespectful to the dead" behavior?
6. This doesn't seem pre-meditated; I mean, a pocket knife? Seems to me if you wanted to kill someone by stabbing, you'd use a butcher knife. This seems to have been whatever the killer had at hand and why he stabbed and slashed so much. Small weapon means a longer kill time and more wounds to accomplish murder.

 

[Florinda13]

This happened in 1972, did they take blood samples or DNA from the victims

 

[Florinda13]

Published 9/14/2014

Index-a

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So no one new anything about Higgins if he had family or not

 

[Florinda13]

Double Murder in Oak Grove Cemetery

...
Two miles southeast of Wildwood lay the Oak Grove Cemetery. Mostly scrub oak, pines, and sand, it was known for having the remains of 31 Confederate veterans interred there among the locals. But at 8:00 A.M. on February 22, a caller to the sheriff’s office breathlessly stated that two more bodies, uninterred and painted crimson, had joined the others.

Deputies from the Sumter Sheriff’s Department arrived with sirens and blazing lights. They found a dark blue Chevrolet Bel Air next to the victims. All four tires had been slashed. A man lay face down, bloody from numerous stab wounds. A female rested on his legs, wearing only a Union 76 smock. The two were quickly identified: Shirley Elizabeth Whitten, 19, from nearby Coleman, and Roger Dale Higgins, 26, a Fort Lauderdale resident.
...
more at link

I understand that this happened in 1972 and they had no way to sample DNA but they must've kept se sort of DNA on the victims

 

[PayrollNerd]

I understand that this happened in 1972 and they had no way to sample DNA but they must've kept se sort of DNA on the victims

They likely have evidence but whether it contains enough usable DNA is the question. Is there enough of the perps DNA on the clothing, on the car, etc. Back then they probably ran fingerprints at best. Gun residue isn't going to provide DNA but a bullet might have a fingerprint on it.

 

[Florinda13]

there so many questions i want to ask the reason for personal reason of my own.. you roger dale higgins sr was married to my mother n law he left a son roger dale higgins jr and a unborn daughter.. roger dale and i have talked about this and try to replay it our heads but we just can't understand.. were was the employer at the time? who's car were they in?

 

[Richard]

Roger Dale Higgins, 26


Shirley Elizabeth Whitten, 19