OK OK - Girl Scout Murders, Lori Farmer, 8, Michelle Guse, 9, Doris Milner, 10, 1977

[wfgodot]

Maybe I just don't get why you would put that in writing. What would your motive be and why kill 3 people? Random number. Was it publicized that the girl scouts would be at that camp? Do they still use that camp ground?

Good question. The note was discarded after it was found as it was thought to be a prank. Camp Scott was evacuated after the crime and never re-opened. It had been in operation as a Girl Scout camp since 1928.

 

[scriptgirl]

Is that land used for anything now or is just vacant?

 

[believe09]

Actually, the note said that 4 little girls would be killed IIRC. I just did a little reading and there were two pools of blood located next to where the campers beds were inside of the tent, so at least two were bludgeoned before being taken from the tent I would think. All had black electrical tape covering their mouths and all were bound. Two were taken in their sleeping bags and one was not, correct? One was uncovered and fully nude, two nude from the waist down but had been rezipped into their sleeping bags.

I read some of the posts from people who claim they were campers on the A&E website....one in particular stated she was in a tent across but some distance from the victims. She said they were supposed to sneak outside after lights out and go play with them, but she and her tent mates could not find their shoes, so they did not go. Originally I thought that this might have cleared up for me how the killer(s) grabbed the girls without making a big ruckus inside of the tent...figuring that a grown man or men would possibly knock the tent over or dislodge it while in the process of kidnapping/killing three innocents. But reading about the blood takes care of that theory for me....two must have been struck in the tent and taken out in their sleeping bags...so did the third walk out herself out of fear? I mean I am trying to picture how an adult or even two are going to carry three girls who are unconscious or injured??? Anyone one know the size of the tents? Perhaps one of the girls was outside of the tent already when she was attacked and the other two were then attacked?

The tent was in a terrible spot, the owners of the Camp took silly chances with the well being of the children, but I guess hindsight and all....

 

[wfgodot]

According to the Wiki source (which lacks in-line citation and could be in error), "The author vowed to murder three campers. Because summer camps are rife with ghost stories, the note was treated as a prank and discarded." Again, from the same source: "The civil trial included discussion of the threatening note as well as the fact that tent #8 lay 86-yard (79 m) from the counselors' tent." (The two families who brought the case lost.)

I remember buying and reading the book about the case ("Someone Cry for the Children: The Unsolved Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders and the Case of Gene Leroy Hart") but it's been a long time ago---published in 1981. So my recall of details, without further fact checking, is, admittedly, way fuzzy.

 

[scriptgirl]

I don't get how the families lost the civil case. Clearly the camp and the camp counselors were negligent.

 

[wfgodot]

I don't get how the families lost the civil case. Clearly the camp and the camp counselors were negligent.

I remember being shocked at the time that decision came down. It was speculated that the jury bent over backwards not to penalize the Tulsa-based Girl Scout council which sponsored the camp.

 

[scriptgirl]

They should be penalized. If that happened today, the parents would not have lost.

 

[wfgodot]

They should be penalized. If that happened today, the parents would not have lost.

They'd have a much better chance, I think. But juries---and Oklahoma juries in particular, perhaps---are unpredictable bodies at best. I'm not sure what evidence was produced at the time; maybe the judge steered the decision in favor of the Scout council.

 

[scriptgirl]

But we are talking about children here. Most people would want justice done. The whole sitch was negligent from the start

 

[wfgodot]

But we are talking about children here. Most people would want justice done. The whole sitch was negligent from the start

Oklahoma regularly used to rank in the bottom three in those "most corrupt officals per state" analyses one used to see. The fix might have been in. It happens. Around this same time, there was a massive bust of county commissioners in the eastern half of OK for things like influence-peddling, kickbacks, etc.

 

[believe09]

According to the Wiki source (which lacks in-line citation and could be in error), "The author vowed to murder three campers. Because summer camps are rife with ghost stories, the note was treated as a prank and discarded." Again, from the same source: "The civil trial included discussion of the threatening note as well as the fact that tent #8 lay 86-yard (79 m) from the counselors' tent." (The two families who brought the case lost.)

I remember buying and reading the book about the case ("Someone Cry for the Children: The Unsolved Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders and the Case of Gene Leroy Hart") but it's been a long time ago---published in 1981. So my recall of details, without further fact checking, is, admittedly, way fuzzy.

Hmmm...conflict on the number in the note I think:
http://en.allexperts.com/e/o/ok/oklahoma_girl_scout_murders.htm says 3

http://www.angelfire.com/ok5/girlscoutmurders/ says 4

http://girlscoutmurders.yuku.com/reply/2267/t/Just-wondering.html#reply-2267 says 4. This one has a copy/paste from some archives in the newspaper during the time just after the murder:
"Camp Director Barbara Day testified she heard that "several" months prior to the June 13 slayings, a threatening note had been found at the campsite by a scout participating in a weekend camp-out.

Mrs. Day said it was not until August that she learned of the note, which she was told read: "Four little girls will be killed."

She acknowledged on cross-examination that she actually never saw the note."

additionally:
"The mother of a sixteen year old girl scout stated in a telephone interview that her daughter had found the note in April of 1977 and gave the note to Mrs. Day.

"It's my understanding," said the mother, "that the note was thought to be a prank by one of the girls and that it was simply thrown away."

Wonder which it is???

 

[scriptgirl]

But who was hushing up this murder and why, if that was the case?

 

[believe09]

On the surface, I have a hard time believing the Hart connection simply because it is quite a switch to go from adult women to little girls, although he might have found them easier to victimize. It just seems like this crime was organized in a weird way-not impulsive....the murder was telegraphed in advance, the perps were selective (if even half of the stories of other scouts seeing men peeking in their tents was true), they brought all their materials and attempted to clean up the blood from the floor of the tent with sheets that they then stuffed into the sleeping bags??!!! The poor baby left by the tree was garotted...then they fled, but Hart left items he had stolen from the camp in his house???

 

[wfgodot]

Hmmm...conflict on the number in the note I think:
http://en.allexperts.com/e/o/ok/oklahoma_girl_scout_murders.htm says 3

http://www.angelfire.com/ok5/girlscoutmurders/ says 4

http://girlscoutmurders.yuku.com/reply/2267/t/Just-wondering.html#reply-2267 says 4. This one has a copy/paste from some archives in the newspaper during the time just after the murder:
"Camp Director Barbara Day testified she heard that "several" months prior to the June 13 slayings, a threatening note had been found at the campsite by a scout participating in a weekend camp-out.

Mrs. Day said it was not until August that she learned of the note, which she was told read: "Four little girls will be killed."

She acknowledged on cross-examination that she actually never saw the note."

additionally:
"The mother of a sixteen year old girl scout stated in a telephone interview that her daughter had found the note in April of 1977 and gave the note to Mrs. Day.

"It's my understanding," said the mother, "that the note was thought to be a prank by one of the girls and that it was simply thrown away."

Wonder which it is???

I'm trying to think back that far (ouch! my brain!), and four well may be the number. I was a bit startled when I read the Wiki account because I remembered the note, but didn't remember that a certain number had been predicted, just that the note referred to deaths to come. And it could well have been a prank, regardless of the number, I suppose. But that sort of coincidence I really have trouble accepting. Most of the details for the Wiki piece were, I think, taken directly from the main book on the subject, so the author may have had three, but it might have been more.

 

[wfgodot]

But who was hushing up this murder and why, if that was the case?

It wasn't about the murders; it was about the money. But it's not unlikely that the status quo wanted to keep publicity down about the former in a "this is not good for the state of Oklahoma, to be known for this" type of manner, and thus squelched the bid of the parents for justice.

 

[wfgodot]

On the surface, I have a hard time believing the Hart connection simply because it is quite a switch to go from adult women to little girls, although he might have found them easier to victimize. It just seems like this crime was organized in a weird way-not impulsive....the murder was telegraphed in advance, the perps were selective (if even half of the stories of other scouts seeing men peeking in their tents was true), they brought all their materials and attempted to clean up the blood from the floor of the tent with sheets that they then stuffed into the sleeping bags??!!! The poor baby left by the tree was garotted...then they fled, but Hart left items he had stolen from the camp in his house???

Good points all. Hart had, I think, raped two pregnant women---so perhaps in a weird, twisted way, he was violating babies all along, including the Scouts. At the time it happened, it all seemed, to me, way too convenient, though, to blame him.

The OSBI still maintains it was him; from their website: "The evidence against Hart was extensive. Tape used to bind the victims, along with other physical evidence tying Hart to the scene of the crime was located in a nearby cave. Items from the campsite were found in the house where Hart was captured. An analysis of physical evidence, including sperm samples and other body fluids, revealed that only .0020% of the population met the unique characteristics contained in that evidence-including Hart."

But I put little stock in state LE agencies in Oklahoma.

http://www.ok.gov/osbi/History/1970_Timeline/History_Girl_Scout_Murders.html

 

[Sleuthster]

I remember this. I didnt remember the details but I was in girl scouts at the time and after this happened my father started going camping with us as a night watch person. He would sleep out by the fire in his sleeping bag. I think other fathers started doing this also in the area because the girl scout councel was really concerned about this not being random.

 

[mnegri1973]

The question on how big the tents were, I can answer.....The tents were on raised platforms and could fit I believe 4 girls. There was enough room for the girls to stand completely upright in them. So from the pictures I have seen of the tents that were at the camp, an adult male/female would have been able to move around inside the tent with no fear of taking it down. I used to have the link saved however lost it when I crashed my system, but if you google about the murders and also include pictures or images in your search it should pull up a few sites that have pictures of the camp on that June morning, the actual tent, and of the girls. ETA: Not pictures of the girls on the morning that they were found but of when they were still alive. Just wanted to clarify that.

As for the OSBI having a new way of testing for DNA, that would be huge I would think because from the last that I have read they really did not have any good samples left to test. On top of that, they being LE released the girls belongings back to the parents after Hart was acquitted and if I recall IF the parents had not picked up the items they would have been thrown out. Yes, that one did boggle my mind. Throwing out evidence when the case was still open.

In my opinion, I do not believe that Hart if he did commit these murders, did not act alone. I would like to know more on the counselors that were working at the girls site. I just can't believe that they would hear and if I recall correctly lights in the trees, moving as if someone was wondering, did not do anything about it. Again, I am basing what I know off of info that was from locals and that was going around at the time, but I always wondered if it was not an inside job.

 

[believe09]

I continued to read last night and learned much more, which most of you covered here including the size of the tent and the OSBI position. I read that 3 of the 4-5 samples processed for DNA by my favorite group at the University of Texas came back to Hart. The legal definition of this is "inconclusive." One DNA sample was clearly from one of the children in terms of a major contribution, so it was difficult to get the Male contributor DNA out of the mix. It is also clear there was more than one assailant because of the multiple shoe prints-Hart's shoe size was not reflected in the casts-so I would be willing to go for the possible 3 person assailant theory...

So I have to ask myself if one of the girls was targeted and the other two were, God forgive me, collateral damage? Hart was not in the tent, perhaps, the other two were killing the two children, then the three were taken out 100-150 yards away into the woods where the last innocent was attacked and killed...at least by two of the assailants? The only reason I think that is because she had two items around her neck...I read that the babies in the sleeping bags were tied in a fetal position. Were they SA as well?? I read stories that stated they were and stories that did not mention it.

 

[wfgodot]

I thought I'd re-acquire "Someone Cry for the Children: The Unsolved Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders and the Case of Gene Leroy Hart" and further re-acquaint myself with the details of the case, but---ouch, prohibitive prices: Amazon and Alibris list many used copies, ranging in price from $29.99 to $99.99 for hardbacks, and paperbacks from $30 to about $80. The only new copy available: a paperback listing at an even $100.

Premium prices like that indicate that high levels of interest still exist for this case, 28 years after the book was published and 32 years after the tragedy at Camp Scott.