The Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders
30 Years Later the Horror Remains
On the evening of June 12 three little girls went to tent eight in the Kiowa section of the camp. They were Lori Lee Farmer, 8, Michelle Guse, 9, and Doris Denise Milner, 10. Their tent was located at the outermost edge of the wooded camp and was somewhat isolated from the other tents.
The first night of camp is usually an exciting one for little girls and perhaps some of the girls found it hard to sleep because they were nervous about being away from home or anticipating the fun days ahead of them, but Lori, Michelle, and Denise and the other girls at Camp Scott had no fun days ahead of them. The blinders of childhood innocence were about to be ripped from their eyes.
Counselors heard noises from some girls about 2 am and went to tell them to hush and go to sleep. They were surprised, but apparently not alarmed to hear campers reporting that a man had looked into their tent, and other campers say that a man had grabbed them on their way to the bathroom. One of the other girl later said she had heard someone scream "Momma, Momma" at 3 am. Without looking for the strange man or checking on any of these reports, the counselors sent the girls to bed and went back to their own tents.
Barbara Day, who was the camp director at the time, knew of the camp receiving threatening notes that claimed four little girls would be murdered, but said she did not consider the notes to be serious.
Early the next morning, Carla Sue Wilhite, a counselor at Camp Scott, was on her way to shower when she made the discovery that would send a shockwave of horror throughout Oklahoma and the nation. Under a tree in the woods she found Denise Milner's nude body. Next to Denise, still zipped into their sleeping bags, were the bodies of Michelle Guse and Lori Farmer.
Within the hour it was reported by Mayes County authorities that all three girls had been sexually assaulted. Tow of them had been killed by blunt force trauma to the head, the third by strangulation. Each of the girls had been gagged and bound with electrical tape. All of them had lengths of cord around their necks.
As a massive manhunt began for the killer, police focused their search on Gene Leroy Hart, a convicted rapist who had escaped from the Mayes County Jail in 1973. He had been a resident of Locust Grove, where he was a high school football star. On June 23, 1977 he was charged with three counts of first-degree murder.
Hart, also known as "Sonny", was not apprehended for nearly 10 months. He was finally arrested on April 6, 1978 about fifty miles from Camp Scott. His trial began on March 19, 1979 and after 10 days of testimony it took a jury only six hours to acquit him of the crimes he was charged with. He was returned to jail to finish serving the 305 years left on his rape convictions. He died two and a half months later, on June 4, of an apparent heart attack.
Thirty years later questions still linger about what happened that night. Was Gene Leroy Hart the real killer? Was he the lone killer? Could he have overcome all three girls without an accomplice? And what about the thumbprint on the flashlight found at the scene? It did not belong to Hart.
In May of this year it was announced that new DNA tests were planned on evidence from the crime. Tests performed in 1989 by the FBI on blood and semen found at the crime scene were inconclusive.
The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation has performed the new Y-STR testing on the samples and handed over the results to the Mayes County District Attorney's office. They caution that the sample may be too small or too degraded for an accurate result. The Mayes County DA will decide if and when the test results are released.
Author's Note: For information on how this event affected another Oklahoma camp and its campers see my article "Summer Camp After A Killing".
Published by Becky Smith
I served as the Senior Editor of a local parenting publication for 2 years and am now the Layout Editor for OKIE magazine, a local arts, news and entertainment publication.Writing was always my dream job. I... View profile
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36 Comments
Post a CommentCan anyone tell me (and by anyone, I mean law enforcement officials) why Karl Lee Myers was never considered a suspect in the Camp Scott murders? He was a child rapist and known killer in the Northeast Oklahoma area.
I was 8 years old and living in WA state when this happened. I remember seeing this story on the news and it has haunted me ever since. It's been nice to look up this story on the internet and get more information, even though it is old. Assuming that the guilty party is now dead, I feel like a Demon has finally been slayed after all of these years.
Any chance Timothy Krajcir might have been involved. He was a serial killer active from 1977-1982, mostly in southeast Missouri.
i myself am a cherokee indian an believe that Gene Leroy Hart killed those little girls an also believe that he also acted alone. my brother- in- law also a cherokee,too believes he did.he was there when they searched the cave-an among other evidence- they found nail clippings and hair where he(Gene) had made medicine in an attempt to ward off anyone looking for him. cherokee belief is real watever you choose to believe is fine- but he made bad medicine an that always comes back to you or someone you love in terrible ways! our medicine was meant to help or heal- and if you go about it in the right way truly works- an you must also know that it is our belief in God, our creator that makes our good medicine work an he doesnt help bad medicine work!!! that came from some other source to gene. an where in all these opinions is never mention of the medicine man that sent the runner into the court house with the ancient tobacco that was placed in the four corners of the courthouse(again good
There was another GS murder in 1963 at the Flying G Girl Scout camp in Colorado. The counselor, Margaret Beck, a 16-year old girl, was found in her sleeping bag, strangled. It is a cold case
by how sweet the other children were, but there was a definate sadness. If I remember right. One of the other children had an artifical arm. This family has had their fare share of tragedy.
I was a camper at the Girl Scout Camp where the three girls were murdered in 1975. I remember that one of the nights in my tent%2C I was having a hard time sleeping. We had been up late at night telling stories and giggling. All of the other girls were asleep%2C but I could hear footsteps outside the tent. The flap on the tent opened and a flashlight shone around our tent then the man shined the light up on his face. I quickly closed my eyes and pretended that I was asleep. I was too scared to move. The next morning%2C I asked the other girls if they saw the man who opened our tent. None of the girls saw what I saw. I was horrified to learn that a few years later%2C of the three girls murder. It still sends shivers down my spine to think of it. I ended up babysitting for the Farmer family a year after the murders. I had not realized that they were the family of the little girl who was murdered until the Lori Lee Farmer%27s sister told me the story of her sister who died. I was struck b
Payton - I think you and your mother are misinformed about the previous owners. The land where Camp Scott was was donated to the Magic Empire Council by the family of Dan P Scott. They own or owned a store in downtown Tulsa called Dan P Scott and Sons. The land was donated and had been Camp Scott for a 50 years prior to these awful murders. The Scott family was in no way connected to the murders and the family that lived there as caretakers did not run either. They were throughly questioned and ruled out as suspects. Amazing how rumors get started. I am now 50 and was a previous camper and had plans to go after I got back from church camp that summer. The counselors didn't do it, the caretakers didn't do it. No one will ever convince me that Gene L Hart was not responsible.
Whoever wrote that Hart was murdered in prison is wrong. He died of a massive heart attack and even if you believe that he was not guilty of these crimes...he was a convicted rapist and in my honest o
I went to Camp Scott for years before 1977 and was to go that year as well. It was more remote than it appears now. The turnpike was not there. It was a great place to go. The counselors did nothing wrong! It was common for girls to try to scare each other saying that someone was walking around. I remeber one year a girl said she felt like she was being watched while she was in the shower. We talked after the murders. It is quite possible that Hart or whoever else may have been there was just waiting for his chance.
My father was friends with those girls or knew them atleast. It has changed his life, I live in Locust Grove (Murphy) and I hear this story many of times and the place is still there and it gives me creeps! A very sad story, imagine the family, the hell they went threw. Knowing that this Native man was on the loose and had just killed their children. Its something you see all the time these days.