Welcome back to me writing about depressing cases that are still unsolved! This week’s blog is going to be about three girl scouts who were sexually assaulted and murdered in Oklahoma, 1977. 

A couple of months before the murders, there was a note left for a camp counselor saying that someone was on a mission to kill three girls in tent one, and the note was just disregarded as a joke. A couple of weeks later in June of 1977, Lori Farmer, Michelle Guse, Doris Milner, ages 8-10, were huddled in a tent (tent eight) at their girl scout camp in Oklahoma because of an incoming thunderstorm.

That night was the last any of them would ever see the three young girls again. They were found the next morning. One of the girls was found on top of her sleeping bag, and the other two were inside theirs while the bags were unzipped. The cause of death for Milner was strangulation, and the other two were bludgeoned to death. All of the girls were sexually assaulted, and their mouths were stuffed before their deaths.

Not many people heard anything except the other girls at the camp in the tent next to them. All the other girls said to the police was that they heard someone yelling for her mother and another just scream at three am. At the time of the screams, things were noticeably going missing like purses and many pairs of prescription glasses. There were cords, a flashlight, and duct tape left at the scene, but none of them were able to be identified. There was also a piece of hair that was not of any of the girls’ who stayed at the camp. It was also not identified, but they found that it belonged to a native American man. 

The camp ranger had one person in mind when he found this all out. Cherokee Indian Gene Leroy Hart. He was on the run for four years because he abducted two women in 1966. Both women were pregnant, and he took them to a forest outside of town and sexually assaulted them. The women survived and escaped, and Hart disappeared while he was on parole. He was arrested two years later for burglary and went to prison. He escaped shortly after out of his window and was gone for 10 months.

After he was found, only three of the five fluids tested matched. This was not enough to link him to the murders being that native American DNA is so similar and it could have been anyone and the case was never connected to anyone else. Since 1977, over $30,000 has been raised to help with solving this, but it remains unsolved.

If you would like to know more about his case or understand it in further detail feel free to check out the links I have below!

https://criminaldiscoursepodcast.com/camp-scott-girl-scout-murders/

https://medium.com/the-mystery-box/horror-at-camp-scott-the-girl-scout-murders-78195eb3eb49

https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/murdered-oklahoma-girl-scout-murders/

http://www.girlscoutmurders.com/

https://allthatsinteresting.com/oklahoma-girl-scout-murders