THE GIRL SCOUT MURDERS OF OKLAHOMA

The woods in northeastern Oklahoma is the site of one of the worst crimes imaginable.  This case has never been solved although many investigations have taken place.  

There is a Girl Scout Camp named Camp Scott on the Cherokee Reservation, a few miles outside of the small town of Locust Grove.  The area is very woodsy and dark at night.  Camp Scott sits on 410 acres of land.  There is only one road going into the camp and it is also the same paved road going out.  The camp area is fenced with a gate.  There is a back road that can be accessed by anyone, which runs beside the camp.  In town, no one is concerned about big crimes, just small time harassment by the local high school boys, who have nothing else to do.  The law enforcement never feels the need for a plan to keep the girls safe.  Camp Scott has been in the area for many years, and the local town is very proud of it.     

Barbara Day was the Camp Director at Camp Scott in the summer of 1977.  Michelle Hoffman was the support person to assist Director Day.  She was only 15 years old.  One of her jobs was to assign the girls to their appropriate unit and tent number according to their age.  The younger girls were in either the Cherokee or Kiowa Unit.  Each unit had tents set up in a circle with the counselor's tent in the front.  The camp is a big facility.  In June of 1977 there were 230 campers, 30 staff members and 10 counselor's in training plus a forest ranger and his family.   

It had been raining for days, the ground was very muddy.  The heavy rains were causing a lot of flash flooding in the area.  The ranger was in charge of putting up the tents, but because of all the rain, he didn't get them all up before the girls arrived.  He needed some help, so Director Barbara Day called her husband Richard and asked him to drive out to the camp and help the ranger set up.  That night, Richard worked till about 9:00 p.m.  It was getting dark.  He was so tired from working all day and was too tired to drive back home, so he stayed the rest of the night with his wife.  

On June 12, 1977,  two bus loads of Girl Scouts left Tulsa heading for a Girl Scout Retreat at Camp Scott, some 50 miles away.  From the information I read, indicates not all the tents were set up, when the girls arrived.  That first night was very scary.  Since their tents weren't ready it was announced that all the campers to head to the Great Hall.  A young girl named Amy Sullivan one of the campers said the staff kept them singing for a very long time.  It seemed they were trying to wear the girls out, hoping the storm would pass and the rain would stop.  Finally the rain slacked off and the campers were given the go-head to retire for the night in their tents.  As the girls hiked down to their tents, the trees continued to drop rain on them.  By the time they made it there, their clothes were soaked through and they were covered in mud.  The unit that the three missing girls were in had 27 campers.  Each unit has the tents set up in kind of a circle.  The counselor's tent was at the front of the circle.  

After the girls were in their tents, counselor Carla Wilhite heads down the road to the latrine.  The girls are being very loud as she starts to walk by tent seven.  She stops and speaks to the girls, "It's time to quieten down."  She walks over to the door of the tent and looks in.  "Good Night, girls, I will see you in the morning."   

Early in the morning June 13, a counselor hears a strange noise.  It sounded like a guttural moaning sound coming from the main road.  She gets out of bed, takes her flash light and heads to see what the noise is.  As she listens to the noise it doesn't sound like an animal nor does it sound like a person.  She was a little scared to see what the noise was, it could be a big animal and attack her.  As she walked up the main road shining her light, the sound seemed to be coming from across the fence.  When she would shine her light toward the noise the noise would stop.  She shined her light a few more times toward the noise.  Each time the same thing happened.  Finally she said to herself, "Okay", and turned and walked back to her tent.   

The next morning Director Barbara Day's alarm goes off.  She had set it for 6:00 a.m.  She wanted to get a shower before staring her day.  She went to the shower tent, then headed toward the main road.  In the distance she saw something in the middle of the road.  As she got closer she realized it was three sleeping bags.  Her first thought, "Oh, they must have fallen off the delivery truck when it delivered the girls' luggage, I need to go pick them up."  As she got even closer, she saw a body of a young girl.  The girl was not breathing and laid there motionless.  Day had an overwhelming feeling the child was dead.  In seeing the three sleeping bags, Day thought one of the girls must have gotten scared in the night and started running and ran into a tree.  She immediately contacted her staff and told them they needed to start counting the girls checking every tent and feeling every sleeping bag.  One counselor headed for tent seven.  When she looked inside, no one was there.  The three girls from tent seven were missing.  

The authorities were notified and arrived at Camp Scott to begin their investigation.  After looking more closely at the three sleeping bags, the investigators went to the body that was found outside her sleeping bag.  Her body was covered in blood.  She had a cord around her neck and a gag in her mouth.  The other two sleeping bags were opened finding inside the other two missing girls from tent seven.  Both Lori Farmer and Michelle Guise had been knocked out from blows to their heads by blunt instruments.  Denise Milner, the one that had been found outside her sleeping bag, appeared to have lasted longer, her body was still warm.  All three girls had been beaten and sexually assaulted.  Their bodies were found about 150 yards from their tent.  

As the investigation got underway and before any evidence was found, Sheriff Pete Weaver, Mayes County Sheriff said he knew exactly who committed this crime.  He gave the name of Gene Leroy Hart, who was a Cherokee Indian that lived in Locust Grove.  Hart was a small town hero, and big football player.  He was a felon on the run.  He had escaped from the Mayes County jail and was running around those woods for over three years, closer to four.  Hart had been convicted of raping two women, and tying them up in Mayes County.  He had been tried for this crime and sentenced to multiple years in the state penitentiary.  He only served two years of his sentence, before being released.  Later he was arrested again for minor crimes and put in the Mayes County jail.  Sheriff Weaver hated Hart and was very angry about not being able to locate him and arrest him after almost four years. 

There were so many odd things happening at Camp Scott at the time that was never told to the investigators.  Men dressed in military uniforms, walking around in the camp that did not belong there.    Items from counselors tents were missing, one tent slashed.  The investigators found a flash light near the girls' bodies.  The lens was covered in plastic with a hole cut out of the middle to make it harder for the light to be seen at  night.  Also there were multiple prints, a bloody foot print on the tent floor along with a boot print and a print of a tennis shoe.  That should have proven that more than one person committed the crime.  Fiber, hair and blood samples were found and taken, but never tested.  This pre-dated DNA testing.  The evidence was preserved hoping to be tested at a later time.  Sheriff Weaver was in charge of the case and once he put his eyes on Hart as the prime suspect, he didn't look for anyone else.  

As the manhunt for Hart began, many people believed Sheriff Weaver planted evidence against Hart.  The investigation was handled sloppily.  It took almost 10 months to capture Hart and arrest him.   He went to trial for the Girl Scout Murders in 1979.  Hart took the stand at his trial, he spoke of his innocence.  He was very calm and soft spoken.  He said he felt compassion for the families for  their loss.  Public opinion really mattered at that time.  Hart spoke of his religion.  It was two fold.  He professed to believe in the bible, to believe in God, and in the second coming of Jesus Christ.  But he also believed in the ancient Cherokee religion.  Both religions relate to each other in that they both believe in only one GOD.  

The trial spanned eleven emotional days.  It was an all white jury.  The twelve person jury only deliberated for five hours.  The jury felt that not enough evidence was given to convict Hart acting alone.  The jury voted to acquit Hart of this crime.  The OSBI was shocked with the verdict, and felt all their work was for nothing.  Sheriff Weaver was in shock also and was never the same after Hart got off for the crime.  Hart was sent back to the penitentiary to finish his sentence of raping those two women.  He still had 305 years to serve.  The investigators were hoping with Hart being returned to the pen, he might eventually confess, but after being back behind bars just two months, Gene Hart suffered a heart attack and died.  He was only 35 years old.  After Hart's death the case was classified as open, but inactive.  This was very sad.  With so many mistakes made and manufactured evidence planted, no other suspects have ever been interviewed and no other suspect has been found.  There has been no closure for the families of Denise Milner, Lori Farmer and Michelle Guse. 

Paul Smith was a Locust Grove Police Officer at the time of the Girl Scout Murders.  After his shift he would drive out to the camp to chase the hooligans away that liked to drive out there after dark, whooping, hollering trying to scare the girls.  He wanted to keep the girls safe.  On June 12, 1977 he was sitting on a bench outside of the Wilson-Cunningham Funeral Home in Locust Grove.  He saw the buses arrive into town followed by a dark colored car.  More evidence was found at the scene of the crime, hair, fiber and blood evidence which was never tested.

Over the past 45 plus years, many others have taken on the task themselves to investigating this horrible crime.  One such person is Faith Phillips.  She was born in Arkansas, but grew up in the Cherokee Nation in the small town of Proctor.  She became a corporate attorney for about 10 years, but never was happy.  Her dream career was becoming a writer.  When she was 12 years old she was an avid reader.  Her sisters tell of her climbing upon her parent's bed reading a documentary about the Girl Scout Murders.  She doesn't know why she was so interested in the crime, maybe because she could relate to all three of the victims.  

In Faith's new career of becoming a writer she didn't really have much success until her third book which came out in 2017.  She then began working on another novel in 2019, when the principal of Stilwell High School came calling, with a job offer.  He offered her the job of teaching a creative writing class at the Stilwell High School.  She had graduated High School from Stilwell in the 90s. 

On Faith's first day of class, she told her class to write their own story and the story of their own town.  "Hey, we can make a podcast together."  One group decided to to study the Girl Scout Murders, which was a very heart-breaking story.  Her students wanted to find out who wanted to do those horrible things to those three young Girl Scouts.  It was now 40 years since that horrific crime and way to many questions that still remained unanswered.  The group wanted to meet with the law enforcement who arrived first at the scene and the investigators that investigated the crime.  The sad thing was many of those people had passed away.   

The next day, Faith told her class, "You're not going to believe this, I think we got some new information."  On February 26, 2021, something really crazy happened.  Faith had just finished writing about the case in her journal.  She felt something really crazy was about to happen, but wanted to make sure she had it on record.  
One of her groups in the class decided they were going to research the Girl Scout Murders on their pod cast.  Faith posted about it and    afterwards she got kind of a cryptic message from an unknown person.  "If you're looking into the Girl Scout Murders, there is someone you really need to meet."  Faith was curious, but also a little freaked out.  The person she needed to meet was a man named Paul Smith, who was the Mayes County Sheriff from 1980 to 1984.  He had also been a Locust Grove Policeman at the time of the Girl Scout Murders. He even drove out to Camp Scot many evenings after his shift to check on the girls.  He took office after Sheriff Pete Weaver.  He was now 97 years old, living in a retirement home.  He had a story to share.  She wanted to go and talk to Paul, but she didn't want to go alone.  You never know what could happen.  She told her class, "Here I am with the body of a NFL Linebacker and he is a 97-year-old man in a nursing home."  The class laughed and then one of her students said, "You may be crazy for saying this guy has some information, but you're afraid to go and listen to him.  You're going to be even more crazy if you don't go and listen to his story.  Take a chance.  Sometimes taking a risk can be the best thing that could happen."  

Faith contacts Paul Smith and makes an appointment to go and talk to him.  She knew he was about to drop some truth on her.....but she wasn't prepared for what she heard.  It was the most extraordinary story she ever and still to this day boggles her mind.  The old man said, "I know who did it!"  so the story begins......

Gene Leroy Hart was acquitted of the Girl Scout Murders, because the jury couldn't see from the evidence presented he acted alone.  Let us be real clear about Sheriff Pete Weaver.  He was unqualified to investigate any kind of murder, much less a complicated one.  After Hart was acquitted, no one else was brought in and questioned.  The true murderer has never been found.  How many cases 50 years old are ever solved?  There are many cold cases today being solved because of DNA testing.  One of Faith's students said, "It's like a cold case.  Maybe there's something else that needs to be found here."

Remember it was in the middle of COVID and you couldn't even go see your family members.  Faith was very surprised she was able to go and see a 97-year-old man in an assistant living center.  His caregivers arranged for her to get in to see him.  Paul Smith was a local Locust Grove Police Officer when the murders were committed.  He was also there through the investigation and arrest of Gene Leroy Hart.  He ran for Sheriff of Mayes County and won.  He served as the Mayes County Sheriff from 1980 to 1984, after Sheriff Pete Weaver.    

She walks into his room.  On his walls are hanging all his war medals from War World II.  To Faith it was apparent he considered himself a man of the law and he was very proud of it.  They brought him into the room in a wheel chair, and sat him down in a recliner.  The interview was filmed, but before the filming started he asked a prayer,  "Lord, this is a very special day, please be with us as we film me telling my story."  Paul struck Faith as a person who was a truth teller. 

In the summer of 1977 Paul was working as a local police officer.  On June 12, he was sitting on a bench in front of the Wilson-Cunningham Funeral Home.  As he was sitting there, he saw the two big buses from Tulsa go through town.  Following the buses was a dark colored Dodge Super Bee.  In the front there were two men.  There might have been a third man in the back seat, but Paul couldn't tell.  He recognized the two in the front seat because he had arrested the driver a number of times.  

The day of June 13th, when the bodies were found, he was out of town all day.  Later he learned what had taken place at Camp Scott.  Since the camp was two miles outside their jurisdiction, all the local law enforcement could do was offer the clues and information they had gathered sharing it with the OSBI to assisted the bureau.  After the trial and acquittal of Gene Hart, Smith decided to investigate the murders on his own.  He had all the training he could get, but he learned early on, you can't do anything without informants.  

Paul found his informants from the local high school kids.  In a small town where nothing much happens high school kids know about it  first.  Within three days Paul was given the names of three men who allegedly were involved in the Girl Scout Murders.  One informant said just after daylight on June 13th, the day after the murders, he saw one man walking north on a local highway toward town, without shoes or a shirt.  The Girl Scout Camp is two miles south.  The other two suspects were following him.  According the description from his informant two of the men he saw on June 13th were the two men Paul saw in the front seat of the dark Super Bee that followed the two buses through town.  During the interview with Faith, Paul was asked the names of the two men he saw in the front seat of the dark colored Super Bee, but at that time Paul didn't want to give their names.  The names were not given on camera because they hadn't been publicly named, and two of them were still alive.

The informant went on to tell Paul that one suspect headed to the home of a friend, and got her to take him to Tulsa.  He was barefooted with no shirt.  He obtained a pair of shoes and a shirt and took a plane to Modesto, California.  The third suspect had a sister he lived with.  She said her brother came home just before daylight on the 13th, his shoes were bloody and he had blood on his clothes.  She knew he took drugs, but she had never seen him that high before.  She asked him what had happened?  He said he had killed a deer.  Then he sat down in the middle of the floor, taking two pie pans and with a spoon transferred water from one pan to the other.  When he got one pan full, he would start over, repeating "those little girl scouts."  From what he said and that night, he must have been involved in the murders.  The next morning he goes in to his sister and says, "If you ever say anything about last night, I'll kill you."  She kept quiet for a very long time in fear of her brother. 

In the interview Paul went on to say he was just a city cop with no power to bring charges.  He was passing his information on to Sheriff Weaver and the OSBI, who was in charge of the investigation.  A man by the name of Harold Berry, a highway patrolman, was kind of a liaison between Paul and the OBSI.  Paul said he didn't know if the OBSI got his messages or not, but they never acted on it.  For the next 10 months of the man-hunt for Gene Hart and the following twelve months of the investigation after Hart's capture, he decided to do his own parallel but unofficial investigation, always sharing his information with Harold Barry and the OSBI.  The sad part is neither Paul's information or anyone else's helped push the case forward.  For whatever reason, none of the three young men Paul Smith regarded as suspects were ever interview or arrested.  

By the end of 1979, thirty months after the murders, with no movement in the case, Paul decided he was going to run on the prospect of solving the murders and bringing peace to Locust Grove.  He ran for Sheriff and won.  The day he took office, he was so excited because he was going to finally get access to all the reports and evidence on the murders.  But he was in for a shock.  When he opened the file cabinet drawer, where all the reports on the case should have been, he only found one file with the name of Gene Hart labeled on it.   The file was empty.  Sheriff Smith was very upset and said Sheriff Weaver must have cleared out all of the files.  Now as the Sheriff of Mayes County, he had the power to launch his on official investigation.  

Paul started with the names of the three suspects his informant had given him.  His prime suspect was the driver of the Super Bee.  He was a 19-year-old high school drop-out who was in and out of jail multiple times.  Five months after the murders, he went to prison for exposing himself to kids near the creek not far from Camp Scott. He was still serving time early in 1981.  Sheriff Smith went to see the suspect Buddy Bristol.  Buddy was a white Locust Grove resident with a long rap sheet.  He was known for stalking girls and torturing animals.  

When Sheriff Smith finally gets in to see him, he receives something very extraordinary, a verbal confession.  The three suspects had been drinking beer and taking drugs for three straight days.  They were low on money.  They were trying to think of some way they could raise some cash.  They figured the chaperones out at the Girl Scout Camp were probably loaded.  They planned to rob them. Bristol said they waited until sometime after midnight hitting tent seven which was the tent of the three young girls.  All three men struck at the same time.  One had a crowbar and one had a roofing hammer.  Bristol said two of them entered the tent from the back.  One hit Lori Farmer and one hit Michelle Guise.  But the third girl, Denise Milner bolted out of the tent and got outside before the third man caught her as she was fleeing.  Denise was the one they tied a cord around her neck and gaged her.  While the other two sexually attacked the girls, Buddy claimed he had not taken part in that.  Buddy said Lori and Michelle died quickly, but Denise remained alive.  They then took the three girls and placed them on the road, strangling Denise where she laid.  The three men intended to dispose of the bodies elsewhere.  Just as they were getting ready to remove the bodies, they heard a noise that scared them.  They dropped the girls and got into the Super Bee and fled.  One of the men was given the job of dumping the car, murder weapons and and the bloody clothes.  He supposedly pushed the Super Bee into the river a few miles from Camp Scott.  Bristol refused to officially put his confession in writing or signing his name without a deal.  The deal was if he confessed he would be spared the death penalty.  

Paul told him he couldn't make any promises, he had no authority to make any deals, that was the DA Jack Graves job.  Paul went to Jack Graves that same day.  Graves was waiting for them to unload.  Bristol told Graves he would give him everything, if he would make a deal.  The DA jumped out of his chair, shook his finger at Smith and said, I am not making a deal.  As far as I am concerned the man that killed those girl Scouts is in his grave, and that is where he belongs.  Paul was in shock.  He was a Mayes County Sheriff and a servant of the people of Mayes County.  His door was a closed door, he could do nothing.  He had all this information and even a verbal confession that could be useful to solve the case, but the DA was not willing to go down that road.  

Sheriff Smith was not put off by the DAs response.  He continues to investigate.  Within a few weeks, a local man approaches him with more supporting evidence.  The man is married to the sister of third  suspect.  She is the one who had witnessed her brother the third suspect  who was covered in blood and high the morning after the girl scout murders.   The man said his wife could confirm part of Bristol's confession.  Her husband tried to get her to tell Paul her story, but she was still afraid and wouldn't do it.  Finally he got a phone call from the husband and said his wife would talk to him.  Sheriff Smith sends a deputy to pick the sister and her husband up, put it becomes quickly clear, someone doesn't want her story told.  The deputy picks them up, but when they stop at a toll booth on the way to Sheriff Smith's office, OSBI agents are waiting for them.  Two men step out of their automobile and walks over to the deputy's car and took the two witnesses making a quick trip to Tulsa.  By the time Paul arrives, the agents have just released the two witnesses.  The OSBI put the wife in one room and her husband in another to interrogate them.  When the sister came out of the room, she was visibly shaking, Paul thought she was going to faint.  The OSBI must have scared the couple so bad, they went home, packed up and went to Arizona and no one ever saw them again. 

Despite obtaining a verbal confession from Buddy Bristol and him identifying the other witness, who could corroborate part of Buddy's confession, Sheriff Paul Smith found his investigation shut down at every turn.   During his four-year term as sheriff, Smith  couldn't convince anyone in Oklahoma Law Enforcement to pursue murder charges  against his potential suspects.  With being blocked at every turn, with no one on his side,  he finally just gave up.  He was tired and just couldn't take another four years in office.  

In 1990, six years after leaving office, Paul decided to go public with his findings.  He had an interview on KJRH Radio Station of Oklahoma.  Paul's investigation and research led him to a different conclusion than the original investigation.  It couldn't have been just one man.  That could be proven by the autopsy reports.  One man would have had to have a different tool in each hand. Strangely, no one in Oklahoma Law Enforcement pursues the case, even though Gene Hart was acquitted and no one person could have committed this triple homicide.  There was defiantly a cover up for some reason that has never been brought to light.

In 2021, more information was given to another writer, who had looked into the case of the Girl Scout Murders.  A man sent her a letter on his death bed.  There were pieces of information on the puzzle that Sheriff Smith didn't have.  The letter was from David Sack a Cherokee Indian.  In the letter David Sack describes what his nephew, Michael Not, witnessed on the night of the Girl Scout Murders.  Nott confirmed the stories Sheriff Smith was told.  All three of the men Sheriff Smith suspected were acting strangely suspicious in the days before the murders.  One of the suspects was a pedophile.  It was witnessed by some one a day or two before the murders, the three suspects were talking and laughing that they had found a place that they could station themselves, near where the girls showered.  The three suspects had spied on the girls in the days prior to the murder.  The letter identified a fourth man with the group in the early morning hours the day of the murders.  He was also a pedophile.   

With the new information of a fourth man, Faith contacted the OSBI.  She was told to speak with the agent in charge of the case.  She called the agent.  He was very angry and offensive.  He said he wasn't interested in hearing any new information on that case.  What could make a person feel defensive about a citizen trying to bring new evidence on the case?  Faith couldn't keep her promise to Paul, if she left the evidence no one wanted to hear?  At first she didn't know what to do.  She decides to dive into the preliminary hearings to look for something the investigators might have missed.  She looked back over the court transcripts and started working through them.  It took her months and hours to get through all of the transcripts.  She found a totally different story from what she always had heard.  After going back through all of them, she had a one sentence summary.  She had one that lined up with Sheriff Paul's account of the murders.  

Faith read about a vehicle that had been parked outside the Camp Scott's gate facing west, with four people in it.  The camp is in such a remote area, so why would anyone be parked out there at night during a thunderstorm?  She remembered reading about one camper reported she saw several men late that night gathered near the latrine with at least one of the men wearing military style boots.  She heard them talking so she hid in her sleeping bag.  Multiple people including counselors and campers, reported they had been followed through the woods and they had encountered strangers on the trails that should not have been authorized to be there.  This was reported the day before the murders.  

Whenever Faith had an opportunity years later, she would ask Locust Grove residents what they remembered about that Super Bee Sheriff Smith saw following the Girl Scout Buses through town.  Two of the men in that car still lived in the area.  Always, as she was gathering information, she never approach local law enforcement in Mayes County.  One reason why, she saw on the news the outright corruption of the investigation and the arrest of Gene Hart.  Then  when the Police Chef  Charles Williams of  Locust Grove was busted and accused of stealing guns and drugs.  Her decision because of her  instinct, told her to take her information to a different authority, and that was an absolutely correct one..  It was toward the end of the year and things were hectic.  She was juggling her students at Stilwell High School and whatever was happening with the case. 

Then out of the blue, Faith got a phone call from a Cold Case Detective from Tulsa County.  Tulsa County set up a Cold Case Task  Force which is made up of highly seasoned investigators including retried FBI Agents.  This task force had successfully solved several high profile unsolved crimes in Oklahoma.  Word was spreading on the street, about Faith's investigation on the Girl Scout Murders.  The detective would like to speak to her in person.  One girl scout that was murdered Denis Milner's dad was a Tulsa Police Officer and the task force felt like he was one of their own.  The Task Force wanted to work with Faith on her investigation, and then make a presentation to Mayes county, because they recognized that Mayes County would be the only ones who would be able to bring charges if it was deemed necessary.  

The Cold Case Task Force came to Faith's house.  She went through her whole connection board and showed them all of the different information, difference sources, and how it was all connected.  Based on her information that she provided to the Cold Case detectives the Task Force believed the suspects identified by Sheriff Paul Smith were absolutely worth checking out.  The Cold Case detectives searched for that Super Bee across the nation and in the state of Oklahoma, but it has never been found.  Faith wanted to go back and talk to Paul and share with him the new information she had found.  Paul was in ICU at the hospital and he died the next day.  At his funeral Faith was there and so were the Cold Case detectives.  They talked and said they couldn't stop.  They had to honor what they had promised to Paul.

Faith Phillips and the Cold Case squad went on for six months working together.  When new information was found, it was passed along to each other.  The weeks passed on with no response from the Cold Case Task Force.  By the winter of 2021, Faith receives disappointing  news.  At some point the Cold Case Unit met with the Mayes County Sheriff at the time and after that Faith never heard from the Task Force again.  They ceased all contact with her.  Why did they shut down? why didn't every law enforcement agency in the state of Oklahoma want the case solved?  Many unanswered questions.  

MARCH 3, 2022 - This is a complete mess.  Faith and Paul felt the same frustration about this unsolved case.  For some reason the authorities didn't want to hear any new information or check it out.  Information was found on the Super Bee.  It was never tagged again since 1977.  Why didn't anyone drag the river for the car?  Why didn't OSBI and Mayes County want the case to be solved and  closed?  What are they hiding??? 

All this new information found on the case seemed to be for nothing.  There was nothing to do with it.  There's no place to take it.  When all hope seemed gone to solve this 45 year old cold case which probably would never be solved, a pretty insane development occurred.  A woman by the name of Jennifer Morrison connected Faith with Sheriff Weaver's son.  His son said, "my dad had these files in his garage all these years.  When he passed away, my sister took all of his documents and she's been maintaining them at her house."  His son acknowledged that his dad had said he would shoot Gene Hart when he was alive, if he had the chance.  Weaver also told his employees that they would be fired if they brought Hart in alive.  What a hateful man!

Weaver's son invited Faith to his work place.  He was very proud of his dad.  He had all of his dad's memorabilia displayed.  It was obvious he really loved his day.  He had a huge stack of files.  Faith thought it would be this delicious box of trial transcripts.  She loaded the files onto her back seat.  When she lifted up the lid of the first box, the file on top had one of the photos of the little girls.  She immediately slammed it shut.  That is when she realized there was much more in the collection of files.  Sheriff Weaver had taken all the investigation report from the Sheriff's office.  That was hard for Faith to believe.  Here is the proof that someone had tried to prevent Sheriff Smith from investigating the cold case.  What didn't they want anyone to know? What did they not want him to see? And why wouldn't they be interested in Smith solving the case?  

A Law was changed by the Supreme Court on how Indians can be tried.  If the crime happens on an Indian Reservation, it can only be investigated and tried by the Indian Nation Court.  Locust Grove and Camp Scott are on the Cherokee Reservation.  So, this case should have taken place and tried by the Cherokee Nation.  That is one thing that didn't take place.  It seems to me very illegal.  Why wasn't this law found when Gene Hart was on trial?  Faith called the Cherokee Nation Headquarters and asked for an appointment to pass along her information and files on this case.  She got an appointment.  She met with Cherokee Nation Marshalls and truly felt she had been heard.  The Marshalls looked through the evidence and seemed to be a little overwhelmed because of the volume of evidence.  Now that the Marshalls are in possession of everything and McGrit has determined that the Cherokee Nation does have jurisdiction, the Cherokee Nation promised to go through all of the information and evidence to determine if they will open an investigation.  Faith is so glad someone is finally taking her and her findings seriously.  

The niece of Gene Leroy Hart has agreed to sit down with Faith. This is the least expected thing that somebody from that family would agree to sit down and talk about the case and listen about some new information that has come to light.  Information, Faith believes has never gone on record in 45 years.  She is very interested in hearing the family's perspective.  Faith is invited to the home of  Hart's niece Kimberly Baker.  She grew up in Locust Grove.  I am assuming Hart was her mother's brother.  Her parents got divorced when she was about three.  Her mother and the children moved to the Cherokee Nation Housing Development.  There was always a sort of mood or hushed discussions that she naturally gravitated towards.  Ooh there's a secret, what is it?   Kimberly was about 8 years old when she discovered in her mom's jewelry box, some photos that she had kept hidden.  The photo's were of Gene Hart during his trial and also photographs of him at his funeral.  She didn't know her uncle, so she finally asked her mom about him.  Her mom told her about Hart being accused of killing three little girls, but the family believed he was innocent.  The Hart family believed Sheriff Weaver had railroaded the investigation, planted evidence and had done all these things to win the case against Hart, for whatever reason.  There were rumors among the family that Weaver was angry that Hart had escaped his jail and that Weaver felt that reflected on him.  For that reason Weaver was very committed to getting a conviction against Hart to show everyone.   It seemed very painful on her mom to talk about the case and what had happened to her brother.  The information Kimberly had been given about her uncle was not true.  Family members told her he was a dangerous individual. They did not trust him and were scared of him.  Kimberly began to lean towards Hart having some involvement in the murders.  

Kimberly felt this was the time and place to tell her story.  She felt if she could help get the truth out, she was going to do that.   When she learned that Faith had new information that was all that it took.  What sealed the deal were the names of the people that kept coming up.  As more information came to light, the more the family felt Gene was involved, and did not act alone.  There was a second witness from the Harts family that wanted to go on record to confirm what Kimberly had told Faith.  It is Hart's great-niece, Kimberly's daughter Megan.  

Megan told Faith that Gene Hart walked down that road that day.  She believes he was involved.  Kimberly believes because of the events leading up to the crime, her uncle was the leader.  He liked and enjoyed being able to control others to do his bidding.  Family members believes Hart and all of his followers were out of their minds on acid for several days. They believe Gene did most of the acting.  He was very much in control of everything.  He had been hiding out in those woods and him and the others had noting else to do.  Hart was just in it for the thrill.  The family believes he picked tent seven because it was the furthest away from the counselor.  The youngest should have been the closest to the counselor. To me that is very disturbing.  There are still to this day who need closure and know the truth.  

Faith said it is hoped we can find out the truth and the full story.  Putting what they know as truth and putting it out there is a reward in itself.  Hopefully most everyone interested in this case, knows what really happened.   Hearing from Kim and her daughter Megan definitely validated a lot of her questions.  Hearing Kim especially speak about bringing some peace and some answers to the victim's families, validated what Faith said from the beginning, "What I am after is the truth."  Hopefully through all of Faith's investigation, the truth has been told.  Through that truth we can have reconciliation and healing.  

In July of 2022, a couple of weeks after meeting with Kim and Megan, and over a year and a half, Faith finally got the call she had been waiting for.  She heard from the Cherokee Nation Marshalls they had decided to make a Task Force and assign detectives to investigate the Girl Scout Murders once more.  They didn't put out an official Press Release, the Cherokee Marshalls are quietly investigating the murders of Lorie Farmer, Michelle Guse and Denise Milner.  As far as the public is concerned this is still a cold case, which has never been solved. 

In 2011, film director John Russell pointed to convicted murderer Karl Lee Myers as the killer.  Russell said that in 1979 Myers confessed to him personally about the Girl Scout Murders.  He confessed three times to six murders in the northeast Oklahoma area.  he also confessed once to the Camp Scott murders.  Myers at the age of 64, died in prison in 2012, while serving an related first-degree murder conviction and was on death row. 

In 2014, the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation's cold case unit sent more than 200 items to a private lab for updated forensic testing.

The Girl Scouts' murder investigation has been one of the most extensive investigations in OSBI's 89-year history at the time then-OSBI Director Stan Florence stated.   Three years into his term as director he authorized a comprehensive review of the entire case to identify any possible leads we may further develop and explore additional scientific measures that could draw a clear conclusion to the case. 

The Cherokee Nation became involved following the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark McGirt v. Oklahoma ruling in 2020.  This case gave the Cherokee Nation and federal government jurisdiction over crimes involving Indians throughout the reservation.  The State of Oklahoma now as jurisdiction over crimes only involving non-Indians.  So there is a Native American victim in the Girl Scout murders.  That scene now becomes part of the missing and murdered investigation that they are looking into.  What was the results of the Cherokee Nation investigation?  Was it ever made public?

On July 10, 2023 People's Magazine:  Investigates the Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders.  The new season includes a captivating line up of true crime mysteries, including the 1977 murders of the Oklahoma Girl Scouts:  Lori Farmer, Denise Milner and Michelle Guise.

KCRA-3 by Hammack Snyder:  Locust Grove, Oklahoma, one of Oklahoma's most notorious cases, Murders of three Girl Scouts from Tulsa, who were murdered at Camp Scott, which is located a few miles outside the town of Locust Grove, Oklahoma, which is on a Cherokee Reservation.   

If interested in watching or hearing these two programs please try to to located them.  I sure plan to.

written by Connie Johnston James, from information she took from a YouTube video.  Connie knew a girl scout that was suppose to go to Camp Scott that summer in 1977.  Her mother got a weird feeling about it and didn't let her go.  I am thankful to the Heavenly Faither for her mother's gut feeling.  She could have been in that very tent.

cj