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On June 12, 1977, nearly 140 young girls arrived at the Girl Scouts Headquarters in Tulsa, Oklahoma excited to attend a two week stay-away camp at Camp Scott. Camp Scott sits on over 400 acres and had been operated by the Girl Scouts since 1928.
Three of the girls who showed up to Camp Scott that summer were 10-year old Doris “Denise” Milner, 9-year old Michele Heather Guse, and 8-year Lori Lee Farmer. The 3 girls were assigned to Tent #8 in Camp Kiowa.
Camp Kiowa was in a very remote area at Camp Scott. Tent #8, the tent the girls were assigned to, was located the furthest away from Tent #1, the tent with the camp counselors. Tent #8 was completely out of the line of sight from the counselor’s tent.
On the first night of camp, a terrible storm passed through Camp Scott sending the girls inside their tents. Michele, Denise, and Lori inside Tent #8 stayed in and wrote letters home to their parents.
Later that night, a counselor in a nearby camp to Camp Kiowa spotted a dim light coming from somewhere in the woods. She grabbed her own flashlight to check it out and thought that the light seemed to be moving in the direction of Camp Kiowa. Thinking it might have been another counselor, she returned back to her tent.
In Camp Kiowa, a counselor in Tent #1 was woken up in the middle of the night by strange noises. The counselor had never heard anything like it before. It didn’t sound human. It didn’t sound animal.
Just like the first counselor, she got up out of her tent and looked around Camp Kiowa to see if she could find out where these noises were coming from. She approached several of the other tents, but suddenly the noise stopped. She returned back to her tent and fell back asleep.
The following morning, June 13, the same counselor who heard the strange noises woke up early to hit the showers before anyone else. On her way to the showers, she spotted something that caught her eye.
It was a sleeping bag, bunched underneath a tree, containing the lifeless body of a young girl.
About 100 yards away, two more sleeping bags were found containing the bodies of two more girls.
Michele, Lori, and Denise had been sexually assaulted and murdered.
The rest of the campers were immediately bused back to the Girl Scout Headquarters in Tula. They had no idea what happened to their friends.
Police suspected that the girls were murdered sometime between 11:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. Evidence suggested that Michele and Lori were killed inside the tent, and Denise was dragged out and killed in the woods.
Investigators learned that two months before the triple-homicide, a counselor’s tent at Camp Scott was ransacked. Inside the tent, a handwritten note was left behind that read
“We are on a mission to kill 3 girls in Tent 1”
Near the bodies, police found duct tape, nylon rope, a crow bar, and a red flashlight. But, Tent #8 wasn’t the only tent the killer entered that night.
Eyeglasses had been stolen from several tents and placed throughout the camp.
Days after the murders, police announced a suspect in the case. Gene Leroy Hart, a 33-year old Cherokee man who grew up one mile away from Camp Scott. Hart was a convicted rapist and burglary who escaped from an Oklahoma prison four years before the Girl Scout murders.
Hart was convicted of raping two pregnant women. During the assault, Hart used nylon rope and duct tape to subdue his victims. One of the surviving victims recalled that during the attack Hart made very strange noises. Noises similar to what the Camp Scott counselor heard the night of the Girl Scout murders.
Police discovered a cave about 3 miles away from Camp Scott. The cave showed signs that someone was living it and contained several items including women’s underwear, a crumpled picture of a woman, eyeglasses, and newspaper clippings.
Police were able to link the items found inside the cave to Hart. The began the largest manhunt in Oklahoma history to try and find Hart.
Hart was finally arrested on April 6, 1978. He was wearing women’s eyeglasses.
Hart was charged with capital murder for killing Lori, Michele, and Denise. Members of the community who believed in Hart’s innocence raised over $12,000 for his defense.
Prosecutors had semen and hair samples recovered from the tent. However, the test on the hair sample came back inconclusive and at the time of the trial, they didn’t have the ability to test the semen sample.
On March 20, 1979, a jury found Gene Hart not guilty of killing the girl scouts.
In 1989, with advancements in DNA, the semen sample was retested. The DNA testing proved that 3 of the 5 prongs matched Hart’s DNA. This made it possible that Hart was the Girl Scout murderer by 1 and 7,700 chance.
The semen sample was retested again in 2008, but the test results came back inconclusive.
By 2017, over $30,000 in donations has been raised to conduct new DNA testing on the semen sample that could finally prove who the Girl Scout killer really is.
Episode Sources:
The Medium article dated February 18th
Girl Scout Murders website
Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders wiki
Tulsa World article dated 6/15/20
Abandonedok website
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