MASS MURDER: Oklahoma Girl Scouts

A week away at Girls Scouts camp is meant to be a beautiful adventure but that adventure for three girls was nightmarish.

Months before the fateful night of June 12th, a group of camp counsellors went to the campsite for training. Whilst out there things didn’t go entirely as planned, one counsellor found a tent slashed open and there were reports that things had been stolen from all over the camp. Some of the counsellors could hear strange noises in the distance but it was chalked up to animals. The most concerning of everything was in place of food a handwritten letter was left. “We are on a mission to kill three girls in tent one.” was what the letter read.

All of the events were dismissed as pranks.

Camp went on as planned with a fresh group arriving at Camp Scott on June 12th 1977, three members of this group were Doris Denis Milner (10), Michelle Heather Guse (9) and Lori Lee Farmer (8). Everything was going fine until night rolled around.

A storm had been forecast so the camp counsellors moved all the tents closer to them to better watch over the girls. Doris, Michelle and Lori had the tent furthest away from the counsellors.

In the middle of the night, counsellor Carla Wilhite heard strange, guttural moans outside but when she checked there wasn’t anything unusual. it was dismissed as animals in the woods. Around 1:30 am, campers began hearing the strange moans too. One of the campers who were still asleep was woken by someone entering their tent with a flashlight around thirty minutes later.

An hour later, campers were woken by screaming and the sound of someone crying for their mom. The young girls, most aged 9 or 10, didn’t know how to react and forced themselves to go back to sleep, hoping that someone else would hear the sounds. The rest of the night was calm.

Carlina Wilhite was awake before any of the campers at 6 am. To prepare for the second day of camp, she went along the trail that led to the showers. There she found three bodies, two stuffed inside sleeping bags and the third out in the open, just 150 yards from their tent.

Lori, Doris and Michelle had been murdered during the night. It was later found that the three girls had been sexually assaulted before being strangled or bludgeoned to death.

The camp was evacuated without a word to the campers as police began searching for anything that could solve the murders. It brought plenty of circumstantial evidence. A large, red flashlight was left on top of the girls’ bodies, a page from a newspaper had been stuffed inside to stop the batteries from rattling and there was a smeared fingerprint in blood on the lens. The girls’ tent was covered in blood, a 9.5-sized shoe print was left behind. Further searching would reveal duct tape, rope and women’s eyeglasses. The eyeglasses were later claimed to be one of the counsellors.

The search was expanded to cover the entire property that the camp was on. The police would find a cave on the property that showed signs of somebody living inside. There was a newspaper that matched the page found in the flashlight left behind and on the wall of the cave, someone had written. “The killer was here. Bye, bye, fools. 77–6–17”.

Police soon would identify a suspect in the murders. 33-year-old Gene Leroy Hart. Hart had a history of violence and was previously arrested for kidnapping and raping two pregnant women in Tulsa. He would get out of prison on parole shortly after going in. Hart would find himself in jail once again on a burglary charge but he escaped in 1973.

When arrested the sheriff at the time fully believed that Hart was the killer. His belief would not be supported by the jury when Hart went to court, in a unanimous decision the jury found Hart not guilty of the murders.

With strides in technology and DNA testing, it is later found that Hart was highly likely to have been involved but despite this, the case is still classed as unsolved.

After the murders, Camp Scott closed its doors permanently. 
Two families sued Magic Empire Council, the business that ran Girl Scouts of Eastern Oklahoma, for $5 million, jurors voting 9 to 3 in favour of Magic Empire Council.
Richard Guse, Michelle’s father, helped the state legislature pass the Oklahoma Victims’ Bill of Rights and founded the Oklahoma Crime Victims Compensation Board.
Sheri Farmer, Lori’s mother, founded the Oklahoma chapter of the Parents of Murdered Children Support.

The three taken that day were:
Doris Denis Milner aged 10.
She was a straight-A student that hadn’t ever been to camp but went around selling Girl Scout cookies to attend with her friends. She was excited at first but when her friends backed out last minute, Doris began to fear leaving behind her mother and younger sister. Her mother would explain “She was getting worried about going. In fact, she had decided that she really didn’t want to go. She wasn’t sure would like it.”. Doris had just been accepted into the prestigious Carver Middle School and was looking forward to starting in the fall.

Michelle Heather Guse aged 9.
She had attended camp the year before and was looking forward to the week. “She was very excited and she came downstairs and she sat on my lap and told me that she was going to miss me. But she wanted to make sure that I was going to take care of her plants. African Violets were her speciality and she wanted to make sure I was going to water them and care for them.” Michelle’s mother recounted from the day she left.

Lori Lee Farmer aged 8.
She was the youngest at camp and was excited to make new friends while she was at camp. At first, she couldn’t decide where or when she wanted to go, seeing all her choices as the best option. To ease the chore of deciding what her mother picked for her.