Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - "Secret Knot" Clue in Rapes & Murders of 3 Girl Scout Campers, Ages 8,9, 10

Episode Date: October 12, 2022

As Faith Phillips' personal investigation into the murders of three Girl Scouts at a camp in Oklahoma continues, new suspects come from a revelation of a confession and recollections from individuals in the community.  Also a box of evidence from the case is recovered. What's inside?  Today on Crime Stories, part three off our Girls Scout Murders investigation.  Joining Nancy Grace Today: Herb Weaver - Sheriff Weaver’s son Kent Frates - Attorney (Oklahoma City, OK), Former Minority Leader Oklahoma House of Representatives, Author: “Oklahoma’s Most Notorious Crimes” Ross Swimmer - Former Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, Former Special Trustee for American Indians at the U.S. Department of the Interior Dr. Shawn Roberson, Ph.D. - Licensed Psychologist (Edmond, Oklahoma), Forensic psychologist for over 20 years, Conducted thousands of criminal-forensic evaluations across Oklahoma, including Oklahoma State Penitentiary (where Gene Leroy Hart died), drshawnroberson.com James Powell - Former Senior Agent, Oklahoma State Bureau Of Investigation, Former Air Force Office of Special Investigations Agent, Former Senior Intelligence Security Advisor for the Office of Military Commissions at Joint Task Force Guantanamo, Owner: "The Investigator, LLC" Joe Scott Morgan - Professor of Forensics: Jacksonville State University, Author, "Blood Beneath My Feet", Host: "Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan" Faith Phillips - Cherokee Screenwriter, Author: “Now I Lay Me Down”, Website: ReadBooksBy.Faith, Twitter: @phillips_faith, Facebook: “Faith Phillips”  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Summer camp. What's not to love? You got a lake to swim in, trails to hike, marshmallows to roast around the campfire, swapping scary stories. But this is not a scary campfire story. Three little girls, ages eight, nine, and ten, dragged from tent number seven, raped and murdered. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. We follow the exclusive new Fox Nation series,

The Girl Scout Murders, all week on Crime Stories. First of all, take a listen to this. High school students in Faith Phillips' creative writing class launched a podcast called 40-Year-Old Justice. We wanted to speak with law enforcement about the crime scene and the investigation. But over 40 years later, many of the detectives and law enforcement have passed away. So I posted about it on my social media, and a couple days later, I got contacted by this mysterious person in my direct messages.

And this person said, if your students are looking into the Girl Scout murders, there's someone you need to talk to. Paul Smith was the sheriff of Mays County in 1980. He was elected after Pete Weaver left office. He was 97 years old, living in a retirement home, and he had some story he wanted to talk to me about. Now, remember the backdrop is that Jean Hart was tried for the three rapes and murders of the little girls, but was acquitted by a jury. A lot of evidence that jury never heard. But now, an investigation into possible suspects with me. You were just hearing her voice, Faith Phillips, Cherokee screenwriter and author of Now I Lay Me Down. So you start a podcast on this and you put it out there

on social media that you are reinvestigating the Girl Scout murders. What happens then, Faith? It was really an unbelievable story, honestly. My students had actually done the research on the case and put the podcast out in the community. And because I have somewhat of a following of my books on social media, it really caused a stir. And so I received a direct message from someone who said, if your students are looking into the Girl Scout murders, there's someone you really need to speak with. And I found this incredibly curious because I was familiar with the case, of course, but I really didn't think that there was any new information to be had out there. And so I talked about it with my husband and we both agreed, well, we should at least go hear this person out.

And the person was Paul Smith. He was 97 years old in a retirement home. And I brought my computer, I brought my laptop there and I just recorded his story, which was one of the most extraordinary stories I've ever heard. What was his story, which was one of the most extraordinary stories I've ever heard. What was his story, Faith? The story he told me was that when he took office in sheriff, he campaigned to solve the Girl Scout murders. And he told me that in the course of that investigation, he went and interviewed a man in prison who had been sent there for exposing himself to children on the creek. And this man was known in the community as a predator and a torturer of animals. And this man told Paul Smith that he and two other people had been responsible for the murders, that they had gone to the Girl Scout camp

on the night of June 12th, and that they attacked the girls inside the tent. So it was this startling confession from a person who claimed to have been there and been with two other people. Okay, I want to pick apart what you just said with a fine-tooth comb. So you get a message after you put it out there about this podcast and that you want to reopen the case and investigate it, telling you that you need to go see this person in a retirement home. And it turns out to be Paul Smith, the sheriff of Mays County in 1980.

And the sheriff tells you, would you repeat that again very slowly, Faith Phillips? Sure. The sheriff tells me that when he takes office in 1980, in the course of his investigation of the Girl Scout murders, he goes to interview this man in prison named Buddy Bristol. And Buddy Bristol is known in the community as a sexual predator and a person who's known to torture animals. He shot his own dog. And so he's just not a good person. And this man confesses to Paul Smith that he was there on June 12th

in the early morning hours of June 13th with two other men and that those were the three people who attacked the girls in the tank. Well, I'm very curious. So you've got Buddy Bristol behind bars now confessing to the murders of the three little girls. Is that correct? That's correct. It was a verbal confession to Paul Smith after Paul Smith had visited him three or four times behind bars. I'm curious. I know that the murders occurred in June of 1977, right at the beginning of Girl Scout camp season.

And I know that Paul Smith was a sheriff in 1980. Was he the sheriff in 77? Paul Smith was not the sheriff in 1977. Paul Smith was a police officer in Locust Grove at the time of the murders. And then he ran for sheriff in 1980. Let me go out to Dr. Sean Robertson joining us, licensed psychologist out of Edmond, Oklahoma. You can find Sean at DrSeanRobertson.com. He also does forensic evaluations at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary where Jean Leroy Hart was housed. Dr. Robertson, thank you for being with us. Dr. Robertson, and I'm not saying Buddy Bristle was telling the truth or not. What I am saying is when someone is behind bars, have you ever seen the phenomena of them confessing to things they didn't do or trying to enhance a crime that they committed?

I just I guess for street cred. Oh, absolutely. This is a this is an area, an emerging area of research in forensic psychology over the past decade, decade, decade and a half. And that is the phenomenon of false confessions. There are many, many known false confessions, particularly in high profile cases. You see like the John Bonnet Ramsey case, even going back to the 20s, the Lindbergh baby kidnapping, people came out of the woodwork to falsely confess. So anytime you hear a confession of somebody, you've got a question, particularly somebody in prison. I mean, that might get him

more time. That might get him the death penalty. What benefits him in freely providing this confession? Did he do it for notoriety? Did he do it because he thought it would gain him something? Was he coerced in some way? You know, without corroborating evidence, you've really got to question that. And you got to look at it. They're behind bars possibly for life already on another offense. Why volunteer this information? Do they get better housing? Do they get moved out of their GP, general population cell, somewhere else? Do they go back and forth to court? Do they get moved out of their GP, general population cell, somewhere else? Do they go back and forth to court? Do they get press? What could they possibly get out of it?

But the reality is to Kent Freitas joining us, the former minority leader in the Oklahoma House of Representatives and author of Oklahoma's Most Notorious Crimes, Kent Freitas, maybe he was confessing to get any number of benefits or maybe he was telling the truth. What, if anything, corroborates Buddy Bristol's story? Well, quite a few things corroborate that someone other than Hart was involved in it or was solely involved in it. Earlier in the evening or in the night, on the night of the crime, a girl in another tent saw someone open the tent flap and look in and later described that person as not being hard. There also, as we've mentioned before, there were also evidence at the site of the crime that other people were there in the form of a bloody footprint that was not Hart's,

a boot print that was not Hart's, and a fingerprint on the flashlight that was found there that was not Hart's. But yet they were all involved in the crime. Does any of that link back to Bristol? Not at the time. I would also mention, Nancy, that research has shown that eyewitness testimony is highly unreliable, particularly a child in the dark saying that that was not Hart. That's got to be questioned. And then the other evidence, you know, was the crime scene walked into? Was the fingerprint identified as anybody else's, or was it just a smudge? I don't know that those things necessarily rule it out. And I'd like to jump in here too and say, I agree. I had all of these same thoughts when Paul told me this story. I found it interesting,

but I didn't know what to do with this information. I wasn't sure if it was something that needed to go to law enforcement. I felt like, and who knows, he seemed like he was incredibly intelligent and all there for a 97-year-old especially. But I did think, I don't know, maybe we'll wait and just kind of sit on this for a while and then that's when this interesting chain of events started happening that started to verify a lot of the things that he had said. Okay well let's do that what can you tell me any independent evidence whatsoever that corroborates Buddy Bristol's story? Well, I got this information from Paul Smith. And then the following week, I met with a local who was 15 years old at the time of the

crime. And this local told me that she was writing a book about the Girl Scout murders. And so I said, well, that's interesting, because I just met with a gentleman last week who had some information. His name is Paul Smith, and she stopped me. And she said, Paul Smith is still alive. Let me tell you who everybody in the community has known that she said, let me tell you the names of people that people in this community have been repeating for years. And I said, okay, I didn't give her the names that Paul had given me. And she repeated the same names that Paul Smith had told me. Okay.

You know what? No. The fact that somebody told somebody told somebody in the community, and I can't find them, that it's probably Buddy Bristol. That means nothing. Nothing. That's right. That's right. That's right.

We're still in kind of an uncertain. We're still in uncertain territory. Yeah, he did it. He's the perv. That ain't cutting it, Faith. That will never cut it. So is there any independent corroboration for his claim a day late and a dollar short now that everything's winding down, he says, oh yeah,

I did it. Anything? Yes. So then I went home to my husband that night. I poured myself a glass of wine and I said, you know, this is really strange, these things that are happening. And I got a text out of the blue and it was from this woman, Jennifer Morrison, and she had just received a letter that a man had written on his deathbed, and he wrote those same three names as being involved in the Girl Scout murders. And so at this point, I have three different sources of information. I didn't know if it was anything that could be acted upon, but I did know as a responsible citizen that it was my responsibility at that time to take this information to law enforcement and let them run it down. Okay, what if anything happened? I'm

still giving the same thing. I think he did it. He's the perv, so he did it. That's not evidence. What if anything was uncovered about Buddy Bristol? What's uncovered about Buddy Bristol is these three different sources of information. His pattern of behavior. When he was sentenced to prison, he had exposed himself to little children playing on the creek less than a mile from the site of Camp Scott. Okay, so that's the same thing you told me to start with. Buddy Bristol exposed himself to children playing in the creek. There's a big leap going from being an exposure to rape and murder of three children. There's a lot of sex offenders who expose themselves.

Dr. Robertson, you're right. That's why I'm really trying to dig in and find out what, if anything, corroborates the possibility Bristol is a triple killer. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. I want to go to a special guest joining us right now. It's Ross Swimmer, the former principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, former special trustee for American Indians at the U.S. Department of the Interior. Ross, thank you so much for being with us. Sure.

Now, Ross, as I recall, you were the chief of the Cherokee Nation in 1977. That's correct. Do you believe the Cherokee Nation tried to protect Gene Hart? Absolutely not. What the tribe tried to do was to provide, make sure that he had a defense available to him so that he could have an attorney. But there was no effort on the tribe's Cherokee Nation by some people before the trial. That had nothing to do with the Cherokee Nation as such. We were not informed in any way as far as his location, but when he was brought to trial, I wanted to be sure that he had an adequate defense.

It didn't seem, you know, we talk about corroborating evidence. It didn't seem like there was very much regarding Hart either. And that at least it needed to be challenged, whatever the chair Pete Weber was going to present. Nancy, Nancy, can I cut in here, please? Sure. This is Herb Weaver, Pete's son. I was a schoolteacher and a coach at Locust Grove when this horrible incident happened.

And in defense of the chief he's correct that the tribe did not try to protect him in any way excuse me but the citizens of Locust Grove, they were very protective of Gene Hart. I had his son in class, and it was to the point I was getting death threats. I mean, I'm going to say 70, 80 percent of the community looked at him as a football hero. And I'm confident that the tribe itself did not try to protect him. They just wanted to make sure he was getting a fair trial. Understood. And believe me, former principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, Ross Swimmer, does not need a defense of any type. Correct.

I've carefully researched everything he has said regarding this in the past. Ross, what do you make of Gene Hart's acquittal? Well, it's hard to make anything of it other than the jury simply didn't find evidence sufficient to convict him. But hearsay about it, the trial, was that some evidence introduced appeared to be either made up or found or wasn't appropriate, and that that had a big influence on the jury. Let's go to James Powell on that, former senior agent with the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation. You can find him at The Investigator, LLC.

James, thank you for being with us. Yes, ma'am. You know, we keep hearing about no evidence at trial, but there had to be evidence to take the case to trial. Yes, ma'am. And of course, Mary's County Sheriff's Office. I don't want to try to minimize all the effort they put into trying to get this case resolved. They spent thousands of hours on it. Most of the evidence that was admitted at trial has already pretty much been well documented. There wasn't a lot. Gene was living about a mile from the crime scene. He had previous convictions. I know that the sheriff's office interested in him

because he was a sex offender and he'd escaped from the jail. As far as the actual evidence, there wasn't. I think you mentioned yesterday or it was discussed yesterday. There was some blood evidence that pointed to a Native American. There was some hair evidence which pointed to a Native American. As the forensic folks will tell you, it was perceived as the stuff that we would have today. You've got to remember this was back in 1977. Yeah, you're right.

An awful lot has been learned since then. It sure has. To Joseph Scott Morgan, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University, and author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon. Joe Scott, in 1989, I don't know if everyone's familiar with this, but DNA was conducted that show three of the five probes taken from the scene of the murders from the girls' bodies and from the scene matched Hart's DNA. DNA from one in 7,700 Native Americans would have obtained the same results. Joe Scott Morgan, what, if anything, does that mean?

Well, it means that you're putting them in the ballpark, but it's that the testing that was done back then was not as finely tuned as it is today. Exactly. And if that evidence was still viable, if they still had some remnant of it, if it wasn't destructive, what's called destructive testing, if they still had some sample that might be something that they could go back into well there's another lead joe scott it has to do with a school bus take a listen i was sitting on a bench in front of the wilson cunningham funeral home and as i sat there I saw these big buses go through. I assumed Karen, the little girl scout.

Following the bus was a Dodge Superbee, a dark one. There may have been somebody in the back that I could not identify and not even sure. But the two in front, I recognized because I had had problems with them before. I had arrested that driver a number of times. And to Faith Phillips joining us, Cherokee screenwriter and author, who was in the car? That would be Buddy Bristol and one of our other unnamed suspects that I obtained from these three different sources. And the reason why that car is so crucial is because

the confession that Buddy provided said that after they committed the crimes, they put the murder weapons and bloody clothes in this Dodge Super B and they pushed it off into the Grand River, which is just a couple miles south of where the crime occurred. So we still just have this oral confession and we don't really have any corroborating information. What was the Dodge B found? The Dodge B has never been found, but in the course of the investigation, we found out that after 1977 that dodge super b has never been tagged again in the state of oklahoma or the united states and it is never seen again by locals after that night which seemingly would confirm that it was sunk down a river in a body of water. Guys, take a listen to more. Buddy Bristol was a White Locust Grove resident with a long rap sheet. According to locals, he was known for stalking young girls

and torturing animals. After repeated visits to the prison to interview Buddy, Sheriff Paul Smith gets something extraordinary, a verbal confession. They had been drinking beer and doing drugs for three straight days. He said they were low on money. And they were thinking of some way they could raise the cash and decided that chaperones for those girls out there would probably be loaded with money. Bristol said they waited until sometime after midnight and so they hit that tent. They all just hit that door at the same time. One had a crowbar, one had a

roofing hammer. When you analyze a witness's statement for veracity or truthfulness, you look at richness of detail. Is there a lot of detail to their story? Detail they maybe could not make up or fabricate? There's more, and there's something very telling in what Buddy Bristol allegedly said. Listen. According to Paul's story, Bristol told him that two of them entered the tent from the back. One hit Lori Farmer and one hit Michelle Guze. But Denise Milner bolted out the front of the tent and the third person caught her as she was trying to make a run for it. She got out the door.

They had to go grab her. But she's the one that they tied that cord around her neck. Bristol told Paul that while the other men sexually attacked the girls, Buddy himself claimed not to have taken part. He said Lori and Michelle died quickly, but Denise remained alive. Then they took all three girls, placed them in the road, and strangled Denise where she lay. According to the confession, the three men intended to dispose of the bodies elsewhere. Someone either made a noise or an alarm clock went off.

But it scared them. They dropped those girls. They got in the Super B and one of the suspects was given the job of going to dump the vehicle, the murder weapons, and the bloody clothes. And that Super B was supposedly pushed into a river a few miles from Camp Scott. Guys, I'm reeling right now. And I'll tell you why. Because a lot of what Buddy Bristol allegedly said jives, lines up with the forensic evidence.

Well, it sure does. Because the autopsy showed that Denise Milner was strangled while the other two were killed with a blow to the head, so that's consistent. The other thing that is consistent with this, and I've always questioned it, how could one individual do this crime without having somebody discovered it? When two or three people are doing the crime, they've got control of all three of the girls. But for Hart to have gone in there and be able to do that, it was really strange that he didn't have an accomplice. To James Powell, former senior agent with the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation at the Investigator LLC.

James. Yes, ma'am. There's no telling how many defendants you have, suspects that you have interrogated. And there's one thing I've noticed over and over and over. In cases where there is a rape and a murder, very often, I mean, it's amazingly how often a purple say, well, yeah, I shot her, but I didn't rape her.

Like, it's better to have shot the victim than to have raped the victim. And I've seen it so many times that when Buddy Bristle allegedly says, oh, yeah, I was there and I was there when the girls were murdered, but I didn't rape them. I am telling you, James Powell, that actually has a ring of truth in it.

Yes, ma'am, it does. And I found that that's pretty consistent, too, with some of the cases that I've worked where for whatever reason, a male suspect doesn't want to be called a rapist. But I guess in their their worked way of thinking, being a killer or a murder sort of increases what we used to say they're a WASTA or they, as you pointed out, they're street creds. I don't find that that's what would necessarily mean he wasn't there just because he says he doesn't participate in the raid. You know, Joe Scott Morgan, women forensics expert, what he's saying, if he said this, and I have no reason to disbelieve the sheriff that said it, Paul Smith, his story lines up with how the little girl's bodies were found. And we heard from a camp counselor that said she woke up and heard this sound and she couldn't

really identify it. And she went and found the girls there like they had just been left there. That goes along with this account, Joe Scott, the forensics. Yeah, it does. And, you know, we go back to this, you know, we mentioned this footprint that didn't match up with Hart's as well. And that's kind of compelling for me. I think that one of the things that i would like to know because i heard that you know there was some talk that the girls the remaining girls

that were the campers had been removed from the camp in order to take them away from this area and this happens and did happen quite a bit infamously it happened in the terry bowers case case up in Pennsylvania. But my issue is this. I would like to know how thoroughly that scene was searched at that moment. Did they literally break down every structure that was out there, take every pair of shoes that were out there and any shoes from anybody that was associated with this event, period, and even as it applies to the police officers that were out there that may have left tracks behind. To Faith Phillips joining us, who launched this reinvestigation, what do you make of Buddy Bristol's confession?

What I make of it is that this is information that really needs to be run down. And that was really my intention, particularly after I got the letter, is I thought, we've got to get this to law enforcement professionals. I'm a writer. I'm just a geek that sits in the dark and writes books. This needs to go to someone who can actually take action and make something happen. Joining us is Ross Swimmer, former principal chief of the Cherokee Nation. Ross, what do you make of the Girl Scout murders and what, if any, impact that had or has on the Cherokee Nation? Well, obviously it had an impact because of where it occurred. It was in the heart of the Cherokee Nation and the accused was Cherokee, and that was mentioned several times. So it was, you know, something that's not common, we don't think, within our tribe. This isn't something that's very common.

And in fact, even with Hart having been convicted of sex crime, it had nothing to do with children. And the story going around that Mr. Weber may know something about was that at one point Hart literally walked out of the jail. He didn't try to escape. It just wasn't that big a deal because it had something to do with his girlfriend. Oh, I thought he was convicted of raping two pregnant women. I haven't heard that. So it could be. I don't know.

But it was not children. And I think there was some kind of relationship with the women that had accused him. I don't know anything about that. What about that, Faith Phillips? That is something. I don't know anything about that. What about that, Faith Phillips? That is something that I can't effectively speak on. That is a rumor that I had heard, but the fact is that he did plead guilty to the crime. Yeah, so we know that much. Well, are there other alleged suspects? Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

With me, Herb Weaver. This is Sheriff Weaver's son. Herb, how did all this affect you? Well, it was a horrible event to start with. I ended up having to quit my job as a teacher coach because I was getting death threats. But why you? Why would you get a death threat? Because Sheriff Weaver was my dad and all the community most of the community was behind gene hart and so they looked at me as an enemy and i want to back up just a minute on

that uh prior conviction on the rape charges to my, there was no prior commitment between Hart and those two ladies he raped at the Burgess River. My dad told me that he picked them up at a bar in Tulsa and took them out on the Burgess River on 412 and raped them. Tied them up in the same fashion. These little girls were tied in a very... And that is correct. He did not know those women as far as my investigation to determine. They were tied up and left and they were able to get loose and escape. So it's not as if they were just released or they were able to go immediately to the sheriff's office.

I think he had intended on them to die out there. Not only that, they were pregnant, tied up, left out there to die. And even if he had known them, which no evidence supports that gossip, that makes it all the worse. I don't see, oh, he knew them. That's no defense. In my mind, that makes it even worse. You are raping and terrorizing someone you know. So that doesn't help anything.

Yeah, I'm not suggesting it was a defense. I'm questioning that that crime didn't have anything to do with children, regardless of whether the women were pregnant or not. Yes, they were pregnant. Yes, there were two of them. Yes, it is a sex offense. And also, the unique knot that was used to tie these women up was the same knot used, found in the Girl Scouts tent. Now, does that prove he's a killer? No, it does not. It's a piece of circumstantial evidence. But that's not all the evidence. Take a listen to this. According to the letter writer, one of Paul's suspects

was a pedophile. And it was witnessed a day or two before that, talking and laughing that they had found a place that they could station themselves near where the girls showered. In addition to revealing that the suspect spied on the young girls in the days prior to June 12th, the letter identified a fourth man with the group in the early morning hours before the murders. It was also a known pedophile. Okay, now that in my mind is somewhat conflicting, Faith Phillips. It is. The first theory is that they were not interested in sex with little girls, that they were going to knock the place off to try to find out if there were valuables belonging to the counselors or anybody else they could steal.

Okay, now I'm hearing there were actually pedophiles and been hanging around watching the girls go in and out of the shower prior to June 12th. Wasn't June 12th the first week of camp? It is very confusing and the facts are incredibly complicated. And I think that helps to explain why this case has not officially been closed for 45 years, because there's a lot of conflicting evidence. Absolutely, Faith. Absolutely. Go ahead. When I heard Paul Smith tell me, and Paul Smith is an upstanding, he was an incredible man, a military hero and a servant of this nation. And so he absolutely deserved my respect. But the one thing I really had a hard time believing about the confession he told me came from Buddy Bristol was where he said, we went there to rob the camp counselors.

Well, I don't believe that for a second yeah well you know very often defendants try to cover up their desire to rape children if they're pedophiles and they'll come up with something else so i could see him saying we just went to rob and then whoops we raped and murdered three little girls listen to more i began to see indications that married up with paul's account that multiple people had been involved in the murders. I read about a vehicle that had been parked outside Camp Scott's gate facing west with four people inside. That gate was in such a remote area. Why would anyone be parked out there at night during a thunderstorm? I had read where a camper reported that she saw several men late that night gathered near the latrine with at least one of the men wearing military style boots, otherwise known as jungle

boots. The camper heard them talking and hid in her sleeping bag. Multiple people, including counselors and campers, reported that they had been followed through the woods and that they'd encountered strangers on the trails that should not have been authorized to be there. Strangers on the trail that were not authorized to be there and more. I walked out to the truck and I set the files in the back seat. And I just lifted up the first file on top. And it was one of the photos of the little girls. And I just slammed it down.

And that's when I realized that there was much more in this collection of files than I had any idea. When I went through those files, I came across the most difficult thing I've ever seen in my life. To you, Faith Phillips, explain to me what this picture of the little girl was and where you found it. Well, that's why I think Herb Weaver is one of many heroes in this story because he had this box of files that his father, Sheriff Weaver, had maintained all these years. And he reached out to me through Jennifer Morrison and said that he had some files. Well, Nancy, I just thought that it was the actual trial transcripts because for whatever reason in the state of Oklahoma, they aren't required to maintain trial transcripts when the defendant's acquitted. So I had not been able to read the actual trial transcripts. I thought I was going to Herb's house to pick those up. And I got there. And when I opened them up, what I found was the

actual photographs of the little girls, of their injuries. Crime scene photos of the little girls. Herb Weaver joining us, Sheriff Weaver's son. Did you have any idea everything that was in that box? No, I did not. My mother had always told me that it was the transcript of the trial, and I thought that would be good for Faith to have. I had never looked in that box before, and the first recollection I had that there were photos, handwritten notes from my dad, came from Faith after she opened it and looked at it. And in her defense, she told me to secure that box and not let it get out into the public media. One moment, one action, sending that box of old trial notes and

transcripts to Faith Phillips has changed the course of this investigation. Are there other killers? And will there ever be justice for three murdered Girl Scouts? We follow the very latest developments in the brand new Fox Nation series, The Girl Scout Murders, here at Crime Stories all week. Tomorrow, revealing family secrets come to light, plus a phone call that changes everything. We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.