Park Predators - The Suit

Episode Date: January 7, 2025

When a husband and wife are gunned down at their campsite in Ouachita National Forest, the hunt for their killer leads authorities to a man with a peculiar collection of homemade hunting gear. View source material and photos for this episode at: parkpredators.com/the-suit Park Predators is an audiochuck production. Connect with us on social media:Instagram: @parkpredators | @audiochuckTwitter: @ParkPredators | @audiochuckFacebook: /ParkPredators  | /audiochuckllcTikTok: @audiochuck

Hi, park enthusiasts. I'm your host Delia D'Ambra, and the case I'm going to tell you about today takes place in Ouachita National Forest in Oklahoma. There's a significant portion of the forest that exists in Arkansas, too, but the crime I'm going to be talking about happened in a section located in Oklahoma. The 1.8 million acre forest is generally known for having great mountain views and plenty of places to soak in the scenic landscape while driving. Visitors can camp in pretty much any style they want. There are designated camping areas that have rustic tent pads, but there are also spots where you can pull up in an RV and essentially glamp in style if you prefer that. According to the US Forest Services website, Washington National Forest is the oldest and largest national forest in the southern United States. A lot of people like to experience the great outdoors there in more secluded, quiet spaces that sit outside

of designated campgrounds. This is what's referred to as dispersed camping, and although the experience may bring solitude, it does mean that you've volunteered to essentially be on your own. I personally know a lot of folks who choose this option when they visit national forests, but in the summer of 2003, a couple on a camping trip in Ouachita didn't go that route. They chose to stay at a peaceful lodging area called Winding Stair Campground. The investigation into what happened to them there led authorities to a suspect rather quickly,

but no one 21 years ago could imagine that the motives of the perpetrator would still be a matter of debate today. This is Park Predators. I'm going to go to the beach. On the afternoon of Friday, July 11, 2003, a man riding his motorcycle through the winding stair campground in Washington National Forest came upon a campsite. Right away he noticed a person lying on the ground and realized something was very wrong. He quickly left and reported what he'd found to the authorities, and not long after that, personnel from the LaFleur County Sheriff's Office and the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation arrived. What investigators found was a man lying face down

next to a picnic table and his right foot was missing a shoe. A short distance away, they located a woman's body near a 1996 Ford Econoline van. Both were dead from apparent gunshot wounds, and sitting in the area around the bodies were some camping supplies and a tent. When investigators examined what they assumed was the victim's van, they noticed it had a Texas license plate on it, and the driver's side window had been busted out. There was glass scattered inside,

and a few pieces had landed in a pool of dried blood near the runners of the passenger side door well and on some sandals sitting in the same area. Special agents with the OSBI found registration information that indicated the vehicle belonged to 47-year-old Charles Chick and his wife, 50-year-old Shirley Chick. The couple was from Hearst, Texas, a city no more than four and a half hours southwest of Windingster Campground. Tony Thornton reported for the Daily Oklahoman that when authorities took a closer look at the victims' bodies, they determined the pair had likely been dead for about 24 hours.

Based on what I read in the source material, it seems like the consensus was that the OSBI agents saw some signs of decomposition, but nothing that indicated Charles and Shirley had been there for weeks or months or anything like that. Curiously, there was no sign of a firearm or weapon at the scene, which prompted investigators to quickly rule out a murder-suicide scenario. Something else that caught law enforcement's attention was that none of the couple's camping gear

appeared to be packed. In fact, it was all sitting out like they'd been using it, which I imagine indicated to investigators that the victims hadn't just arrived at the campsite or been in the middle of packing up to leave when they died. After assessing the crime scene, investigators sent Charles and Shirley's bodies to the State Medical Examiner's office in Tulsa for autopsies. When the press got wind of what had happened, OSBI agents were tight-lipped when it came to identifying who the victims were, what kind of wounds they had, or what their cause of death might be.

Until the ME's office could confirm from dental records that the two dead campers were in fact Charles and Shirley, all the authorities would tell reporters was that the case was a homicide and the victims were white between 40 and 50 years old and not from Oklahoma. From Tuesday night, July 15th into Wednesday morning, July 16th, investigators were able to successfully match the chicks dental records with their bodies. And that's when they issued an update to the media. A spokeswoman for the OSBI announced that Charles and Shirley had both died from multiple gunshot wounds

to the head, which authorities believed had been fired from a small caliber firearm. Winding Stair's records showed that Charles and Shirley had registered at the campground three days before they were discovered dead. So if my math is right, that would mean they'd arrived sometime on July 8th. Finding anyone who may have interacted with them after that was a top priority for investigators. So detectives spent Wednesday, July 16th interviewing people and a spokeswoman for the OSBI told news publications

that investigators had developed the names of a few people they thought could help them identify new leads. But she stopped short of labeling those individuals as suspects. Tulsa World reported that the OSBI wanted to speak with any visitors to the National Forest who may have interacted with the chicks or spoken with them during their trip. The OSBI emphasized that detectives were chasing any and all information that came in, including leads that were outside the state of Oklahoma. The agency's spokeswoman told the Associated Press, quote, we're following leads left and

right, hot and heavy, end quote. In the wake of the murders, the LaFleur County Sheriff's Office and the U.S. Forest Service beefed up patrols in recreation areas surrounding the Winding winding stair campground. A federal official told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that the killings were the first murders to occur in the National Forest since it opened in 1907. So I imagine this crime was truly foreign territory for investigators. Meanwhile, news had spread to Texas about the couple's deaths. The maintenance manager of the apartment building they lived at in the city of Hearst told Fort Worth Star-Telegram reporter Domingo Ramirez Jr. that Charles and Shirley were

both really big outdoor enthusiasts. He said he'd known them for 20 years, and in that time, he felt like he'd seen them go camping just about every weekend. When they weren't traveling, Shirley worked as a freelance computer programmer, and Charles wrote instruction manuals for F-16 aircrafts at Lockheed Martin, which is an aerospace and defense technology company with a global and domestic footprint.

According to an article Kerry Copernol wrote for the Daily Oklahoman, the pair had grown up in the same Detroit, Michigan neighborhood together, but didn't really come to know one another until they were older. They eventually got married in a small sunrise elopement ceremony in Big Bend National Park in the mid-1980s, and after that they set out to travel as much as possible. They even kept a journal of all the spots they'd stopped to camp at, as well as people they'd met throughout their many years of traveling.

Authorities had actually discovered this journal at the crime scene and found more than a thousand entries in it. It was full of information about people the chicks had met between the East Coast and West Coast of the United States. Charles and Shirley's loved ones said that despite them never becoming parents themselves, the couple was close with their friends' and relatives' children and considered many of them their own. Ralph Marler reported for Tulsa World that the couple was close with their friends and relatives' children and considered many of them their own. Ralph Marler reported for Tulsa World that the couple was laid to rest on July 19th in Portland, Tennessee, close to Shirley's sister.

Their graves overlooked a pasture that, her sister told the Daily Oklahoman, reminds her of a campground. A few days after news of the murders got out, authorities received a tip that changed the course of their investigation. A 33-year-old woman from Worcester, Oklahoma, which is less than 50 minutes away from Winding Stair Campground, called in to report that she might know who the chick's killer was. This tipster's name was Carol Lamb, and she explained that just a month earlier, in June, she'd parted ways with a guy she'd been living with for four years named Edward Leon Fields, Jr.

She said that ever since they'd split up, he'd been living in campgrounds in Washington National Forest, as well as campsites around Worcester Lake. Carroll told investigators that in the time she'd been with Edward, he'd shown her a.22 caliber rifle that he owned, which had a scope on it,

along with a handmade camouflage suit that was comprised of thick, rope-like burlap fabric strips. When detectives asked her where Edward kept all that stuff and what kind of vehicle he drove, she told them he owned a 1989 dark blue 1500 Chevy pickup truck. And it was probably where all his stuff was, since they were no longer living together. With that information in hand, investigators went through a list of names of people they'd identified as having been in the National Forest when Charles and Shirley were killed. Based on what I found in the source material, it doesn't appear they saw Edward's name on

that list, but they did find a man from Louisiana who told them he'd seen a dark blue pickup truck with the number 1500 on the side of it at Windingstair Campground on July 8th. So now that it was Friday July 18th, investigators were eager to speak with Edward Fields Jr. They specifically wanted to know where he'd been more than a week earlier. By the time authorities tracked Edward down at a plastics warehouse on the afternoon of Friday, July 18th that he was working at in the town of Poto, Oklahoma, they learned from the state crime lab that the bullets found in the chick's bodies had come from a.22 caliber firearm. And forensic techs had identified six different spots at the crime scene where burlap fibers

had been left behind. The makeup of those fibers closely matched the type of material Carol Lamb had told investigators that Edward's homemade camouflage suit was made of. So with an arrest warrant and search warrant in hand, FBI and OSBI agents took 36 year old Edward into custody at his place of employment and arrested him on suspicion of Charles and Shirley's murders. At the time, Edward was living out of his Chevy pickup truck, and when special agents searched it, they seized his camouflage suit, his 22 caliber rifle, prescription

medications, and some computers. Though investigators felt pretty confident his gun was going to be a match to the slugs found in the victims, they still had to send it off for ballistics testing to confirm whether or not it was actually used to kill the chicks. Meanwhile, Edward was held at the LaFleur County jail without bond while federal first degree murder charges were pending. Since the couple had technically been killed on federal land, that's why the feds got involved.

The Fort Worth Star Telegram and Associated Press reported that the following Monday, July 21st, he had a hearing before a magistrate and was denied bail. After that, he was transferred to a federal facility to await a grand jury's decision on whether to formally indict him for the crime. A spokeswoman for the OSBI told reporters that investigators believed Edward had seemingly chosen Charles and Shirley at random, because there didn't appear to be any connection between him and the couple. What was clear though from the evidence the OSBI had gathered so far was that Edward had apparently premeditated the crime. Clues that agents felt confident pointed to that were the 22 caliber rifle and

the camouflage suit they'd found in his truck. Most of the source material refers to this suit as a ghillie suit, which if you've never googled what that is, stop right now and look it up, because it's pretty wild. Literally, it's a full body disguise that makes a person blend into vegetation or a forest environment. It's the stuff of my nightmares, but I know it's mostly used by hunters so they can go unseen by game.

Something else investigators used to establish probable cause to arrest Edward was that Carol Lamb, his ex-partner or roommate, I'm not really sure what they were, had mentioned that the week of the killings he told her he was going to take his own life. And then shortly after the chicks were killed, she'd met up with him and he told her that on the evening of July 10th, he crept up on a couple in their car and watched them, then retreated to his truck to put on his ghillie suit and returned to where the couple was and done, quote, something real bad, end quote.

Now, if you ask me, that's pretty damning testimony and grounds for investigators to take a hard look at Edward. What no one could quite figure out, though, was why. Why had Edward done this? The Daily Oklahoman in Tulsa World reported that he'd worked for the State's Department of Corrections as a prison guard and food service supervisor from 1995 until 1999, and he had no criminal history that the OSBI could

find. Apparently, when he left the Department of Corrections, there was no bad blood or any major event that would have sent him down a bad path. But on Wednesday, July 23rd, right before a detention hearing in federal court, Edward's mental competency came into question when he attempted suicide. An article by Rod Walton explained that just a few hours before he was due in court, Edward got a hold of a sharp object in his jail cell and cut himself. Later reporting by the Fort Worth Star Telegram,

confirmed that object was a blade from a plastic razor. The coverage also details that Edward had claimed to be hearing voices. His arm was treated with staples and stitches at a local hospital, and he survived. A few days later, at a competency hearing, the judge presiding over his case determined that despite his suicide attempt, he was competent to stand trial. He was eligible to receive the death penalty if convicted,

with the alternative being life in prison without the possibility of parole. Three days after the competency hearing, a grand jury formally indicted Edward for Charles and Shirley's murders, as well as additional charges for robbery, automobile burglary, and using a firearm in a crime of violence. Now, you might be asking, wait, where did the robbery and burglary charges come from? Well, according to the available source material, investigators had gotten Edward to confess

after his arrest. They said he'd admitted to targeting the chicks on July 10th because he needed money. They also claimed he'd admitted to taking $340 in cash, a credit card, a camera, and binoculars from the couple. An FBI agent who testified at a preliminary hearing said that about eight days after the murders, Edward had decided to come clean to the authorities about how he stalked Charles and Shirley after noticing them from an overlook. Court documents and one article I found

by the Daily Oklahoman reported that Edward had actually observed the chicks in the campground not long after they'd arrived and thought they were nice people. However, in his confession, he said that around sunset on July 10th, while wearing his ghillie suit, he'd laid down on his stomach, sneaked up to the couple's campsite, and watched them for about 20 minutes. Then, he shot Charles in the head from a distance while the 47-year-old was getting up from a picnic table to head to the couple's tent. Almost immediately after firing that shot, he aimed his rifle at Shirley, who was frantically running toward the couple's van.

His first shot missed her, but the one after that struck her in the foot. He then got closer and fired another round that hit her in the head as she attempted to get into the van's passenger door. When she went down, he said he shot her in the head again to make sure she was dead. The FBI agent who testified said that Edward also admitted to walking up to Charles' body and shot him in the head a second time too, to make sure he wouldn't survive either. It would take about two years though before this information would go before a jury. According to reporting by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the trial was supposed to get underway on

July 5th, 2005, nearly two years after the murders. But in an unforeseen twist, about a week before that, on June 30, Edward decided to plead guilty to two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of using a firearm during a violent crime, one count of robbery with a firearm, and one count of burglarizing an automobile. Interestingly, he decided to go this route on his own accord without any deal or assurances from the government that he would get leniency. So, the death penalty was still on the table when the case headed into the sentencing phase a week or so later.

By that point, federal prosecutors weren't so sure that Edward's story about robbing the couple had been his only motivation for the crime. Instead, government officials theorized that Edward had taken the chick's stuff several hours after committing the murders to simply stage a robbery. During the sentencing hearing, the federal prosecutor described Edward calloused, calculating, cruel, cowardly, and camouflaged double murderer," who'd planned months ahead of time to carry out his horrible crime. Even though investigators had found proof that he'd used Charles and Shirley's credit cards more than 20 times after their murders to purchase things like gas and tires for his truck, an engagement ring for his girlfriend, and meals at restaurants. They believed that the shopping spree was just an afterthought.

The staged robbery accusation that prosecutors put forth was hotly debated, though, because despite there being some forensic evidence that indicated Charles' body may have been moved from an upright position to a flat position several hours after he'd gone into rigor mortis, it was difficult for anyone to know for sure, simply because of how blood had pooled in different places in his body. It's not super clear from the available source material, but it seems like the prosecution's argument was that Edward had initially left the crime scene after the shootings, but then returned about six hours later to

take cash and a credit card from Charles' corpse. Which he likely could have only done if he'd moved his body in the process. But regardless of when exactly the robbery actually happened, it's clear that the crux of the government's case was that Edward had hatched a plan to transform himself into a predator, a sniper, well before the murders. The prosecutor alleged that that was why he'd made the camouflage ghillie suit, outfitted his rifle in the same fashion, and mounted a powerful scope on it. It was all a part of a master plan to live out a fantasy of sport killing.

And apparently, this wasn't Edward's first time playing dress-up and watching people in the woods. A guy named Daniel Love testified during the sentencing hearing that sometime in the spring of 2003, so just a few months before the chicks were killed, Edward had told him that he'd worn his ghillie suit and snuck up on two people having sex in a car in a park in the general area of Winding Stair Campground. After listening to that story, Daniel said he told Edward not to do that kind of thing again or else he might get into a violent confrontation with someone. But he said Edward just kind of walked away and seemed frustrated. Prosecutors also emphasized to jurors that they believed Edward had attempted to create a false alibi for himself for July 10th,

by trying to get one of his pals to say he was with him and telling his girlfriend at the time that he was going on a fishing trip with that friend. According to court documents, Edward had approached one of his buddies named Danny in the late afternoon, early evening on July 10th and asked him to go snake hunting, but Danny declined because he wanted to go to a casino with his sister that evening. Edward's girlfriend, a woman named Michelle, testified that Edward had called her on the morning of July 10th and said he wouldn't be coming over to her house right after work

because he'd made plans to go fishing with Danny. And because no evidence was ever found that supported Edward had gone on a fishing trip, that's why prosecutors thought all those comments he'd made to Danny and Michelle appeared as if he'd been trying to set up an alibi for himself. In later testimony, Danny remarked that it wasn't all that strange for Edward to have a ghillie suit and camouflaged rifle with a scope on it.

Those were things he said a lot of hunters used. Danny explained that he'd gone hunting for squirrels with Edward in the past. And during those trips, Edward had been in his ghillie suit carrying his camouflaged gun. Danny said he knew Edward preferred to hide and wait for squirrels to come to him. But prosecutors pushed the narrative that Edward's desire to blend in with the environment around him had graduated to a new level by July 2003. One attorney for the government said, quote, He had mastered his craft. He had practiced with squirrels, and now he was moving to humans, end quote.

The government's lawyers made sure to bring Edwards' homemade ghillie suit in for the jury to view, so that they could see its hundreds of head-to-toe strands of yarn that made it fairly indistinguishable from the forest that surrounded the crime scene. Referring to what Shirley's last moments alive would have been like, one prosecutor pointed at the suit and told the courtroom in part, quote, This is what she sees, this creature coming from the woods toward her. For Shirley Chick, sees this creature coming from the woods toward her. For Shirley Chick, death took this form," end quote. On the other side of the aisle, though, was Edward's defense attorney, who argued that starting at the age of 16,

her client had suffered from chronic depression. And as a newborn baby, he'd suffered from a respiratory distress syndrome that was known to cut off oxygen to the brain for stretches of time and could cause brain damage. The defense also explained that Edward had injured his head multiple times during his youth and experienced a loss of consciousness while he'd served in the Navy. His medical record showed that he'd been prescribed at least five different antidepressants throughout his life,

including one drug called Effexor. antidepressants throughout his life, including one drug called Effexor. The defense claimed that Effexor was what had set off a bad chain of events that led to the bloodshed at the Windingstair Campground on July 10, 2003. The defense argued that leading up to the murders while taking Effexor, Edward had experienced hallucinations, insomnia, and dramatic weight loss. He was reported to have taken an increased amount of the drug prior to the crimes, which medical studies indicated was associated with behavioral side effects like compulsive aggression and violent behavior.

His attorney called two psychiatrists to testify about their clients' documented history of mental illness and the potential side effects of the antidepressant. One of those expert witnesses determined that at the time of the murders, Edward had bipolar disorder. Both doctors' opinion was that his use of Effexor had caused him to have what they referred to as a manic flip. And it was that event, they said, that had caused him to have impaired judgment and commit the murders.

Referring to the risk of unforeseen consequences when treating individuals with bipolar disorder with effectsor, one of the psychiatrists said in part, quote, you may treat the depressions with an antidepressant, but there's a risk when treating someone with bipolar disorder that you might actually not only go past treating depression, but put them in a manic episode or give them symptoms of mania.

The term that is described in the literature is called switching. They continued, In the same way that some people have unusual responses to penicillin or unusual responses to other types of medicine, there are people who have unusual responses to antidepressants as well. And one of the unusual responses for someone that is bipolar is to switch into mania." When Edward's ex-wife testified at his sentencing hearing, she told the court that prior to the murders,

Edward was often moody, depressed, and sometimes angry. But after his arrest, when he was put on new medication, he was capable of having normal conversations with her about their kids. The government's experts agreed with the defense's argument that Edward had been diagnosed with depression, but they stopped short of conceding that the drug effectsor and its side effects were why he'd murdered Charles and Shirley. Essentially, prosecutors told the jurors that Edward couldn't blame the antidepressant for his homicidal actions. Ultimately, on July 22nd, 2005, jurors voted in favor of capital punishment. Kerry Copernole reported for the Daily Oklahoman that it was the first time in 12 years a jury had sentenced a defendant to

death. Edward became the 41st person to be sent to Oklahoma's death row in the federal system. After the sentence was handed down, Shirley Chick's sister told reporters that she was grateful for the jury's decision, but it was all just very bittersweet. She said, quote, we can't bring them back. That in itself is an injustice, end quote. Three years later, in 2008, Edward appealed his death sentence by claiming the federal

government should not have had jurisdiction over the case and he didn't get a fair trial in the sentencing phase. But an appeals court denied his petition and ordered that a panel of judges not rehear his case. In April 2010, almost seven years after the murders, a federal defense attorney submitted a filing to get Edward's death sentence vacated or corrected. In that document, the lawyer claimed that in addition to his client's history with depression and bipolar disorder in 2003 and prior to 2003,

he'd also had organic brain damage which impaired his frontal lobes. The attorney explained that Edward had grown up in a dysfunctional household and both his parents had come from families where gambling, mental health conditions, alcohol use, sexual abuse, and violence had been present. A big claim the appellate attorney made in this motion was that Edwards' original trial attorney, a court-appointed public defender, had failed to appropriately incorporate his background as part of his mental illness defense. This attorney felt that jurors should have known more about Edward's childhood, the issues that his family struggled with, and the fact that his own sister had

admitted their household had not been a nurturing or loving one to grow up in. The appellate attorney wrote that the original lawyer had been ineffective because she'd been too overburdened with her own workload to adequately represent Edward. He also said she'd failed to explain to jurors the medical reasons why Edward had brain damage and his mental health complications overall. What's kind of wild is that in a post-conviction declaration interview, the original trial

lawyer actually kind of agreed with some of these accusations about her work. She said, quote, There is no question in my mind that the bulk of the above described errors were a result of my being overburdened by essentially functioning without co counsel in this complex and difficult case, end quote. From reading the court documents, it's clear that the central focus of the appellate attorney's argument was that the jury at Edwards sentencing hearing should have been able to consider the totality of his mental health condition when deciding whether or not to send him to death row. Essentially, the point was that all of Edward's past psychiatric history needed to be evaluated, separate from whether or not he'd suffered a manic flip after taking an increased dose of Effexor prior to the murders. The other big point the defense made in their motion to vacate was that they said it was unconstitutional

in the state of Oklahoma to execute a person who was severely mentally ill and could be considered incompetent. The federal court in the Eastern District of Oklahoma had a lot of time to review this motion because for several years, prosecutors for the government and Edwards Post-Conviction Defense Attorney

kept submitting a bunch of new exhibits and filings. In the end, though, on December 15th, 2016, Edward lost his bid to have his death sentence set aside or corrected. He filed more post-conviction motions in 2019 and a higher court actually ended up sending his case back to a lower district court for an evidentiary hearing. That court was tasked with deciding whether or not his original public defender had been ineffective for failing to investigate and present evidence of his organic brain damage during his sentencing hearing in 2005.

As recent as early December 2024, an evidentiary hearing was being held in federal court in the Eastern District of Oklahoma. But then on December 23rd, 2024, the White House announced that President Joe Biden had chosen to commute 37 federal death row inmate sentences. They would all get life without the possibility of parole instead of execution. And one of those 37 inmates was Edward. At last check, he's still serving his time at a federal prison. He's currently 57 years old.

As I wrap up this episode, I can't help reflect on just how much Charles and Shirley's life story is reflective of my own experiences in the outdoors. They were avid campers who were doing what so many of us do on a regular basis, visiting a serene landscape and spending nightfall enjoying nature at a campsite. They were innocent victims who were killed in a brutal way, a truly heartless way. I hope that despite the legal battle that's still waging in Oklahoma,

their families have found peace over these 21 years that have passed since their deaths. I saw a quote while researching the story that I think we should all remember. It came from a spokeswoman for the National Forest who told the Associated Press after the murders, quote, "'This reminds us that evil doesn't just live in the city. It comes to the country, too,' end quote."

Park Predators is an AudioChuck production. You can view a list of all the source material for this episode on our website, parkpredators.com, and you can also follow Park Predators on Instagram, at ParkPredators. So what do you think Chuck, do you approve?