RedHanded - Episode 10 - The Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders

Episode Date: August 31, 2017

In the summer of 1977 on the very first night at Camp Scott, the tents shook against a raging thunderstorm as a dark and sinister presence stalked the woods. By morning 3 young girls would be dead; molested and murdered in the middle of the night.   40 years later this brutal crime still remains unsolved - what really happened to the murdered Oklahoma Girl Scouts?   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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In the dark woods of Mays County, 40 years ago tonight, three Green Country Girl Scouts were sexually assaulted and murdered at summer camp. Their brutal deaths, shocking to Oklahomans and devastating to their families. I'm Hannah. I'm Saruti. And welcome to episode 10 of Red Handed. I don't think we'd ever really get this far. I thought that we would get this far but I didn't expect anyone to be with us. Yeah for anybody to

be with us or anybody to kind of be giving us the overwhelming response that we've seen. Yeah it's been so lovely we're honestly so grateful for anyone who has tweeted at us, shared our stuff on the Facebook groups that's been incredible and we're honestly so grateful for anyone who has tweeted at us shared our stuff on the facebook groups that's been incredible and all of the lovely reviews you've been leaving it's been so encouraging and it makes it all worth it oh absolutely i think as hannah said you know you guys have been rate reviewing and subscribing us just like we've asked you to which is fantastic because it really really helps us out a lot as an independent podcast but it's those of you guys who as well have taken it upon yourselves to go into facebook groups podcasts we listen to and true crime podcasts and you know

take the time to sit and write a review in there to post our link in there and to recommend this podcast to people it's incredibly touching you're making these two girls cry quite a lot and consistently so thank you very much for your support. There have been tears. It's just because Hannah said it's a labour of love. It's really something we're passionate about. And it's incredibly touching that you guys are joining us for this journey. So thank you, thank you, thank you. And please, we promise to keep up the hard work this side. And we'd love it if you would continue to spread the word about this podcast. So episode 10, the big 1-0. Yes, absolutely. So let's get straight into it

and hope that it delivers for you guys just like the other episodes have. The summer of 1977 and children all across America are excitedly preparing to go to camp. In Oklahoma at Camp Scott, a large camp set in more than 400 acres of forest, councillors are getting ready for a two-week camp for 140 Girl Scouts. But what was about to unfold, none of them could prepare for. Today we're talking about the disturbing case of the Oklahoma Girl Scout murders, a twisted campfire story come to life in which three young girls were molested and murdered in the middle of the night. This case still remains unsolved. And as if the horrors of the violence that occurred were not enough,

whispers of black magic and ritual sacrifice circle this case, making it clear why this story maintains its infamy some 40 years later. It absolutely does. It is like a film. It is. It's exactly that kind of like urban legend, campfire story. What you tell kind of like very inappropriately while you were camping, especially if you're camping with girls this age. But the fact that it actually happened, it's as I was researching this case, I just felt like this is unbelievable. It's unbelievable. In April, two months before the girls would arrive, the camp counsellors, just 18 and 19 year olds, so teenagers themselves, they're only kids.

Yeah. Were already at Camp Scott going through their training in preparation. Now, this is when weird things start to happen. So it's right from the kickoff, like camp hasn't even started yet and stuff starting to go a bit weird. Stuff was going missing, like glasses and photos and socks. Then one night, one of the councillor's tents was ransacked and a note was left. It read, three girls will be murdered, or as some reports suggest, we're on a mission to kill three girls in one tent. There are a lot of conflicting stories of what the note actually said so we've just gone with what we think is the most likely. But the teenagers are just thinking it's a

shit prank and they throw the note away. That's what I would do. Yeah and that's why we don't actually know exactly what it says. It's because these teenagers are then remembering this note retrospectively after the crime. They never show it to anybody. They never report it to the police so we don't know definitively what it said but this is the gist of it yeah they're just kids most of them had attended the same camp previously so they feel pretty safe they don't feel under threat absolutely and if you're like 18 19 you're all away you know camp counselling maybe for the first time having attended this camp when you were younger yeah a note like that one of the teenagers tents was ransacked like you said it was broken into loads of stuff was missing the person had a box of donuts in there, the

counsellor. All the donuts were eaten and the note was left in the donut box. Yes, they just thought it was a shit prank. I wouldn't feel, like, threatened by someone who was like, I'm gonna murder three girls, but first I'm going to eat these donuts. Yeah, it's a bit strange. But one of the counsellors was definitely freaked out by this note, because a couple of nights before the note was found, she hadn't been feeling very well. So she'd been sleeping in a cabin by herself. And one night she was woken by noises like someone was trying to break into her room. The doorknob was rattling and twisting. And I think that really freaked her out. It would absolutely freak me out. And then when the note was found, like subsequently two days later,

she went straight to the camp director, But he didn't take her seriously. Camp goes ahead anyway, and the girls arrive on June 12th, and they are assigned to tents and camps according to their age. Now our story will follow tent eight in Kiowa camp, and the three girls who would sadly die there. Denise Milner, age 10. Michelle Gousset, age 9. Laurie Lee Farmer, age 8.

We don't know much about the girls, but what we do know is that Michelle had been to the camp the year before. She was really sporty. She played football. Or soccer. I can't bring myself to say that. I really can't.

Football is football. American football is hand egg. It's not... Hand egg. It's... Okay. Football slash soccer. That's what she played she loved plants and grew african violets which sound really lovely and her mum remembers her being really concerned

that the family looked after them properly while she was away laurie was incredibly smart and so much so that she had already skipped a grade by age eight. And finally Denise this is really really sad. At first she had been super keen to go to camp and she sold cookies to make sure she could get there. Is that she had to raise the money or what? I know I think it's quite strange. I feel like maybe it's like early capitalism in America. I feel like if I was 10 my parents would have just paid for me to go to camp. But I think there they have those like Girl Scout cookies that maybe kids have to like sell X amount of boxes of cookies to be able to go to camp. Bit harsh. But yeah, but she was fully into it.

She sold all the cookies she needed to get to camp and she did it. She raised the right amount of money. But when the time came to leave, she really, really didn't want to go. She begged her parents not to send her. But her parents insisted. They wanted her to get out and meet new children. And they knew she'd worked hard to go as well, so they didn't want her to just throw it away

and put it down to cold feet, last minute nerves. And they told her if you do one night and you still hate it, we will come and get you. But as we'll see, Denise didn't survive night one. It's horrible. These three girls, Denise, Laurie and Michelle, they were grouped together and placed in tent eight.

There's a lot of argument about whether it's tent seven or tent eight, because it depends on whether you count the councillor's tent or not. But really, it's basically just the last tent in the row. That's what's important to note, because Kiowa camp was the most remote camp and tent eight, the tent the girls were in, was the most secluded tent within kiowa it's also obscured from view from the councillor's tent by like a toilet and shower block so that's very poor planning really isn't it it is when you look at the layout it's a bit confusing i feel like it feels like kind of the shower and toilet book doesn't really look like it's in the way

but witnesses at the scene of the crime say that it is obscured from view from the councillor's tent and it is the one furthest away. The rest of the marks kind of group together and tent 8 does feel very secluded and away from the councillor's tent. It's just a very weird place to put an 8, 9 and a 10 year old by themselves. And also clearly the person who's casing this situation, they know that's the tent they're going for. Well, we'll come on to that i think there's it's an important argument to be made is it the tent they're going after or is it

particular girls or girl i think it's it's an important question to raise definitely upon like after the crime happened and the parents see what kind of setup there was the parents would later say that if they had seen the tent set up beforehand that they would never have let their girls go one mother even saying leave alone letting her daughter stay there that she wouldn't have stayed in that tent because she as a fully grown woman would have been too scared that's awful i but is it is this sort of the time in like americana when no one locks their doors and all of that sort of stuff yeah it feels like oklahoma in the 70s i feel like people felt really safe at this time. I felt like this kind of thing now, it would be really front of everyone's mind. But I don't think back then this was a huge thing that played on people's minds. I don't think it needed to. But when you do look

at the pictures of the tent, it looks terrifying. It looks absolutely terrifying. And we'll definitely post those pictures on Instagram. You guys check it out. It's, I don't know if I'd want to stay in there. The way the tents were set up, there were usually four girls per tent and originally in tent eight, there should have been. But due to like a miscalculation of date of birth, they accidentally put a girl who should have been in tent eight that night in a different camp with older girls. And they tell her, don't worry, tomorrow we'll move you back to tent eight in Kiowa. My God, imagine if you're that girl. The stroke of luck that befell that girl by not being in tent eight in Kiowa. My god. Imagine if you're that girl. The stroke of luck that befell that girl by not being in 10-8 in Kiowa

that night. That's the only reason she's alive. An administrative error is the only reason she is alive. I don't know if it would have been enough for it to sink in with her at that point. But now, for her parents? Jesus. So let's get back to the first night. It's about 6pm when they're done eating, but

it's started to rain, so the girls are sent to their tents for the night. The rain about 6pm when they're done eating, but it started to rain. So the girls are sent to their tents for the night. The rain then turns into a serious thunderstorm. And the bored girls write letters home to their families. Which is just such a like, I used to be a teacher and that's what you make them do if you have no idea what the fuck to do with them. It's just busy work. It's busy work. The first night.

They've been there. They've been away from their parents for like a few hours by this point, I'm guessing. So, but, but we will see that the notes that the girls wrote are incredibly helpful in establishing a timeline. Even though it was definitely busy work, it really, really helps us identify what was happening during that time. Michelle wrote to her aunt and she says, Dear Aunt Karen, how are you? I'm fine. I'm writing from camp. We can't go outside because it's storming. Me and my tent mates are the last tent in our unit. My tent mates are Denise Milner and Laurie Farmer. My room is shades of purple.

Love, Michelle. And Denise wrote to her mum, Dear Mum, I don't like camp. It's awful. The first day it rained. I have three new friends named Glenda, Laurie and Michelle. Michelle and Laurie are my tent mates. Mum, I don't want to stay at camp for two weeks. I want to come home and see Cassie and everybody.

Your loving child, Denise Milner. Laurie wrote to her parents. Dear Mum and Dad, and Misty and Jo and Chad and Cathy. We are just getting ready to go to bed. It's 7.45. We are at the beginning of a storm and we are having a lot of fun. I've met two new friends, Michelle Guse and Denise Milner. I am sharing a tent with them. It started raining on the way back from dinner. We are sleeping on cots. I couldn't wait to write.

We are all writing letters now because there is hardly anything else to do. With love, Laurie. This particular letter is really helpful in setting up our timeline. Laurie gives specific times and everything. Smart girl, she did skip a grade after all. So after they write the letters, as Laurie says, there isn't much for anyone to do, so they just go to bed. But on the first night, however, it is normal and it's expected that the girls stay up late. They're usually making a racket and sometimes they're crying because they're homesick, because for many of them it's probably the first time away from home. And that night, with the thunderstorm raging outside, it definitely doesn't help matters.

The counsellors, before turning in, go out one last time to check on the girls. Carla, one of the Camp Kiowa counsellors, says that while she was checking on the girls, she saw a dim light in the woods. She thought it was strange and when she pointed her torch at it, it went away. Confused and probably a little bit freaked out, she returns to bed. Later, after the crime, other girls and the counsellors would say that around 1.30am they heard noises like a low guttural moaning and crying. And sometime after 2am, the flaps to entrance of tent 7 were opened and a light was shone in. One of the girls in the tent woke up and saw this but didn't react and whoever

it was walked away she probably thought it was a counsellor but none of the counsellors said they had done this i don't know how reliable their testimony is really because you'd just be like i i was nowhere near it i was asleep but also how does this little girl know what time it is when that happened because it's like sometime after 2 a.m somebody shone a light into the tent it doesn't seem unreasonable that a counsellor might just go do a quick check, make sure all the girls are in bed, they're where they should be. Seems unlikely, 18, 19 year olds, especially given there's been a storm. Unlikely that a young girl would, if someone's shining a light in her tent,

would check her watch and remember. That's what I mean. I feel like it seems, it doesn't seem strange to me at all that she didn't react because I feel like the easiest solution, even if someone is like breaking into your house, do I just pretend to be asleep and maybe they'll go away? I would totally understand that she hasn't reacted, but I find it weird that she knows what time it is. In a night filled with strange noises, at 3am in Kappa Camp, the camp right next to Kiowa, a girl says she hears another girl screaming, Mama, Mama. The councillors would also later say they heard shouting, but just thought it was the girls playing or being homesick. So no one gets up

and eventually the night passes. I do understand, you know, it's your first night in a tent, it's a thunderstorm, people are going to be making noise. I can understand why that was dismissed. Absolutely. I just think these are 18, 19 year olds olds the counsellors who were there I don't think we can stress enough that they're not responsible adults I don't feel like if they heard these noises they would necessarily get up and go check on it even if they had been trained I think someone shouting mama mama that sounds like homesickness exactly and they're probably scared shitless too in a thunderstorm. I would think that they're probably also a bit freaked out. So as you said, the night passes. And the next morning, Carla, the camp counsellor,

gets up early, around about 6am, to go have a shower. And that's when she comes across a sleeping bag by the tree line. Obviously confused, Carla goes over to see what it is. Because why is there just a random sleeping bag laying out by the tree line on the edge of the forest, away the tents and this is when she makes a horrifying discovery. Inside the sleeping bag is the half-naked dead body of 10 year old Denise Milner and that's when Carla spots the other two sleeping bags nearby. Carla raises the alarm and the police arrive soon after. They discover the bodies of the other two girls Laurie and Michelle inside the other two sleeping bags.

The first officer on the scene is Harold Berry. He lives just down the road, so arrives almost immediately and locks down the scene. Harold does well and does make sure nothing is touched until the sheriff gets there. At 7am, Sheriff Pete Weaver arrives and the investigation begins. Denise Milner was found nude from the waist down with her pyjama top pulled up underneath her arms. Her hands had been tied behind her back with duct tape and she had been beaten around the face. Around her underneath her arms. Her hands had been tied behind her back with duct tape, and she had been beaten around the face. Around her neck was a cord. She had been gagged and blindfolded,

but both had fallen away and were found around her neck too. Michelle had her arms latched to the sides of her body with cord. Laurie had no bindings and was probably the first to be killed. The police find a torch with a cover over the light that has a little hole cut into the centre of it, so when you shone the torch, the light would be dimmer. And they find three beer bottles, a crowbar, women's glasses, a roll of black duct tape and a bit of cord like that

used to tie up the girls in the grass near the bodies. In the tent, they find blood and a boot print in the blood. The boot print is later found to be about a size 9.5 or 10. It matched the boot prints also found near the girls bodies but it was a really generic boot print. It was like a what they call like a jungle boot print so you know it didn't immediately point the finger at anything. But what can this evidence help them deduce immediately? They know that the rain stopped at 11pm the previous night and the bit of rope they find is dry so the crime must have happened after 11pm and before 6am in the bit of rope they find is dry, so the crime must have happened after 11pm

and before 6am in the morning. And from the site inside the tent, they feel like at least two of the girls were killed in there. But all three of their bodies were found about 100 feet away near the tree line. Why were they moving the bodies? Were they trying to, like, take them away? The girls were already dead inside the tent.

Why were they moving the bodies towards the tree line? I can't come up with a theory for that it doesn't make sense because it doesn't really seem like they were trying to i don't know do you feel like they were just abandoned like in a rush i don't feel that doesn't feel right weird because i also feel like okay so laurie was probably killed first the fact that she wasn't even like uh necessarily bound or anything and then you're probably looking at the fact that it was Michelle Goustey killed second because she was her she her body was lashed with cord then you're probably looking at the fact that Denise was killed last and also Denise was gagged and blindfolded why are you gagging and blindfolding a girl that she's not dead she's not dead when they've done that they're taking her so I feel like were they trying to take Denise? And I don't know, the other two were killed because they could identify them?

Yeah, I think if you blindfold someone, you're either taking them somewhere you don't know, you don't want them to know where they're going, or you don't want them to be able to identify you. Absolutely. And if you blindfold somebody, it kind of implies that you're not going to kill them. Because that thing in the horror movie always is that as soon as somebody reveals their face to you takes their mask off that's when you know you're dead no one takes their mask off if they're going to let you live we'll discuss kind of the more possibilities of why they might have been doing this and why the bodies might have been

there later on but it's good to hold these questions in our mind staff at camp are freaked out which is a very rational reaction at this point. I don't think anyone is overreacting here. None of the other girls are told what's happened. Also sensible. They just immediately evacuate everyone back to the Girl Scout HQ. And the parents are told to come and pick up their girls. The families are just told that there was an accident. And it's only on arrival that the families of the murdered girls are told that their children are dead. But they

don't even find out why or how until they watch the news. That is the worst way you could possibly find out. It's just crazy. So it's like they just said, oh, come pick your girls up. There's been an accident when you're there. Oh, your girls are dead. But they don't even tell them like what happened. It's really, really bizarre. And one family even found out they weren't called regarding the fact there was an issue until after the director had called their insurance company and a lawyer come on i know i know on one hand you can kind of think just just to look at it from the point of view of the director oh my god this has happened and what the hell are we like this is like the worst nightmare and I don't know maybe

it is sensible to check on god I sound horrible but maybe this director was just checking shit what what are we gonna have to say what are we gonna have to do immediately to fix this situation because how who's even prepared for that kind of conversation but it does seem quite cold absolutely it is cold and I think fair to be annoyed at that because it's cold. So what had actually happened to the girls? The medical examiner discovers that Denise's body at the scene of the crime was 70 degrees. And since the other two girls already had signs of rigor mortis, Denise Milner must have been the last to die.

98 degrees Fahrenheit is about normal body temperature. So she was 70. So obviously 70 degrees Fahrenheit, her body temperature has dropped. She's the warmest out of all of them. And the other two girls have got signs of rigor mortis, so the conclusion is made Denise Molnar must have died last. That's kind of the conclusion we came to as well, considering how much more care had been taken to get away with her body, like the blindfold, the gag, etc. Laurie and Michelle had died from blunt force trauma to the head. They even said that there was really little damage,

like visible damage to Laurie. She almost just looked like she was asleep. But Denise, who had also been beaten around the head, died from ligature asphyxiation. And both Denise and Michelle had been sexually interfered with. We say this because even in the reports, they never make it exactly clear what happened. Some reports say rape, some say molestation, some say sodomy. It's really, really unclear exactly what happened. And in the final reports, they even said that it was hard to tell with Laurie if anything had happened at all, which would make sense if she was the first to die. But in the collection, examination and analysis of the evidence,

this case is terrible. Well, by today's standards, but it is the the 70s but I feel like we say that a lot I know I think by at this point we would be like you what are you doing if there's poor evidence collection but I do think they did their best they did contain the scene at the start but I think things fell apart afterwards and the collection of the evidence was quite poor so what did they actually find the police tracked down the fact that some of the evidence was quite poor. So what did they actually find? The police tracked down the fact that some of the stuff found at the scene, like the crowbar, the duct tape, etc, had actually come from a farm about a mile away from the camp. The 51-year-old farmer who lived

there, Jack Schroth, was brought in, questioned, and polygraphed. Bullshit. Oh yeah, I mean, polygraphs mean absolutely nothing. Now, the media had already decided that he had done it. Reporting on the case, calling him the Girl Scout Slayer. So we've got a bit of a trial by media here, right from the beginning. Jack passed the polygraph test and told the police that his house had been broken into and the stuff they had found had in fact been stolen from his farm. He also had an alibi, so the police release him. I mean, I do feel like the police released Jack very, very quickly.

There isn't that much evidence. I mean, there isn't that much reported about the case around Jack, just the kind of media circus that surrounded it where they were reporting on him, calling him the slayer, etc. But he did live very, very close to the camp. The stuff from his house was found at the scene of the crime. An alibi is very easy to secure. There's no, you know, reporting on how solid this alibi was. And so what, he passed a polygraph. That means nothing to me. But the police do let him off very, you know, they're fine, they're fine. You got an alibi, you passed the polygraph, you told us his stuff was stolen. Who breaks into someone's farm and steals like duct tape? Yeah, that seems like a weird thing

to have lying around on a farm. The crowbar, yeah can buy that that that's just in a shed somewhere but duct tape? Is this also a weird thing to be able to prove that it was stolen? It's like oh my gun was stolen and then used in a crime later and here's report I filed with the police that my gun or my car was stolen. How did he prove that that duct tape and the crowbar was stolen from his house did he file a police report about it what was the evidence a car and a gun they're registered to you in your name they're on your insurance so you can prove that it's yours i think you're absolutely right there is nothing i can't think of anything that would prove that this particular crowbar this particular duct tape and this particular plastic cord definitely came from this guy's house i think they proved that it did because they found more of it at his house and it matched and he also said

yes that is mine but it was stolen from my farm. I also think it's quite maybe like I don't know how small a community does it need to be that you know somebody's crowbar by sight but but I don't know for whatever reason they they say fine fine, Jack, you're chill, you're good to go, see ya. But you'll remember that there was this tape used in the girls' bindings. And in the glue of the tape, the police find a dark hair stuck in it. There's also a fingerprint on the handle of the torch found at the scene. And finally, they have semen samples collected from the bodies of the girls. So they have all of this kind of physical evidence, forensic evidence, potentially.

But the problem is, as of yet, there are no suspects to compare any of this to. So maybe that does suggest that they did compare some of this to Jack, and that's why it didn't match? Well, I don't see why you wouldn't. I don't understand how you would have DNA evidence, well, forensic evidence, and then you have this person, a suspect in front of you, who the press are already calling the Slayer. Why you wouldn't just compare the hair

sample that seems very weird i think also that to compare like dna hair samples i think you need it to be pulled out like with the follicle and it isn't clear whether i don't think this hair came out with the follicle i think it was just like a bit of hair that can't really be like forensically tested i think also the level of sophistication of their dna sampling everything like that was just not what we expect because the majority of what we know now to be modern dna techniques didn't come about until like the mid 80s mid to late 80s so this is the late 70s so i just think they didn't have the capability to do that kind of thing i think fingerprinting yes and it didn't match it didn't match's fingerprint, the fingerprint they find on the torch.

I'll buy that. But we do come on more to this when they catch up with their next suspect. Okay, so they've let Jack go. They've got this other evidence. They haven't got anybody to compare it to. But then this is when things get weird. So remember the stuff that had gone missing from the camp?

In the lead up to the girls arriving, the counsellor said lots of stuff went missing. The random shit that disappeared. Where did that ever go? Well, a couple of guys who were hunting shortly after the murders came across a nearby cave about like three miles from the campsite and it looked almost like lived in. And in the cave there were several pairs of glasses, including campers glasses, missing photos, a torch cover and like other random stolen stuff from the camp. There was also a newspaper found and there was a scrap of newspaper found in the torch that had been

discovered at the murder scene. A scrap of paper from the same paper, the same date, exactly the same paper, now lying in the cave. And in another nearby cave they find some weird graffiti and it says 77-6-17. The killer was here. Bye bye fools. So it's like a date, right? But it's written in a really weird way. You couldn't ask for better evidence, could you? Like you couldn't, are you kidding me?

Like the corner of the newspaper that you can prove like that is insane. It is, it is. And it was like stuffed into the torch, I think, to like make the battery connect with the connector, like to just fill out a bit and the date the way it's written though what's with that because yes we here write the day the month and the year and the americans write the month the day the year but who writes the year the month the day that's weird yeah i can't think of anything why you would write it like that i read in some places that maybe like military people write it like that, but not, I'm not sure. It's not something I've ever come across, not that I'm a military expert, but it's not something I've ever heard.

I know, and what you said is really, really important. It seems so perfect. Is it too perfect? Just, I think it has to be. Photographs of two women were also found. And investigators learned that a prison guard who moonlighted as a wedding photographer, that's incredible, I love that, just like, oh my true passion is wedding photography, but Monday to Friday I'm a prison

guard, like I love, I just, I love that. This guy, this prison guard slash wedding photographer had taken these pictures and they had been developed for him by an inmate, Jean Leroy Hart. Hart, who had escaped four years previously and was still at large. I mean, you couldn't write it. You couldn't write it. It's perfect. It's a perfect trail. Very, very perfect. So there is a clear link to the murders. The camper's stuff, the graffiti, all indicates whoever was in this cave is the murderer. And the photos lead them to put their focus on the escaped convict, Gene Leroy Hart, who had developed the photos. So who was Hart? He was a local man who first became known in the area as a football star at Locust Grove High School. After he left school, he was convicted of kidnapping and raping two

pregnant women. He is one sick fuck. Like, he abducted these two women, drove them out into the middle of nowhere, and raped them. And when he was done with them, this is the bit that's... I mean, all of it's horrible, but this is the bit that's just like, what the actual fuck? After he was finished with them, he covered their faces with tape, and then covered their bodies up with, like, branches and stuff, and just left them there. But thankfully, the women were found after one managed to get free and run to get help. And the women said something weird afterwards. They said that Hart made these weird noises that during the attack he started making

these guttural low moaning sounds. So this guy, a rapist, was on the loose and running around for four years. They never caught him. I mean, how hard did they even look? But the issue is that the local community came hard to Hart's defence, following the rape charges. Hart was a football hero and Native American. I don't get this obsession with, like, in American towns or in America, like, so what if someone was really good at football when they were in high school? What the hell has that got to do with anything?

What pisses me off so much is, like, they have enormous stadiums and they televise an extracurricular activity. It's so true. It's so bizarre. Can you remember who was really good at football when we were at school? I don't know. I don't know. Whatever. Literally, it is insane to me that someone could be a local celebrity

because they're good at PE. Yes. That makes no sense. That's exactly it. But I feel like there is that obsession there. He was a football hero. No, he wasn't. He was a kid at school that was good at football. What has that got to do with anything? Literally nothing. He was a Cherokee and this area was Cherokee country. after his escape from prison the local community had hidden him protecting him from the police the community even said that those two pregnant women went with him because they were sick of their husbands both of them oh fuck and then they were like yeah I'm so sick of my husband take me out of the middle of nowhere rape me cover my face in tape and leave me buried under some branches. Yeah, that'll

be a really fun role play we can play. What the fuck? That's bollocks. It's absolute bollocks. The point is the local community couldn't believe that this guy who was good at PE in high school had committed these crimes. But his wife, she believed it and she left him and took his son after Hart was convicted of the rapes. But at this point, four years later, Hart is still on the loose. And so after the girls were killed, the police immediately suspect him. Sheriff Weaver, in particular, is hot for Hart, saying he is 1000% sure that Hart did this. Hart's mother also only lived one mile from Camp Scott, and some eyewitnesses even said they saw a man matching Hart's appearance running from a cave in the area. And so a massive search of the surrounding

area around Camp Scott was conducted in an effort to capture him. But the community support for Jean was unwavering. People even walked around wearing t-shirts with the slogan, welcome to the heart of gene country. H-A-R-T. Yeah, yeah. They went and got those t-shirts printed and then wore them around town. That's dedication. But the area, again, why is this all happening? The area was described as clannish and the Native American people there did definitely harbour a lot of ill feeling towards law enforcement in general. I mean, I don't know that that's like misplaced ill feeling. I'm sure there's been a lot of shit between law enforcement in the area and the Native American population. I'm just going to go out and say that's probably a thing.

That was a problem. I think I listened to a This American Life on it a couple of weeks ago. The idea of summer camps in America and like the kids all do impressions of Native Americans and they have powwows and they build teepees and it's all just slightly casually racist. I'm not surprised that there's animosity here. Absolutely. And this, you know, support from the community really affected the police hunt for Hart.

But after about 10 months of searching, the police eventually get a tip off and find Hart hiding in a cabin with a medicine man of the local tribe. And when they found him, he was wearing women's glasses. So what the hell has that got to do with anything? When he raped those two pregnant women previously, he was found both times wearing women's glasses, glasses he had stolen from his victims. It's such a bizarre trophy, but he had form for this. was like part of his mo so now once again he's caught wearing women's glasses whose glasses is he wearing they were glasses stolen from camp scott and so jean leroy hart was finally arrested that is such a bizarre thing to like if you're

taking a trophy the least hidden it can possibly be is on your face i know but is that almost like quite a fuck you because you know those serial killers that do that thing where they like say like a serial killer who murders women who like take a necklace and then give it to his wife or his girlfriend to wear so that he can see it every single day maybe leroy hart was just so vain and so narcissistic he's like i'm just gonna put it on my own face and look at that every day yeah i mean either way it's uh it's a statement it is a statement i'm jake warren and in our first season of finding i set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mom's life you can listen to finding natasha right now exclusively on wondery plus in season two I found myself caught up in a new journey

to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go.

A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me, and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding, and this time, if all goes to plan,

we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his

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This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On The Media. To listen, subscribe to On The Media wherever you get your podcasts. Before we kick off into the evidence and trial time, there was a lot of weird, some say supernatural, shit going on with this case. This literally makes me shit my pants. Thanks, Hannah. You're welcome. You are all welcome for that. Hart denied everything to do with the murders, but when asked how he escaped from prison, he said... I can't even say this with a straight face he said that he escaped by

shape-shifting into an owl and flying out i know and actually while i was researching this i you know got a little bit carried away and fell down a reddit hole i love me a reddit hole and i know and i was doing it last night and i was like oh my god i'm never gonna sleep again and there was people on there who were from the town that this happened in, who were Native Americans and who were friends of Native Americans, saying, oh yeah, I had a friend at school, and he used to swear down that every day his dad would go out into the woods and shapeshift into animals and run around.

And that's just how it was. You don't understand. I'm like, what? Oh my God. What? But I'm guessing you and I'm like, what? Oh my God. What? But I'm guessing you and I are feeling quite sceptical about this. So why are we even bringing this up? What does it have to do for anything?

Because obviously we don't think he actually shapeshifted into an owl. But it does link some weird happenings around this case. There was security based at the camp while the investigation was going on. And guards would tell of weird sightings of a man in the woods. They said they would see him repeatedly, standing in the woods and staring at them. They gave chase many times but never caught him. They even set a trap by tying thin wire around the trees to see if that would help them catch him if he ever came back.

But the next day, the threads would always be broken. And on one such occasion, after spotting the man, they chased him and failed again to catch him. But when they came back to camp, they made a discovery. Something had been left on the steps of their temporary security building. Are you ready? No, I'm not ready. For what they found? They found a plastic bag, and in the bag, sealed up, they found a pair of pink socks and shoes and written on the inside of the shoes was Denise Milner's name. The shoes were positively ID'd as Denise Milner's shoes that were missing from the scene of the crime. Oh I hate this. I mean yeah. What? Even more grade A evidence showing up all the time. It gets weirder. It gets weirder. As if that's

not enough. Yeah. Immediately, they called the police, who call in from neighbouring states the best canine tracker dogs that they have. These dogs are brought in to see if they can find anything, track down the man in the woods, because surely it had to be him who left the shoes. And if he left the shoes, he must have something to do with the murders. So when the dogs were given the scent of the bag, they took off in full force. And every time they did this, the dogs would lead them straight to the same place, the Kiowa campsite, to 10-8, exactly where the girls were killed. But every time they got there, the dogs would stop, seeming to lose the scent. And weirdly, every single goddamn time, the dogs would just stop dead and look up every time.

What are they looking for? They're looking for the owl. They're looking for the shape-shifting owl. It's really, really terrifying that that whole like sequence of events that happens with the bag turning up, the dogs behaving in that way. But okay, hear me out. What if they're obviously going to go to Camp Kiowa to tent eight because that's where Denise Milner last was with her shoes. So they'll obviously go there with the scent. But then it's because her

body was then removed from that place. So maybe they just don't know they've lost the scent of Denise. So they're looking around and people are like, oh my God, they're looking up. Didn't somebody say that he was a shape-shifting owl? Yeah, okay. I've calmed down a little bit. But then, but then, shouldn't they have been following the scent of the man who had touched them? Or was it in a sealed bag because he never touched them? But also, how long

does a scent stay around? I feel like if it's a person's thing really quite a while and they wouldn't have, like, washed the shoes and if that guy had been handling right yeah also really really highly trained tracker dogs i feel like because these dogs are so highly trained them looking up they're not just going to do it for no reason yeah that that's strange because they're trained to strike if they spot a smell and then you know i'm sure they're

not trained to just look up if they lose the smell. I don't know. But it is really weird, especially when you put it in the context of the shapeshifting out. But also, it gets weirder now, still, as if this isn't enough. The medicine man they found Hart hiding with, he claimed that he put a curse on the tracking dogs for them to die. You piece of shit. And the same day, one of the dogs died of heat exhaustion. And a few days later, another of the dogs ran into traffic and died. Okay, so I read that these dogs were $20,000 dogs.

Highly trained police dogs. Some of the best in the area. Runs into traffic. Absolutely not. I feel like this is probably the highest trained a dog can possibly be a canine unit they don't just run into traffic for no reason no i can't i find that very hard to believe because my dog is incredibly poorly trained and incredibly poorly behaved and he wouldn't run into traffic my dog wouldn't run into traffic and she's an idiot yes so i don't i'm so i don't know believe in her hearses yeah i do believe in hearses they are a real thing but you know whether you believe in hexes or

curses why did that dog die and then why did the next one run into traffic it is a bit freaky especially considering what that medicine man said all the voodoo and the magic aside there was also lots of speculation around it and again this kind of stems a little bit feels like to me suspicion around the Native American community lots of talk about like black magic and ritual sacrifice things like that I mean do you have any thoughts on that I don't really know the mysticism surrounding Native American culture is and you see it in a lot of communities, like, you know, it's the fear of the unknown. You mythologize it further, perhaps, because you're intimidated by it. Yeah, I don't really put much stock in any of that. But I think, in any time a horrendous crime

like this happened, people want to understand. But I think this is sadly nothing more than some sick fucks, sadistic, sexual, violent paedophiles. But, you know, we'll... But how do you explain the owl? There was no owl. You mean, how do you explain the dogs looking up? Yeah, that's what I mean. I don't know.

But I feel like that's not... Then it must be an owl. No, okay, that's fair. Good, all sorted. So back to the trial. A shackled Jean Leroy Hart was escorted into the state prison at Macalester. As the case reached the courtroom, for some Hart was a really easy villain given his criminal history.

But to others, he was just a convenient patsy for police under pressure to solve a horrendous and high-profile case. Hart said he would not speak in court, that he would not answer questions, but that he wanted to tell his story, but he was going to do that outside of the courtroom. So he sat down with the reporters for 30 minutes and considering that reporters had already been told

he wasn't going to speak in there, that he wasn't going to answer any further questions, it was a packed room when he gave this press conference. Questions weren't allowed about the case and Hart used his 30 minutes to tell the world how he was innocent and that he was being framed because he was a Native American. That is so fucking smart.

I just feel like, oh yeah, you just get to protest your innocence before you even go into court. But I think because he already knows he's got the community behind him and they've got all of this evidence racked up against him, this is his only shot, is to get the media on his side. And he does it before the trial begins, like the day it's beginning. He knows exactly what he's doing. Oh yeah. And he was also oddly eloquent and probably not what people were expecting from a convicted rapist standing

trial for child murder. He said, I represent the fears and doubts about any system that has had the means and power to overwhelm each of us. When you watch the interview, he comes across as quite charming and intelligent, but that's not the first time we've seen that. Just quite likeable. He sympathised with the families, but always maintained his innocence. To many, Hart was the obvious killer. However, the case wasn't so clear-cut during trial, and things got quite chaotic.

So on March 5th, 21 months after the murders, after an absolute marathon in preliminary hearings, the trial finally began. And during this long process, in the lead-up to the trial, support for Hart only seemed to increase. Various organisations even fundraised for him. And again with the t-shirts. Supporters now donned t-shirts emblazoned with Stop the Mays County Railroad because they believed that Hart was being railroaded by the Sheriff's Department. And the Cherokee Nation Tribal Council also donated $12,500 to Hart's legal defence. They said that they had no opinion on whether Hart was guilty or not, but that they donated the money to ensure that he got fair representation and a fair trial.

The trial itself, however, was an absolute circus and hinged on two basic types of evidence. The biological. Expert witnesses testified that the hair and sperm samples discovered on the girls matched Hart. And then there was the items that put Hart near the scene of the crime, like the items found in the cave just a few miles from the scene and also, of course, Hart's previous convictions for rape but there was no real smoking gun

the hair for example they could only narrow it down to saying it matched Native American hair but this is as we've said Cherokee country it wasn't conclusively proven to be Hart's which I find quite odd but I mean I guess it's what you were saying earlier about had to be with the follicle yeah I think without the follicle

all you can do is say that this is maybe like Afro-Caribbean hair or Asian hair or Caucasian hair. If this is a setup why would you not just get one of his hairs? I don't think that would be difficult. Oh absolutely not but this was the hair that was found stuck in the tape that was around the bindings of the girls so all it really proved they were like oh it's a dark hair he's the dark haired guy it's got to be him and then they had expert testimony saying oh you know it matches his hair type blah blah blah but it's inconclusive because all it proves is that it matches the hair type of a Native American person but if we're going down the like devil's advocate route and we're saying that all of this perfect evidence was a setup and it was planted by the by the police even if they had the follicle hair at

this time i don't think they had the sophisticated dna techniques to be able to compare dna to that level anyway because that's what you find out with the sperm because they find that they just couldn't get a conclusive match all they were able to do was like to say it matches Hart's blood type. That just narrows it down. They couldn't say that it matched him 100% that this sperm came from this man. All they could say was that this sperm came from somebody with the same blood type as Hart's. So we haven't got the smoking gun but the circumstantial evidence is really starting to stack up. Throughout the trial Hart remained silent as his lawyer, an aggressive and flamboyant man named Isaacs, led the case. Isaacs countered the circumstantial evidence, like the stuff found

in the cave, saying it had been planted by the sheriff, and capitalised on the fact that the fingerprint found on the torch was not Hart's. It didn't match. Completely countered every argument because the rest of it was circumstantial, the fingerprint didn't match, the DNA was inconclusive, they couldn't match the hair positively in any sense. The case is quite weak from the rest of it was circumstantial the fingerprint didn't match the dna was inconclusive they couldn't match the hair positively in any sense the case is quite weak from the point of view of the prosecution but for the parents of the murdered girls this trial became an absolute exercise in endurance they were having people come up to them in the streets telling them that heart hadn't murdered their daughters they would go into restaurants and see jars collecting funds to help heart i mean how would that make them feel? Oh, that is awful.

The community was so behind him. I don't think people were coming up to them being like, oh, you bastards, he didn't do it. I think they were just coming up and being like, we're really sorry that your daughters are dead, but he didn't do this. I mean, that's not what you need to be hearing. Then finally, on March 29th, 1979, the closing arguments were made and the trial was concluded.

Hart's fate now rested in the hands of the jury. The jurors deliberated six hours that day, and reconvening in the morning, they took just another 30 minutes before word was sent to the judge they had reached their decision. No one had expected an answer this soon, and even fewer had expected the verdict they gave. They found Hart not guilty. And on reading their verdicts, the courtroom actually erupted into cheers from watchers and supporters of Hart,

and tears from the families. In a case like this, that's unbelievable to me. That's unbelievable. It's astonishing. But this is the thing about why I think he was so clever giving that press conference. You do see it quite a lot that juries can be swayed by the press. They absolutely can. That's probably what happened. It was they took in the weighting of the feeling of the community rather than the evidence that they were presented with possibly we come on to it in a bit but i also feel like there wasn't that much like it's all very circumstantial yes but how many i mean how many court cases have there been where the police have been accused of framing someone of planting the evidence and that the jury agrees with them absolutely that's very rare but even though gene was was

found not guilty he's an escaped criminal so he's going back to prison either way he still had 305 years of his 308 year sentence left to serve in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. So he ain't going anywhere for these rapes that he'd been convicted of. But on June 4th, 1979, just two months later, he collapsed and died while lifting weights in the prison exercise yard. Let's have like a non-snarky look. I've been quite snarky about this whole thing. At the evidence and consider why the jury acquitted him there was apparently no evidence beyond a reasonable doubt they just couldn't using what was available at the time conclusively match any dna with heart yes it had looked bad for him but it was mainly circumstantial

circumstantial evidence is evidence i feel like if we ever do merch that's what our teachers should say circumstantial evidence is evidence. Exclamation mark. Exactly. But what did the physical evidence say? They did find a bloody footprint in the tent that was a size nine and a half or ten, but Jean was a size eleven. And also, like we said at the beginning, the footprint they found was like a really generic jungle boot print.

Guess who else wears jungle boot prints? Police. Because they also found like another one that was like they found a tennis shoe footprint in there which was like what the camp councillors were wearing. So like it's like everybody was just trampling over this crime scene because then there was all this

stuff that they were like oh my god there's a tennis footprint maybe it was one of the councillors and it's like no it wasn't. It really wasn't. It's because they've been allowed to fucking come and look at the tent and then you've stamped all over it and then taken pictures of your own boot prints and then they're like, oh my god, there's a boot print here.

And yes, their boot prints were also found near where the dead girls were found, but that's because they were also standing near where the girls were found. It's stupid. The boot print is like a total non. But the second thing was the fingerprints that were found on the torch that didn't match Jean's. It most likely was the torch that the counselors had seen being shone from the woods the night of the murders because of the dimming cover. So nothing really nailed Hart because yes it was the torch that was seen in the woods. It's got fingerprints on it but it hasn't got Hart's fingerprints on it. So nothing really nailed Hart to this. Would you have convicted him

on the evidence that you've seen? None of the DNA can be absolutely unequivocally matched to him just narrows it down that the serum came from the same blood type hair native american but this is cherokee country and then none of the fingerprints on the torch matches the boots are wrong size you can't really stamp around in boots that are smaller than than your actual feet either i don't think on what was presented at trial i would have convicted him because i do have reasonable doubt but what connects him to it is his mum living so close, the women's glasses that had been stolen from the camp, all of the stuff that was found in the cave, you can't prove that was him. You can just prove it was somebody was there stealing stuff. But the photographs were developed by him that were found in the cave. And also there were

women's glasses from the camp, from Camp Scott found in the cave and also there were women's glasses from the camp from camp scott found in that cave and when he was caught he was wearing women's glasses stolen from camp scott yeah but that just proves he's a bit of a creeper it doesn't so there were two people out there stealing stealing women's glasses from camp scott somebody living in the cave and also him i don't know that seems that bit is bit that, the cave is what really pulls me into this, thinking it's her. But then the graffiti, like, 77, blah blah blah, the date the killer was here, bye bye fools. Like, for a man who came across that eloquently, during the interview, during the conference that he gave, the press conference he gave, does that seem like the kind of man that would also leave graffiti like that, scrawls on the wall?

No. Doesn't it seem too perfect? Yes, it does. Would you, would you have convicted him? I really don't know. I also think in the back of your mind there would be this thing where he's going back to prison anyway. That's so true. There isn't enough evidence shown to me beyond circumstantial that puts the smoking gun, so to speak, in Hart's hand. But I would know that he's already going back to prison. It's really hard to say. I think he did this. I think he did this but I don't think he did this alone because a decade later even though Hart was already dead they tried to re-examine the evidence after kind of more modern DNA techniques became available and they retest the DNA and they find that three out of the five tests run on material found at the scene matched hearts. So yes, three came

back as a match, but according to the forensic team, if even one or two locations or probes don't match, as in this case because only three out of five match, it is enough to turn that into an exclusion. You just don't have a result that's highly discriminating enough. Not enough solid DNA evidence was found, even when they re-examined the DNA a decade later. So okay, it's still inconclusive but what did the DNA point to? It seems more than likely that there was more than one killer. So gene plus some unknowns because three of the DNA findings did match him. So as far as I'm concerned I feel like he was definitely there but there was DNA that also didn't match. So who else was was there because this feels like kind of

like you have to say if you find five bits of evidence three of them match unless it's four out of five it's kind of like or five out of five it's almost like statistically insignificant that you can say this is highly discriminating enough that you can put that person in jail and give an absolute 100% validity behind that DNA evidence but I feel feel like three matched, two didn't. I think other people are involved. So they tried again to retest the DNA in 2002, but it was just so deteriorated that they just couldn't get anything from it. The forensic evidence isn't great, so what about the physical evidence? What physical evidence do we have left behind at the crime scene? The nature of the crime scene, it's a bit of a mixed bag. For example, all of the equipment necessary to commit the crime was brought along,

yet no steps were taken to conceal the crime after it was committed. This does seem to indicate two offenders. What happened that night? I just, I find it difficult to believe that one person pulled that off on their own. Especially, like, and I know we've said that, you know, people heard noises and there was a thunderstorm. There wasn't enough noise to raise alarm particularly. I find it very difficult to believe that one person managed to do that. Yeah, so do I. I mean, it just exactly like you said, the scene of the crime kind of suggests two minds operating. Like one very organised, one very disorganised.

Like because they brought everything but then they left everything. left the girls they made no effort to clean anything up exactly i feel like that to me screams that there was more than one person involved in this also the autopsy showed that the girls had been tied up with two different types of knot i think that points to that as well especially if you're doing it quickly you're just going to do one that you know you're not gonna he also could have made one of the girls tie the other two's hands perhaps and then he could have tied hers but that seems a bit i don't know if you're going to be able to get a terrified little girl to do that and how many knots are they going to know well they're girls girls but i feel like that's true um i feel like okay if it is one person it could have been one person because i think the thing of like if it is one person and you're trying to abduct multiple people that idea

of getting them to tie each other's hands and then you tying the final persons could happen maybe it was denise she was the eldest i don't know what do you think who was he really after here i think it was denise it does point to denise and i think because of the like collection of trophies I don't think this was random and the fact of looking in another tent and being like oh no not that one. That's the bit that's the weirdest. Was he looking? Because it was the tent next door as well. It was tent 7

and these girls were killed in tent 8. Was he looking in there and he doesn't see Denise. He leaves he goes to the next tent and finds them because why the gag why the blindfold why was she the last to be killed it really really seems like he was trying to or they were trying to get away with her in my mind I agree with you I think he was definitely there but there was at least one other person with him and who that was is the key question

because of the remoteness of the crime scene, the offenders would have known the area well. They probably were either avid hunters or lived in the area. Yeah, and I also think the kind of nature of this crime, I feel like they would have had to have been friends. I feel like you don't commit a crime like this with someone you don't know well. There has to be some form of like really strong established trust between people that are going to commit a crime like this oh absolutely because it's not armed robbery is it even then i feel like any kind of crime that you're putting especially a crime like this you're gonna have to have come clean to this person at some point that this is what you want to do like kidnap and rape young girls i feel like they must have been locals

and i feel like they were have been locals and i feel like they were friends and i feel like there was definitely more than one of them but only one of the girls was probably the intended target i feel like the other two were kind of as horrible a phrase as it is collateral damage because they could have identified identified who had committed this crime is that this also feels to me kind of like it's too brazen to be a first time killing i mean that level of violence, it seems to indicate that these offenders were not new to murder and Hart had a record. It doesn't feel like a first time kill.

It all happened too quickly, I think. But the crime itself was sloppy and excessively violent. So maybe it could have been the offender's first murder, but it feels a little bit too methodical in a way, up until the point where they leave the bodies because yeah like the girls could have just been led out of the tent or tied up and dragged away somewhere and killed in a different location why kill them there because they would have been more difficult to find if they hid them somewhere else i can't work out why that is unless it was an accident because the the first two girls, Laurie and Michelle, were killed from blunt force trauma. But I don't feel like Denise's could have been an accident.

She was killed with ligature asphyxiation. They choked her to death with that cord. Yeah, there's no way it was an accident. Okay, so you were saying that they were trying to maybe get away with all three of these girls. They then get to the tree line, get as far as the tree line. It's only 100 foot away from the tents. And then why did they give up there and just kill them? Or were they already dead when they got there? It's really hard to know because the police think that they killed two of the girls in the tent, which were probably Laurie and Michelle. Why were they carrying their

dead bodies away? I don't have an answer. Just seems like a bit of a mixed MO. Yeah, I mean, they're certainly not criminally sophisticated in any way. It's weird then that they went after victims that were so high risk. Stealing children from a camp. That seems to me like one of the highest risk situations you can do, apart from like breaking and entering into a home to kill somebody. So was the crime scene contained properly? It was. As soon as the first body was found,

they told the girls that there was an issue with the water and they evacuated the entire camp. They got all the girls on a bus and with a police escort, they moved them to a safe location. The police did do a really good job with that. We're pretty much in agreement that it's definitely Hart and then at least one co-conspirator, possibly more. But whatever really happened, Hart took it to the grave. Okay, so let's just, you know, play devil's advocate, look at this from the other point, because the community was in an uproar that this was an absolute setup. So what evidence is there, if any, that this wasn't Hart? As we talked about before, the sheriff and the police department in

that area were notoriously seen as anti-Native American. There were conspiracy theories everywhere that the sheriff knows who really did this, but covering for them could it be jack schroff her also with the previous rapes that he had been convicted of eventually admitted to the rape of two pregnant women why claim innocence in this case also it doesn't seem like the kind of victim profile is really different he went from rape kidnapping and raping pregnant adults to children that doesn't make any sense that's not a natural progression really is it it doesn't seem like it unless he's just like some crazy unpro like unpreferential sex offender i don't know that that seems weird that seems strange unless he was there but it was for the benefit of somebody else. Again, why claim innocence with this when he admitted to the rapes of the other two,

the two women? I feel like that's a horrendous crime. And this is a horrendous crime. It is, but it's children though. I think it's, it is worse. It is worse. But fine. If any of this evidence is real, that it wasn't Hart, who could be another possible suspect?

So apparently at the moment, a convicted criminal is making a movie called Candles about the Oklahoma Girl Scout murders, which apparently will reveal all. In 2011, John Russell, who had been an inmate at Ottawa County Jail in 1979 for embezzlement and fraud, said that one of his fellow inmates, Carl Lee Myers, confessed to him that he had killed the girls. This is Shawshank Redemption stuff we're talking about. And it's a man who's in prison for fraud. Planning on making this movie. Like, come on now. Myers, a convicted murderer, died in prison in 2012 while on death row for the 1996 killing of Cindy Mazzano. Before his death, police linked him to the rape and murder of another woman, Shauna Williams, but officials never connected him to

the Girl Scout murders, and as of 2017, Candle still hasn't been released. This man, he's in there for fraud. It's a very, very high profile case. Oh, how convenient. Somebody, an inmate, confessed to you. Even if he did confess to you, like high profile case. Oh, how convenient. Somebody, an inmate confessed to you. Even if he did confess to you, like we know, confessions mean absolutely nothing if the police can't actually link you to the crime. Also, again, this man, he then dies. How convenient. You can now make your film and say whatever the hell you want about him and what he told you without anybody changing their story later on. And also, this guy was also convicted of the rape and murder of grown women.

Is it the right MO? This sounds like... Because you know there's that thing like, if they're in prison, they're not allowed to make money off their crimes, but they can make it off someone else's. It seems a bit disingenuous. So the aftermath of these crimes. I think we have to give a real shout out to the parents here because they did some amazing work following this tragedy.

They became victims advocates. And Michelle Gousset's father, Richard Gousset, helped establish a Victims' Bill of Rights in Oklahoma, as well as the Oklahoma Victims' Compensation Board. Richard said that he felt as though he and his wife were ignored by law enforcement and prosecutors. So he drafted the bill to create coordinating centers in Oklahoma to keep victims and families involved

in every step of the legal process. The compensation board also was there to help provide victims and their family members with money to assist with expenses like medical bills. Laurie Farmer's mother Sherry Farmer founded the Oklahoma Chapter of Parents of Murdered Children, an organisation dedicated to providing assistance and support to the families of homicide victims. Two of the families later also sued the Magic Empire Council and its insurer for 5 million alleging negligence because they said they never knew about any of the strange things that had happened at the camp in the run-up to the girls' stay. The tent had been slashed and what about this note? The families knew nothing about this and they said

if they'd known how far away the girl's tent would be from the councillor's tent they wouldn't have sent their children there but in 1985 by a nine to three vote jurors decided in favor of magic empire the girl scout organization i know i guess they alleged negligence because they said that they didn't tell them about the weird things that happened there that they didn't warn them that there was this kind of strange stuff happening but i guess again like we talked about in the previous case that we did it would come down to where the jurors felt like it was a reasonable person would have been reasonably worried by that kind of stuff happening and i think it doesn't help the fact that the note was never actually recovered yeah actually if thinking about it like if someone rang me and being like someone's leaving notes I'd be like come on some

stuff got stolen from a tent some girls donuts got eaten we saw a person in the woods like none of that was really corroborated none of that was like recorded and reported I kind of agree that it wasn't necessarily negligence on the part of the magic empire or the girl scouts organization in this case I don't know I think the tent was negligently pitched. I think it was, that was poor planning that that tent was so exposed. I think that is negligent. That's a weird set up to have those girls like that. And I also think it's very weird, like,

just to have counsellors that are 18, 19 year olds about. I feel like there should be more adult supervision. Nowadays, if you told me I've got a 10-year-old, you can send them to camp and a 19-year-old will be looking after them? No. Nope, nope, nope. But again, I think this was the time when people didn't feel like they needed to be scared of things like this.

To conclude, I think we both agree that this was Hart and at least one other man. But what's really terrifying, if that is the case, and Hart is dead, but there still potentially remains a killer on the loose in the dark woods of Mace County. And that is terrifying. That is terrifying. And I think he can't have been acting alone, so they are still out there. And if you say it's a local person because they knew the terrain, then he's probably still there. And if the community hid Hart to the level

that they did, Hart only became under suspicion because of his previous convictions and because they found those photographs. This other person could have just flown under the nest, protected by the community. He could still be out there. Absolutely, I believe that. It's horrifying. I think it's really, really one

of the most terrifying cases because like we said at the start, it just feels like something that would never happen. It's a horrible, horrible campfire story somebody tells because they're a prick and then everyone's a bit freaked out. But this really happened and poor Denise, Michelle and Laurie lost their lives so young in a place that should have been like filled with so much happiness it's just so so sad it's horrible that was episode 10 the big the big 10 thank you very much for joining us once again please leave us some nice reviews tweet at us at red handed the pot another thing I wanted to say actually just because we'd had some people asking that they couldn't find us on stitcher or some other like pocket casts and things like that.

Please search for Red Handed as one word instead of two. Please rate, review and subscribe if you like what you hear and you'd like us to keep going. Leave us nice messages. We will have our own Facebook group soon, but until then, you can leave us nice messages elsewhere. If you enjoy reading about as well as listening to intriguing true crime cases, we recommend checking out the truecrimefiles.com. The truecrimefiles.com investigates unsolved true crime cases, offers true crime podcast and book reviews, and shares guest posts by members of our true crime community. You can also find the truecrimefiles.com on Twitter, at the TC Files,

or you can like their Facebook page. Head on over to the truecrimefiles.com for your daily dose of true crime. If you're really lucky, you might see some people you know. So until next time, see you later. Thanks. Bye. So, get this. The Ontario Liberals elected Bonnie Crombie as their new leader.

Bonnie who? I just sent you her profile. Her first act as leader, asking donors for a million bucks for her salary. That's excessive. She's a big carbon tax supporter. Oh yeah. Check out her record as mayor. Oh, get out of here. She even increased taxes in this economy. Yeah. Higher taxes, carbon taxes. She sounds expensive. Bonnie Crombie and the Ontario Liberals. They just don't get it. That'll cost you.

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