Horror at Camp Scott: The Despicable Case of Gene Leroy Hart and the Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders
During their first night at summer camp, three young Girl Scouts were brutally assaulted and murdered in their tent. 45 years after the case went cold, DNA evidence has confirmed the killer
Camp Scott
Not far northeast of Tulsa, Oklahoma, lies the small town of Locust Grove. Only a few miles from the quaint town is the summer retreat known as Camp Scott, a site that had been beloved by local Girl Scout troops for decades.
Since 1928, groups of Girl Scouts had gathered at Camp Scott for two weeks of summertime fun. Camp Scott was nestled in the wilderness, accessible only via a dirt road off the highway. While at camp, the girls slept in tents on platforms, completely immersed in the natural beauty surrounding them.
Since Camp Scott first opened in 1928, it had been a safe place for Girl Scouts to enjoy a summer escape. There had never been any significant incidents, nor had there been any reason for parents to fear for their daughters’ safety while at camp.
By all accounts, Camp Scott was a beloved location where these young girls could enjoy themselves and make new friends, with past campers recalling their younger years spent at Camp Scott with great fondness.
One such former camper, Michelle Hoffman, was eager to become a camp counselor, desiring to pass on her wonderful experiences to the next generation of Girl Scouts.
On June 12th, 1977, Michelle arrived at the Tulsa Girl Scout headquarters, where groups of Girl Scouts were awaiting their buses to Camp Scott. While waiting for the bus, Michelle met ten-year-old Denise Milner and her mother Bettye.
Bettye informed Michelle that Denise was feeling homesick and did not want to go to camp. Michelle gave the young girl encouragement and offered to ride down to camp with her. A reluctant Denise agreed.
Upon arriving at camp, Michelle escorted Denise to Kiowa Tent 7, where she met her tentmates, 8-year-old Lori Farmer and 9-year-old Michele Guse. Denise quickly settled in, and the three young girls began bonding with one another.
Satisfied that she was comfortable, Michelle left Denise to her new friends. Later that night, Michelle returned to check on Denise and the other girls, only to find they’d already fallen asleep, eagerly anticipating their busy and fun-filled first morning.
Troubling Signs
Two months prior to that summer’s annual camp, there had been a strange happening. While attending a counselor training at Camp Scott, one of the counselors noticed that her belongings had been rifled through and her doughnuts had vanished.
Upon further investigation, the camp counselor found a note inside the empty doughnut box that read, “We are on a mission to kill three girls in tent one.” Though it seemed like cause for alarm, the camp’s director disagreed, writing the incident off as a prank.
Then, on the first night of camp, a severe thunderstorm rolled in late in the evening. Due to the storms, the night grew especially dark.
One camper, Amy Sullivan, wrote in her diary that night, “It was the darkest dark I had ever known. I couldn’t tell if my eyes were open or shut.” This dark and stormy night set the scene for the horrific and heinous acts that were to come.
Horror at Camp Scott
On the morning of June 13th, counselor Carla Wilhite had awoken before the campers, hoping to take a peaceful shower before starting her busy day. While walking to the showers at 6 a.m., Carla made a horrifying discovery: at the base of a tree, approximately 100 yards from Tent 7, lay the lifeless body of Denise Milner.
Carla rushed over to Denise, quickly realizing that the young girl was no longer alive. Denise was lying on top of her sleeping bag, with two other sleeping bags next to her. Initially, Carla thought only Denise had been killed until she realized that the bodies of Lori Farmer and Michele Guse were zipped inside their sleeping bags.
Panicked, Carla rushed for help. She quickly located the camp director and nurse, bringing them back to the tree where the three girls lay. Upon returning, the horror and weight of the scene took hold of Carla, and she was filled with a feeling of intense fear.
Camp officials rushed to contact authorities and evacuate the camp, sending the girls home with their families as quickly as possible. Camp Scott was shut down as the investigation began.
Tent 7 was located in the furthest position from the counselors’ tent, and the line of sight to Tent 7 was partially blocked by the camp showers. The girls had been dumped on the path leading to the showers.
Inside Tent 7, blood and other signs of a struggle were visible. A red flashlight was found near the bodies, and the lens was covered with a thin layer of dark plastic secured by tape. Inside the flashlight, crumpled newspaper had been stuffed into the battery compartment.
Whoever killed these girls had intentionally dimmed the brightness of their flashlight and suppressed any rattling sounds, indicating that they had premeditated this horrific act. A very smudged fingerprint was left on the flashlight, but it was too compromised to use for identification purposes. Inside the tent, a footprint from a man’s size 9.5 shoe was found in the blood.
Autopsy reports concluded that Lori and Michele had died from blunt force trauma to the head. Denise had also been beaten, but her cause of death was ruled as asphyxiation, which was supported by the ligature marks on her neck. Most tragically, it was evident that all three of them had been raped prior to their deaths.
Evidence supported the sexual assaults and murders occurring inside the tent, with the bodies being dumped outside the tent afterward.
Despite this violent crime taking place during the night, none of the counselors or fellow campers were awoken by the sounds. Presumably, any sounds these girls made could have been drowned out by the severe thunderstorm raging above.
In the blink of an eye, three young Girl Scouts had suffered unimaginably and lost their lives during what was meant to be the most exciting two weeks of their summer. With that, the manhunt for their murderer began.
Investigation
With nothing more to go on than an unusable fingerprint and a single footprint, police combed the nearby wooded area for any leads. After days of following up on tips, conducting countless interviews, and searching through the surrounding forest, police made a discovery.
Thanks to help from local hunters, authorities discovered a cave in the nearby woods. Inside the cave, they found a roll of tape and a newspaper, which matched those found on and in the red flashlight. A piece of thin plastic matching the covering found on the flashlight lens was still stuck to the tape.
It was clear that the killer had been in this cave just prior to the murders.
Also, inside the cave, authorities found several photographs and a pair of glasses. Police distributed the photos, and they were circulated in local and national media outlets. Despite this, police were unable to identify the individual.
Suspect Identified
Finally, a prison employee came forward and identified the man connected to the photos as Gene Leroy Hart. Allegedly, Hart had developed the photos as part of a prison program during his previous incarceration.
Gene Leroy Hart was a local to the area, having grown up not far from Camp Scott. He had escaped from Mayes County Jail in 1973 and had been on the run ever since.
Hart was incarcerated for the kidnapping and rape of two pregnant women, as well as other charges of burglary. Given his violent history and prior sexual crimes, Gene seemed to fit the profile of the Camp Scott killer. Once Gene was identified as the primary suspect, authorities began one of the largest manhunts in Oklahoma’s history.
However, locating their suspect would prove to be quite difficult. Hart had been evading authorities for four years at this point. A member of the Cherokee Nation, Hart was said to be an adept outdoorsman.
Growing up only a mile from Camp Scott, Gene knew the terrain far better than the local authorities. After a frustrating ten months of searching for Hart, police finally tracked him to the secluded home of a Cherokee medicine man, approximately fifty miles from Camp Scott.
On April 6, 1978, Gene Leroy Hart was taken into custody.
Trial and Acquittal
Hart’s trial began in 1979. The trial quickly became sensationalized, with media members crowding outside the courthouse. Garvin Isaacs, a private defense attorney who previously worked as an Oklahoma County public defender, took Gene’s case.
According to Isaacs’ testimony, the very first thing Hart said to him was that he did not murder those Girl Scouts. Isaacs never doubted his client’s initial statement, saying, “Those were the first words out of his mouth. I believed him when he said that.”
Hart was supported immensely by members of the local community, specifically the local Native American population. They organized a “hog-fry” dinner to benefit Hart’s defense fund, and the Cherokee Tribal Council donated over $12,000 to the same cause.
Supporters of Hart believed the local authorities were trying to pin this unsolved case on an innocent man, and they made shirts that read “Stop the Mayes County Railroad.” Isaacs capitalized on the court of public opinion to defend his client.
During the trial, the only physical evidence was a smudged fingerprint on the flashlight, which was not intact enough to be used to make a conclusive identification. Beyond that, the glasses found could not be definitively confirmed as Hart’s. The only piece of evidence that linked Hart to the case was the photographs that he’d developed while in prison found in the nearby cave.
However, without DNA technology to make a compelling case, Isaacs and the rest of the defense team were able to make a convincing appeal that these photographs were planted in an attempt to frame Hart for the murders.
The footprint found at the scene did not match Hart’s shoe size. Semen and hair samples were collected from the girls’ bodies, but DNA testing was not available at the time, so this evidence was not useful.
After seven days of testimony and court proceedings, the jury found Gene Leroy Hart not guilty of the murders. Hart was acquitted on March 20, 1979, to the dismay of the families and authorities, who believed with conviction that Hart was guilty.
However, Gene was not free, as he still had over 300 years left on his sentence for his prior conviction. Though Hart returned to prison, the families of Denise, Lori, and Michele were left without justice.
Case Goes Cold
After Hart was acquitted, the case went cold. There were several other suspects, but without any conclusive evidence, authorities were stuck. Regardless, the girls’ families never gave up on their fight for justice. Lori’s mother, Sheri, said:
“It's a journey I wouldn't wish on anyone. It's shocking. It's different than a death. It's different than a loss because our daughter was murdered.”
The families believed that Gene Leroy Hart had murdered their daughters. The local authorities agreed, but without evidence, there was no way to prove their suspicions or convince a jury.
While the families and police searched for answers, on June 4th, 1979, Gene Leroy Hart died in prison from a heart attack. With their primary suspect dead and no new leads, it seemed as if the mystery of the tragic murders might never be solved.
Developments and Updates
In 1989, developments in DNA forensic analysis allowed the FBI to analyze the semen found on a pillowcase in the tent. However, the testing was not able to provide a complete genetic profile.
From the results of the early DNA testing, FBI analysts were able to rule out every suspect other than Gene Leroy Hart. This only served to renew the local authorities’ belief that their killer was Hart all along.
In 2015, Lori Farmer’s parents approached Mayes County Sheriff Mike Reed. Despite the many years that had passed, Lori’s parents never gave up their fight. They pleaded with Reed to reexamine the case, and he agreed. With the help of OSBI agents, they reopened the case, looking for answers in every possible place.
Since Hart had been acquitted and was long since dead, Reed tried his hardest to work the case from a new angle. He tried to approach the case as if Hart was not their killer but rather another individual, hoping this might bring about some new revelation with the blinders removed.
Reed said, “On purpose, I tried to put and prove somebody else was there, somebody else did this, and it was not him. I tried to put myself on the other side of this.” After diving back into the case with fresh eyes, Reed emerged still convinced that Hart committed these murders, saying, “I was not able to put another person there.”
Sheriff Reed was young when the murders occurred, but he had given Lori’s parents his word that he would investigate to the best of his abilities. Reed made good on his word, spending nine years pouring over the case.
Reed and OSBI agents sought help from Virginia’s National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. There, some of the nation’s best homicide detectives and FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit agents combed through the case. After spending a month working the case from every possible angle, each individual investigator arrived at the same conclusion: Gene Leroy Hart had killed these girls.
After this revelation, agents encouraged Reed to have the DNA evidence retested. DNA had advanced a long way since 1989, and Lori’s parents believed this might be their best chance at finally getting the closure they so desperately sought.
Reed wanted to pursue this route, but the testing would cost $30,000, and that was not within the Mayes County Sheriff’s Office budget. However, residents of Mayes County had never forgotten Lori, Denise, and Michele. They wanted answers and justice almost as badly as the families of these girls, and the entire community pitched in to raise the money.
With the funding secured, Sheriff Reed sent the DNA evidence off for testing in 2019. The results were not released until 2022. Of all the DNA found at the scene, every sample belonged to either one of the three victims or to Gene Leroy Hart.
There was no DNA evidence that linked any of the other suspects to the case. With this new discovery, Reed says there is no doubt in his mind that Gene Leroy Hart murdered those three young girls on their first night of summer camp.
Unfortunately, this revelation came over forty years after their murderer had died. While Hart never faced justice for what he’d done, the families of Lori, Denise, and Michele were finally granted some form of closure.
Sources:
The 1977 Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders: Finally Solved By ..., thecrimewire.com/true-crime/1977-Girl-Scouts-Murders-Police-Hope-DNA-Will-Identify-Killer. Accessed 10 July 2024.
Ledbetter, Reagan. “Girl Scout Murders: DNA Closes the Case 45 Years Later.” Breaking News in Oklahoma City, OK, 28 May 1652, www.news9.com/story/6279dba06e504b0726fcb888/girl-scout-murders:-dna-closes-the-case-45-years-later-.
“Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 12 May 2024, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_Girl_Scout_murders.
Pelisek, Christine. “‘People Magazine Investigates’: The Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders, and a Family’s Pursuit of Justice.” Peoplemag, PEOPLE, 10 July 2023, people.com/people-magazine-investigates-oklahoma-girl-scout-murders-7558235.
Truly horrifying...