Judy Ellen Weichert
Date Found: July 28, 1984
Location: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Investigating Agency: Oklahoma City Police Department
(405) 297-1127
Forty years ago today, a thirty-four year old woman named Judy Weichert was jogging along North Sara Road in Oklahoma City. She never made it back home.
For seven years now, Judy’s case has haunted me. It’s the case that brought me to work on Oklahoma’s cold cases. Her picture still sits at my workstation, silently greeting me every morning. The massive box containing my casework for her murder still sits on the shelf to my right- taunting me it seems. Some days it feels like I’m the only one left in the world who still remembers or cares about Judy and getting justice for her.
On July 28, 1984 while jogging as she did most mornings, Judy was attacked and left for dead in a field near Sundance Airport. She had been stabbed 23 times and sexually assaulted. After her assailant left her there in that field, determined to survive, Judy crawled through the field and through a barbed wire fence, where eventually someone found her. She would die in surgery later that afternoon.
In the years after Judy’s murder, her case would be connected with another sexual assault case in Oklahoma City, one where the woman survived and pointed out her attacker. Police became convinced that this man also likely murdered Judy, but didn’t have enough evidence to charge him in her murder. That man was sentenced to sixty-five years for that sexual assault, all the while maintaining his innocence. Fifteen years later he would be proven right. His conviction was overturned after DNA evidence proved another man had committed that sexual assault. Neither man’s DNA matches any DNA found in Judy’s case. To date, we still don’t know how much of the forensic evidence found in Judy’s case remains viable due to improper handing of evidence in the Oklahoma City forensics labs from the 1980s to the early 2000s.
Forty years later and Judy still has no justice for being left brutally victimized that bright July morning out on Sara Road.
Though they are few these days, there are still people alive who care about Judy. Who care about bringing her peace and Justice. Please do not let forty years become fifty. This year- I am imploring the Oklahoma City Police Department and the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation to get this case closed- PLEASE ENLIST THE SERVICES OF OTHRAM LABS. DNASolves Advocates and David Mittleman honestly might be the only chance we have left for finding out who the murderer of Judy Weichert was.
After a recent review of files, it seems there was some kind of dna gathering done in 2019. Hopefully this will lead to something.
If you have any information regarding the brutal murder of Judy Ellen Weichert, please contact Oklahoma City Police Department at 405-297-1127.