Karen Faye Winans was murdered on February 4, 2007 in the Tulsa area. She was forty-three years old.

Karen was found dead at the Western Capri Motel in west Tulsa by a motel employee, she had been stabbed to death. I’m unsure if Karen was actually inside a motel room or if her body was found on the motel’s property, but all the media accounts are written to sound like she was found in a motel room.

The day prior to being found dead, Karen had been last seen definitively alive the day before when she was seen walking from East Bryan to Taft and from Taft to Hickory in Sapulpa throughout the day. Despite having conducted dozens of interviews, police never developed any solid leads, and Karen’s murder remains unsolved.

At the time of her murder, Karen was known to have engaged in survival sex work in the Oklahoma City and Tulsa area, and for several months preceding her murder she had been living in Sapulpa. Regardless of her chosen lifestyle, Karen Winans deserves justice and her killer needs to be caught.

If you have any information regarding the murder of Karen Faye Winans, please contact the Sapulpa Police Department at 918-224-3862.