June 13th, 1977 is a day of infamy in Oklahoma. It was the day that three young Girl Scouts were found murdered in their sleeping bags at Camp Scott.

Lori Lee Farmer, 8, Michelle Heather Guse, 9, and Doris Denise Milner, 10, were all campers at the Girl Scout camp that summer and all from Tulsa/Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. That morning a counselor was walking to the showers when she found a sleeping bag with a girl’s body in it. It was quickly apparent that this was a murder scene and police were brought in.

Sharing tent #8 in Kiowa Unit, which was partially blocked from the counselor’s tent by the showers, and the furthest unit from the counselors, the girls had become fast friends. They had all turned in early for the night as there was a storm coming in. The girls settled in for the night and each wrote letters to their families about their day.

Later that night someone or more than one person (depending on your theory) prowled the campground. By 6 am the next morning, the three young girls were found murdered, left, most likely deliberately, in the trail where they would be easily discovered by a counselor.

Two girls raped, one sodomized, two bludgeoned to death, and one strangled. All had been restrained in some way. A large red flashlight was found on top of the girl’s bodies and a fingerprint, never identified, left on the lens. A 9.5 size shoe print was found in the blood of the tent.

Two months before this horrific scene a handwritten note was found when a counselor’s cabin was disturbed. It said,”We are on a mission to kill three girls in tent one.” The letter also mentioned martians. The note was not turned into police, camp officials believing it was just a prank. Was it?

Gene Leroy Hart was identified as a possible suspect. He had escaped from prison and was known to frequent the area of the camp. He had personal knowledge of the land. He had been convicted, previously, of kidnapping and raping two pregnant women. Investigators found a cave three miles from the camp that Gene was living in. Circumstantial evidence was piling up.

After a months long manhunt Gene was finally captured. Soon he was taken to trial for the murder of the three girls. He was acquitted. So, was he guilty? There are many different theories on this.

This case is no closer to being resolved this many years later. There is hope DNA could be used to solve it but some of that DNA evidence has shown to be no longer viable. Will they find any viable DNA evidence? We can all hope together.