The Oklahoma Girl Scout murders refers to the June 1977 killings of three girls at Camp Scott near Locust Grove, Oklahoma. Lori Lee Farmer, 8, Michele Heather Guse, 9, and Doris Denise Milner, 10, were beaten, sexually assaulted, and strangled in their tent on the first night of camp. A Cherokee man named Gene Leroy Hart was charged, tried, and acquitted in 1979, then died of a heart attack in prison two months later while serving unrelated sentences. DNA testing completed in 2019 led Mayes County investigators to publicly name Hart as the sole killer, though his defense attorneys still dispute that conclusion and the Cherokee Nation has opened its own investigation.
What Happened at Camp Scott
Camp Scott was a Girl Scout summer camp on wooded land in Locust Grove, inside what courts have since confirmed is the Cherokee Nation reservation. Lori, Michele, and Denise arrived on June 12, 1977 and were assigned together to tent number eight. Sometime that night an intruder entered the tent. All three girls were beaten, sexually assaulted, and strangled.1People. People Magazine Investigates Girl Scout Murders Lori Farmer Exclusive
The next morning, camp counselor Carla Sue Wilhite discovered the scene on her way to the shower house. The bodies had been dragged roughly 150 yards from the tent. Denise was on a pile of sleeping bags near a trail; Lori and Michele were inside sleeping bags nearby.1People. People Magazine Investigates Girl Scout Murders Lori Farmer Exclusive The camp was evacuated, and the case became one of the largest criminal investigations in Oklahoma history.
The Suspect: Gene Leroy Hart
Within days, local squirrel hunters led investigators to a cave near the camp. Inside were a roll of masking tape that matched tape used to bind the victims, a modified red flashlight containing newspaper, and developed photographs of women. A prison employee recognized the photos, which included wedding pictures, as images Gene Leroy Hart had processed while on a prison work-release program.2People. People Magazine Investigates Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders
Hart already had a serious criminal history. In 1966 he had kidnapped two pregnant women at gunpoint in Mayes County, tied them up, and raped them repeatedly. He was convicted but paroled after two and a half years.3News9. Girl Scout Murders: DNA Closes the Case 45 Years Later When the murders occurred, he was a fugitive who had escaped from the Mayes County jail. Defense attorney Gary Pitchlynn later alleged that Sheriff Pete Weaver had settled on Hart within forty-five minutes of arriving at the crime scene.4The Black Wall Street Times. Inside the Trial That Exposed Oklahoma’s Broken Justice System: Q&A With Gary Pitchlynn
A ten-month manhunt followed. Hart was captured on April 6, 1978 at an isolated cabin in the Cookson Hills of northeast Oklahoma.2People. People Magazine Investigates Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders
The 1979 Trial and Acquittal
Hart went to trial in Pryor, Oklahoma in early 1979, represented by former Oklahoma County public defender Garvin Isaacs and young Choctaw attorney Gary Pitchlynn. The prosecution’s case was largely circumstantial: the cave evidence, forensic comparisons of hair, and sperm evidence that the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation said matched a group representing only 0.0020 percent of the population, which included Hart.5Oxygen. Gene Leroy Hart DNA Connected 1977 Girl Scout Murders Oklahoma
The defense argued that evidence had been planted. Pitchlynn later said he and Isaacs searched the cabin where Hart was captured, found nothing incriminating, and only afterward did law enforcement produce a corn cob pipe, a mirror, and cutouts of young girls said to be from that location.4The Black Wall Street Times. Inside the Trial That Exposed Oklahoma’s Broken Justice System: Q&A With Gary Pitchlynn The defense also alleged that a forensic chemist had manipulated slides to implicate Hart.6Native News Online. Q&A With Gary Pitchlynn, Attorney Who Tells True Story About the Girl Scout Murders
An alternative suspect was offered as well: William A. Stevens, a 22-year-old former Okmulgee resident later imprisoned in Kansas for kidnapping, robbery, and rape. A co-defendant named DeWayne Peters claimed Stevens had confessed while experiencing “war-game hallucinations,” and witness Joyce Ellen Paine testified that Stevens appeared at her home on the day of the murders with scratches on his arms and red-stained shoes.7The New York Times. Prisoner Acquitted in Sex Slayings Dies The OSBI had eliminated Stevens before trial, and forensic chemist Ann G. Reed testified that hair at the scene was inconsistent with Stevens’ but consistent with Hart’s. Peters later recanted, saying his girlfriend had fed him details to secure a prison transfer. Stevens was stabbed to death in his prison cell in June 1986.8The Oklahoman. Answers to Scout Murders Case Gone With Slain Former Suspect
The prosecution was hit by scandal. District Attorney Sid Wise had signed a contract to co-author a book about the murders with Ron L. Grimsley, a former news editor at the Pryor Daily Times, and the defense accused him of sharing confidential OSBI files with his co-author.9The New York Times. Prosecutor Criticized on Book Contract Withdraws From Girl Scout Case A later Hulu docuseries reported that Wise had committed perjury regarding his handling of the files.10Salon. Keeper of the Ashes: Girl Scout Murders Wise withdrew from the case on November 22, 1978, citing “physical and mental pressures” from the defense.
After a three-week trial, the jury found Hart not guilty in March 1979.7The New York Times. Prisoner Acquitted in Sex Slayings Dies Race ran through the proceedings. Hart was full-blooded Cherokee, and many in the Cherokee community believed he had been targeted because of his heritage. Pitchlynn, himself a member of the Choctaw Nation, has described the Oklahoma justice system of that era as stacked against Indigenous people.4The Black Wall Street Times. Inside the Trial That Exposed Oklahoma’s Broken Justice System: Q&A With Gary Pitchlynn
Hart’s Death Two Months Later
The acquittal did not release Hart. He was returned to the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, where he was serving sentences totaling 305 years for prior convictions of rape, kidnapping, and burglary, plus guilty pleas for 1973 jail escapes.11The Washington Post. Gene Leroy Hart Dies of Heart Attack in Prison
On June 4, 1979, roughly two months after the verdict, Hart collapsed in the prison exercise yard while lifting weights and jogging. He was 35. Medical staff worked on him for about twenty minutes before pronouncing him dead of a massive heart attack.7The New York Times. Prisoner Acquitted in Sex Slayings Dies The state’s chief medical examiner reported that Hart had a history of heart problems, contradicting initial claims from prison officials that he had no known cardiac issues. His family alleged foul play, though the official cause remained a coronary event.12The Washington Post. Hart Had Coronary History
DNA Testing and the 2019 Findings
Forensic technology caught up to the evidence slowly. A 1989 test on a semen stain from a pillowcase in Michele Guse’s sleeping bag produced only a partial match that did not exclude Hart but was not definitive.5Oxygen. Gene Leroy Hart DNA Connected 1977 Girl Scout Murders Oklahoma A 2008 round was inconclusive because samples had deteriorated.13ABC News. Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders Hit Home for Actress Kristin Chenoweth
Around 2012, Lori Farmer’s parents, Charles “Bo” Farmer and Sheri Farmer, asked Mayes County Sheriff Mike Reed to reopen the case with modern DNA tools.1People. People Magazine Investigates Girl Scout Murders Lori Farmer Exclusive Reed began a nine-year re-examination. In 2019, the OSBI tested the surviving evidence again, paid for with $30,000 in donations from Mayes County citizens.3News9. Girl Scout Murders: DNA Closes the Case 45 Years Later
According to Reed, the 2019 testing accounted for every piece of DNA recovered from the crime scene. All of it matched either the three victims or Gene Leroy Hart, and investigators said the results ruled out every other suspect previously considered. Reed also addressed the long-running theory that two different knot patterns pointed to two attackers, saying his investigation determined the knots followed the “same exact pattern.” A bloody footprint that had fueled speculation was, in Reed’s words, “very very probable” to have come from someone who entered the scene innocently afterward.3News9. Girl Scout Murders: DNA Closes the Case 45 Years Later
A cold case panel of 23 homicide investigators, FBI behavioral analysts, and FBI profilers at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children independently reviewed the case and reached the same conclusion: Hart was the sole perpetrator. Reed, who reviewed files on 139 people previously interviewed by the OSBI, said publicly that he had “no doubt whatsoever” that Hart committed the crimes.3News9. Girl Scout Murders: DNA Closes the Case 45 Years Later
Ongoing Disputes and a New Cherokee Investigation
Pitchlynn has disputed those findings, pointing out that earlier rounds of DNA testing were described as inconclusive and arguing that law enforcement’s continued insistence on Hart’s guilt reflects an unwillingness to admit a flawed original investigation.4The Black Wall Street Times. Inside the Trial That Exposed Oklahoma’s Broken Justice System: Q&A With Gary Pitchlynn Isaacs has also continued looking at alternative suspects, saying he has one in mind but that “that person’s dead.”14Super Lawyers. The Girl Scout Murders
The 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma reshaped jurisdiction over crimes on tribal land in eastern Oklahoma. Because Camp Scott sits within the Cherokee Nation reservation and at least one person connected to the case is Native, the Cherokee Marshals gained jurisdiction to investigate the murders, and the Cherokee Nation opened a fresh inquiry.15KOSU. 1977 Northeast Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders Case Gets Fresh Look in Wake of McGirt Ruling
Central to that inquiry is a tip passed to Cherokee citizen Faith Phillips by a former Mayes County sheriff. According to Phillips, the former sheriff had obtained a statement from a prison inmate named Buddy Bristol, who claimed he went to the campsite on the night of the murders with several other men, that one of them committed the killings, and that the others he named were still living in the community. No charges have resulted from Bristol’s statements.15KOSU. 1977 Northeast Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders Case Gets Fresh Look in Wake of McGirt Ruling The FBI considers the case inactive but has not closed it.
Nearly fifty years on, the official position of Mayes County law enforcement is that DNA identifies Gene Leroy Hart as the killer of Lori Farmer, Michele Guse, and Denise Milner. The defense attorneys who won his acquittal, and the tribal investigators now working under McGirt, are not convinced.