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Oklahoma Girl Scout murders

Also known as: Camp Scott murders

Active

1977–1977

Region

Locust Grove, Oklahoma, USA

State

OK

Kind

Mass

Status

Acquitted

Victims

3

In the early hours of June 13, 1977, three Girl Scouts from the Tulsa area, Lori Lee Farmer, 8, Michele Guse, 9, and Doris Denise Milner, 10, were killed in their tent at Camp Scott near Locust Grove, Oklahoma. After a ten-month manhunt, Gene Leroy Hart, an escaped prisoner from the area, was captured in 1978. A Mayes County jury acquitted him in March 1979, and he died of a heart attack in the state penitentiary that June while serving earlier sentences. In 2022 the Mayes County sheriff said DNA testing by the OSBI pointed to Hart and ruled out every other suspect.

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Victims

We remember the people whose lives were taken.

• Lori Lee Farmer, 8 · June 13, 1977

  A Girl Scout from the Tulsa area.

• Michele Heather Guse, 9 · June 13, 1977

  A Girl Scout from the Tulsa area.

• Doris Denise Milner, 10 · June 13, 1977

  A Girl Scout from the Tulsa area.

Timeline of locations

1. June 13, 1977
   Camp Scott, near Locust Grove (Crime scene)

   The three girls were killed at their tent site overnight. A counselor found them early that morning. The camp is now abandoned.

2. March 1979
   Mayes County trial, Pryor (Court / trial, approximate area)

   A Mayes County jury acquitted Gene Leroy Hart of the three murders in March 1979.

3. June 4, 1979
   Oklahoma State Penitentiary, McAlester (Prison)

   Returned to prison to serve his earlier sentences, Hart collapsed and died of a heart attack after exercising in the prison yard on June 4, 1979.

Watch, listen, read

Sources

• Oklahoma Girl Scout murders (Wikipedia)
• Girl Scout murders: DNA closes the case 45 years later (News 9, May 2022)
• 40 years later, families are left wondering about the young lives lost at Camp Scott (KSWO, 2017)
• The Girl Scout Murders (Super Lawyers)

Each location also lists its own sources in the data file.