﻿The following crimes were committed against children, each age 10 and under.
This video will recount brief details of the atrocities the children had to face.
Listener discretion is advised. The year was 1977, and the official start of
the summer season was mere weeks away. With the warmer months fast approaching, schoolchildren
were released from their general duties. Their longest break yet stretched out in front of them;
the promise of summer relaxation undoubtedly filled the children with glee. Plans with friends,
trips to amusement parks, and stays at camp gleamed in the upcoming weeks of freedom.
For many young girls in the state of Oklahoma, they didn't have to wait long
for their summer adventures to begin. It was the 12th of June, a Sunday,
when hundreds of Girl Scouts were being dropped off for transportation to Camp Scott. The
girls would be staying there for the next week, participating in a number of different activities
during their time away from home. Many of the girls were going to camp for the first time,
the campers between the ages of 8 to 10. Camp Scott had been used as a camping ground for
Girl Scouts trips for several years by this point and there seemed to be nothing to fear.
Saying their goodbyes to family and boarding their buses,
it was still morning when the campers set off towards the grounds. Getting to Camp Scott,
campers were separated and put with counselors, who worked to get the girls situated at their
tent sites. There were multiple tent sites around the Camp Scott grounds,
with camp providers assorting the children into groups of 3 or 4 campers per tent.
Amongst one cluster of tent sites, there were eight different areas for campers
and an area for counselors. Site number 8 was situated furthest from the counselor site,
blocked from the site of those in charge partially by the restrooms provided for
the campers. Three Girl Scouts, ages 8, 9, and 10, were stationed on this particular site. Initially,
there were going to be four girls in this tent, but this would change as the day went on.
The three girls who would know Tent 8 as their home away from home at Camp Scott
were Lori Lee Farmer, who was the youngest at 8 years old; Michele Heather Guse, 9 years old;
and Doris Denise Milner, 10 years old. It was Lori Lee Farmer's first time at camp, same
with Doris Denise Milner. The two newcomers had different reactions to their time away from home,
as Farmer was excited to attend and spend time from home. Meanwhile, Milner was unhappy about
the aspect of time spent away from home and wrote in her letter home she didn't think she wanted
to stay the whole experience. Housing with the returning and enthusiastic
camper Michele Guse was surely meant to ease the new attendees into the experience. This method
might have worked as well if things had not gone so horribly wrong for these young camp attendees.
A storm rolled into Mayes County, Oklahoma that June 12th evening, causing activities to be
shifted to the dining hall. The exact schedule of activities is unknown for the time spent at Camp
Scott, but the girls were hosted in the dining hall for a period of the storm. From the contents
of Lori Lee Farmer's letter home, it read that the girls were already preparing for bed around
8PM that weather-stricken evening. Settling into their cabins at some
point that evening, Farmer, Guse, and Milner were not a rowdy bunch from what is recounted.
Going into the night hours, many girls in other tents were loud and rambunctious, but the three
girls in tent 8 were not. The last known instance of the girls in Tent 8 being checked on is 10PM,
though there were a few more instances in the next few hours of the counselor walking the grounds.
Sometime before 2AM was the last time a camp counselor got up, though there were
instances of campers hearing a scream and a camper weeping for their mother around 3AM.
It was around 6AM when one of the camp counselors got up to go to the showers.
While exiting the counselor's cabin, she saw something on the nearby trail. To her horror,
upon investigating, she discovered it was the dead body of a young camper. With terror grasping her,
she ran to inform the other counselors. These actions would begin the investigation
and eventual evacuation of Camp Scott. The first set of remains found was the
body of Doris Denise Milner. Milner was naked from the waist down and had her hands bound
behind her back. This was determined after the counselors went to alert both the nurses
at the local nurses' station and the Camp Scott Director. The husband of the Director
would be the one to discover the other two bodies in the sleeping bags, and police would be called.
From police, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (or the OSBI) was contacted by 8AM.
It was discovered that all three of the girls had been sexually assaulted and bludgeoned,
bludgeoning being the cause of death for both Farmer and Guse. Milner, along with being bound,
had also been gagged. While also being sexually assaulted and bludgeoned,
her ultimate cause of death was strangulation. The campers who were still in their tents at Camp
Scott were none the wiser to everything going on. They were not alerted and only knew something was
wrong whenever they began to be packed onto Greyhound buses with their belongings. With
no explanation, their Girl Scout summer camp experience had been cut dramatically short.
From some reports, it is said Camp Scott and the Director of Girl Scouts contacted their
insurance companies before the parents of the campers were contacted. However,
when the parents were notified, they all packed onto the land of the location set for the meeting.
It was around noon when the parents began showing up, and it would be around 2:15PM when
the Greyhound buses rolled in. For some parents, they would gain relief. For three sets of parents,
though, grief would be devastating. Camp Scott was shut down the day the
bodies were discovered, never to be opened again. Authorities would work tirelessly
to find a suspect or anything which would solve this unsuspected and heinous crime.
They gathered evidence on the scene, leading to the discovery of a shoe print in the tent,
sized to be a 9.5. The investigators also found a flashlight that had been left behind.
It was believed that Farmer and Guse were both killed while still in the
tent based on blood splatter patterns. Along with the evidence found at the crime
scene that day, it also came to light Camp Scott had a threatening note left a few months prior.
The letter, which had never been reported, was left during a training session a few months
before the horrible events. It was left with a counselor's ransacked belongings,
threatening to kill three girls in "Tent 1." Despite the obvious concerns that should have been
had, the note was brushed off by the camp Director as a sick joke. As a result, it was elected to not
notify the police. Because of this lax behavior, the note was discarded, and the lives of three
young girls came to an abrupt and needless end. Though the note specified Tent 1, it is more than
possible the killer did not know the actual setup and numbering of the tents. With Tent 8
being located at the end of the tent rows, it was a prime target and should have been protected.
As investigations continued, authorities were attempting to tackle all the questions. Was
there only one suspect, or should they be looking for a group? After all, the attack happened in the
middle of the night with other campers nearby, but there were minimal reports of noises heard
that night. Considering people traveled over an hour to Camp Scott on a general basis, the radius
they had to cover in searching for a suspect may be wider than they were prepared to look.
It was 10 days after the three young girls were found viciously murdered when a name would come
to headlines and stay there: Gene Leroy Hart. Hart was 33-years-old and of Cherokee Native
American descent. He had been caught by the law multiple times beforehand and was
only out of prison because he had escaped for a second time. He had been on the run
from the local Mayes County Jail for 4 years by the time the Girl Scouts were murdered.
The evidence against him was scarce, with police quoting items found in a nearby cave they linked
to Hart. However, this didn't stop a large manhunt from going underway, with a large
herd of searchers prowling for this man. The people of Locust Grove were not sure of
Hart's guilt from the beginning. A small town of 1500 people, they told news reporters from
the start the police were keen on pinning every crime on Hart. The locals spoke of Hart being
a scapegoat for the authorities, but they didn't believe he could commit the crimes.
It would be 10 months after the crimes when the interest in Hart had waned from the media
that the authorities managed to find him. He was located in eastern Cherokee County,
housed by Cherokee medicine men who would later be charged with aiding the man.
The trials against Hart would not begin until 21 months after the murders, with protests in
favor of Hart common in the Oklahoma town. Going through the trial, for the families, was brutal.
The entire thing was more of a performance than what was expected of an official justice trial.
This is a sentiment reported directly by Tulsa World, a newspaper that has been
reporting on the crime since the start. Less than a month after the trials began,
the jurors were sent to talk amongst themselves to produce a verdict.
They conversed amongst themselves for 6 hours on a Thursday before retiring for the evening.
The group would come back the following day with a conclusion after only 30 minutes. Gene
Leroy Hart was found not guilty and officially acquitted of the charges. While he would return
to prison for his prior charges, the murder of the Girl Scouts would not fall on him.
The parents of the slain girls felt grief anew nearly 2 years after the initial slash to their
hearts, unsure of where to go. The loss felt even greater upon learning no further searching
for suspects, though the parents could understand why. It was firmly believed amongst the victims'
families that the state had caught the right guy and presented more than enough evidence.
With Hart going back to prison regardless, the families felt at least some sense of justice.
A more authentic sense of justice for the families came a few months later, with the
startling news of Hart having died in prison. While exercising, it appears the man had a heart
attack which proved to be fatal. His funeral would be held, and nearly 1,000 people would attend.
In the years since these senseless and tragic murders and the judicial events that followed, the
families of the Lori Lee Farmer, Michele Heather Guse, and Doris Denise Milner have never stopped
hoping for some closure. While they are sure Hart was the guilty man, they hope DNA evidence will
prove their beliefs one day. At the time of this video, despite numerous tries, the answer has
always come back inconclusive. The last recorded attempt of DNA testing in this case was 2008, with
a donation being recorded in 2017 to reconduct the testing with the newest DNA technology.
Unfortunately, no further news has been provided. Do you believe Gene Leroy Hart was guilty,
or do you think OSBI should have looked for someone else? If you enjoyed this video, remember
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videos to get your true crime fix. Thank you for watching, and we will see you in the next video!