THE exact spot where three young girls were brutally raped and murdered has been immortalized in eerie photos.
Tuesday marks 46 years since a summer girl scout trip at Camp Scott near Tulsa, Oklahoma, ended after just hours when the first night turned deadly.
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The three victims, Lori Lee Farmer, eight, Michelle Guse, nine, and Doris Denise Milner, 10, were found brutally beaten and murdered after they were mysteriously abducted from their tent.
A months-long investigation led to the identification of a suspect, a Cherokee man named Gene Leroy Hart.
However, after a controversial trial, Hart was ultimately acquitted, leaving the state with even more questions.
In 2022, DNA testing once again linked Hart to the crime, but he has not been posthumously charged with their deaths.
A Hulu docu-series starring Broken Arrow native Kristin Chenoweth premiered last May which detailed the chilling stories of haunted locals.
“I should have been on that trip, but I had gotten sick,” she said in the trailer.
“It has stuck with me my whole life. I could have been one of them.”
In an episode of 20/20, a former local reporter discussed photos that he took of the bloodied tend where the girls were found.
“I knew it was a scene of great trauma because there was so much blood on the floor of the tent,” said Michael Wheat, former photographer, and reporter for The Pryor Jeffersonian.
“All of my pictures are in black and white. My memories were in technicolor,” he said of the horrific nature of the crime.
Harvey Pratt, former Agent for the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations also gave insight on the case during the program.
“When you see things like that, you’re almost in shock that somebody could do those kinds of things to another human being,” he said.
“A child. An innocent, little child. My God, what happened inside of that tent?”
Photos Wheat took at the time show the sheriff and other members of the police looking at what appeared to be a cluster of sleeping bags which was eventually revealed to be the deceased girls.
“You try to isolate [yourself] from the trauma,” said Wheat. “It’s been 45 years since this happened and it still comes back to me.”
NEW DEVELOPMENTS
While the case remains cold, new developments in the investigation came to light last year.
Authorities announced that DNA evidence strongly linked Hart to the murder, ruling out all other possible suspects.
Hart died two years after his acquittal while serving time in prison for previous rape, murder, and kidnapping convictions.
ABC News senior affairs correspondent Deborah Roberts said in a teaser for the 20/20 episode that alternative theories placed investigators at the center of the case.
“Over the years, there have been all kinds of theories,” she said. “There have been suggestions that maybe some of this evidence could have been planted by investigators.”
However, Mayes County Sheriff Mike Reed immediately denied the claims, believing that it was Hart to committed the murders.
“There were a lot of different opinions that were out there when we started looking into the case I was like ‘my gosh this is overwhelming almost’,” he said.
“If I wanted to plant these pictures to put Gene Hart there because I know they’re his, why in the world wouldn’t I just walk out here anywhere at the camp at the scene and just drop them and just walk off?” Reed added.
He explained that DNA testing proved Hart’s guilt, however, it’s officially been ruled inconclusive.
“All the DNA testing that has been done on the case excludes every suspect that I’ve ever heard or know of that’s been brought up in this case except for one person,” said Reed.
Camp Scott never reopened following the murders and was eventually shut down.
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