An act of kindness on a hot Oklahoma day in the spring of 1984 had fatal consequences for Eddie O. Cash, a 63-year-old male from Broken Arrow. Mr. Cash was known as a kind man, and his generous nature was on display on May 6, 1984, when he stopped to offer a ride to a hitchhiker while on his way to visit relatives in Collinsville. That hitchhiker was Gary Alan Walker, a recently paroled ex-convict who would repay the favor with shocking brutality.
During their drive, Walker learned where
Mr. Cash lived. Later that same day, with the intent to burglarize the home, Walker went to the address. He was on the porch when Mr. Cash returned. Walker hid at the side of the house, waited for the older man to go inside, and then attacked him. The kind man who had offered a ride to a stranger was beaten with a brick and strangled with a vacuum cleaner cord in his own living room. His van and shoes were also stolen. The crime went undiscovered for two days. On May 8, Mr. Cash's daughter, Pricilla Crane, went to his home and made the devastating discovery of her father's body.
The murder of Eddie Cash was the first in a terrifying 19-day crime spree by Walker, who became known as "The Roaming Rapist." Just a day after killing Mr. Cash, Walker abducted, raped, and murdered 37-year-old Margaret Ann Bell Lydick. Over the next few weeks, he would go on to murder Jayne Hilburn, 35; Janet Dee Jewell, 32; and 25-year-old Tulsa radio reporter Valerie Shaw-Hartzell. His violent rampage spread terror across eastern Oklahoma until his arrest in Tulsa on June 2, 1984. Following his capture, Walker confessed to the string of brutal crimes and led police to the locations of two of his victims' bodies.
Walker was first brought to trial in Tulsa County for the murder of Eddie Cash in November 1984. His defense team argued that he was insane at the time of the killing, claiming a troubled childhood and psychological trauma led him to believe he was killing his abusive stepfather, not Mr. Cash. The prosecution countered that Walker's actions were methodical and deliberate, from obtaining the victim's address through directory assistance to his stated goal of silencing a potential witness to his burglary. The jury rejected the insanity defense and found Gary Alan Walker guilty of first-degree murder on November 13, 1984. The following day, they recommended a sentence of death.
For his other crimes, Walker received multiple life sentences. He was also initially sentenced to death for the murder of Valerie Shaw-Hartzell, but that conviction was overturned on appeal. In a second trial, he was sentenced to life without parole for her murder. Despite numerous appeals that delayed his execution for years, the death sentence for the murder of Eddie Cash was repeatedly upheld.
On January 13, 2000, sixteen years after his violent spree began, Gary Alan Walker was executed by lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. Before his death, he offered a final apology to his victims' relatives, saying, "I'm sorry for what I've done. I hope when I go the hate you have, and it's natural for you to hate me, that you would let it go with me." Twelve members of Eddie Cash's family, including his two sons, his daughter, and several grandchildren, witnessed the execution, bringing a final, somber end to the long search for justice for a kind man whose final act of generosity was met with unimaginable violence.
