Do you know who committed the Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders? In the pre-dawn hours of June 13, 1977, a beloved 10-year-old girl named Doris Denise Milner was brutally murdered at Camp Scott in Mayes County, Oklahoma. She was attending a Girl Scout camp when the unthinkable happened. Milner, along with two other young girls, Lori Lee Farmer, 8, and Michele Heather Guse, 9, were killed in their tent during their first night at the camp.
The scene discovered by a camp counselor later that morning was one of unimaginable horror.
The bodies of the three girls were found inside their sleeping bags, left on a trail leading to the camp's showers. An investigation revealed that the girls had been bludgeoned and sexually assaulted. Doris Milner had been bound with rope and duct tape and gagged before being led away from her tent. The cause of her death was determined to be a combination of being bludgeoned and strangled.
Suspicion quickly fell upon Gene Leroy Hart, an escaped convict with a history of violence who was from the local area. Hart had escaped from the Mayes County Jail in 1973 where he was serving time for kidnapping and raping two pregnant women. After a ten-month manhunt, Hart was apprehended in a rural cabin about 50 miles from the crime scene.
During his trial, the prosecution presented evidence they believed linked Hart to the murders. However, the jury ultimately acquitted him of the crimes. Despite the acquittal, law enforcement remained convinced of his guilt. Hart was sent back to prison on his prior convictions and died of a heart attack in 1979 while incarcerated.
Decades later, in 2022, the results of new DNA testing were made public. While the testing was officially deemed inconclusive, it strongly suggested Hart's involvement in the murders while eliminating other potential suspects. The Mayes County Sheriff stated that he was convinced of Hart's guilt in the case. The murders of Doris Milner and her two friends remain a haunting tragedy that has left a lasting scar on the community.
