Do you know who murdered Marie? In the spring of 1975, the life of sixteen-year-old Marie Hope Rosenbaum was tragically cut short, leaving a shadow over Tulsa, Oklahoma. A runaway from the Tecumseh Correctional Home for girls, Marie was last seen in the early hours of April 23rd. A friend had dropped her off at the Safeway Store located at 300 S. Lewis at approximately 1:30 AM. Her plan was simple: to buy some groceries and walk to her nearby home.
It was a short journey she would never complete.
The following day, April 24th, the Creek County Sheriff's Office received a chilling call. A body had been discovered in the vicinity of 5600 Old Sapulpa Road. The deceased was identified as young Marie Rosenbaum. She had been brutally stabbed multiple times. The discovery sent a wave of fear through the community, as Marie's murder was not an isolated incident. Her death was hauntingly similar to the slaying of another Tulsa woman, Geraldine Martin, just a few months prior.
For decades, Marie's case remained cold, a painful and unanswered question for her family and the city of Tulsa. Investigators, however, did identify a prime suspect, a long-haul truck driver named Clyde Carl Wilkerson. In 2002, advances in forensic technology definitively linked Wilkerson to the murder of Geraldine Martin, for which he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. While Wilkerson was never formally charged in Marie Rosenbaum's death, the striking similarities in the brutal nature of the crimes led authorities to believe he was responsible. Another young woman, Suzanne Oakley, was also murdered in Tulsa that same year, and Wilkerson is the primary suspect in her case as well. To this day, the murder of Marie Rosenbaum officially remains an unsolved crime, a cold case that serves as a grim reminder of a violent past.
