Do you know who murdered James? On a March day in 1974, ten-year-old James Riley Woolum, a young male, received permission from his father to search for empty soda bottles at a nearby dump in his Tulsa, Oklahoma neighborhood. When he did not return home, his concerned parents reported him missing to the authorities on March 21, 1974. The last known sighting of James was by a classmate who saw him walking northbound in the vicinity of 6300 N. Cincinnati Avenue.
His disappearance triggered an extensive search effort, with the FBI becoming involved within three days. The search party consisted of 100 volunteers and even utilized two airplanes, but their efforts to locate the young boy were initially unsuccessful.
The search came to a tragic end on March 29, 1974, when a boy walking his dog discovered James's body in a wooded area approximately twelve miles from his home, near 2400 W. 73rd Street. An autopsy revealed that James had been manually strangled. At the time, law enforcement indicated that they had some leads but chose not to disclose them to the public.
In October of 1975, a glimmer of hope for justice in James's case emerged. A 30-year-old man from Tulsa was identified as a prime suspect and was set to be extradited from Washington state back to Oklahoma to face questioning in the murder. However, it is not publicly known if this individual was ever cleared as a suspect, and he was never formally charged with the crime. To this day, the murder of James Riley Woolum remains an unsolved cold case, and no one has been held accountable for his death.
