Do you know who murdered Fleming? On March 26, 1973, 22-year-old Fleming Johnson, a male from Tulsa, Oklahoma, was found dead at the ball fields in Crawford Park, a neighborhood park located at 600 East Young Street on the city’s north side. His body lay near the ball fields, an open public space that in daylight would have been filled with games and families, but on that day became the scene of a homicide investigation.
He had been shot multiple times, and the wounds were so severe that he died from his injuries at the scene.
Investigators quickly determined that Fleming’s death was the result of a deliberate attack rather than an accident or stray gunfire. The pattern of multiple gunshot wounds suggested that whoever confronted him had time, opportunity, and intent, turning the ball fields into a killing ground rather than a place of recreation. Yet, despite the brutality of the crime, there were no immediate witnesses at the park who could explain how a young man ended up shot to death on the grass. The lack of firsthand accounts left detectives with a narrow window of physical evidence and a haunting absence of clear leads about what had happened in the moments before the shots were fired.
From the outset, the investigation was hampered by the isolation of the scene at the crucial time. With no one able to place a suspect at the park, officers had to rely on canvassing the surrounding neighborhood, checking for anyone who might have heard gunshots or seen suspicious activity around Crawford Park. Whatever tips may have come in were not enough to crystallize into a publicly identified suspect. Over time, the case shifted from an active, day-to-day investigation into a file that would be revisited periodically, each review hoping that a new perspective, a new technology, or a new witness might break the silence that had surrounded Fleming’s death from the beginning.
Decades later, the killing of Fleming Johnson remains officially unsolved. The Tulsa Police Department continues to classify it as a cold case, and modern references to the homicide are accompanied by renewed appeals for information from anyone who might know what happened at Crawford Park that day. The case is still listed among the city’s unsolved homicides, and authorities emphasize that even a small recollection or long-buried rumor could prove significant when combined with the original case records and any preserved evidence. No arrests have ever been announced, and no suspect or suspects have been publicly named in connection with Fleming’s murder, leaving his shooting at the ball fields of Crawford Park as one of Tulsa’s lingering unanswered crimes.
