In the summer of 1977, a young man's disappearance from a small Oklahoma town would become entangled in the desperate and violent spree of two escaped convicts. Gerald Leon Tiffee, a 27-year-old male, vanished from Boswell, Oklahoma, on June 27th of that year. His absence was soon linked to a wider string of brutal crimes, though the full story of his final moments would remain shrouded in mystery.
The primary suspects in Tiffee's disappearance and presumed death were Paul Ruiz and Earl
Van Denton, who had escaped from the Oklahoma State Penitentiary just four days prior to Tiffee going missing. It is believed that the duo killed Tiffee and stole his truck to continue their flight from the law. This theory gained significant weight when Tiffee's truck was discovered with the bodies of two other murder victims hidden inside, cementing the connection between the escaped inmates and the missing man from Boswell.
Despite the strong suspicions and the discovery of his vehicle being used in the commission of other felonies, Gerald Tiffee's body was never definitively located. At one point, a set of skeletal remains found in Texas was thought to be his, but forensic examination ultimately ruled out this possibility. The mystery of his final resting place persists.
Paul Ruiz and Earl Van Denton were eventually captured after a multi-state crime spree that resulted in several murders. They were tried, convicted, and ultimately executed on January 8, 1997, for the murders of a police marshal and a park ranger in Arkansas. However, due to the lack of a body, they were never formally tried for the murder of Gerald Tiffee.
