eldritchhobbit

I can’t believe it’s been forty years.

On June 13, 1977, a terrible crime rocked the world that I knew. Three young Girl Scouts from my hometown area were found murdered outside of their tent at the Girl Scout property Camp Scott near Locust Grove, Oklahoma.

It hit very close to home for me not only geographically, but for a variety of reasons, and it continues to be an unsolved case and an unhealed wound in my home state. I didn’t want to let this anniversary pass without observing it.

I didn’t want today to go by without saying the names of these beloved girls:
Lori Lee Farmer (age 8), Doris Denise Milner (age 10), and Michelle Heather Guse (age 9).

The case was complicated by racial/ethnic tensions, because the victims were white and black, and the only official suspect, Gene Leroy Hart, was Cherokee. After a complicated and dramatic manhunt, Hart was tried but eventually found innocent. (Recent DNA tests proved inconclusive.) Since then, the case has remained unsolved, the fodder for local legends, suggestions of bizarre occult and ritual connections, and various conspiracy theories. The Girl Scout camp remains closed to this day.

For more information:

* The Tulsa World just published a six-part series on the murders here: “40 years ago, the murders of three Girl Scouts in Oklahoma stunned the nation, created shockwaves still being felt.”

There’s also an audio version here.* Episode 169 of the Generation Why Podcast offers a thoughtful and detailed discussion of the murders and the subsequent investigation.

* The most famous book on the case remains Someone Cry for the Children: The Unsolved Girl Scout Murders of Oklahoma and the Case of Gene Leroy Hart by Michael and Dick Wilkerson.

* Photos of the abandoned site are posted here at AbandonedOK.

* The long-rumored movie supposedly designed to name an alternative murder suspect, Candles, is currently listed at IMDB as filming for 2017 release, but I remain skeptical that it will happen. It’s been listed as in pre-production/production for six years now, and each year the release date is updated.

Never forgotten.

Happy Friday!

* My most recent StarShipSofa "Looking Back on Genre History" segment, the second of a two-parter that discusses the history of the 2012 "doomsday" phenomenon, is now available in the latest episode of the podcast. You can download it or listen to it here or via iTunes. (The first part is here.) If you listen, I hope you enjoy. (A full list of my past podcast segments, with links, is available here.)

* The new poster for The Hunger Games is amazing! (Thanks to cookiefleck.)

* There's more news about the 1977 Girl Scout Murders (you can see my pasts posts on the subject here). The filmmaker who is creating the new movie about it has named the man he claims confessed to the murders. The writer and director of the upcoming movie Candles said that convicted murderer Karl Lee Myers, who is currently serving a first-degree murder conviction on death row in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, is the killer of the three Girl Scouts who were raped and murdered at Camp Scott in 1977. Read the article from The Cherokee Phoenix here: "Director Names Alleged Girl Scouts Killer in Movie. (PS. If Wes Studi really has sent a letter of intent with regard to the film, that will lend all kinds of credibility to it. Hmmm.)

On a lighter note...



"The lakes of ice gleam bluer than the lakes
Of water 'neath the summer sunshine gleamed:
Far fairer than when placidly it streamed,
The brook its frozen architecture makes,
And under bridges white its swift way takes.
Snow comes and goes as messenger who dreamed
Might linger on the road; or one who deemed
His message hostile gently for their sakes
Who listened might reveal it by degrees.
We gird against the cold of winter wind
Our loins now with mighty bands of sleep,
In longest, darkest nights take rest and ease,
And every shortening day, as shadows creep
O'er the brief noontide, fresh surprises find."
- Helen Hunt Jackson, A Calendar of Sonnets: December

First of all, much love and many thanks to dodger_winslow, who surprised me with this gorgeous new icon. We loves it, Precioussss, yes we does!

Second, it looks like late next week I'll be making a day-long sojourn to Washington, D.C. to film some lectures for the Institute for Humane Studies to be released on YouTube, a prospect both exciting and daunting. Mr. De Mille, I'm not sure I'm ready for my close-up! So it goes.

Third, today's TeeFury shirt is a very clever Harry Potter design.

Fourth, sad news...
* R.I.P., Joanna Russ (1937-2011)
She was a pioneering science fiction author who will be read and remembered for a long time to come. I've taught her short story "When It Changed" (which won the Nebula Award in 1972) in many university courses, and it's never failed to impress and inspire.

* R.I.P., William Campbell (1926-2011)
He had a long and varied acting career, but to me he will always be Trelane, the Squire of Gothos, from Star Trek.


And last, news of possible interest...
In past years I've posted about the still unsolved 1977 Girl Scout murders in Locust Grove, Oklahoma, including a post about the anniversary of the tragedy and the results of new DNA testing.

Up until now, only one book has been published on the murders: Someone Cry for the Children: The Unsolved Girl Scout Murders of Oklahoma and the Case of Gene Leroy Hart by Michael and Dick Wilkerson, which inspired a Discovery Channel documentary by the same title. (A separate Cold Case Files episode also was devoted to the case.) I've just learned that a new book is forthcoming: Tent Number 8: An Investigation of the Girl Scout Murders and the Trial of Gene Leroy Hart by Gloyd McCoy. I'll be very interested to read it as soon as it's available.

I have to say that I find these photos of Camp Scott today rather chilling.


"I think 100 years from now, people will say, 'Well, what's the biggest case in Oklahoma history?' And people will say this case."
- former criminal defense attorney Gloyd McCoy on the 1977 Girl Scout murders