On the evening of June 12, 1977, as heavy rain descended over Locust Grove, Oklahoma, girl scouts rushed inside their tents. Instead of their previously planned activities, the girls were sent back to their tents after dinner to write letters home. It was their first night at Camp Scott, the two-week-long summer camp.
The excited campers were unaware when they walked into camp that their two weeks of fun would end abruptly.
The Crime Which Devastated Oklahoma
“This is a story I wish I never had to tell,” Chenoweth says. “It haunts me every day, but this story needs to be told.” The three girls – namely Lori Farmer, Denise Milner, and Michele Guse, were sharing tent 8. While all the other tents had four girls in them, Tent 8 only had three girls, with their fourth roommate scheduled to be arriving the next day.
As with any camp in Oklahoma, the first nights are always loud. At 1:30 a.m., Counselor Carla Wilhite was awakened by girls giggling in Tent 6. Then Wilhite and counselor Dee Elder went to ask the girls to quiet down.
From the darkness, Wilhite heard a “low, guttural sound”. When she went in that direction, the noise stopped. She turned around and started going back to her tent. She tried to fall asleep but she was still able to hear the sounds.
The next morning when the sun rose in Oklahoma, Wilhite woke early around 6 a.m. to get a shower. As she stepped out of her tent, she spotted 3 sleeping bags. When she approached them, she saw two of them were zipped closed and one was open. Inside was Doris Milner’s body. Lori Farmer and Michele Guse were in the others.
In the trailer for the upcoming series, Kristen reveals her connection with the murder is much more personal than her love for going to camp. “I should have been on that trip, but I had gotten sick. My mom said, ‘You can’t go. It has stuck with me my whole life. I could have been one of them.”
The Aftermath
Now, Chenoweth is returning to Oklahoma “to find answers once and for all” in ‘Keeper of the Ashes: The Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders‘ which debuts on May 24 on Hulu. This docuseries covers many unknown aspects of the case, and how authorities are still making discoveries decades later. Using technologies that didn’t exist in the 70s, investigators are examining the shreds of evidence left to answer the questions which remain unanswered.
After all the investigation, the person who had been formally charged was Gene Laroy Hart.
Amid the unanswered questions and ongoing investigations, those who were impacted by the tragedy, established the Oklahoma Parents of murdered children. Independently, Michelle’s father helped in creating the Oklahoma victim compensation board.
The camp never opened again. Hidden beneath the blanket of dense trees, the camp is quiet now. With the Oklahoma wind, the laughter of the young campers disappeared. Yet the memory of Lori Farmer, Denise Milner, and Michele Guse lives on. Their families are making sure that they are never forgotten.
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