While on a camping trip with their Girl Scouts club three little girls were raped and murdered after the killer left a handwritten note in a lunchbox – and yet the case remains unsolved
It was a day which shocked the nation when it was revealed three Girl Scouts’ bodies had been found on the campsite grounds of Camp Scott in Mayes, Oklahoma, and the murderer was still on the loose.
The girls were all residents of the same suburb in Tulsa called Broken Arrow and shared a tent together, which was the furthest away from the camp counsellor.
The excitable little girls on a camping trip had no idea when they huddled in tent number 7, they would not survive the night.
At around 6am on Monday, June 13, 1977, the camp counsellor on her way to the showers discovered the body of one of the girls, and it wasn’t long before the other two were uncovered.
The bodies of Lori Lee Farmer, eight, Doris Denise Milner, 10, and Michele Heather Guse, nine, were found dead, with two of their bodies still lying in their sleeping bags.
Testing later confirmed that all three children had been bludgeoned, strangled and raped before their bodies were left on a trail leading to the campsite’s showers, 140 metres away from where they were sleeping.
In an unprecedented series of events, a month prior to this horrifying crime, a warning sign was given to the counsellors at Camp Scott that was dismissed as a prank.
One of the counsellors noticed that her doughnuts had been stolen, and when they discovered the doughnut box, inside of it was a handwritten note with a series of 12 chilling words.
In capital letters it read: “We are on a mission to kill three girls in tent one.”
The brutal killing was seemingly solved and put down to Gene Leroy Hart, who had recently escaped from the local jail and had a long history of both violence and rape.
Although, when it got to court in March 1979, the jury decided on a not guilty verdict, in spite of sufficient evidence.
On top of the girls’ dead bodies a red flashlight was left, and on it was a smudged fingerprint. It was realised that the print was too smudged to enable identification, but it was accompanied by a footprint in the blood inside of the tent.
The footprint belonged to a size 9.5 shoe, which matched that of Hart.
He was already a convicted rapist and killer, with 305 years of his 308-year sentence left to serve in prison.
This was down to a previous conviction in which he kidnapped and rapped two pregnant women, along with four counts of first-degree burglary.
Further DNA testing performed in 1989 also came back inconclusive. Although over the years as technology and science have advanced, the case has been referred back to for further DNA testing.
After a number of tests in 2022, it was made public by authorities the evidence strongly suggests Hart’s involvement in the gruesome crime. Although justice cannot be served, as the convicted rapist died in 1979, two years after the Girl Scout murders.
The heartbroken parents of Lori shared their stories with People Magazine, over 40 years after the death of their beloved daughter. Her mother Sheri described her as a gymnast, an avid reader and a ‘doting big sister’ to her four younger siblings.
Her mother said: “She didn’t get to live and grow up, but she does have a legacy. And to me it is love. That’s how Bo and I have lived our lives.
“Our children are all grown up. Our grandchildren are a lot grown up. But they have learned how to live with their sister being murdered and make amazing choices in what they do and how they conduct their lives. Our grandchildren have done amazing things.”
Lori’s father, Bo, on the other hand, said that everything he looks at involving the investigation “points at Gene Hart”.
Sheri explained: “Bo and I have been open to listening to people, and we still are. It’s been 46 years, and I feel the same today as I did then — that we care about the truth.”
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