Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / 3 Girl Scouts Raped, Murdered in Tent #7, DETAILS EMERGE

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3 Girl Scouts Raped, Murdered in Tent #7, DETAILS EMERGE · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Summer camp in the middle
0:15
Speaker 1: of nowhere, fun times, swimming in the lake, arts and crafts,
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Speaker 1: new friends, sitting around a campfire, childhood memories that last
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Speaker 1: a lifetime. Right wrong, Oklahoma, rolling hills and forests. Four
0:32
Speaker 1: hundred densely wooded acres turned from campsite to crime scene.
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Speaker 1: Three little scouts, ages eight, nine and ten murdered. I'm
0:46
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being
0:49
Speaker 1: with us here at Fox Nation. In series six one eleven,
0:53
Speaker 1: we follow the exclusive new Fox Nation series The Girl
0:56
Speaker 1: Scout Murders all week on Crime Stories. First of all,
1:01
Speaker 1: take a listen to this. These woods in northeastern Oklahoma
1:06
Speaker 1: are the site of one of the worst crimes imaginable.
1:11
Speaker 1: Two busloads of Girl Scouts left Tulsa headed for Camp Scott,
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Speaker 1: a girl Scout retreat located on the Cherokee Reservation some
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Speaker 1: fifty miles away. Among the girls were ten year old
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Speaker 1: Denise Milner, nine year old Michelle Gouse an eight year
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Speaker 1: old Laurie Farmer. What happened next is unthinkable. Three young
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Speaker 1: girls being sexually assaulted, murdered. There are children's names you
1:45
Speaker 1: always remember. Laurie and Anisa Michelle. They're there and they're
1:50
Speaker 1: never going to go away. We left off this story
1:55
Speaker 1: where about a mile away from the camp. This camp
1:59
Speaker 1: is about an hour outside of Tultsa, and about a
2:03
Speaker 1: mile outside of the camp is found a cave of
2:08
Speaker 1: sorts has been referred to as a cave is actually
2:14
Speaker 1: an unusable root seller that once with with a home
2:20
Speaker 1: and apparently somebody is living in this cave slash root
2:27
Speaker 1: seller and that someone leaves behind clues. Take a listen.
2:33
Speaker 1: A medio blow chair of Pete Weaver identified Jane will
2:38
Speaker 1: Roy Hart, who was the Cherokee Indian as a prime suspect.
2:44
Speaker 1: Geane Hart was a local. He only lived within a
2:47
Speaker 1: mile of the crime scene. He had been convicted of
2:51
Speaker 1: two previous rapes earlier on. He had escaped from the
2:54
Speaker 1: Mays County jail several times, so there was some history
2:57
Speaker 1: there between Mays County Chare office with Jane Hard. The
3:02
Speaker 1: sheriff at the time. Pete Weaver didn't particularly care for
3:05
Speaker 1: Jeane Hart and he was inditedifed early by Pete Weaver
3:09
Speaker 1: as being the primary suspect. It was just assumed he
3:15
Speaker 1: was guilty. And if people are assuming he guilty, since
3:19
Speaker 1: the thought was they're not going to treat him fairly.
3:22
Speaker 1: They've got the bodies of three little girls to worry about.
3:26
Speaker 1: I want to go straight to Faith Phillips, Cherokee screenwriter
3:31
Speaker 1: and author of Now I Lay Me Down, because you
3:34
Speaker 1: describe the injuries to these three little girls horrific, beyond
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Speaker 1: really anything that I had ever learned about in my
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Speaker 1: true crime writing. I had never seen anything like it.
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Speaker 1: Two of the girls were struck immediately in the head,
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Speaker 1: and one died immediately, and the other apparently survived at
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Speaker 1: least for some time because she had some swelling in
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Speaker 1: her eye and she was beating several times in the head.
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Speaker 1: Then the third girl, Denise Milner, she was she according
4:13
Speaker 1: to the information I found, she tried to make a
4:16
Speaker 1: break for it out of the tent and was caught
4:21
Speaker 1: and they put they put a rope around her neck,
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Speaker 1: and she was also beaten terribly about the head. And
4:29
Speaker 1: all three of them were sexually assaulted, and it was
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Speaker 1: just the nature of what happened to these little girls
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Speaker 1: was absolutely brutal. Joining me is can't freight us? The
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Speaker 1: former minority leader in the Oklahoma House of Representatives and
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Speaker 1: author of Oklahoma's most notorious crimes intimately familiar with this case,
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Speaker 1: in particular, the Girl Scout murdyers. Can't fright us. Thank
4:52
Speaker 1: you for being with us. We keep saying sex assaulted.
4:57
Speaker 1: I mean that could be a number of things. That
4:59
Speaker 1: could be fondling a little girl through her clothing. It
5:03
Speaker 1: could be anything brushing up against her. Were in These
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Speaker 1: three little girls ages eight, nine and ten were raped,
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Speaker 1: brutally raped, And I'm not going to airbrush what happened
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Speaker 1: to these girls. Kent, Well, it was terrible. The crime
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Speaker 1: was terrible, and it was a premeditated crime. The evidence
5:26
Speaker 1: fled to that, and the evidence fled to the prime
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Speaker 1: suspect being Jean Lee roy Hard. You know, James, I
5:35
Speaker 1: don't a follow up on what Kent Fred has just
5:37
Speaker 1: said to James Powell, former Senior Agent Oklahoma State Bureau
5:41
Speaker 1: of Investigation, former Air Force Office Special Investigations. It goes
5:46
Speaker 1: on and on and on, and he is the owner
5:49
Speaker 1: of the investigator LLLC. James Powell, thank you for being
5:53
Speaker 1: with us. How in the hey? James Powell is a
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Speaker 1: guy who's been convicted of rape and many other crimes,
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Speaker 1: living one mile from a Girl Scout camp. Well, his
6:06
Speaker 1: mother elm Buskin is actually her house, and he was
6:10
Speaker 1: just about a mile from the crime scene. It's kind
6:13
Speaker 1: of a mystery how he got out. He was previously
6:16
Speaker 1: convicted of a double rape of two pregnant women. Wait
6:19
Speaker 1: wait wait wait wait wait stop what did you just say? Yes,
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Speaker 1: he was previously convicted of a double rape two pregnant women.
6:27
Speaker 1: Now wait, wait, wait, wait wait. James, you know what,
6:30
Speaker 1: I like you because you've got an incredible and pristine reputation.
6:35
Speaker 1: But I don't like the way that trips off your tongue.
6:39
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, the double rape of two pregnant ladies?
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Speaker 1: You know, do you think is there anything as bad
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Speaker 1: as raping an eight nineteen year old girl? I still
6:52
Speaker 1: say no, but raping two pregnant women is a very
6:57
Speaker 1: close second. James, Well, I mean you just kind of
7:01
Speaker 1: ran through that. Okay, it's soaked in now go ahead.
7:05
Speaker 1: For whatever reason, he only served about twenty eight months
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Speaker 1: on that sent You know, I don't like anything you
7:15
Speaker 1: just said. Now, I'm not gonna blame the messenger. Please don't, Okay,
7:19
Speaker 1: James Powell the Investigator LLC, Is there anything else you
7:24
Speaker 1: want to tell me other than the double rape of
7:26
Speaker 1: two pregnant women and he's out in twenty eight months. Correct.
7:31
Speaker 1: He also once he was out, he started committing burglaries.
7:34
Speaker 1: He was caught and convicted of burglary. They sentenced him
7:39
Speaker 1: in park because of the probation violation on the rape
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Speaker 1: case over three hundred years. That's what he was doing
7:45
Speaker 1: back in May's County is he had come back from
7:47
Speaker 1: the state tentry to May's County to have a hearing
7:51
Speaker 1: on a post conviction relief on the amount of years
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Speaker 1: he was sentenced to for the burglary. While there he
7:58
Speaker 1: did his escape, which led to the rest of what
8:00
Speaker 1: we're talking about. You know, James Powell, it takes a
8:03
Speaker 1: lot to make me feel nauseous. I can go through autopsies,
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Speaker 1: full autopsies, I can go to crime scenes, I can
8:10
Speaker 1: smell blood, I can see it all. You actually just
8:15
Speaker 1: made me nauseous. I'm sorry. So there's your badge of honor.
8:20
Speaker 1: So a guy out on a double rate of pregnant women,
8:24
Speaker 1: a string of burglaries, he escapes. How did he escape?
8:28
Speaker 1: Anybody on the panel that knows, please tell me, don't
8:31
Speaker 1: roll back. Well, he actually escaped twice. Make it worse.
8:37
Speaker 1: I just keep feeling like I'm getting hit in the face.
8:39
Speaker 1: He escaped twice from the same jail, and prior he
8:44
Speaker 1: escaped once for about ten or eleven days, and some
8:49
Speaker 1: of his family convinced him to turn himself in. Then
8:53
Speaker 1: he not too long later, he escaped by sawing through
8:58
Speaker 1: the bars with some one ahead given him the saw
9:02
Speaker 1: to saw through the bars. And at the time of
9:05
Speaker 1: the murders, he had been a fugitive for over three years,
9:10
Speaker 1: going on four years. What a hole that's a technical
9:14
Speaker 1: legal term. Gave him a saw? Who can't fredus? Who
9:18
Speaker 1: gave him a saw to get out? Unknown? It's unknown
9:22
Speaker 1: who gave him the shaw. I guarantee you it was
9:24
Speaker 1: a woman. I know it was a woman who would
9:27
Speaker 1: even think, probably in a cake or something. Okay, let
9:30
Speaker 1: me get past the double rape of two pregnant women
9:34
Speaker 1: and the double escape act. And here we are, here's
9:40
Speaker 1: this guy living one mile like they couldn't figure out
9:45
Speaker 1: he's at his mother's place. That's the first thing I
9:47
Speaker 1: say on a bond calendar, what lawyer do I have
9:49
Speaker 1: on me? Ken Fredus attorney, That's the first thing you
9:53
Speaker 1: do at a bond hearing with a defendant doesn't show
9:55
Speaker 1: up like go to his mother's that's where he is.
9:58
Speaker 1: Go look under the bed, he's there, Or in the
10:00
Speaker 1: closet behind the dirty laundry. Go there. Yeah, it always
10:06
Speaker 1: happens that way. Well, what you got here, though, is
10:08
Speaker 1: you've got somebody you can't find. And even after the
10:13
Speaker 1: murders and after he was a suspect, it took nine months.
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Speaker 1: And Agent Powell can tell you about this, but it
10:22
Speaker 1: took him nine months to find and locating. Part of
10:26
Speaker 1: it was the nature of the country that he was
10:30
Speaker 1: hiding in. He was no longer hiding in the cave.
10:33
Speaker 1: He was hiding elsewhere, but he was being assisted by
10:37
Speaker 1: a Cherokee in the backwoods. Hey, you know that reminds
10:41
Speaker 1: me of Eric Rudolf, the Olympic bomber. I was there
10:45
Speaker 1: that night. I went from enjoying the Olympics to questioning
10:48
Speaker 1: witnesses till four am. And then the same guy, Eric Rudolf,
10:53
Speaker 1: blew up an abortion clinic and my investigator Arnist, was
10:58
Speaker 1: there look at the first abortion clinic bomb. When he
11:02
Speaker 1: had reached another bomb to go off, and my investigator
11:06
Speaker 1: was hit with debris and then he hit out in
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Speaker 1: the woods. Eric Rudolph for years before they could catch him. Okay, guys,
11:14
Speaker 1: I'm getting really bogged down with this guy who we
11:18
Speaker 1: don't use the H word in our home, but I'm
11:21
Speaker 1: gonna say it. I hate I hate this person. Okay,
11:25
Speaker 1: let's move forward. Listen to this. It was Jean Hart
11:29
Speaker 1: had support from local Cherokee families. Hard with stained with
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Speaker 1: an old Cherokee named Sam Pigeon in a remote cabin
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Speaker 1: in the Cookson Hills in eastern Oklahoma that was about
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Speaker 1: fifty miles south and the little East I think of
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Speaker 1: where the crime took place on April seventh, nineteen seventy eight,
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Speaker 1: and me of agents from the Oklahoma State Bureau of
12:02
Speaker 1: Investigation moves in and surrounds the shack. Hard did not
12:09
Speaker 1: put up for fire crime stories with Nancy Grace. Doctor
12:30
Speaker 1: Shawn Robertson is joining us psychologist has conducted thousands of
12:37
Speaker 1: forensic evaluations across Oklahoma. You can find him at doctor
12:42
Speaker 1: Shawn Robertson dot com. Doctor Robertson, thank you for being
12:46
Speaker 1: with us. What kind of person would give a double
12:52
Speaker 1: rapist a saw to get out of jail? What person
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Speaker 1: would hide him out in remote cabin? Forget about the
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Speaker 1: three girl Dead Girl scouts. Forget about the two pregnant
13:07
Speaker 1: women that were raped, and god knows how many other
13:10
Speaker 1: victims are out there. But yeah, you can can stay
13:13
Speaker 1: in my mountain cabin and I'll protect you. Who. Well,
13:16
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty amazing. But you know, even serial killers
13:19
Speaker 1: have fan clubs. People can conduct the most heinous crimes
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Speaker 1: and still be cared about, supported by their community. Sometimes
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Speaker 1: even characterize his victims. I mean, you look at you
13:32
Speaker 1: look at Heart's family that you reportedly celebrated the end
13:38
Speaker 1: of the trial with champagne. You know who who would
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Speaker 1: celebrate that when the suspect is a known sexual psychopath?
13:46
Speaker 1: You know. Joseph Scott Morgan joining me, Professor fras at
13:49
Speaker 1: Jacksonville State University and author of Blood Beneath My Feet.
13:52
Speaker 1: He's a host of a new hit series of body
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Speaker 1: Bags with Joe Scott Morgan, on iHeart and many other venues, Jessica,
14:00
Speaker 1: I heard Faith Phillips, who I have so much respect for,
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Speaker 1: the Cherokee screenwriter and author, say, you know when I
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Speaker 1: asked her to describe what happened to these three little girls.
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Speaker 1: And I'm asking this for a reason. Joe Scott is
14:15
Speaker 1: the dichotomy of what we were hearing doctor Robertson say
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Speaker 1: about wanting to protect someone identifying with them, they turned
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Speaker 1: into kind of a hero. You tell me, Fate said, well,
14:30
Speaker 1: I've never seen anything like it, because she is a screenwriter.
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Speaker 1: You and I have actually seen the real thing and
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Speaker 1: a triple child murder. The three little girls were brutally
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Speaker 1: raped and then murdered. You know, yesterday we talked to
14:49
Speaker 1: the camp counselor that found their bodies. I can't even
14:52
Speaker 1: imagine how that haunts her to this day. So just
14:55
Speaker 1: give me a reality check, Joe Scott. We've got this
14:58
Speaker 1: guy Sam hiding him out, Sam Pigeon in a remote house.
15:04
Speaker 1: I guess he didn't see the dead bodies. No, he
15:06
Speaker 1: probably didn't, but you know, you have to think that
15:10
Speaker 1: on some level he had some understanding of the level
15:14
Speaker 1: of violence this person was capable of, given his history
15:17
Speaker 1: and what he did to these aforementioned crutinent women when
15:20
Speaker 1: he raped them, and when you, as an investigator began
15:26
Speaker 1: to assist this scene and the level of brutality this
15:29
Speaker 1: rose to, you know, he had several choices here as
15:32
Speaker 1: to the way he was going to bring about the
15:34
Speaker 1: end of these little angels. Lives, and he decided to
15:38
Speaker 1: beat them to death. And in one instance, not only
15:41
Speaker 1: did he bludge in them, but he you know, he
15:45
Speaker 1: also utilize the chord uh to strangle them. And you know,
15:50
Speaker 1: as horrible as that is, these things that you and
15:53
Speaker 1: I have born witness till over the years, you have
15:55
Speaker 1: to be able to cut through the horror of that
15:57
Speaker 1: and get right now, just born down to the evidence exactly.
16:03
Speaker 1: Another thing that's so startling, I guess I can use
16:08
Speaker 1: that word you decide for yourself, is that there were
16:11
Speaker 1: warnings this was going to happen. Listen, precamped the only
16:16
Speaker 1: or counselors and myself and someone found a cut and
16:24
Speaker 1: I think it was in the body of the tent,
16:28
Speaker 1: and maybe at the back of the tent, a long
16:34
Speaker 1: cut about three feet big enough for anybody to crawl
16:40
Speaker 1: in or out of. There were also some other things missing.
16:47
Speaker 1: There was one of our axes or hatchets was missing
16:52
Speaker 1: from the unit kitchen. And I decided to sleep in
16:56
Speaker 1: the staff house. I was the only one in there.
17:01
Speaker 1: It was dark. There's a vapor light out in the front,
17:06
Speaker 1: but in the back it's just woods. I heard somebody
17:13
Speaker 1: walking behind the staff house. I was like, what the hell?
17:26
Speaker 1: And then somebody scratched on the window screen. I yelled,
17:33
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, who's who's there? Because I was still
17:37
Speaker 1: thinking it could remotely be somebody just trying to scare me,
17:42
Speaker 1: you know, and ha ha, you did, so it's time
17:46
Speaker 1: to to come out and laugh at me. But it didn't.
17:50
Speaker 1: That didn't happen. They knew things were being stolen, They
17:55
Speaker 1: had signals that there was someone there intruding, encroaching in
18:01
Speaker 1: the camp. They felt afraid, but yet no flag of
18:07
Speaker 1: alarm was raised. Okay, I can understand it so far,
18:10
Speaker 1: but listen to this. We got into our tent. The
18:14
Speaker 1: tent was just in disarray, this stuff everywhere, and clearly
18:19
Speaker 1: our things had been gone through, right, So we were like,
18:22
Speaker 1: what the heck? And I remembered that my mom had
18:26
Speaker 1: bought me a big box of Postess donuts, and I
18:31
Speaker 1: saw the donut box setting to the side of the trail.
18:34
Speaker 1: All the donuts were gone, but inside the box was
18:36
Speaker 1: a note and it was you know those little bitty
18:39
Speaker 1: memo pads that reporters off days, So it was like
18:43
Speaker 1: four or five pages of that had been ripped off.
18:50
Speaker 1: The paper was dirty, like it had been carried around
18:57
Speaker 1: and on this front one it was a really big letters.
19:00
Speaker 1: It was this funky kid with loose and on the
19:10
Speaker 1: front page is said kill kill, And then there's a
19:16
Speaker 1: bunch of scribble on the second or third pages. To
19:19
Speaker 1: know occasionally we say, god, you know, just a scribble.
19:22
Speaker 1: And on the last page I said, we're on a
19:24
Speaker 1: mission to kill three girls. What we don't account for
19:31
Speaker 1: are the monsters. We don't expect them even today, we
19:34
Speaker 1: don't expect them. The feelings of fear, things being stolen,
19:39
Speaker 1: slashes intents, which is a big no no. If you're
19:42
Speaker 1: a veteran camper, you never ever harmed somebody else's tent
19:47
Speaker 1: in that way. And then this note that shows up,
19:50
Speaker 1: We're on a mission to kill three girls. James Powell
19:54
Speaker 1: with Oklahoma Bureau of Investigations. If as a camp counts
19:59
Speaker 1: or which I was in a national forest, if I
20:02
Speaker 1: had gotten a note our mission is to kill three
20:06
Speaker 1: girls and I'm at a girl Scout camp, Oh yeah,
20:09
Speaker 1: that would have closed down the camp and everybody would
20:11
Speaker 1: have gone home right then until that note had been investigated. Well,
20:15
Speaker 1: I don't think we'll ever really know the answer to that.
20:17
Speaker 1: The only not going to offer is a lot of
20:20
Speaker 1: the counselors were probably not a whole lot older than
20:23
Speaker 1: some of the students that were there. Some of the
20:26
Speaker 1: md they were pretty young. You're right. A lot of
20:30
Speaker 1: them were chained themselves. You're right. Mind. Oh wait a minute,
20:34
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, hold on what fate. I'm so sorry
20:36
Speaker 1: to speak over you, Detective Powell, but I would like
20:40
Speaker 1: to hop in here and talk about some of the
20:42
Speaker 1: things we have going on. So a lot of this
20:44
Speaker 1: information I was born the year after the crime happened,
20:46
Speaker 1: so and the way I got a lot of this
20:49
Speaker 1: information was I approached every party with non judgment and
20:53
Speaker 1: just allowed them to tell their story, and so all
20:56
Speaker 1: of these pieces of the puzzle started coming together. In hindsight,
21:00
Speaker 1: I was able to see the big picture, which was
21:02
Speaker 1: there were multiple incidents of stalking leading up to the murders,
21:07
Speaker 1: including that kill note. But in the days after the
21:10
Speaker 1: murders and all the way up through the trial and
21:13
Speaker 1: after the trial, there was those things were dismissed. So
21:18
Speaker 1: one of the things that was dismissed about that kill
21:20
Speaker 1: note was that there was a boy scout camp on
21:23
Speaker 1: the other side of the highway, and so they were
21:26
Speaker 1: able to dismiss this as a teenage prank. But when
21:30
Speaker 1: I saw it in hindsight and I was able to
21:32
Speaker 1: look at that and say, I see, there's a note
21:35
Speaker 1: that says we are on a mission to kill three
21:38
Speaker 1: girl scouts, and that happens before the murders, and then
21:42
Speaker 1: that's exactly what happened. In my mind, there's no way
21:45
Speaker 1: you can dismiss that as a teenage prank. Say how
21:49
Speaker 1: old were the counts for us? We have a range
21:51
Speaker 1: of counselors from fifteen up to eighteen and nineteen. We
21:55
Speaker 1: have very very young, inexperienced women. So James Powell, you're
21:59
Speaker 1: absolutely correct. You've got Team Camp counselors. And I can
22:04
Speaker 1: see what Fate Philip says as explaining why it was
22:09
Speaker 1: discounted as a hoax. One of the shortcomings, I would
22:11
Speaker 1: say is that the authorities had not notified everybody in
22:15
Speaker 1: the area that they've got a sex offender on the loose.
22:18
Speaker 1: I mean, if you put that in light of the
22:20
Speaker 1: fact that there's a sex offender running around that area,
22:24
Speaker 1: it puts it in a very different line. You're right, Sean,
22:26
Speaker 1: that's doctor Robertson speaking. Guys. They managed to get Jane Hart.
22:34
Speaker 1: Take a listen to what happened at the preliminary hearing.
22:37
Speaker 1: At the preliminary hearing, the prosecution presents a number of
22:41
Speaker 1: pieces of evidence that they say connect Jean Heart to
22:45
Speaker 1: the murders, and which the judge admits into trial. Among
22:50
Speaker 1: them our items authorities said we're found in the cave
22:54
Speaker 1: were Hearts supposedly hit out after the murders. The first
22:58
Speaker 1: of which our professional photographs of women. The photographer that
23:04
Speaker 1: Jean Hern had worked with at Granted State Prison confirmed
23:08
Speaker 1: that he had developed those photos with Gene Hart when
23:11
Speaker 1: he was an assistant while he was working in jail.
23:15
Speaker 1: Prosecutors also claimed that sperm found on a pillowcase at
23:18
Speaker 1: the crime scene matched sperm found on Jean's underwear from prison,
23:24
Speaker 1: and that hairs found on the duct tape but the
23:26
Speaker 1: crime scene were tested and determined to be from a
23:29
Speaker 1: Native American. But what does that actually name? Joe Scott Morgan,
23:34
Speaker 1: you're the forensics expert. They were not using DNA at
23:38
Speaker 1: this time, but they matched sperm found at the crime
23:42
Speaker 1: scene where the three little girls were murtyred to sperm
23:46
Speaker 1: found on Jean's underwear in prison. Isn't that enough? Back then?
23:50
Speaker 1: It was. It predates obviously predate DNA technology. But the
23:54
Speaker 1: one thing they had gone for them in this particular
23:56
Speaker 1: case is the fact that hart was what it is
24:01
Speaker 1: referred to as a secret. So when you think about saliva,
24:05
Speaker 1: you think about semen, for instance, what you will have
24:09
Speaker 1: are red blood cells that will show up. It's only
24:12
Speaker 1: a very small percentage of the population. You know what
24:16
Speaker 1: You're gonna have to dummy down. Are you trying to
24:18
Speaker 1: say in scientific talk that there was a blood type match? Well,
24:22
Speaker 1: there was, and what makes it significant is the fact
24:25
Speaker 1: that they were able to blood type match that to
24:28
Speaker 1: an individual that actually has this feature physiologically where they
24:32
Speaker 1: secrete these blood cells into these various fluids in their body,
24:38
Speaker 1: and so that narrows your funnels it down. It is
24:41
Speaker 1: all pointed back to you know, So you're saying the
24:43
Speaker 1: most that they could show from the semen is it
24:48
Speaker 1: is gene Heart's blood type, which is like to a
24:52
Speaker 1: thirty percent of the population, and it is an American Indian.
24:57
Speaker 1: That's what we can show. The hair here, Yeah, that
25:01
Speaker 1: shows season American Indian. I mean, when you get a
25:04
Speaker 1: hair sample and you don't have DNA, you can say
25:06
Speaker 1: it's a white person, it's a black person, it's an
25:10
Speaker 1: Asian person. I think you can say whether it's an
25:13
Speaker 1: Hispanic person, I'm not sure about that, or an American Indian.
25:16
Speaker 1: You can tell that from here. But it's not DNA.
25:19
Speaker 1: So now what am I looking at it? I'm not
25:22
Speaker 1: I don't have that much. Oh you know, you don't.
25:25
Speaker 1: You don't have that much at that particular talent. But Nancy,
25:27
Speaker 1: that's that's what they had to work with at that
25:30
Speaker 1: particular You're right, I mean, but you put that in
25:33
Speaker 1: conjunction with him living in a cave one mile away.
25:38
Speaker 1: I don't know if they even try to do a
25:39
Speaker 1: handwriting analysis on that note. And then hiding out, hiding
25:44
Speaker 1: out if you didn't do anything wrong, why are you
25:47
Speaker 1: hiding out in a remote cabin? Okay, take a listen
25:51
Speaker 1: to more. You'd have to live there to understand the
25:54
Speaker 1: dynamics between the Cherokee Nation and local law enforcement. At
25:58
Speaker 1: the time, it split the community into two sides. Gene
26:04
Speaker 1: Heart was a local. A lot of citizens of the
26:07
Speaker 1: Cherokee Nation, as well as some of the folks in
26:09
Speaker 1: Cherokee County in May's County, thought Heart did not do it.
26:14
Speaker 1: It seems patently obvious that Heart was a violent individual
26:18
Speaker 1: based on the crimes that he committed previously. But if
26:22
Speaker 1: you're a Cherokee living here, there's an established history of
26:26
Speaker 1: the state acting sometimes as judge, jury, and executioner. Sometimes
26:32
Speaker 1: the state lied, sometimes the state framed people, and sometimes
26:36
Speaker 1: the state manufactured evidence. So it really wasn't that much
26:40
Speaker 1: of a stretch for Cherokees to believe that perhaps the
26:43
Speaker 1: state had framed Geneart crime story with Nancy Grace, let
27:02
Speaker 1: me go to Fate Phillips, Cherokee screenwriter intimately familiar with
27:06
Speaker 1: this case. Isn't it true that US and state local
27:12
Speaker 1: governments have no jurisdiction in Indian reservations? Is that true?
27:17
Speaker 1: That is true? That was a landmark Supreme Court decision. Okay,
27:21
Speaker 1: so we don't have any federal, state, or local law
27:25
Speaker 1: enforcement framing anybody on an Indian reservation because even if
27:31
Speaker 1: they know about crimes happening on an Indian reservation, there's
27:35
Speaker 1: nothing they can do about it because they don't have jurisdiction. Right,
27:38
Speaker 1: the federal government does have concurrent jurisdiction in the tribal nations,
27:42
Speaker 1: but this wasn't determined until twenty twenty so at the
27:46
Speaker 1: time this crime occurred, the only party to prosecute crimes
27:51
Speaker 1: here in this area would have been the state and
27:53
Speaker 1: local governments. So let me ask you what you believe
27:57
Speaker 1: there have been a history of American Indians getting from
28:00
Speaker 1: my law enforcement. Well, there's absolutely a kind of and
28:05
Speaker 1: there's absolutely an established history of injustice towards the Cherokee people.
28:10
Speaker 1: I can't speak for all Cherokee people. I can only
28:13
Speaker 1: speak for myself, but we're patently aware of the removal
28:16
Speaker 1: that happened on the Trail of Tears, and so then
28:20
Speaker 1: we came here. Why are you actually going to bring
28:22
Speaker 1: in the Trail of Tears as a reason to believe
28:28
Speaker 1: that Heart didn't commit triple murder? No, no, I think
28:31
Speaker 1: it's an important factor and a number of other events
28:34
Speaker 1: that have happened in addition to so, on the actual
28:37
Speaker 1: day of the murder, we have the local sheriff walking
28:41
Speaker 1: up to the crime scene before he ever looks at anything.
28:44
Speaker 1: We have multiple witnesses hearing him say looks like Jeane
28:48
Speaker 1: Heart did this. Then we also have people who testify
28:53
Speaker 1: saying that the sheriff's instructions were to shoot Jean Heart
28:56
Speaker 1: on site. So you have to understand. These are the
28:59
Speaker 1: things that the community is hearing because people people have
29:02
Speaker 1: witnessed it themselves and they're taught, and so you have
29:05
Speaker 1: this established history of where the state had acted as
29:09
Speaker 1: judgarian executioner, and so it's not that hard to believe
29:13
Speaker 1: for Cherokee people who are intimately familiar with our history.
29:16
Speaker 1: Does that excuse harboring someone that you think that you
29:21
Speaker 1: think could possibly have murdered these three girls. Absolutely not.
29:25
Speaker 1: But I think it's an important thing for people to
29:27
Speaker 1: understand and a part of the story that's never been
29:29
Speaker 1: told before. Well, let me jump in here too. And
29:34
Speaker 1: I seemed to always try and get ahead. But there
29:38
Speaker 1: was evidence to prove that Hart didn't do it as well.
29:41
Speaker 1: There was a bloody footprint on the floor of the
29:44
Speaker 1: tent that wasn't his. There was a fingerprint on the
29:48
Speaker 1: flashlight they found it the same that wasn't his. Oh,
29:54
Speaker 1: so it wasn't as though this was an open and
29:58
Speaker 1: chuck case against against Jean le Roy hard Well, corroborating
30:03
Speaker 1: everything you just heard. Can't fight us, say, listen to this.
30:08
Speaker 1: It's very important to understand this trial was before DNA
30:13
Speaker 1: had not become a tool that could be used either
30:17
Speaker 1: to prove innocent or guilt. There were hairs found on
30:22
Speaker 1: the duct tape that the girls had been bound up
30:26
Speaker 1: with that was what was described as a Native American hair.
30:32
Speaker 1: They used that to try and implicate Hard because of
30:35
Speaker 1: course he was a Cherokee. That was not good science
30:40
Speaker 1: to believe that Eric could be matched, though DNA testing
30:45
Speaker 1: is not yet available. The prosecution also claims that sperm
30:49
Speaker 1: samples taken from Jane Hart's underwear were similar to the
30:53
Speaker 1: sperm found in one of the girls. There was important
30:58
Speaker 1: evidence on the scene which tended to exonerate Hard. There
31:04
Speaker 1: was a bloody footprint on the four of the ten,
31:08
Speaker 1: and it was not harsh footprint. It was a wrong sonce.
31:12
Speaker 1: There was a thumb print found along the flashore and
31:16
Speaker 1: it was not hard. So there was exonerating evidence found
31:21
Speaker 1: there as well as evidence then implicated it. There was
31:25
Speaker 1: things there that leads you to believe that someone else
31:29
Speaker 1: either involved or did the crowd The case hads to
31:32
Speaker 1: trial listen. The entire trial spans eleven emotional days, but
31:39
Speaker 1: the all white Jerry spends just five hours deliberating before
31:43
Speaker 1: making their decision. The Oklahoma State Uro of Investigation was
31:49
Speaker 1: shocked when the verdiere was read that their work was
31:53
Speaker 1: not sufficient enough to get him convicted. Jurors make it
31:57
Speaker 1: clear that the shoe size and thumb the do not
32:00
Speaker 1: match gene Hart is a major factor in their decision
32:03
Speaker 1: to acquit to fate. Phillips joining us, are you surprised
32:08
Speaker 1: at all by the acquittal. I'm not surprised at all,
32:11
Speaker 1: particularly considering the evidence that I found in the pre
32:15
Speaker 1: trial when I was going through everything that had been presented.
32:18
Speaker 1: The standard is beyond a reasonable doubt, and there's no
32:23
Speaker 1: doubt that these twelve jurors looked at everything that the
32:26
Speaker 1: state presented, and if they were doing their job, which
32:29
Speaker 1: I believe they did, they had to come to the
32:30
Speaker 1: conclusion that the state did not meet it's a burden.
32:33
Speaker 1: What do you make of that, James Powell? I would
32:36
Speaker 1: tend to agree with that that the state didn't meet
32:38
Speaker 1: its burden. There were I don't know how much detail
32:40
Speaker 1: you want to go into, but there were a lot
32:42
Speaker 1: of factors that resulted in that verdict, at least from
32:45
Speaker 1: what my investigation has shown. There was some testimony by
32:51
Speaker 1: some of the state's witnesses that the jury found that
32:55
Speaker 1: they felt they didn't believe. Specifically, there was a photograph
33:00
Speaker 1: that was taken at the time of the gene Heart's
33:02
Speaker 1: arrest where several of the agents were depicted in a photograph,
33:06
Speaker 1: either standing with him or just walking him out of
33:09
Speaker 1: the cabin. One of the witnesses was asked about that photograph,
33:13
Speaker 1: and the witness denied ever that photograph ever being taken.
33:17
Speaker 1: But it was my understanding that at the same time
33:19
Speaker 1: the jury already had copies of those photographs, so they
33:22
Speaker 1: felt that if the witness was not truthful about that,
33:26
Speaker 1: what else were they not being truthful about. Okay, to me,
33:29
Speaker 1: that's irrelevant, but I do see what you mean. Did
33:32
Speaker 1: the witness say that wasn't him? They said there was
33:35
Speaker 1: no such photographs they were taken. Okay, Well, possibly the
33:38
Speaker 1: witness didn't know the photograph was taken. No, he would
33:40
Speaker 1: have known. This is in the photograph. Basically, what happened
33:44
Speaker 1: was an a l FBI agent perjured himself on the stand.
33:47
Speaker 1: He's in the photograph and he's testifying to the jury
33:50
Speaker 1: that there wasn't a photograph taken. Gotcha? Gotcha? Other than
33:54
Speaker 1: the photograph evidence, James Powell, you believe the WoT it
33:58
Speaker 1: was correct, Fate Phillips, you're not surprised at the verdict
34:02
Speaker 1: to you just got more What do you think you
34:05
Speaker 1: are often to say, Nancy that you know you talk
34:09
Speaker 1: about ling. Yes, you got to convince me. And so
34:12
Speaker 1: if you think about this case and you think about
34:15
Speaker 1: what they had at that moment, it's really hard for
34:18
Speaker 1: the jury to get past that bit of as passionately
34:21
Speaker 1: as we want the jury to understand and maybe come
34:24
Speaker 1: to a conclusion from across sentorial standpoint, from an evidential standpoint,
34:28
Speaker 1: when you have a piece of ovans like this and
34:31
Speaker 1: they fare witness, it's really hard to get over that
34:33
Speaker 1: hurt too, can't Freda's joining Us, former minority leader in
34:37
Speaker 1: the Oklahoma House and author of Oklahoma's most notorious crimes.
34:41
Speaker 1: I agree or disagree? Well, I agree that there was
34:43
Speaker 1: reasonable doubt. Let me, I have a perspective on one
34:47
Speaker 1: thing that nobody else does, and that is I was
34:50
Speaker 1: able to talk to the judge before he died, and
34:54
Speaker 1: the judge did not blame the jury at all and
34:59
Speaker 1: thought that there were that was not an unreasonable decision
35:03
Speaker 1: under the evidence that was admitted. He also thought Jeane
35:07
Speaker 1: Lee roy Hart was guilty and the reason he thought
35:11
Speaker 1: he was guilty was because of some evidence that couldn't
35:14
Speaker 1: be admitted, and that was evidence that would have put
35:18
Speaker 1: on a prior that would have shown that he had
35:22
Speaker 1: committed prior crimes, which was properly excluded unless he took
35:27
Speaker 1: the stand. What evidence is that, Well, I'm gonna tell
35:31
Speaker 1: you that's what it is. Is that one of these
35:35
Speaker 1: little girls, at least one was tied with a chord
35:39
Speaker 1: as well as with duct tape, and that chord was
35:43
Speaker 1: tied in a very peculiar knot of some kind. And
35:48
Speaker 1: it turned out that the two women that Heart kidnapped
35:54
Speaker 1: and raped from Tulsa were tied up with that same knot.
35:59
Speaker 1: And he thought that was unusual enough and to give
36:02
Speaker 1: and given the other circumstances, and that he thought Heart
36:06
Speaker 1: was guilty. But once again, he said, once the evidence
36:10
Speaker 1: was in, and there's there's all. It also should be
36:13
Speaker 1: mentioned that the defense put on evidence that some of
36:18
Speaker 1: the prosecutorial evidence was planned. Now, whether that was correct
36:23
Speaker 1: or not, at least raised a doubt about it. Guys,
36:26
Speaker 1: take a listen to this. So my students decided that
36:29
Speaker 1: they were going to research the Girl Scout murders for
36:32
Speaker 1: their podcast and I posted about it, and I got
36:36
Speaker 1: this really kind of cryptic message that said, if you're
36:42
Speaker 1: looking into the girls Scout murders, there's someone that you
36:46
Speaker 1: really need to meet. And so I was curious but
36:52
Speaker 1: also a little freaked out. I had been contacted about
36:57
Speaker 1: Paul Smith, who was the sheriff of May's count in
37:00
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty. He was elected after Pete Weaver left office.
37:04
Speaker 1: He was ninety seven years old, living in a retirement home,
37:07
Speaker 1: and he had some story he wanted to talk to
37:09
Speaker 1: me about it. I knew he was about to drop
37:14
Speaker 1: some truth on me. I was not prepared though, for
37:18
Speaker 1: what I heard. It was one of the most extraordinary
37:22
Speaker 1: stories I've ever heard, and still to this day it
37:25
Speaker 1: still boggles my mind. I know, old say, what did
37:33
Speaker 1: he tell you? Well, I went into that room and
37:36
Speaker 1: considering myself someone who was familiar with the case, and
37:40
Speaker 1: what he told me was the story that I had
37:42
Speaker 1: never heard anywhere in the press or any in the community.
37:46
Speaker 1: No one had ever said this story to me. And
37:48
Speaker 1: he told me that he had obtained a confession from
37:52
Speaker 1: someone who was ann pedophile and torture of animals in
37:56
Speaker 1: the Locust Grove area, and that he had obtained a
37:59
Speaker 1: confession and an oral confession from this man, naming himself
38:05
Speaker 1: and two other people that had committed the crime that night.
38:10
Speaker 1: We follow the very latest developments in the brand new
38:13
Speaker 1: Fox Nation series The Girls Scout Murders here on Crime
38:17
Speaker 1: Stories all week. Tomorrow, a very unlikely source reveals never
38:21
Speaker 1: before seen evidence hidden in an ice chest for decades,
38:26
Speaker 1: plus new suspects. We wait as justice unfolls. Crime Stories
38:33
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace signing off Good Life