Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / "Secret Knot" Clue in Rapes & Murders of 3 Girl Scout Campers, Ages 8,9, 10

Transcript

"Secret Knot" Clue in Rapes & Murders of 3 Girl Scout Campers, Ages 8,9, 10 · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Summer camp. What's not to love?
0:16
Speaker 1: You got a late to swim in trails, to hike marshmallows,
0:20
Speaker 1: to roast around the campfire, swapping scary stories. But this
0:25
Speaker 1: is not a scary campfire story. Three little girls ages eight,
0:33
Speaker 1: nine and ten dragged from ten number seven, raped and murdered.
0:40
Speaker 1: I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for
0:43
Speaker 1: being with us here at Fox Nation and series X
0:46
Speaker 1: one eleven. We follow the exclusive new Fox Nation series
0:51
Speaker 1: The Girl Scout and Murders all week on Crime Stories.
0:55
Speaker 1: First of all, take a listen to this. High school
0:58
Speaker 1: students in Faith Philip's creative writing class launched a podcast
1:02
Speaker 1: called forty year Old Justice. We wanted to speak with
1:06
Speaker 1: law enforcement about the crime scene and the investigation. But
1:09
Speaker 1: over forty years later, many of the detectives and law
1:12
Speaker 1: enforcement have passed away. So I posted about it on
1:17
Speaker 1: my social media and a couple of days later, I
1:19
Speaker 1: got contacted by this mysterious person in my direct messages,
1:24
Speaker 1: and this person said, if your students are looking into
1:27
Speaker 1: the Girl Scout murders, there's someone you need to talk to.
1:31
Speaker 1: Paul Smith, who was the sheriff of May's County in
1:34
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty. He was elected after Pete Weaver left office.
1:38
Speaker 1: He was ninety seven years old, living in a retirement home,
1:41
Speaker 1: and he had some story he wanted to talk to
1:43
Speaker 1: me about. Now I remember. The backdrop is that Jane
1:47
Speaker 1: Hart was tried for the three rapes and murders of
1:51
Speaker 1: the little girls, but was acquitted by a jury a
1:57
Speaker 1: lot of evidence that jury never heard. But now an
2:03
Speaker 1: investigation into possible suspects. With me, you were just hearing
2:07
Speaker 1: her voice. Faith Phillips, Cherokee, screenwriter and author of Now
2:11
Speaker 1: I Lay Me Down. So you start a podcast on
2:16
Speaker 1: this and you put it out there on social media
2:19
Speaker 1: that you are really investigating the Girl Scout and martyrs.
2:22
Speaker 1: What happens is then, Faith, it was really an unbelievable story. Honestly,
2:27
Speaker 1: my students had actually done the research on the case
2:30
Speaker 1: and put the podcast out in the community, and because
2:33
Speaker 1: I have somewhat of a following of my books on
2:37
Speaker 1: social media, it really caused a stir. And so I
2:40
Speaker 1: received a direct message from someone who said, if your
2:44
Speaker 1: students are looking into the Girl Scout murders, there's someone
2:47
Speaker 1: you really need to speak with. And I found this
2:50
Speaker 1: incredibly curious because I was familiar with the case, of course,
2:54
Speaker 1: but I really didn't think that there was any new
2:57
Speaker 1: information to be had out there. And I talked about
3:01
Speaker 1: it with my husband and we both agreed, well, we
3:04
Speaker 1: should at least go here this person out. And the
3:07
Speaker 1: person was Paul Smith. He was ninety seven years old
3:10
Speaker 1: in a retirement home, and I brought my computer, I
3:13
Speaker 1: brought my laptop there and I just recorded his story,
3:16
Speaker 1: which was one of the most extraordinary stories I've ever heard.
3:19
Speaker 1: What was his story? The story he told me was
3:22
Speaker 1: that when he took office in sheriff, he campaigned to
3:25
Speaker 1: solve a girl Scout murders. And he told me that
3:29
Speaker 1: in the course of that investigation, he went and interviewed
3:33
Speaker 1: a man in prison who had been sent there for
3:36
Speaker 1: exposing himself to children on the creek. And this man
3:40
Speaker 1: was known in the community as a predator and a
3:44
Speaker 1: torture of animals. And this man told Paul Smith that
3:48
Speaker 1: he and two other people had been responsible for the murders,
3:52
Speaker 1: that they had gone to the girl Scout camp on
3:55
Speaker 1: the night of June twelfth, and that they attacked girls
4:00
Speaker 1: inside the tent. So it was it was the startling
4:03
Speaker 1: confession from a person who claimed to have been there
4:07
Speaker 1: and been with two other people. Okay, I want to
4:09
Speaker 1: pick apart what you just said. Yes with a fine tooth. Come.
4:13
Speaker 1: So you get a message after you put it out
4:16
Speaker 1: there about this podcast and that you want to reopen
4:19
Speaker 1: the case and investigate it, telling you that you need
4:22
Speaker 1: to go see this person in a retirement home. And
4:26
Speaker 1: it turns out to be Paul Smith, the sheriff of
4:29
Speaker 1: May's County in nineteen eighty and the sheriff tells you,
4:35
Speaker 1: would you repeat that again? Very slowly faked phillips. Sure.
4:39
Speaker 1: The sheriff tolds me that when he takes office in
4:43
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty, in the course of his investigation of the
4:46
Speaker 1: girl Scout murders, he goes to interview this man in
4:50
Speaker 1: prison named Buddy Bristol. And Buddy Bristol is known in
4:54
Speaker 1: the community as a sexual predator and a person who's
4:58
Speaker 1: known to torture animal. He shot his own dog and
5:03
Speaker 1: so he's just not a good person. And this man
5:07
Speaker 1: confesses to Paul Smith that he was there on June twelfth,
5:12
Speaker 1: in the early morning hours of June thirteenth, with two
5:15
Speaker 1: other men, and that those were the three people who
5:19
Speaker 1: attacked the girls in the tea. Well, I'm very curious.
5:23
Speaker 1: So you got Buddy Bristol behind bars now confessing to
5:29
Speaker 1: the murtyrs of the three little girls. Is that correct?
5:33
Speaker 1: That's correct. It was a verbal confession to Paul Smith
5:36
Speaker 1: after Paul Smith had visited him three or four times
5:39
Speaker 1: behind bars. I'm curious. I know that the murders occurred
5:43
Speaker 1: in June of nineteen seventy seven, right at the beginning
5:46
Speaker 1: of Girl Scout camp season. And I know that Paul
5:51
Speaker 1: Smith was a sheriff in nineteen eighty. Was he the
5:55
Speaker 1: sheriff in seventy seven? Paul Smith was not the sheriff
5:58
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy seven. Then Paul Smith was a police
6:01
Speaker 1: officer in Locust Grove at the time of the murders,
6:05
Speaker 1: and then he ran for sheriff in nineteen eighty. Let
6:07
Speaker 1: me go out to doctor Shawn Robertson, joining US licensed
6:10
Speaker 1: psychologist out of Edmund, Oklahoma. You can find Sean at
6:15
Speaker 1: doctor Shawn Robertson dot com. He also does forensic evaluations
6:20
Speaker 1: at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary where Jean Leroy Heart was housed.
6:26
Speaker 1: Doctor Robertson, thank you for being with us doctor Robertson.
6:29
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying Buddy Brissell was telling the truth
6:33
Speaker 1: or not. What I am saying is, when someone is
6:36
Speaker 1: behind bars, have you ever seen the phenomena of them
6:40
Speaker 1: confessing to things they didn't do or trying to enhance
6:45
Speaker 1: a crime that they committed. I just I guess for
6:50
Speaker 1: street cred. Oh. Absolutely, this is a This is an
6:53
Speaker 1: area and emerging area of research in forensic psychology over
6:56
Speaker 1: the past decade decade and a half, and that is
7:00
Speaker 1: the phenomenon of false confessions. There are many, many known
7:05
Speaker 1: false confessions, particularly in high profile cases you see like
7:09
Speaker 1: the John Benet Ramsey case. Even going back to the twenties,
7:14
Speaker 1: the Lendbergh baby kidnapping, people came out of the world
7:17
Speaker 1: work to falsely confess. So anytime you hear a confession
7:22
Speaker 1: of somebody, you've got a question. Well, particularly somebody in prison.
7:26
Speaker 1: I mean that might get him more time, that might
7:28
Speaker 1: get him the death penalty. What benefits him in freely
7:33
Speaker 1: providing this confession? Did he do it for notoriety? Did
7:37
Speaker 1: he do it because he thought it would gain him something?
7:41
Speaker 1: Was he coerced in some way? You know, without corroborating evidence,
7:45
Speaker 1: you've really got to question that, and you got to
7:47
Speaker 1: look at it, and they're behind bars, possibly for life,
7:49
Speaker 1: already on another offense. Why volunteer this information? Do they
7:54
Speaker 1: get better housing? Do they get moved out of their
7:57
Speaker 1: GP general population sale somewhere else? Do they go back
8:00
Speaker 1: and forth to court? Do they get pressed? What do
8:03
Speaker 1: they what could they possibly get out of it? But
8:05
Speaker 1: the reality is to k Fredus joining Us, the former
8:09
Speaker 1: minority leader in the Oklahoma House of Representatives, an author
8:12
Speaker 1: of Oklahoma's most notorious crimes, knt Fredus. Maybe he was
8:17
Speaker 1: confessing to yet any number of benefits, or maybe he
8:23
Speaker 1: was telling the truth. What if anything corroborates Buddy Bristol's story, Well,
8:28
Speaker 1: there quite a few things corroborate that someone other than
8:32
Speaker 1: Hart was involved in it or was solely involved in it.
8:37
Speaker 1: Earlier in the evening or in the night on the
8:41
Speaker 1: night of the crime, a girl in another tenth saw
8:46
Speaker 1: someone open the tent flap and look in and later
8:50
Speaker 1: described that person as not being hard They're also, as
8:55
Speaker 1: we've mentioned before, there were also evidenced at the at
9:01
Speaker 1: the site of the crime that other people were there
9:05
Speaker 1: in in the form of a bloody footprint. That was
9:10
Speaker 1: not hard, a bootprint that was not hard, and a
9:14
Speaker 1: fingerprint on the flashlight that was found there that was
9:19
Speaker 1: not hard. But yet they were all involved in the crime.
9:23
Speaker 1: Does any of that link back to Bristol? Not at
9:26
Speaker 1: the time. I would also mention Nancy that I research
9:30
Speaker 1: has shown that eyewitness testimony is highly unreliable, particularly a
9:35
Speaker 1: child in the dark saying that that was not heart.
9:40
Speaker 1: That's got to be questioned. And then and the other evidence,
9:42
Speaker 1: you know, was the crime scene walked into, was the
9:47
Speaker 1: fingerprint identified as anybody else's or was it just a smudge.
9:51
Speaker 1: I don't know that those things necessarily rule it out.
9:53
Speaker 1: And I'd like to jump in here too and say
9:55
Speaker 1: I agree. I had all of these same thoughts when
9:58
Speaker 1: Paul told me this story. I found it interesting, but
10:01
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to do with this information. I
10:04
Speaker 1: wasn't sure if it was something that needed to go
10:07
Speaker 1: to law enforcement. I felt like, and who knows, he
10:11
Speaker 1: seemed like he was incredibly intelligent and all there for
10:15
Speaker 1: a ninety seven year old, especially, but I did think,
10:19
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe we'll wait and just kind of
10:22
Speaker 1: sit on this for a while. And then that's when
10:24
Speaker 1: this interesting chain of event started happening that started to
10:27
Speaker 1: verify a lot of the things that he had said. Okay,
10:31
Speaker 1: well let's do that. What can you tell me any
10:34
Speaker 1: independent eminence whatsoever? And that corrob Race Buddy Bristol's story. Well,
10:39
Speaker 1: I got this information from Paul Smith. And then the
10:42
Speaker 1: following week I met with a local who was fifteen
10:47
Speaker 1: years old on at the time of the crime. And
10:50
Speaker 1: this local told me that she was writing a book
10:54
Speaker 1: about the Girl Scout murders. And so I said, well,
10:57
Speaker 1: that's interesting because I just met with a gentleman last
11:00
Speaker 1: week who had some information. His name is Paul Smith.
11:02
Speaker 1: And she stopped me and she said, Paul Smith is
11:06
Speaker 1: still alive. Let me tell you who who everybody in
11:10
Speaker 1: the community has known that. She said, let me tell
11:14
Speaker 1: you the names of people that people in this community
11:17
Speaker 1: have been repeating for years. And I said, okay, I
11:20
Speaker 1: didn't give her the names that Paul given me, and
11:22
Speaker 1: she repeated the same names that Paul Smith had told me. Okay,
11:26
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm that No, the fact that somebody
11:31
Speaker 1: told somebody told somebody in the community and I can't
11:34
Speaker 1: find them. That is probably Buddy Bristol. I mean, it's nothing, nothing,
11:40
Speaker 1: that's right, that's right. We're still in kind of an
11:44
Speaker 1: uncertain We're still an uncertain territory. Yeah, he did it.
11:47
Speaker 1: He's a per that ain't continent fate that will never
11:50
Speaker 1: cut it. So is there any independent corroboration for his claim?
11:56
Speaker 1: A day late and a dollar short. Now that everything's
12:00
Speaker 1: winding down, he says, oh, yeah, I did it. Anything, Yes.
12:04
Speaker 1: So then I went home to my husband that night,
12:07
Speaker 1: A poured myself a glass of wine, and I said,
12:09
Speaker 1: you know, this is really strange, these things that are happening.
12:12
Speaker 1: And I got a text out of the blue, and
12:15
Speaker 1: it was from this woman, Jennifer Morrison, and she had
12:18
Speaker 1: just received a letter that a man had written on
12:22
Speaker 1: his deathbed and he wrote those same three names as
12:26
Speaker 1: being involved in the Girl Scout murders. And so at
12:29
Speaker 1: this point, I have three different sources of information. I
12:33
Speaker 1: didn't know if it was anything that could be acted upon,
12:36
Speaker 1: but I did know as a responsible citizen that it
12:39
Speaker 1: was my responsibility at that time to take this information
12:42
Speaker 1: to law enforcement and let them run it down. Okay,
12:45
Speaker 1: what if anything happened, I'm still giving the same thing.
12:48
Speaker 1: I think he did it. He's the purv. So he
12:50
Speaker 1: did it. That's not evidence. What if anything was uncovered
12:56
Speaker 1: about Buddy Bristol. What's uncovered about Buddy Bristol, these three
13:00
Speaker 1: different sources of information his pattern of behavior. When when
13:06
Speaker 1: he was sentenced to prison, he had exposed himself to
13:09
Speaker 1: little children playing on the creek less than a mile
13:13
Speaker 1: from the site of Camp Scott, Okay. So that's the
13:16
Speaker 1: same thing you told me to start with. Buddy Bristol
13:18
Speaker 1: exposed himself to children playing in the creek. There's a
13:21
Speaker 1: big leap going from being, you know, an exposure to
13:27
Speaker 1: raith and murder of three children. That's there's a lot
13:30
Speaker 1: of sex offenders to expose themselves, Doctor Robinson, You're right.
13:34
Speaker 1: That's why I'm really trying to dig in and find
13:36
Speaker 1: out what if anything corroborates the possibility Bristol is a
13:40
Speaker 1: triple killer. Time stories with Nancy Grace. I want to
14:00
Speaker 1: go to a special guest joining us right now. It's
14:03
Speaker 1: Ross Swimmer, the former Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation,
14:09
Speaker 1: former Special Trustee for American Indians at the US Department
14:13
Speaker 1: of the Interior. Ross, thank you so much for being
14:17
Speaker 1: with us. Sure now, Ross, as I recall you were
14:21
Speaker 1: the chief of the Cherokee Nation in nineteen seventy seven,
14:26
Speaker 1: that's correct. Do you believe the Cherokee Nation tried to
14:32
Speaker 1: protect gene Hart? Absolutely not. What did tried to do
14:37
Speaker 1: was to provide make sure that he had a defense
14:42
Speaker 1: available to him so that he could have an attorney.
14:47
Speaker 1: But there was no effort on the tribes part to
14:52
Speaker 1: do anything as far as the accusation. He was secured
14:59
Speaker 1: in some location in the southeastern part of the Cherokee
15:06
Speaker 1: Nation by some people before the trial that had nothing
15:11
Speaker 1: to do with the Cherokee Nation as such. You know,
15:15
Speaker 1: we were not informed in any way as far as
15:19
Speaker 1: his location. But when he was brought to trial, I
15:23
Speaker 1: wanted to be sure that he had an adequate defense.
15:28
Speaker 1: It didn't seem you know, we talked about properating evidence.
15:31
Speaker 1: It didn't seem like there was very much regarding heart either,
15:34
Speaker 1: and that at least it needed to be challenged. Whatever
15:39
Speaker 1: the cher Pete Weaver was going to present it. Nancy, Nancy,
15:44
Speaker 1: can I cut in here? The police, This is herb Weaver.
15:47
Speaker 1: Pete Son I was a school teacher and the coach
15:53
Speaker 1: at Locust Grove. This horrible incident happened, and in defense
16:03
Speaker 1: of the chief. He's correct that the tribe did not
16:08
Speaker 1: try to protect him in any way. Excuse me, but
16:15
Speaker 1: the citizens of Locust Grove, they were very protective of
16:20
Speaker 1: Jane Hart. I had his son in class, and it
16:30
Speaker 1: was to the point I was getting death threats. I mean,
16:36
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say seventy eighty percent of the community looked
16:39
Speaker 1: at him as a football hero. And I'm confident that
16:47
Speaker 1: the tribe itself did not try to protect him. They
16:52
Speaker 1: just wanted to make sure he was getting a fair
16:54
Speaker 1: tribe understood. And believe me, former principal Chief Jerokee Nation
17:00
Speaker 1: Ross Swimmer does not need a defense of any type.
17:04
Speaker 1: I have carefully researched everything he has said regarding this
17:08
Speaker 1: in the past. Ross. What do you make of gene
17:13
Speaker 1: Hart's acquittal, Well, it's hard to make anything of it
17:18
Speaker 1: other than the jury simply didn't find evidence sufficient to convicting.
17:26
Speaker 1: And but hearsay about it the trial was that some
17:34
Speaker 1: evidence introduced appeared to be either made up or found
17:39
Speaker 1: or wasn't wasn't appropriate, and that that had a big
17:43
Speaker 1: influence on the jury. Let's go to James Powell on
17:46
Speaker 1: that former senior agent with the Oklahoma Ure of investigation.
17:51
Speaker 1: You can find him at the investigator LLC James. Thank
17:54
Speaker 1: you for being with us. You know we keep hearing
17:58
Speaker 1: about no evidence at trial, but there had to be
18:03
Speaker 1: evidence to take the case to trial. Yes, ma'am, it was,
18:08
Speaker 1: and of course May's kind of Sheriff's office. I don't
18:11
Speaker 1: want to try to minimize all the effort they put
18:14
Speaker 1: into trying to get this case resolved. They spent thousands
18:17
Speaker 1: of hours on it. Most of the evidence that was
18:21
Speaker 1: admitted that trial has already pretty much been well documented.
18:24
Speaker 1: There wasn't a lot. Jeane was living about a mile
18:28
Speaker 1: from the crime scene. He had previous convictions. I know
18:32
Speaker 1: that the Sheriff's interested in him because he was a
18:35
Speaker 1: sex offender and he'd escaped from the JAY. As far
18:39
Speaker 1: as the actual evidence, there wasn't. I think you mentioned yesterday.
18:43
Speaker 1: It was discussed yesterday. There was some blood evidence that
18:45
Speaker 1: pointed to a Native American. There was some hairy evidence
18:50
Speaker 1: which pointed to a Native Americans. As a forensics will
18:53
Speaker 1: tell you receive as the stuff that we would have
18:57
Speaker 1: to day. You got to remember this was back in
18:59
Speaker 1: nine seventy seven. Yeah, you're right, an awful lot has
19:03
Speaker 1: been learning since then. It sure has to. Joseph Scott Morgan,
19:06
Speaker 1: Professor Forensics, jacksonvill State University and author of Blood Beneath
19:09
Speaker 1: My Feet on Amazon. Joe Scott in nineteen eighty nine.
19:13
Speaker 1: I don't know if everyone's familiar with this, but DNA
19:16
Speaker 1: was conducted to show three of the five probes taken
19:21
Speaker 1: from the scene of them murders, from the girls bodies
19:25
Speaker 1: and from the scene matched hearts DNA. DNA from one
19:30
Speaker 1: and seventy seven hundred Native Americans would have obtained the
19:35
Speaker 1: same results. Joe Scott Morgan, What if anything does that mean? Well,
19:41
Speaker 1: it means that you're putting them in the ballpark. But
19:44
Speaker 1: it's that the testing that was done back then, it's
19:47
Speaker 1: not finally two, was not as finally tuned as it
19:50
Speaker 1: is today exactly. And if that evidence was still viable,
19:54
Speaker 1: if they still had some remnant of it, if it
19:56
Speaker 1: wasn't destructive destructive what's called destructive testing, if they still
20:00
Speaker 1: had some sample, there might be something that they could
20:03
Speaker 1: go back into. Well, there's another lead, Joe Scott. It
20:06
Speaker 1: has to do with a school bus. Take a listen.
20:11
Speaker 1: I was sitting on the bench and father the Wilson
20:13
Speaker 1: Cunningham sung and as I sat there, I saw these
20:18
Speaker 1: big buses go through as soon Karen, a little girl
20:24
Speaker 1: scouts following the bus, but it was the daughter super
20:29
Speaker 1: being a dark one. There may have been somebody in
20:35
Speaker 1: the back that I could not identify, and I'm not
20:38
Speaker 1: even sure, but the two in front I recognize because
20:42
Speaker 1: I had had problems with them before. I had arrusted
20:49
Speaker 1: that driver a number of times. And to Faith Phillips
20:53
Speaker 1: joining us Cherokee screenwriter and author, who was in the car?
20:56
Speaker 1: That would be Buddy Bristol and one of our other
20:59
Speaker 1: named suspects that I had obtained from these three different sources.
21:04
Speaker 1: And the reason why that car is so crucial is
21:07
Speaker 1: because the confession that Buddy provided said that after they
21:11
Speaker 1: committed the crime, they put the murder weapons and bloody
21:15
Speaker 1: clothes in this Dodge super Bee and they pushed it
21:18
Speaker 1: off into the Grand River, which is just a couple
21:21
Speaker 1: of miles south of where the crime occurred. So we
21:25
Speaker 1: still just have this oral confession and we don't really
21:27
Speaker 1: have any corroborating information. Well, was the Dodge Bay found.
21:31
Speaker 1: The Dodge b has never been found, But in the
21:34
Speaker 1: course of the investigation, we found out that after nineteen
21:39
Speaker 1: seventy seven. That Dodge super Bee has never been tagged
21:42
Speaker 1: again in the state of Oklahoma or the United States,
21:46
Speaker 1: and it is never seen again by locals after that night,
21:51
Speaker 1: which seemingly would confirm that it was sunk down a
21:55
Speaker 1: river in a body of water. Guys, take a listen
21:58
Speaker 1: to more. Buddy Bridge was a white Locust Grove resident
22:01
Speaker 1: with a long rap sheet. According to locals, she was
22:06
Speaker 1: known for stocking young girls and torturing animals. After repeated
22:12
Speaker 1: visits to the prison to interview Buddy, Sheriff Paul Smith
22:16
Speaker 1: gets something extraordinary, a verbal confession. They had been drinking
22:23
Speaker 1: beer and doing rugs for three straight days. He said
22:27
Speaker 1: they were a little money and they were thinking of
22:32
Speaker 1: some white they could raise. The Caysian decided the chapperal
22:37
Speaker 1: homes for those girls out there would probably be loaded
22:41
Speaker 1: a bit of money. Bristol said. They waited tools sometime
22:45
Speaker 1: after midnight, and so they hit the ten. They all
22:51
Speaker 1: just hit the door at the same time. One had
22:55
Speaker 1: a crow bar, one had a roofing hammer. When you
22:58
Speaker 1: analyze a statement for veracity or truthfulness, you look at
23:04
Speaker 1: richness of detail. Is there a lot of detail to
23:07
Speaker 1: their story? Detail? They maybe could not make up or fabricate.
23:14
Speaker 1: There's more and there's something very telling and what Buddy
23:19
Speaker 1: Bristol allegedly said, listen. According to Paul's story, Bristol told
23:24
Speaker 1: him that two of them entered the tent from the back.
23:28
Speaker 1: One hit Laurie Farmer and one hit Michelle guzz but
23:33
Speaker 1: Denise Milner bolted out the front of the tent and
23:36
Speaker 1: the third person caught her as she was trying to
23:38
Speaker 1: make a run for it, and she got out the door.
23:41
Speaker 1: They had to go grab her, but she's the one
23:44
Speaker 1: that they tied that Corerunrnee. Bristol told Paul that while
23:49
Speaker 1: the other men sexually attacked the girls, Buddy himself claimed
23:53
Speaker 1: not to have taken part. He said Laurie and Michelle
23:56
Speaker 1: died quickly, but Denise remained alive. Then they took all
24:02
Speaker 1: three girls, placed them in the road, and strangled Denise
24:06
Speaker 1: where she lay. According to the confession, the three men
24:11
Speaker 1: intended to dispose of the bodies elsewhere, some wanting them,
24:16
Speaker 1: made a noise or an alarm, dropped them on and all.
24:22
Speaker 1: But it's scir them. They dropped those girls. They got
24:29
Speaker 1: in the super bee and one of the suspects was
24:31
Speaker 1: given the job of going to dump the vehicle, the
24:34
Speaker 1: murder weapons, and the bloody clothes, and that super Bee
24:40
Speaker 1: was supposedly pushed into a river a few miles from
24:43
Speaker 1: Camp Scott. Guys, I'm reeling right now, and I'll tell
24:47
Speaker 1: you why, because a lot of what Buddy Bristol allegedly
24:51
Speaker 1: said jives lines up with the forensic evidence. Well it does.
25:00
Speaker 1: It was the autopsy showed that Denise Milner was strangled
25:04
Speaker 1: while the other two were killed with a bload of
25:07
Speaker 1: the head. So that's consistent. The other thing that is
25:10
Speaker 1: consistent with this, and I've always questioned it, how could
25:14
Speaker 1: one individual do this crime without having somebody discovered it.
25:21
Speaker 1: When two or three people are doing the crime, they've
25:25
Speaker 1: got control of all three of the girls. But for
25:29
Speaker 1: Heart to have gone in there and be able to
25:31
Speaker 1: do that, it was really strange that he didn't have
25:35
Speaker 1: an accomplish to James Powell, former senior agent with Oklahoma
25:38
Speaker 1: year of investigation at the Investigator LLC, James, there's no
25:43
Speaker 1: telling how many defendants you have suspects that you have interrogated.
25:49
Speaker 1: And there's one thing I've noticed over and over and
25:52
Speaker 1: over in cases where there is a rape and a
25:55
Speaker 1: murder very often. I mean, it's amazingly how often a
26:01
Speaker 1: purple say, well, yeah, I shot her, but I didn't
26:06
Speaker 1: rape her, Like it's better to have shot the victim
26:10
Speaker 1: than to have raped the victim. And I've seen it
26:13
Speaker 1: so many times that when Buddy Bristol allegedly says, oh, yeah,
26:20
Speaker 1: I was there, and I was there when the girls
26:22
Speaker 1: were murdered, but I didn't rape them, I am telling you,
26:26
Speaker 1: James Powell, that actually has a ring of truth in it.
26:30
Speaker 1: Oh yes, ma'am. It does. And I've found that that's
26:34
Speaker 1: pretty consistent too with some of the cases that I've
26:36
Speaker 1: worked where for whatever reason, a male suspect doesn't want
26:40
Speaker 1: to be called a rapist, but I guess and their
26:43
Speaker 1: warked way of thinking being a killer or a murder
26:46
Speaker 1: sort of increases what we used to say. They're a
26:48
Speaker 1: lot or those I think you pointed out their street creds.
26:51
Speaker 1: I'll find that that's what wouldn't necessarily mean he wasn't
26:54
Speaker 1: there just because he says he didn't participate in the rate.
26:57
Speaker 1: You know, Jessica Morgan with me forensics expert, what he's
27:00
Speaker 1: saying if he said this, and I have no reason
27:03
Speaker 1: to disbelieve the sheriff that said it, Paul Smith. His
27:08
Speaker 1: story lines up with how the little girl's bodies that
27:11
Speaker 1: were found, and we heard from a camp counselor that
27:16
Speaker 1: said she woke up and heard this sound and she
27:20
Speaker 1: couldn't really identify it as she went and found the
27:23
Speaker 1: girls there like they had just been left there. That
27:26
Speaker 1: goes along with this account, so Scott the forensics, Yeah,
27:30
Speaker 1: it does. And you know, we go back to this.
27:33
Speaker 1: You know, we mentioned this footprint that didn't match up
27:35
Speaker 1: with hearts as well, and that's kind of compelling for me.
27:38
Speaker 1: I think that one of the things that I would
27:41
Speaker 1: like to know because I heard that, you know, there
27:43
Speaker 1: was some talk that the girls, the remaining girls that
27:45
Speaker 1: were the campers, had been removed from the camp in
27:49
Speaker 1: order to take them away from this area. And this happens,
27:52
Speaker 1: and did happen quite a bit infamously, it happened in
27:54
Speaker 1: the Terry Bower's case up in Pennsylvania. But my issue
28:00
Speaker 1: is this, I would like to know how thoroughly that
28:04
Speaker 1: scene was searched at that moment. Did they literally break
28:08
Speaker 1: down every structure that was out there, take every pair
28:13
Speaker 1: of shoes that were out there, in any shoes from
28:15
Speaker 1: anybody that was associated with this event period, and even
28:19
Speaker 1: as it applies to the police office that were out
28:21
Speaker 1: there that may have left tracks behind, to faint Phillips
28:24
Speaker 1: joining us who lost his reinvestigation. What do you make
28:29
Speaker 1: Buddy Bristol's confession? What I make of it is that
28:33
Speaker 1: this is information that really needs to be run down.
28:36
Speaker 1: And that was really my intention, particularly after I got
28:40
Speaker 1: the letter, as I thought, We've got to get this
28:43
Speaker 1: to law enforcement professionals. I'm a writer, I'm just a
28:46
Speaker 1: geek that sits in the dark and writes books. This
28:49
Speaker 1: needs to go to someone who can actually take action
28:51
Speaker 1: and make something happen. Joining us is Ross a Swimmer,
28:54
Speaker 1: a former principal chief of the Cherokee Nation. Ross, what
28:57
Speaker 1: do you make the girl Scout murders and what if
29:03
Speaker 1: any impact that had or has on the Cherokee Nation. Well,
29:08
Speaker 1: obviously it had an impact because of where it occurred.
29:12
Speaker 1: It was in the heart of the Cherokee Nation, and
29:16
Speaker 1: the accused was Cherokee, and that was mentioned several times,
29:21
Speaker 1: so it was you know, something that's not common. We
29:28
Speaker 1: don't think within within our tribe. This isn't something that's uh,
29:33
Speaker 1: that's very common and in fact, even with the Heart
29:38
Speaker 1: having been convicted of sex crime, it had nothing to
29:42
Speaker 1: do with children. And the story going around that we
29:47
Speaker 1: were main uh know something about was that at one
29:51
Speaker 1: point Heart literally walked out of the jail. They didn't
29:54
Speaker 1: try to escape. It just uh wasn't that big a
29:58
Speaker 1: deal because it had something to do with his girlfriend. Oh,
30:02
Speaker 1: I thought he was convicted of raping two pregnant women.
30:05
Speaker 1: I haven't heard that, so it could be. I don't know,
30:08
Speaker 1: but it was not children. And and I think there
30:14
Speaker 1: was some kind of relationship with the women that had
30:17
Speaker 1: accused him. I don't know anything about that. What about that,
30:20
Speaker 1: Faith Phillips, That is something that I can't I can't
30:24
Speaker 1: effectively speak on. That is a rumor that I had heard.
30:28
Speaker 1: But the fact is that he did plead guilty to
30:32
Speaker 1: the crime. Yeah, so we know that much. Well, are
30:36
Speaker 1: there other alleged suspects? Time stories with Nancy Grace, with
30:55
Speaker 1: me Herb Weaver or this is Sheriff Weaver's son her
30:59
Speaker 1: How did all this affect you? Well, it was a
31:03
Speaker 1: horrible event to start with. I ended up having to
31:09
Speaker 1: quit my job as a teacher coach because I was
31:12
Speaker 1: getting death threads. But why you Why would you get
31:16
Speaker 1: a death threat because sheriff for you, Weaver was my
31:18
Speaker 1: dad and all the community, most of the community was
31:23
Speaker 1: behind Jean Hart, and so they looked at me as
31:28
Speaker 1: an enemy. And I want them back up just a
31:31
Speaker 1: minute on that prior conviction on the rape charges. To
31:37
Speaker 1: my knowledge, there was no commitment between Hart and those
31:44
Speaker 1: two ladies he raped at the Burgess River. My dad
31:48
Speaker 1: told me that he picked them up at a bar
31:50
Speaker 1: in Tulsa and took him out on the Burgess River
31:53
Speaker 1: on four twelve and raped them, tied them up in
31:56
Speaker 1: the same fashion that these little girls were tied in
31:59
Speaker 1: a very and that is correct. He did not know
32:02
Speaker 1: those women as far as my investigation had determined. They
32:05
Speaker 1: were tied up and left and they were able to
32:08
Speaker 1: get loose an escape, So it's not as if they
32:11
Speaker 1: were just released or they were able to go or
32:12
Speaker 1: immediately to the Sheriff's office. I think he had intended
32:15
Speaker 1: on him to die out there, not only that they
32:17
Speaker 1: were pregnant, tied up, left out there to die. And
32:21
Speaker 1: even if he had known them, which no evidence supports,
32:26
Speaker 1: that gossip, that makes it all worse. I don't see
32:32
Speaker 1: oh he knew them. That's no defense. In my mind.
32:36
Speaker 1: That makes it even worse. You were raping and terrorizing someone,
32:41
Speaker 1: you know, so that doesn't help anything. Yeah, I'm not
32:44
Speaker 1: suggesting it was a defense. I'm questioning, does that crime
32:48
Speaker 1: didn't have anything to do with children, regardless of where
32:53
Speaker 1: women were pregnant or not. Yes, they were pregnant. Yes,
32:56
Speaker 1: there were two of them. Yes, it is a sex offense.
33:00
Speaker 1: And also the unique knot that was used to tie
33:04
Speaker 1: these women up was the same knot used found in
33:07
Speaker 1: the girl scout's tent. Now does that previous a killer? No,
33:11
Speaker 1: it does not. It's piece of circumstantial evidence, but that's
33:14
Speaker 1: not all the evidence. Take a listen to this. According
33:18
Speaker 1: to the letter writer, one of Paul's suspects was a pedophile,
33:24
Speaker 1: and it was witnessed a day or two before that,
33:28
Speaker 1: talking and laughing that they had found a place that
33:31
Speaker 1: they could station themselves near where the girls showered. In
33:37
Speaker 1: addition to revealing that the suspects spied on the young
33:39
Speaker 1: girls in the days prior to June twelfth, the letter
33:43
Speaker 1: identified a fourth man with the group in the early
33:46
Speaker 1: morning hours before the murders, who was also a known pedophile. Okay,
33:51
Speaker 1: now that, in my mind is somewhat conflicting. Faith Phillips
33:54
Speaker 1: in the first theory is that they were not interested
33:59
Speaker 1: in sex little girls, that they were going to knock
34:02
Speaker 1: the place off to try to find out if there
34:04
Speaker 1: were valuables belonging to the counselors or anybody else they
34:07
Speaker 1: could steal. Okay, now I'm hearing there were actually pedophiles
34:11
Speaker 1: and been hanging around watching the girls go in and
34:13
Speaker 1: out of the shower prior to June twelve. Wasn't June
34:17
Speaker 1: twelve the first week of camp. It is very confusing,
34:20
Speaker 1: and the facts are incredibly complicated, and I think that
34:24
Speaker 1: helps to explain why this case has not officially been
34:28
Speaker 1: closed for forty five years, because there's a lot of
34:31
Speaker 1: conflicting evidence. Absolutely, faith, absolutely go ahead. When I heard
34:36
Speaker 1: Paul Smith tell me, and Paul Smith is an Upstate
34:39
Speaker 1: he was an incredible man, a military hero and a
34:43
Speaker 1: servant of this nation, and so he absolutely deserved my respect.
34:48
Speaker 1: But the one thing I really had a hard time
34:50
Speaker 1: believing about the confession he told me came from Buddy.
34:53
Speaker 1: Bristol was where he said we went there to rob
34:56
Speaker 1: the camp counselors. Well, I don't believe that for a second. Yeah. Well,
35:00
Speaker 1: and very often defendants try to cover up their desire
35:04
Speaker 1: to rape children if they're pedophiles, and they'll come up
35:08
Speaker 1: with something else. So I could see him saying, we
35:10
Speaker 1: just went to rob and then whoop, so we raped
35:12
Speaker 1: and murdered three little girls. Listen to more, I began
35:16
Speaker 1: to see indications that married up with Paul's account that
35:20
Speaker 1: multiple people had been involved in the murders. I read
35:25
Speaker 1: about a vehicle that had been parked outside Camp Scott's
35:29
Speaker 1: gate facing west with four people inside. That gate was
35:34
Speaker 1: in such a remote area, why would anyone be parked
35:38
Speaker 1: out there at night during a thunderstorm? I had read
35:43
Speaker 1: where a camper reported that she saw several men late
35:46
Speaker 1: that night gathered near the latrine, with at least one
35:49
Speaker 1: of the men wearing military style boots otherwise known as
35:54
Speaker 1: jungle boots. The camper heard them talking and hid in
35:58
Speaker 1: her sleeping bag. Multiple people, including counselors and campers, reported
36:06
Speaker 1: that they had been followed through the woods and that
36:08
Speaker 1: they'd encountered strangers on the trails that should not have
36:12
Speaker 1: been authorized to be there. Strangers on the trail that
36:16
Speaker 1: were not authorized to be there and more. I walked
36:20
Speaker 1: out to the truck and I set the files in
36:22
Speaker 1: the backseat and I just lifted up the first file
36:27
Speaker 1: on top, and it was one of the photos of
36:32
Speaker 1: the little girls, and I just slammed it down. And
36:41
Speaker 1: that's when I realized that there was much more in
36:45
Speaker 1: this collection of files than I had any idea. When
36:51
Speaker 1: I went through those files, I came across the most
36:54
Speaker 1: difficult thing I've ever seen in my life. To you,
36:59
Speaker 1: Faith Phillips explained to me what this picture a little
37:04
Speaker 1: girl was and where you found it. Well, that's why
37:07
Speaker 1: I think Herb Weaver is one of many heroes in
37:10
Speaker 1: this story, because he had this box of files that
37:14
Speaker 1: his father, Sheriff Weaver, had maintained all these years, and
37:19
Speaker 1: he reached out to me through Jennifer Morrison and said
37:23
Speaker 1: that he had some files. Well, Nancy, I just thought
37:25
Speaker 1: that it was the actual trial transcripts, because for whatever reason,
37:30
Speaker 1: in the state of Oklahoma, they aren't required to maintain
37:33
Speaker 1: trial transcripts when the defendants acquitted, so I had not
37:36
Speaker 1: been able to read the actual child transcripts. I thought
37:39
Speaker 1: I was going to Herb's house to pick those up.
37:42
Speaker 1: And I got there and when I opened them up,
37:45
Speaker 1: what I found was the actual photographs of the little girls,
37:50
Speaker 1: of their injuries, crime scene fatos of the little girls,
37:53
Speaker 1: Herb Weaver joining us, Sheriff Weaver's son. Did you have
37:56
Speaker 1: any idea everything that was in that box? No? I didn't.
38:01
Speaker 1: My mother had always told me that it was the
38:04
Speaker 1: transcript of the trial, and I thought that would be
38:08
Speaker 1: good for Faith to have. I had never looked in
38:12
Speaker 1: that box before, and the first recollection I had that
38:18
Speaker 1: there were photos, handwritten notes from my dad came from
38:23
Speaker 1: Faith after she opened it and looked at it and
38:29
Speaker 1: in her fans, she told me to secure that box
38:33
Speaker 1: and not let it get out into the public media.
38:38
Speaker 1: One moment, one action, sending that box of old trial
38:46
Speaker 1: notes and transcripts to Faith Phillips has changed the course
38:53
Speaker 1: of this investigation. Are their other killers? And will there
38:57
Speaker 1: ever be justice for three Girl Scouts? We follow the
39:03
Speaker 1: very latest developments in the brand new Fox Nation series
39:07
Speaker 1: The Girls Scout Murders here at Crime Stories all week tomorrow,
39:12
Speaker 1: revealing family secrets come to light, plus a phone call
39:18
Speaker 1: that changes everything. We wait as justice unfals. Nancy Grace
39:24
Speaker 1: Crime Story signing off goodbye for