K: Back to that Tuesday in 1970: the OU protest ended peacefully, but police and residents were on edge for the rest of the week. Said hes shoot rabbits with it and stuff. Recording of Linda: Ken Jacobson, I remember that name a lot. We were never able to get in contact with any of these family members, though. Its seized, its packaged. Recording of Pearo: You could see some of the resentment from people who are now adults still going back to their college days and being really critical on the police. He told me that if he asked Rick if I were a virgin and he told him I was and he asked me if I myself was and I told him no. Christopher Sanders. WebNORMAN, Okla. Police have identified the two people killed in a double-homicide in Norman. Not only does the department interact with the Norman community on a more regular basis, but the hiring protocols for officers have completely changed. Another unsolved case is that of 2-year-old Riah Thomas. The Girl Scout Murders of 1977 still remains unsolved to Eventually, Jacobson told Ben Benham, Sheryls father, to try writing a letter to Oklahomas attorney general and see if a grand jury could be convened, effectively skipping the need for authorization from heads of local agencies and instead giving officers a way to immediately close in on Gilley. The initial investigation putters out after obstruction from local law enforcement agencies. Recording of Ken: Its amazing to me the interest thats continued in this case. Grady. Potter County, where Gilley was working directly before he came to Norman, covers the northern half of Amarillo. According to newspaper articles in the Norman Transcript from that first week, David was set to graduate the upcoming December with a business administration degree and then be commissioned through the Naval ROTC. Pearo also testified, noting that almost all the evidence from the crime scene had disappeared, except one bullet casing. Jacobson said calls flooded in, but every one of them led to a dead end. Yeah we should do that. The Hippie Era was still blazing, but now, the kids coming of age had become increasingly politically active. Recording of Linda: Well, she loved her job I love, theres this one picture of Sherri, she looked so cute she had the little red skirt and the white top, you know, and she was just so cute in it.. They picked through old evidence and files, contacting anyone who would still have a good recollection of what happened two decades before. Recording of Brake: When he got on the elevator there, there was a Mexican boy about 18 years old on there with us, as well as another deputy. Its been 48 years and the case has been closed and reopened, seen two grand juries and one trial. K: Youre listening to Uncovered: the Lovers Lane Murders. There is no other perpetrator that makes any sense at all, none., Recording of Ken: When you get in a situation like that, you never really think youre going to die. He told my mother, Then I remembered, I still got you, I still got Linda and I still got Steve. So he drove back home.. Recording of Brake: 200 people. On the last day of the pretrial, one of the most interesting pieces of evidence emerged, though it was never corroborated, when a new witness was called to the stand. 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Everytime I just about get it out of my head, somebody calls and says weve got a guy that thinks hes got the gun. Recording of Ken: Well, Id been to law enforcement academy at LSU for 90 days and I got back that Sunday, Mothers Day was going to take a couple of days off but was going by the office to get my expenses I was actually in the bank parking lot, I remember where I was, and the chief agent called me on the radio and asked if I would go to Norman to help them with a vehicle theyd recovered in a missing persons case. Around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, police were called to reports of a shooting in the K: Brake had the actual statements that Jacobson is referring to, from when Butch was questioned by investigators on Nov. 24, 1970. She looks like she died almost immediately. Rarely did he make any type of gestures that would draw any interest.He was quiet and he didnt do anything to call attention to himself.. I got to know her parents very well. Gilley was brought in to the Amarillo police station and had his mug shots taken. That was good enough for me to go after him with everything I had.. So I go, Dad did you find Sherry? He questioned witnesses intensely, returning again and again to the lack of physical evidence and the 20-year gap between the murders and the trial that might affect recollections of what happened. Police questioned Gilley and Henslee, who both said Gilley had never owned a .22 caliber weapon, the type of gun used in the murders. NORMAN, Okla. An Oklahoma man shot and killed his estranged wife and her divorce lawyer, then took his own life, police reported Wednesday. In the following months, officers deliberated how best to pin Gilley down for the murders. I tell Judy, They found her! It was private enough for young couples to park their cars and be intimate. K: The lost evidence and the hiring of Gilley in the first place played major roles in the Benham-Sloan case, but so did the alleged obstruction by the various law enforcement agencies. This is an 18.6% increase from the previous year. K: Randall County is a small portion of land encompassing the southern half of Amarillo, a lake and a few other small towns with a current population of about 120,000. And then we sort of told him Weve got some good news and bad news. Recording of Brake: Henslee, I think, after the murder happened, I think he thought right away Oh this guy might have done it and Im going to look terrible for hiring him, so lets just get him the heck out of town. So Henslee was in cover up mode at that point. Particularly a lot more nowadays than there was back in the 1970s.. He was working as a recent recruit to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation in 1970 and was assigned to the case full time. There was a carnival coming to town and classes were ending soon, so students were hosting parties. We still do polygraph examinations. He sent it to the Norman mayor, the DA and even Mike Brake, who still has an original copy. We were very close. Next time on Uncovered: The Lovers Lane Murders: Recording of Linda: It changes your whole entire life., Recording of Ken: First of all, he quit the police department and got out of town, which was brilliant., Recording of Brake: If it really came out that he hired this guy on suspended sentence for beating up prisoners, itd make him look awfully bad., Recording of Linda: Its just such a sad, sad thing, not just because of the murder but because of the way it happened and ended up.. They had broken up a few months before, but Jacobson said he just wasnt the type to commit a murder. Crime Rate per 100,000 Pop. But there was not one piece of evidence the jury would go in and say Evidence A says Frank Gilley killed those kids on that night. It just wasnt there, I cant quarrel with the jury even though I hated to see it turn out the way it did.. K: This is Dave Pearo, a Norman police officer from 1981 to 2004. . Its every single step we take in our evidence transfer or testing or anything and is logged in a computer system. He was detained briefly and released. K: Linda told us about her dad, overcome with anger and sadness, jumping in the car one night a few months after the murders to go find Frank Gilley himself. SpotCrime crime details. Tornadoes tore through Oklahoma, leaving severe damage in Norman, home to the University of Oklahoma. He was part of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. You know and Frank and David were both described as hotheads and so you put two hotheads together I think Frank his only choice was to shoot him to protect himself and then Sherry probably just did whatever he wanted her to do., Recording of Brake: heek. Crime at 6400 BLOCK OF 36TH AVENUE NW on 02/19/2023 1:20 PM. But by that point, he was gone. I dont fault them for trying. He was going to drive to Amarillo, Texas, and kill him. He was only on the force for three years, mostly focused on this one case. Investigators said Bill Henslee, the Norman police chief at the time, wanted to make sure this case didnt reflect poorly on him or the department. In the safe we found some more weapons, one of them was a sawed-off shotgun, which is illegal. He said the politics were too much, that true policing was impossible because of it. Ended up, I dont know how many days and nights we first worked on that, several, and now 48 years later, its terrible.. Now detectives believed themselves to be without any physical evidence. Badge was in a black holder. They spoke to an ex-girlfriend of Davids, who said they had sometimes went to the Ten-Mile Flats area after dates. The National Guard was called in to contain the crowd, and shots were fired when students wouldnt disperse. Maybe the war protesters from earlier that week had started rioting. A reporter there had a tip about someone on Normans police force. And now youve seen me.. WebCBS News Six people were killed in a series of shootings Friday in northwestern Mississippi, authorities said. I told him we hadnt. There arent families like that now, I dont think. Now you dont die right away from a wound in the lung unless there is a major artery hit. Gilley said he was not guilty. Recording of Linda: This was one of the weirdest things ever. They were spurred on by the initial evidence; the assault charge, Henslee hiring Gilley out of line with protocols and Gilley disappearing. Recording of Kayla: Can you speak about the relationship between Henslee and Gilley? Forty years ago, Gregory W. Canatis got into a fight with his father in their Midwest City apartment and killed him with a brand-new butcher knife. They take that very seriously because they testify to that in court as to who exactly has touched that piece of property, analyzed it, when it left to go to OSBI, when it returned. K: Many of the individuals named in our investigation died within 10 or 15 years of the case going to trial. I said my dad has been in Norman all day. We announced that we were going to go for the death penalty on those cases because of the circumstances. When we found Lindas phone number and reached out to her, she had reservations about telling her story to another set of reporters, but she became an invaluable source, sharing personal details from a family struck with tragedy. K: A few days in, the couples that identified Gilley in 1970 as the man who harassed them on Lovers Lanes told the grand jury Gilley had mentioned the murders of David and Sheryl to them when he approached their cars. The final episode explores the trial that took place 20 years after the murders and follows up with current law enforcement administrations on evidence and hiring protocols. In the coming months, detectives tailed Gilley as he went to work at his various odd jobs. WebNORMAN, Okla. Norman police on Thursday released the identities of two men who died in an apparent murder-suicide. K: We heard this again from Brake, who had a copy of the official police reports Ken filed the day they found the bodies. She would drive it to work, drive it to see her friends She loved life, she loves everything that everybody did, and she looked for that in people.. It was pretty tough. Gilley said he had never met Sloan. We got out there and the polygrapher is an old Texas Ranger, one of Hensleys buddies. Shortly afterward, he heard gunshots. K: The Norman Police Department also changed its evidence protocols, said Sarah Jensen, the public information officer for NPD. 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