Did the unsolved Camp Scott Girl Scout Murders inspire Friday the 13th?

June 13, 1977. It wasn’t a Friday (it was early on a Monday morning) when the gruesome discovery at Camp Scott in Oklahoma was made. An unthinkable discovery really. One of the saddest I’ve learned about in a long time, which I did thanks to a comment author Priscilla Bettis left in response to the Check-In question on “Summer Spirit 2021: What is it and when does it start?”:

Haunted summer camps, that would fit your Summer Spirit series, too. Surely some of those campfire stories the counselors told us were based on actual events.

Priscilla got me thinking in a way I never had before. Not that she and I ever attended summer camp together (but it would’ve been cool if we had), but she made an interesting point. Was there any truth to any of those creepy campfire tales we’d heard? And what about horror movies like Friday the 13th or Sleepaway Camp? Had they been inspired by real events?

However, if there ever had been a murder at a summer camp, rumors of hauntings couldn’t be far behind.

I’d never wondered about any of that before. But she was right. What a perfect thing to research for the Summer Spirit series. I immediately set to work.

The Search for Haunted Summer Camps Begins

The first thing I thought of was the Portals to Hell “McCormick Farm” episode. True crime atrocities had been committed at that isolated ranch. People were killed and buried on the property. Except, while it was the first time Jack and Katrina had ever investigated a serial killer’s connection with the paranormal, it wasn’t a summer camp.

The next case that came to mind was more recent. In Norway on June 22, 2011, domestic terrorist Anders Behring Breivik first bombed Oslo before heading to an island where 600 teenagers were attending the Norwegian Labour Party’s AUF summer youth camp. He killed 77 campers and staff that day.

Which proves something I always say: real-life humans are way scarier than any fictional monsters. Jason Voorhees kills a lot of people in every Friday the 13th movie, but 77? And that’s not counting the eight people killed in the bombing or the over 200 injured by the blast. Nope. Even Jason has never wreaked that kind of havoc.

So I turned to where most of us head these days when we’re looking for answers: Google. That’s how I learned about the Camp Scott Girl Scout murders in Oklahoma.

The Camp Scott Girl Scout Murders

It was the first night of camp and excitement was in the air. Sleepaway camp, new friends, lots of activities.

A thunderstorm forced campers and counselors alike to huddle in their tents that first night, including Lori Lee Farmer, 8, Doris Denise Milner, 10, and Michele Heather Guse, 9, who all shared the same tent —and who would all meet the same fate.

As little girls are apt to do —whether there’s a thunderstorm or not, but especially during sleepovers— some were heard screaming during the night. Which was dismissed as the usual late-night shenanigans often heard at camp. No one went to check that it wasn’t anything else.

However, around 6 a.m. on June 13, 1977, they quickly discovered those screams were likely the last sounds Lori Lee, Michele, and Doris Denise would ever make.

A counselor spotted a sleeping bag on the trail as she headed to the showers to start her day. Except, as she drew nearer, to her horror she realized someone was inside. Someone who was no longer alive.

As those in charge quickly alerted authorities and rushed to check on the other campers, they discovered two more battered bodies in a tent. Both in their sleeping bags. Doris Denise had also been strangled. It was later determined all three girls had also been sexually assaulted.

The camp was evacuated as quickly as possible and campers were sent back home while a manhunt for the killer ensued.

Girl Scout Murders Clues and Suspects

Who would commit such a heinous crime? Why? And why those girls?

From the start, authorities were fairly sure it wasn’t a targeted crime, but one of convenience. The girls’ tent was on the end, about 50 to 75 feet from the next nearest tent, and was partially obscured by the showers.

There were several clues left behind at the crime scene, though, including a flashlight, a fingerprint, a shoe print belonging to a tennis shoe, and blood that wasn’t all from the girls.

The fingerprint was the most helpful. It was alleged to belong to Gene Leroy Hart, an escaped convicted felon. Although some newspapers reported what was thought to be a fingerprint later turned out not to be so there’s some conflicting information on this.

At any rate, police set their sights on Hart. He seemed a likely suspect. He’d been convicted of kidnapping and raping two Tulsa women but had escaped from the Mayes County Jail in 1973 shortly after he’d arrived. He’d been on the loose ever since.

He’d grown up about a mile from the camp and was suspected of being in the area. Especially after a search found a cave with some items believed to belong to Hart that he’d made while in jail.

But not everyone was convinced he was the killer. Because of the tennis shoe print, some Locust Grove locals believed police were making Hart a scapegoat. (Locust Grove was the area where Camp Scott was.)

As one unnamed resident was quoted as saying in a Daily News article from Feb. 12, 1978, “No woodsman in his right mind would cut across country in a pair of tennis shoes. About the meanest s.o.b. around here will tell you that he won’t go into the woods around this time of year unless maybe he’s horseback. You can step into a whole bed of copperheads in any pile of leaves.”

Hart was eventually tracked to an isolated cabin in the woods about 50 miles from Camp Scott. He was arrested on Thursday, Apr. 6, 1978.

Who killed the Girl Scouts?

To this day no one knows for sure who killed Lori Lee, Doris Denise, and Michele. Was it Gene Leroy Hart? Thanks to his past, one can see why it’s likely. And if a fingerprint really was found at the scene and it really belonged to him, who else could it be?

But what about the shoe print? None of the newspaper articles I read mentioned his shoe size. Was it 9.5 like the one that matched the footprint in the girls’ tent?

If so, that would add to the convincing, albeit circumstantial, evidence. But if not…

Also, there’s the matter of the mysterious note and the empty donut box. Before camp officially got going, one of the counselors had a box of donuts in her backpack. When she went to get them, she found someone had taken the donuts but left a note in the box. An ominous anonymous one that threatened to kill counselors in a certain tent.

Camp leaders looked into it but decided it was just a sick prank. I only found one mention of it. If it was part of the case after that, it didn’t make the papers.

Sounds like the premise for a horror movie franchise, doesn’t it? The prime suspect turns out not to be the killer after all. Or is caught, killed, and somehow resurrected.

Speaking of resurrections, let’s talk about the seemingly immortal Jason and if the Camp Scott Girl Scout murders inspired Friday the 13th the movie.

Was Friday the 13th inspired by a true story?

The Sun reported that “the creators of Friday The 13th have previously said the series was not based on a true story.”

However, they also pointed out similarities between the movie and an unsolved massacre at Lake Bodom in Finland. Which is actually a little bit of a stretch, but yes. It does involve Friday the 13th-esque aspects.

On Jun. 5, 1960, 15-year-old Irmeli Björklund and her friend, Tuulikki Mäki, also 15, were camping at the lake with their 18-year-old boyfriends, Seppo Boisman and Nils Gustafsson. During the night an unknown attacker stabbed the girls and Boisman, killing them all. Gustafsson was found unconscious with a concussion and a fractured jaw.

Neither the murder weapon nor the killer was ever found.

However, decades later, in 2004, Gustafsson was arrested for the murders and put on trial. All because upon reevaluating the case, prosecutors decided a particular piece of evidence at the scene made no sense and therefore implicated Gustafsson as the killer. It had to do with shoes. Everyone’s shoes were found hidden in some bushes but all except Gustafsson’s had their blood on them.

Prosecutors alleged Gustafsson had been drunk, got in a fight with Boisman and that’s how his jaw was got broken. That must have ignited his fury and in a drunken rage he killed everyone.

The jury didn’t buy the argument and acquitted Gustafsson.

Camp Scott Girl Scout Murders Headlines

Here are some of the headlines I came across while researching the Camp Scott Girl Scout Murders:

Check-In

Had you ever heard of the Camp Scott Girl Scout or the Lake Bodom murders?