Broadway star Kristin Chenoweth is revealing for the first time just how close she came to being just another victim in the brutal 1977 murder of three girls at an Oklahoma Girl Scout camp.
“This is a story I wish I never had to tell, but it needs to be told,” Chenoweth posted on Instagram, sharing the trailer of the upcoming four-part documentary “Keeper of the Ashes: The Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders.” The series was produced for ABC News Studios and will premiere on Hulu on May 24.
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“The four-part docuseries, which premieres May 24 on Hulu, explores the killings of Lori Lee Farmer, 8, Michele Heather Guse, 9, and Doris Denise Milner, 10, during a June 1977 Girl Scouts trip to Camp Scott,” People reported.
The three girls were put in the same tent — the furthest one from the counselors – but several noises throughout the night brought Counselor Carla Wilhite out of her own tent to investigate. Most of the disruptions were caused by giggling campers, up late because they were enjoying their first night away from home. However, one camper reported hearing a scream during the night — and another said that she had heard someone crying for her mother.
Wilhite said that she heard a low, “guttural” sound several times, but that it had stopped when she waved her flashlight toward the surrounding woods — and because she never saw anything moving, she said she had just assumed that it had been an animal.
But the next morning, all three girls were found dead in their sleeping bags, and the medical examiner said that they had been sexually molested but not raped. Camp Scott was closed that morning, and it never reopened.
“I remember I should have been on that trip, but I had gotten sick, and mom said, ‘You can’t go. It stuck with me my whole life. I could have been one of them,” Chenoweth said.
The “Wicked” star added, “When I think of those three girls, I wonder what’s the best way to honor them. That’s why I’d come back home, to find answers once and for all.”
The four-part docuseries follows investigators as they use new technology to investigate the case — technology that was not available at the time of the murders. It also includes new interviews with the families of the victims, a camp counselor, and the sheriff who reopened the case.
Mayes County Sheriff Mike Reed recently released DNA results linking escaped convict Gene Leroy Hart to the crime. Even though Hart was acquitted in 1979, Reed said that he believes he was connected in some way.
“Unless something new comes up, something brought to light we are not aware of, I am convinced where I’m sitting of Hart’s guilt and involvement in this case,” Reed said. Hart died in prison in 1979, serving time for unrelated charges.