Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders - Aftermath

Aftermath

Camp Scott was evacuated and was later shut down.

Gene Leroy Hart, a Cherokee, was arrested within a year at the home of a Cherokee medicine man and tried in March, 1979. Although the local sheriff pronounced himself "one thousand percent" certain the man on trial committed the crimes, a local jury acquitted Hart.

Two of the families later sued the Magic Empire Council and its insurer in a $5 million alleged negligence action. The civil trial included discussion of the threatening note as well as the fact that tent #8 lay 86 yards (79 m) from the counselors' tent. The defense suggested that the future of summer camping in general hung in the balance. In 1985, by a 9–3 vote, jurors sided with the camp.

By this time, Hart was already dead. As a convicted rapist and jail escapee, he still had 305 of his 308 years left to serve in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. On June 4, 1979, he collapsed and died after about an hour of lifting weights and jogging in the prison exercise yard. An autopsy report concluded the 35-year-old Hart died of a heart attack (acute cardiac dysfunction).

Richard Guse, the father of one of the victims, went on to help the state legislature pass the Oklahoma Victim's Bill of Rights. Guse also helped found and then chaired the Oklahoma Crime Victims' Compensation Board, which would later gain prominence for its "Murrah Fund" in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing.

Another parent, Sheri Farmer, went on to found the Oklahoma chapter of the Parents of Murdered Children support group.