The OKC Butcher

In April of 1976, three men would wander into an abandoned building, which they soon discovered to be a house of horrors. Inside of the home were the dismembered remains of a young woman, who would become known as the first victim of a savage killer…

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On Thursday, April 1st, 1976, three oil workers from a drilling site in Oklahoma City were beginning to grow impatient. Gene Shores, Jimmy Bishop, and Decho Duke were employed by Standard Drilling Company and were waiting for a colleague of theirs to show up to direct them towards a worksite. Soon, their impatience began to turn into boredom, and they began looking around for something to occupy their time as they waited.

It was at around 3:00 PM when the three men decided to walk towards an abandoned house in the area: near the neighborhood of Research Park, right in the middle of OKC itself. The house - which had been abandoned a while ago - was located at 325 NE 6th Street (in the years since it has been razed and replaced by a modern apartment building). The three men approached the front door to the abandoned house but found it to be boarded shut. Two of the men would head to the back-door - which they found unlocked - while another slipped in through an external hole in the side of the house.

The three oil workers entered the home at around the same time, and were immediately hit with an overwhelming odor that they would later describe as the "scent of death." With the home full of junk and clutter, the two men that entered through the unlocked back door would trip on an item nearby, which they kicked off to the side, unaware of what it was. As they ventured in further, they would make a discovery that would shock even the most hardened detectives.

One of the men had been carrying a gardening ho, which he would use to poke and prod the clutter inside of the dilapidated house. One of the items, a popcorn bucket from a movie theater nearby, had been left near the back door; and this man used the gardening ho to knock it over. At that moment, an item unnaturally rolled out of the bucket, causing the three men to stir.

One of the oil workers thought that it was the head of a dog, but another corrected him: it was a human head. Later, when speaking to police, all three men would claim that they had a hard time recognizing the object as a human head because of how abused it looked.

The three men immediately fled the scene to get help and call authorities, but because of the date - April 1st (April Fool's Day) - nobody believed them. However, after the first officers arrived at the scene, they quickly discovered that this was no joke.

While the three men had stumbled upon a severed human head inside of the house, they had no idea that the rest of the female victim's body had been severed and spread around the abandoned property. Police would find the woman's arms, legs, and torso distributed throughout the house, which had fallen into squalor without an owner. It would even come to light that the object that two of the men had tripped on near the back door - which one of the men had instinctively kicked away - was the woman's thigh.

Intriguingly, though, the victim's sexual organs had been removed from her pelvic region and were missing from the crime scene. Police would never recover this, believing that the killer might have kept it as some kind of gruesome trophy - as he had likely done for one of her hands, which was similarly missing. Because police were only able to recover one of the victim's hands, that meant that the potential for matching fingerprints records was rather limited.

While investigators would originally speculate that the woman's body had been torn apart by scavenging dogs, that would be proven incorrect within days, when the autopsy revealed that the woman's body had been carefully cut by an unknown killer, opening up the door for homicide. According to the Oklahoma state medical examiner Dr. A. Jay Chapman, the victim had likely been killed before being cut apart, and - according to him - had been "dissected in an anatomically correct fashion."

While specific details about the woman's death would be withheld by investigators (such as her cause or manner of death), the autopsy would note that the victim had been deceased for approximately four weeks and that her face had been significantly mutilated. Whoever had committed this vile act had cut her face to increase the size of her smile, extending it from ear-to-ear.

A forensic sculptor from Norman, Oklahoma named Betty Pat Gatliff would be called in to make a facial reconstruction of the victim, which would be floated to law enforcement agencies all over the region over the next several months, but ultimately fail to find a match. The woman's name would be unknown for the better part of two decades.

Police speculated that this victim had been a white woman between 25 and 35 years old, who stood between 5' and 5'4" with brown hair. However, blood tests conducted weeks later revealed Native American ancestry and indicated a younger age than expected (18 - 22 years old). Subsequent dental and intestinal testing of the victim revealed that she had likely come from a lower economic background; leading investigators to speculate that she had been homeless at the time of her death, which also indicated some kind of involvement to sex work (based on the neighborhood where her body was found, which was an area known for prostitution).

This is the story of the OKC Butcher.

More than three years later - on another Thursday in April - a second grisly discovery would be made.

On April 19th, 1979, a group of kids were playing basketball in a park, along the 300 block of NE 10th Street. This was about half a mile north from where the original victim was found in 1976, but that was old news at this point; there had been virtually no coverage of that case since it happened.

One of the kids had a dog with them, who had disappeared briefly while they were playing. Moments later, the dog returned with something in its mouth. The dog had been dragging an oddly-shaped object into an alleyway near the basketball court, and when some of the kids ran off to see what it was, they discovered that it was a human head.

Police were called to the scene and found absolute chaos awaiting them. In addition to the victim's head - which had been severed from her body and then mutilated, just as the first victim had been - they would learn that similar discoveries were being made all over the neighborhood. Instead of the victim's body parts being found in one location, they had been distributed over several blocks; with some body parts being wrapped in newspaper and/or brown paper bags.

Police dogs were brought out to the location and led police to many of these discoveries, which would be made over the next day or two. Police would find numerous pieces of the obviously-female victim's body, which had been specifically cut into small portions of skin and tissue. Investigators would note that each piece of the victim's body had been specifically cut, and was remarkably absent of blood; with each piece having been methodically washed and cleaned by the killer before disposal.

Among the body parts discovered by police during this initial search were the victim's pelvis and left hand (the latter would help police identify the victim within days). Found nearby these body parts was a bloody shoe, which was believed to belong to the victim (and would later be confirmed through forensic testing).

Because the young woman had been so viciously butchered - and police had only been able to find select body parts - her identity would prove to be elusive over the first few days of this investigation. At this point, police only had recovered her left hand, part of her pelvis, select portions of flesh, and the victim's head; which, an autopsy would reveal, had been cut from the woman's body with a downward stroke from behind the victim's ears in the direction of the woman's torso.

Roughly one week later - on April 25th, 1979 - police in Oklahoma City would announce that they had identified the victim of this heinous crime.

Arley Bell Killian was a 22-year-old that lived in the area, who - unlike the first victim - was not believed to have been a missing person. Rather, she had been seen by her family just hours before her head was found in this area near downtown OKC.

Arley Killian, it turned out, had lived through an incredibly tough life before her death. Her father, Eddie Killian Jr., was a noted criminal who had abused Arley and her other loved ones over a prolonged period; which culminated in his brutal beating and rape of Arley at the age of 16. As a result of being sexually assaulted by her own father, Arley would end up diving headfirst into substance abuse, which only exacerbated her existing mental health issues. This would ultimately result in Arley becoming homeless just as she was entering adulthood.

Police had picked up Arley several times as a teenager for just walking through the streets of Oklahoma City, which is what she spent most of her time doing. Years later, she would fall prey to the dark world of sex trafficking but was never arrested for any "moral" crimes (meaning that her only police-related run-ins were substance abuse or vagrancy misdemeanors).

Despite police identifying the victim approximately one week after the discovery of her head, that didn't end the torment for Arley's loved ones, with the killer continuing to dispose of her remains for another week or so.

After making the original discovery of the victim's head, hand, and pelvis on April 19th, police would be called out to the area around the crime scene numerous times over the next two weeks, throughout the end of April. Each time, police would discover an additional piece of the victim's body; leading to the events of May 1st, 1979, in which the rest of Killian's body would be found in the 200 block of NE 7th Street. This was just a block or two away from where the original victim from 1976 had been found and seemed to confirm that the killer was familiar with this area, if not a permanent resident.

Not only did the recovery of the body indicate some familiarity with the area, but it also implied that the killer was following along with the case in the press. Investigators even began to speculate that the killer was just playing a game - with the disposal of the victim's body parts being his way of toying with police or attempting to make their job as hard as possible. One investigator even floated the idea that the killer enjoyed this aspect of the crime just as much - if not more - than the killing itself.

In the days after the identification of this victim, police would announce that they had arrested a man named Eugene Johnson in relation to this crime. Johnson, a man that lived along N. Walnut Avenue at the time, was held briefly for a mental evaluation, but police would insist that he was only being held as a material witness in this case, and wasn't a suspect. Shortly thereafter, Johnson would be released from custody and was seemingly cleared of any involvement.

While the first crime from 1976 had attracted a lot of media attention early on, it had quickly faded for a variety of reasons. Not only was the victim's identity still a mystery years later, but the circumstances of the case led to it being drowned out in the press. That was not the case with the murder of Arley Killian from 1979.

Early on, police had been able to identify the victim, and the recovery of her dismembered remains over a longer portion of time horrified the surrounding neighborhoods, with residents being made aware that a woman's severed body parts were being recovered from yards and alleyways. The mere prospect was terrifying.

Also, unlike in the first case, police would identify a couple of suspects very early on. One, Eugene Johnson - who I just mentioned - would be floated as a possible suspect in the days after the identification of Arley Killian, but would seemingly be cleared soon after. However, one more name would raise suspicion in the ensuing weeks, with a clear relation to Killian herself.

Perry Lee Killian was the brother of Arley Killian, who had conveniently escaped from a mental hospital the same day that his sister was killed, April 19th, 1979. Before being confined to a mental institution, Perry Killian had expressed a history of violent and bizarre behavior, which made him a prime suspect in this case.

In 1976 - the same year that the first victim had been killed - Perry had killed and butchered two of his grandmother's dogs with a hatchet. When police were called to the scene, Perry admitted to the offense and led the officers to some buckets, where he had placed the remains of the two dogs. He was immediately arrested that day, March 27th, which happened to be just a few days before the discovery of the first victim (in the abandoned house on 6th Street). At the time, Perry Killian had lived with his and Arley's grandmother on 17th Street, about 3 miles south, just across the Oklahoma River.

Perry would spend some time in a mental institution nearby but would find himself back out on the streets within a year. That led to another violent incident in 1978, in which he had attacked his grandmother with a knife; leading to him being sent to the mental hospital once again. Now, a year later - the same day that his sister, Arley, would be killed and dismembered - he would break out.

Perry Killian was apprehended by authorities on April 24th, 1979, just one day before police would identify his sister as the most recent victim of this savage killer. Immediately, he became a strong suspect in this case, and was subjected to hours of questioning; during which time, he was evaluated on several potentially-violent psychological issues.

While it seemed like Perry was too good of a suspect to be ignored, investigators began to doubt his involvement when additional pieces of the victim, Arley Killian, continued to be recovered throughout the area. Since Perry was in police custody at the time, he couldn't have been disposing of the body parts; especially since the majority of the victim's body was discovered on May 1st, in a generally busy part of downtown Oklahoma City. This implied that the body had just been dumped then, a week after his arrest, and it would have been impossible for Perry to arrange that from inside of a jail cell.

Additionally, when police tried to speak to Perry Killian, they discovered that he was largely incoherent, and seemed to be suffering from serious mental issues that would have made him an unlikely suspect. Similarly, there was no evidence linking him to the crime - physical or circumstantial - and he would eventually be cleared of involvement.

Over the next few years, the murder of Arley Bell Killian would remain unsolved, with police quickly running out of available leads and the public's interest turning elsewhere. However, in 1983, another suspect in this heinous crime would emerge in the form of Henry Lee Lucas, a convicted killer from Texas who would become linked to hundreds of crimes across America.

Lucas, who would become known as "The Confession Killer," notably committed a series of murders and violent assaults between the 1960s and early 1980s, but confessed to dozens of others over a prolonged time (likely to delay his pending execution). He had also conspired to commit crimes with another violent offender, Ottis Toole, and was believed to have committed more crimes than he originally admitted to.

After being arrested in Texas in 1983, Lucas began confessing to crimes all over the country. Among them, prominently, was the 1979 murder of Arley Killian from Oklahoma City; the graphic details of which had been shared among law enforcement agencies throughout the U.S. Over the next year, investigators from Oklahoma City would meet with Lucas on several occasions, interviewing him and hoping to gain more information about his potential involvement.

Over time, however, it would become clear that Henry Lee Lucas was attempting to confess to as many crimes as possible because it allowed him to escape the repetitive nature of prison and receive benefits that other inmates weren't receiving; coffee, cigarettes, and the ability to travel the nation, as well as the ability to cooperate with prosecutors, which could keep him alive after receiving a death penalty.

Eventually, Lucas would be discredited for most of the hundreds of crimes he had confessed to, which included the 1979 murder of Arley Killian. Journalists and authorities discovered that it would have been virtually impossible for Lucas to have committed the vast majority of the crimes he confessed to unless he had mastered the ability to be in two places at once (with many of the crimes he confessed to being committed at the same time as others hundreds or thousands of miles away). It would later be learned that Lucas had been allowed indiscriminate access to the case files of law enforcement, which supplied him with most of the information he gave out in his confessions.

Kyle Eastridge, a cold case Inspector for Oklahoma City, spoke to the Daily Oklahoman in 2008 and revealed that Lucas - who died in 2001 - was no longer viewed as a potential suspect:

"We do have a record of him being in Oklahoma City during his travels, but I... think this was someone who lived in the area, someone who knew the area pretty well. I mean, if you think about taking body parts and placing them around in public, you would almost have to be comfortable with the area you're in because that's something that's certainly going to draw attention if someone sees you."

Despite investigators spending a year or so investigating Henry Lee Lucas as the potential killer of Arley Killian, it would be confirmed just a few years later that he was undoubtedly not their guy... when the crime spree continued, while Lucas was rotting behind bars.

On Thursday, March 6th, 1986, a 62-year-old man named Albert Archie was walking through his backyard, at 501 NE 1st Street. This was less than a mile from where the first two bodies in this saga had been found, in the same general area, but nearly seven years after the last body had been found (Arley Killian, 1979).

Here, in the alleyway behind his house, Archie would make a gruesome discovery: not only would he find the dismembered upper torso of a woman, but a piece of her lower left leg and some other skin/tissue (which, like the second victim, had been methodically hacked from her body and then cleaned/rinsed so that it appeared bizarrely bloodless). All of these body parts were residing in the tall grass behind Archie's home, just feet away from each other, having seemingly been dumped there by persons unknown.

Police were called to the scene and began to suspect that - after nearly 7 years - their infamous butcher had returned once again. This crime scene seemed to share all of the same calling cards that had been seen back in 1979 when the remains of Arley Killian were disposed of throughout this same neighborhood.

This theory would seemingly be confirmed just a few days later - March 12th, 1986 - when a second grisly discovery was made. Just around the block, at 507 N. Lindsay Avenue, the head of this unknown female victim was found inside of a garbage bin, which had been intentionally set on fire. This discovery - just behind a garage, in another alleyway - revealed that the killer was disposing of his victim's body parts haphazardly, but likely wanted to draw attention to his crime; hence, the fire being started, which ended up burning off a significant portion of the victim's face.

Thankfully, police were able to quickly identify the third victim of this killer, due to two unique tattoos on her shoulders. The victim, 22-year-old Tina Marcia Sanders, had been seen just one day before her torso was found (March 5th, 1986), and was believed to have been a homeless woman with ties to sex work.

Within weeks of the discovery of this victim, police felt comfortable linking this crime to the other two; admitting publicly for the first time that one killer had been behind all three of these crimes.

While these three murders had taken place over an extended period of time, nearly an entire decade, investigators believed them to be linked. Not only did all three murders share some intense similarities - savagery that came in the form of brutal dismemberment and mutilation - but the victim profile seemed to be incredibly similar.

While the identity of the first victim would remain unknown for the time being, she seemed almost identical to the other two; not only in terms of physical size and stature but upbringing. At this point, investigators knew that all three were of Native American descent - that trait had been picked up from the first victim through blood tests, and confirmed through the identification of the 2nd and 3rd victims - and it would later be confirmed that all three had grown up in poor families and communities.

It was also believed that all three victims had been homeless at the time of their murders. Arley Killian and Tina Sanders, the two identified victims (at this point), had cut off contact with certain loved ones a short time before their deaths and seemed to have been living on the streets. It would even be alleged that the two known victims had been engaging in sex work at the time of their deaths, to make ends meet, and their bodies happened to have been discovered in an area of town known for soliciting prostitutes.

Because of these similarities, it was believed that all three victims had been intentionally targeted by the killer, who knew that them being homeless sex workers of Native American ancestry made them perfect victims.

All three victims had been similarly disfigured and dismembered, likely after their deaths (although police would never reveal a cause or manner of death for any). The bodies of the 2nd and 3rd victims (Arley Killian and Tina Sanders) had been intentionally scattered throughout the area - which, at the time, was a predominantly black neighborhood - while the severed body parts of the first victim had been found inside of an abandoned home. This seemed to be the exception to the case, as this set of remains had been discovered accidentally. The killer might have been considering disposing of her body parts in the same way that Killian and Sander's remains were distributed, but simply hadn't been given the chance. Either way, it's impossible to speculate without knowing the identity of the killer.

The 1st and 2nd victims had seemed to share a distinctive cut through their lower lip, which originally connected their cases, but it was revealed later on that all of the victims were missing body parts. While the majority of their bodies would be recovered, each of the victims was missing certain body parts, which included their sex organs. Out of all three bodies, it seems like these sex organs had been kept by the killer - potentially as some kind of trophy, or having been cut out in pure rage.

Because each of the victims had been surgically dissected by the killer after their deaths, investigators speculated that the killer might have been someone in the medical field (perhaps a surgeon or physician, potentially even someone from the nearby Oklahoma University Medical Center). However, it would later be proven that the process used to dismember the victims' bodies was anything but surgical; in fact, it has since been found that the method for cutting apart the bodies was rather crude, and could have feasibly been done by anyone with the proper equipment (no surgical expertise required).

Shortly after linking together all three crimes in 1986, police would commission the FBI to help create a psychological profile of this killer, which would aid investigators in their pursuit. While specific details of this profile have not been released to the public, investigators would reveal that this killer was likely a recluse with psychotic tendencies, who may have a history of mental illness.

John Douglas, the infamous criminal profiler that helped coin the term "serial killer," has created profiles for similar offenders in the past. With these profiles, we can surmise that the killer was likely a young loner with issues of self-identity, who likely had a particular hatred of women. This can be due to him catching a venereal disease from a woman, or enduring a particularly hostile upbringing with a female family member, but led to the killer adopting a deep-seeded hatred for women. Because of the violence perpetrated against these three women - and the withholding of their sex organs by the killer - we can surmise that this hatred is likely sex-related (hence, the violence being perpetrated against sex workers). And because the bodies of the three victims were found in relative proximity to one another, we can reason that the killer came from this area - or was incredibly familiar with the neighborhood.

Investigators would speculate that the killer might have been incarcerated at some point between the crimes; in particular, between the 2nd and 3rd murders, 1979 and 1986, which was a nearly-7-year-gap. This could also be explained by military service or some other cause that forced the culprit away from the region for extended periods. However, because of the sheer brutality witnessed during this crime spree, it was believed that the killer was undoubtedly responsible for other violent crimes or murders, which have not been linked to this spree in the decades since.

It wasn't until 1993 that the first known victim of this killer - whose remains had been found inside of an abandoned home in 1976 - was finally identified. Using DNA, police were able to confirm that the murdered woman was Cathy Lyn Shakelford, a member of the Sac and Fox Nation, whose family had been unsuccessfully looking for her for over 17 years.

This identification came after so many years because the cousin of the murdered woman, Andra Medina, had held off on calling the police for years at the urging of her own mother (who said that it wasn't her place to call on behalf of another family). But after both of Cathy's parents died - as did Andra's mother - she realized that the onus to find her cousin had fallen fully to her.

After not hearing from Cathy for so long, Andra had decided to call the police in Oklahoma City and got in touch with Sergeant Norma Adams; who, it's worth pointing out, remembered seeing the facial reconstruction of the victim from 1976, which had sat on her desk for several months in the 1970s. After learning that Cathy had gone missing just a short time before the discovery of this victim's body - and, just like her, had rather short fingers - Sgt. Adams began to put 2 and 2 together.

Soon, a tooth from the victim would be sent to a lab in Berkeley, California, where DNA was extracted from it and compared to a sample from Cathy's older sister. This would confirm the victim's identity as Cathy Lyn Shakelford. Her family was heartbroken to learn that she had been dead for so long - having received reports of potential sightings all over the country - but at least they now knew what had happened to her.

Like the other two victims, Cathy Lyn Shakelford was a runaway, who had left her family's home in June of 1975 at the age of 17. She would turn 18 about a month later, but would refuse to move back home; instead, living in the area of Oklahoma City, where she would live off of the grid (and eventually become homeless). Her last known sighting came roughly two months before her approximate time of death when she had been treated at OKC's University Hospital... but the time leading up to her death remained a complete mystery.

Andra Medina, Cathy's cousin, would later remark that Cathy was always smiling, which turns the sad irony of her death - and the mutilation of her face - into a horrifying reality. Perhaps the killer knew who she was before her murder, and wanted to extend her smile from ear-to-ear. To me, this implies some sense of familiarity, but it also could just be a coincidence.

In 2008, Andra would speak to reporters with the Daily Oklahoman, and remembered about her murdered cousin:

"He cut off her breasts and cut her mouth open. He scalped her. He cut from her female organs up and opened her up. That's what police said, anyway. And he cut her hands off, her arms off, her legs. Everything. So that was just kind of...

"That was hard to hear and imagine, but we just try to think that she's in a better place now. We try to think that way, but sometimes we wonder about who this was, who done this to her? Is this person alive?

"Is it somebody who's dead and gone already?

"We just want to know."

In 2007, a 52-year-old named Roderick Webster was arrested in Oklahoma City, alleged to have committed one of the most gruesome crimes in the state's history.

On March 22nd, 1989, 75-year-old Audrey Harris was murdered inside of her apartment in downtown Oklahoma City, which she shared with her common-law husband, 49-year-old Lloyd Ballentine. The crime was particularly brutal because the killer had cut open Harris with a knife, and then begun disemboweling her with his bare hands, pulling out several of her internal organs (as well as her sex organs) and then throwing them against the wall. However, because the injuries weren't immediately fatal, Audrey Harris would suffer a prolonged, painful death.

After the murder was reported, police began to suspect the victim's long-term love interest, Loyd Ballentine, who had been at the crime scene that night. When the victim was attacked, so was Ballentine; with him later claiming to have been knocked unconscious by the real killer. For more than a year, Ballentine would be the investigation's main suspect, spending more than a year in jail as a result, but being cleared of any suspicion.

Despite the killer leaving behind a large amount of evidence - including a bloody palm print, DNA evidence, and footprints from a very definitive type of shoe - police would be unable to track him down for quite some time. It wasn't until years later when multiple pieces of evidence were re-tested, that investigators began to narrow in on Roderick Webster.

Webster, who had been working as a nurse's aide in Oklahoma City at the time, was connected to the victim in at least one minor way: his stepfather happened to live right next door to Audrey Harris and Lloyd Ballentine, giving him at least some kind of familiarity with the area (and maybe even the victim). And while Webster had managed to avoid suspicion for several years, he did have a minor rap sheet, which involved crimes such as DUI, driving with a suspended license, and misdemeanor assault & battery.

Roughly two years after his arrest (2009), Roderick Webster would be found guilty of first-degree murder, with the jury choosing him to serve out a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. His fate was sealed when the jury was allowed to listen to the audio from his original police interrogation in 2007, in which he physically collapsed after being told that DNA evidence linked him to the murder of Audrey Harris from 1989. Afterward, Webster apologized for killing the woman, yet would deny involvement throughout his trial, when the physical evidence was presented with absolute certainty.

While Roderick Webster hasn't been linked to any other crimes from the era, he remains a possible candidate in this case. Not only was he an African American killer that lived in the area that these three bodies were found, but the brutality of his only known murder - the 1989 murder of Audrey Harris - shows that he was more than willing to butcher his victims. He seemed to show disdain for women, made apparent by the cutting out of Harris's sexual organs; and had medical expertise, having worked as a nurse's aide, which investigators had long speculated about this killer.

Despite Webster being a suitable candidate for this murder spree, there are also a couple of details that work against him. In particular, his only known murder involved him breaking into an apartment and then savagely murdering an elderly white woman inside. This would go against the established spree for many reasons - not only the change in victim selection but the escalation from committing crimes against vulnerable members of the population to attacking a couple inside of their own home. It just seemed like too huge of a jump for a killer like this to make, regardless of their savagery.

While Roderick Webster is as good of a suspect in this case as any I have found to-date, he has not been charged with any crimes related to this spree in the decade since his conviction.

Sadly, this case remains unsolved to this day, having grown cold almost as soon as these three crimes were originally reported. However, they are not alone.

Between 1979 and 1992 - the same time that this murder spree unfolded - the 3rd leading cause of death for Native American women was homicide. Today, Native women remain ten times more likely to be murdered than any other nationality of women and are much more likely to become victims of sexual assault than any other minority group. For that reason, I believe it's possible - if not likely - that this killer has more victims, whose deaths have gone unnoticed or unreported by the world-at-large.

Recent research has suggested that Native American women go missing twice: the first time, when they physically disappear, and the second time being when they disappear from the system. This disappearance is more permanent, as these victims end up becoming the unreported missing - also known as the "missing" missing - whose stories we don't even hear about.

Take, for example, the first victim of this saga: Cathy Lyn Shakelford, who was murdered back in 1976. While people knew that Cathy was missing, she was never reported missing with police and remained one of these unreported missing cases for nearly two decades. It wasn't until 1993 that family members contacted police and helped lead her case towards some kind of closure; with the murder investigation having grown cold back in the spring of 1976.

Another thing I noticed from her case is that several newspapers reported on the discovery of her remains when it was reported that she had been a white woman. But when blood tests revealed Native heritage, that reporting came to an immediate end. It's hard to see that and think that it's not a coincidence, especially since these crimes get swept under the rug today, more than 40 years later.

The three victims, in this case, have since been buried and laid to rest, but their killer remains unknown, having left behind no apparent sign of himself at any of their crime scenes. It's possible that he still lives there, in the area where these crimes were committed, but the once mostly-African American community built there has since been razed, rebuilt, and gentrified into a section of Oklahoma City's downtown. If the killer is still alive today, he's likely another city's problem... maybe even yours.

To-date, the stories of Cathy Lyn Shakelford, Arley Bell Killian, and Tina Marcia Sanders remain unresolved.

Episode Information

Writing, research, hosting, and production by Micheal Whelan

Published on on August 2nd, 2020

Producers: Maggyjames, Roberta Janson, Ben Krokum, Peggy Belarde, Quil Carter, Victoria Reid, Gabriella Bromley, Laura Hannan, Damion Moore, Amy Hampton, Steven Wilson, Scott Meesey, Marie Vanglund, Scott Patzold, Astrid Kneier, Lori Rodriguez, Aimee McGregor, Danny Williams, Sydney Scotton, Sara Moscaritolo, Sue Kirk, Thomas Ahearn, Seth Morgan, Marion Welsh, Patrick Laakso, Kelly Jo Hapgood, Alyssa Lawton, Jared Midwood, Travis Scsepko, Meadow Landry, Rebecca Miller, Tatum Bautista, Jo Wong, Erin Pyles, Teunia Elzinga, Consuelo Moreno, Jacinda B., Ryan Green, Stephanie Joyner, and Dawn Kellar