Chapter 1: What case does Delia D'Ambra introduce in this episode?
Hi everyone, it's Delia D'Ambra here, and I want to tell you about a podcast that's one of my personal favorites that I know you're going to love, too. Dark Down East. Hosted by my friend and fellow investigative journalist Kylie Lowe, Dark Down East dives into New England's most haunting true crime cases.
From unsolved mysteries to stories where justice has been served, Kylie brings her meticulous research and heartfelt storytelling to uncover the truth behind these cases. If you love the way I take you deep into the details of a case, then I know you'll appreciate Kylie's dedication to honoring the victims and uncovering their stories.
There are so many episodes of Dark Down East already waiting for you and new episodes every Thursday. Find Dark Down East now wherever you listen to podcasts. Hi, park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Delia D'Ambra. And the case I'm going to share with you today came to me in the most unique way.
A man named Sean reached out to me last year asking if I'd consider looking into the 1975 murder of his mom's best friend in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I, of course, got right on it, and when I interviewed his mom, I knew I was never going to be able to put this case down. The brutal killing of 24-year-old Suzanne Oakley in Tulsa's River Parks trail system stopped me in my tracks.
mostly because it's got so many twists and turns. And in many ways, she represents a lot of people who I know listen to this show, people whose circumstances have brought them for one reason or another to live in an urban environment, but who are drawn towards green spaces to escape the buzz of city life. And Tulsa's River Parks trail system offers that.
According to the websites visittulsa.com and riverparks.org, there are 26 miles of paved trails that run along the Arkansas River. These paths take you by sculptures, picnic areas, wildlife habitats, playgrounds, and fountains. It's a place known for hosting concerts, cycling and running competitions, festivals, and so much more.
Which is why it's so mind-boggling to know that someone managed to commit a heinous crime there, on a weekday morning, without a soul seeing them. This is Park Predators.
Park Predators so so
Around 8.15 a.m. on Wednesday, August 27th, 1975, a woman named Jean Winfrey was inside her office at the Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission, watching the clock like a hawk. Jean was expecting company that evening and planned to take off from work around noon so she could get ready and meet up with her friends for dinner.
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Chapter 2: Who was Suzanne Oakley and what happened to her?
They were office mates and about the same age, which is why they became such fast friends. According to Jean, as she'd gotten to know Suzanne, she'd learned bits and pieces of her background and life prior to moving to Oklahoma. And from what Jean gathered, it wasn't very rosy.
She told me during our interview that Suzanne seemingly had a rough upbringing in Texas, and she suspected that Suzanne's recent radical conversion to Christianity was likely birthed from those experiences, or even prior issues from a possible substance use disorder. Jean never really got the full story because she said Suzanne didn't like to dwell on her past.
She just always said she was a new creation and had overcome stuff from her early college years. Jean said that Suzanne told her that while living in Texas, she'd found God after a particularly rough night at a party in which she'd blacked out and woken up without shoes on. While walking home, Suzanne said she'd heard music coming from a local church and went inside.
During the service, she decided to become a Christian and completely change her life. Not long after that, she moved to Oklahoma and enrolled in Oral Roberts University, which is a religious college. She graduated from that school in May of 1973 and taken a job with the Planning Commission.
Her degree was in social work, which came in handy because her and Jean were what the commission designated as citizen liaisons. which meant they'd go out into the community several times a week and meet with citizen groups to discuss what residents wanted to see as far as long-term services with trash and roadways, parks, zoning, and so on.
When Suzanne was killed, she and Gene had been working on a big project called Vision 2000, which aimed to iron out what Tulsa would look like in the next 25 years. Of the city's 15 planning districts, Suzanne was a citizen liaison to five of them.
Jean told me that one of the reasons Suzanne was so dedicated to going on runs most mornings was because while attending Oral Roberts University, she'd been required to exercise on a regular basis, and after graduating, she'd just continued the habit to stay fit. She'd also gone on a missions trip to Israel earlier that year, and part of preparing for that was to run regularly.
According to my interview with Jean and a book about this case titled Homicide, which was written by retired Tulsa homicide detective Charles Sasser, Suzanne was found in a late afternoon on Wednesday the 27th by a group of men from her church, Tulsa Christian Fellowship. One of those men was named Charles Farah, and he pastored Suzanne's church.
Another member of the search party was a guy named Arthur, who was an ordained minister and professor at Suzanne's alma mater, Oral Roberts University. Arthur was also the leader of a Christian discipleship program that Suzanne and her roommates were members of.
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Chapter 3: What were the circumstances surrounding Suzanne's disappearance?
It was also later reported that Geraldine's purse and checkbook had been stolen when she was killed. Shortly after her abduction, it was found tossed along an expressway. Someone had cashed one of her checks and tried to use one of her credit cards. There were also witnesses who'd helped police develop a composite sketch in her case.
But regardless of the differences in the crimes, authorities had to at least consider the possibility that all of the victims' killers could be one and the same. Detectives spent months interviewing the usual suspects, peeping toms, parolees, felons who'd committed sex crimes. But one by one, those folks were eliminated.
Detective Sasser wrote in his book that as more and more time passed, each victim's case file grew larger and larger. The hundreds of pages of paperwork included investigators' notes, pictures of possible suspects, and interview summaries. Initially, like the other murders had, Suzanne's case garnered a lot of media attention.
The fact that she'd been killed in a public place that so many people used on a regular basis was shocking. He told Tulsa World in part, quote, End quote. It wasn't until mid-October 1975, nearly two months into Suzanne's murder investigation, that authorities got their next big lead.
The Associated Press reported that authorities learned of a 25-year-old man who'd threatened a woman over the phone that he would essentially do to her what he'd done to Suzanne. Now, that tip obviously got the police's attention, but when they questioned the guy for several hours, they determined he likely wasn't involved.
Details are few about who this man was or why he'd allegedly made such a statement, but regardless, police moved on. In mid-February 1976, they arrested another guy who they suspected could be involved in Suzanne's death, as well as Geraldine Martin's murder, but just over 24 hours after taking that man into custody, he was released. After that, all of the cases stalled.
The next time the victim's stories made headlines again was in early 1977, when yet another young woman in Tulsa was brutally murdered and discarded in an outdoor space. The longer a case goes unsolved, the quieter it can become. On Park Predators, I've reported on crimes that happened years, sometimes even decades ago.
And I'm always aware that for the families involved, time doesn't always make it easier. That's one of the reasons I listened to the deck. Host Ashley Flowers focuses on cold cases featured on official law enforcement playing cards. Each episode brings renewed focus to someone who hasn't received justice. yet. You can listen to The Deck wherever you get your podcasts.
According to coverage by Tulsa World and the Amarillo Globe Times, on Saturday, January 15th, 1977, within two years of Suzanne Marie and Geraldine's murders, two hunters who were walking along Polecat Creek, a tributary of the Arkansas River outside of Tulsa, stumbled upon the nude body of a woman.
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Chapter 4: How did the police respond to Suzanne's missing persons report?
But apparently he didn't because when detectives visited the address, a guy who answered the door informed detectives that he wasn't the man whose name was on the envelope. He'd just been receiving mail for that guy, so it seems the mystery man was just a former tenant.
Anyway, by mid-March 1977, two months into the investigation, authorities admitted that most of their leads had been exhausted and the case was at a standstill. They learned from Bernice's neighbors that she may have argued with a man at her apartment on the night she was killed, but who that guy was or any information beyond neighbors just overhearing an argument was murky.
Bernice's family took her death extremely hard. Her mother, Lisa, was a board member of the Amarillo, Texas Raid Crisis Center, and prior to the crime was personally responsible for getting that nonprofit up and running. She told the Canyon News, quote, for me to be a board member of the crisis center and an initial member, and it was no insurance, end quote.
Lisa went on to explain to the newspaper that she and Bernice had previously talked about what sorts of resources would be available to her if she ever were to become a victim of sexual assault. And she said her daughter knew where to turn to if such a scenario occurred.
But Bernice had always told her mom that even if she were to be sexually assaulted, she did not think she'd be killed because of it. In that same article, Bernice's father, Alvin, said it was devastating to know that his daughter had not survived the quote-unquote jungle. He explained that he didn't want to have to live in a society where he couldn't trust people.
Lisa later emphasized the gist of his point when she said, quote, End quote. In April of 1977, about a month after giving those interviews, the couple offered up $5,000 of their own money to try and entice someone with information to come forward. But the reward fund didn't help things, and the case continued to languish.
Shortly after the one-year anniversary of Bernice's murder, her father publicly criticized the two investigating agencies in charge of her case for not doing enough to solve it. He claimed that both counties' approach to things had been to push off tasks to one another instead of detectives trying to work together to follow up on leads.
Alvin told the Canyon News that every time he tried to give investigators credible information to follow up on, they ignored it or didn't return his phone calls. By December 1979, Tulsa law enforcement had three more murders of a teenage girl and young women on their hands.
And at that point, they had no choice but to create a task force to examine each killing to figure out if the cases were somehow connected.
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