On Tuesday, May 5, the University of Oklahoma Student Association gathered hundreds of students to protest not only the war, but the actions of law enforcement in Ohio. The two stayed there for an unknown amount of time. I dont fault them for trying. K: He kept the Benhams updated on the case. Enhanced Cost of Living Calculator Now includes childcare, taxes, health, housing for home owners vs renters, insurance costs and more when you upgrade to premium. Gilleys parents testified he was at his home the night of the murders, but his former wife said she couldnt confirm where he was that night. Two years later, it seems like charges might be put against Gilley, but nothing is certain. She was outgoing and fun and their family was close. FOX23 spoke with survivors who are just grateful to be alive following Sundays EF-2 tornado that ripped through Norman at around 9:20 p.m. And theyre almost all headshots at that point. At the end of episode four, police called Frank Gilley at work and told him to hurry home. Sanchez and his wife lived at the Ann Branden Boulevard apartment until October 2018, according to investigators. On the way up, Mr. Gilley made several remarks to the Mexican, one remark was that he didnt like his face. At the end of episode four, police called Frank Gilley at work and told him to hurry home. She found the newspaper with the requested photo, but also found what led to the months long Daily investigation into that pair of murders. According to the Cleveland County Sheriff's Office, 30-year-old Austin Blake Godwin was booked into the Cleveland County jail early Wednesday, shortly after surrendering himself at the Norman A woman who was a clerk for NPD in 1970, said Gilley was in the office around 3:30 a.m. Sunday, within a few hours of the murders, and acted unusual. She told them he was home with her, but later recanted her statement, saying she didnt know exactly where he was. But as 1970 wore on, other facts started showing up that were strange, Jacobson told us, describing them as being too many coincidences to not be connected. Linda, Sheryls older sister by two years, stayed at their family home in Oklahoma City with her mom. If you see them, do not try and apprehend them yourself as they are most likely armed and dangerous. We were very close. He told me that he still keeps an eye out for talk of the murders, mentioning in particular a message board where he saw people talking about the case. There was a lot of talk about cover up from the chief of police back then and everything, so the whole thing just had kind of a bad smell to it I guess. Im Kayla Branch, and when we left off in episode one, the murders of David Sloan and Sheryl Benham had just happened after they left a fraternity party in Norman. Recording of Kayla: Why do you think that is? They took the weapons and tried to match them with some of the shell casings from the crime scene, but the tests came back without a ballistics match, Jacobson said. Recording of Ken: Henslee set it up and at that time, we werent sure if Henslee was for us or against us. He brought up the likelihood that Butch Green, his former partner who died a year after the murders, was the real potential suspect. Get to know their families and the rural Norman road that is just the beginning of the unsolved mystery. August Murders accounted for 1.5% of all violent crimes and 0.2% of reported index crimes. He showed us this information he had collected over the years. Come on home. So I hung up. K: We heard this again from Brake, who had a copy of the official police reports Ken filed the day they found the bodies. Henslee said he thought Gilley was the target of a hate plot and a smear campaign. And he told me, he said if I file a case like that, itll set law enforcement back 20 years in Oklahoma., Recording of Kayla: Now what does that mean? Pearo and his fellow investigators would drive to Dallas frequently, watching Gilleys house, following him to work, trying to put together enough evidence to arrest him. I think he just thought it was embarrassing to have the guy being investigated.. Now Im almost like, not mad, I dont wanna use that word but damn, I wish they had had DNA back then.. I dont think Henslee was convinced that Gilley had done it at that point. Grady. K: Eventually, Norman prosecutors declared they would be seeking the death penalty for Gilley due to the period of torture and terror David and Sheryl endured while being locked alive in the trunk. Splashed along the front pages of newspapers and TV station headlines were two words: not guilty. When officers are tipped off to start investigating Frank Gilley as a suspect in the double homicide of David Sloan and Sheryl Benham, the Norman police force splits into two groups working against each other. WebNORMAN, OKLAHOMA: The trial of a 45-year-old father, who allegedly molested and killed his daughter and then told the police that the 22-year-old accidentally shot herself, started Pearo retired in 2004 and moved to Florida where he spends time scuba diving. Mr. Gilley asked him another question and the boy answered it. Investigators told me that they started to hear rumors, that GIlley had an obsession with lovers lanes, just like the one where David and Sheryl were found. They checked his police car, finding that on an average night, he would drive well over 100 miles on patrol. Sarah Jensen, a spokeswoman for the Norman Police Department, said the investigation is active and ongoing. The call came from a TV station in Amarillo, Texas, a few days after the murders. He told me that if he asked Rick if I were a virgin and he told him I was and he asked me if I myself was and I told him no. Davids fraternity went out to search the field as well, but they didnt find anything helpful. whos who and what do I need to do to keep a job or to get that promotion. K: In the search warrant, officers claimed that Gilley likely still had possession of items from the crime scene, like Davids shoes and car keys, a scrapbook of newspaper articles and personal photos of the scene and possibly the murder weapon. He was found to not be involved with the case at all. SpotCrime crime details. K: Solorzano said protocols for handling evidence have become much more strict in the last 50 years, every step being documented in a complex computer program. A monthslong extradition fight began, ending in May 1991 with Gilley being brought to the Cleveland County jail. It was another disappointing end again.. Description: DISTURBANCE/DOMESTIC. Witnesses were dying, people were moving or losing track of them. It wasnt going to get any better.. Recording of Minty: his job was to cast some kind of doubt on the jurys mind about whether, you know, the validity of those claims. Brake lives in Oklahoma City, working part time as a public information officer for the OKC county commissioners office. They took in Sheryls ex-boyfriend for questioning. K: The lost evidence and the hiring of Gilley in the first place played major roles in the Benham-Sloan case, but so did the alleged obstruction by the various law enforcement agencies. But Frank, from the time David got out and it was apparent that he did recognize him, theyre both from Amarillo, I mean, what are the chances of that happening?. Christopher Sanders. Munoz told investigators he knew nothing about a dead body in the basement and gave them his consent to conduct a search. WebIn 2019, Oklahoma law enforcement reported 249 murders. WebNORMAN, Okla. Police have identified the two people killed in a double-homicide in Norman. About 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Oklahoma City, the Norman Police Department responded Sunday night to storm damage on the south and eastern sides of Norman. On the following Wednesday and Thursday, funerals were held. Recording of Ken: So we showed them photographs and they picked Gilley We ended up with seven couples, 14 kids, that picked Gilleys picture out that claimed this had happened to them on Lovers Lane.. The grand jury Sheryls father had requested would finally convene. We think David recognized him from that trial in Amarillo, Recording of Brake: Heres whats interesting about the autopsy report that told me at the time how I think it transpired. That was good enough for me to go after him with everything I had.. And if he did know, what did he think when investigators were first tipped off by an Amarillo reporter to look into Gilley as a possible suspect in the murders of Sheryl and Dave? Fraternity parties always being what they were, I suspect David had a few beers., Recording of Jacobson: They tell us David was a hot head and David said youre not the sheriff. Authorities found a 9mm handgun inside a trash can in the garage, according to an arrest warrant. Recording of Brake: Some friends told me that the man was Frank Gilley and that he hit me in the head with a flashlight. And my mother still to this day, Why did she give that to me? Was there a premonition, I dont know, no one will ever know.. The state Medical Examiners Office confirmed the body as that of Sandoval. We announced that we were going to go for the death penalty on those cases because of the circumstances. And now I can talk about it without breaking down and crying. So theres checks and balances to make sure the stuff isnt happening. Recording of Ken: But we jumped in the car in Oklahoma City and drove out to Lubbock, drove all night. He probably has a .22 pistol. He was working as a recent recruit to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation in 1970 and was assigned to the case full time. I think when he came back he stood back and fired a couple rounds in the side of the car to see if they were still in there and alive and he probably heard them oh please you know and he popped the trunk and started killing. You know they were sort of at least at peace, at least a little bit. Joshua Bookout. It was us that broke into your house and youre under arrest. So he started looking around and he looked at me and he said, Where are you from? and I said Norman, Oklahoma. And he said I thought so.. But he signed off on the search warrant.. They walked up and down the field, finding a few things more bullets, mostly. Recording of Linda: I thought, Ive seen you. They believe the incident started before Gilleys NPD shift started around midnight Saturday. Davids mom raised him and her other children on her own, according to Linda. Sloans was in Amarillo at the First Presbyterian Church that Wednesday. In addition to debris, there are cars with The OSBIs Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program and State Incident-Based Reporting System (SIBRS) are part of a nationwide, cooperative statistical effort They arrested a man who was picked up on the side of the road in a different town because someone reported him as having blood on his clothes. It was pretty tough. I was taken into his car and handcuffed to be taken to the jail, along with some of the other boys . I think when you ask around about other places or just other people that are in this profession when they talk about getting hired at Norman youll learn that our process is a lot harder and a lot more scrutinizing than a lot of places We still do psychological testing. The funnel was just one instance of severe weekend weather in various parts of the U.S. I asked him why and he relayed to me that when he was in Amarillo, he went and would bust the parkers up and make them get out of the car and harass them and then let them go. They didnt know anyone new was being hired. Who knows.. I think before when it was brought up, I still hurt so bad and my emotions. The Hippie Era was still blazing, but now, the kids coming of age had become increasingly politically active. WebHome / Select Cities / 2023 Comparing Bakersfield, CA vs. Norman, OK 2023 Compare Crime Rates: Bakersfield, CA vs Norman, OK Change Cities : Bakersfield, CA: Norman, OK: United States Violent Crime: 24: 14.7: 22.7 Property Crime: 60: 40.9: 35.4: The Crime Indices range from 1 (low crime) to 100 (high crime). Forty years ago, Gregory W. Canatis got into a fight with his father in their Midwest City apartment and killed him with a brand-new butcher knife. Police identified the murder suspect as Isis McMullen. When police got there, the crime scene had been swept clean. WebRT @dtblove05: Oklahoma University football team helping out one of their teammates clean up after a tornado destroyed his house in Norman, OK. 28 Feb 2023 01:09:39 I hope he died alone and a very painful death. The cloudy past of the man suspected for the murders is investigated in episode 3, as well as the beginnings of a cover-up, a retracted alibi and testimony from various couples who were also harassed on Lovers Lanes. They covered for one another and allowed scandals and corruption to be swept under the rug. Of course Gilley passed the polygraph and we didnt get to talk to him or anything.. According to newspaper articles in the Norman Transcript from that first week, David was set to graduate the upcoming December with a business administration degree and then be commissioned through the Naval ROTC. The family was polite and helpful after the murders, but wanted more than anything to just move on. Certain convictions you cant have to get hired at a police department. Two decades had gone by and the investigators werent going to gather much more than they already had, Ken Jacobson, the 1970s OSBI investigator, said. But one officer leaves just four days after the murders. No murder weapon, no footprints, no tire tracks. Were just, you just dont let it go. It was like, Hey look, that case will probably never go anywhere, so forget that one, you can look at the rest of them. .. On June 8, 1970, they had driven down to Norman It says Well we were on a dirt road and had pulled up toward the west to where the sun was going down.. On the last day of the pretrial, one of the most interesting pieces of evidence emerged, though it was never corroborated, when a new witness was called to the stand. You know You had this last so where is it?. They began surveillance on Gilley, finding out where he lived now, following him to work. I tell Judy, They found her! My mind was, Where could I go, what couldve happened? She drove me to Norman. He said his assault charges and even the call from the Amarillo TV station were retaliation for a contentious sheriff election in Amarillo in 1968, among other things, and that he was being used as a, quote, political football.. Four students were killed and nine others were wounded. I did not see the flashlight myself, but as he was shoving me out the door, my head hit the door. And then all of a sudden one day, he said he found it. K: Sheryls mom died in 1995 and her dad in 2001. Back to Brake reading Bodens statement: Recording of Brake: We watched it go down and when it was down, we were still there for a few minutes and a car drove by and I didnt see it but Rick did. Six: Why Gilley was allowed to resign days after the murders? Recording of Ken: There was just like half a dozen guys on the police department that would even talk to us. Maybe the war protesters from earlier that week had started rioting. According to articles, testimonies and interviews, Henslee was worried. Did you ever see Gilley with any type of badge other than the one he had? Norman violent crime is 14.7. K: From interviews, news articles and court documents, we were able to piece together an outline of that night. He told my mother, Then I remembered, I still got you, I still got Linda and I still got Steve. So he drove back home.. Henslee claimed that he had gotten a letter of recommendation from one of Gilleys old bosses, but OSBI agent Ken Jacobson said when case detectives asked him to show them the letter, he couldnt find it. He sent it to the Norman mayor, the DA and even Mike Brake, who still has an original copy. K: Jacobson left the OSBI almost a year later. 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