Forensic advancem ents proved the un doing of Martin’s killer 27 years after her mutilated body was stuffed into th e closet of an abandoned No rth Tulsa apar tment complex . DNA match-typing was unavailable in 1975, but crime evidence was preserved. W hen police in El Cajon, Californ ia, arrested 64-year-old Clyde Carl Wilkerson in 2002 as a suspect in a years-long rape-a nd-murder rampage across th e nation, DNA nailed him to the Martin homicide. He plead ed guilty in 2004 and was sent enced to life in priso n. However, such a co nviction may not co mpletely satisfy a detective, who might think: “Af ter all these years, I finally got to see the face of the ‘apparition’ I had sought for so long. I was disappo inted in a way. Here was an old ma n in a wheelchair, turning feeble, not at all in appear ance the monster I expected.” The Rosenbaum an d Oakley investigati ons continue with Wilkerso n a prime suspect, but a detective’s anxiety rarely ebbs. Sometimes, it multiplies, as it did 14 years lat er, when three mo re Oklahoma women died violen tly in ways eerily sim ilar to the 1975 cases. On May 26, 1989, Ka thryn Cochran, 36 , known as Cuddly Bear on cit izens band radio, dis appeared while on a busines s trip to Tulsa repr esenting Oklahoma City’s Redboo k Floral Service. He r partially clad body, recovere d the next day, wa s discarded off a rural road ne ar Stroud. Evidenc e revealed she had been raped an d strangled. Her ve hicle had been abandoned in Tulsa in the Skaggs park ing lot at East 51st Street and Ha rvard Avenue. On Aug. 6, 1989, An gela Jean Monholl en, 23, mother of four child ren, did not show up for work at Tulsa’s Park Terrace Convalescent Cent er. City workers found her deco mposing body Aug. 14 in a weedy North Tulsa drainag e ditch. She had be en raped and strangled. Police fou nd her pickup on th e Gilcrease
“I lied,” he said, according to witness testimony. “I am going to kill you.”
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OKLAHOMA MAGAZINE | FEBRUARY 2018
Isaacs speculated Expressway. Police Detective Jerry r after she ran kille her red unte she may have enco out of gas and became stranded. emeister, 24, On Nov. 6, 1989, student Michelle Hag ege of OsColl lsa’s ty-Tu ersi Univ left Oklahoma State her Creek to e driv to p.m. 11:30 at icine teopathic Med rted repo ts oris County home. Around midnight, mot Farm ke Sna on ing burn her vehicle abandoned and ks later, police Road near Kiefer. Exactly three wee oma Lake. Police recovered her body floating in Sah ed, raped and app kidn concluded she had also been d. ngle – unsurprisingly – stra stigation The Oklahoma State Bureau of Inve police to ty coun and l icipa mun with ted coordina r. Their kille us terio mys identify and track down the