Kristin Chenoweth shares haunting connection to Girl Scout murders reexamined in new Hulu series

ByLisa Respers France, CNN, CNNWire
Thursday, May 19, 2022
Kristin Chenoweth arrives at the AFI Awards Luncheon on Friday, March 11, 2022, at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif.
AP-AP

Kristin Chenoweth believes getting sick may have saved her life when she was a child.

In the trailer for the docuseries "Keeper of the Ashes: The Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders," the Tony-winning actress has revealed that she was scheduled to be on a camping trip during which three of her Girl Scout friends were sexually assaulted and murdered in 1977.

"This is a story I wish I never had to tell," Chenoweth says in the trailer. "It haunts me every day."

Chenoweth returned to her home state to participate in reexamining the murders of Lori Lee Farmer, 8, Michele Heather Guse, 9, and Doris Denise Milner, 10, at Camp Scott near Locust Grove, Oklahoma.

In the trailer, the actress explains how much she loved going to camp as a Girl Scout and how she saw the troop members as her "sisters."

"I never once thought anything bad could happen," she says. "But I came to learn what murder was."

Police arrested a local man, Gene Leroy Hart, and charged him with the crimes.

According to an article from the St. Petersburg Times, Hart was acquitted of the charges, but was returned to prison to continue serving sentences for rape, kidnapping and burglary stemming from other prior convictions.

He reportedly died in prison in 1979.

The docuseries will include an investigation of DNA collected from the crime scene in an attempt to definitively determine the identity of the murderer.

"There's no closure," Chenoweth says. "There's no pretty red bow at the end."

"Keeper of the Ashes: The Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders" premieres May 24 on Hulu, which is owned by Disney, the same parent company as this ABC station.

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