Hi Park enthusiasts, I'm your host, Dilya DeAmbera.

And the story I have for you today takes place in Platt National Park near the town of Sulfer, Oklahoma.

Today the park is known as Chickasaw National Recreational Area, because according to MPR, its National Park status was dissolved in 1976.

In 1975, though, when this crime happened, it was called Platt National Park, and at the time it was the smallest existing National Park in the United States.

What the area lacks in size and makes up for with charm, it has more than 20 miles of trails that connect swimming holes and streams.

Key features include protected freshwater and mineral springs, and it's known for having babbling brooks instead of raging rivers, as well as rolling hills in lieu of rugged mountains.

The mild landscape makes it accessible to a lot of different kinds of visitors, experienced hikers, walkers, joggers, etc.

In the 1970s, because it was so accessible and pretty tranquil, it drew local teenagers who often used it to take the long way home from a local grocery store or school.

In June 1975, that's what two young women were doing. They were walking together on a trail inside the park, when they arrived at a fork, when went to the left and went to the right.

As they waved goodbye, there was no way they could have known that only one of them would make it home alive.

It didn't take long for authorities to learn the gruesome outcome of one girl's fate, but pinpointing a suspect took a bit more time.

The pool of strangers law enforcement had to interview was vast, thanks to the carnival being in town.

This is Park Predators.

At 5.45pm on Monday June 2nd, 1975, a man named Terry Johnson, who worked as a reverend, was out for an early evening hike in Platnational Park.

Terry was visiting with a group of young men from his congregation, and as they were walking, he noticed a small bag at the edge of the gravel trail they were walking on.

Now ordinarily, this bag wouldn't be that strange to see, because all too often random items of trash would just show up on the park's trails.

Likely because people just didn't have a conscience about littering, but for some reason, this bag caught Terry's eye.

It was sitting off to the side of the trail in the direction towards a popular natural spring called Pavilion Springs, which was in the west central part of the park, really close to where you would exit the park and enter into the town of sulfur.

Terry's eyes scanned around the bag to see if there was anything else nearby it, or to see if anyone who may have been walking ahead of them had dropped it.

But he didn't see anyone right away.

Like I said, it was about 5.45 in the evening, and based on later accounts, it seems as though the park had already begun to empty out at this point.

Just as he was about to forget about the bag and move on, Terry noticed a man on a bike kind of booking it out of the area.

...