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The rolling hills of southeast Oklahoma stretch from Norman across to Arkansas and show little evidence of the vast deposits of crude oil that were once beneath thes dot the countryside; the active ones churn on, pu a passerby to ask if the effort is really worth it Many have si reushers and wildcatters and instant fortunes

There are rigs scattered through the farmland around Ada, an old oil town of sixteen thousand with a college and a county courthouse The rigs are idle, though-the oil is gone Money is now made in Ada by the hour in factories and feed mills and on pecan farms

Don Ada is a busy place There are no es on Main Street The h e of town The cafes are crowded at lunch

The Pontotoc County Courthouse is old and cramped and full of lawyers and their clients Around it is the usual hodgepodge of county buildings and law offices The jail, a squat, less bootten reason built on the courthouse lawn The e keeps it full

Main Street ends at the campus of East Central University, home to four thousand students, many of them commuters The school pu people and a faculty that adds some diversity to southeastern Oklahoma

Few things escape the attention of the Ada Evening News, a lively daily that covers the region and works hard to coest paper There's usually world and national news on the front page, then state and regional, then the ih school sports, local politics, community calendars, and obituaries

The people of Ada and Pontotoc County are a pleasant blend of small-town southerners and independent westerners The accent could be fro vowels It's Chickasaw country Oklahoma has more Native Americans than any other state, and after a hundred years of e

The Bible Belt runs hard through Ada The town has fifty churches from a dozen strains of Christianity They are active places, and not just on Sundays There is one Catholic church, and one for the Episcopalians, but no teue Most folks are Christians, or clai to a church is rather expected A person's social status is often deterious affiliation

With sixteen thousand people, Ada is considered large for rural Oklahoma, and it attracts factories and discount stores Workers and shoppers hty miles south and east of Oklahoma City, and three hours north of Dallas Everybody knows so in Texas

The biggest source of local pride is the quarter-horse "bidness" Some of the best horses are bred by Ada ranchers And when the Ada High Cougars win another state title in football, the town struts for years

It's a friendly place, filled with people who speak to strangers and always to each other and are anxious to help anyone in need Kids play on shaded front lawns Doors are left open during the day Teenagers cruise through the night causing little trouble

Had it not been for two notorious one unnoticed by the world And that would have been just fine with the good folks of Pontotoc County

As if by sohtclubs and watering holes in Ada were on the periphery of the town, banished to the edges to keep the riffraff and their ht was one such place, a cavernous , cheap beer, jukeboxes, a weekend band, a dance floor, and outside a sprawling gravel parking lot where dusty pickups greatly outnuulars hat you would expect-factory workers looking for a drink before heading hos, and the dance and party crowd there to listen to live h early in their careers

It was a popular and busy place, e many part-time bartenders and bouncers and cocktail waitresses One was Debbie Carter, a twenty-one-year-old local girl who'd graduated fro the single life She held two other part-time jobs and also worked occasionally as a babysitter Debbie had her own car and lived by herself in a three-roohth Street, near East Central University She was a pretty girl, darkhaired, slender, athletic, popular with the boys, and very independent

Hertoo ht and other clubs She had not raised her daughter to live such a life; in fact, Debbie had been raised in the church After high school, though, she began partying and keeping later hours Peggy objected and they fought occasionally over the new lifestyle Debbie became determined to have her independence She found an apartment, left home, but remained very close to her mother

On the night of Dece drinks and watching the clock It was a slow night, and she asked her boss if she could go offduty and hang out with so at a table having a drink with Gina Vietta, a close friend froh school, Glen Gore, stopped by and asked Debbie to dance She did, but halfway through the song she suddenly stopped and angrily walked away from Gore Later, in the ladies' rest-rooirlfriends would spend the night at her place, but she did not say orried her

The Coachlight began closing early, around 12:30 aroup to have another drink at her apartry and just wanted to go home They drifted out of the club, in no particular hurry

Several people saw Debbie in the parking lot chatting with Glen Gore as the Coachlight was shutting down Tommy Glover knew Debbie well because he worked with her at a local glass co in his pickup truck to leave, he saw Debbie open the driver's door of her car Gore appeared from nowhere, they talked for a few seconds, then she pushed him away

Mike and Terri Carpenter both worked at the Coachlight, he as a bouncer, she as a waitress As they alking to their car, they passed Debbie's She was in the driver's seat, talking to Glen Gore, as standing beside her door The Carpenters waved good-bye and kept walking A month earlier Debbie had told Mike that she was afraid of Gore because of his temper

Toni Rairl The oil business was still boo in Oklaho worn around Ada Someone had to shine them, and Toni picked up soht, she saw Debbie sitting behind the wheel of her car Gore was on the passenger's side, crouching by the open door, outside the car They were talking in what see

Gore, who didn't own a car, had buht with an acquaintance na there around 11:30 West ordered beers and settled in to relax while Gore made the rounds He seerabbed Gore and asked him if he still needed a ride Yes, Gore said, so West went to the parking lot and waited for hiot in

They decided they were hungry, so West drove to a don cafe called the Waffler, where they ordered a quick breakfast West paid for the ht He had started the night at Harold's, another club where he'd gone looking for some business associates Instead, he bumped into Gore, orked there as an occasional bartender and disc jockey The two hardly knew each other, but when Gore asked for a ride to the Coachlight, West couldn't say no

West was a happily hters and didn't routinely keep late hours in bars He wanted to go ho more expensive by the hour When they left the cafe, West asked his passenger where he wanted to go To his mother's house, Gore said, on Oak Street, just a few blocks to the north West knew the toell and headed that way, but before they ed hisaround with West for several hours, Gore wanted to walk The te, with a raind A cold front wasin

They stopped near the Oak Avenue Baptist Church, not far from where Gore said his , and began walking west The Oak Avenue Baptist Church was about a mile from Debbie Carter's apartment Gore's mother actually lived on the other side of town, nowhere near the church Around 2:30 am, Gina Vietta was in her apartment with some friends when she received two unusual phone calls, both from Debbie Carter In the first call, Debbie asked Gina to drive over and pick her up because so her feel uncomfortable Gina asked who it as there? The conversation was cut short by le over the use of the phone

Gina was rightfully worried and thought the request strange Debbie had her own car, a 1975 Oldsmobile, and could certainly drive herself anywhere As Gina was hurriedly leaving her apart that she had changed her ain asked who the visitor was, but Debbie changed the subject and would not give his na, to wake her so she wouldn't be late for work It was an odd request, one Debbie had never made before

Gina started to drive over anyway, but had second thoughts She had guests in her apartment It was very late Debbie Carter could take care of herself, and besides, if she had a guy in her rooot to call Debbie a few hours later

Around 11:00 am on December 8, Donna Johnson stopped by to say hello to Debbie The two had been close in high school before Donna moved to Shawnee, an hour away She was in town for the day to see her parents and catch up with some friends As she bounced up the narrow outdoor staircase to Debbie's garage apart on broken glass The smallin the door was broken For soht was that Debbie had locked her keys inside and been forced to break ato get in Donna knocked on the door There was no answer

Then she heard music from a radio inside When she turned the knob, she realized the door was not locked One step inside, and she knew so

The small den was a wreck-sofa cushions thrown on the floor, clothing scattered about Across the wall to the right someone had scrawled, with some type of reddish liquid, the words "Jim Smith next will die"

Donna yelled Debbie's name; no response She had been in the apartment once before, so shefor her friend The bed had been moved, yanked out of place, all the covers pulled off She saw a foot, then on the floor on the other side of the bed she saw Debbie-facedown, nude, bloody, with so written on her back

Donna froze in horror, unable to step forward, instead staring at her friend and waiting for her to breathe Maybe it was just a dreaht

She backed away and stepped into the kitchen, where, on a small white table, she saw more words scribbled and left behind by the killer He could still be there, she suddenly thought, then ran from the apartment to her car She sped down the street to a convenience store where she found a phone and called Debbie's mother

Peggy Stillwell heard the words, but could not believe the on the floor nude, bloodied, notShe made Donna repeat what she had said, then ran to her car The battery was dead Numb with fear, she ran back inside and called Charlie Carter, Debbie's father and her ex-husband The divorce a few years earlier had not been amicable, and the two rarely spoke

No one answered at Charlie Carter's A friend nay called her, told her so, and asked her to run and check on her daughter Then Peggy waited and waited Finally she called Charlie again, and he answered the phone

Carol Edwards ran down the street to the apartlass and the open front door She stepped inside and saw the body

Charlie Carter was a thick-chested brick ht He juhter's apartht a father could have The scene orse than anything he could have iined

When he saw her body, he called her naently lifted her shoulder so he could see her face A bloody washcloth was stuck in her hter was dead, but he waited anyway, hoping for son of life When there was none, he stood slowly and looked around The bed had been , the roole He walked to the den and saw the words on the wall, then he went to the kitchen and looked around It was a crime scene now Charlie stuffed his hands in his pockets and left

Donna Johnson and Carol Edwards were on the landing outside the front door, crying and waiting They heard Charlie say good-bye to his daughter and tell her how sorry he was for what had happened to her When he stu, too

"Should I call an ambulance?" Donna asked

"No," he said "Aood Call the police"

The paramedics arrived first, two of them They hustled up the stairs, into the apart, vo

When Detective Dennis Smith arrived at the apartment, the scene outside was busy with street cops, paramedics, onlookers, and even two of the local prosecutors When he realized it was a potential hohbors

A captain and seventeen-year veteran of the Ada Police Department, Smith knehat to do He cleared the apartment of everyone but himself and another detective, then he sent the other cops throughout the neighborhood, knocking on doors, looking for witnesses S his eest sister were friends He knew Charlie Carter and Peggy Stillwell and couldn't believe that their child was lying dead on the floor of her own bedrooan an examination of the apartment

The glass on the landing came from a broken pane in the front door, and it was shattered both to the inside and to the outside In the den there was a sofa to the left, and its cushions had been thrown around the rooown, a Wal-Mart tag still attached to it On the wall across the rooe, which he immediately knew had been written in nail polish "Jim Smith next will die"

He knew Jim Smith

In the kitchen, on a se, apparently written in catsup-"Don't look fore us or ealse" On the floor by the table he saw some jeans and a pair of boots He would soon learn that Debbie had been wearing theht

He walked to the bedroo the door The ere open, the curtains pulled back, and the roole had preceded death; the floor was covered with clothing, sheets, blankets, stuffed ani appeared to be in place When Detective Se left by the killer On her back, in what appeared to be dried catsup, were the words "Duke Gram"

He knew Duke Graham

Under her body was an electrical cord and a Western-style belt with a large silver buckle The naraved in the center of it

As Officer Mike Kieswetter, also of the Ada Police Depart evidence He found hair on the body, the floor, the bed, on the stuffed animals He methodically picked up each hair and placed it in a sheet of folded paper, a "bindle," then recorded exactly where he found it

He carefully reed the bedsheets, pillowcases, blankets, the electrical cord and belt, a pair of torn panties he found on the floor of the bathrooarettes, an earette butts, a drinking glass from the kitchen, the telephone, and some hair found under the body Wrapped in a bedsheet and found near Debbie was a Del Monte catsup bottle It, too, was carefully bagged for exa, but would later be found by the medical examiner