CRIME HUNTER: Two unsolved double murders at the Oklahoma State Fair
· Toronto Sun
“I’ll be glad to get to the fair. Hear something different. See something different for a change.”— Margy Frake (State Fair, 1945)
In the vast flyover country far from the patrician class, the state fair remains a cultural touchstone, a veritable cornerstone of life bookending the hard growing season.
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At large-scale events like the Oklahoma State Fair, farmers, their children and those on the agri-periphery flood into Oklahoma City and go to the fair.
Drawn by food, the midway, entertainment and agricultural exhibits, for many it is the highlight of the year.
Horror in a happy place
But in the shadows of a happy place, sometimes evil lurks poised to unleash inimaginable horrors. The Oklahoma State Fair has been unluckier than most in these matters.
The first sorrows came on Sept. 26, 1981.
For kids of the era, going to the state fair was their first foray into adulthood. Cinda L. Pallett, and her friend, Charlotte Kinse, both 13, went on their own to the fair.
And they were never seen again.
According to cops, the teens left the fairgrounds with a man who offered to pay them and two boys cash money if they helped him unload stuffed animals. The meet-up place with another truck was off-site.
“They were never seen again. Their bodies were never found. Obviously, the assumption is they were killed. The case has been looked at numerous times over the years by other homicide detectives and the cold case unit. Sadly, it remains unsolved,” Sgt. Gary Knight, of the OKC Police, told Oklahoma Cold Cases .
As the months dragged on, cops had narrowed the grim investigation down to three possibilities: Cinda and Charlotte ran away, they were abducted or, worst of all and most likely, murdered.
“We have some suspects,” Det. Don Pennington told The Oklahoman in 1981, “but suspects to what?”
Cops know carnivals can attract nefarious characters – o n the run from warrants, wives, husbands and themselves.
Long looked like the stuffie guy
Two boys who said they were hired to move the stuffies pointed the finger at Donald Michael Corey, a 36-year-old drifter who was working at Oklahoma State Fair that year. He looked like the stuffie guy, but detectives were able to verify Corey was working in Dallas on the day the girls disappeared.
But there was another man cops liked. Royal Russell Long of Evansville, Wyoming, was serving two life terms in prison in 1985 after pleading guilty to abducting and attacking two girls (ages 15 and 12) hitchhiking across the Cowboy State.
Cops say he reportedly sexually assaulted the older girl before she was able to escape and contact authorities. When the FBI arrested Long in New Mexico weeks later, they were unable to find the younger girl. He is a suspected serial killer.
Unlike Corey, detectives could put Long at the fair on the day Cinda Pallett and Charlotte Kinsey disappeared. A judge dismissed first-degree murder charges in December 1985. That put cops back at zero.
Long later offered to solve the case — for a price.
Grim Reaper strikes again
Long was scrubbed from the planet in November 1993 at a Wyoming prison. The end came courtesy of a heart attack.
Six years later, the Grim Reaper again visited the state fair.
On Sept. 23, 1987, Lisa Pennington, 17, and her sister, Cheryl Genzer, 25, were last seen alive at the crowded exposition.
One month later, the siblings were found slain in a shallow grave. Each had been shot in the head but with different calibre weapons.
Cops learned the pair had been seen with a man named Lane Henley and a pal of his. Henley had earlier told their father that the girls had used the phone at his house for someone to pick them up. He claimed they later left his house to use a pay phone at the neighbourhood 7-Eleven.
But Henley’s narrative changed like the sands in an hour glass.
More than one killer?
He was arrested in Mexico in 1987 and extradited back to Oklahoma. That did not settle the mystery: All charges were dismissed as a result of “faulty forensic evidence submitted by then forensic chemist, Joyce Gilchrist.”
Cops and the girls’ family have always suspected more than one killer was involved in their deaths. The mystery man was charged with perjury in the case relating to Henley and pleaded guilty.
As for Henley, he’s not talking. He pegged out in 2015. The other suspect is believed to be still alive.
That has left the girls’ friends and family holding the bag.
‘Found in a shallow grave’
“The family is suffering,” friend Dorian Quillen said. ” Every time the fair comes around they try to go on with their lives. This always comes up and they have to deal with it again.”
She added: “They left the fair with a couple of guys and ended up at a guy’s house. No one in the family ever saw them again. A month later, they were found in a shallow grave.
“We believe there is still a suspect out there and lots of information and evidence that hasn’t been tested. We would like an accounting of that so we can move forward.”