Kristin Chenoweth Is Connected to the Girl Scout Murders of 1977
Film/TV

Kristin Chenoweth Is Connected to the Girl Scout Murders of 1977

by Camille Bavera

They say you can’t go home again, but Kristin Chenoweth is returning to the Oklahoma suburbs searching for closure. In a new Hulu series, titled Keeper of the Ashes: The Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders, Chenoweth recounts the haunting story of a brutal summer camping trip in which three girls from the actress’ Oklahoma troop, ages eight through 10, were raped and murdered.

“This is a story I wish I never had to tell. It haunts me every day. But this story, it needs to be told.” The actress was meant to be on the trip that fateful night in 1977, but got sick just prior to departure and had to stay back. A decision that’s stayed on her mind ever since.

In the upcoming special, we’ll journey back to the old Mayes County campsite, following along as local law enforcement attempts to solve the case.

After an escaped convict was tried and acquitted two years after the killings, no one has been formally charged in the last 43 years. According to the New York Post, the parents of one of the victims asked the town sheriff to reopen the case now that technological advancements have improved DNA testing capabilities. Results still point to the man who was acquitted, Gene Hart, but Chenoweth is there to help bring answers “once and for all.”

After the infamous 1993 Johnny Cash-narrated film Someone Cry for the Children: The Girl Scout Murders, which abutted a very real murder case with Cherokee folklore, a more first-person documentary-style treatment will hopefully handle the girls’ stories with some much-needed care.

“When I think of those three girls, I wonder what’s the best way to honor them,” Chenoweth says, in between clips of her own girl scout years. “That’s why I’d come back home.”

Stream Keeper of the Ashes: The Oklahoma Girl Scout Murders on Hulu Tuesday, May 24.

Photo via Getty/ Christopher Polk/ NBC/ NBCUPhotoBan

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