Cathy Lyn Shakelford was a young woman whose dismembered remains were found on April 1, 1976 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Her remains were identified in November 1993 after DNA testing compared to her sister. She is the first victim of a serial killer known as the Oklahoma City Butcher.
Case[]
Cathy Shakelford, a member of the Sac and Fox Nation, was last seen two months before her death when she was treated at the Oklahoma City Hospital. She was a homeless runaway living in Oklahoma City at the time of her disappearance.
On April 1, 1976, three oil workers were checking out an abandoned house between shifts when they discovered a young woman's head in a large popcorn bucket. The workers, who called the police, stated the head was so beat up that they barely recognized it as human. The police discovered the rest of the victim's body throughout the house and discovered that the perpetrator(s) mutilated her face by carving a smile into it. Her sexual organs and hands were never found, and she was not immediately identified.
Reconstruction by Betty Pat. Gatliff
In 1993, Cathy's cousin, Andra Medina, reported her missing to the police. She spoke with Sergeant Norma Adams, who connected Cathy to the unknown woman. In November 1993, DNA testing confirmed they were the same person.
Between 1976 and 1986, three young Native American women were brutally murdered in Oklahoma City. All three women were dismembered crudely and sloppily, and their body parts, except for their sexual organs, were left where they could be discovered.
Henry Lee Lucas confessed to killing the 1979 victim, Arley Killian, after being convicted of killing Becky Powell and Kate Rich. He also claimed that Ottis Toole was his accomplice in the killing. According to the Lucas Report, however, both men were working in Jacksonville, Florida when she was murdered, proving neither man was responsible. Additionally, Lucas was in Maryland between Cathy's disappearance and her murder and was already incarcerated when the 1986 victim, Marcia Sanders, was murdered. To date, no one has been arrested and convicted for any of the murders.
Sources[]
- The Daily Oklahoman
- Article #1 (April 17, 1986)
- Article #2 (November 30, 1993)
- Article #3 (January 20, 2008)
- The Lucas Report
- Justice for Native Women
- Oklahoma Historical Society
- Oklahoma Cold Cases
- The Oklahoma City Butcher on Wikipedia