Latest search for 1921 Tulsa Massacre victims ends with 3 more found with gunshot wounds

OKLAHOMA CITY — The latest search for the remains of victims of the 1921 Tulsa Massacre ended with three other sets containing gunshot wounds, investigators said.

The three are among 11 sets of remains exhumed during the most recent dig at Oaklawn Cemetery, state archaeologist Kary Stackelbeck said Friday.

“Two of those gunshot victims show evidence of ammunition from two different guns,” Stackelbeck said. “The third person who is a shooting victim also shows evidence of burns.”

Forensic anthropologist Phoebe Stubblefield, who will remain at the scene to examine the remains, said one victim suffered bullet and shotgun wounds, while the second was shot with two different caliber bullets.

Searchers are looking for simple wooden caskets because they were described at the time in newspaper articles, death certificates and funeral home records as the type used to bury victims of the massacre, Stackelbeck said.

The exhumed remains will then be sent to Intermountain Forensics in Salt Lake City for DNA and genealogical testing in an effort to identify them.

The search ends just over a month after the first identification of remains previously exhumed during the search for victims of the massacre were identified as World War I veteran CL Daniel of Georgia.

There was no sign of gunshot wounds to Daniel, Stubblefield said at the time, noting that unless a bullet struck bone and passed through the body, such a wound likely could not be determined after so many years had passed. .

The search is the fourth since Tulsa Mayor GT Bynum launched the project in 2018, and 47 remains have now been exhumed.

Bynum, who is not seeking re-election, said he hopes to see the search for the victims continue.

“My hope is, whoever the next mayor is, they see how important it is to get this investigation done,” Bynum said. “It’s all part of that sequence that is necessary for us to finally find people who were killed and hidden over a century ago.”

Stackelbeck said investigators are mapping the graves in an effort to determine if more searches should be conducted.

“Each year we have built on the previous phase of this investigation. Our cumulative data confirmed that we were finding people who fit the profile of the massacre victims,” ​​Stackelbeck said.

“We will take all of this information into consideration as we make our recommendations about whether there are grounds for further excavation,” Stackelbeck said.

Brenda Nails-Alford, a descendant of massacre survivors and a member of the committee overseeing the search for the victims, said she was grateful for Bynum’s efforts to find the victim’s remains.

“It is my prayer that these efforts will continue to bring more justice and healing to those who have been lost and to those families in our community,” Nails-Alford said.

Earlier this month, Bynum and City Councilwoman Vanessa Hall-Harper announced a new committee to study a variety of possible reparations for survivors and descendants of the massacre and the area of ​​north Tulsa where it took place.

The massacre took place over two days in 1921, a long-suppressed episode of racial violence that destroyed a community known as Black Wall Street and ended with 300 black people killed, thousands of black residents forced into the internment camps supervised by the National. Guard and more than 1,200 homes, businesses, schools and churches destroyed.