The year was 1977, President Jimmy Carter was sworn in as the 39th President of the United States, and things were groovy. The 800 mile Trans-Alaska pipeline was finished and America had their own oil source. Star Wars premiered and movie goers were lined up out the door to see the now iconic film, not knowing it would turn into a multi-million dollar franchise and have fans obsessed for years to come. New York City had a 25 hour blackout. While Atlantic City became the first US location to have legalized gambling with their casinos outside of Las Vegas. The first Apple II 8 bit home computer went on sale never knowing how one day everyone would rely on the technology Apple would create. Jumpsuits and super low cut bathing suits were all the craze for the ladies, and bright colors for the men. Make sure you don’t forget to take care of your pet rock before you have to cruise Main street listening to your 8 track player or talking on your all new citizens broadcasting radio (CB Radio.) It was a simpler time in many ways back then, but still a time where tragedy can strike, and for one family that is what happened. Their beautiful 18 year old daughter was murdered on a hot July night and her family is still seeking justice.
Ima Long, Laura’s mom.
Laura Long was an 18 year old young lady living with her parents Jack and Ima, in Claremore, Oklahoma. Laura was a smart lady and for graduation her dad had got her a brand new car. Laura worked as a secretary for Neely’s Insurance Agency. She was well liked by all who knew her. On Sunday July 10, 1977, Laura had washed all three of the family’s vehicles. She was headed out to fill up her gas tank as they always did on Sunday to get ready for the week. She would pass her mom and dad, wave enthusiastically never knowing she would not get the chance to ever see them again. It was 1977 and what better way to spend your evening and night than cruising Main street and heading to the local NeMar’s shopping center to hang with your friends. That is just what Laura did. She cruised and went to NeMar’s and from there it was a mystery her family and police would have to figure out.
Sight where Laura’s body was found.
When Laura left that day she told her mom she would be back later and she loved her. Ima would go to bed that night before Laura got home, something she had never done before. The next morning, her husband Jack woke her up and said Laura is not home. Ima was instantly worried the pair got dressed and headed out to look for their daughter. They would find Laura’s car parked and locked in the Ne-Mar’s shopping center. A call to police was made and Officer Chester “Whoopy” Baldwin would respond to the scene. At the time he had only been a police officer for a little over a year. Officer Baldwin would ask the parents if they had keys to the car. Ima said yes but she did not want him touching anything until they knew what happened there. Officer Baldwin said he would not do anything so Ima reluctantly gave him the keys. Of course as soon as he got in Ima said he touched everything and never once dusted for prints, in fact the car was never processed at all by the police. Something that is almost always done. Laura’s purse was inside the car which the officer thought odd, no young woman would leave their purse in their car if they were going to be gone for any period of time. Just ten days later on July 20th a boy riding his bike in the fields of his home smelled something awful, he would go back and report to his dad he thought one of their cows had died in the field. His dad would head off to see if they lost one of their cattle, to his surprise it was the body of a woman not a cow that he found. Immediately he ran back home and called the police.
Laura’s body was in very bad shape, she was heavily decomposed and was mummified and nude. Her clothing would be found strewn about in ditches for weeks after her body was found. The body was in such a bad state it could not be determined if she was sexually assaulted. It was determined she died by suffocation. Her sock had been shoved down her throat causing her to be unable to breathe. The family was not allowed to see the body because of the state it was in. When she was placed in the casket it was in a bag with lye on top of it. Her parents were absolutely devastated.
There would be a lot of bickering over whose jurisdiction the case belonged to. Claremore said it was their case because she was reported missing and lived there. Rogers County Sheriff’s Office believed it was their case because her body was found in their county, and finally the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations (OSBI) claimed it was their case, as they have jurisdiction over the entire state. While all the bickering was going on, all agencies were failing to investigate who had murdered Laura Long. In 1977 the Claremore police department was quite small so the case should have gone to a bigger agency and the smaller ones could assist. A few days after Laura was found Amos Ward who was the sheriff at the time came to the Long’s home and told them they had ran out of money to investigate the murder. Ima would have none of that. She told him you get paid no matter what you do so get out there and do your job. She believes he was trying to get money out of her. Laura had been murdered just a few days after the now infamous Girl Scout Murders took place. Ima fully believes this is why police did not do much on her daughter’s case.
At some point the police began to interview and talk to Laura’s friends and people who were in the shopping center that night, to narrow down who she was last seen with. Rumors began to go wild, and her highschool boyfriend was brought in. He underwent a polygraph test and it was soon determined he had nothing to do with Laura’s murder and was ruled out as a suspect. The police claim they followed up on every rumor at the time. The police decided to have a polygraph hour where they would round up anyone they believed was involved and polygraph them. This turned up nothing. The newspaper decided they would run her story on the front page everyday in hopes someone would come forward.
Ted Bundy.
At the time of Laura’s murder serial killer Ted Bundy had escaped and made his way to Florida. Where he was later arrested and tried for murder. The Claremore department thought it was possible Ted Bundy could have gone through Oklahoma at the time. They would call Florida detectives and find out that he was in prison at the time of Laura’s murder. This ruled him out as a suspect. Another serial killer locked up in Texas was Henry Lee Lucas and he was notoriously known to give false confessions. For some reason police believed he could have been involved in Laura’s death. Detectives Jack Tanner and Detective Cobra would be driven down by a non-police officer named Jimmy Dikeman to question Henry. When detectives questioned Henry they did everything wrong, by giving him leading questions with the answers in it. Henry would confess to the murder of Laura Long. The detectives would take the information to the district attorney who would tell them there was not enough evidence for a case against him. It would later come out that Henry recanted his confession and admitted he confessed to the murder to delay his execution. It turns out Henry Lee Lucas was not even in the area when Laura was killed. The case would grow cold for more than 20 years.
Detective Tim Norris retired.
In 1997 Detective Tim Norris would reopen Laura Long’s murder case. He started by tracking down any piece of evidence he could find. He wanted to see if there was anything that could be tested for DNA. Around this time Tim had a friend in the FBI who was going to a training course on profiling in Texas. He asked if the friend would take Laura’s case and have his instructor look over it and see what he thought. The friend said no problem and when he came back his instructor had a general profile of who could have killed Laura. The profiler said it was an athletic male, someone in authority, a country boy, drove an old truck and lived in an old mobile home. More than likely wore bibbed overalls and a straw cowboy hat. The profiler also suggested since it was the 20th anniversary of Laura’s murder to run a front page story. Stating that they were testing old evidence with new technology. Tim did just that and on August 22, 1997 a letter showed up addressed to Tim at the station. The letter said the person they were looking for was Bill Dikeman. Bill worked at the Peabody Company, and he often left, and coworkers would cover for him. Bill liked to go hang out and party with the ladies. He would then sneak back into work and clock out. One night he came back to work with scratches on his arms and face. He told the letter writer he had accidentally killed a girl. The letter writer said they would find out that Bill sold his property to his brother shortly after Laura was killed and left the state. He was also abusive to his wife at the time. The writer told police they could check all of this out. Tim Norris did just that and found everything in the letter to be true.
Tim would begin to interview all employes who worked at the Peabody company in 1977 when Laura was murdered. They confirmed they would cover for Bill. They tracked down his ex wife who did not want to talk much but did confirm Bill was abusive towards her. They would then track down Bill. He was still living in Oklahoma, with a woman in a mobile home. He had an old truck and when he opened the door he stood in bibbed overalls. His straw cowboy hat lay in a chair nearby. He was everything that the FBI profiler said he would be. It even turned out he was athletic as he had been a pitcher on a St. Louis Cardinals farm team. Tim would also find out Bill had worked for the Claremore police station as a meter reader for a time. When Tim asked him about Laura Long, Bill said he did not know anything about it. Tim asked if Bill would take a polygraph and he agreed. A few days would go by and Tim would tell Bill he failed the polygraph. Bill had shown off the scale of deception when asked if he caused harm to Laura Long. After this it would not be long until major media outlets picked the story up. First it was 48 hours with Dan Rather. Then The Montel Williams Show had Ima and Detective Tim Norris on. They were getting publicity for the case and with a prime suspect they were on their way to solving the case. However it would not be that simple.
Detective Norris would receive two more letters each one getting frustrated that an arrest had not been made yet. Numerous pleas from the department and the family for the letter writer to come forward were made, however no one ever did. Tim would go to a man’s home who worked at the Peabody company to interview him. When the man opened the door he looked at Tim and said I know exactly why you are here. They two sat down and word for word the man who was now old, told Tim the first letter. Tim looked at him and asked if he had written the letters all the man said was no, it was clear he had written them. The man was now old and suffering black lung disease, he would not admit he was the letter writer and would pass away making it harder to get the evidence they needed to file charges on Bill. Tim would go back through old interviews and find the OSBI had interviewed Jimmy Dikeman at the time of Laura’s murder about his brother Bill. In the initial report Jimmy told police there was no way Bill could have done it. He was at home with him all night because his truck was broken down. So when Jimmy came into Detective Norris’ office after his brother had recently taken a polygraph, it was no surprise he would change where Bill was on the night of the murder. Jimmy now told Tim his brother Bill had taken a flight on American Airlines and was out of state when the crime happened. He also wanted to know why they were harassing his brother and making him take polygraphs. Jimmy would leave the office. Bill would come back in for more questioning and when asked to give hair and blood samples he agreed. It seemed to him he had nothing to hide.
Many people questioned why Laura would have got in a vehicle with Bill that night. Some things detectives were keeping from the family so as to not hurt them more. Laura got around with the men, she had numerous sexual partners. Her mother believed her daughter was a good wholesome young lady. She had no idea how promiscuous her daughter was. Had Laura met Bill that night to hook up and something went wrong. It has also been reported that Laura had a CB Radio in her car with the handle “Moon Lighter” and would talk to several men and rumors were she wouldn’t just talk to the men she would also meet up with truck drivers. Had she met a trucker driver and it ended in her death or had Bill been the culprit all along?
A young lady came to Ima (mom) with some information. Ima said she did not know the young lady nor did her daughter. This girl would tell Ima she should get a grand jury to investigate the Sheriff’s Office. Ima said she did not know if the girl knew something she didn’t but she would soon find out that there was a conflict of interest with Jack Tanner. He was the second cousin of Bill and Jimmy Dikeman, he was also the Sheriff of Rogers county, as was he one of the men who interviewed Henry Lee Lucas. Turns out he had evidence at his house, he would turn over to the new Sheriff. It was a box with index cards in it. On the cards were the names of everyone interviewed in Laura’s case, however there was not one for Bill. Had Jack Tanner, Detective Cobra, Jimmy Dikeman, and Bill Dikeman all been involved? It was starting to look that way. It appeared to Tim, Bill had killed Laura possibly by accident and the other men had tried to hide it. However there was no evidence to present to the district attorney.
Bill Dikeman would die in July of 2016 without being charged in connection to or for Laura’s murder. Ima still wants justice for her daughter and someone to be held accountable. Most of those involved have passed away. What seemed like a simpler time for most turned into a nightmare for Ima and her family. As always if you have any information on this case please call the number below and help get Justice for Laura.
OSBI at (800) 522-8017 or tips@osbi.ok.gov.
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