Relatives charged in 1997 murder of 81-year-old aunt in plot for inheritance

Two relatives of an 81-year-old woman found brutally slain in her Oklahoma home nearly three decades ago have been charged with murder in what authorities say was a plot to obtain inheritance.

Widow Gerthie Carolina was attacked in her home near the small town of Sasakwa, Oklahoma, early on Aug. 11, 1997, just four months after filling out her will and trust. She took a blow to the abdomen and was stabbed repeatedly, according to an autopsy. She died on her kitchen floor.  

For decades, Carolina’s violent death remained unsolved – until 2023, when agents discovered new evidence in the case: a bloodstain on the side of a shoe, investigators said in court affidavits.  

Those findings led this month to the arrest of the victim's niece, Carolyn Foreman, 81, and her great-niece, Dakota Davis, 45. The two women were charged Friday with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. 

Seminole County District Attorney Erik Johnson said in a news release the motive was to obtain an inheritance.

"This case is a testament to the relentless dedication of these investigators and our unwavering pursuit of justice, even decades after a crime is committed," the prosecutor said. "We hope this brings some measure of peace to Gerthie Carolina's family after all these years."

The decades old cold case

On April 9, 1997, Carolina completed a living trust and transferred a $40,000 certificate of deposit to it, court records show. She also signed her will, declaring she had no children. 

"Carolina left her estate to Foreman, who would then be responsible for dividing the estate up amongst the family," investigators reported in court affidavits.

Foreman and Davis claimed to have found their aunt when they arrived about 3:15 a.m. Aug. 11, 1997. Investigators were told Foreman had planned to take Carolina to a doctor in Ada because she wasn't feeling well, according to the affidavits. 

Foreman was then 53. Davis was only 17.

In the years after, according to the affidavits, agents were told Davis had admitted to the killing. In some accounts, she said she used a machete, investigators reported. In another, she said she used an axe. 

Her father recalled she told him in 2001 that she "chopped up" the victim while Foreman was telling her to "hit her again, hit her again," according to the affidavits. 

The father also told agents that Davis said the victim had been upset because Foreman had been taking money from her bank account to pay bills. 

A break in the case came last year when agents found a bloodstain believed to be from the victim on one of Davis’ shoes, which they had taken as evidence on the day of the crime in 1997. 

Financial crimes common against older adults 

Financially motivated crimes against older adults are common – and are often perpetrated by family and loved ones.  

A 2019 study conducted by researchers at the University of Southern California found that financial abuse of older adults was more commonly committed by family members than by strangers.  

Of nearly 2,000 calls reported to the National Center on Elder Abuse, the study found that family members were identified as the offender in 48% of calls where the relationship could be discerned.  

The real number could be much higher. An AARP report found that close to 90% of adults over 60 victimized by somebody they knew did not report the incident to authorities.  

Some cases of financial abuse are extreme.

A woman in England admitted to poisoning her father, 70, and stabbing her mother, 71, to death in 2019 after having run up large debts on their credit cards, according to the BBC. The woman lived with the dead bodies inside the family home for years and spent their pensions.  

Another woman was arrested in Brazil last year for taking her dead uncle into a bank in a wheelchair to take out a loan in his name. Her uncle had been dead for at least two hours when she brought him into a bank to sign a loan of more than $3,000, police said, according to the local Brazilian outlet G1.  

And a Florida woman was sentenced in September to three years in prison for scamming her grandmother out of more than $300,000. The woman pleaded guilty to 12 counts of wire fraud. She “convinced her grandmother to wire money into her bank account under false pretenses on at least 12 occasions,” including to pay the family of an alleged child she killed in a car accident, according to a press release from the Department of Justice.  

Prior history

One of the defendants in the Oklahoma case was previously charged with first-degree murder in a different case.  

Foreman and her son were blamed in 2005 for the fatal shooting of a 16-year-old in 1999. 

The charge against her was dismissed later that year. Her son, Billy Earl Parker, now 60, was found guilty in 2007 of first-degree murder and is serving life in prison. 

Neither she nor Davis has an attorney listed for them yet in online court records. Both were arrested March 4 — Foreman in Midwest City and Davis in Sacramento, California, investigators said.