TULSA — Four young women were found shot to death in the same apartment in south Tulsa on Monday, apparent victims of a midday shooting rampage at a building near a park along the Arkansas River. A 4-year-old boy was found unharmed.
Police wouldn’t say whether the victims - all in their late teens or early 20s - were related or how they would have known each other, and wouldn’t say whether the boy was related to any of them. Police said they did not yet know why the women were shot, and officers were searching for a suspect.
“Our detectives are beating the bushes and so are our patrol officers and our gang units,” Tulsa police spokesman Leland Ashley said.
The Fairmont Terrace Apartments are located just a mile west of the Southern Hills Country Club and two miles northwest of Oral Roberts University.
At the apartment complex, bed sheets or cardboard hang as improvised draperies in many windows behind a black wrought-iron gate. The guard shack is empty and signs read “Curfew 10 p.m. for everyone, everyday” and “Photo ID required to be on property.”
The building’s website says a courtesy safety patrol is available after dark, but police believe the killings occurred between 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. Officer Jill Roberson said police received a 911 call about 12:30 p.m., and Ashley said someone had spoken to a person at the apartment less than an hour earlier.
Frankie Williams, 25, an oil-field worker, said his girlfriend lives about 100 feet from the apartment where the women were found dead.
“She’s going to be moving out right quick. This is not the place to be raising a 3-monthold,” he said. “This is pretty intense.”
Sennie Anderson, 20, is soon to mark two years at the apartment complex.
“I’ve been afraid since I moved in this place,” she said, clutching her visibly upset 3-year-old daughter, Da’Mya. “I think it’s getting worse.”
Front Section, Pages 3 on 01/08/2013