Whether Pastor Carol Daniel’s murder was a race-related hate crime masked to look like a ritual murder remains to be seen. A witness says he saw a man emerge from Christ Holy Sanctified Church around the time Pastor Carol Daniels died, covered in blood, according to KRMG local news in Oklahoma. Robert Richardson says the man wore a ski mask and carried a knife dripping with blood. KRMG reports that Richardson says he did not come forward with information to police sooner because he was drinking at the time and was afraid no one would believe him.
Carol Daniels was found dead Aug. 23 after people coming for services notified police that the door to the church was locked. Police found her body inside. An autopsy report said she was nearly decapitated and was placed naked in a cross-like position on the church’s altar. Chemical dissolvents were found around her nude body, suggesting an attempt to cover-up the killer(s) tracks. No arrests have been made. There is a $15,000 reward offered for information leading to the killer(s) arrest.
Oklahoma is no stranger to hate-crime. In 1913 Bennie Simmons, African-American, was soaked in coal oil before being set on fire, as this 3 1/2 x 5 ½ postcard depicts. According to a local reporter who wrote about Simmon’s lynching, “The Negro prayed and shrieked in agony as the flames reached his flesh, but his cries were drowned out by yells and jeers of the mob.” The men who killed him made no attempt to hide their identities, but not one of them was ever prosecuted says Connie Schultz in her op-ed “The Ugly Truth of a Hanging Noose.”
With Oklahoma being the venue for the 1921 Tulsa race riots, which left a total of 301 dead African Americans after two days of violence and arson directed by whites against African American neighborhoods, and Anadarko’s bloody past now coming to light, Daniel’s shocking and unusual death raises questions about whether we are witnessing the birth of a new era of hate in that part of the Country.
In Tulsa in 1921, hundreds were injured, and more than 1500 African American owned homes and 600 businesses were destroyed. Also destroyed in the African American neighborhoods were 21 churches, 21 restaurants, 30 stores, 2 movie theaters, a hospital, a bank, the post office, libraries, and schools.
This week, AP reported that a fire destroyed two buildings in downtown Anadarko, including the office of the city’s daily newspaper. Anadarko police say the blaze was reported about 5 a.m. Saturday and destroyed the Anadarko Daily News office and the Tornado Alley Bar. No injuries were reported, according to AP, and it took crews more than three hours to put out the flames. A cause of the fire has not been determined, and the state fire marshal has been called in to investigate.
Are these recent events in the small, mostly White and Native American town of Anadarko, Oklahoma, a coincidence, or are they the prelude to something hateful, deadly and widespread to come?
Nearly 500 people packed an Oklahoma City church to attend Carol Daniels’ funeral. It lasted nearly three hours.