it. is forgiving part of moving on like that? part of getting past it? i think it is. i mean, i feel like i ve forgiven. you can forgive, but it just doesn t change the circumstances sometimes. but there is a difference between forgiveness and forgetting. the state of oklahoma along with brooks and leslie douglass had some unfinished business with stephen hatch. not the triggerman, no. but a murderer, yes. coming up i was afraid to sleep at night. i was afraid somebody was coming to get me. another legal confrontation. and another staggering surprise. a new part of the story.
stephen hatch and glen ake were on the run. the day after the murders, ake called family in oklahoma and learned that lawmen were on their trail for killing pastor and mrs. douglass and shooerngf investigation. i assume people are pretty anxious to catch them. so what what happened during the next period of days and weeks? well, the they left, and a lot of this is according to their statement. they left through oklahoma city and bought beer in oklahoma city, they asked directions to interstate 40 east, and they ended up that next morning in ft. smith, arkansas. still in the yellow malibu? yes, sir. still in the yellow malibu with the primer spots on it. they ended up there about 2:00
cause do upon our oaths having heretofore found the defendant glen burton ake guilty of murder in the first degree for the death of richard barry douglass, to affix punishment at life in the state penitentiary. no death penalty. this time the jury spared his life. he would come off death row. the jury came back and sentenced ake to life for each of the murders and to 200 years each for the shootings of the children. but wait a minute. stephen hatch who did not fire a weapon faced execution, but ake, the triggerman, got life. brooks was floored. as i heard the decision read, what was going through my mind was that i can just see my parents dying and knowing that they would never be fully
they did excellent. they were good. they were both well. stood up under cross-examination? yeah. we tried the case in chief in one day. just we just one witness after another. altogether, the hatch case took three days of the court s time. hatch testified in his own defense. he was convicted, sentenced to death. glen ake s trial in early summer didn t take much longer. but in the courtroom they kept him under heavy guard. ake was volatile, unpredictable. ake was really mean. i mean, he just was a mean person. sheriff lynn stedman testified for two hours about ake s thanksgiving confession. but once again, brooks and leslie were the star witnesses for the prosecution. they both calmly identified glen ake as the man who shot them and murdered their parents. did you watch the children s testimony? yes. brooks was very strong in his testimony. leslie was, too.
living room floor. dead? uh-huh. pretty shocking thing. yes. certainly was. like an execution? it didn t take them long to identify their suspects. there had been another home invasion earlier that day in hennessey, oklahoma, just up the road from the douglasses. two men fled the crime in a distinctive banana yellow chevy malibu with primer spots. the victims who were robbed but not physically harmed gave deputies good descriptions of the men and their vehicle. investigators were able to trace the distinctive car to an oil field a few miles up the road from the douglass property. two rough necks working the drilling rig had up and quit that very morning, taken off in a borrowed car. thought they were wanted for parole violations apparently. they weren t. they thought they were. the two were named stephen hatch and glen ake. and they were familiar already to the local police.