The Syringe in Crane Creek: How a Quiet Woman Exposed Murder

The Syringe in Crane Creek: How a Quiet Woman Exposed Murder

A two-cc glass syringe with amber fluid and the cork still seated turned up on a trotline three miles downstream from where a twenty-two-year-old woman had been certified dead of heat exhaustion - and that syringe sat in evidence for nearly seventy years. Who found the marks that contradicted the death certificate, and how did an unarmed welfare investigator force a county to confront a possible murder?

In this episode, we follow the sequence of events at the Delman Agricultural Labor Camp in October 1934 and the people who connected a syringe, puncture marks, and a signed death certificate. What did the photographs of Carol Ramsey’s arm show, and how would that single detail alter the official story?

Person: Carol Ramsey
Date: October 9, 1934
Location: Delman Agricultural Labor Camp, Pelham County, Oklahoma
Investigator: Paula Bell, Welfare Field Investigator, age 38
Medical Examiner: Dr. Owen Fitch

- A two-cc glass syringe with cork and amber fluid was found on a trotline along the east bank of Crane Creek.
- Carol Ramsey, age 22, was certified dead of heat exhaustion after she was found on her bedroll on October 9, 1934.
- Paula Bell photographed at least three puncture marks in the antecubital fossa of Carol’s left forearm before the body was moved.
- The temperature at Delman on the night of Ramsey’s death had dropped to 51 degrees.
- Thomas Simmons, age 41 and camp supply clerk, had documented access to the locked medical kit and had worked at a separate labor camp where a similar death occurred in August 1933.

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