Linda Lee Mack

Case background and investigation

Linda Lee Mack was a 35-year-old nurse working in western Oklahoma in the fall of 1982. Accounts of her workplace differ slightly between sources: the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation's 2024 announcement, as reported by KFOR and Fox 25, described her as a nurse for Sayre Hospital, while the nonprofit Oklahoma Cold Cases project states she worked at Community Hospital in Elk City. According to Oklahoma Cold Cases, she and her husband had recently moved to the area from Crystal Lake, Illinois, and had been married only about eighteen months.

On the night of Tuesday, October 12, 1982, Mack left work at approximately 11:00 p.m. and began the drive home along State Highway 34, heading south from Elk City toward the small Beckham County community of Carter. She never made it. At about 11:40 p.m., roughly forty minutes after she left the hospital, passing motorists spotted her truck off the highway and stopped, initially believing they had come upon a traffic accident. Investigators later concluded that her vehicle had apparently been struck from behind and pushed off the road.

What the motorists found was not a wreck but a homicide scene. Mack was lying about 35 feet from her vehicle; she had been stabbed, strangled, and her throat had been cut. According to Oklahoma Cold Cases, she was still fully dressed, and her purse with all of its contents was found inside her truck, undermining robbery as an apparent motive. No suspect was identified and no motive was ever established. In 1983, her coworkers at the hospital erected a stone monument at the location where she was found, according to Oklahoma Cold Cases.

The case remained with the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation for decades without resolution. In June 2024, the OSBI publicly revisited the case, and Oklahoma City television stations KFOR and Fox 25 reported on the renewed effort. Investigators identified a white or light-colored pickup truck with a bar on the front bumper as a vehicle of interest, consistent with the theory that Mack's truck was rammed from behind before she was attacked.

More than four decades after her death, the murder of Linda Lee Mack remains unsolved. No arrest has ever been made, and investigators have not publicly named a suspect. The OSBI Cold Case Unit continues to seek information from anyone who lived in or traveled through the Elk City and Carter area in October 1982, particularly anyone who recalls the described pickup truck. Tips can be submitted to the OSBI at 1-800-522-8017 or through the agency's website.