Cold Case Files: Did tangled web surrounding missing dancers and Oklahoma politics lead to murder?

It was just two days after Thanksgiving when a close friend drove up the gravel lane off County Road 202 to check on Ray Frazier.

The 44-year-old trout farmer was nowhere in sight.

Spotting him face-down in the mud beside one of the oxygenated raceways on his 80-acre property, the friend rushed over, fearing a heart attack had claimed the hardworking veteran. But the pool of blood told a different story.

A single .38-caliber bullet had entered Frazier's lower back from close range, lodging fatally in his torso. He died instantly, likely before 4 p.m. the previous day. No weapon was found nearby. No signs of a struggle. Just the quiet isolation of rural Ottawa County, where the woods swallow secrets whole.

The next day, deputies discovered his modest farmhouse had been ransacked. Drawers yanked open, cabinets emptied. But the theft was oddly targeted: only business receipts and ledgers tied to the trout farm operations were missing. No cash, no valuables, just the paper trail of a man building something from the ground up.

Raymond Laverne Frazier wasn't the type locals pegged for a violent end. Born in Wyandotte in 1945, he grew up in the shadow of Ottawa County's lead mines and Quapaw Nation lands. As a young man, he chased opportunity to Hood River, Oregon, serving in the Army National Guard along the way.

By 1984, widowed and raising a son and two daughters alone after his wife Jacqueline's death in 1986, he returned home. He revived his faith at First Assembly of God, became a deacon, and poured his grit into the trout farm, raising rainbow fingerlings in a bid for steady income amid fading industry.

What few knew was Frazier's side venture: co-ownership of Lady Godiva's, a dimly lit Tulsa strip club on the city's east side, shared with Kenneth Cunningham, a former Tulsa County assistant district attorney.

The partnership linked rural ponds to urban nights, but it also birthed rumors that never died. Two women tied to the club, dancers Karla Lawrence and Tammy Chesser, vanished in the mid-1980s.

Whispers persisted: Their bodies were buried on the farm, and Frazier, who knew too much, paid the price. The theory gained teeth in 1995, when Frank Crownover, Lady Godiva's ex-bouncer and Cunningham's former bodyguard, came forward. In a sworn statement, he claimed Frazier had once led him to two shallow graves near the ponds, confiding the dark truth.

A search warrant followed, alleging the local sheriff owed Cunningham favors that stalled earlier probes. Cadaver dogs and deputies scoured the wooded acreage that September but turned up empty.

No graves. No closure.

The case slumbered until 2017, when Frazier's cousin, licensed private investigator Brittany White, reignited it. Driven by family memories ike of Ray fishing with the kids and sharing Oregon river tales she partnered with the Ottawa County Sheriff's Office and OSBI.

Ground-penetrating radar detected anomalies; excavators dug for days, sifting sludgy water and debris. They unearthed bone fragments and what appeared to be human teeth from two sites. Forensic tests? Inconclusive as to whether animal or human remains.

The ambiguity only deepened the mystery. Then, in 2022, an anonymous tip shifted the ground. Not the farm, but a nearby ravine, miles from the original search grid. White pushed for action:

Deputies, dogs, and an archaeologist fanned out again. Details on findings remain sealed, but the lead echoed those 1980s vanishings, hinting the full story might lie off the beaten path.

Today, the trout farm is a relic: ponds drained, house razed, acreage overgrown and privately held. OSBI Case #89-0479 swells with over 300 pages of witness statements, ballistics, timelines but no arrests.

Cunningham, now retired and silent for decades, was never charged. The $10,000 reward endures, a quiet call across the years. Frazier's children, now in their 40s and 50s, guard their privacy but haven't forgotten

. Every so often, one returns to that gravel road, stands where their father fell, and listens to the wind in the timber. The water's gone quiet, but the questions haven't.\\

If you remember a name from Lady Godiva's, a late-night delivery to the farm, or a secret from '89—speak up. Karla, Tammy, and Ray deserve the truth. OSBI Cold Case Unit

1-800-522-8017 | cold.case@osbi.ok.gov