Cold Case Files; The 1971 Interstate 40 Murder of Mack Watkins remains an unsolved mystery five decades later

 Mack Watkins

In the fall of 1971, Interstate 40 was still a relatively new ribbon of concrete slicing through the hills of eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas. For most drivers, it meant progress -- a faster way home. For 56-year-old Mack Watkins of Seminole it became the last road he would ever travel.

A WWII veteran and roofer fresh off a roofing job in Little Rock, Mack Watkins -- who had served in Company D, 9th Engineer Battalion during the war-- climbed into his bright orange pickup on October 29, 1971, and pointed it west toward home in Seminole.

Somewhere between Morrilton and Russellville he did what countless drivers did in that era: he pulled over for two young hitchhikers --a man and a woman who looked like they belonged to the fading hippie counterculture of the time.

hey rode together. Witnesses saw the trio in Russellville. Then everything went silent.

The next morning, October 30, 1971, a passing motorist spotted a body lying in the north ditch of I-40 east of Sallisaw, just past the rest area.

It was Mack Watkins. He had been stabbed 24 times in a frenzied attack. His wallet and other belongings were gone. The killers had robbed him, then dumped him like roadside trash.

His orange pickup didn’t stay missing long. It was found abandoned farther west in the Oklahoma City area -- blood inside, and the female hitchhiker’s fingerprints clearly visible on the steering wheel. She (and her male companion) had driven the dead man’s truck for miles before ditching it.

The male hitchhiker’s description was unforgettable: early-to-mid 20s, long red hair, bushy mustache, tattoos on both arms -- including the word “LOVE” inked across his left hand. Most distinctive of all: a birth defect on his right hand where his fingers appeared fused or grown together.

He was reportedly carrying an Illinois driver’s license with a possible 1944 birth year. The female was younger -- 18 to 20 -- shorter, with brown hair and possibly a tattoo or birthmark on one ankle. Both were dressed in the casual, road-worn style of the day.

For over five decades the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation has chased those details.

The case has never gone completely cold, it has simply refused to close. In June 2024, OSBI once again asked the public for help, hoping that someone who knew the red-haired man with the deformed hand and the “LOVE” tattoo or the young woman who rode with him might finally speak up.

Mack Watkins was a working man, a veteran, a father and step-father who only wanted to get home. Instead, his final act of kindness ended in one of the most savage roadside murders in Oklahoma history.

The orange pickup is long gone. The rest area near Sallisaw still sits quietly beside I-40. But the questions remain: Who were those two hitchhikers? Where did they go after Oklahoma City? And who will finally give Mack Watkins’ family the answer they have waited more than half a century to hear?

If you recognize the man with the “LOVE” tattoo and deformed right hand — or the woman who was with him in October 1971 — the OSBI Cold Case Unit wants to hear from you. Tips can be submitted anonymously at tips@osbi.ok.gov or 1-800-522-8017.

Some rides change everything.

This one ended a life and left a killer (or killers) still walking free.