Summer of 1947 saw three couples killed in Mayes County by Native American dubbed "The Phantom Lake Killer"

In Oklahoma’s Green Country, where the Neosho River feeds Lake Hudson, a dark chapter unfolded in the summer of 1947, known as the "Phantom Lake Killer" case. Elias "Eli" Thorne, a drifter of Cherokee descent with a troubled mind, was convicted of murdering six young people (three couples) by sabotaging their boats, causing them to drown in the reservoir’s secluded coves.

The killings, spread over six weeks, shook Mayes County, leaving a legacy of tragedy and lore drawn from court records, descendant interviews, mental health evaluations, and local accounts.

Lake Hudson, created in the 1930s by the Markham Ferry Project, was a retreat for young couples seeking privacy amid its willow-lined coves.

In July and August 1947, Thorne targeted three pairs, luring them to their deaths with a calculated ruse. Posing as a friendly fisherman with a weathered tackle box, he rented boats from a dock near Salina, offering to guide couples to prime fishing spots.

• Harold and Evelyn Bates (ages 22 and 20, from Tulsa): On July 12, Thorne led them to a remote northern cove. Their boat was found capsized the next day, its hull deliberately drilled with holes. Their bodies surfaced later, and a spiral symbol with arrowheads, resembling Cherokee water glyphs, was carved into an oar.

• Clarence and Lila Miller (ages 24 and 19, from Vinita): On July 26, Thorne repeated the scheme, directing them to a hidden spot. Their boat sank due to tampered planks, and their bodies were recovered in weeds, lungs filled with silt. Lila’s locket bore the same spiral symbol.

• Robert and Anna Hayes (ages 21 and 18, from Salina): On August 9, under a bright moon, the high school sweethearts fell for Thorne’s charm. Their boat sank, and their bodies washed up days later, with the symbol etched into their picnic basket.

Thorne’s method was chillingly efficient: he drilled weighted holes in rental boats, guided victims to isolated areas, and watched from a hidden raft as they drowned. His diary, seized after his arrest on August 15 following a bar fight, revealed his belief that the lake demanded "offerings" to appease "drowned ancestors."

Each crime scene bore the same carved symbol, sparking local panic and media fascination with the "Phantom" moniker, tied to Cherokee tales of water spirits. Sheriff Amos Reed initially called the Bates’ deaths an accident, possibly from submerged debris, but the pattern and symbols soon pointed to murder.

Thorne’s arrest yielded damning evidence: boat rental receipts and a pocketknife etched with the spiral symbol.The Trial and MotiveThe October 1947 trial in Vinita was a media frenzy. Prosecutors presented Thorne’s diary as key evidence, its pages filled with fevered passages about a "blood debt" and "the water’s hunger."

The defense argued insanity, citing his fractured mental state, but Thorne was convicted on three counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to life without parole. He died in McAlester Prison in 1972 from tuberculosis.

Thorne’s motives were rooted in delusion and cultural trauma.

Psychological evaluations described a "dissociative delusion" tied to his belief that Lake Hudson, built over flooded Cherokee lands, demanded sacrifices to honor ancestors lost during events like the Trail of Tears. He saw the couples as symbols of a world that erased his heritage, his actions a warped ritual to restore balance.

Born Elias Blackfeather in 1919 near Tahlequah, in the Cherokee Nation, Thorne grew up in poverty. His father, a Cherokee silversmith, vanished after the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, leaving Eli with his mother, Lena, a mixed-heritage woman who worked for missionaries. Lena embraced Christianity, rejecting Cherokee traditions and punishing Eli for engaging with them, such as speaking Tsalagi or honoring sacred springs.

At Sequoyah High School, he faced ridicule for his heritage, earning slurs like "half-breed." By his teens, he was a runaway, working transient jobs in Depression-era camps, where he absorbed Cherokee myths of water spirits and tales of vengeful river wraiths

.Mental health records from the trial suggest Thorne’s fixation on water stemmed from family stories of Cherokee drownings during forced removals.

After his mother’s death in the 1940s and rejection from WWII enlistment due to a "nervous disposition," he drifted to Lake Hudson, seeing its flooded lands as a desecration of ancestral graves.

His crimes blended mental illness, cultural loss, and personal grief into a deadly obsession.

Nearly eight decades later, the Phantom Lake Killer case remains a somber part of Mayes County history. A 2018 forensic review confirmed Thorne’s knife matched tool marks on the boats, ruling out copycat theories. Historians debate the spiral symbols’ origins, with some linking them to 18th-century Cherokee iconography, while others call them Thorne’s invention.

Annual memorials at Salina’s waterfront honor the victims, and safety measures like life vests and warning signs at docks reflect lessons learned.Descendants, like great-niece Mira Blackfeather, interviewed by the Tahlequah Daily Press in 2023, describe Thorne as a man broken by cultural erasure, poverty, and rejection.

The world took his spirit first—schools, lost land, a mother who chose faith over blood," she said. His diary, stored at the Oklahoma History Center, ends with a haunting plea: "The water remembers all. Let it teach mercy."

Lake Hudson’s calm surface still holds the weight of this tragedy, a reminder of how loss and disconnection can spiral into horror.