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On May 29, 1992, 23-year-old Wendy Camp disappeared alongside her 6-year-old daughter, Cynthia Britto & her sister-in-law, 22-year-old Lisa Renee Kregear. Their families suffered for 21 long years, not knowing where they were or what happened to them. Finally in 2014, they received the answers they had been desperately searching for.
Wendy grew up on a large farm & always dreamed of becoming a vet. When she was 16-years-old, she started dating a college student named Christopher Britto & it wasn’t long until the young couple realized that Wendy was pregnant. Their daughter Cynthia was born in 1986, but when the baby was only six months old, Christopher’s parents put pressure on him & convinced him to end his marriage with Wendy & return to his home country.
In the spring of 1987, Wendy Britto was now a divorced mother with a young daughter living in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma when she fell in love with her co-worker, Chad Noe, while working at a local restaurant. According to Wendy’s mom, Jackie Taylor, Wendy & Chad quickly hit it off & began a relationship. Soon, Wendy was pregnant with her second child & Chad convinced her that they should get married. The couple was married about three or four weeks before their son, Jonathan, was born & they lived with Wendy’s parents at the time.
Only one month after Jonathan’s birth, Wendy’s health rapidly deteriorated & she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis which caused her to be hospitalized for close to a year. At the beginning of her illness, Wendy’s family cared for Cynthia while Chad’s mom, Beverly Noe, helped take care of Jonathan until she recovered.
Things went from bad to worse & Wendy fell into a coma only a couple months after her wedding. While she remained hospitalized & extremely ill, Chad went on to file for divorce & was awarded primary custody of their son. According to Chad, he should be Jonathan’s sole parent because:
Of course, along with the MS, I didn’t think that she would be able to help me raise my child. And instead of having two people, or two children to deal with, I just decided it was best if we got a divorce & I help raise the child on my own.
Despite the fact that it was Chad who was awarded custody of Jonathan, it was Beverly who seemingly became responsible for his care & it appeared that she was making it her mission to keep the baby to herself.
Throughout this time, Wendy was far too sick to fight either the divorce or the custody battle. She spent two grueling years going through therapy, re-learning the simple skills that many of us take for granted, such as eating & walking. As she began to regain her strength, things slowly started to look up & during this time, her friends introduced her to a man at the hospital named Leon Camp. The two soon fell in love & got married. Those that knew Leon indicated that he was the type of guy who would give you the shirt off his back.
After their wedding, Wendy focused on her continued recovery as she, Leon & Cynthia lived together. With her strength & health improvements, she was finally able to focus on her son’s custody & began the process by asking Chad if she could start having visits with Jonathan.
Things were going smoothly initially & Jonathan was allowed to spend a few weekends with Wendy, Leon & his half-sister. However, according to Wendy’s mom, Jackie, it wasn’t long before Chad’s family began to sabotage these visits. Jackie elaborated by saying, She would call & make an appointment with them, set up a time & everything for her to see him. And she would go there & they would not be at home. And then they kept moving & getting unlisted phone numbers, this type of thing. So it was almost impossible to keep track of them.
Chad, on the other hand, had a different perspective of the situation: She was allowed to visit him whenever she wanted. And there was never real hard feelings up until my mother informed me that he was being sexually molested & that’s whenever the visitations were cut off.
It turned out that Chad & his family were accusing Leon Camp of sexually abusing Jonathan, something that Leon indicated was a downright lie. He went on to say that the very idea of something so horrific, absolutely tore him up on the inside. The accusations of abuse against Leon could not be either proved or disproved so the court ordered that Wendy & Leon’s visits resume & Chad was cited for contempt. For over six months, Chad refused to allow Jonathan to visit the Camp home.
The turmoil & heartache continued until out of the blue, Chad had a change of heart & said that not only could Wendy finally see her son, but his mom, Beverly Noe, would even pick Wendy up since she wasn’t able to drive. The visit was arranged for May 29, 1992. Because this change of heart seemed to come out of nowhere, Leon felt very unnerved by the sudden shift in behavior & said that he wasn’t comfortable with Wendy going alone. As it were, he never trusted Chad & there was still a lot of animosity between them from the false abuse accusations.
By the time Beverly arrived that Friday, Leon had arranged for his sister, 22-year-old Lisa Renee Kregear, to go along with Wendy & her daughter, 6-year-old Cynthia. He felt much more at ease with the idea of safety in numbers. Leon recalls that as the trio left the house, he gave Wendy a kiss goodbye & watched as the car drove away. This was tragically the last time he ever saw them.
The drive to Chad’s home in Shamrock, Oklahoma was 115 miles/185 kilometers away & took a little over two hours. When they arrived, Wendy called Leon to check in & let him know that they’d arrived safely.
According to Chad, while they were at his house, Wendy & Cynthia played with 4-year-old Jonathan for a little, but she mostly spent her time sitting on the porch, drinking coffee & chatting with him.
As their visit was wrapping up, Wendy said goodbye to Jonathan & she, Cynthia & Lisa Renee climbed back into Beverly’s car. For the ride back, Chad’s grandmother, Ida Prewitt, decided to come along. Before they left, Wendy checked back in with Leon at about 4:30 or 4:45 pm to let him know how the visit went. She said that Beverly was in a hurry so she needed to end the call & head out toward home. That was the last time he ever heard his wife’s voice.
According to Ida, Wendy was unpleasant from the get-go & continued to complain as they made their drive into town. At this point, Ida said that she’d had enough & requested to be taken back home. Beverly turned the car back around & dropped Ida off.
According to Beverly, Wendy continued on with her complaining & unpleasant demeanor for the next thirty minutes, voicing her issues with the fact that it had been so difficult to have a visitation with Jonathan. Beverly indicated that she was unable to tolerate another minute of it, so she stopped off in Chandler & dropped the women off at Walmart, demanding that they get out of the car.
The shopping center that Beverly claimed to have let the group out was 45 miles from Wendy’s home.
Despite these claims, neither Wendy, Cynthia, nor Lisa Renee ever made it back home & they were never heard from again.
As midnight was approaching, Wendy’s family was growing increasingly concerned by their absence, fully aware that they should have been home by 7:30 pm at the latest. Even more concerning, Wendy was without all of her medications that treated her multiple sclerosis.
Wendy, Lisa Renee & Cynthia were soon reported missing & an investigation began. When authorities spoke with Beverly, she told the story about dropping the trio off at Walmart & indicated that she assumed that Wendy would contact Leon to bring them back home from there. When they questioned Ida, her version of events backed this.
As investigators headed to the Walmart in question in Chandler, they discovered that there was no surveillance system & employees working on May 29 could not attest to seeing the three missing girls.
When they spoke with Chad, he said that the visit with Wendy & Jonathan went well that day & the last he saw Wendy, Cynthia & Lisa Renee, they were getting into the car to head home. When he was given a polygraph test, his answers indicated that he was being truthful.
Jackie Johnson from the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation said that an aerial search involving four to five airplanes searched a five county area & there was no sign of the three girls.
Jackie Taylor, Wendy’s mom, fully suspected foul play, indicating that Wendy was extremely dependent upon Leon, pointing out that during Wendy’s visit with Jonathan, she had checked in with him twice. Had Beverly’s story been true & Wendy, Cynthia & Lisa Renee were actually forced from the car at Walmart, there was no doubt in her mind that she would have immediately contacted Leon. If for whatever reason, she wasn’t able to get a hold of Leon, she would have called Jackie next. She believes that Beverly’s story was a complete lie & that her daughter, granddaughter & Lisa Renee were murdered that Friday evening. It was her belief that Beverly, Ida & Chad were involved in whatever happened to them. It was obvious to Wendy’s loved ones that the visit with Jonathan had been orchestrated to lure Wendy to their property so they could murder her in order to remove her from her son’s life to allow them uninterrupted custody of the young boy.
Ida spoke out & maintained her innocence & said she didn’t care what Wendy’s family believed or didn’t believe because she knows her truth. In the meantime, Chad said that his mother & grandmother would not be capable of murder. However, two residents of Shamrock claim to have overheard Chad bragging about the fact that he killed the three girls & specifically said that no one would ever find their bodies. When questioned about this statement, he said that it’s possible that he said something to this effect while he was in a drunken stupor, but insists that he is not a violent person & would be incapable of harming them.
As Chad’s family members were questioned, investigators began hearing stories about Beverly & Ida that were red flags. One woman, Beverly’s former sister-in-law, told investigators that according to Beverly, when she would attend the custody hearings for Jonathan, Beverly would carry a .357 revolver with her in her purse. Beverly also made statements that if she was at risk for losing custody of Jonathan, she would kill Wendy before she would allow that to happen.
There was still not enough evidence to make an arrest & as time passed, Beverly suspiciously went into hiding & no one was able to find her for about a year. During that time, police were unable to come up with any suspects involved in their disappearance & turned to Unsolved Mysteries for help.
During the series, Beverly did not do an on-air interview, however, Ida did participate & completely minimized their involvement in the case, saying, Beverly & I did not have nothing to do with their disappearance. And I know this.
As detectives began to take a closer look, they learned that Ida & her daughter Debbie had been arrested after Debbie’s husband was stabbed to death. Because of a lack of evidence, they were released without being charged, but the family had their doubts. As investigators spoke with family about the incident, Chad’s cousin, Kirsten Fox, described Ida as a ruthless woman who had no issues committing crimes.
As Unsolved Mysteries aired, tips began to roll in, but unfortunately, they all led to dead ends & in 2011, Ida Prewitt died without ever facing justice in this case. Kirsten held out hope that maybe Ida would have made a deathbed confession, but never happened.
Family members of Wendy, Cynthia & Lisa Renee continued on, still without answers as to what happened to the three girls for 21 long, painful years.
This all changed in 2013 when 60-year-old Grover Prewitt, Beverly’s brother, came forward & told police that it was his belief that the three bodies were buried in a septic tank on his former property & elaborated that Ida & Beverly may have had something to do with the girls’ disappearance.
Investigators learned that Ida had been living in a trailer on the property in question & had a 8-foot deep hole that had originally been dug for a septic tank on the land that he owned near Jennings, Oklahoma that ended up being used as a place for trash for years. The hole remained uncovered until just after the girls disappeared.
According to court records, Ida instructed her son to fill in the hole since There’s a couple of dead bodies in there. He indicated that when he did fill in the hole, he never looked inside because he was too afraid of what he might see. Grover insisted that investigators explore the location & as he led investigators to the potential burial site, Beverly continued to deny any involvement.
The dig was painstaking & done under the supervision of forensic anthropologist, Angela Berg. As the dig continued, they discovered the skeletal remains of three bodies. The medical examiner later determined that Wendy died from sharp-force injuries as well as gunshot wounds; evidence on her sweatshirt, sweatpants & her skeleton proved this based on a linear injury to her third rib.
Due to evidence found on her shirt, her eighth rib & sternum, it was determined that Lisa Renee died from gunshot wounds. A linear defect was found on her shirt, but no specific sharp force injuries were found to her skeleton. The medical examiner determined that her wrist was broken at or near the time of her death.
Cynthia’s cause of death is listed as undetermined, but duct tape was found on her remains at the area of her mouth, nose, eyes, wrists & right ankle. Trauma could not be excluded, but there were no specific injuries found to her skeletal remains.
Within the grave, investigators also found the victims’ belongings which included clothing, their purses & contents. A .357-caliber revolver as well as a 6.5-inch knife were also exhumed from the burial site.
On January 10, 2014, the results of the DNA testing confirmed that the remains were Wendy Camp, Cynthia Britto & Lisa Renee Kregear.
Beverly Noe was arrested & charged with first-degree murder. It was alleged that she & her mother, Ida, wanted to kill Wendy so that Beverly could raise Jonathan herself & Cynthia & Lisa Renee just happened to be collateral damage because they were witnesses. Because Grover Prewitt concealed the fact that the three had been murdered & their bodies had been dumped into the hole on their land, he was arrested & charged with accessory to first-degree murder & held at the Creek County Jail on a $500,000 bond.
During a hearing in January 2015, Beverly Noe was offered a plea deal to lessen the charges from first-degree murder to accessory to murder & in exchange, she pleaded guilty to no contest to helping carry out the murders. As this hearing took place, she stood only feet away from the victims’ families, their pain still heavy even after the passage of more than two decades.
Leon spoke with tears streaming down his face, I loved them so much. I thought they were coming home & they didn’t. I took care of her. She relied on me to help her through so much because she had multiple sclerosis. And Cynthia called me Daddy. I wasn’t her real Daddy, but I was the only Daddy she ever knew. And my sister, I loved her so much, we were very close too.
Meanwhile, as the victims’ families were seated in the front row, Beverly turned to her attorney & said, That looks like what’s-her-face’s crew there in the front row.
Shortly after making the callous comment, 67-year-old Beverly entered her plea & was sentenced to fifteen years in prison plus fifteen years of probation. It wasn’t going to be her first time behind bars either as in 2007 both she & her mother were imprisoned for intentionally burning down their home in order to collect over $83,000 in insurance money.
Leon said that throughout the years, he was always sure in his heart that Beverly had something to do with his loved one’s deaths, but because there was never proof, nothing could be done until 2013. He believed that a lot of other people within Beverly’s family were also involved.
Wendy’s sister, Aisha told reporters that she believed that her sister fought back until the bitter end in order to try & protect her daughter’s young life. Since seeing the photos of the grave, she was plagued by analyzing & over analyzing them, trying to figure out the sequence of events, imagining the horrors of their final moments. She felt that not knowing exactly what happened before their deaths made everything so much worse, but remains thankful that their remains were finally found. Since there was no determined cause of death for Cynthia, she shudders to think of how her niece died. She wonders if she was already dead when she was buried & can only hope that she was already gone, unable to imagine that the 6-year-old suffocated to death had she been buried alive.
Chad Noe never faced any charges & Beverly ended up serving only three years due to her age & health issues & passed away at age 76 on October 13, 2023. Grover Prewitt was released on a $100,000 bond after his arrest & his case was eventually dismissed. He died at age 64 on January 25, 2017.
Wendy was described as someone who loved to go camping & fishing, she regularly attended church & loved to spend time with her family. Cynthia was a bright little girl who loved school, playing with her toys, & visiting her grandparents. Lisa Renee was a housewife who was happiest spending time with her son & daughter. She was cheerful & loved to laugh.
References:
- 5 News: Graphic: Oklahoma man arrested in 1992 triple homicide
- News 9: Families of murder victims witness Bristow woman take plea deal
- Oxygen True Crime: Triple murder tied to bitter custody feud solved 21 years after victims vanished
- Unsolved Mysteries: Missing in-laws
- The Oklahoman: Three murdered in 1992 will finally get proper burial
- News on 6: Autopsy reports released in 1992 Jennings triple-homicide case
- Bristow Buzz: Obituary for Grover Junior Prewitt of Bristow, Oklahoma
- Bristow News: Beverly Sue Noe
