On the evening of December 7, 1992, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, 26-year-old Robert Phillips, known as Bobby, returned to his parents’ home and was ambushed and killed with an axe, dying of blunt force trauma. His parents, who had been out Christmas shopping, later found Bobby and his younger brother David, 19, also dead in the house from a gunshot wound. Investigators concluded David was shot first as he woke in his bedroom, and that Bobby was attacked hours later when he walked in.

Crime-scene evidence suggested the killer or killers stayed in the home for a long time afterward, even drinking and watching television, and attempted to start a fire by leaving lit candles and the smell of natural gas. The family car was taken and abandoned the next morning in a nearby high school parking lot. The FBI became involved but no arrests were made and the case went cold.

A later theory holds the brothers were victims of mistaken identity: authorities think the killers may have intended a different Phillips family whose daughter and her husband had been murdered the year before, for which Jackie Wright was convicted and is serving life. Wright has not been charged in the Phillips brothers’ case and the murders remain unsolved. If anyone knew Bobby or David, or has information about the night of December 7, 1992, please come forward.