On a summer day in June 1978, Linda Stephens Lorenz, 31, was travelling with her husband Melvin and their 12-year-old son Richard through Oklahoma en route to a family funeral when they stopped near Purcell to help a motorist. The motorist, Verna Stafford, and her husband Roger Dale Stafford and his brother Harold had staged a robbery. When Melvin resisted surrendering money he was shot and killed. Linda ran to his side and was also shot; Richard, who had been in the camper of their truck, was shot and later found about a mile away. The bodies of Linda and Melvin were discarded in a field.

Verna Stafford later implicated Roger and Harold Stafford in the killings. Investigators linked the Staffords to a separate mass murder at a Sirloin Stockade in Oklahoma City that took place weeks later. Harold Stafford died in a motorcycle accident before facing justice. Verna Stafford received two life sentences; Roger Dale Stafford was convicted of the Lorenz murders and was executed in 1995.

Does anyone have memories of the Lorenz family or information about their final trip through Oklahoma that could help fill gaps in the timeline?