On the morning of April 29th, 1986, a farmer working his fields near Lawton, Oklahoma,
noticed smoke rising from a nearby road. He called the authorities and twenty minutes later, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol arrived at the scene. They discovered a burning car embedded in a deserted bridge, the heat from which was so intense that the car had actually melted into the metal guardrail. Inside the car, officers noticed something disturbing. Lt. Larry Sallee of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol:
“When Highway Patrol arrived, a body was inside the car, but it was a futile exercise to try to get to the occupant, due to the fact that the car had already burned so badly.”
The body was burned beyond recognition. Skid marks indicated that the car’s speed at impact was 50 to 60 miles per hour. To the highway patrol, it seemed like just another senseless accident.
Smiling Pat Conway in a shirt and tie
The car belonged to Pat Conway
A computer check revealed the car belonged to Pat Conway, who lived with his family in Lawton, 15 miles from the crash site. The next day, the victim was identified as Aileen Conway, Pat’s wife of 33 years. Authorities reported Aileen’s death as an accident. But soon, Pat noticed a number of conflicting facts that led him to doubt the official story. Pat Conway would eventually conclude that his wife had been murdered:
“There’s no doubt in my mind it was murder, and if I live to be a hundred years old, I’ll still be pushing to try to find the individual or possibly two individuals, whoever was involved.”
Pat first became suspicious when he returned home a few hours after his wife’s death to find the patio door wide open. Aileen’s purse, which she always carried with her, had been left behind. Her driver’s license and glasses were inside. An ironing board was set up and the iron left on. Water from a garden hose was running into the backyard swimming pool. In the master bathroom, the tub was still full of water and the phone was off the hook. All of these clues seemed more than suspicious to Pat:
“The thing that really got my attention was the phone being off the hook, as though she’d attempted to make a phone call, possibly to the police department. We have no way of knowing to whom. Between me and the kids, one would see one thing, and one another, and we start putting it together and right away we found out, well, this was no accident at all.”
Investigator holding a church bulliten
A church bulletin was found in the grass
There was another disturbing detail that nagged at Pat: what would Aileen have been doing out on that lonely country road? Neither of them had ever been in the area. Nothing about his wife’s death made sense. Pat contacted Investigator Ray Anderson of the District Attorney’s office:
“The first impression that I had, of this case, when I met with Mr. Conway, was that of a spouse that was left alone, not expecting the tragedy that happened and looking for some reason why this happened, other than it just being an accident. However, when you start looking at the extenuating and surrounding circumstances, the way that she left her house, it leads you to believe that there is a possibility that there could have been foul play.”