Bob McCarty Writes

EDITOR’S NOTE: Continued from Part Two, below is Part Three of Carrie Fatigante’s six-part series about the still-unsolved mystery surrounding the death of Jarret Austin Clark, a young Oklahoma man, only days after his high school graduation.

By Carrie Fatigante

As Tammy and Eric Slater pressed their community for information about the death of their son, Jarret Clark, they learned that Brandon Hargrove and Courtney Manzer were notoriously dysfunctional, and they feared Jarret fell victim to their rumored volatile relationship. Many of Jarret’s friends indicated to the Slaters that Brandon was very jealous with Courtney. Apparently, “no guys could talk to her without Brandon getting mad and jealous. These comments sure hit home hard when I had Brandon on the phone asking him ‘where is my son’?” recalled Tammy.

“Investigators,” according to a Newson6.com report, “say witnesses told them Clark had been drinking that night at Fort Gibson Lake and that he had walked away from a fight, but according to the medical examiners report, only a trace amount of alcohol was found in his system and that could have happened naturally when his body decomposed.”

A common assumption among those close to the case is that it was Courtney who flirted with Jarret and she who asked to take their conversation inside a tent at the camp.

Sean speculated that Brandon became enraged when he discovered Courtney and Jarret together. With the help of Tony, Brandon may have overpowered Jarret and beaten him unconscious. He presumes they hit him over the head with a baseball bat given the size and appearance of the wound on his forehead when he was found. Once Jarret was unconscious, Sean believes they dumped him in the lake and left him to die.

Young Jarret Clark, ballplayer.

Tammy, Eric, Sean, and others believe that, after Jarret’s body was thrown into the lake, Brandon, Tony, Dayna and Courtney stole Jarret’s phone, planted his shoes and jacket to make it look like he’d wandered off by himself and then quickly packed up camp and abandoned the site — and Jarret. This theory is substantiated twice: by a witness near the camp who claims she saw Brandon’s truck backing down to the water, and by the fact that Brandon later admitted to Tammy that he disposed of Jarret’s phone and Carhart ball cap.

Also, Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation investigator Vicki Lyons purportedly told Eric that Dayna admitted checking Jarret’s pulse before they left the scene.

“I think they couldn’t find a pulse, panicked and decided to hide his body,” Eric proclaims. “We found a witness that saw Brandon’s truck back up into the water, stop for a few minutes, and then leave quickly.” Eric says this witness actually reported what she saw to the Wagoner County Sheriff but “was never contacted to make an official statement. We only found her during our petition drive for the grand jury.”

Tammy described another disturbing puzzle piece that emerged when her niece, Ashley Smithson, was at her home with other family members waiting for the phone to ring [with information about Jarret].

“Ashley also kept calling Jarret’s cell phone periodically,” she said. “A man [finally] answered saying he was ‘John Smith’ from Sand Springs and found this phone on the side of the road at Wahoo Bay. Ashley explained the phone belonged to her cousin, Jarret Clark, and offered to meet this ‘John Smith’ in Sand Springs to retrieve Jarret’s phone. He hung up on Ashley.”

Continued in Part Four of “What Really Happened to Jarret Clark?”