Announcement:
on hold indefinitely
PANIC BUTTON | SEASON 3
BRING HER TO
THE BONE HOUSE
We started an investigation into the murders of Emily Morgan and Totinika Elix ten months ago. These two young mothers were gunned down in Bache, Oklahoma on August 25th, 2016. Their double homicide case has never been solved. Our intention has always been to air a multi-episode podcast on the case as Season Three of our true-crime-advocacy podcast, Panic Button. We went into production in January of this year.
We have worked with our partners and the victims’ families throughout and have strived for trauma-informed interview practices and information sharing with the victims’ families as the process went on.
As we were preparing the episodes to air, it became glaringly apparent to us that – after finding the information we have found on the case – we are putting ourselves and our families, the victims’ families, and potentially other advocates, in physical danger to publish this season. It is with great sorrow that we announce we will be unable to release this project to the public.
Emily Morgan and Totinika Elix’s case is a very active case with multiple active leads that investigators at OSBI are following. We will be sharing all the information we found with law enforcement and the victims’ families in hopes that the perpetrator(s) of this crime will be brought to justice.
The MMIW/MMIR crisis in Oklahoma is very real and under-investigated. It is indelibly linked to Oklahoma’s overall cultural attitude toward violence against women, low prosecution rates for domestic violence crimes, and racism toward tribal peoples. Murder is the third leading cause of death for Native American women. We have the highest rate of domestic violence in the country. We are a thoroughfare for human trafficking to the rest of the country. Living as women of color in Oklahoma, Emily and Ty were statistically more likely to be the victims of violent crime. We should all care about that and do everything we can to improve it.
All of this being true, it is our position that it could do more harm than good to Emily and Ty’s case, and create additional harm, to release the information we have right now. The last thing we want is for our work to make it more difficult for law enforcement and prosecutors to do their jobs to find closure for these families. We will continue to stay involved to help chase leads, and if the person or people who killed these girls is ever tried and convicted in a court of law, we will release the podcast so our listeners can hear and understand the depths and breadth of this case.
As always, we are grateful to the victims’ families for trusting us with this story, and we apologize to our listeners that have always supported us. We are not sure when Panic Button will be back. In the meantime you can follow us on social media at @panic_button_podcast on instagram for updates.
Colleen McCarty & Leslie Briggs,
Co-Hosts and Co-Producers of Panic Button
SEASON TWO –
OPERATION : WILDFIRE
Come with us on a journey through rural Oklahoma, on the backroads and through the courthouses as we track a serial domestic abuser who is still out there. A person with a trail of victims as long as Boston Pool Road– winding all the way back to 1997. What will it take for a punitive system to hold a known violent offender accountable? So many folks said that April Wilkens should have held back, should not have shot so many times, should have left. But what happens when an abuser is left unchecked in Oklahoma? Women are getting life sentences for fighting back— but men go on to abuse with impunity. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
SEASON ONE –
THE APRIL WILKENS CASE
A podcast about a true crime story unlike any other– only there's no whodunnit, and there's no whydunnit. We know exactly who killed Terry Carlton on April 28th, 1998. And we know exactly why. Because she told us--April Wilkens told anyone who would listen that she defended her own life that night. And yet--even in the face of overwhelming evidence and testimony--the jury sentenced her to LIFE.
Attorneys Leslie Briggs and Colleen McCarty deep dive into the facts of the case, and the phenomenon of criminalized survivors in Oklahoma prisons.
OKLAHOMA
APPLESEED
Panic Button is presented by
CENTER FOR LAW & JUSTICE
Oklahoma Appleseed is a non-profit organization that fights for justice and opportunity for all Oklahomans. We approach big issues--like Criminal & Juvenile Justice, Education Justice, and Election Justice--by tackling their root causes. We take our work wherever we believe we can do the most good, whether that’s in the courthouse, at the Capitol, or in the community.
THE PANIC
BUTTON TEAM
LESLIE BRIGGS, ESQ.
Leslie Briggs is a homegrown Tulsan. She received her undergraduate degrees in Spanish and History from Oklahoma State University. She also holds a Master's Degree in International Studies from OSU and a Master's Degree in Political Science from UPAEP in Puebla, Mexico.
Since being licensed as an attorney, she's worked in civil rights litigation as an associate at Smolen and Roytman, and as a Supervising Attorney at the YWCA-Tulsa helping supervise a team of legal advocates and working to resettle the nearly 1000 afghan evacuees who have arrived in Tulsa since 2021.
COLLEEN McCARTY,ESQ.
Colleen McCarty is an attorney and life-long advocate of a more just system. In 2017, McCarty went back to the University of Tulsa College of Law to attend law school (JD ‘20).
While in law school, McCarty co-published a piece in the Federal Sentencing Reporter titled, "Oklahoma's State Question 780: Reform & Resistance." As a law student, McCarty assisted in the commutation of hundreds of felony drug sentences (both directly and indirectly) before the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board.
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