14 years and one day ago Animal Welfare workers were searching for stray cats in a weed choked lot behind a supermarket in Bethany, Oklahoma. The town is a small suburb on the west side of Oklahoma City and at the time it had a police department with 31 officers and detectives. It's unclear whether the Animal Control people found any cats that day. What they did find was a duffle bag which had a stench so bad they immediately called the Bethany cops.
When the authorities opened it up they found most of the rapidly decomposing remains of Carina Saunders. She had been beheaded and dismembered and while some of her parts were missing--and still are--there was enough there to make the ID within a couple of days. She had been 19 years old and was a 2010 graduate of Mustang High School, another suburb to the south and west of the city.
The local media, both print and television, ran wild with the story. The metro area had never seen anything like it. It was the sort of lurid nastiness people normally associate with cheap, straight to video, horror films. In other words, pure tabloid gold--the bloody car wreck you can't keep staring at.
It became even more so as the details of Saunders' life and gruesome murder were leaked to the media and public over the next few months. How could you not be darkly fascinated with the emerging tale of a pretty young girl who, within a scant few years, went from wanting to be an opera singer to bragging to pals she was going to be a porn star. One who dived so deep into the nether world of drugs and deadly gangs she had, "Kween of Spades," tattooed across her back. (No, the word Spades wasn't spelled out.)
In the ensuing 14 years since her body was found her family have tried to rehabilitate her reputation and theirs. However, at the time of her death it was quite another story. Initial reports said she was last seen by a cousin getting into a blue, or gray SUV near the intersection of I-40 and Rockwell Ave driven by a gray haired man in his 40's. Days passed with no word, but perhaps because of her history of erratic behavior no one in her family thought to report her missing. That happened only after the cousin received a text message from an unknown person saying she would end up being, "buried next Carina." A screen shot of the text message, surprisingly, given what was going to happen later, wasn't released to the media. In fact, at the time, it seemed to get lost in the shuffle of facts and rumors.
That didn't mean all kinds of other information didn't appear in the media. The Bethany cops took over the investigation because it was where the body parts were found. They roamed the metro, tracking down witnesses and leads all of which they were more than happy to release to local news outlets. Names of suspects, witnesses, informants, plus rumors of suspected murder sites were all made public. It was, it seemed, a never ending cascade of names and places.
The most horrifying tidbit that was given to the press was that a video of the actual murder might exist. According to the Bethany PD the murderers made the video, which showed Saunders on a table being tortured and dismembered, in order to intimidate the women they were trafficking. Bethany cops claimed they had talked to a woman who claimed to have seen the first few seconds of the nightmare scene. To prove it they gave her name to the media.
As soon as her name hit the newspaper and airwaves the woman denied ever seeing anything or saying she did. Other witnesses whose names were released to the public were quickly in the wind, heading to parts unknown. The video has since become a terribly dark urban legend. If it ever did exist it and the phone it is supposedly on have surely disappeared long ago.
One of the first, "persons of interest" was Kyle Savage, but after a search of an apartment in a public housing project his name faded from view. Recently however, it has resurfaced with one report indicating he might be the source of the, "I will bury you next to Carina," text to the cousin. Later, Bethany police charged Luis Ruiz and Jimmy Massey with the murder. It was a move that now seems more out of desperation rather than based on evidence. Witnesses were heading for the hills in droves and hard evidence was scant. The charges against both men were later dropped by the Oklahoma County DA. Ruiz, who spent seven months in the county lock up waiting for trial sued the city of Bethany and settled for $50 grand.
Eventually the Bethany cops, with some strong urging, gave up the investigation and turned it over to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation. By the time the OSBI took over it was as cold as the far side of the moon.
The new information which has come to light in the last few years has been sparse at best. Carina Saunders apparently had entered rehab a little while before she was killed. Her family says she was happy to be straight again, had attended church with them and was eagerly turning her life around. The evidence isn't as hopeful, or as fanciful. Within a few days of leaving rehab, she jumped off the wagon and began staying at a friend's place. The two of them spent time at the Newcastle Casino parking lot on the far south edge of the metro. Reports are they were--depending on market conditions--alternately trying to score or sell drugs for the friend's mother. (Other reports say dear old Mom is now doing time on unrelated charges.) It turned out the casino parking lot, rather than 23rd and Rockwell, was the last place Carina Saunders was seen. Witnesses claim they saw her ignore the advice of others, then climb into a pickup truck which took her away into the darkness.
After 14 years it is all the general public knows about her unthinkably cruel death. Other than a few years ago when the OSBI dug up the back yard of a rental property in a fruitless search for clues, the headlines have faded. The case remains open, but there doesn't seem to be even a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Given the nature of their business and lifestyles, the perpetrators may no longer be alive. Even if they are, the odds are they are either in prison or have spent time there since then. The reality of that world is the term, "criminal genius," is an oxymoron.
Carina Saunders would be 33 years old this year. That's just entering the prime of an opera singer's career, but decidedly on the downhill side for a female porn actress. The fact is if she wasn't there already the only next step for her was the needle. That doesn't mean she deserved to be brutally murdered. It also doesn't mean she didn't deserve to have a chance, no matter how slim, to finally start making choices that would save her life. Instead, someone out there, either alive, or deceased, sadistically prevented her from making those choices.
This 14 year saga remains a mystery to many, but ultimately, it is an absolute tragedy.
10-14-25
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