Dateline: Secrets Uncovered: What happened to Karen Summers?

The new episode of Dateline: Secrets Uncovered will look at the wrongful convictions of Malcolm Scott and Corey Atchison for the murders of Karen Summers and James Warren Lane, respectively.

The chilling case, which brings out flaws in the American justice system, will be the subject of the Dateline special set that premiered on December 7, 2022, at 8 pm EST.

Malcolm Scott and Corey Atchison were both North Tulsa natives who were falsely implicated in the unconnected murders by police and rival gang members. Malcolm Scott's case is even more shocking as he wasn't even present during the drive-by shooting that killed Karen Summers.

Summers was only 19 when she was shot dead by rival gang members during a house party. The police found the perpetrator, Michael Lee Williams, but he managed to wiggle his way out of the situation by implicating Malcolm Scott and De’Marchoe Carpenter. They were both later sentenced to life.

Karen Summers' real murderer was served justice but not in a way that was desirable.

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Who was Karen Summers, and who killed her?

A North Tulsa native, Karen Summers was a single mother who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. On September 10, 1994, members of a street gang named Crisps were hosting a house party where Karen was also present. At around 2:30 am, Karen was sitting outside when a car rolled by with two people firing from the back seat.

The unassuming Karen Summers was hit in the back with a .380 caliber bullet and when authorities reached the scene, they pronounced her dead on arrival. Two teenagers, Alonzo Johnson and Kenneth Price, were also hit during the same attack.

Through their investigation, police reached Michael Lee Williams, who had all the signs of being guilty. However, in exchange for a reduced sentence, he cut a deal with them to testify against the two other suspects, 17-year-olds Malcolm Scott and De’Marchoe Carpenter. By the time their case went to court, Williams was arrested for a separate murder.

This time, he refused to testify, but the police allegedly got Alonzo Johnson and Kenneth Price to testify against Malcolm Scott and De’Marchoe Carpenter. The jury found them guilty. Although both Scott and Carpenter maintained their innocence, were sentenced to life in prison, and the former never gave up his fight against injustice.

Michael Lee Williams finally revealed that he had killed Karen Summers shortly before he was executed by lethal injection for a different murder. He also said this during a video-recorded interview with the Oklahoma Innocence Project in 2014.

This kickstarted the momentum that led to both Corey and Malcolm's release over the next few years. He also revealed that there were two other gang members with him that night, but they too were implicated in another murder by then.

Among Michael Lee Williams' last words after being given the lethal injection were the following:

"Malcolm Scott and De’Marchoe Carpenter are innocent."

Karen Summers died simply because she was sitting outside at the time and it took a long time before her murderer was found. An innocent man served 21 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. Dateline: Secrets Uncovered dealt with this in detail in its new episode.