The Daily Ardmoreite
                        Ardmore, Oklahoma
                  Wednesday, September 4, 1974

                    Couple, 2 Children Found
                     Slain in Woodward Home

           Husband, Wife Tied in Chairs, Shot to Death

     WOODWARD, Okla. (AP) - Four members of a Woodward family,
including two children, were found shot to death in their home
Tuesday night, officials disclosed today.

     All four were bound and had been shot in the head with a .22
caliber weapon, Sheriff Creel Gaston said.

     The bodies of Melvin Thrasher, 28, his wife, Sandra, 27, and
their children, Penny, 7 and Robert, 18 months, were found in the
children's bedroom in the Thrasher home about one mile north of
Woodward.

     Authorities said Thrasher and his wife were bound back-to-
back in chairs before they were shot.  Gaston said the youngsters
apparently were shot as they slept in their beds.

     Officials said the bodies were discovered about 10:30 p.m. 
by Thrasher's employer, who went to the house to see why Thrasher
had not shown up for work that day.

     The sheriff said all four were fully clothed and there were
indications Mrs. Thrasher had been raped.

     The state Crime Bureau put road blocks around the city
through the night and searched all vehicles, but found no weapon,
officials reported.

     Seven bullets had been fired into the four bodies officials
said.

     The bodies were taken to the state crime laboratory in
Oklahoma City.

     Officials said they knew of no reason for the killings, and
the family was described as "nice church-going people."

     The Thrashers had lived in Woodward since January.  He
worked for Michigan-Wisconsin Pipeline Co.

     The time of the killings was not known and officials
declined to speculate.

     The Thrashers lived about a quarter of a mile northeast of
Woodward, which is in northwestern Oklahoma.
     The sheriff said Mrs. Thrasher was still wearing a diamond
ring when she was found and other family valuables also had been
accounted for.

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                      The Daily Ardmoreite
                        Ardmore, Oklahoma
                   Tuesday, September 24, 1974

                   Youth Charged In 4 Murders

     WOODWARD (Staff) - Bobby Wayne Collins of Ardmore,
originally arrested in connection with the burglary of the Melvin
Thrasher home here, was charged Monday with murdering the four
Thrasher family members over the Labor Day weekend.

     The 19 year old Collins, a service station attendant, was
charged with first degree murder in all four deaths under the
state's mass murder law.  Punishment upon conviction is death in
the electric chair.

     Collins was ordered held without bond by Associate District
Judge Harris Bleckly who set the defendant's preliminary hearing
for Oct. 7.

     Though he reportedly has no police record in Woodward, where
he has resided for about the past month, Collins served a prison
term for attempted rape of an Ardmore woman and was released late
in 1971.

     A Carter County jury earlier this year acquitted Collins of
the rape of a Lone Grove woman.

     Stephen Jones, Collins' attorney and Republican attorney
general candidate, said Collins told him he was outside the
Thrasher home on Labor Day and a hitchhiker was inside when he
heard four shots come from the residence.

     Crime Bureau Spokesmen, however, said investigators in the
case and contacts with authorities in other states have failed to
prove there was such a person.

     Thrasher, 23; his wife, Sandra, 27; daughter Penny, 7, and
son Robert, 15 months, were found shot to death in their rural
home north of Woodward Sept. 3.

     Collins was charged Sept. 15 with the Aug. 28 burglary of
the Thrasher home and was arrested last Friday as a suspect in
the mass murder.