Last witness dies, leaving Okla. rancher's murder unsolved

The lifeless body was slumped on a living room couch. E.C. Mullendore III looked like a dirty rag doll, only it wasn't red earth from the millionaire rancher's spread that camouflaged his face. It was his blood, and lots of it, retired Osage County Sheriff George Wayman said. "He suffered a bad beating and was shot," Wayman said. "His whole skull was caved in." It was a sight the 85-year-old Wayman said he never forgot. On Sept. 26, 1970, Mullendore, 32, was killed while at home on his family ranch near Pawhuska. His death has remained a mystery with only one man knowing the truth of what occurred that night. That man, Damon "Chub" Anderson, died Nov. 24. No charges have ever been filed in the case. Wayman said Anderson swore to him he'd take the secret to his grave. Mullendore grew up on his family's Cross Bell Ranch, a massive cattle operation near Hulah in northeast Oklahoma. He married his college sweetheart, Linda, who had a pageant-queen figure even after giving him four children. The young couple lived in a spacious modern home with a horseshoe-shaped swimming pool not far from his parents' mansion. Mullendore enjoyed all the extravagances wealth allowed him, but he also was a hands-on, hardworking rancher. He managed 130,000 acres of ranch land in Oklahoma and Kansas established by his grandfather, E.C. Mullendore, and expanded by his father, E.C. "Gene" Mullendore...more