Elderly Couple's Family Still Grieves Month After Deadly Attack In Tulsa

Thursday, April 12th 2012, 9:34 pm

By: News On 6

Family members of Bob and Nancy Strait, the elderly couple attacked in their home one month ago, say they are still heartbroken.

The motive was robbery but 85-year-old Nancy was raped and beaten to death. Ninety-year-old Bob was beaten and shot with a BB gun. It has affected a lot of people in our community.

03/14/2012 Related Story: Elderly Couple Found Badly Beaten In North Tulsa Home



One man is in jail and police are waiting on DNA tests to come back from the lab.

Bob and Nancy Strait fell in love after World War II and had been married more than 65 years. Their family is heartbroken over Nancy's death and Bob's state of mind.

"He's doing okay," daughter Andra, Strait said. "His jaw is healing, his ribs are healing, but he's really sad. His heart is broken. He misses mom. I walk into his room, he'll be looking at her picture with tears in his eyes, but he won't talk about it, he still won't talk about anything."

Andra says her daughter and her sister are having nightmares and she's not sleeping. She always understood crime could happen to her family but now that it has, it changes things.

Andra no longer takes her morning walks and she has a new alarm system on the house. They just can't understand why a robbery turned so vicious.

"If they were there to steal, they could've put them in the bathroom and shut the door. No one would've heard them," Andra said. "Daddy couldn't hear, mama couldn't see. It was pure meanness. The people who did this are just evil, wicked."

Andra and the rest of the family think of Nancy all the time. Her granddaughter got her school pictures recently and Andra thought, mom will want to see these, before the realization hit.

She finds it hard to even say the word.

"I had to call and said my mom was... that was as far as I could get," she said. "I said she died, I couldn't even say murdered. I didn't want to have to explain it."

The family is glad Tyrone Woodfork is in jail and hopes, if others were involved, they're caught so they don't hurt anyone else.

Police say Woodfork may have acted alone in the home but others could've been involved afterward.

"Despite the hype of the last case, they have not been forgotten," Tulsa Police Detective Vic Regalado said. "We are in constant contact with the family, assuring them and the general public, anyone who has a loved one as a victim of crime, we have not forgotten you."

Andra says the family was pleased when the alert neighbor group in her parents' neighborhood decided to name their program after Bob and Nancy.

Police still need information. So if you have any, no matter how small, call Crime Stoppers at 918-596-COPS.