Tulsa Police Investigating Whether Suspect In Attempted Rape Is Connected To Unsolved Murder

By Lori Fullbright, The News On 6

TULSA, OK – Tulsa Police say Willie Walker nearly raped a woman, then stole her car and took officers on a 30-minute chase through Tulsa.

There are some things about this case that are similar enough to the unsolved rape and murder of Tulsa college student Brittany Phillips, that police say they will look into it, to see if Walker could be a suspect in that case.

The woman says when someone knocked on her motel room door at the Best Value Inn, she thought it was her husband, so she opened the door a crack, but, instead, she says Willie Walker forced his way inside, beat her, choked her and tried to rape her.

She says her ringing cell phone distracted her so he grabbed her phone and car keys and took off in her car.

Officers caught him after a pursuit.

Records show Walker was convicted as a youthful offender for walking into a home, while the wife was there and the husband next door, grabbing the cars keys and leaving.

Records show while in the Rader program for teenage offenders, he was arrested for groping one of the women counselors.

As soon as sex crimes detectives got this new case, they called homicide detective Jeff Felton.

"Any kind of sexual crime, detectives in other units routinely come to me, hey you might want to look at this guy in Brittany's case," said Detective Jeff Felton, Tulsa Police.

Brittany is Brittany Phillips, a college student who was raped and strangled in her apartment in 2004. The case remains unsolved, despite a massive investigation.

In that case, there was also forced entry, also choking involved, also sexual assault.

It's enough for them to check out Walker.

"I think anybody that would be out there peeping in windows, committing any kind of sex crime, a burglary, would be somebody we'd want to investigate and see if they were in the area where Brittany lived when that happened," Detective Felton said.

Police say this may not be their man, but, they have looked at hundreds of people accused of similar crimes and will continue to do so until they find Brittany's killer.

"I absolutely feel whoever killed Brittany is still out there and may be committing the same kind of crimes," Detective Felton said. "And one day, we're gonna catch em."

Police will have to see if Walker was out of prison at the time of the murder or in the Tulsa area.

Jeff Felton says he's personally collected DNA samples from more than 100 people in hopes of solving Brittany Phillips' murder and says each new person of interest that pops up on their radar, they'll investigate.

2/11/2010 Related Story: Tulsa City Council Honors Efforts To Find Girl's Killers