Woman hangs on to hope that mother’s murder will be solved 47 years later

By Mecca Rayne

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    QUAPAW, Oklahoma (KOCO) — Michelle Blank hangs on to hope that her mother’s killer will be brought to justice and hopes the worry and mental exhaustion of finding that person can be laid to rest.

“We’ve always been told it’s a solve-able case. Yet, we are still here 47 years later. It still isn’t solved,” Blank said about Tina Mae Duffell’s murder. “It was a little off-the-grid convenience store if you will – a very small store that only local people would go and buy a few groceries that they had.”

It was at that small store in Quapaw where Blank’s mother was last seen alive. In fact, Blank, who was 16 at the time, was the one who saw Duffell shortly before she went missing on Oct. 18, 1974.

Tragically, it would be the last time she would ever see her mother in this life. Duffell was working that day.

“My dad had dropped me off to pick up the car she drove,” Blank said. “I went to Miami, stopped back by the store, let her know I was heading home.”

Everything was normal until Blank was overcome with seemingly random emotions.

“I had just gotten home. I had bought a record – “I Honestly Love You” – and was listening to it, and I just started crying for no reason,” she said.

Blank then got a call from someone asking for her mom.

“I said, ‘She’s at work,’ and the woman that called sounded familiar,” Blank said. “So, I called the store and was told she was missing.”

Someone abducted Duffell. Her body was found the next day.

“Her body was found the next day in an old mill pond. She had a small stab wound in her back, and her throat had been slit,” Blank said. “From there, it’s been an almost 47-year trek of going back and forth and trying to get it solved.”

The impact of losing her mother is heavy, but it also put Blank on a path to help others.

“About eight years after her murder, I went through a long stretch of severe depression and had to get treatment for that,” she said. “Out of that, I became a social worker and mental health therapist.”

Help is given, and help is still needed nearly 50 years later. This time, it comes by the way of the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.

“We keep hoping, at least that with the OSBI involved, at least people would feel better about that,” Blank said.

They hope a $10,000 reward will entice someone somewhere to speak up.

“I reached out and contacted them, and they agreed to offer this reward. And so, it’s a $10,000 reward leading to the arrest and I’m assuming conviction of the person involved in her death,” Blank said.

Her plea remains the same all these decades later.

“I’m hopeful that someone will come forward, and I would hope that you would put yourself in my place and want to have some closure and justice from my mom’s murder,” Blank said.

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