Cold Case Files - The Weepy-Voiced Killer

Episode Date: February 8, 2022

Women are being murdered in Minnesota's twin cities, and police are desperate to catch the murderer who keeps calling to confess his crimes. Check out our great sponsors! Purple: Go to Purple.com/coldcase10 and use code "coldcase10" to get 10% off any order of $200 or more! ZocDoc: Go to Zocdoc.com/ccf to download the Zocdoc app for FREE and start your search for a top-rated doctor! Bonafide: Get 20% off your first purchase when you subscribe to any product at HelloBonafide.com and use promo code COLDCASE Progressive: Take one small step to help your budget. Get a quote today at Progressive.com  

Thank you for listening to this Podcast One production, available on Apple Podcasts and Podcast One. On New Year's Eve in 1980, Karen Potak, a student at the University of Wisconsin, celebrated with her sister in Minnesota's Twin Cities. The girls were both celebrating on University Avenue, which runs the stretch between St. Paul and Minneapolis. They'd gotten separated a little earlier in the night, but they didn't let that stop them from enjoying the evening. When the clock struck midnight, the festivities slowed down, and Karen decided to call it a night.

At around 3 a.m., the St. Paul police received this call. Yes, please, this is an emergency. Please send a squad to Pierce-Butler Road, Malmberg Manufacturing Company, machine shop. Please, there's an ambulance too. There's a girl hurt there. Can you tell me what happened to her? What's the address? I don't know. Who are you? Hello?

From A&E, this is Cold Case Files. Officers responded to the call and found Karen in a snowbank near some railroad tracks. She was naked, badly beaten, and her skull had been cracked. Karen survived, but was cognitively impaired, and she had no memory of who had tried to kill her. In June of 1981, the same weepy voice was on the other end of a 911 call. Oh, you f***ing f***er. You find me, I just stabbed somebody with an ice pick. I can't stop myself. I keep killing somebody. Hello? Are you there?

Another victim was found shortly after the call. The young woman's body was found face down near a section of unfinished freeway. Dr. Michael McGee was the medical examiner who investigated her cause of death. She'd been stabbed multiple times. A lot of puncture wounds on the front of her chest. In total, it was determined she was stabbed 61 times. And like the voice on the phone had stated, the weapon appeared to be an ice pick. Here's Dr. McGee again.

When you're undressing the body, you go through and see if there's any valuables, anything that will help you identify this girl in this case. And while we're doing that, we come across the bus locker key. The investigators are able to trace the key to a bus station locker in St. Paul. When they opened locker number 750, two bags were revealed. The bags belonged to 18-year-old Kimberly Compton. She just graduated from high school in Wisconsin, and she traveled to St. Paul to visit her aunt, Sherry Swenson. She's like my sister. Her and I spent a lot of time together. I mean, we fought like sisters would fight, but all in all, she meant the world to me. And when they told me what had happened, I had totally lost it. It appeared that within just a few hours of arriving in the city of St. Paul,

Kimberly had found herself accompanied by a killer. The investigators were able to retrace Kimberly's steps by using clues that came from an unlikely to retrace Kimberly's steps by using clues that came from an unlikely place, the victim's own stomach. Here's Dr. McGee again to explain. The food is so well preserved in her stomach, you can almost see tooth marks on the food. Kimberly Compton's last meal consisted of beef and fries. Across the street from the bus station, there was a diner called Mickey's. Their special was barbecue beef and fries. Across the street from the bus station, there was a diner called Mickey's. Their special was barbecue beef and fries. Here's Dr. Mickey again.

So what happened is she takes the bus into town. She gets off the bus. She puts her suitcase in a locker. She takes the key. She's hungry. She walks out the front door. First thing you see is Mickey's. She goes across the street and has something to eat. And I think she was in the midst of someone who was going to kill her, and she had absolutely no clue. She couldn't see it coming. A few days after Kimberly's body was discovered, another call was received by the police.

The caller had a voice that was all too familiar. Don't talk, just listen. I'm sorry what i did to compton i couldn't help it don't know why i just ever i am so upset about it i keep getting drunk every day and i can't believe i'm having a big dream i can't think of being locked up. If I get locked up, I'll kill myself. I'd rather kill myself than get locked up. I'll try not to kill anybody else. Hoping that a member of the public might recognize the voice from the call,

the police released part of the tape. Unfortunately, everyone seemed to recognize the voice, and the detectives were flooded with calls. Sometimes, too many suspects can be just as useful as no suspects. Six months after the call was released, there were still no solid leads. All that Kim's aunt had to hold on to was the hope that the caller would be identified and the killer would be arrested. Here's Kim's Aunt Sherry again. When he said that he was stabbing her, I could actually I could actually feel it on myself like it was being done to myself.

And it always went through my head for a long, long time. I could hear her, Aunt Sherry, help me. Aunt Sherry, help me. And I could hear her, I'm Sherry, help me, I'm Sherry, help me, and I could do nothing. In August of 1982, a little over a year after Kimberly was murdered, the body of another young woman was found, this time just across the river in Minneapolis. Sergeant Dodd Brown was the lead on the case. The perpetrator evidently tried to dispose of the body by throwing her down the embankment towards the river, but the underbrush was so thick that it held up the body.

The victim was 40-year-old Barbara Simons. Two days after her body was discovered, a familiar voice placed a call to police. Fire emergency. Please don't talk to me. I'm sorry. I killed, I killed. I stabbed her 40 times. Kimberly Compton was the first one.

I don't know what's the matter with me. I'm going to kill myself, I think. Where are you? The police had the calls analyzed by an expert in voice identification, and it was determined that the calls were all made by the same person. The connection was important in helping the detectives make their case. But unfortunately, it meant that there was a serial killer operating in the Twin Cities. Sergeant Brown starts by investigating what Barbara Simon's last evening was like, hoping it would provide some insight on how she met her killer. It leads him to a bar called The Hexagon.

Here's Sergeant Brown again. One of the waitresses thought that she had met a man at The Hexagon bar and that she was with him, probably danced with him, but did see the two of them after a song. They were leaning up against the stage. She also said that she thought that the victim was leaving with that person because she told the waitress, At one point in time, I hope this is a nice guy because he's going to give me a ride home. Sergeant Brown asked the bar staff to come with him back to the police station to look at books and mugshots.

There were approximately 169 photos that they went through, and these were photographs that St. Paul already had of suspects in their cases. We were able to eliminate everyone else as a suspect except Paul Stefani. He's the number one suspect at that point, definitely. Paul Stefani was a 37-year-old janitor with a history of psychiatric problems and an aggravated assault conviction. The police believe there's a connection between Paul Stefani being fired from a job at the Malmberg manufacturing plant in March of 1977

and Karen Potak being attacked near train tracks just a few hundred yards away. The police decided to watch Paul Stefani's movements. Here's Sergeant Brown again. Eventually what happened, he went out and our surveillance team was following him, and he lost them. Having lost the surveillance team, the suspect headed to a corner of two roads where sex workers were known to be available. That was where he met up with Denise Williams. I was walking around looking for somebody that was looking for me.

And we went to his apartment, and he was real quick, like two seconds. So I was like, dang, he's going to want to do something else again. He was like, no, it's cool. After their encounter, Paul Stefani offers to take Denise back to the place where he picked her up, and she agrees. Shortly after getting into the car, Denise is aware of the fact that they aren't heading in the right direction. The road was like, there was no street lights. It started getting dark now,

okay? And he's like, this is a shortcut. And I was like, oh yeah, this is my, excuse me. I was like, this man is up to something. So I'm like, dang, I ain't got no weapon or nothing. But then I looked down on the floor of his car and there's a bottle, a tab bottle. So I'm like, well, if he tries to do anything to me, I'm just going to hit him with this bottle and run. Denise was right to suspect that she might be in trouble. Because when there were no other cars in sight, Paul Stefani pulled over on a dead-end road. He stabbed her in the stomach with a screwdriver. But Denise didn't let that stop her from fighting back.

That's when I just grabbed the bottom and I just hit him in the head. And he started bleeding all over me. Even though Paul Stefani was on top of her, trying to stab her with his screwdriver, Denise managed to get the car door open and roll out to the ground. She screams, hoping someone will come and help her. And it works. A man who lives nearby, Doug Panning, heard her. There was this guy on top of this gal, and he was just whacking away, man, just big, big swooping booms. And you could hear the screwdriver hitting the bones, the crack, you know, crunching. Doug Panning rushes to help the woman, but finds himself a target of Stefani's attack with the screwdriver.

It was a pretty scary sight because he was cut up pretty bad himself, and he had blood running all down his shirt. He's taking quacks at me. Paul Stefani, outnumbered, makes his way back into his vehicle, leaving his victim and the man who came to her rescue behind. Denise goes to the hospital with 15 puncture wounds from a screwdriver and is rushed into surgery. Meanwhile, the weepy voice killer makes another emergency call. Do you need an ambulance? Where? surgery. Meanwhile, the weepy voice killer makes another emergency call. The paramedics responded to 1505 Westminster, Apartment 208, where Paul Stefani lived.

It's not long before police connect the lost surveillance, the attack on Denise Williams, and Stefani's injuries. They went to the hospital and asked Denise if she'd recognize a picture of her attacker. I picked him out. When they came to the hospital, they showed me some mugshots, and I picked him out. The police arrest and charge Paul Stefani with attempted murder, but Sgt. Brown doesn't reveal that they're also trying to connect him with the other murders. I tried to keep an even demeanor. I didn't want to let on that we knew that he was involved in the other crimes. And then at one point, I got up and opened up the file with photographs of the victims, and he looked up and looked at me and said to me,

you're not going to pin those on me. It's up to the prosecutor, John Ryan, to connect the killer with the calls to emergency services. The jury gets a good listen to the calls. Each jury member is provided a pair of headphones as Prosecutor Ryan makes his case. Did the caller say enough to implicate himself that only he could have been the one that caused these murders?

Is he the murderer by the phone call itself? Yes. That's clear. John Ryan has to convince the jury that the voice on all of the tapes is one man, Paul Stefani. He plays some audio from Stefani's 911 call for help. Then he plays the calls from the weepy-voiced killer. The experts couldn't say for certain

that it was the same person on both recordings. But there was another witness who was certain. Here's John Ryan again. The defendant's sister testified. She listened to the tapes in court in front of the jury, put her head down, cried. She said, that's Paul. That's my brother. After a six-week trial, Paul Stefani was convicted of murdering Barbara Simons. He didn't relish in getting away with murder.

I really don't think he enjoyed it. Apparently he was raised fairly in a strong religious family and had enough guilt, not enough to stop him from doing it or to admit it, but he wanted to be stopped. Paul Stefani was sentenced to 40 years for killing Barbara. But unfortunately for the families, the prosecutor didn't feel it was necessary to try him for the other murders he allegedly committed. Here's Kimberly Compton's Aunt Sherry again. I think that what they did was took Kim's case and put it on the back burner and figured, well, nobody's going to do nothing about this anyhow. Their family ain't going to come around and do anything. And I just got to the point to where nothing was being done that I thought this was it.

Twelve years into the prison sentence, in 1997, Sergeant Bob Paskett receives a call. It's Paul Stefani, and he has some information he wants to share. The long and short of it, he said that, well, Stefani had been diagnosed with cancer and that Stefani wanted to talk to some St. Paul policeman and clear the slate. Okay, Paul. You have the rights to protection against self-incrimination listable. Please read the law. Paskett and his partner, Keith Mortensen,

go to the prison to talk with Paul Stefani in person. Here's some audio from that interview. Well, with Karen Potech, he says he's driving down an alley. He sees this girl behind a bar, I believe. She doesn't have a jacket on. He stops, offers her, you know, lets her get into the car to warm up, is what he tells us. She got in my car and I gave her my jacket and told her, I said, he'll be out in a minute. I had to clean some of the ice off the windshield.

Savani tells the investigators that he took his victim behind the manufacturing plant and beat her with the end of a tire iron. Here's some more audio from the interview. Do you remember where you hit her with the tire iron? I did. Did you hit her one time, two times? I don't know, must have been about 30 times. I mean, I hit her 20 times, I think. Were you swinging it this way or did you hit her one time, two times? Oh, no, I must have hit her about 30 times. I mean, I hit her a good 20 times, I think, you know.

Were you swinging it this way, or did you poke her with it? I don't think I poked her, no. I remember hitting her mainly on the forehead, on the cheek, in the jaw, the mouth, top of the head. I think it was only about 10 times, because then I noticed you must really be hurting in a steel bar like that. The legal determinant of insanity is the ability of someone to tell right from wrong.

That means it's possible for a mentally ill person to not be legally insane, despite having a diagnosed mental illness. Paul Stefani showed guilt for his crimes, and it appears that he knew his actions were wrong. It also seems like Stefani could be suffering from one or more mental illnesses. Here's Stefani discussing why he called police. I was even hurt when I went back to talk to others, going like this. I mean, that's what I mean. Maybe you want to go to the phone. I mean, I was the one to help her.

My mind started clearing up. What are you doing? You had a chance to make another friend. I kept yelling at myself. You like to make friends. During his interview, Paul Stefani also brings up Kimberly Compton. Here's Investigator Paskett again. This gal was sitting like one or two seats away from him. She had just gotten in town, and he strikes up a conversation with her and learns that she had just gotten off the bus.

And here's Stefani talking about his interactions with Kimberly. And then that's when she started telling me where she was from, and Wisconsin and all that. And I said, hey, why don't you, I'm not even thinking about her right now. I said, hey, why don't you want me to show you downtown? Killing seemed to be the thing you were supposed to do. That was part of life.

Driving the car was part of life. Eating food was part of life. Until I did it, and then I drove away, and then I looked like the one on Pierce-Potter Road. What are you doing? I just couldn't turn myself in. That's why I kept getting on the phone. Will you catch me and stop me?

I don't know, catch me or something like that. Paul Stefani had confessed to Barbara and Kimberly's murders to investigator Paskett, helping to close two cold cases that might have otherwise never been solved. Here's Paskett again. Unfortunately, I think what we learned is that there's really no way to combat him. There was no way to protect his victims out there. I mean, he would find one. He would have kept on killing had he not been caught. I don't know exactly what turned him on, but the only way he was going to turn him off was put him behind bars.

In a surprising twist, Stefani not only confessed to the two cases attributed to the weepy voice killer, but he brought up another case that hadn't been connected. You say that you both got into the tub? Yes. And you're positive about that? Yes. Because, I mean, I remember when I pushed her head under water, I could see her face.

Did you push her head down, or did you push her chest area under the water? I held her shoulders down. You held her shoulders down? Yeah. Both hands then? Yeah. The detectives found a report to match Stefani's story in the department's cold case files, the unsolved drowning of Kathy Greening in 1982. The detectives found a report to match Stefani's story in the department's cold case files,

the unsolved drowning of Kathy Greening in 1982. Here's Investigator Paskett again. And we found an address book belonging to Kathy Greening, and in the address book was the name Paul S. with a telephone number. And we went back to Stefani's arrest record the night that he was booked, and it was the same telephone number that he had given the officers when he was arrested. On December 19, 1997, detectives held a news conference announcing the confession that Stefani had made about the three unsolved cases. Word travels quickly to Pepin, Wisconsin, Kimberly Compton's hometown. Her aunt Sherry was relieved to finally have some closure.

I called everybody and said he has finally confessed to murdering Kim. And I got to actually say this, I truly forgive him because he was crazy. But the pain is always going to be in my heart. Although Stefani confessed to the three additional murders, he would never be tried on those charges. That's because less than a year later, Paul Stefani died of cancer in prison on June 12, 1998. Cold Case Files, the podcast, is hosted by Brooke Giddings, produced by McKamey Lynn and Steve

Delamater. Our executive producer is Ted Butler. Our music was created by Blake Maples. This podcast is distributed by Podcast One. The Cold Case Files TV series was produced by Curtis Productions and is hosted by Bill Curtis. Check out more Cold Case Files at aetv.com or learn more about cases like this one by visiting the A&E Real Crime blog at aetv.com slash real crime.