Criminology - Stephanie Coyle

Episode Date: November 10, 2024

In 1993, 74-year-old Stephanie Coyle was murdered inside her home. Adding to the brutality and mystery, a large symbol was carved into her back. This is a case that has gone unsolved for over 3 decades. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the murder of Stephanie Coyle. In this episode, we called on trained criminologist, Dr. Lee Mellor who worked on this case to help us understand the case and the crime scene a little better, and to help us try and get into the mind of someone that would do something like this. You will hear from Lee throughout this episode.    You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology   A Emash Digital production

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that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello, everyone, and welcome. episode 333 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Mike Morford. How you doing, man? I'm doing good. I'm enjoying my November morning here, went out to take in the sunrise this morning and try to get some fresh air. And I, every once a while when I walk out in November out to the backyard, I think it's going to be like that Jersey cool fall air and it's not. So that always takes a little getting used to. Yeah, we've actually

been uncommonly warm up here. We've had our windows open in November, which is a little unheard of, but it's been unseasonably warm. I'll take it. Better than freezing. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Pink, and I do not know if that's the singer or not. I'm going to say probably not. And Sarah Cloutier. So great new, support. We really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you so much to everybody that takes the time to support the show. It really helps us out for anyone else that would like to. You can do so by going to patreon.com slash criminology. All right. We're jumping right into this week's case. And we're covering and especially shocking and brutal murder of a 74 year old woman in her home. This is a case that

has gone unsolved for over three decades. In this episode, we called on trained criminologist, Dr. Meller, who worked on this case to help us understand it and the crime scene a little better. Dr. Meller also helps us try and get into the mind of someone that would do something like this. You'll hear from Lee throughout this episode. We're talking about the 1993 murder of Stephanie Coyle. Arnold, Pennsylvania is located about 30 miles northeast of Pittsburgh in the western part of the state. It has a population of just under 5,000 people. according to niche.com.

Due to its low crime rate, it's classified as a very safe place to live. That's why what happened there in 1993 has left residents there shocked and frightened to this day. On Friday, July 16, 1993, 74-year-old Stephanie Quill, who lived on 4th Avenue in Arnold, didn't show up to the New Kensington Senior Center

where she was a volunteer five days a week. Stephanie always showed up, and she was always on time, ready to start at 8 in the morning. After two hours with no word from Stephanie, her supervisor at the senior center began to worry and called and asked that her landlord go and check on her. Her landlord, Louis Molley, who was 79 at the time, understood the implications of someone Stephanie's age, suddenly dropping out of contact with those around them, so he headed right over. At the time, Stephanie was living in a garage that had been converted

to a one-bedroom apartment. Her landlord Louis Louis, Molli lived in the main house on the property, closer to the street. Just minutes after being alerted to a possible situation with Stephanie, he entered her apartment. It was silent. She didn't answer when he called out to her. When he opened her bedroom door on the apartment's second floor, he spotted her. Stephanie was lying face down on the floor of her room, completely undressed. There was a large amount of blood at the scene.

Moli called Stephanie's supervisor back, telling them to call for an ambulance. Later, Lewis Molley would tell the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. I was too upset to call 911. First responders knew immediately that it was too late to help Stephanie Coyle. She was dead. And her death was clearly a homicide. It was determined that she had been strangled and stabbed a dozen times, which severed her spinal cord and her throat had been slit.

The stab wounds were in two clusters of six wounds. According to the Latrobe bulletin, her corpse had been sexually abused. And some sources say she had been sexually assaulted with a foreign object after her death, and there was a seaman stain on the bed. There was also a large symbol of some kind carved into her back. Early reports also mentioned possible signs of torture. Allegheny County coroner and medical examiner Dr. Cyril Wecht, who performed the autopsy on Stephanie told WPXI.com,

this is truly one of the most brutal killings I've ever experienced in my role as a forensic pathologist. I think a lot of listeners are familiar with Dr. Wecht, who recently passed away. We had him on as a guest way back in episode 62 in our coverage on Ellen Greenberg. He is a legend in his field. He's done thousands of autopsies. So for him to say that Stephanie Coil's murder was one of the most brutal he had seen, I mean, that's really saying something. Dr. Lee Meller, who has consulted on this case and seen the crime scene photos is in agreement.

Here's Lee talking about his background, how he came to be working on the Coil case, and what his overall thoughts are about the case. My name is Dr. Lee Meller. I have a PhD in the individualized study of, violence and that includes homicide and sexual violence. Basically what this is, it's a program that combined psychology, criminology, sociology, and anything else that I found useful. I studied under Dr. Eric Hickey, who is a leading researcher in serial murder and other types of aberrant violence. I was working with ASOC, the American Investigative Society of Cold Cases, from about

2013 if memory serves me right, and I headed up the behavioral for them and eventually became vice president. And I've consulted on probably more than about two dozen cold case and unsolved homicides. I have conducted research on some paraphealic elements of violence. So particularly necrophilia, I wrote a textbook called Understanding Necrophilia at an academic level. And I also have another textbook, Comicide of Forensic Psychology casebook. I don't consider myself primarily a researcher. I'm more of an analyst. I like to take the things I learned and apply them. But while I was earning my PhD, I did do quite a bit of research into areas of this type of crime that have really not been touched before or have been touched very shallowly. I became

involved in the Stephanie Coil case through the American Investigative Society of Coal Cases, and it was the second case that I looked at through that organization. So typically what would happen is I would once or twice a year get a large file of crime scene photos, photocopy documents. Typically, that was about it. Sometimes we get MP3s and such if that was relevant. And I would receive those through the organization, either the president or the vice president would liaise with law enforcement. So I didn't directly speak to law enforcement, but I did receive all of the information that I would need to review the case. I would then have weeks to look at that stuff. And there was often a lot of it.

It's a lot of work. And then I would write a report up as what other members of ASOC and we would all send them back to the head of a, of A, ASOC who would compile those into a document. So I never saw the exact final report that would go to police, but I would analyze the materials and send in my thoughts. And Stephanie Coyle, that was the second case that I got. In fact, it was really the first one I was able to spend much time with. And it's interesting because it is such a bizarre case that, you know, to have that as one of the first things that you confronted, you start to think, hold on. It's not all going to be this weird, is it, and it wasn't.

But it's a case that's always stuck with me because of the unique elements of the crime. My impressions of the Stephanie Coil murder were that this is a stranger sex homicide. Now, let me just cover my basis here. This may have been someone that knew Stephanie as far as a pass by and waved at her when she was outside doing chores or something. I don't mean a total stranger, but I didn't feel that it was like a friend or relative of the deceased. I'm probably not even like a co-worker in any capacity. What I was struck with is it reminded me of some other crimes I'd seen where it looked like the killer was most likely a habitual burglar, a young man, and it was probably on drugs or dealing with some kind of quite serious mental illness, above and beyond psychopathy,

which I think psychopathy is strongly indicated too, but I'm talking about something like a psychotic disorder, like schizophrenia or something lesser in that orbit. I would estimate the attack on Stephanie Coyle would have taken 15 minutes, I would estimate, but probably no less. Regarding how long he stayed, that's anyone's guess. Could have stayed for a very long time.

I doubt it, but he could have stayed for hours, but it would have taken about 15 minutes to enact that type of violence and there are other elements that I can't get into that I would say it would have to be 15 minutes. A killer like this, I believe, would have had no remorse. The only exception would be if they were so out of their mind on drugs when they did it that they just, they're like a completely different person and a completely different headspace. And then when they sobered up, they realized the extent of what they'd done. And then I think they might have possibly felt remorse. But without us knowing that, just looking at the

crime itself. It seems to me that's something only a person who is psychopathic could have enacted. The crime itself, it seemed to revel in the evil of its own act. It seemed to say there to me was an element of humiliating the victim, which you only really see in psychopathic type murders. I saw absolutely no indication that there was more than one person involved. And the bizarre nature of the crime, based upon my experience, leads me to believe that it was almost certainly one individual because two or more people would not have. You'll see in groups of people, sometimes sadism, cruelty, torturing or berating or bullying of a victim. but when you get into the more bizarre things like necrophilia or strange types of mutilation, in my experience, that tends to be the work of a solo offender.

And the type of violence I saw in the Stephanie Coil crime was indicative in that way. Former Arnold Police Chief Willie Weber told WPXI.com that there wasn't a fight or any sign of a struggle. In fact, Weber says it looked like she kind of surrendered and said, do what you want to do. leave me alone and get out of here. Private investigator Ken Maines, who later worked on this case, believes that the killer placed Stephanie where she was found, because the throw rug beneath her wasn't bunched up at all. The entertainment stand next to her body had picture frames on top of it, and nothing had been

knocked over. You would think that either Stephanie or the killer would have bumped into it during a violent attack, but yet nothing was disturbed. Mains revealed that there was blood on the tops of her feet, her ankles, and her inner thighs, and speculated that she was standing when she was attacked. By the way, if Ken Main sounds familiar to you, it may be because he was our guest in episode 96, the case of Gail Matthews and Tamara Berkheiser.

So investigators were tasked with trying to establish a motive. Why would someone target the 74-year-old? It doesn't seem like the perpetrator was there to rob, Stephanie. Police Chief Weber said there was no ransacking of her apartment whatsoever. And there were still items in the house that a normal burglar would have taken. Ken Main says that Stephanie's purse and a safe deposit box with some important documents inside of it were lying on her bed, which was unmade like she had recently woken up and gotten out of bed.

This almost felt like someone had tried to stage a burglary gone wrong. Nothing appeared to be missing from her purse or the safe deposit box. Two bloodhounds were brought in to help authorities with their four-block canvas looking for any discarded evidence or a possible murder weapon, but they turned up nothing. The landlord also reported that when he entered the apartment, the front door, which is the only door to the apartment, was locked. The interior door was open. It was July, a warm month, and Stephanie kept their windows open since they had screens in them. He said he was able to get inside the home because the outer screen door had a three-inch slit in the screen, and he was able to stick his fingers through it and unlatched the hook.

All the window screens were intact. It's unknown how the killer entered and left the apartment. Some of the windows would have required a ladder to access, especially because the screens would have had to be placed back into the window frames. The door is the most likely point of entry, with the killer using the slit in the screen to unlock the door just as the landlord did. why he took the time to lock it behind him is unknown. Stephanie used a hearing aid, which she was not wearing at the time of her murder.

So however the killer entered, she possibly didn't hear him. And, you know, the locking of the door by the killer is certainly odd. But since Stephanie's landlord made entry into the apartment prior to calling 911, he's the only one who has said it was locked. And the only way the killer didn't lock the door behind him, replace a window screen is if the landlord was mistaken or lying. Some people have been suspicious of landlord Louis Moli since he was in the main home on the same property and didn't see or hear anything unusual.

Now, it's not mentioned what his physical condition was at the time, but he was 79 years old. Stephanie's apartment was up a set of stairs. she was stabbed a dozen times, apparently gently placed where she was found, sexually assaulted, and had her throat slit. That's all pretty physically demanding, making it unlikely that Lewis Molley had anything to do with her murder. And I think a lot of instances like this one, the person that finds the victim sometimes becomes the target of, you know, online. sluth or sometimes the police and they look at them and, you know, want to clear them. But it seems here just based on what we know about Louis Molley, he physically probably wouldn't have been able to do what this killer did.

Yeah, I mean, it makes sense that he would definitely at least be looked at. He lived there. He was able to access the apartment without a key to check on her. So it makes sense that people, you know, might be. a little suspicious, but, you know, it's 79 years old. Is that to say that he couldn't have done it? No, but I think the word unlikely applies in this situation. Stephanie's son Dan was on the golf course when he received a call from his brother-in-law. Until then, it had been a great day golfing. Someone from the golf course staff rode up in a golf cart

and alerted him to an emergency call. He rushed to return on the call to his brother-in-law, who told him that Stephanie was dead. Dan was heartbroken at the news, but his first instinct was that she had died of natural causes, something like a heart attack. They had just had dinner together two nights earlier when she stopped by his house, and she seemed fine. But Dan was told that his mother was actually murdered,

and he broke down in disbelief. And I think, morph, to find out that your elderly mother has passed away, that would be devastating news. But to find out that she was brutally, murdered in the way that we described and sexually assaulted, that would be, you know, even tougher to handle. I think there's no doubt he'd be in shock and I don't know if his first thoughts were who did this or who could have done this or if he even went that for.

Maybe he was just dealing with the grief of that news and didn't even think about who might be responsible. Detectives wanted to reexamine the timeline of Stephanie's last hours. She was last seen alive at 4.30 in the afternoon on July 15th when her landlord saw her arrive home and go inside alone. After entering her home, nobody she knew saw or heard from her. Next, police focused on the strange symbol carved into Stephanie's body. No photo of this symbol has ever been released, but Dr. Wecht described it as an oval shape, about 21 by 14 inches with an even longer vertical line down the center.

The whole carving was a quarter inch deep. Ken Mainz has described the symbol as starting up near the neck and going all the way down to the lower back. According to Dr. Wecht, this was not a random occurrence. And it didn't just happen during the attack. It happened after she was dead. And he said to Trib Live, it suggests some kind of symbol. This was the final message.

It could even be some kind of initiation ritual. We asked Lee Miller about the symbol that was carved into Stephanie Coyle. I wish I could tell you about what that symbol was, but that's still hold back information. And there was also a sexual element of the crime. I noticed that that has been mentioned in the news, but I can't get into specific details on that. I believe the carving was done post-mortem. The symbol in Stephanie's back was identifiable. It resembled something.

It was something that was very deliberate and looked like it had some thought to it. It wasn't random. The carving in Stephanie's back was quite large. You couldn't miss it. It wasn't like a few nicks. It was like a large portrait. When I saw the symbol carved into Stephanie's back, it didn't make me think that it was anything about Stephanie,

that it was somehow illustrating or bringing up a relationship between the perpetrator and Stephanie or expressing anything about Stephanie in particular. It came across to me as maybe something more like a calling card or like a very strange kind of peakeristic doodling. So that's what made me think that the perpetrator could, either be on narcotics or and or could have been psychotic. And this was almost like taking something that was going on in his disturbed psyche and manifesting it onto the body of the deceased.

Yes, so you can hear from Lee just how intricate and large this design was that, and it must have taken a pretty decent amount of time to sit there and do that. So I think that really tells you that this is not a run-of-the-mill murder. There's something else going on here. And I was struck by just how large this was. You think about a quarter inch deep covering almost Stephanie's entire back. I'm with you, Morph. I mean, there was something to this.

It meant something to someone. The question is, what? and why did they leave it after they had completed this horrible, horrible act? Yeah, it almost sounds like something that you would see in like a movie like seven or something like that, some kind of horror movie about some deranged killer. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder which emergency. We just walked in the door and there's blood in the foyer.

For the next two decades, the case of... remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do but had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, Blood and Water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. It was clear to police that this wasn't going to be a typical murder investigation. Something else was going on here. Murders were not something they saw often in Arnold, Pennsylvania, especially one like this. As details about the murder got out, understandably, residents became afraid and worried that there was a killer living amongst them. Former police chief Ron Hopkins told Trib Live of the investigation,

Time works against you in this matter. They knew that they needed to solve this case, and they felt the pressure. With no arrest, it didn't take long for locals to begin talking amongst themselves and rumors began to spread. There were many rumors about who was responsible for Stephanie's murder. locals recall hearing about a resident of a halfway house who may have been responsible. Stephanie's family heard that she won almost $1,000 playing bingo and that someone may have targeted her for her winnings.

Her son-in-law told triblive.com that the bingo story wasn't her because she hated bingo. There were also rumors that there were multiple parties being thrown that night in the homes that backed up to the same alley that Stephanie's apartment did with lots of people coming and going and that perhaps one of those party goers killed Stephanie. It's not clear how closely police looked into the rumors

or what they found, if anything. But before anyone knew it, Stephanie's case was cold. And we said right up front more, if this is a pretty small town, you know, 5,000 residents or so, a low crime rate. So any murder is going to be shocking to that type of community,

but a murder such as this is really going to start the rumors fly. And it sounds like it did. Yeah, I imagine the residents there had to be nervous. And we talk about, you know, doors starting to get locked and extra security measures being taken. Some people go out and buy guns. and it wouldn't surprise me if that kind of stuff started to happen in this town, not just because they had a killer on the list,

but they had a killer that was capable of doing something above and beyond, and very heinous. 20 long years passed with no arrest in Stephanie's murder. Then, in 2013, Stephanie's son, Dan, announced a $90,000 reward for anyone who came forward with information about her murder. This was an additional $80,000, over what had been previously offered.

Dan offered this reward because, as he told Triblive.com, he felt sure that there were people out there living who know who did it and figured it might be too much to pass up for one of those people. He said if nothing's got them to come forward yet, then maybe money will. The higher reward was offered for a period of just one year, putting additional pressure on those with information to act quickly. But despite that large amount of money, no arrest were made. Police Chief Willie Weber retired from the Arnold Police in 2015, though he continued part-time work at another police department in 2018.

Members of students conquering cold cases, a club at the University of Pittsburgh, were tasked with researching and analyzing Stephanie's murder. Nicole Coon's a former student who founded the students conquering cold cases in 2015. told Pitt magazine, we're not trying to go back and do what law enforcement did. We're trying to think of a new direction. It was a new way to look at the case with fresh eyes and to try and crowd-slooth it. But the group, like police, to that point, had no luck in solving the case. Stephanie's son, Dan, never imagined that after over three decades, the identity of his mother's killer would still be a mystery. When she was killed, he thought investigators would be hot on the trail of the substance.

suspect, and an arrest would come quickly. He told Trib Live, you figure a few more days, he'll find this guy real quick. You just expected them to call you and say they got the person. Dan wants the story is to release more information to the public. No photo of the marking carved into Stephanie's back has ever been made available, so anyone who might recognize it visually, but not when described vaguely by third parties, might not even be aware that they have information in this case. There wasn't even a publicly available description for many years. The vague term symbol was used in the press. While investigators always tried to hold back some piece of information to distinguish

false confessions from the real deal, after so long, Dan Coyle told Trib Live, what harm could it possibly do? The case isn't solved as it stands, so you kind of have to ask, realistically, what's the worst that can happen? The case stays unsolved. Dan added 20 years of silence has gotten us nowhere. It's time to release all the facts so more people can hopefully come forward, explaining why he feels that more information is the right call. Former Chief Willie Weber, who was one of the officers who worked a case on day one, has always noted the lack of a clear motive for Stephanie's murder. In 2019, Weber, who had become chief of the Arnold Police Department by that point, wasn't any closer to knowing why Stephanie

was targeted, he told W-T-A-E.com. What stands out in this case is, I have a woman who to this day, I can't find anybody who will tell me anything bad about. Stephanie's son, Dan, has experienced the same frustration telling WPXI.com, we went through our minds hundreds of times, just trying to see if she has any enemies. We couldn't come up with anyone. Dick Coyle, another of Stephanie's sons, told Trib Live that his mother was so nice to people, almost to a fault, describing her as outgoing, friendly, and kind.

And there are a couple of things here, Morph, that, you know, I want to touch on. The first is, I don't know how many 74-year-old women, especially in a small town, would have a list of enemies or even one enemy. So, you know, the family racking their brains, trying to find anyone who would have had a problem with her, I think that's a tough exercise. And then the second thing is, you know, the releasing of information.

I get it. Early on in an investigation, please hold things back. Right? Somebody comes in to confess. or give information, you need a way to kind of weed out or figure out who's telling the truth, who's lying, who's making stuff up. But, you know, as the years go by, and especially when you're talking about 20 years going by, at what point do you make the decision that the risk is worth the reward to release.

something, especially something as big as this symbol. Could somebody recognize it? I kind of think back to the Zodiac case. And to be honest with you, this symbol did kind of remind me of the Zodiac symbol. Obviously, it had a vertical line, but not a horizontal line. It wasn't exactly the same. But there's a chance. Somebody out there could recognize it.

Yeah. think we're suggesting that they put an actual crime scene photo because that would probably be too gruesome, but I think they'd be able to recreate it in some kind of drawing or artist rendition of the symbol so people might be able to look at it and remember somebody that maybe drew symbols like that. In the early 1990s, the crack epidemic began to make its way to the outskirts of cities, including areas like Arnold, Pennsylvania. Although the community had been safe and relatively crime-free. Stephanie lived in a section that quickly seemed to be the area where most of the town's crimes occurred. But despite the upticking crime, Stephanie didn't want to

leave her home. Her son, Dick, told Trib Live, she wasn't afraid of anything, even when they started hearing rumors about how rough things were getting and about how there were drugs coming into the neighborhood. Her family tried to convince her to move, but she liked where she lived and wouldn't leave. Stephanie's daughter and Al Barber told Trib Live that they tried to tell Stephanie how unsafe it was to live there and get her to move somewhere safer. But Stephanie loved the community and she loved her friends. She wasn't going to leave. Her friends were important to her as she had suffered many losses in her life. She wasn't about to willingly give anyone up by moving away. And let's not forget, Morf, that she volunteered five days a week. So you have to imagine that was

a huge part of her life. And by all accounts, Stephanie was a strong and independent woman who had endured a lot. In 1960, when Stephanie was 41 years old, her husband took his own life after he was diagnosed with cancer. Many years later, a man she was dating suddenly died during a Christmas Eve dinner. Even at 74, she continued to date and stay active. Her son-in-law, George Williams. told Trib Live, she never saw herself as elderly. She was still independent enough to live alone and drive a car, though she was in good shape and usually walked to work. She also still enjoyed going bowling in the evenings.

Chief Willie Weber told Trib Live, Stephanie walked right through the projects on her way to the Al Kiske Senior Center in New Kensington every day. and she had apparently never encountered a problem. He added, we couldn't find anyone who she ever had an issue with on her way in. Weber recalled that in every other murder case, you can find someone who says something negative about the person that gives you a direction to go in, some argument they had, some bad interaction, but with Stephanie Coyle, there was nothing.

No one. Not one person could say a negative thing. about her life. Not one person remembers her having an argument or problem with anyone. I think as the chief said, not having a person that had an argument or a beef or something along those lines, it eliminates the chance of finding someone with a motive. And when you can't find someone with a motive or even what the motive is, it's hard to make an arrest. So I think the police were really swimming upstream here with this case. Yeah, it sounds like they just had very little to work with.

It's the who and the why in this case that continue to stump investigators. One theory that Dr. Cyril Wecht had is that Stephanie's killer may have been under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs at the time of the attack, which is why it doesn't make a lot of sense. Former police chief Hopkins told Trib Live, the circumstances were so unique. There was a strong indication this would be repeated, something serial in nature. but fortunately or unfortunately, he says, it never did reoccur. It's fortunate because it meant there wasn't another victim who was brutally killed, and no shockwave of grief was sent out to their loved ones.

But it's unfortunate in the sense that it would have been an opportunity to collect more evidence and question more witnesses. It would have been another chance for the perpetrator to make a mistake. Police started to look outside of their area to see if they could find similar cases to that of Stephanie Coils, and they found. A case from 1999 in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 90 miles east of Arnold. At first glance, it's a case that seems too similar to not be connected, although there are some pretty big differences.

On July 18, 1999, 74-year-old Arlene Piper was sexually assaulted and killed in her home. This is almost six years to the day. After Stephanie Coil's murder happened, both Arlene and and Stephanie were 74 years of age. Arlene was not stabbed to death, though, and there was no symbol carved on her body, at least nothing of that sort that was mentioned in any of the few articles about her murder that had been digitized. Her car was stolen and later abandoned, and her killer also took some of her jewelry. Her neighbor, Christopher Young, a man described as mentally disadvantaged, who would have been about 22 years old at the time of Arlene's murder,

confessed to killing her. He removed the screen from a window to get into her home and ended up putting a pillow over her face because she started to scream. When she saw him, this ended up killing her, though Jan claimed he didn't mean to. Despite the similarities, there was nothing that tied the two cases together.

And police pressed on. Dan Coyle hired private investigator Ken Maines to try and come up with leads in the case. Dan told WPXI.com that Ken Mainz has it boiled down in his mind to three or four possible suspects that Westmoreland County should be looking at. Still, there has been no movement in the case. All the Westmoreland District Attorney's Office will say about the state of the unsolved case is that Stephanie's murder is still being actively investigated. Even today, they describe the case as very active. According to Ken Maines, on that last visit Stephanie made to Dan and Barbara's house just two days before she was found dead, she mentioned to them that she had heard neighbor's dogs barking around five in the morning for the last three mornings in a row.

Maybe someone had been watching Stephanie or prowling near her home for a while causing the dogs to bark. Ken Mainz identified a few suspects who not only lived near Stephanie's apartment, but according to WPXI were heavily in. involved in devil worship. Two male adolescents living nearby that Maine's used pseudonyms for were questioned the day after Stephanie's murder. One of them recalled hearing the sound of someone running and maybe tripping in his backyard at precisely 3.43 a.m., which Mainz found odd. The man claimed to have looked at the clock and remembered the time, but it caused Mains

to dig further. And he found some things that didn't sit right with him, but that he never seemed to elaborate on. The two men who mains called Jeff and Steep were apparently into devil worship, whatever that actually means. He says they own the satanic Bible. One of these two men happened to have a brother who was one of the two men arrested for the November 1989 murder of Delores Donati and Arnold. When you look more closely, though. Dolores's and Stephanie's cases are not similar. Donati was the manager of a bank, making robbery the likely motive. It was obvious that there had been forced entry. A rock had been thrown through the window

in the storm door at the back of the home. There were no signs that Donati had been sexually assaulted. She was beaten a death with a glass lamp, not strangled or stabbed. She had also been left partially clothed and no symbols had been carved into her body. The two brothers, one of the ones who owned the staff, The Titanic Bible and one of the ones convicted of killing Denotti lived just across 16th Street from Stephanie. Yet another person who knew the two male adolescents, Ken Mainz calls this person Ed, was the only one of this group that he could get a hold of during his investigation.

He says this man was also involved in devil worshipping and lived just down 4th Avenue from Stephanie. Apparently groups of young people would use the alley, which Stephanie. apartment backed up to on their way back and forth to each other's homes every night. Mainz says this man has what he called guilty knowledge and was expecting to be called about Stephanie's murder someday. Though Ken Mainz admits that it would be more obvious if Stephanie had been stabbed in three clusters of six for six six six six, he still wonders if it could have been some kind of ritual.

Now, we've talked about crimes before in which there was thought to be a satanic connection, mostly cases from the 80s, when satanic panic was prevalent. But since this case does involve a weird symbol carved into a body, we wanted to get least thoughts about a satanic or cult angle to this case to see if there could be one. There was nothing about the symbol on Stephanie's back that evoked anything, say, So there is so the symbol itself was not something that you would link with with Satanism or devil worship or anything like that. However, it was a specific type of symbol. So the best I can put it to is you think of like a a pentagram. It already exists in our collective imagination. I'm not saying it was a pentagram. It wasn't a pentagram, but something like a pentagram exists in our collective of semiotic understanding. And it was something like that in that it was an identifiable symbol. Although at the same time, this is where you have to kind of hedge your bets a bit.

I don't know that it was necessarily referencing anything specific. I don't know that they were trying to communicate anything specific. I think it might have been just an aesthetic expression. I'll give you an example of what it was like. if someone carved a hashtag into someone's back, you could go, oh, it's a hashtag, but you could also go, oh, it's like a tick-tac-toe thing. Or it could be just two vertical lines and two horizontal lines going through them.

It could have a different meaning, depending on who's interpreting it and which interpretation you choose to go with. And also that interpretation might be just entirely misleading, because like in the hashtag example I gave you, it could be that someone just did two vertical lines and two horizontal lines going across, and there was no more meaning than them actually doing that. Maybe they got some sort of a kick out of doing that,

or maybe they felt that they should leave some kind of mark or communication, but they didn't actually have anything to say. So in the end, it sounds like there's really nothing to point directly to satanic or cult involvement here. here, but I think when people hear of symbolism, in this case, a symbol carved into Stephanie's body, I think that's what sends our mind in that direction to Satanism or occult activity. No, and I actually don't blame people for that.

I mean, how many murders occur where symbols are carved into people's bodies? And you know you have a couple of people who are thought to be involved in possibly, you know, Satan worshiping. They live in the area. This is a small town. You can see why people's minds would go there. Ken Mainz also has given a bit more information about the bloodhounds used to scour the area in the aftermath of the murder. They tracked directly to the front porch or a nearby home, but apparently at the time, investigators thought the killer must have stopped on the porch for a moment to hide from traffic

so that no one could see him because of this belief rather than the suspicion that the killer ran inside the house using the front door this was never fully followed up on however there was a 17-year-old male living there who maines agrees as a good suspect this 17-year-old suspect who apparently has a weak alibi was seen around town actually tearing down the posters that dan kuo and others put up He also found a polygraph test and confessed to five different people that he had killed Stephanie, but he was never arrested. And you hear about people such as this in many cases. I get it. This person is a 17-year-old, but they have a weak alibi.

They're seen tearing down posters that have been put up about Stephanie, failed polygraph test, apparently confessed to five different people. Seems like possibly a very, very viable suspect. The problem is when there is no arrest or there is no further action, a lot of times there's just no reporting on these individuals. There's no follow up. There's nothing that tells us what, if anything, happened, how they looked into him. and whether or not they ruled him out.

Yeah, you have to hope that they looked at this guy, given the fact he confessed to people that he had killed Stephanie. And, you know, we just don't have that information whether they did or not. But is this just a case of, you know, a 17-year-old bragging for street cred or something like that, or is he really the killer? So hopefully that that was fully investigated. but the tearing down of the posters, you know, that hit, that Stephanie's son Dan had put up is reminiscent of another case. We covered the case of Dale Williams.

And in his case, he went missing and they put up missing flyers. And a guy that was tearing down the posters way back then was just recently arrested for Dale's murder. So is there something similar to that situation going on here? what the very least you would say it seems like a bad sign why would someone go to the trouble of tearing down posters if it has nothing to do with them whatsoever just to be what mean-spirited doesn't seem to make a lot of sense yeah why would you go out of your way to take down posters that a family puts up trying to find answers in their loved ones murder just it doesn't add up chief willie weber told W-T-A-E dot com, that it's very, very possible that forensic genetic genealogy could help solve this case. In fact, investigators have already sent a DNA sample from the crime scene to a lab for genealogical DNA testing.

And according to Dan Coyle, in a WPXI interview in 2024, they got names associated with the results two and a half years ago. Now, it's unknown what source the DNA that has been analyzed is from. According to Ken Maynes, a pubic hair with the root attached was recovered. It didn't belong to Stephanie. Mains also says there was feces found on a towel in the bathroom. Drops of blood were found in the kitchen and there was blood in and around the bathroom sink. There's also the Seaman's stay from Stephanie's bed.

we don't actually know whether this stain originated during her murder or not. Stephanie continued to date, and according to Ken Mainz, Stephanie's doctor described her as promiscuous. But there's no further context for that. No one has ever come forward that we know of publicly to admit that they had been with Stephanie in the days leading up to her death. But it also doesn't add up to the details of the crime. There was no trace of semen found in or on her body, just the bet. And more if I found this description by her doctor as pretty strange, she was promiscuous.

What did that mean? That she had an active sex life at the age of 74? Why not just say that? It makes it sound like she's out sleeping with everyone in town when you use the word promiscuous. Yeah, there's a clearly a difference between promiscuous and having a sex life. And unfortunately, we just don't have any further context for this. We mentioned earlier. A couple people Ken Mainz was interested in his potential suspects. Before we move on, we should touch on a couple other names. Another suspect Maine says the police were looking into was Robert Boring,

who was released from Hope Haven, a halfway house near the town of Arrumb. Arnold, the day before Stephanie's murder. On July 5, 1975, Boring killed 64-year-old Geraldine Gray in Tyrone, Pennsylvania, about two hours away from the town of Arnold. Geraldine was stabbed to death and left nude in her Pennsylvania Avenue apartment. There's no mention of any symbol carved into her body. Authorities questioned Boring as well as another resident of Hope Haven. At the same time that investigators were looking into Boring, they also wanted to question a guy named John Ray Atwood. He allowed authorities to take his blood for a DNA sample in 1994. Another suspect authorities have looked at closely was one of the suspects talked about by Ken

Mains. This guy has not been named to protect his identity in case he isn't the killer. He was about 30 when Stephanie was killed. He was arrested for burglarizing and sexually assaulting multiple elderly women in the area, but none of them were killed, including women attacked after Stephanie's murder. So the one thing that does not surprise me is that you have a number of people in and around the town of Arnold who, you know, did things in the past that raised suspicion. You know, here you have a guy who was released from a halfway house just the day before Stephanie was murdered and he had killed a 64.

year old woman in a pretty similar way. Stabbed the death. She was found nude. I mean, there are a lot of people in this case more if you'd have to say that have been looked at and at least in one way or another fit the bill as a potential suspect. Yeah, in a town of 5,000, they seem to come up with a handful of people. that seemed shady enough or had a proven history of violence. So there's, you know, a small town, that's a pretty good amount of people to work with,

but it seemed like there was nothing solid enough to make an arrest. And it makes me wonder, was this actually somebody in town, or could this have been a guy passing through town and just happened to this sort of like a Henry Lee Lucas type that just roamed? and roamed and just happened to cross pass with her. Well, and not to throw shade on the investigation, but it also makes you wonder, and you have to wonder in some of these unsolved cases, just how good of a job did they do, you know, looking into these potential suspects? Some of that, we don't know.

Now, we talked about a number of potential suspects or persons of interest in this case. we asked Lee Miller to share his profile of the type of person who may have committed this kind of crime. I put a profile together of the type of offender I thought the police should be looking for. And what I came up with is I thought it would be a young man. So perhaps somebody in their late teens, maybe up to their mid-20s, I thought there was a very strong chance that the offender might be African-American, not necessarily, but something about these types of crimes, and I can't get into what that is, it's something I've seen more in African-American type offenders.

I think that the killer was probably a user of narcotics, might have had troubles with, like I said, schizophrenia or mental illnesses in that range. Previous crimes would have included things like burglary and maybe voyeurism, and I think this type of offender may have committed similar murders or sexual assaults of old women. An offender who had a history of attacking older women, particularly in their homes in the past, and particularly around Arnold, Pennsylvania, would be at the top of my suspect list. And the things that would bump him up more, as I said, would be if he was a younger man, so late teens, early 20s.

And I think that though any race of person could have done this crime, there are things about this crime, as I said, were if it was an African-American offender, that might get a slightly stronger tick for me. In all likelihood, this was not their first violent crime or their first sexual crime. It may have been their first homicide. And when you look at the strange type of violence committed in this crime, the sort of ritualism of it, the type of offender that did this would be the type of person that would do it again and again unless something stopped them. So maybe if they were institutionalized, whether in a prison or psychiatric hospital or they died by suicide or natural causes or maybe an overdose or something, that might prevent them. But looking at this crime, I think the type of person who did this certainly would have wanted to do it again.

It had too much vision in it. It showed too much fantasy. And so that's usually a part of the offender's life and like building up to the crime. So, and it doesn't go away once they've done the crime. It's, it's like a sexual fantasy. It may develop. It may become more elaborate. I suppose if I was looking at other types of murders that this person might have done, I would say certainly stabbing murders, more extensive mutilation, maybe breasts or body parts being cut off, the posing of the body in increasingly elaborate ways. perhaps even necrophilic sexual intercourse. To clarify, the murder of Stephanie Coil could have been targeted in that somebody went there specifically with the idea of killing her. It could have also been that somebody went there maybe to burgle the home or another

type of crime like that and then found themselves caught up in the perpetration of a violent murder. I would put either of those on the table. what I don't think was that it was somebody who was close to her who was at the house anyways involved romantically or sexually in a consensual way or who was like a friend or member of the family and things just blew up. To me, this was somebody that was definitely a stranger who went into the victim's house to prey upon them in one way, whether it's just taking property or specifically to go there and rape and or kill her. And so that's about what I'm comfortable stating there. Lee's profile Stephanie Quill's killer is a frightening one. And perhaps more frightening was that as residents feared,

the killer may have lived amongst them. We asked Lee about that possibility. It's certainly possible that the killer lived in the town at the time. What the sort of impression I was given is this is somebody who would maybe walk or ride a bicycle past this house a lot. I can't prove it, but I have a hunch that the offender walked or rode a bicycle to the crime scene.

I think it was somebody who was staying or lived locally at the prime, but whether they were there long before or after is anyone's guess. And the fact that it's taken so long to solve might indicate that this was someone who was maybe staying in that community for a short period

and left shortly after the murder. And it could have been somebody who was paroled or who had been discharged from a psychiatric hospital. I wouldn't be surprised if it was like kind of an itinerant drug addict or, you know, somebody in like a crack house or or in a halfway house. The idea that it was the boy across the street. Well, I mean, it's possible. But then the question is, why didn't he come on the radar? because I think this would be an individual who wouldn't blend in. This is not like a BTK where he seems like a normal guy and then you find out he's got this secret life.

At the very least, this person would have seemed like kind of a no good criminal type and also might have been someone who just seemed really peculiar and strange. So I don't think this is the kind of person where you'd look at them and go, there's no way this person could be a criminal or murder. I think this person would weird out a lot of normal and even other criminal or strange people he was around. You know, one of the biggest issues in this case, as explained by investigator Ken Mainz to WPXI, is that the symbol is the biggest clue that we have. Yet, it may mean nothing at all. He also is concerned about the semenstain evidence taken from Stephanie's bed.

Some suspects were ruled out. because their DNA didn't match the semen stain on Stephanie's bed. If this stain was from an earlier consensual sexual encounter, then it's not useful for ruling out the identity of the killer. And, you know, I think about that in quite a few cases. You know, DNA is great. But where does the DNA come from? And when someone is sexually assaulted, murdered, and there's a semen stain left behind, a lot of times, more if that semen stain is thought to be key in finding the person's killer.

But, you know, as Ken has said, what if that stain isn't related to the murder at all? What if it is from an earlier sexual encounter? and police are ruling out people based on the stain, that's a big problem. Yeah, you have to wonder if this is a big red herring, something that's giving somebody a false clearance, and they really shouldn't have been cleared. Lee Meller has his own theory on the semen evidence that was collected from Stephanie's bed. The semen stain, some of the people that I worked with interpreted that as they're perhaps of being a sexual encounter consensually that occurred.

But that's not how I looked at it. I think that the offender posed Stephanie's body and then maybe either kneeled or lay down or sat on, looked at it and masturbated. They set up their own pornographic tableau of the corpse and then masturbated looking at it. The type of killer that would do something like that is somebody who is. psychopathic and who has necrophilic sexual desires. That doesn't always mean sexual intercourse with the corpse. It means sexually aroused by the corpse.

An example I'll give you, you know, BTK never raped any of his victims. But he did bind them in these poses and masturbated around them. Knowing that investigators may have names related to a DNA profile, coupled with a lack of progress on the case seems confusing. If it's true that they have these names, then why the hold up in closing the case? There have been clear tensions between investigators working on the case and Dan Coyle going back to at least 2013 when it was reported Chief Weber stopped updating Dan and Barbara on the case, which he had been doing every month for years until he decided to start giving updates to Stephanie's other sons, Dick and Henry. Chief Weber called Dan and Barbara

quill overbearing and seeking information in a Trib Live interview, adding they demanded more information than I can release. To this day, the relationship between authorities and the quills hasn't improved. Yeah, and more to me that seems a little cold, but I'm sure that this comes up in many investigations. You have family members that want their loved ones, case solved. they're going to be demanding. I mean, some are going to be relentless.

And sometimes we see the police push back a little on that. Yeah, I don't know if overbearing means that Dan was there pounding his fist on the chief's desk every day saying, I demand something to be done. But it sounds like a strong word to use for somebody that's seeking justice for their mom. In 2023, then his wife Barbara wrote a letter to the editor, which was published on the Tribune Review's website, triblive.com. And the letter was a claim that Westmoreland County District Attorney Nicole Zichorelli and Detective Ron Zona failed to follow through on promises of open communication and transparency promises that had initially given the family high hopes. Instead, as Dan and Barbara wrote, they breached our trust and do not return calls. Some of this tension may stem from the fact that, according to Ken Maynes,

investigators began to suspect Dan Coyle sometime around the year 2001. They questioned him and asked for his DNA. During this question, Dan said he was aware of the three-inch slid in the screen and had used it to unlock the screen door before the murder. And I would say, you know, if Ken Mainz is correct, that is probably the source of the tension. I mean, here you have a man who is trying to find the murderer of his mother. And if he begins to think that he's being suspected, okay, that's going to cause a rip. it sounds like one of the things that he was suspected for was because he knew about that screen door having that three inch slit in it.

But that makes me wonder, did that screen being sliced have anything to do with this case? Maybe it's somehow in the past, you know, Stephanie or one of her sons for whatever reason to try and get in the house. Maybe they were locked out had cut it previously and then reach. and unlocked the hook that was holding the door shut. So maybe it was something along those lines. And it wasn't, although the killer could have done it too. Maybe it didn't this slit in the screen had been there for a while and wasn't done by the killer. Well, also, it seems like a very poor security situation.

You know, anytime you have something where you can just reach in and unlock a door, I'm not feeling all that safe. Yeah, but I go back to this as a town that didn't have crime. You know, this is 30 years ago. Stephanie was older. Maybe she was used to that mentality where you didn't have to lock your doors and wasn't ever expecting anything bad to happen to her. And unfortunately, the wrong person was able to get into her apartment.

This year, District Attorney Nicole Zichorelli announced that DNA from up to 10 unsolved cases would be analyzed by Othram Labs in Texas, thanks to a $50,000 state grant. However, Stephanie's murder was not one of these cases. Since she was murdered, Stephanie's son, Dan Quill, has tried to keep the case in the public eye. He told WPXI, I'm trying to keep people not forgetting about it. Every single year on July 16th, Dan used to put up flyers around the town of Arnold, advertising a $10,000 reward for information that brings about the arrest of a suspect. Dan doesn't put flyers anymore, but the reward still stands.

Dan is still hopeful. His mom's case will be solved. It's not so much for himself that Dan had continued to work to get this case solved. It's more about keeping his word to his mother. He told CBS News, I made a promise to her when she was laying in that coffin in the funeral home saying, I will never give up. He keeps going, knowing an answer may never come,

because he promised his mother that he would. He told Trib Live, as long as I'm still breathing, I'm not going to give up on it. The family also holds out hope that maybe the killer will one day confess. Dick Coyle hoping his mom's killer would hear his words, told Trib Live, if you have any human qualities left and you have conscience, really consider letting this family know what you've done and accept the consequences in this life. If you have a heart, give this some thought and turn yourself in. Maybe you will alleviate or mollify or lessen the consequences in the afterlife by doing this.

Dan Coyle has also appealed to the suspect saying, put yourself in our position. You have a mother and father. You had to have a mother and father. If someone did this to your mother, what would your feelings be? And more if I get these types of appeals, is there a chance that the killer could hear this or read this

and it make them come forward? Yes, there's a chance. But I think more often than not, this goes against any sense of self-preservation that a killer would have, And my thought is that sense of self-preservation outweighs their conscience, their thoughts about alleviating the pains of the family, everything. They don't want to go to jail.

They don't want to pay for their crimes. And I think there's a pretty good chance that the killer may have heard, Dan's pleas if he was a resident of that town and never left, maybe still there today, in such a small town, he probably is aware of Dan Quill's plea for him to come forward and has chosen not to. Dan has expressed to WPXI that the pain of such a brutal, senseless loss is understandably never ever going to go away. He says it would definitely help if it was solved.

Former Chief Willie Weber wants to see the case solved too. He said, I always said when I started working in 1981 that I'd never let the job become personal. This is personal. Three years before he did finally retire, Weber hinted at just how personal the case was for him, saying to Trib Live, if we can get a conviction, maybe we'll get some closure for the family. And maybe I can think about retiring. All three of the quote unquote devil-worshipping youths, or apparently the top suspects on Ken Main's list,

followed closely by the 17-year-old who lived in the home where the bloodhounds alerted. It's been said that FBI agents in the behavioral analysis unit had a difficult time even creating a profile of the predator. But in 2008, two retired profilers looked at the case and thought that the killer was most likely familiar with the neighborhood and may even still live in the immediate area. All four of the young suspects would likely fit this profile. Sadly, it appears that there was a rift created in the Quill family after years with no answers.

When Stephanie's daughter, Sally Williams, passed away, her obituary made no mention of Dan Quill, only Henry and Richard. Dan and Barbara mentioned in an interview with Ken Mainz that they hadn't spoken to Sally for many years before her death in 2022 because she refused to participate in the investigation any further. after investigators asked Dan for his DNA. She decided it would be less painful to move on, never known than to hold her breath waiting for an answer, seeing those she loved, accused, and hurt even more. If you have any information about the murder of Stephanie Coyle, please contact the Arnold Police Department.

You can reach them by telephone at 724-339-9663. If you want to make an anonymous report, but stay eligible for the $10,000 reward, you can call the Pennsylvania crime stoppers toll free at 1,8004PA tips. Thanks again to Dr. Lee Miller for his input in this episode. You can find out more about him and his work at Leemeller.com. Also be sure to check out Ken Main's coverage of this case on his YouTube channel, Unsolved No More. So Morp as we wrap this one up, you know, obviously,

this was a very brutal murder of a woman who, by all accounts, was leading a good life, had no known enemies. Her doctor made that strange statement that she was promiscuous. And that still stands out to me as a strange thing to say. Now, maybe she still did, even at the age of 74, have an active sex life. And maybe that accounts for the semen stain that was found. But, you know, there's, there's a lot going on in this case. And quite frankly, I thought there were a number of potential suspects or persons of

interest in a town as small as Arnold. Yeah, I think if this case happened in a major city like Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco, it doesn't seem like it would be as shocking. It seems like it might get lost in in bigger cities like that. But here in this small town where nothing like this ever happened, this really jumps out. What was done to Stephanie, the brutality of it, the strange symbol just makes for a really bizarre mystery. But maybe this is one that, you know, will be sold. sometime here in the near future, I'm really hoping so because, you know, you think about the FBI profile. And, you know, for how much stock you put into those, it depends. Some people do. Some people don't.

But them saying that, you know, this is a person probably familiar with the area could still live there. Again, very small town. Well, the good news is that they do have DNA. sounds like to at least work with and you know hopefully that sends them down the the road to IDing who did this yeah I just hope that they haven't excluded the killer based on a seaman stain that really had nothing to do with the murder there's a real fear of that I think but that's not all they had to work with right we mentioned a pubic hair was found with with the root intact. So I don't know. We're just going to have to wait and see on this one. But that's it for our episode on Stephanie Coyle. If you love the show, but haven't done so yet,

go out, take a minute. Give us a five-star rating. You can leave a review. Also, keep telling your friends word of mouth about the criminology podcast really helps us out. If you want to find us on social media, we're on X with the handle criminology pod. You can also find us on Facebook by going to Facebook.com. slash criminology podcast. And you can join our Facebook discussion group, criminology podcast discussion and fans. So that's it for another episode of criminology, but Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then, for Mike and Morph.

We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.