Murder: True Crime Stories - SOLVED: The Wineville Chicken Coop Murders 2

Episode Date: July 23, 2026

Murder: True Crime Stories, host Carter Roy follows the final months of one of California's most disturbing crime sprees. In Part 2 of Murder: True Crime Stories, host Carter Roy follows the final months of one of California's most disturbing crime sprees. By 1928, 21-year-old Gordon Stewart Northcott had killed at least three boys on his chicken ranch outside Los Angeles, with the help of his teenage nephew and his own mother. But when Northcott's niece traveled from Canada to check on her younger brother, she saw enough to know something was very wrong. What she did next would unravel everything. The investigation that followed uncovered shallow graves beneath the chicken coops, an international manhunt, and a courtroom reckoning that exposed a family who had protected a killer for years. Please note, this episode contains descriptions of sexual violence, torture, and murder, and may not be suitable for all audiences.Head over to our Murder True Crime Stories YouTube channel to WATCH our video episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@MurderTrueCrimeStoriesIf you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Murder: True Crime Stories to never miss a case! Want all 2 parts of every case all at once? Join Crime House+ and get both parts of each case dropped at once ad-free. Join at crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Murder: True Crime Stories is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios.🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of…, Serial Killers & Murderous Minds, Crime House 24/7, and more wherever you get your podcasts!Follow me on SocialInstagram: @CrimehouseTikTok: @CrimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudiosYouTube: @murdertruecrimestories

Hi listeners, it's Carter. Before today's episode of Murder True Crime Stories, I want to tell you about another podcast I am hosting. I know you'll love. Crime House and A&E are teaming up on the podcast version of the famous true crime series, The First 48. Each week, I'll take you inside a landmark homicide case, the interrogations, the dead ends,

and the breakthroughs in the critical first 48 hours. listen to and follow the first 48 every Thursday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts. This is Crime House. No one reacts to trauma the same way. For some, their first instinct is to fight. For others, it's to run. But when a situation feels truly inescapable, when there's no fighting and nowhere to go,

a person can start doing things they never thought they were capable of just to survive. Sanford Clark is one tragic example. Back in 1926, when he was 13, he was taken prisoner by his own uncle, a serial killer who prayed on children. His name was Gordon Stewart Northcott. For two years, Sanford lived in a nightmare, and to get through it, he lived. learn to do whatever his uncle asked, no matter how unthinkable. He told himself it was the only way to stay alive. But in 1928, that finally changed. With the help of his family, Sanford found a line he couldn't cross. He took his life back and his uncle got exactly what he deserved.

People's lives are like a story. There's a beginning, a middle, and an end. But you don't always know which part you're on. Sometimes the final chapter arrives far too soon, and we don't always get to know the real ending. I'm Carter Roy, and this is murder, true crime stories, a crime house original powered by Pave Studios. New episodes come at every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday,

with Friday's episodes covering the cases that deserve a deeper look. Thank you for being part of the Crime House community. Please rate review and follow the show. And for early, add free access to every episode. Subscribe to Crime House Plus. You'll get part one and part two at the same time, plus exclusive bonus content. To join, go to CrimehousePlus.com

or tap try free on the Murder True Crime Story show page on Apple Podcasts. Before we get started, a warning. This episode contains descriptions of child sexual abuse, child murder, sexual violence, and incest. Please listen with care. This is the second of two episodes on the Wineville Chicken Coop murders in Southern California. Last time, we introduced Gordon Stewart Northcott. In 1925, 18-year-old Stewart was arrested for assaulting a young boy. The following year, he bought a small plot of farmland near Wurton.

Wineville, California, he said he wanted to raise chickens and rebuild his life. Instead, he used the ranch to imprison and assault an unknown number of victims, including his own nephew, Sanford. Today, we'll cover Stewart's escalating crimes and the person who finally rescued Sanford. When the police searched the chicken ranch, they uncovered a nightmare worse than anything they'd imagined. And in the end, it wasn't just the Stewart who faced the consequences. So did his biggest enabler. All that and more coming up. By 1928, 21-year-old Gordon Stewart Northcott had been living on his three-acre ranch for about two years. The land wasn't much to look at. A few handmade chicken coops, a simple wooden house, and not a

whole lot else. It wasn't much of a business either. Most months Stewart could barely make ends meet. Still, to him, Wineville, California was paradise. He ruled over his little patch of dirt like a tyrant, and he treated his 15-year-old nephew Sanford as his only subject. He forced the boy to do every chore on the ranch, to wait on him hand and foot, and to sleep chained up next to the chickens. As if that weren't enough, he physically and satisfied. sexually abused him every few days.

Meanwhile, Sanford's parents were more than a thousand miles away in Canada with no idea what was going on. Sanford had nowhere to run, and Stewart had convinced him that going to the police would only land him in jail. For all intents and purposes, Sanford was his uncle's prisoner. And he wasn't the only one. Over the past two years, Stuart had abducted at least a dozen boys, most of them Latino, from the surrounding area.

He chained them up in a coop the same way he did his nephew and hurt them in unspeakable ways. He beat them, assaulted them, and tortured them. The whole time, Sanford listened to their screams. The boys usually lasted about a week before Stewart grew tired of them. Sanford never knew for sure what happened after that. To keep the nightmares away, he told himself that his uncle let them go, somewhere out in the woods. But by February 1st, he couldn't keep lying to himself. That afternoon, Stuart turned up at the ranch with a severed human head and forced Sanford to help him destroy it.

Afterward, the two of them drove to see Stuart's parents, George and Luis. For years, the couple had looked the other way. telling themselves their son's behavior wasn't what it so obviously was. This time, Stuart didn't give them that option. He told his mother and father to their faces that he'd killed a man in self-defense, and he asked them to lie to the police and give him an alibi if the crime was ever traced back to him. They agreed. When Sanford got back to the ranch that night,

he felt more trapped than ever. Now that he knew beyond any doubt, that his uncle was a murderer, he was sure he'd never be allowed to leave. At any moment, Stuart might decide his nephew was a loose end that needed to be cut. But over the next couple of weeks, there was no sign that Stuart was worried at all. If anything, he was in a better mood than usual. The local papers reported that a farmer had found a headless body on the side of a road near Los Angeles and that the police had no clear suspects. It looked like Stewart had gotten away with it. To Sanford, his uncle seemed untouchable, and that only made Stewart bolder.

A month after that murder in March of 1928, Stewart left the ranch to hunt for another victim, As usual, Sanford had no idea how long he'd be gone. For seven days he took care of the chickens by himself, soaking up a rare stretch of quiet, free from his uncle. He had no way of knowing it was the calm before the storm. On the afternoon of March 10th, Stuart came back with a little boy in the car. Sanford wasn't surprised to see another victim, but then it hit him. This one spoke English.

The boy was nine-year-old Walter Collins. Stewart had snatched him in broad daylight after his mother sent him to the movies. And the most chilling part was that the Collins family had actually met Stewart before. A few years earlier, he'd worked at a grocery store in their neighborhood. Sanford couldn't believe his uncle would be so reckless. his heart broke as Stuart dragged little Walter kicking and screaming toward the chicken coop. For the next few days, Sanford slept outside just to avoid seeing or hearing what was happening. But on March 13th, Stewart woke him at dawn with a new job.

It was time to set up another alibi. Sanford's stomach dropped, but somewhere in the back of his mind he'd already. seen this coming. Walter wasn't like the other boys. He knew exactly who Stewart was. He could identify him, and that meant Stewart would never let him leave the ranch alive. As always, the plan was twisted. Stuart said he'd invited his mother, 58-year-old Luis, to the ranch that afternoon. While she was there, they'd keep Walter locked in a coop out of sight. Stewart would wait until Luis left to kill him. That way, if the police ever came asking, she could honestly tell them she'd never seen a single sign of violence. Now Sanford had

six hours to line the walls of the coop with empty feed bags. It had to be as close to soundproof as he could make it in case Walter cried out while Luis was nearby. As absurd as the scheme was, it nearly worked. After days of terror, Walter was too frightened to make a sound from inside the coop. Louise stayed at the ranch for two nights, doting on her son the way she always did. Sanford did his best to stay out of the way. He noticed Stewart slipping in and out of the coop a couple of times, though we never saw him bring Walter any food or water. Then, on the final evening of Luis's visit, everything fell apart. Sanford was setting the table for dinner when Luis burst into the farmhouse screaming.

She made a beeline for her son and slapped him across the back of the head as hard as she could. It turned out she had seen Stewart sneaking out of the coop, so she'd gone in to Lerlin' look for herself. She'd even spoken to Walter. Now she knew everything. Sanford's heart pounded. After all these years, Luis was finally face to face with the truth about her son. Maybe now she'd see what Stewart had been doing to him too. Maybe she'd call the police. Maybe somehow this was the end of it. But that hope died fast. Realizing he couldn't talk his way out, Stuart broke down in tears and threw his arms around his mother. He told her he could never fool her that she always saw right through him. He said he hadn't meant to hurt the boy. He just

couldn't help himself. And now he needed her to help him. him fix it. Louis stroked her son's hair and calmed him down. She'd already decided what came next. There was only one solution. They had to get rid of Walter. It was Louise who suggested the axe. She said that each of them would take a turn, so all three of them would be equally guilty, and as the mother, she volunteered to go first. Up to that point, Sanford had been listening in silence, too stunned to speak, but when Luis brought up the axe, he couldn't stop himself from scoffing in disbelief. The moment it slipped out, he regretted it. Luis rounded on him and swore that if Sanford didn't go along with the plan, he'd be next. They were, they were,

were going to murder a nine-year-old boy as a family, and that was that. When the three of them slipped into the coop, they found Walter asleep on the floor, curled into a ball. Louise set a lantern on the ground, and Sanford watched her bring the axe down three times, almost certainly killing Walter right away. Then she held the weapon out to him. He looked down at the floor and was sick. With tears running down his face, he shook his head. He couldn't take the axe. He wouldn't.

His refusal sent Stuart into a rage. Red-faced, he yanked a small hatchet from his belt and swung it at his nephew, slicing deep into his forearm. After that, Sanford had no choice. He took the axe from his grandmother. Sanford went somewhere else in his head and did as he was told. A few seconds later, it was done. Stewart took the last turn, but the horror still wasn't over.

For the next few hours, he and Luis made Sanford dig Walter's grave inside the coop. It took a long time, partly because he could only use one arm, and partly because he kept having to stop and throw. grow up. Finally, as the sun came up over the ranch, it was finished. Stuart drove a grumbling Luis back home and left Sanford alone in the stinking coop. Walter's final moments played over and over in his mind, an endless haunting loop. There is only so much a 15-year-old can take, and Sanford was getting dangerously close to his limit. But in the days ahead, Stuart would keep pushing, dragging his nephew closer and closer to a breaking point.

In March of 1928, Stuart Northcott, his mother, Luis, and his nephew Sanford murdered a nine-year-old boy with an axe. Two months later, on May 18th, 21-year-old Stewart went after his next two victims. He found 12-year-old Louis Winslow and his 10-year-old brother Nelson in Pomona, California, about 20 miles from his ranch. The boys had stayed out late until around 8.30 p.m., building model airplanes at the local model yacht club. They were six or seven blocks from home, but they never made it. Stewart caught them hurrying home, talked them into the car, and drove them, straight to the ranch instead. Fifteen-year-old Sanford watched in horror as his uncle dragged Lewis and Nelson into a coop.

Over the next week and a half, things went the way they always did. Stewart abused the boys while Sanford fed them and tried not to think about what he was doing. The one difference this time was the newspapers. The Winslow Boys' disappearance was all over the local paper. papers, and Stuart loved the attention. He'd read the stories out loud to Sanford, stopping every so often to laugh. Somewhere out there, the Winslow family was living through the worst days of their lives. To Stewart, it was just entertainment. At one point, he had the boys write a couple of phony letters home to throw the police off his trail. It was the same trick he'd used on

Sanford, the one that had kept his own parents from visiting for two straight years. The letters worked well enough to buy Stewart some time, but on May 25th, he got bored of the boys, and that meant it was time to kill them. He tried ether first, an anesthetic, soaking a cloth with it and holding it over 12-year-old Lewis's face. The boy passed out and seemed to be gone, but a few minutes later, Lewis woke up and vomited, so Stewart went back to the axe. Just like before, he forced Sanford to participate and dig the graves in another empty coop. When it was over, Sanford had a crisis of conscience. Early in his captivity, he used to dream that someone would come along and rescue him. By now, those dreams were gone. Every time he thought things couldn't get

worse, they did. He was certain that one day Stewart would turn on him too, but now he realized something else. There was no reason to keep helping him either, and he made himself a silent promise. He was done. He would not kill anyone else, no matter what it cost him. It didn't take long for that promise to be tested. About a month later on June 30th, Stewart left to find a new victim. Sanford figured nothing could surprise him anymore. Then his uncle pulled up that night with an entire family packed into his car, Sanford couldn't believe his eyes. Stuart had found Jacob Dahl, his wife Ella, and their four sons at a Salvation Army office in Los Angeles. The family had fallen on hard times and was looking

for work, so Stewart swooped in, calling himself Mr. Craig, he offered them a well-paid live-in job on his chicken ranch. The dolls thought their prayers had been answered. They piled gratefully into Stewart's Roadster, looking forward to a fresh start in Wineville. They had no idea what they were really walking into. When they reached the ranch that night, Stuart pulled his nephew aside and laid out the plan in a low voice. He wanted Sanford to lure the children away from their parents with the promise of a tour. While they were gone, Stewart would kill the adults. After that, in his words, he'd have four more victims to keep him busy.

But when the moment came, Sanford refused. No matter what his uncle threatened, he would not help murder an entire family. This was the line. This was the promise. Stewart tried every trick he had, and none of them worked. Eventually, he realized he was stuck. Taking on six people alone was too risky, even with four of them being kids. But he couldn't let his nephew defy him either, so he punished Sanford the only way he knew how.

He cracked him across the back of the head with a shovel, hard enough to knock him out, then chained him up in a coop. After that, he reluctantly drove the dolls back to Los Angeles. By risking his own life, a 15-year-old boy stood up to a serial killer and saved all six of the dolls, two parents and four children who would grow up never knowing how close they'd come. For the next month, Stuart kept. Sanford chained up and did everything he could think of to make him regret it. Sanford assumed the punishment would end with his death, but by then he didn't care.

He was proud of what he'd done. With that one act of defiance, he felt like he'd wiped the slate clean and saved his own soul. He thought he'd hit rock bottom, that there was nothing left in the world that could touch him. Then on July 25th, his uncle reminded him he still had something to lose. That morning, Stewart got a telegram from Sanford's older sister, 19-year-old Jesse. For two years, Jesse had suspected something was wrong with her brother. She'd studied every letter he sent home, and she could tell they weren't really his. They praised Stewart far too much, and the grammar was to say,

simple. It didn't sound like a boy who was going to school the way Sanford claimed to be. For a long time, Jesse couldn't do anything about it. Her mother, Winnie, kept getting in the way. Winnie was Stewart's sister, and the two of them had always shared a strange, close bond. Like the rest of the family, she made excuses for him. In fact, she was the one who talked her husband John into sending Sanford away in the first place. But recently, Winnie and John had separated. Out from under his wife's influence, John started to agree that something about Uncle Stewart didn't add up.

He gave Jesse his blessing to go down to California and see for herself. Jesse was just a few years older than her brother, but she'd grown up outside Stewart's reach, and she had never learned to be afraid of him. She arrived in Los Angeles on July 27th, and Stewart picked her up at a bus stop. Right away, the air between them was tense, but on the drive to the ranch, Stewart held his tongue and swallowed his worst threats. As long as Sanford played along, Jesse's visit would just be a minor inconvenience. Back in Wineville, Sanford was busy memorizing the script Stewart had written for him. He was every bit as anxious to fool his sister as his uncle was.

He knew that if Jesse figured out what was really happening, Stewart would make them both pay. So when she arrived, Sanford stuck to the plan. He dodged her questions and acted like everything was normal, but he couldn't hide the limp, and his threadbare t-shirt was too thin to cover the burn marks and thick scars running down his back. Everything Jesse saw told her she'd been right to worry. Even so, she played it cool for a few days, pretending not to notice anything wrong.

Then one night, once she was sure Stewart was asleep, she shook Sanford awake. In a whisper, she begged him to tell the truth. Sanford couldn't hold the act together any longer. He broke down. Through tears, he admitted that he wasn't going to school, that Stuart beat him without mercy, and that his uncle had killed people. A lot of people.

It was a shocking thing to hear, but Jesse took it in stride. She hadn't been worn down by two years on that ranch the way her brother had. She wasn't too afraid to fight back. She told Sanford that the two of them were leaving for good. They just had to hold on a few more days. On August 2nd, Stuart drove Jesse and Sanford to see their grandparents in Los Angeles. At one point, Jesse got George alone and told him what she knew.

Over the next couple of days, she begged and pushed the old man until he finally agreed to help. The next time Stuart and Luis left the house, George drove his grandson to a friend's place where Sanford was supposed to stay hidden until he could get back to Canada with Jesse. Sanford went along with it, but deep down, he knew it wouldn't work. He hadn't told Jesse everything.

It was too painful to admit, even to his own sister, that their grandparents, had been in on it the whole time. George was already too far gone, and Stewart would do anything to keep Sanford from getting away. On August 4, 1928,

George Northcott tried to help his 15-year-old grandson, Sanford, slip away from his murderous son, Stuart. The plan was for Sanford to hide with one of George's friends for a few days, then head back to Canada with his sister, 19-year-old Jesse. It was a shaky plan from the start. To keep Stewart from getting suspicious, Jesse stayed behind at her grandparents' house,

pretending Sanford had run off on his own. She was hoping she'd be allowed to take a train home once he was safely away. But Stewart, since something was off immediately, his mother, Luis, would never betray him. him and Jesse didn't know the area well enough to help her brother disappear. That left only one person, George. It didn't take much to break him. Stuart gave his father a black eye and after about 24 hours the old man crumbled and gave up where Sanford was hiding. Stuart hauled his nephew home

within minutes. Now that he was certain Jesse knew the truth, he wanted to kill her. on the spot. The only person who could stop him was Luis. She convinced her son that murdering Jesse would bring the police straight to their door. So there was only one option left. Jesse would have to swear to keep the family's terrible secret just like everyone else. Stuart kept a close eye on his niece for the next couple of weeks, and despite everything, she still refused to be. She still refused to leave without her brother. Finally, around August 20th, Sanford took her aside and begged her to go back to Canada alone. The only way she'd do it is if Sanford took the rest of her life savings and promised to meet her in Washington. He pocketed the money and swore he'd catch the

next train right behind her. He had no intention of keeping that promise. In his mind, it was a noble lie, the kind you tell to get someone you love out of danger. He would do anything to protect Jesse, even if it meant walking straight back into the nightmare on the ranch. A few hours later, Jesse left for Seattle. On the platform, she took one last look at her brother, telling herself she'd see him again in a matter of hours. Tears stung Sanford's eyes as he waved goodbye to her for what he believed would be the last time. As soon as Jesse was gone, Stewart brought Sanford back to the grandparents' house. There, Luis announced that the jig was up.

She didn't believe for a second that Jesse would keep quiet. They had to run. Sanford watched in disbelief as his grandmother hurried to pack a suitcase while Stuart started loading the car with furniture to sell off. They weren't bluffing. They were really leaving. Over the next week, the family sold most of what they owned right down to the chickens on the ranch. By August 31st, they were nearly ready to go.

But they'd already run out of time. While the Northcots were busy packing, Jesse had been working too. The moment she got back to Canada, she went to the U.S. embassy and told an official everything she knew. The embassy got in touch with the LAPD and U.S. immigration. Jesse said her uncle was a murderer, but she had no hard proof. What she could prove was one specific crime. Two years earlier, Stewart had smuggled Sanford across the Canadian border. That was enough to open an investigation with immigration taking the lead. On August 31st, around 11 a.m., two agents pulled up to the chicken ranch to ask Stuart some questions.

He and Sanford happened to be out in the woods nearby. The second Stewart saw the officers. He told Sanford to say he'd been in Los Angeles, then he bolted across the fields on foot. Left alone for the first time in weeks, Sanford walked up to the agents and answered their questions about how he'd come into the country. By the end of the interview, they still hadn't found Stewart, so they took Sanford to a local juvenile hall. Meanwhile, Stewart went to a phone booth and called his mother. After his panicked call, Luis quit her job on the spot. She'd have fled the country right then, but she had to wait a few days for her final paycheck. In the end, she decided to stay

in Los Angeles while Stewart went ahead alone. He headed to Canada, slipped past the authorities, and arrived in early September. By the 8th, Louise had joined him, hiding out at a hotel in Vancouver under a fake name. George wanted no part of it. Unlike Luis, he'd never actually taken part in a murder, so he stubbornly stayed put in Los Angeles. By now, Sanford had been sitting in the juvenile hall for over a week held without charges. At first, he stuck to the phony story Stewart had drilled into him. He admitted to crossing the border illegally, but said nothing about the murders or the abuse he'd suffered. Even locked up, his fear of his uncle was strong enough to keep him in line.

But slowly, it dawned on him that there was no reason left to protect Stewart. as much as he hated being behind bars, it beat the ranch. And in that moment, something broke. The spell Stewart had held over him for two years, simply lifted. The helplessness that had kept Sanford alive wasn't doing him any good anymore. As guilty as he felt for helping his uncle hide what he'd done, he knew he had to tell the truth. On September 14th, 1928, the 15-year-old told an LAPD investigator, everything. By the time Sanford finished, the detective's jaw was on the floor.

The story was so sickening that part of him almost hoped the boy was making it up. But the look in Sanford's eyes told him every word was true. A couple of hours later, he drove Sanford back to the ranch and had him, point out the graves beneath the coops. It didn't take long to dig up the shallow plots and prove him right. They found three bodies in the dirt, nine-year-old Walter Collins, 12-year-old Lewis Winslow, and his 10-year-old brother Nelson. One of those names was already famous. Nine-year-old Walter Collins had vanished on his way to the movies back in March, and his disappearance had gripped Los Angeles for months. Part of that was timing. Not long before Walter went missing,

a 12-year-old girl named Marion Parker had been kidnapped from her school and brutally murdered. Los Angeles was already terrified for its children, so when Walter disappeared, the pressure on the police to find him was enormous. In August, they thought they had. A boy turned up in Illinois claiming to be Walter, and the LAPD brought him home and declared the case closed. There was just one problem. When Walter's mother, Christine, met the boy at the train station. She immediately knew he wasn't her son. The police didn't want to hear it.

Even with her son's dental records in hand, Christine couldn't convince them. And when she kept pushing, a captain named. J.J. Jones had her committed to a psychiatric war. She was locked away for days until the boy finally admitted the truth. He was a runaway named Arthur Hutchins, and he posed as Walter to score himself a free trip to California. Christine was eventually released, but she never stopped searching for her son. Decades later, her ordeal would become the basis for the Clint Eastwood film, Changeling. Now, standing over a shallow grave on Stewart's Ranch, the police finally had their answer. Walter Collins had been dead since the spring. Sanford also told the authorities

about the severed head his uncle had forced him to destroy. The detectives, knew that case well. The rest of the body had turned up on a public road months before, though they'd never managed to identify the victim. By that point, the police would have believed almost anything Sanford said. They didn't doubt him when he claimed Stewart had likely killed a dozen other Latino boys over the past two years. But without any evidence of those murders at the ranch, they chose to focus on what they could prove. Things moved fast after that. Sanford was placed in protective custody at the juvenile hall, and a guard was posted at the ranch around the clock. Every other available unit was given one job, hunt down a serial killer and his mother.

Their first break came when they arrested George. It didn't take much to get him talking. George claimed he had no idea where his wife and son had gone, but guessed they were somewhere up in Canada. So the LAPD reached out to law enforcement up north and set up a joint operation. On September 19, 1928, Canadian authorities caught Stewart and Luis trying to leave the country. By the end of November, the two of them had been extradited back to Los Angeles. In custody, Luis admitted to... two murdering nine-year-old Walter Collins. Stewart, on the other hand, tried to play his interrogators,

lying constantly and contradicting himself every time they questioned him. It didn't matter. The police didn't need his confession. They already had more than enough evidence, including testimony from Sanford that could have swayed any jury. On December 31st, 1928, 59-year-old Luis Northcott pleaded guilty to murdering Walter Collins and was sentenced to life in prison. A month later, Stewart's trial began.

He was charged with killing Lewis and Nelson Winslow, along with the unnamed young man whose head he'd severed. The police still suspected him of more murders, but they figured three was enough to send him to the gallows. On February 8th, 1929, they were proven right. Stewart was found guilty on every count. A few days later, he was sentenced to death. When Luis heard her son was going to be executed, she begged the court to hang her alongside him. But at the time, it was extremely rare for a woman to be sentenced to death in the U.S.,

and the court refused her request. So, Stewart faced the gallows alone. In his final days, the mothers of his victims came to him for answers, and he tormented them one last time. He'd sent word that he was finally ready to tell the truth. But when Christine Collins arrived, he denied ever meeting Walter, dodged every question, and refused to say whether her son was alive or dead. When the Winslow boy's mother came the next day, he wouldn't even see her. He lied to the very end.

On October 2, 1930, the 23-year-old was hanged at San Quentin State Prison. Even his death was a spectacle. Stewart's neck didn't break in the drop. Instead of dying instantly, he was strangled to death over roughly 12 minutes. In his final moments, he got a small taste of the terror he'd inflicted on so many young boys. Not long after, the town of Wineville officially changed its name to Miraloma. The residents wanted to move on and put as much distance as they could between themselves and the murders. They wanted to forget the whole nightmare.

After the trials, Sanford was sent to an experimental reform. school, the prosecutor who handled his case never believed he was a willing participant. In his eyes, Sanford was a victim, not a criminal. At the school, Sanford was a model student. He was quiet, hardworking, serious about his job training courses, and won over just about everyone there. The staff saw him as living proof their program worked and released him early after just two years. He went on to serve in the Canadian Army during World War II. Afterward, he spent years working for the Postal Service.

Eventually, he got married, and he and his wife adopted and raised two sons. In all that time, he rarely spoke about his childhood and turned down public interviews. He let his life do the talking. But he didn't take the whole story with him. Eventually, he shared it with his son, Jerry, an account that was later published as the book, The Road Out of Hell. A lot of what we know about the Wineville murders, including much of what we've covered across these two episodes, come straight from Sanford's own account.

After two years of unimaginable torture, Sanford grew into an upstanding man. a valued member of his community, and the father of a happy, healthy family. He died peacefully in 1991 at 78 years old. That doesn't mean he ever fully escaped what happened. Those closest to him said the guilt and the grief he felt never really went away. Sanford carried Wineville with him for the rest of his life. But here's what he didn't do. He didn't become the monster Stuart tried to turn him into.

Unlike his grandparents, Sanford didn't just go along with it. He found the line he wouldn't cross, and he held to it, even with a hatchet in his uncle's hand. He saved the doll family. He protected his sister, and in the end, thanks to Jesse, he proved that it's possible. to stand up to evil no matter the odds and survive. And that is worth remembering. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Carter Roy, and this is Murder, True Crime Stories.

Come back next time for the story of a new murder and all the people it affected. Murder True Crime Stories is a Crimehouse original powered by Pave Studios here at Crimehouse. We want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on social media at Crimehouse on TikTok and Instagram. Don't forget to rate, review, and follow.

Murder True Crime Stories wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly makes a difference. And to enhance your Murder True Crime Stories listening experience, subscribe to Crimehouse Plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get both parts of every story dropped on Tuesday completely ad-free, and waiting for part two, plus ad-free and early access to every show across Crime House and bonus episodes every month.

To join, go to crimehouseplus.com, or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, tap Try Free at the top of the Murder True Crime Stories page. We'll be back on Friday. Murder True Crime Stories is hosted by me, Carter Roy, and is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. This episode was brought to life by the Murder True Crime Stories team, Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benadon, Natalie Pertsovsky, Alyssa Fox, Alex Burrude, Cairns, Cassidy Dillon, and Russell Nash. Thank you for listening. Hi, listeners, it's Carter.

Before today's episode of Murder True Crime Stories, I want to tell you about another podcast I am hosting. I know you'll love. Crime House and A&E are teaming up on the podcast version of the famous true crime series, The First 48. Each week, I'll take you inside a landmark homicide case, the interrogations, the dead ends, and the breakthroughs in the critical.

critical first 48 hours. Listen to and follow the first 48 every Thursday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts.