Small Town Murder - #340 - The Dorm Room Surprise - Booneville, Mississippi

Episode Date: December 3, 2022

This week, in Booneville, Mississippi, a beloved young woman, in her first two months of college, has it all going for her. Friends, school, activities, and even a boyfriend. But it all comes to a screeching halt when she is found, brutalized in her dorm room. The window is open, the screen has been cut, and it looks like there may be a murderous sexual predator on the loose. After narrowing the suspect pool, the whole thing takes the hardest left turn, ever, and the killer turns out to be a shocking surprise! This is a jaw dropper!Along the way, we find out that people who live in this town, strongly disagree about it, that shocking brutality can come from unexpected sources, and that there really is no such thing as "the perfect crime"!!Hosted by James Pietragallo and Jimmie WhismanNew episodes every Thursday!Donate at: patreon.com/crimeinsports or go to paypal.com and use our email: [e-mail] to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder & Crime In Sports!Follow us on...twitter.com/@murdersmallfacebook.com/smalltownpodinstagram.com/smalltownmurderAlso, check out James & Jimmie's other show, Crime In Sports! On Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Wondery, Wondery+, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening early and ad-free on Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express. Yeah, and choo-choo. indeed jimmy yay indeed my name is james petrogallo i'm here with my co-host i'm jimmy wissman thank you folks for so much for joining us a tremendous amount i couldn't even get it out i'm so excited about it all aboard the murder train pulling away from the station let's do this we have a an absolutely insane episode as as usual. This is crazy. Everyone will be surprised by this episode.

Great. Put it that way. Very quickly here. Head over to shutupandgivememurder.com and get your tickets for the 2023 live show. Oh, it's going to be crazy. All the live shows. The whole tour. If you're listening a week early, then they haven't come out yet.

They come out the 29th. You can get the early pre-sale, and they go from there if you're listening when it comes out normally. They're for sale. Go buy them. There you go. Very quickly go through the dates. February 10th, Cleveland. February 11th, St. Louis.

March 23rd, 24th, Seattle, Washington. March 25th, Portland, Oregon. May 5th, Detroit. May 6th, Pittsburgh. July 15th, San Diego. July 28th, Portland, Oregon. May 5th, Detroit. May 6th, Pittsburgh. July 15th, San Diego. July 28th, Salt Lake City. July 29th, Denver. August 11th, Minneapolis. August 12th, Chicago. September the 8th, Atlanta. September the 9th, Charlotte. Friday, October 6th, Philadelphia. October 7th, Washington, D.C. Dates still to come, New York, Boston, Milwaukee, Phoenix. Those are coming soon. Get in there and get your tickets. Shut up and give me murder.C. Dates still to come. New York, Boston, Milwaukee, Phoenix. Those are coming soon.

Get in there and get your tickets. Shut up and give me murder.com. It's all in there, all the instructions. We cannot wait. Very excited. 2023, going to be everywhere. Look at us. It's going to be our year.

I hate when people do that. It's going to be our year. That's why I'm trying to obviously be, look at us. Yeah, it's silly. We're excited, though. We are excited. It's going to be our year. That's why I'm trying to obviously be, look at us. Yeah, it's silly. We're excited, though. We are excited. It's going to be great. Yeah, we're still surprised and shocked whenever we show up and there's lots of people and we're like, holy crap, people actually want to see us.

Hey, look at that. So thanks for doing that for us. Patreon.com slash crime and sports is where you get all the bonus stuff. And boy, do we have tons of bonus stuff. Anybody $5 or above, you get access to not only the whole back catalog, like 150 episodes to catch up on of bonus stuff, but also every other week you're going to get two new episodes. Right. One crime and sports, one small town murder. And you get it all this week for crime and sports. We're going to talk about all of the terrible accusations on Ben Roethlisberger over the years.

He's like a big Super Bowl hero and all that. Man, has he been accused of some nasty stuff. So we'll get into that. And for Small Town Murder, it's back. The Prisoner Dating Game is here. Oh, boy, we love that. People have been clamoring for another one, and we are excited to deliver it for you. Let's do it again.

We're going to line up the bachelors and the bachelorettes. The only thing they have in common, they are all incarcerated and all convicted of violent felonies. And Jimmy's going to pick one of each, not knowing anything about them besides what they've chosen to tell him in the dating profile. So that's going to be a lot of fun. That is patreon.com slash crime in sports. Get there now.

That said, I think it's time, everybody, to sit back, clear the lungs. I don't care where you are. Who cares where you are? Where are you? In traffic? That's fine. Grocery store? Shout it out from the frozen food aisle.

Clear the lungs and shout, shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, Jimmy. Let's go on a trip here. Let's do this, Jimmy. Let's go on a trip here. Let's go on a trip. We're going on down south today, Jimmy. We're going to Boonville, Mississippi. Oh, Boonville. Sounds made up.

Where's he running off to? Boonville, Mississippi? That sounds like just a euphemism for the sticks is what that sounds like. Is it named after Daniel? No, it's, well, somebody in his family sort of a relation. We'll get into it here. Maybe.

Maybe. Yeah. Rumored. Northeastern Mississippi this is, way up in the northeastern corner. It's about the closest major city is Memphis, actually. It's about two hours to Memphis, about four hours to our last Mississippi episode, which was Hattiesburg, which is nowhere near here. That was a most evil couple, that one, which was way down south. Nasty episode.

Here, this town, population's 8,400, and about half of that is college students because there's a college here. Yeah, that will figure prominently in this episode. Median household income, it's all retired people and college kids. So not a lot of income here in this type of thing. College kids and annoyed people. Yeah, and people annoyed with college kids. Maybe they're just trying to suck their energy, live through them. Median household income, $28,594.

Median home cost, though, $97,000. Very low. So very low here. Nickname, the city of hospitality. Is it, though? Who knows? I mean, if old people aren't, this episode's not about old people murdering college kids, so I guess so. Yeah, that's very hospitable of them to allow them to be there.

I would say. The land of Boonville was bought by B.B. Boone, who I guess B.B. Boone was named for, I guess, one of the settlers. He's a descendant of Colonel Reuben Holman Boone, who was a, quote, relative of Daniel Boone, he says. Hilarious. Who knows? And he rode, rid, rid ridden he rode that to his grave absolutely the town named after my family descendant of daniel boone's penis you know that yeah how about it this this penis descends from daniel boone it's a rugged outdoor

penis do you like to taste a boone penis it's's kind of rugged like bark on the outside, but once you get into it, it's great. It was originally planned as just part of the railroad. It was just a town that they needed a town next to the railroad, as a lot of these towns seem to be. It grew pretty rapidly, and then just as the city incorporated in 1861, the Civil War happened and slowed everything down. A lot of Civil War things happened through here. No battles or anything like that. But there was always an army advancing through it and an army retreating this way through it. So a lot of things happened.

A lot of burning and raiding and things like that. I just see a lot of people being woken up in the middle of the night with horses running through town that's what happened direction torches and horses going oh shit torches and horses going one way other way coming back unloaded weapons yeah and scared faces well yeah scared faces some of the people probably uh hoping it was one army going one way and others hoping it was one going the other way, I would say, as residents of this town would go at that point. So Boonville is home to Northeast Mississippi Community College, which is a junior college. It's the 10th largest community college by enrollment in the state.

largest community college by enrollment in the state. And this town, Boonville, is one of 21 certified Mississippi retirement cities. I don't know who's certifying that. I don't know what the ramifications of that are. I don't know what the guidelines. We stock tapioca and chocolate. We don't know. The reviews of this townioca and chocolate. We don't know. The reviews of this town are wild. We got to get to this here.

Here is a five star. Perfect review. It's just they're saying something very nice. Friendly town. The only thing is it's a college town and they consider it a retirement community. Need more things for the students to do to occupy their time. Fair enough. Here's this is five stars. Mind you, okay, this next review.

I don't know what, okay. This is a five-star Yelp review. This isn't Yelp, by the way. This is a different website. They wrote that. They wrote that. The only problem with this town is the 5,628 Karens. Okay.

So most of the town is Karens, five stars. They counted them all. I love it other than that, but my wife won't let me come back because we got mugged and shot at in a five-minute period. Well, that's not five-star behavior, I don't think. It gets better. I was also 11 a.m. and I was sitting in my yoga class in front of the police station. They hate turkey hunters. There are plenty of turkeys in Alabama or Georgia.

Do not come to Mississippi to turkey hunt. If you do, it isn't our fault if you get shot. Thank you for your time. Five stars. What the fuck? Five stars. They shot at me while I was at yoga. They caught me slipping at yoga.

That's somebody. That sounds like they were drunk driving while they wrote that review. Not just driving, not just drunk. Drunk and driving at the same time writing that review. Here's one star. Can't be worse than that. But meth and pill enthusiasts as far as the eye can see and not a cop that cares in sight they are too busy harassing real criminals that run red lights

or forget to wear seat belts oh okay sarcasm yeah sarcasm it doesn't show up in a yelp review much or a niche review locals aren't too keen to mind their own business and make it a point to make your business their own things to do in town include spreading gossip and rumors being hateful and going to church on sunday i love this this is this is hilarious i love this reviewer the town is mighty proud of its football team and fast food restaurants. If you find yourself driving through Boonville, just keep driving. Wow. That is fascinating. And they ate turkey hunters, too.

Let's have one more one-star review. What do you say? The sense of community is lost. People here are not trusting or friendly, and for good reason. If I had to describe the people of the town, I could sum it up in three words. Socks and flip flops one of them's hyphenated well one of them's hyphenated so technically socks and flip flops

that's he's hyphenated anyway uh you have guys constantly yelling at women and revving up engines that's the that's the sweet serenade of this town is getroom vroom get over here bitch vroom vroom what are you doing get in the god damn car vroom vroom come on now Jesus Christ my dick ain't gonna get any harder vroom vroom that's what's happening nice tits vroom vroom

and the women here range from fresh out of church to extremely trashy I despise going out to get groceries okay that's where we are fresh out of church to extreme extremely trashy and the the things to do okay fall festival who cares uh this involves uh what is this a pumpkin contest a uh turnip green cook-off i don't know what's happening over here queen of the new year which is a children's pageant and there's like babies and pictures of

babies it's creepy as shit and then not much else to do that's that's the whole thing okay so that said I need to spend extra extra time on the reviews because holy shit this town is i want to read all be judged here or you can hunt turkeys and then uh get caught slipping while you're in downward dog that's it by a trashy lady who just left church perfect this town is i love it so much that said let's talk about a murder here let's do it okay let's go back in time jimmy let's go back to marty mcfly days is what we're doing here 1985 let's get into this yeah i think yeah i think it was supposed to be 85 in the movie anyway i think it came out in 86 but yeah whatever i watched it real recent so it was 2000 2000-something. So 2021, you're saying?

That's when it was. Okay. October 8th, 1985, 2.30 a.m. Oh. In a dorm in the Northeast Mississippi State College, as it was called back then. Now it's called Community College. Back then it was called NMSC. NMSC. Okay. You're skipping the E for Northeastastern you're just going with the n yeah northeast it's not northeastern it's just northeast it's one word

northeast yeah northeast is a word if you're talking about a state so um northeast mississippi state college there we go uh 2 30 a.m there There's a young lady named Amy Wheeler coming in. Okay. She's in the drill band. The drill and band, I guess, teams or whatever they would be, have their own dorm. So this is where they are. So everybody in here, all the young ladies in here are all in like drill and band and all that kind of stuff so that's what's going on so amy wheeler comes in at 2 30 she's had a she's had

a long night you know it's college she's out party and everybody's been partying she gets coming up oh god she's they gotta they gotta make a float for christ's sake or whatever you do for homecoming i have no idea what happens down there i don't know whatever i'm sure they have some routine to fucking deal with right they got to figure out how to twirl something or do some shit they're the ones with the wooden like the fake rifles and like they dress like uh oh the rotc is the drill team no that's not they have their wooden they're just it's just to do the flip the things around and do's ROTC-esque, I guess. I suppose. Yeah, ROTC, I think they actually teach you how to shoot guns.

They don't give you a wooden gun and they go, flip this around, twirl it. Now we're going to do a one-two, buckle my shoe, and do a spin move. Yeah, that's ROTC right there. You said baton team? We're going to do that with wooden guns. Them A-Rabs are going to be scared shitless when we get over there fighting like this. I'll tell you what, buddy. This is going to be something.

They see that movie and be like, oh, shit, they did a twirl and a loop-de-floop. I'm running. That's what's going to happen. And then they rev their truck up and went, come on, sweetheart, let's go. So she arrives at the room and discovers that her door is locked. The door to the dorm is locked and she forgot her key. She's like, son of a bitch, 2.30 in the morning.

She's trying to knock light because it can't be like banging on the door at 2.30 in the morning. She's got a roommate so she's hoping fingers crossed that roommate's inside sleeping and not out with her boyfriend or out partying also. So she's like, shit, okay. She knocks a little bit, no answer.

She's like, son of a bitch. So lucky for her, this room has an adjoining room. All the rooms are two bedroom areas with an adjoining bathroom, like a Brady Bunch bathroom where it connects them in the middle. So she goes next door to the adjoining room, knocks on the door hoping someone's awake in there so she can just go through the bathroom and go into her room. Brilliant.

So that's what she's doing. And she does. So she knocks on the door and her next door neighbor and the adjoining suite mate, Stephanie Lynn Alexander, she's 21 and she's a third-year student there. And she's a music education major also on the drill team so she lives next door um she answers the door and says i don't fucking yeah go ahead i don't give a shit obviously like what do i care do your thing they're in the uh they're

all on the northeast tiger marching band that's what they're all in so that's what they're called the tigers uh the stephanie is a french horn player that So that's what they're called. The Tigers. Stephanie is a French horn player. That's her thing that she does. Yeah, she had moved. This one, Stephanie, just moved to the East Dormitory when school opened in the fall. And so she was hanging out there all the time anyway because she was in the music department. So Stephanie, the next door neighbor, French horn chick over here, she's like half asleep, opens the door. So, you know, Amy Wheeler walks in and Amy Wheeler goes through the adjoining bathroom into her room to get into her room there.

She enters the room and it's one room with two beds. It's not like they each have their own bedroom. So her and her roommate share the room. She sees, even if there's only a little bit of light coming through from the bathroom, she sees her roommate there on her bed. First thing she sees is she sees some skin. She's partially nude on the bed. So she's like, oh, shit.

She doesn't know if there's guys there or what. Then she notices, and Alexander,ander to the french horn player she's right behind the roommate there she notices that there's blood on the pillow oh and that her roommate here stacy is her roommate stacy pannell um she notices that her roommate uh not only is there blood on the pillow but stacy's underwear are pulled down below her knees of both legs. So she's like laying there bloody with her underwear pulled down. This is a bad. This is not a good scene.

Panic. So Amy Wheeler freaks out, obviously screams and runs, runs through her, opens her own door, doesn't go back through the bathroom opens the previously locked door runs out into the hallway just you know holy shit yeah oh my god um so she finds belinda posey who's another student there that lives there uh belinda posey runs in and goes to check on stacy because amy wheeler's like oh my god go in there and see if i just saw what i think i just saw or if i'm tripping who knows i could that could have been a huge hallucination. Yeah, it's college. I'm on so many drugs.

Well, it's 2.30 in the morning. She's been out partying all night, so I think she's just like, please make sure that this is real. So Belinda Posey goes in there, which seems logical. And when Posey gets there, the door's locked again. What? Yeah. Amy Wheeler unlocked it and left. so someone had to lock it again from the

inside so like that's fucking weird so she had to go back through the next door neighbor's room again so french horn girl's got to be like oh for christ's sake dead people this one that one this is this is bad here because i mean you know what's going on here? So Posey then goes in. Belinda Posey goes in, looks at Stacey Pinnell and says, oh, my God, she's dead. And there's blood and her underwear pulled down. This is crazy. So she runs out to go get the dorm mother. I don't know.

I guess that's a – that sounds odd. Dorm mother. I don't know if that's like an RA or if that's – That's a Southern College RA. I don't know. That's a like an ra or if that's that's a that's a southern college ra i don't know that's what i mean is she is she an older woman i pictured i picture like a 55 year old woman who's sitting like knitting something up right now there's a knock on the door and she's like what can i do for you darling oh no not a dead body and then she do you like some sweet tea oh that's yeah i'll bring i'll bring some sweet tea. Yeah, I'll bring some sweet tea. I'll be right there.

But in likelihood, it's probably a 23-year-old person rather than 22. Yeah, the dorm mother. That's her. Edna Snyder is the dorm mother. She goes to check on Stacey Pinnell. She gets there. The door's locked still. Door's locked. So she doesn't know about the adjoining room.

So she just goes and gets a security guard to unlock it for her. And when she gets in there, she opens the door. And now, you know, Stacy's body is still on the bed and everything is the same, except that now Stacy's underwear are only around the calf of one leg. They're fully off the other leg. So what happened to – to yeah that's really strange so they call police obviously you know ambulance police um she's lying on her back on the bed she had her left leg resting on the bed and her right foot resting on the floor like if you like kind of flop down on your bed you know what i? Like when you're drunk and you got spins and you got to stop this room from moving one legs up.

She's partially covered with like sheets and a blanket. And she is naked from the waist down. The there's her underwear are pulled down around hanging off of one leg on her lower left leg. A pillow has been placed over her head. She's got a of one leg on her lower left leg. A pillow has been placed over her head. She's got a pillow just sitting on top of her head. But it doesn't look like it was like pressed on or it looks like it was just placed there. Just cover.

As a stage like a lot of people do when they're, you know, oh, can't have that looking at me. After they kill somebody, it's something they're embarrassed about. So there's all of that she has severe injuries so then they don't see anything till they remove the pillow and then they see her head and that's where all her injuries are she has severe injuries to the left side of her head and there's a great there's a shitload of blood on her head on the pillow it's just a puddle of blood it looks like it all happened right here there's also blood spatter throughout the room on the walls and ceiling as far as nine feet away from her oh god that's how far the blood has

spread it's fucking everywhere this room's only 12 by 12 it's a it's a dorm room so they're like holy shit this is this is crazy like what what could have caused this? Then they find a wooden drill rifle that they use for their drill team because Stacy is on the drill team. This is her own drill rifle lying on the floor with a towel wrapped around the barrel end. Like a gangster who goes out to shoot somebody except it's not a real gun. But there's a towel wrapped around it. There's blood all over the stock and the handle of the drill rifle. A hole, and then they look over, so the drill rifle, they're like, well, that looks like something that could have been used to bash somebody's head in. Then they see in the room, well, they see this before, but there is, at her window, there is an 8 to 10 inch long cut and an 8 10-inch wide section cut out of the screen of the window, and the window is open. Open window, screen cut out, and the dorm room, if you look out the window, it's just an empty field, and this is a ground floor room.

And there's an empty field. So anybody could have come from the empty field, and nobody would have seen them because there's literally nothing there unless they were staring out the window watching the empty field at the time nobody would have saw anybody coming or going so that's that's kind of uh frightening obviously so um they find on her though jewelry she's got all of her she's got a ring on necklace all of her stuff and money in plain, in plain view in the room. So it's not robbery. So they're like, okay, this can't be a robbery situation. And the Boonville police chief, Bobby Lambert, I run the department up in Boonville.

He said that, quote, the girls that stay next to her didn't hear any moaning or anything. It looked like she was in bed when it happened. She could very well have been asleep when this happened. Oh, my God. That's what they're looking at. So they get the state crime scene specialist in there, and her name is Julia James. She says she found four wooden drill rifles when she examined the room that day. She said a white rifle was found on a pile of clothes near Stacy's bed with blood on the stock and brown and white striped towel wrapped around the barrel.

And they said, you know, the window opened and gave kind of all those stats. No identifiable fingerprints were found on the bloodied wooden rifle and uh so that's not helpful they said that when they examined the white wooden rifle wrapped in the towel they found an indication of fingerprints on the stock but not enough to make an identification nowadays there'd be touch dna and they'd find them in two seconds but they can't do that now so um you, they didn't know what to do. They did find the state Syria seriologist, the blood guy. He comes in and says that it is Stacy's blood on the rifle stock.

So they're assuming that's the murder weapon. So who is this dead young lady here? And worse, how do you solve this? How do you solve this? This seems like a real mystery. And worse, how do you solve this? How do you solve this? This seems like a real mystery. You know, did Ted Bundy come in there and, you know, get spooked or something and run away after that?

What happened? And there can't be the first one. How are you so good at this? Totally right. That's what I mean. This is like a definite serial killer looking scenario. Fuck. So her name is Stacy Diane Pannell, P-A-N-N-E-L-L.

She's 18 years old, a freshman here. She just got here. She's been here for six weeks, this poor girl. You can't make an enemy for this in six weeks. Six weeks. She's on scholarship here as well. She's in the band and drill team. She's got at home. She has a younger younger sister three years younger than her named kim she's got a younger brother named bradley at the

time was only 11 years old then um they're trying to read what instrument she plays is she really fucking good at it no somebody's job well we'll go we'll go through her day here um she i guess i think she's only i don't think the rifle team is part of the band apparently so i don't think to know if she plays an instrument or if that is her only i think that's what she does she plays the wooden rifle that's it so she spent the evening of october 7th the night before that night uh with friends and then went back to the dorm at about 11 15 she was last seen about 12 15 in the hallway of the dorm that's the last people that saw her apparently she went to classes that day the day before went to band practice did her rifle stuff and then the junior college band director ricky bishop said that quote she's good's good at the drill shit, said, quote, I remember one occasion when the team had to learn a difficult routine.

She spent about three hours outside her dorm room practicing until she got it right. The next day she came to practice ready. So they said. Nailed it. She's into it. Yeah, she's an achiever. She's here on scholarship. Yeah.

So that's something. She apparently, after band practice, she changed clothes because she had to go run and play an intramural softball game at that point. So she's trying to get out there and be active. She's just got here. She's young. Getting involved. Meet people. This is why you're going to college. You know what I'm saying?

This is the whole deal here. So she does that, does the softball game. They lost. Her team team lost she hurt her knee in the game it was a little limpy man it's an intramural softball getcha man especially when you get to second you gotta pump the keg three times and then pour the beer and then you gotta go to third like you could pull a hammy doing that like just pulling up pulling up getting there you gotta run smooth you know and putting the bat on your forehead and getting it on the ground running those four circles you absolutely can get dizzy not easy veer off and collapse into the chain

link fence it's happened happened to the best of us we have all seen it happen so she does going hard though clearly she's earning her scholarship yeah yeah she's trying and she's trying to be a real part of the of you know socially she's trying to be a real part of the, of, you know, socially she's trying to make friends. So I guess a couple people helped her back to her dorm room to get changed and everything because her, her, her knee was that bad. She needed like help walking through the halls. So shortly after, but before that though, she went and got pizza.

So she hurt her knee, played the game, went and got pizza with a group of friends and all of that. And then she returned to her dorm room late that night. It's a Monday night, you know, about 1230. I told you she was seen last and they were out drinking. She's pretty hammered. Like when she comes into the room, she's like, you know, singing songs and shit like she's pretty right. She's she's pretty. Yeah, she's she's like you know singing songs and shit like she's pretty right she's she's pretty yeah she's she's pretty drunk um so they ask her family anybody that could have enemies you might have

heard of people that are like this like this you know this guy's been looking at me creepy some leering person a teacher that's been you know extra creepy with her or something too good with the wooden rifle yeah her aunt said it's hard to believe that in a building with so many girls moving around that nobody heard anything. Especially, which is true because this isn't like a strangling. This is a beating. You'd think somebody would

have heard something. There's 136 girls in the hall here at Murphy Hall at the junior college here. So that was the night she was killed. There was 136 people in the building killed there. So every lot, that's a lot.

That's what I mean. Nobody out of 136 people heard anything, any commotion. If they, if they were on a, an upper floor, maybe there would have been footsteps that might've helped, but on the ground floor,

maybe you don't hear as much. So that Idaho college just recently, four people stabbed in the same room nobody heard a fucking thing that's true that's true crazy what people can do for muffling shit i guess so and in college too i guess half of these people are drunk they probably have music on headphones noise yeah crazy you don't know what the hell people are doing in their dorms. So people are freaked out by this, though. Hell, yeah. This is like not a normal thing to happen around here. And they all think, holy shit, there's some sick serial, you know, raping murderist running around going to kill all our young women here. Yeah, it's capable of it's it's crazy. So in May of 1980, near Anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her

friend had an inflamed red wound on his arm and seemed unwell. She insisted on driving him to the local hospital to get treatment. While he waited for his prescription, Dorothy went to grab her car to pick him up at the exit, but would never be seen alive again, leaving us to wonder, decades later, what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott? From Wondery, Generation Y is a podcast that covers notable true crime cases like this one and many more. Every week, hosts Aaron and Justin sit down to discuss a new case, covering every angle and theory, walking through the forensic evidence, and interviewing those close to the case to try to discover what happened. And with over 450 episodes, there's a case for every true crime listener.

Follow the Generation Y podcast on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Generation Y ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy. The stories we cover are well-researched. He claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people.

With a touch of humor. I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This mother****er lied. Like a liar. Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal.

Or you love to hop in the Wayback Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes. You should tune in to our podcast, Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus and the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Her mother said,

when they told us that it was Stacy who had been killed, I didn't believe them. She said, I knew they were going to come out to the lobby and tell us that it had just been a mistake and that it was somebody else. I just don't see how anybody could get that mad at her that's a reasonable they said there's probably uh there's a lot of her family's big around this area too in the county that's she went here for a reason because it's close to home they said there's probably more panels around here

than there are smiths that's how many panllas there are her dad's name is wiki oh w-i-c-k-i wiki pinell what's that short for i have no idea wiki wikipedia wikipedia he is uh i didn't tell you he's the founder of wikipedia he actually started it she got wiki money yeah people think it's like encyclopedia but it's not it's It's this guy. His name is Ronald Wikipedia, which he's just changed it, made it Wiki. Trying to lay low. Trying to keep people from really, yeah. Wiki Pinnell. No one thinks of Wiki Pinnell as anything, but, you know.

It's exhausting. Ronald Wikipedia. Everybody would be up his ass all the time asking for loans and things. Yeah. So Stacey's sister, Kim, said that, you you know she was fun to be around she didn't have just one best friend all of her friends were her best friends she was that kind of person very social she loved life was always trying to help people you know the typical this girl died and of course she's nice because for some reason people who aren't nice don't get murdered in

their dorm rooms i don't know why that is well i don't know why that is but it's like you they have to go through a list is that not she's kind of a bitch i'm like oh that one's nice that's so she was helping at the soup kitchen last weekend i'm gonna strangle the shit out of her it seems like that's what happens though right single time it's an amazing person it's and it's and when they describe them you're like well yeah that all happened that's true no one's making this shit up so yeah it's just people seem to pick nice It's an amazing person. And when they describe them, you're like, well, yeah, that all happened. That's true. No one's making this shit up.

So, yeah, it's just people seem to pick nice people and then attack them. Maybe nice people are more open to letting shitty people in because they're nice and they're trying to find nice things in people. You ever hear that thing? She could find something nice in everybody. That's not a good quality all the time. No, it's not. It's not. I have the opposite skill, which I can find what the bad thing is in people. something nice in everybody that's not a good quality all the time no it's not it's not i have

the opposite skill which i can find what the bad thing is in people and i it's valuable i think it's helped a lot right i can find the nice in very few people yeah i mean if it's prominent i'll find it eventually but yeah yeah i'm saying i'm gonna definitely look for what's bad first and then we'll sift through that and see if you're good over outweighs it. Why are you a piece of shit and shouldn't be around right now? Yeah. So her sister said Stacy was really smart and had scholarship offers from all over the place. The reason she decided to go to Northeast, though, was to be close to daddy because we already knew he was sick.

He has a brain tumor. So she wanted to fuck out of here. Yeah. She stay close by so she could see her dad all the time and help him out take bama to stay here and be close to dad take him to appointments and stuff uh she wanted to live at home and drive every day but because she was in the band she had to live on campus that was like part of the rules which is maybe that's that's fair um her father wiki is a a Vietnam veteran with a brain tumor, this poor guy. It's tough, man.

She is known throughout her high school as a very sweet, courteous, achieving student. The principal said, the last time I talked to her, she was very excited and looking forward to the future. She could have done anything she wanted to do. He said she participated in a variety of activities, always had a straight A average. She graduated fourth in a class of 83 at Ripley High. And yeah, she does well there. She does very well.

I wish people would think more when they speak about the dead. I mean, she could do anything she wanted to. I'll bet she didn't want to die in a fucking dorm, you dummy. Don't say shit like that. I would think not. For two years, she was selected to be in Who's Who among American high school students as a publication. I didn't know that was a thing. But, yeah.

In 1980. That's because we weren't Who's Who, James. I was going to say. And no one I knew would have been who's who either. That's the other thing. It's not like my friends would know anybody. We're all sitting in my one friend's basement smoking a blunt and one of them's like, oh, I just got who's who.

And we're like, huh? What happened? That never went on. James, you're in it. Oh, wow. Awesome. I failed like three classes, though. All right. That's cool. They could see my potential, man. That's what it like three classes, though. All right.

That's cool. They could see my potential, man. That's what it was. That's what it is. This publication's good, man. Oh, that's terrible. It's because High Times doesn't publish it. No.

I would have made that list. I would have made the who's who among American high school students in High Times. Absolutely. And I paid off. It would have been a, you know, they would have made that list. I would have made the who's who among American high school students in high times. Absolutely. And I paid off. It would have been a, you know, they would have been right. Here I am. Doing great for myself. It's all weed based.

So. Unbelievable. Her, on the other hand, actually smart and, you know, industrious. Yeah. In 1982, she was crowned senior teen in tippa county during during a quote fairest of the fair beauty contest so she's she's very smart very dedicated sweet as pie she's taking care of her tumor-ridden vietnam veteran father and she's the fairest of the fair as well. She's also the most beautiful girl in the county on top of it.

Oh, by the way, when she goes outside, many different songbirds just land on her fingers. But that's who we're talking about. And on top of that, she's down as fuck and drinks beer. Yeah, she's cool as shit. Knows how to flip a rifle around. She's a cool chick. Her mother said, you send your kid off to school and you don't expect something like this to happen, especially in a small town like that.

Oh, I love it. I love it when they phrase the premise of the show for us. I feel bad for this woman, obviously. I'm not saying that, but it's exactly what it is. At the funeral, I was still thinking they had made a mistake. At the funeral, she was still like, that's not going to be stacy in there that can't be can't be her so her hometown they said people were so outraged by her death that a reward fund was created to help catch the killer they're making their own reward out of this got to be about eight thousand dollars after a couple of weeks here um

she um she liked water skiing and all that kind of shit, fishing, outdoor kind of stuff. She was a really nice girl. She's awesome. So the investigation here immediately goes completely cold. They have nothing. They check everything out. She's definitely beaten with that.

Hole in the screen window open, shrug of the shoulders nothing no no fingerprints outside of the girls who live there so it's not there's nothing they can't find shit so they don't know if the killer had gloves on or what the deal is or was very careful so they're hunting trying to find the killer here 15 different investigators work this case really coming in and out because people get burnt out on it trying to figure it out. There's no leads. There's just nowhere to go. You just bang your head against the –

Two heads are better than one, obviously. But eventually you get to a point where it's like too many. Too many. Too many hands in this pie. And that's what's going on. And they're just banging their head against a locked dorm door. There's nothing there. They can't do shit.

So it's a 2,300-student campus00 student campus so they're like okay at the time so they're like i mean that's a good place to start i suppose anybody she could have come in contact with has to come first any anybody in all of her classes anybody on the drill team anybody on this who have you seen her with at the pizza place that night who'd she she talk to? Did she go up to the jukebox and exchange three words with a guy? You know what I mean? You never know. So they interview more than 400 students here trying to figure it out. And they have precisely ugats at the end of six months.

They have nothing. Oh, my God. Months are going by. They said one of the investigators said she went to her classes that morning i've talked to their her instructors but they couldn't tell me much about her because school had just started they don't really know much about her private life because she just got there it just started you're just getting to know everybody they barely know her name they know that it's the first 48 hours right yeah oh no no it's not the first 48

months because that's kind of what it's lingering on to. The only fingerprints in the room were Stacy's and Amy Wheeler's, the roommate, who was locked out. So they had nothing. No identifiable fingerprints were taken from milk cartons that were placed near her window. I guess milk cartons were up near her window for some reason that looked like they were placed there afterwards. The state lab crime, state crime lab tool, a tool mark expert here said that the torn screen found in the window was cut. And he said that he couldn't determine whether it was cut from the inside or the outside

or anything like that, obviously. But he said that a piece of the screen was found outside the window that matched the window screen so everything's looking like this window is the is the key to the whole thing here so they question they interview 400 people they question dozens of people that they think might be suspects anybody with a history of sex offenses in a fucking 50 yard 50 a mile radius they're talking to so they get it down to two suspects they have two the first is a man local man with a history of sex offenses they like him for this he's had a history i guess of entering women's uh women's homes and attacking them so that's real this is a place to start this is him his mo it might

have just escalated to the point of now i murder them you know what i mean so the other was stacy's boyfriend oh what let's talk about him too he had been thinking that she had been unfaithful to him on her trips home from college i guess when goes home, this is her college boyfriend. And I guess he's been jealous, and I guess friends of hers said he's a jealous, angry guy. So that's not good. And the other thing is, during the lie detector test that they gave him, the question, if he ever thought about killing her, he failed miserably.

That's not a good question to face. That's not good. That's a bad stuff going on here. So, obviously, they're honing in on, you know, window pervert, you know, pervert by the moonlight, fucking by the window's moonlight, and this guy, and boyfriend here, an angry boyfriend. Maybe they teamed up together who knows who knows at this point it seems like they could have you know this could be a tag team affair yeah could have been either of them so they even had an fbi profile done they got you know

john douglas times in there this is that time this is mine hunter time so they even got them in there the behavioral science unit to work up a profile they have no clue they just don't know what what this is so the family the pinnell family said they considered hiring a private detective to do it like if the cops can't do it we'll fucking fire somebody who maybe can so the mother said stacy's mother said for a long time we didn't hear from the police or the school and people would tell us all sorts of things we were they're just hearing rumors they don't get any facts we were getting upset several people have said they would help collect money if we decided to hire a private investigator wow uh steve williams who's a criminal investigator for the mississippi highway patrol he said well the case has top priority we're not you know skirting

responsibility we just we're just there's no evidence just stumped yeah he said when i'm not going on other cases i'm on this one so this is the one they always come back to uh they said what gets me besides the fact that it's a crime is what it is what gives someone the right to take a life she was not randomly selected someone picked her out that's what he said he said he's been doing this 15 years this isn't random someone picked her out. That's what he said. He said he's been doing this 15 years. This isn't random. Someone picked her out. And what's going on here? So they said that they said they'll hire. The family said they haven't ruled out any possibilities in trying to figure this out, including consulting a renowned psychic in Alabama.

That's even on the table. They said investigators have conducted all these interviews. Some people they've talked to three, four, five times. They're collecting more, you know, trying to have the physical evidence. They have the FBI doing a profile. What more could they do? The cop says we haven't left anything out. We're doing everything we humanly know what to do.

We're waiting for a break. It's tough. School officials said, quote, we're helping out in every way we can, and the investigation is still going on. Nobody can find shit. That's all it is. They said security has increased dramatically since then in the school. The night Stacey was killed, there was a security guard on duty making patrols, and they said that now a female guard walks the dorm halls all night. They have an all night female guard and men are on duty all night outside the other women's dorms.

So now they have females inside and men outside. Just in case a security guard decided to go squirrelly here. They said, quote, there's just no such thing as the perfect crime. This is the investigator. No such thing as the perfect crime. If you keep looking long enough, you're going to come upon a mistake that they made. They have to have made a mistake. We just have to find it. That's very optimistic. I would say, after

11 months, there's no mistake. They can't find shit. So, eat your words, sir. They bring in Steve Rhodes. What do you think he is? what do you think he is? Who do you think he is? Steve is the game warden. The game warden, the ambulance driver.

They bring him in special. Yeah. So you imagine he's like an FBI, you know, hired, you know, a big time, one of John Douglas's guys, one of those guys are going to bring in a big hired gun. On our show, though, you just know it's going to be the local school cafeteria inspector that we're going to bring in just in case he's a pool inspector yeah uh no he is the police chief of the east hazel crest illinois police department states are between this And also, where the fuck is that? This isn't. Who are you? Well, apparently he's a big time lecturer at seminars for law enforcement about personnel, teaching them about special interrogation techniques known as neuro linguistic programming. Now, this is basically body language shit. Yeah, so he came through like Holden and Tench. Kind of.

And they were like, hey, can you have a look at this for us? They invited him. They called him because he's a guy who makes speeches everywhere about this particular way of talking to people. And this is just like if you watch the behavior panel on YouTube. It's all the shit they're talking about. It's body language stuff. They said they don't have enough evidence to even have a solid suspect other than one failed lie detector test question. So they bring him in.

The town he's the police chief of, by the way, is a 1300 person town, tiny town. Probably as they they have the budget to have this guy on staff. Apparently, he's just really good and likes to do that. So he talks to a bunch of people and he wants to talk with the people closest. He wants to talk to Amy Whe wheeler who found the body he wants to talk to the the neighbor who let her in because she's the i guess technically the second person to see the body wants to talk to belinda posey boyfriend sex offender all these guys right so they bring in they talk to stephanie alexander who's the next door roommate there she'd been questioned like five times as far as did you hear anything at certain times and because she's the closest

physically to the room they were thinking maybe she would have heard something and just forgot she was there when it happened yeah so yeah because she was home that night so um so they question her and um rhodes talks to her and rhodes tells her that he ruled out the sex offender as a suspect. And he tells everybody the guy who the sex offender guy. He's not our guy. It's not him. Haven't ruled out the boyfriend yet, though. He's up next for a talk because he's the guy who failed the lie detector question.

So Stacy, they told him, you know, she a not Stacy the roommates Stephanie the next-door neighbor Stephanie Alexander they tell him that you know she's the next-door neighbor sweet mate you know blah blah blah so Rhodes asked Stephanie simple questions what is her name what's her address telephone number date of birth place of birth social security number you know your normal stuff as she answered he's watching what she does finally he said he said at the time each of her answers her eyes went to the twitch to the left before she answered that's her so that's yeah what you're doing is filing cabinets what you're doing is getting baseline because everybody does it in different ways uh you for different information you'll recall and you'll recall looking to different

sides but everybody's not everybody looks to the same side for the same information it's one of those things like if i ask you what is uh what is next to that what's next to the walmart closest to your house is there a mcdonald's there oh my god i went left and left i did it okay literally now it's a burger king how do I get there from your house? You look the other way. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because your brain processes that differently.

How is that? Because your brain has to process that, whereas the other one you're recalling a memory, whereas this one you're working through it. So there's different tricks like that, and you can just see, okay, now when you access information, your eyes go here. When you do this, they go there. These are simple little things that you can just see okay now when you access information your eyes go here when you do this they go there simple these are simple these are simple little things that you can do i'm bizarre no it's that's normal no it's normal it's totally normal for any way your eyes go it doesn't matter like it's just they're gonna go different ways for different information but they all go up that's so weird sometimes some people ask me anything i'm going up emotional accessing is down if i said jimmy tell you about the time tell me about the time that

your stepfather beat you up when you were fucking blah blah blah when you were a little kid your eyes are going to go down for that you're going to access that down because it's that's where that's where emotional information is down into the right for the most part yeah i don't like that one exactly that's that's where that stuff is it's down and back on it it's down into the right for the most part yeah i don't like that one exactly that's that's where that stuff is it's down and back on it it's down into the right that's where the bad stuff is to the most part for the most part with people so see what i mean so um he said her eyes twitched to the left then he said he asked her at one point uh can you speculate how stacy may have been killed and he said her eyes went to the right on that point. Now, like I said, this is going off baseline responses,

and the first questions are memory questions that are ingrained in you. You know your birth date without really thinking about it too much. You know what I'm saying? So anyway, he said, Rhodes said, quote, she said she didn't know. He said, who do you think had an opportunity to kill Stacy? And Stephanie said she didn't know. He said, what do you think? Who do you think had an opportunity to kill Stacy? And Stephanie said she didn't know. He said, but her eyes moved to the right again. So he says, well, what do you suppose the motive was?

Same thing. Her eyes move, right? She said she didn't know. So he said he got his questions more specific. And he said, you know, where you on the that night you quote you said you were asleep at the time of the attack what time did you go to sleep and he said her eyes darted right before she could answer the question and in the middle of the question he said quote don't tell me that stephanie it's not true oh. Fuck, that's vicious.

Yeah. And he said, you said you took a shower. Why? That's the next question. Oh, my God. She said her eyes. He said her eyes look to the right again. And he said, damn it, Stephanie, before she even answered because she was about to talk. And he said, damn it, Stephanie, you're going to make that up.

I want the truth. And they did this for two hours every time her eyes would move a certain way he'd say he would cut her off and not even let her finish and i go you know you're full of shit right now stop don't even finish that fucking thought so which is a crazy way that's when you're interrogating i guess from what i understand because obviously i'm not an interrogator but you got to figure out what your relationship with this person is. And he's chosen father-daughter. I'm going to fucking, you know, you're a kid that I've made sit down and I'm going to take you out behind the woodshed

and tell you that you've broken the lamp and you've, you know, you did all this shit. Get out the trash, Stephanie. Yeah, that's how he's decided to approach this. So he would cut her off and, you know, tell her she's full of shit every time. Each time her eyes moved another way, he would cut her off and you know tell her she's full of shit every time each time her eyes moved another way he would let her talk he'd encourage her he'd act like he believed her so um now the other cops are looking on like what the fuck is happening right now is he full of shit does he is he just taking stabs at it at one point she stopped and she was all

flustered after he cut her off on like four or five different questions and she said quote you can read my mind can't you so if you're the cop sold if you're the interrogator and she thinks you have mystical powers you let her think that shit yeah because that means yeah he said yes i can so he then says eyes move not that he didn't say this to her later on he said eyes move in patterns they move differently when you're remembering and when you're creating and that's what i'm talking about and uh when you're creating you're talking to me about a crime you're lying because that means you're that's your creative side oh you go here you look over here here, putting something together. Yeah, making things up. Yeah. If you watch, what's his name?

Chris, the fucking Colorado guy. We did the episode about him. Oh, Chris Watts, yeah. Chris Watts. If you look at Chris Watts' thing, he is a mess on this. His eyes are fucking. It's my favorite thing I've ever watched. Wow, is he wild. So he goes through all.

And the exhaustion. His exhaustion of like, why don't you believe me? Come on, guys. Jeez, man. So Rhodes is continuing to talk to her, and he's using his neuro-linguistic programming with the eyes, just body language, whatever shit. He said a lot of times he would go into this and he said quote i was investigating a lot of child abuse and incest i was trying to get a way to deal with the victims i saw this as a means of developing a rapport fast the steve williams who's the initial investigator

who uh said he's been doing it 15 years he said watching him was amazing there was no special equipment no chicanery it was just two people talking one-on-one. Basically, what you've got is a human polygraph, and that's better than the machine. Yeah. So Stephanie cracks and says, I killed her. Oh, my God. What? I killed Stacy. I did it.

Yes. She confesses to it. She said they got in an argument over a guy. They were talking and arguing, and Stephanie doesn't remember it all because she was on a lot of codeine and she was drinking too, but they were drunk and they got into it, and then we'll let her describe it

because she writes it all down in a letter to her boyfriend she's been seeing for a week because that's what you do. Oh, fuck. She's a criminal mastermind. She wrote an 11-page letter to Randy Price, who's her week-end boyfriend,

where she confessed to everything, describes everything. She said, I didn't mean to do it. It was an accident. She explained that she'd been heavily into – she was seriously doing a lot of codeine. She had a mental block about the killing. She hadn't been able to remember killing Parnell up until now, but she had a a nightmare about it and it must have been how it happened so she said panell yeah panell um uh the she said that she was doing homework this is stephanie's story here on october 7th in her room took three codeine tablets sometime between 9 and

10 30 that's a lot that's some because of pain from an ovarian infection. Ouch. Which sounds painful. I'm not sniping. She said she had been out earlier in the evening playing cards and visiting friends, including a boy named Tommy Osborne. She said she walked back to her dorm alone to do homework. She said she dozed off after taking the codeine, woke up about 1230 when she heard Stacy Pinnell and some other girls returning home in the adjacent room. The girls were helping Stacy get into a room because she had a bad knee and was drinking.

So drunken limping is bad. Oh, God. Drunk and in pain and in pain. The thing's been screaming. Stephanie said she heard Stacy say, quote, Tommy. Oh, is so fine. I could fuck his brains out. There's the booze talking.

That's the booze. Tommy O is so fine I could fuck his brains out. That's, yeah, that's just an 18-year-old drunk kid who's horny. I said way worse shit than that, so good for her. She kept it PG as far as I'm concerned.

So Stacy asked them to be quiet and then the girls who were helping or i'm sorry stephanie the french horn girl next door asked them to be quiet they all left left stacy behind in her room and there you go alexander here's uh stephanie alexander couldn't fall back asleep even with the codeine buzz so she went into stacy's room to talk see what she's up to say about mr osborne that's right so stephanie asked stacy if she had fun that night stacy pinnell says yes she did they talked about tommy osborne whom stacy has been dating recently since she got here yeah they also talked about talked about a boy who Alexander had been dating as well at the time. They talked about Tommy Osborne again, came back to him.

And Stacy Pinnell asked Stephanie Alexander what she thought about Tommy. And Alexander said she thought he was fine. Yeah. So Pinnell, Stacy Pinnell tells Stephanie, quote, you better stay the hell away from him. I'm tired of you and your fucking room. Whatever that means. I'm tired of you and your fucking room whatever that means I'm tired of you and your fucking room okay Stacy was standing in front of a mirror and

pointed her finger in Alexander's face is what Stephanie said so Stephanie mentioned Tommy Osborne again and Stacy Pinnell slapped Alexander and called her a bitch she said bitch she gave her like a soap opera slap bitch pop us gave her a susan lucci just a good boom really let her have one there

so uh stacy then told stephanie quote i better not see you hanging out around him i'll kill you do you hear me i'll kill you that's what stacy said perfectly yeah so again and then she slapped her again i'll kill you slap so she's this is like she's like sammy the bulgarvano she turned into she turned into like a member of the lucchese family in two seconds like a gambino member immediately you hear what i'm saying i fucking kill By the way, I want 50 bucks a week from now on protection. This is crazy. Really giving her a what for? Jesus.

So Stephanie then wrote that Stacy then put her hands around her throat. She was getting choked, Stephanie said. So Stephanie said she kicked her to get her away, and Stacy fell onto the bed and then started to get up back towards Stephanie and attack her. fell onto the bed and then started to get up back towards Stephanie and attack her. So she said that Stephanie, Stephanie said that she had been just hanging out in the room twirling Stacy's drill rifle while they were talking and had laid it back down against the bed. But at that point, Stephanie said she picked up the drill rifle and hit Stacy with it. Bastard.

She said Stacy fell onto the bed and then got back up and started toward Alexander again, calling her a fucking bitch, which she just hit me with a drill rifle. You are a fucking bitch now. So Alexander said she hit Stacy again with the drill rifle. Stacy fell back on the bed and Stephanie said she then hit her three more times with the drill rifle for some reason. Okay. None of that happened. No. I i mean all the hitting happened but just not like that yeah you fucking bitch pop and slapping her in the face now

she said that she's justifying her actions right now oh she's starting to say it's self-defense she could have killed me in there a limping drunk 18 year old who's small um she said that she was out of it stay at stephanie because of all the codeine and didn't know what to do. She said the rifle fell out of her hands and she locked the door to the hall. That's why it was locked. She washed her hands in the sink and put a pillow over Stacey's head because, you know, she's not a look at it. She she's not a fucking she's not Jeffrey Dahmer. You know what I'm saying? She she then said she got a steak knife that Stacy had borrowed from her out of the drawer and cut the screen so the scene would look like somebody came through the window. Then she pulled Stacy's panties down so it would look like a rape as well.

What the fuck? Yeah, she wanted it to look like Guy broke in and raped her, which is exactly what everybody thought. Guy broke in and tried to fucking. This bitch is frightening, James. This is terrifying. She then wiped off that part of the drill rifle and wrapped it in a towel. Then she went and took a bath, burned the part of the screen she cut out and the T-shirt she'd been wearing when she killed Stacey. She burned all of this and then flushed the remaining debris down the toilet and used amy wheeler stacy's roommate's perfume

to mask the smoke odor sprayed it all over the room wow that's what she did then she went back in her room and went to sleep got back in bed and went to sleep that old bitch gangster fucking gangster so so there's a lot of that she ended up retelling her story to two other police officers, the letter and Steve Rhodes. So they said the investigation was very frustrating, but this recent developments, they hope they can get it going. So 1987, they're going to have a trial for her. Finally, they do. They're trying to get the confession thrown out. That's the thing.

They want the confession thrown out for some reason, even though there's multiple confessions and letters and all this type of shit so the judge said quote this is about uh publication of a newspaper i would observe that frequently newspaper or magazine or other publications are inaccurate for that reason they printed they printed part of what she said in the newspaper, in the Chicago Tribune, in January of 87. And they're trying to say that it was hearsay that's damaged the jury pool, so it shouldn't be allowed in. But they're saying, but the confession's fine. The confession ends up being in. Her defense is that she, their only thing is maybe Stephanie wasn't physically capable of inflicting those kind of wounds with the rifle.

She's a small girl, so she's not capable. By the way, she's also pregnant now during the trial. Yeah, because she got out on bail immediately going up to trial, so she's now pregnant in the trial as well. Is it Tommy Osborne's? Let's hope not um let's really really hope not so amy wheeler testifies that she you know what happened she called stephanie to see the body and stephanie ran in and ran to the door she must have locked it again which was weird and then she came down it was locked again that is weird yeah because she was trying to clean up in there. They had a defense psychiatrist come in and say that, okay, this confession is bullshit because Stephanie was hypnotized. Now, Steve Rhodes didn't hypnotize her,

but Stephanie's very easily hypnotized, and that she had been hypnotized a year before, and it just kind of stuck. It never really came out of it. Really off his face she yeah she's been in the trance for about a year and that's the problem that's what that's their defense she's bringing fish in and gutting it on the desk it's so weird she doesn't know what she's doing she's singing damn it feels good to be a gangster i don't know what the fuck's happening

so that's what they're that's their defense which is a pretty fucking ridiculous defense uh obviously so the verdict comes in january 5th 1988 she is found guilty after only three hours of deliberation right found guilty she freaks out freaks out um they revoke her bond she starts to scream and cry hysterically kick and swing her arms saying, saying, I didn't kill her, I didn't kill her. And then she slumps onto the floor and just throws herself onto the floor like a five-year-old who's out of gas. So they took her to the hospital and sedated her is what they did at that moment in time. Give her more codeine. Yeah.

They're going to hold her in jail until her sentencing here. So she is sentenced to, you, young lady, may fuck off 20 years in prison for manslaughter. 20 to life? 20 years. 20. What? Yeah. At the time, she could do way less here.

So the jurors said, seriously, the girl Stephanie Alexander and Stacey Pinnell, they met at the wrong time. One crossed the other one at the wrong time and in the heat of passion, one is dead. I fully believe that Stephanie Alexander didn't mean to go that far, but she blew up in the heat of passion. That's the jury foreman.

What the fuck, man? That's why it's manslaughter. So she's sentenced, but she appeals and and somehow this never happens in a murder case. This is like a white-collar crime. The judge lets her out on bond pending appeal. Oh, my God. Pending appeal. Pending appeal.

So, yeah, until the appeal comes back and they say, no, yes, this is good. Now you have to go to prison. She's out. So this goes on for four years. She's out doing her life. Out doing her life. Her appeal fails in 1992, finally. And then she actually has to go to jail at that moment.

So she has her first parole hearing, 1996. Four years. Four. She's denied. Maybe it's a woman's world i wow holy shit yeah if he if she had a five o'clock shadow and a surly look on her face i feel like she's not getting out for the appeal because she's a dangerous maniac which i still think she might be oh yeah um 1996 that's the first parole denied 1999 no she was sentenced before the 85% rule went into effect.

So she's sentenced on the old guidelines, which means she can get out very early at that moment. The family's getting everybody they can to write letters saying, you know, bullshit. You know, she can't let her out. If she had been sentenced after 94, she would have had to serve at least 17 years. 1999, parole denied 2001 though released from prison wow nine years nine years she did total including earlier so she's out there she's out and about now she even did an article uh she talked to somebody um it's uh it's fucking crazy she uh um she said that she's maintained her innocence this entire time stephanie her name now is stephanie loudon and she puts that out publicly her name's stephanie loudon or she just changed it who knows she's maintained her innocence always stating she was coerced into the confession

in some sort of hypnotic, I don't know, trance, I suppose. Because the investigators were frustrated and had an unsolved case. I feel like they would have blamed the boyfriend if that was the case. Because he's the easiest sell. The sex offender's the easiest. That's easy. Look at him. Look at his rock-hard dick.

Look at this guy. Having said that stephanie loudon as she's known today seems to be doing much better oh good for her um she runs her own business in the music field and enjoys spending time with her family from what we can tell she still lives and operates her business out of mississippi so watch out mississippi james if it wasn't her then then how did the fucking legs get changed? That's what I'm saying. How'd the underwear come off?

How'd all that? It's fucking her. She told the whole story. Yeah. She did it. She told the story. She did it. It's disturbing as shit, but she did it.

I don't know why she did it. I don't know if it was just... We can't know motive of college kids at 2.30 in the morning when they're drunken on codeine. Who the fuck knows? One of them stole the other one's Tiger Beat with Michael J. Fox on the morning when they're drunken on codeine. Who the fuck knows? One of them had a, one of them stole the other one's Tiger Beat with Michael J. Fox on the cover

and they just freaked out. I have no goddamn idea. Either way, I don't think anyone expected that as the outcome of this case. So, what a fucking crazy story. Hope you enjoyed it. Yeah.

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links are all there thank you so much everybody can't wait to see you hope you had a good thanksgiving and all that until next week everybody it's been our pleasure bye stephanie Hey, Prime members, you can listen to Small Town Murder early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus and Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart.

And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy. The stories we cover are well-researched. He claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people. With a touch of humor. I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This mother****er lied. Like a little bit of cursing. This mother f***er lied.

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