The Deck - Stanley “Stosh” Stowik, Sr. (2 of Hearts, Rhode Island)

Episode Date: December 20, 2023

Our card this week is Stanley "Stosh" Stowik, Sr., the 2 of Hearts from Rhode Island. October 9th, 2015, was supposed to be a normal, routine Friday for 80-year-old Stanley. But what unfolded in his home that night was anything but ordinary – and it set in motion a chilling mystery that still stumps detectives all these years later. If you know anything about the murder of Stanley “Stosh” Stowik, Sr. in 2015, please call the Cumberland Police Department at 401-333-2500. You can reach Capt. Sweet directly at extension 3005. You can also send an email to [e-mail].  To apply for the Cold Case Playing Cards grant through Season of Justice, visit www.seasonofjustice.org. Let us deal you in… follow The Deck on social media.Instagram: @thedeckpodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @thedeckpodcast_ | @audiochuckFacebook: /TheDeckPodcast | /audiochuckllc The Deck is hosted by Ashley Flowers. Instagram: @ashleyflowersTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieTwitter: @Ash_FlowersFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AF Follow The Deck on social media and join Ashley’s community by texting [phone] to stay up to date on what's new!

Our card this week is Stanley Stosh Stoic Sr., the two of hearts from Rhode Island. October 9, 2015 was supposed to be a normal routine Friday for 80-year-old Stanley. But what unfolded in his home that night was anything but ordinary, and it set in motion a chilling mystery that still stumps detectives all these years later. I'm Ashley Flowers and this is The Deck. Saturday October 10, 2015 was a beautiful fall day in the charming historical town of Cumberland, Rhode Island. But for the town's highway superintendent, Frank Stoic, something in the fall breeze felt off that morning.

You see, Frank had a routine of calling up one of his closest relatives, his uncle Stanley, or Stosh, as most people called him. But this particular morning, the phone rang, and rang, and eventually just went to voicemail. And this happening once was no big deal. Frank knew that his uncle Stosh often stayed out late on Friday nights with his buddies, and it was still kind of early in the morning the first time he tried him. But by 9am, he tried again and got more of the same. And that's when things felt too weird. 9am was too late for his uncle to be sleeping in. Frank only lived a few houses down from him, so he decided to do a quick drive by to see

if maybe Stosh was outside, but he wasn't. And nothing really seemed to miss, so he just tried to continue on with his day. But by noon, the feeling of unease was back, so Frank hopped in his car and drove back over to his uncle's place. In this time, there was someone outside, not his uncle though. It was one of his uncle's neighbors, a guy named Tyler from across the street. Here is Detective Captain Peter Sweet with the Cumberland PD. Tyler mentioned, hey, I haven't heard from Stasch all day. I supposed to do some yard work. I was running late this morning, can't be seen him."

Tyler said he knocked on the door around 9-ish that morning. Right around the time Frank had done his drive-by, but Tyler didn't get an answer. Tyler said he knocked again just moments ago, but same thing. This was concerning to say the least, so Frank also went up and wrapped on the door a few times himself, but there was no sound coming from the other side of the door. But Frank wasn't ready to do anything drastic just yet. Stosh was 80 years old, setting his ways, and he wasn't particularly a fan of those ways being interrupted. So, they waited and tried to respect, you know, the fact that maybe he just wasn't feeling well, didn't want to go in right away, but by 6 o'clock when nobody was answering, nobody

had seen him, that's where he decided it was best to reach out to Skip, make sure Skip hadn't seen him. Skip was one of Stosh's sons who actually lived right behind his dad. So if anyone knew Stosh's whereabouts, it would have been Skip. But Skip told Frank, no, he was at work so he hadn't seen Stosh. But he said he'd check with his wife Deb who was at home, as well as his sister who lived with them. But when he did, he found out that neither of them had seen Stosh all day.

And hearing this only made Frank more worried. He tells Skip I attacked this morning. I checked with the neighbor Tyler, who was supposed to do some yard work over there. Nobody had talked to him. So Skip said maybe someone should go in and check on him. Frank agreed, so he once again, drove over to Stosh's place.

This time he went around to the basement door, which he knew was always left unlocked, and he just let himself inside. Right away, he was met with the scariest sound one can hear in a situation like this. Complete and utter silence. With a lump in his throat, Frank crept up the basement stairs to get to the main level where Stosh spent most of his time. When he made it to the top of the staircase, he looked around and his heart stopped when his gaze landed on the hallway leading to the side door. Sprawled out on the floor, there amongst so much blood was Stosh's lifeless body.

Frank booked it outside looking for help and the first person he happened to see was Skip's wife Deb. Frantically, he ran over to explain what he'd just seen and he asked her to call the police. Within minutes, authorities arrived and officers first cleared the home, making sure no one else was present, while EMS personnel determined that there was nothing more they could do for Stosh. He was dead. Now right away, authorities considered the death suspicious. But I don't have a lot of details around why other than the blood which we know was present when Frank found his uncle. Nothing else about what was seen by first responders has been shared with the public, and they're still not sharing more even today. But whatever was there, they collected and processed.

Some of the physical evidence that was collected were some of the items that Stan used to get around the house. So like his walker, he had like a special set of crutches and then obviously the scene processing, you know, the collection of some of the swabs and everything like that from the blood and photographs. When our reporter asked Captain Sweet if anything collected from the scene potentially had the killer's DNA on it, he would only say that there's potential.

He didn't want to get into it any further. When we asked him if anything was taken from the home by the killer, Sweet said that there were potentially some items taken, but he couldn't divulge what those were. We do know that there were no signs of forced entry at the home, and although the place looked lived in, like dishes in the same paperwork on the table, it by no means looked ransacked or obviously burglarized. Captain Sweet told a local station WPRI that it honestly appeared like Stosh had walked in the door and likely immediately had been attacked. But when that happened, investigators would need help figuring that out.

And they were hopeful that a neighborhood canvas would be able to provide that answer. Now, there weren't any neighbors who heard screams or anything like that, but one neighbor in particular was able to pinpoint the last time he saw Stosh. And that's Tyler, the neighbor who was supposed to be doing yard work for him that morning. He told police that he had seen Stosh get home at around 9.30 or 10 pm the previous evening, which would be Friday night. That's when he saw Stosh's truck pull into the driveway. Then he heard his lawn tractor rev up. And that might sound odd, right, like an 80-year-old man mowing his lawn at 10 pm, but he wasn't

actually mowing. That was just his way of getting around. You see, Stosh had undergone a leg amputation, and for mobility purposes, his typical regimen was pulling up his truck beside his tractor, and then getting on to the tractor and riding that to the house. Skip's wife, Deb, confirmed this sighting by Tyler. She told police that she saw the headlights of Stosh's truck pulling into his driveway at around that same time.

So that left police a roughly 11 hour window to work with from like 9.30 or 10 pm the previous night until presumably around 9 am that morning when he wasn't responding to calls or knocks on his door. But realistically, that timeframe is even smaller. Because Captain Sweet told R Reporter that he's pretty sure there was no indication stosh had been to bed yet. Now, I don't know if that means he was still in his going out clothes, or if his bed was

still made, or maybe it's the fact that the position of his body indicated he was still in his going out clothes or if his bed was still made, or maybe it's the fact that the position of his body indicated he was attacked right when he came inside, maybe a combination of it all. But what investigators needed to do next was to reconstruct Stashe's last day alive as best they could. And in talking with family members, they learned where he'd been the night before that kept him out so late. Every Friday, he went to the local American Legion post to hang out at the bar. He was pretty routine in meeting up with, you know, whoever would go out there.

There was only a couple people that would go regularly to the bar part. Police tracked down those friends that he was with, and they said nothing was unusual that evening. They just gabbed the night away, no fights, no disagreements, no strange occurrences around them. Stosh seemed completely normal, and it was just a typical Friday night. Investigators were able to pull surveillance footage from the bar, and it lined up with what they were all saying.

They didn't see anything worth noting. So right off the bat, things were moving pretty slowly for the investigation. And it was made even slower because Stosh died over a holiday weekend, which delayed the autopsy until that coming Tuesday, three days after he was found deceased. But if the community and Stosh's family were hoping for answers from the autopsy, they were sorely disappointed because it only raised more questions. The ME ruled Stosh's cause of death as homicidal violence, but the specifics of that violence weren't released. Though there was one thing that authorities weren't vague about, there's certainty that

the public wasn't in any danger. The police chief at the time told a local paper the valley breeze that Stosh was targeted. Now, what led him to be so certain of this, he wouldn't say. And there's still not saying. To us, it wasn't anything random. We don't believe someone just followed him or been assaulted him. We felt there was some kind of reason for it. Again, that's some information I just can't really get into.

Despite the department's reassurance that the public was safe, the Cumberland community was rocked. I mean, this was a generally safe quiet town of roughly 30,000 residents just north of Providence. Things like this weren't supposed to happen here. I mean, what does it say about a town that this was in 2015 and Stosh still left his door unlocked without a second thought? The Valley Breeze reported at the time, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, quote, even include homicide or murder as a category." The department only had two other cold case homicides,

one from the 80s and one from the 90s. So I'm sure you can imagine how palpable the uneasiness of the town was. Making matters even worse was that Stosh was hardly a nobody. In fact, he'd made a name for himself as a staple of the town. Not only was he a hometown hero having served in the Navy, but the entire Stoic family was well known and influential in the community. Over the years, Stosh had gained a reputation as the mayor of Indiana Avenue, which is the road that he lived on. I mean, others said he was the unofficial mayor of the entire town. So perhaps it was because Stosh was so well loved and cherished in the community that the rumor mill was quick to start churning. And many began pointing the finger at those closest to him.

There was some theories that possibly a family member was involved. Who that family member was, Captain Sweet won't say. And it's probably with good reason, because it seems like in that initial investigation names just got flung around, Willie Milley. At one point there was probably seven or eight different names that were thrown out by different people. Captain Sweet didn't want to elaborate on the rumors that were going around because he said even back then, police realized that much of what they were being told just didn't add up.

Most of them didn't make sense at all. A lot of them just came down to, well this is what I heard and there was nothing to back that up. And that was frustrating to hear. We were hearing names of people that weren't even in the area. It just didn't make any sense. And to try to put all those different fires out, it just wasn't worth it. Rumors or not, police were looking at everyone. Family included.

No one was falling off their persons of interest list without a rock solid alibi. We wanted to look at everybody including relatives, including friends, including friends, neighbors, people that knew him. So nobody was ruled in or out at that point. We didn't want to rule anybody out. We wanted to talk to everybody. So that's what we try to do. You know, there's probably 10 houses on the street. We try to talk to everybody and make sure that no one else had any kind of

involvement. We just didn't want to rule anybody out until we could absolutely say definitively that they weren't involved. The list of people who might have had a motive was longer than they expected. There was a couple of neighbors he kind of feuded with, but it wasn't like anything that he couldn't turn around the next day and be friends with them again.

There was a couple of neighbors where they would get in a shouting match, like I said, and then the next day they'd be fine. So that seemed to be his kind of like am I, I guess you could say. One of those neighbors had come to the forefront. Now, police are vague about why exactly this particular neighbor emerged as the primary person of interest. But I can imagine it might have had something to do with the guy's past. This man, 56-year-old William Donnelly, was Stosh's next-door neighbor, and he had a pretty

lengthy rap sheet. Here's just a taste of what police saw when they looked this guy up. Inbezzlement, attempted breaking and entering, stealing a firearm, assault and battery, and escape from a correctional institution. But the icing on the cake was a conviction from 1983 for murder. William had allegedly shot and killed his work supervisor, Huyong Yukim, over a dispute that stemmed from Huyong refusing to co-sign alone for William. According to the Providence Journal, William shot he-young while in full plane view

of two police officers, so, naturally, William was charged with and ultimately pleaded guilty to he-young's murder. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison, but his attorney got his conviction called into question when they found out that they hadn't been informed of a report regarding William's mental competency. The Providence Journal reported that eventually a judge ruled that William was, quote, "...innocent by reason of insanity, and a team of mental health professionals deemed him, quote, not a danger to the community." So with that, he was a free man by the late 1980s, under the recommendation that his behavior be monitored. It was after being freed that William went on to commit all of those other crimes I mentioned

earlier. So when detectives got to speak with William about Stosh and confronted him about their suspicions, he denied any involvement. In fact, he said he wasn't even in the state when Stosh was killed. But according to Captain Sweet, investigators weren't really buying it, because something about William's story wasn't adding up to them. Now, what wasn't adding up? Wish I knew.

But surprise, surprise, Sweet was guarded about it. He just said that they have information that contradicts what William claimed. And whatever that was, it must have been damning because investigators leaned into William hard after this. They paid a visit to his nephew, Ronald, who actually owned the house that William lived in. Ronald was basically the live-in landlord, and William rented the in-laws apartment on the lower floor of the home.

Now because of the shared living space, investigators were hopeful that Ronald would have some answers for them, like maybe he could put William at the house the night of the murder. But he actually couldn't do that. He said they didn't run across each other that night, though that didn't necessarily mean William wasn't there. Again, he had this whole little in-laws apartment to himself, he could have been home without Ronald realizing. Even though Ronald didn't have the answers they were hoping for, investigators

thought perhaps the house itself would give them some information. So with Ronald's permission, they did a search. But as far as Captain Sweet knows, they didn't find anything of value there. It was becoming dead end after dead end for this investigation. But it turns out that there had been another investigation happening alongside this one. But it turns out that there had been another investigation happening alongside this one, an investigation in to William Donnelly on stolen property charges. And that very same month that Stosh was murdered,

that second investigation led to William's arrest. According to detectives, William had broken into a neighbor's home while they were on vacation. And this isn't Stosh, it's a different neighbor. But according to WPRI-12, he allegedly stole jewelry, a gun, and a credit card. Investigators' evidence was pretty airtight on this one. I mean, they caught him on surveillance video at Lowe's buying a chainsaw with the stolen credit card. Investigators' evidence was pretty airtight on this one. I mean, they caught him on surveillance video at lows buying a chainsaw with the stolen credit card. Now, ultimately, I'm not sure if William was convicted on charges related to actually using the stolen card, but I know that as far as the breaking and entering charge, the AG's office ultimately decided to dismiss it.

Still, this separate case only made them more suspicious that William could have been involved in Stosh's death. But suspicions only take you so far, and they didn't have what they really needed. Proof. And the whole time, William was sticking to his story that he didn't do it and that he was out of state. So investigators finally decided to put that story to the test with a polygraph, which William agreed to. When all was said and done, it did show deception, but there isn't much you can do with that in a court of law. It just made investigators feel like they were looking in the right place.

By the time December rolled around, the community was growing restless. Police had an outright said that William was their number one suspect, but police weren't outright saying much of anything. I mean, I'm sure you can tell from this episode they're still very reserved with the information they have and what they're putting out there. One thing they were open about, though, is that they were in regular contact with the AG's office to determine what more they needed to press charges, presumably against William, though they weren't outright naming

him. The Comberlin Police Chief at the time told a local reporter, quote, "'The burden of proof is a high hurdle, and we can't assume anything. There's information we just cannot release. There's a grand jury and possibly a trial. The more information we give out, the more they have to use against us." But there were others who felt that their reason for not releasing information ran deeper than that.

Stosh's niece for one told The Valley Breeze that she felt the investigation was botched. Other family members expressed their frustration with the lack of information from police. Now, what exactly the family thought was botched about the investigation? I don't know. I mean, we've seen it so many times before. It is easy for homicide investigations to go wrong in small towns where murders are uncommon. But to be fair to Cumberland police, they knew that they needed assistance from the outset.

So they had been working closely with the state police since almost day one. And they had even brought in the FBI at points. But still, even with all the additional support, the investigation was really going nowhere. By the time the one-year anniversary of Stosh's murder rolled around, still, with no answers or any more information from police, Stosh's murder rolled around. Still, with no answers or any more information from police, Stosh's family decided to take action. In October of 2016, they pooled their money together and announced a $10,000 reward for any information leading to an arrest or conviction. The family also put out a statement that read in part, quote,

"'To this day, we remained shocked and devastated that this heinous crime was inflicted upon our father. We are deeply heartbroken and appalled by the senselessness. How anyone could do this to a defenseless 80-year-old man who was handicapped is extremely difficult for us to accept." Now even though things in the case seemed cold from an outside perspective, police at this point were working hard to prepare a search of a pond at a golf course in Providence about 15 miles away.

Now, what exactly they were planning to look for? I don't know. We were trying to make sure that we didn't miss anything, just because of William's statements to us about his whereabouts. So we were trying to determine if he did go there, if he left anything behind. So it was more of a chance to be sure we didn't miss anything.

So given how vague that is, I don't know if William claimed to have gone to that golf course, and they were vetting his alibi, though I don't think that's the case because remember, he told investigators he was out of state the night that Stosh was killed. But whatever they were searching for must have been really important to find because you don't just bring out the big guns like diverse state police and canine search and rescue teams for nothing.

But it was just that. Nothing. They didn't find whatever it was they were looking for. And just like that, Stosh's case was stalled. The next notable movement wasn't until 2018 when Cumberland police suddenly announced that they would be moving forward with prosecution very soon. The police chief told the local paper

that they were actively putting everything together in preparation for prosecution. But after that announcement that got everyone's hopes up, it was crickets for a whole year. The next anyone heard was in 2019 when they said that they'd be putting stosh on Rhode Island's new cold case playing card stack. The decks were going to be distributed to local prisons and everyone was just kind of crossing their fingers that Stosh's card would end up in the right hands, and someone would come forward with information. Just that last piece of the puzzle. But sadly, that was wishful thinking. As far as I know, the card initiative hasn't yielded any leads

in this case. And since then, there's been little movement, not even a prosecution that everyone was told was imminent back in 2018. The chief who made that claim retired in 2022, and Captain Sweet said he's not sure what the chief was referring to when he said that, other than that they've continued to investigate the case. We asked Captain Sweet again if there was anything collected that potentially had the killer's DNA on it. But all he had to say was, quote, I can't really speak to what exactly we have collected

and where we're going with it." End quote. In case you haven't noticed, concealment has been a reoccurring theme in this case. And for some, they feel like it's a bit much. In 2021, an anonymous family member told the Valley Breeze, quote, "'I'm tired of the so-called secrecy around the case. It's just harder on all of us. It's unfair to not at least know how he died.

Nothing but pacify this family with repeated rhetoric such as ongoing investigation." End quote. We didn't get an interview with the family for this episode, so I'm not sure what specifically made them feel this way, but clearly, much of the secrecy that bothered Stosh's family is still ongoing today, eight years later. And to a certain extent, I get it. CPT doesn't want to put out anything that could be thrown back at them by a defense team should the case go to trial. And some things they certainly should hold back because it's details only the killer

would know, so they can use it to vet any potential confessions. But honestly, I can't help but wonder that if maybe police were a little bit more open about the details of the investigation, perhaps they'd be getting more tips. Because as things stand right now, they clearly need more information. They're missing something. William Donnelly is still a free man, maybe as he should be. But whether he's the right guy or not, there is one thing for certain. There is a cold-blooded killer still walking the streets.

And secrecy or no secrecy, CPD and Captain Sween are hopeful that this episode will help them catch whoever it was that killed the beloved mayor of Indiana Avenue. I think it's important just to remember that, you know, this is a gentleman who was a veteran that tragically mechanismed and it's awful. And I still think about it every day. And it's one of those things, just the more time they go as buy, obviously, it drifts through the memories of everybody, but I know for me personally, I think about it every day, and if there's more I can do, I don't want to do it.

It's been eight years since Stosh was brutally murdered in his own home in a safe community that he called home for decades. His family deserves answers and Stosh deserves justice. So if you know anything about the murder of Stanley Stosh Stoic Senior in 2015, please call the Cumberland Police Department at 401-333-2500. You can reach Captain Sweet directly at Extension 3-005. You can also send an email to crime at Comberlandpolice.com. The Deck is an audio chuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about the Deck and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast.com. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?