True Crime All The Time - The Murder of Stephanie Scott

Episode Date: April 27, 2020

26-year-old Stephanie Scott was a high school teacher in Leeton, Australia. She was well-loved by friends, family, and her students. She was set to be married to the love of her life, but just days before her wedding was to take place she was killed by a monster. Friends and family searched for Stephanie after she failed to return home or answer cell phone calls. No one was prepared for the truth of what happened to the beloved teacher.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the murder of Stephanie Scott. 24-year-old Vincent Stanford was a loner who preferred to spend his time playing on-line video games. The rest of his time was spent stalking women, meticulously detailing out their routines in his journal. Stanford was a cleaner at the high school where Stephanie taught. She was just one of many victims he had been stalking. But sadly, Vincent found his opportunity to strike when Stephanie was at the school finishing up some work.A big thanks to Monique Patterson for her help in writing this episode. You can find Monique's book about Stephanie's murder called United in Grief at these links:US: https://www.amazon.com/United-Grief-Tragic-Stephanie-Scotts/dp/1947521217Australia: https://www.amazon.com.au/gp/new-releases/digital-text/2523897051/ref=zg_bs_tab_t_bsnrAn Emash Digital productionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 180 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. Gibby, how are you? I'm doing good, man. About you. I'm doing great. Good. I'm doing as good as I can be with everything that's going on.

You can be as good as you can be. That's true. Who else could be? That's exactly right. Yeah. Gibbs, before we do anything else, I want to give some shoutouts. Okay. And these have nothing to do with Patreon.

members. Now some might be, I don't know. I got an email from Carrie. She's a nurse. Yeah. A bunch of her nurse friends listen to the show. And, you know, like some other people have said, they said it really kind of helps them, you know, move forward. I just want to give a big thanks to all the nurses, everybody that's essential. Because they're really helping us continue to live in the best way we can. Well, sure. They're needed. And then I think about my wife.

She's working from home. She's teaching through Zoom. So I got to give a big shout out to all the teachers too because, you know, they're doing their best, the best that they can. And it's not easy because they weren't ready for this. They weren't set up for this. Nobody was. So big shoutouts to everybody for, for doing their part, keeping a safe, keeping everyone

educated, you know, just keeping groceries on the show. That is a huge thing. It is. At least around here, they're still trying to hire people to make sure they can just keep people employed to keep doing that kind of stuff. And, you know, that toll paper starting to show up now. It is seeing some toll paper show up on the shelves, which is good. So I definitely wanted to kind of start out the show doing that. Yeah, thank you.

Listen, we have a lot going on this weekend, right? So we have this T-CAT that you and I are about ready to do. Yeah. We have right now at the same time a true crime all the time unsolved. We do. It's on Asia degree. Yeah. Went missing down in North Carolina.

Yeah. You know, this is a young girl. Yeah, nine years old. Who, you know, all of a sudden leaves her house, goes missing and has never heard from again. Never. Last night, we put out a brand new Patreon only episode. Yeah. It's on Lester Eubanks.

It's a good one. It's good. But it's very interesting. Now, it's sad because this guy killed a 14-year-old girl. Right. But then his death sentence got commuted. Yeah. And for some reason, in 1973, prison officials thought it was a good idea to take him to

the mall. Yeah. To go Christmas shopping. Christmas shopping. Come on. You lifer. Unescorted. Yeah.

And he walked off. And they've never found him. Yeah. He could be living today somewhere. they have no idea. So check all of that out. You know, speaking of Patreon, let's give our shout out. Okay.

We had Shelby Lynn. Hey, Shelby. Rebecca Johnson jumped out at our highest level. What's going on, Rebecca? Jordan Couch. Hey, Couch. Morgan. Allison Tresider.

Hey, Treseda. She jumped out to our highest level. Appreciate that. Dina Cremens. Hey, Dina. Sarah Payne. Hey, thanks, Sarah. Hey, O'Neal.

Myisha Thomas. Hey, what's going on, Myisha? Allison Dixon. What's happening? Allison. Hayden. Hey, Hayden. Laura McCarthy. What's going on, Paul's daughter? Tori Ball. Hey, Tori. Ben Goodrich. What's happening, Ben? Aaron. Hey, Aaron. Or A-A-A-Ron. I think A-A-Ron. It could be A-A-A-Ron. A-A-Ron. Kina-Franco. What's going on, Franco? Amy Hilliard. Hey, Amy. Kevin Koch. What's happening? Kevin Kock. Yeah, that's coach.

That's, yeah. Well, you said it. The way you did, it's right. You just said coach. You think it's Coach? I think it's Coke. I think you're right. Good grain. Hey, good grain. JJ. What's happening JJ? Dino mite. Cassandra Howard. Hey, Cassandra. Amy Manoram jumped out at our highest level. Man, look at Amy. Stepping up. Darmah Jensen. Hey, Dharma. And Tony Cleland. What's going on, Tony? So we appreciate all that brand new Patreon support. And then if we go back into the vault, Gibbs, this week we selected Lindsay King. Hey, Lindsay. Big thanks. been with us a long time, long time supporter. Awesome.

We had some great PayPal donations, Tristan Copier. Man, Tristan, that's the name people like. Just people in general. Okay. If you say so, I like it. Lisa Currah. Hey, Lisa. Jadira Martinez.

Jadira. Yeah, sounds good. And Joel Zula. What's going on? Man, I want to say both of those. Joella Zula. I don't think you said either one correctly, to be honest with you. All right.

Gibbs. Are you ready to get into this episode of true crime all the time? I am. So this is interesting. It's different. You know, we have a great fan of the show named Monique Patterson, who is a journalist by trade in Australia. And she wrote a book about the murder of Stephanie Scott there. Monique was kind enough to boil down her massive amount of information that went into her book. into something we could use for the podcast. So really big shout out to Monique for her help in writing this episode. And definitely check out her book. It's called United in Grief to learn more about the murder of Stephanie Scott.

You can find some links to it in the episode note. So check that out. But we're heading to Australia. Good day, Mike. Good day. And specifically Leighton. And Leighton's a small town. Yeah.

in the southern part of New South Wales, Australia, Gibbs has a population of just over 10,000. It is often referred to as the rice capital of Australia. So you got that going for you. Never thought about rice. Being an Australian export. Yeah. Well, apparently it is in Leighton. That's amazing.

Yeah. I never thought of that. So it's about 550 kilometers west of Sydney and 450 kilometers north of Sydney and 450 kilometers north of Melbourne. Okay. To give people an idea. Yeah. Of the geography.

I put my map pulled up right now and I see it. You do. That's why it made no sound whatsoever in the microphone. You got like the old Rand McNally and you're opening it. Yeah. You know how much noise that would be? That would be like crazy. But Leighton, you know, it's considered a safe place.

Small. Yeah. Right? Somewhat removed from some of the troubles that plague some of the bigger Australia. cities, residents in Leighton still adhere to the Australian niceties. So they help neighbors carry in their groceries or they'll drop off a hot meal to a neighbor who's sick. That's the type of place we're talking about. Okay. Small town, Mayberry, know everybody would not turn down helping a fellow residents. My kind of community. Yeah. No, it sounds very good.

It's a place where most residents wouldn't even hesitate to open their door when somebody knocks like two o'clock in the morning. Come on in, might. Well, I don't know if they just invite them in. But even in the middle of the night, they assume somebody needs help and they're willing to help. Sure. There's no hesitation. There's no fear that there's some type of evil lurking on the other side of the door because that stuff happens in other places. other cities, other countries, not in Leighton. But in 2015, something happened that would definitely

shake that notion. Stephanie Scott was a 26-year-old teacher at Leighton High School. It was a dream job for her. And when she got it, she moved to Leighton with her high school sweetheart, Aaron Leeson, wool. Their mutual attraction had turned into a relationship five years earlier at Aaron's 21st birthday party. Once in Leighton, Aaron quickly got a job at a meat processing plant. Aaron and Stephanie set a wedding date for April 12, 2015. And when you talk about Stephanie, I mean, this was the type of person Gibbs who lit up any room she entered. She had sparkling brown eyes. She was always smiling. And she was the type of person who always put others first.

She was happy to make a joke at her own expense just to make other people feel at ease. Kind of teacher everybody likes. Yeah. Her students loved her. Often asked her for advice. You know, she ran the type of class that was full of laughter. Now, they got stuff done. Don't get me wrong.

But she really created a good environment for her students. when Aaron popped the question. He did kind of cool, didn't he? He did. Yeah. He did. When he popped it to Stephanie, they were vacationing in Thailand, which I know is a place that you loved to hang out.

I used to go there with my buddy Jason. Yeah. Mostly because of the extradition laws, but. Yeah. I mean, he was being tracked down by some agencies. Yeah. He had to be there too. Yeah.

Jason Bourne. Yeah. I got it. Got it. But that's a big deal, right? Will you marry me? Well, he just happened to ask while they were vacationing in Thailand. It was the happiest she had ever been.

So if you think about it, she had landed her dream job. She was set to marry the man of her dreams. She planned her wedding in meticulous detail. And it was said that she wanted to ensure that each and every person had the time of their lives. Once again, this was a person that thought about others. I think much more so than she thought about herself. Just before school ended for the Easter holidays in 2015,

Stephanie's colleagues threw an impromptu celebration for the bride to be. She was excited. She was truly happy. That weekend, Aaron and Stephanie were invited to a party in their hometown of Cana Wendra. Stephanie told Aaron to go, but said that, She wanted to stay home. She had some final preparations that she needed to do for the wedding. She also needed to finish her plans for the substitute teacher who was going to fill in for

her while they were on their honeymoon. On Saturday night of that weekend, the couple stayed in touch through text messages. And they said good night on the phone about 10.30 p.m. Then on Sunday morning, Stephanie sent Aaron a text message. telling him that she was going in to work at Leighton High School for a few hours, just to finish up, you know, a couple of things. She contacted a colleague and asked to borrow her key to the school. As Aaron drove back to Leighton that Sunday, he tried calling Stephanie, but she didn't

answer. When he got home, he was surprised to find that she wasn't there. He tried to call her again, still no answer. So he thought, okay, maybe she got caught up at school, lost track of time. But I do think Gibbs at this point, he started to worry. Oh, absolutely. This wasn't like her. He began calling her friends to see if they knew where she was.

No one had heard from her. So Aaron got into his car, drove around looking for Stephanie, but found no trace of her or her car. He stayed up that entire night. That's how worried he was. was, but the phone never rang and Stephanie never came home. And it was at that point the next morning that Aaron knew he had to call Stephanie's parents. Her family was immediately worried. They knew that this was not like Stephanie. She just wouldn't worry anyone like this. And she and Aaron,

they never went more than a few hours without talking or at least exchanging a text message. You know how couples are nowadays. Oh, I know. Younger couples. Oh. Not us old time. No, no, no, no. Yeah, it's constantly text, text, text.

But also know that they continue to try calling her cell phone. But every time they called, it would go into her voicemail. And you know how frustrating that is. Yeah. And I think you know your daughter. You know your child. Right. They don't come home at night.

And now the next day, every single call is going to voice. Mace mail, something's wrong. Yeah, you know. And you're getting worried. So Stephanie was reported to police as a missing person. Her brother, Stewart, took to Facebook asking people to keep an eye out for Stephanie. And that post was shared more than 1,500 times that day. Right there, that's like raw detective work.

You're putting it out there, getting it out there right away, not taking the initiative yourself. Yeah, very quickly. Yeah. Locals were asked to keep an eye out for Stephanie's car, a red Mazda 3 sedan. I mean, everybody was willing to pitch in to help to try to find Stephanie. One of her close friends even reached out to the local paper. That's cool.

To ask for help. But then 48 hours passed without any word from Stephanie. And police decided to go knocking on doors. Members of the public were asked to search along roads in the area. there was a theory early on that maybe Stephanie had rolled her car over and was trapped in one of the district's irrigation channels or creeks or, you know, some type of body of water. But as always happens, there were some theories that focused in on Stephanie's fiance Aaron.

It's almost impossible for that not to happen, right? For people to think, okay, it's the husband, it's the fiance. say it's the boyfriend. Keep in mind, they're set to get married in a few days. Right. So there were some people that thought, right, did he get cold feet? Okay. But you don't have to murder someone.

No. You're not married. You say, hey. You just walk away. It's just not going to happen. So I kind of had an issue with some of the people's reasoning behind, you know, why they thought maybe he would kill her. Number one, he loved her.

But number two, he had nothing to gain. Yeah. There was no. What's the motive? Yeah, what's the motive there? The other thing is that Aaron never wavered in his story or his willingness to do everything he could define Stephanie. In television interviews, I think it was easy for people to see that Aaron was heartbroken.

He was disheveled. He had dark rings under his eyes. It looked like he hadn't slept in days. And he probably hadn't. He pleaded for Stephanie to come home or to at least call. If she could get to a phone, he answered all questions and told reporters that Stephanie had not accessed her bank account. Now, that's not a good sign. No.

If you're looking at, well, maybe she got cold feet and just left. Well, when you don't have access to your money. Kind of tells that story, isn't it? Yeah. It's kind of tough. Stephanie's family arranged to have a helicopter brought in to aid in the search. Divers searched the waterway. search the waterways. They had officers on trail bikes. There were volunteers. Searching the parkland,

roadsides. The family tried to remain as optimistic as possible. But you know it gives. It had to be tough. With every passing hour, it had to get tougher and tougher. Oh, absolutely. You know, just wondering what's going to happen today or what's not going to happen today. Well, is today going to be the day? Yeah. That either she comes home, or we find out that something really bad has happened. I've never been in that situation. I hope I'm never in that situation. But I always feel like,

and I think the statistics bear it out, the longer it goes, the less likely the outcome is going to be in your favor. Yeah. Right? I think most people understand that. The statistics bear it out pretty quickly. This became a big story.

There were journalists from all over Australia flocking to Leighton, again, something the residents in Leighton were not used to. I'm sure they weren't ready for that. No. And not just journalists, but big city journalists. Yeah. Because they were asking questions in a way that folks around there weren't used to. Very blunt, very in your face type of questioning.

This was a small town. This was Mayberry. This is where you're nice and you defer. and we don't we don't ask those questions around here and we don't ask them that way yeah you know definitely don't ask them out in public come here talk to me over here i think a lot of the residents frankly were caught off guard by some of the very blunt questions asked by reporters and then the biggest break in the case in the first couple of days happened when stephanie's red mada was found in a field on a property in Wamoon. This is about 11 kilometers outside of Liedon. Sure. Big deal.

Yeah, it is. Because they had been looking for not only her, but they had been looking for her car as well. The problem is the car held very few answers, if any. It didn't look as though it had been in an accident. Really, it kind of sparked more questions. Where was Stephanie? Had she driven her car to this location and walked off or had someone else dropped it off at that location. And if so, had they done something bad to Stephanie? I mean, I think the questions start to swirl. Yeah, it's just now it's getting even more mysterious. People started to come forward to police with things that they had seen that they now felt were odd. Looking back, a man named Paul Halls said he saw a man wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses that Easter Sunday walk up the bank

of an irrigation channel. And he said it looked like the man was carrying an iPad. But when he saw the man later return to his vehicle, this man was no longer carrying the iPad. So he thought that was very strange. That is kind of strange. Did he throw it away somewhere? Right. Nobody's just going to get rid of an iPad, right? Those are expensive. So police had divers. And, searched the channel and they retrieved the laptop. So he said, okay, it looked like an iPad. It turned out to be a laptop. Yeah. And it was actually later confirmed to be Stephanie Scott's laptop. So now police are getting somewhere. Got a little bite. Yeah, they're getting some information. Another man came forward to say he saw a man wearing a backpack walking along Griffith Road toward Leighton

the day after Stephanie disappeared. And I think police thought this was a little curious because this was not a route that a lot of people were going to take for, you know, a morning stroll, a brisk walk. It just wasn't that type of route. All right, Gibbs. Let's take a quick break to talk about our sponsors. First up is gobbie insurance. If you own a car or house, you know shopping for insurance is a mind-numbing soul

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minutes right now to see how much you can save on your car and homeowners insurance. Go to gabi.com slash T-CAT. That's GABI.com slash T-Cat. Gobby.com slash T-Cat. Gibbs, one of the things that I love about True Crime is that the more you dig into a story, the more layers you uncover. And I think that's a big reason why I love the puzzle game Best Fiends. The more I play, the more fun it gets.

Reaching each new level feels like uncovering a new layer in a story, one that you get to take part of it. I think that's what keeps me so invested. in Best Fiends. I'm always striving to reach that next level. It's one of the main things I love about the game, probably because I'm a little bit competitive. Best Fiends is a unique and exciting puzzle experience, unlike other puzzle games out there. And it doesn't require the internet to play. So no need worrying about Wi-Fi access or using your cell data. It also means you can play it anywhere. You get to collect tons of fun characters. And Best Fiends updates the game monthly with

new levels and events so it never gets old. Best Fiends has thousands of levels already. With new levels, events, and characters added every month, it's hours of fun right at your fingertips and you can even play offline. With over 100 million downloads and tons of five star reviews, Best Fiends is a must play. Download Best Fiends free on the Apple App Store or Google Play. That's Friends Without the R. Best Fiends. On Thursday, April 9th, this was just three days. before Stephanie and Aaron were set to wed, police revealed that they had charged a man with Stephanie's murder. His name was Vincent Stanford. So police knew that Stephanie's last known whereabouts had been the high school.

So this whole time, they had been working to find out, right, who else could have been there? The school's principal said that one of the cleaners, man named Vincent Stanford, had been there the Friday before Easter. And then a Leighton resident called saying that an older white SUV or a truck was in the school parking lot on Easter Sunday. Well, it turned out that Vincent Stanford drove an older white Toyota truck. So police want to talk to this guy. Absolutely. They're going to want to interview him. And they did go to his house.

They interviewed him. They quizzed him about his movements over that weekend. few people knew the 24-year-old by name because apparently he preferred to keep to himself, Vincent had moved from Holland to Leighton Australia with his mother and older brother the year before. And the reason they moved to Australia was to be closer to Vincent's identical twin brother, Marcus. How unique is that? Who was already living in South Australia.

Yeah. It is unique. You know, and truth be told, Vincent was excited about the move because his brother was working in the gaming industry. I think he was, you know, making games or doing something in that world. Well, Vincent had a passion for gaming. He was a huge gamer. Right. And he fancied himself a little bit of a programmer.

Yeah. I think he wanted to delve into that world. You know, he loved online gaming. He spent hours playing. playing different types of military-themed games and on chat boards and in forums, he identified as the Aztec serpent god Quetzal Koto. Quetzal Koto. Yeah.

That was his screen name. Quetzel Koto. Hmm. But people said, you know what? This guy had always been somewhat detached from the real world. And it was almost like he had no real desire to make friends, real friends. Right. Right. He really was kind of an online type of person.

There's a lot of people out there like that. There are. And some of that is totally fine. Yeah. I know you're a gamer. I'm a gamer. It doesn't mean I don't talk to people in real life. No, you like to play with your joystick thingy and talk to people, so you're good. You just had to get a dig in, didn't you? Just had to get one in. There's one.

Just one. So they interviewed Vincent at his home. And he told police he had been at the school. that weekend cleaning, but he said he had not seen Stephanie while he was there. So eventually, after some questioning, as they were leaving, Vincent called out and said, hey, good luck with the search. Oh, a little cocky. You could take it that way, maybe.

So there was the detective sergeant that was going over Vincent's statement later that day. And there was something, you know, gnawing at him about. about it. There was something that just wasn't right. Vincent had told police that he had gone to the Golden Apple Superstore on Yanko Road, but this couldn't have been true because this was a store that the detective knew was not open on Sunday. So he felt like, I've caught this guy. Right. In a lie. Now, I don't know what that means, but why would he lie? So it'd be like us here in the state saying, hey, went to Chick-fil-A. Went to Chick-fil-A on Sunday, ate a big, big old meal and then I went on home and you'd be like, no, you did not.

The way you did. Because they're not open on the other. So they went back to quiz Vincent again about where he was. And he said the same thing, told detectives that he was at that store. They knew it was a lie. And later that day, they went back to his house and they said, you know what, why don't you just come with us? We'll head down to the Leighton police station.

Yeah. Just down the road, right? It's a small town. Yeah, it can't be, it can't be too far. The problem is he wasn't home, but his mother gave the officers permission to search the home. And it was at that point that they found a set of keys to Leighton High School. Now, Gibbs, you and I might hear that and think that might not be that strange. Right.

A janitor or cleaner might have keys to the high school. But in this situation, that was not the case. Oh, okay. He was allowed there during very specific hours. And he was never supposed to be there while any of the staff or teachers were there. And he was never there on his own. So he did not have and should not have had keys to the school, something we might find a little strange. Yeah.

So he was never a key master. No, he was never a key master. But Vincent did get home about 7.30 p.m. And when he got home, there's all these police vehicles in front of his house. but it didn't scare him away. He walked right in. I was just picturing all these outbacks. It was little super outbacks with police cars.

I didn't know if you're talking about outback steakhouse, Subaru Outbacks. I'm just picturing these little Super Outbacks, you know, with their little sirens on time. They probably don't even have Subaru Outbacks in Australia. That's probably just the North American thing. Probably is, yeah. He told police he had been out taking pictures. And, you know, he gave police his camera and said, look. So police started looking through his digital.

digital camera. No way. Could they have been prepared Gibbs for what they would see on this camera? Because there was all kinds of innocuous photos, photos that didn't meet anything. Yeah. Popular spots around the area. But there were two photos that would haunt detectives probably for the rest of their lives. Guessing they were pretty raw. Yeah, the photos were of a burnt body. And the body was was burnt so bad. It was beyond. recognition. So officers saw this and they asked Vincent what in the hell, you know, are these photos. He tried to tell them that he had downloaded them from a horror movie. Digital photos on his camera. He downloaded them from a horror movie. He got to tell him

something, I guess. Yeah, he's good at making up stuff right now. We can tell. So they have that. They have the fact that he's lying about his whereabouts on Sunday. They didn't have to look too far inside the house to find more items linking Vincent to Stephanie's murder. They found Stephanie's red brawl in his bedroom. They found the trunk liner from her car. In the days that followed Vincent's arrest, residents placed flowers, teddy bears, candles, all kinds of messages. along the fence line at Leighton High School to honor Stephanie. Most chose yellow items.

That was Stephanie's favorite color. As the monument grew, droves of people went to the school and they just sat or stood at the fence crying. That would be a pretty heavy burden for Stephanie students. Yeah, it was. I mean, we set it up front. She was a well-liked, well-respected teacher, not just. just by staff, but, you know, by her students as well.

The students described her as a gym, someone who was bright and sparkly. So police know Vincent's the killer, but they still haven't found Stephanie's body. Well, that's where they're going to have to turn their attention to. It's time to find the body. Sure. And they told the public right away that they had a pretty wide geographic area to search. They used Vincent's phone to try to track. his movements on that day. They also talked to Vincent's mother and his older brother Luke.

They got some pretty good information from the two of them. Yeah. Stephanie's body was recovered in the early hours of what should have been her wedding day. How horrible for her family. I mean, it would have been horrible any time. Sure. But to coincide with the day that, you know, should have been one of the happiest days of her life, just seems to make it that much more tragic. The charred remains of the school teacher were discovered by police in one of the area's most well-trodden national parks, Cocoa Parra, about 70 kilometers from Leighton. This place is very popular with locals and visitors.

It's got a lot of trails, a lot of flora, fauna, a lot of waterfalls. and police already feared this detail based on the picture that was on Vincent's phone, but then they found out. It was true. Stephanie's body had been burnt. Officers were brought in to remove the body. They secured the crime scene at 2.30 a.m. A white station wagon drove down what was usually a pretty deserted road in the national park.

These were the three men that had been tasked with the job of transporting. Stephanie's burnt body to the more. That'd be a rough day for them, would not be an easy task. No, no. Less than a half hour later, they came back down the road with Stephanie's body in the back of the car. So you think about Aaron. Should have been Stephanie's happiest day.

Right. Should also have been Aaron. Sure. Right. His wedding day. Yeah. It turned into the saddest day of his life. But what's interesting about Aaron, he didn't curl up.

into a ball, right, and hide away from the world alone. He came out along with Stephanie's family and they expressed their gratitude to the community who had rallied around them. They invited the residents of Leighton to join them for a picnic at a local park. Everyone wore yellow. Her favorite color. And they pretty much just thanked everyone who had, you know, tried to find their daughter. I mean, this is one of the most heartbreaking periods of their entire life. Yeah. And so it really tells you that these people were very much like her.

Most likely it's where she got it from. Sure, it was. They were selfless. Even at that heart-wrenching time in their life, they went out of their way to think the people who had helped. But then we get into Vincent Stanford. You know, he had been interviewed at his house. but his interviews at the police station, Gibbs, they're striking.

He went into graphic detail about how he ended Stephanie's life and the whole time that he's in these interviews. He looks like he's as calm as a cucumber. He doesn't really show any emotions at all. Not at all. I mean, if this guy even had or felt a shred of guilt, he didn't show it, basically telling police that after he killed Stephanie, he went about his day, as if he would have on any other day. It was no different to him.

Yeah. Didn't throw him off key at all. Now, it took some prodding, but eventually he told police how he took Stephanie's body to Kokopara National Park after he killed her. And one thing that was really surprising to police, perhaps maybe because it did indicate that this guy had some type of remorse for his actions. You know, he quickly admitted to the murder, but he denied raping, Stephanie. But ultimately, he did plead guilty to both charges.

It's just, it's like at first he didn't want to admit that piece of it. He was fine. Saying that I killed her. Yeah. In this terrible way. But it's almost as if that part was too much. He didn't want to admit the sexual assault. That was more terrible than the other.

I don't know. I don't know why he would admit one and not the other. Why not just come clean on both of them and say this is what happened? Vincent told officers that, you know, they would find some other key pieces of evidence at his home. He also told them that they would find blood in the room in which Stephanie was killed at Leighton High School, even though he had tried to clean it with a pressure washer.

We've talked about it Gibbs. Blood is hard to clean up. without a trace, without leaving a single trace. It's almost impossible. He told police how he drove Stephanie's body in her vehicle to the park in the early morning hours of Monday morning. He said, he probably got there about 2 a.m. He was pretty clear on his memory of that day. But when they asked him why he did the things he did, he struggled to come up with an answer. He could tell them exactly what he did in graphic detail. He just couldn't explain why he did it or the reasons behind it. Yeah. At one point, he said, I think I might have some mental problems. He told police he dumped

Stephanie's car after taking her body to CocaPara and then he walked the several kilometers home. Gibbs, he told police that when he saw Stephanie working on her computer at school on that Easter Sunday, something came over him. And police asked him to describe what it was. And he said, he didn't know. It was just that I had to kill her. I wasn't angry or anything like that. I was emotionalist.

It was just that I had to kill her. So the evil came and took him over, I guess, and said, a little scary. Yeah, you need to rape her and then kill her now. He told police that just before he grabbed Stephanie. She said to him, I'm going, have a happy Easter. She's being nice to him. Yeah. As she was walking out of the building, he said she was about to leave around 11.30 a.m.

He grabbed her. He took her into the store room and killed her. And I talked about these interviews, right? He's sharing all these details gives it's almost like he's smug, maybe even proud. It seems like he's proud of what he did. Yeah. He told police he put his. right arm over Stephanie's mouth and his left arm around her midsection, he walked her

backwards. As she struggled against him, he dragged her along a corridor to a storeroom that had been previously used as a photography dark room. He said Stephanie put up a fight, scratched his face, yelled for help, but this guy was way stronger than she was. Much, much too strong for her. But here's the problem. He's always had these violent thoughts, but he never acted on him before until now. And he told police that. Yeah. I mean, he said he'd had these type of thoughts for quite some time. Why didn't he get help? Yeah. I don't know. But he even said that, you know, he had thought about killing a lot of different people that he had met, you know, throughout his life. The guy wasn't that old, but, you know, you meet a lot of people.

And I guess he sat around and thought about killing this person, killing that person. He had a number of police interviews on video. There's, they're out there. You can go watch them. I'm going to play a clip of one a little bit here in a minute. But what you won't get from the audio is just how unaffected. This guy appears to be by the whole thing. He might as well have been opening up a bank account.

Yeah. He could have been, you know. Going to the dentist. Going to the dentist. Picking up a carryout pizza. It was no different to him. That's the way he looks. And the fact that he was going to be facing life in prison, it didn't seem to bother him a whole lot.

Obviously, the fact that he had destroyed countless lives, that didn't seem to, you know, be bothering him. He even said he actually enjoyed the solitude of being in a jail cell alone. When you've taken it out of the boot, did you take the club? off her in the boot or do you take clothes off her in the ground on the ground on the ground yeah okay now obviously she had at this stage there was a lot of blood and she had injuries to her face did you notice any swelling or yeah the right side of her face yep it's quite up near her eye yep and that's from when you punched her when she yeah and you said you threw some wood on her or yeah

branches and stuff and then did you put the fuel on after that or did you put the fuel on before after that after that okay and you put her clothes back in the car yeah in the boot okay so then you what did you do you use match to light the fire or did you use cigarette some petrol on a stick and a later match on that yep and they chopped a stick on there so when you traveled after did you stay around long to watch your body burn? No, I left straight away. You left straight away. Was it well light? Was the body well light when you left or you didn't take much notice?

Yeah, it was well light. Took a second. Petrol starts fast. Just like that. Yeah, I mean, I think you can get a sense of it from just the audio. I mean, I always like to hear a killer speak when you can. It doesn't sound like a big, bad killer. No. But you can hear, it's pretty emotional.

list, right? His way of talking. I think when you see the video, it even drives at home a little bit more. So things started to come out, right? About Vincent's past, he had a violent past. Apparently, his nickname in high school was psycho because he would go into these violent rages. He would lose his temper and students said that he would just throw things around the classroom. Records show that, that at 12 years old, a teacher found Vincent on the grounds of the school. This was after school hours. Right. And I don't know if he didn't follow the commands of this teacher, but for some reason,

she grabbed his coat. And that caused him to react by putting his hands around her neck. This woman was scared for her life. You know, one of Vincent's friends said he didn't have much of a social life. and he had a lot of trouble forming relationships with women. Is that surprising, though? It's not. I mean, we see that with a lot of killers, I think.

I just wonder, because he had a twin brother, how that was growing up with your twin being known as psycho. Yeah, I don't know. I didn't find a lot about the two of them growing up together. But I mentioned that, you know, he was a janitor, you know, an Australian papers, they call it a cleaner, right, at this Leighton High School. This was a temporary role. And it was set to end well before Easter. Oh, so he really shouldn't even have been there typically. No, but for some reason, it was extended. And that would prove to be tragic. And it talked about the fact that he was not

authorized to be at the school during certain hours. But it was reported that he was witnessed numerous times going in and out of the girls' bathroom during school hours. So, you know, you think that should have raised some red flags. Sure. But nobody really did anything about it. It wasn't until after Stephanie's murder that people started bringing these things up once they found out that he was involved. It was later discovered that while he was working at the school, Vincent had begun stalking a 12-year-old girl. After he was arrested for Stephanie's murder, police found more than 1,800 photos of this girl on his computer.

1,800 of one girl. I've never taken 1,800 photos. I don't believe in my entire life. Wow. That says, that's a lot, man. They also found an exercise book full of details. I mean, it detailed out this girl's schedule. It listed times when, you know, she may be home alone.

He had written down registration numbers of cars belonging to her family members when she went to ballet, when she came home. This is real stalker type stuff. Yeah. On one of the pages in the book, he listed drugs like volume, chloroform, nitrous oxide, rohypnal. He had written notes very specifically about when this girl. was home alone. There was one, though, that said, home alone, 1540, time enough to abduct. Yeah. That is scary. He knew he had enough time to get in there and get her before anybody came home. He later confessed to police that he probably would have killed this girl if he had

been able to abduct her. But this wasn't his only target. His second target was a young woman who worked at Elite and Supermarket, he would talk to her when he would go into the supermarket and police later discovered that he had done a lot of searching on his computer, right? On the internet, trying to find out more information about her. Police later found photos that he had taken of this woman while she was just sitting in her car. He was stalking her as well. That's what he does. The third target was one of Stephanie's colleagues, a 28-year-old teacher at Leighton High School.

He began to monitor this woman because she often stayed late, you know, doing school work. And she was very much like Stephanie. She was polite. She would talk to anyone. She talked to Vincent, never knowing the whole time that this guy was putting together like a secret dossier. Yeah. on her was taking photographs of her yeah secretly trying to figure out when he would kill her yeah when when he would maybe get the opportunity to abduct her police found just a bunch of internet

searches related to violent rape on his computer so you think about the three victim possible victims that I just talked about and you think about how close they came Gibbs they had to have known They were extremely lucky. Oh, I think they wake up every morning saying, I'm so glad it didn't happen to us because it could have happened so easily. Very easily. Now, I mentioned that Vincent had an identical twin brother named Marcus on June 10th. Two months after Stephanie's murder, police arrested Marcus. And this was a development that sent shockwaves through the community of Leighton.

Police announced that they were. going to charge him with being an accessory after the fact in relation to Stephanie's murder. And the way it happened was Marcus revealed to police that his brother Vincent had given him an envelope. Inside the envelope were Stephanie's engagement and graduation rings. These were said to have been two of her most prized possessions. And pretty valuable, I'm guessing. Yeah. Yeah. Marcus ultimately sold both of Stephanie's rings that she had been wearing at the time of her death to the Adelaide Exchange jewelry store in Modberry. Big weapon, $705, huh? $705 for the two rings. And what's heartbreaking about it, Gibbs, is that, you know,

even after police found out, her family could never get them back because the company had scrapped them right away. Probably melted them down or done something with them. them, even if they, which I'm sure they did want to go there right away and buy them back, they couldn't do it. So I mean, that happened when I got rid of my $400 class ring that my parents bought me and I had a hock at one time, thought I'd go back and get it, you know, hawked it for 50 bucks that I needed to do something with and went back to get it and I passed that time and it melted it. Yeah, that crack rock, man, I'll get you.

Yeah. Every time. And police had recordings of a call between Vincent and Marcus basically talking about the fact that he sold the rings and that, you know, he got money for it. And it was on August 5th that Marcus confessed to police that he had received the two rings from his brother, along with Stephanie's driver's license in the mail. He said he used some of the money that he got from the rings to visit. Vincent in prison in Sydney. He also told police that he took photos of the license and then he burned it. I think they asked him, why did you take a photo of it? Yeah, strange. Yeah. If you're going to burn the original, why take a photo? And he said, I don't know, I thought maybe I might

need to show it to police. Other than that, I'm not exactly sure why I did it. Okay. Strange, but. But I will say this, you know, Marcus came out against his brother. Right. At a certain point, he said his actions were misplaced loyalty. And I do believe he was truly sorry, unlike his brother. He received a sentence of 15 months for what he did. And I think a lot of people thought it was way too lenient, especially Stephanie's family. They were devastated when they found out that he only got a sentence of 15 months. I mean, he's an accessory to murder. After the fact. It's not a lot of time. 15 months. No, it's not. I mean, I don't want to do 15 months, but I'm not an accessory to murder after the fact.

You wouldn't make it 15 months. I wouldn't. I wouldn't make it one month. You'd be like that guy in that prison movie, Shawshank. It's the only prison movie you ever talk about. Why can you never remember the name of it? And you just talked about it on the Patreon episode. I couldn't remember it. You couldn't remember it then either. I don't belong here. I want out. That would be me. Yeah. You do that same thing when you're at the beach, though, too. I don't belong here. I don't like the beach. I do not belong at the beach. So when you get to Vincent's trial, it really wasn't much of a trial, right?

He had made all these confessions and it was kind of a slam dunk. But the justice summed it up by saying, quote, there can be no question that the offender is a very disturbed individual. No doubt. I don't know how you can disagree with that. Yeah. Stephanie Scott's family and fiancé, they attended every court session. And, you know, it was said Gibbs that Vincent was completely emotionless during each one. Yeah.

You know, when the judge asked him questions, he would say yes, no. But that was it. I mean, everybody in that courtroom knew that he was not bothered by what he had done. I don't think there was any doubt. about that. I think he was a pretty, pretty unemotional type of guy. Yeah, now, Marcus was a little different because I know I read some articles where he came out, he apologized to the family for what he did. Obviously, he didn't have any role in the murder. He shouldn't have done what he did. No, but he was aware of it. He was aware of the murder for sure. And that, that's why he got what he

got. But he, you know, he did come out. He was remorseful. He expressed that remorse to the family, something that, you know, I don't believe his brother has ever done or will ever do. Right. Vincent was ultimately sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. So he, he will never get out, nor should he ever get out. I think this guy, if he was let out today, would be filling notebooks with times, schedules. Yeah.

would immediately start stalking his prey. Yeah, he'd be right back at it. And that's a scary thought. I think it's scary in general to think there's somebody out there right now who you may see, you may not really pay attention to. Right. But man, they're watching you. 800 photos of you.

1800. Yeah, 1800 photos. You lost 1,000. I did. I do think that's very scary because all of their attention is. on you. Yeah. And you may see them and think, okay, that's a customer at my store. Right. But that's not how they're viewing you. No. Every thought, every ounce of brain power is going into thinking about you. And some of those thoughts are not good. And it's a problem, man. Stalking can

turn into some serious stuff in today's world, man. That's why you got to keep your head on the one. Yeah. When you like that guy's post or that girl's post, they might think it met more than you just, I just thought it was pretty cool post, but they're thinking. That's why nobody should ever like Gibby's post. Don't ever know what's going to come out. I'm like, oh my gosh, they love me. They're in love with me. You know, I laugh, but it's not a laughing matter. The stalking thing, it's scary. It really is. You know, I, I worry. Obviously, I have two daughters, a wife. Those type of things, they cross. my mind and they scare me. Yeah. Because I can't be with them all the time. No. I don't know who's

watching them. I don't like it. I don't like it, Gibbs. I know you don't. So he's never getting out, right? Everyone in that courtroom that day breathed a little sigh of relief after the verdict was read. Now, I don't know how they felt on his family side, but you know Stephanie's family, friends, everybody on their side. It was little comfort, though, to her family. And I kind of think it always is just a little bit. It can't be the end all be all. No.

Yeah, you're happy that whoever did this is going to pay for the crime. But it's not bringing your loved one back. Nope. So it can only do so much. And those visuals will probably be in their head forever. Yeah. Stephanie's mother spoke out about how the loss. had destroyed her family, she said, we had an amazing girl and she is gone. Losing Stephanie is a

tragedy that has impacted us all very deeply. We are destined to live a life unfulfilled. How can we be fulfilled when a big part of us is missing? It's a very solid statement. I completely understand it. You can live your life. Right. It's not the life you wanted to live. It can't be the. same. It can't be the full life that you thought it was going to be because there's a huge chunk that's missing and you can never get it back. Yeah. Sad. It is very sad. But that's it, Gibbs. That's it for the case of Stephanie Scott. Yeah. The murder of Stephanie Scott by Vincent Stanford. Again, I want to give a big thanks to Monique. Monique Patterson. Yeah. Did a great job. Obviously,

she did a ton of research for her book. Right. And I think everybody should go check it out. Yeah. We've got some voicemails. You want to check those? Let's hear those. Hi, Mike and Gingivie.

My name is Kaylin, and I am from Irvin, Kentucky. I was just listening to the Glenn Rogers case, and I knew it sounded really familiar because I'm from the area. But it turned out my dad was the second car in pursuit after him, and he actually buckled him out of the car. I thought that was kind of cool. I wanted to share that with you guys. Thank you for all that you're doing.

You keep me company while I'm at work. And I love girls' podcast. Keep your own time to take it. Hey, we like keeping people company at work. We do. We do. I also think those are very interesting stories. Yeah, right?

So you're a trooper, you're a police officer, detective, you retire. Oh, by the way, I was the one that pulled Glenn Rogers out of the car. I unbuckled him. I slapped the cups on him. Those type of stories, you know, pretty interesting. is. We hear those now and then. Yeah, because that guy was a monster. Yeah, he was. And you as a police officer or trooper, whatever it was, you were there. Yeah. When it went down and you can tell anybody you want the story, I'd be telling it all day long. You'd be trying to get free dessert at the

restaurant. Free drinks. Hi, Mike and Gibby. This is Joe from Indiana. Just want to let you guys know that you put on a great show. And what has really intrigued me by it is that you guys do a really good job at profiling the childhood that the perpetrators, you know, have endured. As a survivor, an adult survivor of severe childhood abuse, you know, I can, I can validate what you guys say as far as, you know, we don't always have to go that route. And it's really nice to hear you guys say that and talk about that. And you guys are doing a really good job. I'm team Mike and Gibby.

Both you guys are doing a great job. Thank you. Well, we really appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he's exactly right. You control your own destiny. You're not predetermined to have these issues because you had a bad childhood.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there are a lot of people that have really jacked up childhoods. Right. They don't go on to murder anybody. No, no. They deal with it in a different way and in a good way. They channel it. They get therapy.

There's all kinds of different ways that people deal with it. It's just interesting that, you know, the voicemail comes. on an episode where we really didn't have much on the perpetrator's background. And that happens every now and then. Yeah. This wasn't, this just wasn't a background type of case. Hi,

this is Brea from Rifle, Colorado. Hey, I'm so surprised that I'm actually leaving calling right now. But I just called because I listened to your podcast on Stanley Tuky Williams. And I just wanted to let you know that his middle name is actually Tuki. So that's how he got his name. And I really love you guys.

You guys are so awesome. And keep your own time. Pick in. Thanks so much. Bye. I don't know how I miss that, Gives. Oh, either. I never saw where his middle name was Tuki.

So that begs the question, who the hell names their kid Tuki? As a real middle name. I just assumed that was a nickname because that does not sound like a real name to me. Tuki. Maybe it's like a great uncle's first name. It could have been. You know, named you after your uncle? Too kooky.

But it's interesting. I'm glad she called in to clarify it. Yeah, that was a good episode. I like that one. Yeah, it's got quite a bit of buzz out there. Hey there, guys. This is Audra, and I'm from Iowa. And I don't know if you guys have ever looked into this one guy.

He was a serial killer from Iowa. His name was Carol Edward Cole. And he, like, murdered and drowned, like, an eight, 16 different people. Like, that is so crazy. and you know it's Iowa we don't have too many serial killers around here um but if you guys want to do like an episode about that i think that would be so so so so so cool so um i would really appreciate that and also i love your podcast i literally listen to them literally listen to your podcast every single day every single day and i've gone through i can't even tell you how many episodes i've gone through

since i found you guys but uh you make my uh life a little better so thank you guys very much and uh keep your own you know go ahead yeah all right it's a great suggestion I'm 99.9% sure he's on the list, but I'll double check. Yeah. After we're done here. He needs to be on that list, huh? No doubt about it. I mean, the name is very familiar.

That's why I'm almost positive. He's on the list. All right, Gibbs. You got anything else before we go? I do not. All right. We appreciate everyone for listening. That's it for another episode of True Crime All the Time.

So for Mike and Gibby, stay safe and keep your own time ticking.