True Crime Campfire - Left Where God Could Find Him: Amish Serial Killer Eli Stutzman

Episode Date: November 28, 2025

The thing about serial killers is that it seems so obvious to us after the fact, right? Their behavior is so outrageous and so antisocial that we’re always left wondering why no one noticed. Eli Stutzman’s strange behavior was written off by everyone that knew him. He was quiet and odd, but being raised Amish, who could blame him? To the Amish, his time spent with the Englisch gave him some strange habits. No one really blinked when he stabbed himself in order to get himself out of a sticky situation. No one wondered about why he lied constantly. And perhaps if they did, Eli’s son and at least 4 other people would still be alive. This is part 2 of Left Where God Could Find Him: Amish Serial Killer Eli Stutzman.Heads up that there is some discussion of child abuse and child sexual abuse in this episode. We do not go into deep detail.Sources: Gregg Olsen, Abandoned Prayers: An Incredible True Story of Murder, Obsession, and Amish Secretshttps://amishamerica.com/do-amish-believe-taking-a-photo-captures-their-souls/ https://www.ohiosamishcountry.com/articles/photography-and-the-amish https://www.ohiosamishcountry.com/articles/the-traditional-amish-youth-period-of-rumspringa https://language.mki.wisc.edu/essays/pennsylvania-dutch/#:~:text=While%20most%20Amish%20and%20Old,Lutheran%20or%20German%20Reformed%20affiliation.Investigation Discovery's "Murder in Amish Country," episode "Amish Serial Killer"Follow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfirehttps://www.truecrimecampfirepod.com/Facebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/truecrimecampfire/?hl=enTwitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail]! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

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Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you

a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. For all you hard workers and multitaskers, those who come to work

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Terms and conditions apply. Finance provided by way of higher purchase agreement from Volkswagen Financial Services Ireland and subject to lending criteria. Volkswagen Financial Services Ireland Limited is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. visit Volkswagenvans.combeams.e for further information. The thing about serial killers is that it seems so obvious to us after the fact, right? Their behavior is so outrageous and so antisocial that we're always

left wondering why nobody noticed. Eli Stutzman's strange behavior was written off by everyone that knew him. He was quiet and odd, but being raised Amish, who could blame him? To the Amish, his time spent with the English gave him some strange habits. No one really blinked when he stabbed himself in order to get himself out of a sticky situation.

No one wondered about why he lied constantly. And maybe if they did, Eli's son and at least four other people would still be alive. This is part two of Left Where God Could Find Him, Amish serial killer Eli Stutzman, and heads up that there is some discussion of child abuse and child sexual abuse in this episode. We do not go into any deep detail, but it's in there. So campers were back in Shreve, Ohio, specifically Amish country. Eli Stutzman had decided that he was going to return to the Swartz and Trouber sect in which he was raised. Eli sold all his English clothes, sold his car, and bought a buggy.

He told a friend that he had heard that Ida was waiting for him and that he wanted to do right by her. When he moved back in with an Amish man, the community at large was skeptical. They thought his hair was too short, that he wasn't showing the right kind of repentance, or they heard that he still had his driver's license. Some thought he wasn't even mentally well enough for marriage. Yeah, to the Amish, Eli's refusal to abide by their rules was proof of his mental illness. It's interesting because it's like they knew something wasn't quite right about him, but because church and community was so central to them,

ambivalence about both was proof, like for them that's all it could be. His father, though, was pleased and agreed to have one of Eli's brothers take him to confession. The Amish are remarkably forgiving, though, as long as you do what they want, and despite his history, Eli was welcomed back with open arms. He was even rehired as a teacher at the one-room schoolhouse. Later, when his crimes came to light, they justified this by saying he was a better teacher than a farmer. That's fine then. Eli's engagement to Ida was formally announced in October, and the couple went in to get their state-mandated blood tests. At the time, most states required couples, even Amish couples, to be tested for syphilis and gonorrhea before marriage.

This is a public health effort. The state reported that the blood tests were unacceptable, and the couple couldn't get a marriage license. And to the Amish blood tests might as well have been witchcraft, and Ida and her family didn't really understand the significance of Eli failing the blood test. Most Amish believed it had something to do with genetics and having children. Eli told Ida that he knew a doctor that would help them forge the blood test so they would pass, but Ida didn't approve of the dishonesty and told him no. Shortly after, Eli showed up at the Gingrich's house showing a past blood test. He told Ida, I drank some herb tea my doctor prescribed and it fixed my blood. Ida was thrilled, but her father,

who was suspicious of Eli and knew that Ohio was testing for STI's, straight up asked if he was lying. Eli, ever the proficient liar, looked him square in the eye and insisted he was telling the truth. One of Eli's brothers, Abe, thought that maybe it was their father, one-hand Eli, that convinced a doctor to sign off on the tests. He later told author Greg Olson that he thought his father, quote, didn't want to lose his grip on Eli,

and that marrying a nice Amish girl was a way for, one-hand Eli to control his defiant son. I'm not sure whether Eli actually got treatment for his STIs, but I think it's pretty likely. The treatment for both syphilis and gonorrhea was just penicillin, and it was obviously readily available in the 70s. Eli had to lie in order to portray himself as pure, and he wanted to prove to Ida that he was good enough for her. He actually refused to use any protection with his partners. He told some of them, I ain't fucking in no sock when they tried to get him to use a condom. Charming. Ida and Eli were married on Christmas Day 1975. Ida told her sister, I think Eli is a weak man. I know I can be a help to him. Lord have

mercy. It's the Amish I can fix him, ladies. Run, Ida, run. On the day, though, her friends thought she seemed unhappy. About what? They weren't sure, but her unhappiness wasn't enough for Ida to call off the wedding. As the couple started setting up their new home, Ida found out that she was pregnant. Eli, whether he liked it or not, was now pinned down with the Amish. The Amish have strange, often hypocritical loopholes about using modern conveniences. They can't own a phone, but they can use somebody else's. They're not allowed to drive, but they can get someone else to drive them around if needed. Driving is how a guy named David met Eli. David ran a cab service, and the Amish often got rides from him.

One night, clearly drunk, Eli offered him $20 if David would let Eli perform oral sex on him. David remembered that a friend of Eli's had told him that Eli was obsessed with sex and hard all the time. Ew, but he had brushed this off as gossip. Now, though, Eli was all over him. David said, no, thank you, but Eli increased his offer to $25. dollars. David again told him no, and Eli offered him $60. Finally, David kicked him out of his cab. Can you freaking imagine? Like, you agree to give an Amish guy a ride somewhere. And the next thing, you know, he's like, hey, when I'll hop on my junk?

Like, that would just be so surreal. Like, that is the last thing I expected you to say. Yes, exactly. At home, poor Ida was left by herself more often than not. She had no idea. where her husband went, and he never told her. He would be gone for days at a time, and poor Ida, heavily pregnant, had to manage on her own. She told a friend, I don't know what I would do if I needed to go to the midwife to have my baby. I wouldn't know where to find Eli. And we see this a lot, actually, with serial killers, they just go. They just leave.

Oh, yeah. And no one knows where they are. And they always come back with excuses. But it's always that they just leave without telling anybody and then it's just accepted. Because they don't care how you feel, you know. It's just, it's all about them and what they want to do in the moment. Luckily, Eli was home when Ida went into labor, and on September 7, 1966, Daniel Eli Stutzman was born. Ida named him after her brother, and obviously his middle name after his father.

He had glossy blue eyes and blonde hair, even as an infant. Eli, in another act of defiance toward the Amish, requested that a son get vaccinated and circumcised, both of which were extremely uncommon requests for an Amish man. But at this point, I don't think Eli considered himself Amish, nor do I think he planned on staying with the Amish. Six months later, the young family moved into their own farm, truly alone for the first time in their marriage. Then, Ida got pregnant again. Ida hoped that a second baby would fix things, but they only got worse. Why? Why would another baby fix things?

Why are people like this? I don't know. It's so frustrating. Like, oh, yeah, no problem. Let's add a whole bunch more stress. That'll fix everything. Go on. I think it's like, oh, he's hardwired to love this baby, and if I give him another baby, he will love me.

And it's like, that's not how things work at all. Greg Olson, whose book Abandoned Prayers, we use as a primary source, wrote, to Eli Stutzman, another baby would not have been seen as a joy, but another impediment to his freedom, another nail in the coffin. Eli ran around even more. He started selling horses to people outside the community. And he was often seen in cars with Englishers. Ida's family, the gingriches, were concerned for their daughter. But in Amish culture, it's seen as improper to intercede with a married couple's business. You know, Ida was Eli's now.

It's none of their concern. God had joined them in matrimony. Whatever happened now was in God's hands. Ida told her family that Eli wasn't doing well. She didn't clarify, except to say, through tears, I don't know what to do. I try everything I can think of, yet nothing seems to be. to work. Her family told her to pray, to which she said, I can't handle him and I don't think Eli loves me. Eli, for his part, played the part of the doting husband. He asked Ida's father

if he would build some steps for their well. She was having heart problems, Eli said, from rheumatic fever that she'd had as a child. That was strange, though. Ida's father hadn't ever heard of her having those issues. On July 11th, 1977, a foul storm blew into the Stutzman's farm. Eli told a farmhand working that day that lightning struck the barn, but when the boy rushed with him to the barn, the boy, also named Eli, saw nothing. Another Eli. I just can't.

It's Eli's all the way down. It is. Eli's and Abe's. Those are the two most common things. Eli kept insist. pointing at a beam high above their heads. The young Eli still saw nothing, but when Eli ordered him to get a bucket of water to pour on the granary,

he ran and did it. Later, an attorney stopped by the Stetsman farm to help Eli and Ida write a will. Eli told him about the lightning strike, too, even showing him where the lightning had allegedly broken a window and started a fire. There were embers on the ground in the barn, but there was no shattered glass under where the window had been broken. Later, the farmhand said he hadn't seen any embers when Eli initially led him to the barn. After looking at the barn, the lawyer sat down with Eli and Ida.

In the event of Ida's death, Eli would get everything and vice versa if he were to die. If they both died, it would all be left to Danny. The will wasn't valid yet. It still needed to be formally typed and witnessed, which wouldn't be done until later that week. The attorney left the farm at 8.30 p.m. The couple went to bed at 9 p.m. and the house was quiet until midnight, when Eli, the farmhand, was woken up suddenly. He wasn't sure what woke him, but when he got his senses, he saw a bright, flickering light outside. The barn was on fire. He ran to get Eli and Ida, but when he got to their room, they were both missing and Danny was alone, sleeping in his crib.

The farmhand wondered, in a panic, why the couple hadn't woken him up to hell. A fire would be devastating for the farm. farmhand Eli rushed outside where he saw Eli on the porch. Eli's eyes were pitch black, only rimmed in blue, and he commanded the boy to run to the next farm over, owned by an English couple, to get help. Meanwhile, Eli started to get equipment out of the barn. As the kids started running, he saw something that made his blood go cold. Ida Stutzman, lying on the ground, motionless near the burning barn. As he ran toward her, he could feel the blistering heat from the barn. She was far too close to the blaze. Her cheek and hand were seared bright pink.

He tried to shake her. Ida. Ida, what's wrong? Ida, wake up. He begged her to hear him, but she didn't move. He doubled back to let Eli know his wife was injured. When he got back to Eli, he seemed angry that the boy hadn't listened to him. Go to the neighbors now.

Get the doctor too. He barked. He seemed to be aware of Ida's condition already. Even in his panic, as he sprinted, toward the neighbors, farmhand Eli wondered why Stutzman seemed more preoccupied with the equipment than his injured wife, or why Eli hadn't told him that Ida was injured in the first place. A neighbor, woken up by the sound of the fire, sprinted across the road after telling his wife to call 911. He didn't see anyone outside, so he assumed that no one was awake, but as he

called for Eli, the man himself came tearing around the barn. Eli seemed hysterical and told the neighbor, we've got to get my wife out. She's trapped in the barn, so all of a sudden he's all worked up. He was fine a second ago, right? The neighbor followed him and found Ida in the barn's attached milkhouse, feet closest to the door, and head inside. Eli and the man grabbed her while Eli said something about a heart attack and took her out of the flames. The neighbor noticed that after his initial reaction, Eli seemed eerily calm, much different than his previous shaky, panicky demeanor. The neighbor felt for Ida's pulse, but felt nothing. When Eli left the Amish, he worked for a time as an orderly and had been trained in CPR,

but as they waited for the fire department, he did nothing but stare at the flames that rose higher and higher. Fire department arrived and immediately got to work extinguishing the blaze. Eli's neighbor waved over the fire chief, Mel Weiss, and told him that a woman needed help. As soon as he saw her, Weiss knew that she was dead, but would wait for the paramedics to look at her. He started asking Stutzman questions. To Weiss, Eli was understandably nervous, but his reaction still struck him as odd. Eli never once asked about his wife, didn't ask about where the paramedics were, didn't ask about their unborn child, didn't seem concerned for her at all. The paramedics pronounced Ida dead at the scene. She was 26 years old.

Sheriff's deputy, Phil Carr, arrived at around 12.40 p.m. He spoke to Chief Wife, but didn't bother to interview anyone else at the scene. It seemed pretty straightforward, and he didn't feel like he needed any more information. He did some basic measurements and noticed a large milk pail and some other items around the entrance of the barn. Sheriff Jim Frost took a cursory glance at the scene,

but immediately headed toward the hospital to talk to Eli Stutzman. He knew Eli. Frost's department had devised the hare-brain-sting operation that resulted in Eli stabbing himself, you know, that we discussed in the last episode. Investigators who spoke to Eli noticed he wasn't super emotional about Ida's death, but they didn't really find that strange, and the Amish were not expressive people. None of the investigators thought it was strange that Ida, in her pregnant state,

had stormed into the barn to save the milk cans. She was Amish, they thought. The Amish would run into a burning barn to save a milk vat and some equipment. They didn't question Eli's story about Ida's heart, although she'd never been diagnosed. They didn't connect Eli's violent and criminal past with the mysterious death of his wife. The coroner didn't even question the cuts on Ida's face and mouth, all of which had occurred anti-mortem. The coroner ruled Ida Stutzman cause of death as natural, caused by cardiac arrest.

Sheriff Jim Frost wrote a report on the incident, and we're going to read it, because it shows exactly how easily Eli lied and how easily everybody swallowed it. Eli related to me that this evening, while he was coming home from Dalton, about late supper time, he thought he saw a flash of lightning strike his barn. He checked the barn and could not find any sign of fire. He then ate, milked the cows, and when he was done milking the cows, he went up to get some straw and found a spot on the top of the granary, which stores wheat, that appeared to have been burned by a lightning strike. Because of this, approximately every half hour he checked the area on the west side of the barn, but never found any other evidence of fire.

His wife, Ida, woke him in the night and stated, there looks like there is a fire in the west end of the barn. They both ran outside, and he asked her to call the fire department. She went around one side of the barn and yelled something back to him, which he could not understand. He tried to get things out of the barn. However, the fire was too hot and intense. As he went around the side of the milkhouse,

he saw many items out by the side of the road that had been in the milkhouse. Upon checking in the milkhouse, he found his wife with her feet toward the door lying in somewhat of a curled position. Blocking the door was a large milk vat filled with items from the milkhouse. He indicates the milkhouse was full of smoke, but there was no fire and no intense heat. He dragged his wife out of the milkhouse to the other side of the road with her left side toward the fire. He attempted CPR and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but was unable to revive her. After help began arriving, he noticed that the heat from the fire was a apparently burning her face and arms. He got help to drag her further into a field away from the

fire. As a postscript, Frost wrote, Eli Stutzman sees a psychiatric doctor and gets a prescription for Valium from time to time. I want to point out that almost everything Eli said was a lie or a twisted version of the truth. He never attempted CPR. He never checked on the barn prior to the fire, and he lied about moving Ida. For his part, the sheriff filed the report and didn't pursue it further. After all, according to almost everyone around those parts, the Amish didn't commit murder. Eli would later change his story repeatedly, depending on who he was talking to. He told one friend that Ida had gone into the barn to save some puppies, which was strange considering the Amish attitudes towards animals. He wrote to another Amishman, whose wife also died very

suddenly, that Ida asked him if she could save some things from the barn before she did so. In another telling, he said that the fire investigators found the lightning struck the barn, not him. A friend of Frost's said that at a party shortly after the murder, he expressed frustration about not being able to find evidence of murder. Frost said he believed Eli had beaten Ida with a rock and put her in the fire to destroy evidence. Now, whether this is true, we'll never know. But as you'll find out, like most serial killers, Eli didn't keep getting away with it because he was particularly clever. He got away with it, in our opinion, because of gross incompetence of the investigators. If Frost actually believed that Eli had murdered Ida, why hadn't he given the coroner a heads-up about Eli's pasts?

It seems like a pretty severe oversight to me. Definitely. I think it's atrocious. The only Amish who seemed suspicious about Ida's death were Ida's family. They asked Eli over and over again what happened, trying to understand why and how Ida died. His story changed again. This time, he'd done CPR for 30 minutes and dragged her clear of the fire by himself, but there was nothing they could do. God had seen fit to call Ida home, and they still had a grandbaby to care for.

In August, the Amish descended on the Stutzman farm to help him raise a new barn. When they got there in the morning, however, Eli was nowhere to be found. Some of the younger boys had seen one of Eli's less reputable friends grab a couple of pills from Eli's desk and take them to Eli's bedroom. Eli never made an appearance, which to the Amish was a mark against him. His entire community had gathered to build him a new barn, and he just ghosted them. Plus, he demanded a specific design of a barn that had more horse stalls than he would need for a dairy farm. In their minds, they thought his obsession with horses was very English and that he was just biding his time and would soon leave the Amish yet again.

It's almost like Eli's hot and cold attitude about the Amish helped him hide better. He was able to convince both the English and the Amish that he was acting weird because he was a member of the other group. It was a pretty effective set of masks using one against the other. Ida's younger twin brothers, Amos and Andy, sometimes stayed the night at Eli's home. The gingriches, despite their misgivings about Ida's husband, often stopped by the farm to help out, most likely in an effort to stay in touch with Danny. And now a look at the forecast. We're seeing lots of wind, plenty of sunshine to come,

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so much that they never spoke about it until much, much later. The Amish often share beds, so it wasn't unusual for Eli to have them sleep next to him. One night, Andy woke up to find that Eli was rubbing his erect penis against his back. Andy froze, not knowing what to do, but knowing that something was very wrong. Eli suddenly stopped, possibly realizing that the boy was awake. He said, I wanted him to just leave me alone. I didn't know what to do. Amos later shared with Andy that the same thing had happened to him.

Exactly a year after Ida's death, Eli had a mental breakdown so severe that he was committed for a week. He was delirious and angry. He had to be removed from the home tied to a gurney, screaming until the moment that the ambulance parked at the hospital. An eerie calm took over then, as if he was exactly where he wanted to be. Five months' time.

later, Eli brought Danny to visit his cousin Abe. He let Abe know that he wanted to leave the Amish once and for all, but he needed to leave Danny there for a while. He was afraid that the Amish might take Danny away from him. Abe agreed. He knew the Amish and he knew what Eli was saying was true. Eli said he'd gotten a job raising horses in Georgia and that he was going to save some money and come back to get Danny. Danny was a toddler now and his behavior was out of control, but seemingly only around Eli. When Eli would leave, Danny would throw a fit, but then he'd relax and become a pretty well-behaved kid. He didn't speak English at all, and he never smiled. After he left, Eli never called and asked after his son. A few months later, though, he did come back for Danny,

and they both went back to Ohio. Eli was now clean-shaven, and his hair was cut. He wore jeans and spent money to have electricity installed at the farm. He started raising and selling racehorses. If he wasn't before, that was enough to get him put under the bond again. One couple, Chris and Diane Swartzen-Truber, visited the farm and were introduced to little Danny. Diane thought that Danny seemed withdrawn, quieter than a toddler should be, and when he did speak, it was with a stutter. When they were touring the house, they found three-year-old Danny alone in his room with a porno mag next to his bed. Diane thought maybe

Danny was being sexually abused. His behavior certainly showed signs of abuse, but her husband talked her out of reporting anything. Eli seemed so soft-spoken that he couldn't hurt a fly. You know him. Do you think he could be involved in something like this? Danny was failed, again and again, by adults that

saw how strange he was, how withdrawn, and never said anything. We don't know exactly how many men Eli slept with before Ida's death, but it was definitely more than a few. Remember the hunting buddy we mentioned in episode one? Yeah, he was likely one of them. One of his longest enduring male companions was a man named Larry Barlow. Larry was a school administrator who had grown tired of Akron, Ohio's gay scene, and started looking for love, and sex, in the pages of the LGBT magazine, The Advocate. Now, the advocate is centered on LGBT news, but in the same.

70s, it was more focused on the G part. It started as a newsletter for pride or personal rights and defense and education after the police raided a gay bar and beat several of the patrons, kicking off several demonstrations against police brutality all across the country. This was a couple years before Stonewall, actually. As the magazine grew, so did their offerings. By the late 70s, the magazine had two parts. The magazine part, with advice columns and general articles about the gay experienced, and then the personals, which were hundreds of personal ads sent in by gay men looking for love or sex. It was in the advocate that Larry found an ad that caught his eye. It read, Ohio, white male, 140 pounds, 5, 6, light brown hair, blue eyes. I'm 28 years old

and have a three-year-old son. I like male companion, cooking, horse racing, and country music, etc. I'm tired of the bar scenes. I'm a country guy and prefer country living. Hope to find someone to meet the gap. Call and ask for Eli. Larry called Eli up and when they met, Larry was instantly attracted to him. For the next two years, Larry would visit Eli and Danny, joking that he was doing his wifely chores. He'd cook and clean, watch Danny. Larry even lent Eli $2,500. It's not clear if Eli ever paid him back, but I think you know what we think. Yeah. Larry bought Eli and himself matching rings, but Eli was reluctant to wear it. In fact, the two didn't even have sex. Larry tried once, but Eli pretended to be asleep.

Larry, come on, man, dump his dumbass. You're too good for this shit. Yeah, it's a little sad, isn't it? I think Larry liked the idea of the innocent Amish man not understanding homosexuality, but I don't think he realized how worldly Eli actually was. Employees of the farm reported that Eli hosted dozens of men at various times. He was actually quite popular with a local gay scene. He'd host parties at his barn, and those in attendance knew they could get laid if they wanted. After two years, Eli unceremoniously evicted his roommates and fired his helpers after telling them that he'd planned on visiting Colorado with Danny. He then sold the farm to an Englisher for $200,000.

That was four times when he'd paid another Amishman for it. And perhaps that was always the plan. Yeah, that's amazing in 70s money too. That is a lot of scratch. That was a very good sale. And when you were talking about hosting the parties and just a revolving door of men, didn't it remind you of Picton, the Canadian serial killer with the pig farm? A hundred percent.

Sex workers in and out all the time. And that was part of why he didn't get caught because it was just a constant stream of, you know, too many girls to keep track of. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And the Amish were actually really upset when he sold the farm to an Englisher because the Amish, the Amish have issues with the outside world kind of encroaching on their land. Like, we keep buying up their land. And so they're, you know, reduced, reduced. And so, yeah, they felt like Eli scammed them by pretending to be Amish for a couple years and then selling it for more money. I think that's exactly what he did. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Eli took Danny to Durango, Colorado.

Earlier that year, Eli had answered an ad in the advocate by a man named Terry Palmer, who lived there, and they'd met a few times before Eli moved. Once there, Palmer and Eli purchased a ranch together with the intention of raising and training more racehorses. The couple was strange, and they were both hiding things from the world. Terry Palmer was deeply, deeply in the closet, going so far as to call his former lover, his adopted son, a relationship made all the more messy by his lover's suicide. Eli was running from his past, though he used it as a shield as well. He was moody and mean.

He snapped at any mention of Terry's former lover and seemed more sullen than he ever was before the move. It takes energy to hold up a mask, and it becomes impossible when you're living with someone to keep it up 24-7. Where Terry found Eli charming and affectionate when he met him in Ohio, he was a completely different person now. Eli had presented himself as a naive Amishman, looking for gay man to show him the rope, something that Terry was really attracted to, but in Colorado, Eli seemed to have an expansive collection of gay nudie mags and lots of sex toys. Again, he would leave for days at a time, never telling Terry where he'd been. Eli even seemed disinterested in Danny, who was starting school. I found it strange that most people, when talking about Danny, considered Eli to be a good

father. It's clear to us that Danny was little more than a shield against scrutiny for Eli. He constantly told friends, lovers, and strangers that he feared the Amish would take Danny away, but would never explain why. Well, Danny was a way for him to look human, but away from the prying eyes of Ida's family and the Amish at large, Eli didn't really feel a need to dote on Danny as much. Danny, who was now starting school, started glomming on to Terry as a father figure, rather than Eli. Terry drove him to the bus stop. Terry made sure he was fed and properly clothed. Terry made sure

he did his homework. In turn Danny tried to tell him about his day after school. Terry told him, tell your dad, I don't want to hear it. Terry later said that he didn't want to meddle with the father-son relationship, but I can't help but just feel so sad

for this poor little boy just reaching out for any connection at all, only to just get rejected again. While still with Terry, Stutzman still found ways to slam ass all over town. He did Coke and pot and poppers and found himself a revolving door of lovers pretty quickly. Durango had a pretty anemic gay scene and Eli made quite the splash. His reputation preceded him as someone with the rather large personality. No, I'm

kidding. He has a huge penis. Yeah, let's talk about it because Greg Olson in his book mentions it about 40 times about this guy and like that he's packing a wall up in the pants department and in fairness to Greg it's always in the context of interviewing Eli's lovers but come on we get it man Gregory my dude it's so funny but it's always one of the first things people bring up about him like yeah quiet handsome blue eyes massive hog the guy was a tripod like okay we get it. Eli wasn't shy about bringing Danny around his new friends, and his treatment of Danny got worse. At a friend's birthday party, Eli brought Danny and encouraged him to grope several male

partygoers and slap them on their butts. Danny, who clearly didn't understand the context, went around to all the men doing as he was told. One of Eli's friends was horrified. She said, he's just a little boy. Let him be a little boy. Stutzman said, I'm going to train him, so he'll never have to deal with women. Ooh, boy. Just digest that for a second. That is dark. Lord, have mercy.

At one party, Danny tried undressing one of the guests to the poor guy's horror. At another, Danny sat on the couch while his father performed, you know, a sexual act on another man on the floor. Danny seemed completely unfazed. One night, Danny grabbed Terry Palmer's penis through his robe. He would constantly draw pictures of male anatomy. His kid was severely disturbed. Yeah, Eli was basically the kind of gay guy that your annoying uncle brings up at Thanksgiving dinner. A specter, a villain who wants to groom children to the gay lifestyle.

Let's be clear, Eli did this because he was a psychopath and an abuser, not because he was gay. Oh, hell no. Just wanted to put that out there before anyone started writing us emails. Eli Stutzman was evil. Yeah, we've seen this. kind of stuff in, you know, serial killers who were stray a million times, too. This is just a marker of his psychopathy. Did anybody call the authorities about Eli's behavior, though? Of course not. One woman, the other half of an alternative couple whose husband was experimenting with

other men, said she wanted to report it, but was afraid that the cops would ask her why she was at a gay party. Later, she heard that Eli was going to gift Danny to something. some of his friends to abuse, and she said she found it hard to sleep that night. Yeah, it was so hard to sleep that she just kept that little info to herself. How would you live with yourself after that? I just, and I know it was a different time, but oh my God, if you knew that was getting ready to happen to a little boy, no force on this earth would keep me from, no force on earth would keep me from rescuing that kid.

She later justified it by saying, oh, the police probably wouldn't have believed me anyway. Oh, my God. You don't know he'd tell you try for crying out loud. If you have to just go over there and grab him and take him away, for the love of God, don't let that happen to that child. It's just horrific. And meanwhile, Terry, who genuinely believed that Eli was sexually abusing Danny, decided that it was time to end the relationship.

He later said, I couldn't live there. Danny, it tore me up, but the best thing was for me to get out of there. Now, here he meant that the best thing for him was to get out of there, not the best thing for Danny. He was afraid that Danny's behavior would reveal Terry's homosexuality, so he left that little boy alone. Again, everyone always left Danny with Eli. Later, when Eli and Danny visited Terry on his new farm, Danny asked Terry, could I live with you instead of my dad? people believed Eli was a great father, which I guess just meant that he didn't just get drunk and come

home and beat Danny. Very high bar, I know. Although at least one person saw Eli smack Danny across the face because he was stuttering and he hit the child so hard that he drew blood. That same witness said that Eli would pat Danny's butt in front of people in a way that the witness thought was sexual. This is maybe one of the darkest stories we've ever covered, I think, simply just because of all these people that sat around and did nothing to help Danny Stutzman. The general attitude was just, it's none of my business. And we see this with domestic violence

too, a lot, lot, lot. Where people will know that there's a guy beating his wife and that's none of my business. And I think that was way more the case in the 70s than it is now. Palmer tried to have a pleasant relationship with Eli after the breakup, but quickly found out that Eli was crazier than

a shithouse rat and twice as mean. Terry had left a prize-winning stallion at Stutzman's farm for boarding, thinking that Eli could care for the horse better than he could. They had an agreement that the horse would stay in Colorado, though, and Palmer found out that Eli had taken the horse on a trail ride in New Mexico. Palmer was furious and confronted Eli. Shortly after, a note appeared in a rest-stop bathroom, reading,

If want a good blowjob, call Terry Palmer. He's over 50, but he's Goot. Goot was spelled the German way, and the note was written in Eli's handwriting. Terry got several calls about it. but Eli denied writing it. Right. Must be the other Amishmen in Durango, Colorado. Even after Eli moved to Austin, Texas, his harassment campaign continued.

Terry's greatest fear was being outed, and Eli was now trying to use that against him. Terry started getting phone calls in the early hours, and when he answered, the caller would only breathe heavily or mutter gay slurs. Finally, Terry's new boyfriend answered the phone and went to the police. the police confirmed the calls were coming from Eli's new address in Texas. The police then let Eli know that those kinds of calls were criminal in nature, and mysteriously, they stopped. You know what you could have done while you were sitting there at the police station, tell him about the creepy phone calls? As you might have mentioned, that there was a little boy being abused as well, and they could have let him know that that kind of behavior is criminal in nature. You know what I mean? Like, just a thought.

Yeah. Just a tip. Makes me so mad. Okay. Let's put a pin in that. for a moment, and let's talk about a guy named Glenn Albert Pritchett. Glenn was born to a Mormon family in Utah and had never quite jelled with the LDS faith. It seems like maybe Glenn was born under a bad sign. He never seemed to land on his feet. He was a skinny kid who rebelled against authority whenever he could. His adolescence was filled with petty crime, runaway attempts, and a deep-seated insecurity that would

follow him all his life. The only thing that seemed to soothe him was alcohol. He'd struggle with alcoholism from his teenage years until he was an adult. His behavior was so unpredictable that his family said they had to place him in a foster home, where he stayed for a few months until he was sent marijuana in the mail. The foster father was an FBI agent, and he was not amused. At one group home he was sent to, he met a young girl named Sandy, who he ran away with. Sandy called her mother from Montana and said that she'd only come home if she could marry Glenn. Her mom agreed. Glenn seemed to calm down with marriage, and he decided he was going to join the Coast Guard and enlisted when he was 18. At first, it seemed like he was finally getting his shit together. The Coast Guard would teach him

discipline, and he would get out with an electrician certification. For the first time in his short life, he felt like he had a future. Sandy and Glenn had two children, a boy and a girl, but things started taking a turn for the worse. Glenn drank more than ever, and by the time he was arrested and charged with a DUI in 1983, Sandy filed for divorce. She and Glenn continued to see each other, though, and their relationship was so volatile that the local police started recognizing Sandy's address when it was called over the radio. After one conflict, during which Glenn flew into a rage at finding out Sandy was seeing someone new, Glenn asked for a ride to the edge of town. Alcohol had ruined his life, but he

had no intention of stopping his drinking. The next thing Sandy knew, Glenn was calling her up from Austin, Texas. He told her he'd gotten a construction job and moved into a house with two roommates, a gay couple. Sandy knew Glenn to be pretty homophobic, but when he told her about his roommates, he seemed more amused than anything. She assumed that his alcoholism had dragged him so far down that he didn't care about who he lived with. The roommates were Eli Stutzman and Denny Rustin. Eli had been introduced to Denny through Denny's Aunt Wanda. Denny had been outed by an ex and his family was trying to come to terms with his sexuality. Wanda had met Eli when he did some construction work at her house and they became something like

friends. She asked Eli for advice and eventually asked Eli to talk to her nephew and the two got along swimmingly and Denny eventually moved in with Eli and Glenn. Glenn as far as we know was straight. He'd go with Eli and Denny to gay bars but that's as far as he went. Of course it's possible that Glenn had just changed his mind about homosexuality. People's views do evolve and change. What we do know is that in December of 1984 some officers saw two

men standing around a parking lot near a truck. When the men saw the cops, they got in their truck and drove to the other end of the parking lot where they got out again. One man later identified as Glenn Pritchett knelt on the ground, while the other, Eli Stutzman, stood.

I wonder what's going on. The police drove towards them, and the two men attempted to get in the truck and leave. The police stopped and questioned them. Eli told the officers that he stopped the car to let Glenn stretch. The officers noticed that Glenn had a scratch on his forehead, and when they asked him where it came from, he told them he'd gotten it at his construction job. He then admitted he'd gotten it in a fight at a gay bar. Again, Glenn only ever identified a straight, but the encounter with the police may indicate that Eli was taking advantage of Glenn's alcoholism, which I would not put past him in any way,

shape, or form. Eli's sexual proclivities became more and more kinky as time went on. He told one gentleman at a bar, I'll slap you around and fuck your brains out. Once, he invited Denny to a threesome, where the third was an incoherently drunk man. Eli bound the guy, and was so rough that Denny was sure he didn't enjoy anything about the encounter. He said later that he thought Eli was displeased with Denny's performance because he never asked him to do it again. Once, Denny wrote a sweet little I love you on a note after he cleaned the house for

Eli, and afterwards Eli sat him down and berated him. He wasn't attracted to Denny, he said, and this kind of thing can't go on. Denny was shocked, but he was like, okay, I got it. He would continue his friendship with Eli and just that. Glenn's behavior escalated, too. He called his ex-wife so often that she had to change her phone number, and he was drinking more than ever. Glenn would often accompany Eli to job sites to meet with clients, but by April 1985, he'd disappeared from Eli's life and home entirely. Eli told people he'd gone back home to see his family.

In Pilot Knob, Texas, on May 12, 1985, Mother's Day, rancher Raymond Keek was investigating a horrendous smell on his property. assumed a calf had wandered away from its mother or something. He'd smelled it a few days before, but now it was too strong for him to ignore. In a culvert, he saw a badly decomposed body, skin blackening and sloughing off. Raymond rushed home to call the police who sent deputy Richard Navarro. Navarro gazed across the dump site. It was at the very edge of Keek's property where his property met his neighbor's pasture. In the pasture was a large, well-bred stallion. What they didn't know yet was that the stallion was cared for by Eli Stutzman, the same stallion that had shattered Eli's relationship with Terry Palmer. Now, we're going to leave

it there for part two campers. You will not believe how much we're going to have part three for you next week, which will be the final part. We promise. Right, Katie? Yes, I promise. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe until we get together again around the true crime campfire. And as always, we want to send a grateful shout out to a few of our lovely Patreon supporters. Thank you so much to Ben, Lisa Sussuris, which is one of my favorite words, Jordan and Caitlin. We appreciate y'all to the moon and back. And if you're not yet a patron, you're missing out. Patrons of our show get every episode, add free, at least a day early, sometimes more, plus tons of extra content, like patrons-only episodes and hilarious post-show discussions.

And once you join the $5 and up categories, you get even more cool stuff. A free sticker at $5, a rad enamel pin or fridge magnet while supplies last at 10, virtual events with Katie and me, and we're always looking for new stuff to do for you. So if you can, come join us at patreon.com slash true crime campfire. My daughter, Ellie, had this ankle pain and we went to see VHI orthopedics they actually picked up on her fatigue issues so they brought in a rheumatologists

and just a few small tests they realised that Ellie was celiac so what was brilliant was that VHI had a pediatric dietitian ready to help manage her diet really felt seamless VHI because your health means everything

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