0:00
Hi, crime junkies. It's Ashley. And after years of covering cases on this show, I
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know that
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the story doesn't stop once the headlines fade. There are always more questions to
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ask,
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more voices to hear, and more context that can reshape our understanding of a case.
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In
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fact, that's one of the reasons I started my other podcast, The Deck. Every episode
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goes a layer deeper through original reporting and conversations with the people
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who know
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these cases best, law enforcement, investigators, and families still searching for
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answers. Listen
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to the show notes
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to find that link and start shopping. Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host Ashley
1:01
Flowers. And I'm
1:02
Britt. And the story I have for you today is a case that haunts everyone who
1:08
touches it.
1:09
The kind of case that most detectives only ever see once in their career. It's
1:13
become local lore
1:15
around Boone County, Kentucky. Once word leaked, that there could be ritualistic
1:20
elements to the
1:20
murder of a retired couple in their home, you can just imagine the rumors that
1:25
spread.
1:26
Even more so in the void of information left by police, they have been incredibly
1:32
tight with
1:32
the details about this case. But today, for the first time, they're sharing some
1:38
never before
1:39
released case information with us, including the crime scene evidence that has
1:45
recently led them
1:46
to a man out west. And now, investigators believe that they may finally be closer
1:52
than ever
1:53
to solving the murder of Bill and Peggy Stevenson.
2:23
May 29, 2011 is a hot Sunday in Florence, Kentucky. That's also Memorial Day
2:35
weekend.
2:36
Many people have the next day off, so their Sunday routines are changing a bit.
2:41
Family get together is a day at the lake, maybe a road trip to get out of town.
2:45
But not for Beth Victor, because even though she plans to take her daughter to do
2:49
some shopping
2:50
to celebrate her graduation, they're still going to church first. Sunday always
2:55
means church
2:56
for their family. That was ingrained in Beth by her own parents, Bill and Peggy
3:00
Stevenson.
3:02
But when Beth and her family take their seats in the pews, her 74-year-old parents
3:07
aren't there.
3:08
And she knows that something is up immediately. Bill's a deacon and Peggy plays the
3:14
organ.
3:14
They are there every single Sunday, like clockwork. So when the service starts, it's
3:20
not just Beth
3:21
who was like looking around, trying to see what's going on. The whole congregation
3:25
notices their
3:26
absence. And I can imagine Beth just like sneaking glances at the door, expecting
3:31
them to sneak in
3:32
at some point during the sermon, but they never do. And after it wraps up, people
3:38
are coming up to
3:39
Beth asking if she knows anything. And this is when she learns that it wasn't just
3:45
this service
3:46
that was missed. So her dad, Bill, had this, like, truck stop ministry, where he
3:51
gave church services
3:52
inside an old truck trailer earlier in the morning. And a few of his church friends
3:57
volunteered
3:58
there as well. And they said that Bill didn't show up to that either. Beth spoke to
4:03
her parents the day
4:04
before at her daughter's graduation. And they were fine, but clearly something
4:09
happened between
4:10
now and then. So she asked her husband, Claude, to stop by her parents on his way
4:15
homes. And she
4:15
already promised her daughter that she was going to take her shopping. No problem,
4:19
right? So he had
4:21
over to their condo complex. Claude lets himself into the building's main entrance
4:26
and makes his
4:27
way to the front door of their unit on the first floor. But when he knocks, no
4:31
answer. He tries again,
4:34
still nothing. So he walks around to the back of the condo building because there
4:39
is a sliding glass
4:40
door that opens directly from their unit to the outside. And he notices that the
4:45
screen door is closed,
4:47
but it looks like the glass door isn't. So he reaches for the screen, expecting it
4:51
to be like
4:52
latched, but that just slides right open. And there are these moments when life
4:57
splits into the before
4:59
and the after. And that sliding screen door opened up the world of after for him
5:05
and their entire
5:06
family. Because what Claude saw that day was so brutal that it haunts him in a way
5:13
he can't even
5:14
describe. I mean, literally, Beth told us that even 15 years later, he couldn't
5:19
bring himself to
5:20
tell us about what he saw. He declined to speak with us for this episode. But we
5:25
know what he went
5:27
through because he would later tell police after he called them instantly. And he
5:32
knew without a doubt
5:33
when he walked into that condo that Bill and Peggy were dead. It was Detective Koi
5:39
Cox from the
5:40
Boone County Sheriff's Office who arrived at the Stevenson's condo just before 3 p.m.
5:44
that afternoon.
5:46
And he told us when he walked through that sliding back door, what he saw was what
5:50
he calls a
5:51
one percent kind of crime, the kind of case that you get once in a career if you
5:57
ever get one like
5:58
this at all. He says Bill and Peggy are in two separate rooms. One is right by the
6:04
sliding door
6:05
and the other is in a back room of the four bedroom condo. And there are multiple
6:11
wounds on both
6:12
bodies. So many that the first word that comes to Detective Cox's mind is overkill.
6:18
But the part
6:18
that's really haunting is that Detective Cox said they were posed in strange
6:23
positions.
6:25
And household objects were arranged around them in very specific ways. Look how
6:32
that's the thing
6:33
I can't tell you because I don't know. Detective Cox couldn't share a lot of
6:38
details about the scene
6:40
because this is still an open case. He wouldn't tell us how the things were around
6:45
them or what
6:46
posed they were in or anything about their exact types of wounds. Though he did
6:50
note that there
6:51
was at least one that was made post-mortem. But he would talk to us in like a
6:56
broader sense about
6:58
the other things that he saw in the condo like the fact that nothing valuable
7:02
seemed to be missing.
7:04
But in every single room he says things are off. Like household items were moved or
7:11
changed in
7:12
strange ways. And like just as like a hypothetical he compared it to like opening
7:16
the fridge and
7:17
like finding a pen among the condom. Stuff just like isn't where it should be.
7:21
Right like in a way
7:22
that stands out. He also said that some of the items had markings on them that may
7:28
have been left
7:29
by the killer. And that the items seem to be connected to specific family members
7:33
or friends. And
7:34
that like the way that they were arranged seem like the killer was indicating who
7:40
they liked and who
7:42
they didn't like. And there is something about all of these markings and items and
7:47
their positions
7:49
that is giving those that are there at the scene this feeling of something ritualistic.
7:55
Now whether this was genuinely a ritual killing or if the purpose of the like
8:01
staging and all
8:01
of that was just to make it look like one they don't know. But either way to
8:06
detective Cox it seems
8:07
like whoever did this was trying to leave some kind of message. And to do that the
8:13
killer had to
8:14
clearly be in the place for a while. Actually as they processed the scene further
8:20
investigators are
8:21
able to confirm a lot about the timeline. One of the victims I guess had a medical
8:26
device that
8:27
recorded the exact time of death which detective Cox told us was some time in the
8:33
early hours of
8:34
that Sunday morning. Plus investigators find a quote timed device indicating that
8:41
the killer was
8:42
there for as many as eight hours or they like left and came back again. Like some
8:47
kind of security
8:49
system like the time device. This is again he wouldn't get more specific other than
8:53
saying it was a
8:54
timed device. But Bill and Peggy's daughter Beth did speak with us and she said
8:59
that her parents
9:00
didn't have an alarm system installed so like I can answer that question I know it
9:04
wasn't an alarm
9:04
system. Whatever this was it confirms for police that the killer was in that condo
9:11
for a very long
9:13
time. And there's no way the killer was there for that long like eight hours and
9:18
didn't leave
9:19
some piece of themself behind. Oh not a chance and they do find as they're
9:23
processing like a good
9:25
amount of forensic evidence. Actually DNA and a partial print the question is what
9:33
belongs to the
9:33
killer and what did their killer just want them to find because detective Cox told
9:41
us that from the
9:41
very beginning he doesn't think that he walked into the original crime scene. He
9:47
thinks he walked
9:48
into the scene that the killer or killers wanted him to find. So he's not
9:54
completely certain
9:55
that the evidence wasn't planted by the killer. Now he specifically said that the
10:00
partial print
10:01
was in a very specific place at the crime scene that detective Cox told us only the
10:07
killer or killers
10:08
could have left it. But it might not be the print like based on some carefully worded
10:14
follow-up
10:14
it seems like maybe this partial print could have been introduced to the crime
10:20
scene somehow
10:21
like maybe on some kind of like item that the killer brought in or something I don't
10:26
know.
10:27
So we have evidence and it seems like it should belong to the killer or killers but
10:34
they
10:35
won't know for sure until they can match it to someone. Right. The DNA is actually
10:39
good enough
10:40
for Kodis but they put it in there. No hits. Now the partial isn't completely
10:45
enough for AFIS.
10:46
It's only usable for direct comparison. But detective Cox is not about to just like
10:51
sit and like
10:52
hope this thing or like the killer just like comes to him right. He makes sure that
10:56
they mail out
10:56
copies of that partial print to crime labs in all 50 states and they ask them to
11:02
compare to their
11:02
own databases hoping that someone somewhere will uncover a match now or in the
11:08
future.
11:09
As you can imagine that's going to take some time so they had to focus on other
11:15
investigative means.
11:17
I'm waiting for you to bring up like witnesses because someone had to have seen
11:20
this guy in the
11:21
complex at some point during all of this time. Not really. They canvassed the condo
11:28
like neighbors
11:29
or whatever like one says that they heard a sound that was like like a broom
11:33
hitting the wall
11:34
and then another reports a car parked outside the condo around the time of the
11:37
murders and says
11:38
that they saw the headlights go off. But Cox says that they never found the driver
11:43
so like without
11:44
that without the license plate like that lead didn't go anywhere. I mean I
11:48
personally think that
11:49
whatever happened to them probably happened quick. I mean just just because it was
11:54
so quiet
11:54
and like TBD the hour it could have been while all of the other neighbors were
11:58
sleeping.
12:00
Then all of that staging stuff I mean the stuff that really would have taken the
12:04
time that's quiet
12:05
that's happening inside like that's not going to draw a ton of attention. So with
12:10
no helpful witnesses
12:12
detective Cox looks closer at the most bizarre piece of evidence. Those arranged
12:18
household objects.
12:20
He wants to know if everything they found at the crime scene actually belonged to
12:24
Bill and Peggy
12:25
is it just all moved around or did the killer actually bring something and
12:29
introduce it to the crime
12:30
scene. So Beth told us that they actually described the objects to her and her
12:35
siblings asking like
12:37
does this belong to your parents have you seen this before they asked them about
12:40
all kinds of household
12:42
objects kitchen items especially like things that would have been sitting in
12:46
drawers or cabinets
12:48
and at one point she remembers them asking about a plastic picture like the kind
12:52
that you would
12:53
make sweet tea or something like that. But here's the problem even like the family
12:58
doesn't always
12:58
know the answer. Yeah I was gonna say like I don't know everything in my parents
13:03
house anymore like
13:04
there's a specific things I can think of. But I know they still have like yeah when
13:08
I was a kid
13:08
and I lived in the house maybe probably I could have told you every single item but
13:12
I have no idea
13:13
now what my mom and dad have and that is basically what Beth has to tell detective.
13:17
So another
13:18
dead end. Yeah and what's more frustrating than not being able to tell them what
13:22
does or doesn't
13:23
belong in the house is that none of Bill and Peggy's family members can even
13:28
suggest a motive
13:29
for this crime. Everyone police talk to says the same thing about them. They're
13:36
kind, they're generous,
13:38
they're active in their church and they help people. It's kind of as vanilla as it
13:43
comes. They're
13:44
high school sweethearts married for over 50 years. Peggy was like pretty shy mostly
13:48
stayed at home.
13:49
Bill was the social butterfly of the two he's always out and about but the two
13:53
loved each other.
13:54
There were no big money problems that the couple was facing no like CD side life
13:59
that they kept
14:00
from their closest friends and family. So if Bill and Peggy have no obvious enemies
14:06
in their day
14:07
to day life detective Cox has to look at the part of Bill's life where he
14:12
constantly was interacting
14:14
with strangers and that would be at that truck stop ministry I told you about. It's
14:20
where Bill spent
14:20
the majority of his time. It's basically like this chapel inside a trailer like the
14:26
kind that would
14:27
be hauled by a semi truck. Apparently it still had the wheels on it and everything
14:32
but the inside
14:33
were like some pews and a piano and on Sundays they would open the doors and do a
14:38
service for the
14:39
truckers there at that local truck stop like people who were in town. But that's
14:43
the thing the
14:44
truckers themselves were not local rights people come and go constantly truckers
14:49
from all over
14:50
the country just making a pit stop you know the day that they would be in Kentucky
14:54
and then like
14:55
the next day they would be hundreds of miles away and that is exactly what has made
15:00
tracking down
15:02
their very first person of interest so difficult detectives have a face they have a
15:09
video in fact
15:10
of a mystery man who seemed to be looking for Bill outside the chapel just two days
15:16
before he
15:17
and Peggy were found dead. Okay everyone the crime junkie summer collection is now
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available but
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before they disappear. Visit shop.audiochuck.com to shop the crime junkie summer
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collection before it's
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gone for good. On Friday, May 27th witnesses saw a man walk up to the trailer
15:53
chapel and start just
15:56
banging on the door yelling for Bill. Now from what they can gather Bill was likely
16:02
on site when
16:03
this happened but nobody actually saw Bill open the door or interact with this guy
16:09
and there was
16:09
no security footage from where this trailer is but there is footage from inside the
16:16
truck stop
16:17
from around the same time frame and Detective Cox finds someone on it who matches
16:22
the description
16:23
that witness is gay. So no one knew this guy. No no one at the truck stop and when
16:29
they show this
16:30
image to Bill and Peggy's family they don't know this guy either which means that
16:35
he is likely
16:36
a trucker right and now could be anywhere because it took them some time to find
16:41
this so within
16:43
24 hours of collecting this footage even though it's later the Boone County Sheriff's
16:47
office puts
16:48
out a press release with a still image from the video saying that they're looking
16:52
for this guy
16:54
and he is a person of interest and soon the tip start pouring in from obviously all
17:00
over the
17:00
country at one point a man in Georgia even comes forward saying that he thinks that
17:04
he might be
17:05
the guy in the photo but when investigators check his truck logs there's no way
17:10
that he could have
17:11
been in Boone County at the time frame that they're like looking for so he's not
17:16
their guy
17:16
and Detective Cox ends up traveling to 18 different states checking tips out
17:23
related to this
17:24
he's stopping trucks he is tracking people down he is comparing names from the
17:29
chapel log book
17:30
and to this day that guy has still never been identified which it's kind of weird
17:37
to me that he
17:38
hasn't like come forward on his own like the for like that one guy who is like
17:42
could hey like could
17:43
be me I just kind of weird that like you like to be to think it might be you and
17:47
not be you is like
17:48
but also if it's if you think it's you and you're like hey I want to make sure you
17:51
know this is a
17:52
dead end like coming forward right away makes sense but but I just keep thinking
17:56
like maybe
17:57
because they're right the one option is like oh there's something shady or whatever
18:01
but the other
18:01
option is like maybe the word just hasn't gotten to him so like he's likely not a
18:05
local so like
18:06
that's a benefit of a show like ours like I know that we have some long haul trucker
18:11
crime junkies
18:12
we met you on tour I need them to start spreading the word I'm actually going to
18:18
post this guy's
18:18
picture on our blog post I'm going to put it up on social media so it's like good
18:22
and shareable
18:23
yeah and like I used to work in transportation I used to work with truckers like
18:27
they are a network
18:28
of resources and information they are so intertwined and like keep each other
18:32
informed about things
18:33
like this could be huge yeah so it would be great if they could help us find this
18:37
stuff but here's
18:38
the truth of it though he might not have any relevant information about this crime
18:43
even because
18:45
it being a random trucker would explain why we can't find the killer but it
18:50
explains almost
18:52
nothing else like detective cox says that he just cannot square like this idea that
18:57
like a random
18:58
killer would leave this crime scene the arrangement of the items the comfort that
19:03
the killer had
19:04
spending time in the condo to him it feels personal and there is another problem
19:11
with the trucker
19:12
theory Peggy didn't really have much to do with the chapel ministry it was like
19:17
bills things so if
19:18
someone there had it out for him you would think it would be about him and not Peggy
19:23
yeah and if
19:23
that was the case detective cox said that there would be like way less risky ways
19:29
to just get built
19:31
I mean the truck stop chapel itself was pretty private there was like we're like at
19:36
least when
19:36
no service was going on right right and it maybe like the killer wouldn't have
19:41
enough time to do
19:43
what he wanted to do like a spend with him though I still just don't understand why
19:46
you bring
19:47
Peggy into it at all though I mean I guess unless you it was all about the time and
19:52
you knew that
19:52
she would notice if he didn't come home or whatever but like on the flip side of
19:57
that if this
19:58
were a stranger who was targeting Peggy for some reason like the other way around
20:02
other way around
20:03
I think about like she's in the home all the time alone without bill while he's out
20:09
doing his
20:09
mission work so on that side like why bring Bill into it which is why detective cox
20:13
keeps coming
20:14
back to this idea that he thinks whoever did this wanted both Bill and Peggy dead
20:20
which brings
20:21
him back to the people closest to them family and I know I told you that early on
20:26
the family couldn't
20:27
think of anyone who would want to kill them that is true but grasping at straws
20:32
like if they had
20:34
to think of somebody they did throw out one name Bill and Peggy's nephew Charles
20:41
Stevenson who goes
20:42
by Stevie and why would they pull out that name if anything they say it has to do
20:48
with money
20:49
so like five years before this in 2006 Bill's brother passed away and Bill was the
20:54
executor of the
20:55
will Stevie got nothing he wasn't even named in the will but like also it wasn't
21:02
his dad that died
21:03
it was his uncle and it wasn't like a huge inheritance or anything but again we're
21:08
just like
21:08
grasping here they're like maybe Stevie thought that Bill and Peggy had cut him out
21:14
of some money
21:14
that he felt he like was owed or like money that he really needed because what was
21:19
fact is
21:20
that Bill and Peggy's kids they have three including Beth say that Stevie had some
21:25
problems with money
21:26
like he borrowed money from family members in the past but in this scenario he like
21:31
his uncle dies
21:33
he waits five years and then kills Bill and Peggy like I said we're grasping here
21:38
it is it is a stretch
21:40
but early in the investigation detective Cox was open to anything like you never
21:44
know what's
21:45
going to be important later so he had interviewed Stevie and he asked him about his
21:50
money issues
21:52
and Stevie admitted that he owed some people money but he was insistent that he
21:56
didn't kill his
21:57
aunt and uncle he was cooperative he submitted his fingerprints and his DNA
22:02
voluntarily and when
22:04
they were compared against the ones found at the crime scene no match to either
22:08
thing but remember
22:11
Cox is not convinced that he can totally trust the forensics that they found at the
22:15
scene
22:16
if there is a world where they were planted by the killer then you can't really
22:20
rule
22:21
anyone out completely so detective Cox doesn't fully close the door on Stevie not
22:27
that he's actively
22:28
pursuing him or anything just like if something comes up that gives him a reason to
22:32
take another
22:33
look at the guy he would and another reason does come up in April of 2012 that's
22:40
when detective Cox
22:42
gets this call out of the blue from the Indiana State police they're investigating
22:47
a murder
22:48
and their prime suspect only wants to talk to detective Cox it's Stevie he's being
22:54
looked at
22:55
in connection to the killing of a 67 year old woman named Lee Jennings now Lee was
23:01
found beaten
23:02
to death at her house in Aurora Indiana which is only like half hour away from
23:06
Florence where Bill
23:07
and Peggy lived and the murder weapons were a pepper grinder and a skillet which
23:13
are kitchen items
23:15
Indiana police are looking at Stevie because he was dating Lee and had been
23:20
borrowing money from
23:21
her but this time she said no and the next thing you know someone kills her and
23:26
steals a thousand
23:27
dollars from her house what's so weird is when Stevie is in custody he will not
23:32
talk about Lee but he
23:34
tells the Indiana State police that he will talk to Cox about Bill and Peggy like
23:40
he wants a deal no
23:42
this isn't about a deal and this is what is so weird to me like he just I'm not
23:46
gonna talk about
23:46
this thing but I'll talk about this other thing all day and when Cox goes to him it
23:50
seems like he
23:51
gets no more information from him than he did when they first spoke he's basically
23:55
like I had nothing
23:56
to do with my aunt and uncles murders I'll answer any questions you have but his
24:01
answers don't like
24:03
help their investigation he has the same alibi he always did which by the way was
24:08
never a great one
24:09
Stevie says that he was home asleep in bed at the time that Bill and Peggy were
24:13
killed and investigators
24:15
are able to find people who saw him earlier in the night people who saw him the
24:20
next morning
24:21
but during the actual window when Bill and Peggy were murdered Stevie is basically
24:26
his own alibi
24:27
so they don't get any new info but they do get new DNA and fingerprint samples not
24:34
because
24:34
there was anything wrong with the original like 2011 sample he gave back then
24:38
Stevie gave like a
24:40
standard I guess 10 fingerprint thing or whatever and investigators wanted palm
24:44
prints and like
24:45
other parts of the hand too still they just want to be safe they run it all again
24:50
against the
24:50
Stevenson crime scene just to be extra extra sure because like what are the odds
24:56
that one person
24:58
that people name ends up getting charged with murder but like not that murder but
25:02
this one like
25:03
but still it doesn't matter Stevie still doesn't match in the Stevenson case that
25:09
is
25:10
but in May 2012 Stevie is charged with Lee Jennings murder and eventually he is
25:15
convicted of that
25:16
and sentenced to life in prison and while Stevie is behind bars detective Cox keeps
25:22
interviewing him
25:23
pressing on his supposed alibi but he's not getting anywhere so detective Cox goes
25:30
back to the drawing
25:31
board when a case like this goes unsolved for weeks and then months every time a
25:37
promising lead
25:38
goes nowhere I think it's easy to question yourself a little bit right like did I
25:43
make the wrong
25:44
assumption it seems like they knew they're killer but like okay maybe they didn't
25:48
this seemed like
25:50
a staged crime scene but maybe it wasn't no one has like ritual experts just
25:55
hanging around by the
25:56
office water cooler to ask so for the first year nothing was off the table ritual
26:02
killing included
26:03
stage to look like ritual killing like they were open to any possibility but
26:08
finally in the fall of
26:09
2012 detective Cox decides that he needs some fresh eyes on this people who have
26:15
seen the one
26:15
percent crime scene over and over again someone who can like cut through the noise
26:20
so he calls in
26:22
the veto society which is this you know professional club of swords spade up a
26:26
former like law
26:27
enforcement forensics specialists and they volunteer to help with unsolved cases
26:31
and they're pretty
26:33
selective about the cases that they take on but when they hear about the Stevenson's
26:38
case they're all in
26:39
so detective Cox goes to their headquarters in Philadelphia which is like this
26:44
wooden paneled room
26:46
in this crazy Renaissance building like right out of Sherlock Holmes and there's
26:50
about a hundred
26:51
people in the room who detective Cox in his partner have to present to and they don't
26:55
just give
26:55
them the glossy overview that we got they share all of the weird and perplexing
27:01
details of the crime
27:02
scene and the veto society comes back with a very strong read they say that this
27:08
was not a genuine
27:11
ritual killing the ritual elements at the crime scene were probably staged and over
27:16
the years as
27:17
detective Cox has consulted with other agencies like the FBI's behavioral analysis
27:23
unit he
27:23
continues to hear the same thing listen we know so little about this crime scene
27:29
that I had to know
27:31
what would lead an expert to even a conclusion like that like how do we even get
27:35
there in general
27:36
right so we talked to dr. dawn pearl mutter who is a member of v doc who is an
27:40
expert in ritual
27:42
violence and symbolic crime scenes now she can't say whether she actually consulted
27:46
on the Stevenson's
27:47
case or not but she did tell us a little bit about how she looks at any crime scene
27:51
that might be
27:52
ritualistic what she's looking for mostly she says is consistency like do the
27:59
symbols make sense
28:00
together do the objects match the body positioning does location matter does the
28:07
timing matter is
28:08
there a coherent pattern so there must not have been those elements for everyone to
28:15
have come to
28:16
the same conclusion but interestingly she did share something about what is
28:21
publicly known
28:22
about the Stevenson's case already she said that when you're talking about a
28:27
sophisticated double
28:28
homicide with a lot of positioning arranging time spent at the scene that goes
28:34
beyond what someone
28:36
needed to commit the crime and in her experience that means it's usually not
28:42
someone's first time
28:44
and this seems specific enough that if there were other crime scenes like these
28:50
like
28:51
investigators would know about it right now like that's what it would be evident
28:55
that's so wild to me
28:57
because this case like the details have been entered in a vi cap tipsters have
29:01
tried making
29:02
connections over the years I mean like to fast forward in our story a little bit
29:06
the first time
29:06
I heard about the Stevenson's case was after the Delphi murders because there were
29:10
rumors about
29:10
ritualistic yeah like how the scene was set up there right and so like by then
29:15
there are like
29:17
like certain things that come out about the Stevenson's case that like the again
29:19
this idea of
29:20
ritualistic the rumors are running wild Delphi had rumors like that too so people
29:24
started sending
29:25
detective cocks tips he checked those out in that case and others but like it was a
29:31
bust which
29:32
really proves that this is like a 1% and nothing is making sense right like this
29:38
doesn't seem like
29:40
it's the killer's first time but also nothing else looks like this and there's overkill
29:46
and
29:46
seemingly a personal connection but like no one with a personal connection like has
29:50
the motive
29:50
to do this and the DNA and the fingerprint seem to belong to a ghost because we
29:54
cannot connect
29:55
them to literally anyone well not so fast there was a ton that detective cocks
30:04
couldn't share
30:05
with us to protect the investigation but the thing he did give us was one huge
30:12
scoop a development
30:13
in this case that we're breaking for the first time they recently got a match on
30:20
the partial
30:20
fingerprint from their crime scene and you are not going to believe how this
30:26
happened or what
30:28
has unfolded since in June 2023 12 years after Bill and Peggy's murder a call comes
30:36
into the
30:37
Boone County Sheriff's office remember those fingerprints that detective cocks mailed
30:41
out to all
30:42
50 states looking for a match a lab technician is on the phone and she is finally
30:50
made a match
30:55
okay everyone the crime junkie summer collection is now available but time is
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running out to shop
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visit shop.audiochuck.com to shop the crime junkie summer collection before it's
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31:22
when detective cocks sent out those fingerprint cards to all 50 states back in 2011
31:28
he asked
31:28
technicians all over the country to run them against their own databases in case
31:33
there was ever
31:34
a match now with a partial like that you can't just like set it and forget it
31:38
either your search is
31:40
basically only good like as a one-time search comparing against the database as it
31:45
is in that moment
31:46
in time so cocks obviously like hoped that they would all keep the prints run and
31:52
rerun them
31:53
but he never got a single call about them for over a decade honestly by 2023 he
31:59
didn't know if
32:00
any of the states still hung on to them you just need one and one day cocks gets
32:08
this out of the
32:08
blue call from a lab tech out west pretty much everything is west of Kentucky but
32:14
that's all he'll
32:16
say a western state and this lab tech said that she had heard about bill and pegies
32:21
case
32:22
from a podcast and she wanted to do her part to help so she printed out a copy of
32:29
the fingerprint
32:29
card and kept it at her station as a reminder to keep rerunning those every so
32:35
often and she put
32:37
in the work every time a new print came into their system she would manually check
32:41
it against the
32:42
print from the Stevenson case print after print year after year until one time in
32:48
2023 when
32:50
everything changed it was the print i would have given anything to talk to this
32:58
woman like
32:59
what is the moment that you realize that you have like this is a one in a million
33:04
shy
33:04
and like you did it and detective cocks says that this is the exact reason that he
33:10
makes it a point
33:11
to talk to not just local media but podcasts like ours that can spread information
33:17
far and why
33:18
he says that you might not get that big tip the day it airs but you may get a phone
33:24
call
33:24
even years later that changes everything and that's the phone call he got and this
33:32
wasn't just
33:33
like a hey we have a matching print it was hey i have a matching print and i can
33:37
tell you who it
33:39
belongs to now detective cocks won't share the name with us he is since retired but
33:46
he's still the
33:47
one that knows so much about this so we even reached out to the current detective
33:52
on this case
33:53
because i want to know like was the print like was there another crime committed
33:57
was can you tell us
33:58
about this yeah like don't tell me about him but like what can i know about the
34:01
print and all
34:02
that the current detective would tell us is that the prints weren't on file from
34:06
any previous
34:08
crime he committed they were on file for other reasons but detective cocks did say
34:15
that this man
34:16
once he knows his name obviously looks into him he has ties to boon county more
34:21
than that
34:22
he knew bill and pecky he lived in the same area as them but interestingly he moved
34:30
out of boon
34:31
county right after the murder now detective cocks doesn't sit on this like within
34:36
hours he is on
34:38
the phone with this guy and he doesn't say anything about the print just like hey i'm
34:43
investing in
34:43
this case i've been working at like a long time we just discovered that you might
34:47
have been associated
34:48
with the couple the Stevenson's from boon county Kentucky and this guy admits that
34:53
he knew bill
34:54
and pecky said that he loved them he will do anything to help solve this case great
34:59
that's what
35:00
detective cocks says he's like great gonna need your DNA and your prints we're
35:03
getting this from
35:04
basically everybody who loved them and wants to help solve the case and the guy
35:09
says yes he seems
35:10
super cooperative super willing to help so they make a plan for him to go to some
35:15
place where he
35:16
lives at 10 a.m. the next day to get the samples that they need but at 9 45 the
35:22
next morning
35:23
15 minutes before he's supposed to be there he calls up detective cocks and cocks
35:28
says that this guy's
35:29
tone was totally different he says he's not going and if they need anything else
35:34
from him they
35:35
should contact his lawyer which like a lawyer for an interview i get a lawyer when
35:43
you just need to
35:44
provide a DNA sample and this can be over and done with same it's a red flag to
35:50
detective cocks
35:51
too he told us that they've gotten DNA from like 200 different people and only
35:58
three of them have
35:59
ever gotten an attorney so he immediately tells the boon county sheriff what
36:04
happened and the
36:04
sheriff tells him like you go out there and you get that sample like would have
36:08
been nice if he gave
36:09
it voluntarily like they got his print right like at the scene and i might remind
36:14
you that cocks said
36:16
quote the location of that fingerprint was inside the crime scene and in a place
36:22
that only
36:24
should be um left by the perpetrator and quote so within about a day of hanging up
36:31
that phone he
36:32
is boots on the ground in this mysterious western state where he goes to the local
36:37
judge there
36:38
and he gets a signed warrant for this guy's DNA in his prints but then when he
36:43
drives to this guy's
36:44
house to serve the warrant he won't answer the door detective cocks is pretty sure
36:50
he's in there
36:51
but he won't answer the door won't answer the phone won't come out of the house so
36:57
he has to go
36:58
back to the judge for another warrant which lets them like forcibly go in and get
37:04
this guy stuff
37:05
and they do they literally have to go in by force yes and homeboys in there and
37:12
detective cocks
37:12
didn't like paint a picture so i don't know if he's just like sitting in the middle
37:16
of his living
37:16
room waiting for them to come in i don't know if he's like crying in his bedroom
37:20
closet like my
37:21
imagination tends to run wild but they get the samples that they need no surprises
37:27
here the fingerprint
37:29
matches 100% and the DNA does not what now does this mean that there is another
37:40
person
37:41
is it still possible that the DNA was planted which cocks had an early theory about
37:47
i've got
37:48
a idea how about we ask the guy whose fingerprints are at the scene like did you
37:53
put it there
37:54
or was someone with you or was he ever there at all or if he was was it before
38:01
during or after
38:02
the killing and i know that probably sounds bananas but without knowing what or
38:07
where the fingerprint
38:09
was located on or where it was or in i don't know if we can say that he was there
38:15
for
38:16
the murder i mean cocks said it had to be left by the perpetrator right dude this
38:20
is like i
38:22
feel like we went round and round and round with him with detective cocks he was
38:27
super careful with
38:28
his words i'll try to distill what i think the truth is here and that is that this
38:36
is a very
38:36
complicated scene so far we have a print and we have DNA that we know do not belong
38:42
to the same
38:43
person we know there are elements of staging one of those or more of those could be
38:49
staged or planted
38:51
we also know that the killer was around maybe even they say left and came back
38:56
sometime over
38:56
an eight hour period did someone else come into that scene during that time i mean
39:02
have they
39:03
asked this guy since this is the thing he still will not talk to them still so like
39:09
right now
39:10
so no longer willing to do anything to help the couple he loved so much exactly i'm
39:15
sorry his
39:15
print being i did there but if i said he knew them moved right after like i listen
39:22
i agree with
39:22
you i agree with like every crime drug he i know is like screaming at the screen
39:27
right now
39:27
thousand percent this guy whoever he is i think there is more to him honestly it's
39:36
not like
39:37
cocks doesn't see it he's not closing the door on western state guy or anyone else
39:42
that he has
39:43
looked at in the past cocks says that investigators have to weigh two kinds of
39:48
evidence in this case
39:50
physical and circumstantial and because of the fingerprint and because of the
39:56
circumstantial pieces
39:58
like you're saying the connection to boon county the fact that he knew bill and peggy
40:01
the fact
40:02
that he lived in the same area the timing of when he left cocks says that this
40:06
western state guy
40:07
is still in play by the way neff you stevy isn't off the table either remember
40:14
and investigators have narrowed down their pool of persons of interest to about
40:18
half a dozen people
40:20
again including western state guy but they need to build a solid case before they
40:25
can bring charges
40:26
against anyone and i do get the measured approach even a crap defense attorney
40:34
could get someone
40:35
off as long as there is unidentified dna sitting out there at the crime scene
40:39
connected in some way
40:40
right you have to figure out who that belongs you to close that door or to figure
40:44
out if it's connected
40:45
not connected like otherwise i just i know how this would go at trial there's too
40:49
many loose ends
40:51
so that is the loose end that detective cocks is working to close up and another
40:56
exclusive piece of
40:57
information he gave us is that a lab has gotten another dna profile from a second
41:04
location in the
41:06
crime scene and it matches the first profile that they already having codis so
41:11
those samples are
41:12
from the same person but investigators think that they'll be able to do a lot more
41:18
with this
41:19
profile i don't know if that's genealogy phenotyping whatever that is but 15 years
41:26
after bill and
41:27
Peggy Stevenson were murdered what i know is that this case is not sitting on a
41:31
shelf the science
41:33
is still moving investigators are still working it and even though detective cocks
41:39
just retired
41:39
from the boon county sheriff's office he has passed on the case to detectives who
41:44
are just as
41:45
dedicated as he was and he believes that this case can and will be solved if the
41:52
right person
41:54
or people come forward so crime junkies that's you if you have any information
42:01
contact the boon
42:02
county sheriff's office they have a dedicated tip line for the stevinson case the
42:08
number is eight five nine
42:09
three three four eight four nine six and as always you can readjust by emailing
42:15
tips at audio chuck
42:17
dot com any information you have small or big could be helpful but just as a
42:22
reminder
42:22
investigators are still looking to identify the man from the truck stop who cocks
42:27
did confirm for me
42:28
by the way is not western state guy so get out there share this far and wide and
42:35
let's see
42:35
what our crime junkies can do crime junkie is an audio chuck production i think
42:42
chuck would approve
42:51
hey crime junkies if you're wondering what to listen to next i got you check out
42:55
another audio
42:56
chuck show park predators a recent episode is about a couple named Danny and Sioux
43:01
who left for a
43:02
camping trip in New York's Adirondacks and never made it home when Danny's
43:06
abandoned car was found
43:07
investigators thought that they were dealing with a missing person's case but then
43:11
another attack
43:12
happened and suddenly the whole investigation became something much bigger it's one
43:18
of those
43:19
cases where every new clue changes what you think you know for the full story
43:24
listen to the Adirond
43:26
X on park predators wherever you get your podcasts
