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Serial Killer Documentary - The Weepy Voiced Killer · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:06
Speaker 1: In the early hours of New Year's Day, 1981, police
0:09
Speaker 1: in St. Paul, Minnesota, received an hysterical 911 call. The
0:24
Speaker 1: anonymous call was made by her attacker, and it was
0:28
Speaker 1: to be the first of many.
0:30
Speaker 2: She was badly beaten. with a tire iron, left for
0:34
Speaker 2: dead in the snow. When I went there the next morning,
0:37
Speaker 2: the blood was still in the snow, and we thought,
0:39
Speaker 2: there's no way this person who'd been so viciously beaten
0:42
Speaker 2: could have survived.
0:44
Speaker 1: The assailant soon became known as the weepy voice killer.
0:49
Speaker 1: His eerie tones were so distinctive that he was quickly
0:52
Speaker 1: linked to many more attacks.
0:55
Speaker 3: You knew that it was the same person. I've listened
0:58
Speaker 3: to those calls so many times over the years. So
1:02
Speaker 3: you know that it's the same person making these phone calls.
1:12
Speaker 4: I think he was looking for absolution, and he never
1:16
Speaker 4: got it.
1:18
Speaker 1: He had confessed his sins, but there was no forgiveness
1:22
Speaker 1: for Paul Stefani, the weepy voice killer, who'd become one
1:27
Speaker 1: of the world's most evil killers. Between January 1981 and
1:54
Speaker 1: August 1982, police in the twin cities of Minneapolis and St.
1:59
Speaker 1: Paul received a series of disturbing, anonymous phone calls from
2:04
Speaker 1: a serial killer. Each time, they were linked to the
2:09
Speaker 1: discovery of a woman's body. I can't stop myself.
2:14
Speaker 2: I keep killing somebody. There was a sense of urgency
2:18
Speaker 2: of the danger that he was out there and also
2:20
Speaker 2: a sense that he wanted to be caught because I
2:23
Speaker 2: can't remember a time in 40 years of covering crime
2:26
Speaker 2: of somebody calling up and leading police that way to
2:30
Speaker 2: the victims and seeming hysterical. There was a lot of
2:33
Speaker 2: fear in the community. There was a sense that this
2:36
Speaker 2: would be solved quickly, that the voice would be recognized.
2:40
Speaker 2: But then nothing happened.
2:42
Speaker 1: The now infamous whiny voice in the 911 calls caused
2:47
Speaker 1: him to be dubbed the weepy-voiced killer. He brutally attacked
2:52
Speaker 1: five women.
2:59
Speaker 5: This isn't somebody who wants to be caught. It's somebody
3:01
Speaker 5: who wants status, who wants recognition. He is absolutely desperate
3:06
Speaker 5: to be seen as a serial killer. He wants a recognition.
3:09
Speaker 5: of being a serial killer. That's something that's quite important
3:12
Speaker 5: to him.
3:14
Speaker 1: This killer's story begins in Minnesota. Paul Michael Stefani was
3:20
Speaker 1: born on the 8th of September, 1944.
3:23
Speaker 3: Paul Stefani was born in a smaller town down in
3:28
Speaker 3: southern Minnesota by Austin. It's my understanding that his parents
3:34
Speaker 3: divorced and that he had a very strict stepfather who
3:38
Speaker 3: was a devout Catholic.
3:42
Speaker 5: It's quite interesting looking at the religious background of serial
3:45
Speaker 5: killers because it tends to affect them in one of
3:48
Speaker 5: two ways. On the one hand, they might use the
3:51
Speaker 5: kind of values that they've grown up with as a
3:53
Speaker 5: justification for their behavior. On the other hand, their failure
3:57
Speaker 5: to live up to those values might be something that
4:00
Speaker 5: they feel fundamentally ashamed of, and it's that shame that
4:03
Speaker 5: actually drives their offending.
4:05
Speaker 2: He seemed to have a strong bond with his mother.
4:07
Speaker 2: There's a strength there, so there was nothing that I
4:10
Speaker 2: could find that made any sense that could even explain
4:14
Speaker 2: why he did what he did.
4:17
Speaker 5: I think there would have been quite clear boundaries around
4:19
Speaker 5: what's acceptable, what's not acceptable, ideas about sin.
4:25
Speaker 1: Stefani had been diagnosed with epilepsy as a child, and
4:29
Speaker 1: when he kept losing his jobs as an adult, he
4:32
Speaker 1: blamed the condition. Nevertheless, he did appear to settle down.
4:37
Speaker 1: He moved out of Austin to St. Paul, and by
4:41
Speaker 1: the age of 26, had met his wife.
4:44
Speaker 6: In 1970, he got married. So far, so normal. Didn't
4:51
Speaker 6: last all that long. They divorced five years later.
4:54
Speaker 5: The 1970s, there's still quite a bit of stigma around divorce,
4:59
Speaker 5: especially within Catholic communities. So I think this, on his part,
5:03
Speaker 5: perhaps would have been seen as something of a failure.
5:06
Speaker 5: So I think it's quite an interesting element of his background.
5:10
Speaker 1: Sometime after his divorce, Stefani went off the rails and
5:14
Speaker 1: showed his violent side for the first time. The details
5:19
Speaker 1: of the incident are unknown, but Stefani was convicted of assault,
5:24
Speaker 1: meaning his name was now on a list of known
5:27
Speaker 1: violent offenders. Stefani soon moved on and began a relationship
5:33
Speaker 1: with a Syrian girl who he reportedly hoped to marry.
5:37
Speaker 3: They were pretty close, dating for four years, and then
5:41
Speaker 3: she leaves him for an arranged marriage that she had
5:43
Speaker 3: no control over.
5:45
Speaker 1: Stefani struggled with the rejection. When he lost yet another job,
5:51
Speaker 1: this time at Marmberg Manufacturing, things were spiraling out of
5:56
Speaker 1: his control.
5:59
Speaker 6: Something is burning at him inside. Something is eating at
6:05
Speaker 6: Paul Stefani.
6:07
Speaker 1: In the early hours of New Year's Day 1981, things
6:12
Speaker 1: took a sudden and sinister turn. As the night's celebrations
6:16
Speaker 1: wound down, 36-year-old Stefani encountered a 20-year-old student, Karen Potak.
6:24
Speaker 2: She was walking home when she suddenly was attacked right
6:27
Speaker 2: off Pierce Butler Road, a main road in St.
6:30
Speaker 4: Paul.
6:32
Speaker 6: It's an absolutely vicious attack. Callous without warning and for
6:37
Speaker 6: no reason. At 3 a.m. on New Year's Day, the
6:44
Speaker 6: police in St. Paul receive a phone call, an anonymous
6:47
Speaker 6: phone call.
6:55
Speaker 7: The phone call was a hysterical person.
6:57
Speaker 1: It wasn't clear if it was a man or a woman.
7:22
Speaker 7: This is incredibly deliberate on his part.
7:25
Speaker 5: He is wanting to appear to be somebody who can't
7:28
Speaker 5: help what he's doing.
7:30
Speaker 6: He thinks she's dead.
7:32
Speaker 7: She's certainly left of her dead.
7:34
Speaker 6: And he's consumed. You've got two conflicting emotions inside Stefani. One,
7:40
Speaker 6: an absolute desire to hurt women. Two, a fierce guilt
7:46
Speaker 6: about having done it.
7:48
Speaker 2: What's the address? I don't know. Who are you? There
7:56
Speaker 2: was just this urgency, get there, help her. And an
7:59
Speaker 2: ambulance was sent there, and that's where they found Karen
8:03
Speaker 2: Potak near death in the snow.
8:09
Speaker 5: She'd been hit over the head with a tire iron
8:11
Speaker 5: multiple times to the extent that some of her brain
8:14
Speaker 5: was actually exposed to the elements. So this is a really,
8:18
Speaker 5: really significant attack. And it's one that shows us that
8:22
Speaker 5: the person who carried it out wanted to kill the victim.
8:27
Speaker 1: The location of Stefani's first attack would later form a
8:31
Speaker 1: key part of the investigation as police worked to identify him.
8:36
Speaker 6: She's found in a very significant place, near some railway tracks,
8:41
Speaker 6: near a factory in which Stefani once worked.
8:46
Speaker 1: It was the Marmberg Manufacturing Company where Stefani had lost
8:50
Speaker 1: his job. He would later claim this upset to be
8:54
Speaker 1: the reason he attacked.
8:56
Speaker 3: That's something about serial killers, too. When they first begin
9:01
Speaker 3: killing people, and of course, Potaki didn't kill her, but
9:04
Speaker 3: he left her for dead, really. They go to places
9:07
Speaker 3: that are familiar with them at the beginning of their assaults.
9:14
Speaker 1: Karen was taken to hospital, but was not expected to survive.
9:20
Speaker 2: When I went there the next morning, the blood was
9:23
Speaker 2: still in the snow, and we thought, there's no way
9:25
Speaker 2: this person who'd been so viciously beaten could have survived.
9:31
Speaker 6: In fact, miraculously, Karen is not dead, although perhaps, mercifully,
9:38
Speaker 6: she doesn't remember anything about the attack, and she certainly
9:41
Speaker 6: doesn't know who's attacked her.
9:44
Speaker 3: The police attributed that to the cognitive damage that was
9:48
Speaker 3: done to her in the assault. She was never the
9:51
Speaker 3: same after that.
9:54
Speaker 6: Paul Stefani has got away with what he thought was murder,
9:58
Speaker 6: but in fact wasn't.
10:00
Speaker 2: I expected two things, that Karen Potak would not survive,
10:03
Speaker 2: which she did. I expected this case to be wrapped
10:06
Speaker 2: up right away. They would catch this person, man or woman,
10:10
Speaker 2: but nothing happened.
10:11
Speaker 1: Things were quiet for five months, but on the 3rd
10:15
Speaker 1: of June, Stefani's soon-to-be infamous weepy voice was heard again.
10:20
Speaker 4: He sounds.
10:26
Speaker 7: Quite childlike and pathetic, essentially.
10:41
Speaker 5: There's an emphasis on poor me, feel sorry for me,
10:44
Speaker 5: I can't help myself. So this is very deliberate on
10:47
Speaker 5: his part. This is all about him.
10:49
Speaker 1: 30 minutes after the 911 call, a grim discovery was
10:55
Speaker 1: made in bushes by a freeway in St. Paul.
11:00
Speaker 4: Some boys were out playing and a ball went over
11:04
Speaker 4: to the edge of where they were playing and they saw,
11:08
Speaker 4: they thought it was a dummy laying in the grass.
11:11
Speaker 4: kind of hidden, and they realized it was an actual
11:15
Speaker 4: person and a body, and they called the police.
11:20
Speaker 5: She's dumped in the bushes, and when we think of
11:22
Speaker 5: the kind of things that we find in the bushes,
11:24
Speaker 5: it's things that we discard. It's things that we don't
11:27
Speaker 5: want anymore. It's things that we would consider to be trash,
11:30
Speaker 5: and that's very much how Stefani saw this victim.
11:34
Speaker 1: The body was that of a woman wearing a red jacket,
11:39
Speaker 1: She had no identification, but did have a single key
11:43
Speaker 1: on her person.
11:45
Speaker 2: The key was to the Greyhound bus locker in St.
11:48
Speaker 2: Paul by Mickey's Diner, a pretty iconic location in St.
11:52
Speaker 4: Paul.
11:53
Speaker 2: Through there, they found some of her identification and were
11:55
Speaker 2: able to figure out it was Kimberly Compton.
11:59
Speaker 4: Working backwards, the police then found out she had just
12:02
Speaker 4: arrived that day from Pepin, Wisconsin. Police had to tell
12:06
Speaker 4: her family that She was brutally assaulted and murdered. So
12:10
Speaker 4: at this point, we didn't have any idea of who
12:14
Speaker 4: or why or what had happened.
12:19
Speaker 6: She'd only that day gone to St Paul on the
12:23
Speaker 6: Greyhound bus to start a new life after leaving Wisconsin.
12:28
Speaker 6: This was going to be a clean slate. This was
12:30
Speaker 6: the beginning of a new life. And sadly, it was
12:33
Speaker 6: the end.
12:35
Speaker 1: Tracking Kimberly's last movements, police discovered that after arriving at
12:40
Speaker 1: the bus station, Kimberly had gone to a nearby diner
12:44
Speaker 1: where she'd met a friendly local who seemed keen to
12:47
Speaker 1: welcome her to the city.
12:50
Speaker 3: Stefani was personable, got a conversation going with her and said, hey,
12:55
Speaker 3: you're from Wisconsin, let me show you some of the
12:57
Speaker 3: sights of St.
12:58
Speaker 4: Paul.
13:01
Speaker 2: So he came across as sort of an older man
13:03
Speaker 2: looking out for this young woman with hopes and dreams.
13:06
Speaker 1: 15 minutes later, she was dead.
13:11
Speaker 3: Kimberly Compton was stabbed 61 times in the upper body, mostly,
13:16
Speaker 3: and that in a very violent assault.
13:20
Speaker 7: With an ice pick.
13:22
Speaker 4: Later on, the medical examiner determined not only was she stabbed,
13:26
Speaker 4: but she was also choked to death with some shoelaces.
13:33
Speaker 5: This method of killing, this ferocity, it isn't about losing control.
13:38
Speaker 7: This is about gaining control.
13:40
Speaker 5: This killer is somebody who wants to not just kill,
13:42
Speaker 5: but absolutely obliterate his victim.
13:47
Speaker 1: Two days after Kimberly was murdered, police received another call
13:51
Speaker 1: from the high-pitched caller. It wasn't recorded, but investigators were
13:57
Speaker 1: hopeful it would provide more clues that could lead them
14:00
Speaker 1: to the killer.
14:02
Speaker 4: He stayed on the phone a little bit longer, and
14:05
Speaker 4: the police traced his phone call to a phone booth
14:09
Speaker 4: at the bus depot, where she had just gotten off.
14:12
Speaker 4: And police followed up and went to the bus depot,
14:15
Speaker 4: tried to take fingerprints, but there were so many people
14:18
Speaker 4: that had used the phone in that area that it
14:21
Speaker 4: would not have any positive results.
14:23
Speaker 6: On the 11th of June, the killer called again.
14:24
Speaker 4: Don't talk, just listen.
14:32
Speaker 5: He's quite frustrated.
14:34
Speaker 4: He's quite annoyed.
15:00
Speaker 5: He wants this murder to be recognized. He wants something
15:03
Speaker 5: to happen.
15:05
Speaker 3: He's telling the police, you know, hey, I'm in charge.
15:07
Speaker 3: I want you to do what I want you to do.
15:10
Speaker 3: Don't talk. Listen. Stop me. I can't help myself. Do
15:13
Speaker 3: your job, you know. Basically saying, catch me.
15:18
Speaker 1: Police were quick to make the connection between the recent
15:21
Speaker 1: 911 calls and the one they received five months previously
15:26
Speaker 1: in the unsolved Karen Potak case.
15:30
Speaker 3: One of the people, I believe, in the 911 center said,
15:33
Speaker 3: that sounds like an individual about a year ago that
15:36
Speaker 3: called that same squeaky high weeping type of voice.
15:40
Speaker 7: I'm sorry, I killed a girl.
15:43
Speaker 2: Two young women found a few miles apart, brutally attacked,
15:47
Speaker 2: and that phone call, police felt they had a serial
15:50
Speaker 2: killer on the loose and alerted the media that the
15:54
Speaker 2: connection they believe existed.
15:56
Speaker 1: In an attempt to put a name to the voice,
15:59
Speaker 1: they released the 911 calls.
16:02
Speaker 2: We put the phone call on the air, and we
16:05
Speaker 2: were sure people would recognize the voice.
16:12
Speaker 1: The media soon dubbed him the weepy voice killer.
16:16
Speaker 3: We're hoping that somebody will recognize the voice, whether it
16:20
Speaker 3: be a friend or a relative or a neighbor or
16:23
Speaker 3: someone you work with or drink with.
16:26
Speaker 2: You would think that somebody would recognize that. Anybody who'd
16:28
Speaker 2: had an argument with him or heard him stress would
16:31
Speaker 2: recognize him from the voice. It was so distinct.
16:35
Speaker 1: With no immediate leads, detectives tried to find other links
16:39
Speaker 1: to the victims in the hopes of identifying the predator.
16:44
Speaker 1: They noted that both victims had been wearing red. FBI
16:48
Speaker 1: profilers theorized that the color could be a trigger. A
16:52
Speaker 1: warning was issued to the public.
16:55
Speaker 5: He's got a whole town, a whole city in fear.
16:58
Speaker 5: Everybody is going to be watching their backs and making
17:01
Speaker 5: sure that they don't wear anything red, especially women. Now,
17:04
Speaker 5: Stefani is someone who enjoys controlling women, and when he
17:07
Speaker 5: says something like this, he's controlling not just one, but
17:10
Speaker 5: potentially thousands of women.
17:13
Speaker 3: These victims of his were wearing red, and he had
17:16
Speaker 3: dated a girl from Syria for about four years, and
17:22
Speaker 3: the only picture I ever saw of her that he
17:24
Speaker 3: had She was wearing red.
17:28
Speaker 2: This was a big story in the Twin Cities. A
17:30
Speaker 2: lot of coverage of the serial killer, we believe, was
17:34
Speaker 2: on the loose, even though there'd only been one killing
17:36
Speaker 2: at that point. And then things got quiet.
17:42
Speaker 1: For months, there was no word from the weepy voice killer.
17:46
Speaker 1: Residents hoped they'd seen the last of his horrific acts. Then,
17:51
Speaker 1: in late August 1981, police in St. Paul received an
17:56
Speaker 1: emergency call. An individual named Alan Lopez was holding his
18:01
Speaker 1: family hostage.
18:02
Speaker 6: A negotiator is sent, a SWAT team is sent. He
18:06
Speaker 6: insists that he's going to kill them.
18:10
Speaker 4: The police were trying to get him to come out,
18:14
Speaker 4: and Alan Lopez, during that conversation with the police, said
18:17
Speaker 4: he is the person that killed Kimberly Compton.
18:23
Speaker 2: I covered that standoff, and it was bizarre enough on
18:26
Speaker 2: its own, and then we hear that he's confessing to
18:28
Speaker 2: being Kimberly Compton's killer.
18:32
Speaker 6: Eventually, the standoff is resolved. The SWAT team enter the
18:36
Speaker 6: house to discover that Alan Lopez has indeed killed his father, mother,
18:40
Speaker 6: and sister.
18:43
Speaker 1: 26-year-old Lopez was arrested for the murders of his relatives,
18:48
Speaker 1: and investigators worked on connecting him to Kimberly Compton's murder. However,
18:54
Speaker 1: a voice comparison between Lopez and the weepy-voiced 911 calls
18:59
Speaker 1: found no similarities. The questions remained unanswered, and in February 1982,
19:07
Speaker 1: Lopez committed suicide in jail. In August, another woman's body
19:13
Speaker 1: was found across the river in Minneapolis.
19:17
Speaker 3: It was a very brutal scene, and police were called,
19:20
Speaker 3: and ambulance called, and She was found deceased by numerous
19:24
Speaker 3: stab wounds.
19:26
Speaker 1: Investigators trying to piece together what had happened struggled to
19:31
Speaker 1: identify the woman. Two days later, a 911 call came
19:35
Speaker 1: in with a familiar-sounding voice. Fire emergency.
19:40
Speaker 7: Please don't talk to me, listen.
19:42
Speaker 6: I'm sorry, I killed that girl.
19:45
Speaker 4: I stabbed her 40 times.
19:47
Speaker 7: Kimberly Compton was the first one over.
19:53
Speaker 4: So now we knew it couldn't have been Alan Lopez
19:56
Speaker 4: because now we have another murder with the same weepy
20:00
Speaker 4: voice calling the police department.
20:04
Speaker 3: It was a challenge to the police department. showing that, here,
20:08
Speaker 3: I've done this, now see if you can catch me.
20:12
Speaker 5: There's quite a lot that's happening in this call. Firstly,
20:15
Speaker 5: he's asserting that status and authority, you've got to listen
20:18
Speaker 5: to me. Then he's almost boasting about the number of
20:21
Speaker 5: times that he's stabbed, drawing our attention to how violent
20:24
Speaker 5: he is. And then he's linking those two killings.
20:28
Speaker 2: I'm sorry what I did to Compton.
20:31
Speaker 5: I couldn't help it. Don't know why I had.
20:36
Speaker 2: To stab her. He'd gone quiet for close to a year,
20:42
Speaker 2: and suddenly we have this murder of a young woman
20:44
Speaker 2: in Minneapolis.
20:47
Speaker 4: The Minneapolis Police Department got a hold of the St.
20:50
Speaker 4: Paul Police Department, and they started working together on trying
20:54
Speaker 4: to identify who this caller was.
20:58
Speaker 1: Investigators were also working hard to identify the victims. A
21:05
Speaker 1: vital tip came when a postal worker handed in a
21:08
Speaker 1: woman's purse belonging to a local nurse, Barbara Simons.
21:14
Speaker 4: Her purse was in a mailbox, and they tracked down
21:18
Speaker 4: who Barbara Simons was. They knew she was killed near
21:21
Speaker 4: the Mississippi River, and they found out that she had
21:24
Speaker 4: been at a bar, the Hexacon Bar, the night before
21:27
Speaker 4: her body was found.
21:30
Speaker 1: Witnesses from the bar remembered seeing 40-year-old Barbara with a man.
21:36
Speaker 3: Stefani came up and asked her for a cigarette, and
21:39
Speaker 3: he danced with her, and very open that he was
21:42
Speaker 3: with her, had made contact with her.
21:46
Speaker 7: This would appear to be quite a bold move on
21:48
Speaker 7: his part.
21:48
Speaker 5: So he's going out and he's hunting for victims out
21:51
Speaker 5: there in public where other people.
21:53
Speaker 7: Can see him.
21:54
Speaker 5: But by this stage, he's gotten away with murder, and
21:56
Speaker 5: I think he's becoming a lot bolder.
21:59
Speaker 2: Seems like they hit it off, according to some people
22:01
Speaker 2: at the bar, and he offered to give her a
22:03
Speaker 2: ride home.
22:06
Speaker 3: In fact, if I recall, she said to the waitress
22:10
Speaker 3: there at the bar, saying, boy, I hope he's a
22:12
Speaker 3: nice guy because he's going to give me a ride home.
22:17
Speaker 4: And obviously he wasn't, and she was killed that night.
22:23
Speaker 3: He took her down to an area, assaulted her, stabbed
22:27
Speaker 3: her numerous times and left her to be found too.
22:31
Speaker 3: And I believe this time that they thought that a
22:34
Speaker 3: Phillips screwdriver, similar to an ice pick, was used in
22:39
Speaker 3: those assaults.
22:42
Speaker 1: Bar staff gave detailed descriptions of the man's appearance and
22:46
Speaker 1: detectives began trawling through a database of violent offenders in
22:51
Speaker 1: the area.
22:52
Speaker 4: Based on the description of what the bartender and the
22:56
Speaker 4: waitress said, they narrowed it down to about eight or nine,
23:00
Speaker 4: and the bartender picked out Paul Stefani as being the
23:03
Speaker 4: person that was talking to Barbara Simons that night.
23:10
Speaker 2: Police began to focus on him, trying to figure out
23:12
Speaker 2: where he lived, try to put the pieces together on
23:15
Speaker 2: Paul Stefani. Investigators on both sides of the river at
23:19
Speaker 2: this point are working on the case. They knew they
23:21
Speaker 2: had a very dangerous person out there.
23:24
Speaker 1: Investigators learned all they could about Stefani's background, making a
23:29
Speaker 1: crucial link from another of the attacks.
23:33
Speaker 2: Among the things they figured out about Paul Stefani is
23:35
Speaker 2: that he had worked in Malmberg manufacturing. which is the
23:38
Speaker 2: place where Karen Potak, the first victim, had been attacked.
23:43
Speaker 2: And I think that was significant to them because not
23:45
Speaker 2: only had he given the street where she was found,
23:47
Speaker 2: he named a business, and that was unusual.
23:51
Speaker 1: Police were now confident that Stefani was the weepy-voiced killer.
23:57
Speaker 2: They knew who they believed they were looking for at
23:59
Speaker 2: that point, and the clock was ticking. Is he going
24:02
Speaker 2: to do it again? Is he going to call in
24:04
Speaker 2: with something? And so investigators are working, comparing notes on
24:08
Speaker 2: both sides of the river. The media's, we're in a
24:11
Speaker 2: kind of a frenzy to keep it out there because
24:13
Speaker 2: we didn't want one more victim.
24:16
Speaker 1: To everyone's horror, there would be another. Despite now being
24:22
Speaker 1: under police surveillance, he slipped through the net and on
24:25
Speaker 1: the 21st of August, 1982, went hunting for his next victim.
24:31
Speaker 1: That night, Stefani met Denise Williams.
24:36
Speaker 5: Denise has been engaged in sex work for quite some years,
24:39
Speaker 5: so she's out and about on the streets quite frequently.
24:42
Speaker 5: And he offers her money to engage in a sex
24:45
Speaker 5: act with him. So she accepts, she gets in his car,
24:48
Speaker 5: they drive off, they exchange business.
24:53
Speaker 3: And he says that he's going to take her back
24:55
Speaker 3: to Minneapolis. He found her in Minneapolis, he's taking her back.
24:59
Speaker 2: She got suspicious because he didn't seem to be going
25:02
Speaker 2: back to where he was supposed to take her. Suddenly
25:05
Speaker 2: he pulls over his car and viciously attacks her. She
25:10
Speaker 2: fights back. She's street savvy. She fights back. She saw
25:14
Speaker 2: a pop bottle. She takes that bottle, smashes it across
25:18
Speaker 2: his face, and causes him to bleed. She manages to escape.
25:23
Speaker 4: And he started going after her and stabbing her again.
25:26
Speaker 4: A person heard her screaming, came over and helped her out.
25:30
Speaker 4: And Stefani turned on him and threatened him, and he
25:33
Speaker 4: got Williams away. Stefani took off and left the scene.
25:40
Speaker 5: Stefani is a killer who is used to being 100%
25:43
Speaker 5: in control when it comes to his crimes. But this time,
25:47
Speaker 5: he's really met his match in Denise. He's come up
25:50
Speaker 5: against a woman who is not going to put up
25:52
Speaker 5: with this. She is not going to just let this
25:54
Speaker 5: guy take her life. She is quite tough. She's quite streetwise,
25:58
Speaker 5: and I imagine she's been in quite a few altercations
26:02
Speaker 5: with clients before. So this really rattles him. This woman
26:06
Speaker 5: has won and he is lost in this particular situation.
26:10
Speaker 5: So I think it really does knock him off balance.
26:13
Speaker 3: He had to think in the back of his mind,
26:15
Speaker 3: if he was rational at that time, that police are
26:18
Speaker 3: going to be interviewing him. How did this assault happen?
26:21
Speaker 3: Where did it happen?
26:23
Speaker 4: Who did it?
26:24
Speaker 3: And that it was unravelling very fast for him after
26:27
Speaker 3: Denise Williams died. started pounding him with that bottle.
26:32
Speaker 1: Having failed in his attack, the predator returned home to
26:36
Speaker 1: assess his injuries.
26:39
Speaker 2: He goes home to St. Paul, and then he made
26:41
Speaker 2: another phone call. This time, he wasn't calling to get
26:45
Speaker 2: help for a victim. He was calling for help for himself.
26:49
Speaker 3: He actually calls 911 and requests an ambulance, and his
26:54
Speaker 3: voice wasn't quite as high and quite as weepy or
26:58
Speaker 3: anything else. He said he was hurt and he needed
27:01
Speaker 3: an ambulance.
27:03
Speaker 1: The call raised alarm bells for the person who received it.
27:08
Speaker 4: Hey, this sounds like the guy that's been on television
27:11
Speaker 4: that I've heard, the weepy voice killer. It sounds like
27:14
Speaker 4: his voice is very similar. So they got the police involved.
27:20
Speaker 4: The St. Paul Police Department, who had Stefani under surveillance,
27:23
Speaker 4: saw the police department show up.
27:27
Speaker 3: Next thing he knows is an ambulance shows up at
27:31
Speaker 3: Stefani's residence.
27:34
Speaker 2: And the murder-killing spree was over. They arrested Paul Stefani,
27:38
Speaker 2: and it ended right there.
27:40
Speaker 1: Denise Williams had become the second victim to have survived
27:44
Speaker 1: the brutal attack of a serial killer.
27:47
Speaker 4: She had been the victim of an assault and went
27:50
Speaker 4: to the hospital, and she described her and the police
27:56
Speaker 4: then showed her some mugshots of different people, and she
28:01
Speaker 4: picked out Paul Stefani.
28:05
Speaker 2: She became, in many ways, the hero of all this.
28:07
Speaker 2: What she did and her response was life-saving for others,
28:11
Speaker 2: herself and others.
28:14
Speaker 1: Stefani was charged with the assault of 19-year-old Denise Williams
28:19
Speaker 1: and with the murder of 40-year-old Barbara Simons. But the
28:26
Speaker 1: weepy killer had lost his voice.
28:30
Speaker 5: Although he said in his phone calls to police, somebody
28:32
Speaker 5: needs to stop me, he certainly didn't give them enough
28:35
Speaker 5: information to actually make that happen. He wanted to continue,
28:39
Speaker 5: but he wanted people to think that he wasn't in
28:41
Speaker 5: control of what he was doing. He wanted people to
28:44
Speaker 5: have sympathy for him, to feel sorry for him.
28:49
Speaker 2: Paul Stefani went from the guy calling in, confessing, to
28:52
Speaker 2: when the police had him, he's not cooperating at all.
28:55
Speaker 2: But as they're pressing him, they show him, I believe,
28:57
Speaker 2: some crime scene photos. And that seemed to be the
28:59
Speaker 2: trigger point.
29:02
Speaker 4: When the police would open up their file, there were
29:05
Speaker 4: pictures of Karen Potak and Kimberly Compton. His voice elevated
29:11
Speaker 4: to a higher pitch.
29:15
Speaker 2: He starts getting hysterical in his voice. And they felt
29:20
Speaker 2: at that point, this is it. How he sounded in
29:22
Speaker 2: that room paralleled the phone calls they'd been getting. So
29:26
Speaker 2: at least from their experience in the room, they felt
29:29
Speaker 2: no question this was their guy.
29:32
Speaker 4: And so when we looked at everything that we had
29:36
Speaker 4: between Karen Potok and Kimberly Compton and Denise Williams and
29:41
Speaker 4: Barbara Simons, the stronger cases with the actual identification were
29:47
Speaker 4: the Minneapolis cases, Barbara Simons and Denise Williams. So we
29:52
Speaker 4: went ahead with the prosecution of those two cases first.
29:58
Speaker 1: In 1984 and 1985, when he faced trials for the
30:02
Speaker 1: attempted murder of Denise Williams and the murder of Barbara Simons,
30:07
Speaker 1: Stefani pled not guilty.
30:10
Speaker 4: The Denise Williams evidence was her ID describing how the
30:15
Speaker 4: assault took place. The Good Samaritan that came up could
30:19
Speaker 4: identify Stefani as attacking her and then threatening him with
30:24
Speaker 4: a screwdriver.
30:27
Speaker 1: The violence displayed in his attack was evident in his
30:31
Speaker 1: demeanor in court.
30:34
Speaker 2: There seemed to be a lot of rage that was contained,
30:36
Speaker 2: and physically the thing that stood out the most was
30:38
Speaker 2: just the glare, looking around, the glare that he had
30:41
Speaker 2: in that courtroom. There's sort of a disdain for everyone
30:44
Speaker 2: in the courtroom.
30:47
Speaker 5: When we're looking at his behavior in court, when he's
30:49
Speaker 5: having these outbursts, when he's quite antagonistic and he's quite confrontational,
30:54
Speaker 5: this is the real him. And I think up until
30:57
Speaker 5: this point in time, it's only his victims who've seen this.
31:01
Speaker 1: The weepy voice killer had become infamous for the 911
31:06
Speaker 1: calls in which he confessed to his crimes. Prosecutors used
31:10
Speaker 1: these recordings in the trial.
31:13
Speaker 2: During the trial, there were a number of witnesses and
31:16
Speaker 2: evidence that was presented, but by far the most compelling
31:19
Speaker 2: evidence was stuff he gave to them, his phone calls. He,
31:23
Speaker 2: in essence, put on a platter Here I am. I'm
31:26
Speaker 2: the guy that called. And their efforts to challenge it
31:30
Speaker 2: and whether it was really Paul Stefani or not.
31:32
Speaker 7: Yes, please, this is an emergency.
31:34
Speaker 4: Please have a call.
31:35
Speaker 3: You knew that it was the same person. I've listened
31:38
Speaker 3: to those calls so many times over the years. So
31:42
Speaker 3: you know that it's the same person making these phone calls.
31:46
Speaker 2: Some key people who testified and said they recognized the voice,
31:50
Speaker 2: they included his ex-wife, his sister, so people who knew him.
31:55
Speaker 2: was able to describe that's the same guy.
31:58
Speaker 5: To have two women up there incriminating him really does
32:02
Speaker 5: turn on its head all of those values he's got
32:05
Speaker 5: about the role of men and the role of women.
32:07
Speaker 5: Women are supposed to be passive, they're supposed to be subservient,
32:10
Speaker 5: they're supposed to be compliant, and here they are convicting him.
32:15
Speaker 1: Despite the seemingly overwhelming evidence connecting Stefani to the 911 calls,
32:21
Speaker 1: they were deemed inadmissible for identifying the attacker in the
32:25
Speaker 1: earlier Weepy Voice cases in St. Paul.
32:29
Speaker 4: During the course of that trial, the judge threw out
32:33
Speaker 4: the voice identification of the Weepy Voice killer. He said
32:36
Speaker 4: it wasn't sufficient to tie him to Karen Potak or
32:42
Speaker 4: Kimberly Compton. The only thing we had connecting Stefani was
32:49
Speaker 4: his voice on those calls, and we didn't think we
32:52
Speaker 4: had enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that
32:56
Speaker 4: we could prove it was him.
32:59
Speaker 1: Consequently, Paul Stefani was never tried for those crimes. He
33:05
Speaker 1: was found guilty of the second-degree murder of Barbara Simons
33:09
Speaker 1: and the attempted murder of Denise Williams. In total, he
33:13
Speaker 1: was sentenced to 58 years in prison.
33:18
Speaker 4: Essentially a life sentence. He wasn't going to be getting out.
33:21
Speaker 4: We didn't want to go through another trial if we
33:23
Speaker 4: didn't have to, unless we could absolutely prove it.
33:28
Speaker 1: In a shocking twist, 12 years into his sentence, the
33:32
Speaker 1: weepy-voiced killer himself would give investigators all the confirmation they needed.
33:38
Speaker 1: Stefani had one final confession to make.
33:44
Speaker 4: Paul Stefani found out that he had terminal cancer and
33:47
Speaker 4: he wasn't going to live more than a month to
33:50
Speaker 4: 12 months. That was what the doctors were giving him
33:54
Speaker 4: because of skin cancer. So he asked the guards at
33:57
Speaker 4: the prison Oak Park Heights to get a hold of
34:00
Speaker 4: the St. Paul police because he wanted to talk to
34:02
Speaker 4: them about what he had done.
34:06
Speaker 2: And so the investigator went in and met with him.
34:08
Speaker 2: He'd already been convicted in Barbara Simon's murder as well
34:11
Speaker 2: as Denise Williams' assault.
34:14
Speaker 4: Stefani admitted that he had assaulted Karen Potok and he
34:19
Speaker 4: admitted killing Kimberly Compton. So all four, he admitted that
34:25
Speaker 4: he was responsible for their assaults or their deaths.
34:30
Speaker 5: This isn't that he's suddenly become remorseful, that he's suddenly
34:34
Speaker 5: grown a conscience overnight, that he knows he's going to
34:37
Speaker 5: meet his maker and he needs to offload.
34:39
Speaker 7: All of this stuff.
34:40
Speaker 5: What he's trying to do is control what he leaves behind.
34:43
Speaker 5: He doesn't want to leave this world not having the
34:46
Speaker 5: credit for all of the murders that he's committed.
34:50
Speaker 1: Stefani had confirmed that he was responsible for all of
34:53
Speaker 1: the crimes he had been suspected of, but his next
34:57
Speaker 1: admittance would stun investigators.
35:01
Speaker 2: And then out of the blue, he mentioned that he
35:04
Speaker 2: also had drowned this woman. He couldn't remember her name,
35:07
Speaker 2: but drowned a woman in Lauderdale, which is a suburb
35:10
Speaker 2: of St. Paul.
35:12
Speaker 3: He confessed to a murder that nobody had any indication
35:17
Speaker 3: that he'd ever done. In fact, in his confession, it
35:20
Speaker 3: took them for a while to identify who that victim was.
35:26
Speaker 4: The police went back to say, is there any unsolved
35:29
Speaker 4: cases where someone was drowned and you never found a suspect?
35:33
Speaker 4: And sure enough, they found Kathleen Greening in 1982.
35:40
Speaker 2: She was a schoolteacher in the St. Paul area, and
35:45
Speaker 2: apparently she and Paul Stefani had gone out on a date,
35:49
Speaker 2: and she was drowned. And for many years, police suspected
35:53
Speaker 2: her husband.
35:58
Speaker 4: When the police went back to look at the evidence,
36:01
Speaker 4: he gave them evidence about her house that only the
36:04
Speaker 4: killer would know the layout of the house, how he
36:07
Speaker 4: did it.
36:10
Speaker 2: He had strangled her, drowned her in a tub in
36:12
Speaker 2: her own home.
36:15
Speaker 1: This time, Stefani hadn't phoned 911. And in another stunning revelation,
36:21
Speaker 1: he claimed that wasn't the only thing that was different
36:24
Speaker 1: in this case. he'd met with Kathleen on several occasions.
36:30
Speaker 3: He described the murder. You know, they're going up to
36:32
Speaker 3: a bathtub. Are they going to have consensual sex? This
36:37
Speaker 3: is completely different. He had feelings for this person.
36:41
Speaker 7: He's a master of information control.
36:44
Speaker 5: He wants to be very careful about the story that's
36:46
Speaker 5: emerging around his murders. The reason that Stefani didn't call
36:50
Speaker 5: the police after killing Kathleen was that he didn't want
36:53
Speaker 5: them to know about it. There's something he feels ashamed of,
36:57
Speaker 5: something he feels embarrassed about, something that doesn't quite fit
37:00
Speaker 5: with the persona that he's trying to create.
37:03
Speaker 1: Reporter Caroline Lowe was intrigued by this killer who'd suddenly
37:08
Speaker 1: confessed all.
37:10
Speaker 2: I went to prison to meet with him to see
37:12
Speaker 2: what I could learn because most killers, most criminals I've
37:15
Speaker 2: covered never admit they've done anything. I thought, is there
37:17
Speaker 2: anything we can learn from him? And I remember sitting
37:20
Speaker 2: there in prison as he's describing Kathy Greening, he said,
37:23
Speaker 2: we had a really good evening. We went out, we
37:26
Speaker 2: went home, and then he takes his hands up to
37:29
Speaker 2: his throat and he said, I just suddenly felt like
37:31
Speaker 2: doing this to her. And he's showing me with his hands.
37:34
Speaker 2: It was chilling to see him just calmly describe what
37:38
Speaker 2: he did. Talking like, what did you do for your
37:43
Speaker 2: vacation last summer? But he's talking about killing people, attacking people.
37:48
Speaker 1: Investigators reexamining the evidence in Kathleen's case were able to
37:53
Speaker 1: prove that she had known her killer.
37:56
Speaker 4: They found his telephone number in her address book that
38:01
Speaker 4: the authorities had overlooked in their original investigation.
38:05
Speaker 3: We didn't have these smartphones and everything in those days
38:08
Speaker 3: that you could put somebody's name and telephone number in.
38:11
Speaker 3: She had it in there, Paul S., and they knew
38:14
Speaker 3: from the arrest of him that that was his telephone number.
38:18
Speaker 1: There was one aspect of the confession that bore a
38:22
Speaker 1: striking resemblance to the Barbara Simons case.
38:26
Speaker 2: He mentioned that he'd put her purse in a mailbox,
38:29
Speaker 2: and that was one of those details that only the
38:31
Speaker 2: killer knew. In one of the other cases, a purse
38:34
Speaker 2: had been put in a mailbox, but that was so significant.
38:36
Speaker 2: So he gave them things that there was no doubt
38:40
Speaker 2: by the time they were done that Paul was in
38:42
Speaker 2: fact her killer.
38:45
Speaker 4: There was a big revelation for the media and county
38:49
Speaker 4: attorney's office because two or three different offices had reviewed
38:52
Speaker 4: that case. And part of the problem was the medical
38:56
Speaker 4: examiner couldn't determine if it was accidental or a homicide.
39:02
Speaker 4: So the cause of death was undetermined.
39:06
Speaker 1: It had taken 15 years, but finally her loved ones
39:10
Speaker 1: knew the truth about who was responsible for Kathleen's death.
39:16
Speaker 1: the depraved killer had confessed to murdering three women and
39:20
Speaker 1: to the attacks on Karen Potak and Denise Williams.
39:24
Speaker 3: The way he abused those women, stabbing a person 61 times,
39:29
Speaker 3: beating a woman with a tire iron until she's unconscious,
39:32
Speaker 3: leaving her for dead, that's a violent, evil person.
39:38
Speaker 4: When you look at that and the brutality and the anger,
39:41
Speaker 4: you just wonder why somebody wasn't alerted to the rage
39:45
Speaker 4: in this person and the evil of this individual a
39:48
Speaker 4: long time ago.
39:50
Speaker 1: But Paul Stefani hadn't finished his final chapter. Before he died,
39:56
Speaker 1: he contacted Caroline.
39:58
Speaker 2: He wrote me a letter, actually, I got the next week,
40:01
Speaker 2: and he asked me if I would reach out to
40:05
Speaker 2: the victim's families. This is the letter, which I still have.
40:09
Speaker 2: He asked me if I'd reach out to the victim's
40:11
Speaker 2: families because he's wanted me to tell them that he
40:15
Speaker 2: wanted to put flowers on their graves. I would not
40:20
Speaker 2: be a go-between between the serial killer and these families
40:24
Speaker 2: to help him maybe feel better as his life is
40:27
Speaker 2: winding down.
40:30
Speaker 3: I think that he wanted to make his slate clear
40:35
Speaker 3: in the eyes of law enforcement, in the eyes of God.
40:41
Speaker 3: As a devout Catholic, I am admitting to all my sins.
40:45
Speaker 3: Please forgive me. I'm telling the police everything I did,
40:50
Speaker 3: and that's why I believe that he did not commit
40:53
Speaker 3: any more murders than those he confessed to.
40:56
Speaker 1: 53-year-old Paul Stefani died of cancer in June 1998. After
41:05
Speaker 1: all of his confessions, one question remained unanswered.
41:10
Speaker 4: Why? Why? A lot of us thought that maybe his
41:15
Speaker 4: religious upbringing and his family falling apart, he was taking
41:22
Speaker 4: it out on women. He was very hostile in the
41:26
Speaker 4: brutality of the attacks. You don't stab someone 61 times
41:30
Speaker 4: with an ice pick, you know, without having a lot
41:34
Speaker 4: of rage and anger.
41:42
Speaker 1: The Twin Cities will never forget the losses suffered by
41:45
Speaker 1: their communities at the hands of Paul Stefani.
41:49
Speaker 2: You mentioned the weepy voice caller, killer. Anyone in Minnesota
41:54
Speaker 2: remembers that. If they were around back then, they remember
41:57
Speaker 2: the weepy voice killer.
41:59
Speaker 4: Paul Stefani thought he could do whatever he wanted to
42:02
Speaker 4: do in his rage. and his being evil and that
42:07
Speaker 4: he could call up and tell the police that he's
42:09
Speaker 4: sorry and that he would be forgiven or go to
42:12
Speaker 4: church and he would be forgiven. But I think he
42:16
Speaker 4: was looking for absolution and he never got it.
42:21
Speaker 2: He's a small town boy, became one of the most
42:23
Speaker 2: notorious serial killers in Minnesota history.
42:27
Speaker 1: Paul Michael Stefani has become etched in the minds of
42:31
Speaker 1: all who knew him as the notorious weepy voice killer,
42:36
Speaker 1: whose rage-fuelled and vicious attacks took the lives of three
42:40
Speaker 1: unsuspecting women and forever changed the lives of two more.
42:45
Speaker 1: Stefani may have believed he would be forgiven for his sins,
42:50
Speaker 1: but his horrific and violent actions mean he will never
42:53
Speaker 1: be absolved as one of the world's most evil killers.