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Hell and Gone Murder Line: Pauline Storment · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:08
Speaker 1: School of Humans.
0:13
Speaker 2: It was April twelfth, nineteen seventy one. A twenty seven
0:16
Speaker 2: year old woman named Pauline Stormant was walking down South
0:20
Speaker 2: Duncan Avenue in Fayetteville, Arkansas, just a few blocks from
0:23
Speaker 2: her apartment. She didn't know that someone was following her
0:27
Speaker 2: in the darkness. Pauline worked two part time jobs, one
0:31
Speaker 2: is a cashier at the Malco Theater and another as
0:33
Speaker 2: a secretary at the ROTC Center on the University of
0:36
Speaker 2: Arkansas campus. Pauline had recently started going back to school
0:40
Speaker 2: as a mature student. She enrolled as a sophomore at
0:43
Speaker 2: the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, where she was a
0:46
Speaker 2: social welfare major. Pauline had a roommate, Alice pat Murphy.
0:52
Speaker 2: Pat later told the authorities that Pauline wasn't dating anyone. Actually,
0:57
Speaker 2: Pauline spent most of her free time hitting the books.
0:59
Speaker 2: She was very focused on schoolwork, which meant that she
1:02
Speaker 2: was often pulling late nights at the library. On that night,
1:06
Speaker 2: on April twelfth, Pauline did a shift at the ROTC.
1:10
Speaker 2: While she was there, she mentioned to a coworker that
1:13
Speaker 2: she might go to a gospel concert later, but she
1:17
Speaker 2: ended up going to the library to study.
1:19
Speaker 1: Now.
1:19
Speaker 2: According to her roommate, Pauline's regular routine would have had
1:23
Speaker 2: her coming home at around ten thirty or eleven PM,
1:26
Speaker 2: but something made her lead the library a little earlier
1:29
Speaker 2: that night, around nine thirty pm. And then while she
1:33
Speaker 2: was walking, when she was just a few blocks from
1:36
Speaker 2: her apartment, someone came out of that darkness and attacked Pauline,
1:41
Speaker 2: stabbing her over and over eight times in all, in
1:44
Speaker 2: a frenzied attack that lasted several minutes. It was a
1:48
Speaker 2: hot night, a lot of people had their windows open,
1:51
Speaker 2: and at nine forty five pm when Pauline started screaming,
1:55
Speaker 2: a lot of people in the area heard her screaming,
1:57
Speaker 2: and there were several witnesses who saw a man come
2:01
Speaker 2: up behind her. But despite that, Pauline's killer is escaped
2:05
Speaker 2: into the night. And even though the police have questioned
2:09
Speaker 2: tons of people, lots of theories have been explored over
2:12
Speaker 2: the years, and there was one arrest, Pauline's killer has
2:17
Speaker 2: never been found. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past five
2:21
Speaker 2: years of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've
2:25
Speaker 2: learned there's no such thing as a small town where
2:27
Speaker 2: murder never happens. I've received hundreds of messages from people
2:32
Speaker 2: all around the country asking for help with an unsolved
2:35
Speaker 2: murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities. If
2:39
Speaker 2: you have a case you'd like me and my team
2:41
Speaker 2: to look into, you can reach out to us at
2:43
Speaker 2: our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight seven
2:47
Speaker 2: four four six one four or five. That's six seven
2:50
Speaker 2: eight seven four four six ' one four five. This
2:54
Speaker 2: is Helen Gone Murder Line.
3:30
Speaker 1: Police got to the scene really quickly.
3:33
Speaker 2: They rushed Pauline to Washington Regional Hospital, but they couldn't
3:37
Speaker 2: do anything to save her, and she was pronounced dead
3:39
Speaker 2: just after eleven PM. So the assault had very quickly
3:43
Speaker 2: turned into a murder case. Pauline's body was sent for
3:46
Speaker 2: an autopsy. Forensic testing revealed that Pauline had died of
3:51
Speaker 2: the stab wounds. She had been stabbed in the arm,
3:54
Speaker 2: the chest, and the stomach. Investigators said the murder weapon
3:57
Speaker 2: was a knife like a butcher knife, around six to
4:00
Speaker 2: eight inches long, and they believed serrated on both sides.
4:05
Speaker 2: The police did not find the murder weapon at the scene,
4:08
Speaker 2: but several days later, the sheriff did find a butcher
4:11
Speaker 2: knife that was stabbed into the ground behind an apartment
4:14
Speaker 2: complex that was across the street from where Pauline lived.
4:18
Speaker 2: They sent that knife in for testing, but I haven't
4:20
Speaker 2: been able to figure out what, if anything, happened with
4:23
Speaker 2: that weapon. A lot of people doubted that that butcher
4:26
Speaker 2: knife had been the weapon in the first place, because
4:28
Speaker 2: it wasn't serrated. But as far as I know, and
4:31
Speaker 2: there is a lot of information missing in this case,
4:34
Speaker 2: there was nothing conclusive, ever proven one way.
4:36
Speaker 1: Or the other.
4:38
Speaker 2: Sadly, that knife, along with a ton of other evidence,
4:41
Speaker 2: has been lost.
4:42
Speaker 1: We'll get to that later. Side note.
4:47
Speaker 2: While I was working on Gail Vaut's case, which we
4:50
Speaker 2: covered a couple of weeks back, as part of that,
4:53
Speaker 2: we started looking around for other unsolved murders in the
4:56
Speaker 2: same area of Arkansas. Even though Pauline's murder happened nine
5:01
Speaker 2: years earlier than Gail's murder in nineteen eighty, I couldn't
5:05
Speaker 2: help but be struck by Pauline's case because, even though
5:09
Speaker 2: them was completely different for Pauline and Gail, Gail was
5:12
Speaker 2: shot in the head and appeared to have been sexually assaulted,
5:15
Speaker 2: while Pauline was stabbed in a semi public area both
5:19
Speaker 2: women were tall with shoulder linked brown hair, and both
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Speaker 2: cases were unsolved.
5:25
Speaker 1: I want to be cleared.
5:26
Speaker 2: Nothing in the evidence I've seen indicates these cases are
5:28
Speaker 2: connected in any way. The mos were completely different. Gail
5:33
Speaker 2: was shot in the head and appeared to have been
5:34
Speaker 2: sexually assaulted. Pauline was stabbed in a semi public area.
5:40
Speaker 2: Amy reached out to a member of Pauline's family named
5:43
Speaker 2: Lance Gosnell. His great grandmother is Pauline's aunt, so he's
5:48
Speaker 2: her cousin and he's been hearing about Pauline's story about
5:51
Speaker 2: this famous unsolved murder in his family for a long time,
5:54
Speaker 2: since he was very young. A few years ago, he
5:57
Speaker 2: decided to try and find answers. He started writing about
6:00
Speaker 2: the case. The website is at who Murdered Pauline dot
6:04
Speaker 2: WordPress dot com, and he's compiled a tremendous amount of
6:08
Speaker 2: evidence over the years that he's collected a lot of
6:10
Speaker 2: it through Foyer requests. Pauline Stormant was born on April third,
6:15
Speaker 2: nineteen forty four, in Ozark, Arkansas, and her family her
6:19
Speaker 2: mom and dad were still living in Ozark when she
6:21
Speaker 2: died from a young age. Her family described her as
6:25
Speaker 2: someone who was very serious, pretty quiet, and liked to study.
6:29
Speaker 2: She was not a drinker or a partier in high school,
6:31
Speaker 2: and it seemed to be pretty much the same story
6:34
Speaker 2: in college. After she graduated from high school, she attended
6:38
Speaker 2: Arkansas Tech University in Russellville. She finished her freshman year
6:42
Speaker 2: there and after that she left school and started doing
6:45
Speaker 2: some secretarial work. So one thing about Pauline's stormant her
6:50
Speaker 2: studies and her work life are pretty well documented. Her
6:54
Speaker 2: personal life is much more of a mystery.
6:57
Speaker 1: There are some years.
6:58
Speaker 2: Between when she was twenty one and twenty seven where
7:01
Speaker 2: we don't know a lot about her personal relationships. When
7:05
Speaker 2: she was twenty one years old, in nineteen sixty five,
7:07
Speaker 2: Pauline got married to a man named Charles Joseph Pate.
7:11
Speaker 2: A lot of their relationship, as we said, is a mystery,
7:14
Speaker 2: but we do know that whatever happened between them apparently
7:17
Speaker 2: did not end very well. Charles and Pauline lived in
7:20
Speaker 2: Memphis for a while. While Pauline was in Memphis, she
7:23
Speaker 2: taught first aid for the Red Cross as well as
7:25
Speaker 2: doing some secretarial work. Again, a lot of the history
7:29
Speaker 2: about Pauline in this case was provided by her cousin Lance.
7:32
Speaker 3: One other thing that jumps out in my mind is
7:36
Speaker 3: the records show that she was married to a man
7:39
Speaker 3: named Charles Pate. The marriage didn't last long. I can't
7:44
Speaker 3: find a door forced certificate, but she had mentioned to
7:49
Speaker 3: a roommate who she had lived with when she was
7:52
Speaker 3: either in Memphis or Atlanta, that she was deathly afraid
7:56
Speaker 3: of her ex husband.
7:59
Speaker 2: So Pauline and Charles were estranged, but according to her
8:02
Speaker 2: family and to court records, they may not have beneficially divorced.
8:06
Speaker 2: So in nineteen seventy one, Pauline was at the University
8:11
Speaker 2: of Arkansas. She had put her studies on hold while
8:13
Speaker 2: she was married to Charles, but once Pauline got the
8:16
Speaker 2: chance to complete her education, she seemed to really throw
8:19
Speaker 2: herself into it. Information from a foyer request from an
8:24
Speaker 2: old police report shows that Pauline's former roommate, the one
8:29
Speaker 2: who Lance was referring to, who she had lived with
8:31
Speaker 2: in Memphis. That woman's name was Iris Fletcher. She was
8:35
Speaker 2: the one who talked about Pauline's fear of her ex husband.
8:39
Speaker 2: But apparently police ruled out Charles fairly early. I don't
8:43
Speaker 2: know why I have really tried to figure that out,
8:45
Speaker 2: but I don't have a lot of information about the
8:48
Speaker 2: investigation because a lot of the case file is gone
8:51
Speaker 2: over the years, a lot of the evidence and a
8:53
Speaker 2: lot of the pages have been lost. But apparently he
8:57
Speaker 2: attended the funeral, was cooperative with the police, and was
9:00
Speaker 2: cleared early. Pauline's college roommate passed the one who said
9:06
Speaker 2: that Pauline didn't date that much. Was asked by police
9:09
Speaker 2: if anything strange had happened on the day Pauline was murdered,
9:13
Speaker 2: and she said, yes, there was one.
9:15
Speaker 1: Thing that was out of the ordinary.
9:17
Speaker 2: She said that at around two pm that afternoon, apparently
9:21
Speaker 2: two men who were described as white men, young guys
9:25
Speaker 2: who Pauline and her roommate didn't know, invited Pauline and
9:29
Speaker 2: pat for drinks. The two women said no thanks and
9:32
Speaker 2: didn't take them up on their offer. Later, the two
9:35
Speaker 2: men reportedly went toward the residence of a guy named
9:38
Speaker 2: Gordon Cummings. Gordon Cummings with someone who we know Pauline
9:43
Speaker 2: had been introduced to. She knew him, but we don't
9:46
Speaker 2: know how well she knew him, and that will be
9:48
Speaker 2: the case with a lot of these relationships. Trying to
9:51
Speaker 2: figure out exactly how these people were related and connected
9:54
Speaker 2: each other is a huge part of this. We all
9:59
Speaker 2: know that sometimes in these cases, these tiny little details
10:02
Speaker 2: that we know are true and am using air quotes
10:05
Speaker 2: there turn out to be slightly wrong, and those slightly
10:08
Speaker 2: wrong details can multiply over the years and turn into
10:12
Speaker 2: a much larger distortion.
10:13
Speaker 1: We've seen this happen over and over with so many cases.
10:17
Speaker 2: Facts are wrong from the beginning, and they're repeated wrong
10:20
Speaker 2: over the years. At the same time, though, sometimes tiny
10:25
Speaker 2: details are left out and you never know which ones
10:27
Speaker 2: could lead to cracking the case. Jane Jones wrote a long,
10:33
Speaker 2: very in depth article about this case in Ay about
10:36
Speaker 2: U magazine back in twenty twenty.
10:38
Speaker 1: She pointed out that it was a full moon that night.
10:41
Speaker 2: This was something that had appeared in some early news reports,
10:44
Speaker 2: and that detail supposedly meant that Pauline could be seen
10:47
Speaker 2: by the witnesses that night. But actually, because I obsess
10:52
Speaker 2: over these things, I went back and found out actually
10:54
Speaker 2: the moon wasn't full that night.
10:56
Speaker 1: It was a waning gibbous moon.
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Speaker 2: Not that that makes any difference in the context of
11:00
Speaker 2: the investigation at all, because actually a waning gibbus is
11:03
Speaker 2: almost a full moon. It's actually the part of the
11:05
Speaker 2: lunar phase right after the moon is full. It would
11:08
Speaker 2: be almost as light as a full moon out there,
11:12
Speaker 2: but probably a little bit less poetic in a newspaper article,
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Speaker 2: And I'm bringing this up just to illustrate it's one
11:18
Speaker 2: tiny example of something we thought we knew wrong. Information
11:22
Speaker 2: gets repeated over the years, and sometimes it multiplies. So
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Speaker 2: I'm really trying to go back and take a look
11:27
Speaker 2: at every single piece of information that we have and
11:30
Speaker 2: try to understand if we really know everything that we
11:33
Speaker 2: think we know. Police were trying to figure out what
11:40
Speaker 2: Pauline's plans had been that night, to see if, other
11:43
Speaker 2: than the two guys asking her in her roommate to
11:46
Speaker 2: have drinks, anything else oude of the ordinary had happened.
11:49
Speaker 2: Police talked to a woman named Terry Keating. Now Terry
11:52
Speaker 2: worked with Pauline at the ROTC office. She said she
11:56
Speaker 2: had seen Pauline at around seven thirty pm and that
11:59
Speaker 2: Pauline had mentioned something about a gospel concert hosted by
12:02
Speaker 2: a group called Black Americans for Democracy. This concert was
12:06
Speaker 2: going to be held at the Union Ballroom, a building
12:08
Speaker 2: that was basically very close right next door to the ROTC.
12:12
Speaker 1: Building. It started at eight pm.
12:15
Speaker 2: But whether Pauline attended that concert or not is still
12:19
Speaker 2: kind of a question mark because some reports say she
12:22
Speaker 2: was planning to go. Other media reports say she told
12:25
Speaker 2: someone she had a class or a conflict and she
12:27
Speaker 2: could not attend. Lance pointed out something interesting on his website.
12:31
Speaker 2: He said that we're talking about nineteen seventy one Arkansas,
12:36
Speaker 2: and he was speculating, but he said, could some racist
12:39
Speaker 2: person have taken offense at a white woman planning to
12:42
Speaker 2: go to this concert where there were going to be
12:44
Speaker 2: a lot of black singers?
12:46
Speaker 1: Total speculation, but given the political.
12:48
Speaker 2: Climate at the time, I do think it's something that
12:51
Speaker 2: police would have to consider. But there was no evidence
12:55
Speaker 2: that this was ever a factor. So whether or not
12:58
Speaker 2: Pauline made it to that concert. Eventually, after she worked
13:02
Speaker 2: her shift at the ROTC, she ended up at the library.
13:08
Speaker 2: She was seen by multiple witnesses there, but then she
13:11
Speaker 2: left suddenly. We don't know exactly what time, but by
13:15
Speaker 2: tracing her route, she must have headed outside at around
13:19
Speaker 2: nine point thirty.
13:21
Speaker 1: So why did she leave early?
13:23
Speaker 2: Was it a coincidence or did she see something or
13:26
Speaker 2: someone there that bothered her? After she left the library,
13:31
Speaker 2: Pauline's root would have taken her south along Duncan Avenue.
13:34
Speaker 1: She was walking pretty.
13:35
Speaker 2: Slowly and carefully because she had a big stack of
13:38
Speaker 2: books in her hands. So again I'm betting that she
13:41
Speaker 2: headed straight home because she was balancing lots of school books.
13:45
Speaker 2: She was at the intersection of Duncan Avenue and Treadwell
13:48
Speaker 2: Streets when her attacker struck. The vicious attack happened very quickly,
13:54
Speaker 2: and then her attacker left the scene on foot. Another
13:58
Speaker 2: thing that we know for sure in this case is
14:00
Speaker 2: the time of death. We know she was screaming at
14:03
Speaker 2: nine forty five pm because several people heard her at
14:06
Speaker 2: the same time. One of them was twenty four year
14:09
Speaker 2: old Jack Huff. He lived at the Summit Terraces apartments,
14:12
Speaker 2: which were nearby. He said when he heard that scream,
14:15
Speaker 2: he ran downstairs and he saw Pauline kind of staggering
14:19
Speaker 2: toward him and holding her stomach. He told the police
14:24
Speaker 2: that Pauline said someone hit her in the chest, and
14:27
Speaker 2: that she said someone was following her, someone who was
14:30
Speaker 2: wearing glasses. Another witness named Mike Adare, also lived nearby.
14:36
Speaker 2: He said he'd actually seen Pauline before the attack.
14:38
Speaker 1: Happened.
14:39
Speaker 2: He said he was driving home and at the corner
14:42
Speaker 2: of Duncan and Center, right where she got attacked, He
14:45
Speaker 2: said he saw her carrying some really heavy books and
14:48
Speaker 2: he saw a.
14:48
Speaker 1: Man following her.
14:50
Speaker 2: Two other men, Gary Gammel and Joe Clifton, were driving
14:54
Speaker 2: in separate cars north on South Duncan and they were
14:57
Speaker 2: approaching that same intersection. Joe also lived at the Summit
15:01
Speaker 2: Terrace apartment complex. He told investigators that he also saw
15:05
Speaker 2: man following Pauline. He said he noticed she was carrying
15:09
Speaker 2: some heavy books and he thought about asking her if
15:12
Speaker 2: she wanted a lift, but in the end he didn't.
15:14
Speaker 2: Then a few seconds later, he said he heard the scream.
15:18
Speaker 2: He heard her screaming, help me. So Joe and Gary
15:22
Speaker 2: are also there in their cars. They both rushed up
15:25
Speaker 2: to the scene. Gary said that from his point of view,
15:28
Speaker 2: he saw Pauline collapse to the ground. He said when
15:31
Speaker 2: he looked around, he saw her books and her personal
15:33
Speaker 2: belongings on the ground, but he didn't see anyone else.
15:37
Speaker 2: He said when he saw Pauline, she was holding her chest.
15:40
Speaker 2: He approached her and when he got closer he could
15:43
Speaker 2: see that she was lying half in the yard and
15:45
Speaker 2: half in the street. He said that her white skirt
15:48
Speaker 2: in one of her arms were completely soaked blood. Joe
15:52
Speaker 2: said that he asked Pauline if the man that was
15:55
Speaker 2: following her did this.
15:57
Speaker 1: She told him yes.
15:59
Speaker 2: He then started trying to help her, asking where her
16:01
Speaker 2: cuts were and which way the man went, but he
16:05
Speaker 2: said it. At this point, Pauline didn't know where the
16:08
Speaker 2: man went, and she was kind of slipping in and
16:10
Speaker 2: out of consciousness. She kept asking for her books. Detectives
16:20
Speaker 2: did find Pauline's black purse with her wallet and ID
16:23
Speaker 2: in it near her body. They took it in for testing,
16:27
Speaker 2: but only found one set of fingerprints, and it turned
16:29
Speaker 2: out that they were Pauline's, so police knew it was
16:32
Speaker 2: unlikely the killer's motive had been robbery. It didn't seem
16:35
Speaker 2: like they grabbed for her purse at all. They were
16:38
Speaker 2: trying to hurt her, not take her stuff. Police asked
16:43
Speaker 2: all four witnesses some detailed questions about the man that
16:46
Speaker 2: they said they saw following Pauline. Mike Adair said the
16:49
Speaker 2: man following Pauline was wearing a brown sport coat and
16:52
Speaker 2: had blonde or dirty blonde hair, around five ten to
16:55
Speaker 2: six feet tall and wearing glasses. So the police did
16:59
Speaker 2: a sketch according to these guys descriptions and in the
17:03
Speaker 2: end it's kind of random. But this sketch, a lot
17:06
Speaker 2: of people pointed out, kind of looked like the Zodiac Killer.
17:09
Speaker 2: By the way, no, there was no evidence the Zodiac
17:12
Speaker 2: Killer was ever involved, So like the Zodiac Killer sketch,
17:16
Speaker 2: the sketch in Pauline's case was pretty generic. No one
17:19
Speaker 2: had actually seen this man's face, so it was a
17:22
Speaker 2: sketch of a guy with slicked back hair and glasses, again,
17:27
Speaker 2: a pretty common look on a college campus.
17:29
Speaker 1: This guy could have been anyone.
17:31
Speaker 2: When Mike was asked about the police sketch, he said, yes,
17:34
Speaker 2: it did look similar to the man he saw, but
17:37
Speaker 2: he pointed out that the hair of the guy he
17:38
Speaker 2: saw was messier, not slick back like on that sketch.
17:43
Speaker 2: There were two other potential witnesses, Robert Spray and John Hall.
17:48
Speaker 2: These guys lived nearby at twelve South Hill Street. They
17:51
Speaker 2: said they had seen a man who could have been
17:53
Speaker 2: involved in the crime because the guy kind of fit
17:56
Speaker 2: the description of the assailant. He had a sport code on.
17:59
Speaker 2: He was described as being medium height with a slight build.
18:02
Speaker 2: They said that this guy was kind of stumbling around
18:04
Speaker 2: like he was drunk, but they didn't have a lot
18:07
Speaker 2: to go on. They didn't have a description of the car,
18:10
Speaker 2: and in the end police never definitively found that person,
18:13
Speaker 2: so it seemed to be a dead end. So police
18:16
Speaker 2: had no idea what the motive had been, but they
18:19
Speaker 2: did have potentially four different people who said they definitively
18:23
Speaker 2: saw the killer, but their descriptions differed slightly, which of
18:26
Speaker 2: course is not uncommon in a case like this, but
18:30
Speaker 2: they did all agree on one thing. Pauline had been
18:33
Speaker 2: attacked by one person, one man, who stabbed her multiple times,
18:38
Speaker 2: and they said that man had been following her and
18:40
Speaker 2: was able to get very close to her before he pounced.
18:45
Speaker 2: Because of where Pauline's injuries were, the fact that she
18:48
Speaker 2: had stab wounds on the front of her body, police
18:50
Speaker 2: figured out she had turned around to face her attacker,
18:54
Speaker 2: so they wondered was it someone she knew, Was that
18:57
Speaker 2: how they were able to get that close, or were
19:01
Speaker 2: they just really fast and could they have snuck up
19:04
Speaker 2: on her that quickly. The police admitted they didn't know
19:08
Speaker 2: if this had been someone fixated on Pauline specifically, or
19:12
Speaker 2: someone targeting women totally randomly, or even possibly a case
19:16
Speaker 2: of mistaken identity. Because it was pretty dark it was night,
19:20
Speaker 2: none of the men who saw this stranger were that close,
19:24
Speaker 2: so even though there were multiple witnesses, not a single
19:27
Speaker 2: one got a good look at the killer's face. But
19:30
Speaker 2: police did know one thing that was such a vicious attack.
19:34
Speaker 2: The person who stabbed Pauline would have blood on their clothing,
19:39
Speaker 2: so police canvassed the area. They were looking for a
19:42
Speaker 2: suspect covered in blood, and it wasn't long before they
19:46
Speaker 2: found one. A few minutes after the stabbing, police were
19:50
Speaker 2: cruising the area when two officers saw two young men
19:54
Speaker 2: sitting on a bench. According to a very good article
19:57
Speaker 2: in Master Detective magazine from nineteen seventy four, they were
20:01
Speaker 2: around five blocks away from the crime scene when they
20:03
Speaker 2: saw these guys. One of them was so seventeen year
20:06
Speaker 2: old Wallace Peter Cunkle. So the police start talking to
20:09
Speaker 2: these guys and apparently they told the officers that they
20:12
Speaker 2: were just hanging around. They were supposed to have had
20:15
Speaker 2: dates with two girls, but they'd been stood up. But
20:18
Speaker 2: when police asked them for more details, the guys said
20:20
Speaker 2: they didn't even know these girls' names, which honestly seems
20:23
Speaker 2: a little bit strange to me that they wouldn't even
20:25
Speaker 2: have a first name. But apparently the police thought this
20:28
Speaker 2: story was believable. As the detective was talking to Peter Cunkle,
20:32
Speaker 2: he noticed some dark spots on his white shirt, jacket,
20:36
Speaker 2: and trousers. Later it was determined those were blood. When
20:41
Speaker 2: the officer asked Peter why he had blood on his clothes,
20:43
Speaker 2: Peter said he'd had a nosebleed recently. Now, to police,
20:47
Speaker 2: with everything going on, this seemed like a pretty big coincidence,
20:50
Speaker 2: so they took him in for questioning. They took his clothes,
20:54
Speaker 2: and they took samples of his blood. Now, obviously this
20:57
Speaker 2: was back in nineteen seventy one, so the testing they
20:59
Speaker 2: could do on blood was much more limited than it
21:02
Speaker 2: is now. They could basically tell you what type blood
21:05
Speaker 2: it was, and that's about it. Peter got a lawyer,
21:11
Speaker 2: and his lawyer said he refused to take a polygraph test. Now,
21:15
Speaker 2: by the way, I don't hold this against him at all,
21:17
Speaker 2: just my opinion, but I've said this before. I actually
21:20
Speaker 2: think this is a very smart move. Honestly, asking for
21:22
Speaker 2: an attorney, especially in a situation like this where you
21:25
Speaker 2: know the police are kind of on a fishing expedition,
21:29
Speaker 2: is something that I think everyone should do. Peter told police,
21:33
Speaker 2: and this is according to his police statement that was
21:36
Speaker 2: released via a Foyer request, that he and a friend
21:39
Speaker 2: were boiling water with speed that night.
21:42
Speaker 1: So we've talked about injectable speed before.
21:44
Speaker 2: That was a big thing in the seventies and eighties
21:46
Speaker 2: in Arkansas, and what they were using was a drug
21:49
Speaker 2: that was similar to finfinn. Now, if you were around
21:52
Speaker 2: in the eighties, you may remember that this was an
21:54
Speaker 2: ingredient in a diet drug before it got removed from
21:57
Speaker 2: the market by the FDA in the mid nineties because
21:59
Speaker 2: people who took it were experiencing heart damage. These pills
22:03
Speaker 2: were very strong, they were speed. What they would do
22:06
Speaker 2: is boil water, throw a lot of pills in there,
22:09
Speaker 2: and then inject this stuff into their veins. So Peter
22:12
Speaker 2: Kunkle said that's what they were doing that night. He
22:14
Speaker 2: said he started shooting up at around seven thirty pm.
22:17
Speaker 2: He took another shot at eight pm and then did
22:20
Speaker 2: a few other things. Stopped by a local store called
22:22
Speaker 2: the jet Set to get a sprite. Then between nine
22:25
Speaker 2: thirty and nine to forty five pm, so the crucial
22:28
Speaker 2: time when Pauline would have been walking from the library.
22:32
Speaker 2: He said a friend of his named Richard Finley, who
22:34
Speaker 2: had been hanging out with that night, asked Peter to
22:36
Speaker 2: take him home, So Peter said they borrowed one of
22:39
Speaker 2: their friend's motorcycles, and then he claims that he gave
22:42
Speaker 2: Richard a ride home and their route would have involved
22:46
Speaker 2: cutting right through Dixon Avenue, right through the crime scene.
22:50
Speaker 2: After dropping Richard home, Peter said that he went back
22:53
Speaker 2: to the Grayhouse.
22:54
Speaker 1: This was the place where he'd been staying, so Peter
22:58
Speaker 1: was in the area.
22:59
Speaker 2: According to the Arkansas Razorback newspaper, both Peter Kuncle and
23:03
Speaker 2: Pauline had Type A blood, but unfortunately, these small amounts
23:09
Speaker 2: of blood that drops on Peter's clothes, they didn't have
23:12
Speaker 2: enough to test it in the lab back then. So
23:15
Speaker 2: the bottom line was a lot of people have blood
23:17
Speaker 2: Type A and they had no physical evidence tying Peter
23:21
Speaker 2: to the crime scene. And Peter had a good attorney.
23:25
Speaker 2: His attorney was on point, and he cut a deal
23:27
Speaker 2: with the police. He said, Peter would agree to take
23:30
Speaker 2: a lot of detector test but only if the police
23:33
Speaker 2: would agree that if Peter passed that test, basically they
23:36
Speaker 2: would clear him.
23:37
Speaker 1: And apparently the police agreed to do that and Peter passed.
23:41
Speaker 2: So Peter Conkle was released from police custody and publicly
23:45
Speaker 2: cleared by law enforcement. The police chief, Hollis Spencer, said
23:51
Speaker 2: that police were quote satisfied that he had no part
23:54
Speaker 2: in the murder of Miss stormant end quote. Then Peter
23:58
Speaker 2: cuncle and his parents held a press conference and he
24:02
Speaker 2: was very emotional at this press conference. I remember he's
24:04
Speaker 2: only seventeen years old and he was crying. He told
24:06
Speaker 2: everybody he didn't blame the police, they were just doing
24:09
Speaker 2: their job. He said he always knew he would be
24:11
Speaker 2: cleared and he completely denied having anything to do with
24:14
Speaker 2: Pauline's murder. By the way, the charges against Peter were dropped,
24:19
Speaker 2: but they were what we call nelly prost meaning dismissed
24:22
Speaker 2: without prejudice, so if new evidence ever comes to light,
24:27
Speaker 2: he could technically have been retried. After Peter was released,
24:32
Speaker 2: police started looking for other people of interest. They did
24:35
Speaker 2: a lot of interviews, they reportedly gave a lot more
24:38
Speaker 2: a lie detector tests, and then just a month after
24:42
Speaker 2: Pauline was murdered, a second University of Arkansas co ed
24:46
Speaker 2: was stabbed. Her name was Andrea Jones and she lived
24:51
Speaker 2: about one point eight miles from where Pauline was attacked.
24:55
Speaker 2: Police arrested a man named Eddie Rush. He was twenty
24:58
Speaker 2: one years old and not a student at the University
25:00
Speaker 2: of Arkansas. Apparently Eddie Rush lied his way into andrew
25:05
Speaker 2: his apartment and attacked her. He stabbed her several times,
25:09
Speaker 2: but she survived. Eddie Rush was convicted and sentenced to
25:13
Speaker 2: twenty one years in prison for attempted murder.
25:17
Speaker 1: And we're bringing Eddie Rush.
25:19
Speaker 2: Up because his picture in the newspaper from back then
25:24
Speaker 2: looks very much like the sketch that was circulated of
25:27
Speaker 2: Pauline's attacker. He's got a short buzz cut, but he
25:32
Speaker 2: does have glasses, and he would seem to fit the
25:35
Speaker 2: general description. Eddie Rush passed away several years ago, and
25:40
Speaker 2: because in Pauline's case, there's no DNA attest, sadly there's
25:45
Speaker 2: no way to investigate him now. But after that, no
25:48
Speaker 2: one else was arrested or charged. Then, on May twenty second,
25:53
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty one, a man named Jack Butler walked into
25:56
Speaker 2: the Faateful Police Department. He said he had something to
25:59
Speaker 2: tell police. He claimed that he had murdered Pauline Storman.
26:11
Speaker 2: Jack Butler's story was that he was hanging around a
26:13
Speaker 2: swimming pool on the University of Arkansas campus. He said
26:16
Speaker 2: after that he went home and got a pocket knife
26:19
Speaker 2: and started strolling through Evergreen Cemetery. He said that he
26:22
Speaker 2: saw a woman and started following her and attacked her
26:25
Speaker 2: and stabbed her from behind. This is where the story
26:28
Speaker 2: gets a little strange, because apparently he thought the woman
26:32
Speaker 2: was his wife. He told police when he got home
26:34
Speaker 2: he was shocked because he thought his wife was dead
26:37
Speaker 2: and she was ready to have dinner. He said he
26:39
Speaker 2: only later realized that the woman he had supposedly stabbed
26:43
Speaker 2: was Pauline Stormant. But he said a lot of things
26:47
Speaker 2: that didn't seem to fit the evidence or actually make sense.
26:51
Speaker 2: Like he said he had stabbed Pauline three times, when
26:54
Speaker 2: we know she'd been stabbed a lot more than that.
26:57
Speaker 2: And he also said she was carrying a record player
27:00
Speaker 2: at the time. If you were anywhere near that scene,
27:03
Speaker 2: you know she had a big stack of books in
27:05
Speaker 2: her hands. Police apparently decided this confession was erroneous and
27:09
Speaker 2: Jack Butler was cut loose. Also, more time went by
27:13
Speaker 2: in the case seemed to go cold. I like to
27:17
Speaker 2: look at old cases so we can see the techniques
27:20
Speaker 2: that work. On April eighth, nineteen eighty one, ten years
27:24
Speaker 2: after Pauline's murder, in Texarkana, two siblings, fourteen year old
27:28
Speaker 2: Karen Alexander and thirteen year old Gordon Alexander, were fatally
27:32
Speaker 2: stabbed to death inside their home.
27:35
Speaker 1: For decades, this was a cold case.
27:37
Speaker 2: Police said Karen had been sexually assaulted shortly before the murder.
27:42
Speaker 2: The murder weapon was a butter knife, but police never
27:45
Speaker 2: made any arrests over the years. Like in Pauline's case,
27:49
Speaker 2: a lot of people said it could have been a
27:51
Speaker 2: serial killer, could have been Henry Lee Lucas. Apparently he
27:54
Speaker 2: claimed responsibility for those killings, but later, like so many
27:58
Speaker 2: of Henry Lee Lucas's other confessions, it was proven to
28:01
Speaker 2: be false. He was nowhere near Texarkana when these murders happened.
28:07
Speaker 2: It was a really tragic story because after the murders
28:10
Speaker 2: of her children, their mother took her own life after
28:13
Speaker 2: suffering from depression. And it wasn't until forty two years later,
28:17
Speaker 2: when a detective took up the case and resubmitted some
28:20
Speaker 2: forensic evidence into codis that they discovered the killer was
28:24
Speaker 2: there all along. It was the children's father, Weldon Alexander,
28:28
Speaker 2: who had supposedly had an airtight alibi working an overnight
28:31
Speaker 2: shift a copper Tyron rubber plant. Police believe he had
28:36
Speaker 2: been sexually assaulting his daughter Karen for months. They believed
28:39
Speaker 2: that on the morning when the children were killed, or
28:41
Speaker 2: possibly the night before, he attempted to rape Karen, she
28:45
Speaker 2: fought him off or her brother tried to intervene.
28:48
Speaker 1: They both ended up being brutally murdered.
28:50
Speaker 2: It is a sad and horrific case, but I'm bringing
28:54
Speaker 2: it up because sometimes all it takes is one fresh
28:58
Speaker 2: set of eyes who can look at the case file
29:00
Speaker 2: and break the case. The time of death being a
29:03
Speaker 2: little bit earlier or later than police think someone's alibi
29:06
Speaker 2: not checking out. Even the coldest cases can be solved now. Obviously,
29:12
Speaker 2: in that case, the Alexander murders, there was DNA that
29:16
Speaker 2: could be resubmitted, which I'm not sure is true for
29:19
Speaker 2: Pauline's case, But for all the families out there, you
29:23
Speaker 2: have a cold case that has been going on for
29:25
Speaker 2: years or decades, there's always hope. So back to Pauline's case.
29:33
Speaker 2: Pauline's family didn't give up, and eventually Lance started writing
29:38
Speaker 2: on his website and posting on sites like web slues.
29:42
Speaker 2: Lance said that at one point law enforcement actually put
29:47
Speaker 2: in an email quote at the moment, only a deathbed
29:51
Speaker 2: confession or a secret diary hidden away in an attict
29:54
Speaker 2: basement or bible will close this case.
29:56
Speaker 1: End quote.
29:58
Speaker 2: Given the fact that police say there's no DNA, and
30:01
Speaker 2: this is what we're left with, what's next for this case?
30:04
Speaker 2: If the four why a request information we have so
30:07
Speaker 2: far as correct, there's apparently no DNA to test, so
30:10
Speaker 2: authorities can't do, for example, familial DNA testing. Over the years,
30:15
Speaker 2: a lot of people have put a lot of different
30:17
Speaker 2: theories forward. Some people compared Pauline's case to Betsy Ardsma's
30:22
Speaker 2: murder because both of them were killed in college libraries.
30:25
Speaker 1: Police have said there's.
30:26
Speaker 2: No connection between those two cases. Some people suggested it
30:30
Speaker 2: could be the Zodiac or Ted Bundy a serial killer,
30:32
Speaker 2: but again, there was absolutely no evidence of this and
30:35
Speaker 2: this was not Ted Bundy's mo Honestly, there's no evidence
30:39
Speaker 2: that this was a serial killer at all. But as
30:42
Speaker 2: Lance said, so far, the evidence seems to point to
30:45
Speaker 2: a more personal murder, some kind of crime of passion.
30:49
Speaker 2: So if there's going to be a break in this case,
30:51
Speaker 2: it's almost certainly not going to be from retesting of DNA,
30:54
Speaker 2: because so much of it has been lost. It's going
30:57
Speaker 2: to be from someone who knows something. It's also interesting
31:01
Speaker 2: that so many people, all the witnesses, seem to agree
31:04
Speaker 2: on a couple of things, including the fact the person
31:07
Speaker 2: who stabbed Pauline approached on foot. None of them remember
31:10
Speaker 2: hearing a car afterwards. So this is a person who
31:13
Speaker 2: obviously felt confident enough that they could move quickly enough
31:16
Speaker 2: on that campus that they could get very close to
31:19
Speaker 2: her without her being alarmed and without anyone else noticing them.
31:23
Speaker 2: They believed that they fit in, and they probably did,
31:26
Speaker 2: because remember several people saw a man following Pauline and
31:30
Speaker 2: they didn't realize that was anything out of the ordinary
31:32
Speaker 2: until they heard the screams. This person's plan was to
31:36
Speaker 2: attack Pauline and to flee the scene, and that's what
31:39
Speaker 2: they did, and it worked, because up until now this
31:42
Speaker 2: person has gotten away with this murder. They walked up
31:45
Speaker 2: to a young woman in the prime of her life,
31:48
Speaker 2: murdered her and got away clean. Was it someone who
31:52
Speaker 2: knew Pauline who had some kind of a grudge or
31:55
Speaker 2: was it someone who maybe was obsessed with her, who
31:57
Speaker 2: wanted to know her and was frustrated because they couldn't
32:00
Speaker 2: make contact in the way they wanted. Remember, in nineteen
32:03
Speaker 2: seventy four Master Detective magazine, he had published that big
32:06
Speaker 2: article about the killing. In the nineteen eighties, the magazine
32:10
Speaker 2: got an anonymous letter. The letter was postmarked Capron, Virginia,
32:18
Speaker 2: and so that police had not caught the real killer.
32:20
Speaker 2: The letter said that Pauline's killer had targeted her because
32:23
Speaker 2: they believed she was someone else, that the whole thing
32:26
Speaker 2: had been a mistake. Investigators did take some fingerprints off
32:30
Speaker 2: that document, but tragically those prints, along with so much
32:33
Speaker 2: other evidence, suffered the same fate. They were lost by
32:36
Speaker 2: law enforcement. But the postmark is interesting for another reason.
32:41
Speaker 2: There's a correctional facility there called the Southampton Correctional Center.
32:44
Speaker 2: Lance points that out on his website. Now, there were
32:49
Speaker 2: some inmates there who did time who were supposedly friends
32:52
Speaker 2: of Peter Cunkle's and Joe Clifton, one of the witnesses
32:56
Speaker 2: was also there incarcerated for a period of time. This
33:00
Speaker 2: is very interesting to me because I wonder could that
33:03
Speaker 2: mean that the police were about Peter Cuncle, that maybe
33:07
Speaker 2: he targeted Pauline because he thought she was his day
33:10
Speaker 2: who stood him up? And what about Joe Clifton, Could
33:13
Speaker 2: he have been more than a witness. There are so
33:21
Speaker 2: many mysteries in this case. I have so many questions
33:23
Speaker 2: about the investigation, about these people's relationship to each other,
33:28
Speaker 2: whether all of them just happened to randomly be there,
33:31
Speaker 2: or whether there was more to these stories. And I
33:33
Speaker 2: also have questions about Pauline's ex husband. How conclusively he,
33:37
Speaker 2: or for that matter, any of these people were ruled out.
33:41
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that any one of these people is
33:42
Speaker 1: responsible for her murder.
33:44
Speaker 2: Again, We're just trying to follow the threads to pick
33:47
Speaker 2: up on anything that might have been missed over the years.
33:50
Speaker 2: No one has ever been arrested or charged with this murder,
33:54
Speaker 2: so I'm doing what I usually do. We're reaching out
33:57
Speaker 2: to anyone who may have been in the area on
33:59
Speaker 2: that day, who may have seen anything, any detailed, no
34:02
Speaker 2: matter how small. We're breaking out a giant pot of
34:05
Speaker 2: CAF and were going through some case files with a
34:08
Speaker 2: lot of missing pages. According to his obituary, Charles Pate.
34:13
Speaker 2: After he divorced Pauline, served in Vietnam, got numerous commendations,
34:17
Speaker 2: and later got a job working for the Smithsonian Institute.
34:20
Speaker 2: He moved back to Arkansas and became a fishing guide.
34:23
Speaker 2: He passed away in twenty eighteen. Then there's Gordon Cummings,
34:28
Speaker 2: the guy Pauline knew, and the two friends who asked
34:32
Speaker 2: the girls if they wanted to have drinks that day?
34:35
Speaker 2: Who were those guys? Could they have had anything to
34:37
Speaker 2: do with this? Could they have seen something? Or could
34:39
Speaker 2: those two men have had anything to do with Peter
34:42
Speaker 2: Cunkle and his friend, the ones who said they had
34:45
Speaker 2: dates who stood them up. Yes, Peter was cleared by police,
34:49
Speaker 2: but as we know, he had a very good lawyer,
34:51
Speaker 2: and sometimes mistakes are made. Lance said that while he
34:55
Speaker 2: hopes to have answers one day in this case, he
34:58
Speaker 2: would also really love to have Pauline's memory honored somewhere
35:01
Speaker 2: in the University of Arkansas campus.
35:04
Speaker 4: My long term goal this project, in anything that comes
35:07
Speaker 4: out of it, I would be completely happy if somehow
35:13
Speaker 4: I could see some kind of plaque with her memory
35:18
Speaker 4: telling the story, erected somewhere.
35:23
Speaker 5: In the vicinity. That's my long term goal to see
35:26
Speaker 5: if that happen. I think that would be the best
35:29
Speaker 5: way to honor her memory, is to tell her story
35:33
Speaker 5: for all to see whenever they come across it. If
35:35
Speaker 5: the university would do it, I would love to have
35:37
Speaker 5: it right there at the top of South Duncan, at
35:41
Speaker 5: the edge of Dixon Street. This is what happened in
35:44
Speaker 5: one of our students.
35:47
Speaker 2: I'm hoping that someone out there remembers April twelfth, nineteen
35:50
Speaker 2: seventy one, at that intersection near the University of Arkansas.
35:55
Speaker 2: Someone who heard a scream or saw something heard someone
35:59
Speaker 2: who was there talking about what happened that night, someone
36:02
Speaker 2: who might have answers and who can help us go
36:05
Speaker 2: closer to finding out what happened to Pauline Stormant.
36:09
Speaker 1: I'm Catherine Townsend.
36:11
Speaker 2: This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line
36:15
Speaker 2: is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts.
36:18
Speaker 2: It's written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced
36:21
Speaker 2: by Gabby Watts. Special thanks to Amy Tubbs for her
36:24
Speaker 2: research assistance. Music contributed by Ben Sale Executive Producers of
36:29
Speaker 2: Virginia Prescott Brandon Barr, and Elsie Crowley. If you have
36:33
Speaker 2: a case you'd like me and my team to look into,
36:36
Speaker 2: you can reach out to us at our Helen Gone
36:37
Speaker 2: Murder Line.
36:38
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