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The Weepy Voiced Killer · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

• 0:13
  Discretion advice. This is ten minute murder. On New Year's Day nineteen eighty
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  one, Minnesota police received a strange call at three am. A male caller
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  with an unsettling, high pitched voice simply gave them directions to a location,
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  telling them that if they went there they would find a girl who had been
• 0:59
  heard. Sure enough, at the location in Saint Paul, twenty year old
• 1:03
  Karen Potak was lying naked in the snow. Her injuries were so severe that
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  at first the responding officers thought that she was dead, and one of them
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  later described the moment as the most devastating scene he'd seen in his career.
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  However, even though Karen had been beaten so violently that parts of her brain
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  had been exposed, she was miraculously still alive. She survived medical treatment,
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  but was left with a brain injury and memory loss from the attack. The
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  police had no way of tracking down the strange, tearful man who had called
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  them about Karen's attack. He hadn't been on the phone long enough to trace
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  the call, and there were no eye witnesses who could provide additional information.
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  With no clues as to the attacker's identity and Karen unable to identify her assailant,
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  the case went cold until the caller contacted police a second time. On
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  the third of June nineteen eighty one, eighteen year old Kimberly Compton left her
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  home in the state of Wisconsin to move to Twin Cities, Minnesota. She
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  just graduated high school and she wanted to look for a job in that area,
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  but she didn't get a chance. The same day that she arrived in
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  Minnesota, Kimberly was brutally murdered and her body was discovered lying in a field.
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  First responders were astonished by the brutality of the crime. Kimberly's killer had
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  used an ice pick to stab her more than sixty times. Less than two
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  days later, a call came through to the police station. The male caller
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  spoke in a weepy, high pitched voice and confessed that he was the one
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  who had murdered Kimberly. Because of his strange voice and the fact that the
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  crime was all over the news, the operators originally thought it was a prank
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  until the man revealed a detail that only law enforcement and the killer were aware
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  of. Quote please find me, he begged, I just stabbed somebody with
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  an ice pick. I can't stop myself. I keep killing everybody. I
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  don't know why I had to stab her. I'm so upset about it.
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  Although the media knew several other details about Kimberly's death, the police never mentioned
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  the murder weapon, the ice pick, and once the caller mentioned the ice
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  pick, the chances that this was a prank call became much smaller. But
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  despite expressing remorse for a crime, the caller never gave his name or agreed
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  to turn himself in. After hanging up, he called back a second time,
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  saying I'll try not to kill anyone else. During the second call,
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  he was on the line long enough for the police to trace this call,
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  but when the officers arrived at the phone booth that the call was traced to,
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  the killer was nowhere to be seen. Now convinced that they had received
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  direct contact from Kimberly's killer, the police decided to compare the caller's unusual voice
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  to recordings from other recent nine to one one calls. That's how they discovered
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  a connection to an early anonymous tip and realized that on New Year's Day that
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  same year, Karen Potak had been lucky enough to survive an attack from the
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  same man who had stabbed Kimberly Compton sixty one times. The breakthrough in the
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  case didn't last. Kimberly had died from her wounds, and Karen didn't remember
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  being attacked. There were no clues as to the killer's identity, and all
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  the investigators could do was wait to see if he called again, and almost
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  an entire year later, he did. On the eighth of August nineteen eighty
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  two, a call came through from the man who had now been nicknamed the
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  weepy voiced Killer. Please don't talk, he begged the operator. Listen.
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  I'm sorry. I killed that girl. I stabbed her forty times. Kimberly
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  Compton was the first one over In Saint Paul, the police were able to
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  connect the killer's confession to a body with more than a hundred stab wounds that
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  had been discovered lying by the Mississippi River only two days before. The victim
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  was later identified as Barbara Simmons, a nurse in her forties. This time,
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  there was a key difference in the investigation. The police had a witness
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  who might have seen Barbara's killer the night before Barbara was killed. She had
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  been out drinking at a Minneapolis bar with some friends. She had decided to
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  leave the bar with a man she'd never met before, saying he's cute.
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  I hope he's nice because I just need a ride home. She was never
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  seen alive again, but for the first time, the weepy voiced killer had
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  been seen by an eye witness. On the twenty first of August nineteen eighty
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  two, a teenage sex worker got into a man's car. As time went
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  by, Denise Williams had a terrible gut feeling. The guy behind the wheel
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  had told her that he would drop her off in the city afterwards, but
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  instead he started taking winding roads through a dimly lit area. Finally he stopped
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  the car. He pulled out a screwdriver, which he used to stab her
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  fifteen times. Denise fought back and was able to grab onto a glass bottle,
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  which she used to hit her attacker in the face and head while screaming.
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  The bottle drew blood, and Denise's screaming attracted the attention of a man
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  who lived in the neighborhood. The man tried to fight off Denise's attacker,
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  who then fled back to his apartment. However, the wounds from the glass
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  bottle were deep, and the weepy voiced killer quickly realized that he needed medical
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  attention. But he'd forgotten one thing. He had an incredibly distinctive voice that
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  police would instantly recognize, and law enforcement across Minneapolis were looking for a man
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  who had recently been hit in the face with a bottle. By calling for
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  help, the killer essentially turned himself in, revealing that he was a local
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  man by the name of Paul Michael Stefani. Paul had lived in the area
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  in the sixties, and he'd been the youngest of ten siblings raised by Catholic
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  parents. When Paul was a toddler, his mother had remarried and her new
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  husband physically abused the children, even occasionally throwing one of them down a flight
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  of stairs. From then on, Paul's life had taken an increasingly dark path.
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  In his adult years, Paul continued to be a practicing Catholic, just
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  like his parents, but despite his devotion, something inside Paul's head just didn't
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  align with what he was doing at church. He later claimed that he heard
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  voices in his head telling him, Paul, it's time to kill. At
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  the same time, when he started killing, he knew that he was betraying
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  his religion. During one of his calls to the police, through his tears,
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  he told the operator, I will never make it to heaven. At
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  Paul's trial for Barbara Simmons murder, several of his loved ones testified against him.
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  His sister, a housemate, and his own ex wife all told the
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  court that they had listened to the recordings of the weepy voiced Killer's phone call
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  and they believed that it was Paul. However, because Paul was crying hysterically
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  in all of his telephone calls with the police, his voice was unable to
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  be confidently identified. This meant that even though he was charged with murdering Barbara
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  and attempting to murder Denise, he was not convicted of the rest of the
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  crimes that the weepy Voiced Killer was believed to be responsible for. In nineteen
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  ninety seven, Paul received a diagnosis of terminal skin cancer. Knowing that he
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  would likely not survive for more than a year, he decided that he would
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  reveal the true extent of his crimes and confessed to killing Kimberly Compton in nineteen
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  eighty one, Barbara Simmons in nineteen eighty two, and a woman named Kathleen
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  Greening in nineteen eighty two. At this point, police had not linked the
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  Weepy Voiced Killer to Cathy's death. In fact, there had been nothing to
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  suggest a link between the cases. Kathy had been drowned in her own bathtub
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  instead of being beaten or stabbed, and no remorseful phone calls had come through
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  to nine one one after her body was discovered. In total, Paul confessed
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  to a near fatal beating, three stabbings, and one drowning. In a
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  statement to the media, he said, quote, since I've been locked down
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  for the last fifteen years, I've wondered how all this could happen. And
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  all I can say is I'm sick and I'm sorry, if sorry means anything.
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  After fifteen years, one year after confessing to his additional crimes, the
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  Weepy Voiced Killer died in prison. Don't talk just for us. I'm sorry
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  what I did, the content I couldn't help, but don't know why I
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  had ever. I am o'sset about it. I can't get a contra I
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  can't believe it's a big tream. I can't think a bid top. If
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  I get locked up, I kill myself. I'd better kill myself to get
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  locked up. I'll try not to kill anybody else. Players don't talk,
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  then listen. I'm sorry I killed a girl. I stand there forty times
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  kimberly content with the birth over safe. I don't know what I'm gonna kill
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  myself. I'm just gonna other guys and would hunt me. I say me,
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  I just get somebody when her name speak, I can't tell myself,
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  and you can't killing somebody Jays. Please, this is an emergency. Please
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  send us Quata kiss from the road. Momberg Manufacturing Company machine shop. Please?
• 10:52
  Is it Amman stood as a girl? Who? Can you tell me
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  what happened to him? The times that she's laid on the girl in the
• 10:58
  back her? What's the address? I don't know. That's ten Minute Murder
• 11:16
  for today Brief and bingeable true Crime. I'm Joe the host. Thank you
• 11:20
  so much for listening, and be sure to subscribe. If you're listening right
• 11:24
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• 11:31
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• 11:33
  should be subscribed now. Cool. I appreciate it. For all things related
• 11:37
  to the podcast. You can go to ten minute Murder dot com and coming
• 11:41
  up on the next episode of the podcast, it's a chilling, twisted case
• 11:46
  of betrayal and teenage Quarrel's gone too Far. It's a story about Skylar Nice
• 11:52
  and it highlights the importance of knowing who is in our children's lives and how
• 11:56
  even though they may look angelic faced, they could be the stone cold killers.
• 12:01
  And I know that sounds a little bit dramatic and hopefully not our kids,
• 12:05
  right, but in the story you're gonna hear coming up after this one,
• 12:09
  it definitely is that situation. A quick listener email before we go,
• 12:13
  Hey, Joe Tam from Zimbabwe here. I listened to your podcast on Deezer.
• 12:18
  I was a tad late to find it, only stumbled upon it last
• 12:22
  November, but I listened to at least ten episodes a day while at work.
• 12:26
  It's the perfect podcast for short and sweet and entertaining. And you remind
• 12:30
  me a lot of myself when you're talking about certain things. The diet coke
• 12:33
  can being changed did it for me. Like I said, I found you
• 12:37
  recently and I've been going through all the episodes, so I'm a little delayed
• 12:39
  to the diet coke can change. But thank you for making my days a
• 12:43
  little more bearable. I appreciate the hard work you put in. Stay blessed,
• 12:46
  Tam. And first of all, thank you so much Tam from Zimbabwe
• 12:50
  for taking the time to send the email. And in case you don't know
• 12:54
  what in the world Tam is talking about with this diet coke can, well,
• 12:58
  when diet coke would not die, it was coke zero. When they
• 13:01
  switched from that black can to the red can, I was a little skeptical
• 13:07
  about it. I didn't want to switch with them, and apparently the recipe
• 13:11
  wasn't supposed to change. But I think it may be psychosomatic because it did
• 13:16
  definitely taste different to me. Not bad, but it just tasted different.
• 13:20
  And I was, in my own silent protest, which I'm not so silently
• 13:24
  mentioned on this podcast, I switched to diet pepsi and that's exactly what I'm
• 13:28
  drinking right at this current moment, is diet pepsi, which other people absolutely
• 13:33
  hate and I don't know why because it tastes fine. However, I have
• 13:37
  been mixing in a lot of water. Now I drink way less soda than
• 13:41
  I used to, because, first of all, it's not healthy to drink
• 13:46
  as much soda as I was drinking, and because the onslaught of messages and
• 13:50
  emails from people saying, hey, you need to knock off that soda altogether.
• 13:54
  So I didn't do that, but I mean I'm trying anyway. That's
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  the episode for today. Thank you so much for listening to another ten minute
• 14:01
  Murder Podcast episode. I will see you on the next one. Bye.