Speaker 1: You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
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Speaker 2: This podcast was recorded on.
Speaker 1: In twenty fifteen. Leeton's school teacher Stephanie Scott was preparing
Speaker 1: to become a bride for the very first time. She
Speaker 1: was excited to walk down the aisle to marry Aaron
Speaker 1: Leeson Wooley, her partner of five years, and by Easter Sunday,
Speaker 1: April five, most of the plans were already finalized for
Speaker 1: the ceremony that would be happening just six days later
Speaker 1: in the central West town of yu Gowra. She only
Speaker 1: had a few more things to check off her list,
Speaker 1: making sure the bus company had her reservation for her
Speaker 1: wedding guests confirmed, and to finish off the lesson plans
Speaker 1: that she was putting in place for the substitute teacher
Speaker 1: who would step into her classroom while she was on
Speaker 1: her honeymoon in Tahiti. Stephanie was known for her kindness
Speaker 1: and dedication, so when she wished the cleaner at the
Speaker 1: school where she worked, where she'd gone to tick some
Speaker 1: of those final things off her to do list a
Speaker 1: happy Easter, she meant it, but She didn't know that
Speaker 1: the man she'd just spoken to had been watching her,
Speaker 1: and the predator inside him was fixated on a dark
Speaker 1: urge to kill. I'm Claire Murphy standing in for Jemma
Speaker 1: Bath and this is True Crime Conversations a Mumma mea
Speaker 1: podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to
Speaker 1: the people who know the most about them. The death
Speaker 1: of twenty six year old Stephanie Scott rocked the small
Speaker 1: New South Wales community where she lived and worked, but
Speaker 1: the brutal way in which she died, and the fact
Speaker 1: that she was less than a week away from her
Speaker 1: wedding day made her story all the more tragic. Even
Speaker 1: more devastating was that she wasn't supposed to be there
Speaker 1: that day, and scarily wasn't even her killer's intended victim.
Speaker 1: By the time her family gathered to say goodbye to
Speaker 1: her in the very same place she was due to
Speaker 1: be married, two brothers located in two different states were
Speaker 1: behind bars, and the story as to how Stephanie became
Speaker 1: their target shocked the entire nation. Sarah Crawford is a
Speaker 1: journalist who's been following this story since that day in
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen and as we mark ten years since Stephanie's
Speaker 1: senseless death, Sarah sat down with us to help us
Speaker 1: better understand the crime and who Stephanie Scott was. A
Speaker 1: decade on, Sarah, I'm really interested to find out about
Speaker 1: when you first started hearing about the case involving Stephanie Scott.
Speaker 1: How did that sort of initially make you feel when
Speaker 1: you first heard about the crime that had been committed
Speaker 1: against her, How did you respond to it?
Speaker 2: Well, at the time, I was the court reporter in
Speaker 2: Sydney at the newspaper that I worked at. I wasn't
Speaker 2: the police reporter, so I wasn't there on the ground
Speaker 2: when her body was found. But as usual, it comes
Speaker 2: through as a police press release and then there's a
Speaker 2: they usually really scant details, and then there has to
Speaker 2: be a decision made on Okay, so it's at Eton.
Speaker 2: You know, we've got to fly out there. You know,
Speaker 2: is this person has this person just gone missing, have
Speaker 2: they decided to run away? Or is this a potential crime?
Speaker 2: So those decisions need to be made, and they need
Speaker 2: to be made pretty fast. And because of the nature
Speaker 2: of this case, there was a lot of interest in
Speaker 2: who she was and what could possibly have happened to
Speaker 2: a woman who vanishes six days before her wedding. It
Speaker 2: was you know, I mean, of course, your attention, and
Speaker 2: so it was they made decision pretty fast to send
Speaker 2: reporters down there, and that was the case for a
Speaker 2: lot of the news outlets in Sydney at the time.
Speaker 1: So you were covering court proceedings at the time. Is
Speaker 1: that when you really started to hear the details of
Speaker 1: what was happening with this case when it went to court.
Speaker 2: So with this case, Vincent Stanford was arrested quite quickly
Speaker 2: afterwards and made a confession to police. So therefore details
Speaker 2: about the case really shut down. The investigation was over,
Speaker 2: they had the accused and so the information stopped. All
Speaker 2: we knew is that she was murdered and her remains
Speaker 2: were found in Cocpara National Park. But beyond that we
Speaker 2: didn't know the details. We didn't know the motive behind
Speaker 2: the crime, and that remained that way for a year
Speaker 2: until his brother was sentenced. His brother was sentenced for
Speaker 2: being an excess after the fact to murder because he
Speaker 2: sold two rings that Vincent Stamford took off her body,
Speaker 2: So he was sentenced before his brother. So it was
Speaker 2: at his sentencing that the details of the case finally
Speaker 2: came out and they were really really disturbing.
Speaker 1: Let's go back in time and first talk about Stephanie herself, because,
Speaker 1: as you said, people were really quite taken by this
Speaker 1: story right from the get go. And this is something
Speaker 1: we do see happen quite regularly in Australia, is that
Speaker 1: if she is a young woman, especially if she's a
Speaker 1: young white woman who's an attractive young white woman, and
Speaker 1: that added detail of it being within a week of
Speaker 1: her wedding, Why do you think the country was so
Speaker 1: taken with Stephanie's story when so many women disappear across
Speaker 1: Australia every year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wonder this every time with certain crime cases,
Speaker 2: why they really spark the public sympathy over others. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's Sydney, especially Sydney has a real interesting crime Growing
Speaker 2: up in Sydney, there's always been big crime cases that
Speaker 2: have really captured the attention of people. Stephanie Scott's murder
Speaker 2: is definitely in there with a lot of other cases
Speaker 2: like the murder of Keisha Abraham's a little girl that
Speaker 2: was murdered by her parents, or even the murder of
Speaker 2: Anita Cobby back in the eighties, which is a huge
Speaker 2: case in Sydney. It falls into that category, and I
Speaker 2: think it's because, unfortunately, some people are considered to be
Speaker 2: perfect victims. And I don't really like that phrase. I
Speaker 2: don't think that one victim of crime is more deserving
Speaker 2: of our sympathy than others. But she was a woman
Speaker 2: who was in a place where she should have been safe,
Speaker 2: in the school, in her workplace, and she was randomly
Speaker 2: attacked by a stranger. And those crimes are incredibly rare,
Speaker 2: and when they do happen, they capture our attention. Thinking
Speaker 2: about the young woman Jill mar who was murdered in
Speaker 2: Melbourne a few years earlier by someone randomly who attacked
Speaker 2: her on the street, it's a very rare case and
Speaker 2: I think that's why these cases capture our attention. It
Speaker 2: also you have someone who was about to celebrate what
Speaker 2: should have been the happiest day of her life and
Speaker 2: then that was taken away from her. So I think
Speaker 2: a lot of women can relate to her because I
Speaker 2: think a lot of us we naturally there's always in
Speaker 2: the back of our minds when we're in public spaces,
Speaker 2: we naturally feel unsafe and what is for a lot
Speaker 2: of women, you know, their sort of their secret fear
Speaker 2: for her actually happened where she was attacked by a stranger.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about that day. It's Easter Sunday twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: Stephanie's Scott goes into the school where she works in Leyton.
Speaker 1: But why she gone in on a Sunday on essentially
Speaker 1: a long weekend when nobody else is.
Speaker 2: There because she's a teacher and every time you go
Speaker 2: on holidays you have to fill in and do all
Speaker 2: the extra work while you're away. That's what I thought
Speaker 2: as soon as I saw it. She was going in
Speaker 2: because she was going to go on our honeymoon, and
Speaker 2: so she was doing some extra work to help the
Speaker 2: relief teacher out that was going to take over her
Speaker 2: space for while she was on a holiday. That's why
Speaker 2: she was in there. She went to a colleagues's house,
Speaker 2: she got the keys from her, She went into the
Speaker 2: school space, she disarmed the alarm, and she went into
Speaker 2: the staff room and sat down at a computer to
Speaker 2: do the lessons for the relief teacher and also to
Speaker 2: make sure some last minute payments for bookings for her
Speaker 2: wedding were completed, Vincent Stanford was there and saw her.
Speaker 2: He had actually been there since seven thirty am in
Speaker 2: the morning for no reason. He later told police he
Speaker 2: was bored and so he went to the school and
Speaker 2: was just randomly cleaning out certain areas of the school,
Speaker 2: even though he had no authority to be there at all.
Speaker 2: And then as she was leaving, she walked down the hall,
Speaker 2: saw him and said Happy Easter, and then went to
Speaker 2: get her keys, and that's when he attacked up.
Speaker 1: So before he attacked Stephanie, Stanford went home and came
Speaker 1: back to the school. Do we know why he did that, No.
Speaker 2: We don't know why he did that, but we can
Speaker 2: assume why he did that because the later police investigation
Speaker 2: found that he had essentially a rape kit in his bedroom.
Speaker 2: He had a forty centimeter knife, yellow duct tape, handcuffed condoms,
Speaker 2: and lubricants, and following her murder and her body being
Speaker 2: found during the police search of his property, they did
Speaker 2: find that he had googled search terms leading up to
Speaker 2: the event such as bride rape and really violent sexual offenses,
Speaker 2: So we can assume that he went home to get
Speaker 2: those things once he found that she was at the school.
Speaker 1: So we're assuming he's gone home to retrieve that what
Speaker 1: they're referring to as a rape kid and in there
Speaker 1: is a knife. Is that what he used to murder Stephanie?
Speaker 2: No, So the autopsy report found that he grabbed her
Speaker 2: as she was leaving and dragged her into a small
Speaker 2: room that had once been used as a dark room.
Speaker 2: And on the way, she's dropped things out of her bag,
Speaker 2: He's thrown her into the room, She's attempted to gape,
Speaker 2: he has pushed her back down onto the ground, and
Speaker 2: then he hid her thirty to forty times in the face,
Speaker 2: causing severe head injuries. Then she was sexually assaulted and
Speaker 2: then he stabbed her with the forty centimeter knife. So
Speaker 2: the autopsy found that she died of blunt force trauma.
Speaker 1: What did he then initially do with Stephanie's body? Obviously
Speaker 1: there's not going to be anybody there for the rest
Speaker 1: of Easter Sunday or even the day after because it's
Speaker 1: a public holiday. So what does he do in the
Speaker 1: immediate aftermath of the murder?
Speaker 2: Well, this is where it gets really disturbing. He then
Speaker 2: went home to where he lived with his mother and
Speaker 2: his older brother, and he had a cheese sandwich and
Speaker 2: a cup of coffee and then came back and then
Speaker 2: spent several hours with a high pressure pose cleaning up
Speaker 2: that dark room. He also removed her body and put
Speaker 2: it in the boot of her car on top of
Speaker 2: some tart material, and he got the yellow duct tape
Speaker 2: and tried to seal her neck wound as well. So
Speaker 2: we did this over several hours, and then he drove
Speaker 2: his vehicle back to the home that he shared with
Speaker 2: his mother and his elder brother.
Speaker 1: We found out some really disturbing things about Vincent Stanford
Speaker 1: in the aftermath of Stephanie's death, and that he did
Speaker 1: actually have a history of violent thoughts and violent behavior
Speaker 1: dating back to when he was a child growing up
Speaker 1: in the Netherlands, and he even targeted a teacher once before.
Speaker 1: Can you just explain to us what we found out
Speaker 1: about Vincent's childhood.
Speaker 2: Yes, So we only found out who this person was
Speaker 2: that had committed this shocking crime at his sentence hearing,
Speaker 2: which was more than a year after her death. So
Speaker 2: he was interviewed when he was in custody by a
Speaker 2: forensic psychologist and a forensic psychiatrist, and their reports we
Speaker 2: found out that he was born in Australia. He moved
Speaker 2: to the Netherlands when he was three with his mother, father,
Speaker 2: twin brother, an older brother, and he told psychiatrists that
Speaker 2: he started developing violent thoughts when he was about seven
Speaker 2: or eight, feeling a need to kill someone. It was
Speaker 2: only when he was twelve that it appeared that he
Speaker 2: acted on these violent thoughts when he attempted to choke
Speaker 2: a teacher at a school in the Netherlands. And after
Speaker 2: that he was put into a mental health ward and
Speaker 2: then he left school at sixteen. The family returned to
Speaker 2: Australia about a year before Stephanie Scott's murder and they
Speaker 2: rented a house in Letton and he worked as a cleaner,
Speaker 2: a casual cleaner. But there's no prior convictions for violence
Speaker 2: with Vincent Stanford. This was his first offense.
Speaker 1: We did actually find out what that child's psychologist had
Speaker 1: diagnosed Stanford with, though back then what did they say
Speaker 1: was the state of his mental health.
Speaker 2: They said that he had structural faults in his personality,
Speaker 2: he had a personality disorder, and she said that he
Speaker 2: found it really hard to interact with people. He found
Speaker 2: spending any time with people incredibly stressful, and that he
Speaker 2: felt frustrated by his own inadequacies and frustrated by those
Speaker 2: around him, and that those frustrations would build into a
Speaker 2: sense of violence until he told her that he had
Speaker 2: an urge to kill and it was a continuous thought.
Speaker 2: And one of the things that he said, which is
Speaker 2: really striking, is that he was amazed that with this
Speaker 2: anger and violence inside him, that he survived for twenty
Speaker 2: five years in society.
Speaker 1: Without killing anybody up to this point. Is that what
Speaker 1: he meant right.
Speaker 2: It makes it seem like it was an inevitable outcome
Speaker 2: for him.
Speaker 1: Now you mentioned there he got a job cleaning at
Speaker 1: the school. He's got a history of violence as a child.
Speaker 1: We know in the Netherlands before they did move back
Speaker 1: to Australia that he had trouble finding a job there.
Speaker 1: He had enrolled to study it in a college and
Speaker 1: wasn't accepted, And then he tried to get into the
Speaker 1: army and they told him his social skills weren't good enough.
Speaker 1: How did he manage to not only secure a job
Speaker 1: with this cleaning company but also past the working with
Speaker 1: children check? Do we know? I'm presuming he did pass
Speaker 1: that check at.
Speaker 2: Some stage, I don't know that never came out. That
Speaker 2: never came out. And the other really big question that's
Speaker 2: raised with this case is that he was told that
Speaker 2: he was only meant to be in that school before
Speaker 2: and after school those designated hours to do his cleaning.
Speaker 2: He wasn't meant to be there when there were kids around,
Speaker 2: and he certainly wasn't meant to have access to the
Speaker 2: alarm access codes. Yet he managed to get the alarm
Speaker 2: access codes within a week of starting there as a
Speaker 2: casual cleaner. And he was there all the time, even
Speaker 2: on the weekends, and he was even seen in the
Speaker 2: girl's toilets while the girls were in there. Why nothing
Speaker 2: was done about it? It raises a lot of questions.
Speaker 1: We've gotten to the point in Stephanie's story where we
Speaker 1: know that he's put her in the trunk of the
Speaker 1: car and taken her back to his family home. What
Speaker 1: do we know happens to Stephanie after that?
Speaker 2: So, in the early hours of the morning, he goes
Speaker 2: to a petrol station, he fills up a twenty liter
Speaker 2: Jerry Can fuel. It takes a car out to Cocapara
Speaker 2: National Park, where he burns burns the body and like
Speaker 2: a sun visor from the car as well. Before he
Speaker 2: burnt her body, he turned on his phone, which he
Speaker 2: had turned off hours earlier, and took some photographs of her.
Speaker 2: And then after that he drove the car to a
Speaker 2: canal outside of Leeton and then he got out and
Speaker 2: walked home, and then he had a couple of hours
Speaker 2: sleep and went to the supermarket to meet his mum
Speaker 2: to go grocery shopping.
Speaker 1: You're listening to true crime Conversations with me, Claire Murphy.
Speaker 1: I'm speaking with journalist Sarah Crawford about the case of
Speaker 1: Stephanie Scott. Up next, I asked Sarah how the police
Speaker 1: connected Vincent to Stephanie's disappearance. How did police connect him
Speaker 1: to Stephanie's disappearance.
Speaker 2: As Vincent Stanford was shopping for groceries with his mum,
Speaker 2: Stephanie Scott's fiance was waking up in their house worried
Speaker 2: because she hadn't been there the night before. He made
Speaker 2: a few phone calls and then he went to police
Speaker 2: reported her disappearance and police checked her phone, her social media,
Speaker 2: her bank account. There'd been no activity since Sunday morning,
Speaker 2: so then they started making inquiries and it was the
Speaker 2: fact that Vincent Stanford's car was seen around the school
Speaker 2: parked outside the school for long periods of time over
Speaker 2: that Easter long weekend that they went to his house.
Speaker 2: They went to his house on the Tuesday afternoon, so
Speaker 2: two days after Stephanie was murdered, and they just asked
Speaker 2: him were you at the school? Did you see anything?
Speaker 2: He said no, and he said good luck with your investigation.
Speaker 2: And then there was the following day that things started
Speaker 2: to really unravel for him very rapidly.
Speaker 1: So what happened to really set police on the path.
Speaker 1: Did they discover something at the crime scene? Was there
Speaker 1: something that they said, Okay, we've spoken to this man.
Speaker 1: He said, good luck with your investigation. How do they
Speaker 1: then turn their light back on him? From that point?
Speaker 2: They told him to go into the police station for
Speaker 2: a recorded interview on the Wednesday afternoon, which he gave.
Speaker 2: He said he didn't see Stephanie, he was at the school.
Speaker 2: And he also said that he'd gone to the supermarket
Speaker 2: on the Sunday, which set alarm bells off the police.
Speaker 2: I mean they were already suspicious of him, but set
Speaker 2: alarm bells off further because he'd actively lied. Because the
Speaker 2: supermarket wasn't open, so police then went to his house
Speaker 2: that evening and searched it and that's where they found
Speaker 2: the evidence that linked him to the crime. So it
Speaker 2: was the tired tracks of a car that was smaller
Speaker 2: than his so clearly not his car, that were in
Speaker 2: the towards the end of the edge of the backyard.
Speaker 2: There was a use condom the duct tape. But the
Speaker 2: real key was that in his bedroom they found the
Speaker 2: school keys that her friend had given her on that
Speaker 2: Sunday morning, and that's when he was arrested.
Speaker 1: So how long between Stanford's arrest and the discovery of
Speaker 1: Stephanie's body.
Speaker 2: The body was discovered the following day, so he was
Speaker 2: taken back to the police station and he's charged with murder.
Speaker 2: They also then find Stephanie's car outside of Eton. The
Speaker 2: following day, a search begins with Cocopara National Park and
Speaker 2: the police are helped by his mother and older brother
Speaker 2: who know that he liked to go to that area.
Speaker 2: So there was a massive search and it was only
Speaker 2: I think police officers that were on bikes that stumbled
Speaker 2: across her remains.
Speaker 1: Stephanie's family would go back out to that site where
Speaker 1: she was found with metal detectors looking for those rings
Speaker 1: that we talked about earlier, her engagement ring and a
Speaker 1: ring that was given to her by her parents on
Speaker 1: her graduation, and they talked about seeing the scene there
Speaker 1: the charred leftovers of where their daughter had lain. But
Speaker 1: obviously they were never going to find those rings. But
Speaker 1: they didn't know that. Why did Stanford mail them to
Speaker 1: his twin brother because his twin wasn't living in New
Speaker 1: South Wales, he was living in South Australia. Why did
Speaker 1: he mail those along I believe with her driver's license
Speaker 1: to him?
Speaker 2: We won't know. He never answered that question, but he
Speaker 2: mailed them on the Wednesday after he went into do
Speaker 2: a police statement. His behavior, I mean, even after he
Speaker 2: went in to do the police statement on the Wednesday,
Speaker 2: just saying, you know, I was at the school, I
Speaker 2: didn't see her. I was at the supermarket. After that,
Speaker 2: he then went back to the National Park to look
Speaker 2: at her body again and then went to check on
Speaker 2: the car. And then he mailed the two rings and
Speaker 2: the driver's license to his brother in in Southeast Australia
Speaker 2: and said, I need you to look after these things
Speaker 2: for me. I mean, maybe he was removing evidence, But
Speaker 2: then why would you why would you send them to
Speaker 2: a relative for keeping? It seemed like he wanted to
Speaker 2: take souvenirs from his crime.
Speaker 1: Was that what those photos were about to And how
Speaker 1: did he explain that away? Because I'm presuming police would
Speaker 1: have checked his phone after his arrest. How does he
Speaker 1: explain photos of Stephanie's burnt body there?
Speaker 2: He said that he had downloaded them from the internet
Speaker 2: because he thought they were funny. Yeah, so no, he
Speaker 2: didn't really have an explanation at all for that. I mean,
Speaker 2: he also took her red brother she was wearing and
Speaker 2: they found that in his in his wardrobe as well
Speaker 2: in his bedroom.
Speaker 1: So really collected quite a few treasures. I guess he
Speaker 1: would consider them as in the aftermath of this crime.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned that he spoke to a forensic psychologist
Speaker 1: and a forensic psychiatrist after his arrest. What else do
Speaker 1: we find out about Stanford? Because I understand he explained
Speaker 1: to them that he has almost no emotions and that
Speaker 1: one of the only emotions that he ever experiences is hatred.
Speaker 1: And I know that you said that he said it
Speaker 1: was inevitable that he would probably one day kill somebody
Speaker 1: but do we have any handle on sort of what
Speaker 1: type of personality Stanford is because it seems like he's
Speaker 1: very detached from reality.
Speaker 2: Yes, and I think that the assessment of him was
Speaker 2: also fairly limited because he wouldn't participate in it. What
Speaker 2: we do know is that he has structural faults in
Speaker 2: his personality. He has very little empathy for other people,
Speaker 2: and he said that he just had an urge to
Speaker 2: kill when he was interviewed by police. The recorded interview,
Speaker 2: he was incredibly emotionless. He was even very emotionless at
Speaker 2: his sentencing. He just kept his head down the whole time.
Speaker 2: And yes, he didn't look at the family. He didn't
Speaker 2: express any sort of interest in his surroundings at all.
Speaker 1: How did the family cope with the court case and
Speaker 1: then the sentencing? Did they give victim impact statements? Did
Speaker 1: they let the public know how this has affected them?
Speaker 2: The family had been fairly clearly obviously private from the
Speaker 2: time of her murder. They did a few interviews after
Speaker 2: his arrest, but we hadn't really heard from them until
Speaker 2: that sentencing hearing in in Griffith a year later. And
Speaker 2: part of sentencing hearings are it's the one opportunity that
Speaker 2: victims get to express their loss, and that was the
Speaker 2: first time that we really heard in depth from the family.
Speaker 2: Stephanie's mother gave the victim impact statement, which I think
Speaker 2: is just incredibly brave. I don't know. Yeah, she stood
Speaker 2: in the courtroom next to her husband and gave this
Speaker 2: really moving statement about her grief and also the loss
Speaker 2: of a really wonderful daughter and person who brought a
Speaker 2: lot of joy to everyone's life. Her fiance didn't give
Speaker 2: a victim impact statement. He kept his head down the
Speaker 2: whole time, was supported by family. He really did look
Speaker 2: like it was incredibly hard moment for him. It was
Speaker 2: a hard moment. It was tough. It was a tough
Speaker 2: couple of hours in the courtroom, that's for sure. I understand.
Speaker 1: They also held her funeral in the place where they
Speaker 1: would have been married, which is such a such a
Speaker 1: sad thing for them to experience in a place they
Speaker 1: should have been bringing them so much joy.
Speaker 2: It was the only venue in Litton that could hold everyone.
Speaker 2: There was a real I mean, there was a there
Speaker 2: was a big outpouring across the country for Stephanie Scott,
Speaker 2: but in Leton as well, that like that was a
Speaker 2: community that was fairly traumatized by that experience, just the
Speaker 2: shock of a random attack on someone without explanation and
Speaker 2: a very much a woman that was really connected to
Speaker 2: the community. She'd worked at the school for three years.
Speaker 2: She was the drama teacher. They had a big farewell
Speaker 2: for her a Thursday before she was meant to go
Speaker 2: on her wedding and honeymoon leave, and there was there
Speaker 2: was a lot of sadness. I mean. The other thing
Speaker 2: is which is really sad is on the following Saturday,
Speaker 2: which should have been her wedding day, everyone gathered to
Speaker 2: release balloons for her, and her fiance released the balloons
Speaker 2: and let out a cry as he did, so it
Speaker 2: must have been a really, a really heartfelt moment for
Speaker 2: that community.
Speaker 1: After the break, we uncover the surprising details of who
Speaker 1: Vincent Stanford's original target was, and it wasn't Stephanie Scott.
Speaker 1: What people might have missed in Stephanie Scott's story is
Speaker 1: that potentially Stephanie, even though Stanford did google things like
Speaker 1: you know how to kill a bride to be or
Speaker 1: something along those lines, which made it look very premeditated,
Speaker 1: and the fact that he already had this quote unquote
Speaker 1: rape kit already organized and ready to go. Is that
Speaker 1: potentially Stephanie wasn't his intended victim and that someone much
Speaker 1: younger was in his sights.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was that only came out at the sentencing,
Speaker 2: and that was really shocking. I mean, it was such
Speaker 2: a terrible crime. It's hard to believe that he he
Speaker 2: may have been planning something far worse. There was a
Speaker 2: twelve year old girl that lived near to his house
Speaker 2: in the neighborhood and police found thousands of photographs of
Speaker 2: her and a notebook where he documented her movements and
Speaker 2: the number plates of people that came to the house.
Speaker 2: And he also told the psychologist that if he had
Speaker 2: abducted this young girl that he probably would have killed her.
Speaker 2: That girl was one of a number of women or
Speaker 2: females I should say that he'd been stalking around Leaton.
Speaker 2: There was also a young woman at the supermarket who
Speaker 2: he was watching, and one day she went to the
Speaker 2: supermarket five minutes before opening and then saw him with
Speaker 2: his car parked in the staff area, away from everywhere
Speaker 2: else everyone else, and she just decided she was just
Speaker 2: going to wait in that car until her male staff
Speaker 2: members came along and she'd walk in together. She had
Speaker 2: a sense there was another teacher at Leeton, one of
Speaker 2: Stephanie's colleagues, that had to stay back a lot because
Speaker 2: for her job, and so when she left, she was
Speaker 2: usually the last to leave, and she would see his
Speaker 2: car a lot in the car park and he'd be waiting.
Speaker 1: He really is the stuff of nightmares, isn't it, Because
Speaker 1: we know statistically that the people who are the most
Speaker 1: dangerous to women in Australia is more often than not
Speaker 1: someone in their own home, a partner. But this is
Speaker 1: the stuff of nightmares because we do worry that a
Speaker 1: strange man in a place where we usually feel safe
Speaker 1: would make that place not safe anymore. But has Stanford
Speaker 1: ever shown any remorse for anything that he's done, including
Speaker 1: the murder of Stephanie Scott?
Speaker 2: No. I mean he told the psychologists that he doesn't
Speaker 2: really think about it, and that after he murdered Stephanie
Speaker 2: he urged to kill, dissipated for two months and then
Speaker 2: came back. I think the lack of as well as
Speaker 2: the extreme violent, random nature of the crime, a part
Speaker 2: of the reasons for his incredibly tough sentence that he received.
Speaker 1: What did the judge say, when he did hand down
Speaker 1: that very lengthy sentence.
Speaker 2: Well, the sentence is life, and when you get a
Speaker 2: life sentence, it means that you will not leave jail.
Speaker 2: And to give that to someone who was twenty four
Speaker 2: at the time and had no past convictions, there was
Speaker 2: a reason why his defense lawyer was arguing for a
Speaker 2: lengthy sentence but not life because of his age. But
Speaker 2: Justice Hume determined that it was the nature of the crime,
Speaker 2: the violent nature of the crime, and the communities need
Speaker 2: for justice and he's the potential for him doing something
Speaker 2: like that. Again, they were some of the main reasons
Speaker 2: why he took the decision to sentence Vincent to life
Speaker 2: in jail. He will stay there forever now he's not leaving.
Speaker 2: And what's even more interesting about this is that he
Speaker 2: never appealed that sentence. He had the opportunity within twenty
Speaker 2: eight days of being sentenced to appeal it, and an
Speaker 2: appeal was lodged, but then they had six months in
Speaker 2: which to make that formal appeal and they never did.
Speaker 2: And you'd think that if you were sentenced to life
Speaker 2: in prison and you were, what twenty five when he
Speaker 2: was finally sentenced, you've got nothing to lose by appealing.
Speaker 2: I mean, you've got to wonder why he never appealed.
Speaker 1: Do you have a theory on that?
Speaker 2: Well, well, I mean I just go back to those
Speaker 2: comments that he made that he did pretty well to
Speaker 2: last for twenty five years in society. Part of me
Speaker 2: thinks that maybe jail feels better for him, Maybe he
Speaker 2: wants to stay in jail.
Speaker 1: I was reading that he did also tell the psychologist
Speaker 1: that he was more comfortable being by himself in his
Speaker 1: safe cell. He hums the maguy vitune to himself while
Speaker 1: he creates scars in his skin like he's obviously not
Speaker 1: a well person. And maybe right, maybe he did some
Speaker 1: part of himself understand that being locked away is probably
Speaker 1: better for both him and the rest of society.
Speaker 2: Yes, maybe that's the case. Yeah, I think there's still
Speaker 2: a lot of I mean, there always will be unanswered
Speaker 2: questions with this case because the only other person who
Speaker 2: witnessed that crime was Stephanie, and she can't tell us
Speaker 2: what really happened. All we have to go on is
Speaker 2: what Vincent finally told police when he confessed, and a
Speaker 2: lot of what he said it doesn't really make sense.
Speaker 2: The fact that he said that it was a random attack,
Speaker 2: that he had it planned it, that he'd never met
Speaker 2: Stephanie before. There's a lot of evidence to suggest that
Speaker 2: that he was making steps to abduct and sexually assault
Speaker 2: a female in Leton, and unfortunately Stephanie was the one
Speaker 2: that walked into that school on Easter Sunday.
Speaker 1: Of course, Vincent wasn't the only one of the Stanford
Speaker 1: family who would face punishment for this crime, because his
Speaker 1: brother in Adelaide ended up howking those rings and getting
Speaker 1: money for them. Did he face consequences for that.
Speaker 2: Yes he did. Yes. Those rings were her engagement ring
Speaker 2: and her what's called a crossover ring, a graduation ring
Speaker 2: that her mother gave her and she always wore them.
Speaker 2: So Marcus Stanford would have received the rings and the
Speaker 2: driver's license in the mail after his brother was arrested
Speaker 2: for the murder. He would have known who those rings
Speaker 2: belonged to. And then he holds onto them for a
Speaker 2: month and then he only goes to hock them at
Speaker 2: the beginning of May, and then soon after his life rested.
Speaker 2: At his sentencing, he got like fifteen months for accessory
Speaker 2: to murder. After the fact, and there was a lot
Speaker 2: of public unhappiness. You know, I wouldn't say out maybe
Speaker 2: you could even say outrage. I mean, there was there
Speaker 2: was definitely a lot of public descent to that sentence,
Speaker 2: but I you know, I mean I think that people
Speaker 2: felt that they wanted a tougher sentence for the crime
Speaker 2: that had been committed by his brother rather than what
Speaker 2: he had done himself. What he had done was horrendous.
Speaker 2: But the fifteen months, I mean, I think Justice Hume
Speaker 2: was like restricted in what he could sentence him to,
Speaker 2: but he did. There was a lot of public outcry,
Speaker 2: and then a couple of months later when it was
Speaker 2: Vincent Stamford's turn to be sentenced, then we found out
Speaker 2: what Justice Hume believed the crime of murder should have received,
Speaker 2: which was the life sentence.
Speaker 1: Did Mark Stanford ever explain why he didn't go to
Speaker 1: policemen He received those rings in the male knowing what
Speaker 1: his brother did. I mean, he apparently even took photos
Speaker 1: of them. Has he explained any of that?
Speaker 2: No, he never explained why he did what he did.
Speaker 2: You know, he just said, as you said, he took
Speaker 2: the photographs, he told them in case he needed to
Speaker 2: show them to police. But I mean, we just don't
Speaker 2: know why he would have known that his brother had
Speaker 2: committed this crime, and he had the evidence of that crime,
Speaker 2: and he chose not to say anything and then went
Speaker 2: and sold them. Is there.
Speaker 1: When we look at silver linings when awful things happened
Speaker 1: to really good people like happened to Stephanie Scott? Do
Speaker 1: we see any silver linings and learnings from what happened
Speaker 1: to her? Did it change safety in the community of Leeton?
Speaker 1: Did it change safety around teachers in schools when you
Speaker 1: know school's not in session? Do we see her death
Speaker 1: having impact on that commit unity?
Speaker 2: Well? I think the school would certainly have changed their
Speaker 2: procedures in regards to cleaners and who has access to
Speaker 2: the school after hours and the alarm access codes. What
Speaker 2: happened to Stephanie is so rare and unusual it's hard
Speaker 2: to know what more can be done to protect yourself
Speaker 2: from a random stranger. But clearly she should have been
Speaker 2: safe in that school after hours, and she wasn't because
Speaker 2: the protocols have been put in place to a lot
Speaker 2: of people access to that school weren't being followed.
Speaker 1: Just finally, Sarah, I'm interested in this from pure interesting
Speaker 1: but also because I'm a journalist too, and I've been
Speaker 1: asked this question myself when you cover cases like Stephanie Scott's,
Speaker 1: and it is, as you said, such a random and
Speaker 1: horrific thing, and it is nightmarish to think that that
Speaker 1: could potentially happen to any one of us at any time,
Speaker 1: because as you said, it's very difficult to pin down
Speaker 1: when or where this may happen. Does that impact you?
Speaker 1: Do you mentally become more afraid of the world when
Speaker 1: you report on.
Speaker 2: Stories like this? Yes, I think I do. The chances
Speaker 2: of something horrible happening to me seem far more real,
Speaker 2: I think than for other people because I have reported
Speaker 2: on so many cases where people have been unlucky. With
Speaker 2: Stephanie's case, and this is something that I think we
Speaker 2: should remember, is that for twenty six years of Stephanie's life,
Speaker 2: she was someone who was treasured, that impacted those around her,
Speaker 2: was well loved, was a talented woman. And it's just
Speaker 2: that final thirty minutes that we know when we talk
Speaker 2: about and I think that's the thing as well with victims,
Speaker 2: is that they become just the victim. I think we
Speaker 2: should remember who she was. And also, you know, coming
Speaker 2: up to ten years on her death. I always I
Speaker 2: do think about the family. Anniversaries are really hard for
Speaker 2: anyone that's lost a loved one, especially in these circumstances
Speaker 2: and ten years that you know it must it's going
Speaker 2: to be a really tough time for that family.
Speaker 1: Sarah, thank you so much for sharing your time and
Speaker 1: your expertise with us today. We really appreciate you, and
Speaker 1: of course we are sending all the support that we
Speaker 1: can to Stephanie's family what must be a very difficult
Speaker 1: time for them.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Sarah.
Speaker 1: Thanks, thank you so much to Sarah for helping us
Speaker 1: tell this story. True Crime Conversations is a Mum of
Speaker 1: mea podcast hosted by me Claire Murphy. The producer is
Speaker 1: Charlie Blackman, with audio designed by Jacob Brown. Thank you
Speaker 1: for listening. I'll be back next week with another True
Speaker 1: Crime Conversation