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