April 17, 2025 • 37 mins
On April 12, 1971, a 27-year-old woman named Pauline Storment was walking down South Duncan Avenue in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She didn't know someone was following her in the darkness.
And then, while she was walking and just a few blocks from her apartment, someone attacked her, stabbing her eight times in a frenzy that lasted several minutes.
When Pauline started screaming, a lot of people in the area heard her, and there were several witnesses. But her killer escaped into the night, and despite the police questioning tons of people, lots of theories being explored over the years an arrest, Pauline’s killer has never been found.
If you have a case you’d like the Hell and Gone team to look into, you can reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at 678-744-6145.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
School of Humans. Helen got Murder Line actively investigates cold
case murders in an effort to raise public awareness invite
witnesses to come forward and present evidence that could potentially
be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights
from family and community members, their statements should not be
considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts
(01:10):
inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone has
presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply
that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime
is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
It was April twelfth, nineteen seventy one. A twenty seven
year old woman named Pauline Stormant was walking down South
Duncan Avenue in Fayetteville, Arkansas, just a few blocks from
her apartment. She didn't know that someone was following her
in the darkness. Pauline worked two part time jobs. One
is a cashier at the Malco Theater and another as
(01:50):
a secretary at the ROTC Center on the University of
Arkansas campus. Pauline had recently started going back to school
as a mature student. She enrolled as a sophomore at
the University of Arkansas at Fayetble, where she was a
social welfare major. Pauline had a roommate, Alice pat Murphy.
Pat later told the authorities that Pauline wasn't dating anyone. Actually,
(02:13):
Pauline spent most of her free time hitting the books.
She was very focused on school work, which meant that
she was often pulling late nights at the library. On
that night, on April twelfth, Pauline did a shift at
the ROTC. While she was there, she mentioned to a
coworker that she might go to a gospel concert later,
but she ended up going to the library to study. Now,
(02:36):
according to her roommate, Pauline's regular routine would have had
her coming home at around ten thirty or eleven PM.
Something made her lead the library a little earlier that night,
around nine thirty PM, and then while she was walking,
when she was just a few blocks from her apartment,
someone came out of that darkness and attacked Pauline, stabbing
(02:57):
her over and over eight times in all, in a
frenzied attack that lasted several minutes. It was a hot night,
a lot of people had their windows open, and at
nine forty five pm when Pauline started screaming. A lot
of people in the area heard her screaming, and there
were several witnesses who saw a man come up behind her.
(03:19):
But despite that, Pauline's killer escaped into the night. And
even though the police have questioned tons of people, lots
of theories have been explored over the years, and there
was one arrest, Pauline's killer has never been found. I'm
Catherine Townsend. Over the past five years of making my
true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've learned there's no such
(03:42):
thing as a small town where murder never happens. I've
received hundreds of messages from people all around the country
asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them,
their families, and their communities.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
If you have a.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Case you'd like me and my team to look into,
you can reach out to us at our Helen Gone
Murder Line at six seven eight seven four four six
one four or five. That's six seven eight seven four
four six one four five. This is Helen Gone Murder Line.
(04:46):
Police got to the scene really quickly. They rushed Pauline
to Washington Regional Hospital, but they couldn't do anything to
save her, and she was pronounced dead just after eleven PM,
so the assault had very quickly turned into a murder case.
Pauline's body was sent for an autopsy. Forensic testing revealed
that Pauline had died of the stab wounds. She had
(05:09):
been stabbed in the arm, the chest, and the stomach.
Investigators said the murder weapon was a knife like a
butcher knife, around six to eight inches long, and they
believed serrated on both sides. Police did not find the
murder weapon at the scene, but several days later, the
sheriff did find a butcher knife that was stabbed into
(05:29):
the ground behind an apartment complex that was across the
street from where Pauline lived. They sent that knife in
for testing, but I haven't been able to figure out what,
if anything, happened with that weapon. A lot of people
doubted that that butcher knife had been the weapon in
the place because it wasn't serrated. But as far as
I know, and there is a lot of information missing
(05:49):
in this case, there was nothing conclusive, ever proven one
way or the other. Sadly, that knife, along with a
ton of other evidence, has been lost.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
We'll get to that later.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Side note, While I was working on Gail Vaught's case,
which we covered a couple of weeks back, as part
of that, we started looking around for other unsolved murders
in the same area of Arkansas. Even though Pauline's murder
happened nine years earlier than Gail's murder in nineteen eighty,
I couldn't help but be struck by Pauline's case because
(06:25):
even though them was completely different. For Pauline and Gail,
Gail was shot in the head and appeared to have
been sexually assaulted, while Pauline was stabbed in a semi
public area. Both women were tall, with shoulder linked brown hair,
and both cases were unsolved.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
I want to be cleared. Nothing in the evidence.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
I've seen indicates these cases are connected in any way.
The mos were completely different. Gail was shot in the
head and appeared to have been sexually assaulted. Pauline was
stabbed in a semi public area. Amy reached out to
a member of Pauline's family named Lance Gosnell. His great
grandmother is Pauline's aunt, so he's her cousin and he's
(07:05):
been hearing about Pauline's story about this famous unsolved murder
in his family for a long time, since he was
very young. A few years ago, he decided to try
and find answers. He started writing about the case. The
website is at who Murdered Pauline dot WordPress dot com,
and he's compiled a tremendous amount of evidence over the
(07:25):
years that he's collected a lot of it through Foyer requests.
Pauline Stormant was born on April third, nineteen forty four,
in Ozark, Arkansas, and her family her mom and dad
were still living in Ozark when she died from a
young age. Her family described her as someone who was
very serious, pretty quiet, and liked to study. She was
(07:46):
not a drinker or a partier in high school, and
it seemed to be pretty much the same story in college.
After she graduated from high school, she attended Arkansas Tech
University in Russellville. She finished her freshman year there and
after that she left school and started doing some secretarial work.
So one thing about Pauline's Stormant, her studies and her
(08:08):
work life are pretty well documented. Her personal life is
much more of a mystery.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
There are some years.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Between when she was twenty one and twenty seven where
we don't know a lot about her personal relationships. When
she was twenty one years old, in nineteen sixty five,
Pauline got married to a man named Charles Joseph Pate.
A lot of their relationship, as we said, is a mystery,
but we do know that whatever happened between them apparently
did not end very well. Charles and Pauline lived in
(08:37):
Memphis for a while. While Pauline was in Memphis, she
taught first aid for the Red Cross, as well as
doing some secretarial work. Again, a lot of the history
about Pauline in this case was provided by her cousin Lance.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
One other thing that jumps out in my mind is
the records show that she was married to a man
named Charles Pate. The marriage didn't last long. I can't
find a door divorced certificate, but she had mentioned to
a roommate who she had lived with when she was
(09:09):
either in Memphis or Atlanta, that she was deathly afraid
of her ex husband.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
So Pauline and Charles were estranged, but according to her
family and to court records, they may not have been
officially divorced. So in nineteen seventy one, Pauline was at
the University of Arkansas. She had put her studies on
hold while she was married to Charles, but once Pauline
got the chance to complete her education, she seemed to
really throw herself into it. Information from a foyer request
(09:40):
from an old police report shows that Pauline's former roommate,
the one who Lance was referring to, who she had
lived with in Memphis. That woman's name was Iris Fletcher.
She was the one who talked about Pauline's fear of
her ex husband. But apparently police ruled out Charles fairly early.
I don't know why. I have really tried to figure
(10:02):
that out, but I don't have a lot of information
about the investigation because a lot of the case file
is gone over the years, A lot of the evidence
and a lot of the pages have been lost. But
apparently he attended the funeral, was cooperative with the police,
and was cleared early. Pauline's college roommate, Pat the one
(10:22):
who said that Pauline didn't date that much, was asked
by police if anything strange had happened on the day
Pauline was murdered, and she said, yes, there was one
thing that was out of the ordinary. She said that
at around two pm that afternoon, apparently, two men who
were described as white men, young guys who Pauline in
(10:43):
her roommate didn't know, invited Pauline and Pat for drinks.
The two women said no thanks and didn't take them
up on their offer. Later, the two men reportedly went
toward the residence of a guy named Gordon Cummings. Gordon
Cummings with someone who we know Pauline had been introduced to.
She knew him, but we don't know how well she
(11:03):
knew him, and that will be the case with a
lot of these relationships. Trying to figure out exactly how
these people were related and connected each other is a
huge part of this. We all know that sometimes in
these cases, these tiny little details that we know are
true and am using air quotes there turn out to
be slightly wrong, and those slightly wrong details can multiply
(11:26):
over the years and turn into a much larger distortion.
We've seen this happen over and over with so many cases.
Facts are wrong from the beginning and they're repeated wrong
over the years. At the same time, though, sometimes tiny
details are left out and you never know which ones
could lead to cracking the case.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Jane Jones wrote a long.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Very in depth article about this case in Ay about
U magazine back in twenty twenty. She pointed out that
it was a full moon that night. This was something
that had appeared in some early news reports, and that
detail supposedly meant that Pauline could be seen by the
witnesses that night. But actually, because I obsess over these things,
I went back and found out actually the moon.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Wasn't full that night. It was a waning gibbous moon.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Not that that makes any difference in the context of
the investigation at all, because actually a waning gibbus is
almost a full moon. It's actually the part of the
lunar phase right after the moon is full. It would
be almost as light as a full moon out there,
but probably a little bit less poetic in a newspaper article.
And I'm bringing this up just to illustrate it's one
(12:34):
tiny example of something we thought we knew wrong. Information
gets repeated over the years, and sometimes it multiplies. So
I'm really trying to go back and take a look
at every single piece of information that we have and
try to understand if we really know everything that we
think we know. Police were trying to figure out what
(12:56):
Pauline's plans had been that night, to see if, other
than the two guys asking her in her roommate to
have drinks, anything else oude of the ordinary had happened.
Police talked to a woman named Terry Keating. Now Terry
worked with Pauline at the ROTC office. She said she
had seen Pauline at around seven thirty pm and that
Pauline had mentioned something about a gospel concert hosted by
(13:19):
a group called Black Americans for Democracy. This concert was
going to be held at the Union Ballroom, a building
that was basically very close right next door to the
ROTC building. It started at eight pm. But whether Pauline
attended that concert or not is still kind of a
question mark because some reports say she was planning to go.
(13:40):
Other media reports say she told someone she had a
class or a conflict and she could not attend. Lance
pointed out something interesting on his website. He said that
we're talking about nineteen seventy one Arkansas, and he was speculating,
but he said, could some racist person have taken offense
at a white woman planning to go to this concert
(14:00):
where there were going to be a lot of black
singers total speculation, but given the political climate at the time,
I do think it's something that police would have to consider.
But there was no evidence that this was ever a factor.
So whether or not Pauline made it to that concert, eventually,
after she worked her shift at the ROTC, she ended
(14:20):
up at the library. She was seen by multiple witnesses there,
but then she left suddenly. We don't know exactly what time,
but by tracing her route, she must have headed outside
at around nine point thirty.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
So why did she leave early?
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Was it a coincidence or did she see something or
someone and there that bothered her. After she left the library,
Pauline's route would have taken her south along Duncan Avenue.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
She was walking.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Pretty slowly and carefully because she had a big stack
of books in her hands, So again I'm betting that
she headed straight home because she was balancing lots of
school books. She was at the intersection of Duncan Avenue
and Treadwell Streets when her attacker struck. The vicious attack
happened very quickly, and then her attacker left the scene
(15:12):
on foot. Another thing that we know for sure in
this case is the time of death. We know she
was screaming at nine forty five pm because several people
heard her at the same time. One of them was
twenty four year old Jack Huff. He lived at the
Summit Terrace apartments, which were nearby. He said when he
heard that scream, he ran downstairs and he saw Pauline
(15:35):
kind of staggering toward him and holding her stomach. He
told the police that Pauline said someone hit her in
the chest and that she said someone was following her,
someone who was wearing glasses. Another witness named Mike Adare,
also lived nearby. He said he'd actually seen Pauline before
the attack happened. He said he was driving home and
(15:58):
at the corner of Duncan and Center, right where she
got attacked. He said he saw her carrying some really
heavy books and he saw a.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Man following her.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Two other men, Gary Gammel, and Joe Clifton, were driving
in separate cars north on South Duncan and they were
approaching that same intersection. Joe also lived at the Summit
Terrace apartment complex. He told investigators that he also saw
a man following Pauline. He said he noticed she was
carrying some heavy books and he thought about asking her
(16:28):
if she wanted a lift, but in the end he didn't.
Then a few seconds later, he said he heard the scream.
He heard her screaming.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Help me.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
So Joe and Gary are also there in their cars.
They both rushed up to the scene. Gary said that
from his point of view, he saw Pauline collapse to
the ground. He said when he looked around, he saw
her books and her personal belongings on the ground, but
he didn't see anyone else. He said, when he saw Pauline,
she was holding her chest. He approached her and when
(16:58):
he got closer he could see that she was lying
half in the yard and half in the street. He
said that her white skirt in one of her arms
were completely soaked blood. Joe said that he asked Pauline
if the man that was following her did this.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
She told him yes.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
He then started trying to help her, asking where her
cuts were and which way the man went. But he
said at this point Pauline didn't know where the man went,
and she was kind of slipping in and out of consciousness.
She kept asking for her books. Detectives did find Pauline's
(17:37):
black purse with her wallet and ida in it near
her body. They took it in for testing, but only
found one set of fingerprints, and it turned out that
they were Pauline's, so police knew it was unlikely the
killer's motive had been robbery. It didn't seem like they
grabbed for her purse at all. They were trying to
hurt her, not take her stuff. Police asked all four
(18:00):
witnesses some detailed questions about the man that they said
they saw following Pauline.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Mike Adair said.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
The man following Pauline was wearing a brown sport coat
and had blonde or dirty blonde hair, around five ten
to six feet tall, and wearing glasses.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
So the police did a sketch.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
According to these guys descriptions and in the end it's
kind of random, but the sketch, a lot of people
pointed out, kind of looked like the Zodiac Killer. By
the way, no, there was no evidence the Zodiac Killer
was ever involved, So like the Zodiac Killer sketch, the
sketch in Pauline's case was pretty generic. No one had
actually seen this man's face, so it was a sketch
(18:39):
of a guy was slipped back, hair and glasses, again,
a pretty common look on a college campus.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
This guy could have been anyone.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
When Mike was asked about the police sketch, he said, yes,
it did look similar to the man he saw, but
he pointed out that the hair of the guy he
saw was messier, not slip back like on that sketch.
There were two other potential witnesses, Robert Spray and John Hall.
These guys lived nearby at twelve South Hill Street. They
(19:08):
said they had seen a man who could have been
involved in the crime because the guy kind of fit
the description of the assailant. He had a sport code on.
He was described as being medium height with a slight build.
They said that this guy was kind of stumbling around
like he was drunk. But they didn't have a lot
to go on. They didn't have a description of the car,
and in the end, police never definitively found that person,
(19:30):
so it seemed to be a dead end. So police
had no idea what the motive had been. But they
did have potentially four different people who said they definitively
saw the killer, but their descriptions differed slightly, which of
course is not uncommon in a case like this, But
they did all agree on one thing. Pauline had been
attacked by one person, one man who stabbed her multiple times,
(19:54):
and they said that man had been following her and
was able to get very close to her before he pounced.
Because of where Pauline's injuries were the fact that she
had stab wounds on the front of her body, police
figured out she had turned around to face her attacker,
so they wondered was it someone she knew, Was that
how they were able to get that close, or were
(20:18):
they just really fast and could they have snuck up
on her that quickly. The police admitted they didn't know
if this had been someone fixated on Pauline specifically, or
someone targeting women totally randomly, or even possibly a case
of mistaken identity. Because it was pretty dark it was night,
none of the men who saw this stranger were that close,
(20:40):
so even though there were multiple witnesses, not a single
one got a good look at the killer's face. But
police did know one thing that was such a vicious attack,
the person who stabbed Pauline would have blood on their clothing,
so police canvassed the area they were looking for a
suspect covered in blood, and it wasn't long before they
(21:03):
found one a few minutes after the stabbing, police were
cruising the area when two officers saw two young men
sitting on a bench. According to a very good article
in Master Detective magazine from nineteen seventy four, they were
around five blocks away from the crime scene when they
saw these guys. One of them was seventeen year old
Wallace Peter Cunkle. So the police start talking to these
(21:26):
guys and apparently they told the officers that they were
just hanging around. They were supposed to have had dates
with two girls, but they'd been stood up. But when
police asked them for more details, the guys said they
didn't even know these girls' names, which honestly seems a
little bit strange to me that they wouldn't even have
a first name. But apparently the police thought this story
was believable. As the detective was talking to Peter Cunkle,
(21:48):
he noticed some dark spots on his white shirt, jacket,
and trousers. Later it was determined those were blood. When
the officer asked Peter why he had blood on his clothes,
Peter said he'd had a nosebleed recently. Now, to police,
with everything going on, this seemed like a pretty big coincidence.
So they took him in for questioning. They took his clothes,
(22:10):
and they took samples of his blood. Now, obviously this
was back in nineteen seventy one, so the testing they
could do on blood was much more limited than it
is now. They could basically tell you what type of
blood it was, and that's about it. Peter got a lawyer,
and his lawyer said he refused to take a polygraph test. Now,
(22:31):
by the way, I don't hold this against him at all,
just my opinion, but I've said this before. I actually
think this is a very smart move. Honestly, asking for
an attorney, especially in a situation like this where you
know the police are kind of on a fishing expedition,
is something that I think everyone should do. Peter told police,
and this is according to his police statement that was
(22:52):
released via a Foyer request, that he and a friend
were boiling water with speed that night.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
So we've talked about injectable speed before.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
That was a big thing in the seventies and eighties
in Arkansas, and what they were using was a drug
that was similar to finfinn. Now, if you were around
in the eighties, you may remember that this was an
ingredient and a diet drug before it got removed from
the market by the FDA in the mid nineties because
people who took it were experiencing heart damage. These pills
were very strong, they were speed. What they would do
(23:23):
is boil water, throw a lot of pills in there,
and then inject this stuff into their veins. So Peter
Kunkle said that's what they were doing that night. He
said he started shooting up at around seven thirty pm.
He took another shot at eight pm and then did
a few other things. Stopped by a local store called
the jet Set to get a sprite. Then between nine
thirty and nine to forty five pms, so the crucial
(23:44):
time when Pauline would have been walking from the library,
He said, a friend of his named Richard Finley, who
had been hanging out with that night, asked Peter to
take him home. So Peter said they borrowed one of
their friend's motorcycles, and then he claims that he gave
Richard a ride home and their route would have involved
cutting right through Dixon Avenue, right through the crime scene.
(24:06):
After dropping Richard home, Peter said that he went back
to the Grayhouse. This was the place where he'd been staying,
so Peter was in the area. According to the Arkansas
Razorback newspaper, both Peter Cuncle and Pauline had Type A blood,
but unfortunately, these small amounts of blood that drops on
Peter's clothes, they.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Didn't have enough to test it in the lab back then.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
So the bottom line was a lot of people have
blood Type A and they had no physical evidence tying
Peter to the crime scene. And Peter had a good attorney.
His attorney was on point and he to deal with
the police. He said, Peter would agree to take a
lot of detector test, but only if the police would
agree that if Peter passed that test, basically they would
(24:53):
clear him. And apparently the police agreed to do that
and Peter passed. So Peter Conkle was released from police
custody and publicly cleared by law enforcement. The police chief,
Hollis Spencer, said that police were quote satisfied that he
had no part in the murder of Miss Stormant end quote.
(25:14):
Then Peter Councle and his parents held a press conference
and he was very emotional at this press conference. I
remember he's only seventeen years old and he was crying.
He told everybody he didn't blame the police, they were
just doing their job. He said he always knew he
would be cleared, and he completely denied having anything to
do with Pauline's murder. By the way, the charges against
(25:35):
Peter were dropped, but they were what we call nolly
prost meaning dismissed without prejudice, so if new evidence ever
comes to light, he could technically have been retried. After
Peter was released, police started looking for other people of interest.
They did a lot of interviews, they reportedly gave a
lot more a lie detector test, and then, just a
(25:58):
month after Pauline was murdered, a second University of Arkansas
co ed was stabbed. Her name was Andrea Jones, and
she lived about one point eight miles from where Pauline
was attacked. Police arrested a man named Eddie Rush. He
was twenty one years old and not a student.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
At the University of Arkansas.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Apparently, Eddie Rush lied his way into Andrew's apartment and
attacked her. He stabbed her several times, but she survived.
Eddie Rush was convicted and sentenced to twenty one years
in prison for attempted murder. And we're bringing Eddie Rush
up because his picture in the newspaper from back then
(26:40):
looks very much like the sketch that wasulated a Pauline's attacker.
He's got a short buzz cut, but he does have glasses,
and he would seem to fit the general description. Eddie
Rush passed away several years ago, and because in Pauline's case,
there's no DNA attest, sadly there's no way to investigate
(27:03):
him now. But after that, no one else was arrested
or charged. Then, on May twenty second, nineteen eighty one,
a man named Jack Butler walked into the Fayetful Police Department.
He said he had something to tell police. He claimed
that he had murdered Pauline Storman. Jack Butler's story was
(27:28):
that he was hanging around a swimming pool on the
University of Arkansas campus. He said after that he went
home and got a pocket knife and started strolling through
Evergreen Cemetery. He said that he saw a woman and
started following her and attacked her and stabbed her from behind.
This is where the story gets a little strange, because
apparently he thought the woman was his wife. He told
(27:50):
police when he got home. He was shocked because he
thought his wife was dead and she was ready to
have dinner. He said he only later realized that the
woman he had supposedly stabbed was Pauline Stormant. But he
said a lot of things that didn't seem to fit
the evidence or actually make sense. Like he said he
had stabbed Pauline three times, when we know she had
(28:11):
been stabbed a lot more than that. And he also
said she was carrying a record player at the time.
If you were anywhere near that scene, you know she
had a big stack of books in her hands. Police
apparently decided this confession was erroneous and Jack Butler was
cut loose. Also, more time went by in the case
seemed to go cold. I like to look at old
(28:34):
cases so we can see the techniques that work. On
April eighth, nineteen eighty one, ten years after Pauline's murder
in Texarcana, the two siblings, fourteen year old Karen Alexander
and thirteen year old Gordon Alexander, were fatally stabbed to
death inside their home. For decades, this was a cold case.
Police said Karen had been sexually assaulted shortly before the murder.
(28:58):
The murder weapon was a butter knife, but police never
made any arrests. Over the years, Like in Pauline's case,
a lot of people said it could have been a
serial killer, could have been Henry Lee Lucas. Apparently he
claimed responsibility for those killings, but later, like so many
of Henry Lee Lucas's other confessions, it was proven to
be false. He was nowhere near Texarkana when these murders happened.
(29:23):
It was a really tragic story because after the murders
of her children, their mother took her own life after
suffering from depression. And it wasn't until forty two years later,
when a detective took up the case and resubmitted some
forensic evidence into Codis that they.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
Discovered the killer was there all long.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
It was the children's father in Alexander, who had supposedly
had an airtight alibi working an overnight shift a copper
tirron rubber plant. Police believe he had been sexually assaulting
his daughter, Karen for months. They believe that on the
morning when the children were killed, or possibly the night before,
he attempted to rape Karen, she fought him off or
(30:02):
her brother tried to intervene.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
They both ended up being brutally murdered.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
It is a sad and horrific case, but I'm bringing
it up because sometimes all it takes is one fresh
set of eyes who can look at the case file
and break the case. The time of death being a
little bit earlier or later than police think someone's alibi
not checking out.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Even the coldest cases can be solved. Now.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Obviously, in that case, the Alexander murders, there was DNA
that could be resubmitted, which I'm not sure is true
for Pauline's case. But for all the families out there
who have a cold case that has been going on
for years or decades, there's always hope. So back to
Pauline's case. Pauline's family didn't give up, and eventually Lance
(30:53):
started writing on his website and posting on sites like
web slues. Lance said that at one point law enforcement
actually put in an email quote at the moment, only
a deathbed confession or a secret diary hidden away in
an attict basement or bible will close this case.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
End quote. Given the fact that.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Police say there's no DNA, and this is what we're
left with. What's next for this case? If the Foyer
request information we have so far as correct. There's apparently
no DNA to test, so authorities can't do, for example,
familial DNA testing. Over the years, a lot of people
have put a lot of different theories forward. Some people
compared Pauline's case to Betsy Ardsma's murder because both of
(31:39):
them were killed in college libraries. Police have said there's
no connection betwe those two cases. Some people suggested it
could be the Zodiac or Ted Bundy a serial killer,
but again, there was absolutely no evidence of this, and
this was not Ted Bundy's mo Honestly, there's no evidence
that this was a serial killer at all.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
But as Lance said, so far, the evidence seems.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
To point to a more personal murder, some kind of
crime of passion. So if there's going to be a
break in this case, it's almost certainly not going to
be from retesting of DNA because so much of it
has been lost. It's going to be from someone who
knows something. It's also interesting that so many people, all
the witnesses, seem to agree on a couple of things,
(32:21):
including the fact the person who stabbed Pauline approached on foot.
None of them remember hearing a car afterwards. So this
is a person who obviously felt confident enough that they
could move quickly enough on that campus that they could
get very close to her without her being alarmed and
without anyone else noticing them. They believe that they fit in,
and they probably did, because remembers several people saw a
(32:45):
man following Pauline and they didn't realize that was anything
out of the ordinary until they heard the screams.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
This person's plan was to.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Attack Pauline and to flee the scene, and that's what
they did, and it worked because up until now, this
person has gotten away with this murder. They walked up
to a young woman in the prime of her life,
murdered her and got away clean. Was it someone who
knew Pauline who had some kind of a grudge or
was it someone who maybe was obsessed with her who
(33:13):
wanted to know her and was frustrated because they couldn't
make contact in the way they wanted. Remember, in nineteen
seventy four, Master Detective magazine had published that big article
about the killing. In the nineteen eighties, the magazine got
an anonymous letter. The letter was postmarked Capron, Virginia, and
(33:34):
so that police had not caught the real killer. The
letter said that Pauline's killer had targeted her because they
believed she was someone else, that the whole thing had
been a mistake. Investigators did take some fingerprints off that document,
but tragically those prints, along with so much other evidence,
suffered the same fate. They were lost by law enforcement.
But the postmark is interesting for another reason. There's a
(33:57):
correctional facility there called the Southampton Correctional Center. Lance points
that out on his website. Now, there were some inmates
there who did time who were supposedly friends of Peter Cuncle's,
and Joe Clifton, one of the witnesses, was also there
incarcerated for a period of time. This is very interesting
to me because I wonder could that mean that the
(34:21):
police were wrong about Peter Cunkle, that maybe he targeted
Pauline because he thought she was his dad who stood
him up. And what about Joe Clifton, Could he have
been more than a witness. There are so many mysteries
in this case. I have so many questions about the investigation,
(34:42):
about these people's relations to each other, whether all of
them just happened to randomly be there, or whether there was.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
More to these stories.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
And I also have questions about Pauline's ex husband, how
conclusively he, or for that matter, any of these people
were ruled out. I'm not saying that any one of
these people is responsible for her murder. Again, We're just
trying to follow the threads to pick up on anything
that might have been missed over the years. No one
has ever been arrested or charged with this murder, so
(35:10):
I'm doing what I usually do. We're reaching out to
anyone who may have been in the area on that day,
who may have seen anything, any detailed, no matter how small.
We're breaking out a giant pot of coffee, and we're
going through some case files with a lot of missing pages.
According to his obituary, Charles pay after he divorced Pauline,
(35:31):
served in Vietnam, got numerous commendations, and later got a
job working for the Smithsonian Institute. He moved back to
Arkansas and became a fishing guide. He passed away in
twenty eighteen. Then there's Gordon Cummings, the guy Pauline knew,
and the two friends who asked the girls if they
wanted to have drinks that day? Who were those guys?
(35:52):
Could they have had anything to do with this. Could
they have seen something or could those two men have
had anything to do with Peter Kunkle and his friend,
the ones who said they had dates who stood them up. Yes,
Peter was cleared by police, but as we know, he
had a very good lawyer, and sometimes mistakes are made.
Lance said that while he hopes to have answers one
(36:13):
day in this case, he would also really love to
have Pauline's memory honored somewhere in the University of Arkansas campus.
Speaker 5 (36:20):
My long term goal with this project and anything that
comes out of it, I would be completely happy if
somehow I could see some kind of plaque with her
memory telling the story erected somewhere in the vicinity.
Speaker 4 (36:41):
That's my long term goal to see that happens.
Speaker 5 (36:44):
I think that would be the best way to honor
her memory, is.
Speaker 4 (36:47):
To tell her story for all to see whenever they
come across it. If the university would do it, I
would love to have it right there at the top
of South Duncan, at the edge of Dixon Street.
Speaker 5 (37:00):
This is what happened in one of our students.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
I'm hoping that someone out there remembers April twelfth, nineteen
seventy one, at that intersection near the University of Arkansas.
Someone who heard a scream or saw something heard someone
who was there talking about what happened that night, someone
who might have answers and who can help us get
closer to finding out what happened to Pauline Stormant. I'm
(37:26):
Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone
Murder Line is a production of School of Humans and
iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend
and produced by Gabby Watts. Special thanks to Amy Tubbs
for her research assistance. Music contributed by Ben Sale, Executive
producers of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Elsie Crowley. If
(37:49):
you have a case you'd like me and my team
to look into, you can reach out to us at
our Helen Gone Murder Line. It's six seven eight seven
four four six one four five. That's six seven eight
seven four four six one four five.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
School of Humans
School of Humans. Helen got Murder Line actively investigates cold
case murders in an effort to raise public awareness invite
witnesses to come forward and present evidence that could potentially
be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights
from family and community members, their statements should not be
considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts
(01:10):
inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone has
presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply
that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime
is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
It was April twelfth, nineteen seventy one. A twenty seven
year old woman named Pauline Stormant was walking down South
Duncan Avenue in Fayetteville, Arkansas, just a few blocks from
her apartment. She didn't know that someone was following her
in the darkness. Pauline worked two part time jobs. One
is a cashier at the Malco Theater and another as
(01:50):
a secretary at the ROTC Center on the University of
Arkansas campus. Pauline had recently started going back to school
as a mature student. She enrolled as a sophomore at
the University of Arkansas at Fayetble, where she was a
social welfare major. Pauline had a roommate, Alice pat Murphy.
Pat later told the authorities that Pauline wasn't dating anyone. Actually,
(02:13):
Pauline spent most of her free time hitting the books.
She was very focused on school work, which meant that
she was often pulling late nights at the library. On
that night, on April twelfth, Pauline did a shift at
the ROTC. While she was there, she mentioned to a
coworker that she might go to a gospel concert later,
but she ended up going to the library to study. Now,
(02:36):
according to her roommate, Pauline's regular routine would have had
her coming home at around ten thirty or eleven PM.
Something made her lead the library a little earlier that night,
around nine thirty PM, and then while she was walking,
when she was just a few blocks from her apartment,
someone came out of that darkness and attacked Pauline, stabbing
(02:57):
her over and over eight times in all, in a
frenzied attack that lasted several minutes. It was a hot night,
a lot of people had their windows open, and at
nine forty five pm when Pauline started screaming. A lot
of people in the area heard her screaming, and there
were several witnesses who saw a man come up behind her.
(03:19):
But despite that, Pauline's killer escaped into the night. And
even though the police have questioned tons of people, lots
of theories have been explored over the years, and there
was one arrest, Pauline's killer has never been found. I'm
Catherine Townsend. Over the past five years of making my
true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've learned there's no such
(03:42):
thing as a small town where murder never happens. I've
received hundreds of messages from people all around the country
asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them,
their families, and their communities.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
If you have a.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Case you'd like me and my team to look into,
you can reach out to us at our Helen Gone
Murder Line at six seven eight seven four four six
one four or five. That's six seven eight seven four
four six one four five. This is Helen Gone Murder Line.
(04:46):
Police got to the scene really quickly. They rushed Pauline
to Washington Regional Hospital, but they couldn't do anything to
save her, and she was pronounced dead just after eleven PM,
so the assault had very quickly turned into a murder case.
Pauline's body was sent for an autopsy. Forensic testing revealed
that Pauline had died of the stab wounds. She had
(05:09):
been stabbed in the arm, the chest, and the stomach.
Investigators said the murder weapon was a knife like a
butcher knife, around six to eight inches long, and they
believed serrated on both sides. Police did not find the
murder weapon at the scene, but several days later, the
sheriff did find a butcher knife that was stabbed into
(05:29):
the ground behind an apartment complex that was across the
street from where Pauline lived. They sent that knife in
for testing, but I haven't been able to figure out what,
if anything, happened with that weapon. A lot of people
doubted that that butcher knife had been the weapon in
the place because it wasn't serrated. But as far as
I know, and there is a lot of information missing
(05:49):
in this case, there was nothing conclusive, ever proven one
way or the other. Sadly, that knife, along with a
ton of other evidence, has been lost.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
We'll get to that later.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Side note, While I was working on Gail Vaught's case,
which we covered a couple of weeks back, as part
of that, we started looking around for other unsolved murders
in the same area of Arkansas. Even though Pauline's murder
happened nine years earlier than Gail's murder in nineteen eighty,
I couldn't help but be struck by Pauline's case because
(06:25):
even though them was completely different. For Pauline and Gail,
Gail was shot in the head and appeared to have
been sexually assaulted, while Pauline was stabbed in a semi
public area. Both women were tall, with shoulder linked brown hair,
and both cases were unsolved.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
I want to be cleared. Nothing in the evidence.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
I've seen indicates these cases are connected in any way.
The mos were completely different. Gail was shot in the
head and appeared to have been sexually assaulted. Pauline was
stabbed in a semi public area. Amy reached out to
a member of Pauline's family named Lance Gosnell. His great
grandmother is Pauline's aunt, so he's her cousin and he's
(07:05):
been hearing about Pauline's story about this famous unsolved murder
in his family for a long time, since he was
very young. A few years ago, he decided to try
and find answers. He started writing about the case. The
website is at who Murdered Pauline dot WordPress dot com,
and he's compiled a tremendous amount of evidence over the
(07:25):
years that he's collected a lot of it through Foyer requests.
Pauline Stormant was born on April third, nineteen forty four,
in Ozark, Arkansas, and her family her mom and dad
were still living in Ozark when she died from a
young age. Her family described her as someone who was
very serious, pretty quiet, and liked to study. She was
(07:46):
not a drinker or a partier in high school, and
it seemed to be pretty much the same story in college.
After she graduated from high school, she attended Arkansas Tech
University in Russellville. She finished her freshman year there and
after that she left school and started doing some secretarial work.
So one thing about Pauline's Stormant, her studies and her
(08:08):
work life are pretty well documented. Her personal life is
much more of a mystery.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
There are some years.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Between when she was twenty one and twenty seven where
we don't know a lot about her personal relationships. When
she was twenty one years old, in nineteen sixty five,
Pauline got married to a man named Charles Joseph Pate.
A lot of their relationship, as we said, is a mystery,
but we do know that whatever happened between them apparently
did not end very well. Charles and Pauline lived in
(08:37):
Memphis for a while. While Pauline was in Memphis, she
taught first aid for the Red Cross, as well as
doing some secretarial work. Again, a lot of the history
about Pauline in this case was provided by her cousin Lance.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
One other thing that jumps out in my mind is
the records show that she was married to a man
named Charles Pate. The marriage didn't last long. I can't
find a door divorced certificate, but she had mentioned to
a roommate who she had lived with when she was
(09:09):
either in Memphis or Atlanta, that she was deathly afraid
of her ex husband.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
So Pauline and Charles were estranged, but according to her
family and to court records, they may not have been
officially divorced. So in nineteen seventy one, Pauline was at
the University of Arkansas. She had put her studies on
hold while she was married to Charles, but once Pauline
got the chance to complete her education, she seemed to
really throw herself into it. Information from a foyer request
(09:40):
from an old police report shows that Pauline's former roommate,
the one who Lance was referring to, who she had
lived with in Memphis. That woman's name was Iris Fletcher.
She was the one who talked about Pauline's fear of
her ex husband. But apparently police ruled out Charles fairly early.
I don't know why. I have really tried to figure
(10:02):
that out, but I don't have a lot of information
about the investigation because a lot of the case file
is gone over the years, A lot of the evidence
and a lot of the pages have been lost. But
apparently he attended the funeral, was cooperative with the police,
and was cleared early. Pauline's college roommate, Pat the one
(10:22):
who said that Pauline didn't date that much, was asked
by police if anything strange had happened on the day
Pauline was murdered, and she said, yes, there was one
thing that was out of the ordinary. She said that
at around two pm that afternoon, apparently, two men who
were described as white men, young guys who Pauline in
(10:43):
her roommate didn't know, invited Pauline and Pat for drinks.
The two women said no thanks and didn't take them
up on their offer. Later, the two men reportedly went
toward the residence of a guy named Gordon Cummings. Gordon
Cummings with someone who we know Pauline had been introduced to.
She knew him, but we don't know how well she
(11:03):
knew him, and that will be the case with a
lot of these relationships. Trying to figure out exactly how
these people were related and connected each other is a
huge part of this. We all know that sometimes in
these cases, these tiny little details that we know are
true and am using air quotes there turn out to
be slightly wrong, and those slightly wrong details can multiply
(11:26):
over the years and turn into a much larger distortion.
We've seen this happen over and over with so many cases.
Facts are wrong from the beginning and they're repeated wrong
over the years. At the same time, though, sometimes tiny
details are left out and you never know which ones
could lead to cracking the case.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Jane Jones wrote a long.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Very in depth article about this case in Ay about
U magazine back in twenty twenty. She pointed out that
it was a full moon that night. This was something
that had appeared in some early news reports, and that
detail supposedly meant that Pauline could be seen by the
witnesses that night. But actually, because I obsess over these things,
I went back and found out actually the moon.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Wasn't full that night. It was a waning gibbous moon.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Not that that makes any difference in the context of
the investigation at all, because actually a waning gibbus is
almost a full moon. It's actually the part of the
lunar phase right after the moon is full. It would
be almost as light as a full moon out there,
but probably a little bit less poetic in a newspaper article.
And I'm bringing this up just to illustrate it's one
(12:34):
tiny example of something we thought we knew wrong. Information
gets repeated over the years, and sometimes it multiplies. So
I'm really trying to go back and take a look
at every single piece of information that we have and
try to understand if we really know everything that we
think we know. Police were trying to figure out what
(12:56):
Pauline's plans had been that night, to see if, other
than the two guys asking her in her roommate to
have drinks, anything else oude of the ordinary had happened.
Police talked to a woman named Terry Keating. Now Terry
worked with Pauline at the ROTC office. She said she
had seen Pauline at around seven thirty pm and that
Pauline had mentioned something about a gospel concert hosted by
(13:19):
a group called Black Americans for Democracy. This concert was
going to be held at the Union Ballroom, a building
that was basically very close right next door to the
ROTC building. It started at eight pm. But whether Pauline
attended that concert or not is still kind of a
question mark because some reports say she was planning to go.
(13:40):
Other media reports say she told someone she had a
class or a conflict and she could not attend. Lance
pointed out something interesting on his website. He said that
we're talking about nineteen seventy one Arkansas, and he was speculating,
but he said, could some racist person have taken offense
at a white woman planning to go to this concert
(14:00):
where there were going to be a lot of black
singers total speculation, but given the political climate at the time,
I do think it's something that police would have to consider.
But there was no evidence that this was ever a factor.
So whether or not Pauline made it to that concert, eventually,
after she worked her shift at the ROTC, she ended
(14:20):
up at the library. She was seen by multiple witnesses there,
but then she left suddenly. We don't know exactly what time,
but by tracing her route, she must have headed outside
at around nine point thirty.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
So why did she leave early?
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Was it a coincidence or did she see something or
someone and there that bothered her. After she left the library,
Pauline's route would have taken her south along Duncan Avenue.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
She was walking.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Pretty slowly and carefully because she had a big stack
of books in her hands, So again I'm betting that
she headed straight home because she was balancing lots of
school books. She was at the intersection of Duncan Avenue
and Treadwell Streets when her attacker struck. The vicious attack
happened very quickly, and then her attacker left the scene
(15:12):
on foot. Another thing that we know for sure in
this case is the time of death. We know she
was screaming at nine forty five pm because several people
heard her at the same time. One of them was
twenty four year old Jack Huff. He lived at the
Summit Terrace apartments, which were nearby. He said when he
heard that scream, he ran downstairs and he saw Pauline
(15:35):
kind of staggering toward him and holding her stomach. He
told the police that Pauline said someone hit her in
the chest and that she said someone was following her,
someone who was wearing glasses. Another witness named Mike Adare,
also lived nearby. He said he'd actually seen Pauline before
the attack happened. He said he was driving home and
(15:58):
at the corner of Duncan and Center, right where she
got attacked. He said he saw her carrying some really
heavy books and he saw a.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Man following her.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Two other men, Gary Gammel, and Joe Clifton, were driving
in separate cars north on South Duncan and they were
approaching that same intersection. Joe also lived at the Summit
Terrace apartment complex. He told investigators that he also saw
a man following Pauline. He said he noticed she was
carrying some heavy books and he thought about asking her
(16:28):
if she wanted a lift, but in the end he didn't.
Then a few seconds later, he said he heard the scream.
He heard her screaming.
Speaker 1 (16:36):
Help me.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
So Joe and Gary are also there in their cars.
They both rushed up to the scene. Gary said that
from his point of view, he saw Pauline collapse to
the ground. He said when he looked around, he saw
her books and her personal belongings on the ground, but
he didn't see anyone else. He said, when he saw Pauline,
she was holding her chest. He approached her and when
(16:58):
he got closer he could see that she was lying
half in the yard and half in the street. He
said that her white skirt in one of her arms
were completely soaked blood. Joe said that he asked Pauline
if the man that was following her did this.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
She told him yes.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
He then started trying to help her, asking where her
cuts were and which way the man went. But he
said at this point Pauline didn't know where the man went,
and she was kind of slipping in and out of consciousness.
She kept asking for her books. Detectives did find Pauline's
(17:37):
black purse with her wallet and ida in it near
her body. They took it in for testing, but only
found one set of fingerprints, and it turned out that
they were Pauline's, so police knew it was unlikely the
killer's motive had been robbery. It didn't seem like they
grabbed for her purse at all. They were trying to
hurt her, not take her stuff. Police asked all four
(18:00):
witnesses some detailed questions about the man that they said
they saw following Pauline.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
Mike Adair said.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
The man following Pauline was wearing a brown sport coat
and had blonde or dirty blonde hair, around five ten
to six feet tall, and wearing glasses.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
So the police did a sketch.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
According to these guys descriptions and in the end it's
kind of random, but the sketch, a lot of people
pointed out, kind of looked like the Zodiac Killer. By
the way, no, there was no evidence the Zodiac Killer
was ever involved, So like the Zodiac Killer sketch, the
sketch in Pauline's case was pretty generic. No one had
actually seen this man's face, so it was a sketch
(18:39):
of a guy was slipped back, hair and glasses, again,
a pretty common look on a college campus.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
This guy could have been anyone.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
When Mike was asked about the police sketch, he said, yes,
it did look similar to the man he saw, but
he pointed out that the hair of the guy he
saw was messier, not slip back like on that sketch.
There were two other potential witnesses, Robert Spray and John Hall.
These guys lived nearby at twelve South Hill Street. They
(19:08):
said they had seen a man who could have been
involved in the crime because the guy kind of fit
the description of the assailant. He had a sport code on.
He was described as being medium height with a slight build.
They said that this guy was kind of stumbling around
like he was drunk. But they didn't have a lot
to go on. They didn't have a description of the car,
and in the end, police never definitively found that person,
(19:30):
so it seemed to be a dead end. So police
had no idea what the motive had been. But they
did have potentially four different people who said they definitively
saw the killer, but their descriptions differed slightly, which of
course is not uncommon in a case like this, But
they did all agree on one thing. Pauline had been
attacked by one person, one man who stabbed her multiple times,
(19:54):
and they said that man had been following her and
was able to get very close to her before he pounced.
Because of where Pauline's injuries were the fact that she
had stab wounds on the front of her body, police
figured out she had turned around to face her attacker,
so they wondered was it someone she knew, Was that
how they were able to get that close, or were
(20:18):
they just really fast and could they have snuck up
on her that quickly. The police admitted they didn't know
if this had been someone fixated on Pauline specifically, or
someone targeting women totally randomly, or even possibly a case
of mistaken identity. Because it was pretty dark it was night,
none of the men who saw this stranger were that close,
(20:40):
so even though there were multiple witnesses, not a single
one got a good look at the killer's face. But
police did know one thing that was such a vicious attack,
the person who stabbed Pauline would have blood on their clothing,
so police canvassed the area they were looking for a
suspect covered in blood, and it wasn't long before they
(21:03):
found one a few minutes after the stabbing, police were
cruising the area when two officers saw two young men
sitting on a bench. According to a very good article
in Master Detective magazine from nineteen seventy four, they were
around five blocks away from the crime scene when they
saw these guys. One of them was seventeen year old
Wallace Peter Cunkle. So the police start talking to these
(21:26):
guys and apparently they told the officers that they were
just hanging around. They were supposed to have had dates
with two girls, but they'd been stood up. But when
police asked them for more details, the guys said they
didn't even know these girls' names, which honestly seems a
little bit strange to me that they wouldn't even have
a first name. But apparently the police thought this story
was believable. As the detective was talking to Peter Cunkle,
(21:48):
he noticed some dark spots on his white shirt, jacket,
and trousers. Later it was determined those were blood. When
the officer asked Peter why he had blood on his clothes,
Peter said he'd had a nosebleed recently. Now, to police,
with everything going on, this seemed like a pretty big coincidence.
So they took him in for questioning. They took his clothes,
(22:10):
and they took samples of his blood. Now, obviously this
was back in nineteen seventy one, so the testing they
could do on blood was much more limited than it
is now. They could basically tell you what type of
blood it was, and that's about it. Peter got a lawyer,
and his lawyer said he refused to take a polygraph test. Now,
(22:31):
by the way, I don't hold this against him at all,
just my opinion, but I've said this before. I actually
think this is a very smart move. Honestly, asking for
an attorney, especially in a situation like this where you
know the police are kind of on a fishing expedition,
is something that I think everyone should do. Peter told police,
and this is according to his police statement that was
(22:52):
released via a Foyer request, that he and a friend
were boiling water with speed that night.
Speaker 3 (22:58):
So we've talked about injectable speed before.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
That was a big thing in the seventies and eighties
in Arkansas, and what they were using was a drug
that was similar to finfinn. Now, if you were around
in the eighties, you may remember that this was an
ingredient and a diet drug before it got removed from
the market by the FDA in the mid nineties because
people who took it were experiencing heart damage. These pills
were very strong, they were speed. What they would do
(23:23):
is boil water, throw a lot of pills in there,
and then inject this stuff into their veins. So Peter
Kunkle said that's what they were doing that night. He
said he started shooting up at around seven thirty pm.
He took another shot at eight pm and then did
a few other things. Stopped by a local store called
the jet Set to get a sprite. Then between nine
thirty and nine to forty five pms, so the crucial
(23:44):
time when Pauline would have been walking from the library,
He said, a friend of his named Richard Finley, who
had been hanging out with that night, asked Peter to
take him home. So Peter said they borrowed one of
their friend's motorcycles, and then he claims that he gave
Richard a ride home and their route would have involved
cutting right through Dixon Avenue, right through the crime scene.
(24:06):
After dropping Richard home, Peter said that he went back
to the Grayhouse. This was the place where he'd been staying,
so Peter was in the area. According to the Arkansas
Razorback newspaper, both Peter Cuncle and Pauline had Type A blood,
but unfortunately, these small amounts of blood that drops on
Peter's clothes, they.
Speaker 3 (24:28):
Didn't have enough to test it in the lab back then.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
So the bottom line was a lot of people have
blood Type A and they had no physical evidence tying
Peter to the crime scene. And Peter had a good attorney.
His attorney was on point and he to deal with
the police. He said, Peter would agree to take a
lot of detector test, but only if the police would
agree that if Peter passed that test, basically they would
(24:53):
clear him. And apparently the police agreed to do that
and Peter passed. So Peter Conkle was released from police
custody and publicly cleared by law enforcement. The police chief,
Hollis Spencer, said that police were quote satisfied that he
had no part in the murder of Miss Stormant end quote.
(25:14):
Then Peter Councle and his parents held a press conference
and he was very emotional at this press conference. I
remember he's only seventeen years old and he was crying.
He told everybody he didn't blame the police, they were
just doing their job. He said he always knew he
would be cleared, and he completely denied having anything to
do with Pauline's murder. By the way, the charges against
(25:35):
Peter were dropped, but they were what we call nolly
prost meaning dismissed without prejudice, so if new evidence ever
comes to light, he could technically have been retried. After
Peter was released, police started looking for other people of interest.
They did a lot of interviews, they reportedly gave a
lot more a lie detector test, and then, just a
(25:58):
month after Pauline was murdered, a second University of Arkansas
co ed was stabbed. Her name was Andrea Jones, and
she lived about one point eight miles from where Pauline
was attacked. Police arrested a man named Eddie Rush. He
was twenty one years old and not a student.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
At the University of Arkansas.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
Apparently, Eddie Rush lied his way into Andrew's apartment and
attacked her. He stabbed her several times, but she survived.
Eddie Rush was convicted and sentenced to twenty one years
in prison for attempted murder. And we're bringing Eddie Rush
up because his picture in the newspaper from back then
(26:40):
looks very much like the sketch that wasulated a Pauline's attacker.
He's got a short buzz cut, but he does have glasses,
and he would seem to fit the general description. Eddie
Rush passed away several years ago, and because in Pauline's case,
there's no DNA attest, sadly there's no way to investigate
(27:03):
him now. But after that, no one else was arrested
or charged. Then, on May twenty second, nineteen eighty one,
a man named Jack Butler walked into the Fayetful Police Department.
He said he had something to tell police. He claimed
that he had murdered Pauline Storman. Jack Butler's story was
(27:28):
that he was hanging around a swimming pool on the
University of Arkansas campus. He said after that he went
home and got a pocket knife and started strolling through
Evergreen Cemetery. He said that he saw a woman and
started following her and attacked her and stabbed her from behind.
This is where the story gets a little strange, because
apparently he thought the woman was his wife. He told
(27:50):
police when he got home. He was shocked because he
thought his wife was dead and she was ready to
have dinner. He said he only later realized that the
woman he had supposedly stabbed was Pauline Stormant. But he
said a lot of things that didn't seem to fit
the evidence or actually make sense. Like he said he
had stabbed Pauline three times, when we know she had
(28:11):
been stabbed a lot more than that. And he also
said she was carrying a record player at the time.
If you were anywhere near that scene, you know she
had a big stack of books in her hands. Police
apparently decided this confession was erroneous and Jack Butler was
cut loose. Also, more time went by in the case
seemed to go cold. I like to look at old
(28:34):
cases so we can see the techniques that work. On
April eighth, nineteen eighty one, ten years after Pauline's murder
in Texarcana, the two siblings, fourteen year old Karen Alexander
and thirteen year old Gordon Alexander, were fatally stabbed to
death inside their home. For decades, this was a cold case.
Police said Karen had been sexually assaulted shortly before the murder.
(28:58):
The murder weapon was a butter knife, but police never
made any arrests. Over the years, Like in Pauline's case,
a lot of people said it could have been a
serial killer, could have been Henry Lee Lucas. Apparently he
claimed responsibility for those killings, but later, like so many
of Henry Lee Lucas's other confessions, it was proven to
be false. He was nowhere near Texarkana when these murders happened.
(29:23):
It was a really tragic story because after the murders
of her children, their mother took her own life after
suffering from depression. And it wasn't until forty two years later,
when a detective took up the case and resubmitted some
forensic evidence into Codis that they.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
Discovered the killer was there all long.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
It was the children's father in Alexander, who had supposedly
had an airtight alibi working an overnight shift a copper
tirron rubber plant. Police believe he had been sexually assaulting
his daughter, Karen for months. They believe that on the
morning when the children were killed, or possibly the night before,
he attempted to rape Karen, she fought him off or
(30:02):
her brother tried to intervene.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
They both ended up being brutally murdered.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
It is a sad and horrific case, but I'm bringing
it up because sometimes all it takes is one fresh
set of eyes who can look at the case file
and break the case. The time of death being a
little bit earlier or later than police think someone's alibi
not checking out.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Even the coldest cases can be solved. Now.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Obviously, in that case, the Alexander murders, there was DNA
that could be resubmitted, which I'm not sure is true
for Pauline's case. But for all the families out there
who have a cold case that has been going on
for years or decades, there's always hope. So back to
Pauline's case. Pauline's family didn't give up, and eventually Lance
(30:53):
started writing on his website and posting on sites like
web slues. Lance said that at one point law enforcement
actually put in an email quote at the moment, only
a deathbed confession or a secret diary hidden away in
an attict basement or bible will close this case.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
End quote. Given the fact that.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Police say there's no DNA, and this is what we're
left with. What's next for this case? If the Foyer
request information we have so far as correct. There's apparently
no DNA to test, so authorities can't do, for example,
familial DNA testing. Over the years, a lot of people
have put a lot of different theories forward. Some people
compared Pauline's case to Betsy Ardsma's murder because both of
(31:39):
them were killed in college libraries. Police have said there's
no connection betwe those two cases. Some people suggested it
could be the Zodiac or Ted Bundy a serial killer,
but again, there was absolutely no evidence of this, and
this was not Ted Bundy's mo Honestly, there's no evidence
that this was a serial killer at all.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
But as Lance said, so far, the evidence seems.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
To point to a more personal murder, some kind of
crime of passion. So if there's going to be a
break in this case, it's almost certainly not going to
be from retesting of DNA because so much of it
has been lost. It's going to be from someone who
knows something. It's also interesting that so many people, all
the witnesses, seem to agree on a couple of things,
(32:21):
including the fact the person who stabbed Pauline approached on foot.
None of them remember hearing a car afterwards. So this
is a person who obviously felt confident enough that they
could move quickly enough on that campus that they could
get very close to her without her being alarmed and
without anyone else noticing them. They believe that they fit in,
and they probably did, because remembers several people saw a
(32:45):
man following Pauline and they didn't realize that was anything
out of the ordinary until they heard the screams.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
This person's plan was to.
Speaker 2 (32:52):
Attack Pauline and to flee the scene, and that's what
they did, and it worked because up until now, this
person has gotten away with this murder. They walked up
to a young woman in the prime of her life,
murdered her and got away clean. Was it someone who
knew Pauline who had some kind of a grudge or
was it someone who maybe was obsessed with her who
(33:13):
wanted to know her and was frustrated because they couldn't
make contact in the way they wanted. Remember, in nineteen
seventy four, Master Detective magazine had published that big article
about the killing. In the nineteen eighties, the magazine got
an anonymous letter. The letter was postmarked Capron, Virginia, and
(33:34):
so that police had not caught the real killer. The
letter said that Pauline's killer had targeted her because they
believed she was someone else, that the whole thing had
been a mistake. Investigators did take some fingerprints off that document,
but tragically those prints, along with so much other evidence,
suffered the same fate. They were lost by law enforcement.
But the postmark is interesting for another reason. There's a
(33:57):
correctional facility there called the Southampton Correctional Center. Lance points
that out on his website. Now, there were some inmates
there who did time who were supposedly friends of Peter Cuncle's,
and Joe Clifton, one of the witnesses, was also there
incarcerated for a period of time. This is very interesting
to me because I wonder could that mean that the
(34:21):
police were wrong about Peter Cunkle, that maybe he targeted
Pauline because he thought she was his dad who stood
him up. And what about Joe Clifton, Could he have
been more than a witness. There are so many mysteries
in this case. I have so many questions about the investigation,
(34:42):
about these people's relations to each other, whether all of
them just happened to randomly be there, or whether there was.
Speaker 3 (34:48):
More to these stories.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
And I also have questions about Pauline's ex husband, how
conclusively he, or for that matter, any of these people
were ruled out. I'm not saying that any one of
these people is responsible for her murder. Again, We're just
trying to follow the threads to pick up on anything
that might have been missed over the years. No one
has ever been arrested or charged with this murder, so
(35:10):
I'm doing what I usually do. We're reaching out to
anyone who may have been in the area on that day,
who may have seen anything, any detailed, no matter how small.
We're breaking out a giant pot of coffee, and we're
going through some case files with a lot of missing pages.
According to his obituary, Charles pay after he divorced Pauline,
(35:31):
served in Vietnam, got numerous commendations, and later got a
job working for the Smithsonian Institute. He moved back to
Arkansas and became a fishing guide. He passed away in
twenty eighteen. Then there's Gordon Cummings, the guy Pauline knew,
and the two friends who asked the girls if they
wanted to have drinks that day? Who were those guys?
(35:52):
Could they have had anything to do with this. Could
they have seen something or could those two men have
had anything to do with Peter Kunkle and his friend,
the ones who said they had dates who stood them up. Yes,
Peter was cleared by police, but as we know, he
had a very good lawyer, and sometimes mistakes are made.
Lance said that while he hopes to have answers one
(36:13):
day in this case, he would also really love to
have Pauline's memory honored somewhere in the University of Arkansas campus.
Speaker 5 (36:20):
My long term goal with this project and anything that
comes out of it, I would be completely happy if
somehow I could see some kind of plaque with her
memory telling the story erected somewhere in the vicinity.
Speaker 4 (36:41):
That's my long term goal to see that happens.
Speaker 5 (36:44):
I think that would be the best way to honor
her memory, is.
Speaker 4 (36:47):
To tell her story for all to see whenever they
come across it. If the university would do it, I
would love to have it right there at the top
of South Duncan, at the edge of Dixon Street.
Speaker 5 (37:00):
This is what happened in one of our students.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
I'm hoping that someone out there remembers April twelfth, nineteen
seventy one, at that intersection near the University of Arkansas.
Someone who heard a scream or saw something heard someone
who was there talking about what happened that night, someone
who might have answers and who can help us get
closer to finding out what happened to Pauline Stormant. I'm
(37:26):
Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone
Murder Line is a production of School of Humans and
iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend
and produced by Gabby Watts. Special thanks to Amy Tubbs
for her research assistance. Music contributed by Ben Sale, Executive
producers of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Elsie Crowley. If
(37:49):
you have a case you'd like me and my team
to look into, you can reach out to us at
our Helen Gone Murder Line. It's six seven eight seven
four four six one four five. That's six seven eight
seven four four six one four five.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
School of Humans
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