June 30, 2021 • 34 mins
Police quickly learn that what was initially considered a deadly accident inside the Stevenson home was actually the scene of a quadruple homicide. Was it retribution from a business deal gone wrong? Had Billy shown off his money to the wrong person? An incident that takes place at one of the family's fireworks stands just days before the murders becomes an eerie prelude as the suspect list begins to grow.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's been forty years since the Stevenson family was murdered.
(00:15):
I'm in southern Ohio, in the middle of nowhere, scaling
a crunchy snowbank, walking carefully up a steep hill I
cannot even see over, working my way toward a grave
site for the tiny village of Novelle. I'm here to
meet Shannon Group, Carol Thompson's forty three year old daughter. Shannon.
Shannon was only three and a half at the time
(00:37):
of the fire. It still remembers watching the bodies of
family members being carried out of the Stevenson's burning house.
How's it going on this day with me? Shannon appears
poised and very quiet, but also quite calm. I can
tell she lives with a degree of acceptance, but at
(00:58):
the same time disbelief at the absence of complete justice.
Shannon contacted me in two thousand sixteen, desperate to put
an end to the wondering, all the unanswered questions and
suffering of those left behind. She spent the past two
(01:19):
decades conducting the an investigation herself into what happened. Somewhere
around the ten year mark, Channing caught a break. The
local Sheriff's Department handed over thousands of pages of official documents,
actual evidence from the case, and an old school reel
to reel recording, along with eighteen cassette tapes filled with
(01:41):
hours of audio from the investigation as it unfolded in
real time, some of which you'll hear throughout this podcast.
Still as close as she's gotten, Shannon hasn't been able
to find those answers she and her mother need most.
My mom was very, very paranoid growing um, very moody.
(02:03):
She's got a lot better, but you know, when I
was younger, you know, she she she'd snap and go off.
And Shannon's mom, Carol Thompson, was nineteen at the time
of the murders. After helping her parents sell fireworks throughout
the busy July fourth weekend, Carol said goodbye to her
family on that July night and she headed to her
(02:24):
own home. But in the early hours of the next morning,
the fire that ravage the Stevenson house revealed the horror
inside her stepfather Billy Stevenson, her mother Linda, five year
old brother Billy Jr. And her thirty year old uncle
Eddie Dowell. We're all dead, police would quickly learn that
(02:46):
what was initially considered a terrible accident was actually the
scene of a quadruple homicide. I think it has serious
impact on her. It really relationship wise and just people wise,
and given real trust issues. That's one of the side
effects of tragedy, a silent simmering pt esteem most people
(03:07):
don't even realize is impacting their lives as anxiety and
anger bubble underneath the surface. It creates a chasm where
life can sometimes become if not dealt with, this toxic
slide into the past, a seemingly endless cycle of trauma.
Carol's whereabouts the night of the murders was questioned by
(03:28):
law enforcement, but dismissed after she was able to prove
she had been at home all night. In conversations, Carol
has revealed to me that she often finds herself driving
by her family's old house, looking for some sort of
conclusion and antidote to all the pain. She does not
want to die without knowing who is responsible for murdering
(03:51):
her entire family. M previously on Paper Ghosts, my brother says, Carroll,
something's up. They're not telling us everything that is not
(04:14):
a fire. There is too much wood Well. When Depthty
Crayton went in, he observed right down that cher had
bull wounds to the head, so we knew it was homicide.
The fire was set after the homicide to destroy evidence.
A lot of people have been telling Mom and Steve,
you know, hey, you know you need to be carible. Man.
(04:34):
You know you're flashing all this money, you're wearing all
these jewels. I wanted to be careful. My name is
and William Phelps. This is season two of Paper Ghosts Burned.
(04:54):
The days between Memorial Day and July fourth are considered
the height of fireworks season. For Billy Stevenson. It was
the time of the year when he made the bulk
of his wealth, of which was in cash. I've heard
stories of Billy often flaunting his success, showing off a
suitcase or leather bags stuffed with gold, jewelry and banded bills.
(05:19):
In the days leading up to the fire, an incident
took place at one of the Stevenson's fireworks stands that
has me wondering if maybe Billy it's shown off that
money to the wrong person, and if the executions and
subsequent fire were set in motion by what had happened.
I was working at the shop, and I had stocked it,
(05:43):
restocked it heavy, heavy, heavy stock, much more than I
should have stocked it. But we all knew it's still
It's July second, so I knew that we were gonna
be really busy, So why over stocked. Carol Thompson Billy
Stevenson's stepdaughter in Linda's eldess ran one of the busy
or firework stands a trailer about the size of half
(06:03):
a semi parked along route in Claremont County. So I'm
at the back of the truck, checking things, making sure
things okay, making sure the stocks out. The truck is
packed full of customers, and I take a step and
I hear behind me, Oh, no, don't do that. What
are you doing? No, don't do that, And I thought, great,
(06:25):
somebody's trying to rip you know, somebody's gonna rip me off.
Somebody's got stick a case of fireworks down their pants
or something. Right as I turn, I see the guy
light with with a lighter. I see he's got a
aerobomb in his hand, a three shot aerial world. As
(06:47):
he strikes the lighter and I'm probably six ft away
from him. No, maybe a little more seven ft away
from him. I take one step back because I want,
you know, I'm gonna try and grab it before it goes,
you know, before. And as I take the step, he
drops the bomb forward, pointing it like a gun to
(07:12):
the fireworks table, the table that is covered with all
the restock under the table, and I before I can
make a move, the first shot goes off, and as
soon as it hits I see out about a diameter
(07:37):
of fire, and all I can think is, holy shit,
We're all going to die. I immediately start screaming, get
him off the truck. Everybody off the truck. Everybody off,
and I'm like trying to shove and and I can't
stop the fire. And Eddie is in the front, my
uncle Ednie, and I'm screaming at Eddie, Eddie fire standers
and I got have fire Sanders. Carol's uncle Eddie Dowell
(07:58):
was in town for the sum helping out at the
family's fireworks stands. I'm told he came south to avoid
marriage trouble back home and could have been involved in
things over his head, dangerous games. Eddie was outside when
the guy sparked his lighter and ignited that firebomb. And
he quickly rushed into the trailer as soon as he
heard Carol yelling. So he shows me how away. He
(08:23):
runs straight back with fire extinguisher. As he is headed
back there, I see him kick the kid that had
done and I see the kid hit before and Eddie
grabs the guy who's now locked out, he's unconscious, and
he drags him out by the feet. Literally, he's dragging
him all the way through you know, the semi and
(08:44):
off the truck and we get everybody off the truck
as those fireworks ignite, one after the other, and the
most awesome fireworks display of the year begins taking place
along the roadside of route. The entire trailer goes up
in flames, fire and trucks are coming. But now fireworks
(09:04):
are going on with him. I'm watching across the street
as the cars are pulling off the side of the road.
What's the fireworks display? Okay, they're like wow, free firework display.
And the fireworks were rickcheen and they're firing off in
here and there and they're hitting busting windows all open
down the street. And I mean it was bad. I
mean fireworks are shooting it sky high. So who would
(09:25):
light up one of Billy Stevenson's fireworks stands, just days
before the year's biggest weekend of sales. Was it simply
some punk as kid messing around or could it have
been the work of Billy's competition, someone who stood to
game from Billy's loss. I'm thinking James rant I told
(09:47):
him immediately he was our competitor. He was the one
that Seed was always in a competition was against the fireworks.
On July five, the night before the Stevenson's were murdered,
Carol was getting ready to close up her fireworks stand
when she took a call from a business associate named
Jim Riley. He told Carol he dropped by to settle
(10:08):
his bill. According to documents I've received, Jim Riley old
Billy Stevenson thirteen thousand dollars. Jim Riley was a local
(10:28):
guy many considered Billy Stevenson's business rival. A businessman himself,
involved in everything from construction to retail. Jim is one
of those tell it like it is guys, I soon discovered,
but at the same time also quite careful about what
he says. Jim followed a similar course to Billy, buying
and selling gold and silver and also retailing fireworks at
(10:52):
roadside stands near the Stevenson's busy trailers. In fact, Jim
had been cutting into Billy's business in talking to people
around town as well as sifting through all the documentation,
I didn't have a clear picture of who Jim Riley
actually was. After all, a lot of the information in
this case was coming from people who had a lot
(11:14):
to lose, not to mention a lot to gain. So
I tracked Jim down and have to admit I was
pleasantly surprised by how willing he was to talk about
Billy Stevenson. He used to bring He's a truck driver.
He used to bring in things from Mexico and he
(11:35):
started bringing in those uh felt paintings. Billy brought most
of those in, I mean trucks loads of back stuff,
and he would bring in uh drugs with it. I
think back then it was mostly marijuana. That's a bold claim,
(11:56):
but as Jim talks it through, it feels to me
like he was a guy in the no Oh at
the time, not just some dude in town hearing rumors
and conjecture. And if what Jim says is accurate, that
kind of intel within a case of this magnitude has
the potential to change the dynamic of my reinvestigation. I
can talk about now gots gone, but he brought in drugs.
(12:18):
But y that's how he accumulator and a little bit
of money. I don't think they checked them trucks or
whatever he put it in. Early in his career, Billy
drove a truck between Mexico and the United States hauling
merchandise for resale. Jim is spot on when he says
border crossing checks were a bit laxer than Despite his
(12:42):
fireworks business rivalry with Billy, Jim's wife, Wanda, was good
friends with the Stevenson's. Jim, on the other hand, says
he preferred to keep his distance. I didn't really care
for too much because they made me a little nervous.
They were very flamboyant people with their well like for instance,
(13:08):
when we got done when it when the fourth was over.
The next day, I said, I wanted to see how
he did. And he said, oh, I did good. I
did real good. How did you do? And I said, yeah,
one of my better years. And he says, come on
out here to the car. And he had a Lincoln
Continental and Uh. I went back there and he opened
(13:31):
the trunk up and he had one of these whole
time leather cases are suitcases. He opens it up and
it's completely full money. And I slepped back and I said,
what the hell has how much money you got in there?
He says, over four hundred thousand? And I said, what
(13:55):
are you doing? Man? He said, I just like I
cumulated all the winter season, and I'm gonna exchange most
of it to diamonds. He was in the diamonds and
his wife was in that jeory and I said, wow, man,
I don't know. I don't carry that kind of money around.
(14:17):
I think you're not listening to Jim makes me think
there was at the least an elevated level of trust
and respect between him and Billy Stevenson. Linda's brother Eddie Dowell,
on the other hand, left a much different impression on Jim.
(14:38):
He was just a punk as far as I'm concerned,
and he considered us just outright competitors and that Philly
shouldn't have nothing to do with us. And and then
like I said, goddamn brother, hers coming down there. You know,
real guns around in your face ain't my thing. And uh,
(15:01):
at one time. There was some pretty bad blood going
on for a while. I mean when I first started.
I mean he put a place, I put one in
front of him and beyond. It was getting out of hand.
And that that goddamn punk threatening us with guns and ship.
That that got out of hand really fast. And then
(15:23):
my dad has gone. Now he's he had balls of
steel and he went up there right in the lines
then and uh, you know, and he's the one that said, look,
and we ain't going away. You ain't going away. Why
don't we just work together and put the ship beside.
I mean, this is nonsense. And Billy is one of
(15:43):
them guys says, hey, it makes sense to me. This
was when Billy came up with the business smarts to
go to Jim Riley and say, look, I sell you
fireworks at wholesale prices. You don't mess around an open
stands near me. We can both make money. Jim Riley agreed,
why fight when you can split the immense amount of
(16:03):
profits selling fireworks offered. According to Jim, the margins then
were in the thousand percent range. There was enough money
to go around, and from then on we became friends.
But not that, not not a brother. He was just
one of them tough guys, you know, when you know,
wanting to You look at him and he wants to
(16:26):
kick your ass more than competitors, which is a strong
enough motive alone. There was a larger issue, far more personal,
rattling the framework of all of this, at least from
where Jim Riley stood, because you see Eddie Dowell, Linda's brother, well,
he was having an affair with Jim Riley's wife. I
(16:50):
had also heard and read in some of the FBI
reports that Eddie was kind of after your wife at
the time. One that was that true? Yeah, I don't
like that. Yeah that didn't go too good. What happened
with that? Well, you know, we argued about it, you know,
and she she says, there's nothing to it, just trying
(17:10):
to be friendly. But I never bought it. You thought
maybe there was something going on between them. Yeah, I
probably was, you know now, and I look it back.
Sometimes you try. Yeah, you have two children, I came
from a divorce family. You sometimes look at what look
the other way when you don't want to, You don't
want your kids come from a broken home, you know,
(17:32):
Well that is true. But then taking out the guy
sleeping with your wife and your business rival at the
same time. Is I am thinking a good way to
end things as well? Jim, did you know that within
the first twelve hours after they discovered that this is
(17:53):
a murder, that you're like their prime suspect, did they
question you or anything? That's because that goddamn daughter hers.
I'm coming up the hill, you know, the house of
smold Rain. I don't know exactly what all's left down here.
As I'm walking up the hill, that game a little
(18:15):
bit says there he is. He murdered him, He murdered them.
I'll never forget that. And uh, whoa. I put my
hands up, I said, hey, what the hell? I don't
know where that came from? But you know, I I
it wasn't Maybe I didn't. Ever, Jim ultimately never showed
(18:35):
up that night to settle the bill he called Carol
about despite one report from Jim Riley's brother in law
that Jim wasn't home on the night of the murders
and did not return until the next morning. Jim Riley
had an alibi. His wife wanted the Toll police he
was at home with her the entire night. In talking
(18:58):
to Jim Riley. I get a feeling, a strong feeling
that this guy has nothing to hide, quite notably when
it came to how both he and Billy Stevenson obtained
the fireworks they sold. If he owed anybody money, I
don't know about it. I just know who he was
to deal with, because in the fireworks business that I
(19:21):
was involved in, I dealt with. To call him the
mob or the mafia, whatever you want to say. Uh,
I remember talking about him and he's gonna he's gonna
get himself into some ship sail here later. He just
can't be sloppy like he was. He was a likable
(19:41):
guy too. I don't know why he just couldn't behave
himself For several years, I've heard hearsay in innu window
about an organized crime connection to the murders. But here's
someone who worked with Billy Stevenson directly stating it on
the record. Yeah. So when you were speaking with your
(20:04):
organized crime friends, they were, you know, they were well
aware of Billy. They were aware. And was Billy buying
his fireworks from them as well? Ah? He was. Would
he always pay his debts? Yeah? He did, and I
would know that. I'm gonna tell you. I know that
because I doubt what all forty six locations in Ohio,
(20:25):
and uh I knew where all the fireworks mostly came from. Yeah,
he didn't want to not pay pay his bill. That's
for short, because what those are the kind of guys
you should pay, right, these kind of guys you will pay.
That's all I can tell you. That part. When you're
(20:46):
looking into cold cases and your goal is finding answers
for the victims family, the urge to purposely ignore information
that has the potential to cast a bad light on
a murder victim is always there. It's a tough line
to walk for one. Billy, Linda, Billy Jr. And Eddie
they never asked for any of this. They are victims,
(21:08):
despite what kind of lives they might have. Let I
served surviving family members no purpose if they or I
are unwilling to accept the truth, whatever it is. If
Billy Stevenson was allegedly dealing and trafficking and drugs or
running illegal fireworks for organized crime, that's a tenuous, dangerous
(21:29):
bed of hot coals to walk across. One wrong move,
one debt left unpaid in any room for forgiveness by
those holding the cards disappears like dust. As it turned out,
the young guy who set off all the fireworks in
the Stevenson's trailer just days before the house fire was
(21:51):
some punk messing around. He was eventually arrested and charged. Still,
I asked Jim if he thought the mafia was behind
the Stevenson homicides. Look, that's as how the mob works say,
don't leave anybody know. They're not gonna leave a witness.
(22:12):
They're not gonna leave a nothing, And you forget the
main thing. They're gonna set an example. You owe his money,
You focus, You're done. One murder is hard enough to
(22:39):
solve for including a child occurring in the same location
at the same time, that's an entirely different investigative beast
to wrestle. You have to look closely at the individuals,
each victim separately. The possibility exists of a hidden motive.
After all, the person or persons who walked into the
(23:00):
Stevenson's house on July six, because there was no sign
of fourth Century, could have come to retaliate or settle
a score with Billy, Linda, or even Linda's brother Eddie Dowell.
Shortly after the crime scene had been cleared, by the
Sheriff's department. Carol Thompson was allowed to enter her family's house.
(23:22):
She talked me through this horrific memory. She was back
in that space and time, actually feeling once again what
had happened, a terrible recollection from forty years ago, as
fresh in her mind today as it ever was. Then
let me go through the house, relatively sick. As soon
as I got fired out, the first rum I came
(23:43):
to would have been the living room Little Billy's couch,
and the cushion was missing, The middle cushion was missing,
And I remember thinking, who sleeps in the middle of
the couch? Kids don't sleep in the middle of the couch.
They sleep on end. Carol's right. People generally tend to
sleep on the ends of couches, not in the middle.
And it's those small yet perceptive observations like this one
(24:08):
that opened up possibilities to look at cold cases in
a different way. The slightest detail can make the biggest difference.
Could this mean Billy Jr. Was awake, scared for his
life when he was killed? And then I walked into
the kitchen. Now the kitchen has been heavily burned. One
(24:29):
of the primary points of fire is my mother's body.
Actually it started in several places a little. What they
did is they portable gas upstairs, third floor, little gas,
second floor, gas through the first floor. But they stuck
primarily to the kitchen and my mom's body and how
(24:50):
you can look down on the floor and you can
see the outline, but where her body was to the
point where I could see the she raised a hand.
I could see it. It was almost like you see
those chalkoutlines. It literally was like that, but it was
from the debris that had fallen on top of her,
(25:12):
because she was in the room that actually took the
most damage. Eddie was setting with playing food Brooke, and
my mom was at stove and there was me in
the skillet and I saw it with my own eyes,
and I knew her personal sitting there with the gun,
so she wasn't threatened. From what she's been told by
a close law enforcement source, along with her own novice
(25:34):
analysis of the crime scene photos, Carol has remained adamant
that her mother was tied up and possibly tortured before
being executed. If true, it spoke to a potential theory
that Billy and Linda knew their killer or killers very well.
(25:54):
So to this day, I don't know. I do not know.
Could she have been. Yeah, if that's the case, they
held Eddie at Dunpoint. Well, here's the don't about that.
If she was, it would have been in the reports.
There's no reason to keep it out. How would how
(26:15):
would they have not have known? Because right burns she
was incinerated. I explained to Carol that within my reinvestigation,
I could say affirmatively without any doubt that her mother
was not tied up and beaten before she was murdered.
Autopsy reports show Lynda Stevenson was shot twice in the head.
(26:35):
It's clear she was dead before her body was burned.
But for victims families accepting the truth, that can become
too much to bear sometimes, Carol, as you can hear,
still wasn't convinced her hands were on her feet, which
is how I know that it wasn't her foot sticking
(26:58):
out from it was my uncle's. She had her feet
like her brother. But yeah, so her feet were burned.
One of her lives was burnt almost all the way off.
It was up to the Nancy and her hands. All right,
we're gone. She has about I guess from hairdown's gone
and her whole body was burned? Was it impuglistic posture? Well,
(27:20):
meaning like this, more like whole died like that. She
was laying on her stomach. The body goes into puglistic
posture when it's burned, so it curls up like well,
she was curled up from the stomach up. But she
was a heavy woman. So its trying to bend your
(27:41):
back up, your arms back. It's not easy on a
heavy woman. But yet her hands were what would be
the reason for them to tie her up? Linda was dangerous,
I mean she was. She would pull a gun on
you and just shoot you. She did not even need
to think about it. With her mother and uncle Eddie's
body's both found in the kitchen, Carol felt the two
(28:01):
of them were killed around the same time. Police developed
the same theory. Carol figured five year old Billy Jr.
Was awakened by the shots in the next room and
became the next victim, as the killer or killers had
to walk past him in order to get to the
master bedroom, where arguably their biggest threat, Billy Sr. Was located.
(28:24):
Why do you think Billy was in his bedroom? You know,
that's the biggest question that I've always had. And I
know Steve slipt naked, So did you have a robe
on at some point? Or was he getting his robe?
Or was he in the shower banking? Those things I
can't answer. I don't know the answer. I would love
to know. Remember that Billy Sr. Often called Steve by
(28:44):
his friends and family, was found dead inside the bathroom.
He was naked with six gunshot wounds. What Carol recalls
most about the crime scene is the bloodshed. So the
first thing I see is blood on the mirror, and
I can see blood all the way back. You know,
(29:07):
there's blood spewed here on the mirrors, flash of blood,
and I can tell that Steve's taken shots from this
ain't from this point. We know Steve's found in back room.
So I see the blood here on the mirror, and
then I can see it looks like he's being forced
back from the gunshots. And as he hits the bathroom doorway,
(29:27):
he puts his hand up and there's a hand front
in blood and then it's street ye down the wall.
As he's done, you can see it. Going back to
speculation that the mob could have been involved, organized crime
(29:49):
murders are generally clean, quick, without any camouflage whatsoever. You
either never hear about them or on the flip side,
HiT's very clear who did it so as to send
direct message. It was obvious to Detective Tom Cooper, the
lead investigator on the case, that there were surprise and
chaos involved in the Stevenson murders, and to burn the
(30:13):
house down that was done purely to cover up the homicides.
The way they Stevensons were killed there was execution style
and all of them each one of the vection of
gunshot wound on the head. So five year old Billy
Stevenson Jr. Was he shot at close range or was
(30:33):
it a stray bullet that killed him? I had heard
the stray bullet theory that durna possible Okay corral styles
shootout between Billy Sr. Linda, her brother Eddie, and their
killer or killers. An erratic, unintentional bullet went through a
wall and struck the child in the head. This could
be a plausible explanation for a five year old being
(30:56):
killed during a multiple murder situation. It kind of made
sense in theory. It won't straight board. I mean, he
was shot back ahead on the couch. Yeah, I mean
there's there's no and it was stipling. Stipling is an
important forensic piece of this case. Think of stipling as
small dots of black, like perhaps taking a pencil and
(31:17):
tapping the point of it against a sheet of paper
in a circle about the size of a half dollar.
When someone is shot at close range within two feet,
unburned particles of gunpowder akin to soot, spray onto the skin.
This is sometimes referred to as strike. Stipling found on
skin cannot be wiped away. It's very similar to a stain.
(31:39):
The presence of it indicates the person was shot at
close range within that two ft. The tighter the stipling
or smaller the circle brings that range even closer. Billy Jr.
Had a small circle of obvious stippling traveling a very
short distance from the barrel of his killer's weapon to
the skin on his head. I saw the crime scene
(32:01):
photos myself. That child was executed. No stray bullet accidentally
hit Billy Jr. The only consolation, if there ever could
be one, is the hope that Billy was sleeping at
the time he was murdered. And what's interesting I think
is there's two different caliber bullets you guys begin finding
(32:23):
right coincidentally, these are the same caliber weapons I'm told
Jim Riley often carried and drove around with at all
times a Smith and Weston featherweight thirty eight or Smith
and Weston twenty two caliber pistol. But then perhaps probably
half the county did as well. What does that tell
(32:45):
you as a cop? Uh? Thank too? Shooters, Two people
walk in brandish weapons begin firing, executing an entire family.
From there, it becomes a question of why in the
(33:13):
next episode of Paper Ghosts, so we started calling and
it just ring ring ring, no answer. Later that evening,
I was at home watching the news and the news
flash was there was a family that was killed and
(33:33):
and burned in in the house and the name was
the same as the name I was calling. I was
so so ashamed of myself really for even thinking that,
because I really did believe it's him. I would have
laid down my soul. But it was hell start with,
we had a train that's oh my count you see yeah.
(34:09):
Paper Ghosts is written and executive produced by me Am
William Phelps and I Heart Executive producer Christina Everett with
script consultant Matthew Riddle, Audio editing and mixing by a
booze Afar thanks to Will Pearson at I Heart Radio.
Series theme number four four two is written and performed
(34:29):
by Thomas Phelps and Tom Mooney. For more podcasts from
my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
It's been forty years since the Stevenson family was murdered.
(00:15):
I'm in southern Ohio, in the middle of nowhere, scaling
a crunchy snowbank, walking carefully up a steep hill I
cannot even see over, working my way toward a grave
site for the tiny village of Novelle. I'm here to
meet Shannon Group, Carol Thompson's forty three year old daughter. Shannon.
Shannon was only three and a half at the time
(00:37):
of the fire. It still remembers watching the bodies of
family members being carried out of the Stevenson's burning house.
How's it going on this day with me? Shannon appears
poised and very quiet, but also quite calm. I can
tell she lives with a degree of acceptance, but at
(00:58):
the same time disbelief at the absence of complete justice.
Shannon contacted me in two thousand sixteen, desperate to put
an end to the wondering, all the unanswered questions and
suffering of those left behind. She spent the past two
(01:19):
decades conducting the an investigation herself into what happened. Somewhere
around the ten year mark, Channing caught a break. The
local Sheriff's Department handed over thousands of pages of official documents,
actual evidence from the case, and an old school reel
to reel recording, along with eighteen cassette tapes filled with
(01:41):
hours of audio from the investigation as it unfolded in
real time, some of which you'll hear throughout this podcast.
Still as close as she's gotten, Shannon hasn't been able
to find those answers she and her mother need most.
My mom was very, very paranoid growing um, very moody.
(02:03):
She's got a lot better, but you know, when I
was younger, you know, she she she'd snap and go off.
And Shannon's mom, Carol Thompson, was nineteen at the time
of the murders. After helping her parents sell fireworks throughout
the busy July fourth weekend, Carol said goodbye to her
family on that July night and she headed to her
(02:24):
own home. But in the early hours of the next morning,
the fire that ravage the Stevenson house revealed the horror
inside her stepfather Billy Stevenson, her mother Linda, five year
old brother Billy Jr. And her thirty year old uncle
Eddie Dowell. We're all dead, police would quickly learn that
(02:46):
what was initially considered a terrible accident was actually the
scene of a quadruple homicide. I think it has serious
impact on her. It really relationship wise and just people wise,
and given real trust issues. That's one of the side
effects of tragedy, a silent simmering pt esteem most people
(03:07):
don't even realize is impacting their lives as anxiety and
anger bubble underneath the surface. It creates a chasm where
life can sometimes become if not dealt with, this toxic
slide into the past, a seemingly endless cycle of trauma.
Carol's whereabouts the night of the murders was questioned by
(03:28):
law enforcement, but dismissed after she was able to prove
she had been at home all night. In conversations, Carol
has revealed to me that she often finds herself driving
by her family's old house, looking for some sort of
conclusion and antidote to all the pain. She does not
want to die without knowing who is responsible for murdering
(03:51):
her entire family. M previously on Paper Ghosts, my brother says, Carroll,
something's up. They're not telling us everything that is not
(04:14):
a fire. There is too much wood Well. When Depthty
Crayton went in, he observed right down that cher had
bull wounds to the head, so we knew it was homicide.
The fire was set after the homicide to destroy evidence.
A lot of people have been telling Mom and Steve,
you know, hey, you know you need to be carible. Man.
(04:34):
You know you're flashing all this money, you're wearing all
these jewels. I wanted to be careful. My name is
and William Phelps. This is season two of Paper Ghosts Burned.
(04:54):
The days between Memorial Day and July fourth are considered
the height of fireworks season. For Billy Stevenson. It was
the time of the year when he made the bulk
of his wealth, of which was in cash. I've heard
stories of Billy often flaunting his success, showing off a
suitcase or leather bags stuffed with gold, jewelry and banded bills.
(05:19):
In the days leading up to the fire, an incident
took place at one of the Stevenson's fireworks stands that
has me wondering if maybe Billy it's shown off that
money to the wrong person, and if the executions and
subsequent fire were set in motion by what had happened.
I was working at the shop, and I had stocked it,
(05:43):
restocked it heavy, heavy, heavy stock, much more than I
should have stocked it. But we all knew it's still
It's July second, so I knew that we were gonna
be really busy, So why over stocked. Carol Thompson Billy
Stevenson's stepdaughter in Linda's eldess ran one of the busy
or firework stands a trailer about the size of half
(06:03):
a semi parked along route in Claremont County. So I'm
at the back of the truck, checking things, making sure
things okay, making sure the stocks out. The truck is
packed full of customers, and I take a step and
I hear behind me, Oh, no, don't do that. What
are you doing? No, don't do that, And I thought, great,
(06:25):
somebody's trying to rip you know, somebody's gonna rip me off.
Somebody's got stick a case of fireworks down their pants
or something. Right as I turn, I see the guy
light with with a lighter. I see he's got a
aerobomb in his hand, a three shot aerial world. As
(06:47):
he strikes the lighter and I'm probably six ft away
from him. No, maybe a little more seven ft away
from him. I take one step back because I want,
you know, I'm gonna try and grab it before it goes,
you know, before. And as I take the step, he
drops the bomb forward, pointing it like a gun to
(07:12):
the fireworks table, the table that is covered with all
the restock under the table, and I before I can
make a move, the first shot goes off, and as
soon as it hits I see out about a diameter
(07:37):
of fire, and all I can think is, holy shit,
We're all going to die. I immediately start screaming, get
him off the truck. Everybody off the truck. Everybody off,
and I'm like trying to shove and and I can't
stop the fire. And Eddie is in the front, my
uncle Ednie, and I'm screaming at Eddie, Eddie fire standers
and I got have fire Sanders. Carol's uncle Eddie Dowell
(07:58):
was in town for the sum helping out at the
family's fireworks stands. I'm told he came south to avoid
marriage trouble back home and could have been involved in
things over his head, dangerous games. Eddie was outside when
the guy sparked his lighter and ignited that firebomb. And
he quickly rushed into the trailer as soon as he
heard Carol yelling. So he shows me how away. He
(08:23):
runs straight back with fire extinguisher. As he is headed
back there, I see him kick the kid that had
done and I see the kid hit before and Eddie
grabs the guy who's now locked out, he's unconscious, and
he drags him out by the feet. Literally, he's dragging
him all the way through you know, the semi and
(08:44):
off the truck and we get everybody off the truck
as those fireworks ignite, one after the other, and the
most awesome fireworks display of the year begins taking place
along the roadside of route. The entire trailer goes up
in flames, fire and trucks are coming. But now fireworks
(09:04):
are going on with him. I'm watching across the street
as the cars are pulling off the side of the road.
What's the fireworks display? Okay, they're like wow, free firework display.
And the fireworks were rickcheen and they're firing off in
here and there and they're hitting busting windows all open
down the street. And I mean it was bad. I
mean fireworks are shooting it sky high. So who would
(09:25):
light up one of Billy Stevenson's fireworks stands, just days
before the year's biggest weekend of sales. Was it simply
some punk as kid messing around or could it have
been the work of Billy's competition, someone who stood to
game from Billy's loss. I'm thinking James rant I told
(09:47):
him immediately he was our competitor. He was the one
that Seed was always in a competition was against the fireworks.
On July five, the night before the Stevenson's were murdered,
Carol was getting ready to close up her fireworks stand
when she took a call from a business associate named
Jim Riley. He told Carol he dropped by to settle
(10:08):
his bill. According to documents I've received, Jim Riley old
Billy Stevenson thirteen thousand dollars. Jim Riley was a local
(10:28):
guy many considered Billy Stevenson's business rival. A businessman himself,
involved in everything from construction to retail. Jim is one
of those tell it like it is guys, I soon discovered,
but at the same time also quite careful about what
he says. Jim followed a similar course to Billy, buying
and selling gold and silver and also retailing fireworks at
(10:52):
roadside stands near the Stevenson's busy trailers. In fact, Jim
had been cutting into Billy's business in talking to people
around town as well as sifting through all the documentation,
I didn't have a clear picture of who Jim Riley
actually was. After all, a lot of the information in
this case was coming from people who had a lot
(11:14):
to lose, not to mention a lot to gain. So
I tracked Jim down and have to admit I was
pleasantly surprised by how willing he was to talk about
Billy Stevenson. He used to bring He's a truck driver.
He used to bring in things from Mexico and he
(11:35):
started bringing in those uh felt paintings. Billy brought most
of those in, I mean trucks loads of back stuff,
and he would bring in uh drugs with it. I
think back then it was mostly marijuana. That's a bold claim,
(11:56):
but as Jim talks it through, it feels to me
like he was a guy in the no Oh at
the time, not just some dude in town hearing rumors
and conjecture. And if what Jim says is accurate, that
kind of intel within a case of this magnitude has
the potential to change the dynamic of my reinvestigation. I
can talk about now gots gone, but he brought in drugs.
(12:18):
But y that's how he accumulator and a little bit
of money. I don't think they checked them trucks or
whatever he put it in. Early in his career, Billy
drove a truck between Mexico and the United States hauling
merchandise for resale. Jim is spot on when he says
border crossing checks were a bit laxer than Despite his
(12:42):
fireworks business rivalry with Billy, Jim's wife, Wanda, was good
friends with the Stevenson's. Jim, on the other hand, says
he preferred to keep his distance. I didn't really care
for too much because they made me a little nervous.
They were very flamboyant people with their well like for instance,
(13:08):
when we got done when it when the fourth was over.
The next day, I said, I wanted to see how
he did. And he said, oh, I did good. I
did real good. How did you do? And I said, yeah,
one of my better years. And he says, come on
out here to the car. And he had a Lincoln
Continental and Uh. I went back there and he opened
(13:31):
the trunk up and he had one of these whole
time leather cases are suitcases. He opens it up and
it's completely full money. And I slepped back and I said,
what the hell has how much money you got in there?
He says, over four hundred thousand? And I said, what
(13:55):
are you doing? Man? He said, I just like I
cumulated all the winter season, and I'm gonna exchange most
of it to diamonds. He was in the diamonds and
his wife was in that jeory and I said, wow, man,
I don't know. I don't carry that kind of money around.
(14:17):
I think you're not listening to Jim makes me think
there was at the least an elevated level of trust
and respect between him and Billy Stevenson. Linda's brother Eddie Dowell,
on the other hand, left a much different impression on Jim.
(14:38):
He was just a punk as far as I'm concerned,
and he considered us just outright competitors and that Philly
shouldn't have nothing to do with us. And and then
like I said, goddamn brother, hers coming down there. You know,
real guns around in your face ain't my thing. And uh,
(15:01):
at one time. There was some pretty bad blood going
on for a while. I mean when I first started.
I mean he put a place, I put one in
front of him and beyond. It was getting out of hand.
And that that goddamn punk threatening us with guns and ship.
That that got out of hand really fast. And then
(15:23):
my dad has gone. Now he's he had balls of
steel and he went up there right in the lines
then and uh, you know, and he's the one that said, look,
and we ain't going away. You ain't going away. Why
don't we just work together and put the ship beside.
I mean, this is nonsense. And Billy is one of
(15:43):
them guys says, hey, it makes sense to me. This
was when Billy came up with the business smarts to
go to Jim Riley and say, look, I sell you
fireworks at wholesale prices. You don't mess around an open
stands near me. We can both make money. Jim Riley agreed,
why fight when you can split the immense amount of
(16:03):
profits selling fireworks offered. According to Jim, the margins then
were in the thousand percent range. There was enough money
to go around, and from then on we became friends.
But not that, not not a brother. He was just
one of them tough guys, you know, when you know,
wanting to You look at him and he wants to
(16:26):
kick your ass more than competitors, which is a strong
enough motive alone. There was a larger issue, far more personal,
rattling the framework of all of this, at least from
where Jim Riley stood, because you see Eddie Dowell, Linda's brother, well,
he was having an affair with Jim Riley's wife. I
(16:50):
had also heard and read in some of the FBI
reports that Eddie was kind of after your wife at
the time. One that was that true? Yeah, I don't
like that. Yeah that didn't go too good. What happened
with that? Well, you know, we argued about it, you know,
and she she says, there's nothing to it, just trying
(17:10):
to be friendly. But I never bought it. You thought
maybe there was something going on between them. Yeah, I
probably was, you know now, and I look it back.
Sometimes you try. Yeah, you have two children, I came
from a divorce family. You sometimes look at what look
the other way when you don't want to, You don't
want your kids come from a broken home, you know,
(17:32):
Well that is true. But then taking out the guy
sleeping with your wife and your business rival at the
same time. Is I am thinking a good way to
end things as well? Jim, did you know that within
the first twelve hours after they discovered that this is
(17:53):
a murder, that you're like their prime suspect, did they
question you or anything? That's because that goddamn daughter hers.
I'm coming up the hill, you know, the house of
smold Rain. I don't know exactly what all's left down here.
As I'm walking up the hill, that game a little
(18:15):
bit says there he is. He murdered him, He murdered them.
I'll never forget that. And uh, whoa. I put my
hands up, I said, hey, what the hell? I don't
know where that came from? But you know, I I
it wasn't Maybe I didn't. Ever, Jim ultimately never showed
(18:35):
up that night to settle the bill he called Carol
about despite one report from Jim Riley's brother in law
that Jim wasn't home on the night of the murders
and did not return until the next morning. Jim Riley
had an alibi. His wife wanted the Toll police he
was at home with her the entire night. In talking
(18:58):
to Jim Riley. I get a feeling, a strong feeling
that this guy has nothing to hide, quite notably when
it came to how both he and Billy Stevenson obtained
the fireworks they sold. If he owed anybody money, I
don't know about it. I just know who he was
to deal with, because in the fireworks business that I
(19:21):
was involved in, I dealt with. To call him the
mob or the mafia, whatever you want to say. Uh,
I remember talking about him and he's gonna he's gonna
get himself into some ship sail here later. He just
can't be sloppy like he was. He was a likable
(19:41):
guy too. I don't know why he just couldn't behave
himself For several years, I've heard hearsay in innu window
about an organized crime connection to the murders. But here's
someone who worked with Billy Stevenson directly stating it on
the record. Yeah. So when you were speaking with your
(20:04):
organized crime friends, they were, you know, they were well
aware of Billy. They were aware. And was Billy buying
his fireworks from them as well? Ah? He was. Would
he always pay his debts? Yeah? He did, and I
would know that. I'm gonna tell you. I know that
because I doubt what all forty six locations in Ohio,
(20:25):
and uh I knew where all the fireworks mostly came from. Yeah,
he didn't want to not pay pay his bill. That's
for short, because what those are the kind of guys
you should pay, right, these kind of guys you will pay.
That's all I can tell you. That part. When you're
(20:46):
looking into cold cases and your goal is finding answers
for the victims family, the urge to purposely ignore information
that has the potential to cast a bad light on
a murder victim is always there. It's a tough line
to walk for one. Billy, Linda, Billy Jr. And Eddie
they never asked for any of this. They are victims,
(21:08):
despite what kind of lives they might have. Let I
served surviving family members no purpose if they or I
are unwilling to accept the truth, whatever it is. If
Billy Stevenson was allegedly dealing and trafficking and drugs or
running illegal fireworks for organized crime, that's a tenuous, dangerous
(21:29):
bed of hot coals to walk across. One wrong move,
one debt left unpaid in any room for forgiveness by
those holding the cards disappears like dust. As it turned out,
the young guy who set off all the fireworks in
the Stevenson's trailer just days before the house fire was
(21:51):
some punk messing around. He was eventually arrested and charged. Still,
I asked Jim if he thought the mafia was behind
the Stevenson homicides. Look, that's as how the mob works say,
don't leave anybody know. They're not gonna leave a witness.
(22:12):
They're not gonna leave a nothing, And you forget the
main thing. They're gonna set an example. You owe his money,
You focus, You're done. One murder is hard enough to
(22:39):
solve for including a child occurring in the same location
at the same time, that's an entirely different investigative beast
to wrestle. You have to look closely at the individuals,
each victim separately. The possibility exists of a hidden motive.
After all, the person or persons who walked into the
(23:00):
Stevenson's house on July six, because there was no sign
of fourth Century, could have come to retaliate or settle
a score with Billy, Linda, or even Linda's brother Eddie Dowell.
Shortly after the crime scene had been cleared, by the
Sheriff's department. Carol Thompson was allowed to enter her family's house.
(23:22):
She talked me through this horrific memory. She was back
in that space and time, actually feeling once again what
had happened, a terrible recollection from forty years ago, as
fresh in her mind today as it ever was. Then
let me go through the house, relatively sick. As soon
as I got fired out, the first rum I came
(23:43):
to would have been the living room Little Billy's couch,
and the cushion was missing, The middle cushion was missing,
And I remember thinking, who sleeps in the middle of
the couch? Kids don't sleep in the middle of the couch.
They sleep on end. Carol's right. People generally tend to
sleep on the ends of couches, not in the middle.
And it's those small yet perceptive observations like this one
(24:08):
that opened up possibilities to look at cold cases in
a different way. The slightest detail can make the biggest difference.
Could this mean Billy Jr. Was awake, scared for his
life when he was killed? And then I walked into
the kitchen. Now the kitchen has been heavily burned. One
(24:29):
of the primary points of fire is my mother's body.
Actually it started in several places a little. What they
did is they portable gas upstairs, third floor, little gas,
second floor, gas through the first floor. But they stuck
primarily to the kitchen and my mom's body and how
(24:50):
you can look down on the floor and you can
see the outline, but where her body was to the
point where I could see the she raised a hand.
I could see it. It was almost like you see
those chalkoutlines. It literally was like that, but it was
from the debris that had fallen on top of her,
(25:12):
because she was in the room that actually took the
most damage. Eddie was setting with playing food Brooke, and
my mom was at stove and there was me in
the skillet and I saw it with my own eyes,
and I knew her personal sitting there with the gun,
so she wasn't threatened. From what she's been told by
a close law enforcement source, along with her own novice
(25:34):
analysis of the crime scene photos, Carol has remained adamant
that her mother was tied up and possibly tortured before
being executed. If true, it spoke to a potential theory
that Billy and Linda knew their killer or killers very well.
(25:54):
So to this day, I don't know. I do not know.
Could she have been. Yeah, if that's the case, they
held Eddie at Dunpoint. Well, here's the don't about that.
If she was, it would have been in the reports.
There's no reason to keep it out. How would how
(26:15):
would they have not have known? Because right burns she
was incinerated. I explained to Carol that within my reinvestigation,
I could say affirmatively without any doubt that her mother
was not tied up and beaten before she was murdered.
Autopsy reports show Lynda Stevenson was shot twice in the head.
(26:35):
It's clear she was dead before her body was burned.
But for victims families accepting the truth, that can become
too much to bear sometimes, Carol, as you can hear,
still wasn't convinced her hands were on her feet, which
is how I know that it wasn't her foot sticking
(26:58):
out from it was my uncle's. She had her feet
like her brother. But yeah, so her feet were burned.
One of her lives was burnt almost all the way off.
It was up to the Nancy and her hands. All right,
we're gone. She has about I guess from hairdown's gone
and her whole body was burned? Was it impuglistic posture? Well,
(27:20):
meaning like this, more like whole died like that. She
was laying on her stomach. The body goes into puglistic
posture when it's burned, so it curls up like well,
she was curled up from the stomach up. But she
was a heavy woman. So its trying to bend your
(27:41):
back up, your arms back. It's not easy on a
heavy woman. But yet her hands were what would be
the reason for them to tie her up? Linda was dangerous,
I mean she was. She would pull a gun on
you and just shoot you. She did not even need
to think about it. With her mother and uncle Eddie's
body's both found in the kitchen, Carol felt the two
(28:01):
of them were killed around the same time. Police developed
the same theory. Carol figured five year old Billy Jr.
Was awakened by the shots in the next room and
became the next victim, as the killer or killers had
to walk past him in order to get to the
master bedroom, where arguably their biggest threat, Billy Sr. Was located.
(28:24):
Why do you think Billy was in his bedroom? You know,
that's the biggest question that I've always had. And I
know Steve slipt naked, So did you have a robe
on at some point? Or was he getting his robe?
Or was he in the shower banking? Those things I
can't answer. I don't know the answer. I would love
to know. Remember that Billy Sr. Often called Steve by
(28:44):
his friends and family, was found dead inside the bathroom.
He was naked with six gunshot wounds. What Carol recalls
most about the crime scene is the bloodshed. So the
first thing I see is blood on the mirror, and
I can see blood all the way back. You know,
(29:07):
there's blood spewed here on the mirrors, flash of blood,
and I can tell that Steve's taken shots from this
ain't from this point. We know Steve's found in back room.
So I see the blood here on the mirror, and
then I can see it looks like he's being forced
back from the gunshots. And as he hits the bathroom doorway,
(29:27):
he puts his hand up and there's a hand front
in blood and then it's street ye down the wall.
As he's done, you can see it. Going back to
speculation that the mob could have been involved, organized crime
(29:49):
murders are generally clean, quick, without any camouflage whatsoever. You
either never hear about them or on the flip side,
HiT's very clear who did it so as to send
direct message. It was obvious to Detective Tom Cooper, the
lead investigator on the case, that there were surprise and
chaos involved in the Stevenson murders, and to burn the
(30:13):
house down that was done purely to cover up the homicides.
The way they Stevensons were killed there was execution style
and all of them each one of the vection of
gunshot wound on the head. So five year old Billy
Stevenson Jr. Was he shot at close range or was
(30:33):
it a stray bullet that killed him? I had heard
the stray bullet theory that durna possible Okay corral styles
shootout between Billy Sr. Linda, her brother Eddie, and their
killer or killers. An erratic, unintentional bullet went through a
wall and struck the child in the head. This could
be a plausible explanation for a five year old being
(30:56):
killed during a multiple murder situation. It kind of made
sense in theory. It won't straight board. I mean, he
was shot back ahead on the couch. Yeah, I mean
there's there's no and it was stipling. Stipling is an
important forensic piece of this case. Think of stipling as
small dots of black, like perhaps taking a pencil and
(31:17):
tapping the point of it against a sheet of paper
in a circle about the size of a half dollar.
When someone is shot at close range within two feet,
unburned particles of gunpowder akin to soot, spray onto the skin.
This is sometimes referred to as strike. Stipling found on
skin cannot be wiped away. It's very similar to a stain.
(31:39):
The presence of it indicates the person was shot at
close range within that two ft. The tighter the stipling
or smaller the circle brings that range even closer. Billy Jr.
Had a small circle of obvious stippling traveling a very
short distance from the barrel of his killer's weapon to
the skin on his head. I saw the crime scene
(32:01):
photos myself. That child was executed. No stray bullet accidentally
hit Billy Jr. The only consolation, if there ever could
be one, is the hope that Billy was sleeping at
the time he was murdered. And what's interesting I think
is there's two different caliber bullets you guys begin finding
(32:23):
right coincidentally, these are the same caliber weapons I'm told
Jim Riley often carried and drove around with at all
times a Smith and Weston featherweight thirty eight or Smith
and Weston twenty two caliber pistol. But then perhaps probably
half the county did as well. What does that tell
(32:45):
you as a cop? Uh? Thank too? Shooters, Two people
walk in brandish weapons begin firing, executing an entire family.
From there, it becomes a question of why in the
(33:13):
next episode of Paper Ghosts, so we started calling and
it just ring ring ring, no answer. Later that evening,
I was at home watching the news and the news
flash was there was a family that was killed and
(33:33):
and burned in in the house and the name was
the same as the name I was calling. I was
so so ashamed of myself really for even thinking that,
because I really did believe it's him. I would have
laid down my soul. But it was hell start with,
we had a train that's oh my count you see yeah.
(34:09):
Paper Ghosts is written and executive produced by me Am
William Phelps and I Heart Executive producer Christina Everett with
script consultant Matthew Riddle, Audio editing and mixing by a
booze Afar thanks to Will Pearson at I Heart Radio.
Series theme number four four two is written and performed
(34:29):
by Thomas Phelps and Tom Mooney. For more podcasts from
my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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