When Teenagers Become Monsters: The Stacy Hanna Tragedy

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:04):
Some crimes shake the foundations of what we
believe people, especially youngpeople, are capable of.
We expect violence to come fromhardened criminals, from
lifetimes of pain and rage.
But what if it comes from girlsnext door?
Teenagers, friends, roommates.
This is Human Wreckage, and I'mThomas.
Today's story is a devastatingone.

(00:26):
It's about betrayal, about peerpressure, about the cruelty that
escalated so far so fast, itcost a young woman her life.
Her name was Stacy Hannah.
She was 18 years old.
Smart, restless, fierce.
A teenager who'd seen more painthan most people twice her age.
And like many who live throughtrauma, Stacy was looking for

(00:47):
something better, a fresh start,maybe a little peace.
But instead, she walked straightinto a nightmare.
In July of 1997, Stacy wasliving in Richmond, Virginia,
sharing an apartment with otheryoung women who, on the surface,
were just like her close in age,figuring things out, trying to
survive.
But behind closed doors,something toxic was festering.

(01:09):
Power dynamics, jealousy,violence, and it all came to a
head in the most horrific way.
The women responsible Kelly AnnTibbs, Stephanie Cull, Tracy
Bittner, and Domica Winklerweren't hardened criminals.
They weren't part of a gang or acult.
They were ordinary girls.
But over a span of hours, maybeeven days, they became
torturers, and eventuallykillers.

(01:32):
Stacy was beaten, slashed,stabbed, humiliated.
Prosecutors later said shesuffered over fifty stab wounds.
She was bound, gagged, dumpedlike trash in a wooded creek bed
in Hanover County, left alone todie or already dead far from the
city lights, far from anyone whocould help her.
The question we'll ask in thisepisode isn't just how this

(01:54):
happened, but why?
Why did three young women barelyout of childhood themselves turn
so violently on someone theyonce called a friend?
What psychological threads werepulling beneath the surface, and
could this tragedy have beenstopped?
This isn't a story about asingle act of violence.
It's a story about what peopleare capable of when anger
replaces empathy, and no onesteps in to say this has gone

(02:17):
too far.
This is the murder of StacyHanna, and this is human
wreckage.

(03:05):
Once there, Hannah got a job ata bagel shop and decided that
she would stay in town.
She subsequently moved into atownhouse in the 200 block of
South Belmont Avenue with KellyAnn Tibbs, 19.
Tracy Bittner 19, who was Tibbson and off girlfriend, was a
frequent visitor at the sharedhome.
Two other common guests at thehome were Domica Winkler,
eighteen, who lived around thecorner, and Stephanie Cull,

(03:28):
eighteen, who lived in Chester.
Hannah developed a bit of aninfatuation with Tibbs and one
day told her that Bittner had anew girlfriend and didn't want
to see her anymore.
Stacy was kind of obsessed, saidVaughn.
When Tibbs and spoke to Bittnerabout what Hannah had told her,
she discovered that Hannah hadbeen lying, presumably because
she wanted to pursue arelationship with Tibbs.

(03:49):
The group of girls decided thatthey teach Hannah a lesson by
beating her up.
However, what the attackersreferred to as an ass kicking
quickly escalated with theintroduction of box cutters,
which, ironically, had beenshoplifted by Hannah just the
previous day.
After an evening of drinkingbeer on the 27th of July 1997,
Tibbs, Bittner, Winkler, andCull drove Hannah to an isolated

(04:11):
popular drinking spot in thecounty off Cogville Road near
the Chesterfield Airport underthe pretense that they were
going to a party.
Once out of the car, the fourshouted One, two, three, I love
you, and started to kick andpunch Hannah.
Things took a dramatic turn forthe worse when Winkler lifted up
a nearby cinder block and threwit on Hannah's head, fracturing
her skull.

(04:32):
As Hannah lay cowering on theground, a box cutter was
introduced, and the women tookturns in slashing and stabbing
her.
The woman then walked towardsthe car before deciding to turn
back to Hannah, who by now wasbruised and bloody, shoved her
in the trunk of the car.
They did contemplate taking herto the hospital, but decided
against it.
We gotta get rid of her or she'sgonna rat us out, the gang

(04:54):
cruelly decided.
They drove around for half anhour, briefly stopping once so
Winkler could stab Hannah whileconfined in the trunk because
she was getting too loud beforethey finally stopped at a
logging trail off Nash Road.
At this second crime scene, allfour women stood over Hannah and
spat on her as Winkler stole herwatch.
Cull then got back into the caras the other three dragged

(05:15):
Hannah over to a puddle of mudwhere they ripped her t-shirt
and shorts from her, leaving herin just her underwear.
As Hannah lay semi-naked in themud, she was stabbed and slashed
at least sixty five times withthe box cutter.
Two wounds ran fourteen inchesfrom her shoulder to her
buttocks.
At one point during the attack,Hannah said that she wanted to
call her mother and tell herthat she loved her.

(05:37):
The gang denied her this lastwish.
Bittner then cut Hannah'sthroat.
The injury opened her windpipe,but didn't cut a major blood
vessel.
They then left Hannah face downin the murky water, bleeding
profusely from the abundance ofwounds she had sustained in the
brutal attack.
Ultimately, her cause of deathwas a combination of blood loss
and drowning.

(05:57):
Almost as soon as the groupreturned home, they were
bragging about the brutalslaying.
I cut her throat and it feltgood, boasted Bittner to Dana
Vaughn, the other roommate ofHannah and Tibbs.
Vaughn had come along in thecar, but hadn't left the car at
all throughout the entire ordealand claimed she wasn't aware of
what had happened.
Tibbs also bragged that as sheslashed Hannah, she screamed,

(06:19):
Give me your heart, bitch, whywon't you die?
The following day, Winkler,Bittner, Tibbs, and Carl were
apprehended and charged with themurder of Stacy Hannah.
Tibbs admitted to police thatshe instigated the beating of
Hannah and then joined in on theattack after Winkler hit Hannah
with a belt.
We were all kind of feeding offeach other because when Micah
hit her, I was like, yeah, youknow, and I kicked her.

(06:41):
And I hit her twice.
And then Tracy was like, yeah,you know, we're just going to
kick her around, Tibbs toldChesterfield police detective
Rick Mormando.
In Winkler's statement, she toldMormando, I mean nobody deserved
to die, but it was just one ofthose times.
One of those times for what?
questioned Mormando.
When somebody has to die, sheresponded.

(07:03):
When asked why they had killedHannah, Winkler said that they
wanted to teach her a lessonbecause she has a problem with
trying to get everybody to turnagainst everybody.
It was like she was telling sobstories and lies trying to fit
in with everybody else.
Winkler, Bittner, and Tibbs wereall sentenced to life
imprisonment while Cole wassentenced to just twenty years
in prison.

(07:23):
Cull received a lesser sentencebecause the jury found that she
was the least culpable of thefour and was caught up in the
violence that escalated.
Cole had claimed that she wasn'tinvolved in the murder and had
acted only as the driver.
However, she did confess toslashing Hannah on the thigh and
down her back.
I did not want them to kill her,Cull said.
During Tibb's sentencing phase,her eyes filled with tears as

(07:46):
she looked towards Hannah'smother and said, I would like to
say I'm extremely sorry for whatI've done.
It's not only your loss, it's myloss too.
Outside the courtroom, Hannah'smother addressed Tibbs' apology.
It's a joke, she told reporters.
I don't think she's sorry at allfor what she did.
She could have kept her apology.
It doesn't mean anything.

(08:07):
Why is it her loss?
It was her decision to take partin the murder.
I'd like to tell Kelly Tibbs,have a nice life.
In twenty fifteen, StephanieCull was released after serving
eighteen years of her twentyyear sentence.
She earned time off with goodbehavior.
Coincidentally, her release datewas on the eighteenth
anniversary of the crime.
There's no way to fully explainwhat drove these young women to

(08:30):
torture and kill Stacy Hanna.
No amount of courtroomtestimony, psychological
analysis, or media coverage cangive us the kind of closure we
crave in stories like this.
But what we do know is thisStacy was only eighteen years
old.
Her life was marked byinstability, but not by failure.
She was a young woman trying tofind her way in a world that had

(08:51):
already been unkind.
She was vulnerable, yes, butalso vibrant.
Someone who deserved a chance athealing, at growing up, at
building something better.
Instead, she found herselftrapped in a toxic storm of
control, violence, and emotionalinstability.
The people who should have beenher friends turned on her in the
most vicious, calculated waypossible.

(09:11):
Over the course of hours, maybelonger she was beaten,
humiliated, and stabbed againand again.
Over fifty wounds, each one anact of rage, each one a
decision.
And it didn't happen inisolation.
It happened in a shared space.
In a home where someone couldhave stopped it, where someone
could have walked away, calledfor help, or said, enough.

(09:33):
But justice doesn't bring Stacyback.
It doesn't answer the deeperquestion.
How do people cross that line?
How do young women barely out ofadolescence commit a murder so
cold, so sustained, so personal?
The truth is, human wreckagedoesn't just appear overnight.
It builds.
It grows in silence, in neglect,in the places where trauma goes

(09:55):
untreated and anger festersunchecked.
And when that wreckage collideswith the wrong environment with
people who feed off power andfear the results can be
catastrophic.
Stacy Hannah didn't have to die,and she didn't deserve what
happened to her.
Let her name be a reminder.
A call to speak up, step in, andnotice the signs before it's too
late.

(10:15):
Thank you for joining us on thisepisode of Human Wreckage.
We'll be back next week withanother story of damage,
cruelty, and the people left topick up the pieces.
Until then, take care ofyourselves and each other.