0:08

School of Humans.

0:13

It was April twelfth, nineteen seventy one.

0:16

A twenty seven year old woman named Pauline

0:18

Stormant was walking down South Duncan

0:20

Avenue in Fayetteville, Arkansas, just a

0:22

few blocks from her apartment. She

0:25

didn't know that someone was following her

0:27

in the darkness. Pauline worked

0:29

two part time jobs, one is a cashier

0:32

at the Malco Theater and another as a secretary

0:34

at the ROTC Center on the University

0:36

of Arkansas campus. Pauline had

0:38

recently started going back to school as

0:40

a mature student. She enrolled

0:43

as a sophomore at the University of Arkansas

0:45

at Fayetteville, where she was a social welfare

0:47

major. Pauline had a roommate,

0:49

Alice pat Murphy. Pat

0:52

later told the authorities that Pauline

0:55

wasn't dating anyone. Actually,

0:57

Pauline spent most of her free time hitting the

0:59

books. She was very focused on schoolwork,

1:01

which meant that she was often pulling late

1:03

nights at the library. On

1:06

that night, on April twelfth, Pauline

1:08

did a shift at the ROTC. While

1:11

she was there, she mentioned to a coworker

1:13

that she might go to a gospel concert later,

1:16

but she ended up going to the library to

1:18

study.

1:19

Now.

1:19

According to her roommate, Pauline's

1:22

regular routine would have had her coming home

1:24

at around ten thirty or eleven PM, but

1:27

something made her lead the library a

1:29

little earlier that night, around nine thirty

1:31

pm. And then while she

1:33

was walking, when she was just a few

1:35

blocks from her apartment, someone

1:37

came out of that darkness and attacked Pauline,

1:41

stabbing her over and over eight

1:43

times in all, in a frenzied attack that

1:45

lasted several minutes. It

1:47

was a hot night, a lot of people

1:49

had their windows open, and at nine

1:52

forty five pm when Pauline started

1:54

screaming, a lot of people in the area

1:56

heard her screaming, and there were

1:58

several witnesses who saw a man

2:01

come up behind her. But

2:03

despite that, Pauline's killer is escaped

2:05

into the night. And even

2:07

though the police have questioned tons of

2:09

people, lots of theories have been

2:11

explored over the years, and there was

2:14

one arrest, Pauline's

2:16

killer has never been found. I'm

2:18

Catherine Townsend. Over the

2:20

past five years of making my true crime

2:23

podcast, Helen Gone, I've learned

2:25

there's no such thing as a small town

2:27

where murder never happens. I've

2:30

received hundreds of messages from people all

2:32

around the country asking for help with

2:34

an unsolved murder that's affected them, their

2:36

families, and their communities. If

2:39

you have a case you'd like me and my team

2:41

to look into, you can reach out

2:43

to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line

2:45

at six seven eight seven four four

2:48

six one four or five. That's six

2:50

seven eight seven four four six

2:52

' one four five. This is

2:55

Helen Gone Murder Line.

3:30

Police got to the scene really quickly.

3:33

They rushed Pauline to Washington Regional

3:35

Hospital, but they couldn't

3:37

do anything to save her, and she was pronounced dead

3:39

just after eleven PM. So

3:42

the assault had very quickly turned into a

3:44

murder case. Pauline's body was

3:46

sent for an autopsy. Forensic

3:48

testing revealed that Pauline had died

3:51

of the stab wounds. She had been stabbed

3:53

in the arm, the chest, and the stomach.

3:55

Investigators said the murder weapon was a

3:57

knife like a butcher knife, around

4:00

six to eight inches long, and

4:02

they believed serrated on both sides.

4:05

The police did not find the murder weapon at the scene,

4:08

but several days later, the

4:10

sheriff did find a butcher knife that was stabbed

4:12

into the ground behind an apartment complex

4:15

that was across the street from where Pauline lived.

4:18

They sent that knife in for testing, but

4:20

I haven't been able to figure out what, if anything,

4:22

happened with that weapon. A lot of people

4:25

doubted that that butcher knife had been the weapon

4:27

in the first place, because it wasn't serrated.

4:29

But as far as I know, and there is

4:31

a lot of information missing in this case,

4:34

there was nothing conclusive, ever proven one

4:36

way.

4:36

Or the other.

4:38

Sadly, that knife, along

4:40

with a ton of other evidence, has been lost.

4:42

We'll get to that later. Side

4:47

note.

4:47

While I was working on Gail Vaut's case,

4:50

which we covered a couple of weeks back, as

4:52

part of that, we started looking around

4:54

for other unsolved murders in the same area

4:57

of Arkansas. Even though

4:59

Pauline's murder happened nine

5:01

years earlier than Gail's murder in nineteen

5:03

eighty, I couldn't help but be struck

5:06

by Pauline's case because, even

5:08

though them was completely different for

5:11

Pauline and Gail, Gail was shot

5:13

in the head and appeared to have been sexually assaulted,

5:15

while Pauline was stabbed in a semi public

5:17

area both women were tall

5:20

with shoulder linked brown hair, and

5:22

both cases were unsolved.

5:25

I want to be cleared.

5:26

Nothing in the evidence I've seen indicates these

5:28

cases are connected in any way. The

5:31

mos were completely different. Gail

5:33

was shot in the head and appeared to have been sexually assaulted.

5:36

Pauline was stabbed in a semi public

5:38

area.

5:40

Amy reached out to a member of Pauline's

5:42

family named Lance Gosnell. His

5:45

great grandmother is Pauline's aunt, so

5:47

he's her cousin and he's been hearing

5:49

about Pauline's story about this famous

5:52

unsolved murder in his family for a long

5:54

time, since he was very young. A few years

5:56

ago, he decided to try and find answers.

5:59

He started writing about the case. The website

6:01

is at who Murdered Pauline dot

6:04

WordPress dot com, and

6:06

he's compiled a tremendous amount

6:08

of evidence over the years that he's collected a

6:10

lot of it through Foyer requests. Pauline

6:13

Stormant was born on April third, nineteen

6:15

forty four, in Ozark, Arkansas,

6:18

and her family her mom and dad were still

6:20

living in Ozark when she died from

6:22

a young age. Her family described her

6:24

as someone who was very serious, pretty

6:27

quiet, and liked to study. She

6:29

was not a drinker or a partier in high school,

6:31

and it seemed to be pretty much the same story

6:34

in college. After

6:36

she graduated from high school, she attended Arkansas

6:39

Tech University in Russellville. She

6:41

finished her freshman year there and after that

6:44

she left school and started doing some secretarial

6:46

work. So one

6:48

thing about Pauline's stormant her studies

6:51

and her work life are pretty well documented.

6:54

Her personal life is much more of a

6:56

mystery.

6:57

There are some years.

6:58

Between when she was twenty one and twenty

7:00

seven where we don't know a lot about her

7:03

personal relationships. When

7:05

she was twenty one years old, in nineteen sixty

7:07

five, Pauline got married to a man named

7:09

Charles Joseph Pate. A lot

7:11

of their relationship, as we said, is a mystery,

7:14

but we do know that whatever happened between

7:16

them apparently did not end very well.

7:19

Charles and Pauline lived in Memphis for a while.

7:21

While Pauline was in Memphis, she taught first

7:24

aid for the Red Cross as well as doing some secretarial

7:26

work. Again, a lot of the history

7:29

about Pauline in this case was provided

7:31

by her cousin Lance.

7:32

One other thing that jumps out in my mind

7:35

is the records show that

7:37

she was married to a man named Charles

7:40

Pate. The marriage didn't

7:42

last long. I can't

7:44

find a door forced certificate,

7:47

but she had mentioned to a roommate

7:51

who she had lived with when she was either in Memphis

7:53

or Atlanta, that she was deathly

7:56

afraid of her ex husband.

7:59

So Pauline and Charles were estranged,

8:01

but according to her family and to court records,

8:04

they may not have beneficially divorced. So

8:07

in nineteen seventy one, Pauline

8:10

was at the University of Arkansas. She had

8:12

put her studies on hold while she was married

8:14

to Charles, but once Pauline got

8:16

the chance to complete her education, she

8:18

seemed to really throw herself into it. Information

8:22

from a foyer request from an old police

8:24

report shows that Pauline's

8:27

former roommate, the one who Lance

8:29

was referring to, who she had lived with

8:31

in Memphis. That woman's name was

8:33

Iris Fletcher. She was the one

8:35

who talked about Pauline's fear of her ex

8:38

husband. But apparently police

8:40

ruled out Charles fairly early. I

8:43

don't know why I have really tried

8:45

to figure that out, but I don't have a lot of information

8:47

about the investigation because a lot of the case

8:49

file is gone over

8:51

the years, a lot of the evidence and a lot

8:53

of the pages have been lost. But

8:56

apparently he attended the funeral, was

8:59

cooperative with the police, and was cleared early.

9:03

Pauline's college roommate passed the one

9:06

who said that Pauline didn't date that much. Was

9:09

asked by police if anything strange had

9:11

happened on the day Pauline was murdered, and

9:13

she said, yes, there was one.

9:15

Thing that was out of the ordinary.

9:17

She said that at around two pm that afternoon,

9:20

apparently two men who were described

9:23

as white men, young guys

9:25

who Pauline and her roommate didn't

9:27

know, invited Pauline and pat

9:30

for drinks. The two women said no

9:32

thanks and didn't take them up on their offer. Later,

9:35

the two men reportedly went toward the

9:37

residence of a guy named Gordon Cummings.

9:40

Gordon Cummings with someone who we know

9:43

Pauline had been introduced to. She

9:45

knew him, but we don't know how well she knew him,

9:48

and that will be the case with a lot of these

9:50

relationships. Trying to figure out exactly

9:52

how these people were related and connected each

9:54

other is a huge part of this. We

9:58

all know that sometimes in these cases,

10:01

these tiny little details that we know

10:04

are true and am using air quotes there turn

10:06

out to be slightly wrong, and those slightly

10:08

wrong details can multiply over the years

10:11

and turn into a much larger distortion.

10:13

We've seen this happen over and over with so many

10:16

cases.

10:17

Facts are wrong from the beginning,

10:19

and they're repeated wrong over the years.

10:22

At the same time, though, sometimes

10:24

tiny details are left out and

10:26

you never know which ones could lead to cracking

10:28

the case. Jane

10:31

Jones wrote a long, very in depth

10:33

article about this case in Ay about

10:36

U magazine back in twenty twenty.

10:38

She pointed out that it was a full moon that

10:40

night.

10:41

This was something that had appeared in some early

10:43

news reports, and that detail

10:45

supposedly meant that Pauline could be seen

10:47

by the witnesses that night. But

10:49

actually, because I obsess

10:52

over these things, I went back and found out

10:54

actually the moon wasn't full that night.

10:56

It was a waning gibbous moon.

10:58

Not that that makes any difference in the context

11:00

of the investigation at all, because

11:02

actually a waning gibbus is almost a full moon.

11:04

It's actually the part of the lunar phase right after

11:07

the moon is full. It would be almost

11:09

as light as a full moon out there, but

11:12

probably a little bit less poetic in a newspaper

11:15

article, And I'm bringing this up just to

11:17

illustrate it's one tiny example

11:19

of something we thought we knew wrong.

11:21

Information gets repeated over the years, and

11:24

sometimes it multiplies. So I'm really

11:26

trying to go back and take a look at every single

11:28

piece of information that we have and try

11:31

to understand if we really know everything

11:33

that we think we know. Police

11:38

were trying to figure out what Pauline's plans

11:41

had been that night, to see if, other

11:43

than the two guys asking her in her roommate

11:45

to have drinks, anything else oude of the ordinary

11:48

had happened. Police talked

11:50

to a woman named Terry Keating. Now Terry

11:52

worked with Pauline at the ROTC office.

11:55

She said she had seen Pauline at around seven

11:57

thirty pm and that Pauline had

11:59

mentioned something about a gospel concert

12:02

hosted by a group called Black Americans

12:04

for Democracy. This concert

12:06

was going to be held at the Union Ballroom, a building

12:08

that was basically very close right

12:11

next door to the ROTC.

12:12

Building. It started at eight pm.

12:15

But whether Pauline attended that concert

12:17

or not is still kind of a question

12:20

mark because some reports

12:22

say she was planning to go. Other media

12:24

reports say she told someone she had a class

12:26

or a conflict and she could not attend. Lance

12:29

pointed out something interesting on his website.

12:31

He said that we're talking about

12:34

nineteen seventy one Arkansas, and

12:36

he was speculating, but he said, could some

12:38

racist person have taken offense at

12:40

a white woman planning to go to this concert

12:43

where there were going to be a lot of black singers?

12:46

Total speculation, but given the political.

12:48

Climate at the time, I do think it's

12:51

something that police would have to consider.

12:54

But there was no evidence that this was ever a factor.

12:57

So whether or not Pauline made

12:59

it to that concert. Eventually, after

13:01

she worked her shift at the ROTC, she ended

13:03

up at the library.

13:08

She was seen by multiple witnesses there, but

13:10

then she left suddenly. We

13:13

don't know exactly what time, but by

13:15

tracing her route, she must

13:17

have headed outside at around nine point

13:19

thirty.

13:21

So why did she leave early?

13:23

Was it a coincidence or did she see

13:25

something or someone there

13:27

that bothered her? After

13:30

she left the library, Pauline's root would

13:32

have taken her south along Duncan Avenue.

13:34

She was walking pretty.

13:35

Slowly and carefully because she had a big

13:37

stack of books in her hands. So again

13:40

I'm betting that she headed straight home because

13:42

she was balancing lots of school books. She

13:46

was at the intersection of Duncan Avenue and Treadwell

13:48

Streets when her attacker struck. The

13:51

vicious attack happened very quickly,

13:54

and then her attacker left the scene on foot.

13:57

Another thing that we know for sure

13:59

in this case is the time of death. We know

14:02

she was screaming at nine forty five pm

14:04

because several people heard her at

14:06

the same time. One of them was

14:08

twenty four year old Jack Huff. He

14:10

lived at the Summit Terraces apartments, which were nearby.

14:13

He said when he heard that scream, he

14:16

ran downstairs and he saw Pauline

14:18

kind of staggering toward him and

14:20

holding her stomach. He

14:23

told the police that Pauline said

14:25

someone hit her in the chest, and that

14:27

she said someone was following her, someone

14:29

who was wearing glasses. Another

14:32

witness named Mike Adare, also lived

14:35

nearby. He said he'd actually

14:37

seen Pauline before the attack.

14:38

Happened.

14:39

He said he was driving home and at

14:41

the corner of Duncan and Center, right where she got

14:44

attacked, He said he saw her carrying

14:46

some really heavy books and he saw

14:48

a.

14:48

Man following her.

14:50

Two other men, Gary Gammel and Joe

14:52

Clifton, were driving in separate

14:55

cars north on South Duncan and

14:57

they were approaching that same intersection. Joe

15:00

also lived at the Summit Terrace apartment complex.

15:03

He told investigators that he also saw

15:05

man following Pauline. He said

15:07

he noticed she was carrying some heavy books

15:10

and he thought about asking her if she

15:12

wanted a lift, but in the end he didn't.

15:14

Then a few seconds later, he said he

15:17

heard the scream. He heard her screaming,

15:19

help me. So Joe

15:21

and Gary are also there in their cars. They

15:24

both rushed up to the scene. Gary

15:26

said that from his point of view, he saw

15:29

Pauline collapse to the ground. He said when he looked

15:31

around, he saw her books and

15:33

her personal belongings on the ground, but

15:35

he didn't see anyone else. He said

15:37

when he saw Pauline, she was holding her chest.

15:40

He approached her and when he got

15:42

closer he could see that she was lying half in

15:45

the yard and half in the street. He

15:47

said that her white skirt in one of her arms

15:49

were completely soaked blood. Joe

15:52

said that he asked Pauline if the man

15:54

that was following her did this.

15:57

She told him yes.

15:59

He then started trying to help her, asking where

16:01

her cuts were and which way the

16:03

man went, but he said it. At this point,

16:06

Pauline didn't know where the man went,

16:08

and she was kind of slipping in and out

16:11

of consciousness. She kept asking for her books.

16:19

Detectives did find Pauline's black

16:21

purse with her wallet and ID

16:23

in it near her body. They

16:26

took it in for testing, but only found one set

16:28

of fingerprints, and it turned out that they were Pauline's,

16:31

so police knew it was unlikely

16:33

the killer's motive had been robbery. It didn't

16:35

seem like they grabbed for her purse at all. They

16:38

were trying to hurt her, not take her

16:40

stuff. Police

16:43

asked all four witnesses some detailed questions

16:45

about the man that they said they saw following

16:47

Pauline. Mike Adair

16:49

said the man following Pauline was wearing a brown

16:51

sport coat and had blonde or dirty

16:53

blonde hair, around five ten

16:55

to six feet tall and wearing glasses. So

16:58

the police did a sketch according

17:00

to these guys descriptions and in

17:03

the end it's kind of random. But this

17:05

sketch, a lot of people pointed out, kind of looked

17:07

like the Zodiac Killer. By the

17:09

way, no, there was no evidence the Zodiac

17:12

Killer was ever involved, So like

17:14

the Zodiac Killer sketch, the sketch

17:17

in Pauline's case was pretty generic.

17:19

No one had actually seen this man's face, so

17:22

it was a sketch of a guy with slicked back hair

17:24

and glasses, again,

17:27

a pretty common look on a college campus.

17:29

This guy could have been anyone.

17:31

When Mike was asked about the police sketch,

17:33

he said, yes, it did look similar to the man

17:35

he saw, but he pointed out that

17:38

the hair of the guy he saw was messier, not

17:40

slick back like on that sketch. There

17:43

were two other potential witnesses, Robert

17:46

Spray and John Hall. These

17:48

guys lived nearby at twelve South Hill

17:50

Street. They said they had seen a man

17:53

who could have been involved in the crime because the guy

17:55

kind of fit the description of the assailant. He

17:57

had a sport code on. He was described

17:59

as being medium height with a slight build.

18:02

They said that this guy was kind of stumbling around

18:04

like he was drunk, but they

18:06

didn't have a lot to go on. They didn't have a description

18:09

of the car, and in the end police

18:11

never definitively found that person, so

18:14

it seemed to be a dead end. So police

18:16

had no idea what the motive had been, but

18:18

they did have potentially four different

18:21

people who said they definitively saw

18:23

the killer, but their descriptions

18:25

differed slightly, which of course is not uncommon

18:28

in a case like this, but

18:30

they did all agree on one thing. Pauline

18:32

had been attacked by one person, one

18:35

man, who stabbed her multiple times,

18:38

and they said that man had been following her

18:40

and was able to get very close to her before

18:42

he pounced. Because

18:45

of where Pauline's injuries were, the

18:47

fact that she had stab wounds on the front of her body,

18:50

police figured out she had turned around

18:52

to face her attacker, so they

18:54

wondered was it someone she

18:56

knew, Was that how they were able

18:58

to get that close, or

19:01

were they just really fast and could

19:03

they have snuck up on her that quickly. The

19:06

police admitted they didn't know if this had been

19:08

someone fixated on Pauline specifically,

19:11

or someone targeting women totally

19:14

randomly, or even possibly

19:16

a case of mistaken identity. Because it was pretty

19:18

dark it was night, none

19:21

of the men who saw this stranger were that

19:23

close, so even though there were

19:25

multiple witnesses, not a single

19:27

one got a good look at the killer's face. But

19:30

police did know one thing that was

19:33

such a vicious attack. The person

19:35

who stabbed Pauline would have

19:37

blood on their clothing, so police

19:40

canvassed the area. They were looking

19:42

for a suspect covered in blood, and

19:45

it wasn't long before they found one.

19:48

A few minutes after the stabbing, police were

19:50

cruising the area when two officers

19:53

saw two young men sitting on a bench. According

19:56

to a very good article in Master Detective

19:58

magazine from nineteen seventy four, they

20:01

were around five blocks away from the crime scene

20:03

when they saw these guys. One of them was

20:05

so seventeen year old Wallace Peter Cunkle.

20:08

So the police start talking to these guys and apparently

20:10

they told the officers that they were

20:12

just hanging around. They were supposed

20:15

to have had dates with two girls, but they'd been stood

20:17

up. But when police asked them for more details,

20:20

the guys said they didn't even know these girls' names,

20:22

which honestly seems a little bit strange to

20:24

me that they wouldn't even have a first name.

20:27

But apparently the police thought this story was

20:29

believable. As the detective

20:31

was talking to Peter Cunkle, he noticed some

20:33

dark spots on his white shirt,

20:36

jacket, and trousers. Later

20:38

it was determined those were blood. When

20:41

the officer asked Peter why he had blood on his

20:43

clothes, Peter said he'd had a nosebleed

20:45

recently. Now, to police,

20:47

with everything going on, this seemed like a pretty

20:49

big coincidence, so they took him in

20:51

for questioning. They took his clothes,

20:54

and they took samples of his blood. Now,

20:56

obviously this was back in nineteen seventy one,

20:58

so the testing they could do on blood was

21:00

much more limited than it is now. They

21:03

could basically tell you what type blood

21:05

it was, and that's about it. Peter

21:10

got a lawyer, and his lawyer said

21:12

he refused to take a polygraph test. Now,

21:15

by the way, I don't hold this against him at all, just

21:17

my opinion, but I've said this before. I

21:19

actually think this is a very smart move. Honestly,

21:22

asking for an attorney, especially in a situation

21:25

like this where you know the police are

21:27

kind of on a fishing expedition, is

21:29

something that I think everyone should do. Peter

21:33

told police, and this is according to his police

21:35

statement that was released via a Foyer request,

21:38

that he and a friend were boiling water

21:40

with speed that night.

21:42

So we've talked about injectable speed before.

21:44

That was a big thing in the seventies and eighties

21:46

in Arkansas, and what they

21:48

were using was a drug that was similar to finfinn.

21:51

Now, if you were around in the eighties, you may remember

21:53

that this was an ingredient in a diet

21:55

drug before it got removed from the market by

21:58

the FDA in the mid nineties because people

22:00

who took it were experiencing heart damage.

22:02

These pills were very strong, they were speed.

22:06

What they would do is boil water, throw

22:08

a lot of pills in there, and then inject

22:10

this stuff into their veins. So Peter

22:12

Kunkle said that's what they were doing that night. He said

22:15

he started shooting up at around seven thirty

22:17

pm. He took another shot at eight

22:19

pm and then did a few other

22:21

things. Stopped by a local store called the jet Set

22:23

to get a sprite. Then between nine

22:25

thirty and nine to forty five pm, so the crucial

22:28

time when Pauline would have been

22:30

walking from the library. He said a friend

22:32

of his named Richard Finley, who had been hanging out

22:34

with that night, asked Peter to take him

22:36

home, So Peter said they borrowed

22:39

one of their friend's motorcycles, and then

22:41

he claims that he gave Richard a ride home

22:44

and their route would have involved cutting

22:46

right through Dixon Avenue, right

22:48

through the crime scene. After

22:50

dropping Richard home, Peter said

22:52

that he went back to the Grayhouse.

22:54

This was the place where he'd been staying, so

22:57

Peter was in the area.

22:59

According to the Arkansas Razorback newspaper,

23:02

both Peter Kuncle and Pauline

23:04

had Type A blood, but unfortunately,

23:08

these small amounts of blood that drops

23:10

on Peter's clothes, they didn't

23:12

have enough to test it in the lab back then. So

23:15

the bottom line was a lot of people

23:17

have blood Type A and they

23:19

had no physical evidence tying Peter to

23:21

the crime scene. And Peter

23:23

had a good attorney. His attorney

23:26

was on point, and he cut a deal with the police.

23:28

He said, Peter would agree to take a lot

23:30

of detector test but only

23:33

if the police would agree that if

23:35

Peter passed that test, basically they would

23:37

clear him.

23:37

And apparently the police agreed to do that

23:40

and Peter passed.

23:41

So Peter Conkle was released from police

23:43

custody and publicly cleared

23:46

by law enforcement. The

23:48

police chief, Hollis Spencer, said

23:51

that police were quote satisfied

23:53

that he had no part in the murder of Miss stormant

23:56

end quote. Then

23:58

Peter cuncle and his parents held a press

24:00

conference and he was very emotional

24:03

at this press conference. I remember he's only seventeen years

24:05

old and he was crying. He told everybody

24:07

he didn't blame the police, they were just doing their job.

24:10

He said he always knew he would be cleared and he

24:12

completely denied having anything to do with

24:14

Pauline's murder. By

24:17

the way, the charges against Peter were dropped,

24:19

but they were what we call nelly prost meaning

24:22

dismissed without prejudice, so if

24:24

new evidence ever comes to light, he

24:27

could technically have been retried.

24:30

After Peter was released, police started

24:33

looking for other people of interest. They

24:35

did a lot of interviews, they reportedly

24:37

gave a lot more a lie detector tests,

24:41

and then just a month after Pauline

24:43

was murdered, a second University

24:45

of Arkansas co ed was stabbed. Her

24:48

name was Andrea Jones and she

24:51

lived about one point eight miles from

24:53

where Pauline was attacked. Police

24:55

arrested a man named Eddie Rush. He

24:58

was twenty one years old and not a student

25:00

at the University of Arkansas. Apparently

25:03

Eddie Rush lied his way into

25:05

andrew his apartment and attacked her. He

25:08

stabbed her several times, but she survived.

25:11

Eddie Rush was convicted and sentenced

25:13

to twenty one years in prison for attempted

25:16

murder.

25:17

And we're bringing Eddie Rush.

25:19

Up because his picture

25:22

in the newspaper from back then looks

25:25

very much like the sketch that was

25:27

circulated of Pauline's attacker. He's

25:29

got a short buzz cut, but he

25:32

does have glasses, and

25:34

he would seem to fit the general description. Eddie

25:37

Rush passed away several years ago, and

25:40

because in Pauline's case, there's

25:42

no DNA attest, sadly

25:45

there's no way to investigate him now. But

25:48

after that, no one else was arrested or charged.

25:51

Then, on May twenty second, nineteen eighty

25:53

one, a man named Jack Butler

25:55

walked into the Faateful Police Department. He

25:58

said he had something to tell police. He

26:01

claimed that he had murdered Pauline Storman.

26:11

Jack Butler's story was that he was hanging around

26:13

a swimming pool on the University of Arkansas campus.

26:16

He said after that he went home and got a

26:18

pocket knife and started strolling through Evergreen

26:20

Cemetery. He said that he

26:22

saw a woman and started following her and

26:25

attacked her and stabbed her from behind. This

26:28

is where the story gets a little strange, because apparently

26:30

he thought the woman was his wife. He

26:33

told police when he got home he was shocked

26:35

because he thought his wife was dead and

26:37

she was ready to have dinner. He said he

26:39

only later realized that the woman

26:41

he had supposedly stabbed was Pauline Stormant.

26:45

But he said a lot of things

26:47

that didn't seem to fit the evidence or actually

26:50

make sense. Like he

26:52

said he had stabbed Pauline three times,

26:54

when we know she'd been stabbed a lot more than that. And

26:57

he also said she was carrying a record player

27:00

at the time. If you were anywhere

27:02

near that scene, you know she had a big stack

27:04

of books in her hands. Police apparently

27:06

decided this confession was erroneous and

27:09

Jack Butler was cut loose. Also, more

27:12

time went by in the case seemed to go cold.

27:17

I like to look at old cases so we can see

27:19

the techniques that work. On

27:21

April eighth, nineteen eighty one, ten years

27:24

after Pauline's murder, in Texarkana,

27:27

two siblings, fourteen year old Karen Alexander

27:29

and thirteen year old Gordon Alexander, were

27:32

fatally stabbed to death inside their home.

27:35

For decades, this was a cold case.

27:37

Police said Karen had been sexually assaulted

27:40

shortly before the murder. The

27:42

murder weapon was a butter knife, but

27:44

police never made any arrests over

27:47

the years. Like in Pauline's

27:49

case, a lot of people said it could have been a serial killer,

27:51

could have been Henry Lee Lucas. Apparently

27:54

he claimed responsibility for those killings, but

27:56

later, like so many of Henry Lee

27:58

Lucas's other confessions, it was proven

28:00

to be false. He was nowhere

28:03

near Texarkana when these murders happened.

28:07

It was a really tragic story because after

28:09

the murders of her children, their mother

28:11

took her own life after suffering from depression.

28:15

And it wasn't until forty two years

28:17

later, when a detective took up the case

28:19

and resubmitted some forensic evidence into

28:21

codis that they discovered the killer

28:24

was there all along. It was the children's

28:26

father, Weldon Alexander, who

28:28

had supposedly had an airtight alibi

28:31

working an overnight shift a copper Tyron rubber

28:33

plant. Police

28:35

believe he had been sexually assaulting

28:37

his daughter Karen for months. They believed

28:39

that on the morning when the children were killed, or possibly

28:42

the night before, he attempted to rape

28:44

Karen, she fought him off or

28:46

her brother tried to intervene.

28:48

They both ended up being brutally murdered.

28:50

It is a sad and horrific case, but

28:53

I'm bringing it up because sometimes all it takes

28:56

is one fresh set of eyes who

28:59

can look at the case file and break the

29:01

case. The time of death

29:03

being a little bit earlier or later than police think

29:05

someone's alibi not checking out. Even

29:08

the coldest cases can be solved now.

29:12

Obviously, in that case, the Alexander

29:14

murders, there was DNA

29:16

that could be resubmitted, which I'm not sure

29:18

is true for Pauline's case, But

29:21

for all the families out there, you have a

29:24

cold case that has been going on for years or

29:26

decades, there's always hope.

29:31

So back to Pauline's case. Pauline's

29:34

family didn't give up, and eventually

29:37

Lance started writing on his website and

29:39

posting on sites like web slues. Lance

29:43

said that at one point

29:45

law enforcement actually put in an email

29:48

quote at the moment, only

29:50

a deathbed confession or a secret diary

29:53

hidden away in an attict basement or bible

29:55

will close this case.

29:56

End quote.

29:58

Given the fact that police say there's no DNA,

30:01

and this is what we're left with, what's next

30:03

for this case? If the four why a

30:05

request information we have so far as correct, there's

30:08

apparently no DNA to test, so

30:10

authorities can't do, for example, familial

30:12

DNA testing. Over the

30:14

years, a lot of people have put

30:16

a lot of different theories forward. Some people

30:19

compared Pauline's case to Betsy

30:21

Ardsma's murder because both of them were killed

30:24

in college libraries.

30:25

Police have said there's.

30:26

No connection between those two cases. Some

30:29

people suggested it could be the Zodiac or Ted

30:31

Bundy a serial killer, but again, there was absolutely

30:33

no evidence of this and this was

30:35

not Ted Bundy's mo Honestly,

30:38

there's no evidence that this was a serial killer at

30:40

all. But as Lance said,

30:43

so far, the evidence seems to point to

30:45

a more personal murder, some kind of

30:47

crime of passion. So if there's

30:49

going to be a break in this case, it's almost

30:51

certainly not going to be from retesting of

30:53

DNA, because so much of it has been

30:55

lost. It's going to be from someone

30:58

who knows something. It's

31:00

also interesting that so many people,

31:02

all the witnesses, seem to agree on a couple of

31:04

things, including the fact the person

31:07

who stabbed Pauline approached on foot.

31:09

None of them remember hearing a car afterwards.

31:12

So this is a person who obviously

31:14

felt confident enough that they could move quickly

31:16

enough on that campus that they could get

31:18

very close to her without her being alarmed

31:20

and without anyone else noticing them. They

31:23

believed that they fit in, and they

31:25

probably did, because remember several

31:27

people saw a man following Pauline

31:30

and they didn't realize that was anything out of the ordinary

31:32

until they heard the screams. This

31:35

person's plan was to attack Pauline

31:37

and to flee the scene, and that's what they

31:39

did, and it worked, because up until

31:41

now this person has gotten away with this

31:43

murder. They walked up to a young

31:45

woman in the prime of her life, murdered

31:48

her and got away clean. Was

31:51

it someone who knew Pauline who had some kind

31:53

of a grudge or was it someone

31:55

who maybe was obsessed with her, who wanted to

31:57

know her and was frustrated because they couldn't

32:00

make contact in the way they wanted. Remember,

32:03

in nineteen seventy four Master Detective magazine,

32:05

he had published that big article about the

32:07

killing. In the nineteen eighties,

32:10

the magazine got an anonymous letter. The

32:15

letter was postmarked Capron, Virginia,

32:18

and so that police had not caught the real killer.

32:20

The letter said that Pauline's killer had targeted

32:23

her because they believed she was someone else, that

32:25

the whole thing had been a mistake. Investigators

32:28

did take some fingerprints off that document,

32:30

but tragically those prints, along

32:32

with so much other evidence, suffered

32:34

the same fate. They were lost by law enforcement.

32:37

But the postmark is interesting

32:40

for another reason. There's a correctional

32:42

facility there called the Southampton Correctional

32:44

Center. Lance points that out on his website.

32:47

Now, there were some

32:49

inmates there who did time who were supposedly

32:51

friends of Peter Cunkle's and

32:54

Joe Clifton, one of the witnesses

32:56

was also there incarcerated for a period of

32:58

time. This is very

33:00

interesting to me because I wonder could

33:03

that mean that the police were about

33:06

Peter Cuncle, that maybe he targeted Pauline

33:08

because he thought she was his day who

33:10

stood him up? And what about Joe Clifton,

33:13

Could he have been more than a witness.

33:20

There are so many mysteries in

33:22

this case. I have so many questions about the

33:24

investigation, about these

33:26

people's relationship to each other, whether

33:29

all of them just happened to randomly be there, or

33:31

whether there was more to these stories. And I

33:33

also have questions about Pauline's ex husband.

33:36

How conclusively he, or for that matter,

33:38

any of these people were ruled out.

33:41

I'm not saying that any one of these people is responsible

33:43

for her murder.

33:44

Again, We're just trying to follow the threads

33:47

to pick up on anything that might have been missed

33:49

over the years. No one has ever been

33:51

arrested or charged with this murder, so

33:54

I'm doing what I usually do. We're

33:56

reaching out to anyone who may have

33:58

been in the area on that day, who may have seen

34:00

anything, any detailed, no matter how small.

34:03

We're breaking out a giant pot of CAF

34:06

and were going through some case files with a lot

34:08

of missing pages. According

34:10

to his obituary, Charles

34:12

Pate. After he divorced Pauline, served

34:15

in Vietnam, got numerous commendations,

34:17

and later got a job working for the Smithsonian

34:19

Institute. He moved back to Arkansas

34:22

and became a fishing guide. He passed

34:24

away in twenty eighteen. Then

34:27

there's Gordon Cummings, the guy Pauline

34:29

knew, and the two friends

34:32

who asked the girls if they wanted to have drinks

34:34

that day? Who were those guys? Could

34:36

they have had anything to do with this? Could they have seen something?

34:39

Or could those two men have had anything

34:41

to do with Peter Cunkle and his

34:43

friend, the ones who said they had dates

34:45

who stood them up. Yes, Peter

34:48

was cleared by police, but as we know, he had

34:50

a very good lawyer, and sometimes mistakes are

34:52

made. Lance

34:54

said that while he hopes to have answers one day

34:56

in this case, he would also really

34:59

love to have Pauline's memory honored somewhere

35:01

in the University of Arkansas campus.

35:04

My long term goal this

35:06

project, in anything that comes out of it, I

35:09

would be completely happy if

35:12

somehow I could see

35:15

some kind of plaque with her memory

35:18

telling the story, erected somewhere.

35:23

In the vicinity. That's

35:25

my long term goal to see if that happen.

35:28

I think that would be the best way to honor her memory,

35:30

is to tell her story for

35:33

all to see whenever they come across it. If

35:35

the university would do it, I would love to have

35:37

it right there at the top

35:40

of South Duncan, at the edge of Dixon

35:42

Street. This is what happened

35:44

in one of our students.

35:47

I'm hoping that someone out there remembers April

35:50

twelfth, nineteen seventy one, at that

35:52

intersection near the University

35:54

of Arkansas. Someone who heard

35:57

a scream or saw something heard

35:59

someone who was there talking about what happened

36:01

that night, someone who might have

36:03

answers and who can help us go closer

36:06

to finding out what happened to Pauline

36:08

Stormant.

36:09

I'm Catherine Townsend.

36:11

This is Helen Gone Murder Line.

36:14

Helen Gone Murder Line is a production of School

36:16

of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's

36:18

written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend

36:21

and produced by Gabby Watts. Special

36:23

thanks to Amy Tubbs for her research assistance.

36:26

Music contributed by Ben Sale Executive

36:29

Producers of Virginia Prescott Brandon

36:31

Barr, and Elsie Crowley. If

36:33

you have a case you'd like me and my team to look

36:35

into, you can reach out to us at our Helen

36:37

Gone Murder Line.

36:38

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