MURDERED: Bill & Peggy Stephenson

In 2011, 74-year-old high school sweethearts Bill and Peggy Stephenson were found murdered inside their Kentucky condo on Memorial Day weekend. Nothing valuable appeared to be missing, but the crime scene was so strange that detectives wondered whether the killer was trying to leave a message. For years, the case pulled investigators in every direction — until one piece of evidence, mailed across the country more than a decade earlier, finally got a hit.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  If you know me, you know I love stories that make me go, "Wait, what?" The kind that stop you in your tracks and send you straight down a rabbit hole. And my friend Delia DiAmbrera tells stories just like that on Park Predators. Every Tuesday, Delia investigates true crime cases that unfold in the world's most beautiful places. From national parks to hiking trails, she reveals the shocking crimes, mysterious disappearances, and unsettling encounters hidden beneath the postcard-perfect scenery. If you're ready to discover what's beyond the trailhead, listen to Park Predators wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:33Speaker 01

  Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.

• 0:36Speaker 00

  And I'm Britt.

• 0:37Speaker 01

  And the story I have for you today is a case that haunts everyone who touches it. The kind of case that most detectives only ever see once in their career. It's become local lore around Boone County, Kentucky. Once word leaked that there could be ritualistic elements to the murder of a retired couple in their home, you can just imagine the rumors that spread. Even more so in the void of information left by police. They have been incredibly tight with the details about this case. But today, for the first time, they're sharing some never-before-released case information with us,

• 1:16Speaker 01

  including the crime scene evidence that has recently led them to a man out west. And now, investigators believe that they may finally be closer than ever to solving the murder of Bill and Peggy Stevenson.

• 2:03Speaker 01

  May 29, 2011 is a hot Sunday in Florence, Kentucky. And that's also Memorial Day weekend. Many people have the next day off, so their Sunday routines are changing a bit. Family get-togethers, a day at the lake, maybe a road trip to get out of town. But not for Beth Victor. Because even though she plans to take her daughter to do some shopping to celebrate her graduation, they're still going to church first. Sunday always means church for their family. That was ingrained in Beth by her own parents, Bill and Peggy Stevenson. But when Beth and her family take their seats in the pews, her 74-year-old parents aren't there. And she knows that something is up immediately. Bill's a deacon and Peggy plays the organ.

• 2:48Speaker 01

  They are there every single Sunday, like clockwork. So when the service starts, it's not just Beth who is like looking around, trying to see what's going on. The whole congregation notices their absence. And I can imagine Beth just like sneaking glances at the door, expecting them to sneak in at some point during the sermon. But they never do. And after it wraps up, people are coming up to Beth, asking if she knows anything. And this is when she learns that it wasn't just this service that was missed. So her dad, Bill, had this like truck stop ministry where he gave church services inside an old truck trailer earlier in the morning. And a few of his church friends volunteered there as well,

• 3:33Speaker 01

  and they said that Bill didn't show up to that either. Beth spoke to her parents the day before, at her daughter's graduation, and they were fine. But clearly, something happened between now and then. So she asked her husband Claude to stop by her parents on his way home, since she had already promised her daughter that she was gonna take her shopping. No problem, right? So he heads over to their condo complex. Claude lets himself into the building's main entrance and makes his way to the front door of their unit on the first floor. But when he knocks, no answer. He tries again, still nothing. So he walks around to the back of the condo building, because there is a sliding glass door that opens directly from their unit to the outside.

• 4:18Speaker 01

  And he notices that the screen door is closed, but it looks like the glass door isn't. So he reaches for the screen, expecting it to be like latched, but that just slides right open. And there are these moments when life splits into the before and the after. And that sliding screen door opened up the world of after for him and their entire family. Because what Claude saw that day was so brutal that it haunts him in a way he can't even describe. I mean, literally. Beth told us that even 15 years later, he couldn't bring himself to tell us about what he saw. He declined to speak with us for this episode. But we know what he went through,

• 5:01Speaker 01

  because he would later tell police after he called them instantly. And he knew without a doubt, when he walked into that condo, that Bill and Peggy were dead. It was Detective Coy Cox from the Boone County Sheriff's Office who arrived at the Stevenson's condo just before 3:00 PM that afternoon. And he told us, when he walked through that sliding back door, what he saw was what he calls a 1% kind of crime. The kind of case that you get once in a career if you ever get one like this at all. He says Bill and Peggy are in two separate rooms. One is right by the sliding door, and the other is in a back room of the four-bedroom condo.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  And there are multiple wounds on both bodies. So many that the first word that comes to Detective Cox's mind is "overkill." But the part that's really haunting is that Detective Cox said they were posed in strange positions, and household objects were arranged around them in very specific ways.

• 6:05Speaker 00

  Like how?

• 6:07Speaker 01

  That's the thing, I can't tell you, because I don't know. Detective Cox couldn't share a lot of details about the scene, because this is still an open case. He wouldn't tell us how the things were around them, or what pose they were in, or anything about their exact types of wounds. Though he did note that there was at least one that was made postmortem. But he would talk to us in like a broader sense about the other things that he saw in the condo, like the fact that nothing valuable seemed to be missing. But in every single room, he says, things are off. Like household items were moved or changed in strange ways. And like, just as like a hypothetical,

• 6:49Speaker 01

  he compared it to like opening the fridge and like finding a pen among the condiments.

• 6:54Speaker 00

  Stuff just like isn't where it should be.

• 6:55Speaker 01

  Right, like in a way that stands out. He also said that some of the items had markings on them that may have been left by the killer. And that the items seemed to be connected to specific family members or friends. And that like the way that they were arranged seemed like the killer was indicating who they liked and who they didn't like. And there is something about all of these markings and items and their positions that is giving those that are there at the scene this feeling of something ritualistic. Now, whether this was genuinely a ritual killing, or if the purpose of the like staging and all of that was just to make it look like one, they don't know.

• 7:39Speaker 01

  But either way, to Detective Cox, it seems like whoever did this was trying to leave some kind of message. And to do that, the killer had to clearly be in the place for a while. Actually, as they processed the scene further, investigators are able to confirm a lot about the timeline. One of the victims, I guess, had a medical device that recorded the exact time of death, which Detective Cox told us was sometime in the early hours of that Sunday morning. Plus, investigators find a "timed" device indicating that the killer was there for as many as eight hours. Or they like left and came back again.

• 8:21Speaker 00

  Like some kind of security system, like the timed device?

• 8:24Speaker 01

  This is, again, he wouldn't get more specific other than saying it was a "timed" device. But Bill and Peggy's daughter Beth did speak with us, and she said that her parents didn't have an alarm system installed. So like, I can answer that question, I know it wasn't an alarm system. Whatever this was, it confirms for police that the killer was in that condo for a very long time.

• 8:47Speaker 00

  And there's no way the killer was there for that long, like eight hours, and didn't leave some piece of themself behind.

• 8:55Speaker 01

  Oh, not a chance. And they do find, as they're processing, like a good amount of forensic evidence. Actually, DNA and a partial print.

• 9:05Speaker 01

  The question is, what belongs to the killer? And what did their killer just want them to find? Because Detective Cox told us that from the very beginning, he doesn't think that he walked into the original crime scene. He thinks he walked into the scene that the killer or killers wanted him to find. So he's not completely certain that the evidence wasn't planted by the killer. Now, he specifically said that the partial print was in a very specific place at the crime scene that Detective Cox told us only the killer or killers could have left it. But it might not be the print? Like, based on some carefully worded follow-up?

• 9:48Speaker 01

  It seems like maybe this partial print could have been introduced to the crime scene somehow? Like, maybe on some kind of, like, item that the killer brought in or something? I don't know. So, we have evidence, and it seems like it should belong to the killer or killers. But they won't know for sure until they can match it to someone.

• 10:11Speaker 00

  Right.

• 10:12Speaker 01

  The DNA is actually good enough for CODIS, but they put it in there, no hits. Now, the partial isn't completely enough for AFIS. It's only usable for direct comparison. But Detective Cox is not about to just, like, sit and, like, hope this thing, or like, the killer just, like, comes to him, right? He makes sure that they mail out copies of that partial print to crime labs in all 50 states, and they ask them to compare it to their own databases, hoping that someone, somewhere, will uncover a match now or in the future. As you can imagine, that's gonna take some time. So, they had to focus on other investigative means.

• 10:50Speaker 00

  But I'm waiting for you to bring up, like, witnesses, because someone had to have seen this guy in the complex at some point during all of this time, right?

• 10:59Speaker 01

  Not, not really. They canvassed the condo, like, neighbors or whatever. Like, one says that they heard a sound that was like, like a broom hitting the wall. And then another reports a car parked outside the condo around the time of the murders, and says that they saw the headlights go off. But Cox says that they never found the driver. So, like, without that, without the license plate, like, that lead didn't go anywhere. I mean, I personally think that whatever happened to them probably happened quick. I mean, just, just because it was so quiet, and like, TBD the hour. It could have been while all of the other neighbors were sleeping. Then all that staging stuff, I mean, the stuff that really would have taken the time, that's quiet, that's happening inside, like, that's not gonna draw a ton of attention.

• 11:44Speaker 01

  So, with no helpful witnesses, Detective Cox looks closer at the most bizarre piece of evidence: those arranged household objects. He wants to know if everything they found at the crime scene actually belonged to Bill and Peggy. Is it just all moved around? Or did the killer actually bring something and introduce it to the crime scene? So Beth told us that they actually described the objects to her and her siblings, asking, like, "Does this belong to your parents? Have you seen this before?" They asked them about all kinds of household objects, kitchen items especially, like, things that would have been sitting in drawers or cabinets. And at one point, she remembers them asking about a plastic pitcher, like, the kind that you would make sweet tea in, or something like that.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  But here's the problem: even, like, the family doesn't always know the answer to that.

• 12:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, I was gonna say, like, I don't know everything in my parents' house anymore. Like, there's, like, specific things I can think of.

• 12:40Speaker 01

  But I know they still have. Like, yeah, when I was a kid and I lived in the house, maybe, probably, I could have told you every single item. But I have no idea now what my mom and dad have. And that is basically what Beth has to tell detectives.

• 12:51Speaker 00

  So, another dead end.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, and what's more frustrating than not being able to tell them what does or doesn't belong in the house is that none of Bill and Peggy's family members can even suggest a motive for this crime. Every one police talked to says the same thing about them. They're kind, they're generous, they're active in their church, and they help people. It's kind of as vanilla as it comes. They're high school sweethearts, married for over 50 years. Peggy was, like, pretty shy, mostly stayed at home. Bill was the social butterfly of the two. He's always out and about. But the two loved each other. There were no big money problems that the couple was facing, no, like, seedy side life that they kept from their closest friends and family.

• 13:36Speaker 01

  So if Bill and Peggy have no obvious enemies in their day-to-day life, Detective Cox has to look at the part of Bill's life where he constantly was interacting with strangers. And that would be at that truck stop ministry I told you about. It's where Bill spent the majority of his time. It's basically like this chapel inside a trailer, like, the kind that would be hauled by a semi truck. Apparently, it still had the wheels on it and everything. But the inside were, like, some pews and a piano. And on Sundays, they would open the doors and do a service for the truckers there at that local truck stop, like, people who were in town. But that's the thing, the truckers themselves were not local.

• 14:20Speaker 00

  Right.

• 14:20Speaker 01

  People come and go constantly. Truckers from all over the country, just making a pit stop, you know, the day that they would be in Kentucky. And then, like, the next day, they would be hundreds of miles away. And that is exactly what has made tracking down their very first person of interest so difficult. Detectives have a face. They have a video, in fact, of a mystery man who seemed to be looking for Bill outside the chapel just two days before he and Peggy were found dead.

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• 17:13Speaker 01

  On Friday, May 27, witnesses saw a man walk up to the trailer chapel and start just banging on the door, yelling for Bill. Now, from what they can gather, Bill was likely on-site when this happened. But nobody actually saw Bill open the door or interact with this guy. And there was no security footage from where this trailer is. But there is footage from inside the truck stop from around the same timeframe. And Detective Cox finds someone on it who matches the description that witnesses gave.

• 17:48Speaker 00

  So, no one knew this guy?

• 17:50Speaker 01

  No, no one at the truck stop. And when they show this image to Bill and Peggy's family, they don't know this guy either. Which means that he is likely a trucker.

• 18:00Speaker 00

  Right, and now could be anywhere.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  Anywhere, because it took them some time to find this.

• 18:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:05Speaker 01

  So, within 24 hours of collecting this footage, even though it's later, the Boone County Sheriff's Office puts out a press release with a still image from the video, saying that they're looking for this guy, and he is a person of interest. And soon, the tips start pouring in from, obviously, all over the country. At one point, a man in Georgia even comes forward, saying that he thinks that he might be the guy in the photo. But when investigators check his truck logs, there's no way that he could have been in Boone County at the timeframe that they're, like, looking for. So he's not their guy. And Detective Cox ends up traveling to 18 different states checking tips out related to this. He's stopping trucks. He is tracking people down.

• 18:50Speaker 01

  He is comparing names from the chapel logbook. And to this day, that guy has still never been identified.

• 18:59Speaker 00

  Which, it's kind of weird to me that he hasn't, like, come forward on his own. Like, the fir-, like, that one guy who was like, "Hey, like, could be me, I don't..."

• 19:07Speaker 01

  Which is also kind of weird that, like, you, like, to be, to think it might be you and it not be you is, like, odd.

• 19:11Speaker 00

  But also, if it's, if you think it's you, and you're like, "Hey, I want to make sure you know this is a dead end," like, coming forward right away makes sense, but...

• 19:18Speaker 01

  But I just keep thinking, like, maybe... Because they're, right, the, the one option is, like, "Oh, there's something shady," or whatever. But the other option is, like, maybe the word just hasn't gotten to him. So, like, he's likely not a local. So, like, that's a benefit of a show like ours. Like, I know that we have some long-haul trucker crime junkies. We met you on tour. I need them to start spreading the word. I'm actually gonna post this guy's picture on our blog post. I'm gonna put it up on social media, so it's, like, good and shareable.

• 19:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, and, like, I used to work in transportation. I used to work with truckers. Like, they are a network of resources and information. They are so intertwined and, like, keep each other informed about things. Like, this could be huge.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it would be great if they could help us find this stuff. But here's the truth of it, though: he might not have any relevant information about this crime, even. Because it being a random trucker would explain why we can't find the killer.

• 20:13Speaker 01

  But it explains almost nothing else. Like Detective Cox says that he just cannot square like this idea that like a random killer would leave this crime scene. The arrangement of the items, the comfort that the killer had spending time in the condo. To him, it feels personal. And there is another problem with the trucker theory. Peggy didn't really have much to do with the chapel ministry. It was like Bill's thing. So if someone there had it out for him, you would think it would be about him and not Peggy.

• 20:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:46Speaker 01

  And if that was the case, Detective Cox said that there would be like way less risky ways to just get Bill. I mean, the truck stop chapel itself was pretty private. There was like, or like at least when no service was going on, right?

• 21:01Speaker 00

  Right. And maybe like the killer wouldn't have enough time to do what he wanted to do, like to spend with him though?

• 21:08Speaker 01

  I still just don't understand why you bring Peggy into it at all, though. I mean, I guess unless you, it was all about the time and you knew that she would notice if he didn't come home or whatever. But like, on the flip side of that, if this were a stranger who was targeting Peggy for some reason.

• 21:25Speaker 00

  Like the other way around?

• 21:25Speaker 01

  Other way around. I think about like, she's in the home all the time alone without Bill while he's out doing his mission work.

• 21:32Speaker 00

  So on that side, like, why bring Bill into it?

• 21:35Speaker 01

  Which is why Detective Cox keeps coming back to this idea that he thinks whoever did this wanted both Bill and Peggy dead, which brings him back to the people closest to them, family. And I know I told you that early on, the family couldn't think of anyone who would want to kill them. That is true. But grasping at straws, like if they had to think of somebody, they did throw out one name. Bill and Peggy's nephew, Charles Stevenson, who goes by Stevie.

• 22:06Speaker 00

  And why would they pull out that name?

• 22:09Speaker 01

  If anything, they say, it has to do with money. So like five years before this, in 2006, Bill's brother passed away and Bill was the executor of the will. Stevie got nothing. He wasn't even named in the will. But like, also, it wasn't his dad that died, it was his uncle. And it wasn't like a huge inheritance or anything. But again, we're just like grasping here. They're like, maybe Stevie thought that Bill and Peggy had cut him out of some money that he felt he like was owed or like money that he really needed. Because what was fact is that Bill and Peggy's kids, they have three, including Beth, say that Stevie had some problems with money. Like he borrowed money from family members in the past.

• 22:52Speaker 00

  But in this scenario, he like, his uncle dies, he waits five years and then kills Bill and Peggy?

• 23:00Speaker 01

  Like I said, we're grasping here. It is, it is a stretch, but early in the investigation, Detective Cox was open to anything. Like you never know what's going to be important later. So he had interviewed Stevie and he'd asked him about his money issues. And Stevie admitted that he owed some people money, but he was insistent that he didn't kill his aunt and uncle. He was cooperative. He submitted his fingerprints and his DNA voluntarily. And when they were compared against the ones found at the crime scene, no match to either thing. But remember, Cox is not convinced that he can totally trust the forensics that they found at the scene. If there is a world where they were planted by the killer, then you can't really rule

• 23:44Speaker 01

  anyone out completely. So Detective Cox doesn't fully close the door on Stevie. Not that he's actively pursuing him or anything, just like if something comes up that gives him a reason to take another look at the guy, he would. And another reason does come up in April of 2012. That's when Detective Cox gets this call out of the blue from the Indiana State Police. They're investigating a murder and their prime suspect only wants to talk to Detective Cox. It's Stevie. He's being looked at in connection to the killing of a 67-year-old woman named Lee Jennings. Now, Lee was found beaten to death at her house in Aurora, Indiana, which is only like

• 24:28Speaker 01

  half hour away from Florence where Bill and Peggy lived. And the murder weapons were a pepper grinder and a skillet.

• 24:36Speaker 00

  Which are kitchen items.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. Indiana police are looking at Stevie because he was dating Lee and had been borrowing money from her. But this time, she said no, and the next thing you know, someone kills her and steals a thousand dollars from her house. What's so weird is when Stevie is in custody, he will not talk about Lee. But he tells the Indiana State Police that he will talk to Cox about Bill and Peggy.

• 25:02Speaker 00

  Like, he wants a deal?

• 25:05Speaker 01

  No, this isn't about a deal. And this is what is so weird to me. Like, he, he just said, I'm not gonna talk about this thing, but I'll talk about this other thing all day. And when Cox goes to him, it seems like he gets no more information from him than he did when they first spoke. He's basically like, I had nothing to do with my aunt and uncle's murders. I'll answer any questions you have. But his answers don't like help their investigation. He has the same alibi he always did, which by the way, was never a great one. Stevie says that he was home asleep in bed at the time that Bill and Peggy were killed. And investigators are able to find people who saw him earlier in the night, people who saw him the next morning, but during the actual window when Bill and Peggy were murdered, Stevie is basically his own alibi.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  So they don't get any new info, but they do get new DNA and fingerprint samples. Not because there was anything wrong with the original like 2011 sample he gave. Back then, Stevie gave like a standard, I guess, 10 fingerprint thing or whatever. And investigators wanted palm prints and like other parts of the hand, too. Still, they just want to be safe. They run it all again against the Stevenson crime scene just to be extra, extra sure. Because like, what are the odds that one person that people name ends up getting charged with murder, but like not that murder, but this one? Like, but still, it doesn't matter. Stevie still doesn't match in the Stevenson case, that is.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  But in May 2012, Stevie is charged with Lee Jennings murder. And eventually he is convicted of that and sentenced to life in prison. And while Stevie is behind bars, Detective Cox keeps interviewing him, pressing on his supposed alibi, but he's not getting anywhere. So Detective Cox goes back to the drawing board. When a case like this goes unsolved for weeks and then months, every time a promising lead goes nowhere, I think it's easy to question yourself a little bit, right? Like, did I make the wrong assumption? It seems like they knew their killer, but like, okay, maybe they didn't. This seemed like a staged crime scene, but maybe it wasn't.

• 27:16Speaker 01

  No one has like ritual experts just hanging around by the office water cooler to ask. So for the first year, nothing was off the table. Ritual killing included staged to look like ritual killing, like they were open to any possibility. But finally, in the fall of 2012, Detective Cox decides that he needs some fresh eyes on this. People who had seen the 1% crime scene over and over again, someone who can like cut through the noise. So he calls in the VDOC Society, which is this, you know, professional club of sorts, made up of former like law enforcement forensic specialists. And they volunteer to help with unsolved cases. And they're pretty selective about the cases that they take on.

• 27:58Speaker 01

  But when they hear about the Stevenson's case, they're all in. So Detective Cox goes to their headquarters in Philadelphia, which is like this wooden paneled room in this crazy Renaissance building, like right out of Sherlock Holmes. And there's about 100 people in the room who Detective Cox and his partner have to present to. And they don't just give them the glossy overview that we got. They share all of the weird and perplexing details of the crime scene. And the VDOC Society comes back with a very strong read. They say that this was not a genuine ritual killing. The ritual elements at the crime scene were probably staged.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  And over the years, as Detective Cox has consulted with other agencies, like the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit, he continues to hear the same thing. Listen, we know so little about this crime scene that I had to know what would lead an expert to even a conclusion like that.

• 28:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, like how do we even get there?

• 28:58Speaker 01

  In general, right. So we talked to Dr. Dawn Pearlmutter, who is a member of VDOC, who is an expert in ritual violence and symbolic crime scenes. Now, she can't say whether she actually consulted on the Stevenson's case or not, but she did tell us a little bit about how she looks at any crime scene that might be ritualistic. What she's looking for mostly, she says, is consistency. Like, do the symbols make sense together? Do the objects match the body positioning? Does location matter? Does the timing matter? Is there a coherent pattern? So there must not have been those elements for everyone to have come to the same conclusion.

• 29:41Speaker 01

  But interestingly, she did share something about what is publicly known about the Stevenson's case already. She said that when you're talking about a sophisticated double homicide with a lot of positioning, arranging, time spent at the scene, that goes beyond what someone needed to commit the crime. And in her experience, that means it's usually not someone's first time.

• 30:07Speaker 00

  And this seems specific enough that if there were other crime scenes like these, like investigators would know about it right now. Like, it would be evident.

• 30:18Speaker 01

  That's what's so wild to me. Because this case, like the details have been entered into Vicap. Tipsters have tried making connections over the years. I mean, like, to fast forward in our story a little bit, the first time I heard about the Stevenson's case was after the Delphi murders.

• 30:32Speaker 00

  Because there were rumors about ritualistic, like how the scene was set up there.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  Right. And so like by then, there are like, like certain things had come out about the Stevenson's case that like, again, this idea of ritualistic, the rumors are running wild. Delphi had rumors like that too. So people started sending Detective Cox tips. He checked those out in that case and others, but like, it was a bust.

• 30:55Speaker 00

  Which really proves that this is like a 1% case.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  And nothing is making sense.

• 31:01Speaker 00

  Right. Like this doesn't seem like it's the killer's first time, but also nothing else looks like this.

• 31:07Speaker 01

  And there's overkill and seemingly a personal connection, but like no one with a personal connection like has a motive to do this.

• 31:14Speaker 00

  And the DNA and the fingerprints seem to belong to a ghost because we cannot connect them to literally anyone.

• 31:21Speaker 01

  Well, not so fast. There was a ton that Detective Cox couldn't share with us to protect the investigation. But the thing he did give us was one huge scoop. A development in this case that we're breaking for the first time. They recently got a match on the partial fingerprint from their crime scene. And you are not going to believe how this happened or what has unfolded since. In June 2023, 12 years after Bill and Peggy's murder, a call comes into the Boone County Sheriff's Office.

• 32:02Speaker 01

  Remember those fingerprints that Detective Cox mailed out to all 50 states looking for a match? A lab technician is on the phone, and she has finally made a match.

• 32:18Speaker 00

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• 35:30Speaker 01

  When Detective Cox sent out those fingerprint cards to all 50 states back in 2011, he asked technicians all over the country to run them against their own databases in case there was ever a match. Now, with a partial like that, you can't just, like, set it and forget it either. Your search is basically only good, like, as a one-time search, comparing against the database as it is in that moment in time. So Cox obviously, like, hoped that they would all keep the prints, run and rerun them, but he never got a single call about them for over a decade. Honestly, by 2023, he didn't know if any of the states still hung on to them. But you just need one.

• 36:13Speaker 01

  And one day, Cox gets this out-of-the-blue call from a lab tech out west. Pretty much everything is west of Kentucky, but that's all he'll say, a western state. And this lab tech said that she had heard about Bill and Peggy's case from a podcast, and she wanted to do her part to help. So she printed out a copy of the fingerprint card and kept it at her station as a reminder to keep rerunning those every so often. And she put in the work. Every time a new print came into their system, she would manually check it against the print from the Stevenson case. Print after print, year after year,

• 36:54Speaker 01

  until one time in 2023, when everything changed. It was the print. I would have given anything to talk to this woman. Like, what is the moment that you realize that you have? Like, this is a one-in-a-million shot, and like, you did it. And Detective Cox says that this is the exact reason that he makes it a point to talk to not just local media, but podcasts like ours that can spread information far and wide. He says that you might not get that big tip the day it airs, but you may get a phone call even years later that changes everything. And that's the phone call he got.

• 37:40Speaker 01

  And this wasn't just like a, hey, we have a matching print. It was, hey, I have a matching print, and I can tell you who it belongs to. Now Detective Cox won't share the name with us. He is since retired, but he's still the one that knows so much about this. So we even reached out to the current detective on this case. Because I wanted to know, like, was the print, like, was there another crime committed?

• 38:05Speaker 00

  Can you tell us about this print?

• 38:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, like, don't tell me about him, but like, what can I know about the print? And all that the current detective would tell us is that the prints weren't on file from any previous crime he committed. They were on file for other reasons. But Detective Cox did say that this man, once he knows his name, obviously he looks into him, he has ties to Boone County. More than that, he knew Bill and Peggy. He lived in the same area as them. But interestingly, he moved out of Boone County right after the murder. Now Detective Cox doesn't sit on this. Like, within hours, he is on the phone with this guy. And he doesn't say anything about the print, just like,

• 38:49Speaker 01

  hey, I'm investigating this case, I've been working at, like, a long time. We just discovered that you might have been associated with the couple, the Stevenson's from Boone County, Kentucky. And this guy admits that he knew Bill and Peggy, said that he loved them. He will do anything to help solve this case.

• 39:06Speaker 00

  Great.

• 39:07Speaker 01

  That's what Detective Cox says. He's like, great, gonna need your DNA and your prints. We're getting this from basically everybody who loved them and wants to help solve the case. And the guy says yes. He seems super cooperative, super willing to help. So they make a plan for him to go to someplace where he lives at 10:00 AM the next day to get the samples that they need. But at 9:45 the next morning, 15 minutes before he's supposed to be there, he calls up Detective Cox. And Cox says that this guy's tone was totally different. He says, he's not going, and if they need anything else from him, they should contact his lawyer.

• 39:45Speaker 00

  Which, like, a lawyer for an interview, I get.

• 39:50Speaker 00

  A lawyer when you just need to provide a DNA sample, and this can be over and done with?

• 39:57Speaker 01

  Same, it's a red flag to Detective Cox, too. He told us that they've gotten DNA from, like, 200 different people, and only three of them have ever gotten an attorney. So he immediately tells the Boone County Sheriff what happened, and the sheriff tells him, like, you go out there and you get that sample. Like, would have been nice if he gave it voluntarily, like, but they got his print, right? Like, at the scene. And I might remind you that Cox said, quote, "The location of that fingerprint was inside the crime scene and in a place that only should be, um, left by the perpetrator," end quote. So within about a day of hanging up that phone,

• 40:39Speaker 01

  he is boots on the ground in this mysterious western state where he goes to the local judge there, and he gets a signed warrant for this guy's DNA and his prints. But then, when he drives to this guy's house to serve the warrant, he won't answer the door. Detective Cox is pretty sure he's in there. But he won't answer the door, won't answer the phone, won't come out of the house. So he has to go back to the judge for another warrant, which lets them forcibly go in and get this guy's stuff. And they do.

• 41:14Speaker 00

  They literally have to go in by force?

• 41:16Speaker 01

  Yes. And homeboys in there. And Detective Cox didn't paint a picture. So I don't know if he's just like, sitting in the middle of his living room, waiting for them to come in. I don't know if he's crying in his bedroom closet. Like, my imagination tends to run wild. But they get the samples that they need. No surprises here. The fingerprint matches 100% and the DNA does not. What? Now, does this mean that there is another person? Is it still possible that the DNA was planted? Which Cox had an early theory about.

• 41:55Speaker 00

  I've got an idea. How about we ask the guy whose fingerprints are at the scene? Like, did you put it there? Or was someone with you?

• 42:03Speaker 01

  Or was he ever there at all? Or if he was, was it before, during, or after the killing? And I know that probably sounds bananas. But without knowing what or where the fingerprint was located on, or where it was, or in, I don't know if we can say that he was there for the murder.

• 42:24Speaker 00

  I mean, Cox said it had to be left by the perpetrator, right?

• 42:27Speaker 01

  Dude, this is like, I feel like, we went round and round and round with him, with Detective Cox. He was super careful with his words. I'll try to distill what I think the truth is here.

• 42:43Speaker 01

  And that is that this is a very complicated scene. So far, we have a print and we have DNA that we know do not belong to the same person. We know there are elements of staging. One of those, or more of those, could be staged or planted. We also know that the killer was around, maybe even, they say, left and came back sometime over an eight-hour period. Did someone else come into that scene during that time?

• 43:09Speaker 00

  I mean, have they asked this guy since?

• 43:12Speaker 01

  This is the thing. He still will not talk to them. Still. Like, right now.

• 43:17Speaker 00

  So no longer willing to do anything to help the couple he loved so much?

• 43:21Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 43:22Speaker 00

  I'm sorry, his print being ID'd there, the fact that he knew them, moved right after, like...

• 43:29Speaker 01

  I, listen, I agree with you.

• 43:30Speaker 00

  What are we doing here?

• 43:31Speaker 01

  I agree with like, every crime junkie I know is screaming at the screen right now.

• 43:35Speaker 00

  A thousand percent.

• 43:36Speaker 01

  This guy, whoever he is, I think there is more to him. Honestly, it's not like Cox doesn't see it. He's not closing the door on Western State Guy, or anyone else that he has looked at in the past. Cox says that investigators have to weigh two kinds of evidence in this case. Physical and circumstantial. And because of the fingerprint, and because of the circumstantial pieces, like you're saying, the connection to Boone County, the fact that he knew Bill and Peggy, the fact that he lived in the same area, the timing of when he moved. Cox says that this Western State Guy is still in play. By the way, nephew Stevie isn't off the table either, remember?

• 44:22Speaker 01

  And investigators have narrowed down their pool of persons of interest to about half a dozen people. Again, including Western State Guy. But they need to build a solid case before they can bring charges against anyone. And I do get the measured approach. Even a crap defense attorney could get someone off as long as there is unidentified DNA sitting out there at the crime scene, connected in some way, right? You have to figure out who that belongs to, to close that door, or to figure out if it's connected, not connected. Like, otherwise, I just, I know how this would go at trial.

• 44:57Speaker 00

  There's too many loose ends.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  So that is the loose end that Detective Cox is working to close up. And another exclusive piece of information he gave us is that a lab has gotten another DNA profile from a second location in the crime scene. And it matches the first profile that they already have in CODIS.

• 45:18Speaker 00

  So those samples are from the same person?

• 45:21Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. But investigators think that they'll be able to do a lot more with this profile. I don't know if that's genealogy, phenotyping, whatever that is. But 15 years after Bill and Peggy Stevenson were murdered, what I know is that this case is not sitting on a shelf. The science is still moving. Investigators are still working it. And even though Detective Cox just retired from the Boone County Sheriff's Office, he has passed on the case to detectives who are just as dedicated as he was. And he believes that this case can and will be solved if the right person or people come forward. So, crime junkies, that's you.

• 46:07Speaker 01

  If you have any information, contact the Boone County Sheriff's Office. They have a dedicated tip line for the Stevenson case. The number is 859-334-8496. And as always, you can reach us by emailing [email protected]. Any information you have, small or big, could be helpful. But just as a reminder, investigators are still looking to identify the man from the truck stop, who Cox did confirm for me, by the way, is not Western State Guy. So get out there, share this far and wide, and let's see what our crime junkies can do. Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production.

• 46:50Speaker 01

  I think Chuck would approve.

• 46:58Speaker 02

  When the nights grow longer, the shadows start to stir. And that can only mean one thing. Full Body Chills is back. This season, step inside original tales where every doorway leads somewhere darker, every stranger carries a secret, and nothing is ever quite what it seems. Each story takes you somewhere new, but be careful. You never know what might follow you home. So gather around, listen close, and stream Full Body Chills wherever you get your podcasts.