January 1st, 1981, at about 3 am, St. Paul police received a phone call from a weepy voice begging for a squad car and ambulance to be sent to the Malmberg Manufacturing Company and Machine Shop. When the police and ambulance arrived, they found Karen Potack naked lying in the snow. She was savagely beaten, so much so that her brain was exposed. Karen was still alive and did survive though she had brain damage and remembered nothing of the attack or her assailant. Her assailant was later discovered to be Paul Michael Stephani.
Paul Stephani was born September 8th, 1944, in Austin Minnesota. He was the youngest of ten children in a very catholic household. His mother remarried when Stephani was three, and his stepfather was abusive, sometimes hitting the kids and making them fall down the stairs. After high school, Stephani moved to the Minneapolis St. Paul area. He married Beverly Lider and fathered a daughter who he later abandoned when he divorced Beverly.
Stephani after he was arrested
Stephani’s second victim was 18-year-old, Kimberly Compton. She was a small-town Wisconsin girl moving to the big city after graduation. On June 3rd, 1981, she took the bus to downtown St. Paul and went across the street to get something to eat at Mickey’s Diner. There she had the special and ended up talking with Stephani, who noticed she was eating alone. Stephani offered to show Compton around the city since she was new to town, and she agreed.
Later that day 3 teens were playing ball in a field when they noticed something in the tree line. It was the body of Kimberly Compton lying face down in the trees. Police determined that she had been stabbed with an ice pick 61 times. They were able to trace where she had been because her stomach contents were the special at Mickey’s Diner that day. They found the locker Compton had rented at the bus station, and that’s how they found who she was. 48 hours later the police received a call from a weepy voice. “I don’t know why I had to stab her... I’m so upset about it...” (excerpt from the phone call). Stephani Mentioned that he had stabbed Compton with an ice pick, so the police knew that the caller was the assailant because they hadn’t released that information.
Police photo of the Kimberly Compton crime scene
August 6th, 1982, the body of 40-year-old Barbara Simons was found. The previous night she went to the Hexagon bar and ended up leaving with Stephani. Before leaving Simons told a waitress that she hoped Stephani was nice because he was driving her home. The Bartender and Waitresses at the bar took a good look at Stephani and were able to identify him later through a mugshot photo.
Now that the police had Stephani as a suspect, they put a surveillance team on his apartment complex. August 21st, Stephani managed to unknowingly lose his tail. He picked up 21-year-old Denise Williams for sex work before attacking her in his car. Williams fought back like a bad bitch and managed to get away after being stabbed 13 times with a screwdriver and gashing Stephani’s face with a broken bottle. Williams identified Stephani as her attacker and police arrested him after he went to a hospital for medical care.
Photo of Stephani's car after the attack of Denise Williams
Stephani was charged with the assault of Williams and the murder of Simons which were under Minneapolis’s jurisdiction. He pled not guilty but was convicted and sentenced to 58 years in prison. In 1977 Stephani reached out to the police to confess in exchange for a photograph of his mother’s headstone. He confessed to the four known assaults as well as one unknown murder, Kathleen Greening. 33-year-old Kathleen Greening was found dead in her bathtub on July 21, 1982. It isn’t known why Stephani didn’t call in as the weepy-voiced killer for Greening's death. Stephani died June 12th, 1998, of terminal cancer.
Paul Stephani was a piece of shit man. I personally am glad that he suffered through cancer. He did awful things to innocent women and I'm glad he’s dead. If you hate this guy as much as I do, please consider subscribing to the blog and checking out the socials. Thank you for reading!
Sources
Komentáře