Full Transcript for Serial Killer Documentary - The Weepy Voiced Killer

who wants to be caught. It's somebody 38 00:03:01.520 --> 00:03:05.969 who wants status, who wants recognition. He is absolutely desperate 39 00:03:06.219 --> 00:03:09.150 to be seen as a serial killer. He wants a recognition. 40 00:03:09.560 --> 00:03:12.580 of being a serial killer. That's something that's quite important 41 00:03:12.599 --> 00:03:12.979 to him. 42 00:03:14.759 --> 00:03:20.530 This killer's story begins in Minnesota. Paul Michael Stefani was 43 00:03:20.590 --> 00:03:23.270 born on the 8th of September, 1944. 44 00:03:23.270 --> 00:03:28.129 Paul Stefani was born in a smaller town down in 45 00:03:28.250 --> 00:03:34.449 southern Minnesota by Austin. It's my understanding that his parents 46 00:03:34.509 --> 00:03:38.560 divorced and that he had a very strict stepfather who 47 00:03:38.639 --> 00:03:39.879 was a devout Catholic. 48 00:03:42.599 --> 00:03:45.460 It's quite interesting looking at the religious background of serial 49 00:03:45.500 --> 00:03:48.030 killers because it tends to affect them in one of 50 00:03:48.090 --> 00:03:51.110 two ways. On the one hand, they might use the 51 00:03:51.150 --> 00:03:53.509 kind of values that they've grown up with as a 52 00:03:53.550 --> 00:03:57.710 justification for their behavior. On the other hand, their failure 53 00:03:57.729 --> 00:04:00.009 to live up to those values might be something that 54 00:04:00.030 --> 00:04:03.060 they feel fundamentally ashamed of, and it's that shame that 55 00:04:03.099 --> 00:04:04.280 actually drives their offending. 56 00:04:05.719 --> 00:04:07.590 He seemed to have a strong bond with his mother. 57 00:04:07.879 --> 00:04:10.789 There's a strength there, so there was nothing that I 58 00:04:10.810 --> 00:04:14.590 could find that made any sense that could even explain 59 00:04:14.629 --> 00:04:15.449 why he did what he did. 60 00:04:17.350 --> 00:04:19.879 I think there would have been quite clear boundaries around 61 00:04:19.920 --> 00:04:23.259 what's acceptable, what's not acceptable, ideas about sin. 62 00:04:25.060 --> 00:04:29.439 Stefani had been diagnosed with epilepsy as a child, and 63 00:04:29.500 --> 00:04:32.620 when he kept losing his jobs as an adult, he 64 00:04:32.689 --> 00:04:37.209 blamed the condition. Nevertheless, he did appear to settle down. 65 00:04:37.910 --> 00:04:41.129 He moved out of Austin to St. Paul, and by 66 00:04:41.170 --> 00:04:43.730 the age of 26, had met his wife. 67 00:04:44.470 --> 00:04:51.040 In 1970, he got married. So far, so normal. Didn't 68 00:04:51.100 --> 00:04:54.100 last all that long. They divorced five years later. 69 00:04:54.120 --> 00:04:59.240 The 1970s, there's still quite a bit of stigma around divorce, 70 00:04:59.300 --> 00:05:03.300 especially within Catholic communities. So I think this, on his part, 71 00:05:03.519 --> 00:05:06.199 perhaps would have been seen as something of a failure. 72 00:05:06.540 --> 00:05:09.180 So I think it's quite an interesting element of his background. 73 00:05:10.550 --> 00:05:14.889 Sometime after his divorce, Stefani went off the rails and 74 00:05:14.990 --> 00:05:19.029 showed his violent side for the first time. The details 75 00:05:19.230 --> 00:05:23.529 of the incident are unknown, but Stefani was convicted of assault, 76 00:05:24.009 --> 00:05:26.920 meaning his name was now on a list of known 77 00:05:27.060 --> 00:05:33.120 violent offenders. Stefani soon moved on and began a relationship 78 00:05:33.160 --> 00:05:37.079 with a Syrian girl who he reportedly hoped to marry. 79 00:05:37.899 --> 00:05:40.779 They were pretty close, dating for four years, and then 80 00:05:41.120 --> 00:05:43.350 she leaves him for an arranged marriage that she had 81 00:05:43.379 --> 00:05:44.230 no control over. 82 00:05:45.399 --> 00:05:51.529 Stefani struggled with the rejection. When he lost yet another job, 83 00:05:51.889 --> 00:05:56.430 this time at Marmberg Manufacturing, things were spiraling out of 84 00:05:56.509 --> 00:05:57.069 his control. 85 00:05:59.139 --> 00:06:05.160 Something is burning at him inside. Something is eating at 86 00:06:05.459 --> 00:06:06.199 Paul Stefani. 87 00:06:07.879 --> 00:06:12.149 In the early hours of New Year's Day 1981, things 88 00:06:12.209 --> 00:06:16.529 took a sudden and sinister turn. As the night's celebrations 89 00:06:16.610 --> 00:06:23.350 wound down, 36-year-old Stefani encountered a 20-year-old student, Karen Potak. 90 00:06:24.930 --> 00:06:27.810 She was walking home when she suddenly was attacked right 91 00:06:27.870 --> 00:06:30.470 off Pierce Butler Road, a main road in St. 92 00:06:30.529 --> 00:06:30.889 Paul. 93 00:06:32.790 --> 00:06:37.139 It's an absolutely vicious attack. Callous without warning and for 94 00:06:37.180 --> 00:06:44.040 no reason. At 3 a.m. on New Year's Day, the 95 00:06:44.079 --> 00:06:47.550 police in St. Paul receive a phone call, an anonymous 96 00:06:47.579 --> 00:06:47.899 phone call. 97 00:06:55.000 --> 00:06:57.600 The phone call was a hysterical person. 98 00:06:57.660 --> 00:07:02.620 It wasn't clear if it was a man or a woman. 99 00:07:22.519 --> 00:07:24.980 This is incredibly deliberate on his part. 100 00:07:25.379 --> 00:07:27.980 He is wanting to appear to be somebody who can't 101 00:07:28.060 --> 00:07:29.240 help what he's doing. 102 00:07:30.939 --> 00:07:32.120 He thinks she's dead. 103 00:07:32.680 --> 00:07:33.939 She's certainly left of her dead. 104 00:07:34.819 --> 00:07:40.189 And he's consumed. You've got two conflicting emotions inside Stefani. One, 105 00:07:40.910 --> 00:07:46.389 an absolute desire to hurt women. Two, a fierce guilt 106 00:07:46.550 --> 00:07:47.360 about having done it. 107 00:07:48.930 --> 00:07:56.300 What's the address? I don't know. Who are you? There 108 00:07:56.319 --> 00:07:59.300 was just this urgency, get there, help her. And an 109 00:07:59.879 --> 00:08:03.079 ambulance was sent there, and that's where they found Karen 110 00:08:03.120 -->

00:08:05.860 Potak near death in the snow. 111 00:08:09.000 --> 00:08:11.050 She'd been hit over the head with a tire iron 112 00:08:11.259 --> 00:08:14.610 multiple times to the extent that some of her brain 113 00:08:14.810 --> 00:08:18.769 was actually exposed to the elements. So this is a really, 114 00:08:18.810 --> 00:08:22.620 really significant attack. And it's one that shows us that 115 00:08:22.699 --> 00:08:26.000 the person who carried it out wanted to kill the victim. 116 00:08:27.480 --> 00:08:31.639 The location of Stefani's first attack would later form a 117 00:08:31.740 --> 00:08:36.289 key part of the investigation as police worked to identify him. 118 00:08:36.789 --> 00:08:40.730 She's found in a very significant place, near some railway tracks, 119 00:08:41.110 --> 00:08:44.690 near a factory in which Stefani once worked. 120 00:08:46.110 --> 00:08:50.580 It was the Marmberg Manufacturing Company where Stefani had lost 121 00:08:50.639 --> 00:08:54.559 his job. He would later claim this upset to be 122 00:08:54.600 --> 00:08:56.039 the reason he attacked. 123 00:08:56.799 --> 00:09:00.879 That's something about serial killers, too. When they first begin 124 00:09:01.440 --> 00:09:04.460 killing people, and of course, Potaki didn't kill her, but 125 00:09:04.860 --> 00:09:07.620 he left her for dead, really. They go to places 126 00:09:07.659 --> 00:09:11.019 that are familiar with them at the beginning of their assaults. 127 00:09:14.080 --> 00:09:18.759 Karen was taken to hospital, but was not expected to survive. 128 00:09:20.559 --> 00:09:23.019 When I went there the next morning, the blood was 129 00:09:23.059 --> 00:09:25.240 still in the snow, and we thought, there's no way 130 00:09:25.679 --> 00:09:28.460 this person who'd been so viciously beaten could have survived. 131 00:09:31.440 --> 00:09:37.919 In fact, miraculously, Karen is not dead, although perhaps, mercifully, 132 00:09:38.450 --> 00:09:41.350 she doesn't remember anything about the attack, and she certainly 133 00:09:41.389 --> 00:09:42.379 doesn't know who's attacked her. 134 00:09:44.740 --> 00:09:48.730 The police attributed that to the cognitive damage that was 135 00:09:48.759 --> 00:09:51.570 done to her in the assault. She was never the 136 00:09:51.629 --> 00:09:52.629 same after that. 137 00:09:54.370 --> 00:09:58.190 Paul Stefani has got away with what he thought was murder, 138 00:09:58.370 --> 00:09:59.149 but in fact wasn't. 139 00:10:00.259 --> 00:10:03.139 I expected two things, that Karen Potak would not survive, 140 00:10:03.500 --> 00:10:06.879 which she did. I expected this case to be wrapped 141 00:10:06.919 --> 00:10:09.820 up right away. They would catch this person, man or woman, 142 00:10:10.399 --> 00:10:11.259 but nothing happened. 143 00:10:11.919 --> 00:10:15.409 Things were quiet for five months, but on the 3rd 144 00:10:15.450 --> 00:10:20.889 of June, Stefani's soon-to-be infamous weepy voice was heard again. 145 00:10:20.950 --> 00:10:21.529 He sounds. 146 00:10:26.450 --> 00:10:30.320 Quite childlike and pathetic, essentially. 147 00:10:41.570 --> 00:10:44.240 There's an emphasis on poor me, feel sorry for me, 148 00:10:44.250 --> 00:10:47.759 I can't help myself. So this is very deliberate on 149 00:10:47.840 --> 00:10:49.820 his part. This is all about him. 150 00:10:49.820 --> 00:10:55.679 30 minutes after the 911 call, a grim discovery was 151 00:10:55.759 --> 00:10:59.240 made in bushes by a freeway in St. Paul. 152 00:11:00.279 --> 00:11:04.490 Some boys were out playing and a ball went over 153 00:11:04.509 --> 00:11:08.450 to the edge of where they were playing and they saw, 154 00:11:08.470 --> 00:11:11.190 they thought it was a dummy laying in the grass. 155 00:11:11.990 --> 00:11:15.850 kind of hidden, and they realized it was an actual 156 00:11:15.909 --> 00:11:18.370 person and a body, and they called the police. 157 00:11:20.509 --> 00:11:22.590 She's dumped in the bushes, and when we think of 158 00:11:22.629 --> 00:11:24.590 the kind of things that we find in the bushes, 159 00:11:24.990 --> 00:11:27.129 it's things that we discard. It's things that we don't 160 00:11:27.169 --> 00:11:30.090 want anymore. It's things that we would consider to be trash, 161 00:11:30.450 --> 00:11:33.309 and that's very much how Stefani saw this victim. 162 00:11:34.690 --> 00:11:37.750 The body was that of a woman wearing a red jacket, 163 00:11:39.340 --> 00:11:43.139 She had no identification, but did have a single key 164 00:11:43.360 --> 00:11:44.100 on her person. 165 00:11:45.379 --> 00:11:48.070 The key was to the Greyhound bus locker in St. 166 00:11:48.110 --> 00:11:52.230 Paul by Mickey's Diner, a pretty iconic location in St. 167 00:11:52.250 --> 00:11:52.570 Paul. 168 00:11:53.029 --> 00:11:55.789 Through there, they found some of her identification and were 169 00:11:55.830 --> 00:11:57.730 able to figure out it was Kimberly Compton. 170 00:11:59.250 --> 00:12:02.169 Working backwards, the police then found out she had just 171 00:12:02.250 --> 00:12:06.529 arrived that day from Pepin, Wisconsin. Police had to tell 172 00:12:06.570 --> 00:12:10.779 her family that She was brutally assaulted and murdered. So 173 00:12:10.799 --> 00:12:14.440 at this point, we didn't have any idea of who 174 00:12:14.559 --> 00:12:17.840 or why or what had happened. 175 00:12:19.070 --> 00:12:23.230 She'd only that day gone to St Paul on the 176 00:12:23.269 --> 00:12:27.529 Greyhound bus to start a new life after leaving Wisconsin. 177 00:12:28.350 --> 00:12:30.649 This was going to be a clean slate. This was 178 00:12:30.700 --> 00:12:33.220 the beginning of a new life. And sadly, it was 179 00:12:33.279 --> 00:12:33.519 the end. 180 00:12:35.830 --> 00:12:40.779 Tracking Kimberly's last movements, police discovered that after arriving at 181 00:12:40.860 --> 00:12:44.299 the bus station, Kimberly had gone to a nearby diner 182 00:12:44.639 --> 00:12:47.740

where she'd met a friendly local who seemed keen to 183 00:12:47.840 --> 00:12:49.399 welcome her to the city. 184 00:12:50.179 --> 00:12:55.259 Stefani was personable, got a conversation going with her and said, hey, 185 00:12:55.279 --> 00:12:57.409 you're from Wisconsin, let me show you some of the 186 00:12:57.529 --> 00:12:58.429 sights of St. 187 00:12:58.490 --> 00:12:58.889 Paul. 188 00:13:01.210 --> 00:13:03.330 So he came across as sort of an older man 189 00:13:03.370 --> 00:13:06.230 looking out for this young woman with hopes and dreams. 190 00:13:06.230 --> 00:13:10.600 15 minutes later, she was dead. 191 00:13:11.820 --> 00:13:16.779 Kimberly Compton was stabbed 61 times in the upper body, mostly, 192 00:13:16.940 --> 00:13:20.539 and that in a very violent assault. 193 00:13:20.139 --> 00:13:21.080 With an ice pick. 194 00:13:22.700 --> 00:13:26.519 Later on, the medical examiner determined not only was she stabbed, 195 00:13:26.559 --> 00:13:30.870 but she was also choked to death with some shoelaces. 196 00:13:33.210 --> 00:13:38.009 This method of killing, this ferocity, it isn't about losing control. 197 00:13:38.049 --> 00:13:39.730 This is about gaining control. 198 00:13:40.149 --> 00:13:42.879 This killer is somebody who wants to not just kill, 199 00:13:42.889 --> 00:13:45.080 but absolutely obliterate his victim. 200 00:13:47.179 --> 00:13:51.740 Two days after Kimberly was murdered, police received another call 201 00:13:51.840 --> 00:13:57.019 from the high-pitched caller. It wasn't recorded, but investigators were 202 00:13:57.090 --> 00:14:00.730 hopeful it would provide more clues that could lead them 203 00:14:00.950 --> 00:14:01.529 to the killer. 204 00:14:02.460 --> 00:14:05.159 He stayed on the phone a little bit longer, and 205 00:14:05.179 --> 00:14:09.080 the police traced his phone call to a phone booth 206 00:14:09.559 --> 00:14:12.700 at the bus depot, where she had just gotten off. 207 00:14:12.919 --> 00:14:15.299 And police followed up and went to the bus depot, 208 00:14:15.899 --> 00:14:18.590 tried to take fingerprints, but there were so many people 209 00:14:18.610 --> 00:14:20.909 that had used the phone in that area that it 210 00:14:21.450 --> 00:14:23.470 would not have any positive results. 211 00:14:23.490 --> 00:14:24.450 On the 11th of June, the killer called again. 212 00:14:24.470 --> 00:14:24.990 Don't talk, just listen. 213 00:14:32.750 --> 00:14:34.129 He's quite frustrated. 214 00:14:34.149 --> 00:14:36.049 He's quite annoyed. 215 00:15:00.250 --> 00:15:03.250 He wants this murder to be recognized. He wants something 216 00:15:03.330 --> 00:15:03.990 to happen. 217 00:15:05.129 --> 00:15:07.789 He's telling the police, you know, hey, I'm in charge. 218 00:15:07.830 --> 00:15:09.840 I want you to do what I want you to do. 219 00:15:10.269 --> 00:15:13.899 Don't talk. Listen. Stop me. I can't help myself. Do 220 00:15:13.960 --> 00:15:16.940 your job, you know. Basically saying, catch me. 221 00:15:18.440 --> 00:15:21.759 Police were quick to make the connection between the recent 222 00:15:21.759 --> 00:15:25.919 911 calls and the one they received five months previously 223 00:15:26.320 --> 00:15:28.750 in the unsolved Karen Potak case. 224 00:15:30.019 --> 00:15:33.440 One of the people, I believe, in the 911 center said, 225 00:15:33.720 --> 00:15:36.480 that sounds like an individual about a year ago that 226 00:15:36.539 --> 00:15:40.519 called that same squeaky high weeping type of voice. 227 00:15:40.539 --> 00:15:42.990 I'm sorry, I killed a girl. 228 00:15:43.000 --> 00:15:47.409 Two young women found a few miles apart, brutally attacked, 229 00:15:47.929 --> 00:15:50.289 and that phone call, police felt they had a serial 230 00:15:50.309 --> 00:15:54.210 killer on the loose and alerted the media that the 231 00:15:54.389 --> 00:15:55.690 connection they believe existed. 232 00:15:56.789 --> 00:15:59.330 In an attempt to put a name to the voice, 233 00:15:59.730 --> 00:16:02.049 they released the 911 calls. 234 00:16:02.990 --> 00:16:05.110 We put the phone call on the air, and we 235 00:16:05.149 --> 00:16:07.669 were sure people would recognize the voice. 236 00:16:12.840 --> 00:16:16.340 The media soon dubbed him the weepy voice killer. 237 00:16:16.879 --> 00:16:20.600 We're hoping that somebody will recognize the voice, whether it 238 00:16:20.639 --> 00:16:23.200 be a friend or a relative or a neighbor or 239 00:16:23.259 --> 00:16:24.539 someone you work with or drink with. 240 00:16:26.070 --> 00:16:28.629 You would think that somebody would recognize that. Anybody who'd 241 00:16:28.669 --> 00:16:31.399 had an argument with him or heard him stress would 242 00:16:31.440 --> 00:16:34.399 recognize him from the voice. It was so distinct. 243 00:16:35.720 --> 00:16:39.779 With no immediate leads, detectives tried to find other links 244 00:16:39.840 --> 00:16:43.279 to the victims in the hopes of identifying the predator. 245 00:16:44.000 --> 00:16:48.179 They noted that both victims had been wearing red. FBI 246 00:16:48.259 --> 00:16:52.429 profilers theorized that the color could be a trigger. A 247 00:16:52.490 --> 00:16:54.470 warning was issued to the public. 248 00:16:55.509 --> 00:16:57.990 He's got a whole town, a whole city in fear. 249 00:16:58.529 --> 00:17:01.289 Everybody is going to be watching their backs and making 250 00:17:01.350 --> 00:17:04.769 sure that they don't wear anything red, especially women. Now, 251 00:17:04.809 --> 00:17:07.529 Stefani is someone who enjoys controlling women, and when he 252 00:17:07.609 --> 00:17:10.809 says something like this, he's controlling not just one, but 253 00:17:10.849 --> 00:17:12.490 potentially thousands of women. 254 00:17:13.509 --> 00:17:16.799 These victims of his were wearing red, and he had 255 00:17:16.910 --> 00:17:22.119 dated a girl from Syria for about four years, and 256 00:17:22.220 --> 00:17:24.359 the only picture I ever saw of her

that he 257 00:17:24.440 --> 00:17:26.079 had She was wearing red. 258 00:17:28.259 --> 00:17:30.279 This was a big story in the Twin Cities. A 259 00:17:30.359 --> 00:17:33.940 lot of coverage of the serial killer, we believe, was 260 00:17:34.019 --> 00:17:36.019 on the loose, even though there'd only been one killing 261 00:17:36.039 --> 00:17:38.180 at that point. And then things got quiet. 262 00:17:42.009 --> 00:17:45.609 For months, there was no word from the weepy voice killer. 263 00:17:46.250 --> 00:17:51.519 Residents hoped they'd seen the last of his horrific acts. Then, 264 00:17:51.839 --> 00:17:56.259 in late August 1981, police in St. Paul received an 265 00:17:56.339 --> 00:18:01.480 emergency call. An individual named Alan Lopez was holding his 266 00:18:01.559 --> 00:18:02.680 family hostage. 267 00:18:02.700 --> 00:18:06.349 A negotiator is sent, a SWAT team is sent. He 268 00:18:06.410 --> 00:18:09.930 insists that he's going to kill them. 269 00:18:10.950 --> 00:18:13.130 The police were trying to get him to come out, 270 00:18:14.130 --> 00:18:17.529 and Alan Lopez, during that conversation with the police, said 271 00:18:17.549 --> 00:18:20.490 he is the person that killed Kimberly Compton. 272 00:18:23.109 --> 00:18:25.970 I covered that standoff, and it was bizarre enough on 273 00:18:26.029 --> 00:18:28.750 its own, and then we hear that he's confessing to 274 00:18:28.769 --> 00:18:30.430 being Kimberly Compton's killer. 275 00:18:32.069 --> 00:18:36.190 Eventually, the standoff is resolved. The SWAT team enter the 276 00:18:36.230 --> 00:18:40.410 house to discover that Alan Lopez has indeed killed his father, mother, 277 00:18:40.450 --> 00:18:43.529 and sister. 278 00:18:43.549 --> 00:18:47.599 26-year-old Lopez was arrested for the murders of his relatives, 279 00:18:48.140 --> 00:18:53.789 and investigators worked on connecting him to Kimberly Compton's murder. However, 280 00:18:54.089 --> 00:18:59.079 a voice comparison between Lopez and the weepy-voiced 911 calls 281 00:18:59.480 --> 00:19:07.000 found no similarities. The questions remained unanswered, and in February 1982, 282 00:19:07.000 --> 00:19:13.380 Lopez committed suicide in jail. In August, another woman's body 283 00:19:13.440 --> 00:19:16.539 was found across the river in Minneapolis. 284 00:19:17.480 --> 00:19:20.339 It was a very brutal scene, and police were called, 285 00:19:20.440 --> 00:19:24.799 and ambulance called, and She was found deceased by numerous 286 00:19:24.819 --> 00:19:25.460 stab wounds. 287 00:19:26.640 --> 00:19:30.900 Investigators trying to piece together what had happened struggled to 288 00:19:31.009 --> 00:19:35.869 identify the woman. Two days later, a 911 call came 289 00:19:35.970 --> 00:19:40.309 in with a familiar-sounding voice. Fire emergency. 290 00:19:40.450 --> 00:19:42.329 Please don't talk to me, listen. 291 00:19:42.529 --> 00:19:45.430 I'm sorry, I killed that girl. 292 00:19:45.569 --> 00:19:47.369 I stabbed her 40 times. 293 00:19:47.450 --> 00:19:49.910 Kimberly Compton was the first one over. 294 00:19:53.480 --> 00:19:55.640 So now we knew it couldn't have been Alan Lopez 295 00:19:56.099 --> 00:20:00.059 because now we have another murder with the same weepy 296 00:20:00.119 --> 00:20:02.519 voice calling the police department. 297 00:20:04.059 --> 00:20:08.430 It was a challenge to the police department. showing that, here, 298 00:20:08.509 --> 00:20:10.910 I've done this, now see if you can catch me. 299 00:20:12.049 --> 00:20:15.109 There's quite a lot that's happening in this call. Firstly, 300 00:20:15.250 --> 00:20:17.970 he's asserting that status and authority, you've got to listen 301 00:20:18.009 --> 00:20:21.849 to me. Then he's almost boasting about the number of 302 00:20:21.910 --> 00:20:24.859 times that he's stabbed, drawing our attention to how violent 303 00:20:24.890 --> 00:20:28.430 he is. And then he's linking those two killings. 304 00:20:28.450 --> 00:20:31.519 I'm sorry what I did to Compton. 305 00:20:31.700 --> 00:20:35.700 I couldn't help it. Don't know why I had. 306 00:20:36.000 --> 00:20:42.089 To stab her. He'd gone quiet for close to a year, 307 00:20:42.369 --> 00:20:44.569 and suddenly we have this murder of a young woman 308 00:20:44.990 --> 00:20:45.690 in Minneapolis. 309 00:20:47.589 --> 00:20:50.230 The Minneapolis Police Department got a hold of the St. 310 00:20:50.279 --> 00:20:54.579 Paul Police Department, and they started working together on trying 311 00:20:54.599 --> 00:20:56.380 to identify who this caller was. 312 00:20:58.839 --> 00:21:05.369 Investigators were also working hard to identify the victims. A 313 00:21:05.470 --> 00:21:08.710 vital tip came when a postal worker handed in a 314 00:21:08.750 --> 00:21:12.950 woman's purse belonging to a local nurse, Barbara Simons. 315 00:21:14.490 --> 00:21:17.940 Her purse was in a mailbox, and they tracked down 316 00:21:18.000 --> 00:21:21.559 who Barbara Simons was. They knew she was killed near 317 00:21:21.599 --> 00:21:24.000 the Mississippi River, and they found out that she had 318 00:21:24.039 --> 00:21:27.400 been at a bar, the Hexacon Bar, the night before 319 00:21:27.420 --> 00:21:28.579 her body was found. 320 00:21:30.509 --> 00:21:35.789 Witnesses from the bar remembered seeing 40-year-old Barbara with a man. 321 00:21:36.329 --> 00:21:39.579 Stefani came up and asked her for a cigarette, and 322 00:21:39.730 --> 00:21:42.900 he danced with her, and very open that he was 323 00:21:42.980 --> 00:21:44.970 with her, had made contact with her. 324 00:21:46.059 --> 00:21:47.980 This would appear to be quite a bold move on 325 00:21:48.059 --> 00:21:48.619 his part. 326 00:21:48.660 --> 00:21:51.180 So he's going out and he's hunting for victims out 327 00:21:51.240 --> 00:21:53.359 there in public where other people. 328 00:21:53.119 --> 00:21:53.859 Can see him. 329 00:21:54.319 --> 00:21:56.799 But by this stage, he's gotten

away with murder, and 330 00:21:56.819 --> 00:21:58.480 I think he's becoming a lot bolder. 331 00:21:59.390 --> 00:22:01.819 Seems like they hit it off, according to some people 332 00:22:01.839 --> 00:22:03.799 at the bar, and he offered to give her a 333 00:22:03.839 --> 00:22:04.359 ride home. 334 00:22:06.460 --> 00:22:10.160 In fact, if I recall, she said to the waitress 335 00:22:10.180 --> 00:22:12.740 there at the bar, saying, boy, I hope he's a 336 00:22:12.809 --> 00:22:15.309 nice guy because he's going to give me a ride home. 337 00:22:17.849 --> 00:22:21.470 And obviously he wasn't, and she was killed that night. 338 00:22:23.619 --> 00:22:27.180 He took her down to an area, assaulted her, stabbed 339 00:22:27.200 --> 00:22:30.130 her numerous times and left her to be found too. 340 00:22:31.609 --> 00:22:33.950 And I believe this time that they thought that a 341 00:22:34.430 --> 00:22:39.150 Phillips screwdriver, similar to an ice pick, was used in 342 00:22:39.190 --> 00:22:39.950 those assaults. 343 00:22:42.130 --> 00:22:46.650 Bar staff gave detailed descriptions of the man's appearance and 344 00:22:46.710 --> 00:22:51.400 detectives began trawling through a database of violent offenders in 345 00:22:51.440 --> 00:22:51.900 the area. 346 00:22:52.599 --> 00:22:56.220 Based on the description of what the bartender and the 347 00:22:56.259 --> 00:22:59.579 waitress said, they narrowed it down to about eight or nine, 348 00:23:00.079 --> 00:23:03.759 and the bartender picked out Paul Stefani as being the 349 00:23:03.799 --> 00:23:06.619 person that was talking to Barbara Simons that night. 350 00:23:10.039 --> 00:23:12.759 Police began to focus on him, trying to figure out 351 00:23:12.819 --> 00:23:15.609 where he lived, try to put the pieces together on 352 00:23:15.640 --> 00:23:19.740 Paul Stefani. Investigators on both sides of the river at 353 00:23:19.779 --> 00:23:21.720 this point are working on the case. They knew they 354 00:23:21.759 --> 00:23:23.500 had a very dangerous person out there. 355 00:23:24.599 --> 00:23:29.509 Investigators learned all they could about Stefani's background, making a 356 00:23:29.650 --> 00:23:32.130 crucial link from another of the attacks. 357 00:23:33.230 --> 00:23:35.869 Among the things they figured out about Paul Stefani is 358 00:23:35.910 --> 00:23:38.890 that he had worked in Malmberg manufacturing. which is the 359 00:23:38.930 --> 00:23:42.740 place where Karen Potak, the first victim, had been attacked. 360 00:23:43.200 --> 00:23:45.579 And I think that was significant to them because not 361 00:23:45.640 --> 00:23:47.779 only had he given the street where she was found, 362 00:23:47.839 --> 00:23:50.119 he named a business, and that was unusual. 363 00:23:51.380 --> 00:23:56.329 Police were now confident that Stefani was the weepy-voiced killer. 364 00:23:57.269 --> 00:23:59.869 They knew who they believed they were looking for at 365 00:23:59.910 --> 00:24:02.809 that point,

and the clock was ticking. Is he going 366 00:24:02.829 --> 00:24:04.819 to do it again? Is he going to call in 367 00:24:04.859 --> 00:24:08.809 with something? And so investigators are working, comparing notes on 368 00:24:08.849 --> 00:24:11.210 both sides of the river. The media's, we're in a 369 00:24:11.230 --> 00:24:13.269 kind of a frenzy to keep it out there because 370 00:24:13.309 --> 00:24:14.670 we didn't want one more victim. 371 00:24:16.210 --> 00:24:22.089 To everyone's horror, there would be another. Despite now being 372 00:24:22.170 --> 00:24:25.960 under police surveillance, he slipped through the net and on 373 00:24:25.980 --> 00:24:30.759 the 21st of August, 1982, went hunting for his next victim. 374 00:24:31.619 --> 00:24:34.420 That night, Stefani met Denise Williams. 375 00:24:36.119 --> 00:24:39.680 Denise has been engaged in sex work for quite some years, 376 00:24:39.720 --> 00:24:42.109 so she's out and about on the streets quite frequently. 377 00:24:42.670 --> 00:24:45.049 And he offers her money to engage in a sex 378 00:24:45.150 --> 00:24:48.630 act with him. So she accepts, she gets in his car, 379 00:24:48.890 --> 00:24:51.150 they drive off, they exchange business. 380 00:24:53.430 --> 00:24:55.559 And he says that he's going to take her back 381 00:24:55.599 --> 00:24:58.440 to Minneapolis. He found her in Minneapolis, he's taking her back. 382 00:24:59.700 --> 00:25:02.299 She got suspicious because he didn't seem to be going 383 00:25:02.339 --> 00:25:05.740 back to where he was supposed to take her. Suddenly 384 00:25:05.819 --> 00:25:10.059 he pulls over his car and viciously attacks her. She 385 00:25:10.140 --> 00:25:14.259 fights back. She's street savvy. She fights back. She saw 386 00:25:14.299 --> 00:25:18.180 a pop bottle. She takes that bottle, smashes it across 387 00:25:18.220 --> 00:25:22.480 his face, and causes him to bleed. She manages to escape. 388 00:25:23.519 --> 00:25:26.180 And he started going after her and stabbing her again. 389 00:25:26.200 --> 00:25:29.480 A person heard her screaming, came over and helped her out. 390 00:25:30.210 --> 00:25:33.410 And Stefani turned on him and threatened him, and he 391 00:25:33.450 --> 00:25:36.950 got Williams away. Stefani took off and left the scene. 392 00:25:40.910 --> 00:25:43.049 Stefani is a killer who is used to being 100% 393 00:25:43.049 --> 00:25:47.559 in control when it comes to his crimes. But this time, 394 00:25:47.680 --> 00:25:50.339 he's really met his match in Denise. He's come up 395 00:25:50.400 --> 00:25:52.519 against a woman who is not going to put up 396 00:25:52.539 --> 00:25:54.460 with this. She is not going to just let this 397 00:25:54.539 --> 00:25:58.599 guy take her life. She is quite tough. She's quite streetwise, 398 00:25:58.779 --> 00:26:02.140 and I imagine she's been in quite a few altercations 399 00:26:02.180 --> 00:26:06.789 with clients before. So this really rattles him. This woman 400 00:26:06.829 --> 00:26:10.309 has won and he is lost in this particular situation. 401 00:26:10.390 --> 00:26:12.390 So I think it really does knock him off balance. 402 00:26:13.730 --> 00:26:15.430 He had to think in the back of his mind, 403 00:26:15.470 --> 00:26:18.339 if he was rational at that time, that police are 404 00:26:18.630 --> 00:26:21.759 going to be interviewing him. How did this assault happen? 405 00:26:21.980 --> 00:26:22.940 Where did it happen? 406 00:26:23.299 --> 00:26:23.940 Who did it? 407 00:26:24.619 --> 00:26:27.720 And that it was unravelling very fast for him after 408 00:26:27.779 --> 00:26:30.980 Denise Williams died. started pounding him with that bottle. 409 00:26:32.559 --> 00:26:36.900 Having failed in his attack, the predator returned home to 410 00:26:36.960 --> 00:26:38.140 assess his injuries. 411 00:26:39.240 --> 00:26:41.700 He goes home to St. Paul, and then he made 412 00:26:41.740 --> 00:26:45.849 another phone call. This time, he wasn't calling to get 413 00:26:45.910 --> 00:26:48.490 help for a victim. He was calling for help for himself. 414 00:26:49.630 --> 00:26:54.250 He actually calls 911 and requests an ambulance, and his 415 00:26:54.309 --> 00:26:58.299 voice wasn't quite as high and quite as weepy or 416 00:26:58.339 --> 00:27:01.339 anything else. He said he was hurt and he needed 417 00:27:01.420 --> 00:27:02.079 an ambulance. 418 00:27:03.140 --> 00:27:06.710 The call raised alarm bells for the person who received it. 419 00:27:08.160 --> 00:27:11.150 Hey, this sounds like the guy that's been on television 420 00:27:11.750 --> 00:27:14.470 that I've heard, the weepy voice killer. It sounds like 421 00:27:14.529 --> 00:27:19.049 his voice is very similar. So they got the police involved. 422 00:27:20.589 --> 00:27:23.819 The St. Paul Police Department, who had Stefani under surveillance, 423 00:27:23.859 --> 00:27:25.690 saw the police department show up. 424 00:27:27.190 --> 00:27:31.720 Next thing he knows is an ambulance shows up at 425 00:27:31.740 --> 00:27:32.940 Stefani's residence. 426 00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:37.839 And the murder-killing spree was over. They arrested Paul Stefani, 427 00:27:38.200 --> 00:27:39.299 and it ended right there. 428 00:27:40.220 --> 00:27:44.180 Denise Williams had become the second victim to have survived 429 00:27:44.220 --> 00:27:46.809 the brutal attack of a serial killer. 430 00:27:47.670 --> 00:27:50.569 She had been the victim of an assault and went 431 00:27:50.589 --> 00:27:56.920 to the hospital, and she described her and the police 432 00:27:56.960 --> 00:28:01.680 then showed her some mugshots of different people, and she 433 00:28:01.740 --> 00:28:03.240 picked out Paul Stefani. 434 00:28:05.339 --> 00:28:07.420 She became, in many ways, the hero of all this. 435 00:28:07.849 --> 00:28:11.730 What she did and her response was life-saving for others, 436 00:28:11.789 --> 00:28:12.589 herself and others. 437 00:28:14.250 --> 00:28:18.630

Stefani was charged with the assault of 19-year-old Denise Williams 438 00:28:19.230 --> 00:28:26.190 and with the murder of 40-year-old Barbara Simons. But the 439 00:28:26.230 --> 00:28:28.970 weepy killer had lost his voice. 440 00:28:30.259 --> 00:28:32.519 Although he said in his phone calls to police, somebody 441 00:28:32.559 --> 00:28:35.279 needs to stop me, he certainly didn't give them enough 442 00:28:35.319 --> 00:28:39.200 information to actually make that happen. He wanted to continue, 443 00:28:39.259 --> 00:28:41.849 but he wanted people to think that he wasn't in 444 00:28:41.900 --> 00:28:44.369 control of what he was doing. He wanted people to 445 00:28:44.430 --> 00:28:46.750 have sympathy for him, to feel sorry for him. 446 00:28:49.170 --> 00:28:52.190 Paul Stefani went from the guy calling in, confessing, to 447 00:28:52.230 --> 00:28:54.630 when the police had him, he's not cooperating at all. 448 00:28:55.019 --> 00:28:57.079 But as they're pressing him, they show him, I believe, 449 00:28:57.119 --> 00:28:59.799 some crime scene photos. And that seemed to be the 450 00:28:59.839 --> 00:29:00.420 trigger point. 451 00:29:02.839 --> 00:29:05.829 When the police would open up their file, there were 452 00:29:05.880 --> 00:29:11.289 pictures of Karen Potak and Kimberly Compton. His voice elevated 453 00:29:11.390 --> 00:29:12.750 to a higher pitch. 454 00:29:15.710 --> 00:29:20.089 He starts getting hysterical in his voice. And they felt 455 00:29:20.130 --> 00:29:22.450 at that point, this is it. How he sounded in 456 00:29:22.490 --> 00:29:26.380 that room paralleled the phone calls they'd been getting. So 457 00:29:26.400 --> 00:29:29.410 at least from their experience in the room, they felt 458 00:29:29.809 --> 00:29:31.670 no question this was their guy. 459 00:29:32.910 --> 00:29:35.930 And so when we looked at everything that we had 460 00:29:36.029 --> 00:29:41.410 between Karen Potok and Kimberly Compton and Denise Williams and 461 00:29:41.519 --> 00:29:47.420 Barbara Simons, the stronger cases with the actual identification were 462 00:29:47.460 --> 00:29:52.079 the Minneapolis cases, Barbara Simons and Denise Williams. So we 463 00:29:52.119 --> 00:29:55.460 went ahead with the prosecution of those two cases first. 464 00:29:58.440 --> 00:30:02.619 In 1984 and 1985, when he faced trials for the 465 00:30:02.700 --> 00:30:07.009 attempted murder of Denise Williams and the murder of Barbara Simons, 466 00:30:07.470 --> 00:30:09.670 Stefani pled not guilty. 467 00:30:10.690 --> 00:30:15.329 The Denise Williams evidence was her ID describing how the 468 00:30:15.410 --> 00:30:19.369 assault took place. The Good Samaritan that came up could 469 00:30:19.430 --> 00:30:24.359 identify Stefani as attacking her and then threatening him with 470 00:30:24.460 --> 00:30:25.119 a screwdriver. 471 00:30:27.180 --> 00:30:31.099 The violence displayed in his attack was evident in his 472 00:30:31.140 --> 00:30:32.559 demeanor in court. 473 00:30:34.000 --> 00:30:36.210 There seemed to be a lot of rage that was contained, 474 00:30:36.289 --> 00:30:38.470 and physically the thing that stood out the most was 475 00:30:38.490 --> 00:30:41.529 just the glare, looking around, the glare that he had 476 00:30:41.569 --> 00:30:44.329 in that courtroom. There's sort of a disdain for everyone 477 00:30:44.410 --> 00:30:45.089 in the courtroom. 478 00:30:47.190 --> 00:30:49.559 When we're looking at his behavior in court, when he's 479 00:30:49.599 --> 00:30:54.420 having these outbursts, when he's quite antagonistic and he's quite confrontational, 480 00:30:54.700 --> 00:30:57.309 this is the real him. And I think up until 481 00:30:57.349 --> 00:31:00.410 this point in time, it's only his victims who've seen this. 482 00:31:01.990 --> 00:31:06.069 The weepy voice killer had become infamous for the 911 483 00:31:06.069 --> 00:31:10.740 calls in which he confessed to his crimes. Prosecutors used 484 00:31:10.779 --> 00:31:12.740 these recordings in the trial. 485 00:31:13.759 --> 00:31:15.859 During the trial, there were a number of witnesses and 486 00:31:16.180 --> 00:31:19.319 evidence that was presented, but by far the most compelling 487 00:31:19.380 --> 00:31:23.079 evidence was stuff he gave to them, his phone calls. He, 488 00:31:23.119 --> 00:31:26.349 in essence, put on a platter Here I am. I'm 489 00:31:26.369 --> 00:31:30.410 the guy that called. And their efforts to challenge it 490 00:31:30.430 --> 00:31:32.250 and whether it was really Paul Stefani or not. 491 00:31:32.269 --> 00:31:34.609 Yes, please, this is an emergency. 492 00:31:34.650 --> 00:31:35.609 Please have a call. 493 00:31:35.650 --> 00:31:38.819 You knew that it was the same person. I've listened 494 00:31:38.839 --> 00:31:42.259 to those calls so many times over the years. So 495 00:31:42.299 --> 00:31:45.160 you know that it's the same person making these phone calls. 496 00:31:46.559 --> 00:31:49.960 Some key people who testified and said they recognized the voice, 497 00:31:50.079 --> 00:31:53.819 they included his ex-wife, his sister, so people who knew him. 498 00:31:55.009 --> 00:31:57.049 was able to describe that's the same guy. 499 00:31:58.369 --> 00:32:02.339 To have two women up there incriminating him really does 500 00:32:02.440 --> 00:32:05.140 turn on its head all of those values he's got 501 00:32:05.240 --> 00:32:07.200 about the role of men and the role of women. 502 00:32:07.569 --> 00:32:10.269 Women are supposed to be passive, they're supposed to be subservient, 503 00:32:10.309 --> 00:32:13.490 they're supposed to be compliant, and here they are convicting him. 504 00:32:15.119 --> 00:32:20.930 Despite the seemingly overwhelming evidence connecting Stefani to the 911 calls, 505 00:32:21.349 --> 00:32:25.410 they were deemed inadmissible for identifying the attacker in the 506 00:32:25.529 --> 00:32:28.230 earlier Weepy Voice cases in St. Paul. 507 00:32:29.549 -->

00:32:32.750 During the course of that trial, the judge threw out 508 00:32:33.549 --> 00:32:36.829 the voice identification of the Weepy Voice killer. He said 509 00:32:36.869 --> 00:32:42.410 it wasn't sufficient to tie him to Karen Potak or 510 00:32:42.509 --> 00:32:49.079 Kimberly Compton. The only thing we had connecting Stefani was 511 00:32:49.279 --> 00:32:52.539 his voice on those calls, and we didn't think we 512 00:32:52.599 --> 00:32:56.779 had enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that 513 00:32:56.819 --> 00:32:57.880 we could prove it was him. 514 00:32:59.720 --> 00:33:05.299 Consequently, Paul Stefani was never tried for those crimes. He 515 00:33:05.339 --> 00:33:09.079 was found guilty of the second-degree murder of Barbara Simons 516 00:33:09.700 --> 00:33:13.849 and the attempted murder of Denise Williams. In total, he 517 00:33:13.880 --> 00:33:16.750 was sentenced to 58 years in prison. 518 00:33:18.130 --> 00:33:21.269 Essentially a life sentence. He wasn't going to be getting out. 519 00:33:21.670 --> 00:33:23.829 We didn't want to go through another trial if we 520 00:33:23.849 --> 00:33:27.329 didn't have to, unless we could absolutely prove it. 521 00:33:28.650 --> 00:33:32.599 In a shocking twist, 12 years into his sentence, the 522 00:33:32.660 --> 00:33:38.200 weepy-voiced killer himself would give investigators all the confirmation they needed. 523 00:33:38.779 --> 00:33:42.200 Stefani had one final confession to make. 524 00:33:44.289 --> 00:33:47.410 Paul Stefani found out that he had terminal cancer and 525 00:33:47.450 --> 00:33:50.690 he wasn't going to live more than a month to 526 00:33:50.690 --> 00:33:53.349 12 months. That was what the doctors were giving him 527 00:33:54.089 --> 00:33:57.819 because of skin cancer. So he asked the guards at 528 00:33:57.859 --> 00:34:00.160 the prison Oak Park Heights to get a hold of 529 00:34:00.200 --> 00:34:02.740 the St. Paul police because he wanted to talk to 530 00:34:02.799 --> 00:34:05.099 them about what he had done. 531 00:34:06.440 --> 00:34:08.420 And so the investigator went in and met with him. 532 00:34:08.460 --> 00:34:11.500 He'd already been convicted in Barbara Simon's murder as well 533 00:34:11.559 --> 00:34:12.840 as Denise Williams' assault. 534 00:34:14.340 --> 00:34:19.460 Stefani admitted that he had assaulted Karen Potok and he 535 00:34:19.519 --> 00:34:25.550 admitted killing Kimberly Compton. So all four, he admitted that 536 00:34:25.820 --> 00:34:28.550 he was responsible for their assaults or their deaths. 537 00:34:30.070 --> 00:34:34.289 This isn't that he's suddenly become remorseful, that he's suddenly 538 00:34:34.329 --> 00:34:37.630 grown a conscience overnight, that he knows he's going to 539 00:34:37.670 --> 00:34:39.809 meet his maker and he needs to offload. 540 00:34:39.469 --> 00:34:40.110 All of this stuff. 541 00:34:40.829 --> 00:34:43.570 What he's trying to do is control what he leaves behind. 542 00:34:43.969 --> 00:34:46.360 He doesn't want to leave this world not having the 543 00:34:46.460 --> 00:34:48.780 credit for all of the murders that he's committed. 544 00:34:50.119 --> 00:34:53.860 Stefani had confirmed that he was responsible for all of 545 00:34:53.929 --> 00:34:57.630 the crimes he had been suspected of, but his next 546 00:34:57.710 --> 00:35:00.230 admittance would stun investigators. 547 00:35:01.530 --> 00:35:04.030 And then out of the blue, he mentioned that he 548 00:35:04.130 --> 00:35:07.750 also had drowned this woman. He couldn't remember her name, 549 00:35:07.789 --> 00:35:10.079 but drowned a woman in Lauderdale, which is a suburb 550 00:35:10.099 --> 00:35:10.760 of St. Paul. 551 00:35:12.460 --> 00:35:17.000 He confessed to a murder that nobody had any indication 552 00:35:17.039 --> 00:35:20.940 that he'd ever done. In fact, in his confession, it 553 00:35:20.980 --> 00:35:24.829 took them for a while to identify who that victim was. 554 00:35:26.420 --> 00:35:29.079 The police went back to say, is there any unsolved 555 00:35:29.179 --> 00:35:33.219 cases where someone was drowned and you never found a suspect? 556 00:35:33.960 --> 00:35:40.090 And sure enough, they found Kathleen Greening in 1982. 557 00:35:40.989 --> 00:35:45.050 She was a schoolteacher in the St. Paul area, and 558 00:35:45.170 --> 00:35:48.550 apparently she and Paul Stefani had gone out on a date, 559 00:35:49.550 --> 00:35:53.929 and she was drowned. And for many years, police suspected 560 00:35:53.989 --> 00:35:54.820 her husband. 561 00:35:58.659 --> 00:36:01.420 When the police went back to look at the evidence, 562 00:36:01.760 --> 00:36:04.300 he gave them evidence about her house that only the 563 00:36:04.340 --> 00:36:07.280 killer would know the layout of the house, how he 564 00:36:07.320 --> 00:36:07.650 did it. 565 00:36:10.179 --> 00:36:12.840 He had strangled her, drowned her in a tub in 566 00:36:12.889 --> 00:36:13.489 her own home. 567 00:36:15.340 --> 00:36:21.369 This time, Stefani hadn't phoned 911. And in another stunning revelation, 568 00:36:21.710 --> 00:36:24.849 he claimed that wasn't the only thing that was different 569 00:36:24.909 --> 00:36:29.239 in this case. he'd met with Kathleen on several occasions. 570 00:36:30.179 --> 00:36:32.929 He described the murder. You know, they're going up to 571 00:36:32.969 --> 00:36:37.489 a bathtub. Are they going to have consensual sex? This 572 00:36:37.570 --> 00:36:40.590 is completely different. He had feelings for this person. 573 00:36:41.369 --> 00:36:43.949 He's a master of information control. 574 00:36:44.050 --> 00:36:46.820 He wants to be very careful about the story that's 575 00:36:46.900 --> 00:36:50.380 emerging around his murders. The reason that Stefani didn't call 576 00:36:50.559 --> 00:36:53.719 the police after killing Kathleen was that he didn't want 577 00:36:53.760 --> 00:36:57.429 them to know about it. There's something he feels ashamed of,

578 00:36:57.469 --> 00:37:00.710 something he feels embarrassed about, something that doesn't quite fit 579 00:37:00.769 --> 00:37:02.570 with the persona that he's trying to create. 580 00:37:03.789 --> 00:37:08.210 Reporter Caroline Lowe was intrigued by this killer who'd suddenly 581 00:37:08.289 --> 00:37:09.150 confessed all. 582 00:37:10.010 --> 00:37:12.550 I went to prison to meet with him to see 583 00:37:12.570 --> 00:37:15.449 what I could learn because most killers, most criminals I've 584 00:37:15.469 --> 00:37:17.590 covered never admit they've done anything. I thought, is there 585 00:37:17.630 --> 00:37:20.349 anything we can learn from him? And I remember sitting 586 00:37:20.369 --> 00:37:23.469 there in prison as he's describing Kathy Greening, he said, 587 00:37:23.510 --> 00:37:26.070 we had a really good evening. We went out, we 588 00:37:26.110 --> 00:37:29.000 went home, and then he takes his hands up to 589 00:37:29.039 --> 00:37:30.800 his throat and he said, I just suddenly felt like 590 00:37:31.559 --> 00:37:33.920 doing this to her. And he's showing me with his hands. 591 00:37:34.340 --> 00:37:38.099 It was chilling to see him just calmly describe what 592 00:37:38.119 --> 00:37:42.980 he did. Talking like, what did you do for your 593 00:37:43.000 --> 00:37:46.849 vacation last summer? But he's talking about killing people, attacking people. 594 00:37:48.570 --> 00:37:53.449 Investigators reexamining the evidence in Kathleen's case were able to 595 00:37:53.530 --> 00:37:55.710 prove that she had known her killer. 596 00:37:56.650 --> 00:38:01.750 They found his telephone number in her address book that 597 00:38:01.809 --> 00:38:04.969 the authorities had overlooked in their original investigation. 598 00:38:05.989 --> 00:38:08.489 We didn't have these smartphones and everything in those days 599 00:38:08.530 --> 00:38:10.590 that you could put somebody's name and telephone number in. 600 00:38:11.269 --> 00:38:14.070 She had it in there, Paul S., and they knew 601 00:38:14.570 --> 00:38:17.429 from the arrest of him that that was his telephone number. 602 00:38:18.800 --> 00:38:21.940 There was one aspect of the confession that bore a 603 00:38:22.000 --> 00:38:25.139 striking resemblance to the Barbara Simons case. 604 00:38:26.300 --> 00:38:29.239 He mentioned that he'd put her purse in a mailbox, 605 00:38:29.820 --> 00:38:31.940 and that was one of those details that only the 606 00:38:31.980 --> 00:38:34.099 killer knew. In one of the other cases, a purse 607 00:38:34.119 --> 00:38:36.489 had been put in a mailbox, but that was so significant. 608 00:38:36.869 --> 00:38:39.190 So he gave them things that there was no doubt 609 00:38:40.329 --> 00:38:42.210 by the time they were done that Paul was in 610 00:38:42.250 --> 00:38:43.030 fact her killer. 611 00:38:45.389 --> 00:38:49.530 There was a big revelation for the media and county 612 00:38:49.590 --> 00:38:52.909 attorney's office because two or three different offices had reviewed 613 00:38:52.949 --> 00:38:56.789 that case. And part of the problem was the medical 614 00:38:56.849 --> 00:39:01.710 examiner couldn't determine if it was accidental or a homicide. 615 00:39:02.329 --> 00:39:05.050 So the cause of death was undetermined. 616 00:39:06.860 --> 00:39:10.699 It had taken 15 years, but finally her loved ones 617 00:39:10.780 --> 00:39:14.960 knew the truth about who was responsible for Kathleen's death. 618 00:39:16.070 --> 00:39:20.260 the depraved killer had confessed to murdering three women and 619 00:39:20.300 --> 00:39:23.679 to the attacks on Karen Potak and Denise Williams. 620 00:39:24.820 --> 00:39:28.630 The way he abused those women, stabbing a person 61 times, 621 00:39:29.869 --> 00:39:32.909 beating a woman with a tire iron until she's unconscious, 622 00:39:32.949 --> 00:39:36.760 leaving her for dead, that's a violent, evil person. 623 00:39:38.380 --> 00:39:40.960 When you look at that and the brutality and the anger, 624 00:39:41.239 --> 00:39:45.719 you just wonder why somebody wasn't alerted to the rage 625 00:39:45.780 --> 00:39:48.619 in this person and the evil of this individual a 626 00:39:48.659 --> 00:39:49.300 long time ago. 627 00:39:50.980 --> 00:39:56.190 But Paul Stefani hadn't finished his final chapter. Before he died, 628 00:39:56.530 --> 00:39:58.010 he contacted Caroline. 629 00:39:58.730 --> 00:40:01.130 He wrote me a letter, actually, I got the next week, 630 00:40:01.570 --> 00:40:05.829 and he asked me if I would reach out to 631 00:40:05.849 --> 00:40:08.840 the victim's families. This is the letter, which I still have. 632 00:40:09.679 --> 00:40:11.460 He asked me if I'd reach out to the victim's 633 00:40:11.519 --> 00:40:15.139 families because he's wanted me to tell them that he 634 00:40:15.199 --> 00:40:20.289 wanted to put flowers on their graves. I would not 635 00:40:20.329 --> 00:40:23.730 be a go-between between the serial killer and these families 636 00:40:24.369 --> 00:40:27.570 to help him maybe feel better as his life is 637 00:40:27.630 --> 00:40:28.190 winding down. 638 00:40:30.250 --> 00:40:34.949 I think that he wanted to make his slate clear 639 00:40:35.789 --> 00:40:39.750 in the eyes of law enforcement, in the eyes of God. 640 00:40:41.429 --> 00:40:45.170 As a devout Catholic, I am admitting to all my sins. 641 00:40:45.949 --> 00:40:50.690 Please forgive me. I'm telling the police everything I did, 642 00:40:50.909 --> 00:40:53.889 and that's why I believe that he did not commit 643 00:40:53.989 --> 00:40:56.090 any more murders than those he confessed to. 644 00:40:56.110 --> 00:41:05.159 53-year-old Paul Stefani died of cancer in June 1998. After 645 00:41:05.340 --> 00:41:09.139 all of his confessions, one question remained unanswered. 646 00:41:10.019 --> 00:41:15.730 Why? Why? A lot of us thought that maybe his 647 00:41:15.849 --> 00:41:22.230 religious upbringing and his family falling apart, he was taking 648 00:41:22.289 --> 00:41:26.719 it out on women. He was very hostile in the 649 00:41:26.760 --> 00:41:30.820 brutality of the attacks. You don't stab someone 61 times 650 00:41:30.860 --> 00:41:34.239 with an ice pick, you know, without having a lot 651 00:41:34.280 --> 00:41:35.280 of rage and anger. 652 00:41:42.159 --> 00:41:45.820 The Twin Cities will never forget the losses suffered by 653 00:41:45.880 --> 00:41:49.179 their communities at the hands of Paul Stefani. 654 00:41:49.760 --> 00:41:54.210 You mentioned the weepy voice caller, killer. Anyone in Minnesota 655 00:41:54.550 --> 00:41:57.150 remembers that. If they were around back then, they remember 656 00:41:57.170 --> 00:41:58.309 the weepy voice killer. 657 00:41:59.670 --> 00:42:02.429 Paul Stefani thought he could do whatever he wanted to 658 00:42:02.469 --> 00:42:07.250 do in his rage. and his being evil and that 659 00:42:07.309 --> 00:42:09.809 he could call up and tell the police that he's 660 00:42:09.869 --> 00:42:12.699 sorry and that he would be forgiven or go to 661 00:42:12.760 --> 00:42:16.219 church and he would be forgiven. But I think he 662 00:42:16.260 --> 00:42:19.860 was looking for absolution and he never got it. 663 00:42:21.099 --> 00:42:23.360 He's a small town boy, became one of the most 664 00:42:23.719 --> 00:42:26.130 notorious serial killers in Minnesota history. 665 00:42:27.800 --> 00:42:31.389 Paul Michael Stefani has become etched in the minds of 666 00:42:31.650 --> 00:42:35.369 all who knew him as the notorious weepy voice killer, 667 00:42:36.110 --> 00:42:40.289 whose rage-fuelled and vicious attacks took the lives of three 668 00:42:40.469 --> 00:42:44.440 unsuspecting women and forever changed the lives of two more. 669 00:42:45.989 --> 00:42:49.570 Stefani may have believed he would be forgiven for his sins, 670 00:42:50.010 --> 00:42:53.469 but his horrific and violent actions mean he will never 671 00:42:53.530 --> 00:42:57.900 be absolved as one of the world's most evil killers.