MURDERED: Stephanie Casberg

[00:00] Hi, Crime Junkies, it's Britt, and I have big news. One of my favorite seasonal shows, CounterClock, is back with a brand new season, and it is wild. Host Delia D'Ambra is digging into the 2008 Lane Bryant murders. I mean, this isn't just a recap. It is a reinvestigation. She's talking to law enforcement, people from the community, even sources who have never spoken publicly until now. And you know I love a show that asks all the questions. Listen to CounterClock Season 8 now, wherever you get your podcasts. [00:31] Hi, Crime Junkies.

I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And the story I have for you today is one that's hung over a corner of Wisconsin for decades. [00:39] In the summer of 1969, a teenage girl walked out of a restaurant after her waitressing shift [00:45] and was never seen alive again. [00:48] What turned up later, scattered in pieces across Racine County, told investigators that they were dealing with someone who had skill. [00:56] patience, and time. [00:58] Since then, this case has pulled detectives in every direction, from a co-worker whose own family has been pointing the finger at him for years to a man who terrorized his children by claiming he was the killer.

[01:12] And just recently, a new lead surfaced. [01:14] One that came straight from a Crime Junkie episode to one detective's ears. [01:20] This is the story of Stephanie Kassberg. [01:24] Music. [01:55] Wednesday afternoon, July 9th, 1969, was a great time for fishing in Racine County, Wisconsin. [02:02] The day was overcast, low 70s with a little drizzle. [02:05] If you found just the right spot on Root River, you might catch a ton. [02:10] One family out that day chose to set up near an old steel trestle bridge on Eight Mile Road.

The bridge had actually been condemned a few weeks earlier, like shut down to traffic because it's basically falling apart. [02:22] That hasn't stopped people from coming by, including this family. [02:26] At some point, while they're out there, their 10-year-old son makes his way down the riverbank to fish or just explore or whatever. And, [02:34] But something on the water's edge catches his eye. [02:37] It's hard to tell what it is from afar. It just looks like this weird, lumpy pile of something. [02:43] but definitely not natural to the river. Any kid would be curious."

[02:48] So he inches his way closer and closer, but he stops himself when he realizes what he's actually looking at. [02:56] It's afoot. [02:58] And it sends him running back to his parents. But the totality of what's there is so much worse. [03:06] In several piles along the riverbank, half covered by mud and in a mix of torn brown paper bags and newspaper... [03:14] were the dismembered remains of a teenage girl. [03:18] or at least most of her. [03:20] What police realized when they came to process the scene is this girl's torso and left leg were missing.

And even a river dive never turns them up. [03:31] which to police isn't all that surprising because based on the condition of the remains and how they were found, investigators are leaning toward the theory that they were likely dumped there, not like that they washed downstream. [03:44] Now, despite what's missing, there are other clues that have been left behind, like the newspaper used to wrap sections of the girl's body. [03:53] It was a Milwaukee Sentinel dated June 24th, and pressed into some of the newspaper folds are cigarette butts. [04:01] On top of one of the piles, police collect a brown leather shoe, [04:05] and under the remains were burned paper matchsticks— [04:09] though none of the remains or the paper itself actually looks burned.

[04:13] What had been partially burned was a military style jacket with all of its patches removed. That was like, [04:19] eight feet away. And was there blood or anything on the jacket? No, it was like caked in mud. It looked like it actually might have been there for a while. And it was an older style, not something like [04:28] current service members would have been issued more like a fashion thing, almost like the kind of things showing up in thrift stores at the time. Okay. But that's, [04:36] pretty much all they have to go off of as far as what is found at the scene.

[04:41] What tells investigators far more is what the pathologist finds when he examines the remains. [04:46] He sees two small puncture wounds beneath the right side of her chin and a large cut across the back of her neck. [04:54] Most of the cuts are precise, almost scalpel-like. [04:59] So her probable cause of death is listed as a neck wound, a severed artery. But really, with no torso, no organs, like, that's just a best guess based on what they have. Now, what the pathologist can determine is that the dismemberment happened after she was already dead.

And the cuts at each joint were... [05:17] are deliberate, methodical, like this is the work of someone who knew what they were doing, [05:23] Now, the level of decomposition suggests that whoever this girl is, she died within the last 24 to 48 hours of being found. [05:31] And even though no one matching her description has been reported missing, [05:35] It turns out that someone had been missing her. [05:38] Because... [05:39] That same night, around 11, officials get a worried call from Charles Casper over in Milwaukee. According to Journal-Times reporter Michael Ozan, he and his family had just been about to report their teenage daughter Stephanie missing when one of his children heard a news bulletin.

[05:57] about the remains that had been found at Root River. [06:00] They gave like a vague description over the broadcast, but Charles tells them about this small mole on the right side of Stephanie's face. Something that they hadn't mentioned was on their Jane Doe, who... [06:11] obviously isn't a Jane Doe anymore. Because by the early hours of July 10th, Charles confirmed that this was his daughter, Stephanie Kaspersky, [06:21] Whose 18th birthday would have been the very next day? [06:25] Her dad and even other members of the family, when they talk to them, have no idea who would do something like this.

[06:32] Stephanie was hardworking. She kept out of trouble. I mean, she just graduated high school and she was like eager to be out on her own. [06:39] She'd gotten a job even before graduation, this part-time job waitress staying at a chain restaurant in downtown Milwaukee called Mark's Big Boy. And listen, more than just like staying out of trouble, Stephanie was kind. Our reporter Nina spoke to a woman named Romaine who lived in her neighborhood, who actually would later marry one of Stephanie's brothers. [06:57] But she said that she has clear memories of Stephanie, even though the two only crossed paths briefly.

And to Romaine... [07:03] She was like that older girl who looked out for the younger kids, the one who made sure that everyone felt included. [07:09] Stephanie did have a secret, though, that she had been keeping from her parents. [07:15] Detectives learned that Stephanie had been seeing and actually gotten pretty serious with a 22-year-old serviceman named Ruffin. [07:24] And was she keeping it a secret because of his age? No, she was keeping it a secret. [07:28] because John was black. [07:30] And while she had met John's family and they seemed to openly accept her, she apparently was afraid of her parents' reaction.

[07:38] Sneaking around with John is probably one of the reasons Stephanie had been out of the house more recently. So her dad said that it wasn't unusual that summer for her to spend a few days at a friend's house. [07:49] That's one of the reasons that they hadn't called to report her missing sooner. [07:53] They'd seen her around the house on Sunday, July 6th. Unbeknownst to them, John had dropped her off at home at like four in the morning that day after a party the night before. [08:03] And when police talk to John, he says that's the last time he saw her.

[08:07] Now, we know she left her parents' house sometime on the 6th between 5.15 and 5.30. This is Sunday evening. And John was supposed to pick her up from work when her shift ended around 12.30 m. [08:19] but apparently he'd fallen asleep. [08:21] Coworker said that Stephanie was mad about it. [08:24] I'd have been mad if my boyfriend fell asleep and forgot to pick me up. And so the last they knew is she walked out the front door of the restaurant with her brown leather purse slung over her shoulder, maybe headed to catch a bus.

[08:36] But that is truly the last anyone saw her. And like I said, when she didn't come home on Monday, her parents figured that she was staying with friends. [08:43] And she was scheduled to work that day, but she was a no-call, no-show. Though it doesn't sound like anyone notified the Casperks that first day. [08:51] Though I will say John had come by the restaurant looking for Stephanie, which might have signaled that something was up. Because the next day, Tuesday, when she's a no-call, no-show again, she's a no-call, no-show. [09:01] That's when her supervisor called her family to see if they knew what was going on.

[09:05] And that set off this chain of family calls looking for Stephanie. And then before they could report her missing on Wednesday, that broadcast came out. [09:13] So the 12.30 m. departure from the restaurant becomes the last confirmed moment. [09:18] anyone had eyes on Stephanie. And as they start working outward from that last known sighting, [09:24] they do find a trail. [09:27] It's not Stephanie's. [09:28] It's her killers. [09:31] Cape Fear is a new series now streaming on Apple TV. This 10-episode psychological thriller is executive produced by Martin Scorsese and stars Academy Award winner Javier Bardem, Academy Award nominee Amy Adams, and Emmy nominee Patrick Wilson.

When convicted murderer Max Cady is released from prison, he begins infiltrating the family of the married attorneys who helped put him behind bars. Watch Cape Fear streaming now on Apple TV. [10:01] - The day after Stephanie's remains were discovered, residents in the nearby city of Franklin, which is like six miles north of that riverbank, they turn over a cluster of items that had been sitting along a rural road for at least two days. [10:15] There was this gold clutch style purse, a blue appointment book, and plastic wallet insert still holding Stephanie's social security card and her driver's license application.

[10:25] And mixed in all of that were pictures, like a couple copies of her graduation portrait and a photo of her father in his Air Force uniform. [10:34] And then ripped into fragments were... [10:37] Pictures of like they're like a photo booth style strip showing a young woman who is alone in the photos. [10:44] But what's hard to tell is if the photos are pictures of Stephanie. Like, there is a clear shot of this girl's face. And, like, the dark-haired woman could very well be her. But for some reason, no one's been able to confirm that.

That seems... [10:59] bizarre. And all of these things, like, would that have all fit into the brown purse that she had when she left the restaurant? So the lead detective on this case, Racine Sheriff's Lieutenant Brian Van Sock, he told Nina that Stephanie had this habit of bringing extra clothes in her bag and, like, swapping out for her work uniform if she was going to go somewhere after work or, like, even ride the bus. So while I haven't seen the brown bag, I think the brown bag is a decent size, and it gives at least the assumption to investigators or what the assumption that [11:29] purse that Stephanie had with her when she first went missing.

[11:31] which tells investigators something important. [11:34] Someone was moving between Milwaukee, where Stephanie lived, where she worked, and... [11:40] where the newspaper that her body was wrapped in was from, and then Racine County, where her remains were dumped. [11:47] And then, [11:48] They seem to have been like shedding evidence along the way. And the window for when that happened narrows when an attorney contacts the sheriff's department. [11:59] He says that on Monday in like the late afternoon, early evening, he and two colleagues were out at the condemned bridge doing a detailed ground survey for a lawsuit.

[12:09] And he is adamant if remains had been there, they would have seen them because they're not far from the bridge. [12:18] So combine that with the fact that witnesses in Franklin say that the roadside items were there as early as sometime on Tuesday. [12:26] I think it's very likely that sometime Tuesday to Wednesday morning is when her killer disposed of her. [12:34] which makes the sighting of a man on Root River on Wednesday, just hours before Stephanie's remains were found, [12:42] Very interesting to me. [12:45] A few miles from where her body was discovered, a man near another small bridge over on Root River spotted someone below.

[12:54] It was a white guy in his late 40s down at the water, either like putting something into the river. [13:00] or pulling something out. [13:02] Whatever this guy was doing, he definitely wasn't fishing, though. And it stood out enough that this man took the time to get a good look at this guy. He was able to describe him to police as a white guy about... [13:13] 5'11", 175 pounds, [13:16] reddish hair, said that he was wearing a white t-shirt and he had some kind of bandage on one of his hands.

Well, with that description, we know that that person isn't John. No. And this witness even clocked the man's car, too. A white early 60s Chevrolet parked just south of the bridge [13:33] with what he believed were Wisconsin plates, which, by the way, isn't John's car either. He had a green Camaro that was in the shop at the time. [13:42] And even then, he was driving his sister's blue Mustang. [13:45] And when he gets asked, he lets police search his car, his home, whatever. Nothing points to John being involved in Stephanie's murder.

[13:53] But there is this theory [13:55] that Stephanie might have been murdered because of him. You see, this rumor catches fire that Charles Casper, Stephanie's dad, [14:04] somehow found out about Stephanie and John and that, like, they were dating. [14:08] and maybe like killed his own daughter over the relationship. [14:12] And does he fit the description of [14:15] bridge guy? No, he doesn't. But at some point, I mean, this rumor, like, gets big enough that, like, investigators do go to him and they just ask him point blank, did you kill Stephanie?

[14:24] And here's [14:25] Response took me aback, [14:27] even just like reading it on paper half a century later, because he apparently like chuckled and told them something like, [14:35] If I had, you never would have found her. [14:38] Which is like, that's... [14:39] I know. That's not the answer you should be giving here. How long after they find her is he saying this? I mean, she's found on the 9th, and then he is having this conversation with detectives, like, on the 11th. [14:52] So, oh my god, it's definitely odd, yeah, but there doesn't seem to be anything to back up.

[15:00] these rumors beyond talk or whatever. Like, the Casper house was always full of people, and Charles worked second shift as a dispatcher. So presumably, he was, like, on the job during the overnight hours when Stephanie most likely vanished. I'm sorry, presumably? I was just gonna say, although... [15:17] I don't know if the police ever actually confirmed that. [15:21] his actual like time cards or records or whatever. [15:24] And there's actually another Charles-related rumor that made the rounds. [15:28] Romaine, who married Stephanie's brother, remember, she told us that Charles was known to be a gambler.

[15:34] And there was also some speculation that maybe Stephanie's murder was like some kind of... [15:38] violent retaliation for unpaid debts. This doesn't feel like an unpaid debts hit to me. I agree. And it doesn't seem like that or like the her dating John thing, like either theory related to Charles, none of it ever gains much traction with investigators. What they keep circling back to [15:57] is Mark's Big Boy, the restaurant that Stephanie worked at. [16:01] It was like the anchor of her routine. Set hours, familiar faces, a world they could map.

[16:07] But that world turned out to be messy, with reports of staff drinking on the job, managers hitting on waitresses, shifts that ended late. [16:17] and a cast of men who knew Stephanie's schedule and routine. [16:22] Like one of the managers who puts detectives on alert [16:25] Almost immediately with his... [16:28] eagerness. Like he wants to know if any of Stephanie's clothes were found with her remains. He volunteers unprompted that a woman on the radio, sort of like a psychic from the sound of it, predicted the killer's initials. [16:40] which, by the way, happened to match his own initials, which are RS.

Okay. And then at the restaurant, there's also this 20-year-old cook named Michael Bartelt, who catches their attention. [16:52] Like John and a lot of other young men at the time, he'd recently come home from Vietnam. Now, Michael's version of the night tracks with everyone else's except for one detail. [17:04] He says that Stephanie left work through the restaurant's back door when she was done with her shift, not the front. [17:12] It's not a huge discrepancy. [17:14] But what's interesting is, before they're even finished with him, he asks if it would be alright for him to, like, go ahead with this trip that he had been planning to Hawaii.

[17:24] He says, like, I've got the plane ticket already. I've had it since early July. [17:28] I'll be leaving in a couple of days. [17:30] And he's like, by the way, I've already quit my job at the restaurant. But he is like letting them know because he doesn't want them thinking he's guilty of something. [17:37] if he just like takes off. Okay, he quit his [17:41] Job for vacation? From the sound of it, it sounds like he plans to be gone for a while. Maybe I should call it like a temporary relocation instead of like just a vacation.

Like he's I don't know how long. Yeah. And how long after Stephanie's death is this? Like where in the timeline are we? We're still within like days. So police interview him on Sunday, July 13th. [18:00] And he says that he didn't quit that day. He had quit the previous Friday. So a few days even before that. And is Michael a white guy? He is. And what does he drive? He is. [18:11] He doesn't have a car. I wouldn't say, like, did he sell it for the vacation? Like, now I'm questioning everything.

Yeah. But they did check this guy's record. They find nothing more than a couple of, like, drunken disorderly incidents as an adult. So... [18:23] They clear him to go off to Hawaii. [18:26] Because I think really, like, at the time, they're looking for someone with, like, a darker history. [18:33] Someone with more motive. So they're much more interested in pursuing a story that they hear from a former waitress. [18:40] She tells investigators that about a month before Stephanie was killed, she was attacked while leaving the restaurant at around 2 m.

[18:48] She said a man grabbed her by the neck and told her that he would slit her throat if she screamed. So she shoved him off. He punched her in the stomach. And thank God another coworker actually came along and beat this guy with her purse until he took off like miracle. [19:05] Now, even though this waitress was injured, with like a deep cut to her throat, [19:09] She did not report the assault because she didn't think that she could identify the man. Her and the other co-worker just had the same vague description of him.

White guy, maybe early 20s, high 5 to 5'6", light blonde hair, wearing a white jacket and shoes with cleats. [19:24] But they're telling police now [19:26] And what really stands out is the O. Because there had been, it turns out, a string of attacks across downtown Milwaukee following this kind of same playbook. Women targeted while walking alone. A man with a sharp object. Threats involving cutting and sexual assaults. [19:43] In fact, one happened not long after Stephanie's remains were found. This woman was attacked in a parking lot and then stabbed in the shoulder before the culprit fled in her car.

[19:53] Which, by the way, made him an easy catch. [19:56] They catch the guy, again, this is days after Stephanie's found. He's a 17-year-old bus boy from Milwaukee's South Side. [20:03] But they can't tie him to the big boy attack that happened before Stephanie's murder. [20:08] And they can't seem to tie him to Stephanie's murder either. And he never admits to either, even though he confesses two violent crimes against four other women. Oh my god. [20:18] Now, police searched this guy's house, but without his confession or evidence linking him to Stephanie, [20:23] Nothing comes of this.

They move on. And if he was 17 then, where is that guy now? Oh, I checked for sure. So he got convicted of rape. He spent the next like six years cycling between like prison and a mental health institution. But as far as I can tell now, he's like alive and out in the world. [20:41] But the only record he has since then is like for some traffic violations. [20:45] And listen, like... [20:47] That's not even the only teenager that they look at, by the way. [20:50] At one point, detectives get two urgent calls from an anonymous tipster who insists that an 18-year-old who killed Stephanie after some kind of argument is about to flee town by bus.

[21:02] Sure enough, they find this guy, nab him at the bus station right as he's about to board. [21:08] But he swears that he's leaving because of a family matter or not because he's like running from anything. And he says that he doesn't even know Stephanie, though he does know her boyfriend, John. Police like obviously keep this guy for a little bit. They question him. They end up verifying that he was working during like this key window of time when Stephanie like left work and they think something happened. [21:29] And so they let him go.

[21:31] And this is like the wild part. They actually come to believe [21:35] that he was the tipster that called the tip on himself. - Wait, what? - They said that he did it, or they think he did it, as some kind of ploy to get attention or sympathy from this girlfriend that he'd been arguing with. [21:46] which is like, [21:47] A weird level of... [21:49] manipulation and like [21:51] like devious that is to me right on par with like physical attacks. Yeah. So I wasn't surprised to learn that though this guy likely had nothing to do with Stephanie's case.

[22:01] He did turn out to be a dirtbag. His record after 1969 is a long one. [22:07] armed robbery, sexual assault charges in and out of Wisconsin prison's [22:11] for decades. [22:13] So. [22:14] Long story short... [22:16] Police are chasing down. [22:18] everything in the first couple of weeks, but they are getting nowhere. There are no sightings that are coming up of Stephanie, like filling in that like lost time where we don't know where she was. [22:28] Her purse, that brown leather shoulder bag style thing, still MIA. And there are three agencies trying to coordinate efforts.

[22:38] You got Milwaukee, where she went missing, Franklin, where some of her belongings were found, and Racine, where some of her remains were found. The place that they still didn't even have, though... [22:49] was a crime scene. Everything about the crime points to someone who had time, [22:55] who had control... [22:56] and privacy, not just to dismember her, but perhaps, they wondered, [23:02] to keep [23:03] missing parts of her. Though they would find out within weeks that actually wasn't the case. [23:10] It didn't happen until Monday, July 21st, but that's when a couple on a farm about four and a half miles from the bridge.

[23:19] finds bones in their yard. Their dog, I guess, had been like dragging them home for a couple of weeks by then, [23:26] But it was the human pelvis that made someone realize these weren't just animal bones. [23:33] And detectives, when they get brought out, they end up locating this weather-beaten white cardboard sun-kissed box, half buried in heavy brush just off the side of the road. [23:43] But it's only like... [23:44] 250 feet or so from this family's farmhouse. [23:48] And at the bottom of this box is a dirty towel with pubic hairs on it.

[23:53] and inside and then scattered around it, [23:55] I mean, they find a lot of bones, a rib cage, a spine, like... [23:59] other missing parts of Stephanie. Because these definitely belong to Stephanie. They fit together perfectly with the rest of her. [24:08] But even still, there are parts that are still unaccounted for. [24:12] her upper right leg from like her hip to her knee, [24:16] and then her entire left leg. Though I will say, like, it's possible they were there at one point, but then over the course of [24:24] like the two weeks before this is found, maybe they got carried off by those family dogs or even other animals in the area.

[24:30] But like, think about what this means. [24:33] This is a second, deliberate, [24:36] disposal site. Yeah, I was gonna say, like, why not leave... [24:40] with the rest of her by the river. Like, now you're miles away and kind of super close to someone's house. Right, like, this person is, like... [24:49] Making multiple stops, multiple decisions. It's someone comfortable moving through rural back roads with a body in pieces. Well, and then there's evidence other places, too. I know. So when you're looking at this, the distance between the farthest points, so from Big Boy to the farmhouse, it spans nearly 25 miles.

[25:09] Whoever did this seems to know the area or at the very least, like moved through this area with a plan. Like had a plan. [25:15] So if you take that with what the pathologist said about this person, knowing what they were doing in the dismemberment. [25:23] This starts feeling less and less. [25:26] like a one-off. [25:28] But that's the thing. They don't have anything else around their area at the time. [25:33] that looks exactly like this case. [25:36] According to Journal Times reporter Barbara Hefling, in the years surrounding Stephanie's death, there were multiple unsolved killings across the region.

[25:44] Young women who were stabbed or bludgeoned, their bodies left along railroad tracks and rural roads in Racine and Milwaukee counties. [25:51] I mean, one victim's decomposed remains were found, like, stuffed in a bag, even along railroad tracks the same month that Stephanie was discovered. Yeah. [25:58] We have another one that was like beaten to death and dumped along a county road. And when you look at these, like the geography overlaps, but the methods... [26:07] are so different and there is nothing concrete [26:10] tying or making any connection between Stephanie's case and these other cases.

[26:14] So investigators begin, [26:16] watching for like this specific MO. [26:18] beyond their own backyard. [26:21] And the first case that comes on their radar happens about seven months after Stephanie's murder. [26:26] That's when a young woman, six hours away in Detroit, Michigan, is found dismembered in a vacant field. Body parts are in plastic bags. Torso is missing. [26:37] And there were cuts that were done precisely with a large knife. [26:41] And good news, Detroit police even make an arrest in that case, too, actually. [26:47] Both men are cooks at a local restaurant there.

- Which feels kind of promising, right? - Kind of, yeah. [26:54] And so investigators start circulating photos of these two guys through Stephanie's world. They show them to her co-workers at Big Boy, friends, acquaintances. The problem is nobody can say for sure if they recognize these guys. [27:06] Stephanie's father and brothers don't. [27:09] But the outlier is Stephanie's mother, who reportedly identifies one of the two men as someone who had picked Stephanie up [27:16] at their home before. But... [27:19] That lead fizzles out because both men say that they were working during the time frame of Stephanie's murder, and they deny ever being in Milwaukee or Racine areas.

[27:29] And it seems like police can't find any evidence actually tying them to the area even or to Stephanie. [27:36] And so that is about when the case begins to go cold. For 19 full years, nothing really happens. And Stephanie's family has to figure out, [27:47] How to keep moving while a killer walks free. Someone who might have been passing them at the grocery store or serving them a meal. [27:56] and it [27:57] probably would have stayed cold for even longer. [28:00] If not for one woman, [28:03] who I'm gonna call Pam.

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com slash Crime Junkie. [29:15] That's com slash crimejunkie. [29:21] You know the saying, knowledge is power? Well, it's a lot more than that. Knowledge can be growth, security, opportunity, and no one knows that better than Southern New Hampshire University. That's why they offer over 200 online degree programs designed to help you reach your goals. Set yourself up for success or get ready to pivot into something new. No matter your program, you'll learn practical, career-focused skills you can use on the job. And getting your degree online doesn't mean doing it alone.

[29:50] From day one to graduation, you'll have friendly, knowledgeable people to help you with everything from applying and financial aid to tutoring and career development. At Southern New Hampshire University, knowledge can be life-changing. Get started at edu slash crimejunkie. That's edu slash crimejunkie. [30:12] Pam calls detectives out of the blue one day in 1988 to tell them that she thinks she knows who killed Stephanie Kasper. [30:23] She believes it was her brother, [30:25] Michael Bartelt. [30:27] the cook at Big Boy who told investigators that he last saw Stephanie [30:32] leave through the restaurants, [30:34] back door.

Not the front door like everyone else said. And Pam says that she believes Michael [30:39] might have had help from one of their other brothers, who I'm going to call Dan. [30:43] Now, remember that trip to Hawaii? The one Michael told police, like, he'd been planning, tickets already in hand? Pam says that was all BS. Never had tickets. Never had tickets. [30:53] didn't even go to Hawaii, at least not at the time. [30:58] Instead, Michael took off somewhere with friends and was gone for like close to a year. [31:04] So he didn't go to Hawaii, but he did leave after all.

He did, correct, but not to Hawaii. [31:10] So investigators wonder if the story was a way to, like, make his sudden banishing act look [31:16] planned. And I don't know, I'm guessing he said like, you're going to go away anyways, why not tell them where you were going? Yeah, I'm kind of guessing maybe Hawaii sounded far enough that they wouldn't come knocking. It sounds like a for sure vacation. Maybe he didn't want them to know where he was. [31:30] And listen, Pam says that their mother helped sell that story because they did go question his mom back in 69.

And Pam apparently listened in on the conversation and heard her mom tell investigators like, oh, yes. [31:41] Michael did go to Hawaii, [31:43] Even though Pam's like, he absolutely did not. And by the way, she said their mom told them back then like, oh, Michael doesn't own a gun. They must have asked him that. No, he doesn't own a gun. But Pam's like, by the way, she lied to you about that, too. He definitely did own a gun. [31:58] And according to Pam, this kind of behavior from their mom was typical, like she routinely lied to protect her sons.

[32:05] Pam also points out that the Bartells have family in the area. [32:11] Their uncle lives [32:13] between the two dump sites, about a three-mile drive from where the Sunkissed box was found, [32:19] and less than a mile and a half from the riverbank. [32:24] which, by the way, investigators realize is actually visible from parts of that family property. [32:31] And Pam says that Michael spent years fishing and hunting in that area. He knew it well. But beyond all of this, one of the main reasons that she suspects him, forget the geography, forget the fact that he knew Stephanie.

She says it's what he did to his own family. Because Pam alleges that Michael sexually abused her and others. [32:54] And Michael, [32:55] did have a juvenile charge for indecent behavior with a child. I thought they checked his record. His adult record. Now, police knew about the juvenile charge at the time, I found out. But for whatever reason, they didn't seem to make much of it. And on top of that, Pam also says that Michael was running with a gang back then. So why does she think her other brother Dan's involved?

Like, did he know Stephanie too? Not that I'm aware of, but Pam basically says that Dan also sexually abused her [33:25] murder [33:26] He had some kind of mental breakdown and had to be hospitalized, which she sees as a potential reaction to him feeling guilty, which I think is interesting. But it seems like police at this time are like much more focused on Michael. [33:40] who, by this point, has actually relocated to Hawaii, where he was living with his wife. [33:46] But he would have been wrong if he thinks that they're not going to come knocking for this.

[33:49] So investigators coordinate with law enforcement out there. And in June of 88, this is almost six months after Pam originally calls in and tips them off. [33:58] This detective sits down with Michael. [34:01] And surprisingly, I mean, to me, at least he's cooperative and agrees to talk to them. He describes Stephanie as someone that he barely knew and implies that he had no interest in her sexually. He was already dating a few other women who like worked at the restaurant at the time. Sure. Fine. Whatever. It's not even like he said they were close like back then or anything.

[34:21] But now, in ADA, he is putting major distance. [34:26] between them because his story changes. [34:29] Before, he says that he saw Stephanie leave out the back door when she was done with her shift at 1230. [34:34] Now, he says that he typically clocked out around... [34:37] 1030, 1045 at night, which would have put him out the door well before Stephanie left at 1230. So he's saying that he doesn't remember seeing her leave at all. This is the problem. He's not committing to anything now. He's just saying that he probably wouldn't have seen her leave because he probably wouldn't have been there at that time.

[34:56] And what does he say about the whole Hawaii of it all? He admits that he didn't go to Hawaii back then. He says he actually went to Las Vegas with the manager from the restaurant, the one that gave police like creepy vibes, along with a woman that that manager was dating. [35:11] But he's like, listen, I had I had police's blessing to go. [35:15] No, they cleared you to go to Hawaii. No one said anything about you going to Vegas with your creepy manager. It doesn't seem like that answer rubs detectives the wrong way, I guess, because...

[35:27] It's not like they went looking for him. So, like, they don't press him on that. And the bottom line is Michael denies any involvement in Stephanie's murder. [35:38] all these years later they don't have much that they can do to prove or disprove what he's saying either. They're like, [35:45] in that weird spot [35:46] before technology can even help. So since they only have Pam's account, the case goes cold again. But... [35:55] Pam's account includes someone else. Like, did they ever even interview Dan? They did a few times, yeah.

But, like, he denied being involved in, like, murder or, like, sexually assaulting anyone. So really, I mean, I think at this point they're like... [36:06] They got to wait for technology to advance. Like, right. I mean, ADA, you can see it coming, right? Like it's just around the corner in the 90s. [36:14] But even with what they have, like really what they're working with in this case is pubic hairs. So... [36:19] Early 90s can't do much with that either. Those don't get sent off until 2009. [36:25] And when they do, though, they actually get something promising.

Even for 2009, when I saw that, I was like, oh, it's gonna be too early to do anything. Yeah. No, two of the pubic hairs produce two different partial male DNA profiles. [36:40] Only one of them is strong enough for state databases. [36:44] No match there though. [36:46] Neither... [36:47] is good enough for the national database, CODIS. Okay, but can they tell if the two profiles are related? Not with what they have. The profiles aren't strong enough to make that determination. And by the way, it doesn't even mean that two men were involved.

[37:05] It just means that at least two different men left hairs on this towel somehow. Right. Where did the towel come from? How did it even get in the box? Where did the box come from? Is this your killer's DNA? Maybe, maybe not. But I do think finding the person who belongs to these hairs has a very high likelihood of getting you at least one step closer to your killer. For sure. And, by the way, a partial profile is good enough for comparison to a full profile. Mm-hmm. [37:33] So you can go one by one and do direct comparisons if someone comes on their radar when the case gets reinvestigated.

Like this can be used as a tool to help rule people in or out. [37:46] And the first two people they test are Michael and that suspicious manager who gave police... [37:53] The Bad Vibes back in 69. [37:55] And both are ruled out. But I will say the sample they had from Michael Bartelt was shaky because it was covertly obtained from a plastic fork that he had used in 2012. [38:07] So even with that, like they didn't have much confidence in those results. [38:11] And then the next person they end up checking is this guy named Wilbert Mackey.

[38:16] He hadn't come up at all in the case file. [38:19] Well, an anonymous caller puts him on police's radar in 2015. [38:25] And he's an interesting lead for sure, because it turns out that he lived on [redacted address], like less than 10 minutes from that Root River condemned bridge where her remains are found. And the story behind this lead is wild. So the caller says that one of Wilbert's sons, who lives down in Florida, has been talking, claiming that his father was a serial killer who butchered a young woman and dumped her near Root River, [38:52] in the late 60s.

[38:54] And that Wilbert forced his own daughter, who was just a child at the time, to help him dispose of the body. [39:01] Now, police can't talk to Wilbert about any of this because he died in prison in 2009. At the tail end of a 20-year sentence for child sex offenses. I mean... [39:13] Sounds like he's a pretty strong contender right out of the gate. Yes, yes. [39:18] But in late 2016, investigators do track down two of his adult children, including the daughter who was allegedly forced to help dispose of the body.

[39:28] She describes a father who was cruel and abusive, like in every way, physically, sexually, psychologically. [39:35] She says that he was... [39:37] obsessed with Stephanie's case and with like true detective magazines. [39:41] He would make the kids read what he called Root River Killer Stories out loud and then tell them everything the stories got wrong [39:49] which he says he knew because he was the real killer. [39:52] And his daughter says she does have this early childhood memory of being forced to throw heavy... [39:57] sticky bags into Root River, and her father told her to make sure that they sank.

Afterwards, she said Wilbert scrubbed his car clean. [40:08] And their family property was overrun with dogs, like more than 100 of them. What? And when they got sick, Wilbert would kill them, butcher them, and then feed them to the other dogs. [40:20] I'm telling you, like, this dude was the stuff nightmares are made of. [40:24] But as damning as all of this sounds... [40:27] None of it was provable. [40:29] Investigators nowadays can't even confirm that, you know, he called it the Root River Killer. Like, [40:34] they don't even know that as a real moniker like it was never used by the media it was never used by law enforcement so [40:40] There's a world where Wilbur just invented it to terrorize his kids.

[40:45] And listen, moniker aside... [40:48] They do get a DNA sample from one of Wilbert's sons to compare against the pubic hair. [40:54] No match. [40:55] Although... [40:57] That son tells police that there are rumors he may not even be Wilbert's biological child. [41:02] So like there's this moment where they're like, does this mean anything? [41:05] But luckily, there was still a sample of Wilbert's DNA in CODIS because of his record. So, [41:11] They do end up doing a better comparison. It's still... [41:15] Not a match. [41:17] So, he fades out of the picture.

But speaking of families pointing fingers at their own, [41:24] Just a few years ago, one of Michael Bartelt's brothers came forward claiming that he too was suspicious of Michael, just like Pam was. And I'm assuming this brother is not Dan. No, this is a different brother. This guy reaches out to Romaine after she was interviewed about Stephanie's case for a news segment. [41:42] And he tells Romain that he is confident that Michael killed Stephanie. [41:47] and that like the whole family has a theory [41:50] about what happened... [41:52] And why?

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[43:39] From day one to graduation, you'll have friendly, knowledgeable people to help you with everything from applying and financial aid to tutoring and career development. At Southern New Hampshire University, knowledge can be life-changing. Get started at edu slash crimejunkie. That's edu slash crimejunkie. [43:58]. [44:02] Certain members of the Bartelt family have always suspected Michael to be Stephanie's [44:08] There was even a rumor within the family at some point that Michael's wife found one of Stephanie's earrings in the card that he'd been using, [44:16] And that she had been holding it ever since, like stored in a safe deposit box that her sister has, using it as leverage over Michael or as like an insurance policy or maybe both.

[44:27] Now, this is a little confusing to me because it doesn't seem like Michael was involved with his wife when Stephanie was killed. They didn't marry until three years later. [44:36] And like she didn't go with him to Vegas. So when or how she would have found this earring doesn't make a whole lot of sense in my mind. But this does hold some decent weight for investigators, because when Stephanie was found, she did have an earring in one ear. [44:52] but not the other. [44:53] So the theory that this family has goes like this.

Michael borrows a car. [44:59] Remember, he didn't own one. Right. He lures Stephanie into it by offering to show her an apartment for rent. And we know for a fact that after graduating, she was wanting more independence. And her and John were supposedly even talking about trying to get a place together. So this would track. [45:13] And a lot of people knew that she was like itching to get out of her parents' house. So I'm sure this is something that she probably even talked about at work. [45:20] So after he got her in the car, the family believes...

[45:23] something went wrong. [45:25] He may have made advances toward her or drugged her, [45:29] And then after he killed her, he disposed of her in areas that he knew well, near where that relative of theirs lived. [45:37] Where would he have killed and dismembered her, though? That's the part they don't know. Because he was living at home at the time, so it couldn't have been there. Maybe on their uncle's. [45:49] property question mark. But like, like that is a big gap, I think, in their theory. Now, when this makes it to the current investigator, Lieutenant Van Sock, he goes back through the file.

[45:59] and he finds something [46:01] that will make you want to pull your hair out. [46:04] That thing about the earring, that was part of Pam's story when she came to them in 88. For whatever reason, I guess the detectives just like didn't hone in on it. You said they needed a thing like that. That's the thing. That's the thing. I know. But there might have actually been a good reason that like no one clung on to this. I found out that in early news coverage. [46:25] it mentioned that she was found wearing only one earring.

So, [46:29] In theory, anyone could have known about that. But still, like even all these years later, when Van Sock is like reading about this, he's like he's still intrigued. [46:38] And with little else to go on in an ice cold case, he and other investigators start trying to chase this down. This was in 2023. [46:48] But Michael's wife, now his ex-wife, tells police that she has no idea what they're talking about. [46:53] Meanwhile, her sister, the one who supposedly had the earring in her possession in that safe deposit box, [46:59] seems genuinely bewildered by the question.

[47:02] And when they subpoena bank records, they confirm the sister didn't even have a safe deposit box, at least not at any bank. So that trail goes nowhere. But Van Sock keeps pulling at the Bartelt thread. And there's a discrepancy buried in the old records that's hard to explain. [47:20] So remember how Michael told police in 1969 that he saw Stephanie leave through the back door of the restaurant? [47:27] Yes, but also that he probably clocked out at 10.30. [47:31] Well... [47:32] Apparently not that either. [47:34] Because, according to his time card...

[47:36] He wasn't even working that night. [47:38] What do you mean? How is that not caught right away? Why was he questioned in the first place? I have no idea because investigators had everyone's time cards. As a matter of fact, police reports from 1988 say that they confirmed Michael was working that night during the same hours as Stephanie. [47:57] The schedule seems to be one of the main reasons police were even interested in him in the first place. [48:03] But think about how much more suspicious it is if the time card is accurate and he wasn't on the clock.

Because then he's not just like a co-worker who happened to be on the same shift. He lied his way into the narrative and made himself one of the last people to have seen Stephanie alive. [48:22] Still, [48:23] before Lieutenant Van Sock goes straight to Michael in Hawaii. [48:27] He decides that he needs to like strengthen his position for the courts out there. [48:32] So he sends the hair evidence he has back to the lab, hoping that like modern technology can pull a stronger profile than the partial one they had from years earlier.

[48:42] It's going to take a little bit more time, but it could be well worth it. [48:47] Well, [48:47] It turns out that was a risky gamble in a case so old, because Michael, [48:53] died of sepsis on June 3, 2024. [48:57] before detectives could get to him. [49:00] But at least now, a DNA sample from him was easy to get. And maybe things wouldn't have changed much, even if he had gone sooner, or the DNA had been faster, or Michael wouldn't have died. Because... [49:12] His DNA doesn't match the hair.

[49:14] Now remember... [49:16] DNA exclusion doesn't necessarily clear him or anyone. A non-match just means that that specific hair didn't come from him. [49:25] But it's worth noting that Michael and that manager aren't the only ones who have been excluded. [49:30] Investigators also ruled out Michael's brother, Dan. [49:35] Them plus Wilbert Mackey, right? Yeah, they've all been eliminated from the hair. [49:40] So I kind of want to go back to something that you mentioned at the top, like with all those rumors that were floating around. [49:46] Did they ever test it against Stephanie's dad?

No. [49:50] I know it's like sensational, but nobody really seems to believe that he was involved in any way. And all they have is this these hair samples, right? Like, could they test the cigarette butts or the newspapers or anything else from back then? They did test the cigarette butts. There was no DNA on them. [50:06] There was nothing on the newspaper, like no usable prints or anything like that. They even tried recently using a wet vac extraction system, like MBAC, on the military jacket that was found by the river.

It was like burned, yeah. They did it on that, and they did it on the towel that was in the sun-kissed box. [50:22] And the initial results from those showed male DNA on both, but the quantities were too low to actually build a full profile or to even determine if any of them like matched each other or the partials that they were getting from the hair. Same sample. [50:35] So right now, they're just waiting on further testing. And they're hoping that the same advances in DNA technology that have cracked other cold cases...

[50:43] means that maybe they'll be able to crack this one one day, or at the very least, get that partial profile to a better spot that they could put it in a national database. [50:51] And that's really important because even though Lieutenant Van Sock thought of Michael as a really good suspect for a while, his current working theory, [51:00] is that Stephanie was killed by a stranger. [51:03] He doesn't believe that Michael had the skill to do what was done to Stephanie. [51:08] He thinks that it's more likely that Stephanie left the restaurant, mad at her boyfriend for not picking her up, [51:14] and got in a car with someone that she didn't know.

[51:17] And that person... [51:18] took her somewhere, sexually assaulted her, [51:21] killed her and then dismembered her. [51:23] He doesn't know who that person is yet. [51:26] But a new name was added to the case file just recently. [51:31] one that actually started [51:33] with us. [51:34] So last summer, Lieutenant Van Sock was outside doing some yard work.