Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is not intended for all
audiences. Listener discretion is advised. What do you remember it was? Man?
It was just it was all It was bad blood. You know what
I'm saying. Stuff was coming out of her mouth. Did you think that
she was dying? I didn't think that she was gonna die. Hello and
welcome the season eleven, episode two hundred and sixty four of Sword and Scale,
a show that reveals that the worst monsters are real. Speaking of real,
boy, nothing makes a really horrific true crime story real for you as
much as standing in front of the building where a young woman was tortured to
death by people who she thought were her friends, and it all comes to
you all, well, it's like, oh, this really really happened.
You know, Otherwise you're just sitting in a dark room talking in a microphone.
But producing Sword and Scale television has really solidified in my mind just how
awful people can be. I hope you get a chance to see it,
because I think we're doing something incredible. I think we're elevating the true crime
platform to a new place. The stories we're telling, the way we're telling
them. This has never been done before, so I really do hope that
you do get a chance to see it. I know it's expensive, but
we do have plans to add additional offerings to the video tier. You know,
eventually we have to start somewhere, and I think we started at the
very top, at the very pinnacle of true crime, which is Sword and
Scale Television. I think you're gonna love it. If you're interested in checking
it out and also supporting independent media, head on over to Sword and Scale
dot com or download the Sword and Scale app on your iOS or Android phone.
During the course of a murderer investigation, and especially if a particular murder
is ultimately solved, there is a word that gets thrown around a lot.
That word is closure. Oftentimes, family members of a murder victim seek answers
in an effort to obtain that ever elusive closure. Aside from wanting to know
who is responsible for their loved one's death, they also want to know why
that person committed the murder in the first place. Then they usually want to
see that person punished. Many families wait years to get all of these things
if they're lucky enough to get them all, but after they get them does
closure actually ever truly come in a murder case? Is closure really even possible?
Just over twenty years ago, in mid August of two thousand and two,
a middle aged mom in Fort Wayne, Indiana, received a voicemail from
her only daughter's ex boyfriend. It was the kind of voicemail that no mother
wants to hear. She was told that her daughter had been badly injured and
was being rushed to the hospital. D write in love, I'm over here
at Gumfria Thompson, thank you over here, she had heard she heard the
name of her here. I don't know away, We'll get a whole call.
I mean, that's the only thing I sing. Earlier that night,
Fort Wayne police were called to a fairly chaotic scene and a residence where a
small house party had been taking place. The attendees were mostly young adults in
their late teens and early twenties. The lead investigator that was eventually assigned to
this case was Fort Wayne homicide Detective Brian Martin. Fort Wayne police officers arrived
to what was put out as a party. When they arrived, they discovered
a female who was suffering from some type of cut or stabloun to the chest
and abdomen area. They observed that there were approximately eight to ten individuals standing
around, with one or two of the individuals providing aid to the victim.
The young female victim was rushed to a hospital as the responding officers turned the
house party into a crime scene and began questioning the witnesses. The police learned
that shortly after the victim arrived at the house party, a physical and fairly
brutal fight broke out in the backyard between her and another teenager. She pulled
up. Everybody was outside in the back and that's that's when all hell broke
loose came Where were you at here? And all this? She I was
upstairs in the bedroom with a bunch of people smoking weed. So you're upstairs
smoking weed? What do you remember she got into an altercation with another female
when it comes to the fight. Do you remember the fight? I don't
know, man, They were just scuffling around and all they were on the
ground when you left. Did you know that? Did somebody say the cops
were coming right? Did you? Oh? We heard them? Oh you
could hear them. We heard them. The police also learned that the victim
in this case was soon to be High school senior. Stacy the Grand Champ.
So Stacy the Grand Champ was a very popular young lady, approximately sixteen
seventeen years old. Everybody that we spoke to about Stacey described her as a
popular, young, energetic young lady who had goals of going to college and
they were very, very excited about where life was going to take Stacy.
Her personality was that energetic, charismatic and everybody, including Stacy herself, had
high hopes and big plans for life. Stacy was an only child, but
she found sisterhood and her cousin, Jamie McMillan, who lived only a few
houses away from Stacy. I am Jamie McMillan and I am the cousin of
St. C. Deering Champ. Our moms are twins and we definitely grew
up extremely close. It was only two years difference between the two of us.
Stacy was an extremely fun person to be around. She was always full
of energy. She enjoyed playing volleyball. She loved her family very much.
She was the oldest of all the girls, and there's about twenty eight cousins
between all of us. Stacy was getting ready to start her senior year at
Wayne High School, which back in two thousand and two was pretty standard public
high school. Among the halls in the class aassrooms were the typical cliques of
jocks, stoner's band, geeks, and the like. In the social hierarchy,
Stacy was undeniably at the top. With her blonde hair, bright eyes,
and prowess and volleyball. She was one of the most popular students at
Wayne High if not the most popular. I feel like a lot of people
were jealous of Stacy just based off how beautiful she was and her outgoing personality.
I think a lot of people envied her. The police also learned that
the teenager who had gotten into a fight with Stacy was Holly Boisvert, another
student at Wayne High. So Holly boys as a young lady. She also
attended Wayne High School. Sixteen seventeen year old girl. She kind of kepture
herself, maybe ran with a little bit tougher crowd. She could be standoffish
at times. Holly, I don't believe initially was the kind of girl that
you would think of as a trouble maker, but she definitely had a little
bit of a rough side to her. In many ways, Stacy and Holly
were very opposite people. They were both attractive teenage girls, but Stacy was
known to be bright, bubbly, and outgoing, while Holly was pretty introverted
and carried herself with an edge just because of I remember her as a teenager
through my group of friends, she was the tough one, you know,
she was the I'll beat anybody up or you know, like out of our
group of friends, she was a little rough, roun edge. Okay.
Needless to say, Stacey and Holly weren't close, but they did know each
other through mutual friends. Several months before the two girls had their fight at
a house party, Stacy began dating a young man named Brandon Muff. To
know Stacy and Brandon was to also know that they really didn't make much sense
together. Stacy was a preppy teenager who always did her school work, and
twenty year old Brandon had a reputation for being a local bad boy. Actually,
come to think of it, most high schools have this sort of arrangement.
Pretty popular girl dating the older bad dude with a leather jacket used to
be a popular trope. Stacy started dating Brandon Muff back when she was about
sixteen years old. The relationship didn't seem to last very long. We automatically
knew that that was not a good fit for her. That was terrible decision,
and we were pretty voiicitous about that as her family. So Brandon Muff
is a gentleman who was a little bit older, early twenties, ran with
a little bit rougher crowd. Well, Brandon was the kind of guy that
you liked the attention, You liked dating these younger ladies a little bit,
and liked to party and have fun. Stacy dated Brandon for a few months
and it just so happened that Brandon was Holly's ex boyfriend. Though the term
ex boyfriend should be used loosely here because Brandon was playing both girls. So
Holly dated Brandon and I'm not quite certain on how long the relationship lasted,
but ultimately Brandon broke up with Holly, and then later on Stacy started dating
Brandon. It appeared Brandon was kind of playing both sides of the field,
if you will, or dating both girls at the same time, or there
may have been some overlap or some bad communication as to what his intentions were
with the young ladies. After Stacy began dating Brandon, Holly went out of
her way to make life hard for Stacy. In an attempt to drive a
wedge between Stacy and their group of friends, Holly began spreading rumors about Stacy.
Holly was extremely upset once she found out that Brandon and Stacy started dating.
She went around spreading different rumors and just bad through Stacy's name completely under
the bus where friends that were mutual friends decided that they either couldn't retain their
friendship with her or that they kind of sided with Holly based off of the
rumors that Holly was spreading. By mid August of two thousand and two,
Stacy had broken off things with Brandon and was preparing to start her senior year
at Wayne High. But about a week before school was scheduled to start,
Stacy was invited to a house party where Brandon lived. Stacy was reluctant about
going, but was ultimately convinced to attend by her friend Abby. Stacey ended
up going to the Guthrie home that night. She was there with a mutual
friend of Brandon's named Abby, and Abby ended up taking Stacy there that night.
Stacy was reluctant, she didn't really want to go but for whatever reason,
Abby head her talked into let's go to this party, and so Abby
drove her there that night. Naturally, after Stacy was rushed to the hospital,
Abby was one of the first people that the police questioned. According to
Abby, as well as many other witnesses, the fight between Stacy and Holly
broke out pretty much as soon as Stacy arrived at the party. So we
end up going and I park in the driveway when the girl comes out and
they get in this altercation. Both Holly and Stacy had a verbal exchange verbal
argument. They got pretty heated by the back door of the residence. The
girls had this rather firing exchange and then it led to physical push and shoving,
which led to kicking and hitting and the girls being on the ground fighting,
wrestling, kicking one another. Eventually, the fight between Stacy and Holly
was broken up and Abby suggested to Stacy that they should just leave. When
she stood up and I was talking to her, there was no blood.
And then she went around the side of my car. And then I look
back and she wasn't standing there, and you were next to the car with
her. Yeah, I was by the driver's side. She went over to
the passenger side. According to Abby, she and Stacy walked towards Abby's car,
and for a brief moment, Abby looked away from Stacy, but when
she looked back, Stacy was no longer standing. She was suddenly lying in
the driveway and clutching her chest. Shortly after, many of the other partygoers
began to gather around Stacy. What what do you remember about Stacy laying there?
It was, man, it was just it was it was bad.
You know what I'm saying. Blood, you know what I'm saying. Stuff
was coming out of her mouth. You know, I didn't know. It
scared the fuck out of me. You know what I'm saying. I ain't
never seen anything like it. Did you think that she was dying? I
didn't think that she was gonna die? Right. Eventually nine one one was
called, an ambulance showed up, and Stacy was rushed to a hospital.
Tragically, the cops had some very bad news for Abby. And at this
point in my call nine one one, call nine one one, and then
everything went so freaking fast. At that point, the paramedics came, the
police got there, and I was like, she okay, is she okay?
I'm going to freak it out and he's the police officer looked at me
down in the face that she's not gonna make it, and right then it
was complete devastation. Abby held on to hope that Stacy was going to survive,
but ultimately her hope was in vain. Just a few hours after she
arrived at the hospital, seventeen year old Stacy de Grand Champ was dead.
Following her death, Fort Wayne homicide detectives went to work trying to figure out
exactly how this happened and who was responsible, but the case turned out to
be much more complicated than they anticipated. In fact, this case remained unsolved
for quite a while, and nobody would get any real answers about Stacy's death
for nearly twenty years. On the night of August fifteenth, two thousand and
two, two high school students in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Stacy to Grand
Champion Holly Boisburt, began fighting each other at a small house party. The
fight started as a shouting match, but quickly escalated to shoving, hair pulling,
punching, kicking, and rolling around on the ground typical girl fight.
After the fight ended, Stacy collapsed in the driveway as she was attempting to
leave when an ambulance and police arrived. It became a parent that Stacy had
life threatening injuries, and she was rushed to a nearby hospital. A few
hours later, Stacy died, and the following morning, her cousin Jamie was
made aware of Stacy's passing. I learned from my mom waking me up with
my aunt in our family room, very sobbing, crying, and I just
said, Mom, what is it, well, what's wrong? What's wrong?
And she said, Stacy died, She's gone. I just remember feeling
this numb feeling just over my entire body and just feeling extremely weak, the
shock feeling. There wasn't so much emotion right away. It was the shock
feeling. And all I could say was, no, this isn't this isn't
happening now, It's not true. And then I proceeded to go into the
living room where seen Rita, her mom. I felt the way that she
looked, that'd be how I looked at that point in time. Just a
feeling of loss. You couldn't even speak. All you could do was stop
crying together as a family and ask yourself, you know. Then the million
and one questions as to why. When Jamie and the rest of Stacy's family
learned that Stacy had died, they weren't given much information about how or why
this all happened. Again, at this point in time, we still had
no idea really what had happened. We met with the detectives told us a
little bit about what had happened. They didn't have any idea who did it.
They did not have a murder weapon. They just had stated that that
Holly and Stacy were in an altercation in the backyard and that they're going to
get who who did this? And you know, of course our fingers immediately
said Holly did it. She had the altercation, But at that point in
time, we still weren't certain on what involvement Bringdan had. Twenty year old
Brandon Muff dated both Holly and Stacy, and he was the host of the
house party where Stacy was injured. Naturally, the police interviewed Brandon, and
during that interview, Brandon freely admitted that he had invited both girls to his
party while being well aware of the fact that they didn't like each other.
Stacy and Abby came over and they told me that they would be coming over
later because I told him they we're going to have a couple of people over.
Wasn't a party or anything like that. So later in the day,
about I say about three or four, I talked to Holly. She said
that she was going to come over. Brandon explained that when Holly arrived at
his house, she had been dropped off by a few friends. A short
while later, Stacy's friend Abby pulled into the driveway with Stacy sitting in the
car's passenger seat. She got there, it was just getting dark. She
got dropped off by a whitney and some friends went inside. Justin told me
that Stacy and Abby were there, so I went outside to meet him.
Abby told police that almost immediately after she and Stacy showed up to the party,
Holly and Stacy got into an argument, with each girl shouting at the
other. Then the physical fighting began, and Stacey had You know, she
could be a little hot head sometimes, and you know, if somebody had
problems with her, she wasn't scared to confront it, and I think she
wanted just to have a conversation and maybe it would have gotten heated. You
know, I believe that the conversation would have gotten heated. But then it
just and this was a matter of a few minutes. This all happened.
It was just insane, and I'm like, Brandon, help me stop this.
Help me. After the two girls started hitting each other, Abby called
upon Brandon to break it up, but Brandon wasn't too keen on stopping two
attractive young girls from fighting in large part about him. And I stepped in
and I said, well, if they're gonna fight, lit the fight.
So they started fighting. It ended up both of them on the ground,
and Stacy was kicking Holly in the face. So I decided that it was
time to break up the fight. So I grabbed Stacy's ankle and I yanked
her away from Holly or she fell into some recycling bins, and she stood
up like everything was fine when you or Stacy from Holly. Why did you
do that? Because Stacy was she was getting the best of follow she was
kicking Holly in By all accounts, Stacy won the fight, and after it
ended, she seemed fine. Brandon pulled her away from Holly and Stacy stumbled
into some recycling bins. Then Abby suggested that they leave the party, and
they stand up Stacey's standing there, and I was like, let's just fucking
go. So she walks around the side of my car. I look the
other way. I look back on the ground. When I go over there,
I see blood and start coming through her shirt. But after I saw
what was going on, I screamed for Brandon, and then I went over
there and got on the ground and I noticed that, you know, she
she was had blood on her shirt and she was bleeding. So I lifted
up her sherr hatway and there was a hole in her stomach. Stacey was
choking, and she had started choking at that point, and I turned her
on her side because I thought, maybe, you know, she was an
Obama or something, and she did and I asked her what. I asked
her what happened, and she told me the pain started when I broke up
the fight. Brandon's account of what happened was consistent with the statements that all
of the witnesses at the party had given to police, so Brandon probably wasn't
lying, but none of his versions of events explained how Stacy got injured or
how this fight led to her death. When Stacy was taken to the hospital,
they knew right away that she had a cut to her middle of her
chest, just under her breast, as well as her abdomen, and by
the time that she had gotten picked up by the ambulance and transported a very
short distance to a trauma center, there was nothing that could be done to
save her life. After Stacy died in the hospital, her family was put
into a truly awful position. Stacy was a vibrant seventeen year old girl with
a bright future ahead of her, and her family had to bury her without
any answers as to how this happened or who was responsible. DC went out
shopping for her senior year outfit the day that she died, and those were
supposed to be for her senior pictures that she was going to be taking that
following week as she entered into her senior year, and instead of being able
to wear those for her senior pictures, she was wearing those in that outfit
in her casket in very poor taste, and to the shock of Stacy's family,
Brandon Muff made an appearance at the viewing for Stacy. Brandon showed up
and my one aunt said, Brandon, you look at her, and you
look what you did to her. You did this, you put her there,
And he turned around and yelled back and said, I love that girl.
I would never do anything to hurt her, and continued to yell profanity
as he exited out of the funeral home. During the police investigation, detectives
were hoping that they could find a murder weapon, if there even was one.
Stacy's injuries suggested that she could have been stabbed, so a search effort
was made to find the knife. Law enforcement during the search of the residents
as a crime scene, went through the entire house. They went through the
exterior of the home. They documented the area around the home. Knives from
the kitchen and from the kitchen sink were removed from the residence and tested.
At this time and shortly thereafter, it was learned that none of the knives
that were taken from the resident or in fact a weapon used to kill Stacy.
When Brandon was questioned, he told police that during the fight he never
saw Holly or anyone with a knife or any kind of weapon at all.
And during the time that Stacey and Holly was fighting, was there anyone else
around or involved in the fight? Yep, and you were the only person
that it kind of got involved in the fight when you called Stacy right right?
Did you stab Stacey did? To my understanding, and from what I
saw that, I never really saw anybody sab anybody and you and I waited
a couple of days to see, if you know, if they would find
a weapon at the same but they never found a weapon. As for everyone
else who witnessed the fight, they told police the very same thing. Nobody
saw a knife. Nobody saw a weapon the day the fight happened. Did
you see or talk to Holly at all? Do you recall, yes,
I dropped her off to the location. When you dropped her off, do
you know if she hadn't she'd been carrying a knife with her, right,
I don't remember seeing a knife. I'm not going to say she didn't have
a knife, though, you don't remember seeing seeing a weapon? No,
I don't know anybody. I haven't seen no weapons. I has seen this.
Two girls getting into a fight. Did you see the other girl's hands,
I mean I've seen him. It looked like she didn't have anything in
her hands. You know what I'm saying. Yeah, it was just looked
like a fight, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, Let me ask
you this, anytime did you see Hollywood a knife? Though, anytime after
the fight or even since she passed, did you ever hear that she had
a knife. I never heard anything about a weapon. I never saw a
weapon. And that's why this is so hard, given that no weapon was
found in that nobody ever saw one. The detectives began to wonder if Stacy
had been cut or stabbed in some way. Brandon and other witnesses told police
that the fight ended when Brandon dragged Stacy away from Holly. Stacy then stood
up and stumbled or fell into a nearby collection of recycling bins. Maybe Stacey
was somehow and unknowingly injured. Then these puncture wounds are these stab wounds initially
were described as possibly being some kind of cup from glass or metal, And
it was described by people at the scene that during the altercation between Holly and
Stacy that a recycle bin with glass and bottles was knocked over, and I
believe everybody initially thought that possibly Stacy was cut by glass. There was,
of course, one other very important person that the police talked to, and
that was the girl who fought with Stacy, Holly Boisbird Unfortunately, for the
sake of this episode, the cops decided to record the audio of this interview
with a potato And then and she got on hair and pulled me across the
arm and tied me in my face, and I put my army on the
way from both arms, and she just started hitting me in my head the
arms, and then Brandon pulled her, letting dragged off the ar my angles
and then she let and so that was like, let's go one her glee
and she walked over to the car. When Holly gave her statement to police,
she claimed that she had no idea how Stacy got stabbed. She admitted
that she had gotten into a fight with Stacy and that Stacy won the fight,
then Brandon broke it up and a few moments later Stacy collapsed in the
driveway. It was the same story that everyone else had told police. Holly
did give the information about a recycle bend the head glass and bottles in it
being knocked over, and that she initially thought that possibly that was how Stacy
had received her injuries. Holly further indicated that she was kind of getting the
uh ar was on the losing end of this fight. She claimed that she
had no idea how the injuries to Stacy occurred. The physical evidence and witness
statements ultimately led police nowhere, so they began considering motives. Who would want
Stacy dead and why. As they looked into this, they learned something interesting.
On the night that the fight happened, Holly Boysfurt had been dropped off
at the house party by two teenage friends, Amanda Richards and Whitney mcgeehee,
both of whom went to high school with Stacy. The police eventually discovered that
just before Stacey died, Whitney McGehee had called Stacy and left her an odd
voicemail. When he called Stacy the day that she died, and left a
voice message on the answer machine that Stacy would never get. She never got
that voice message, but Whitney left a very threatening message that you're going to
get it tonight. I maybe put home for I'm alive when you do,
being older me because otherwise people are looking for you. Based on the rumors
that Holly had been spreading about Stacy, Whitney falsely believed that Stacy was bad
mouthing Whitney behind her back and telling lies about her. It was all petty
high school drama, but that didn't stop Whitney from calling Stacy and seemingly threatening
her. Sadly, Stacy never got this message because she died before she could
hear it. The person who discovered the voicemail was Stacy's mom, who promptly
gave it to police. You also called Rita, Stacy's mother, and did
you leave a message? And I don't know exactly what I said at that,
but from what I remember, they were both dating the same guy and
basically what had happened is he was going back and forth. So Holly,
I don't remember her wording, I don't remember what she said since a long
ago, was basically like not okay with Stacy. So I had called and
left a message and said something along the lines of you need to call me
watch out for her, something like that. When questioned, Whitney couched her
voicemail as a friendly warning. She claimed that she wasn't making a threat and
was only trying to actively warn Stacy that Holly was going out toget her.
Nonetheless, detectives in this case started to wonder if they were being lied to
by everyone. Maybe, just maybe there was a larger conspiracy going on here.
Maybe the rumors that Holly had spread about Stacy prompted all of these teenagers
you plot a murder. Maybe Stacy was lured to the house party. Maybe
Brandon, Holly, Whitney, and Abbey all knew exactly what was going to
happen when she got there. So initially detectives began wondering if this was some
kind of a setup, so to speak, meaning that Brandon Muff wanted both
girls to be at this party, and that he had an agenda or some
kind of plan. And in fact, when other friends tried to break the
girls up from the fight that was happening, Brandon had made the comment,
no, let them go. Ultimately, if there was some conspiracy among friends
to murder Stacy, the police could never prove it, and the case dragged
on. As it did, life continued for everyone involved, but the lives
they were living weren't easy. In particular, Holly Boys pretty much became a
social outcast and struggled to finish her education at Wayne High School. So after
Stacy's death, it's my understanding, and from everything that I've been able to
gather, is that Holly Boys were it was kind of not real popular.
There were a lot of people talking. People believed that she was responsible for
the death. They didn't know how necessarily, but they believed that she was
responsible. And those assumptions were based on the fact that she was the only
one involved in a physical altercation with Stacy de grand Champ and ultimately moments later
she was dead. According to Whitney mcgeey, she and all of Holly's former
friends pretty much cut Holly out of their lives. We all washed our hands
on her once to heaven. Did you talk to her at any point after
this fight took place. I know that I had caught her one time and
asked her did she do it? And she basically to me? And I
never talked to her again, and I was just done with it. I
couldn't. Eventually, Holly's family committed Holly to a mental hospital out of fear
that she might kill herself after that fight. Did she have to go get
a little bit of help because it kind of got in her head a little
bit? Well, my dad said he didn't want it to He didn't want
her to hit mess up from it, so he kind of made her going
there where she would part She did behavioral as Holly was dealing with all of
this. Stacy's family was still waiting for answers and still waiting for justice to
be handed out. Unfortunately, those answers and justice itself never showed up.
After we met with the detective, he's promised us that he won't stop until
he gets the person that did this. We kind of held on to that
promise in the hopes that justice would be served, you know any day now
where we're waiting for that phone call, any date to come through to say
hey, we've arrested Holly and how she's going to be charged with murder,
and that phone call just never happened. For Stacy's family, The days,
weeks, and months dragged on and the de grand Champ case went cold.
Many years passed without any arrests being made. Initial detectives took this case,
I believe as far as they thought that they could go. There was a
lot of misconception around the wounds. It was a little baffling as to how
she got stabbed or how she got cut. Stacy de grand Champ was murdered
in August of two thousand and two, and it wasn't until twenty nineteen that
the case was officially looked into again that year, Stacy's cousin Jamie McMillan reached
out to cold case detective Brian Martin and asked him to take a look at
it, which he did. From there, Detective Martin began the long process
of tracking down the witnesses and everyone involved in the case. Remarkably, Detective
Martin was eventually able to solve the crime and deliver just a little bit of
justice to Stacy's family. In August of two thousand and two, seventeen year
olds Stacy de grand Champ died after getting into a fight with her schoolmate Holly
Boisverd. Stacy and Holly both dated an older guy named Brandon Muff and this
generated a whole lot of pettiness between the two girls and their friends. Insults
were lobbied, rumors were spread, and lies were told. It was teenage
girl drama that most people wouldn't take seriously, but it all became very serious
when a fight broke out between Stacy and Holly, and Stacy later died as
a result. Unfortunately, when initial homicide detectives investigated this case, they couldn't
make sense of how Stacy sustained two life threatening injuries to her chest and abdomen.
Brandon Muff and other witnesses to the fight claimed they never saw Holly or
anyone with a knife, and a murder weapon was never found. For many
years, this case languished and eventually went cold, all the way while Stacy's
family waited for answers and for justice. Then, in twenty nineteen, Stacy's
cousin, Jamie McMillan, reached out to cold case homicide detective Brian Martin and
asked him to look into the case, which he did. One of the
first things that Detective Martin did was consider some of the original theories that might
have explained how Stacy was injured. This included the possibility that Stacy was cut
by glass after the fight with Holly. According to Brandon Muff, when he
broke up the fight, Stacy stumbled and fell into some nearby recycling bins,
and the thinking was that she may have gotten jabbed by broken glass. When
this happened, I can tell you that when I began looking at this case,
one of the first things I did was look for blood around the recycle
bin and look for broken glass or look for sharp objects, and quite Honestly,
I found no blood around that recycle ben and the photographs. I did
not find any broken glass. I didn't see evidence that broken glass was swept
up or cleaned up. I also looked at the wounds and the injuries and
the reports from trauma centered doctors as well as Corners staff, and quickly realized
this was not the type of injury from my training experience and from the reports
I was reading that would have been sustained by broken glass and atens and purposes,
I believe that she was stabbed. It was a knife and she was
stabbed. Another important thing that Detective Martin did was reinterview many of the people
who had some sort of link to this case, and that included Brandon Muff
So I was able to speak with Brandon muff an additional time. He was
very upset, he was emotional. He said he felt horrible. He said
that this had affected him and that he has a lot of regret over the
fact that he felt that he had put the girls in the situation or they
fought and it was because of him, and that he was young and doing
dumb stuff, and he really regretted some of his choices back then, after
almost twenty years and now thirty eight year old Brandon Muff acknowledged that inviting both
Stacy and Holly to his house party was a very poor decision and he deeply
regretted his part in putting the girls in that position. Even so, when
Detective Martin questioned him, his story about what happened didn't change, and he
still couldn't explain how Stacy was stabbed. The other theory about the case that
was tossed around was the possibility that Stacy's death was some kind of conspiracy among
Brandon, Holly, and others. Perhaps Stacy was lured to Brandon's house party
in order to be murdered. Perhaps it was all set up. But ultimately
the initial detectives and Detective Martin could never find any evidence to back this up.
Initial detectives, as well as myself, did not really find that there
was anything to substantiate that Brandon Muff had a hidden agenda to get the girls
together so that something like this could happen. For Detective Martin, there was
really only one explanation to account for how Stacy got stabbed. It had to
have happened during the fight with Holly, and Holly must have successfully concealed the
fact that she had a knife. Holly must have felt that she was getting
the roll end of the deal, or she was pissed off, and she
stabbed Stacy twice, once in the abdomen and once in the upper chest,
and it caused Stacy to begin to bleed to death right there at the scene.
Officially, Holly Boysburt became Detective Martin's main suspect, and this meant tracking
her down and finding out where she landed so many years later, and I
was able to find that Holly Boisberg was actually living in Fond de Lac,
Wisconsin. It appeared that she was not working. I found that she was
living in an apartment complex, and then it appeared she had a younger son.
Detective Martin interviewed several people who were connected to the case, but he
saved Holly for last, and he didn't tell her he was coming. Instead,
he and another detective just showed up at her doorstep, and ultimately Holly
came to the door. She was wearing pajamas and a T shirt. She
came to the door. She looked a little shot, kind of had a
blank stare on her face. Hey Holly, how are you. I'm Ausin
Martin the soft snow. We were hoping to bend your ear for a minute.
Awesome. Holly did invite us in and let us sit down and begin
speaking with her about the case. At the start of this interview, Holly
was questioned about the fight she had with Stacy, and Holly explained the details
of the just kicks and hair pulling that took place. Her head was closer
to your feet and no, how was she kicking in the head. Then
she was like on her back and I was kind of half on my side.
I guess how do you think that Stacy got cut? I have no
idea. Everybody there, we were all friends, like you and Stacy had
kind of had a little beef going on because of Brandon. It was so
stupid that way it was. I agree. It was like one of those
just petty high school girl things, right exactly. So you and Stacy had
kind of had this little beef That's what led to this fight. Did you
have your pocket knife with you that day? Honestly? That one like it
was one of the little like fold folding a folding knife. Is it possible
that you had it with you when you guys were having your little tussela match
in the backyard. No. Hollie admitted that she did usually carry a knife
with her for protection, but she claimed that she didn't have it on her
during the fight with Stacy. She explained that she kept the knife in her
purse, but she wasn't carrying when the fight happened. Holly insisted that she
would have never stabbed Stacy because despite the anger they had for each other,
Holly still considered Stacy to be a friend. She was my friend. We
were terrible teenage girls, but she was still my friend. I would not
have done that to her intentionally. I never would have pulled a knife on
her. Like I had no intention of fighting her. I didn't know that
she was gonna be there. We were terrible bitches to each other, but
she was still my friend. She's your friend. But you guys were also
in a pretty good pisson match over a boy. If there, if you
had a pocket knife and she got cut by it, then I just need
to know that I just have still had it. It's like, even if
that would have happened when they pulled us apart, I would have still had
Holly attempted to make the very idea of her having a knife seem impossible.
Surely, if she had a knife, the police would have found it on
her after the fight. Either that or Holly stashed the knife somewhere before cops
arrived on scene, which is exactly what Holly allegedly told Brandon that she did.
A couple of days later, when I called Holly on the phone and
I got to talking to her about what happened, and she proceeded to tell
her that she, you know, that she didn't stab her, but that
she had a knife, and and asked her, well, what did what
did she do with the knife? And she told me that after Stacy fell
on the ground, she went in the house, washed her hands, stepped
outside the front door, and there was a white car park out front of
like a Lincoln some floor door. She said that she placed the knife on
the back of it of the gardeners the window. Detective Martin and his partner
believed and were confident that Holly did have a knife on her during the fight,
and that Holly stabbed Stacy to death. They also believe that Holly was
still lying about it. What do you think happened to her? How do
you think she got those stab wounds. I don't know. I thought at
one point that it was glass. That was the only thing that I could
think of. I have all the reports, all the autopsy reports. Glass
did not cut her. It was a puncture wound from a knife. Holly.
This this is the time. If there's some stuff you want to get
off your chest, do it. There's no dispute that you and Stacy got
into it, and Stacy's wounds happened during the fight. I'm just trying to
figure out how or why. There is no way it did. That is
very well articulated by the medical facts that were gained from the autopsy. There's
no way that that would have happened without me realizing it. If you had
the pocket knife on you and you got tussling, yeah, I mean,
just tell me, because otherwise it looks it just doesn't look good. I
know that if I even felt like that was a remote possibility, then I
would say that. And I never I never have I never would have pulled
a knife on anybody. Despite the attempts to get her to admit otherwise,
Holly maintained that she did not have a knife and that she never stabbed Stacy.
This left Detective Martin with only one option. Holly, I could tell
by looking at you and from talking to you and watching you, watching you
breathe, just watching your eyes go. You just gotta say it. There's
nothing for me to say. All Right, I'm gonna tell you what's going
to happen. Then I'm going to go back to Fort Wayne and I'm going
to present the case to the prosecutor's office, and I'm gonna charge you with
murder. After this harsh reality was made clear to Holly, she did something
that nobody saw coming. Again. Holly did admit to having a pocket knife
in her purse on the night that Stacy was stabbed, but she claimed that
she wasn't carrying it during a fight. On a whim, Detective Martin asked
Holly if she still had that knife. Do you still have that pocket knife?
By chance? I might, so as we're talking, I asked the
question, do you still have this pocket knife from back then that you would
have had the knight of the stabbing. I had no inkling that she was
going to say, yeah, I still have this knife for oh well,
maybe I still have this knife. But Holly said that she believed that she
did. She got up and she walked back into a back bedroom. Holly
came back with a small package or a small box and had a knife in
it and hated me the pocket knife. It's not every day that a murder
suspect hands over a potential murder weapon directly to the police, but sure enough,
that's exactly what happened here. Holly even offered up a little bag for
the evidence. Are you saying I can have it? Yes? Oh yeah,
if you get a zep blog bag, I'll say it. I was
almost speechless because it shocked me. I think that she wanted to show me
that she was trying to be cooperative, and that by showing her cooperation that
maybe I would stop talking to her. I think it's probably one of those
things that for many years she looked over her shoulder, always wondering when somebody
was going to come try and talk to her about this case, and enough
time had passed that she was starting to feel comfortable. So I think I
really shocked her and took her out of her element. And when you do
that to people, they tend to do bizarre there's oftentimes bizarre behavior. After
receiving this knife Detective Martin headed back to Fort Wayne and had a pathologist examine
it along with photographs of Stacy's injuries, and this pathologist stated that the knife
was completely consistent with a weapon that would cause the injuries that killed Stacy.
I then immediately packaged up the knife and it was sent to the Indiana State
Police Lab for forensic testing. The knife was completely taken apart down in all
the nooks and crannies. It was swabbed and no DNA for Stacy de green
Champ and no DNA at all was located on this knife. DNA was a
long shot, but given the pathologists' findings, Detective Martin felt he had enough
evidence to arrest Holly for murder, and Fort Wayne prosecutors agreed. In March
of twenty twenty, almost twenty years after the murder, Holly Boysvurt was finally
arrested for the killing of Stacy de grand Chair. I had Holly taken to
an interview room at the fund elect Police Department. I attempted to interview Holly.
She was very stand offish. I saw a different side of Holly.
I saw a pissed off side of Holly. She was very indignant with me
and thought that I was messing with her, and she felt that people picked
on her. She felt that she was the victim of everything. So after
that interview, or our lack thereof an interview, Holly was transported back to
the Fort Wayne Police Department. After Holly was arrested, it didn't take long
for this news to reach Stacy's cousin Jamie McMillan and the rest of Stacy's family.
I was ecstatic. I was speechless. It brought me back to that
same day that I found out that she died. Hours later of saying to
myself, we are going to get the person that did this, that my
motivation is to see her behind bars, and that feeling of sadness, but
completely overjoyed that this finally happened. It was amazing. I couldn't wait to
call my aunt and for us to say those words, we got her,
we got her. She's behind bars and she's going to stay there for a
long time. Even though Holly was behind bars, the police investigation didn't stop.
If anything, it only ramped up and some very important information came the
light. On the night that Stacy was stabbed, Holly had been previously dropped
off at the house party by two of her friends, Whitney mcgeehee and Amanda
Richards. Whitney claims she never saw Holly with a knife, but apparently Amanda
did. We got to the house that night, and before we got there,
Holly always had a knife that she carried with her, so she always
kept a knife on her for protection. Well, that night she took the
knife with her when we got there. She had me hold it in my
purse. You know. While we were there, Whitney and I started getting
like just a weird feeling. We were just ready to go, and we
tried to get Holly, like conmence Holly to leave with us, but because
Brandon was still there, Holly didn't want to leave, okay, So as
Whitney and I were getting ready to leave, Holly asked me for the knife
back, and I didn't think anything of it, you know, so I
gave it back to her. This information that Amanda gave to police was a
startling revelation. It was potentially firsthand testimony of someone putting a knife into Holly's
hands within an hour of Stacy de grand Champ being stabbed to death. This,
of course begged the question why did it take so long for Amanda to
tell this story? Amanda came forward with this information. I don't know why
she didn't come up with it prior. Maybe she didn't think about it,
Maybe it wasn't something that really keyed in on her, or maybe she was
in disbelief or or didn't want to believe that something like this could happen.
Maybe she was scared that, oh God, I'm the one that gave Holly
her knife back and led to this death. I don't know that we'll ever
know truly why this information didn't get to us until so late. Amanda's very
of the events could have easily been scrutinized by a defense attorney during a trial,
but that didn't change the fact that Fort Wayne prosecutors had a pretty solid
case against Holly. This was a very strong case with great physical evidence as
far as a possible murder weapon that was obtained. It's consistent with the injuries.
The injuries are definitely stab wounds. We have individual who is putting,
you know, Amanda's putting a knife in Holly's hand just prior to the altercation.
This is all very strong evidence. Initially, Holly Boisberg pleaded not guilty
to killing Stacy, but after being presented with the evidence that the state had,
she eventually accepted a plea deal. As part of that agreement, Holly
would finally have to admit in court that she killed Stacy the grand cham Holly
took the stand and the judge asked her, do you know while you're here?
And she said, yes, I was in a fight and I took
a knife and I stabbed these degreem shamp twice. He said, you stabbed
her twice. Yes, I stabbed her twice and that resulted in her death.
And that's what I had been waiting to hear for so many years,
was the confession that she in fact did kill Stacy, even though in our
minds we knew all along. But to have that confession, Stacy's family finally
got some answers, and after Holly admitted to the crime, it was time
for her to be sentenced. Holly was very quiet in court. They asked
her if she had anything to say. Holly said no. The judge then
said, you know, you should apologize to the family and she said,
I'm sorry, and that's it. It was very generic. It was not
heartfelt at all. I can tell you that I do not believe that Holly
was truly remorseful for what she had done. During the sentence phase, Holly
didn't do herself any favors. Despite this, and considering that she committed a
murder, Hollie did walk away with a pretty good deal. Holly's sentencing was
twenty years behind bars, and she already had served two years in Allen County
Jail before her sentencing almost and she ended up getting which if she has good
behavior, she will get out early, and that would practically mean that she
would only have another additional eight years to serve, which is not at all
serving justice in my mind, and those twenty years should have held up.
I don't feel like her serving ten years behind bars is enough for murdering someone.
Would I'd like to see her get more time. Absolutely, I would
have liked to see that because I feel that it's very it's just so unjust
for Stacy and Stacy's family to know that person who killed their loved one has
been living their life for the last twenty years just doing whatever they want to
do, raised the child and Stacy never had that. With good behavior,
Holly could be released from prison as early as twenty thirty and may only serve
ten years, though that will require her to petition a parole board, and
Jamie intends to be there when she does, along with several other members of
the family. For them, the fight continues to ensure that justice is truly
done. It's worth noting that Stacy and her family aren't the only victims here,
so too are all of Stacy's friends. For example, Abby was the
one who convinced Stacy to go to this party, despite Stacy's reservations. Abby
also drove Stacy there. She has to live with that for the rest of
her life. I mean, I've gone this whole time trying to help my
life and try and get over this, like anxiety and depression took years to
get over, and it's still a struggle with trust. And you think somebody's
your friend and they're going to have your back and they love this kind of
stuff happened to you and your friends. Sure, I mean it's hard,
I get it. Similarly, everyone who was close to Stacy during those important
developmental years of high school mut's cope with the trauma of all of this.
It's one thing to say your friend was murdered, but then to say,
your friend's murdered by your other friend. That was one of the most messed
up things I've ever had to deal with in my life. We were all
so messed up from it. You were just You're not the first person to
tell me. I mean, it really screwed melft worst thing that ever happened
in my life. There are many victims in this case, and it goes
without saying that nobody has suffered more than Stacy's family. They continue to feel
Stacy's absence while also always wondering what could have been. There's avoid there's a
gap. We all feel it. Every holiday. There's always somebody missing.
No matter how many years have passed, it's still her presence seems to be
there, and it's extremely unfair that it's not. We think about her all
the time. I think about how many kids she would have. I think
about how happy her mom would be having grandchildren, being that Stacy was her
only child and she doesn't get to do that. While Holly's confession and conviction
provided Stacy's family with some relief, it doesn't change the fact that Stacy is
gone forever. As Detective Martin puts it, the idea of getting closure in
a murder case is pretty much a bunch of nonsense. I think closure is
a bullshit word and a murder case, and I firmly believe that. And
I believe that because no one can wrap their head around or fully have closure.
I always describe it to people as your life is a book. Maybe
I helped write a little bit of that ending chapter and told them how and
answer some of the questions why and how their loved one passed away. But
then they have to learn the new normal they have. These families have to
learn what the next chapter of life is, how does it look without their
loved one now that they have these answers that they've been looking for for so
long. As for Stacy's family, the next chapter and subsequent chapters of life
don't come with much closure, if any at all. Not only do they
have to deal with the fact that Stacy is gone, but also they are
going to eventually have to argue to a parole board that Holly should stay in
prison. For them, the pursuit of justice is a never ending battle,
one that they never asked to fight. On top of that, some of
Stacy's family members still aren't entirely sure that Holly was the only person responsible for
Stacy's death. I feel as if in my mind that there may have been
some type of conspiracy between friends. I do think Brandon was upset that Stacy
broke up with him. I do think he was trying to get back with
her. I'm not one hundred percent certain on anything, but just in my
own, my own mind, this conspiracy of thinking that she was brought there
that night and it wasn't what she wanted to do, just nothing made sense
to me. And maybe believe that that, you know, Brandon knew something
more than what he's ever told the detectives. I felt like Abby knew more
than what she ever told the detectives. I felt like Amanda handing Holly that
knife that night. Those were things that I did not know. That has
kind of come about over the last couple of years. The idea that there
was a conspiracy among friends to murder Stacy seems unlikely, mainly because when Holly
confessed, she did not implicate anyone else. But that's not the point.
The point is that in this case, and in almost all murder cases,
there will always be unanswered questions, and because of that, closure can never
truly happen. There is also another, albeit more broad takeaway from this story,
which is don't take life and romance too seriously. Life is precious and
life is valuable, and don't sweat the dumb shit. Boyfriend's girlfriends will come
from our lives in and out, and when you're seventeen years old, that
may seem like, God, this is the leve of my life. But
we all know that with love there's heartbreak and we pick up the pieces and
we move on. So we can't get so engrossed in something at such a
young age that caused somebody to lose their life. The murder of seventeen year
old Stacy de grand Champ happened for absolutely no reason and could have resulted in
something as simple as a shouting match between two teenage girls, maybe even a
fistfight and some hair pulling in a parking lot somewhere. It never had to
escalate to the point that Holly took it. Tragically, Holly did escalate it
to exactly that point. A young and promising life was lost, countless victims
were made, and almost two years later, Holly Boisburg ends up in a
prison cell. Well, that's going to do it. For another one.
Thank you so much for joining us. We'll be right back here for plus
members next week. By the way, the black on black embroidered fitted hat
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Oh, and stay safe, hey, Mike and Sword and Scale teams.
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