Speaker 1: For nearly thirty years, the brutal murder of twenty year
Speaker 1: old Sophie Surgery haunted Alaska. Sophie was found dead in
Speaker 1: a college dorm bathroom in nineteen ninety three, a victim
Speaker 1: of horrific violence. Her story was a cold case that
Speaker 1: seemed destined to remain unsolved until decades later, though, when,
Speaker 1: through relentless determination of investigators and groundbreaking DNA technology, her
Speaker 1: killer was finally brought to justice, unraveling a mystery that
Speaker 1: haunted her family and the community for generations.
Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked
Speaker 2: and Grim, a true crime podcast.
Speaker 1: The following podcast material intended more mature audience. It's another
Speaker 1: day and we have another story for you, brought to
Speaker 1: you by Patreon. It's actually kind of brought to you
Speaker 1: by Patreon because one of our patron members, Alena Hyatt,
Speaker 1: recommended this case over on Patreon. So there you go,
Speaker 1: technically brought to you by Patreon aka Patrons aka Alena Hyatt.
Speaker 1: So there we go.
Speaker 2: There go.
Speaker 1: Quick little shout out to today for helping us out
Speaker 1: with that one. That's a nice thing of being on Patreon.
Speaker 1: As you get the behind the scenes. You can you
Speaker 1: don't have some say sometimes, you know, give us some
Speaker 1: little nudges in the right direction. And that's exactly what
Speaker 1: happened there.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, that's awesome. It's a great way to
Speaker 2: to you know, help us with our research. And you're like,
Speaker 2: do this case, do that case, do this case?
Speaker 1: Yeah, dance monkey dance, Oh my god. But yeah. So
Speaker 1: shout out to Elena. Also shout out to those who
Speaker 1: signed up on our Patreon this week. We have haven My,
Speaker 1: Tracy Hawthorn, Kimbo, and Megan Marker right on. Thank you
Speaker 1: very much for signing up. We appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Dang good list.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're an ani podcast, so your support means the world.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Sure do. We just did a pre show over on
Speaker 2: Patreon and you know I no longer have a drink
Speaker 2: now you don't finished my drink over there?
Speaker 1: Well, do you want to get a drink all made
Speaker 1: up for the show?
Speaker 2: No, it's okay. It was just hot chocolate. It was delicious.
Speaker 1: You want another hot chocolate?
Speaker 2: Just again? What the hell is wrong with me?
Speaker 1: Because there's nothing wrong with the word just.
Speaker 2: It was a delicious, glorious hot chocolate. It was just
Speaker 2: a delicious glory iled it.
Speaker 1: It was so good. On the pre show though, over
Speaker 1: on Patreon, you did mention something that I just wanted
Speaker 1: to kind of like throw out there. Blue Monday is
Speaker 1: coming up.
Speaker 2: It is, yeah, third Monday of every January.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I thought you had a pretty good idea
Speaker 1: on how to combat blue Monday. So do you want
Speaker 1: to go ahead and divulge?
Speaker 2: Well again, okay, this works for me. I find when
Speaker 2: I don't have something to necessarily like look forward to,
Speaker 2: like an event or a trip or even just like
Speaker 2: some sort of self care thing like I don't do
Speaker 2: as well. I just like to have something to look
Speaker 2: forward to. So we have an event that we're going
Speaker 2: to on the following Saturday, I believe it's Saturday. And
Speaker 2: so basically just like do a little something that you book,
Speaker 2: like a massage, like a date with a friend. You said,
Speaker 2: maybe plan to make like a favorite meal, just like
Speaker 2: have something on your calendar or something that you can
Speaker 2: look forward to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and if you're really wanting to make sure that
Speaker 1: you are really happy, sit back and watch Lord of
Speaker 1: the Rings. Oh man, you know that gets the dope?
Speaker 1: Mean going didn't we are?
Speaker 2: You also said pet a dog, I said, buy a dog,
Speaker 2: Get a dog.
Speaker 1: Those are always you can combat the blues, and especially
Speaker 1: with Blue Monday coming up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know, it's just nice to have just
Speaker 2: a little something in your calendar that you can be
Speaker 2: excited about that's coming up. So I think at any
Speaker 2: time of the year, that's kind of nice.
Speaker 1: I agree, I feel you, and that's really good idea.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I just wanted to make sure that we
Speaker 1: injected that in there a little bit before we got
Speaker 1: in today's episode, of course. Yeah, so you ready for
Speaker 1: this one?
Speaker 2: I think so?
Speaker 1: You think?
Speaker 2: So I got zero clue what's going on here?
Speaker 1: So what do you mean zero? I told you in
Speaker 1: the intro going on?
Speaker 2: Well, I know, but that's just like such a little
Speaker 2: piece of it. I do like Alaska cases because Alaska
Speaker 2: like fascinates me a little bit. I would love to
Speaker 2: explore it over there more like it's not that far
Speaker 2: from us. Well it's a little far, but not that bad.
Speaker 2: I don't know. It's just like a territory that I
Speaker 2: like listening about and hearing about because it's so it's
Speaker 2: just so it seems so remote and I don't know,
Speaker 2: I just want we need to explore Alaska more. Okay,
Speaker 2: it's not sponsored by Alaska. It's not And I do
Speaker 2: want to clarify Alaska is not a territory. Alaska is
Speaker 2: a state. Oh yeah, I know. I didn't say, Oh,
Speaker 2: I didn't mean territory like as.
Speaker 1: In the Northwest toward territory.
Speaker 2: Did I say territory. You called it a territory, Okay,
Speaker 2: but I didn't mean, like I knew, it's not a No,
Speaker 2: it's not part of part of the US. I know that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay. The Yukon is a Canadian Yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: just clarifying because you called it a territory.
Speaker 2: I know, but I just me I meant as in,
Speaker 2: like the climate the territory understandable thing, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I get I give get you, I got you.
Speaker 2: Just making sure I don't look real dumb.
Speaker 1: May basically because it might be someone who's like, actually.
Speaker 2: No, I'm very aware it's part of the United States, Okay,
Speaker 2: but it's like it's so close to us. It's interesting
Speaker 2: how it's like, I don't know, divided like that, and
Speaker 2: I know there's so much to it, but it's just
Speaker 2: a place that I want to explore more one day.
Speaker 1: Fair enough, well, let's talk about this. We're not going
Speaker 1: to talk too much about the Alaskan territory, I know,
Speaker 1: but we will touch on a little bit because yeah,
Speaker 1: there is a little bit of geographical stuff that we're
Speaker 1: going over, not much, but a little bit. So it
Speaker 1: starts off with, you know, our main story, our individual
Speaker 1: who this is all about. It starts off with Sophie.
Speaker 1: So Sophie Surgery was born in June of nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 1: and she was born at Piccas Point, Alaska, which is
Speaker 1: a tiny village with a population of just around seventy
Speaker 1: people at the time of her birth.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, like many people in her community, Sophie was
Speaker 1: a member of the you pick, an indigenous Alaskan group
Speaker 1: with deep cultural roots in the region. From a young age,
Speaker 1: Sophie stood out as a bright and hard working individual.
Speaker 1: People in her community admired her for her determination and
Speaker 1: her quirky sense of humor. She had a knack for
Speaker 1: making other people laugh off in cracking jokes that she
Speaker 1: couldn't help but laugh at herself. She's one of those
Speaker 1: kind of individuals that knows she's funny and is not
Speaker 1: a afraid to laugh when she makes a good one.
Speaker 2: So that's amazing.
Speaker 1: Love that about her. Now just four foot nine inches tall,
Speaker 1: she was quite a petite woman, but what she lacked
Speaker 1: in height, she more than made up for with her
Speaker 1: vibrant personality and strong spirit. Sophie lived with her mother, Elena,
Speaker 1: and her younger brother, helping her mom manage the household
Speaker 1: while dreaming of a big future. One of her earliest
Speaker 1: aspirations was to join the US Navy, but unfortunately, her
Speaker 1: height disqualified her from ever being able to. Undeterred, Sophie
Speaker 1: found another dream to pursue. She wanted to work with
Speaker 1: marine life, specifically whales, animals that she deeply admired. Determined
Speaker 1: to follow this new path, Sophie focused on her education,
Speaker 1: and her dedication would pay off when she finally earned
Speaker 1: a full scholarship to the University of Alaska in af
Speaker 1: Fairbanks or UAF. This was a monumental achievement not only
Speaker 1: for her, but her family as well. No kidding, yeah,
Speaker 1: she was an honor student, and she also was the
Speaker 1: first of her family to attend college post secondary now UAF.
Speaker 1: It was a long way away from their home village.
Speaker 1: It was about two hundred and sixty miles to the
Speaker 1: north and about five and a half hour's flight away.
Speaker 1: Moving from the tight knit community of seventy people to
Speaker 1: a university with thousands of students was a huge adjustment
Speaker 1: for Sophie Fairbanks. Though not a massive city, was far
Speaker 1: more urban than anything she had ever experienced growing up.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you are used to a community of
Speaker 1: seventy people, and I mean the university itself has more population,
Speaker 1: way more. Yeah, I imagine you're going to a class
Speaker 1: with a higher population than your entire village, right, no kidding,
Speaker 1: So that's that's significant.
Speaker 2: I feel like moving in itself is, you know, kind
Speaker 2: of tough. But then when it's drastically that different, yeah,
Speaker 2: would make it even worse or even harder.
Speaker 1: Rights, It's a cultural shock, is what that is, honestly.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety three, UAF had a student population of
Speaker 1: around six thousand, with about one hundred, three hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty students. There we go living on the campus, the
Speaker 1: sheer size of the campus, the bustling environment. It was
Speaker 1: just a lot, but Sophie managed to adapt. She made
Speaker 1: new friends, including an individual named Shirley, a fellow Alaskan
Speaker 1: Native student. The two connected quickly likely because they shared
Speaker 1: similar cultural backgrounds and understood the pressures of being far
Speaker 1: from home. Shirley later reflected on their college experience together,
Speaker 1: explaining how much was at stake for both of them. Quote,
Speaker 1: we were so afraid of failing. We had to make
Speaker 1: sure that we got through school because otherwise our future
Speaker 1: was back home. Home wasn't a bad place, but we
Speaker 1: had dreams. We wanted to do more.
Speaker 2: Wow, hey, that's a statement right now.
Speaker 1: Despite these challenges that they faced on campus, Sophie thrived.
Speaker 1: She wasn't into partying or typical college distractions. I mean,
Speaker 1: of course she'd attend one or two like throughout the year,
Speaker 1: but she wasn't really the typical type to go partying
Speaker 1: or anything. She kept her head down and focused on
Speaker 1: her studies. After two years of studying marine biology, Sophie
Speaker 1: decided to take a break. It was in nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: two she moved back to her village to save money
Speaker 1: and prepare for a series of medical procedures, including a
Speaker 1: jaw surgery and her and orthodonic work. She took a
Speaker 1: job at a local school, which provided her with health insurance,
Speaker 1: which she needed to cover the medical expenses, and even
Speaker 1: though she was back home, Sophie still had to travel
Speaker 1: to Fairbanks for her surgery. I mean, you're not going
Speaker 1: to have a doctor in a village of seventy people,
Speaker 1: right right, Yeah, yeah, So she had to go back
Speaker 1: for those surgeries, follow up appointments, all that. So she
Speaker 1: was traveling back and forth quite a bit. To save
Speaker 1: money on lodging. During these trips, she stayed with her
Speaker 1: friend Shirley, who graciously offered her door room on the campus.
Speaker 1: Shirley would lend Sophie her keys and spend the night
Speaker 1: with her boyfriend in another dorm, ensuring that her boyfriend
Speaker 1: or sorry, ensuring that her friend had a comfortable place
Speaker 1: to stay while she was focusing on her recovery, which
Speaker 1: great friend.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's super nice.
Speaker 1: Also, good excuse to spend the night.
Speaker 2: With your well yeah, there was a benefit there for
Speaker 2: her for sure, definitely.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So in April of nineteen ninety three, Sophie surgery
Speaker 1: needed to return to Fairbanks for one of these appointments,
Speaker 1: as she had done before, She arranged to stay at
Speaker 1: the University of Alaskan Fairbanks again UAF with her friend Shirley.
Speaker 1: On Friday, April twenty third, Sophie began her journey. She
Speaker 1: flew from her home village of Pikes Point to Bethel
Speaker 1: and then to Anchorage, where she stayed overnight with a
Speaker 1: family friend. Then the next day, on Saturday, April twenty fourth,
Speaker 1: she took her final flight to Fairbanks. Her plan was
Speaker 1: to spend the weekend staying with Shirley in the dorm
Speaker 1: room at Barlot Hall. Now, Barlett Hall is a big
Speaker 1: focus of this case. By the sounds of it. There's
Speaker 1: a few different sections of dorms, but this building, Barlet
Speaker 1: Hall of Dorms is where it really takes place. From there,
Speaker 1: she would attend her appointment on Monday and then fly
Speaker 1: back home afterwards. Surely, always accommodating lent, Sophie her dorm
Speaker 1: room key went over to spend the night with her boyfriend.
Speaker 1: You know, it was a simple plan that they have
Speaker 1: done several times at this point. Now, Shirley's dorm room
Speaker 1: was number two to seven two hundred and twenty seven
Speaker 1: and it was located on the second floor of Barlot Hall.
Speaker 1: It was a dormitory designated for women only. On paper,
Speaker 1: it should have been safe, should have been a perfect environment,
Speaker 1: a place where young women could women could live and
Speaker 1: study and rest without worry. But in reality, the safety
Speaker 1: of UAF campus, particularly in Barlot Hall, had been having
Speaker 1: some growing concerns for years.
Speaker 2: Oh shit, really yeah.
Speaker 1: See, for a long time, students had been raising alarm
Speaker 1: about the lack of security measures on campus. Several complaints
Speaker 1: had been made about men being found wandering in the
Speaker 1: women's dorms without any sort of authorization.
Speaker 2: Holy shit.
Speaker 1: These weren't just isolated incidents easier either. They pointed out
Speaker 1: a troubling pattern. Just two months before Sophie's visit, a
Speaker 1: female student living in Barlot Hall had accused two UAF
Speaker 1: basketball players of sexually assaulting her while another teammate watched.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, are you serious.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is taking place not only on campus,
Speaker 1: but within the dorm room.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that is not good at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, within the women's only dorm room.
Speaker 2: And it's been happening for some time. So it's like,
Speaker 2: why have they not nipped this in the butt here?
Speaker 1: Well, it's been happening for longer than you think, because
Speaker 1: so far we've only covered up two months prior to
Speaker 1: There's more so, despite these serious allegations and numerous complaints,
Speaker 1: campus security had not made any significant changes to address
Speaker 1: these concerns. But there were more than just these few incidents.
Speaker 1: Like I say, two months is not the only history here.
Speaker 1: We got more than that, because there was also a
Speaker 1: man who had been arrested after he was discovered naked
Speaker 1: in the women's bathroom on the fourth floor of Barlot Hall.
Speaker 2: Holy shit, that's disturbing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And again in nineteen ninety one, so two years prior,
Speaker 1: a UAF student had been attacked in another dorm room
Speaker 1: by a soldier from Fort Wainwright who attempted to sexually
Speaker 1: assault her. These incidents weren't already And if these incidents
Speaker 1: weren't already enough to make students uneasy, the problem, it
Speaker 1: stretched back even further. We're talking in nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 1: a horrific crime that shocked UAF's campus. On December tenth
Speaker 1: of that year, a student named Jody ray Stanback was
Speaker 1: raped and murdered in her dorm room. Her killer was
Speaker 1: identified as Alan Walling Terrible with his last name Wallonga
Speaker 1: Alan Wallonga, I believe is how he pronounced it. He
Speaker 1: was a man with a history of sexual violence, and
Speaker 1: he had gained unauthorized access to her room. According to reports,
Speaker 1: he watched Jody's sleep before committing the brutal assault. D
Speaker 1: The trag you left the university reeling, and resident advisors
Speaker 1: urging administration to improve dorm security. They suggested adding locks
Speaker 1: to bathroom doors to prevent unauthorized access, but no action
Speaker 1: was really ever taken. Lack of changes left many students vulnerable,
Speaker 1: and these lapses in security would tragically resurface decades later.
Speaker 2: Gosh, you think you have an event like that, hey, Like,
Speaker 2: if anything's going to wake you up to change some shit,
Speaker 2: it's that exactly. But then this is just like it's
Speaker 2: just ongoing because I don't know, I feel like it
Speaker 2: can't be that hard to secure a dorm, you know it,
Speaker 2: maybe I'm out to lunch.
Speaker 1: Well, because they do have security on campus. They do
Speaker 1: have individuals who are supposed to be checking like you know,
Speaker 1: visitors check in, right, yeah, but it's not being enforced
Speaker 1: like whatsoever. So I mean, maybe there's some procedures in place,
Speaker 1: but there's no one checking up to ensure that these
Speaker 1: procedures are being followed according to the according to the
Speaker 1: regulations or anything.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 1: And then of course, on top of that, you have
Speaker 1: things that should be implement like engineered controls like locks
Speaker 1: or something like that as well, which they're just lapsing
Speaker 1: on two. So it's a failure of the entire system,
Speaker 1: not only what's in place, but the failure of identifying
Speaker 1: what else should be in place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's just terrifying that. I mean, that's their home, right,
Speaker 2: You think that you should be able to feel comfortable
Speaker 2: and safe in.
Speaker 1: Your home, but unfortunately they weren't. Now, I guess that
Speaker 1: might also be the benefit of the rotating students, because
Speaker 1: those who maybe don't feel safe because hey, maybe there
Speaker 1: was someone attacked or someone who was found unauthorized wandering
Speaker 1: around naked, whatever the situation, some of the individuals who
Speaker 1: experienced that, Hey, in a couple of years, they're no
Speaker 1: longer here, And in a couple of years we have
Speaker 1: a whole new stack of students who are just fresh
Speaker 1: and don't know. And you know, it's just giving it
Speaker 1: that environment to repeat itself without people having that growing concern.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and like, what are you supposed to do?
Speaker 2: It sounds like people were, you know, addressing their concerns,
Speaker 2: but you can only do that so much.
Speaker 1: Really exactly now, Sophie arrived in Fairbanks on Saturday, April
Speaker 1: twenty fourth. As I mentioned earlier, she spent much of
Speaker 1: that day running errands around the city before returning to
Speaker 1: the UAF campus to spend the night. That evening, Sophie
Speaker 1: enjoyed her time with friends, hanging out and catching up,
Speaker 1: and on Sunday she kept a low profile, spending most
Speaker 1: of her time in and around Barlot Hall. Later that night,
Speaker 1: she went to see a movie with three friends, and
Speaker 1: after the film, they all decided to take a scenic
Speaker 1: drive around Murphy Dome recreational area. The group then dropped
Speaker 1: Sophie off at Barlot Hall just before midnight. Once back
Speaker 1: at the dorms, Sophie met up with Shirley. At some point,
Speaker 1: Sophie decided to go out for a smoke, and since
Speaker 1: it was late at night in April in Alaska, it
Speaker 1: was still quite cold out in the middle of the night, right,
Speaker 1: so Sophie opted to use a woman's dorm bathroom instead,
Speaker 1: which was apparently a popular area for them to smoke.
Speaker 2: Oh yucky though, Hey.
Speaker 1: Well you see, the bathroom had separate tubroom with an
Speaker 1: exhaust fan. Oh okay, okay, so it made it a
Speaker 1: convenient spot because I mean, hey.
Speaker 2: It's like it is like going kind of outside.
Speaker 1: Exactly, So you basically lock yourself in this room and
Speaker 1: it just exhausts out. It's basically like an anti hot box,
Speaker 1: is what that was. I'm sure it still smell the cigarettes,
Speaker 1: but I digress. Now. At about one thirty am, Sureley
Speaker 1: and her boyfriend decided to turn in for the night.
Speaker 1: They were headed to her boyfriend's dorm, leaving the room
Speaker 1: two two seven at Barlett Hall empty because that was
Speaker 1: around the time when Sophie had gone out for that smoke.
Speaker 1: She hadn't returned yet, so Shirley left a note letting
Speaker 1: her know that they had gone, and the next morning,
Speaker 1: on Monday, April twenty sixth, nineteen ninety three, Shirley returned
Speaker 1: to the dorm room at about eight fifty am and
Speaker 1: immediately noticed something was wrong. Sophie was nowhere to be found.
Speaker 1: She clearly didn't even return.
Speaker 2: Oh geez, oh my gosh, just the sinking feeling you
Speaker 2: would get.
Speaker 1: Yep, all her her baggage or clothing, her personal belongings,
Speaker 1: they were still exactly when they left. The note was
Speaker 1: still exactly where she left it. The bed hadn't been
Speaker 1: slept in. Concerned, Shirley checked the common areas of Barlot
Speaker 1: Hall but found no trace of her friend, and as
Speaker 1: the hours passed, her worry grew. Later that day, Shirley
Speaker 1: called Sophie's orthodontist to see if she had made it
Speaker 1: to her appointment, only to learn that Sophie had missed
Speaker 1: the appointment entirely. By then, Shirley knew something was seriously wrong.
Speaker 1: At approximately two forty two that same day, a janitor
Speaker 1: was cleaning the women's bathroom on the second floor Barlet
Speaker 1: Hall and stumbled upon a horrific scene. Inside the small
Speaker 1: tub room adjacent to the shower stalls lay the lifeless
Speaker 1: body of a young woman. So to paint a picture,
Speaker 1: I don't know the layout of this bathroom exactly, but
Speaker 1: by the sounds of it, as you have rows of showers, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm assuming sins maybe on the opposite sides, that
Speaker 1: sort of thing, right, And then there is another room
Speaker 1: within this public bathroom.
Speaker 2: To take a bath, to take a bath.
Speaker 1: And that's where she was located. So you would have
Speaker 1: had students coming to and from all day so far,
Speaker 1: showers no.
Speaker 2: Idea that she's in there exactly.
Speaker 1: Campus police were immediately notified, and they brought in Alaska
Speaker 1: State troopers immediately to begin the homicide investigation, or at
Speaker 1: least investigation, but it would turn out to be homicide.
Speaker 1: Officers quickly secured the scene and began canvassing in the area,
Speaker 1: interviewing students and staff in the hopes of finding someone
Speaker 1: who might have seen or heard something that could explain
Speaker 1: what happened. Word of the discovery spread quickly around campus,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't before long that surely heard rumors that
Speaker 1: a body was found in the woman's bathroom on the
Speaker 1: second floor of Barlott Hall.
Speaker 2: Oh No.
Speaker 1: Panicked, Shirley and her boyfriend rushed back to her dorm,
Speaker 1: but were stopped by police at the entrance. When officers
Speaker 1: questioned them, Shirley told them about Sophie being missing and
Speaker 1: explained that Sophie had actually been previously supposed to be
Speaker 1: spending the night in her dorm. She led officers back
Speaker 1: to her room and then showed investigators Sophie's ID card.
Speaker 1: With this ID card, they were able to get a
Speaker 1: positive identity on a young woman found dead. It was Sophie. Surgery.
Speaker 2: Hmmm, that is just that, okay, I don't know. I
Speaker 2: feel like this is just a scenario or a location
Speaker 2: that something like this shouldn't be happening, Like you shouldn't
Speaker 2: be having a well she's not a student at the time,
Speaker 2: but she was and like a young woman murdered in
Speaker 2: africing dorm room bathroom, Like are you kidding me? Here?
Speaker 1: I agree? And now, the only way I think that
Speaker 1: this should have happened, just because Devil's advocate here, right,
Speaker 1: is the murderer should be another person staying in the
Speaker 1: dorm rooms.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I guess that could logically make a little
Speaker 2: bit more sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, someone with authorized access to the dorm. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: as we know in the history, it sounds like it's
Speaker 1: very likely it's probably not.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it could be anyone that just kind of like
Speaker 2: walked in there.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the details of Sophie's murder were deeply disturbing.
Speaker 1: Her body was discovered laying on her back in the bathtub,
Speaker 1: her legs together and bent to her left. Her feet
Speaker 1: were in contact with the bottom of the tub, and
Speaker 1: she was still wearing her shoes and socks. However, her
Speaker 1: pants and underwear had been pulled down past her knees,
Speaker 1: and her sweater was pushed up around her neck and armpit.
Speaker 2: Duh.
Speaker 1: The right cup of her bra had been pulled up,
Speaker 1: exposing her right breast, and her left cheek rested against
Speaker 1: the bottom of the tub over the drain, and her
Speaker 1: arms were stretched above her head.
Speaker 2: Holy shit, Yeah, she was.
Speaker 1: Laying right below the water Spigott investigators noted multiple stab
Speaker 1: wounds on the right side of Sophie's face, and her
Speaker 1: face was covered in blood. Her hair and clothing were damp,
Speaker 1: which suggested that the water had been running excuse me
Speaker 1: in the tub after she had been placed there, And
Speaker 1: most chillingly, when Sophie's body was removed from the bathtub,
Speaker 1: the investigators discovered that she had been shot in the
Speaker 1: back of the head.
Speaker 2: Holy shit. Yes, okay, I don't know why, but I
Speaker 2: didn't think that would be the like the cause of death.
Speaker 1: Yep, she was shot in the back of the head.
Speaker 1: Now we've talked about I mean, honestly, like you're in
Speaker 1: a well populated dorm room. So one of the first
Speaker 1: questions is how did no one hear the show?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Something that we talked about many times on this podcast
Speaker 1: is the twenty two caliber bullet. It's infamous for being
Speaker 1: a mobster's gangster's choice of weapon back in the day
Speaker 1: because of many things, one of them being it's quiet. Yep,
Speaker 1: twenty two calibers. Though they do make a bang, they're
Speaker 1: still allowed there not going to make a bang of
Speaker 1: any handgun that you can think of. It's quite quiet
Speaker 1: in consideration.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean too, if it's just one say you're this,
Speaker 2: you're hearing this, I don't know, You're probably not gonna
Speaker 2: right away think, oh my gosh, that was like a shot,
Speaker 2: Like you're gonna make excuses thinking that it was some
Speaker 2: sort of other noise.
Speaker 1: Right, what was that? Yeah, someone drops something? Who knows? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So yeah, that is a piece of information that does
Speaker 1: later come out that it is a twenty two caliber bullet.
Speaker 1: I did kind of want to mention it here because
Speaker 1: I do think it's important because that red flag immediately
Speaker 1: comes up. Why didn't anyone hear it?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 1: Possibly because of that beneath her body in the drain
Speaker 1: of the tub, they also discovered Sophie's cigarette lighter. Some
Speaker 1: of the stab wounds they were able to determine were
Speaker 1: post and some were pre death. Authorities quickly announced Sophie's
Speaker 1: identity to the public, confirming that her death was being
Speaker 1: investigated as a homicide. The murder sent shockwaves through the campus.
Speaker 1: Little killings had just taken place less than twenty feet
Speaker 1: from where their students were sleeping, leaving the entire community
Speaker 1: in disbelief. Both students and parents began questioning the safety
Speaker 1: of the dormitories, and the atmosphere and campus grew increasingly tense.
Speaker 1: Within days, around sixty students packed up and moved at
Speaker 1: a barlet hall.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, how on earth can you feel safe after that?
Speaker 1: Exactly? Despite the fact that there was still one week
Speaker 1: remaining of the semester, some sought housing and other dorms,
Speaker 1: while others chose to stay off campus altogether. But on
Speaker 1: April twenty eighth, nineteen ninety three, Sophie's autopsy was performed
Speaker 1: in Anchorage, Alaska. The findings confirmed that she'd been killed
Speaker 1: by a single gunshot to the back of the head.
Speaker 1: The bullet, a critical piece of evidence, was recovered from
Speaker 1: her skull and preserved. The autopsy was also revealed that
Speaker 1: Sophie had been stabbed multiple times, specifically in the right
Speaker 1: corner of her right eye while she was still alive.
Speaker 2: What the shit.
Speaker 1: Other stab wound found on her right cheek, which appeared
Speaker 1: to have been inflicted postpartum, post mortem post mortem.
Speaker 2: Okay, but what the hell? That just seems so I
Speaker 2: don't know, stabbing the face seems like something you don't
Speaker 2: hear often.
Speaker 1: Really, no, definitely don't. It's I mean, there's not. There
Speaker 1: is some soft tissue on top, but there's just nothing
Speaker 1: about bone underneath, right, So yeah, it's an interesting choice.
Speaker 1: These injuries were consistent with the use of a thin
Speaker 1: bladed knife, and my guess is most likely it was
Speaker 1: used to subdue the individual in the struggle. Oh okay,
Speaker 1: potentially in an attempt to like blind her maybe, m I see,
Speaker 1: that's my guess.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that does make sense now.
Speaker 1: Additional abrasions were discovered on Sophie's abdomen and right hip,
Speaker 1: along with the bruise on her right knee. However, toxicology
Speaker 1: reports showed no sign of drug or alcohol in her system.
Speaker 1: I mated a grim picture of Sophie's final moments and
Speaker 1: of course a brutal attack.
Speaker 2: Well I'm assuming too, she also like sexually assaulted, just
Speaker 2: like the way that she was found.
Speaker 1: And the next line I have written as part of
Speaker 1: the autopsy, a rape kit was administered and DNA evidence
Speaker 1: was collected.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like just brutal, like a brutal, brutal attack, brutal
Speaker 2: way to die.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Now we aren't talking nineteen ninety three here, and
Speaker 1: Alaska at the time did not have the technology to
Speaker 1: process DNA and criminal investigations. So while this evidence collected,
Speaker 1: this DNA couldn't immediately help identify Sophie's killer, preserving it
Speaker 1: could potentially prove to be vital if they did so.
Speaker 1: And so it's good that they did that because it
Speaker 1: became a very key.
Speaker 2: Piece in that good they're thinking ahead.
Speaker 1: They were, So despite investigator's best efforts, the case was
Speaker 1: progressing extremely slowly. The semester was coming to an end.
Speaker 1: If you mentioned, I mentioned there was only a week left,
Speaker 1: and students were preparing to leave campus for the summer,
Speaker 1: and they already had sixty students move off, move off
Speaker 1: campus or different dormitories or whatever. So you already have
Speaker 1: potential witnesses gone, and in a week's time they're all
Speaker 1: going to be gone. So it created a sense of
Speaker 1: urgency for investigators who are working tirelessly to gather as
Speaker 1: much information as possible before students actually left the campus
Speaker 1: campus for witnesses and clues, managing to cleet fingerprints, hairs,
Speaker 1: hair samples, and other bits of evidence from the crime scene.
Speaker 1: Now remember this is a public bathroom, so it's who's
Speaker 1: to say whose it is and if it's relevance, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and none of this evidence immediately pointed to a suspect. Now,
Speaker 1: Sergeant Jim McCann, one of the lead investigators on the case,
Speaker 1: believe that Sophie's murderer was sorry murder was the result
Speaker 1: of extreme rage. He theorized that the killer likely harbored
Speaker 1: a deep anger towards women, and that Sophie had tragically
Speaker 1: become a target simply because she was in the wrong
Speaker 1: place at the wrong time.
Speaker 2: Okay, I sort of wondered this too, with the whole
Speaker 2: like face cutting, like it was almost you know, like
Speaker 2: destroying the way that she looked and stuff. In a sense,
Speaker 2: I was wondering something like that.
Speaker 1: But which is very very likely because I mean there
Speaker 1: were some posts yeah mortem as well, so maybe it
Speaker 1: explains it in the struggle at the beginning, But after
Speaker 1: being shot in the back of the head, why would
Speaker 1: she be stabbed again in the face.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like mutilating the way that she looked like in
Speaker 2: her appearance.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, McCann was convicted. Sorry. Convinced that the killer
Speaker 1: was a man who was familiar with the UAF campus,
Speaker 1: someone who blended in well enough to move around unnoticed.
Speaker 1: He suggested that there was even a fifty percent chance
Speaker 1: that the perpetrator had already left Fairbanks and returned to
Speaker 1: his hometown for the summer, making it even harder to
Speaker 1: track him down. He also wore in the public that
Speaker 1: the killer had showed a disturbingly level disturbing I'm getting
Speaker 1: words mixed up today, I'm sorry, disturbing level of premeditation
Speaker 1: by bringing a gun to the scene. He already had
Speaker 1: the gun on him, So he believed whoever was committing
Speaker 1: this crime, or committed it, had likely fantasized about such
Speaker 1: acts before ever actually have making this attack.
Speaker 2: He'll like, you mean, like arriving knowing what he was
Speaker 2: kind of about to do if the opportunity was there.
Speaker 1: Well, it's likely he's saying A that he fantasized about
Speaker 1: doing this and b premeditated doing it before going to
Speaker 1: do it. So it's like, I want to do this,
Speaker 1: I want to do this one day. I'm going to
Speaker 1: do this today, I'm fucking doing.
Speaker 2: YEAP came prepared, opportunity was there.
Speaker 1: He urged anyone who noticed a man acting strangely or
Speaker 1: suspiciously around the time of the murder to come forward
Speaker 1: with any sort of information, but despite law enforcement's best efforts,
Speaker 1: Sophie's case went cold. Even the offer of twenty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars reward for information failed to generate any significant leads.
Speaker 1: There were, of course, some leads and stuff, some people,
Speaker 1: you know, saying that they heard a noise, a few
Speaker 1: little things like that, but nothing really significant ever came.
Speaker 1: Over time, mentions of her case faded from the local news,
Speaker 1: and the tragic loss of Sophie became a painful, unresolved
Speaker 1: chapter for her family and the university. In the years
Speaker 1: following her murder, UAF began making improvements to campus security,
Speaker 1: but for her family, those changes came too late. In
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five, Sophie's family filed a four million dollar
Speaker 1: lawsuit against UAF, accusing the university of negligence for failing
Speaker 1: to provide adequate security in the dormitories. Their attorney argued
Speaker 1: that Barlott Hall was widely known as a party house,
Speaker 1: where people could come and go freely without being checked
Speaker 1: or monitored. There were no systems in place to track
Speaker 1: who was entering or leaving the dorms, which created an
Speaker 1: environment where unauthorized individuals could wander undetected. The university's attorney
Speaker 1: countered that the blame for Sophie's desk death rested solely
Speaker 1: with her killer, not the institution. In an attempt to
Speaker 1: shift responsibility, the defense even suggested that Sophie's own actions
Speaker 1: had contributed to her tragic death, an argument that of course,
Speaker 1: deeply angered.
Speaker 2: Her Femily, Oh my, well, I mean he chose that
Speaker 2: location to commit this for a reason.
Speaker 1: He did once one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: Yeah that is yeah, I don't that's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Yes. Now, Unfortunately, the lawsuit had unintended consequences. As legal
Speaker 1: proceedings moved forward, sensitive information about the case was released
Speaker 1: to the public, details that should have been remained confidential.
Speaker 1: Details that hey, maybe the killer might only know, and
Speaker 1: if they got the questionings and stuff correctly, you know,
Speaker 1: it might have been able to draw from someone. But
Speaker 1: it became public knowledge, and this disclosure muddied the investigation,
Speaker 1: complicating the efforts to solve this case.
Speaker 2: Awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now I don't know the actual result of that lawsuit,
Speaker 1: but what I do know is as the years passed,
Speaker 1: her case just remained unsolved and her family was left
Speaker 1: waiting for justice to finally be served. By the late
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties, advancement in DNA technology offered a glimmer of
Speaker 1: hope for Sophie's case. The biological evidence collected from Sophie's
Speaker 1: body in nineteen ninety three was re examined and an
Speaker 1: early DNA profile was created at the Alaska State Crime Lab.
Speaker 1: While this was a step forward, the technology of the
Speaker 1: time still required law enforcement to compare the unknown DNA
Speaker 1: profile to individual suspects one by one, painstaking and time
Speaker 1: consuming process can basically, it's a needle in a hayesack search. Yes,
Speaker 1: you have a DNA profile, who you goeing to compare
Speaker 1: it to? Yeah, well, this guy's our suspect. Do we
Speaker 1: have as DNA we do, Let's compare the two. That's
Speaker 1: all you can do, one person by one person, And
Speaker 1: none of the DNA comparisons canducted during this period yielded
Speaker 1: any matches, leaving investigators frustrated and at a complete dead end. Then,
Speaker 1: in May of two thousand, another breakthrough in forensic science
Speaker 1: brought a renewed hope to Sophie's case. The biological sample
Speaker 1: from Sophie's body was processed using a more advanced DNA
Speaker 1: analysis method and uploaded to the Combined DNA Index System
Speaker 1: or also known as CODIS. Unlike the older approach, COTIS
Speaker 1: allowed investigators to compare an unknown DNA profile against a
Speaker 1: vast database of DNA profiles. So basically, whatever we have
Speaker 1: in our system, we can run it against those, right yep.
Speaker 1: But Sophie's DNA profile was run and the results were disheartening.
Speaker 1: No matches were found. Basically, this guy had no history clearly,
Speaker 1: so as DNA hadn't been put in the system. So
Speaker 1: he's someone who we just haven't had arrested and gotten
Speaker 1: DNA from before.
Speaker 2: Here you have like such high hopes, right, there's still
Speaker 2: continuing with investigating, which is amazing, and then these events
Speaker 2: is you're like, oh, man, like maybe this will be
Speaker 2: our break and then just like complete letdown. You know.
Speaker 1: True, though, there is a bright side to this because
Speaker 1: the killer's DNA was now in the profile, so if
Speaker 1: he was ever to do something else, and his DNA
Speaker 1: put in, Oh yeah, then.
Speaker 2: Go yeah, so I mean, yeah, he better make sure
Speaker 2: he doesn't fuck up again at all or ruin someone's
Speaker 2: life again exactly.
Speaker 1: So it's basically a waiting game at this point, and
Speaker 1: the years since her death basically turned into decades, and
Speaker 1: Sophie's case became one of Alaska's most well known cold cases,
Speaker 1: but still investigators followed leads over the years. So in
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine, in a renewed effort to generate leads,
Speaker 1: investigators released new details about Sophie's case. They published photos
Speaker 1: of the clothing she had been wearing the night of
Speaker 1: the murder, including her brightly colored sweater, and asked the
Speaker 1: public for any information. They specifically wanted to hear from
Speaker 1: anyone who might have seen Sophie that night while she
Speaker 1: smoked and maybe chatted with other students outside of the dorms.
Speaker 1: Investigators hope this push might jog someone's memory, but the
Speaker 1: results were minimal and the case still was cold. Then
Speaker 1: in twenty ten, the next year, a name from the
Speaker 1: original investigation resurfaced, Nicholas Daser. Now Nicholas was a former
Speaker 1: UAF student who had been living in Barlett Hall. At
Speaker 1: the time of Sophie's murder, he and his roommate, Stephen Downs,
Speaker 1: had both lived on the third floor in room three
Speaker 1: h five. Back in nineteen ninety three, both men were
Speaker 1: briefly interviewed as part of the initial investigation. At the time,
Speaker 1: they denied having any sort of knowledge of Sophie's murder
Speaker 1: or anything suspicious that might have happened that night. Now,
Speaker 1: Nicholas wasn't just a student at UAF. In fact, in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three, he was also working as a campus
Speaker 1: security guard. He'd even been on duty the night of
Speaker 1: Sophie's murder and had helped police secure the crime scene
Speaker 1: the very next day. However, shortly after the murder, Nicholas
Speaker 1: lost his job as a security guard when it was
Speaker 1: discovered that he had violated campus rules by bringing a
Speaker 1: firearm to his dorm room.
Speaker 2: What okay, and this wasn't picked up.
Speaker 1: Correct?
Speaker 2: Okay? Well, I mean different people have the knowledge. I
Speaker 2: guess it's thought not to give that to the police.
Speaker 1: Auto basically it was never reported to police.
Speaker 2: Oh okay.
Speaker 1: So this firearm detail prompt that was now brought to
Speaker 1: light prompted investigators to take a closer look into Nicholas.
Speaker 1: When questioned again, he confirmed that yes, he had been
Speaker 1: fired for owning a gun, but insisted that he'd never
Speaker 1: owned a twenty two caliber gun, which was the type
Speaker 1: of weapon used to kill Sophie. However, during the interview
Speaker 1: he mentioned that mentioned something that raised eyebrows. He claimed
Speaker 1: that his roommate Stephen, did own a gun in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety three, specifically an H and R Model twenty two
Speaker 1: caliber revolver. This piece of information reignited interest in the case.
Speaker 1: Forensic scientist Deborah Gillis, a firearms expert, reviewed the bullet
Speaker 1: recovered from Sophie's body and confirmed that its markings were
Speaker 1: consistent with those made by an H and R twenty
Speaker 1: two caliber revolver. However, the firing pattern on the bullet
Speaker 1: was pretty broad and generic to a so bringing this
Speaker 1: link specifically to this gun didn't really do much. Okay,
Speaker 1: So investigators couldn't really move forward. They didn't have the
Speaker 1: actual gun or anything, and it was just kind of
Speaker 1: something that trailed off. So despite this intriguing new lead,
Speaker 1: it just seems like they were right back to square
Speaker 1: one with not much to go on. It was in
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, when a groundbreaking development final only once again
Speaker 1: reignited the investigation.
Speaker 2: If it's one of these fucking pieces of shit, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna be pissed, you think, because it's like they have
Speaker 2: been interviewed or thought of now like twice, and it's
Speaker 2: like they're just living their goddamn life.
Speaker 1: But the problem is they can't be. No one has
Speaker 1: been able to be tied to it yet. So say that, yes,
Speaker 1: he did have this gun. Say, for example, it was
Speaker 1: the exact match for the bullet found in her body.
Speaker 1: We all know, and it's very common saying you need
Speaker 1: a smoking gun, right, They literally didn't have a gun?
Speaker 2: No? Yeah, no, get that.
Speaker 1: Someone said he had a gun. They approach him. We
Speaker 1: heard you had a gun. No I didn't. Can we search? Sure,
Speaker 1: I don't have no gun? They say they search. I
Speaker 1: don't know if they did, But say they search his house,
Speaker 1: they find no gun. What have they got on them?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Yeah, he doesn't have the murder weapon available and investigators
Speaker 1: can't sit here and start looking at it or anything.
Speaker 2: So yeah, well, I know they're in a tough spot
Speaker 2: for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah I get your pain and anger, trust me. But unfortunately,
Speaker 1: there's just nothing that the investigators can do. What they
Speaker 1: need is a DNA link. Unfortunately, now, thankfully, as I
Speaker 1: was mentioning in twenty eighteen of groundbreaking development finally reignited
Speaker 1: the investigation once again. And this was from a Virginia
Speaker 1: based laboratory specializing in the genealogical databases. So basically, they
Speaker 1: enlisted the help to identify They enlist the help to
Speaker 1: identify potential suspects in decade old cases. The lab uses
Speaker 1: a technique that's become increasingly well known, something that we've
Speaker 1: talked about on this podcast a few times now, with
Speaker 1: this process involving using DNA from crime scenes to build
Speaker 1: a family tree, often by comparing it to DNA profiles
Speaker 1: uploaded by the.
Speaker 2: Public somewhere, yeah, on their own will.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So if you go to like ged match or
Speaker 1: some like ancestry platform and ancestry dot com. So if
Speaker 1: I were to upload my DNA there trying to see
Speaker 1: the family tree and all that sort of stuff, police
Speaker 1: can now access that database and if my cousin committed
Speaker 1: a murder, they might be able to connect my cousin's
Speaker 1: DNA through family tree building because I put mine online.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Which it's so interesting, really well.
Speaker 1: In all honesty, many people suspect that platforms like ancestry
Speaker 1: dot com were put out there for this purpose.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well really that would just be brilliant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one hundred percent, whether it was though on purpose,
Speaker 1: or whether it's just you know, a happy byproduct of
Speaker 1: the platforms, they're able to do this, And on October tenth,
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, the lab contacted Alaska State Troopers to report
Speaker 1: they had actually successfully created a DNA profile for the
Speaker 1: suspect and uploaded it to the public genealogy database. The
Speaker 1: results were promising. They found two matches to the individual
Speaker 1: who were likely second cousin or closer, and a third
Speaker 1: match who was likely third cousins or closer. So with
Speaker 1: this lead in hand, the lab began this painstaking process
Speaker 1: of building the suspect's family tree, working backwards from these
Speaker 1: genetic connections, trying to see if they could find who
Speaker 1: would likely match the DNA. By December eighteenth, twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: the lab had made a major breakthrough. They informed investigator
Speaker 1: Michael McFerrin that they had identified a likely relative of
Speaker 1: the suspect. The data revealed a relationship equivalent of half sibling,
Speaker 1: such as like an aunt or an aunt to a
Speaker 1: nephew or a grandmother to a grandson that close. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: so they found a specific individual who is related to
Speaker 1: this person that closely.
Speaker 2: Dan, dang, here we go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they auditionally found that because of the suspect
Speaker 1: in this relative, this sorry, suspect and this relative shared
Speaker 1: the same X chromosome in the DNA that they were
Speaker 1: able to determine the suspect was likely on the mother's
Speaker 1: side of the family. So using all of this breakdown,
Speaker 1: basically what happened is they were able to identify the
Speaker 1: ant of the murder murderer whoa hey, the ant had
Speaker 1: uploaded her DNA to a platform like ancestry dot com
Speaker 1: and because of that, they were able to fit down
Speaker 1: that this individual was the man by the name of
Speaker 1: Stephen Downs.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, of course.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, so sorry, that DNA stuff, it's really complicated
Speaker 1: to talk about. I don't even fully understand it, so
Speaker 1: it's a bit muddled through that. But Stephen Downs is
Speaker 1: the suspect, and Stephen Downs was reported to be the
Speaker 1: one with the twenty two caliber revolver at.
Speaker 2: The Yeah, dang, I mean, yeah, better late than never,
Speaker 2: But that's how I struggle with that when they literally
Speaker 2: get to live like so many years.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Stephen was born in August thirty first, nineteen seventy four,
Speaker 1: in Maine, where he grew up and later graduated from
Speaker 1: high school in June of nineteen ninety two. That fall,
Speaker 1: he left Maine to attend college at the University of
Speaker 1: Alaska and Fairbanks. At just eighteen years old, he was
Speaker 1: living in Barlot Hall, the same dorm building where Sophie
Speaker 1: was murdered. Now, as he previously noted, Steven's roommate Nicholas Staser,
Speaker 1: also lived in Barlot Hall at the time. After graduating
Speaker 1: from UAF in nineteen ninety six, Stephen's life appeared to
Speaker 1: be relatively uneventful. He spent some time in Arizona before
Speaker 1: you know, eventually returning to his home in Maine, where
Speaker 1: he worked as a nurse in the city of Auburn.
Speaker 1: He had no prior arrests, no criminal record, and no
Speaker 1: reason to be in any sort of law enforcement database.
Speaker 2: This piece of shit was a nurse. Yeah, came to
Speaker 2: become a nurse, correct and like okay, well, yeap.
Speaker 1: This is why his DNA was never matched to the profile.
Speaker 1: He never did anything, no criminal history. His DNA had
Speaker 1: never been entered.
Speaker 2: That's shocking to me that they would do that. He
Speaker 2: would do something like that, brutal and then just never
Speaker 2: again do anything else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So thankfully through genal I can't say this word today, genealogical,
Speaker 1: there we go, DNA Stephen was finally identified as a suspect,
Speaker 1: and here we are, we have a breakthrough. Investigators have
Speaker 1: the name, they have the individual. They knew he owned
Speaker 1: that gun, but as far as I'm aware, they weren't
Speaker 1: able to find the murder weapon. But on February thirteenth,
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, after nearly twenty six years of dead ends
Speaker 1: and unanswered questions, investigators finally confronted Stephen Downs. Working together
Speaker 1: with Maine State Police and Alaska State Troopers, they interviewed
Speaker 1: Stephen at his home in Auburn, Maine. During the interview,
Speaker 1: Stephen acknowledged that a girl had been murdered at Barla
Speaker 1: Hall during his time there, but he admitted he didn't
Speaker 1: know her or even ever having content with her. Well,
Speaker 1: of course, yeah, it wasn't me. When officers showed Stephen's photograph,
Speaker 1: sorry Stephen, photographs of Sophie, he claimed to recognize her,
Speaker 1: but only from the missing person's photos and memorial posters
Speaker 1: and stuff that had been put up around campus following
Speaker 1: her murder. He continued to deny, you know, ever meeting
Speaker 1: her seeing her in person. He explained that he lived
Speaker 1: in the third floor Bartlett Hall and said that he
Speaker 1: spent much of his spare time visiting his girlfriend, who
Speaker 1: lived on the fourth floor, so he claimed to have
Speaker 1: no reason to ever go on the second floor whatsoever
Speaker 1: where Sophie was even discovered, which Hey might have been
Speaker 1: part of. Is I'm going to go somewhere where I'm
Speaker 1: not supposed to be or no one will ever suspect
Speaker 1: that would be yeah right. The next day, February fourteenth,
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, a search warrant was executed at Stephen's home.
Speaker 1: Investigators collected a swab of his DNA for comparison to
Speaker 1: the DNA sample recovered from Sophie's body back in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety three. When the results came back, there was no
Speaker 1: doubt Stephen Down's DNA was an exact match for the
Speaker 1: DNA profile of Sophie's killer.
Speaker 2: Oh man, wow, okay, like they were just like so
Speaker 2: close so many times? Really?
Speaker 1: Yep?
Speaker 2: And then just didn't have didn't have enough exactly.
Speaker 1: Not only that his roommate was a security officer who
Speaker 1: helped secure the scene. Mm hm so, And if only
Speaker 1: if only that security officer was like, hey, shit, she's
Speaker 1: got a gunshot to the head. My roommate has a gun.
Speaker 1: If only he drew those connections earlier.
Speaker 2: Well, he might, like he might have though.
Speaker 1: He may have your right, he may have been maybe.
Speaker 2: He may have known.
Speaker 1: He may have known suspect and hiding the trail. He
Speaker 1: may have been in denial too. He could never do that,
Speaker 1: no way.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, yeah, there were friends like you would never
Speaker 2: think that your friend is capable of something like that exactly.
Speaker 1: So Now, on February fifteenth, twenty nineteen, Stephen Downs was
Speaker 1: arrested and officially charged with the rape and murder of
Speaker 1: Sophie Surgery. After decades of uncertainty, justice for Sophie was
Speaker 1: finally within reach. The monumental breakthrough had been achieved through
Speaker 1: the tireless work of dedicated investigators and advancements in DNA technology.
Speaker 1: What had once seemed like an impossible case had finally
Speaker 1: been solved almost thirty years later. So props to all
Speaker 1: the investigators who never let this case go.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, I mean like it's thirty years or so
Speaker 2: down the road, but still, yeah, that more than never, right.
Speaker 1: Twenty six years exactly? Well, I don't know exactly, but
Speaker 1: it's twenty six years. Okay, I'm not sure the extra
Speaker 1: days within, but it was twenty six years. So Stephen
Speaker 1: was not I bailed bail, and in August of twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: he was extradited from Maine to Alaska to face the
Speaker 1: charges in Fairbanks for Sophie's love one. The arrest was
Speaker 1: a bit bittersweet. Sophie's mother, Elena, had spent years haunted
Speaker 1: by her daughter's death, longing for answers, and often just
Speaker 1: breaking out in tears randomly and yeah geez. Tragically, she
Speaker 1: passed away in twenty twenty one, two years before Stephen
Speaker 1: would be convicted. While she did not live to see
Speaker 1: him face justice in court, she at least lived long
Speaker 1: enough to know that her daughter's killer had been caught.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is good.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So in January twenty twenty two, Stephen Down's trial
Speaker 1: began at Fairbanks Superior Court. His defense team attempted to
Speaker 1: poke holes in the prosecution's case, focusing on the DNA evidence.
Speaker 1: They argued that the presence of DNA's DNA didn't definitively
Speaker 1: prove his guilt, suggesting instead that it might have been
Speaker 1: the result of a consensual encounter.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1: They also pointed out that the other fingerprints and hair
Speaker 1: samples were found at the crime scene as well, imploying
Speaker 1: someone else might be responsible for the murderer. However, since
Speaker 1: the crime scene was a shared college dorm bathroom, no shit,
Speaker 1: there's other hair and fingerprints and stuff to be found.
Speaker 1: But his DNA was found in Sophie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this argument held little weight. The jury saw through
Speaker 1: these attempts to create doubt, and after deliberating for two days,
Speaker 1: they returned with their verdict. On February tenth, twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: Stephen Downs was found guilty a first degree murder and
Speaker 1: first degree sexual assault in the death of Sophie Surgery.
Speaker 1: On September twenty six, twenty twenty three, Superior Court Judge
Speaker 1: Thomas Temple sent in Stephen Downs to ninety nine years
Speaker 1: in prison, the maximum penalty allowed under Alaskan law. Okay,
Speaker 1: and there he will rot good. And that's the story
Speaker 1: of Sophie.
Speaker 2: I mean, and he's a freaking lucky asshole that he
Speaker 2: got twenty six extra years.
Speaker 1: No shit, I hope.
Speaker 2: It just haunted the shit out of him. But it doesn't.
Speaker 2: I don't know it could have, but it just seems
Speaker 2: like it probably didn't.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it could have. I hope it fucking did.
Speaker 1: I really hope it did. And I hope he had
Speaker 1: kids that and how like, wow, you're a piece of
Speaker 1: shit and I'm never talking to you again. And then
Speaker 1: he lost some fucking loved ones because he took a
Speaker 1: loved one away from someone else.
Speaker 2: Well I kind of hope that he didn't have kids, though,
Speaker 2: because then those kids have like this world's piece of
Speaker 2: shit father.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, you know what, I know what you mean.
Speaker 2: I know what you mean. He probably did have a family,
Speaker 2: though he might have.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't look into it. I do remember
Speaker 1: them the defense saying something about how like his sentence
Speaker 1: should be lessons because it's like you're denying him hugging
Speaker 1: someone ever again, a loved one ever again. And it's like,
Speaker 1: what the fuck do you think he did to Sophie?
Speaker 1: And yeah, your family, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I like, you're just like, I don't give a shit
Speaker 2: about this guy.
Speaker 1: I honestly didn't. I didn't really want to research so much,
Speaker 1: so I thought, you know what, fuck it, I'm not
Speaker 1: looking into that. I kind of love that because he sucks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: douche canoe.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, the fact that he was able to get
Speaker 2: away with that, you know, it's too bad like that.
Speaker 2: They couldn't have just you know, taken like everyone's DNA
Speaker 2: who lived in this dorm or something, right, But I
Speaker 2: know you can't really do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know how that shit works.
Speaker 1: Full. I'm pretty sure it would have had been voluntarily given. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and again, you have a dorm like, let's let's take
Speaker 1: just an average dorm room number. How many people you
Speaker 1: think would live in a dorm building. You clearly we
Speaker 1: have at least four floors on this dorm that we
Speaker 1: know of. Let's say, I don't know, you have two
Speaker 1: people per room? How many rooms per floor?
Speaker 2: Seven? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'd say sixty is what I was going to say.
Speaker 2: Holy shit, Okay, I.
Speaker 1: Will maybe maybe not that big. I guess, well, he.
Speaker 2: Had said that at one point, you'd said over one
Speaker 2: thousand people live on campus.
Speaker 1: I think it was sixty or was it thirteen hundred,
Speaker 1: thirteen hundred and sixty or sixteen hundred and thirty is
Speaker 1: what I want to say. Let's just say fifteen for
Speaker 1: an even So fifteen hundred people live on campus. How
Speaker 1: many dorm buildings do you think there would be? Let's say,
Speaker 1: let's say three, So you have five hundred people per
Speaker 1: dorm building. So you have five hundred people who have
Speaker 1: granted access to this building. How are you going to
Speaker 1: collect DNA all of those people, especially given that you
Speaker 1: only have a week and people are free to go
Speaker 1: and everything. By the time she was found, he's probably
Speaker 1: already gone off campus.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, and they already had known that there was
Speaker 2: so many security issues that it could have really had
Speaker 2: been anyone. So I mean how they most likely probably
Speaker 2: thought it was someone from you know, outside.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I don't think they were even in a week,
Speaker 1: been able to have talked to everyone, let alone collect
Speaker 1: DNA from everyone, even if it was you have to
Speaker 1: if they had a warrant for it all, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean.
Speaker 2: I just find it so hard to believe though, that
Speaker 2: this guy would be such a mom like he would
Speaker 2: have this streak of just being a complete monster. In
Speaker 2: one act here and then just nothing again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't make much sense to me either, but
Speaker 1: it is that's what happened.
Speaker 2: Well, especially too, because like when you get away with shit,
Speaker 2: it's like, oh yeah, I can do this again. Like
Speaker 2: I bet you he did something else.
Speaker 1: He might have Oh gosh, maybe he ended up turning
Speaker 1: into one of those nurses who like fucking kills people
Speaker 1: with drugs and shit. Yeah, just to like saytiate his
Speaker 1: fucking sick fantasies.
Speaker 2: Didn't you share something in their day where it was
Speaker 2: like on social where it was this nurse like broke
Speaker 2: the bones of newborn babies. Oh yeah, mek you or something? Yeah,
Speaker 2: oh god, some people are just so fucking disturbing.
Speaker 1: Right like geez, oh yeah I hated her. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: thanks for making me think of her again.
Speaker 2: Appreciate that anytime, anytime.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you guys for being here again. Shout out
Speaker 1: to Alena for recommending that case over on Patreon. If
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Speaker 1: very end of the show. While I'm talking like this,
Speaker 1: for whatever reason.
Speaker 2: I just have to say, like Ripley knows when we're done,
Speaker 2: Like she just stood up and came for pets, like
Speaker 2: it is unreal. Anyway, that's really side.
Speaker 1: Not sorry, Nichole's just getting into the dog.
Speaker 2: Well. I'm just like, wow, she knows we're done and
Speaker 2: we can like give them move. Yeah, okay, so until
Speaker 2: next episode, stay wicked.