From 1980 to 1982, the residents of Minneapolis (USA) were always living in a state of unease and fear due to a brutal serial killer. He was known by the nickname “The Weepy-Voiced Killer”, who often called the police with an emotional, choked voice after each attack.
Violent Attacks
On New Year’s Eve 1980, 20-year-old Karen Potack, a student at Stevens Point University (Wisconsin, USA), went to a nightclub with some friends. When the nightclub closed at 1 am, her friends noticed that Karen had been gone for some time. At this point, she was walking home nearby.
On a street in St. Paul, Karen was suddenly ambushed. The stranger then attacked her with an iron bar before leaving, leaving Karen’s fate unknown.
At 3 am on January 1, 1980, the police received a call from a strange man. In a sobbing, emotional, and almost frantic voice, he reported that someone was injured and then quickly hung up. Following the address provided by this man, the police and paramedics arrived at the scene and were utterly horrified. Naked Karen Potack lay gasping on the cold snowy ground of the winter night.
The violent attack caused severe brain injury to Karen. She miraculously survived but her memory was affected. She could not identify her attacker.
Unlike Karen, the next victim was not so lucky. On June 3, 1981, a group of teenagers passing through a wooded area near a highway accidentally discovered a body. The victim’s identity was later determined to be 18-year-old Kimberly Compton. She had been stabbed 61 times, mainly in the chest. In addition, she had been strangled with a shoelace.
The police then received a phone call. Strangely, there were details very similar to the phone call after the attack on Karen on New Year’s Eve. The man on the other end of the line said in a choked voice: “Damn, you’ll find me, won’t you? I just stabbed someone. I can’t stop. I’ll keep killing someone…”
The police successfully traced the call to a public telephone booth located at a bar across from a bus station. But when they arrived, no one was there.
The Weepy-Voiced Killer
Two days after Kimberly’s body was discovered, this man called 911 again. He said he had no intention of killing the girl and would turn himself in. However, he did not do so. Instead, the man continued to call the police and told them: “I’ll try not to kill anyone else” but added that he couldn’t do it. “I don’t know why I stabbed her. I feel really bad about it.”
The disguised killer even called to correct some information the press reported surrounding the attack.
Although he left many phone calls, the police still could not identify him. They only knew that his habit was to call and report after each attack with an emotional, tearful voice. He was nicknamed “The Weepy-Voiced Killer”. No one knew who his specific target was, so everyone was afraid of becoming the next victim.
And law enforcement didn’t have to wait long to see the third case.
It was July 21, 1982, when 33-year-old Kathleen Greening planned to vacation on Mackinac Island with her best friend, Carol Kellogg. That morning, Carol drove to Kathleen’s to have breakfast together before they set off. When she called out, no one came out even though the door was unlocked. Carol let herself in to look for her friend all over the house.
In the bathroom area, Carol saw the light on with the door partially closed. She pushed the door open and immediately knew why her friend didn’t respond when she called at the door. Kathleen was dead.
The Man at the Bar
Kathleen’s naked body was face down in the water, with her head towards the faucet and her knees bent forward towards the bathtub.
Initially, the police thought Kathleen’s death was an accident. They did not think this death was related to “The Weepy-Voiced Killer” because the attack was much less brutal than the previous murders, and no call was made after Kathleen’s death.
Unable to find a suspect, the authorities feared his crimes had not stopped. And they did not have to wait long to receive notification of the fourth murder. The victim was Barbara Simons, a 40-year-old nurse living in the Minneapolis riverside area.
On August 5, 1982, Barbara went to a bar and met a man there. When this person approached to chat, she offered him a cigarette, and then said she would give him a ride home. Unfortunately, that ride was her last.
A newspaper delivery person discovered Barbara’s body while walking along the Mississippi River the next morning. She had been stabbed to death. Once again, the killer called the police, speaking and crying: “Please don’t say anything, just listen. I’m sorry I killed that girl. I stabbed her 40 times.”
The Suspicious Guest
The police then sought clues from those present at the bar the previous evening about the man Barbara met there, who was also the person she gave a ride home. Witnesses described him as around 40 years old, 1.8m tall, and weighing about 84kg, with a tanned complexion and long black hair.
While the police were struggling to track down the suspect, the killer had attacked his next victim.
Denise Williams was a 19-year-old prostitute. On August 21, Denise met a strange man on Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis. He offered her a price to “have fun” with him at his home.
But Denise realized something was off when the guest drove off the highway and onto small roads far from residential areas. Finally, his car turned onto a dead-end street.
Before Denise could react, this man attacked her with a screwdriver, stabbing her. Denise grabbed a glass bottle from under her feet and hit him in the head, then ran out of the car. Her screams attracted a resident’s attention. The victim had struggled with her attacker before he fled the scene.
Back home, the man realized he was quite badly injured, so he called for medical assistance. The operator noticed his voice sounded similar to the notorious killer the police had been publicly announcing for 2 years. The incident was immediately reported to the police.
The Killer Revealed
The authorities then identified the caller as 37-year-old Paul Michael Stephani. It didn’t take long for the police to realize that Paul was the suspect they had been searching for over the past 2 years.
Paul Michael Stephani worked as a hospital janitor and freight handler. Paul was constantly fired for not completing his work and for his aggressive attitude. He always explained this by claiming he had epilepsy, though he had no medical records to prove it.
Faced with the evidence presented by the police, Paul knew he could no longer deny the charges. The man admitted he was “The Weepy-Voiced Killer”.
When he lost his last job, an angry Paul returned to the area around the factory. This was where he spotted Karen, his first victim. “At first I just intended to invite her out for coffee. She didn’t have a coat on, I wanted to shelter her, but then my mind went crazy,” he confessed.
A Painful Love
Paul was convicted of killing Barbara Simons but due to lack of evidence, he was only sentenced for the murders of Karen and Barbara, receiving 18 and 40 years in prison respectively.
While investigating his background, the police learned that Paul previously had a girlfriend, but she later returned to her hometown to marry, accepting an arranged marriage by her family. This caused Paul immense depression and pain.
Paul never revealed the motive for his attacks. However, experts speculated that when Paul attacked his victims, he may have thought he was attacking his ex-girlfriend because he felt betrayed.
Stephani targeted women from various social classes. He would typically lure them into his car, then take them to a remote location and kill them in various ways in random attacks, mainly by stabbing. Stephani would then call 911 to report the murder he had just committed.
In 1987, Paul discovered he had cancer and could only live for less than a year. At this point, he confessed to killing the second victim, Kimberly.
As his condition became critical and he knew he was dying, Paul continued confessing his crimes. He stated that in total he had killed 4 victims.
On June 12, 1988, Paul died of cancer at the maximum security Oak Park Heights prison. However, his horrific actions left people terrified for a long time whenever he was mentioned.
