The First Phone Call
911 operators arguably have one of the most difficult jobs in the world. Every day without fail, they take emergency calls from people all over the country, and while some are false alarms or nothing too serious, there’s plenty where they have to deal with the trauma of hearing someone screaming for help or, God forbid, the final moments of someone’s life on the other end of the line.
The date is New Year’s Eve, 1980, and on that day, one poor emergency operator answered a 911 call at 3 am from St. Paul, Minnesota. The call was brief, the voice on the other end was that of a man sounding emotional and distraught. His voice was trembling, each word sounding as if he was crying hysterically.
“Just please, this is an emergency. Please, send a squad to Pierce Butler Road, Malberg Manufacturing Company machine shop…Please…send an ambulance too…There’s a girl hurt there! She’s lying on the ground in the back by the railroad tracks.”
When asked if he knows the physical address of the location, the caller says, “I don’t know!” and the call suddenly cuts off from there.
Police and an ambulance were dispatched and, arriving on the scene, officers and paramedics were met with a terrible sight: a young woman sprawled out in a snowbank, completely naked, blood gushing from her head. This was 20-year-old college student Karen Potack. She was a student at University of Stevens Point and had been out that night with her sisters at a New Year’s Eve party. As the night drew to a close, Karen decided to head home by herself at around midnight.
As an intoxicated Karen was walking near Pierce Butler Road and Syndicate Avenue on that chilly winter night, a figure leapt from the shadows and accosted her. Tire-iron in hand, the figure bludgeoned Karen across the head over 10 times before retreating into the night, leaving their victim in a growing puddle of her own blood. The attack had been so vicious that Karen’s skull had been cracked open and her brain was exposed. By the grace of God, she managed to survive, but she had sustained multiple severe brain injuries and she had no memory whatsoever of the attack, let alone the ability to describe her attacker.
Sadly…she would be the lucky one.
”Don’t Talk, Just Listen…”
Months would go by, and no new leads would be unearthed in the case of Karen’s assault. That is until June 3rd, 1981, and unfortunately it would come in the form of another attack, this time fatal.
On June 3rd, 1981, 911 dispatchers received yet another panicked call. Once more the man was hysterical, once more the man was crying, and once more the man brought quite terrible tidings.
“God damn, will you find me? I just stabbed somebody with an ice pick! I can’t stop myself. I keep killing somebody!”
The call cuts off from there.
That evening, a group of teenage girls were spending time together, walking through a wooded area north of Superior and Oneida Streets near Interstate 35E. As they were walking, they came upon the brutally mangled body of a young woman. She’d been stabbed in the chest, stomach, and inner thighs 61 times with what forensics would conclude was an ice pick. It was also determined she’d been strangled with a shoelace.
The victim was soon identified to be 18-year-old Kimberly Compton, a high school graduate from Wisconsin. She had arrived that evening by bus from her childhood home in search of a new job and a fresh start. She was unsure of her surroundings however and accepted the kind offer of a ride from a man from a diner across the street. That would be the final mistake of her life.
The police once more are at a loss, they had no idea as to why Kimberly was targeted or what possibly could have warranted such a heinous attack. There wasn’t even any sign of sexual assault, so one avenue of motive was discounted almost instantly. When interviewed for the American true crime TV show Mark of a Killer, St. Paul PD Sergeant Joe Corcoran stated, “It’s very unusual to use an ice pick to kill somebody.”
Two days after the discovery of Kimberly’s body on June 5th, the killer would call once more. He’d apologize all over again and promise to turn himself in, but he never did. On June 6th, he called once again to say that some accounts in the papers about the murders weren’t accurate. Then, on June 11th, he would call once more.
“Don’t talk, just listen. I’m sorry for what I did to Compton…I couldn’t help it. I don’t know why I had to stab her…I am so upset about it. I keep getting drunk every day, but I can’t believe I did it. It’s like a big dream…I can’t think of being locked up, if I get locked up, I’ll kill myself, I’d rather kill myself then get locked up. I’ll try not to kill anyone else.”
Police pinpointed where the call was coming from and rushed over as fast as possible. Luck wasn’t on their side though as by the time they reached the location, the caller was long gone. It was at this point that they attempted to match the voice from the newest call to any in the database, and they came up with a match to the voice that called in regards to Karen Potack back at the end of the previous year.
At a loss for what to do, the police released portions of the 911 calls the suspect had made, said suspect quickly becoming known by the moniker “The Weepy-Voiced-Killer."
"I’ll Never Get Into Heaven!”
The police were still lost in the woods for a suspect…when a new body was found.
On the morning of August 6th, 1982, a paperboy was out on his morning routine. Walking along the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, the young man received the shock of a lifetime when he stumbled upon a dead woman laid out along the bank of the river. She’d been stabbed over 100 times by what looked to be either an ice pick or a Phillips head screwdriver.
In regards to the crime scene and how it appeared the body was attempted to be covered up, Minneapolis PD Detective Don Brown was quoted as believing, “This probably wasn’t his first time killing.”
It didn’t take long for the police to identify the victim. This was 40-year-old nurse Barbara Simons, and she lived on the Minneapolis side of the Mississippi. When investigating her recent whereabouts, the police quickly discovered that the night before on the 5th, Simons was spotted at a bar called the Hexagon, where she was approached by a man, asking if she had a cigarette. The two spoke for some time before Simons informed a waitress “He’s cute.
I hope he’s nice, since he’s giving me a ride home.” She got into the man’s car, they drove off into the night, and that’s all she wrote.
The police were now on high alert, they wanted to speak to this man, and they wanted to speak to him now. Did he have any information on what happened to Simons after he dropped her at home? Was he actually the killer they had been searching for this whole time?
Luckily this time, they had a description thanks to several witnesses at the bar. A bulky man of about 40, 6 feet tall, about 185 pounds, dark complexion, black mustache, and receding black hair.
Just as things were starting to look up, 911 received another call. It was the suspect, and once more, he was crying.
“Please don’t talk, just listen… I’m sorry I killed that girl. I stabbed her 40 times. Kimberly Compton was the first one over in St. Paul. I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I’m sick. I’m going to kill myself, I think. I’m just going to…If somebody dies with a red shirt on, it’s me. I’ve killed more people…I’ll never make it to heaven…!”
Distressed and blubbering, the call ended again before any new information could be had.
As it was clear that a serial killer was on the loose at this juncture, investigators reached out to the FBI for aid. Working together and going off the descriptions given by the waitress and other witnesses, they combed through their database and came up with an 8-person lineup of suspects. Showing the photos to each witness, they all agreed on the same picture, all identifying the same man as the one who had been with Simons that final night.
The police had hit paydirt, they finally had a name: Paul Michael Stephani.
The Voice on the Other End of the Line
Before we carry on, let’s rewind for a moment and take a look at just who Paul Michael Stephani was.
Born September 8th, 1944, in Austin, Minnesota, Paul was the last born of 10 children to a Catholic family. His parents ended up divorcing with his mother remarrying when he was 3 years old. It’s here that things seem to go downhill for old Paul as his stepfather was abusive and had this odd proclivity of beating his stepchildren, at times even tossing them down the stairs of their family home if they pissed him off enough.
Not much is known about the rest of his childhood, but we do know that he moved to St. Paul in the 60’s and married a woman named Beverly Lider, fathering a child with her, but the two eventually got a divorce. Stephani held several jobs over the years, including acting as both shipping clerk and janitor at Malberg Manufacturing Company machine shop. As time went on, he would lose every single job he’d ever held, blaming his bouts of epilepsy on his time at the machine shop.
Eventually the rage and frustration from his constant failing reached its boiling point, and on multiple occasions he would return to his old employer, one of those times coming across Karen Potack. And from there, we know how things play out…mostly, but we’ll get to that soon enough.
Final Attack and Capture
For now, we’re back where we left off and the police now have Stephani’s name and he has skyrocketed to the top of the suspect list in this spree of attacks and killings. A surveillance team was set up at Stephani’s apartment complex, one who watched his comings and goings for several days.
Then, on August 21st, 1981, Paul Michael Stephani left his apartment and got into his vehicle, taking off into the night. Officers followed after him as the suspect made his way into Minnesota, but eventually they lost track of him. The killer was in the wind.
That night, 19-year-old Denise Williams was working the streets as a prostitute when she was driven up on by Paul. After talking for a few minutes, he asked if he could purchase her services for the night. Agreeing on a price of $100, she jumped into his passenger seat and the two of them drove off into the night.
Now normally we know how this situation goes and if the cases before this are any indication, we would be correct in thinking that this was the end of the line for poor Denise. However, Denise was one tough cookie, and she wouldn’t be taken so easily.
As Stephani turned into a dead-end, Denise suspected something was amiss. She’d been feeling uneasy for some time as her newest hook up had been taking to dark suburban streets instead of the more convenient and brightly lit freeway as one would assume he would have. Her suspicions were soon proven correct as before she could act on her instincts, out of nowhere, her newest John produced a screwdriver and began stabbing her viciously.
He managed to stab her a total of 15 times, his car seat becoming soaked with blood, before Denise eyed an empty glass bottle he had laying on the floor of the passenger side. Gripping it by the neck, she brought it down as hard as she could on his head, shattering it and causing his head to bleed profusely from the head and face.
Denise fell from the car as the killer cried out in pain, her screams alerting a neighbor nearby. He attempted to confront Stephani, but the killer threatened him with the screwdriver before driving off as fast as he could. An ambulance was called, and Denise was treated for her wounds, telling the police once they arrived everything she knew and even giving a positive identification on her attacker.
Then, as the police were gearing up to finally take him into custody, news came in over the dispatch: a new 911 call had been made.
“I need an ambulance … I’m all cut up. I got beat up and I’m bleeding!”
That’s right: Paul Michael Stephani, after getting his head cracked, actually returned to his apartment, saw how badly he had been hurt, and called 911 for an ambulance to treat his wounds. And on top of that, he used the same voice he’d used before in the previous calls. If there was ever any doubt left, it evaporated in an instant.
The police and an ambulance arrived at Stephani’s apartment and, after getting him bandaged up, the Weepy-Voiced-Killer was finally taken into custody.
When questioned by the police, Stephani tried to play off his injuries as the result of being the victim of a robbery. The police weren’t having any of it though, they knew they had their man, regardless of whether he wanted to admit it or not. Detective Brown brought out the case file they had, every page detailing the crimes Stephani had been involved in over the last year, and that’s when he brought out the picture of the victims. According to Brown, Stephani, “got up from his seat … and said, ‘You’re not gonna pin those on me.’
And his voice immediately changed. He went to a high pitch … Right away it struck me as the voice that I heard on the recordings.”
Stephani was taken to trial for the assault on Denise and the murder of Barbara, pleading not guilty to all charges laid against him. During the trial, both his ex-wife and his sister, along with a woman who lived with him, were all brought to testify. While on the stand, they were played the recordings of the 911 calls he’d previously made, each one of them positively identifying the voice to be that of Paul Michael Stephani.
In the end, Stephani was found guilty of both charges, receiving 18 years for the assault of Denise Williams and 40 years for the murder of Barbara Simons.
His One Final Phone Call
For 15 years, Stephani simply kept quiet, refusing to speak on his crimes and living out his sentence behind bars. However, in 1997, he was diagnosed with skin cancer and given 1 year to live.
Given this terminal news, Stephani reached out to the police. He promised to confess for his own peace of mind, along with the completion of one request: a picture of his mother’s headstone.
“I’d rather go to the grave knowing this is all taken care of and off my chest. To this day, I can’t believe it. I wake up in the morning thinking and hoping I’m dreaming all this. But then I say: ‘No, Paul, you’re still in jail.’ I don’t know what to do except say I wish I could turn back the clock.”
With that, he finally confessed fully to both homicides he’d been suspected of, as well as the two assaults on Karen and Denise. It was during these confessions that the police received a shock: Stephani confessed to a third murder, one that they were completely unaware of.
This was the killing of 33-year-old schoolteacher, Kathleen Greening. Back on July 21st, 1982, she’d been scheduled to go on a vacation with a friend of hers named Carol Kellogg. Arriving at Kathleen’s house that morning in order to get breakfast and hit the road, she found it strange when her knocks on the front door went unanswered. Trying the door, she found it unlocked.
Calling out into the still, silent house, once more she received no answer. Now worried, Carol searched the house until she finally arrived at the bathroom. Opening the door, she came upon a waking nightmare: Kathleen was inside, naked, face up in the tub with her head underneath the tap, dead as a doornail.
It was determined that she had drowned, and police originally wrote it off as an accident. It wasn’t until Stephani’s confessions and checking on the time and details of the death that police were able to link him to the death of Kathleen. The method of the kill was very different from Stephani’s usual MO (drowning as opposed to violently stabbing), and unlike all the other attacks, it wasn’t followed by a sob ridden phone call.
However, Stephani knew details of the killing as well as the layout of the woman’s house that only the killer could possibly know, and while going back through the evidence, police took a look in Kathleen’s address book. The name “Paul S” was written within, clinching it for investigators.
Kathleen Greening was the third victim of The Weepy-Voiced-Killer, and just like that, our murderous timeline is complete.
When asked about his motive, Stephani never gave a concrete answer. The closest he got was that there was a dark voice within his own mind that on occasion would bubble up to the surface and whisper to him, “Paul, it’s time to kill!”
So, was it a mental illness that encouraged Paul to take the lives of those three unfortunate women and attack two others? Was it simply a matter of rage for all his misfortunes along with some sort of sick payback for his past lovers leaving him? I suppose we’ll never truly know.
One way or another, Stephani did what he could to clear his conscience before he died, stating that, “Mother always told me, ‘If something hurts you, go to God,’” and I suppose this was the only way he thought he could do it with the time he had left.
One year later, on June 12th, 1998, Paul Michael Stephani, the Weepy-Voiced-Killer, succumbed to his cancer within the medical ward of his maximum-security prison. He was 53.
The Lingering Questions
The final pressing questions in regards to this whole case are these: Why did he call 911 all those times? Did he, in his own odd way, wish to be caught and jailed? Did he feel true remorse for the terrible crimes he committed? Was the guilt he felt in regards to the two women he’d maimed and the three lives he stole away real? Or was it all just a ploy to get his name on TV and in the papers? Again, we’ll probably never know.
Either way, it’s here that we remember the victims so that their names will remain, even when all else has faded away. Karen Potack, Kimberly Compton, Kathleen Greening, Barbara Simons, Denise Williams. Three lives lost and two lives irrevocably changed. I can only hope the three who were lost can rest easy and the two who lived were able to move on with their lives and make their remaining years happy ones.
And as for Paul Michael Stephani, he’s long dead now, more than two decades in the grave. Whether they were crocodile tears or real ones, he left a dark mark on this world, one that will never fade. As we step out of the shadows of this tragic case, those same questions will still linger. Either way, Stephani was adamant to his dying day that his regret and his apologies were all too real, it is on us now to say whether we believe him or not.
“All I can say is I’m sick and I’m sorry, if sorry means anything after 15 years.”
Key Takeaways
- Paul Michael Stephani, dubbed the Weepy-Voiced-Killer, made hysterical 911 calls reporting his own violent crimes between 1980 and 1982.
- Stephani attacked five women, killing three and severely injuring two, using weapons including a tire iron, ice pick, and screwdriver.
- Survivor Denise Williams fought back with a glass bottle, injuring Stephani and leading to his capture when he called 911 for himself.
- In 1997, facing terminal skin cancer, Stephani confessed to all attacks plus a previously unknown drowning murder of Kathleen Greening.
- Stephani’s motives remain unclear; he claimed a dark voice commanded him to kill, leaving questions about his genuine remorse unanswered.
Dana Ortiz covers prosecutorial mechanics, evidentiary procedure, and how investigations unwind decades after the original case file went cold.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was the Weepy-Voiced-Killer?
Paul Michael Stephani, a serial killer who operated in Minnesota in the early 1980s. He earned his nickname from the emotional, crying 911 calls he made to report his own crimes, during which he would apologize and express remorse.
What happened to Karen Potack on New Year’s Eve 1980?
Karen Potack, a 20-year-old college student at University of Stevens Point, was walking home alone from a New Year’s Eve party when she was attacked near Pierce Butler Road and Syndicate Avenue in St. Paul, Minnesota. A man leapt from the shadows and bludgeoned her over 10 times with a tire iron, cracking her skull open and exposing her brain. She survived but sustained severe brain injuries and had no memory of the attack. The attacker called 911 to report her location.
How was Paul Michael Stephani finally captured?
Stephani was captured after attacking 19-year-old prostitute Denise Williams on August 21, 1981. Denise fought back by hitting him over the head with a glass bottle, causing him to bleed profusely. After fleeing, Stephani called 911 for an ambulance for his own injuries, using the same distinctive weepy voice from his previous calls. Police and paramedics arrived at his apartment and took him into custody.
What additional murder did Stephani confess to in 1997 that police were unaware of?
In 1997, after being diagnosed with terminal skin cancer, Stephani confessed to the murder of 33-year-old schoolteacher Kathleen Greening, who had drowned in her bathtub on July 21, 1982. Police had originally ruled her death an accident. Stephani knew details only the killer could know, and her address book contained the name ‘Paul S.‘
What was Stephani’s sentence for his crimes?
Stephani was found guilty of the assault on Denise Williams and the murder of Barbara Simons, receiving 18 years for the assault and 40 years for the murder.
How did the police identify Stephani as a suspect?
After Barbara Simons’ murder, witnesses at the Hexagon bar provided a description of the man she left with. Working with the FBI, investigators created an 8-person photo lineup, and all witnesses identified the same man: Paul Michael Stephani.
What was unusual about Stephani’s method of killing compared to other serial killers?
Stephani used an ice pick as his weapon, which St. Paul PD Sergeant Joe Corcoran noted was ‘very unusual.’ He stabbed his victims repeatedly—Kimberly Compton 61 times and Barbara Simons over 100 times. There was also no sign of sexual assault, discounting that common motive.
What did Stephani request in exchange for his final confession?
In 1997, after being diagnosed with terminal skin cancer and given one year to live, Stephani promised to confess to his crimes in exchange for a picture of his mother’s headstone.
What explanation did Stephani give for his murders?
Stephani never gave a concrete motive, but the closest he came was describing ‘a dark voice within his own mind that on occasion would bubble up to the surface and whisper to him, “Paul, it’s time to kill!”’
How did Stephani’s family members help confirm his guilt at trial?
During the trial, Stephani’s ex-wife, his sister, and a woman who lived with him were all brought to testify. When played recordings of the 911 calls, each of them positively identified the voice as belonging to Paul Michael Stephani.
Sources
- Original Casual Criminalist video: The Weepy-Voiced-Killer: Calls of Regret
- Hero image source by IAEA Imagebank / openverse, by.
