The Weepy-Voiced Killer

On New Years’ Day, 1981, Minnesota police received a strange call at 3am. A male caller with an unsettling high-pitched voice simply gave them directions to a location, telling them that if they went there, they would find a girl who had been hurt. Sure enough, at the location in Saint Paul, 20-year-old Karen Potack was lying naked in the snow. Her injuries were so severe that, at first, the responding officers thought that she was dead, and one of them later described that moment as “the most devastating scene [he’d] seen in [his] career.”

However, even though Karen had been beaten so violently that parts of her brain had been exposed, she was miraculously still alive. She survived with medical treatment, but was left with a brain injury and memory loss from the attack. The police had no way of tracking down the strange, tearful man who had called them about Karen’s attack. He hadn’t been on the phone long enough to trace the call, and there were no eyewitnesses who could provide additional information. With no clues as to the attacker’s identity, and Karen unable to identify her assailant, the case went cold…until the caller contacted police a second time.

On the 3rd of June, 1981, 18-year-old Kimberly Compton left her home state of Wisconsin to move to Twin Cities, Minnesota. She’d just graduated from high school, and she wanted to look for a job in the area…but she didn’t get the chance. The same day that she arrived in Minnesota, Kimberly was brutally murdered, and her body was discovered lying in a field. First responders were astonished by the brutality of the crime - Kimberly’s killer had used an ice pick to stab her more than 60 times.

Less than two days later, a call came through to the police station. The male caller spoke in a weepy, high-pitched voice, and confessed that he was the one who had murdered Kimberly. Because of his strange voice, and the fact that the crime was all over the news, the operators originally thought that it was a prank…until the man revealed a detail that only law enforcement and the killer were aware of. “Please find me,” he begged. “I just stabbed somebody with an ice pick. I can’t stop myself. I keep killing everybody…I don’t know why I had to stab her. I’m so upset about it.”

Although the media knew several other details about Kimberly’s death, the police had never released information about the murder weapon. Once the caller mentioned an ice pick, the chances that this was a prank call became much smaller…but, despite expressing remorse for the crime, the caller never gave his name or agreed to turn himself in. After hanging up, he called back a second time, saying, “I’ll try not to kill anyone else.” During this second call, he was on the line long enough for police to trace his call. But, when officers arrived at the phone booth that the call was traced to, the killer was nowhere to be seen.

Now convinced that they had received direct contact from Kimberly’s killer, the police decided to compare the caller’s unusual voice to recordings from other recent 911 calls. That’s how they discovered a connection to an early anonymous tip, and realized that, on New Year's Day that same year, Karen Potack had been lucky enough to survive an attack from the same man who had stabbed Kimberly Compton 61 times. 

This breakthrough in the case didn’t last. Kimberly had died from her wounds, and Karen didn’t remember being attacked. There were no clues as to the killer’s identity, and all that investigators could do was wait to see if he called again. And, almost an entire year later, he did.

On the 8th of August, 1982,  a call came through from the man who had now been nicknamed ‘The Weepy-Voiced Killer.” “Please don’t talk,” he begged the operator. “Listen. I’m sorry I killed that girl. I stabbed her 40 times. Kimberly Compton was the first one, over in St. Paul.” The police were able to connect the killer’s confession to a body with more than a hundred stab wounds that had been discovered lying by the Mississippi River only two days before. The victim was later identified as Barbara Simons, a nurse in her 40s.

This time, there was a key difference in the investigation: the police had a witness who might have seen Barbara’s killer. The night before Barbara was killed, she had been out drinking at a Minneapolis bar with some friends. She had decided to leave the bar with a man she’d never met before, saying, “He’s cute. I hope he’s nice, because I just need a ride home.” She was never seen alive again…but for the first time, the Weepy-Voiced Killer had been seen by an eyewitness.

On the 21st of August, 1982, a teenage prostitute got into a man’s car. As time went by, Denise Williams had a terrible gut feeling. The guy behind the wheel had told her that he would drop her off in the city afterwards, but instead, he started taking winding roads through a dimly lit area. Finally, he stopped the car, and pulled out a screwdriver, which he used to stab her 15 times. Denise fought back and was able to grab onto a glass bottle, which she used to hit her attacker in the face and head while screaming.

The bottle drew blood, and Denise’s screaming attracted the attention of a man who lived in the neighborhood. The man tried to fight off Denise’s attacker, who then fled back to his apartment. However, the wounds from the glass bottle were deep, and the Weepy-Voiced Killer quickly realized that he needed medical attention. But he’d forgotten one thing - he had an incredibly distinctive voice that police would instantly recognize, and law enforcement across Minneapolis were looking for a man who had recently been hit in the face with a bottle.

By calling for help, the killer essentially turned himself in, revealing that he was a local man by the name of Paul Michael Stephani. Paul had moved to the area in the 60s, and he’d been the youngest of ten siblings raised by Catholic parents. When Paul was a toddler, his mother had remarried, and her new husband physically abused the children, even occasionally throwing one of them down a flight of stairs. From then on, Paul’s life had taken an increasingly dark path.

In his adult years, Paul had continued to be a practicing Catholic, just like his parents. But despite his devotion to Christianity, something inside Paul’s head just didn’t align with what he was doing at Church. He later claimed that he heard voices in his head, telling him, “Paul, it’s time to kill.” At the same time, when he started killing, he knew that he was betraying his religion. During one of his calls to the police, through his tears, he’d told the operator, “I’ll never make it to Heaven.”

At Paul’s trial for Barbara Simons’ murder, several of his loved ones testified against him. His sister, a housemate, and his own ex-wife all told the court that they had listened to the recordings of the Weepy-Voiced Killer’s phone calls, and they all believed that it was Paul. However, because Paul was crying hysterically in all of his telephone calls with the police, his voice was unable to be confidently identified. This meant that even though he was charged with murdering Barbara, and attempting to murder Denise, he was not convicted of the rest of the crimes that the Weepy-Voiced Killer was believed to be responsible for.

In 1997, Paul received a diagnosis of terminal skin cancer. Knowing that he would likely not survive for more than a year, he decided that he would reveal the true extent of his crimes, and confessed to killing Kimberly Compton in 1981, Barbara Simons in 1982, and a woman named Kathleen Greening in 1982. At this point, police hadn’t linked the Weepy-Voiced Killer to Kathy Greening’s death. In fact, there had been nothing to suggest a link between the cases. Kathy had been drowned in her own bathtub instead of beaten or stabbed, and no remorseful phone calls had come through to 911 after her body was discovered.

In total, Paul had confessed to a near-fatal beating, three stabbings, and one drowning. In a statement to the media, he said, “Since I’ve been locked down the last 15 years, I’ve wondered how all this could happen. And all I can say is I’m sick, and I’m sorry…if sorry means anything after 15 years.” One year after confessing to his additional crimes, the Weepy-Voiced Killer died in prison.