On June 3, 1981, 18-year-old white female Kimberly Compton was brutally murdered in St. Paul, Minnesota, just hours after arriving from Pepin, Wisconsin. Kimberly had recently graduated from high school and was seeking employment in the Twin Cities. Her body was discovered in a wooded area near Interstate 35E, having suffered 61 stab wounds inflicted with an ice pick. She had also been strangled with a shoelace.
The sheer violence of the attack shocked investigators, who noted the excessive number of wounds as indicative of extreme rage.
Shortly after the murder, police received a series of anonymous phone calls from a man speaking in a high-pitched, remorseful tone. In one call, he confessed, “I just stabbed somebody with an ice pick. I can't stop myself. I keep killing somebody.” These calls, filled with sobbing and pleas for help, earned the unidentified suspect the nickname “The Weepy-Voiced Killer.” Despite tracing one of the calls to a payphone near the bus depot, police were initially unable to identify the caller.
Two months later, a man named Alan Lopez falsely confessed to the murder while holding his family hostage. However, he was quickly ruled out due to inconsistencies and a history of mental illness. The real breakthrough came in 1982, when a woman named Denise Williams survived a brutal screwdriver attack and helped identify her assailant: 38-year-old white male Paul Michael Stephani. During the attack, Stephani injured himself, and his voice during a 911 call matched the earlier “weepy” calls.
Stephani was arrested and later convicted of multiple murders and attempted murders. In 1997, after being diagnosed with terminal cancer, he confessed to the murder of 18-year-old white female Kimberly Compton, as well as two other killings. He died in prison in 1998. His remorseful calls and erratic behavior remain one of the most chilling aspects of the case, and his confession finally brought closure to the tragic death of Kimberly Compton.
