The Case Has Gone UNSOLVED for…
My count-upThe Unsolved Murder of Pauline Storment
On the night of April 12, 1971, the quiet university town of Fayetteville, Arkansas, was shattered by a brutal crime.
Around 9:30 p.m. or 9:45 p.m., Pauline F. Storment, a 27-year-old University of Arkansas sophomore from Ozark, Arkansas, was fatally stabbed as she walked home from the university library. The attack occurred near her apartment at 102 S. Duncan Street, at the northwest corner of South Duncan Avenue and Treadwell Street.Witnesses who rushed to her side heard her screams and saw a man running from the scene. The still-conscious Pauline told them she had been stabbed and that the attacker wore glasses and ran toward the campus. She was stabbed seven to eight times in the chest and upper body and was rushed to Washington General Hospital, where she died in surgery at approximately 11:00 p.m.
In the immediate aftermath of the murder, it seemed the case would be solved quickly. City police arrested Wallace Peter Kunkel, a 17-year-old Fayetteville High School student, approximately 40 minutes after the attack, about five or six blocks from the scene. Kunkel was reportedly in a parked car and was found with blood on his jacket, shirt, and pants. Due to this evidence, he was formally charged with first-degree murder on April 16, 1971. The relief was short-lived. In a dramatic reversal one week later, on April 23, 1971, Kunkel was released from jail, and the murder charge was formally dropped (nolle prossed) by Prosecutor Mahlon Gibson. Officials cited “new developments” and a “sudden shift in the course of the investigation.” The key factor in his release was his decision to submit to a battery of polygraph (lie detector) tests, which, according to his attorneys, he “passed with flying colors,” satisfying investigators that he was not implicated in the crime. The investigation had been initially complicated by a coincidence: lab tests confirmed that both Kunkel and Pauline Storment shared the same blood type: A positive.
As the investigation continued, a possible murder weapon—a long, thin-bladed butcher knife—was discovered by Sheriff Bill Long with its blade driven into the ground behind a vacant house about 100 feet from the scene. However, Police Chief Hollis Spencer and other authorities later discounted the knife, stating they did not believe it was the weapon used. Authorities also stated that no motive had been established for the slaying.
As of late 2022, the case remains unsolved. A relative of Pauline Storment inquired with the Arkansas State Crime Laboratory about the possibility of re-testing the evidence using modern DNA technology, but was informed that the Crime Laboratory no longer held any evidence from the case, as it would have been returned to the investigating agency decades prior of which he was informed the Fayetteville Police Department didn’t not have any evidence in its holdings.
