Pauline Storment's Murder Has Been Unsolved For

"Myths and legends don't just materialize out of thin air; nothing does, nor can it. There's always a kernel of truth beneath, no matter how distorted it might become." - Isaac Asimov A little over fifty years ago, on a warm April Monday night, precisely the 12th of 1971, my cousin Pauline Storment had her life tragically taken at 9:45. For most of my life, I knew little about the case, except that she was a University of Arkansas student who was murdered while walking home from college. The perpetrator was another student, shielded from prosecution, possibly connected to university officials.  So, how does an Isaac Asimov quote relate to this case? The essential truths lie within the details, where the devil hides. But how am I related to Pauline Storment? She's my twice-removed first cousin, but that doesn't tell the whole story. This connection traces back to my maternal grandfather, AJ "Buddy" Stacks, Pauline's first cousin. Papa Buddy was th

Following the tragic murder of Pauline Storment, the Arkansas State Police became involved in the case. This led the Police Departments of Memphis, Tennessee, and Atlanta, Georgia to conduct their own investigations in hopes of finding clues to close the case. Before long, they received information from Mr. Sanders, a manager at the Mark Lipman company. According to him, an employee named John Hubbard had a connection to Pauline Storment. Hubbard had worked for Guardsmark (now Alied Universal), a company under Mark Lipman, from May 20, 1969, to July of 1970. Sanders believed that Hubbard and Storment had an affair between July and August of 1969. Hubbard's last known address was 320 Hampden Drive, Northeast, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He had been working for a law firm on 14th Street in Des Moines, Iowa. Hubbard hailed from Effingham, Illinois, where he also attended high school. Mr. Sanders mentioned that Mr. Stensrud of Liberty Mutual Insurance Company might have a more recent address f

The following is the statement Wallace Peter Kunkel provided to the police.  I interviewed the aforementioned suspect on April 23, 1971. He provided the following account of the events on the night of April 12, 1971. According to his statement, at around 5:30 p.m., MICHELLE PHELAN called him at his residence and informed him that she possessed a prescription for 30 pills. She requested him to meet her, along with TERRY SMITH and TIM COPELAND, at the Gray house. Around 6:00 p.m. or slightly later, his mother dropped him off at COLLIERS DRUG. As he walked towards the Gray house, he encountered JIM PARKER and informed him of their planned meeting in about an hour and a half. Subsequently, he walked to the laundromat, where he met MIKE MILLER and a girl who offered him a ride to the Gray house.     Upon arriving at the Gray house, he observed MIKE Michaels working on the pills, processing them to create an injectable liquid. He explained that he assisted MIKE with the process and t

 For some some time now I have been curious about the possibility of taking whatever DNA was provided by the accused attacker and re-testing it with modern technology but that hope appears to have been lost for now, short of finding enough proof to convince a judge to exhume a few bodies. Armed with knowing that on April 15, 1971 at 11:25 AM that Arkansas State Medical Examiners officer signed and received the evidence collected by the Fayetteville Police Department, I sent an email the the directors of the 2022 Arkansas State Crime Lab with a list of questions. The response was cases this old any evidence would be returned to the original investigating agency.  I thought great, the one agency which when I filed an FOIA in the very beginning of my search for answers I was told by the person over the F.O.I.A. requests that my FOIA request would remain opened but it appears after an exhaustive search including one of an off site storage facility that the case files have either been mispl

For the longest time, I had operated on the assumption that Pauline Storment had been walking on the west side of the road, the left side of this photo, where the better sidewalk is. Yet going back and reviewing the witness statements from Robert L. Spray and John A. Hall both stated they saw a man park his car close to their address of 12 S. Hill and when he stepped out he was wearing a sport coat possibly brown, he was medium in height, and had a slight build as well as appearing to be very drunk or under the influence of drugs.   Being perplexed about the location of the only utility pole I could find in the area on the street in 2022 had me thinking my cousin put up one hell of a fight for her belonging to have been scattered at the light pole as Gary Gammil had stated, so I went back in time with Google Street View to 2007 and it revealed a much closer light pole at the intersection. This new discovery now suggests Pauline Storment was indeed walking South on Duncan Av

Meet Pauline Storment, a quintessential All-American girl whose life was tragically cut short. Born to parents Paul Storment and Lillian Elam on April 3, 1944, in Ozark, Arkansas, she embodied the ideals of her time. Interestingly, Pauline's lineage also included a connection to former Monterey County, California Sheriff's Deputy Benjamin W. Storment, her grandfather.   During her time at Ozark High School, Pauline's leadership skills shone through as she took on the role of President of the Freshman Class, a detail captured in the accompanying photograph. Those closest to her remember Pauline as a kind and gentle soul, known for her dedication to studies and her aversion to frivolity. Following two years at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville, her path led her to marry Charles Joseph Pate in June of 1965 in Booneville, Arkansas. However, their marriage was short-lived, with a cloud of mystery surrounding her death in a cross-state incident involving Arkansas State Pol

Half a century ago law enforcement only had their carefully curated sources of information and their individual guts to solved crimes but now technology can be used to bring a cold case that much closer to being solved & closed. With this said, I bring to you those who are following this site such a technological leap. I must state this doesn't mean our killer looks like this it is just an deep learning based educated guess.  Do you have a family member who looks like this and lived near or was likely traveling through Fayetteville, Arkansas on or around April 12, 1971. If so, contact the Fayetteville Police Department. 

Where's the Evidence? Was it destroyed somehow someway? Was it tragically lost, due to human failure? If it is still stored somewhere, let's pull it out of storage and test it with modern DNA technology.  It may not help solve Pauline's murder but maybe someone else's.  So, let's find it and...

 A while back I submitted a F.O.I.A. request to the Fayetteville Police for the records on my twice removed first cousin, Pauline Storment's April 12, 1971, stabbing death I was informed after an exhaustive search of the station and off site storage they were unable to find the case files, and stated the would keep the request active should they turn up. It was at that point I chose to submit a F.O.I.A. request to Washington County Sheriff''s Office of which three days have passed and I have heard NOTHING from them not even an acknowledgement that they received my request. I also submitted a request to the Arkansas State Police and after on the 7th day including the weekend I was emailed the case files they had archived. Click Below to Download Pauline Storment - Arkansas State Police F.O.I.A. Request Results.

When I began my journey to learn as much about my twice removed first cousin Pauline Storment's tragic April 12, 1971 murder, I have submitted more F.O.I.A. requests that I ever imagined I would. What I learned was a 51yr old case and it's files have in that amount of time have apparently grown legs and is either hiding from record keepers or the files jumped in a retired detective's bag in a question to solve the case, or maybe, and most likely the case, they were accidentally destroyed. Since I learned the Pauline Storment case files were misplaced/lost, I chose to introduce myself to a Lieutenant with the Fayetteville Police Department. He seems to be knowledgeable of the case and in fact the last time he looked at the case files was in 2011. That said, when I questioned the possibility of using modern DNA tools to build out a family tree of the suspect and catch the murderer that way I was met with the "We have no evidence related to the case for DNA testing."

Why do I care so much about closing the book, if you will, on the unsolved murder of Pauline Storment? The short answer is she is family, my twice removed first cousin to be exact. Yet, I can also say this my late maternal grandfather AJ "Buddy" Stacks is a first cousin to Pauline or maybe I should say that my AJ mother, my later great grandmother Lela (Storment) Stacks was Pauline's aunt because Pauline's dad Paul was my great grandmother's brother. They say blood is thinker than water, and this is true and while being that I was born in 1978 a whole seven years after her murder I still feel as if I know her. Blood is DNA it's the building blocks of everything and without it we have nothing. This brings us to our slow understanding of how things work in the scientific world. In 1971, the only tool law enforcement had was to send the suspects blood stained jacket to a lab and hope it reveled the victim's blood type. Yet, in Pauline's case both victim a

In 1971, had the headline read Pauline Storment, a California Deputy Sherrif's granddaughter murder would the cause still be unsolved in 2022? I am thinking an affirmative NO. The attached image is an obituary for Benjamin Storment a retired Sheriff's Deputy out of Salinas, California.  I post this because in 1971, some 1,768 miles Benjamin's grand daughter Pauline Storment was stabbed to death and to this day the case remains unsolved.

Earlier this month I submitted a F.O.I.A request to the Fayetteville, Arkansas Police Department  Seeking as much case information as possible, sadly after 51yrs the case file had been misplaced/lost. I still have F.O.I.A requests out for the Washington County Sherrif's Office and the Arkansas State Police, hopefully one of the other two agencies which worked on the case will come through with better record keeping.

In my digital copy it is very difficult to make out the text but the article basically states as follows: At the age of 27, Pauline Storment found herself immersed in an evening of musical enchantment, followed by a visit to the library. Little did she know that the night would take a terrifying turn. Her roommate recounted to the police that, in order for Pauline to have been stabbed around 9:30pm, she must have left the campus an hour earlier than her usual time. The question lingered: Why did she alter her routine? Was there a sinister compulsion imposed by a cat-calling, creepy individual? Echoes of her screams reverberated for at least a block, prompting several individuals to rush to her aid. Amidst their concern, Pauline managed to convey key details: "He struck me in the chest," "He wore glasses," and "He fled towards the campus." Barely 40 minutes after the harrowing attack, law enforcement had 17-year-old Wallace Peter Kunkel, a high

 The notion that "Justice is blind" is often proclaimed, yet as 1971 drew to a close, such a maxim might have appeared far from reality, especially to individuals like Paul and Lillian Storment. Their daughter, Pauline Storment, a 27-year-old student at the University of Arkansas, had tragically fallen victim to a brutal attack. She was mercilessly stabbed seven times on her way home from the campus library around 9:30pm on April 12th. But why would faith in the justice system waver? Consider the passage of time. As days melted into weeks, then months, and eventually years, it becomes all too easy to lose confidence in a system that seems to exert its protective power more frequently to aid those with social standing or financial means. The question lingers: Did Wallace Peter Kunkel, the potential assailant, escape consequences? This may remain forever shrouded in mystery, as he passed away in 2020 or 2021, depending on the veracity of various online obituaries. Now, let'

Based on witness reports who went on the record and stated they saw Pauline Storment being followed then shortly after her blood curdling screams the assailant ran. Police would catch up to a 17yr old Fayetteville Highschool student. But wait there is more, for they find what what they believe to be the murder weapon stuck in the ground behind a house about 100ft from where Pauline Storment bleeds out. Prosecution considers bringing fourth charges.

Some say, Paulette Storment was walking home from the library and one account suggested the ROTC building where she worked.  Assuming neither of these buildings has relocated this is the most likely path which led to her tragic death. One witness stated he had just gotten home to Summit Terrace Apartments when he heard her loud her screams for help were. Lastly, the above comes from an article which was published by the Arkansas Traveler on March 13, 1971.