Episode 692: The Murder of Stephanie Scott

59m

One week before her wedding, on the Easter Morning in 2015 Stephanie Scott decided to stop by her classroom at Leeton High School to go over her lesson plans and other coverage documents she’d left for the substitute teacher one final time. By midafternoon, her fiancé

Aaron grew anxious by unanswered calls and texts, and reported her missing with Leeton Police. The Leeton community rallied, coordinating search efforts to this beloved member of their town. Sadly, on April 9th, twenty-four-year-old Vincent Stanford was formally charged with the murder of Stephanie Scott. The arrest of Vincent Stanford came as a surprise to Stephanie’s friends and family, particularly because, as far as anyone could tell, he was little more than a stranger.

Thank you to the Incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research and Writing support!

References

Australian Associated Press. 2016. Stephanie Scott's killer Vincent Stanford told police he 'went a little nuts'. October 10. Accessed July 12, 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/oct/11/stephanie-scotts-killer-vincent-stanford-told-police-he-went-a-little-nuts.

Australian Broadcasting Company. 2015. Stephanie Scott: 24-year-old school cleaner kept in custody over murder of teacher from Leeton, NSW. April 8. Accessed July 12, 2023. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-09/man-charged-leeton-schoolteacher-stephanie-scotts-murder/6379516.

—. 2016. Stephanie Scott: Cleaner Vincent Stanford pleads guilty to teacher's rape and. July 19. Accessed July 13, 2023. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-20/stephanie-scott-murder-accused-vincent-stanford-pleadsguilty/.

—. 2015. Stephanie Scott: Mother of missing teacher from Leeton fears search is 'running out of days'. April 8. Accessed July 12, 2023. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-08/mother-missing-leeton-teacher-stephanie-scott-fears-search/6378256.

—. 2015. Stephanie Scott: Police say burned body found in Cocoparra National Park believed to be that of missing teacher. April 10. Accessed July 12, 2023. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-11/stephanie-scott-police-searchers-find-burned-body-near-griffith/6385584.

Brooks, Emily. 2016. This is what we know about Stephanie Scott's killer so far. October 12. Accessed July 13, 2023. https://www.huffpost.com/archive/au/entry/this-is-what-we-know-about-stephanie-scotts-killer-so-far_au_5cd41819e4b0ca9b77563363.

Fairfax Media. 2015. "'Devastated:' Communities mourning murdered bride-to-be Stephanie Scott." Central Western Daily, April 9.

Harris, Janice. 2015. "Tears for Stephanie: Canowindra grieving for 'absolutely wonderful girl'." Central Western Daily, April 9.

Harvey-Jenner, Catriona. 2016. Man's chilling google searches before he murdered a bride-to-be have been revealed in court. October 11. Accessed July 13, 2023. https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/reports/news/a46516/murderer-chilling-google-searches-bride-rape-kidnapping/.

Levy, Megan. 2015. "'No way it's cold feet!'." Illawarra Mercury, April 8.

Partridge, Emma. 2015. "Stephanie Scott's alleged killer not rostered to clean school." Central Western Daily, April 9.

Partridge, Emma, and Megan Levy. 2015. "Car found, cleaner charged with murder of Stephanie Scott." Canowindra News, April 9.

Patterson, Monique. 2020. United in Grief: The story of Stephanie Scott's Beautiful Life, Tragic Murder, and How Her Death Broke the Heart of Leeton NSW. Milwaukee, WI: Genius Publishing.

Pattison, Talia, and Daisy Huntly. 2015. "Have you seen Stephanie Scott." The Irrigator, April 6.

Reneker, Tony. 2022. "Stephanie Scott case 'changed' inspector's life." The Irrigator, September 1.

Shields, Moyra. 2015. Stephanie Scott: Missing teacher from Leeton in NSW Riverina due to get married on Saturday. April 6. Accessed July 12, 2023. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-07/missing-teacher-from-leeton-nsw-riverina-region-was-due-to-marry/6374992.

The Guardian. 2016. Stephanie Scott killer Vincent Stanford sentenced to life for murder. October 12. Accessed July 12, 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/oct/13/stephanie-scott-killer-vincent-stanford-sentenced-to-life-for.

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Transcript

Hey weirdos, it's Ash here, ready to share a little secret.

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I have been listening to the Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club, which actually Elena recommended to me.

She did not listen to it, but she said, Girl, this title sounds so you.

And let me tell you, it did.

I've been listening to it while I walk and I am absolutely loving it.

I love all the different narrators.

I love Audible.

There's more to imagine when you listen.

Sign up for a free 30-day Audible trial, and your first audiobook is free.

Visit audible.com/slash morbid.

I am absolutely obsessed with a sweet treat after dinner, and my favorite sweet treat right now is my mochi.

It's mine, not yours.

Just kidding, you can have some too.

This is a cool, creamy scoop of ice cream wrapped in a soft, chewy dough.

It's like a sweet little ice cream dumpling or ravioli.

I'm obsessed.

It's pillowy.

It's satisfying.

I feel indulged.

I just love it so much.

I really am obsessed with the strawberry flavor right now.

My mochi is only around 70 calories per piece, which is like, hello, that's amazing.

My mochi is gluten-free, and each box has six perfectly portioned mochi snacks.

Do I eat two a night?

Yeah, yeah, I do because they're that good.

And guess what?

My mochi is the number one mochi ice cream in the U.S.

of A.

The strawberry flavor is bursting with fresh picked fruit flavor that tastes incredibly refreshing.

I love, love, love them after dinner.

This August, look for the purple box of My Mochi ice cream at your local grocery store and feel joyfully chill with the coolest treat around.

My mochi.

Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash.

I'm Elena.

What's up?

And oh, it's morbid.

It is morbid.

I say I'm Elena, but am I?

I don't care.

Am I?

I don't know.

Guess what happened today?

So I had to do, so I don't have a Facebook page and I needed a Facebook page for something.

So I was going to make like a dummy page.

Yeah.

But I haven't tried to make a Facebook page in years.

I don't know what the fucking entails.

So I went on and I look,

I put in all my shit.

And then Facebook is like, hey, you need to do a selfie video to prove you're a human before we can accept your account.

And I was like, that's wild meta, but okay.

I did it.

And it immediately was like, whoa,

whoa, we don't, we don't think you're a human.

Back it up.

That's so rich coming from like the lizard people.

Mark Zuckerberg doesn't think you're human.

He does not think I'm human.

So he literally put a suspension on my account before it was even created because it was like, whoop, step back.

You're an alien.

Try again.

And then it was like, do you want to appeal?

And I was like, I guess, because I need this for this thing.

I guess considering I'm a fucking human.

Yeah, considering I'm standing here a human.

So I hit appeal and they were like, yeah, we'll let you know within like 48 hours.

within an hour i get a um absolutely not and it literally says let me read to you what it because it's it's in no uncertain terms it says nobbitch we know about you i will not be getting this

it said your facebook account has been permanently disabled

You so, and it says, you requested a review of this decision, but we still found that you suck ass and you're not going to be part of this.

And then they said, you can't request another review.

And I said, don't even subscribe.

I didn't want to be on Facebook anyways, you fuck.

So I'm not going to request another one.

And I'm going to.

I don't need to.

Not because I can't, because I don't want to.

I didn't want to anyways.

So I'm not human, apparently.

Damn.

And that's going to be my excuse for everything now.

It's kind of like a high compliment, though, because maybe I thought you were just so gourgeois.

I love that you say that because my initial thought was, okay, I know I didn't put on makeup.

No.

Today.

And my hair is a little greasy.

No.

But I am a human.

Your hair doesn't even look greasy.

I was like, what a roast.

No, I would take that as like, you're so gorgeous that you look like an AI robot.

I'm an otherworldly creature.

Yeah, you're a siren.

I'm going to take that.

I wouldn't ever let Facebook call me ugly.

Yeah.

Fuck Mark Zuckerberg.

Yeah, fuck them all.

For not letting me prove my human being status.

Yeah.

But the moral of the story is, I was right.

I didn't want to be on Facebook anyway.

Who does?

Who does?

So that was my morning.

Damn.

Anything else new in your neck of the woods?

What else is new in my neck of the woods?

I'm going

to the ghost concert.

Oh my God.

And so it begins.

Yep, the first concert in the United States.

She's going to go to two and she's going to be like, it wasn't enough.

And I need to go to more.

Because we're going to that one.

And then like 11 days later, we're going to the Boston one.

Oh my God, I love it.

I'll take your kids for both.

And I'm very excited.

I know they're very excited that they're saying OTT.

They're having a puppy sleepover um i have a new family member named dolores family member i have a new family member named must we dogged her dolores dolores is a queen yep dolores katanya sizak i love her so much she loves you a lot she does we bonded a bit she loves you and she loves aiden my cousin yeah she loves her parents of course she's the best i thought having a puppy was going to be so hard and like there are you know hard like things but That bitch sleeps through the night.

I know.

You got, I think Drew said, like, we got a pre-programmed one.

You

and I thought that was like the best way to describe it.

He was like I've had I think he's had three dogs.

This is his third and like obviously he loves all his dogs but he said Dolores is the best dog.

I mean yeah she's easy peasy lemon squeezy.

And I think she was sent to us because there's like all these weird like signs that go along with how we adopted her and I'm not going to share them all because they're like personal.

But yeah.

Yeah, I love her and I'm obsessed with her and she's better than everyone in the world.

Yeah.

And I think Bailey might have sent her

along to you.

I definitely think that's I think she had a hand, a paw in it.

Yeah,

I know, because she has Bailey tendency.

She does.

And actually, she's doing really well with the cats.

We did like slow introductions, and you know, we're still working on it, but she's getting along with her brothers.

She's killing it, really.

Yeah.

Lux wants to know everything about her.

Yeah, Lux is just like, please tell me your life story.

He, he said that to her the other day.

I heard it.

Yeah.

So now I have four livestocks and

four live animals.

I'm living.

We are living here.

We are living in these streets.

Yeah, you have anything else?

The paperback of the butcher game is out.

Get it.

You can go get it anywhere.

Or pre-order it, I should say.

It's not like out, out.

You pick the pre-order is available.

Yeah,

can you be specific?

Sorry.

Sorry, girl.

I'm not human.

I'm new here.

Kind of actually very human of you.

But yeah, you can pre-order it.

Go to thebutchergame.com or you can pre-order it on Amazon.

You can pre-order it at Barnes ⁇ Noble, any of the indie bookstores that you like you can try to pre-order it there

all fun please do it it's awesome the paperback like a lot of you have said to me that you know where that that back pocket paperback thing came from it was just mariano the first one that comes to mind i thought gilmore girls i thought you said just mariano

it was mariano and a lot of people have been tagging me and like videos on tick tock where somebody will talk about putting a paperback in their back pocket and they're like see it happen i love that a lot so yeah you can put it in your back pocket if you want and it's worth it it's small enough that it can go in a bag it's just real it's real nice hell yeah it's real nice i'm team logan but i feel he would put that in his pocket too 100 team logan always have been always will be retweet

I still got to give Jess the easy transportation of paperback books.

Facts.

I'm saying tinyurl.com/slash the butcher in the rent.

I know.

I'm sorry.

Fake that.

Because the butcher game echoes anymore.

We just made it easier.

I know.

But yeah, so get it so that you can be ready for anything else.

You can just be ready for everything.

You can just be ready for the future.

Can we tell them what happened the other night?

I think.

What happened the other night?

We were the most connected that we've ever been.

Oh, yeah.

That was wild.

The weirdest thing ever.

So we spent time apart, which was like super weird.

Yeah.

Not for like, it was just because she had family and like I was at home with my dog.

Yeah.

And I had like a fucking crazy dream.

It was like very scary.

But within my dream, Elena had come out with a book and it was on the back of something else that I saw.

And I was like squinting, trying to see the title.

And all I could see, first of all, before I go to the title, the cover of it was Elena like.

in like she looked like a medium like at a seance table yeah at a seance table and your arms were just like spread wide like come to the seance table let me read your future which is obviously the cover of whatever book i write next i know sorry to spoil it yeah you spoiled it

a lot even in my dream i was like that's not my sister but then i was squinting and the title all i could see that it started with was

so i texted her to like tell her even more about the dream

and right before this before we talked i that same day i had a had a conversation in the car with john where i was talking about what i would want to name a book that is may or may not come out in the future.

And it was a book that was going to be one word as a title.

And that this, that's what happened to my dream with.

Yeah.

And it's way too fucking weird because I have never discussed this title with anyone.

I have never.

No, I said anything.

She had not said this to me at all.

And in the dream, it was like one word.

Yeah.

Which is, and I couldn't see the full word.

All I could see so clearly was an.

That's it.

When she told me this, I was like, this is so fucking weird.

Cause I just talked to John about this.

And then there were a few other weird things like that that happened.

There were some weird ones.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, you know, no spoilers here.

We bleeped over that, but

crazy.

Yeah.

Weird.

It's all I could see.

I know.

It's so crazy.

Yeah.

It's like you knew.

I know.

I do.

I know all.

Like you knew.

Well, I think that's all our bid nasty.

Yeah.

For right now.

I have a very sad case for us today,

but also

a very interesting case.

The person who committed this crime is fucking disgusting.

disgusting and it's just absolutely insane what they did.

And it's a good thing that they got caught because this could have happened many more times, I think.

Oh boy.

And it's very sad.

So we're going to be talking today about the murder of Stephanie Scott.

Stephanie Scott was born on October 14th, 1985 in Canoindra, New South Wales.

She was the fourth of five children born to Robert and Marilyn Scott.

In the Scott family, she was said to be the most thoughtful of the children, which also included her two brothers, Gordon and Stewart, and her sisters, Robert and Kim.

Her sister, Kim, said that Stephanie was always

thinking of others and noted all the small things that she would do to make other people smile, like she'd send them a text after midnight on their birthday, like just to be the first one, or she'd randomly share pictures of things that made them happy, just to brighten someone's day.

It was probably that thoughtful, caring side of Stephanie's personality that made her want to become a teacher to enrich the lives of young people in the first place.

Her father also was a teacher, so I'm sure he inspired her path too.

And after graduating from high school, she applied for and was accepted into the teaching program at Charles Stewart University in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Wales.

I said that with a ridiculous accent.

But this was one of the nation's more competitive teaching programs.

So this was a big deal that she got into this.

She was so excited to be setting off on her own, pursuing her own dream of becoming a teacher.

But at the same time, she was also very anxious because she was leaving behind her boyfriend of several years, Aaron Woolley.

Stephanie and Aaron had actually met in high school where he was a star athlete, but they didn't really get to know one another until they started working together at a local grocery store.

So now faced with the option of breaking up or trying to navigate long distance, they decided on the latter and they weren't going to let the three-hour drive between Kinetwindra and Wagawaga stop them from being together.

Okay.

You always hear people say that high school romances aren't going to last and just like, you know, when long distance enters the chat, it's going to get even harder and blah, blah, blah.

But Stephanie and Aaron really proved themselves to be the exception.

They stayed together and to everybody around them, they actually made it look pretty easy.

According to author Monique Patterson, and we'll link her book in the show notes, Stephanie and Aaron, quote, spoke often and never complained about the long three-hour drive to see each other.

So within a month or two of her first semester, Stephanie's warm and very outgoing personality had won her countless new friends, and especially after she joined the women's football team, the Tolland Wolves, which if you're listening in America, that's soccer.

Her coach, years later, still said that Stephanie lit up a room when she walked into it.

He was Stephanie's coach for three seasons, and he said, Stephanie was always the kind of player who gave her heart and soul on the field and always finished with a smile, win or lose.

Oh, just a good sport.

Yeah.

Her teammates also shared the coach's perspective.

A friend, Ruby Scanlon, said, She was just beautiful.

Everyone loved her.

In fact, Stephanie was so beloved by her teammates and even members on other teams too, that in the years after her unfortunate death, the football clubs in the Wagga Wagga area created Scotty Day after her last name.

And on that day, it's a remembrance of her.

Julie McLean, the assistant coach and team captain of the Riverina Lions AFL women's team, told ABC News, we forged great friendships and have many great memories of her at our club.

We wanted to make something positive rather than a sad day.

So we wanted to honor her.

Oh, that's really nice that they did that, though.

It is.

And especially creating it like in a positive way.

Yeah.

And it says a lot about what she meant to them.

And just the fact that, like, not only her own team got together and did that, but members on other teams as well get together.

And she knew who she was.

That's huge.

So she had a great experience, obviously, at Charles Stewart University.

But after graduation, Stephanie was really excited to go home and put that long-distance aspect of her relationship with Aaron behind them.

Yeah.

That

enthusiasm dwindled a bit when, not long after completing her studies, she actually got offered a position teaching English and drama at Leeton High School, which was a three-hour drive from her family and Aaron

again.

But this time, Aaron said, You know what?

I'm going to move with you to Leeton.

Like, we'll do this together this time because we're both way too excited to let this go.

So, he found a job there at the local meat packing plant.

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Just like she had in pretty much every new endeavor she ever went through, Stephanie wasted no time making new friends at school, and she became a very active participant in her new community.

Her co-worker and her friend Owen McLaughlin told reporters, Stephanie was involved in so much at school.

She loved her sport and her drama and was just an absolutely wonderful girl.

Whether she was in the classroom, she was on the field, where she coached the school's football team, she wasted no time just establishing herself as a positive positive force in the school's community.

One of her 12-year-old players said, Miss Scott is an amazing and beautiful lady that would just help you out no matter what.

Oh, that breaks my heart.

I know.

So now that they struck out on their own and really established themselves in Leeton, Stephanie and Erin decided to take a celebratory trip to Thailand in 2014.

And her sister Kim said, I remember sending her a message saying, I don't know why I'm sending you this, but I feel like something really special is going to happen.

Like talking about the trip.

Yeah.

Kim's suspicion turned out to be spot on because while they were away in Thailand, Aaron proposed one night after dinner and of course she accepted.

In Thailand.

I know how remote.

Like what a gorgeous place.

Truly.

So they got home and Stephanie got right to work planning the wedding.

She was so excited.

They set their date for April 11th, 2015, just one week after Easter.

The guest list included over a hundred names and she was so excited that she hand wrote and addressed every single invitation because she was just so excited to be planning the wedding and getting married to Aaron.

Author Monique Patterson wrote, it was her way of savoring every minute associated with what would be the happiest day of her life.

But unfortunately, she was not going to get the opportunity to experience that.

By the time the first week of April 2015 arrived, Stephanie was pretty sure she had taken care of every single detail for the upcoming wedding and the honeymoon too that was going to follow.

But still, she was a fastidious worker and she wanted to make sure that everything was just so.

So on the morning of Sunday, April 5th, she decided to stop by her classroom at the high school and go over her lesson plans and her other coverage documents just one last time that she was going to leave for the sub.

So Aaron had actually gone to Kenoindra the night before to go to a party.

So she texted him that morning and said she was going to school for a few hours, but she was going to be home in time for them to make an 8 p.m.

dinner reservation.

So on his way back to Leeton that afternoon, Aaron called Stephanie a few times, but but every single call went unanswered.

And he was texting her and those weren't getting any answer.

So that was because he was stressed out.

He was stressing out, but at the same time, he kind of assumed, you know, like maybe she got caught up in her work or maybe she met up with a friend and her phone died.

Like, you don't know.

So he was like, I'll just talk to her when I get home.

But then he got back home to Leighton a few hours later and there was no sign of Stephanie at the house.

So now he really was getting even more anxious than now.

There's an empty house, unanswered calls, unanswered texts.

So he he got in his car and he drove over to the school.

But at that point, the school was locked and there was no sign of Stephanie or her car anywhere.

That's horrifying.

So from there, he just started driving around town trying to get away from it.

Where do you go at that point?

That's the thing.

And like, you always, I'm sure, feel like you're going crazy.

Yeah.

It's like when you like, have you ever like lost somebody that you were with in the supermarket or something?

And you're like, oh my God, like, what if they're not there?

And then you're like, no, that's crazy.

And then you find that person.

And you're like, did I miss something?

Like, did they tell me they were going somewhere?

And I just didn't hear it or what's going on.

Right.

Yeah.

So he's driving around.

He's like, I'll find her.

But he's driving around.

He's driving around.

He's not finding her.

So he realized pretty quickly it was going to be a long shot finding Stephanie this way.

So on his way back home, he started calling her family and her friends to see if they had heard from her.

And nobody had heard from her or seen her that day.

So he really had nothing left to do.

He called the police and reported her missing.

Yeah.

The next day, while Aaron and Stephanie's parents spoke with the police, the rest of the Scott family took to social media to spread the news about Stephanie's disappearance.

The post where they shared that news was shared more than 1,500 times,

but somehow failed to produce any credible leads.

Sam, none whatsoever.

Later that day, Aaron spoke to reporters and asked anybody who might have seen or heard from Stephanie to get in touch with him or someone in the family, the police, anybody.

He told reporters, it's really out of character.

Someone said they saw her at Woolsworth's, which is a grocery store, around 1 p.m.

on Sunday, but no one has seen or heard anything since.

It's so wild when people will think they see someone in these scenarios.

Yeah.

Like you'll hear these reports later of people being like, oh, I thought I saw them at this place or this place.

Yup.

Yeah.

Not always.

By that afternoon, though, it seemed like the entire Leeton community actually joined in on the search for Stephanie.

Like this was...

all hands-on deck kind of thing.

Community effort.

Yeah, big community effort.

The high school football team was involved.

Aaron and Stephanie's Stephanie's co-workers, Erin's own touch football team, like anybody who was connected to them was trying to help.

But not everybody was convinced that Stephanie had disappeared so much as she'd run away.

Obviously, it wouldn't be the first time a bride-to-be would run away because of like cold feet or stress or, you know, maybe they feared that they were going to make some kind of mistake by getting married.

But Erin was like, no, she didn't run away.

We're one week out from our wedding and she's very much looking forward to it.

Well, that's all accounts was that she was unbelievably excited for there was not one person who said otherwise.

Who said like, oh, she seemed like she was a little no.

Like it seemed like she was like psyched.

She was super psyched.

And he said, I've been with her for five years.

Her disappearance is out of the blue.

It's out of character for her.

Yeah.

And he knows.

And he does.

And her family knew too.

But because they had to start somewhere and obviously because it's unfortunately pretty common for people to have been involved in the disappearance of their spouses and partners, police did initially suspect that maybe Erin had something to do with her disappearance.

Which you can understand.

Yeah.

Luckily, they actually were able to rule him out pretty quickly.

Yeah.

But there was still a segment of the public that remained skeptical of his story.

And, you know,

armchair detectives, the whole nine.

Well, there's a you could have every shred of proof, and there's certain people that just don't want to hear it.

Exactly.

They want their own opinion to be right.

Yep.

So looking back on some early suspicions of his own, actually, local journalist Steve Mudd said, it was school holidays.

She had a wedding later that week.

And being a bit of a cynic, I wondered if maybe she was just taking a little time for herself.

There was chatter about it in the newsroom, but when the family really came out as concerned and the hours dragged on and on, it became more and more clear that something sinister had occurred.

Yeah.

The shift in the press toward taking the story more seriously seemed to come on the third day without any word from Stephanie.

And that was when her parents really started to express a deep concern that somebody had done something to prevent her from coming home.

Her mother, Marilyn, told the press, it's the worst thing I've ever been through.

I think today, today, if we don't find her today, you can't let yourself think about it, but you do.

It's cold and we're running out of days.

Oh my God, and her poor mother.

I can't imagine.

I can't fathom this.

No, and just the days are turning and like the hours are turning into days.

It's like and having to start coming to this realization that like there's a real possibility you're not going to find her or that you are and it's going to be the worst case scenario.

I truly cannot imagine.

But Marilyn Scott also addressed the occasional suggestions that her daughter had run off to avoid her own wedding.

She said everything was pointing toward the wedding and that Stephanie could not have been more excited.

Yeah.

Her sister Robin also echoed her mother's sentiment and said, I spoke to her on Saturday night and she was over the moon.

She was so excited.

She had been to Griffith that day shopping and getting ready for her honeymoon.

Yeah, so it's like, I don't, that this doesn't make sense.

No.

So by the afternoon of April 8th, those hopeful of finding Stephanie safe were dealt a major blow that would quickly break the case wide open.

The friend who had told investigators that they saw Stephanie at the grocery store on Sunday afternoon, the day she went missing, changed their story when they realized that they had the wrong day.

And it was actually most likely the day before Saturday that they had seen her.

Oh, come on.

So that meant that the last time anyone had seen Stephanie was at Leeton High School.

But the biggest break in the case came a few hours later when investigators announced that they had arrested Leeton High School janitor Vincent Stanford in connection with Stephanie's disappearance, which seemed abrupt to everybody.

Yeah.

And the news of Stanford's arrest was accompanied by the grim news that police had also found Stephanie's car earlier that day and it was being treated as one of two crime scenes.

Oh, no.

The other one being a, quote, residential property in Leeton.

Superintendent Michael Rowan told the press, I can say her vehicle has been located.

It was located at a property at Wamoon earlier today and is presently being secured as a crime scene and will be processed during the day.

The next morning, April 9th, 24-year-old Vincent Stanford was formally charged with the murder of Stephanie Scott.

Investigators at this point actually still hadn't found her body yet, but they initially started looking into Vincent after finding some holes in his alibi.

And when they were able to search his property, investigators found a, quote, number of items linked to Miss Scott's death, including a cell phone evidence that contained what they said was photographic evidence,

where they discovered photos of what appeared to be a burnt body.

Yeah.

Oh, this is awful.

Yeah.

So while investigators interviewed Vincent at the Leeton police station, a second set of detectives used a helicopter to locate Stephanie's car, a red Mazda, which they ended up finding in an abandoned wheat field about five miles outside of Leeton.

Inside the car, they found bloodstains and additional evidence that 100% suggested foul play.

The arrest of Vincent Stanford came as a surprise to Stephanie's friends and family, mostly because as far as anybody could tell, he was a complete stranger to her.

Like she did not have any connection to this man other than the fact that they worked at the same school.

That's scary.

Yeah.

He had only moved to the area with his mother and his brother just one year earlier.

And the weirdest thing was that neighbors actually reported this family to be a very polite one.

They said they were

super polite, kept to themselves, but were pretty normal.

one neighbor said they would always say hello in the street just like everyone does when you live in a tiny town like ours and another neighbor went as far as describing them as beautiful people i literally hate that yeah because i hate the fact that you can sit there and go wow i said hi to them every day and they said hi to me And it just goes to show

when something like this happens, it could be anyone.

Yeah, you can't tell.

No.

Like you can't be like, oh, I bet that person's a serial killer because nine times out of 10, you're going to be be wrong.

You look this guy up.

He looks like a pretty normal guy.

Like, if that was my neighbor, I'd be like, oh, hey, like, what's up?

He has a face that you want to punch so hard.

He would go flying into the sun.

Yeah, knowing what you know about him.

Knowing what you know about him now.

But if you didn't know, he would just be a random guy on the street.

You'd probably just be like, hey.

Yeah, you would just be a very normal.

You'd have normal interactions.

Like, I wouldn't cross the street if I saw him coming or anything like that, you know?

Yeah.

So after the announcement that Stephanie might have been abducted by someone who worked at the school, Leeton High School officials were quick to distance themselves and they explained that the school's janitorial staff were contracted through an outside agency.

Like, we didn't do it.

They said, you can talk to that outside agency.

And that agency was Colin Joss and Company.

When Colin Joss was contacted for comment, the manager for the company did confirm that Vincent Stanford had been employed with the company since 2014 and had actually, quote, undergone standard criminal checks before he was employed.

That's even scarier.

Even scarier.

The manager also confirmed that he actually wasn't supposed to be scheduled to work at the school that day,

but they weren't able to confirm if he had keys to the school or not.

Which, like, you should know who has keys to a high school.

Yeah, to a school?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Everybody's worst fears, though, were confirmed a few days later on April 10th when the burnt body of a woman was discovered in Coco Para National Park, about 40 miles away from Leighton.

Superintendent Rowan said, the investigation is ongoing, but in terms of our searching and things like that, we certainly believe the remains are those of Stephanie.

That's awful.

He told reporters that they focused their investigation on that area after somebody reported seeing a man throwing something into an irrigation ditch on that Monday evening.

In that area, investigators also found an iPad belonging to Leeton High School.

in the irrigation ditch, and that was not far from the burnt remains.

But basically, that confirmed the body to be Stephanie at that point.

And then they could do forensic testing.

That is horrifying.

Yeah.

Now after his arrest for Stephanie's murder, Vincent Stanford was held without bail in a jail cell in Leeton where investigators were just trying to piece together what happened on that Easter Sunday at Leeton High School.

Because remember it's Easter Sunday.

Damn.

She's planning this wedding.

She's one week out from the wedding.

She's popping in there to make sure everything's taken care of.

That's the thing, making sure her students are going to have what they need while she's gone, that the sub has everything they need.

Just being a good colleague, a good teacher.

Yeah, just being a good fucking person.

So Vincent started working at the school in early March of 2015 in what was supposed to be a temporary position that would have ended a few weeks after his start in March.

But for some reason, his contract was extended.

Per his contract, he was authorized to do his cleaning before and after school hours, specifically from 3.30 a.m.

to 8.30 a.m.

and 3 p.m.

to 6 p.m.

And he was not authorized to be on the property during weekends.

Oh, shit.

So he never should have.

He wasn't supposed to be there.

No.

And despite that, there were times where he, quote, was witnessed entering and leaving the girls' toilets during school hours, which given his role in the school didn't raise red flags because he's a janitor until after his arrest.

But like, are we not, like, is he only coming out of the girls' bathrooms?

Because that would, that should raise a red flag.

That's the thing.

That should at least, at the very least, somebody should be like, What's going on?

What are you doing there?

Like, if it seems weird to you, it's probably weird.

Check it out.

Just check it out.

Check it out.

And I care

about it.

If you offend someone, you offend someone.

Who cares?

You might have saved someone.

You would have realized that he wasn't supposed to be there during those times anyway.

Which, by no means, is this anybody's fault.

That, like, you know, this has.

I'm just saying, like, that's why you check things out.

That's why don't feel stupid just saying something if something seems wrong.

That's all I'm saying.

You got to trust your gut.

Yeah.

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But once the mistaken grocery store sighting had been corrected as having occurred the day before Stephanie disappeared, investigators shifted their focus to the school where she had last been seen.

And working their way through a list of people who would have come into contact with her throughout that day, detectives ended up paying a visit to the home Vinson shared with his mother and his brother under the guise of just making standard inquiries.

He told investigators that he had definitely been at the school that day, but he did not see Stephanie while he was there.

So they're like, okay, like, thank you for your time.

They start leaving the house, and suddenly he called after them.

And they said, with an odd smirk on his face, he told them, Good luck finding her.

Oh, fuck this guy.

Yeah.

Fuck this.

I would, that right there would have been, I'd be like, wow.

So my entire life's mission is to make sure that you never see the light of day again.

Pretty much.

That would have sealed it for me.

Pretty much what happened.

Whoever these investigators were that were there that day, something about the way he said that and the way his face looked, they, their spidey senses started to.

Because that's not him.

There's a very specific wording there.

Yeah.

It's not, I hope you find her.

Good luck.

Or wishing you the best.

It's good luck finding her.

Like, i hit her far enough that you won't find her exactly good luck exactly that's a taunt uh that's exactly what that is it's a taunt

yeah and under the circumstances his comment seemed pretty fucking inappropriate yeah and said in a way that suggested he knew more but wasn't planning to ever tell you saying good luck guys And a quick follow-up on his statement to them revealed several quote-unquote glaring inconsistencies in his story, including, among other things, the fact that he wasn't authorized to be on school property that day.

So, like, why the thought were you there?

As far as anybody could tell, by putting himself at the school on the day and time that Stephanie went missing, he jumped to the top of the list of people who were most likely to have seen her last.

Of course.

So, later that day, a strike force led by Detective Inspector Tim Clark and composed of detectives and uniformed officers went back to his house that same day to interview him further.

He wasn't at home when they arrived, but his mother was, and she voluntarily allowed them in the house and she gave her written consent, allowing them to search the premises.

Good queen shit.

Yeah, queen shit.

Because there are so many people that wouldn't do that.

Not even like, not my baby boy.

But she said, you think you have something?

Go ahead and check my house.

During the search of his bedroom, police found a set of keys matching those reported to have been in Stephanie's possession when she went missing.

And that allowed them to declare the house a crime scene and gave them the power to prevent anyone from leaving the premises.

The fact that this fucking loser is going back to his mom's house after doing this shit.

Yup.

I hate this guy.

It's so messed up.

He went back to his mom's house in her car.

Holy shit.

Because remember, her car was missing when Aaron started driving around looking for it.

Not long after the house was declared a crime scene, Vincent Stanford returned home and agreed to accompany the investigators back to the Leeton police station.

He said, sure, I'll answer some of your questions.

At the same time, detectives started searching his car, and that's where they found the images of a burnt body among the cell phone, pictures in his cell phone and in the car they found several spots of what appeared to be blood in the back seat the fact that he took pictures of her burnt body on his cell phone yeah

and just sick wait for the comment that he has about that oh lord when tim clark finally sat down to talk with vincent it seemed like he had an answer for everything He said, nope.

He maintained he hadn't seen Stephanie on the day she went missing.

When they asked about the scratches on his face.

That's always a telltale sign.

He said, although I just walked into a branch.

I was out in the woods.

That's what they all say.

They were like, okay, what were you doing in the woods?

And I'm sure he had an answer for that.

As for the photos on his phone, they had them all wrong.

Those came from a website.

Just a website.

Just a website with a burnt body.

And the keys in his room, those were his keys.

Yeah.

Totally.

All the answers.

But what wasn't quite so easy to explain away were the large number of photos on his phone.

of another young woman detectives believed that he had been stalking.

Jesus.

Yeah.

So he was definitely planning to do this again.

Oh, yeah.

Given all the evidence, investigators were pretty sure they had their guy.

And with the other photos suggesting he was still a danger to at least one young woman.

Yeah.

He was more than a little, or they were more than a little reluctant to release him from custody.

Yeah.

But police had yet to discover Stephanie's body at that point that they were questioning him or her car.

While they still would be able to prove or dis prove his claims at that time, at that moment, the evidence against him was pretty thin.

Holy shit.

Yeah.

But still, Clark's, Detective Clark's instinct told him Stanford was absolutely responsible for Stephanie's disappearance.

So he made the bold decision right there and then to charge him with murder.

Inspector Clark.

Inspector Clark forever.

Inspector Clark.

He just, hell yeah.

He was like, my gut, I know it.

My gut tells me.

I know it.

You are the guy.

I love Clark.

And it turned out that his instincts were pretty fucking good.

Yep.

And his suspicions of Stanford were well placed.

While he was in custody, Vincent made a monitored telephone call to his twin brother in Adelaide, where he made multiple incriminating statements about having given his brother some of Stephanie's belongings, including her engagement ring.

Oh, that's so.

Oh, that's horrifying.

It's awful.

Just thinking about that and

thinking about her fiancé having to hear that information.

I can't.

Like, I can't even imagine.

Yeah.

And investigators learned that the rings had been pawned for $705,

But by the time they were able to track down the pawn shop, the jewelry had been melted down.

So it was never able to be returned to the family.

That is fucking devastating.

It's truly devastating.

It's awful.

I feel awful for that family.

It's adding insult to injury, like big time.

Shit.

Yeah.

He's a piece of shit.

He's a piece of shit.

That's awful.

By the time Stephanie's remains did end up being found in the national park on April 10th, Vincent Stanford Stanford knew the evidence against him was adding up to something a lot more than just circumstantial, a circumstantial case.

And he asked to meet with Detective Clark, where he did finally confess to the murder.

According to him, he had, quote, absolutely no prior plan to murder Stephanie Scott, and he didn't know her at all.

But as soon as he saw her come into the school, he said he was overcome with the desire to kill her.

What a fucked up monster.

Just out of nowhere.

I just saw her and I was overcome with the desire to kill her.

You're a fucked up monster and you should be locked away.

Oh, just wait.

He's super fucked up.

It's good that he's locked away because he would have been,

he would have done awful, awful, awful things in addition to this.

So Stephanie had finished her work for the day and stopped on her way out of the building to say bye to him and wish him a happy Easter.

Oh God.

And that was when he grabbed her from behind, covered her mouth, and dragged her into a nearby storeroom.

This is very triggering, so I'm going to go over it very quickly, like trigger warning for people.

Once he had subdued her, he sexually assaulted Stephanie and then hit her over the head, punching her as many as 40 times.

Holy shit.

And then cut her carotid artery with a knife, which caused her to bleed to death.

Oh my God.

All out of nowhere.

That's so fucking violent.

All out of completely nowhere.

She stopped to wish him a happy Easter before she was leaving.

She literally waved to him and wished him a happy Easter.

Yep.

And that's what she gets.

Yep.

He grabbed her and did all of that to her.

Like,

he's a savage animal.

Like,

savage animal behavior.

Like, can you understand why women are scared to be

around men?

Yeah.

A lot of the time.

You know what I mean?

Like,

I mean, that's terrifying.

Of course.

Yeah.

Like, that is the most predatory, scary, animalistic, monstrous behavior I can imagine.

You literally are just like courtesy saying, happy Easter.

Have a good weekend.

Yeah.

And he attacks you to the point of punching you 40 times and slicing your carotid artery.

After sexually assaulting you.

Just for saying happy Easter.

And why would you ever think that somebody like that would exist on school property?

Exactly.

You think you're safe there.

Yeah.

Everybody's been background checked, this, that, and the other.

Yeah, why would this guy?

And why would this guy ever have like the means, the motive, the opportunity, opportunity to do this to me here?

He shouldn't have.

Holy shit.

He shouldn't have.

And he wasn't even supposed to be there.

That's so scary.

It's horrifying.

And the fact that he said he had no prior plan and it just an overwhelming urge is the scariest thing I've ever heard.

Oh, yeah.

Detective Clark asked, he was like, why did you attack her so brutally?

Yeah.

And all he had to say was that he, quote, went a little nuts when he saw her.

He said, I just went a little nuts.

Just, I saw her and I went a little nuts.

That's so fucking scary.

Oh, he continued.

He said, I just felt like, this is a quote.

I just felt like I should do it.

I don't know.

I've had mental problems in the past, aggression.

I think it just came back.

Oh, okay.

Aggression.

That's not being aggressive.

That's being a monster.

And just being like, yeah, I don't know.

I think it just came back.

You think?

Yeah, I would say so.

I would say so.

Now, once Stephanie was killed, Stanford took her engagement ring and a ring that she had been given by her parents for her graduation.

So it was those two rings.

Which he later mailed to his brother Marcus in South Australia.

After loading her into the trunk of her own car, he used the school's pressure washer to clean up the crime scene, drove her car back to his house, where he then sat and had lunch with his mother and brother.

This motherfucker

just had the most violent, fatal outburst and then drives her car which also i'm like hey mom and bro did you wonder where that car came from that's the thing what's that about what's that about because i'm sorry what the fuck is that about i'm sure should anyone ask i'm sure they probably did and he had some explanation and i think that's why the mom felt weird about it she allowed them and that's why she let them search because like come on yeah you gotta ask yeah

holy shit so yeah he uh had lunch with his mom and brother after that.

And then the next day, he drove out to Coco Para National Park where he burned Stephanie's body and then left her car in the abandoned field and then just walked back to his house.

And that makes sense why his mom probably let them search because he showed up with that car the day before.

And then

all of a sudden he's walking home without that car.

Yep.

Yeah.

And when Detective Clark asked why Vincent had taken a photo of Stephanie's burned remains, he calmly said, maybe I wanted a souvenir.

Maybe I never want to see you free again.

Maybe I wanted a souvenir is the most disgusting thing I have ever heard in my life.

What you had done.

What a piece of shit.

Maybe I wanted a souvenir.

You could go fuck yourself.

Holy shit.

So after his confession, he was obviously evaluated by a forensic psychologist, Anna Robillard, who would prove to be essential to the prosecution's case against him.

During his confession and subsequent interviews with police, he provided no real motive for the murder.

So scary.

Aside from just saying he, quote, went a little nuts.

But his evaluations by Robillard provided insight into a personality that had always, always been headed in the direction of violent crime.

So he'd been born in Australia in 1990.

He'd been raised primarily by his mother in the Netherlands, and his older brother Luke and his twin brother Marcus lived with him him as well.

But he reported that he had had violent fantasies as early as seven or eight years old is when they started.

Holy shit.

In her report, Robillard wrote, he stated he had violent, he has violent thoughts when people cause him stress and his violent thoughts are usually caused when people interrupt his routine.

And in the past, he has been triggered by teachers.

What the?

It's like, then why did you choose to work at a school?

That's and in the past he's been triggered by teachers.

That should have been like,

but I guess if you don't know about it, it's like because he's going to work at a school.

You wish that had been noted somewhere in his background.

That like this triggers him.

Don't put him in a school with teachers.

Right.

I don't know what happened here.

In 2003, though, when he was just 13, he was expelled from school after a violent outburst where he attacked a female teacher, knocked her to the ground and choked her.

I'm sorry, this wasn't on his record.

He's 13 years old.

I guess he's a minor, but it's like, that's nowhere in his record.

This incident also resulted in a months-long period of hospitalization for him, where he was then evaluated by psychiatrists there and diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, which I feel like is just so broad.

Yeah.

And it's literally being like, he's autistic, so he violently attacked this teacher.

It's like, I don't know.

It's like, no, there's no.

I don't really think those two things are connected, my friend.

There's way more to that.

But until that point, Vincent told Brabillard he had thought his violent feelings were normal, but after his hospitalization, he realized they weren't.

So he, quote, kept it bottled up.

Years after that, he came to understand that his violent thoughts and fantasies were considered abnormal to others, but he was still untroubled by them.

He told her, this is just the way I'm arranged.

I don't think there's anything I can do to get them away.

Wow.

He was like, yeah, this is just who I am.

So I haven't ever attempted to get better.

I'm just going to hurt people when I get angry.

Like, he is a sick individual.

Like, he sounds like he's just like, I'm not going to diagnose him because I'm not a psychologist or a psychiatrist, but like, he sounds like he's just so dead emotion-wise, like void.

He seems just completely gone.

Yeah.

Like, cause he's just like, yeah, I don't know.

Well,

there's just no

empathy whatsoever.

Yeah, it's not even like, oh, man, I should have done that.

It's literally like, oh,

it was just me.

Yeah, I just couldn't stop myself.

Deal with it.

And why do I have a picture of her burnt body?

Maybe I wanted one.

Like, it's just so dead.

It's so dead and it's not a matter of a fact.

Yeah.

It's not even like, like,

it's just so dead.

I can't, like, the flat affect of it all is so scary.

It is very scary.

Yeah.

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So when it came to the murder of Stephanie Scott, he was as forthcoming as he had been with detectives, but he didn't offer any straightforward explanation for the killing during his examination.

And it was apparent to Rob Willard that he didn't feel any remorse for this murder

whatsoever.

And in fact, he said he hardly really remembered anything about it.

He said, this was just something I had to do.

I couldn't stop myself.

You could.

It's like, no, you just chose not to.

Definitely could have.

But in his mind, or at least according to what was said, the violence was simply a means to an end for him, something to relieve like a intense tension and pressure that would build up inside of him.

And then he would just relieve that by attacking somebody.

Holy shit.

Yeah.

Rabelard wrote, he stated that he does not anticipate gaining pleasure from harming others, just relief from his own urge to kill.

So he gets relief from it.

Not, yeah, not pleasure.

Pleasure, relief.

So he's not like a sexual sadist per se, I guess.

According to his own

according to his own statements and her evaluation.

Yeah, I was just going to say that's according to how he's presenting.

Yes, because stuff.

Well, because to me,

I immediately was like, well, he's a sexual sadist.

Well, he did sexually assault her.

Exactly.

So he obviously did.

I hate saying this, but like, obviously he got some sort of pleasure from that aside from just relief.

Exactly.

You know, but I don't know.

This is very interesting.

So that's according to one, yeah, one psychologist.

And later he claimed he did not enjoy killing Stephanie, but that the murder did stop the urge to hurt anybody else for several more months.

And here's where my problem is, where he sits there and says, I didn't enjoy killing her.

What's up with that picture?

Yeah, why did you need a souvenir for something you didn't enjoy?

Because if you didn't enjoy it, why would you want to go back to it?

And he also said the murder did stop the urge to hurt anybody for several months.

I'm like, yeah, you can't, you know that you can't hurt anybody because you're in police custody.

Exactly.

Like, obviously, there are times,

but exactly.

That's very easy to say then.

In her summary report, Roblard concluded that Vincent Stanford had, quote, deeply entrenched structural faults in the personality construct, and that he had considerable difficulty experiencing emotions and forming bonds or social connections with others.

Which, uh, yes, yes.

But in addition to that, she said he also had elevated scores on the sadistic and aggressive scale, which is a diagnostic tool used to access to assess a person's predisposition toward violent behaviors.

Okay.

Which is scary that he had very high scores on that.

On the sadistic scale.

Yeah.

Like, holy shit.

But on the contrary, despite those traits, he scored relatively low on the psychopathy scale.

Interesting.

Yeah.

According to the report, he, quote, described having one feeling, hatred, which could be a consequence of his perception of exclusion and rejection and the source of a generalized social animosity that may have triggered his angry, unpremeditated, and overwhelming urge to kill the victim.

He only felt hatred for

in general.

So scary that people are possibly.

Like, that's really scary that people are just walking around like that.

Yeah.

And that they could unleash that hatred at any moment.

Yeah.

So that's

the first evaluation that was done.

A second evaluation conducted by David Greenberg arrived at similar conclusions, but Greenberg differed somewhat when it came to Vincent's dangerousness and capacity for violence.

Greenberg believed that Vincent most likely had a paraphilic disorder and did derive a sense of sexual pleasure or gratification from his violent fantasies.

He said, relative to the general male population, his risk of sexual violence must be regarded as the highest category.

Yeah, because

like when I heard that other one, I was like, so we're going with like not sexual sadists, even though he did sexually assault her.

It's like that's the thing.

Because there's many killers who will kill and not sexually assault.

We've covered so many.

Which it's like that, that, like, that's what he was kind of describing.

But, like, the problem there was he did.

So it's like that didn't line up with what he was saying.

So this, this makes a little more sense.

It does.

And I will say, I'm sure it was probably hard to evaluate him based on the fact that like he did commit one murder and not you don't have you don't have this pathology of of crime scenes that you can to analyze yeah because i feel like that must be a time when you can sit there and say, okay, this is clearly something he does every time.

And this is, you know, he's escalating in this way.

And this is the patterns of where all this lies.

And it's like right now, like you're saying, it's just one scene, one situation.

And it's like, but, and I'm sure, you know, he sounds like a bullshit word.

That's like a dead bullshitter.

Exactly.

I tend to agree.

I mean, like, I'm not a professional in any way whatsoever, but I tend to agree with the guy, the other guy's opinion.

It rings more true to me.

Yeah.

So while Vincent sat in jail undergoing one evaluation after another, detectives in Leeton continued to build their case against him with the understanding that despite his confession, he was still probably going to be going to trial.

Now in their investigation, detectives also discovered a considerable amount of evidence that not only confirmed his guilt, but also contradicted several statements he made to the police at the time, and at the same time supported the findings of both psychological evaluations that had been conducted.

Among the evidence collected from his home were email receipts for, quote, purchases of Viagra, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, cleaning products, a training sword, and a knife, and flexi cuffs.

Yeah.

He's a absolutely

sexual sadist.

Absolutely.

100%.

Searches of his computer and internet search history were also very troubling and another ding-ding-ding moment because they included searches for, among other things, and this is a lot, bride rape, bride kidnapping, and other searches were conducted, quote, in relation to necrophilia and necro rape as well as a variety of violent pornographic pictures and knives oh he's 100 getting pleasure out of this absolutely bride rape bride and she happens to be getting married and he stole her engagement ring yeah like come on there's a lot to that what a which fucked up monster well that's the thing

It's very, it's, in my opinion, it's too coincidental that he said he just saw her that day at

know anything about her i think he stalked her i also think that especially because he was stalking someone else he was stalking multiple other women actually it's clear that he was doing this yeah he just didn't have the what you know pictures of her or whatever exactly yeah

Now, perhaps the most disturbing information they learned during the investigation was that prior to Stephanie's murder, Benson had been stalking, like I just said, multiple girls and young women who, given his search history, were almost definitely definitely intended to be future victims among them was a 12 year old girl oh who is referred to as joanne in court documents that is not her real name when investigators searched his computer they found more than 1800 images of this girl along with a quote book full of details pertaining to her schedule and times when she may be home alone get us all in a room alone with this man yeah get us all in a room alone with him uh-huh i want to to

beat the shit out of him on a page inside the book he also had written a list of quote stupefying drugs including valium chloroform nitrous oxide and rehipnol yeah so this whole story of him just being like yeah i don't know i just went nuts i had no plan for it go fuck yourself no you've been planning for this for years Not a doubt in my mind.

Get out of here.

Not a doubt in my mind.

This was not a momentary.

Because the other thing is it's like, oh, you just randomly went to clean the school on a Sunday?

No.

you were following her.

He was absolutely following her.

They also found a quote, and this is absolutely fucking disgusting, a laminated photo of a school dance group that Joanne was a part of.

He's a piece of

absolute shit.

Parents

should have been allowed in a room with this man.

100%.

Like, I just...

There are certain exceptions to the rule, and this is one of them.

And this is one of them.

Yeah.

And I will hear another one.

This is one of them where you look the other way.

Yeah.

later when that evidence was presented in court he admitted he probably would have abducted and killed her if he hadn't been arrested and he's he was just like yeah i probably

get him gone other evidence collected indicated that he had been stalking more women including a young woman who worked at uh the local supermarket and another teacher who worked alongside stephanie So it's like, if he's stalking another teacher who worked with Stephanie, he's absolutely stalking Stephanie.

100%.

And he probably, he he might have known that she was coming that day, like ahead of time.

Yep, exactly.

Not long after he met this teacher, he started to monitor her schedule and record her comings and goings at the at the school.

So between the delays, time spent on the psychological evaluations and requests from the defense for more time to prepare, blah, blah, blah, more than a year passed by the time he was supposed to be before a judge.

And in that time, his twin brother had also been arrested, charged with, and pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact.

Yeah, because what the the fuck?

For receiving and selling the stolen jewelry, which only strengthened the prosecution's case against Minson himself.

Hell yeah.

Because now his brother's going to prison.

Yep.

And the months since his arrest,

Vincent Stanford indicated his intent to go to trial, but given all the evidence against him, the full con and the full confession, his defense attorneys determined it was for the best that their client plead guilty.

What do you do when wasting everyone's time?

And they hoped maybe his cooperation would earn him a reduced sentence.

I hope not.

No.

On July 19th, 2016, he did in fact plead guilty to the murder and the aggravated sexual assault of Stephanie Scott.

And his sentencing hearing was scheduled for October 11th, 2016.

During his sentencing hearing, his attorney argued that his client's diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder and the fact that he cooperated with police should be taken into account.

when passing the sentence.

You be so for real.

He very well.

He very, like, two things could be true at once.

He very well may be on the spectrum.

Absolutely.

But there is also a load of other things that is

that are, that are pertinent in this case that have nothing to do with that.

It wasn't the autism that made him do this.

It was not the autism.

I can tell you that much.

No.

That's, that's wild work.

No.

And like, frankly, how fucking dare that guy would try to use that?

Like, come on.

No.

Not in this case.

It wasn't that making him do this.

No.

So Justice Robert Holm acknowledged that under normal circumstances, those things absolutely would have been considered, but he was not convinced that Stanford's diagnosis was a factor in the murder.

And he told the defense team, but even if it was, the extent would be minimal.

Exactly.

Minimal.

It just doesn't work in this circumstance.

He said the calculating manner in which the offender carried out the various activities following the murder and to some extent before indicates he was well capable of making

well-considered choices about how to best serve his own interests and achieve his objectives.

Exactly.

Ultimately, Justice Holm sentenced Vincent Stanford to 15 years for the aggravated sexual assault and life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder of Stephanie Scott.

According to The Guardian, there were exclaims of yes from the public gallery when the sentence was handed down.

Hell yeah.

If I was there, I would have been one of them.

Yep.

And outside the courtroom, Stephanie's mother told reporters, the past 18 months have been the most difficult and harrowing time.

So much has been taken away from us.

Stephanie has had everything taken away away from her.

Stephanie embodied all that is good about humankind.

She made a tangible difference to the lives of so many people.

Stephanie would want us to resume our lives.

We need to be kind to ourselves and let the music and fun back in.

We need to fade from public view to mourn our beautiful girl and work our way through our grief.

I just want to hug her.

And the day after Stanford was sentenced was to be Stephanie's 28th birthday.

She was so young.

So young.

Her mother said, this should be her 28th birthday, the second second one we celebrate without her.

We'll be having a cup of tea and a mint sliced biscuit at three.

Oh.

Which just like breaks your heart.

Damn.

But

it's such a good thing that he's behind bars.

Yeah.

But it breaks my heart that

the loss of Stephanie's life is what landed him behind bars.

Yes.

Like it doesn't make it better.

It's just so upsetting that no one knew what he was capable of before this happened.

That was also very bold of him to say that he would have probably kidnapped and murdered that 12-year-old girl before going into prison forever.

Yeah, that was a crazy thing.

Pretty bold move.

I hope that.

I hope he's seen the results of that statement.

Yeah, I hope that mates heard that.

Yeah.

Just because.

I hope, you know.

Just because.

Just cuz.

It's just a good thing for them to know.

Yeah, that's good.

Just, you know,

maybe let them see some gen pop action and see what happens.

Hierarchies and stuff.

Yeah.

Let it all shake out how it does.

It's such a sad case.

It really is.

It's awful.

I feel so awful for her family this family went through so much yeah

terrible awful

community really because it seems like that whole community really loved her and she was such a big part of all of them yeah like she all lost someone she was a light in that community for sure but it's so sad nice that they celebrate her in a way that they think would have made her happy and they don't even her mom said like we have to let the music and the fun back in our lives and because she would have wanted that again that tells you exactly who she was that people looked at it and said that her own mother sitting there being like, She would have wanted us to like party.

Yeah, she would have been remember her in a happy way.

That's the thing.

She must have just been the best.

Yeah.

But that is the murder of Stephanie Scott by an absolute fucking disgusting piece of wet lettuce.

Yeah.

We're bringing that back for this.

Oh, yeah.

And we appreciate you guys listening.

We hope you keep listening.

And we hope you keep it weird.

We're not so weird that you're a piece of wet lettuce.

Yeah, fuck you, Vincent.

Fuck you, Vincent.

If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

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