Francine Stepp

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they were a loving couple devoted to their daughter they wanted her to find and achieve every single bit of success that she could and they had big plans for her they loved her fiercely they truly were living the american dream

But everything changes when this picture-perfect family is ripped apart by a shocking tragedy.

She was screaming and hollering that she needed help.

She had a large butcher knife coming out of her rib catch.

As investigators try to solve a gruesome double homicide, they must sort through a tangled web of gossip and guarded secrets.

Either they tried to leave the cult or they angered them somehow or the cult decided that that was the sacrifice they needed to make.

They were just rumors running wild about their sex life, their private life.

They indeed were nudists.

It was a pretty shocking deal for Stillwater.

That wasn't who I would have ever thought would have done anything like that.

It just goes to show us that we don't know what's in someone's head or in their heart.

June 8th, 1988, Stillwater, Oklahoma.

It's a little past 6 a.m.

as Mitzi Wynn is awoken to the sound of loud bangs on her front door.

So she opened the front door, and her 18-year-old next-door neighbor is now standing at the door.

She's hysterically beating on the door, crying, saying that her parents had been murdered.

Then the next-door neighbors call the police.

Officers responded from two different directions.

They locked down the scene.

One officer entered the scene, made a protective sweep.

As first responders make their way down the long first-floor hallway, they hear a loud noise coming from the main bedroom.

It was an alarm clock that was just incessantly ringing, going off.

As officers reach the doorway, they make a grim discovery.

Mark Stepp, male victim, was laying on his back in the bed,

and his wife was laying.

When you're looking at the bed, she was laying to the right of the bed on the floor.

Both were naked.

Officers believe the victims are homeowners Dee and Mark Stepp.

Victims had been both shot and stabbed.

The wife had a large butcher knife coming out of her rib cage.

The husband looked like he had been shot in the bed.

While officers examine the gruesome scene inside, detectives arrive and begin questioning neighbors that have started to gather at the scene.

We didn't know exactly what we were looking for.

We didn't know who our suspects were or anything else.

We're thinking that it might possibly be a burglary and then the burglar had gone in and somehow encountered

the parents in their bedroom.

A double homicide in Stillwater, in a neighborhood that was not expected to have that kind of thing happen, has certainly got attention.

This was a young couple and a young family that from all outward appearances were living the American dream and tragedy struck.

In 1979, 32-year-old Navy veterans Mark and Dolores D.

Stepp packed up their nine-year-old daughter Francine and left their native Wisconsin roots behind for an exciting opportunity to kickstart their careers in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

Mark was actually an instrument and control technician for Oklahoma Gas and Electric Companies where we worked at a power plant north of Stillwater.

Mark always seemed to me like he was a displaced hippie, is what I would describe him as.

Laid back,

didn't get excited about a lot of things.

Where Mark was laid back and easygoing, Dee was type A all the way.

She was a supervisor at the university handling all of the state's money.

She worked very hard to be there, and there were not a lot of women in those positions.

She was a hard person and a little intimidating.

The couple's union was proof that opposites do attract.

They absolutely adored each other.

They absolutely loved each other.

And it was odd because they seemed to be very different people.

But I know that her and Mark had the kind of relationship we all want.

Nothing was more important to the couple than their daughter, Francine.

They loved her fiercely.

They thought that she was the smartest, brightest girl in the world.

She was quiet, reserved, kind of, you know, just

stayed out of everybody's way and was friendly if you talked to her.

Dee and Mark took parenting cues from their time in the military.

Her parents seemed like they were very controlling of everything that she did.

Who she could be friends with, where she could go.

It's like going into the principal's office, you know.

That's kind of like I felt when I was at their house.

As Francine grew into a teenager, Mark and Dee watched in awe as she transformed from an awkward kid into a stunning young woman.

I remember Dee saying to me, I don't know what's happened.

All of a sudden, she's got all this flaming red hair, this really nice skin, and she's developing so soon.

She said it goes so fast.

Francine was quickly attracting the attention of young men, but not the kind Mark and Dee wanted her to date.

Dee said more than one time she's a smart kid.

She just doesn't do a good job of picking her friends.

There was alcohol, there was marijuana, you know, there was parties.

As Francine gravitated toward bad boys, Mark and Dee tightened the reins.

She was, you know, forced to go home after school every day.

If they let her drive her car, she had to drive straight home after school.

So she was like, you know, trapped.

With dating more or less off the table, Francine began spending more time with her neighbor and best friend, Cindy Wynne.

Francine was really nice.

She was really introverted, very quiet.

Cindy, on the other hand, was the polar opposite.

Cindy had to be the center of attention.

If the attention wasn't on her, Cindy would find a way to make it be on her.

Together, Cindy and Francine made the most of their senior year, sometimes even sneaking out behind Mark and Dee's backs.

Her parents, they didn't want her dating anybody.

The only way she could would be to sneak around, which is what happened a lot.

As Francine attempted to spread her wings socially, by the summer of 1988, Mark and Dee's professional lives were also on the rise.

Dee had just gotten a promotion at work.

He's working at a local power company.

She's working at a local university.

They have this upper-middle-class home.

They truly were living the American dream.

After graduating high school, 18-year-old Francine enrolled for fall classes at hometown Oklahoma State University and celebrated her accomplishments with a new gift from her parents.

Francine had a Camaro that guys my age loved.

It was like a 67 to 69 Camaro.

I mean, it was like really neat.

They adored her, and they wanted her to have something really nice for her achievement.

They wanted her to find and achieve every single bit of success that she could, and they had big plans for her.

They wanted her to go on and just rule the world because she was smart enough to do it.

Tragically, the light of Francine's bright future grows suddenly dim on the morning of June 8th, 1988, when she discovers her parents brutally murdered in their own home.

Definitely what I would call at the time an overkill.

The wounds to both bodies were in excess of what was necessary to end their lives.

For detectives with the Stillwater Police Department, the violent scene is unlike any they've encountered before in the city's typically quiet suburbs.

Mark had a number of stab wounds.

There was some what appeared to be gunshot wounds on his neck and neck area.

The mother had multiple stab wounds.

That's a very traumatic scene for a young girl to walk in and find both of her parents not only deceased, but naked in their bedrooms.

She was on the front steps of the neighbor's house and as I approached the house she was sitting on the steps.

She seemed a little despondent.

When I began interviewing her she became much more emotional.

You know I was like wow she just lost her parents and so I mean my heart kind of reached out to her.

While detectives will have to wait to speak to their shaken witness, they hope the scene inside will shed light on this horrific crime.

Every crime scene has a story and this one had more than its share.

Coming up, could a family's secrets unveil a possible motive?

She was pretty open about what her parents were involved in.

There was a photo of the parents, and they were standing with their feet spread and their arms up and outreached.

They were naked.

That was extremely unusual and opened many, many questions for us.

On the morning of June 8th, 1988, detectives in quiet Stillwater, Oklahoma are standing over the bodies of Dolores and Mark Stepp, wondering who would want this couple dead and in such a brutal manner.

I was shocked that that would happen in Stillwater.

Shooting someone is much different than stabbing them over and over.

While detectives process the scene, the couple's 18-year-old daughter Francine is escorted to the police station for questioning.

She was very withdrawn.

It was difficult to get information from her.

Again, this is a very traumatic scene for a young girl.

Inside the step home, investigators work to reconstruct the grim crime.

It appeared to me that just from the scene itself, that obviously shots were fired from the bedroom door.

Mark had been shot.

I then believe that Dee gets out of bed, runs around to take care of him.

I think there's a fight where the mother gets stabbed up until the point she's incapacitated.

And then somewhere in there, dad gets stabbed.

At first, investigators suspect a robbery gone wrong.

However, a closer examination of the home suggests a different story.

There was no sign of force entry.

There was no other significant disruption in the house that would lead one to believe that there had been a takeover of any kind of the home.

The seasoned investigators know that the sheer brutality of the attack points to a more personal motive.

There was probably some rage involved, and Generally, that means that there is some close relationship between the victim and the perpetrator.

You can stand across the room and shoot somebody, but it is very, very different from killing them with a knife.

And that is even more different if you get up a straddle of a naked body and continue to stab somebody.

Investigators find no gun, but are able to identify the type of weapon used.

There were a number of spent what appeared to be.22 caliber shell casings.

There were some holes in the wall above the bed that appeared to be.22 caliber bullet holes.

As for the knife found lodged in Dee's body, detectives believe it was either a weapon of opportunity or another indication that the killer was familiar with the step home.

The knife matched other knives that we found in the kitchen.

All the evidence was pointing toward somebody that knew the family, certainly had access to the residence because there was no evidence of forced entry on the front door.

Investigators turned their attention outside for more information.

I talked to the neighbors that were home, at least, around that general area, just asking various questions about the activity there.

There was no one that heard anything, particularly out of the ordinary.

Gunshots, screaming, anything like that.

The only person that had any information I thought was important at all was one of them talked about the fact that they thought Francine might have been kind of wild.

And another neighbor said she had a boyfriend that drove a really loud truck that was in and out of their house several times, you know, during the week.

Though from the outside the steps seem like your average family, a thorough search inside indicates things may not be what they seem.

There were cabinet shelves.

When you would open those doors, they were full of VHS tapes.

One of the things that we would always do at crime scenes, if there were videotapes, And if it appeared that any of those were homemade, we wanted to watch them.

We wanted to see who was in there.

Investigators get a possible preview of the tapes when they find photographs tucked into the VHS boxes.

There was nudity

involved in those photos.

One photo was of particular interest to us, and this was an unusual photo.

It was a photo of the parents, Mark and Dee, and they were standing.

They were naked, and they were standing

with

their feet spread and their arms up and outreached almost like it would make an X.

And then teenage Francine, who was also naked, was standing on her hands with her feet spread.

And one mother had one ankle and the other father had the other ankle and the three of them were standing.

That was extremely unusual and opened many, many questions for us.

Detectives collect collect the home videos and take them to the Stillwater Police Department.

While one team begins to process the evidence, investigators sit down with Francine.

She certainly had some questions to answer about where she had been.

According to Francine, she had spent the night before at her best friend, Cindy Wynne's new apartment.

They had gone out and spent the evening together and this, that, and the other, and that Francine had returned home early in the morning to find the front door ajar.

According to Francine,

this was concerning to her.

She opened the front door, heard the alarm clock going off in her parents' bedroom, went to the bedroom, observed what she concluded was both her mother and father deceased.

Investigators asked Francine about the videotapes and nude pictures found in the living room.

She was pretty open about what her parents were involved in and what she had been involved in.

Francine had said it was widely known by friends and family that they were nudists.

As I recall, there was some discussion from her that she wasn't necessarily very enamored with that lifestyle, but that she had participated because she was their daughter.

Francine, the daughter, said that she would go to the nudist calls with them, but she said she really never, hardly ever took her clothes off or anything like that.

While odd, she insists there was nothing nefarious about her parents' lifestyle choice.

She told me she had never been abused or sexually abused by her parents.

Francine tells detectives the tension between her and her parents wasn't around their private life, it was around hers.

In particular, she says they didn't like her current boyfriend, Frank Rout.

Raut.

He was old enough to buy alcohol, which, of course, is a parent's nightmare.

He'd take us to parties, you know, and they would hook up at friends' houses and things.

They felt like he would take her down instead of up.

And they were really focused on her going upwards and her future and

her being good.

Maybe she went to him and said, oh my God, they're making me never see you again.

I mean, you can only hold people down so long before they crack.

The boyfriend in this case obviously would be someone of importance that you would want to talk to.

Coming up, investigators hone in on Frank.

He had called and visited with Francine's father the night of the homicide.

And detectives unearthed new, disturbing information on the steppe family.

Some people said that the parents were involved with this satanic cult.

Hey staff listeners, it's Stephanie Gomolka with Oxygen True Crime.

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You questioned every single thing I have.

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Apparently, you're already taking it.

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Detectives investigating the gruesome double murder of Dee and Mark Stepp now wonder if the couple's daughter Francine's relationship with her boyfriend, Frank Rout,

may be tied to the crime.

We initially had some information that there might have been less than good relations with her parents.

The thoughts of baby being a disgruntled boyfriend or something like that run through your head, so we obviously wanted to interview him.

While investigators work to verify Francine's alibi and speak with her boyfriend, they are shocked to find him at the station already.

One of our officers had picked him up in a bar here in Hutchinson.

Nevertheless, at 8 o'clock the next morning, he was sitting in my office.

During the interview, a lot of the information that he would give us, you know, he would contradict later.

A lot of inconsistencies.

Frank's view of his rapport with the steps seems wildly different than Francine's.

According to Frank, his relationship with Mark Indeed was on the mend.

In fact, Frank claims he and Mark had officially made peace the night before.

He indicated that he had called and visited with Francine's father the night of the homicide.

They'd had a delightful conversation and that they were getting along fine.

He said he had no involvement, knew nothing about it.

He had spent the night with his parents.

The investigators had confirmed that with the parents, so he had an alibi at the time of the incident.

Having established Frank's alibi, investigators move to verifying Francine's.

Francine's alibi was that she had spent the night with her friend Cindy and that they were together the whole time and that they spent the night together.

That afternoon, Cindy Wynne is brought in for questioning.

Cindy was quite demonstrative.

She was talkative.

They were pretty much opposite personality.

It was a dynamic encounter, a few preliminary questions that really seemed to agitate her.

Then when I told her that the reason that I was there was that Frankie's parents had died, the apparent victim of a violent act, and her emotional response was in my face.

It was way over the top.

I was in my house.

I'll get a lawyer.

I'll get a lawyer and I'll get an attorney.

I'm playing no more.

I'm not playing no more.

I've had a

bad day.

Once Cindy calms down, she backs Francine's alibi.

Lynn, it's best you can guess about what time was what Francine came over there.

She came over about nine o'clock.

We had time.

And then she decided she spent a night.

In my initial contact with her, she had confirmed that the two of them spent together the night before and the time generally matched.

According to Cindy, although the steps had made peace with Frank, the real problem was with Francine's ex-boyfriend, Joe.

Joe Anthony was the son of a police officer from another agency in our community.

Joe was into what we would call the goth movement or whatever.

He would dress all in black and black fingernails and all of that.

Then he did the punk.

So we were a little intimidated by him.

His parents were guaranteed death of him.

He's not one of these, you know, he's not like a normal person like keep your piss off the guy, you're just gonna go up there and pal, you know, he's gonna be over with.

Any parent who saw a boy like that around their daughter would be upset.

He was someone that we needed to interview, and we gave him no special treatment because of his relationship with his father.

Before detectives reach out to Joe, they have another order of business to take care of, viewing the videotapes found in Dee and Mark's living room.

We've scavenged about every VHS player and every television from every office in City Hall.

I'd ordered pizza and sodas and we're in there and we're watching all these VHS tapes on Fast Forward.

And some of them were tapes that

the deceased had made in what appeared to be a nudist cam.

There were some videos of the parents having sex and what I would call traditional sex, you know,

nothing bizarre or unusual.

While the videos expose details of the steps' free-spirited lifestyle, the footage doesn't yield any leads.

We didn't see anybody else in the videos other than the two parents.

Certainly no evidence, anything that I would consider criminal or deviant behavior, but that seemed a little odd to me.

After ruling out any possible leads coming from the VHS tapes, detectives prepare to reach out to Francine's ex-boyfriend, Joe Anthony, but are contacted by his father first.

He came to me and he said, listen, I'd like for you to interview my son.

And he said, we need to know whether he's involved in this.

And he said, I know that you'll be tough on him, but I know that you'll be fair.

And so very, very cooperative parent.

I interviewed the son.

Detectives quickly find that Joe's tough exterior was merely a facade.

He had a different lifestyle than myself

and others that I would associate with.

But from the interview on, the son was never really a suspect.

With Francine's past and present lovers seemingly in the clear and no new leads emerging from the videotapes, investigators are back to square one.

A lot of times, rumors are developed about the victim's lifestyle, and that was certainly the case here.

We knew we were going to want to interview the people that knew them.

According to friends, while the couple might have been free spirits, they were far from an open book, especially Dee.

She loved her husband and she loved her daughter and she was fiercely private about them.

Fiercely private.

You knew what she was going to let you know.

However, after their deaths, the rumor mill was in full swing.

Some people said that the parents were involved with a satanic cult and that something happened.

Either they tried to leave the cult or

they angered them somehow or the cult decided that that was the sacrifice they needed to make.

Just crazy, crazy stuff.

The most salacious rumors had to do with some kind of sexual club activity videos.

Well, you know, it probably had something to do with them going to them nudist things.

They might have been wife swapping.

They were just rumors running wild, like...

about their sex life, their private life.

The more rumors detectives attempt to substantiate, the more dead ends they meet.

We had to invest significant staff time to send investigators to interview people about things that turned out to be nothing.

Then, on June 22nd, 14 days after the murder, detectives finally get a solid lead when a neighbor to the stepp family comes forward, claiming she saw Francine driving her black Camaro on the night of the murder.

murder.

She informed the police department that she had at about one o'clock in the morning seen Francine

drive in the vicinity of where the steps live.

That was at a time when Francine and Cindy were supposed to be at Cindy's residence.

They were certain that Francine was driving her Camaro.

And

that did not add up in their story.

The timeline about the car made me very suspicious.

Coming up, hidden tensions in the steppe household come to the surface.

They weren't allowed to hang out.

They weren't supposed to be together at all.

And new evidence casts suspicion on someone close to home.

Cindy was confronted with a whole lot of information that did not add up.

Everything just keeps points to you being alive.

Detectives in Stillwater, Oklahoma have just discovered that Francine Stepp, the daughter of double homicide victims Dee and Mark Stepp, might have been lying about her alibi on the night of the murders.

It certainly raised our suspicions that, hey, there's more to this than what we're seeing.

That same afternoon, they bring 18-year-old Francine in to confront her with the statement.

Somebody saw you in that black Camaro when you said you wasn't in it.

Why?

How come they say all these things?

I don't know.

Everything just keeps pointing to you being a liar.

Francine is beginning to withdraw more and more.

We're getting less and less information from her.

Her body language is very closed.

With Francine giving up little information, detectives are left with more suspicions.

If you're trying to help the police solve the murder of your parents and you're totally innocent, you're probably not going to lie or

remember incorrectly important things to tell the police.

At that point, we thought there was a good possibility that she was involved in this crime.

Investigators begin questioning Francine's friends and quickly uncover something shocking.

Rumors begin to Francine or Cindy or both had contacted an individual in the community.

They had offered to pay him money to kill both sets of parents.

Francine's friends claim she put out word they would pay for the killings with their inheritance.

Both of the girls were only children that if both sets of parents were killed, then they would inherit the estates and they would have money

to pay for their murders.

Friends believe the girls' search eventually led them to a local man named Jackie Myers.

So then I called him and I said, well, we'd really like to visit with you at the station.

At the station, Jackie tells police that the rumor is true.

Francine and Cindy did approach him.

He seemed very forthright about it.

He said, I didn't take him serious.

He said, I thought they were just messing with me.

While investigators believe that Jackie had nothing to do with the murders, his interview leaves them certain that Francine and likely Cindy did.

That's unusual activity, particularly for two young girls.

All of these things are beginning to lead us to believe that these two girls have some involvement that we don't know exactly what it was.

Instead of facing another series of denials from Francine, detectives set their sights on Cindy.

We asked her to come to the station, told her we needed to talk to her.

There were inconsistencies in her story.

We need to talk to you, and you need to do it now, Cindy.

This is your chance.

The boat has sunk.

I don't

need to help.

You work for part of it.

No,

I was not able to help.

I'm so tired to convince you of that.

We would leave Cindy alone.

As soon as that investigator walked out the door, Cindy'd light a cigarette.

She'd walk up to a mirror.

She'd slap her face.

She'd pinch her cheeks.

She would lick her fingers and moisten her eyes with it.

As soon as he would walk back in the room, all the emotion would come back.

You have to talk to her.

It's over, Shandy.

The worst is behind you.

She's making you look like the bad guy.

I've had enough of it.

I've had enough of everybody who's been telling me, you know, she's going to pull you down and she's going to pull you down and she's going to pull you down.

And I'm sick of it.

Backed into a corner, Cindy's tough exterior cracks.

She tells investigators it all began a few months earlier when, like Francine, issues arose between her and her parents.

At one point, Cindy was not welcome to live in her family home.

So Dee said she can stay with us because she was Francine's best friend.

She can stay here.

But soon, Mark and Dee also took issue with Cindy's behavior.

She had a boyfriend, and there were restrictions there.

He couldn't be at the house when they weren't home.

Apparently at some point, Cindy did not follow the rules and that was it.

Dee was very, you do what I tell you to do in my home or that's it.

So I'm gonna guess that there was a pretty big breach of trust and Mark and Dee said she had to go.

According to Cindy, when Mark and Dee kicked her out, they told Francine she was no longer allowed to see her.

She wasn't allowed at their home.

Francine wasn't allowed to go over over there.

They weren't allowed to hang out.

They weren't supposed to be together at all.

Cindy was upset about that because she didn't have anywhere to go.

Francine was upset about that because she couldn't be friends with her best friend anymore.

Cindy admits that she and Francine fantasized about life without their parents lording over them.

The girls were defiant toward their parents about discipline, what their curfews, when they could go out, when they had to be back, things like that.

And so they decided to take care of that problem.

The original plan, we believe, was that Cindy would kill Francine's parents, and then Francine would kill Cindy's parents.

Cindy insists it was all just fantasy in her mind.

That day,

she told me how she could get it.

And I didn't think.

I honestly didn't think she was collective.

I thought I'd pass it out.

Investigators still aren't sure they're getting the full story from Cindy, but maybe a new technology can help them separate fact from fiction.

The case was absent any physical evidence that we needed.

Luminol was new.

I had heard about luminol while attending the FBI National Academy.

So then I called the State Crime Bureau and called a forensic chemist, a friend of mine, and I said, have you ever used something called Luminol?

And she says, oh, yeah.

And I said, well, I've got a crime, a homicide that occurred in a bedroom, and I want to luminol the bedroom and the carpet.

Law enforcement convene at the crime scene on June 30th.

The investigator starts at the bedroom door as he walks backwards in the dark down the hallway.

This luminol filters down to this shag type carpet.

Glowing in the carpet are two distinctive sets of footprints.

As one set of footprints came off and went to the front door and the other set of footprints went to the back door.

That's when we knew that we had two suspects.

We had a daughter and we had her girlfriend.

Investigators take the evidence to the DA.

We went to the district attorney and he shared with us that I'm not going to file a charge unless you give a confession.

On July 13th, Francine returns to the station, accompanied by her grandfather.

And it's clear her patience with police has run out we felt like that this was our last opportunity to to interview francine and specifically uh selected an investigator that had had a daughter we felt like that that would be a different approach he told her i know you're involved i know you took part in this and francine became irate and walked out the office walked out the door of the police department

Coming up, investigators get one more shot at finding the truth.

I said, I believe that she knows something that she hasn't told us.

I believe that it is eating her up inside.

And the horrifying details of the murder are finally revealed.

When that door was kicked in, she just went numb,

and everything that had built up just exploded.

On July 13th, 1988, 18-year-old Francine Stepp storms out of the Stillwater Police Department, refusing to answer any more questions.

Francine walking out is not surprising because obviously the questions were getting quite uncomfortable for her and she didn't have a good answer for it.

The grandfather, who'd been watching behind the mirror, came in.

I said, I believe that she knows something that she hasn't told us.

I believe that it is eating her up inside, and I don't believe that she will ever be at peace until she talks to us about it.

And then he brought her back.

Francine is subdued but ready to talk.

She tells detectives that her parents' controlling ways had become too much to bear.

I wanted to

explore myself and think of me.

But for Francine, her parents' attempt to end her friendship with Cindy was the last draw.

After failing to find a hitman, on June 8th, Francine says the teens took matters into their own hands.

At about two o'clock in the morning, They snuck into the house.

Francine had the gun.

Cindy kicks the door open and and yells at the parents and Francine says the gun just started going off.

When that door was kicked in, she just went numb

and everything that had built up just exploded.

Francine is kind of a loss as to what happened.

She remembers a knife but doesn't remember a lot of details.

Francine would not implicate her other than being there and some of the planning.

Following the murders, Francine says they tried to cover their tracks.

They put the murder weapon, the handgun, in a nylon bag, threw it in Boomer Lake, and then after that, returned to Cindy's apartment.

Francine gets up, goes home,

and

reports the crime to her neighbors.

As chilling chilling as that confession is, Francine admits they had one more phase to their plan.

They were going to wait until the heat, you know, kind of died down.

As soon as the police lost interest, then they would go ahead with killing Cindy's parents.

Following Francine's confession, detectives immediately bring Cindy in.

I'm not going to call the classic, and

Francine gave us a full, complete, detailed statement.

And please tell who.

It's going to help me out anyway.

It's going to help tremendously.

What did you see when you picked the door open?

Her parents fell

and then

she shot and her dad went down and her mom yelled francing and I ran.

I didn't know what to do.

I was scared.

I just ran.

Okay.

You ran outside the house.

I ran up to my parents' house by the bus.

But that does not correspond with the footprints in the luminol?

There are footprints that were similar to hers in the luminol and the blood that was tracked through the house.

We had forensic evidence to tie her directly to the crime.

Even without all the details, investigators have enough to place both young women under arrest.

Pieces kind of fell into place and kind of brought the puzzle together.

We certainly obtained enough information to be able to charge Cindy.

We arrested them on two charges of first-degree murder.

I'm like, no way, you know, there's no way because that wasn't who I would have ever thought would have done anything like that.

I think it just goes to show us that we don't know what's in someone's head or in their heart.

In October of 1988, 18-year-olds Francine Steppe and Cindy Wynne choose pleas over trials.

The initial charges were both first-degree murder.

Ms.

Wynn's charges were pled down to conspiracy to commit murder.

Francine pled guilty.

While Cindy is sentenced to 10 years, Francine is given back-to-back life sentences.

I think that the individuals responsible were held accountable.

Although it is a sad case, at least they got justice for what had occurred.

My personal opinion is if it had not been for Cindy, it would have never happened.

I'm sure at some point Cindy has convinced her I'm the only one that cares about you.

It's just you and me against the world.

This is the only way she could ever be free.

This is the only way they could both ever be free.

It's a horrible situation to think through the fact that a couple of 16, 17 year old girls would spend the majority of their life, at least Francine in this case, if not all of her life in prison.

But when you look at what they were able to go through with, I think she's where she needs to be.

Cindy was released from prison in 1999 after serving seven years.

Francine has been up for parole multiple times, but has been denied each time.

How hard is it to kill a planet?

Maybe all it takes is a little drilling, some mining, and a whole lot of carbon pumped into the atmosphere.

When you see what's left, it starts to look like a crime scene.

Are we really safe?

Is our water safe?

You destroyed our tubes.

And crimes like that, they don't just happen.

We call things accidents.

There is no accident.

This was 100%

preventable.

They're the result of choices by people.

Ruthless oil tycoons, corrupt politicians, even organized crime.

These are the stories we need to be telling about our changing planet.

Stories of scams, murders, and cover-ups that are about us and the things we're doing to either protect the Earth or destroy it.

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