April 9, 2025 • 38 mins
Stephanie Scott was just days away from marrying her long-time partner when she went into her empty high school on Easter Sunday to prepare lesson plans for the substitute teacher. That morning, she was tragically murdered.
Vincent Stanford, the school janitor, was arrested after police found evidence linking him to the crime—scratches on his body, bloodstains in his car, and disturbing photos of Stephanie’s body on his phone.
He pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. But what we’ve learned since is that Stephanie wasn’t even his intended victim.
Sarah Crawford, a journalist who’s been following this case for the past decade, joins us now.
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Guest: Sarah Crawford
Host: Claire Murphy
Producer: Tahli Blackman
Audio Producer: Jacob Round
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Mama Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waterers.
This podcast was recorded on.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
In twenty fifteen. Leeton's school teacher Stephanie Scott was preparing
to become a bride for the very first time. She
was excited to walk down the aisle to marry Aaron
Leeson Wooley, her partner of five years, and by Easter Sunday,
April five, most of the plans were already finalized for
the ceremony that would be happening just six days later
(00:47):
in the central West town of yu Gowra. She only
had a few more things to check off her list,
making sure the bus company had her reservation for her
wedding guests confirmed, and to finish off the lesson plans
that she was putting in place for the substitute teacher
who would step into her classroom while she was on
her honeymoon in Tahiti. Stephanie was known for her kindness
(01:11):
and dedication, so when she wished the cleaner at the
school where she worked, where she'd gone to tick some
of those final things off her to do list a
happy Easter, she meant it, but She didn't know that
the man she'd just spoken to had been watching her,
and the predator inside him was fixated on a dark
(01:31):
urge to kill. I'm Claire Murphy standing in for Jemma
Bath and this is True Crime Conversations a Mumma mea
podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to
the people who know the most about them. The death
(01:52):
of twenty six year old Stephanie Scott rocked the small
New South Wales community where she lived and worked, but
the brutal way in which she died, and the fact
that she was less than a week away from her
wedding day made her story all the more tragic. Even
more devastating was that she wasn't supposed to be there
(02:12):
that day, and scarily wasn't even her killer's intended victim.
By the time her family gathered to say goodbye to
her in the very same place she was due to
be married, two brothers located in two different states were
behind bars, and the story as to how Stephanie became
their target shocked the entire nation. Sarah Crawford is a
(02:37):
journalist who's been following this story since that day in
twenty fifteen and as we mark ten years since Stephanie's
senseless death, Sarah sat down with us to help us
better understand the crime and who Stephanie Scott was. A
decade on, Sarah, I'm really interested to find out about
(02:58):
when you first started hearing about the case involving Stephanie Scott.
How did that sort of initially make you feel when
you first heard about the crime that had been committed
against her, How did you respond to it?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Well, at the time, I was the court reporter in
Sydney at the newspaper that I worked at. I wasn't
the police reporter, so I wasn't there on the ground
when her body was found. But as usual, it comes
through as a police press release and then there's a
they usually really scant details, and then there has to
(03:33):
be a decision made on Okay, so it's at Eton.
You know, we've got to fly out there. You know,
is this person has this person just gone missing, have
they decided to run away? Or is this a potential crime?
So those decisions need to be made, and they need
to be made pretty fast. And because of the nature
(03:54):
of this case, there was a lot of interest in
who she was and what could possibly have happened to
a woman who vanishes six days before her wedding. It
was you know, I mean, of course, your attention, and
so it was they made decision pretty fast to send
(04:16):
reporters down there, and that was the case for a
lot of the news outlets in Sydney at the time.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
So you were covering court proceedings at the time. Is
that when you really started to hear the details of
what was happening with this case when it went to court.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
So with this case, Vincent Stanford was arrested quite quickly
afterwards and made a confession to police. So therefore details
about the case really shut down. The investigation was over,
they had the accused and so the information stopped. All
we knew is that she was murdered and her remains
(04:50):
were found in Cocpara National Park. But beyond that we
didn't know the details. We didn't know the motive behind
the crime, and that remained that way for a year
until his brother was sentenced. His brother was sentenced for
being an excess after the fact to murder because he
(05:14):
sold two rings that Vincent Stamford took off her body,
So he was sentenced before his brother. So it was
at his sentencing that the details of the case finally
came out and they were really really disturbing.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Let's go back in time and first talk about Stephanie herself, because,
as you said, people were really quite taken by this
story right from the get go. And this is something
we do see happen quite regularly in Australia, is that
if she is a young woman, especially if she's a
young white woman who's an attractive young white woman, and
that added detail of it being within a week of
her wedding, Why do you think the country was so
(05:53):
taken with Stephanie's story when so many women disappear across
Australia every year.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Yeah, I wonder this every time with certain crime cases,
why they really spark the public sympathy over others. I mean,
it's Sydney, especially Sydney has a real interesting crime Growing
up in Sydney, there's always been big crime cases that
have really captured the attention of people. Stephanie Scott's murder
(06:21):
is definitely in there with a lot of other cases
like the murder of Keisha Abraham's a little girl that
was murdered by her parents, or even the murder of
Anita Cobby back in the eighties, which is a huge
case in Sydney. It falls into that category, and I
think it's because, unfortunately, some people are considered to be
perfect victims. And I don't really like that phrase. I
(06:44):
don't think that one victim of crime is more deserving
of our sympathy than others. But she was a woman
who was in a place where she should have been safe,
in the school, in her workplace, and she was randomly
attacked by a stranger. And those crimes are incredibly rare,
(07:07):
and when they do happen, they capture our attention. Thinking
about the young woman Jill mar who was murdered in
Melbourne a few years earlier by someone randomly who attacked
her on the street, it's a very rare case and
I think that's why these cases capture our attention. It
also you have someone who was about to celebrate what
(07:31):
should have been the happiest day of her life and
then that was taken away from her. So I think
a lot of women can relate to her because I
think a lot of us we naturally there's always in
the back of our minds when we're in public spaces,
we naturally feel unsafe and what is for a lot
(07:54):
of women, you know, their sort of their secret fear
for her actually happened where she was attacked by a stranger.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Let's talk about that day. It's Easter Sunday twenty fifteen.
Stephanie's Scott goes into the school where she works in Leyton.
But why she gone in on a Sunday on essentially
a long weekend when nobody else is.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
There because she's a teacher and every time you go
on holidays you have to fill in and do all
the extra work while you're away. That's what I thought
as soon as I saw it. She was going in
because she was going to go on our honeymoon, and
so she was doing some extra work to help the
relief teacher out that was going to take over her
space for while she was on a holiday. That's why
(08:38):
she was in there. She went to a colleagues's house,
she got the keys from her, She went into the
school space, she disarmed the alarm, and she went into
the staff room and sat down at a computer to
do the lessons for the relief teacher and also to
(08:58):
make sure some last minute payments for bookings for her
wedding were completed, Vincent Stanford was there and saw her.
He had actually been there since seven thirty am in
the morning for no reason. He later told police he
was bored and so he went to the school and
(09:19):
was just randomly cleaning out certain areas of the school,
even though he had no authority to be there at all.
And then as she was leaving, she walked down the hall,
saw him and said Happy Easter, and then went to
get her keys, and that's when he attacked up.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
So before he attacked Stephanie, Stanford went home and came
back to the school. Do we know why he did that, No.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
We don't know why he did that, but we can
assume why he did that because the later police investigation
found that he had essentially a rape kit in his bedroom.
He had a forty centimeter knife, yellow duct tape, handcuffed condoms,
(10:11):
and lubricants, and following her murder and her body being
found during the police search of his property, they did
find that he had googled search terms leading up to
the event such as bride rape and really violent sexual offenses,
So we can assume that he went home to get
(10:35):
those things once he found that she was at the school.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
So we're assuming he's gone home to retrieve that what
they're referring to as a rape kid and in there
is a knife. Is that what he used to murder Stephanie?
Speaker 2 (10:50):
No, So the autopsy report found that he grabbed her
as she was leaving and dragged her into a small
room that had once been used as a dark room.
And on the way, she's dropped things out of her bag,
He's thrown her into the room, She's attempted to gape,
(11:11):
he has pushed her back down onto the ground, and
then he hid her thirty to forty times in the face,
causing severe head injuries. Then she was sexually assaulted and
then he stabbed her with the forty centimeter knife. So
the autopsy found that she died of blunt force trauma.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
What did he then initially do with Stephanie's body? Obviously
there's not going to be anybody there for the rest
of Easter Sunday or even the day after because it's
a public holiday. So what does he do in the
immediate aftermath of the murder?
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Well, this is where it gets really disturbing. He then
went home to where he lived with his mother and
his older brother, and he had a cheese sandwich and
a cup of coffee and then came back and then
spent several hours with a high pressure pose cleaning up
(12:04):
that dark room. He also removed her body and put
it in the boot of her car on top of
some tart material, and he got the yellow duct tape
and tried to seal her neck wound as well. So
we did this over several hours, and then he drove
his vehicle back to the home that he shared with
(12:28):
his mother and his elder brother.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
We found out some really disturbing things about Vincent Stanford
in the aftermath of Stephanie's death, and that he did
actually have a history of violent thoughts and violent behavior
dating back to when he was a child growing up
in the Netherlands, and he even targeted a teacher once before.
Can you just explain to us what we found out
about Vincent's childhood.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Yes, So we only found out who this person was
that had committed this shocking crime at his sentence hearing,
which was more than a year after her death. So
he was interviewed when he was in custody by a
forensic psychologist and a forensic psychiatrist, and their reports we
found out that he was born in Australia. He moved
(13:16):
to the Netherlands when he was three with his mother, father,
twin brother, an older brother, and he told psychiatrists that
he started developing violent thoughts when he was about seven
or eight, feeling a need to kill someone. It was
only when he was twelve that it appeared that he
(13:37):
acted on these violent thoughts when he attempted to choke
a teacher at a school in the Netherlands. And after
that he was put into a mental health ward and
then he left school at sixteen. The family returned to
Australia about a year before Stephanie Scott's murder and they
rented a house in Letton and he worked as a cleaner,
(14:00):
a casual cleaner. But there's no prior convictions for violence
with Vincent Stanford. This was his first offense.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
We did actually find out what that child's psychologist had
diagnosed Stanford with, though back then what did they say
was the state of his mental health.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
They said that he had structural faults in his personality,
he had a personality disorder, and she said that he
found it really hard to interact with people. He found
spending any time with people incredibly stressful, and that he
felt frustrated by his own inadequacies and frustrated by those
(14:40):
around him, and that those frustrations would build into a
sense of violence until he told her that he had
an urge to kill and it was a continuous thought.
And one of the things that he said, which is
really striking, is that he was amazed that with this
(15:00):
anger and violence inside him, that he survived for twenty
five years in society.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Without killing anybody up to this point. Is that what
he meant right.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
It makes it seem like it was an inevitable outcome
for him.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Now you mentioned there he got a job cleaning at
the school. He's got a history of violence as a child.
We know in the Netherlands before they did move back
to Australia that he had trouble finding a job there.
He had enrolled to study it in a college and
wasn't accepted, And then he tried to get into the
army and they told him his social skills weren't good enough.
(15:40):
How did he manage to not only secure a job
with this cleaning company but also past the working with
children check? Do we know? I'm presuming he did pass
that check at.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Some stage, I don't know that never came out. That
never came out. And the other really big question that's
raised with this case is that he was told that
he was only meant to be in that school before
and after school those designated hours to do his cleaning.
He wasn't meant to be there when there were kids around,
(16:10):
and he certainly wasn't meant to have access to the
alarm access codes. Yet he managed to get the alarm
access codes within a week of starting there as a
casual cleaner. And he was there all the time, even
on the weekends, and he was even seen in the
girl's toilets while the girls were in there. Why nothing
(16:33):
was done about it? It raises a lot of questions.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
We've gotten to the point in Stephanie's story where we
know that he's put her in the trunk of the
car and taken her back to his family home. What
do we know happens to Stephanie after that?
Speaker 2 (16:48):
So, in the early hours of the morning, he goes
to a petrol station, he fills up a twenty liter
Jerry Can fuel. It takes a car out to Cocapara
National Park, where he burns burns the body and like
a sun visor from the car as well. Before he
burnt her body, he turned on his phone, which he
(17:09):
had turned off hours earlier, and took some photographs of her.
And then after that he drove the car to a
canal outside of Leeton and then he got out and
walked home, and then he had a couple of hours
sleep and went to the supermarket to meet his mum
(17:31):
to go grocery shopping.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
You're listening to true crime Conversations with me, Claire Murphy.
I'm speaking with journalist Sarah Crawford about the case of
Stephanie Scott. Up next, I asked Sarah how the police
connected Vincent to Stephanie's disappearance. How did police connect him
(17:58):
to Stephanie's disappearance.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
As Vincent Stanford was shopping for groceries with his mum,
Stephanie Scott's fiance was waking up in their house worried
because she hadn't been there the night before. He made
a few phone calls and then he went to police
reported her disappearance and police checked her phone, her social media,
(18:22):
her bank account. There'd been no activity since Sunday morning,
so then they started making inquiries and it was the
fact that Vincent Stanford's car was seen around the school
parked outside the school for long periods of time over
that Easter long weekend that they went to his house.
(18:43):
They went to his house on the Tuesday afternoon, so
two days after Stephanie was murdered, and they just asked
him were you at the school? Did you see anything?
He said no, and he said good luck with your investigation.
And then there was the following day that things started
(19:04):
to really unravel for him very rapidly.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
So what happened to really set police on the path.
Did they discover something at the crime scene? Was there
something that they said, Okay, we've spoken to this man.
He said, good luck with your investigation. How do they
then turn their light back on him? From that point?
Speaker 2 (19:21):
They told him to go into the police station for
a recorded interview on the Wednesday afternoon, which he gave.
He said he didn't see Stephanie, he was at the school.
And he also said that he'd gone to the supermarket
on the Sunday, which set alarm bells off the police.
I mean they were already suspicious of him, but set
alarm bells off further because he'd actively lied. Because the
(19:42):
supermarket wasn't open, so police then went to his house
that evening and searched it and that's where they found
the evidence that linked him to the crime. So it
was the tired tracks of a car that was smaller
than his so clearly not his car, that were in
(20:04):
the towards the end of the edge of the backyard.
There was a use condom the duct tape. But the
real key was that in his bedroom they found the
school keys that her friend had given her on that
Sunday morning, and that's when he was arrested.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
So how long between Stanford's arrest and the discovery of
Stephanie's body.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
The body was discovered the following day, so he was
taken back to the police station and he's charged with murder.
They also then find Stephanie's car outside of Eton. The
following day, a search begins with Cocopara National Park and
the police are helped by his mother and older brother
who know that he liked to go to that area.
(20:52):
So there was a massive search and it was only
I think police officers that were on bikes that stumbled
across her remains.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Stephanie's family would go back out to that site where
she was found with metal detectors looking for those rings
that we talked about earlier, her engagement ring and a
ring that was given to her by her parents on
her graduation, and they talked about seeing the scene there
the charred leftovers of where their daughter had lain. But
(21:23):
obviously they were never going to find those rings. But
they didn't know that. Why did Stanford mail them to
his twin brother because his twin wasn't living in New
South Wales, he was living in South Australia. Why did
he mail those along I believe with her driver's license
to him?
Speaker 2 (21:38):
We won't know. He never answered that question, but he
mailed them on the Wednesday after he went into do
a police statement. His behavior, I mean, even after he
went in to do the police statement on the Wednesday,
just saying, you know, I was at the school, I
didn't see her. I was at the supermarket. After that,
he then went back to the National Park to look
(22:01):
at her body again and then went to check on
the car. And then he mailed the two rings and
the driver's license to his brother in in Southeast Australia
and said, I need you to look after these things
for me. I mean, maybe he was removing evidence, But
then why would you why would you send them to
(22:23):
a relative for keeping? It seemed like he wanted to
take souvenirs from his crime.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Was that what those photos were about to And how
did he explain that away? Because I'm presuming police would
have checked his phone after his arrest. How does he
explain photos of Stephanie's burnt body there?
Speaker 2 (22:43):
He said that he had downloaded them from the internet
because he thought they were funny. Yeah, so no, he
didn't really have an explanation at all for that. I mean,
he also took her red brother she was wearing and
they found that in his in his wardrobe as well
in his bedroom.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
So really collected quite a few treasures. I guess he
would consider them as in the aftermath of this crime.
So you mentioned that he spoke to a forensic psychologist
and a forensic psychiatrist after his arrest. What else do
we find out about Stanford? Because I understand he explained
to them that he has almost no emotions and that
(23:22):
one of the only emotions that he ever experiences is hatred.
And I know that you said that he said it
was inevitable that he would probably one day kill somebody
but do we have any handle on sort of what
type of personality Stanford is because it seems like he's
very detached from reality.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Yes, and I think that the assessment of him was
also fairly limited because he wouldn't participate in it. What
we do know is that he has structural faults in
his personality. He has very little empathy for other people,
and he said that he just had an urge to
(24:02):
kill when he was interviewed by police. The recorded interview,
he was incredibly emotionless. He was even very emotionless at
his sentencing. He just kept his head down the whole time.
And yes, he didn't look at the family. He didn't
express any sort of interest in his surroundings at all.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
How did the family cope with the court case and
then the sentencing? Did they give victim impact statements? Did
they let the public know how this has affected them?
Speaker 2 (24:34):
The family had been fairly clearly obviously private from the
time of her murder. They did a few interviews after
his arrest, but we hadn't really heard from them until
that sentencing hearing in in Griffith a year later. And
part of sentencing hearings are it's the one opportunity that
(24:55):
victims get to express their loss, and that was the
first time that we really heard in depth from the family.
Stephanie's mother gave the victim impact statement, which I think
is just incredibly brave. I don't know. Yeah, she stood
in the courtroom next to her husband and gave this
(25:18):
really moving statement about her grief and also the loss
of a really wonderful daughter and person who brought a
lot of joy to everyone's life. Her fiance didn't give
a victim impact statement. He kept his head down the
whole time, was supported by family. He really did look
(25:41):
like it was incredibly hard moment for him. It was
a hard moment. It was tough. It was a tough
couple of hours in the courtroom, that's for sure. I understand.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
They also held her funeral in the place where they
would have been married, which is such a such a
sad thing for them to experience in a place they
should have been bringing them so much joy.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
It was the only venue in Litton that could hold everyone.
There was a real I mean, there was a there
was a big outpouring across the country for Stephanie Scott,
but in Leton as well, that like that was a
community that was fairly traumatized by that experience, just the
shock of a random attack on someone without explanation and
(26:28):
a very much a woman that was really connected to
the community. She'd worked at the school for three years.
She was the drama teacher. They had a big farewell
for her a Thursday before she was meant to go
on her wedding and honeymoon leave, and there was there
was a lot of sadness. I mean. The other thing
(26:48):
is which is really sad is on the following Saturday,
which should have been her wedding day, everyone gathered to
release balloons for her, and her fiance released the balloons
and let out a cry as he did, so it
must have been a really, a really heartfelt moment for
(27:11):
that community.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
After the break, we uncover the surprising details of who
Vincent Stanford's original target was, and it wasn't Stephanie Scott.
What people might have missed in Stephanie Scott's story is
that potentially Stephanie, even though Stanford did google things like
(27:38):
you know how to kill a bride to be or
something along those lines, which made it look very premeditated,
and the fact that he already had this quote unquote
rape kit already organized and ready to go. Is that
potentially Stephanie wasn't his intended victim and that someone much
younger was in his sights.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Yeah, that was that only came out at the sentencing,
and that was really shocking. I mean, it was such
a terrible crime. It's hard to believe that he he
may have been planning something far worse. There was a
twelve year old girl that lived near to his house
in the neighborhood and police found thousands of photographs of
(28:17):
her and a notebook where he documented her movements and
the number plates of people that came to the house.
And he also told the psychologist that if he had
abducted this young girl that he probably would have killed her.
That girl was one of a number of women or
(28:40):
females I should say that he'd been stalking around Leaton.
There was also a young woman at the supermarket who
he was watching, and one day she went to the
supermarket five minutes before opening and then saw him with
his car parked in the staff area, away from everywhere
else everyone else, and she just decided she was just
(29:01):
going to wait in that car until her male staff
members came along and she'd walk in together. She had
a sense there was another teacher at Leeton, one of
Stephanie's colleagues, that had to stay back a lot because
for her job, and so when she left, she was
usually the last to leave, and she would see his
car a lot in the car park and he'd be waiting.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
He really is the stuff of nightmares, isn't it, Because
we know statistically that the people who are the most
dangerous to women in Australia is more often than not
someone in their own home, a partner. But this is
the stuff of nightmares because we do worry that a
strange man in a place where we usually feel safe
(29:43):
would make that place not safe anymore. But has Stanford
ever shown any remorse for anything that he's done, including
the murder of Stephanie Scott?
Speaker 2 (29:54):
No. I mean he told the psychologists that he doesn't
really think about it, and that after he murdered Stephanie
he urged to kill, dissipated for two months and then
came back. I think the lack of as well as
the extreme violent, random nature of the crime, a part
(30:17):
of the reasons for his incredibly tough sentence that he received.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
What did the judge say, when he did hand down
that very lengthy sentence.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Well, the sentence is life, and when you get a
life sentence, it means that you will not leave jail.
And to give that to someone who was twenty four
at the time and had no past convictions, there was
a reason why his defense lawyer was arguing for a
lengthy sentence but not life because of his age. But
(30:51):
Justice Hume determined that it was the nature of the crime,
the violent nature of the crime, and the communities need
for justice and he's the potential for him doing something
like that. Again, they were some of the main reasons
why he took the decision to sentence Vincent to life
(31:15):
in jail. He will stay there forever now he's not leaving.
And what's even more interesting about this is that he
never appealed that sentence. He had the opportunity within twenty
eight days of being sentenced to appeal it, and an
appeal was lodged, but then they had six months in
(31:35):
which to make that formal appeal and they never did.
And you'd think that if you were sentenced to life
in prison and you were, what twenty five when he
was finally sentenced, you've got nothing to lose by appealing.
I mean, you've got to wonder why he never appealed.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Do you have a theory on that?
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Well, well, I mean I just go back to those
comments that he made that he did pretty well to
last for twenty five years in society. Part of me
thinks that maybe jail feels better for him, Maybe he
wants to stay in jail.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
I was reading that he did also tell the psychologist
that he was more comfortable being by himself in his
safe cell. He hums the maguy vitune to himself while
he creates scars in his skin like he's obviously not
a well person. And maybe right, maybe he did some
(32:29):
part of himself understand that being locked away is probably
better for both him and the rest of society.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Yes, maybe that's the case. Yeah, I think there's still
a lot of I mean, there always will be unanswered
questions with this case because the only other person who
witnessed that crime was Stephanie, and she can't tell us
what really happened. All we have to go on is
what Vincent finally told police when he confessed, and a
lot of what he said it doesn't really make sense.
(32:58):
The fact that he said that it was a random attack,
that he had it planned it, that he'd never met
Stephanie before. There's a lot of evidence to suggest that
that he was making steps to abduct and sexually assault
a female in Leton, and unfortunately Stephanie was the one
(33:20):
that walked into that school on Easter Sunday.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Of course, Vincent wasn't the only one of the Stanford
family who would face punishment for this crime, because his
brother in Adelaide ended up howking those rings and getting
money for them. Did he face consequences for that.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Yes he did. Yes. Those rings were her engagement ring
and her what's called a crossover ring, a graduation ring
that her mother gave her and she always wore them.
So Marcus Stanford would have received the rings and the
driver's license in the mail after his brother was arrested
for the murder. He would have known who those rings
(33:58):
belonged to. And then he holds onto them for a
month and then he only goes to hock them at
the beginning of May, and then soon after his life rested.
At his sentencing, he got like fifteen months for accessory
to murder. After the fact, and there was a lot
of public unhappiness. You know, I wouldn't say out maybe
(34:24):
you could even say outrage. I mean, there was there
was definitely a lot of public descent to that sentence,
but I you know, I mean I think that people
felt that they wanted a tougher sentence for the crime
that had been committed by his brother rather than what
he had done himself. What he had done was horrendous.
But the fifteen months, I mean, I think Justice Hume
(34:45):
was like restricted in what he could sentence him to,
but he did. There was a lot of public outcry,
and then a couple of months later when it was
Vincent Stamford's turn to be sentenced, then we found out
what Justice Hume believed the crime of murder should have received,
which was the life sentence.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Did Mark Stanford ever explain why he didn't go to
policemen He received those rings in the male knowing what
his brother did. I mean, he apparently even took photos
of them. Has he explained any of that?
Speaker 2 (35:17):
No, he never explained why he did what he did.
You know, he just said, as you said, he took
the photographs, he told them in case he needed to
show them to police. But I mean, we just don't
know why he would have known that his brother had
committed this crime, and he had the evidence of that crime,
(35:41):
and he chose not to say anything and then went
and sold them. Is there.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
When we look at silver linings when awful things happened
to really good people like happened to Stephanie Scott? Do
we see any silver linings and learnings from what happened
to her? Did it change safety in the community of Leeton?
Did it change safety around teachers in schools when you
know school's not in session? Do we see her death
having impact on that commit unity?
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Well? I think the school would certainly have changed their
procedures in regards to cleaners and who has access to
the school after hours and the alarm access codes. What
happened to Stephanie is so rare and unusual it's hard
to know what more can be done to protect yourself
from a random stranger. But clearly she should have been
(36:33):
safe in that school after hours, and she wasn't because
the protocols have been put in place to a lot
of people access to that school weren't being followed.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Just finally, Sarah, I'm interested in this from pure interesting
but also because I'm a journalist too, and I've been
asked this question myself when you cover cases like Stephanie Scott's,
and it is, as you said, such a random and
horrific thing, and it is nightmarish to think that that
could potentially happen to any one of us at any time,
because as you said, it's very difficult to pin down
(37:05):
when or where this may happen. Does that impact you?
Do you mentally become more afraid of the world when
you report on.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Stories like this? Yes, I think I do. The chances
of something horrible happening to me seem far more real,
I think than for other people because I have reported
on so many cases where people have been unlucky. With
Stephanie's case, and this is something that I think we
(37:34):
should remember, is that for twenty six years of Stephanie's life,
she was someone who was treasured, that impacted those around her,
was well loved, was a talented woman. And it's just
that final thirty minutes that we know when we talk
about and I think that's the thing as well with victims,
(37:55):
is that they become just the victim. I think we
should remember who she was. And also, you know, coming
up to ten years on her death. I always I
do think about the family. Anniversaries are really hard for
anyone that's lost a loved one, especially in these circumstances
(38:16):
and ten years that you know it must it's going
to be a really tough time for that family.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Sarah, thank you so much for sharing your time and
your expertise with us today. We really appreciate you, and
of course we are sending all the support that we
can to Stephanie's family what must be a very difficult
time for them.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Thank you so much, Sarah.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Thanks, thank you so much to Sarah for helping us
tell this story. True Crime Conversations is a Mum of
mea podcast hosted by me Claire Murphy. The producer is
Charlie Blackman, with audio designed by Jacob Brown. Thank you
for listening. I'll be back next week with another True
Crime Conversation
You're listening to a MoMA Mia podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Mama Mia acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waterers.
This podcast was recorded on.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
In twenty fifteen. Leeton's school teacher Stephanie Scott was preparing
to become a bride for the very first time. She
was excited to walk down the aisle to marry Aaron
Leeson Wooley, her partner of five years, and by Easter Sunday,
April five, most of the plans were already finalized for
the ceremony that would be happening just six days later
(00:47):
in the central West town of yu Gowra. She only
had a few more things to check off her list,
making sure the bus company had her reservation for her
wedding guests confirmed, and to finish off the lesson plans
that she was putting in place for the substitute teacher
who would step into her classroom while she was on
her honeymoon in Tahiti. Stephanie was known for her kindness
(01:11):
and dedication, so when she wished the cleaner at the
school where she worked, where she'd gone to tick some
of those final things off her to do list a
happy Easter, she meant it, but She didn't know that
the man she'd just spoken to had been watching her,
and the predator inside him was fixated on a dark
(01:31):
urge to kill. I'm Claire Murphy standing in for Jemma
Bath and this is True Crime Conversations a Mumma mea
podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking to
the people who know the most about them. The death
(01:52):
of twenty six year old Stephanie Scott rocked the small
New South Wales community where she lived and worked, but
the brutal way in which she died, and the fact
that she was less than a week away from her
wedding day made her story all the more tragic. Even
more devastating was that she wasn't supposed to be there
(02:12):
that day, and scarily wasn't even her killer's intended victim.
By the time her family gathered to say goodbye to
her in the very same place she was due to
be married, two brothers located in two different states were
behind bars, and the story as to how Stephanie became
their target shocked the entire nation. Sarah Crawford is a
(02:37):
journalist who's been following this story since that day in
twenty fifteen and as we mark ten years since Stephanie's
senseless death, Sarah sat down with us to help us
better understand the crime and who Stephanie Scott was. A
decade on, Sarah, I'm really interested to find out about
(02:58):
when you first started hearing about the case involving Stephanie Scott.
How did that sort of initially make you feel when
you first heard about the crime that had been committed
against her, How did you respond to it?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Well, at the time, I was the court reporter in
Sydney at the newspaper that I worked at. I wasn't
the police reporter, so I wasn't there on the ground
when her body was found. But as usual, it comes
through as a police press release and then there's a
they usually really scant details, and then there has to
(03:33):
be a decision made on Okay, so it's at Eton.
You know, we've got to fly out there. You know,
is this person has this person just gone missing, have
they decided to run away? Or is this a potential crime?
So those decisions need to be made, and they need
to be made pretty fast. And because of the nature
(03:54):
of this case, there was a lot of interest in
who she was and what could possibly have happened to
a woman who vanishes six days before her wedding. It
was you know, I mean, of course, your attention, and
so it was they made decision pretty fast to send
(04:16):
reporters down there, and that was the case for a
lot of the news outlets in Sydney at the time.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
So you were covering court proceedings at the time. Is
that when you really started to hear the details of
what was happening with this case when it went to court.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
So with this case, Vincent Stanford was arrested quite quickly
afterwards and made a confession to police. So therefore details
about the case really shut down. The investigation was over,
they had the accused and so the information stopped. All
we knew is that she was murdered and her remains
(04:50):
were found in Cocpara National Park. But beyond that we
didn't know the details. We didn't know the motive behind
the crime, and that remained that way for a year
until his brother was sentenced. His brother was sentenced for
being an excess after the fact to murder because he
(05:14):
sold two rings that Vincent Stamford took off her body,
So he was sentenced before his brother. So it was
at his sentencing that the details of the case finally
came out and they were really really disturbing.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Let's go back in time and first talk about Stephanie herself, because,
as you said, people were really quite taken by this
story right from the get go. And this is something
we do see happen quite regularly in Australia, is that
if she is a young woman, especially if she's a
young white woman who's an attractive young white woman, and
that added detail of it being within a week of
her wedding, Why do you think the country was so
(05:53):
taken with Stephanie's story when so many women disappear across
Australia every year.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Yeah, I wonder this every time with certain crime cases,
why they really spark the public sympathy over others. I mean,
it's Sydney, especially Sydney has a real interesting crime Growing
up in Sydney, there's always been big crime cases that
have really captured the attention of people. Stephanie Scott's murder
(06:21):
is definitely in there with a lot of other cases
like the murder of Keisha Abraham's a little girl that
was murdered by her parents, or even the murder of
Anita Cobby back in the eighties, which is a huge
case in Sydney. It falls into that category, and I
think it's because, unfortunately, some people are considered to be
perfect victims. And I don't really like that phrase. I
(06:44):
don't think that one victim of crime is more deserving
of our sympathy than others. But she was a woman
who was in a place where she should have been safe,
in the school, in her workplace, and she was randomly
attacked by a stranger. And those crimes are incredibly rare,
(07:07):
and when they do happen, they capture our attention. Thinking
about the young woman Jill mar who was murdered in
Melbourne a few years earlier by someone randomly who attacked
her on the street, it's a very rare case and
I think that's why these cases capture our attention. It
also you have someone who was about to celebrate what
(07:31):
should have been the happiest day of her life and
then that was taken away from her. So I think
a lot of women can relate to her because I
think a lot of us we naturally there's always in
the back of our minds when we're in public spaces,
we naturally feel unsafe and what is for a lot
(07:54):
of women, you know, their sort of their secret fear
for her actually happened where she was attacked by a stranger.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Let's talk about that day. It's Easter Sunday twenty fifteen.
Stephanie's Scott goes into the school where she works in Leyton.
But why she gone in on a Sunday on essentially
a long weekend when nobody else is.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
There because she's a teacher and every time you go
on holidays you have to fill in and do all
the extra work while you're away. That's what I thought
as soon as I saw it. She was going in
because she was going to go on our honeymoon, and
so she was doing some extra work to help the
relief teacher out that was going to take over her
space for while she was on a holiday. That's why
(08:38):
she was in there. She went to a colleagues's house,
she got the keys from her, She went into the
school space, she disarmed the alarm, and she went into
the staff room and sat down at a computer to
do the lessons for the relief teacher and also to
(08:58):
make sure some last minute payments for bookings for her
wedding were completed, Vincent Stanford was there and saw her.
He had actually been there since seven thirty am in
the morning for no reason. He later told police he
was bored and so he went to the school and
(09:19):
was just randomly cleaning out certain areas of the school,
even though he had no authority to be there at all.
And then as she was leaving, she walked down the hall,
saw him and said Happy Easter, and then went to
get her keys, and that's when he attacked up.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
So before he attacked Stephanie, Stanford went home and came
back to the school. Do we know why he did that, No.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
We don't know why he did that, but we can
assume why he did that because the later police investigation
found that he had essentially a rape kit in his bedroom.
He had a forty centimeter knife, yellow duct tape, handcuffed condoms,
(10:11):
and lubricants, and following her murder and her body being
found during the police search of his property, they did
find that he had googled search terms leading up to
the event such as bride rape and really violent sexual offenses,
So we can assume that he went home to get
(10:35):
those things once he found that she was at the school.
Speaker 1 (10:39):
So we're assuming he's gone home to retrieve that what
they're referring to as a rape kid and in there
is a knife. Is that what he used to murder Stephanie?
Speaker 2 (10:50):
No, So the autopsy report found that he grabbed her
as she was leaving and dragged her into a small
room that had once been used as a dark room.
And on the way, she's dropped things out of her bag,
He's thrown her into the room, She's attempted to gape,
(11:11):
he has pushed her back down onto the ground, and
then he hid her thirty to forty times in the face,
causing severe head injuries. Then she was sexually assaulted and
then he stabbed her with the forty centimeter knife. So
the autopsy found that she died of blunt force trauma.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
What did he then initially do with Stephanie's body? Obviously
there's not going to be anybody there for the rest
of Easter Sunday or even the day after because it's
a public holiday. So what does he do in the
immediate aftermath of the murder?
Speaker 2 (11:43):
Well, this is where it gets really disturbing. He then
went home to where he lived with his mother and
his older brother, and he had a cheese sandwich and
a cup of coffee and then came back and then
spent several hours with a high pressure pose cleaning up
(12:04):
that dark room. He also removed her body and put
it in the boot of her car on top of
some tart material, and he got the yellow duct tape
and tried to seal her neck wound as well. So
we did this over several hours, and then he drove
his vehicle back to the home that he shared with
(12:28):
his mother and his elder brother.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
We found out some really disturbing things about Vincent Stanford
in the aftermath of Stephanie's death, and that he did
actually have a history of violent thoughts and violent behavior
dating back to when he was a child growing up
in the Netherlands, and he even targeted a teacher once before.
Can you just explain to us what we found out
about Vincent's childhood.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Yes, So we only found out who this person was
that had committed this shocking crime at his sentence hearing,
which was more than a year after her death. So
he was interviewed when he was in custody by a
forensic psychologist and a forensic psychiatrist, and their reports we
found out that he was born in Australia. He moved
(13:16):
to the Netherlands when he was three with his mother, father,
twin brother, an older brother, and he told psychiatrists that
he started developing violent thoughts when he was about seven
or eight, feeling a need to kill someone. It was
only when he was twelve that it appeared that he
(13:37):
acted on these violent thoughts when he attempted to choke
a teacher at a school in the Netherlands. And after
that he was put into a mental health ward and
then he left school at sixteen. The family returned to
Australia about a year before Stephanie Scott's murder and they
rented a house in Letton and he worked as a cleaner,
(14:00):
a casual cleaner. But there's no prior convictions for violence
with Vincent Stanford. This was his first offense.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
We did actually find out what that child's psychologist had
diagnosed Stanford with, though back then what did they say
was the state of his mental health.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
They said that he had structural faults in his personality,
he had a personality disorder, and she said that he
found it really hard to interact with people. He found
spending any time with people incredibly stressful, and that he
felt frustrated by his own inadequacies and frustrated by those
(14:40):
around him, and that those frustrations would build into a
sense of violence until he told her that he had
an urge to kill and it was a continuous thought.
And one of the things that he said, which is
really striking, is that he was amazed that with this
(15:00):
anger and violence inside him, that he survived for twenty
five years in society.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Without killing anybody up to this point. Is that what
he meant right.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
It makes it seem like it was an inevitable outcome
for him.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Now you mentioned there he got a job cleaning at
the school. He's got a history of violence as a child.
We know in the Netherlands before they did move back
to Australia that he had trouble finding a job there.
He had enrolled to study it in a college and
wasn't accepted, And then he tried to get into the
army and they told him his social skills weren't good enough.
(15:40):
How did he manage to not only secure a job
with this cleaning company but also past the working with
children check? Do we know? I'm presuming he did pass
that check at.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Some stage, I don't know that never came out. That
never came out. And the other really big question that's
raised with this case is that he was told that
he was only meant to be in that school before
and after school those designated hours to do his cleaning.
He wasn't meant to be there when there were kids around,
(16:10):
and he certainly wasn't meant to have access to the
alarm access codes. Yet he managed to get the alarm
access codes within a week of starting there as a
casual cleaner. And he was there all the time, even
on the weekends, and he was even seen in the
girl's toilets while the girls were in there. Why nothing
(16:33):
was done about it? It raises a lot of questions.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
We've gotten to the point in Stephanie's story where we
know that he's put her in the trunk of the
car and taken her back to his family home. What
do we know happens to Stephanie after that?
Speaker 2 (16:48):
So, in the early hours of the morning, he goes
to a petrol station, he fills up a twenty liter
Jerry Can fuel. It takes a car out to Cocapara
National Park, where he burns burns the body and like
a sun visor from the car as well. Before he
burnt her body, he turned on his phone, which he
(17:09):
had turned off hours earlier, and took some photographs of her.
And then after that he drove the car to a
canal outside of Leeton and then he got out and
walked home, and then he had a couple of hours
sleep and went to the supermarket to meet his mum
(17:31):
to go grocery shopping.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
You're listening to true crime Conversations with me, Claire Murphy.
I'm speaking with journalist Sarah Crawford about the case of
Stephanie Scott. Up next, I asked Sarah how the police
connected Vincent to Stephanie's disappearance. How did police connect him
(17:58):
to Stephanie's disappearance.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
As Vincent Stanford was shopping for groceries with his mum,
Stephanie Scott's fiance was waking up in their house worried
because she hadn't been there the night before. He made
a few phone calls and then he went to police
reported her disappearance and police checked her phone, her social media,
(18:22):
her bank account. There'd been no activity since Sunday morning,
so then they started making inquiries and it was the
fact that Vincent Stanford's car was seen around the school
parked outside the school for long periods of time over
that Easter long weekend that they went to his house.
(18:43):
They went to his house on the Tuesday afternoon, so
two days after Stephanie was murdered, and they just asked
him were you at the school? Did you see anything?
He said no, and he said good luck with your investigation.
And then there was the following day that things started
(19:04):
to really unravel for him very rapidly.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
So what happened to really set police on the path.
Did they discover something at the crime scene? Was there
something that they said, Okay, we've spoken to this man.
He said, good luck with your investigation. How do they
then turn their light back on him? From that point?
Speaker 2 (19:21):
They told him to go into the police station for
a recorded interview on the Wednesday afternoon, which he gave.
He said he didn't see Stephanie, he was at the school.
And he also said that he'd gone to the supermarket
on the Sunday, which set alarm bells off the police.
I mean they were already suspicious of him, but set
alarm bells off further because he'd actively lied. Because the
(19:42):
supermarket wasn't open, so police then went to his house
that evening and searched it and that's where they found
the evidence that linked him to the crime. So it
was the tired tracks of a car that was smaller
than his so clearly not his car, that were in
(20:04):
the towards the end of the edge of the backyard.
There was a use condom the duct tape. But the
real key was that in his bedroom they found the
school keys that her friend had given her on that
Sunday morning, and that's when he was arrested.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
So how long between Stanford's arrest and the discovery of
Stephanie's body.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
The body was discovered the following day, so he was
taken back to the police station and he's charged with murder.
They also then find Stephanie's car outside of Eton. The
following day, a search begins with Cocopara National Park and
the police are helped by his mother and older brother
who know that he liked to go to that area.
(20:52):
So there was a massive search and it was only
I think police officers that were on bikes that stumbled
across her remains.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Stephanie's family would go back out to that site where
she was found with metal detectors looking for those rings
that we talked about earlier, her engagement ring and a
ring that was given to her by her parents on
her graduation, and they talked about seeing the scene there
the charred leftovers of where their daughter had lain. But
(21:23):
obviously they were never going to find those rings. But
they didn't know that. Why did Stanford mail them to
his twin brother because his twin wasn't living in New
South Wales, he was living in South Australia. Why did
he mail those along I believe with her driver's license
to him?
Speaker 2 (21:38):
We won't know. He never answered that question, but he
mailed them on the Wednesday after he went into do
a police statement. His behavior, I mean, even after he
went in to do the police statement on the Wednesday,
just saying, you know, I was at the school, I
didn't see her. I was at the supermarket. After that,
he then went back to the National Park to look
(22:01):
at her body again and then went to check on
the car. And then he mailed the two rings and
the driver's license to his brother in in Southeast Australia
and said, I need you to look after these things
for me. I mean, maybe he was removing evidence, But
then why would you why would you send them to
(22:23):
a relative for keeping? It seemed like he wanted to
take souvenirs from his crime.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Was that what those photos were about to And how
did he explain that away? Because I'm presuming police would
have checked his phone after his arrest. How does he
explain photos of Stephanie's burnt body there?
Speaker 2 (22:43):
He said that he had downloaded them from the internet
because he thought they were funny. Yeah, so no, he
didn't really have an explanation at all for that. I mean,
he also took her red brother she was wearing and
they found that in his in his wardrobe as well
in his bedroom.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
So really collected quite a few treasures. I guess he
would consider them as in the aftermath of this crime.
So you mentioned that he spoke to a forensic psychologist
and a forensic psychiatrist after his arrest. What else do
we find out about Stanford? Because I understand he explained
to them that he has almost no emotions and that
(23:22):
one of the only emotions that he ever experiences is hatred.
And I know that you said that he said it
was inevitable that he would probably one day kill somebody
but do we have any handle on sort of what
type of personality Stanford is because it seems like he's
very detached from reality.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
Yes, and I think that the assessment of him was
also fairly limited because he wouldn't participate in it. What
we do know is that he has structural faults in
his personality. He has very little empathy for other people,
and he said that he just had an urge to
(24:02):
kill when he was interviewed by police. The recorded interview,
he was incredibly emotionless. He was even very emotionless at
his sentencing. He just kept his head down the whole time.
And yes, he didn't look at the family. He didn't
express any sort of interest in his surroundings at all.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
How did the family cope with the court case and
then the sentencing? Did they give victim impact statements? Did
they let the public know how this has affected them?
Speaker 2 (24:34):
The family had been fairly clearly obviously private from the
time of her murder. They did a few interviews after
his arrest, but we hadn't really heard from them until
that sentencing hearing in in Griffith a year later. And
part of sentencing hearings are it's the one opportunity that
(24:55):
victims get to express their loss, and that was the
first time that we really heard in depth from the family.
Stephanie's mother gave the victim impact statement, which I think
is just incredibly brave. I don't know. Yeah, she stood
in the courtroom next to her husband and gave this
(25:18):
really moving statement about her grief and also the loss
of a really wonderful daughter and person who brought a
lot of joy to everyone's life. Her fiance didn't give
a victim impact statement. He kept his head down the
whole time, was supported by family. He really did look
(25:41):
like it was incredibly hard moment for him. It was
a hard moment. It was tough. It was a tough
couple of hours in the courtroom, that's for sure. I understand.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
They also held her funeral in the place where they
would have been married, which is such a such a
sad thing for them to experience in a place they
should have been bringing them so much joy.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
It was the only venue in Litton that could hold everyone.
There was a real I mean, there was a there
was a big outpouring across the country for Stephanie Scott,
but in Leton as well, that like that was a
community that was fairly traumatized by that experience, just the
shock of a random attack on someone without explanation and
(26:28):
a very much a woman that was really connected to
the community. She'd worked at the school for three years.
She was the drama teacher. They had a big farewell
for her a Thursday before she was meant to go
on her wedding and honeymoon leave, and there was there
was a lot of sadness. I mean. The other thing
(26:48):
is which is really sad is on the following Saturday,
which should have been her wedding day, everyone gathered to
release balloons for her, and her fiance released the balloons
and let out a cry as he did, so it
must have been a really, a really heartfelt moment for
(27:11):
that community.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
After the break, we uncover the surprising details of who
Vincent Stanford's original target was, and it wasn't Stephanie Scott.
What people might have missed in Stephanie Scott's story is
that potentially Stephanie, even though Stanford did google things like
(27:38):
you know how to kill a bride to be or
something along those lines, which made it look very premeditated,
and the fact that he already had this quote unquote
rape kit already organized and ready to go. Is that
potentially Stephanie wasn't his intended victim and that someone much
younger was in his sights.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
Yeah, that was that only came out at the sentencing,
and that was really shocking. I mean, it was such
a terrible crime. It's hard to believe that he he
may have been planning something far worse. There was a
twelve year old girl that lived near to his house
in the neighborhood and police found thousands of photographs of
(28:17):
her and a notebook where he documented her movements and
the number plates of people that came to the house.
And he also told the psychologist that if he had
abducted this young girl that he probably would have killed her.
That girl was one of a number of women or
(28:40):
females I should say that he'd been stalking around Leaton.
There was also a young woman at the supermarket who
he was watching, and one day she went to the
supermarket five minutes before opening and then saw him with
his car parked in the staff area, away from everywhere
else everyone else, and she just decided she was just
(29:01):
going to wait in that car until her male staff
members came along and she'd walk in together. She had
a sense there was another teacher at Leeton, one of
Stephanie's colleagues, that had to stay back a lot because
for her job, and so when she left, she was
usually the last to leave, and she would see his
car a lot in the car park and he'd be waiting.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
He really is the stuff of nightmares, isn't it, Because
we know statistically that the people who are the most
dangerous to women in Australia is more often than not
someone in their own home, a partner. But this is
the stuff of nightmares because we do worry that a
strange man in a place where we usually feel safe
(29:43):
would make that place not safe anymore. But has Stanford
ever shown any remorse for anything that he's done, including
the murder of Stephanie Scott?
Speaker 2 (29:54):
No. I mean he told the psychologists that he doesn't
really think about it, and that after he murdered Stephanie
he urged to kill, dissipated for two months and then
came back. I think the lack of as well as
the extreme violent, random nature of the crime, a part
(30:17):
of the reasons for his incredibly tough sentence that he received.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
What did the judge say, when he did hand down
that very lengthy sentence.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Well, the sentence is life, and when you get a
life sentence, it means that you will not leave jail.
And to give that to someone who was twenty four
at the time and had no past convictions, there was
a reason why his defense lawyer was arguing for a
lengthy sentence but not life because of his age. But
(30:51):
Justice Hume determined that it was the nature of the crime,
the violent nature of the crime, and the communities need
for justice and he's the potential for him doing something
like that. Again, they were some of the main reasons
why he took the decision to sentence Vincent to life
(31:15):
in jail. He will stay there forever now he's not leaving.
And what's even more interesting about this is that he
never appealed that sentence. He had the opportunity within twenty
eight days of being sentenced to appeal it, and an
appeal was lodged, but then they had six months in
(31:35):
which to make that formal appeal and they never did.
And you'd think that if you were sentenced to life
in prison and you were, what twenty five when he
was finally sentenced, you've got nothing to lose by appealing.
I mean, you've got to wonder why he never appealed.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Do you have a theory on that?
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Well, well, I mean I just go back to those
comments that he made that he did pretty well to
last for twenty five years in society. Part of me
thinks that maybe jail feels better for him, Maybe he
wants to stay in jail.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
I was reading that he did also tell the psychologist
that he was more comfortable being by himself in his
safe cell. He hums the maguy vitune to himself while
he creates scars in his skin like he's obviously not
a well person. And maybe right, maybe he did some
(32:29):
part of himself understand that being locked away is probably
better for both him and the rest of society.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Yes, maybe that's the case. Yeah, I think there's still
a lot of I mean, there always will be unanswered
questions with this case because the only other person who
witnessed that crime was Stephanie, and she can't tell us
what really happened. All we have to go on is
what Vincent finally told police when he confessed, and a
lot of what he said it doesn't really make sense.
(32:58):
The fact that he said that it was a random attack,
that he had it planned it, that he'd never met
Stephanie before. There's a lot of evidence to suggest that
that he was making steps to abduct and sexually assault
a female in Leton, and unfortunately Stephanie was the one
(33:20):
that walked into that school on Easter Sunday.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Of course, Vincent wasn't the only one of the Stanford
family who would face punishment for this crime, because his
brother in Adelaide ended up howking those rings and getting
money for them. Did he face consequences for that.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Yes he did. Yes. Those rings were her engagement ring
and her what's called a crossover ring, a graduation ring
that her mother gave her and she always wore them.
So Marcus Stanford would have received the rings and the
driver's license in the mail after his brother was arrested
for the murder. He would have known who those rings
(33:58):
belonged to. And then he holds onto them for a
month and then he only goes to hock them at
the beginning of May, and then soon after his life rested.
At his sentencing, he got like fifteen months for accessory
to murder. After the fact, and there was a lot
of public unhappiness. You know, I wouldn't say out maybe
(34:24):
you could even say outrage. I mean, there was there
was definitely a lot of public descent to that sentence,
but I you know, I mean I think that people
felt that they wanted a tougher sentence for the crime
that had been committed by his brother rather than what
he had done himself. What he had done was horrendous.
But the fifteen months, I mean, I think Justice Hume
(34:45):
was like restricted in what he could sentence him to,
but he did. There was a lot of public outcry,
and then a couple of months later when it was
Vincent Stamford's turn to be sentenced, then we found out
what Justice Hume believed the crime of murder should have received,
which was the life sentence.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Did Mark Stanford ever explain why he didn't go to
policemen He received those rings in the male knowing what
his brother did. I mean, he apparently even took photos
of them. Has he explained any of that?
Speaker 2 (35:17):
No, he never explained why he did what he did.
You know, he just said, as you said, he took
the photographs, he told them in case he needed to
show them to police. But I mean, we just don't
know why he would have known that his brother had
committed this crime, and he had the evidence of that crime,
(35:41):
and he chose not to say anything and then went
and sold them. Is there.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
When we look at silver linings when awful things happened
to really good people like happened to Stephanie Scott? Do
we see any silver linings and learnings from what happened
to her? Did it change safety in the community of Leeton?
Did it change safety around teachers in schools when you
know school's not in session? Do we see her death
having impact on that commit unity?
Speaker 2 (36:11):
Well? I think the school would certainly have changed their
procedures in regards to cleaners and who has access to
the school after hours and the alarm access codes. What
happened to Stephanie is so rare and unusual it's hard
to know what more can be done to protect yourself
from a random stranger. But clearly she should have been
(36:33):
safe in that school after hours, and she wasn't because
the protocols have been put in place to a lot
of people access to that school weren't being followed.
Speaker 1 (36:45):
Just finally, Sarah, I'm interested in this from pure interesting
but also because I'm a journalist too, and I've been
asked this question myself when you cover cases like Stephanie Scott's,
and it is, as you said, such a random and
horrific thing, and it is nightmarish to think that that
could potentially happen to any one of us at any time,
because as you said, it's very difficult to pin down
(37:05):
when or where this may happen. Does that impact you?
Do you mentally become more afraid of the world when
you report on.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Stories like this? Yes, I think I do. The chances
of something horrible happening to me seem far more real,
I think than for other people because I have reported
on so many cases where people have been unlucky. With
Stephanie's case, and this is something that I think we
(37:34):
should remember, is that for twenty six years of Stephanie's life,
she was someone who was treasured, that impacted those around her,
was well loved, was a talented woman. And it's just
that final thirty minutes that we know when we talk
about and I think that's the thing as well with victims,
(37:55):
is that they become just the victim. I think we
should remember who she was. And also, you know, coming
up to ten years on her death. I always I
do think about the family. Anniversaries are really hard for
anyone that's lost a loved one, especially in these circumstances
(38:16):
and ten years that you know it must it's going
to be a really tough time for that family.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
Sarah, thank you so much for sharing your time and
your expertise with us today. We really appreciate you, and
of course we are sending all the support that we
can to Stephanie's family what must be a very difficult
time for them.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Thank you so much, Sarah.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Thanks, thank you so much to Sarah for helping us
tell this story. True Crime Conversations is a Mum of
mea podcast hosted by me Claire Murphy. The producer is
Charlie Blackman, with audio designed by Jacob Brown. Thank you
for listening. I'll be back next week with another True
Crime Conversation
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