All language subtitles for dbe4fb581586479eae6120fc2c6e1353_track3_eng

♪♪

This lie took on
a life of its own.

McGrath: There was a side
of the Stepp family

that we had not seen.

Breazile:
I knew that they had secrets,

and I had a feeling
that we were going to

find out what those were.

♪♪

♪♪

Woman: 911 emergency.

Thrasher: Shortly before
6:30 in the morning,

Stillwater police communications
received

a 911 call from a couple.

They indicated that a neighbor
was on their front porch

crying, screaming, hysterical,

saying that her parents
had been murdered.

The young woman was
Francine Stepp.

I'd describe her as a Caucasian
female, about 18, 19 years old.

She had spent the night
with a friend.

She had come home
to get ready for work.

Upon entering the residence,

she discovered that both
of her parents were dead.

When you walk into
someone's house,

particularly in a case
like this,

there are those voyeuristic,
you know, feelings, I suppose.

From my perspective,
I'm paid to be voyeuristic.

The kitchen looks like
they might have gone to bed

without cleaning the kitchen,
which, you know, happens.

There was bills,
receipts, magazine.

It was clean but cluttered.

The house looked lived-in.

The thing that I noticed,

there was a phone pulled out
of the wall in the kitchen.

As we walked down the hallway
toward the bedroom,

there were some .22-caliber

spent shell casings
on the floor.

[ Alarm clock ringing ]

The alarm was going off
and it just kept going off.

That buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz.

There were two air conditioners.

One of them wasn't working.

So in this particular scene,
there were the sights,

there was the sound,

there was the heat,
and there was the smell.

Don't know that
I can describe it.

It's just a distinctive odor
that investigators know well.

Shearer: Looking back at
that particular crime scene,

it's one that will
always stick in my mind

because of the fact that

I always hear
that same alarm clock

and often times am taken directly
back to that crime scene.

Even the smell is triggered
sometimes

by the sound of
that particular alarm.

The role of
technical investigator

involves looking at
all the evidence,

trying to determine
what actually took place.

I saw a male subject
that was nude laying on the bed.

It was obvious he had a number
of stab wounds in his torso.

It looked also like there was

some sort of a gunshot wound
to his neck.

And there was a female body
laying on the floor.

She was curled up.
Her upper torso was wedged

between the dresser
and the nightstand.

That body also was covered
in blood

and had stab wounds
both front and back.

And there was a knife
sticking out of her back.

I've never seen an individual
stabbed that many times before.

Thrasher: The victims
were later identified

as Mark and Delores Stepp.

Tubbs: Mark and Dee, one thing
I liked about them,

they were real social people.

Liked to laugh, joke, have fun,

and just be around
a lot of people.

I knew Mark from working at OG&E

at the sooner power plant.

He was an instrument
and control technician.

He would calibrate, troubleshoot
temperature switches,

temperature sensors, pressure
switches, pneumatic controls.

So there was quite
a bit of stress.

But Mark was kind of laid-back
and just did his job.

Delores had an office job
at o.S.U., I believe.

At the power plant,
we had softball teams.

And Mark and Dee
co-coached that.

They seemed a typical
middle-class family.

Man, wife, and a child,
and liked to have fun.

Johnson:
They were a nice couple.

They were a good-looking couple.

They had a Yankee attitude.

We're more...
What do they call us?

More redneck.

Attitude kind of.

We just let it all
hang out there.

They weren't here long enough
to get the Okie attitude.

They were still from the north.

They still had
a northern attitude.

♪♪

Delores: Hey, Mark.

Tubbs: Mark and Dee were from
up north, Wisconsin,

but they were one of us.

They did all the things we did
and enjoyed the things we do.

Mark: Hey, Franny.

Francine, she wasn't
real talkative.

Of course, you can't
really expect a teenager

to be real talkative

around grownups,
you know, I don't think.

Francine was quiet.
She was kind of withdrawn.

She didn't seem unhappy,

she just seemed like
kind of a loner, I guess.

I just remember
seeing her in the school,

walking down the hallways,
you know,

kind of off in the shadows,
just kind of staying

on the edge of the crowd
and staying away from everybody.

I had a friend in band,

and she was in band
with Francine,

and she would try
to just talk to her.

And she would always
just tell her,

"why are you talking to me?
Don't talk to me."

The first thing I did was
went and interviewed Francine.

Her report was that
she came home that morning,

went in the house,
and found her parents

in the condition
that we found them.

My specialty was dealing with
people and interviewing people.

She seemed legitimately upset.

They had the EMTs
check her as well

for blood pressure and pulse.

Wasn't too far out of line.

But her outward mannerisms were
such that she was visibly upset.

We were totally consumed
with processing the scene,

gathering the information,

gathering what evidence
was available

before it was destroyed.

McGrath: It took them
a great deal of time

to go through that
as meticulously as they did.

They were going through
the evidence

and what was being collected.

We learned that there was
pictures

of Mark Stepp, Dee Stepp,
and Francine...

Not very old of a picture.

This picture clearly suggested,
if not just told us,

that there's more to this story.

We just called it
the flying "w" photograph.

♪♪

♪♪

McGrath:
Myself and lieutenant thrasher

escorted Francine
to the police department.

In her statement, she said that
she had been out all night

with Cindy Wynn.

Cindy is a friend of hers.

They had met after work
the preceding day,

spent most of the time together
during the day,

and then all night.

Francine told us that
she'd been back to her house

several times on the 7th.

The last time
she saw her parents,

she knew that they were
in their bedroom

because she could hear
a toilet flush.

Before that when she was in
the house, she saw them up.

Everything was good.
No problems with anybody.

She was calm and reflective

and explaining to us
what went on,

but she was still
a little bit upset.

She's a young female.

An office full of male cops.

Parents are dead.

We don't really know
what happened.

So, yeah, we were
kid gloves with her.

♪♪

[ Alarm ringing ]

When we concluded the interview,

she had a family member,
I believe an aunt, come down

from Kansas that arrived
at the police department,

and she left with her aunt.

Francine's boyfriend
is named frank Routt.

I didn't know who called him,
but he arrived.

We kept them separated

because we wanted
to interview both of them.

Didn't want one
to contaminate the other.

We wanted to see what he had
been doing the night before.

Frank was a small-town,
just country kind of kid.

He drove a pickup truck,
wore cowboy boots.

One of the techniques
that we used in this case

was we would invite
somebody up for an interview

and let them set for a little
while and just watch them.

He kind of talked to himself,

would look around
at the things on my desk.

He took my business cards
and shuffled them

like a deck of cards.

Throughout his interview,

frank would contradict himself
even on simple, irrelevant items

such as "where do you live"
or "what were you doing"

or "what did somebody say?"

And he would say one thing,

and then a moment later,
he'd say something different.

McGrath: We asked him to account
for his whereabouts.

His explanation was
he was at home all night.

We got to asking about firearms
and knives,

and he volunteered
that he owned a rifle.

The shell casings
at the crime scene were .22,

and his rifle was a .22.

So it was certainly
a potential murder weapon.

We took possession of a .22
rifle that he had at his house.

We took it back
to the police department

and secured it for potential
ballistics testing later.

We didn't hold frank.

We had no probable cause.

So we just released him
and told him we'd be in touch.

My supervisor called a meeting
and told us

that Mark and Dee
had been found killed.

That was about all
the information that they had.

We just couldn't figure out
any reason

why anyone would want
to kill these nice people.

Johnson: Everybody was in shock.

We couldn't believe
what had happened.

And since they didn't have
any family down here,

we didn't know
what we do for them.

We just couldn't believe it.

You know, you're still in shock.
You just can't believe it.

You just couldn't believe it.

The truth is, I always knew

there was something odd
about Mark Stepp.

The first time I really
interacted with Mark Stepp,

we were to go to Tulsa,
Oklahoma,

for some training.

And when we got out of
the training,

Mark said he wasn't ready
to go back to the plant yet

and he would like to go
for a drive around Tulsa.

So the instrument controls
person that was driving said,

"where do you want to go?"

And Mark said, "well, let's go
down this way.

Down that road.

Let's take this turn
and let's go that way."

It just seemed to be an aimless
till we came to our destination.

And at that point,
it all made sense.

There was an awkward
moment of silence.

Mark acted as if we had
randomly come to this spot.

It was very apparent

that he had been
directing us there all along.

We were all pretty shocked.

We were sitting there
in front of a strip club.

You don't take a company car

into a strip club parking lot
in 1988

in the Bible belt.

Are you kidding?

Everybody in this car
is married.

Why would you think that

we would want to go
to a strip club?

Mark was obviously disappointed
when we said

that we didn't want to go,

and he acted as if
he couldn't understand why,

which to me was what was
really odd about the situation

and why it stuck
with me in my head.

A month later,
when I heard what happened,

the first thing that entered
my mind was that encounter

that we had that day
when we went to Tulsa.

♪♪

[ Police radio chatter ]

♪♪

Thrasher: We examined a plethora
of evidence in the home.

We looked at
the traditional evidence.

We looked at blood, we looked at
the injury patterns,

you know, we looked at all these
other kinds of things.

But then we uncovered a picture.

Shearer: I do not recall
the exact time of day

that photograph was found.

When we actually made
that discovery,

it was obvious that
there was a little bit more

to this family unit

than what we had
initially thought,

that there was a dark secret,

and that secret had been hidden
for quite a while.

Now it was starting to unfold.

There was one picture
that showed Mark and Dee Stepp

standing on either side of
Francine and holding her ankles.

And Francine was doing,
like, a headstand.

We just called it
the flying "w" photograph.

They were all three
naked in that picture.

Just the fact that the three
of them were naked,

so it was just unusual for me

to see a naked pose of a mother,
father, and their daughter.

♪♪

As the day went on, it seemed to
get even more shocking.

As I was processing
the crime scene,

I noticed a box of video tapes
inside of the closet

there in the master bedroom.

Thrasher: We got back to
the police department,

and we had all these videotapes.

I actually went through
the entire city hall,

scavenged about every TV
and every VCR player

that wasn't tied down
and some that were.

We started watching
these VHS tapes.

I believe one of them
was a Walt Disney tape,

might have been "dumbo,"

and in the middle of that tape,
they had dubbed in

of Mark and Dee

at what appeared
to be a motel room, having sex.

Appeared that they just set up
this video camera

and video'd themselves.

You know, my first thought
can best be described

from a good quality,
wholesome Oklahoma word.

It starts with a "c."

It was definitely
an "aw, chit"...

That's with a "c"...
An "aw, chit" moment.

McGrath: The discovery of
the tapes and the photographs

certainly opened up
a whole new venue

of what needed to be pursued.

We would get updates from
plant employees

that had relatives that worked
at the police department.

When I heard about
all the pornographic material,

it did not surprise me
in the least.

It validated everything
I had suspected.

It made you feel like
they were deceptive

or that they were trying
to deceive people,

that maybe some of the secrets
that Mark and Dee had

might have led to their murder.

We decided to bring Francine
back in and talk to her.

Discussing nudity or sex
with somebody you don't know

is like discussing
religion and politics.

You don't know
where it's going to go.

Thrasher: When I asked
the direct question,

"where were these taken?"
You know,

"what were the circumstances
of this?"

She said, "well, my parents
belong to a nudist colony."

We learned that they were
members of a nudist camp

in Hutchinson, Kansas,

or as she called it, hutch.

Hutchinson, Kansas,
is not that far from Stillwater.

It's maybe 100 miles
at the most,

so it's easy to traverse
back and forth.

Thrasher:
And we asked her, said,

"well, was there ever
any sexual abuse?"

And she violently
reacted to that.

I mean, she gutturally
reacted to that.

"Oh, no."

McGrath: I'm not a nudist.

I don't know what goes into
that train of thought.

But if they were going to pose
naked with their daughter,

what else would they do?

You can understand why Francine
would have tried

to isolate herself.

I mean, I see that.

I would think
"I don't want to bring

anybody else into that circle."

You know, "or who can I trust?"

Johnson: Somebody called me
and told me what happened,

and I was in shock.

It was just something unreal.

It just don't happen
in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

I would never have thought

Mark and Dee would be
in anything like that.

They were living two lives,

one that they portrayed to you

and then another one
hidden behind doors.

McGrath: When we first learned
of the camp connection,

we didn't know what
that level of participation was.

We didn't know
how people mingled.

If they had photographs
of their family nude,

did they have photographs
of other people?

Was there a potential
for blackmail?

I didn't know if there
was jealousy from other parties.

We didn't know.

We couldn't
get anybody to tell us

who participated
or who visited up there.

We talked to somebody
that was in charge

and got a feel for what it was.

But as far as being able
to extract identities

or where those people might be,
didn't get anything.

It was frustrating trying
to follow that up

and not get any information,
but it wasn't surprising.

♪♪

There were a lot of lines
of investigation

that could have been followed,
but in any investigation,

you follow where
the evidence takes you.

I believe that there is
more evidence in this case

than we uncovered.

And we examined a plethora
of evidence in the home.

I thought, "hey, maybe
there's some invisible stuff

that we haven't seen

or that might be
important to us."

Shearer:
In a particular crime scene,

you never know when something
might have been cleaned up

or moved or hidden.

And so with luminol,
we would be able to see

where potential blood may exist.

We turn off the lights,

and the investigator held
this aerosol can

that we had attached
to this bottle of stuff.

And he sprayed it

as he began walking
backwards down the hallway.

As luminol sifted down
to this carpet,

you could see
in the total darkness

two sets of footprints
begin to glow.

And then these footprints
came almost like they came

almost to us and one turned
and went toward the back door,

and one turned
and went toward the front door.

There were at least
two people involved,

and there at least had been
two people in that room.

♪♪

♪♪

McGrath: Mark and Dee Stepp
were not tiny people.

That weren't large people,
but they were good size.

If one person would have gone in
to carry this out,

it would have had been
by surprise and sudden.

Or there had been some way
that they could protect

or overpower both the Stepps
if it came to that.

So I'm not really surprised
that there was two people there.

Thrasher: We were starting
with a clean slate,

and we really didn't know
where we were going to end up.

Their daughter, Francine,
had told us that she had spent

the night with her best friend,
Cindy, Cindy Wynn,

and said that Cindy
lived with her boyfriend

and gave us
the apartment number.

Cindy and Francine, I would say

that their relationship
was different.

[ Indistinct conversation ]

Cindy was loud.
Francine was quiet.

So maybe they evened
each other out.

Maybe Francine
finally needed that.

You know, maybe that
was Francine's way

of trying to fit in
with somebody finally.

Cindy carried enough character
for both of them.

Cindy Wynn and I were
best friends for two years.

Cindy liked attention.

If there was a center
of a crowd,

she wanted to be
the center of the crowd.

But we stopped being friends
after our junior year,

that summer, sometime.

Because of all the drama
that she would cause.

Cindy was a liar.

She liked to stretch the truth.

There was this one time
where Cindy showed up

and she had
a little extra money.

She bragged about it,
and then we kind of questioned

where she got it.

And then we felt like
she'd taken it from somebody.

And then there was a guy
that I talked to

that I found out she was talking
to and causing issues there.

She just had a hard time always
just stretching the truth.

♪♪

McGrath: We asked for Cindy to
come down to the police department,

took a written statement
from her.

When somebody sits down
to write out a story,

they will tend to include
much more detail

than just telling you about it,

because they have the freedom
to think, describe it,

whatever adjectives
they want to use.

And we asked her about
her boyfriend, Randall Vick,

who was a local
Stillwater gentleman,

and they'd been dating
for some time.

Thrasher: I knew Randall.
He was just a local child

that the police
had kind of raised.

He'd been in some minor issues.

Oftentimes,
it's not a good thing

when the police
know you by name.

Cindy had indicated
that her father disapproved

of a relationship
with a black boyfriend,

even to the point
that he felt like

that it was a sin and told Cindy
that if she didn't

break off her relationship
with this black man,

that she couldn't
live with them.

And Cindy responded to that
by leaving home

and moving in with
her boyfriend, Randall Vick.

McGrath:
The night of the murder,

Cindy asked Francine
if she could give him a ride

to go watch a basketball game,

and Francine told her no,

that her parents didn't like him
being in her car,

'cause he was black.

And if they got caught,
she'd be in trouble.

I didn't know
Mr. Vick well enough,

but that could be a motive,
that he wasn't worthy enough

to date Cindy
or be Francine's friend.

But then Cindy developed
a potential lead.

One of the details
that Cindy gave us

was a gentleman
by the name of Joe Anthony.

The story was that
Francine and Joe

had a dating relationship
and had to break up

because Francine's parents
didn't like him,

and he was upset
with her parents

because he couldn't
see Francine anymore.

Joe Anthony, he had
an unusual lifestyle.

He dressed in black, had black
earrings or black fingernails,

or this sort of thing.

Francine's parents
were opposed to that.

He was different.
He was kind of scary-looking.

He dressed crazy.

He acted crazy.

He did his hair funny,
wore white makeup.

I mean, he was weird.

If someone would have came to me

and told me
that he was involved,

I wouldn't have had
any trouble believing that.

♪♪

I interviewed Joe.

He came up to my office.
He sat down.

I asked him
what he knew about the case.

I asked him what he had heard
about the case.

There's what we call holdbacks
in every investigation.

There's a piece of information

that we don't put
in the press release.

So I asked him questions
that would lead him

to providing me
holdback information.

We hadn't released any
photographs of the crime scene.

So the number of stab wounds,
you know, the type of weapon

that was used, you know,
all of that kind of stuff,

you know, was information

that he just didn't have
any information of.

He was very calm.

He was self-assured
that he wasn't involved,

and he was forthcoming
with anything that I asked him.

He provided the names
of the friends that he was with.

He told us they were out
all night,

even gave us some times,
as I recall.

I asked Joe about
his relationship with Francine

and how it ended.

And he just related a story

that, you know,
it was just a relationship

that had played its course,
come to an end,

and that there wasn't
anything dynamic.

He had no animosity toward
Francine's parents at all.

He didn't have anything
to support

some of the allegations
that Cindy had made.

And at the end of the interview,
this was just an individual

that had gotten involved
in what I consider

to be an aberrant
or a strange lifestyle

that really had no connection
with the case.

The other side
was all of a sudden,

Cindy is giving us
this information,

but she never volunteered
that information.

She was sent home
and called and said,

"hey, McGrath, I just happened
to think of Joe Anthony."

It wasn't until we tried
to extract more information

out of her that she came up
with that.

So it was suspect.

Thrasher: Cindy had made
these suggestions

that appeared to originate
from her

wanting us to lead
the investigation

in other directions
and away from her.

I would say that
I didn't believe

that any of the information
that she gave was genuine.

I felt like that she was
a very accomplished liar,

although well practiced at it.

She felt like that she was
smarter than everybody else

and didn't mind you
knowing that.

McGrath: She was trying to
deflect everything away from her.

Those actions on her part

at that point
in the investigation

certainly made us pursue her

with a lot more interest.

We identified
some of her friends

and people that Cindy
associated with

and began going through
those interviews with them

to see if we could learn
anything else.

Hooten: Cindy came to me
after it happened,

and I think I might
have asked her

if she knew anything about it.

And she was like,
"no, I was with Randall."

You know, like, played it off
like she didn't know nothing.

♪♪

♪♪

We interviewed a gentleman
by the name of Michael Reed.

It was quite revealing in
the statements that he gave us.

You know,
30 years in law enforcement,

and I was a prosecutor.

Nothing prepares you
for the idea

that somebody's child did this
to what we found.

I knew that we were
on the right track.

We decided to bring Francine
back in and talk to her.

We felt that Francine
was more likely to break

sooner than Cindy was,

that Francine had an emotional
connection to what was going on.

You started and what happened
that night because your last.

I begin asking her questions

and just couldn't get anything
out of her.

Every time I would ask Francine
about something that she did,

she'd close down.

So finally, what I did was
I said,

"Francine, there's the door,

and you can leave
just like you did before.

And I'm not going to stop you."

And that seemed to put her
a little bit at ease.

I knew that at that point
she was under arrest,

whether I said it or not.

I knew in my mind
that she was not leaving.

[ Crying ]

The question that I had
then was, "what did she do?"

♪♪

♪♪

[ Crying ]

♪♪

I did not get
a narrative from her.

I was not able to say,
"tell me what happened,"

and for her to tell me anything.

We couldn't quite get her
over that hump,

so I'd called a friend of mine,
Russ Higbie,

with the state bureau
of narcotics,

and asked him to come up
and polygraph her.

We needed something
more concrete.

She didn't have
any outward appearance

of any kind of problem,

the way she answered
the questions.

♪♪

And of course, the relevant
question on this exam was,

"did you yourself have
anything to do with

or cause the death
of your mother and dad

on that particular date?"

And of course, she said no.

As I looked at the chart,

I could tell that
it was very, very deceptive.

And she hadn't just flunked it.
She had flunked it miserably.

At that point,
I was just flabbergasted,

I thought, "I've never seen
anything like this."

So I just sat there for a few
minutes and looked right at her.

Finally, she darted her head
and looked over at me and said,

"well, how'd I do?"

And I said,
"well," I said, "Francine,

I now know what you knew

"when you came in here
this afternoon."

She says, "well,
what does that mean?"

And I said,
"that means we need to talk.

And I mean, serious talk."

She told me about the .22.

And how her dad put his hands up

and how the bullet went through
and got him first.

Then she went over
and started in on her mother.

The last time
that she stabbed her,

the knife was in there so tight
that they couldn't get it out.

I asked her what were
the reasons why would you do

something like this,
and her answer was

they were practicing nudists,
and she hated that.

She says, "I have to take off
all my clothes and walk around

and be on exhibition like that."

She said, "it's just horrible.
It was just horrible."

Hooten: She had lived a lie
her whole life,

and the abuse that she had
been going through,

it caused a lot of damage.

She never had a childhood.
She didn't get to be a kid.

And I don't know what finally
pushed her over the edge.

If that had been going
on her whole life,

maybe she was tired
of living that lie.

She had to make a choice
to save herself or to not.

Thrasher: What we ultimately
learned was that

the girls had made plans
to kill both sets of parents,

and the plans
were specific enough

that Cindy would
kill Francine's parents,

and then Francine
would kill Cindy's parents.

There may be a number of motives
in this case.

There usually are.

The one that we were able to
articulate most strongly

was that Cindy
was estranged from her parents

because of her relationship
with a black person.

And Francine was estranged
from her parents

because of the nudist lifestyle.

McGrath: When Cindy came down
after Francine's confession,

I think Cindy felt that
she had gotten away with this.

She admitted to being there.

She admitted to discussing with
Francine killing her parents,

but she denied pulling
the trigger or holding the knife

or any of the fatal acts...
She denied any of that.

After we were able to extract
enough information from her

for a confession,

she asked if she could talk
to her boyfriend.

So we let her.

Brought them up to
lieutenant thrasher's office.

She put her hands on his knees
and began to tell him a story.

He immediately jumped up,
pushed her away from him,

pushed her hands off him, and
backed up as far as he could,

almost to the door
to get out of the office.

Just total shock on his part.

At that point, I was convinced

Randall Vick didn't have
anything to do with it

and didn't know about it.

We were pretty certain
that it was Francine and Cindy.

At that point, Francine's
boyfriend, frank Routt,

I was confident at that time
that he was not involved.

Frank's behavior,
albeit a little

on the bizarre side,
does not make you a murderer.

♪♪

Johnson: Only thing I could
think that would drive a child

to that would have been abuse,
some kind of abuse, to me.

You really think you know people
and you don't.

You don't realize they put on
one face for you

and then there's another face.

Tubbs: I feel like their actions

and their influence
on their daughter

is definitely what caused
their demise.

Their double life
did catch up with them.

♪♪

I think Cindy was able to lie
to everybody else

in the hopes
of getting away with it.

If she would have disclosed
a level of participation

equal to or almost equal
to Francine's,

she'd still be in a penitentiary
with Francine.

♪♪