Introduction: A Spring Night, A Final Walk
The evening of April 12, 1971, settled over Fayetteville, Arkansas, under the light of a full moon. On the campus of the University of Arkansas, Pauline Storment, a quiet and studious 27-year-old sophomore, gathered her books and tape recorder at the library. A divorcee working two part-time jobs—one at the Army ROTC office and another as a cashier at the Malco Theatre—Pauline was devoted to her studies. Her apartment at 102 South Duncan Avenue was just a few blocks away, a short walk down a dimly lit street she had made countless times.
But on this night, the ordinary rhythm of her life was irrevocably broken. The peace of the small college town was shattered by a scream that carried for blocks, signaling a brutal act of violence. Pauline was stabbed seven to eight times near her apartment door and, with her last words, identified her attacker as a man who had been following her.
What began as an intense homicide investigation immediately devolved into a mystery. A 17-year-old local youth, Wallace Peter Kunkel, was swiftly arrested with blood on his clothing, and a butcher knife was found nearby, driven into the ground. However, the initial charge quickly gave way to a shocking reversal: after polygraph tests, the prosecutor dropped the murder charge, stating that the evidence did not implicate Kunkel. The case remained open, and the initial murder weapon was ultimately discounted by investigators.
For more than fifty years, the murder of Pauline Storment has remained a haunting silence, a cold case defined by dead ends, a lack of motive, and a family’s unending search for justice.
The facts in your section are largely accurate and well-supported by the newspaper articles and reports in your Drive folder. You have correctly summarized the swift arrest, the core details of the polygraph test, the blood-type evidence, and the dropping of the charges.
2. A Swift Arrest and a Baffling Reversal
In any homicide investigation, a quick arrest can set a clear path toward resolution, offering a shaken community the promise of swift justice. The arrest of a suspect just 45 minutes after Pauline’s stabbing appeared to do just that. Instead, it became the first of many confounding turns in the investigation, dissolving from a promising lead into a cloud of doubt and confusion.
Police on patrol noticed a car being driven a few blocks from the crime scene and arrested 17-year-old Wallace Peter Kunkel after observing splotches of blood on his jacket, shirt, and pants. Prosecuting Attorney Mahlon Gibson formally charged Kunkel with first-degree murder. However, Kunkel’s attorney, Richard Hipp, immediately filed a flurry of motions, challenging the arrest on the basis that the charge was made without probable cause.
Just as quickly as the case came together, it fell apart:
- A Passed Polygraph: Kunkel voluntarily submitted to a lie detector examination, which he passed, and Prosecutor Gibson had been assured he would stand by the test results. Police Chief Hollis Spencer stated they were satisfied Kunkel “had no part in the murder of Miss Storment.”
- Inconclusive Forensic Evidence: The case’s most significant physical evidence proved to be its greatest weakness. Laboratory tests confirmed that both Pauline Storment and Wallace Kunkel had the same blood type, A positive. Furthermore, Kunkel’s attorney noted there was only a single drop of blood recovered from the clothing, which was insufficient for sub-group testing, meaning the bloodstains could not be definitively linked to the victim.
- Charges Dropped: Citing “new developments” and a “sudden shift in the course of the investigation,” Prosecutor Gibson announced he was dismissing the charges against Kunkel for lack of evidence.
Kunkel and his family held a press conference after his release from jail. His father, with his arm around the youth’s shoulder, told reporters, “Right now we’re going to go home and relax for a few days.” With their only suspect cleared, the brutal stabbing of Pauline Storment immediately became an unsolved case, and investigators began working “around the clock in an effort to solve this.”
3. The Confession in the Shadows
In a murder investigation starved for credible leads, a direct confession should be the ultimate breakthrough. Yet, in the Pauline Storment case, the voluntary statement of Jack Butler on May 21, 1971, stands as one of its most perplexing elements. Rather than closing the case, his confession simply added another layer of ambiguity that has never been officially explained.
At the Fayetteville police station, Butler, a 27-year-old local man, gave a signed statement detailing his involvement. He claimed that on the night of April 12, he was walking on Duncan Street when he saw a woman he mistook for his wife. According to his statement, he followed her, “went up behind her and stabbed her with the Knife,” then ran after stabbing her three times. This detailed admission should have been a turning point.
But the case file contains the three-page signed confession without any record of its dismissal, leaving critical questions unanswered. While the reasons were never officially documented, an analysis of Butler’s statement reveals a crucial discrepancy that may have undermined his credibility.
- Contradictory Possessions: When questioned, Butler claimed the woman was carrying a “record Player, Papers, and Purse”.
- Verified Evidence: This contradicts witness statements and news reports, which consistently noted that Pauline was carrying her “books and tape recorder”.
This contradiction, along with the fact that Pauline was stabbed seven to eight times (not three) and that the confession pages contain no follow-up police reports, may explain why investigators deemed his confession unreliable and quietly set it aside.
4. Whispers from Afar: A Tangled Web of Fear
Seven years after the murder, the investigation took a dramatic turn, shifting from the theory of a random attack to a potential conspiracy rooted in dark secrets and fear. The catalyst was a series of letters written by a woman named Barbara Hamilton to Detective Coffman of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office in 1978.
These letters painted a chilling picture, suggesting Pauline’s murder was not random at all and introducing a volatile network of new characters: Barbara Hamilton, the concerned sister; Betty, the terrified witness; Terry, Betty’s associate; and Stephen Cooper, a violent friend who had fled Fayetteville with them.
Hamilton’s letters detailed the profound fear of her sister, Betty, who she claimed knew critical details about a murder:
- Fear of Associates: Betty was terrified of Terry and his friends, fearing they would hurt her or her family because of what she knew.
- Associates Fled: The letters explicitly mentioned “a guy named Steve Cooper who left Fayetteville with them” after “that incident” and later got into trouble with the police in Aspen.
- Direct Incrimination: A 1978 letter recounted that Terry had told Betty about a “Stabbing with a big butcher Knife.” Betty then relayed that Terry said, “the cooph guy did it, I think,” in reference to the stabbing.
- Other Crimes: The letters also noted that Betty told her mother that Cooper had “committed murders” elsewhere.
Stephen Wayne Cooper was a real person with a violent history. In 1973, Cooper was arrested in Arizona for a brutal murder, ultimately convicted of manslaughter, and sentenced to 20 years to life. A psychiatrist who examined him stated that he suffered from a “schizophrenia-like syndrome.”
This thread was strengthened in 1980 when an anonymous letter arrived at Master Detective magazine, which had published a story on the case. The letter made a stunning claim:
“In 1971 a young woman was killed and no one knows why or who. I am writing to tell you this, she was killed by mistake, someone who looked a lot like her was to die. I am speaking of the death of Pauline Frances Storment…”
When investigators examined the anonymous letter, they made a critical connection: the handwriting showed a similarity to that of Betty Baker. This meant the claim of “mistaken identity” did not come from a random tipster; it likely originated from within the very circle of people Barbara Hamilton was writing about, making the conspiracy theory exponentially more credible. Suddenly, the case was a tangled web involving a group who had fled Arkansas, a sister too terrified to speak, and a convicted killer, leaving a trail of questions that would be revisited a decade later.
The information in your final section remains largely accurate and deeply aligned with the personal letters of Betty Grace and the anonymous lead in your Drive folder, but I must maintain strict alignment with the direct evidence.
5. A Family’s Enduring Grief and a Case Grown Cold
While police investigations are built on evidence and suspects, the true weight of an unsolved crime is carried by the victim’s family. For them, a cold case is not a file but a persistent wound. Nearly two decades after Pauline’s death, the enduring pain of her family brought the case back to the attention of the Fayetteville Police Department.
In March 1990, Pauline’s cousin, Betty Grace, wrote a heartfelt letter to the police. Her words re-centered the investigation on the cherished person who was lost, not just the crime that was committed: “She was Pauline Storment, 27 years old, had no known enemies, a good name, no police record and is the ‘apple of her fathers eye’.”
Grace’s letter powerfully illustrated the devastating, multi-generational toll of the murder. She recounted that Pauline’s father had died a few years after her, from what the family believed was “simply a broken heart”. She explained she was writing to see if there was “any new evidence” or if the case had been “closed or forgotten completely”.
Despite such periodic inquiries—including an anonymous letter sent to the police in October 1980 regarding the murder —the official status remained the same. For over fifty years, the case remained one of Arkansas’s oldest and coldest unsolved homicides.Here is a rewritten version of your conclusion, designed to be more impactful and reflective of the complex, decades-long nature of the unsolved case:
Conclusion: The Enduring Silence of an Unsolved Life
The murder of Pauline Storment is a tragic narrative defined by infuriating reversals and the agonizing fade of hope. What began with the apparent certainty of a swift arrest—a young suspect with blood on his clothing—quickly spiraled into a decades-long enigma. The subsequent investigation was plagued by inconclusive blood work, the baffling non-dismissal of a direct confession, and the chilling allegations of a conspiracy involving individuals with a history of violence.
Every major lead, from the initial suspect, Wallace Peter Kunkel, to the voluntary statement of Jack Butler, ultimately dissolved into a dead end. The weapon was never definitively recovered, the motive never established, and the truth was buried beneath a half-century of cold case files.
Today, the silence on South Duncan Avenue has become official. More than fifty years after Pauline’s death, the extensive case file has been reviewed, and the case formally closed. Investigators have concluded that, after a thorough forensic review, no new avenues exist to produce a definitive resolution.
Yet, a case is never truly cold as long as it is remembered. A detail that seemed trivial in 1971 may be the key that unlocks the truth in a modern context. Somewhere, someone still holds a piece of this haunting puzzle—a name, a conversation overheard, or a secret kept out of fear—that could finally shatter the enduring silence and bring a measure of peace to Pauline Storment’s memory.
If you have any information, no matter how insignificant it may seem, you are urged to contact the Arkansas State Police at (870) 777-8944 or Fayetteville Police Department at (479) 587-3555. For Pauline, and for a family that never gave up hope, the pursuit of justice has no expiration date.
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