The night of April 12, 1971, was unseasonably warm for Fayetteville, Arkansas, with temperatures around 75 degrees at the time of the attack, and a full moon visible. At approximately 9:30 p.m. or 9:45 p.m., Pauline F. Storment, a 27-year-old University of Arkansas sophomore from Ozark, was fatally stabbed. She was walking home from the university library to her apartment at 102 S. Duncan Street, balancing her studies with two part-time jobs at the ROTC office and the Malco Theaters. Several witnesses saw a man trailing her down the street.The attack occurred near the intersection of Duncan and Treadwell Streets, just as Pauline was turning into her yard. She was stabbed seven or eight times in the chest and upper body. Bystanders, including Jack Huff, rushed to her side after hearing her screams. Pauline was able to tell those who came to her aid that a man had stabbed her and that he was wearing glasses. She died in surgery at Washington General Hospital shortly before 11:00 p.m.
A Swift Arrest and a Shocking Release
Approximately 40 minutes after the attack, police arrested 17-year-old Wallace Peter Kunkel, a high school student, about five or six blocks from the scene. Kunkel was in a car at the time of his arrest, and investigators noted that his clothing, including his plaid sports jacket, shirt, and trousers, had splotches of blood on them. Based on this, Kunkel was formally charged with first-degree murder on April 16, 1971.The prosecution’s case was complicated when lab tests, conducted by the State Medical Examiner’s office, determined that the blood on Kunkel’s clothing was of the same type as Pauline Storment’s (Type A positive), but there was only a single drop of blood on the clothing, which was not enough to sub-group the blood type.The case took a dramatic turn when Kunkel’s attorney, Richard Hipp, challenged the arrest. After Kunkel agreed to submit to a battery of polygraph (lie detector) tests, Prosecutor Mahlon Gibson dropped the charges on April 23, 1971. Gibson cited “new developments and a sudden shift in the course of the investigation” and stated that the polygraph results had satisfied investigators that Kunkel was not implicated in the murder.
The Mysterious Weapon
After the murder, authorities continued to search for the weapon. Sheriff Bill Long later discovered a long, thin-bladed butcher knife stuck into the ground in the backyard of a vacant house about 100 feet from the stabbing site. Although an autopsy indicated the blade used in the attack was approximately six to eight inches long, matching the general description of the knife found, authorities later discounted it as the murder weapon.Ultimately, police stated that no motive was ever established for the slaying. The murder of Pauline Storment remains one of the oldest unsolved homicides on the books of the Arkansas State Police.
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