S1, E6: One Darold From Murder

This is the story of Darold Stenson, a convicted murderer. 2nd cousin to my friend Megan who wrote in. She doesn’t remember ever meeting Darold but she thinks she may have been only about 5 at the time of the crime. Darold’s father was Megan’s grandfather’s brother. Megan writes, “ I don’t remember really knowing much about Darold and the murders until I was a teenager. It wasn’t really something we talked about as a family…or if it was talked about, I was just a child, so maybe it wasn’t appropriate. I remember being shocked when I first heard about it because I remember Darold’s parents as the nicest people. How could their son do this to his wife and business partner?” I’ll tell you more of Megan’s story about Darold after I tell you what he actually did so I don’t give away the story before you get to hear the details. In the early hours of March 25, 1993, Darold called 911 from his home to report that his wife and business partner had been shot. A deputy sheriff soon arrived at the scene and was directed by Darold to the body of Frank Hoerner.  Frank appeared to have died from a gunshot wound to the head. Darold then took the deputy to a bed within his home in which his wife, Denise, was lying with what appeared to be a bullet wound to her head. She later died at the hospital. Darold told the deputy that Frank had arrived at Darold’s office earlier that day to sign paperwork relating to a business deal - his office was located next to his house. Darold says that Frank asked to go into the house to use the bathroom. After Frank hadn’t come back for quite a while, Darold said he went to the house to see where Frank was and he found Frank and Denise both shot. Darold said he thought Frank had gone inside, shot Denise and then shot himself. The investigation by the sheriff's office convinced them that Frank hadn’t committed suicide but, rather, had been beaten unconscious and dragged from Darold’s gravel driveway into the house.   It was there, the investigators believed, that Frank had been shot in the head at close range. Darold was arrested and charged with aggravated first degree murder.  At the trial on the charges, the State's theory of the case was that Darold had killed his wife to collect life insurance proceeds and then killed Frank to get out from under a debt he owed to Frank and to blame Frank for the murder of his wife. Darold and Frank had been embroiled in a dispute over the cost of ostriches, which Stenson handled on his 5-acre Farm. Frank’s widow testified that Darold persuaded the couple to invest their life savings of $48,000 in ostriches, but the big birds never materialized. Two key pieces of forensic evidence directly tied Darold to the shootings:  (1) gunshot residue found inside the front right pocket of jeans that he was wearing when the officers arrived at his house and (2) blood spatter on the front of those jeans that was consistent with Frank's blood protein profile. Darold claimed that when he discovered Frank's body he kneeled next to it, suggesting that this may have accounted for the blood spatter on his jeans. An expert witness called by the State testified at trial that some of the blood spatter on Stenson's jeans could not have been deposited after Frank came to his final resting place on the floor. The remainder of the evidence presented by the State at trial was largely circumstantial. A jury found Darold guilty of both counts of aggravated first degree murder. Based on the verdicts, the trial court sentenced Darold to death. He was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection in December 2008 at the state prison in Walla Walla. In 2008, Darold was days away from being executed on death row when new evidence prompted a judge to issue a stay of execution. In A photograph taken in 1994, Clallam County Sheriff’s Detective Sergeant Monty Martin wears jeans said to have been worn by Darold the day of the murders. Darold’s lawyers argued that Martin might have contaminated the evidence used in Darold’s conviction But the man shown in the photo, Staff Sgt. Monty Martin of the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office, testified Wednesday that he believes the pants were untainted despite his wearing them. “At that time and at this time I don’t feel that I contaminated those pants,” said Martin during the hearing in Clallam County Superior Court. Martin wore the jeans at the request of a contracted forensic examiner to see whether the blood could have gotten on them from Stenson kneeling by the victims. The pants were sent to the FBI within a week after Martin wore them. A gun-shot residue test done then showed four microscopic particles, of the type emitted when a gun is discharged, in the same pocket seen exposed in the photo. Stenson’s attorneys are argued that the picture sheds enough doubt on whether the gunshot residue came from Stenson to justify a new trial. Martin told the Peninsula Daily News that he thinks he didn’t contaminate the jeans because he wasn’t wearing clothes that he had worn when shooting his gun and didn’t have a firearm with him. He testified that the FBI test had yet to be ordered when he donned the jeans. The examiner had turned the pocket inside out to visually inspect it for gunshot residue. Martin said that it was standard practice for law enforcement to wear gloves for the purpose of protection rather than preventing contamination of evidence. “Today this would be done for contamination prevention; back then it was for personal protection,” he said. But Martin still said he was a “bit shocked” to see that he wasn’t wearing gloves in the picture when he viewed it recently. To get a new trial, Darold’s lawyers have to prove that the prosecution did not provide the defense with documents, like the photo, that would shed doubt on the FBI test results. The Washington Supreme Court overturned his conviction and ordered a new trial. The justices were asked to review the photographs, which showed that photo of Martin wearing the jeans. They also reviewed an FBI file indicating an agent who testified during the trial actually did not perform a gunshot residue test, something that had been implied during Stenson’s 1994 trial. Apparently, a special agent of the FBI claimed he wasn’t aware that the test occurred AFTER Martin wore the pants and it was learned the Hoover Building, where the fbi lab was, which contained two shooting ranges, was itself contaminated with GSR. The report that did come back after testing was only 4 grains of gun shot residue. Unless a massive amount of GSR is found the number of particles is of relative insignificance. So, had the defense known of these photographs back during Darold’s original trial, they would have argued about the mishandling of evidence. They also claimed Darold’s rights had been violated since evidence had been withheld. He was granted a new trial. Prosecutors announced in December that they wouldn't seek the death penalty. They said that while the victims' families still believed it was an appropriate sentence, they just wanted to see the case concluded. In an interview with Darold’s lawyer, he also raised the idea of Frank's wife's involvement, telling jurors they'll hear testimony about odd behavior exhibited by Frank's wife, also named Denise, before she knew her husband was dead, including showing up wearing only a robe to a house where Darold’s children were taken. The attorney said he agreed with the prosecutor's comments during her opening statement that Denise Hoerner has never recovered from the crimes, but he said that "we believe that her upset is more to the fact that she had something to do with the killing of her husband." But when reading about this, I read that Frank was heading to Darold’s to sign the business documents on his way to work. Every morning, Frank had to catch an early morning ferry as a carpet layer in the Seattle area. In order to do make the ferry and still have time to meet with Darold beforehand, he left his house at 3:30 in the morning. It took about 5 minutes to get to Darold’s. If Frank’s wife was the killer, she would have had to follow him to the Stenson house and worry about encountering Darold. Plus, apparently, she considered Denise stenton her best friend, so there’s not really a reason she would have to kill her. In the retrial, 20 years after the murder, jurors heard testimony from a doctor who did the autopsy on Frank Hoerner, who found evidence that he had been beaten and dragged, and that the wounds on his head were separate from the gunshot, the injuries were consistent with being hit by nunchucks and Darold is a martial arts expert. Darold’s retrial included more than 300 exhibits and allowed for testimony the jurors did not hear when they sentenced him to die in 1994. After several days of deliberation, the jury found Darold guilty of 2 counts of aggravated first-degree murder. He was sentenced to two life terms without the possibility of parole. Megan who submitted the story said, From chatting with my dad about it, it sounds like Darold was always a bit odd. My dad remembers a time when they went to North Dakota to visit his uncle Percy (Darold’s father). Apparently Darold got a hold of my grandfather’s car keys and buried them in the yard. The family had to search for the keys and dig them up, delaying the departure a bit. My dad also mentioned that Darold always seemed to be out for insurance money. Apparently, one of Darold’s big boats sunk and he was able to receive some insurance money out of it, claiming many large/expensive items that were on the boat. After the murders, Darold’s property was searched and those items were found in the house, fraudulently claimed on insurance.