True Crime Junkie

WITH JOHNNY FLETCHER

THE MURDER OF STEPHANIE CROWE

File this case under: Crazy Twists & Turns. Nearly 25 years after the murder of 12-year-old Stephanie Crowe in Escondido, California, we're still no closer to learning the truth - though four individuals (two of whom confessed but later recanted) were charged with the crime only to be released due to a lack of sufficient evidence. The fourth suspect, Richard Raymond Tuite, a 28-year-old transient, spent years in jail for Stephanie's murder before being granted a retrial courtesy of the Supreme Court of California. He was ultimately found not guilty in 2013.

So that's the abridged version of how the legal process played out. In short, justice still has not been served for Stephanie who lost her life on the evening of January 20, 1998 as she slept in her bedroom. Her body - which suffered eight stab wounds - was discovered the following morning by her parents and grandmother. Investigators noted that there were no obvious signs of a break-in - though Stephanie's window was found to be unlocked as well as a sliding glass door in her parents' bedroom. Still, the lack of evidence supporting an intruder theory meant that Stephanie's 14-year-old brother Michael became an immediate person of interest and was subsequently subjected to hours of intense interrogation - without an attorney or his parents present - during which he reportedly confessed. Police also brought in two of Michael's teenaged friends, Aaron Houser and Joshua Treadway, for questioning. Suspiciously, Houser possessed a huge collection of knives - one of which was missing but turned up at Treadway's home. Now viewed as a co-conspirator in Stephanie's murder, Treadway was interrogated for a total of over 20 hours before confessing. Houser was then arrested and questioned as well; however, he never admitted to any involvement in the crime. Regardless, all three boys were charged and jailed. And that's when things got really interesting.

Six months later, just before the start of Treadway's trial, belated DNA testing found three drops of Stephanie's blood on a shirt belonging to Tuite, the aforementioned fourth suspect. He'd been seen in the Crowes' neighborhood on the night of the murder; in fact, several calls were made to the police when the diagnosed schizophrenic began knocking on doors and looking in windows. Tuite quickly became the sole focus of the investigation, was charged with murder and went to trial in 2004. Ultimately, he was convicted of a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter and began serving a 13-year sentence... and then this crazy case took another wild turn as the appeals process resulted in a retrial based on errors made by the prosecution and a lack of evidence tying Tuite to the Crowe home. He walked free in 2013. To date, no one else has been charged for the murder of Stephanie Crowe.