Audience Questions and Closing Thoughts

Yeah. Please welcome the co-hosts of Crime Weekly, former police detective and licensed private investigator, Derek Lavasser, and true crime content creator, Stephanie Harlow. So this case, Stephanie, you wanna give him the run down. We have a guest we're gonna be bringing out. If you were here last year, we did Megan Trussell as well. That case is Vanessa here by any chance? There's Vanessa. So we like this whole format of incorporating a story where you can actually meet with the people who are affected by it because For us, that's what Crime Weekly and Crime Con is all about, right? It's not just about sensationalizing tragedy, it's about bringing exposure to cases that maybe you're not familiar with, so we can use this robust community to make a difference. And I think this case reflects that. So I'm really excited, actually, because I covered this case on my own YouTube channel, and while I was going through it, I really wanted to get Derek's opinion on it. Because of the police work done. And and after he read through the synopsis and everything, he was like, Yeah, this is something that we we need to talk about. So this is the case of Stephanie Wassilichen. This happened in the early morning hours of July 9th, 1993, when 32 year old Stephanie was shot in the neck at point blank range inside her home on Coffee Pot Drive in Sedona, Arizona. Now at that time, Stephanie's two daughters were in the house. 10 year old Nikki, who you're going to meet today. She's not 10 anymore. And three year old Christina. The only other adult present was Stephanie's live in boyfriend, Russell Peterson. So Russell called nine one one at one forty a, but there is some evidence that he first called his father. He went on to have several interviews with the police departments, the Sodom Police Department, and of course gave different varying accounts of what happened that night. At first he said there was a struggle for the gun. He said he came home and he and Stephanie were sharing some wine and they were fine and there was no issue and then she went into the bedroom and then came out and pointed a gun at him. And he was like, What are you doing, Stephanie? And then she shot once above his head and then he followed her into the bedroom and they wrestled with the gun and then it went off. So he's kind of saying this was an accident because we're wrestling with the gun. And then the story changed and shifted. Now the physical evidence I think overwhelmingly pointed away from both accident and suicide because one of his later stories was, Oh, I think she might have done this to herself. Which given where the wound was and the trajectory of his own. Now the interesting part is once again the wound was a contact shot to the left side of Stephanie's neck, but gunshot residue was found only on her non-dominant left hand, and it was in a pattern consistent with a defensive posture. Police reenactment show that she could not have fired the weapon at the angle of the wound. They brought in a female police officer who was around the same height and size as Stephanie, and they just couldn't do it based on the type of gun it was, and using your non-dominant hand at that angle, it just wasn't possible. Now, three year old Christina, Nikki's little sister, she first told the officer on scene, Popi killed mommy, and she repeated it to detectives hours later. Despite the medical examiner's ruling and also obviously the little girl's firsthand account, because it seems she may have witnessed this. And the investigators own documented suspicion, by the way, because even you could tell the detectives at first were kinda like, uh something something's going on here. You could tell that they did not think it was Uh on the up and up. Russell Peterson was never arrested or charged. The case was never presented to a grand jury, and it remains officially open to this day with the Sedona Police Department. So and we we have a lot more to talk about it. We're gonna get into the specifics of it. Some of you may know Nicki, we're gonna bring her out right now. Actually, let's introduce us. So come on out, Nicki Wassalian, please to the stage. Perfect. Now, Nikki, uh before we get into it, you uh you are TikTok famous. I did. You're a little TikTok famous. Okay, I like that. And uh and do you is your podcast is your your show called Popi called Mommy? Is that a Killed Mommy? Is that what it is? It absolutely is. The first thing my little sister said to me in the back of the police car, she kept repeating it, Popi killed mommy. That stuck with me for 33 years, so I figured that should be the name of the podcast. It's fitting. I mean, think about it, and Christina was three years old at the time. Yes, sir. So you guys are so in tune, I think you guys are all part time detectives at this point. How many times has a three year old come out and say that if she didn't actually witness it? We all were there at one point, a lot of us have children. How many times is a as a child that young an age going to say something that they didn't personally witness? They don't have that frontal lobe yet to do that. There's no time to think about it. They're just gonna basically regurgitate whatever they saw. So for me, that in and of itself is so critical to this case, even though it seems like it's just the surface of what we're talking about right now. But yeah, I think it's extremely fitting for what you're doing, Nikki, because at the end of the day, that's the best witness you could have. She's not influenced, she doesn't have no biases. She's only gonna tell you what she saw. And yet, even with everything else we're gonna talk about today. When Stephanie brought this to me and I thought for sure, oh yeah, well he must have been arrested by this point, and and he hasn't been, and then to hear some of the responses from the people in charge of the case as a former investigator is extremely it's troubling for me. And I think that's why we sometimes have to go outside the box and do a podcast or do TikTok or come to Crime Con and talk about it. And maybe after today, we're gonna actually have this on Crime Weekly as well. Some people will get in trouble. There'll be some political pressure, which normally happens, and then we start getting phone calls. And that's that's the hope. That really is the hope. That's all I've really hoped for for 33 years. And after 28 years of inaction, I got involved. I had a midlife crisis. I wanted to know what happened. I started on TikTok and then it launched into a podcast. Now we're here. I will not stop speaking until there is some kind of accountability. So I really appreciate this opportunity. Tell us tell us a little bit about your mom. Oh man, my person more than just this particular incident. Thank you for asking to. My aunt is in attendance, one of my mom's oldest friends. Wendy, Cheryl, raise your hands. This is very emotional for my family. Thanks for coming. Thanks for doing this. Has fought for 33 years. She never gave up. I'm the third generation Wasselishan woman that has taken this up, and I just took it to social media. But if you want to know about my mom, she was like the cool mom, dude. She had me at 19. She was always gorgeous. If she didn't dress up and do her hair, like there was no reason to leave the house. Holidays were a big deal. She made our own Easter baskets. She never bought the pre made kind. She encouraged me to read at such a young age. Do you guys remember Goosebumps? Fear Street? Christopher Pike? Every time there was a new one released, I would come home from school and it would be on my bed. She was the she was the perfect mother and everybody wanted their mom to be mine. They wanted sleepovers at my house because she was cool. She also liked to pick out my wardrobe and make me look like Melissa Joan Hart from Clarissa Explains It All. She was that epic cool mom and it's just it's a tragedy that she was taken from her family and nobody seems to care. Until now. People here do. That's for sure. Thank you. So I really want to talk about the whole process of everything because we have Derek here now. He's been in law enforcement and he can give a good perspective and you you've struggled with the Sedona Police Department. Yes? That's an understatement, Stephanie. Yeah. Give me a little quick synopsis of the timeline of what your involvement with the Sedona Police Department has been and what they've kind of done, because I think they've kind of given you the runaround of it. Well, like never mind the twenty eight years that my aunt was knocking on their door. Let's just talk about the five years since I decided to get involved at the age of like thirty eight. I reached out. My first email to the Sedona Police Department was very hopeful. Thank you so much for looking. I was under the impression they were reinvestigating in twenty twenty. So hopeful. Um my response back was They were managing my expectations. We're really sorry this has happened. It's been a long time, and it sounds like you you didn't see anything, so we don't need to talk to you. That's what lit the fire when I realized that they didn't even want to talk to me. They weren't gonna interview me, they didn't want to talk to any of my mom's friends, my father, nobody that could put context behind that night and it was very troubling and I sat at my desk that day and I realized that I was gonna have to quit my job and my company as a pet sitter and become a social media true crime content creator and I didn't even know how to start. Well and listen, that to me right there is mistake number one reading this, because when we're thinking about the possibility that she possibly killed herself, wouldn't it be important to go speak to the people closest to her? What was her mindset at the time? Was she in a good place? What was going on in her life? Was there anything that we need to know about that may suggest she was struggling? Because listen, that does happen. And yeah, so you would want to go there and explore that theory. I have no problem exploring all theories. That's what we should be doing, regardless of how unlikely they may be. And so to not at least check that box to say, yeah, we spoke with everyone in her life who would have known her best. And yeah, there were no signs of any type of depression or anxiety or suggestions of self harm. Nothing of that. And the fact that they thought that wasn't necessary, but yet they're willing to entertain the possibility that she did kill herself is unprofessional, in my opinion. I mean, come on. Yeah, there is an ego with it, unfortunately. And I think that's there's a lot of people here that are in the profession that come out and speak against it. And I think it's important to police the police. You know, we have to do that. Amen. Based on the police reports, in my opinion, it doesn't seem that the police ever really were entertaining the suicide theory. Uh it just kinda got introduced by Russell randomly after After some thought. After s a lot of time and then he's like, and I talked to this person and I was wondering, I think maybe actually she did. He couldn't remember anything specific. Where did you struggle? Where did you grab her when you were struggling for the gun? What what hand was she holding it? He couldn't remember any of that because he didn't want to pigeonhole himself. into anything that the evidence could prove he was lying about, right? It seems the police always thought, like, yeah, it definitely feels like Russell has something to do with this. Or it might the gun might have accidentally gone off in a struggle, which I I don't personally believe. Now if you have you look at what what the relationship was like with Stephanie and Russell leading up to what happened to her, and you look at the place they were in as a couple and in their lives together, you can kind of tell this was a relationship that was fractured. It was probably on its way out because your father, Craig, right? Wow. I'm glad you asked about that. Yes. On this night when my mother is very unhappy with her current situation already, she first calls my Aunt Wendy and vents about how unhappy she is. She wants to leave this guy. Around seven thirty in the morning. Okay. So around eight, she's done with Wendy. At eight oh six, she decides to call her ex, Craig. Who knows why? Maybe just a BS, maybe to talk about me. I don't know, but in that hundred and six minute phone call, my mom and my dad reconciled, she told him, about Russell, how he was wedding the bed, he was a drunk, he was married to his work, he didn't care, it was neglect, it was on and on, and my dad's like Why don't you just come on back, Stace? I have an empty room. His girlfriend had moved out at the time. It was like the perfect storm of events for them to come together on that night, reconcile, and her to tell him, Well, you know what? Russell leaves for Ithaca, New York for this culinary training trip this weekend. While he's gone, I'm gonna pack up the kids, the dog, the cat, and I'll be there that weekend Oh can we guess about Ithaca for a second? Cause I did some deep dive into girls. I know you went nuts. It bothered me so much because Russell was making this uh ta a taste of La Cordon Blue at at Cornell University in Ithaca, and I have been one of the few chefs chosen to go to this this is very prestigious program and I can't obviously miss it and she was so mad. Stephanie was so mad that I was going to this thing. Well come to find out because I live in New York and I was going to Cornell Every week because my dog Rosie was sick and they have a vet there that an animal hospital and they do some treatments. And I'm like, let me talk to people while we're here and find out what's the what this is about because this sounds there's no look horne blue program. It's a completely different thing. It's from France. They're not just gonna let Cornell use their their whole branding. And as it turns out, there were chef programs, but they were programs that you would apply for, like filled an application, which he said later when he's talking to the police. That's what made me think he said, Oh, I found it in Food and Wine magazine, this application. And he filled it out. And then they're like, Well, how much was it? And he's like, Well, I paid this much. Well turns out you just applied for it. They had space in this program at this session at this time, you sent a check. which was way more than you as a family unit had to spend at that time. And then you were gonna go away for two weeks where you're not going to be bringing in money. And Stephanie and Russell were, you know, barely making a buy at this point. They were able to pay rent and pay the bills, but not to pay for this fake a taste of La Cordon Blue program. And then also have Russell be away from work for two weeks, not bringing in anything, and leave Stephanie, who's gotta work, 'cause she's the pastry chef at the restaurant he works at, she's gotta work, leave her with two children, and no childcare or really, you know, help from him at least. So that was the crux of the issue. Not that she was as he tried to make it seem jealous of him because his career was skyrocketing and she wanted to go to the fake La Taste of Cordon Blue, the class uh in Ithaca, New York. No, he was like, I'm gonna go to this class, I'm gonna take off and leave you. And it wasn't this prestigious thing that he had, you know, been handpicked for. He applied for it, and they were like, Yeah, you've been a chef for 10. That was the only thing I talked to the people at Ithaca. The only thing you needed to do was prove you'd been a chef, a working chef for 10 plus years, which he was able to do. So that's it. And he it's it's actually kind of ironic because I I assume he did not go to La Taste of Cordon Blue. No, no, no. So the one thing he was fighting so hard for, and yes, he was an alcoholic. He drank all the time. But when the police come calling, he tries to make it seem like no Stephanie's the one who's drinking all the time and oh actually I found this bottle of alcohol in the bathroom. She was hiding it from me. No, why would a grown woman who is living in her own house with her partner, who also is grown and also drinks quite a bit, why would she be hiding alcohol? So none of it made sense. And it looks like when he got home, I think Stephanie probably was like, Have fun in Ithaca. Me and the girls are gonna go to Craig because that's a man that's gonna take care of me. She sure did. Yeah. My mom's talk talked her mind. He came home and she was like, I'm out. And what really triggered him was that I'm leaving and I'm leaving with your kid. And that's what really that's what made him grab the gun. Apparently Russell was a bedwetter too, right? Oh yeah, he he liked to pee in the window. Oh the a bedwetter. Shout to my buddy Russ. A sofa wetter. I if you look at the crime scene photos, you see the the blankets that my mom had to put over the couch because he was notorious for peeing on the couch. Don't worry, Russ, nobody's gonna see this. And he was sleeping on the couch. So they haven't uh Stephanie and Russell haven't There's no kids here, right? They haven't had sex in eight months at this point, right? Because he's always so drunk that it's not working. He's sleeping on the couch. They're not in a good place in their relationship. You would think that this would be something the detectives would look at and say, hey, it's far more likely that he killed her because she was trying to leave than she killed herself because he was gonna go to Cornell for two weeks. Yeah, look at it from two angles. Because he can't live without Russell for two weeks. So you're you'd rather end your life than be without Russell for two weeks. In fact, I think it would be a break. Hearing this man in interviews, it would be a break for for two weeks. Well this is the start, right? So you're looking for means, motive, and opportunity. So right now we're looking at potential motives. You've already laid out, Nikki, the motive here, right? She was going to leave him. With With his child, that could be enough for someone to harm or kill someone. Now, on the other hand, just to continue down both paths, explore them equally, what wasn't going on right at that point. She was in a good place. She had a good conversation with Craig, probably optimistic about the future. She's going to reconcile with him, they're going to get away and be in a better situation. Does that align with a motive for possibly wanting to kill yourself only a few hours later? Three hours and forty seven minutes later, she's DOA after getting up. Why are you setting up plans if that's your intent? There's something leading up to that. So just to be fair, exploring both possibilities just from the motive perspective, what seems more likely at this point. Not even talking about forensics yet, right? Which is to me the most concrete evidence you can have in a case. But just as far as motive, what to you sounds more likely, right? I I think it's pretty obvious. I mean i in in my opinion, I I don't even think even the police ever considered actually the suicide theory as like legitimate. I really don't. I I think that it was a convenient way for them to be like, hey, we don't actually know what happened here. Like we can't uh nail it down and say whether it was it it almost seemed like they were like, okay, it was it an accident or did she kill herself? Or did this guy kill her? And you could see in the interactions that you sent me between like the DA and the police, where the p the police were kind of like, it seems like he definitely is not being honest. And it seems like there's definitely something going on here. And then what do you believe the reason was for the district attorney to decide not to call a grand jury? Insufficient evidence. But the evidence, if you look at it, right? Because the way it happened is Stephanie and Russell are in the living room when he says she points the gun at him. And then he follows her in, which again, somebody just shot a gun at you. I don't care if you're the biggest, bravest man that's ever walked this earth. I don't care if you're Thor, you're not gonna be like, let me follow this woman who has a gun in her hand and who just shot at me into a bedroom. Let me do that. That sounds like a really maybe I can talk her down. She just shot at you. There's no time this is the time when you leave, you go to the neighbor's house, you call the police, and then wait for them to come so you can get your kids out and go Did we talk about the size of the gun yet? Oh, you know, 44 magnum. Yeah, Derek don't know about that. I mean fr but I don't want to skate over the fact that you're saying they never convened a grand jury because of, quote, insufficient evidence, correct? Correct. So that right there again, another problem because yeah that can be the case, but you can also convene a grand jury for investigative purposes, an investigative grand jury, where if you think you're getting close and you'd like to get more, you can use those powers to subpoena people to come into court under that grand jury and testify. and by putting them under oath and putting them in a uncomfortable position, now they may give up something that's tangible and something you can use moving forward or may contradict one of their initial alibi. So even if that's true, which personally not to bury the lead here I don't think that's the case. I think circumstantially you have enough here to paint a picture for a jury. For a grand jury, yeah. Or even for a jury, in my opinion. To make it clear, I think you should have been charged. Uh but if I'm just trying to find something here to give the benefit of the doubt, you could have convened a r an investigative grand jury, brought them in, gathered all the evidence, and then decided from there whether or not to indict. But yeah, the the forensics do you want to do the timeline first? Like I know Yeah, I want to ask you one thing first, because we're talking a lack of evidence. As a police officer, you're talking about a lack of evidence. What do you think about them never doing a G S R test on but they did a G S R on her, on on your mother and And we can get into that. I I the GSR was on her non dominant hand. It was on her left hand and it appeared to be in a defensive posture from where the GSR was. Everyone here pretty much knows gunshot residue at this point. When the gun goes off in a certain distance from your hand, you'll have gunpowder on your hand under this this particular test. And so Again, when we think about suicide, I hate when investigators say, well, normally the person will do it this way or that way. Everyone's different. But I can tell you more times than not in the suicides that I've done, if it's a firearm, they normally use their dominant hand because if they've had possession of that firearm before, that's what they're comfortable with. That's not even talking about the forensics that Most of the time it's in the mouth or it's to the p temple. She shot herself on the left side of her neck. If you're trying to kill yourself, and I'm not making I'm not trying to make light of this, that's not the best way to do it, right? You're you're gonna there's a potential you could survive. So and correct me, Nicki if I'm wrong on this, you know this case better than I ever will. It was on the left side of her of her neck, it was up. From the left to the right. It severed C three, C four, instantaneously dropped and was gone. And law enforcement did find a female officer. where they brought her in, they took measurements from her hand, and they tried to recreate this to see is it possible that Stephanie did in fact do this? And from what I understand, that was not possible. The only way they were able to replic that trajectory was by having someone else kind of participate in it to create the a struggle. She's holding it in her hand, but someone else pulls the trigger while she's holding it in her hand while there's this struggle. Yep forty four Magnum. That's a big, heavy round Causes a lot of damage, and it was put up right to her skin on her neck. And this is Russell's gun, right? And everybody who knew Stephanie was like, no, this was not somebody who liked guns. She would never handle guns. She wasn't a fan. And Russell in his police interview, he's like, I don't like guns. I don't shoot guns. And they're like, Well, where did this gun come from? He's like, it was a present from my father. Well, why did your father give you a a huge ass gun when you don't even like guns? Like what kind of pr th this your father who should know you pretty well, right? It's just like h here's a big gun that you're never gonna use. And the rounds in it were Really not something you would use for I guess not really something you'd use for home safety. More like something you would use It's a very powerful round. Yeah. Yeah. So it was just uh it didn't really make any sense. She won in the bedroom after shooting at him. He followed her. They struggled But then the police come. Her necklace is found broken, right? Like the chain's broken, right by the f the door of the bedroom, like going from the the hallway into the bedroom. Her nightshirt is ripped on the front. These look like we we struggled, or more like she was pursued. I think she was pursued into that bedroom. I think he grabbed her and that's when the necklace broke. And I I think that basically he grabbed the gun, moved it into position, and shot her. He can't even tell you what happened. That's the weird part. Like, how do you not know exactly what happened? The whole series of events that night kept changing. In his first interview, he frames it as an accident during a struggle. Stephanie fired him in the living room. Walked into the bedroom, she cocked the gun, she said, Russell, I'm going to kill you. And then the gun went off as they struggled. He said he grabbed her wrists. Now in interview two, he's like, Maybe there was a struggle, maybe there wasn't. And then by the end of that interview, Russell kind of floats the idea. Stephanie could have done this to herself. And in another interview, he says I was standing at the door when the gun went off. But in the first interview, he says he's struggling with her when the gun went off. I understand that things like this can be traumatic and your memory might be you know, not as as sharp as you would like it to be, but you would definitely remember whether you're standing in the door or you had your hands on her struggling with her. Which one was it? How did it change? And how did the police see this completely changing story as not a I think an admission of I'm not being honest with you at the very least. I I think you have to use critical thinking, reasonable deduction. You clearly have a motive here. You have evidence that's not consistent with a self-inflicted wound. You also have evidence that it's not consistent with someone who was the primary aggressor turned, you know, victim here, where they were basically overpowered by the person they were intending to shoot. According to the medical examiner, the the gunshot residue pattern was consistent with a defensive posture. Uh and it's very it's very clear when I've had shootings, what you normally see, it's usually these two fingers here, because that's the one on the trigger, the Under a microscope or under a a specialized camera, you can see the gunpowder, how it sprays onto the back side of your hand where you're holding the gun. From what I understand, that is not the pattern, even though she was using her non dominant hand. So that is another suggestion that she wasn't the one actually holding the gun when it was fired. In fact, she was defending herself from the gun. Yeah. It it seemed like they said she had it kind of lifted up her hand and also the blood looked like it was so I mean the at po points he said she was sitting on the bed when this happened or she fell on the bed and she fell on the floor. She also landed in different places. He kept changing his story. But the blood is sort of dripping down You kind of what I'm trying to say is I think she had her hand up when it happened and then it fell down to her her bottom half of her body and that's how the blood got from up here to down there. But w do you think that's your mother shot at Russell initially first in the living room? 'Cause I kinda go back and forth about that. Absolutely not. She had made plans three hours and forty seven minutes prior to My mother never shot guns. She didn't like guns. I have a story to tell quick. There was one time when my mom's friend Lori Swift wanted to return guns to my dad, and my mom said, I am not putting guns in the car with my child. She wouldn't even transport guns, let alone touch them. So what I th what I think happens is they did they did w they were sitting on the couch, they were having wine. They were talking and she's probably like, Listen, Russell, it's been a good run. But you suck. You're gonna be gone for two weeks. Have fun. When I when you get back I won't be here. And then at that point she may have gone to maybe start, you know, go to the bedroom to start packing her things or maybe just saying, I'm going to bed. Good night, you know, you're leaving tomorrow morning because he was leaving the very next morning. For this. fake La Cordon Blue program. And he followed her in. He got the gun, which was in, you know, the closet of the bedroom. Um up on the shelf. He got the gun. I think he shot her at that point and then he went out into the living room afterwards and he was like, Oh shoot, what am I gonna do here? You know, I have to make it seem like this was self defense. Cause when he's talking to the police, he knows things, right? He's asking them things. It's so It's it's so uh clear, but he's like, wouldn't this be considered so you know, he's like leading them as if he already knows, but he wants them to think he doesn't know. procedure and stuff like that, and he's like, Well I think that this would probably be considered this, right? So it seems like he knows things already. Like he kinda did his homework or uh somehow already had the knowledge of, hey, this is gonna look bad, no one's gonna believe me. I have to make it look like I was defending myself and she shot at me first. W why do you think he had all this plan, Stephanie? Maybe because at one thirty six in the morning before he called nine one one Four minutes before he calls nine one one, he calls his father in Peoria, Arizona. That phone call was never investigated until two thousand twenty five. Missed opportunity after missed opportunity by the Sedona Police Department and the Yavapai County Attorney's Office. And that initial call when he does call nine one one at one forty, so four minutes later. He doesn't report that Stephanie killed herself. No. It was a struggle then, right? Oh, it was an accident. I might have or she might have. He literally says I might have shot her. I might or might not have. I might or might not have. But make up your mind, bud. Like what which what is it? And at that point, and this is horrific to think about, but your sister Christina was in the room with your mom. Witnessing everything. You can hear her. So you can hear her on the nine one one call. Yeah. That's really what's hard. When she first when Russell first calls the police, you can hear Christina say what what happened to mommy. No, she said you shot mommy. You shot yeah, well, but she's asking and you can hear her voice. You shot mommy. And Russell responds no. Go back to your room. He kept telling her go away, go back to your room. He's even defensive. He's very defensive with three year old Christine. He's like, No, no, I didn't, you know? He's like, God damn it. I I think that she was in the hallway. when it happened. And I'm not sure exactly What she was doing up at that time. Well they're fighting. They're fighting, probably. So she's she's coming out, she's probably looking around, and you were in a different area of the house. Yes it was harder to hear. Totally, because it was a two bedroom house, but then we had we needed three rooms. So they converted the garage, which was basement level, and then it had a garage door and then a laundry room door. So I had two doors shut. Why were there two doors shut? I was scared of the dark. The police had to open two doors to access me. I heard nothing. And then at four forty one or approximately around four forty one, police do interview Christina, 'cause obviously you didn't witness it, but but they interview Christina and her exact words were, um, my dad killed her. Up to And a dozen times she states that in one way or another. Popy, daddy, killed mommy. And this is a three year old who's being interviewed by two grown ass male detectives. And this should never have happened there's there's specific people that are trained to interview children who have gone through a traumatic event. You don't want to and they kept asking her and pushing her, No, what did you see? You didn't see that. What did you see? What did you see? They kept pushing her. She's three years old. Lay down like Mommy. Show me how Mommy was. Can you show me how Mommy was? They said that to a three year old little girl. And as we're building this right here, we're trying to paint a picture for you guys where we're sitting here in twenty twenty six and there hasn't been a grand jury convened. hasn't been someone who's come forward and we're gonna talk about some of the quotes that some of the people in charge of the case now, which really pissed me off, but what their outlook is on this case at this point. And uh we'll get there, but it just seems like we're already developing a motive. We see the means, we see the opportunity. And then you have an impartial witness, the daughter of the person, right? This isn't Stephanie's daughter. This is his daughter. And Stephanie's daughter as well. Stephanie's daughter as well, but she's the father, and yet he's the one and she's the one saying that my dad killed her. She's three. She's not thinking somebody's gonna get in trouble necessarily. She's just telling the truth. What she sees, what she knows. So did you wanna get into the quote because they did reopen this and kind of go back to reinvestigate, correct? They they did after the pressure of podcast and and the last crime con, they they really did They said they reinvestigated. They got the weapon out of evidence. They tried to like re investigate. They looked up that phone call, the one thirty six phone call. He called his apparently, of course it doesn't belong. Kenneth Peterson anymore. There's no if you have a nineteen ninety-three phone book from Phoenix, let me know so I can track down that number. And they're giving me all sorts of excuses why they're not gonna continue to go on with it. So one more time, it's sitting inactive, not enough evidence, and the only way to move forward, because I just met with the county attorney in February is if Russell Bennett Peterson confesses to a crime that he's lied about for thirty three years. And gotten away with. Or we get somebody that knows something. Somebody he has told somebody something and we get them on a hot mic and we get him a little tipsy tipsy 'cause he likes to drinky drinky and we get a confrontation call or something. Like that's my ultimate last two resorts, because otherwise this man will never confess on his deathbed, I don't think. I gotta find somebody that knows something. And that's Russell's your help. I think Russell's convinced himself that he that he did not do anything. You have to hear him in these police interviews. he's very unsympathetic. I think he has convinced himself that this is something he has been the victim in. Yeah. And it's unfortunate now 'cause we sit here. I personally still think circumstantially you wouldn't need a confession. But you think about the things that weren't done and we've already hit on this, but They were very quick to do GSR. They bagged Stephanie's hands. They were quick to do GSR testing on her. Never did GSR testing on Russell. Never took his BAC either. We never know how drunk that man was, but we know all about how much my mom was drinking. It's just so one sided and it's victim blaming and it's nineteen ninety three small town policing. They did a BAC on her. Yep, that's right. They did a BAC on her. They kept the search of the house pretty limited to the area where the crime occurred. Didn't really search anywhere else. Apparently there was a recorder. We're Russell was Russell was recording conversations and that again to me would be suggestive of potential murder, depending on what was on those recordings. If he found something on there where that suggested she was going to leave, again, motive. He knows he's leaving the following day. Uh and f and finally, just The fact that they never looked at the opportunity to say, hey, yes, there may have been a struggle, but the reality is the struggle may have been because Stephanie was defending her own life. That could have been the start of the struggle. Not she shooting at him and then, okay, now he has to defend himself and there's a struggle. And I don't know why that wouldn't be your first take, considering the fact that she was on the phone with another man only a few hours earlier, tell him I'm leaving. So I I'd love to sit down and talk with them and if they see this, I would I would love to have them come on and and and give us their side of the story if there's something we're missing. There have been a few people who've come out and spoken publicly about where this case stands and we'll mention them by name, but if they're happening to see this or hear this, the f We're open to it. If there's something that we're missing. I called I called them. I called the Avapi County Sh uh County Attorney's Office, I called it. And they weren't receptive. I call the Sedona Police Department. They were not receptive Um it's the very basic lack of things. I I remember continually Nicki was great while I was researching this. and I had her on Messenger and I had it up on my computer as I was researching and every hour and a half or so I'd be like, Alright, Russell says that he left Stephanie with plenty of money in the bank to pay the bills and be okay, and that he used his money for this. Um is that true? And she goes, I don't know. They never pull the financial records. So he would say things during these interviews that you would want to sort of verify with in investigation and then when I go to find out was what what was the result of this verification They never did that part. He would say things and make claims, like they never even checked to see if he was actually going to look horde on blue or if this was a real you know they never checked any of that. So there was very basic stuff that just wasn't being done. On top of that The day afterward Russell goes to the house and has the lock changed. And then he goes to the police, he is an interview with them shortly after, and they're like, Oh, hey, we heard You know, you were at the house because they're suspicious of him. We heard you were at the house and you had the you know, what were you doing? He's like, Oh, I had the lock change, and they're like, Why? We gave the key to your mother. And he's like, Oh yeah, well she she's not here, she flew back home. Well, I'm sure before she flew back home, she gave you the key to the house that the police gave her to give to you. And he never sufficiently explained it. And here's the thing, there'd be so many times where I'd be like, Okay, the detectives got him. They're asking him the right track of question. And then he would give some weird non-response response and they'd be like, alright, let's move on. And they would never keep on him to get an actual response to it. And it was weird, and there was times where I felt like they were leading him. Um, I think he just wanted to to put it to a close at this point, and he was making it difficult because he couldn't remember anything and he couldn't give a straight story, so they'd say, Well, okay, so so did did you grab her hand? Did you grab her wrist? Like they were leading him, giving him what he needed, and then he'd be like Yeah yeah. I grabbed a wrist. That's exactly what happened. And I was li th and and Derek has talked about this before. That is just absolutely not how you run a police interview. You let them talk. You don't offer them. Or examples or options of what could have happened that they can they can grab onto. Did you tell Derek how old the Sedona police department was the night they responded? you know, fourteen to sixteen hours of of recording when we're done that you guys get to see. That's not even the unedited version. I mean most of it's in there, but with this, because we were on a a tighter cr time crunch here, I I did some research on it and I believe Sedona had only been established for five years at that point. Correct. How many homicides do you think they responded to in five years in that small town? Yeah, and I I was reading something here. There were some preliminary believes internal notes that were were revealed where they said, quote, there's a nagging suspicion that the suspect may have committed some degree of homicide. So that were the initial thoughts. And it goes on something about wishful thinking or trauma, right? I'm not making this like right here. Like, I'll show it to you. Like you might, like, satire, but no, that's literally what it says. So So it was an internal m memo that once again I don't think came out for Decades after. I I wouldn't a had that memo if my Aunt Wendy didn't have a nineteen ninety three original case file or nineteen nine original case file. They tried to keep all this stuff from me because I broadcast it to the world. Yeah we got lucky with Wendy, she's been the document keeper for thirty years. That's also how we found out that he called his father at one thirty six because of the unredacted phone bill. Which the Sedona Police Department will never go and get themselves. They will let the sustain him bringing in the phone bill like ninety something days after the homicide, having evidence on there that he is calling other people before nine one one. This was not a hard case. That could suggest I mean To be fair at that one point, you guys know how I feel at this point. I have had cases where something happens and They are not doing anything wrong. And they're concerned because of the optics and they do they do reference or or refer to someone they can trust to see how to approach the next step. In a vacuum. I don't necessarily have a problem with that one fact. It's the totality of circumstances that we're talking about in this entire case where that pre call to the father raises concerns for me. So I don't want to say oh, he called someone beforehand, he's guilty. That'll be that. What's that? The same father that gifted him this gun randomly, even though Russell hates guns. Right. But if it was a completely innocent thing and you found out that someone had contacted someone for some advice beforehand because they were nervous, you know, there are people out there, let's be honest, who get charged with crimes that they didn't they get found guilty of crimes they didn't commit. It's our job to make sure that the innocent are found innocent and the guilty are found guilty. So I'm okay with that, but not when you consider everything else that we have. That's the problem. And that was the internal memo. It was the Yavapi County Attorney. Yavapie. Jim Landis. Yavapi Yeah. I can't say that. Okay, sorry. Yava Pie. That's not how it's spelled. And you guys would be in our comments right now correcting us. And Derek's like, I'll I'll say it'll be like Yavapi, and Derek would be like, I don't think that's how they I don't think it's precious. Maybe I'm not sure. She'll be like, it's not, and he'll be like, no Yeah, the pie. You got it. Yeah, Jim Landis, he's the one that's like, listen. I think there's some degree of homicide that happened here. And then they're looking at the because the the interviews with Russell, they're all transcribed. And the uh the district account the county attorney's office was like, you know, we should have his statements analyzed by like a psychiatrist or someone who knows how to detect whether someone's lying or what level of deception they're using. And they were like, okay, and they they sent it to the police department to you know start getting it set up. It was never set up. That was in nineteen ninety nine when the Yavapai County attorney requested all of this investigation. The Sedona Police Department never did anything. The county's attorney's office didn't make them do anything. They didn't follow up with it, really. Very true. Thank you. One more thing, 'cause I I do want to put out there, and this is not to cause issues. I'm just being transparent with you guys. And Sergeant Michael Dominguez, his last quote was basically short of a confession, I'm not gonna bring charges. I respect your opinion. I respectfully disagree as well. So maybe you need to be off the case. And we need a fresh set of eyes, a new perspective to come in, look at the case from square one, use whatever signs and technology that we have available today. And at minimum what I would recommend is bringing it to a grand jury, allowing them to decide whether or not there's enough there to to charge him with a homicide or indict him at least and let him get his day in court. We have had cases where people have been convicted of a homicide without a body, and yet we're sitting here talking about all of these circumstances surrounding this case. And I think within this forty five minute period, with very little time, we've already kind of laid out a visual perspective of means, motive, opportunity. And I do think that a grand jury would agree with me and agree with most of you. So yet the fact that we're sitting there and that hasn't been done I'm hoping that either A, they reach out and explain something to us that we're missing, or maybe take a second look at it and go to the grand jury. If the grand jury decides not enough to indict, obviously, Nicki, you're not gonna be happy with it. Obviously your family would not be happy with it, but is it fair for me to say and don't and if it's not, feel free to push back. But at least then you would know that a jury actually looked at it and gave you a fair shot and then all I want, Derek. That's it. And I think most families can live with that. They may not like the outcome. But at least they can live with the shot to go there and let someone else outside of the police department who's clearly already made up their mind objectively review the evidence and say, Yeah, you know what? Totality of circumstances, I believe we have enough here to go forward with a trial. That's really what you're asking for. I mean, I don't think that's a lot. I just wanted people to listen for years. That's all I want. Listen and you be the judge. You be the grand jury, then. If I can't get a real one, I've released it to the world. You listen and you decide was it was there enough evidence to convict him in ninety three? Right, you're my grandjury is to charge him. Yeah. Nicki, would you Would you be able to put together something and we can share it on our social media respectfully, professionally, but send some type of letter, a template out. where we can request to whatever people you think it would be important to request to, not just a Sedona P PD. where we are as a community requesting that a second set of eyes, maybe an outside agency, maybe state or federal, take a second look at the case, do an independent audit, and let's see what they find. I think if everybody in this room and everybody who's watching online or listening right now respectfully does that and they start to get a couple thousand letters on their desk, especially if it goes to people who are in higher positions and don't want to hear about it, sh rolls downhill, and then maybe the you know something will happen. That would be my recommendation, but what do you want to do? I want to do it all, Derek. Do it all. Sign me up. Whatever I gotta do. In the meantime, you'll get us something where we have the right points of contact, so we're not sending things to the wrong people. Well then, man. Take five minutes, send an email. And you may help solve this case. I mean, I think that's really what we're asking for. Or at minimum a second look at it to see if everybody else agrees when they have all the evidence in front of 'em. One final question from me. Is this considered a closed case at this point for them? Inactive. Not closed, inactive. Not closed. So therefore you don't get the records. Oh I have records. All of them. All of them. I I you probably don't have all of it. Well, I don't have like um you know the audio records for mine and my little sisters 'cause we were minors, but I have the transcripts. I have the audio files from him, the nine one one calls. So they put it out there, everyone would have access to it. They could bring in an outside agency, a federal agency, a state agency to take a look at it and and see what they find. I think that's why we're covering this case today, 'cause these are and unfortunately, this isn't an isolated incident. There's so many cases, Megan Trussell being one of them. Where without YouTube channels and podcasters. More than likely you wouldn't hear about Stephanie's case. And that's unfortunate. It's unfortunate that we have to go to this extreme to have something very basic be done. And you know, that's the power of true crime. And I think sometimes there can be a negative stigma attached to it, but you, the community, have the have the ability to control that narrative. What we do with these cases and how we impact them will ultimately decide how far this thing goes. And it ultimately it's not up to Stephanie and I or Nicki. It's up to everybody who's listening and watching. Are you just watching for entertainment or are you actually gonna do something about it? Strength in numbers. I need help. Yeah. Absolutely. You want to you did you you said you want to do questions or what would you want to do? Open it up? Yeah, we should uh do a QA so We got about thirteen minutes. If there's somebody who has a question, we do have a microphone here. We have a microphone here. We're not gonna get to to do all of them, but we will take a couple of questions. You may have some for Nicki. We'd love to hear from you and if you have any thoughts. I do have a question while we're waiting for somebody to come up. And Nicki feel free to tell me to just shut up. Uh with this one because it is a little personal. But um Christina right now, from what I understand, she ended up growing up with Russell. Yeah, this the really sad story. Dad got you know, her dad got custody. Um the night it happened, it was Pope killed mommy. He kept us away from her for a year. Yes. A year later Wendy took us to Disneyland and in the magical kingdom My little sister announced to me that mommy killed herself. So in the last year he had brainwashed her. He had brainwashed her so bad and abused her so bad emotionally that she ran away about the age of ten, and that's when she found me again. I hadn't spoken to her in years. We reconnected briefly. She became sixteen, got pregnant, told her not to do it. She cut me out of her life for another ten years. She managed to come back in my life around the time grandma was dying. And then she's disappeared around twenty twenty. That's when they started investigating. They wanted her help for a confrontation call. She agreed. And then I took this public, and I think it scared her. And she's scared of her dad. And she has literally not called me in almost six years. I do a PSA all the time for my sister to reach back out. I'm desperate to talk to her. I need her help. My family's looking for her. We don't know where she is. Even if she doesn't want to speak to you, she can speak to Sedona PD or too. I would love to talk to my sister and rekindle, but yeah I would Any kind of help. Alright, so we got a question? Go for it. I was gonna say that was m going to be my question. So instead I'll just say thank you. It come on now. All right, we'll go over this side. First like to say I'm a little confused 'cause They seem to have a lot of evidence of what it's not, which only leaves Prime on the table. But Derek, I'm curious what is the reinforcer that this police department is potentially feeling by not pursuing this 'cause behavior is usually based on punishment or reinforcement. So like What are they getting what are they getting out of Okay, I love thank you for putting that so eloquently. You know, listen, I'm just gonna this is gonna be a really basic answer, but I think a lot of you are gonna relate to it 'cause it's not isolated to law enforcement in most professions is hubris, right? There's ego. And so when you come up with a decision about a certain thing or you feel like you know what happened When you have outsiders who don't know what they're talking about trying to tell you differently, you almost want to double down and dig in a little bit deeper because now you want to prove to them that you're right. When the reality is it's not about being right, it's about getting it correct. It's about making sure that you find out what actually happened. But you bring up a fascinating point, which is yes. We as detectives, and a lot of investigators don't do this, it's just as important to find the inculpatory evidence as it is to find the exculpatory evidence. You want to be able to go to a trial when a defense attorney gets up there and tries to paint a picture for something different and have the evidence to support that that does not fit. And as you just said, the suicide evidence or even the, you know, Russell was being attacked and had to defend himself, the evidence does not fit. And you can present that at court to a jury of his peers and let them decide out of the three kind of running narratives. Which case which scenario has the most inculpatory evidence? Let them decide. That's not for me to judge. Great question. Spencer. Real quick, anybody who's been following us, Spencer's here. Her mother, Joanne Zamora, she was she was one of the cases that we covered on Criminal on Crime Weekly, Criminal Coffee. You guys were supporting us through Criminal Coffee. We were able to find a Jane Doe. We identified her and reunited her with her family. And uh Spencer was one of the cases that we covered. Thank you so much. Um that's not why I'm up here, but truly thank you. Um I thought my mom had left me and last July I found out that she didn't leave me. That's right. She was just murdered and wasn't found for five months. And by the way, we're not done with that yet. Because there is stuff there. We won't say too much now, but now okay, we identified her. That's great that you have her back. But now we have to find the scumbag responsible because I believe he's still alive, but that's a different story for a different day. Who knows? Maybe next crime con Yes. That'd be great. But uh Jeremy made me come up here to ask this question. Um so uh Were there any shell casings found in the uh the room where supposedly your mother fired the gun? Correct. None? No, they were. They were yeah, they they retrieved some from the f by the front door wall where he she supposedly fired at him. Supposedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly. Good work. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. And real quick too, giving shout outs everywhere. Jeremy, where are you? Jeremy, stand up. Jeremy is a genealogist. He works for Break My Company. He's the genealogist along with Ryan, who's not here, who identified Joanne. So he and and so Jeremy is the man. He's the man. My question is about what would it look like if we got like um like a more experienced detective department, like maybe in Phoenix, to come over see what happened in Sedona, maybe like do a re investigation. Or even the FBI, what would that look like? Could that be like would they be be able to have more um capabilities to do more different things, more technology? And could possibly people be like fired in that situation if there was misconduct? This is a great question, and I'm really glad you asked this because before I really got on TikTok, we took the legal avenue. I wrote to the Arizona Attorney General. I wrote to the Yavapai County Attorney's Office. We wrote to the DOJ. The DOJ DOJ did bring an FBI agent to my aunt's house. He said, hey, I'm here to help. What can I do to help you? My Aunt Wendy pleaded, we just want somebody to listen. Go to Sedona Police Department and offer your help. Agent Crabs did. Guess what they told him? We don't need it. We don't need your assistance. That was the hardest call for me to take from him telling me, Miss Vossilishin, I'm federal. I just can't walk in there and take your mother's case. That's really unfortunate. It's I think they did need they did need help and they just don't want to admit. I I don't know how much further I gotta go other than talking to you and the media. I need more options. Who ultimately is the person in The state that can make the decision to say, Sedona police primary, we don't care what you need, we don't care what you say. We're bringing somebody else in. Would it be a governor? I I I don't know. Who is that? If you know the answer to that question, send it to me. Popykill Mommy at gmail dot com. Help me. I need resources. I don't know where to turn to anymore, except for these people. It's so it doesn't even have to be that deep. It may get to that point when you have Again, we said shit rolls downhill, but you have legislators who are the bosses of the bosses who oversee the chief or the sheriff or whoever. And again, and when it rolls downhill and those people most of the most of the time the chiefs and the the sheriffs are at elected position or they're they're hired by the mayor, uh so that in that case they can be fired. the people below them are usually in the union, but I don't think it needs to be that deep. Long Island serial killer is a perfect example of that. It wasn't some like crazy agency that came in, it was the state police. It was a young detective who just came in without any biases or preconceived notions, re-looked at the evidence, and found a report that had been in there the whole I'm not gonna swear. The whole time. The whole time. It was something that was available from the beginning. And it was just someone different, not necessarily even more intelligent, but just seeing something that someone else missed. And that's okay. That happens. What's not okay is to be so caught up in what your own beliefs are as an investigator that you won't even put it on the on the line and allow somebody else to question your work. So how do we so if the Sedona police keep saying no, no, no, every time another agency or another Yeah. you know, law enforcement body comes in and offers help, then how do we override the Sedona Police Department because they have the FBI say, Let's look at this. It's not solved by their own mission it's not solved. Probably go to the Arizona State Police. State Yeah, it wouldn't be federal initially, you'd go to state police and see what they would be willing to do. But at the end of the day, just to be truthful, a lot of the times it r requires some uh agreed upon collaboration. It's not often that state police will come in and supersede a local agency unless they're asking for help. So I do think what we're doing now is the first step to create that pressure where maybe Sergeant Michael Dominguez will say, oh, you know what? I'm confident about this. I'll allow somebody else to look at it. And and we go from there. Dude, he was removed from the case from his comments to the Red Rock news. Oh it's almost like I figured that one out. Alright. Yeah. That got him out real quick. the motive of the police department to do such a uh anemic investigation. Do you think it's possible Russell had friends on the department and Or is it just sexism similar to the Ellen Greenberg kiss. Oh, that's a crazy. It is a really good question. And that is a question I've gotten more often than not. I gave this case file to an attorney, Mike Hansen, he poured over it, and the best thing that he could come up with was Peter Korn. Peter Korn was the owner of PH Rose, this restaurant in Sedona, very small. He's a business owner. He hobnob with the important people. So Peter Korn had this um this sway with the police, and you could see his name all over the case file. So I'm pretty sure were besties. Oh besties. They are like this. So I'm pretty sure that the Peter Korn connection really did help. Yeah, they it was victim blaming. It was like hey, you know, Russell's a good guy, I vouch for him, I promise and the police were like, All right So it's old boy stuff. Nineteen ninety three small town police and and I think it's 'cause they were new too. So it's a police force that's new, doesn't really know what they're doing. And then also you might have the pressure of somebody who owns a business and is kind of friends with the police and they're saying, like, uh you know, don't go all the way with us and the the police department's like, Yeah, we really didn't want to anyways 'cause we don't know what we're doing. So it could be a combination of of both. But Now I think the refusal to let anybody else look at that is because they don't want us to see that that's what happened. You see the mistakes that were made, yeah. Listen, we're gonna have the stuff. It's gonna be out on the Crime Weekly News probably next week. We'll have all the places to go, the templates where you can send an email if you'd like. We appreciate you guys coming every year. We we have an opportunity to highlight a case like this, and it wouldn't be possible without you guys. Thank you, Nikki, for being up here and doing this for us. Thank you to your family for coming as well. This has been a dream. We appreciate you guys. We love you. Thank you so much. And we'll see you throughout the weekend.