The Murder Book: A True Crime Podcast

Smallwood’s Silent NightThe Von Stein Family Tragedy : Money, Motive, and a Midnight Attack Part III

• BKC Productions • Season 9

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A quiet street in Smallwood is jolted awake by a midnight attack that leaves Leith Von Stein dead and Bonnie barely alive, and within hours the investigation collides with jurisdictional friction, fragile timelines, and the oldest question in homicide: who benefits. We walk through the first full day with Sheriff Nelson Shepard and SBI agent Louis Young as they navigate a thin crime scene, a missing mobile lab, and a press narrative that hints at burglary while the evidence suggests something far more personal.

At National Spinning, colleagues paint Leith as a principled auditor who recorded calls to stay accurate, not to trap. A rumored “mobile home” morphs from scandal bait to a practical plan for grandparents, but the money shocks—an inheritance rumored at over a million and life insurance pegged at another million—transform the case from chaos into a motive matrix. Then the autopsy lands like a gavel. Dr. Paige Hudson documents a devastating head blow and a fatal stab to the heart, but it’s the stomach contents—chicken and rice—that challenge the 4 a.m. timeline and force a hard reset on alibis and sightings.

Tips flood in: a baby blue Japanese station wagon with two scruffy young men, a rumor of a tent-dweller with a fresh bandage, and a farmer’s report of a strange early-morning fire that might have burned clothing. Neighbors add social texture—insurance details, calm reactions from the teens, and a weapons-obsessed local kid—while Angela clarifies family plans and distances the household from a mysterious green knapsack left behind. A late-night interview with Chris offers a plausible weekend story framed by schoolwork and beer, yet his nerves keep investigators cautious and curious.

What emerges is a layered portrait of motive, opportunity, and timing: money that could tempt, a scene that resists burglary tropes, and a medical timeline that won’t sit still. We map the leads, weigh the psychology, and set up the questions that will drive the next phase: Was Bonnie meant to die? Did someone close orchestrate the attack? Or did a stranger’s impulse intersect with a family’s fortune. Subscribe, share with a friend who loves true crime, and tell us your theory—who gains, and what detail convinced you?

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SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the murder book. I'm your host, Kara, and this is part three of the Von Stein Tragedy. Let's begin. Nelson Shepard was a tall, admirable man, had been in law enforcement for 26 years. And during that time, he had become as skilled a politician as he was a law enforcement officer. A combination of abilities that have allowed him to serve for seven years so far as sheriff of Beaufort County, a job he hoped to hold for some time to come. He was Michelle Sparrow's boss, and she made sure that she kept him fully informed. Early on the morning of July 25th, she called to tell him about the murder in Smallwood. The case was not in his jurisdiction, but he liked to keep up with what was going out in the county. On his way to work, he stopped by at the house at 110 Lawson Road. He spotted John Taylor and went over to talk to him. Taylor had worked for Shepherd as a deputy before joining the police department, and Shepard liked him and respected him. Taylor showed his former boss through the house and told him what little was known about the situation. And Shepard, who had been a detective himself for five years, said something stinks about this one. Shepard noticed that Louis Young was not at the scene and was not surprised. Young was the resident agent of the State Bureau of Investigation in Beaufort County. His primary duty was to assist local law enforcement agencies with difficult cases. But local officials had to first request his help. Shepard knew there were problems in the Washington Police Department and that in recent years an unspoken animosity had grown between the department and the SBI. Young was perhaps the best educated and most widely trained law enforcement officer in the county. A native of Louisburg in the central part of the state, he was a graduate of the University of North Carolina and had been a teacher and parole officer before joining the SBI more than 12 years earlier. He had been the first full-time SBI agent assigned to Beauford County, his first and only duty station. Young had quickly earned a reputation as an honest, dedicated, and officer. He and Shepard had become close friends and had made many cases together. Young's office at the Beauford County Law Enforcement Center was just a couple of doors from Shepard's. And Shepard asked, Why aren't you in Smallwood? And he asked, and he said, You know, what's going on in Smallwood? And Shepard told him about the grisly events of the of the morning. And Young said, Well, I sort of like to be asked. Shepard intended to make sure that he was. He went straight to his office and called Mitchell Norton, the district attorney for the 2nd Judicial District of Five County area. Norton's office was only a short walk away, and he came straight to the law enforcement building after receiving Shepherd's call. And he told Young, I want you on this. And Young said, I have to be asked. And Norton said, I'll see that you are. And soon after Norton and Stokes spoke by telephone, Stokes and Young wrote to 110 Lawson Road together. And by the time they got there, Leith Vonstein's body was at Beauford County Memorial Hospital, where medical examiner A. A. L. Potts had already examined it and authorized its removal to the medical examiner's office at East Carolina University School of Medicine in Grenville. John Taylor had photographed the body from every angle before it was removed and had photographed the rest of the house as well, knowing that the photographs will be needed as evidence. Taylor also had directed the patrol officers in a grid search of the Vonstein Yard, which had turned up nothing significant. Other officers have been dispatched to talk with neighbors to see if any has seen or heard anything unusual in the night, but nothing had turned up there either. Captain Danny Boyd and John Taylor filled in Young and Stokes on what was known so far, and Jun attempted to get an SBI mobile crime lab to the scene only to discover that none was available because crime lab operators were attending a conference. Left with no other choice, he decided to conduct the meticulous evidence search himself, with the help of Taylor and Detective Arnold Cox. Meanwhile, Meling Hope was trying to learn more about Leith Von Stein or Vanstein and HECO National Spinning Company, where word of Von Stein's death was just beginning to circulate. He was referred to several people before he talked with Brad Hughes, which was the company's vice president for finances. And Hughes invited him to the plan and offered him access to Vanstein's office. At the plan, Hughes told Hope that Von Stein was in charge of internal auditing for the company, overseeing two other auditors. He also did special projects for Phil Wonder, the company's third highest executive in New York. Von Stein used to make frequent trips to New York, but not so often anymore. Wonder was about to retire, and Hughes was gradually assuming his duties. An auditor's job is not one designed to win friends. Hughes acknowledged, but Von Stein was well regarded by his fellow employees, nevertheless. Hughes had become perturbed with him once, and he said when he learned that Von Stein recorded their telephone conversations, but he thought there was no sinister motive behind it. That Von Stein simply used the tapes to refresh his memory. Hughes knew of no especially sensitive or unusual audits that Von Stein had been involved in, and certainly none that might have caused somebody to kill him. But as he talked with Hughes, Hope learned two things that might offer a motive for Von Stein's murder. First, Hughes told him that Von Stein had been shopping for a mobile home for what purpose he did not know. Could Von Stein had been having an affair and contemplating setting up a little love nest? If that was the case, perhaps the jealous husband or boyfriend had discovered the affair and taking out his anger in a mid-of-the-night sneak attack with a baseball band and knife. That might also explain the brutality of the assault. The second revelation that Hughes offered was even more intriguing. Von Stein had recently inherited a lot of money. According to Hughes, a million dollars or more he had hurt. And that had caused company officials to wonder how much longer he would continue working and national spinning. Hope's post rate quickened at the revelation of Von Stein's worth. He knew that the man was upper middle class, but neither his house and his furnishings nor his cars had indicated that he might be a millionaire. A million dollars, Hope O knew, was more than ample motive for murder. Hughes allowed Hope to poke around in Von Stein's office, gave him four cassette tapes thought to contain some of Von Stein's recorded telephone conversations, and left him to talk with the two auditors who worked for Von Stein, Robin Reed and Erlene Rhodes. Both women had been stunned by the news of their boss's death, and neither could think of any reason anybody would want to harm him. He was strongly opinionated, they noted, but he usually offered his views in such a way that nobody took offense. They described Von Stein as in or Von Stein as an easy person to be around, a person who liked to joke and kid. Both knew that Von Stein had been working for a mobile home or looking for one. When he got calls about it, they said he would close his office door. But neither could believe that Von Stein hadn't a girlfriend. They just didn't see him as that type. Once when they were teasing him, they said Von Stein had said, I'm more interested in beer than sex. By the time the Washington Daily News began hitting the street shortly afternoon on Monday, July 25th, news of the murder in Smallwood had already spread through the town by word of mouth, and people were hungry for details. The paper offered little. From the headline, Washington Man Killed, Wife Hurt, the reader who have not already known about the murder might have been led to think it had been no more than an accident. Only a photograph at the Von Stein house with a close-up of the Quine scene tape hinted to casual reader that something far more sinister had occurred in the town's wealthiest neighborhood. The news story was brief, quoting only Sergeant Joe Stringer, the police department spokesman. It said that the Von Steins apparently had been attacked by burglars, leaving Leith dead, Bonnie in guarded condition in the hospital. Stringer was quoted as saying that their teenage daughter, Angela, was not injured and apparently slept through the attack. The house was not ransacked, the story noted, and it was unclear whether anything was missing. As the newspapers were first hitting the streets, Detective John Taylor was setting up a video camera in the autopsy room at the medical school at East Carolina University in Greenville. At 1230, he began taping the autopsy of Leith von Stein. The operation was being performed by one of the country's leading pathologists, Dr. Paige Hudson. Until a year and a half earlier, Dr. Hudson had been North Carolina's chief medical examiner, a job he had held for 18 years. He had stepped down to teach, write research, and garden, but he still liked to take up the scaffold, the bone saw, and other tools of his trade now and then, especially in intriguing cases. Although he had been an effective administrator, creating the state system of medical examiner and establishing databases to help law enforcement agencies investigate homicides, suicides, and different types of accidents, he relished the role of medical sleuth above all others. He had conducted more than 4,000 autopsies, many of murder victims, and he was a noted authority on arsenic poisonings. He even had discovered a new technique for detecting arsenic in the body. Despite all that he had seen, he had never ceased to marvel at the horrible things that humans do to themselves and to one another. And the body of Lith Von Stein was a prime example. Von Stein, Dr. Hudson discovered, had died from a stab wound to the heart. He had bled to death within minutes of receiving it. He likely was unconscious when he was stabbed. His skull had been fractured under the biggest laceration on the back of his head, and his brain had suffered a contusion and hemorrhage. That blow to the head alone might have killed him if he had not been stabbed. In addition to Von Stein's major wounds, his right wrist was broken, and he had numerous scrapes and bruises on his hands and arms, typical defensive wounds. But he also had fresh scrapes on his shins, particularly on his right leg and ankle. These wounds were more common in cases where the person attacked had been standing rather than lying in bed. Other than having a mildly fatty liver, the result of drinking too much alcohol, Von Stein had been in good health and could have been expected to live a long life. Dr. Hudson found no alcohol in his blood, but he did find one thing that was curious indeed. Dr. Hudson found no alcohol in his blood, but he did find one thing that the cure that was curious indeed. When he cut into Von Stein's stomach, he found it full as if he had just consumed a large meal. Among the foods that could be identified were chicken and rice. Normally these foods were easily digested and should have passed from the stomach within an hour or two of being eaten. If Von Stein had been attacked shortly before 4 a.m., that would have meant that he had eaten a large meal around 2 or 3, which seemed unlikely. If this was his Sunday night supper, then he might have been attacked much earlier than the police believed. Although severe stress, Hudson noted, might delay digestion by a few hours. Earlier that day, the detectives at the house on Lawson Road had decided that Bonnie could still be in danger. When word got out that she had survived the attack, the killer might return to finish the job. They didn't have to point out that it would be terribly embarrassing if they were if she were murder in her hospital room. The thought of such a thing was enough to convince the chief that he should immediately assign officers to protect her around the clock. By mid-afternoon, the Washington Police Department had already received numerous calls about the murder. Some callers were merely curious and wanted information. Others were provoked by fear. Was the mad killer loose? Had an arrest been made? Would one be made soon? Still others were trying to be helpful. They had information that they thought the police should know. Some of these calls were deemed important enough to check out. Lewis Young and Melvin Hope went to talk to a man who was the local sales supervisor for a large bakery. The man had driven down Lawson Road shortly before four o'clock that morning on his way to work. As he was leaving Smallwood, he said he had seen a car turning into the development, a Japanese car. Not old, not new, baby blue, had a luggage rack on top. He was sure of that, and he was almost certain that it was a station wagon. Anyway, there were two scroungy looking young white men with long hair inside. The one on the passenger side was slouched in his seat, his knees on the dashboard. The man knew that because his headlights had shined directly into the car when it turned in front of him. But he couldn't tell how the young man were dressed. He was suspicious of the car because he drove through Small Wood every morning on his way to work, and that was the first time in ages that he could remember seeing a car out in the area at that early hour. Just wish he had got a license number. The man also told the officers that a co-worker who didn't want to get involved thought that they should check out a fellow who had been living in a tent in some woods near Smallwood. The fellow who was thought to be feeble minded or emotionally disturbed, had been as been spotted early that morning riding a bicycle near Smallwood, and he had a bandage on his arm. Hope and Yon dually added one more item to the scores of things they have to check out. Before the detectives could go chasing after half the crack pots in the county, however, they first had to know more about the people most directly involved in the crime, the Von Steins. And shortly after 4:30 that afternoon, they returned to the Washington Police Department to meet Angela Pritchard and began prying into the family's life. The officers began by asking Angela to recount her activities of the day before, and she did, telling everything right up to the time she went to bed. The next thing she knew, she was being awakened by a police officer. She reiterated that she had not even been aware that the attack was going on. She had since seen her mother at the hospital, however, and her mother had told her about it. Her mother was certain that if she had not fallen off the bed, she would have been killed too. Angela said that whoever had done it, her mother had told her, had to be young and strong. Hope asked if she knew anything about a mobile home that her father might have been thinking about of buying, and she said yes. Her parents were looking at house trailers so that her grandparents would have a place to stay when they came home to visit. So much for the love nest theory. The officers ask about her natural father. His name, she say, was Steve Pritchard. He was a long distance trucker who lived in South Dakota, but he was thinking of moving back to North Carolina and going into the real estate business. He was supposed to come to see her and her brother sometime soon. Did her natural father have any feelings about Leith Van Stein? He thought he was the best thing for me and Chris, she said. Angela offered only sketchy information about her stepfather. His father, mother, and uncle had died recently, and he had inherited some money, but she didn't know how much. Her brother was in summer school at NC State and would be a sophomore in the fall, she said. He lived in Lee Dorne, room six eleven dash B, and she had called him there about five that morning to tell him what had happened. How did she and Chris get along with their stepfather? And she said fine. Just fine. Then she had any idea who might have wanted to kill her stepfather. The only thing she could think of was that it might be somebody he had fired at work, but she didn't know whether he had fired anybody or not. At least the detectives came out of the interview with one bit of policing information. Angela had never seen the faded army knapsack that had been found on the back porch, and she was certain that nobody in the family owned it. Chances seemed good that the killer had left it behind. Perhaps it could help lead them to him. This was one of the busiest and most critical times of the year for Noel Lee. Priming time, time for harvesting tobacco, his primary cash crop, temporary workers were prowling his fields in the hot sun, stripping the heavy leaves from the stocks. Others were packing the crop into bulk barns, long, trailer like containers, where it would be cured golden with gas heat. Lee had little time for thinking as he oversaw his field hands going from one field to another, but he couldn't get out of his mind the strange fire he had seen early that morning after he had sent his hawks off to the market. Lee told his mother about the fire when he went to her house for lunch. Later she told his brother Edward, with whom he farmed about it, and his brother stopped by the fireside out of curiosity. When Noel Lee got home after finishing work that Monday, his phone was ringing. His mother was on the line. Did he think the fire he had seen that morning might have had something to do with that murder in Washington? And he asked what murder? Because Lee had not heard anything about a murder. It was right there on the front page of the Washington Daily News, his mother said. On the TV news too. So a big executive had been killed in small small wood, and it had happened just about that time that Noel had seen the fire. Could it be connected? If it had stopped by the fireside, she told him, and he said it looked as it had some kind of clothing might have been burned. It seemed a strange coincidence. Noel agreed, and after talking with his mother, he got his newspaper and read about the attack on the Von Steins. It did seem possible that the fire could be connected, he thought. He considered calling the police, then thought better of it. He didn't want to look foolish, but the suspicious fire wouldn't leave his mind, and an hour and a half later he picked up the telephone and called the Washington Police Department. Lee finally was switched to a medical or I should say to a detective who didn't seem especially interested in what he had to tell him. The detective took the information and thanked him, but Lee had the distinct impression that he would be the last that that would be the last he would hear of it. He thought the detective figured that he was just another cook trying to get in on the big event. He almost wished he had not called, but he had done his civic duty. If the fire had anything to do with the murder and the thought caused another shiver to cuss up his spine, at least he would tell the police about it. The police were discovering that most of the Von Stein's neighbors, considering them private and standoffish visitors to the Von Stein's house, tended to be teenage friends of the children more than adults. The only adult neighbors who knew them well were David and Peggy Smith, who live across the street. David had his own business, and he and Leith occasionally got together to shoot poor talk sports. Peggy, like Bonnie, didn't work outside the house, and she and Bonnie visited frequently. Peggy had gone to the hospital to visit Bonnie that morning, and that afternoon David had organized a group of neighbors to clean up from the Von Stein's bloody bedroom. Peggy couldn't understand why the police had cut large chunks out of the walls and carpet in the room. At 9 45 Monday night, Louis Young and Melvin Hope went to the Smith's house to talk with them and learn some things that proved to be of great interest. Leith had a million dollars in life insurance, David told the officers. Only that morning Hope had learned that Leith recently had inherited a billion a million dollars and a second million in life insurance would make his death a lucrative venture indeed. They were certain that Bonnie was, and David thought that her children um might be call beneficiaries. Furthermore, David was highly suspicious of both Angela and Chris. It simply isn't normal to go on as if nothing had happened after something like this. He you know he uh said and that both Angela and Chris were doing just that. Beyond that, Angela said that she had slept through the entire attack, and he just didn't see how that was possible. She didn't she she being only a room away. Peggy admitted that Chris and Angela seemed to be acting strangely, but she couldn't conceive that they might have said something to do with the attacking their mother and killing their stepfather. Bonnie loved them and they loved her. Why? Bonnie was everyone's mother, a second mother to one of Chris's and Angela's friends, as well as two other neighborhood teenagers. They would go to her and to talk about their problems when they wouldn't go to anyone else. Peggy wasn't troubled by Angela's lack of emotion. Angela was just like her mother, Peggy said, neither show emotion, at least not publicly. The Smith agreed that Angela and Chris seemed to get along well with their parents, but David said that Leith had told him that he would be glad when the children finally were um got gone off to college. The Smith also offered some other possibilities for the officers to check. One neighborhood young man was fascinated with guns and other weapons and into blood and gore. They said they called him weird and said he had once been a frequent visitor at the Von Steinhouse. And this this young man had a friend who used to walk Lawson Road a lot. They went on to tell about a neighbor who had noticed suspicious traffic on the road that night before the murder. And somebody had ta uh rattled another neighbor's door late Sunday night, they said, or things for the detectives to check out. Ask if they could think of anybody who might have held a grudge against Devon Steins. Peggy remembered that Bonnie had been involved in an unpleasant incident a year or so earlier. Bonnie and Chris were at the dentist's office when a man struck Lee's car with his truck. The man got angry when the police came to investigate and tried to attack the officers with a knife. They pulled their weapons, subdued him, took him to jail. Bonnie later was called to testify against him and told them I was sent to prison. The Vansteins were good, kind people, Peggy said, and that she was the only person that she could think of who might have held something against them. The detective left the house realizing more than ever that the work was just beginning. We'll be right back. It had been a long day for Young and even longer one for Hope. But there were there was one more person they wanted to talk with before they quit for the night. They had been having trouble meeting up with Chris all day. Apparently he had gone off to Greenville with a high school body they discovered. But at 10 40 that night after leaving the Smith's house, the detective stopped by Donna Brady's house and found Chris there. He seemed nervous. He sat on the sofa with the officers, smoked one cigarette after another as they questioned him. He had come home for a visit that weekend, he said. He had stayed Friday night, but he had to go back Saturday night to work on a school paper that was due. On Sunday night, he said he had gone out with friends, then stayed up playing cards and drinking beer with them until 3 or 3.30. He would only be in bed a short time when his sister called to tell him about the attack. Public safety officers from NC State had brought him to Washington, he said, because he was distraught and couldn't find his car keys. Were his parents having any problems? Young asked, and Chris said no, none that he knew about. They were getting along fine with one another, and he couldn't imagine them having trouble with anybody. He didn't even know anybody who disliked them. He had no idea why anybody would want to do this. David Smith's suspicions caused Hope to watch Chris closely as he talked, taking note of the fluttery hand gestures, the nervous glances. He disliked Chris instinctively and distrusted him, yet he tried not to show it. This, after all, was a friendly interview. The detectives were just looking for background information, a direction in which to set the path of their investigation. At this point, nobody and everybody was a suspect. Did he and Leith get along okay? Chris was asked, and he said, Oh yes, very well. How about his real father? Did his father and stepfather knew know each other? He said yes, and they got along very well too. Did Chris know anything about his stepfather dealing in stocks? Well, he knew that Leith had inherited some stocks and maybe some cash too, but he didn't know how much about anything about it, and he just didn't keep up with that kind of stuff. One possibility the detectives were concerned about. Was that somebody in the crew that recently had painted the Von Stein House, its muted aquamarite color, might have come back and tried to rob them? Uh Chris said that he wasn't at home while the house was being painted, but he knew that the night had been done by a man who worked a custodian at the high school, as the custodian at the high school, and the detectives probably would have any trouble finding him. As Young and Hope were getting ready to leave, they asked if Chris had ever owned a green canvas next sap, and he said no, and he would never known of one, of one being in his parents' house. On the way back to the police station, Hope and Jung talked about the case, which both now knew was going to be a tough one. They had a dead man with a multimillion dollar or at least a million dollar inheritance, another million in insurance. In murder cases, detective always asked themselves one basic question that guides their investigations. Who stands to gain from his death? In this case, that seemed to be Bonnie von Stein and her children, but Bonnie had been viciously attacked too. Was she meant to be killed or not? Could she be involved? They thought it unlikely she almost had died. Would anybody run that risk for money? Angela actually could have slept through the attack on her on her parents. Was Chris presence in Raleigh during the murder or too convenient? Was there somebody else who would gain from Leith Vonstein's death that the detectives didn't yet know about? Were the Von Stein simply the victims of random maniacal killer? As tired as they were, the detectives could hardly wait for the next day when they could talk with Bonnie and begin trying to ferret out answers to some of these questions. Thank you for listening to the Murder Book. Have a great week.

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Kiara Coyle

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