Episode 5: Conflicting Stories
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On February 3, 1990, someone brutally murdered 28-year-old Stacey Stanton inside of her second-story apartment in North Carolina, then cleaned up and disappeared. Residents of Manteo have lived in fear. For 30 years, Stanton's killer has had one face and one name. North Carolina investigators and Manteo police believe that someone is Clifton Spencer.

but his prejudice. They absolutely had tunnel vision that it was the black man who killed the white woman. Keeping an innocent man convicted. They even know now some of them old skogies or them good old boys, they know this man didn't do that. And covering up more than one crime. I feel bad for that guy. I just really seriously don't think he did that.

This is Counter Clock, the investigation into the murder of Stacey Stanton. I'm your host, Delia D'Ambra. Mike Brandon, Stacey's ex-boyfriend, knew how to get into Stacey's apartment without having a key. That is according to Joni Newman and Susan Corrington, women who were friends with Mike and Stacey and were in the Green Dolphin Pub the night before Stacey was killed.

For some reason, on the morning of February 3rd, Mike told these women that he chose to go by Stacy's apartment, but not enter. He had said that he had taken the Coastland Times up to her front door and laid it on the step or some shit like that. Excuse my language. And I couldn't understand why he would do that and not go in because he knew how to get in without having a key.

In his interview with police, Mike told detectives that he woke up early on Saturday morning and walked the short distance from Joni's house over to Stacey's apartment. When he got there, he noticed her newspaper at the bottom of the steps, so he walked up and set it down near the base of the porch door and left. He stated adamantly that he never went inside. But based on a conversation Susan had with Mike after the fact, Susan believes Mike did go inside that morning.

I was left with the impression that he, that morning, went to Stacy's as per usual, grabbed her paper, went in and found her. He conveyed that to me and we never really did have any long discussions about it.

Did you ever wonder why, if Mike had seen Stacey dead that morning, why he wouldn't have called the police right then and there? It wasn't until 2 o'clock that Stacey was found. Because of his involvement and general relationship with law enforcement all of his life. And his dad, he had a really horrible childhood. I think he started getting locked up at 12 or 13 and spent most of his youth and what on the wrong end of the law. So there's no way he would have. No, I'm not surprised.

So essentially what Susan just told me is that Mike conveyed to her that he went inside the apartment and saw Stacey dead, but didn't call police because he had a criminal history and a fear of law enforcement. I wasn't sure I believed that 100% though.

If Susan is right and Mike did go inside Stacey's apartment and see her body but just not tell anyone, why would he then have been so quick to speak to police on scene at 3:30 later that afternoon? If he was apprehensive of or didn't trust the cops, why would he have showed up at the crime scene at all? Why would he have given them a statement? Why didn't he just let them do their jobs and track him down later? It just didn't seem to add up to me.

Despite Mike's questionable behavior, Susan still doesn't think he was involved in the killing. I really think Mike Brandon was who everybody thought did it much more so than Cliff. Did you think he did it? No, because I knew Mike. Joni Newman and her brother David don't feel the same way about Mike. David was in the pub the night before the murder, and he and Mike were somewhat friends.

Did you ever talk to Mike about this? Did he ever talk about it again with anybody? No, because I would have been scared to say anything to him because I'm afraid he would cut my throat. Everybody thought he did it, and there were people in the community. Like, if we were all out together, they'd say stuff to him. So I don't know. I don't think it was random. I just don't, I think. I just always thought Mike did it.

The one thing Susan, Joni, and David agree on is that they've never thought Clifton is the murderer. He was charged fairly quickly, and I don't know, the fact that he pled no contest was always an issue with the people around here. You know, we just didn't see it in him. I never thought he did it. I always thought he was innocent. Did you ever feel that Clifton was involved in this? Not at all. Why?

He just didn't seem like the type. And that night he was, I mean, he weren't drunk. I've seen him play in pool. He's always had good manners. I mean, he just didn't seem vicious enough to do something like that.

These interviews so far were good, but they're just three people in a very large pool of witnesses that were around in February 1990. I needed to know what everyone else who was questioned by police said they did after the crime. I spent hours poring over literally thousands of pages of documents on this case, and when I was finally done, I realized there were some serious discrepancies in several people's stories.

But most important of all was a revelation I'd uncovered about Tina, Stacy's co-worker who was the person who discovered the murder. For the longest time, I kept noticing her name in reports as just being Tina, no last name. But there was one handwritten paragraph from Adair County Sheriff's deputy that had her full name written out. Tina's legal name in 1990 was Evelyn Christina Bass.

But, I did a little digging and found out that Bass was her married last name. According to her marriage license, her maiden name was Evelyn Christina Brandon. Yeah, in other words, Tina is Mike Brandon's sister.

When I found this out, I almost couldn't believe it. I mean, what are the chances that the person who goes to check on Stacey and finds her murdered is the blood relative of the guy who dated Stacey and was involved in some sort of love triangle with her?

Now that I'd uncovered this detail about Tina, I reread her police interview transcript about a dozen times. I compared her version of events to Mike, Patty, and Joni's statements and discovered some key differences. Differences that leave a chunk of Mike's time and whereabouts unaccounted for.

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On the night of February 2nd, leading into the early morning hours of February 3rd, Mike, Patty, Tina, and Joni were all together at the Green Dolphin Pub. Mike told police that between 1130 and 1145, he left the bar by himself to go on a five-minute walk.

He said he needed to get away from Patty and only went a few blocks from the bar. He specifically said he didn't go to Stacy's apartment, but no one ran into him while he was out, so he was his only witness. Tina told investigators that she remembered Mike leaving the pub for his walk, but emphasized he was only gone five minutes. Now, here's where I found the first discrepancy. Patty told police that Mike left the bar,

She didn't see him again for 15 minutes, not 5. Mike told Patty later that he'd walked all the way to Tina's house in a development called Harbortown. Harbortown is still around today, and if you map it from the Green Dolphin Pub's old building, it's exactly a 13-minute walk.

Patty told police that shortly after Mike walked out of the pub and didn't return, her, Joanie, Tina, and a man with Tina named Terry left the bar in two cars. Joanie and Patty got into Joanie's truck, and Tina and Terry got into Tina's car. A few minutes later, Patty says that Tina, Terry, and Mike show up at Joanie's house together because Tina had swung by to pick Mike up because he had walked to Tina's apartment.

Here's where there's another discrepancy with that story, though. Patty's statement is completely different than what Mike and Tina told police. Mike and Tina never mentioned anything about Mike walking to Harbortown. Their version of events keeps Mike with the group at the bar, but Patty's version has Mike absent from the bar from the time he left for his walk until he shows up at Joanie's house.

On top of that, Mike and Patty both told detectives that when the group left the bar, everyone got into two vehicles. But Tina said the group left in three vehicles. So either Mike went to his sister's house or he didn't. It can't be both. There were either three cars that the group left in or there were two. It can't be both.

These kinds of conflicting details might just be a bunch of drunk people's bad memories, but to me the inconsistencies should have raised questions for the SBI agents working the case. Nowadays, Joni says she can't set the record straight on any of this.

She says many years of drinking and drug use have made it impossible for her to recall specific details like how many cars they drove or exactly how long Mike was gone from the pub. Yeah, it was plenty of drug use and a lot of drinking. I mean, that's what we did. We hung out in bars and did drugs, all of us.

Do you remember Mike leaving the bar for a period of time and then coming back? I think I do. I honestly think I do remember that. But I don't know how long or the time sequence or what.

What really frustrates me is that the guy named Terry, who was mentioned by everyone as being with Tina, is only given a first name. Police never interviewed him, and there isn't a single transcript or document with his full name on it. Joni says she has no clue who he was. Yeah, I don't know who Terry is.

And he was never spoken to by police that I can find. I can't find a single interview with him. And so do you know of anybody that would have been with Tina that night that was a man? Because both Tina and Patty say his name.

The only proof that I could dig up that Terry existed and was actually seen with Mike, Joni, Patty, and Tina is a brief interview transcript from a gas station clerk. According to Mike, after hanging out at Joni's house for a little bit, he and Terry drove together to a convenience store in Manteo around 12:15 in the morning. They were making a beer and cigarette run. When they got to the store, Mike had forgotten his ID and the clerk denied the sale.

Mike got upset and slammed some items on the counter in frustration. Terry ends up using his ID to buy beer, cigarettes, and a bottle of V8 juice. Then the two men leave. The clerk testified to all of this in her statement to investigators. So that's how I know there was definitely another man with Mike. I just don't know exactly who he was.

Like I said before, the police documents I have show Terry was never interviewed, and Patty didn't talk much about him in her statement either. She only explained that the V8 juice he purchased at the store was for her. She said by the time the group was at Joanie's, she'd stopped drinking for the night because she was pregnant. That's one reason I tend to think Patty's version of events could potentially be more accurate.

Unless she was outright lying to the SBI agents, her memory is probably clearer than everyone else's because she wasn't drinking as much alcohol. In all of this, the SBI agents tried to navigate the truth. But instead of comparing these people's statements side by side and grilling them on these blatant discrepancies, agents chose to do polygraphs.

At the start of their investigation, the SBI had only made Clifton and his essential alibi, Wayne Morris, take a lie detector test. But now that was changing. Mike offered to take a polygraph the afternoon of February 3rd and repeated his offer again when he was questioned for a second time that night. But the SBI didn't actually perform a polygraph on Mike until 10 days after the murder, on February 13th.

His results came back as inconclusive. This could be because he was already a convicted felon who was nervous talking to police, or it could mean he was being evasive. We'll never know because the SBI never made Mike take another test. Patty took a polygraph too, but not until March 1st, almost a full month after the crime.

According to SBI paperwork, a few minutes into the test, Patty became so physically ill that the instructor had to stop. On the bottom of the report, the SBI wrote that the onset of Patty's illness during the test was likely due to her pregnancy.

By March 1st, Patty would have been close to three months pregnant, so it's possible she was having some physical sickness. I don't know, everybody's different. However, despite the fact that the SBI wasn't able to get any actual readings or even complete the test, they never made Patty take another polygraph. Richard Fugate, the man that had been at Stacey's apartment with Stacey and Clifton earlier in the night, was also given a polygraph, and he passed with flying colors.

The instructor wrote that they found no signs of deception in any of his responses. What I find super strange, though, throughout the SBI's polygraph test parade is that agents didn't test Joanie, Tina, or the mysterious Terry guy. These seem like key people you'd want to talk to to determine if they were telling the truth or hiding something, especially Joanie.

Remember, she said that she woke up between 1:30 and 2:00 in the morning and she heard Mike and Patty fighting in her living room. How accurate was her memory about the timing of that? As it turns out, I found two very important people who can help answer that.

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Six hand-picked bottles for just $44.95. That's T-R-Y-F-I-R-S-T-L-E-A-F dot com slash counterclock. Tryfirstleaf.com slash counterclock. Around 2 o'clock in the morning on February 3rd, the Green Dolphin Pub closed. The owner's daughter, a woman named Dawn Beecham, locked the doors and left to go to Joni Newman's house.

Dawn told the SBI that earlier in the night, Patty had asked Dawn to come give her a ride after Dawn closed the bar. Dawn had Richard Fugate with her, and Ray Griggs, Patty's brother, rode a bicycle behind her car to Joni's house. Dawn says when she arrived at Joni's around 2 o'clock in the morning, she and Ray walked up to the front door and knocked. But nobody answered. The house was dead quiet.

She doesn't mention anything about hearing a fight between people inside, which is what Joanie says was occurring around that time. But maybe Dawn got there shortly before the fight, or maybe right after it. Still, that doesn't explain why no one answered the door. After knocking, Dawn says she assumed Patty wasn't there, and so her and Ray just decided to leave. Dawn gave this information to police on February 4th, 1990.

Ray wasn't interviewed to corroborate the story until February 12th, more than a week later. Here's a voice actor to read through excerpts of Ray's interview with police. Definitely pay attention because he gave the SBI a full rundown of his entire night and his interactions with people including Stacey, Clifton, and Mike.

So on Friday, I saw Stacy headed to the diner around 4:25 in the afternoon and later in the bar when I was playing pool around 6:30. She was drinking wine coolers and we talked for a little bit about my kid. A lot of people started coming to the pub by then. I remember it was me, Mike, my sister Patty, Richard Fugate, and a black guy named Cliff Spencer. I saw Cliff talking to Mike and he tried to borrow money from him for drugs.

After that, he went to buy a beer and started talking to a couple girls. A little later, Stacy started talking to Mike. I think I saw her in front of his face at least twice. She was upset, and he told her he wished she would go ahead and leave. A couple minutes later, she did. Cliff left about five minutes after her. And then 10.30, yeah, around 10.30 maybe, it was like 11. I saw Mike, Joni, and Patty leave together, but they came back probably after probably 45 minutes later.

Over her Joni asked Patty what was wrong with Patty and she was upset because her and Mike weren't getting along Joni told me her and Patty left the bar during those 45 minutes and my sister could cool down But she didn't say where Mike went. I just left the bar between 1:00 and 1:30 in the morning on a bike I left when Don did she got in her car with Richard and another person I hopped on a bike We all went over to Joni's house and Don and I walked up to the front door knocked nobody answered

See, that would have been between 1.30 and 1.45 in the morning probably. Because no one answered, we all left. I ditched the bike at Joni's and Don took me back to my house on Airport Road. The next time I saw Mike was between 10 and 11 o'clock the next morning, which was Saturday. He came by my house in a red pickup truck. Then I saw him again later in the day between 3 and 4 o'clock. He told me Stacy was dead. He was a totally different person.

Ray's statements were helpful, but what he said didn't get me any closer to finding out where exactly Mike and Patty were between 2 o'clock in the morning and the next time they're accounted for, which is around 7.30 a.m. You see, Mike told the SBI that he got up around 7 o'clock, walked over to Stacy's, and took the newspaper upstairs. According to him, he was alone. Patty stayed behind sleeping at Joni's.

He says after he dropped the paper off, he went to the Duchess of Dere diner for breakfast. He ate, then called Joni around 7.30 using the restaurant's phone. Mike wasn't there when I got up. The potty was. Mike ended up calling my house, and he was downtown at the restaurant that was downtown at that time, and wanted to borrow my truck that day because he knew I had to go out of town.

You know, he was trying to get me awake because he knew that I had to drive for my brother-in-law that day. And I think that's what he did was call me to make sure I was awake and to see if he could borrow the truck. I asked Joni what she remembered Patty and Mike looked like the next morning.

And when I got up the next morning, Patty had the same clothes on and she was not bloody or nothing like that. You know, what about Mike? Mike, I don't think he had the same hoodie on. I thought he had a different shirt on the next morning. Yeah, because when I got up, like I said, he was gone already.

And he came back after, I don't know, after I woke up and talked to him, he come back and got the truck. Patty was wearing the same clothing the next morning, but you're not sure if Mike was. Yeah, I'm not. I'm not. It seems like there was something about a hoodie that I can't, I can't remember if he was, if he had a hoodie on and didn't before or...

Came in with a hoodie that he, I don't remember, something about a hoodie that I can't, I was been trying to think about it. Joni's fuzzy memory doesn't convince me 100%, but still, what she says can't be discounted. I wanted to verify if Mike seeing the newspaper on his walk to Stacy's before he called Joni was even possible. And if so, did anyone witness him moving it? Turns out, someone did.

According to February 3rd log sheets for the vendor who supplied the Virginian Pilot newspapers in Manteo, the delivery drivers picked the papers up at 4:51 in the morning. In their statements to police, they told detectives their route included several stops before Ananias Dare Street. They estimated their delivery near Stacy's address occurred at 5:20 in the morning.

They don't remember seeing anyone in or around Stacey's apartment or staircase at that time. Which makes sense because if we believe Mike, he wasn't there until between 7 and 7:30. But get this: The newspaper delivery drivers said they didn't deliver the paper to the bottom of Stacey's staircase at all. They dropped it off in the shared driveway of her apartment building and the home closer to the street.

Stacey wasn't even a subscriber to the newspaper, according to the Virginian Pilot Records. The owners of the house in front of her building were the subscribers. The woman the newspaper was intended for was Mary Midget, Stacey's landlord. More than a week after the crime, the SBI interviewed Mary.

Unfortunately, I couldn't speak with her because she's since passed away. But Mary told investigators that on the morning of February 3rd, she woke up at 6:30, read her newspaper, and sat on her back porch until 7:30. She put the newspaper back in the plastic bag it was delivered in and tossed it out her porch door towards the bottom of Stacey's staircase.

Her porch has a direct, unobscured line of sight to Stacy's unit. Mary had a regular habit of tossing her paper over to Stacy's because someone, either Stacy or Mike, would always retrieve it. She said she saw Mike come by around 7:30, take the paper, and walk up Stacy's staircase, but he didn't go inside. Him coming by wasn't out of the ordinary, according to Mary, but the fact that he didn't go inside was unusual.

Mary's eyewitness account tells me two things: 1. Mike's story that he took the newspaper up the stairs at around 7:30 checks out. And 2. Whoever killed Stacy didn't leave the apartment between 6:30 and 7:30 in the morning, or else Mary probably would have seen them. Sunrise on February 3, 1990 was at 7:02 a.m., so between 6:30 and 7:00 it would have still been dark outside.

If someone had walked in front of Stacey's apartment in that half-hour time span, the floodlights on the building would have gone off, and I have to think that would have gotten Mary's attention. So I say all of that to say this: I think Stacey was killed prior to 6:30 that morning.

Based on the autopsy report and Stacey's approximate time of death, combined with eyewitness testimony, Stacey died sometime between 1 and 7 in the morning. But which hour is hard to know. The closest theoretical window I believe the killer struck in is between 1 o'clock to possibly 5:30. That's four and a half hours of unknown.

I say 5.30 and not 6.30 because, remember, at 5.20, the newspaper delivery drivers were on Ananias Stair Street delivering papers, and they were in the driveway of the apartment building. They didn't report anyone walking around or lurking and looking suspicious at that time, and they certainly didn't tell police that they saw someone coming from Stacey's apartment.

I mean, it's always possible the killer struck between 5:30 and 6:30 in the morning, after the paper was delivered but before Mary woke up. But still, that's a really tight window of time.

And I also have to remember too that part of the time frame between 1 o'clock and 5:30 includes an alleged fight between Patty and Mike at Joni's house. Yet somehow Dawn and Ray, who were standing on the front porch at around 2 a.m. during this supposed fight, didn't hear it. That just didn't make sense to me. How, if a couple is having a knock-down drag-out fight, does no one except Joni hear a thing?

And even more insane, how did no one hear Stacey being murdered? Or someone going up to her apartment? Thankfully, a shred of paper tucked away in police files was about to make my timeline much more clear. And a new discovery about Patti Rowe blows what I thought about this case wide open.

She attacked a woman with a pipe wrench and beat her in the face and attempted to kill this woman. What? Be sure to follow CounterClock on social media and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. CounterClock is an AudioChuck original show. Ashley Flowers is the executive producer. And all reporting and hosting is done by me, Delia D'Ambra.

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