What are the basic facts surrounding this case?

On September 17th, 1992, Tammy Haas went to a Yankton High
School homecoming party on a Cedar County, Nebraska farm
owned by the Stephenson family of Yankton, SD, located eight
miles southwest of Yankton.

In attendance with her was Eric Stukel. They had ridden
together in his silver 1988 Chevy Beretta.

At this party, around 11:15 p.m., would be the last any reliable
witnesses would see Tammy alive.

Less than a week later, Tammy’s half-naked body would be
found in a Nebraska ravine, on a county road within one-and-a-
half miles of that same farm.

Based on livor mortis evidence, the pooling of blood in the body
after death, Tammy’s body had to have gotten to its final resting
place in the ravine within a half an hour or so after her death.

Several other pieces of forensic evidence (to be examined in the
succeeding pages) would strongly indicate that Tammy didn’t die
in that ravine, but was transported from a nearby location.

According to Mr. Stukel’s statement to law enforcement on
September 24th, 1992, however, Tammy returned with him at
10:45 p.m. to his parents’ home in Yankton, eight miles away,
and then between 12:30 and 1:00 a.m., she walked off into the
night from his parents’ house, alone.

Based upon the contents of her stomach and the time of her last
known meal, the absolute latest possible time she could have
been alive was 12:35 a.m. That's if she was still eating up to the
very minute they left the restaurant that night.

This fact alone completely discredits Eric Stukel’s alibi.

Again, according to Stukel, Tammy left his house between 12:30
and 1:00 a.m. To walk off into the night and mysteriously
vanish.    

Considering the proximity of the ravine in which her body was
disposed with the Stephenson farmhouse, Eric Stukel’s story
about taking Tammy back to Yankton some eight miles away
seems dubious.

Considering Tammy, in all probability, wasn’t alive after
midnight, let alone 12:30 a.m, Stukel’s story about Tammy
leaving his house between 12:30 and 1:00 a.m. appears to be
entirely false. Over the coming week, individual pieces of
evidence presented in the courtroom in 1996, will be examined.


m.c. merrill


TOMORROW – THE THREE FIBERS