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- [00:02]
Vanessa
Hi listeners, it's Vanessa. Before we get into today's episode, I want to tell you about another show I think you'll love. Hidden history with Dr. Harini Bhat. Every Monday, Dr. Bhat goes where history gets mysterious. Vanished civilizations, doomsday prophecies, paranormal phenomena and events that science still can't fully explain. Dr. Bot treats these moments like open case files. Not myths, not superstition, just incomplete explanations waiting for a closer look. Hidden History drops every Monday. Follow now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen, so you never miss a mystery.
- [00:52]
Carter Roy
This is crime house. Leaving home for the first time is always a little scary. Not having your parents around and being away from your community is hard enough. It's even more difficult when you move far away and have to create a completely new life for yourself. In October of 1974, 19 year old Arlis Perry was dealing with all that and more back in her hometown in North Dakota. Arlis had a great group of friends, a tight knit family, and was extremely involved in her local church. That fall she'd left everything behind and moved 1700 miles away to Stanford, California. She had her new husband Bruce to comfort her, but Arlis still felt like a fish out of water. So she leaned into her faith and that's exactly what she was doing. Just before midnight on October 12, when she visited the church on Stanford's campus, instead of guidance, she found something much more terrifying. And what happened next left detectives convinced that the devil had made his way to California. People's lives are like a story. There's a beginning, a middle and an end. But you don't always know which part you're on. Sometimes the final chapter arrives far too soon and we don't always get to know the real ending. I'm Carter Roy and this is True Crime Stories, a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. New episodes come out every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, with Friday's episodes covering the cases that deserve a deeper look. Thank you for being part of the Crime House community. Please rate, review and follow the show and for ad free access to every every episode. Subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. This is the first of two episodes on the 1974 murder of 19 year old Arlis Perry in Stanford, California. Please note this episode contains descriptions of sexual violence and murder. Please listen with care. Today I'll introduce you to Arlis and her husband Bruce, high school sweethearts from a small town in North Dakota. After tying the knot in 1974, they moved to Stanford University where Bruce was studying pre Med. Less than two months later, tragedy struck when Arlis stopped at the campus church to pray. Next time, I'll take you through the decades long investigation that followed. Over the years, Arlis's murder was connected to witchcraft, Satanism and even the infamous serial killer known as the Son of Sam. It wasn't until 2018 that new technology finally cracked the case and the results weren't what anyone expected. All that and more coming up.
- [04:10]
Vanessa
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- [05:21]
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- [06:14]
Carter Roy
ARLIS Perry was the epitome of an all American girl. Born in Linton, North Dakota on February 22, 1955, she was the youngest of three children. At the time, less than a thousand people lived in Linton. Arlis's parents, Marvin and Jean, owned a car dealership and were looking to expand their business. So in 1963, when Arlis was 8 years old, they moved to the state capital of Bismarck. Within a few years, they'd built another dealership and become active members of the community. Though Bismarck was larger than Linton, it was still pretty close knit. And for most residents, church was the center of their social lives. It wasn't just for worship, it served as a central gathering place too. As committed Presbyterians, Arlis and her family fit right in. And as she got older, she only became more devoted to her faith. When she was a teenager, Arlis got a job with her church youth group and taught Sunday school on the side. She was so passionate that sometimes she came on a bit too strong for her peers. Some even said she could be a little self righteous. But most people didn't hold it against her. They knew Arlis meant well. She was sweet and caring, the kind of friend you could count on. Plus, she was beautiful, with wavy blonde hair and a bright smile. It was no surprise when she made the cheerleading squad in high school and became even more popular. With so much going for her, the boys in town were lining up to take Arlis out. But according to her siblings, Arlis didn't really date much. She was more of a homebody. In fact, she only had a couple of real boyfriends during high school. The first one didn't last long. But the second, a handsome runner named Bruce Perry, stuck it out for the long haul. Bruce was a born achiever. He was the son of a dentist, and his parents expected him to become a doctor. For from day one, it was a lot of pressure, but he never struggled to live up to the goals they set. Not only was he one of the best students in school, he was also a track star. At one point, he even held the record for running the fastest quarter mile in all of North Dakota. On top of all that, he was a devoted Christian. And though he and Arlis were in the same grade at school, that's how they really got to know one another, through the local fellowship of Christian Athletes. With so much in common, it just seemed like a matter of time before their relationship turned romantic. Sure enough, they started dating. And after graduating from high school in 1973, Bruce and Arlis were determined to stay together. And that turned out to be easier said than done. Bruce had been accepted to the pre med program at Stanford University in California, a full 24 hour drive from Bismarck. Arlis, on the other hand, preferred to stay in North Dakota. Since moving to Bismarck at 8 years old, she'd never left and didn't see a reason to start now. So while her boyfriend went off to Stanford, she attended a local junior college and worked as a receptionist at Bruce's father's dental practice. Maintaining a long distance relationship is never easy, but it was even tougher back then. Phone calls across state lines were expensive, so the young couple mostly communicated through handwritten letters from afar. Bruce told Arlis about the new friends he was making and the classes he was taking, though he did mention the transition was difficult. At the end of his freshman year in 1974, he came back to Bismarck to visit family. To Arlis, he looked like a new man. He was probably broader and tanner, his head of tight curls lightened by the California sun. But underneath, he was the same old Bruce, as committed to God and his girlfriend as ever. As the two of them reconnected, it was clear that Bruce felt guilty about being so distant from Arlis while he was at school. One night he decided he couldn't be apart from her anymore. He told Arlis he wanted her to come back to Stanford with him. She agreed instantly. But before making the move, they decided to get married. So a few weeks later, the 19 year olds held a low key ceremony at the Bismarck Reformed Church on August 17th. From there, they rushed off to their honeymoon at a rural cabin owned by Arlis's parents. The next week was magical, but real life caught up all too quickly. Fresh off their vacation, Arlis and Bruce had to hurry to California before the next semester started up. The two of them moved into a dorm exclusively for married couples, located about a half mile from the center of campus. Then it was Arlis's turn to make the bumpy transition to life in California. In the letters she sent home around this time, she wrote that she was having trouble making new friends. According to her, there was some serious culture shock too. While there were plenty of churchgoers at Stanford, she didn't meet many who took their faith as seriously as she did. She complained to her family that people weren't as social as she was used to either. When she tried to strike up conversations, most people just ignored her. She felt even more isolated. Since Bruce spent most of his time in class or working as a tutor, Arlis was left to wander the campus by herself for hours on end. Usually she wound up taking shelter at the university's Memorial Church, a massive sandstone building with a bright terracotta roof. The front of the facade was decorated with a mosaic of Jesus and his disciples that never failed to wow her. Inside, Arlis took her place at a pew in the back row, kneeling under the stained glass and ornate architecture arches to pray for strength. In those early days, she must have been asking God for patience and comfort as she and her husband worked to build their new life together on the West Coast. In October, about a month after the semester began, Arlis finally seemed to turn a corner when she was hired as a receptionist at a local law firm. Besides the the financial stability, the role gave her something to fill her days with while Bruce was holed up in the library. But having a job didn't fix everything, and at around 11.30pm on October 12, 1974, Arlis was getting restless. It was Saturday night on a three day weekend. Outside the dorm, she could hear crowds of students laughing, partying and playing music on the quad. Yet there she was, stuck in her bedroom while Bruce sat at his desk studying Latin. He seemed happy to be scribbling notes for his upcoming exam. And truth be told, Arlis was normally fine with staying in too. But that night, as she finished writing yet another letter to her parents, she was feeling cooped up. So even though the mail wouldn't be picked up for another couple of days, the 19 year old decided to stretch her legs and take a walk to drop her letter off. Bruce knew Arlis was having a hard time. He'd felt the exact same way during his first year on campus. California was different from North Dakota, and living so far away from home was enough to send anyone over the edge. As happy as he was to spend the night studying, he decided to go along with Arlis on her walk that night. He sensed that she wanted some companionship and attention, so he closed his book and pulled on his shoes for a walk. But as the two of them left the stuffy room and took in the fresh air, things turned sour. A mundane conversation about the car they shared quickly became heated. One of the tires apparently had a leak, and they blamed one another for not filling it up with air. The bickering got more intense as they wound through campus. Although it was late, there were tons of students out celebrating, which only made the mood between the newlyweds worse. Finally, at around 11:40pm Arlis reached her limit. As the two of them walked by the Memorial Church, she stopped in her tracks and told Bruce to head back home. She wasn't going to discuss the tire with him anymore. She wanted some time to herself. She said she was going inside to pray and would see him back at the dorm soon. By that point, Bruce was just as aggravated as she was. He gave her a terse nod, spun on his heels, and stomped back through the campus. When he got back to his desk, he was still steaming from the fight. He had no idea that back at the church, Arlis was in danger, and it wasn't long before his annoyance turned to horror.
- [16:30]
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- [17:30]
Carter Roy
On October 12, 1974, 19 year old Arlis Perry got into an argument with her new husband, 19 year old Bruce. They parted ways in front of the Stanford Memorial Church in the center of campus at around 11:40pm as Bruce made the short walk back to their dorm, Arlis stewed in the courtyard outside the church until eventually she decided that nothing could calm her down except a silent prayer. She pushed open the heavy front doors, walked to the back of the main chamber and slid into an open pew on the left. She knew the church was locked at midnight, so she couldn't stay long, but even though it was almost closing time, she wasn't the only person inside. There were two other people praying at the opposite end of the altar when she walked in. They left around midnight, not long after Arlis arrived. The security guard who was supposed to lock up for the night, a man named Steven Crawford, was running late. He didn't get back to the church until 12:10am on Oct. 13. When he poked his head through the door, the place looked empty. Still, he called out that he was about to close up, just in case. When he didn't get an answer, he locked the doors as usual and left. Meanwhile, 19 year old Bruce Perry was back in his dorm and he was starting to get worried. It was 12:15 by then, just over half an hour since he left Arlis by the church. Well, maybe she was still angry with him. But the two of them rarely argued and when they did, they were always quick to make up. Sometime before 12:30am Bruce decided he couldn't wait any longer. He stepped out into the cool night and hurried back to the church. By that point all the doors were locked. In the era before cell phones, he had no way of knowing where Arlis was. He wandered aimlessly through the sprawling campus, calling out her name and getting increasingly upset. There was no sign of her, so eventually Bruce rushed back to their dorm hoping they just missed each other. But it was empty too. He waited there praying for her return until 3am that's when he finally called the Stanford police. After telling them what happened, Bruce guessed Arlis might have fallen asleep inside the church and had accidentally been locked inside. The campus police officers agreed to go down and check it out. They found the place locked with the security guard nowhere to be seen. So they stood outside and pounded on the doors for a while to try to wake Arlis up. When no one responded, they decided that was good enough. Even though they hadn't actually checked the interior, they figured she couldn't possibly be locked in. They told Bruce they would launch a full investigation the next morning. That night he stayed up in bed with his eyes fixed on the front door, begging for his wife to come back home. At around 5:30 the next morning on October 13, the security guard, Stephen Crawford, came back to the church for his morning patrol. That's when he noticed that one of the doors had been forced open from the inside. At first Stephen worried someone had broken in. He went inside and approached the main altar, but nothing seemed out of place. From there he started walking through the pews. That's when he saw the body of 19 year old Arlis Perry sprawled on the cold stone floor. Stephen called the police who found one of the most gruesome crime scenes they had ever seen. Arlis was dead, lying face up under the last row of pews on the left side of the main chamber. And it was clear she had been deliberately posed. Her head faced the altar while her feet were spread wide, pointing to an engraving of a Cross on the wall. She was naked below the waist, with her jeans laid out upside down across her calves. Together, her legs and pants formed a diamond shape. That wasn't the worst part, not by a long shot. If you'd like to skip this section, I'd recommend jumping forward about a minute. Blood soaked her face and ran down to her neck, which was completely black and blue. Her arms were neatly folded over her torn blouse, and her hands were clutching one of the candles from the altar, a waxy stick about 2ft long. The killer had sexually assaulted her with a second candle that was still lodged inside her. But none of that was what actually killed her. There was an ice pick sticking out of the back of her head, just behind her left ear. That had apparently been the fatal blow, and the murderer had plunged it into her with such force that the handle had completely broken off. It was enough to make the officers sick, but they had a job to do. A sheriff's deputy named Tom Rosso was in charge of securing the initial scene. He started to collect evidence while other officers went to talk to Bruce Perry as Arlis husband. He was naturally their first suspect suspect, and their suspicions seemed justified when he answered the door wearing a shirt that was soaked in blood. The officers wanted to arrest him then and there, but Bruce quickly explained that he got nosebleeds when he was nervous and that he'd been up all night worrying about his wife. He also said he was willing to go down to the police station voluntarily. So after thinking it over, the police decided to hold off on detaining him. Still, they initially kept the details of Arlis's murder from Bruce. Instead, they aggressively interrogated him to try to get him to crack for hours. They suggested his wife was cheating on him, that he was lying about the nosebleeds, or that he was a lot angrier about the car's flat tire than he was letting on. For the majority of their questioning, Bruce was more confused than upset, and he voluntarily gave the cops his fingerprints and agreed to take a lie detector test. By then, forensics had tested the blood on his shirt and confirmed that none of it belonged to Arlis. Even so, the police didn't tell him what had actually happened until after he'd passed the test. At that point, he was officially cleared, and the police widened their search for Arlis's killer. They found a passerby who remembered seeing Arlis enter the church around 11:40. He told the police that he'd also noticed a young man with sandy hair walking in at the same time as her he was was able to give a basic description of the stranger, but there weren't many distinguishing features that made it easy to ID him. And when authorities tracked down the other two worshipers who were in the church with Arlis, they said they didn't remember anyone with sandy hair. They were adamant that Arlis was the only one still inside when they left around midnight. Detectives stayed on the lookout for the mystery man, but for the most part, they focused their attention on another potential suspect. The security guard, 28 year old Stephen Crawford. Some parts of his story didn't line up. For example, he told detectives that he closed the church at 12:10am then did a full walkthrough of the main chamber two hours later. If that was true, he. He would have been following protocol to a tee. But the police found it hard to believe that he didn't notice a dead body lying under the pews at 2am so either Arlis was still alive in hiding for some reason, or Stephen was lying. And the authorities became even more suspicious. After the autopsy results came back, a coroner ruled that Arlis likely died around midnight. That may have explained why no one answered when Steven announced he was locking up at 12:10. And by that point she was already dead. But if Steven had done his walkthrough at 2am he still would have noticed her body. With Bruce already out of the picture, Steven became the most likely killer. Police called him back to the station multiple times to grill him about the murder and make him sit for a polygraph. In the meantime, they ran forensics tests on the altar candles, the murder weapon and the other items they found at the scene. Although they still needed the full results, the detectives thought they were on the verge of cracking the case. As tragic as the murder was, the timeline seemed straightforward. Only a few people had access to the locked church. One of them had to be guilty. The only problem was none of the evidence fit their theories. I sold my car in Carvana last night.
- [27:48]
Lemonade/Carvana Ad Voice
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- [27:50]
Carter Roy
It went perfectly.
- [27:51]
Lemonade/Carvana Ad Voice
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- [27:52]
Carter Roy
They're picking it up tomorrow.
- [27:53]
Lemonade/Carvana Ad Voice
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- [27:56]
Carter Roy
That is the problem. Nothing in my life goes to smoothie. I'm waiting for the catch.
- [28:00]
Lemonade/Carvana Ad Voice
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- [28:01]
Carter Roy
That's exactly what a catch would want me to think.
- [28:04]
Lemonade/Carvana Ad Voice
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- [28:05]
Carter Roy
I need to knock on wood. Do we have wood?
- [28:06]
Progressive Ad Voice
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- [28:07]
Lemonade/Carvana Ad Voice
I think it's laminate.
- [28:08]
Carter Roy
Okay. Yeah, that's good. That's close enough.
- [28:10]
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- [28:28]
Carter Roy
Which translates to they killed my son.
- [28:30]
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- [28:38]
Carter Roy
What do you want? Just this.
- [28:42]
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- [28:49]
Carter Roy
On October 13, 1974, a security guard found the body of 19 year old Arlis Perry in the Stanford University Memorial Church. She had been stabbed, violated and posed in a ritualistic way. Her new husband, 19 year old Bruce, passed a polygraph test and was eliminated as a suspect by police. Early on, some witnesses reported seeing a guy with sandy colored hair enter the church with Arlis about 20 minutes before she died. The authorities did their best to hunt down the mystery man, but in the meantime, suspicion fell on the security guard, 28 year old old Stephen Crawford. Minor inconsistencies in his story led some detectives to believe he was hiding something. But he passed a polygraph, so police turned to the evidence in hopes of finding a link between him and Arlis. In the days after the murder, forensics ran a series of tests on several items police recovered from the crime scene. Arlis had been violated by a two foot altar candle. Experts were able to lift a partial palm print from it, which they compared to Steve and Bruce's hands. Neither of them was a match, but it wasn't an exact science. Since palms cover more surface area than fingers, it takes much longer to analyze them. And even deciding which way a partial palm print should be ordered oriented can be difficult with a fingerprint. The top and bottom of the impression are usually clear, but it's not so obvious when all you have is one random segment of a palm. All of this means palm print comparisons have a higher rate of error than fingerprint analysis. But back in 1974, that was the best the police could do. Forensic DNA analysis wouldn't be widely used until more than a decade later. That same obstacle made another piece of evidence less useful than it could have been. The police had found a floor pillow near Arlis's body, the kind used to cushion a person's knees while they prayed. There was a prominent semen stain on the fabric by itself that proved Arlis had been sexually assaulted. But without scientific advancements, the pillow couldn't be used to ID the killer. And since the test on the palm print ruled out Stephen as a Suspect. That meant detectives were back at square one in search of another lead. The authorities turned to Arlis's friends and family to figure out if they knew anyone who may have wanted to hurt her. The fact that she was stabbed by an ice pick suggested the murder was premeditated. Not many people just happened to carry one of those to church in the middle of the night. But her relatives back in North Dakota couldn't think of anyone specific. She just wasn't the kind of person who made enemies. It wasn't until after she was laid to rest on October 15th that one of her co workers, a man we'll call James, came to the sheriff's office with a major new tip. During the funeral, James, who had only been working with Arlis for a couple of weeks at the law office, was introduced to Bruce Perry for the first time. And he wasn't who James expected. The day before the murder, on October 11, James spotted Arlis having a serious conversation with another man at her desk. Until the memorial service, James assumed that guy was Bruce. From afar, the stranger did vaguely look like Arlis's husband. Both were tall, with athletic builds and curly hair. But the mystery man's hair was more blonde, almost a sandy color. And up close, James could tell Bruce's face was completely different. When police asked Bruce who the visitor might have been, he said he had no clue. As far as he knew, Arlis didn't have any friends in the area yet, and she didn't usually keep things like that from him. In fact, she had explicitly asked Bruce not to come by her new workplace until she was settled in. So it was odd that someone else would come to see her there. The fact that the stranger had sandy hair should have been another red flag to detectives. The mysterious visitor could have been the same man a witness saw entering the church with Arlis before the murder. But for some reason, the police didn't pursue the tip any further. Instead, they wrote the stranger off as a delivery man or a potential client at the law firm, which was certainly possible. But that didn't explain why Arlis would have an intense 15 minute conversation with him. Either way, a week after the murder, detectives had moved on to a new theory. Because the murder was so brutal and sexually motivated, they started to believe it was the work of a random sex criminal, a repeat offender, or possibly an escaped mental patient. In that case, Arlis hadn't been specifically targeted. She just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. So law enforcement shifted their focus from her friends and family to similar crimes. In the area. Weeks went by, and they still hadn't found anything to prove their theory. But even then, the authorities were convinced they were on the right track. They insisted the murderer didn't have any personal connection to Arlis, even after her grave was desecrated. Back in North Dakota, On Halloween night in 1974, two weeks after her death, someone stole a temporary marker that was placed at her grave site. Although Arlis's grave was the only one that was disturbed, police dismissed the actual as random vandalism. The incident devastated her family and friends, who had only begun to grieve Arlis. For them, the impossible task of moving on seemed to get more difficult every day, since the investigation had clearly stalled. The murder was all people in Bismarck talked about. Busybodies swapped stories about Arlis Bruce and their dangerous lives back in California. As the weeks wore on, the gossip coalesced around one particular rumor, Allegedly the year before Arlis died, Back when Bruce had just left for Stanford, she and a friend did some missionary work together. One afternoon, they traveled to the neighboring town, a place called Mandan. By itself, that wouldn't have been out of the ordinary. Arlis spent most of her free time back in North Dakota, volunteering with a student religious group called Young Life. What grabbed the town's attention were the kind of people she and her friend were reportedly converting. Apparently, they went to Mandan to preach to members of a local satanic cult. Eventually, Bruce's parents heard the rumors for themselves and. And told Arlis's family. Her parents knew it sounded a little ridiculous, but then again, everything about Arlis's death had been strange. The way the killer posed her body, the fact that she was murdered in a church, and the theft of her grave marker. Even if the lead didn't pan out, it seemed like it was worth following up on. But unfortunately for Arlis's family, and the California authorities didn't take the rumor very seriously. For starters, there were logistical issues. Bismarck was 1700 miles away from Stanford. The sheriff's department didn't have the budget to carry out a full investigation so far from their jurisdiction. Plus, by that point, detectives were still convinced that a local sex criminal was responsible for Arlis's murder. Despite all that, they did make some token attempts to look into the rumor. Bismarck police cooperated with law enforcement back in Stanford to interview several members of the Young Life group. They found that almost all of them had heard the exact same rumor about Arlis and an unidentified friend. But no one could say who that friend was, and none of them had any firsthand knowledge of the supposed missionary trip, that was enough for the police to discount the gossip. They continued to devote their efforts back in California to investigating local offenders. Sadly, none of it bore any fruit. Gradually, Bruce and Arlis's families got fewer and fewer updates from the California cops. Eventually, the authorities were only calling every six months or so to report that there hadn't been any progress on the case. It wasn't until five years later that something changed. In 1979, a serial killer named David Berkowitz, the notorious Son of Sam, mentioned Arlis Perry to police in North Dakota. He claimed to have information about her death and even implied that he knew knew the killer personally. It seemed like Arlis's murder was the work of the devil after all. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Carter Roy and this is Murder True Crime Stories. Come back next time for part two on the murder of Arlis Perry. Murder True Crime Stories is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on social media at Crime House on TikTok and Instagram. Don't forget to rate, review and follow Murder True Crime Stories wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly makes a difference. And to enhance your Murder True Crime Stories listening experience, subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get every episode ad free. We'll be back on Thursday. True Crime Stories is hosted by me, Carter Roy and is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. This episode was brought to life by the Murder True Crime Stories team. Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benedon, Natalie Pertzofsky, Lori Marinelli, Alyssa Fox, Terrell Wells, Hania Said, Cassidy Dillon and Russell Nash. Thank you for listening. You didn't start a business just to keep the lights on. You're here to sell more today than yesterday. 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- [41:12]
Vanessa
looking for your next listen? Check out hidden history with Dr. Harini Bhatti. Every Monday, Dr. Bot goes where history gets mysterious vanished civilizations, doomsday prophecies and events that science still can't fully explain. Follow Hidden History now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen.