The views and opinions expressed in Cold and Missing are exclusively those of the hosts. All parties mentioned are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Cold and Missing also contains adult themes and languages. Listener discretion is advised. I'm your host, Ali McLaughlin-Sulkowski. And I'm your co-host, Eli Sulkowski. And this is Cold and Missing, where we cover cold cases and missing person cases. Hello everyone and welcome back to Cold and Missing.
I'm your host, Ali McLaughlin-Sulkowski. And I'm your co-host, Eli Sulkowski. Hi everyone. I know I haven't been on a few episodes. And I just want to take a quick moment to say thank you to everyone in your outreach towards me and Ali during the unexpected passing of my mother.
This is honestly probably the first time in my life that I really paid attention to myself emotionally and took care of myself and just honored and continue to honor my mother in respecting my grief process, which included not engaging with Cold and Missing in the way that I had previously, but I've missed recording and I've missed being in the booth with my beautiful and supportive wife. And I've just, I've missed being a part of what our mission is here, which is to help people find answers.
My mother was a true crime sleuth, just like Ali and I. She is still someone, I still actively talk to her all the time. She's someone who stood for what my wife stands for in the mission of creating this podcast. And she also, I know it's Halloween and around Halloween and she loved just spooky season horror films as well. And so do I. Yeah, she was a part of this community. So anytime you see a pink flower that really stands out to you, that's my mom saying hello.
But with that, I am grateful to be back and I'm looking forward to this episode. But what do you have for us this week? So today we are covering a cold case and this comes from Ewing Township, New Jersey. All right, let's get into it. And just as a content warning at the top, there are some brief mentions of sexual assault. So today we are talking about the cold case of Sigrid Stevenson. And this takes place in September, 1977 in Ewing Township, New Jersey. But first a little bit about Sigrid.
Sigrid was 25 years old in 1977. She was enrolled at Trenton State College, which is now known as the College of New Jersey. There she was pursuing her masters in music with hopes of one day becoming a teacher. Sigrid loved playing the piano. It was her passion. And so many memories of her friends from college involved her sitting at the piano bench. She was a fearless free spirit.
At this time in 1977, she had hitchhiked through Canada and New England as a summer trip and she followed her own path. Sigrid loved playing the piano so much that she often snuck into buildings and spent the night in them so she could play into the night and early in the morning. She was passionate and kind and marched to the beat of her own drum. And now a timeline of events.
On Friday, September 2, 1977, Sigrid returns back to campus after her hitchhiking adventure across Canada and New England. According to reports at this time, she was renting a room from a college professor during the summer, but classes were set to start on Thursday after the Labor Day holiday. So she would have been moving back into her dorm on Tuesday or Wednesday. On Saturday, September 3, a friend of Sigrid said that they saw her at the movies about 15 miles from campus that afternoon.
That evening, Sigrid headed over to Kendall Hall on campus to watch the final performance of the play JB. And just as a side note, this is a play about the retelling of Job from the Bible. After the show, Sigrid chatted with some of the cast and crew in the basement dressing room. Sigrid told them that she was locked out of her rented room and had planned to spend the night in Kendall Hall to practice the piano. Again, this is something that she had done in the past.
She planned to sleep in a practice room or under the stage. That night, while at Kendall Hall, Sigrid wrote in her journal that she kept hearing loud banging coming from the theater that was keeping her up. The cast and crew were tearing down the set from JB. Sigrid wanted to wake up early so she could practice the piano and leave before 11 a.m. when the guard comes by. Sigrid had gotten into trouble for being in locked buildings before and wanted to avoid the confrontation.
On Sunday, September 4, 1977, at around 1130 p.m., a guard was doing his rounds when he noticed Sigrid's green bicycle was locked up in front of Kendall Hall. The campus was mostly deserted at this time. There were only around 50 people on campus and with the next day being Labor Day, the guard seemed to think that the bike was out of place. So he unlocked Kendall Hall and went in to look around. That's when he makes the awful discovery of Sigrid's body.
She was center stage in the theater, surrounded by a pool of blood. She was nude. Her jeans were found nearby and her shirt was pulled up over her head. Her wrists had been tied behind her back and she was covered up by a piano cover. Sigrid's feet were bare and there were dirt and blood on the bottom of them. Sigrid was beaten so badly that she was unrecognizable. When her friends came to the police station to confirm her ID, they were only able to tell it was her by her hair.
The attack was brutal and blood was sprayed across the sheet of music on the piano that she had been practicing. In the theater, police found Sigrid's wallet with her driver's license, $7 in cash, and some travelers checks. Police assume because she was found nude that she had been raped, but her autopsy will show that she was not.
On Monday, September 5th, the Mercer County Medical Examiner, Dr. Abmed, determines that Sigrid was beaten to death with a blunt object and had died as a result of blood clots and a severe loss of blood. Sigrid had 15 deep scalp wounds which fractured her skull and face. Her nose was broken and so were two of her ribs. She also had bruises on her chest and elbow. Police are back on the college campus and searching Kendall Hall.
They find Sigrid's backpack in a different part of the hall and inside was her journal. She had recently wrote about how she was out of practice and her fingers were stiff. Police begin to question the cast of JB, which was around 16 people. One member of the play mentioned to police that they had seen Sigrid playing the piano in Kendall Hall over the summer.
He was surprised to see her since the building was always locked and the theater company had to find someone with a key to unlock it for them. I did read reports that there was a door on Kendall Hall that if you pulled with enough force would open even if it was locked. Police didn't notice any signs of forced entry at Kendall Hall. Tuesday, September 6th, police have no firm leads on who would kill Sigrid and beg the public to come forward with any information that they might have.
Police refused to say what time they believe that she was killed. Personally, I think she was killed Sunday morning based off of her journal entry. Also since she was killed on stage next to the piano she was playing and she had plans to play in the morning, but again nothing is confirmed by police. Police also don't have the murder weapon, but they theorize that either the killer brought something in and carried it back out or that a 2x4 was used.
A 2x4 was used to prop the piano that Sigrid was playing when she was attacked and it was missing after the murder. Police continue to question the cast. One member of the cast, Sidney Porcelain, was a well-known psychic in New Jersey. He had helped police on prior cases and offered to help here. Police initially looked at him as a person of interest, but after they were able to confirm the 24 hours after the play of his alibi they let him handle Sigrid's backpack in journal.
When he handled the backpack he said quote, I suddenly know how she was killed. She was hit on both the right and left sides of her head, but more strongly on the right. When he handled the journal he said quote, I felt something was wrong with my fingers because my own fingers felt strange when I held the notebook. Sigrid did write that her fingers were stiff as mentioned earlier, but police say that Sidney did not open or read the journal at all.
On Wednesday, September 7th, as more and more students returned to campus for the start of the school year, Sigrid's friends are questioned by police as well. One of her friends, Marie DePascal, said quote, I think she was too friendly for her own good. She would talk to anybody. The school urges students to walk with a friend at night and to lock their doors when they step out for a minute and when they're napping and sleeping.
Police had ruled out robbery as a motive since all of her money and travelers' checks were in her wallet. Over the next several weeks, police turned to question the campus security, which consisted of 12 armed officers and 8 security guards. The Ewing Township police also had to turn in their billy clubs and handcuffs to the state police to search for evidence of blood or hair.
Investigators are interested in campus security, as one of their biggest clues in this case was actually the piano cover that Sigrid was covered up by. The cover came from a $10,000 Mason & Hamlin grand piano that was kept in the concert room of Bray Hall, which is no longer on campus. It was demolished in 1999. Bray Hall was about 75 feet from Kendall Hall and was another locked building.
Furthermore, the concert room where the grand piano was kept was also locked and had no windows since thousands of dollars of musical equipment was kept there. To get the cover from Bray Hall to Kendall Hall, you would need three keys. One for the concert room, one for Bray Hall, and then one for Kendall Hall. The supervisor of the graduate music program and the chair of the music department did not have all three keys. The janitors assigned to Bray and Kendall Hall did not have all three keys.
Only campus security would have had all three keys. Now while there was rumor to be a door in Kendall Hall that if you pulled hard enough would come unlocked, everybody insists that there was no way to gain access to the concert room without keys. The head of the graduate music program, Stanley Austin, said, quote, Believe me, if there was a way anyone could have gotten access to the concert room and the grand piano, Sigrid would have found it, end quote.
Someone in the music department swore that they had seen the cover on the grand piano just weeks before Sigrid's murder and there would have been no reason that it would have been moved before the murder took place. Someone in the music department swore that they had seen the cover on the grand piano just weeks before Sigrid's murder and there would be no reason that it would have been moved before the murder took place.
One campus security guard is brought in for questioning since he had been friendly with Sigrid, but he is let go and no charges are filed. The next update I could really find on this case comes in 1979. It's been two years since the murder and police are no closer to solving it then than they were in 1977. The Mercer County Assistant Prosecutor, Paul O'Gara says, quote, We have no individual suspects, only a large group of people who were on campus at that time.
For that matter, it could have been somebody wandering through campus, end quote. And then after this, the case truly seems to go cold. The next article I could find on this comes from 2016. So that's 39 years after the murder. Students at the college have said that there is a ghost in Kendall Hall and that Sigrid is the spirit behind it. Students say they have heard footsteps when nobody is there, doors open and shut on their own.
And one student claims that in the bathroom, she saw a paper towel float from one side of the room and into the trash can on the other side of the room. Another psychic visited the campus in 2016, but they wish to remain anonymous when they spoke to the newspaper. They told the local paper, quote, When she was on stage, this guy was watching her for a little while. Either her back was turned while she was on the piano, or she was too involved with her music to notice.
I think he was in uniform and had curly hair. He had something on his pants, something like keys. She knew him but not well. He made in advance, but she fought back. He got angry, and when he got tough, she scratched and did something near his eye. That's when he got violent. He knew she was there that night. And this guy was sick, borderline stalker. There was a place on stage where he could hide and watch her. He made advances at her before, but she had ignored him, made small talk.
But that night was different. After he killed her, he discarded his clothes in a dumpster behind a store. He didn't appear to be old, probably in his late 20s or 30s, so he'd be in his 50s or 60s today. I think he has health problems and has moved far away." End quote. After this story runs in the newspaper, a woman writes in who is a freshman on campus the year Sigrid was murdered. She claims that no one on campus talked about it and it almost seemed forbidden by the administration.
She laments the fact that there is no plaque or scholarship to remember Sigrid by. She says, quote, the fact that her murder has become a ghost story is further insult to this young woman's dignity. Not only was she brutally murdered, her killer was never found. And now her murder has been reduced to entertainment for college students. End quote. And that is really the last update that I could find on this case.
So if you know anything about the murder of Sigrid Stevenson in September of 1977, please call the Mercer County Sheriff's Office at 609-989-6125. And the sources for the timeline today come from The Millville Daily, The Courier News, Courier Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Peninsula Times Tribune, The Jersey Journal, The Record, Oakland Tribune, Daily News, and Ashbury Park Press. So that is the case of Sigrid Stevenson.
I mean, I'm never expecting anything, I guess, when I am learning about a new case. But it certainly wasn't this. And my first reaction, honestly, is that it was just major echoes of the 70s and women's bodies, like lives, names, history experiences were just discarded in such a careless way. And there's so much of it at that time because it's, you think of, I mean, I think of the 70s and I think of like a serial killer, like, I hate to call it this, but like era, the viciousness in the details.
And then I'm not even going to say like lack of follow through, the failure of follow through. It's, I mean, one just like unacceptable that I'm so glad that you brought this case to us. I'm really sad that I didn't know about it until now. But yeah, my first reaction is like, I'm disgusted. I'm like amped up and super angry about this. Totally. And I don't know if you had this experience, but I know it's something that I had when I was researching it.
It's like I knew a bunch of cigarettes in college. You know, I was, I studied theater and our theater building and the music department, like they all shared, you know, a building where all our classes were, where the theaters were. And I knew people who would sleep in the building to like get extra practice or to stay up late and work on something. I used to sleep in the theater green room. Like I bought a blanket and a pillow to keep down there because I would nap down there so often.
And this to me was like, I know so many people like Sigrid and I myself like saw my myself kind of reflected in her of just like being so passionate about what you're studying and like eating, sleeping, breathing the piano. Like I don't play the piano, but that's how I felt about theater when I was in college. And it's disgusting to me to think of like that theater space where it is so vulnerable.
Like, you know, like you're moving through your college years, you're practicing this vulnerability on stage and music, playing music can be a very vulnerable experience. And there she was probably playing barefoot the piano since she was found without her shoes on and she was attacked and like center stage. Like it's just, it's like almost theatrical in like how it all happened. And I just really deeply felt for Sigrid in this case. It was just so astonishing to me that this could happen.
Yes. I, I, I hear you because I too, same thing, but like those little rooms and the, yeah, my second reaction was how dare you? Like you like ripped someone from their moment of like, what sounds like to me, like her vocation, like prayer to me. I might, yeah. My question is more directly for you is who do you think did it? And I know, you know, I know you believe that it was someone who knew her, knew the building, knew the space because that's the only way.
And I know it was like Labor Day weekend, but that campus was empty. Someone had to know and I have some opinions, but. Yeah. I mean, to me it comes down to those three keys. Who had access to those three keys? Who would have access to all three of those keys to get the piano cover from the grand piano in a completely different building in a very secure locked tight room.
I mean, even the graduate music director, he like kind of joked and said, if there was a way for somebody to get into the concert room and get access to the grand piano, Sigrid would have found it already. So the only way to get it was with a key. But also firefighters are very, very, very strong and like part of their job is to like break through into spaces. But there was no sign of forced entry anywhere. But did they actually look? I don't think that they looked.
I really don't think they did because of, I mean, this is just my own like reaction, honestly, in speculation. I personally think that even if the police didn't look, the music department looked. Those who loved Sigrid looked. Yeah, you're right. And there was no sign of forced entry. The concert room was very secure because of the thousands of dollars. So they were very careful. Like there were no windows in that room. It was an interior room and it was always locked.
And even, you know, the music department's heads, they only had keys to the music hall or sorry, they only had keys to the concert room and Bray Hall, but they wouldn't have keys to Kendall Hall. Now there is a rumor that there was a door that if you yanked hard enough, even if it was locked, you could get in. And so perhaps in theory, you only needed two keys, but whoever had access to those two keys would also need to know where that door is and know that it was a potentially a weak point.
And again, like I couldn't find specifics on this door. It was just kind of a rumor talked about at the time that there was a door that with enough force could be opened even if it was locked. Okay. I mean, again, I'm not sure if I have this like phrased in a question, but I instantly was like renting a room from a professor or whatever. I was just like, that's odd.
And like the misinformation, there was like maybe one or two, there were two professors or there was just one professor that she rented from. Yeah, so in 1977, the newspaper report said that she was renting a room from a professor, which I know you find strange. I don't find that strange because I was very close with a lot of my theater professors and I could see myself if I needed to in the summertime being like, Hey, can I rent a room from you? Like that makes sense to me in some aspects.
Honestly, I think it depends on like, I hate that it plays a factor here, but like age and you know, partner status and if a person had kids or you know, like, I don't know anything about those individuals. So all what I immediately thought was like, the professor or not cool with kids or not. That's like a creepy old man thing to do. That's the first thing that I thought. I was like, that's creepy. And I think that's fair. But like, again, I could also have seen myself in college.
Yeah, same for me. I mean, you know, I was very close with my advisor. I'm just saying like the possibility of it being like a skeevy thing is real. Yeah, but she was also staying there all summer and she had been like hitchhiking around. So she had been in and out. I'm not sure why she was locked out of a room that she was renting. That was the part that was strange to me. Like why couldn't she get back in?
Later when I was researching this, not the reports from 1977, but other reports said that she might have been dating a firefighter, but I couldn't find anything from that time. And I wasn't sure if those were just like details that got tacked on as part of like the ghost story and the lore of her. But from the 1977 articles, I couldn't find that she was dating anybody, seeing anybody or staying with anybody besides this rented room from a professor.
Okay. But again, for me, it just comes down to those three keys because somebody would have had to have the key for the concert room. So that's where I would start. If I was investigating it, I would start with whoever had those keys and work my way out from there. Yeah, the fact that this is not solved is, again, I mean, maybe I'm like this, it's unacceptable. How? Like how? Oh, man. And there were only around 50 people on campus when the murder took place.
So to me, I'm like, that's kind of a small pool to start from. You know, the assistant prosecutor a few years later says like, everybody that was on campus is essentially a suspect. But then again, it could have been somebody just wandering through campus. Because it was the Labor Day weekend. I guess I don't know if that area was busy or not. But you know, a lot of people go in and out of town, essentially.
So there is an opportunity for, you know, the, I guess, like trope of like the person passing through town, that guy passing through town or whatever. Right. And I tend to count that out because of this piano cover that came from another part of campus in a locked room. Like you would have to know that it was there to go get it. You know, if it's in an interior room with no windows, like. It also signals to me that it was personal.
That person was like, some part of them, whether they felt bad or not, knew it was wrong. Knew that they not even wrong, but like, I'm not supposed to do this. Right. I mean, I'm sort of shame in it or whatever. But like, I guess I don't really need to like say more about the state of her. But to me, the details of it is, it sounded very personal. Yeah, it's brutal. It's brutal. Unhinged. Unhinged. That like, oh god. That poor, those, her parents, they.
Yeah. And you know, her parents at this time are in California, so they are completely across the country while she's out here. They have both passed. Yes. Right. Yeah. Like died without answers. I. It's heartbreak. It is heartbreaking, like in the wake of what happened, that it was almost like next to nothing. I'm really glad that you brought this to us.
And you know, I kind of agree with the woman who wrote in one of the last things I said, that it is kind of a tragedy that Sigrid has been reduced to a ghost story. You know, I'm somebody, I love a good ghost story. I love. Like, I personally, I believe in ghosts. I believe that spirits can communicate with us after they've passed on. If energy can neither be created nor destroyed, that energy has to go somewhere.
But in this case, I do think that it's very easy to say this is a ghost story and forget that Sigrid was a very real person who could be alive today, who should be alive today. Yeah. You know, 19 should be like happy in like her later years. Exactly. You know, it's to me, it's very heartbreaking that she's reduced to a ghost story when her case is talked about now, as opposed to a cold case that could still be solved. We see cases get solved years later.
I mean, we saw it with the Betty Rolfe case, you know, years and years later, it can be solved. So like, this is still something that still can be solved. So I think there should be more respect to it. And I think you can acknowledge, you know, if there is spirit at Kendall Hall, like, I think it's okay to acknowledge that it could be Sigrid saying, look at my case, something happened to me. Help me. Help me. Yeah, like, please help me, someone.
Like, I mean, instantly, I felt that reaction of just like, there is something you can, there is something we can do. Absolutely. And again, just like, it is a small suspect pool of 50 people, essentially, that were on campus and an even smaller pool when you start to get into who had keys and who could get them. Her name and like what she did, you know, the piano, like the uniqueness surrounding this like, again, to echo you, very real person.
I felt, and like the smallness of the community, like, someone knows something. Oh, like, oh, Sigrid was blah, blah, blah. Like, someone knows something. And it could even be like, somebody who acted strangely after this happened, you know, somebody who got up, you know, quit their job unexpectedly and moved, you know, like those things that we kind of look for today that police kind of encourage whenever cases get cold, like to think back, did someone miss appointments?
Did someone start acting strangely, change their facial hair, change their appearance, anything like that, which I think in today's age, we kind of know to look for. But in 1977, I don't think that was communicated as well. So like, well, no, and people also had the attitude of not that guy. There's no way. Oh, no, no, not him. I think this case is solvable. And you know, if I got to sit down and just open the case file, I would think that there were people that were of interest to the police.
Like we know that a security guard was brought in for additional questioning because him and Sigrid had been friendly. We know that a couple of the cast members were brought in for additional questioning, but their alibis were all able to be confirmed. So I would be curious, why was the security guard let go? Were you able to confirm an alibi? Like, because that does seem to be where newspaper reports kind of point to, saying that only campus security would have had all three keys.
But again, if you know anything about the murder of Sigrid Stevenson in September of 1977, please call the Mercer County Police at 609-989-6125. And we will be posting pictures that we have of Sigrid up on our Instagram. So if you're not following us there, please do at Cold and Missing will pop right up. Also on our website, we'll have transcripts of this episode. So you can read if that's easier for you or somebody that you love to engage with this podcast, please find us there.
And any additional information like our videos from YouTube are also up on our website, www.coldandmissing.com. And while you're in your podcast app, if you wouldn't mind giving us a rate and a written review if you're an Apple podcast, it helps others find this podcast, find this case. And gets people involved and activated on these cases.
So just by rating and reviewing, you are supporting the Missing and Murdered, which is the main purpose of this podcast is to get answers for missing and murdered people. But that's all I have. So thank you again for listening to Cold and Missing. I'm your host, Ali McLaughlin-Sulkowski. I am your co-host, Eli Sulkowski. And stay safe, y'all. Have a good week and stay safe, y'all.