- 6 days ago
At 16 years old, Terry Lee Hunt helps Shaun Stemple brutally murder Shaun’s wife, Trisha Stemple. Shaun orchestrates the gruesome attack. Now, after three decades behind bars, Terry seeks forgiveness from Trisha’s family and redemption for his crime.
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00:00Stemple's husband of 11 years originally told police his wife went to the store in the middle
00:07of the night to get medicine. Her body was found just off the shoulder of Highway 75 a few hours
00:13later. This became an enraged, brutal murder that's unthinkable.
00:30And so I want to make it perfectly clear that both of them are equally liable for this horrendous act.
00:46It broke my heart that he hurt that woman. You know, he was my son. I didn't think that he would do
00:53something like that. It hurt for years. It didn't go away. There were three people out there that
01:01night, and only one of them is still alive. And so how do I know I'm getting the whole story from
01:08this guy? I think everybody has things about themselves that they don't want people to know.
01:12I feel like I'm more than just my crime. You know, I mean, that was a horrible time. It was a dark
01:30period in my life, and you know, a lot of people are hurt. But I feel like I just wanted people to
01:37see me and have a chance to, you know, see me as more than just something they read on the internet.
02:07Think things.
02:12Oh, слушà!
02:17You know, you think you're under stress?
02:22No.
02:31Oh, yeah.
02:33So, yeah, that was real.
02:34Prosecutors say Stemple was a husband who first cheated on his wife, then killed her
02:43for money, nearly a million dollars in life insurance, and because he had a girlfriend.
02:54They say he offered his girlfriend's cousin, Terry Hunt, $30,000 to help beat Trisha Stemple,
02:59then run over her with a truck and make it look like a hit-and-run accident.
03:05Prosecutors say this case was one of the worst crimes they've ever seen.
03:29You know, if I could, if I could take that moment back, you know, I mean, it would, it would,
03:36I can't say that my life would have been better or that I wouldn't have went along to prison,
03:40but, you know, Trisha would still be alive.
03:42Her family wouldn't be missing someone that they loved.
03:46You know, and I would say that it was a horrible crime.
03:52It was, it was, there was no getting around it.
03:59You know, and I'm not saying that I didn't, don't deserve to come to prison, you know,
04:05and do a lot of time.
04:06I don't, I don't deny that or dispute it.
04:09But I would say that, you know, that while I participated in that, you know, that's not who I am.
04:19You know, it's hard to, you know, tell people, hey, you can trust me now.
04:24You know, I mean, that was, that was then, you know, and I've changed.
04:28I'm not, and I don't think anybody's the same as they were when they were 16.
04:49Sean Stimple was my cousin's boyfriend.
04:58You know, when I got to kind of looking up to him, he seemed like a upstanding guy.
05:04I mean, he had a lot of the things that I wanted, like he had a house.
05:07You know, he had a car with a stereo system.
05:10You know, he seemed like he had things together.
05:13He just seemed like a good person.
05:17You know, I didn't find out till, you know, shortly after I met him that he was actually married.
05:22One day, I don't know if he came over to my house.
05:25I talked to him and I asked him, I was looking for a job.
05:28He said, well, what, what would you do for $50,000?
05:32And I was like, anything, you know, 16, $50,000 sound like a couple million.
05:38And then he, he asked me to help him kill his wife.
05:47I don't remember exactly what I said to him, but I agreed with it.
05:53I agreed to do it.
05:54You know, I remember that.
05:59Were you scared?
06:01Yeah, yeah, I mean, of course, you know, I mean, who talks about killing somebody?
06:05And I just blinded by greed.
06:08And, you know, I didn't really think about backing out, you know, once I told him yes.
06:15I don't pretend to say that, you know, that I didn't know right from wrong.
06:20I knew it was wrong.
06:22You know, that was a, that was a hard time of my life.
06:26He was to tell her that the truck had broken down because we'd had the hood propped up to make it look like it's broke down on the side of the road.
06:51And he wanted me in the bushes waiting.
06:59He pulls up and he has her hold the flashlight in front of the, on the hood.
07:06And while he gets in the, the driver's seat and starts the truck up, you know, and the, and the signal was, you know, when he revved the engine.
07:20That's when I ran up the small hill and, and hit her with, hit her with the bat twice.
07:27Did it knock her out?
07:28No.
07:29The first one didn't and the second one knocked her to her knees.
07:33I remember that.
07:37Sean, Sean takes the bat from you.
07:39Right.
07:40And he, he continues to hit her.
07:47How are you feeling in this moment?
07:49I think, you must have been scared out of your mind.
07:52I w I was, I remember crawling up in the passenger side of the seat after that.
07:58And, and in my mind, all I see is it plays over and over again is, is seeing him doing that.
08:05And that, that's, that's what haunts me more than anything.
08:10There's no, there's no quitting at that point.
08:15And then what happened?
08:16You know, I, I understand that this is important, but I also understand that Trisha's family is going to watch this.
08:29And I'm, I, I don't want them to have to relive the details.
08:37You know, they, they know them.
08:38I've told them.
08:46Yeah.
08:59That's a picture of the crime scene with her body there.
09:08Man.
09:10Crazy.
09:17In doing a job like this, you, you went to, you end up having, uh, things in your mind you can't, uh, unthink.
09:25And, uh, you know, I certainly, to this day, it's been 28 years, 27 years.
09:31You know, I still have those in my mind.
09:33I, I, I do think about her.
09:36She was, you know, she was living her life.
09:39And she thought, you know, obviously nothing, you don't ever fathom anything like this.
09:45Happening to you.
09:46And I, she, she was, I mean, from what I was told by everybody, she was a great person.
09:53And she, she was brutally murdered.
10:00At the time, um, on the media, it was being displayed as a, uh, traffic accident.
10:07Mm-hmm.
10:08But I would say we believed from the outset that it was a, uh, murder.
10:16Yeah.
10:20That's the baseball bat that was used in the death of Trish Stimple.
10:26John Stimple went to the house, picked her up under the guy, under the, uh, the premise that his car had broken down.
10:36He got her out to that, to the scene.
10:39Once she got out of the car, Terry began to beat her with a bat.
10:45And they had a, a bat that was wrapped in saran wrap, um, as part of their premeditation.
10:53And he began to beat on Trisha.
10:56And at some point, Sean became dissatisfied with that and took the bat himself and, uh, beat his wife probably at least 30 times.
11:09I think it was survival she was fighting.
11:23Um, I mean, you know, you don't know what somebody would be thinking.
11:27I'm sure she was thinking why, but, you know, I think she was fighting.
11:33And ultimately, um, she's run over by the truck.
11:36This is the truck.
11:47Yeah, that is the truck that was used.
11:53I wish you could see that right bumper.
11:57There was actually her hand print was on the right front bumper, uh, visible.
12:05So that goes to her fighting.
12:11She had crawled, I think, probably a couple feet.
12:14I mean, again, I mean, she was just a fighter.
12:17And they drove over her again.
12:18And, um, I mean, I get choked up about it, but the severity of, of her injuries were, were gruesome.
12:31Um, it was some things that, um, are unimaginable what, why a human being would do that to another.
12:37She was just a good person.
12:39And the way she died was, um, was horrible.
12:43And I think at some point he just decided that the only way he was going to be able to deal with that was to get rid of his wife.
13:01We further developed that there was a, um, insurance policy of around a million dollars.
13:08We came to the determination that Sean Stimple was the person that did it.
13:13And we ultimately came to the conclusion that, uh, Terry Hunt had helped him.
13:19And so I, I want to make it perfectly clear that both of them are equally liable, uh, responsible for this horrendous act.
13:30And there's no way around that.
13:33I mean, what Terry Hunt did was evil.
13:36And, uh, I'm not going to sugarcoat that.
13:39I mean, he was sentenced to life for his evil acts, you know, and I, I feel comfortable in that.
13:47That's Terry.
14:00Yeah, he looks worried to me.
14:02And he should be worried.
14:04You know, he had just, you know, been involved in something very, very, very bad.
14:11And what did you think when you heard that your son had been arrested for murder?
14:18Well, I was hoping it wasn't true, of course.
14:22I was devastated.
14:25I was devastated.
14:26My son was involved in it.
14:29It was a very vicious, bloody crime.
14:35No doubt about it.
14:38I didn't think that I ever brought him up that way.
14:42I never did.
14:44And it was the most brutalist, uh, crime that, that there was in Oklahoma.
14:49Well, Terry's pretty smart.
15:03Pretty normal.
15:05We did a little fishing.
15:08We did a little camping.
15:09We had a great time, as far as I know.
15:13He didn't start getting off the, you know, until he was around 14.
15:18You become the, the company that you keep.
15:32Says it in the Bible.
15:34He did drugs and did whatever he wanted to do.
15:38And that, that's, that got Terry off the, you know, way off the path of doing right.
15:49I'd take him to school and he'd meet me home.
15:53You know, we didn't live that far from the school.
15:56But if we dropped him off, we figured that he'd go.
16:00So we got him in the car, took him, dropped him off.
16:04And when we got home, there he was, you know.
16:08So we called the school.
16:12They sent the policemen out there, you know.
16:15And the policeman told Terry, you got a choice here.
16:21You can either go to school or you can go downtown and live off the street.
16:25Whatever you want to do.
16:27He said, I'll live off the street.
16:31So they took him downtown and dropped him off.
16:34One thing that I, that he did that, you know, scary to me.
16:39He took my gun.
16:40What do you want?
16:42Uh, yeah.
16:45I knew it was getting worse, but, uh, there was nothing I could do about it.
17:03You know, he, he didn't, he refused to come home.
17:06And he got in with Stimples and, you know, and that woman got killed, you know.
17:13Well, I remember, the day after, I came back and I, and I forced myself to go to sleep.
17:33And I remember the, the day after, you know, I, I'd seen it on the news.
17:39You know, I looked out, you know, I'd constantly be looking out the window, you know, thinking they're coming.
17:46You know, and there was just, and I would just throw myself on the bed, crying, you know.
17:50I mean, it, it, it's like, it scarred me, you know.
17:54You know, there wasn't nothing, there wasn't no, you know, like, celebration or nothing crazy like that.
18:05It was, it, it, it bothered me, you know, as it slowly, you know, sunk in that this was, you know, you know, we'd killed somebody.
18:12You know, we did the absolute worst thing you can do as a human being.
18:16Whether you get caught or not, you don't get away with murder.
18:20You know, it, it, it, it haunts you.
18:23It's something that's internal and there ain't no punishment externally that anybody could do to you,
18:28even life in prison or the death penalty that would, that can, that can be any worse than what you do to yourself and your own mind.
18:35So, I mean, there's, there, I'm walking around with a torment and worried about going to jail.
18:44We set up in the interrogation room, me and this cop, for, I don't know, something like hours, but it was probably maybe an hour or so.
19:08And when the detective come in and let me talk to my lawyer, my lawyer was like, man, I mean, he's pretty much, they got you.
19:17And I just, I said, I'll tell them.
19:21The prosecution's case, or your story, calculated what must have been 30 baseball bat blows to her body.
19:41About how many you think there were.
19:44You know, in my mind, I play it and like, I play that part over and over again.
19:57And it was, it was, I can't pinpoint the exact number of it, but I know that it was, it was quite a lot.
20:05You know what I mean?
20:06It was a lot.
20:07Yeah.
20:08And you hit her twice.
20:09Right.
20:10And then you, you had to stop.
20:11Is that right?
20:12Right.
20:14When I was at the preliminary hearing, when you get in them situations, you want it to be over with.
20:40You want to, you want to get it over with as quick as possible, you know?
20:44And after the preliminary hearing, I laid in my rack and I thought about it, you know?
20:51And, and I remembered that, you know, I mean, I didn't forget I did that, but I didn't, I knew I didn't tell them that at the preliminary hearing.
20:59And, and you know, I knew that that was, you know, something that happened and that needed to be told.
21:03And so the next time I talked to the, to the lawyers, you know, I told them that, you know, I mean, that didn't help my case.
21:10You know, in fact, that made me more culpable than what I was prior.
21:15Because at trial, you say that you ran her over and that Sean also ran her over, is that correct?
21:26Right.
21:27I can recall, I think he rolled over trying to drive over her head.
21:37I remember that.
21:38Okay.
21:39And then I'm getting, and then you roll over her.
21:43Right.
21:44Over her chest.
21:45You roll over her chest.
21:47And then she gets up and walks from, from there.
21:53She crawls to the side of the road.
21:55Yes.
21:56I, I didn't know what to do.
22:08I was just kind of, I don't want to say autopilot, but it is, he was, he was directing it.
22:14And he's telling me, you know, what to do.
22:16And what's he telling you to do?
22:18Well, like he'd come, he'd tell me to like, you know, help him move her.
22:24And, you know.
22:26So would you say that he's in charge at this moment?
22:31Oh yeah.
22:32He, he was, he was definitely in charge.
22:54What do you think your punishment should be for this girl?
23:09I think I'm, I think I'm living my punishment.
23:13You know, I think, but I mean, I, I, and while I hope, you know, to get out, you know, I'd like to, you know, get out and do something.
23:24I know I owe a big debt to, you know, to a lot of people, to society.
23:28And I'd like to do something to make my life count, you know, because in prison, you're kind of, it's, it's like everything's on pause.
23:37I've been in almost 30 years and, you know, I don't know if I'm any closer to getting out than I was, you know, 30 years ago.
23:45You could just tell me your name.
24:07My name's Maureen Hunt.
24:09And how are you related to Terry Hunt?
24:13I'm Terry's wife.
24:26In the state of Oklahoma, you can throw a rock and hit somebody who has a loved one that's incarcerated.
24:32And so I have some really good friends whose son was incarcerated.
24:37And so I was introduced to Terry.
24:41This is a guy who I think that, that you would get along with, you know, he's a, he's a great guy.
24:47And so we started writing.
24:49He's a great writer.
24:50And so we wrote back and forth a lot.
24:53And, you know, it was like six months before he actually told me about his crime.
25:00He wrote me a letter and said, um, I, I want to go ahead and, you know, talk to you about, about my crime.
25:09Because I think we were both really enjoying each other's company and he didn't want to get too far into it, even as a friend.
25:19And then tell me what happened for me to turn around and say, I'm out.
25:24And so I did what everybody else did.
25:27And I got, got online.
25:29And same thing, Terry Lee Hunt, you know, and it pops up.
25:34And, um, saw that headline.
25:37I thought, yeah, this is, this is not your average murder.
25:43This is, um, this is bad.
25:53Yeah, that's, um, that's probably the first headline that comes up when you Google him.
25:59Teen beat woman to death on Tulsa Road.
26:01I have friends who've lived here for a long time and they remember this crime.
26:06It was notorious.
26:08And it made me really sad because I thought, this isn't the guy I've gotten to know at all.
26:14I can't, I could not wrap my head around it, to be honest.
26:18But according to Terry, teen beat woman to death is not accurate at all.
26:24Terry did not beat her to death with a bat.
26:28He started to, you know, he hit her twice and then he told Sean, I can't do it.
26:34I can't do it.
26:41There were three people out there that night and only one of them is still alive.
26:45And Sean was executed in 2012.
26:50How do I know I'm getting the whole story from this guy?
26:53And so I took a year to make sure that he was exactly who he said he was
26:58and not who, um, the internet said he was.
27:02I confronted him a lot.
27:03I'd go to visit with my list of questions and ask him because I had to know the answers.
27:10And it was difficult.
27:11I was ashamed of what he did.
27:16But I feel like the person that Terry was then was a completely different person than I know now, 28 years later.
27:29People are led and 16 year olds are even easier to lead.
27:35And Sean knew that.
27:36He knew exactly what he was doing when he was grooming Terry.
27:40Terry was manipulated by Sean.
27:44I believe in him so much.
27:45I have so much hope.
27:46And, you know, hopefully the world will see him for who he is.
27:50Stimples made him do it.
27:57He was, uh, forced to do what he had to do.
28:01You think he was forced?
28:02Oh yeah, he was forced.
28:04I don't think that, I don't think that he was brought up, you know, to do that.
28:09And I don't think that he had the courage to do that.
28:14He was pressured.
28:15You know, he was, uh, Stimples, the guy that, the guy that hired him to help him kill his wife.
28:22He had, uh, threatened him about me and my wife and my, and my, uh, other son.
28:30Said, if you don't, you don't go through this, I'm gonna kill them.
28:36And that's, you know, that's, that's how he got involved deeper.
28:43I wish he'd have told me.
28:45You know what I mean?
28:46He was, uh, uh, took advantage of it because he was a young kid.
28:51And this guy was a coach.
28:54You know, if you got a coach, he can, he can manipulate kids.
29:00That's what he does.
29:03Now he's paid what he did.
29:05You know, now he's looking for a chance to get out there.
29:08And that's what he, what he deserves.
29:10He deserves one more chance.
29:21And that's Sean Stimple.
29:30I really don't think much of this guy.
29:33I mean, he's pathetic.
29:36I think he's a very good manipulator.
29:39I think he, that's, that's what he thrived with.
29:42He was very accomplished in his profession as a soccer coach.
29:48So he had a little bit of a reputation, I believe, for having some charisma and people liked him.
29:54And, and I think that he used that to gain whatever he wanted.
29:59I think that's just a part of his personality.
30:02He just seemed very controlling and manipulating.
30:05And, I mean, exactly what he was.
30:07Terry was so young.
30:11He's just a kid.
30:13Terry was very vulnerable.
30:16And as any predator does, they're going to pick somebody they can manipulate.
30:20And that's, that's exactly what happened here.
30:22He was ripe for the picking because of his age and his problems he was having.
30:27But he was just as guilty and just as involved as Sean Stimple.
30:34Plain and simple.
30:36In fact, there was another attempt prior.
30:56My understanding was a couple of weeks prior to the actual murder, they had made a tentative date to commit the crime.
31:04And they ended up not being able to do that because they could not get Trisha to go along with it.
31:11She wasn't feeling well.
31:12I believe she was ill at the time.
31:14Yeah, me and Nate were out there waiting, and she was supposed to show up.
31:23And then when we seen the car pull up, it was Sean.
31:28You know, and he was saying that she was sick and couldn't come.
31:34And so they had to change plans.
31:36Terry Hump knew what he was doing at many times to say no, and he chose not to.
31:45So you had two weeks to think about it.
32:04He made the decision not to show up.
32:07You know, I mean, I did have the two weeks, and I've heard the detective say that, you know, this guy had two weeks to change his mind.
32:22And during those two weeks, you know, I thought that there would always be something that would come up.
32:27You know, that this, like, I never really believed that this would ever happen.
32:32It didn't become real to me until it started happening, until, you know, they pulled up and she was there.
32:39Just looking, looking back, if I could take that back, that would, I know that her family misses her.
32:48And I'd hope that they know that, that I know that, that I've hurt them.
32:54And I'd hope they know that I'm sorry.
33:09Why, why should people believe, believe you now?
33:17Is there anything you can say to...
33:20That, that's a tough question because, you know, I mean, people, people, I mean, I understand I'm in prison.
33:28You know, I'm in prison for murder and, you know, I've tried to educate myself.
33:31You know, I got my GED when I first come to prison.
33:35You know, I've, I've earned an associate's degree.
33:39Um, I almost got my bachelor's degree.
33:43I've talked to, uh, you know, young kids, you know, kids they brought into the prison.
33:49And I've tried to, I've tried to use my time as wisely as possible and, and try to contribute wherever I can.
33:56I would like to think that, you know, that, you know, I've done enough to show that I'm, that I'm better.
34:05You know, that I've improved myself, that I've, I've grown up, I've matured.
34:09You know, and that I have something to offer.
34:12You know, if they let me out, that I have something that I can give back.
34:16I think essentially where you're asking people to kind of make a leap of faith.
34:22I mean, that's, that's what parole boards do every time they recommend somebody for parole.
34:26Because I mean, at the end of the day, you know, only you know what you think and what you're going to do.
34:33When Terry proposed to me, I knew for the rest of my life, I was going to be the wife of a murderer, even after he's out of prison.
34:50And I had to face him face to face and look at him in the eye and reconcile that in my mind.
35:02And, and that took a while, you know, it took a while for me to, to get past that.
35:08Because that's not the man that I know now.
35:13I have no reason not to believe him.
35:18And I do feel like he is remorseful and I do feel like he's compassionate and a good person and someone that I, I love so much and believe in so much that I did end up marrying them.
35:30I could have just turned my back on him like everybody else has, especially last year when he didn't make parole.
35:40That was, oh God, that was one of the hardest days of my life.
35:45I could have just turned my back and said this, I can't do this anymore.
35:49And he was terrified that I was going to walk away.
35:52Did you think about walking away?
36:04No, I, I never thought about it because walking away would have been abandoning the best thing that ever happened to me.
36:22He said, well, what, what would you do for $50,000?
36:31And I was like, anything, you know, $16,000, $50,000 sound like a couple million.
36:38I don't pretend to say that, you know, that I didn't know right from wrong.
36:43I knew it was wrong, you know, and.
36:48And that's where the greed comes in.
36:49That's where the greed comes in.
36:52I can see it upsets you.
36:57You know, that was a, that was a hard time of my life.
37:08It's hard to see that.
37:10I've never seen him cry.
37:12I'm, the day that he called me after the parole board denied him, he called me on the phone and I was like,
37:18he called me on the phone and I had to say, they said no.
37:22And he cried and I had to hear him crying.
37:25All he would say is, I'm sorry I can't come home to you.
37:29I'm sorry I can't come home to you.
37:31And that's the only time I've ever heard him cry.
37:34And that was tough.
37:36It was really hard.
37:3728 years later, he still has nightmares about it.
37:41It's not something he'll ever forget.
37:44The crime will never change.
37:45You can't go back and erase that.
37:47That's history.
37:49Yeah, that's history.
37:50And if he could go back and change it, of course he would.
37:52I don't look at him and look at him and think this guy's a killer.
37:58He's grown into the kind of man who deserves a second chance.
38:02I believe he's entitled to have a consideration to be let out so that I thought maybe my unique involvement might help.
38:27You know, my oldest son is an addict and is sober 10 years now.
38:33But that's definitely changed me for the better.
38:37It's made me a better person.
38:38It's made me a better lawyer.
38:40And it's made me more empathetic.
38:43Terry Hunt was very, very young when he was sentenced to life.
38:48He did a horrible act.
38:51Despicable.
38:53No excuse.
38:54And in the same breath, he has done the time.
38:58And he hasn't just done the time.
39:00He's done the work.
39:02He's very accomplished within the prison system as being a productive member of that system.
39:10If the system doesn't look at that and say, well, maybe we need to consider letting him out, then I don't know what the system's for.
39:20I don't know what else he can do to better himself or put himself in a position to be eligible to get out with a life sentence.
39:30I say all this with the understanding that the family of Tricia Stempel are in agreement with this.
39:38I would never go against their wishes.
39:41You're sure you wouldn't harm anyone again? No one has to worry about you hurting someone?
39:51No, of course not. I would never. I mean, that's the furthest thing from my mind. You know, I mean, that doesn't no good. Violence is failure. Violence is, you know, there's too much of it in this world. And I know that, you know, people don't.
40:09That's what people fear is, you know, somebody getting out of prison and harming somebody. That's why it's so hard to get out of prison.
40:27You ever think about Tricia?
40:31Yeah. I mean, she, you know, I think about her and I pray that, you know, she would understand that I'm sorry that I didn't.
40:54That I ever thought that any amount of money was worth taking anybody's life.
40:59You know, I'm sorry that I didn't take them two weeks and go to the police.
41:05You know, that I could have stopped all this. You know, that I was the one person that could have, you know, changed the whole outcome.
41:15And I didn't. I failed.
41:17You know, I have faith and I believe if you pray for your sins to be forgiven, you know, and you do it with a sincere heart, God will forgive.
41:26God will forgive.
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