On April 5, 2015, 26-year-old Stephanie Scott was only six days away from marrying her love of five years, 27-year-old Aaron Leeson-Woolley. Since she was going on a honeymoon after the wedding, the teacher decided to use her free time to get her classroom ready for the substitute teacher who would take over for her while she was gone on her honeymoon to Tahiti.
It was Easter Sunday & Aaron was out of town for the weekend, so she decided to spend the day at her school in Riverina, South Wales to map out a lesson plan. She let herself into the locked building using her passkey & before she got into her tasks, she texted Aaron at 11 am to let him know she was there, just in case he came home early. At that moment, she would have no way of knowing that the text would later help investigators track her whereabouts after a sudden & tragic turn.
Stephanie was born on October 14, 1988 in Sydney, Australia. By 2015, she was an energetic & adored drama teacher at Leeton High School. She was born to parents Bob & Merrilyn Scott & had two sisters & two brothers.
Aaron had left town on Friday, April 3 & kissed Stephanie goodbye before heading out to a farewell party for a friend in Canowindra (Ka-nown-dra), about three & a half hours away & never possibly imagined that it would be the last time he would see her alive. When Stephanie went to the school that day, she parked her red 2010 Mazda 3 on Myrtle Street & her colleague who lived nearby walked with her to the school gate & unlocked it. After Stephanie went through, she closed & locked the gate behind herself & headed to the English teacher’s staff room where she sat at her desk & worked for two hours & forty minutes before she planned to head home & finish up last-minute wedding details.
As dinnertime rolled around, Stephanie’s parents Merrilyn & Bob began to worry when she hadn’t arrived. They tried to call her to no avail & then set out to find her. In the meantime, Aaron was also trying to reach her, also without success. As he drove home from his weekend away, he continued to call her over & over but each time, it went straight to voicemail. When one of his calls ended in a pre-recorded message indicating that her mailbox was full, Aaron had a sinking feeling that something bad had happened.
After Aaron arrived home at 7:20 pm, he continued to try to text & call Stephanie with no reply. He drove around the area & past Leeton High School but her car was nowhere to be seen & thought maybe she decided to spend the night at a friend’s house. The next morning, she still hadn’t responded to his calls or texts so at 4:30 pm on Monday, April 6, Aaron went to the police station to report Stephanie missing.
Authorities speculated that Stephanie could have gotten cold feet & left on her own volition to clear her head. Her parents assured investigators that this would not be the case with their daughter who was responsible & considerate of others. They were firm on the fact that she would never leave without letting her loved ones know, leaving them to worry. Also, Stephanie was beyond excited to be marrying the love of her life & they were convinced she would not have thrown it all away on a whim.
Police conducted a ‘find my iPhone’ triangulation on Stephanie’s phone but it was turned off or not working. Her bank account had no activity since she’d shopped earlier on Easter & she had no social media activity. Her last known activity was at 12:59 pm on Sunday afternoon when she sent an email from the school to a bus company arranging transportation for her wedding guests.
As investigators continued to gather information about Stephanie, they began to agree with her family. They spoke with Aaron who informed them of Stephanie’s text about being at the school earlier & they started their investigation there. On Monday, April 6, officers headed to the school to re-trace Stephanie’s footsteps. Her classroom was inspected & the alarm system showed that Stephanie had disarmed the system at 1:31 pm & rearmed it at 1:38 pm.
In the meantime, her family spoke with the local media about her disappearance. One theory was that she’d gotten into an accident & was unable to reach help. It was their goal that someone had seen something that would help them find her.
After police spoke with school officials, they learned that the custodian, Vincent Stanford, had likely been in the building at some point on Sunday. They made arrangements to sit down & speak with 24-year-old Stanford, hoping he might have some information about Stephanie’s movements while she had been there working. When they spoke with him, he apologized but indicated that he would be of no help since he hadn’t seen Stephanie while he had been working. He indicated that he’d spent very little time at the school over the weekend & instead had used his time to focus on his hobby of photography. He said he’d only taken a break to stop at the grocery store & to back up his claims, he told police the name of the store that’d he’d gone to that Easter afternoon.
When police stopped by the store & learned that it had been closed in observance of the holiday, Stanford suddenly became the focus of the investigation. They asked him if they could see the photos he claimed to have been taking on the day in question & handed over his cell phone without hesitation. As police scrolled through the photos, they found what they believed to be two images of a smoldering human corpse.
When he was questioned about the gruesome images, he said he’d simply taken them from a horror movie. They also noticed that he had scratches to his forehead, arms, under his eyes & on the bridge of his nose which he explained away as having run into a tree branch a week earlier. Detectives then placed him under arrest. The next day police issued a search warrant for the home that Stanford shared with his mother & older brother Luke in the town of Leeton. In his bedroom, they found a hidden pair of blood-stained handcuffs & a red bra that was later identified as belonging to Stephanie as well as her set of keys for the school. When his computer was searched, they discovered videos of women being subjected to sexual violence. Despite the growing evidence, Stanford was maintaining his innocence. The knife that was used as the murder weapon was also found in the home.
Vincent Stanford was born on December 21,1990 in Tasmania; in addition to an older brother, he also had a twin brother named Marcus who lived in South Australia. He started his five-week relief position at Leeton High on March 2, 2015 & the position was set to end on April 2, three days before Stephanie disappeared, but it was extended.
On Thursday, April 9 at 9:30 am, authorities found Stephanie’s abandoned car but there was still no sign of her. Investigators were able to use Stanford’s cell phone to track his movements from Sunday when Stephanie went missing. The information led them to a remote area where they believed they would likely find her body.
On Friday, April 10, Stephanie’s laptop was found after a witness called police saying they had seen a car that matched Stanford’s pull up near an irrigation canal on the outskirts of Leeton on Easter Sunday at about 3:50 pm & threw what appeared to be a laptop into the water.
This area was three miles from where Stephanie’s car had been found. At 5 pm that same day, divers found Stephanie’s charred remains in a remote area of Cocoparra National Park. At this point, Stanford gave a full confession & Stephanie’s last moments were those from a nightmare.
Stanford told investigators that the moment he saw Stephanie sitting in her classroom alone on Sunday, he knew he was going to kill her. He’d never met her before & he hadn’t known she was going to be there that day. Since he didn’t know how long she would be there, he knew he would need to work quickly. He rushed home to his mother’s house to collect the tools he needed for this exact occasion. Within the hour, he had returned back to school with what he referred to as his “rape kit.” When he came back, he waited for Stephanie to finish working & as she passed him, walking toward the exit, she smiled at Stanford & told him she was leaving. Before she reached the door, she cheerfully wished him a happy Easter.
When Stephanie turned her back, Stanford grabbed her from behind & she began to kick, scream & claw at him as he dragged her into a small storage room that had once served as a photography dark room. Once inside, he punched her in the face multiple times, knocking her to the floor. He then secured her hands using handcuffs & then brutally raped her which was something he had fantasized doing for years.
He explained that when he finished, he struck Stephanie in the face & head another “thirty or forty times” & finally plunged a knife into her neck. When he was sure she was dead, he drove home & enjoyed a cheese sandwich & coffee with his family. He returned to the school later that evening & placed Stephanie’s body into the trunk of her car & thoroughly cleaned the blood from the storage area where he’d murdered her.
He drove her car home, believing he’d just committed the perfect crime. When he arrived, he parked the car behind his shed so Stephanie’s car would be hidden from the road & then walked back to the school to get his car. Afterwards, he headed home to get a good night’s rest.
Early the next morning, Stanford drove 43 miles to Cocoparra National Park where he took Stephanie’s body out of the trunk & placed it on the ground. He removed her clothing & placed them in a backpack along with the sun visor from Stephanie’s car & a sheet of plastic he’d used to line her trunk with. He covered her with kindling & got ready to start a fire using five gallons of gasoline, but before he did, he removed her graduation ring & cherished engagement ring. He also took her driver’s license to hinder her identification in case her body was found. He then drove Stephanie’s car back to his house so he could change his clothes before discarding her car near a canal on Pike Road. Next he met his mom at a grocery store at 7:30 am & then drove around Leeton, discarding Stephanie’s belongings in various garbage cans. These items were never recovered but the sun visor & other items from Stephanie’s car were found in a garbage can at the corner of Banna & Jonaryan Avenue.
After starting the fire, Stanford drove Stephanie’s car back to Leeton. When he was four miles from home, he pulled over, leaving her Mazda in the field where it was found. Police spoke with a group of scouts who had been camping in Cocoparra National Park & they provided police with a photo they’d taken on Wednesday, April 8, 2015 at 5:34 pm, two days after Stanford had burned Stephanie’s body, & the photo showed Stanford in the background, in his white car, driving away. He told detectives he’d gone back because he “just wanted to see if she was still there & thought maybe the wildlife would have taken her.” It was at this time that he took photos of Stephanie’s burned body to commemorate the heinous occasion.
When investigators questioned what drove him to such a senseless & horrific act, he simply replied that he’d had no choice. He said he had been fighting such an urge since age seven & indicated that he was amazed that he’d held out as long as he did. He explained that he was so obsessed with the thought of murder when he saw Stephanie that he couldn’t have stopped himself even if he wanted to. When he woke up that day, he had no intention of harming anyone, but decided to take advantage of the situation, knowing that he was alone with Stephanie in the deserted school.
An autopsy was done on April 13, 2015 & found the direct cause of death was blunt force head trauma; her nose & right eye had been fractured. There were two stab wounds to the right side of her neck.
He said that his vicious attack on Stephanie helped him release frustrations that had been bottled up inside him for years. He basically convinced detectives that had he not been captured, he was absolutely capable of killing again. Now that the monster had been released, there was no going back.
Stanford was evaluated by a court-appointed psychologist & found that he was filled with a deep hatred for the human race that had affected his entire life. He said he’d taken the janitorial job because it allowed him to work independently, at his own pace with very little supervision. The isolating job was perfect for his anti-social preferences. It was also discovered that Stanford loathed human contact of any kind & would recoil from any well-meaning attempts at physical contact. He viewed most people as detestable & believed the world would be a better place without them in it. He also indicated that the horrific attack on Stephanie had meant so little to him & had basically no impact on him that he’d nearly forgotten the whole incident by the time police came looking for him.
Stanford also said that after Stephanie had gone missing & he overheard one of her colleagues talking about the fact that she was only days away from her wedding, he’d laughed in response. He felt he was carrying an inside joke with the knowledge that she would not be walking down the aisle. It was clear in speaking with the psychologist that the person that Stanford hated the most in life was himself. He often engaged in acts of self-harm in order to release the anger & pressure that mounted inside of him.
As Stanford’s background was uncovered, it was discovered that he’d always been a very temperamental person, often exploding into fits of rage with little prompting. He had a tendency to stalk & harass women but was poorly equipped to have a healthy, consensual relationship. He often observed women from afar, fantasizing how to make them his. He had never previously acted on his impulses but admitted that he had stalked a 12-year-old girl in Leeton for several months before he lost interest. He indicated that he had planned to abduct her when the time was right but thought about the repercussions of what could happen to him if he got caught, so he abandoned the idea. There had also been two other adult victims he had his eyes on before he killed Stephanie.
While Stanford remained in jail awaiting trial, his twin brother Marcus came under police scrutiny. When they initially spoke with him, he said he had no idea what had happened to the missing teacher. Marcus was brought back in for questioning on May 30 & detectives asked what had happened to Stephanie’s missing rings that his brother had taken from her. The search of the home did not find the rings.
Through evaluation of his computer, investigators were able to see that he’d searched for “places to sell jewelry near Adelaide” four days after Stephanie’s remains were found. On June 10, Marcus was arrested & charged with being an accessory to murder after the fact when a business card was found with his belongings that was traced to a jewelry store in Adelaide where Stephanie’s rings had been pawned on May 9 for $705.
Nine months later, on March 31, 2016, Marcus pleaded guilty to selling the rings & burning Stephanie’s driver’s license but not before he took a picture of it & saved it to his phone. Marcus appeared to be sorry for his actions & repeatedly apologized for his involvement in the cover-up. He said he had only done what he did out of loyalty toward his twin brother. He was sentenced to fifteen months in prison & released in September 2016 after serving less than half his sentence.
Marcus is currently living with his father in a rural area far from Leeton. He relocated after many threats he’d received from locals. His father, Steven had been estranged from his twin boys much of their lives & completely cut ties from Vincent after learning he was responsible for Stephanie’s death.
Marcus has tried to make amends & has apologized to Stephanie’s family for his role, indicating that if he could do it all over again, he would do it differently. He is currently caring for his father who is in poor health & has no contact with his twin brother.
On July 20, 2016, Vincent Stanford pleaded guilty to murder, aggravated sexual assault & infliction of bodily harm. On November 14, 2016, he was sentenced to life in prison for the murder plus fifteen years for aggravated rape. The deciding judges made a point to say that his lack of remorse weighed heavily on their decision. Parole is possible down the line, but legal experts agree that he’ll likely die in prison.
In order to protect Stanford from fellow inmates, he is allowed to shower alone to avoid contact & he eats his meals away from others.
On Saturday, April 11, 2015, on what should have been Stephanie & Aaron’s wedding day, her family held a celebration of life in a local park. Guests wore yellow in honor of Stephanie’s favorite color & the entire community was invited to be part of the laughter & joy to honor the young woman who brought happiness wherever she went. Stephanie’s dad, Bob spoke & said that he wanted his daughter to be remembered for the great girl that she was, not the tragic way that she’d died.
In a horrible twist of fate, only three weeks after Vincent Stanford was sentenced, on October 31, 2016, Stefanie’s father, 59-year-old Robert was killed in a freak accident at the family’s country home as he was struck by a falling tree while clearing a wooded area.
Because many felt that Stephanie’s death could have been prevented, a civil lawsuit was filed against the NSW Education Department as well as the third-party agency who had hired Stanford. It was not for financial gain but to ensure that those who pose a threat to others don’t go unnoticed. The case was settled in 2021 but the details were not released to the public. School representatives indicated that a criminal background check had been completed at Stanford but came up clean but they did agree to adhere to more stringent guidelines for future hires.
In 2022, Aaron announced that he’d found love again & was engaged to be married to a woman named Samantha.
Stephanie was described as a bubbly, bright, witty, intelligent, fun-loving girl; her father, Bob said that she’d obviously impacted the lives of many people & he hoped that his daughter would remain on the minds of those who knew & loved her. He wanted her to be remembered as the great girl that she was.
References:
- Medium: Of monsters & men: The horrific rape & murder of bride-to-be Stefanie Scott
- Ocean Road Magazine: Merciless & cold-blooded: The murder of bride-to-be Stephanie Scott
- Stuff: Chilling details of how Australian school teacher Stephanie Scott was watched & killed
- Daily Mail: Police divers find a laptop in waterway during search for Stephanie Scott’s body after two witnesses ‘saw a man throwing something into the water’ on the day she was murdered
