Update on Two Doctors Murdered in CA
Maggie
Couple's model lifestyle belied murder scheme
* Police paint a stark image of a respected doctor who plotted his wife's
death with the help of his lover's underground connections
By Tony Saavedra and Bill Rams
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
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SANTA ANA -- Carolyn Oppy-Stahl was a sweet-voiced optometrist who picked the
seeds out of her husband's watermelon, nursed him back to health after his
quadruple-bypass surgery and turned their $385,000 Huntington Beach condo into
a showpiece.
By most accounts, she was a model wife to Dr. Kenneth C. Stahl, a well-known
anesthesiologist.
And, police say, he could not have hated her more.
For years, Stahl, 57, fantasized with a friend about ways to kill her and once
asked an ex-Placentia gang member if he knew anyone who would do the deed,
according to a search-warrant affidavit filed in North Carolina. He even
disabled the burglar alarm on their home, so an intruder would have no trouble
breaking in, the affidavit said.
Finally, police say, Stahl paid a hitman $30,000 to shoot his wife on a
desolate stretch of Ortega Highway, just outside San Juan Capistrano. Stahl
lured her there for what he said was a "surprise" to celebrate her 44th
birthday.
Stahl got a surprise of his own when the gunman turned the .357-caliber Magnum
on him.
Adriana Vasco, accused by police of being an accomplice, said in a tearful
interview Tuesday at Orange County Jail that she covered her eyes as her
ex-boyfriend, Dennis Earl Godley, gunned the couple down.
Stahl's wife was still alive when Godley ran out of bullets, Vasco said. The
gunman hustled back to the car -- where Vasco was waiting behind the wheel --
reloaded, then finished the job, she said.
"He was very, very pumped up," Vasco said.
The bodies of the respected doctors were found in their silver Dodge Stratus,
the headlights blazing and the motor running, at 10 p.m., Nov. 20, 1999.
The killings stumped Orange County Sheriff's detectives for more than a year.
But they found clues in the secret life of Kenneth Stahl, a womanizer whose
nine-year relationship with medical assistant Vasco led him to a criminal
underworld where police say he found his hitman. Investigators say Vasco
introduced him to Godley, an ex-convict with a long rap sheet.
Both are in jail, Vasco in Santa Ana and Godley in Virginia, charged with the
slayings.
Godley, also arrested on drug, robbery and grand-larceny charges in North
Carolina and Virginia, denied killing anybody in a telephone interview Tuesday
from Tidewater Regional Jail in Suffolk, Va., where he is awaiting extradition.
"They are making it look like we (he and Vasco) were in this mad love affair
and plotting and all these things," Godley said. "That's complete (baloney). I
think it's a huge conspiracy, and I'm the scapegoat."
Those who knew Stahl say it is hard to reconcile the image of him as a
philanderer who put out a contract on his wife with the generous, mild-tempered
doctor who carried a miniature copy of the New Testament in his pocket. Married
twice before, Stahl had vowed to friends that he never again would walk down
the aisle. But he bowed to an ultimatum made by Oppy-Stahl in 1987 after they
lived together for a year: either get married or say goodbye.
The couple exchanged vows in Las Vegas, just after midnight on Jan. 1, 1988.
Everybody loved Oppy-Stahl. Ken's mother. Many of his friends. She handled all
the gift buying at Christmas time and ran all his errands. She was perfect.
Perhaps, some say, too perfect.
"She was like an angel, so nice that it was almost sickening," said Dr. Marc
Mintz, a longtime friend of Stahl's. "She was just so sweet, everything from
her voice to her demeanor to her actions."
Stahl was by nature quiet and hard-to-know, but something clicked with
Oppy-Stahl when they met in the doctor's lounge at Pico Rivera hospital. Stahl,
who suffered his first heart attack at age 37, was obsessed with his health and
muscular physique. His idea of a date was a bicycle ride from Irvine to Balboa
Island, or cross-country skiing.
"Carolyn liked the fact Ken liked sports activities," said her sister, Linda
Dubay, 38, a general surgeon in Michigan. "She obviously took a really strong
liking. She stopped seeing two other guys."
Oppy-Stahl, a Michigan transplant, grew attached to Stahl's mother, Bobbie, and
often referred to her in-laws as her "California family."
Stahl came from good stock, the son of a prominent Pomona surgeon, William
Stahl, who owned Garfield Cottage Hospital. Bobbie Stahl was a nurse. They were
members of First Baptist Church of Pomona, where Ken Stahl was active in the
youth club. He attended La Verne University on a football scholarship.
"He was pretty much a straight arrow, very intelligent and intense. He knew
where he was going and how to get there," retired minister Keith Korstjens
said.
While he had inherited his father's medical skill, Stahl also got his father's
bad heart. William Stahl died of a heart attack in 1980. His father before him
also died of heart failure. Relatives say Ken was depressed about his heart
condition, especially after his latest bypass in July 1999. Unable to work, his
finances dropped, forcing him to sell his $700,000 house and buy the condo,
relatives say.
Midway through their marriage, Carolyn Oppy-Stahl discovered her husband was
having an affair. Arriving home early after a trip to Michigan, she found a
woman lounging in her living room, eating fast food. The couple went into
marriage counseling, but there would be at least three more affairs -- and more
counseling.
Dubay, said she confronted Stahl about his affairs. But, she said, her
brother-in-law just walked away.
"He'd act like he was just indifferent to the whole thing, kind of
'you-take-me-the-way-I-am' attitude," Dubay said. The names in his address book
were nearly all women, she said.
Dubay knew of just one time Stahl's temper flared during the marriage, when he
caught Oppy-Stahl going through his locked desk at their home. Oppy-Stahl had
grown suspicious about his secretiveness. Dubay alleged that Stahl hit his
wife, bruising her arms and hips. Oppy-Stahl cried to her sister, but refused
to leave. Stahl grew distant, but wouldn't consider divorce.
"It sounded like neither one of them knew how to get out of this marriage,"
Dubay said.
But Stahl, according to police and interviews, already was hatching an escape
plan. Vasco told investigators and The Orange County Register that Stahl hated
his wife and spoke as early as 1993 about killing her and himself. Divorce
seemed out of the question.
"He said he loved his mom, and his mom liked (Oppy-Stahl) a lot," Vasco said.
"He didn't want his mom to be mad at him."
Stahl also liked the unpolished crowd that Vasco ran with, she said.
"He hated doctors' parties and high society because they were so phony, (you)
always have to be proper," Vasco said.
Vasco introduced Stahl to her live-in boyfriend, Gregory Stewart, an
ex-psychiatric patient. The two men became close friends, often meeting for
beers at a local rib joint. Stahl, typically nursing a beer, talked incessantly
about how best to kill his wife, Stewart said in an interview.
"He started to come to me because he knew that I was in the Marines," Stewart
said. "He wanted to know if I knew of certain ways to dispose of people. I said
I did, but I didn't want to get involved like that."
Stahl wove intricate murder plots, including his favorite: having Oppy-Stahl
shot from long distance by a sniper, Stewart said. Another scenario had the
killer knocking out Stahl by ramming his car off a forest road, then shooting
his wife, Stewart said. The police affidavit said the men also discussed
poisoning her.
Stewart said he never thought Stahl would actually carry it out. He seemed
kind-hearted, loaning Stewart $6,000 and buying a Mazda for Vasco when her car
broke down.
Shortly before she died, Oppy-Stahl told her family that Stahl was taking her
out to dinner to celebrate her birthday, and that he was planning a big
surprise. She also told co-workers at a Long Beach eye clinic.
"She was looking forward to it," Dr. Ronald Hartman said.
The killing plan had been in place for months, Vasco said, though she insisted
Tuesday that she tried in the days before the slayings to stop them. She said
she already had been successful in delaying a date set for September.
"I told Ken, 'Please call it off,' and he wouldn't listen," Vasco said. "I
cried, 'Please, please.'
"Nobody has any idea how bad I wanted to stop it."
Maggie
"Pretty smart campaign for a dumb guy."--Newsweek on George W.
Kris Baker
Maggie wrote:
>From the Orange County Register:
>Couple's model lifestyle belied murder scheme
>his wife's death with the help of his lover's underground connections
>By Tony Saavedra and Bill Rams
>THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
.
>"I told Ken, 'Please call it off,' and he wouldn't listen," Vasco said. "I
>cried, 'Please, please.'
>"Nobody has any idea how bad I wanted to stop it."
>Maggie
Vasco sounds like a little kid who, when caught with their
fingers in the cookie jar, tries to convince everyone that
his hands are on automatic pilot.
If she wanted to stop it, she could have easily done so.
One phone call. Done.
Kris