Sounak Sengupta
In June 2006, the quiet town of Calhoun in Kentucky was shocked by the murder of Corinne Stoudt. Her husband found the 46-year-old brutally stabbed in the bedroom of the Stoudt residence. After pulling out all stops, discrepancies in the testimonies helped the police zero in on the killer. Investigation Discovery’s ‘Fatal Vows: Murder, Modesty, and the Pastor’ takes a deep look into the tragic incident and the ensuing investigation.
How Did Corinne Stoudt Die?
Born on December 11, 1959, in Carlinville, Corinne Danielle Stoudt was the daughter of Albert L. and Norma Kuntzman Behl. She graduated from Ohio County High School in 1977 and was a certified nurse’s aide at Owensboro-Daviess County Hospital. Corinne (or Corrine) got hitched to Calvin Andrew Stoudt in Calhoun, Kentucky, on March 22, 2003. Corinne also had three sons — Sean, Colt, and Tristan. The 46-year-old had two sisters and three brothers, apart from several uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, and cousins. As per reports, she lost an infant son years ago.
Everyone who knew Corinne admired her for her kind and supportive nature. Thus, it came as a shock when Calvin called 911 on June 25, 2006, at around 7:45 pm to report that her wife was not breathing. A transcript of his 911 call stated, “It’s 1735 Lee Court. I just came home from church and my wife’s not breathing and the bedroom is messed up.” The dispatcher immediately notified authorities and police and emergency respondents arrived at the scene to find Corinne lying naked, face down, on the floor of the bedroom.
The room appeared to be distressed, with drawers pulled out and clothes strewn across the floor. Daviess County Coroner Bob Howe reported that Corinne was strangled and the assailant probably “used some object apart from his hands.” Calvin told the police that his wife was fine when he left for the church from home at around 4:30 pm but found her in this state when he returned. However, the police would soon discover holes in the testimony of the grieving husband.
Who Killed Corinne Stoudt?
The Owensboro Police Department sergeants at the scene became immediately suspicious of Calvin’s version of events. The investigators could not find any evidence of a break-in, and the absence of signs of struggle indicated that either Corinne knew her attacker or was taken aback. Calvin had claimed that the bedroom was “ransacked.” However, according to one of the officers, Randy Boling, the drawers had been simply pulled out of the dresser and dumped upside down. Boling continued, “The clothes were still folded on the floor.”
Calvin had also tried to blame the whole incident on some burglary gone wrong, claiming that money had been stolen from the residence. But the investigators discovered that none of the valuable items and gadgets, like the computer or the television, were found to be missing. Many more such discrepancies popped out from Calvin’s account when the police compared it to the physical evidence obtained, and he became a person of interest in the murder of his wife ever after the crime was reported.
However, the clincher came in the form of the autopsy report, which completely messed up Calvin’s reported timeline and exposed his lies to the investigators. Calvin had rigidly persisted on one point — his wife was alive when he had left for church at around 4:30 pm; he was reportedly on his way to becoming a pastor at the time. But the autopsy report refuted those claims, stating that Corinne had been strangled much earlier.
Daviess County Coroner Bob Howe stated, “She was found approximately eight at night, but I think she’d been dead quite a while before that – since maybe shortly before noon.” Owensboro police submitted DNA samples of Calvin to a state crime lab and eventually arrested him on August 20, 2006.
Calvin Stoudt Died in Prison
Calvin Stoudt was held in the Daviess County Detention Center with the bail set at $100,000. He eventually pleaded guilty to the murder of his wife and was sentenced to 20 years in prison without parole. Calvin died in prison on June 2, 2016, after serving only 7 years of his sentence. The authorities had not released the cause of the death of Calvin Stoudt. He was 54 years old at the time of his death.
