Summary

• Unsolved Mysteries features a new episode on the 1977 murder of Sigrid Stevenson, aiming to solve cold cases with public help.
• Stevenson’s murder at Trenton State College remains unsolved, new suspects uncovered in the recent episode.
• Police initially suspected law enforcement or a student named Chuck, but new leads point to maintenance and theater employees.

This article contains graphic descriptions of a murder and a discussion of the victim’s sexual assault.

Unsolved Mysteries recently featured the 1977 murder of Sigirid Stevenson, which has never been solved. The Netflix series is a continuation of the popular true crime series that ran from 1987 to 2010 and follows a similar format, although each episode focuses solely on one mystery rather than presenting several different stories at once. Over the course of the four years it has been on Netflix, the series has led to the closure of several cold cases.

One of the best Unsolved Mysteries episodes focused on the still-unsolved murder of a college student in 1977. The case was now over forty years old, which made it unlikely that it would ever be solved. However, since Unsolved Mysteries helped find a kidnapped girl alive, there was a chance that platforming Stevenson’s case would result in someone coming forward with information about the case. Thus, the series took on her case in season 4, promising to share new theories as well as information about the murder.

Sigrid Stevenson Was Found Dead On Stage At Trenton State College’s Theater In 1977

An Urban Legend Says Her Ghost Haunts The College

Sigirid Stevenson was a graduate student at Trenton State College at the time of her murder. On the evening of September 4, 1977, a security guard noticed a bike chained up outside of Kendall Hall. This was unusual because classes had not started yet and students at the time did not routinely chain their bicycles up outside school buildings, especially on a Sunday night. Thus, the security guard investigated and was met with the gruesome sight of Stevenson’s naked body lying on the stage in a pool of blood. She had been handcuffed and gagged with her underwear.

Stevenson’s body had been placed under a tarp usually used to cover the piano after the murder.

Stevenson was determined to have been bludgeoned to death after being sexually assaulted, but there were no witnesses and no one came forward with any information, so it was nearly impossible for the police to figure out what had happened to her. The technology did not exist to do DNA testing and the case went cold, though students claimed to have seen Sigirid’s ghost in the years since, and some theorized that she was haunting the theater because she had loved to play the piano so much when she was alive.

Why Sigrid Stevenson Was Staying At Kendall Hall

The Victim Had No Place To Sleep

Stevenson had been hiking through Nova Scotia that summer, and when she arrived on campus on September 2, her room was not accessible, as the people she was staying with were on vacation. Thus, she decided to crash in Kendall Hall for a few days while she awaited their arrival. She was sleeping in the theatre’s green room on September 3 when students performing in a play arrived and thus had to move; however, she stayed at the hall and attended the play.

Kendall Hall was the logical place for Stevenson to stay until she could access permanent housing. Piano was her first love, so staying in a building that had one available for her to play whenever she wished would have been a dream come true for her. Stevenson tended to keep to herself, so she likely did not have other friends she could stay with while she waited for her host family to return from their vacation, and after hiking all summer, squatting in an empty building probably didn’t seem unusual to her.

Stevenson’s presence there has helped establish a timeline for the murder. She was last seen alive the evening before; the students in the play reported that she was friendly and in good spirits, but that her mood changed later and that she reported having an argument with a man. The play and her interactions with students suggest that she was killed sometime after the play ended and everyone else left, but she was not found for an additional 24 hours.

Were There Any Suspects In Sigrid Stevenson’s Death?

Police Initially Suspected A Member Of Law Enforcement, But This Was Never Proven

There were few suspects when the murder was first discovered. Ewing Police quickly learned that Stevenson had illegally squatted in many buildings on campus while a student there and that police officers were constantly chasing her away from places she wasn’t supposed to be. Additionally, she had been bound using handcuffs before her death. These two facts led Ewing Police to suspect she had been raped and killed by a member of law enforcement but were never able to conclusively identify a suspect.

Police also initially suspected a student named Chuck, who had been one of the people participating in the play on September 3. Chuck had been playing a police officer and thus would have had handcuffs on him as a prop, and Stevenson had a playbill in her possession with his name circled and a note saying he was a nice guy who gave her a beer. However, Chuck passed a polygraph exam, which seemed at the time to rule him out as a suspect.

In 2016, posthumous DNA testing on Chuck ruled him out definitively as a suspect.

Have There Been Any Updates On Sigrid Stevenson’s Murder?

Unsolved Mysteries Revealed The Identities Of Some New Suspects

Unsolved Mysteries focused on some new suspects that had not been considered during the original investigation. One promising suspect is a maintenance man who worked for the college at the time and had keys to the building. Stevenson had his phone number among her possessions. He also was fired shortly after the murder for unknown reasons, and thus had never been asked by police to take a polygraph. Similarly, an employee who was in charge of lighting at the theater would have had a set of keys and could have turned the lights out during or after Stevenson’s murder.

By dedicating an episode to Stevenson’s death,
Unsolved Mysteries
hopes to publicize her murder in a way that was not possible in 1977 and provide a platform for anybody who has information to come forward.

Although no new information has surfaced yet, Unsolved Mysteries’ legacy is one of solving cold cases with the help of the public. By dedicating an episode to Stevenson’s death, Unsolved Mysteries hopes to publicize her murder in a way that was not possible in 1977 and provide a platform for anybody who has information to come forward. Thus, it is possible her murder will soon be solved now that the series has aired an episode about it.