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Man Gets Life For Bludgeoning Sleeping Girlfriend To Death Because He Thought She Was Talking To Her Ex
Steven Pierce's apparent paranoia over girlfriend Heather Stamper led him to rip up his car seats and ask multiple people for weapons before brutally killing her.
A Delaware man has been sentenced to life behind bars, plus an extra quarter of a century, for bludgeoning his sleeping girlfriend to death after becoming enraged at the idea that she was speaking with an ex-boyfriend.
Steven Pierce, 45, of Elsmere, was given life imprisonment plus 25 years for the 2016 murder of Heather Stamper, the attorney general’s office stated in a Friday press release. He was convicted last month of first-degree murder and possession of a deadly weapon during the commission of a felony.
The office states that in July 2016, Pierce bludgeoned Stamper to death as she slept in her bedroom.
“Investigators found Pierce became jealous believing that Stamper, 31, of Delaware City, was speaking to an old boyfriend,” they state.
The couple had broken up right before the murder as a result of that accusation Pierce made against Stamper. They were last seen together on a street the night of the murder before Stamper went home, according to Delaware Online. An enraged Pierce reportedly went to a friend’s home asking for a gun but wasn’t given one. At that friend’s home he was so angry he tore up his own purple flower car seat covers, according to court paperwork obtained by the Delaware Online. He said he wanted the gun to kill Stamper. He then asked a different friend for both a gun and a rosary.
"This is my last night of freedom," Pierce told that friend, according to a witness, the Delaware Online reports. "I am going to be a lifer come tomorrow."
The next day, Pierce called 911 to report that he'd discovered his girlfriend dead. He also claimed that she had been in a suicidal state, according to court records obtained by the Delaware Online. He said he found her shot and with her wrists cut, but it's not clear if she was either shot or cut in reality. Stamper's official cause of death was blunt force trauma, according to a Delaware State Police report from 2016. It’s not exactly clear what he killed her with.
