Stacy Ziegler Smith,
29
Taylor Swanson, 10
Unborn Child
MN, Winona
December 16, 2004
A 21 year-old-man, Paul Gordon, was charged with four counts of
first-degree murder; four counts of second-degree murder; first-degree criminal
sexual conduct; and first-degree arson in the deaths of Stacy and her daughter Taylor,
10. The murder charges include three counts relating to the death of Smith's Unborn Child.
Rescuers responded
to a report of a fire at a Winona apartment complex to find the victims dead.
It was determined that Stacy and Taylor were strangled to death and that Taylor
was also beaten and sexually assaulted. Police have announced that the fire was
deliberately set.
Friends of Stacy
reported that she and Gordon dated for several months and she was pregnant at
the time of her murder. Gordon has an extensive criminal record. He was
convicted of fourth-degree sexual assault against a 12-year-old girl in 2004 in
Arkansas and was arrested in July in connection with raping and strangling a
woman in Bentonville, Arkansas. Gordon was arrested in November in Winona on
suspicion of cocaine possession and threatening police officers with a fake
plastic gun. Gordon is also suspected of pointing a loaded pistol at another
man in December.
In the weeks leading
up to the slayings, Gordon asked witnesses for rat poison and a syringe and
told them that he wanted to get Stacy “off my back.”
Gordon was sentenced
to 3 concurrent life sentences for the murders of Stacy and Taylor.
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