Arlis Perry

Case background and investigation

Arlis Perry was 19 and recently married when she was killed inside Stanford Memorial Church on the Stanford University campus in October 1974. According to Palo Alto Online, she had moved to Stanford from Bismarck, North Dakota, in August 1974 with her husband, Bruce Perry, a Stanford sophomore, and was working at a local law firm.

On the evening of October 12, 1974, the couple had a minor argument while walking on campus, and Arlis Perry went on alone to Memorial Church to pray, arriving at about 11 p.m., Palo Alto Online reported. Other visitors saw her there when security guard Stephen Crawford came in to say the building would soon close. Crawford told police he locked the church at about 11:45 p.m. and checked it again at 2 a.m. without seeing her. When she did not come home, her husband called Stanford police at about 3 a.m.

At about 5:40 a.m. on October 13, Crawford reported that he had found her body in the east transept, near the altar. According to news accounts, she had been stabbed in the head with an ice pick, showed injuries consistent with attempted strangulation, was unclothed from the waist down and had been sexually assaulted with a candle. The arrangement of the scene led to years of public speculation about a ritual motive, which investigators never substantiated.

Sheriff Laurie Smith said Bruce Perry, who voluntarily gave a DNA sample, was cleared, and that Crawford remained a person of interest for decades without enough evidence for an arrest. Stanford Magazine reported that a turning point came when investigators realised that trousers stored as the victim's had actually belonged to her husband; when her own clothing was analysed in 2016, DNA on it matched Crawford. The sheriff's office said his reference sample had been obtained from an item he discarded.

On the morning of June 28, 2018, sheriff's detectives went to Crawford's apartment on Camden Avenue in San Jose to serve a search warrant. According to San Jose police and the sheriff, detectives saw Crawford, 72, holding a handgun, withdrew, and then heard a single shot; he was pronounced dead at the scene of a self-inflicted wound, and no officer fired a weapon. Inside, detectives found the dust jacket of a book that discusses the Perry murder and a note dated 2016 that did not mention the killing.

Smith said investigators considered the case closed and were not looking for anyone else, while acknowledging the motive would remain unknown. Because Crawford died before any charge was filed, the evidence against him was never tested in court.