Dennis Stockton, 1978

On July 20, 1978, a young man named Kenny Arnder tele­phoned Dennis Stockton at his home. Arnder want­ed Stockton to dri­ve him to Kibler Valley, a remote, wood­ed area in south­west­ern Virginia. Arnder said he was scared because some­one whom he feared had seen him steal­ing tires off a car. Stockton agreed, and drove Arnder to Kibler Valley, drop­ping him off at 6 PM. Stockton left, but lat­er returned around mid­night, find­ing a num­ber of peo­ple who were hav­ing a party.

Five days lat­er, Arnder’s body was found in a gul­ly near a dirt road in North Carolina, close to the Virginia bor­der. The body was cov­ered with branch­es and already decom­posed, mak­ing iden­ti­fi­ca­tion dif­fi­cult. Arnder’s arms were stretched out in the form of a cross and his hands had been chopped off at the wrists. He had been shot between the eyes.

Dennis Stockton already had a crim­i­nal record and was one of the last per­sons to see Kenny Arnder. The police ques­tioned him short­ly after Arnder’s body was dis­cov­ered. Stockton read­i­ly showed the police guns he had in his house, but they were dif­fer­ent cal­ibers than the mur­der weapon. Then the police left.

Later, Stockton heard rumors about who had killed Arnder. However, Stockton did not go to the police with the infor­ma­tion he had heard about the crime.

Two years after the crime, Stockton was in jail on oth­er charges. He heard rumors that the police sus­pect­ed him of Arnder’s mur­der. He believed he knew where the rumors were com­ing from and he offered to reveal some new infor­ma­tion to the police. The police took him to his house, where he showed them let­ters from a ​“promi­nent cit­i­zen” who had writ­ten to Stockton, offer­ing him mon­ey in order to have a ​“rival” killed. Stockton claimed he had been giv­en $2,000, with a promise of $3,000 more if he killed this rival. Stockton said he kept the mon­ey, but nev­er killed any­one. Later, he received anoth­er $1,000 and a let­ter ask­ing him to kill some­one else. Again, he kept the mon­ey, but did not act on the offer. He gave the let­ters to the police, indi­cat­ing that the author of the let­ters might be the one spread­ing the rumors about Stockton’s killing Arnder as a way of get­ting back at Stockton for not car­ry­ing out the mur­ders request­ed in the let­ters. Later, the let­ters were lost by the police.

Finally, four years after the crime, Stockton was charged in Virginia with the mur­der-for-hire killing of Kenny Arnder, when anoth­er con­vict­ed felon offered to tes­ti­fy that he heard Stockton agree to a con­tract on Arnder’s life.

Dennis Stockton’s tri­al was held in the rur­al town of Stuart, Virginia in 1983. Stockton was charged with accept­ing $1,500 from Tommy McBride for mur­der­ing Kenny Arnder. Allegedly, McBride was angry with Arnder for cross­ing him on a drug deal and want­ed Arnder killed as a mes­sage to oth­ers. Arnder’s moth­er tes­ti­fied that the last per­son she saw with her son was Dennis Stockton.

Randy Bowman tes­ti­fied that he had been at McBride’s house try­ing to sell some stolen goods and heard McBride offer to pay $1,500 to have Arnder killed. Bowman tes­ti­fied that Stockton quick­ly agreed to the deal. Bowman’s tes­ti­mo­ny was the only evi­dence direct­ly link­ing Stockman to Arnder’s mur­der. Bowman stat­ed that he was not giv­en any promis­es in return for his tes­ti­mo­ny, although he was fac­ing criminal charges.

At the sen­tenc­ing hear­ing, a dif­fer­ent wit­ness tes­ti­fied that he had seen Stockton kill and bury anoth­er man named Ronnie Tate in North Carolina in 1979. Ronnie Tate had also been at the park in Kibler Valley the night Kenny Arnder was last seen alive. Stockton claimed he killed Tate in self-defense after Tate had pulled a gun and threat­ened to shoot him. Although Stockton had admit­ted to this killing ear­li­er and had even led police to the body, it helped estab­lish for the jury that Stockton would be a future dan­ger to soci­ety, and he was sen­tenced to death.

Kenny Arnder was 18 years old when he was killed. He was the sec­ond youngest of Wilma Arnder’s six chil­dren. She had raised all the chil­dren her­self after her hus­band left her. Kenny was a tall boy, with long hair that was com­mon in the 1970s. He was easy-going, but in his teens he start­ed asso­ci­at­ing with a rough crowd. Sometimes he would live away from home. When his body was found, he was wear­ing jeans, a T‑shirt with a slo­gan jok­ing about drugs, and a neck­lace with a white stone, the same clothes he had been wear­ing when he was last seen alive five days before.

Arnder had known Stockton for some months and looked up to him. Mrs. Arnder rec­og­nized Stockton because he had been at their house a few times. Stockton tele­phoned her after Kenny was report­ed miss­ing and again when his body was found. She did not doubt that Stockton was the killer, but she found it cold-blood­ed that some­one could kill his friend.

Dennis Stockton was born in 1940 in North Carolina. He spent most of his adult life in prison, work camp, or jail. His first stint in jail came when he was locked up for pass­ing bad checks. His par­ents let him stay in jail over the week­end to teach him a les­son. He was sex­u­al­ly assault­ed by a guard. When he was 17, he was sen­tenced to three-to-five years in prison for two counts of pass­ing bad checks in his par­ents’ names. When he returned home at age 20, he was already a hardened adult.

Stockton’s ear­ly years were spent in Shelby, North Carolina, where he lived with his par­ents in a small rent­ed house near the cot­ton mills. He did well in school and had an IQ esti­mat­ed between 130 and 160. He loved base­ball and played when­ev­er he could. His father was away for much of his child­hood, fight­ing in World War II. When he returned, he was often abu­sive to Dennis.

Stockton played base­ball on a prison team and claimed he was scout­ed by the New York Yankees. But he nev­er made it to the big leagues. He became heav­i­ly involved with drugs, both using and deal­ing, com­mit­ting arson by con­tract, safe­crack­ing, and car­ry­ing a gun. Police fre­quent­ly sought him out as a sus­pect in crimes. He sport­ed a prison tat­too, and idol­ized race car dri­vers. At one point, police claimed they had seen a human body part pre­served in a jar in Stockton’s house. He said he had got­ten it from a bik­er gang and just kept it to show off at parties.