THE brutal unsolved killing of an elderly couple in Kentucky is still being probed in connection with the infamous Delphi murders after investigators noted a series of similarities in how each crime scene was elaborately staged.

Bill and Peggy Stephenson, both 74, were found bludgeoned and stabbed to death inside their Florence home on May 29, 2011, after they failed to show up for church.

The bodies of the beloved high school sweethearts – who were considered pillars of their local community – had been posed in separate rooms and the crime scene elaborately staged.

Few details have been shared by police over the last 12 years, but Boone County investigator Coy Cox told The U.S. Sun that “pretty much everything” in the home had been meddled with in some way and unspecified items were placed on and around Bill and Peggy.

Cox revealed back in March that his cold case crack team had received a number of promising tips linking the Stephenson murders to the deaths of two teenagers in Delphi, Indiana: Liberty German and Abigail Williams.

Libby and Abby were found dead near an abandoned train track in February 2017, some 200 miles away from the Stephensons.

The two eighth-graders were stabbed to death and their bodies are believed to have been posed and the crime scene staged, police files state.

In a recent bombshell filing by the defense team for Richard Allen – who has been charged with the girls’ murders but denies wrongdoing – it was alleged the crime scene appeared to be “ritualistic” in nature.

Allen’s defense team blamed local followers of Odinism for the murders, which is a religion based on Norse tradition that has, in recent years, been increasingly infiltrated by white supremacist groups.

They sensationally claimed Libby and Abby had been sacrificed by an Odinist cult and that runes and other symbols had been left behind at the crime scene, including Germanic letters associated with Odinism; a letter painted on a tree with Libby’s blood; and faux antlers created with sticks branches placed above Abby’s head.

Prosecutors have sought to pour cold water on the stranger-than-fiction claims, calling the defense’s allegations “unfounded” and supported by “absolutely no proof” in a Tuesday filing.

While the truth of the matter remains unclear, Cox told The U.S. Sun on Tuesday evening that tips linking Libby and Abby’s deaths to the Stephenson murders continue to pour in.

Cox and his partner, Tim Adams, are rigorously vetting each of the tips, but so far no conclusive evidence or “a-ha moment” has been unearthed to definitively link the two murder cases. The tips received do not concern Richard Allen.

“There have not been many changes in our investigation [since March], but there is a lot of stuff going on around the Delphi case,” said Cox.

“There are some consistencies with things that the killers ended up doing in both scenes but there’s nothing that connects the two cases as yet.”

Cox refused to comment on what the specifics of those consistencies were and whether there were Odinist or other ritualistic symbols were found inside the Stephenson home.

“Those are things weren’t not going to talk about right now,” added Cox. “But there were things that were altered and things that were done.

“The killer spent quite a bit of time at the crime scene – several hours post-mortem.

“We’re not going to discuss those in particular, but I will state generally that we do not find anything that makes a concrete connection between the two cases at this time.

“But we’re keeping an open mind and we received some times overnight just last night […] we’ve vetted a lot of tips so far and have been able to exclude some of the persons of interest they had from the Stephenson case.

“We’re not going anywhere, we’re in it to the end,” he continued.

“I know I speak on behalf of my department when I say we’re dedicated to solving this case once and for all.

“If the cases are connected, we’d certainly love to find that. So we are diligently going about vetting every piece of information we get, even if there’s no connection we can see at this point.”

BRUTAL UNSOLVED HOMICIDE

Bill and Peggy Stephenson were found dead inside their condo in the early afternoon of May 29, 2011, by a family member who went to check on them after they uncharacteristically failed to show up for a service at Union Baptist Church.

They were both stabbed an undisclosed amount of times and suffered blunt-force trauma.

Their murderer – or murderers – also inflicted an unspecified postmortem injury on at least one of the victims around two hours after they were killed.

The couple, who were soon to celebrate their 55th wedding anniversary, is thought to have been killed sometime between 1am and 4am.

The killer is believed to have stayed at the residence for between three and eight hours staging the crime scene, possibly even leaving and later returning to finish what they’d started.

During an interview in March this year, Cox said the crime scene was unlike anything he’d seen before during his decades-long career in law enforcement.

“[It was staged] in almost every way that you could think possible,” said Cox.

“I don’t want to elaborate too much, but things were moved and turned over, things had been touched on bookshelves and in cabinets, and things had been rearranged on the refrigerator.

“And then with the victims, things had been laid around them and on top of them.

“We didn’t have a crime scene, we had a scene the killer or killers wanted us to find.”

Cox said there didn’t appear to be any particular message or reason for the way in which the crime scene was staged.

He explained: “We have asked that question […] you could go a long way down a path saying ‘oh, this is kind of message they were trying to send,’ but at the end of the day, no, the answer is it was all really done just to confuse anyone who would come along later to look at the scene.

“There may be a point to it all to the individual – or individuals – who did it, but that’s why we’ve kept a lot of things back.”

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Cox believes the culprit was known to the Stephensons.

The veteran cop said it’s extremely unusual for a killer to remain at a crime scene for so long as it exponentially increases their chances of getting caught.

He added: “That indicates that this was someone who was comfortable remaining at the scene and possibly even had an excuse for being there if someone did knock on the door.

“We also think Bill and Peggy were killed soon after the killer entered the home.”

FAMILY: ‘JUSTICE IS COMING’

Boone County investigators are yet to determine whether one or more people may have been responsible for killing the Stephensons.

Cox previously theorized that one person may have killed the couple while another staged the scene.

Refusing to rule out any avenues of inquiry, an unidentified DNA profile found at the scene will likely be key to finally cracking the case, Cox said.

Cox described the DNA evidence as “complex” and declined to elaborate further.

Hundreds of potential suspects and persons of interest have been screened in connection to the killings, though so far no breakthrough has been made.

Cox told The U.S. Sun on Tuesday evening that other promising leads separate from the Delphi probe have recently come to light and that the investigation appeared to be moving in an “encouraging” direction.

“There’s some information that has just come to light that has been sitting at the bottom of the ocean for 12 years, and suddenly it’s washed up,” he said.

“This is definitely not a cold case […] and it’s extremely encouraging.

“It makes you scratch your head sometimes, as to why the person with this information didn’t come forward sooner.

“It doesn’t make sense to us, but it does to the individual who’s been sheltering this information for the last 12 years.”

I’ve seen some pretty gruesome things, but I’ve never seen a crime scene like that before […] with the victims, things had been laid around them and on top of them.

Coy CoxBoone County Detective

Bill and Peggy’s daughter, Beth Stephenson-Victor, voiced confidence back in March that the bells of justice will soon toll for her parents’ killer.

“I have every faith this will be resolved. I have every faith in our detectives to find the person responsible – they are determined to solve this and I think it will be solved,” said Beth.

“We’ve had our hopes up before and nothing has come out of it, but we’ve just got to keep our hopes up that [these links to Delphi] will lead to something.”

Speaking directly to the killer, she added: “If they’re alive still they will be found out and they will be found.

“I would ask them to do the right thing and turn themselves in before that happens.

“And if anyone out there knows something, anything, please come forward.

“The detectives will determine whether it’s anything or not.”

LIVING IN FEAR

It was Beth’s husband who would find Bill and Peggy dead after going over to their home to conduct a welfare check.

Beth had called her parents multiple times that morning after Bill failed to show up for work at the truckstop ministry he oversaw, and Peggy was a no-show at Union Baptist Church where she played the organ.

She wasn’t initially concerned, thinking her parents may have been feeling under the weather or attending to an elderly relative, but as the hours passed without a response Beth’s anxieties heightened.

“That’s when I sent my husband to check on them,” she said. “My daughter had just graduated from high school and we out buying stuff for her graduation party the following weekend.

“My husband stopped by on his way home and that’s when he found them.”

The idea that her parents’ killer may still be running free continues to haunt Beth.

She says she hasn’t felt safe in her home or her hometown since her parents’ lives were so cruelly claimed, fearful she may have passed the culprit in the street or at the grocery store.

“There are times I believe that it was random and there are times I believe that possibly it was somebody that they knew,” she said.

“My feeling changes about it every once in a while and just the way the crime scene was – I mean, we don’t know a whole lot about it, but just the way it was set up and stuff like that, then that makes me believe that it had to have been somebody they knew.

“[But] I don’t know of anyone that could have done something like this – something so sick and twisted.”

Beth said she has feared almost constantly for her own life and the lives of her family members in the more than 12 years since.

“It never goes away,” she added of the paranoia and fear. “I still wonder every day, is the person still out there? Are they local or are they not?

“I’ve definitely changed the way I do things because of it. I just don’t go out at night by myself, and especially in the beginning, I didn’t really go anywhere.

“For nine years I kept my blinds drawn 24/7 because it was just a constant reminder of what was out there.

“I don’t think it will ever go away until they get some answers; until somebody is arrested or behind bars, I don’t think it will ever go away.”

Anyone with information about the murder of Bill and Peggy is urged to call the Boone County Sheriff’s Office at (859) 334-2175. There is a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.