Calvin Stoudt

On June 25, 2006 Owensboro Kentucky resident Calvin Stoudt called 911 saying he had returned home from church to find his wife, forty-six year old Corrine dead in their home. The investigation into the crime uncovered secrets that many among friends and family of Corrine had not been made aware.

When Corrine met Calvin she lived in Illinois. Her parents lived in Owensboro and after a painful divorce her father introduced her to Calvin. The two seemed to hit it off very well, at least at first and Corrine moved to Owensboro. Like Corrine, Calvin too was divorced but while she believed Calvin had only been married once before it would later be discovered that Corrine was his fourth wife.

Over the years the marriage started deteriorating. For Corrine it didn't help when her parents left Kentucky and moved back to Springfield Illinois, some four hours away. Corrine had always been very involved in her church and over their years together this is one thing that she and Calvin bonded in. But, aside from their faith it seems that the couple had gotten to a point in which they had little in common. Many believe that Corrine did not divorce Calvin because she already had one failed marriage and she was unwilling to accept two of them. And yet by all accounts Calvin did nothing to change or make things easier.

Calvin had issues with keeping a job. Once her parents had moved away she began pushing Calvin into also moving there. She had a dream that they would move back to Springfield and he would become a pastor at the family church there. What Corrine did not know was that Calvin was a registered sex offender in Kentucky and it was not an easy feat to just get up and move. It is unclear how she was able to hide this from Corrine and others he had.

On the morning of June 25, 2006 Calvin and Corrine had gone to church. After the service they were talking to a friend who would later say that Corrine had spoken as if the move to Illinois was set in stone and the couple would be preparing to move at some point. Calvin, who was an officer within the church, told investigators that he left the home at 4:30 that evening to return to the church first for a meeting and then services. Corrine was expected to meet him there but had never showed. He stated that he returned home about 8:00 and found not just his wife dead inside but the home ransacked.

Investigators were immediately suspicious. There did not seem to be any kind of forced entry and the ransacking of the home appeared to be staged. Drawers had been pulled out of the bedroom dresser but rather than tossed around they appeared to have been nicely stacked on top of each other. Nothing appeared to be missing from the home. Then the medical examiner proclaimed that it was his belief that Corrine had not died in the time period in which Calvin proclaimed to have been gone from the home but several hours earlier.

Calvin knew he was under suspicion and the noose was getting tighter and tighter around his neck. A local news station received a phone call one day. The caller proclaimed that Corrine was not the intended victim and that Calvin was not guilty. The station informed investigators and it was determined that it was in fact Calvin who had made that phone call himself. On October 2, 2006 Calvin was arrest and charged in the murder of his wife.

In February of 2009 Calvin would plead guilty which prevented there being a trial in which more information would be presented to the public. Prosecutors believed that Calvin committed the murder in order to keep his secrets from getting out. They also believed that while it would not have been unusual to find his DNA at the scene considering that he lived in the home and with his victim but it was found in places that convinced them that he had strangled Corrine causing her death. On April 2, 2009 Calvin Stoudt was given a twenty year sentence.

Calvin would only serve just over seven years of that sentence. On June 2, 2016, almost ten years to the day he murdered his wife, Calvin Stoudt would die in prison.