Kriti Mehrotra
It was in the late 1980s when the entire world turned upside down for three families as three young women were found heinously murdered in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They were 21-year-old Althea Oakeley, 13-year-old Stella Gonzales, and 18-year-old Kaitlyn Arquette, all of whom were killed in drastically different ways, but it wasn’t until 2021 that their case was solved. As explored in Investigation Discovery’s ‘Signs Of A Psychopath: That Anger Would Rise Again,’ their perpetrator actually came forward to confess to the crimes himself more than three decades after the fact.
Althea Oakeley Was Killed Right Near Her Apartment
At the age of 21, Taos native and University of New Mexico student Althea Oakeley was reportedly leading her best possible life considering the opportunities ahead of her. She had a loving family and a caring boyfriend, was finishing up her education, and was just starting to live her life with complete freedom after finding herself thanks to college and pageants. That’s why, when she was suddenly found bleeding right close to the Buena Vista Drive home that she shared with her brother on June 22, 1988, it left not only her loved ones but also her entire community baffled to the core.
According to reports, Althea was last seen leaving an on-campus fraternity house party at 8:15 pm after a fight with her boyfriend, following which she walked in the direction of her residence. Just a short while later, neighbors heard her screaming, and when they stepped outside, they found her collapsed on one of their doorsteps – she was mere feet away from her front door. The neighbors immediately contacted emergency services and took measures to save her life, but it was too late – the kind young woman had been fatally stabbed with a small pocket knife/Swiss army knife four times.
Stella Gonzales Died in a Hospital After Being Senselessly Attacked
Born in 1975 around Albuquerque in Bernalillo County, New Mexico, to a family that prioritized affection, care, and faith, Stella Cindy Gonzales grew up surrounded by love at every turn. She was reportedly a typical 13-year-old by the time the fall of 1988 rolled around, meaning she was excited about being a teenager and loved hanging out with loved ones over all else. She was essentially a bright, extroverted, and sociable 5th grader at Washington Middle School for whom telling jokes, making those around her feel comfortable, and being compassionate came utterly naturally.
As per records, on September 8, 1988, Stella somehow managed to convince her mother, Gina Cerrillo, to let her stay at her aunt’s house for the night despite it being a school night. Then, she convinced her aunt to let her go out with a friend, resulting in the duo ending up at a party on the west side of town, rather far from where she was supposed to be. The two girls were actually walking near Tingley Beach at around 1:15 am, gearing to return home, when a car suddenly slowed down near them and someone opened fire. While the friend fortunately survived, Stella was hit right in the head – she was immediately rushed to a nearby hospital, but to no avail. The teenager died from her injuries not long after. She was just 13 and trying to enjoy life, meaning she had no connection with any bad crowds, so a drive-by shooting seemed utterly needless and senseless in her case.
Kaitlyn Arquette Was Brutally Killed After Allegedly Being Run Off the Road
Born on September 18, 1970, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Lois Duncan Steinmetz and Donald Arquette, as one of their two daughter, Kaitlyn Clare “Kait” Arquette actually grew up in a blended family. After all, her mother had three children with her first husband – Robin, Kerry, and Brett – who eventually ended up taking Donald’s last name so that the family could match. Kait was the youngest of 5, so she was the baby of the family, but she was also a really kind, caring, and compassionate young woman by all accounts. In 1989, she was 18 years old and a fresh graduate from Highland High School with her whole life ahead of her.
However, everything changed on the evening of July 16, 1989, at around 10:30 pm, while Kait was driving her 1984 red Ford Tempo home after spending some time at a friend’s house. According to witness accounts, she suddenly lost control of her car and it crossed over three lanes of traffic before hitting a telephone pole – the whole crash was intense, and she was hurt. Yet, as per reports, her cause of death was the gunshot wounds straight to her head – she had allegedly been shot at close range after being run off the road, making it clear her manner of death was a homicide.
Althea Oakeley, Stella Gonzales, and Kaitlyn Arquette’s Cases Were Cold For Almost Three Decades
Since there are absolutely no similarities between Althea, Stella, or Kaitlyn’s murders, the Albuquerque police department never connected them during their intense investigations. Thus, they remained separate cases with separate lead investigators, yet all of them were wholly dedicated to their work, even if they didn’t have much to go on since they all seemed like random killings. In Althea and Kaitlyn’s homicides, they did look into their respective romances too, especially considering the fight the former had had with her beau on the fateful night and the fact Kait had just recently broken up with her high school boyfriend. Yet, there was no evidence connecting anyone to the crimes, leading the cases to go cold by the time the early 1990s rolled around – though the police department never closed the cases.
It was on July 20, 2021, that investigators got their big break when career criminal and predator Paul Apodaca walked into the University of New Mexico Police Department and began confessing. He first admitted to killing Althea in the summer of 1988, stating he was working as a security guard at a vocational school near her home when he saw her walking by. His initial plan, he reportedly admitted, was to rape the young woman in a nearby parking lot, but he soon changed his mind and decided to stab her with the Swiss Army Knife he kept in his pocket. “She said ‘Hi,’ and she smiled at me,” he told the authorities. “That’s the worst part. How do you hurt someone who smiles at you? I didn’t think my short little knife would be able to do that much damage.”
Then, following some further discussion, Paul went on to take responsibility for not only the homicides of Stella in 1988 and Kait in 1989 but also a few unrelated rape cases over the years. At the time, he was arrested for violating his parole, but once his statements were corroborated and it was clear that he was a stranger to the victims yet still knew key details of the crimes, he was charged with murder. We should mention that he was actually still on the scene of Kait’s murder by the time first responders arrived, yet he was only ever asked a few routine questions by them, as if he were just a witness. As for what drove him to confess after nearly 33 years, he had read the book Kait’s mother, Lois Duncan, had written about the ordeal, ‘Who Killed My Daughter?’ (1992). But alas, Lois never got to see this because she had sadly passed away 5 years prior – on June 15, 2016, at the age of 82.
Paul Apodaca is Currently Behind State Bars
Paul Apodaca is no stranger to state prisons because he has a long history of criminal convictions, including an 11-year stint for raping his 14-year-old step-sister in 1995. Moreover, the registered sex offender was actually in prison once again in 2020, serving time for aggravated assault against a police officer with a deadly weapon, when he read Lois’ book. According to reports, when he confessed, he told officials he had “spent the last year in jail just crying and crying” because he had never realized the pain he had caused. “(My coming forward is) not so much about relieving myself of that as it is to bring closure to the people I’ve harmed.” Therefore, in the end, on January 25, 2024, he pleaded guilty to 3 counts of second-degree murder, one count of attempted rape, and one count of kidnapping, for which he was handed down 45 years in prison. So, today, at the age of 57, he is incarcerated at the medium-security Guadalupe County Correctional Center in Santa Rosa, New Mexico.
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