Sigrid Stevenson’s Murder Fueled Ghost Stories On Unsolved Mysteries

Season 4 of Netflix’s Unsolved Mysteries features the murder of a graduate student — one whose death prompted campus ghost stories decades later. But what happened to Sigrid Stevenson from Unsolved Mysteries?

In the episode “Murder, Center Stage,” Stevenson is remembered as a piano prodigy. “When she would play the piano, a completely different side of her would emerge that was just calm and powerful,” family friend Carol Edson recalled.

Stevenson was 25 and working toward her master’s degree at Trenton State College (today The College of New Jersey). But tragically, in September 1977, a campus police officer discovered a bloody scene in the school’s empty Kendall Hall: Stevenson’s body was found on stage next to the piano she loved to play.

What Happened To Sigrid Stevenson?

According to investigators interviewed for Unsolved Mysteries, Stevenson’s body was violently beaten. There were no prints to examine, but there were signs of sexual assault and apparent restraint markings. The latter prompted the investigators to question campus police officers about potential involvement.

One officer reportedly told another that he’d killed Stevenson, though he passed a polygraph test and his comment was not investigated further to see if it was more than a joke.

A later lead was a man named Chuck, who played an officer in a play at Kendall Hall shortly before Stevenson was killed. However, DNA did not connect Chuck (who died in 2016) to the murder.

Julia Caldwell, a since-retired detective from Ewing Township, proposes additional avenues for the cold case, including a lighting crew member and a campus maintenance worker.

A Lasting Legacy

While Stevenson’s case remains unsolved, it reverberates through ghost stories at The College of New Jersey. In 2016, the Courier-Post shared several of them — with writers describing slamming doors and other mysterious phenomenon. One letter to the editor from a student who was a freshman the year Stevenson was killed suggested initiatives such as a memorial garden or music scholarship in Stevenson’s memory.

Scott Napolitano heard stories about the murder as a student at TCNJ in the early 2000s, and researched Stevenson’s case for a film project. His findings helped the investigation featured in Unsolved Mysteries, and he hopes that the docuseries will encourage someone to come forward with new information.

“I’d like to think that Sigrid’s been watching the investigation,” he says in the episode. “And maybe sticking around because she wants the story told. Sigrid deserves justice.”

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, you can call the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or visit hotline.rainn.org.