The man once dubbed a “stone-cold killer”, who is serving a life sentence for two murders, is claiming his innocence from behind bars.
At a trial in 1999, Stephen Stone was found guilty of the 1989 murders of Deane Fuller-Sandys and Leah Stephens. At the same trial, Gail Maney was also found guilty of Fuller-Sandys’ murder. Maney successfully appealed her conviction, but was found guilty again at the 2000 retrial.
The crimes are detailed in the podcast Gone Fishing - a joint production between Stuff and RNZ - which examines the police investigation that led to the convictions of Stone, Maney, and two other men who helped dispose of Fuller-Sandys’ body.
Stephen Stone has never spoken publicly about the case, but in Gone Fishing his father Gary talks about his son’s insistence on his innocence, and how he feels he was framed for the deaths.
According to the Crown, Maney ordered a hit on Fuller-Sandys because she thought he’d burgled her home in Henderson, west Auckland, and Stone carried out the killing. Maney has maintained her innocence since her arrest.
The jury heard that Leah Stephens witnessed the murder and Stone feared she would tell police. Five days later Stone abducted her from central Auckland where she worked as a prostitute. He then raped her, along with two other men, and killed her by stabbing her in the stomach and slitting her throat. Her body was dumped in Muriwai by two men, and her skeletal remains were found in 1992.
Read and listen:
- RNZ and Stuff's interactive long-form write-up: Gone Fishing: Murder, mayhem ... maybe
Corrections has not made a decision on whether Stone can be interviewed for Gone Fishing, despite a request being lodged more than a year ago. But Stone’s father, Gary Stone, says his son is innocent.
During the regular prison visits Gary has made over the past 20 years, his son has denied any involvement in the murders of both Fuller-Sandys and Stephens.
“Stephen said to me he has no recollection of Deane Fuller-Sandys at all … you know, we’re only really presuming the guy is dead,” said Gary Stone. “There’s no body to be found - so I don’t know.”
Gary Stone said his son also denied raping Leah Stephens.
“He had no reason to rape a woman, they were always flocking after him anyhow.”
Gary said Stone believes he was set up by police.
Mark Franklin. Photo: Jason Dorday / Stuff
“Stephen was always in and out of trouble with the police; I think they decided that Stephen Stone should be put away and out of their hair for as long as they could possibly get him out of it.”
Stone already had a serious criminal record when he was charged with the two murders. In 1992 he was jailed for five years for an aggravated robbery in Kumeu, west Auckland, in which a man was struck with an iron bar. That man reportedly later committed suicide.
Stone had been out of jail just six months when he was charged with Fuller-Sandys’ murder in 1997. During that six months, he was involved in a head-on car crash in which an elderly woman died. For this he was convicted of careless driving causing death and sentenced to periodic detention.
The detective who led the investigation into the Fuller-Sandys and Leah Stephens cases, Mark Franklin, said Stone’s crimes, committed when he was just 19, were “cold-blooded”.
“Sure he was only young, but even at a young age you can’t go around killing people.”
Barrister Roger Chambers, who defended Stone during the murder trial, said he was surprised his former client was claiming his innocence.
"Stone was easy to get on with, but a born thug … I got the impression that he rather enjoyed the notoriety of it all."
Chambers said at the time of the trial, Stone did not give him any instructions.
"I well remember, when I did press him on trying to get him to tell his side of the story, his comment was 'it's all f....ing s.... Do what you wanna do.’"
Gary Stone said that his son’s lack of cooperation with police, and even his own lawyer, was unsurprising, even though he believes his son is telling the truth when he says he’s innocent.
“Stephen’s attitude is like - he doesn’t conform to anything. By not conforming to anything, he’s not going to help the police or himself or anybody else.”
Gary said his son hadn’t expected the murder charges to stick.
“I think Stephen ‘s attitude was ... he had nothing to do with any of it, and he just went to court and thought he would get off the charges. He didn’t expect to get a prison term out of it.”
In 2010, Stone briefly changed his story and confessed to both murders, and attended a restorative justice meeting with the family of Deane Fuller-Sandys.
But soon after, he told the restorative justice facilitator that his confession was a lie, and he had only made it in the hope of getting paroled.
Gary said his son had consistently proclaimed his innocence since then.
Stone is classified as high-risk due to the crimes he was jailed for, but he has been allowed some day-visits outside prison. He took part in some release-to-work scheme for 18 months before such programmes were halted for all prisoners.
Stone will reappear before the parole board in 2019.
To find out more, you can subscribe to the full eight-part Gone Fishing series at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or any other podcast app. Or, you can go to the RNZ homepage and click on Podcasts.
