After running away from home when she was 16, Stacey moved in with three friendly young people, and thought she would finally be happy. But what Stacey didn’t know was that her new roommates had a violent past and sinister interests that would soon collide. Their collision would lead Stacey to her death.
Stacey Mitchell was born in 1990 in the village of West Moors in East Dorset, England. Stacey’s family decided to move to Perth, Australia when she was 10-years-old. Stacey wasn’t happy about moving and she became rebellious. While her father was on business trip in Japan, Stacey got into a fight with her mom. Stacey had enough and ran away
Stacey was looking for a place to live, so a friend hooked her up with 19-year-old Valerie Parashumti and 21-year-old Jessica Stasinowsky. The two women were dating each other and shared their house with a man named David Haynes. They all agreed Stacey could stay with them. Unfortunately, Stacey didn’t know the dark secret the lesbian couple held close.
Valerie and Jessica were involved in a subculture that honored vampires. Including aspects of the goth culture and sadomasochism, the people in this subculture are a bit eccentric, but usually harmless, bu there are some that take things to the max. Jessica and Valerie acted like they were literal vampires, and even drank each other’s blood regularly. This behavior was just a reflection of their dark history.
Due to the fact that Valerie grew up in a violent household, she had serious mental health issues. When she was only 10, Valerie began cutting herself, which led her to begin drinking her own blood. When she grew older, her obsession with blood grew, as well, and she began practicing “sanguinarian vampirism,” which involved consuming blood. As soon as she met Jessica, they fed off one another’s toxicity.
Jessica also suffered from severe emotional issues, which caused her to be extremely jealous. It wasn’t long after Stacey moved in with the couple that Jessica began thinking that Valerie was flirting with Stacey, and Stacey was doing it back. It caused the couple to get into an argument. Valerie told Jessica that she would have to prove her love by eliminating the problem. That was when they agreed to kill Stacey.
The couple began talking about how they should kill the young girl. Their roommate David overheard them talking about it, and Valerie told him “no one should destroy your happiness and you should kill anyone that does.” David attempted to talk them into dropping their plan by telling them to kill someone else instead, but they didn’t drop it.
The couple asked David to corner Stacey and trap her so they could murder her. David refused to help, so they said that he could just watch. David wanted nothing to do with it, but the women threatened to kill him if he tried to stop them. He was told to go to his room and turn the music up loud.
Stacey was invited by the couple to drink with them, and she accepted their offer. Stacey drank a couple glasses of whiskey, but she wanted to keep partying, so she took some pills. The mixture of pills and alcohol made Stacey a little drowsy, so it was the perfect time for the couple to attack. When Stacey fell asleep, Valerie snuck up behind her, and made the first move.
Valerie smashed a slab of concrete over Stacey’s head. It was so loud that even David heard it. He yelled to Jessica that he needed to leave the house because he was having an anxiety attack. Jessica handed him a black t-shirt to put over his eyes, and he was allowed outside. As soon as he left, the couple finished carrying out Stacey’s death sentence.
Once they made the first strike, the couple continued to beat Stacey until she was unconscious. Then they strangled her with a dog chain. The poor girl suffered for 45 minutes until she died. They called David to let him know that it was over, and that he could come back once they cleaned up the mess. David returned to the house after 3am, but Stacey’s body was still there.
Several days had passed, and they still didn’t know how to get rid of Stacey’s body. The couple brought David with them to the hardware store and they made a list of things that could be used, like wire, shovels, and a chainsaw. In the end, David would be the one doing the dirty job.
The couple threatened David into getting rid of Stacey’s body all on his own. So he just put Stacey’s body into a garbage can and wheeled it to the shed in the back yard. It didn’t take long before the neighbors began to smell the rotting flesh and the police were sent to the house. They found Stacey’s body and arrested all three of the roommates. But the story didn’t end there.
Valerie and Jessica had videotaped the murder and the police found the recording inside of the house. Apparently, once the girl was dead, the couple hovered over her body, kissed each other, and rubbed Stacey’s blood all over one another. Since the evidence against them was so strong, the roommates had to plead guilty.
Both of the women were given a minimum of 24 years behind bars. David received a 2-year jail sentence for pleading guilty to accessory after the fact. Initially, the women were able to continue their relationship because they were put into the same prison. Eventually, they were separated, and Valerie took part in quite a few violent incidents. But Stacey’s family doesn’t really feel comforted by the fact that they’re in jail.
After Stacey’s death, her family sought guidance through a support group for homicide victims. But they continue to struggle. “Sometimes it makes you feel guilty when you don’t think about her,” explained Mr. Mitchell. “Obviously, you never think that you are going to ever go through anything like this in your life and then – bang – it happens and it’s just like a nightmare.”