Truth More Terrifying Than Fiction: Murder On Palmyra
I first learned about this case through the book And the Sea Will Tell and the subsequent miniseries that aired in 1991 and it still fascinates me to this day. In the summer of 1974 a middle aged couple named Malcolm “Mac” and Eleanor “Muff’ Graham sailed to the atoll of Palmyra, expecting to live there for at least a year or two. The Grahams were experienced sailors and certainly had enough supplies to last them at least a year and planned to supplement their stores with what they could find on the island but Muff, as friends and family would say later, had some misgivings about the trip. She was right to be worried because friends on Hilo lost radio contact with the Grahams after August 30th 1974.
In late October 1974, the Grahams’ boat the Sea Wind was spotted at a marina in Hawaii repainted and reregistered with no name and home port sign on it. This seemed odd to the experienced sailors at the marina and when someone who knew the Grahams spotted the occupants of the boat he immediately contacted the authorities because they were not the Grahams but another couple staying on Palmyra around the same time, a couple who had arrived there in a boat that was barely seaworthy and had conflicts with the other inhabitants. He believed them to be Roy and Jennifer Allen but their real names were Duane “Buck” Walker and Stephanie Stearns and Buck was a fugitive from drug charges during their time on Palmyra.
Stephanie claimed that the Grahams had drowned when their dinghy overturned during a fishing trip and they took the Sea Wind after their own boat got stuck. Buck made the same claim but no one was buying it. The FBI and Coast Guard searched the atoll but didn’t find a trace of the Grahams or Buck and Stephanie’s own boat the Iola. They were tried and convicted of boat theft but the agent leading the investigation firmly believed the Grahams were murdered and prayed one day he would have evidence to prove it.
He finally got his wish in 1981 when Sharon Jordan came across a metal box on the beach that contained human remains, remains that miraculously washed ashore, possibly while Sharon and her husband were bringing a sunken Naval rescue boat to the surface that had once housed four boxes like the one holding the bones. Two containers were missing from the boat and the box with the bones was one of them. Sharon suspected the bones were the remains of the Grahams and immediately radioed for help. Muff’s dentist was able to positive identify the skull as hers and there was evidence that she had been shot, her face burned with an acetylene torch. The body had either been broken up or cut up to fit in the box then sank in the lagoon. Now it was time to charge Buck and Stephanie with murder.
While Buck had to rely on a public defender Stephanie managed to convince Vince Bugliosi to represent her. The name will sound very familiar to anyone who knows the Manson Family case. He is the prosecutor who put Manson and his followers behind bars for life. You may ask what the hell was the Manson prosecutor doing representing one of the Palmyra killers? He’d decided to switch sides later in his career to try to defend people he didn’t think were guilty but I honestly think he got it wrong in this case.
Bugliosi was convinced Buck killed the Grahams himself and Stephanie knew nothing about it. His defense strategy was to try to lay out a case against Buck, putting his old prosecutorial hat back on. The prosecution presented many witnesses who had been on the island at the same time as the the other two couples who claimed the Grahams did not like either of them. Buck and Stephanie were low on supplies when they arrived and had planted marijuana on the island to sell on the mainland, a clear violation of his parole. Stephanie also tried to plant a vegetable garden but the plants were eaten by critters. Stephanie also kept asking people from other boats for supplies. Muff’s letters home talk about this and about the growing hostilities toward them. The last radio communication with the Grahams also indicates Buck and Stephanie were the last people to see them alive.
When you look at all the evidence it points to both being involved. Their boat was in poor condition, they were low on supplies and on the run from the law. Also it would have been difficult for Buck to be able to kill the Grahams and cover it up without her help. Still Bugliosi was able to raise enough doubt in Stephanie’s case that she was found not guilty while Buck went to prison.
Mac’s body has never been found and some believe it is still somewhere in the lagoon. Buck took the information to his grave and Stephanie probably still denies she was involved. I believe Mac’s body may have already washed ashore and was carried back out to sea with the tide. The murders still haunt their family and friends to this day and they rarely speak about it. Mac’s nephew recently spoke about them on an ID documentary Dark Waters: Murder In The Deep where he talked about how much he loved and missed his aunt and uncle. The Grahams just wanted to enjoy one final trip in paradise but what they got was a nightmare they’d never awaken from.
