On the morning of October 1st, 1990, 14-year-old Christy Stephens stayed home from school, complaining of a sore throat. Her younger sister saw her turn over in bed and go back to sleep around 7 a.m.
This was the last time that anyone in her family saw the teenager. When her stepfather returned home approximately an hour later, she was missing from her bed and, strangely, her sneakers were sitting at the end of the driveway.
Three weeks later, a hunter discovered her remains in a wooded area just two miles away from the Stephens residence. She had been murdered.
While investigators suspected that her killer was likely someone she knew, they struggled to find hard evidence connecting anyone to this brutal crime.
Decades later, the question remains: Who murdered Christy Stephens?
Christy Lea Cuzzort was born on November 9th, 1975, to parents Thomas and Patty, who divorced when she was a child. Patty went on to marry a man named Billy Stephens, who adopted Christy and her younger sister, Alicia.
(Side note: Several sources cite her age at the time of her death as 13. However, her Find a Grave page features a picture of her headstone, with her birthdate on it, proving that she was actually 14-years-old—a little over a month shy of her 15th birthday—when she was murdered.)
“She was a precious youngster,” Thomas remembered of his oldest daughter. “She loved people; she loved her sister.”
Sadly, there is very little information available about Christy’s personality or interests.
Thomas also remarried, to a woman named Wanda. They resided in Alabama. Christy and 12-year-old Alicia lived with Billy and Patty, who moved to rural Summerville, Georgia, in the spring of 1990.
Unfortunately, since Christy hadn’t been attending school in Summerville for long, she didn’t have much of an opportunity to form close friendships.
“Nobody really knew the girl in a personal kind of way,” Principal David Jones would say in the wake of her murder. “Friendships can’t be nurtured in that short a time, and nobody knew much about her or knew her in a personal way, that I know about.”
On October 1st, Christy woke up and told her family that she wasn’t feeling well, specifically that she had a sore throat. She decided to stay home from school that day and rest. The final time Alicia saw her sister was in their bedroom; Christy got in bed and went back to sleep around 7 a.m.
“That’s the last I saw of her, the back of her head,” Alicia recalled.
Patty was also said to be feeling sick that morning, although it wasn’t specified what her symptoms were. She, too, went back to bed.
Alicia went to school and Billy left to drive his mother Dorothy to her workplace, Acro Tex Inc., a textile factory in Trion.
Billy reportedly returned to the mobile home at 8:05 a.m. Strangely, he saw Christy’s sneakers sitting at the end of the driveway. Unsure of what to make of this, he headed inside to check on the teenager, but found her bed empty.
He woke up Patty and asked if she knew where Christy was, but she didn’t. She also hadn’t heard anything odd that morning. Additionally, there are no reports of any signs of forced entry in the residence, nor is it stated in any available sources whether the home was locked.
Billy and Patty reported Christy missing to local authorities that morning.
Police officers began by searching the Stephens’ mobile home, where they found notes that Christy had written, indicating that she wanted to run away. Because of this, their initial belief was that the missing teenager was a runaway.
“She’d been talking about leaving home,” said Chattooga County Sheriff Gary McConnell.
These diary entries were never released to the public, though, so the context surrounding her desire to leave, as well as when she wrote about it, is unknown.
Still, law enforcement interviewed locals, including her classmates, in an effort to locate Christy, but no one had seen her or knew where she might be.
They also conducted searches of the area by land and air, but discovered nothing. Furthermore, investigators spoke to the Cuzzorts in Alabama and confirmed that she wasn’t there either.
Alicia looked for her sister as well, even asking the bus driver if he’d seen her out walking that day, but he hadn’t.
Her case quickly went cold, due to a lack of evidence or solid leads.
Then, on October 22nd, a man named Rocky Wise, who was out scouting new hunting locations, made a disturbing discovery: the badly decomposed remains of Christy Stephens in a wooded ravine off Farmersville Road, around two miles away (or half a mile, depending on the source) from Christy’s home.
She was barefoot and still wearing the same clothing (a blue t-shirt with a palm tree on it and jean shorts) she was last seen in.
(For reference, the family resided “in an undeveloped subdivision on a dirt road that leads west off Farmersville Road between Gore and Subligna,” according to newspaper reports.)
It was obvious that a deliberate effort had been made to conceal her body.
“There’s no question it was foul play,” said McConnell. “She was completely covered with brush.”
The Summerville News elaborated:
“Her body was lying 180 feet east of a north-south dirt road next to a mountain oak and a dogwood tree. It was at the bottom of the draw, and tree limbs, leaves, and small trees had been carefully placed over her body.”
Authorities noted how secluded the area was, with dense vegetation that made it difficult to spot Christy.
“You could have walked within 10 feet of the body and not seen it,” said McConnell.
The hunter was never declared a person of interest, and it’s unknown if he was ever questioned by investigators. Though he was reportedly so unnerved by what he’d found that he sought medical attention the following day for his “sky high” blood pressure.
There were no overt signs of sexual assault, but they couldn’t be certain that one hadn’t taken place. An autopsy was performed, but due to the body’s advanced state of decomposition, a cause of death could not be established.
Law enforcement suspected that she was murdered at another location on the same day she vanished and then dumped in the woods.
“She was just a normal child,” said bus driver Melvin Mosley. “There was nothing out of the ordinary about her. It just seems real strange that something like this would happen in a small community.”
Officers combed the woods, looking for clues. They found no weapon, but did recover a necklace, earring, and ring not far from Christy’s body. It’s unclear if the jewelry belonged to her, though.
Patty Stephens was described as being tearful and visibly shaken when investigators delivered the news that her daughter had been found dead. Thomas and Wanda were also said to be deeply distraught.
Prior to this, her loved ones had still been hopeful for her safe return, but were now forced to abandon that hope.
The search for her killer began in earnest.
Early in the murder investigation, 19-year-old Robert Lee Siffles was declared the “prime suspect” in the case.
Siffles, a “self-styled preacher,” knew the Stephens family and would sometimes come over to visit Christy, bringing along his Bible. The two would reportedly discuss religion. Billy and Patty acknowledged that these visits took place, but emphasized that the two teenagers were never left unsupervised.
Alicia revealed that Christy found Siffles “cute,” but stated that the pair never actually dated.
As for why he was viewed with suspicion by authorities, this had to do with “mysterious comments” he’d made in the wake of Christy’s discovery.
After learning that her remains had been found, Siffles went to the police station with a bizarre story. He claimed to have heard Christy’s disembodied voice on the day that she went missing—a voice he followed to a ravine, near which her body would later be located.
Siffles said that he didn’t actually see her remains, though. What he did claim to see, however, was the vision of a “ghostly apparition” with its hands around Christy’s throat.
Thinking back on this unsettling episode, with the fresh knowledge that his friend had been murdered, Siffles had become convinced that she was strangled by her assailant. Although he could provide no information about who this individual might be or what they looked like.
Investigators were alarmed by his account, wondering if it was actually a tacit admission of guilt. Yet Siffles maintained that he did not kill Christy and that he was simply trying to help authorities by giving them what he felt was important information.
He also said that the last time he had seen her (ghostly visions aside) had been on September 30th.
Detectives now focused their attention on Siffles, theorizing that he himself had strangled—or perhaps otherwise suffocated—the young girl before disposing of her body in the woods.
As previously stated, the actual autopsy results were inconclusive and Christy’s cause of death was never determined.
However, a 1997 edition of The Summerville News made this somewhat confusing statement:
“An autopsy of the body showed that she was either suffocated or asphyxiated. An exact cause of death was never determined because of the decomposition of the body.”
They searched his vehicle for any evidence—such as fibers or fingerprints—that could tie him to her murder, but were unable to find anything.
He did spend time in jail for check fraud, but was ultimately never charged in Christy’s case. Whether he was guilty of her murder remains unknown.
Intriguingly, The Summerville News vaguely alluded to the existence of “bad relations” between the Cuzzorts and the Stephens family, but didn’t elaborate. Therefore, it’s unclear whether this was due to long-standing issues between the two families or if problems had only arisen between them following Christy’s disappearance and murder.
Thomas was reportedly questioned early on—when Christy was still missing—as authorities thought she might be with him, but sources make no mention of any family member ever being looked at as a suspect following the revelation that she had been killed.
Thomas and Wanda were active in the efforts to find Christy’s killer and started a reward fund for information. The couple, who still lived in Alabama, made periodic trips to Georgia to speak with law enforcement about her case.
“I do a lot of praying everyday to the Lord for help to get me through each day,” said Thomas. “I think about Christy everyday. I think if the killer is found it would even help the community to have a peace of mind to know that a killer is not out there running loose.”
It’s unclear if Billy and Patty were making their own investigative efforts or trying to raise awareness for her case, as this isn’t stated in any available sources. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean that they weren’t seeking answers as well.
By 1997, Thomas Cuzzort felt that authorities had lost interest in his daughter’s case. He also said that they had failed to interview many potential witnesses, contradicting earlier claims that Christy didn’t have any friends (aside from Siffles).
“There are a lot of people who lived in the same house and a lot of teenagers Christy ran around with and neighbors that heard stuff and there are people that saw stuff and the sheriff’s department still has not interviewed any of them.”
(Side note: Unfortunately, Thomas’ vague statements were never expanded on. )
For their part, law enforcement refuted the idea that they weren’t doing all they could.
“We’re still working on it,” said Chief Deputy Charles Elsberry. “That means any leads or information that we receive I will follow up on it. I will go anywhere.”
Since there was a relatively small window of time (approximately an hour) between the last sighting of Christy—safe in her bed—and the discovery that she was missing, it calls into question how things played out.
Did her assailant enter the home and abduct her, but managed to do this quietly enough to not disturb Patty, who was sleeping in a nearby room? Or was it someone known to her who was able to get her to leave with them willingly?
Conversely, is it possible that she had merely pretended to be sick, planning to sneak out and meet up with someone that morning?
But would she have done this, considering that Billy and Patty were both unemployed at the time and there was a high likelihood that one of them would quickly discover that she was gone (which, after all, is exactly what happened)?
Perhaps she intended to be gone for only a brief time, but things unexpectedly went wrong with whoever she went to see.
However, the fact that Patty was reportedly feeling sick that morning seemingly lends credence to Christy’s claims that she was also unwell. Maybe they had the same thing.
Additionally, how—and why—did her sneakers end up in the driveway?
Tissue swabs that were taken from Christy’s body during the autopsy were preserved for evidence. As the years went by and technology improved, investigators were hopeful that something important might be learned from running a new analysis on them.
“Back then, all they could do is test for blood type,” said investigator Larry Kellert. “ Now it is possible that they can get some DNA if there is anything there. We’ve got some swabs and some slides. There were several that we are trying to get resubmitted to the crime lab for testing.”
The test results weren’t disclosed to the public.
In 2009, Special Agent Joe Montgomery, of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI), contacted Thomas Cuzzort and let him know that the GBI had chosen to feature Christy’s case on the “Unsolved Cases” section of their website.
There have been no further updates. Christy Stephens’ case remains open and unsolved.
Sadly, Thomas Cuzzort, as well as Billy and Patty Stephens, have since passed away.
If you have any information regarding the murder of Christy Stephens, you are encouraged to contact the GBI at 706-624-1424.
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