Teresa had always dreamed of a life filled with gloy and luxury, but how did she work on attaining this dream? This is a case of two men – one being a pastor with a troubled past, who loved one woman and how it all came to a crashing end. It’s the case of Teresa Stone right now on Love and Murder
Last week’s episode was the case of the Green River Killer. Listen by clicking HERE
In today’s episode, we’ll cover the story of David Love, a pastor with a troubled past, who was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of one of his congregants, Randy Stone. Love had an affair with Stone’s wife, Teresa, who was also implicated in the plot. The investigation involved multiple murders, alibis, and accusations of cover-ups within the church community, ultimately resulting in Love’s conviction for second-degree murder and Teresa’s eight-year sentence for conspiracy to commit murder.
Welcome everyone! Welcome to a new episode of Love and Murder – the weekly true crime podcast discussing relationships gone terribly wrong. Where our motto is [you’re either someone’s last love or first murder]
I am your host Ky and this show discusses true crime cases told in the form of a story with mystery and suspense.
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In today’s episode, I’ll tell you about the case of David Love – a tragic reminder that affairs and obsession can have deadly consequences.
But first, I wanted to remind you to head on over to our exclusive group at patreon.com/loveandmurder. Our last bonus episode was the case of Jennifer Schuester. We have the video of the confession and where she is today. You don’t want to miss it.
Now, on to the show…
Teresa was born on December 6, 1971 in the NE area of Kansas City. Her and Randy Stone grew up together, but didn’t begin dating until 1990, when Randy came back from being active duty in the Marines.
Randy was described as being a tough guy with a heart of gold and Teresa was described as being very pretty and a person who loved to flirt.
When Randy returned from active duty, he asked Teresa out on a date during the month of March. They were married 7 months later on October 13, 1990. They had their first child, a son, a year later and a daughter two years after that.
Randy started a Farmer’s insurance business that he was very passionate about and that he managed successfully. In fact, he’d built his agency into one of the most successful in his region. He was also a fitness enthusiast; he loved competing on the basketball court. Like I said, he was described as also having a heart of gold; he often wrote poetry for his wife, kept a journal, and drove the church’s Sunday school bus. He even offered free advice on financial matters to the Church goers.
Teresa, on the other hand, was Randy’s reliable business partner and helped with the daily operations of their Farmers Insurance agency. She started as a customer service representative before becoming a licensed agent. With Teresa handling the office’s affairs, Randy focused on managing their client relationships.
As a couple, they spent many hours at their local church, New Hope Baptist, where they had been married and that Teresa grew up going to. Besides spending time there, Teresa volunteered in the church kitchen and sang with the choir. Randy was keen in managing the church’s finances and oversaw the money coming in and going out as the minister of records.
Randy and Teresa’s love story was a heartwarming and inspiring one for their community; They worked hand in hand, supporting each other, and building a beautiful life together.
When David Love became the pastor of the New Hope Church at 38 in 1999, the congregation was thrilled. He was young, energetic, and had fresh ideas to lead them. David grew up in the Midwest and was the son of missionaries. He’d gone to a Baptist college in the south and learned how to preach there. He was then a pastor and youth minister at two churches before coming to this one.
For Randy Stone, one of his devoted followers, Brother Love was a powerful influence in his life. As a smooth and charismatic speaker, David preached at their church, sticking to the conservative preaching style. Randy liked this as he once told a friend that the “mainstream Southern Baptist Convention was too liberal and willing to compromise.”
David and Randy occasionally argued about church issues. It’s good to note that David battled financial issues in the past, which had split a Virginia congregation in the 1990s. Also, when he took over the ministry at Independence, he couldn’t account for $30,000 missing from a fund for missionary salaries, and when questioned, he reacted angrily. “I will not let a church checkbook run my ministry,” he’d said. Despite these red flags, David put up the face of a perfect preacher, attending to his wife Kim, their children, and their congregation. Kim was a fiercely faithful individual and played the roles of a mother, church secretary, and pastor’s spouse with ease.
David and Kim had met in college in Chattanooga, TN. David proposed to her overlooking the city and they were wed on June 26, 1982. According to Kim, David treated her like a queen. But as time passed, she grew wary of women drawn to handsome preachers. More times than you could count on one hand, she’d found herself directing her husband’s attention away from other women. This now included Teresa Stone.
In 2004, after being married for 14 years, Teresa announced that she was pregnant again. The only problem is that Randy had already had a vasectomy. Teresa you have some ‘splaining to doooo. Either way, Randy assumed that the child was his because he’d heard of the vasectomy not always working AND he hand’t attened his follow-up procedures.
Unfortunately, she suffered a miscarriage and the baby wasn’t to be.
In 2008, Randy said he was going to resign from the church. He’d told some followers that he believed that David and his wife were having an affair. The person convinced Randy that he was being rediculous. So Randy stayed in the church and even started doing weekly counseling with David after Teresa caught him watching porn.
On March 31, 2010, as Teresa arrived at her husband’s insurance agency, she immediately noticed something strange. The blinds to the business were closed, which was unusual since Randy, never closed them before dark. She knew something was wrong. Teresa unlocked the door with ease, which indicated to her that the deadbolt had not been engaged. She called for Randy, but there was no answer. She searched through the storage room and Randy’s office, but everything looked normal. Going further into the office, that’s when she found her husband. Randy was lying motionless on the floor next to her office desk, with blood from his left ear covering the ground. There was a space heater behind him, now toppled over with a red smear, furniture and walls were spattered with blood. Randy’s eyes had blackened, and his lips were blue. Teresa called her parents and then 911. Why would she call her parent first? That’s weird.
“Oh my God,” she said.
“911,” the call-taker responded. “Do you need police, fire or medical?”
“Yes, I do please.”
“OK, take a breath. Where are you at?”
“I — I just walked into my office and my, my husband’s lying on my floor in my office.”
“OK, listen to me, listen to me, where are you? I need the address of where you’re at.”
“It’s 13912 Noland Court.”
“OK, what’s the suite number?”
“Suite A, as in apple.”
“OK now, what’s wrong with your husband?”
“He’s, he’s been, I don’t know. There’s blood everywhere. It’s coming out of his ear.”
“Go outside and wait for police to arrive”
Teresa went outside and a church member arrived ahead of the police. He went inside and came back out to tell Teresa that Randy was dead. Why’d you have to go inside? We’re out here waiting for cops. After hearing through the grapevine what happened, David send a youth minister to the scene while he was on his way. Then Kim pulled up to the office too. Is the entire town going to get there before the police?
Finally police arrived and 30 minutes earlier than when he’d said he would, David arrived as well.
6 detectives began investigating inside and someone asked Kim to drive a shaky Teresa to a nearby restroom. Kim submitted to the duty, as she had throughout all of her marriage.
But Kim also wondered if Teresa had killed her husband.
As Kim and Teresa arrived back at the parking lot, they were met with the sight of grieving friends, family, and church members. Investigator Keith Rosewaren was already on the scene, ready to take charge of the investigation. Like Randy, Rosewaren was a proud veteran and had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, developing an immediate kinship to the victim.
Investigators saw that there were no signs of a struggle and Randy had been ambushed and shot, point blank, in the back of the head. The murder weapon was also missing. Surprisingly, the cash on Randy’s desk was not taken, leading police to rule out robbery. The case was officially ruled as a homicide. During the course of the investigation, the police found a torn-up note in Teresa’s office trash. The letter, which was written by someone in handwriting, was examined by the police. According to ABC News, it contained phrases such as “Happy Birthday love. I am not in control of things yet, but when we are fully together, your birthday will always be exciting.” The police compared the handwriting of the letter to Randy’s writing samples but found no matches. It was either a love letter or a happy birthday note, but its true purpose remains a mystery.
According to police, The killer likely knew and trusted Randy, as the busy commercial street where the murder took place would have made it highly unlikely for a random act of violence.
As detectives investigated the scene, they put Teresa in a squad car. In the meantime, David tried to get in the car too despite police instructions not to. Teresa provided an airtight alibi, but the police suspect that Randy was murdered with his own gun, which Teresa cannot confirm who bought.
David, a close friend of Randy and the person who gave the eulogy at his funeral, was rumored to have had an extramarital affair with Teresa. Suspicion mounted when both provided detailed whereabouts of their movements during the time of the murder, but there was not enough evidence for the police to make an arrest.
Robert Davis, a Farmers Insurance district manager, went to the Stones’ home after Teresa called to inform him of her husband’s death. At the house, Robert met a distraught Teresa with her parents. When Teresa and Robert examined three insurance policies that had been placed in a desk in a basement office, they discovered that Randy had carried about $725,000 in life insurance benefits. However, they later learned that the amount was closer to $575,000. Additionally, Randy had made his children, Michael and Miranda, the sole beneficiaries of the policies, instead of his wife. When Robert informed Teresa about this, she was in shock and disbelief.
The day after Randy was murdered, David received a call from a fellow pastor, David Trump, asking him how he and his followers were doing. You know, just a check up call. (and we’re gonna call him David T. from now on) David responded with a happy quote from an old hymn, sounded happy, said everything’s great and even managed to switch the topic to the NCAA basketball tournament.
That same morning, David T got another phone call – this time from Teresa, another distant friend he hadn’t heard from in a while. She broke the news that her husband had been shot the day before. After a brief ten-minute call, he called David back to confirm that this wasn’t some joke. Why would he think it was a joke?
While they spoke, David T couldn’t help but recall a troubling conversation he had with Randy. Back in 2002, Randy had talked about finding a letter from Teresa with sexual fantasies addressed to someone named “David.” When Randy confronted her, Teresa claimed that writing a fake affair letter might improve their sex life.
Interesting.
In the meantime, Detective Keith Rosewaren was still heading the investigation and trying to prove the rumors of an affair between David and Teresa. He had already successfully interviewed Teresa who initially said that the note seemed to have been from a secret admirer, agreed to be questioned in a second interview and without an attorney. The detectives believe that Teresa had given David a gun that belonged to her deceased husband and that they had communicated about the killing through disposable cell phones.
But even with all these suspicions, Rosewaren knew that prosecutors would need more evidence before they pressed charges. So, he believed that he needed to crack Teresa’s defenses and hoped he could use the birthday note found in her trash can to his advantage. Initially, she claimed to have no idea who wrote the note and that it had been on her windshield three years earlier. Teresa also said that she tore it up to keep it from her husband.
So Teresa was brought back in for another interrogation and, after prying her, Teresa made a shocking confession. “Yes, we had sex,” she said when asked. Teresa confessed that she had been involved in a secret affair with “Brother Love” for over 10 years! Wow! Remember when Teresa said she’d been pregnant after Randy’d had a vasectomy? Well, she revealed that the baby was actually David’s and when she’d had a miscarraige she was actually happy that she wouldn’t have to deal with the outcome of Randy finding this out.
One year after David arrived, he invited her into his office and, pretty soon, they started meeting up regularly. Sometimes, they would meet a few times a day.
At the same time, Teresa had to fulfill her husband’s need for affection and it all wore her out. Oh poor baby! Randy suspected that she was having an affair with the pastor and started receiving counseling from David. But that only fueled the affair, which became more passionate and sometimes reckless.
David even posed for intimate photographs that he sent to Teresa and in January 2009, he wrote her a series of passionate emails. They even imagined what it would be like to be married.
But that’s not the end of it. As investigations continued, Teresa went on to reveal a far more sinister twist to the story, one that implicated David in the murder of Randy. She said that David had called her to tell her that Randy had been shot. Shocked by the revelations, the police immediately sought a search warrant to investigate further. They brought David in for interrogation, in which he really didn’t speak. However, during the search of David’s property, the police found incriminating evidence in his computer including pictures and evidence of emails, which showed his involvement in the murder.
In the meantime, as news spread of the investigation, witnesses who had been silent before now started to talk and the police began to slowly piece together the events that had led up to Randy’s death.
One of the major turning points in the investigation came when the crime lab confirmed that Randy had been killed by his own gun. This was a significant find because it suggested that Randy knew his killer. In an interview with Teresa, she revealed that David had thrown the gun away after the murder, but the police had never been able to find it.
The police did, however, manage to recover five old shell casings that had been fired from Randy’s gun. Experts later matched these casings with the one that had been found near Randy’s feet on the day that he died. This was a major breakthrough for the police and it gave them a crucial piece of evidence to build their case upon.
As the investigation progressed, it was discovered that Randy’s insurance policy would not pay out to Teresa, as she had led her friends to believe. In fact, Randy had taken her off his policy several years earlier, after she had miscarried David’s child. Instead, the money went to their two children who were just minors at the time. I know yall knew this part already, but I’m telling you when the police found out.
Finally, computer forensics gave the police an insight into the motive behind Randy’s murder. It was revealed that just two weeks before his death, Randy had made the decision to leave his church, citing concerns about their finances.
In early 2010, Randy discovered an issue with the church’s finances; he was going over the books when he discovered missing funds. The checks and balances procedure was not being followed, and the money that had gone missing had David’s signature on the checks.
Randy had sent an email to David, stating that he did not agree with what was happening with the church’s finances. David denied any wrongdoing, and Randy did not take his allegations to the authorities. Doesn’t this sound familiar? Something like this happened at another church and he said he didn’t want the church to tell him what to do – then he tranferred here.
This finding suggested that the church may have played a role in his murder.
Another reason he was leaving was when Randy found out that David’s son, who worked as New Hope’s music director, had been charged with drunk driving. What was concerning for David was that conservative church members might even want to see him dismissed from his position because of that. Randy began to have disagreements with David and even accused him of being too prideful. David tried to mediate and diffuse the situation, but it didn’t work out as Randy went on to accuse David’s wife of some sexual indiscretions and confronted Teresa about a ring that David had gifted her.
So, after all of this information came out – seven months after the murder – detectives, Keith Rosewaren and Christina Nunez, spoke to David’s boss at a trucking terminal to try and lure him into work so that they could arrest him. By this time, David had resigned as the pastor of the New Hope Baptist Church and fled Independence. He relocated to South Carolina with his wife, Kim, who had been deeply impacted by the financial losses incurred by their family. So, The supervisor called David to come in and sign some paperwork as part of the ruse.
As David got to the terminal detectives could tell that he became suspicious, he left at one point and returned with his wife. Detectives Rosewaren and Nunez followed him back to his house, and the deputy handcuffed him there. David then asked for an attorney, saying he didn’t trust the detectives. However, when Rosewaren pushed the issue of closure for those left behind in Independence, David broke down and said, “Randy was a friend of mine too!”
Eight long and painful months after her husband’s murder, Teresa was ready to come clean about the final secrets that she had been holding, despite her fear of a prison sentence. Teresa’s was led to a small, private office at the Jackson County Courthouse Annex was where she was finally going to detail how her former lover had gained access to Randy’s .40-caliber Glock, which was responsible for Randy’s unfortunate fate. She was also going to admit whether or not she played a role in planning or encouraging the murder.
Although she hoped to gain some leniency by cooperating with prosecutors, Assistant Jackson County Prosecutor Patrick Edwards was hesitant to use her as a witness against David, as she could be easily discredited. Therefore, Teresa would have to prove herself with honest answers. Accompanied by veteran defense lawyer John P. O’Connor, Teresa made a bold announcement that she was willing to answer the prosecutor’s questions honestly, without any conditions or promises.
Assistant prosecutor Tammy Dickinson wasted no time, getting straight to the key questions, and Teresa was forthcoming with her responses. Teresa admitted that she helped turn David into a killer by sending him a text stating, “I want him dead,” and confessing that she just wanted him out of her life. She also revealed that she gave David access to Randy’s guns by providing him with various passwords.
The investigation was complete in 2010, and prosecutors presented evidence to a grand jury.
David eventually took a plea deal for second-degree murder – wait, I thought you had nothing to say David – and was sentenced to life imprisonment, with the possibility of parole in 2036 – 25 years.
In April 2012, Teresa plead guilty and was charged with conspiracy to commit murder and entered a plea deal for reduced charges. With the weight of the evidence against her, she took responsibility for her role in the crime and faces an eight-year prison sentence.
Prosecutor Dickinson said that these two could have chosen divorce, but instead, they chose murder. Randy Stone’s family members voiced their disappointment in the length of Teresa’s sentence, with many wishing she was going away for more than eight years. During the trial, Randy’s niece, Shelly Bell, asked that Teresa receive the maximum sentence for her “cold-hearted decision.” On the other hand, Teresa’s lawyer, John P. O’Connor, told the judge that Stone had no criminal record and had gone back to school since her husband’s death.
Also, Teresa’s children with Randy Stone, Michael and Miranda Stone had asked the judge to show Teresa mercy, stating that they needed her in their lives and couldn’t bear to lose her after already losing their father.
After the sentencing, Attorney O’Conner accepted the judge’s decision, stating that it had been fair under the given circumstances.
Randy’s mother, Clara Koehler, expressed satisfaction with the eight-year sentence, stating that she wanted Teresa Stone to have time to reflect on what she had done.
Randy is currently incarcerated at the Southeast Correctional Center in Charleston, Missouri.
By the time of this recording, Teresa has started a new life with her partner in Kansas City, Missouri, after serving her sentence. Someone got with her? Wow! See single women who don’t have a prison sentence for getting someone to murder your ex – you still have a chance!
And that is the case of Teresa Stone, Randy Stone, and David Love.
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