Oxygen is re-airing the Snapped investigation into the murder of Tina Rae Stevens by Deborah Huiett and Leonard Day at a motel in Burlington, Kentucky.
In May 1999, Day and his employer, Robert Walker, traveled from North Carolina to do a job installing cables in Burlington, a southern suburb of Cincinnati. They stayed at a motel and took separate rooms so Walker could bring his wife and Day could bring his girlfriend, Huiett.
By coincidence, Walker ran into Stevens, an ex-girlfriend of Day’s, at a local bar. Stevens reportedly asked Walker to take her back to the motel, and unbeknown to Huiett, Stevens and Day got another room at the motel.
Walker later testified that Huiett was furiously looking for Day the following morning and accused him of cheating on her. Stevens was never seen alive again.
The following week, Day and Huiett were thrown out of the motel after other guests complained they were constantly fighting with each other. When the staff entered the room, they found it had been trashed, with broken glass and furniture strewn around it.
However, things became more sinister when the motel staff looked into the room Day and Stevens had occupied. They found that the walls had been scrubbed with bleach or water, the sheet on the bed did not belong to the motel, and there was a large brown stain on the mattress.
Body of Tina Rae Stevens found in remote area as suspicions fell on Deborah Huiett and Leonard Day
In April 2000, a work crew from a nearby prison discovered Stevens’s skeletal remains stuffed in a bag in a remote area of Boone County.
Watch the Latest on our YouTube ChannelThe investigation rumbled along for another couple of years. At one point, Day told investigators that Huiett had admitted to killing Stevens, and he had seen her wearing the victim’s clothes.
Day claimed he had last seen Stevens in May 1999 as she boarded a bus outside the motel. However, based on witness statements and some incriminating remarks, the cops arrested Day in July 2002.
In April 2002, Huiett was arrested at her workplace. The cops claimed she told her employer she was being arrested for “killing that b***h.”
Deborah Huiett and Leonard Day convicted for killing Tina Rae Stevens
Huiett was convicted of murder and tampering with evidence and was sentenced to life. Day was convicted of complicity in murder and tampering with evidence and was given a 50-year sentence.
The pair have both appealed against the decision but have so far been unsuccessful. In 2014, Huiett successfully requested that a DNA test be conducted. Four years later, those tests were still pending, and it’s unclear if a result was ever attained, but Huiett remains behind bars.
This episode of Snapped re-airs Tuesday at 8/7c on Snapped.