The Forgotten Serial Killer

Little is known about the Chameleon, Stephen Morin, who is suspected of killing over 30 people, but hardly anyone has heard his name.

Josie Klakström
7 min readJun 21, 2020
Stephen Morin via Wikipedia

Stephen Peter Morin was born on the 19th February 1951 in Providence, Rhode Island. He left school early, quickly developing a drug habit and a penchant for getting into trouble with the law.

At 15 years old, Morin was arrested in Florida for stealing a car, for which he served a two-year sentence. In 1972, he stole another vehicle and was found in possession of LSD. For these crimes, he was sentenced to five years’ probation.

In 1976, he moved to San Francisco, where he constantly changed his identity and found work as a mechanic. This year he was also arrested in San Rafael, California, for possession of a syringe and resisting arrest. However, he only was sentenced to a year of probation because he used a fake identity.

In September of the same year, Morin abducted, raped and tortured a 14-year-old girl. From this point, he was added to the FBI’s most-wanted list.

Morin’s next move was to Las Vegas, Nevada, under the alias Robert Ireland. Here, he met his future wife, a schoolteacher named Sylvia. While visiting Sylvia’s family in Connecticut, Morin toured Yale…

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Josie Klakström

Josie is a freelance journo who writes about writing, true crime, culture and marketing. www.truecrimeedition.com