Woman Acquitted in Island Slaying : Victim, an S.D. Yachtswoman, Vanished With Husband

A woman acquitted on charges that she helped her boyfriend murder a yachtswoman on a remote Pacific atoll in 1974 says her “faith in the American judicial system has been reinstated.”

“It’s been grueling,” Stephanie Stearns told reporters after hugging her tearful parents, who sat in the front row throughout the trial. She was acquitted Friday by a federal court jury.

Her boyfriend, Buck Walker, was convicted of murder in June and sentenced to life in prison. Stearns, 39, who was convicted along with Walker of stealing the couple’s yacht, testified that she lied to authorities to help him escape capture but knew nothing of the murder.

Both were charged with murdering Eleanor “Muff” Graham of San Diego, who disappeared along with her husband, Malcolm, from Palmyra atoll in August, 1974.

The jury deliberated 2 1/2 days. Jurors announced they were deadlocked 6-6 before noon Friday, but were told by U.S. District Judge Samuel King to keep deliberating.

A few hours later, the vote was changed to 10-2.

When King asked jurors to consider whether further deliberation would be unproductive, the verdict to acquit was returned less than an hour later.

Stearns and Walker had sailed to Palmyra aboard a leaky boat and were the only other people on the atoll besides the Grahams at the time of their disappearance in 1974.

Two months after the Grahams vanished, Stearns and Walker sailed the Grahams’ yacht into Hawaii, 1,100 miles away; they were later sentenced to prison for stealing the yacht.

Murder charges were added only after Mrs. Graham’s skeletal remains were found in a metal box on Palmyra in 1981. Her husband has never been found.

The separate murder trials were transferred to San Francisco because of publicity in Hawaii.

The prosecution said Stearns helped Walker in the murder in order to get the Grahams’ yacht and food supply and leave Palmyra.

With no direct evidence of any role Stearns played in the killing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Elliot Enoki cited disputed testimony about a feud between the couples, and pointed to numerous lies and omissions admitted by Stearns in her statements to authorities.

Defense lawyers said Walker was solely responsible for the murder and hid it from Stearns, who testified she thought the Grahams had drowned on a fishing trip, and joined Walker on a search that found the Grahams’ overturned dinghy but no sign of the couple.

Stearns, who sobbed as she read entries from her 1974 log to the jury about the Grahams’ disappearance, denied there was any feud.

She also said she lied about taking the yacht and failed to report the Grahams’ disappearance to authorities in order to protect Walker, who was then a fugitive on drug charges.

Stearns said she would return to work as an office manager in a Los Angeles telecommunications company.