Joseph Lee Fordham and the 1985 Halloween Murder of Mary Stiles

Joseph Lee Fordham was a 16-year-old high school student in Baytown, Texas, who murdered 11-year-old Mary Stiles on Halloween night in 1985 and then taunted investigators with a series of riddle-filled letters signed “The Madman who wishes he never was.” He was caught after the FBI profiled the letter-writer as a juvenile and detectives staked out a neighborhood mailbox. He confessed, was convicted of aggravated murder, and served less than eight years of a 25-year sentence.

Halloween Night, 1985

Mary Stiles was a sixth-grader at Horace Mann Junior School. On October 31, 1985, she went trick-or-treating near her family’s apartment complex on Northwood Drive, wearing pink Care Bears pajamas as her costume.¹ She did not come home. Police searched for nine days and found nothing.

Then a letter arrived at the Baytown police station. Inside was a crude hand-drawn map of the complex’s back parking lot and a trail into the woods, with notes marking where the writer had “stabbed her,” where she had “dropped a nickel,” and where the body was hidden among tree roots.² Officers followed the map to a hollow near tree roots and found Mary’s body concealed under leaves and branches. The medical examiner reported that she had been stabbed, strangled, and had a sock stuffed down her throat. Any one of those injuries could have killed her.

The Riddle Letters

Around Christmas 1985, more letters began arriving. The writer called himself “The Madman who wishes he never was,” posed riddles, threatened further victims, and demanded that the Baytown Sun print answers he said would reveal his identity.² The case pulled in the FBI and the Harris County District Attorney’s office.

FBI behavioral analysts studied the writing and concluded the author was probably a juvenile, not an adult. The profile predicted the suspect would show remorse, declining grades, and withdrawal from his family.²

How Fordham Was Caught

Investigators narrowed the suspect pool to male students at Ross S. Sterling High School who lived in the apartment complex and matched the profile. They set up surveillance on a mailbox on Northwood Drive and eventually watched a teenager ride up on a bicycle and drop off a letter. A postal inspector confirmed the stationery matched the earlier correspondence. The teenager was Joseph Lee Fordham, a 16-year-old Sterling student who lived in the same complex as the Stiles family.²

His Connection to Mary Stiles

Fordham was not a stranger to the family. His younger sister was Mary’s best friend, and Mary often played at the Fordham home. Fordham had sometimes walked her home after dark, and investigators said he had developed an infatuation with her.² After his arrest he confessed to the murder, but he never gave a specific motive.

Conviction, Sentence, and Early Parole

Fordham was convicted of aggravated murder. Prosecutors sought a life sentence; the jury rejected that and sentenced him to 25 years. The Stiles family considered the sentence far too lenient, and their frustration deepened when severe prison overcrowding in Texas at the time led to Fordham being paroled after serving less than eight years.¹

Return to Prison in 2014

Fordham remained on parole for years. In 2014, with only weeks left before his parole was set to end, U.S. Marshals found him in a hotel room in the middle of a suicide attempt.² He was taken into custody and returned to prison. Asked later why he had tried to kill himself so close to the end of his parole, he reportedly said of his sentence, “It just wasn’t long enough.”¹

Carrie Stiles’s Public Forgiveness

Mary’s older sister, Carrie Stiles, became a journalist and news production editor at the San Antonio Express-News, a career she has said was shaped by her sister’s murder. She spent decades angry about Fordham’s early release before deciding to publicly forgive him, calling the act “powerful” and “an incredible weight off my shoulders.” She announced that decision on an episode of the Investigation Discovery series On the Case with Paula Zahn titled “Deadly Riddle.” Her father, Gary Stiles, traveled to New York with her for the interview.¹

1
MySanAntonio.com. National TV Show Focuses on Murder of San Antonio Journalist’s Sister
2
Baytown Sun. Program to Feature Baytown Murder