Man is accused of stabbing his girlfriend 83 times in an unsolved murder case in 1996

A Delaware man is accused of fatally stabbing his ex-girlfriend who was found dead in a ditch next to a Florida highway 28 years ago, officials announced Wednesday.

Stephen L. Ford, 72, was charged with first-degree murder with a firearm in the death of his partner, Doris Korell, who was reported missing on Dec. 11, 1996. She was found dead four days later, facedown in a Palmetto sewer. She had been stabbed 83 times, according to the Manatee County Sheriff's Office. But it would be months before police identified her.

Korell's daughter, who was living in Maryland at the time, reported her mother missing on Dec. 12 after Ford called her and claimed Korell had left to go shopping after an argument, prosecutors said. Korell's car was found at a nearby mall on Dec. 18 with no evidence that an altercation or assault had occurred inside, the sheriff's office said.

St. Petersburg investigators investigating Korell's disappearance questioned Ford several days after she was reported missing and noticed a putrefying smell in his home, the news release said. Authorities also found stains on the bedding and mattress that were not present in an earlier search, as well as a suicide note Ford had written to his sons “describing how he wanted to be with him.” [Korell] if she were dead,” the sheriff’s department said.

Investigators said that when questioned about Korell's death, Ford replied, “If I killed her, I should get the death penalty.”

Ford is also said to have rented a storage unit the day after Korell disappeared and moved her jewelry, clothing and photographs there.

Ford's ex-girlfriend told investigators he sent her a letter about two months before Korell disappeared saying, “I hope she understands that I don't want her here anymore,” the sheriff's office said in a statement.

Despite law enforcement's findings, Ford continued to deny his involvement in his girlfriend's disappearance, the sheriff's office said. Eventually, he was discovered semi-conscious and foaming at the mouth in his home on Christmas Eve of that year. The sheriff's office claimed Ford had attempted to kill himself by ingesting bleach.

But by 1997, Ford had already moved to Delaware and the case had been closed. In 2017, the sheriff's office reopened the investigation and “new information” came to light, the office said.

Acquaintances of Korell said she and Ford were having domestic and financial problems at the time of the murder and that Korell was afraid of her husband, according to the sheriff's office.

A forensic analysis of DNA evidence resubmitted this year found that the bed stains found in Ford's home decades ago were Ford's own bodily fluids, the result of a suicide attempt, the sheriff's office said. His behavior, statements to police and suicide attempts gave authorities probable cause to charge him with Korell's murder.

Ford was arrested during a traffic stop near his home in Georgetown, Delaware, on Aug. 16 and booked into the Manatee County Jail on Aug. 30, the sheriff's office said.

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