What Could’ve Caused Stephanie Olson to Kill Her Mom
Tensions came to a head when Snellen forbade Olson from moving in with Dressman. In response, the teen attempted to run away with her paramour, prompting Snellen to call the police. The couple was located in Georgia before ever reaching their desired destination of Florida. Authorities believe the incident was a primary driver in Snellen’s slaying.
“I guess they just wanted to live carefree lives without mom interfering,” Bell says.
Dr. Kathleen Heide, a distinguished criminology professor at the University of South Florida, believes Olson may have perceived her mother as an obstacle to her romance and her freedom to make her own choices.
“I think societally and culturally, girls really derive their identity from relationships. When girls are that young, being in a relationship is so critical to their identity and to their sense of themselves,” Heide, who is also a licensed mental health counselor specializing in treating trauma survivors, explains.
Heide also speculates that “the idea that the parent is trying to separate the girl from what she might believe is not only the most central thing in her life, but may be the only thing she perceives in her life as validating” might have been interpreted as a threat.
“It seems she may have killed her mother because she was an obstacle to what she perceived she wanted with this relationship with this boy,” she says.
“There's a lot of science behind this that says young people under 25, when consumed particularly with strong emotions, such as fear of losing loved objects, or anger at losing the loved objects, are not thinking as clearly.”
Seemingly, the final tipping point was when the mom and daughter got into a heated blowout over the phone during a sleepover at Olson’s friend’s house.
“Diane was demanding that Stephanie come home, that she could not spend another night with her friend,” Bell explains. “And other people in the room said that when Stephanie hung up on her mom, she said, ‘I wish she was dead.’”
That’s when investigators believe Olson and Dressman connected with their friend, 22-year-old Timothy Crabtree, and contrived a murderous plot to get rid of her mom that night. The trio planned to split Snellen’s $200,000 life insurance payout, which Olson would have received as beneficiary.
‘A Lot of Anger’
After visiting a marijuana dealer and getting high, Olson went home. She stormed to her room and Snellen followed. Investigators believe Dressman and Crabtree waited outside until they were certain both women were in Olson’s bedroom. The men then went upstairs and cornered the victim.
“They had her trapped, and there were obviously signs of a struggle,” Bell—who was the first detective to arrive on the scene—recalls. “There was blood on Stephanie's bed and on the floor. There was blood all around her [Diane’s] body. Her pajama bottoms were pulled off and laying next to her to make it seem like a rape and murder.”
Diane was stabbed 16 times in the chest and had nine incisions to the back of her head, per Bell. “The stab wounds went through her torso into the carpet, indicating a lot of force and a lot of anger,” he says.
Snellen also suffered defense wounds to her hands and was stabbed a total of 27 times, an autopsy determined. The knife used to fatally stab Snellen was not found at the crime scene, according to City Confidential.
The trio fled the scene and returned to Olson’s friend's home for the rest of the night. The next day, Olson called 911 to report she found her mother dead.
But there was no evidence of a break-in and no signs of sexual assault, investigators determined. Authorities further grew suspicious after listening to the emotionally detached 911 call made by the teen.
“She's not hysterical, she’s not crying, but she just found her mom brutally murdered,” Bell explains.
Authorities never explicitly stated who they thought stabbed Snellen and also considered the man she was dating at the time of her death as a suspect.
However, in April 2003, Dressman and Crabtree were arrested on charges of first-degree murder and burglary, according to the News-Graphic. In 2005, Crabtree entered an Alford plea to a lesser charge of conspiracy to commit murder and served a six-year prison sentence. Dressman was convicted of complicity to murder and complicity to burglary. He was sentenced to 20 years behind bars, the outlet reported.
Olson was found guilty of complicity to murder and sentenced to 25 years in prison at the Kentucky Correctional Institute for Women in 2005. She was eligible for parole in December 2025, at which time it was ruled that she could be released five years before the end of her sentence.
