Woman Denies Assisting in Palmyra Island Slaying

The accused killer of a San Diego woman on a tiny Pacific atoll told a U.S. District Court jury that she “never harmed anyone in my life.”

Stephanie Stearns fought back tears Tuesday when she testified about her decision to help her former lover Buck Walker flee drug charges in Hawaii and ultimately sail to Palmyra Island, where Eleanor and Malcolm Graham vanished in 1974.

“I swear by all I hold dear I never harmed anyone in my life,” the soft-spoken Stearns told jurors, who leaned forward in their seats to hear her. Some jurors took notes during her testimony.

She was to resume her testimony today.

Walker, 48, was convicted of killing Eleanor Graham in 1985 and was given a life sentence.

Stearns, 39, is accused of plotting Graham’s death and helping Walker carry out the crime in what prosecutors have called a modern-day case of piracy and murder.

Attorneys say Stearns was told by Walker that the Grahams drowned while fishing in their small boat in a shark-infested lagoon at Palmyra Island, 1,100 miles southwest of Hawaii.

She and Walker turned up in Honolulu later with the repainted and renamed 38-foot ketch Sea Wind, which belonged to the Grahams.

They failed to report the couple’s disappearance to authorities and at one point Walker told friends he won the boat in a chess match with an eccentric millionaire.

Prosecutors say Walker, in an effort to get a working boat and food supplies to continue their flight from Hawaiian authorities, brutally murdered Eleanor Graham and bragged of forcing her husband to “walk the plank” while the man cried for his life.

Eleanor Graham was either shot or clubbed, then her body was placed in a metal chest and set afire, according to prosecution experts. The metal box was wired shut and thrown into the lagoon, where it was expected to keep its grisly secret forever. But the box washed ashore and was discovered in 1981 by a South African traveler stopping in Palmyra.

Under questioning by her attorney, Vincent Bugliosi, Stearns described Walker as “a very strong person, domineering, a person who liked to have his own way. I guess I’m not one to make many waves.”

She said she did stand up to Walker occasionally. She told of her “extreme aversion to guns.” She said that when Walker brought guns to their home on the island of Hawaii she fought with him over it. Eventually he took the weapons out of the house, she said.

Walker told her “terrible stories” about his term in San Quentin prison at the age of 19 for armed robbery. When he was charged with drug sales in 1973, he swore he would never return to the California prison.

It was during that time that he planned to flee Hawaii on his own boat, and Stearns decided to go with him.

“We were in love. I thought I could help,” she said, wiping away tears.

Her mother fought with her over the plan to flee and flew to Hawaii to convince her daughter not to make the trip with Walker. But Stearns refused.

“I told her I loved him,” she said.

Stearns denied prosecutors’ contentions that they were desperate for food, sick of living on coconuts and fish.

The food supply never went below a seven-day supply, she said.

She described binges of baking small “bon voyage” cakes for other boaters as they left the island. She said she used coconuts in a multitude of ways and even had enough food to feed the three dogs she and Walker brought on the boat with them.