Stanley Everett Rice was born on August 7, 1942, in Concord, Massachusetts, the younger of two children in a deeply troubled household. His parents were physically abusive, emotionally volatile, and incapable of providing any consistent guidance. Despite the dysfunction around him, Rice remained close to his older sister, the one stable presence in his early life. As a child he appeared nervous, soft‑spoken, and unusually polite, but people who knew him noticed that he stuttered badly whenever he felt excited, frightened, or confronted—a trait that would later prove crucial in identifying him after one of his murders.

Rice began displaying troubling behavior at a very young age. At only five years old, he set fire to newspapers in the family’s cellar, and shortly afterward attempted to ignite an oil tank in the same basement. His early impulses toward fire‑setting, petty theft, and vandalism quickly escalated. According to later psychiatric records, Rice also struggled with fear of loud noises, which his father attempted to cure by firing guns in his presence. The unintended result was an early fascination with firearms. He soon began stealing ammunition from shops, firing it off in wooded areas, and getting into repeated trouble with local authorities.

By age 11, Rice had already been placed on probation for theft. In 1955, he was expelled from a private school in New York for vandalism, and at 17 he was sentenced to juvenile detention for stealing a car. His adolescence was punctuated by frequent run‑ins with the law, institutional stays, and mounting behavioral red flags that no adult in his life seemed equipped to address.

Rice’s sexual development was equally chaotic and disturbing. He later claimed that his first sexual experience occurred when he was nine years old, when an older man molested him at a barn near a railroad crossing. At the Lyman School for Boys in 1955, he wrote in his diary that he was coerced into sexual acts with other boys. Over time, Rice began to develop a sexual fixation involving blood and bodily functions, fantasies that he recorded privately in extensive diary entries. His writings revealed a growing preoccupation with young boys and violent imagery, though at that stage he claimed he restrained himself from acting on his urges.

In 1957, Rice and his parents moved to Nichol Township in Ontario, Canada. He attended Kitchener‑Waterloo Collegiate and Vocational School but continued engaging in theft, vandalism, and amateur explosive experiments. In one of the most chilling precursors to his later behavior, Rice wrote in his diary that he once convinced a fellow inmate during a juvenile detention stay to hang himself by claiming another inmate intended to kill him.

After his release in 1961, he drifted between states and provinces, frequently moving and picking up short‑term jobs. Around this time, Rice began sexually abusing young boys, a pattern that continued in both Canada and the United States. His escalating deviance, untreated mental illness, and mobility made him increasingly dangerous. By the age of 21, he crossed the threshold from sexual predator to serial murderer.

Stanley Everett Rice’s known murders span three jurisdictions—Ontario, Ohio, and Florida—and were separated by years of travel, evasion, and arrests for unrelated crimes. His pattern involved targeting young boys engaged in outdoor activities such as fishing, selecting isolated locations, and combining sexual assault with extreme violence. His own writings and later confessions filled in details that investigators were never able to obtain during the initial disappearances.

Nine‑year‑old Keith Henry disappeared while fishing in Waterloo, Ontario. A massive search effort involving local police, volunteers, and even psychics yielded nothing. The boy’s body was never recovered. Rice later admitted in his diary that he encountered Henry along the riverbank, stabbed him to death with a hunting knife, and buried the body in dense vegetation near the Grand River—though he claimed he could not remember the precise location. Months after Henry vanished, Rice was arrested in Illinois for abducting another child. Canadian authorities agreed to drop their charges if his family left the country, effectively allowing him to escape murder prosecution.

Eight‑year‑old Tim Trask left home intending to fish along the Blanchard River. Rice approached him on his bicycle, struck up a conversation, and accompanied him down the path. When they were alone, Rice beat, raped, stabbed, and then shot the boy once in the chest with a shotgun. Trask’s body was found the next day. The brutality shocked the community, prompting widespread fear and a substantial reward for information. A tackle box later recovered near the crime scene offered the first potential forensic lead, but Rice left the state before investigators could link him to the murder. Authorities questioned him the following month, but lacking evidence, they released him.

Rice continued traveling but soon resurfaced in Massachusetts, where he was arrested in 1968 for sexually assaulting two boys at gunpoint. He was sent to the Metropolitan State Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. Diagnosed with schizophrenia and sociopathic traits, he nonetheless behaved cooperatively and managed to escape on February 16, 1968. He fled to Florida, where he quickly ingratiated himself with locals, including the owner of an automobile salvage yard who hired him as a night watchman.

Rice’s final confirmed murder occurred at a pond in rural Broward County, a popular spot for local children. He approached 11‑year‑old Nelson Williams and 10‑year‑old Kevin Polittle, chatting casually before offering to take them elsewhere. When they refused, Rice snapped. He shot both boys with a sawed‑off shotgun. Williams was stabbed repeatedly and died at the scene. Polittle survived by fleeing while Rice was distracted.

Two teenage boys riding nearby witnessed Rice holding a bloodstained knife. Alarmed, they returned with adults and called law enforcement. Their description—especially Rice’s distinctive stutter—gave investigators a strong lead.

Rice was arrested on May 25, 1968 after a routine traffic stop for speeding. Sheriff’s deputies immediately noticed the resemblance to the composite sketch. A search of his vehicle revealed the murder weapons and photographs of nude young boys. Under questioning, Rice confessed to killing Williams and admitted to the murders of Tim Trask and Keith Henry, as well as two additional unspecified victims. Police later recovered a hidden cache of weapons and pornographic materials from a barn in Massachusetts based on his statements.

Florida prosecutors tried him first. His defense attorney attempted to argue incompetency due to schizophrenia, but court‑appointed psychiatrists unanimously concluded that Rice understood the nature of his actions and was fit to stand trial. Rice ultimately pleaded guilty to the murder of Nelson Williams and received a life sentence. He was never prosecuted for the murders in Ontario or Ohio, although he openly acknowledged responsibility.Rice spent the remainder of his life in the Florida State Prison in Raiford. In a rare interview a year after his conviction, he spoke candidly about his crimes, his sexual sadism, and his desire—though seemingly insincere—to be “cured.”