Mom’s New Meth BF Burns Baby’s Privates Off With Propane Torch

We usually don’t start episodes with warnings, but this case is one of the most horrific we have ever covered, and it involves a young child. I can’t even begin to think that a human being is capable of doing such unimaginable things to a little girl in such a brutal fashion, day after day after day. If you are faint of heart, I strongly suggest you skip this one. I’m not even kidding.

Teslin Elizabeth O’Call was born in Ontario, California, on June 8th, 1994, to parents Stella Anne Kaiser and Jason Adam O’Call. She was the couple’s second child; their first was a boy named Jason, who was named after his father. Teslin loved her big brother, who was described as her best friend. Teslin had blue eyes and blonde hair cut into a bob with short bangs framing her face.

Her grandfather, Ken O’Call, said she was a sweet baby who grew into a smiling and loving toddler. Her aunt said that she was wonderful. She loved life, she loved music, she loved animals. Many relatives mentioned her love of all sorts of animals, from horses to dogs, cats, and bugs. Whenever she found a bug, her grandfather said, she had to show it off to everyone in the house. She liked dolls, drawing, playing in the tub with her bath toys, and her favorite toy was a truck. Her uncle said she was always happy when they took her to the park, and she loved being on the swings.

Pictures taken in December of 1996 show Teslin dressed up to celebrate Christmas in bright red tights, a green and red plaid skirt, and a white shirt. In one photo, she holds up a candy cane and looks at someone behind the camera as if she was showing off a prize. Other photos taken that day show her enjoying her candy treat.

Teslin’s mother, Stella, had a difficult childhood. She had a twin brother named Billy, along with two older brothers and an older sister. She described her father as a controlling man with a violent temper and said she was a victim of his physical mistreatment. Her twin remembered their childhood a little differently, however. He said he personally didn’t see his sister get hurt but said his father was a very strict parent who was tough on his children.

Stella was about 13 years old. She and her mother were in the house when her father removed himself from the earth with a gun. Billy was outside that day, and he recalled hearing the gunshot. He said Stella and his mother ran out of the house screaming. That kind of a sudden violent death would be a traumatic event for anybody, but even more difficult for a young teen. For the next few years, she acted out by smoking, drinking, experimenting with drugs, and running around causing trouble. She used crystal for the first time when she was 14 years old.

She started dating Jason Adam O’Call and was soon pregnant. She was 16 when Jason Jr. was born; her boyfriend was 17. She moved in with his family in Victorville, California, and lived with them on and off over the next several years. Two years afterwards, when Stella was 18, Teslin was born.

Stella continued to live with Jason and his family, but she wasn’t happy with her life there. Jason’s father described her as a party girl who was immature and liked making Jason jealous, sometimes even encouraging Jason to fight with other men over her. Jason went back to school, graduated, and got a good job as a steel worker to take care of his family. But Stella wasn’t ready to grow up and give up the party life.

Stella’s older sister lived in Oregon, and when her twin brother moved there, she decided that she also wanted a fresh start. In mid-1996, she moved herself and both children to Springfield, Oregon. Jason’s father said she saw the kids as her meal ticket because Jason sent money to Stella for their care. Not much is known about her first few months in Oregon, but life as a single mom wasn’t easy. She struggled to take care of her son, who was almost 5 years old by this time, and she was often impatient with him. Though the agency never released any records, her twin said that Oregon’s DHS had gotten involved and Stella was required to take parenting classes.

At Christmas that year, she and the children visited Jason and his family in California. When Stella lived there, they said that she had been caring and attentive and a good mother to the children. But when she and the kids arrived at the bus station after living in Oregon, the family saw the first signs of neglect. Despite the cold weather, both children were barefoot. The visit lasted 6 weeks, and over that time, Jason’s family saw Stella treat her son harshly. She spanked him, pushed him, slapped him, and yanked him around by his arm. She told Jason’s father, “I just can’t handle the boy no more.”

Stella treated Teslin kindly, though, and seemed to be able to take care of her. Jason’s father said she’d never shown any tendency to be abusive toward the baby. Concerned for the 5-year-old’s safety, the family convinced her to leave Jason behind when she went back to Oregon, but they let her take Teslin with her.

After her return to Oregon, Stella met Jesse Caleb Compton, who was newly single for all of the worst reasons one could imagine. Starting in July of 1996, police were called six times to this apartment he shared with his girlfriend and their 2-year-old daughter because of CA and DV. His girlfriend left for a little bit but soon let him move in again. She was reported to DHS and their daughter was taken away until the mother could prove Jesse wasn’t allowed any contact with her. Realizing that she needed to protect her little girl, the girlfriend finally found the courage to end the relationship, kick him out of her home, and her life for good.

This left Jesse free to make another woman miserable. He found Stella soon after. They met, and she and Teslin moved into his dirty and smelly bachelor apartment in Springfield. The fence behind his unit and the walls inside were marked by a number of holes because Jesse was in the habit of throwing knives and punching the walls when he got angry. Most mothers would want to keep their children far away from a place like that, but Stella was drawn to it. She was a party girl, and Jesse liked to party as well. He was known for throwing some drug parties featuring lots of crystal and lots of drinking. Sometimes these parties would not stop for several days at a time. He liked to smoke his crystal by melting it with a small propane torch and, as a party trick, he would sometimes hold the torch to his own hand showing off how much pain he could withstand.

Stella let Jesse take over Teslin’s discipline. She would leave the girl alone with him while she attended her parenting classes. Because of the parties, a number of people were around to see Jesse’s interactions with Teslin. Jesse always seemed to be angry with her, always called her names, slapped the toddler’s face, and made her stand in the corner for hours on end. He smacked her with a wooden spoon, a spatula, and a belt. He was seen dragging her around by the hair and often forced her to take cold baths and showers. Once, when Jesse angrily threw a knife across the room, it almost hit Teslin, missing her head by mere inches. One witness saw him pouring a beer down her throat until she gagged; another saw him beating her with a belt to make her go to sleep. When the woman asked Stella if they should stop him, Stella simply said, “Just let him take care of that.”

Witnesses also saw Stella slapping Teslin on the bottom with her hand. They said she didn’t feed the toddler regularly and sometimes pulled her hair or yanked her by the arm. Reminder: this is a 2-year-old girl.

The neighbors in the apartment complex often heard shouts, screams, and thumps coming from Jesse’s apartment. They saw Teslin outside; she was covered from head to toe in long pants and long-sleeve shirts. This is the middle of summer. When one neighbor threatened to report the CA to the police, Jesse threatened to kill the man and his girlfriend as well if he did. After a few months, witnesses no longer saw Teslin during the parties, but they could still hear her. Jesse kept her in the bedroom. Only he was allowed to go in, and when he came out, they would hear her crying for hours. No one was allowed in to comfort her or to see what he had done to her.

The most incomprehensible part of the story is the number of people who knew Teslin was in trouble but never got any help for her. Some might have been afraid of Jesse, but they could have made an anonymous call. Many likely were more concerned that their source of crystal would dry up if they reported what they saw. And without a report explaining the severity of the situation, the few people who tried to get her help were unsuccessful.

One unnamed member of Stella’s family reached out to Teslin’s father in California. She said Stella was neglecting her daughter and offered to arrange for the toddler to attend a birthday party. In this plan, Jason would have essentially kidnapped Teslin and taken her back to California. Unaware of Teslin’s dangerous living situation, Jason declined and instead hired an attorney to try to get custody legally.

Though no witnesses contacted authorities, someone told Stella’s mother and twin brother that Jesse was hurting her and Teslin. The anonymous person said that Billy needed to do something. So Billy went over to the apartment with a few friends to check on his sister and niece. When they got there, Jesse had nailed the front door closed and would not talk to him. Billy contacted the police, and a sergeant and several officers responded to his call. Jesse told the officers that he had nailed the door shut because he was afraid of Billy. The officers asked Billy to leave, saying he was escalating the situation.

While the officers were there, a neighbor came out of her apartment and told the officers they need to go in and get that little girl. Somehow the authorities also missed the severity of the situation. Stella told them she was unhurt and that everything was fine. One officer broke down a couple of boards on the backyard fence and shined his flashlight into a rear window. He saw Teslin on the couch covered with a blanket and waved at her. She waved back. He decided that she was fine and concluded this odd welfare check. The whole visit was finished in half an hour. Had they entered the apartment, even a cursory examination of the toddler would have shown ligature marks on her wrists and ankles, bruising all over her body, and cigarette burns on her legs.

In their final mistake, the cops never filed a report with DHS, even though state law requires them to do so in any case involving reports of CA. Not only that, Jesse was already forbidden from seeing his 2-year-old daughter because of CA. If they had filed the report, the agency would have been able to take Teslin into custody immediately. But instead, they sent her Uncle Billy home and left her with her Tormentor.

One week later, on June 13th, Stella and Jesse left Teslin tied up in the bedroom while they partied. Sometime between midnight and 2 a.m. on the 14th, they came back to find her blue and limp. Jesse cut her bindings. Instead of calling an ambulance or the fire station staffed with paramedics that was located right across the street from the apartment complex, he attempted to revive her on his own. When CPR didn’t work, he hit her several times and splashed her with cold water. In some sort of crystal-fueled Frankenstein craziness, he cut the cord off a lamp, plugged it into the wall, and used the frayed end to try to shock her back to life. But Teslin was gone.

He and Stella decided to leave her in the bedroom while they try to figure out what to do. They knew that Teslin had so many severe injuries that they’d go to jail if anyone saw what they did to her, so they decided to bury her. Jesse called his 18-year-old sister, Lacy, and asked her to come to the apartment. Jesse and Stella put Teslin in a laundry basket, loaded her in a car, and Lacy drove to a wooded area about an hour away near Sweet Home, Oregon. They buried the toddler there in a shallow grave.

Now back at the apartment, the couple put all of Teslin’s clothes and any other evidence that they could find into two trash bags and threw it all into the apartment building’s dumpster. Witnesses that saw them in the days after said they acted like they were on their honeymoon. They were not fighting as much as they usually did and seemed happy and affectionate. They talked about wanting to move out of town and about their plans to have a baby boy together. When anyone asked about Teslin, they said she was with a babysitter or visiting Stella’s aunt. But their lovey-dovey child-free vacation was short-lived.

Two days later, Lacy, overcome by guilt and grief, confessed to Springfield police. She told them what she had seen and where she had driven. Following her directions down a remote logging road, cops found and unearthed Teslin’s grave on June 17th. Buried with her, they found a blue braided belt, a piece of cloth torn from a curtain, a strip of gray cloth, and a woman’s ring.

Police searched their apartment in the complex for evidence. They found trash bags and easily linked them to the couple. They had thrown away the cut electrical cord but left the lamp with a matching end in their apartment. They threw away all the ropes and knotted cloth they used to tie Teslin up and also tossed in a handmade Mother’s Day card that the toddler had made for her. Some of the knotted cloth and rope they threw away matched items recovered from Teslin’s grave. Strands of the toddler’s blonde hair were found caught in the knots. Inside the apartment, investigators found the propane torch that Jesse was so fond of. They found a pair of pliers covered with burn residue, multiple bottles of rubbing alcohol, and more strips of knotted white cloth. The significance of some of this evidence would not be clear until after Teslin’s autopsy was completed.

Captain Jerry Smith, the Springfield officer in charge of the investigation, said, “This is the most severe case of CA that we’ve ever seen. This kid was literally tortured.” In his interview with police, Jesse tried to say that some of Teslin’s most serious wounds were accidentally caused. He said he spanked her a little too hard and broke the skin. When the skin got infected, he and Stella poured rubbing alcohol on it, and he blamed the rubbing alcohol for her burns. He admitted he didn’t get any medical treatment for the little girl, even though she was only steps away from the fire station staffed with paramedics. He also never asked his mother for advice or help, even though she was a nurse.

Stella also admitted that she didn’t get any medical help for Teslin. She told police she was aware of what was going on but didn’t get help because, according to Stella, “I didn’t want them to find out what Jesse had done.” When police asked if Stella realized Teslin could die from her mistreatment, Stella said, “I feared there was a possibility it could happen. If it didn’t stop, I would have gotten out of there before then.” Though that might have been her intent, Stella didn’t get out before the worst had happened. She wasn’t even trying to get out. Neighbors reported that in the days before Teslin’s death, she was talking about going back to California and bringing her son back to Oregon.

The same day Teslin was found, June 17th, Stella and Jesse were arrested for her murder. He was charged with aggravated murder, six counts of murder by abuse, two counts of first-degree penetration, and abuse of a corpse. Though prosecutors believe Jesse inflicted most of these injuries, they claimed Stella knew about it, that she sometimes even tied Teslin up herself. She also was charged with aggravated murder.

After about a month in prison, Jesse hatched an escape plan. He wrote his idea out on paper, including details about how they should incapacitate the prison guard and use knotted bed sheets to crawl out the window, and then he gave it to another inmate. That inmate handed over the handwritten plan to the guards, and Jesse was given a 60-day stay in solitary confinement. He was charged and found guilty of an escape attempt, sentenced to over 2 years for that, before his murder trial even began.

The murder trial started on October 19th, 1998, and was presided over by Lane County Circuit Judge Lyle Velure. In his opening statement, Assistant DA Robert Gorham apologized to the jury for the testimony and evidence they would have to evaluate. He said, “I’m sorry I have to tell you about these things. You must face the reality of this case.” He described Teslin’s final months to the jury. Sometime in the month or two before her death, Jesse had broken four vertebrae in her back. After that injury, he ramped up his torture. He beat, SA’d, and starved her. He repeatedly tied her up. He burned her with cigarettes and his propane torch. He stabbed her with a fork on multiple occasions. He and Stella poured rubbing alcohol into her open wounds.

Assistant DA Gorham said, “There are 64 different talking points I have written down on the autopsy report. There are more injuries than that. She has an injury on every part of her body.” He explained that during the first two weeks of June 1997, Stella and Jesse tied Teslin up to 10 to 15 separate occasions, sometimes leaving her that way for 10 hours at a time. They bound her with her hands and feet up above her head and shoulders. They secured her with knotted ropes. Sometimes her hair got caught in the knots and ripped out. That is how she spent her third birthday on June 8th—tied up and tortured. The assistant DA called Jesse’s assault of the toddler merciless. While she was tied up, on at least two occasions, Jesse penetrated her private parts with an object. He also burned them. While Jesse claimed those burns were caused by the rubbing alcohol, evidence at the trial showed he used his propane torch to inflict those injuries. Sometime on her last day, he hit her on the head so hard it bruised her brain. He punched or stomped on her, causing internal injuries, and he scraped, bruised, and punctured the skin on her belly with a fork.

Some reports at the time stated that the medical examiner cried during the testimony. Graphic photos of Teslin’s injuries were shown to the courtroom. She was bruised all over her body. She had several hundred electrical burn marks from Jesse’s attempt to revive her with a lamp cord. Her wrists and ankles had been rubbed raw from the repeated binding. Her back was broken in four places, and her private parts had been violated. She had infected and unhealed blisters all over her body. She had what was described as a gaping wound on her back caused by the propane torch.

The toxicology report showed a large amount of isopropyl alcohol in her system—alcohol she had absorbed through her many open wounds. Internally, her brain and other internal organs were bruised, and her liver and one of her kidneys had ruptured. She was bleeding internally. She also suffered from septic shock and fluid loss from her multiple third-degree burns. The medical examiner listed her cause of death as battered child syndrome and said she died of shock caused by her many injuries.

In his closing statements, the defense attorney tried to argue that Jesse hadn’t deliberately killed the girl and said her death was the result of inappropriate, misguided medical care. If the burns had not been caused by the rubbing alcohol, the lawyer argued, they could have been caused by overly hot bath water accidentally used to clean the toddler. And even if his client had caused Teslin’s death, he argued that Jesse would not have had a reasonable expectation that her death would follow.

In response to the defense’s closing argument, the prosecutor asked the jury to imagine Teslin’s final days in detail. He spoke in plain language about the truly horrific events. It was a compelling and convincing argument, but we will warn you it is not easy to listen to. It is probably, arguably, worse than the autopsy testimony. Here’s what he said:

“Deliberately means a state of mind that examines and considers the contemplated act and whether that act should or shouldn’t be done. Deliberation is present if the thinking is done in a cool mental state, under such circumstances and for such a period of time as to permit a careful weighing of the proposed decision. I want you to—unfortunately, I am going to draw you back a little bit to what was going on in that home the last few days of Teslin’s life. What we know pretty clearly is there was a violent blow at least to her back, and perhaps a violent blow to her abdomen that caused internal bleeding. We know she was SA’d, as she was vaginally penetrated within the last couple days of her life. We know the night she died, she was tied up with her legs up over her head. We know she had vomited. By all accounts, the abdominal bleeding was apparently causing her some distress, and we know, if you think logically, that the defendant was well aware that the child was in some severe distress, and that alone might be enough for deliberation.

“But I want you to think about the condition that this little girl was in when those terrible injuries in and of themselves were inflicted on her. You can look at the pictures and see that the labia is essentially burned off. And whether or not it is burned off by boiling water poured over her area when she was tied up, or whether or not it’s burned off by a propane torch, doesn’t really matter. When Jesse is SA’ing her, he is looking at the full sight, sound, smell package of that child. She must have begged for mercy. She must have expressed the terrible pain she felt, and he went on anyway. I guess she was probably crying when he stomped on her back. And think about what he was stomping on: a little girl, 31 lbs, damaged almost beyond repair. Beaten repeatedly, fed occasionally, tied up, SA’d, burned with cigarettes for weeks, weeks, even months. Did he deliberately do those acts? What other word would you put with it? He extremely deliberately did those acts. He knew exactly what he was doing. Was it reasonable for him to expect her to die? Could she survive another week in this household? Would she have lived another week? Ask yourself that. Probably not. Would she have lived another month? No. Was he going to kill her one day or another? Think about what she must have felt in the bedroom: internally bleeding, tied up, while her mother and Jesse partied in the other room. What a terrible, torturous, brutal way to die. It would be terrible for all of us, for adults, or for a little girl who just turned 3 years old the week before. It must have been much more terrifying, much more hard to understand. Were these acts deliberate? Absolutely.”

After hearing this part of the closing statement, one of the jurors began to cry uncontrollably, repeatedly saying, “God, that poor baby.” The defense moved for a mistrial, accusing Assistant DA Gorham of inflaming the jury. Judge Velure denied the mistrial and replaced the crying juror with one of four alternates. Jesse, thankfully, was found guilty on all counts. On November 5th, the penalty phase of his trial began. The jury deliberated for 4 hours before returning with a death sentence.

Teslin’s grandfather, Ken, thanked the jury, saying, “They have had the hardest job in the world. They just took somebody’s life. But he deserved it. This is exactly what we came to Oregon for.” Jesse appealed his death sentence multiple times. The last appeal started in 2003 and didn’t finish until 2012 when it was denied.

Stella’s first trial began in January of 1999 and was presided over by Judge Pierre Van Rysselberghe. She was also charged with aggravated murder for her role in Teslin’s death. During the trial, Stella often cried when evidence of her daughter’s terrible injuries was shown. Much of her defense centered around her mental stability. The defense’s expert witness testified that Stella suffered from PTSD and personality disorders caused by childhood CA and trauma from witnessing her father’s death. The psychologist said her mental issues and drug addiction made her an easy mark for a monster like Jesse.

At the trial, Stella claimed she hadn’t seen her daughter for the last two weeks, but videotaped statements she made to police contradicted that claim. Her sister Karen spoke in her defense. She said Stella had always appeared to be a good mother who never even spanked her kids. Her sister, her mother, and another female relative all testified they had given Teslin a bath about one month before her death and saw no injuries on the toddler. This was contradicted by medical evidence that claimed some of her burns had occurred as much as 8 weeks prior.

In his closing arguments, Assistant DA Gorham told the jury that Stella knew enough about right from wrong to try to save herself from what she did. He pointed out that she made sure to dress Teslin in long sleeves and pants anytime she was outside and lied to police when they could have helped her. He said, “You should look at her ability to make choices: the choices she made to protect her child, the choices she made to protect herself. She aided Jesse Compton in torturing that child to death.”

The jury deliberated for almost 2 days but couldn’t come to an agreement. One jury member didn’t think she was guilty of aggravated murder. Under normal circumstances, the jury would have considered lesser charges, but they weren’t allowed to because of a law that had been passed by the Oregon legislature the year before. Without the unanimous vote needed to find her guilty, and also without two votes needed to find her not guilty, the jury was hung, and the judge declared a mistrial.

Her second trial started on April 23rd and concluded 6 days later. She was found guilty of all counts, including aggravated murder, murder by abuse, murder by neglect, and abuse of a corpse. On May 7th, she was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. She appealed, and her conviction was affirmed in July of 1999. She’s currently serving her time at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville, Oregon, where she goes by the name Stella Singing Crow.

In December of 2022, Oregon Governor Kate Brown commuted Jesse’s death sentence along with 16 other death row inmates. She said the commutation had nothing to do with the inmates’ behavior, their attempts at rehabilitation, or whether they deserved forgiveness. Instead, she said it reflects the recognition that the death penalty is immoral. It is an irreversible punishment that does not allow for correction. It is wasteful of taxpayer dollars, does not make communities safer, and cannot and never has been administered fairly and equitably. Instead of facing death, Jesse will now face life in prison. There had already been a long moratorium on the death penalty in Oregon, and even when it was active, only two people had been executed since 1984.

The governor acknowledged the stress this placed on the victims’ family, saying, “I also recognize the pain and uncertainty victims experience as they wait for decades while individuals sit on death row. My hope is that this commutation will bring us a significant step closer to finality in these cases.” In other words, the families at least know to stop waiting now. Jesse is currently serving his time at Two Rivers Correctional Institution in Umatilla, Oregon. Let me know what you think about that in the comment section down below. As for me, I really hope his fellow inmates finish the job.

Teslin’s family in California buried her in Desert View Memorial Park in Victorville. Pictures from her funeral show her father grieving by her casket. Her gravestone reads, “Walk softly, an angel lies here.” Her grandfather Ken passed away in 2007. He was buried at the same cemetery not far from his beloved granddaughter. Her father never spoke publicly about her death; family members spoke of his great grief. Shortly after her funeral, her grandfather told reporters, “The other day, it was 5:30 in the morning and I had to go out and take care of the horses. Jason was sitting out front on the concrete by the driveway. He was crying his eyes out.”

Teslin’s brother, Jason Jr., stayed in California with his father and grandparents for some time after her death. He often woke up terrified, screaming about monsters. Jason’s cousin, Michelle Smith, told reporters that Jason wanted both his children to stay in California, but Stella had legal custody. If he had taken his daughter, he could have gone to jail for kidnapping. “He was trying to do the right thing,” she added. “If we had known what was going on, we would have kidnapped her.” She doesn’t understand how so many people could have seen what was happening to Teslin and not one of them notified authorities. She said, “I’m really frustrated that not one single person picked up the phone and called. Someone should have called; that’s what would have saved her.”

Members of the Springfield Police Department realized they had the opportunity to save Teslin but made fatal mistakes that day they visited. After her death, they made a policy change allowing officers to enter a home without a warrant in order to complete a welfare check. They also committed to enforcing state regulations that already required a report to be made anytime CA is reported, even if officers find no evidence.

Susie Day, the Lane County branch manager of DHS, said, “If we can take this terrible loss and turn it into a call for action for the community to save others, at least we have honored her and helped other children.” And this is what the agency tried to do for Teslin after her death. The agency created a public service campaign reminding the public it is everyone’s duty to protect children. They featured a picture of Teslin on their poster. The tagline read: “The Invisible Child. It takes all of you to see me, hear me, speak of me… before I’m gone forever.” Bright red letters on the bottom of the poster read: STOP THE ABUSE.