[1] Roper was home on a college break, and she and a girlfriend were returning from an evening with friends at a West End Washington, D.C. bar, the "Twenty-First Amendment" late at night.
After dropping her friend off in Brandywine, Maryland, Stephanie proceeded toward her own home in Croom, but her car became disabled on a dark rural road.
The two men, 26-year-old Jack Ronald Jones and 17-year-old Jerry Lee Beatty, kidnapped Stephanie and took her to an abandoned shack in Oakville, St. Mary's County.
Stephanie made several attempts to escape and upon her last capture, her skull was fractured with a logging chain and she was shot to death.
[2] The Roper family was excluded from observing the trial and was denied the opportunity to present a victim impact statement at sentencing.
[8] The Stephanie Ann Roper Gallery is located in the Fine Arts Building on the Frostburg State University campus.