On July 10, 2014, a family of six woke up expecting an ordinary summer day — a day of noise, children, laughter, chores, dinner plans, and the gentle rhythm of life that makes a home feel like a world of its own.
By sundown, that home was silent.
By nightfall, every life inside it — except one — had been stolen by a man wearing a delivery-man disguise and carrying a plan dark enough to chill even seasoned investigators.
This is not just a story about murder.
It is a story about obsession, vengeance, survival — and a fifteen-year-old girl who pretended to be dead to stay alive.
It is the story of the Stay family.
And the killer who walked into their home disguised as someone harmless.
A Knock on the Door That Should Have Changed Nothing
It began with a knock.
Not a violent one.
Not a threatening one.
A simple knock — the kind every family in America has answered thousands of times.
On the other side stood a man in a delivery uniform.
A clipboard.
A package.
A routine moment that should never have become a turning point.
The man was Ronald Lee Haskell.
33 years old.
Calm. Focused. Too calm, investigators would later say.
He wasn’t delivering anything.
He wasn’t lost.
He wasn’t there for the Stay family at all.
He was looking for one woman:
His ex-wife, Melannie Lyon.
A woman who had escaped him.
A woman the Stays — her family — had tried to help protect.
And for that, he wanted them gone.
What Happened Inside That House
When Stephen and Katie Stay opened the door, there was no reason to fear.
They recognized him.
He was family, at least by marriage.
But recognition didn’t save them.
Police say Haskell forced his way in.
He tied their hands.
He bound their children.
He demanded to know where Melannie was hiding.
Katie Stay, protecting her sister, told him nothing.
That moment — that silence — sealed the family’s fate.
What followed was not rage.
It was something colder.
Methodical.
Planned.
One by one, he shot them.
A father.
A mother.
Four children.
Headshots.
Execution-style.
No hesitation.
He didn’t run.
He didn’t panic.
He stayed long enough to reload his gun and prepare for the next step in his plan — finishing the rest of the Lyon family.
But he made one mistake.
He didn’t realize one of his victims was still alive.
The Girl Who Outsmarted Death
Cassidy Stay was 15 years old.
A child.
A sister.
A daughter.
A teenager who should have been thinking about school, friends, movies, anything but the barrel of a gun pointed at her head.
Haskell tied her up like the others.
He shot her like the others.
He left her like the others.
But Cassidy did something almost unimaginable:
She played dead.
She held still.
She held her breath.
She refused to move while blood pooled beneath her and bodies lay beside her.
She waited until the killer walked away.
Until the house fell silent.
Until she was certain he was gone.
Then — bleeding, injured, still dazed from the shot that grazed her skull — she crawled to a phone.
And saved more lives.
Her whispered voice to the 911 dispatcher was the turning point.
“He’s on his way to kill my grandparents.”
Police raced.
Roadblocks formed.
Patrol cars fanned out.
Minutes later, Haskell was captured before he could continue the massacre.
A 15-year-old girl stopped a killing spree that would have wiped out another entire branch of her family.
The Victims — A Family With Plans, Dreams, Futures
The Stay family was ordinary in all the ways that matter — the kind of ordinary built on love, routines, and the joyful chaos of raising four children.
Stephen Stay
A father who worked hard, loved deeply, and had no idea he would die that day trying to protect his family.
Katie Stay
A mother described as gentle, patient, and fiercely loyal — loyal enough to refuse to betray her sister even with a gun to her head.
Bryan (13)
Smart, funny, kind.
A boy just stepping into adolescence.
Emily (9)
Bright, creative, full of energy — the kind of child who filled a home with color.
Rebecca (7)
Loving, imaginative, adored by her siblings.
Zachary — “Zach” (4)
The baby of the family.
Small hands, small shoes, big laugh.
A child whose life had barely begun.
They were a family doing nothing but living.
And that was enough to make them targets.
The Killer Who Planned Everything Except the Ending
Ronald Lee Haskell had been unraveling for months.
Divorce.
Obsession.
Loss of control.
He blamed Melannie.
He blamed anyone who helped her.
He blamed everyone except the only person responsible: himself.
Prosecutors later revealed the extent of his planning:
He traveled from California to Texas with the intent to kill.
He studied the family’s routines.
He disguised himself as a delivery man to gain entry.
He plotted to murder the Stays, then Melannie’s parents, then her brother.
He rehearsed fake symptoms of mental illness to blur the line between rage and insanity.
He crafted the role.
He played the part.
But in the end, his own niece — the girl he tried to kill — exposed him.
And that is how the story turned.
Aftermath: A Town That Will Never Forget
The news hit the community like a tidal wave.
Six members of one family murdered in a single afternoon.
A fifteen-year-old survivor who crawled out of death to save others.
A killer who nearly got away with wiping out an entire family tree.
Vigils filled the streets.
Photos of the children appeared on posters, candles, and teddy bear memorials.
Churches opened their doors.
Strangers cried for people they had never met.
The story was too devastating not to feel personal.
Parents held their children closer.
Neighbors checked on one another.
People locked their doors with a different kind of fear.
Because the horror wasn’t random.
It was targeted.
Calculated.
Planned by someone who once shared family dinners with them.
Justice — And the Sentence That Ended the Story
Haskell was arrested before he could fire another shot.
The trial exposed everything — the planning, the anger, the manipulation, the obsession.
Prosecutors made their case:
He was not insane.
He was not confused.
He knew exactly what he was doing.
Six murders.
One attempted murder.
A plan to kill even more.
The jury sentenced him to death.
He sits on death row today.
But justice feels small in the shadow of six lives gone.
The Legacy of the Girl Who Lived
Cassidy Stay became more than a victim.
She became the symbol of everything the killer failed to destroy:
Courage.
Resilience.
Love.
Family.
She survived a bullet to the head.
She survived watching her family die.
She survived long enough to save the rest.
She spoke at her family’s memorial service.
She quoted Dumbledore — yes, from Harry Potter — because she believed it:
“Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times… if one only remembers to turn on the light.”
Her words became a rallying cry.
A whisper of hope after a massacre.
A reminder that even in darkness, a child can carry light.
A Story That Still Haunts — And Still Matters
Why does this story linger after so many years?
Because it forces us to confront uncomfortable truths:
How far obsession can go.
How fragile safety can be.
How dangerous it is to underestimate the rage of one person.
How one knock on the door can end everything.
How one child’s bravery can rewrite the ending.
The Stay family never saw the danger coming.
They let in someone they recognized.
Someone they once trusted.
And that is what makes the story unforgettable.
It could have been any family.
In the End, What Remains
Six names.
One survivor.
One killer.
One day that changed everything.
The Stay family tragedy is not a story about death — it is a story about the terrifying power of vengeance, the strength of a 15-year-old girl, and a community forced to rebuild itself around an unthinkable loss.
It is a story of a monster who planned everything…
and a child who ruined that plan by choosing to live.
And that is why this story stays alive — because the girl who crawled through blood to reach a phone became the voice her family no longer had.
