Paul Stephani was the youngest of ten children. His mother remarried his stepfather when Paul was 3 years old, although he claims his stepfather was abusive towards him and his siblings when he came into their lives. Paul moved to Saint Paul, Minneapolis later on in his life taking on various jobs but just couldn’t keep one and would blame this on the fact that as a child he was diagnosed with epilepsy. He finally met a woman by the name of Beverly Lider and the two married in 1970 and had a daughter together, although that relationship would not work as the couple divorced after 5 years of marriage. Then Paul abandoned his daughter and started dating another woman for about 4 years although she left him for an arranged marriage which she had no control of, this devastated Paul because he thought they were going to get married. He started working as a janitor at the Malmberg Manufacturing Company in 1977 but he was fired from that job. His life started to spiral out of control so he turned to a life of crime and murder.