After Wife Swap: The Stockdale Family Murders
Anybody who paid attention to reality television in the 2000s had at least heard of the show Wife Swap. As the better version of Trading Spouses, the show claimed to offer families a glimpse into different lifestyles. In most cases, this meant a very neat and tidy mother was sent to live with a very messy family. If you were very religious, you were sent to live with somebody who wasn’t.
The Stockdale family appeared on Wife Swap as one of those deeply religious families. When they appeared on the show in 2008, nobody could have expected they would later see the family featured on television again, this time as part of a murder investigation.
The Stockdale Family on Wife Swap
As introduced in Wife Swap, the Stockdale family consisted of mother Kathy (or Kathryn, age 44), father Tim (48), and children Calvin (19), Charles (16), Jacob (15), and James (11).
As the show depicted, the Stockdale parents strictly managed the media their sons could watch. Each son could do chores around the house to earn tokens, with which they could earn time to listen to the radio — but certainly not pop or rap music. The boys could not date or curse, even though at least one son was an adult.
