Lieth Von Stein

Lieth Peter Von Stein (March 16, 1946 – July 25, 1988) was an American businessman whose murder launched a high-profile trial in North Carolina. The case became the subject of two books and two television films.

An executive at National Spinning, a textile factory in Washington, North Carolina, Von Stein was stabbed and bludgeoned to death in his home as the result of a plot devised by his stepson, Christopher Wayne Pritchard. Von Stein's wife, Bonnie (Pritchard's mother), was also attacked, but survived. Pritchard's friend James Bartlett UpchurchIII was convicted of first-degree murder, while Pritchard and another co-conspirator, Gerald Neal Henderson, were convicted of aiding and abetting the murder. The trial revealed that Pritchard's motive was his desire to inherit his stepfather's fortune, derived from his family's dry cleaning chain, Camel City Dry Cleaners in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. For these crimes he was sentenced, respectively, to death, 20 years, 6 years and life. Upchurch's death sentence was set aside on October 1, 1992, and he was re-sentenced to life imprisonment.

Pritchard was convicted of aiding and abetting in second-degree murder, and was sentenced to life imprisonment. He also received a 20-year sentence for aiding and abetting the assault on his mother, Bonnie Von Stein. He was paroled on June 2, 2007, later becoming a born-again Christian. Bledsoe's book was adapted for television as Honor Thy Mother, first aired in April 1992. McGinniss's Cruel Doubt was adapted as a 2-part miniseries of the same name, aired in May 1992. Both books and television films heavily emphasized the three perpetrators' interest in the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, which they sometimes acted out with real weapons in the steam tunnels of their college campus while under the influence of drugs and alcohol. However, Kirkus Reviews, in discussing Bledsoe's Blood Games, commented that "the linkage [Bledsoe] attempts to establish between Dungeons & Dragons and the crime seems tenuous." Critics also remarked that both television adaptations displayed Dungeons & Dragons handbooks with artwork altered from the originals, in an apparent effort to imply they had inspired the murder.

The case has also featured in the true crime television documentaries Dark Temptations (2014) and Blood Relatives (2016).