She Prayed With a Serial Killer for Eight Hours — Then Befriended Him Until His Execution

The Abduction Outside Kmart

Margy Palm was shopping for Christmas gifts on December 11, 1981, when Stephen Morin took her outside a Kmart in Texas. She was the last woman he ever kidnapped.

Morin was not a casual offender. He was accused of more crimes than Ted Bundy, a body count spread across multiple states that made him one of the most prolific serial killers in American history. That evening, Palm became his captive, and the eight hours that followed would define the rest of her life.

Palm was not a trained negotiator or a law enforcement officer. She was a mother who found herself in the car of a man who had already killed — and whose pattern suggested she would be another statistic. What she did next had nothing to do with strategy and everything to do with something Morin apparently had never encountered from his victims before: a sustained, sincere appeal to his conscience through faith.

The Kmart parking lot itself became a defining image of the case — ordinary errand, extraordinary horror. Palm walked in to buy gifts and walked out into the worst night of her life, one that would eventually lead her to a relationship she could never have anticipated.

Death Row Visits

Most captives would have spent the rest of their lives trying to forget Stephen Morin's name. Palm did the opposite. She visited him more than a dozen times in prison, building a friendship that outlasted her captivity.

These were not publicity stunts or performances for the media. Palm showed up, sat with the man who had abducted her, and continued the conversation that had begun in his car. By the time Morin was executed by lethal injection in 1985 at age 34, the two had a relationship that defied every category — victim and perpetrator, survivor and condemned man.

What Palm saw in Morin was something she never fully explained in simple terms. She did not excuse what he did. She simply refused to stop treating him as a human being. That refusal, maintained over years of prison visits, became as remarkable as her escape. The state of Texas ended Morin's life at 34, and Palm kept visiting until the end.

The Man She Refused to Dehumanize

Palm never framed her actions as forgiveness in the conventional sense. Her faith was the grounding force that let her see past what Morin had done to who he was. That distinction matters: she was not excusing his acts or minimizing his victims. She was doing something more difficult—holding the full weight of his crimes and still choosing to visit, to talk, to treat him as a person. The friendship was not one-sided; Morin engaged with her in ways he didn't with others. The man who had terrorized women across the country had a relationship with the last woman he kidnapped, one that lasted until the state ended his life. That bond became a defining element of both their stories.

Hathaway Takes the Role

Anne Hathaway has spent most of her career in film since winning an Oscar for Les Misérables. In a rare pivot to television, she plays Margy Palm in "Fear Not," a six-part Paramount+ limited series expected in 2027, which she also executive produces. Bash Doran, who wrote Boardwalk Empire, penned the series, based on a 2023 Vanity Fair article by Emma Miller. The real Margy, Bart, and Noelle Palm are among the producers.