Medical examiner: Disease killed woman, 50, convicted in 1999 of murdering her toddler

A “natural disease process” killed a 50-year-old woman serving a life sentence after being convicted of aggravated murder in Lane County, according to the Clackamas County medical examiner’s office.

Stella Ann Singingcrow, also known as Stella Ann Kiser, died July 16, according to a July news release from the Oregon Department of Corrections.

Singingcrow and her then-boyfriend, Jesse Caleb Compton, were convicted of killing Singingcrow’s 3-year-old daughter, Tesslynn O’Cull, according to published reports.

Singingcrow was sentenced to life in prison in May 1999, according to online court records. 

Before being transferred to a hospital where she died, Singingcrow had been in custody at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville.

Compton, 49, is being held at Two Rivers Correctional Institution in Umatilla and is not eligible for parole, according to jail records.

The Oregon Department of Corrections in July said Singingcrow’s death was being investigated by the state medical examiner’s office, as is the case for all in-custody deaths.

Lookout Eugene-Springfield submitted a public records request, which remains pending, and in response Clackamas County Chief Medicolegal Death Investigator Cathy Phelps disclosed in a letter that Singingcrow died “at a local area hospital as the result of natural disease process.”

Amber Campbell, a Department of Corrections spokesperson, in a July 31 email said there “were no suspicious circumstances surrounding” the death of Singingcrow, with her death to be followed by “a limited administrative review.”