The fight broke out in the carport before Hunter Penton even knew what was happening. He came out of the side door because someone had knocked on the front, and the next thing he knew, 18-year-old Elijah Stansel was on him, throwing punches. Two girls with Elijah got in a few hits too, while another one stood there filming it all on her phone. Hunter had no idea they were coming.
He wasn’t expecting a group of teenagers to be waiting across the street for him. The only reason they were there at all was because of his ex-girlfriend, a 15-year-old girl named Kimberly Stone. Kimberly and Hunter had broken up six months earlier, but the drama between them never really ended. They talked trash about each other on social media, argued constantly, and kept threatening one another.
It got so bad that the school suspended Kimberly on the very day of the attack. She was supposed to start that suspension the next day. Instead, she texted her friends. Kimberly rounded up her best friend Hannah Eubank, who was 14, and another friend named Raven Sutton, who was 16.
Then she got her new boyfriend Elijah to drive a van to Hunter’s house. Elijah did not even know where Hunter lived. Kimberly had to direct him. The van Elijah was driving that day belonged to the Westwood Missionary Baptist Church, where his father was one of the pastors.
Elijah had permission to use the church van. They parked across the street and waited. They watched Susette Penton leave her house to run to the store with her youngest son, Hunter. When she was out of sight, Elijah, Raven, and Hannah approached the house.
Kimberly stayed in the van. They knocked on the front door, but the Penton family used the side door. So Hunter came out the side door into the carport, and Elijah was right there. There are no details about whether Hunter managed to throw any punches back, but the fight pushed him toward the house and inside.
Raven got a couple of shots in. Hannah filmed or photographed the whole scene. And the four of them were so caught up in what they were doing that they forgot about one thing. Susette came back home.
Her car pulled up as they were running back to the van. Susette saw what was happening. She got out of her car and approached the church van with her phone out, trying to take pictures of the license plate and the people climbing aboard. Elijah Stansel got behind the wheel and ran her over.
He drove the van directly over her body and left tire tracks across her. Then the van sped away. Susette did not die right away. She was taken to Lakeland Regional Health Medical Center with a traumatic brain injury, a fractured skull, severe bleeding in her brain, a broken leg, and fluid in her lungs.
She held on for over two weeks. She died on November 25th. But that afternoon, a county employee named Jeff Goulsby saw the whole thing happen. He was not one of the people who just stood there.
Jeff got in his vehicle and followed the church van, calling 911 as he drove behind them. He told the dispatcher, “I’m trying to stay back. I don’t know if these people have a gun. They just mowed that poor lady down.
”
Jeff kept following them and reporting their location until police were able to pull the van over seven miles down the road in Auburndale. When they stopped Elijah, he claimed he had only hit Susette with the side mirror. Inside the van, the mood was different. When Hannah was told Susette might die, she got flippant.
She said she did not want to hear about it anymore. A lot of people heard her say that. There was also a cell phone video taken at the scene of the crime. In the video, people in the van can be heard screaming as Elijah runs over Susette.
Someone asks him, “Elijah, why’d you do that? ”
Elijah responds, “We won, though. Let’s get our story straight now. ”
At the end of the video, someone realized the phone was still recording and said they should delete it.
On September 1st that year, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd held a press conference to give the public an update on the case. He started by talking about Susette and what she meant to the small community of Polk City, a quiet town of about 1,500 people, roughly 30 minutes from Disney World. Susette had been the town librarian for years. She dressed up and painted her face for children’s programs at the library.
She was known and loved by the whole community. She had four sons and five grandchildren. She was a protective mother. Sheriff Judd said Kimberly had turned 16 while locked up in juvenile detention.
He told reporters that the school system had already warned Kimberly for her behavior on the day of the attack, and that she had been suspended for her outrageous conduct. Instead of going home to think about what she had done, she got her friends together and said, “Well, I’ll get my boyfriend and we’ll come beat you up. ”
Sheriff Judd described the teens as having almost no criminal history. Hannah had been charged once for giving false identification to law enforcement.
None of the others had ever been in trouble. They went from rowdy, out-of-control juveniles to murder suspects in one afternoon over petty drama between teenagers. As the press conference was happening, the state attorney’s office was in the process of waiving the three girls from juvenile court to adult court. They were facing charges of attempted felony murder, burglary of an occupied residence, and battery with serious felonies.
Kimberly, Hannah, and Raven were still locked up in juvenile detention but facing adult charges. Elijah was charged with murder. On the day of the press conference, his attempted murder charge was upgraded to murder because Susette had died about a week earlier. At his trial in 2022, the jury saw the cell phone video taken just moments before, during, and after the attack.
The screams were heard. The callous words were heard. On June 17th, 2022, Elijah Stansel, now 20 years old, was found guilty on all counts. He got mandatory life in prison.
State Attorney Brian Haas said he was pleased with the verdict, describing the case as tragic. “This woman was a pillar in the community, and she was doing what any good parent would do,” he said. “If you look at this case frame by frame, there were plenty of opportunities for him to do something other than deliberately run her over with the van. ”
The library where Susette worked was renamed in her honor.
Her family thanked the nurses and medical staff at Lakeland Regional Medical Center for their constant care and compassion during the two weeks she spent in the trauma intensive care unit. A celebration of life was held at the Bronson Community Center in Polk City, and the entire community was invited. As of December 2025, several years later, the cases of the three girls remained unclear. Some were still listed with the Polk County Jail while others were not, and many sources claimed they had not yet gone to trial.
They remain innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Elijah is serving life in prison. Susette is buried.
And a 15-year-old girl’s threat to beat up her ex-boyfriend ended with a mother being run over by a church van.
