Symbols The Girl from Devil's Lake J. A. Jance

The Cigar Box of Trophies in The Girl from Devil's Lake

What Is the Cigar Box of Trophies?

Literally, the cigar box began as an empty Montecristo cigar box that Steve Roper's grandfather gave him when Steve was five years old. “Every little boy should have one of these . . . to hold your treasures,” Gramps told him. For years it held ordinary boyhood items: a pocketknife, marbles, a lucky rabbit's foot, a Ten Commandments bookmark. But after Steve murdered his abusive step-grandmother Lucille in 1956, he placed her stolen wedding ring inside, transforming the box into a trophy collection for his killings.

Over the next six decades, the cigar box grew to contain dozens of mementos taken from victims: shoelaces, class rings, a Cub Scout Wolf pin, a switchblade, a pearl-handled derringer, a cross pendant, a piece of crime scene tape, and a folded New Mexico map marked with twenty-three X's. By the time Sheriff Joanna Brady's team recovered it in 2023, it had become the key piece of evidence linking Stephen Roper to a string of homicides across multiple states.

Where the Box Appears and How Its Meaning Changes

The cigar box recurs at pivotal moments in Roper's life, each time revealing a new layer of meaning:

  • Prologue (1956): Gramps gives Steve an empty box as a normal childhood gift. That same night, Steve uses it to store Lucille's ring, the first trophy. The box now symbolizes the corruption of innocence and the beginning of a serial killer's ritual.

  • Chapter 3 (1961): After drowning eight-year-old Brian Olson (the "Cotton Candy Boy"), Steve adds the boy's Cub Scout Wolf pin to the box. The box has become a private reliquary where Roper curates his murders, each item a tangible memory of the kill.

  • Chapter 5 (1962): When Steve kills Amanda Hudson (the "Turtle River Girl") and fails to retrieve her beaded bracelet, he instead takes the switchblade she used to wound him. The box now holds not just trophies but also reminders of unexpected events—a lesson in expecting the unexpected.

  • Chapter 10 (1972): After poisoning his mother's boyfriend, Frederick Chalmers, Steve adds the derringer to his box, still sealed in the baggie used to mix the lethal LSD-cocaine concoction. The box becomes a record of his cunning and his ability to kill without leaving evidence.

  • Chapter 44 (2023): Crime scene investigator Casey Ledford processes the box in the Bisbee evidence room. She finds wedding rings, class rings, shoelaces, a gold necklace, and the derringer. Here the box shifts from Roper's private shrine to the public key that unlocks decades of cold cases. It now represents justice and the reckoning Roper can no longer avoid.

  • Christmas Eve 2022 (Chapter 28): After cancer treatment, Roper retrieves the box from his hidden safe and savors its contents. The box still serves its original purpose—comfort and validation—but now it also represents his defiance in the face of mortality.

Character and Theme Connections

Stephen Roper: The box is the physical extension of his psychology. He uses it to relive his murders, to feel powerful, and to maintain a secret identity as a successful predator hidden beneath a respectable Bisbee churchgoer.

Joanna Brady and Deb Howell: The box is what breaks the case. Joanna immediately recognizes its significance and tasks Casey with processing every item. It connects her investigation to victims across state lines and underscores her commitment to solving cold cases.

Ernie Carpenter: The retired detective eagerly agrees to take on the nearly ninety unidentified victims linked to Roper. The box becomes the starting point for his new mission.

Themes:

  • Serial Killing and Cold Cases: The box physically links Roper's crimes over sixty-plus years. Each item is a cold case waiting to be reopened.
  • Justice and Legal Procedure: The box is handled with meticulous forensic protocol (sealed evidence bags, chain of custody, dye lot comparisons). Its contents lead to formal charges and press conferences.
  • Intergenerational Trauma and Abuse: The box originates from Gramps's well-meaning gift, but the same man who gave Steve the box also used racist language ("The only good Indian is a dead one"). The family's casual cruelty and neglect fertilized the ground for Roper's violence.
  • Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIV): Amanda Hudson's switchblade in the box directly ties Roper to the murder of a Sioux woman whose case was ignored by law enforcement in 1962. Joanna's discovery that the knife matches evidence from the Turtle River crime scene shows how tribal communities' suffering is finally being recognized.
  • Family and Motherhood: Steve's mother never suspects her son. The box remains hidden in her home for years, literally under her roof. The fact that she never knows symbolizes the failure of family to see the monster within.

Study Questions and Answers

1. How does the origin of the cigar box as a childhood gift connect to Roper's development as a serial killer?
Gramps gave Steve the box to hold "treasures," a normal gesture for a five-year-old. But because Steve was already being abused by Lucille and hearing voices, he repurposed the box to hold murder trophies. The same box that once held marbles now holds wedding rings from victims. This shows how a benign object can become toxic when placed in a disturbed mind, and how the family's casual gift unwittingly enabled Roper's ritualization of murder.

2. What do the different types of trophies in the box reveal about Roper's psychology?
The shoelaces, rings, pins, and jewelry indicate he targets both children and adults, male and female. The switchblade and derringer represent victims who fought back or required special planning. The map with X's shows he methodically recorded kills geographically. Together, the collection reveals a highly organized, compulsive killer who needs physical souvenirs to relive his crimes and maintain a sense of control.

3. How does the cigar box function as evidence in the present-day investigation?
Casey Ledford processes the box with forensic care: each item is bagged and tagged, shoelaces are individually cataloged. The wedding band is compared to records of Lucille Hawkins's missing ring. The switchblade is matched to Amanda Hudson's case. The derringer's powder residue is analyzed as a mix of LSD and cocaine, linking to Frederick Chalmers's death. The blue duffel bag found with the box is matched to the one used in Xavier Delgado's murder. Thus the box provides concrete links to multiple cold cases.

4. In what way does the cigar box connect to the theme of missing and murdered Indigenous women?
Amanda Hudson, a Native woman from Devil's Lake, is Roper's second known victim. The beaded bracelet he failed to take remains a critical missed trophy, but the switchblade he kept instead is later identified as hers. For decades her murder went uninvestigated because she was "Indian." When Joanna Brady confirms the switchblade's origin, she not only solves a 62-year-old cold case but also underscores how Indigenous victims have historically been ignored by law enforcement. The box thus becomes a symbol of belated justice for the MMIV crisis.