The quiet Delaware life of William “Bill” Stevenson rarely brushed against the national spotlight. That changed when his name returned to headlines, not as the man Jill Biden once married, but as a 77-year-old facing a first-degree murder charge in the death of his wife, Linda.
For Jill, who carefully compartmentalized that early marriage as she built a new life with Joe Biden, it is an unwelcome collision of past and present. For the public, it raises a complicated question. What happens when a first lady’s old love story is suddenly tied to a criminal case?
Inside the Delaware Domestic Call Turned Murder Case
According to DailyMailUS, which cited a New Castle County Police Department press release, officers were called to the Stevensons’ Wilmington, Delaware, home in late December 2025 for what was described as a “reported domestic dispute.” The address was not that of a political dynasty, but of a longtime local couple, Bill and Linda Stevenson.
Linda, 64, was found unresponsive inside the home. She was later pronounced dead, and her obituary reportedly described her passing as unexpected, without mentioning her husband by name. The absence only deepened the sense that something about this loss did not fit the story of a quiet, ordinary life.
Investigators returned to the property in the days that followed to look into what police described as a suspicious death. By early in the new year, attention shifted from mystery to accusation. DailyMailUS reports that Bill Stevenson was taken into custody at the same Delaware address and charged with first-degree murder in connection with Linda’s death.
Former First Lady Jill Biden’s ex-husband is charged with the murder of his late wife. 🔗 https://t.co/gTdePdwYZB pic.twitter.com/Vq0y9ggm1x
— Daily Mail US (@Daily_MailUS) February 3, 2026
Authorities have not publicly detailed a full narrative of what they believe happened inside the home that night. The charge itself, however, sends a strong message about the seriousness with which prosecutors view the case. First-degree murder implies an allegation of intent, planning, or extreme recklessness. It is the most severe form of homicide charge a person can face.
Bill Stevenson, Jill Biden’s ex-husband, is now charged with first-degree murder in the death of his wife, Linda, at their Delaware home.
Through it all, one detail guaranteed that this would never be just another regional police blotter item. Before Linda, and long before the Secret Service, motorcades, and East Wing staff, Bill was married to Jill.
How Jill Biden’s First Marriage Haunts the Headlines
Decades before she became a national figure, Jill Jacobs was a college student who married a young Delaware bar owner. The two wed in the early 1970s, years before she would meet a widowed Senator Joe Biden and become stepmother to his sons.
The marriage to Bill ended in the mid 1970s, and in 1977 she married Joe Biden, who would go on to become vice president and, eventually, president. The Biden marriage became part of the country’s modern political mythology. The first one was something else entirely, a chapter Jill herself preferred to tuck away.
Jill’s biographer, Julie Pace, told People Magazine in 2022 that the future first lady had to mentally seal off that first marriage to move forward. “She had these expectations of sort of what that marriage was going to be, and the marriage did not live up to those expectations,” Pace said, as quoted by DailyMailUS.
The disappointment was not just logistical; it was emotional. “She was incredibly young and probably a bit naive about what life was going to look like, and it stings her. It really stings her, and it makes her question quite a bit,” Pace added.
That sense of sting, of a formative hurt, becomes newly resonant as Bill’s name attaches to a criminal court docket. Jill has not commented publicly on Linda’s death or Bill’s arrest, and there is no suggestion she has any connection to the case. Yet her biography, and the way it has been told, ensures her name runs alongside his in every headline.
Jill Biden married Bill Stevenson in her early 20s, then wed Joe Biden in 1977 and built a new public life that largely left her first marriage in the past.
The result is a strange dual focus. On one side is a serious, deeply personal criminal case about a woman, Linda Stevenson, whose life ended abruptly and whose loved ones now face a legal and emotional vacuum. On the other is the unavoidable shadow of a woman who once shared a last name, whose own story with Bill was, for many years, reduced to a brief footnote in political profiles.
Legacy, Privacy, and the Politics of an Ex
Public figures are used to seeing their past relationships resurface. Old partners give interviews, write books, or quietly trade on the currency of having “known them when.” A murder charge, however, is not just another awkward anecdote.
For Jill Biden, whose public image has largely centered on steadiness, privacy, and a carefully protected family life, the resurfacing of the Stevenson marriage carries distinct reputational stakes. It invites renewed attention to a chapter she once found painful, and it pairs that chapter with a tragedy no one in her current orbit controls.
DailyMailUS notes that Jill’s early expectations of marital life were quickly reshaped by reality. The emotional work of “compartmentalizing” that first union, as Pace described, was part of how she built a new beginning with Joe Biden and their blended family. That narrative of reinvention has long resonated with voters, especially women who saw in her a second-chance story.
Now, the challenge is different. How does a former first lady maintain that narrative of stability while her ex-husband fights for his freedom in a Delaware courtroom? How does she offer empathy for a victim, Linda, whose tragedy is being read through the lens of Jill’s distant past?
At age 77, Bill Stevenson faces a first-degree murder charge, transforming a quiet Delaware dispute into a high-profile case because of who he once married.
The emotional stakes are not only Jill’s. Linda’s family and friends are suddenly watching their grief framed around a famous name that belonged to another era of Bill’s life. Their loved one becomes “the wife of Jill Biden’s ex-husband” in headlines, a reminder of how proximity to power can reshape even the most private sorrow.
Meanwhile, Bill Stevenson, who is presumed innocent until proven guilty, must navigate a justice system where every court date is now a potential national story. The charge of first-degree murder is a legal designation. The public reaction, however, is filtered through decades of political storytelling and the curiosity that always surrounds a first lady’s life before the White House.
What remains is an unresolved triangle of legacies. Jill Biden, who fought to move past a young marriage that hurt her. Linda Stevenson, whose death turned a domestic call into a criminal case. Bill Stevenson, whose name now lives at the intersection of romance, regret, and alleged violence.
The court will address the charge. The public will decide how much of this tragedy belongs in Jill Biden’s story, and how much remains, as it began, inside a Delaware home that was never meant to be part of American political history.
