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Hell and Gone Murder Line: Shane Stewart and Sally McNelly · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:46
Speaker 1: School of Humans. Helen Gone Murder Line actively investigates cold
0:52
Speaker 1: case murders in an effort to raise public awareness, invite
0:55
Speaker 1: witnesses to come forward, and present evidence that could potentially
0:58
Speaker 1: be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights
1:02
Speaker 1: from family and community members, their statements should not be
1:06
Speaker 1: considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts
1:10
Speaker 1: inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone is
1:14
Speaker 1: presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
1:17
Speaker 1: Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply
1:21
Speaker 1: that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime
1:24
Speaker 1: is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening.
1:30
Speaker 2: It was a really hot night in the.
1:39
Speaker 3: 17-year-old Shane Stewart was gearing up for the Fourth of
1:41
Speaker 3: July holiday celebrations by picking up his girlfriend, 18-year-old.
1:45
Speaker 2: Sally McNelly, and they were going to watch the fireworks.
1:48
Speaker 3: Shane and Sally had started dating in the fall of
1:50
Speaker 3: 1987 when they were both students at San Angelo Central
1:54
Speaker 3: High School.
1:55
Speaker 2: They fell in love fast.
1:57
Speaker 3: They even ended up moving in together into an apartment
2:00
Speaker 3: where both of them worked in fast food to pay
2:02
Speaker 3: the bills. Sally got a job at a taco place.
2:05
Speaker 3: Shane worked at a burger joint. But then, according to
2:08
Speaker 3: reporting by Texas Monthly, they broke up at some point,
2:12
Speaker 3: and both Shane and Sally left San Angelo for a while.
2:16
Speaker 3: But they went in different directions. Sally went to Lubbock.
2:19
Speaker 3: Shane went to Kansas. Eventually, they both came back. And
2:23
Speaker 3: it's not clear in the reporting I've seen exactly when,
2:27
Speaker 3: but sometime that summer, shortly before that fateful Fourth of
2:30
Speaker 3: July holiday, they met again and sparks flew. And just
2:35
Speaker 3: like that, they were back together. In that summer of 1988,
2:39
Speaker 3: Shane was living.
2:40
Speaker 2: With his father, Marshall Stewart.
2:42
Speaker 3: Marshall later said that Shane left the house at around
2:45
Speaker 3: 6 o'clock on the evening of July 4th. Some other
2:48
Speaker 3: reports said it was actually closer to 7 p.m. But
2:52
Speaker 3: either way, as Shane headed out, he told his dad
2:55
Speaker 3: he was going to pick Sally up and they were
2:57
Speaker 3: going to watch the fireworks. And Shane specifically said that
3:01
Speaker 3: he was not planning to stay out late. According to Marshall,
3:05
Speaker 3: the last thing Shane said to him was, I love you, Dad.
3:09
Speaker 3: Shane drove a few miles to where Sally was living
3:12
Speaker 3: with her mother, Pat, and her stepfather, Bill Wade. Pat
3:15
Speaker 3: and Bill had recently had a baby, Sally's little brother,
3:18
Speaker 3: and apparently Sally absolutely adored her little brother. Sally was
3:23
Speaker 3: working at a local nursing home, Meadow Creek, and according
3:26
Speaker 3: to her obituary, she was due to report for duty
3:29
Speaker 3: in the Navy in March of 1989. That night, Sally
3:34
Speaker 3: told her mother she was going to spend the night
3:35
Speaker 3: at her girlfriend's house, but apparently that wasn't the real plan.
3:39
Speaker 2: She was actually planning to stay with Shane.
3:41
Speaker 3: Shane picked Sally up in his copper-colored 1980 Chevrolet Camaro.
3:46
Speaker 3: This car was Shane's pride and joy. He loved that vehicle,
3:50
Speaker 3: and it was very recognizable around town. This was one
3:53
Speaker 3: of those small towns where everybody knew what everyone else drove. Actually,
3:58
Speaker 3: this story took me back to my own high school days,
4:01
Speaker 3: both the lying about when Sally was sneaking out with
4:03
Speaker 3: a guy and also everyone knowing everyone else's locations based
4:08
Speaker 3: on their vehicles, which may be why I found what
4:11
Speaker 3: happened next so horrifying. Sally and Shane were headed toward
4:16
Speaker 3: Lake Nasworthy. It was one of the most popular places
4:18
Speaker 3: in San Angelo to watch the Fourth of July fireworks.
4:22
Speaker 3: It was also somewhere where teenagers would go to park,
4:24
Speaker 3: hang out, and get away from adults for a while.
4:27
Speaker 3: After the fireworks ended, Shane and Sally apparently left the
4:30
Speaker 3: lake and went to Whataburger. We know this because there
4:33
Speaker 3: was a receipt. Later, Marshall found that receipt inside Shane's car.
4:39
Speaker 3: The receipt was time-stamped at around 11.40 p.m., so at
4:42
Speaker 3: that point, Sally and Shane were still alive. And we
4:46
Speaker 3: have a pretty good idea of where they were headed next.
4:49
Speaker 3: After they grabbed their food at Whataburger, they went back
4:52
Speaker 3: out toward the lakes. This time, their destination was another
4:55
Speaker 3: body of water, O.C.
4:57
Speaker 2: Fisher Reservoir. And according to.
4:59
Speaker 3: Reporting in the Texas Monthly podcast, Shane and Sally, two
5:03
Speaker 3: fishermen later said that they saw the couple that night.
5:06
Speaker 3: One of those men was Randall Littlefield. Randall Littlefield told
5:10
Speaker 3: the podcast that he and another man were out checking
5:13
Speaker 3: to see if they'd caught any catfish that night. And
5:15
Speaker 3: he said they saw Shane and Sally near Shane's Camaro.
5:19
Speaker 3: Then they saw another vehicle pull up, a pickup truck
5:23
Speaker 3: Randall described the truck as having KC lights, those big
5:27
Speaker 3: auxiliary lights mounted above the cab. He said those big
5:31
Speaker 3: lights were shining toward Shane and Sally. Then Randall said
5:35
Speaker 3: he heard arguing. According to Randall, there were at least
5:38
Speaker 3: two other men there that night, and at one point,
5:41
Speaker 3: he said he heard Sally say words to the effect.
5:43
Speaker 2: Of that she would not do it again.
5:46
Speaker 3: It's not clear exactly what she meant, but from what
5:49
Speaker 3: Randall described, it sounded like she was saying, She didn't
5:53
Speaker 3: want to hang around those people again. Then the truck left.
5:57
Speaker 3: Randall believed this happened sometime after midnight. After that, Shane
6:02
Speaker 3: and Sally disappeared. They never made it home. That was
6:06
Speaker 3: almost 40 years ago. And since then, this case has
6:09
Speaker 3: been caught up in rumors of satanic panic, a devil-worshiping cult,
6:13
Speaker 3: a man who was arrested with blood and fingernails in
6:16
Speaker 3: his house, and whispers of a police conspiracy. But it
6:20
Speaker 3: all started on July 4th, 1988, with two missing teenagers.
6:25
Speaker 3: I'm Katherine Townsend. Over the past eight years of making
6:28
Speaker 3: my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I've learned that
6:31
Speaker 3: there's no such thing as a small town where murder
6:34
Speaker 3: never happens. I've received hundreds of messages from people all
6:38
Speaker 3: around the country asking for help with an unsolved murder
6:40
Speaker 3: that's affected them, their families, and their communities. If you
6:44
Speaker 3: have a case you'd like me and my team to
6:46
Speaker 3: look into, you can reach out to us at our
6:48
Speaker 3: Hell and Gone Murder Line on 678-744-6145.
6:50
Speaker 4: That's 678-744-6145.
6:50
Speaker 2: Or you can send us a message on Instagram at hellandgonepod.
6:52
Speaker 2: This is Hell and Gone Murder Line.
7:50
Speaker 3: When Shane didn't come home, Marshall Stewart was worried immediately.
7:55
Speaker 3: It was not like Shane to say that he was
7:57
Speaker 3: coming home and then to never show up and stay
8:00
Speaker 3: out all night. So Marshall and Shane's brother, Sean, started
8:04
Speaker 3: looking for him, but eventually they went home empty-handed. Then
8:08
Speaker 3: at around 7 a.m. the next morning, a Lake Ranger
8:11
Speaker 3: found something. He saw Shane's Camaro abandoned in Isabel Hart
8:15
Speaker 3: Park near the O.C.
8:17
Speaker 2: Fisher Reservoir. There was nobody inside the car.
8:21
Speaker 3: Sally's work uniform was there, but she had been wearing
8:24
Speaker 3: a purple blouse and jeans when she left her house.
8:28
Speaker 3: Police ran the license plate. They connected the car to
8:31
Speaker 3: Marshall and they called him. And almost immediately, there was
8:35
Speaker 3: a decision in this investigation that Marshall would question for years.
8:39
Speaker 3: Police let Marshall drive the Camaro home rather than processing
8:43
Speaker 3: it for evidence immediately. Marshall later said that even at
8:46
Speaker 3: the time, he wondered why the car wasn't being treated
8:50
Speaker 3: like a potential crime scene. At home, Marshall started to
8:53
Speaker 3: do some of his own detective work and look for
8:55
Speaker 3: clues inside Shane's car. That's when he found the Whataburger
8:59
Speaker 3: bag with the time-stamped receipt. He also saw Sally's uniform,
9:04
Speaker 3: and there was no obvious sign of struggle inside the car.
9:07
Speaker 2: But there were some things missing. There are different.
9:10
Speaker 3: Accounts over the years about exactly which of Sally's personal
9:14
Speaker 3: belongings were or were not inside that Camaro. Former Tom
9:19
Speaker 3: Greene County Deputy Larry Counts said on the Shane and
9:23
Speaker 3: Sally podcast that certain things were missing, including Sally's wallet
9:27
Speaker 3: and purse. He also said an item, a stuffed animal,
9:31
Speaker 3: that normally hung from Shane's rearview mirror was gone. Now,
9:35
Speaker 3: some of those items might have made sense if the
9:38
Speaker 3: motive was robbery. Others didn't seem to fit that pattern.
9:41
Speaker 3: Why would someone steal a stuffed animal? Was law enforcement
9:44
Speaker 3: dealing with a robbery gone wrong? or a killer taking trophies,
9:48
Speaker 3: or something else. Law enforcement did eventually ask Marshall to
9:52
Speaker 3: bring the Camaro back so they could examine it. But
9:55
Speaker 3: according to Marshall, they only had the car for a
9:58
Speaker 3: few hours, and that same day, they let him drive
10:01
Speaker 3: it home again. And pretty quickly, there seemed to be
10:04
Speaker 3: an idea that maybe Shane and Sally had just left voluntarily.
10:09
Speaker 3: The investigating agency was the Tom Green County Sheriff's Office.
10:13
Speaker 3: And on July 6th, Shane and Sally were officially classified
10:17
Speaker 3: as runaways. Now, this happened even though Shane's family was
10:20
Speaker 3: adamant that Shane had given no indication that he was
10:23
Speaker 3: planning to leave. He said he was coming back that night.
10:26
Speaker 3: It was the same story for Sally. There was no
10:28
Speaker 3: indication at all that Sally had been preparing to disappear.
10:31
Speaker 3: She had been happy at home, and from what her
10:33
Speaker 3: mom told investigators, actually, Sally had said she was thinking
10:37
Speaker 3: about spending more time there, not less. Police's theory in
10:40
Speaker 3: spite of this was that Sally and Shane may have
10:43
Speaker 3: run away to elope. And this is where that Camaro
10:47
Speaker 3: becomes much more important, because Marshall knew how Shane felt
10:50
Speaker 3: about that car. This wasn't just transportation for a teenage kid.
10:54
Speaker 3: This car was Shane's entire life. And Marshall said whatever happened,
10:59
Speaker 3: there's absolutely no way his son would simply abandon that
11:02
Speaker 3: car and walk away from it. So from Marshall's point
11:05
Speaker 3: of view, the idea that these two teenagers had simply
11:08
Speaker 3: run off made zero sense.
11:11
Speaker 2: But by then, time had already been lost.
11:13
Speaker 3: The car had been moved from the original spot where
11:15
Speaker 3: it was parked, and Marshall said the police did not
11:18
Speaker 3: dust for fingerprints or send the car in for any
11:21
Speaker 3: other forensic testing.
11:22
Speaker 2: So Marshall told Rob.
11:24
Speaker 3: D'Amico, one of the reporters on the Shane and Sally podcast,
11:28
Speaker 3: that he started going out at night looking for clues.
11:31
Speaker 3: And one night, he was near the area where Shane's
11:34
Speaker 3: Camaro had been found, and he smelled something bad, something
11:38
Speaker 3: that was unmistakably the stench of human remains. Marshall shined
11:43
Speaker 3: his flashlight near the source of the smell, and he
11:45
Speaker 3: found a body. With police dismissing his concerns, Marshall Stewart
12:05
Speaker 3: began his own investigation. According to the Shane and Sally podcast,
12:11
Speaker 3: Marshall went out looking for his missing 17-year-old son. And instead,
12:15
Speaker 3: he found another dead man. But it wasn't Shane. Marshall
12:19
Speaker 3: later said police told him that this man's death was drug-related.
12:24
Speaker 3: He said he remembered police describing it as essentially a
12:27
Speaker 3: drug deal gone wrong.
12:28
Speaker 2: And according to Marshall, police told.
12:30
Speaker 3: Him that this victim's death had nothing to do with
12:33
Speaker 3: Shane and Sally. Meanwhile, rumors about Shane and Sally were
12:37
Speaker 3: spreading through San Angelo. Now, this was 1988, right as
12:42
Speaker 3: America was in the middle of what became known as
12:45
Speaker 3: the Satanic Panic. Across the country, people were seeing supposed
12:49
Speaker 3: Satanic conspiracies everywhere. At first, they were mostly related to
12:53
Speaker 3: things like heavy metal and occult symbols and Dungeons & Dragons.
12:57
Speaker 2: Kids playing with Ouija boards, and goth kids in general.
13:00
Speaker 2: But the whole.
13:01
Speaker 3: Thing blew up, and soon investigators in multiple locations were
13:04
Speaker 3: investigating rumors of satanic cults abusing and murdering children and
13:09
Speaker 3: drinking their blood, among other things. These theories have been
13:12
Speaker 3: widely debunked. There's absolutely no evidence that any of these
13:16
Speaker 3: alleged satanic cults committed any crimes at all. But despite that,
13:21
Speaker 3: people in America were scared. It's hard to imagine, but
13:24
Speaker 3: during that time, the satanic panic really was everywhere. even
13:27
Speaker 3: in small Texas towns. A lot of people were asking
13:30
Speaker 3: questions about Shane and Sally's friend group. And there were
13:33
Speaker 3: reports that some of their friends may have been involved
13:36
Speaker 3: in a cult activity. According to an Unsolved Mysteries episode
13:40
Speaker 3: about this case, Sally began attending what they called ritualistic
13:45
Speaker 3: parties regularly.
13:46
Speaker 2: And she introduced Shane to this group of friends as well.
13:49
Speaker 2: But was any of.
13:50
Speaker 3: This stuff real or was it just part of the
13:52
Speaker 3: mass hysteria of that time? Shane's father, Marshall, was interviewed
13:56
Speaker 3: by Texas Monthly in 2024. He told them he had
14:00
Speaker 3: noticed Shane becoming more distant over the course of his
14:02
Speaker 3: relationship with Sally. One of Shane's cousins told the Shane
14:06
Speaker 3: and Sally podcast that shortly before his death, Shane apparently
14:10
Speaker 3: changed his appearance pretty dramatically. Shane bleached his hair peroxide
14:14
Speaker 3: blonde and started wearing a lot of black. There was
14:18
Speaker 3: a name in this friend group that came up pretty
14:20
Speaker 3: early in the investigation. One of Shane and Sally's friends
14:23
Speaker 3: was a guy named Steve Schaefer. Now, Steve was supposedly
14:27
Speaker 3: the leader of the so-called occult group, and he lived
14:30
Speaker 3: in a house that people in town nicknamed the Devil House.
14:34
Speaker 3: At one point, police went into the so-called Devil House,
14:37
Speaker 3: and according to media reports, they actually apparently got a
14:40
Speaker 3: priest to bless the house before they investigated it. The
14:44
Speaker 3: Shane and Sally podcast reporter Rob D'Amico talked to Steve Schaefer.
14:48
Speaker 3: Steve said the rumors about him were completely untrue. He
14:52
Speaker 3: said that on the night that Shane and Sally disappeared,
14:54
Speaker 3: he had been staying with his grandmother. He said he
14:56
Speaker 3: had an alibi for the whole night. Steve said the
15:00
Speaker 3: rumors about him had been started by some of the cult,
15:02
Speaker 3: meaning the group of occult kids around town had started
15:06
Speaker 3: some rumors about him. But he told Rob something else.
15:09
Speaker 3: He said Shane had come to see him before he died.
15:12
Speaker 3: and that Shane told him, quote, I need a gun.
15:16
Speaker 2: I need money.
15:17
Speaker 3: Steve said Shane had seemed scared, so Steve claimed that
15:21
Speaker 3: he told Shane to come back in the morning, but
15:23
Speaker 3: he said that Shane never showed up. Steve said the
15:26
Speaker 3: murders had deeply affected him, so much so that he
15:29
Speaker 3: also did something else. He had Shane and Sally's names
15:32
Speaker 3: tattooed on his left arm. Over the years, there were
15:36
Speaker 3: some other random leads, like a man named James Caldwell.
15:40
Speaker 3: who police say drew a map and claimed to know
15:42
Speaker 3: where Sally and Shane were buried. But the map was
15:45
Speaker 3: apparently just a crude rectangle, and nothing much came of
15:48
Speaker 3: that lead.
15:49
Speaker 2: But the name is interesting for another reason.
15:51
Speaker 3: When I was looking for any evidence of a cult activity,
15:54
Speaker 3: I found an article from a local paper in 1994.
15:58
Speaker 3: The headline read, Apparent Satanic Ritual Ends in Suicide Pact
16:01
Speaker 3: in Oklahoma. It turned out that James Caldwell and his
16:05
Speaker 3: girlfriend were in an apparent suicide pact, where they took
16:08
Speaker 3: a rifle and positioned it so that when the bullet fired, it.
16:11
Speaker 2: Would go through both their heads at once.
16:13
Speaker 3: Both 22-year-old James and his 17-year-old girlfriend died at the
16:17
Speaker 3: same time, and there was a circle of candles around
16:20
Speaker 3: their body. So it seemed as though the satanic ritual
16:23
Speaker 3: references were because of the candles and because James' girlfriend
16:27
Speaker 3: had a pentagram tattoo and pentagram jewelry. There were also
16:31
Speaker 3: rumors about secret ceremonies, and in some of these cases,
16:35
Speaker 3: law enforcement started treating those rumors like actual evidence. Shane
16:40
Speaker 3: and Sally knew people in San Angelo's alternative teenage scene.
16:44
Speaker 3: But the stories about the Devil House seemed to be
16:47
Speaker 3: primarily because it was abandoned and it was just.
16:50
Speaker 2: A creepy house with some graffiti of occult symbols.
16:55
Speaker 3: There were also rumors that the kids who gathered and
16:58
Speaker 3: performed these crude occult rituals did it in that house. Now,
17:03
Speaker 3: Steve Schaefer said, These rumors were totally false, but Shane
17:07
Speaker 3: and Sally did seem to be afraid of something. According
17:10
Speaker 3: to people later interviewed about the case, Shane and Sally
17:14
Speaker 3: had gotten scared of some of the people around them.
17:16
Speaker 3: There was even an account that Sally told a friend
17:19
Speaker 3: that she and Shane were planning to leave Texas. According
17:23
Speaker 3: to Unsolved Mysteries, two weeks before her disappearance, Sally frantically
17:27
Speaker 3: called a friend named Helen, saying that she believed someone
17:30
Speaker 3: was trying to kill her. So right after Sally and
17:34
Speaker 3: Shane went missing, a natural question to ask was, did
17:37
Speaker 3: they fake their disappearances because they needed to get away
17:40
Speaker 3: from something or someone? Then, on November 12th, 1988, more
17:45
Speaker 3: than four months after Shane and Sally vanished, 17 miles
17:49
Speaker 3: from where Shane's Camaro was originally parked, a hunter was
17:52
Speaker 3: near Twin Buttes Reservoir when his dog ran ahead of
17:55
Speaker 3: him and found a human skull. There were more bones
17:59
Speaker 3: nearby and some clothes, including a purple blouse and blue
18:03
Speaker 3: jeans that investigators said were the ones worn by Sally
18:06
Speaker 3: on July 4th. Investigators went back to search the area again,
18:11
Speaker 3: and a few days later, they found a second group
18:13
Speaker 3: of skeletal remains about 75 feet away from where Sally's
18:16
Speaker 3: bones were found, with cowboy boots nearby and clothing that
18:20
Speaker 3: looked like Shane's.
18:22
Speaker 2: This included a jacket that he was.
18:23
Speaker 3: Wearing on July 4th, with three figures related to Dungeons &
18:27
Speaker 3: Dragons inside, according to police. Of course, even though Dungeons &
18:32
Speaker 3: Dragons is now thought of as a harmless game, which
18:35
Speaker 3: it was, the presence of D & D paraphernalia only
18:38
Speaker 3: increased the rumors that Shane and Sally may have had
18:41
Speaker 3: something to do with the occult. The remains were taken
18:44
Speaker 3: to the medical examiner in San Antonio, and it was
18:46
Speaker 3: later confirmed the remains were Shane and Sally's.
18:50
Speaker 2: And the medical.
18:51
Speaker 3: Examiner determined that both of them had been shot. So
18:55
Speaker 3: this was a homicide, no doubt about it. According to
18:58
Speaker 3: the case material, Both Sally and Shane had suffered shotgun
19:02
Speaker 3: wounds to the head. Because their bodies had been outside
19:07
Speaker 3: for months and because they had been exposed to heat
19:10
Speaker 3: and weather and animals, the forensic evidence had obviously been compromised.
19:14
Speaker 3: But there was one strange detail that made it into
19:18
Speaker 3: media reports. A Stetson hat pin had reportedly been placed
19:22
Speaker 3: on a tree limb above or near his remains. Was
19:26
Speaker 3: it deliberate or random? Could it have belonged to the
19:29
Speaker 3: killer or was it just something that was there before
19:31
Speaker 3: and put there by someone else?
19:34
Speaker 2: But this became.
19:35
Speaker 3: Just another strange piece of a case that was already
19:38
Speaker 3: drowning in theories. And one of the biggest theories was Satanism.
19:43
Speaker 3: While a lot of people were talking about Satanic rituals,
19:46
Speaker 3: a lot of the local reporting neglected to mention a
19:49
Speaker 3: very real and traceable piece of physical.
19:51
Speaker 2: Evidence, a gun.
19:55
Speaker 3: Months before Shane and Sally were killed, Sally apparently gave
19:59
Speaker 3: a gun to law enforcement. Former Deputy Larry Counts later
20:03
Speaker 3: said that he met with Shane and Sally when they
20:06
Speaker 3: were still living together. He claimed that they handed him
20:09
Speaker 3: a firearm. They told him there was a group they
20:11
Speaker 3: were trying to get away from. And according to Deputy Counts,
20:15
Speaker 3: they told him that that gun had supposedly been used
20:18
Speaker 3: in a murder in San Angelo.
20:21
Speaker 2: But then the gun seemed to disappear.
20:25
Speaker 3: Larry Count said he turned the gun over to the
20:27
Speaker 3: San Angelo police, and he said he gave them Shane
20:30
Speaker 3: and Sally's names.
20:32
Speaker 2: But that gun was never bought.
20:34
Speaker 3: Tested, and at some point, it reportedly disappeared from an
20:37
Speaker 3: evidence locker. Obviously, we have no idea if the gun
20:40
Speaker 3: had anything to do with Shane and Sally's deaths, but
20:43
Speaker 3: it's bizarre that the weapon disappeared from the evidence room
20:46
Speaker 3: and that both Shane and Sally were killed just a
20:49
Speaker 3: few months later. Over time, another theory emerged. that Shane
20:54
Speaker 3: and Sally may have been involved in some drug dealing
20:56
Speaker 3: gone wrong. Years after the murders, people started telling investigators
21:02
Speaker 3: there may have been a narcotics angle. In 1995, an
21:06
Speaker 3: inmate named Heath Big Heath Davis reportedly gave information about
21:09
Speaker 3: the San Angelo drug world in the late 1980s. According
21:13
Speaker 3: to accounts of that tip, Heath Davis claimed that a
21:16
Speaker 3: local drug dealer kept a ledger of debts. And according
21:19
Speaker 3: to the allegation, Sally McNally's name was on that list
21:24
Speaker 3: The claim was that Sally owed thousands of dollars involving
21:27
Speaker 3: cocaine and marijuana. Again, we don't have access to the
21:31
Speaker 3: case file, so we don't know how thoroughly this tip
21:33
Speaker 3: was ever investigated, but it does seem to fit with
21:36
Speaker 3: a conversation that Marshall remembered Shane having. Marshall said he
21:41
Speaker 3: overheard an intense phone argument shortly before the murders, something
21:45
Speaker 3: involving money. I did some more digging because honestly, I
21:49
Speaker 3: was wondering something else. Why did Shane and Sally both
21:52
Speaker 3: leave town at the same time? Sally went to live
21:56
Speaker 3: with her grandmother while Shane stayed with relatives in Kansas.
22:00
Speaker 3: Did they just need a break from each other or
22:02
Speaker 3: were they scared of something? Sally's mother told.
22:05
Speaker 2: Local newspapers a few more details.
22:08
Speaker 3: She said that Sally had dropped out of high school
22:10
Speaker 3: suddenly in the fall of 1987. At the time of
22:13
Speaker 3: her death, she was taking steps to get her diploma
22:16
Speaker 3: and enlist in the Navy. So were she and Shane
22:19
Speaker 3: just being rebellious teenagers in love? Or was there something
22:23
Speaker 3: more sinister going on, something her parents didn't know about?
22:27
Speaker 3: Sally's mother told the Standard Times that she believed that
22:30
Speaker 3: Sally would have confided in her if her daughter believed
22:32
Speaker 3: something was seriously wrong. Yet at the same time, in
22:35
Speaker 3: the same interview, she said Shane seemed concerned when he
22:39
Speaker 3: got back to town and found Sally there, which seems contradictory.
22:44
Speaker 3: Did Shane or Sally owe money to the wrong people?
22:47
Speaker 3: Or could someone else believe that they did? Further complicating
22:51
Speaker 3: things was the fact that because of the missing gun,
22:54
Speaker 3: some people in town believed that someone in law enforcement
22:57
Speaker 3: may have had something to do with the killings. Over
23:00
Speaker 3: the years, there have been allegations that other evidence from
23:03
Speaker 3: this investigation disappeared. Interview tapes, notes, and physical evidence. But
23:07
Speaker 3: I think it's important to make a distinction between the
23:10
Speaker 3: handling of the evidence in this case... and the allegations
23:13
Speaker 3: that a police officer could have had something to do
23:15
Speaker 3: with Shane and Sally's deaths, because those are two different things. Then,
23:20
Speaker 3: almost 30 years after Shane and Sally were murdered, something
23:24
Speaker 3: happened that suddenly put.
23:25
Speaker 2: This case back in the news.
23:27
Speaker 3: And it started with a traffic stop and spiraled into
23:30
Speaker 3: a search warrant, decades-old writings about the murders, locks of hair,
23:35
Speaker 3: a fingernail, possible blood, and a man investigators had known
23:40
Speaker 3: since the days when Shane and Sally were alive.
23:43
Speaker 4: On June 20, 2017, police in San Angelo stopped a
23:53
Speaker 4: 47-year-old man named John Cyrus Gilbreth.
24:04
Speaker 3: The traffic stop was connected to suspected marijuana possession, but
24:08
Speaker 3: according to reports, police found other things in the vehicle,
24:11
Speaker 3: including drugs, weapons, and.
24:13
Speaker 2: Tactical body armor.
24:15
Speaker 3: That information led Texas Ranger Nick Hanna and Tom Green
24:19
Speaker 3: County investigators to obtain a search warrant to search John
24:22
Speaker 3: Gilbrest's property. They were reportedly looking for evidence connected to
24:26
Speaker 3: drug trafficking, but during that search, they found something else,
24:30
Speaker 3: something that brought investigators straight back to 1988. John Gilbreth
24:35
Speaker 3: had been 17 years old when Shane and Sally were murdered.
24:38
Speaker 3: He knew Shane and Sally, and he had moved in
24:40
Speaker 3: some of the same social circles. During the 2017 search,
24:45
Speaker 3: investigators found old writings in journals that discussed the murders
24:48
Speaker 3: of Shane Stewart and Sally McNally. They also found cassette tapes.
24:53
Speaker 3: Some were reportedly marked with the initials SS. And investigators
24:57
Speaker 3: found biological material, including hair, a fingernail, and material believed
25:03
Speaker 3: to possibly be blood. There has been some confusion in
25:07
Speaker 3: the reporting over the years over exactly how that possible
25:10
Speaker 3: blood material was stored or what form it was in.
25:13
Speaker 3: So I don't want to make any assumptions here, but
25:15
Speaker 3: investigators clearly thought that biological material was worth testing. And
25:20
Speaker 3: because this was now 2017, they had the technology in
25:23
Speaker 3: place that police in 1988 barely had access to.
25:27
Speaker 2: So they tested the material. During that testing, the story
25:31
Speaker 2: broke and went national.
25:32
Speaker 3: And this time, it wasn't just West Texas newspapers covering
25:35
Speaker 3: the story. John Gilbreth's arrest and mugshot made it into
25:39
Speaker 3: the Daily Mail and onto Fox News. Everybody was talking
25:43
Speaker 3: about the small Texas town and what they called the
25:45
Speaker 3: satanic panic killings. But then things went quiet. And when
25:49
Speaker 3: the test results came back, they didn't fit the story
25:52
Speaker 3: that everybody was expecting to hear because it turned out
25:54
Speaker 3: the samples did not match Shane and Sally. John Gilbreth
25:59
Speaker 3: acknowledged that the journals and tapes did belong to him
26:02
Speaker 3: but he completely denied murdering Shane and Sally. His explanation
26:06
Speaker 3: was essentially that he was a true crime fan. He
26:08
Speaker 3: was fascinated by the case. He said back in the
26:11
Speaker 3: day when he knew Shane and Sally, he was a
26:13
Speaker 3: teenager interested in dark subjects and that the writings police
26:17
Speaker 3: found were connected to his own interest in trying to
26:19
Speaker 3: understand or solve the murders. John said the biological material
26:24
Speaker 3: came from other people and had nothing to do with
26:26
Speaker 3: Shane and Sally. And again, there was no official report
26:30
Speaker 3: of what these tests found. But John Gilbreth was never
26:33
Speaker 3: charged with murdering Sally and Shane. He did eventually go
26:37
Speaker 3: to federal prison on a firearms charge and served around
26:40
Speaker 3: two years. He was released in June of 2019. But
26:45
Speaker 3: to me, the strangest question from the 2017 search isn't
26:49
Speaker 3: necessarily did John Gilbreth kill Shane and Sally because the
26:53
Speaker 3: biological evidence wasn't connected to them. But I do wonder,
26:57
Speaker 3: who did that biological material belong to? Why did he
27:01
Speaker 3: have a human hair and a fingernail? Was the blood
27:04
Speaker 3: fake or was it someone else's blood that he had
27:07
Speaker 3: for other reasons?
27:08
Speaker 2: We just don't know.
27:10
Speaker 3: I'm also curious as to what exactly that DNA was
27:13
Speaker 3: and whether investigators ever compared any of it to other
27:17
Speaker 3: unsolved cases. Because it turns out Shane and Sally were
27:21
Speaker 3: not the only people who reportedly had frightening experiences around
27:25
Speaker 3: those reservoirs. There were accounts from that era of people
27:28
Speaker 3: being attacked or threatened around isolated lake areas. An article
27:33
Speaker 3: from the Standard Times on July 8, 1990, said that
27:36
Speaker 3: a man and a woman at a boat ramp at
27:38
Speaker 3: the O.C. Reservoir said they were threatened by a man
27:41
Speaker 3: in a pickup truck on the same night that Shane
27:44
Speaker 3: and Sally went missing, and that the pickup truck, possibly
27:47
Speaker 3: one with four-wheel drive, had a roll bar and mounts
27:50
Speaker 3: above the cab. The fishermen told police... he had picked
27:53
Speaker 3: up a big rock and that after that, the man
27:55
Speaker 3: in the truck backed out and drove away. And according
27:59
Speaker 3: to materials surrounding this case, there were also reports of
28:01
Speaker 3: couples being approached by an armed man. In some accounts,
28:05
Speaker 3: victims described someone appearing from the darkness with a shotgun.
28:09
Speaker 3: There were reports of people being restrained and assaulted. And
28:13
Speaker 3: if those accounts are accurate, that opens up another completely
28:17
Speaker 3: different possibility. Maybe Shane and Sally were not killed because
28:21
Speaker 3: of Satanism or a drug debt or because they knew
28:23
Speaker 3: information they couldn't know.
28:25
Speaker 2: Maybe they were a.
28:26
Speaker 3: Young couple parked near an isolated reservoir at night and
28:29
Speaker 3: encountered the wrong person. The Son of Sam-style killer explanation
28:34
Speaker 3: is much less elaborate than some of these other theories.
28:37
Speaker 3: But if these murders were random, what do we make
28:40
Speaker 3: of the pickup truck and the fishermen saying that Shane
28:42
Speaker 3: and Sally were arguing with other people that night and
28:45
Speaker 3: Sally allegedly saying no, she would not do it again?
28:49
Speaker 3: I wonder about the accuracy of the statement because memory
28:53
Speaker 3: does change over time. And newspaper articles in 1990 have
28:57
Speaker 3: police saying that a fisherman heard loud noises after noticing
29:01
Speaker 3: the pickup truck, but wasn't able to make out what
29:04
Speaker 3: was said due to the fact that his motor was
29:06
Speaker 3: so loud and rumbling. Could police have been mistaken back
29:10
Speaker 3: then or could a witness's memory have changed over time?
29:15
Speaker 3: If it's true that Sally was arguing with a group
29:18
Speaker 3: of people, it does seem to point to someone targeting
29:21
Speaker 3: Shane and Sally, someone who had a history with them.
29:24
Speaker 3: That's part of what makes this case so frustrating. We
29:27
Speaker 3: talk a lot on this podcast about the noise around
29:30
Speaker 3: a case and how it can make it hard to
29:32
Speaker 3: see the facts.
29:33
Speaker 2: The noise in this.
29:34
Speaker 3: Case is, in my opinion, Satanism, because there is zero
29:37
Speaker 3: evidence that Shane and Sally were targeted in any kind
29:40
Speaker 3: of cult killings. The law enforcement theory has the missing
29:43
Speaker 3: gun and serious questions about evidence handling. But there's no
29:47
Speaker 3: proof that a police officer murdered Shane and Sally. The
29:50
Speaker 3: random predator theory may fit the isolated location and reports
29:54
Speaker 3: of other attacks around the reservoirs.
29:56
Speaker 2: But then you have the fisherman's.
29:58
Speaker 3: Account, which suggests Shane and Sally may have been interacting
30:00
Speaker 3: with people they already knew. And then there's John Gilbreth,
30:04
Speaker 3: who seemed like a promising lead, but the biological material
30:07
Speaker 3: investigators tested did not belong to Shane or Sally. So
30:12
Speaker 3: where does that leave us? There is one more piece
30:15
Speaker 3: of the forensic story. In July of 2014, Shane and
30:19
Speaker 3: Sally's remains were exhumed for additional DNA work, and there
30:23
Speaker 3: was also a human hair found on one of Shane's boots.
30:27
Speaker 3: According to the materials surrounding the case, the results of
30:30
Speaker 3: that testing have not been publicly released, but we do
30:33
Speaker 3: know the hair was eventually sent in for DNA testing.
30:36
Speaker 3: But that testing happened in 2016, and the lab was
30:40
Speaker 3: reportedly unable to obtain a usable DNA profile from it.
30:44
Speaker 3: I do want to go back to clear something up.
30:47
Speaker 3: Remember that one of Shane's relatives said that Shane had bleached.
30:50
Speaker 2: His hair and started wearing a lot of black.
30:53
Speaker 3: Once this satanic panic narrative took hold, you can see
30:56
Speaker 3: how people could have turned that into something ominous. But
30:59
Speaker 3: the relative told the Texas Monthly Podcast there was a
31:02
Speaker 3: much simpler explanation. Shane loved the movie The Lost Boys.
31:07
Speaker 2: Of course, I remember that movie because I absolutely loved
31:10
Speaker 2: it too. I was just a few.
31:12
Speaker 3: Years old at the time when it came out in 1987.
31:14
Speaker 3: It was about teenagers living in the fictional town of
31:17
Speaker 3: Santa Carla, California, and how they interacted with and eventually
31:20
Speaker 3: battled a group of vampires led by Kiefer Sutherland. The
31:24
Speaker 3: leader of the vampire cult had a distinctive look.
31:27
Speaker 2: He had bleach blonde hair and an earring. That's what
31:31
Speaker 2: Shane wanted to emulate.
31:32
Speaker 3: The movie was so popular, in fact, there was even
31:34
Speaker 3: a local Lost Boys group formed in Texas.
31:38
Speaker 2: But instead of causing mayhem, this.
31:40
Speaker 3: Group reportedly did volunteer work, and Shane was associated with it.
31:48
Speaker 3: Who killed Shane Stewart and Sally McNally? If I were
31:51
Speaker 3: starting this investigation today, if I were law enforcement, I
31:55
Speaker 3: would go back and look at the actual pieces of evidence,
31:57
Speaker 3: the car, the receipt, the witnesses who supposedly saw an
32:00
Speaker 3: altercation between Sally and some.
32:02
Speaker 2: Men on the night they were murdered. Because underneath all.
32:05
Speaker 3: The satanic panic and all the rumors and competing theories
32:08
Speaker 3: are two real teenagers who were taken from their families.
32:11
Speaker 3: And on July 4th, 1988, somewhere between the late night
32:15
Speaker 3: Whataburger run and the next.
32:17
Speaker 2: Morning, they were brutally murdered.
32:20
Speaker 3: If you lived in San Angelo, Texas in 1988, or
32:24
Speaker 3: if you spent time around Lake Nasworthy, O.C. Fisher Reservoir,
32:28
Speaker 3: or Twin Buttes, knew Shane or Sally, remember the Devil
32:31
Speaker 3: House or know anything about the gun that Shane and
32:33
Speaker 3: Sally reportedly gave to Deputy Larry Counts. Or if you
32:37
Speaker 3: remember the mysterious pickup truck or know anything about who
32:40
Speaker 3: was driving it or who owned it, or if there's
32:42
Speaker 3: anything else about this case that you've never told law enforcement,
32:46
Speaker 3: we want to hear from you. Because once you get
32:49
Speaker 3: past the 40 years of rumors and the satanic panic headlines,
32:53
Speaker 3: there's a much simpler truth here.
32:55
Speaker 2: Two teenagers were executed. And someone out there knows who
32:59
Speaker 2: did it and why. I'm Katherine Townsend.
33:03
Speaker 3: This is Hell and Gone Murder Line. Hell and Gone
33:08
Speaker 3: Murder Line is a production of School of Humans and
33:10
Speaker 3: iHeart Podcast. It's written and narrated by me, Katherine Townsend,
33:14
Speaker 3: and produced by Edelise Perez. Special thanks to Amy Tubbs
33:17
Speaker 3: for her research assistance and James Wheaton for legal review.
33:21
Speaker 3: Noah Kammerer mixed and scored this episode. Our theme song
33:24
Speaker 3: is by Ben Salit.
33:25
Speaker 2: Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and L.C. Crowley.
33:30
Speaker 3: Listen to Helen Gone Ad-Free by subscribing to the iHeart
33:33
Speaker 3: True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts. If you are
33:36
Speaker 3: interested in seeing documents and materials from the case, you
33:39
Speaker 3: can follow the show on Instagram at HelenGonePod or Katherine
33:43
Speaker 3: Townsend Investigates on Patreon. If you have a case you'd
33:47
Speaker 3: like me and my team to look into, you can
33:49
Speaker 3: reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line
33:51
Speaker 3: at 678-744-6145.
33:51
Speaker 4: That's 678-744-6145.
33:51
Speaker 2: School of Humans.