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The Quiet Neighbor · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

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On August sixteenth, two thousand and five, Sean Hine pulled up outside his
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girlfriend's house with a pit in his stomach. He'd only just seen her the
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night before, and had even dropped her off at the front door at around
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midnight, but since then, Alicia Ross had not been answering her phone.
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He'd only called twice, But when the twenty five year old woman didn't show
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up for work the next morning, Shawn knew that something was definitely wrong.
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Alicia's car was still parked outside of her house, but she did not answer
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the door. Then, even more agitated and on edge after seeing all this,
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Sean called Alicia's parents to ask if they'd seen or heard from her.
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The answer was no. Sean then called the police to report Alicia missing,
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and her parents rushed over to their daughter's home to find it already crawling with
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investigators. Alicia's mother, Sharon later wrote in Alicia's room where her cell phone,
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her purse, her cigarettes, her keys, her bed had not been
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slept in, her laundry lay folded ready to be put away. Her ring
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was by the bathroom sink. The backyard was strown with Alicia's shoes, a
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glass, a cigarette, and the backyard gate had been left open. A
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sickness fell over us. It was now clear that Alicia had made it home
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the night before. According to the items left at the scene, she'd gotten
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herself ready for bed and was potentially having a late night cigarette when something had
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happened to her. It looked like she'd been swept away into the night,
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and with all of her personal belongings left in the house, it was unlikely
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that Alicia had actually planned on leaving, or that she had gone willingly.
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Investigators immediately found the scene suspicious and launched a search of the area to see
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if they could pick up on Alicia's trail. They were quickly flooded by locals
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and volunteers who wanted to help, so much so that they had to limit
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the number of volunteers that they could work with to one hundred at one time.
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Several days passed with nothing dimming the fire and the hope that Alicia would
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be found alive, But then the investigators honed in on a potential suspect.
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He was the very last person to have seen Alicia alive, her boyfriend,
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Sean Heine. Thus began the game of cat and mouse. Sean wasn't named
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an official suspect in the investigation, but the police canvassed his neighborhood and asked
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his neighbors if anyone had actually seen him during the hours that Alicia had disappeared.
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The authorities were tracking Sean's movements, trying to trip him up and see
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if he would crack. The idea behind it being that it was unusual that
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someone would race to fill in a missing person's report after only two missed phone
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calls. That was, of course, unless they knew something that the police
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did not. Shawn then refused to cooperate with the investigators any further, including
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refusing to take a polygraph test, but he also did not crack. With
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no new leads to go on, the investigation then began to lose steam.
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Resources, volunteers, and media coverage trickled out, and Alicia's trail officially went
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cold until this case had a startling and unexpected turn of events. About a
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month after Alicia first disappeared, a man turned himself into the police, saying
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that he had murdered Alisha and had hidden her body. The investigators followed his
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directions to a wooded location about fifty miles away from Alicia's house, and there
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they found the remains of a young woman. Alisha was dead and had been
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dead this entire time, and her killer had been right under everyone's ease noses.
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The investigators had even talked to him. That very day Alisha was reported
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missing, and his name was not Sean Heine but Daniel Sylvester. The community
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was speechless. With so much media coverage and attention drawn to Alicia's boyfriend and
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supposedly the last person to have seen her alive, no one had suspected her
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quiet and unassuming next door neighbor, thirty one year old Daniel kept mainly to
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himself. He didn't really like people, and people didn't seem to like him
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either, and according to himself, that's the way things had always been.
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He later said, it's not something I want to admit to, but that's
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the way it is, and it's very embarrassing and I wish it was different.
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I'm not someone who is compatible with most people. I feel very nervous
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and apprehensive around people, especially in large classroom settings. He was referring specifically
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to a time in school where he claimed that the other children would constantly bully
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him and call him a loser. In the time leading up to the that
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night with Alicia, the police had been called to his house on at least
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one occasion when he'd threatened to kill himself, and he was hospitalized on at
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least one other occasion. He described himself as someone who suffered from many mental
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health problems and was a borderline alcoholic. In his taped confession that was later
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played in court, Daniel described what happened on the night that he'd approached Alicia,
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shortly after Sean dropped her off at home. According to Daniel, he
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and Alicia quickly had gotten into a heated argument. She insulted me and called
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me a loser, and that's what really got me going. He then slapped
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Alicia across the face and pushed her to the ground. He then began kneeling
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on her chest over and over until Alicia was winded and couldn't fight back anymore.
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He took her head and banged it into the ground until Alicia was dead.
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Daniel then lined the inside of his truck to make sure he wouldn't leave
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any evidence behind, and drove her body to the wooded location she was later
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found in. He also discarded some of her remains and other evidence in that
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same location three weeks after her death. When Daniel returned home that night,
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he cleaned up the scene and had a shower. All actions that the prosecution
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would argue meant that Daniel had committed murder when he'd killed Alicia. The prosecution
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was in a position to put this to the court because Daniel wanted to plead
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to the lesser charge of manslaughter to avoid going to trial. The courts found
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that they agreed with the prosecution. Daniel's actions that night were underlined with cold
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calculations and chilling problem solving that had left the investigators stumped. If he hadn't
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come forward himself, who knows if the police would have ever turned their suspicions
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away from Sean and towards Daniel on their own. At the trial, the
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video of Daniel's tape confession continued to play. When asked to write a letter
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to Alicia and her loved ones, Daniel then broke down and started crying.
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I would say I had no right to take your daughter's life. I am
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beyond words. I cannot possibly express how sorry I am for what I've done.
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Sharon Fortis, Aelicia's mother, sat in the second row of the courtroom,
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watching the confession and crying into her tissues. Daniel's mother, Olga sat
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in the very back, listening to the words her son says. He spoke
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to her, her fingers around her rosary as Daniel could be heard saying,
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I should have never been born. I told her that I'd never do this
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to hurt you. I'd never put you in this position, all the shame
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and humiliation you're going to have to bear being associated with me. You know
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that she doesn't need that. She's seventy one. At trial, Daniel appeared
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unmoved by the footage of himself, but perhaps seeing the crying members of the
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jury had already clued him into what was in store for him. When faced
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with the dilemma of whether Daniel had meant to kill Alicia that night or not,
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the jury took three hours and forty five minutes to think it through.
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If it had been in accidents, or at least not premeditated, Daniel would
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be found guilty of manslaughter and not murder, and would be given a lesser
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sentence. The jury agreed with the prosecution. The continued beating and kneeling on
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Alicia followed by the cold and calculated way Daniel had taken care of covering up
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his crimes meant that it had least been intentional to some degree. Maybe Daniel
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had not approached Alicia that night with the idea or motive to kill her,
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but he had several points in time where he could have stopped before things became
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irreversible. Daniel was found guilty of second degree murder and sentenced to life,
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with the possibility of parole after sixteen years. With his name now officially cleared,
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Alicia's boyfriend, Sean was able to breathe a sigh of relief and start
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the process of healing. His father, Kenhein, spoke to the Toronto Son
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shortly after Daniel Silvester had turned himself in and said that Sean was going through
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a lot of emotions and only just coming to terms with the fact that his
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girlfriend was murdered and is not coming back on behalf of the public. Calumnist
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Mike Strobel wrote an article in The Toronto Sun apologizing to Sean Heine and what
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he had gone through during the course of Felicia's investigation. That's ten minute murder
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for today, brief and binge able, true Crime. My name is Joe,
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I'm the host, and thank you for taking the time to listen to
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ten Minute Murder and the story today makes you wonder, makes you put yourself
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in shawn shoes. Man or woman. If you're in a relationship and your
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partner turns up missing, possibly murdered, what do you even do? You
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know for a fact that you had nothing to do with it. You want
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to cooperate with the police, but they want you to take a light detector
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test. And if you've listened to this show at all, you know that
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I'm not on the side of lie detector tests. They're a little better than
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a coin flip. They're basically a tool for the police to try to pin
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something on you or try to get you to admit something, and if you've
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done nothing wrong, there's no point of taking that thing, you know what
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I mean. But you also want to cooperate so that you can clear your
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own name and they can focus on finding your girlfriend, or focus on finding
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who did something to your girlfriend or boyfriend, whatever the case may be.
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It's difficult because you never really know what you're gonna do until, like Sean,
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you find yourself in that situation. So man, it's got to be
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tough, and I pray that none of you have to go through that.
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But think about it, what would you do if you were in Sean hein
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shoes in that situation? Hey, make sure you follow the podcast on social
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media links from the show notes, or you can go to ten minute murder
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dot com for all things related to the podcast. You can also contact me
10:50
there. There's a place you can contact me on ten minute murder dot com
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or just as easily send me an email Joe at ten minute murder dot com.
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And that's it. That's your episode for today. Thank you so much
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for listening to ten Minute Murder.