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[From the Archives] Hell and Gone Murder Line: Shannon Hercutt · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:46
Speaker 1: School of Humans. Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold
0:52
Speaker 1: case murders in an effort to raise public awareness invite
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Speaker 1: witnesses to come forward and present evidence that could potentially
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Speaker 1: be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights
1:03
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
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Speaker 1: inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone has
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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.
1:28
Speaker 2: On August third, two thousand and nine, just before midnight,
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Speaker 2: an on Star satellite service got a notification of an
1:35
Speaker 2: emergency from inside a Cadillac Escalae that had crashed. The
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Speaker 2: vehicle had plunged off a cliff just off Walker Trail
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Speaker 2: in Severe count Tennessee. The on Star service called nine
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Speaker 2: one one and police responded to the scene. They found
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Speaker 2: a bent guard rail. The car was in the middle
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Speaker 2: of the woods, so it was hard to get down
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Speaker 2: to the crash scene. Deputies had to repel to the
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Speaker 2: bottom of a one hundred and twenty five foot drop off.
2:01
Speaker 2: When they got down there, they saw the black two
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Speaker 2: thousand and seven Cadillac Escalade. Inside the twisted metal wreckage
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Speaker 2: of that car, they found the body of forty year
2:12
Speaker 2: old Shannon her Cut. At first, the Tennessee Highway Patrol
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Speaker 2: said Shannon had died in a car accident. It seemed
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Speaker 2: like a tragic fatality, but nothing more than that. But
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Speaker 2: a few days later, Shannon Hercut's manner of death was
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Speaker 2: changed to homicide. Local authorities said someone had beaten her
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Speaker 2: to death, then put her inside the car to stage
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Speaker 2: the accident. Shannon was well known. She was friendly and outgoing,
2:38
Speaker 2: a successful and well liked local businesswoman, but according to
2:42
Speaker 2: her own family, she was also someone who had a
2:45
Speaker 2: lot of secrets. There had been family feuds and legal
2:49
Speaker 2: battles related to her business and possibly some people suggested,
2:54
Speaker 2: maybe even a secret lover. Now, over the years, this
2:58
Speaker 2: case has been covered multiple times. It's been covered by
3:01
Speaker 2: local media, national media, and even doctor Phil And every
3:05
Speaker 2: time I hear about this story, the same narrative has
3:08
Speaker 2: been put forward. But as you all know, I want
3:11
Speaker 2: to go behind the scenes and see what we can
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Speaker 2: do to take this case forward who killed Shannon Hercut.
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Speaker 2: I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past five years making my
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Speaker 2: true crime podcast, Telling Gone, I've learned there's no such
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Speaker 2: thing as a small town where murder never happens. I've
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Speaker 2: received hundreds of messages from people all around the country
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Speaker 2: asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them,
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Speaker 2: their families, and their communities. And now they have a
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Speaker 2: new way to reach out. You have a case you'd
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Speaker 2: like me and my team to look into, you can
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Speaker 2: reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line
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Speaker 2: at six seven eight seven four four six one four five.
3:54
Speaker 2: That's six seven eight seven four four six one four five.
3:59
Speaker 2: This is Helen Gone Murder Line. I was contacted about
4:51
Speaker 2: the Shannon her Cut case by listener a while back.
4:55
Speaker 2: As always, we start with victimology. We want to know
4:58
Speaker 2: who Shannon was and what was going on in her
5:01
Speaker 2: life in the time period immediately before she died. Shannon
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Speaker 2: her Cut was born in Severeville, Tennessee, on May twenty second,
5:09
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty nine. This is an area that gets a
5:12
Speaker 2: lot of tourists. It's in the Great Smoky Mountains and
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Speaker 2: it's near Dollywood. Dolly Parton's theme park in Pigeon Forge.
5:19
Speaker 2: Shannon's mom, Patricia, ran a general store that she opened
5:22
Speaker 2: up in the early nineties. It was called Anti Bellam's. Eventually,
5:26
Speaker 2: Shannon went out on her own. She opened up a
5:29
Speaker 2: real estate and rental business, also using the family business name.
5:33
Speaker 2: Shannon's business was called Anti Bellum's Realty and Rentals. It
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Speaker 2: was in Pigeon Forge, near where she grew up. Opening
5:40
Speaker 2: this business was a very smart mood because over the
5:43
Speaker 2: the years the demand for rental properties skyrocketed in that area,
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Speaker 2: and Shannon did very well for herself. She was in
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Speaker 2: charge of renting out around one hundred and thirty cabins.
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Speaker 2: She also oversaw other projects, including the opening of a
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Speaker 2: local playground called Mount Ton of Fun. In media reports,
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Speaker 2: Shannon is described as single and happy. She never married
6:05
Speaker 2: and didn't have any children, but she had a lot
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Speaker 2: of friends and was active in her town and in
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Speaker 2: her church. One of her relatives in an interview, made
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Speaker 2: a comment about Shannon being strong willed, which can sometimes
6:19
Speaker 2: mean if someone's very opinionated, perhaps that could point to
6:22
Speaker 2: them getting into conflict with people. But a lot of
6:25
Speaker 2: people said that Shannon was generally very well liked at
6:27
Speaker 2: work and that the people who worked for her were
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Speaker 2: very loyal to her. But her life wasn't perfect. At
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Speaker 2: the time of her death in two thousand and nine,
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Speaker 2: Shannon was dealing with difficult relationships with several different people.
6:41
Speaker 2: As we often see, big success sometimes brings business rivals
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Speaker 2: or threats of lawsuits and people wanting money. One of
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Speaker 2: the people Shannon was feuding with was her own father, Ted.
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Speaker 2: Her cut.
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Speaker 1: Again.
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Speaker 2: Over the years, everything that I've read about this case
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Speaker 2: has seemed to have the same narrative that a lot
7:02
Speaker 2: of people suspect Ted, and that he totally denies that
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Speaker 2: he's involved in his daughter's death. So now we fast
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Speaker 2: forward to August third, two thousand and nine. In the
7:12
Speaker 2: hours immediately following that car crash. On that day, Ted
7:17
Speaker 2: Hircut had an alibi. At the time of Shannon's murder,
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Speaker 2: he was almost four hundred miles away in Myrtle Beach,
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Speaker 2: South Carolina with his wife, Shannon's stepmother, Anita. His other daughter,
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Speaker 2: Shannon's sister, Penny Stevens, was also nearby vacationing with her
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Speaker 2: young daughter. Later on, when Ted and Penny appeared on
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Speaker 2: Doctor Phil in what was a very emotional and memorable episode.
7:41
Speaker 2: Ted told doctor Phil that he got a call from
7:44
Speaker 2: his former son in law, a guy named Jerry Stevens,
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Speaker 2: who used to be married to Penny and who apparently
7:49
Speaker 2: worked in law enforcement. Ted said Jerry called him to
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Speaker 2: break the news that Shannon's body had been found. Penny
7:56
Speaker 2: got the news on the same day, and she later
7:58
Speaker 2: told reporters that when she heard what happened to her sister,
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Speaker 2: she immediately thought that this could not have been an accident.
8:05
Speaker 2: Ted said he also immediately suspected this had not been
8:08
Speaker 2: a traffic accident. There were some details that just seemed off,
8:12
Speaker 2: like the fact that Shannon was not wearing her seat
8:14
Speaker 2: belt when the car crashed. Apparently she always made a
8:18
Speaker 2: point of wearing her seat belt. Her family also wondered
8:21
Speaker 2: why she would be driving in that area alone late
8:24
Speaker 2: at night, which was definitely not a part of her
8:26
Speaker 2: regular routine. But most crucially, when the car was found,
8:32
Speaker 2: both the driver's side and passenger window were down. Both
8:36
Speaker 2: Ted and Penny, his daughter, agreed Shannon would never have
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Speaker 2: those windows down because she was obsessed about keeping her
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Speaker 2: hair perfect, and obviously, in that high humidity, having both
8:49
Speaker 2: windows down with the wind blowing in her hair was
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Speaker 2: just not something that they said Shannon would ever do.
8:54
Speaker 2: If she did have to go out after dark, she
8:56
Speaker 2: would have those windows up and she would have the
8:58
Speaker 2: ac blasting. Police ruled Shannon's death an accident and they
9:05
Speaker 2: didn't want to do an autopsy, but Ted insisted. He
9:09
Speaker 2: refused to sign a form allowing Shannon to be buried.
9:13
Speaker 2: He also called a friend of his, a guy named
9:15
Speaker 2: Jerry Grubbs now. Jerry was a retired National Park Service
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Speaker 2: ranger who also worked in law enforcement and later became
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Speaker 2: a private investigator. Jerry said that he found physical evidence
9:26
Speaker 2: at that crime scene, physical evidence he said, was overlooked
9:29
Speaker 2: both by the Sheriff's office and the Tennessee Highway Patrol.
9:33
Speaker 2: In a video that Jerry posted on YouTube, he films
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Speaker 2: the area where the car wrecked and says, based on
9:40
Speaker 2: how that car was found, he thinks that it basically
9:43
Speaker 2: did a straight drop. He said that if the car
9:46
Speaker 2: had been traveling at any rate of speed, it would
9:49
Speaker 2: have been airborne and it would have been found way
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Speaker 2: deeper in the forest. There was also no real damage
9:55
Speaker 2: to the windshield and no skid marks from the tire
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Speaker 2: tracks of the scene, which presumably meant that no one
10:01
Speaker 2: slammed on the brakes to try to avoid an accident. Later,
10:04
Speaker 2: a team went in and they found out through looking
10:07
Speaker 2: at the car's electrical system that Shannon had only been
10:10
Speaker 2: traveling at seven miles per hour before the crash. She
10:13
Speaker 2: wasn't even going fast enough for her air bags to
10:16
Speaker 2: deploy Ted told reporters that Shannon's injuries did not appear
10:20
Speaker 2: to have come from the car crash. He said at
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Speaker 2: the time quote the paramedics said her head had a
10:27
Speaker 2: gash in it the size of a grapefruit, and there
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Speaker 2: was nothing inside the car that could have made that
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Speaker 2: gash end quote. At that point, the Sheriff's office investigators
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Speaker 2: finally agreed to an autopsy, and when that autopsy came back,
10:41
Speaker 2: it became clear that Shannon's injury had not happened in
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Speaker 2: the car accident. Police said someone beat her to death
10:49
Speaker 2: at her home, put her inside that car, and pushed
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Speaker 2: her over that hill. Cause of death was blunt forced
10:56
Speaker 2: trauma to Shannon's head, and the manner of death was
10:59
Speaker 2: changed from accident to homicide. Three days after Shannon's body
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Speaker 2: was found, police finally went to her house to look
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Speaker 2: around Shannon's sister Penny went to her house too. She
11:18
Speaker 2: was there to pick out an outfit for her sister
11:20
Speaker 2: to be buried in. She later told Knox News that
11:24
Speaker 2: when she arrived to that house, she saw that some
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Speaker 2: things in her sister's residence seemed to be out of place.
11:30
Speaker 2: She saw a baseball bat in the back of Shannon's
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Speaker 2: work truck. She also saw what appeared to be blood
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Speaker 2: on the refrigerator that was in Shannon's garage, right by
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Speaker 2: the handle. She told the news station quote, I had
11:44
Speaker 2: noticed two wine cooler type bottles on the floor busted
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Speaker 2: and that was it. There were also no signs of
11:51
Speaker 2: forced entry. Police had a few theories at this point,
11:55
Speaker 2: but no real leads. They considered the possibility that it
11:58
Speaker 2: could have been an angry client of Shannon's, someone that
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Speaker 2: she had a business to spete with, but Penny made
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Speaker 2: it clear that she had another prime suspect in mind
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Speaker 2: for Shannon's murder, their father, Ted har Cut. So let's
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Speaker 2: go back and look at the family relationships. Penny and
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Speaker 2: Ted appeared on The Doctor Phil's show in twenty fifteen,
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Speaker 2: and on that show, it's immediately clear that there is
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Speaker 2: a lot of animosity between Ted and Penny. She told
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Speaker 2: doctor phil that since she was very young, her father
12:32
Speaker 2: had been behaving in extremely disturbing ways. She said he'd
12:35
Speaker 2: been emotionally abusive and that he was greedy and a
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Speaker 2: pathological liar. And when Ted HRCUT came out and tried
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Speaker 2: to hug his daughter on stage, she refused to touch
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Speaker 2: him or have anything to do with him. Reading between
12:49
Speaker 2: the lines, it seems like the bad blood between Ted
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Speaker 2: and Shannon got worse after Penny and Shannon's mother, Patricia
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Speaker 2: passed away. That happened in two thousand and eight. Patricia
13:02
Speaker 2: died after a long battle with cancer. She had been
13:06
Speaker 2: divorced from Ted for several years by then. After Patricia's death,
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Speaker 2: Shannon inherited a piece of land from her, a piece
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Speaker 2: of land that was apparently worth about a million dollars.
13:19
Speaker 2: Shannon and Ted got into a legal battle for that land.
13:23
Speaker 2: They started fighting after Patricia's death, so about a year
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Speaker 2: before Shannon was murdered. By the time of Shannon's death,
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Speaker 2: Ted admitted that he and his daughter were estranged. They
13:33
Speaker 2: were not talking at all, They were only communicating through lawyers.
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Speaker 2: So what was really going on? When Shannon her cuts
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Speaker 2: will in two thousand and three, Shannon made a way
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Speaker 2: will and she left twenty nine percent of her state
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Speaker 2: to her father Ted. But in two thousand and six,
13:49
Speaker 2: Shannon made another will, and in that will she specifically
13:52
Speaker 2: mentioned that it was her wish that neither Ted nor
13:55
Speaker 2: his wife would inherit anything from her. Now, Penny claimed
13:59
Speaker 2: Ted was furious about that, about the fact that Shannon
14:02
Speaker 2: had cut him out of the will, but Ted has
14:05
Speaker 2: always totally denied that. Penny has always said that her
14:09
Speaker 2: father's motive in killing Shannon was money. But who really
14:14
Speaker 2: gained from Shannon's death? Because we know that Ted didn't
14:17
Speaker 2: inherit anything. Nod explain this. Penny said that Ted didn't
14:23
Speaker 2: realize Shannon had changed her will, so he would have
14:25
Speaker 2: thought that he might inherit something from her. Ted said
14:28
Speaker 2: he never expected anything from his daughter's will and that
14:31
Speaker 2: he never needed any money from her. On Doctor Phil
14:35
Speaker 2: Ted looked genuinely shocked when Penny stated bluntly she believed
14:38
Speaker 2: he had hired a hip man to kill her sister.
14:42
Speaker 2: I believe that Penny is since I think she is
14:44
Speaker 2: convinced that her dad had something to do with Shannon's
14:47
Speaker 2: death and that she was afraid of him, and if
14:51
Speaker 2: you watch their interactions, it's clear, in my opinion, that
14:55
Speaker 2: there's something about Ted that seems off. At certain moments,
14:59
Speaker 2: he appears to be unhinged. I also think it's possible
15:02
Speaker 2: that he's lying about a few things, like the weird
15:05
Speaker 2: vandalism of Shannon's business that happened back in November of
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Speaker 2: two thousand and nine, just a few months after Shannon's murder.
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Speaker 2: On November twentieth, Pigeon Force police responded to shots fired
15:17
Speaker 2: at Shannon's business, Annie Bellham's realty in Nightly Rentals. Someone
15:21
Speaker 2: had shown up there and started firing shots into the
15:24
Speaker 2: front door. They fired off eight rounds in all. Penny
15:28
Speaker 2: said her father had confessed to her that he was
15:31
Speaker 2: the one who shot up the business, and when Doctor
15:34
Speaker 2: Phil asked Ted about this, he kind of sidesteps the question.
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Speaker 2: It does seem like he could be lying about vandalizing
15:42
Speaker 2: that business. The Doctor Phil's show had a lot more
15:47
Speaker 2: family drama on. They also had Ted's third wife, Jan,
15:52
Speaker 2: who he married in the summer of twenty fourteen. After
15:55
Speaker 2: just three weeks of marriage, Ted got in annulment and
15:58
Speaker 2: the marriage fell apart. Jan told Doctor Phil that Ted
16:02
Speaker 2: had what she called a dark side. Now, I've been
16:06
Speaker 2: on Doctor Phil before talking about the Ebbie Stepec case,
16:09
Speaker 2: and so I actually know a lot about how this
16:11
Speaker 2: process works. I spent several weeks with the producers doing
16:15
Speaker 2: in depth research and giving them information about what was
16:18
Speaker 2: going on with the case, and I knew this in
16:20
Speaker 2: advance of the information that I gave them. They only
16:23
Speaker 2: aired a tiny portion of it. They do that for
16:26
Speaker 2: a lot of reasons. First of all, there's very limited
16:29
Speaker 2: time to present the case, so you can't go too
16:31
Speaker 2: deep into the woods. But also, and this is not
16:34
Speaker 2: an insult to TV producers, but their primary purpose is
16:38
Speaker 2: presenting the story and making good TV. It's not really
16:42
Speaker 2: solving a case. So instead of going deeper into suspects,
16:47
Speaker 2: what we got on Doctor Phil was more family drama.
16:50
Speaker 2: Because then Ted came on again and he said Jan
16:53
Speaker 2: had a criminal history and that she had stolen four
16:56
Speaker 2: hundred dollars from him and stolen his credit cards. There's
16:59
Speaker 2: a lot more family drama that plays out on the
17:01
Speaker 2: show that I'm not going to get into. But at
17:04
Speaker 2: the end of the episode, my takeaway was that Doctor
17:07
Speaker 2: Phil seemed to come to basically the same conclusion that
17:10
Speaker 2: I did. He said Ted may be an asshole, but
17:14
Speaker 2: that doesn't mean he's a killer or that he hired
17:16
Speaker 2: a hitman. He kept saying the same question I was asking,
17:19
Speaker 2: which is what's the actual evidence that at that moment
17:23
Speaker 2: in two thousand and nine, Ted would have had a
17:26
Speaker 2: motive to kill his daughter. With all of these cases,
17:30
Speaker 2: when you have so many crazy rumors flying around, and
17:33
Speaker 2: especially when there are complicated family dynamics and accusations, I
17:37
Speaker 2: always talk about how important it is to filter out
17:41
Speaker 2: what I call the noise of the case, and while
17:44
Speaker 2: we want to keep an open mind and not ignore
17:46
Speaker 2: any possibilities, I think that the Shannon her Cut case
17:50
Speaker 2: is a great example of this. We need to filter
17:53
Speaker 2: out all of the family drama and focus on the
17:55
Speaker 2: facts of the case. As we've said several times over
17:59
Speaker 2: the years, being a creep is not illegal and it
18:02
Speaker 2: doesn't make you a killer. Ted has never been charged
18:06
Speaker 2: in connection with Shannon's murder. He's always denied having anything
18:09
Speaker 2: to do with it. I honestly think that at this
18:13
Speaker 2: point the evidence points away from him, and there are
18:15
Speaker 2: a few reasons why. First of all, Ted was one
18:19
Speaker 2: of the first people to demand that Shannon's body be
18:22
Speaker 2: taken in for an autopsy. He got that expert Jerry
18:25
Speaker 2: Grubbs to go to the scene. He told anyone who
18:27
Speaker 2: would listen over the years that his daughter's death was
18:30
Speaker 2: not an accident, which does not seem like the actions
18:33
Speaker 2: of a person who killed his daughter. If Ted had
18:36
Speaker 2: been involved in Shannon's death, it seems like the last
18:40
Speaker 2: thing he would have done, especially after the death had
18:42
Speaker 2: already been ruled naxtident and she was getting ready to
18:44
Speaker 2: be buried, is to go public and demand that police
18:48
Speaker 2: investigate the possibility of murder. Ted died in twenty seventeen,
18:54
Speaker 2: so if Ted was involved, whatever secrets he had would
18:57
Speaker 2: have died with him. Even now, police say they've never
19:02
Speaker 2: found any connection between Ted and Shannon's murder. If that's
19:07
Speaker 2: the case, that means that Shannon's killer is still out there.
19:10
Speaker 2: And though police have been pretty tight lipped about the
19:13
Speaker 2: investigation so far, one investigator has said they believe the
19:17
Speaker 2: evidence points to someone outside the family, but someone who
19:21
Speaker 2: knew Shannon. He also said they believe they know the
19:25
Speaker 2: killer's motive. He made this kind of cryptic comment. He said,
19:30
Speaker 2: if I told you what it was, it'd be obvious
19:33
Speaker 2: who I was talking about. So to sum up, I
19:37
Speaker 2: don't think that the evidence points to Ted, and at
19:40
Speaker 2: least one of the investigators on the case agrees. Let's
19:45
Speaker 2: move away from the family drama between Ted and his
19:47
Speaker 2: daughter Penny and back to what we know, Back to
19:50
Speaker 2: the crime scene, with the evidence. We know where the
19:55
Speaker 2: car crashed. We know that this was a staged crime scene.
19:59
Speaker 2: The real crime scene took place at Shannon's house, probably
20:02
Speaker 2: in her garage. Then the killer or killers tried to
20:06
Speaker 2: make it look like a car accident. The real crime
20:09
Speaker 2: scene took place at Shannon's house, probably in her garage.
20:14
Speaker 2: We know this because Shannon's sister Penny saw smears of
20:17
Speaker 2: blood on the outside refrigerator that's in the garage. That's
20:22
Speaker 2: also where she found the two broken wine cooler bottles.
20:26
Speaker 2: Shannon was beaten to death, then the killer or killers
20:30
Speaker 2: put her in her own car and tried to make
20:32
Speaker 2: it look like a car accident. Like the investigator said
20:36
Speaker 2: to me, the crime scene and manner of death point
20:39
Speaker 2: to someone who knew Shannon. Well, there are a couple
20:42
Speaker 2: of possibilities. It could have been a crime of passion.
20:45
Speaker 2: But from my other podcast, Red Caller, I know that
20:48
Speaker 2: sometimes fraud detection. Homicides murders where the motive was money
20:52
Speaker 2: can also look like crimes of passion. So let's explore
20:55
Speaker 2: the hit man theory. A lot of people have made
20:58
Speaker 2: the comment that if this was a planned hit, it
21:01
Speaker 2: was a very sloppy job. Apparently that's not that uncommon, though.
21:06
Speaker 2: Former FBI criminal profiler Frank Perry, who wrote the book
21:10
Speaker 2: Red Caller and White Collar Crime, which was about red
21:14
Speaker 2: collar criminals and had a whole chapter about committing murder
21:17
Speaker 2: for hire, wrote that often killers who commit white collar
21:21
Speaker 2: crime and then who kill to cover up their fraud.
21:25
Speaker 2: Often when they hire killers, they kind of go cheap.
21:29
Speaker 2: They don't have much money, so they'll go with really
21:32
Speaker 2: amateur killers instead of hiring professionals like the mob does.
21:36
Speaker 2: They hire people who basically are unemployed grifters, people who
21:40
Speaker 2: are floating around doing illegal or semi illegal kind of stuff.
21:43
Speaker 2: And often when they do hire these amateurs, the amateurs
21:48
Speaker 2: will tell a lot of people what they've done, and
21:50
Speaker 2: that's how they get caught. If this had been a
21:53
Speaker 2: professional hit, the killer would not have left behind so
21:57
Speaker 2: many obvious signs of staging. They would have cleaned up
22:00
Speaker 2: Shannon's garage. But most crucially, the thing that makes me
22:04
Speaker 2: move away from the hip man theory is the fact
22:06
Speaker 2: that I went back through the literature when red collar
22:10
Speaker 2: criminals hire hitmen, every single example I could find involves
22:15
Speaker 2: the killer bringing their own weapon. It's not impossible for
22:20
Speaker 2: a hit man to come to someone's house and not
22:22
Speaker 2: bring a weapon and then stop to drink a wine
22:25
Speaker 2: cooler with a victim, but it seems very unlikely. The
22:29
Speaker 2: only exception to this would be, of course, if the
22:31
Speaker 2: hip man was someone Shannon knew. The hip man theory
22:35
Speaker 2: isn't impossible. We have to keep an open mind, but
22:38
Speaker 2: in my opinion, with everything that we know, it seems
22:41
Speaker 2: more and more unlikely whether a killer is financially motivated
22:47
Speaker 2: or whether they're motivated by something else like jealousy or rage.
22:51
Speaker 2: The reason why they kill is to solve a problem
22:54
Speaker 2: because they're losing control over a situation. So if the
22:58
Speaker 2: motive for Shannon's murder was financial, we need to look
23:02
Speaker 2: at who could have benefited financially from Shannon's death. After
23:06
Speaker 2: Shannon died, Penny Stevens, her sister, and a first cousin
23:10
Speaker 2: of theirs named John Madwell inherited Shannon's real estate business,
23:14
Speaker 2: Annie Bellams. They started running the company together and according
23:18
Speaker 2: to the last information that I found, the company is
23:21
Speaker 2: still around as of a few years ago. At lease,
23:24
Speaker 2: the cousin John Madwell was running the business with his wife.
23:28
Speaker 2: I just want to be clear, I don't think for
23:29
Speaker 2: a second that Penny was involved in her sister's murder.
23:33
Speaker 2: I think she comes across as genuinely distraught, someone who
23:36
Speaker 2: loved her sister and wants to get justice for her.
23:39
Speaker 2: And she's also been the one who has been very
23:41
Speaker 2: vocal about keeping her sister's case public eye over the years.
23:46
Speaker 2: But I think there's someone we might be overlooking. Was
23:50
Speaker 2: there someone who was involved in a business deal with Shannon? Again,
23:55
Speaker 2: this is pure speculation because no one has ever suggested this,
23:59
Speaker 2: But could Shannon have found herself caught up in some
24:01
Speaker 2: kind of fraudulent behavior or was someone defrauding her and
24:05
Speaker 2: she was threatening to go to law enforcement or to
24:07
Speaker 2: sue that person. I'm making this point because right now,
24:11
Speaker 2: when you look at the evidence, there's no obvious windfall.
24:15
Speaker 2: We need to follow the money on this case. We
24:17
Speaker 2: need to see if there were any lawsuits pending exactly
24:20
Speaker 2: what was going on in Shannon's business at the time
24:23
Speaker 2: of her death. In addition to the money trail, we
24:27
Speaker 2: need to go back again to the stage crime scene,
24:30
Speaker 2: which in my opinion, is our biggest clue so far.
24:34
Speaker 2: In a publication called Collision or Collusion Homicide Staged as
24:38
Speaker 2: Car Accidents by Claire Ferguson, which was published in the
24:40
Speaker 2: National Library of Health, the author describes sixteen homicides that
24:45
Speaker 2: were staged as car accidents. The descriptive analysis examined common
24:49
Speaker 2: staging behaviors and victim, offender and offense characteristics. Her findings
24:55
Speaker 2: indicate that staged car accidents present differently than real accidents,
25:00
Speaker 2: and in a nutshell, every single thing that she mentioned
25:04
Speaker 2: sounded like it could have been taken straight out of
25:07
Speaker 2: Shannon's case. The article read quote. They often involve single vehicle,
25:12
Speaker 2: slow speed downhill scenes with middle aged female victims. Physical
25:17
Speaker 2: damage to vehicles is usually minimal, except for fire damage.
25:21
Speaker 2: Common offender behaviors include transporting the body to a vehicle,
25:24
Speaker 2: mutilation of the body, arson, and clean up. The results
25:28
Speaker 2: suggest these efforts are often unsophisticated and potentially identifiable to
25:33
Speaker 2: investigators and physicians. End quote. I think we need to
25:37
Speaker 2: focus more on Shannon's private life. We've heard from her sister,
25:41
Speaker 2: and her sister said, but Shannon did not tell her
25:45
Speaker 2: and her mother a lot about certain aspects of her life.
25:48
Speaker 2: That Shannon had been a private person. While investigators were
25:53
Speaker 2: focusing on the car crash scene, the real crime scene,
25:57
Speaker 2: in my opinion, was back at Shannon's house. Of course,
26:00
Speaker 2: it wasn't properly processed in the beginning as a crime scene. Remember,
26:04
Speaker 2: Penny arrived at the house when the police started their investigation.
26:08
Speaker 2: Both Ted and Penny said there were two broken wine
26:11
Speaker 2: cooler bottles on the floor of the garage, which were
26:14
Speaker 2: totally out of place because Shannon was a neat freak.
26:18
Speaker 2: Her family members said, Shannon never would have left her
26:20
Speaker 2: house looking like that. I wonder if Shannon was seeing someone,
26:25
Speaker 2: maybe a current or ex boyfriend, someone who hasn't been
26:27
Speaker 2: mentioned as a person of interest at all, and with
26:30
Speaker 2: all this family drama, someone who's been flying under the
26:33
Speaker 2: radar all this time. Shannon was officially single. But again,
26:37
Speaker 2: her sister, Penny told reporters that Shannon was secretive about
26:40
Speaker 2: certain aspects of her personal life, that she didn't tell
26:44
Speaker 2: certain things to her or to their mom. So what
26:47
Speaker 2: do we know about crime scene staging? Again, we have
26:51
Speaker 2: no access to the police case file, so we have
26:54
Speaker 2: to go back to my bookshelf. We need to go
26:57
Speaker 2: back to what we know about crime scene staging. According
27:00
Speaker 2: to the excellent book crime Scene Staging, Dynamics and Homicidal
27:03
Speaker 2: Cases by doctor Laura Petler, the most commonly staged crime
27:07
Speaker 2: scenes are done in cases of domestic violence or intimate
27:10
Speaker 2: partner homicides. Crime Scene staging happens basically to serve the
27:16
Speaker 2: killer's needs, not the victims. It happens because the victim
27:19
Speaker 2: and the offender had a relationship with each other. We
27:22
Speaker 2: can also surmise the killer knew the area. At least
27:26
Speaker 2: they knew it well enough to know where there was
27:28
Speaker 2: a cliff a place where they could push that escalade off.
27:32
Speaker 2: The area where she was found walk or trail is
27:35
Speaker 2: over five miles away from Shannon's house, so that means
27:39
Speaker 2: whoever did this presumably put Shannon in the car and
27:42
Speaker 2: then drove her via to the spot where they pushed
27:45
Speaker 2: it off. This is a huge risk. The killer would
27:49
Speaker 2: have to feel reasonably confident that they weren't going to
27:52
Speaker 2: pass anybody on the road, or if they did that
27:54
Speaker 2: they wouldn't look out of place in that car. Doctor
27:58
Speaker 2: Pettler in her book points out that while there are
28:01
Speaker 2: words for crimes like matricide and patricide, there's no real
28:05
Speaker 2: term that covers a person who was intimately involved with
28:08
Speaker 2: the victim but not married to them. She says, she
28:12
Speaker 2: refers to these murders as intimacides someone who was intimately
28:16
Speaker 2: involved with the victim, and this can include close friends
28:19
Speaker 2: who are crashing on a couch, or potentially people who
28:23
Speaker 2: are dating the victim or sexually involved with them, also
28:25
Speaker 2: ex partners. Another study of homicides staged as car accidents
28:31
Speaker 2: investigated one hundred and fifteen cases. Now, admittedly this is
28:35
Speaker 2: not a huge group and definitely a lot more research
28:38
Speaker 2: is needed in this area, but again, they found an
28:42
Speaker 2: over eighty percent of the cases is the killer was
28:45
Speaker 2: the domestic partner or former domestic partner the victim. In
28:49
Speaker 2: a lot of these cases, the killer used blunt force
28:53
Speaker 2: and basically beat the victim to death. In Shannon's case,
28:58
Speaker 2: police were very quick to classify her death as an
29:03
Speaker 2: accident based on the crime scene, and this is a
29:05
Speaker 2: common mistake that law enforcement make a lot. They focus
29:09
Speaker 2: on crime scene analysis very early on. They need to
29:13
Speaker 2: go back to victimology. They need to get more knowledge
29:17
Speaker 2: about what's actually going on with the victim at the
29:19
Speaker 2: time of death. So when we're trying to figure out
29:23
Speaker 2: what happened to Shannon her cut, we need to keep
29:25
Speaker 2: an open mind and always be curious. We need to
29:28
Speaker 2: ask ourselves why would someone stage the scene that way?
29:32
Speaker 2: Because they did it for a reason. Maybe it was
29:35
Speaker 2: because they didn't want to be the person who would
29:37
Speaker 2: have to report her missing or to find her body.
29:40
Speaker 2: Maybe it was because they didn't want to have their
29:42
Speaker 2: nine to one one call analyze. So we need to
29:46
Speaker 2: know more about who was in Shannon's close circle, maybe
29:50
Speaker 2: an ex boyfriend or former lover, maybe someone who, if
29:54
Speaker 2: they were the person who found her body, would have
29:57
Speaker 2: aroused suspicion with the police. We need to talk to
30:00
Speaker 2: the people closest to her, who was Shannon's best friend,
30:04
Speaker 2: who was in her circle, who knew about her personal relationships.
30:07
Speaker 2: If that person is out there, we haven't heard from
30:10
Speaker 2: them yet. Severe County investigators have said this case is
30:15
Speaker 2: still open and still actively being investigated. There is still
30:19
Speaker 2: a forty five thousand dollars reward in place still available
30:22
Speaker 2: for any information that will lead to the arrest and
30:25
Speaker 2: conviction of whoever killed Shannon her Cut. Anyone who has information,
30:30
Speaker 2: I ask that you please reach out to the Severe
30:32
Speaker 2: County Sheriff's Office Criminal Investigation Division at eight sixty five
30:36
Speaker 2: four two eight, one, eight nine nine or TBI at
30:41
Speaker 2: one eight hundred TBI fined. I'm Katherine Townsend. This is
30:46
Speaker 2: Helen Gone Murder Line. If you have a case you'd
31:01
Speaker 2: like me and my team to look into, you can
31:03
Speaker 2: reach out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder
31:05
Speaker 2: Line at six seven, eight seven four four, six one
31:09
Speaker 2: four five. Hell and Gone is a production of School
31:13
Speaker 2: of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by
31:16
Speaker 2: me Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts. Music is
31:20
Speaker 2: by Ben Solee and this episode was scored by Miranda Hawkins.
31:25
Speaker 2: Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Elsie Crowley.
31:31
Speaker 2: If you have a case you'd like me and my
31:33
Speaker 2: team to look into, you can reach out to us
31:36
Speaker 2: at our Hell and Gone Murder Line at six seven, eight, seven, four, four,
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Speaker 2: six one four or five.
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Speaker 1: School of Humans