The Crime Scene: Wife of Green Beret Charged with His Murder

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Speaker 4 In January, a retired green beret named Clint Bonnell vanished without a trace. Now his wife has been charged with his gruesome murder, and his girlfriend is sharing her side of the story.

Speaker 4 Welcome to the crime scene.

Speaker 4 I'm Brad Milke. I host ABC's daily news podcast, Start Here, and every week we're bringing you the latest on what's big and what's new in the true crime space.

Speaker 4 This week, I'm talking to Elena Athens, the anchor and reporter who covered this case for ABC station WTVD in North Carolina. She's going to help us break down all the details here.
Hi, Elena.

Speaker 4 Hey there, Brad.

Speaker 3 How are you?

Speaker 4 I'm okay. Thanks for being here.
This story has really evolved quickly in the last few weeks, right? Can you just bring us up to speed? Where does the story start?

Speaker 3 Well, it starts back in January. Clinton Clint, that's who goes by.
Bonnell was in his second semester of physicians assistant school at Methodist University. That's in Fayetteville, North Carolina.

Speaker 3 Bonnell was a Green Beret. He had recently retired retired after 20 years of service.
And remember, a Green Beret is a name for someone in the U.S. Army Special Forces.

Speaker 3 They undertake some of the most sensitive missions. This is an elite force of the military.
Green Berets are specially trained. So on the morning of January 28th, Bonnell did not show up for class.

Speaker 3 And that really was out of the ordinary for him, according to his sister, who spoke with our ABC station, WTVD.

Speaker 6 I know what he was doing the day that he disappeared.

Speaker 7 And he was making plans for his life

Speaker 6 and studying for exams the next day. I mean,

Speaker 6 all signs point to him vanishing, not on his own accord.

Speaker 3 Also, according to the program director at the Physicians Assistant Program, he was this dedicated, passionate student.

Speaker 3 So when he did not show up for class, university employees knew something was off, something was wrong.

Speaker 3 A concerned university employee had called the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office and asked to do a welfare check.

Speaker 3 So when deputies got to his house, investigators say the car was there, as well as backpack, wallet, laptop. However, they say they could not find his cell phone.

Speaker 3 His wife, Shanna Cloud, was at home at the time. She allegedly told investigators she hadn't seen him since the day prior.
So that's January 27th. And then he hadn't come home that night.

Speaker 3 She did not file a missing person's report at the time. In an interesting twist, Bonnell had a girlfriend, and that girlfriend also called to have deputies do a welfare check.

Speaker 3 And we actually did go out to their house where the search warrants were executed, where the welfare checks were done. I just wanted to kind of get an idea of what this house looked like.

Speaker 3 It's an extremely rural part of Cumberland County. You're going to have nothing but trees and farmlands.
And this was a part of that town. All-wooded area.

Speaker 3 When we pulled up to the house, you couldn't get past this massive iron gate that's outside. And there's tall trees.

Speaker 3 If you looked hard enough, you could see the roof line, but it was very secluded, this home.

Speaker 4 I see. So then like cut off from people around it.
So at this point, the university is called for a welfare check and Bonnell's girlfriend is called for a welfare check.

Speaker 4 It's still a missing persons case at this point, right? How are police approaching it and how does that change?

Speaker 3 Well, it did change in a few days. January 30th, the case was reassigned to the homicide unit.
At that point, detectives, they expanded the search for him into Virginia.

Speaker 3 So there are some connections to Virginia. Bonnell's wife, Shanna Cloud, owned property there.

Speaker 3 We also learned in court that she was a traveling nurse and had even done some work for the Virginia Department of Corrections as a traveling nurse.

Speaker 3 So detectives, they executed a search warrant on Cloud's vehicle, rental property, as well as cell phone. They did multiple searches.

Speaker 3 There were multiple warrants that were issued in Cumberland County, Virginia to extract that information from Cloud's devices there so they could obtain digital data, cell phone records, video footage, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 4 And so it sounds like at that point, they must think there's some sort of foul play. What do they find?

Speaker 3 Well, this is where things take a turn, a gruesome turn at that.

Speaker 3 In February, so this is about a month after Bonnell was last seen, the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office received a call about human remains in a pond.

Speaker 3 So this is an extremely rural area of Cumberland County, and where this pond is located is only about three miles from Bonnell's house. And our station, WTVD, did obtain that call.

Speaker 8 Now, it looks like there might be a part of a body floating out in the water where I could spend their walkers, no legs or arms, or nothing only.

Speaker 3 So, we learned in court at the first appearance, deputies were only able to find the torso. The body was dismembered because of the conditions of the remains, immediate identification.

Speaker 3 That took some work. It was not possible at the immediate moment.
DNA was tested and eventually matched to Clint Bonnell.

Speaker 3 It was at this point that Shannon Cloud was charged with first-degree murder as well as concealment of death. Court records show she was denied bond.

Speaker 4 Wow. So they find this body with, again, so gruesome, it's been dismembered.
And then they make this arrest. You're at that first hearing, which I think is in late March.
What is that like?

Speaker 3 Well, I have to say, Brad, I have never attended a first appearance like this before. First off, the Cumberland County Courthouse, it operates very much like a federal courthouse.

Speaker 3 You are basically stripped of any modern conveniences that you are used to. You cannot bring in your laptop.
You cannot bring in your cell phone. It is very, very by the books.

Speaker 3 And that was the case at the Cumberland County Courthouse.

Speaker 3 And now you're in a position where I got to find a notebook and I have to do this old school style and, you know, shorthand what happens in court.

Speaker 3 The appearance itself was one of the longest I've ever attended for a first court appearance. These things typically are only five minutes long.
They're very, you know, routine.

Speaker 3 You have the prosecution who's rolling through what the charges are. The judge is going to tell, you know, the defendant what the potential penalties are.

Speaker 3 And then you have the defense who's going to enter in a plea. This first court appearance went about 45 minutes long.
And the prosecution really laid it all on the table.

Speaker 3 They went through the timeline. of what they are planning to present in court.
They also detailed some of the evidence that they plan to present once that trial does get underway.

Speaker 3 So it was, it was rather long. And at one point, I even turned to another reporter who was in the courtroom and I said, Are we really at a first appearance right now?

Speaker 3 Because I was just so surprised and taken aback how much was being put on the record at this first court appearance.

Speaker 3 And I also have to say, the setup itself at this first court appearance was a bit different. It's an extremely small courtroom.

Speaker 3 You know, you think of typical courtrooms and there's just rows and rows and rows of benches. But in this courtroom, there was really only four.
There were two on one side, two benches on the other.

Speaker 3 So on the right, you had all the media with our notebooks because we can't take notes on our cell phone. And then on the left side, you had family members on both sides.

Speaker 4 Oh, like sitting together on the same side of the room, then?

Speaker 3 Sitting on the same side, which is not usual. Usually they're on opposite sides, right?

Speaker 3 So on the first row, the first bench, you had Bonnell's sister seated immediately next to her was Bonnell's girlfriend.

Speaker 3 And then behind them was Shanna Cloud's daughter, who, as I found from the arrest affidavit, living in Florida. We learned in court she was a college student.

Speaker 3 We also learned that Bonnell had raised Shanna Cloud's daughter since she was three years old. So this is also someone who, you know, knows everyone.

Speaker 4 Right. Like everyone's very much intertwined here.

Speaker 3 Very intertwined and sitting within inches of each other. And I kept looking over because I was seated closest to that side of the room.
And, you know, everyone was really on their edge of their seat.

Speaker 3 You know, you had Bonnell's sister crying several times, being consoled. And then just behind her, you know, Shanna Cloud's daughter.
So it was a very tense, very tense court appearance.

Speaker 4 And you said that, so investigators have to kind of lay out, here's the evidence we've got that we would be able to present at trial. What is that evidence?

Speaker 4 Like, what are investigators actually pointing to that would connect Shanna Cloud to the murder of her husband?

Speaker 3 Well, investigators say they have video evidence of Cloud in the area where Bonnell's torso was recovered.

Speaker 3 According to the details from the first appearance that I went to in March, Bonnell went to a lawyer's office on January 27th to seek a divorce.

Speaker 3 Investigators believe Cloud shot and killed her husband the next day inside the couple's home.

Speaker 4 This is my question too, is looming over all this is clearly like the relationship elements that are happening here.

Speaker 4 So what do we know about the relationship between the husband and wife in the days leading up to all this?

Speaker 3 Yeah, new court documents revealed that Bonnell and Cloud had met up at the Fit for Life Health Club on January 27th. So, that's in terms of timeline, the day before he was reported missing.

Speaker 3 We learned in court that they both went their separate ways after meeting up at that fitness center. Cloud allegedly confronted him about a note she found, she believed, was from a romantic partner.

Speaker 3 The two left the gym again, separate vehicles. Cloud reported to go to a local grocery store, pick up some items.

Speaker 3 He also saw his girlfriend that day and attended a study session at Methodist University.

Speaker 4 So to be clear, if she's confronting him allegedly about this note from a romantic partner outside their relationship, it's not like this was known or accepted in their marriage.

Speaker 3 According to the prosecution, from that first court appearance, he had told the girlfriend. He made his wife aware that they were moving to separating.

Speaker 4 Aha. And recently, ABC News spoke exclusively to that girlfriend.
So we're going to take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to hear from that girlfriend.

Speaker 4 We're going to hear from Kelly Edwards herself.

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Speaker 4 We are back with Elena Athens from ABC station WTVD in North Carolina.

Speaker 4 So at this point, Clint Bonnell is married to Shanna Cloud, but he's also got this relationship with Kelly Edwards, effectively his girlfriend at the time that he vanishes.

Speaker 4 Well, recently, Kelly Edwards spoke exclusively to ABC News. She told us that Clint Bonnell was living separately from his wife the last couple of years.
In fact, here's a clip from that interview.

Speaker 3 I know that they were coming to an end.

Speaker 3 And,

Speaker 3 you know, the last couple of weeks, five or six weeks, things were really shifting. There were some concerns, for sure.

Speaker 3 And obviously, no one understood the severity of those concerns.

Speaker 4 In that interview, Kelly Edwards also referenced some text messages that she had with Clint. What can you tell us about those?

Speaker 3 So Kelly told ABC News that Clint texted her the night before the disappearance. He was really exhausted that day.
He had been kept up the night before. You could tell he had been through a lot.

Speaker 3 In court documents, Kelly said he was home, told his wife about the divorce, and was going to bed.

Speaker 3 Court records indicate Bonnell arrived back home in the evening hours of January 27th, and his location data ended at 8.15 the following morning.

Speaker 3 So Kelly said she tried to send a message to Bonnell's phone around 8.30, maybe 8.35, but then got one of those messages on your phone. It didn't go through.
The message was not delivered.

Speaker 4 What does that mean, I guess? Like, what are those, how will those text messages be used by prosecutors?

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, that's what we heard in the first appearance of planning to present this.

Speaker 3 It shows that allegedly Clint Bonnell was home the night before the murders, which goes against what Shanna Cloud had allegedly told investigators.

Speaker 3 They still have not found his cell phone, but we know that this is not over, right? They're still investigating. There's still the prosecution, the state building this case.

Speaker 4 Is there a defense from Shanna at all or from her attorneys?

Speaker 3 Well, we did speak with her attorney right after the hearing. He was the first person to kind of come out and step up to our mics.
His name is James McCrae Jr.

Speaker 3 And he did make a very brief statement, and I have it in front of me. He says, I want you to know that Ms.
Cloud is innocent and looks forward to her day in court.

Speaker 3 So the defense is preparing to go to trial and uh he's standing on it that his client is innocent yeah and as you mentioned the state's also preparing to go to trial they're building their case so far they have the records of the who the where the when what else are they going to be looking at Well, the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office made it clear to me that they are still actively investigating this case.

Speaker 3 That was something that the prosecution reiterated right after the first court appearance that I attended and spoke with him after the hearing was complete.

Speaker 3 We know that deputies, they are still searching, right? Because only the torso was found of Bonnell's body. So arms, legs, head, that work is underway.

Speaker 4 That is the thing that I'm still hung up on with this case, is it's such a horrific and heinous crime.

Speaker 4 We know that, but the victim is, there's something about like a green beret or a former green beret that seems so invulnerable, and yet here's someone shot and then allegedly chopped up.

Speaker 4 I mean, what does that say to you, I guess, as a reporter there?

Speaker 3 Well, I want to also give context. Fayetteville, this is a military town.
Right. A lot of military families, a lot of people who are connected in some way, retired.

Speaker 3 The words Green Beret hold serious weight here.

Speaker 3 It's an elite unit of the army. They go through rigorous training, physically and mentally.
So you know he's highly trained and a little bit above the cut.

Speaker 3 Not that they all are not, but you have this extra oomph to you in the community.

Speaker 4 Like, if it can happen to him, it can happen to anyone is kind of the vibe at the end of the day.

Speaker 3 Yeah. And also, along those lines, we know that the United States Army was instrumental in this investigation.

Speaker 3 The arrest affidavit that I pulled for Shanna Cloud says that due to the conditions for the remains that they found, right, just that torso, the North Carolina State Medical Examiner's Office could not make an initial identification.

Speaker 3 So they had to do several things. They had to obtain DNA and then create a DNA profile.

Speaker 3 That DNA profile was then sent to the Armed Forces Medical Examiner System, and it had to be compared to the DNA that was on file for him, for Bonnell.

Speaker 3 And I will say, as a reporter who pools a lot of documents and spends quite a bit of time in a courthouse, when you're pooling an arrest affidavit and you see that the United States Army was now involved in this investigation and they were called upon to help with an identification, it just shows you the totality of the situation, right?

Speaker 3 And how many resources are being pooled into figuring out what happened here?

Speaker 4 What's next in this case, then, Elena?

Speaker 3 Well, Cloud's bond was denied. She is in jail here in North Carolina.
If you're charged with first-degree murder, you're not going to get bonded. You will be held in jail.

Speaker 3 So, if convicted, she was also warned by the judge. She faces the potential of capital punishment in this case.

Speaker 3 And we know that we have another court hearing coming up that's scheduled for mid-April, so not so far from now.

Speaker 3 So, it will be interesting to see in that hearing what comes if the prosecution, if the Cumberland County's office has been able to uncover any more and we'll bring any more to the table once that hearing does get underway.

Speaker 4 Yeah, and again, we'll see what comes of this case.

Speaker 4 But like you said, a community, a military community in this part of the state that was just absolutely shocked to see one of their own disposed of in this way, regardless of who the killer is.

Speaker 4 We'll see how this trial plays out. Elena, thank you so much.

Speaker 3 Thank you, Brad. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 4 Now, let's check in on the other big true crime stories of the week.

Speaker 4 First up, a Wisconsin teen allegedly killed his parents as part of a plot to assassinate President Donald Trump and overthrow the government, according to a recently unsealed federal warrant.

Speaker 4 Nikita Kassap, 17, was arrested in March and charged with two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of hiding a corpse.

Speaker 4 Authorities claim Kassap's plan was to get money for his assassination plot and that he fatally shot his parents at their home outside Milwaukee in February.

Speaker 4 He allegedly lived with the decomposing bodies for weeks before fleeing with $14,000 cash, passports, and the family dog. He's in custody on a $1 million bond and has not yet offered a plea.

Speaker 4 Next up, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a man has been charged with attempted murder, terrorism, and arson, along with other charges, after authorities say he used a pair of Molotov cocktails to light the governor's residence on fire.

Speaker 4 Governor Josh Shapiro and his family were actually awoken and rushed to safety after all this. Hours earlier, they had been celebrating Passover in the very room that was firebombed.

Speaker 4 Authorities say Cody Ballmer, 30 years old, turned himself in and confessed that he would have beaten Shapiro with the small sledgehammer he used to break into the house if he had found him.

Speaker 4 No plea has been entered for Ballmer and he's been denied bail.

Speaker 4 Shapiro delivered emotional remarks outside the damaged governor's mansion this week, saying, in this moment of darkness, we are choosing to see the light.

Speaker 4 Authorities are trying to determine a motive, but say the suspect had expressed animosity toward Democrats like Shapiro, but also toward Republicans like President Trump.

Speaker 4 The Trump administration has condemned the attack.

Speaker 4 Lastly, Spanish police have arrested two people linked to a cat smuggling ring based in Mallorca, Spain.

Speaker 4 The authorities seized 19 animals and more than 40 irregular animal passports from countries such as Russia, Belarus, and China, according to the civil guard there.

Speaker 4 The suspects are alleged to have offered for sale white tigers, clouded leopards, for which they were asking $68,000, Eurasian lynxes, hyenas, black leopards, and pumas.

Speaker 4 The animals will be moved to a rescue and rehab center for exotic animals in eastern Spain. No plea there has been entered.

Speaker 4 Okay, that'll do it for this week's episode of the Crime Scene. Thank you so much for being with us.
The Crime Scene Weekly is a production of ABC Audio, produced by Nora Ritchie.

Speaker 4 Our supervising producer is Susie Liu, mixing by Shane McKeon. Special thanks to Liz Alessi, Tara Gimbal, and Emily Schutz.
Josh Cohan is our director of podcast programming.

Speaker 4 Laura Mayer is our executive producer. I'm Brad Milke, and I'll see you next week at the Crime Scene.

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