The Haunted House Confession

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Speaker 7 Tonight, on Dateline.

Speaker 8 She would show up sometimes before the pastor.

Speaker 10 She loved the love we gave her.

Speaker 12 I got a phone call that she didn't come home.

Speaker 13 She went missing on Friday the 13th.

Speaker 2 I heard sirens and my heart kind of dropped.

Speaker 15 Kids would call it a haunted house.

Speaker 13 You couldn't imagine a scarier place for a body to be found.

Speaker 15 We're trying to identify potential suspects. John Adams was Shantae's boyfriend.

Speaker 16 He said, I'm your boyfriend. I have a friend.

Speaker 17 She's moved up.

Speaker 15 Colin's name had been mentioned multiple times.

Speaker 18 Colin told her to meet him in the shed and not to tell anybody.

Speaker 4 She knew Ron.

Speaker 13 He was missing. He couldn't be located.

Speaker 20 Take me to that Wednesday night church service.

Speaker 8 He starts talking about demon thoughts.

Speaker 13 That's when it just exploded.

Speaker 21 I grabbed the pew

Speaker 21 and I was like,

Speaker 23 church is a place where we expect confessions, but not one like this. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.

Speaker 3 Here's Blaine Alexander with the Haunted House Confession.

Speaker 20 Down this backcountry road is an isolated stretch of land, a place where hunters come looking for prey.

Speaker 20 Behind the fence, just through the overgrown grass, sits an abandoned farmhouse.

Speaker 20 The few people who know it's here call it the haunted house.

Speaker 13 This place is truly creepy, straight out of a horror movie.

Speaker 25 But one night, the horror became real.

Speaker 20 This was the scene of a crime so evil, it haunted an entire community and made neighbor doubt neighbor. Everybody was a suspect.

Speaker 26 In the very beginning, absolutely.

Speaker 20 The search for justice would lead to a different house, a house of worship. Had evil made its way there too?

Speaker 20 For the congregation of North Lake Community Church, this simple building was a refuge, a place to sing and worship in peace, a haven for people like Shantae Blankenship.

Speaker 8 You walk in that church and you felt like this is home, this is family, and I really think that is what kept her coming back.

Speaker 20 She felt safe there.

Speaker 20 Shantae was 25. and lived with her grandfather and boyfriend in a community on Lake Brownwood in central Texas.
Linda and Russell Lamond met Shantae at church. Russell was the assistant pastor.

Speaker 20 He and his wife took Shantae under their wing when she started showing up with a notebook and her own Bible.

Speaker 8 You couldn't help but smile with her around because she just, she glowed. Yeah, she glowed.

Speaker 12 It didn't take a lot to make her happy.

Speaker 20 Shantae's younger sister, Destiny Jarvis.

Speaker 12 You know, she was happy with where she lived, her church, her neighbors, you know, going on her walks every day.

Speaker 20 Neighbors could count on seeing Shantae every day as she strolled her neighborhood by the lake.

Speaker 20 Friday, May 13th, 2016, was no different, except that evening, Shantae went out for a walk and didn't come home. Her grandfather called Shantae's mom, Michelle McDaniel.

Speaker 11 My dad had called and said that Shantae hadn't came home. We just, my dad had kind of figured she had spent the night with one of her friends.

Speaker 20 Shantae's mother wasn't too worried at first, but as the hours ticked by, that changed.

Speaker 11 He told me she still wasn't home.

Speaker 20 The next day, her mom went to the house, took a look around, and saw that her purse was still there.

Speaker 11 She didn't go anywhere without her purse. It had kind of went over me something had happened.

Speaker 20 Shantae's grandfather said he'd been calling her non-stop.

Speaker 12 It was a normal for her not to communicate, especially with him.

Speaker 27 I remember us vividly walking down the street and her mother pulled up in her car and she said, Have you seen Shantae? She hasn't reported back in. She hasn't called and it's not like her.

Speaker 27 And so no, we haven't seen her.

Speaker 22 Was her mother worried at that point?

Speaker 7 Yeah, her mother was worried sick.

Speaker 20 The family reported her missing to the sheriff. And in a community this close, word spread quickly.
A search was organized after church on Sunday.

Speaker 20 Were you surprised by how many people turned out to search?

Speaker 27 Actually, no.

Speaker 28 She was loved by everybody.

Speaker 27 And then in the moment we found out that she was missing, it was like not even a thought. Let's look forward.
We had to find Shantae.

Speaker 11 I remember coming down the hill back to the church and the parking lot's full, probably two, 200 people all there to search for her.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 8 Since it was such a small community, it's like, she's got to be around here. You know, she couldn't have walked that far.

Speaker 27 We searched under piles of leaves.

Speaker 27 We searched under boats, you know, anything that would look like it would be hiding something.

Speaker 2 I want to know what's the location of your emergency.

Speaker 29 I have no idea where I'm at. I am in the middle of nowhere.

Speaker 29 We were looking for Sean Taipei Chip.

Speaker 20 It was Sunday afternoon. Shantae had been missing almost 48 hours.

Speaker 29 We found her.

Speaker 20 Deputies sped down a road five miles from Shantae's home to that abandoned farmhouse. Their body cameras were rolling as they met Charlie Radel and his girlfriend Jackie Neal.

Speaker 30 We were just driving around looking for her.

Speaker 30 Everybody met at three at the church to go look for her and we were just driving around.

Speaker 14 I walked around in the house.

Speaker 31 Uh-huh.

Speaker 14 I didn't see nothing there. I went to all the outbuildings.

Speaker 21 Yeah.

Speaker 14 And I was coming back and that storm shut over there had a bunch of grass knocked down.

Speaker 14 So I run around and looked and there she is. She's upside down in there and she is beat.

Speaker 19 I got a daughter that age.

Speaker 29 I don't buddy.

Speaker 20 Brown County Sheriff's Office Investigator Scott Bird responded to the scene. What was the condition she was in?

Speaker 32 Very brutal assault.

Speaker 26 There was cuts, bruises, all over her face and head.

Speaker 20 So it was very clear to you from the beginning, this is a murder investigation. Oh, yes.

Speaker 20 That meant all hands on deck. Texas Ranger Jason Shea was called in to help.

Speaker 15 I'm a dad. I've got kids.
It kind of hits home to you because we all have kids and

Speaker 15 it affects you.

Speaker 20 I can tell just looking at you when you talk about it. It affects you.

Speaker 2 Yeah, sure.

Speaker 20 A young woman, a violent murder.

Speaker 13 It felt like it couldn't have been a first-time killer. The disappearance on Friday the 13th and the location where she was found.
Is this some type of cult activity?

Speaker 15 It could have been anybody.

Speaker 20 How long could a murderer hide?

Speaker 19 I can't grab a hold of him.

Speaker 26 I can't find him.

Speaker 12 All of a sudden, it was almost like somebody turned the lights on, and you were like, oh, and there he is.

Speaker 8 I realize it's like, I just put my face in front of a killer's face. You know, I'm in that close.

Speaker 20 Shantae's mother, Michelle, heard the sirens first. Then a friend who'd helped organize the searches came to find her in person.

Speaker 11 I remember her telling me they had found her.

Speaker 11 I remember falling to my knees, screaming.

Speaker 20 Are there any words to describe what you felt?

Speaker 11 I was lost.

Speaker 11 I just, I had lost myself at that moment. I'd fell to my knees and asking why.

Speaker 21 I was devastated.

Speaker 8 Yeah, devastated and in shock. There's bad things that go on in the community anywhere.
You'll get that anywhere.

Speaker 34 But

Speaker 8 her specifically,

Speaker 2 why her?

Speaker 20 Why would anyone want to hurt Shantae?

Speaker 20 What was it about Shantae that just really drew people to her?

Speaker 11 Her love.

Speaker 15 Just

Speaker 11 her.

Speaker 11 I mean, just meeting her would make you just fall in love with her.

Speaker 35 She'd always make you laugh. She'd always do something or say something.

Speaker 20 Stephen McDaniel is Shantae's stepfather. He'd known her since she was six years old.
What was Shantae like?

Speaker 5 Funny.

Speaker 35 Loved music.

Speaker 12 She had a good smile. You couldn't question whether or not she was happy.

Speaker 20 People not only noticed Shantae's smile, she had a sense of style too.

Speaker 12 She thought everything was better in pink or with sparkles or glitter and she had like the sassy attitude to go with it.

Speaker 20 Shantae was tiny, not even five feet, barely 90 pounds, but she had big opinions about what to wear, what to do, and how to pronounce her name.

Speaker 11 We call her Shantae. She calls herself Shantae.

Speaker 20 It was a big voice for such a small person.

Speaker 12 She knew what she wanted, always.

Speaker 20 And her grandfather Charlie, the one she lived with, was happy to give her whatever she wanted. He had helped raise her from birth.

Speaker 11 I had her when I was 16. I guess I was trying to live for me for a while.
I worked and I partied, so she just became my dad's permanent kid, pretty much.

Speaker 20 Growing up, Shantae needed extra care. She developed more slowly than than other kids.
So her walking, her talking, all of that was delayed.

Speaker 11 If you talked to her, you would know that she was different than a normal child. She still kind of talked like a child.

Speaker 12 It was like she aged to a certain point and she stopped.

Speaker 20 How did she navigate those challenges?

Speaker 11 She just did.

Speaker 11 Nothing ever bothered her. She would figure it out.

Speaker 20 But she didn't do it alone. It seemed everyone in the neighborhood had a protective eye on her.
From her family, her friends, and of course, her boyfriend John.

Speaker 11 He spoiled her just like my dad. She never went without as long as they were together.

Speaker 20 Sounds like he really took care of her.

Speaker 11 He did take care of her.

Speaker 20 So did her friends at church. I understand that there were some times you would help her with the hymns that would be sung in church.

Speaker 27 She stood right next to Linda and I in the choir.

Speaker 8 She was like our daughter.

Speaker 20 She felt like family to you.

Speaker 8 Yes.

Speaker 20 And this is the church, Northlake. Shanta's church had become the makeshift headquarters for her search.

Speaker 20 Now it was where authorities launched their investigation.

Speaker 22 Pastor?

Speaker 22 How are you, sir?

Speaker 37 Hey, folks, could you have your attention just a minute? If you believe you have information that will assist in this investigation, I ask you don't discuss it with anybody else.

Speaker 37 I want your recollections to be your own. We'll be speaking to you as we get to you, all right?

Speaker 15 She wasn't involved in any type of drugs or gangs. This was an innocent girl who hadn't done anything wrong, and then we find her in the bottom of a cellar.

Speaker 20 Texas Ranger Jason Shea and a team of investigators canvassed Shantae's neighborhood, retracing her final steps. This really was the starting place for your investigation.

Speaker 38 Yes, this is the very beginning of it.

Speaker 39 Besides the crime scene, we knew that she had been over here, so this is the main area where we focused a lot of our investigation.

Speaker 20 What did you hope to find out?

Speaker 38 Somebody that had seen her or seen her get in a car with somebody.

Speaker 20 A handful of neighbors had seen her at a local restaurant just a few hours before she disappeared. Then she went home, said goodbye to her boyfriend John before he left for work at 6 p.m.

Speaker 20 She set out for her walk right after, eventually meeting up with a friend. That friend, Caitlin McAbee, told investigators that she and Shantae walked together for a couple of hours.

Speaker 18 Her grandpa called her

Speaker 18 right before we got to the end of the street, said, hey, it's getting dark. She's like, it's okay, Papa,

Speaker 18 I'll be home soon.

Speaker 40 He says, I'm walking.

Speaker 40 And I said, oh, and all she said.

Speaker 20 Her grandfather confirmed to police that call was at 8.48 p.m.

Speaker 40 That's just about the notes.

Speaker 20 caitlin said after that she and shantae said goodbye she like kind of was laughing and just took off running

Speaker 18 down the road yeah down the road

Speaker 20 and then within minutes after she and her friend split

Speaker 20 she goes missing and where she and her friend parted ways how far was she from her home quarter mile when you think about that small window Does it mean that the killer was maybe following her, waiting for her?

Speaker 15 He could have been. He may have been waiting for her and watching for her and waited for that time where she was by herself to

Speaker 15 take his chance.

Speaker 20 What happened next was still a mystery, but a bizarre clue was about to spark a new and terrifying question.

Speaker 13 You think Friday the 13th, you start wondering, is there something more sinister than just somebody got murdered?

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Speaker 20 The old house was set back from the road, isolated, and in a state of disrepair. Even for a native like investigator Scott Bird, a complete mystery.

Speaker 26 I've never seen that house before. I don't know that I'd ever been on that county road in my career.

Speaker 20 Investigators soon learned it was a party spot for kids. Teenagers Teenagers had nicknamed it the Haunted House.
So it's obvious that people haven't lived here for years.

Speaker 26 The floor is gone. It's just joist going across.
You're going to find snakes in there, other living animals in there.

Speaker 20 What were you looking for immediately when you got here?

Speaker 26 We looked for shoe prints, what's being left in the dirt, tire tracks, looking for any kind of biological material, blood, hair.

Speaker 49 I've got his body cam so we can

Speaker 49 get a video going over there.

Speaker 20 Investigators set up a grid search, combing every inch of the property for clues.

Speaker 42 There's good tire tracks that just dead end at the gate and back out and then there's spin-out marks.

Speaker 49 Like someone's been through it recently or something.

Speaker 20 They found Shantae's bracelets scattered across the grass.

Speaker 49 Here's another pink man right here, John.

Speaker 26 She wore a bunch of different colored bracelets. There was one on this side of the gate, and then there was one just on the other side of the gate.

Speaker 20 So what did that tell you? Bracelet here, bracelet there, both on the ground.

Speaker 26 That somehow or another, she's losing them off of her arm.

Speaker 26 At that point, we didn't know what caused that.

Speaker 20 Then, in the gravel, they found strands of brown hair.

Speaker 49 You kind of see it right there in this grass?

Speaker 49 Where it looks like something's been through here, right here.

Speaker 43 Yeah, right here, too.

Speaker 40 Yeah.

Speaker 20 Investigators concluded someone had dragged Shantae to the place where she was found.

Speaker 15 Her body had been thrown over the fence and then she was drugged by her hair to the cellar.

Speaker 26 Something very brutal happened out there.

Speaker 26 You don't just walk and lose your hair and your bracelets and your jewelry. Traumatic events were happening.
Just the brutality of it is what sticks out.

Speaker 26 You could tell the person thought this would be a great place to hide a body.

Speaker 20 Investigators found a rusty lawnmower blade near her body. It was covered in blood.

Speaker 49 And there's blood spatter on that brick, so you know she's bleeding good.

Speaker 20 There were deep cuts on Shantae's scalp and face, bruises on both sides of her neck, her arms and legs, and something odd on her chest.

Speaker 26 We didn't know what it came from. It was

Speaker 26 kind of jagged lines, almost like triangles. We even took a picture of that and sent that to the FBI headquarters.

Speaker 20 Did you have any idea what it could have been?

Speaker 39 We didn't know if somebody hit her with the car or a blunt object.

Speaker 6 Was it a shoe print?

Speaker 20 An autopsy revealed Shantae had died from blunt force trauma consistent with that bloody lawnmower blade. She had also been sexually assaulted.

Speaker 26 Not only did we have a murder, we had a rapist as well.

Speaker 20 Crime scene techs collected evidence at the scene and sent it out for DNA testing, hoping it would lead them to Shantae's killer.

Speaker 13 There is a lot of fear that's generated when something like this happens in a place like Brownwood.

Speaker 20 Alicia Bird is Investigator Bird's wife. She is also the county's assistant DA.

Speaker 13 There becomes a time when you switch from your role as a supportive spouse to, I am a prosecutor and there is a murder within my county.

Speaker 20 When she saw a photo of that mark on Shantae's chest and considered that the murder happened on Friday the 13th, a theory started to take shape.

Speaker 13 When you put all that together and you think Friday the 13th, you start wondering if there's something connecting all of this.

Speaker 13 You know, is there something more sinister than just somebody got murdered?

Speaker 32 Is this some type of cult activity?

Speaker 20 Maybe that could explain the why, if only they could figure out the who.

Speaker 20 Right away, investigator Bird knew who he wanted to look at first.

Speaker 29 We were looking for Sean Taipei 1 kitchen.

Speaker 29 Okay, we found her.

Speaker 20 Charlie Radel and Jackie Neal, the searchers who found Shantae.

Speaker 26 I thought we already found who did this because you're five miles away from where everybody else is looking. You're in the middle of nowhere.
She can't be seen from the road.

Speaker 26 You have to get out of your truck, climb a fence, walk through 100 yards of tall grass to get to where she was.

Speaker 20 So you're thinking, we found who did this.

Speaker 20 And they gave themselves away.

Speaker 26 Correct.

Speaker 20 Time to head to the sheriff's office for questioning. What might a polygraph reveal?

Speaker 25 Did you kill Shantae?

Speaker 20 The search for Shantae had ended, but the hunt for her killer was just getting underway.

Speaker 20 To start, investigators wanted to take a hard look at Charlie Radel and his girlfriend Jackie, the searchers who found Shantae.

Speaker 30 We were just driving around looking for her.

Speaker 15 It was just, it was odd that they had found this.

Speaker 20 It seemed so unlikely that they just got lucky. The house is so remote, it's almost impossible to find, even with GPS.

Speaker 20 It's on a dirt road, off of another dirt road.

Speaker 15 What are the odds that he found her out there innocently? Sometimes where there's smoke, there's fire.

Speaker 42 If y'all want to have a seat in the truck so we don't make any more footprints than we've already got.

Speaker 20 Charlie and Jackie were both in their 40s, 40s, and they both knew Shantae from her daily walks in the neighborhood. She lived about a mile away from them.

Speaker 19 I got a daughter that age.

Speaker 2 I don't buddy.

Speaker 20 Investigators took note of Charlie's emotion at the scene and invited him to the sheriff's office to see how he would answer questions there.

Speaker 25 Do you go by Charlie?

Speaker 25 Everybody don't go by Chap. Chapter.

Speaker 20 Charlie told the investigator he'd just seen Shantae out walking not long before she disappeared.

Speaker 25 When you saw her on Friday, what was she wearing? Was she wearing a white shirt with kind of

Speaker 25 faded Daisy Duke shorts on?

Speaker 20 Charlie said that as soon as they heard a search was being organized, he and Jackie jumped in the truck and hit the country roads.

Speaker 25 We said the prayer for Shantae's

Speaker 25 safe return. I was talking to the Lord and I said, Lord, I hope she's okay, but if she's in a bad way, please show her to me.
Me and Jackie talked, we checked every ditch, every cover,

Speaker 51 all the way around.

Speaker 20 Then he said they came upon that dirt road, the one leading to the haunted house.

Speaker 15 He had stated that his kids used to go out there and, you know, teenagers going out there and partying at this old abandoned house.

Speaker 25 I walked over. to the galvanized gate and I'm propped up on it.
I'm looking at that house. Jackie, she comes up behind me.
She's pointing with her foot. She said, What is that?

Speaker 25 I got down close to it and I grabbed it. I said, Jackie, that's human hair.

Speaker 25 I shot through the fence and I went to the house.

Speaker 20 After looking around the dilapidated house, he said he decided to check the storm cellar. That's where he found Shantae's body.

Speaker 25 Jackie asked me, She said,

Speaker 25 Is she dead?

Speaker 25 I said, Yeah, she's dead.

Speaker 25 I said,

Speaker 25 She had y'all on the phone.

Speaker 25 She said, you sure it's Shantae? I said, yeah, it's her.

Speaker 25 Did you touch her?

Speaker 51 No.

Speaker 25 No, I didn't touch her. Why do you think somebody would kill her? Her?

Speaker 25 I don't know.

Speaker 25 I can't imagine how anybody could do something like that.

Speaker 20 They also interviewed Jackie. The investigator asked her where Charlie was on Friday the 13th, the night Shantae disappeared.

Speaker 52 What time?

Speaker 52 It was between 7.10 and 7.15.

Speaker 30 Somewhere there.

Speaker 43 And he was at work before then.

Speaker 20 They offered investigators their DNA.

Speaker 20 Charlie also agreed to a polygraph. How hard did law enforcement press Charlie?

Speaker 26 Extremely hard.

Speaker 25 Did you participate in killing Shantae? Shantae, no.

Speaker 25 Did you kill Shantae? No.

Speaker 15 Then he showed no indication of deception during that polygraph.

Speaker 26 And we decided it's time to move on.

Speaker 20 While investigators searched for Shantae's killer, her family was facing the difficult task of planning her funeral.

Speaker 20 Mourners gathered for the service at her beloved church.

Speaker 12 Everybody had a touch of pink somewhere, whether they were wearing, you know, just pink bracelet or that they were wearing actual pink.

Speaker 12 You know, my mom, my brothers, they'd all got like matching shirts and things like that, which Chantae would have loved because they're going to wear her color.

Speaker 12 I think if she could have planned her own funeral, she would have planned it very similar to how it was.

Speaker 20 What stands out to you the most about that day?

Speaker 11 The people. Some people are standing outside.
walking into the church being seated and it's packed. People are standing.
The whole parking lot's full of people.

Speaker 20 Did you feel the love that this community had for you?

Speaker 2 I did.

Speaker 11 I did.

Speaker 20 Did you ever consider the possibility that her killer might be right there in the room, in the church with you?

Speaker 11 I didn't.

Speaker 20 She didn't, but investigators did.

Speaker 20 They rigged up surveillance cameras inside the church. You thought that it was important to see who was coming, who was going.

Speaker 26 Yes, people will come back to see what we have found or to downplay what they've done or to hide in plain sight.

Speaker 20 They also set up cameras at the cemetery by Shantae's grave.

Speaker 26 Just to see if somebody was acting strangely or

Speaker 26 causing issues with the family.

Speaker 20 But after scrubbing through hours of video, investigators didn't find anything suspicious. Still, they were convinced Shantae's killer had to be close by, almost certainly someone she knew.

Speaker 15 She wouldn't get in a car with somebody she didn't know.

Speaker 20 Everyone just knew that about her.

Speaker 15 They knew that. There were, I can't tell you how many people came up to us and said, had to have been somebody known because she wouldn't have gotten in a vehicle that she didn't know that person.

Speaker 20 So they would have to look at everyone in Shantae's circle, starting with the man closest to her.

Speaker 16 You said, I'm your boyfriend. I have a friend.
She's moving up.

Speaker 20 In the days after Shantae's body was found, her family and friends tried to come to terms with her savage murder. I know that you'd said at some point, even after she was found,

Speaker 20 There were days when you almost still expected to see her on those walks.

Speaker 8 Yes, I remember the first time we drove down that road

Speaker 8 and it was sad. It's like, she's supposed to be here.

Speaker 34 She's not here.

Speaker 8 It was almost like living that day over again that we found out that

Speaker 8 she wasn't alive.

Speaker 20 Was it hard for you to grasp that reality?

Speaker 8 When you drove it out? Yes, because

Speaker 8 I've never been that close to that kind of

Speaker 8 tragedy. Death, yes, but someone that was killed,

Speaker 8 you know, that was murdered.

Speaker 8 It was too close. And it's like, no, this doesn't happen here.
Not at all.

Speaker 20 But it had happened. And as investigators looked for Shantae's killer, those closest to her were under scrutiny.

Speaker 15 When we're doing any of these investigations, who are the first people you look at as boyfriend?

Speaker 20 John Adams, Shantae's live-in boyfriend. At 26, he was a year older than Shantae.
They'd known each other since middle school, had been a couple for more than three years.

Speaker 20 They were even starting to talk about marriage.

Speaker 12 John meant a lot to her. She meant a lot to him.

Speaker 20 That's what mattered to Shantae's family. They made it clear to John that Shantae was special and needed to be protected.

Speaker 12 So with John, I think there was a lot of conversations.

Speaker 12 between him and other family members about it. And I think they trusted him to not ever take advantage of her and to treat her right.

Speaker 20 Two days after Shantae's body was found, investigators paid John a visit.

Speaker 17 Hello, Carlogov. What's your name? John Adams.

Speaker 20 Sean Adams. John recognized the deputy from a traffic stop.

Speaker 43 You pulled me over before.

Speaker 17 I pulled you over before for what?

Speaker 24 Oh, down there on Cece Woodson Road.

Speaker 31 Oh, okay.

Speaker 53 Is this where y'all live in here?

Speaker 14 Yeah.

Speaker 53 Can we go inside?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 20 John led them to the bedroom he shared with Shantae.

Speaker 53 Is there anything missing out of here? No.

Speaker 20 They studied the room.

Speaker 53 Can we have this brush?

Speaker 20 Took pictures and examined Shantae's belongings.

Speaker 53 So she goes everywhere with her purse, but she just didn't have her purse

Speaker 53 today.

Speaker 20 Then they went back outside.

Speaker 53 That's when they let John know they weren't just looking for clues they were looking at him and normally boyfriends are like gonna be the number one suspect a lot of the times and also a lot of times when you do when we do these uh

Speaker 20 we do find another suspect so when we do when we do find the real the the the real killer yeah then you know we could say oh we covered that base they walked around the property looking into outbuildings what is that on the hammer is that for pulling out nails or something they took pictures of John's pickup truck and were interested to see a lot of lawnmowers in the shed.

Speaker 17 Man, do you guys have a lawn care service or something?

Speaker 20 Remember, it was a lawnmower blade that killed Shantae.

Speaker 53 That was missing, that was tore up.

Speaker 20 They also wanted to know about John's relationship with Shantae.

Speaker 20 Investigators had heard it was loving, but could be tense at times.

Speaker 48 It was strained. They weren't the Ozzie and Harriet.
They weren't perfect.

Speaker 26 Shantae

Speaker 26 liked to wave at boys, and boys would wave back, and it made her feel good. That made him a little jealous.
Now, she didn't mean anything by it, but John was a little bit jealous, so

Speaker 6 it upset him so.

Speaker 20 Did you ever learn that Shantae had complained to neighbors about John sometimes wanting to control her? Sure.

Speaker 26 Would tell her what to eat, what not to eat, where she could go, where she couldn't go.

Speaker 20 Bitsy Hobbs, one of Shantae's friends, told investigators she heard the couple fighting. Shantae sounded angry.

Speaker 16 You know, went on cussing.

Speaker 16 He said, I'm your boyfriend. I have a right.
She said, no, you don't. You do not have control over me.
I'll see whoever I want to.

Speaker 15 I think talking to witnesses who had spoken to John

Speaker 15 prior to the homicide, that he was worried about the relationship and didn't know how much longer it was going to last.

Speaker 20 So he was thinking it may come to an end soon.

Speaker 2 Quite possible.

Speaker 15 You know, could this have been a spat, an argument, and that's why,

Speaker 15 you know, she was killed. We didn't know at that time.

Speaker 20 But they were about to find out. They had a stack of of questions for John Adams.
For starters, what did he do with his phone?

Speaker 24 These text messages

Speaker 24 that you deleted, and you know what I'm talking about because you even told somebody, hey, my phone's clean.

Speaker 9 Some stories never make national headlines, but stories from small towns and coastal communities deserve recognition too.

Speaker 9 I'm Kylie Lowe, host of Dark Down East, a true crime podcast that gives voice to victims through investigative journalism and powerful storytelling.

Speaker 9 Set in my home state of Maine and the greater New England area, it's my goal to dig through the archives to bring the stories of the people at the heart of these cases to light.

Speaker 9 Listen to Dark Down East, wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 54 If you're a smoker or dipper ready to make a change, you really only need one good reason.

Speaker 55 But with Zen Nicotine Pouches, you'll discover many good reasons.

Speaker 24 Zinn is America's number one nicotine pouch brand.

Speaker 43 Plus, Zinn offers a robust rewards program.

Speaker 21 There are lots of options when it comes to nicotine satisfaction, but there's only one Zin.

Speaker 24 Check out Zinn.com slash find to find Zinn at a store near you.

Speaker 57 Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

Speaker 7 AI agents are everywhere, automating tasks and making decisions at machine speed. But agents make mistakes.

Speaker 7 Just one rogue agent can do big damage before you even notice.

Speaker 7 Rubrik Agent Cloud is the only platform that helps you monitor agents, set guardrails, and rewind mistakes so you can unleash agents, not risk. Accelerate your AI transformation at rubrik.com.

Speaker 7 That's r-u-b-r-i-k.com.

Speaker 24 I spoke with John Harper the first night.

Speaker 14 Some stuff told my side of the story.

Speaker 20 John Adams seemed like a friendly guy when he met investigators.

Speaker 17 Who lives here?

Speaker 14 Charlie Barnett.

Speaker 53 And this is where you live too?

Speaker 31 Yes, sir.

Speaker 20 But friendly didn't mean innocent.

Speaker 15 We didn't know if he knew more about what had happened to Shantae than what he was actually telling us.

Speaker 20 Did you bring him in?

Speaker 15 We did bring him in and asked him what was going on. So we had a good timeline of where Shantae was at, and we needed to see where he was at during that time.

Speaker 52 So the last time he talked to her on the phone was...

Speaker 20 John said that around 5 p.m., he picked Shantae up at the restaurant where neighbors had seen her that afternoon.

Speaker 52 So he picked her up and took her to where? To the house. He dropped her off low and we had a shower.
And then we were there.

Speaker 20 John said he then went to work at his restaurant job around 6 p.m.

Speaker 52 So he left and she stayed there.

Speaker 19 Yeah.

Speaker 52 Is that what time you have to be at work? Are you supposed to be at work at 6? Well, it was 9, but I show up. You can ask her if she always show up earlier at 3.
You're supposed to go to work at 9.

Speaker 52 Yeah, but I'll show up early sometimes up there, too.

Speaker 20 He said he worked an overnight shift and got home around five the next morning. Shantae wasn't there.
He thought maybe she was at a friend's place.

Speaker 52 That's when he discovered she wasn't there. Yeah, I went and saw her room.
Did you start calling her phone? I called her phone and it was disconnected.

Speaker 20 They dug into his relationship with Shantae.

Speaker 52 You have another girlfriend? Huh? You have another girlfriend?

Speaker 52 Another girlfriend talked to me that you don't have to. No.

Speaker 52 I'm a faithful man. Oh, my word.
Did she ever tell you that she

Speaker 52 didn't sexually intermit with anybody else? I ever said anything about that. I asked her.

Speaker 52 Did she just say no, or she just avoid the conversation? Did she avoid the conversation or say no?

Speaker 20 After that interview, John was free to go.

Speaker 20 But investigators found something while searching his cell phone data.

Speaker 15 He had given us his cell phone to download.

Speaker 15 We looked at that and noticed that there was some communication that had been deleted. So we had to pull him back in.

Speaker 20 Some messages.

Speaker 15 Some messages.

Speaker 20 This time, the conversation was less friendly on both sides.

Speaker 24 You delete your text messages.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 15 And apparently you deleted some yesterday before you showed up.

Speaker 58 No, that's not what these text messages

Speaker 58 that you deleted. And you know what I'm talking about because you even told somebody, hey, my phone's clean.

Speaker 58 So why don't you tell me about

Speaker 20 it? John admitted he was trying to hide something, but not about Shantae.

Speaker 58 I smoke weed and I just don't want that. I don't think that would be in there.

Speaker 15 You know, he said, hey, this is what was going on. I was using drugs and those messages were in reference to buying and selling marijuana.
And so that's how he explained it. I'm asking you questions.

Speaker 20 They interviewed John four times.

Speaker 50 They're pressuring me.

Speaker 20 We interviewed him too and asked him what it was like to be grilled like that. Could you, you could tell that when they were talking to you, they weren't just trying to get information.

Speaker 20 They were thinking that you had something to do with it.

Speaker 33 They're trying to pressure me to confess what they were trying to do.

Speaker 20 Were you upset?

Speaker 33 I was.

Speaker 5 I was very upset.

Speaker 31 It hurt.

Speaker 2 I have...

Speaker 33 I don't have a bone in my body to do something like that to someone.

Speaker 20 He told us the same thing he told investigators. investigators his relationship with shantae was not perfect but it was solid were there ever any rocky moments

Speaker 20 uh there was things you know she'd just get mad for certain reasons there'd be times where i just had to i'd walk away you know i wouldn't yell really at her or argue with her you know but i mean learning out we we stayed together you know made it work you know even if there were ups and downs between the two of you yeah it wasn't just investigators John knew neighbors were quick to assume the boyfriend was to blame.

Speaker 20 But he told us what some saw as controlling behavior was his way of protecting Shantae. Already people were starting to point their fingers at you.

Speaker 3 And it made me mad. Knowing damn well I didn't

Speaker 3 do nothing.

Speaker 33 I did nothing but protect her.

Speaker 20 Investigators needed to check out everything John told them, including what he said about other men in town, like a guy named Bobby Soza, who John said liked to throw parties.

Speaker 15 He lived in the area. He was always seen driving around that area.

Speaker 20 Shantae's friend told investigators she'd seen a red and white bronco in the neighborhood the night Shantae disappeared, that the driver waved at them and seemed creepy.

Speaker 20 They tracked down Soza and confirmed he drove a red and white Bronco and brought him in for questioning at the sheriff's office.

Speaker 58 I understand you guys gotta be your job.

Speaker 20 Soza said he did drive by Shantae on her walk that night, but that was it.

Speaker 24 If I did have something to do with this, you need to let me know now.

Speaker 58 I would have told you.

Speaker 20 Did investigators search his house, search his car?

Speaker 26 They searched everything. He was, come in my house, search my vehicle, look anywhere you want.

Speaker 49 Oh, you're good, man.

Speaker 20 So he was very open.

Speaker 26 Absolutely.

Speaker 20 He also shared where he'd been that night.

Speaker 15 He had gone to another residence and there were multiple individuals there that he didn't leave till late that evening.

Speaker 20 Were you able to verify that?

Speaker 2 We were able to verify that.

Speaker 20 The pressure to find Shantae's killer was mounting.

Speaker 13 And we just know that they're out there. It's scary.

Speaker 20 You were preparing for a manhunt.

Speaker 15 We were getting ready for a manhunt.

Speaker 20 It would all come to a head in a place they least expected.

Speaker 27 I remember saying, please don't tell me he's talking about Shantae. Please don't tell me.

Speaker 20 That place that Shantae loved most of all.

Speaker 8 We want to hate you,

Speaker 11 but we can't.

Speaker 20 John Adams, Shantae's serious boyfriend, was an obvious person to look at, even more so after investigators found out he'd been deleting text messages from his phone.

Speaker 58 So why don't you tell me about that?

Speaker 20 Investigators checked out his story and confirmed those deleted text messages were just about marijuana. So you caught him in something else, but not murder.

Speaker 15 Correct.

Speaker 20 They were also able to get security video from the restaurant where John worked, along with the timesheets.

Speaker 26 He told us exactly where he was, what he had done, and everything he told us was truthful.

Speaker 20 So he gave you an alibi, and you were able to verify it?

Speaker 4 Yes, through video.

Speaker 26 I mean, it doesn't get much better alibi than that. He was just worried that

Speaker 26 and upset that his fiancé had been killed.

Speaker 15 He wanted to figure out who had done this also.

Speaker 20 I want to ask you, John, what do you miss the most about Shantae?

Speaker 33 Most that missed out, Shantae?

Speaker 33 Or laughter.

Speaker 33 It made life easy when she smiled and just laughed and not mad at you.

Speaker 26 She was like my best friend.

Speaker 20 John, as a suspect, was a dead end, but that didn't mean talking to him was a waste of time. Not at all.

Speaker 15 We still needed more information of potential suspects that might be involved in the case. So we had to continue to try to keep him on our side to get as much information as we could.

Speaker 20 John gave them another name,

Speaker 20 a name they heard from other neighbors, Colin Smith.

Speaker 15 When we started doing interviews, his name had been mentioned multiple times.

Speaker 20 Colin was in his 20s, did some lawnmowing and odd jobs around town, and he lived just around the corner from Shantae.

Speaker 39 Shantae went missing and it was right there by Colin's house.

Speaker 38 Here's where Colin was living at the time. Yep.
Okay. And it kind of backs up back to the road to where Shantae was living at too.

Speaker 2 Okay.

Speaker 38 So she would have had to walk down this area

Speaker 38 the day that she went missing.

Speaker 20 John Adams told investigators Colin was a troublemaker.

Speaker 58 He used to ride around with them and stuff and he used to just do stupid stuff and he like fired up drunk.

Speaker 20 And Shantae's stepdad, Stephen, recalls that months before the murder, Colin took Shantae out for a late-night joyride. Stephen was furious.

Speaker 20 What did you say?

Speaker 35 I just asked him what he was doing with her, and

Speaker 35 I made her get out of the vehicle

Speaker 35 and

Speaker 35 better stay away from her.

Speaker 20 You told him to stay away from her.

Speaker 2 Yes. Did he?

Speaker 35 Far as my knowledge, yes.

Speaker 20 But Ranger Shea heard that's not what Colin did.

Speaker 15 Miss McBee, that had been walking with Shantae, had had told us that Colin Smith had purchased her some shoes recently.

Speaker 20 Shantae also told her friend Colin wanted to meet up the night she disappeared.

Speaker 15 Saying, hey, meet me out by the barn tonight, but don't tell anybody.

Speaker 20 To Shantae.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 18 She told me Colin told her to meet, or yeah, told her to meet him in the shed behind his house that night

Speaker 18 and not to tell anybody.

Speaker 20 That very well meant that Colin could have been the last person to see her alive.

Speaker 15 Sure, and that's what we were thinking.

Speaker 15 Is he the one?

Speaker 15 Did she say something that upset him? And in my opinion, he was a number one that we needed to talk to.

Speaker 20 Shea went to see him in person.

Speaker 59 How you doing, sir? I'm Jason Shea. I'm with the Texas Rangers.

Speaker 59 What's your name? Paula.

Speaker 20 How did you find him?

Speaker 20 Did he seem shifty to you?

Speaker 15 He really didn't. There was a little bit of concern.

Speaker 59 I mean, it's ridiculous that I'm even being looked at.

Speaker 20 Like other neighbors investigators spoke to, Colin said he did see Shantae the night she disappeared, but only from a distance. He'd seen her pass by his house on her last walk.

Speaker 59 But

Speaker 59 probably around the last time we seen her, it was around 6.37.

Speaker 20 Shantae was just a friend, Colin said. But he told investigators that she was interested in more more than friendship.

Speaker 59 I had to change my number because she would call it from like 6.30 in the morning to like midnight at night. Just call, hang up, call, hang up, call, hang up.

Speaker 59 Like a high school girl. Yeah.
Did y'all have any type of physical relationship at all?

Speaker 59 So never.

Speaker 20 Investigators wanted to ask him more questions, this time hooked up to a lie detector.

Speaker 51 Why are we here today, Colin?

Speaker 51 They want to find out who the murder is. I want to prove to them that it ain't me.

Speaker 20 But right before they got started, a key part of his story changed. He admitted he did have a physical relationship with Shantae.

Speaker 2 After a while, we kind of...

Speaker 51 We thought we were dating, you know.

Speaker 20 Colin told police he didn't know Shantae and John were serious.

Speaker 51 Once everybody started telling me that she did have a boyfriend at home and stuff, John Adams,

Speaker 51 I mean, I left her alone.

Speaker 51 When's the last time you've been with her?

Speaker 58 A couple weeks ago.

Speaker 15 He ended up admitting that he had been in a sexual relationship with her.

Speaker 20 Was that the only thing he'd been hiding? Wired up to the machine, the questions got very specific.

Speaker 28 Did you physically cause the death of Shantae?

Speaker 47 No.

Speaker 51 You don't know

Speaker 51 how she died.

Speaker 26 Not at all.

Speaker 51 You don't know what kind of weapon was used.

Speaker 20 The investigator told Colin the results of the tests were not good.

Speaker 51 Okay. I've done a lot of these tests, and I'm looking at this, and I'm showing deception.

Speaker 26 Was that a red flag? That's a big red flag.

Speaker 51 I'm telling you right now that something is causing me issues on this, and I want to get down to the bottom of it. If you didn't kill her, I have no idea.

Speaker 51 I didn't do it. Bottom line.

Speaker 20 Colin, who had been cooperative up to this point, seemed eager to leave.

Speaker 26 But we were done.

Speaker 51 Well, you still want to cooperate, right? Yeah, don't make me have to be the bad guy here.

Speaker 25 We're gonna have a serious problem.

Speaker 51 I will hire a lawyer.

Speaker 51 Hey, I don't give a f one way or another if you're gonna hire them.

Speaker 51 Do not sit there and try to threaten me when I'm gonna threaten you.

Speaker 51 You're the one that's in here cooperating, are you not? Yes, sir. Okay.
I thought you said we were done, though. Okay, go ahead and put your hands together, please.
I thought you said,

Speaker 58 I'm sorry.

Speaker 20 Colin stayed long enough to give them his alibi. He'd been at his brother's house, he said, about 10 miles away.

Speaker 2 Where did you stay that night?

Speaker 51 On the couch in my brother's living room. Fall asleep watching basketball games.

Speaker 26 Texas Ranger Shea and I knew we had to get to the brother to talk to him before Colin could to get the true story and not Colin calling his brother and saying, Hey, cover for me.

Speaker 20 Would Colin's alibi check out, or would police be forced to consider a whole new theory?

Speaker 13 It felt like it couldn't have been a first-time killer.

Speaker 9 Some stories never make national headlines, but stories from small towns and coastal communities deserve recognition too.

Speaker 9 I'm Kylie Lowe, host of Dark Down East, a true crime podcast that gives voice to victims through investigative journalism and powerful storytelling.

Speaker 9 Set in my home state of Maine and the greater New England area, it's my goal to dig through the archives to bring the stories of the people at the heart of these cases to light.

Speaker 9 Listen to Dark Down East, wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 54 If you're a smoker or dipper ready to make a change, you really only need one good reason.

Speaker 55 But with Zen nicotine pouches, you'll discover many good reasons.

Speaker 24 Zinn is America's number one nicotine pouch brand.

Speaker 43 Plus, Zinn offers a robust rewards program.

Speaker 21 There are lots of options when it comes to nicotine satisfaction, but there's only one Zen.

Speaker 56 Check out Zinn.com slash find to find Zin at a store near you.

Speaker 57 Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

Speaker 7 AI agents are everywhere, automating tasks and making decisions at machine speed. But agents make mistakes.

Speaker 7 Just one rogue agent can do big damage before you even notice.

Speaker 7 Rubrik Agent Cloud is the only platform that helps you monitor agents, set guardrails, and rewind mistakes so you can unleash agents, not risk. Accelerate your AI transformation at rubric.com.

Speaker 7 That's r-u-b-r-i-k.com.

Speaker 20 Investigators thought they might finally be getting somewhere in a room with a young man they found highly suspicious.

Speaker 15 Colin Smith was my main focus.

Speaker 20 Colin had initially lied to detectives about his relationship with Shantae. And when they hooked him up to that polygraph, it seemed he still wasn't telling the whole story.

Speaker 26 Colin told the polygrapher that he had an alibi. He was with his brother, but couldn't explain why he failed the polygraph.

Speaker 20 Investigators raced to talk to Colin's brother before he could, and the brother confirmed his alibi.

Speaker 15 It's not just his brother that we talked to.

Speaker 15 Who else is there with you?

Speaker 20 They also talked to his niece and nephew, who said they saw Colin, too.

Speaker 15 Of course, they're family members. So

Speaker 15 we've got to look at that too.

Speaker 20 It's not the strongest alibi.

Speaker 15 It's not the strongest because, you know, family members will cover family members.

Speaker 20 Investigators also took Colin's DNA and sent it to the crime lab.

Speaker 15 How does that come back? It came back that he's not a match to the DNA that was found on her body.

Speaker 20 So you're able to clear him. Yes.

Speaker 20 Another dead end. By now, DNA results were coming in from the other men they'd talked to.
Shantae's boyfriend John was not a match. Neither was neighbor Bobby Soza.

Speaker 43 Nobody may have ever looked in that cellar.

Speaker 26 It may have been years.

Speaker 20 And the DNA also proved those searchers who found Shantae were exactly what they appeared to be. Good Samaritans.
Far from suspects, they had been a blessing to the investigation.

Speaker 26 We were very lucky, very blessed.

Speaker 20 There's all kinds of predatory animals out here, coyotes, bobcats, stray dogs, any kind of occasional mountain lion if we hadn't found her that's probably what would have found her some kind of animal the timely discovery of shantae's body was a stroke of luck that to investigator bird felt like divine intervention but that luck seemed to be running out as they tore through lead after lead How many calls were coming in that you guys had to chase down?

Speaker 26 A lot. Hundreds.
At first, it was just, try this name, try this name, try this name.

Speaker 20 And you all have to chase after each and every one.

Speaker 26 Anytime somebody called in and said, hey, this person was in the neighborhood, we'd go talk to them and we would ask the male for a buckle swab to take their DNA.

Speaker 20 Investigators collected samples from at least two dozen men, including Shantae's grandfather, Charlie.

Speaker 20 It seemed unthinkable the doting Charlie could be the killer, but Shantae's mom was in favor of testing him. You thought he could have possibly been involved.

Speaker 11 Everybody was involved.

Speaker 21 Nobody was ruled out in your eyes.

Speaker 11 Nobody was ruled out in my eyes.

Speaker 20 It wasn't the grandfather. And it also wasn't anyone in CODIS, the National Law Enforcement DNA database.
Back to square one.

Speaker 1 Back to square one.

Speaker 2 Just heart-wrenching.

Speaker 20 Heart-wrenching for everyone in Shantae's quiet lakeside neighborhood. As weeks went by, and then months.

Speaker 13 We just know that they're out there.

Speaker 13 It's scary.

Speaker 20 Out there and possibly right there in the community.

Speaker 2 Right.

Speaker 13 Is this a neighbor? Is this a friend?

Speaker 11 Everybody was scared. The kids that walked out there constantly started pairing up.
Nobody walked alone.

Speaker 20 It snatched away that feeling of safety in the whole community.

Speaker 11 Everybody.

Speaker 11 Everybody started locking doors.

Speaker 15 I'm sure there were people who were out there wondering if they were, you know, eating supper beside the person who had done this.

Speaker 20 At Shantae's church, parishioners were desperate for answers.

Speaker 48 I can't believe that they would take such a precious person.

Speaker 27 She meant so much to Linda and I and to the community.

Speaker 22 Pastor, how are you, sir?

Speaker 20 The pastor hounded investigators for updates.

Speaker 26 Called me

Speaker 26 every day, every two days, every three days. wanting to know what we found and asking questions about the evidence.

Speaker 20 Asking about the case. Yes.
And because no one was above suspicion, investigators even wondered about the pastor himself.

Speaker 26 When somebody becomes too involved in your case, sometimes they're trying to figure out what you do know, what you have found out, what you haven't found out, to protect themselves.

Speaker 20 That went nowhere. And while authorities suspected the killer was someone Chantaine knew, they couldn't rule out other theories.

Speaker 20 Did you ever consider the possibility that you were dealing with a serial killer?

Speaker 15 You know, that's always a possibility of things that we look at.

Speaker 13 There was absolutely a thought process of, you know, look for other similar patterned crimes to see because it felt so brutal that it felt like it couldn't have been a first-time killer.

Speaker 20 Alicia Bird was still thinking about that strange symbol on Shantae's chest. What could it mean?

Speaker 13 The disappearance on Friday the 13th and the location where she was found. It just all

Speaker 13 you're looking for some sort of cohesiveness. You're looking for some theory of the case.

Speaker 26 A lot of sleepless nights laying there wondering, what did I miss today? Did I talk to this person today?

Speaker 26 It makes you start second-guessing yourself. What are you missing?

Speaker 20 You were really taking this case personally.

Speaker 32 Absolutely.

Speaker 20 Investigator Bird's wife could see the case was weighing heavily on her husband.

Speaker 13 The great thing with us both being in this field is we're able to give each other that space,

Speaker 13 recognizing that he needs to be able to think and to figure out what his next investigatory step will be.

Speaker 20 Shantae's family feared the investigation had hit a wall.

Speaker 3 Seemed like that.

Speaker 3 Nothing was getting done to me.

Speaker 20 Desperate for answers, Shantae's Shantae's stepfather admits he badgered his neighbors.

Speaker 35 I would stop everybody that drove by the house.

Speaker 35 I was out there from morning to dark

Speaker 35 trying to find out answers.

Speaker 3 I caused a lot of problems out there.

Speaker 35 I wanted to know.

Speaker 20 You were desperate.

Speaker 2 That was your girl.

Speaker 12 Yes, ma'am. You start thinking at that point,

Speaker 12 probably never actually find who

Speaker 11 did this. They told me they would never stop, but in my eyes, they had stopped because they were doing stuff that I didn't know at the time.

Speaker 20 What she didn't know was that Investigator Bird was about to take a leap of faith with a cutting-edge technology. Maybe this would reveal the face of the killer.

Speaker 26 I'm willing to try anything.

Speaker 13 It very much seemed too good to be true.

Speaker 20 One year after Shantae was murdered, her mom organized a memorial. Friends and family came together and walked Shantae's route.

Speaker 11 Everybody was out of breath.

Speaker 2 We didn't know how she did it.

Speaker 11 But that was her thing. Yeah, it was her thing.
It was. She loved it.
Everybody always talked about her. You know, all the beautiful moments, you know, everybody's seen her.

Speaker 11 Most of them are her walking and her smile. And she had this little walk where her little honey shook.

Speaker 11 That's how you remember her is seeing her, like living out there on that road with her being gone. I could see her.

Speaker 20 Those were difficult days for everyone. Those who loved her spent hours by her grave, the stone inscribed singing in the angel's choir.
Her stepfather, Stephen, was grieving and feeling guilty.

Speaker 20 Before she went missing, he told Shantae he might take her fishing on that Friday. Instead, he picked up an extra shift at work.

Speaker 2 It's been hard.

Speaker 2 Real hard.

Speaker 35 Because I figured if I wouldn't have went to work that weekend, she'd still be here.

Speaker 20 You think through all these what-ifs.

Speaker 2 And I blame myself every day.

Speaker 20 The Le Mans were suffering too.

Speaker 27 I cried for months and months. Afterward, it came to the point where it was unsolved.

Speaker 28 It hurt.

Speaker 27 I was really angry that, you know, if I said, man, if I could just get five minutes alone with this guy,

Speaker 27 you know, that's not a proper way to think, but, you know, still, you know, they took something from all of us.

Speaker 20 Despite all the leads the investigators had run down, Shantae's killer was still out there. Now, like a losing football team, they were ready for a Hail Mary.

Speaker 26 I was trying anything I could.

Speaker 32 We were lost.

Speaker 26 We couldn't, we didn't know what the next step was.

Speaker 20 Bird felt incredibly frustrated. He couldn't crack the case, even though he had the killer's DNA.

Speaker 3 It tells us who the killer is.

Speaker 26 It doesn't give us a name, but it tells us who did this, and it's undisputable.

Speaker 20 So what you have in your hand is quite possibly the best piece of evidence in terms of identifying someone, but no name. Right.

Speaker 6 That's how I've described it to people.

Speaker 26 I know exactly who you are.

Speaker 20 Then, Bird heard about a new DNA technique his department had never used. The process is called phenotyping.

Speaker 20 It uses DNA to predict the way a person looks, eye, hair, and skin color, among other things. Back in 2017, it was a shiny new tool for law enforcement.

Speaker 26 One of our investigators, who doesn't work for us anymore,

Speaker 26 saw a show on TV.

Speaker 26 And it was about phenotyping.

Speaker 14 He told me about it.

Speaker 20 Bird Googled it and called around. So you're hearing success stories.
Correct. And thinking, this could work for us too.

Speaker 10 Right.

Speaker 20 But when the investigator ran it by others, he hit a wall of skepticism, including his wife Alicia in the district attorney's office.

Speaker 13 It felt very television-esque. You know, it felt like something that you see on TV, but it doesn't really happen that way in real criminal cases.
And so it

Speaker 13 very much felt like a science fiction idea.

Speaker 20 You doubted it from the very beginning.

Speaker 15 From the very beginning, I didn't believe that it would work.

Speaker 20 This is not a TV show.

Speaker 15 This is not a TV show. And this is not, they can't do that with DNA.

Speaker 20 You had a lot of people to convince.

Speaker 26 I did, including the sheriff, the district attorney.

Speaker 6 And then I had to convince them to give me some more money.

Speaker 20 That couldn't have been easy.

Speaker 32 That's not easy.

Speaker 20 The price tag? $3,600.

Speaker 20 More money for an investigation that was already one of the most expensive this sheriff's office had ever done.

Speaker 20 Michael Murray is the Brown County District Attorney. Did you have concerns about whether or not this would even be admissible in court?

Speaker 5 Or

Speaker 2 this could help with cases?

Speaker 47 Wasn't so much that we needed to use it in court, but we needed a lead that would help lead to real other evidence.

Speaker 47 And so sometimes while it may not be the primary evidence you use in court, if it leads to other evidence, that would be the important aspect here.

Speaker 20 Finally, they agreed. It was time for that Hail Mary.
They got the money, and the DNA was submitted to a lab owned by a Virginia tech company called Parabon.

Speaker 20 You thought, there goes $3,600 down the drain?

Speaker 15 Yes, I think the county just wasted some money.

Speaker 20 Five months later, Investigator Bird got an email. It was late afternoon.

Speaker 26 I pulled it up and it said the image was included.

Speaker 32 Oh, goodness.

Speaker 20 What are you thinking before you open this picture?

Speaker 26 I hope I recognize the person.

Speaker 26 I hope this gives me an idea of who the person is.

Speaker 20 This is the image in the email.

Speaker 26 So I opened it and had no clue. It was just a stranger.

Speaker 20 Zero recognition.

Speaker 6 Zero.

Speaker 20 Did you see it?

Speaker 31 I did.

Speaker 20 Did you think that it looked like a person? I mean, did it seem like, hey, this could lead us somewhere?

Speaker 15 It looked like, to me, it looked like every white kid out North Lake. It could have been anybody.

Speaker 20 Not exactly the miracle they were hoping for. Still, they posted it on social media and pinned their hopes on the public.
The chance that somebody out there just might recognize this face.

Speaker 8 I mean, you're like, I have no idea. This looks like just an average white boy with blonde, blonde, sandy blonde hair.
And it's like, I don't know who that could be.

Speaker 11 We look at the sketch, me and my husband, and nothing.

Speaker 20 Did anything about it stand out to you?

Speaker 11 Nothing.

Speaker 11 Nothing. Did not.

Speaker 20 Not Not familiar, nothing notable.

Speaker 11 My dad looked at it.

Speaker 11 Nobody

Speaker 55 knew it.

Speaker 20 Shantae's sister studied it and was struck by its sophistication.

Speaker 12 You know, you grow up looking at the news and

Speaker 12 they're looking for the guy who did whatever and it's like a stick figure and it looks like something you could have drew in art class.

Speaker 12 This was way advanced, you know, compared to anything that you had seen prior to that.

Speaker 20 But it didn't ring a bell for destiny either.

Speaker 12 To me, looks like any dude.

Speaker 12 The picture, you know.

Speaker 20 Everyone felt defeated. Then Michelle got a call from another member of the family, Shantae's half-brother.
He saw something others didn't and gave his mother a name to look up.

Speaker 11 My heart hit the floor and I remember crying and I turned and I said, this is him.

Speaker 9 Some stories never make national headlines, but stories from small towns and coastal communities deserve recognition too.

Speaker 9 I'm Kylie Lowe, host of Dark Down East, a true crime podcast that gives voice to victims through investigative journalism and powerful storytelling.

Speaker 9 Set in my home state of Maine and the greater New England area, it's my goal to dig through the archives to bring the stories of the people at the heart of these cases to light.

Speaker 9 Listen to Dark Down East, wherever you get your podcasts.

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Speaker 20 At first, the parabon sketch felt like a big dud.

Speaker 20 Police posted it on social media and showed it to the family, but nothing.

Speaker 20 Then Michelle's son Cutter called her.

Speaker 11 He said he felt like he knew it right then.

Speaker 20 Cutter told his mom he was sure the sketch showed somebody he knew, someone someone named ryan riggs

Speaker 11 i looked him up and as soon as i seen that face my heart hit the floor and i remember crying and i turned and i said this is him this is him

Speaker 12 all of a sudden it was almost like somebody turned the lights on and you were like

Speaker 20 there he is ryan riggs was a local a member of Shantae's church. Cutter knew Riggs from high school and would never forget him.

Speaker 11 Ryan had bullied Cutter in school and had poured a whole glass of sweet tea over his head.

Speaker 20 So your son had known him for years.

Speaker 11 They all did. And they all used to play video games together.

Speaker 20 Michelle called Scott Bird and gave him the name. You've got a picture.
You've got a name. How do you put those together?

Speaker 26 We went to social media.

Speaker 26 We basically looked up Ryan Riggs on Facebook and the picture that popped up of him was the spitting image of the computer image that we'd received.

Speaker 13 It felt definitive. It felt like here is the answer.

Speaker 13 We have been looking for a year and a half and

Speaker 13 we've had nothing

Speaker 13 and here it is and it's it's a perfect match.

Speaker 20 What did you think when you saw that side by side?

Speaker 15 Started becoming a believer.

Speaker 20 Maybe it wasn't a waste of $3,600.

Speaker 15 Maybe this is not a waste of money.

Speaker 20 Investigators still had a lot of work to do. The sketch alone wasn't enough for an arrest.

Speaker 26 We start

Speaker 26 diving into Ryan Riggs to find out who he is.

Speaker 20 They learned that the 21-year-old Riggs loved playing video games online and picked up work doing lawn care. When Shantae first went missing, he'd even been part of the search.

Speaker 20 Riding with John on an ATV.

Speaker 57 We was going her name and just trying to see anything that was out of ordinary or shift.

Speaker 54 We could just

Speaker 33 get lucky to find her, you know.

Speaker 20 And Ryan was calling her name too.

Speaker 54 Yeah, he was.

Speaker 20 When investigators looked in their own files, they learned more.

Speaker 26 We found that he was a suspect in an illegal dumping case. That's where he dumped some trash on a county road.

Speaker 20 Dumping trash is no big deal, but where he dumped it was

Speaker 20 just a half mile from where Shantae's body was found along that same remote country road.

Speaker 20 So what does that tell you?

Speaker 26 He knows the area.

Speaker 20 What's more, in those dark days after Shantae's murder, Riggs was a constant presence.

Speaker 20 Here he is captured on the police surveillance video, attending Shantae's funeral, waiting at the entrance to the church, then watching from the doorway.

Speaker 20 Midway through the service, he gets a program and takes a seat.

Speaker 20 And then he leaves before it's over.

Speaker 11 He was at the house for, you know, her wake. He was at her house multiple times with John, Shantae's boyfriend.

Speaker 11 I'd be crying, talking about it,

Speaker 11 and he'd just

Speaker 11 act like just normal.

Speaker 20 He would come into your intimate space

Speaker 12 and offer comfort, give you hugs.

Speaker 35 He was there

Speaker 35 standing next to him. He shook my hand.

Speaker 20 He shook your hand. He smiled.

Speaker 20 Today we buried my daughter. The fact that he was there for some of the most painful moments, that had to feel like the ultimate insult.

Speaker 5 It was.

Speaker 35 How could anybody do that? I mean,

Speaker 35 I just didn't understand.

Speaker 2 And I was mad just because he was there the whole time and I couldn't see it.

Speaker 35 And he was right there.

Speaker 20 After 18 months of hard work, investigators now had a new and urgent priority. Find Ryan Riggs.

Speaker 26 We find his mom and dad. They let us come in and look in the house.
He's not there. They don't know where he is.
Hasn't been home for several days.

Speaker 20 After police released the sketch to the public, Riggs had taken off.

Speaker 26 So now we know Ryan's on the run from us. We figure he's seen the sketch, he's seen the news release.

Speaker 20 And at this point, you're looking, but.

Speaker 26 We can't find him.

Speaker 15 My job at that point was we're going to have to come up with a plan to locate him. If that's out in the woods, out in the brush, wherever he's at, we've got to find him.

Speaker 20 You were preparing for a manhunt.

Speaker 15 We were getting ready for a manhunt.

Speaker 20 The investigation had been jump-started, and another dramatic development was just around the corner, not in the woods or the brush,

Speaker 20 but at the very church that Shantae loved.

Speaker 20 I want you guys to take me to that Wednesday night church service.

Speaker 20 Ryan Riggs was now the prime suspect in Shantae's murder. But almost a week after the DNA sketch was made public, he was nowhere to be found.
Scott Bird believed he was on the run.

Speaker 26 We are calling informants. We have his picture out to the police department, our department, everybody out driving around looking for him.

Speaker 20 Russell and Linda Lamond had no idea there was an all-out manhunt underway for the young man they knew from church

Speaker 8 he would pop up every once in a while he was always with his mom and dad or or if mom was there by herself and his sister as well

Speaker 8 yes his sister what did you know about ryan riggs oh he's a good kid good kid he he would uh do anything for you

Speaker 8 anything you would ask him hey can you do this for me and it would be yes ma'am yes sir we had a community cleanup cleanup of one of the homeless shelters.

Speaker 27 I remember him out there we eating, just going to town and we eating clean up the community. He was very excited about doing it.

Speaker 20 On November 15th, 2017, 18 months after Shantae was murdered, the Le Mans headed to church for a regular Wednesday night service.

Speaker 20 I want you guys to take me to that Wednesday night church service.

Speaker 20 Okay,

Speaker 20 I'll start.

Speaker 8 When we got to church, there's Ryan's parents,

Speaker 8 the pastor and his wife, and then I see Ryan in the middle.

Speaker 20 There was Ryan, not hiding, not on the run, but there in plain sight at the church.

Speaker 8 We sat down, and the pastor said that, you know, Ryan wants to tell us something.

Speaker 8 And he starts talking, but

Speaker 8 he's talking about his salvation. And my thoughts, like, what is he talking about? So you're just lost.
Like, I'm lost. And he starts talking about that.
He had, you know,

Speaker 8 demon thoughts or he had, you know, voices in his head

Speaker 8 that was telling him to do things.

Speaker 20 And then Ryan Riggs, standing alone at the pulpit in front of the whole congregation, said it.

Speaker 20 He was a murderer.

Speaker 8 I start crying and I don't even remember everything he said at that point.

Speaker 20 I want to ask you, Russell, all I had to do was mention that church service and you were almost brought to tears.

Speaker 6 It was very difficult, very difficult, because when he said,

Speaker 3 I'm a murderer.

Speaker 28 I just got sick.

Speaker 32 I was like,

Speaker 27 I remember saying, please don't tell me he's talking about Shantae. Please don't tell me.
And the pastor's wife was standing next to us.

Speaker 6 And she goes, yes.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 22 I remember putting my head down.

Speaker 27 And I was so angry. I was so angry.

Speaker 27 I put my head down.

Speaker 21 I grabbed the pew.

Speaker 27 And I was like, how?

Speaker 2 I love this boy.

Speaker 27 And Pastor saw that he could see

Speaker 2 my face.

Speaker 27 He goes, Russell, I want you to come stand next to him.

Speaker 27 And I'm thinking to myself, that's probably not a good idea right now. You know, I'm not an angry person,

Speaker 5 but I wanted to hurt you for five minutes.

Speaker 27 I kid you not because I loved her so much.

Speaker 20 And now you're being asked to stand up next to him.

Speaker 27 I'm being asked to stand up next to him.

Speaker 27 And I went up to the pulpit

Speaker 27 and I put my arms around him and I embraced him and I told him I loved him.

Speaker 27 It was one of the hardest things I had to do.

Speaker 20 Did you forgive him in that moment?

Speaker 27 Yes, I did.

Speaker 28 I did.

Speaker 20 This is a brutal, cold-blooded murderer, and he's being treated with kid gloves. He's allowed to come to this church where he's very familiar, confess in front of people who love him.

Speaker 20 Where's the SWAT team?

Speaker 7 Where are the dogs?

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 34 I don't know how he was able to

Speaker 34 do that at church.

Speaker 8 And my thought was, he needs to know we're angry. And so before he left, I just put my face in front of a killer's face.
You know, I mean, that close.

Speaker 8 It kind of scared me a little bit, but I had grabbed his hands and told Ryan, I said, Ryan,

Speaker 8 we want to hate you,

Speaker 34 but we can't.

Speaker 11 We love you.

Speaker 8 Because I just wanted him to feel that

Speaker 8 what he did was wrong.

Speaker 20 Do you think he felt that?

Speaker 8 I'm hoping he did.

Speaker 20 Before that unforgettable scene at the church, Riggs had been on the run for several days. But then he showed up at the church with his parents.

Speaker 20 told the pastor what he'd done, and asked if he could confess to the congregation.

Speaker 20 The pastor agreed. So after the confession, what happens?

Speaker 26 Pastor Keener calls Sheriff Hill and says, I'm bringing in Ryan Riggs. He's just confessed to me in the church of killing Shantae.

Speaker 20 So they all ride to the sheriff's office together. He's not cuffed.
He's not arrested. He's just in the car with his parents going to the sheriff's office.

Speaker 32 The sheriff met him.

Speaker 26 out on the highway and followed him in to make sure Ryan didn't have a change of heart.

Speaker 20 Investigator Bird and Ranger Shea rushed to the sheriff's office. As you're processing all of that.

Speaker 15 How can you process that? That he just confessed to the church that he attended, that he's the one that everybody's been looking for for the last 18 months.

Speaker 15 You know, driving to the sheriff's office, trying to process that, million things are going through your mind. Did he really do it? Is he just saying that he did it?

Speaker 20 This is somebody that you've been pursuing for 18 months, day in and day out. Finally, you're face to face with this person.

Speaker 20 What was that moment like for you?

Speaker 26 I kept thinking, my job's not done yet.

Speaker 15 Now it's time to talk.

Speaker 20 And did he talk?

Speaker 32 Yes, he did.

Speaker 17 I've always had this, it's like this

Speaker 36 different part of me

Speaker 2 that

Speaker 36 it just wants nothing but destruction and evil.

Speaker 3 There's always more to the story.

Speaker 6 To go behind the scenes of tonight's episode, listen to our Talking Datelines series with Blaine and Josh, available Wednesday.

Speaker 20 This was the news Michelle had wanted so badly for so long, ever since that terrible Friday the 13th. Her daughter's killer was finally in custody.
But she was confused by the way it happened.

Speaker 20 Ryan Riggs did not confess to authorities. He'd done it in front of the congregation at Shantae's church.

Speaker 20 This was the place where she would go and find comfort day after day, where she would sing and sit in the pews, the place she loved.

Speaker 20 How did it feel to know that he had chosen that place, that church, to confess to killing her.

Speaker 11 I couldn't imagine being a person sitting on that pew when he confessed that.

Speaker 20 Michelle was angry that the pastor had arranged what Riggs himself described as a moment of salvation.

Speaker 11 I felt like it was done wrongfully that he shouldn't have been brought into the church.

Speaker 11 Should not have been able to step foot in that church.

Speaker 12 The way he decided to go about telling everybody was like his opportunity to try to to cleanse himself or ask for some sort of forgiveness or his way of saying like, hey, look, I'm sorry.

Speaker 12 I don't believe he was sorry.

Speaker 20 When Riggs arrived at the sheriff's office after the service, he was finally face to face with Ranger Shea and Investigator Bird.

Speaker 36 What I'm going to do is take you back a little bit and go through some of the stuff. Where did you find Shantae that day?

Speaker 36 She was walking past the mailboxes and I had stopped and asked her if she needed a ride

Speaker 36 and she got in my truck.

Speaker 20 Riggs said they drove around the neighborhood.

Speaker 20 Then he pulled over in a secluded spot.

Speaker 36 When y'all were sitting in the truck talking, what are y'all talking about? Music.

Speaker 36 What y'all liked or what I was playing or what? I was letting her go through all my music and

Speaker 36 every time she'd play a song she'd be she would say something like oh that's my song.

Speaker 20 He told investigators that as they sat there in the truck listening to music,

Speaker 20 something inside of him

Speaker 20 snapped.

Speaker 36 Out of nowhere, I just put my left arm around her and began to strangle her.

Speaker 36 And whenever

Speaker 36 she had passed out,

Speaker 36 I took her clothes off

Speaker 36 and I raped her.

Speaker 20 While she's unconscious.

Speaker 26 While she's unconscious.

Speaker 20 Then what happened?

Speaker 26 He told us he knew he couldn't let her live because he had raped her and he couldn't have her talking.

Speaker 36 I went to the abandoned house.

Speaker 20 Riggs knew about the haunted house because he'd been there with friends when he was a teenager.

Speaker 36 I threw her over that fence. Then I climbed over the fence and dragged her to that tank battery

Speaker 36 where I had

Speaker 36 put her.

Speaker 36 But before I threw her in there,

Speaker 36 I went back to my truck and got a long mower blade out of the back of my truck. And I went back to where she was

Speaker 36 and I beat her to death with it. I had stomped on her chest as well.

Speaker 26 So we stomped on her chest to try to kill her. That was the mark.
And that's the mark from his shoes.

Speaker 20 It was an appalling story,

Speaker 20 but the way Riggs told it was cold, almost methodical.

Speaker 36 I think

Speaker 36 whatever

Speaker 36 came over me knew that she was an easy target.

Speaker 20 What was his demeanor?

Speaker 15 Matter of fact,

Speaker 15 and that's what surprised us also.

Speaker 15 There wouldn't really a whole bunch of emotion involved in this.

Speaker 36 It's like this different part of me

Speaker 36 that

Speaker 36 it just wants nothing but destruction and evil. It wanted to kill somebody.
It wanted to rape.

Speaker 36 How long have you been having those thoughts before this happened? I've always had these thoughts.

Speaker 36 We used to have a chihuahua

Speaker 36 and I tried on numerous occasions to

Speaker 36 drown that chihuahua in a buck five gallon bucket of water.

Speaker 36 But I would just hold it there long enough to where

Speaker 36 I would just think to myself, what am I doing? Your parents never saw you do it? No, I always made sure to do it whenever they were away.

Speaker 20 As you're sitting there listening to him, what are you thinking about this guy?

Speaker 26 This guy's dangerous. This guy's scary.

Speaker 26 He kills without remorse. And I'm shocked he hadn't done it again.

Speaker 20 Did you believe that Ryan Riggs would kill again?

Speaker 26 Absolutely.

Speaker 36 If you could say something right now to Sean Tay, what would you say?

Speaker 36 That I'm sorry that I did what I did.

Speaker 36 And

Speaker 36 whatever I have coming towards me, I deserve.

Speaker 36 What do you think you deserve?

Speaker 36 Death for sure.

Speaker 20 Riggs was charged with capital murder.

Speaker 47 In the state of Texas, if you commit a murder and there's aggravating circumstances surround it, for instance, in this case, sexually assaulting the victim, that by itself transformed this from a regular murder case into a capital murder case.

Speaker 20 So the death penalty is on the table.

Speaker 47 At this point, it very much is.

Speaker 20 But before D.A. Murray went to court to seek the death penalty, he talked to Shantae's family.

Speaker 20 He wanted them to know there is a long process before an execution can be carried out, likely spanning many years.

Speaker 47 The question is, are you going to be able to get justice for the family in a reasonable period of time that's not going to prolong their agony?

Speaker 20 Chantae's mom decided death was too good for Ryan Riggs.

Speaker 11 To me, that would have been an easy way out.

Speaker 20 Easy for him.

Speaker 11 Easy for him. What? He wouldn't have got to suffer.

Speaker 20 So the state offered Riggs a deal, a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

Speaker 13 It was important for our community to have closure and the finality of being able to tell everyone,

Speaker 13 we are guaranteed that he will remain in prison. That was incredibly valuable for our community.

Speaker 20 Riggs accepted the deal. He was sentenced in February 2019.

Speaker 8 He will never marry, never have kids, but he's still alive, and he can still

Speaker 8 see his family.

Speaker 11 He got the choice to live or die.

Speaker 8 And Shantae did not.

Speaker 20 Michelle feels she knows what would have been in her daughter's heart.

Speaker 11 She would have forgave him.

Speaker 11 Do you forgive him? I don't.

Speaker 20 Shantae's loved ones try not to dwell on the man who killed her.

Speaker 20 Michelle would rather remember her feisty, radiant daughter.

Speaker 20 When you close your eyes and think about your daughter,

Speaker 20 what's the first thing that comes to your mind? Her smile. Her smile.

Speaker 20 Yeah.

Speaker 24 It doesn't ever go away.

Speaker 1 I see her all the time.

Speaker 12 I want people to remember her singing at the choir, walking down the street, waving at people. That's how everybody needs to remember her, not as some sort of a victim.

Speaker 20 And on the streets where she walked, in the church where she sang,

Speaker 20 Shantae's spirit is still

Speaker 20 very much alive.

Speaker 20 Her family visits her on holidays, decorating her grave

Speaker 20 and picturing her smiling

Speaker 20 as she sings in the Angel's Choir.

Speaker 23 That's all for this edition of Dateline. We'll see you again next Friday at 9-8 Central.
And of course, I'll see you each weeknight for NBC Nightly News. I'm Lester Holt, for all of us at NBC News.

Speaker 7 Good night.

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