Deadly Engagement - Ep. 4: A Knife in the Night

Speaker 1 When it comes to gifting, everyone on your list deserves something special. Luckily, Marshalls buyers travel far and wide, hustling for great deals on amazing gifts, so you don't have to.

Speaker 1 That means your mom gets that cashmere sweater, your best friend, that Italian leather bag, your co-workers unwrap their favorite beauty brands, and your nephews, the coolest new toys.

Speaker 1 Go ahead, at prices this good, you can grab something for yourself too. Marshalls, we get the deals, you gift the good stuff.
Shop now at marshalls.com or find a store near you.

Speaker 2 If you're a smoker or dipper ready to make a change, you really only need one good reason.

Speaker 5 But with Zen nicotine pouches, you'll discover many good reasons.

Speaker 7 Zen is America's number one nicotine pouch brand.

Speaker 8 Plus, Zen offers a robust rewards program.

Speaker 9 There are lots of options when it comes to nicotine satisfaction, but there's only one Zen.

Speaker 12 Check out zinn.com/slash find to find Zen at a store near you.

Speaker 11 Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical

Speaker 4 In a different time and place, Shannon Crawley and Danita Smith might have been friends.

Speaker 4 Like Danita, the young woman whose murder is at the center of our story, Shannon was determined, hardworking, and full of wonder. Very sensitive,

Speaker 4 very creative, very smart, very articulate. She's a writer.
Poetry, short stories, that sort of thing, very creative.

Speaker 4 Just like Danita, Shannon was a very good student. English was her strongest subject.

Speaker 4 It is undeniable, if fate had dealt Shannon a different hand, she and Donita might have met in college and maybe formed a bond that would have lasted long past graduation.

Speaker 4 Well, that is not the way it went. Unlike Danita, who went to college and then on to grad school, Shannon became became the mother of two while still a teenager.
She didn't want to be a statistic.

Speaker 4 That's Shannon's mom, Anne. The typical, you know, welfare mother, she wanted to take care of her children.
And that's what she did.

Speaker 4 Instead of sorority pledge parties and fancy summer fellowships, Shannon struggled to make ends meet. She worked a lot of odd jobs.
And that's Shannon's brother, Keith Crawley Jr.

Speaker 4 Selling vacuum cleaners, worked in a factory.

Speaker 4 Then in 2000, Shannon found work at the 911 Call Center in Greensboro. It was a good job, and by all accounts, Shannon was good at it.

Speaker 4 It had been a tough road, but Shannon Crawley beat the odds. She worked six months straight, 12-hour shifts, to buy a house.

Speaker 4 At 27 years old, I think that's quite an accomplishment for a single mother.

Speaker 4 This is the story of two talented young women on two entirely different life paths.

Speaker 4 Two women who never met socially, but who were forever linked by one common denominator. They both fell for the same man, Jermir Stroud.
He was charming. He was very nice.
We got along.

Speaker 4 We had a lot in common. She thought he was absolutely gorgeous.
Love triangles seldom have happy endings.

Speaker 4 And this one, with one person dead and the other two accusing each other of murder, is no exception.

Speaker 13 This isn't about did this person commit this crime. This one is about which one is it? Is it Jameer or is it Shannon?

Speaker 4 In this episode, you'll hear just how far the he said, she said finger pointing went. We have the recordings where he admits that he killed her.

Speaker 14 She volunteered for a polygraph. The head polygraph examiner for the state administered the test.

Speaker 4 We'll make sure that she's lying overlight for some law enforcement agency proxy blank.

Speaker 4 And you'll hear how the murder investigation was rocked by an explosive new accusation. He's got on top of being right.

Speaker 4 Who is this guy?

Speaker 4 But he can get the race for police officers.

Speaker 4 I'm Josh Mankowitz, and this is Deadly Engagement, a podcast from Dateline.

Speaker 4 Episode 4. A Knife in the Night

Speaker 4 For more than a year after the shooting death of Danita Smith, Shannon Crawley, her accused killer, tried to clear her name.

Speaker 4 Shannon insisted to anyone who would listen that it was not her, but her former lover, Jermir Stroud, who had pulled the trigger.

Speaker 4 It was Jermir, she said, who forced her to ride with him to Durham that day. Jermeer who insisted she drive her car.

Speaker 4 Jermir who directed her to Danita's apartment and told her to wait in the car. I don't know that his plan that day was to go there and shoot her.

Speaker 4 That's Shannon Crawley, speaking in an interview I did with her years later.

Speaker 4 If Jarmir's plan is to frame you for Danita's murder, leaving aside that I don't know what his motive would be in that, why bring you along?

Speaker 4 Why not kill Donita and plant the gun in your car or your house? I think he acted in the spur of the moment, but I don't believe that he set out to deliberately go there and shoot her.

Speaker 4 I believe that he was after me. I honestly believe that he was going to kill me.

Speaker 4 Why would Jermir Stroud, a police officer, want to kill anyone, much less someone he claimed to love?

Speaker 4 I don't know. She said Jermir had been emotional and erratic with her for months, stalking Shannon, intimidating her, pleading with her to come back to him.

Speaker 4 Remember, Shannon told Detective Pate Jermir had even threatened to kill her children on the day of the murder if she didn't take that ride with him to Durham. His exact words to me were:

Speaker 4 either you die for your kids or the kids die for you.

Speaker 4 What's your choice?

Speaker 4 So I went.

Speaker 4 As for Danita, well, Shannon insisted she had no idea Danita Smith even existed. I can't sit here and tell you that everything I did was right.
I can't.

Speaker 4 But one thing I can absolutely tell you is I never shot anybody.

Speaker 4 I didn't kill anyone.

Speaker 4 I didn't. I had no reason to.
I didn't know who she was. I had never seen her before.
I knew nothing about her. There's no way I could have known anything about her or where she lived at all.

Speaker 4 And if you had found out that she existed, what would have happened? He and I would have broken up and that would have been the end of it.

Speaker 4 I never would have been involved with him if I knew that he was involved with someone else. You think Jumir killed Danita? I absolutely believe that he did.

Speaker 4 Though Shannon's family was steadfast in their support for her and 100% believed her version of what happened, Detective Pate and the Durham DA

Speaker 4 did not.

Speaker 4 So in April 2008, Shannon and her lawyers approached Detective Pate with a proposition. Shannon was willing to have her veracity tested by the State Bureau of Investigation.

Speaker 14 A polygraph test was given to Shannon at an SBI substation.

Speaker 4 She volunteered for a polygraph. She did.

Speaker 14 We had from the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, the head polygraph examiner for the state, administered the test.

Speaker 4 In a small, quiet room, A polygrapher applied the electrodes that would measure Shannon's heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, and perspiration.

Speaker 4 Then he asked her 20 questions, beginning with,

Speaker 4 how do you think you'll do on this test?

Speaker 4 Shannon answered, I am going to pass.

Speaker 4 When asked if she had killed Danita, Shannon responded, no.

Speaker 4 When the test was done, The polygrapher tallied up the results.

Speaker 14 She didn't pass the test, as we're not surprised.

Speaker 4 Then Detective Pate says the polygrapher pulled him aside and told him this.

Speaker 14 I can tell you without a doubt that she took something to calm herself down before this test.

Speaker 14 Because you can take something to calm yourself down, but when you lie, it's still going to, no matter how low a calm you make yourself, there's still going to be a spike.

Speaker 14 So instead of being up, starting up here and spiking up here, okay, you just start here and spike up here. But she made an effort to fool the test.

Speaker 4 Polygraphs are not admissible in court. Even so, the detective and the DA saw the results as confirmation of something they had long believed.

Speaker 4 Shannon Crawley was a killer.

Speaker 4 And now, out on bail with her options of avoiding trial running out,

Speaker 4 she was as dangerous as dynamite.

Speaker 14 She puts her head on the steering wheel for a minute. She looks up like

Speaker 14 for like burning a a hole through the building with her eyes.

Speaker 14 Then she just puts it in and drive and sister for a second. When she put it in drive, I just pulled off.

Speaker 14 And the other detective says, what are you doing? You're not going to follow her? I said, I'm going to be honest with you. I don't trust to be on the highway with her at the same time.

Speaker 14 And she knows that,

Speaker 14 you know, she might think, hey, if I get rid of him.

Speaker 4 Slow things down.

Speaker 14 At least slow things down. And I didn't know if she thought this was a last-ditch effort.
I don't know what's going through her head.

Speaker 14 I didn't know if she was going to try to take herself out and do something crazy on the highway.

Speaker 4 When she walked out of that building, did she know she'd failed the polygraph? She did. They told her right there.
They did. They did.

Speaker 14 And honestly, I thought that the case was so good that I didn't want to do anything to jeopardize it.

Speaker 4 No, the detective wanted to keep his distance now. and let the process run its course.

Speaker 4 Shannon Crawley, on the other hand, well, she drove away from that polygraph test knowing she would need to find another way to prove her innocence.

Speaker 13 Hey, this is Jeff Lewis from Radio Andy. Live and uncensored, catch me talking with my friends about my latest obsessions, relationship issues, and bodily ailments.

Speaker 13 With that kind of drama that seems to follow me, you never know what's going to happen.

Speaker 16 You can listen listen to Jeff Lewis Live at home or anywhere you are. Download the SiriusXTem app for over 425 channels of ad-free music, sports, entertainment, and more.

Speaker 16 Subscribe now and get three months free.

Speaker 17 Offer details apply.

Speaker 1 When it comes to gifting, everyone on your list deserves something special. Luckily, Marshall's buyers travel far and wide, hustling for great deals on amazing gifts, so you don't have to.

Speaker 1 That means your mom gets that cashmere sweater, your best friend, that Italian leather bag. Your coworkers unwrap their favorite beauty brands.
And your nephews, the coolest new toys. Go ahead.

Speaker 1 At prices this good, you can grab something for yourself too. Marshalls, we get the deals, you gift the good stuff.
Shop now at marshalls.com or find a store near you.

Speaker 2 If you're a smoker or dipper ready to make a change, you really only need one good reason.

Speaker 5 But with Zen nicotine pouches, you'll discover many good reasons.

Speaker 7 Zen is America's number one nicotine pouch brand.

Speaker 8 Plus, Zen offers a robust rewards program.

Speaker 9 There are lots of options when it comes to nicotine satisfaction, but there's only one Zen.

Speaker 12 Check out Zen.com/slash find to find Zen at a store near you.

Speaker 11 Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.

Speaker 4 The suburban neighborhood where Jermir Stroud and Shannon Crawley lived was not big enough for the both of them. That much was clear to Jermir the minute Shannon bonded out of jail.

Speaker 4 After all, Shannon had been charged with murdering Jermir's fiancée. Immediately after I got out, he filed for a restraining order.
We went through a hearing and the restraining order was denied.

Speaker 4 Maybe a week after, he started calling me wanting to know what I had told the police. Shannon told her lawyers the calls made her uncomfortable.

Speaker 4 After I told my attorneys that he was calling me, they contacted the Durham District Attorney's Office and let them know he's calling her. That's when the phone calls increased.

Speaker 4 The frequency of the phone calls increased, and the nature of the phone calls changed. What was he saying? What was Jameer saying now? He was threatening to kill me if I told him anything.

Speaker 4 When she and her attorneys met with Durham County Assistant DA David Sachs and told him about the calls. The prosecutor asked them to bring him proof.

Speaker 4 That is what the district attorney's office told us.

Speaker 4 They are the ones that asked me to record the phone calls. I did not volunteer to do that.
I wanted them to make him stop.

Speaker 4 That was my initial thought, make him stop, make him leave me alone. They then said, record the phone calls.
And tried to get him to say something incriminating. And I did that.

Speaker 4 Hello. Hello?

Speaker 4 Jameer.

Speaker 4 What do you want?

Speaker 4 Nobody.

Speaker 4 What do you expect, Jameer? You got me in the middle of your mess.

Speaker 4 The recordings were a decidedly low-tech endeavor. Shannon's attorneys basically bought tape recording equipment from Radio Shack and showed Shannon how to push the record button.

Speaker 4 As a result, it's often hard to hear what is being said.

Speaker 4 Except for Shannon Crawley and her family. Because to them, those recordings sounded like exoneration.
You know I didn't do anything. You need to tell the truth.
Man, I ain't going to jail.

Speaker 4 And I'm supposed to for something I didn't do?

Speaker 4 Well, they did because you lied.

Speaker 4 The kids, why are you whispering?

Speaker 4 No one.

Speaker 4 When Shannon was taping these phone calls,

Speaker 4 which you said were from Jamaica,

Speaker 4 did you think this is the evidence that's going to

Speaker 4 turn everything around? Once police and prosecutors hear this, they're going to drop the charges. They're going to drop the charges.

Speaker 4 Ann Crawley told me she was on the receiving end of some of those calls. I remember I could

Speaker 4 hear someone

Speaker 4 whispering. It was very soft.

Speaker 4 Shut your, you know, and it was just a lot of expletives. You get on the phone sometimes? And yeah, he

Speaker 4 would stop. Just stop.
Leave us alone. And, you know, and they would, you know, either laugh or hang up.

Speaker 4 Again, I would answer the phone, and he would think it was Shannon and talking to me. And you knew his voice by then? Oh, by then, yeah, I knew his voice.
And it was always the same person.

Speaker 4 Always the same person.

Speaker 4 Shannon says the calls were constant, creepy, and unsettling. And what really concerned Shannon was that Jermir lived close by.

Speaker 4 So after barely a year in that new house she had scrimped and saved to buy, Shannon put it back on the market. I couldn't go back to my house.
We both owned houses in the same subdivision.

Speaker 4 I did not go back to my house after that. I moved in with my mother.

Speaker 4 Shannon's mother, Anne, had recently separated from Shannon's father. She had rented a place in Concord, so Shannon and the kids moved there.

Speaker 4 Shannon thought she would be safe from harassment there, more than 70 miles away from Jermeer Stroud. She says she was wrong about that.
The phone calls kept coming.

Speaker 4 I've been at the house on numerous occasions when he has called the house. That is Shannon's dad, Keith Crawley Sr.

Speaker 4 I think there's one part of the conversation where he said, I killed her and I kill you too. Why did you kill her?

Speaker 4 You're going to kill me too?

Speaker 4 How much more proof do you need? As a former sheriff's deputy in another state, Mr. Crawley would take a particular interest in the police handling of his daughter's case.

Speaker 4 Sometimes I would hear her side of the conversation. Other times, if my wife picked up the phone or I picked up the phone, there would be just silence.

Speaker 4 No one would say anything. We would always tell a block number or number that we couldn't access on a caller ID.

Speaker 4 And after a while, even though you can't probably prove it was him, you know who it is calling. It's very obvious who's calling.

Speaker 4 In February 2008, Shannon's mom moved into a new house in a new subdivision on the east side of Charlotte. That house was more than 100 miles away from Jermeer Stroud.

Speaker 4 But the Crawleys say it was there that Jermir found Shannon. He would appear in the neighborhood, just sit there on his car and watch the house.

Speaker 4 So, yeah. Follow her to work.
Follow her to work, Chandor. Yeah, I think.

Speaker 4 Follow you to work. Yes.
Why? I don't know. Sometimes she would have to use my car, you know, to go

Speaker 4 to see the lawyers and

Speaker 4 she would take... you know, take me to work.
And I think he followed me to see, find out where I worked. Because Because he'd show up at my job.
You saw it.

Speaker 4 Oh, yeah. Oh, my gosh.
I chased him through the neighborhood. One day I just had enough with him.
He would sit behind the house.

Speaker 4 The kids would run in the house because they would see him driving through the neighborhood. And he would sit behind the house and watch.

Speaker 4 The way the Crawleys saw it, they were practically living under siege. hounded by a Greensboro police officer who lived an hour and a half away.

Speaker 4 Sometimes he would think he was talking to me and I would just be listening, you know, and once he told her, he said, that was your mother that answered the phone.

Speaker 4 The next time I call, you better answer. Angry guy.
Oh, yeah. Oh my gosh.
So angry guy, jealous guy. Jealous guy.

Speaker 4 Shannon managed to get many of those calls on tape. Her family thought those recordings exonerated her.
But after listening to them, the DA was unconvinced.

Speaker 4 He told Shannon's lawyers he didn't believe the voice on those tapes actually belonged to Jarmeer Stroud. What's your reaction?

Speaker 4 When you realize the DA is like, sort of didn't believe that that was really Jar.

Speaker 4 I felt betrayed. According to Shannon, months of harassment and phone threats reached a climax on a hot summer night in June 2008.

Speaker 4 It was then, Shannon says, that Jermir Stroud suddenly appeared in her mother's backyard in Charlotte. Shannon was alone and he had a knife.

Speaker 4 No one in the neighborhood heard a single sound until the sun came up. I just saw a bunch of police cars and I saw Ann's daughter, I don't know her name, being taken into the ambulance.

Speaker 4 Okay, would that be Shannon? Yes,

Speaker 4 her daughter. Okay.
Being taken into the ambulance.

Speaker 3 If you're a smoker or dipper ready to make a change, you really only need one good reason.

Speaker 5 But with Zen nicotine pouches, you'll discover many good reasons.

Speaker 7 Zin is America's number one nicotine pouch brand.

Speaker 8 Plus, Zen offers a robust rewards program.

Speaker 9 There are lots of options when it comes to nicotine satisfaction, but there's only one Zen.

Speaker 12 Check out Zen.com/slash find to find Zen at a store near you.

Speaker 11 Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an an addictive chemical.

Speaker 15 At Arizona State University, we've made online education better, smarter, and more personalized so you can go further in your aspiring field.

Speaker 4 I decided to pursue medicine once I realized that ASU did have the online program for biological sciences. You're still required to learn the same curriculum.

Speaker 4 You're still being tested on the same content that anyone would be tested on in person. The comprehensiveness of the program prepared me so well for medical school.

Speaker 15 Explore over 350 plus programs at ASUonline.asu.edu.

Speaker 18 Did you know Tide has been upgraded to provide an even better, clean and cold water? Tide is specifically designed to fight any stain you throw at it, even in cold.

Speaker 4 Butter? Yep.

Speaker 18 Chocolate ice cream? Sure thing. Barbecue sauce?

Speaker 1 Tide's got you covered.

Speaker 18 You don't need to use warm water. Additionally, Tide pods let you confidently fight tough stains with new coldzyme technology.
Just remember, if it's got to be clean, it's got to be be tied.

Speaker 4 Whatever it was that happened in Charlotte on Downey Birch Road in the pre-dawn hours of June 20th, 2007, remains, to this day, a mystery. No one saw anything.
No one heard anything.

Speaker 4 Except when Anne Crawley woke up that morning, she saw her daughter Shannon, half naked, crawling across the bedroom floor. She's hysterical and she's she's shaking and

Speaker 4 I'm like, what's, you know, what's the matter?

Speaker 4 And she's telling me, she said, Jameer, he was here. You know, he hurt me.
And she kept saying, he hurt me. So I ran down the stairs.
And the back door was open. And

Speaker 4 I didn't see

Speaker 4 anybody. Again, there's no houses in our backyard, you know, behind us at all.
And the doorbell rang, and it was the police.

Speaker 4 Apparently she hit the alarm and she didn't remember hitting the alarm and she, but she didn't want to talk to the police.

Speaker 4 No. That morning, the very sight of police uniforms seemed to freak out Shannon.

Speaker 4 So Ann Crawley says she got her daughter to her feet, calmed her down, and walked her downstairs to where the EMTs had a gurney that would take her out to a waiting ambulance.

Speaker 4 I just put my robe around her because

Speaker 4 she was naked from the, I believe from the waist down, and she went to the hospital. And I had the kids.
Did Shannon tell you she'd been raped? Yeah.

Speaker 4 At the hospital, while Shannon was waiting to be photographed, examined, and swabbed, all part of the standard rape kit, she spoke with Detective Pam Zencon from the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Sex Crimes Unit.

Speaker 4 Shannon told Detective Zencon the whole ordeal ordeal began at around 2.30 a.m.

Speaker 4 That's when the family's new puppy started whining, signaling he needed to go out. I walked out into the grass and

Speaker 4 the dog was using the bathroom and

Speaker 4 he kind of stopped and started to turn around and which made me turn around and before I could turn

Speaker 4 He grabbed me around my waist

Speaker 4 and had

Speaker 4 the knife up to my throat and told me not to say anything.

Speaker 4 Shannon told the detective Jermir was dressed all in black, black cargo pants, black shirt, black boots, and black gloves.

Speaker 4 She said that as Jermir was pulling her away from the house and deeper into a neighbor's backyard, she slipped on the wet grass and fell to the ground.

Speaker 4 That's when she says he got on top of her and started cutting her shorts and underwear off with the knife. And he got on top of me and right

Speaker 4 repeatedly.

Speaker 4 Yo.

Speaker 4 You're doing so good. Just take your time.

Speaker 4 Sorry.

Speaker 4 He started getting upset because he lost his erection and

Speaker 4 so he used the knife to penetrate me.

Speaker 4 One can imagine the look on the detective's face when she heard that. Shannon's medical chart did note a few superficial wounds to her genital area.

Speaker 4 However, there was no mention of the kind of injuries one might expect from the knife attack Shannon described. And then...

Speaker 4 When he got his erection back, he raped me a kid.

Speaker 4 Shannon told the detective she could not remember if Jermir used a condom or condoms during the assault. She did recall that it went on for hours.

Speaker 4 We would fight. I kept struggling to get you away from him.
And he would,

Speaker 4 I would end up on my stomach and try to crawl away from him. And he just kept pulling me back down and just laying on me.
And then finally,

Speaker 4 he

Speaker 4 put the knife down and I kind of pushed myself up and back and started kicking and hitting at him. And I got up and ran, and he started to chase after me.
And then

Speaker 4 I remember looking back and

Speaker 4 seeing he just stopped running, and he just kind of laughed at me. Just kept laughing.
And I ran inside.

Speaker 4 By then, the sun was up. And the neighbors who were stirring at that hour noticed police activity at the Crawley house.
Drop police, my healthy.

Speaker 4 I was walking through my backyard and I seen some women's underwear and some ripped shorts. So I'm not too sure if it was a sexual assault crime that took place.

Speaker 4 By Shannon's reckoning, her struggle with Jermir lasted for hours. And yet, none of the neighbors reported hearing anything.

Speaker 4 And if you're wondering about the dog that apparently did not bark, a Yorkie-Chihuahua mix,

Speaker 4 Well, Shannon's mom said she found him later that morning. The dog did come upstairs and he held him

Speaker 4 under my bed.

Speaker 4 Hours after Shannon reported she had been sexually assaulted, Charlotte police went looking for the man she had named as her attacker, Jermir Stroud. Jermir was not hard to find.
He was at home.

Speaker 4 By 1.30 that afternoon, two officers were in Greensboro to interview him. Here's how that interview sounded.
The first time that you knew

Speaker 4 about the allegation from this morning was when, how did you find that out? I was called

Speaker 4 by Lieutenant Language Coffee and called me

Speaker 4 Chief Charlie

Speaker 4 on the way up. That is the voice of Jarmir Stroud.
As long as I got here and talk to you guys, that's my time. That's the first time you knew what the nature of the voice.

Speaker 4 Jermir gave the Charlotte cops a quick four or five sentence synopsis. of his relationship with Shannon.

Speaker 4 Those sentences included her arrest for the murder of his fiancé and her subsequent release on bond.

Speaker 4 Then, unprompted, Jermir launched into a lengthy discourse about her behavior towards him.

Speaker 4 Since she's been released, there's just a doubtless

Speaker 4 strange phone calls.

Speaker 4 hanged up phone calls and things of that nature that I've checked the record of and turned into the gun police department.

Speaker 4 In Jermeer's telling, it was Shannon who'd been acting erratically. He'd never stalked her.
He'd never threatened her. And he didn't even know where she lived now.

Speaker 4 Donkey told me that

Speaker 4 she was going with her mother for a while. Do you ever have any information that she was living in Charlotte now? No.

Speaker 4 According to Jermir, The last time he stopped in Charlotte for anything other than gas was two weeks earlier, on June 7th, 2008.

Speaker 4 Jameer told the officers the date was significant to him and he marked it by visiting Danita's grave. Young South 2008 was supposed to be our wedding day.

Speaker 4 I stopped buried and man I got back home 85 and he straight to a hunt. When asked about the last time he'd actually spoken with Shannon, Jameer said it was in late January when she called him.

Speaker 4 She called me from an untraceable redirect service number that doesn't allow you to trace the original source of the call

Speaker 4 and told me that she had some things that belonged to

Speaker 4 my fiancé, who if I wanted to get them back, I needed to meet her at Concord Mills Mall

Speaker 4 the next day.

Speaker 4 I did not meet with her, notified the Ground District Training Office, David Slag from the

Speaker 4 Durham Police. We took them investigated Sean Pate,

Speaker 4 and they tried to investigate the situation from there.

Speaker 4 Jermir told the cops Shannon's latest allegation against him was part of a pattern. She was telling me that I was contacting her, and she was blaming me for the murder.

Speaker 4 I got there with one trial made me look back at him a couple of new come trial time.

Speaker 4 Is that what this was? An elaborate ruse related to an 18-month-old murder investigation in Durham? The Charlotte cops didn't know. They were there to investigate an alleged rape.

Speaker 4 So they started with the basics. Tell me a little bit about your job description and what your hours were last night.

Speaker 4 I'm a what's called a PNRC officer that stands for Police Neighborhood Resource Center. Jarmeer told Charlotte police he'd worked the late shift the night before.

Speaker 4 It was well after midnight, he said, when he clocked out. The last thing I did last night before I left Lord Cloud Island,

Speaker 4 I slighted my police ID from TDI.

Speaker 4 And that is a police system.

Speaker 4 The log system.

Speaker 4 According to Jermir, he had a brief conversation with another officer on his way out the door.

Speaker 4 Then, as he left town, Jermir said he had a 20-minute phone conversation with a friend, then hit the drive-thru at McDonald's. he paid cash then he said he went straight home watch a little tv

Speaker 4 you got any idea what time it was when you call me went to sleep

Speaker 4 martin was on tv one i fell asleep watching martin on tv one but i was probably about

Speaker 4 23

Speaker 4 That was the time Shannon Crawley had said she was being assaulted, 85 miles away.

Speaker 4 Clearly, one of them was lying.

Speaker 4 The Charlotte cops knew of only one way to find out which one.

Speaker 4 We'd like to get a DNA sample from you.

Speaker 4 And we understand

Speaker 4 that in the past that you have had sexual relations with her. We've obviously taken it into account.

Speaker 4 And you said that you're fine with that. You're okay with that.
Yes.

Speaker 4 By two o'clock that afternoon, Charlotte cops had their DNA sample and were on their way out the door. They'd only spent a half hour with Jermir,

Speaker 4 but by the time they left, it was clear to them Jermir Stroud was a frustrated man at the end of his rope.

Speaker 4 Before I shut off our reporters, there anything you want to add? Or when it shows that she's lying, I would like for some law enforcement agency

Speaker 4 because it's blatantly alive.

Speaker 4 I mean, I just want to be left alone.

Speaker 4 Next time.

Speaker 4 They took her to the hospital and my Aaron texts me that the doctor. The doctor's face didn't look good.
I lift up my trash can, the eighth can, boom, I look down and I see this

Speaker 4 thing ain't nice. And I'm like, okay,

Speaker 4 that's just odd and weird.

Speaker 14 No one wants to be that officer that says, you know what, lady, you're lying. No one wants to be that person.

Speaker 14 I mean, you're supposed to start, you know, start by believing.

Speaker 4 This podcast is a production of Dateline and NBC News. Tim Beacham is the producer.
Marshall Hausfeld, Brian Drew, and Deb Brown are audio editors. Kimberly Flores Gaynor is associate producer.

Speaker 4 Adam Gorfane is co-executive producer. Paul Ryan is executive producer.
And Liz Cole is senior executive producer.

Speaker 4 From NBC News Audio, sound mixing by Rich Cutler, Bryson Barnes is head of audio production.

Speaker 4 Hey, weirdos, I'm Elena and I'm Ash and we are the host of Morbid Podcast. Each week we dive into the dark and fascinating world of true crime, spooky history, and the unexplained.

Speaker 4 From infamous killers and unsolved mysteries to haunted places and strange legends, we cover it all with research, empathy, humor, and a few creative expletives.

Speaker 4 It's smart, it's spooky, and it's just the right amount of weird. Two new episodes drop every week, and there's even a bonus once a month.
Find us wherever you listen to podcasts. Yay! Woo! Aye!