The Shadow in the Doorway (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

Speaker 1 In the early hours of Thursday, February 21st, 2008, a six-year-old girl suddenly woke up to the sound of a creaking noise coming from the hallway just outside her bedroom door.

Speaker 1 It was a blustery night in rural Nevada, so she figured, you know, the sound must just be the wind outside.

Speaker 1 But then she heard another noise that sounded more like footsteps, and this time it was even closer to her bedroom.

Speaker 1 Terrified, she pulled the covers up tight around her chin and looked straight down towards the crack in the door out into the hallway.

Speaker 1 A moment later, she saw the outline of a person standing right outside her room. She squinted, trying to make out a face, wondering if maybe it was one of her parents checking in on her.

Speaker 1 But as quick as the shadow appeared, it vanished into thin air. And then a moment later, the little girl heard a loud bang.

Speaker 1 But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you come to the Wright Podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.

Speaker 1 So if that's of interest to you, please replace the Follow Buttons hairspray with Bear Repellent. Okay, let's get into today's story.

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Speaker 1 On the evening of February 7th, 2008, 36-year-old Ben Oxley pulled his truck into the parking lot at the Douglas County Fairgrounds, located near the town of Minden, Nevada, a half an hour east of Lake Tahoe.

Speaker 1 He killed the engine and then zipped up his jacket, racing for the windy cold weather outside. Ben glanced in his rearview mirror and he saw his six-year-old daughter Alyssa sitting in the back seat.

Speaker 1 She was bundled up in her winter jacket and she was grinning ear to ear. Alyssa Alyssa had been looking forward to this night for weeks.

Speaker 1 It was the annual pre-Valentine's Day father-daughter dance, where dads brought their daughters to the local fairgrounds for a night of dancing and candy.

Speaker 1 Ever since Ben and his wife Melissa took Alyssa out shopping for a fancy new dress for this occasion, the dance had become all she could talk about. And Ben had been excited, too.

Speaker 1 He jumped at basically any chance to make special memories with his daughter. especially given the trauma that she had endured over the past few years.
He felt a pang of guilt just thinking about it.

Speaker 1 Ben's relationship with Alyssa's mother, Dawn, had always been rocky. They were divorced, but during their marriage and after, they had fought constantly.
They had also both cheated on each other.

Speaker 1 Ben was short-tempered and angry while they were together, and even though they had broken up when Alyssa was just a toddler, he feared that relationship and its fallout had done lasting damage.

Speaker 1 They had shared custody of Alyssa for a while, but Dawn was a drinker, and Ben suspected she was also using other drugs.

Speaker 1 She also also brought sketchy people home with her, and she was always broke with 100 excuses about why she couldn't hold a job.

Speaker 1 Ben felt like Dawn always blamed everybody else for all her problems, which was yet another thing that just drove him crazy. So a few years ago, he decided to just file for sole custody of Alyssa.

Speaker 1 It had been a very ugly court battle, but the judge ultimately ruled in his favor.

Speaker 1 And so Ben, after taking custody of Alyssa, had worked hard to make her life as stable as possible, even though he knew, you know, every other weekend his daughter would go and see Dawn, and he really had no control over how that interaction went.

Speaker 1 But for now, Ben just pushed the thought of his ex-wife out of his head, and he stepped out of his truck.

Speaker 1 Then he opened up the passenger door and held his hand out for Alyssa, helping her climb out of the truck without getting dust on her brand new beautiful dress.

Speaker 1 The father and daughter followed the sound of the loud music across the parking lot and into the fairgrounds event building. Once inside, they found a very crowded party.

Speaker 1 Alyssa immediately saw a few friends waving at her from the dance floor, and so Ben helped her out of her winter coat and then watched as she went running across the room to say hello.

Speaker 1 Ben smiled to himself. He knew the drill with these father-daughter dances.

Speaker 1 Alyssa would run around with her friends for a few hours before eventually, right at the end, finding him for just the final dance of the night. That was it.

Speaker 1 But even though he really didn't see his daughter much during this dance, for him, as long as Alyssa was happy, he was happy. And in fact, Alyssa really did seem to be doing quite well these days.

Speaker 1 I mean, during the custody battle, she was very unhappy.

Speaker 1 And then initially, when Ben had begun dating his current wife, Melissa, Alyssa was, you know, she was two years old, but she just didn't really like Melissa.

Speaker 1 But eventually she had adjusted to her and seemed to really like her.

Speaker 1 And, you know, when he and Melissa got married a little over a year ago, nobody was happier about it than Alyssa, which had been a huge relief.

Speaker 1 And so now he's looking out, seeing his daughter, and it just seemed like she was super well adjusted and living her best life.

Speaker 1 And so Ben made his way over to the snack table and poured himself a glass of punch.

Speaker 1 Then he wandered over to a table full of other dads and he sat down in one of the folding chairs and started chatting.

Speaker 1 A few hours later, the DJ came over the speaker and announced that it was going to be the last song of the night. And sure enough, Alyssa came running around the corner to find her dad.

Speaker 1 Ben took his daughter out onto the dance floor and twirled her around as the first notes of a song called Butterfly Kisses came on, which just so happened to be their special song.

Speaker 1 Ben tried his best to soak in every second of the dance. It had been a long road to get to a night like this.

Speaker 1 A couple weeks later, on the evening of Wednesday, February 20th, Ben cleared dinner plates from the dining room table while his daughter Alyssa, his wife Melissa, and Melissa's teenage brother Craig sat down in the living room to watch a movie.

Speaker 1 Craig had come to live with them a few weeks ago. His mother's new boyfriend had moved into his house, and Craig didn't like the boyfriend very much.
So here he was.

Speaker 1 And for the most part, Craig fit right in. So his presence in the the house really was not a big deal.

Speaker 1 Grocery bills had gotten more expensive, and the house was definitely more crowded, but these were minor inconveniences, and Ben was happy to give Craig a comfortable place to live.

Speaker 1 Ben set the dinner dishes in the sink, grabbed a bag of candy, and made his way into the living room where he sat down beside his wife.

Speaker 1 She had the movie queued up, and she rested her head on his shoulder and then hit play. And within minutes, Ben heard a quiet snore and knew that Melissa had fallen asleep.

Speaker 1 Ben passed the candy bag over to Craig and Alyssa for them to share, and then the family settled in for the movie. By the time it was over, only Ben and his daughter were the ones left awake.

Speaker 1 Ben sent Alyssa off to brush her teeth, then slowly he got up from the couch, trying hard not to wake up his wife. He guided her head down onto a pillow and then grabbed a blanket and put it over her.

Speaker 1 Craig was asleep on the other end of the couch, so Ben threw a blanket on him too. Then he turned off the TV and quietly made his way to the back of the house to tuck his daughter into bed.

Speaker 1 A few hours later, Ben's wife Melissa woke up in a panic, feeling totally disoriented and convinced she was late for work.

Speaker 1 It took her a minute to even realize she was on the couch in her living room, and then she looked up at the clock above the mantle and saw it was only 2.30 in the morning.

Speaker 1 And so she realized she must have fallen asleep during the movie again. She looked down at the other end of the couch and saw there was just a crumpled blanket where Craig must have been sitting.

Speaker 1 He must have fallen asleep too, but at some point before her, woke up and went to his own bed.

Speaker 1 Melissa rolled off the couch and then headed to the back bedroom where she crawled into bed next to Ben, who was already fast asleep.

Speaker 1 And it felt like she had only just dozed off when suddenly there was this ear-splitting loud bang that ripped her from her sleep. Her ears were ringing and she was totally disoriented.

Speaker 1 She had no idea what it was. And so confused, she rolled over and tried to shake Ben awake, but he was fast asleep.

Speaker 1 And so she just pulled herself out of bed and went to go investigate the noise herself. As she walked out into the hall, she looked over at the nightstand and saw the clock said 3.30 a.m.

Speaker 1 So she'd only been asleep for maybe an hour. Once she was out in the hallway, she began walking around looking for Craig or Alyssa, but the house seemed empty.

Speaker 1 But at the end of the hallway, she felt this rush of cold wind, and she looked up and saw the front door was wide open, letting all the winter air blow in. And at that point, Melissa froze.

Speaker 1 Someone clearly had been inside their home. Terrified, she turned around and ran back to the back bedroom.

Speaker 1 She flipped on the light and was about to tell Ben to wake up, somebody's broken in when she stopped. Because now with the lights on, she could see the bed sheets were soaked with blood.

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Speaker 1 Melissa called 911, and within minutes, two officers from the Douglas County Sheriff's Department pulled up in front of their home, which was a ranch out in rural Nevada.

Speaker 1 The officers stepped out of the cruiser with their guns drawn. They knew they were about to walk into an active crime scene, and there was a chance the perpetrator could still be on the premises.

Speaker 1 One officer pointed his flashlight and gun towards the house, illuminating the front door, which was wide open. He looked over at his partner.

Speaker 1 Dispatch had told them backup was on the way, but there was also an injured man inside this house. They couldn't wait for more officers to get here.
They had to act now.

Speaker 1 So they moved towards the house. Once inside, they entered the living room, and it was dark, and there was no one in there.

Speaker 1 They turned into the hallway and made their way down until they stopped outside of a closed door on their immediate right. One of the officers let it swing open.

Speaker 1 They looked inside and shined their flashlights, and they could see it was a bedroom.

Speaker 1 In the beam of one of their flashlights, they could see that there was somebody hiding beneath a pile of covers on the bed.

Speaker 1 The officers shouted out, police, and ordered the person to come out with their hands up, but the bundle of covers didn't move.

Speaker 1 The officers then heard ragged breathing coming from beneath the blankets.

Speaker 1 Slowly, they approached the bed and yanked off the covers, and the teenage boy whipped his hands into the air, visibly shaking as he screamed out that his name was Craig Nichols and he lived here.

Speaker 1 One of the officers told Craig to stay put. Then he told his partner to stay with Craig as he continued to go search the rest of the house.

Speaker 1 Back out in the hallway, that officer was about to continue his scan of the property when he turned and he nearly fell over when he saw this woman come barging out of a back bedroom soaked in blood and she was holding hands with this little girl who was sobbing to herself.

Speaker 1 The woman looked completely panicked and she turned and saw the officer and she could barely speak but she just said, my husband's in there, pointing to the bedroom and she said he's badly injured.

Speaker 1 The officer nodded and realized this must be the woman who called 911. And so he rushed past her and the little girl and made his way into the back bedroom.

Speaker 1 But the second he looked looked down onto that bed, he knew this woman's husband was not just badly injured. This man was dead.

Speaker 1 15 minutes later, Sergeant Ron Elges of the Douglas County Sheriff's Department stepped through the door of the small ranch home, which was now lit up outside with blue and red police lights and inside with every light switch in the house flipped on.

Speaker 1 Crime scene techs were beginning to file in. and uniformed officers outside were keeping all the neighbors back.
One of the first responding officers came to meet Sergeant Elges in the kitchen.

Speaker 1 He told him that a man named Ben Oxley was the deceased man in the back bedroom. He'd been shot in the head while he was asleep next to his wife Melissa, who had called 911.

Speaker 1 When the responding officer and his partner arrived, he said the front door of the house was wide open, and the only people inside the house were Melissa, her 16-year-old brother Craig, and her six-year-old stepdaughter.

Speaker 1 And none of them said they saw or heard anything except for the six-year-old. She said that she had heard floorboards creaking and had seen a shadow.

Speaker 1 The officer also said there was no sign of forced entry and nothing appeared to have been stolen. El just nodded and thanked the officer for the info.

Speaker 1 Then he strode down the hallway to the back bedroom. Ben's body was still on the bed.

Speaker 1 El just stepped closer to get a better look at the blood spatter on the sheets, and he noticed little pellets scattered all across the bed.

Speaker 1 which he immediately recognized as the remnants of a shotgun blast. But beyond the bed being just a grisly mess, nothing else in the bedroom was out of place.

Speaker 1 The killer had clearly snuck into the bedroom, taken their shot, and fled.

Speaker 1 El just left the bedroom and went over to where Melissa was sitting on the couch in the living room, draped in a blanket and crying.

Speaker 1 The little girl was sitting next to her, looking terrified and confused. El just wanted to speak to Melissa, but before he did, just by looking at her, he noticed something strange.

Speaker 1 Melissa had said she had been asleep next to Ben when he was killed, but she had no injuries. Despite the fact that shotgun pellets had clearly sprayed across the bed.

Speaker 1 I mean, a shotgun is more of an area weapon. It fires in more than one direction.
And interestingly, there really wasn't any blood spatter on her. Not on her face, not on her clothes.

Speaker 1 You know, she's laying next to her husband when he's shot with a shotgun. You would think blood would spatter all over her.

Speaker 1 And she did have blood on her, quite a bit, on her hands and arms, but it looked like it got there from her touching her husband after the fact.

Speaker 1 Just then, an investigator tapped Elgis on the shoulder and let him know that they had found shotgun shells on a dresser in Craig's bedroom, as well as two actual shotguns in the garage, and that Craig, the 16-year-old, had said they were his.

Speaker 1 Elgis glanced down at Melissa again, and then over towards Craig, who was sitting on his bed talking to an investigator. Then he looked at Alyssa, and he saw she was crying.

Speaker 1 As far as he was concerned, this little girl was the only certain victim here this evening. Melissa and Craig, on the other hand, he wasn't so sure.

Speaker 1 To him, this was clearly a murder committed by someone who knew Ben.

Speaker 1 After all, there was no attempt to rob the place, no sign of forced entry either, which meant whoever shot Ben either had access to the house or was already inside.

Speaker 1 Before leaving, Elgis asked some of the officers to canvass the neighborhood to see if anybody had seen or heard anything suspicious.

Speaker 1 And then he told Craig and Melissa to get themselves organized because when they were ready, he wanted to see them down at the station for questioning.

Speaker 1 An hour later, Elgis walked into an interview room at the Douglas County Sheriff's Department. Melissa was already sitting at a table waiting for him.

Speaker 1 Her face was red and puffy, and she was disheveled. She looked very distraught, and the moment she laid eyes on Elgis, she just started bawling.

Speaker 1 Elgis sat down in a chair next to her and pressed record on the tape player between them on the table.

Speaker 1 Then he told Melissa that he understood how difficult his request was going to be, but he needed her to walk him through what happened that night step by step.

Speaker 1 And he needed to get her whole story on tape because he needed to clear her as a suspect. Melissa gasped and grabbed a tissue from the box on the interview table.

Speaker 1 It seemed like the idea of her being a suspect had sent her into a new wave of sadness, and it took her a few minutes before she was calm enough to even speak.

Speaker 1 When she finally began rehashing all the details of the night, her voice was very shaky. and Elgis couldn't help but feel like her grief seemed very sincere.

Speaker 1 But it was also hard to ignore the fact that if she was lying next to her husband when he was shot, she really should have had blood spatter all over her.

Speaker 1 And she should have been hurt by at least one or two of the shotgun pellets. And yet she had walked away with virtually no blood spatter and unhurt.
And so Elgis actually brought this up to Melissa.

Speaker 1 He said, I think it's odd that these things are not here. And he watched for any signs of defensiveness in her response.
But Melissa just shrugged and agreed that, yeah, it was strange.

Speaker 1 She must have just gotten very lucky or something. Elgis nodded, but he was not necessarily convinced.

Speaker 1 And so he changed tactics and he asked Melissa whether she knew if Ben had any enemies who might want to hurt him.

Speaker 1 Melissa sighed and explained that Alyssa's mother, Dawn, was a total nightmare, and she had some awful friends that Ben had fought with her about.

Speaker 1 Melissa said she and Ben barely let Alyssa spend any time at Dawn's house because Dawn's general lifestyle felt literally too dangerous for a small girl to be around.

Speaker 1 That That information piqued Elgis' interest, and so he knew one of his very next steps was going to be tracking down and speaking with Dawn.

Speaker 1 If Melissa was painting an accurate picture of her, Dawn could be a viable suspect. At that point, Elgis stopped the tape recorder and told Melissa to hang tight.

Speaker 1 He might have other questions as the morning unfolded. Melissa nodded and took another tissue.

Speaker 1 Back in the hallway, an officer waved Elgis down and handed him a report.

Speaker 1 Forensics had done a preliminary analysis of the shotgun pellets that they had collected from the scene, and they were a match for number eight birdshot shells, which was the exact kind of shells that had been found in Craig's room.

Speaker 1 Elgis raised his eyebrows. Then he thanked the officer and walked straight into the interview room next to Melissa's.
This is where Craig was waiting.

Speaker 1 And only 15 minutes into the interview with Craig, Elgis was even more suspicious of Craig.

Speaker 1 He answered every question with unnerving calm, like this was just a casual conversation, not an interview about a murder case.

Speaker 1 And so at some point, Elgis just asked him point blank, did he kill Ben Oxley? Craig was quick to say no, and so Elgis asked him if he would submit to a polygraph test.

Speaker 1 Craig said, of course, whatever he could do to help. But he still looked weirdly calm.

Speaker 1 That is, until Elgis stood up to go arrange for this lie detector test, at which point, Craig's face suddenly crumpled and a loud sob escaped his mouth, and he burst into tears.

Speaker 1 The sudden flip of emotions really caught Elgis off guard, and instinctively he walked over and offered Craig a tissue.

Speaker 1 Now, Elgis was not about to dismiss Craig as a suspect just because now he seemed to be having a more natural reaction to the death of a family member, especially when you considered the fact that there were number eight shells found in Craig's room, the same type that were used to kill Ben.

Speaker 1 But for some reason, Craig's outbreak of emotion here made Elgis less convinced that this guy could be their killer. Elgis told Craig to stay put for a while.

Speaker 1 He wanted he and his sister to just stay at the station for the time being. Soon, forensics would come back with the results of a gunshot residue test.

Speaker 1 They had conducted it on Craig and Melissa when they first arrived, and it would tell them whether or not either of them had fired a shotgun in the last 24 hours.

Speaker 1 While Elgis waited for these results, he left the interview room to go grab a cup of coffee. He wanted to be on high alert when he met the next person he was bringing down to the station.

Speaker 1 Elgis was just finishing his first cup of coffee and about to pour a second one when a uniformed officer ducked her head into the break room and told him that Dawn, Ben's ex-wife, had just shown up.

Speaker 1 The officer also told Elgis that Dawn was aware that Ben was dead, and there was also one other thing that Elgis should know.

Speaker 1 And that was that a year ago, after a judge had given Ben full custody of his and Dawn's daughter, that he and Dawn had gotten into a physical fight.

Speaker 1 The cops were called and they wrote up the incident as mutual domestic battery. No charges were filed, but still, their divorce was clearly a very messy one.

Speaker 1 Elgis nodded, left his coffee cup on the counter, and strode down the hallway toward interview room number three.

Speaker 1 The second Elgis stepped inside the room, he smelled alcohol. Dawn was bleary-eyed and her hair and clothes were disheveled.

Speaker 1 She looked up at him and made this joke that she felt like she was in a cop show on TV. Elgis didn't react and just sat down across from her.

Speaker 1 But before he could ask her any questions, she just went off on Ben, saying what a bad guy he was and all these fights they'd gotten into, and Elgis began to think she must be drunk.

Speaker 1 It took him a few tries to get her quiet long enough to actually start their interview. However, once he got her to settle down, he was able to ask her what she'd been up to that night.

Speaker 1 Dawn began scratching her head and suddenly acting really cagey. She said that she was at home with her teenage kids, Devin and Brandy, and also their family friend, a 21-year-old named James Matleen.

Speaker 1 Dawn said she was good friends with James' mom, and James was almost like her surrogate kid.

Speaker 1 Don said they had all watched a couple of movies together before falling asleep around maybe 4 in the morning, and that none of them ever left the house. Elgis smiled and told Dawn that was good.

Speaker 1 Everyone was accounted for. But Dawn didn't seem to be listening to him.
She just started asking if Ben was really dead. Over and over and over, until she got so worked up she started to cry.

Speaker 1 Finally, Elgis just shut off the recorder and told Don she was free to go. She nodded and fumbled with her purse for a while and slowly made her way out of the room.

Speaker 1 Dawn seemed like a mess, like somebody who would not have been capable of sneaking into somebody's house and shooting them only a few hours earlier.

Speaker 1 Elgis stepped out of the room and a detective met him in the hallway to tell him that the gunshot residue test results on Craig and Melissa were back.

Speaker 1 Craig's hands were clean, meaning there was no way he could have fired a gun that night. But Melissa did have some residue on her.

Speaker 1 Now that could be because she was sleeping next to Ben when he was shot, but it could also be because she was the one who shot him. Elgis thanked the detective, then just stood there thinking.

Speaker 1 The way Elgis saw it, he had two compelling suspects.

Speaker 1 Melissa, who he just found out had gunshot residue on her, yet was strangely uninjured and didn't have blood spatter on her and she was right next to Ben when he was killed.

Speaker 1 and Dawn, the ex-wife, who was this erratic, spiteful mess. He was fairly confident that Craig was not involved, and it was more likely that maybe Melissa stole his ammunition out of his room.

Speaker 1 But right now, El just was exhausted. He had been up all night, and he knew he would be useless to this case if he didn't get some sleep.

Speaker 1 So he told the other investigators that he was going home for a nap. Then he would come back and look at the case with fresh eyes.

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Speaker 1 The following day, on Friday, Elgis was back at his desk at the Sheriff's Department, sorting through a pile of notes and reports on Ben's case.

Speaker 1 He still liked Melissa or Dawn for this murder, and he had been hoping that the forensics team might be able to provide more evidence that would help guide his investigation.

Speaker 1 But the preliminary medical examiner's report had come back, and it only confirmed what Elgis already knew. Ben was killed with a shotgun at close range using a No.
8 birdshot shell.

Speaker 1 Now, this was, of course, the same kind of ammo that was found in Craig's room, but the crime scene tech said that was not really actually incriminating.

Speaker 1 Number 8 birdshots were common ammunition for this part of Nevada, so it made sense that Craig might have a few rounds.

Speaker 1 Plus, neither of the shotguns that were found in Ben's garage had been fired recently, which meant that neither of them could be the murder weapon.

Speaker 1 And beyond that, there just hadn't been much evidence at all at the scene.

Speaker 1 Algis' team had canvassed Ben and Melissa's neighborhood, but none of the neighbors had seen or heard anything unusual the night before.

Speaker 1 Officers also interviewed dozens of friends and family members, hoping to drum up some leads, but one after another, the only things people had to say were about what a great guy Ben was.

Speaker 1 And it looked like Dawn's alibi was going to check out.

Speaker 1 Another detective had spoken to James Matlen, the family friend who was watching movies with Dawn and her teenage kids on the night Ben was killed, and he corroborated her story. Her kids did too.

Speaker 1 They had watched two action movies, then passed out sometime around 4 a.m. El just sighed, feeling stuck.
He glanced over at his phone and saw he had a new voicemail. He put the phone to his ear.

Speaker 1 It was an insurance company, letting Elgis know that they had some information he might find interesting. Ben had a $400,000 life insurance policy, and Melissa was the sole beneficiary.

Speaker 1 Now, this life insurance policy was not very new, and Melissa had been the beneficiary since the two got married.

Speaker 1 So this was not enough to bring her back down to the station for more questions, but still, it was all Elgis really had. So he decided to keep a close eye on her.

Speaker 1 But over the next few days, Elgis and his team struggled to find any further evidence that incriminated Melissa or anybody else.

Speaker 1 And so to help the investigation along, the Douglas County Sheriff's Department set up a secret witness reward that guaranteed $12,500 to anyone who came forward with information that led to an arrest.

Speaker 1 But still, no solid leads came through.

Speaker 1 The following week, on March 7th, so 15 days after the murder, Melissa and the rest of her family held a memorial service for Ben, and more than 400 people came to pay their respects.

Speaker 1 And for Elgis, this confirmed what Ben's family had told him all along, that Ben truly was beloved.

Speaker 1 In the weeks that followed, that secret witness fund grew to over $22,000, and Ben's sister traveled all over Nevada hanging up posters to advertise the reward.

Speaker 1 But as weeks turned to months, the tip line stayed quiet and the case stalled out. Detective Elgis was out of leads and desperate.

Speaker 1 And then, one hot morning in June, he heard a rumor that piqued his interest. Ben had only been dead for four months, but Melissa had already begun dating again.

Speaker 1 In Elgis' opinion, this seemed pretty quick to move on, especially after your husband was murdered literally next to you in bed.

Speaker 1 Elgis thought of the $400,000 life insurance payout that Melissa now had coming. And suddenly, he wondered if it might be time to bring her back down to the station after all.

Speaker 1 But a few days later, Elgis sat at his paper-strewn desk, staring down unhappily at the results from a polygraph test that he'd administered to Melissa.

Speaker 1 Now, polygraphs are not 100% reliable, so they're typically not admissible in court.

Speaker 1 But still, Elgis had sort of hoped that Melissa might fail her test when she was asked about Ben and the insurance money. But instead, Melissa had passed the test with flying colors.

Speaker 1 There was no deception detected. And so Elgis was beginning to fear that this case was going to go completely cold.

Speaker 1 But just then, Elgis' phone rang.

Speaker 1 It was another sergeant from his department, and he told Elgis they had been going back through some of the evidence in Ben's case with fresh eyes, specifically some security footage from businesses near Ben's home, and they had found something they missed the first time, and they had just emailed it to him.

Speaker 1 Elgis sat up in his chair, suddenly very alert. He thanked the sergeant and hung up, and then eagerly opened up his email.

Speaker 1 The footage he received was from a security camera in a 7-Eleven convenience store from around 1.30 in the morning on February 21st, so about two hours before Ben was murdered.

Speaker 1 In the footage, a person walked into the store with a baseball cap pulled down over their face, and they went up to the counter.

Speaker 1 And despite the hat on this person, El just realized he recognized the person he was looking at. And with this, after months of stallout, he had a stunning new lead.

Speaker 1 He realized that all this time, someone he had spoken to during the investigation that really he hadn't considered a suspect at all, had been lying to him.

Speaker 1 It would still take another full year and a risky plea deal to prove his theory, but finally, Sergeant Elgis knew what happened to Ben Oxley.

Speaker 1 Based on evidence, surveillance footage, and interviews collected over the course of 18 months, this is a reconstruction of what police believe happened to Ben Oxley in the early hours of February 21st, 2008.

Speaker 1 It was just after 3 in the morning. The killers slowly made their way through the Oxley house, down the hallway, towards the primary bedroom and back.

Speaker 1 They made their way into the room and they walked over to Ben's side of the bed. There they looked down and they saw him fast asleep.
They raised their shotgun.

Speaker 1 Their plan was to kill Ben and then flee. But as they stood there with their shotgun raised right at his face, ready to fire, their conscience stopped them.

Speaker 1 Suddenly they thought to themselves, what am I doing? The killer just stood there, frozen.

Speaker 1 And that's when they heard a creak coming from the hallway right behind them, right outside of the kids' bedrooms.

Speaker 1 And the sound actually spooked them so badly that they jumped, accidentally squeezing the trigger, killing Ben instantly.

Speaker 1 At this point, the killer panicked and ran out of the bedroom, down the hallway, and out the front door, leaving it wide open behind them. They jumped into their truck and they drove away.

Speaker 1 It would turn out the killer was someone the police had spoken to early in the investigation, but they did not initially see them as a suspect.

Speaker 1 That is, until they discovered that 7-Eleven video surveillance footage, which showed the young man who Ben's ex-wife, Dawn Oxley, had claimed was just her family friend. James Matline.

Speaker 1 The police had not suspected James because they didn't think he had any connection to Ben or a motive to kill him. What they didn't know was that he and Dawn were actually romantically involved.

Speaker 1 And because Dawn hated Ben so much, James decided he too hated Ben.

Speaker 1 But even knowing this, police couldn't prove that James killed Ben until November of 2009, because that was when Dawn got arrested for driving under the influence.

Speaker 1 and prosecutors offered her immunity on the drunk driving charge in exchange for her testimony about James. And she took took it.
She told them James was the killer.

Speaker 1 It was not until police arrested James that a much more full version of the story finally came out.

Speaker 1 James told police that it was true, he did kill Ben, but he also told them that he only did it because Dawn wanted him to. Apparently, she still blamed Ben for losing custody of her daughter, Alyssa.

Speaker 1 James told police that Dawn actually went into the house with him that night to show him where Ben slept.

Speaker 1 He said it was Dawn, not him, that Alyssa saw standing outside of her bedroom door right before the shotgun blast, the so-called shadow she told police about.

Speaker 1 However, by the time the police learned this version of events, it was too late to charge Dawn with any crimes at all. They had already given her immunity in exchange for her statement.

Speaker 1 On March 16th, 2012, a little more than four years after the murder, James was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Speaker 1 As for Dawn, who may have been the mastermind of a crime that she never did time for, she died at the the age of 50 in the year 2022.

Speaker 1 A quick note about our stories. They are all based on true events.
But we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved, and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes.

Speaker 1 The Mr. Ballin podcast, Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Stories, is hosted and executive-produced by me, Mr.
Ballin. Our head of writing is Evan Allen.
Our head of production is Zach Levitt.

Speaker 1 Produced by Jeremy Bone. This episode was written by Zeth Lundy.
Research and fact-checking by Shelly Hsu, Samantha Van Hoos, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway, and Camille Callahan.

Speaker 1 Research and fact-checking supervision by Stephen Ear. Audio editing and post-produced by Witt Lacasio and Cole Lacasio.
Additional audio editing by Jordan Stiddam. Mixed and mastered by Brendan Kane.

Speaker 1 Production coordination by Samantha Collins. Production support by Antonio Minata and Delana Corley.
Artwork by Jessica Klogston Kiner. Theme song called Something Wicked by Ross Bugden.

Speaker 1 Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast.
If you enjoyed today's story and you're looking for more bone-chilling content, be sure to check out all of our studios' podcasts.

Speaker 1 There's this one, the Mr. Ballin podcast, as well as Mr.
Ballin's Medical Mysteries, Bedtime Stories, Wartime Stories, Run Fool, Redacted, Late Nights with Nexpo, and A Twist of History.

Speaker 1 All you have to do is search for Ballin Studios wherever you get your podcasts. To watch hundreds more stories just like this one, head over to our YouTube channel, which is just called Mr.
Balin.

Speaker 1 So, that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support.
Until next time, see ya.

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