The Coldest Case In Laramie - Episode 4

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It just goes back to that dynamic of the relationships.

Like, oh, okay, Fred, thank you.

We'll get a hold of you later.

Let me know when you get back.

We'll go have a beer.

Previously, on the coldest case in Laramie, I remember it so well.

I remember it like it was yesterday.

The detective was like, you don't worry about him.

He's a police officer and you don't need to worry about him.

And when they told me that, I just came unglued.

I was like, what the hell are you talking about?

Well, they're assholes because they wouldn't really answer any of our questions.

I know Larry did it.

He did it.

I mean, it was pervy as hell.

He knows.

He knows what they're going to ask.

And he just

told them what he wanted them to know.

The case file Fred's lawyer gave me was sprawling.

Almost 8,000 pages of investigative reports, hundreds of photos, more than 70 hours of audio and video interviews, bad Xeroxes and stapled-on addendums and handwritten notes.

I stared at a poorly rendered drawing of Shelly's Sweet Dreams night shirt for a while.

In the earliest pages, I could see the police contending with the little they had to go on.

The fire destroyed a lot of potentially helpful evidence.

So did the attempt to contain it.

Shelly's body was burned, badly enough that it couldn't be a helpful source of leads, although it was clear she was naked.

Police took that, and the blood stains on her water bed, as signs that the attack might have started as a sexual assault in the bedroom.

Other evidence was found outside.

Behind the complex, someone had cut the phone lines to all five apartments.

And about three hundred and fifty feet away, a distance slightly longer than a football field, there was a bloody matchbook with some kind of hand or finger print visible through the blood.

The matchbook was decorated with a train and the words tank town on the cover.

Police found it near several footprints and tire tracks left in the dirt.

And then there was the blood.

There were two large puddles on the sidewalk in front of the apartments.

In the middle of one, a broken serrated blade from a stake knife.

Nearby, bloody pieces of a broken vase.

The police figured that Shelley must have tried to escape at some point, making her way from her apartment and down the sidewalk before her attacker caught her.

He pulled her back toward her apartment, dragging her 44 feet down the sidewalk and stabbed her, leaving the puddles.

The drag marks went over the top of a bloody boot print.

This was a clue, too.

It suggested the killer had left it when he was dragging Shelley back to her apartment.

The blood trail on the sidewalk appeared to stop entirely at least 10 feet from the door to apartment number three.

Notably, the police did find a little more blood there, separated from the rest of the blood at the crime scene.

A few tiny flicks on the door of apartment number three,

Fred's friend's place where he was staying the night.

Police brought him in to answer questions about 11 hours after Shelley's murder.

The first recorded interview in the case file.

The date is 20th August of October, excuse me, 20 October 1985.

Police, Detective Graham's office, president,

Fred Lamb and Rob Graham,

got to find out

what you you know of what occurred out at

on Taylor Street this morning.

The mood of the interview was chummy.

Detective Rob Graham and Fred actually knew each other.

Graham seemed more interested in Fred as a witness than as a suspect.

So

you start with last night, but you had a drill last night in Gardner?

Right.

I had a drill this weekend.

Fred said he spent the evening at the American Legion with a few of his buddies, including Dave Palmer, his National Guard friend who rented apartment number three.

And we sat around and we're drinking.

They were drinking beer and pop, and I was drinking mostly Coke.

And about

8 o'clock, I say, I decided to switch to Jack Daniels and Coke.

And I had five of those.

And then it was about 10.20, I left.

And the reason that I left was because

I had seen an advertisement on TV that instead of Saturday Night Live, they were having

like championship wrestling.

Dave stuck around and eventually headed home with a woman.

So Fred was alone for the night.

Either the advertisement was wrong or Fred misunderstood it.

But when he got to Dave's apartment, there was no championship wrestling.

Instead, Fred said he watched the second half of MASH and headed to bed.

The next thing that happened was

I woke up

and

I remember, and this is awful hazy because

I didn't wake up quickly,

but I distinctly remember somebody pounding or knocking on something.

Somebody pounding.

It's not like, you know, when a rowdy friend shows up, probably pound on the door.

And I can't tell you where it was at.

I can't tell you if it was at Dave's door, number three, or somewhere else in that convo.

And then I heard a female voice.

After the loud knocking, Fred said he heard what sounded like a woman's voice.

Very loud.

Not screaming exactly, but loud.

Once again.

At first he didn't think much of it.

There was always some kind of noise around Dave's apartment on the weekend.

But he figured he should give it a look.

So he got up and poked his head out.

Everything was quiet, so I just closed the door.

And since Dave wasn't there, I went over to his stereo and turned on the alarm clock.

I was thinking about going back to sleep.

And I thought, shit, five o'clock, you know, another half hour sleep.

I might as well just get up and went and took my morning leak and came in and was sitting down putting my uniform back on when I heard a vehicle drive up and the horn started pumping and somebody screaming fire, fire, fire.

So I ran to the door and opened it up and there were three male subjects there.

running up and down the complex screaming fire fire do I have a telephone

and I looked looked out and saw the flames coming out of apartment number one.

I didn't know it was apartment number one at that time, but I saw flames down at that end of the building.

So I ran inside and grabbed the telephone and got absolutely nothing.

The phone was just slapping dead.

Well, a kid came running back to the door and he says, Do you have any towels or anything?

And so I says, Are the people out of the apartment?

He says, I don't know, I think so.

So I told him that the bathroom was at the end of the hall to get towels or whatever he needed out of the first bedroom on the right, which is where Dave sleeps.

And I started towards the apartment.

Well, as I was going towards the apartment, I noticed that somewhere in the vicinity of number two,

there looked like to be a puddle of blood

about a unit worth of blood in size.

And so I stepped to my right so that I wouldn't walk over it

and walked down the gravel.

Right in front of the door to number one was another puddle of blood.

I would say one to one and a half units in size.

It was a damn good size puddle.

It's bigger than that first one.

Yeah, but half again, if not twice as big.

At that time, I noticed that there were drag marks from the pool of blood, and then there was a drag mark that didn't go up the staircase, it went kind of kiddie corner and into the door.

And at that time, I heard the first unit silence.

And so I just walked back up to

Dave's apartment this evening to make sure it wasn't burning.

And then

Officer Avery showed up and asked me what I knew of it, and then I showed him the blood.

One other thing I did do is, I believe it was Officer Avery who requested that I cut the power, find me where it was.

While we were going over that crime scene,

those dragon marks got pretty close to

Dave's place.

And there was

a little bit of just real tiny splatter

on the door.

That's mine.

Well, that's your blood.

That's my blood.

If it's on his door, it's my blood.

It was just a little, you know, just what happened was when I was hunting.

And my dog was giving me a bunch of crap.

And so I reached in the back of the truck and smacked him and cut this knuckle on his collar.

And that would have been the 12th, the 13th, and the 14th when I was duck hunting.

And 30 when I went over, I usually ring his doorbell and hit the door.

And then bing, bong, bing, bong, gun, up, gun.

And when I wrapped the door once, I must have caught that damn scab

because I went like that.

His horse light was on, and I saw the blood splatter on the door.

I looked at my knuckle, and it was bleeding.

Okay.

So on the door, I can't say it's all my blood, but there is some of my blood on the door.

I couldn't even say how many many drops.

Okay.

What blood type are you, Fred?

I'm sorry.

What's your blood type?

Because they're going to...

I'm sure they picked that up.

Any positive?

Any positive?

Yeah, I don't want to type in your blood.

Oh.

Please don't.

Tests would soon show two types of blood at the crime scene.

Type O, which met Shelley, and type A, which was found at several spots, including a trace amount on the the matchbook 350 feet from Shelley's apartment.

Fred's interview didn't go on much longer than this.

The whole thing lasted about 35 minutes.

He mentioned that he had guard duty the next day and would be heading to Arkansas for training.

He'd be gone a couple of weeks.

But just before the interview ended, Detective Graham and Fred had a small exchange.

Looking at the case file, it seemed to indicate where the investigation was headed.

Well, you know, from

hearing people talk and yammer.

Apparently, this chick ran with a pretty heavy crowd.

Fred says, You know, I'm now hearing people talk and yammer.

Apparently, this chick ran with a pretty heavy crowd.

They weren't the salt of the earth types.

Well, it might have caught up with her, Detective Graham responds.

I'm going to kill this tape recorder at

4:13 p.m.

It's still 20.

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After that first interview with Fred, the Laramie Police Department spoke with the people in Shelly's life.

Family, friends, former roommates, coworkers, ex-boyfriends.

And in these interviews, they started focusing on certain aspects of Shelly's life in what sometimes felt like a pretty ham-handed way.

Did she like sex?

Do you have any indication of what her reputation was, who she messed around with, things of that nature?

What was Shelly's favorite drink?

What kind of person do you think Shelly was prior to your relationship?

This is something I was...

In these conversations and in tips that came in, the police collected many facts about Shelly.

There were a lot of rumors mixed in there too.

That Shelly was part of a drug deal gone wrong.

That a satanic cult could be involved.

That she was at a party the night she was killed where someone had threatened to kill her.

I followed the pinball of their inquiry, spoke to as many of their targets as I could.

Yeah, I know she was a popular girl.

There's no doubt about that.

Did she seem to concentrate on the black athletes or was she friends with all of them?

Detectives initially seemed to focus on Shelly's relationships at the University of Wyoming.

They'd heard, for example, that she was friendly with members of the football team.

One name in particular kept coming up, Alan Griffin.

Police couldn't find Alan the Sunday Shelley was killed.

So that day, all officers in the Laramie area were told to be on the lookout for him and his vehicle.

For security reasons, this was passed from officer to officer, not over the radio, but by word of mouth.

They eventually found him.

Three days after Shelley's murder, police brought him in for questioning.

At the time, Alan was a star-wide receiver for the University of Wyoming Cowboys.

He told police that he and Shelley met at a baseball game in 1981.

How much did you actually date her in 1981?

Was it a relationship that kind of grew as the longer that you knew each other, or you know, was it just an occasional type thing?

Oh,

it was more of an occasional thing, definitely an occasional thing.

How about during the 1982 school year?

Did you still continue being friends?

Yeah,

we were friends.

That's about it.

What happened when you came back to school?

Anything in particular?

Did you ever date 1982?

Date her?

Yeah.

No.

I think.

We need to clarify that the

get on the same page about the word date.

Okay, yeah, I understand that you mean you know, I figured you know, I consider a date of just going out and having a good time with people, you know.

No, we never

what do you what do you define as a date?

I guess I guess well a date we going out and or I don't think we ever went out on a on a set date, say, you know, I'll pick you up at seven and we'll do this and do this and do that.

It wasn't like that.

It was more of a it was more of a spontaneous thing.

We'd

I'd either just like call her and say you want to come over you want to get together or it'd be like I'd see her somewhere and then we'd like get together okay yeah I have no calls with that I think we're on the same line really you know I just I just consider just a guy and a gal going out and having a good time whether it's you know spontaneous or hey you know what are you doing next Friday right no make a difference to you

can you give me a list in your own mind of other acquaintances that she might you know be friends with yeah i realize that she's kind of a popular young young lady as such but you could probably help me if we can compile a list of who she's acquainted with.

Well,

I really don't.

I mean, the only people I knew

that she hung around with was her roommate, Michelle, and

Michelle's boyfriend, and I guess maybe some people that she worked with.

Like I said,

you know, if we talked about it at all, the only thing she ever told me was that she had, you know, she would stay after work and have a couple drinks at the bar.

How about other black athletes, Ellen?

As far as knowing her or.

Knowing or going out with her?

I don't know of any that went out with her.

I know,

I'm pretty sure that there's a couple of guys that know her.

What was some of her interests?

What did you guys like to do when you were together?

Be told almost the only thing we ever did together was have sex.

That was about, I mean, mean, that was, it was when we were together, I mean, that was about the extent of things.

It was

only

like just a casual high by besides that.

You know, one of the things I anticipate getting into, of course, is it's interesting in this, in the regards that we don't know what a motive is for this incident, of course.

You know, there's no doubt in my mind this is a homicide, a very brutal killing.

Since you mentioned the sex, I was going to get into that.

Do you feel uncomfortable talking about that subject?

No.

I think you'd be in a better position than any of the family would whatsoever because it's private life.

She have any quirks when it came to sex?

No.

How about any homosexual tendencies?

I'm not saying that there are any issues.

I'm just asking in regards to sexual habits.

As far as...

Do you have any knowledge of her having any homosexual tendencies?

No,

I have no idea.

I would seriously doubt it, but I don't know for sure.

Okay, well, I'm not making those allegations, don't get me wrong.

I'm just asking because no either heterosexual or homosexual type things is coming up.

What kind of reputation she has?

You know, you look at, you know, we look at a rather attractive white girl, and it's kind of out of character.

And I'm not trying to be prejudiced or anything, but I want you to realize, you know, one of the things we're looking at is it's unusual for.

Well, I'm not saying it's unusual.

I think it's a rather natural thing.

But, you know,

when you have a white, fairly attractive student dating, or you know, just acquaintance with blacks,

some people seem to frown on that and it seems to stick in their mind for some reason.

Did you ever have any difficulties with your parents in regards to the relationship with her?

The police took fingerprints and blood from Alan, combed his pubic hair too.

From the beginning, when the police approached him at his apartment, Alan said that he had an alibi.

He had spent the night in Laramie with another woman.

That eventually checked out.

Alan Griffin lives in Washington State now.

He's a basketball coach and a high school teacher.

I tracked him down because I wanted to know his reaction to being a suspect back in 1985.

I had absolutely nothing to hide.

It wasn't like I was concerned.

It was just like

I would have had back then a much higher regard for law enforcement than I do now.

And I would have definitely back then.

I just did whatever they asked me to do.

I learned that Alan didn't really know much about the investigation.

Definitely didn't know that he was a suspect.

Considering how large Alan loomed in the early parts of the case file, it was surprising to me how much of a mystery Shelly was to him.

I just remember how, I mean, she was, she was like,

what's the best way to describe her?

She was, I mean, she was really, she was cool to hang out with, just low-key, didn't talk a whole lot, but she had a, she had just a, she was, she was a pretty young lady.

And when she smiled and it was real, it was just awesome.

It was an awesome, she had an awesome smile.

And, but she didn't, you know, like I said, she didn't talk much, wasn't, I mean, she could be in a room and nobody even noticed, right?

I mean, she wasn't loud.

She wasn't.

She would intentionally, I think,

as I got to know her, she would intentionally probably want to just fade into the background, right?

Not be noticed.

But she was friendly,

genuine.

Yeah, she's cool.

In the police interviews, Shelly's family and friends talked about how much she liked Alan.

They seemed to think it had been a serious relationship.

Or at least that Shelly wanted it to be one.

One ex-boyfriend mentioned that Shelly had, quote, quite a newspaper collection of his outstanding feats and whatnot.

time, Alan was in the dark about all that, too.

I, I mean, it's surprising.

I wonder

it just was.

This is going to sound really weird, but it was, it wasn't,

it was just safe.

Friends with benefits.

I would, it's kind of surprising that

she had more feelings than that, than what I'm aware of.

Talking to Alan, it felt like he was looking back at this period of his life through the eyes of an adult,

maybe for the first time,

that he was considering how young they both were,

how immature he was back then,

that he was realizing how much growing up he got to do that Shelly didn't.

You know,

the sad part about it is

I was so shallow-minded and self-centered.

The only thing I was really thinking about is I mean I had to we had it was game day,

so I borrowed a friend's car

to go to the funeral and I was just thinking about it, just got it, you know, I ho hope this doesn't last long.

Sat in the back or not

it was, if I remember correctly, it was pretty crowded.

In the little church, it had like an A-frame.

I didn't realize

how her dad must have been feeling, how her brothers were feeling.

It didn't really, like,

it didn't really, like, you know, I wouldn't have been, I didn't think like that then.

Because I was thinking about...

not being late for the game because I knew how my coach was.

If I was late, I wouldn't have played.

So I was thinking thinking more like that.

It's kind of

disappointed that that's what I was thinking, but that's just the truth.

And that's about all that I remember.

It was just like

I was only thinking about me.

When Fred's defense attorney handed me the case file, he had mentioned that the police's response to Shelley's murder was sexist and racist.

I heard that in the interviews, and I saw it in the paths the detectives went down in their investigation.

They didn't stop with Alan Griffin, someone they knew Shelley had a relationship with.

Instead, they went after a lot of the black players on the University of Wyoming football team.

So, so explain to me, did you know Shelly at all?

Not at all.

Had you ever even met her?

Might have seen her.

So, but I mean, didn't know her from McCannapa.

Eric Porter was also on the team.

Played both ways, linebacker and running back.

Some safety thrown in there, too.

He came to Wyoming from San Diego and remembers the culture shock of arriving.

The fights with the largely white wrestling team.

The bar he remembers locals banning the football team from.

Eric says he held out on giving his blood and fingerprints to the police for a while.

He still remembers how they sprung into action shortly after Shelley's murder.

Right after they said it was a crime scene, you literally saw half a Laramie police fanning out through the dorms.

They had football programs in their hand looking for guys.

And you'd be walking the car and say, come with me.

They were just snatching up wherever we were.

You know, they were hanging out wherever they were literally on corners, just spot just snatching you up.

It felt like

some shit out the 30s and 40s when they just round up black people and hang you.

That's what it felt like.

So what do you remember?

What do you remember about being called in and about them actually getting you into the police station

um

when i finally came back to wyoming and submitted to it

the cocky ass attitude

and they were finally got me to do it it was like we finally got this nick that was their attitude

that was their attitude

And I hated that I had to submit to get peace.

They just wouldn't leave me alone.

And my mom finally said, Hey, they're not going to stop.

You didn't do nothing.

So just give it, just give them something to hurt.

And they'll maybe lay.

And they made that deal with my mom.

And I'm like, mom, if they don't stop, I need you to give me a turn.

And my sister worked for the phone company, and she promised if they didn't stop, she would hire a turn.

This shit still got me emotional right now.

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During the first week of the investigation, The University of Wyoming football team theory didn't go much of anywhere.

But it's clear from the case file that the police were simultaneously pursuing another lead.

What kind of party were we having there?

We were just dancing around.

I do believe there was.

They were playing quarters when I first got there.

What was quarters?

Well, you get a quarter and you bounce it on the table and you try to make it in the glass.

The party with all this dancing and quartering was happening at a ramshackle house about three blocks from Shelly's apartment on the night she was killed.

The crowd of about 15 was mostly current and former Laramie High and Junior High students.

Shelley wasn't there.

She was at home drinking tea with a friend.

But the party seemed to pique the cops' interest.

Police already knew some of the party goers.

Young Hispanic men who had lots of run-ins with the cops already, some of the usual suspects in town.

Both the party and Shelley's apartment were on the west side of Laramie, which was less a census-designated place than it was, literally, the wrong side of the tracks.

The railroad divided it from Laramie proper.

The west side had a few fancy homes, but for the most part it was poorer.

It's where you'd find auto repair yards, tire shops, and mobile homes.

A lot of the Hispanic population of Laramie lived there too, including one attendee of the party, Von Neubauer's favorite alternate suspect, Larry Montez.

As Von told me, Larry had stolen a car during the party, and then he'd gone missing for a few hours, right in the window of time when Shelley was killed.

I'm going to sign that right there.

You are represented by your attorney, Cal Rega, and we've already discussed the fact that we are not interested in the

unauthorized use of a vehicle.

Okay?

And all we're concerned about is this homicide.

Vaughn had told me that Larry had gone to Rock River because of some girl he had a crush on.

That wasn't quite right.

Larry was actually visiting his ex-girlfriend, Summer Stevenson, who lived just outside of Laramie, about a half hour away from Rock River.

He was right about Larry's alibi, though, and how bizarre it was.

Larry said that after he stole the car, he grabbed a hot dog and a Slurpee from a convenience store.

From there, he drove to Summer's house, where he slipped into her room and found her asleep.

So I just sat around and

just watched her.

Drank my Slurpee.

And then I got up.

He just started seeing daylight.

I said, I'd better get his car back.

It had been about 4, 4:30 between there and I left.

By the time they brought him in, the police had heard a bunch of suspicious things about Larry from that night.

That he had cuts on his face, that his glasses were missing.

That he was wearing a different coat than he'd worn at the party.

That he was acting strange.

This is important.

I want you to think about it before you answer.

When you

went back to the house to the party, about what time was that?

Had it been about 5.15.

Okay.

Took me a while to get out there.

Alright.

You know the girl that was cabled?

Not really.

Alright, have you ever been over to that apartment there?

I don't know where it is.

You don't know where the apartment's at?

No.

So, in other words, if I were to check fingerprints, I shouldn't find your fingerprints in

the house.

Yeah.

Okay.

Did you ever hear anyone say that you did it?

No.

Did you know people have been saying that you did it?

No.

Is there any reason why people would think that you did it?

Yeah, because I have a record.

You have a record?

Yeah.

Any other reason?

No.

I'm not that kind of dude.

You tell me why I'm talking to you.

If you're a police officer, why am I talking to Larry Montes?

Well, because he was around the scene of crime.

And what else?

And

he's missing for two to three, four hours.

We don't know where he's at, which is about the time the gal got killed.

You know, when I've been talking to all these people here

in the last few days,

I'm concerned that we've learned

stuff like you've been getting into other people's homes that we didn't know about.

Don't ask surprise because we're being pretty open here.

I mean the people that have talked to me have identified you as being that person.

I mean there's no doubt in their mind that they knew who it was and they didn't talk to you or confronted you about it.

I'm just trying to tell you like it is, that's all.

And

I know that

you and your friends on the west side are very tight you're a very select group of people you don't think so no well then us white folks think that you are okay

okay well we just think that you you know you're just your own little group like you got the cowboys or the Mexicans or whatever else the metal heads whatever they call them I'm not that familiar with all the groups that we've got but all that peer pressure that's there

has a bad effect on kids.

You've got kids that are drinking, doing drugs, having sex with girls and stuff like that when they're really, really young and all sorts of problems, breaking into homes, stealing shit, choplifting, all that stuff that goes on.

This homicide that took place, it's got a lot of people in this community scared.

A lot of people that didn't even know this guy.

A lot of people that live in, a lot of people who live in Laramie are saying, God, you know, I came to Larry because I didn't want to live in Chicago or Denver where this happens all the time.

They're here because because they figured this is a nice quiet town.

And now they're thinking, we've got some damn demon out here who's killing, burning people, stabbing them, beating them, and doing all this sort of shit.

So it's just, it's no fun for me or anybody else.

I'll get off my soapbox.

We need to get this other stuff done.

I'll take you.

Police looked at Larry Montez for a few more days.

They confirmed that Larry had been in a fight a week before, possibly explaining his bruises.

They talked to Summer Stevenson, his ex, who when asked whether she knew Larry, said simply, unfortunately.

Summer didn't really remember Larry stopping by to watch her sleep, but Larry had engaged in such stalkery before, and Summer's sister did find a big gulp cup on the dresser, with ice still inside.

The police seemed to rule Larry out after giving him a polygraph.

He was one of four men who took a lie detector test in the first month of the investigation.

Police said Larry's results couldn't be scored as conclusively truthful, but quote, there is no strong indication that would tend to show deception.

Given the fact that polygraphs generally aren't allowed as evidence in court, I didn't make much of those results.

Other results seemed more clear-cut to me.

It's not just that this investigation seemed to corral the relatively few people of color in town into its dragnet.

It's that it seemed to linger there, burrowing in deeper than even the most charitable reading of the evidence called for.

I did a tally.

Of the 39 men who initially gave fingerprints or blood samples, 25 of them were black or Hispanic.

More than half.

In a town where 9 out of 10 people were white.

Contrary to the description of Shelley's family and friends, and even Detective Robert Terry, The police did give Fred a second look.

Ten days after the murder, someone from the state lab told police that Fred's story of how his blood got on the door of apartment number three,

that he knocked on the door a few days before the murder and broke open a scab, didn't match the spatter pattern.

Detectives called Fred back in after he got back from his trip to Arkansas, but without much urgency.

They took a blood sample and fingerprints.

but never looked in his actual home for evidence.

It took them almost two months to look inside apartment number three, where he was staying the night of Shelley's murder.

Fred did agree to take a polygraph, showing that the police seemed to be treating him as a suspect.

But that was pretty much the end of it.

And what I can only interpret is a sign of how little they regarded him seriously, the results from that polygraph never even made it into the case file.

With their initial leads fizzling, The police started going broad.

Over the next year and a half, they surveyed all the barber and beauty shops in town, checking if anyone had come in with burns or singed hair.

They followed up on tips from the Crime Stopper's phone line and pursued leads.

Police interviewed a guy who talked to Shelley once in an aerobics class.

Another man who Shelley had dated in high school, who had started a few fires and lived two hours away.

They called in a man who'd come onto their radar because of a recent arrest for practicing as a ninja in public.

They looked for men with nicknames, the spook, described as a shady guy with a pale complexion and sandy hair, who haunted the library.

And the guardian, a regular customer at Shelly's restaurant who supposedly looked out for her.

All that effort didn't produce anything resembling a bona fide lead.

Police were more or less spinning in circles until almost two years after the murder.

when they finally got a break.

A call from a detective in Flagstaff, Arizona, who relayed a message.

Someone had confessed to killing Shelley Wiley.