BONUS: Heather Kamp & Ethan Mack (Snapped Killer Couples)
We are bringing you a special bonus episode featuring a case from Oxygen's hit series, “Buried in the Backyard.”
The disappearance of a young socialite in Charleston prompts a team of private investigators to unearth a shocking betrayal at the hands of her two best friends, one of whom is a con-artist with a deadly secret.
Season 16, Episode 03
Originally aired: May 1, 2022
Watch full episodes of Killer Couples live or OnDemand for FREE on the Oxygen app: https://oxygentv.app.link/
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Transcript
Let's go!
Bravos, the Real Housewives of Salt Lake City are back.
Here we are, ladies.
I don't like it.
And they're taking things to the next level.
You know, some people just get on your nerves.
You questioned every single thing I have.
You're supposed to be my sister.
I am your sister.
No, you're not.
We have to be honest about this.
I'm afraid.
You should pay those lawsuits off.
No one sues the bottom.
They all go for the top.
Can I have the crazy pillow, y'all?
Apparently, you're already taking it.
The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City, September 16th, on Bravo.
And streaming on Peacock.
Streaming now on Peacock.
We sell toilet tissue and local newspapers.
That is in order of quality.
From the crew that brought you the office.
My name is Ned Sampson.
I am your new editor-in-chief.
Comes a new comedy series.
Have you read this paper?
Uh-huh.
It sucks.
But we are going to make it better.
Meet the underdog journalists.
I hope it's not too disruptive to have me shake everything up.
Don't be so self-defecated.
With major issues.
Oscar.
Oh, God.
Not again.
The paper.
Only on Peacock.
Streaming now.
Hi, Snap listeners.
We are bringing you a special bonus episode today from Oxygen's hits series, Killer Couples.
You can also watch full episodes live or on demand on the free Oxygen app or on Peacock by clicking the link in our description.
Enjoy.
They were a loving couple trying to make it in America's heartland.
They both had kind of had a hard life and together they were able to make each other stronger.
They were in love and they did have future plans to get married.
But their dreams are cut short by a horrific tragedy.
They've been shot multiple times.
There was large amounts of blood.
The scene was a slaughterhouse.
The investigation will force police to revisit atrocities from the past.
Southern Illinois was one of the locations for the railroad killer.
The community instantly was on alert.
The search for a suspect will lead detectives on a cross-country manhunt and reveal a darker truth, one culminating in the greatest act of betrayal from a friend in need.
She has nobody, and I really didn't have anybody.
We just didn't want to lose each other, so we were going to do whatever it took.
Their plan was that they were going to be together in eternity.
These two young people's lives were thrown away for what?
Nothing.
Four people basically died that day.
I feel so terrible for what happened.
I know I should have stopped it.
I should have done so many other things.
West Frankfort, Illinois is a quiet town where residents value their slower pace of life.
West Frankfort is a small, tight-knit, charming community, the sort of place you'd want to raise a family.
It used to be a big coal mining area.
Most people know each other there.
But on October 19th, 2009, the town's laid-back and friendly veneer is shattered.
When West Frankfurt 911 dispatchers receive a panicked call from a family member of 32-year-old local resident, Terry Seebeck.
Terry's aunt called to report that she had spoken with Terry on the evening of the 18th
and was unable to get in contact with her on the 19th.
She had learned from Terry's employer that she did not show up for work that day.
Terry's aunt tells dispatchers that Terry's live-in girlfriend, 28-year-old Candace Majors, isn't responding to phone calls either.
Candace and Terry are living in Terry's aunt's property.
So when they don't respond to her phone calls, she grabs a spare key and heads to the house to see what was going on.
When she approached the house, she noticed there was blood on the storm door.
Then she notices that the doorknob is covered in blood, and she doesn't even walk in.
She just calls 911.
When responding officers arrive on the scene, Terry's aunt gives them the key.
When they try to enter the front door, the officers immediately encounter resistance.
As I pushed the door open, approximately five, six inches, toes came beneath the door, and you can see the blood on them.
I was able to push the door open a little further to where I could squeeze my upper torso in and look, and I could see full body laid out perpendicular to the front door.
The scene was a slaughterhouse.
An officer observed a female body that obviously had been shot multiple times, some four to five times at least.
As police step into the room, they quickly realize there's a second female victim.
Sheep was crumpled between the couch and the coffee table of the residence.
There was large amounts of blood in the carpeting and on the coffee table itself.
Police identify the victims as Terry Seebeck and Candace Majors.
And we knew who resided there and who to expect to be inside of that house.
Terry's aunt was on scene as we came out of the residence and I think she saw it in my face when I came out.
As homicide detectives are called in, questions remain.
Who killed this seemingly loving couple and why?
Since 2007, Terry Seebeck and Candace Majors had been supporting one another, both in life and in love.
Both single mothers, the women had faced adversity growing up in small-town Illinois and had bonded over staying sober for nearly a decade.
Candace was a ball of life.
She was a very bright, intelligent girl.
Candace had a beautiful smile that lit up the room when she walked in.
She had so many positive things going for her, but she got into meth really bad for a while she would go out and start partying and go on binges for three or four days she would keep a job lose a job get another job kind of just like dead-end jobs just really wasn't going anywhere in her life with it
after losing custody of her two children candace knew she needed to make a change
That's when she met Terry Seebeck.
Terry was older and wanting to get her life together at that point.
She was fighting to get custody back of these children that she had lost.
She was just kind of down and out needing help and didn't really have anybody because most of her family is passed away or not around.
When Candace and Terry were introduced by mutual friends, they found a kindred spirit in one another.
I think they needed each other just because they both had issues with like past drugs, addictions, trauma.
They both wanted to get on a better path and do good for their kids and get that love back that they lost.
They both had kind of had a hard life and I think they found a mutual bond with each other.
Together, they were able to make each other stronger.
Stay 100% like held each other accountable to always stay clean at that point.
So at the beginning of 2007, they became really close, like right after that and moved in together.
Terry started the job painting with her father.
Candace had gotten herself enrolled in school to be a radiologist.
She had had a job previously working in a nursing home and she found that she loved that and that the residents of the home loved Candace.
And that kind of inspired her to want to do something in some type of health care or to help people.
Candice Atari had talked to me on many occasions about, you know, how much in love they were, and they did have future plans to get married.
But now the couple has been found shot to death inside their home.
And West Frankfurt homicide detectives must determine what happened.
There is two women, one of which is laying face down right by the front door.
Multiple gunshot wounds to both of the women's head and torso.
Terry was shot through her left eye.
There were shell casings all over the place.
We knew with the gun that we were looking for, a 22 auto or semi-auto pistol because of the way that the brass was ejected into the residence of the house after firing.
Detectives are unable to find a gun in the house, ruling out the theory that it may have been a murder-suicide.
The blood on the front door, on the storm door, on the inside of the exterior door, when you see that, there was a struggle.
Somebody was fighting to get in or get out.
It wasn't a case of somebody sat down and committed suicide.
I've worked multiple homicide cases, but the injuries to Candace and Terry are the worst that I've ever seen.
Coming up, clues from the crime scene point police toward a serial killer from the past.
There had been a railroad killer that terrorized the area, jumping from rail car to rail car and murdering people.
And the search for the truth will expose conflict within the victim's home.
He did become kind of obsessed with her.
It was, I will do anything for this person, for them to love me.
In West Frankfurt, Illinois, police have discovered the bullet-riddled bodies of 32-year-old Terry Seebeck and her girlfriend, 28-year-old Candace Majors.
As they process the crime scene, detectives try to figure out what the killer's motive might have been.
Some began looking around to see if somebody might have gone in to rob them of valuables or drugs, if they would have had those in their possession.
We had to cover every angle of who might have done this and why.
There were signs of robbery.
Both of the victims' credit cards and IDs were missing.
According to Terry's aunt, Terry's gold, Chevrolet, Impala is also missing from the driveway.
At this point, our biggest piece of evidence that we're missing would be the vehicle.
And it's either going to contain items of evidentiary value or contain the killers.
And so that was our primary focus was to find that vehicle.
I instructed one of my investigators to start contacting gas stations, starting with the ones that would have been open.
in the late hours.
If Terry's car was not full of gas and they were planning on fleeing the area and they needed fuel, let's check and see if they did.
While police track down surveillance footage, detectives dig deeper into the crime scene and find problems with the robbery theory.
The house didn't seem to be ransacked.
It didn't look like people had really torn it completely apart like they were searching for a specific item or items of value.
There was a stack of cash in the other room that was seemingly untouched, and there was some expensive jewelry that was left alone as well.
There were no signs of forced entry into this home,
which led investigators to believe that Candace and Terry let them in.
Detectives conclude that Candace and Terry likely knew the killer.
The evidence of overkill suggests a deeply personal crime.
They've been shot multiple times.
We even found some live rounds, knowing that they must have had a jam with the gun and had to clear that and reload.
With no clear evidence pointing to who killed Candace and Terry or why,
detectives contact their families and break the devastating news.
I thought everything was going great.
They both were working.
You know, the car car they had bought was, you know, a nice car.
They were paying their bills.
They were going to school.
You know, they were living the typical normal life.
So it was very much a shock.
I thought maybe drugs, because whenever you deal with certain people and drugs and things like that, you know, things can go bad.
Anytime you're involved in illegal drug activity, you're going to have some shady connections.
So I think that's where most people's minds went to first is that maybe this was a drug deal gone wrong.
Maybe someone was getting revenge from something a long time ago, or it was like something they owed money to, and it was finally coming back to them.
And unfortunately, that's the first thing I thought would happen.
Police immediately begin canvassing the couple's neighborhood in the hopes someone may have noticed suspicious activity.
We started with neighbors to see what they had seen in the area, and we find out a little bit of information on Candace and Terry's residence.
While no one can offer any concrete information to support the drug theory, Detectives do find a witness who offers a chilling tip.
One of the neighbors had seen a male subject in the area of the residence of Terry and Candice's house on the railroad tracks early in the morning on the 19th.
The tip sounds eerily familiar to reports that law enforcement had received several years earlier.
Southern Illinois was one of the locations for the railroad killer.
The man who jumped from rail car to rail car and popped into communities and created heinous scenes like this.
I remember being a child and being at home and being absolutely terrified that the railroad killer was going to come to my home.
Authorities know that the infamous railroad killer had died three years earlier by lethal injection.
Police must now figure out, are they dealing with a serial killer copycat?
I think that that might have been a concern for many people.
Was this another railroad killer?
The community instantly was on alert.
The citizens are wondering.
Are they still in our town?
The whole community was shaken wondering who could have done something like this because something like this couldn't be done by anyone in this community, right?
We put a description of that subject out over the radio.
Citizens listening listening to the scanner in town found a subject towards the south end of our city that matched that description.
Officers were dispatched to the area.
When police locate the man, he appears confused by the claims.
With no solid alibi, however, police bring him in for questioning.
The man claims he was only out for a nightly stroll and he had nothing nothing to do with the murders of Candace Majors and Terry Seebeck.
It was just some guy that was on the tracks.
He was ultimately ruled out as having any involvement in this crime.
As detectives continue digging into the couple's lives for clues, their friends offer police their first real lead.
They told us that Terry and Candace had a couple that they had allowed to stay with them because they had fallen on hard times and needed a place to stay.
And they had been residing with them for a couple months.
Friends identify the couple as 19-year-old Afton Ferris and 29-year-old Michael Shallert.
We didn't find anything in the residence at the initial search, you know, to state who they were, you know, because their belongings were gone, which was concerning.
But friends revealed that Afton and Michael had moved out of Candace and Terry's house on October 18th after conflict had developed between the two couples.
Afton and Michael Shallart had been accused of stealing from Terry Seebeck and Candice Majors, and then they were asked to leave.
As police put out an APB for Afton Ferris and Michael Shallart, a witness comes forward report another crime.
We had a subject that came forward and contacted the police department to say that Mike and Afton had been at his residence on the evening of the 18th.
They had left after he had gone to sleep.
And when he awoke, he realized that a.22 pistol was missing from his house.
Detectives realize it's the same caliber of weapon that was used in the murders of Candace and Terry.
Then when we learned that the gun was missing from there and Michael and I happened to have been there the night before the murders, I wasn't wasting any more resources, you know, looking anywhere else.
Coming up, police face a race against the clock to track down their suspects before it's too late.
The vehicle left the gas station, headed towards the interstate.
So we were certain that they had fled our jurisdiction.
How hard is it to kill a planet?
Maybe all it takes is a little drilling, some mining, and a whole lot of carbon pumped into the atmosphere.
When you see what's left, it starts to look like a crime scene.
Are we really safe?
Is our water safe?
You destroyed our top.
And crimes like that, they don't just happen.
We call things accidents.
There is no accident.
This was 100%
preventable.
They're the result of choices by people.
Ruthless oil tycoons, corrupt politicians, even organized crime.
These are the stories we need to be telling about our changing planet.
Stories of scams, murders, and cover-ups that are about us and the things we're doing to either protect the Earth or destroy it.
Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts.
You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.
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Less than 24 hours into their investigation, police in West Frankfort, Illinois are searching for 29-year-old Michael Shallard and 19-year-old Afton Ferris in connection with the murders of their friends and former roommates, Terry Seebeck and Candace Majors.
We had learned Afton's driver's license was issued out of the state of Wyoming, and Michael Shallard ties out Colorado, Wyoming also.
So we kind of suspected that that would be a familiar place for them that they would be fleeing to.
Detectives track down Michael's family in Cheyenne, Wyoming, but they say they haven't heard from him.
When detectives ask the family about Michael's connection to Terry and Candace, they learn Michael had been close friends with Terry for years.
Friends had a hard time believing that Michael was capable of doing anything violent, especially to Terry and Candace.
Michael is a kind and caring person.
He has always been the type to give, you know, the shirt off his back for somebody else.
Michael Shallert is from a good family.
He's the oldest of two children, born in 1979.
His friends describe him as kind-hearted and compassionate and a guy who just happens to fall in love really easily.
He had his first kid when he was 15 years old.
That
in and of itself kind of had a huge impact on the trajectory of his life.
He was barely able to have a work permit, let alone have to raise a child.
Detectives learned that over the years, Michael had wandered state to state searching for stability.
He was something of a drifter.
Someone who could not hold down a job.
Someone who was
looking for someone to take care of him in an emotional sense.
When he landed in West Frankfort, Illinois, he had quickly struck up a friendship with Terry Seebeck.
who offered him a place to stay.
She said she was trying to help get him back on his feet.
They They were together like every day hanging out, doing all the normal stuff that, you know, best friends do.
He seemed to be making a life and he seemed to be doing really, really good.
And then he came back to Cheyenne.
After returning home to Wyoming in 2008, Michael met 18-year-old Afton Ferris.
Like Michael, Afton had been searching for a place to call home.
Afton Ferris grew up in the foster system.
She was in and out of homes.
She ran away multiple times.
Despite all odds, at the age of 18, she became valid Victorian of her high school class.
But unfortunately, after she graduated, she was unable to keep a steady job and was unable to keep a home.
Michael met Afton when she was homeless.
She had been kind of going to bars and stuff.
Michael found out that she was homeless and couch surfing, and he immediately offers to take her in.
And that's how the two start their romance.
Chalert was incredibly nurturing towards Afton Ferris.
He displayed what appeared to be very sincere motives on his part.
He did become kind of obsessed, you know, with Afton.
It wasn't necessarily an obsession like a crazy obsession.
It was, I will do anything for this person for them to love me.
When Michael asked me if him and Afton could stay at my house, I told him no.
I had just had a kid and he was not even a year old yet.
I'm not going to allow some girl that I didn't even know to stay in my house.
An angered Michael decides to move to West Frankfurt, where he had been happy and has a strong group of friends.
One of those friends happens to be Terry Seebeck.
Terry welcomed her old friend and his new girlfriend into her and Candace Major's home.
They, you know, took my brother in when he needed a place to stay, and that was pretty nice of them to do that.
But police learned that it wasn't long before tensions erupted between the two couples.
About a month after they had moved in, I'd spoke with Terry on the phone, and she just seemed really frustrated, saying some of their things had came up missing.
Small articles.
I think it was probably like some pieces of jewelry or money.
It was just small things.
She told me that no one else had been in the house.
Terry and Candace believe that this couple has began stealing items from them and that they were going to ask them to move out of their house.
Eventually, they packed up Afton and Michael's things and put them on the front porch and asked them to come pick them up.
I know how Candace is.
She's hot-headed.
And if she was angry because she pinpointed what they did, she would push them right out.
That's just how she was.
She would give you one chance and she was done with you.
And I wouldn't blame her.
Less than 24 hours later, Candace and Terry were found murdered.
Police know they need to track down Afton and Michael immediately.
Less than 48 hours into their investigation, police get a tip that Terry Seebeck's missing Chevy Impaula has been spotted on a gas station security camera.
Gas station footage near the crime scene revealed the stolen vehicle pulling up to to the pump near the interstate.
And guess who happens to walk out?
Michael Schaller to pump gas.
There was a person in the vehicle that remained in the front passenger seat of the vehicle.
From her body style, it looked like it appeared to be a female.
While the blonde sitting in the passenger seat doesn't ever get out, she does match the description of Afton Ferris.
It's a valuable piece of information because the vehicle left the gas station.
We could watch it as it left on the roadway, headed towards the interstate, which is only like a block and a half from the interstate.
So we were certain that they had fled our jurisdiction.
Detectives speak to gas station employees to see if they have any additional information on the couple.
The clerk remembered Shallard coming in the night before.
They remember he was in a hurry and he used a credit card that was in the name of Candace Majors, but actually signed his own name on the ticket.
Detectives subpoena records for the stolen credit cards, hoping to track the missing couple.
The police are able to watch Michael and Afton travel out west by the credit card transactions on one of the stolen victims' credit cards.
Sooner or later, they're going to not use the card, but as long as they're using it, that's great for us.
On October 21st, two days after the bodies of Candace and Terry were discovered, the credit card activity stops in Larimer County, Colorado.
When detectives ask Michael's family if Michael has any connections there, they catch a break.
The Marshals in Larimer County, Colorado had learned that Michael Shallard had a friend who resided in a trailer park in Fort Collins, Colorado.
A surveillance on that residence identified a Chevy Impala, which is the type of vehicle that Terry Seebeck owned.
Now that we see that what we're pretty certain would be the vehicle in this trailer park,
those departments establish a surveillance in there to make sure that Michael and Afton are at this residence.
This is kind of a complicated surveillance because you're in a tight-knit community where the same people come and go daily and they know who should be there and who shouldn't be.
The homes are in such close proximity to each other, it makes it really hard for police to go unseen.
Coming up, as authorities take their positions outside the trailer, they brace themselves for a standoff with two desperate killers willing to do anything to remain free.
This is a double homicide, and they're taking no chances with these individuals who are believed to be armed and dangerous.
Authorities have tracked suspected killers Michael Shallard and Afton Ferris to Larimer County, Colorado.
After staking out the trailer park, police visually identify their targets two days after Candace Majors and Terry Seebeck were discovered murdered.
The surveillance team was able to recognize Afton come out of the residence, go to Terry's vehicle along with Michael, and remove items from the vehicle and place them in a trash bag.
Michael then took the trash bag over and placed it in a trash receptacle outside of the trailer.
That's when the police orchestrate a takedown.
The SWAT team uses a stun grenade to temporarily disorient Michael and Afton.
They made their approach and took both of them into custody.
While Afton and Michael are transported to the local station for questioning,
law enforcement conducts a search of the premises and Terry Seebeck's vehicle.
During the execution of the search warrant in the trash bag, they located bloody clothing that had been worn by Afton Ferris.
They also find the remaining stolen credit cards along with both Candace's and Terry's ID.
In the execution of the search warrant on the trailer they found a black purse that was Afton's purse and inside the purse they found a black Ruger 22 semi-auto pistol.
This was the same weapon that had been reported stolen to our police department.
In the car, they find a handwritten poem by Afton seemingly to describe the crime and their life on the run as criminals.
The poem was titled Bullets and Wheat.
They find two more handwritten letters from Afton that seemed to be suicide notes.
Hoping for a confession, detectives decide to confront Afton first.
Afton, my name is Joe Tharp.
I'm the chief of police in West Frankfurt, Illinois.
This is Captain Mike Denn, West Frankfurt Police Department.
I'll tell you everything.
Okay, so hang on in a sec.
Can you at least just tell me how you guys found out, found us so fast?
When detectives confront Afton about the murders, she immediately breaks down.
and explains Terry and Candace had been accusing her and Michael of theft.
They're like, well, we just kicked you out because we don't trust you anymore and we just, we don't have anywhere to go.
Like, I've got no family.
He's got no family.
Lafton told us that on the night of the 18th, they had been told by Terry and Candace that they were being kicked out of the house.
They went to a friend's house, had some drinks, played cards, knew that this friend had a pistol in his house.
The friend passed out.
They stole the pistol from the house and the ammunition, and they left.
According to Afton, she and Michael walked the few miles back to Terry and Candace's house while they devised a plan to rob the women and flee.
They quickly realized it wasn't that simple.
We didn't have any other choice.
Any other choice than what?
Doing that and getting a car and leaving going and killing them and getting what you could and taking their car that was the only option that you guys
afton admits when they arrived they convinced the women they wanted to make amends
And we asked it, can we come inside, you know, to apologize?
And we were sitting there and Terry was sitting next to me on the couch.
There's just the four of you in the house.
Yeah, there's a couch right here.
And Candace was sitting on this couch right here.
And I was sitting next to Terry on this couch.
And Michael was sitting on the chair.
And they were telling us how we were stealing and stuff and how they went through our room and found the c's and it was so trash in there michael went in the room saying well i need to go see if there's anything else and he came back out and candace was bitching he's like you know what mother you shot her
and she went backwards and then he shot terry she hit the she hit the coffee table
Afton stated that she noticed Candace was at the door and was using her cell phone to call the sheriff's department.
Afton said she grabbed a hold of Candace and drug her back into the residence, and Michael shot her some more.
Terry, she was moaning and groaning, and I told him to give me the gun, and I shot her in her left eye.
With both women now dead, they take the women's IDs, their credit cards, a small amount of cash some cigarettes and they hit the road
but according to Afton her and Michael's dreams to ride off into the sunset together quickly faded Afton says that Michael's been an emotional mess ever since the murders and that the plan was to just commit suicide that they just wanted to be together whether that was in life or in the ground
from the moment she walks into the room, she has no remorse and takes no responsibility for what was done.
The reason why I did this is my life has been fed up and
just there's nothing for me to live for.
I've got no fing family.
I've got no friends.
It's just Michael and I and
it's just I've got nothing to live for, you know?
With Afton's confession in tow, police sit down with Michael Shallard.
Michael's demeanor is very different from Afton's.
He tells law enforcement that he never intended to kill anyone, that he just wanted to rob them.
I'm not the type of person to do anything like that.
I've never heard anybody like it.
We just had nowhere to go.
That's how you do a fun kick going on after.
We just walked in and she started blaming Afton for stealing some CDs
and
me for a tank top shirt
and I just couldn't take it no more and I had that gun
just pulled the trigger
I don't even know how many times
that it got jammed
And Afton told me to load it.
I reloaded it
and it she shot a couple times.
Michael says he and Afton needed the money so they could be together and that they had no other choice but to do what they did.
I didn't want to lose Afton because that's all we've had.
She has nobody and I really didn't have anybody.
And we just didn't want to lose each other, so we were going to do whatever it took.
They felt like this was their best opportunity to start a new life together.
Following their confessions, Michael Shallart and Afton Ferris are both charged with two counts of first-degree murder.
News of their arrest stuns those who knew both couples.
I was sick.
I was mad.
I was...
Every emotion you could have makes no sense.
There was no reason for it.
I mean, it was surreal.
It's something that, you know, you see on TV.
Like, you don't.
You don't think that would ever happen in real life.
Both Michael and Afton plead not guilty, hoping a trial will save them from a possible death sentence.
At the time when they were charged in Illinois, the killing of two people made you eligible for the death sentence.
Knowing that the murders were possible death penalty,
it was like the moment that I knew life wasn't going to be the same.
Coming up, as one narrative begins to shift, prosecutors question whether justice will be served.
She was trying to make it sound like she didn't want to go against what his wishes were.
And Michael Shallard tells his story in an exclusive prison interview.
This whole thing started because I fell in love with somebody they didn't deserve if they were my friend.
In West Frankfort, Illinois, Michael Shallard and Afton Ferris are awaiting trial for the double murder of their friends and former roommates, Terry Seebeck and Candice Majors.
Then, in 2011, just before their trials are set to begin, the unexpected happens.
As they awaited trial, the state of Illinois' governor had imposed a moratorium on capital punishment.
Governor Pat Quinn actually makes the death penalty illegal.
With the threat of the death penalty off the table, Michael tells his attorney he wants to plead guilty and avoid the trial.
He decided he wanted to change his plea to guilty to the two counts of first-degree murder, and he did so.
Nobody knew that he was going to go in there and just plead guilty.
But his reasoning for doing that
was so that the victim's family didn't have to go through any more than what they had already been through.
So, I mean, he was showing remorse, at least, like I would think human beings would.
At the end of the day, Michael Schallert was sentenced to life in prison.
In July 2011, two years after the murders of Terry and Candace,
Afton Ferris's murder trial begins.
The prosecution painted Afton as a cold-hearted killer.
The defense tries to lay the blame completely at the feet of Michael Shallard.
When Afton takes the stand to testify, she paints a much different picture than the one she had described in an interrogation room.
Afton says that she looked on in horror as Shallard killed her friends and that she originally lied in her confession tape to protect the man that she loved.
Afton blamed everything on him.
She was trying to make it sound like she didn't want to go against what his wishes were.
She was very stoic, no sign of much emotion at all, even when she attempted to muster some up and really couldn't.
The jury ultimately sides with the prosecution.
Afton Ferris was found guilty of both murders.
She was also found guilty of armed robbery and home invasion, and she was sentenced to life in prison plus 120 years.
I was relieved, but I was sad because these two young people's lives were thrown away for what?
Nothing.
Four people basically died that day.
If I could, you know, turn back time 11 years.
I mean, maybe I would have allowed my brother to stay in my house.
Maybe it wouldn't have happened.
I believe that if the two of them hadn't got together, that Candace and Terry would still be alive.
I would want to say I am disappointed that I have not got the chance to see what Candace might have become.
I guess I would want to tell Afton and Michael that
I understand what you did.
You threw your life away, but I'm not going to let that dominate my life.
I have to keep going and
just cherish the memories I do have.
From his prison cell, Michael remembers Afton 10 years later.
and how their all-consuming romance triggered a deadly betrayal among friends.
This whole thing started because I
fell in love with somebody.
It was like love at first sight.
And every day I just got more and more obsessed with her.
I mean, there's always going to be something in my heart for her.
She was a big part of my life, you know, and that was the most intense love that I ever had.
I
feel so terrible for what happened.
I just think about it every day.
You know,
I accept all the responsibility for my part.
They didn't deserve it.
They were my friends.
It's all a light-hearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid.
We're your hosts.
I'm Alina Urquhart, and I'm Ash Kelly.
And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy.
The stories we cover are well researched.
Of the 880 men who survived the attack, around 400 would eventually find their way to one another and merge into one larger group.
With a touch of humor.
Shout out to her.
Shout out to all my therapists out there.
There's been like eight of them.
A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing.
That motherfucker is not real.
And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal, or you love to hop in the Way Back Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes, you should tune into our podcast, Morbid.
Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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