Karen Jacobs and Rob D'Amico: Shane and Sally

Here's our story this week: in the summer of 1988, 16-year-old Shane Stewart and 18-year-old Sally McNelly went missing in the West Texas town of San Angelo. After their remains were found, the mystery began. Texas Monthly reporters Karen Jacobs and Rob D’Amico pick up the cold case of two murders that have haunted their family, their friends, and generations of investigators. I talked with them about their podcast, Shane and Sally. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Karen had come out to Alpine, which is somewhat nearby,
and said, Hey, we're going to have a Fourth of
July barbecue. Come on by, and it being the fourth
of July, the same day the teens disappeared. She started
telling me about this story, and there's a couple of
things that really piqued my interest, and I was like,
I man, I'll take a look around. And once I
kind of poked around, I assaulved that it would be
a good podcast.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor
in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the
podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,
research for my many audio and book projects has taken
me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down
with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,

(01:00):
and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true
crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both
good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the
unpublished details behind their stories. Here's our story this week
in the summer of nineteen eighty eight, sixteen year old

(01:21):
Shane Stewart and eighteen year old Sally McNelly went missing
in the West Texas town of San Angelo. After their
remains were found, the mystery began. Texas Monthly reporters Karen
Jacobs and Rob Demico pick up the cold case of
two murders that have haunted their family, their friends, and
generations of investigators. I talked with them about their podcast,

(01:45):
Shane and Sally. I wonder where it makes the most
sense for you to start with the story? Would it
be Shane and Sally and how they grew up kind
of separately and how they met.

Speaker 3 (01:58):
Yeah, so they grew up.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Sally is slightly older, so Shane was about to turn seventeen.
He was a month away from being seventeen, and she
was eighteen. So they were a great apart. But they
both went to Central High School in Saint Angelo, which
is the one giant high school that everyone goes to.
San Angelo is kind of this weird place because it's
got one hundred thousand people and it probably had seventy

(02:22):
thousand plus back then in nineteen eighty eight, but it
still feels really small. Everyone knows each other, brumers get around,
so Sally and Shane eventually started dating, and in the
fall of eighty seven they got very close and got
to a point where they even both dropped out of school.

(02:43):
Sally was planning on going into the Navy, Shane was
content doing work for now, and they even moved into
an apartment in March of nineteen eighty eight, and then
all of a sudden boom, they broke up, and no
one knows exactly why, not even their friends really knew
what caused them to break up. They moved out of

(03:03):
the apartment, Shane went to work on a golf course
in Kansas with his brother for a construction project that
was temporary. Sally went out and did some various things
like selling chemicals in Lubbock, Texas. But they both came
back to Saint Angelo, Sally in April and then Shane
right before July fourth, and they kind of reignited their

(03:24):
love interest with each other, and by all indications from
friends at that time, they were sticking together and planning
a future together. So that's kind of the backdrop of
how they got together.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Did everybody's parents liked the other team when they got together?
Did the families get along. No, that's a short answer.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Well, I think Sally's parents liked Shane because he was
well manered, you know, a good looking young kid. He
was goofy fun, so they didn't sense any problem points.
But on the other side, and you know, when Sally
came along, as when Shane started having trouble in school,
got disinterested in his coursework, complained about teachers, and so

(04:09):
I think Marshall felt that, you know, he had this comment, oh,
now here we go a boyfriend and girlfriend. It's going
to be one of those kind of deals where things
aren't the same.

Speaker 4 (04:19):
Early on that spring they moved in together and Marshall
didn't that. Marshall, Shane's father didn't think they should have
moved in together, and he went over there and said,
you know, you need to come home, and you're not
old enough and you're not adult, you're not ready to
do that. So I think that's kind of set a
bad tenor across the board with him.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
But Sally was interested in going into the navy, right,
I mean, you would think that people who were attracted
to going into the military have aspirations and that didn't
translate over to Shane.

Speaker 5 (04:48):
I guess, you know.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
We asked Marshall's father about that, and he said that
he didn't openly vocally say like, here's my plans. He
just said he was content with working. Because their disappearance
happened so quickly after they got back together, I don't
think either of the parents said's got a good sense
of what was next. It was literally days from when

(05:11):
Shane got back until he went missing, So I think
it was just too soon for them to get that sense.

Speaker 5 (05:17):
You know.

Speaker 4 (05:17):
Part of the story is that Sally had told friends
and even a police officer that she was wanted to
disassociate from people she'd be hanging out with, and that
she didn't want to be in that group anymore and
she wanted to get out of it, and then that
was part of her Shane's plan was to move on
and get out of this group and maybe even San Angelo.

(05:38):
So that definitely leads into well, what happened to them?
And why?

Speaker 1 (05:42):
Well tell me about San Angelo in nineteen eighty eight.
What kind of a city is this and what kind
of teens are we talking about?

Speaker 2 (05:49):
The city itself? Like I said, it seemed like a
like the biggest small town in Texas. But there were
a series of really violent crimes that happened all around
this time, and when people hear the podcast the day,
they're like, dang, I didn't know so Angela was so
messed up. There was a guy that killed an old

(06:11):
grandpa with strangling.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
With the dog leash.

Speaker 2 (06:14):
There was a guy that decided to poison old people
so that he could steal their money gradually all around
the same time as shaneon Sally. So there definitely were
some dangerous elements. What we see in this story is
this kind of these crop of teenagers coming along that
aren't that bad when we first see them, they get
arrested for pot possession or whatever, but they start graduating

(06:37):
into you like, armed robbery, beating people up, methamphetamine bus
things like that. So it's kind of like these people
that were around Shane and Sally were part of this
wave of the circle of their friends that was getting
in this kind of trouble.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
What were their temperaments like before we move on to
the disappearance, what do you all know about their personalities
Shane and Sally.

Speaker 4 (07:00):
Well, it seemed like Sally was really gregarious and outgoing
and popular. She seemed to have friends in different groups,
you know, and then loved to have a good time.
People told us stories about her running the games at
lunch at school and you know that sort of thing. Shane,
I don't know, Rob, what would you say, same like popular,

(07:22):
but in a different manner. Definitely younger than Sally and
really looked up to him.

Speaker 3 (07:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
Another big difference is Sally, as social as.

Speaker 3 (07:32):
She was, she liked to party.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
She liked to go and drink and smoke some weed
and hang out with people and have fun. Shane, from
what we can tell, really didn't do any of that.
He didn't drink or smoke pot or if he did,
it was so minimal but no one really noticed.

Speaker 3 (07:47):
But he did.

Speaker 1 (07:48):
You know.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
He was a young team guy with.

Speaker 3 (07:51):
A lot of bravado too, and he.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
Ended up getting in a bunch of fights and things
that you know, young team guys often do. He bought
his prized possession of the camaro, you know, this burnt
orange colored Camaro with a big black stripe down the hood,
and it was his pride and joy. So you know,
he had a little bit of outlaw nature and him,
but mainly.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
Was just a good kid.

Speaker 4 (08:15):
And we'd cover in the podcast that there was a
group called the Lost Boys that I guess nineteen eighty
seven movie with Keeper Southerland end and Shane had cut
his hair and bleached a blonde to look more like
that character.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
Yeah, he started wearing all black, and you know, that
was about the time he started dating Sally, And that's
another reason Marshall was kind of like, oh, what's going
on with my son? Yeah, and Shane's brother noticed it too,
But they did have this kind of adventurous kind of
spirit to him, like Shane did.

Speaker 3 (08:47):
He's part of this Lost Boys group.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
They would hang out on this place called the Drag
in San Angelo, which is the one road where everyone
on Friday night drives down it one way, then drives
down it the other way, on and on, just to
see who's out hanging.

Speaker 3 (09:02):
You know.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
It's a lot of Texas towns or like that, Okay,
And so the Lost Boys would meet up on the
Drag and hang out, and they said that they were
there to keep the peace and do good. But it
was kind of a strange moniker to assume of these
a group of vampires that are supposed to be doing good.
Shane was also in the Dungeons and Dragons of course

(09:22):
that leads into the conversation on Satanism.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
Yeah, there are a lot of motivations that I had
picked up on in the podcast for what people say
might have happened, and Satanism was one of those.

Speaker 2 (09:33):
Yeah, you know, and I've seen some commentary online about
the podcast, most of it favorable, but a lot of
people who were like I rolled my eyes because here
they are bringing Satanism into it again, the Satanic Bannic,
How stupid, how cliche. And I think by the time
they get to episode four where they talk about one

(09:56):
of these key figures that was supposedly this could guy,
I think the listener I realized that there was something
going on here that wasn't just what the parents were
talking about. That some of these kids did take it
to the next level, and so it was a factor.

Speaker 4 (10:11):
A key thing that always stuck out for me is
where they found the remains in this bumpy road really
hard to drive down off by a dam. There were
burnt remains of a cat also found there. So you
know that to me is more than just a coincidence.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
Well, let's talk about the fourth of July nineteen eighty eight.
Take me through wherever it makes sense to start about
when things really start going badly here.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
It's pretty easy actually, because there's not many sightings of
Shane and Sally.

Speaker 3 (10:46):
There's one person.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
That saw them leaving the fireworks which were held at
this kind of middle of town called Lake Nasworthy and
as stuck in traffic. Then they are spotted at Ousi
Fisher Lake, which is kind of this more remote, empty,
you know, kind of area by a reservoir, by a
fisherman who was in a boat on the channel, and

(11:10):
they saw Shane and Sally hanging out, leaning up against
their car, and then this pickup truck pulls up they
described as like a slightly lifted four x four with
KC lights those lights on the top of the cab,
and the fishermen witnessed these two guys in this truck
get into an argument with Shane and Sally. The only

(11:30):
thing the fisherman could hear was Sally say something like, no,
I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm not going
to do it, you know, fighting with them, and the
truck pulls away, and that's the last time anyone saw
Shane and Sally. We know for a fact because they
later found a Waterburger receipt in their car that was
stamped eleven forty pm, so they likely left the fireworks,

(11:52):
went to Waterburger, and if you map it out, that
twenty minutes later around midnight, they're at oc Fisher as far.

Speaker 3 (11:59):
As finding the car.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
The next day, a lake ranger about seven am is
patrolling along the lake and sees this Camaro. There's no
one around, The doors open the driver's side door, gets out,
looks there's keys on the dash, no one around, and
he thinks, ah, someone just went off to pee or something.

(12:22):
But when no one shows up, he runs the plates,
tracks it back to Marshall Stewart and calls Marshall. He
knows them, like so many people in St Angelo know
each other. And Marshall gets out there and he of
course was aware that the teens hadn't come home the
night before, and he was very upset and he said
something's wrong, but the police just kind of seemed to

(12:43):
discount that there was a problem here. Their theory was
that the teens went off ran away to get married,
which in hindsight, is really stupid. A sixteen year old's
not going to leave his priced Camaro six miles outside
of town and walks somewhere to get married and leave
his keys in the dash. So that's kind of what
started everything.

Speaker 4 (13:04):
But even then, it took days before they really started
acting like they were missing. You know, they let Marshall
took that car home and didn't really do much about it.
Marshall started asking questions, but the police really didn't for
another couple of days. They told him to go ahead
and bring that car back and we'll take a look
and see what we see, and then they declared them missing.

(13:24):
So it took a while.

Speaker 1 (13:25):
Did Sally's parents contact Marshall and did they work together
on this or were there differing opinions?

Speaker 2 (13:32):
They were in touch, but they didn't work together. Sally's
parents were in a pretty tough situation with Sally's stepdad
and her mom. Her mom had just had a new baby.
They had a new baby together and it was four
months old, and so they were dealing with trying to survive.
Pat was working extreme amount of hours per week Sally's mom.

(13:54):
But Marshall just kind of leapt on it right away
and started his own investigation.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
Where does the investigation start, Fishermen, I know you've got
an ear witness at least and somebody who's, you know,
seeing two men in a truck. Is this fisherman the
last person who's seen them alive?

Speaker 2 (14:11):
We think correct, he is the last person. Unfortunately, this witness.
It's actually two fishermen, but one is kind of the
most outspoken. He doesn't come back and report this until
the spring of nineteen eighty nine, and so the police
when they first started investigating, didn't even have that information.

(14:35):
There was a lake ranger who saw their car shortly
before that out at the lake, but that didn't provide
much detail. So why that fisherman waited to come forward
so long. It's kind of a mystery, and we'd have
to probably talk for an hour about it because there
are some weird things about it. But he said, oh,
I just finally saw it on TV and I told

(14:56):
the story to someone and I said, you probably should
go to the police with that.

Speaker 4 (15:00):
The second fishermen substantiated it, but they had different time frames,
so there were two they just didn't completely match.

Speaker 1 (15:08):
Their stories was one before waterburger and one after. One
was oh, that's a problem.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
The key witness that first came forward was going to
Randall Littlefield and he said it was definitely around midnight.
They were checking their trot lines on the lake and
it was late. The rangers eventually found the other fishermen
and he said, no, it was around dusk.

Speaker 5 (15:29):
Well that's a six hour difference.

Speaker 2 (15:32):
I know we were both drinking, but Littlefield was drunker
than me. Even though little Field was drinking, we kind
of put more stock in his story because it made
sense with the fireworks and water burger and everything else.

Speaker 1 (15:42):
So, so you all think the fishermen are the last
people aside from the killers, who could potentially be these
two guys in the truck to see them alive, that's the.

Speaker 5 (15:52):
Timeline you think makes sense?

Speaker 3 (15:53):
Correct?

Speaker 1 (15:54):
Well, I was thinking dusk actually in Texas in July
could be like nine pm or something, So I'm not
that Maybe they're not that far off from each other.
Who knows, it's a true point. Yeah, okay, So what
happens next. The Marshall is on top of things, Sally's
parents are juggling a new baby, and the police, the
San Angelo police take how long you think seventy two

(16:16):
hours or longer to finally take this seriously.

Speaker 5 (16:19):
Yeah, it was.

Speaker 4 (16:20):
Definitely a few days and even then so they called
it missing but then they still didn't do much like
we do have some of the police reports, not all
of them, and some of its summaries, but there's very
little notation about who they talked to. And Marshall did
a lot of it. Both sets of parents took a
lot of notes and answered calls, got recording machine, you know,

(16:44):
to answer anyone that called, and turned it all over.
And that's something that was really interesting throughout the whole
thing is that almost everything we asked about that the
parents said they had read or turned in, the current
sheriff's office says they don't have anymore. A lot of
that stuff is just missing, and they, you know, they
inherited all this stuff, so they don't really know what

(17:05):
happened in that first time frame either.

Speaker 2 (17:08):
One key indication of what was going on was, you know,
Marshall decides, I'm going to go start knocking on doors
of all these teen friends see if I can figure
out what happens. He knocks on the door of a
one guy named Steve Shaeffer who was friends originally with Shane,
and this was on a day or two after the
teens went missing. Steve Shaeffer opens the door with a

(17:28):
welt on his face, like forming of a black eye,
like he'd been in a fight, and that sets Marshall off,
thinking immediately that he might have been.

Speaker 3 (17:37):
Involved in something.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
But yet we do have a police report record that
they interviewed Steve Shaeffer about it on July sixteenth, so
like a full ten days later after Marshall reported that.
He kind of gives you an indication that they weren't
taking it seriously yet.

Speaker 1 (17:54):
And do you think that your interaction with the San
Angelo police now or the Sheriff's apartment, is it just
they don't care about the case or what's there. How
would you summarize their general attitude toward journalists now who
were approaching the story.

Speaker 4 (18:09):
I think they really really care and are incredibly frustrated,
and like I said, originally this was opened up to
help them. Like I worked really closely with Nick Hanna.
He was a Texas ranger at the time. It was
before he was a sheriff. It definitely added some complication
that he's now the sheriff and it's it's basically on

(18:29):
his docket now, whereas a ranger's he was coming in,
you know, swooping in to save it basically. But Terry
Lowe has done a lot of work. He's very forthcoming,
he tells us a lot. They met with us. I
think there, you know, we're a little curious of like, well,
what's your goal? They asked us multiple times, are you
trying to tell a sensational story? And we just tried

(18:53):
to convince him it's like, no, that we are trying
to get the truth out and get people to talk
to us. And they answered every But I think they're
very interested in solving it. I think they care and
want it done. What would you.

Speaker 2 (19:06):
Say, Rob, I have a slightly different view on that.

Speaker 3 (19:11):
I think that they care for sure.

Speaker 2 (19:14):
And I think that the lieutenant Lowe, he was a
lieutenant with the Sheriff's office that came along in twenty
thirteen to investigate the case. He's retired now, but we
talked with him extensively. I mean, it's clear that he
did an amazing work and looked at every piece of evidence,
every note again and again, interviewed people constantly. But I

(19:36):
think when we came along, you know, twenty twenty three,
I think they had this sense, well, yeah, we'll cooperate
with him because there's nothing better than getting the word out.
Again maybe something will come in new. But when we
started asking hard questions, I think they became a lot
more hesitant and I'm a lot more reluctant to participate,
and we had some kind of come to Jesus moments

(19:58):
with the sheriff.

Speaker 4 (20:00):
My guess, though, is that really Rob did ask really hard,
specific questions that they couldn't answer. And my guess is
that they're taking that and actually digging back in. They're
not going to tell us that, and I don't think
they'll tell us what they find immediately, but I think
Rob definitely poked the investigative hornets nest and they were

(20:23):
forced to face it, you know, So I think they're
glad to have it, but they're not going to let
Rob now.

Speaker 2 (20:30):
I wonder, though, because you try to I think about
that too, you know, are they now like digging in
again a deeper? And there's another facet that we can
talk about, which is the possible involvement of a cold
case unit out of the Attorney General's office. But one
indicator to me is that I can keep in contact

(20:50):
with all these sources, the former cops, the friends of
one of the suspects, and no one has indicated new
people that I've turned up the sheriff to know about.
No one has indicated that anyone has given them a
phone call or anything.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
So yeah, I would be defensive too, I guess if
that were the case.

Speaker 4 (21:08):
Well, and they're quick to say St. Angelo is still
a small town but with a lot of crime, like
we've got a lot on our hands.

Speaker 1 (21:16):
Well, and these wouldn't be of course, the first teens
to run off. I know, the Camaro. That's a big thing,
and that's part of victimology is figuring out that there's
no way Shane would have dished this car that I'm
sure he worked really hard for or spent a lot
of time on. But the flip side is, if you're
trying to solve all of these crimes, very violent crimes,
maybe two teens who had broken up and gotten together

(21:38):
and you know all of this, maybe hopefully statistically they
would turn back up. So let's go back real quick
to the story Steve. Did we find out where this
welt came from? On Steve's eye?

Speaker 3 (21:50):
We did not.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
We've never had a long, solid interview to ask Steve
everything that we wanted to. There's a brief interview on
his porch he communicated with us.

Speaker 3 (22:00):
I text a few times. He gave us his diary.

Speaker 2 (22:02):
Okay, yeah, hundreds of pages of stuff, but there's no
indication about that specific black guy. I did talk to
one of his friends, a guy named Levi Ball, who
unfortunately just died this last June, two weeks after I
talked to him from flesh eating Bacteria, and he was
kind of mixed up with this group that was a

(22:22):
little bit dabbling in the Satanist stuff, although he said
he wasn't. But there's a police report that says that
Levi told the police Steve Schaeffer came over to his
house on July fifth and had a black eye. And
when I talked to Levi today, he said, that's not true.
I never saw Steve with a black eye. But you
know it's been thirty five years, you know who knows.

Speaker 5 (22:47):
Well, take me through the theories.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
The police are now alarmed, and you know, the parents
are alarmed, and we haven't found their bodies yet. So
what happens after these few days? Who are they talking
to because they don't know about the fishermen yet.

Speaker 3 (23:02):
Right, so they find the bodies. That's kind of the point.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
Obviously, when the full scale investigation launches. You know, the
Sheriff's Department has two lead investigators on it, and another
deputy DPS sends a special investigator. The Texas Ranger comes
in and they're just like interviewing, interviewing, you know, every
kid that they had any contact with them. And unfortunately,

(23:26):
that's where the cluster, you know what, starts to form.
Because these kids, they're teenagers, they all go to the
same high school around town. They start telling these elaborate,
wild stories of what they heard rather than what they
knew specifically, and so it became this chaotic jumble. But

(23:48):
when we did have you know, a couple hundred pages
of Ranger case files on this, and the same guys
started surfacing again and again in all these interviews. And
that was the Eve Shaeffer, the guy with the black guy,
guy named Jimmy Burnett, who Sally had had some love
interest with, a guy named John Gilberth who's found with

(24:10):
some strange items in twenty seventeen in his house related
to the case. And a guy named Heath Davis who
is just kind of a somewhat low level drug distributor
but with some rather wild and violent.

Speaker 4 (24:24):
Tendencies and Also in those files are a lot of
notes like Rob was saying that these are kids, they're
out partying, you know, and they talk about I was
at this party with this person. But then person B
says something entirely different, you know, like all the reports
are all contradictory, so they're you know, they never had

(24:44):
corroborating stories, and so when they're talking to people, they're
just you know, there's nowhere.

Speaker 5 (24:49):
To go with.

Speaker 4 (24:50):
That's that's what the Sheriff's office says. Now, it's like
it's you know, they just can't align all this. And
then the stories they do have, they're all partiers, they're
known drug users supposedly, and they feel like they're not trustworthy.

Speaker 2 (25:03):
Either, and they're all kind of like reporting on each
other on the whole Satanic angle. So on those four
guys I mentioned, Schaeffer, Gilbert, Jimmy Burnett, Pete Davis, they
all knew each other and they might not have hung around,
you know, real close, but they were in different times together.
And one asked if they were involved in Satanism. They're like, oh, no,

(25:25):
but so and so for sure is and I know
all about it. I know they do these rituals and
then so we go back and forth between them. Were
supposedly no one was involved in the could but everyone
said all the others were involved in the occult.

Speaker 1 (25:39):
Since we're talking about the satanic panic and the occult
and stuff, let's talk about the bodies. So how long
before we find the bodies and where were they and
what were the conditions and is there a cause of death?

Speaker 5 (25:49):
In all of those details.

Speaker 4 (25:51):
The skeletal remains were found out at Twin Beach Reservoir,
which is a good twenty minute drive from where the
Camaro was us so off deserted road, dirt road, very
rough road. A hunter was out with his dog, and
there's conflicting stories on how they found it, but the
dog supposedly sniffed it out and the hunter went to

(26:15):
find a skull, so the police came out. They determined
that was Sally by her clothes. The local shriff's department
took the remains, took them to the medical examiner, and
the medical examiner said, you're missing some teeth. You know,
often in the decay and decomposition, things aren't all together,

(26:37):
So go go find those. So they went two days
later and it was at that point that they found
Chain's remains, so they were seventy five feet apart. You know,
that's the first question. It's like, why would they not
look for the other ones? And you know I did
speak with Sheriff Davy Jones, who's now passed away, but

(26:58):
in twenty eighteen I spoke to him because that's when
he got involved, is when the remains were found. And
he said that's when he really stepped in because he
could just tell there, you know, they're not doing the
job here. He started making all the case for files
and really documenting everything. But they were skeletal, they weren't buried.
The clothes were lined up as they wore them. They

(27:20):
had a few branches laying over them. One of the
key pieces of evidence is that a stetson hat pin
was left on a branch over Shane's body. But we
have photos from the police department, really out of focus,
where you see a police officer holding it with his
bare hands. And then there's things in Shane's pockets, the

(27:42):
D and D plate tokens, what are they called, figurines,
eleven dollars, you know, some jewelry. But that was in November,
I think November seventeenth, so from July to November. They've
been laying out there.

Speaker 2 (27:56):
Of course, it was odd that, you know, today's sheriff
hand is like Shakes said, why didn't they look for
Shane because they found Sally or they didn't look hard enough.
There's just some other odd things like Shane's wearing his boots,
Sally's shoes are missing, they were never found anywhere. Some
little odd things about that. There were shot close range

(28:17):
with a twenty gate shotgun. We're not going to say
where because it's one detail or withholding on the case,
but it was rather unusual and both this exact same
manner of being shot and.

Speaker 4 (28:30):
The remains of that cat. So there's a hand drawing
that's a police officer did and it shows a circle.
We're a little fire with the remains of a cat
is right there.

Speaker 2 (28:40):
That's the first time I've ever done an open record's
request to a medical examiner for a cat autopsy?

Speaker 5 (28:46):
Do we know what happened to the cat?

Speaker 3 (28:48):
They said they had no responsive records.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
Okay, is this the whole basis for the Satanic connection?

Speaker 5 (28:55):
Is this cat?

Speaker 2 (28:56):
There was plenty of other stories that these teens were telling.
These teams going to ritual sites, reading from the Book
of the Dead and what sounded like Spanish had you know,
all kinds of crazy stuff. It expands from there, like
people down south of Saint Angelo that supposedly found it
upside down cross in their yard, you know, porn rituals

(29:17):
going on with kids, and all kinds of crazy stuff.
I think the one thing that kind of solidified it
for some of the investigators, particularly later ones like Hannah
and low was Steve Schaeffer's house.

Speaker 3 (29:31):
When we visited it. Do you want to tell what
it looked like here?

Speaker 4 (29:35):
Well, Lieutenant Lowe called it a Hansel and gretelhouse. It's
a stone you know, cobbled together rock, all different sizes.
It'd be cute if you cleaned it up, but it's
got vines and dead trees. Like to this day it
still looks pretty bad, and we have photos from when
they visited in twenty sixteen. But inside of it, the

(29:57):
walls were black. There were pentagra painted on the wall.
There was some sort of device on the wall where
you could hang things or hook things on, so they
thought that was iffy. I think there was a red door,
and there was Toro cards and candles and mirrors on

(30:20):
the floor, and then also a bunch of, according to them,
creepy horror type movies. But then we found out more
about that house.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
Yeah, so it was kind of a little bit ludicrous
because the investigators, it was January twenty fifteen, then went
in and I think, but they see all this stuff
and they I guess they just assumed the house had
been abandoned and was left that way by Steve Shaeffer.

Speaker 3 (30:47):
But he moved out in two thousand and four.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
So since that time, we tracked down who lived there,
and I talked to one of the guys.

Speaker 3 (30:56):
It was some young guys.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
Their father had died in the house, so they were left,
but they were old enough to live alone. He's like, yeah,
we those were all our movies. We were super into
death metal, the Pentagram imagery. It's just fun innocence. And
so then it becomes a question of, you know, what
was really Steve's house, like when he owned it. There

(31:21):
was a neighbor who came forward and told these tales
of having to go into this house when Steve lived
there to assist with some pet snakes that needed taken
care of when he was in jail, and she describes
a giant mural of Satan on the wall, and stuff
actually hanging on the walls, like knives and chains and saws,

(31:42):
and you know, hearing animals scream and shriek over a
fire in the back of his yard. So you know,
it's one of those things you don't know what.

Speaker 3 (31:53):
To believe exactly.

Speaker 2 (31:55):
Steam didn't had young kids that eventually came along this
house and the relative set. We never would have let
him have his house like that. I went in there,
there was nothing like that, But there could have been
little time periods before he had kids and those relatives
for visiting when maybe he did kind of have something
going on there.

Speaker 4 (32:13):
But there was for sure a long time with a
whole different family in that house before Lieutenant Loan Nick
Hanna saw it. So when we brought that up to them,
they didn't really respond.

Speaker 3 (32:26):
I kind of gave them an out. I said, well,
it still was creepy.

Speaker 5 (32:29):
Yeah, creepy.

Speaker 1 (32:31):
Am I naive though in thinking I did not think
shotguns would be involved in the Satanic ritual of some kind.
That doesn't seem like a weapon.

Speaker 5 (32:41):
But am I wrong?

Speaker 1 (32:42):
I mean, was that doesn't seem to line up with
what I thought would be involved with.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
That yeah, I think you know, that's why they discount
the Satanic angles as a main motivation for the killings. Today,
Hannah says, it's going to come down to things that
always does. Drugs, money, sex, and those things were in
play with these guys, he said, probably all of them more,

(33:07):
and that's what led to our death. Of course, we
have a rather different theory than those simple, kind of
simple things.

Speaker 1 (33:15):
How long did this investigation last before it was considered
to be cold.

Speaker 4 (33:20):
Well, when I first started talking to Nick Hanna in
twenty eighteen, he told us the story of the Satanic Angle.
But at the same time he said, we don't put
too much credence in that now. You know, at the time,
police are trained in how to see this stuff, you know,
like they were really pushing it, so it was a

(33:40):
thing and obvious thing for them to look at. But
now that I think they put a lot less into that.
But they still keep Steve Schaeffer on the list because
of those reasons. So again it's a contradictory. I don't
know anymore on the Satanic panic. I mean, there are
people in the town that go, oh, yeah, I remember that,
and then we have other people to say I've never

(34:01):
heard anything about that, you know.

Speaker 2 (34:03):
I think eventually, as they went into the nineties, they
started getting enough evidence on these suspects that made these
more simple motivations more clear. And it's really frustrating to
look back at some of these things and think about
why they didn't do more than they did. What they

(34:23):
say about the time was that they just didn't have
enough evidence that was credible from these kids to ever
put them in front of a grand jury or Jerry.
But you know, like with John Gilberth, he took two
young teen girls out to O C. Fisher Lake and
kind of panamized how he shot the teens and then

(34:43):
went home and showed him his shotgun.

Speaker 3 (34:46):
But the police said, well, we.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
Know they weren't killed at OC Fisher, We don't think
they were killed at Twin Beautes, So why even do
anything with this guy? So they didn't search his house
or do anything. Jimmy Burnette was the most frustrating for
us because he a girlfriend that he was tormenting and beating,
and he basically she was trying to break up with him,
and he took her out and showed her two photos

(35:09):
that he said were Shane and Sally and she saw
these photos of dead bodies in a field. He also
returned the night of July fourth, and the next day
that told her to wash his truck and there was
blood in the.

Speaker 3 (35:19):
Bag, all kinds of other things.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
And yet they never got a search warn for him either.
He Davis not so much evidence. But right after Shane
was killed, he started wearing a black stets and the
cowboy hat. It's that trace back to the stetson and
Steve Schaeffer. I think they're just they kind of fashioned
him into this cult like horrendous person, and I think

(35:42):
they were trying to pen the sonomon every point that
he knew more than he did. But I think after
this mid nineties point, when they didn't go after search
Warrens and the case was growing older and older, I
think they just started letting it fade because there was
nothing new.

Speaker 4 (35:59):
And another thing we haven't touched on is Unsolved Mysteries
did a show in May of eighty nine, right that
it was ninety one, oh ninety one, so much longer. Yeah,
But it wasn't until that show came out that it
was public news that three months before they went missing,

(36:20):
Sally had called Larry Counts in the Sheriff's office and
said she had a gun that came from a group
of people she didn't want to hang out with anymore,
and the gun was involved in a murder and she
wanted to turn it in. So he met with them,
went to their apartment, and this all came out to

(36:42):
the public and the unsolved mysteries, But he went to
their apartment, played himself in the unsolved mysteries of taking
it and also talked to them about the satanic stuff.
And then he writes in reports and also told Rob
and me that he went to different sites with them
to see where this satanic stuff happened. So that was

(37:03):
part of the early story too. You know, I think
the key thing is that she had a gun she
didn't want that was involved in a crime and she
turned it in. So one thing Nick Hanna really questioned
is when they went missing, Deputy Counts was one of
the people there with the car that decided, oh that
maybe they went and got married, and he didn't mention

(37:27):
that she had turned this gun in at that time,
So that created this big question mark of people looking
now that has to be tied in. You know, who
knew about this gun, like Rob can go deep into
this story, but you know, I think he sent it
off on that satanic story too. Larry counts the.

Speaker 2 (37:47):
Gun is the most important thing in this case. Just
what he boil everything down, that's real simple. Sally gives
the Sheriff's department Larry Kunt's the deputy the gun supposed
to used it a murder in March of nineteen eighty eight,
and three months later she's dead. So it kind of
seems important. But not only did the teens go missing,

(38:09):
but the gun has gone missing.

Speaker 3 (38:11):
It is nowhere. No one has it.

Speaker 2 (38:13):
They initially said they had no reports on it, no evidence.

Speaker 3 (38:16):
Tags of it. Going from the.

Speaker 2 (38:18):
Sheriff's office to the police officer department. What happened was
counts Today he tells us he remembered thinking it was
involved and the gun was involved in the murder of
the owner of the Red Bandana gay bar, and so
he's like, huh, the police would be investigating that.

Speaker 3 (38:35):
So I'm going to give it to the police.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
So in March into eighty eight, he gives the gun
to the police, and as we've said, there's no police
records on it.

Speaker 3 (38:44):
Nothing.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
Now, this is kind of the most crucial thing in
Texas a month. It was like, we can't tell this story.
It's too complicated. No one's going to know what.

Speaker 3 (38:53):
The hell is going on.

Speaker 2 (38:55):
But so the Red Bandana owners be Gouy named Steven's
was killed in September of eighty seven, two bullets into him.
They found shellcasings and the bolts in his body and
determined that the gun that killed him was a twenty
five caliber Raven brand automatic pistol. Okay, So from September

(39:18):
through the next spring, they're looking for a Raven twenty
five all around San Angelo. They found a couple and
they tested them ballistically and they didn't match the murder weapon.
So they're on the lookout for it. So Sally comes
along in March and turns in a Raven twenty five
caliber automatic pistol. So that immediately set off alarm bells

(39:39):
with me, it's the same kind of gun. But I'm
like they were kind of ubiquitous their Saturday night specials.
Maybe they turned in the gun and some police officer
pocketed it or they blew.

Speaker 3 (39:49):
It off from I'm like, no big deal.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
We initially, Sheriff Hannah Lieutenant Lowe told us and Larry
counts to this day cannot remember who he gave the gun.

Speaker 3 (39:59):
To, the police department.

Speaker 2 (40:01):
He says Sheriff Hannah refused to tell us. We kept
badgering him and badgering him, and finally he sent us
a snippet of council report saying at the time, I
gave the gun to a detective Larry Massey. So then
I just was floored because Detective Larry Massey was the
guy a co investigator on the Red Bandana murder case.

(40:25):
So if he's sitting there and he's looking for this
gun and one falls in his lap, he would have
gotten a tested ballistically and we have all the records,
there's no indication of it. But magically the cops somehow
find the raven twenty five murder weapon that they need
on March thirty, like three weeks after Sally turned into

(40:46):
her gun at the home of a suspect in the case.
And it gets even deeper than that, and to where
you have to wonder was the gun that Sally turned
in the same one that killed Steve Niece at the
Red Bandana And if so, how did it get to
another location, And who's covering this up?

Speaker 1 (41:06):
And why is it that there's a police officer involved
or a prominent citizen involved in the red bandana story
and then they planted at this suspect's house.

Speaker 3 (41:15):
Yeah, that is the implication.

Speaker 1 (41:17):
Oh see, that wasn't that complicated of a story. You
made a big deal out of nothing.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
But you know, this story has been bruin in me
and cared for, you know, almost a year.

Speaker 3 (41:28):
We kind of knew about some of these details, but.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
It wasn't it seemed so out of whack and fantastical
until we found out who that gun got turned into,
which was the investigator of the red bag anna and
he says he doesn't remember a gun at all. Just
I've interviewed probably thirty law enforcement officers from the time
who had never even heard of a gun being turned down.

Speaker 1 (41:52):
Who would have sally have gotten that gun from, Who
would have been a prominent citizen or whatever, who would
have needed protection from the police.

Speaker 3 (42:00):
There was a.

Speaker 2 (42:01):
Prominent guy in Saint Angelo who was a multi millionaire
that he was a huge philanthropist, gave tons of money
away to people. The word is he also had a
lot of cops on the payroll. There's evidence that came
up in a civil trial for him that he was
seducing young boys from a local boys ranch at an

(42:21):
apartment he had below his office called the Red Room.
It was all redwood Mears and this is all documented
in kicking Port files.

Speaker 3 (42:30):
He also was tied to the Red Bandana, so.

Speaker 2 (42:33):
We don't know enough about what the motivation would be,
but it's certainly odd what we later found out. The
guy that was accused of the Red Bandana killing was
a guy named less Marsh and the gun was found
at his mother in law's house, and his mother in
law said that she knew Lesson had had this gun
at one point, so that was like a key piece

(42:55):
of evidence the police were counting on. He eventually was acquitted.
So we started looking is there any connection between Les
Marsh and Shane and Sally and we dug through. Marshall
had stacks and stacks of like typed out notes he made,
and there's this entry in the notes that said Teresa
Preston is Steve Shaeffer's girlfriend. Teresa and her mother had

(43:17):
gone to live with the Marshes at some point, so
Steve Shaeffer's girlfriend is living with the guy eventually accused
of the Red Bandana murder. So then we found a
diary entry from Steve Shaeffer, who Sally at one point said,
gave her the gun. But he writes in his diary
Shane came to me. He was in a panic. They're

(43:38):
afraid for their life. He wanted a gun. I said
no and told him to come back tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (43:43):
He said, but they.

Speaker 2 (43:44):
Told me a story, and he was so freaked out
and scared about it with Sally that they went and
spent the night with my girlfriend. So I asked Hannah
to look up in his investigative notes. I'm like, look
up Les Marsh and he reads through some stuff and
he's like, huh, this is interesting here that Les Marsh
sold the gun to Shane and Salad.

Speaker 5 (44:04):
Hmmm, like who wrote that?

Speaker 3 (44:05):
When was it? And he's like there's no name or date.

Speaker 2 (44:08):
I'm like, now you know why teachers in second grade
until you put a date in your name on a
piece of paper. Right, So that gets even crazier because
then it would be the guy who eventually is charged
with the red Bandana murder sells the murder weapons Shane
and Sally. Sally turns it into the sheriff's department and
goes to the police department and ends up back at

(44:31):
the mother in law son with the guy less marsh
accused the crime.

Speaker 1 (44:35):
It was like about three weeks later you said, yeah,
so when you were talking about this, this is what
I was thinking. And maybe I'm like way far off here,
but what I was thinking was, well, if that's really
the connection, why wait for three or four months to
kill her? If this is a pressing matter the gun?
She does this at March, right, and then they're not
killed until July fourth, Right, They were gone the whole time, right,

(44:58):
and then they came back right before fourth of Why.

Speaker 2 (45:01):
Well, Sally was around by actually by April. But I
think the theory on that is that it's possible that
the defense attorney for this guy accused to the Red
Dana murder might have found out that Sally gave a
gun to the police, and she might have been considered
a potential witness and where this gun had really been,

(45:23):
and so they offer her.

Speaker 3 (45:25):
There was another woman that was involved. I'm not going to.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
Get into too many more names with all these people
in the red bandana who was her throat was slashed
and she was stabbed death in a bar in August
of eighty eight, a month after shaming Sally went missing.
So yeah, a lot of weird connections, and it's just
I think one of the frustrating things.

Speaker 3 (45:47):
Is that we seem to be the only people.

Speaker 2 (45:49):
That really care about this gun and what really was
its origin? How did he get lost? Are they the
same gun? At one point, we had the red bandana
case files, so we know what the murder weapon was
for the guy that killed the bar owner. We had
a serial number for it, and so I emailed the

(46:09):
sheriff handa, I'm like, sheeriff, can you compare this serial
number to the serial number of the gun Sally turned
in to see if they match, then we'll know once
and for all whether this was the same gun.

Speaker 3 (46:22):
And he replied by email, we have no serial number.

Speaker 2 (46:25):
So they even lost the serial number on the gun
that Sally turned in.

Speaker 4 (46:29):
Multiple people that have no connection, and three people that
were formerly within the Sheriff's department named a certain police
officer that they suspected. Like, there's other things that keep
pointing to that there's something going on internally there that
people are covering up and they're all afraid to talk

(46:50):
or we're talking to us, And then all went silent,
like they all went silent around the same time, and
we don't really know who they're hearing from.

Speaker 3 (46:58):
Or why podcast listeners. I think the kind of other monumental.

Speaker 2 (47:03):
Part of this story was the Sally's driver's license and
how it was found. You know, when they found the
camaro and they found the body, Sally's person was missing.
She didn't have a driver's license on her. So about
four or five months after the bodies were found, this
detective is walking down the San Angelo Police Department hallway

(47:24):
toward dispatch and you sees something lying on the floor
and he's like, huh, picks it up, turns it over,
and he immediately recognizes that it's Sally mcnelly's driver's license
on the floor of the politice department. And they weren't
investigating the case, so they had no evidence on them.
So then it becomes this tangled story that you'll hear
about where did this license come from?

Speaker 3 (47:47):
Very bizarre.

Speaker 1 (47:48):
What is the official line? It's an open case. You know,
they want us all that. You said, there was sort
of a much more simplified theme that had gone around
with what these four got is that there's like some
money stuff, sex stuff, not this huge conspiracy that you
are talking about. That doesn't sound outlandish to me at all, frankly,
but you said there was sort of a more simple

(48:10):
explanation from maybe the people in town for what they
think happened.

Speaker 2 (48:15):
Yeah, what do you think about the love triangle, Karen?

Speaker 4 (48:18):
But Jimmy Burnett, Well, I think there's truth in that.
You know, we talked to Jimmy's ex girlfriend and then
another friend of Sally's, actually two of them, one of
them like, who's Shane? I thought she was dating Jimmy,
you know, like there's there's a couple of people that
point to that. So I think there's some truth in that.

Speaker 2 (48:36):
Yeah, I mean the police reports they verified that Sally
spent the night with Jimmy at least twice shortly before
the fourth of July, so he is with her. Shane
comes back and said, no, she's mine, and you can
imagine something happening with that, And it kind of seems
like it's a little bit of all these things. And

(48:57):
I think that's what current investigators think is that, Yeah,
the seat Davis was selling drugs and Sally might.

Speaker 3 (49:06):
Have vowed some money.

Speaker 2 (49:07):
Yeah, Jimmy was in love with her and Shane came back.
You know, John Gilbert seemed to be putting himself into
everyone's nose in the case he just knew too much.
How did he know so much? And of course the
blame it all on guy Steve Schaeffer because supposedly the Satanist,
but he did have a he was involved in the
circles and had a propensity eventually for violent behavior. So

(49:30):
I think that they think that's the thing, And unfortunately,
I think that they know deep down that they're not
going to get anything new out of these people, one
for sure, and that has kind of left them like, well,
what's next.

Speaker 1 (49:42):
Well, you talked to Steve, did you get to talk
to I don't know who's alive and who's not at
this point. The other three you've got Jimmy and John
and Heath. Did you get to talk to anybody there?

Speaker 3 (49:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (49:51):
We spoke to Heath first, who was reluctant, and then
he agreed to meet with us. And then once we
sat around a table and spoke without recording, he started saying,
you know, like I didn't have anything to do with this.
I've been set up. So we convinced him that's what
we want to record. Do we want to hear your
side out there. So he claims that Jimmy Burnett told

(50:12):
him that he did it, that Jimmy had done it,
and he believes Jimmy did it and that he had
nothing to do with it.

Speaker 2 (50:20):
And he said that you know, they've harassed me for
all years. I've given my DNA five times.

Speaker 3 (50:25):
I'm a good guy.

Speaker 2 (50:26):
Now it just became an ordained minister Christian. Although he
was arrested a couple of years ago with a gun
in his car and went to prison for a year
because he was a fella, but he says his life's
chance around. He has a new girlfriend. So it's an
interesting interview with him. John Gilbert, we know exactly where
he lived and so we door knocked him up a

(50:46):
lot and just never could catch him at home. Did
talk to a former girlfriend of his who heard us
knocking on the door and she said, what are y'all doing?
We said, we're working on a podcast. She's like for
Shane and Sally and You're like yeah, she said, oh
I know John Gilbert. Well we're like really she said, yeah,
my name's Tammy Littlefield, was the fisherman's daughter.

Speaker 1 (51:08):
Well, actually that brings up a good point. Are the
fishermen able to in any way connect to these four
guys to the two guys that were arguing with Shane
before they went missing, or was it too far away
and they didn't know him.

Speaker 2 (51:21):
They didn't know Instead, it was dark and the k
S lights were shining right and they're about to cease
now the fishermen are, but Tammy the daughter, she was
very young at the time. She said that, you know,
she believed her father and thinks he did a good
deed for stepping forward and telling that story. That truck
that came into the lake was really important because Jimmy

(51:44):
Burnett drove a dark We've later found out it was
a chebby s ten slightly lifted four x four pickup
truck with KSE lights on the top, pretty much like
the fisherman described.

Speaker 3 (51:56):
The problem was.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
Steve Schaeffer also drove supposedly pickup truck with KSE lights.
I guess they were popular at saying Angelo at the time,
but I found out later is actually a ram charger,
which has that kind of camper cover over the back.
It's kind of like a Bronco or Blazer, and it
seems like the fisherman would have noted that in the
description of the vehicle, and you didn't mention it.

Speaker 5 (52:19):
So is your working theory.

Speaker 1 (52:21):
I guess we've got the conspiracy around the gun and
the red bandana and the connection there. But if you're
going with the more kind of conventional these theories here,
are you thinking Jimmy would be the suspect right underneath
the gun being turned in and that theory?

Speaker 3 (52:39):
I think?

Speaker 2 (52:40):
So when people ask me, I say, the only suspect
that I'm ninety nine to one hundred percent sure was
involved with Jimmy Burnett, I.

Speaker 1 (52:47):
Agree, well, And it's so if you think about the scene, right,
it could be one person easily because you can control
two people with a shotgun. And then I was thinking
it was execution style, but really a shotgun, I mean,
close range with a shotgun is a lot of damage.

Speaker 5 (53:00):
I'm not sure that execution style.

Speaker 1 (53:03):
You don't have to hit anybody more than one time
with a shotgun, and somebody who probably knows the area
really well, right, because it's very rural where their bodies
are discovered, so the local kid, right, And it's a place.

Speaker 4 (53:15):
Where the teens hung out and drank because there's only
one way in they could see cars, so they went
there regularly.

Speaker 1 (53:23):
What would it take to solve this case from y'all's
point of view, is it somebody coming forward at this point?

Speaker 2 (53:28):
You think that would be great if someone came forward
with totally new information. Yeah, but I think that the
key thing is people that aren't going to give up
and quit and for instance, figure out what happened with
this gun with that driver's license. I figured I just
found out something after the podcast that's startling as well.

(53:50):
So I have a source that this driver's license supposedly
fell out of a toolbox that was still in the
police department, and that's how it ended up.

Speaker 3 (53:57):
On the floor.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
Of course, they traced it back and they couldn't figure
anything out. But I have a source. She said, no,
it wasn't a toolbox, all right, but it was at
my aunt's house. I watched her pull it out in
front of the sky that stole it. She says, what's
this driver's license do here? And my source tells me
she recognized her immediately as Sally mcdellly, And his downing

(54:19):
part was she swears that they called the police. The
police showed up, interviewed the band, and took the license
and this is in the spring of eighty nine, and
then it ends up on their floor.

Speaker 3 (54:33):
Very different story, very different story.

Speaker 5 (54:36):
I think there's some hope.

Speaker 4 (54:37):
They do have all the clothes that were on Chaine
and Sally, and there's a few articles that have DNA
they've found. They haven't pulled or tried to do any
DNA since twenty sixteen, you know, so there is new technology.
You know, it's rapidly changing, so that that is something
that I find hopeful too. There's a lot of stuff

(54:59):
there that's just been in these little brown bags that
they're waiting, so that may be another avenue. Unfortunately, you know,
Jimmy Burnetta is gone as far as we know, he's
no longer living. We have a death certificate in his
ex wife saying she saw him die and saw him buried.

Speaker 1 (55:18):
So you're doubtful that that is I mean, is he
he would just take off and fake his own death
kind of thing.

Speaker 4 (55:24):
According to Terry Lowe and Nick Hanna, he's faked it twice.
And when we told Hannah about the death certificate, his
response was, have you seen the body? So they're very skeptical.
I think we believe that he is deceased. It fits
everything fits together.

Speaker 1 (55:41):
What has been this is the last question. What has
been the reaction in San Angelo to the podcast? I mean,
have you heard back from many of the local folks.
Are they happy that you're digging into this or are
there some people that are skeptical.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
I've gotten a lot of response from people, a lot
of people Facebook messaging we had of the blue and
there's been some things that have come in, well you
should look at this, and there are things that we've
already looked at.

Speaker 3 (56:05):
And so there wasn't.

Speaker 2 (56:07):
Like a flood of amazing tips, and a lot of
it was I pray that they find the killer for
the parents of Shane and Sally. So a huge amount
of comments like that. I will say that last source
that came in about the driver's license did come from
the podcast, and she contacted me and so we'll see
where that goes and if anything else new comes into

(56:28):
that's kind of the reaction I'm seeing that dang I
didn't know s Angelo was so messed up.

Speaker 4 (56:35):
A lot about the city, and then also people didn't
know all the ins and outs of the story. They
didn't know about the driver's license, they didn't know these
different theories like they I think they've had their eyes
opened a little bit of such a crazy story.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
Yeah, I tell teach at the University of Texas, and
I tell my students all the time. So our job
to take the details from the lives of different people,
oftentimes in the same family, them all together, and then
present this narrative where basically everybody in the story looks
at it and says, I had no idea about part
of this story.

Speaker 5 (57:08):
And that's the.

Speaker 1 (57:08):
Power of journalism and in particular podcasting, I think, because
it's so intimate to be able to tell this kind
of a story, you have you know, Marshall, And actually
I know I said that was my last question, But
my last last question is who does Marshall think did this?

Speaker 5 (57:23):
What is his theory?

Speaker 2 (57:25):
Marshall, He's pretty much with us on Jimmy Burnett. I
think he still thinks that Steve Schaeffer, because of the
black guy, had something to do with this, and he does.
I think he thinks that there was good reason for
all these suspects, like John Gilbert, who ended up moving
after he went to prison for a while for something else.

(57:47):
He moves basically across the street from Marshall Caddy cornertone,
so he has to see this suspect all the time.

Speaker 1 (57:56):
Well, what an amazing story, And you know, I start,
I hope that you all are able to get some
more tips in something that can really be helpful in
moving the story forward, because it's you know, whether it's
a case that just happened or one that's thirty now,
thirty five, thirty six years going here, families want closure
for sure. So I think it's a great service you

(58:16):
both have done. And then it's a great podcast.

Speaker 3 (58:19):
Well, thank you, Yeah, thanks.

Speaker 4 (58:21):
For digging into it with us.

Speaker 1 (58:33):
If you love historical true crime stories, check out the
audio versions of my books The Ghost Club, All That
Is Wicked and American Sherlock, and Don't Forget There are
twelve seasons of my historical true crime podcast Tenfold More
Wicked right here in this podcast feed, scroll back and
give them a listen if you haven't already. This has
been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alexis Mrosi.

(58:58):
Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. This episode was mixed
by John Bradley. Curtis Heath is our composer. Artwork by
Nick Toga Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen Kilgarriff, and
Danielle Kramer. Follow Wicked Words on Instagram at tenfold More Wicked,
and on Facebook at Wicked Words Pod.