August 15, 2024 • 30 mins
In this episode, we delve into the chilling case of the Short family murders. On a seemingly ordinary August day in 2002, the quiet community of Basset, Virginia was shattered by the brutal killings of Michael and Mary Short. Their nine-year-old daughter, Jennifer, vanished without a trace. Join us as we take you on a journey through the lives of the Short family, the chilling crime scene, and the desperate search for justice.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Mysteries and Mimosis, my name is Max Sterling and I'm here with my co-host
(00:14):
and lovely wife, Aria.
Hi everyone.
Hi Aria.
For those of you that don't know, I've been in law enforcement for over 20 years.
And for half of that time I've been in investigations.
Currently I work as a special victims unit detective specializing in sex assault investigations
and crimes against children.
Aria, on the other hand, is an expert in victim services and restorative justice providing
(00:37):
victims a path forward through a dialogue with the offender who victimized them.
In today's case, we hope to provide you with some insight into a heartbreaking case of
murder and child abduction.
But before we get started, we have a few podcast issues to address.
If you haven't already done so, please take a moment to give us a five star rating and
leave us a review.
Your feedback helps our podcast grow and gives us insight into how we can make the show better.
(01:01):
You can follow us on social media by visiting us on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram
at Mysteries and Mimosis podcast.
We also like to kick off each week by doing a trivia segment from the year of the crime.
Today's episode is from the year 2002.
And until I'm able to get 100% on the trivia questions, I'll be in the hot seat answering
(01:21):
Aria's questions.
The idea behind our trivia segment is to mentally bring you, our listeners, back to the year
of the crime by running each other through some trivia questions.
Hopefully when I ask Max these questions, you'll be able to think back to where you
were and what you were doing.
So let's get this started with the first question.
I'm ready.
(01:41):
Are you ready?
Oh yeah.
Okay.
What was the most popular film in 2002?
The most popular film?
Mm hmm.
Oh, can you give me an A, B, C, D?
Oh my God.
No?
I'm not prepared for that.
Oh man.
Is it a 2002?
It's like a genre that I don't like.
Well, based on your attitude today, I'm going to guess you don't like comedies.
(02:05):
Wow.
I'm kidding.
A genre you don't like, is it like fantasy movies?
Yeah.
Was it, it's not Avatar.
That's too early.
Oh, I don't, I don't know.
I have no idea.
Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers.
Oh geez.
Yeah.
I don't even like those movies.
Okay.
Next question.
Okay.
(02:26):
What was the most popular television show in 2002?
Friends.
Oh, that's a good guess.
That was number two.
Number one, CSI.
I was going to say, I was actually going to say CSI.
I really was.
Yeah.
When you said no.
Oh, that's okay.
All right.
I'll give that one to you.
Which NFL team won the Super Bowl in 2002?
The New England Patriots.
(02:47):
Yes.
Wow.
I'm surprised I knew that.
Was that a guess?
I'm not good at sports trivia.
Yeah.
That was a guess.
All right.
And the last question today.
So you've gotten two out of three.
So this is the determining factor of whether you will be in the hot seat next week.
Oh, if I get this right, you're going to let me out?
Yeah.
(03:08):
Oh, you're too kind.
All right.
Let's do it.
Wait, hold on.
Before you ask this, I kind of feel like I'm set up for failure because you're like, yeah,
you can totally be out of the hot seat next week if you get this question.
No.
It was like an eye roll over there.
What was our deal?
Like you had to get a hundred percent?
Yeah.
That's the deal.
But you're committed now.
All right.
It's a verbal contract, which is binding.
Okay.
(03:28):
And it's been recorded.
Exactly.
All right.
Which NHL team won the Stanley Cup in 2002?
Oh man, I don't even know.
I would guess maybe the Lightning.
Sorry.
That is not correct.
It was-
Was it the Red Wings?
It was the Detroit Red Wings.
But I'm not giving that to you.
(03:48):
I'm sorry.
That's okay.
That's okay.
Moving on.
Well, thanks for that.
I really did try to put myself back in 2002, but now you know my weakness.
I hate historical sports trivia.
Yeah, but you love sports.
I like sports, but-
You love to watch hockey and-
I'm going to be honest with you.
My brain doesn't work very well when it comes to remembering sports stuff.
(04:09):
I couldn't even tell you who won the Super Bowl last year.
Oh, it was the Chiefs actually.
Yeah.
But it would take me a while to even think about it.
Okay.
Well, good try.
Thank you.
Actually, my brain just doesn't work sometimes.
Yeah.
That's the problem.
That is an accurate statement, but there's always next week.
There is always next week.
But moving on, I do have a mimosa recipe that was sent in by a listener.
(04:33):
Oh, okay.
Let's hear it.
Yeah.
This was sent in by listener Paula.
Okay.
Sweet Paula.
Let's hear it.
What you got, Paula?
An orange creamsicle mimosa.
You will need a quarter cup pulp-free orange juice, one ounce of vanilla vodka, one tablespoon
of heavy cream, and half a cup of champagne.
(04:55):
A half a cup of champagne.
I like it.
Yes.
Yeah.
I approve.
Yeah.
That's your measurements.
All right.
Well, let's get into this.
So today's episode is a deeply unsettling and complex case from the small tight knit community
of Bassett, Virginia.
On August 15th of 2002, the murdered bodies of Michael and Mary Short were found in their
(05:15):
Oak level home.
Mary and Mike were found with a single gunshot wound to their heads and their nine-year-old
daughter Jennifer Short was nowhere to be found.
Before we get into the details of the case, it's important to know a little bit about
Mike and Mary Short.
Michael Wayne Short was born on February 18th of 1952.
Michael was previously married to his first wife and was the father to their three sons.
(05:40):
After he and his first wife got a divorce, Mike met Mary Frances Hall.
Mary was born on April 20th of 1966, making Mike 14 years older than Mary.
The two eventually married and on July 12th of 1993, Mary gave birth to their only child,
Jennifer Short.
At the time of her disappearance, Jennifer was about to enter the fourth grade.
(06:01):
She was described as a sweet, happy girl who was very close with both of her parents.
And Mike and Mary were extremely protective over her.
You know, I would venture to guess that when you only have one kid, you're probably a little
more protective than when they have siblings.
Mike and Mary were the kind of people who were generally introverted.
They kept to themselves.
Mike was the owner of a mobile home moving company called MS Mobile Home Movers.
(06:24):
Andy employed a number of day laborers, consisting mostly of transients living at a hotel nearby
the Short's residence.
Unfortunately, at the time of the crime, Mike's business was taking a financial turn for the
worst.
Mike and Mary were struggling financially and they recently put their home on the market
with plans of temporarily moving into a mobile home.
On August 14th, the day before Mike and Mary were found murdered, Mike was working on a
(06:47):
truck at his house with one of his employees by the name of Chris Thompson.
According to Chris, he helped Mike with the truck repair until later in the evening.
Chris left Mike's house and remembered seeing the entire family alive and well, including
their daughter Jennifer.
Chris then returned to the Short's home at about 9 a.m. the following day.
When Chris arrived, he found Mike's murdered body on a couch inside a converted carport.
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Mike wasn't wearing any clothes and he had a single gunshot wound to his head.
On the surface, the location of Mike's body might seem a little bit odd, but apparently
Mike typically slept on that couch in the garage because he didn't want to keep Mary
awake with his snoring.
I think you can relate.
You probably want to put me in the garage from time to time.
Yes, I can relate.
In a panic, Chris led himself into the house to search for Mary and Jennifer.
(07:34):
That's when Mike found Mary laying in bed, also murdered with a single gunshot wound
to her head.
Chris searched the rest of the house and he couldn't find Jennifer anywhere inside, so
he dialed 911 to report what he found.
When police arrived, they immediately noticed the phone lines leading to the south side
of the house were cut.
Now obviously this is an important detail because it kind of gives us some sort of indication
(07:56):
behind the killer's motive.
We can safely assume the phone lines to the house were cut prior to the murders, mainly
because Jennifer was nowhere to be found.
If the motive behind the crime was to abduct Jennifer and murder both of her parents, it's
unlikely the murderer would stop to cut the phone lines during the child abduction or
after the crime, right?
In fact, the home was located near a four-lane divided highway, US-220, given the killer
(08:21):
easy access and egress from the house.
The fact that the phone lines were cut clearly indicates the crime was premeditated, and
the fact that Jennifer was abducted from the home led detectives to believe that the killer
was someone known to the family.
And I agree with this.
Yeah, I agree with detectives here because in order to get into the house and murder
a, you know, what we presume to be Mike sleeping in the garage, they would have had to know
(08:44):
that Mike was there or typically slept there, right?
There was no signs of forced entry on the house.
And so that means this person either knew how to get in, they left something unlocked,
maybe this, you know, converted carport had an easy access into the house.
But either way, Mike was shot where he typically slept and Mary was shot where she typically
(09:06):
sleeps.
So detectives quickly ruled out robbery as a motive because when they processed the crime
scene, they recovered $485 in cash from a savings book, Michael's wallet, which contains
$75, a $211 check from a money bag and $45 in two blank checks from Mary's purse.
So with all this money still inside the house, that's an easy way to rule out any type of
(09:30):
robbery.
This person was not there to take anything from them.
They were there for a specific purpose.
It feels like they were there to kidnap Jennifer.
I would agree with you.
In fact, in an article published by the Martinsville Bulletin on August 20th, they provided a detailed
list of everything taken from the Shorts residence during their search of the home.
Now, I don't want to cover each item recovered from the crime scene, but several of these
(09:52):
items stuck out to me and I want to kind of touch base on those just to give you my input
on why they were taken and what evidentiary value they might hold.
Included in those items were two 22 caliber shell casings.
One of the shell casings was found on the bed near Mary's body and the other one was
found on the floor in the garage near Mike's body.
It was later determined Mike and Mary were in fact shot in the head with a 22 caliber
(10:15):
bullet.
Now, detectives collected gunshot residue kits from both Mike and Mary and detectives
believe both.
Gunshot residue kits were also collected from Mike and Mary and detectives believe both
victims were shot at close range, indicating the killer most likely expected Mike to be
(10:38):
sleeping in the garage like we mentioned before.
Detectives also collected several clothing items from the chair near Mike's body, which
I think indicates Mike most likely slept in the nude and disrobed prior to falling asleep.
I mention this because it might seem strange that Mike was discovered without clothes,
but I really don't think Mike's killer removed his clothing before killing him or after killing
(10:59):
him.
I think that he definitely was a nude sleeper.
Because Jennifer was missing, detectives recovered several items which they believe may be helpful
to identify Jennifer if she was ever located, including a baby's health and growth record
book and a baby milestones book containing hair fiber and footprints beneath Mary's bed.
Detectives also collected three hair brushes from Jennifer's dresser and multiple toothbrushes.
(11:24):
So I think these articles are critical to collect because detectives were thinking ahead.
You know, they're going to be able to collect the hair from the hair brushes and use them
as reference samples in the future in case Jennifer's ever found they might be able to
compare those for identification.
Obviously their toothbrushes contain DNA.
They also collected several items of Jennifer's clothing to include her shoes.
(11:47):
I think it's important to mention that shoes are a phenomenal source of DNA evidence when
you're trying to identify people.
Our feet are in them all day.
We sweat through them and trace DNA can easily be collected and analyzed through the shoes.
But out of all the items collected, I think one key piece of evidence helped detectives
narrow down their timeline.
(12:09):
Inside the kitchen trash, detectives located a Burger King receipt which was time stamped
at 1106 p.m. the night before the murders.
Detectives interviewed multiple witnesses in their investigation, one of which was the
owner of a flea market across the highway from the Shorts residence by the name of Wally
Andrews.
Wally told police his pet poodle started going crazy around midnight which Wally said,
(12:30):
that's not normal for my dog, leading Wally to believe that there was some sort of activity
happening at the Short residence.
So it's possible the dogs were alerted to the gunshot in the house, but I think it's
more likely the dogs were alerted to Mike and Mary returning home from their late dinner.
In either scenario, I think midnight is a great starting reference or starting point
for the timeline of this crime and since Chris discovered the bodies of Mike and Mary at
(12:53):
9 a.m., I think it's safe to say that Mike and Mary were murdered somewhere in that 9
hour window.
Now, it's important to mention Chris fully cooperated with police during this investigation.
He was never listed as a suspect.
Police never thought Chris had anything to do with it.
It seems like Chris was always on the up and up and they believe that everything Chris
(13:13):
said was very credible.
When detectives were processing the crime scene, they learned Jennifer's bed was unmade.
Her pillow was on the floor and it appeared as though the bed was slightly moved indicating
Jennifer may have been abducted from her room and I'm going to say probably in a fairly
quick manner.
They are out at dinner at 1106 at Burger King.
(13:35):
I don't know if they got it to go or what, but then they have to have time to drive home,
eat dinner and go to bed because it appears they were all sleeping when this happened.
Correct.
I think that helps me be with the timeline a little bit more because would they have
been able to get home and asleep by midnight?
Maybe I don't know when the dog started barking or maybe the witness across the street is
(14:00):
a little bit off on his time when his dog started barking.
Correct.
Yeah.
Who knows?
Maybe Wally looked at his clock when the dog was going crazy and said, wow, it's exactly
midnight.
It could be off on his timeline, but I agree with you.
You got to take into account they left Burger King at 1106 or at least purchased their food.
Now you have to account the time that it takes them to make the food, give them the food,
(14:22):
whether they dined in, went through the drive through their drive home.
Who knows how far away Burger King was and how long it took them to get home, but you're
right.
They still have to eat the food.
They have to get into bed.
We could probably narrow down that timeline even farther from midnight, but either way,
it's still approximately a nine hour timeline, which is a pretty good timeframe when you're
(14:43):
looking at trying to solve a crime.
It is.
Yeah.
Detectives initially considered the possibility Jennifer may have escaped the house and ran
away during the shootings.
But when Jennifer didn't show up by early afternoon, police issued an Amber alert and
immediately initiated a search.
About 30 people, police dogs and a helicopter searched the Oak level area, but Jennifer
was nowhere to be found.
(15:04):
Detectives also searched a nearby pond for Jennifer using divers and underwater cameras,
but they didn't really have any reason to believe Jennifer was in the water.
They simply just wanted to rule that out.
When detectives began interviewing potential witnesses, some of the neighbors came forward
and reported seeing an unfamiliar man in a red or dark colored van or truck in the vicinity
of the property around 830 in the morning.
(15:27):
Witnesses described the driver to be in his forties with a weathered complexion and the
composite sketch was released, but that person has never been identified.
When I was researching the archive newspaper articles in this case, I noticed Mike and
Mary's funerals were widely reported in the press and detectives actually recorded the
funeral.
I think that's a really good move in this case because a lot of times when you have
a killer, they like to return to see what the police involvement is.
(15:50):
They'll come back to the scene to see what's going on just to have that, I guess, personal
knowledge of what they've done.
Or where they're at in their investigation.
Yeah, exactly.
And so although this really hasn't seemed to help the police now, I think it would be
very helpful in the future if they ever identify a suspect to see whether or not that suspect
was at the funeral.
(16:11):
I think they also sometimes put cameras near the grave site to see who shows up at the
funeral after.
Like after the funeral is all done, nobody's around, who comes and visits the graves.
Yeah, I think that's a great investigative technique.
But with no leads panning out and with Jennifer still missing, detectives turned their attention
to Mary's past and they learned that she was the victim of a potential stalker in 1992.
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Police theorize the stalker may have been Jennifer's real dad since she was born the
next year.
So police obtained a court order and they exhumed Mike's body with the intent of comparing
his DNA and learned that he was in fact Jennifer's biological father.
On September 27th, a man by the name of Eddie Albert was walking his dog near Stoneville,
North Carolina, only about 40 miles away from the short family home when his dogs found
(16:58):
part of a human skull.
Over the next few days, police searched for the rest of the remains and recovered a leg
bone part of a jaw, a rib cage, bone fragments and 16 teeth.
In early October, police confirmed the remains belonged to Jennifer and determined Jennifer
suffered a gunshot wound to her head.
Right around the same time that Jennifer's remains were discovered and identified, police
(17:20):
turned their focus to a man by the name of Garrison Bowman from Mayadin, North Carolina,
who most commonly goes by the name Gary.
Apparently, Gary's landlord reported a conversation he had to police with Gary.
The landlord reported just two days before the murders of Mike and Mary Short, Gary told
his landlord he paid a man in Virginia to move his mobile home and if the man didn't
(17:40):
move his home or return his money, he would have to kill him.
Gary's landlord took a polygraph test related to the statements he made to police and he
passed.
Wait, so didn't Mike own a business that moved mobile homes?
Yeah, he owned a business in Oak level, Virginia and Gary lived in Mayadin, North Carolina,
(18:02):
which is only 35 miles away.
That's a pretty big coincidence.
It is a coincidence, but it's really circumstantial evidence, right?
I mean, he's just saying we have a person who passed a polygraph saying, hey, this guy
said he would kill him if he didn't move his mobile home.
So it's a good lead, but really we're not there yet.
(18:22):
When police began looking into Gary, they learned that he recently moved to Canada the
day after the murders.
Gary was arrested in Canada for unrelated immigration violations and at this point,
Gary was not considered a suspect in the case.
Police only identified him as a witness.
Now again, we have more circumstantial evidence.
One, he's caught by the landlord saying, I will kill him if he doesn't move my mobile
(18:45):
home or give me my money back.
And now police know that he moved the day after the murders.
Yeah, you know, it's suspicious, but it's definitely nothing that rises to the level
of arresting and charging him.
Even though Gary's considered a witness, police say they were aware of Gary early on in their
investigation, but only became interested in him once they learned he owned a mobile
(19:06):
home about a mile from where Jennifer's remains were found.
So now we have really three critical circumstantial pieces of evidence, right?
I mean, he left the day after the murders.
He owns a home near where Jennifer was found.
He's quoted by the landlord saying, I'm going to kill, you know, this person who moves mobile
homes.
(19:27):
Definitely somebody who's going to be on their radar.
So police began interviewing several of Gary's associates, including one friend who claimed
to have been drinking with Gary the entire day on the 14th, the day before the murders.
The friend also told police Gary was in no condition to walk home, much less commit a
murder.
Yeah.
So I'd be curious to know the specifics, right?
Like what?
(19:48):
I mean, he's drinking with him all day, but then what time does he leave him?
You know, is he still with him during that nine hour time frame when police suspect the
murders happened or?
No, he just told he just said I was drinking with him the whole day and he was in no condition
to kill anybody.
He could barely make it into bed.
Right.
So that's why I'm wondering, like, what time did he make it into bed then?
(20:10):
Like what time does this friend lose sight of him or leave him?
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, he never says I saw him go into bed.
He just said he's in no condition to do anything because he's so intoxicated.
But that doesn't really account for an alibi during that nine hour window when the murders
happened.
Exactly.
So as this police weren't dealing with enough with Gary, three witnesses came forward and
(20:31):
said that they saw Gary carrying a girl's body from the Shorts house.
It was later determined that those three witnesses fabricated the story.
They were eventually charged with and convicted of perjury.
And the idea was they made this story up in an effort to collect some reward money.
There's a substantial amount of reward money to solve this case throughout this investigation.
(20:53):
Okay.
So they see that the police are interested in Gary so they can cock the story to kind
of go along with that.
Yeah, so on October 10th, detectives left for Canada to interview Gary.
But after learning he was set for deportation by the Canadian government, they decided to
wait to interview Gary until he was back in the United States.
Gary was interviewed by police in the Roanoke County jail for three hours.
(21:14):
And eventually, Gary was ordered to be questioned by a grand jury.
Meanwhile, investigators returned to Canada to process his van for forensic evidence.
But on October 30th, Gary was released from custody, but he was still held under a federal
material witness warrant.
Both Gary and his landlord testified in the grand jury, but neither of those statements
were ever released to the public.
(21:35):
And the grand jury never came back with an indictment.
In 2007, police say Gary was no longer considered a person of interest.
On January 4th of 2004, forensic testing on all the items collected from Gary's van resulted
in negative results.
And in 2007, police said Gary was no longer considered a person of interest.
Since then, police conducted additional searches in the Rockingham County area where her remains
(21:59):
were found, Jennifer's remains.
But they've never been able to solve this case.
So police have never developed any other suspects that panned out to be anything.
They've never been able to solve the murders.
So this is a triple homicide that has gone unanswered since 2002.
Even though they lived next to a, it sounds like a busy highway, you know, with easy access,
(22:21):
I still think that it was somebody who knew the family and knew their habits, right?
I think that their goal was to kidnap Jennifer.
So they had to have known she was in that house.
And then specifically that Gary, you know, had unusual sleeping habits.
He slept out in a converted carport.
It just sounds like it's somebody that knew all of these things about this family.
(22:44):
And Mike was in the habit of hiring, you know, transients that kind of passed through town
to work for him for weeks or maybe months at a time.
So is that a possibility that it was someone who had worked for him for a short period
of time, just enough time to know the family's habits and know that Jennifer would be in
her bedroom sleeping?
I don't know.
(23:04):
I don't know either.
But one of the things that they've, or several of the items that they collected when they
did the search on the home included documents related to the business.
So you know, talking about payroll documents, different things to identify the workers who
are consistently around Mike.
And so that that's just a really good method to start interviewing people, eliminating
(23:27):
suspects, you know, clearing people's names and really trying to focus in on who might
be responsible because obviously the police agree with you that this was a crime that
was committed by somebody known to the family who's maybe been at the house before.
Maybe somebody who knew Gary's sleeping habits in the garage.
And so it's an unfortunate case because, you know, they spent so much time and energy on
(23:50):
Gary that it's quite possible he had nothing to do with it.
But I really appreciate the investigative work that they've done to even clear his name.
I mean, they went through great efforts.
They thought, hey, this is our guy because of all this suspicious, you know, stuff.
But they were very careful never to list him as a suspect.
Obviously he was a suspect at some point, whether or not he's officially called a suspect
(24:10):
because they brought him before the grand jury.
He had to answer for some of those things that were heavily weighed against him.
And with no indictment and no forensic evidence to tie Gary to the crime, you know, we can
suspect that he did it.
But I feel very confident in this process that if he didn't do it, that's really good
(24:31):
news because the last thing we want to do is put an innocent man in prison.
I hope the police are able to, you know, find justice for the Short family.
Yeah, me too.
I really hope that justice is found.
This is an unsolved case for well over two decades.
And so one of the most disappointing things about this case, though, that took me by surprise
(24:51):
is that in 2007, the sheriff overseeing the investigation, his name is Frank Castle, he
pleaded guilty to lying to authorities related to some corruption charges.
According to prosecutors, Castle was involved in a scheme to sell drugs and guns that they
seized from criminals.
Since 1998, cocaine, marijuana, steroids and other drugs seized by the sheriff's department
(25:12):
were resold.
Involved in the corruption included the sheriff, vice officers, a dog handler, and a sergeant
from the department agreed to cooperate with investigators.
So the sergeant was paid by the corrupt officials to use his house as a place to distribute
the drugs.
Wow.
And so moving forward to today, even if they're able to solve, you know, this case and bring
(25:35):
the killer to, you know, to justice, there's a really big uphill battle because there certainly
is a ton of integrity issues that the prosecution would have to overcome from the previous investigating
agency, specifically with the corrupt sheriff.
You know, he was elected in 1992 and removed from office when these charges were brought
(25:56):
about in 2007.
So he had been reelected for 15 years.
The community clearly trusted this man.
He probably was a, you know, an icon in the community for his efforts in law enforcement.
And all the while he's reselling drugs back into their community.
That's just gross.
(26:18):
It is gross.
That's a good way to put it.
Yeah.
You know, I mean, he's victimizing his own community that he's elected and sworn to serve.
And that's just disgusting to me because it's bad enough if you're putting guns back on
the street.
You're risking your citizens that you've sworn to protect, but you're risking the lives of
law enforcement officers, not only here in his community, but in the surrounding communities
(26:41):
and across the nation, really.
And if you're reselling drugs, all you're doing is just perpetuating the cycle of having
offenders reoffend with drug cases.
And you know, as we know, not, you know, no matter what your stance is on using drugs,
whether you do it recreationally, you know, in the privacy of your own home, I think we
(27:03):
can all agree that drugs definitely contribute to more crime.
Oh, for sure.
I would say, I mean, I don't have a percentage, but an extremely high percentage of individuals
serving time in like in prisons for cases that aren't like direct drug charges, those
crimes stem somehow from drugs or alcohol use or something.
(27:27):
And I don't want to get completely off topic here, but I know that there's been a big push
in our nation to release those people who have been held for what is considered unreasonable
sentence for like possession of marijuana, for example.
Now if that's all it was, you know, I would probably agree with with that sentiment because
I don't think incarceration is for everybody.
(27:49):
But the thing that people fail to remember is that those drug possession charges typically
are not the charges that were that they were convicted of solely, meaning most of the time
people who have those longer sentences for drug possession charges took a plea to those
charges in an agreement to drop other charges that were connected with that.
(28:12):
And so without looking at each and individual case on its own merit, we can't we can't just
say, oh, as a blanket across the nation, we need to release everybody who has been convicted
with these lengthy sentences for drug possession.
You might have an assault, you might have a robbery, you might even have in some circumstances
if the prosecution is very weak in their case, but you know, the person, you know, harmed
(28:35):
somebody by killing them and they took a plea for an extended sentence on a drug possession
charge.
Is that really somebody that needs to be released into the community?
Right.
It's one of those things where you have to look at it on a case by case basis and take
all of those factors into consideration.
But I think at the end of the day, a conversation that I have a lot of times with individuals
who are serving time is that drug dealing is not a victimless crime.
(29:00):
I hear that all the time.
Well, I mean, I don't have any victims because I'm only in here for distribution charges.
Well, that's not true.
When you're distributing drugs, you're victimizing an entire community.
You're putting drugs onto the streets of the community, which is going to just create more
crime.
You're going to get into the wrong hands.
You don't know if a child or, you know, someone's going to get a hold of that and then overdose.
(29:24):
You don't know the reach that that crime can have in a community.
So it's definitely not a victimless crime.
And then when you have somebody who is the sheriff of an entire county, right, that is
the head law enforcement for an entire county of people contributing to that and dealing
in drugs and guns, it's just sickening.
(29:45):
It makes me irritated.
Well, I'm glad I know what irritates you.
I will never deal drugs.
How about that?
That's the deal.
So if you have any information on the murders of Mike, Mary, or Jennifer Short, you can
reach out to the Henry County Sheriff's Office at 276-656-4200.
(30:06):
And the good news is there's a new sheriff in town and his name is Wayne Davis.
So you can feel good about calling them.
It's not the other guy anymore.
The other guy meaning Castle.
Yeah.
Frank Castle.
Frank Castle kind of seems like a movie theater like character, like a bad guy in a movie.
Yeah.
Like a B rated movie.
Yes.
Yeah.
(30:26):
Where he sells drugs.
Yeah.
Sheriff Frank Castle.
Yeah.
He was a bad guy, but in real life, not in the movies.
Yeah.
Shame on him.
Well, thank you for listening.
And as always, please follow us on social media at mysteries and mimosas podcast and
do us a favor, click five stars, give us a review so we know how we're doing.
But in the meantime, let's raise our glasses and drink our bubbly mimosas to Mike, Mary
(30:50):
and Jennifer.
Cheers.
Cheers.
Welcome to Mysteries and Mimosis, my name is Max Sterling and I'm here with my co-host
(00:14):
and lovely wife, Aria.
Hi everyone.
Hi Aria.
For those of you that don't know, I've been in law enforcement for over 20 years.
And for half of that time I've been in investigations.
Currently I work as a special victims unit detective specializing in sex assault investigations
and crimes against children.
Aria, on the other hand, is an expert in victim services and restorative justice providing
(00:37):
victims a path forward through a dialogue with the offender who victimized them.
In today's case, we hope to provide you with some insight into a heartbreaking case of
murder and child abduction.
But before we get started, we have a few podcast issues to address.
If you haven't already done so, please take a moment to give us a five star rating and
leave us a review.
Your feedback helps our podcast grow and gives us insight into how we can make the show better.
(01:01):
You can follow us on social media by visiting us on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram
at Mysteries and Mimosis podcast.
We also like to kick off each week by doing a trivia segment from the year of the crime.
Today's episode is from the year 2002.
And until I'm able to get 100% on the trivia questions, I'll be in the hot seat answering
(01:21):
Aria's questions.
The idea behind our trivia segment is to mentally bring you, our listeners, back to the year
of the crime by running each other through some trivia questions.
Hopefully when I ask Max these questions, you'll be able to think back to where you
were and what you were doing.
So let's get this started with the first question.
I'm ready.
(01:41):
Are you ready?
Oh yeah.
Okay.
What was the most popular film in 2002?
The most popular film?
Mm hmm.
Oh, can you give me an A, B, C, D?
Oh my God.
No?
I'm not prepared for that.
Oh man.
Is it a 2002?
It's like a genre that I don't like.
Well, based on your attitude today, I'm going to guess you don't like comedies.
(02:05):
Wow.
I'm kidding.
A genre you don't like, is it like fantasy movies?
Yeah.
Was it, it's not Avatar.
That's too early.
Oh, I don't, I don't know.
I have no idea.
Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers.
Oh geez.
Yeah.
I don't even like those movies.
Okay.
Next question.
Okay.
(02:26):
What was the most popular television show in 2002?
Friends.
Oh, that's a good guess.
That was number two.
Number one, CSI.
I was going to say, I was actually going to say CSI.
I really was.
Yeah.
When you said no.
Oh, that's okay.
All right.
I'll give that one to you.
Which NFL team won the Super Bowl in 2002?
The New England Patriots.
(02:47):
Yes.
Wow.
I'm surprised I knew that.
Was that a guess?
I'm not good at sports trivia.
Yeah.
That was a guess.
All right.
And the last question today.
So you've gotten two out of three.
So this is the determining factor of whether you will be in the hot seat next week.
Oh, if I get this right, you're going to let me out?
Yeah.
(03:08):
Oh, you're too kind.
All right.
Let's do it.
Wait, hold on.
Before you ask this, I kind of feel like I'm set up for failure because you're like, yeah,
you can totally be out of the hot seat next week if you get this question.
No.
It was like an eye roll over there.
What was our deal?
Like you had to get a hundred percent?
Yeah.
That's the deal.
But you're committed now.
All right.
It's a verbal contract, which is binding.
Okay.
(03:28):
And it's been recorded.
Exactly.
All right.
Which NHL team won the Stanley Cup in 2002?
Oh man, I don't even know.
I would guess maybe the Lightning.
Sorry.
That is not correct.
It was-
Was it the Red Wings?
It was the Detroit Red Wings.
But I'm not giving that to you.
(03:48):
I'm sorry.
That's okay.
That's okay.
Moving on.
Well, thanks for that.
I really did try to put myself back in 2002, but now you know my weakness.
I hate historical sports trivia.
Yeah, but you love sports.
I like sports, but-
You love to watch hockey and-
I'm going to be honest with you.
My brain doesn't work very well when it comes to remembering sports stuff.
(04:09):
I couldn't even tell you who won the Super Bowl last year.
Oh, it was the Chiefs actually.
Yeah.
But it would take me a while to even think about it.
Okay.
Well, good try.
Thank you.
Actually, my brain just doesn't work sometimes.
Yeah.
That's the problem.
That is an accurate statement, but there's always next week.
There is always next week.
But moving on, I do have a mimosa recipe that was sent in by a listener.
(04:33):
Oh, okay.
Let's hear it.
Yeah.
This was sent in by listener Paula.
Okay.
Sweet Paula.
Let's hear it.
What you got, Paula?
An orange creamsicle mimosa.
You will need a quarter cup pulp-free orange juice, one ounce of vanilla vodka, one tablespoon
of heavy cream, and half a cup of champagne.
(04:55):
A half a cup of champagne.
I like it.
Yes.
Yeah.
I approve.
Yeah.
That's your measurements.
All right.
Well, let's get into this.
So today's episode is a deeply unsettling and complex case from the small tight knit community
of Bassett, Virginia.
On August 15th of 2002, the murdered bodies of Michael and Mary Short were found in their
(05:15):
Oak level home.
Mary and Mike were found with a single gunshot wound to their heads and their nine-year-old
daughter Jennifer Short was nowhere to be found.
Before we get into the details of the case, it's important to know a little bit about
Mike and Mary Short.
Michael Wayne Short was born on February 18th of 1952.
Michael was previously married to his first wife and was the father to their three sons.
(05:40):
After he and his first wife got a divorce, Mike met Mary Frances Hall.
Mary was born on April 20th of 1966, making Mike 14 years older than Mary.
The two eventually married and on July 12th of 1993, Mary gave birth to their only child,
Jennifer Short.
At the time of her disappearance, Jennifer was about to enter the fourth grade.
(06:01):
She was described as a sweet, happy girl who was very close with both of her parents.
And Mike and Mary were extremely protective over her.
You know, I would venture to guess that when you only have one kid, you're probably a little
more protective than when they have siblings.
Mike and Mary were the kind of people who were generally introverted.
They kept to themselves.
Mike was the owner of a mobile home moving company called MS Mobile Home Movers.
(06:24):
Andy employed a number of day laborers, consisting mostly of transients living at a hotel nearby
the Short's residence.
Unfortunately, at the time of the crime, Mike's business was taking a financial turn for the
worst.
Mike and Mary were struggling financially and they recently put their home on the market
with plans of temporarily moving into a mobile home.
On August 14th, the day before Mike and Mary were found murdered, Mike was working on a
(06:47):
truck at his house with one of his employees by the name of Chris Thompson.
According to Chris, he helped Mike with the truck repair until later in the evening.
Chris left Mike's house and remembered seeing the entire family alive and well, including
their daughter Jennifer.
Chris then returned to the Short's home at about 9 a.m. the following day.
When Chris arrived, he found Mike's murdered body on a couch inside a converted carport.
(07:12):
Mike wasn't wearing any clothes and he had a single gunshot wound to his head.
On the surface, the location of Mike's body might seem a little bit odd, but apparently
Mike typically slept on that couch in the garage because he didn't want to keep Mary
awake with his snoring.
I think you can relate.
You probably want to put me in the garage from time to time.
Yes, I can relate.
In a panic, Chris led himself into the house to search for Mary and Jennifer.
(07:34):
That's when Mike found Mary laying in bed, also murdered with a single gunshot wound
to her head.
Chris searched the rest of the house and he couldn't find Jennifer anywhere inside, so
he dialed 911 to report what he found.
When police arrived, they immediately noticed the phone lines leading to the south side
of the house were cut.
Now obviously this is an important detail because it kind of gives us some sort of indication
(07:56):
behind the killer's motive.
We can safely assume the phone lines to the house were cut prior to the murders, mainly
because Jennifer was nowhere to be found.
If the motive behind the crime was to abduct Jennifer and murder both of her parents, it's
unlikely the murderer would stop to cut the phone lines during the child abduction or
after the crime, right?
In fact, the home was located near a four-lane divided highway, US-220, given the killer
(08:21):
easy access and egress from the house.
The fact that the phone lines were cut clearly indicates the crime was premeditated, and
the fact that Jennifer was abducted from the home led detectives to believe that the killer
was someone known to the family.
And I agree with this.
Yeah, I agree with detectives here because in order to get into the house and murder
a, you know, what we presume to be Mike sleeping in the garage, they would have had to know
(08:44):
that Mike was there or typically slept there, right?
There was no signs of forced entry on the house.
And so that means this person either knew how to get in, they left something unlocked,
maybe this, you know, converted carport had an easy access into the house.
But either way, Mike was shot where he typically slept and Mary was shot where she typically
(09:06):
sleeps.
So detectives quickly ruled out robbery as a motive because when they processed the crime
scene, they recovered $485 in cash from a savings book, Michael's wallet, which contains
$75, a $211 check from a money bag and $45 in two blank checks from Mary's purse.
So with all this money still inside the house, that's an easy way to rule out any type of
(09:30):
robbery.
This person was not there to take anything from them.
They were there for a specific purpose.
It feels like they were there to kidnap Jennifer.
I would agree with you.
In fact, in an article published by the Martinsville Bulletin on August 20th, they provided a detailed
list of everything taken from the Shorts residence during their search of the home.
Now, I don't want to cover each item recovered from the crime scene, but several of these
(09:52):
items stuck out to me and I want to kind of touch base on those just to give you my input
on why they were taken and what evidentiary value they might hold.
Included in those items were two 22 caliber shell casings.
One of the shell casings was found on the bed near Mary's body and the other one was
found on the floor in the garage near Mike's body.
It was later determined Mike and Mary were in fact shot in the head with a 22 caliber
(10:15):
bullet.
Now, detectives collected gunshot residue kits from both Mike and Mary and detectives
believe both.
Gunshot residue kits were also collected from Mike and Mary and detectives believe both
victims were shot at close range, indicating the killer most likely expected Mike to be
(10:38):
sleeping in the garage like we mentioned before.
Detectives also collected several clothing items from the chair near Mike's body, which
I think indicates Mike most likely slept in the nude and disrobed prior to falling asleep.
I mention this because it might seem strange that Mike was discovered without clothes,
but I really don't think Mike's killer removed his clothing before killing him or after killing
(10:59):
him.
I think that he definitely was a nude sleeper.
Because Jennifer was missing, detectives recovered several items which they believe may be helpful
to identify Jennifer if she was ever located, including a baby's health and growth record
book and a baby milestones book containing hair fiber and footprints beneath Mary's bed.
Detectives also collected three hair brushes from Jennifer's dresser and multiple toothbrushes.
(11:24):
So I think these articles are critical to collect because detectives were thinking ahead.
You know, they're going to be able to collect the hair from the hair brushes and use them
as reference samples in the future in case Jennifer's ever found they might be able to
compare those for identification.
Obviously their toothbrushes contain DNA.
They also collected several items of Jennifer's clothing to include her shoes.
(11:47):
I think it's important to mention that shoes are a phenomenal source of DNA evidence when
you're trying to identify people.
Our feet are in them all day.
We sweat through them and trace DNA can easily be collected and analyzed through the shoes.
But out of all the items collected, I think one key piece of evidence helped detectives
narrow down their timeline.
(12:09):
Inside the kitchen trash, detectives located a Burger King receipt which was time stamped
at 1106 p.m. the night before the murders.
Detectives interviewed multiple witnesses in their investigation, one of which was the
owner of a flea market across the highway from the Shorts residence by the name of Wally
Andrews.
Wally told police his pet poodle started going crazy around midnight which Wally said,
(12:30):
that's not normal for my dog, leading Wally to believe that there was some sort of activity
happening at the Short residence.
So it's possible the dogs were alerted to the gunshot in the house, but I think it's
more likely the dogs were alerted to Mike and Mary returning home from their late dinner.
In either scenario, I think midnight is a great starting reference or starting point
for the timeline of this crime and since Chris discovered the bodies of Mike and Mary at
(12:53):
9 a.m., I think it's safe to say that Mike and Mary were murdered somewhere in that 9
hour window.
Now, it's important to mention Chris fully cooperated with police during this investigation.
He was never listed as a suspect.
Police never thought Chris had anything to do with it.
It seems like Chris was always on the up and up and they believe that everything Chris
(13:13):
said was very credible.
When detectives were processing the crime scene, they learned Jennifer's bed was unmade.
Her pillow was on the floor and it appeared as though the bed was slightly moved indicating
Jennifer may have been abducted from her room and I'm going to say probably in a fairly
quick manner.
They are out at dinner at 1106 at Burger King.
(13:35):
I don't know if they got it to go or what, but then they have to have time to drive home,
eat dinner and go to bed because it appears they were all sleeping when this happened.
Correct.
I think that helps me be with the timeline a little bit more because would they have
been able to get home and asleep by midnight?
Maybe I don't know when the dog started barking or maybe the witness across the street is
(14:00):
a little bit off on his time when his dog started barking.
Correct.
Yeah.
Who knows?
Maybe Wally looked at his clock when the dog was going crazy and said, wow, it's exactly
midnight.
It could be off on his timeline, but I agree with you.
You got to take into account they left Burger King at 1106 or at least purchased their food.
Now you have to account the time that it takes them to make the food, give them the food,
(14:22):
whether they dined in, went through the drive through their drive home.
Who knows how far away Burger King was and how long it took them to get home, but you're
right.
They still have to eat the food.
They have to get into bed.
We could probably narrow down that timeline even farther from midnight, but either way,
it's still approximately a nine hour timeline, which is a pretty good timeframe when you're
(14:43):
looking at trying to solve a crime.
It is.
Yeah.
Detectives initially considered the possibility Jennifer may have escaped the house and ran
away during the shootings.
But when Jennifer didn't show up by early afternoon, police issued an Amber alert and
immediately initiated a search.
About 30 people, police dogs and a helicopter searched the Oak level area, but Jennifer
was nowhere to be found.
(15:04):
Detectives also searched a nearby pond for Jennifer using divers and underwater cameras,
but they didn't really have any reason to believe Jennifer was in the water.
They simply just wanted to rule that out.
When detectives began interviewing potential witnesses, some of the neighbors came forward
and reported seeing an unfamiliar man in a red or dark colored van or truck in the vicinity
of the property around 830 in the morning.
(15:27):
Witnesses described the driver to be in his forties with a weathered complexion and the
composite sketch was released, but that person has never been identified.
When I was researching the archive newspaper articles in this case, I noticed Mike and
Mary's funerals were widely reported in the press and detectives actually recorded the
funeral.
I think that's a really good move in this case because a lot of times when you have
a killer, they like to return to see what the police involvement is.
(15:50):
They'll come back to the scene to see what's going on just to have that, I guess, personal
knowledge of what they've done.
Or where they're at in their investigation.
Yeah, exactly.
And so although this really hasn't seemed to help the police now, I think it would be
very helpful in the future if they ever identify a suspect to see whether or not that suspect
was at the funeral.
(16:11):
I think they also sometimes put cameras near the grave site to see who shows up at the
funeral after.
Like after the funeral is all done, nobody's around, who comes and visits the graves.
Yeah, I think that's a great investigative technique.
But with no leads panning out and with Jennifer still missing, detectives turned their attention
to Mary's past and they learned that she was the victim of a potential stalker in 1992.
(16:35):
Police theorize the stalker may have been Jennifer's real dad since she was born the
next year.
So police obtained a court order and they exhumed Mike's body with the intent of comparing
his DNA and learned that he was in fact Jennifer's biological father.
On September 27th, a man by the name of Eddie Albert was walking his dog near Stoneville,
North Carolina, only about 40 miles away from the short family home when his dogs found
(16:58):
part of a human skull.
Over the next few days, police searched for the rest of the remains and recovered a leg
bone part of a jaw, a rib cage, bone fragments and 16 teeth.
In early October, police confirmed the remains belonged to Jennifer and determined Jennifer
suffered a gunshot wound to her head.
Right around the same time that Jennifer's remains were discovered and identified, police
(17:20):
turned their focus to a man by the name of Garrison Bowman from Mayadin, North Carolina,
who most commonly goes by the name Gary.
Apparently, Gary's landlord reported a conversation he had to police with Gary.
The landlord reported just two days before the murders of Mike and Mary Short, Gary told
his landlord he paid a man in Virginia to move his mobile home and if the man didn't
(17:40):
move his home or return his money, he would have to kill him.
Gary's landlord took a polygraph test related to the statements he made to police and he
passed.
Wait, so didn't Mike own a business that moved mobile homes?
Yeah, he owned a business in Oak level, Virginia and Gary lived in Mayadin, North Carolina,
(18:02):
which is only 35 miles away.
That's a pretty big coincidence.
It is a coincidence, but it's really circumstantial evidence, right?
I mean, he's just saying we have a person who passed a polygraph saying, hey, this guy
said he would kill him if he didn't move his mobile home.
So it's a good lead, but really we're not there yet.
(18:22):
When police began looking into Gary, they learned that he recently moved to Canada the
day after the murders.
Gary was arrested in Canada for unrelated immigration violations and at this point,
Gary was not considered a suspect in the case.
Police only identified him as a witness.
Now again, we have more circumstantial evidence.
One, he's caught by the landlord saying, I will kill him if he doesn't move my mobile
(18:45):
home or give me my money back.
And now police know that he moved the day after the murders.
Yeah, you know, it's suspicious, but it's definitely nothing that rises to the level
of arresting and charging him.
Even though Gary's considered a witness, police say they were aware of Gary early on in their
investigation, but only became interested in him once they learned he owned a mobile
(19:06):
home about a mile from where Jennifer's remains were found.
So now we have really three critical circumstantial pieces of evidence, right?
I mean, he left the day after the murders.
He owns a home near where Jennifer was found.
He's quoted by the landlord saying, I'm going to kill, you know, this person who moves mobile
homes.
(19:27):
Definitely somebody who's going to be on their radar.
So police began interviewing several of Gary's associates, including one friend who claimed
to have been drinking with Gary the entire day on the 14th, the day before the murders.
The friend also told police Gary was in no condition to walk home, much less commit a
murder.
Yeah.
So I'd be curious to know the specifics, right?
Like what?
(19:48):
I mean, he's drinking with him all day, but then what time does he leave him?
You know, is he still with him during that nine hour time frame when police suspect the
murders happened or?
No, he just told he just said I was drinking with him the whole day and he was in no condition
to kill anybody.
He could barely make it into bed.
Right.
So that's why I'm wondering, like, what time did he make it into bed then?
(20:10):
Like what time does this friend lose sight of him or leave him?
Yeah, exactly.
I mean, he never says I saw him go into bed.
He just said he's in no condition to do anything because he's so intoxicated.
But that doesn't really account for an alibi during that nine hour window when the murders
happened.
Exactly.
So as this police weren't dealing with enough with Gary, three witnesses came forward and
(20:31):
said that they saw Gary carrying a girl's body from the Shorts house.
It was later determined that those three witnesses fabricated the story.
They were eventually charged with and convicted of perjury.
And the idea was they made this story up in an effort to collect some reward money.
There's a substantial amount of reward money to solve this case throughout this investigation.
(20:53):
Okay.
So they see that the police are interested in Gary so they can cock the story to kind
of go along with that.
Yeah, so on October 10th, detectives left for Canada to interview Gary.
But after learning he was set for deportation by the Canadian government, they decided to
wait to interview Gary until he was back in the United States.
Gary was interviewed by police in the Roanoke County jail for three hours.
(21:14):
And eventually, Gary was ordered to be questioned by a grand jury.
Meanwhile, investigators returned to Canada to process his van for forensic evidence.
But on October 30th, Gary was released from custody, but he was still held under a federal
material witness warrant.
Both Gary and his landlord testified in the grand jury, but neither of those statements
were ever released to the public.
(21:35):
And the grand jury never came back with an indictment.
In 2007, police say Gary was no longer considered a person of interest.
On January 4th of 2004, forensic testing on all the items collected from Gary's van resulted
in negative results.
And in 2007, police said Gary was no longer considered a person of interest.
Since then, police conducted additional searches in the Rockingham County area where her remains
(21:59):
were found, Jennifer's remains.
But they've never been able to solve this case.
So police have never developed any other suspects that panned out to be anything.
They've never been able to solve the murders.
So this is a triple homicide that has gone unanswered since 2002.
Even though they lived next to a, it sounds like a busy highway, you know, with easy access,
(22:21):
I still think that it was somebody who knew the family and knew their habits, right?
I think that their goal was to kidnap Jennifer.
So they had to have known she was in that house.
And then specifically that Gary, you know, had unusual sleeping habits.
He slept out in a converted carport.
It just sounds like it's somebody that knew all of these things about this family.
(22:44):
And Mike was in the habit of hiring, you know, transients that kind of passed through town
to work for him for weeks or maybe months at a time.
So is that a possibility that it was someone who had worked for him for a short period
of time, just enough time to know the family's habits and know that Jennifer would be in
her bedroom sleeping?
I don't know.
(23:04):
I don't know either.
But one of the things that they've, or several of the items that they collected when they
did the search on the home included documents related to the business.
So you know, talking about payroll documents, different things to identify the workers who
are consistently around Mike.
And so that that's just a really good method to start interviewing people, eliminating
(23:27):
suspects, you know, clearing people's names and really trying to focus in on who might
be responsible because obviously the police agree with you that this was a crime that
was committed by somebody known to the family who's maybe been at the house before.
Maybe somebody who knew Gary's sleeping habits in the garage.
And so it's an unfortunate case because, you know, they spent so much time and energy on
(23:50):
Gary that it's quite possible he had nothing to do with it.
But I really appreciate the investigative work that they've done to even clear his name.
I mean, they went through great efforts.
They thought, hey, this is our guy because of all this suspicious, you know, stuff.
But they were very careful never to list him as a suspect.
Obviously he was a suspect at some point, whether or not he's officially called a suspect
(24:10):
because they brought him before the grand jury.
He had to answer for some of those things that were heavily weighed against him.
And with no indictment and no forensic evidence to tie Gary to the crime, you know, we can
suspect that he did it.
But I feel very confident in this process that if he didn't do it, that's really good
(24:31):
news because the last thing we want to do is put an innocent man in prison.
I hope the police are able to, you know, find justice for the Short family.
Yeah, me too.
I really hope that justice is found.
This is an unsolved case for well over two decades.
And so one of the most disappointing things about this case, though, that took me by surprise
(24:51):
is that in 2007, the sheriff overseeing the investigation, his name is Frank Castle, he
pleaded guilty to lying to authorities related to some corruption charges.
According to prosecutors, Castle was involved in a scheme to sell drugs and guns that they
seized from criminals.
Since 1998, cocaine, marijuana, steroids and other drugs seized by the sheriff's department
(25:12):
were resold.
Involved in the corruption included the sheriff, vice officers, a dog handler, and a sergeant
from the department agreed to cooperate with investigators.
So the sergeant was paid by the corrupt officials to use his house as a place to distribute
the drugs.
Wow.
And so moving forward to today, even if they're able to solve, you know, this case and bring
(25:35):
the killer to, you know, to justice, there's a really big uphill battle because there certainly
is a ton of integrity issues that the prosecution would have to overcome from the previous investigating
agency, specifically with the corrupt sheriff.
You know, he was elected in 1992 and removed from office when these charges were brought
(25:56):
about in 2007.
So he had been reelected for 15 years.
The community clearly trusted this man.
He probably was a, you know, an icon in the community for his efforts in law enforcement.
And all the while he's reselling drugs back into their community.
That's just gross.
(26:18):
It is gross.
That's a good way to put it.
Yeah.
You know, I mean, he's victimizing his own community that he's elected and sworn to serve.
And that's just disgusting to me because it's bad enough if you're putting guns back on
the street.
You're risking your citizens that you've sworn to protect, but you're risking the lives of
law enforcement officers, not only here in his community, but in the surrounding communities
(26:41):
and across the nation, really.
And if you're reselling drugs, all you're doing is just perpetuating the cycle of having
offenders reoffend with drug cases.
And you know, as we know, not, you know, no matter what your stance is on using drugs,
whether you do it recreationally, you know, in the privacy of your own home, I think we
(27:03):
can all agree that drugs definitely contribute to more crime.
Oh, for sure.
I would say, I mean, I don't have a percentage, but an extremely high percentage of individuals
serving time in like in prisons for cases that aren't like direct drug charges, those
crimes stem somehow from drugs or alcohol use or something.
(27:27):
And I don't want to get completely off topic here, but I know that there's been a big push
in our nation to release those people who have been held for what is considered unreasonable
sentence for like possession of marijuana, for example.
Now if that's all it was, you know, I would probably agree with with that sentiment because
I don't think incarceration is for everybody.
(27:49):
But the thing that people fail to remember is that those drug possession charges typically
are not the charges that were that they were convicted of solely, meaning most of the time
people who have those longer sentences for drug possession charges took a plea to those
charges in an agreement to drop other charges that were connected with that.
(28:12):
And so without looking at each and individual case on its own merit, we can't we can't just
say, oh, as a blanket across the nation, we need to release everybody who has been convicted
with these lengthy sentences for drug possession.
You might have an assault, you might have a robbery, you might even have in some circumstances
if the prosecution is very weak in their case, but you know, the person, you know, harmed
(28:35):
somebody by killing them and they took a plea for an extended sentence on a drug possession
charge.
Is that really somebody that needs to be released into the community?
Right.
It's one of those things where you have to look at it on a case by case basis and take
all of those factors into consideration.
But I think at the end of the day, a conversation that I have a lot of times with individuals
who are serving time is that drug dealing is not a victimless crime.
(29:00):
I hear that all the time.
Well, I mean, I don't have any victims because I'm only in here for distribution charges.
Well, that's not true.
When you're distributing drugs, you're victimizing an entire community.
You're putting drugs onto the streets of the community, which is going to just create more
crime.
You're going to get into the wrong hands.
You don't know if a child or, you know, someone's going to get a hold of that and then overdose.
(29:24):
You don't know the reach that that crime can have in a community.
So it's definitely not a victimless crime.
And then when you have somebody who is the sheriff of an entire county, right, that is
the head law enforcement for an entire county of people contributing to that and dealing
in drugs and guns, it's just sickening.
(29:45):
It makes me irritated.
Well, I'm glad I know what irritates you.
I will never deal drugs.
How about that?
That's the deal.
So if you have any information on the murders of Mike, Mary, or Jennifer Short, you can
reach out to the Henry County Sheriff's Office at 276-656-4200.
(30:06):
And the good news is there's a new sheriff in town and his name is Wayne Davis.
So you can feel good about calling them.
It's not the other guy anymore.
The other guy meaning Castle.
Yeah.
Frank Castle.
Frank Castle kind of seems like a movie theater like character, like a bad guy in a movie.
Yeah.
Like a B rated movie.
Yes.
Yeah.
(30:26):
Where he sells drugs.
Yeah.
Sheriff Frank Castle.
Yeah.
He was a bad guy, but in real life, not in the movies.
Yeah.
Shame on him.
Well, thank you for listening.
And as always, please follow us on social media at mysteries and mimosas podcast and
do us a favor, click five stars, give us a review so we know how we're doing.
But in the meantime, let's raise our glasses and drink our bubbly mimosas to Mike, Mary
(30:50):
and Jennifer.
Cheers.
Cheers.
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