243- The Murder of Shirley McAvoy

When thirty-two year old Shirley McAvoy didn't show up for her youngest daughter's birthday everyone knew something was wrong.  After being unable to reach her, Shirley's estranged husband, Brian, reported her missing to the Pittsfield Police Department in Maine.

Initially, investigators found nothing to indicate a crime had been committed and did little other than issue a statewide bolo for Shirley and her car.  Thirty-four days later, a massive puddle of blood was discovered in Shirley's home.

Friends and neighbors told a strange tale about a man who called himself "Jerry."  Jerry moved into Shirley's home just days before her disappearance and gave many different, contrasting stories about his background.  He was missing, too.

Detectives soon learned that Jerry had been involved in an accident in Shirley's car in Boston the day after she was last seen alive.  One month later, the mother of two was found dead in a rural area of Virginia.  For detectives, solving the disturbing case appears to hinge entirely on identifying this so-called Jerry.

Composite Image of suspect "Jerry"

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
When thirty two year old Shirley McAvoy didn't show up
for her daughter's birthday, everyone knew something had to be wrong.
Her estranged husband contacted authorities and reported her missing, but
the investigation failed to yield any solid leads. It was
assumed that she had left of her own volition, but
those who knew her best had their doubts. Two months later,

(00:31):
a massive amount of blood evidence was discovered in her
home in Pittsfield, Maine. When the police processed the scene,
they came to realize they weren't seeking a missing person,
but more likely the victim of a homicide. Days after
Shirley was last seen, an unidentified man driving her car
was involved in an accident in Boston. He fled the

(00:53):
scene before police could arrive, and one month later, Shirley's
body was recovered in rural Spotsylvania, Virginia. The mother of
two had been murdered and dumped in a wooded area,
presumably by the unidentified driver. The main suspect in this
case is a man who was staying at Shirley's home
for the week leading up to her disappearance and murder,

(01:15):
known only by the name Jerry which may or may
not be a pseudonym. His true identity, whereabouts, and motive
have remained a mystery for decades. This week marks thirty
four years since Shirley was murdered and her family continued
to seek out justice and the unknown man who killed
a beloved mother, daughter, sister, and friend. This is Trace Evidence,

(01:41):
Episode two forty three, The Murder of Shirley McAvoy. Welcome
to Trace Evidence. I'm your host Stephen Pacheco. Today we
examine the disturbing details surrounding the August nineteen ninety unsolved

(02:02):
murder of thirty two year old Shirley McAvoy, a case
which has spanned multiple states up and down the Eastern
Seaboard in pursuit of an unknown suspect. This is Episode
two forty three, The Murder of Shirley McAvoy. Spotsylvania County, Virginia,

(02:27):
is located just over sixty miles southwest from the core
of Washington, d C. Despite this close proximity, there couldn't
be a greater difference between the two areas. From the chaotic,
seemingly ceaseless movements in our nation's capital to the common,
quiet backwoods of the rural country, leaving behind the busy

(02:47):
streets and massive barrage of all different people coming and
going for business or pleasure. Most people don't include Spotsylvania
on their list of places to see. In fact, for
the most part, much of the area's home not to
major towns and cities, but what are referred to as
census designated places. There are no legally defined boundaries nor

(03:10):
any functioning local government. They are, in essence, small towns
that haven't yet incorporated, whether that be due to low
population or a lack of interest from the residents. Generally quiet,
small communities that seek to remain that way. Over a
vast landscape of more than four hundred square miles, Spotsylvania

(03:32):
County is home to many unincorporated communities, but just two
census designated places, Lake Wilderness and Spotsylvania Courthouse. It is
the latter of these two locations that will play a
pivotal role in an investigation that originated more than seven
hundred miles away in the small main community of Pittsfield.

(03:54):
Two areas divided by more than an eleven hour drive,
both remote and rural in their own way, yet perpetually
linked by a vicious crime and the enduring curiosity and
agony associated with its unresolved status. For Virginia, its role
in this sinister situation was marked on the afternoon of Tuesday,

(04:15):
November twentieth, nineteen ninety, when a local Spotsylvania County resident
made his way through the back roads to a remote
area to do a little deer hunting. Barking his truck
not far from a small market, the man climbed out
of the driver's seat and dropped his tailgate. Hoisting himself
up onto the scratched and dented surface, He raised his

(04:36):
hand to shield his eyes from the harsh glare of
the sun as he slowly moved his focus from left
to right, scanning the tree line before him for any
sign of prey. Deer season had opened up just a
month earlier, and the young man was hopeful he'd come
to the right place in pursuit of his quarry. While
he didn't find any deer lingering in the area that day,

(04:57):
his eyes were instead drawn towards something out of the ordinary.
There in the distance, he could make out a small, circular,
pale white shape he thought might be a ball. Curious
and with no apparent hope of a successful hunt, he
hopped down and made his way towards the object. Without
the height advantage afforded by his truck, the man could

(05:18):
see little more than a white blur as he pushed
his way forward. With each successive step, he felt an
eerie sense of dread he could neither define nor justify.
But moments later, when he arrived at his destination, he
suddenly understood what the hairs on the back of his
neck had been trying to warn him of. It was
no ball he had spotted, but instead the partially exposed

(05:41):
bone of a human skull. Beyond the horror of that realization,
the man noted the head appeared to be jutting out
from a dirty and stained quilt, which appeared to be
tightly wrapped around the body of what he thought to
be a woman. Stumbling backwards. Overwrought with fear, he made
his way to the nearby mark Market and notified investigators

(06:02):
of his finding. The horrifying discovery would be the first
major clue in an investigation that had been initiated months
earlier by the Pittsfield Police Department. Thirty two year old
Shirley McAvoy a mother of two daughters in the midst
of divorce proceedings hadn't been seen since early August. Initially
believing the missing woman would be located quickly within just

(06:25):
the first few weeks, detectives found themselves overwhelmed by an
investigation which had quickly spread through multiple states along the
Eastern Seaboard, and this morbid discovery had changed everything. As
their missing person's case transformed into an apparently senseless and
horrifying homicide. Their only suspect was a man no one

(06:46):
could identify, a ghost with no known name, no past,
and no direction to follow. Shirley B. Delcourt was born
on Saturday, January fourth, nineteen fifty eight, to parents Leopold
and Irene in Biddeford, York County, Maine. She would be
one of six children born to her parents, having four

(07:07):
sisters and one brother. Shirley was described by friends and
relatives as a quiet, but extremely kind and sweet young
woman who cared deeply for her family and had a
passion for helping and supporting others. By all accounts, Shirley
had a happy childhood, spending time with her parents and
siblings and playing with friends in and around Biddeford, today

(07:29):
the principal commercial center of York County. Little has been
revealed about much of Shirley's early years outside of intermittent
quotes about the young woman's personality and interests, with it
being noted that she was well behaved, kind, intelligent, and
achieved good grades in school. As a teenager, she went
on to attend Biddeford High School, located less than two

(07:52):
miles west of her family's Cleaves Street home. It was
during her time in high school that she would go
on to meet and fall all in love with Brian McAvoy.
At the time, Brian was a year younger than Shirley
and lived and attended high school in Stockton Springs, one
hundred and thirty miles to the northeast. Their relationship would

(08:13):
develop quickly, and both would go on to graduate from
their respective schools in the spring of nineteen seventy seven.
Not long after graduation, the two would make the decision
to solidify their relationship when they got engaged. The couple
wed on Saturday May twenty eighth at Saint Andre Church,
where she and her family had attended throughout her life,

(08:35):
living just a few blocks away. Following a honeymoon which
would bring the couple north to Nova Scotia. They would
move in together in the city of Belfast, located in
Waldo County, where at the time Brian was employed as
a mechanic. The couple didn't wait long to begin adding
to their family, which surely giving birth to their first

(08:55):
of two daughters in January of seventy eight. They would
name her Christina. Their second and last child, Amy, was
born four years later in August of nineteen eighty two.
According to everyone that knew Shirley, she was completely taken
by the couple's girls and absolutely loved being a mother.
She developed a close relationship with the kids and considered

(09:17):
them to be the most important parts of her life.
She spent much of the next year's being a stay
at home mom, although she had a passion and drive
which made it difficult for her to sit still To
fill in time. As the girls grew up and began
attending school, she worked odd jobs and would also volunteer
in the local community. While relations between Shirley and Brian

(09:40):
had been in a good place at the start of
the eighties, the changes associated with growing up, raising children,
and transitioning from their twenties into their thirties had been
a difficult one. They had started to grow apart, and
while there was still a lot of love, there were
also some bitter feelings. Ultimately, by the closing of the day,

(10:00):
the two initiated what they had planned to be a
trial separation, but it turned out that time apart had
done little to heal the wounds of their marriage, and
by the arrival of January nineteen ninety, they would file
for divorce. With the relationship split, Shirley would stay at
the couple's home, a single wide trailer located on Bury Road,

(10:21):
two miles from downtown, while Brian lived approximately twenty miles
away in the town of Fairfield. By the summer of
nineteen ninety, Shirley was thirty two years old and living
on her own in the Bury Road home. During divorce proceedings,
Brian had been granted full custody of their two girls,
and according to friends, Shirley was very upset by that decision.

(10:44):
Details of the divorce have never been released, but there
were conflicting reports about how the custody arrangement had come
to be, with several neighbors noting that Shirley was a
devoted mother, and they couldn't fully understand how she hadn't
been granted custody herself. Reportedly, while some stated that Shirley
was always bright, happy, and cheerful, others noted that she

(11:06):
struggled with depression and the custody arrangement hadn't helped her
state of mind. As it turns out, there are two
vastly different camps when it comes to descriptions of Shirley's life,
but we'll get more into that later on. According to
friends and neighbors, Shirley was active and socially involved throughout
much of the spring and summer of nineteen ninety when

(11:28):
in session she had volunteered at Manson Park, an elementary
school in Pittsfield. She had two dogs back at home
to help fill some of the loneliness, a five month
old Husky shepherd mix named Max and a two year
old long haired named Nicki. A friend of Shirley's, speaking
under cover of anonymity to the Morning Sentinel, later noted

(11:50):
that she was exceedingly close with her dogs, saying, quote,
she worried about her dogs as much as her kids.
Her dogs are just like her kids. To her, they
were her babies end quote. Outside of keeping up with
the dogs and volunteering, neighbors reported that Shirley developed a
good relationship with some of the local kids, saying that

(12:11):
she would often take them on long walks and outings.
According to neighbor Dennis Yorke, it wasn't uncommon for Shirley
to gather up some of the neighborhood kids for the
short seven mile drive to nearby Newport, where they would
go swimming in the lake. It appears that the young
mother of two was a hit with children, from the
trips to volunteering a school to her own endless love

(12:32):
for her two girls. According to the Pittsfield Police Department,
the last time anyone could confirm seeing Shirley was on Thursday,
August ninth, when a friend stated she had spoken with
the thirty two year old. Reportedly, Shirley had also spoken
via telephone with her brother the following morning, Friday the tenth,

(12:54):
Several residents along Burry Road noted that Shirley's car, a
red two door Nighte teen sdeen ninety Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme,
was seen driving away from her home, though no one
had gotten a good look at the driver. Several days
passed and neither the car nor Sureley were seen in
that area. Again. While neighbors found it somewhat odd, they

(13:16):
had no indication anything might be wrong. Reportedly due to
the stress and depression surrounding her divorce, many of her
neighbors simply assumed she had taken a trip out of
town to clear her head. What friends and neighbors apparently
were unaware of was that Shirley was supposed to appear
in family court for a hearing regarding the divorce on
Friday the tenth. Given her frustration and hurt feelings revolving

(13:40):
around the custody arrangement, it seemed odd that she would
miss the court date, with many feeling that the only
reason she wouldn't appear would be as if she was
physically unable to. While this piqued the curiosity of the
court and Brian, nothing appears to have happened. Eighteen more
days would pass without anyone's seeing or hearing from Shirley,

(14:02):
and then everything would change. On Tuesday, August twenty eighth.
This was an important day for the family as it
marked the birthday of Shirley's youngest daughter, but she didn't
show up to celebrate, and she didn't even call. Knowing
how much she loved her daughters, Brian found this to
be very out of character. After several calls to the

(14:23):
house went unanswered, he contacted the Pittsfield Police Department and
officially reported his estranged wife missing. According to what is
later reported, it doesn't appear as though the Pittsfield PD
actually pulled out all the stops to try and locate Shirley.
At this time, police Chief Spencer Havey took a trip
to the Bury Road home with Brian, at which time

(14:45):
the chief was provided with the key to the house.
Havy and some officers looked through the home, but according
to early reports, they didn't see anything to suggest any
crime had taken place there. They found nothing to aid
their investigation or to help them in locating the missing woman.
Speaking to neighbors, they noted that they hadn't seen Shirley
in weeks, but they had no idea where she could

(15:08):
have gone. It was at the time assumed that she
had left town for one reason or another and would
return when she was ready. In early September, investigators issued
statewide notifications to be on the lookout for Shirley and
her red oldsmobile. They contacted at least one of the
missing woman's sisters to ask if she had reached out

(15:28):
to the family, but no one had heard from her.
While this made investigators believe something more sinister might be
at play, the investigation essentially went quiet, and the Pittsfield
Police would later face criticism for their apparent disinterest and
lack of drive to find the missing thirty two year
old in those early weeks. The month of September would

(15:49):
pass with no new leads or developments and seemingly little
police action. On Monday, October first, Brian and a friend
arrived at the Bury Road home. Since no one had
heard from Shirley her a strange husband planned to win
to rise the house while his friend cleaned out the refrigerator,
which was now housing rotted food. A third person arrived

(16:12):
at the home, a friend of Shirley's who asked to
remain anonymous in local papers. Chief Havy allowed all three
to enter the house. According to the friend, the three
of them noticed several things that were curious or didn't
look right as soon as they went in. The most
glaring example was the living room couch. They could still

(16:33):
see the depressions in the carpet showing where the couch
was normally positioned, but for an inexplicable reason, it was
moved at an awkward angle, jutting out into the living
room in a way which simply didn't make sense. When
Brian moved the couch back into place, a large dark
stain was revealed. Initially, they thought it was some kind

(16:54):
of a burn or scorch mark, but upon closer inspection,
it appeared to be a big pool of dried blood.
Upon discovering the disturbing scene, Brian contacted Chief Havevey, who
came out to the house that afternoon. When he was
shown the dark stain on the carpet, Havey ordered the
house cleared and sealed. He then reached out to the

(17:16):
main State Police and requested assistance in processing the scene
and for searching for additional evidence. Detective Dale Lancaster of
the Criminal Investigation Division was also dispatched to the Pittsfield
area to conduct interviews with friends, family, and neighbors in
hopes of obtaining some idea of what might have happened here.

(17:36):
Though at the time it appeared apparent that the stain
was blood police would not confirm it until the scene
could be fully examined. Landcaster and crime scene technicians arrived
two days later on Wednesday, October third, and neighbours would
later report a large police presence at the home while
the crime scene was examined for hours on Wednesday. Police

(17:58):
returned to the house on Thursday, day fourth, where it
was noted several suspicious items had been removed, though detectives
would not give details on what those items were. Though
they still would not confirm the pool of blood, investigators
did tell reporters that they had not as of yet
ruled out foul play, and that the intensity of the
investigation was growing as additional items of suspicion were identified.

(18:23):
This same day, Chief Havevey revealed several new details discovered
during the previous few days of investigation. Firstly, the chief
noted they had received a report from the Boston Police
Department that Shirley's car had been involved in a traffic
accident on August tenth, the day neighbors say they saw
the vehicle leaving the home for the last time. According

(18:46):
to the Chief, Shirley was not spotted at the scene,
but an unknown man was driving her car a detective
would be sent down to Boston to obtain further information.
Chief Havevey also stated that they had learned from friends
and neighbors that Sureley had been involved in some kind
of a relationship with a man who had moved into
the Bury Road home with her just days prior to

(19:09):
her disappearance. At that time, Havey could not confirm if
the man was the same person as the driver in
the accident in Boston, though he did note they were
working with friends and neighbors to develop a composite image
of the man, which they planned to show to the
other driver in the Boston car accident. On Friday, October fifth,

(19:29):
investigators confirmed that the stain on the carpet was in
fact human blood, though they could not yet say whether
or not it was Shirley's as further testing was needed.
It was reported at the time that since the stain
had been so old, it was difficult to process. Chief
Havy described the large stain, saying it was approximately three

(19:50):
feet by two feet. Asked whether they had found blood
anywhere else in the home, the chief would not comment.
He did, however, note that they had taken Brian to
the station in Pittsfield for additional questioning by the State Police,
noting that he was not at that time of suspect
and he had been fully cooperative with the investigation to
that point. Chief Havy also confirmed that the State Police

(20:14):
had brought in a canine unit to go through the
home and search around the trailer for any additional evidence,
though he would not state whether or not the dog
had found anything. He went on to say that the
composite had been completed, but that they would not be
releasing it till the public until they got down to
Boston to speak with police and the other person involved

(20:34):
in the accident, since at that time their composite was
based on the description of only one person and they
wanted the most accurate portrayal possible. Asked when they had
first learned about the accident in Boston, Havey stated that
Brian contacted them about it the day it happened August tenth.
The vehicle was still in Brian's name, and he learned

(20:56):
about it after receiving a call from his insurance company. Apparently,
when the accident happened, the unknown man driving the car
had opened the glove box and supplied the other driver
with an insurance card. Bearing Brian's name. Several days later,
Stephen McCausland, a spokesman for the main Department of Public Safety,

(21:16):
revealed several new details about the investigation which occurred at
the Bury Road home. According to McCausland, the couch was
not the only item out of place. Friends who had
previously been in the home noted that curtains which Shirley
had hung in the dining room in the back of
the house had been moved to the front windows, perhaps
in an attempt to stop anyone from seeing inside from

(21:39):
the street. While none of Shirley's clothes were missing, they
did note that a bedspread the missing woman had recently
purchased could not be located. In addition to this, Shirley's
two dogs were also missing, though there were some indications
to suggest they were at the house when whatever happened
to Shirley had taken place. Waste from the dogs was

(22:01):
found on the floor in one of the bedrooms, and
there were scratches on the inside of the door, leading
investigators to believe that the dogs may have been locked
in that room for an extended period of time. According
to friends and family, Shirley never locked her dogs in
a room. She cared deeply for them and considered them
like her children. Though no one could say with any certainty,

(22:23):
it was presumed that the dogs may have been locked
up prior to whatever happened to Shirley, and likely they
were left in that room while the suspect cleaned up
and rearranged the furniture. What happened to them after that
remains an unknown mystery. To this day, they have never
been found. Mccauslin noted that they were moving away from

(22:43):
a missing person's case and closer to something darker, telling
the Journal Tribune quote, there was a significant amount of
blood in the home. We have strong reasons to believe
she's been the victim of foul play end quote. It
was also reported that investigators had recovered dozens of fingerprints

(23:04):
from inside of the house, but they hadn't been able
to identify the vast majority of them. Several weeks later,
in early November, a composite drawing of the man who
had been staying with Shirley was finally released. According to
the press release, the person of interest was described as
being a white male with blonde hair and blue eyes,

(23:25):
standing approximately five feet ten inches tall and weighing around
one hundred and eighty pounds. He was believed to have
been between the ages of thirty three and thirty seven.
The man is reported to have slightly crooked front teeth
and pock marks on his cheeks. It was also reported
that he spoke with a Southern accent, something which stood

(23:46):
out to locals in Maine. They managed to obtain several
details about the man from friends of Shirley's who had
met him, though they couldn't be sure of what, if
anything he had said was actually true. Currently introduced himself
as Jerry and claimed to have worked construction in the
Millinocket area, eighty five miles north of Pittsfield. It was

(24:09):
reported that he may have at some point stayed with
relatives in Saco, one hundred and eleven miles south of Pittsfield.
According to Stephen McCausland, they had been told that Jerry
claimed to be in the process of divorcing a Massachusetts
based woman who at the time was pregnant with twins,
and that he himself may have had a daughter, either

(24:31):
age twelve or fourteen. There were also claims that Jerry
may have lived in or have been from Oklahoma, Virginia,
or Kentucky, though again no one could confirm this. At
least one person told police that Jerry may have come
from the area of Old Orchard Beach, not far from Biddeford,

(24:52):
where Shirley herself had grown up. Mccauslin noted how vital
it was that they managed to identify and locate so
called Jerry, telling the Morning Sentinel quote, what we have
right now is a puzzle that we're trying to put together.
We have many pieces to this puzzle. We just don't
know where these pieces go. If we can get a

(25:13):
name attached to this man's face, we think that will
go a long way in determining where Shirley McAvoy is
and what has happened to her end quote. Reportedly, Shirley
met Jerry sometime in early August at either one of
two places, a bar in Milanocket or an amusement park

(25:33):
in Saco called FunTown, USA. At least one friend of
the missing woman told police that when Shirley introduced Jerry,
she had claimed he was a family member, but investigators
were able to confirm that was certainly not the case.
Another person said the unknown man had been driving a
charcoal colored older model car with rough spots all over it,

(25:56):
but police never located the vehicle, nor could they say
with any certaine how exactly the man had gotten to
the area in the first place. Asked why they had
waited so long to release the composite, the Pittsfield Police
noted that they had wanted to interview people in the
Millanoket area before tipping their hand. The release of the

(26:16):
composite did result in around fifty calls to investigators, though
none of them were very helpful. Detective Landcaster with the
State Police noted that they were hoping to get nationwide
media to broadcast the image, saying they had reached out
to both Unsolved Mysteries and America's Most Wanted though they
hadn't heard back. They were running out of leeds and

(26:37):
needed assistance from the public, so major media coverage would
be extremely valuable to the investigation at that point in time.
At this time, additional information about the August tenth car
accident was also released. An unknown man closely matching descriptions
of Jerry, was driving Shirley's car on Boston's Southeast Expressway

(26:59):
when he reared and did a vehicle near the entrance
of the South Station Tunnel. The car that was struck
was being driven by a lawyer and his sister was
in the passenger seat. Jerry and the lawyer spoke and
exchanged information, with Jerry handing the lawyer an insurance card
that had Brian's name on it. At that time, the
lawyer suggested they pull off to the side of the

(27:20):
road and get out of traffic so they could await police,
and Jerry agreed to this. However, when the lawyer pulled over,
Jerry continued on driving, fleeing the scene before police could arrive. Disturbingly,
it is believed by investigators that during the time of
this accident, Shirley's body was probably in the trunk of
the car. According to both the lawyer and his sister,

(27:45):
the unknown man was the only person they saw. Spokesman
McCaslin later noted, quote, there was no sign of Shirley
McAvoy in that vehicle. His only words to the other
driver were quote, I'm never going to drive and bo
Austin again, this man holds the key to where Shirley
McAvoy is and what happened to her end quote. When

(28:07):
shown the composite, the lawyer and his sister agreed that
it looked very much like the man who would hit
their car. Both of them would later sit independently with
sketch artists to fine tune and construct new composites, with
Pittsfield police noting they now had three slightly different variations
of who they believed to be the unknown man referred
to as Jerry. While leeds in the case were beginning

(28:31):
to fade in calls from the release of the composite
were drying up, a discovery nearly seven hundred miles away
would dramatically shift the focus of the investigation. On Tuesday,
November twentieth, at approximately one fifteen pm, Michael Furrow, a
hunter from Virginia, was in Spotsylvania County in the area
of Spotsylvania Courthouse when he stumbled upon the partially decomposed

(28:55):
remains of Shirley McAvoy. Shirley's body was found in an
air described by the Spotsylvania Sheriff's Department as rural and remote,
not the kind of place a random person would just
stumble upon. The area is approximately seven miles west from
A ninety five as the crow flies, and just a
few hundred yards behind a small local store, Todd's Tavern Market.

(29:20):
Several items found at the scene were utilized to tentatively
identify the body as being Shirley's, though police would not
confirm that without additional testing. Two of the items which
they believe showed the body to be Shirley's were a
Bideford High School class ring from nineteen seventy seven with
Shirley's initials engraved in it, as well as a partial

(29:40):
dental plate that had s McAvoy inscribed on it. Police
also recovered a mother's ring with two red and one
green stone. Major Albert Stewart of the Spotsylvania Sheriff's Department
described the scene as a dump sighting noting that there
had been no attempt to bury or conceal the body.

(30:00):
He would go on to say that it was wrapped
in a bedspread which was heavily stained by bodily fluids,
and that the victim's feet had been bound by what
appeared to be cord cut from a set of Venetian blinds.
The body was taken to the Medical Examiner's office in Richmond,
and Major Stewart noted that due to the level of decomposition,
they could not at the scene determine what exactly the

(30:23):
cause of death might have been. The autopsy was conducted
the following day by doctor Marcello Fierra, assistant Medical Examiner
for the State of Virginia, and he was able to
confirm the victim was in fact Shirley macavoy. A cause
of death was not released at the time, though police
confirmed she had been bound with Venetian blind cord and

(30:45):
noted the blinds at the Pittsfield house appeared to have
been disturbed. Following the discovery of the body, Shirley's family
and friends were devastated. In hopes of protecting the girls
from the details, Brian pulled them out of school, but unforced. Fortunately,
another child in the neighborhood told them the difficult truth
while they were playing basketball on Thanksgiving. Shirley's oldest daughter

(31:10):
later explained to The Morning Sentinel, saying, quote, they said
they found your mother, and I was excited, and then
they were like, they found her in a ditch, wrapped
in a blanket end quote. While the discovery of Shirley's
body had answered some questions, investigators were still at a
loss when it came to identifying Jerry. Though local police

(31:32):
worked the area and spoke with people in Spotsylvania County,
no one could identify the man in the composite, and
no solid link was ever established. Given that the area
was remote, it was assumed that Jerry had previously been there,
or perhaps had lived around there at some point in time,
but they could never confirm it through police, who noted

(31:53):
that Virginia was one of several states witnesses claimed Jerry
had said he was from. Around this same time, the
Maine State Police reported that Jerry might have been spotted
in Florida. Spokesman mccauslin reported that a nineteen ninety Oldsmobile
Cutlass Supreme matching the description of Shirley's car, had been

(32:13):
stopped by a local patrolman for a minor traffic violation.
At the time, they weren't certain if it was the
same vehicle. Mccauslin noted, if it had been a run
of the plate should have kicked back the information they'd
submitted to the NCIC, but that did not happen. The
date of the stop was allegedly Tuesday, August fourteenth, four

(32:35):
days after the car was seen leaving Barry Road, The
incident set off somewhat of a debate back and forth
between the Maine State Police and local investigators in Florida.
According to Maine, the license plate run through the system
was in fact a match to Shirley's. However, law enforcement
in Florida reported that when the license plate had been run,

(32:57):
they had received no match or alert from the end CIC,
with them saying that as far as they knew, the
car was stopped before Maine Police had added it to
the nationwide computer system. According to them, the car wasn't
added to the NCIC until early October after the blood
was found in the home, and that's when the match

(33:18):
was alerted to. But the car and driver were long
gone by then. Surely wasn't reported missing until August twenty eighth,
two weeks after this stop, So why the Main police
would have submitted the vehicle to the NCIC prior to
the twenty eighth doesn't really make a lot of sense. Unfortunately,
moving forward, investigators would once again find the case grinding

(33:40):
to a standstill. No new leads or developments came in,
and by December they were once again set back to
square one. Chasing the ghost of Jerry A. Man they
knew almost nothing about with any level of certainty. Sadly,
the year of nineteen ninety would come to an end
with the homicide investigation growing colder. A funeral was held

(34:02):
for Shirley on Saturday, January twenty sixth at Saint Andre's
Church in Biddeford. She was laid to rest in Saint
Joseph's cemetery. Life would never be the same for Shirley's
friends and family. Not only had they suffered the loss
of a beloved mother, sister, friend, and neighbor, they also
had to live with the harsh reality that the person

(34:23):
responsible for their grievous crime was still out there, perhaps
destroying other families. One of Shirley's sisters, Cecil, would later
tell the Journal Tribune quote, where we're lieved. We can
put her to rest, but I'm angry that most likely
he still has her car and is out joy riding.

(34:43):
I have a feeling he's going to be caught. I
just hope and pray there isn't another woman out there
that's not safe end quote. The next few months would
pass with no new developments, but in late March of
nineteen ninety one, nearly eight months after Shirley is believe
to have been killed, investigators would receive another major break

(35:04):
in the case. Unfortunately, it would also end up being
their last. Shirley's car was recovered from the parking lot
of a hotel in Darien, Georgia, a suburb just a
few miles north of Brunswick. The car had been painted
from red to gray and the VIN number had been altered.
A man who was driving the car at the time

(35:25):
was arrested, though during questioning it was learned that he
had purchased the car from someone else and he had
no knowledge of Shirley or her disappearance. It was later
learned that the vehicle had been abandoned in the parking
lot of a holiday inn in Saint Augustine, Florida. At
some point after that, the vehicle was stolen, and the

(35:45):
car thief repainted it and changed the VIN number before
selling it to the man police initially arrested, he was
released without charges. Police theorized Jerry had likely murdered Shirley,
put her in the trunk of her car and drove
to Virginia, where he dumped her body, before proceeding on
to Florida and abandoning the vehicle in hopes that it

(36:06):
would be stolen. Unfortunately, no one police interviewed was able
to assist them in identifying Jerry, and when shown his composite,
no one recognized him either. While all of this would
come out later, at the time of the discovery, Maine
law enforcement were very tight lipped, not even revealing the

(36:27):
location where the car had been found. For several weeks.
Two detectives were sent down to Georgia and the vehicle
was brought back up north for processing an analysis at
the main state crime lab, which began on Monday, April eighth.
The lab found blood in the vehicle, though they did
not reveal if any other evidence was found, nor did

(36:47):
they confirm if the blood had belonged to Shirley. Six
months later, in October of nineteen ninety one, fourteen months
after the murder, investigators hit the wall, Stephen mccawus noted
that all of their hopes on breaking the case relied
now on identifying Jerry, but that had been a struggle.

(37:07):
He explained, quote, We've scoured her car, we've scoured her
mobile home, and there was a great deal of evidence
from the scene, but we still haven't been able to
identify him end quote. As if that wasn't frustrating enough,
their attempts to garner national media coverage fell through as well.
Despite the case spanning several states and the multiple composites

(37:30):
created of this so called Jerry, they couldn't get anyone
to agree to air the story. Both unsolved mysteries and
America's most wanted turn them down. Mccauslin would later tell
the Bangor Daily News quote, I tried to impress upon
them the demographics of this case involved the entire Eastern Seaboard.
But they seem to take cases they have a pretty

(37:52):
good chance of solving, and they weren't interested at this time.
End quote. While the case would grow quiet, a book
covering several unsolved crimes would be released in December, and
it would stir up a lot of controversy about Shirley's
case and most specifically Shirley herself. Authors of the novel

(38:13):
entitled Murderers among Us were granted access to interview several
main state police investigators who had worked on the case,
and in fact, they were given a brand new version
of the composite of Jerry, which hadn't even yet been
released to the public. It didn't take long for the
backlash to kick in, though, as the authors wrote quite

(38:33):
a bit about Shirley's life and quoted investigators as well
as friends and neighbors. Much of what they wrote, if
not all of it, has been heavily disputed by friends
and family, and the main State police claimed that their
words were taken out of context and embellished. In the book,
Shirley is described as an alcoholic, prone to depression, and

(38:56):
an abusive mother. It went on to say that following
the separation, Shirley fancied herself a quote unquote party girl
and spent the next few months bringing home a steady
stream of male companions. Curiously, though, the book noted that
sex was not a part of the process with these friends,
as friends of Shirley supposedly said that while she loved

(39:18):
to talk about sex and flirt, she didn't actually enjoy
the act of having sex itself, and therefore she did
not sleep around. The book went on to suggest that
investigators wondered if perhaps Jerry had grown frustrated by being
sexually rejected by Shirley and lashed out at her, violently

(39:39):
killing her. Detective Lancaster was interviewed for the book, and
while he is quoted as referring to Shirley as a
party girl, saying that she enjoyed hanging around bars and
picking up men, Lambcaster himself later denied that he'd ever
said that, and further noted that the authors took literary
license with his words words and constructed an inaccurate and

(40:02):
misleading image of the case and the investigation. Shelley Busey,
a dear friend of Shirley's, would later state that the
book was extremely inaccurate, noting that her friend was a
wonderful person with a heart of gold who lived entirely
for her daughters. She described the murdered mother as very
naive and gullible, saying quote she would help anyone who

(40:26):
needed help without any questions asked as far as her
depression goes, we all have our downtimes end quote. Brian
also weighed in on the description, saying that he had
been married to Shirley for thirteen years and that the
woman he knew was absolutely nothing like what was written
about in the book, which he would go on to

(40:47):
describe as sleazy, bordering on slanderous, and purely written to
sell books rather than to present an accurate portrayal of
Shirley or her case. The fact of the matter is
the truth probably lies somewhere between these two diametrically opposed descriptions,
but we will likely never know. At the same time,

(41:08):
there are statements from a former Pittsfield police officer which
seemed to suggest the divorce itself might have had sharper
angles than we were led to believe. Chris Tremblay was
a rookie officer in Pittsfield at the time of Shirley's murder.
He stated that he personally served Shirley with two divorce
related protective orders in the weeks leading up to her death.

(41:30):
He would go on to tell the Kennebec Journal that
on the first visit, he had seen a man in
the mobile home, which he believed could have been Jerry,
but at the time he didn't get a good enough look.
The second time, Shirley was outside when he arrived, so
he didn't see the man. According to Tremblay, Shirley disappeared
within hours of that second visit, and he wondered aloud

(41:52):
what might have happened or what he might have found
at the Bury Road home if he had only arrived
hours later. Now, whether or not these protective orders were
issued because of some situation we are unaware of, or
if it's just normal procedure for divorces involving children, is
another question. In this case we simply don't have the

(42:13):
answers to. While the book had managed to kick up
a lot of passionate opinions on all sides of the equation,
the one thing police had hoped for was failed to deliver.
They didn't get any new tips, calls, or leads in
their investigation. A fifth version of the composite drawing was
released two months after the book. In February of nineteen

(42:36):
ninety two, the new image was issued not just in Maine,
but also in Virginia, Georgia, and northern Florida. Unfortunately, it
didn't drum up anything new, and the investigation once again
grew quiet. In October of nineteen ninety five, five years
after Brian discovered the blood in the home on Bury Road,

(42:58):
law enforcement finally got what they had home hope for.
A national crime show agreed to cover the case. Real
Stories of the Highway Patrol was a Fox produced show
running from nineteen ninety two to nineteen ninety eight, which
tackled both solved and unsolved crimes through reenactments similar to
Unsolved Mysteries. Producers of the show met and interviewed local

(43:21):
and state police in regard to Shirley's murder, and also
filmed several reenactments in the area. While the episode was
released in November of ninety five, episode fifty of the
show's third season, it was not well received by the family,
who felt the reenactment of the murder was over the top,
campy and very disrespectful, which seems to be a fairly

(43:44):
accurate description of the show as a whole, known at
the time more for its cringe factor than any attempt
at an accurate and respectful presentation. While the show itself
was mostly a bust, several new details about the investigation
were revealed. Outside of the large bloodstain found beneath the couch,
the show explained that when investigators used luminol, they discovered

(44:07):
blood evidence nearly everywhere in the living room, on the walls,
the carpet, the curtains, everywhere. The show also revealed that
police had found blood in both the shower and kitchen drains. Finally,
amongst the long and complicated list of uncertain details about Jerry.
It was reported that he had told some people that

(44:29):
he had formerly been a mechanic in the Air Force.
The show was aired twice and police received approximately forty
calls from all over the country, but as had previously
been the case, none of them provided solid leads or
any new information about the murder or the man known
as Jerry. The last blitz of news or new information

(44:52):
to come out about the investigation dropped in August of
two thousand and four, marking fourteen years since the thirty
two year old mother had been brutally murdered. Horace P. Landry,
a former investigative reporter, was using his free time in
retirement to investigate Shirley's case in hopes of finding something
law enforcement may have missed. Landry had written several books

(45:15):
and was highly respected in his field, and while investigators
would not grant him access to all of their evidence,
they encouraged him in hopes that he might dig something up.
Stephen mccauslin explained that hundreds of hours had been poured
into the investigation, noting that they knew much more about
the case than they were free to share with the public,

(45:36):
but they still had no solid answers. Sadly, Landry passed
away in July of twenty eleven, and what if anything
new he learned about the case has never seen the
light of day. It was announced at the same time
that Shirley's family was offering a ten thousand dollars reward
for information leading to the killer's arrest and conviction. Christina,

(45:58):
Shirley's oldest daughter, spoke with The Morning Sentinel to discuss
not only her mother's murder, but how it had impacted
her life. She explained that though she had married and
had children, she was always paranoid about safety, frequently changing
the locks on her home and refusing to trust anyone
that was not a family member. She said that she

(46:20):
worried about her children, sometimes to an irrational point, and
that she couldn't help but harbor anger towards men, knowing
that one took her mother from her and permanently altered
her life. Christina is convinced that the man known as
Jerry killed her mother, and she also believes that someone
out there has the ability to aid investigators in finally

(46:42):
solving this case and providing some level of closure to
her and the rest of her family. She explained, quote,
how could you take somebody who was so good, who
was so nice. He was the last one who was
with my mother. We want this guy behind bars and
we want to know why he did it. Somebody knows something.

(47:04):
Somebody has got to know something. End quote. Thirty two
year old Shirley McAvoy was last seen alive at her
Bury Road home in Pittsfield, Maine, on Thursday, August ninth,
nineteen ninety. The following day, her red two door nineteen
ninety Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme was seen driving away from the

(47:26):
residence by an unknown man. Three months later, Shirley's body
was recovered in rural Spotsylvania County, Virginia. Due to decomposition,
no cause of death could be determined, and no murder
weapon has ever been described. Her car was recovered five
months later in Darien, Georgia, after having been stolen from

(47:47):
a Holiday Inn parking lot in Saint Augustine, Florida. The
vehicle was also involved in a minor traffic accident in
Boston on August tenth. The only person of interest ever
discussed in this case is a complete mystery. The man
is described as standing approximately five feet ten inches tall

(48:07):
and weighing around one hundred and eighty pounds, with pale
blue eyes and short blonde hair swept down across his forehead.
He reportedly had pock marks on his cheeks and slightly
crooked front teeth. He spoke with a Southern accent and
was believed at the time to be between the ages
of thirty three and thirty seven, which would make him
anywhere between sixty seven and seventy one today. Several composite

(48:32):
images of the man are available, although it's worth noting
that official police posts on social media and on their
own website do not include these composites. Little is known
about the man who apparently introduced himself as Jerry. He
may have been from or worked in Oklahoma, Virginia, Kentucky, Florida,

(48:54):
and Old Orchard Beach, main He might have worked construction
in Milanocket, and he may have had relatives in Sokka
with whom he had stayed for a period of time.
He alleged to have a daughter either twelve or fourteen
years old at the time, and told some that he
was divorcing a Massachusetts woman who was pregnant with twins.

(49:15):
It was also alleged that Jerry may have worked as
a mechanic in the Air Force at some point in time.
With a lack of solid evidence in this case, solving
the murder and bringing some level of closure to Shirley's
loved ones seems to hinge on identifying this so called Jerry.
August ninth of twenty twenty four, just this week marks

(49:37):
thirty four years to the day that Shirley McAvoy was
murdered in her Pittsfield home by an unknown killer referred
to as Jerry. How many other lives he might have
destroyed in these nearly three and a half decades cannot
be known until he is identified, arrested, and put behind bars.

(49:57):
Shirley's family has suffered long enough not knowing the truth
and not seeing justice served. It's time to take this
monster off the streets, as he's now been free to
do as he wishes and destroy lives for two years,
longer than Shirley was ever alive. Who knows what her
future might have held, but what we know for certain

(50:20):
is that if Shirley we're here today, she'd be sixty
six years old, a mother, a grandmother, and anything else
she had the passion and drive to make for herself.

(50:44):
The murder of Shirley McAvoy is a frustrating case on
multiple levels. There seems to simultaneously be a lack of
evidence and an abundance of evidence, and some of it
can point you in a direction, but it can't really
supply any answers. There's this major amount of coverage out there,
especially from nineteen ninety to the early two thousands, but

(51:05):
much of it repeats the same details and then all
of a sudden it stops. In addition to this, there's
a lot of conflicting information out there, including some that
by my research, seems to be entirely made up to
construct a narrative that doesn't fit into any of what's
actually known about the case. So you've got hard facts

(51:26):
intermingled with witness statements dot contrast one another, and then
blended with utterly contrived information that makes it even more
difficult to determine what exactly happened. This is a case that,
compared to many others I've covered, is extremely solvable, and
yet it feels somehow like it was backburned and ignored
for the last twenty years, or maybe from the beginning

(51:49):
and I think that adds to the complexity of it all,
because if we're going to dig into what happened to Shirley,
you sort of have to go back to when she
was reported missing and examined what I can only describe
as a half assed investigation, and I use the word
investigation very loosely. Looking back at the timeline of events,
it's theorized that Shirley encounters the man we've come to

(52:12):
call Jerry sometime in late July or early August. She
meets him at one of two places, a bar in
Milanochet or an amusement park in Saco. Both of these
locations are over one hundred miles away from Pittsfield in
opposite directions. We have no solid information about what bar
or bars Shirley may or may not have frequented in

(52:32):
the Milanochet area, nor do we have any statements from
anyone that it was or wasn't common for her to
travel over one hundred miles to hang out in an
area where it doesn't appear she really knew anyone. FunTown
USA in Saco seems like the more likely choice, especially
given that coverage of this case mentions it directly by name,

(52:54):
and vastly more often than the so called Milanochet connection.
It came across several pieces of information that suggested Shirley
had taken one of her daughters to FunTown and that
it was on that day that she met Jerry. But
like so much of this case, there's really no background
information to give, there's no solid foundation. Instead, we're left

(53:16):
wondering if this is something they know for sure, or
if it's just another random piece of information given by
one of her friends or neighbors. Because there's a hell
of a lot of details that are unverifiable in this case.
What we do know is that approximately six to seven
days prior to the murder, presumed to have occurred sometime
in the evening of August ninth, or perhaps the very

(53:39):
early morning of August tenth, neighbors and friends report that
this so called Jerry appears in Shirley's home. Some say
he's introduced by Shirley as a relative, Others say he's
introduced more along the lines of a boyfriend. Either way,
based on the work of detectives, we know for a
fact that Jerry's not a blood relation to Shirley. Why

(53:59):
anyone would have about this being related to him or not,
or even if that happened, we have no way of knowing.
I've read speculation that Shirley may have wanted to keep
a relationship secret due to the divorce, but in multiple
places it stated that Brian was already seeing someone else,
so that doesn't really track. But who knows. Some people

(54:21):
are just exceedingly private about things. Shirley's last confirmed to
have been alive on the ninth. We have a friend
who tells police they saw her that day. We have
a patrol officer who serves her with a court order
that day, and she apparently speaks to her brother Philip
on the phone that day. The next morning, neighbors see
her car driving away from the house, and from that

(54:42):
point forward there are no traces of Shirley and no
one sees or speaks to her again. Several hours later,
the car is involved in a minor fender bender in Boston.
The driver is described as a white male, generally fitting
descriptions of Jerry. He flees the scene before police arrive,
not before handing Brian McAvoy's insurance card out from the glovebox.

(55:03):
Though Brian's contacted by his insurance company that day, and
he relays this information to the Pittsfield Police Department. But seemingly,
since it is an out of town accident and Shirley
hasn't yet been reported missing, there isn't much for anyone
to do about it. For eighteen days from the tenth
to the twenty eighth, no one expresses concern or worry

(55:25):
about Shirley's whereabouts. All of her so called friends and
neighbors just figure she's randomly gone out of town without
saying anything to any of them. No one calls the police,
no one calls the family, no one does anything. Well,
they don't really have much of a reason to be concerned,
I suppose. But if I hadn't heard from a close

(55:45):
friend to nearly three weeks, I might be curious as
to why. But I digress. On the tenth, Shirley misses
a family court date, but there doesn't appear to be
any urgency to locate her, which I find kind of odd.
It isn't until the twenty eighth, when Shirley misses her
daughter's birthday without so much as a call, that alarm
bells start going off in people's heads. Brian tries to

(56:08):
get in touch with her, and when he can't, he
contacts the police and reports her missing. He goes out
to the house. He gives the chief of police a
key to the home, and he insists that something has
to be wrong. This is not normal behavior for his
estranged wife. What exactly is done between August twenty eighth
and October first, when Brian discovers the bloodstains in the

(56:29):
house is unknown. Police say they issued a statewide bulletin
to be on the lookout for Shirley in her car,
but they should already be aware of the Boston accident,
so why don't they pursue that at that time. No
detective is sent down to Boston to speak to the
police about that accident until after the blood is found.

(56:50):
They apparently speak to friends and neighbors, but there's no
statements or information about the unknown man named Jerry again
until after the blood is found. Also, just for the record,
it's later reported that luminol revealed blood all over the
living room. Blood is found in the kitchen and shower drains.
A massive puddle of blood is found under a couch

(57:11):
that's arranged in such an odd manner that it sticks
out to everyone who enters the home, and then there
are indications that the dogs had been locked in a
bedroom and scratched and clawed at the door and even
relieved themselves while locked up. Oh and the dining room
curtains were moved to the front windows, while police apparently
acknowledged that the Venetian blinds have been messed with, but

(57:33):
that doesn't stand out to them either. This brutal crime
scene is apparently completely unremarkable at first glanced from investigators.
So I have to ask what exactly did investigators do
after Brian gave them the key to that house. Either
they walked around it glancing casually and didn't actually examine

(57:54):
the scene, or they never went in there in the
first place. You're gonna tell me that cops investing getting
a disappearance are going to have a vastly less discerning
eye than the estranged husband who's coming to winter rise
the home and an anonymous friend. It simply doesn't make
any sense to me, and it feels very much like

(58:14):
Shirley's disappearance was not handled with any level of seriousness
or urgency until after that blood is found. Thirty four
days pass from the day Brian report Shirley missing, to
the day he finds the blood under the couch. Why
did investigators not send out their own BOLO to surrounding
states at that point or reach out to other law

(58:36):
enforcement agencies. They'll later claim that they entered all of
the data about Shirley in her car into the National
Crime Information Center the NCIC, but Florida law enforcement disagrees.
They apparently stop Shirley's car on August fourteenth, five days
after she's believed to have been killed, but there's no
hit in the computer system. This aspect of the investigation

(59:00):
has never made any sense to me, though. Why would
the main state police argue that both Shirley and her
car had been entered into the nc prior to August
fourteenth when she isn't officially reported missing until August twenty eighth.
Now they do get a hit in the computer about

(59:20):
this stop, but again, this happens after the blood is found.
If all of this information had been put into the
nc ICEE on the twenty eighth, or any time during September,
they would have been informed earlier. So to me, at least,
it kind of sounds like at the time Shirley was
reported missing up to the discovery of the blood. Outside

(59:40):
of taking the report and maybe talking to a few people,
this case just wasn't worked, or it was handled in
an extremely unprofessional and unskilled manner. Everything changes when that
blood is found. Wisely, Chief Havey reaches out to the
state Police and gets them involved, because his department doesn't
appear capable of solving much of anything unless all of

(01:00:02):
the evidence falls right into their laps. State police come
go over the house and they find a ton of evidence.
They find blood all over the living room and in
the drains. They remove items from the house that they
describe as suspicious, though it's never explained what those are.
They bring in canine units to try and track Shirley
inside and outside. They conduct interviews with neighbors, friends, and family,

(01:00:26):
including Brian. All of a sudden, we start getting stories
about Jerry, and I can't help but wonder why shouldn't
they have learned about Jerry when they spoke to people
on the twenty eighth through those thirty four days between
then and the discovery of the blood. Shouldn't they have
pursued the accident in Boston a little more thoroughly If

(01:00:47):
not when it happened, Surely after Shirley was reported missing again.
It sounds like a lot of stuff fell between the
cracks here. And while I could go on and on
about how shoddy the initial investigation was, I think you
get the point. So we get all these different stories
and theories about Jerry, we don't know what's true. Hell,

(01:01:07):
we don't even know if his name is Jerry. Seems
odd to me that Shirley would bring this guy home
and allow him to stay there with her, but no
one would have pointed out to her that he was
giving wildly different stories about his life and background to
each person he met. Frankly, I can't help but wonder
how much of the information witnesses gave to police is
actually stuff Jerry said versus things that they assumed or

(01:01:31):
intimated about him. He's from Maine, no Oklahoma, Virginia, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky.
He's in construction. He was a mechanic in the Air Force.
He has a daughter and she's twelve or fourteen. He's
in the middle of divorcing a woman that lives in
Massachusetts and is pregnant with twins. That's all well and good,
but it doesn't do anything to actually identify this guy,

(01:01:54):
so they go off the description. They have a composite
drawn up around six feet, medium length, blonde hair, blue eyes,
pockmark cheeks, crooked front teeth, and speaking with a Southern accent.
At least the accent would stand out in Maine. But
apparently no one outside of Shirley's social circle can identify
this guy. He's a ghost. No one knows where he's from,

(01:02:15):
where he went, or why he was there in the
first place. We don't even know why he was in
Shirley's house, and when you try to figure that out,
you just have two sides disagreeing about every aspect. She
either took guys home from the bar once in a while,
did it all the time, or never did anything like that.
There's a huge chunk of gray here and very little

(01:02:38):
when it comes to black and white, cold hard facts.
It's frustrating to try and sort through because, for whatever reason,
the investigators never found it necessary to clarify what exactly
they had learned in this regard. All they would say
is that the book exaggerated things, but they wouldn't be
more specific. Moving forward, in November, Surely's body is found

(01:03:02):
dumped in a very rural area in Spotsylvania County, Virginia.
Given the level of decomposition, it seems apparent that she
had been there from within the first few days of
her murder, though we can't be certain. The medical examiner
reveals few details, and to this day police have never
revealed a cause of death, nor discussed any signs of
a weapon that might have been used. Given the amount

(01:03:24):
of blood in the home, I've always assumed that a
knife was the murder weapon, but that's just my speculation. Now.
I can't speak all that informatively about Spotsylvania County. It's
not an area I'm familiar with, But looking at Google
Maps and satellite imagery of the area where the body
was found, I'd say rural is an understatement. You're talking

(01:03:45):
about small local roads, many of them dirt, thick woods,
and wide farm fields, and that's today. I imagine back
in nineteen ninety that it was even less developed, which
raises the question why that area. In particular, if Jerry
drives from Maine to Florida, there are places all along

(01:04:05):
the way he could have left the body, even thick
wooded areas and wide, deep ditches right off I ninety five.
To me, at least, it seems unlikely that he took
a random exit, drove around some backwoods areas, and then
selected the spot at random. There's a good chance he'd
been there before or had some familiarity with the area.

(01:04:26):
I mean, why not hide her body in the woods
behind her house or in any number of rural and
hard to reach places throughout Maine, Massachusetts, and any of
the states between Maine and Virginia. It seems he felt
safe leaving the body there. He felt confident he wouldn't
be seen and she wouldn't be found quickly, and as

(01:04:47):
it turned out, he was right. Could it have just
been a random coincidence, a bit of luck for the
violent murderer. Well, I can't outright deny the possibility, since
this guy got real lucky on several occasions. The last
major piece of evidence found is the car, and they
don't seem to learn much from it. There's bloodstains, but

(01:05:08):
they've never said if they were able to confirm that
blood with Shirley's. They sweep for hair fibers and fingerprints,
but report nothing else. Even if they had found something.
The car was likely tainted the day it was stolen,
from the Holiday Inn in Saint Augustine. It was painted
over and someone else was driving around in it all
the way until it was found in late March, which

(01:05:30):
means it didn't function all that well as a piece
of evidence to examine. The police theorized that Jerry killed Shirley,
drove down into Boston and had the accident. After that,
he moves on to Virginia, where he dumps her body,
and then further south to Florida, where he abandons the car.
The trail went cold, Hey Robin in Saint Augustine. The

(01:05:52):
car is found in Darien, Georgia, a suburb of Brunswick.
But if Jerry was the one driving he left the
car at the Holiday Inn in Florida, the smart money
would suggest that he knows someone in the area of
Saint Augustine, or he lives in the area, or he
has some familiarity with it. You're not going to abandon

(01:06:12):
your only mode of transportation in a city where you
can't get another one, or where everything is completely unfamiliar
to you. Saint Augustine is fourteen hundred miles from Pittsfield.
That's a long drive to make and would carry you
through Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia,

(01:06:35):
North and South Carolina, Georgia, and finally Florida. Now, if
reports are accurate, the vehicle was stopped in northern Florida
on August fourteenth, four days after the car drives off
from Shirley's home. If you do ten hours a day,
you could have made that drive in just two days,
which seems to suggest that he stopped off somewhere or

(01:06:55):
he got to Florida earlier than the fourteenth. This suggests
to me that Jerry wanted to get to Florida as
quickly as he could, perhaps because that's where he lived
and felt secure. It might explain that Southern accent, depending
upon how strong it had been. I can't help but
wonder what law enforcement agencies, if any, were contacted to

(01:07:17):
assist in the search for Jerry, or to help by
putting up his composite around town. When you really dig
into this case, you find a lot of information about
the main investigation and very little, if any, about the
investigation as it was handled in other states. Unfortunately, like
so much of this case, almost nothing has been revealed,

(01:07:37):
and those aspects if indeed if they were pursued or not.
This isn't really a case where you have a bunch
of different theories to analyze or curious allies to explore.
It's always pretty much been made clear by investigators that
Jerry is the one and only suspect. In several places online,
I've come across folks who throw shade at her ex Brian,

(01:07:59):
but considering him involvement in the investigation and the fact
that he was highly cooperative, was the one who reported
her missing in the first place, and police have said
he was completely cleared as a suspect, it doesn't really
make a lot of sense to me. I don't want
to get too much into it, but let's just say,
if you decide to look into this case yourself, be

(01:08:20):
careful what people you choose to trust, because there's quite
a bit of misinformation out there. You know, that whole
group of people for who the answer is always the
husband did it well, some of them are willing to
bend both facts and evidence to fit their own personal narratives.
And I'll just leave it at that. So what do
you believe happened here? Seems fairly obvious that this so

(01:08:43):
called Jerry had some kind of a relationship with Shirley,
at least one in which she felt comfortable allowing him
to stay at her home and introducing him to her friends.
Some people, including investigators, have put forth the possibility that
Jerry killed Shirley because he wanted to have sex and
she rejected his advances, and that's certainly a possibility. It

(01:09:05):
would be hardly the first time something like that has happened, unfortunately,
But there are a lot of other options. What if
she caught him stealing something police have never said, if
they recovered her purse, her wallet, her money, her credit cards,
where those tracked? We don't know. What if he wanted
to take her car and she refused. For hell, what

(01:09:26):
if they argued over what they were gonna eat that
night and he just completely flipped out. It's difficult to
know one way or the other, and sadly people have
been killed for less. So he murders her, wraps her
in a bedspread, and binds her up with the nylon
strings he cut free from some Venetian blinds. Then he

(01:09:46):
starts cleaning, wiping down all of the blood he can.
He washes up in the sink. He takes a shower.
He's not able to do much about the massive blood puddle,
so he just moves the couch over it, not wanting
anyone to sey. He moves curtains from the back dining
room to the front window. Sometime under cover of darkness,
he places Shirley's body in the trunk of her car.

(01:10:09):
The dogs were locked up either before or after the murder,
but what happened to them another interesting question that has
no answer. Some people have described the killer as experienced,
knowing how to clean up after himself, and arranging things
in such a way as to not set off any alarms. Personally,

(01:10:30):
I think had the investigation begun with passion and focus,
they'd have seen right through that. But we all know
that didn't happen here. Thirty four years have passed since
Shirley McAvoy was violently and brutally murdered. The only true
suspect in the case over all these years is the
unknown man called Jerry. Please make sure you take a

(01:10:54):
good look at his composite image, which I'll include a
link to in the show notes. If he's still alive,
he could be anywhere doing anything, and there's a good
chance that someone like this has a lot more blood
on his hands than just Shirley's. This is an extremely
solvable case, but it's going to need help from one

(01:11:14):
of you to get it moving again. Share the composite,
raise awareness, and maybe we can find some answers. I mean,
let's face it, someone out there absolutely knows what happened,
and maybe, just maybe they're listening right now. Pick up
the phone, send an anonymous email, do something, because without

(01:11:36):
new information, the discovery of new evidence, or an outright confession,
the murder of Shirley McAvoy will remain open, unsolved, and
growing colder. If you're looking for more information about the

(01:12:00):
murder of Shirley McAvoy, there are some limited resources available,
but it might take some digging. For this episode, the
Bangor Daily News and Morning Sentinel were the most helpful.
If you have any information about the murder of Shirley McAvoy,
please contact the Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit at

(01:12:22):
two zero seven six two four seven zero seven six.
You can also anonymously leave a tip on their website
at main dot gov slash DPS, slash MSP. You can
always email me any information you'd wish to share as well,

(01:12:44):
remember a ten thousand dollars reward remains in place for
information leading to an arrest and conviction. What do you
believe happened? Tweet me at Tracevpod, email me at trace
Evidencepod at gmail dot com, or comment in the Facebook group. Now,
I'd like to take a moment to thank our amazing

(01:13:06):
Patreon producers, without whom Trace Evidence would not be possible.
Andrew Guarino, Ann m Bertram Brutalist, Christine Greco, Crystal Jay, Danny,
Renee Dearthy, Denise Stingsdale, Desiree Larrow, Dianni Dyson, Jennifer Winkler,

(01:13:33):
Justin Snyder, Karen Morland, Kay Why, Lars Jensen, Vangel, leslie B,
Lisa Hopson, Melissa Brakauisen, Nick Mohar, Schers, Roberta Janssen, Ruth
Stacy Finnegan, and Tom Radford. Thank you all so much

(01:13:57):
for your amazing support and for keeping Trey Evidence going forward.
This concludes this week's coverage of the murder of Shirley McAvoy,
a violent and senseless crime that rob two girls of
their mother and a family of their sister. An aunt.
To me, this case is extremely solvable, but it all

(01:14:19):
might Hinge on identifying Jerry or someone with information coming
forward and sharing what they know. I want to thank
you all again for listening, and I hope you'll join
me next time for another unsolved case. On the next
episode of Trace Evidence,