Episode 253

In June of 2013, the dead body of 29-year-old Melinda Schaefer was found inside the leasing office of the Harvest View apartments in Baltimore County, Maryland. The murder scene was a complete blood bath, and due to the communal nature of the office, homicide detectives were not able to rely on DNA or other forensic evidence to solve this crime. They needed to use old-fashioned police work to find out who had murdered Melinda Schaefer and why.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Sword and Scale contains adult themes andviolence, and is not intended for all
audiences. Listener discretion is advised.She's just trying to do her job.
That makes sense. What doesn't makesense is that attack on her. That
attack and you decide your mind togo with her under to such force and

(00:23):
dinges that that much blood is produced. Hello and welcome. This is season
ten, episode two hundred and fiftythree of Sword and Scale, a show
that continues to reveal that the worstpossible monsters are real. If you still

(00:59):
have not downloaded our app available oniOS and Android, it's available, but
we're working on a new one whichwill be coming out really really soon.
We got lots of stuff planned fortwenty twenty four. In fact, stay
tuned. If you've ever accepted amoderate or high paying job, then you've

(01:53):
probably had people work for you orunder you. Well, it might not
always feel like it. This canbe a really powerful position to be in
to a boss or supervisor, havingemployees is just part of the job,
but to the employees themselves, thesupervisor is pretty much the gatekeeper of their

(02:14):
livelihoods. An employee's necessities of lifeare dependent on what their supervisor thinks of
them and their work performance. Inmany cases, the relationship between a boss
and employee is at minimum tenable.There is this baked in understanding that the

(02:35):
boss gives an order or direction andthe employee follows that direction. There are,
of course, many many exceptions tothis, but generally speaking, that
is usually how it works, whichis kind of amazing when you think about
it. Up until the moment ofbecoming coworkers or colleagues or whatever you want

(02:57):
to call them, a boss andan employee are usually just strangers very well
might have never associated with each otherhad it not been for their chosen place
of work. That is, theymay have personalities that clash and completely different
perspectives on life. They may comefrom completely different backgrounds, have different cultural

(03:22):
ideals. They may even have completelydifferent opinions on how a particular job should
be done, or if a particularjob should be done at all, And
that is where things can go wrongand the relationship can break down. This
is when the employee's livelihood can beput at risk. And when someone's livelihood

(03:45):
comes under threat, well, there'sno telling how they might respond and what
they might do. On the morningof June fourteenth, twenty thirteen, a

(04:30):
young man in Baltimore County, Maryland, finished making arrangements to have his car
towed from his apartment complex. Hiscar had recently broken down and he needed
a taken to a repair shop.After the car was carted off, the
young man returned to his apartment,but he wasn't there for long before someone

(04:55):
began banging on his front door.Startled and confused, the man answered the
door and saw the apartment complex's cleaninglady. She was in tears, completely
hysterical, and it looked like shehad just seen a ghost. Bottomer County
nine one one. What is seeaddress of your emergency. I'm actually has

(05:15):
two Augusta Ridge Road in versus Down, Maryland. I have a cleaning lady
who cleans the rental office main officein my door. I have not walked
into the rental office, but shesaid that the girl that's inside do you
think that she does? Showing justoff the northern edge of Maryland City of
Baltimore is the towns of Harvest View, a townhouse style apartment complex often referred

(05:41):
to simply as Harvest View. Thiscomplex is owned by its parent company,
ba Zudo, and it offers potentialresidents a fairly standard package when it comes
to apartment living. Naturally, theirwebsite adds a few bells and whistles to
exaggerate what they provide. Spread Outand relax and town home style comfort and

(06:02):
our spacious two and three bedroom apartments. Experience the joy of gas cooking in
an exceptionally appointed kitchen. You canfind room to breathe in open layouts,
relax on your private balcony, andcozy up by your living room fireplace,
all in the same day. Ah. Yes, don't we all just love

(06:25):
to experience the joy of gas cooking. Don't get me wrong. Harvest View
seems like a perfectly fine place tolive, according to most of the online
reviews. The apartments are clean,there's lots of space, the grounds are
well maintained, and management is typicallyhelpful and prompt when addressing any issues that
the tenants may have. But onJune fourteenth, twenty thirteen, not all

(06:49):
was well at Harvest View. Acrying and hysterical cleaning lady had alerted one
of the tenants that she found somethinghorrible in the leasing office. According to
the cleaning woman, a bloody bodywas lying on the floor in the office
and they appeared to have been shot. Was she knocked on your door to

(07:12):
cleaning lady? She just knocked onmy door. She must have just gotten
back in other places. Was justsaying in my door, and I'm like,
who is this? You know?So I Randolf stairs and she's there.
She's crying, and I thought shesaid this girls hurt or she got
shot. I'm going to see thisclean lady. It's almost every day right,
always here, right. I don'tknow where the maintenance guy is.

(07:33):
He's always here two and I don'tsee him either. Oh my god,
I can't believe this happened. Ohmy god. Okay, just stay on
the line with me. I havethem on their way. Okay, okay,
okay. As the nine one oneoperator worked to get emergency services dispatched
to the scene, she also attemptedto get as much information as possible.

(07:55):
This wasn't exactly easy because the callerhadn't actually been inside the leasing office and
they hadn't witnessed anything. I havenot walked in. She has. She
cleaned here the grounds, and shehad left and she'd come back, and
she said that she walked in thereturn the vacuum cleaner, and she said
that the girls shot. I haven'twalked in. Okay, I understand.

(08:16):
That is the female still standing therewith you, mister Lee. Okay,
now ask her why does she saythat? What happened for her to say
that? Let me ask her realquick. Okay. The reason the caller
didn't just hand the phone over tothe cleaning woman was because she was completely
hysterical, and well she wasn't fluentin English, if that's a surprise to

(08:39):
you, So a kind of telephonegame had to be played. So she
walked in the side and she's onthe ground, okay, Okay, the
blood there, she's been her bloodeverywhere, Okay, And she believes she's

(09:01):
been shot. Is that correct?Does she see anyone? Did you see
anybody? Do you see anybody comeand go? The thing is I was
just outside maybe twenty minutes ago,which is strange. Anything you didn't hear
anything? Well, I didn't hitmy paw code. I've been out here
this whole time. Bizarrely, nobodyheard any gunshots, and neither the callar

(09:26):
nor the cleaning lady saw anyone comeand go from the leasing office. If
someone fired a gun, surely someonewould have heard it. Something wasn't making
sense, asked her, and shesaid it was blood everywhere. Okay,
let me ask her. The bloodeverywhere? There's blood everywhere, a lot
of blood. Blood. There's somethingin her back. Okay, So is

(09:52):
she bleed? Is the bleeding serious? Is she bleeding a lot? She
said, there's blood over the windowand everything. Okay, I'm not walking
in there. Okay, that's fine. Ask the cleaning lady. Does she
see anybody leaving somedayil or does sheknow who's responsible for doing this? Did
anybody leave? I mean I justdidn't. I was just outside. So

(10:13):
ask her does she hear any gunshotsor anything? I don't think she was
here? Okay, okay, okay, she said she was, okay,
and then when I was crazed withmy car coast, she has just left.
And then I guess she must havecome back just now. At this
point, nobody knew who the supposedvictim was, but everyone that lived at
Harvest View knew who worked in theleasing office. There was really only one

(10:39):
person that it could be about.How old is this female? If the
girl I know that work here,I think she's probably about thirty, about
thirty, okay, now ask heris she awake? No, she says
she she moving? Or no,is she moving? No, she's just
laying on the floor. Okay,is she breathing? I don't know.

(11:03):
Is she breathing? Breathing? Isbreathing? I still no, she's okay,
okay, okay, yes, sayingthat's fine. I don't know if
you have any kind of cameras inthere. I hope they do. Yeah.
Wow, Oh my god, Ohmy god, this is crazy.
I know this girl too, becauseshe's the one we kind of us off

(11:24):
for this place. The person inthe rental office. Yeah, her name's
Melinda something. So that I cansee your car at here. Twenty nine
year old Melinda Shaeffer was born inAugust nineteen eighty three. She grew up
and spent most of her life inSan Diego, California, but at some
point in her mid twenties, Melindadecided that she wanted to move to the

(11:46):
East Coast. Melinda settled on movingto the Baltimore, Maryland area because some
of her extended family also lived there. Not long after Melinda made this move,
she landed a job as the assistantproperty manager at Harvestview. She also
met and married her husband, MikeShaeffer, who was welcomed into Melinda's family

(12:07):
with open arms. Michael Maltese sayshis daughter grew up in California but wanted
to live on the East Coast.Her extended family is in Baltimore. Maltese
says, Melinda just got married.It's the best guy you could ever imagine.
And uh and he just got marrieda year ago. Around the time
that she got married, Melinda wasalso promoted from assistant property manager to property

(12:31):
manager. This promotion came as nosurprise because Melinda was good at her job,
like really good. Melinda oversaw everyaspect of the Harvest View property.
This included maintenance, grounds, upkeep, dealing with tenant concerns, marketing,
and more. She excelled on allfronts. But that wasn't all. Melinda

(12:56):
was working on having a private websitebuilt just for her tenants and organizing gatherings
and events so that the tenants couldmeet each other. Melinda wanted Harvest View
to be more than just the runof the mill apartment complex. She wanted
it to be a community. Unfortunately, she didn't have many hands to help

(13:18):
her with much of anything. Asidefrom the cleaning lady. The only other
regular employee at Harvest View was themaintenance supervisor. Anybody else that does that?
No, she's me. Theres onlyno other office worker. No,
from what I understand. No,okay, it'sn't even cleaning lady. She
only come up three days weeks.Clinton lady comes up three d the week.

(13:39):
Did clean that place for a time. Melinda did have an assistant help
her with daily office operations, butthat assistant had recently been fired for repeatedly
coming into work late, among otherreasons. So Melinda was left on her
own to run the leasing office,which had an open door policy during normal

(14:03):
working hours, anyone could walk infor any reason at all that that rental
office. Did she keep the doorlocked or anything? Or is it always
open so it potential customers can comein? Yeah, always open, both
doors open. Front end. Well, we'll keep the toddle lot top of
stays locked. Yeah. Basically it'sjust a school, okay. Yeah,

(14:24):
so even like the residence, evenif they live on that side, they
don't even come through there. No, Just like any apartment complex, Harvest
View had its fair share of complainerssome tenants. No matter what anyone does
for them will always find something tomoan about. They're similar to Sword and

(14:46):
Scale listeners in that regard. Buteven so, unlike me, Melinda was
extremely well liked by all of hertenants. She apparently had this way of
talking with people that made them feellike their concerns or issues were truly important
and she wanted to help. Melindawasn't all talk either. She wasn't one

(15:09):
of these fake fucks. She alwayswent out of her way to make sure
the Harvest View residents were well takencare of. Melinda was personable and friendly,
and she genuinely cared about people.According to the maintenance man, there
wasn't anyone at Harvest View that wouldhave any reason to hurt her. Has

(15:33):
she talked to you about? Howmany problems with anybody? Do you know
of any residents that are upset withher? Would not would necessarily hurt even
with the company. Nah, anybodycaused issues. I didn't know as got
ahead them technics. We always gotcomplainers belt yeah, well blown two or
or something yeah based somebody know whatI mean. But yeah, Nah,
for the most part, everybody's cool. You know. She usually tell me

(15:56):
stuff. On June fourteenth, twentythirteen, at about eleven am, police
in Baltimore County arrived at the leasingoffice where Melinda worked. When they walked
inside, they found a chaotic andbloody scene. When police arrived at the
scene, we found evidence of anextremely violent confrontation police a Shaeffer fought for

(16:18):
her life. There was blood allover the walls and blinds, The office
was in shambles, furniture and fileseverywhere, and detectives responding to a call
from a cleaning lady found Shaeffer lyingface down in her own blood. The
police found that Melinda's office was acomplete mess. Her desk was slid across
the room, paper documents, andbroken office equipment were strewn all over the

(16:44):
floor. The vertical window blinds werelopsided, and an office chair was tipped
over. Clearly a violent struggle hadtaken place. The police also found that
the office was a gory bloodbath.There was blood spatter and blood smears everywhere,

(17:04):
and the apparent source of blood wasthe dead body lying face down on
the floor. Twenty nine year oldproperty manager Melinda Schaeffer was found in responsive
in a large pool of her ownblood. When medical responders arrived, they

(17:25):
pronounced her dead on the scene.Baltimore County homicide detectives were assigned to the
case, and to them, itwas obvious that Melinda had been brutally murdered
during a very violent attack. Butwhat they didn't immediately know was that this
was going to be a very difficultcase to solve. Due to the communal

(17:48):
nature of the crime scene and thefact that many people would frequently walk in
and out of the office. Thedetectives weren't going to be able to rely
on DNA or forensic evidence to solvethis. They are going to have to
use old fashioned police work to findout who murdered Melinda Shaeffer and why.

(18:47):
On June fourteenth, twenty thirteen,the dead body of twenty nine year old
Melinda Shaeffer was found in the leasingoffice of the Harvest View Apartments in Baltimore
County, Maryland. Was the propertymanager at Harvest View, and shortly after
Melinda's body was found, a nineto one one call was placed. The

(19:07):
cleaning lady had told one of theapartment residents that Melinda had been shot,
but when police examined the scene,they found that no shots had been fired.
Well, you say, Melinda Schaefferwas stabbed over and over again in
the leasing office of the towns atHarvest View Apartments in Westerstown. The twenty
nine year old was the property manager. The leasing office was a wreck of

(19:30):
the chairs, the desks were strewneverywhere, and there was blood all over
the walls and the blinds. Thecleaning woman was wrong. Melinda had not
been shot. She had been stabbeda total of seventy nine times in her
upper body and her head. Hermurder was vicious and bloody. The killer

(19:57):
were killers had seemingly made a briefattempt to clean up, as there were
several areas in the office where bloodwas smeared with some kind of rag or
cloth. Melinda had clearly fought forher life. The leasing office was a
disaster, the documents and office equipmentall over the place. The office chair

(20:22):
was turned over, the desk waspushed to the other side of the room.
The blood spattered window blinds were lopsidedand nearly torn off the window frame.
Notably, nothing appeared to be stolen. Melinda had bank cards and a
signed check still in her purse forpolice. Whatever happened in the office that

(20:44):
morning, it clearly wasn't a robbery. After Melinda was pronounced dead, her
family was made aware of what happened. This included her father. What kills
me the most is that my poordaughter. We never hurt a person in
her life, and to have somethingas brutal and senseless as as to her

(21:06):
drives me insane. Melinda's parents livedin California, over three thousand miles from
where Melinda was living in Baltimore County, Maryland. Even so, Melinda communicated
with them almost daily. When Melinda'sdad was interviewed by the media, his
reaction to his daughter's murder appeared tobe rage well. Milinda's mom responded with

(21:30):
a broken heart and indiscernible sadness.I'll never get over this never. It
seems like it's getting her. It'sleft me feeling still empty in my heart.
Like I said, don't think I'llever get over this. As Melinda's

(21:52):
family mourned, detectives at the BaltimoreCounty Police Department worked the case, but
for several weeks appeared to be nonew developments at all. Baltimore County Police
tal eleven News they are aggressively workingon the murder case of twenty nine year
old Melinda Shaeffer. She's the propertymanager of the towns that Harvest the U
town Home Complex and Reisterstown, whopolice said died from multiple stab wounds while

(22:15):
she was working in the leasing officetwo weeks to the day, and no
word on who did this or whyas far as potential suspects were concerned.
The detectives started where you might expect, with her husband, of course,
according to the maintenance supervisor at HarvestView, Melinda's husband, Mike Shaeffer,

(22:36):
had visited Melinda at her office ona few occasions before she was killed.
Did she ever have personal visitors comethere? Did you know your ninety office
all the time? Don't her husbandcome to right? When Melinda's husband was
questioned by detectives, he was especiallycooperative and appeared willing to do anything,

(22:57):
in everything he could to help thepolice find out who had murdered his wife.
He explained that the last time hesaw Melinda was on the morning of
the murder, just before they bothheaded off to work, and his last
communication with her was a text messageMelinda had told him to have a good

(23:18):
day. When detectives looked into MikeShaeffer's story, they found that he was
working around the time of the murder, and they couldn't make any timeline fit
that placed him at Melinda's office.With the husband pretty much eliminated as a
potential suspect, the detectives turned theirattention toward the Harvest View tenants and Melinda's

(23:40):
co workers. Maybe someone at HarvestView had an axe to grind. Maybe
Melinda or the company she worked formade someone very, very angry, unable
to control their own emotions type angry. The process of looking into all of
these people took a lot of time, which is why the case appeared to

(24:03):
drag still. The media and publickept asking questions, and the police department
assured them that they were working veryhard to deliver answers. Police say Melinda
was the only one working in theleasing office at the time, and sources
say this appears to be an isolatedincident and that Schaeffer was targeted. Our

(24:25):
detectives continue to work this case veryaggressively. They do have some leads that
they've been pursuing over the past twoweeks. In researching Melinda's work life,
detectives learned that Melinda had until veryrecently been working alongside an assistant, but
that assistant was let go just twodays before Melinda was murdered. Any ex

(24:48):
employees, anybody got beat with herearly company, I mean the only of
the Cherchon never haven't worked over Therewas nothing. She just got five okay.
Twenty year old Vanessa Coates worked inthe Harvest View leasing office for a
short time. She didn't so muchwork with Melinda, as she filled in

(25:10):
for her when needed. Harvest View'sdistrict management preferred to have the leasing office
open and available to tenants and potentialresidence as often as possible, so on
weekends and whenever Melinda needed to beout of the office, Vanessa filled in
for her. Unfortunately, Vanessa waseither unwilling or unable to live up to

(25:33):
the requirements of the job. Frankly, she kind of sucked at being an
assistant property manager. At least that'swhat Melinda seemed to think. She got
some trouble foot being leads. Yeah, okay. Was there any bad blood
there the company or Vessa and her? I think with Vanessa and her.
She had told me a couple oftimes about how she got right enough.

(25:57):
Melinda and Vanessa ended their work partnershipon bad terms. Perhaps this disgruntled ex
employee was angry enough to attack andmurder Melinda. When detectives tracked Vanessa Coats
down and questioned her, she admittedthat Melinda wasn't her favorite person. But

(26:18):
Vanessa also explained that on the morningof the murder, she was sleeping at
her boyfriend's house several towns away fromthe Harvest View leasing office. Using Vanessa's
cell phone records, detectives were ableto confirm this, and, just like
Melissa's husband, Vanessa Coates was eliminatedas a suspect. As far as coworkers

(26:41):
went, there were really only twoother people left that could be considered potential
suspects. The cleaning lady that washysterically crying when she found Melinda's dead body
or the maintenance super. How longyou've been employed by the end by the

(27:02):
company there. I've been in Zutofor about two years now, okay?
Is that the only property that youyou worked at a run before I went
to harves Okay, your maintenance superbows with there? How many guys for
people are on me? Just you? Okay? And I assume you work
day work, Yeah, like eightto four, eight to five, on

(27:25):
friders. Okay. Twenty seven yearold Rashad Williams was hired to work at
Harvest View in twenty eleven, andas the maintenance man, he worked closely
with Melinda almost every day. Whatis it about maintenance men and murder?
What do you call her? Melinda? Okay? Has she been there the

(27:48):
whole time you've been there? Yeah? She was for me? Okay,
she has for me that I'm sorryjay is Yeah. Do you consider her
a friend? Yeah? Wenda school, Yeah, I mean business at the
end of the day, going outand hanging out or no, but I
mean According to Rashaan, his relationshipwith Melinda was all business and he had

(28:14):
nothing against her. To him,she was just his boss and they would
usually meet every weekday morning to discussanything that needed to get done. Come
in around nine, going to office. We sit down. Good, who's
going on for the day? That'swhat Melinda? Yeah, you always sit
down with her most of the time. We tried to Yeah did you do

(28:37):
that today? Yeah, we actuallydid. We was talking about the touchho
claim they needed to get done.On the morning of the murder, Melinda
was preparing for new tenants to moveinto Harvest View and she tasked the cleaning
lady with some touch up cleaning thatneeded to be done to their apartment.
According to Rashaan, during this typicalmorning meeting, Melinda talked about the new

(29:03):
residents while Rashawn collected everything he neededfor the day's work. So after your
and you said, you pick upyour tickets and stuff too, right?
Yeah, tickets, keys in mykneed. Let's get the work. So
how long did that meeting take today? Twenty minutes? Give the tea.
Rashawn claimed that he left the leasingoffice and delivered keys to the cleaning lady

(29:26):
so that she could get into theapartment that needed some touch ups. He
then returned to the leasing office toget the company debit card. After you
give her the key, and wheredo you go from there? Back to
the office. My head to goget some called batteries for the remotes.
So I went to get the hcalled Linda for that. What'd you get

(29:51):
at the office? Is the propertycard? RD? How you go buy
the the for the Yeah? Someof the garage remotes that Harvest View needed
their batteries replaced. So Melinda gaveher Seawan the company debit card and tasked
him with going to the nearby dollarstore to buy some fresh batteries, which

(30:14):
he did at the batteries, cameback. Did you return the double card
to her? Was anybody there withher? No? By ourselves. You
stick around and have more conversation withher, do you want? Yeah,
a little conversation here, Nick,because she uh, she had told me
to fix the door closet door headcame off, so I put that and

(30:36):
fixed that real quick, and thenwe talked about going to home Depot looking
to that lawn for the garage.Rashaan explained that after he returned from the
dollar store, Melinda tasked him withgoing to home Depot to get supplies for
some other garage repairs that needed tobe done, and Rashaan left the office

(30:57):
again to do exactly that. Butwhen he returned from Home Depot, he
found a swarm of cops around theleasing office, and for Sean's story was
accurate, it meant that he wasthe last person to have seen Melinda alive.
After detectives spoke to Rashaan, theybegan looking for ways to either verify

(31:18):
his story or discredit it. Aftera few days, they questioned him again.
You guys had a little discussion,and then how do you get the
car from her? How's that worked? She gave it to me, all
right, And then you walked theretoo. That Soolo true batch your batteries

(31:38):
and when you came back out down, you just walked back to the office.
So while you while you're in there, he said, you fixed the
door with the screwdriver, right,yeah, okay, And then you guys
have a little conversation. And theconversations were about what you're going to do.
Yeah, basically just small talk.During this second interview, you Reshawn's

(32:00):
story was consistent with the first timehe told it, but now the detectives
had new information that contradicted what hewas telling them. Where is anybody in
there besides you and her? No? Okay, so you're the last So
what was the last time? Soyou estimate maybe you saw her a while.

(32:20):
See, I don't know. Maybethey're not there to give a teake
somewhere non thirty to give her safety, okay. On the morning of the
murder, Melinda's last known contact withanyone was at about eight fifty am,
when she sent an email to atenant. About an hour later, at
nine to fifty am, a differenttenant called the leasing office, but the

(32:45):
call went unanswered, as did allthe other calls made to the leasing office
after that one. Then one morehour later, at ten fifty am,
the cleaning lady discovered Melinda's body.The cops believed that Melinda was murdered between
the one hour window of eight fiftyam and nine to fifty am. According

(33:09):
to Rashaan, he left the leasingoffice to go to home depot around nine
thirty. And then you go tohome depot. What route did you take
to home depot? Highway? Highway? Like? Can you give me?
And where'd you go for seven ninefive h seven ninety five six ninety five?

(33:30):
Just go straight up from me?Nowhere else you stopped on the way.
Okay. The route that Rashawn describedwould take him about twenty minutes to
get from Harvest View to home Depot, placing him there around nine to fifty
or ten am. So you gothere, and when you were in there

(33:51):
anything, Now, I wouldn't lookaround for the lawn and didn't see it.
That's the guy about it. Hesaid, he didn't take it down
yet, that's that today? Andwhy didn't you buy? Well? Why
he said he didn't take it downtoo. I forgot to go the cub
Diet, the Club Baier, andthen you came back here. And the
time he says, the maybe yougot here ten minutes later, something twenty

(34:17):
minutes later, So now we're maybelike ten thirty give or to you.
Rashaun claimed that he didn't buy anythingat the Home Depot because the supplies he
needed weren't ready, and because heforgot to get the Harvest View debit card
back from Melinda. If for Seawn'sstory was true, it would have put

(34:39):
him arriving at Home Depot at aroundten am and returning to Harvest View thirty
minutes later at around ten thirty am. But there was a problem. The
surveillance camera at Home Depot captured Rashaanarriving there at ten forty am. I

(35:00):
realized that all these times I'm throwingat you might make things a little hard
to follow. But all you reallyhave to know is that what Rashwan told
detectives was inconsistent with the surveillance footagethat was shown to them. For police,
this inconsistency in Rashawn's story was prettyimportant, and there was also something

(35:23):
else that happened that morning that madeRashawn's story pretty hm hmm. Suspect your
your boss had told us Stans thatwas the maintenance firm. Yeah. Yeah,
I had thought I had left itin the office, but when they
said that, maybe y'all had protook it. When do you think you

(35:43):
lost it in there? I don'tknow what, because sometimes I set my
phone down for a second while I'mdoing something and I thought I might have
just a end. So you haveno idea, and you didn't ring it
to see maybe so your house.Yeah, I checked all that, you
checked all that, but it's Asthe maintenance supervisor, Rashawn was a shoe
to work cell phone by Harvest View. This way, tenants or Melinda could

(36:06):
get in touch with them if therewas some kind of repair that needed to
be addressed quickly. On the morningof the murder, that cell phone had
seemingly vanished. During his first interviewwith detectives, Rashawn didn't mention a lost
cell phone at all. I thinkabout nine in your possession. Okay,

(36:30):
So where did you lose the sonthat? That's what I'm saying. I
didn't know. I thought, Imean, maybe it might have fought on
my pocket or something. Sell outof your pocket. There was one more
important thing about Rashawn that caught detective'sattention, and it had to do with
what Rashawn was wearing on the morningof the murder. Did you have on
those pis? No, I don'tthink of this team you said. Never

(36:52):
did. It's like these. It'slike a straight cake. You though you
could so Friday when you want to, I don't know. I'm trying to
her dollars tree. You had onstraight Khakisslisa. Did you have one on
a jacket or anything? And youdidn't change clothes on all side that you

(37:13):
remember, I was like pants oranything like that was no reason, sir.
On the morning that Melinda was killed, Rashawan purchased batteries at the nearby
dollar store at around nine to twentyam, and the surveillance camera in the
store captured him wearing a Harvest Viewissued black jacket and ten cargo pants.

(37:35):
At ten forty am, after Melindahad been killed, the surveillance cameras at
home depot captured Rashwan wearing a blackpolo shirt and straight white khakis. Yet
Rashwan claimed that he never changed hisclothes that morning and that he would have
had no reason to change them atall. When asked about his harvest view

(37:59):
jacket, Rashad did admit that heowned one. If you have the jacket,
W also all right, thanks?We checking your truck after Yeah,
I checked sonca all wait. Conveniently, Rashawn was never able to find his
harvest view jacket. The second interviewwith Rashawn was conducted three days after Melinda

(38:23):
was murdered, after which all wentquiet for a while. For two more
months, detectives continued to work thecase, and all the DNA testing relating
to the crime scene came back inconclusive. Of course, even so,
between the inconsistencies in Rashawn's story,the lost cell phone, and his change

(38:45):
of clothes, the detectives did haveenough evidence to make an arrest. Good
evening, every one, our bigstory tonight, and arrest has been made
in the murder upper property manager whowas found stabbed to death inside a Reisterstown
and tonight, a maintenance worker isbeing held without bond, charged in that
brutal attack. Police say the suspecthas not confessed, but a change in

(39:07):
clothing was enough to charge him.We have asked this to fend and to
produce the clothing that he was wearingin the Dollar General video. He has
been unable to do that. Policesay that Williams could not explain the discrepancy
in what the surveillance video shows,and police say at this point they don't
have a motive in the case.Just over two months after Melinda Schaeffer was

(39:30):
murdered, Rashawn Williams was arrested andcharged with a crime. While things did
look pretty bad for Rashwan, allthe evidence against him was circumstantial and there
were no witnesses and no forensic evidenceto link him to the murder. The

(39:51):
detectives could prove that Rashawn had themeans and opportunity, but if they had
any hope of making the murder chargestick, they were going to need one
very important thing, a motive.On August twentieth, twenty thirteen, in

(40:35):
Baltimore County, Maryland, the maintenancesupervisor at the Harvest View apartment complex was
arrested and charged with brutally murdering hisboss, Melinda Schaeffer. Twenty seven year
old Rashawn Williams, the man policesay is behind the brutal killing of twenty
nine year old Melinda Maltese Schaeffer,the leasing agent, was found stamped to

(40:55):
death inside her office in June atthe towns of Harvest View. Before Melinda
Shaeffer was murdered, she was livingin Baltimore County with her husband. They
had only been married for about ayear before she was brutally stabbed at death
on the morning of June fourteenth,twenty thirteen. Melinda's body was discovered in

(41:15):
her office by the apartment complex's cleaninglady. When police arrived at the scene,
they found the office was wrecked.Melinda's chair was overturned, her desk
was slid across the room in filesand office equipment were scattered all over the
floor. The police also found bloodspatter and blood smears everywhere, and they

(41:40):
later determined that Melinda had been stabbedsixty nine times in her upper body and
her head. After an exhaustive investigation, Baltimore County homicide detectives determined that the
maintenance supervisor, twenty seven year oldwere Shawn Williams, was the killer,

(42:00):
and they arrived at that conclusion basedon inconsistencies in Rashon's statements to police.
Williams told investigators he'd left a DollarGeneral store around nine to twenty am.
He went to the leasing center fromnine thirty to nine forty five, the
time frame in which detectives believe Shaferwas killed. Williams is then seen on

(42:21):
a surveillance tape at a home depotat ten thirty three am. Let security
cameras here at the Dollar Generals showWilliams wearing a completely different outfit than he
was wearing at the home depot justan hour later. Before Rashawn was arrested,
he had been questioned by police aboutMelinda's murder on two separate occasions,

(42:42):
once on the day of the murderand again three days later. Two months
later, he was charged, arrested, and brought in for a third and
final interview. So why are youbring me up for you again? Because
you're getting charged with the murder basedon what the probable calls that we submitted

(43:04):
on the applications of the commissioner.So that's that works. We wrote down,
we wrote the warrant, some ofthe information that we have submitted to
the commissioner, get signed off onthe warrant, gets his shooting, and
the guys can down wrest what probablybecause you'll have me talking about it.
Don't make no sense. This thirdinterview with Rashawn ended up being mostly a

(43:29):
jousting match between him and one ofthe detectives. While the detective was trying
to get Rashaan to confess, Rashawanwas trying to find out exactly what cops
had on him. I'm giving yourinformation. Did you give me the information?
What was it? Would you tellme I was on vacation for two
days? Yeah, but take thatto the bank, get right? Yeah?

(44:00):
Who. Throughout this interview, Rashawantried to play cool and collected.
He also did this really annoying thingwhere he feigned exhaustion and yawned over and
over again, as if to saythat being charged with first degree murder it
was a little boring and not muchmore than a small inconvenience for this fine

(44:21):
gentleman. You talking about nothing,though, Man, you might have told
about anything. I'm talking about something. I'm talking about the death of a
young lady. That's understandable, Butthat's what I'm talking about. That might
not be anything to you, buta sound to me. I don't know,
I don't know, I didn't know. I never got a chance to
know I would like to what Ihear is a nice lady. I know

(44:45):
I had it. That's why,despite Rashawon's performance, the detectives were entirely
confident that he was the killer.But the one thing they didn't know was
if Rashawn had planned to murder oror if it happened on a moment of
unexpected rage. That piece that we'relooking for as to whether the person planned

(45:08):
it out, whether the person snappedwhich caused death. You know how many
people can say that say what itwas? What one the person? M
end of the day that day,girl, we got to deal with nummy.

(45:29):
Yeah, lead up to the peopledecide whether or not just planned or
whether it happened off the cuffs fora moment we should come. Man,
Rashawn wasn't willing to provide insight intohis final thought process on the day of
the murder, so detectives began questioningRashwan about the inconsistencies in his original statements

(45:52):
to police. At one point inthat morning, did you change your clothes?
You don't know you remember changing yourclothes. Well, one of the
times that we talked to you saidyou didn't change it. Clothes in the

(46:14):
following days. I was said Ichanged smoke. Who you said I changed
my Well, I mean I know, I know you changed it clothes,
Okay, I'm just asking when Idon't know. Again, detectives knew that
Rashwan changed his clothes on the dayof the murder. The Dollar Store surveillance
camera captured him wearing a black jacketand tan cargo pants. About ninety minutes

(46:37):
later, the home depot surveillance cameracaptured him wearing a black polo shirt and
straight white khakis. Who wears whitekhakis? By the way, because I
can tell you that it happened betweenDollar General and Home Depot? So why
are you asking me? Man?Because there's a bit of a window in
there. So if you shed somelight on when you change them and where

(47:00):
you change them, I just sayI don't remember changing. I tell me
I can ask the question man.Yeah, but that's redundant. It's the
same question over and over and overagain, same as they want bout some
clothes. I just told you allbecause it's important. I just said I
don't remember. Rashaan maintained that hehad no memory of changing his clothes that

(47:24):
morning, and he also seemed unableto understand why this was important to the
case, whether that or he wasjust pretending that he couldn't understand. You
knew I changed my clus So ifas you say so, as you say
you knew I changed my CW,you see why why that can be a
bitter than this in our eyes?Right? So it's that yob probably because

(47:46):
it's a piece of power costs.I'm gonnati see locked me up and changing
clues to a piece of it.Crazy. But when you change your clothes
in the timeframe, and in thattime frame is also when the person gets
killed, it goes towards that probablecause. And then when we talked to

(48:06):
you a couple of days after themurder and ask you about change your clothes,
you say you would have no reasonto change your clothes. So when
you take those two things couple withthe fact that you change your clothes,
it's a bit of a red flagforce. Because Melinda gets brudely murdered in
a very bloody scene. I knowthis, dude, and in that time

(48:28):
you change your clothes. Something elsethat the detectives focused on was Rashawan's work
cell phone, which went missing onthe morning of the murder. When Rashawn
was first questioned, he never mentionedanything about the phone to detectives. One
of the other things I wanted togo over with you was an issue I
know that you and Patrick talked about. Was the work cellphone that you lost

(48:51):
that day? Is that ring belt? Any reason you didn't tell us that
it was that it was missing?No, didn't know what She called Patrick
hat two something to tell me itwas missing. And I talked to you
at the starting at three. Suresay, I'm saying that you call Patrick

(49:13):
Patrick had two something to let himknow that the cell phone was missing,
but you didn't didn't tell us thatit was missing, didn't tell the police
department I was missing. But thenin just a minute ago you said that's
because you didn't realize he was missingyet clearly did did you call Patrick Patrick
and told him you didn't even makesense? Yeah? You know what I'm
saying. On the contrary, whatthe detective was saying made a lot of

(49:37):
sense. There is no doubt thatRashwan knew his work phone was missing because
he called the company to tell themabout it, and he made this call.
Get this, He made this callwhile sitting in the police interrogation room
as he was waiting to be questionedfor the first time. You just can't

(50:01):
fix dumb. Hey, pat,Hey, Hey, it's for Sean.
Are you feeling you all right?And I was telling you about is that
I didn't have a work phone,so if getting calls was coming through,
I wouldn't be getting grabbing anything toclose. I think I might have left
it in the office. I'm notsure I was. I was looking for

(50:22):
it, but I couldn't see it. Yeah, I believe so might have
been. I could have fell outof my pocket. I'm not sure.
For detectives, there was only onereason why Rashawn would have changed his clothes
and ditched his work phone, becausethey were covered in Melinda's blood. The

(50:43):
key us just keep in your pocket, and the cell phone that you keeps
in your pocket all missing because thepants were bloody and you had to take
them off and get rid of them. You gotta get rid of him.
He got blood on them. That'swhy I hum depot with different pants on.
That makes sense. You can sayit doesn't make sense, but that
makes sense. You struct you allthose contents in your pockets missing, still

(51:08):
missing to this day, with thepants all because Milennu was so brutally murdered
that there was blood everywhere and onyour pants, and you had to get
rid of them. You had to. That makes sense. What doesn't make
sense is that attack on her,that attack, and you decide your mind
to go with her with such forceand vengeance that that much blood is produced

(51:32):
that ends upon your pants. Regardingthe missing phone, the police were able
to obtain two notable phone records thatoccurred shortly after the murder. At ten
twenty eight am, the phone receiveda missed call, and at ten point
thirty two am, the phone useda cell tower to download some kind of

(51:54):
automatic software update. These two eventsplaced the phone and likely Rashan near a
shopping plaza about ten miles north ofthe Harvest View apartments, just a few
minutes away from the home depot.The detectives believed that Rashan dumped the phone

(52:15):
and his bloody clothes into a dumpsteraround this time and around this area.
None of these items wherever recovered.Again, the detectives had a decent case
against Rashaan, but all their evidencewas circumstantial. A lot of circumstantial cases

(52:36):
up there in Baltimore doesn't mean themurder didn't happen. Rashan had lied to
the police several times. He hadthe means and opportunity to commit the murder.
But if a prosecutor was going toconvince twelve people in a jury box
that Rashan was guilty, they weregoing to need a motive. Pieces with

(53:00):
peace, What causes holding to havein that catalyst? What made a snap?
What went off? Like I said, people either planet or having spur
of the moment. So you're noteven thinking we wouldn't gone, got a
warrant that was the case, andyou got a bunch of bullshit. I

(53:23):
take a bunch of shit, jumpput it together. I'm sorry, on
a witch witch hunt, find theperson who did this. During this interview,
Rareshawn doesn't so much just deny theaccusations against him as much as he

(53:45):
claims that the cops have nothing onhim, which in itself is interesting.
I don't know about you, butif I was charged with the murder I
didn't commit, I wouldn't be tellingthe cops they don't have enough evidence.
I'd clearly be telling them I didn'tdo it. That's not what was happening

(54:07):
in this particular circumstance, though nonetheless, Rashawn was either confident that he would
not be convicted of this crime,or he was pretending to be confident and
he wasn't about to share his motive. But that was okay because detectives had
figured it out and they had evidenceto back it up. You know,

(54:30):
if you talk to Fanessa, ifhe talked about before, she gave us
a little background on all deleation ship. Yeah, yeah, yeah, leading
ship. That's one of the oneswe wouldn't talk to. And she told
us about Melinda and her workouts,and she's tough holding people accountable for stuff,
and not the easiest thing, theeasiest to work for. Sometimes everybody's

(54:53):
got their own styles, you knowwhat I mean, that's what supposed to
you. Yeah, I mean that'sdefinitely some people. Yeah, some people
look at it. That's what she'ssupposed to do. That's her job as
a boss, just to hold peopleaccountable. Vanessa seemed to think that it
was made a little over the topand she had a little bit of an
issue with her, so I guessit's part of the recent love to her
being fired. Melinda Schaeffer was extremelygood at her job and she always went

(55:19):
above and beyond with the job askedof her. She sincerely cared about her
tenants and making Harvest View a greatplace to live. Naturally, any other
employee at Harvest View that didn't sharethat attitude and that goal was going to
clash with Melinda, and that's whyher former assistant, Vanessa Coates was fired.

(55:42):
Unsurprisingly, it turned out that Rashawnwas having a similar issue. Poor
were performance, at least in theeyes of the supervisor. That's typically what
leads up to a person being fired, right, right, And did we
know that you had some issues tosome work issues. I guess there was
a time when I guess the workwas kind of slipping a little bit in

(56:05):
somebody's eyes, maybe not your eyes. As detectives investigated this case and began
looking into Melinda's work life, theyfound an interesting text exchange on her cell
phone between her and Rashaan. Rashawnhad asked Melinda, quote, are y'all
getting rid of me over this?End? Quote? This text related to

(56:30):
a repair issue on the property thatRashaan was supposed to have resolved but never
did. As a result, Melindaended up needing to hire and pay a
third party repairman, which kind ofyou know, defeats the fucking point.
On top of that, Rashon wasalready on thin ice because he'd recently gotten

(56:52):
into trouble for lying and covering forVanessa Coates when she came into work late.
This lie landed Rashaan on work probationfor thirty days, and he was
told that if there were any moreinfractions, he would be fired, no
matter how minor or major the infractionwas. Do you think you're in uh

(57:16):
good graces with the Zoo the entiretime? HM, as far as your
work performance, you think so,despite the fact that you were put on
in probation in period I was withfire, was helling he was leading up
to that point. She said,Lyn's got a lot of documentation, Like

(57:37):
I said, She's a healthy notetaker. The detectives knew that Melinda was
either about to fire Rashaan or wasseriously considering it because she told her regional
manager about Rashaan's crappy work performance onmore than a few occasions. There was
also a ledger on her desk thatdocumented his screw ups. The detectives also

(58:00):
discovered that Melinda had edited a personnelaction form on her computer the night before
she was killed. This forum isbasically a pack up your shit, you're
fired notice that is given to anemployee when they are let go. Of
course, for someone to commit murderjust because they are about to be fired

(58:23):
is pretty extreme, but Rashon hadmore to lose than just his job.
Rashon wasn't the only maintenance supervisor atHarvest View. He was also a tenant,
and because of his employment, hisrent was reduced considerably. Rashan lived

(58:44):
with his wife, his eight yearold daughter, and his two year old
son. The roof he was keepingover their heads was dependent on his Harvest
View employment, the employment he seemedto take for granted. This whole thing.
You've been suspended. I mean basically, if you get fired from there,

(59:05):
you lose your job, possible tolose your place of to live where
your family can live. You andyour wife and get two kids. So
if you just find out that Vanessa, if you just find out the Vanessa
guy laid off, now, nextthing you know, you think that it's
coming at you. You're the nextone line. Because you know that they
don't think that you're doing a goodjob, they go stretching it again.

(59:27):
I'm not stretching anything. I knowVanessa fired, and I know that you
were under a microscope. If me, Linda comes to you with something about
needing to get your stuff together.Now one little nagging piece of her causes
you to snap. She's just tryingto do her job. She's just trying
to hold you accountable for doing yours. I don't sunderstand. I had nothing
to do with it. Man,you're not doing your job. You're on

(59:52):
the verge of being fired, andshe's holding you accountable. So she comes
at you and she tells you,yeah, I get yourself together. Then
you go after Freeze and somehow thatturns into his brutal attack. On the
morning of Melinda's murder, Rashan returnedto the leasing office after buying batteries at

(01:00:15):
the nearby dollar store. We don'tknow and we'll probably never know, what
conversation he and Melinda had when hegot back, but detectives believe that Melinda
either warned Rashaan that he was goingto be fired, or Rashaan saw the
personnel action form on Melinda's desk andput two and two together. Either way,

(01:00:39):
this caused Rashon to snap and violentlyattack Melinda like an animal. There
was an intense struggle between them.Melinda fought for her life, but Rashwan
got the best of her and stabbedher sixty nine times in the upper body

(01:01:00):
and head with a knife. AfterMelinda was dead, Rashan attempted to clean
up the scene, but there wastoo much blood and he had to know
that the cleaning lady would be returningto the office at any minute. Rashan
fled the office through the back door, taking his work phone and the murder

(01:01:21):
weapon with him, but he laterthrew away at a nearby shopping plaza dumpster,
along with his bloody work jacket andbloody work pants. Again, none
of these items were ever recovered.Detectives believed that after Rashaan disposed of the
evidence, he went to home depotand the real reason why he didn't buy

(01:01:42):
anything was because he was only thereto establish an alibi, only there to
get his mug on cam. Youasked me if we if I found the
person. Yeah, I found theperson. You killed her, Marshall that
she killed her. So you think, mm hmmm, I'm sorry that you
think it's funny. It's funny.I'm not comunicated. You think it's your

(01:02:07):
whole situations it's funny. We don'tthink any of its funny. I've been
saying this situation is funny. Imean it's not funny. It's not funny
with would happen. I'm not sayingthat's funny, but I'm saying what y'all
present is like, come on,man, be for real, like y'all
really gonna lock me up that younever said now one logical thing for none

(01:02:32):
of this logical to you. Idon't enough to go up. Just charge
somebody, like explained him. Wegot we ain't got nothing, man,
We got some old ship about somemissing keys and missing phones. The fuck
fuck it. I can't believe youeven got a charge because of that.

(01:02:53):
Rashawn may have been overconfident, buthe wasn't entirely wrong. The evidence against
him strongly suggested that he was guilty, but it was also circumstantial. The
detectives worked hard to solve the crime, but they didn't have anything rock solid,
like DNA fingerprints or a murder weapon. A prosecutor was going to have

(01:03:16):
to try to convince twelve American jurorsof Rashawn's guilt. While defense attorneys challenged
all of the circumstantial evidence, tryingto poke holes in anything they possibly could,
as they do. In April twentyfifteen, two years after Melinda was

(01:03:37):
killed, Rashawn's murder case went totrial. The trial lasted for five days,
and several members of Melinda's family werein attendance, including her father.
She cared about everybody. This iswhat burns me up. I don't want
to see this guy on the faceof the sort anymore. If you want
to know, donestly got true.I wanted a guy to be prosecuted to

(01:04:00):
the full extent of the law,and I hope to guy and I pray
that he goes away for the restof his life. For five agonizing days,
Melinda's family watched and listened as theprosecution laid out their case against Rashawn
Williams, which included describing Melinda's finalhorrific moments alive in the painful, brutal

(01:04:23):
way that she was killed. Mydaughter was stabbed sixty nine times, and
when they talk about that, itcrushed us. The prosecution's theory was Williams
snapped when it appeared Schaeffer was aboutto fire him. Documents detailing Williams's poor
work performance, and a termination formwere found on her desk in the leasing
office. Felisa. Williams also couldn'texplain why surveillance video at two stores that

(01:04:46):
morning showed him in two different outfitsright before and right after Schaeffer's death.
In the end, the evidence wasn'tenough to convict Rashaan a first degree murder,
and the jury returned a not guiltyverdict. However, they also returned

(01:05:06):
another verdict, apparently after hearing allof the evidence, the jury was convinced
that Rashwan had committed the crime,but they believed that it wasn't planned.
As a result, Rashawn was foundguilty of second degree murder. For that,

(01:05:27):
Melinda's family was grateful. I wantto thank first of all the jury
for their verdict, and today inBaltimore County Circuit Court, Williams was sentenced
to thirty years in prison, endinga tough case for Shaffer's family, who
came from California to listen to incourt. He hasn't said yet exactly why.

(01:05:48):
One day, maybe he will.Maybe one day he'll reach out and
say to me why. As ofMarch twenty twenty, three. Rashawn Williams

(01:06:08):
has not explained why he did whathe did, but it's not difficult to
make an educated guess. Melinda Schaefferwas a young woman just doing her job,
and it was a job that shedid so well. She excelled at
that job. She expected people aroundher to excel at their own jobs as

(01:06:32):
well. Imagine that, Imagine expectingpeople to do their fucking job. Imagine
what a world it would be.Rashaan's shitty work performance clashed with Melinda's exceptional
work ethic, and Rashwan found himselfon the chopping block. His livelihood was

(01:06:56):
threatened, and as an employee anda resident of Harvest View, he had
a lot to lose, and whenhe saw it all slipping away, he
didn't work harder to try to keepit. He didn't do any self reflection
and realize how it was kind ofhis fault to begin with. Rashaan didn't
consider that maybe he was the reasonfor all the bad things that were happening

(01:07:20):
to him, because couldn't be.That couldn't be personal responsibility, that can't
be it. Instead, he blamedMelinda, the white girl at the leasing
office, and in a fit ofblind rage, he brutally stabbed her to

(01:07:41):
death. That's reality. You canlike it or not, doesn't change it
from being reality. Sadly, thisis another one of those cases where evil
is seemingly one. A young wifeand beloved daughter lost her life and what

(01:08:04):
was truly a senseless murder. Atleast thanks to some good police work,
Melinda and her family got a littlebit of justice, a little bit of
peace and maintenance man for Sean Williamsgot thirty years to think about the lives

(01:08:26):
that he destroyed. That's going todo it. And as we look forward

(01:08:49):
to Thanksgiving here, I am verythankful for all of you. So have
a wonderful Thanksgiving. Stay safe,Hey, Mike. Last Thanksgiving, it

(01:09:49):
was my first Thanksgiving by myself.I just went through a divorce over I
guess kind of a woke crap that'sgoing on. But you talked about how
we should all be safe and lovedas we should be, and we all
want that. But then he saidthat we're all a part of this big

(01:10:13):
family, and that means a lotto me at the time. It still
means a lot to me now.So I just want to say thank you
for all you do. I knowIt takes a lot of hard work,
and you've got a lot of pressureand a lot of haters on you,
but thank you b