The Disturbing Line-Dancing Murder Mystery | The Case of Ashley Reeves | UNSEEN

I'm Harvey Ghien, and this is Killer Stories. Every Monday, I'm cutting the lights. I'm telling you a bedtime story. Except, these stories are all real. We're talking brazen heist, devastating cons, serial murders, and cases that defy tidy categories. So join me for new episodes of Killer Stories with Harvey Ghien, every Monday. Or so he thought, "She's breathing. Good EMT, right?" Assulted, paralyzed, and left for dead. 17-year-old Ashley Reeves never thought having a friendship with a gym teacher would end up nearly costing her her life. But she survived because of the relentless officers who found her in the nick of time. They were out in the woods looking for a body, but she was there fighting for her life. It still boggles my mind that I couldn't be dead right now. In the small village of Millsdat, Illinois, sporty teenager Ashley is living with her parents and her younger sister, Casey, who looks up to her. It was a strong person. She was always out. She had a lot of friends. She knew what she was going to do in life. She was smart. She'd never really drank a lot or was in a drug or anything like this. And she was basically very responsible. She has a loving boyfriend, but this particular week she got in a fight with him. It's April 27, 2006. Ashley leaves the house at around 3pm, informing her mother that she has a job interview in a neighboring town. She drives off and her boyfriend's pickup truck. It's 10.30 that night. Ashley never showed up at the house in time to take care of her little sister like she promised. Not being home before 10, her curfew has never happened. It was always the rule that at 10 o'clock if you can't make it you that phone better be ringing by 10 o'clock. Don't make me worry. Ashley isn't answering her phone or any of her texts. Michelle, her mother, starts to panic. Her and Casey look around the house for clues as to where she might have gone. Casey thinks of checking the family's cell phone bill. She finds dozens of calls from an unknown number to Ashley's phone. And she opens it up and she goes, "Oh, and I go, what?" And she goes, "Mom, this is all the same number." And I said, "Most of all, call it, whose number it's in." When Michelle calls the number, on the other end is a familiar voice. Sam Shelton, a gym teacher, Ashley has become close friends with. I knew she was in contact with Sam. I actually thought he was a very nice guy. Michelle asks Sam if he has any idea where her daughter could be. He was very respectful, very polite, reassured me that he was sure that there was nothing to worry about. Michelle knows her daughter would never miscurve you. So she calls the sheriff's office to report Ashley missing. Unfortunately, we get a few calls that are like that. But there was something with her voice that really sounded very stressful. And I said, "You know, Captain, this one sounds a little bit different. I think we probably need to run with this one right away." As the police begin their investigation, Michelle is worried sick at home. She calls all of Ashley's friends. Everyone tries to get in contact with her to no avail. Michelle spends a sleepless night waiting for a call, fearing the worst. Every horrible thought there possibly could be is going through your head and running it over and over and over and you're thinking, "Oh, you know, this isn't stuff you see on TV. This can't be, I mean, never see my child again." And that is the most horrible feeling in the world. April 28, it doesn't take long for the cops to find the pickup truck Ashley was driving, parked less than 10 miles from her house, at Latterman Park. Inside, they find clothes she brought for her interview and basketball clothes. Why would a young female be played basketball on a park far away from school? The question makes the officer wonder if Ashley was hiding something, but there's no trace of Ashley. Police have no choice but to bring in the usual suspects. Ashley's boyfriend, Jeremy Thomas Smith, had a fight with her that Wednesday. He's the first name on the list. Can you state your full name? Jeremy, Thomas Smith, and when was the last time that you talked to her? It was yesterday between -- right, it was around noonish, between like 11 and 1. I called her, looked voice note earlier that morning. She called me a lunch to see what I wanted and I asked her to bring my truck back. She said, "No, I'm going to go to this interview and I'm going to go play basketball." This confirms what Lieutenant Michael Huntelt suspected. She had arranged to meet someone to go play basketball. Why didn't she tell her mom or her sister she was going to play basketball? According to Lieutenant Huntelt, Jeremy isn't raising any suspicions. His tone of voice is appropriate. His explanations are coherent. "He seemed like he cared for Ashley quite a bit, but I had a strong feeling that he didn't really know anything that was going on." At this point, Jeremy is the only person aware that Ashley was headed to Latterman Park. But who is Ashley going to meet there? Only one name comes to mind. "Sam, the teacher is a friend of yours, I believe. What's their relationship like? What's that?" "Just a friend?" "So they play basketball together?" "They played it a couple times that I know of." "Do they talk quite a bit with each other?" "Yeah, they talk a lot. He calls whenever, you know, I'm around and like I said, I don't mind." Lieutenant Huntelt takes notes of the phone calls made by Sam Shelton. As you will see later on, it will come in useful. Lieutenant Huntelt can tell Ashley's boyfriend is fully aware of the close relationship between Sam and his girlfriend, but they still can't understand how Ashley's meeting with the 26-year-old gym teacher led to her disappearance. "I don't think you would ever do anything to harbor, you know, it's just, it doesn't seem like it's his major." "He was actually considered at the time a minor lead, because what had been told to us was he was a friend of Ashley's that they would just kind of play basketball together." Lieutenant Huntelt and Sergeant Stockett take the young coach out of basketball practice. "I just made you known for the work of Sam Shelton." Sam Shelton is respected by all, admired by many, and occasionally causes teenage girls to fall for him. "He knew he was good-looking and charming and. " "All the students seemed to love him. I'm Mr. Shelton, you know, very respectful of him." His reputation even spread to a neighboring high school, like Columbia, where Ashley is a student, but even if everyone loves perfect gym teacher Sam, something's off. Why would a teacher hang out with a 17-year-old girl from a different school? When the interrogation begins, they find that Sam is very friendly and cooperative, but he denies having seen her at all that day. "I really do not know where she is. I have no idea." In fact, he denies having any sort of relationship with Ashley in the first place, which tips off the interrogators. They confront him with the pages of phone records showing hundreds of calls and text messages he exchanged with Ashley. Right away, Sam changes his story. Now he admits being close to Ashley, saying that she came after him. "He should have served one of the sessions with me, but like I said, she was calling me not, like, literally not a star of a time." This time, Lieutenant Hundilt recalls what Ashley's boyfriend Jeremy said in his interrogation. "He calls whenever, you know, I'm around, like I said, I don't mind." Apparently, Sam is the one who calls Ashley all the time, but now he's trying to convince interrogators he never wanted anything to do with her. "Something wasn't right with this guy. He kept changing his story after hours and hours he would add more information or change what he initially said." "I felt like he knew more than what he was telling us." The interrogators are beginning to see clearly now. Sam is hiding something, and it's more than just his friendship with a teenage girl. But as time passes, their chances of finding Ashley alive decrease rapidly. They can't wait around. They have to make him talk. "We know something happened Ashley, and we know without a doubt the investigation clearly shows without a doubt, Sam, that you know what happened." Finally, after hours of questioning and going around in circles, Sam's defense begins to crack. He confesses he did see her that day. All of that about 650 was talking to her. She went me on that line to park about 345 4 o'clock, somewhere around that. When he said "I met her at the park that day," that right there was kind of gave me the "O" feeling that there's something wrong here. "We're just driving down that four-bound road." Yeah, I just suddenly explained, "I can't do this. I don't want to do this." I pulled over there on the side of the road to talk. It says, "I can't stand, so I mean she was screaming, and y'all and I do not stand." "I got mad, and I said, "Please, get out." And she woken, she woken out. But the client part went over and opened up my door. And I pulled her seatbelt off, and I pulled her. And it's there out there." The officers don't buy his story. The problem is, in Sam's version, Ashley is alive and well. "I think he was going to try to just manipulate us, continue to talk to us and be cooperative. You know, just kind of play them all and hope that this all just go away." "I left her there. This is what I did. I left her out there. I radio range rode. I left her right out there." You mean to tell me that this is a person that you cared for, that you left her on the side of the road, but you didn't even try to talk to her, call her after that? I said, "I find it hard to believe." It was points I'm gonna be honest with you where I was just like, "This guy's not giving us anything." Sam's not telling the truth. It's been 30 hours since Ashley disappeared, and the investigators are beginning to think Sam might never give in. Time is running out. Chief of Police, Steven Johnson, comes in to talk to Sam, alone. He uses his personal connection with him to pull at his heartstrings. This is where the first real break happens. If I left from here, and I went and talked to grandma right now, and I laid down this whole story that you're saying, "What grandma gonna say?" I just wanna go home, I just wanna explain to mom grandma exactly what happened. Grandma's not here. I don't know. Your mom's not here. Oh, but you know what? In a way they are, because everything they taught you, all the talks grandma had with you, all of them were, and unfortunately right now Sam, he ain't telling us the truth. And you need to, you have to, for mom, for grandma. When he asked to be alone, I knew he was ready to confess. Can I go show you what happened? Please. We still out there, Sam. She is. And where's it in? That's true. But you're gonna try. You're there. I just think I have the next thing I'd like to do, children out there. Sam's depiction of what he did to Ashley is too graphic. Out of respect for the victim, we won't be sharing this part of the interrogation. After 12 hours of grueling interrogation, the officers switch into high gear and speed toward the area Sam is leading them to. But according to Sam, all they're going to find is a body. Okay. Came in there. I don't know. I came in the woods and I just started moving. It's raining, freezing, Sam can't seem to find his bearings and his walking in circles. After we had walked through the woods for probably 20, 30 minutes or so, I was beginning to wonder if he was maybe just kind of taking us on a wild goose chase and playing with us again. Oh. I really hate it. Perfect. Finally, flashlights land on a grisly discovery. Ashley's broken body is laying there, arm stiff up front. She was laying on the ground, on her back, obviously deceased. There was thousands of insect bites all over her. She'd been out there for a long time. All of a sudden, they notice her chest is moving. After more than 30 hours on the ground outside, under rain and frost, Ashley is holding on to life. The officers can't believe what they're seeing. Good EMT. Good EMTs. I saw her chest rise and it was just like, oh my god. Ashley? It was just panicky. Ashley. Can you hear me? Can you talk to me? Oh my god. We found her. She is. She's alive. The EMTs have to clear a path through the woods to carry her out. It takes him an hour to get her inside the ambulance and on her way to the hospital. But as Ashley's barely holding on to life, every second, they risk losing her. I didn't have a whole lot of faith that she was going to survive the trip to the hospital. My concern was that she may not make it through the night or may not make it through the next couple of days or so. Ashley's mom, Michelle, is terrified at the idea that her daughter might not make it through the night. There's no blinkery sponsor. The pain responds to her, anything, just a span. But as she held on to life in the woods, beyond what doctors thought was statistically impossible, Ashley beats the odds and survives. Her recovery is slow and she requires constant care and physical therapy. Her brain and spine were greatly affected. She has to relearn everything, how to walk, but also how to talk. Ashley has no memory of that evening. She still doesn't understand what happened to her. How Sam, who she considers a dear friend, could have done something like this. "I want to know exactly what happened to me. For the longest time, I didn't want to believe that Sam did it." But the perfect picture she holds of that man she called her friend is quickly tarnished when she hears what he said during the interrogation. But more importantly, what he did after he left her for dead. Sam Shelton was caught on tape, lying dancing at a local club, mere moments after the attack. "Very, very aggravating. He was one of my thoughts, one of my good friends, and he dumped me in the woods and went dancing." And on his phone, text messages to other teenage girls show he didn't wait long to go flirting again. "We've had several families come forward and he's had numerous relationships with other young girls. But he doesn't seem to have much remorse when he asks this particular question after his confession. And remember, this happened before he took the police to see Ashley. It seems he was more worried about his well-being in jail than about helping the cops. "Am I able to get, like, a little private toilet because I can't pee, move people around, because my ear and neck stress disorder?" "Yeah. I don't know. I'm miserable if I can't pee." "Yeah." The question remains, what triggered Sam to act like this? Did Ashley say something that set him off? "Ultimately, I don't think there is anything that I could have done to even set anybody off like that." One thing she does remember is his fiery temper. "He definitely liked to get his way. If he was told no, then he'd throw it. Did you find it odd when he was text messaging you all the time? You said he kind of wanted to know where you were all the time." "At the time, I didn't, but now that I think about it, should have caught on, but I didn't." Police think he wanted more from his relationship with Ashley, but couldn't take the rejection. "Originally, he had said that they played basketball, and then he had said they were friends, and then he had said he wanted a relationship with her." "I don't know if that's what he wanted. I mean, because I was in a serious relationship at the time. I guess kind of a time we grew closer because we did hang out and play basketball so much. He wanted that he would very secret that we were spending time together and playing basketball together. If the principal found out or one of the other teachers found out, then he would lose his job." As Ashley recovers from her injuries in trauma, she's preparing to face Sam and Trial. His lawyers claimed the confession video cannot be used in court because it was recorded before the cops read him his rights, but the judge rules against it, and the evidence will be eligible in court. Because of this, Sam Shelton pleads guilty to attempted murder. The judge sentenced him to 20 years in prison in 2007. Ashley doesn't let what Sam Shelton did to her stray her from her path. For a long time, she couldn't walk. The thought of running like she loved to, or play sports, was a long way down the road. But at a time when she was ready to give up, she tackled the most unusual task. She decided to watch the recovery video of her rescue. "I just felt like I wanted to see, I wanted to know where I started, to kind of just give me a sense of strength and kind of how far I've come." One of her proudest moments, she says, was walking across the finish line at a fundraising race, organized in her honor. Now, after years of rehabilitation, with grit and determination, Ashley Reeves has come a very long way. She's a loving mother of two children. "I've parted myself to do better, to be stronger." She's tough. One of the toughest people that she would meet. Today, she hopes her story can inspire others in their darkest hour. "Don't give up. Don't ever give up on yourself. There's bigger, better things out there. I've gone through plenty of hardships and it's just just keep fighting. For a day, it's a struggle, but you just gotta keep on charging."