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31 - Ashley Reeves and Omaima Nelson
99 Plays1 year ago
Sam shares the insane story of Omaima Nelson, and Jeff recounts the harrowing story of Ashley Reeves. Enjoy. Merry Christmas, and see you in 2025!
Visit us on Linktree for the collection of links, Instagram, or email us at downtherabbitholethepod@gmail.com.
Jeff's Sources
- The Harrowing Survival Story of Ashley Reeves (YouTube)
- Sam Shelton's Story (YouTube)
- "Former Freeburg Teacher Sam Shelton Released on Parole" by KSDK
- Additional Details on Ashley Reeves (YouTube)
Sam's Sources
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Schedule
00:00:01
Jeff Rogers
Hello, Sam. Hello, Jeffrey.
00:00:25
Jeff Rogers
Well, hello. Hi. How are you? I'm well, how are you? I just got so excited. and I know. Welcome to Down the Rabbit Hole with Sam and Jeff, or Jeff and Sam. I'm Jeff. And I'm Sam. Hey, hey, hey. Hey, hi. Where can you find us? You can find us on Instagram at down the rabbit hole a pod, or you can reach out to us at down the rabbit hole pod at gmail dot.com.
00:00:47
Jeff Rogers
Listen, we're going to be here for you every Thursday with a little show for you on Mondays. Okay. So consistently, we're going to be doing that for you. we were And right before we hit record,
Personal Anecdotes: Army-Navy Game and Sports Preferences
00:01:00
Jeff Rogers
I was like, I'm feeling kind of anxious. as was i Why we've been doing this for six months. Uh-huh. Yeah.
00:01:11
Jeff Rogers
six months we've been doing this true and but you know what's funny is as soon as that music started playing both of us started dancing and then the vibe completely changed oh what's new your channel your channeling dolly i'm channeling dolly and my dolly t-shirt yes you are and my sweatpants yeah under a blanket because it is so cold it is and so gray but yeah i mean i guess it's finally starting to feel like winter i don't know feel like winter let me tell you feel like winter i was at uh so my family from hawaii came in which you know because you joined us for dinner last friday night i did we went to the red hen italian ah delicious chef's kiss
00:01:50
Jeff Rogers
So my cousin goes to West Point. So um her mom and dad came in from Hawaii, and we all, including my sister, who you met, we can' all went to the Army Navy game last Saturday. It was so cold. I tried to prepare you as much as I could. okay And I forgot. You left my hand warmers. I left your hand warmers in the car. I was OK though. And I think everybody was OK, even the Hawaii people.
00:02:20
Jeff Rogers
because they were more shattered by the fact that the army was losing and lost. I don't give a shit about football. Not even a little bit. Yes. And also enjoy because we have a lot of, we're friends with a lot of Navy people, we are close friends and a lot of army people are close friends too. So ah the Navy was winning. They were so happy. Honestly, it was like the liveliest group of people it's ah It's an extraordinary environment to be in. It really is. we okay well I actually can't finish that sentence. um But it's nice to see the cadets and the thank everyone who is while they're at school, because when when individuals go to those schools, they are more strictly
00:03:12
Jeff Rogers
I don't want to say controlled, but monitored. And they have to be these professional and all that kind of stuff. So watching those games is always so fun because they show up and they all look really, really organized and beautiful in all of their uniforms.
00:03:33
Jeff Rogers
Oh, that was cool. But then but then the game started to go on and nobody can stop. And you know you've got these people in these like fancy dress uniforms just going bonkers. And they're allowed to. It's kind of cool. It's kind of cool. And yeah, I think, honestly, because of the way the game was going and the army was losing, yes I think I was the only one in my little group of four people that was actually enjoying being there because of the experience of it all. And I hate football. I will never like football. So it's funny because our cousin lives in Oregon. um He's on a like a text message, a group text with my sister and Jai that were here.
00:04:14
Jeff Rogers
and i know they know that i know nothing about football so i texted when everybody walked away
Gift Exchange and Podcast Reflections
00:04:20
Jeff Rogers
i went to explore or whatever i stayed in the bleachers and i texted jason and i was like hey text him and say is jeff okay he's asking when the next inning is or how many innings are in the game Listen, that's okay. That's okay. Not everyone's made for sports. Uh, you know, I'm not, not that sport. <unk> Oh my God. Like a plate. Okay. Here's my beef with that game. Oh, tell me about it. And this is just my beef and it always has been actually like the play starts and in three seconds they've paused for three minutes and it's like, come on. What is this about? That's why you got to come to hockey with me.
00:05:01
Jeff Rogers
but It's a totally different experience. yeah Hockey is, in my opinion, one of the only true sports left. And I love it. I love it. And it's not like that. You know you can go minutes on end without a penalty or a game stoppage. And then, OK, so what? The the puck gets hit up and out. And so you have to pause for a second. and like get another buck, and then they just start. It's you know it's seconds. yeah The longest pauses are in between the periods, which it's periods. It's not innings. It's not halves. It's not quarters. It's periods.
00:05:43
Jeff Rogers
um but it's just such an experience oh that was the painful part for me it was like watching the quarter tick down like wait there were 15 minutes the fuck is happening why are we sitting at two minutes for 12 minutes yeah i don't know anyway it was fun we had a fun i was I'm glad that I got a chance to go. That was just awesome. I'm glad you got a chance to go, too. I'm glad that you met my family. oh It was so wonderful. We had a good dinner, though, didn't we? We had a lovely dinner. And like going to see the Christmas tree afterwards. Such an awesome experience. And then Carla. Hey, Carla. I just left this with you. It's a calendar of, like, Hawaii. and Oh, my god. It's a turtle. Uh-huh.
True Crime Story: Omaima Aree Nelson
00:06:30
Jeff Rogers
Oh, I can't wait to visit you guys. ah So also Merry Christmas, everybody. Merry Christmas. It's Christmas. And this is the end of twenty twenty four, which is insane to me. Twenty twenty four. Where did it go? I had such I was thinking about this. Such a good twenty twenty four. same it Honest to God, it was incredible. I was in India.
00:07:00
Jeff Rogers
just being amazed at India. Then I went to Nepal and then flew in a fucking helicopter around Mount Everest. Who does that? Smart people. It's insane. And then don't climb danced into a cathedral in Italy at 1600s Cathedral in Italy. ah Zurich, Germany.
00:07:24
Jeff Rogers
It was a good year. It was a very good year. It was a good year. yeah It was a really good year. You're right. You're right. What about you? How was yours? Yours was good too? It was awesome. i you know It was it boy awesome. Genuinely, from start to finish, there was nothing that I could complain about. I loved it. And then we also started this in June. And this has been fun. was Technically, we attempted to start it in like March. Yeah, we did. We kept failing. We kept failing. And we may fail today because when the family came and we all piled up in this place, I had people in the living room, people in the guest bedroom, people on the couch. Let me tell you, I had to take all this apart. It was cozy and put it all away. And then I had to put it together. So if we randomly disappear into your ear or into into that's where we are. Probably.
00:08:18
Jeff Rogers
I want to thank you for allowing us to be in your ears. But if we stop, if we disappear, I suppose Jeff put it together. Sam, you know that it's true, right? I do. I do. But it's better than if Sam put it together. Exactly. ah um So because it's Christmas time, Sam, I got you a little something.
00:08:36
Jeff Rogers
You did. And it is the most fabulous look. I mean, even just the outside. OK, so I haven't opened it yet. This is my first time, but I have to take a picture of it. OK, so I'll describe it. OK, the bag, first of all, the bag came from a co-op in India, and it was a co-op that hired all these women to make paper products. So that was made at the co-op. I think it was called Tarragon.
00:09:01
Jeff Rogers
Was it the same yeah place where I got my journal? Yes. oh And I bought some of those bags, and I have no idea why I bought the bags. But now I do, because it's to give a present to you. So Sam's attempting to work her way through the stuff that's just in the bag, the tool that's in the bag. She's working her way through. Maybe. Maybe. It's just tied. All you have to do is untie it like shoelace. Who said they know how to untie shoelaces?
00:09:30
Jeff Rogers
i didn't yeah it was a good year spectacular actually and this is a fun little thing that we do with each other every week and so in 2025 we promise you that we're gonna continue to do this it's gonna get better it's gonna get better and better and better i have an idea to do badass women shows i love it hell yeah oh the first one on my list i could get a tattoo of a human on my arm on my body somewhere it would be this person besides me obviously obviously besides you uh so i look forward to that and we'll be here in your ear holes most mondays most thursdays tune in it's just gonna get better because we are just so professional im my guy and in the least
00:10:16
Jeff Rogers
So the other night, Sam, you were sick. And I said, I think it's because you have an anaphylactic reaction to rapping gifts um jokingly, of course, because it's not a thing. But you said, can we get that in a doctor's note? So kind of just read the doctor's note, please. To whom it may concern. And this is on like official letterhead, by the way.
00:10:42
Jeff Rogers
ah Due to a rare gift wrapping hypersensitivity leading to anaphylaxis, Samantha Smith, RN, must
Survival Story: Ashley Reeves
00:10:50
Jeff Rogers
wrap a gift for every child in Northern Virginia this holiday season and every holiday season after. So it shall be. Thank you, Joseph.
00:11:01
Jeff Rogers
i am so unhappy i was really hoping it would be different no no it was joe that did it so um of course it had to be joed up a little bit and then this next thing sam honest to god getting to know you this year has been a delight but getting to know you and what we talk about when we go for walks and when we sit across this table for with each other for an hour and people fucking listen to this show that we're doing together and I thought this is a gift for you because you've told me so many times how you like these little things. I loved turtles so much. What is it? It is, oh my god I'm gonna cry.
00:11:49
Jeff Rogers
uh sea turtles a complete guide to their biology behavior and conservation and it is oh oh my god i'm so excited isn't that cool oh it's so amazing i can't wait to learn so much more oh look at these little guys okay yeah you like it i love it my gift is not appropriate to open on figures
00:12:20
Jeff Rogers
um but oh like So once we're done recording, I'm gonna have to send a picture to Joe of that one in your hands, so he will... Oh my god, it will be hung on my wall in no time. Yes.
00:12:33
Jeff Rogers
Merry Christmas. Thank you for doing this with me. Thank you. to Let's do two chairs today. let's Let's do one right now for 2024 and for 2025 because it's going to be good. I think I think it's going to be great. I think it's going to be really good. So we're going to. This one is just simply a cheers to the old year. Cheers to the new year.
00:13:02
Jeff Rogers
And thank you for listening. People that listen just amazes me. Kim, a shout out to Kim. I had a chance to meet the other day that listens to the show. You know who you are. Thank you. Not to be confused with your sister Kim. Not to be confused with my sister Kim, but thank you. So cheers. Cheers. Quiz. Quiz. What are we drinking? Havana twist. Manhattan berry.
00:13:30
Jeff Rogers
I like the Havana twist. like that I don't like that. I just don't like that. I feel like it's weird now. There's definitely no aftertaste. You should taste mine. I feel like my taste buds have changed. Wait for it to sit in. yeah Okay, so we also have spicy chai.
00:13:57
Jeff Rogers
cause tis this season from Trader Joe's. Because Carla was like, let's go to Trader Joe's. And I was like, Carla, why do you want to go to Trader Joe's? Because they don't have them in Hawaii. I just can't believe I lived there and I didn't know they didn't have Trader Joe's. It's just funny, because Trader Joe's, they wear all the Hawaiian shirts, you know? It's so funny. I can't get with that drink. That's horrible.
00:14:21
Jeff Rogers
that's uh pretty special all right you're pretty special yes i am not as special as you though okay so are we ready to do this did we talk on and on and on and did we tell ayana that we missed ayana we haven't told her yet ayana with your pretty hair we miss you yeah and those big old Perfect. Shoes that you have. Oh, we went opposite directions there. Oh, sorry. Oh, we just really got on the microphone to talk about anything, don't we? We do. You know what? It's not going to stop. Nope, nope, nope. Oh man. Okay. So shall we ah flip a coin? Indeed we shall. Why flip a coin? Well, we flip a coin, Samantha, so that we can determine who tells their story first.
00:15:10
Jeff Rogers
We've amassed quite the collection of coins. We have. From all over the world. We have. People give them to us from. Should we go with the good old fashioned American coin? Hell yeah. Good old fashioned American coin. I don't know why I got Southern one to said that, but it did. It did, it came out. Good old fashioned America. I'm going to be the eagle because me. Hey, eagle when she soars. You can be the president. Okay, well that's the pressure. I would vote for you. Thank you.
00:15:39
Jeff Rogers
Something is happening with fate, because yet again, Sam has gone first. Oh my. This is a full disclosure to those of you that are faint of heart. Don't listen to my story. It's short, but it's not OK. It packs a punch. It packs a punch. Do we choose quiz one more time? Absolutely. Because we can't get enough of it. Cheers, quiz. Cheers, quiz.
00:16:07
Jeff Rogers
Why do we get accents when we say that? I don't know. You started it. It was the Italian thing. I don't know. It was some kind of Italian something. Cheers, queers. New York. That is a New York Italian. It's funny that I associate the two. It's something special. OK, so I'll dive right into this. Like I said, it's relatively short. It's harsh. It's rough. It is a Thanksgiving tribute. I'm a few weeks late, obviously, because I had sent this to myself because I had worked on it at work and then I sent in an email instead of working on my computer. So I forgot it existed. So this is not for the sticky note? No. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Um, where am I? We're giving you a Thanksgiving story. We are because you know, it's a holiday season and follow the law. Yeah. And you know, why can't we celebrate Thanksgiving death? all year round. Right, right. Okay, so here we go. Omaima Aree Nelson was born in Egypt around 1968, we think. She had 15 siblings, one five, and ended up living with two of her sisters and her mother in a very poor part of the city. In 1986, after marrying an American citizen, she immigrated to U.S.
00:17:30
Jeff Rogers
the to have a better life. She and her husband ended up divorcing shortly after she moved here. But Amima remained in the States, primarily in Southern California, because who wouldn't want to live in Southern California, right you know? The weather, the palm trees. Perfect. She worked as a student nanny and at some point was a model as well. She was known for playing the field with men and almost constantly having multiple simultaneous relationships.
00:17:59
Jeff Rogers
She was also known to spend her time at bars under the alias of Ishta or Nadia, looking for sex with older men. She had quite an exciting, I don't know if that's really the word choice that I should use, but I don't know how else to describe it, few years. so After getting her license, she had 12 traffic violations. Her list of accomplishments, again, word choice, don't really know what else to say, but it sounds about right.
00:18:27
Jeff Rogers
included stealing a car from a boyfriend, accusations of armed robbery with a gun during consensual bondage, charges of battery on a female security guard that caught her shoplifting, she bit her in the boob. And yeah and accusations of holding a knife to another boyfriend's throat during what she claimed was a consensual sex game.
00:18:52
Jeff Rogers
At the age of 23, she met 56-year-old Bill Nelson while playing pool at a bar in Huntington Beach. I love Huntington. Bill was Bill. He wasn't a peach himself. He had just been released from prison after four years for attempting to smuggle 100 tons of marijuana across the Mexican border. Bill.
00:19:18
Jeff Rogers
the he You only got four years for it. Way to go Bill. Two days later. What year was this? um six d Sixty... Sixties? No, no, no. Seventies. I It was the nineties. It was in the next paragraph.
00:19:38
Jeff Rogers
um Two days after they met, Bill proposed to her. Bill's attorney had spoken to them during their honeymoon about the Egyptian marriage ceremony that reportedly happened in either Vegas or Phoenix, although neither city had any record record of their marriage. Bill's friends and coworkers said the couple was affectionate, but understandably, people thought that she had married him for his money. Just FYI, turns out Bill wasn't fully diverse divorced from his first wife, Kathy, at the time of this new supposed marriage.
00:20:15
Jeff Rogers
On November 28, 1991, just 27 days after the pair had met, Bill reportedly sexually assaulted her while she was tied up during bondage play. She struggled and broke free from her restraints. What happened next was wild.
00:20:33
Jeff Rogers
She hit him over the head with a lamp to disorient him and then quickly grabbed a pair of scissors and stabbed him repeatedly before finishing him off with a few great blunt force trauma injuries with an iron. have Over the next 12 hours, she slowly dismembered the body, boiled his hands and head trying to erase any identifiers.
00:21:01
Jeff Rogers
Because it was Thanksgiving, she mixed the chunks of his body up with leftover turkey and disposed of it in the garbage. Later, neighbors reported that she ran the garbage disposal for hours that night. Turns out she was trying to dispose of some other chunks of him that hadn't gone out of the turkey. She had castrated him as revenge for sexual assaults. Then, according to one of her psychiatrists,
00:21:32
Jeff Rogers
she slow cooked his rib cage like a rack of ribs. The same psychiatrist
Episode Reflection and Conclusion
00:21:40
Jeff Rogers
claimed that she had performed this, quote, cleanup in a trance and had suffered a psychotic episode. her On December 1st, she drove Nelson's car to a former boyfriend's house and tried to convince him to help her get rid of the evidence and his remaining body parts.
00:22:00
Jeff Rogers
The ex-boyfriend quickly demanded that she leave and alerted the authorities. Police arrived at the house and found a nightmare. there was ah There was blood covering most of the walls and furniture. Bits of human flesh was found all over the place in multiple rooms, hanging from the ceilings, some in plastic bags,
00:22:26
Jeff Rogers
I'm having a grotesquely moment. yeah Yeah. Yeah. I'm flashing back to the Australian woman. Yeah. Yeah. Tinfoil or card cardboard boxes. They recovered 11 containers from the house, a garbage bag from the car, a soup pot, a cooler that held Nelson's severed head,
00:22:53
Jeff Rogers
a deep fat fryer containing his hands, and a glass jar filled with some undisclosed human contents. Pretty sure we all know what that was. ah Bill Nelson was six foot four inches tall and weighed approximately 230 pounds. After retrieving all of the gunk, the coroner determined that they only had approximately 150 pounds of Bill Nelson. The remaining 80 pounds was unaccounted for.
00:23:24
Jeff Rogers
On December 2nd, she went to visit another friend asking for help. She told him she had been assaulted. She showed him marks on her wrists and cuts on her thighs, chest and feet. Then handed him a garbage bag with parts of Nelson, his entrails and some dentures.
00:23:41
Jeff Rogers
entrails, intestines. As compensation for helping, she offered him a few household appliances and $75,000 that didn't actually exist. He accepted and then politely excused himself to go get his truck. In reality, he was calling the police.
00:24:01
Jeff Rogers
Initially, Emma's crazy ass denied a fight between her and Nelson. She claimed that two women and three guys broke into their home, drugged her until she was unconscious, and murdered Nelson. According to her, this team of criminals then waited for her to leave and borrow the car the next day, and then went to work framing her for his murder by leaving bits of his dismembered body all over her apartment. She was arrested that same day.
00:24:29
Jeff Rogers
Her trial began a year later. Her attorney claimed self-defense, stating that she was traumatized by her childhood female genital mutilation, customary circumcision at that age. Due to this mutilation, she claimed that sex was always traumatic and painful, made all the worse by the repeated alleged sexual assaults during her brief marriage to Bill. He also claimed that the abuse she had endured in her childhood in Egypt left her suffering from battered woman syndrome.
00:24:58
Jeff Rogers
The arguments were shredded by the prosecution. Elmima's ex-husband took the stand to testify that she never once complained of pain or discomfort during their sexual encounters. Bill's ex-wife even testified that Bill was never violent or aggressive during their marriage. Elmima had a medical exam that concluded no signs of physical sexual trauma. The pathology report from Bill revealed that he had been tied up shortly before his death.
00:25:24
Jeff Rogers
The jury deliberated for six days and then found her guilty of second-degree murder. In January of 1992, she was sentenced to 27 years to life. Between 1992 and 2011, she was incarcerated at Central California Women's Facility and then transferred to California Institution for Women. Her exploits in jail weren't quite as exciting as her life before lockup, but she had an impressive record in prison as well.
00:25:50
Jeff Rogers
She had a number of disciplinary infractions, including fighting, battery of staff, possession of contraband, theft, arguing, failing to comply with instruction, and non-compliance with grooming standards, which, ew, just ew. You know how I feel about that. Throughout her incarceration, Omaima reportedly maintained many long distance relationships. In 2006, she claimed to be a born again Christian, but also gained rights to conjugal visits at the same time.
00:26:19
Jeff Rogers
This lucky man was 70 years old and was dead by 2011. After his death, she claimed that they had been married during one of their visits. She attempted to petition for habeas corpus in 2002 and 2019, but was denied each time. She became eligible for parole in 2006 and was denied on the grounds that she was unpredictable and a serious threat to public safety.
00:26:44
Jeff Rogers
again in 2011 she was denied parole because she still had not taken responsibility for the murder and quote would not be a productive citizen if she were freed oh that was a crazy one everything's giving that was crazy horrible i was thinking about the australian woman right absolutely it's so interesting that they both murdered them in like brutal violent attacks and then dismembered them and come to their things. What is going on? I don't even want to know. Women are crazy. What's going on inside the mind? It's impossible. I don't know how to respond to that. Did you say when she died? No. I saw 2019 she did something. Could she still be alive? Yeah. Oh. Indeed. Well, good job. Thank you. Thank you. Tis your turn. Okay.
00:27:40
Jeff Rogers
sit back relax take a load off okay mine is not mine is more of a typical true crime than yours i'm gonna say okay ready I'm going to tell you the story about Ashley Reeves. 2006, Ashley Reeves was 17 years old. She lived in Millstadt, Illinois. She lived with her parents, Michelle and Mike, and her sister, Cassie. But all accounts, Ashley was an amazing daughter. She was an amazing sister. She also did very well in school.
00:28:18
Jeff Rogers
And she was one of those students who excelled in sports. We know those kind. She's smart. She excels in sports. She was awesome. She was really liked. ah She was also looking forward to her future. She was graduating the next year where she wanted to study education in college.
00:28:36
Jeff Rogers
Her boyfriend Jeremy and her had been together for two years. They were high school sweethearts. And Jeremy honestly seemed like salt of the earth, lovely person, okay? So Ashley was living a little bit of a double life though.
00:28:53
Jeff Rogers
On April 27, 2006, Ashley sets off for her job for a job interview at about 3.30 in the afternoon. She used her boyfriend Jeremy's SUV. She said the job interview was about 15 miles away. After the job interview, she said she was going to go play basketball for a little bit. She's athletic, so nobody asks any questions.
00:29:15
Jeff Rogers
They're like, that's Ashley, that's what she's gonna do. um But Ashley has a strict curfew at 10 p.m. So about 10.30 when Ashley hadn't returned home, um this set off a lot of fear in her family's minds.
00:29:29
Jeff Rogers
Family soon found out that her friends and Jeremy hadn't heard from Ashley as well. She wasn't responding by text or by phone, by phone calls. So we get to about eight hours later and the police get very concerned. So the police put out an alert to all departments in the local area that there may be a missing girl. It's taken seriously right off the bat. Yeah, I mean, there's no like, twenty incredible. Yeah, immediately eight hours like go in and this is taken seriously.
00:29:58
Jeff Rogers
Eventually, police find Jeremy's car about 15 minutes away in Leaderman Park in Belleville, Illinois. Now, police and family are wondering why the car is abandoned. What's more suspicious is that when the police look at Jeremy's car, they find Ashley's clothes that she was going to wear to the interview, and they also find a lot of basketball attire, maybe a basketball in the back of the car, like the gym bag.
00:30:23
Jeff Rogers
um Now the police agree that something has happened here and what's happened isn't good. So the police begin to interview the people in Ashley's life, including her boyfriend, and you can watch the... This is another thing about this case. All of this that I'm telling you, you can watch the interrogation videos. I highly encourage you okay tell me twice Now and again, when you hear the rest of this to watch this shit. So, they interrogate Jeremy it was a very nice interrogation and Jeremy who's like 17 or 18 is just 100% and they know Ashley and
00:31:01
Jeff Rogers
Jeremy immediately, um, Jeremy looks like an innocent kid who's like, I love her. I don't, you know, I don't know. Yeah. You sort of feel sorry for him in the interview. He seems really authentic in the interview and you can see he really cares for Ashley. Very quickly, the police ruled Jeremy out. Ashley told him he was going to go play basketball though. And it was in this interview that the interviewer asked Jeremy about a man named Sam.
00:31:32
Jeff Rogers
the high school teacher. um He asked Jeremy what their relationship was, his and Ashley's relationship, Sam and Ashley. And Jeremy said that they play basketball together sometimes. They're friends. And it's just them that play basketball together. They talk often.
00:31:49
Jeff Rogers
he even calls when Jeremy is around. Jeremy doesn't question this though because that's Ashley's life. And this is what he says in the interview, that's Ashley's thing, I don't question it, I love her. I trust her. They're just friends. Again, he never questions. So generally, Jeremy seems like a lovely young man who in a million years would never think that he would be involved in a police interrogation. Jeremy says he doesn't suspect anything between Ashley and that school teacher named Sam.
00:32:17
Jeff Rogers
Jeremy says the last time he saw Ashley he let her use his car for the job interview. Police say it was clear from the very very beginning as I said that Jeremy was innocent but one of the things that Ashley tells him, I've already said this, is that she's going to go play basketball. school I don't know why I repeated that. ah The police talk with more friends. And one thing is clear during the investigation is that Ashley is having an affair. And it's an affair with the 26 year old teacher named Sam, Ashley 17.
00:32:50
Jeff Rogers
This man, his real name is, or his whole name is Samson Shelton. He once taught her at school. He used to be her teacher, but he wasn't at the time that their relationship started. According to friends, he was not teaching at her school when they started seeing each other. Shelton was a popular teacher. He was the PE teacher. In Sam's spare time, he was also, I'll put in Sam's spare time when he wasn't breaking boundaries with his students, he was an amateur wrestler. I'm sorry, what was that word?
00:33:21
Jeff Rogers
Fida, Rassla. And ah he would get all decked out in his name while he was wrestling was the teacher. Oh, God, that's so lame. For real. yeah Well, that was his name. and but People described Sam as charming, but also kind of self-absorbed. Shocking. Now, at this time, Ashley's parents were desperately searching for their daughter everywhere. They're doing everything they can to find Ashley. Now they're dealing with a missing daughter and Ashley isn't returning their phone calls. Immediately the mom thinks this phone is under my name and so mom can get the records from the phone company and within 24 hours mom gets the records for the phone company.
00:34:10
Jeff Rogers
So immediately Ashley's mom starts calling every number on the phone bill, going through every single number. And eventually they called Sam Shelton. And when Shelton answered the phone, he said he hadn't spoken to her. According to Michelle, Shelton seemed unfazed by this phone call and really pleasant.
00:34:32
Jeff Rogers
Um, when she was about to say, how do you know my daughter? He actually hung up and she thinks that he hung up because he thought the conversation was over. She didn't find it rude or anything. So he was pleasant, right? But the police are onto something. Friends have said that Ashley and Shelton are in a relationship and the SUV that Ashley was driving was really close to Shelton's house.
00:34:54
Jeff Rogers
Shelton's interrogation is a masterclass on the 28th of April. You literally can go on and see it. I'm not making any of this stuff up, and I say that for clarification. The interrogation is 12 hours long, and he was teaching earlier that morning before the interrogation. Everybody at school said his behavior was completely normal, just like Sam.
00:35:19
Jeff Rogers
um Watching this interrogation, you can see why interrogations will go on for so long because they're waiting to see if that original story changes, right? yeah They hug from time to time um is what Sam initially says that they don't have an inappropriate relationship, but they do hug from time to time.
00:35:41
Jeff Rogers
nothing bad about that. But then he adds, he feels like Ashley has become obsessed with him. Oh, nice. And he said, quote, oh, and she was calling me nonstop at times. Now, all of Ashley's friends are saying that she is definitely in a relationship at this time. And some friends say that Ashley confided in them that she was meeting Shelton on that particular day. So the detectives asked Shelton about this.
00:36:06
Jeff Rogers
And again, his story evolves a little bit. It says, or he said, we never kissed, but we did have sex in the back of the vehicle. In the back of her loving boyfriend Jeremy. But they never kissed. That makes it too intimate. Oh, God forbid. That makes it too intimate. But after that, Sam said, he felt really terrible about that. OK, so they had sex, but they didn't kiss, right? That's where we're at with the story.
00:36:31
Jeff Rogers
in Jeremy's car. True gentleman, he's a gentleman. and This probably sets off alarms for the detectives though. Maybe he's dehumanizing her a little bit. I wouldn't kiss her. You know what I mean? yeah Like distance, right? ah Making himself feel less responsible. it It wasn't intimate, that kind of thing. So now the story has changed a little bit and continues to change. He just feels terrible about it. Why change the story if you have nothing to hide? The story will always be the same if you have nothing to hide.
00:37:01
Jeff Rogers
Surely you can imagine that if you have nothing to hide and you tell the cops something, the only thing that will change from that point on will be, I remember something different or I remember something new. So I'm going to add to it, right? Not for Shelton. Cops are now eyeing Shelton and the story changes a little bit more. I was with her and we argued. She was becoming obsessed and I needed to end it with her.
00:37:27
Jeff Rogers
Ashley was so angry that Shelton got out of the car and he went around and he pulled Ashley from the car and left her on Radio Range Road. Just left her there and then he left. So the last time he saw her, she was on the road. Cause he left her there. perfectly okay He said he should have gone back, but he didn't because she could be lying in the ditch dead.
00:37:48
Jeff Rogers
He said that he couldn't stomach the thought of that because he had watched Texas Chainsaw Massacre once. oh And that he was really bad with horror movies and he couldn't stomach the thought of that. He couldn't cope with something like seeing a dead body. You're like, what? I'm sorry, what? You couldn't cope with seeing a what? Do you see where this is going? I mean, it's just like, why did you throw that in there? Yeah, why did you go with her being dead? Why did you talk about Texas Chainsaw Massacre? What?
00:38:13
Jeff Rogers
And now we evolve more. He was saying now that he thinks she got hit by a truck and he couldn't bear to see her because again, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, ah you know, right right I'm not making light of this. This is very horrible. Ashley was a fucking amazing human being, which is why I'm telling this story. At this point, police know something has happened to Ashley and time is ticking, so they need a break.
00:38:37
Jeff Rogers
Shelton is coming back from the restroom and he runs into an old friend. It's such a sliding door moment. The old friend is a detective that Shelton has known since childhood. The detective finds out why Shelton is there and he finds out that they need information.
00:38:55
Jeff Rogers
ah The ted detective had a good rapport with Shelton and he also knew that Shelton lived at home with his mother and his grandmother and that he was really, really close with his mother and his grandmother. So he uses this, the detective does. The investigator says, if I go talk to your grandma, what would your grandma say?
00:39:20
Jeff Rogers
if she knew that you were here with me." To which Shelton responds, I just want to go home and explain exactly what has happened. The detective plays on Sam's emotions and Sam says, and the detective says, Sam, you ain't telling us the truth and we need you to tell us the truth. Do it for your grandma. Fucking master class is brilliant.
00:39:43
Jeff Rogers
um Shelton immediately changes as does his story. Now Shelton is scared. Shelton confesses what happened and it is horrible. Prepare yourself. He and Ashley meet and they argue. He jumps out of the car. He runs around the car and uses some of his wrestling choke holds. This is a strong man to pull her from the car. While he's doing this, she's fighting back because she's a badass.
00:40:13
Jeff Rogers
While this is happening, he hears a loud snap or a pop. So he realizes that he's broken her neck. And then he thinks to make it look like she was strangled in the woods by a stranger. He drags the body a long distance into the woods, but thinks she might still be alive. So he strangles her using his hands to cut her airway off.
00:40:37
Jeff Rogers
He then takes his belt and starts strangling her with his belt, telling the police that he just he just couldn't look at her while he was doing that. Soon he hears what he says is the death gurgle, and finally when he looked at her, her color her skin color was a sickening color and her tongue is now protruding from her mouth with foam coming out.
00:41:00
Jeff Rogers
And he sees that she is still breathing. Then he decides to get his belt, but this time he uses his hand and then one foot as leverage to hold the belt.
00:41:14
Jeff Rogers
um He's using the belt with all the power that he can. He does this so hard that the belt breaks. And then he strangles her with his hands again. Once she stops breathing, he then leaves.
00:41:30
Jeff Rogers
This is a brutal attack and the police check him for any defense wounds on his body. They strip him down and there's zero defense wounds, not one. So it was a fast attack and Sam weighed about 200 pounds. So she didn't have a chance, right? Police say, Sam, we need to know where she is and we need to get there as soon as possible.
00:41:55
Jeff Rogers
At 2 a.m., 30 hours after Ashley's been missing, ah Sam takes them to the woods. They had a really hard time finding her, initially, because it's the middle of the night. So the detective said, after about 30 minutes, we started to think Shelton is lying, that this is just like ah something stupid he's doing. But then a flashlight shines on Ashley's body.
00:42:22
Jeff Rogers
And it was a brutal discovery. And you can watch this on the YouTube video. And it's terrifying. Clearly she looks dead. The police start setting up the crime scene of this teenager who's been brutally viciously murdered, who had her neck broken and who was strangled to death. And then suddenly her chest rises. Shut up. And they see that she is breathing.
00:42:51
Jeff Rogers
so they all freak the fuck out because Ashley is a survivor and that's what she does. 30 hours after being dumped in the woods and strangled and whatever happened to her, she's fucking breathing.
00:43:06
Jeff Rogers
She is very badly injured. She couldn't move. Paramedics come in. They give her a neck brace. They put her on the backboard. You're sitting straight up now. I'm watching you. I'm watching you. You're sitting straight up. You're into this story now. They fly her to a hospital in St. Louis. The paramedics didn't think she would live. ah The nurses and doctors at the hospital didn't think she would live.
00:43:27
Jeff Rogers
But now the police have an attempted murder. We're gonna go back to Ashley in just a little bit. We're gonna deal with Sam first, okay? The police now have an attempted murder, not murder. Shelton, chill. He is as chill as you can be. Like nothing has happened. He's glad to hear that she's alive. um It's incredible. He finds out that she's alive.
00:43:48
Jeff Rogers
He's like asking about her. And then he says while sitting there after they found Ashley, he said, this is on the video. I'm not even kidding. He said, cause he knows he's going to be in jail. He's like, can I get some contact solutions so I can take my contacts out? oh I mean, that's probably what I would ask for too.
00:44:06
Jeff Rogers
And then he don the detective is like, um maybe? I don't think this is really how this works, but maybe. And then he said, um also, can I have a private toilet without people people watching me pee because I have a urinary stress disorder? Verbatim, that's what he said in the interrogation video. Heaven forbid that he have to pee in front of someone while someone he attempted to murder is fighting for her life. You know what I mean?
00:44:35
Jeff Rogers
After he, what he thought, obviously he murdered Ashley, he went dancing that night later on. Lion dancing. And he went to work the next morning and remember what they I said at the beginning. The people at work, at the school, said he was normal. Acted completely normal at school. So he's admitted to doing this to Ashley and Ashley Lay on a coma at the hospital. He is a loud bell.
00:45:00
Jeff Rogers
I don't know how, it's like $800,000 bill. It was a million, but the judge reduced it to 800,000 and he makes bill. His bond got paid and he's placed under house arrest. So for a year before the trial, he's allowed to live at home. Well, Ashley's in the hospital, it seems kind of unfair.
00:45:20
Jeff Rogers
He then pleads not guilty to attempted murder, despite the fact that he admitted what he admitted. So while Shelton is home on Bell, he overdoses on medication and he wrote on it like with a marker on his chest. Using the pen or a marker DNR do not resuscitate.
00:45:38
Jeff Rogers
He was unresponsive when the paramedics arrived. They got him back and he was out of control once he came back. He kicked a nurse in the face and he was also allegedly saying racist things to the staff there.
00:45:52
Jeff Rogers
he sounds like a pe show is who you really are Shelton was found competent to stand trial though, but it never went to court. Despite what he admitted, Ashley's family cared a lot for Ashley and Ashley was in a struggle for her life, so they did not want her to go to court and testify. They wanted Ashley back and better. They didn't know when the court proceedings would happen.
00:46:15
Jeff Rogers
but also if Ashley went on the stand, there could be a ah possibility that they tear her apart and her family didn't want this. Yeah, because of the circumstances surrounding it, okay. ah So Shelton got a plea deal. He accepted the plea deal and he was sentenced to 20 years in prison, 20 years.
00:46:34
Jeff Rogers
Mind you that Shelton had he gone to court, he may never have seen the light of day again. However, after serving 17 years of the 20-year Senate, Sam Shelton was a released this year in 2024. Enough about Sam Shelton, though.
00:46:50
Jeff Rogers
Ashley Reeves survived the attack. It was a long road to recovery, but she motherfucking did it. She was in a coma for two months and spent another two months in the hospital. Her parents were told that if she survived, she would never be able to walk. She would never be able to talk. But she learned how to walk and talk again.
00:47:10
Jeff Rogers
She learned how to eat and drink again. She remembers that first drink of water was fucking amazing. She's 35 today. And on true crime news, Ashley tells Elizabeth Smart, she has no memories of that day at all. She does remember that n one she was the one who wanted to end the relationship.
00:47:30
Jeff Rogers
So think about that. Maybe that's what happened. We'll never know. It makes sense. yeah Ashley says that she is a survivor. She feels like it's important to share her story because you should never give up. You should always keep fighting. Ashley has two kids today. She also has an extended family today that includes those detectives who found her. And that's the survival story of Ashley Reeves. I don't understand.
00:47:57
Jeff Rogers
Is he just that incompetent at strangling someone? like That doesn't make sense to me. I don't know. Physiologically, how is she alive? And how, after 30 hours, did she have any brain activity? It actually got more gruesome than that. there were When they found her, there was, I think, they said thousands, hundreds, thousands of insects that had covered her body. like She was on her way out.
00:48:25
Jeff Rogers
But just in the nick of time. And in this true crime thing that I watched with Elizabeth Smart, you know Elizabeth Smart. Fucking hell. Amazing story. Amazing survival. She is talking to Ashley and she asked Ashley if she's watched any of the videos of the interrogation.
00:48:47
Jeff Rogers
She can't watch it. She'd never been back to the crime scene where it happened. But she did go with Elizabeth Smart back to the cry to the scene of where her body was, the crime scene. And the detectives went with her. And that's when she tells Elizabeth Smart that this is my family now. These guys are my family. And they're just beaming. They're all smiling because it's actually, for them, probably one of the few cases that end well, you know? And I don't know how she survived.
00:49:14
Jeff Rogers
But the road to recovery, eat, drink, walk, talk. You got to relearn all that. But she did it. And she went on to go to college. She had kids. It's so funny, too. It reminds me of Allison. Because Allison, they said she would never have kids because she was so, it was like just everything was cut up. And like she. Yeah.
00:49:35
Jeff Rogers
so but when i said that when i said in her chest they saw it rise and they fall you set straight up oh there was a change in you there was a change in you suddenly you were like whoa what because i can't comprehend it i can't comprehend it that is wild it's my favorite kind of story it really is you do love that it is my favorite kind of story and i found another good one Anyway, he really said that shit too in his interrogation video. Not even kidding. That's why I feel kind of like I don't want to talk too much about him because he's out and he served his time. A lot of people don't think it's that he said what he said. Absolutely. That he said what he said in the video and.
00:50:19
Jeff Rogers
um Can I have a private toilet? I don't want to pee in front of people. Can I like um have some contact solution? I've got to take these out because I have dry eyes. You know what I mean?
00:50:31
Jeff Rogers
just Your face. You're like, oh, fucking hell. That guy. Honestly, it's really good that I'm not a police officer because I would have punched him in the face. I'd be like, are you kidding me? But this cop who knew Sam Shelton from childhood I mean, if I hope that this is shown like at detective school, I don't know if there's a such thing as detective school. Yeah, yeah. It needs to be shown to people because it was just like you watch you watch Sam Shelton change his story. Just it just evolves and you're like, wait, what? did Somebody else heard that? He just now said she got hit by a car. Oh, but my God, he saw Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Oh, that poor boy. And he was so traumatized. The shame.
00:51:17
Jeff Rogers
it's It's interesting that is interesting and like the the broken psyche that like I Can't fathom what was going on in his brain because he went to school he taught he was normal he went dancing after brutally what he thought murdering her and like I One of the things I watched on YouTube she said he went dancing he went line dance line dancing god bless Okay, that's it for today people that's it for today. Thank you for listening Merry Christmas again merry christmas merry christmas merry christmas and we will see you on Monday for the sticky note episode indeed we will
00:52:08
Jeff Rogers
ah yeah ae