Cold Case Files - DNA SPEAKS: Death Downstream

Episode Date: November 19, 2024

When the battered body of Shawna Yandell is found floating in Washington State’s Yakima River in 1993, detectives first suspect those closest to her. The case grew cold until new DNA technology revealed a callous killer that no one suspected. Gabb - Check out Gabb today, just go to Gabb.com/coldcase to get started! Progressive: Progressive.com  

Hi Cold Case listeners, I'm Marissa Pinson, and if you're enjoying this show, I just want to remind you that episodes of Cold Case Files, as well as the A&E Classic Podcast, I Survived, American Justice, and City Confidential are all available ad-free on the new A&E Crime and Investigation channel on Apple Podcasts and Apple Plus for just $4.99 a month or $39.99 a year. And now, on to the show. This episode contains disturbing accounts of violence and sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised. Shauna and I were very close. She was my sister. When I woke up that next morning, Shauna wasn't there. The police told me they discovered a body. I see bruises all over arms and legs. This is not natural. This is homicide. As soon as I saw the blood and the hair, I just thought, oh man, the suspect's here. We have a search warrant to collect DNA from him. I was afraid

that they might convict me of this. I was scared for my life. Take care of your siblings, but there's some things in this world you just can't get back. There are over 100,000 cold cases in America. Only about 1% are ever solved. This is one of those rare stories. It's June 13, 1993, in Yakima, Washington. It's a warm and sunny day in rural Washington state when a panicked park goer calls the police. Nolan Wentz is a detective with the Yakima Police Department. I was told that a group of Boy Scouts in a canoe trip had come upon the body of this young woman that was kind of washed up on a sandbar in the middle of the river. They picked her up,

put her into the canoe, and brought her over to shore. But they didn't want to risk the water being able to wash her down river. One of the Scoutmasters was a doctor. He realized that there was something absolutely wrong here. This is a young woman who had nothing but a bra on that was pushed up around her shoulders, laying face down in the water. I run out to the scene. It was bright, sunny. It was early afternoon, 3.30, 3.40. It was a beautiful day. When we got there, the canoe was lifted up out of the water and they put a covering over her.

The first thing you want to try to do is figure out who this was. And at that point, you know, there's nothing on her that is going to be able to identify her. I did not think she had been dead very long. I've seen a lot of bodies. Generally, water changes things pretty fast, and she didn't appear to be changing that quickly. So that made me think that she had not been in the water very long.

She had been battered around. Especially on her forehead, the open fracture, kind of an oblong, odd shape. I remember thinking, what type of object could it have been that created that? This was not natural. This is homicide. Shannon Yandel-Jones is Shauna's sister. As sisters, Shauna and I were very close, 18 months apart. But my relationship with Shauna was mother-daughter. I had to be the parent because our parents weren't in our lives for a very long time. Shauna was a very good cook, even at seven. She did the biscuits and gravy.

Shawna made gravy that would make your feet fall off. It was that good. Shawna was bubbly. She wasn't a cheerleader, but she definitely loved to do their hair and their makeup for Friday night lights. Shawna had the makeup down. She could take things from your kitchen and make you look beautiful.

That's just how she was. I met Shawna around 1992 at a party. Me and Shawna was drawn to each other just instantly. I asked Shawna for a date, and she agreed, and we went on a few dates. She was real funny. I'd do a little odd jobs. She'd work at some fast food restaurants.

She used to sneak me out some fries and some milkshakes. We just loved being around each other. We made each other laugh. She was just real fun to be around. In 1993, Shawna and I left Arkansas headed to Washington State. When I was younger, my family, we used to work at farms up in Washington picking cherries and apples. So I knew the work was there, and I was having some trouble finding some jobs here in Arkansas. So me and her talked it over,

and we decided we wanted to see if we can find some work in the state of Washington and try to make a life for ourselves. On June 13th in Yakima, Washington, a call comes in to police dispatch. Sure, Mr. Burtman. Yeah, I'd like to report a missing person. And what's your son? Travis. Who's missing? My girlfriend.

I got to drinking whiskey pretty heavily last night and I guess I blacked out, passed out or something. And I woke up, she was gone. Her clothes and everything is here at the house. And I ain't seen her since last night. What's your name? Shawna Yandel. We'll just come up here from Arkansas to pick cherries. And we'll get an officer there shortly, okay?

Okay, we'll complete the hurry. I'm worried to death. Okay. Travis provides the dispatcher with a physical description of missing girlfriend Shawnee Yandel. They said it was a young gal, 5'2", slight build, reddish hair. I mean, here I'm looking at this person that fits that description, and I basically said, grab this guy so we can get started. Detectives ask Travis to come down to the station. They take me to a room and they start asking me questions about what I did that night and what we were doing. But it seemed like they was doubting me.

Joe Scherschlicht is a detective with the Yakima Police Department. So I advised Travis that we had found a body in the river, and it's possibly Shawna, but we didn't know for sure. When I told him that, I remember he put his head down, and he started mumbling to himself. He teared up, and he kept saying, this is my fault. This is my fault. Detective Schirrschlicht asks Travis to come to the morgue to see if he can identify the body. Even on the way to the morgue,

he was very sad and I remember he cried a couple of times. I walk into the room and there was a body bag laying on a table. This guy unzipped it from the feet up. I knew exactly that it was her. She loves to paint her toenails certain little colors and I knew right then when I seen her toes that it was her. I lost it. It was the most horrific thing I've ever seen. She was black and blue from her head to toes. That's something I wouldn't wish on anybody. You know, Travis was kind of an enigma to me. Is he somebody that we should be looking at as far as a suspect?

A lot of the times it is the boyfriend or the husband or someone close, someone who knows them that did commit the crime. So off the bat, he was our first suspect. The detective asked me, he said, was this you? And I told him, no, this wasn't me. I couldn't do this to anybody.

I was afraid that they might convict me of this and I'd spend the rest of my life in prison or worse. I was scared for my life. I was a suspect because I was the last one to see Shawna live. The detective just kept constantly asking me questions over and over and over. I was frightened. I heard one of the officers say that he's the one that done it.

That's the guy that did it. I didn't know what to think when I heard that. That just set my mind in a spin. I was working at a motel, and I got the phone call. And when I picked it up, it was my mom. And she said, Shannon, are you sitting down? She just said, sissy's dead. Sissy's dead.

And that was Shawna. I fell to the floor. She said he threw her into the river, still alive. When the Boy Scouts found her, she still had goosebumps. I just wanted to cry that somebody could do something like that to a human being. In Yakima, Travis lays out to detectives his account of how Shauna went missing. The plan was to go down to Kennewick. Shauna and a couple of friends of mine was going to try and see if we could get a job working in the orchards.

There was four of us in the car that day. It was me, Shauna, Kenneth and his girlfriend. Kenny was a cousin of the Wilkies. The Wilkies were friends of the family and I would stay with them during the seasons every time I'd come up. They did make it back to Yakima maybe six to seven o'clock. Travis and Shauna were dropped off, but Travis didn't want to go back to the Wilkies house. We decided just to go to the park about a mile away from the Wilkies. We knew that we can go there and hang out on the Yakima River

and drink a few more suds. We was hanging out, and I was messed up. I'd fell in the river. I was wet and cold, and it just got dark. I knew that the bathrooms had one of them hand dryers that would pit off some heat. Shawna didn't drink as much as I did, so she was trying to take care of me.

She was wanting to go home, but before that can happen, I blacked out. Probably around 12, 1 o'clock when I came to, and she wasn't there. I was thinking maybe she walked home, so I walked home too. I got to the Wilkie's, and she wasn't there, so I went to sleep. I don't know what I was thinking.

I was too far gone. When I woke up that next morning, Shauna wasn't there. So I head back to the park. I hollered for her, and I got no answer. I couldn't find her, so I was getting really worried. So I went back to the Wilkies and called the police. Travis was asked if he would be willing to submit to a polygraph, and he readily agreed to do that. I was just so nervous and scared. I didn't know what to think. The questions that they would ask me would throw you off.

They always ask you your name. Are you male, female? They're yes or no questions. The actual questions to the crime, there? They're yes or no questions. The actual questions to the crime, there's only going to be a few. Do you know anything about Shauna Yandel being placed in the river? Do you know anything about how she got there? I took three polygraph tests.

I passed every one. It's frustrating because everything that I can see circumstantially tells me that, yeah, he's very much part of this story, but he's not who I'm looking for. I'm sure that Shauna would have fought back to whoever attacked her, and Travis had no injuries, no scratches, no marks, no bruises. I understand why they might have thought that I could have had something to do with it. I was the last one with her, and I was drunk. There was a lot of evidence pointing at my way.

With Travis no longer a suspect, he mentions something that draws the detective's attention. In Travis's interview, he explained that Kenny was flirting with Shawna. So that's how Kenny Madden became a suspect. Ken and I already had somewhat of a rapport. I had dealt with Ken in the past and it was involving a criminal activity. Kenny didn't have a good reputation. He was not a good person. Kenny was a bully. He wasn't a very nice guy. There was some bad blood between me and Kenny.

I mean, they had been together all that day, traveled all the way down the Tri-Cities and back. Travis and Kenny drank a lot of alcohol. Travis got upset with Kenny because he thought Kenny was flirting with Shawna. That made him mad. So they were arguing. Travis wanted to fight Kenny.

Kenny stopped the car. It was escalating to that point. Does that provide a motive for Ken to have been participating in this crime? You never know. He was really angry with Travis. Possibly he would want to get revenge or retaliation. I think Kenny could have done something like this, because I didn't know where they had

went after they dropped me off. Kenny knew the area fairly well. So now Ken is somebody who could be a possible suspect. Travis stated that Kenny was flirting with Shauna. The emotions run high in those type of situations, and it provokes people to anger. I could see that in Kenny. He would get angry if you pushed him.

Kenny knew the Wilkies. He could have known that Travis and Shauna were at the park and had no way home, and then got over there to either look for them or to look for Shauna were at the park and had no way home. And then got over there to either look for them or to look for Shauna specifically. I interviewed Kenny Madden, and I also interviewed his girlfriend, Kim. Kenny's alibi was, they went over to see some friends at 8.45 at night,

and they stayed there till after 9 o'clock. They then left that house, and they went to his grandfather's house. And then they stayed up till after nine o'clock. They then left that house and they went to his grandfather's house and then they stayed up till two or three in the morning. I spoke with the couple that they went to go visit and they confirmed that Kenny and Kim were there. I contacted his grandfather and he said yes and their stories cooperated perfectly. You do what you can to either confirm or eliminate him as a suspect. We'd put him on a polygraph and managed

to find out that Ken was, in fact, being truthful. All of the places that he was at and the times were, in fact, confirmed. I was confident that Kenny had nothing to do with Shawna's death. When Kenny and Travis were no longer suspects, we tried to piece together what might have happened that night. Where Shawna was last seen at Sportsman State Park

was about two miles upriver from where she was found. Shawna definitely had to be put in a car and was transported at least two miles where she was dumped into the river. If your household is anything like mine, then you're already feeling that holiday rush. Maybe you have kids begging for a smartphone this year, but the thought of handing them an unrestricted device keeps you up at night. Well, I've got great news that'll make both you and your kids happy this season. It's Gab's holiday sale. Gab is the leader in safe phones and watches designed specifically for kids, teens, and tweens. No social media, no internet browser, but all the connection

you want with GPS tracking for peace of mind. And trust me, these aren't boring kid phones. They're packed with features your kids will love, like the Gab music app for streaming clean tunes. And the Gab Phone 4 Pro even comes with hundreds of vetted third-party apps that can only be installed at parents' discretion, so you can always feel sure your kids are safe. We have the Gab Watch 3 for my daughter, and the focus mode is great for helping her concentrate when school starts again after the holidays. I love that we can be connected through unlimited talk and text with Gab Messenger, the first messaging and video calling app designed with kids' safety as the top priority, without the watch being a distraction in class. As we head into the new year, Gab is the perfect way to keep your family connected safely. Don't miss out on Gab's holiday sale. It's the

smart choice for safe, kid-friendly tech this season. Trust me, your kids will thank you and you will sleep easier. Check out Gab today and do it now because Gab is offering huge discounts on their phones and watches. The best part? There's no contract required. Just go to gab.com slash coldcase to get started. That's gab, G-A-B-B dot com slash coldcase. Gab dot com slash coldcase. Terms and conditions apply. Three days after Shawna is murdered, detectives broaden their focus. They pay a visit to the family that Travis and Shawna were staying with.

At this point, we're now just gathering as much information as we possibly can. So I wanted to talk to the Wilkies and ask them about what was going on, what they knew, if they knew anything. So we show up. Joyce Wilkie is the person I met with first, and she introduces me to her husband, Junior, and Brian Wilkie. Although Junior and Joyce Wilkie cooperate with the detectives, their son Brian seems less willing to help. During the conversation, Brian makes this offhanded comment. He made the comment, well, she shouldn't have been there. Something to that effect.

That bothered me. And I'm thinking, why would you say something like this, knowing what had taken place? Detective Schirschlicht asks to look inside the Wilkes' car. Mr. Wilkes was very cooperative. He said, yes, no problem. He signed a waiver. And as we were getting ready to sign it,

Brian Wilkes became very upset and adamant. You can't search that vehicle, Dad. You don't let them do that. There's no reason for them to search that vehicle. Brian Wilkie didn't really want us to be looking in that car, but it didn't belong to him. Junior said, go ahead and search it. I remember standing there at the back of the car, and we popped the trunk, and right there in the middle of the trunk was a large tire iron. And there was what appeared to be blood all over it and a long strand

of reddish blonde hair probably eight to ten inches long now I'm thinking this kind of fits that impression her skull fracture am I looking at the weapon that was used to kill her at that point I directed my attention towards Bryant he He had access to that vehicle, and he would have possibly known that Shawna was at the park by herself that night. He could have taken the keys. I thought, oh, no. The suspect's here, or the Wilkie guys did it. As soon as I saw that tire iron with the blood and the hair,

I just thought, that's a perfect match for the wound on Shauna's head. The tire iron was rusted black, and you could see the blood on it. It was one strand of hair. We're thinking, OK, ha ha, we've now got something physical to hang on to that maybe we can tie what happened to Shauna.

All we wanted to do was get the evidence to the crime lab because it was a high-priority case, so we wanted to find out as soon as possible. The results came back to Detective Wentz. It was not blood, and the fibers that were stuck to it, it's dissimilar to her hair. It didn't match. You're let down because now you're starting over from scratch,

from square one. With no suspect to speak to, no lead to pursue, the case of the woman in the river goes cold. As the years passed, without having any answers to what happened, it was hard. When I still close my eyes, I still see that image of Shana back in 1993. And they're on that slab. We knew she was murdered, but we really didn't know all the details. I was hopeful that it would be solved. But after about 10 years, 12 years, you just go,

well, this is not going to happen. No one's going to know. It was very stressful because when you're in detectives, you never let the cases go. You're always thinking about them. What did I do wrong? What did I miss? That's why there's sometimes a burnout in detectives who do these kind of crimes for a long time.

It's like a burr under your saddle. It's always irritating. It's there. And until you get some direction to go, it is always going to be there. Year after year, the case slowly gathers dust, until 2005, when a new forensic lab supervisor by the name of Kristen Schaefer starts looking through the department's cold cases.

We had an archive room that had all of the cold homicide cases in it, and Shauna's was one of the first ones I pulled out and reviewed. But there were DNA samples that could not be located. Kristen Schaefer begins an extensive search for the DNA samples that she believes will help investigators identify Shauna Yandel's killer. After weeks of searching, her persistence pays off. I found them in the refrigerator, the Yakima Police Department. So they had been maintained in a secure and adequate cold room storage as required for DNA.

Once the samples were identified, I remained in constant communication with the Washington State Patrol crime lab. So I kept calling and asking them about submitting what we had to CODIS, the nationwide DNA database that's used to search samples. I sent it off at the end of 05, and I would call routinely asking,

when can I expect this? I kept being told it was still waiting assignment. So Shauna's case sat there, but I kept calling constantly. Nearly four more years pass without any momentum on Shauna's case until 2009. Funding came up that allowed Kristen to send this off to an independent lab to actually have the full spectrum run for DNA. This case was eligible to be recipient of grant funding to be outsourced and processed much faster.

I had results within months. There had been a hit in CODIS. I immediately contacted Nolan Wentz. I asked him to please come into the station for the DNA results, and he was there within minutes. Kristen come running down the hall to show me. The profile actually matches somebody I was amazed was huge the code is hit had identified Clayton Jean

Stafford as the individual that had contributed to the DNA sample that was recovered from Shauna's body we finally got a name that is directly associated with this physical evidence. So now we need to go find out about this person. We found criminal history in California, Arizona. I start fleshing out a picture of who this is. What was he doing? Where was he living? Once we figured that out, he went there and sure enough,

he just comes walking out the front door because he sees several police cars wanting to know what's going on. And you're Clayton Stafford, right? Yeah. I'm more than happy to tell you what's going on. When I received the CODIS hit in Shawna's case, that was the best day for me.

We're learning more about the man arrested in a cold case. Turns out he had a very long criminal history before this arrest for a 1993 murder. Yakima police reopened the case two years ago and sent the DNA to a lab. It was also run through a national database. Clayton Stafford came up as a match and he was found still living here in Yakima. I had been present on multiple arrests. This by far was like none of the others. We've really not had a lens on him like we have for Shauna for 10 plus years, so this is all very new.

It was an interesting process seeing who Clayton was. He lived alone. He lived under the radar for a number of years. Now, just because we had the hit in CODIS doesn't mean that you're done with the DNA. We had to obtain a search warrant to collect DNA from him. I wanted to make certain we covered all the bases on this. We send to the lab for independent analysis and comparison. We get back the results. It is him, and the odds are for that match to be him. One in 19.63 quadrillion.

Hello, you have a collect call from... Clayton Stafford. An inmate at Yakima County Department of Corrections. Hey, I know it. How do you know? I was on the news. I'm on the news. They picked you up for first-degree murder.

Yeah, is that right? You're not going to get out of this, are you? I don't care. I ain't got nothing to do with anything. I spoke to Detective Wentz. He said, we got him, Shannon. He said, what? He said, we got him, Shannon. I said, what? He said, we got him.

To have Detective Wentz tell me we got him. And I was just relieved. I mean, after all those years, after all those years, you got him? With the DNA hit in hand, the case is given to Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Patty Powers. Clayton Stafford was charged with aggravated first-degree murder, premised upon first-degree rape. The work of building a case is a search for the truth. And in cold cases, going back and talking with those witnesses again is so important.

How are you? It was the first time I'd been back to Washington State since Shawna's murder back in 1993. Witnesses had important information that ultimately does help us to recreate the reality of the crime. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Hey, Cold Case Files listeners, whether you love true crime or comedies, celebrity interviews, news, or even motivational speakers, you call the shots on what's in your podcast queue, right? And guess what? Now you can call

the shots on your auto insurance too. Enter the Name Your Price tool from Progressive. The Name Your Price tool puts you in charge of your auto insurance by working just the way it sounds. You tell Progressive how much you want to pay for car insurance. Then they'll show you a variety of coverages that fit within your budget, giving you options. Now that's something you'll want to press play on. It's easy to start a quote, and you'll be able to choose the best option for you, fast. It's just one of the many ways you can save with Progressive Insurance.

Quote today at Progressive.com to try the Name Your Price tool for yourself and join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company & Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. Five years after forensic lab supervisor Kristen Schaefer reopened Shauna's cold case, her testimony becomes a critical part of the trial. This item is listed as buckle samples from Clayton Stafford.

Clayton Stafford's defense team does all they can to cast doubt on the prosecution's evidence. I'm asking you to agree with me that sperm can be placed in the vaginal vault through consensual sex, correct? That is true, yes. There was an argument that there may have been consensual sexual intercourse, that the person having sex was not the person who had committed the murder. He was saying that he had sex with Shawna

and he didn't have nothing to do with the murder. I was angry. I know Shawna, and I know she wouldn't have done that. The evidence that has been presented is that they had sex, and that's it. My sister would not hook up with somebody who was going to hurt her. The state is no closer at this moment to proving that than they were at 3 o'clock

in the afternoon on June 13, 1993. Did we prove each and every element of this crime beyond a reasonable doubt? The defense was denying that there was sufficient evidence for the intent to kill. Purely speculation that Clayton Stafford actually committed this murder. Clayton Stafford is a person that there is no evidence that Shawna ever knew this was a rape and that the person committing that rape also killed Shauna. And in that process, not just with one blow to the head, not just two, not just three, not just four, but lethal force. The man seated before you, the last person to see Shauna Andell

was the one who raped her and killed her. We ask you to find him guilty of first degree murder. Patty did an excellent job. But you're looking at a jury and you've seen so many things where they come back and you'll get a verdict that just, wait a minute, where did this come from? So you're on the edge of your chair, pins and needles, waiting for that verdict. You're a kettle ready to boil over. The jurors walk in slowly.

The foreperson of the jury rises and says, yes, we have reached a verdict. The verdict's read, and I remember squeezing Patty's hand. He was convicted of aggravated first-degree murder based upon rape, and the sentence was life in prison. My heart just about jumped out of my chest. That was the best feeling,

knowing that you finally brought something to justice that didn't look like it was ever going to get solved. And Kristen is the one that got that ball rolling. Shauna's case is my first solved cold case. Had I not found that evidence, Shauna's case would be still sitting on a shelf. I felt relief and just happiness for Shauna that we were able to come to this resolution. I don't get any big pleasure or rush out of seeing somebody go to prison, but I did with this one.

This man needs to be gone and never allowed out, ever. There aren't cold cases for surviving families. Those cases are very much alive. The loss never goes away. I would now ask family members of Shauna if they would like to speak. In this case, we Skyped the surviving members of Shauna's family, and there was a large screen, and so they were able to speak about her. Your Honor, this is Shannon Yandel-Jones. She's Shauna's sister.

This was my sister. We were only 18 months apart my whole life. Now we're 16 years apart. You took her away from me. You took her away from the family and the memories that we all could have shared. Where you are going, I guarantee you're going to encounter some really bad people. And I hope you get everything you deserve. It's all those wondering questions, inklings, feelings, things like that.

This is what closure is about, is knowing it's done and it's over. That's closure. She's my girl. She always was and it's so hard to go through this life without her. Take care of your siblings, but there's some things in this world you just can't get back. I love her still. To this day, I don't care how long she's been gone. She is part of me, and I'll never get that back.

I can't never forgive myself for Sean's murder. This June will be the 30th anniversary. It's been a long time. I wish I could go back to that time and just, and then, I hope Shauna knows how much I miss her. I loved her. I really loved her. Cold Case Files is hosted by Marissa Pinson, produced by Jeff DeRay,

and distributed by Podcast One. The Cold Case Files TV series was produced by Curtis Productions and hosted by Bill Curtis. Check out more Cold Case Files at anetv.com.