Cold Case Files - REOPENED: Left for Dead

Episode Date: January 16, 2024

In 1995, a prostitute named Pamela Shelley was shot in the back eight times and left in a field. With minimal evidence, the case goes cold. But seven years later, new technology may provide the means for investigators to figure out who murdered Pamela Shelley. Sponsors:Progressive: Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. 

This episode discusses stories of intense sexual violence, which may be disturbing to some listeners. Please, listen with caution. In some cases, a person's profession shapes how they're viewed in society. A person who's in the military is generally thought to be honorable, dedicating their life to protecting our country. A person who's a known sex worker might be viewed as playing a less important role in the community. But is the way a person earns money

really an accurate indicator of character? Pamela Shelley was a sex worker in San Diego, California in 1995. She knew the risks of her profession. But Pamela wasn't unusually concerned with the man who picked her up on March 22nd. Some people, masked by their profession, make us feel safe. Pamela didn't see what was coming. She was shot eight times in the back and left naked in a field. From A&E, this is Cold Case Files.

I'm Brooke, and here's the illustrious Bill Curtis with the classic case, Left 4 Dead. Well, they pull over and get in the car and take her from there. It just depends. Mary Jones is a prostitute in San Diego, California. I want to have some fun, and the price is right. You know, yeah, do what I got to do, you know. It's scary because you don't know who you're getting in the car with.

Jones has worked these streets for 19 years and knows the dangers all too well. You know, I've had a lot of ugly things done to me out here. Guns pulled on me, bats, you know, drove off in fields and woods and bones broke. You don't know if you're gonna come back dead or alive. 11 years earlier, another prostitute from this same stroll was murdered

after a John turned deadly. When I get into the area, I saw a piece of wood way laying down on the back. Hugo Martinez is a gardener for the city of Chula Vista. Just after 7 a.m., Martinez is working in Lauterbach Park when something unusual catches his eye. When I start walking almost in the middle of the field,

I noticed that it wasn't just a piece of wood. It was a body. So I start walking towards the body. In the corner of the park, a female lies naked in the dirt, shot eight times in the back. Told me that a body had been found at Ladebach Park, and she appeared to be a victim of a homicide. Detective Paul Villapando catches the call and rolls to the scene.

She was totally unclothed. There were several apparent gunshot wounds to her upper body. I noticed a lot of debris nearby and some clothes. There was some trash, beer bottles, and condoms found on the ground nearby the location where she was found. Crime scene technicians discover two sets of unknown footprints in the dirt. The prints are photographed and evidence collected. Meanwhile, Villapondo tries to ID his victim.

At this time, I decided to take a photograph and show it to the people that were gathered in the parking lot. One female there told me she thought she recognized the person as being Pam and that she hung around the area of Olivewood Terrace and Ocean View Boulevard in San Diego. In general, it's a high-crime area. We walked up to the house, but there was a pit bull chained to the front door.

I yelled at the house, and a male, Mr. Sharp, came out and spoke with me. They showed me a Polaroid, and I said that was her. Tyrone Sharp IDs the victim as his friend, 32-year-old Pamela Shelly, a known prostitute and drug user. And that night, we was all sitting around, getting high. I'm going to tell the truth about it. According to Sharp, Pamela left his house around 2 AM,

but never returned home. Oh, she said she was going to the playground. They called the playground. I kind of walked her up to the next block here and just told her to be careful, you know. And she said, well, somebody's got my money in their pocket, and she took off for a little bouncy walk that she has. The news of his friend's murder hits Tyrone hard. She was the sweetest person that you ever want to meet.

She was a beautiful person. And of all these unnecessary lot lizards around here, why would they take the queen, you know? Villapando hits the streets and starts asking around. This is 32nd and National. It's high pedestrian traffic because of the nearby naval base, so she could get customers pretty steadily out here.

I was looking for people who knew Pamela, worked in the same area that she did, some of her steady customers, any information I could get to try and develop a possible lead. For six weeks, the detective works Shelley's stroll, but finds nothing in the way of leads. The panel put itself in a pretty precarious situation because you never had any idea who you were coming up against.

When the street work fails to pay off, Villalpando turns to the crime lab, hoping to catch a break. We had a lot of evidence laying there. We had the condoms, beer bottle, clothing, a lot of activities, so it's pretty... told us that everything happened right there. On March 23, Rodrigo Viesca sifts through the shelly evidence and pulls out a beer bottle

found just five feet from the body. What's interesting about this bottle is that the bag is, we have two items in here. One is a beer bottle and one is a liquid. The liquid is what was in the bottle, still in when we found it. Hoping the suspect's prints are still on the bottle, the ESCA applies superglue to enhance the detail. I literally just poured a little bit in here, about a quarter-size piece,

put it on the hot plate right here, and then we sat here and we watched it cook. This glues on the print to the surface. Oh, I saw all these fingerprints on there, some white residue with ridge formation. It's like, okay, I've got something to work with here. When Viesca dusts the bottle he lifts, two unknown fingerprints.

The prints are uploaded into APHIS, but the system doesn't return a match. None of these led anywhere. It just went down a path where there was no resolution. I felt that no one deserved to die that way. After three months, Pamela Shelley's case goes cold, and a mother is left without answers. Oh, God. Devastating.

It takes everything from you. I kept saying, why? Why? Who could have did this? Pamela Shelley was raped and murdered. Her body had been dumped in a field. The only evidence collected was a beer bottle and some used condoms. Fingerprints didn't match any in the system, and DNA wasn't used the way it is today. After three months of searching for a lead, no progress was made on Pamela's case, and it goes cold.

Seven years later, a cold case detective takes the evidence out of storage to be analyzed one more time. The detective hopes using more advanced science and technology than was available in 1995 will lead them to Pamela's attacker. Back to the case. This is the property room of the Chula Vista Police Department where all the evidence from all crimes is kept. Of course, the homicide evidence is kept forever. Bob Conrad is a cold case detective in Chula Vista, California. In January of 2002, Conrad reopens the Pamela Shelley murder, now seven years cold. This one had some possibilities. There were some leads that needed to be followed up on and some evidence to be reexamined. Conrad pulls the evidence from storage and sends it out for DNA testing. They did develop a DNA profile from the swabs.

Also, there were some condoms found near the scene, and DNA profiles were developed off the condoms as well. In April of 2003, the two unknown profiles are uploaded into the CODIS system, but fail to generate a match. Disappointment. You're always disappointed when you don't get a hit on these things. But Conrad isn't finished yet. He returns to the evidence, locates the beer bottle, and resubmits the prints for testing. This is the latent print section of the Chula Vista Police Department crime lab.

On April 9th, Mary Kay Hunt examines the fingerprint evidence. This is the actual lift, so we'll place the latent print under the direct capture area and capture that image. Hunt loads the prints into APHIS. Thirty minutes later, the system returns two separate hits. She said, we got two hits off this beer bottle off prints. So it went from kind of zero to 90 in about one minute there. Detective Bob Conrad has two names, Andre Robinson and Adrian Sutherland.

Both had lived in Chula Vista at the time of the murder. They had both been in the Navy. And then I noticed they were both from the same hometown in North Carolina. We had to make a decision. The prints are a good start, but Conrad needs more. We knew we had a potential defense of, oh, well, I was just drinking in the park

and I had nothing to do with this murder. Conrad takes his case to the San Diego District Attorney's Cold Case Squad, and the team devises a plan. Well, the strategy was to hit them simultaneously. The decision was made that two teams were going to contact these two individuals, one in San Diego, one in Norfolk. We wanted to hit them at the same time so they wouldn't have a chance to communicate with each other.

With the strategy in place, cold case detectives are about to catch the break they need. There is no, I promise you, there is no way you guys got DNA on me with this girl. Can't be, It's impossible. I promise you, Connor's not going to hide it. I never had sex with this girl. I don't even know that Connor's not going to hide it.

Okay, this is where we came to contact Adrian Sutherland. On May 27th, Detective Bob Conrad pays a visit to Adrian Sutherland, a suspect in the 1995 murder of Pamela Shelley. Fingerprint evidence has linked Sutherland and his childhood friend, Andre Robinson, to the crime. We approached him on the premise that we were investigating his buddy Robinson. We wanted to relax him a little bit, get him comfortable.

Would you be surprised if I told you that there's something flying on right into his body? Body? It's down up there in the park? Yeah. I mean, would you be surprised? I'd be surprised. I hate to hear that.

After 15 minutes, Conrad shifts gears. But when we started pointing a finger at him, he got very defensive. Was it surprising that I told you there's something in that park that caught you into it? Yeah, it was definitely surprising. Well, you're telling us you've never been there. Right.

Never been there. Never been there. Never even heard of it. He and Robinson both lived within a half a mile of the park at the time of the murder. And he denied knowing where the park was. He denied ever picking up a prostitute. He just denied everything.

With search warrant in hand, Conrad collects a DNA sample from Sutherland and sends it to the crime lab. Meanwhile, investigator Mike Howard finds Robinson stationed in Norfolk, Virginia, with a career in the Navy. You know, he played it very cool. Extremely cool. He doesn't show

his emotion on the outside. Robinson seems eager to provide information about his old buddy, Sutherland. I'm asking you, this is your opinion, what kind of person is he between us? You have to watch him. The reason why I say that is because he's a womanizer. Sutherland. As the interview progressed, the questions start turning toward Robinson himself. At emergency. At emergency. I don't know. At a park. I don't know. Robinson denies any involvement in the crime and hands over a swab of his DNA.

There were two separate DNA profiles obtained from spermatozoa, which were from items that were found at the crime scene. Byron Sonnenberg tests the samples and finds not one, but two separate DNA matches. I actually found that the DNA profile obtained from the condom matched the DNA profile obtained from Mr. Sutherland, and the DNA profile obtained from the vaginal swabs from Pamela Shelley matched the DNA profile obtained from Mr. Robinson. It really doesn't get much better than that. After seven years, cold case detectives have what they need. We were prepared to get the arrest warrants and go after these guys.

Are you here? Yeah, how are you doing? Mike Howard. I'm the investigator. Cold Case Files is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking. Yep, while you're listening to me talk, you're probably also driving, cleaning, exercising, or maybe even grocery shopping. But if you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something else you could be doing right now.

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Skims bras are now available at Skims.com. Plus, get free shipping on orders over $75. If you haven't yet, be sure to let them know we sent you. After you place your order, select podcast in the survey and select our show in the drop-down menu that follows. In an interrogation room at the Chula Vista Police Department, Mike Howard faces off with Adrian Sutherland. You have an objective, and the objective is to get to the truth. You know that the people that you're interviewing are doing everything they can to keep you from the truth. He took your DNA. He took your DNA out of your mouth.

With that court order. That DNA come back, this woman. Not mine. Yeah, it did. No, it didn't. Yeah, it did. No, it didn't. I swear to God it didn't come back.

It did. There's no way. There's no. I don't know that woman. Well, you might not know her, but it came back to her. And not only that, fingerprints came back to you. For 20 minutes, Sutherland dismisses the DNA evidence and continues with the denials. Here we go, round two, round three. And he has to come up with an explanation. So he says, all right, we picked up a prostitute.

So he went into that storyline. All right, this is my final story, man. Make it the truth. That's all I want. I just want the truth. This is exactly what happened. One night, me and Audrey were riding around. And we were somewhere over by 37th Street, and that's where he met that girl. Picked her up.

Admissions are coming out, okay? The dike is trickling, so you're getting somewhere here. I do know that I do have sex with this girl, but I stood a distance while he had sex with her. I don't know what the hell went wrong, but he just started shooting that girl. What he was telling me, that Robinson was the shooter, made sense. Details that

he told me fit the evidence that I knew was in the case. But Howard isn't ready to let Sutherland off the hook just yet. Okay, put your seamans there. Explain it. What happened? Tell me. That's a mystery you've got to clear up. And then he went back and forth. He wavered. I don't remember having sex with that woman. Well, maybe I did. And then at one point he says, okay, I did. No, I didn't. I don't remember having sex with that woman. Well, maybe I did. Oh, and then at one point he says, okay, I did.

No, I didn't. I don't remember. After four and a half hours, Howard ends the interview. It's pretty exhausting, and boom, had to hop on a red-eye. And boom, as soon as you land there, you know, you're ready to take on Robinson. He had already gone out to sea. The ship had left port, and they were doing some naval maneuvers in the Atlantic. On June 10, 2004, Andre Robinson is flown off the USS Truman

and into the hot seat at the Norfolk Police Department. I'm going to ask you a question right now. Are you prepared to talk about this? Me, sir. Okay. He was quiet, reserved, playing it cool, like he was before. During questioning, Robinson admits he and Sutherland picked up a prostitute. But he says Sutherland killed her.

Stop the hitting. You want to tell me to take off my clothes? You want to strip the pants? Take the shit off. but he says Sutherland killed her. It's a story Howard isn't buying. He's playing a con game with me, hoping that he can con his way out of it. I know you'd like to leave, but a lot of people have been talking about it here. You're not supposed to hear me out. Okay, we're going to get to the truth here. I saw the weakness. That's when I moved in. I know that you were a shooter. I know you were.

I know you were afraid about it. Okay? I know that you and Adrian, when you picked up this girl, whether you intended for it to turn out the way it did, whether it was axing down... He knows the gig's up. His head goes down, and he just murmurs, I was the shooter. The dike opens. I can't even tell you why. You want me to tell you why I can't tell you why?

Yeah. I don't even know why. Robinson crumbles under the pressure and gives it up. He says he and Sutherland picked up Pamela Shelley, forced her to perform sex acts, and then he shot her in the back. I was the one that hit her and told her the truth. You have the gun in your hand? Yeah.

He couldn't give a reason. He said it was senseless. He said he just snapped. It just happened. Robinson and Sutherland are each charged with murder and sent to jail to await trial. They just killed her like a piece of trash, threw her away like a piece of trash. She was like subhuman to them. She was like subhuman to them, just like an animal to them.

In February of 2006, Andre Robinson stands trial for the murder of Pamela Shelley. It's kind of a dream case for a prosecutor to have. Not only did we have the fingerprints on the bottle, but then we had Robinson's DNA and the body cavity swabs, okay? And we also had a complete confession. During trial, Robinson changes his story and says Sutherland was the shooter. The story was, I just confessed to it because I was under stress. I told them what they wanted to know.

And it really wasn't me. It was the other guy. It's a claim the jury doesn't buy. After two weeks of trial, Robinson is found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison. The only difficulty in the case was against Sutherland, and that's why we decided to offer him a plea. Five months later, Adrian Sutherland cops a plea. And he pled guilty to 12 years. I think justice is done in that, I mean, 12 years is a long time in prison for the second guy, the non-shooter. But the shooter got life without parole, so the rest of his life he'll never get out. Andre Robinson is currently incarcerated.

He filed an appeal in March of 2008, but it was denied. He once had a career in the Navy. He had a family at home, a wife and five children. Now, though, he's an inmate, a number in the system, and he will be for the rest of his life. On August 31st of 2006, Adrian Sutherland made a plea deal to serve 12 years for voluntary manslaughter. A plea deal is basically admitting to being part of a crime.

But instead of gambling with the jury, the defendant instead negotiates their sentence with the district attorney. August 31st, 2006 was 12 years ago. I wonder where Adrianenne is now. I could not understand why. To this day, I don't know why. Why kill her?

Why kill her? It's terrible. For Norvell Shelley, the answers help, but the pain of losing her daughter remains. Pain just never goes away. It never goes away. Because you ask yourself, why? Where did I go wrong?

You know, where did I go wrong? As a mother. But I don't know that answer. by Blake Maples. We're distributed by Podcast One. The Cold Case Files TV series was produced by Curtis Productions and hosted by the one and only Bill Curtis. Check out more Cold Case Files at aetv.com. Hi, everyone. This is Jillian with Court Junkie. Court Junkie is a true crime podcast that covers court cases and criminal trials

using audio clips and interviews with people close to the cases. Court Junkie is available on Apple Podcasts and podcastone.com. Hold on to your jingle bells. on Apple Podcasts and podcastone.com. holiday lights, and Hallmark movies and more. Download the Pluto TV app on all your favorite devices and start streaming holiday favorites on live channels and on demand. With thousands of free movies and TV shows, Pluto TV is your home for the holidays.

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