Cold Case Files - Shattered

Episode Date: August 10, 2021

A young woman is shot to death during a jewelry store robbery in 1980, but without the ability to test DNA evidence the case goes cold until the killer strikes again two decades later. Check out our great sponsors! Boll & Branch: Visit bollandbranch.com to get 15% off your first set of sheets with code "coldcase" LifeLock: Join now and save up to 25% off your first year at LifeLock.com/coldcase  Listen to new episodes of The Vanished on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or you can listen ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery App. Lending Tree: Download the free LendingTree app now to get started and see why thousands of people turn to LendingTree every day for smarter, easier finances. Progressive: Visit Progressive.com to get a quote with all the coverages you want!

Thank you for listening to this Podcast One production, available on Apple Podcasts and Podcast One. An A&E original podcast. This episode contains descriptions of violence. Use your best judgment. Sheila Elrod was 20 years old in 1980. She was a college student and also worked at Everett Music Jewelers in the city of San Angelo, Texas. On February 12th, Sheila arrived at the jewelry store a little before 9 to help open the store around 10. She was greeted by the owner, Everett Music.

A little after 9, Everett left the jewelry store to take some mail to the post office. He locked the door on his way out, knowing he would be back before the store opened. When Everett returned to the store, he found a trail of blood in the parking lot that led to a smashed display case inside the store. The door was unlocked and there was no sign of forced entry, but it was obvious that the visitors had not been welcome. The only witness to the apparent robbery would have been Sheila, whoever it found lying in a pool of her own blood, shot to death. From A&E, this is Cold Case Files.

I'm Brooke, and here's the incredible Bill Curtis with a classic case, Shattered. Well, it was on February 12, 1980. My partner and I were on patrol. We got a robbery shooting call at a music jewelry store on Sherwood Way. Robert Lloyd is a beat cop for the San Angelo Police. We were only a few blocks away, maybe four or five at the most, when we got the call. Didn't know what to expect when we got inside. We entered, found the female laying face down in the middle of the showroom floor there in the jewelry store. It was obvious she'd been shot.

There was some blood on her back. The store clerk, 20-year-old Sheila Elrod, lies dead on the floor. Yeah, they said there'd been a shooting, and I thought, I hope it's not Sheila. Sergeant Fred Dietz used to work security at the jewelry store and knows the folks who work there. When he arrives on scene, his worst fears are realized. I noticed the showcases were broken. There was blood all over the place there, on the showcases, on the floor. And as I went around the corner, there was a female laying there face down, and it was Sheila Elrod. Yeah, it was pretty hard.

I thought, well, maybe we'll solve it. That's my first thought. I said, we got to catch whoever did it. Dietz watches as Sheila's body is bundled up and transferred to the morgue. Then he gets to work, intent on catching her killer. And then we figured she got up and ran toward the front door, and that's when she was shot three times in the back.

She was just trying to get away. She was terrified. Sheila's killers walked away with nearly $100,000 worth of jewelry. In doing so, they paid a price and left behind a clue. There was blood all over the place. Whoever broke the showcases cut their hands while getting the jewelry out. Whoever was bleeding had left the front door of the jewelry store

and went this way, probably to a waiting vehicle. The blood trail ended somewhere out here in the parking lot, right? That's about the only blood we found in the parking lot that I remember. Several drops of blood. Several drops of blood. Detectives collect samples from the blood trail. On a broken display case, they lift several unknown fingerprints and a well-preserved palm print. It was an excellent print because there were numerous points to compare on the print,

so it was a very, very good print. Kathy DeLauder examines the palm print. What made it unique that we knew that it didn't just belong to a random customer was the fact that as the glass broke, the edges of the ridges curled over the edge of the broken piece of glass, so we knew it could only belong to whoever broke that glass top. The edges of the ridges curled over the edge of the broken piece of glass, so we knew it could only belong to whoever broke that glass top. Detectives have hard evidence.

Now they need a suspect to compare it to. In this also, I think it has the work schedules when people were here. The San Angelo PD puts all its resources onto the Elrod murder. It's just one of those things. We had two basic things to work with was the palm print and the blood. Detectives hit the streets looking for a name. Deets begins with the jewelry store owner.

As Paul Music was, did he have any idea who could have done it? I asked him, was there any suspicious characters come in the last day or two? He said, yeah. A black male came in yesterday afternoon, the day before the robbery, right about closing time. A composite of the customer is developed. This is a man we were looking for here as a possible suspect.

He had kind of like an Afro haircut and a Fu Manchu mustache. That's basically what we were looking for here as a possible suspect. He had kind of like an afro haircut and a Fu Manchu mustache. That's basically what we were looking for. Detectives ID more than 150 suspects, take their prints, and compare them to the unknown. You're always hoping that one day, one print that you look at, that you're hoping it's going to match, and never did match that particular print. Never matched it. Within months, the most promising leads are run down and out. Meanwhile, the victim's family waits and wonders. Her brother would call us all the time,

and we felt real bad because we couldn't give no definite answers. You want to know what happened? I didn't understand it at the time, but you have survivor's guilt. You know, you wonder, you know, why am I still there and they're the ones gone. It's bad to lose somebody like that. It's senseless. But we did want justice, you know, justice for her. And we just couldn't understand how in this small town that we couldn't get an answer. You know, someone didn't see, you know, nothing was seen. It was real hard. We just followed up as many leads as we could, worked on it many, many months.

And several years, we never could solve it. It was just a tragic incident. Sheila Elrod was shot to death in the jewelry store where she worked and the killers walked away with $100,000 worth of jewelry. During the robbery, the killers had cut their hands while breaking the glass display cases, leaving behind a blood sample and finger and handprints. The police investigated over 150 suspects, but in the end, they just didn't have a strong enough lead to make an arrest. Sheila's family was devastated when the case went cold. But 20 years later, in the year 2000, a new lead and new technology once again gave them hope. This is the Texas Ranger's office in San Angelo.

I keep my files in this closet. These are cases that I worked that were closed while I was in San Angelo. Jerry Byrne is a Texas Ranger in the town of San Angelo. This file contains some of the reports and witness statements and things of that nature that have been taken over the years. Twenty years after Sheila Elrod was murdered, Ranger Byrne picks up her file and finds reason for fresh hope. With as much blood evidence that was reported to have been left by the suspects in this case, I felt like that there was a, had a high probability

of solving this case. In September of 2000, Byrne heads to the San Angelo Police Property Room to get a look at the evidence. I came here originally to talk to the San Angelo Police Department into letting me reopen this investigation. Came here to the evidence room and went through all these different packages of evidence and case reports. There were probably a couple of hundred files on people that they had eliminated over the years.

Byrne picks his way through evidence now 20 years cold. This is some of the original evidence from inside the jewelry store, from the display case. There was a large quantity of broken glass and blood from the glass. The Ranger pulls out at least 10 pieces of broken glass, spattered with blood. Either the suspect, as he was trying to break the glass, he cut himself, or because it was a jagged hole. So as he was reaching in to take the jewelry from the case, he may have cut himself then. Byrne drops the samples off at the lab for DNA testing

and then waits for the results that will break the case wide open. The lady was laying down there. He said, help me get the jury. So I said, man, what you done? He said, help me get the jury, man, help me get the jury. Okay, we're going into our screening area in the Texas Department of Public Safety Crime Lab here in Lubbock. I've got a digital photo pulled up here of the actual evidence I worked on in this case. This is actually the glass that was taken out of the jewelry store. On September 7th, David Young takes delivery of blood evidence from a case 20 years cold. The 1980 murder of 20-year-old Sheila Elrod.

You can see that the blood, you know, is kind of streaking in this area right here. But there was a pretty large amount of blood on it for what we need to work with. We don't require a whole lot for DNA analysis. For our purposes, I would consider it quite a bit of blood on it. Young extracts a DNA profile from the dried blood, uploads it into the CODIS system, but fails to generate a match. You know, we just had to keep our fingers crossed that something was going to come up sooner or later and that that person was still alive and would commit another

crime to get into the system. One year later, Ranger Jerry Byrne takes a call from the crime lab. He called me one day and said, we got a hit in CODIS. And you know, I just, I was really shocked. The stats were still over one in a quadrillion. That's a pretty huge number, bigger than the population of our planet. The hit is to a man named Louis Williams, a career criminal whose DNA made it into the system after a parole violation. Well, at that time, Lewis was about 56 years of age.

I learned that he had a lengthy criminal history. A lot of his previous charges were violent crimes, armed robberies. Byrne pulls a photo of his suspect and feels his case coming together. Okay, this is a composite that was done of a subject that came into the music's jewelry store. This is a booking photograph.

It was identical to Louis Williams. The evidence is enough to indict Williams for murder. Byrne picks up his suspect at Austin, Texas, and brings him in for questioning. He was a little shocked. He was asking me what it was about, and I told him it was about a young lady that was murdered in San Angelo in the 1980s.

Initially, he told me, well, I don't think I've ever been there. And I said, well, we know that's not true. We know you've been there. Williams' DNA puts him inside the jewelry store. A fingerprint found at the scene provides a second match to Williams. The unknown palm print, however, does not match the suspect, telling Ranger Byrne that Louis Williams most likely had an accomplice.

At this particular time, I'm so confused and so shook up I've never been involved in a killing report. On August 19th, Lewis Williams sits in a San Angelo interrogation room. As part of his plea deal, he agrees to tell detectives how Sheila Elrod was murdered and who did the killing. So when we parked there, the pal got out and I said, I'll be a few minutes.

He got out and I lit a cigarette. Harold is Harold Jones, an experienced robber now deceased. According to Williams, Harold Jones was the trigger man during the jewelry store shooting. The lady was laying down there. He said, help me get the jewelry.

So I said, man, what you done? He said, help me get the jewelry, man, help me get the jewelry. And once they got inside, he seen that there was a female who had been obviously shot and murdered. He said that was his first indication that there was any foul play going on. So that's when I took the pistol and I hit the top of the jury case.

And that's when I cut my hand. Oh, that top of the jury case. I didn't feel it because my drum was rushing so bad. I really didn't even know I had got the cut until I started picking up the jewelry and I saw the blood running down my hand. Can you show me where you cut yourself? Yes, sir.

Right here, right here, right here. As Williams talks, Byrne listens and begins to wonder about what he is hearing. And when I was hitting it, the gun went off. He would have been a secret. The. I had one hope that he would have been a secret. And Sheila was killed with a.22 revolver. There was no evidence that a.38 was used in that case at Musick's jewelry store.

Gloves, were y'all wearing gloves? He had on surgical gloves, and I had on surgical gloves on this hand. We identified a fingerprint from one of his left fingers on the display case, so we know that he was not wearing gloves. Many of the things that he said to me didn't apply to the Elrod murder. Byrne believes Lewis Williams is confused and describing perhaps a second robbery and murder,

one that took place 90 miles away in Abilene. Harold Jones and Lewis Williams were involved in both of these murders, and Louis has got some of the facts mixed up between the two cases. We got there, we found the showcases all smashed, and later on we found the victim behind the counter. He was a young man, kind of had that real fire red hair. I'll never forget that about him. And he was laying face down behind the counter.

He'd been shot twice in the back of the head with two different weapons, a smaller caliber weapon and what turned out to be a.38. Just seven months before Sheila Elrod was murdered, a jewelry store in Abilene was robbed, and the store clerk, 23-year-old Glenn Burns, shot to death. Well, just to keep him from identifying anybody or talking or becoming a witness, that was pretty obvious why they killed him,

so he couldn't identify anybody. Like the Elrod murder, the cases were smashed and jewelry grabbed. And like the Elrod murder, the suspect cut himself and left behind blood evidence. This is the archives room. This is where we had our homicide cases that were unsolved. And this is where I came to to locate the files that we had on the cold cases. Blood from the Burns murder yields a DNA profile but no match to Lewis Williams. Maybe the only way to corroborate what Lewis Williams said was if we could determine that that drop of blood in Abilene was Harold Jones's.

So we kind of started on that leg of the investigation. Only problem, Jones is dead. But they did find that he was married, and that this particular person he was married to, they had a child together. Byrne tracks down Harold Jones' daughter, gets a sample of her DNA, and orders a reverse paternity test. There was a 99.9% chance

that the blood in the abilene came from the father of Harold Jones' daughter. So it was Harold Jones' blood. Harold Jones will never stand trial for the murder of Glenn Burns, but the case can finally be closed. That was great news, and having actually this solved and come to a close was really, really great, you know,

not only for the department in the city of Abilene, but especially for the family of Mr. Burns. Lewis Williams is sentenced to life in prison for the murder of sheila elrod he has never tied directly to the abilene murder and still denies any involvement well i'm you know i'm still a little disappointed that we couldn't prove the abilene that he was involved in the abilene case you know it was really good to to get a closure on the Sheila Elrod case and to get a conviction in that.

I mean, that was what I was hoping for. No matter what, you know, it's not going to bring Sheila back. The Elrod family finally has answers, but they may never find peace. We still miss Sheila so much, you know. So many times I think, well, if Sheila was here, she'd be here to help me, you know. I just miss having a sister, you know. I miss it.

Lewis Williams is still serving his sentence in a Texas prison. He's currently 74 years old. Cold Case Files, the podcast, is hosted by Brooke Giddings, produced by McKamey Lynn and Steve Delamater. Our executive producers are Jesse Katz and Ted Butler. Our music was created by Blake Maples.

This podcast is distributed by Podcast One. The Cold Case Files TV series was produced by Curtis Productions and is hosted by Bill Curtis. You can find me at Brooke Giddings on Twitter and at Brooke the Podcaster on Instagram. I'm also active in the Facebook group Podcast for Justice. Check out more Cold Case Files at AETV.com or learn more about cases like this one by visiting the A&E Real Crime blog at AETV dot com slash real crime. I'm Lola Blanc and I'm Megan Elizabeth, and we're the hosts of Trust Me, the podcast about cults, extreme belief and the abuse of power.

Now on podcast one, we want to debunk the myth that people who join cults are uneducated because anyone can be manipulated by a narcissist. And we should know we both have been join us every week as we explore the world of extreme belief talk to survivors and experts and share our own experiences with cults and the abuse of power get new episodes of trust me every wednesday on podcast one and anywhere you get your podcasts