Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Gorgeous Mom, USAF Nurse Nonnie Dotson Goes Out for Smoothie, Never Seen Again!

Episode Date: July 23, 2021

Nonnie Dotson, 33, a USAF nurse, visits family and friends in Littleton, Colorado. One afternoon she tells family she's going for a smoothie with friends. Dotson is never seen again.Joining Nancy Grace today: James Shelnutt - 27 years Atlanta Metro Area Major Case Detective, Swat officer, Attorney, ShelnuttLawFirm.com Dr. Angela Arnold - Psychiatrist, Atlanta GA AngelaArnoldMD.com, Expert in the Treatment of Pregnant/Postpartum Women Dan Corsentino - Former Police Chief (Fountain, Colorado), Former Sheriff, Served on US Homeland Security Senior Advisory Board, Private Investigator, Dan Corsentino Private & Investigative Security Consultants, DanCorsentino.com Michael Whelan - Podcaster and Researcher: "Unresolved", unresolved.me, Instagram/Twitter: @unresolvedpod Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. How does a gorgeous 33-year-old single mom of a 16-month-old daughter just disappear? Where do you even start? It's like a needle in a haystack. You got to get to know your victim. You got to get to know everybody around your victim. You got to retrace their steps. Where do they work? Who have they been dating? Who lives in their apartment complex?

It goes on and on and on. Again, it's like a needle in a haystack. But that doesn't change one thing. We want answers. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. Take a listen to this. Jane, give me the timeline. Well, the timeline is back in November of 2006, she went on a vacation from San Antonio

where she was a critical care nurse, Lackland Air Force Bay, Wilford Hall Medical Center. She went to Colorado to spend time with her brother and she enjoyed it for a couple of days with him. And all of a sudden, one afternoon, she said that she was gonna go out for some smoothies and they don't really know how she left because she didn't take her brother's car.

But she was gone and she didn't come back. And her little 16-month-old was still there. So in the evening, they called police and that's how it all began. Okay, wait. I don't get it. Jinkosaurus, she tells the brother to his face, I'm heading out for smoothies or I'm going to meet friends. How did she have friends there? She didn't live there.

And if she said that to his face, didn't he see her walk out the door? Didn't he say, how are you going to get there? He was in the basement with the children and with her daughter, and he didn't see her leave. She did just say she was leaving, but he realized his car was still there. And let's just get one thing straight to the men experts on our panel. And that would be you, James Shelnut, Dan Corcentino, and Michael Whelan. Don't start up with me that she ran away with her lover and she shacked up somewhere, some tropical island right now. Don't even go there.

But, you know, I've already reprimanded you before I can even introduce you. Guys, you were just hearing me speaking to my longtime colleague, Jean Casares at HLM. When we first found out, Nani Dotson disappeared. With me right now, an all-star panel to break it down and put it back together again. The aforementioned James Shelnut, 27 years, Metro major case and SWAT officer, now lawyer at ShelnutLawFirm.com. Dr. Angela Arnold, renowned psychiatrist joining us from the Atlanta jurisdiction. You can find her at AngelaArnoldMD.com. Dan Corsentino, former police chief, Colorado, former sheriff, and served on U.S. Homeland Security Senior Advisory Board. PI at Dan Corsentino Private

and Investigative Security Consultants. You can find them at dancorsentino.com. But first, let me go to Michael Whelan, researcher, podcaster of Unresolved. And you can find that at unresolved.me. You know, Michael, I want to talk to you first of all about how you put together a felony case. Okay. So the first thing I would try to do if I open this file after I read it carefully and made notes is immediately, I mean, right then, call my investigator, find him, get him off the street or wherever he would be at that moment, get in the county. Of course, there was always a Crown Victoria. That really blended in and goes straight to where the person was last seen. After that, I would immediately start finding out everything I could about this vixen, Nonnie Dotson. For instance, who's the daddy of this

16-month-old daughter, baby Savannah? Is he in the picture? Why? Because statistically, it's the husband, the ex-husband, the boyfriend, the ex-boyfriend, the lover, the live-in, the next-door neighbor with a crush. That's where you start. I'd find out everything I could about her. Where does she work?

Does she have to commute to work? In this case, she was in Colorado. What friend did she know? I need that cell phone. I need her laptop. I need her iPad to find out who is she having a smoothie with. And most important, had she ever disappeared before and left that little daughter alone? And to my knowledge, Nani Dotson never left her daughter alone. Okay, that in mind, Michael Whelan, what can you tell me about where she was last seen? Yeah, so the area that Nani Dotson was last seen in, it was in the area of the 9500 block of West Unser Avenue in Littleton, Colorado. Wait, wait, wait, West what?

West Unser Avenue. And is that residential, suburban? Is it downtown? What is it? Yeah, it's a little bit of a suburban area. That was where her brother lived. And so that was the area she was last seen in. But there is kind of like shopping centers and little malls and stuff nearby. You know, without the proper zoning, you could say that about anywhere in

America. So Michael Whelan, I'm trying to get an idea about the location because it's actually very critical to finding out what happened to Donnie Dotson. Now to you, Dan Corcentino, you're joining us from Colorado. What do you know about this area? This area is basically a suburb area. It has high traffic volume. There's a shopping center not too far away from Tony Dotson's residence. Hold it right there. Now, I know you're the former police chief and the former sheriff,

and you're on Homeland Security, but you're in Nancy land now. I hate to tell you that, so I get to just interrupt all the time. You just said something very important. You said near a shopping center. Is it some upscale mall with Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue? Or is it one of those outdoor strip centers where the sidewalks are starting to crack and there's asphalt with chips in it and people park their cars overnight and get boots on their car? What kind of shopping center?

It's a shopping center that basically reflects middle America. It's not an upscale shopping center with high-end department stores. It's more of a strip mall type of shopping center that you can go to. You may find a dollar store there. Hey, hey, hey, hey, I live about three blocks from the Dollar Tree. Don't knock it. Go ahead. But anyway, long story. It's an area that is middle America, if you will, and it's within approximately a mile of the residence. There's plenty of cameras in the area that would detect any type of movement of this situation that's taking place regarding Nani.

If she was moving by foot or even being in that area, even being picked up or dropped off. OK, let me ask a very critical question, and that is how far was the brother's home she leaves all the children and the brother are downstairs played in the basement could she get to that strip mall by foot absolutely because you know what you know what my husband my husband my husband's on keto again my son my son loves to go little known place I don't know if they're all over the country. Rita's Frozen Custard. We went on an RV trip across the country and we got hooked on frozen custard in St. Louis at Ted's Frozen Custard. I didn't even know what it was, but now he's hooked and it's right by the Dollar Tree. And there's like a great clips and the parking lot's a little messed up.

But I'm just thinking how that fits in with what she's saying. She says, I'm going for a smoothie and I guarantee you cannot have a strip mall with a Dollar Tree or a dollar store without some kind of ice cream or yogurt or something in the strip center. I wonder if that's where she went, Michael Whelan. Yeah, it's very possible. Something that is worth noting is that she had kind of grown up in this area. So she still had some friends that were, you know, from childhood and, you know, we'll end up getting into this, I'm sure. But I got to make a note of that, Michael, because I was giving Jean Casares a little bit of a, let me say, cross-examination because she just goes to visit the brother with her daughter. They're having a great family time. And I'm thinking, how does she

know a friend to go have a smoothie with? But you just answered that, Michael. Yeah. She had grown up with a military family. Her mother was in the Air Force as well. And they moved around a lot, but they kind of had found stability in this area, like the area around Denver and Colorado Springs. And, you know, James Sheldon, the reason I'm asking about the area is because you expect a lot of crime in an urban area where there are more people concentrated. They're living on top of each other.

You know, like New York City, where I raised my children. It's like skyrocketed with crime, as opposed to out in a rural area, you expect less crime. Not always true, James Shelnut. No, it's not always true. You know, how many stories have we covered on this show together where, you know, somebody's in a safe place. First of all, it's not a show.

It's not a trick pony these are real people that have gone through real crime and have real suffering and we're trying to help great okay how many times have we covered stories where people were in neighborhoods that are considered safe and you see all of the neighbors interviewed about a missing person or about a violent crime and they're just shocked hey in your neck of the neighbors interviewed about a missing person or about a violent crime, and they're just shocked. Hey, in your neck of the wood right now, the ritzy butt-cat area is trying to secede from Atlanta because of the crime that has now infiltrated their enclave. So, yes, it does happen, but less often.

That's what makes this case very, very unusual. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, you were just hearing me speaking with my longtime colleague, Jean Casares. But now take a listen to me speaking with Kate Batten at HLM. later heard through other people's hearsay that other people were saying possibly she went to that smoothie shop. We went to that smoothie shop, which is about a mile away, so it's unlikely that Nani would have actually walked there, and they had never seen her that day. Now, Kate Batten, why do you say it's unlikely she would have walked there? In talking to friends and family, Nani wasn't much of a walker, and she's in a very suburban area, and it's a mile away just to get to where the businesses begin. And it would have been much easier and convenient and logical on a cold November morning to take a car. Well, she brought up a really good point, Michael Whelan. It was a cold November morning.

Now, the smoothie thing, I believe since then, has been nailed down. She did say that because I found out, Michael, you got to ask the right question of witnesses. You can go through many Q&A sessions, and if you didn't say, what was the last thing she said? I'm going to get a smoothie. If you don't ask the right question, you may not know that until you finally think of the right question. So what do you make of it being a cold November morning? Would she have walked? And that's a major question because if she was by foot, it opens up a whole plethora of who may have gotten her as opposed to meeting someone that drove her somewhere.

So what do you think, Michael? Cold November morning. Yeah, cold November morning right before Thanksgiving. I can't imagine, you know, going out to try and get a smoothie on foot. And from what I've heard speaking to some of Nani's friends, it doesn't seem like she was the type of person that would have willingly gone on foot. Like that just wouldn't have been her thing. She wasn't interested in, you know, going on long walks to try and get a smoothie. So I just, I think that there was definitely. First of all, who wants a cold smoothie on a cold November day, but to each her own. Guys, this Nani Dotson, just a beautiful girl, just perfect teeth.

I'm looking at her right now. Long, raven-haired beauty, perfect teeth. Are you looking at her picture? I mean, really, really pretty. And also, I'm looking at her. It looks like she's got the American flag behind her, and she looks as if she's in a military outfit, Michael Whelan. Yes, yes. She was actually a first lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force. Okay. Dr. Angie Arnold. In my mind, that changes things. This woman is a no-nonsense person.

And I find it hard to believe she's going to let somebody get it over on her. She's a first lieutenant. Right. And I think that she scored really high on her entrance exam and she was very driven. She had a really amazing plan in her life. I don't think she's just wandering through life not knowing. I think she had plans for her life. Don't you, Nancy? Well, yeah, especially now that I know she's in the military. She's not just wandering from pillar to post. No. She's got a plan. Yes.

And she's also got a plan to take care of herself, it seems. And she was also a nurse. She knows what she wants to do. You know what? Who is Nonnie Dotson? Another place you've got to start your investigation. Guys, we're trying to solve the case of Nani Dotson, a gorgeous 33-year-old mom of one, a 16-month-old little girl named Savannah. Who is she?

What do we know about her? And will that give us any clues as to what may have happened to her? Take a listen to our friends at CrimeOnline.com. Nani N. Dotson and her twin brother, Beau, grow up alongside older brother, Tony, near Colorado Springs with their mother, Candace. Candace is a single mom and a member of the U.S. Air Force. Nani Dotson follows in her mother's footsteps. She is commissioned into the U.S. Air Force, ultimately stationed at Lackland Air Force Base just outside of San Antonio, Texas. As a first lieutenant, Dotson is assigned to the 59th

Medical Wing as an intensive care nurse at Wilford Hall Medical Center. Intensive care nurse? She's no slacker. I really can't put my finger on it. James Shelnut, 27 years Metro major case, SWAT detective, now lawyer. When I say she's no slacker, I'm not just twiddling my thumbs making a comment. So many crimes I prosecuted, Shelnut, I would go to the scene and everybody's just sitting around the house in the middle of the day doing nothing. The old adage, idle hands are the devil's workshop. That's true. This woman was no slacker. She's an intensive care nurse.

She's a first lieutenant to the 59th Medical Wing. And she's raising a child, a little girl all on her own. That changes the nature of the case. I agree with you 100%. You know, this lady, as a military term, squared away. You know, she has got her act together. You know, I think one thing that's very important here is to take a look at the overall picture. You know, you hear the term totality of the circumstances a lot of the times in the investigation.

Yeah, I usually hear lawyers say that. But you know, you have to consider that go ahead. You have to consider that too. You have to consider that too as an investigator getting the big picture. And here we have, we've got the squared away military nurse, intensive care nurse, educated, smart with kids. Beautiful lady. And is she really going to go get this smoothie on this cold day walking in an area that she's unfamiliar with?

I don't know. It doesn't fit. It doesn't fit the scenario. Yeah, you're right. Michael Whelan, did she have a car with her? She did not. She had been borrowing her brother's car on and off that weekend. But, yeah, she did not have a car of her own in that area.

Michael, was she only supposed to be there for the weekend? Yeah, she was just visiting her brother. She was actually stationed at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. So she was just visiting her brother she was actually stationed at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio so she was just visiting her brother for Thanksgiving basically like a section of that one another thing Dr. Angela Arnold you may be able to articulate better than I can but I find it very difficult to believe that she goes home to her one of her childhood homes and she wants to make a hookup over one weekend and leave her daughter to do it. It just doesn't sound like her.

I agree with you. It doesn't fit her. It doesn't fit what we're describing about her, does it? No. Hey, what more do we know about Nonnie Dotson? Listen. Nonnie Dotson, like her mother, is a single mom. While living in San Antonio, she decides to take country dancing

lessons at a local dance club where she meets Edward Vela, 20 years her senior. The pair date and Dotson becomes pregnant. The relationship did not continue. In fact, Vela wanted nothing to do with the pregnancy. Dotson gives birth to her one and only child, a daughter named Savannah, in 2005. She seemingly leaves behind her 16-month-old daughter. The father reportedly did not want her to have the child before she disappeared, and Nani had gone and gotten child support for that child. Had to chase down the dad to get child support. Got to look at the bio dad. But so far, he has been ruled out.

Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. So where do you go? I want you to take a listen to our new friend, Michael Whelan. In an effort to determine where Nani Dotson was, investigators would begin to look through all facets of her life. They would learn about a woman that was well-liked by her colleagues, who was a hardworking single mother that enjoyed country music, but did not do any drugs, easily proven by the constant screenings required by the military, and only drank socially when she went out to the various country and western bars she frequented in Colorado and Texas. They would also learn that Nani had been heartbroken after her breakup with

Edward Veal, the father of her daughter, and had held off on dating anyone until just recently. Investigators would learn that Nani had been active on dating websites, including one website in particular called singleparentsmeet.com. She had logged onto that website at least twice prior to her disappearance, once at around 2.30 a.m. on the morning of November 19th, the date of her disappearance, and then again about 11 hours later at 1 p.m. The latter was roughly one hour prior to when she left her brother Tony's home and would indicate to some that she might have arranged to meet up with someone that afternoon. Well, let's get it straight from the horse's mouth with me. Michael Whelan, he's the podcaster creator of Unresolved, and you can find that at unresolved.me.

Michael Whelan, I know that you said that Detective C, she had logged on to this website at 1.30 a.m. That means not a lot to me because last night I was looking up a murder case at 1.30 a.m. That doesn't mean I committed the murder. But if you look at her movements online, was she planning to meet someone? She very well could have been. Something that you haven't been really touched on yet was the fact that she was in the military, but she was getting ready to leave the military in a few months. So it seems like she might have been, you know, trying to establish some feelers in the area around Denver.

On a dating app? She might have, yeah. She was showing interest in moving back to the area. And it seems like she might have been trying to, you know, on this opportunity, you know, this week visiting the area, she might have been trying to find a love connection or something like that. You know, a lot of people too, Dan Corsentino, we hear about these tragedies that happen when you meet up with somebody online. In fact, I write about it extensively in my new book, Don't Be a Victim. P.S. All the money goes to National Center of Missing and Exploited Children. So feel free to go onto Amazon and buy one. Dan, I'm not just talking about dating online. I'm talking about when you go to those marketplaces, when you go to Craigslist to buy and sell things

or dating apps. It's very, very dangerous. And I can't emphasize that enough. On the other hand, Dan Corsentino, for instance, my nephew, super smart, double major, biology and IT. He's an IT wizard now at a big company, meets a lady online, and they got married. They're still married now, I guess, five years later, have a little baby boy, perfectly happy. So, you know, don't knock it until you try it. But it opens up a whole plethora of possibilities in this case. Well, absolutely. This case, in regards to Nani, there's an unknown factor when she's online. She, unless she gets a full name and she gets more information, she can do some checking herself. She could even, if she had the background, put a request in through

the Corral Bureau of Investigation to get for $5 some background information. As we said before, she was very detailed, very professional. I don't think she went to that length to do it. I think, as was stated earlier, she was searching, trying to find a friend or friends in the area. And it's kind of interesting in this case that we didn't get feedback from anybody from that dating site that I'm aware of. There was in the law enforcement investigation, even though they reached out and they traced her steps, there was no one that emerged as a suspect from this dating site. And the focus then shifted to other individuals. Guys, I want you to take a listen to our Cut 13. Listen. Authorities would attempt to track Nani's movement through her cell phone activity,

learning that she had last made a call at around 11 a.m. on the date of her disappearance. Police have never revealed who this call was made to, but that her cell phone would show signs of movement afterward, the date after Nani's disappearance, November 20, 2006. Her cell phone would ping in the area of Southwest Littleton, near Ken Carroll Ranch, about 20 miles southwest of Denver. This was incredibly close to Toni's home, not too far away from the highway C-470, and was within proximity of the shopping center that Nani was last known to be headed to. Police would bring out canine units to search the area, using some of Nani's clothing left behind at Tony's home, and were able to pick up her scent throughout the area.

However, they would ultimately be unable to find any trace of Nani nor her cell phone. You're hearing the voice of our new friend, Michael Whelan, host of Unresolved, which is an incredible podcast. So, Michael Whelan, that's the third thing I would do besides go into the scene. Speaking of the scene, Michael, do we know if the scene was processed for clues such as blood spatter, pool of blood, blood dropping, blood transfer, disarray? Were her items still there, things that she owned? What became of her wallet? What became of her ID? What do we know about that? Did she take her cell phone with her?

Yes, she had her cell phone with her and she had taken her purse, which contained like her wallet and her ID cards and stuff like that. And police were able to track down kind of where the signal from her cell phone had gone to. And they were able to trace it down to this really like finite area. It was a roughly 30 feet in like a three to four acre field, which was nearby the shopping center where, you know, the smoothie place supposedly was. Wait, tell me that again. They had traced the,

they had traced her cell phone to this roughly 30 foot area in a three to four acre field, which was right by the shopping center that she had been supposedly headed to. And so to me, that answers a lot of questions. And what can you tell me, Michael Whelan, about what happened the night before she goes missing? So the night before she went missing, she had actually borrowed her brother's car and she had gone out to this like a country, a country western bar. Grizzly Rose. Grizzly Rose, yep. She had gone there, and she had been, you know, apparently meeting up with some friends and going line dancing and whatever else people do there.

But it seems like she had had a good time. I don't know, but I've been told they have fun. Yeah, me too. But, yeah, when she was there, she supposedly had kind of a strange encounter with two men that were kind of harassing her, you know, giving her a hard time. And her brother, Tony, was late to report that some guy called and he had apparently tried to protect her and he wanted to take her out for breakfast the following morning. But she wasn't at the house at the time. So he had her home phone number. Well, to me, just the hard evidence that we have, James Shelnut,

she says, I'm going to the shopping mall for a smoothie. Her cell phone is found in a field near the shopping mall. Well, two and two equals four. Although they didn't teach math in law school, that tells me she did take off to walk to the smoothie shop, assuming it was in the shopping mall, and she was accosted. Yeah, and she was obviously transported from the scene. She either involuntarily or voluntarily got into some type of vehicle with someone. And that tells me that if they didn't find any evidence of a crime scene other than, you know,

being able to trace her back there to this field, that she was taken from there either voluntarily or involuntarily. And they need to be looking for the location that she was taken to. And that's going to provide some valuable clues in this case. And Dan Corsentino, we may be running down a rabbit hole on the whole dating app because they've got her cell phone, right, Michael? No, they never recovered her cell phone. Oh, it was a ping. That's right.

Yeah, the last place where the signal was. But Danny Corsentino, can't you, with a subpoena, get the last text, the last phone calls, last emails from someone's cell phone? Absolutely, yeah. It's a criminal case. this case, the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office can issue the subpoenas and they can recover the text messages, a history of all her inbound calls and all of her outbound calls, as well as text messages. So there's a historical document to do that. I believe one thing that's really interesting in this story is that Tony, the brother, is the one telling the story. He's the one providing so much information. And I know later on, we'll learn about his history. Yes, he does have a history. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, you have to look at allegations that she went missing voluntarily.

Do I believe that? Absolutely not. She had never left her 16-month-old little girl, Savannah, alone, ever. But take a listen to anchor Corey Rose, 9 News, KUSA. Investigators typically look to see if someone had a reason to go missing. In Nani's case, that was eliminated fairly quickly. She was a single parent to a 16-month-old daughter named Savannah. Nani was also three months away from being discharged from the Air Force

and was getting ready to move back to Colorado. I know absolutely she would have not walked off. I know that to my soul. Something happened to her. Just after Nani disappeared, police did get a ping from her cell phone in an area not too far from the area. Dogs traced her scent there, but both ended up dead ends. Investigators believe she was taken against her will, but Detective Alberti says at this point it would take someone stepping

forward with information to solve the case. It's going to take that person to come forward after all these years to say this is what I think happened, or this is what I know happened. And you know, in these kind of cases, it just takes something really small. Let's take a listen to more from our friend, Corey Rose, 9 News, KUSA TV. It took me six years for me not to think about her every single day or me not to cry about her at night.

It took me six years. It's been more than a decade since Candace Doyle saw her daughter. It affects you to your core. It affects you to your soul. It changes you as a person. You lose part of your heart and you never get it back. Nani was visiting from San Antonio, staying at her brother Tony Dodson's house in Littleton. He was the last to see her on that November day. Stop right there, please. That's bringing up an incredibly important issue. The last one to see her is the brother. Now, I believe it was Dan Corcentino who stated, we will learn more about the brother. You know what? Let's go straight out to Michael Whelan,

the podcaster and creator of Unresolved. And you can find it at unresolved.me. What can you tell me about Tony Dotson? There's a lot to unpack there. But Tony Dotson was a 90s brother. It seemed like they were pretty close growing up. And as we'll touch on, he ended up getting in some legal trouble later on i guess that's one way to put it yeah um but he was not a good guy he was a guy that a few years after nani disappeared

he got in trouble for some violent behavior that was just staging a burglary and raping a friend of his fiancee at knife point uh trying to curry favor with two separate gangs members by buying them canteen items so they would carry out a murder-for-hire scheme. I would call that more than just a brush with the law, unless I've got the wrong Tony Dodson, age 41. Is this ringing a bell? Yep, that's the right scumbag. Yeah.

So this is the last guy she's with? Yeah. You would assume, you would hope that him being her brother, you know, he might have felt some, he might have felt protective of her in some way. But, you know, we can't trust him to protect anyone. It seems like he was just an overall bad guy that was able to hide it for a really long time michael when you don't know a horse look at the track record right tell me about this scene are you sure they processed his home i honestly i would hope so but there's no guarantee on that uh I hear somebody jumping in. And is it Dan or James jumping in?

Is that you, Dan? Yeah, it was me. I'm sorry. I didn't know. Go ahead and jump. Well, I just want to share with you that this guy was a criminal. And there's no doubt about it, the mindset that he had from my perspective in law enforcement. And there's another factor.

He had a partner that he was in business with that mysteriously died. And he inherited from everything that I can see, the life insurance policy of about $300,000. And they thought that there was a link between he, in that case, and his female partner when she passed away. So we don't just have one potential victim here with a crime that he was charged with. We have a second where he was a suspect in. So there's starting to be a pattern of behavior in this with this individual. Now, isn't it true?

Jump in. Go, James. All right. Nancy, you know, one thing is this, is even if they have not processed that crime scene, Now, isn't it true? Jump in. Go, James. not to be gruesome, but fluids, bloods, things of that nature, it is very hard to get every bit of it. It is very hard to get all evidence out of a crime scene. And if that's not been done, and I didn't know that until that was said a minute ago, if that's not been done, that needs to be on the front burner is processing this location, getting a search warrant and finding out whether or not there's physical evidence of a crime at the location she was last seen.

And one of the reasons, James Shelnut, that there may still very well be evidence such as blood evidence is because when you commit a felony, let's say a violent crime, and there is blood spatter, you can't see it with the naked eye because there are droplets so fine. I'm talking about the top of the pinhead. How are you going to see that if it's down like where the carpet meets the wall? You're not. So you're absolutely right. Michael Whelan, I'd be very interested to know if a follow-up search warrant has been executed at this home. And another curious, let me say that's euphemistic, putting perfume on the pig. We know that this brother, while he's

behind bars, tried to solicit gang members from multiple gangs, the 8 Tray Gangster Crips, the Gallant Knights Insane, and the 211. He tried to get members of all those gangs to commit a murder who did he want to kill michael wheelan yeah so he was targeting the victim of a violent sexual assault it was yeah his fiance's best friend basically that he had been pining for secretly and then broke into her house raped her and then after committing this heinous crime and he was behind bars, he tried to solicit a hit basically on her. And this is the guy that says, oh, I didn't see her, but I heard her slam the door. She said she was going to get a smoothie.

That's the origin of my timeline? Yeah. He's not a reliable witness in any way now that we know his true nature. It's just shocking. I mean, it could have been an argument over anything, over money, over these things can run deep. Who knows what they may have argued about? Guys, if you know anything or think you know anything, the tip line 303-271-5612. Michael Whelan, what do you think?

I mean, for me, it's hard to overlook the criminal behavior of Tony Dawson. Just he was, you know, the last person at the scene. He was the last person at the scene. He was the last person to see her. He was basically one of the only witnesses for the investigation. And he was also the person kind of leading the search for Nani, the one trying to raise awareness for her. It's hard to overlook him as just this glaring spotlight. For me, personally, I would start there in any investigation, but, you know, I would have to defer to you guys. I'm not sure what you guys think about it. Okay, jump in.

Dr. Angela Arnold, as I always say, when you don't know a horse, look at his track record. Yeah, and, you know, remember what I said one time, if it quacks like a duck, it may very well be a duck, Nancy. This is all, it just seems so obvious to me. He is such a bad human being and he just waves goodbye to her or yells goodbye to her. She didn't even kiss her little girl before she went to get a smoothie on a cold morning in November. Let me remind everybody, Tony Dotson has not been named a suspect or POI person of interest. Dotson, repeat, not a suspect. Tip line 303-271-5612.

This child has lived her life so far without a mother. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.