Dark Downeast - The Disappearance of Shirley Moon-Atwood (Maine)

Episode Date: November 23, 2020

MAINE MISSING PERSON, 2006: Two women, one murdered and one missing, connected by one man. When police discovered the badly beaten body of Cheryl Murdoch and arrested her boyfriend Shannon Atwood for the crime, they pinned him with the mysterious disappearance of his wife, too.But what should be the simplest answer in the disappearance of Shirley Moon-Atwood isn't simple at all.In this case, we have a man with a history of convicted assault against a woman, an ex-wife with a violent conviction of her own, and a new girlfriend found dead with mountains of circumstantial evidence pointing to a killer. Or does it?If you have information regarding this case, please contact the Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit - Central at [phone] or toll free at 1-800-452-4664. You may also report information about this crime using the leave a tip form. View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/shirleymoonatwoodFollow @darkdowneast on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTokTo suggest a case visit darkdowneast.com/submit-caseDark Downeast is an audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.

This episode contains descriptions of domestic violence and crime scenes and may not be appropriate for some listeners. What should be the simplest answer for the disappearance of Shirley Moon Atwood? It's actually not simple at all. In this case, we have a man with a history of convicted assault against women, an ex-wife with a violent conviction of her own, and a new girlfriend found dead with mountains of circumstantial evidence pointing to a killer. Or does it? Yeah, this case ends with one murder conviction, but it doesn't give us all the answers. This is the case of one murdered, one missing. Where is Shirley Moon Atwood? I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Dark Down East.

When police pounded on the front door of the red trailer on Heartland Road in Canaan, Maine on August 13, 2006, they braced for who or what might be inside. They'd already discovered one gruesome scene deep in the Burrell Woods earlier that morning. Together with their cadaver dogs, investigators recovered the body of a missing woman, 37-year-old Cheryl Murdoch. She was dumped among old mattresses and other trash. It was clear this woman was murdered. With a search warrant in hand for the last known residence of that woman, police announced themselves again to the man inside. But Shannon Atwood didn't open the door. Instead, he locked himself inside the red trailer and wielded a bow and arrow. I'm not going back there, he shouted. As police reasoned with the man,

his threats continued and elevated. Shannon said he had a lighter, and the propane gauge on his tank was wide open. He was going to blow the whole place up. Before he could complete that plan, police found the propane tank and shut it off. They got Shannon out of the house and cuffed him quickly. He told the arresting officers, quote, I envisioned the whole place going up like a Christmas tree, end quote. Shannon Atwood was charged with terrorizing, reckless conduct with a dangerous weapon, and reckless conduct. But that was only the beginning of the charges that would be raised against this man, the man whose girlfriend was found dead in the woods just

a few miles away from their home. Let's rewind to earlier that year, before the standoff, before the body. Spring 2006. The vivacious and feisty 35-year-old Shirley Moon Atwood lived in her red trailer on one acre of land in Canaan that she had inherited from her grandfather as a teenager. She was a tiny little thing, just 5'2 and barely 100 pounds, with brown hair and bright green eyes. She had chickens and a horse. She dreamed of having a family one day. But things were rocky with her husband, Shannon Atwood, and it's not clear exactly when or exactly why, but the couple separated. As one version of events goes, Shirley moved out of her red trailer on that acre of land sometime in the spring or summer of 2006. The last known and confirmed sighting of Shirley Moon Atwood was in March of that year.

When friends asked, Shannon Atwood told them that his wife was staying with relatives in a remote camp somewhere deep in the wilderness of Somerset County. Shannon Atwood, we've already heard his name a lot. He was a tractor-trailer driver, and he had a history of violence against women. In 1993, he was in a relationship with a woman named Jennifer Nickerson until she called it off. Jennifer asked him to leave, and on the same day he was supposed to pack up and get out, he started wrestling with her, she says, in what started out as a playful, joking way, until it wasn't. It quickly turned aggressive and violent. Shannon overpowered Jennifer and slammed her head twice into the floor before he wrapped his hands around her throat and choked her to the point of unconsciousness.

When she came to, Shannon had Jennifer in his car and was driving her out to an empty field where he told her he'd dump her body. She begged for her life, begged him to let her go. And whatever she said to him, whatever she needed to do to plead for her release, it saved her life. Shannon drove Jennifer to his sister's house and left. Jennifer called police and Shannon was arrested, charged, and convicted for that assault. A judge handed down a six-year sentence with all but three suspended, and he also underwent psychological testing and counseling. Jennifer later learned, according to the Bangor Daily News,

that in the days before the assault, Shannon called her job and told them she quit. He canceled her car insurance and set up daycare for her son. The man seemed to have a plan. Nevertheless, he served his time and Shannon got released. And over a decade after that conviction, it didn't seem to impact his ability to find a date. By 2006, he'd been married and separated from his wife Shirley, and he was already dating a new woman.

Cheryl Murdoch moved into that red trailer on Heartland Road. The timeline of Shannon and Cheryl and Shirley's relationships may overlap or they may even intertwine. It's known that they all lived in the same red trailer, but whether they lived there at the same time, all three past and present partners under the same roof, isn't clear. What is clear is that the fates of these two women are connected by one man in that summer of 2006. The morning of July 27, 2006, Cheryl was supposed to be hitting the road for a cross-country trip to Arizona. Her mother and her daughter Sarah lived there. Cheryl had sent Sarah to live with her mother when she lost her apartment earlier that year. Around 11 that morning, Cheryl was on the phone with her mom, saying they were all packed up and ready to go. Her boyfriend, Shannon Atwood, would be driving her to Arizona.

But days passed well beyond what it should have taken to make the drive from Maine to Arizona, and Cheryl never made it. Her daughter Sarah posted up in the window each day, hoping that would be the day her mother rolled into the driveway. But Cheryl never did. With no word or sign from Cheryl, her mother reported Cheryl missing on August 6, 2006, 10 days after the road trip should have begun. As investigators started looking for Cheryl Murdoch, they quickly realized that they weren't just looking for Shannon Atwood's girlfriend. His wife was missing too.

At the time, investigators weren't revealing much about the death of Cheryl Murdoch. They refused to comment on her cause of death or what circumstances led up to their discovery of her body on the side of that dirt road, or if they had any clues as to the whereabouts of Shirley Moon Atwood. The investigation was swift and all-encompassing. They canvassed the neighborhood. Police searched Black Stream near where Cheryl was found, but turned up nothing. For weeks, they carried out intense searches in the woods of Canaan and Palmyra, covering massive area with gridded searches of both humans and cadaver dogs. They dug and re-dug the site where they discovered Cheryl's body, and yet, there were no new developments to publicly report in the case. Prosecutors identified Shannon Atwood as the prime suspect in Cheryl's murder and the disappearance of Shirley. However, he was only

indicted on lesser charges of terrorizing for that standoff he had with police. Apparently, they didn't have what they needed to charge him in the two women's cases. Not yet. According to a Bangor Daily News article by Sharon Kiley Mack, at Shannon Atwood's plea hearing on Monday, November 6, 2006, he admitted to the judge that he had an anger management disorder, and when the judge asked if he was on any medication, he responded, His temper, however, came out anyway. He argued with the judge and his own attorney in the middle of the courtroom. The assistant attorney general previously offered Shannon a deal of time served and dismissed one of the two counts of terrorizing. He would have walked out of the jail the day of his trial, but in realizing he'd have to plead

guilty to make the deal, Shannon backed out to the dismay of his attorney. Shannon's attorney asked for lesser bail, arguing that the bail was set much higher than it would have been in any other terrorizing case. He argued that the bail was set high because the state was trying to keep Shannon in jail while they built a case against him for the murder of Cheryl Murdoch. He implied that the prosecution was stalling because they didn't have anything. The state prosecutor, however, told the judge he was ready to pick a jury the next day. With the plea deal off the table for the time being, Shannon's trial was set for later in the month. On Wednesday, November 29, 2006, Shannon finally pleaded guilty to one count of terrorizing while the other was dropped,

and he was sentenced to nine months in prison with two years of probation. Six months after the discovery of Cheryl's body, there were still no charges in her death and still no sign of Shirley Moon Atwood. But on February 27, 2007, Maine State Police detectives arrested Shannon Atwood at Somerset County Jail, charging him with two counts of murder for Cheryl Murdoch and Shirley Moon Atwood. Now, it's not common for a prosecutor to bring a murder charge in a case where they don't have a body. It's hard to prove homicide when there's no body. However, detectives were confident that Shirley was dead, despite refusing to give any specific details to support it at the time. In telling the Bangor Daily News, Assistant Attorney General Andrew Benson said that they had, quote, compelling evidence to prove Shirley is dead,

and they'd be able to maneuver around the no body issue in court. We don't take murder charges lightly, he said. At his initial court appearance for the charges, Cheryl's sister Cindy Hoxie sat in the front row, accompanied by Jennifer Nickerson. Jennifer was that woman Shannon was convicted of assaulting in 1993. She held Cindy's hand, and the two comforted each other as the judge ordered Shannon Atwood held without bail. Now, in the most badass quote I've encountered so far, Jennifer told the Bangor Daily News, The indictment for both murder charges listed Cheryl Murdoch's date of death as July 27, 2006. Shirley Moon Atwood's date of death, however, was more obscure given the fact that there was no body and only sightings to go on. The indict, in June 2007, Shannon pleaded not guilty to both

charges of murder. Investigators had still not publicly revealed Cheryl's cause of death or any indication of the evidence that gave them confidence to pursue a murder charge in the suspicious disappearance of Shirley Moon Atwood. However, in the June 2007 arraignment, Assistant Attorney General Andrew Benson asked the judge to unseal the affidavit that would explain the evidence that led to the arrest of Shannon Atwood in the murder case. Shannon's defense fought hard against that request, arguing that it could impact Shannon's right to a fair trial and an impartial jury. The judge sided with the prosecution, however, and the document and evidence was revealed.

The Bangor Daily News obtained the 17-page arrest affidavit that revealed what police and prosecutors had discovered during the investigation. Let's start with what the arrest affidavit said about the disappearance of Shirley Moon Atwood because that raises the most questions for me because nobody, how could they be so sure that this was a homicide case? Well, according to the affidavit obtained by the Bangor Daily News, Shannon Atwood apparently attempted to cover up Shirley's disappearance. He forged Shirley's name on vehicle titles and disability benefit forms. He tried to convince anyone who asked that she was staying out of town at a camp somewhere. And the big reveal for me was the discovery of Shirley's driver's license,

wallet, and wedding ring found tucked away under Shannon's bed in a trash bag. As for the evidence leading to the murder charge for Cheryl Murdoch, it hinged on stories from witnesses and people who knew the kind of guy Shannon had always been. Now, he'd already been convicted of assault on one ex-girlfriend, so it really shouldn't be surprising to hear that the affidavit contained more details about Shannon's abusive behavior. He wasn't just physically abusive, he put his romantic partners through hellish mental and emotional strife. He was controlling, the witnesses said, and often threatened to take his own life in an attempt to control the women he dated and

married. When friends and family started to suspect something was off about Shannon and Shirley and Cheryl, he lied his way out of questions and gave cagey answers when asked where they were before anyone knew they were even missing. Also revealed in the affidavit was Cheryl's official cause of death, multiple blunt force trauma to the head. Further, investigators tied his DNA to cigarette butts near the scene of Cheryl Murdoch's body, and a piece of rope found near her body matched rope from Shannon's barn. And then there's this. From the beginning of the investigation, the Canaan community, the press,

everyone on the outside of this case wondered what led police to Cheryl's body to begin with. It turns out, another one of Shannon Atwood's former girlfriends came forward, notifying police about the strange and concerning phone call she got from Shannon using Cheryl's phone. During that July 27, 2006 phone call, the Bangor Daily News reports from the affidavit that Shannon told his former girlfriend, Rachel Hooker, that he made out a will and left her all of his possessions. He then said he loved her. Then he gave her directions to someplace in the woods. When Rachel Hooker checked up on Shannon the next day, his emotional ranting continued.

He told her he was going to hell and that she had no idea what it was like to kill a woman. At that point, Rachel reported the phone call to police and gave them the same directions Shannon gave her. When police followed those directions, they found Cheryl Murdoch's body. The affidavit also revealed that Shannon Atwood was known to be a compulsive liar. He told tales of his time in the army as a gunner, but he had no military service record. He told his ex-girlfriend he'd been staying with his mother in Concord Township, but his mother hadn't seen Shannon in years. Even while in prison serving his nine-month sentence for terrorizing, Shannon was trying to cover his tracks. He wrote a letter to Shirley Moon Atwood's parents describing a fight that broke out between Shirley, Cheryl, and another

woman at a party on August 9th. He wrote in that letter, as reported by the Bangor Daily News, quote, I am prepared to spend the rest of my life behind bars if it gives her a second chance at life. If you need to hate someone, hate me. Shirley needs you, end quote. Now, if you're having a hard time following, it's because the path from point A to point B is super messy and could very likely just be the fabrication of a guilty, compulsive liar. But it does seem that Shannon is alluding to the fact that someone else is responsible for Cheryl's murder, and that maybe she died as the result of that fight at the party. Now he attempted to present himself as the estranged yet selfless ex-husband willing to take the fall for Shirley. I'd be quicker to cast this story off knowing Shannon as the abusive, explosive person he was convicted of being.

Plus, the timeline just doesn't make sense, but a conviction in Shirley's past gives me pause, even for just a super brief moment. So Shirley Moon Atwood had a record of her own. Her most notable conviction was handed down in 1993, by coincidence that same year Shannon was convicted of abusing his former girlfriend. According to a 1993 report in the Bangor Daily News, Shirley was driving her car through Canaan on a flat road on a clear October day when she intentionally crashed her car into a truck that she thought her then-boyfriend was driving. They'd had a fight earlier that day, and this was apparently her retaliation. That crash happened directly in front of a state trooper's home, and when he ran outside to help, Shirley spilled the beans, admitting everything, that she did it on purpose. It turned out that it wasn't Shirley's boyfriend driving the truck. It was a neighbor, but of course that doesn't matter because the crash was intentional, and the driver was seriously injured. She broke her pelvis and several ribs, and Shirley herself lost part of a finger in the crash,

and she was sentenced to 10 years in prison with all but four suspended. Shannon's attorneys leaned hard on that conviction of Shirley's as they built their defense, pointing to an alternate suspect in the killing of Cheryl Murdoch. They argued that Shirley wasn't a victim, but a murderer in hiding, and that's why investigators would never find her body. Shannon Atwood's lawyer, John Alsop of Norwich Walk, launched this alternative suspect theory during a September 2007 hearing. According to a Bangor

Daily News article published September 29, 2007, detectives Jeffrey Love and Bryant Jakes conceded that there was no forensic evidence that showed Shirley Moon Atwood was murdered. Attorney John Alsop continued to poke holes in the prosecution's attempt to pin two murders on his client, saying further that Shannon Atwood didn't have a motive for killing Shirley. Yes, both Cheryl and Shirley were involved with Shannon, but Alsop said it was a coincidence, and just because one was dead didn't mean Shannon killed either or both. He presented, instead, the theory that Shirley, in a jealous rage that she was known to have, killed Cheryl, and Shannon witnessed the whole thing. Alsop said to the judge,

quote, there is all the evidence in the world for Shirley Moon Atwood to have killed Murdoch, end quote. There are issues with this theory, however. First off, based on witness statements and other evidence, Shirley was presumed to be missing before Cheryl was murdered, and the arrest affidavit detailed that the supposed fight at a party between Shirley and Cheryl and another woman never happened. People at that party told police that neither Cheryl or Shirley were there. Now, despite those issues, it is really hard to ignore the fact that much of the prosecution's case was held up by circumstantial evidence. Without a smoking gun, it was going to be incredibly challenging to pin the disappearance of Shirley Moon Atwood on Shannon.

And the defense knew it, so they filed a motion to split the cases, forcing the state to present evidence for each murder charge separately. Judge Nancy Mills granted that motion, siding with the defense that the cases did not seem to be linked by time, purpose, or method, and further, trying them together would risk prejudice among the jury. Shannon Atwood's murder trial for Cheryl Murdoch was set for February 2008. Shirley's would be later in the year. In a shocking move, just nine days after the judge

severed the two cases against Shannon Atwood, the state dropped the murder charge for Shirley Moon Atwood. Defense attorney John Alsop is quoted by the Bangor Daily News saying, one down, one to go. The state was going for a two-for-one deal, and that is not the way it works. The Shirley Moon Atwood murder case was dismissed without prejudice, meaning the state could bring that case back again at any time should their investigation lead to stronger physical evidence. But for the time being, it was dropped, and they pressed forward to the trial for the murder of, it was dropped, and they pressed forward to the trial for the murder of Cheryl Murdoch. To be quite honest, that move by the state really floored me. I get that

circumstantial evidence does not a strong case make, but those interviews with friends, the moves Shannon made in the days and weeks after Shirley was assumed to be missing, the simplest answer is not that she was hiding out because she killed her ex-husband's girlfriend in a jealous rage and was now without her wallet or ID or any of her belongings just waiting it out. I mean, I don't know what the answer is, but that doesn't feel like the right one to me. This story only gets more peculiar as it moved to trial in the summer of 2008. Shannon Atwood waived his right to a jury, so Judge Nancy Mills was left to hear the case and make a ruling. As the state's witnesses were

called to testify, the judge intervened at points, warning the witnesses that their own testimony bordered on self-incrimination. The judge even called another attorney into court to represent one of the witnesses as she was questioned on the stand. Shannon's defense team portrayed each witness as unreliable. They lacked stable employment, he said. They were drug users, he said. There were stories of cocaine-riddled parties and other behavior. In fact, it was that testimony that made the judge caution those witnesses. Then they called the mother of Shirley Moon Atwood to the stand. Now, those cases were split, but the defense continued their strategy of pinning Cheryl's murder on an alternate suspect, and that alternate suspect was Shirley. The Bangor Daily News reported a particularly strange moment when defense attorney Alsop asked Shirley's mom, quote,

Didn't you tell our investigator that when the police showed up at your door in August 2006, your first thought was, who did Shirley kill now? End quote. Shirley's mother replied to that, yes, I did. Now, I have to admit, the defense does seem super strong to me in this case, and as I continued digging through the details, I found myself pausing and really questioning if the right man, the right person, was on trial for the brutal murder of Cheryl Murdoch. The prosecution continued to emphasize the weight and significance of their evidence, albeit circumstantial. Shannon himself told another ex-girlfriend the exact location of Cheryl's body. That's strong evidence, right? But they admitted, according to the BDN, that they had no smoking gun, no witnesses to the murder itself, no weapon, no crime scene, no blood, no forensic evidence

linking Shannon to the death of Cheryl. They turned to those cigarette butts with both Shannon, Cheryl, and Shirley's DNA on them found at the scene. Well, actually, just near the scene. The butts were found in Burrell Woods, near a fire pit in the same general area, but at least a mile away from where Cheryl's body was discovered. And they couldn't be sure when those cigarette butts were dropped there. During the trial, the attorneys and the judge even drove out to the various scenes, that fire pit, the road where Cheryl was found, and the home they'd all lived, just to really establish the story that was being told. Doubt was mounting. There were stories of drug-filled parties and Shannon throwing Cheryl out for her behavior. There was a muddled timeline and phone records that really only made it more challenging to

nail down the truest version of events. Finally, the prosecution pointed to that piece of rope found near Cheryl's body as the last piece of evidence. They suggested, for the first time on that last day of testimony, that it could have been a ligature. But Cheryl's body was too badly decomposed to show any signs of ligature marks, and the rope didn't contain any DNA evidence of Cheryl or Shannon. It only matched the rope that Shannon had in his barn. It was the last piece of evidence they had to tie Shannon to Cheryl's murder. So now I'm sitting here thinking, like, is that enough? If Shannon did it, did the prosecution do enough to prove it? Does his history of violence against

women, that circumstantial evidence, the cigarette butts, the rope, is all of that enough? Because it doesn't really seem like it. It feels like, to me, it could have been a situation of confirmation bias. That the investigative team had a theory and they searched for evidence to fit that theory versus looking for evidence that revealed what really happened and who was actually responsible. As the prosecution rested their case, they asked Justice Mills to make a rational inference based on the facts presented. The defense asked for an acquittal. On July 3rd, 2008, Justice Nancy Mills found Shannon Atwood guilty of murdering Cheryl Murdoch. According to the Bangor Daily News, she spoke to the strategies used by defense, saying,

quote, just because the witnesses lead different lives from ours does not mean they are never worthy of belief, end quote. She carried on to say that Shannon's ex-girlfriend, Rachel, the one who received that phone call that would lead police directly to Cheryl's body, she was particularly credible, according to the judge. Further, the judge did make rational inference of criminal intent based on Shannon's actions. Trying to sell Cheryl's car, lying about where she was, using Cheryl's phone after she was dead and then destroying the phone? To Justice Mills, those actions pointed to Shannon's guilt. Two months later, defense attorney John Alsop petitioned the court for a new trial. It was revealed that Justice Nancy Mills knew a

previous victim of Shannon Atwood, Jennifer, the woman he was convicted of assaulting in 1993. In fact, Jennifer was Justice Mills' hairdresser. Accusing a judge of impropriety is not to be taken lightly. Regardless, the court ruled against a new trial. The verdict stood. However, Justice Mills recused herself from Shannon Atwood's sentencing. On February 26, 2009, he was sentenced to 55 years in prison. Justice Mills gave no weight to the theory that Shirley was somehow involved in the murder of Cheryl and was hiding out, evading discovery while Shannon was found guilty of killing his girlfriend.

The judge applauded the efforts of the Maine State Police in their search for Shirley that had led detectives to every store between Canaan and Newport, sifting through computer records and hours of videotapes, searching for any sign of the petite, brown-haired, green-eyed woman. The search for Shirley was ongoing, and police hoped that this conviction for Cheryl Murdoch's murder could encourage someone, somewhere, to come forward with new information. But here we are, over 14 years later, with still no sign of Shirley Moon Atwood. If you have any information about the disappearance of Shirley Moon Atwood, please

contact the Maine State Police Major Crimes Unit at 207-624-7143. You may also report information about this crime and others using the Leave a Tip form, and I'll link that in the show notes. Thank you for tuning in to Dark Down East, and thank you to my sources for this episode, including reports published in the Bangor Daily News written by Sharon Kylie Mack. She covered this case for the Bangor Daily News from day one, and without her work, this story wouldn't be featured on Dark Down East. Please find links to the digital newspaper clippings via newspapers.com for this episode and others at darkdowneast.com. If you have a story or a case I should cover, I'd love to hear from you at darkdowneast at gmail.com. Follow along with the show at darkdowneast.com and on Instagram at darkdowneast at gmail.com. Follow along with the show at darkdowneast.com and on Instagram at darkdowneast. Thank you for supporting this show and allowing me to do what I do.

I'm honored to use this platform for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones and for those who are still searching for answers in cold missing persons and murder cases. I'm not about to let those names or those stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Lowe, and thank you for listening to Dark Down East.