Dateline NBC - The Night of the Audition

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

Days after the biggest audition of her acting career, Shannon Madill Burgess fails to show up for a family gathering. Unsettling details emerge during the investigation into her disappearance. Keith Morrison reports. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Tonight on Dateline. My biggest nightmare was that one of my children would go missing. I'd never thought it would happen. Just beyond, beyond imaginable. She was very committed to her acting career. I believe you do good things. But I'm not doing this again. Was going to auditions all the time.

I was really concerned something bad had happened. No sign of her anywhere. No sign of her, no. We had reached out to a couple of casting agencies. Every single possibility went through my head. Maybe one of the people who took pictures of her had taken her. Her husband was cooperative. He was phenomenal about being there for her and supporting her.

Did you know that they had an open relationship? Yes, she was very open about her life. She was married at the time, and I was also married at the time. What does it like to feel like you're a suspect? Completely surreal. Why is her phone moving? Who was with this phone? Was it Shannon?

My stomach dropped. He had written, I Love You on the Mirror, and he was covered in blood. An aspiring young actress poised for her first big break till someone played a killer part. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Here's Keith Morrison with The Night of the Audition. In a million years, Lisa Madil could never have seen herself doing this. Mother of four adult children in boxing gloves,

as if she could punch away her anguish. Exhaust her body, calm her mind, get through another day. Unless you've lived through it, you cannot comprehend it. It's a nightmare, and it goes on. It doesn't stop. I am interning for my radio and television program. It began, the nightmare, just after this video was recorded. That's Lisa's youngest. She was 25, then, an aspiring actress and comedian, Shannon Middill.

This was her audition for a breakout role in a show. a new TV series. Hey, Wesley. Yeah. Could you, if it's not too much to ask, could you help me about this trivia video? You can kind of get a sense of her personality.

Some suggestions? A feisty and quirky free spirit. She'd lose her keys and disappointments. But she never missed a chance to be the center of attention. From the time she could walk and talk, she loved a spotlight and a microphone.

She was happy to perform. for everybody. She was always telling jokes. She was just one of those people that you liked being around because she brought a really positive energy to everything. Older sister Aaron was convinced that Shannon was going to be a star. Does that really seem possible? She was that good. I thought she was fantastic. She was more than happy to do anything and everything that would get her name out there. I can do pretty well, Chinese like whatever you want. She was funny. Her personality was amazing and she was fantastic to work with, because she was happy to just go with the flow and do whatever was required. And her husband, Josh Burgess, was there to support her.

I basically kick ass for you day and night, because I believe you do good things. But I'm not doing this again. That's Josh on the right, helping Shannon play a scene for an audition reel. You're lucky I'm amazing. This was home. Calgary, a bustling metropolis, bursting at its seams here in the shadows of the Canadian Rockies. The city was possibilities where great things could happen.

More about me. I love plants. I have lots. The audition, Shannon's audition, was on the 26th of November, 2014. A couple of days later, Shannon was supposed to meet with one of her brothers for dinner. She was a no-show. Older brother, Tyler, wasn't surprised. I recall at the time, kind of thinking, like, you know, it's not unlike her to flake out or disappear. I even remember saying, like, give her a little bit. She'll probably turn up shortly.

But she didn't. Aaron called and texted Shannon. No answer. Not that day or the next or the next. Everything goes through your mind. I mean, Calgary winters and especially on those highways, they can be. deadly. And at the end of that November, a blizzard had just blown through town.

But then an answer, apparently, to their little mystery. Josh told Aaron that Shannon was 200 miles away in Edmonton, where he texted, she apparently got a big role. And snowstorm or not, she had to go. But... Because of the snowstorm that had happened on the Friday, she was too afraid to take her car. So she got a ride from a friend, except...

Just like Shannon, she didn't say who. Josh didn't seem too worried, but Erin was. So she called the police and filed a missing person's report. I was really concerned that obviously something bad had happened, and that's why we couldn't find her anymore. So you fear the worst, but you hope for the best. Of course, they had to explain to the police that Shannon was unpredictable. Maybe she was in Edmonton, or maybe somewhere else altogether.

Detective Christina Witt It wouldn't be unheard of for Shannon to kind of go off the grid for a period of time not that she had done that a lot but her sister had felt maybe she was being dramatic and just needed to take a break Just the same police sent a couple of officers over to Shannon

and Josh's house They asked for consent by Josh to do a search of the residence, a walkthrough on that walkthrough they didn't see anything suspicious By then, said Josh, it was four days since he'd last seen or heard from Shannon, and that was the night she recorded that audition. Since she was busy, Josh had gone out that night. He said just around midnight, he got home, he saw Shannon on the couch and went to bed.

Next morning, she was gone. But this seemed weird, though maybe not if you knew Shannon. Josh said she left a pair of jeans behind, and her phone and wallet were still in the pockets. It wasn't the first time something like that happened, said Josh. Her family agreed, but each day that went by was worse. I wondered how that must have been for you in those first days, piling up, and then weeks.

What was that like, that period? Oh, it was dreadful. It was the worst thing that I've ever had to live through. I didn't sleep, I didn't eat. I was just walking in a daze the whole time. I was trying to function, but it wasn't working very well. Police took Shannon's cell phone for analysis. They also conducted multiple searches, starting in Shannon's neighborhood.

It's protocol to do a 500-meter search on the outer perimeter of the residents just to see what they can see. And, you know, they started canvassing the neighborhood, asking neighbors' questions, trying to collect CCTV, those kinds of things, and then identifying who else they can speak to for witnesses. No sign of her anywhere. No sign of her, no. You can't do anything about it until she's found. There's just nothing that you can do. The police were great. They were doing as much as they could.

But at that point, there were really no leads. And so she's just disappeared. The family had to consider a terrifying possibility. She had actually threatened to commit suicide a couple of months prior. Yeah. The police came to assist when she, she was standing on a platform debating, jumping in front of a train. So I knew that she did have little moments, yes.

The Bow River that flows through town, could Shannon have gone there? The family was worried did Shannon drown in the river? So there was searches going on on the riverbanks. Then almost a week after Shannon missed that family dinner, Josh called Aaron and said that his credit card company had alerted him that someone used his card in New York City. At that point in time, anything, there were all kind of possibilities. We were concerned that maybe she was in New York.

Where was Shannon Medill? Possible clues would start to appear. A tree had been carved, the bark had been carved away, and a picture was posted on the tree. And what did he have to do with it? Was she married at the time? She was married at the time, and I was also married at the time. What did love have to do with it?

He had written in blood, I love you on a mirror. December dawned, confused among the middles of Calgary, Alberta. For five days, they'd been trying to track down their Shannon. even got the police involved, and the media. Though, as the family told the assembled reporters, they hoped she was alive and well somewhere. I just want to make sure that she understands that even with all this media attention, that she's not in trouble, nobody's going to be mad.

Just please let us know that you're okay wherever you are. This is Shannon's husband. Shannon's husband Josh was there, but he was too upset to say anything. You know, he's miserable and didn't want to, you know, want to be out in public and was kind of dealing with the grief of her being gone. It's a cliche to say it's always the husband. No one said that about Josh. Quiet, steady Josh, the IT consultant, the soft-spoken yin to her funny, noisy yang.

They had started dating four years earlier. She needed somebody who could actually be there for her on a more emotional level. And Josh was that for her. He was very supportive of everything she did, and he was there to try to help her achieve her goals. And I think that's what really drew her to him. And she did truly love him. I think she saw him as being her forever. He was a shoulder she could cry on if she had to, or if she was in a depressed mood, he was there for her, etc.

Yeah, he was there to help her out constantly. When she had down days, a lot of comedians, as I'm sure you know, tend to suffer from some depression. it's probably why they're so funny is they're constantly trying to make sure that nobody else has to feel that pain and when she would go through those dark moments, he was phenomenal about being there for her and supporting her.

Did you see him very much? Yep, saw him on a regular basis. He would come to things, even if she wasn't available, he would come to family events on his own. She's like becoming part of the family. He was part of the family. He officially joined a family seven months earlier

when he and Shannon got married. You know, he was quiet, and shy, a very nice person. If Shannon's family had anything negative to say, it was that Josh was too much of a church mouth. But Shannon, they described her as having a fiery personality, and that if anyone was going to start an argument between the two of them, it would be Shannon.

And that Josh would just go with it, and that Josh was a really nice person, kind of a gentle soul. And Shannon was the one that was more of a kind of aggressive, get-going kind of personality. That's the picture they painted of Josh. A gentle soul who sadly seemed to have no idea what Shannon was up to. There was that business about Josh's credit card turning up in New York City, but it couldn't have been Shannon using it there.

Her passport was still at home. And another week went by. And then? The police called and asked me to provide every single photographer that had taken headshots of her. and that's when I realized that they were debating if maybe one of the people who took pictures of her had taken her. And why might they think that? Because of a very strange development in a local Calgary park,

which had the makings of some bizarre ritual. A tree had been carved, the bark had been carved away, and a picture was posted on the tree, and the hair color and the skin color of the neck matched Shannon's. So there was concern. A hiker came across the image, got it to police. The original was not saved, so Detective Witt used AI to produce this virtual copy. There was actually a second photo, and it was of a female in a field holding a dove in the air,

and there's a string connecting the dove to this female. And that female looked very similar to Shannon. So a team of Calgary cops spread out all around that big park. They spent two days searching the place. trying to figure out if someone, you know, had harmed her and were going to find her body in the park, or was this some elaborate stunt to get media attention? We had no idea.

And after the first two days of searching, some students came forward. They'd seen it on the news. And she just came forward to the police and said, hey, those pictures were ours. Was that an art project or something that the students had put on? It was. They were art students.

It was a project. Another blind alley. My biggest nightmare was that she was still alive, locked in a basement, and being hurt. And I became really obsessed with trying to find her, and it became all-consuming for me. Can anybody really understand what it's like to be in that awful place of not knowing? Only people who have lost someone, because that ambiguous loss, is it eats your soul. It was about then that police encountered quite another possibility. This guy.

I was asked, you know, questions with a harder edge, like, you know, where were you and who were you with? Complications. One in particular. Maybe it mattered to the search for Shannon Medill. Maybe not. She'd confided in Erin and her mom a secret of sorts, a secret that would take the investigation in a new direction. Just months after they were married, Shannon had persuaded Josh to try an open marriage.

She was the one who wanted it. She was the one who requested it, yeah. What did you think? I'm pretty open-minded. I have a couple of different friends who are in open relationships, and they've made it work really well. I told her I had concerns because, one of the most important things is a lot of open, honest conversation, and I wasn't sure if they

were both mature enough for that. Did you know that they had kind of a, at one point, at least had an open relationship? Yes, she had spoken to me about that. She had, huh? Yeah. Yeah. She was very open about her life, maybe a little bit too open with her life. I don't know how I would react if one of my children said, I have an open marriage. We see other people. I was non-judgmental. I did say that I'd known other open marriage. and that they hadn't worked, but when your children are in their 20s, 30s, you don't really have any control over what they do. You have to sit and listen and hopefully be the shoulder to cry in if they need it, or just listen and not judge.

What did you think privately when you weren't judging? That it was, oh, big mistake is what I thought. Josh didn't seem to think it was a mistake. He rather liked the arrangement, was up front with the police from the very beginning. Josh was the person that let them know, you know, we're in this open relationship. But, as we say, complications. For police, it meant looking into an entire reservoir

of possible suspects. There were other men, anyone of whom could have taken Shannon away somewhere or might have done something to harm her. Josh said he knew who the men were, and he gave the police a list of names. I think we ended up doing seven interviews of other men

who had been involved in her life. Did the police ever come to talk to you? The police did. A detective contacted me and asked me to come in for an interview. Hello, everyone. My name is Ian Wallace. You have fun tonight? Ian Wallace is a local

stand-up comedian. He had met Shannon a few months before she vanished. They worked on a sketch together. And then, well, one thing led to another. She was married at the time, and I was also married at the time. Ah, did you both know that?

We both knew that immediately. Ian was also in an open marriage when he met Shannon. What was it about her? How would you describe her way of being, her character, her demeanor? Very lively, very energetic, and I could tell right away that her sense of humor was very keen and maybe even a little edgy, which, you know, that's me as well. She just was bouncy in her movements and just very, very... just lively, and I think it would be hard for anyone to not be drawn in by that.

Did you fall in love with her? I think I did. I mean, I did. Ian said he talked to Shannon the last day anyone saw her, the day of her audition. And then a few days later, I got a message on Facebook from Josh that Shannon was missing and that the family, you know, was freaking out and didn't know where she was and that he needed to know if I knew anything about where she was or where she might be. And that's when I really started to worry and panic even a little bit.

Had you met Josh at that point? Josh and I crossed past, and I mean that quite literally. One time Shannon and I were headed to watch a movie at her place, and Josh was headed out, I think, to see somebody that he was dating. And we literally just sort of said hello to each other at the doorway. Was that awkward? Yeah, it's always awkward when you're, you know, in that sort of situation of meeting someone else's partner. The dominant feeling is that you're both maybe kind of worried that the other one is angry or going to be confrontational or jealous or something like that.

But that wasn't really the experience I had with Josh. It was just, hey, you guys have fun tonight. You know, I'll be home at whatever and just like, that's all it was. Was it? police weren't so sure they called Ian Ian for a second time that interview was much more I think interested in establishing where I was

around the time of Shannon's disappearance so I was asked you know questions with a harder edge like you know where were you and who were you with what does it like to feel like you're a suspect in a serious investigation like that I mean it felt completely surreal it was almost like one of those experiences

where you kind of watch yourself from outside your body where I was just kind of like, this is one of the strangest things that has ever happened to me. Do you remember the look in the officer's eye? Yeah. I mean, you get a vibe, I think, when somebody is trying to size you up and maybe even throw you off kilter a little bit to see how you'll react. It felt intense while it was happening. But Ian was far from the only romantic interest attached to that complicated little household.

Or the only person of interest. Shannon had taken issue with the woman that Josh was seeing because she felt it was getting serious. All they could do was tell themselves their Shannon had to be alive somewhere. It was nearly a month. since she had disappeared. Christmas was coming.

She would turn up as if their love alone could bring her home. We'll find her. We'll figure this out. I think we were consoling each other. We were all together, and it was a family affair. We had to stick together to get through it. What were those holidays like? I mean, the holidays were obviously the worst.

Josh came over, bearing gifts and sharing worry. And meanwhile, the police kept looking and getting nowhere. Except one piece of the story that kept mattering away in Detective Witch's brain, that open marriage. I got the sense that it was okay for them to see other people as long as it didn't get serious. But the thing was, maybe it did get serious. To Josh, at least, there was this one particular woman. Shannon had taken issue. with the woman that Josh was seeing

because she felt it was getting serious. So the police asked Josh about that and he said, yes, it was true. He'd been seeing her for months. So could his girlfriend be involved? She became a person of interest. And, of course, they had questions for her too, such as, did she have any idea where Shannon was?

No. Where was she the night Shannon was last seen? On a date. Who was she with? Well, it was Josh. Had she met Shannon? Yeah, a few times. Did Shannon approve?

Her mom knew the answer to that question. From what she told me, he had broken the rules of the open marriage. I guess you set some boundaries and some rules, and he had broken those. Shannon thought Josh's affair had gotten way too intimate. So, according to her family, she wanted him to break up with her and he didn't want to do that.

Instead, Josh told her he wanted to end his marriage to Shannon. How did you hear about that? She phoned me. Just was in tears and couldn't figure out what was going on and went through the whole, I don't know what to do, Mom. And that happened on October 26th, so about a month before she went missing. And she was devastated. when he asked for the divorce.

Obviously, that's also a very critical time in a domestic relationship. It can be dangerous. But I think it added stress to Shannon, and that stress was playing out in different ways in her life, I would say. How did she feel about all of this stuff with Josh? She was really devastated.

We were hanging out, and she was talking about how she had such mixed feelings. She was so angry and so hurt, but also things were going so well for her outside of this marriage that she just, she didn't know what she wanted to do. Did you stay in touch with Josh during that time they were going through those troubles? Did you talk to them much?

I did, actually. Josh and I were friendly. And when she called me to say that they were getting a divorce and he'd asked for it, my very first text after I got off the phone was a message of support to Josh. I've actually been through a divorce myself and I know how hard it is on both people.

Shannon was shuttling back and forth between acting gigs and overwhelmed emotional. emotionally by the chaos in her personal life. And then, just like that, Josh apologized, told her he didn't want a divorce after all. Once they made the decision to try to work on their marriage, Shannon requested that he actually end the mistress relationship

so that they could focus on the marriage and really focus on what brought them together in the first place. And so, to Shannon's great relief, they decided to return to a more traditional marriage. Shannon was all in. so was Josh she thought unfortunately Josh lied to her

and to the mistress telling Shannon he was leaving the mistress to work worth her and then was meeting up with the mistress saying I'm planning on leaving my wife soon Shannon found out was devastated all over again and soon she was gone

too proud to face the humiliation perhaps despite the turmoil in the marriage Shannon's family did not not believe Josh harmed her, not her quiet, steady church mouse. I never felt that he was involved. I just couldn't imagine that somebody who loved her would have done something to her. I did not have any interactions with him that would have said he's capable of something like this.

But Detective Witt was focused less on personality and more on the puzzle she was trying to put together. And perhaps unwittingly, the girlfriend had handed her. a missing piece. She said she had been texting with Josh at 3 a.m. that morning, whereas Josh had told us when he got home, he went straight to bed. It was spring.

Shannon Madill had been missing since November. her family suspended in a never-ending state of dread. I mean, the hell that you were going through, I don't know anybody can possibly understand, but... No, not unless you live through it. It's interesting. There's a lot of activity at the very beginning,

and then as the leads fall away, you hear less and less and less. You know, you start to wonder if she'll ever be found, if this is just going to be a giant mystery for the rest of your life, and you just hope that they find something that will bring this all to an end. Where was Josh when all this was going on? He was living at the home, the home that they had together.

We had dinner in March, and then in April, I ran into him at a bar when we were both there with friends, and he informed me that the police had interrogated him again, and he felt like a suspect. So he got a lawyer, and the lawyer told him to stop talking to me. What was that like? It was interesting. I gave him a hug and I said I totally understand that I won't reach out to him out of respect, but he's more than welcome to talk to me at any point in time. All the while, without telling the family, police had grown ever more suspicious,

partly because of the interview with Josh's girlfriend. The two had been out the night Josh said he last saw Shannon, the night of that audition. The girlfriend had said that she dropped Josh off around 12, 12.30, so that would have been early morning hours of November 27th. And she said she had been texting with Josh at 3 a.m. that morning, whereas Josh had told us when he got home, he went straight to bed. He saw Shannon on the couch and went to bed. And that's different than what the girlfriend had told police. And there was something else that seemed off about Josh's story.

He was very detail-oriented in talking about what he did. before he got home and then the minute he arrived home his information became vague that's a flag for police as well flags mind you not actual evidence

but there was this too the forensic records from Shannon's cell phone also contradicted Josh Josh said he found her phone in her jeans days after he last saw her but an analysis of the cell phone itself seemed to tell a different story.

Her phone had done a walk-a-boat in the alley behind their residence, and this was 12 hours after Shannon, according to Josh, had last been seen. We can only speak for sure that the phone went on the walk-a-boat, but who was with this phone? Was it Shannon? Was it Josh? At that point, we don't know, but it's a big question mark about why is her phone moving when no one's seen her at that point.

Still didn't mean Josh was involved, but it was enough to allow the police to bring him in as a possible suspect. Certainly the interviewer went at him a little bit more aggressively and challenged him on some of the information that we now had. And Josh was unable to provide really clear responses to that. Things like the discrepancies in his answers and his girlfriends about texting in the early morning hours, long after he said, He went to bed. He was not forthcoming in his answers. He would kind of delay before he'd give his response. So more suspicion, but no concrete proof, Josh, did anything to Shannon.

In fact, some of Christina Witt's colleagues remained unconvinced they'd reached the high bar needed to show a crime that even occurred. They didn't even have a body. Investigators are always going to have different perspectives and different experiences. I'd been in homicide for quite a while at that point and I disagreed. I felt we'd met the threshold. By then it was May, six months since Shannon vanished.

A frustrated Detective Witt began a time-consuming process to seize more evidence. I had directed an investigator to write a search warrant for Josh's phone and his car, and so that was authorized. But getting that approval, had taken time. More than six weeks had gone by. And then finally. On July 2nd of 2015, myself and another homicide investigator and two patrol members supporting us, we went and did a door knock at Josh's

house. She was surprised when Josh didn't respond right away. We could hear movement, so we knew someone was inside. I knocked on the door, knocked on the door, no answer. So I called Josh cell phone. He doesn't answer. So now we start communicating through the window, kind of like, hey, Josh, we can hear you inside, come to the door. But Josh didn't. He stole and stole. I phoned the phone again, and Josh answers this time. Josh starts crying. He seems flustered, and he seems to be trying to buy some time. So he's like, okay, just give me a minute. I need to go downstairs, I need to get my pants out of the dryer, I'll come to the door, I'll come to the door, he's not coming to the door. So my police instincts are like, okay, what is actually

going on in the house right now? Why is he stalling? Oh, there was a reason. She'd find out soon enough. He came out basically naked with tight white underwear on and he was covered in blood. Always more to the story. To go behind the seats of tonight's episode, listen to our Talking Dateline series with Keith and Blaine, available Wednesday. It was a standoff by cell phone.

Calgary Police Detective Christina Witt stood outside Josh's front door, and he, somewhere inside, stalled, delayed, cried. I just kept encouraging him. Josh, just come to the door. That's the safest thing for all of us, and we can speak in person face-to-face. And he's stalling a bit, he's upset,

and then he blurts out, I killed her. I killed her. She couldn't believe it. I asked him to say it again, and he said, I killed my wife. He said the second time? Yeah. But problems. The detective did not have a body cam or recording device that would prove he said it.

So for 90 minutes, she coaxed him, come out, talk, until finally the door opened. And there he was. I was not expecting at all what he looked like. He came out basically naked with tight white underwear on, and he was covered in blood. Blood? Why was he covered in blood? Well, he had a pocket knife and basically, he was gnawing at his neck while speaking to me. They rushed Josh to a hospital and looked inside his house.

In the house, while we were negotiating, he had written in blood, I love you on the mirror. His wounds were superficial. He was released the next day and arrested. But now they needed a recorded confession. They needed him to say again what he blurted out to Detective Witt the day before, and they didn't have much time. Time. Isn't there some sort of deadline you have to hit once you've arrested somebody? Yes. You have 24 hours from when the person is under arrest until they're actually formally charged at court.

Ray Bangloy is an undercover detective. We agreed not to show his face. And you don't want to formally charge him until you've got something pretty concrete to charge him to back it up. Time was flying. Josh spoke to a lawyer for hours. For than two hours, four hours. For than two hours in before he even faced detectives. And then he stonewalled. He refused again and again to repeat his unrecorded confession. Shortly after 2 a.m., Detective Witt told Josh.

The cadaver dogs are finding. Separate now, so there's a lot going on at the house, so we're going to focus our attention on that right now, and you can have us sleep, and someone will be in to speak with you tomorrow. Morning, Josh. In the morning, Josh was awakened to face another detective and a picture of Shannon.

Still, no confession. And it was just hours until deadline, after which they would have to release him. We're probably at the 20-hour mark when I went in to talk to Josh. And slowly, Josh began to tell Detective Bangloy how, The night of her big audition, they were trying to put their marriage back together again. I came home, she was on the couch, she was watching. Stupid Johnny Taubby.

And I just asked her if she wanted to have angry makeup sex. But that apparently wasn't what she heard. She thought I said breakup sex. They should come so mad at me. That's when Detective Bangaloy went to what he calls his Blame the Victim technique. So the theme with Blame the Victim is to try to take the victim down a couple notches and explain to him, hey, nobody's perfect, nobody's an angel.

He was portraying Shannon to be an angel. It's hard for someone to admit to that. How could you kill an angel for heaven's sake, you know? Exactly. On the other hand, if maybe she wasn't an angel after her, all might be more understandable. Yes. Or at least something he could confess to.

Exactly. During my talks with the victim's family, I found out that Shannon had an anger problem at times. And when she would get angry, she sometimes would say cruel things. What that would mean things that she said you at night? She said she regretted Mary. She said she regretted marrying you.

She could have done all this. on her own. She could have done what on her own? She didn't leave me. He actually told me to stop talking and that he was going to tell me what happened. I just wanted her to be quiet. I don't hurt her.

I just couldn't have to stop anymore. Put my hands around her neck. Put your hands around her neck? Yeah. I just like a slumber fiend. I killed her with my hands. When my hands got tired, I used the belts. I don't know why.

You used the belt? I don't know why I just didn't stop. I could just stop. I could just stop. What was to me? I don't know why. I don't know. Finally, with just an hour to spare, police had what they needed.

Josh used a belt to strangle Shannon. The same day, cadaver dogs found Shannon's body. He had hidden her, frozen in a plastic bin outside during the Wicked Calgary winter, moved to his car, and then recently buried. In the yard. Right up until they told you that he'd been arrested in charge, you couldn't believe it would be him. Well, he was just such an assuming person that I wouldn't have thought that he would have had it in him. I wouldn't have thought that he would have had that kind of anger and rage inside of him.

One of the biggest things that has had a huge impact on me is that I don't trust myself anymore. You go through life believing that if you're going to meet somebody who's a serial killer or a sociopath, You'd be able to pick them out, and the reality is you can't. He never hurt her. He never touched her. He didn't do a single thing to her until the day he killed her. Wow. This quiet little church mouse of a guy.

Yeah. After two years of legal stops and starts, Josh got a plea deal. Second degree murder. In 2017, he was sentenced to life. I try to dwell on the happiness, the happy points with her. Her smile, it's easier for me to remember her that way than the horror that she went through. And now Shannon Medill's mother takes her grief and pain of betrayal to the gym. And she puts on her boxing gloves and finally comes away with the measure of peace.

With murder, the rest of the family is victimized, and they're victimized over and over again with the legal system and all of the stuff that goes on with it. But you can choose to stay a victim or you can choose not to be a victim. I'm still victimized, but I choose not to be a victim. That's all for this edition of Dateline. We'll see you again next Friday at 10, 9 Central. I'm Lester Holt for all of us at NBC News. Good night.