The Misery Machine - The Case of Shanay Evans + Jaron Wells

Starting point is 00:00:00 On July 14, 23, officers with the Evansville Police Department were dispatched to an abandoned home located at 1009 Harriet Street in Evansville, Indiana. The caller was a man by the name of Scott Allen Ward. Now, Scott used to live in the derelict home and had just dropped his daughter off at Deaconess Midtown Hospital where she was admitted to the ICU. Upset with his daughter's poor health, the man decided to take a walk. That walk led him back to his old home, the windows long bordered over. Scott took a walk around his former house, which clearly sustained damage from a fire at some point, when he got a whiff of a foul odor.

Starting point is 00:00:40 Curious, he opened a window located on the backside of the home and crept inside. There, he found the body of a woman lying on her back upon a dirty mattress in the middle of the floor. The woman was dead and had been for some time, judging by the smell of decomposition that had lingered outside, and by the copious amounts of maggots that were now feeding on her remains. Scott was horrified and immediately felt sick, so he hurried out of the derelict home. He didn't have a cell phone, so he ran across the street and down the road to Aurora, a business located inside the former Sandelben pharmacy that provides services to homeless people. There, he informed the employees of what he had found at 1009 Harriet Street and was able to make the call.

Starting point is 00:01:25 When the officers arrived on the scene, they met with Scott in the Aurora parking lot where he again repeated to them his story. After speaking with Scott, the responding officers and detective scoured the abandoned home for clues as to whom the deceased woman could be. The house was in a complete state of disarray with trash strewn about the rooms. There were holes throughout the walls and in the floorboards. After locating some male that appeared to be recent, it was determined that the woman could be Sheenay Evans, also known to police by the name Sheenay Hunt. The officers then went back across the street to Aurora. According to the employees, Cheney had received services there in the past and was known to stay in abandoned houses. Now, the mail that had been recovered from 1009 Harriet Street included a letter from William Fowler, who was an inmate within the Indiana Department of Corrections.

Starting point is 00:02:12 William is currently being held at the Branchville Correctional Facility, where he's doing time for stalking and fraud against a financial institution. He was sentenced on September 26, 2022, to one year and six months in prison, and set to be released on April 9th, 2024. According to her Facebook profile, Sheenae and William were in a complicated relationship. In addition, Sheenae had received mail from assurance wireless regarding her cell phone, a letter from the Social Security office, and a June statement from Camerica Bank. Soon, the coroner arrived on the scene, and the women's remains were placed into a body bag for transport. A cell phone was located nearby, which was also taken into evidence. Due to the level of decomposition, it was initially unclear if foul play was involved.

Starting point is 00:02:58 All of that changed at autopsy on July 17th. The medical examiner located a bullet hole on the side of the woman's head and recovered the projectile. The following day, the victim was positively identified as Chenet Hunt. She was 45 years old at the time of her death. Meanwhile, detectives were able to secure a search warrant for the derelict home from Judge Celia Polly. Crime scene investigators led by CSU Detective Henderson began processing the scene and canvassing the neighborhood. A 45-gap shell casing was recovered from the floor next to the mattress where Chenate's body was found.

Starting point is 00:03:33 According to Detective Henderson, a 45-gap round or Glock Auto Pistol is a very particular and seldomly used type of ammunition, one often seen criticized in gun forums and YouTube videos. On July 18th, the detectives circled back to Aurora to obtain known addresses for Chenet. They also began canvassing all of the local hotels in the area. Detectives also spoke with an employee at the Hux gas station who claimed to know Chenet. According to the employee, Chenet frequented the gas station with her adult son, but she didn't know the son's name. So we don't have to keep referring to him as Chenet's son.

Starting point is 00:04:08 We'll share with you that his name is Jaron Wells. and will be referring to him as such moving forward. While canvassing the local hotels, detectives spoke with an employee at the Evansville Inn and in suites who recognized Chenet. She said that Jaron once dated one of the other employees at the hotel. Incidentally, that employee, Tara Rainey, walked in while the detectives were still there. Tara shared with the detectives that the pair had broken up due to a,

Starting point is 00:04:33 as she put it, weird situation between Jaron and Cheney. Two days later, on July 20th, Detective Lowe with the Evansville Police Department received a phone call from Donna Fowler, the mother of Sheenay's incarcerated boyfriend. Donna claimed that she and Sheenay talked on a daily basis, but the calls abruptly stopped on July 8th. That morning, Sheenae shared with Donna that she and her son, Jaron, had gotten into a fight. Allegedly, Shine said that she'd be okay.

Starting point is 00:05:01 She and Jaron were going to stop at the local Valero gas station for coffee, and she would call Donna back later that day, but call never came. and Chenet wasn't picking up her phone when she called. According to Donna, she tried reaching out to Jaron, and he subsequently blocked her phone number. Because she wasn't tech-savvy, she had her son Ronald try to reach out to Jaron via Facebook Messenger. Now, according to Ronald, Jaron said to him,

Starting point is 00:05:26 quote, she said some foul stuff about my dead father, and that was the last time I seen her or spoke to her, end quote. On July 31st, detective spoke with Cheney's adult daughter, Kaylee Reeves, by phone. Allegedly, Kalee had a run. rocky relationship with her mother and brother and didn't have much contact with them outside of social media. She told the detectives that she knew something was wrong with her mother when she stopped posting on social media. To me, that would be a safe assumption. When I was researching this case,

Starting point is 00:05:52 I found no less than five Facebook profiles for Sheenay. Her final post was on July 7, 2023. Kaylee went on to share with the detectives that she knew that her mother and brother were homeless and often squatted in vacant homes around Evansville. According to Kaylee, whenever Sheena would come into some money, she would rent a hotel room for the night for her and Jaron. When asked about her brother, Kaylee said that Jaron had been violent and controlling of Cheney in the past. When the pair would get into fights, Jaron would often punch holes in the walls due to his anger issues. She finished by referring to her brother as a bum that lived off of people. Those are her words, not ours. But as soon as the detectives ended their call with Kaylee, she called them right back.

Starting point is 00:06:33 Jaron had resurfaced in his sister's DMs to let her know that their mother had passed away. He also claimed that he hadn't been in Evansville in over a month and that he'd been living in Texas, but we know that's absolutely not the case. All of the witnesses that had come forward thus far who had recent contact with Jaron provided cell phone evidence to the authorities, including screenshots of their conversations. Meanwhile, on August 9th, a search warrant was granted for Jaron's Facebook profile. Inside, the detectives found messages to various women of Jaron showing off his Glock handgun, which, surprise, took 45 gap rounds.

Starting point is 00:07:10 And one particularly disturbing message, he wrote the following about someone owing him money. This is a direct quote. Really thinking about going up the road and blowing his shit back with my 45. I had to unload my pistol. I was going to go up there and talk to him in person, but I knew that would have ended badly for him, his dad,

Starting point is 00:07:31 and everyone else at the job. My hands are sweating. I am scared for this man. end quote. After further review of his account, the detectives found that beginning on July 10th, Jaron began searching media pages on his Facebook, including the Evansville Police Department Facebook page, and it was a lot. After Cheney's death, Jaron had made over 50 searches in just a nine-day period. On July 28th, Jaron unfriended his mother. This was the same day that News 14 reported that Cheney had been found dead in the abandoned house.

Starting point is 00:08:03 In us, I'm Caroline Clap. We start with breaking news. We now know the name of the person found dead inside a bordered up home a couple of weeks ago. The Vanderburt County Coroner's Office identified that person as 45-year-old Sheney Hunt. Police say her body was inside a home on Harriet Street back on July 14th. Police will continue to investigate. The coroner says autopsy results are pending. In addition, it was later discovered through a search warrant obtained for a call and location data for Jaron's phone number, that on July 8th, 20203, his phone was pinging off a cell phone tower that serviced the home located at 1009 Harriet Street. But where was Jaron? A review of Cheney's bank statements also led the detectives to a storage unit located at 4815 Tippecanoe Drive in Evansville, where a glott gun case, a rifle, as well as receipts for hotel rooms at America's Best Value Inn were located. Employees at the hotel confirmed that Cheney and Jaron had rented a room on those dates.

Starting point is 00:09:03 But Jaron was not there currently. Police narrowed down their search based on some of the Facebook messages that Jaron was having with various women. Apparently, on July 22nd, two weeks after he allegedly shot his mother in the head in cold blood, he exchanged messages with a woman named Olivia. In these messages, Olivia stated that she was coming to Evansville to bring him back to Illinois. A quick search for Olivia's Facebook profile shows that she lives in Harrisburg, Illinois. In later messages, Jaron tells a woman known as Shea Shea that he's living in Illinois and working clearing trees for his brother's neighbor. Due to the overwhelming evidence against him, a warrant was signed on September 8th, 2023 for the arrest of 28-year-old Jaron Anthony Michael Wells.

Starting point is 00:09:49 He was picked up on September 11th in a vacant lot off of Main Street. Jaron was booked into the Saline County Jail in Illinois, where he awaits extradition to Indiana. As this case is still developing, we'll keep an eye out for updates as they become available, if they become available. Sadly, as Chenet and Jaron were both homeless, the news tends to sweep any updates on cases under the rug. Chenet's funeral services were private and were held at Wolf Creek Cemetery in El Dorado, Illinois. They were actually held prior to Jaron's arrest, and he, of course, was not in attendance. In closing, we would like to share a bit about who Shine was as a person. She was much more than just a body lying on a mattress in a derelict house.

Starting point is 00:10:34 Chenet Michelle Hunt was born in Carbondale, Illinois to Sharon Hayes and Bernard Wells. When she was 16 years old, she gave birth to her son, Jaron Wells, whom she took care of all on her own. She later had a daughter named Kaylee Reeves. She has survived by her mother, her children, and her granddaughter, Everley Reeves. Sheenay had a passion for life and carried a profound love for God in her. her heart. Her life wasn't always easy, but she found a way to always keep pushing forward with a resilient smile on her faith. She loved crafting and great food. She was an animal lover with a lot of love in her heart. She loved good music and was steadfast in her dedication to her family.

Starting point is 00:11:17 Though she has passed, her memory lives on in those who loved and cared for her deeply.

The Misery Machine - The Case of Shanay Evans + Jaron Wells

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.