Elizabeth Shannon was just fifteen years old when she helped her mother kill her stepfather. According to court documents Joan Shannon marriage to David Shannon was falling apart as she had started an affair with another man. Joan Shannon would plan with Elizabeth Shannon to get rid of her stepfather so she could move forward with the other man. This teen killer would fatally shoot David Shannon as he lay sleeping on the couch.
When Elizabeth Shannon was arrested she would tell police she was just doing what her mother told her to do. Elizabeth would testify against her own mother in exchange for a lighter prison sentence which turned out to be over thirty years. Joan Shannon was sentenced to life in prison
Elizabeth Shannon 2023 Information
Offender Number:
0919740
Inmate Status:
ACTIVE
Gender:
FEMALE
Race:
WHITE
Ethnic Group:
EUROPEAN/N.AM./AUSTR
Birth Date:
06/24/1987
Age:
32
Current Location:
NCCI WOMEN
Elizabeth Shannon Other News
A Fayetteville teenager who admitted to shooting and killing her stepfather and testified against her mother in the case as part of a plea deal was sentenced Thursday to a maximum of 31 years in prison.
Last year, Elizabeth Shannon pleaded guilty in the 2002 slaying of U.S. Army Maj. David Shannon, but said her mother, Joan Shannon, convinced her to commit the crime.
In a deal with prosecutors, however, Elizabeth Shannon testified against her mother, who, on Aug. 31, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
“I’m truly sorry,” Shannon, who was 15 years old at the time of the crime, said in court Thursday. “I made devastating choices. I’ll carry the shame the rest of my life.”
Elizabeth Shannon told jurors that her mother first tried to poison Maj. Shannon and when that did not work, she gave the teen a gun and asked her to commit the crime so that she could be with a man she met at a party.
During Joan Shannon’s trial, though, defense attorneys attacked Elizabeth Shannon’s past, suggesting she was linked to gangs and that their client was the victim of a “lying daughter.”
“I think her testifying was vital,” said Assistant District Attorney Billy West. “We had to have the testimony of Elizabeth Shannon. I think we knew from the beginning.”
Elizabeth Shannon’s attorney plans to appeal the sentence, saying it is still too harsh. Meanwhile, Shannon and her mother will be housed in different prisons.
16-year-old has pleaded guilty to murdering her stepfather and will testify against her mother, who is accused of plotting the killing.
Elizabeth Shannon admitted she shot Army Maj. David Shannon twice as he slept on July 23, 2002. Shannon, 40, was assigned to Ft. Bragg.
Elizabeth Shannon pleaded guilty Friday to second-degree murder and conspiracy. She will be sentenced to a minimum of 25 years in prison if she cooperates in the prosecution of her mother, Joan, according to an agreement with prosecutors.
Elizabeth Shannon told investigators that she killed her stepfather because she was tired of her mother asking her to do it.
Elizabeth Shannon is currently incarcerated at the North Carolina Correctional Institute
Elizabeth Shannon Release Date
Elizabeth Shannon is not scheduled to be released until 2031
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A Fayetteville woman was found guilty on all counts in connection with the death of her Army husband and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole Wednesday.
Joan Shannon is accused of planning her husband’s death and persuading her 15-year-old daughter, Elizabeth Shannon, to kill Army Maj. David Shannon in 2002. She faced charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and accessory after-the-fact.
Joan Shannon stared into space as the verdict was read; her family cried and dropped their heads.
“We were hoping that it would go our way,” said prosecutor Billy West. “We were confident that it would go our way and we were satisfied with that.”
Joan Shannon’s late husband’s family members supported her all along, believing Elizabeth Shannon acted alone. The teenage girl pleaded guilty in 2004 and testified against her mother.
“Elizabeth is a very vindictive, evil child,” said Virginia Schanz, Joan Shannon’s sister-in-law. “She has been that way ever since I first met her. She is evil.”
Joan Shannon did not testify in her own defense, a decision her family said they believed to be “right at the time.” She also had a chance to address the court Wednesday, but chose not to do so.
Jurors deliberated for more than nine hours Tuesday and Wednesday. Wednesday morning, however, jurors told Superior Court Judge Jim Hardin that they could not reach a verdict.
Hardin told jurors that it was their duty to keep working on the verdict and that they should try their hardest to reconcile their differences without giving up what they believe to be the truth.
On Tuesday, jurors asked to see photographic evidence in the case, as well as transcripts from some of the witnesses who testified in the trial. The judge granted the request to see the photos, but not the request to review the transcripts.
Hardin said Wednesday that he plans to ask the prison system to house Joan Shannon and her daughter separately
Zitedrick Shelley was thirteen years old when he would murder a woman during an armed robbery. According to court documents Shelley walked up to an elderly lady demanding her money and before she could respond she would be shot in the chest and would pass away from her injuries. Zitedrick was quickly arrested and once he went to trial would be convicted of armed robbery and murder then sentenced to life in prison with parole. This teen killer had a long history with police and was suspected of other armed robberies and violent assaults.
Zitedrick Shelley 2023 Information
As of right now his current facility has not been listed. Normally this means either he is in a juvenile facility
Zitedrick Shelley Other News
Zitedrick Shelley was 13 years old when he gunned down a woman to steal a little more than $6. Mable Florence Jordan was an ill, 61-year-old woman when she died where she fell in the street after Shelley shot her in the chest.
Shelley, now 15, pleaded guilty Wednesday in a plea agreement for life in prison with the possibility of parole.
“This is a case the juvenile system failed,” said Assistant District Attorney McKenzie Gray. By the time Shelley shot Jordan, he had been in state custody 13 times – twice for armed robbery in 2016. Over and over juvenile offenses ranging from ungovernable to robbery were dismissed or set aside, Gray said.
On Aug. 14, 2016, Shelley and three other youths robbed a pregnant woman after pepper spraying her in the face. A week later a juvenile justice officer told a sheriff’s deputy to just take Shelley home after the officer stopped him and his 12-year-old cousin walking down James Brown Boulevard toting a shotgun. On Oct. 18, 2016, he was accused of robbing and stabbing a woman in the parking lot of the Gordon Highway Kmart, according to incident reports.
Although Shelley was a ward of the state with oversight by the Juvenile Justice and Division of Family and Children Services, he cut off his ankle monitor and left his aunt’s home – where he had been placed – Aug. 17, 2017.
On Oct. 5, 2017, just before 1 a.m., Shelley crossed Jordan’s path at 15th and Harper streets. Officers at AU Medical Center heard the gunshots and saw Shelley run from the scene, Gray said. Shelley was found about two hours later hiding in bushes. He had a .22-caliber gun. Jordon’s blood was on his shirt sleeve.
Defense attorney Lyndsey Hix said Shelley was bound for the criminal justice system from birth. “He didn’t have a chance.”
DFCS never got involved with Zitedrick Shelley until he started getting into trouble, although for years he was left on his own when both of his parents were incarcerated, Hix said. The school system never referred him to agencies that might have helped, although records show that he began missing school in first grade, and was getting into fights while in school, Hix said.
He was raising himself, raising himself at 13 on the streets,” Hix said.The community should look at Shelley’s case and try to determine what could have been done to prevent the tragedy, Hix said. “There are no easy answers but the community deserved better,” she said.“This is a tragedy,” Judge Sheryl B. Jolly said. “There is a societal epidemic of children carrying weapons. There are countless guns in the hands of children … children who commit adult acts and have to be held accountable as adults.”
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An Augusta, GA teen is charged in the shooting death of a 61-year-old homeless woman named Mable Florence Jordan, said WJBF on Thursday.
Richmond County Coroner Mark Bowen said that Jordan’s remains have been forwarded to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) for autopsy and a homicide investigation is in process.
The 13-year-old shooter has been identified as Zitedrick Shelley. He was arrested and charged with murder and armed robbery in the wake of the incident, which took place after midnight on Wednesday night.
Suspect charged in shooting death of Georgia homeless woman is just 13 years old
Desiree Linares and Alexis Shields were both fifteen when they murdered their foster mother. According to court documents Desiree Linares and Alexis Shields would tie up their foster mother and smother her with a pillow. When police arrive they found the two teenage killers gone with the victims wallet, van and laptop were missing. Desiree Linares was found incompetent and unable to stand trial. This teen killer was convicted and sentenced to thirty years in prison however seventeen of it was suspended.
Alexis Shields 2023 Information
Last Name: SHIELDS First Name: ALEXIS Middle Name: NMCD#: 77827 Offender#: 500834 Offender Status: INMATE Facility/Region:WWCF
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A 17-year-old girl who admitted killing her foster mother in her southern New Mexico home now faces about 10 years in prison.
A judge on Wednesday sentenced Alexis Shields to 30 years in prison but suspended 17 years of the sentence.
According to the Alamogordo Daily News, the remaining 13 years of the sentence will be reduced by the 999 days that Shields has spent in custody since Evelyn Miranda was killed in June 2011.
Shields pleaded guilty in December to first-degree felony murder of Miranda, who was found dead in her San Patricio home.
A co-defendant, who also was 15 when Miranda was killed, awaits trial in the case.
Authorities say the girls stole Miranda’s car, cellphone and computer. They were captured at a friend’s home in Carlsbad.
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One of two teenage girls accused of killing their foster mother in 2011 faces 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to first-degree felony murder.
Alexis Shields, 17, entered her plea Monday in state District Court under an agreement with prosecutors. She is expected to be sentenced next year after a pre-sentencing report is completed.
Shields was 15 when Evelyn Miranda, 53, was found dead at her San Patricio home on June 8, 2011.
The case against the other girl, who also was 15 when Miranda was killed, has been put on hold pending an evaluation of her competency to stand trial, the Alamogordo Daily News reported.
The girls were accused of stealing Miranda’s car, cellphone and computer. They were captured at a friend’s home in Carlsbad.
Deputy District Attorney John P. Suggs said Shields will be sentenced as an adult and could have faced up to 30 years in prison if convicted without a plea agreement. With Shields pleading guilty and taking responsibility, she is now looking at a maximum of 15 years in prison, Suggs said.
The plea agreement included dismissal of other charges, including conspiracy, robbery, kidnapping and tampering with evidence.
Shields will serve her sentence in a state Corrections Department facility, the prosecutor said.
According to 12th Judicial District Court records, Miranda died of asphyxiation.
Miranda took in troubled or challenged teens through Mesilla Valley Hospital’s Treatment Foster Care program.
She was a foster parent for both Linares and Shields in her San Patricio home.
Rachel Shoaf and Shelia Eddy were sixteen when they murdered their friend Skylar Neese. According to court documents The two teen killers planned the murder of their friend, though the reason has never been clear, the two girls would pick up Skylar from her home and drive across the State line from West Virginia to Pennsylvania. Once at their destination the two girls would turn on Skylar and attack her with a series of weapons they had earlier packed into their vehicle. Skylar would be stabbed over fifty times.
Neese body would not be found for over two months until Shoaf would tell police that her and Eddy had talked about killing Skylar. Rachel would eventually lead authorities to the remains of Skylar. Rachel would plead guilty to second degree murder and be sentenced to thirty years in prison with parole possible after ten. Eddy would be sentenced to life in prison with parole possible after fifteen years
Shelia Eddy – Current Facility – LCC – Parole Eligibility 2028
Offender ID (OID) Number: 3573487
Name: Eddy, Shelia
Sex: Female
Birth Date: 9/28/1995
Height: 5′ 5″
Weight: 107 lbs.Race: White
Location: LCC
Intake Date: 2/7/2014 12:39:00 PM
Next Parole Hearing: 5/1/2028
Maximum Parole Discharge Date: Not Available
Projected Release Date: Not Available
Rachel Shoaf and Shelia Eddy Other News
As high school sophomores, Skylar Neese, Shelia Eddy and Rachel Shoaf were inseparable.
Living in Morgantown, West Virginia, the then-16-year-olds were pretty and sociable, taking selfies and spending time together.
But everything changed on July 6, 2012, when Neese’s parents discovered she was missing. Six months later, Shoaf told authorities that she and Eddy had stabbed their best friend Neese to death.
At 16, Skyler Neese was thriving, according to her parents. She had a 4.0 grade point average, a part-time job at a fast food restaurant and an active social life.
She was Dave and Mary Neese’s only child.
“Skylar was a very bubbly person,” Dave Neese told ABC News’ “20/20.” “She was also very loyal to her friends, the people she thought was her friends.”
Skylar Neese met her best friend Shelia Eddy at age 8.
“She was like a part of our family. She really was,” Dave Neese said. “I mean, just like one of our kids.”
While entering her freshman year in high school in September 2010, Eddy met Rachel Shoaf. The next month, Eddy transferred to the same high school as Skylar Neese, and Shoaf also soon became friends with her. Before long the three teens began to argue among themselves.
On July 5, 2012, Skylar Neese went home after finishing a shift at work.
The next morning, her dad said he discovered that she didn’t sleep in her bed. He later found her window screen in her closet and a hidden bench that she could use to climb in and out of her window.
“Then I knew: she snuck out last night,” Dave Neese said. “And then, oh my god, she snuck out last night, and she’s not home.”
That same day, after Skylar Neese missed work for the first time ever, her parents called police to report her missing. Star City, West Virginia, police officer Bob McCauley responded to the 911 call and began investigating Skylar Neese’s disappearance.
Later that day, Sheila Eddy called Skylar Neese’s parents to tell them what had happened the night before.
“She proceeded to tell me that her, Skylar, and Rachel had snuck out the night before and that they had driven around Star City, were getting high, and that the two girls had dropped her back off at the house,” Mary Neese told “20/20.” “The story was they had dropped her off at the end of the road, because she didn’t want to wake us up sneaking back in.”
Eddy said she and Rachel Shoaf had picked up Skylar Neese at around 11 P.M. and dropped her back off at home before midnight.
On the Neese’s apartment’s surveillance camera, a car is seen pulling up to the apartment at 12:30 A.M.
At 12:35 A.M., the grainy video shows Skylar Neese sneaking out of her room and slipping into the car, which drives away.
“I was scared to death. I mean I didn’t know where my baby was. It was horrible,” said Dave Neese.
On July 7, 2012, Shelia Eddy and her mom helped Skylar Neese’s parents canvass the neighborhood looking for her, while Rachel Shoaf left for Catholic summer camp for two weeks.
Two days later, the public learned that Neese was missing through television, radio and internet coverage. As weeks passed, the investigation into Skylar Neese’s disappearance continued. Police believed the most likely scenario was that Neese went to a house party and overdosed.
Corporal Ronnie Gaskins told “20/20” he heard rumors that Neese had supposedly overdosed on heroin. “She died. People there panicked, and they disposed of the body,” said Gaskins.
Jessica Colebank, who was working on the case, found Shelia Eddy’s demeanor suspicious when she went to speak to her for the first time.
“Just complete blank on emotions and there was absolutely nothing. It was like iced over,” Colebank told “20/20.”
Colebank also thought Rachel Shoaf was very nervous when she first spoke to her.
“Their stories were verbatim, the same. No one’s story is exactly the same, unless it’s rehearsed,” Colebank said. “Everything in my gut was, ‘Sheila is acting wrong. Rachel is scared to death.’”
After viewing surveillance video and cell phone records that proved Shelia Eddy and Rachel Shoaf were lying about what happened the night they last saw Skylar Neese, police told Dave and Mary Neese that Eddy and Shoaf had a secret.
Dave and Mary Neese, classmates and even strangers put pressure on Eddy and Shoaf to tell the truth.
On Dec. 28, 2012, Rachel Shoaf had a nervous breakdown and was committed to a local psychiatric hospital, where she had no contact with Shelia Eddy.
After being discharged from the hospital on Jan. 3, 2013, Shoaf confessed to her attorney and police that she and Eddy stabbed Neese to death.
“We never encountered anything that led us to believe that these two girls conspired with one another to commit premeditated murder,” Corporal Ronnie Gaskin said.
The car that Skylar Neese was seen getting into was determined to be Shelia Eddy’s.
After her confession, Shoaf agreed to lead police to the site of the murder to try to find Skylar Neese’s body.
Shoaf talked with Eddy while wearing a microphone, but Eddy failed to incriminate herself.
With the discovery of Skylar Neese’s body and that the blood found on Eddy’s car was Skylar Neese’s, police had enough evidence to arrest Eddy and Shoaf.
“We asked Rachel, ‘Why did you guys kill Skylar?’ And her only answer to that was, ‘We just didn’t like her,’” State Police Corp. Ronnie Gaskin said.
Rachel Shoaf turned herself into authorities at the Monongalia County Circuit Court on May 1, 2013.
Shoaf, now 18, was transferred to criminal court in closed hearing and was charged as an adult. She pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and is incarcerated at the Northern Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Wheeling, West Virginia.
She faces 30 years in prison and will soon be transferred to adult prison.
Also on May 1, Shelia Eddy, now 18, was arrested in a restaurant parking lot.
She was charged as an adult, pleaded guilty and was sentenced as an adult to life in prison with the possibility of parole in 15 years.
“They’re both sickos, and they’re both exactly where they need to be: away from civilization, locked up like animals. Because that’s what they are, they’re animals,” said Dave Neese.
In memory of their daughter, Dave and Mary Neese helped pass Skylar’s Law in West Virginia. It requires Amber Alerts for all missing children, not only those believed to have been kidnapped.
To honor their daughter, Dave and Mary transformed the site of her murder into a memorial. Dave often makes the 20-mile drive.
“Something horrible happened here,” Dave Neese said. “But I wanted to take the horrible thing that happened here and try to turn it into something good — a place that people can come and remember Skylar and remember the good little girl that she was, and not the little beast that they treated her like.”
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Rachel Shoaf Now
Rachel Shoaf is currently incarcerated at the Lakin Correctional Center
Rachel Shoaf Release Date
Rachel Shoaf current release date is 2028
Shelia Eddy Now
Shelia Eddy is currently incarcerated at the Lakin Correctional Center
Shelia Eddy Release Date
Shelia Eddy is serving life however is eligible for parole in 2028
Rachel Shoaf and Shelia Eddy Photos
Rachel Shoaf Married
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Sixteen-year-old Skylar Neese never made it back home after she snuck out of her Star City, West Virginia, home after midnight on July 6, 2012, to meet up with her two friends, Rachel Shoaf and Sheila Eddy, both of whom were the same age.
After Neese went missing, her mother said Eddy told her that the three of them had been driving around town that night getting high before she and Shoaf had dropped Neese off at the end of the road from her apartment building so that Neese could sneak back in. The surveillance camera on Neese’s apartment building captured her sneaking out and getting into a car at around 12:30 a.m.
As the investigation into Neese’s disappearance continued, suspicion mounted that the girls were harboring a secret. A few months later, Shoaf suffered a nervous breakdown. Then, on Jan. 3, 2013, she confessed to her attorney and police that she had stabbed Neese to death with Eddy. She agreed to lead authorities to Neese’s remains, which were in a wooded area over the Pennsylvania state line, about 20 miles from Star City.
“We asked Rachel, ‘Why did you guys kill Skylar?’ And her only answer to that was, ‘We just didn’t like her,’” State Police Cpl. Ronnie Gaskin told “20/20” in a previous interview.
Neese’s parents told “20/20” that the three high school sophomores used to be inseparable. But in the days leading up to her death, Neese’s Twitter account, which was eventually deleted, showed that something had gone awry.
On July 4, 2012, two days before she was murdered, Neese tweeted, “It really doesn’t take much to p*** me off,” and, “Sick of being at f****** home. Thanks ‘friends,’ love hanging out with you all too.”
The day before she was killed, Neese tweeted, “you doing s*** like that is why I can NEVER completely trust you.”
Neese’s last tweet, sent out hours before she snuck out of her bedroom window, was a retweet from a friend who had posted, “All I do is hope.”
Prior to Shoaf’s confession and before the truth about Neese’s disappearance was revealed, Eddy remained active on Twitter, posting regularly about her thoughts and day-to-day activities as authorities searched for her “missing” friend. In hindsight of Neese’s murder, several tweets from Eddy seemed disturbing.
Eddy’s first tweet on July 7, 2012, the day after she and Shoaf killed Neese, was a message to a friend wishing her a happy birthday:
In the months that followed, Eddy regularly tweeted about watching TV, school, hating homework and other typical teenage things. She even tweeted about her and Shoaf’s close friendship, writing in one tweet, “no one on this earth can handle me and rachel if you think you can you’re wrong.”
Then, on Jan. 3, 2013, Shoaf confessed to stabbing Neese to death with Eddy and told authorities where they had left her body. Meanwhile, Eddy kept up appearances that everything was normal, tweeting about watching her favorite TV shows: “staying home on a Tuesday is the best cause law and order svu is on all day.”
On the morning of March 13, 2013, the U.S. Attorney’s Office publically announced that the human remains found in the wooded area in Brave, Pennsylvania, belonged to Skylar Neese. Eddy, still keeping up appearances, pretended to be devastated over the news that her friend had been found dead, tweeting, “Rest easy Skylar, you’ll ALWAYS be my best friend,” with a photo montage of her and Neese together, and the words “worst day of my whole life.”
During her January 2013 confession, Shoaf had told authorities she and Eddy had planned Neese’s murder while in science class together. The plan was to pick Neese up from her house at night and drive to a remote area to smoke marijuana. Once they were in the woods, Shoaf said the plan was to count to three, then stab Neese to death.
On March 30, 2013, Eddy tweeted “we really did go on three”
As the investigation continued, police determined that the car Neese had been seen getting into on surveillance footage was Eddy’s car and that blood found on the car belonged to Neese. On May 1, 2013, Eddy was arrested in a restaurant parking lot and Shoaf turned herself in to authorities. Both teens were charged with murder as adults.
Eddy pleaded guilty to first-degree murder for her role in the killing. On Jan. 24, 2014, roughly 18 months after Neese’s death, she was sentenced to life in prison.
Shoaf, who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, was sentenced to 30 years in prison the following month.
Today, both women are 23 years old and remain incarcerated at the Lakin Correctional Center in West Virginia.
Austin Sigg was seventeen years old when he kidnapped, sexually assaulted and murdered a ten year old girl in Colorado. According to court documents Jessica Ridgeway disappeared on her way home. Several days later her dismembered remains would be found in a park. When he was arrested he would make a full confession to police. That he saw the little girl walking towards his jeep he would grab her and would bind her hands and legs then took her back to his home. Austin would sexually assault the child before murdering her, dismembering her and trying to hide her remains. Ultimately this teen killer would be convicted on all charges and sentenced to life in prison
Austin Sigg 2023 Information
Austin Sigg was moved out of State to an undisclosed prison due to the nature of his charges
Austin Sigg Other News
Jessica Ridgeway’s family will be spared the pain of having to sit through the trial of the man who murdered her.
18-year-old Austin Sigg pleaded guilty yesterday to all charges related to the kidnapping and murder of Jessica Ridgeway, as well as the attempted kidnapping of a jogger. His plea was against the advice of his attorneys.
Sigg was expected to go on trial this week for Jessica’s murder. Jessica was only 10 years old when she was abducted on her way to school in Westminster, Colorado, in October 2012. Her body was found days later, in a local park.
Sigg reportedly confessed to the murder, after his mom called the police after speaking to him.
He will be sentenced on November 8. Because he was 17 at the time of the crimes, he may only face 40 years in jail before being eligible for parole. Prosecutors are expected to ask for consecutive sentences so he spends the rest of his life in prison.
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Austin Sigg was moved to an undisclosed prison out of State
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Like many children, Jessica Ridgeway was told to be wary of strangers. She was urged to scream if someone tried to grab her.
Those warnings are reflected in a notebook the fifth-grader kept in her desk at school. For a class assignment, she jotted down the four kinds of sentences. In both tiny and oversized letters, she wrote an example of an imperative sentence:
“Do not play at the park alone.”
And an exclamatory sentence:
“Watch out for strangers!”
Just over a mile away from Jessica’s tree-lined suburban neighborhood in Westminster, Austin Sigg grew up with an early fascination with pornography and mortuary science. His parents sent him to a faith-based counselor in an effort to set him back on the right path.
The events on the morning of Oct. 5, 2012, taught a terrifying lesson to parents everywhere. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, the world can take your child away.
In her final moments of freedom, Jessica scooped up handfuls of fresh snow and packed them into a snowball.
Down the block, in his Jeep parked where he knew no one could see him, Sigg watched the 10-year-old carry the snowball toward him. He waited until she reached the end of the sidewalk and had to cross the street.
He watched, slumped on the gray leather seats in the back of his gold vehicle, as she turned and began walking past.
When Sigg sprang from the Jeep, Jessica screamed, but no one heard her.
The details of Jessica’s final hours are known only by her killer. But documents, court testimony, interviews with prosecutors and newly released videotaped statements from Sigg outline the intersection of a troubled 17-year-old and a happy girl just after she left her home at 8:35 a.m.
The evidence shows Sigg as an adept and callous liar, whose chilling confessions may have been understatements or outright fiction.
After his arrest, Sigg spent hours describing to investigators what he says was a crime at a “random place, random time, random everything.” His defense attorneys argued that his actions were impulsive and that he struggled to understand them.
But prosecutors and court testimony suggest Sigg, who pleaded guilty to all of the charges against him on Oct. 1, spent months planning and studying, searching the Internet for chloroform recipes and the “Top Ten Places People Get Abducted.” Sigg’s confidence in his method, however, may have led to some of his greatest missteps.
And Sigg’s confidence in investigator’s methods — he believed they already had linked his DNA to Jessica’s murder and an attack on a jogger at Ketner Lake — turned out to be another mistake.
Only when Sigg surrendered did he and authorities discover the error that lab technicians had made in handling the DNA sample he had brashly offered to investigators. An error that said Sigg had been cleared.
Kind and caring
Jessica loved to make up dances and giggled at words she made up and hummed to melodies. Her bright-blue eyes were never lost behind her purple glasses.
At Witt Elementary School, the joyous little girl was loved by her teachers and classmates. She spent her last morning peeling an orange with her mother and eating a granola bar for breakfast.
Sigg’s elementary school teachers also described him as kind and caring, according to testimony from his attorneys.
But by age 12, Sigg was viewing child pornography and was sent to therapy. By Sigg’s own admission, the sessions did little and his addiction quietly grew over the years, until he was viewing violent images of children being raped, strangled and dismembered.
Sigg’s interest in mortuary science struck some as odd, but not alarming. In his interview with investigators, Sigg’s younger brother recalled a “slightly creepy comment” his brother made about one of his classes in which he “was learning how to kill people and be able to get away with it,” according to a report by Anna Salter, a psychologist who testified for the prosecution.
A friend of Mindy Sigg, Austin’s mother, later recalled conversations the women had before Jessica was kidnapped. Mindy Sigg joked about her son’s interest in body decomposition and said she had helped Sigg practice restraining someone with zip ties, said Chief Deputy District Attorney Hal Sargent.
Sigg’s girlfriend would later tell investigators he stayed at her house one night a week, Sargent said. Mindy Sigg told detectives her son was gone up to four nights a week. No one is sure where he was the other three nights.
“What he does in the part of his life he keeps hidden — that’s what you make ghost stories out of,” Sargent said.
In the weeks before Jessica’s death, Sigg went out “hunting,” driving his Jeep around neighborhoods.
“Anytime I would even see someone out walking while I was in one of those modes, my heart would instantly start beating really fast,” Sigg told investigators in an interview they videotaped.
Four months before Sigg took Jessica, he tried to kidnap a woman jogging at Ketner Lake by shoving a chloroform-soaked rag in her face. The woman was able to fight him off and call police.
Still, Sigg said he learned from his first try. Months later, he went looking for someone smaller. Someone he could overpower.
“I would lie to her”
Sigg found Jessica walking to school, less than a thousand feet from her front door.
He lunged from the back seat of his Jeep and grabbed the little girl — whom he says he had never seen before. Sigg pulled her into the back seat and bound her feet and hands with zip ties.
Jessica asked him who he was. Did he know her mom?
“She kept asking me questions. I would answer them and I would lie to her,” Sigg said. “I would tell her that everything was going to be OK. I would just lie to her.”
As Sigg carried Jessica up to his room, the little girl who loved animals saw cat boxes. She asked about the cats, and then asked what he was going to do to her.
Investigators aren’t sure whether the wisps of compassion Sigg says he showed her — cutting the zip ties off her wrists, playing cartoons for her, assuring her she’d see her mother again — actually happened or were more lies.
In his room, Sigg said he stared at Jessica before he made her change out of her urine-soaked clothes and stuff her belongings into her backpack. He gave her a white shirt and black shorts from his closet.
Then, he said, he told her to turn away from him — and then he strangled her. He dismembered her body and initially hid her remains in a pool shed behind his house.
Jessica was dead before her mom called 911 that afternoon
For the next 17 days, investigators scoured neighborhoods and collected about 700 DNA samples.
The day Jessica disappeared, a team of prosecutors began building a case. Two days after Jessica disappeared, investigators found her backpack on a sidewalk in a Superior subdivision. Jessica’s purple glasses were inside.
“The glasses tell you she’s dead,” Sargent said. “There’s a reason he chose the items that smelled of urine, her jacket and socks and other items of clothing he threw out. He chose carefully.”
Sigg said he dumped the backpack to lead investigators away from his house. Investigators matched DNA found in the backpack to the DNA recovered from the jogger.
On Oct. 10, Sigg placed Jessica’s torso in two black garbage bags and left it alongside 82nd Street in Pattridge Park Open Space in Arvada — just 9 miles from her home.
“There’s a reason he picked that spot,” Sargent said. “He wanted her found.”
Federal and local authorities were certain they were looking for an adult, and prosecutors began considering it as a death penalty case.
The torso was so clean when they found it that investigators had to swab it twice before they were able to collect a partial DNA sample. That sample matched the other DNA collected.
But investigators still had not linked the DNA from those cases to any of the hundreds of samples they had collected and tested.
DNA missteps
On Oct. 17, the investigation grew closer to Sigg as neighborhood canvassing expanded.
Two days later, a friend of Mindy Sigg’s called the FBI and expressed concerns about Sigg. The woman recognized the photo of a wooden cross that was found with Jessica’s body.
Sigg, who prosecutors say was confident he had not left any DNA behind, provided FBI agents with a DNA sample and said he was home sleeping when Jessica was kidnapped. They noticed a cross Sigg was wearing and asked him about it.
He calmly answered the questions, and the investigators left his home without suspicion. His DNA sample was sent out with a batch of others.
On Oct. 22, media reports said a DNA link had been made between Jessica’s death and the attack on the jogger. Sigg told his classmates he felt “wobbly” and “tremendously” sick. He slept in his mother’s bed that night.
The next day, Sigg told his mother he had something horrible to tell her. Immediately she asked him if it was about Jessica, Sargent said.
Mindy Sigg called Westminster police about her son and asked them to send officers. She cried and hugged him while they waited.
The sudden confession from a juvenile shocked law enforcement, who had been searching for an adult male.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Sargent said. “We wondered if it was a mistake. That was the first question: Was this a false confession?”
But the details Sigg described for almost six hours were too precise, too graphic to be made up. At the same time, investigators were removing the rest of Jessica’s remains from his home.
Sigg calmly described himself as a monster.
He admitted that he was consumed by some sort of sexual drive when he grabbed Jessica, but maintained he did not sexually assault her. Later, he admitted that was a lie, too.
Still, investigators were missing the final link. An early result showed Sigg’s DNA did not match the samples taken from Jessica and the jogger. During his interview with police, Sigg repeatedly asked about his DNA, and detectives asked whether anyone had helped him.
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation tested hundreds of DNA samples obtained by swabbing the cheeks of men in the neighborhood.
They sent back empty envelopes labeled with the names of those who had submitted the samples — an empty envelope meant the DNA did not match samples from Jessica or the jogger.
Sigg’s envelope had come back empty, too.
But hours into Sigg’s interview, investigators learned that his sample had been lost in a batch and hadn’t yet been tested.
They ordered an immediate test and received confirmation: Sigg’s DNA matched the sample found on the jogger, Jessica’s water bottle and her remains.
Because Sigg was three months short of his 18th birthday when he killed Jessica, he was not eligible for the death penalty. But District Attorney Pete Weir and his team worked to ensure that Sigg, who turned 18 in jail, would never leave prison.
Despite the DNA misstep, prosecutors say Sigg’s DNA would have eventually been tested. The case the team spent almost a year building was so strong, they say, it would have ended in a conviction had Sigg not decided to plead guilty to all charges two days before his trial was scheduled to begin.
“Frankly, it’s a testament to this team and to law enforcement to be able to collect the evidence and piece it together,” Weir said. “There was no defense in this case.”
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