[SPEAKER_03]: On March 22, 2010, 23-year-old Shane Donahue left his parents home in Nokesville, Virginia, and told them that he loved them.

[SPEAKER_03]: Shane, who didn't drive at the time, got a ride with his buddy Timothy Hickerson.

[SPEAKER_03]: Within about 10 minutes, both of Shane's cellphones were turned off, and Shane was never seen nor heard from again.

[SPEAKER_03]: Over the past 14 years there have been many allegations made by both the Donahue and Hickerson families but little in the way of justice for Shane.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then on September 17, 2024, Tim Hickerson was arrested for the murder of Shane Donahue.

[SPEAKER_03]: It was a day that the Donahue family had been waiting for for over 14 years, but it would prove to be the beginning of an arduous journey, not the end.

[SPEAKER_03]: On November 13, 2025, the trial of Timothy Hickerson began and what followed stunned the community.

[SPEAKER_03]: When a person goes missing, there's a special kind of pain in the not knowing.

[SPEAKER_03]: I want to tell the stories of those who never came home.

[SPEAKER_03]: Today, we're going to talk about the trial of Tim Hickerson.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm Kona Gettleger.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm Ethan Flick.

[SPEAKER_03]: And this is, and then they were gone.

[SPEAKER_03]: Welcome back, everyone.

[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back.

[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you for joining us once again.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm Kona.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm Ethan.

[SPEAKER_03]: And where the husband and wife team behind this podcast, each week I tell you this story of an unsolved missing person's case.

[SPEAKER_03]: Ethan doesn't know anything about the case going into the episode, and he's here to provide his reactions and questions in real time, hopefully asking some of the same ones you have at home.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, obviously, this episode's gonna be a little different.

[SPEAKER_03]: We've done two episodes on the Shane Donahue case.

[SPEAKER_03]: In fact, he's one of the very first stories that we covered all the way back in season one of the podcast in 2020.

[SPEAKER_03]: We also did an update episode in 2024 when Tim Hickerson was arrested.

[SPEAKER_03]: And while we do update episodes, when we can, this one is going to be different.

[SPEAKER_03]: Even though we've covered trials on here before, like the ones in the Kristen's Smart and Oran and Orson West cases, this is the first one that I've actually attended in person.

[SPEAKER_03]: Over the past year, I've been at every hearing in this case, and I was in the courtroom for every day of the trial.

[SPEAKER_03]: So instead of a normal script, today's episode is going to be directly from the notes I took in the courtroom.

[SPEAKER_03]: And my goal here is to talk about what I witnessed and figure out how we got to where we are today.

[SPEAKER_03]: And you know, you and I have talked about what I was seeing in court a little bit.

[SPEAKER_03]: I tried not to talk too much about it, but it was just so crazy that I had to [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: So you do know a little, but it's there's so much more to it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, after hearing your reactions to the trial, like I really want more information, I want to get like dig into this and really understand what happened in this trial.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, me too, honestly, and I was there.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, yeah, but before we get started, we want to take a moment to thank our amazing Patreon supporters.

[SPEAKER_03]: Gina M.

Sequene, Leanty, Robin, Chris S.

Trisha S.

And Lisa D.

We're so grateful for your support.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you all so much.

[SPEAKER_03]: If you'd like to join them, you can head over to our Patreon and sign up at any level, just starting at $2 a month.

[SPEAKER_03]: You'll get access to ad free episodes and a free copy of the ebook that I wrote.

[SPEAKER_03]: But now with all of that out of the way, let's get into the trial of Timothy Hickerson.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, I'm not really going to get into a lot of the pre-trial hearings that I attended.

[SPEAKER_03]: If you're interested in what happened there, you can go to our social media accounts because I did videos on a lot of those.

[SPEAKER_03]: But there's just so much this episode would be like three days long.

[SPEAKER_03]: So where I am going to start though is the day before the trial on November 12th because there was a lot going on and it really kind of set the tone for what we were going to [SPEAKER_03]: The day before the trial started was Tim Hickerson's arrangement, and typically at this point that's just more of a formality.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, that's when the defendant gets up and formally enters their plea.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he was arrested a year ago, like he's had a lawyer for a year, like they've obviously been talking about all this.

[SPEAKER_03]: So again, they're usually not a lot of surprises, but instead, [SPEAKER_03]: What we got that morning was Brandon Sloan, Tim Hickerson's attorney, trying to get witnesses excluded from the trial and accusing the prosecution of Brady violations.

[SPEAKER_00]: right at the beginning like that.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, like during the agreement the day before trial.

[SPEAKER_03]: So the first thing that I have in my notes is, quote, all we get is a never-ending stream of nonsense.

[SPEAKER_03]: And quote, that was Sloan talking about the prosecution.

[SPEAKER_03]: So like that's kind of where we are, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, there are a couple of key witnesses that the prosecution wanted to call.

[SPEAKER_03]: And one is Emily Kinnamen, who was a friend slash love interest of Shane Donahue's at the time of his disappearance.

[UNKNOWN]: So good.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's common for either side to interview witnesses that they're pointing to call, you know, prior to trial, just to, you know, have them practice, answering the questions, and, you know, make sure everything is straight, basically.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, on November 6, the prosecution did a recorded interview with Emily Kinniman, and what happened was apparently Emily gave conflicting statements.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, she testified in the preliminary hearing, which was, I believe, back in April, and apparently some of the statements she made during that under oath were different from some of the statements that she made in this November 6 interview.

[SPEAKER_03]: prosecution realized that this could be a potential bready violation, so they handed over the recording to the defense.

[SPEAKER_03]: However, the defense is saying that they kind of sat on it for a little while and handed it over to them, like basically right before trial.

[SPEAKER_03]: And November 6 was already a week before trial, so I think it was a few days after that that they actually gave it to them.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, which doesn't leave the defense a whole lot of time to review it and write it throughout any the recording was over two hours long if from what I'm remembering so yeah, there's a lot to it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and they're basically saying that the commonwealth was minimally complying with discovery rules like yeah, they turned it over, but not in a timely fashion.

[SPEAKER_03]: Matthew Sweet, who was the lead attorney for the commonwealth on this case, got up and said that this was all just a lot of name calling from the defense and it was all form and no substance.

[SPEAKER_03]: So he said they met with Emily and did the interview.

[SPEAKER_03]: And at the time of the interview, [SPEAKER_03]: He's saying that he didn't realize that there were inconsistencies.

[SPEAKER_03]: It was only later when he was preparing over the weekend, and he was going through phone records that basically Emily had said in the interview that she had only spoken to Tim Hickerson on the phone once or twice, but when he was going through the call logs, he saw many calls between them.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so he says as soon as he realized that, [SPEAKER_03]: He did turn it over to defense, and it's not that he was sitting on it.

[SPEAKER_03]: He just didn't know that there were inconsistencies before that.

[SPEAKER_03]: Same thing with another person, Craig Metong, who was going to be a prosecution witness, but he also gave inconsistent statements.

[SPEAKER_03]: So that recording was also turned over to the defense.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not a great way to start on those occasions.

[SPEAKER_03]: It really wasn't.

[SPEAKER_03]: And the defense was also accusing them of coaching the witnesses and tampering with witnesses basically.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, wow.

[SPEAKER_03]: Which sweet said, you know, there's nothing to support their accusations and, you know, [SPEAKER_03]: again, this is the day before the trial is starting.

[SPEAKER_03]: The judge decided not to dismiss the case and we also happened to learn during this that and this was kind of as an aside, no formal plea bargain had been offered to Timothy Hickerson at any point up to this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's crazy.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: And again, it was just an aside in the courtroom, but I was like, that seems huge and kind of surprising.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I'm sure the Donnie who family wouldn't want any kind of plea, but you got to offer it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: I was really surprised that I haven't even been offered.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you have to offer it just at the very least to try to find out where [SPEAKER_00]: That's crazy.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: After that, you know, like I said, the judge decided to proceed with the case, so then we were able to move on to jury selection.

[SPEAKER_03]: The big thing in this case, and we've talked about it in previous episodes, is that at the Donnie Hughes house on Eden Road, there has been a sign out there since Shane went missing.

[SPEAKER_03]: That counts the days since he was last seen.

[SPEAKER_03]: and they've been maintaining this for obviously at this point 15 years, and it's huge and it's something that is very visible in the area.

[SPEAKER_03]: So that was like a big question during what year is hey, have you seen the sign?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, how are you, how are you going to get an unbiased jury of your peers?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and especially once Tim was arrested and let out on bail, they put up a second sign saying that basically there was a killer free and they had Tim Hickerson's mugshot on it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, several people had reported seeing the sign, because again, if you're just in that area of noxville, it's impossible to miss.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so there were some people who are dismissed based on that.

[SPEAKER_03]: Another big question, of course, was, do you know the Donahue family?

[SPEAKER_03]: Do you know the Hickerson family?

[SPEAKER_03]: Do you know, and they named off some of the witnesses?

[SPEAKER_03]: Because obviously, you can't have jury members who know any of the people involved.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I thought just with the length of time, the Hickerson's and the Donna Hughes had been in the area, I thought more people would actually get dismissed based on that, but they weren't.

[SPEAKER_03]: There was only like one or two.

[SPEAKER_03]: There also weren't a lot of people who were dismissed because they already knew about the case.

[SPEAKER_03]: And you know, I've always thought, now this case really hasn't gotten a lot of national attention, but it's gotten, you know, a fair amount of local attention.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, not a lot of mainstream media up to this point, like since the case got reopened last year, there's been a lot more, but I remember, you know, when we were first doing the the episode in 2020.

[SPEAKER_03]: most of what I based it on was just forum posts, like the Fairfax Underground stuff, like it was a lot of rumor and very little backs out there about this.

[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, like they're very few people who, so they knew anything about this case.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hmm.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's interesting.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, especially considering how the Donny Hughes kind of portrayed the Hickerson family is like this well known.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: Power.

[SPEAKER_00]: Powerful.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Family in noxville and then but then nobody knows anything about those kids.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, like one woman got dismissed because like one of her kids went to school with one of the Hickerson siblings or whatever.

[SPEAKER_03]: But [SPEAKER_03]: Now, the important thing to keep in mind because we're going to have to circle back to that whole notion of the hickers and family being like powerful notes fill, but one thing to keep in mind is, this is the Prince William County courtroom.

[SPEAKER_03]: And Prince William County is a really big county.

[SPEAKER_00]: It is.

[SPEAKER_03]: And there are a lot of places that are not notes fill in Prince William County.

[SPEAKER_03]: And there are nowhere near notes fill and like [SPEAKER_03]: Nokesville is a small town, and so if somebody lives in menaces or hay market or wherever, it's not, it's actually not that surprising that they wouldn't know any of these people involved, personally, you know, it's just, but it's easy to forget that sometimes.

[SPEAKER_03]: So at the end of the jury selection, we ended up with 15 jurors, 12 on the regular jury in three alternates.

[SPEAKER_03]: So then on the 13th, the trial is actually going to begin, except it's not yet, because the defense is bringing up their motion to strike Emily Kineman from the witness list again, because the judge actually did reserve her ruling on that until she could listen to the recording.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: So she listened to the recording overnight, then we had this other motion.

[SPEAKER_03]: Basically the defense is saying that based on what she said in that interview, there was more information about the drug business that Shane was running and kind of the culture within.

[SPEAKER_03]: You already know this if you've listened to other episodes, but Shane Donnihue was a low-level peltier.

[SPEAKER_03]: Basically, a gotten injured in high school while playing football and had been prescribed opioids.

[SPEAKER_03]: He then, like so many other people, became addicted to opioids, and then that evolved into him selling.

[SPEAKER_03]: So by this time, 2010, when he was in his early 20s, he did other jobs, but he was also just a low-level pill dealer.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, obviously, [SPEAKER_03]: any time you're in this drug culture as they call it like you're going to be encountering a lot of shady people right so the defenses argument was that they could have investigated more alternate suspects based on what Emily brought up in this 116 interview but you know because they got this [SPEAKER_03]: The defense also said that the prosecution was trying to coach her into giving evidence that's admissible and tried to coach her into downplaying her own drug use.

[SPEAKER_00]: I guess that would just go to credibility of the witness.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so the commonwealth of course objected and said quote, this is disturbing judge denied all of those accusations.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now the judge said that she didn't hear any coaching or Brady violations on the tape.

[SPEAKER_03]: So she basically said that she wasn't going to exclude Emily Kineman as a witness and we are finally able to start now the opening statements started with Matthew sweet doing them for the prosecution both sides gave rather short opening statements I took note of the time that they started in the time that they ended and sweet opening statement was about 24 minutes long.

[SPEAKER_03]: But now, opening statements are of course important because it's not evidence, but it's your first opportunity to really shape the narrative of the crime and really give the jury a sense of not only what you believe happened, what you're going to prove.

[SPEAKER_03]: but also giving them a preview into the witnesses and the evidence that they're going to hear.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's all about building context for what's going to come.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it's incredibly important.

[SPEAKER_03]: We did a decent job with it.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think he could have hit some points harder, but basically started out with [SPEAKER_03]: quote, motive means opportunity and consciousness of guilt.

[SPEAKER_03]: Those are the four pillars that make up the evidence in this case, and quote.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he said that they all lead back to Timothy Hickerson.

[SPEAKER_03]: He also made a point of calling Shane Tim's friend several times throughout this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Is that painting him?

[SPEAKER_00]: Is that trying to like paint Shane and more of a likable light?

[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe and yeah, just maybe painting him is more of like an innocent victim like this isn't a guy who killed his drug dealer.

[SPEAKER_03]: This is a guy who killed his friend.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you know, I think that was kind of what he was going for.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then he talked about what I just mentioned about how she got her playing football and that's how his addiction started.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I thought that, you know, this was good that they were just laying that all out.

[SPEAKER_03]: They're not dancing around the fact that Shane was dealing with an opioid addiction and he was selling because those are two facts that really nobody disputes.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so dancing around it [SPEAKER_03]: So he said that he obtained the pills that he sold both legally and illegally.

[SPEAKER_03]: He still had a prescription for himself, but he would also buy additional pills from other people.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he said, quote, Sheen lived in the gray area of dependency and profit and quote.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now Tim again was supposed to be Sheen's friend, but it's difficult to maintain friends in the drug subculture.

[SPEAKER_03]: He also said that Tim got a gun for Sheen.

[SPEAKER_03]: oh interesting and this is important and this kind of comes up later so we need to remember this that he brings this up in his opening argument.

[SPEAKER_03]: One of the charges that Tim was charged with is burglary and this is based on a burglary that occurred at Shane's house two days prior to his disappearance on March 20th, 2010.

[SPEAKER_03]: The prosecution alleged that Tim Hickerson went into Shane's house through an unlocked door, stole three pills from a bull on his mantle.

[SPEAKER_03]: The prosecution said in the opening argument that Shane was angry about this burglary that it just happened, which is reasonable.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it's normal to be angry about somebody breaking into your house, especially when there's supposed to be a friend.

[SPEAKER_03]: And at the time, Tim also owed Shane $500 more or a drug debt [SPEAKER_00]: And then now he was a more.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right, yeah, now he stole these three pills, too.

[SPEAKER_03]: So what's sweet arguing is in terms of motive, is that Tim Ode, Shane Money, Shane was mad about the burglary and there was some kind of confrontation that led to Shane's death.

[SPEAKER_03]: He said, quote, when Tim Hickerson saw his opportunity, he struck like lightning and quote.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he said, quote, burglary murder, concealing a dead body.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's very dramatic.

[SPEAKER_03]: I know.

[SPEAKER_03]: He also talked a little bit about the case being reopened back in the spring of 2024 and that when the new detective detective secretly investigated, he said that all roads lead back to Tim Hickerson.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, going back to motive, he said that cash motivates a crime.

[SPEAKER_03]: So in addition to the $500 that tin hickerson owed Shane and the pills he stole from him, Shane had just finished a job replacing ceiling tiles in an airport hanger, and he had been paid $3,000 for that job.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so he said that Shane had cash at the time of his disappearance, and so robbery could have gone to motive as well.

[SPEAKER_03]: He also talked about the witnesses that he was going to call, one of whom was Daniel Gould.

[SPEAKER_03]: He was a friend of Shane's and an acquaintance of Tim's.

[SPEAKER_03]: He was with Shane on the morning of March 22nd, 2010.

[SPEAKER_03]: He gave Shane a ride because Shane didn't drive at the time.

[SPEAKER_03]: They went to Walmart, so Shane could pick up a pair of contacts.

[SPEAKER_03]: They went to Target and they went back to Shane's house.

[SPEAKER_03]: While they were at Shane's house, Tim came over.

[SPEAKER_03]: And Daniel said that he felt something wasn't right.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so he left.

[SPEAKER_00]: OK.

[SPEAKER_03]: He also talked about Emily Kinnamen, the witness who was causing all of this curfluffle leading up to the trial.

[SPEAKER_03]: He said that she tried to steer Shane in Tim away from each other, and that she was hanging out on the evening of March 21st, so the night before he disappeared.

[SPEAKER_03]: She also said that Shane was becoming drug sick.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think it's because the ideas that the pills [SPEAKER_00]: uh...

okay so he's coming down [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Emily and Shane had a plan to get more pills on March 23rd.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so this is sweet laying at the timeline basically.

[SPEAKER_03]: So that was his plan on the 23rd on the 24th.

[SPEAKER_03]: The Donnie Hughes began to think that something was wrong because Shane was somebody who would either come over or talk to them like every day.

[SPEAKER_03]: And they didn't hear from him at all on the 23rd.

[SPEAKER_03]: They called him, couldn't get in touch with him, phone went to Boyce Mail.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, they called the police and reported him missing on March 24, which is two days after he was last seen.

[SPEAKER_03]: Detective wing was the original investigator on that case.

[SPEAKER_03]: Sweet said that he asked Tim, where's Shane?

[SPEAKER_03]: And Tim just said, I don't know.

[SPEAKER_03]: Nothing more.

[SPEAKER_03]: There was no concern, curiosity, or cooperation.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then sweet went on to say that this empty denial was consciousness of guilt.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so then he asked where is Shane?

[SPEAKER_03]: Only one person in this courtroom can answer that.

[SPEAKER_03]: Shane's disappearance and death wasn't an accident.

[SPEAKER_03]: He was not a runaway.

[SPEAKER_03]: He didn't go off and start a life somewhere.

[SPEAKER_03]: Tim Hickerson took what he wanted from Shane.

[SPEAKER_03]: He took his pills and he took his life.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a good opening statement.

[SPEAKER_03]: So Mark Eisenstein is the one who gave the opening statement for the defense and it was a little bit shorter this one was under 20 minutes about 18 minutes.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he opened up saying that Tim Hickerson is a husband, son and a friend.

[SPEAKER_03]: He is presumed innocent in a court of law and he is innocent of this crime.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he said that the evidence will show that the prosecution cannot meet the burden of proof in this case.

[SPEAKER_03]: And that's really what his opening statement's focused on.

[SPEAKER_03]: It didn't focus on a defense in that, you know, in that like, oh no, it couldn't have been to him because he was in another state at the time, or whatever it was, they didn't focus on that.

[SPEAKER_03]: They strictly focused on the fact that the prosecution didn't have enough evidence to prove these charges.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he said that, you know, they can't use speculation and conjecture, which is what's so much of this case has been based on for the past 15 years.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then he kind of got into the weeds a little bit with the difference in the standard of evidence between civil and criminal cases.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like basically how it's a higher burden in criminal cases.

[SPEAKER_03]: But it's like none of these jury members have been in a on the jury in a civil case.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like they don't [SPEAKER_00]: Or even if they had, those things will be talked about in the written instructions to the jury.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: So you got into the weeds on this a little bit, I thought.

[SPEAKER_03]: But basically said, if it's possible or likely that Tim did it, you have to find him not guilty, because possible or likely isn't enough.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: He also said that the evidence will not answer what happened to Shane after Tim dropped him off at home.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's no direct evidence of murder, manner of death, or a weapon.

[SPEAKER_03]: Those are fatal to the Commonwealth's case.

[SPEAKER_03]: He also said that there's no direct real evidence that Shane Donnie you is even dead, or that there wasn't murder.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he did say that Shane and Tim were friends, but Shane was secretive.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he also was taking more drugs than what's sweet portrayed.

[SPEAKER_03]: He also said that Shane and Tim lived less than a mile apart, which is a looting to the cell phone evidence that is later presented.

[SPEAKER_01]: Gotcha.

[SPEAKER_03]: He also said that on that trip to Walmart on the morning of March 22nd, one of the things that Shane bought in addition to new contacts was a new prepaid cell phone, and that bone has never been recovered.

[SPEAKER_03]: On the afternoon of March 22nd, when Tim was driving Shane around after they met at Shane's house, that they went to the Donnihuis home to Shane's parents home, where Tim tried to help Shane fix an ATV.

[SPEAKER_03]: That was there because Tim's just like a handy guy, basically.

[SPEAKER_03]: His family owns an electrical contracting company.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so he knew how to do that, I think the job he was doing when he was arrested in Florida was like installing floors or something along those lines.

[SPEAKER_03]: But he has a lot of just experience and things like that.

[SPEAKER_03]: So he was helping Shane fix his ATV.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then he says that Tim dropped Shane off at home and left.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's no blood, no forensics, no weapon.

[SPEAKER_03]: And in 2014, the Prince William County Police, who was the investigative agency, told Northern Virginia magazine that Shane was, quote, just poof gone and quote, and that nothing has changed since that interview was given 10 years ago.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then he's talking about the witnesses and he says does a person's memory get better after 15 years?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's valid point.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then he goes again back to the cell phone evidence saying that when the prosecution presents this evidence, and it allegedly shows that Shane was at Timothy's house after he was supposed to have been dropped off at his own house, that it's because they connected to the same [SPEAKER_03]: And then he was asking, did Shane actually have more phones?

[SPEAKER_03]: Because, okay, maybe these phones connected wherever, but he bought a phone that morning.

[SPEAKER_03]: There are more phones out there that could potentially give more information in terms of Shane's whereabouts after the afternoon of March 22nd.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then he also talked about what was found in Shane's house versus what was not and inconsistencies there.

[SPEAKER_03]: So that was basically the defense's opening statements.

[SPEAKER_03]: then it was finally time for witnesses to be called now the first witness was pretty normal like it didn't really score points for either side.

[SPEAKER_03]: It was lieutenant Dennis Jensen with the Prince William County police at the time lieutenant Jensen was a patrol officer and he was the one who first took the missing person's report.

[SPEAKER_03]: So he was not a detective, so he's not the one who did the actual investigation that was detective Brian Wing, who we mentioned earlier, but Jensen was basically the first person on the scene.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: So he took Shane's missing person's report on March 24th.

[SPEAKER_03]: Donna Donahue, Shane's mother, gave Lieutenant Jensen one cell phone number for Shane.

[SPEAKER_03]: And that's when that ended 905, too.

[SPEAKER_03]: But remember Shane had two phone's on him when he disappeared, at least, yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: She also provided names of people who may have information, including Emily Kinnamen.

[SPEAKER_03]: Tony Metong is another person who Donna said may know where she is.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, Jensen actually found both of them.

[SPEAKER_03]: They were together at bungalow ill house.

[SPEAKER_03]: But they said they had no idea where Shane was and they hadn't talked to him.

[SPEAKER_03]: Police were also able to ping the cell phone that Donna gave them the information for, and they were able to do a general search of that area in cruisers.

[SPEAKER_03]: They also contacted hospitals and jails, see if he was there, and went to Shane's house.

[SPEAKER_03]: He said that when they were at Sheen's house, nothing appeared to be missing.

[SPEAKER_03]: It was barely well put together, and there wasn't anything that jumped out at them as a clue.

[SPEAKER_03]: They also spoke with Sheen's neighbors, who said they hadn't seen them.

[SPEAKER_03]: They spoke with Sheen's landlord, who also hadn't seen them.

[SPEAKER_03]: They also showed Lieutenant Jensen photos of Shane's house that were taken that day, but they didn't really show them to us, so I can't really tell you what was in them.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's interesting.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but I would assume that they showed the jury.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, that then.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's weird.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so like, I don't know how much the jury was actually able to see during this.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I don't know if the jury had any idea like what the point of any of that was.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, what?

[SPEAKER_03]: And that's really going to be a recurring theme as we go on.

[SPEAKER_01]: Hmm.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, Eisenstein did the cross examination and showed Johnson two different photos of Shane's house.

[SPEAKER_03]: Johnson said that he believed it looked the same and that it did not appear to be ransacked because his TV and his ex-box were where they normally would be.

[SPEAKER_03]: The house was messy, but he doesn't recall drawers being open and he would have noted it in his report if they were.

[SPEAKER_03]: He does recall family telling them that there was a safe on the table, but doesn't specifically remember seeing it.

[SPEAKER_03]: He also said that the Donnie family was afraid that Shane was in danger, but they were not forthcoming as to why.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it does feel as if the Donnie Hughes were really trying to downplay the whole drug angle at the beginning of this, which from a [SPEAKER_00]: Well, yeah, because they want the police to investigate their missing kid.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: And not focus on the fact that he's a drug user.

[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, they could be like, oh, well, he's just on a bender.

[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I think, and that's what Eisenhower was trying to get across is that basically the Donnie Hughes we're being withholding.

[SPEAKER_03]: And you know, maybe they were, but I completely understand why.

[SPEAKER_03]: But importantly, he also said that the family had already been in Sheen's house prior to police.

[SPEAKER_03]: So his use basically saying that the Donny Hughes may have taken some things, may have moved some things, and again, in effort to cover some of the stuff up.

[SPEAKER_03]: He also asked Jensen if the family had been contacted about Sheen possibly being kidnapped.

[SPEAKER_03]: And that, yeah, that was a huge moment because I was like, wait, what?

[SPEAKER_03]: Because that had never, I had never heard anything about a potential kidnapping in all the years that, you know, I've been looking into this case.

[SPEAKER_03]: And Jensen didn't recall, but apparently it was Emily Kineman, who told the family this, that he might have been kidnapped, and it was in Jensen's report.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, wow.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's interesting.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, the family also told Jensen that Shane owned one revolver but left out other guns that he owned.

[SPEAKER_03]: He also did not find the phone that Shane had bought that morning on the 22nd nor did he find a little black book which the defense was saying was a drug ledger.

[SPEAKER_03]: The drug ledger keeps on coming up because in the defenses mine, that drug ledger is full of alternate suspects.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, exactly.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so they think it was deliberately hidden and it would have been really important for police investigators, everybody to have.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, on redirect, we learned about this whole kidnapping thing that Emily said.

[SPEAKER_03]: And we learned that it was apparently just a dark joke.

[SPEAKER_03]: Donna said that Emily said something about kidnapping, but she was laughing.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it was kind of like, oh, I don't know, maybe he's been kidnapped.

[SPEAKER_03]: because at the time, Emily probably wasn't thinking that anything serious was going on with Shane, that maybe he was on a vendor somewhere, that he was going to show up.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, she was like 21 at the time, and I don't think she had any inkling at that moment that her friend would still be missing 15 years later.

[SPEAKER_03]: So the kidnapping thing ended up not being that big of a deal.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then, this is where everything started to fall apart.

[SPEAKER_03]: The prosecution called Detective Brian Wing, who was the lead detective on Sheen's case.

[SPEAKER_00]: At the time, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: At the time, in 2010.

[SPEAKER_03]: Kathleen Bilton, who is the second commonwealth attorney on this case, is the one who did the questioning here.

[SPEAKER_03]: And basically, he just started off with the basics of, when did he get the case and what were the first things that he did?

[SPEAKER_03]: Detective Wayne says that he himself conducted about 9 or 10 interviews, which does not seem like a lot.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, it's not.

[SPEAKER_03]: He interviewed some people multiple times, so I think he conducted more than that, but what I got from that was nine or 10 different people, he spoke with.

[SPEAKER_03]: He said he received numerous leads about Shane's location, but none panned out.

[SPEAKER_03]: They were able to get the phone records for both of Shane's known phones.

[SPEAKER_03]: and also for Tim Hickerson's phone because, again, Tim Hickerson was the last person seen with Shane Donahue, so he was a person of interest from the very beginning.

[SPEAKER_03]: He investigated this case for about a year to a year and a half before it was handed over to the Colt case unit.

[SPEAKER_03]: He also said that he interviewed Tim Hickerson several times.

[SPEAKER_03]: One interview in particular, we had heard clips from in the preliminary hearing.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I already kind of had an idea of what was on it, but obviously the jury didn't.

[SPEAKER_03]: So built-in played that recording.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, what I was expecting, [SPEAKER_03]: was kind of what we got in the preliminary, which is we would hear excerpts of it.

[SPEAKER_03]: And we had detective wing on the stand.

[SPEAKER_03]: So what I thought we're going to hear is excerpt one, stop and then question about what we heard and you know, giving some context behind it, you know, asking additional questions, things like that.

[SPEAKER_03]: That is not what we got.

[SPEAKER_03]: Instead, they pressed play on the full recording, which was about 30 minutes long, 20 to 30 minutes.

[SPEAKER_03]: It was recording me in 2010.

[SPEAKER_03]: The quality was terrible.

[SPEAKER_03]: It was played over the speakers in the courtroom, but there was a ton of white noise.

[SPEAKER_03]: And Tim Hickerson was an active addiction at the time.

[SPEAKER_03]: Nobody's disputing that.

[SPEAKER_03]: He was actively addicted to pills at the time of this interview.

[SPEAKER_03]: In my very unprofessional opinion, he sounded like he could have been high at the time of the interview.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's a good possibility.

[SPEAKER_03]: because he was like slurring his words almost, like he was hard to understand.

[SPEAKER_03]: In addition, he just has a very thick Virginia accent, which I just find hard to understand in general.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't think, I mean, I know you said noxville was rural.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't think it was like, like that.

[SPEAKER_03]: And again, not everybody has that.

[SPEAKER_03]: But the few times I've heard Tim Hickerson speak in court, like, he's hard to understand.

[SPEAKER_03]: So all of that led to a recording that, like, I could barely keep up with in terms of what was being said.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, why wouldn't they like you said stop at certain points to give the jury an understanding of what they're listening to right because there's no sure that everybody understood what was being said to right because I cannot imagine that they did.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I was watching them the jury when this was being played and like nobody was falling asleep or anything But there are definitely some glazed over looks in that jury box because they had no context for what they were listening to at all at all And again, I just can't imagine that they even understood half of it [SPEAKER_03]: In this interview, which I did hear and partially because I knew it was in this interview is that Tim told Detective Wing that he took three pills from the mantle in Shane's house.

[SPEAKER_03]: So he admitted to the burglary.

[SPEAKER_03]: He also texted Craig Metong a lot that day.

[SPEAKER_03]: He also said that Shane had been wanting a gun for a while.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then he meandered onto this like seven minute aside about guns.

[SPEAKER_03]: And my notes say it was hard to hear and jury doesn't have context and either did I.

I had no idea what if anything this had to do with anything.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then, there is a huge moment that, again, I think the jury might have missed, which is Detective Wing asks Tim, if we were to search your family's property, is Shane Donnie Hughes' body there, to which Tim replied, it shouldn't be.

[SPEAKER_00]: It shouldn't be.

[SPEAKER_03]: It shouldn't be.

[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, he's kind of saying it's his body isn't on the farm like because it's somewhere else.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and I don't even know it's just such a wild thing to say and then he follows it up with, well, you guys already did the search kind of like so if you didn't find it then, it shouldn't be there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_00]: So then, so the prosecution doesn't, doesn't say anything at that point about that statement.

[SPEAKER_03]: No.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I don't know if the jury heard it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_03]: They just kept going.

[SPEAKER_03]: Let it play.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is a huge missed opportunity.

[SPEAKER_03]: It was a huge missed opportunity.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I was sitting there feeling like I was going insane.

[SPEAKER_03]: Because I was like, there has to be some legal reason.

[SPEAKER_03]: Why they didn't stop the tape, why they're not doing what we had just been talking about, you know, playing excerpts and then asking questions.

[SPEAKER_00]: Also, so he, he says this and then the detective doesn't follow up with any more questions on that, but like clarification, like during the interview.

[SPEAKER_03]: No, not really.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, yeah, like, yeah, if I'm sitting across from somebody asking them questions about this and that's their response, it shouldn't be, whoa, wait a minute, what do you mean it shouldn't be?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and I think he might have asked that in that led to him saying, I mean, you guys already did the search, but like there wasn't anything beyond that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'd say if I'm the detective on this case, I'm asking a lot more follow-ups to that because that is not it it's the response should have been no of course not of course not.

[SPEAKER_03]: like what?

[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, because the next thing I have in my notes isn't any follow-up from Detective Wing, it's Tim saying that she and being missing is a big discussion around Noxville.

[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then he goes right into someone named Stephanie, who is having a sexual relationship with [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, what the whole does that even have to do with it?

[SPEAKER_03]: No idea.

[SPEAKER_03]: The other thing I want to say is that during this interview, both of the Commonwealth attorneys are speaking with another attorney or clerk or somebody, and they've got their box of files, and they're like going through their box of files, talking to this guy, asking him to go get other stuff, or, you know, whatever, [SPEAKER_03]: So they're not even fucking listening to it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_03]: They seem completely distracted.

[SPEAKER_03]: I almost felt like I was like a kid where you're putting on a movie to keep being quiet, like while you guys are doing your thing.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like it was just so weird.

[SPEAKER_03]: And to me, it just showed the jury that what's happening is an important right now.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, this, this seems like lack of preparation on the Commonwealth.

[SPEAKER_03]: Which is insane.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Because not only had they had a year to prepare for the trial, they've had 15 fucking years to prepare for this.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: I could not understand what I was watching in that courtroom that day.

[SPEAKER_03]: I was so, so confused.

[SPEAKER_03]: recording ends and I'm like, okay, well, maybe that wasn't the best way to approach it, but now she's going to ask him questions about what we just listened to, bring up certain points, bring up certain points, talk about some of the other interviews that he did with Tim, maybe we're going to hear excerpts from those, you know, I'm like, okay, let's go, let's let's really learn about this investigation, because what we know about the investigation so far is like, it's the basics, like I said, [SPEAKER_03]: interview nine people got the phone records like whatever.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I like, okay, let's go.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're getting into it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Building God up there and said no further questions.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like no follow up at all.

[SPEAKER_03]: Nothing.

[SPEAKER_03]: No context.

[SPEAKER_03]: No follow up.

[SPEAKER_03]: No clarity.

[SPEAKER_03]: What's so ever.

[UNKNOWN]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so I cannot imagine that anyone on the jury had any idea with the [SPEAKER_00]: Now, well, now I'm curious as to what the cross is going to be because at that at this point, it was short.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, if I'm, if I'm the defense attorney, I'm not going to bring up any of those points we just talked about.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would just kind of, I don't think I would ask very many questions at all.

[SPEAKER_03]: He didn't.

[SPEAKER_03]: So as Eisenstein did the cross, they're talking about a thumb drive, which has the phone records on it.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he said, can you be sure that the material in this thumb drive is the same as what you received in 2010?

[SPEAKER_03]: Which, you know, he couldn't really.

[SPEAKER_03]: He said that it's consistent with it, but, you know, who knows?

[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: He then was trying to make the point that this was a really big investigation at the time, and it was a really big investigation that didn't result in Tim being arrested.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, how come he got arrested 14 years later?

[SPEAKER_00]: Not only didn't get arrested for the murder of Shane Doniew.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Also didn't get arrested for the burglary.

[SPEAKER_00]: He admitted he admitted.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that arrested for shit.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's crazy.

[SPEAKER_03]: So he shows them the picture of this war room basically and he's like, you know, trying to say, oh, you had this big investigation and detective wing is like, oh, that actually wasn't my investigation.

[SPEAKER_03]: That was when I gave it to the cold case unit leader.

[SPEAKER_03]: A little bit of a swing in a mess on the defenses side there.

[SPEAKER_03]: But again, well, I mean, they're them too bad.

[SPEAKER_00]: They can just bring that up whenever they interview or they cross the the cold case detect.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then they [SPEAKER_03]: Now while Tim Hickerson was the last person seen with Shane Donahue, Duane Spence was the last person to speak with Shane Donahue on the phone.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when was the timing of this before Shane left with Tim?

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know if it might have been while they were out, but it was before his disappearance.

[SPEAKER_03]: It wasn't like, you know, the night of the 20s that could injure any of that, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: So he was the last person to speak with Shane, and we know this based on the phone records.

[SPEAKER_03]: But when Detective Wing interviewed him, Dwayne Spence said that he had been talked to Shane for a week or more before he went missing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Hmm.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, which is a lie.

[SPEAKER_03]: A lie.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: Wing just said I don't remember interviewing that guy.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I just said, like, okay, well, if I showed you your report with that refresher memory, is there you like showed me a report and he's like, okay, yeah, but I don't remember like the content of the interview.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's like, okay, well, if I played you a recording of the interview with that refresher memory.

[SPEAKER_03]: So he played an excerpt of the interview and to talk to [SPEAKER_03]: And as I said, I was like, the recording you just listened to, you don't remember it.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's like, I mean, I recognize my voice on it, but I don't remember that conversation.

[SPEAKER_03]: I isn't starting accused wing of bias.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he said that he wasn't being truthful when he said he didn't recall that conversation.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he was basically like, you recall the conversation with Tim from the same time period.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: How is this one completely escaped your memory?

[SPEAKER_00]: You only interviewed nine [SPEAKER_00]: for this case.

[SPEAKER_03]: But Wayne was like, no, sorry, don't remember.

[SPEAKER_03]: So they couldn't question him on that interview any further.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it was kind of wild.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, I mean, yeah, that's kind of proving Isaac's point.

[SPEAKER_03]: A little?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like, oh, sorry.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't remember that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Only the only interview I remember doing was with Tim.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and it was interesting.

[SPEAKER_03]: So at that point, the judge instructed the jury to leave.

[SPEAKER_03]: Because the attorneys were like, what is happening?

[SPEAKER_03]: And they had wing leave, the courtroom, too.

[SPEAKER_03]: The defense is like, you know, basically, like I said, accused wing of bias and saying that he wasn't being true.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I will say, I think that did, this wasn't clear my notes, but this did happen after the jury left.

[SPEAKER_03]: Those accusations, and after wing left, [SPEAKER_03]: is because Dwayne spends his dead, so he can't be called in to testify about this, so wing is the only way this conversation can be brought in.

[SPEAKER_03]: Wow, so yeah, so that was like that was pretty tense and pretty wild.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but after that, Wayne was done.

[SPEAKER_03]: So they let them go subject to recall basically.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I was like, thank God, you know, maybe the prosecution will understand how much they bifth this and like bring it back and actually ask some questions.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I was like, okay, well, maybe this could be good.

[SPEAKER_03]: The next witness was Ricardo Leal from Team Mobile.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he was basically there to testify about how they turned over the phone records in 2010.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: The defense basically spent this trying to say that we don't know if the records on the USB today are the same records that were given to the police in 2010.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he's basically arguing in the chain of custody.

[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: The judge asked why the records weren't certified to which sweet answered wing didn't get them certified.

[SPEAKER_03]: Shut up.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_03]: So the defense was trying to not allow the phone records to be admitted into evidence, but the judge ultimately decided that they could be.

[SPEAKER_03]: And again, this was in very interesting testimony in terms of the jury, but it was obviously necessary because the prosecution needed those phone records to be an evidence.

[SPEAKER_03]: So then they called Mike Colgan, and Matthew Sweet is the one who questioned him.

[SPEAKER_03]: He is the one who hired Shane to replace the acoustic ceiling tile in the weeks leading up to his disappearance.

[SPEAKER_03]: He said that he paid Shane $3300 for the job and he wrote him two separate checks.

[SPEAKER_03]: One was for $2,000 toward the end of the job when like the majority of the work had been completed and then the extra 1300 at the end of the job.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, part of this job removing the ceiling tiles included taking down lights and speakers.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, Shane brought Timon to help with that because again, he had worked with his family's electrical company.

[SPEAKER_03]: Colgan didn't know Tim hickerson, but he does remember Shane introducing him to somebody who was helping him on the job.

[SPEAKER_03]: The first check was written on March 12 for $2,000 and cashed on the same day.

[SPEAKER_03]: Second check for 1300 was written on the 19th and cashed the same day.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, the 19th is three days prior to Shane's disappearance.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so the prosecution was trying to show that Shane likely had a good amount of cash on him at the time of his disappearance.

[SPEAKER_03]: Not necessarily on his person, but in his possession.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like he wasn't keeping that money in the bank.

[SPEAKER_03]: It was in cash somewhere, probably.

[SPEAKER_03]: Brandon Sloan did the cross and the only thing he really pointed out was that there was no date on the proposal that Shane gave him to do the job.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I think he was just trying to say, like, I don't know, maybe that we don't know when Shane was given the money or whatever, I'm not sure.

[SPEAKER_03]: But he basically had one question for him.

[SPEAKER_03]: The next witness was Timothy Gray from Verizon and he basically served the exact same [SPEAKER_03]: So, um, T-Mobile at the time in 2010 was Sprint, and both of machines phones were on Sprint, Tim's phone was on Verizon, so that's why we've got two different cell phone companies here.

[SPEAKER_03]: This was mainly just a repeat of the testimony from Layout.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're, I mean, were these records certified?

[SPEAKER_03]: No.

[SPEAKER_03]: Nothing was certified.

[SPEAKER_03]: But Sloan was still trying to get gray, you know, dismissed as a witness and argued that he even knew less than Lealded and Leald didn't really know much.

[SPEAKER_03]: They were trying to get both of these taken out, but it didn't happen.

[SPEAKER_03]: And that was basically the end of day one.

[SPEAKER_03]: I got out of day one and I was like, what the hell did I just see?

[SPEAKER_03]: Like it was an absolute train wreck and the Donnie Hugh family had been waiting 15 years for this day.

[SPEAKER_03]: This is not what they had been waiting 15 years for.

[SPEAKER_03]: Everything was so disjointed.

[SPEAKER_03]: There was no narrative.

[SPEAKER_03]: Even though I knew a lot about the case going into it, I still didn't have a firm grasp of the story the prosecution was trying to tell.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, which is a pretty big fucking deal.

[SPEAKER_00]: sounded like they were going great guns at the beginning with the opening statement, but they weren't living up to it.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, like the opening statements are supposed to be again, like you're laying out your case.

[SPEAKER_03]: You're telling people what to expect and they are not delivering.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: On day one, and listen, this is a 15 year old case with no forensics, no murder weapon.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, what the defense said is absolutely true.

[SPEAKER_03]: So you're facing an uphill battle.

[SPEAKER_03]: and everybody knew that.

[SPEAKER_03]: Everybody agreed to that.

[SPEAKER_03]: If you're facing such an uphill battle, you need to come out swinging.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you need to be organized.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: And they were not.

[SPEAKER_03]: I got really, [SPEAKER_03]: like depressed afterwards because regardless of the circumstances around his disappearance, regardless of the pill selling and you know, whatever else, like I could not give less of a shit, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: Shane Donnihue was a 23 year old guy who had a family, who had friends, who was well-liked, he didn't deserve whatever happened to him.

[SPEAKER_03]: He doesn't deserve to still be missing 15 years later.

[SPEAKER_03]: And as I was driving home from the courthouse that day, I just remember thinking, like, I don't think Shane is going to get justice from this trial.

[SPEAKER_03]: Because right now, the prosecution is improving their case.

[SPEAKER_03]: So either that means Tim is innocent of this.

[SPEAKER_03]: They had the wrong guy all along, and he's [SPEAKER_03]: And then what?

[SPEAKER_03]: Nobody's going to look into this case again.

[SPEAKER_01]: No.

[SPEAKER_03]: Nobody's going to look for the real killer.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's just going to go back in a drawer and never be looked at again.

[SPEAKER_03]: Or, Tim's guilty, and he doesn't get convicted.

[SPEAKER_03]: And Shane's killer walks free.

[SPEAKER_03]: Either way, that's not justice for Shane.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: And that's how this was looking at the end of day one.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now we had a four day break.

[SPEAKER_03]: We had a long weekend.

[SPEAKER_03]: So we didn't get day two until November 17th.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I came in optimistic.

[SPEAKER_03]: I came in thinking they had four days to regroup.

[SPEAKER_03]: They have the ability to recall the witnesses that they've already called.

[SPEAKER_03]: They have the ability to really get their story together in a cohesive fashion from the jury.

[SPEAKER_03]: As like, let's go, we got this.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're gonna do this.

[SPEAKER_03]: We did not do this.

[SPEAKER_03]: The prosecution opened day two by shooting themselves in the foot.

[SPEAKER_03]: They harmed their own case.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I can't think of any way around that.

[SPEAKER_03]: Their first witness was a man named David Heath.

[SPEAKER_03]: He owned a store called Dunzenamo Warehouse in Manassas.

[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: Tim Hickerson was a regular there.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, Tim Hickerson, big gun guy.

[SPEAKER_03]: In fact, shortly after Shane's disappearance, Tim was arrested for a really insanely stupid burglary of a different gun store, and he went to federal prison for that.

[SPEAKER_03]: So guns are a big part of Tim Hickerson's life.

[SPEAKER_03]: So he's a regular at the store.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, the store had surveillance video.

[SPEAKER_03]: And they have surveillance video from March 22nd, 2010, [SPEAKER_03]: And they showed Tim Hickerson in the store making a purchase at 518pm.

[SPEAKER_03]: He was paying cash for whatever he was buying, which was possibly cleaning kid and Oregon.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I say, and Oregon, because the store closed in 2016, so Heath doesn't have his sales records anymore.

[SPEAKER_01]: OK.

[SPEAKER_03]: But he has the firearm purchase records.

[SPEAKER_03]: Because you know, I think he's required to keep those.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: He couldn't tell the court what Tim bought that day.

[SPEAKER_03]: But what he could say is that it wasn't a firearm.

[UNKNOWN]: OK.

[SPEAKER_03]: He actually did go back the next day, the 23rd, to buy a firearm.

[SPEAKER_03]: What it seems like may have happened, and this isn't 100%, but what it seems like may have happened is that when he was making his purchase on the 22nd, he put down money for that gun.

[SPEAKER_03]: But didn't pick it up until the 23rd.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I'm sitting there going, why are we showing this?

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: Because all this is showing is that Tim did it by a gun on the day Shane went missing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: He may be bought a gun the day after.

[SPEAKER_03]: And more importantly, he's in Manassas and granted this is maybe only 15, 20 minutes away from his home, but he's in Manassas at 5, 18 PM.

[SPEAKER_03]: Shane's phones were both off by 356 PM about 10 to 15 minutes after they left Shane's parents house.

[SPEAKER_00]: So almost four o'clock almost four o'clock.

[SPEAKER_03]: Tim is looking cool as a fucking cucumber at 518.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_00]: And now we're in 15 minutes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Give her take later plus the 15 to 20 minute commute time.

[SPEAKER_03]: right.

[SPEAKER_03]: So you're telling me that this guy killed Shane Donahue, expertly hid his body.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, or at least they'll comfortable enough to leave him somewhere.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, drove 20 minutes.

[SPEAKER_03]: But random stuff put some money down for a gun.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, I think what they were trying to show is that that he paid cash, where did he get the cash?

[SPEAKER_03]: It right.

[SPEAKER_00]: Probably from robbing Shane.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're stealing the money from Shane after murdering him.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: I get that.

[SPEAKER_00]: But you're right.

[SPEAKER_00]: It actually shows the the opposite.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Is it possible that he Oh, what?

[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: drove to this gun store and was totally cool.

[SPEAKER_03]: yeah i mean i don't know this guy maybe he's a psychopath like maybe he could do that i don't know the jury doesn't know but like [SPEAKER_03]: Holy shit, it's a lot less likely to me just as a person who's observing this from the outside that that's what happened.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: These what I realized after watching this testimony was that I didn't really know where Tim was supposed to have been after he dropped off Shane.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know what I mean?

[SPEAKER_03]: Like he's always said I dropped off Shane at around 4 o'clock.

[SPEAKER_03]: and I didn't see him after I've no idea what happened to him.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's always been his story.

[SPEAKER_03]: But what I don't know is what he said he was doing after that after 4pm on the 22nd.

[SPEAKER_03]: So we learned one thing he was definitely doing was going to this gun store an hour later.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean that this video almost proves Timeline.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it doesn't prove that he dropped him off.

[SPEAKER_03]: No, and it doesn't prove that he didn't harm him.

[SPEAKER_03]: It doesn't prove that he's innocent.

[SPEAKER_03]: But it, in my opinion, did not help the prosecution's case at all.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think it actively harmed it.

[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't stand to the cross and there was nothing.

[SPEAKER_03]: Literally, I have one line written down that says nothing unusual about transaction.

[SPEAKER_03]: Because what do they need to cross?

[SPEAKER_03]: This dude basically proved their case.

[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_03]: So then they brought back Detective Wing.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I thought, okay, here's where they rebound, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: Right?

[SPEAKER_03]: Like we had a little bit of a setback but maybe Wing's gonna give more context to this whole Guns and Amos stop.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's gonna make sense.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then maybe they're gonna go back and ask him about that interview with Tim.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: I was like, okay, let's go.

[SPEAKER_03]: Let's get this guy back on the stand.

[SPEAKER_03]: But wing was back on the stand, not because he was recalled by the prosecution, but because the defense needed to finish their cross examination of him.

[SPEAKER_03]: So when that whole domain spends recording interviewed debacle happened, they stopped.

[SPEAKER_03]: It was the end of the day.

[SPEAKER_03]: They let wing go.

[SPEAKER_03]: But the defense wasn't actually finished where their cross examination.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, OK.

[SPEAKER_03]: So they brought Wing back and now they asked him about the Guns and Ammo trip because we had just seen the video.

[SPEAKER_03]: Wing said it was calling for Tim to buy and sell guns there.

[SPEAKER_03]: Eisenstein, who was doing the cross made the point that that purchase had nothing to do with this case, because he didn't get a gun that day.

[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: He also said that he bought the gun on the next day, like we said, and then returned it on May 7th because you can sell guns on consignment there.

[SPEAKER_03]: He also showed detective Wayne a Google Earth image of Jane's house and Tim's family's house, which is where Tim was living at the time.

[SPEAKER_03]: And basically, to get the point across to the jury that they were less than a mile apart.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right, so the ping, yeah, it doesn't prove that he was actually at Tim's house.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's there when the when the phone's when right, then he goes back to Duane Spence and Wing still says he does not remember speaking to Duane Spence in May of 2010.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I just just said, okay, well, you met with him May 17, 2010.

[SPEAKER_03]: He was like, don't remember.

[SPEAKER_03]: He also said that he met with a Donahue several times, both in person and over the phone, and that she and Donahue had had a roommate.

[SPEAKER_03]: And we bring this up in our original episode from 2020.

[SPEAKER_03]: His name, it was hard to catch.

[SPEAKER_03]: I want to say it was something like Lance Starlet.

[SPEAKER_03]: But this guy, this roommate, was an FBI informant.

[SPEAKER_03]: And Shane had kicked him out prior to his disappearance, so they're basically bringing the sub-sing like, hey, another alternative suspect.

[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, why weren't you looking into this guy?

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: Wing also said that Emily and Shane had a romantic relationship, and that Shane had been not only abusing oxies, but he had been abusing rock seas, which is a similar pill, and Xanx.

[SPEAKER_03]: You also said that Shane was the main supplier of Oxen in the Noxville area, so maybe a little bit more than a small time pill dealer now and this is important that the defense got this brought up Shane and Tim work together on that job right.

[SPEAKER_03]: Shane paid Tim a thousand dollars in cash for that job there's the cash that he used at the gun store.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's a completely reasonable explanation.

[SPEAKER_03]: We don't know that for a fact, but that's a reasonable explanation.

[SPEAKER_03]: And again, it's something that I've always had a question about since the beginning, which is if she's so mad at Tim for this book for this burglary, and he's pissed that he owes him this $500.

[SPEAKER_03]: Why is he bringing him onto this job?

[SPEAKER_00]: And then paying him a thousand dollars.

[SPEAKER_03]: And now he might have paid him [SPEAKER_03]: before the burglary because the checks that Shane was given were dated the 12th and the 19th, the burglary was on the 20th.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I don't know when Shane gave Tim the thousand dollars what day that was if was before or after the burglary.

[SPEAKER_03]: But either way, they were still hanging out after the burglary.

[SPEAKER_03]: And Tim was helping Shane fix an ATV.

[SPEAKER_03]: So that's the part that's always been [SPEAKER_03]: and the defense did a good job by, you know, getting that brought up that thousand dollars.

[SPEAKER_03]: He then asked Wing, if Emily Kinnamon had been threatened, which is another thing I never heard.

[SPEAKER_03]: Wing said he didn't recall.

[SPEAKER_03]: So part of the problem with the Dwayne Spencer courting that was played in court, the excerpt is that the jury heard the excerpt, but because Wing said he didn't remember it, it couldn't really be brought in as evidence.

[SPEAKER_03]: So it was a whole thing, so in order [SPEAKER_03]: They had wing listen to things on headphones to try and jog as my mother to try to jog as memory But without having the jury listen to it.

[SPEAKER_03]: So he listened to recording and apparently the Donnie Hughes threatened Emily Really [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now he also talked about the Donnie Youth Family hired a private investigator very quickly after Shane went missing and wing met with that PI several times the PI shared evidence with him.

[SPEAKER_03]: One of the things that the PI shared with him was the drug ledger.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, so he did have it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think the PI had gotten it from the Donna Hughes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hmm.

[SPEAKER_00]: So maybe there was some truth to the theory that the Donny who's went into Shane's house and moved things around.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and kind of took things that might have made a muk-bad.

[SPEAKER_03]: So Wing says that he turned the ledger into the property department.

[SPEAKER_03]: Apparently, there were reports that people received calls from Shane after March 22nd.

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, of course, there are no calls from Shane on the two phones that they had records for.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: But if he's using a burner phone, then maybe these people were receiving calls from Shane, and maybe Shane wasn't killed on the 22nd, which again, is just punching more holes in the prosecution's theory.

[SPEAKER_03]: No, we didn't have any witnesses at all.

[SPEAKER_03]: Again, they're just kind of throwing things out there at this point, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: It reasonable doubt.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: On March 29, 2010, Theresa McConnell from the Commonwealth Attorney's Office said that there were two scenarios that were likely in Sheen's disappearance.

[SPEAKER_03]: One, he was dead from an overdose, or he was dead because of a drug deal gone wrong.

[SPEAKER_03]: Sheen mixed drugs, you know, they talked about how he mixed the oxies, the oxies, the X, and said that that is very dangerous and could lead to an overdose, and he also interacted with dangerous people.

[SPEAKER_03]: And the Commonwealth's attorney's office in 2010 wasn't able to rule out either one of these scenarios.

[SPEAKER_03]: When wing transitioned off the case in 2011 and handed it over to the cold case unit, his conclusions were that it was possibly a body dump after an O.D.

[SPEAKER_03]: that Shane and Tim had a confrontation after the burglary, or that Shane started a new life with a [SPEAKER_03]: The defense's point was that after your extensive investigation 2010, you still couldn't prove that it was Tim, and nothing has changed since then.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, built in did the redirect, so I had high hopes for the redirect, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: That we're going to talk about that interview.

[SPEAKER_03]: She said that he interviewed Tim Hickerson at least four times, and that he had heard rumors about the burglary prior to the interview, and the first interview was on March 26.

[SPEAKER_03]: But the interview we heard was from June of 2010.

[SPEAKER_03]: So it was like, you know, the third, the fourth, you know, whichever interview.

[SPEAKER_03]: In the first interview, Tim denied the burglary and said, people were accusing him of a drug rip, but he didn't do it.

[SPEAKER_03]: And the noxphal area at the time was rumor mill central.

[SPEAKER_03]: But they didn't play that interview where he denied it.

[SPEAKER_03]: and they didn't say, here's an interview where he denies the burglarie, here's an interview a couple months later where he admits to it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they didn't.

[SPEAKER_03]: This guy can't be trusted.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right, they didn't punch home the point.

[SPEAKER_03]: No, not at all.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then the drug ledger, which he said that he handed over to the property department appears to be missing.

[SPEAKER_03]: So that has never been put into evidence.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then she excused him.

[SPEAKER_00]: lot of missed opportunities there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah for the prosecution.

[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now the first I thought relatively positive whiteness the prosecution had, which the defense says was a terrible witness for the prosecution, was Brian Donahue, Shane's father.

[SPEAKER_03]: To me, I thought it was good for the prosecution because it humanized Shane, because at that point they hadn't done a great job of doing that.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it showed a father who had been in pain for 15 years.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, the defense has said that Brian came off as angry, which he absolutely did.

[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's reasonable.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but that that didn't look good for the prosecution.

[SPEAKER_03]: Which I personally disagree with, but whatever, he was, he was angry.

[SPEAKER_03]: Built into this questioning again, she showed Brian a picture of Shane for identification.

[SPEAKER_03]: It was in eight by ten photos, Shane.

[SPEAKER_03]: And Brian got this little smile when he saw it.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it's like, it's even hard to talk about now.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I even wrote in my notes, the little smile almost killed me because we had gotten bogged down in the cell phone records and all of this stuff.

[SPEAKER_03]: And that moment showed a father who loved it, son.

[SPEAKER_03]: who hasn't seen his son in 15 years, and who is just happy to see a photo of him.

[SPEAKER_03]: He talked about how Shane was born on August 22nd, 1986, and Fairfax Hospital, and how Shane in 2010 was renting a house about eight miles from their home.

[SPEAKER_03]: He said that he didn't see him that often because, you know, he worked a lot in whatever, but that Shane kept in close contact with his mother, Donna, especially after her cancer diagnosis, because she was dealing with, I think, two different kinds of cancer in 2010.

[SPEAKER_03]: A March 22, 2010 Brian returned home around 330 because he had to come home around [SPEAKER_03]: He saw the Hickerson electric truck at his house.

[SPEAKER_03]: And there's a trailer attached to it that was full of drop ceiling tiles.

[SPEAKER_03]: So he was wondering what they were doing here.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he came across like he was not happy that Tim Hickerson or any of the Hickersons were on his property.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like it's, and it's hard to say, you know, if he's saying that now, because obviously he's believed that Tim caused Shane's death for the past 15 years, or if he had a problem with Tim or the Hickerson's [SPEAKER_03]: So when he got home, Shane was talking to his mother and Shane told Brian that he had hired Tim for the job and that's why he was there and blah, blah, blah.

[SPEAKER_03]: So Brian left to go make food for Donna and that was the last time he saw his son.

[SPEAKER_03]: Apparently they had left that trailer full of drop ceiling tiles on the property, but that the next day on the 23rd it was gone.

[SPEAKER_03]: So somebody apparently came and picked it up.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then on the 24th, a few of Shane's friends came over and said that they couldn't reach Shane and they were concerned.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then that's again when Donna contacted the police and apparently before she got sick, she used to work for the sheriff's office.

[SPEAKER_03]: They found out that Shane's phones were off within about 10 minutes of he and to, of he and to believing the house.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so they searched everywhere within a 10 to 15-minute radius of their house.

[SPEAKER_03]: He eventually called him and asked him to come to the house so that they could talk about it, because, again, Tim was the last person who was with Shane.

[SPEAKER_03]: Tim pushed them off, but he did end up coming a few days later, and Brian said that when he was there, he seemed really nervous and he did a make eye contact.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: He said that he told Tim that some of Shane's friends were going to come and look for Shane on four wheelers.

[SPEAKER_03]: With the implication being, hey, your Shane's friend, do you want to, you know, come search?

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, can you help?

[SPEAKER_03]: Do you want to help?

[SPEAKER_03]: But instead, Tim allegedly replied, my grandfather doesn't want anyone on his property to which Brian said, nobody said anything [SPEAKER_03]: And so he thought that that was suspicious.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, Tim did not seem interested in helping them look for Shane.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he immediately was like, don't go on my grandfather's property.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Which is the property that was a mile away from Shane's house.

[SPEAKER_03]: The one thing that I think did hurt the prosecution in Brian Donahue's testimony was when Eisenstein began the cross examination, he asked Brian was Shane struggling with addiction.

[SPEAKER_03]: And again, this is something that pretty much been stipulated on both sides.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's not a secret.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know what I mean?

[SPEAKER_03]: But Brian was very antagonistic toward the defense.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he just said, he seemed normal to me.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he said, he didn't live in his father's basement.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, meaning like, [SPEAKER_00]: like, druggies live in their parents house.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, basically, I didn't know everything he did.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, he was a grown man.

[SPEAKER_03]: But that he didn't live in his father's basement.

[SPEAKER_03]: He looked directly at him when he said that.

[SPEAKER_03]: Because him at the time was 28 and was living in his parents house.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, this is the angry part.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is the anger.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Eisenstein asked Brian about his daughter.

[SPEAKER_03]: And Brian said, quote, I had a daughter [SPEAKER_01]: What?

[SPEAKER_03]: Shayan is she and sister, she died not too long after his disappearance.

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, OK.

And this has been a point of contention because based on the obituary, I thought that it was a suicide.

[SPEAKER_03]: But after, and I said that in our original episode, but then I got a ton of hate mail for like years saying how dare you say that she killed herself.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so I'm pretty sure that in our update episode on the arrest, I said, hey, that was just my impression.

[SPEAKER_03]: Apparently she didn't kill herself.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_03]: Regardless.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, she died and one way or another, it seems like it was related to her brother going missing because she was in college.

[SPEAKER_03]: She was doing great.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then it seems like she kind of went into a downward spiral after Shane's disappearance.

[SPEAKER_03]: This was brought up because Eisenstein asked if Cheyenne had given Shane one pill at a time as a way to help him manage his addiction.

[SPEAKER_03]: And Brian said, VCU is a long way from the Aiden Road, meaning Cheyenne was at VCU at the time down in Richmond, which is several hours away, and he's like, how could she be doing that?

[SPEAKER_03]: She was in college.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't sign said, but you never spoke to Shane on March 22nd.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he said, I did speak to Shane, because that's what he had just testified to.

[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: he said you didn't tell investigators that you didn't speak to Shane on March 22nd and he said no because that isn't the truth.

[SPEAKER_03]: But he showed a photo of the interior Shane's house with a black box on the coffee table.

[SPEAKER_03]: Brian said he didn't recognize it and I think this is that safe that keeps on coming up.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I again, I have to read between the lines because like so much of this was never made clear, [SPEAKER_03]: and we don't know what was in the safe.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then he said, you didn't tell Officer Jensen that Shane owned two guns.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he said, I don't know what Shane owned.

[SPEAKER_03]: And they said, well, you turned over two guns later in 2024 that you said belong to Shane.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he's like, well, maybe I did.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, maybe we had these guns because Shane's house kept on getting broken into.

[SPEAKER_03]: And again, looking directly at him.

[SPEAKER_03]: He asked if Shane never went to their house to get away from Emily Kinnaman.

[SPEAKER_03]: He, Brian said he didn't remember.

[SPEAKER_03]: He said, did anyone threaten anybody or Emily Kinnaman?

[SPEAKER_03]: And Brian said, no, she was gone.

[SPEAKER_03]: All of his friends were mysteriously gone, meaning that after Shane's disappearance, they really didn't stick around to help out as much as he thought they should have.

[SPEAKER_03]: He asked if you had seen a drug ledger, and he said, no, I also didn't balance his checkbook [SPEAKER_03]: And he said, his cellphones were also gone.

[SPEAKER_03]: They were destroyed while looking at him.

[SPEAKER_03]: The last question was, did you ever see a death certificate for your son?

[SPEAKER_03]: And Brian said, no, can you help me with that after this?

[SPEAKER_03]: And then he was excused.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now the reason why he asked that question comes up later, but it was basically saying, [SPEAKER_01]: That's it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: The next witness was Daniel Gold whose nickname was Boston and Matthew sweet question him.

[SPEAKER_03]: He was another drug user.

[SPEAKER_03]: He met Shane to the Kushner's and they saw each other parties and then he started getting pillage from Shane.

[SPEAKER_03]: He would also get a discount on pills if he drove Shane around.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: He was the one that was with Shane the morning of his [SPEAKER_03]: He also said that he would take Shane to the doctor about once a month to on their doctor days so that he could get his prescribed pills.

[SPEAKER_03]: He called Shane a friend and said that he was a good person who made him feel welcome because again, he's not from the area like most everybody else is there and he did drugs with the Shane at his home.

[SPEAKER_03]: He also said that he saw Shane with a gun the last time he was with him on the 22nd, and Shane told him about the break-in and said that he was pissed and showed him the gun.

[SPEAKER_03]: It was a silver and black revolver, and he never saw Shane shoot it, and that Shane didn't carry a gun with him in general.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like he never seen Shane with a gun any other time.

[SPEAKER_03]: He knew Emily can amend through the same people, and he had seen her at Shane's house, and he had also seen [SPEAKER_03]: He also knew Tim through Shane and was asked if he had seen Tim do drugs and he said no.

[SPEAKER_03]: Asked if he had seen him behind, he said yes.

[SPEAKER_03]: He said that Tim would go to Shane to get pills and you know, you can just tell when somebody's high basically.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he asked if he ever saw Shane's cell pills in his home in 2010 and he said yes.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he says that he knows a Tim bought pills from Shane, but he never actually saw the transaction himself.

[SPEAKER_03]: He was asked where Shane kept his pills and he said it depended sometimes on the table.

[SPEAKER_03]: He said that on the 22nd he hadn't seen Shane for about a week, but [SPEAKER_03]: They hung out, he picked him up around noon, they did all those stops, and he said that Shane had money on him.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then he again told the story about how, after the errands they went back to Shane's house, but then Tim came over, Daniel thought that the vibe was weird, and so he just left.

[SPEAKER_03]: He said that after that day, he never saw her heard from Shane again, and he has no idea where he is today.

[SPEAKER_03]: Brandon slowed to the cross and he said that Gould had discussed the case with law enforcement multiple times over the years.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he was trying to figure out how much money Daniel had said that she had.

[SPEAKER_03]: He said in 2010 he told the law enforcement that she had a chunk of money because he was possibly buying a car.

[SPEAKER_03]: So when they went to Target, they didn't actually go to Target.

[SPEAKER_03]: They went to the parking lot where she was looking at a car to potentially buy.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: But in 2024 he said that she didn't have money on him to buy a car.

[SPEAKER_03]: when he spoke with a private investigator in 2010, he told him that Shane wasn't mad about the burglary.

[SPEAKER_03]: And basically, in 2010, Shane was mad about a different rip off.

[SPEAKER_03]: The week before his disappearance, he had gone to buy pills.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, what sounds like a relatively large amount of pills from somebody, and those pills are supposed to be oxy or something along those lines, it turns out they were heart medication.

[SPEAKER_03]: The defense is trying to get the point across that sheen was pissed about that rip off, not the three pills that Tim might have stolen.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: And they said that in 2010, Daniel Gould told the PI that Shane was going to bring his gun and go out and meet those guys, not Tim.

[SPEAKER_03]: So at this point, the defense is basically trying to show that Daniel's kind of changing his story to show that shame was mad at Tim, because Daniel was pissed at Tim, because in 2024 he told Detective Copka that it was fucked up that Tim put his name in this investigation.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: So he's saying he only got involved in this.

[SPEAKER_03]: because of Tim, and you know, he's been questioned multiple times over the past 15 years.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Also over the years, Daniel Gould has had many different run-ins with the wall.

[SPEAKER_03]: And in 2011, he asked Detective Master Sen, who I believe was one of the cold case detectives for help on a charge that he was facing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: The jury actually got dismissed for this next part, because what we found out is that gold has a current pending case in that court, and the commonwealth objected about to a question about whether or not he's expecting help on that charge today in 2025.

[SPEAKER_03]: That objection was overruled.

[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, I don't think that that was particularly helpful for the prosecution, not at all because yeah, he doesn't seem incredibly credible.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, he's helpful in terms of like timeline building.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, which is probably why they brought them on, but again, if, you know, the defense brings up multiple inconsistencies over the years, like, yeah, it just destroys the timeline or at least you know, the credibility of the- Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like the timelines of time I like we have receipts we know they were at Walmart at the time he says they were at Walmart, like so like that part of it is pretty much undisputed, but yeah, like everything else he has to say about you know whether or not Shane was mad at him and things like that like you can't really trust what are you saying right.

[SPEAKER_03]: So the next witness was the famous Emily Kiniman.

[SPEAKER_03]: Built-in is the one who handled this questioning.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I thought she also did a really good job of humanizing shame.

[SPEAKER_03]: She also did a really good job of standing her ground during cross-examination, which obviously will get to.

[SPEAKER_03]: But she talked about how she grew up with Shane.

[SPEAKER_03]: They were good friends.

[SPEAKER_03]: They talked every day, and they spent a lot of time together.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, they were doing drugs together.

[SPEAKER_03]: She said she was an active addiction in 2010 as was he.

[SPEAKER_03]: So that was absolutely part of their relationship.

[SPEAKER_03]: But it wasn't all of their relationship.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, like they also like to sit on the couch and watch Jersey short together.

[SPEAKER_03]: She also would give him ride's places, you know, to the doctor, to run errands, to do whatever.

[SPEAKER_03]: He also would give her pills.

[SPEAKER_03]: He would sell her pills.

[SPEAKER_03]: And in 2010, she had a physical dependence on pills and used four to five days a week.

[SPEAKER_03]: She was also asked if she had seen Shane Dope's sick, and she said, yes, now we never really got the reasoning as to why the prosecution kept on asking this question to witnesses.

[SPEAKER_03]: My speculation is that they're saying that on the 22nd, Shane was Dope's sick, and so maybe his defenses were down.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I honestly don't know.

[SPEAKER_03]: We never got the reason behind that repeated [SPEAKER_00]: I can't think of a reason why they would continuously bring that up.

[SPEAKER_03]: They also asked her about her criminal record.

[SPEAKER_03]: She had two possession felonies and a prescription fraud felony in 2010.

[SPEAKER_03]: Also, Larsonie and check fraud and she said all of it kind of happened around the same time.

[SPEAKER_03]: But she's currently clean and sober.

[SPEAKER_03]: And she seems like it like she seemed very together, you know She says she last saw Shane the night of the 21st so the night before he disappeared They hung out and watched TV in the early evening She they discussed her taking him to Walmart the next day, but he texted her.

[SPEAKER_03]: I guess the next morning and said that he had a ride, which we know is from Daniel Gold So she never actually saw him on the 22nd [SPEAKER_03]: On the 20th, she saw him and that's the day of the burglary.

[SPEAKER_03]: She said that he dropped her off at work and took her car.

[SPEAKER_03]: He then picked her up after work and they went to his house.

[SPEAKER_03]: When they were back at his house, they were watching TV in the living room and she noticed a bumper sticker that had fallen on the floor.

[SPEAKER_03]: that bumper sticker had been on his mantle.

[SPEAKER_03]: So he picked it up, went to the mantle and noticed some things that been moved around, and that he had three pills in a bowl or jar or whatever, and they were gone.

[SPEAKER_03]: She said that she, quote, got upset naturally and quote, [SPEAKER_03]: And then the night kind of turned into a bunch of discussion about that, like who did this, you know, whatever.

[SPEAKER_03]: She said that he did not have any pills with him the next day on Sunday the 21st when they had hung out and that they made plans to go get more on the 23rd and that Tuesday was the day.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like that was their big day.

[SPEAKER_03]: They were going to go to the Dale City area to meet a lady who owed him a handful of oxy.

[SPEAKER_03]: But on the 23rd, she had an herd from him about this, which was very weird because she made the place.

[SPEAKER_03]: She's like, listen, when you're in active addiction and you have plans to get pills, you're going to get those pills.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: So she's like, it was really weird that I did and hear from him because we have these plans.

[SPEAKER_03]: So she went to his house.

[SPEAKER_03]: And at some point, like, it got, she thought, like, okay, this is an emergency because I can't find him.

[SPEAKER_03]: So she went to his house.

[SPEAKER_03]: She peaked in the windows.

[SPEAKER_03]: She tried to get in, but all the doors were locked.

[SPEAKER_03]: She contacted Cheyenne, his sister, and wanted her to basically break into the house because I think at that point, she was afraid that he had like ODD or something and he was dead on the floor.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: And she said, quote, I thought he was hurt or dead inside and quote.

[SPEAKER_03]: But Cheyenne said, you know, he's fine.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's fine.

[SPEAKER_03]: She didn't know.

[SPEAKER_03]: She was like FACU, but she just assumed that chain was fine.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then the question, did you try to call Cheyenne after March 23rd?

[SPEAKER_03]: And she said, quote, I knew he was gone.

[SPEAKER_03]: I knew there was no point." [SPEAKER_03]: End quote.

[SPEAKER_03]: And they said, what do you do mean by that?

[SPEAKER_03]: And she said, I knew he was dead.

[SPEAKER_03]: To clarify, she said, nothing is going to keep you from a handful of oxies that someone owes you.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's not going to not contact his sister or his mother.

[SPEAKER_03]: quote in my mind, it was obvious and quote.

[SPEAKER_03]: They asked if she knew Tim, she said, yes, she had met him at Shane's house.

[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, she saw him often enough to know that he and Shane were friends.

[SPEAKER_03]: And she did see drug transactions between Shane and Tim at Shane's house.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then Eisenstein crossed her.

[SPEAKER_03]: He said that sweet told her, and I guess this was in that 116 interview, that the defense may attempt to spin or manipulate prior statements.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he confirmed that she met with prosecution three times, in preparation, and that she declined to meet with the defense.

[SPEAKER_03]: She said that she had spoken about this case too many times to count.

[SPEAKER_03]: She said that detective secretly called her in May 2024.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, detective secretly is the one who reinvestigated this case and ended up waiting to Tim's arrest.

[SPEAKER_03]: She initially didn't want to talk to him.

[SPEAKER_03]: She said that she'd think about it.

[SPEAKER_03]: But she said she didn't want to go through the trauma if it wasn't going to lead anywhere.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, that makes sense.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, because she said why continuously bring this up.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's no new evidence.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, she's like, you haven't arrested anyone in 15 years.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, why are we still doing this?

[SPEAKER_03]: In September, they went to her work and she says she went a little lawyer.

[SPEAKER_03]: She was going to talk to him.

[SPEAKER_03]: So she got a lawyer, detective secretly gave the lawyer a list of questions.

[SPEAKER_03]: So she answered the list, the lawyer submitted it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then I think she was getting into maybe her alibi and Tony Matong.

[SPEAKER_03]: Tony Matong is who she was with at the bungalow, Elhouse.

[SPEAKER_03]: And she said that she picked him up from rehab late on March 22nd in Farmville, which is kind of far away.

[SPEAKER_03]: So basically neither one of them was around the evening of the [SPEAKER_03]: But after that, she says she drove by Shane's house and saw that his lights were on at 2am.

[SPEAKER_03]: She called him, he didn't answer, and she drove back again, the lights were still on.

[SPEAKER_03]: She also said that Shane had gotten into a physical altercation at the party that he was at on the 20th, which is where he was when the burglary occurred.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: But we didn't get into who that physical altercation was with.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I think again, the defense is trying to show that Shane had issues with a lot of different people.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's another possible suspect there.

[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_03]: When Detective Wayne came to her house on March 25th, she told him that Shane used combinations of drugs to get a better high.

[SPEAKER_03]: And again, this is just going to that overdose theory.

[UNKNOWN]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: She also said that she herself owed Shane about $100 for pills at the time of his disappearance, and that it wasn't uncommon for Shane to front pills to friends.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then they asked her about the threat from the Donahue family.

[SPEAKER_03]: And she was like, I don't remember that.

[SPEAKER_03]: The question was, so you don't remember telling Wing that someone in the Donahue family said that if Shane came [SPEAKER_03]: And that's in a recorded conversation.

[SPEAKER_03]: So she listened to that with headphones.

[SPEAKER_03]: And she's like, not, I remember saying that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, but she did.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: They said that she had a long phone conversation with Tim Hickerson in the days after March 22nd.

[SPEAKER_03]: She said that she doesn't remember the content of that call.

[SPEAKER_03]: She also told Wayne that she was secretive about who he got drugs from.

[SPEAKER_03]: She said she didn't remember that conversation, but says that it was normal in that culture not to spread all of your business around.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then they started talking about Josh Cook and the Kaiser's and the Kennedy's.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now these are names that have been floating around this case since the beginning as basically alternate suspects.

[SPEAKER_03]: Wing asked her about Josh Cook.

[SPEAKER_03]: She says she didn't [SPEAKER_03]: She says she knew where Wayne was going and it wasn't relevant.

[SPEAKER_03]: But again, she's listening to those recordings that headphones.

[SPEAKER_03]: So it goes kind of hard to follow this point.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, and again, if I'm having a...

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not true.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's what I'm saying.

[SPEAKER_03]: If I'm having trouble following it, then the jury was having trouble following it.

[SPEAKER_03]: What we do find out as this question goes on, is that Josh Cook was apparently the one behind that heart pill rip off.

[SPEAKER_03]: And that Emily's the one who set up the deal.

[SPEAKER_03]: Shane gave Josh several hundred dollars for oxy, but he got ripped off, but she said that Shane did not have plans to get even.

[SPEAKER_03]: He made no aggressive remarks and he was just going to eat the loss.

[SPEAKER_03]: He was upset but not aggressive.

[SPEAKER_03]: He asked her, Shane wasn't going to do anything because he was on probation, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: And she says she doesn't remember, but it's on the recording.

[SPEAKER_03]: He said that, but I probably didn't believe him.

[SPEAKER_03]: That wasn't the type of person he was.

[SPEAKER_03]: So at the time of Shane's disappearance, he was on probation, but he was almost off of probation.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I think the point that they were trying to get across is that Shane maybe wasn't going to get even with Josh Cook then.

[SPEAKER_03]: But as soon as he was off probation, then he was going to, and she was like, maybe he said that, but like, Shane was just not a violent person.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, getting even doesn't necessarily mean violence.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it could be, you know, I'm going to do the same thing back to you or something.

[SPEAKER_03]: But like, she was just getting the point across.

[SPEAKER_03]: She's like, I don't know.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, this whole idea of like, Shane getting angry and confronting someone is just not his personality.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Emily was also the one who introduced Shane to Chris Kaiser and the Kennedy's.

[SPEAKER_03]: She had told the prosecution that the cooks and the Kaiser's were dangerous people.

[SPEAKER_03]: She also talked about basically how he was taking a lot of Xanax at the time.

[SPEAKER_03]: Some of his pills got wet.

[SPEAKER_03]: He like eat the wet pills instead of like letting them go to waste, like that kind of stuff.

[UNKNOWN]: Thanks.

[SPEAKER_03]: And apparently, in 2014, she told the PI that Shane was angry about Kaiser and the cooks, and he was going to confront.

[SPEAKER_03]: them.

[SPEAKER_03]: She said she didn't recall.

[SPEAKER_03]: The defense really tried to discredit her because of her addiction.

[SPEAKER_03]: They also tried to bring home what they were arguing in the agreement that the prosecution had coached her because in the interview, she said something like, I, you know, I was doing drugs every day and then she said, oh wait, I don't want to say that.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so they were trying to say like that she's basically lying, but she's like, no, what I meant by that is that I was an active addiction.

[SPEAKER_03]: My body wanted to do drugs every single day.

[SPEAKER_03]: However, I didn't have that much money.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I couldn't do drugs every single day.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I didn't want it to seem as though I was under the influence every single day because I wasn't.

[SPEAKER_03]: I could only afford to do drugs four to five days a week, whatever it was.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so she said she just stopped herself from saying that, not because she was lying but because there's a difference between wanting to do drugs every day and actually doing drugs every day.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that kind of makes sense.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'll tell you in the moment sitting there and it made perfect sense to me.

[SPEAKER_03]: The way she explained it, I was like, okay, yeah, now I totally get what you're saying.

[SPEAKER_03]: The defense was trying to do kind of a godchimoman to me.

[SPEAKER_03]: It didn't really work.

[SPEAKER_03]: And in general, she came off pretty credible, but the defense did do a good job in the cross of showing that there are a lot of other people in Sheen's orbit.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then we got into Luis de Jesus, who is an FBI agent, who was called to present the cell phone data.

[SPEAKER_03]: And this is like the crux of the prosecution's case.

[SPEAKER_03]: So this is like their star witness here.

[SPEAKER_03]: It did not go well.

[SPEAKER_03]: He said that on Shane's phone, which ended in 9052, a 356pm on March 22, 2010, an incoming call went to voicemail.

[SPEAKER_03]: And there are no outgoing calls after that time.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then there's another phone, 0603, which was Tim's phone.

[SPEAKER_03]: On March 24th, at 9.16 AM, this phone called the 905.2 number.

[SPEAKER_03]: It lads communication, but there's no tower communication.

[SPEAKER_03]: Basically, meaning that they could show that the call happened, but it didn't connect with the tower because the phone was off.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you're saying that there's evidence that Tim called Shane's phone two days after he went missing that kind of pokes a hole in prostitution's case.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I can see what where the prosecution was going with this because they went there in the preliminary, they just never got there in this.

[SPEAKER_03]: So we'll get to that in a second.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then they showed the map.

[SPEAKER_03]: It had two locations, L1, which is Shane's house, and L3, which is Hickerson Lane, which is Tim's house.

[SPEAKER_03]: Shane's phone was in sector three at 355 p.m.

And they were saying that based on the map, [SPEAKER_03]: and has showed that at 354-355-356, both of those phones were in sector three, and that they could not be at L1, which was Shane's house.

[SPEAKER_03]: So like this is the big cell phone evidence.

[SPEAKER_03]: They're saying that at this time, when Tim Hickerson said he dropped off Shane Donahue, Shane's phones were at Tim Hickerson's house, not at Shane Donahue's house.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I mean, but, I mean, 356, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: What's the last one?

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, well, he lives less than a mile from him.

[SPEAKER_00]: So what if he got dropped off at 357 or 358?

[SPEAKER_03]: Right, but he never should have been in the sector that Tim's house was according to the story Tim gave.

[SPEAKER_03]: His phones, regardless of when Shane was dropped off, he should have never been in that sector.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like those phones never should have shown up there, but they did.

[SPEAKER_03]: the cross which was Sloan made basically the same argument that you did and he went it's a very convoluted way of doing it and we don't need to get into it but there's a lot of argument a lot of back and forth and Sloan was just trying to say they were so close together that if something was remotely off [SPEAKER_03]: the phone could have shown up in one sector when it was actually in another.

[SPEAKER_03]: Captain saying no, that's not how this works.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like he was in this sector, not in that sector.

[SPEAKER_03]: but Sloan just hammered it, you know, over and over again.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so this is the kind of close where roughly makes the big difference, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: The borders were close.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, L3, which is Hickerson's house, was 0.8 miles from the center of the salt tower, and Sheen's house was 0.65 miles from the center of the salt tower.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: So it's tough.

[SPEAKER_03]: In direct examination, he also said there was more incoming activity on Shane's phones after 350, 6pm, but no outgoing or tower activity after that.

[SPEAKER_03]: But what we never got into, and I do think this might have been excluded, which is why they couldn't get into it, but what we never got into were the actual call records.

[SPEAKER_03]: meaning who had Shane been calling in the days leading up to his disappearance, who had been calling him and who was calling him after his disappearance.

[SPEAKER_03]: We talked about that phone call on the 24th, but the point that they made in the preliminary hearing that they weren't [SPEAKER_03]: able to make or didn't make, in the trial, was that Shane and Tim usually had communication 15 to 20 times a day.

[SPEAKER_03]: And there was no communication between the two of them.

[SPEAKER_03]: The evening of the 20 seconds, none on the 23rd, just one call on the 24th.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: But why would he call on the 24th?

[SPEAKER_00]: If he had murdered Shane, why would he call his phone two days later?

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I think the idea is that, oh, it looks suspicious if I don't call to see where he is.

[SPEAKER_03]: So let me just make this call even though I know where he is.

[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe.

[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe.

[SPEAKER_03]: So on redirect, we came up and said we're either Shane Donna Hughes phones at L1 at the time of their last connection.

[SPEAKER_03]: Dehaze Zeus said no.

[SPEAKER_03]: So he was very clear.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like these phones were not at Shane's house.

[SPEAKER_03]: What I wrote down in my own notes is that the way to show that because they had they had Shane's phone records starting on like March 15th I think.

[SPEAKER_03]: So like the week prior to his disappearance.

[SPEAKER_03]: And we know from previous testimony that Emily was with Shane at his house the night of the 21st, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: So to me, and maybe, and again, this goes into rules of evidence.

[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe there's a legal reason why you couldn't do this.

[SPEAKER_03]: But to me, during that testimony, when she's saying, I was with Shane at his house, March 21st, pull up the map.

[SPEAKER_03]: Pull up the map that shows where Shane's bones were, the evening of the 21st.

[SPEAKER_03]: Show what sector it's in.

[SPEAKER_03]: Show how close it is to L1.

[SPEAKER_03]: Show how far it is from L3.

[SPEAKER_00]: All right, there's no frame, there's no frame of reference, essentially.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's to what the margin of error could be.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Without showing that.

[SPEAKER_03]: Without showing it.

[SPEAKER_03]: shows a difference between the 21st and the 22nd.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then there you go.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: What they didn't do them.

[SPEAKER_03]: They didn't do it.

[SPEAKER_03]: So either that was just a missed opportunity or the defense is right.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it doesn't show a difference.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I don't know what the answer is.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's a missed opportunity on both sides.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, no, not because the defense, I mean, yeah, if if the defense was right about it, and that map would have shown basically the same thing on the 21st that it did on the 22nd, they could have gotten to that when they presented their case.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, right.

[SPEAKER_03]: But we're we're still in the prosecution case.

[SPEAKER_03]: So like, definitely wasn't a missed opportunity on the defense side at that point.

[SPEAKER_03]: So then we got to sergeant secretly, who was the person who took this case over in 2024.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's the one who reinvestigated this case.

[SPEAKER_03]: And according to the opening statements from the prosecution said, he went down every road and they all led to Tim Hickerson.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now he did talk about the patterns of the call history and the frequency of contact between Shane and Tim and they had about a month of data that he looked at starting on March 15th and going about to the end of April, but he doesn't talk about specific calls, but he does say they were frequently in contact both ways and that Tim made that one call in the 24th.

[SPEAKER_03]: He also called Shane's other number around the same time, and on the 26th, made another call to that second number of Shane's.

[SPEAKER_03]: He also said that there was an abandoned farmhouse on Hickerson Farm.

[SPEAKER_03]: The grandfather had been living on that part of the land, and the Hickerson's lived in the house next door.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I guess this is the land that Tim was referring to when he sent my grandfather to someone anybody on his land.

[SPEAKER_03]: And that's it.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's all I've got from the direct examination of the guy who took this case over in 2024.

[SPEAKER_00]: So they didn't ask him any questions that would prove their case.

[SPEAKER_00]: No.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing at all.

[SPEAKER_03]: No.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then slung up into the cross and he confirmed that secretly was assigned the case in April 2024 along with Detective Copka.

[SPEAKER_03]: And at that time, the two most likely suspects were Tim Hickerson and Craig Minton, then they talked more about the historical cell data analysis and the report from a woman named Gretchen Gapart.

[SPEAKER_03]: Gretchen Gapart testified in the preliminary hearing.

[SPEAKER_03]: She is the one who analyzed the cell phone data for Prince William Police back in 2010, 2011, and instead of having her testify [SPEAKER_03]: But he asked about Gapart as how much he had reviewed the call logs and things like that, and he's like, I've continuously renewed it.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, and ask, hey, so these phones that Shane was using, they were pre-paid, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: And he said, yeah, he's like, well, it's a possible that he just ran out of minutes.

[SPEAKER_03]: And that's why there weren't any more calls and they stopping used.

[SPEAKER_03]: And she was like, yeah, maybe, but, you know, because, yeah, maybe, I mean, what are the odds that they'd kind of ran out at the same time?

[SPEAKER_03]: But it's not impossible.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: He also said that secretly interviewed Craig Matong twice and brought him two letters offering him immunity from prosecution if he would testify.

[SPEAKER_03]: and metong declined.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then he asked how many interviews he conducted between April and September of 2024.

[SPEAKER_03]: He says that he did about 20 interviews of 17 people and that detective [SPEAKER_00]: So, way more than the initial investigator?

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, I will say the original case files says that there were 68 interviews in 20,000 miles in the original investigation.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, I guess wing only did nine to 10 interviews and maybe other detectives did the other 50-8s?

[SPEAKER_03]: Which seems weird.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: But in any case, Sloan then went and asked about what secretly didn't do during his investigation.

[SPEAKER_03]: Did you interview Daniel Gold?

[SPEAKER_03]: No.

[SPEAKER_03]: Did you interview the other metongs, Brian and Tony?

[SPEAKER_03]: No.

[SPEAKER_03]: Did you speak to Emily Kinneman's brother?

[SPEAKER_03]: No.

[SPEAKER_03]: Somebody named Adam K.

[SPEAKER_03]: Susie Carroll, which is who he was supposed to get the poultry from on the 23rd.

[SPEAKER_03]: No.

[SPEAKER_03]: Somebody named Kushner.

[SPEAKER_03]: They only spoke with Mike Colgan, the one who hired Shane after they arrested him.

[SPEAKER_03]: Ryan Knight, who was a known drug dealer who lied about an alibi apparently in the original investigation.

[SPEAKER_03]: Mm-hmm.

[SPEAKER_03]: Did you talk to him?

[SPEAKER_03]: No.

[SPEAKER_03]: Did you talk to the ex-rumi at the FBI informant?

[SPEAKER_03]: No.

[SPEAKER_03]: Couldn't find him.

[SPEAKER_03]: Did you talk to Duane Spence?

[SPEAKER_03]: No.

[SPEAKER_03]: He was dead.

[SPEAKER_03]: Did you talk to Ashley Miller who lived across the street and posited a timeline of seeing cars?

[SPEAKER_03]: No.

[SPEAKER_03]: Stewart Crane, the person who's party that Shane was at on the 20th, no.

[SPEAKER_03]: James Fletcher, who was friends with Craig McTong, no.

[SPEAKER_03]: Justin Martin, who is Cheyenne's boyfriend, who may have entered Shane's house before the police.

[SPEAKER_03]: No, they didn't speak to him because they didn't think he had relevant information.

[SPEAKER_03]: Did you speak to Dusty Cornwell who sold Shane a gun?

[SPEAKER_03]: That was one of the guns that was turned over by the Don Hues in 2024, and apparently there had been bad blood between him and Shane.

[SPEAKER_03]: He apparently had no showed to an interview at some point during the original investigation, [SPEAKER_03]: They asked, did you speak to Dusty Cornwall?

[SPEAKER_03]: No, he died in 2019.

[SPEAKER_03]: John and Paul Kennedy remember we've been talking about the Kennedies.

[SPEAKER_03]: The Kennedies had a farming catlet.

[SPEAKER_03]: There were pill dealings between the Kennedies and Shane.

[SPEAKER_03]: And there was a rule that when you went out to the farm, phones had to be turned off.

[SPEAKER_03]: The farm was roughly 15 minutes away.

[SPEAKER_03]: There have been rumors going around noxfills since 2010 that they killed Shane and put him through the woodchipper on the farm.

[SPEAKER_03]: Did you go out to the farm?

[SPEAKER_03]: No.

[SPEAKER_03]: Connie Miller and Sheila Riggleman, cousins of the Kennedies.

[SPEAKER_03]: Did you talk to them?

[SPEAKER_03]: No.

[SPEAKER_03]: What about the cooks and the chisers?

[SPEAKER_03]: Because there was that heart pill deal that was set up by Emily.

[SPEAKER_03]: They were both interviewed in 2011.

[SPEAKER_03]: Cook refused to talk.

[SPEAKER_03]: Chris Kaiser detailed that pill deal.

[SPEAKER_03]: Did you speak to them in 2024?

[SPEAKER_03]: No.

[SPEAKER_03]: Did you talk to Anthony Kaiser's girlfriend who is present for the pill deals?

[SPEAKER_03]: No, did you talk to Caitlin Kaiser Chris's ex-wife who allegedly said to her, quote, I'll do to you what I did to Shane, and quote, and said that there was a different time frame when Chris Kaiser was freaking out about the Donna Hughes.

[SPEAKER_03]: Didn't talk to her.

[SPEAKER_03]: He didn't ask Emily about the pill deal with the Kaiser's.

[SPEAKER_03]: He didn't ask Emily if she had expressed that Shane was [SPEAKER_03]: didn't ask about the farm, and he says he didn't do any of that because it had already been asked by other detectives.

[SPEAKER_03]: He asked in 2014, did Emily Kineman secure an immunity agreement in this case.

[SPEAKER_03]: He said he didn't follow up on that because it wasn't important to his investigation.

[SPEAKER_03]: What about Alan Lam and David's lighthouse?

[SPEAKER_03]: Joy Downey.

[SPEAKER_03]: Joy Downey knew Daniel Gould's Daniel Gould said that he passed the polygraph by taking beta blockers.

[SPEAKER_03]: didn't talk to her.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then he asked about new physical evidence, the black lock box that had been retrieved from the Donna Hughes during the investigation.

[SPEAKER_03]: So that's that black box that we kept on seeing on...

On the pictures.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Which now we're just finally figuring out what the hell that was even about.

[SPEAKER_03]: So that was a lock box retrieved from the Donna Hughes during his investigation.

[SPEAKER_03]: And again, two handguns were also handed over by the Donna Hughes.

[SPEAKER_00]: But not this all happened in 2024.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, because so there that's he's asking out the new physical events in the case.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's basically it.

[SPEAKER_03]: There weren't, you know, Tim's fingerprints on any of these things or anything like that.

[SPEAKER_03]: How many self-hence does she need on a you have?

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, he used to and he had just bought one and there might have been one more that Emily Kinniman may have seen at some point.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then he asked him about the search of the hickerson farm.

[SPEAKER_03]: Did you find anything?

[SPEAKER_03]: He said, well, we found to truck back in the woods that had been shot up.

[SPEAKER_03]: They took metal detectors, they dug around, they found lakes in civil war relics, belt buckles, things like that.

[SPEAKER_03]: But that's it.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then the cross was over.

[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, Jesus.

[SPEAKER_03]: built and redirected, and he said that he didn't interview the people that, you know, Sloan and brought up, because they'd either already been interviewed or were irrelevant.

[SPEAKER_03]: As far as the Kennedy's go, Shane hadn't contacted them on the 22nd, and didn't contact anyone for a ride.

[SPEAKER_03]: Their point is, again, Shane didn't drive.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's in a real area.

[SPEAKER_03]: If Shane ended up [SPEAKER_01]: Sure.

[SPEAKER_03]: He couldn't have walked to Catlet, like he would have had to have a ride, but he didn't contact anybody for a ride.

[SPEAKER_03]: And Tim, according to his own story, didn't give him a ride anywhere.

[SPEAKER_03]: As for that truck, that was shot up.

[SPEAKER_03]: That was searched because Craig Metong had told them, there was a gun buried near an old truck on Tim Hickerson's property.

[SPEAKER_03]: So they're thinking that was [SPEAKER_03]: So they found the truck, which partially corroborated Craig's story, they just didn't find the gun.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he said that the people that he did interview in his reinvestigation, he interviewed because they weren't followed up with enough in the original investigation.

[SPEAKER_03]: And that in terms of the rumors about Shane, he followed up on most of them.

[SPEAKER_03]: Some were absurd.

[SPEAKER_03]: One was a letter from somebody in jail who said that a senator had hired a hitman to kill Shane.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, and that was it.

[SPEAKER_03]: He was excused.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that showed that both investigators were solely focused on Tim, and they didn't really want to explore any other option.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's what it seems like.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that when you have the prosecution giving the opening argument of this case was reinvestigated, and all roads led to Tim, Hickers.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yep.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think the defense did a good job of saying, no, they weren't actually.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yep.

[SPEAKER_00]: They just didn't look into any other roads.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: And the roads that led to Tim were the same roads that you guys had in 2010.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: That didn't end in an arrest.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: So after that, the jury was excused, and the defense put in a motion to strike.

[SPEAKER_03]: Basically, this is a common tactic when the prosecution is done with their case.

[SPEAKER_03]: Because that was the prosecution's case.

[SPEAKER_03]: And at no point, did they present a cohesive narrative about what they think happened that day?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think they did a good job at showing motive.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, as far as I can tell, there really wasn't any motive.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there was more motive for Shane to kill Tim than the other way around.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: And they, you know, there were points scored with again, like potentially with the cell phone.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think it's stronger that there weren't any calls that Shane could have made to ask for a ride.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right, but they barely touched on that.

[SPEAKER_03]: They barely touched on it.

[SPEAKER_03]: And the defense had spent the entire trial hammering home that there could have been other phones.

[SPEAKER_03]: I was just sitting there going like, how was this all they have?

[SPEAKER_03]: After 15 years, how could they not have done a better job of bringing the story together?

[SPEAKER_03]: Because I was just looking back at my notes on Tim Hickerson's Bond appeal, which was in November of 2024.

[SPEAKER_03]: And although Tim was granted bond, the prosecution did a much better job of cohesively telling a story.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so, based on what I heard, I didn't hear anything that was like, oh shit, this guy's guilty.

[SPEAKER_03]: But they presented enough to make me think, okay, once we get to the trial, and we get to really hear all the evidence, this is gonna make sense.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I see like why this is being brought, they still have very much an uphill battle, but like, in November of 2024, I was thinking, okay, I see where we're going with this, it's gonna be tough, but maybe shank and get justice.

[SPEAKER_03]: A year later, I'm sitting in the courtroom wondering what the hell I just watched.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, Brandon's slow, this is after a lunch break, he got up and summarized the evidence.

[SPEAKER_03]: Basically, in a much more succinct way than I've done up to this point, he said that the Commonwealth was relying on circumstantial evidence that a mortal wound occurred in Prince William County.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, proving the venue where a murder took place is part of what you need to prove, and you're charging someone with a murder.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he said, usually that's perfunctory, because usually it's like, you know, somebody shot the bodies there, you know where this place, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: So like, it's not even something that you really have to work at proving.

[SPEAKER_03]: He said, but it's not perfunctory here, because the commonwealth hasn't proven or the death took place.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or if there was even a death, [SPEAKER_03]: Exactly, Dehezus could not pinpoint the location of the phone he could give a range, but the technology in 2010 wasn't there to pinpoint it, like it is now.

[SPEAKER_03]: The phone could have been out of minutes and he says, I don't know how they could circumstantially prove that a crime was carried out in Prince William County.

[SPEAKER_03]: He said a hearing is required to have someone declared dead after seven years of Virginia, but not even that was done.

[SPEAKER_03]: So Shane Donnie has never been declared legally dead.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: He said, there's no forensic evidence in this case.

[SPEAKER_03]: And no evidence that a death came from a criminal act.

[SPEAKER_03]: He talked a little bit more about, you know, but no body cases and no body cases that formed the case law basis had much different circumstances than this case that allowed them to prove it.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he said conviction cannot rest upon conjecture, [SPEAKER_03]: And he said, what have we really learned over two days?

[SPEAKER_03]: A lot of these witnesses don't offer much.

[SPEAKER_03]: The best you could say is that maybe Shane was upset about an unrelated theft.

[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe he was annoyed with Tim, but animosity has been proven.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: In order to prove a murder charge, you have to prove that there was an unlawful killing.

[SPEAKER_03]: You have to prove criminal agency.

[SPEAKER_03]: And again, there's just no evidence that a criminal act occurred.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he said, quote, they don't have the law because they don't have the facts.

[SPEAKER_03]: He said the case was brought in 2024 because of Craig Matong, Gretchen Gephardt and Sargent Seekly, two out of three of these people did not testify.

[SPEAKER_03]: Quote, we may know why, but that's not an evidence, and quote.

[SPEAKER_03]: And what I did here later is that Craig Matong completely changed his story.

[SPEAKER_00]: Get the fuck out, really?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and that's why they couldn't call him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Shit.

[SPEAKER_03]: So sweet got up for his rebuttal and said the circumstantial evidence proves that Tim Hickerson expressed malice and consciousness of guilt throughout the criminal timeline.

[SPEAKER_03]: Burglery intent can be proven he admitted to the Burglery he lied during his first interview then admitted to it in a subsequent interview, which would have been fucking great if we had heard that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Also, they had that back in 2010 also.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like, why didn't they arrest him for that then?

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then the second degree murder charge.

[SPEAKER_03]: The killing of shame was done with malice.

[SPEAKER_03]: In terms of the Corpus delecta, you know, the whole.

[SPEAKER_03]: There isn't a body thing.

[SPEAKER_03]: The evidence is overwhelming.

[SPEAKER_03]: The shame was murdered by Tim Hickerson.

[SPEAKER_00]: No, it's not.

[SPEAKER_00]: You can say that all you want.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's no there's no [SPEAKER_03]: Shane has been gone without a trace for 15 years, and then he says that Tim's the body shouldn't be on his property statement as incriminating.

[SPEAKER_00]: So now he brings this up.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then didn't want to point that out to the jury when they were actually listening to it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, and speaking of which, the jury isn't in the courtroom when all this is going on.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because this is emotion.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is a most strike.

[SPEAKER_03]: So the jury's gone.

[SPEAKER_03]: So the jury's still not hearing any of this, by the way.

[SPEAKER_03]: He said that the burglaries is central because it determines a pattern of criminal exploitation and fear of exposure.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he said that it's quote logically impossible that Shane up and started a new life.

[SPEAKER_03]: which I mean I agree with and and I do appreciate the fact that the defense brought that up but they weren't hanging their hat on it because there's plenty of other non-evidence for them to work with.

[SPEAKER_03]: He said that Shane left his glasses and his contacts.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so I wrote a question, I said, well, wait a second, did he have multiple pairs?

[SPEAKER_03]: Because she couldn't see with those glasses.

[SPEAKER_03]: So like, what was he wearing on the 22nd?

[SPEAKER_03]: And if his glasses and contacts were there, and he didn't have other pairs, does that mean that he did make it into his house after Tim dropped him off?

[SPEAKER_03]: Mm-hmm.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, that was just a question I had during this.

[SPEAKER_03]: Sweet said that the cell phone's going off meant that he couldn't have arranged transport [SPEAKER_00]: except that there's at least one additional phone.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[SPEAKER_00]: We know about.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that we don't have the phone number because we don't know who has ever turned on or right.

[SPEAKER_03]: He said that the Hickerson farm was 100 acres and that Tim Hickerson had exclusive control over Shane Donahue and his movements, meaning that he was driving him.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then he's talking about malice, because that's another thing they have to prove.

[SPEAKER_03]: They said that Tim's conduct proves malice.

[SPEAKER_03]: He had financial motive and based criminal exposure.

[SPEAKER_03]: He had that $500 debt that provided motive.

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, oh, then he just said, Tim Hickerson was also involved in transporting fire arms with scratched off serial numbers.

[SPEAKER_03]: That was what I was wondering.

[SPEAKER_03]: Hadn't heard a single word about that in trial.

[SPEAKER_03]: If there was some reason why he couldn't talk about that trial, how are you bringing it up here as one of the things that's proving your case?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, right.

[SPEAKER_03]: So either he couldn't bring it up, in which case, it doesn't matter, you can't use it to prove.

[SPEAKER_00]: Malice?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Or you forgot to bring it up?

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, what?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is crazy.

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then there's another one.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then he says that there was a cute personal anger toward Shane from Tim.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he said there was a confrontation between the two of them about a Xanax pill that was found in Tim's mom's car.

[SPEAKER_03]: Tim had confronted Shane about the pill [SPEAKER_00]: When did that occur?

[SPEAKER_03]: Never in the trial.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, when did the argument even occur?

[SPEAKER_03]: No idea, because it was never brought up a trial.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, that could have been an argument that they had a year prior to that.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, or it could have been that day.

[SPEAKER_03]: No idea, because it was never brought up in trial.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then he said that there was a cover-up and that Tim purchased a new gun.

[SPEAKER_03]: But again, we learned that the new gun was purchased the day after Sheen went missing.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I don't know how that proves anything.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: And he said that Tim lied about where Sheen was.

[SPEAKER_03]: Considering the totality of evidence, the jury can reject Tim's self-serving statements.

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, and then on to concealing the body, evidence is sufficient for malicious intent and concealment, Shane's body is undiscovered, and the last location contains Hickerson Farm.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then he says there was a psychological confession of guilt when he was confronted with cell phone evidence.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know when this confrontation was by whom or anything, but he said that Tim stuttered and said, I don't know.

[SPEAKER_03]: didn't hear it, have no idea.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then the no it shouldn't be statement shows malicious intent in concealing the body.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but again, the jury never heard that where they did hear it, but he didn't really, yeah, say anything about it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now Sloan did his rebuttal and he basically said that Daniel Golden Emily could have been more impeached, you know, they can't be trusted, whatever.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now this is what's important.

[SPEAKER_03]: At that moment, the prosecution had rusted its case.

[SPEAKER_03]: The defense had not put on their case.

[SPEAKER_03]: So at this point, in terms of the motion to strike, the judge has to look at the evidence in a favorable light toward the prosecution.

[SPEAKER_03]: So she said the motion to strike is denied.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then she asked the defense, are you going to call any witnesses?

[SPEAKER_03]: the defense didn't know.

[SPEAKER_03]: She's then said so does the defense rest.

[SPEAKER_03]: He says yes.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now at that point, now that the defense has put on their case, even though they didn't put on a case, but technically, they had.

[SPEAKER_03]: She asked if he wants to renew his motion to strike, he said yes.

[SPEAKER_03]: So at that point, because both sides have gone, she has to just look at it neutrally.

[SPEAKER_03]: And this is when everything [SPEAKER_03]: because instead of calling the jury back in and telling the jury that the defense wasn't going to call any witnesses and instead they were going to start closing arguments the judge said quote it is undisputed that we have lost shame that is a loss that its family will feel for the rest of their lives and quote [SPEAKER_03]: But then she said, basically, that no rational fact finder could look at the evidence presented and say that Tim did it.

[SPEAKER_03]: So because of that, the motion to strike was granted, Tim Hickerson was acquitted.

[SPEAKER_03]: And because the jury had been seated, double jeopardy attached.

[SPEAKER_03]: So it's over.

[SPEAKER_03]: It was an incredibly emotional scene in the courtroom.

[SPEAKER_03]: Tim's family had been there throughout the trial.

[SPEAKER_03]: When he was acquitted, they of course got up and hugged each other and, you know, started crying and like everybody was obviously thrilled.

[SPEAKER_03]: Because they believe in Tim's innocence, a hundred percent.

[SPEAKER_03]: And they believe that he's been harassed for 15 years for something he had nothing to do with.

[SPEAKER_03]: The prosecution could have proved their case because he was innocent, and now it's over, and now he gets to go on a live his life.

[SPEAKER_03]: She had also had family in the courtroom, including both of his parents, his mother Donna, had not been attending the hearings because her cancer's back.

[SPEAKER_03]: She's not doing well, but she made sure to show up for the trial.

[SPEAKER_03]: It was so hard sitting there and watching the celebration on one side and the devastation on the other.

[SPEAKER_03]: There were a lot of tears from Shane's family and the first thing that his dad said was what about Shane's rights?

[SPEAKER_03]: His mother started crying and yelled, my daughter killed herself.

[SPEAKER_03]: There was a lot more of a commotion eventually.

[SPEAKER_03]: The deputy had to lead the Donnie Hughes out, told them to leave first.

[SPEAKER_03]: The Hickerson stayed behind.

[SPEAKER_03]: They left.

[SPEAKER_03]: I just tried to melt into the wall because it just felt, you know, it's just such an intimate moment.

[SPEAKER_03]: Just didn't feel like I should be witnessing this, you know?

[SPEAKER_03]: It was very, very painful.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I've had a couple of weeks now to reflect on everything.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I just cannot believe that this is what the commonwealth decided to do for the Donaheas after 15 years.

[SPEAKER_03]: I sat through numerous hearings two days of a trial that was supposed to last almost two weeks.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm more confused about what happened on March 22nd, 2010 than I was when I walked in.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know what happened to Shane.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know who's responsible for it.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, based on the evidence that the prosecution presented because the defense didn't have to do anything.

[SPEAKER_03]: Based on the evidence that the prosecution presented, [SPEAKER_03]: I don't think Tim, if he had anything to do with us, was solely responsible for it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Just from a logistical standpoint.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, one of the beliefs apparently that the family has is that Tim set Shane up that day and that he took him to Hickerson Farm where there were other people waiting for him.

[SPEAKER_03]: And that maybe Tim was involved physically in whatever happened to Shane after that or maybe he wasn't.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hmm.

[SPEAKER_00]: But there's no evidence of any of that.

[SPEAKER_03]: there isn't.

[SPEAKER_03]: But that's the only thing that could potentially make sense when you're looking at the CCTV footage of him at the gun store an hour later.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, if like he kind of sold Shane out and somebody else was responsible for the actual murder and the disposal of the body, then yeah, he could be at the gun store an hour later with some cash.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe knowing that shame was being killed, maybe having no idea.

[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe thinking shame was just being robbed or beaten up or or whatever.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like that to me makes sense with the timeline.

[SPEAKER_03]: But again, it's all speculation.

[SPEAKER_03]: And nothing remotely like that was presented as evidence in court.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm with you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is after hearing all of this and I obviously I wasn't there for it, but after hearing all of this, I mean, I, I'm leaning more towards Tim not having anything to do with this.

[SPEAKER_03]: But if Tim truly didn't have anything to do with it, then where did Shane go?

[SPEAKER_01]: Don't know.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, the other theory that, you know, could show Tim's innocence is that Tim dropped Shane off and somebody was waiting for Shane at Shane's house.

[SPEAKER_03]: And whatever happened to Shane happened there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Or he was taken somewhere else.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: And that Tim truly didn't have anything to do with it, but the only way that that works is if the cell phone data really was as squishy as the defense made it out to be.

[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.

[SPEAKER_03]: If that ping could have actually meant that Shane was at his house and not the Hickerson farm.

[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I don't know.

[SPEAKER_03]: I was reading some of the social media comments after the verdict from share music story, because she was there with me.

[SPEAKER_03]: The entire time, she's a reporter for the Prince William times.

[SPEAKER_03]: She's been covering this.

[SPEAKER_03]: I've been looking at the comments, and the Hickerson supporters are like, you know, this should have never been brought to trial.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, they didn't have the evidence.

[SPEAKER_03]: They didn't have a case.

[SPEAKER_03]: Obviously, from their perspective, I get that and clearly at the end of the day, they didn't have the evidence they didn't have a case.

[SPEAKER_03]: But from our perspective, as somebody who's been doing a podcast on missing people for over 200 episodes, like how many cases has there been a very clear suspect where we've thought Jesus Christ just arrests them, like just take the shot.

[SPEAKER_03]: And the thing with this one is, yeah, I didn't work.

[SPEAKER_03]: They didn't have the evidence.

[SPEAKER_03]: They didn't have the case.

[SPEAKER_03]: But they could have had more than they did.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I was looking back at my notes from the bond appeal hearing.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm like, they had more.

[SPEAKER_03]: They had more than.

[SPEAKER_03]: They were more together a year ago than they were now.

[SPEAKER_03]: This whole thing felt like, oh, shit.

[SPEAKER_03]: I have a project due tomorrow, and I haven't read the book.

[SPEAKER_00]: right, which is crazy because again, you know, 15 years and they had a year to prep for it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's not like this was was a last minute.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is sprung on me now.

[SPEAKER_00]: I have to put together a case.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like they had a whole year to prep for this.

[SPEAKER_00]: and from your description, they seemed unorganized, they didn't hammer any points home that could have presented evidence that Tim did it.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, they're just they didn't it didn't seem like they had anything.

[SPEAKER_03]: They didn't, and if they didn't think they were there, if they didn't think they had it, there was no need for them to arrest him, Hickerson, in September of 2024.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: What's the difference?

[SPEAKER_03]: It had been 14 years at that point.

[SPEAKER_03]: September 2024, March 2025, June 2025, what the fuck difference doesn't make at that point?

[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[SPEAKER_00]: Get your ducks in a row for her.

[SPEAKER_03]: Get your ducks in a row if you're gonna do it.

[SPEAKER_03]: And maybe you'll still lose.

[SPEAKER_03]: And because you know, there are a lot of things like, oh, well, Shane's mom is dying.

[SPEAKER_03]: They want to do this for the Donnie Hughes.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, like that's been said in a disparaging way.

[SPEAKER_03]: But like, okay, if that's what it takes for cops to actually look into something, fine.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't care about that.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think that's a bad thing.

[SPEAKER_03]: But if you're going to do it, do it right.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: And that doesn't mean you're going to win, but you need to put on a better show than you did here.

[SPEAKER_03]: Because they, in my opinion, did a disservice to the Donahue family by that performance.

[SPEAKER_03]: And also, if you believe that not only did the prosecution not provide enough evidence to convict him, but that him is factually innocent, then they did a huge disservice to the [SPEAKER_03]: It was just an absolute disaster all around and I just, I feel terrible about it.

[SPEAKER_03]: It was really hard to watch.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I want to just end real quick with two statements from each side, one from the prosecution, one from the defense.

[SPEAKER_03]: These are statements that they came out with right after the verdict.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, it wasn't, I don't know if you could even really call it a verdict, the dismissal.

[SPEAKER_03]: The ruling, the ruling, Amy Ashworth, who's the Commonwealth Attorney for Prince William, said, quote, we are disappointed in the ruling today.

[SPEAKER_03]: We have put a lot of work into this case and believed there was sufficient evidence to allow the case to go to the jury who could then deliberate and decide the guilt or innocence of Mr.

Hickerson.

[SPEAKER_03]: Sadly, the jury will not get that opportunity, [SPEAKER_03]: like okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, we've said it like I don't understand how they could think that they had enough evidence like it's it's mind blowing.

[SPEAKER_03]: Certainly not the way it was presented.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: And like, listen, I'm not a lawyer.

[SPEAKER_03]: I've said that many many times, but I did a video during the lunch break when the judge was considering the motion to dismiss.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I said, I think this might happen.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think that this is not even going to make it to the jury.

[SPEAKER_03]: Because I didn't see it.

[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't see the evidence.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: So this is the statement from Tim Herkerson's defense.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, the Commonwealth had access to everything compiled over the past 15 years regarding the disappearance of Shane Doniew on March 22, 2010.

[SPEAKER_03]: This included more than 70 witness interviews, multiple polygraph examinations, numerous property searches, and the full range of investigative tools [SPEAKER_03]: All information known to investigators was presented in open court.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, I will, let me break in here, disagree with that last sentence because when sweet was saying all that stuff at the end, he was talking about stuff that wasn't presented in open court, which was mind blowing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_03]: but back to the statement, quote, the Kamalus evidence against Mr.

Hickerson was legally insufficient.

[SPEAKER_03]: As the court found, no rational trial effect could find proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt for any of the charged offenses.

[SPEAKER_03]: For that reason, the trial judge acquitted Mr.

Hickerson of all charges.

[SPEAKER_03]: As the court noted, there are no winners in this matter, and quote, there's more to it, but I'm going to break in again.

[SPEAKER_03]: I was really confused about how they couldn't at least get them on the burglary, but apparently Tim's confession wasn't enough.

[SPEAKER_03]: They needed corroborating proof of the burglary, [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I think there wasn't like, there's solid testimony about that.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think if they would push a little bit harder, they could have gotten the burglary potentially, but they didn't.

[SPEAKER_03]: All right, so I'm going back to the statement now.

[SPEAKER_03]: Quote, we recognize that the court of public opinion may have reached conclusions long before this case ever came to trial.

[SPEAKER_03]: But now, for the first time, everything known about the case has been aired publicly through sworn testimony and admissible evidence.

[SPEAKER_03]: The Court of Public Opinion often operates from a motion rather than fact, and is too frequently influenced by rumor, speculation, and conjecture.

[SPEAKER_03]: A courtroom by contrast is governed by rules of evidence and the requirement that guilt be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

[SPEAKER_03]: The trial of Mr.

Hickerson has ended in an acquittal.

[SPEAKER_03]: This decision rounded in the evidence and the law must be accepted and respected, even by those who may disagree with it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Lastly, we address the comments made by Ms.

Ashworth following the ruling.

[SPEAKER_03]: Collectively, our team has more than 25 years of experience in criminal law, including a former prosecutor with over a decade of experience handling similar cases.

[SPEAKER_03]: We question the judgment involved in bringing these charges based on the evidence presented.

[SPEAKER_03]: The evidence was never sufficient to charge Mr.

Hickerson.

[SPEAKER_03]: Moreover, Ms.

Ashworth's suggestion that the courts ruling deprived the jury or the community of a decision on a legally sufficient case is inappropriate and inaccurate and unsupported by both the facts and the law.

[SPEAKER_03]: We do not take the result lightly, nor the gravity of this case, but we cannot allow a public official to offer unchecked statements that mischaracterize the process or the court's ruling.

[SPEAKER_03]: We respectfully request and thank you in advance for continued respect for the privacy of Mr.

Hickerson and his family as he begins to move on from this long and difficult process.

[SPEAKER_03]: End quote.

[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, I agree with everything that he said.

[SPEAKER_03]: Stop you're really going to feed into his ego.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I'm sorry, but like, and I see that because you guys, I haven't talked about this at all, but I've talked to Ethan about this.

[SPEAKER_03]: Brandon Sloan, Tim Hickerson's attorney, like, made it a point to talk to me like every single day of this.

[SPEAKER_03]: And, like, we talked to me about the videos I was making, and like, have done ask me about the podcast and stuff like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I don't mean to feed into his eat, but he brings up very solid points.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, yeah, it is inappropriate for the Commonwealth attorney to say that the judge's decision has deprived justice.

[SPEAKER_03]: because it has an end end okay and I do want to bring that up and I think I alluded we alluded to this in the very beginning about the Hickerson family and their relative power in noxphel because along with the comments that I've been reading I saw some that said oh my god the judges in their pocket this is all like who did they pay off all this stuff and listen I am not coming on here defending Tim Hickerson [SPEAKER_03]: Because, like I said, I still don't know if he's guilty or innocent, and unfortunately this trial, like I don't know.

[SPEAKER_03]: I just know that they didn't have the evidence to prove it.

[SPEAKER_03]: In terms of his factual guilt or innocence, I still don't have enough information to make that determination.

[SPEAKER_03]: Whatever.

[SPEAKER_03]: Point is, Judge Heran didn't excellent job.

[SPEAKER_03]: She was fair.

[SPEAKER_03]: She listened closely.

[SPEAKER_03]: and she ruled the way she ruled at the end because legally, I don't believe she had any other choice.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: And again, I'm a civilian to take it that for what it's worth, but she was an excellent judge.

[SPEAKER_03]: Nobody paid her off.

[SPEAKER_03]: She's not in the pocket of anybody.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like, she'll like that really is absurd.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm going back to again, the whole idea of like the Hickerson family being so powerful and like whatever, [SPEAKER_03]: It came out in the trial, like I mentioned that Donna Donahue worked for the Sheriff's Office prior to this, and Brian talked about all of his friends who were cops.

[SPEAKER_03]: So it seems like they had like a good amount of influence within law enforcement.

[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't hear anything saying that the Hickersons had any amount of influence in law enforcement.

[SPEAKER_03]: It keeps on pointing to the fact that Tim's dad was the fire chief for noxfill for like 20 whatever years.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, like that was a volunteer position.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't think that has the amount of cashier to get somebody to cover up a murder for 15 years.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: A couple of days before we are recording this, we had a pest control guy come to our house.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know what, that guy also does on the side.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's the chief for a local fire department here.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: But his main job is working for a pest control company.

[SPEAKER_03]: I also don't think he could get a murder covered up from 15 years.

[SPEAKER_00]: that that that kind of thought is just ridiculous.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's I'm not saying it doesn't happen.

[SPEAKER_03]: But it was in and yes, corruption absolutely happens, especially when you're talking about small towns and, you know, shit like that, like, if somebody's telling you, yeah, people in Noxville are corrupt, I mean, I'll believe you, but.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, but it wasn't Noxville police department.

[SPEAKER_03]: It was principally in county police, [SPEAKER_03]: You work for the government.

[SPEAKER_03]: We've said that on the show before, so we can say it.

[SPEAKER_03]: You work for the government.

[SPEAKER_03]: One of the biggest lessons I've learned from being with you for over a decade is the government is full of a lot of people who have no idea what the fuck they're doing.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that a lot of what people point to as conspiracies are often just incompetence.

[SPEAKER_03]: I'm just I'm not going to agree or disagree with you in case you know any of my supervisor listening to this no not then they're all brilliant and perfect didn't mean you guys no but seriously like every and I work in local government it's like just full of people who are just they are trying to get a job done that's it [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it really is just trying to go home at the end of the day.

[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_03]: They're clocking in.

[SPEAKER_03]: They're clocking out most of the time.

[SPEAKER_03]: They're not putting effort into grand conspiracies.

[SPEAKER_03]: And sometimes when cases get fucked up like this, it's because people are just not very good at their jobs.

[SPEAKER_03]: Anyway, Matthew sweet is one of the attorneys who's in charge of the mom to conflict case.

[SPEAKER_03]: So it's feel like it's going to be really awkward [SPEAKER_00]: That's provided he listens to those.

[SPEAKER_03]: Hopefully he doesn't, and hopefully he, because he always ignores me in the courthouse, which I appreciate, honestly, and I hope he keeps on doing it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Unfortunately, that's where we are on the Shane Donahee case.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's a sad ending all around because Shane's still gone, and likely things are going to remain that way.

[SPEAKER_03]: My hope, as somebody who spends a lot of time talking about unsolved missing persons cases like chains, is that the lesson that is taken away from this isn't don't take these cases to trial, especially if it's been years, especially if it's cold.

[SPEAKER_03]: I hope the lesson is, these people still deserve justice.

[SPEAKER_03]: No matter how long it's been, [SPEAKER_03]: and in order to get justice for that person, you have to work twice as hard.

[SPEAKER_03]: These cases aren't cut and dry.

[SPEAKER_03]: These aren't cases where somebody shot on CCTV in front of a crowd of people.

[SPEAKER_03]: These cases have gone cold.

[SPEAKER_03]: And when you're dealing with a case that might not have forensics, that might not have witnesses, you have to take special care in building it.

[SPEAKER_03]: To anyone who might be listening, who is even peripherally involved in cases like this, this is in a sign to give up on them.

[SPEAKER_03]: This is a sign to work harder.

[SPEAKER_03]: Shane Donney who has been missing from Noxel Virginia since March 22, 2010.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's a white male with brown hair and brown eyes.

[SPEAKER_03]: At the time of his disappearance, who's approximately 5 foot 11 in 160 pounds, Shane was 23 when he went missing.

[SPEAKER_03]: He would be 39 today.

[SPEAKER_03]: We have any information about the disappearance of Shane Donney, please contact the Prince William County [SPEAKER_03]: You can see all the sources for this episode along with photos and videos at our website and then they were gone.com.

[SPEAKER_00]: And be sure to follow us on social and then they were gone pod on Facebook and at ATTWG pod on Instagram and TikTok.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you like what we're doing, please subscribe and consider leaving a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

[SPEAKER_00]: It will help me listeners find us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the more people listen, the more chances we have of bringing someone home.

[SPEAKER_03]: And we'll see you here next week for a brand new episode.

[SPEAKER_00]: See you next week.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then they were gone as hosted by Kona Gallagher and Ethan Flick, all research writing and editing is done by me, Kona Gallagher.

[SPEAKER_03]: The music is the stork by Ketsa.

[SPEAKER_03]: Additional music is provided by Kai Engel.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then they were gone is a little monster production.

[SPEAKER_03]: Hey, you could go in!