Abby & Jamie ////// 717 | Forensic Files

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[Music] crime an abandoned Barn in rural Ohio Goes Up in Flames fire investigators dig through
the rubble and smoking Embers only to find that the dilapidated out building wasn't empty as
suspected first one charred set of remains and then a second is located two sets of human remains were
Unearthed from the ruins of this barnfire turned body recovery site and of course it wasn't difficult to quickly
determine that the fire was no accident some someone or someone's had something that they did not want you or
anyone else to find a peaceful community outside of the big city of Columbus Ohio was about to
be shaken to its [Music] core two were dead and an arsonist and killer was living among
them this is true crime garage and this is the case vabby warl and Jamie [Music]
Kelly September 25th 1994 Karen warl called the Licking County Ohio sheriff's office she told
the dispatcher that her daughter Abby was missing and so was her daughter's friend Jamie
Kelly both girls Abby WHL and Jamie Kelly were 16 years old deputies were sent out to talk to Karen at her home in
basca Ohio Karen reported the following the night before Abby and Jamie went to a party in the Beachwood Trail
subdivision the two teenagers returned to Karen's home also located in Beachwood Trails they returned by 1 a
a.m. Karen saw them at this time Jamie was sleeping over and Karen witnessed the two girls getting ready for bed the
next morning Karen and the girls they had plans at 10:00 a.m. Karen got tired of waiting so she went to aby's room to
wake the girls she was quite surprised to see that they were not there she found a window open in the room she
looked around and noticed that the clothes that the girls were wearing the night before were missing as well she
and the deputies surmised that Abby and Jamie likely went back out that night leaving the house
voluntarily Jaime's mom and stepdad Connie and Frank swany called the Sheriff's Office later that same morning
to report Jaimie missing as well so now we have two parents from two separate households calling to report 16-year-old
daughters missing law enforcement would be told by Karen that her daughter ran away once before at least once before
and it seems possible that the authorities may have been involved in one of those occasions now unfortunately
nothing will make a missing person's investigation less of a priority for local law enforcement than the prior
actions of a rebellious teen who likely ran out to party or meet up with some friends yeah I always complain on the
show that we need law enforcement to take these missing person reports very serious and they normally jump to the
conclusion that somebody just ran away on their own so when you have a prior history of this that's obviously more
likely to have law enforcement jump to that conclusion per the new Yark Advocate sightings of the girls had
placed them in several locations out of town now we have the Sheriff's Office the Licking County Sheriff's off office
Captain Ray back he said quote we don't know what they were getting into between
here and Columbus so we're talking this is about roughly let's say an hour drive from
Columbus to this location and he's simply saying we got two teenagers out we don't know where
they are we've had some sightings of them we don't know what they're up to but the girls didn't come home home So
eventually an investigation was opened and the Sheriff's Department Personnel began talking to other
teens teens that knew the girls to see if they could get a bead on their whereabouts this is late September now
we're going to fast forward to Sunday October 2nd this is about a week after the girls went missing the Fairfield
County Fire Department was called out to a barnfire this was an abandoned Barn off of Ohio Route 158 about 10 Mi south
of patasca a newspaper carrier who was out on his pre-done route saw the blaze calls it in so the firefighters get to
the barn they're putting out the blaze now they got to figure out what what caused this it's a abandoned Barn
they're looking for evidence of arson or or again just how this fire got started
and they're going to be surprised and not pleasantly surprised correct cuz they're trying to determine a point of
origin for the fire and that's when they're surprised they're going to find human remains among the smoking rubble
and it appeared to be two bodies that they were looking at the corpses were removed Licking County authorities were
notified and they realiz that they could have a problem on their hands we have Abby and Jamie who were still missing at
this time right and now there were two unidentified bodies in a neighboring County so on Monday they contacted the
wars in the Kelly and asked for dental records after receiving them they were identified fairly quickly Abby and Jamie
were unfortunately dead their bodies found in that abandoned Barn this is 10 mi from their home in a rural section of
Fairfield County what could have happened here well according to the autopsies it didn't take long to
determine that the girls had not been killed in any fire the fire was not the cause of their death right Dr Keith
Norton forensic pathologist and deputy coroner of Franklin County issued an autopsy report stating that jimie
Kelly's date of death could have been anywhere from 3 to 7 days before the body The Remains were located and the
same for Abby they were so decomposed and burned that it was hard to determine time of death Abby and Jamie had both
been shot Jamie once in the head and Abby three times in the chest and once in the head as well for evidentiary
purposes the best conditioned bullet removed was determined to be a 45 caliber rifling specifications
correspond to those found in some Ruger black Blackhawk and Dakota brand single action revolvers but could also be found
in some other types of handguns as well but that's the best that they could seem
to narrow it down with their findings meanwhile we have the fire scene investigators who are pouring over
the barn This Barn they determined was owned by a Mary roads she told them that she did not know how the barn could have
started to burn but it was quickly ruled in our because they were able to determine
captain that gasoline was used as an accelerant to start this fire yeah very tough situation here you got two parents
looking for the missing children and the fact that they left the house I I think
that would bother me as a parent they obviously came home that was their ruse to then go back out what reason did they
have to go back out into the night who are they meeting up with why wouldn't they just tell me where
they're going I think this stuff would plague you and then like you said not much later law enforcement is calling
for identifier dental records and when you hear that as a parent again that'd be
something very devastating to to deal with but now you have a situation where okay we have two victims
they were murdered and now there was a cover up just the fire in general and the way these victims were found I would
think makes it a little more difficult for law enforcement to to figure out what happened yes it does and here here
gets to be the problem with your investigation right away so you have these other sightings possible
sightings you can't fully verify if it was actually the two missing girls and then your time of death skews your
investigation a bit too because you have the experts telling you that they were probably killed 3 to seven days before
being found well if it's seven days then that means they weren't actually missing
and a lot of those potential sightings are not true it was not our two victims and what we see a lot of times in
missing person cases that you have false accounts false eyewitness accounts of seeing individuals that went missing and
not because and not because those eyewitnesses want to throw law enforcement or the parents off the track
it's because people want to help so when they hear of these missing girls almost
eyewitnesses come out of the Woodworks oh I might have saw them here I might have saw them there and that kind of
gives you a false sense of hope your investigation would lead you to talking to friends of the girls talking to other
teenagers their peers naturally but in this instance what you have too is you know or at least through talking with
Mom and what you're seeing at her house it's believed by all parties that the girls willingly voluntarily left that
home late that night so they sneak out of the house the kickstarter for your investigation as said you would talk to
peers anyway but what you do know is they didn't sneak out of that house to hang out with each other likely they
were going to be meeting up with somebody else or someone's else so this would lead you this would be the
kickstarter for your investigation we need to talk to all these people the all the peers that of of theirs that knew
them knew them well and might have heard or talked to somebody that maybe they were going to meet up with later that
night they were hanging out with people prior to going back to Karen's house right so the difficult thing will be the
interviews and that's what we're getting to now so we have Abby Marie WHL and Jamie K Kelly again both 16 years old
they're both students at the same school this is Watkins Memorial High School aby's mom was single at this time
unfortunately aby's father was deceased Jaime's parents were divorced and her mom was remarried their deaths were a
terrible blow to Watkins which had seen a weird rash of deaths among its student body as of late
right in July of 1993 a male student accidentally shot a female and then took his own life and while Abby and Jamie
were still missing you know they're missing for a little over a week a female student had taken her life as
well so the total number of fatalities among the student body five in just a 15mon time period And if you're law
enforcement I think this would make it a little more complicated because yes we have the student body that we need
to interview and and figure things out but we don't have one victim so we don't have one Inner Circle we have two
victims so we have two inner circles that's correct and Meanwhile we're trying to sort this out and we have the
school who is trying to address this weird situation with its student body and trying to cope and to
help the student body who many of these young people are sad and confused by all
the tragedies that are going on around this time now initial media reports state that investigators had no suspects
and this did not ease the minds of the community obviously the deranged killer or of two innocent teenage girls could
be somebody likely is somebody in their Community the other threat here is that it's very possible that it's somebody at
the high school yeah it makes you wonder if there's two victims are there two murderers yeah you had one freshman girl
when interviewed by the local news is saying look the killer could be roaming these Halls the halls of this school
that we're all showing up to five days a week Fairfield County Sheriff Gary demastry took charge of the
investigation he told the Columbus Dispatch that's our major local newspaper here he said quote we don't
have many homicides in Fairfield County and when we do we like to solve them and
get the people in jail who are responsible for them end quote not going to argue with that deast assigned all
nine of his detectives as well as some deputies to the case so this is an all handson deck situation and you have to
applaud law enforcement for throwing all their resources at this case investigators with Fairfield County and
Licking County Sheriff's offices jointly set out interviewing family friends and
classmates of the girls trying to piece together what they could from the stories that they were told mostly from
youths so this would be about 75 people total that they would interview and they
had a difficult task of trying to get teens to talk openly with them this was before cell phones and texting was not a
thing of course so police did not have the ability to search social media or phone interactions to get to the bottom
of things it seems that investigators figured out very quickly that the murders had happened close to home
basing what they're finding talking to these youngsters they're starting to piece
this kind of convoluted story confusing story together one of the first good tips that
they get comes from an individual named Matt Young he's 16 at the time he told police that Abby had a feud going with
an older girl her name was Sonia Hawkins she's 19 remember our victims are 16 Sonia's long long time boyfriend was a
guy named Robert Daniel he's 16 he goes to whiteall so he goes to a different school but the word around
school was that Sonia hated Abby A source told the Columbus Dispatch that Sonia had beat up Abby at one point
saying quote kids in school were afraid of Sonia she was tough but another kid told investigators that although Abby
and Sonia had a beef in the past that at some point they had made up another kid they talked to was Robert
he's known as Bobby sheets several others had told them that Bobby used to date Abby he told them he heard that the
girls were missing but he didn't have any idea where they would be but other kids told them this Bobby sheets
actually had made plans to hang out with Abby to meet up with Abby on the night that the girls went missing that they
snuck out of the house he was in a car waiting when they did sneak out and went back to his house
so that's the rumor that's going around town and around the school that police are getting tipped off to apparently it
wasn't the first time that Abby had fled to Bobby's other teens told the cops that Abby ran away once before and had
hid at Bobby's home another kid told investigators that Bobby Sheet's Behavior had started to become very
strange in the time that the girls were missing leading up to the time that the bodies would be found in the barn well
and if I'm law enforcement I mean you have this beef between these two high school girls or
one now at high school but that normally does not turn into what it seems to be almost two
executions and then a barn set on fire to cover up the evidence yeah and very strangely too you have a
situation where we don't have a great grasp of time of death but regardless what the science is telling the coroner
is that minimum 3 days before they were found well that Barn wasn't on fire for 72 hours that Barn was on fire for a
short period of time before it was located and they're attempting to put out the blaze so why the discrepancy in
this time frame why why isn't this timeline a little more direct it almost seems like whatever took place or
whoever is responsible for killing the girls then sat and waited to try to completely discard of the bodies and
completely conceal them maybe for good so if I'm picking up what you're putting down what you're saying is you think
that the crime probably took place on that night that they left their house but then maybe the bodies were placed
into that barn and then a couple days later the barn set on fire that's what I'm thinking and and who knows how long
or where the bodies were concealed but what the statistics would tell us is that typically yes when an individual
goes missing and later found to be murdered it's often that they are killed relatively quickly after the time that
they vanished or disappeared and here's the weird thing too the sheriff's detectives they're kind of getting this
vibe after talking to all these different teenagers one they're they're kind of clued into this beef that's
going on or may have gone on and ended right but now they're they're kind of getting this vibe that some of the kids
don't want to talk and they think that maybe some of the kids are either afraid because of rumors that they've heard or
possibly have been threatened by someone yeah but at least some individuals are talking so even if it's just rumors even
if it's just hearsay at least you're getting some names and some leads so you can go
question them as law enforcement we have one teenager this is a 16-year-old boy we won't name names here
for obvious reasons he's interviewed by investigators and he says he tells them that he had received
a death threat doesn't go into great detail just that he has received a death threat we also have one 15-year-old girl
who tells investigators that she received a phone call on October 5th from a man with a deep voice warning her
to keep her mouth shut about the murders or she would be next the boy that was threatened this is where we're going to
get a little bit more information here because he's having a second meeting with investigators and he tells
investigators that Bobby sheets now this is the second time that we've heard this
name was involved in whatever happened to the girls but as far as he knew Bobby had only intended to tie Abby up to a
tree and beat her up this boy said that he heard it all went down in a graveyard
somewhere behind Bobby's house he also said that uh there was a rumor that Bobby carried a 45 caliber
handgun the rumor was that this gun was hidden somewhere I guess it was like near a bridge or or near Bobby's home
somewhere right the difficult thing here is we we know that this Bobby Sheet's name has come up a couple of times right
we know that it's rumored that when one of the girls had left before that she had even hit out with Bobby we know that
one of the girls had a relationship with Bobby sheets at some point some of this
has got to sound a little strange a little bizarre to investigators when you are hearing these things of oh I I heard
he was involved but he was supposed to just tie her up and beat her up and even that's extreme that's very
extreme so that's going to be interesting to your investigation but also it's and then it went down in a
graveyard behind Bob's house some of this has got to feel like a giant game of telephone to some of these
investigators who was telling who what and how extreme is that are the details becoming after they've been regurgitated
from teenager to teenager to teenager right so now you have to sort out does this
individual actually have real knowledge of something thing or is he just trying to be helpful and he's telling you all
of these distorted rumors that have come about with the because let's face it this is going to create all kinds of and
I hate to use this word but for a lack of better term excitement in the school right extreme
levels of sadness extreme levels of fear extreme levels of of also trying to figure out what happened to these people
that maybe you didn't even know maybe you just knew the name or heard the name because you went to the same school the
other weird thing too here Captain is that another student tells the detective that somebody else
was rumored to have a gun when asked who is this person that has the gun he says
it's aanya Hawkins notice it's a variation of a name that we've heard before Sonia
Hawkins and we know that 19 detectives said early in the investigation two news reports it's all
related but we're still sorting things out they were still in the thick of interviews and information gathering
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to all the beautiful listeners me as well captain and cheers to everybody out there have a safe a very safe week
especially for those traveling to see their loved ones on October 9th this is the big break that police were hoping
for we we get a woman and her boyfriend com into the Sheriff's Office they're reporting that some of their guns were
missing and one of them was a 45 caliber handgun remember investigators believe that this was the kind of gun that may
have been used in the double homicide this couple LTA Carol and her boyfriend Dwayne
Baker they weren't exactly certain when some of their guns went missing they did
tell police look we believe it was sometime between August 15th and September 24th
right this is an interesting lead though they also tell investigators lta's daughter Sonia might know who took the
guns right you got a teenage daughter there's probably teenagers in and out of your
house it's reasonable to believe that maybe the daughter might have a clue who stole these guns so now invest
instigators are going to sit down with 19-year-old Sonia she's a student at Watkins high
school so having a little trouble graduating it sounds like uh to me according to records under questioning
Sonia made statements that incriminated herself and actually two other teens in the girls
deaths the two teens that she incriminated were Bobby sheets age 15 of Baltimore Ohio he remember he's a
student at Watkins and Rob Daniels 16 of whiteall he went to a different high school he went to a high school in
whiteall Ohio so this is going to lead us to some searches because this is powerful information in their
investigation having heard from some of the kids that it all went down or the rumor was
that it all went down at Bobby's sheriff's deputies obtained search warrants for the Sheet's
residents which is on Blacklick Road they also obtain search warrants for the sheets
family's vehicles and an out building now they failed to find the gun the murder weapon which was the primary
thing that they were looking for but what we do get is Sheriff deasy saying to the media quote during the search
behind one of the walls in the out buildings we did find some articles of clothing that had stains that appeared
to be blood they also found newspapers with blood stains on them as well after some testing in a little bit of time
they're able to determine that the blood that was found on these items matched aby's blood yeah so now we
have a very big problem we didn't find that murder weapon that we were looking for but we found our victim's blood at a
home at a property where one of the individuals that we've been told by others may have been
involved or may know what happened this very quickly is going to lead to an arrest but not just one
arrest captain four arrests were made so the suspects that were arrested were Bobby sheets as we would suspect
he's 15 Robert or Rob Daniels who we've brought up he's 16 Sonia Hawkins 19 and sheets this one's very
interesting who is LC sheets it's Bobby's mom 54 years old what remember the other weird thing here
too Captain is that we had at least one student who tells police there's somebody else that you know there's a
person that is rumored to have a gun is Tanya Hawkins well we have a Sonia Hawkins who is a suspect that's arrested
so likely that kid was trying to give information good information to law enforcement and just got the the name
wrong right so the charges for Rob and Bobby were actually delinquency counts of aggravated murder theft of a handgun
and tampering with evidence the charges for Elsie Bobby's mom and Sonia three counts each of complicity to commit
aggravated murder tampering with evidence abuse of a corpse and arson Sonia was also charged with theft of a
firearm according to sheriff deasy Abby and Jamie ended up meeting up with Bobby
Sonia and Rob late that night after they snuck out to and continued to party this
apparently is believed to be in a field behind Bobby Sheet's home on Blacklick Road well this would make sense with the
rumors that the murders took place behind his house and possibly in a cemetery the girls were shot
there on the same night that they climbed out the bedroom window both boys were involved in the shooting jimie and
Abby were transported to a barn about 1 and A2 miles away and the barn was later
set on fire this is the belief this is the theory that the police are working with after making
these arrests after collecting a bunch of evidence I wonder after having this evidence if they were able to go back
and talk to neighbors and to to to find out if they heard any gunshots so maybe not
eyewitnesses but possibly some earwitnesses of the night of the murder there is some type of graveyard or
Cemetery that's not terribly far from Bobby's home either so you can see how that kind of got all wrapped up in some
statements that were given to detectives right Sheriff de Master also made a statement that Elsie
sheets was being charged even though she did not witness the murders according to
the allegations against Elsie quote when they returned from disposing of the bodies she made a pizza for everyone at
the home end quote Sheriff deast said that the only motive they could come up with was some bad feelings between the
teens the allegations made by the sheriff were hard to believe of course why would teens kill each other well
hopefully we're about to find out get to the bottom of the story well just so I'm
clear so when they come back the murders take place then they transfer the bodies to This Barn so now
they have the bodies hidden they go back to one of the kids' house and the mother
that's being charged she makes a pizza for the kids correct if if the police theory if the sheriff's theory is
correct then that's really the simple version of how this all played out so then are they assuming that then she
heard information about what happened that night and she just didn't come forward to law enforcement well here's
the best part at this point in our timeline you now have four people under arrest four people charged with some
serious charges some of them you know varying from one another but now you have them in your custody separated and
you're interviewing them individually to try to piece together exactly what happened to make sure that the right
people are getting charged with the right charges no it's a very smart tactic because you can prove
that as far as the timeline you can prove that the mother is involved but there's no proof that she has
information but just by arresting her that's going to put pressure on her that's going to put pressure on her
daughter that's going to put pressure on all the other kids because if you're a kid you go well maybe the other kids
won't crack but you're more likely to believe that an the adult in this situation is
going to do the adult thing and tell the cops the information they know in his post arrest interview Bobby
sheets claimed that Abby called him from a party on the night of September 24th remember that's the night that they
eventually snuck out and went missing and he says that the two of them made plans to meet up later she brought jimie
with her for this later Meetup right they all sat outside Bobby's house drinking Rob wanted to have sex with
Jamie and she refused now keep in mind this is just according to one of the individuals arrested and his post arrest
interview Bobby says that Rob then pulled out a gun and ordered Bobby to kill the girls Bobby admitted to holding
the gun and he said quote Rob told me to do it and I just decided he wanted me to
shoot Abby end quote I said no I wouldn't do it then he just reached over and went trigger happy Bobby sheets told
the police I never shot it he shot Abby one time first and then he reached over and shot jimie and after
that he started shooting a couple of times at Abby Bobby said that then his mother
just sat there in a days just freaking out so they're all Bobby's property you said earlier you want to interview
neighbors to see if they heard anything this is Bobby in his interview after he's arrested saying my mom heard the
shots right and so he tells police my mom just sat there in a days just freaking out as he meaning Rob and Sonia
moved the bodies to the barn he said Rob and Sonia carried Abby inside and Rob came out wiping blood off of a knife and
told Bobby that he and Sonia had stabbed Abby and she was dead they then dumped Jaime's body in the barn as well when
they got inside to their surprise Abby was still moaning at this Rob picked up a concrete block and threw it on her
head to kill her of course Bobby made sure that in his version of the events he hadn't
actually done anything wrong right he he didn't stab anybody he didn't shoot anybody he didn't throw the concrete
block he didn't even move the bodies according to his version of the statements right sorry his version of
the story he also said that Rob had been the one to order the barn to be burnt to
the ground in order to hide all of the evidence now of course Bobby's not going to be the only one to give a story to
police Rob was interviewed as well on the day of his arrest in his statement Rob claimed that two weeks before the
slangs Bobby sheets Jr and his mother Elsie sheets and Sonia Hawkins all three of the other people that were
arrested plotted to beat up Abby WHL because she and some friends had been harassing the Sheet's
family speaking of lsie sheets Rob stated yes she knew exactly what was going on cuz she helped Bobby plan it so
according to rob that he's telling a very different story right that this was something that was planned out not hey I
tried to have sex with this girl she refused and then I went trigger happy like Bobby says right he's saying these
three told me about this plan weeks before they were killed he goes on to tell police that
Elsie was involved and so much so that she paid him Rob $40 to keep quiet so Rob says he had known about it
for weeks but did not get notified that they were actually going to do the deed until that night Major Robert Lowry
later testified that in his interview in this interview with Rob Rob changed his
story multiple times he says that first Rob admitted to firing a gun but that he
had been told the weapon was loaded with blanks then he said that Bobby shot Abby
four times and then Rob shot jimie because she was a witness Rob also said in his statement that we were supposed
to kill them in the cemetery but Bobby got scared so we went back to his house so Rob while there might be some truth
to Rob's story we have the officer saying he gave us several different versions of how this all played out well
and this becomes the issue for law enforcement because yes you have these suspects arrested but you have to put
together a case to get a conviction and so when you have differing accounts in court you can play that
against each each other and possibly not get somebody charged and sentenced for this crime yeah you run that risk I
think the the bigger risk that you have here too is if these trials are going to
go to a jury is not being able to lay out a clear cut narrative backed with evidence and witness statements to
confirm that narrative that that theory that you're laying out for the jury right and if you get confused juries
then what what it looks like to me by this point Captain given these statements given some of the evidence
that they have that they have a pretty solid case against at least the three youngsters the mother gets a little bit
tricky here and but we still have two more post arrest statements to get to right but but the but the risk you're
exactly right the risk you run here is that maybe they don't get charged to the fullest to the to the full extent of
what their actual crimes were so Sonia in her interview she admitted that she and Rob had stolen three guns
from her mom in Dwayne's house so Mom and Dwayne were right you might want to ask our
daughter she might have an idea who stole these guns Well turns out she admitted to stealing him with her
boyfriend Rob Bobby was on the lookout during the theft of the guns according to Sonia their plan was to sell the guns
she said but instead one of them was used to kill Abby and Jamie Sonia initially had told authorities that
Bobby shot Abby and Rob shot Jamie but then later changed her story and she said Rob killed both girls then she said
that she didn't see the first shot fired as she was running to hide behind a tree
but then did see Rob fire the gun shooting jimie once and Abby three times so this is really just a mess a big mess
for investigators as we've discussed the interviews and the statements we got them we got we got a bunch of different
statements here it looks like we got the right people the problem is none of their stories are meshing well together
so it looks like a a soup of lies at this point well on top of that the evidence we do have is we do have these
victims were shot so when you have these suspects saying well we threw a concrete
block or this individual stabbed them some of that evidence is covered up by the
fire and so that makes it even a little more difficult to partiel out what what is the truth and what is lies because if
you know that evidence you have a clearer idea of what happened and so whatever they tell you can't muddy up
the actual facts a lot of the upcoming information comes from The Columbus Dispatch which did ter terrific coverage
on this case and of course we relied heavily on them for the research of this episode
but what you get here captain now that you have these arrests remember there were some threats made there were some
of the teenagers that were scared and now some of that fear has gone away now that you've got people
behind bars and charges that have been filed while the investigators still sort out the details of what exactly happened
so now we have others coming forward that that were previously talked to that are giving further details and some
rumors that they had heard one of them was that Bobby had told a few people that he wanted Abby Dead uh for several
reasons apparently that there was some beef or some harassment between her and Bobby sheets and his mother Mrs sheets
remember there was talk of some kind of harassment going on there's also a report that said that Abby was trying to
collect $200 from Bobby sheets because he had taken her class ring and we know that they were in a relationship at some
point prior to these events others were now telling detectives that Bobby said that Abby was pregnant with his kid and
that at some point she had aborted his baby now to be perfectly straight up here we do not
know whether this is true or not this is just some of the information that was coming out there was also information
that came out that Elsie sheets hated Abby because of that P perceived harassment that we talked
about but she also believed that Abby had vandalized Bobby's car at some point and we don't know what's discussed
between mother and son but if he seems to believe that Abby was pregnant and aborted the baby well
it's likely she could be very upset about that situation as well so it turns turns out what we end up hearing is that
Rob Bobby Sonia and Elsie had all discussed killing Abby and other people were somewhat
aware of pieces and parts of that information or those rumors right which would make all this premeditated so we
know from the four arrested their statements and now the statements of others that we have the right for
suspects that doesn't seem to be in question it just remained unclear how everything went down exactly now the
best that we can tell from sorting everything out is it seems likely that Bobby Rob and Sonia Abby and Jamie all
walked back together to the sheets residence from the graveyard at some point Bobby pulls out
a gun and shot Abby then at some point Rob grabs the gun and shot Jamie this took place behind a garage on
the sheets property now keep in mind that we are talking about a very large property one but also we're trying to
sort this out from multiple different Tales of who shot who Sonia said that she didn't see the first shot that hit
Abby but she saw Rob shoot Jamie once and then shoot Abby three more times Rob said that he shot Jamie but Bobby shot
Abby all four times and Bobby said that Rob did all of the shoo so we we got a bunch of people pointing the fingers at
one another the New York Advocate news summed it up the best I believe they said quote despite testimony regarding
the statements of three people charged in the deaths of Jamie Kelly and Abby warl it is still not clear who fired the
shots end quote but if we're law enforcement we have to take all these stories and try to piece something
together that we think makes sense and that you can back up some of it with the evidence now keep in mind remember that
Barn it does not belong to the Sheet's family right and it's now believe that the girls were killed on the Sheet's
property so at some point the three teens transported the bodies the I'm basing this off of the
vehicle that they had a Pontiac Firebird and the number of individuals involved here and based off of some of the
further details of their statements that that we don't have time to get into all
those details but it sounds to me Captain like it's likely that they transported the bodies one at a time
back to this Barn area or to this abandoned Barn area discarded of the gun at some point in the process and then
afterward driving back to Bobby's house now here's where things get more mind-blowing and this is not something
that's really in question here this seems to be hardcore fact So eventually the kids arrive back at at the sheets
house this around 4:00 a.m. at this point they're all covered in blood and they actually tell Bobby's mom what had
happened that and one of the statements one of the perpetrators says it was done we told Bobby's mom it was
done that backs up the the prior statements that some of this was premeditated if not all premeditated and
all discussed by all four people Elsie does not freak out like Bobby said she did she did not sit the kids down and
tell them hey turn yourself in nor did she call in even an anonymous tip to try to be helpful no Elsie actually tells
the kids take off all your clothes remember they're bloody they're dirty at this point she washes the clothes for
the kids and meanwhile the kids are out washing and cleaning out the vehicle that they use to transport the bodies so
as she's doing laundry she's like hey I might as well make them a pizza well she
goes even a step further Elsie then went to the grocery for frozen pizza and cigarettes and they all sat around
eating pizza and smoking sigs what's wrong with this world then the four discussed how they were going to keep
this whole thing quiet how they were going to get away with it now according to Rob Elsie said that she would pay him
$120 to keep quiet but she only had 40 on her so that's what she gave to him later that same day the teens drove
Elsie's Pontiac to Big Walnut Park in Columbus where they hid a black garbage bag and a drain pipe inside the bag were
Jim's and aby's jackets one of the leather jackets had several bullet holes in it
police later recovered these items from the drain pipe so they're able you see how they're able to verify parts of
these stories based off of the evidence a week later Bobby Elsie and Sonia decided to burn the barn now
whether or not Rob actually ordered it to be burned is a matter of contention right but it has been stated that Elsie
was the one who knew where the barn was and actually that she may have been the one who selected it as a place to
conceal the bodies in the first place so she's very Hands-On it appears in this whole
operation Elsie drove Bobby and Sonia to a gas station to buy a 5G can of gasoline and then drove them out to the
barn where it said that she waited in the car while they set the entire place including the bodies on fire the record
reflects that Rob stated Abby was killed because Bobby sheets was tired of her and that he and her mother did not like
her at all that they they they had this problem with her and he further stated that Rob killed Jamie because she was a
witness and we didn't want any Witnesses so unfort unfortunately Abby was the target get all along and it looks like
jimie was just a collateral victim the legal proceedings got very difficult and the
early stages Captain the best way to sum it up is we have a couple of people that
are miners here so you have the the problem the hurdle of well do we try them as adults or as minors and just as
we saw in our episodes the Jordan Brown case in episodes 551 and 552 it's a similar situation if these
juveniles are convicted as juveniles they'll only be held in prison till or an institution till the age of 21 yeah
but if they're tried as adults they could face life in prison which I think that's what they deserve well some would
say or could make an argument that these individuals deserve to be executed and lit on fire premeditated murder is a
very serious charge and so with that should come very serious consequences if found guilty now in January of 1995
Sonia actually pled guilty to the charges against her and she sat and cried and in
throughout the the guilty plea the judge sentenced Sonia to a concurrent 15 years to life
for the two complicity to murder charges the judge also sentenced her to 13 and half years for the convictions on the
Lesser charges plus a mandatory three-year term because a gun was used in the slanging so in total her term is
going to be 282 Years to Life Sonia will become eligible for parole in 22 years she was going to have to spend her 20s
and her 30s in prison thinking about what she had done now as part of her plea agreement Captain Sonia was requir
wired to testify against the three other suspects Elsie Bobby and Rob Elsie's case actually goes to trial and her
defense is simply that she didn't know exactly what was going on and what parts she was involved in she was defending or
protecting her son yeah and she could state or make whatever defense she wanted to but at the end of the day we
know that she was involved and that she helped cover this all up exactly and that's going to be the jury's findings
as well they deliberated for four hours on day one five hours on day two but eventually they'll come back with a
guilty verdict on all of the charges for and against Elsie that leads us to Bobby
who's really to me at the very center of all this as far as looking at each and every one of these suspects eventually
he's going to to this was quite the surprise move because what he does is to everyone's surprise he pleads no contest
to the charges of complicity to commit aggravated murder and in fact pleads no contest to all of the charges so he he's
saying look he's admitting to the truth of The Facts of the indictment without actually admitting any actual guilt
normally when you make a plea deal you you are stating that you are responsible for the the crime this deal not so much
he doesn't have to admit responsibility exactly he doesn't actually have to tell the court or
confirm for the court that he actually shot anyone and so it's a it's a bit of a chicken way out or or maybe he's
got hopes that he's going to get some kind of lesser sentence right in the end he's going to get convicted of and
sentenced to very similar punishment as the other two perpetrators in the end Bobby will serve about 36 years in
prison before he is eligible for parole and if he is released at that time he'll be in his 50s at that point
and then what we have here is Rob who had that he shot Jamie because she was a witness to the murder of Abby
it was decided that he's going to be tried as an adult as well just like Bobby was and he's 16 and a half at the
time of the killings now he tries to do the insanity plea and so a psychological
evaluation is court ordered yeah which eventually finds him to be competent to stand trial they also so determined that
he was a piece of right uh and then on May 25th judge Joseph T Clark sentenced Rob to
consecutive terms of life in prison so what happens here this is weird captain because he tries the insanity plea they
confirm that he is competent to stand trial and during this hearing and during this process once the it's ruled that
he's competent he then says I want to plead no contest to the charges as well so this gets a very similar
sentence as Bobby did so he will not be eligible for parole until he serves 36 years but overall I mean this is
just it's it's pathetic it's sad and yes you have these conflicts when you're a child entering
adulthood but just they could have just let it go these are these seem like very
juvenile problems that turned into double homicide yeah and now at each one of these trials or the court proceedings or
the hearings you know we have four different situations here with each of the accused who all end up
convicted we get the the families who stand and they give very powerful statements but I do want to read two of
the statements this both from Rob's sentencing and we have Jaime's mom Connie sweny who stood up in front of
the court in front of the judge and says quote Rob Daniel you are the only person
that night that took my daughter away from all of us who loved her I gave her life which you took away in two or three
seconds you changed all of our Lives including your family I'm sorry I can't ever forgive you for what you took away
from us for what you took away from Jamie end quote and then you had Karen Warren who stood up she gave very
powerful statements at all of the sentencing hearings for each of these individuals at this one she says in her
statement that she believed that it was wrong that Rob was allowed to plead no contest to the charges instead of
admitting his guilt saying quote he was a killer for hire remember he actually says Elsie said she going to pay me $120
she only had 40 on her and paid me that that Night 40 bucks to keep quiet so Karen Warren says he was a killer for
hire paid in money and goods to murder my daughter Abby then he summarily executed Jaimie to silence a witness in
an effort to avoid capture he is is a coldblooded psychopathic killer who was not even charged with all of the crimes
he committed end quote so as you said Captain horrible situation very sad situation these seem like juvenile
problems that did not need to escalate to this level at all so here we sit all these years later with two dead teenage
girls four people convicted of murder but really no real concrete answers as to exactly what happened right what
is the truth about the identity of the shooter or Shooters on that fateful night perhaps as Sonia testified both
Bobby and Rob were the Bad actors here but Sonia at 19 was more than complicit as someone who notoriously hated Abby
she seems like she might have been the driver of the plot right and then there's Elie sheets the one actual air
quotes actual adult in the group who rather than being a guiding force for good and a moral compass for these kids
was vengeful vindictive calculating and conspiring it seems possible that the whole murder plot was her brain child if
she had a brain Apple doesn't fall too far from the tree but if she had not goated and urged these youths to murder
Abby who's to say that they would have taken things this far Elsie's internal approval was surely a factor for these
kids in the tragic irrevocable decisions they made that night decisions that ruined countless lives and the time it
took to pull a [Music] trigger want to thank everybody for joining us here each and every week in
the garage Colonel do you mind if I give the audience the beautiful listeners a recommended reading Happy Thanksgiving
to everybody and Captain please yes if you have not listened to the deli murders by Yours Truly Nick Edwards I
don't know who that guy is the crispy Colonel it should say Nick Edwards aka the crispy
Colonel check it out on Audible it's a great listen narrated by the one and only Kevin Pierce for that title and
other great True Crime titles check out our recommended page at true Crim garage.com and until next week be good
be kind and don't listen [Music] Pandora makes it easy for you to find your favorite music discover new artists
and genres by selecting any song or album and we'll make you a personalized station for free download on the Apple
App Store or Google Play and enjoy the soundtrack to your life

Abby & Jamie ////// 717

Part 1 of 1

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An abandoned barn in rural Ohio goes up in flames. Someone passing by sees the flames and calls in the fire to emergency services. Fire fighters rush to put out the fire. After, fire investigators sift through the rubble only to discover a surprise find. The barn may not have been empty after all. Two sets of human remains were recovered from the fire. An arson quickly turned into a double homicide investigation.

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Brief Summary

Two teenage girls were murdered in Ohio, leading to a complex investigation and multiple arrests.

Key points

Mysterious Barn Fire. An abandoned barn fire leads to the discovery of two human remains.
Missing Girls Reported. Karen Warl reports her daughter Abby and friend Jamie missing after a party.
Community in Fear. The community worries as the investigation reveals a potential killer among them.
Investigation Heats Up. Law enforcement ramps up efforts to find the missing girls and investigate their deaths.
The Big Break in the Case. A couple reports missing guns, including a .45 caliber believed to be involved in the homicides.
Incriminating Statements. Sonia Hawkins incriminates herself and two others in the girls' deaths during questioning.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Two were dead and an arsonist was living among them.

The community's shock after the barn fire.

4:45WatchNov 22, 2023

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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