Forensic Files Season 11, Episode 19 - No Safe Place - Full Episode | Forensic Files

there were lots of suspects in the murder of a millionaire oil man and many salivating over the man's estate
and that fact alone helped crack the case [Music] [Music] [Music] ron and rosanna shaw had just moved into
their luxurious new home in youngsville louisiana but they still had some things to do
before the birth of their new baby on this night ron helped his pregnant wife by doing the grocery shopping
ronnie put two bags of groceries on my arms we started walking towards the house
and all of a sudden three men jumped from behind the garage i was in shock i was just waiting for
them to shoot me they put the guns to my head they told rosanna to open the safe in
the master bathroom [Music] i tried to open the safe and i just couldn't and i was so nervous i was
shaking then he said you better open it this time or i'm gonna kill you rosanna finally remembered the
combination he was disappointed i guess he was expecting a lot of money a lot of cash
in there but it wasn't a lot the men took seven thousand dollars in cash and a box of jewelry
i thought okay now he's gonna kill me in desperation rosanna begged for her life
i got on my knees and i told him i'm pregnant the killer backed off but left her with a warning
he said if you come out of here i'm going to kill you the men left and rosanna called police
52-year-old ronald shaw was pronounced dead at the scene police knew right away that this was an inside job
whoever was responsible for the death had to know the layout of the home or certainly at least that there was a safe
contained inside the bathroom of the home rosanna was unable to give a detailed description of the killers because
they were wearing masks i could tell they were young they were black males and they
the first one was wearing a red ski mask with some black around the eyes he's the one that was very close to me
he had some gold teeth ron shaw was a successful oil man he had developed the concept of placing
global positioning satellite chips in his drill bits which improved accuracy when drilling for oil
although the shaws were a wealthy couple police weren't sure the motive was robbery they left jewelry in the safe
they left an additional fifty five hundred dollars in the safe gold coins that were valuable he had eleven hundred
and thirty three dollars in his pocket he had a rolex watch on his arm and none of these were taken
and police found the box full of jewelry several hundred yards behind the shaw's
home we had considered that the motive may have been a murder for hire as opposed to a
robbery the question was who wanted ron shaw dead ron shaw's merger was a major news story
in louisiana and the entire gulf coast region it was huge it was characterized as a
well-organized home invasion of people who the police believe laid in wait for the shaw family
the victim was portrayed as a very wealthy business executive and then to have him
killed in front of his wife certainly hit a nerve with society in general the shaw's home was only a few months
old not all of the landscaping had been completed and this produced the first piece of
evidence it's a new construction there was builder stand in the back of the house
so as the suspects stepped in that sand in the back of the house and and went through the house they left real nice
shoe impressions down the hallway the outside print was preserved with the substance called
dense stone kind of like pancake batter and you're able to lift those impressions and bring them back to the
crime laboratory [Music] inside the home investigators lit the hardwood floors from various angles
and saw two more sets of shoe impressions criminalists lifted the prince with gelatin strips
you roll the gelatin with the black side down onto your question shoe impression and
when you peel it off the adhesive and the gelatin adheres to the dust particles on the
floor with some research investigators identified the prince outside as a pair of size 10 nike air
jordans the perpetrators inside also wore nike shoes one wore the air metal force model
the other the shocks trainers when police interviewed the neighbors several of them said they saw a
burgundy-colored car parked a short distance away from the shaw's home the vehicle was occupied by black males
either they observed these black males within the vehicle or standing outside the vehicle
but it was parked in front of a vacant lot in this particular neighborhood so it did stand out
and about a mile from the crime scene search dogs found a potentially crucial piece of evidence
while they were walking around on the roadway they discovered a red ski mass with blue outlines on it next to the
roadway which was in direct line of sight to the rear of the victim's property this ski mask
red with dark trimming around the eyes was similar to the one described by rosanna shaw
at ron's autopsy the medical examiner confirmed that ron shaw was shot three times with a 38
caliber weapon there were two torso shots one of those torso shots the bullet remained the other torso shot the bullet
went all the way through his body in the yard investigators found the projectile that passed through shaw's
body this along with the two bullets from inside shaw's body were sent to the forensics lab
under a microscope firearms expert chris henderson discovered that the lands and grooves on two
bullets were the same the third bullet was different we determined that we had two different
shooters based on the class characteristics of the bullets in their search for potential suspects
police had to consider whether rosanna shaw had anything to do with her husband's murder
ron's grown son from his first marriage certainly thought so he had distrust for her he
wondered what her motivation was for marrying his father had she married for money
we got along fairly well while ron and i got married but right after ronnie died
he just turned against me he just doesn't like me and there were others who had a
potential motive a background check revealed ron had shifted funds from one oil drilling
research project to another one was successful the other wasn't which created substantial losses for
investors there were a couple of them that had actually lost hundreds of thousands of
dollars it didn't surprise them at all that the victim had met such a violent death because they felt that his
business practices were dubious and unethical with so many potential avenues to explore
investigators focused first on who knew that the shaws had a safe the people that knew about the safe was
the safe company my family ron is family people at the office the architect the construction
workers friends there was a lot of people that could have known about the safe the general contractor who built the
shaw's home fully cooperated with authorities ernest touchette revealed the names of several disgruntled
employees that he felt might play a role and later added that he also had two grandsons
that had worked on the home and that had also recently had several run-ins with the
law but investigators dismissed that idea the perpetrators were black yet ernest
touchette and presumably his grandsons were white and ronshaw knew these boys personally
ernest touchet came to my husband and asked to hire his two grandchildren to keep them out of trouble you know they
needed to do something so my husband said sure he my husband really appreciated the grandfather ernest touchet
so he said of course bring your two grandchildren and i'll hire them police didn't believe the touchette boys
would repay ronshaw's kindness in this way or would they the owner of the construction company
who had built the shaw's new home ernest touchette told police he feared his two
grandsons might have been involved in ron's murder initially police thought little of it
since the perpetrators were black and ernest touchette was white until they looked at the mug shots of his
grandsons shannon toucher was a black male and was a product of a interracial marriage
that his mother had had during her earlier years seventeen-year-old shannon touchette had
worked on ronshaw's home and would have known about the safe hidden in the master bathroom closet
investigators went to shannon's home he wasn't there but his mother was and she was very helpful
she reported to us that she had found some bullets in a black bag a black bag that she recalled had
at one time also contains ski masks and drugs police found the bag in shannon's bedroom
the drugs and ski masks were gone but they did find 13 unfired 38 caliber bullets
investigators wondered whether these bullets matched the ones that killed ron shaw
firearms expert chris henderson examined the knurls on the fatal bullets knurls are the ridge-like protrusions
that hold the lubrication needed to fire them henderson then compared those knurls
with the knurls on the bullets in shannon two shet's bag we had the same number of knurls same
width and those knurls look kind of like railroad tracks going around the outer surface of that bullet all the physical
characteristics everything that we could physically see and measure were indistinguishable for one another we
could not tell the difference between one and the other police brought shannon to shut in for
questioning he insisted he knew nothing about ron shaw's murder he said he was with his girlfriend that night
she did verify his alibi and stated that shannon touchette was in fact with her in lake charles
but looking at shannon's shoes investigators noticed he was wearing nike air jordan basketball shoes
similar to the shoe impressions at the crime scene [Music] scientists took casts of shannon's shoes
and compared them to the cast from the impression in the sand outside ron shaw's home
we concluded that the the shoe impressions at the crime scene were basically indistinguishable from
those of shannon touchette's shoes they had the same wear the same physical characteristics their
nike air jordan same size shannon's own mother disputed his alibi she told investigators that shannon was
out with two friends on the night of the murder reggie basil and ronald benson and they were driving a burgundy car
similar to the one witnesses saw near the murder scene when questioned both reggie basil and
ronald benson denied any involvement in the robbery and murder police obtained a search warrant and
confiscated all of the shoes belonging to the two men but none matched the shoe impressions found
inside shaw's home it's frustrating to believe that your investigation is focused and it's going
in the right direction but there's no certainty that you're in fact looking at the right
folks and for these type of charges you don't want to make a mistake either so investigators decided to look for
genetic material inside the red ski mask that had been discarded after the murder
the forensic scientist turned the mask inside out and swabbed around the mouth area
hoping to pick up cells from saliva we're using the entire surface area of the swab to collect as much
of the potential cellular material that's there and then basically we just let the swab air dry and hopefully we'll
have some dna on those swabs using a dna test called str or short tandem repeats
scientists found dna from three different individuals inside the mask but investigators needed to know who was
wearing the mask before it was discarded to find out they analyzed the swab from the ski mask
to determine who left most of the saliva behind and the results of this test were clear
in this case the major contributor dna matched that of ronald benson the red ski mask was very important
because it corroborated the story that we were able to receive from miss mrs shaw mrs shaw indicated that the
person with the red mask was the most aggressive in the robbery the identity of the other two dna
profiles in the mask was inconclusive the ski mask implicated ronald benson the shoe impression outside the shaw's
home implicated shannon touchette but there was no forensic evidence linking reggie basil to the crime
as an investigator that's a little hard to swallow you know that's a little hard
to leave in the end of the day with knowing that there's nothing else you can do and you
feel fairly certain of who's responsible for doing it investigators hoped that would change
[Music] shannon touchette reggie basil and ronald benson were all arrested for the
murder of ron shaw it was decided that the only way was to arrest all three suspects simultaneously
and interview them in the same building at the same time going from room to room
until we got the confessions from all of them shannon touchette the individual that
was the ringleader the one that had the information about the location of the safe he ultimately turned on his two
associates shannon admitted that benson and basil both participated in the murder
president was gonna go in the house when she opened the door i was gonna stand outside
and wait for him shannon said that the motive was robbery this was how shannon repaid ron shaw for
giving him a job at his grandfather's request well i was talking about my job it was mr shaw he was paying me good i
was telling about about that and how he had money and stuff we started planning for like two weeks
before and then we finally did it prosecutors say the three men drove to ronshaw's neighborhood
and waited for the shaws to come home witnesses saw the three men loitering in the area
when the shaws arrived they were ambushed ronald benson fired twice reggie basil fired the third shot
shannon touchette stayed outside leaving the shoe impressions in the sand benson and basil took rosanna inside and
forced her to open the safe for reasons that are unclear they didn't take all of the valuables
inside the safe [Music] but they spared rosanna's life i think my daughter saved my life that
night when i told that man that i was pregnant he just did something to his mind that
decided not to kill me and yes my daughter saved my life while running to the getaway car they
dropped the box full of jewelry as they drove away benson threw his ski mask out of the car
unaware that it contained his dna [Music] shannon touchette left ammunition matching the fatal bullets in his gym
bag the murder weapons have never been found nor the shoes that left the impressions
inside the shaw's home shannon touchette and reggie basil both pled guilty to first degree murder and aggravated
robbery and were sentenced to life in prison ronald benson chose to go to trial the
jury found him guilty he got the same sentence life in prison investigators point to the case
as a classic example of basic police techniques and forensic science coming together to get a conviction the
forensic efforts on the part of our crime lab were invaluable to a final conclusion in this case
without them there would have been no conviction for any of the three defendants
it was amazing to me the about the dna the the shoe prints all the evidence they can gather from
the cream crime place you know that can help find out who who did it there's a lot of technology if things
are done right everything falls into place and sometimes a little bit of luck helps
[Music] [Music] so [Music] you

A wealthy man and his wife were attacked by three masked men outside their luxurious Louisiana home. He was shot dead and she was forced to open their hidden safe. To solve the crime, police would have to find out who knew about the concealed safe.

Forensic Files is the longest-running true crime series in television history. Evidence and interviews with experts help solve real crimes, disease outbreaks and accidents around the world.

Brief Summary

Ron Shaw was murdered in a home invasion; forensic evidence led to the arrest and conviction of three suspects.

Key points

Inside Job. Police suspect the murder was an inside job due to knowledge of the home's layout.
Murder of a Millionaire. The shocking murder of oil man Ron Shaw unfolds, revealing a complex web of suspects.
DNA Evidence. Forensic scientists find DNA on a ski mask, linking it to one of the suspects.
Confessions and Arrests. All three suspects are arrested, leading to confessions about the murder plot.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I thought okay now he’s gonna kill me.

Ronnie's desperate moment during the robbery.

2:04WatchJan 20, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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