Forensic Files Season 11, Episode 26 - Ring Him Up - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[music playing] NARRATOR: For 10 years, the disappearance of a college co-ed was a mystery, until new scientific testing cast
a different light on a man who had been a suspect all along. [music playing] After immigrating from Cuba as a young man,
Luis Melendi and his wife Yvonne wanted a better life for their children. So they stressed the importance of education.
Their 19-year-old daughter Shannon shared those dreams and planned to pursue a legal career.
-Shannon would light up a room. She was just unbelievable. Her presence was felt when she came into a room.
-She was every mother or father's dream child. She was outstanding in whatever she did.
She approached everything in life with gusto. NARRATOR: President of her class at Miami Southwest High School,
Shannon graduated cum laude, and was a member of the National Honor Society. After high school she attended Emory University in Atlanta,
-She knew exactly what she wanted. And she was going for it. -Her first two years there were uneventful until March of 1994,
when she suddenly disappeared without a trace. -Basically we had a 19-year-old college student
who dropped off the face of the earth. Completely disappeared. NARRATOR: On the day Shannon vanished,
she worked at a softball tournament to earn extra money. -She kept score during morning games
for the first time in her life. They broke for lunch. She was seen leaving the field and was
never seen or heard from again. -A friend of my sister-in-law's came up to tell him that Shannon was missing.
And my husband fell to the ground and he said we'll never see her again. NARRATOR: When the local police department learned of Shannon's
disappearance, they initially thought it was a college prank. -For days and days and days, the attitude
was, this is college girls gone wild. Shannon has just come back from a great spring break vacation.
She's met lots of new guys and girls. She's probably just hanging out with one of them.
NARRATOR: Shannon's college roommate found Shannon's car the next day, abandoned at a local gas station with the keys
still inside. Police told her to drive it back to campus. -So that car was never, ever treated as evidence
until many days after Shannon's disappearance. Many days in which a number of people were in that car.
Many days after a number of people drove that car. NARRATOR: 11 days after Shannon's disappearance,
school officials got a telephone call. -Male voice called Emory University on their hotline number, and said that he had Shannon,
and that he would make demands later. -The man said, I have Shannon's ring. I have the ring that her aunt gave her.
Shannon is OK, she misses her family, and hung up. -We really thought that Shannon was still alive at that point.
We were hoping that we would hear from them again, but we did not. NARRATOR: The FBI traced the call to a payphone
about 20 miles away. They didn't find any fingerprints. They did, however, find a small cloth bag
with Shannon's ring wrapped in masking tape. -There was hope. It was the first time that maybe we can recover Shannon.
-Please bring us our daughter back. Please giver her back to us. We love you Shannon.
VOICEOVER (TV): been missing since March 26-- VOICEOVER (TV): The Emory University
student was last seen-- VOICEOVER (TV): Family and friends can only hope someone
saw what happened-- VOICEOVER (TV): It's the Melendi family posted a $10,000 reward--
VOICEOVER (TV): Friends continue to put up posters of Shannon's picture. -I just told [inaudible] going to be OK.
I hope the people that took her feel guilty and they just leave her alone. NARRATOR: Police interviewed everyone at the softball field
where Shannon was last seen. The club manager said Shannon worked as a score manager
for an early softball game. The picture of that game told police an astonishing story.
-Lord have mercy. Anybody would have had to pay attention to what was going on that day.
It was so bizarre. Nothing like that has ever happened to me in a softball game before.
NARRATOR: Chastain said that the plate umpire couldn't keep his eyes off of Shannon Melendi.
-I mean, in the middle of a pitch, he would physically turn around, and then go back and start talking to this girl.
And here I am in the middle of a pitch, and he had the nerve to turn around and look and go, ball.
I said, How do you know? You weren't even looking. Maybe because I started walking folks.
NARRATOR: The plate umpire was 33-year-old Butch Hinton, a mechanic at Delta Airlines.
-He was a charismatic guy. He taught Sunday school to kids. He was very active in his church.
He played sports. He umpired honestly. -When questioned by police, Hinton admitted speaking to Shannon that day,
but said he didn't see her after the game. He said, he went directly home and made
several telephone calls to friends. A check of his phone records confirmed his alibi.
-We knew from telephone records and from speaking with other people that Butch had made
telephone calls from his home. Police also got a search warrant for Hinton's home,
but found nothing. And the trail of Shannon's kidnapper went cold. It was frustrating for the police
and especially the family. -It seems like a lifetime. I remember things as before Shannon and after Shannon.
It's like two different people. I'm not the man I used to be. -Six months after Shannon disappeared,
police returned to Butch Hinton's home. This time to investigate a fire that started upstairs in one of the bedrooms.
He alleged it was an accident with a vacuum cleaner. Then you look at how the fire started.
It was clearly an arson. An accelerant was poured on the floor and ignited. He made an insurance claim.
Fraud was involved. NARRATOR: While investigating this fire, police learned something else.
A neighbor told police that Hinton set a bonfire in his backyard six months earlier,
the same night Shannon disappeared. -They described it was very eerie. They said it was chilling to them.
Very bizarre. So investigators searched Hinton's home again. This time, they used a backhoe to excavate
the fire pit in his backyard. And they discovered something odd. Nearly a dozen women's sweaters.
All petite sizes. -I knew his wife. I actually went to high school with her. And the clothing that I was finding in the fire pit
was not her size. It didn't belong to anybody that lived here. The Melendi family did not recognize
any of the sweaters as Shannon's. -That is not the norm that somebody would bury women's
clothing in their backyard, particularly when the clothing didn't belong to their wife.
REPORTER: How do you feel to have the federal authorities digging up your yard and your property?
NARRATOR: Hinton denied any knowledge of these sweaters. He thought they might have been left
there by the previous owner. The police didn't buy it. -Makes you wonder who else is there.
Who are we missing? How many other victims do we not know about? NARRATOR: The FBI's forensic science unit in Washington, DC
didn't find blood or any other forensic evidence on the sweaters. Also in the fire pit, police found wire ties,
cleaning products and plastic pants like the ones used by crime scene investigators.
In Hinton's garage, they found it nine rolls of tape. But none of this pointed to murder.
-I was in touch with Clint van Zandt, who was an FBI profiler. And him and I got very close, and he told me a lot of things
that I wouldn't tell my family. He assured me that Shannon was murdered by Butch Hinton,
very early. And I kept that to myself for a long time. NARRATOR: Butch Hinton did go on trial for the arson fire
and mail fraud for sending the false claim to his insurance company. He was sentenced to nine years in prison.
And during that time, no one heard from either Shannon Melendi, or her kidnapper.
For almost a decade, no one knew what happened to Shannon Melendi. Her parents continued to search for answers,
and they heard plenty of theories, but no hard proof. -It is life-changing. It takes a big toll on everyone.
Takes a toll on your marriage. Takes a toll on your children. Friends, family. We lost a ton of friends.
We had people point-blank tell us that they just didn't want to hear about Shannon anymore.
Because they wanted to hear about happy things. NARRATOR: Since the prime suspect was already
in prison for arson, Shannon's case fell by the wayside. It was never closed. Over time, there were other priorities.
-There were so many different circumstances that got in the way of the case. OJ Simpson was three months after.
That took a lot from the FBI. There was Oklahoma. There was the Centennial Park.
All of those things were bigger than Shannon's case. NARRATOR: Prosecutors John Petri and Mike McDaniel
reopened Shannon Melendi's case, because they were convinced Butch Hinton was somehow involved.
-John Petri was one of those movies you see. The miracle, the saint comes in. He was silent for several seconds, and then he said,
"I've been waiting for 10 years for this phone call. " NARRATOR: There was additional pressure on the prosecutors
since Butch Hinton was about to be released from prison for his arson conviction.
-The FBI sent us boxes and boxes of file folders. And I just started going through them.
Starting with number one. Using little sticky pads and notes and highlighters to mark
things that I thought were either A, strong points to indicate that Butch Hinton was guilty, or B,
strong points to indicate that no, he wasn't. I had no agenda at that point. NARRATOR: But first, they needed forensic evidence.
And for that, they started at the very beginning, with the bag holding Shannon's ring, left
by the kidnapper at the pay phone. -The ring didn't yield any results forensically.
There were no fingerprints, no trace fibers on it to link anything to. But the bag was an important piece of physical evidence
that we had. NARRATOR: Prosecutors learned that the bag was manufactured by the Millheiser Cooperation
-Millheiser had only one customer in Georgia that bought those bags. That was the Fulton Paper Company in Atlanta.
Fulton Paper Company had only one customer for those bags. That customer was Delta Airlines.
NARRATOR: Coincidentally, Butch Hinton worked for Delta Airlines as a mechanic. Delta employees used the bags to ship
small engine parts for repair. During the original investigation, police found similar cloth bags in Butch Hinton's desk at work.
So now, 10 years later, forensic scientists compared one of the bags from Butch Hinton's desk to the bag
found with Shannon's ring. -We measured the distance of the warp and weft, the two directions of the weave.
And we also did a thread count. NARRATOR: Mary Miller determined both bags were consistent in construction and size.
And the weave pattern was identical as well. Both drawstrings were made of the same cotton
polyester microfiber. Then scientists analyzed the masking tape that had been wrapped around Shannon's ring.
And compared it to the rolls of tape confiscated from Butch Hint's garage years earlier.
-They were consistent with respect to the width of the tape, the adhesive that was used
on the tape, and the coating surface of the tape. The non-sticky side. NARRATOR: But on the tape, wrapped around Shannon's ring,
Miller noticed something that had been overlooked years earlier. Tiny metallic particles, clearly visible
using an infrared spectrometer. -It was not a situation where you can ignore that these particles were present.
That took us on a different path. So it was really remarkable to find. NARRATOR: Scientists placed the samples on a carbon substrate
so they could see them under the scanning electron microscope. -We looked at it by back-scattered electron
imaging. And in that kind of imaging, metal particles stand out very bright against everything else.
-That indicated to us that there were elements that were of a higher atomic weight, and further
down the periodic table. NARRATOR: In other words, these particles were unique. -It was a copper nickel alloy that I had never
seen in an environmental sample. A tungsten cobalt alloy that I've never seen an environmental sample.
NARRATOR: A little research identified the origin. Investigators discovered that the only industry using
this alloy was the aerospace industry. Unbelievably, at the time of Shannon's disappearance,
Delta Airlines was using this alloy to coat jet engine parts. -To find out that those metals were only to be found in a jet
engine aircraft manufacturing and repair plant, I think that was very, very critical in the case.
NARRATOR: Scientists found the same metal alloy on the rolls of masking tape confiscated from Butch Hinton's
garage, probably because he had taken them from work. -What we found in the '10 or so tapes
that we had examined there, was that collectively we saw all of these same unusual types of metal particles
that we had seen on the tape from the telephone booth, and on a small piece of tape from Butch Hinton's car.
NARRATOR: And prosecutors found one last item in Butch Clinton's background that astonished everyone.
When the FBI sent prosecutors their case files on Butch Hinton, they discovered some shocking information.
Before he moved to Atlanta, Butch Hinton had three prior convictions in Illinois
for sexual assault and kidnapping. In one of those cases, his first wife walked in on him
while he was assaulting a 14-year-old girl. She later testified against him. -Silver tape on her mouth.
She had electrical tape, silver tape, rope. Some kind of wire bounding around her wrists,
and around her ankles. NARRATOR: Hinton was sentenced to only four years in prison for that crime.
-This judge gives Hinton four years. Then gets out in two. Moves out of the state.
Moves into Georgia. And eventually kills my daughter. NARRATOR: In Shannon Melendi's case,
prosecutors know that Hinton met her at the softball game. They may have had lunch together at a nearby restaurant.
But Shannon didn't return to the softball field for her afternoon games. Prosecutors believe he took Shannon to his home
and assaulted her. Later that afternoon, he made several telephone calls to his wife and friends in order to establish an alibi.
He drove Shannon's car to a parking lot and left the keys inside, then returned home,
where he most likely killed Shannon later that night. Whether he cremated her body in his backyard,
or disposed of her remains elsewhere, is still a mystery. Hinton kept Shannon's ring, wrapped it in masking tape,
and put it inside a cloth bag. Both items he had stolen from work. He never realized that these items contained the rare metal
alloys from his workplace that would tie him to the crime. After hearing the evidence, the jury's verdict was predictable.
JURY: We the jury find the defendant, Colin C. Hinton the Third, guilty. JUDGE: As to count two, felony murder,
how does the jury find him? JURY: We the jury find the defendant Colin C. Hinton the Third, guilty.
NARRATOR: Hinton was sentenced to life in prison. -Not a dry eye in the courtroom.
Just getting that verdict, and knowing that we had done the right thing for that family,
and that this person would never see the light of day again. -Why I felt driven in this case, I don't think I'll ever know.
A lot of it, I think, goes back to that first conversation I had with Lewis, when he said, I've been waiting 10 years.
God, how can I disappoint this man? -The focus of our family has always been to stop Butch Hinton from hurting another family.
From putting another family through what we've been through. There's many Butch Hinton's out there.
And we must change our laws so families don't have to go through what we've been through.
-I used to be a big proponent of the death penalty. But I think death would be too quick for him.
-They took something as small as a bag and turned that into a suspect. And that's just amazing that they
can do something like that. That just tells you how far we've come in this world.
It's wild. [music playing]

In 1994, 19-year-old Shannon Melendi disappeared while at Emory University. For ten years, her disappearance remained a mystery, until new scientific testing cast a different light on Colvin "Butch" Hinton.

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

The episode details Shannon Melendi's disappearance and Butch Hinton's eventual conviction for her murder after years of investigation.

Key points

The Disappearance of Shannon Melendi. A college student vanished without a trace, sparking a decade-long search for answers.
New Evidence Emerges. After years, new forensic evidence links a prime suspect to Shannon's disappearance.
Butch Hinton's Conviction. After a lengthy investigation, Butch Hinton is found guilty of Shannon's murder.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Shannon would light up a room.

Describing Shannon's vibrant personality.

1:06WatchJan 20, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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