Forensic Files - Season 7, Episode 23 - Cold Storage - Full Episode | Forensic Files

in the midst of a promising dance career tracy joe shine suddenly dropped out of
school and shortly afterward disappeared twelve years later debris from an old refrigerator would
warm up what had become a very cold case [Music] tracy joe shine grew up in houston texas
she was a good student a girl scout and played sports but her real interest her passion
was dance [Music] oh at the age of 13 she auditioned and was accepted at the prestigious high school
for performing arts in houston it was a dream come true and while away at school
tracy joe began to experiment with drugs that's when [Music] she started having the problem she
started meeting the wrong people and started getting involved in taking drugs and uh
and i at that time just really didn't understand it or didn't know what to do she started skipping classes her grades
began to slip and she became romantically involved with 31 year old michael neal who had recently been
released from prison the first time i'd met him and she brought him over to my apartment he
seemed to be polite enough and seemed to be nice enough eventually tracy joe abandoned her
dreams of a career in dance dropped out of school and at the age of 18 moved in with her boyfriend michael and his
mother tracy joe's mother didn't know what to do next tracy was not the tracy that she was
before she did the drugs tracy had become someone else it was controlled by drugs
and i just kept praying that you know she just lived through this and get out of all of it and then we
could have our lives together again and go on michael neal had recently been implicated in a racially motivated
drive-by shooting detective marcel dion went to neal's home to question him neal wasn't home
but tracy joe was [Music] how long have you known him tracy had just taken a a shot the
syringe was still there on the couch right there with her at first you could make heads or tails out of anything she
was saying so he arrested tracy joe for using drugs she'd been arrested two other times i
believe for the drug problem she said she had tried to stop i had attempted to see if there was
some way that i could get tracy committed to a drug program and i was finding that there was a
waiting list at different places and there really wasn't a whole lot i could do since she wasn't a child anymore
at police headquarters tracy joe offered to make a deal she said her boyfriend michael was the
one who committed the drive-by shooting and she agreed to testify against him in
return for a lighter sentence for her drug charge detective dion agreed to the deal early the next morning
michael neal walked into police headquarters and put up the bail for tracy joe she was never seen again
nobody had seen or heard it from so at that point is uh you start calling her friends and start
calling anybody that she'd been associated with well nobody had seen her and nobody had heard from her
marcel dion discovered that michael neal was a member of the aryan brotherhood a
violent white supremist group this explained neal's alleged involvement in the drive-by shooting
which occurred in a black neighborhood when dion asked michael neal about tracy joe's whereabouts he said that tracy joe
left home shortly after her arrest and that he hadn't seen her since [Music] dion wasn't so sure
the day after tracy joe shine was released from prison on drug charges she visited her mother to borrow some money
although tracy joe had always stayed in touch with her mother and brother that visit was the last time her family saw
her tracy joe had simply dropped out of sight something was the matter i for some reason just felt
something was wrong virginia contacted tracy joe's boyfriend michael neal i called over there to find out about
tracy because i hadn't heard from her in a couple of weeks and to see what was happening
and they told me she wasn't there anymore when michael neal wasn't forthcoming virginia had no other choice but to file
a missing person's report detective marcel dion immediately suspected foul play [Music]
then a few weeks later dion received an anonymous telephone call yes i'd like to report a murder she was
telling me about this girl that was apparently killed by her boyfriend stuffed in a refrigerator
and taken out to a car lot the informant eventually revealed the identity of the dead girl
it was tracy joe shine the informant also said that the refrigerator used to store tracy joe's
body was still at the used car lot owned by michael neal and his brother robert armed with the search warrant
detectives went to the car lot found the refrigerator but discovered it had recently been cleaned with bleach
we took the refrigerator apart we collected a piece of human tissue from the freezer unit and
it had some hair follicles on it forensic scientists attempted an rflp dna enzyme analysis on that tissue but
were unsuccessful the hair was compared visually to hair taken from tracy joe's hairbrush
but that comparison was inconclusive with no other leads detective dion spent the next few months
looking all over houston anywhere he suspected a body might have been buried i took a lot of heat everybody thought i
was crazy because i was digging up half of harris county i was draining ponds we
used horses we used four wheelers i was given the nickname of digger because every time i received a phone call i
would dig him somewhere but none of the leads were fruitful i knew that she had to be out there
somewhere i just wouldn't give up dion also questioned michael neal's mother barbara at her consignment shop
there dion noticed something suspicious in the display case was some women's jewelry which was identical to jewelry
owned by tracy joe shine i just couldn't believe the way they they had taken tracy joe's jewelry and
placed it in a in a glass case at the business they were running and selling it over the calendar
barbara mcallister told police that after tracy joe moved out of her home she simply took the jewelry tracy joe
left behind and was trying to sell it although it may have been in poor taste it still didn't prove foul play
but with nowhere else to turn the investigation faltered dion had no choice but to attend to
other cases i ordered all the evidence plus the refrigerator stored in our property room
and basically just about every year almost of the day they would call me and want to get rid of the refrigerator
and i kept telling him no this is an open case i'm still working it michael neal was later arrested for
another shooting incident and was convicted he was sentenced to life in prison his brother robert neal was arrested on
a methamphetamine charge he too was convicted and sent to prison despite their convictions the neil
brothers continued to insist they knew nothing about tracy joe's disappearance it would take another 10 years before a
cold case unit took a fresh look at the disappearance of tracy joe shine [Music]
nothing was heard from tracy joe shine for over a decade and police could find no solid evidence
of what might have happened to her during those years there had been no credit card activity no applications for
driver's licenses no history of employment nothing tracy joe's ex-boyfriend michael neal
and his brother robert were serving time in prison for crimes unrelated to her disappearance
[Music] then in 1999 the harris county sheriff's department formed a new cold case unit headed by
detective roger wedgeworth and harry fakaris the tracy joe shine case was one of the
first to cross their desk tracy's like a lot of young girls if you look at her her upbringing
she was a girl scout very much loved by her mother just a normal kid who goes up goes to high school goes
to proms and everything and she got mixed up in drugs and of course one of the worst mistakes
of her life was meeting our suspect in this case michael neal as a first step they decided to retest the tissue sample
found in michael neal's refrigerator with the new more sophisticated pcr dna test
but after more than 12 years the sample was too badly degraded then there was another setback
the hair found with the tissue sample could not be located but vacaris and wedgeworth were
astonished to learn that the refrigerator was still in the sheriff's department property room
in a long shot investigators decided to take a look at the refrigerator one more time
we opened it up and it looked fairly clean but we knew that it had been laid down on its back and we thought if if
there was any kind of body fluids or any kind of evidence that may have drained into the wiring harness on the back side
of it forensic scientists swabbed every square inch of the refrigerator and this time
included the wiring and harness areas for any biological material that might be present
there's so many nooks and crannies in a refrigerator or any other machine like that that
they have body fluid and things like that's going to seep through there's just it would be impossible probably to
clean it all the swabs were sent to the forensic lab i was skeptical that we would find
anything of any value in the refrigerator simply because of the amount of time that it had been stored and the fact
that like so many other evidence storage areas the environment was not ideal for
preserving the evidence when watson looked closer at the swabs he discovered what appeared to be
a piece of human skin [Music] watson tested that skin sample using a pcr dna test
pcr testing essentially takes my new traces of dna then amplifies or makes enough copies of it so that it can be
analyzed the analysis was long and arduous and unfortunately was unsuccessful after months of frustration watson heard
about a new test the fbi laboratory had been experimenting with a test using mitochondrial dna
traditional dna testing uses dna from the cell's nucleus mitochondrial dna is taken from the
mitochondria which exists outside of the cell's nucleus it's not as precise as traditional dna
testing but in some cases it's all scientists can get and this time watson was successful
the next step was to find a known sample of tracy joe shine's dna for comparison
bill watson took letters written by tracy joe over a decade earlier to see if her dna could be identified in the
saliva from the envelope flaps but the dna from the saliva was too badly degraded
mitochondrial dna is passed from generation to generation maternally meaning the tracy joe's
mitochondrial dna profile would be identical to her mothers even though we didn't have a sample from
tracy joe to compare to the tissue that was inside the refrigerator we did have her mother
and we were able to get a mitochondrial profile from her mother when the mitochondrial dna from the
refrigerator was compared to virginia shine it matched the biological material most likely was
that of tracy joe shine had tracy joe's dna been discovered on the handle of the refrigerator
that might not have been unusual but skin found on wiring on the back harness was a completely different
matter it's a wonderful wonderful feeling it's uh you know you finally feel like all that
hard work is finally coming together but even even whenever we got that we knew that
this guy would never do the right thing and step up to the plate and tell the truth
with this discovery michael neal was charged with murder his brother robert hoping to gain an
early release from prison for his drug conviction offered to make a deal after all these years that he'd spent in
prison i guess he finally realized he would never be getting out of prison unless he did something
and we know you have something to tell us and we sat down worked out a deal and he gave us his honest testimony which we
felt mostly was honest testimony and told us what he knew about the case robert not only revealed his brother's
involvement in the murder he also implicated his mother his sister and himself robert neal told police that his brother
michael feared tracy joe shine would testify against him for the drive-by shooting in exchange for a lighter
sentence for her drug arrest so when michael went to veil tracy joe out of jail he did so to eliminate a potential
witness the most important thing that robert told us was he actually showed us how
michael neal killed her and robert made this motion like this like a choking motion so we knew that she'd been
strangled robert said michael killed tracy joe in his bedroom and left her body there for three days
the smell of decomposition prompted michael's mother to look into the couple's bedroom where she saw the body
she goes into the bedroom she sees that she's turning purple i mean that's a clue right there that something is not
right neal's mother never reported tracy joe's death to police [Music] after the body was removed robert said
his mother and sister cleaned the bedroom and burned incense to remove the odor robert admitted helping michael
transport the refrigerator with the body inside to the used car lot the brothers
owned robert told us that he never saw the body he said his brother just told him help
him move the refrigerator basically don't ask me any questions and i won't tell you anything we'll just
move this refrigerator out to the car lot he said i can assume that tracy joe shine was in there but i
never saw her in there i never saw her in there robert said he sat outside while michael placed the body in a
55-gallon drum where michael later took the barrel is unknown but michael neal didn't realize the
tissue invisible to the naked eye would lead to his downfall over a dozen years later
[Music] michael made a lot of mistakes at the very beginning by leaving the body in
there for several days by his mother finding out that tracy was dead instead of immediately disposing of the
body it allowed us to get evidence out of the refrigerator the fact is science always
progresses always moves forward and as it has we've been able to develop the type of
testing that could let us test those smaller and smaller samples and match it up so his his biggest mistake was in
thinking he'd get away with it although prosecutors had no body michael neal was convicted of tracy joe
shine's murder and was sentenced to an additional 45 years in prison he won't be eligible for parole until
2017 when he'll be 60 years old michael neal can look you straight in the eye and there's no doubt in my mind
that he could cut you he could shoot you he could uh do anything humanly possible to you
would not change his impression in any way his brother robert is still serving time
for his earlier conviction for manufacturing methamphetamine michael's mother barbara denied any
knowledge of the murder saying she thought tracy joe had died of a drug overdose
neither barbara nor her daughter jeannie were ever prosecuted for their alleged involvement in concealing evidence or
abuse of a corpse since the statute of limitations for those crimes had expired virginia shine says
she will never stop looking for her daughter's grave even though michael neal stubbornly
refuses to say where it is the sad part of it is is if he's just trying to just keep on being the one in
control is that he won't let us know where she really is so that i can have some kind of peace there
because i mean it's not going to be any worse for him to tell me to tell us the real truth
and uh and so i can't ever forgive him for that marcel dion's insistence on preserving
the refrigerator for all those years provided the crucial forensic evidence necessary for a conviction
i just couldn't believe it to me it was just a huge white off my back i've never been so happy over anything
in my life the amount of effort that went into the sample processing on the front end
was as much as you would put in any any case any very difficult case i mean it was just
on a scale of one to ten i would say it was an eight or a nine [Music] [Music] [Music]
you

The 1987 disappearance of Houston resident Tracy Jo Shine is recalled. The investigation went cold until 2000 when a "cold case squad" learned that the woman's ex-boyfriend Michael Neal had bragged about killing her.

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

Tracy Joe Shine's disappearance and murder were linked to her boyfriend Michael Neal, leading to a cold case breakthrough after years of investigation.

Key points

Tracy Joe Shine's Disappearance. Tracy Joe Shine, a promising dancer, vanished after dropping out of school and moving in with her boyfriend.
The Shocking Discovery. A tip reveals that Tracy Joe's body was stuffed in a refrigerator, leading to a major breakthrough.
DNA Evidence Leads to Conviction. After years, mitochondrial DNA from a refrigerator links Michael Neal to Tracy Joe's murder.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Tracy was not the Tracy that she was before she did the drugs.

Tracy's mother reflects on her daughter's transformation due to drug use.

2:36WatchDec 10, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

More from Forensic Files

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.