Shannon Paulk ////// 780 | Forensic Files

n [Music] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
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crime in true crime stories we often hear statements like that is when our town lost its innocence or that sort of
thing just doesn't happen here many times those are the words of sad and Confused concerned
citizens of a community rocked and shocked to the core with a recent unimaginable
crime big city problems come to a little town as they say today we examine a terrible crime one
that for some very strange and Indescribable reason has caused me to question so many
aspects of the crime the concealment of evidence and the nature and secrets of this little girl's neighbors and the
persons that lived in the town that was suddenly struck with a big city problem that sort of thing doesn't
happen here well this sort of thing shouldn't happen anywhere this is true crime garage and
this is the still unsolved homicide case of Shannon [Music] Paul this week we head on down to the
Prattville Alabama area more specifically captain we're going to the nice quaint neighborhood of Candlestick
Park sports fans will recognize that name as the onetime home ballpark for the San Francisco Giants and the home
field for the 49ers but no longer as the last event held at that wonderful stadium was a 2014 Paul McCartney
concert for the sake of our case in the case that we're talking about here this week we're going to go back to 2001 one
the Prattville population at this time is just under 30,000 folks and the Candlestick mobile home Community is
located in the Southeastern part of Prattville Alabama the focus of our case is going to be 11-year-old Shannon pulk
and the date is August 16th 2001 this is a Thursday now Shannon's mother is heading off to work
first thing in the morning when I say first thing in the morning some sources say that she's up at 4:00
a.m. to get things going so she can get out the door now keep in mind this is summertime so this means no school for
the kids on this day but Mom is going to work Shannon and her 16-year-old Sister
Lisa will be staying home that day sounds like the protocol is that the girls have some
chores and just make sure everybody's home after Mom returns from work and home in time for
dinner so the girls were allowed to leave the home and go out and visit with friends and play in the neighborhood and
such just be home before dinner and you can go out as long as your chores are done Shannon's mom Marie pulk as said
had to be at work early that morning she says that when she left the home just before she saw Shannon was asleep on the
couch so she kissed her on the forehead before leaving for the day now we do get
a pretty detailed timeline of events I'm not going to say it's perfect obviously
we we have some gaps here and we have some details that are missing that could certainly help solve this mystery but we
do get some good information because this is this neighborhood this Candlestick Park is described by several
of the residents as a live community and what they mean by that is there's always
people outside and there's always people interacting with one another in this neighborhood be it people out mowing the
grass people out riding bikes kids playing people sitting on their front porches so it's referred to as a live
and active community and neighborhood as said her mother has to be up early that
morning she's leaving the house rather early that morning and she has a stop on her way to work she's dropping off a
baby nephew back to his parents home on the way to work so she kisses Shannon on
the forehead and she walks out of the house she leaves this is supposed to just be another ordinary Thursday one
thing that is going on here they live on Expo the name of their street is Expo by
the way all the streets in this neighborhood are named after baseball teams Shannon's father is living about
about 2 hours away dad and mom are in the process of a divorce one of the items here Captain is
stated that Shannon was supposed to be grounded that day which is a little tricky because in my household growing
up grounded for the day meant you weren't to leave the house but nobody seems to be questioning her leaving the
house now at 9:00 a.m. Lisa this is Shannon's older sister said that she woke up and the TV was on in the living
room and said that the TV was loud and she noticed that Shannon had made herself some breakfast and that she had
already left the home for the day one account and report that is not that there's no discrepancies in
when you go to different sources is Shannon's personality she's a very active child so her already being
up for the day and out of the house was nothing nothing out of the ordinary not out of the ordinary for Shannon but not
out of the ordinary for the other kids in the trailer park around 10 a.m. Shannon is over at a neighbor's house on
Mets street she stayed with this neighbor for about 30 minutes or so Shannon had asked this woman if she
could take her up to the gas station so she could buy some candy she said that she could later but at the time her
child was still sleep sleeping in the other room and so she told Shannon to come back later and she would take her
to get some candy from there Shannon went over to another friend's home so now on our timeline I have a marker of
about 11:45 a.m. this is to see if some friends could come out and play however the
friend is said to be too busy couldn't come out and play with Shannon these Neighbors
reported seeing Shannon with a baby walker or baby stroller it's so from my understanding here Captain there is a
stroller that even though she was grounded part of that day it was understood that she was going to go out
and retrieve this stroller from somewhere in the mobile home park I would like to know more about where this
stroller came from was this just something that was spotted that somebody was discarding or was this an arrangement to
pick it up I don't have great details on this but the stroller has become a rather large part of the story because
some of our witnesses that see her that day see her toing around the stroller now she was shanon was a
very like helpful kid as we'll see in some of this timeline but she loved babies and the purpose of her getting
the stroller was to bring it back to her own home because she was going to give it
to her relative for the new baby that that Mom just returned home that morning when I hear that she's told to retrieve
this stroller to me it's maybe an item that she was playing with that she left somewhere could be again I wish that we
had a great understanding of the significance of this stroller because there are some sources that put a lot of
thought and speculation into the movement of the stroller and then there's other times
where I just go maybe it has nothing to do with the story at all other than it's
something it was part of her day that day yeah it makes you wonder did people see her playing with this stroller
before the day she went missing there's a neighbor called Miz Mary so a lot of these neighbors seem to have nicknames
that that as we go through some of these nicknames you'll see it it's obvious that the nicknames are created by the
kids in the neighborhood so this m Mary known to wear all black she saw Shannon out of her window over at this
friend's house that we talked about she said that she saw her knock on the door and talk to them she said that she then
saw Shannon leave with the baby stroller and walk around to the other side of the
pond over to the quote Halloween man's house Miss Mary says that she saw Shannon knock on his door but he must
have not scary or anything the Halloween man yeah so he must not have been home because M Mary
says that this Halloween man does not answer the door now Ms Mary is she's very important to our timeline because
for my understanding M Mary is somebody that Shannon even though M Mary's an older woman this is someone that Shannon
would actually go and hang out with you know we talked about her sitting on somebody's porch and and talking earlier
she would go and say hello to M Mary and things like that so this appears to be a
trusted individual within the neighborhood and what we're going to see with some of the players in this
neighborhood maybe some of them should not be trusted so when we have M Mary saying that she sees her knock on the
Halloween man's door and nobody answers her statement is that the Halloween man was not home I don't know
how she knows that the man wasn't home other or she just assuming that because he does not answer the door cuz it's not
out of the realm of possibility that he was home and saw it's a little girl knocking on my door and I don't want to
be bothered today or busy or still in bed um you know we don't know what his schedule would have been for that day
and we do know his name we'll get into some of the players here as we go But continuing on the
timeline according to Witnesses Shannon then walked back toward the back of the park to one of the homes closer to her
own this is reported as being a little bit before noon that day Shannon knocked on the door of a home only a couple
houses over from hers so she's now back on Expo or expose the neighbor was a Prattville Police Officer he lived there
with his wife and his boys his kids Shannon had recently rescued a puppy and his family had been taking care of that
dog because Shannon was not allowed to keep it right this neighbor however was getting ready for work the statement
here is it was just him and the boys so his wife wasn't home and people have really read flag this thing saying
that the man the police officer told Shannon she couldn't come in to visit with the dog or the boys because his
wife wasn't home it's been stated that this is some kind of house rule okay I want to investigate this a little bit
before we move on here some people have suggested that maybe the wife created this house rule because there's
something weird about this dude like you can't have kids in here that aren't ours
because he can't be trusted around them that's a rumor that's circled around this portion of the timeline well if
he's a Mr mcely type then we need to create rules and boundaries for this pedo well the the rumor is that the rule
is was created because he might be weird the the adult male the father again I want to point out this is a rumor it may
be true that he says you can't come in because my wife isn't home there could be what I'm saying is there could be a
house rule that has nothing to do with him being a weirdo that right you know there are some homes that either mom or
dad or what have you just doesn't want to deal with extra kids and if the wife or husband's not there they don't allow
extra kids into the home or was he busy getting ready for work and didn't have time you know there's a million reasons
why she would be denied access into this home like you said maybe he just doesn't
want to deal with her and maybe she's a little bit of a Bugaboo without him being some kind of weird strange guy but
I I point that out because that is the rumor so let's leave that door a little bit open on the possibility that that
could be the truth but also possibly not a complete scumbag because they find this dog and they take the dog in to
take care of the dog well and he is a later they're going to narrow down the time of concern for
noon you know there are there's often psychological test and all kinds of other tests that individuals take to
become a police officer or work for a city or a town so I'm I'm choosing to give him the benefit of the doubt the
listeners out there can decide if uh if your boy is right or wrong here I think that there's enough don't bet a Franklin
on it I think there's enough mystery here in this case that uh we don't want to spin
our tires too long on just this one individual now well the fact of the matter is this is a small community like
you said under 30,000 individuals but in this park even less and anybody that saw
her that day or anybody that was in that Park during this time that she went missing has to be looked at it's just
the the way that's just the way the world Works absolutely so thank you for the nudge there Captain so here a little
background on this trailer park the Candlestick mobile home park as it's called it's an all ages manufactured
home Community located on South Memorial Drive in Prattville Alabama it's a land lease
Community it was built in 1986 it has 220 home sites okay that doesn't mean that they are all filled but they have
enough room for 220 homes and the Lots vary in size and we know that because the the lot rent
ranges there's quite a big range of prices that a person could pay per month to live there so the lot sizes must vary
but keep in mind if this thing's filled 220 homes that's a lot of people in this
community so this is a big neighborhood and I think there's a lot of a lot of information here to suggest that
whenever she went missing whatever caused her to go missing very likely could have happened right inside of this
community inside this neighborhood here is a point for me that I don't love right I do not love to see this in our
timeline and we can get into the wise of that here in a bit but originally police
were working on the idea so what we're going to end up with is that police are notified when Shannon never comes home
for dinner and they're called in now early in the investigation they are working through
this timeline that we've just spoke of and they're saying that look this the last sighting confirmed sighting we have
of her is Shannon leaving this house house around noon remember she knocks on the door of the Prattville Police
Officer and family is denied access she's seen leaving there around noon and from my understanding this might be
multiple accounts we have multiple Witnesses saying that spotted around noon so early in the investigation
police are going to hone in on the timeline of noon to about 7:30 p.m. okay so that's when everybody's out in the
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restrictions apply see Min mobile for details [Music] welcome back you filthy animals cheers
mates cheers to you Colonel cheers to you Captain cheers to people in the back power to the people around 1:15 p.m. the
Prattville Police Officer leaves his home for work see this is why I I really kind of got the feeling that this was
more of just a situational thing like hey I'm trying to get ready for work there's no other parents here and we
don't know exactly what was said though right I mean because well I believe that
he gave the statement of I told her she couldn't come in cuz my wife wasn't home
and I think that people have kind of just run with that statement of like well that seems weird which is weird in
itself I mean it it literally could be my wife knows you I don't know you that well I'm you can't come in sorry or
maybe it was meant to be if my wife was here I'm getting ready to leave for work
right right in an hour and 15 minutes if my wife were here you could come in because she would be here for the
remainder of the day yeah we don't know what he needs to do we don't know if he needs to [ __ ] shower and shave or just
be straight up weird for an hour and 15 minutes he has to do the chicken dance very slowly yeah so
around5 we get more of this statement here that Prattville Police Officer is leaving his home for work he says that
he sees that baby stroller that Shannon had been toing around he says he spots left on the curb outside of the
Halloween man's house he says he does not see Shannon anywhere so this window of time is what the police will
eventually come up with is most believed to be when she was abducted or something
happened to her right it's not out of the realm of possibility that she went back to Halloween man's house she could
be safe and sound in somebody else's house at this time we know she was what was she doing that morning that we know
100% toting around a stroller and knocking on people's doors so she could have knocked on anybody's door went in
and actually been safe and sound and just left the stroller outside somewhere to retrieve it later or and this is a
sad possibility she could have already been picked up somebody could have picked her up in a car or she's in
someone's home and things are not not great anybody that has grown up in a community when where there's other
kids you you've experienced this you wake up you're looking for somebody to hang out with you start going door too
you have your favorites you go to first or maybe the kids that you know are their go-to kids they're going to be
home and it seems like every person that she's going to hang out with is just not
available and if somebody was available that day then this might have never happen yeah a little background here on
Shannon so she's 11 at the time as we said she's 5 tall 83 lb this is according to her missing poster uh
Caucasian with green eyes and Sandy brown hair I don't know how tall a kid supposed to be if at 11 years old that
seems tall for to to my mind but she is reported to have been very friendly very
outgoing she saw everyone in that neighborhood as her friend she's remembered for visiting the trailers of
other persons of her neighbors to ask if they needed help with anything in particular she was known for visiting an
elderly resident known as M Mary to help her bathe and brush the teeth of her small dog listen to how much care this
little one had right she she's retrieving a stroller for her cousin the her baby cousin right she's rescued a a
puppy and and gave it to a neighbor to take care of and is going over to check on the dog she's helping an elderly
resident bathe and brush the teeth of her small dog regularly so she's extremely kind-hearted extremely
outgoing which might be might end up of being a big problem here she was a person that was described as she knows
no stranger she never met a stranger and her mother Marie stad stated she had a heart of gold and just
love love people all people and everybody loved her so do we have any more information on this Halloween man a
little bit let's let's we have a couple more items here on the timeline we have a pregnant
neighbor who came home sometime later I don't have a a marker a Time marker for this but it stated that she came home
later that day to see the stroller on the curb she thought that it had been thrown away I guess she retrieved it
thinking that it it was just you know somebody had tossed it was discarding it and so she could use it uh so she
retrieved it now she did clean the stroller and I don't know what kind of evidence anybody would think that they
could have retrieved from the stroller but we we should note here that if there were to have been any evidence physical
evidence on that stroller it was cleaned that very day the same day that Shannon goes missing and we don't have a
time marker for this individual but we do know that her mother left early in the morning because she had to work so
she's going to get home earlier so she comes back around 2:30 or so mhm and and she doesn't see any signs of her
daughter yeah Shannon's not at home when Mom returns and I guess the breakup was
fairly recent maybe 6 months prior or just a few months prior right between Mom and Dad and so look Shannon's not
the only big heart caring person in this family mom says she she knows her daughter was upset and sad about the
situation she came home her daughter's not there she's like okay cool she's just out playing with some friends I'm
going to swing over to Walmart and pick up a couple of items to surprise my kid and try to cheer her up and so she goes
over to the store purchases some items comes back Shannon's still not there now it's time to start making dinner shanon
never comes back and it's as we said earlier it's understood that by 7:30 p.m. whatever happened happened she was
she was gone by 7:30 p.m. to me I would like that to be a big marker on our timeline so what we do know happens is
mom and sister Lisa they're out in the neighborhood knocking on doors Shannon knew no stranger so a lot of these
Neighbors start joining in helping to look for the little girl they're going through the neighborhood they're
checking people's yards they're knocking on doors they're doing everything they can this all goes down approximately 60
minutes let's say one hour's time now we know at about 8:30 this is when Shannon's mom calls Shannon's father in
fact he was supposed to come and get the kid the next day and keep her for the weekend and of course he's like yeah
I've not heard from her but but he lives two hours away at this point he says I've not heard anything from her he's
extremely concerned so he's like I'm jumping in my car I'll be there as quickly as I possibly can but if I'm
clear on something the the last person that actually saw her was the police officer that's what it sounds like to me
yes and and so you you're making a big marker at this 7:30 8:00 but I think when you look at when he saw her last
the mom getting home other people in the neighborhood getting home the abduction
to me seems like it happened before 2: p.m. I can agree with that but the reason why I want to make this 730
marker very important is because I think that I think that people have created a
narrative here that she must have gone M because of the stroller right again I think that a lot of I
think that there's way too much weight put into the movement of this stupid stroller and because it's found it's
seen just sitting there unattended by Shannon at 115 that that there's they've created this narrative that has has
stood now for 20 years that oh something must have happened to where between noon
and5 I think I think it's it's very it could be very likely I'm not saying that that's impossible I'm not saying that
that is not likely at all I'm saying it could be very likely I think it's irresponsible to start creating a window
for which you have no verification the problem I guess is that we have no Witnesses saying that they've seen her
after that time and and she had a lot of friends and knew a lot of the neighbors
so it would it would make sense that that we would have good people saying yeah I talked to her oh yeah I saw her
walking there but what I'm saying is I don't know that she 100% had to be in the possession of her abductor by 115
and and and you'll see why I think that that's irresponsible well and I also think too it's like she could have
retrieved the stroller walked around with it for a little bit and went yeah not today I'm going to I'm going to
leave it here going I'm going to go to a couple more places and I'll come back and get the stroller but I'm not going
to just push this around with me all day and now what we have here is the police
are called the time the marker I have on my timeline Captain is around 9:00 p.m.
the police are called they do come out they are talking to neighbors talking with the family I've not seen Shannon's
family say a bad word about the police I have seen not a bad word but neighbors saying that they didn't think that the
police were taking it very seriously until the next day now this is this is why I really have a problem with that
noon to 1:15 so neighbors went around there searching for Shannon that night around
10 p.m. they said that everyone was very helpful and very concerned now they've they're talking to police right
everyone's very helpful everyone's been very concerned but they the neighbors the people out searching for
her they've got a problem with with two of the people that they speak with that night it's two men two individual ual
when they knocked on the root beer man's home so he lives right across the street
from the Halloween man this makes the story creepier though right do you agree with that I mean you got one guy called
the Halloween man this other guy called the root beer man sounds like a story that children
are telling you but these are probably nicknames that are thought up by children well so from my understanding
the the reason why root beer man gets his name is and this is this this is absolutely creepy in my opinion
he was known to to invite neighborhood kids into his home he lived by himself to invite them into his home or to have
them like do chores or work around his home yeah and he would either pay them or often he would give them a can of
root beer as payment so he gets this nicknam root beer man Halloween man from my understanding it's a very similar
situation but he was known to hand out candy to the to the kids in the neighborhood oh I'm Halloween man give
me some candy I would say hey give them the benefit of the doubt maybe they're just you know nice guys that that are
misunderstood that are handing out root beer and Halloween candy but we'll see with root beer man there's a lot of
reason to have some concern here so root beer man lives across the street from Halloween man people got a bad Vibe
about him that night because they say when they knocked on his door he took forever to answer answer the door and he
only cracked the door he refused to open the door all the way when asked if he had seen Shannon he said no she was
probably just out getting candy that seems like a strange statement to say at 10 p.m. at night that an 11-year-old is
probably out getting candy and that's why she's not home and then people were concerned that he took forever to answer
the door could be simply that he was sleeping at the time they did say he was fully dressed which which some people
thought that that was strange as well because he too worked early in the morning and typically would be up and
out of the neighborhood early in the morning to be off to work yeah just a little over the close flicky flicky
extensive searches of the area were done by local state and even federal law enforcement as the days went on
waterways were searched dogs were used helicopters the whole nine yards but they couldn't find her the uh State
Police were involved and as and the FBI even got involved as well but nobody really had any idea
what had happened to her now there was a man who had a dog trained in either search and rescue or or kadav
search it's not fully explained and those are two very different things handlers will know that that those are
two very different things but this man offered to provide services to Shannon's family and Shannon's father says that
the dog went into Shannon's room smelled some of her clothing the dog takes off running directly over to root bear man's
house right over to the creepy [ __ ] and it's stated that the dog sniffed around this trailer and tried to sniff
under the root beer man's trailer for around 45 minutes once they were able to get the dog to continue the dog then ran
to the nearby Forest up to the railroad tracks and over to County Road 4 and then stopped so I love these dogs
but I've pointed out plenty of times one one problem is they can't talk they can't tell us when you ran to those when
you ran to the forest nearby and ran over to the railroad tracks where you still following the scent you must be a
scent dog cuz you can't freaking talk either right but what we do know is that dog seem to show great concern for the
root beer man's house and under the trailer of that house so so much so that they had to they had to urge the dog to
to move on it just wanted to stay there that's where my concern would go well why are you urging the dog to go
anywhere else other than where it wants to go isn't that the point of having the
dog right but it that's why I pointed out it's different to be trained in search and rescue or or cadav because if
that dog's train in search and rescue your that dog's job is to find the person right right if it's trained in
kadav it's trained to find a kadaver any kadav but here if it's if if it's looking for the person you get to this
man's home he not he answers the door right and this dog is really concerned about
this home but you've not found the person you're searching for so you do have to kind of move on but but it
wasn't lost on anybody that this dog showed concern about this this home this is one of those situations that we've
seen in made for TV movies where fictional or whether it's true crime-based the whole
Community was constantly checking in on the news reading the newspapers where is this
little girl we're not just talking about Candlestick Park we're talking about Prattville the whole town and city of
Prattville they were putting up yellow ribbons now unfortunately those yellow ribbons did bring her home just not in
the way that anyone wanted right on October 6th 2001 so remember she goes missing mid August so this is weeks and
weeks that pass we have two rabbit hunters and forgive me if I say this wrong but they were hunting in the
ataga Wildlife Management Area this is a public hunting area it's about 19 miles
north of Prattville they come upon an area that appeared at first to be they think that it's just like scattered
trash that they find in this hunting area however they quickly realized that they had found a body they found the
body of a little girl who had been tied with a rope stuffed inside a trash bag and found with her underwear around her
head and enough time has passed that they're pretty certain unfortunately that this is Shannon pul
who they've everybody's been looking for for all this time but they're going to have to confirm that and in fact we we
have the police statements that are saying you know we don't have another missing person that even vaguely fits
this description so we're pretty certain that it's Shannon pul they do run some DNA and and get confirmation that it is
in fact the little girl that everybody was looking for we need to point out here that that this area to me is one of
the keys to solving this case I believe because there are several people that have gone on record saying I lived in
Prattville Alabama my entire life and we're not talking about 15year old people saying this we're talking about
50 60 year old people saying I lived in Prattville Alabama my entire life I didn't know that this area existed this
this this hunting area I I had never been there right it's it's like a dirt road off of a dirt road off of a dirt
road to get to it which is a tough thing because you look at these crimes where the the victims are found in remote
areas and law enforcement always assumes that that means it's somebody local but
I don't necessarily believe that you might not believe it but I'll tell you the first thing I would be doing after
after they found this girl if it were my case I would be checking for I would be cross referencing hunting
licenses right with people that lived in her neighborhood well that definitely makes sense remember just like just like
finding the Long Island serial killer it it was as simple as who owns a truck that the witness
saw in this neighborhood there was one guy and he fit the description the physical description of of a potential
witness in that case right in this case I would be looking for I I if if I if I see out of 220 homes in this trailer
park only one dude has a hunting license I'm going to be on him like white on rice so the the key players here the
persons of concern that stand out and again it's possible that none of these individuals have anything to do with the
murder of this little girl or or her disappearance for weeks at all but the but the people that remain key players
or people of concern in this case for 20 years is the Prattville Police Officer he doesn't seem very likely to me
Captain because his his kids are home the whole time right like we know that he's not alone and then he leaves for
work well because the way her body was discovered to me the crime didn't take place there it's more likely that it
took place somewhere else and she was transported there think what you're saying and that
there's not other possibilities but it's like the guy's at home he has to go to work he tells her not to come in the
house the the boys never see her in the house and so we don't have any evidence of him leaving super early and then you
know picking her up and doing something with her the case is unsolved so he is one of the last people that we know
of to see her so he has to stay on the list until we can prove that he didn't do it
yeah the thing here I that I keep I want to put him at the top of the list no actually I I I wouldn't discard him I
wouldn't remove him from your list but I'd put him at the very bottom because I what I see here and I look no Sherlock
Holmes but it looks to me like somebody had to conceal Shannon pul yes and there's no nice way of saying it so I'll
just say it they had to conceal K this girl either abducted and alive or or otherwise
and I don't given the timeline when a when a that's a pretty solid Alibi a police
officer is at work he leaves at 1:15 and is very likely trying to help the investigation by saying yeah she knocked
on my door I told her to go away and then when I left for work at 115 I saw that stroller that was with her earlier
and I didn't see her if he is involved he's got a short window of of an hour and 15 minutes to do whatever happened
and conceal her abducted and alive or otherwise it there just doesn't seem to be enough time for any of that and he's
not alone at any point in that timeline the Halloween man is of concern I wish I
had more information on this on this individual he lived acoss the street from rootbeer man handed out candy to
the kids in the neighborhood I'd love to know if any of these guys are registered
sex offenders well we do have somebody on our list that is um so I wish that we knew more about this Halloween man he
but he he is became Under Suspicion because of people in the neighborhood so that does hold some weight to me yeah
that he's he's rumored as being thought as could be possible I got to admit Captain when I found out that he handed
out out candy to the kids that completely made sense why he had this nickname I was hoping that it was more
of a he looked like Michael Myers situation um but then I guess nobody would knock on his door if that was the
case Ty Foster is a person that's named as a person of concern and and I'm saying a person of concern because the
police have not outwardly named anybody as a suspect or person of interest in this cas so let's just say person of
concern and a lot of this concern is coming from individuals in the neighborhood this is an individual that
he was a neighbor of Shannon he lived there with his wife and kids his kids were similar age to Shannon he
frequented their I'm sorry she frequented frequented their trailer to play with his kids another tie to the
family is that Shannon's older sister Lisa babysat his kids the root beer man I say pay attention to this guy guy
his name is Jack Earl Gibson he lived a couple blocks from Shannon uh he lived on Mets Street I believe he's the one
known as root beer man he would have kids do odd jobs around the trailer in his trailer he would pay the younger
kids with candy Andor soda I'm sure sometimes he was paying them with money but the reason why I say pay attention
to this man is the same night that Shannon goes missing Jack Gibson is arrested for possession of child
pornography so this makes him a a strange suspect right like wouldn't you move him
directly to the top of the list knowing this but also think of the timeline if he's arrested that night that means
police were in his home and found this stuff that night so they had concern enough to go in or he allowed them to go
in and again if and I firmly believe she had to be concealed had he already made Provisions
to move her at another time was she under his trailer is that why that dog paid so much attention to his trailer
right did he hide her for did he conceal her on his property before he moved her
which I think that's what somebody did here but again we don't know the details that the police were working with at the
time he gets problematic for me because of my earlier statements of she needed to be concealed and he's he's arrested
that night yeah I wish I had a better timeline on that it's it's just stated that he was arrested that night now he
ends up being charged with all kinds of possession they go through his computer and the the type of images and files
that he had stored on his computer were of kids that were around the same age of
of Shannon if you're looking to make an arrest and close out this case unfortunately what you're looking for on
this guy's computer and and his belongings in his home are images of Shannon that's what they don't find they
find images of other kids but not of her now to take this a step further this doesn't sound like it was just something
where he was collecting these images off of the internet or or wherever he's getting this gross stuff from but it it
sounds like like he on several occasions had lured children into his home and he was
physically taking photographs of of kids one thing that I want to point out about
him I think that like I said earlier I would be cross referencing hunting licenses with persons that live in this
neighborhood whether those licenses are active or not that's a paper trail that police could easily find that's
something I don't have access to we here at the garage task force we don't have access to that type of information but I
can't say this his email address I found his email address the word Hunter is in
his email address yeah our task force didn't find that but our ass Force did find that information I'm concerned that
this guy is a hunter I'm concerned that he lives in the area I'm concerned that he has all this child sex abuse
material uh and pornography in his possession possession he's a creep he's super creep root beer man
and he he fits he checks a lot of boxes here as a great suspect now I've seen several statements that this guy has
been cleared yeah do we have DNA do we have fingerprints do we have anything and look I don't I don't I don't this is
not we don't need to be privy to this information but I do get mad as hell when I see somebody that's cleared and
we get no explanation as to why now I've heard a few different person's thoughts
that live in the area and both would make sense so one thought is that he's been cleared either by DNA like you just
said or that he has or that his Alibi is Rock Solid and before we wrap up here today make sure that you make me Circle
back to that because I I got a lot of thoughts on that but but let's continue on with these persons of concern
right we already mentioned the police officer we mentioned Halloween man um one thing that makes him a little
concerning too is we do know that Shannon knocked on his door close to the time that she is believed to have been
abducted but we do have the witness saying that he wasn't home that he didn't answer the door like you said
root beer man lives right across the street from Halloween man so whether she's knocking on Halloween man's door
root beer man's door they both I think equally become suspects because of the proximity
Foster becomes a person of concern because they found a small a very small amount of blood in his home this was
collected it was tested it was believed to be Shannon's blood I don't know if they ever confirmed that it was 100%
Shannon's blood but we but he says to police you know cuz they're going to they're they're smart they're going to
ask these questions you try to trip these dudes up right you don't say why did why did we find this blood in your
home no you say hey buddy why would we have found Shannon's blood in your home whether it's hers or not right that's
how you word that question try to trip this guy up his statement to police is that she she would come over to his home
remember she played with his kids he her older sister babysat Tai Foster's kids so there is an easy explanation for
Shannon to have been in his home he says on one of those visits she had a nose bed Shannon's mother did confirm that
Shannon often got nose beds so this seems to make some sense maybe explain this away it does make some sense but then
you don't love to hear this at all that later he pleads guilty to charges of of assault and sodomy on a 9-year-old boy
Jesus he is somebody that remains a person of concern you just wonder if when I compare him to somebody like
root beer man rootbeer man checks a lot more boxes I believe than Ty Foster but but obviously you can't move off of this
guy and then of course you have the the the low probability of a random abduction and I think here we can't rule
that out obviously because we we just don't know it's unsolved for a reason but we do have statements by local kids
and this I don't want to get all weird and Stephen King on you here Captain dude you're weird as [ __ ] brph but I've
had like this case gives me a really weird and uneasy feeling I mean of course any child abduction murder case
should make us all feel something very strange depressed what have you but there's something
about this case that almost feels like like it cannot be solved and don't mean because of police or because of of the
actions of the perpetrator this just feels like there's something out in the in The Ether I don't know like I can't
explain it but there seems to be something preventing this case from being solved and when I first got this
uneasy feeling was because of the next detail here is that we had a couple of kids who gave a a description of a
person that they said that Shannon was last seen to be speaking with I hesitate to know how much time to spend on this
next detail because years later we're told by the authorities to disregard that sketch that that it's not part of the
case that it that it may have been simply a hoax or that they were given bad information right but part of that part
of that information that came from teenagers this was teenagers that gave information to police was
that she was seen spotted talking to this individual near where the bus would pick up the kids to go to
school this could Point more towards a random stranger abduction or it could also point to
somebody that maybe lives in the larger community of Prattville but not in the trailer park
community because I have to wonder did they come up with this idea because was there
someone that would stop and talk to the kids at the bus stop that's very possible lot of creep because that's
part of the story that that this was an individual that that may have stopped on
more than one occasion and talked to kids at the bus stop well if you're looking for kids the bus stop is a good
place to find them so part of that let's let's include this here because I this could still be important again we we
were told eventually to disregard that sketch supposedly there are witnesses that saw Shannon talking
to a stranger on the day of the abduction they claimed that Shannon was speaking to a man in a red Jeep Wrangler
or a red Jeep with a soft black top she it was said that she Shannon seemed to be familiar with this person there was
also word of a white sedan spotted in the area that day that was dirt that had a braided license plate uh like
a metal braided license plate holder that was part of the description the the description of this
man is pretty detailed uh kind of a a square shaped head SpongeBob with facial hair nope
goatee down to a beard short dark hair a tan male white male well what I wonder and I don't know if law enforcement has
come and said anything they're saying disregard the sketch are they saying disregard this this these eyewitnesses
Al together because it's such a detailed description of the individual the description of their car it seems like
law enforcement would have figured out who this individual was and they would have talked to him so the information I
have is that simply the years later the persons that provided this information to police recanted the statements
and even told law enforcement that the the sketch was made up strange why would you make why would you make this [ __ ] up
right and these are not like these are not like adults that had a that had reason to point the finger elsewhere
right to hey don't look at me too much because you should be looking for this guy in this Jeep or this white sedan
here's what he looks like this is coming from from youngsters at the time and again that's why I not to get all
Stephen King on you but I there's just like some some like dark force I feel like that is preventing this case from
being I don't know I know I'm not making any sense but I can't I've had that like
weight on my chest all week long and I don't know how to describe it a couple things here it could be and probably
most likely it's a pedo it's a creep oh couldn't control their urges but then you get this weird
eyewitness very detailed report coming from teenagers like you said why would they be making stuff up
well maybe something bad happen maybe and that's not out of the realm of possibilities because yes Hunters would
know about very weird remote locations but who else knows about weird remote locations kids and teenagers yeah that's
something if you're law enforcement you have have to question why did these kids
make this up yeah well exactly and the the other thing though we need to keep in mind is what at its simplest
form makes your best suspect well it's one a person that that was around in the area with Shannon at some
point that day and two had the ability to sorry but there's no nice way of saying this discard her body in that
location that is Miles and Miles Away right so those two things have to happen for your good suspect now I want to
point out here this rootbeer man he worked in he was a maintenance man at the Veterans
Affairs Medical Center in Montgomery Alabama I this is a this is a call to action this is a little homework for any
of our listeners out there if anybody in the area knows where this guy worked Beyond this I I'm trying to really I
know that that's a pretty good description of where he worked but if anybody has more information about where
he worked I there is a a possible lead on this case that that that could be a connection could be made here if we had
more information about his employment at this time the reason why okay he could have been ruled out by DNA and our
listeners are out there we we're lucky because we live in the Golden Age of using DNA to solve these cases genology
detective work and I'm sure there's a few listeners out there going okay if they ruled him out by DNA that means
they have suspect DNA in the case why aren't they just using genealogy work to get a surname and then figure out a
suspect from there hopefully I have my hands together in the praying motion that that is going on behind the scenes
right now and they're close to find in this dirt bag but we could also have a situation
where the DNA is not great and it's just enough to exclude people but not really hone in on the the
person responsible now we don't have any confirmation of why the statement of this child pornography collecting dirt
bag that's taking pictures of kids as well living in the neighborhood handing out root beer yeah to to kids when they
come into his trailer we don't have any statement from law enforcement as to why
this dude was ruled out other than he's been eliminated now I I I have concern of that because here's where my fear is
if they didn't use DNA if they didn't use science to eliminate this guy there's got to be a detective in this
agency that's going come on guys let's take another look at this dude because the other rumor that I've heard
is that he was ruled out due to an alibi that he was at work all day and so he was not in the area remember we said
that two things have to happen for your good suspect he has to be in the area at
the time that she went missing and has to have the ability to transport her all that way away to to try to hide the body
okay so he was at work all day that's great that works if you are correct in your belief that she went
missing during that 1 hour and 15minute window that they've created if that window is wrong if you
guys are wrong about that you can't eliminate him absolutely not if you if you take that timeline back out to what
you were originally working with that between noon and 7:30 was your time of concern he could have been back home and
in the area well before 7:30 but still not in the area to meet that noon to 115 window you see what I'm getting at with
that that's why I I hope that they've not eliminated persons because they were at work at 1:15 that afternoon right
because there could be there could be a situation where she's not abducted until
after that 115 timeline that marker there and the other thing that that brings up some great
questions here right time of day who who has access who who's just out and about
that time of day that's this is middle of the week this is a Thursday that plays A Part here I
believe the other thing too that you have to wonder about is the time of year this is about a week or so before they
would start school so who's not working in the summertime somebody had to have access
to to get her at that time whatever time of day that was they had to have access
to actually to getting her there's a lot of mystery with this case now rootbeer man Jack Gibson he he has served his
time he he faced a lot of charges he served his time he's I believe he's moved out of the
area as said though I think I'm going off of the idea because the word Hunter is in his email address that that he was
at one time a hunter uh and therefore may have known of this area where the body was disposed
of I have a lot of trouble moving on from this guy well that's cuz he was your high school sweetheart and I I'm
not law enforcement and I'm not certainly not qualified to say who should be cleared and not cleared in
this case well what's tough is we have a pretty good timeline we have a lot of individuals in
this neighborhood that search for her we have a handful of suspects her body is recovered we're not privy to what other
what other evidence was retrieved by law enforcement but with all these years later you
think they give us a list like an updated list of individuals they ruled out or ruled in well and this is a big-
Time case there this remains a case that is hyperfocused on by law enforcement and locals even more than 20 years later
so that is one thing that is glass half full here now another thing that I want to point out is Jim be this is the
one-time mayor of Prattville he was in fact he was the mayor for 12 years and was the mayor at the time that she went
missing and that was later found but Jim Bay he's on record very recently saying quote one of the things
we have got going on right now is we have another state that we've been working with and also a federal agency
that is working with us to review all the information on Shannon's case again he goes on to say that is one of those
things that we are talking about trying to link a case in another state to Shannon's and that's what we are going
to see if they are linked it could have been Nationwide he's talking about kids getting snatched could be Nationwide and
somebody else was invol you know somebody was involved that that was moving about or it could be somebody
that was going through the state he says we don't know we're hoping that one of those cases outside of the state might
be of help to Shannon's case as said this is very much on the hearts and minds of local law enforcement and even
law enforcement at the state level the FBI has been involved this is a horribly heartbreaking case
I'm hoping that somebody out there somewhere knows something Tom Allen from the Prattville Police Department is on
record he he's the lead I believe current lead on this case he has said that they still receive tips and they
still receive information and they still have people reach out that want to help
about this case help with this case so that's also uh something in the positive as well for those of you out there or
anyone out there with any information at all on Shannon Paul's case we urge you to call Prattville CSI sergeant Tom
Allen at 334 595 0256 [Music] want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage each and every week
and thanks for telling a friend thanks for telling your mother and until next week be good be kind and don't live
[Music] [Applause] [Music]

Shannon Paulk ////// 780 Part 1 of 1

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

One week before the start of the school year a little girl was taken from her Candlestick Park neighborhood. The entire city of Prattville, Alabama was looking for this little girl. Eleven year old Shannon Paulk was missing for about two months when rabbit hunters found her remains in a remote hunting area. This is the crime that forever changed Prattville. The murderer is still out there, hiding from the men and women of the law that are yet to get justice for this little angel. Anyone with any information at all is urged to call Prattville CSI Sergeant Tom Allen at 334-595-0256.

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Brief Summary

The episode discusses the unsolved case of Shannon Pulk, who disappeared in 2001, highlighting key witnesses and potential suspects.

Key points

A Neighborhood's Innocence Lost. Exploring how a small community was shaken by a tragic crime.
The Unsolved Case of Shannon Pulk. A deep dive into the mysterious disappearance of 11-year-old Shannon Pulk in Prattville, Alabama.
Shannon's Kindness. Shannon was known for her caring nature, helping neighbors and friends.
Community Search Efforts. The neighborhood rallied together to search for Shannon after she went missing.
Tragic Discovery. Weeks after her disappearance, Shannon's body was found in a remote area.
The Halloween Man. The Halloween man becomes a person of concern due to neighborhood rumors.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This sort of thing shouldn't happen anywhere.

Introduction to the case of Shannon Pulk.

4:00WatchAug 14, 2024

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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