Shootout at the Shaughnessys' | Full Episode + Post Mortem | Forensic Files

[Music] In a fraction of a second, it changed my life. Now I'm someone else. No warning, no
premonition, nothing. My name is Corey Shaughnessy and I used to own Gallery Jewelers in Austin,
Texas. The thing that made the jewelry business really fun is selling engagement rings, selling jewelry to
people because they're marking special occasions. Ted kind of had the same passion. He loved colored gemstones. We
called ourselves gallery jewelers. It should have been called Ted's Jewelers because it it really was all about him.
March 1st was just a boring day. He came home from work. We had dinner. I basically rolled over to go to
sleep. And the next thing I know, one of the dogs barks. This was early morning hours. Two
shooters enter the Shaughnessy home. They quietly move through the home. Ted sits up in bed and he grabbed his
gun to go see what it was. I hadn't even gotten my head back on the pillow, I don't think, before I heard the first
gunshot. And then there was a barrage of gunfire. One of the shooters advances towards the
master bedroom where Cory is. I grabbed my gun. I started shooting back and I ran out of ammo. I just
bailed into the closet. Travis County 911. Do you need police fire or a paramedic? I don't know. I'm in the
closet. There were shots fired. Help me. Okay. Well, we're helping you, ma'am. Help me. I s heard this. I mean,
horrible, horrible moaning. And when I came out of the closet and I saw Ted's legs and I could tell that he was dead.
Okay. Oh my god. Take a deep breath. You're doing awesome, Corey. Okay. Oh god. Theodore Shaughnessy was shot dead
in his Austin area home by an intruder. Cory Shaughnessy shot back at the intruder and wasn't hurt. I was under
the impression that this was a a robbery that had gone bad. There was nothing stolen. We weren't finding anybody that
had any ill feelings towards either one of them. We didn't have any idea who committed this murder. Anybody that can
do this is a sociopath. It's just absolutely crazy. I don't even know why. I really don't
know why. [Music] [Music] [Music] When Travis County Sheriff's detectives Paul Salo and James Moore arrived to
investigate a shooting at Ted and Corey Shaughnessy's Austin, Texas home early on March 2nd,
2018. They first thought it might be a robbery gone wrong. It looked as though there was a home
invasion and a homeowner was killed. Inside the sprawling suburban home, it looked like a
battlefield. 55-year-old Ted Shaughnessy laid dead in a pool of blood near the kitchen table. He was
shot in the head, the back, the thigh, and the buttocks. One of the family's two pet Rottweilers,
Bart, had been shot to death as well. There was broken window glass everywhere. Bullets lodged in the walls,
casings all over the floor. Authorities noticed they were not all the same type.
We had 40 caliber and 380. So that told us that we had two shooters. Corey would tell police she
and Ted kept about 20 guns in the home and said she'd used her 357 revolver to shoot back at the attacker. It was a
hell of gunfire. Investigators had noticed a single wideopen ground floor window around the
side of the house and wondered if the intruders had used it to get in. Somebody took the screen off, set it
next to the window outside. That open window led into an unoccupied bedroom. And there, inside a drawer,
police found what seemed like an unlikely coincidence. There's a 40 caliber gun box in that drawer. It's
missing out of the box. Well, hang on. 40 caliber is one of the caliber that you were just describing. Yes. It meant
that Shaughnessy's empty gun box could have held a pistol that one of the intruders used and had ejected bullet
casings near the victim. That information gets past me while I'm outside. Outside near Detective Moore, first
responders were looking after Cory Shaughnessy. Cory's hysterical. Cory would tell police she had not seen the
attackers faces, but she did have a hunch about why they'd come. Being a jeweler, you might someday be a target.
When you hear they own a jewelry store, what does that prompt in in in your minds? Automatically a motive. Someone
figuring there was some safe with a bunch of jewelry. Absolutely. Yes, that's right.
Corey broke the news by phone to the Shaughnessy son Nick, then 19, who lived two hours away with his girlfriend,
Jackie, in College Station, Texas. They immediately drove to Austin, arriving about 800 a.m. Nick comes over and he's
he's emotional. He asks me what happened. Nick, Jackie, and Corey all agreed to help the investigation in any
way possible. Cory allowed police to search her phone. And though Nick said he hadn't been in
Austin for about a month, he and Jackie did the same. All three also agreed to answer
questions at the station. I'm trying to think of anything that could be helpful. Our goal was to just try to get
as much information as possible. I I didn't hear anything until the dog started barking. But Cory says the more
police questioned her in the coming days, the more a traumatic situation went from bad to worse. I'm trying to
think of anything I can to help. She says they were not treating her like a victim. I was extremely angry
at the sheriff's department. Investigators still weren't sure if the murder was part of a random
attack, a jewel heist gone bad, or whether it was a targeted assassination. They weren't finding any
relevant unidentified prince at the scene. So, they had to wonder if their sole surviving victim, Cory
Shaughnessy, was actually a suspect. She's the only person in the house and we have her husband who has been shot to
death. We know that she owns firearms, so it's obviously an option for us. They called her in for a series of
interviews. For the last one, she brought a lawyer who is seated on the left. Even though I didn't know Ted,
it's not right. Somebody killed him. No, it's not. And I want to find them. Me, too.
You got a distraught wife. You got a dead husband. You have to ask about the marriage, don't you? Yes. Ted was the
people person. He was the front part of the story. Investigators learned Cory and Ted had
met in the early 80s at a video arcade in Phoenix. They'd quickly discovered they had a lot in common, including a
love of jewelry and eventually of each other. They married and opened Gallery Jewelers. Everything seemed to be just
about perfect. As the jewelry business grew, Ted and Corey had decided to grow their family,
too. In 2000, they adopted Nick at 16 months old from an orphanage in Ukraine. It was just instant love. It was. Yeah.
Instant. Cory says they all bonded even before bringing him home. There were animal crackers involved.
Skillful distribution of animal crackers. Yes. Yes. And by the time we left, we were a family. She says Ted had
a knack for helping people express their love with a sparkle. Everybody loved Ted. Didn't have any enemies.
By the time of the murder, the Shaughnessies were worth millions. But maybe even more valuable to them, they
counted some of their customers as close friends. We were very happy for Cory. Being a parent was worth its
weight in gold. Nicholas had everything a kid could want. Yes. What was he into? He liked
animals and he loved cars, especially fast ones. His father drove race cars for fun and often took him to
the track. He loved putting on Ted's helmet and his racing gloves and and all of those things. In high school, she
says her son found another love. Her name was Jackie Edison. After her parents' divorce, Jackie had moved from
New Jersey to Austin to live with her father. Nick brought her to meet his parents in 2016. It was an awkward
dinner, but Corey says Jackie eventually won them over and before long she was spending so much time in the
Shaughnessy's house, they actually let her move in. Did you settle into a Okay, a serious girlfriend seems to be part of
Nick's life and she's okay. I I did. She was all right. In August of 2017, Nick and Jackie moved
out to start a new life in College Station. She and School, he as a day trader with his parents' financial
backing. Ted and Corey would have less than a year to enjoy their empty nest before that horrible night in
March. Police stayed on the scene for hours trying to process all the evidence. I was actually on call when
the murder occurred. Amy Meredith was an assistant district attorney and says police asked her to
come help them process and preserve the scene. An unusual request. She arrived around 11:00 a.m. and after looking
around began to believe, as they did, that Ted Shaughnessy probably knew who ever had attacked him. This was not a
stranger. This was not a stranger killing. Meredith was sure the home was just too
big and too dark for a pair of random robbers or jewel thief wannabes to find their way around. Maybe even more
importantly, there was nothing stolen. Nothing from that safe. No valuables missing from the rest of the
house. So everything for you pointed to inside job. Yes, without a doubt. [Music]
Cory Shaughnessy's frustration with investigators was growing. Thank you. All right. Well, again, I appreciate you
guys coming in. She says she'd known from the start that she was a suspect in her husband's murder. She says she
needed money for the business in the following weeks. And it didn't help when she tried to cash in his milliondoll
life insurance policy. I was the only beneficiary. That could only mean that they suspected me. Let me just ask, did
you have anything to do with this? Absolutely not. But Amy Meredith says Corey had started raising red flags
immediately after leaving the scene. Within hours of the murder, she reportedly stated there would be no
funeral and inquired about having the house cleaned. We had to make sure that she did not have any involvement.
But Cory wasn't the only member of Ted's family who was raising suspicion. The Shaughnessy son, Nick,
had been more than a 100 miles away at the time of the murder. At the scene that morning, he'd been emotional. But
what struck Detective So was one of Nick's first questions. I tell him, "It looks like somebody came into the home
and shot your dad to death." And how did he absorb that news? He asked me, "Did he suffer?" Was that an odd
question? It definitely struck me as odd. Yes. Even more so, police say, because as the morning wore on, Nick
became much less interested in speaking with police than with the reporters who had started showing up. Nick and Jackie
continuously tried to talk to the media. We asked him to to stop and to stay in the scene. And then Nick did something
really odd, says Detective Moore. He walked directly over to examine that ground floor wide openen side window.
The room it led to had once been his. Him going to that side of the house to look specifically at that window, which
you can't see from just the front of the house. So for him to know that that was
even involved, he did not have that information. How does he know the entry point unless he was involved in creating
the entry point? Sometimes people will get information from cross talk with detectives or law enforcement. And so I
I didn't automatically get super suspicious, but it was catching my attention. Something on Nick's phone had caught
their attention as well. An app that gave him access to his parents' alarm. Cory told them the family often chose
not to arm the system and that it had been switched off that night. But authorities noticed something in the
account history. There was an activation for an open window. The time of the window being opened was
4:27 that morning. Following that was glass break activations. We believe that's when the
bullets started breaking the glass in the house. That's when Ted died. That's when the shots were being fired. Was
this important to have streamline? Police also saw something that seemed important in Jackie Edison's behavior.
We were going to do gunshot residue tests on their hands. We then separated them. And at that time, Jackie broke
down hysterically. And what'd you make of it? That was a major red flag for me. We knew there was something more to this
at that point. A woman officer put your mom on the phone and then your mom told you what
happened? Yeah, just like someone came in the house, there was an exchange of gunfire.
I believe she fired a shot and then she ran to the closet. In questioning later that
day, Nick and Jackie reminded police they'd been at their home in College Station when the shooting happened. We
both moved to College Station and he just works from home. A few days later, investigators got a
search warrant. Once we get in the apartment, we're going through it. We're finding ammunition.
Though common among gun owners, the ammunition was the same brand and caliber that was found at the crime
scene. And investigators were about to find proof the couple was keeping secrets. We find a marriage certificate
for Nick and Jacqueline. You discovered that Nick and Jackie were married by searching Nick's apartment. Yeah. In all
of the conversation you were having, they never said that they were married. No. Hastings, a teenage friend of Nicks
named Spencer Patterson. Spencer Patterson, who'd been certified as a minister online, had married them eight
months earlier. Police weren't the only ones surprised. You and Ted never knew. No.
Cory Shaughnessy says Nick and Jackie didn't tell her about their clandestine marriage until after the murder. And I
told him, I said, "This is not, you shouldn't have done this. You're too young. Trying to be a good mom, she says
she promised to help them plan a proper wedding. I said, "You need to do it the right way." Corey had ample opportunity
to make sure it happened because over the next few days, Nick and Jackie moved back into her house. We were planning
the engagement party. We had the guest list. Jackie was picking out invitations.
That's especially chilling because while police initially had looked at all three
for the murder, they now suspected just two and that Nick and Jackie had also targeted
Cory. But it was still only a working theory. You can't say anything to Corey. No. That's a hard line to walk. If you
have two people who planned her killing now living with her, are you worried about Corey's safety? Of course.
Of course. But Corey Shaughnessy says what worried her was the possibility authorities were trying to frame her son
who by now was working in his father's place at the jewelry store. There is a set of circumstances that the police are
trying to to to make work in the easiest way that they can. On March 10th, 2018,
she hired her son the best defense attorney she could find. You could have told me aliens landed on the front yard,
and I would have believed that before. I would have believed that Nicholas and Jackie plan to have us killed.
[Music] Corey Shaughnessy knew police were suspicious of Nick and Jackie, but she
says she had no reason to think they were right. After all, she says, "I don't know. They've been wrong about
her. The last thing that I would ever do would be kill my husband." And I thought, well, if they think I did it,
it's not a stretch for them to think Nicholas did it. But the closer police looked, the more incriminating evidence
they seemed to find that Nick and Jackie had planned to have both Shaughnessies killed. While phone records showed Nick
had been more than 100 miles away at the time of the murder. They also showed he
was lying when he said he hadn't been to Austin for a month. We ultimately see cell phone usage in Austin on February
28th, which is just two days before Ted ends up getting killed. Investigators wondered if he had been in
town making final preparations. There were text messages on Nick and Jackie's phones that police say showed a
suspicious conversation. How important was the text message that he had sent out? February 23 24 Nick is saying he's
working on it and Jackie's response to the text message was do they want 50k or not? And she says we can't afford to pay
half before. In another exchange, Nick asks her to withdraw money from her account. Quote,
"So if it happens cash in hand, they do make this withdrawal." Jackie withdrew $1,000 from the bank
just days before the murder. Authorities suspected it was no coincidence. Then in May of 2018, they
talked to the man who had officiated Nick and Jackie's wedding, that high school friend, Spencer Patterson. Trying
to get a hold of Spencer was kind of difficult. At first, investigators believed
Patterson might be a suspect. But when they finally reached him, he proved to be a critical witness
instead. He told them just before the murder, Nick had talked about coming into $8
million with Ted and Cory gone. Nick had put a dollar sign on the lives of his parents. Yes, that's chilling. It is.
Patterson showed them text messages that were even more chilling. There was also
communication between Spencer and Nicholas. Nicholas was trying to hire him to kill a family. Just walk in and
shoot a family, writes Nick. Steal all their no mask needed cuz they'll all be dead. Spencer didn't want to go along
with it, but Nick still pitched the idea. Police cleared Patterson and on May 29th, 2018, they arrested Nick
Shaughnessy and Jackie Edison for criminal solicitation. Cory couldn't believe it.
I'm still under the assumption that he's being wrongly accused. For months, Cory had stood by Nick. But
she told us when she read the arrest affidavit and saw the evidence, her rocksolid belief in his innocence began
to crumble. I got to where I understood that yes, they were involved in some way. But as a mother, she says she still
couldn't convince herself they deliberately tried to kill anyone. I was then hoping that they had maybe
gotten caught up in something in College Station where maybe Nicholas owed someone money or maybe there was some
sort of a strange drug thing or maybe he told the wrong person that we were jewelers.
Confident Nick and Jackie were behind the attack. Police hoped some time in jail
might make them come clean about who had actually pulled the trigger. For the moment though, neither one was talking.
The next step was who were the actual shooters and how do we figure this out? The evidence trail had essentially run
cold. So, we kind of hit a stall point when in early July, 4 months after the murder, Detective Moore decided to
review some security video from Nick and Jackie's porch recorded just 2 days before the attack. I see two individuals
show up to his front door. Moore says he noticed something about one of the men that made him freeze the video.
Something he was wearing. A green Anderson t-shirt. Window company. A window company. This feels like a break.
And it only happens because you isolated a frame of the video from the security camera. Yeah. He and drove to the window
company where their hard work ran into more good luck by sheer coincidence. An employese's daughter said she'd actually
met the man in the freeze frame. Apparently, he'd only worked there for a few days, four years earlier. And this
woman still remembered his name. Sergeant, what are the odds of a hit like this on the identity? It was crazy
that we we got that break. His name was Cameron Vosmeck and he wasn't home that day. But his wife answered the
door and quickly got their attention. I know why you're here. That kid who hired
somebody to to kill his jewelry store parents. Hang on. She doesn't know who you guys are.
You identify yourselves as detectives. And she says, "I know why you're here." Yes.
She said a few months earlier a man named Johnny Leon had asked her husband to commit murder for money, but he
turned him down. Police ruled out Vazmeck as a suspect, but Leon turned out to be the other person in the
security video from Nick and Jackie's porch. When they brought him in for questioning,
he told them he was no murderer, but he admitted Nick had tried to hire him. going to lie to you. If someone offers
you 100k, you're going to think about it. He's luring you into this to commit murder.
Police were convinced that Leon had taken the bait. I'm just saw you. We know you're involved in this. We know
what happened. You know I'm involved. Absolutely. There's no doubt. Leon was arrested for capital murder and
on his phone, police found evidence he may not have acted alone. There was a flurry of contacts around
the time of the killing with a Fort Worth man named Aryan Smith. They also discovered both men had
arrest records. In fact, the two had been arrested together for drugs a year earlier. Detective Moore and I
interviewed him. He did admit that he had met Nick. He gave us a lot of good information.
Smith opened up about the details of that night and broke down in the process. You're the only person I've
shown regret. I don't understand how how could you kill somebody and not have any
emotion about it. And you actually killed him. I was just in the situation. I'm I'm I'm devastated. I cannot sleep
at night. Prosecutors were closer than ever to having everything they needed to make their case. We've got enough now.
Let's go to trial. something Nick Shaughnessy told us he'd wanted to avoid. Did you pay these two
men to go kill your parents? After police arrested the last of their four suspects, Aryan Smith, Detective
Sos says Smith told them he wasn't just there for Ted's murder. Yes, I was there. He acknowledged firing the fatal
shot and then made a stunning request. I request the death penalty. the death penalty.
I killed somebody. I deserve to die. Where is it? He also told police where to find the murder weapon. It was the 40
caliber pistol missing from that box they'd found in Nick's old bedroom. The 40 caliber gun that killed Ted was
Ted's. Yes. For a mother who'd struggled for months to keep faith in her son, it felt like
the last straw. Too much had happened that pointed to Nicholas and Jackie having involvement.
And Corey was horrified to realize she'd spent months sheltering the very people
who'd planned to have Ted and her murdered that night. What a chilling thought. Two people who tried to have
you killed and they're living in your home. Very It's very chilling. I bought all the groceries. I paid all the bills.
I bought her clothing. This is diabolical. Absolutely. They thought they had gotten away with it. Do you Do
you prefer Jackie or Jacqueline or Jackie? But after their arrest, it took just a couple of weeks for Jackie to
blame Nick. Did Nicholas hire somebody to kill his parents? Yeah. And Jackie seemed to know why he'd done
it. She says Nick was in desperate financial straits with a failing day trading business and thousands in
overdue loans, including at least one from Corey. I think his mom gave him $30,000 and she expected money in
return, but he wasn't paying her. After her cooperation, authorities released Jackie on a reduced bond and prosecutor
Amy Meredith resolved to go after Nick for the maximum. We're going to try Nicholas Shaughnessy for capital murder.
At this point, were you prepared to testify against Nick? Yes. Nick Shaughnessy and the two alleged
hitmen were charged with capital murder. But by the spring of 2021, Amy Meredith
had left her job as assistant district attorney. And there was a new DA, Jose Garza, whose office made the men an
offer, avoid a possible death sentence by pleading guilty to a reduced charge of murder and serve 35 years with the
possibility of parole. Leon and Smith agreed, and Corey wrote to Nick to suggest he do the same.
If I could speak to Ted, I think that would have been his choice. Nick Shaughnessy accepted the deal. He
could be released when he's 36. In the summer of 2023, we visited him in prison near Houston. Did you hire people to go
kill your parents? Yes, Jackie and I participated in multiple aspects to Never mind. Participated in multiple
aspects. Did you pay these two men to go kill your parents? Yes. Nick told us he's sorry for all of it. I know that
I'm here because of those actions. Nick, at the end of the day, are you sorry for
what you did or are you sorry that you got caught? I'm most truly passionately sorry for what I did. And Nick told us
he never would have done it if not for Jackie. It was a very toxic relationship. Although he stood to
inherit his parents' money eventually, he told us he wasn't prepared to wait. Were you at all thinking, "What am I
doing?" Of course, it was always in the back of my head, like red flags, like, "Stop. Don't go." The back of your head.
Yeah. Why not the front of your head? I guess the the the validation or approval
from Jackie. It is hard to know how much Jackie Edison should be blamed or what punishment she deserves. And jurors
won't get to decide. She too got a deal from the office of the new DA for pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit
capital murder by terror threat or other felony. a jail sentence of 120 days and
10 years probation. It's It's astounding. It's absolutely astounding. She began serving her time in June of
2023. It is an outright dismissal of everything that I went through as a victim and it's a dismissal of Ted's
life. Three are doing 35 years. One is doing 120 days. Cory says that's outrageous. What are your thoughts? I
had no involvement once I left the district attorney's office on Jackie's case. Amy Meredith was working elsewhere
before prosecutors offered the plea deals. Cory's feelings aren't lost on her. Do you understand her rage? I I
absolutely understand that she is upset. Cory is so upset that when the new prosecutors asked her to appear at
Jackie's 2023 plea hearing, she refused. Instead, recording this video at home to
be played in court. I'm alive because your plan to have me murdered didn't succeed. You are a monster. You are evil
and everyone needs to know it. You knew what was about to happen and yet you sat home and did nothing because
you wanted it to happen. We wanted to ask Jackie Edison about that and other things, but she declined our request for
an interview. On the day she was released from jail, our producer, Jenna Jackson, approached her. Hey,
Jacqueline. What do you make of Nick Shaughnessy's apology? See more evidence from the case
at 48 [Music] hours.com. Cory and Nick Shaughnessy haven't spoken directly since his 2018 arrest.
When you look in the mirror, do you see evil? My mom stated that me being evil, I don't see evil in me. And these days,
it's safe to say they don't see eye to eye. In fact, there may be only one thing they do agree on. Jackie is not a
victim. This is a 50/50 thing. Most definitely. Did Jacine Edison get away with murder? Absolutely.
On October 17th, 2023, Jackie Edison walked out of an Austin area jail after serving her 4mon sentence.
Hey, Jacqueline. We've been asking for an interview for months. I don't want to do any interviews. But our producer,
Jenna Jackson, has some questions for her anyway. Nick got 35 years. The hitman got the same. You got 120 days.
Are you getting away with murder? No. I think that I think that it's fair. I think it accurately
reflects the level of involvement Corey and Nick have both told us is that you were your partner in this murder
plot. Yeah, I think Nick is is saying whatever he has to say to kind of clear his name. Um, and Corey is
very much in denial about what really happened. You weren't in on this plot and Not in it. Didn't get money out to
pay the hitman. No, ma'am. Is she innocent? OB. Absolutely not. No. She knew. She knew what he was trying to
do. She could have stopped this at any time. I tried to stop him. But investigators say there is no
evidence Jackie ever tried to stop the murder. She's no princess in this. And according to what Nick told authorities,
Jackie had been making plans for spending the Shaughnessy's money. I found out that Jackie had already picked
out the car she was going to buy her mother with the money that they made off of the murder of you and Ted. Yes. I'm
not defending her to by any degree. Though she did eventually help them make their case against the person they
identified as the key culprit. They're both to blame. Who took more action? It's Nick. You take Nick out of this,
you don't have the incident. You take Jackie out. Still happens. Do you understand Cory's frustration? I
do. Absolutely. We empathize with her. But Mo and Salo say Jackie's plea deal wasn't their call. Our job ended at the
arrest, and there's not a single step further that we can take it. We wanted to ask DA Joseé Garza exactly
why Jackie Edison got 120 days after the other three got 35 years, but he wouldn't agree to an interview. A
district attorney's spokesperson sent us a statement saying, quote, "Our office takes acts of violence seriously and is
committed to holding people who commit violent crimes accountable." The statement also said Edison is on 10
years probation and if she violates the terms, she could face 20 years in prison. Cory Shaughnessy says a full
explanation from authorities would have helped her make sense of something that has always struck her as impossibly
wrong. So, no one's ever explained to you why this enormous disparity in sentence? No, absolutely not. It's a
slap in the face to my mother. Now you're concerned about your mother? Most definitely.
True or not, Nick Shaughnessy told us he hopes someday Corey will agree to speak
with him. What would you say to her? I wish I could tell my mom how truly sorry I am that this is not something
I'm proud of and I failed her as a son. It means nothing to me. Do you think he believes it? What he's saying? I don't
know that person. I have no idea who Nicholas Shaughnessy is. And Corey says there is no point
responding to an apology she was never meant to hear. In my mind, I am supposed to be
dead and so I'm a ghost and ghosts can't speak. But even after a betrayal no mother
should ever have to see, Corey still can't bring herself to condemn her son altogether. Do you still love your son?
I love the person I knew to be my son before this happened. You love that 8-year-old boy racing cars with his dad.
Yes. She knows that boy is gone forever. And so is the life she and Ted tried to
build around him. Nicholas and Jackie destroyed my entire world. They took my husband. They took memories. They took
my business. They took everything I had that I cared about. But now living out of state under a
different name, Corey is determined to make the most of every day. It'll always be
there. It'll always be a part of who I am, but I've been given life and I need to do something with
it. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman.
But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder?
Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder wherever you get your podcasts. You've
probably heard of the NCIS from the hit TV series, but we're about to take you inside its real life work. Listen to 48
hours NCIS early and ad free on the 48 hours plus subscription on Apple Podcasts.
[Music] Welcome to Postmortem. I'm your host Ann Marie Green and with me today are CBS
News chief investigative correspondent Jim Axelrod and producer Jenna Jackson to discuss shootout at the Shaughnesses.
Thank you so much for joining us guys. Thanks for having us. Yes, thank you. The thing about this hour is, you know,
the story starts off one way and it ends in a way that's completely different than you expect. There's a breakin at
Ted and Cory Shaughnessy's home in Austin, Texas. Ted is killed, but his wife Cory actually survives. And
initially, it seems like this could have been, you know, a robbery gone wrong. But as the police start investigating,
it looks more and more like this is an inside job. So before we get into the discussion, let's just hear a quick
recap of the broadcast. Before dawn on March 2nd, 2018, intruders entered the home of Ted and
Cory Shaughnessy, killing him and one of the family's Rottweilers, Barton. Cory says she shot back and called 911. I'm
in the closet. There were shots fired. Help me. Okay, we're helping you, ma'am. Help me. Paulo and James Moore of the
Travis County Sheriff's Department say bullet casings were scattered on the floor. We had 40 caliber and 380. It was
a hell of gunfire. At first, Cory Shaughnessy thought it was a botched robbery. The family business had made
them wealthy. Being a jeweler, you might someday be a target. But Ted Shaughnessy
didn't have any known enemies. And then assistant DA Amy Meredith says it didn't
look like a robbery. There were still valuables all over the house. There was nothing stolen. But there was something
missing from the Shaughnessy's house. A handgun from a bedroom once belonging to
their son Nick. He and his high school sweetheart Jackie Edison rushed to Austin from the home where they were
then living 2 hours away. We began discussing the alarm system for the house. Cory says the family only armed
the alarm when they were away, though Nick had access to the settings through a phone app. Police suspected he and
Jackie were involved in the murder, but in the following days, the couple moved in with Corey. You could have told me
aliens landed on the front yard, and I would have believed that before. I would have believed that Nicholas and Jackie
planned to have us killed. I was incredibly impressed by her. She's an impressive woman. She really is. She
had a literal shootout. Like, I feel like part of that even gets missed in all this craziness. She literally had to
shoot back at two hitmen who broke in in the middle of the night. I can't fathom
that. And then hid in the closet when she ran out of bullets. Like, there's so much trauma. You know, she had a good
marriage. like you you go to bed and you've got somebody next to you in the bed who you love. You have a gorgeous
home. You have a thriving business. That guy, that husband of yours is beloved in
the community. So, as you close your eyes, you're thinking, you know what? This is good. Life's a heavy lift and
we're making it happen. You're awakened a few hours later and there is a hail of
gunfire in your house and your husband's dead. Like think about how you have to fold all of that into your real just
that just that is traumatic and then the rest of this craziness unfolds and it's
the other person you love most in the world who did this. There was some incredible detective work done here by
detectives uh Paulo and James Moore. They discovered these text messages on Nick and Jackie's phones that seem to
suggest their involvement in hiring the shooters. But the trail kind of runs cold until Detective Moore spots a small
detail on the security video from Nick and Jackie's porch uh recorded just two days really before the attack. Here's
Detective Moore talking with Jim about what he saw on the security video. I see two individuals show up to his front
door. Moore says he noticed something about one of the men that made him freeze the video. Something he was
wearing. A green Anderson t-shirt. Window company. A window company. This feels like a break. And it only happens
because you isolated a frame of the video from the security camera. Yeah. He and Saleo drove to the window company
where their hard work ran into more good luck. By sheer coincidence, an employes
daughter said she'd actually met the man in the freeze frame. Apparently, he'd only worked there for a few days, 4
years earlier. And this woman still remembered his name. Sergeant, what are the odds of a hit like this on the
identity? It was crazy that we we got that break. Okay. So, that was a lucky break for
sure. Right. But it's not just luck because I didn't even I couldn't even figure out why he zeroed in on that
t-shirt. Something about it stuck out to him. Yeah. You know, this is sort of one
of the controlling principles of police work. But this case in particular, luck is the residue of design, right? The
harder you work, the luckier you get. I mean, you can say luck all day long, but
unless Detective Moore is staying on this to the degree he did and kept his behind in the chair in front of the the
screen and went over and over, they would have missed it. Jim's exactly right. It's they left no detail unturned
and they searched and searched to figure out who this guy was and thankfully found somebody who remembered him from
four years earlier, you know. So, it's pretty amazing. It still makes my hair stand up in the back of my neck that
that's how they broke this case. That shirt would not have jumped out at me enough to follow up on it. Yeah. And
then once they drive all over the state, you know, they they drove all over the state for like several days in a row to
finally figure out which office of this window place someone remembered this guy. Okay. But but even let's take it
one step further. They managed to find someone who remembered the guy while he was working there for the brief number
of hours he was. Yeah. And they remember that. I mean, that is a stroke of luck,
but again, it's only enabled by an incredible amount of hard work. Now, we should add that the man in the t-shirt
they identified in the video was not involved in the killing, but he knew someone who was. And that led police to
Nick Shaughnessy and his girlfriend Jackie, who we later find out is actually his wife, right? So, you know,
the way this investigation sort of unfolds and comes together is really incredible. What was Nick's relationship
though, like with his parents, it seemed like they adored him. They gave him all
sorts of opportunities. Nick Shaughnessy had everything. He had two parents doing
on him. He had every material comfort, anything he wanted. So, he was indulged and people might say, well, he was
overindulged and but that doesn't create somebody who launches this kind of plot,
right? I mean, they even helped him start his business as a day trader, giving him money. Everything seemed like
he was on the right path. And I I think his parents thought he was on the right path for the most part. Corey said at
one point during our conversations, he wasn't super motivated yet. I mean, I'm a mom of twin teenagers. That is not
unusual. You know, I think they thought their relationship was fine. So, as I'm watching the hour, this episode is
really a masterclass in interviewing. Not only securing an interview, but also getting answers to tough questions. Both
of you did that. Jim, your interview with Nick was really something. And Jenna, you approached Jackie right after
she's released from prison for an interview. I thought there's no way this woman's going to talk and then she
stands there and answers your questions. Let me just hop in here for a second because this needs to be said. The
degree of difficulty of walking up to someone who you know doesn't want to talk to you and you approach them and
not only get them to talk as opposed to just clamming up or running away or but then tell you things that become helpful
in understanding the scope of the story. No one understands how hard that actually is. You see the final product
on TV sometimes you're like, "Oh, you know, Jenna really needs to be called out for what a topshelf job that was."
And Jenna, what were you thinking when you were approaching her? I mean, apart from trying not to throw up, right? I I
knew she didn't want to talk to us cuz I had been to visit her twice in jail and
the second time she wouldn't even come out to say hello. So, she knew who I was. She She didn't want to talk. I
genuinely always want to hear someone's story, whatever it is. And I feel like people always surprise you. And people
generally want to tell their story. So, I was just trying to be, you know, not intimidating and like, "Look, we're
doing this story. You're a part of this story. We really want to hear what you have to say." And while she said, "I
don't want to talk," I said, "Okay, well, I'm going to ask you some questions anyway." And she just kept
answering them. And I was sort of caught off guard listening to her answer. she had thought about this, you know, so
whatever you make of her, it at least gives a little more insight into her, which was nice. So true. And then Jim,
your interview with Nick in prison after he's incarcerated. First off, you're sitting across from him. There's a glass
separating you two. What's it like interviewing someone in a maximum security prison? Do you have to sort of
block out the environment? The biggest impediment in a situation like that is most of the time when you interview
someone you've never met before about something sensitive, you want to establish a sense of trust. And that's
done before the lights go on and the camera goes on by, you know, how you doing? I just want you to understand
this is what I'm going to talk to you about. All that's out the window when you have to walk in and some public
information officer from the prison is saying, "All right, you got five minutes to sit down and let's get going." tweak
the camera. Let's and then you have an hour. And this is my one shot. The first thought in the front of my mind was look
in his eyes. Make sure he knows you are listening to him because that is crucial. And I said to him, I'm like,
"Look, Nick, you know, I'm going to ask you questions that are not going to be comfortable, but this is your chance to
actually explain to a lot of people who are wondering what kind of guy would do this." So if you have something to say,
now is the time to say it. That doesn't mean I have suspended my own sense as a human being of, "Oh my god, I'm sitting
across a guy who tried to have his parents killed." You're describing um kind of the delicate balance, all the
different thoughts that go through your head, and that's part of the reason why I was so impressed with um your approach
to him because you did ask the questions that the outraged viewer would ask, but
not that would stop him from answering your questions. So, I I want to play part of
your interview with Nick. He very quickly accepts what he did, but accepting what he did is different than
taking accountability, right? So, Jim, here's what you ask Nick. Were you at all thinking, "What am I doing?" Of
course, it was always in the back of my head like red flags like stop, don't the
back of your head? Why not the front of your head? I guess the the the validation or approval from Jackie.
So that's when I was like, there it is. Best moment ever, Jen. Yes, there it is.
Because the whole time I'm thinking, geez, he seems, you know, really ready, willing, and able to take responsibility
for this. Somebody said to me, and this is the highest compliment I think I've ever received. They said, "Man, that was
disappointed dad vibe." Oh, yeah. So, as I was watching the interview with Nick,
I kept on thinking, "Why am I unsatisfied with his answer?" He's taking responsibility. I know, but it I
still feel unsatisfied. And it's because you don't say those words without breaking down, without tears in your
eyes. Something that is such a great observation on your part. So Jackie only had to serve 120 days in
jail. Uh Nick and his two accompllices, they each got sentences of 35 years. Big
difference. Um Jenna, you know, you spoke to Jackie and you asked her about that and she seemed to think that was
fair based on her what she says is her involvement. Um what was your reaction to hearing the sentences that everyone
got? I'm from Texas and and have been crime reporting here for over 20 years. Even 35 years for a murder and an
attempted murder is pretty low in Texas. I was kind of amazed at those plea deals, but Jackie did cooperate
eventually with the police. She filled in some blanks. So, you know, that could be what sort of led them to these plea
deal talks. Yeah. And I don't know if we'll ever know fully what went into that decision. We we won't. But there
was a woman who survived the murder of her husband and she was a target too. And after the entire process has been
completed, she is feeling a sense of not just sadness and frustration but rage about the system not protecting her
because she feels the people who are responsible for this were not dealt with and it it plagues her. DA Jose Garza did
not speak with us, but he did provide a statement. Let's play a clip from the show.
A district attorney spokesperson sent us a statement saying, quote, "Our office takes acts of violence seriously and is
committed to holding people who commit violent crimes accountable." The statement also said
Edison is on 10 years probation and if she violates the terms, she could face 20 years in prison. Corey Shaughnessy
says a full explanation from authorities would have helped her make sense of something that has always struck her as
impossibly wrong. So, no one's ever explained to you why this enormous disparity in sentence? No, absolutely
not. So, this is why sometimes DAs simply issue a statement because I can tell you if that was done at a news
conference, the first question that I'd be asking is, hang on, you do not answer
the question, why the disparity? So, appreciate the statement, but could you please tell me why the disparity? Yeah,
I mean, I agree with Jim. They're not answering the question that we asked. You spoke to
investigators and they were convinced Jackie knew something about the murder plot and did nothing about it. Nothing
to stop it. Let's hear a clip from detectives Moore and Saleo. They're both to blame. Who took more action? It's
Nick. You take Nick out of this, you don't have the incident. You take Jackie out. Still happens.
That's a really important point. Let's let's underscore that, Emory. You take Nick out of it, it doesn't happen. Take
Jackie out of it. It still happens. So yes, disparity, sure, maybe. But this much disparity, I think that's the
frustration and anger of Corey and others. It's not that they were she was treated differently. It's like we're not
even in the same universe of sentencing. At the heart of this broadcast is Corey.
Not only does she have to live through this nightmare of an experience of witnessing her husband's murder, but
also an emotional journey to discover that her son, what could be more heartbreaking than this, her son is
behind it. When we get back, we're going to get into more of Corey's side of the
story. Welcome back to Postmortem. Now, the real victim in this story is Corey, who not only loses her husband and
nearly loses her own life, but ultimately also loses her only son. Jim, you played Corey a clip from your
interview with Nick in which he apologizes to her. Let's hear Nick's apology and then Cory's reaction to it.
I wish I could tell my mom how truly sorry I am that this is not something I'm proud of and I failed her as a
[Music] son. It means nothing to me. Do you think he believes it what he's saying? I
don't know that person. I have no idea who Nicholas Shaughnessy is. And Corey says there is no point
responding to an apology she was never meant to hear. In my mind, I am supposed to be dead and so
I'm a ghost and ghosts can't speak. Was such an interesting way of phrasing that feeling. It gives me goosebumps
every time I hear that. You know, as a parent, I mean, I just don't know how you accept that news and then how you
deal with it. You heard Nick's bloodless, almost pulseless tone when he was apologizing
to his mom. It's it's like robotic. And then Corey, who's working hard to keep it all together all these years later,
still you could hear the emotion in her voice as she's, you know, sort of I'm I'm not I'm not even going to respond
cuz I'm supposed to be dead. Like she has to still every day of her life try to make sense of the absolute senseless.
Do you believe Nick's apology? I mean, he's sorry he's sitting in prison for 35 years.
And no tears, no emotion, no if those signs matter to you in terms of judging authenticity, did I feel like I was
talking to somebody barre? No. Um, it it's hard to believe that the child that you poured so much into, and we're all
parents here, so we know how much the parenting process also changes us. We become different people as a result of
being parents. So, I can only imagine how difficult it was despite the evidence for her to come around to to
finally sort of believe that he was part of this plot. What's your take on that process that she talked about it? Why it
took so long? I mean, I I think as a mom, if you told me one of my twin boys plotted to kill me, I would immediately
think you were trying to frame them. Like, no one's going to believe that, you know? And I think she she felt like
a suspect in the beginning. And so then I think she was like, "Well, they're just grasping for straws. Now they're
going after my kid. That's not gonna happen." You know, one of her attorneys told me a story at one point. There was
a moment of realization for her that was heartbreaking. She was in a conference room at the law firm and this was after
Nick had admitted to everything, had been presented with all the evidence and you know, Jackie had already turned
against him and he was about to take this plea deal. And it took up till that point for Corey to hear every piece of
the evidence connected and laid out in front of her. And this attorney said you could see it just wash over her. Oh my
god, he really did this. Like and she had to leave the room because she got so emotional. And then she came back and
she was like, "Okay, like what's the next step?" I I thought about this a lot afterward. Like as in my particular case
as a parent, at the end of the day, as you get to be older, really what what else matters? Your relationship with
your kids, with your family, with what you're going to leave behind. Those are your fingerprints and footprints. And I
just kept thinking about Corey as she gets older. She will not have the luxury of being able to fold in even more,
grasp even tighter to her kid. She has to do just the opposite, which is figure out emotionally how she
can how she can forget him, move on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so to to your point, Jim, um, when you ask Corey how
she feels about her son now, she says something really interesting. I want to play some of that sound. Do you still
love your son? I love the person I knew to be my son before this happened. Do you love that
8-year-old boy racing cars with his dad? Yes. I don't know how you do both. Yeah. You
know, Corey's got a life sentence of her own if you think about it. Um, she's she's got this uphill emotional
climb. I feel for her. I do, too. She's in an impossible situation. You know, there's no good answer. And at some
point, even if it's the full 35 years from now, her son's going to walk out of prison. So, you know, it makes it even
more difficult. You know, you asked about how do you interview Nick in prison? I gotta be honest with you. I
thought more that that was easy in a sense like I knew where the lines were. I knew what my objectives and goals
were. It was more complicated to sit down with Corey because I had to also establish a safe sort of interview
space. I've interviewed murderers before. I've never interviewed somebody whose kids or son and and prospective
daughter-in-law were plotting to kill her. Like, I had never done that before. And and I didn't quite know where the
lines were or how to get Corey to be able to talk about some of this stuff, but I was much more intimidated trying
to get Corey's story out of her than Nick's out of him. Yeah. Yeah. I to I totally agree. Lastly, you end the hour
with a postcript that reads, "As a parole requirement for the next 10 years, Jacine Edison must spend the
night in jail on the anniversary of Ted Shaughnessy's murder. In your experience
reporting true crime, is this unusual?" I've never heard of it, Jenna. I have never heard of it. I think it's sort of
brilliant. I mean, it is brilliant. It is. However, there are the other 364 nights of the year. That's right. I
mean, it's still it still seems like getting off easy compared to her cohorts who are every night in prison, but you
know, I I did think it was an interesting thing that was an addition to this um probation that I have never
heard of before. Well, it was a great hour. Fantastic storytelling, incredible interviewing. Thank you so much for
joining us this week. Thanks for having us. Thank you. [Music] So join us next Tuesday for another
Postmortem and watch 48 hours Saturdays 10:9 central on CBS and streaming on Paramount Plus. And if you are liking
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A gunfight in the middle of the night left Texas jeweler Ted Shaughnessy dead in his home and his wife, Corey, was the sole survivor. Watch "Shootout at the Shaughnessys'" and then catch up with CBS News chief investigative correspondent Jim Axelrod and producer Jenna Jackson on "Post Mortem" as they discuss Corey’s emotional journey to realizing her own son had hired hitmen to kill her and her husband for money.

00:00 Shootout at the Shaughnessys' 41:47 Listen to a post-mortem on the episode

Listen to "Post Mortem" wherever you get your podcasts: https://cbsn.ws/41Ou5rm

Crime. Social justice. Impact. "48 Hours" investigates the most intriguing crime and justice cases that touch on all areas of the human experience including greed and passion. "48 Hours," which premiered in 1988, has developed a rich history of original reporting and impact journalism that has helped exonerate wrongly convicted people, caused cold cases to be reopened and solved, and along the way changed lives.

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Brief Summary

Corey Shaughnessy recounts her husband's murder and the shocking involvement of her son in the plot against them.

Key points

Corey's Life Changes Forever. Corey Shaughnessy recounts the moment her life changed dramatically after a home invasion.
The Murder of Ted Shaughnessy. Ted Shaughnessy is shot dead in his home, leading to a chaotic investigation.
Suspicion Falls on Family. As the investigation unfolds, police begin to suspect Corey and her son Nick.
A Chilling Revelation. The wife of a suspect reveals she knows about the murder plot.
The Death Penalty Request. Aryan Smith admits to firing the fatal shot and requests the death penalty.
Jackie's Plea Deal. Jackie Edison receives a light sentence after pleading guilty to conspiracy.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I don't even know why. I really don't know why.

Corey expresses confusion over the murder.

2:42WatchMar 21, 2025

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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