The Short Family Murders /// Part 1 /// 602 | Forensic Files

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[Music] foreign [Music] Chris Thompson worked for a man named Michael Short Michael was the owner of a company
called Ms mobile home movers Ms of course stands for Michael Short the mobile home movers part means just
what it says if you have a mobile home that you need moved well then Michael short and his team are the people to
call so Michael and Chris work together and with a team of day laborers they specialized in lifting those prefab
trailer homes off their foundations placing them on special flatbeds and transporting them to new locations
we have all seen the oversized loads traveling on America's highways now on Thursday August 15 2002
Chris was supposed to accompany Michael on a trip to purchase another truck so on that morning Chris was to meet
Michael at Michael's house first thing Chris had been to his boss's home many times for work including for several
hours on the evening before helping Michael repair one of those large trucks the business used
Chris pulled into the driveway of Michael's red brick home on Route 220 in the Oak Level neighborhood of Bassett
Virginia around 9 A.M and parked his car to Chris's surprise when he pulled up to
the house that Michael shared with his family Michael wasn't waiting for him outside
No in fact no one was outside it was quiet Chris got out of his car spotted the garage door was open
so he approached there in the garage he found Michael Short Michael was a large man
and Chris could see he was lying on his back on a old floral couch inside a garage that Michael used as a sort of
man cave with a TV and all the garage door was open and Chris could see in right from where
he was standing from the driveway but it was only when he walked closer to Michael
that he could see that there was a problem Michael looked like he was asleep but
unfortunately he was not Chris was horrified you can now see a gaping gunshot wound
to Michael's head Chris was quick to call police Henry County deputies raced to the short
home and swarmed the place entered the deathly quiet house guns draw soon they found Michael's wife Mary in
the master bedroom she too was lying down having been shot in the couple's bed she too
was dead authorities confirmed that Michael and Mary were killed this was not a murder-suicide
the sheriff's department stated someone else had shot these two people presumably as they slept
[Music] the couple were each shot once with a 22 caliber gun the murder weapon was not found at the
scene and more importantly something else was missing from the scene the couple's nine-year-old daughter
Jennifer who killed this well-liked and hard-working married couple and where was their nine-year-old
daughter this is True Crime garage [Music] foreign [Music] and their daughter Jennifer short were a
wonderful little family of three the community of Henry County Virginia was absolutely wrecked by this case and this
is a unique case they all are but this is an unusual case for investigators most detectives will work a very long
career and never have to investigate something like this a double homicide followed by the Abduction of the
couple's little girl we said the community was wrecked and that was very true but not just wrecked puzzled would
be another great word to describe the situation that's because everyone was having an incredibly difficult time
trying to figure out just what happened and of all of the possibilities why did this happen what was the motive
here the short family were universally described as a close family who did a lot together Jennifer was a fairly shy
little girl always attached to one of her parents first show an adorable All-American
looking freckled girl with a toothy smile and brown hair Jennifer loved to play Barbies softball and dance
she was looking forward to starting the fourth grade the school secretary Tammy Joyce said
Jennifer is a precious little girl and a role model student Mary worked at a factory for a time but
when she died she was doing the books for Michael's moving business so both of them working for Michael's company
Michael operated his business he was a hard worker committed to his family and that was pretty much that when it came
to the short family Michael's sister Carolyn Short said the couple was very happy and kept to themselves Mary
Short's brother-in-law Thomas Lynch told the associate press they were good people
and he was completely stunned by what had happened let's start our investigation here Captain we will get
into some details about the timeline the location and the actual investigation as
well okay the night before the murders the shorts seemed to have spent a quiet night together as a family they were
seen getting dinner at a local Burger King drive-through by some reports quite late they have them there as late as 11
pm now keep in mind at some point that evening we have Michael Short who is working with his employee Chris Thompson
at their home working on getting a truck ready to go for the next day so we have
people that see them through the drive through or going through the drive-through at Burger King around 11
p.m and then they're going to head home obviously to eat their dinner yes after the trip to that local Burger King the
family apparently went home and has said it was quite late that night so they would have went to bed shortly after
that that's the last point that we know anything about their life other than the
discovery of their bodies the next morning that is according to the now Sheriff Lane Perry what he has said in
some interviews the details of what happened later are still unknown really to this day all we know is that after
that trip to Burger King at approximately 11 pm that at 9 00 a.m two of them were dead and one of them were
missing the short residents their home was located on U.S 220 35 miles South of Roanoke Virginia this is in Henry County
the home sat on a busy four-lane highway surrounded by City motels and gas stations there was a Circle C
convenience store and also a Circle C Motel that were some people call them next door to the short family home by
some reports they have these two locations being approximately 100 yards away the shorts were at the convenience
store very often buying snacks drinks and gasoline Jennifer the little girl was the one who would go in and pay and
she made friends with the owner which is Lorraine Saint Claire the closest neighbor to the short family
lived 300 feet away but very few residents were in the area so basically the length of a football field one
neighbor Ruby Everson told newspapers there was no sign of any trouble with the family they were always outside they
were always Outdoors together in the yard they seemed as happy as could be across from the shorts house was a flea
market and a junkyard and on the side next to the Circle C was an abandoned Farm Stand it was a fairly rural area
and if you want to look this up on any Maps you will see just that this is mostly lower income families in this
general area just trying to eke out a living the sheriff's department was quick to state that they were certain
that Jennifer's bed had been slept in saying the covers were pulled back as if she had been in bed and and then thrown
back the covers to get up and that's what Henry County Sheriff's Captain Kimmy Nestor said they assumed at first
Jennifer had been awakened by the sounds of the gun blast and had been terrified
she probably crept out of the house and was hiding somewhere so this is their early suspicions right we find both
mother and father killed at the home presumably as they slept we have the father who's found in the garage area of
the home we have the mother Mary short who was found in the master bedroom and then we have the daughter nine-year-old
Jennifer short her bed appears that she slept in it the night before and she is missing from the scene the sheriff's
department is saying look we think what happened here is that we have both parents having been shot the little girl
must have heard something and she snuck out of the house and she's probably hiding for safety and waiting to come
out at some point when she knows that it is safe to come out of hiding we've actually seen this in some other cases
so it's interesting that they are looking at that as a possibility very early on in the case a couple of things
that are of interest to me here Captain is one we got the father who is in the garage and then we have the mother found
in the master bedroom there doesn't appear to be based off of any of the neighbors or family member
statements that there was any kind of issue between Mom and Dad during this time that there
was any kind of fighting or that they weren't getting along in fact it was said that Michael it wasn't uncommon for
him to sleep in the garage and some of these occasions it sounds like it was happenstance that he didn't purposely
sleep in the garage on the couch but often would be out there watching TV and would simply fall asleep on the couch
and end up staying the night there a little pin in this in the information is that we have three victims in there in
three different locations and not only that one thing that's incredibly curious here that we don't have a definitive
answer on is remember when Michael Short's employee Christopher Thompson arrives that morning at roughly 9 00 a.m
and finds Michael Short killed in the garage Chris states that when he arrived the garage door was open
so we don't know could this be a situation where Michael Short fell asleep on the couch accidentally left
the garage door open this is the middle of the summer Southern Virginia it's going to be warm out they also said that
it wasn't uncommon for him to sleep out there on warmer nights and so you'll wonder did he happen to leave this
garage door open or did the killer for whatever reason leave the garage door open after fleeing the home and if
you're in law enforcement you're going to want to know when Chris Thompson got there the day before and what time he
left and then what time he arrived the next day because he's the last person seen with the family and he's the person
that found the family yes and we will continue to take a look at Chris Thompson throughout our
coverage of this week's case but one thing that's interesting to me is think about how complicated this situation is
immediately for the sheriff's department right you immediately have several different intense situations going on
all at once right you have a crime scene that you have to secure you have to start looking through the crime
scene of this double homicide to collect evidence to try to figure out what happened but at the same time you have a
missing little girl that you have to look for and until you have evidence to suggest to you that she might have been
killed or something terrible has happened to her you have to investigate it as if she is alive and you're hoping
to find her alive and well and you also have a witness Chris Thompson who arrived
there at the scene that morning at 9 00 a.m so right away police are instantly thrust into the
situation where they have a lot of stuff going on we have a little girl that we need to find we have this house that we
need to secure we have an investigation that we need to kick off and so immediately we have about 25 deputies on
the scene Fanning out across the shorts family property and the hills behind the
home and they're looking for this little girl unfortunately there was no sign of
Jennifer and she did not respond to any of their calls while they're out there looking for at only nine years old the
police didn't think that she would have gotten very far on her own now relatives
of the shorts who lived nearby and quickly heard about the shootings they show up at the scene unfortunately these
relatives knew nothing about where Jennifer could be had no idea why this would have happened to Michael and Mary
short but if you don't find her in the immediate area you start thinking well she's maybe she was kidnapped and if she
was is this the motivation for killing the parents Yeah by early afternoon with the girl not showing up authorities
started to lean toward a different Theory and as you said captain it's the another bad Theory here
Jennifer was the victim of an abduction that's the theory that they started working that afternoon some evidence
that the scene helped them to come to this conclusion and that evidence is Jennifer's mattress
was moved her bed was moved approximately two inches and her pillow was on the floor so this might suggest
some sign of a struggle in her room but more significantly the phone lines to the home
the phone lines outside of the house had been cut yeah so if there were anyone and I don't
think that there there were anyone on the scene but you also have to keep in mind there is a possibility
that Jennifer shot both of her parents in their sleep and then left the home that's got to be on your mind when
you're at the scene and you're taking a look at that scene now of course these other items are going to suggest to you
that that is not what happened a little girl does not go outside and cut the phone lines kill her parents and then
flee the scene yeah it's a level of sophistication for sure and then to maybe have a better understanding do
we know like was her father found laying on the couch was her mother found laying
in our bed yes that's correct father on the couch mother on the bed see that's a to me
another another level of sophistication in this case is you almost think that this murderer would have known where
they would sleep and so you'd have to have some knowledge of this family to know that the the
husband sleeps in the garage on the couch sometimes possibly but if you also have the wandering psychopath who
observes a garage door open at 2 A.M and just approaches the house you could have
a completely different situation yeah very good point now the thing here is again now no suspicion as to the the
daughter being involved in any manner other than we think oh no my God she she may have been abducted right after this
this went down so the police urgently needing to find Jennifer they issued an amber alert and Captain Nestor at the
time he says nobody knows where this child is that's not normal he is right that is not normal this is a very
bizarre situation but Jennifer's whereabouts was just one of many puzzling questions plaguing this case in
the wake of the Amber Alert a massive search effort was launched to find Jennifer a command center was set up
outside of the home to coordinate the search parties and serve as a central location according to the local papers
searches included dogs helicopters ATVs horses boats dredging nearby ponds and grid searches by deputies on foot scent
dogs alerted to Jennifer at several different locations of course at the home at the motel and at the convenience
store again these places located next door right the problem with this is these three places
obviously are places that Jennifer frequent in on and some say almost on a daily basis
so the police did not consider these hits by the dogs significant for that reason they actually expected the dogs
to hit at these three different locations searches extended on to Friday by this time Captain we have
we're calling out all the stops right we we have so many different agencies involved we have the FBI State Police
and troopers from North Carolina state police involved as well and there's still no sign of Jennifer short
canvases of the neighborhoods turned up very little and no one at the Circle C Motel Next Door seemed suspicious
despite the fact that this was a known Gathering Spot for transients and drug addicts this according to the Daily
Press by Friday afternoon police said they were sure that Jennifer was not anywhere in the immediate area
frustrated sheriffs and we should be clear here there were two head sheriffs involved in this case and
that is because the shorts that family they lived very close to the Henry and Franklin County Line so we have both
sheriffs involved and they are up front and center and they are frustrated because they a can't find this little
girl but B they also say at this time we have no Suspects [Music] thank you foreign
[Music] we are back cheers mates cheers to you Colonel cheers to you Captain well
unfortunately the search and rescue team called it quits on Saturday now keep in
mind the discovery of the dead parents takes place on Thursday August 15 2002 we have searched for this little
girl in the immediate area for a little over 48 hours before they call it quits well and I just want to
disagree with you when when you said that they had no suspects that's probably what they stated but we
have to assume that Chris is at the top of their early suspect list well I think suspect is a tricky word
right of course anybody that finds the homicide victim anybody that was last seen with a homicide victim right
those are always people of Persons of Interest and if you want to call them suspects you can I think that you need a
little more than oh this person just happened to be with them these are people that they are of course you're
100 percent actively looking at vetting their story trying to figure out do we make them a suspect but what we have
here is at least on the public level they weren't willing to state that they had any suspects and not necessarily
specifically name anybody for the papers just saying we don't have any any suspects which is quite unfortunate
because you feel like this is very early on in their investigation you wonder how
quickly these leads are drying up if they had any at all to begin with and now you're left with this situation of
well we really need to find this little girl one because we hope that she is alive and well but two she's now a big
part of our investigation whatever happened to her might lead us to the person's responsible for this homicides
but also help us understand what the motivation was what the motive was for any of this mess at all
what also makes you question some things too like as far as eyewitnesses go because we have this big we have a house
with a garage door and did anybody see what time this garage door was shut or did they see did they come out of their
house at 3 A.M because they heard something or they went outside to smoke and then saw
the garage door was still open because I I would assume I mean it's 22 so it's not going to be super loud but
it's still gunshots and in a garage you'd think that Echo and maybe a neighbor would hear something so maybe
we don't have a eyewitness but we have an ear witness yeah we don't have anybody that's telling us or leading us
at this point in this direction of where we should be looking in fact what we have is the
the chief of the search and rescue team saying we need to keep looking but we realistically and logically putting all
of the evidence together over the past couple of days we don't have a direction to look in and of course he's talking
about looking for the little girl but you almost feel like that carries over to their thoughts on who
could have killed the parents because if you're if you're working the case and again they've not released a ton of
stuff we're coming up on 20 years next week will be 20 years since this double homicide
and we don't have a lot of information that's been released publicly especially at the time and and we need
to keep in mind we're going to go through this point by Point here but what you're going to see is especially
early on police were incredibly vague and quiet about what it was that they were seeing at the scene what their
theories and suspicions were because the little girl's still miss missing and right now in our investigation that is
your number one goal to get her back to retrieve her alive and well and so they are purposely keeping things vague and
keeping things quiet with the idea that whoever took her may be following the case maybe keeping an
eye on the situation we don't want that person to panic and kill this little girl
right the other thing that was popular back then that's not really popular now that
I wonder if they would question is you you probably have a newspaper boy so your newspapers are going to be
coming between I don't know safely let's say 5 30 to 7 o'clock the the did their local paper boys see
anything well I again I would recommend that people look up their home on a map because if there's a kid riding his
bicycle to deliver a newspaper to their house I would be incredibly surprised their
closest neighbor was about 300 feet or so from their home and if you're working this case
and you're thinking that oh we're seeing evidence here that both of the parents were still asleep when they were shot
and killed we don't know who was shot and killed first right but if Mary was asleep in the master bedroom and did not
hear her husband being shot on the couch in the garage well then those neighbors
300 feet away or further they didn't hear anything either and the this situation is is weird
because again I don't want to I don't want to Circle in on this idea that it was some total
and complete random stranger here but we're talking about they live on a highway
they live on an actual highway it's Highway 220. and they don't have any very close
Neighbors there's a it's a four-lane road there's enough traffic on this highway that even
in this little area this little pocket that they live in this Oak Level Virginia a town that's so small that
most people have never heard of it there's still four lanes two traveling north and two traveling southbound ish
and so we're talking about a a well-traveled highway and not a whole lot of people living off of this highway
now back to the crime scene we have crime scene texts who are calming the house this after of course that it was secured
they find no evidence that Jennifer was harmed when she was taken you know we don't have any blood at the scene all we
have is what may appear to be some kind of scuffle that may have taken place in her bedroom now we have the police
captain who tells the media that he believed that Jennifer was grabbed and abducted very quickly
we have Henry County Sheriff Frank Cassell that said that they believe Jennifer was taken from her bed and that
her parents had been asleep when they were each shot as we said the murder weapon was not found at the home but a
shotgun and a rifle were found these were removed from the scene and they belonged to the shorts and
evidently were not the murder weapon both Michael and Mary were killed with a single shot to the Head photos show them
both lying as if they were still asleep it's pretty clear that they were sound asleep when they were killed is a is a
statement released by one of the officers the thinking is that they were in totally separate parts of the house
so the sound of the 22 firing into one of the victims would not have woke up the other one right and in regard to
the location of each parent when shot and killed again it it sounds like it was commonplace that Michael would sleep
out in the garage on hot summer nights there's also people that stated that his snoring would keep his wife up and so
sometimes he would simply sleep out there to appease her to to let her get a good night's sleep
what we don't know is whether he just left the overhead garage door open for fresh air
or if the killer left the overhead garage door open after entering the home another way
killing the two victims presumably taking Jennifer with him or with them and then leaving the garage door open
obviously it's tough to know for a certain but I think with the phone lines being cut I lean towards and not just
being a crime of opportunity because the garage door was open yeah it's a weird situation the The Cutting of the phone
lines to me indicates more of the idea that I'm probably going to kill somebody or
do something very horrible once I go into this home right that that's what it kind of points out to me here now we
also have to wonder there's no mention of any type of forced entry into the home and that's why I
kind of keeps circling around this idea about the garage door maybe possibly still being left open we know that we
had that as a strong suspicion in fact some neighbors stating that that was actually fact in the Aurora Hammer
Slayer case but here let's move past the garage door Captain we have to wonder did the killer have
access to the home somehow or would the killer have gained access through an unlocked door or unlock window
um again no mention of forced entry at any time throughout the 20 years of this investigation in this case now
we do have a statement from someone who knew the shorts that said it doesn't appear that they locked up very much
that they were concerned about keeping close tabs on whether doors and windows were locked or maybe even garage door
shut at night well my gut is telling me with the the phone lines being cut my gut is saying that this is again a
higher level of sophistication almost like this was planned out well what we can surmise from the situation is two
things we don't know who's responsible we don't know what the motive was but it appears to me
murder weapon not found at the scene they removed two of the shorts guns and so we know that those guns were not used
at the scene we know that the phone lines were cut so regardless of how the killer or Killers
entered the home two things happened that they were prepared to do one kill some of the occupants of the home they
brought a gun with them to the scene and two they brought some kind of instrument
with them to cut the phone lines to the house so whoever did this they showed up
prepared for whatever it was that they intended to do now at this point in our timeline
Captain we have Jennifer who's been missing for about a week and the hunter had just run into brick wall after brick
wall by this point and so we have a family member her aunt that resorted to making a public plea this to Jennifer's
abductor a public plea to bring the little girl home Ruby Young was Mary Short's sister
her husband Chris Young was a deputy for the Henry County Sheriff's Office so not just because they're family but he's
working for the sheriff's office they know and fully understand just how bad this whole situation is
and in fact Chris Young had the unbelievable task of telling Mary and Michael's families that they were killed
and that Jennifer was missing when this case first broke the Virginia investigators worked around
the clock for several weeks looking for little Jennifer Sheriff Cassell said to the Daily Press you can't rest
knowing there's a child out there the deputies were obsessed with finding the missing little girl and everyone held
out hope that she was still alive friends family and acquaintances of Michael Mary and Jennifer short were
interviewed and looked at and law enforcement were running down leads these were leads that were brought in on
a national level so now we have leads outside of their County and of course these were brought in on a national
level by the Amber Alert that was placed looking for Jennifer short closer to home
police put Chris Thompson the guy who found the bodies through routine questioning and more he was brought back
in a number of times for follow-up interviews but police said he was cooperating and was not considered a
suspect they started digging into the shorts life their the family life to see if there was anyone who might have had
beef against them family members like Ruby Young marry sister and Daniel Hall Mary's brother told the media that quote
we just can't make heads or tails of it end quote no one could think of any enemies the couple had any drama or any
feuds or unsettled scores the the short family hat Captain Nestor commented we were just
trying to get a handle on who shorts business associates were find out if he had any disgruntled people he was
working with and they even had the Secret Service that sent Spanish speaking Personnel to go and question
some former employees of Michael's mobile home business with him owning his own business you'd think maybe the
motive is money but looking into their financials they were kind of hurting for money yeah it's
very weird here Captain because you have to wonder and you always have to wonder
in these types of Investigations what was going on in this family's life what is different about today this week or
this month or this year that was different than the other days weeks months and years when everything was
fine when something this horrific didn't happen and to me sitting here from you know
thirty thousand feet above the situation looking down I'm wondering if there was actually a
lot going on with this family at the time and one of it being that two things so it appears that they were kicking the
tires on moving and two that they were that Michael Short the business owner was kicking the
tires on moving his business eventually as well and so the way that that goes is
that on August 5th now remember their bodies were found on August 15th so about 10 days prior
the shorts had started working with a local realtor this is uh Marlene Dalton and this was to list their home their
home was listed it was for sale at the time of their murders Michael had told the realtor that
business was slow and that they plan to move into their own trailer home they had a trailer of
their own that they were going to move into and they thought that they would live there
for some time and save up some money till they get back on their feet now according to investigators for some
months prior to the murders Michael had considered moving his family and his business to another state to South
Carolina and he had done some Recon in some towns there to get a feel for whether his
business would Thrive there or not apparently he had some business ties to South Carolina and there was reason for
him to believe that he could generate quite a bit more business in this area that things were
kind of drying up where they were business was once good now he just doesn't have as many customers as he
used to have now we do know that the real estate agent that they hired hosted at least one open house that we could
find reference to and we're simply throwing this out there and underlining that idea and that
thought because look if somebody was planning something terrible and had been planning it for quite some
time if somebody wanted to familiarize themselves with the shorts family home with the inside layout of that home well
an open house would be an easy and somewhat Anonymous way to do so right so anybody
that wanted to could have toured that home shortly before Michael and Mary were killed and like you were saying
earlier law enforcement was hoping that the little girl gets scared because she hears gunshots and she's hiding in the
woods but it's eight days later in there is no sign of the little girl again it makes me wonder what the heck
the motive was here you start you start thinking by this point at least I would be thinking that maybe
Jennifer was the target all along that maybe the abduction was the purpose of the homicides because look I could see a
situation where let's say somebody has a problem with Michael short and look people whether they're successful in
business and we know he was at one time or not successful and he was you know the business was drying up toward the
time that he was killed whether business is good great or or neither here nor there
it's easy to create enemies when you own your own business when you're in business for yourself
and he had employees over the years could he have upset somebody could he have upset the wrong person somebody
that's got a few screws loose right and you wonder is there a situation where somebody has a score to settle
with Michael Short thinks that you know what I might have to silence his wife if
he has one or should she be home but you wonder could there be a situation where the Killer is just
surprised that oh there was a little kid here I didn't intend on doing something
bad to a little kid uh maybe I'll take the kid and figure things out later right and so
you're hoping at this point like you said Captain either she's in hiding and would come out probably hours after
feeling like it was safe to come out or at this point you're wondering well if somebody took her just because they
panicked and didn't know what to do you're hoping they would have dropped her off or released her by this point
but now you're eight days in she's still missing this is August 23rd Sheriff Cassell tells the Daily Press we have no
suspects Cassell goes on to say that he believed that the killer or Killers knew
the family but admitted they didn't have a clear profile of the person who would
kill the shorts and abduct a nine-year-old girl and he also acknowledged that they didn't even know
what motivated the crime was in a beef with one of the parents or was someone targeting Jennifer all along
yeah where's the beef one thing that was very puzzling was that we would learn that robbery was clearly
not not the motive and the sheriff's office is saying this is because a bag you know you can't you
can't write this stuff right you say well it's not like there was a bag of money just sitting there well in this
case there was a bag of money some moolah a bag containing 485 dollars in cash there was that was sitting in plain
sight on a kitchen counter this was not touched there was also a 211 dollar check that
was sitting in plain sight in the kitchen as well the check was not touched so someone cuts the phone lines shoots
and kills Michael and Mary and takes Jennifer and all of this whatever it was went down for clearly a different
purpose one the father being in a different location being in the garage brother being in their room but
I thought that was weirder at first but talking with law enforcement they're like well both of them were where they
would sleep at normally so they basically were attacked where they would sleep at yeah and I also think that the
cutting of the phone lines indicates to me that the person likely didn't just happen to see
the garage door open yeah yeah I agree right like I to me that that shows me that they're they're concerned of
somebody calling for help where as if somebody just saw the garage door open and saw some type of
opportunity you would that that to me seems a little more impulsive where the cutting of the
phone line seems 180 80 degrees in a different direction of impulsive and if if you're just there
on an impulsive crime why not take the bag of money it is it's all very weird to me because
The Cutting of the phone lines means you you want to set up a scenario where they
a person cannot call for help that you are there to carry something out but you're also the bag of money
being found in the kitchen tells me that maybe they didn't want to be in the house very long either
right which as you said you're using a loud weapon the gun you wouldn't want to stick around for very long after firing
those shots this sadly all points to me that that very likely Jennifer may have been
the motivating factor here in this this attack this this home invasion now we do
get the FBI we mentioned them already but they are assisting and not just looking for the little girl
but they're also assisting in the investigation as well and one thing that they did early on was
preparing a list of behaviors and providing that list to the local authorities this is a list of behaviors
that might be indicative of a suspect in that crime and this crime specifically and they are saying that the behaviors
include a hasty departure from the area changes in habits especially an increase
in drinking or smoking in unnatural interest in publicity about the case or changes in facial hair or haircut
so basically saying whoever did this we would expect to see that they would want
to change their appearance in some form or fashion that they would likely want to leave this general area and get out
of Dodge and oh by the way they may increase their drinking and or smoking habits in the process
meanwhile in the meanwhile summer break is going to end yes four kids in the area
right we are now well into August and so summer break ends for other boys and little girls in Jennifer's fourth grade
class at figsboro elementary her teacher vows to keep a desk for Jennifer with her name on it and this is so that she
has a desk to come back to when she is found and returned to her extended family that again still lives in the
area Michael and Mary were buried after a somber well-attended funeral the family
was sad and distracted by the knowledge that Jennifer was still out there somewhere still missing nobody knows
where she is police filmed this is very smart police filmed the entire proceedings of the funeral hoping that
some person might stand out right there might be somebody there exhibiting strange Behavior
that maybe this would lead them to the killer but if they saw anything that they thought
was strange we are not ever made aware of that we being the public so it appears that either
that didn't happen or they spotted something investigated it and found out that it was nothing of great concern
right the Sheriff's Office was as said very tight-lipped about what forensic evidence was found at the murder scene
remember that we said that the house was on the market at the time it was listed
for sale we have Lieutenant Curtis Spence of the Henry County Sheriff's Office who told Fox 8 News the house was
up for sale and it looked like a Showplace you could have put it in a magazine there was nothing out of place
inside the house I stayed in that house for over two weeks myself just collecting evidence we fingerprinted
everything you can think of including the walls end quote that quote to me is very interesting right because when we
first reviewed what they said they were finding in Jennifer's room this somewhat subtle disturbance
in Jennifer's room that seemed to me like a big question mark like why are they honing in on this this seems too
subtle right but we have law enforcement on record saying the place look like a Showplace looked like it was ready to be
film you know filmed or photographed for a magazine oh yeah because they're trying to sell it correct and that might
be why these items stood out so well to police with the bed being moved just a couple of inches right and the bed being
unmade and uncapped so it looked to them that whatever happened whatever went down with Jennifer went down in her room
based off of what they were finding investigators also didn't disclose whether Mary and Michael were shot with
the same gun um and they didn't really understand yeah they really didn't address the
murder weapon at all we do know that it was uh two well we believe that the gun was 22. yes and and we have evidence
backing up that uh the detectives also didn't address whether there was forced entry to the home
well they don't address whether neighbors heard the shots weather shell casings were found whether
there was any finger or shoe prints found at the scene so they're not really addressing anything but
we kind of get some kind of a a back alley information right we we can sidestep law enforcement and get some
information on this case and that is finding answers about the crime scene and the evidence because of the
gangbusters work done by Fox 8 news so they did a whole series on the case and one thing that they featured in their
coverage was search warrants and affidavits that were reviewed by Fox 8 news and based off of the search
warrants and the information they're in we learned that detectives took 138 items from the shorts home and this
included two one two 22 caliber bullet shell casings found near the bodies of Michael and
Mary short who were each shot once we know that they took a 22 caliber shotgun and a rifle and ammunition from
the home and the cash in a bag that was found on the kitchen table they also reportedly collected
fingerprints and hair or hairs that are from an unidentified person or persons there were reports early on that there
was a note found on the kitchen table and a finger writing on one of the windows that read I'm glad to see
but this last bit has not been verified and has not been reported in the past several years so these are reports that
we found early on from years ago in regard to the note that may have been found on the kitchen table my
understanding Captain is that that was sent off to the FBI for for handwriting analysis
I don't know what that note said again both of these items while they're reported early on they're never reported
again for several years up to this date that we're recording here in the garage today so I question
the the validity of these two items if they're more rumor than than truth or it would appear that if there is
anything significant about either one of these items that police are either holding that very
close to the vest or there's nothing significant about either one of these items a family of three the the father
found dead in the garage the mother found dead in her bed their nine-year-old daughter missing
we have the phone lines being cut what other evidence do we have so this is very interesting to me as well this
is another piece of potential potential evidence that was collected and we know that this was collected based off of a
report by the Roanoke Times and they're reporting this on August 22nd and their report States investigators on a double
homicide and kidnapping in Henry County have seized an answering machine tape from the home of victims Michael and
Mary short and sent it to the FBI for analysis because it appears to contain an obscene message according to law
enforcement sources close to the investigation it was difficult for deputies to distinguish the words on the tape the
sources said police hope the FBI can enhance it and make the message more intelligible
if they did make heads or tails of this message if they believed that it was related to the case unfortunately for
our investigation here in the garage today they've not said so so we know they took the sin we know
that they sent it off for analysis in the vague description we get is that it may have been an obscene message that
the police were not able to make out the entirety of the message right so we know
some stuff right but not much not a ton like for instance we know that the shorts were each shot once but we don't
even know whether the shorts were shot with the same gun the police said early on that no weapon
was found at the scene so it appears that the guns that were taken into evidence might have been those just
owned by the family and the killer or Killers brought his own gun or guns to the home that night we also don't know
what kind of implement was used to cut the phone lines or how the killer found those in the dark of night
one thing that investigators seem to agree on though was that he or they definitely came to the murder scene
prepare oh good job Sherlock Holmes now this is interesting Sheriff Cassell remarked on August 26th that DNA
evidence had come back from the crime scene but he would not give any details about what this could be
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The Short Family Murders /// Part 1 /// 602

Part 1 of 3

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Around 9AM August 15th, 2002 a man named Chris Thompson went to his employer’s home. This was a scheduled work day and Chris was to be there at the home to start work that morning. When he arrived Chris found the overhead garage door to the home open. He found his boss inside the garage, dead. Michael Short had been shot once in the head. Inside the Henry County Sheriff’s department located Michael’s wife Mary. She too had been shot once in the head. As if things weren’t already bad enough, the Sheriff’s department could not locate the Short’s 9 year old daughter. What was the motive here in this double homicide? Where was the little girl? Join us in our Garage as we take a deep dive and look at a case that is now 20 years old and 20 years unsolved. This week we spotlight this case and the investigation that ensued over the years. Plus we look at some theories and suspects.

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Brief Summary

Michael and Mary Short were murdered, and their daughter Jennifer was abducted, leading to an ongoing investigation with no suspects identified.

Key points

The Shocking Discovery. Chris Thompson finds Michael Short dead in his garage, leading to a double homicide investigation.
A Family's Tragic Fate. Michael and Mary Short are found murdered, and their daughter Jennifer is missing.
The Search for Jennifer. Authorities launch a massive search for the missing nine-year-old daughter, Jennifer Short.
Public Plea for Jennifer's Return. Jennifer's aunt makes a heartfelt public appeal to bring her home safely.
Mystery of the Murder Weapon. The murder weapon remains undiscovered, raising questions about the crime's planning.
Unexplained Motive. Authorities reveal that robbery was not the motive behind the shocking crime.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This is not a murder-suicide; someone else shot these two people.

6:12WatchOct 18, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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The Short Family Murders /// Part 1 /// 602 | Forensic Files