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

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[Music] crime [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 labors 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 15th
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 Basset
Virginia around 9:00 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 he 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 they entered the deathly quiet house guns drawn 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 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 99-year-old daughter
Jennifer who killed this well liked and hardworking married couple and where was their 9-year-old
daughter this it's true crime [Music] garage Michael Mary 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 photos of her 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 seem to have spent a quiet night together as a family they were
seen getting dinner at a local Burger King drive-thru by some reports quite late they have them there as late as
11:00 p.m. 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-thru or going through the drive-thru at Burger King around 11:00 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
as 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 11:00 p.m. that at 9:00
a.m. two of them were dead and one of them were missing the short residence their home was located on US 220 35
miles south of ronoke Virginia this is in Henry County the home sat on a busy four-lane highway surrounded by CD
motels and gas stations there was a Circle C convenience store and also a Circle SE 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 yard 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 stclair the closest neighbor to the short family lived 300 ft away but very
few residents were in the area so basically the length of a football field one neighbor Ruby everon 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 fair 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 eek 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 then thrown back
the covers to get up and that's what Henry County Sheriff's captain Nester 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 is found in the master bedroom and then we have have the daughter
9-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 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 memb 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 happen stance 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 their 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 900 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 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 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 uh 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 Parable 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 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 9 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 well 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 authori 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 at the scene helped them to
come to this conclusion and that evidence is Jennifer's mattress was moved her bed
was moved approximately 2 in 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 level of sophistication in this cases 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 after this this went down so the police urgently needing
to find Jennifer they issued an amber alert and Captain Nester 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 paper ERS 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 onto
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
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[Music] all right 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 15th 2002 we have searched for this little girl in the immediate area for a little
over 48 hours before they call it quits well 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 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% 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 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 3:00 a.m. cuz
they heard something or they went outside to smoke and then saw the garage door was still open because 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 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 last 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 we'll 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 maybe 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
7:00 did did 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 they 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 ft 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 a 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 is 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 techs who are combing 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 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 casselle 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 belong 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 20 2 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 certain but I think with the phone lines being cut I lean towards it 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 keep 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 unlock 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 uh keeping closed
tabs on whether doors and windows were locked or maybe even garage do 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 hunt for her 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
casselle 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 out side 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 to 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 Mary's sister and Daniel Hall
Mary's brother told the media that quote we just can't make heads or tals of it end quote no one could think of any
enemies the couple had any drama or any feuds or unsettled scores that that the short family had
Captain Nester 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 Moe of 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 30,000 ft 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 marleene 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 real tour that business was slow and that they planed 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 drive 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 what 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 cuz she hears gunshots and she's hiding in the
woods but it's 8 days later and 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 8 days in she's still missing this is August 23rd Sheriff casselle tells the Daily Press we have
no suspects casselle 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 9-year-old girl and he also acknowledged
that they didn't even know what motivated the crime was it 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 no 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 Moola a bag containing $485 in cash that was that was sitting
in plain sight on a kitchen counter mhm this was not touched there was also a $211 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 well and the father
being in a different location being in the garage mother 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'd 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 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 a 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 M now we do get the FBI we mentioned them
already but they are assisting in 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 in 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 an 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 for kids in the area right we we are now
well into August and so summer break ends for other boys and little girls in Jennifer for'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 no 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 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 and 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 looked like a show place looked like it was ready to be fil you know filmed or photographed
for a magazine well yeah cuz 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 unkempt 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
yeah they really didn't address the murder weapon at all we do know that it was two well we believe that the gun was
a 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 they don't address whether neighbors heard the shots whether shell 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 we can sidestep law enforcement and get some
information on this case and and that is finding answers about the crime scene and the evidence because of the Gang
Busters 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 there 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 SE 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 uh 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 we have a family of three
the the father found dead in the garage the mother found dead in her bed their 9-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 ronoke 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 source is set police hope the FBI can enhance it and make the message
more intelligible if they did make heads or Tales of this message if they believe
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 this in we know that they sent it off for analysis and 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 at 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 seemed to
agree on though was that he or they definitely came to the murder scene prepared well 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 [Music]
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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

The episode discusses the double homicide of Michael and Mary Short and the abduction of their daughter Jennifer in Virginia.

Key points

The Short Family Tragedy. A double homicide leads to the mysterious disappearance of a young girl.
Murder Weapon Mystery. Investigators reveal that the murder weapon was never found at the scene.
The Search for Jennifer Short. Sheriff Casselle emphasizes the urgency of finding the missing girl.
Family Confusion. Family members express their bewilderment over the murders of Michael and Mary Short.
Unraveling Family Dynamics. Questions arise about what was happening in the Shorts' lives before the tragedy.
Questioning the Motive. Sheriff Casselle admits they are puzzled by the motive behind the crime.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This is a unique case.

Describing the unusual nature of the investigation.

WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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