Shownotes Transcript
There's these little rural family cemeteries everywhere. My sister and I got a series of really interesting phone calls after that happened. This person had said, well, we have a family cemetery, and I'm fairly certain that something like this happened in our family cemetery, and it's not your dad, this happened a long time ago, but just that it happens.
People go missing and they're put in these little family cemeteries and you'll never think to look there or even have access to look there. This is also that case that we can't talk about because it's still open. We're trying to get it wrapped up so we can get it to the DA's office. Not the DA's office. You understand he has a very long history with the coroner as well as a major conflict of interest. And I understand that, but unfortunately, that's how it has to be.
Over the past two weeks, you've heard the story of David Shire, who disappeared from Trinidad, Colorado in February 2022, and the extensive search efforts that followed. Despite the urgency and scale of those efforts, not a single clue turned up to explain what happened to Dave. His family was left with a haunting silence. They had to go back to the drawing board and re-examine every detail, every conversation, and every lead.
Dave had asked his wife that morning to drive him to a property that someone had called him about. But who was that person? Dave's truck was parked strangely, which was out of character. And then there was a report from a neighbor. A white truck had been seen at the Shire residence around the time he went missing.
From the very beginning, Dave's loved ones felt that law enforcement saw his disappearance as the case of an older man who simply wandered off, possibly had a medical emergency and passed away somewhere out of sight. But for them, it wasn't that simple. They believed his case deserved a more thorough investigation.
Dave's trail went cold after he was caught on a neighbor's trail camera. That image of him walking away from his home was the last confirmed sighting. And for more than a year after that fateful day, that's where the case stayed: cold. Then something unexpected happened. A grave was opened in Starkville Cemetery. It was supposed to contain one man, a man who had been missing for years before finally being identified.
But inside that grave, there were two bodies. The coroner said that both men had been buried in 2019, years before Dave vanished. But the man who conducted the exhumation, someone with experience in this kind of work, said the second body didn't seem like it had been in the ground that long. It felt too intact. That statement stopped the Shire family in their tracks. Could it be Dave?
Dave's wife watched the exhumation footage carefully, and when she saw the outline of legs inside of a body bag, something about them struck her. They looked familiar. They had the shape of Dave's legs. She couldn't shake the feeling that her husband may have been tossed into a mass grave.
No matter who the second body was, the entire situation disturbed the Shire family deeply. The secrecy, the lack of answers, and the way that everything had been handled. They believed that no family should ever have to go through something like this. So they decided to act. They pushed for accountability, for change, and for justice. Not just for Dave, but for every family left in the dark.
Last week, you heard how the Colorado Bureau of Investigation launched an inquiry into what had happened in Los Animas County. This week, we'll take you through how that investigation ended and where that leaves the Shire family now, still searching for answers and hoping for peace. I'm Marissa, and from Wondery, this is episode 491 of The Vanished, part three of David Shire's story, Hollow Answers.
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My name is TJ Raphael. I'm the host of Liberty Lost, a new podcast about who gets to be a mother and the control of young women hidden behind the veil of faith. Binge all episodes of Liberty Lost ad-free right now on Wondery Plus.
Last week in Part 2, you heard several interviews conducted by Colorado Bureau of Investigation agents as they tried to unravel what had gone so wrong in Los Animas County. There were many things in those interviews that stood out and things that were difficult to hear. One of the most striking accounts shared in the investigation was about the daughter of a missing man. Her determination to bring her father home and to lay him to rest with family became the catalyst for everything that followed.
The cemetery owner described how it all began for him, a certified letter arriving in the mail from this woman. He didn't think her request was unreasonable, but what shocked him the most was learning that she had been told that he was dangerous.
that he was known to shoot at people for coming onto his property. There was another disturbing revelation. Someone listed as buried in Starkville Cemetery, but whose cremated remains were actually in Oregon with his daughter. How could something like this happen? Shouldn't there be clear records, a basic standard for how the dead are handled? One woman described how her loved one disappeared years earlier. He was eventually identified, but no one ever contacted the family.
She only discovered the truth after hunting down a death certificate herself, and even that had her loved one's name documented incorrectly. She explained that her family had submitted DNA when he was missing, and that law enforcement had their contact information on file, but the coroner claimed that he didn't have that information. Was that really true? Then there was the family of a man who had been missing for years, and this man was considered to be the most likely person to have been buried alongside the one who was exhumed.
They described a confusing and painful visit to a cemetery, where they were walked in circles, and never given a clear answer about exactly where their loved one had been laid to rest. When they later saw the footage of the exhumation, they were stunned. The grave being opened wasn't anywhere near the general area they had been shown. In fact, it didn't even look like the same cemetery. There were also reports of a woman buried in a different grave entirely, and
and someone else who claimed to have been present when the double burial took place, except he remembered there being three bodies, not two. All of this was very alarming to hear, and a troubling pattern began to emerge. A common thread in many of these cases was that these individuals discarded in these graves, without care, were either unhoused or assumed to be. You even heard a couple of families refute that claim.
It left them on the defensive, feeling the need to explain that their loved one did have a home. It bothered them deeply that homelessness was used as an excuse, as if it somehow justified a lack of care.
Most of us would assume that there are laws in place, regulations, and oversight, that there's a process of documentation, accountability, and a basic level of care and dignity for the dead. We assume that if someone is found after being missing, there would be a thorough effort to identify them and to reunite them with the families still searching. But in this case, that assumption was shattered. And when it broke, the
The Shire family was left trying to pick up the pieces, trying to arrange them into some kind of picture that made sense. But the deeper they looked, the murkier things became. At some point, it stopped being just about finding Dave. The question became much bigger. How many other families are still out there searching for someone who's already been found and buried without their knowledge? It was a terrifying thought to sit with. But it's not just a possibility.
It's happened before in other places, too. In Hines County, Mississippi, a similar scandal broke in recent years. The coroner there had buried multiple men in a pauper's field.
Their families were never notified, and their graves were marked only with numbers. Perhaps it didn't seem like a big deal to the coroner, but to the families it meant everything. If you've listened to this show before, every week you've heard the pain that family members of the missing carry. The ambiguity of not knowing leaves them in limbo, sometimes for the rest of their lives.
One of the men in Mississippi had disappeared after leaving home. His mother reported him missing and spent seven agonizing months searching for her son. What she didn't know, and what police failed to tell her, was that less than an hour after she last saw him, her son had been struck and killed by a police vehicle while crossing a highway, and it was the same department she had filed the missing persons report with.
They knew, and they said nothing. It took her seven months of tireless searching to uncover the truth. NBC News reported that multiple families in this county faced the same heartbreak.
For families of the missing, knowing is the pathway to peace and healing. Back in Colorado, the Shire family held their breath, waiting to learn what the Colorado Bureau of Investigation would uncover. In the files we received from the CBI, there were some interviews with the coroner, Dominic Verker. In the following clips, you'll hear him explain his side of the story. He said that this all began because there were bodies piling up in the morgue, and he needed to find a place to put them.
Started in 2019. I had five or six D-coms at once. We had a couple of homicides, guys said, let's get it with, plus our regular float of bodies. So the stench was unremarkable. There was a gentleman here that worked at the county maintenance department. He said, Junie, I can smell your D-coms at the downtown restaurant.
I said, I have no place to put them. I've got to find a cemetery. So at that point, he offered me the Starkville Cemetery. I assumed that he owned it. So we cut him a check to the county for the grave sites. And into the cemetery, there was an old wire gate that people kept breaking in and out of. Part of my side business, I saw here's a livestock decommit. So I said, how about donating the gate for a grave site? So I gave him a 14-foot gate. The county dug the grave and placed the bodies in there and covered it. So we buried them. That was it.
They're all buried under does. Okay.
He's the last one that I've been getting flack on, if you will. We found him in this warehouse down here off of the bypass. We got him, kept him in here for a while, and buried him. We did DNA on him. So he was buried as John Warehouse Dover. Gentleman was buried as Fred Burger King. Okay. Because he frequented that part of town where Burger King's at. Yeah, I bought him many meals. We interviewed that night. We found him. We interviewed the gas stations, motels. Everybody knew him as Fred. Nobody knew his last name.
Let's go back to the five where it happened to the other three. With those bodies, they went to Starkville. And tell me about that. How did that work? Who did you speak with? Pete. So Pete was the one to write about those. I had them all in here. So it was the same time that we talked about with... Okay. How many gravesites did you get out there? Just one big long grave. The county dugger.
which he kind of does for county burials. That large plot for the five bodies, you paid him by writing him the date, kind of like bartering, in a check. The county paid that or did it come out of your budget? No, it's the county. Out of my budget. Same thing. All right. The accusations that I received federal and state monies to me, to bury people, and I keep the money, I welcome a forensic audit of my bank accounts. I welcome it.
I got kicked in the belly many times because the news is contracting me with my senior attorneys that don't talk to me. But there's always two sides to the story. First one, I buried in a body bag. We have to do a green burial. We can't embalm him. So we put him in a hole. We lower him down with ropes in the body bag and the bottom of the sheet up. Why can't you embalm him? They want a green burial. They don't want any chemicals in the ground. Out the cemetery? Start a field?
I assume, assume again, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, I was taught, but it's still hard to put a body in that grave like that. I actually sent a couple of parables to the grave, and I didn't know these people, but I felt so bad putting them in the grave like that. I will say, the German, these bodies, they were in there for four years, and the body bags are, I can't find any made in the United States that you can afford, so all the body bags were shipped from China. So I was really apprehensive as, what am I going to find when we dig these people up? Probably nothing.
All the body bags were pristine. So were all five done at the same time? Were they all buried at the same time? It was buried a couple months before. Pete felt so bad for her. They made her a coffin out of Corbin's plywood. It was all rotted. But is she buried in the same area? Mm-hmm. Okay. The other people are still there. The other people are still there.
As the investigation neared its conclusion, CBI agents sat down with the Shire family at the Trinidad Police Department to share their findings. The family walked into the meeting hoping for clarity. They wanted to hear something, anything that would finally put their fears to rest. What you're about to hear comes from that meeting. The room was crowded, emotions were high, and at times multiple people were speaking at once. Because of the
Because of that, the audio may be difficult to understand in a few places, but it captures a raw, unfiltered moment in the Shire family's fight for answers.
We can't talk about everything because it is still an open case. What we can tell you is that based on all the reports and evidence and videos, it is not your father that's going to be in that crate. Have we done DNA testing on that body? Yes. So it's been assumed? No. That's all I can tell you. I'm sorry. It's an open case. There is positive identification. How? I can't tell you. But you can understand why we absolutely cannot have any faith in this case.
Based on the timeline, there's no way that it could be your father or your husband. There's no way. With the timeline and if you were to watch the video of the exhumation, then you could understand that why it cannot be. We got our information from a person who's done hundreds of exhumations, and he said the body was, quote, fresh, four months to two years. If you watch the video and you listen to what he says when he was standing there, you're
He says it's intact and mummified. He may have told you guys it looked fresh. Unfortunately, part of our line of work is we see a lot of bodies too. Even us, a lot of bodies we've seen from various stages of death and decomposition, we're not qualified to make that assessment either as far as timelines because we're not considered experts in that field. Even though he might be, but there's extensive records and testing. While the coroner, of course, isn't doing everything as probably as he should based on what these guys were able to discover, at this point it's not possible.
All those bodies were identified before they were buried. Actually, it was after they were buried. But they were all identified at some point during that, even though they were probably not buried.
So some were identified after, was the DNA sample taken prior to burial? Yes. So why would we not know who that person was? Because it's not one of the coroner's primary responsibilities to find family. Yes. If you have that DNA information, that I would think would lead you, or at least help lead you toward that end. Yes, you're right on. Correct. So I don't understand, but go ahead. I think you're asking, do the families know about the bodies in there?
Well, two of them we know did not, was able to locate her father, but after an extensive ordeal she had to go through. My understanding is that they still don't know where their brother's son is buried. They don't know where he's buried because when they went up there, there was snow apparently, and the coroner at that time couldn't show where the actual burial site was. That was what that problem was. But they do know that he's buried up there. That's the problem now. They know that he's buried up there, but do they know which plot he's buried in?
That's a hard one. Sounds like the answer is no. They do, but they don't. They don't know exactly where it's at, but they do know.
The answers that the Shire family were given at the meeting became a major source of confusion and frustration. They were told that the second body in the grave was the man believed most likely to be there, based on the timing of his death. However, the CBI agent admitted that the DNA sample used to make his identification was taken prior to burial, not from the body itself during the exhumation.
So in order to fully accept that this was the man inside that grave, the family would have to place their faith in the coroner's records. That after the DNA samples were taken, this man's body was indeed the one buried there. But then Morgan asked a crucial question. She said, they know he's buried there, but do they know which plot he's buried in? The CBI agent's answer only deepened her confusion. She said, they do, but they don't.
They don't know exactly where it's at, but they do know. The Shire family was baffled. If they say the body inside the grave isn't Dave, because it's been identified as the other man, then how is it possible to only know that the body is somewhere in the cemetery, without knowing exactly where? Shouldn't they be able to say without a doubt that this man is the one buried in the grave that was exhumed? The answer simply didn't add up.
Dave's family didn't feel like they were getting the definitive answers they had hoped for. They still felt stuck in limbo. They asked questions throughout the meeting, hoping that just one answer might bring them some peace. But nothing they heard gave them the clarity they needed. Morgan, in particular, kept pressing, refusing to let the agents off the hook with the vague, contradictory explanations being offered to her family.
Two bodies in one grave. Unidentified individual's family did not know that they were buried in that grave location-wise or with a second person. Somebody had the DNA of that person and that family was not notified. It's not uncommon in the state for coroner's offices to bury or cremate unidentified unclaimed remains. By law, I think they have the ability to resolve the body while identification is still in progress. That makes sense to me, but I'm talking about this family in particular.
We can't share information about the other families. And it could have been. It was years for s***. And I think with her, the way that she found out was sort of a miracle. I mean, it was that officer that she dealt with in Oklahoma. He did a great job. And if it wasn't for him, she still would be like... She would have no idea. She would have no idea. Took years, unfortunately.
And then after doing our investigation, what occurred between when she found out? Another question I have is the news reported that the coroner had actually buried nine bodies at that cemetery. For my own sanity, I don't watch the news anymore. How do you know that...
The only bodies buried there are the ones that are on file. You could say that for anything. That's not an answer. The problem is we have to have a purview. Same thing as developing probable causes. You have to have those same elements in order to do that. Would we like to excavate Starkville Cemetery and absolutely determine without a doubt everyone in there is documented appropriately? And if they say they are, yes. If we don't have evidence that leads us in that direction, we can't just do it. What would it take to make that happen? Physical evidence...
Well, we would determine if it met probable cause of an intuit judge, judge would execute a warrant for it. We have to have a nexus to that thing. So if you find out there are nine additional bodies up there, but you don't have proof of it, you can't go dig it up. Well, if we find out, then we'll have proof. If we have a nexus to information that leads us to believe that it's reasonable that other bodies are buried, then absolutely we would.
can follow up with it. We have to stay narrowly focused on the scope of this investigation. If it opens up doors to other ones? So in theory, somebody could bury 10 bodies up there and as long as nobody comes forward or we don't have any proof. Yes, absolutely.
That's what I meant by that could be it. Yes. Establish a pattern you know. No, a pattern doesn't necessarily mean that. Even though it's likely, it's jumping to conclusions about evidence. So what we learned in the return to nature case is that people were buried that weren't supposed to be buried. People were cremated and given to other families, and there's no regulation of it. That's the problem is that there's no checks and balances. So what we have is their documents or lack thereof. I was furious when I found out there is absolutely no oversight over a coroner.
And how does one change that in Colorado short of recall? So, you know, coroners in Colorado are considered the highest ranking law enforcement official in their counties. I understand that. Even though they're not law enforcement related. They're not certified. We're lucky if they're high school graduates because that's not even an requirement. So, I mean, I am furious as a citizen and as a person who is affected by this. And I would like to see it changed.
I can say we're working on the recall, and I really feel we're going to be successful on that. But that takes care of one person. The next person that goes in there. Could be worse? Exactly. In other counties, other places, it's the same problem. So I think it's going to be legislature that's going to have to. You're going to have to reach out to your congressman or representative for this area. Well, he owns the funeral homes.
I would talk to him, but yeah, shoot. He's not the coroner, but I know there's some issues in between that. This is a politician. What's the relationship between the local representative for this area? There's only two funeral homes, and those two funeral homes are feuding in the corners right in the middle on the other side.
What you just heard was a pivotal moment in the Shire family's meeting with agents from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. It seemed to confirm something they had suspected, that the investigators weren't fully grasping the scope of what was unfolding. Because this wasn't just about Dave's disappearance, and it wasn't just about one grave. This was about a deeply rooted system—
a network of powerful families with connections that stretched across the funeral industry, local government, and law enforcement. You heard this begin to take shape in Part 2, when the Shires family friend Tom shared his own story. For years, Tom felt targeted by the local coroner, and also a competing funeral home. He couldn't quite put his finger on why. He described it as kind of a mean girls club, and Tom wasn't part of the in-crowd.
But over time, he began seeing a pattern, strange incidents, and unexplained hostility. Tom started to see a web of connections that gave some players advantages over others. Quietly, Tom started digging. He submitted public record requests and tried to piece together what he suspected was happening behind the scenes.
He believed that the competing funeral home was leveraging relationships with local officials in order to use government equipment and services, allowing them to corner the market and cut costs.
He also suspected that the coroner and others were steering families away from his funeral home and directly toward his competitor. When Tom heard about the upcoming exhumation, what had once felt like a personal struggle to keep his business afloat in a hostile environment suddenly took on a new and disturbing significance. He asked to be there, and he wanted to film it. When the grave was opened...
Tom's camera captured the devastating discovery. Two men in body bags stacked one on top of the other. Those present that day were shaken. Something about the scene felt profoundly wrong. But it wasn't just what they saw. It was also what they heard. The man performing the exhumation said something that Tom couldn't shake, that the second body felt too intact to have been in the ground for as many years as they'd been told. That
That comment nagged at Tom. He felt that there might be more to this situation. Later, Tom called the man who performed the exhumation. He wanted to ask more questions. He asked the man how long he thought the body had been buried, and the timeline he was given aligned much more closely with when Dave Shire had gone missing than the bodies that the coroner said were buried in 2019. That changed everything. Tom brought his concerns to the Shire family and
and together, they began pushing back. They gave presentations to city council, they helped initiate a recall of the coroner, and they demanded transparency, accountability, and answers. But again and again, they ran into resistance. Tom alleged that he even faced intimidation from both the coroner and the district attorney. Still, he refused to stop. Then, in that clip you just heard, a CBI agent told the Shire family that real change would have to come through legislation.
They suggested the family contact their local representative, but that left the Shires stunned. Their local representative owns the funeral home that Tom had been raising concerns about, the very one they worried could be deeply intertwined with the events that they were trying to understand. To some of the agents, it may have seemed like a case of feuding funeral homes, but to Dave's family, that sounded like a way to minimize the serious and possibly systemic failures they were confronting.
Because how do you seek justice when the person you're supposed to ask for help is part of the very system you believe needs to change? It felt like a loop. Every path they took eventually circled right back to the same names, which only continued to lead them to inaction. After the CBI concluded their investigation, they sent their findings to the local district attorney, Henry Solano, who ultimately declined to prosecute. This was the same official that Tom said had allegedly made him feel intimidated.
And the same official Morgan had expressed concern about, citing a potential conflict of interest. We're trying to get it wrapped up so we can get it to the DA's office. Not the DA's office. You understand he has a...
Long history with the coroner, as well as a major conflict of interest. And I understand that. That's how it has to be. We don't have any other route. So the way the process would work is the DA would take it, realize there's a conflict, and then ask. In most cases, they'll say, there's a conflict here. And they'll give it to another jurisdiction. But we can't do it. I understand that. Yeah.
But that's how the process should work. They'll get it, they'll review it, they'll say there's a... What if they don't? What happens if the DA doesn't admit to his conflict of interest and he says no criminal charges can be filed and then that's just it? Let's wait until that happens.
I don't think that'll happen, but we're not lawyers, so we can't give legal advice. Let's see if that happens first, and then we might be able to take a different course. I've actually talked to him quite a few times, which is not normal. I mean, he's the DA, so he's got other things kind of going on.
But he's been very receptive. He represented him in a civil case with the open records civil case. How long that was? 2019. Oh, so it wasn't that long ago. He was the DA and he did that? Yeah. And he represented the patient in the civil case.
Unfortunately, there's no recourse. We can't even go to the EG's office and say, hey, please take this. I just think you guys will have done all this work, and we will have done all this work, and then it's going to be turned over to the DA, who has a huge conflict of interest because you represented him in a civil case.
One of the CBI agents tried to reassure Morgan, telling her that most district attorneys will acknowledge a conflict of interest when one exists and pass the case to another jurisdiction. But you heard Morgan ask the hard question, what if they don't? And in this case, they didn't. If
It felt like just another failure in a long list of them, yet another moment that reinforced the family's growing belief that these ties do exist within their community, that when something goes wrong, there will always be someone connected enough to step in, cover the tracks, and make sure nothing changes. Once again, nothing would be done.
On May 1, 2024, District Attorney Henry Solano released the following statement. An independent investigation was performed by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation at the request of the Los Animas County Sheriff's Office, which had received a written request to investigate allegations concerning actions of the Los Animas County Coroner Dominic Verker. No evidence was discovered that Los Animas County Coroner Dominic Verker violated any criminal law.
There was not even evidence supporting probable cause to believe a crime had been committed.
After an extensive investigation, the CBI did not identify any criminal law violation for consideration by the District Attorney's Office. As is customary, CBI provided their investigatory materials to District Attorney Solano for his evaluation and final determination. District Attorney Solano, after reviewing all the materials provided, did not ask for further review of any issue or matter since the investigation was thorough, without limitation in scope.
and consistent with the manner CBI has performed investigations, with which they're entrusted. It is the conclusion of the CBI and the 3rd Judicial District Attorney's Office no crimes were committed. The allegations made to law enforcement in a public meeting and to the media did not have supporting facts. At the time, Coroner Verker arranged for the burial of five individuals.
There was no known next of kin, leaving the county with the responsibility for burial. The deaths occurred during the COVID pandemic period, and given the limited space, Coroner Verker needed to arrange their burial. Contrary to claims, there was no misuse-slash-misappropriation of public funds by him, or that he lacked permission for the burials in the private cemetery. There were no instances of abuse of corpses that meet any Colorado revised statute requirement. Further,
speculation that Coroner Verker buried a locally well-known missing person was unfounded, as that person went missing long after the last burial. What stands out about this statement is the contrast in tone compared to how the CBI agents were speaking at that meeting. It sounded as if they believed that charges were coming, or at the very least it would be handed over to another jurisdiction due to a conflict of interest.
On May 3, 2024, the coroner himself released a statement. Much of it is taken from the district attorney's statement. Here's some of what Dominic Verker said. As a Los Animas County coroner, Dominic A. Verker, I want to express my sincere gratitude for the dedicated efforts of the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the Los Animas County District Attorney, Henry Solano. They thoroughly investigated the false accusations made by Tom Murphy against me and my office.
The accusations lack substance and factual support, particularly concerning burial arrangements made for individuals without known next of kin during the challenging times of the COVID-19 pandemic. I am eager to continue serving the residents of Los Animas County faithfully as their elected coroner.
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You probably noticed that District Attorney Solano cited the COVID-19 pandemic as the reason the coroner had to arrange the burials at Starkville Cemetery. But according to the records we received and the interviews we heard, it was stated that these people were buried in 2019. That was well before the pandemic began. Morgan said this jumped out to her, too.
When these bodies were supposedly buried, that was pre-COVID times, and nobody seemed to care about the detail that this was pre-COVID. Absolutely, it's jarring, and I believe that's the reason the woman had such a hard time getting everything together in order to be able to exhume her father, because they knew there were multiple bodies in that grave. Supposedly, that other person is still there, and...
They basically said that they would not be exhuming that body to officially test it because they were using the coroner's records to understand who that person was. And as we know, the coroner did not keep good records. So until proven otherwise, I don't know who that person is. For whatever reason, the county keeps coming up in all of this.
I'm not interested in pursuing something that doesn't have a legitimate lead, but why does this keep coming up and requiring my direct attention in some way?
Rosemarie said she felt deeply let down once again when she heard that the district attorney had declined to prosecute. By then, she was exhausted. Her family had been searching for Dave for more than two years, only to have every bit of progress stalled at every turn. They had fought hard to recall the coroner, which ultimately failed. Yet on a human level, she still felt sick over everything she had learned. She felt deeply for those who had been discarded without care and for
and for their families, who were left without clear answers.
burying people in multiple grades. You need family permission. And thrown on top of each other without any respect. Their families had flyers looking. They really tried. The community was flooded with pictures of, have you seen this man? Have you seen this man? I thought I'd just go with my husband in there. The DA had enough to at least bring that guy to court, and he refused to do it. Something is being covered up. I remember
I was ready to not do this anymore by that time. Our meeting with the CBI, it was a very, very bad experience. I can't say they were shouting or anything. It was very pleasant, very formal. But I walked out of there just stunned. She took the word out of the corner as proof that that body was not my husband. That bothers me the most.
And I said, how did you identify that second body? Literally, it's gut-wrenching when you think that homeless people that were just basically thrown into graves. It's not right. It's not okay. Those bodies were not treated with any respect, any dignity. And that man has no business being a coroner.
Many of the things that CBI had told the family in that meeting felt too vague for Morgan, like there weren't really enough dots to connect them. Morgan was left feeling that the situation was far from clear and that it didn't definitively rule out the possibility that her father could be in that grave or somewhere else in Starkville Cemetery. The contradictions left Morgan frustrated and still searching for answers.
They basically just said, we know it's not him. And it was just like, well, how do you know? We know. Okay. Well, how do you really know? What it felt like, they kind of already knew that was the case and they wanted to protect, protect whoever did that. That's ultimately the way it was framed. But we have no way to my knowledge to pursue exhumation of that person. Now,
Now, if it's possibly who I think it is or who they're saying it is, I've thought before about reaching out to the family and just saying, hey, can we prove for both of our sakes that this is or isn't your loved one? I don't even know if that's ethical. Is it really selfish of me to think that way? Or are they satisfied that it's their loved one and they just want to put it behind them and move on? And I would completely understand that. Ultimately, I have made a lot of peace around it that that's
the whole mystery surrounding it has in many ways...
helped me grow. And so if I never find out what happens to him, that's okay too. But kind of what I've resigned myself to is that if there was a really convincing lead, I would follow it. But I'm also okay with not knowing. I just think that sort of when there was this possibility of it being him in the grave, it opened the wound, I guess you could say. I'm not necessarily eager to do that again without convincing reason to do so.
But if that family was open to it, I think I would pursue that. But only with their deep trust and understanding in why I'd want to do that. Dave's niece Sarah had watched all of this unfold from afar, and it left her completely shaken. She believed that there should have been more outrage, a strong response from the community to what had happened.
It's very fishy. A couple of issues at play. I think the first is human dignity. Efforts should be made to identify who the remains belong to, because that's just what you do with modern technology. And I feel like that's your responsibility and duty when you assume that position is make a concerted effort to try to get those answers out of the decency of respecting whoever those deceased individuals and their families might be.
It's also been kind of shocking how there's had to be such a fight and so much effort put up to get these answers that I feel like should just be readily accessible. And I think it also shines a light on just this gap, how this continued to happen and that it's such a difficult problem to solve. And it's one of those things where you would think, oh, well, they can't do that.
people would be shocked that this type of thing is happening. My emotion is shock about it. And then it makes me wonder too, like, well, where else is this kind of stuff happening?
In the end, we're left with a sobering question. What does all of this mean for the broader missing persons community? Because this isn't just about one man, one grave, or even one county. It's about the systems that failed. They didn't just fail the Shire family, but potentially many others. How many people have been found and buried without identification? How many families are still out there searching, not because their loved one is truly lost, but because no one ever bothered to tell them they were found?
The Shire family believes that there needs to be national standards, with clear documentation and oversight, and that changes need to be made to the system so that it treats every person, regardless of status, circumstance, or perceived worth, with care, dignity, and humanity. Because no one deserves to disappear without a trace, and no one deserves to be zipped into a body bag, discarded in a mass grave without a name and without notice. This shouldn't have happened in Los Animas County, and it shouldn't happen anywhere.
One thing Dave's family can hold onto is that his disappearance helped shine a light on what was happening in their community. It gave them a purpose, a cause to fight for in Dave's name. Suddenly, their grief took on new meaning. But after the investigation into the coroner had wrapped up, the family found themselves struggling again, unsure of where to turn next.
It felt like they were back at square one all over again. They felt they couldn't rule out the cemetery completely, but they also knew they couldn't put their hope in just one place. They had to keep exploring other possibilities in their search for the truth, wherever it may take them. During their meeting with the CBI, Rosemarie voiced her concerns about the investigation into her husband's disappearance, questioning if it had ever been thorough enough.
I was really kind of hoping Sheriff Navarette would be here, but I need to know if they ever looked at Dave's case as possibly being criminal. The investigation was not as complete as it should have been. And there's always things, even on a well-run investigation, there's probably things that don't get done. Let me get with Phil. Let me see if I can review their case file. I don't think I've reviewed the entire thing because we need to review it again to see what other leads there are. We're supposed to be still helping. Any tips that come in, we're supposed to be following up on them. I think my husband was murdered, but we...
Or injured significantly enough that he died the day he went missing. And I think everything has been a cover-up since day one. I have no way to prove that. So no, I was hoping this would open those doors. Yeah, we're sorry we don't have better days for you guys right now. What does the future of Dave's case look like before it's closed? It won't ever be closed if Dave never gets found.
In part one, you heard that when Dave disappeared, his family immediately began reaching out to people close to him, friends he may have seen or spoken to that day. Morgan told us more about Dave's friends. He had a couple of friends that helped him with some stuff, kind of his last two friends that he really kind of knew what was going on and knew how to communicate with him and he trusted them. And so he'd interface with them fairly often. He would spend time with those two guys at the junkyard fairly frequently and
One of those friends that Morgan mentioned stood out early on. There had been reports of a white truck seen near the Shire home around the time Dave vanished. This particular friend told investigators that he had heard from a woman, someone he only knew by her first name, that a truck matching that description had been in the area selling firewood. It was a strange, somewhat vague detail, and it didn't seem to lead anywhere. But another piece of information stood out in the case file. The day before he disappeared, Dave's
Dave had texted his son Brad, urging him to get in touch with that same friend, saying he had something that Brad might be interested in. But Brad didn't follow up. The message seemed to come out of the blue, and without more context, it just faded into the background. Over time, though, the Shire family's perspective on that friend began to shift. Dave had always been generous. He allowed this man to use his workshop. They began to wonder, had that generosity been taken advantage of? What
Was it possible this friend had been using the workshop for something Dave didn't know about, something he wouldn't have allowed? And if so, what if after stepping out of range of that trail camera, Dave had headed in the direction of his shop and walked into something he wasn't supposed to see? Morgan has spent a lot of time thinking about this, especially when she considers the condition of Dave's truck. It was parked oddly, something the family noticed right away, and later, when they got the truck back from law enforcement. It
It was having that electrical problem that Dave had been trying to fix. What if Dave parked it that way because it was having a problem? So he headed to his shop to grab a tool or part he needed to repair it, and never made it back.
He had been a longtime renter from my father. He basically used my dad's shop for free for a really long time. But he has kind of a complicated history, and he definitely hung out with some people that were very troubled folks. These folks used a lot of drugs, and another person had been storing a car at the junkyard. He did talk to the CBI at some point. He is the kind of guy who, at least this is my perception of him, basically...
based on my interactions with him. He's always been sort of in a victim mentality. He's impulsive. I think taking advantage of my father. And so at one point, I had a very clear conversation with him after I moved back. No transaction occurs between the two of you without me or my husband or my mom knowing about it. He was very upset by that. He
he was more and more sort of encroaching ways where it just didn't feel good anymore. Their interaction, like my dad's limited ability to communicate. He just was a very generous person to the point of fault, honestly. He would just hire anybody to do any sort of work just to give them some work. They really liked old cars and so had cars in common. Did some paint jobs for my dad at
So was there genuine friendship there? I do think there was. And at some point, probably they deeply loved and respected each other. But he's a scrapper, like he's had to get by by some scrappy means here and there. And I didn't have that conversation with him about he and my dad interacting for no reason. There's a whole layer to this of like self blame and things he would have wished he would have done differently. And all of us to a certain degree are working through.
When he was working at my dad's shop, he also was working part-time at a local tire shop. And he, at one point, said, I'm going to make Dave Shire pay or something like that. And so this was a detail that my dad's friend had heard from the person on the receiving end of that and is just now kind of telling us this. I question that.
for two reasons. One, it's just like, why are you telling us now? And then number two, you know, I question people's memory. Every time we remember something, it's slightly different. Were they talking about my dad? Were they talking about me or my husband? You know, were they talking about my mom? Were they talking about somebody completely different? We're hearing this from second hands.
It's a game of telephone. Like, what if he knew something? What if he was going to talk? And they could have easily had means, motive, and opportunity to sound cliche, but to have disappeared my father. So like one scenario is my dad walked to the junkyard. He happened upon something that he wasn't supposed to see happening there, or perhaps he was really angry at him. However it unfolded, he was hurt.
Mark also shared his concerns about this individual. He knows his uncle Dave had a tendency to see the best in people, sometimes to a fault. Dave was the kind of person who gave others the benefit of the doubt. He opened his door and shared what he had without hesitation. But Mark worries that generosity could have made Dave vulnerable, especially now that he was older. He could have been fooled by someone with bad intentions or even dangerous connections. And
And if that's the case, then maybe what happened to Dave wasn't just a random disappearance. Maybe it was a result of trusting the wrong person.
I mean, he was a real nice guy. He was kind of gullible too. Apparently there were some people that he was maybe having hang around that workshop area who had apparently been maybe stealing stuff, who had, I would guess, probably have a drug habit of some sort and were pilfering things from around the workshop. And I guess in some ways just taking advantage of him. They had ties to some of the more potentially sinister people
narcotics situations going on around the area. He was a very kind of laid back dude. If you imagine the big Lebowski, the dude, kind of like that, things just weren't a big deal. He was probably more willing just to kind of say, you know, it's going to be a lot more effort to deal with it than just kind of let that go. And if we were to think, okay, he's walking down there and then he kind of gets over there and he sees something he shouldn't have seen or
Rosemary said she didn't know everything that was going on at the time. But as she started to learn more about this person, someone who had been spending an awful lot of time at Dave's shop, she began to have concerns. She brought those concerns to law enforcement, hoping they would take a closer look. But to her, it felt like they weren't really listening.
I wasn't real aware of what was going on, but my husband was a very open person and very nonjudgmental. And he let kind of a shady guy who was actually a very good car painter use the paint cubes or whatever, where paint cars, the clean area.
And Dave never charged him rent, never anything on that kind of stuff. He just let him work out of that shop. But there was a group of druggies hanging out at Starkville when he was there. And when I told the sheriff about that, maybe something weird happened. Maybe Dave walked on in something that he shouldn't have seen. You know, who knows? I don't feel that was ever investigated. When I actually told the sheriff about that, he says, oh, no, he laughed. He said, they're just thugs.
blew the whole idea off. And I never could get any real answers as to whether or not they investigated that. You heard Rosemary express to CBI agents that she didn't believe Dave's case had ever been fully investigated, and she wanted them to seriously consider the possibility that a crime had occurred. During that meeting, one of the agents asked her to elaborate on her concerns.
Tell me a little bit more about the junkyard. When we initially had talked, the night of the day Dave went missing, I had mentioned potential for violence at the junkyard. I was shrugged off by a deputy. And one of the women that may have been involved with that group of people, you know, was killed. And again, violently killed. I mean, there is, these people are capable of violence. Our office is on that case too. Oh, okay. So we know that that's a violent group of people. And I
And I understand the person who killed her was just out of jail and stuff. But who knows what kind of connections go on.
So I just want to be sure that we're not overlooking that piece. I'd like to know what his alibi was. Well, he did a full interview with him while I was interviewing. Yeah. I mean, I'm not even suggesting they were involved. But they may be. Oh, no. But your concerns about them may be. I think they may. We know. What did you hear about the violence at the junkyard? Just these young adults were hanging out there, we suspect, selling drugs.
And stealing a few things, you know. And I think he had a side hustle out of there. He was storing stuff for them. And when he was violently attacked, too, from the same group, that happened. And it was a TPD case. And TPD and Osama's kind of, sure, don't get along. So there was no communication. And so that was frustrating to me because they refused to talk to each other.
Because one happened in City Limits and one happened outside. They weren't even aware of it. That's just the frustration. They are a violent group of people that weren't really investigated. And timing is everything, right? I don't believe there's coincidences in this job. The fact that that was going on at the junkyard, the fact that it was right around the same time that your father disappeared.
And then right afterwards, a few months, but still within time, where the investigation was still active, Phil was still bringing in a lot of people to come do searches. He gets really violently assaulted to the point where I think initially they thought he might not even have lived. I didn't find out about that because I would have gone down and interviewed him at the hospital. I also just think if he had written something that he wasn't supposed to at the jump car, it would have been very easy for them to disappear him into that cemetery. And that's because...
He associates with the owner's family. Of the cemetery? Of the cemetery. Starkville Cemetery. And they have heavy equipment that could easily, and one of them worked for the county. I mean, they could have had everything they needed to disappear him.
You heard the family mention that this friend had been beaten up not long after Dave's disappearance. The records we received from the sheriff's office do mention the assault. They note that the incident was being handled by the Trinidad Police Department and described it simply as a road rage incident. But for Morgan, that felt like a missed opportunity, an angle that should have been explored fully. If the friend had been involved in something that led to both the assault and Dave's disappearance, this could have connected critical dots.
One of the key players was beat up to the point of being in the ICU May of that year. That's a whole nother facet of this story that I think possibly has a lot to do with it. And
It involved this individual and the crowd that they hung out with at that time. They would have been possibly hanging out at the junkyard. I don't have any way to prove that, but they certainly were interacting at that point. And at one point, I had asked them to go interview him again after he was beat up. I don't know that that ever happened. Maybe it did. Well, they're not had anything to do with this. It's hard to say. But what if he knew something? What if he was going to talk?
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Because without you, your business is just business as usual. Go to Wix.com. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy.
The stories we cover are well-researched. Of the 880 men who survived the attack, around 400 would eventually find their way to one another and merge into one larger group. With a touch of humor. Shout out to her. Shout out to all my therapists the other years. There's been like eight of them. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. That mother f***er is not real.
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The Shire family had another concern that weighed heavily on them, one that raised questions about influence and accountability. As you heard in Part 2, someone involved in the day-to-day care of the cemetery said that the coroner had paid with cash along with a gate. That detail lingered with the family. If money could quietly change hands like that, what would stop it from happening again with someone else? It cast a shadow over the integrity of the cemetery's operations. Not
Not necessarily on the owner, who said he had been kept in the dark, but on those present making daily decisions. The Shires were left wondering how many choices had been made informally, just a quiet exchange and a look the other way.
They were taking cash to bury these people. If you're going to take cash from a coroner, you're going to take it from anyone. That was my concern with the cemetery keeper, because he was doing it without the owner knowing. That'd be a very good cover, yeah. And that's also something that's kind of scary.
Because if they're willing to take cash from anybody. Oh, absolutely. We completely understand because what we have learned is like, if you have a backhoe or I mean, if you're really good at a shovel, you can just go up. You can go up to land, but where's the best place to do that? Would you a cemetery? But yeah, that was one of the things that came up in our investigation. It's just like kind of an aha moment. It's like this could happen anywhere.
While so many questions remain unanswered about the cemetery, there's a growing sense that the full truth may never surface. It's possible that Dave isn't buried there at all, that his disappearance was part of the spark that brought the long-buried issues to public light. The exhumation may have exposed the truth, but it was Dave's case that gave the story reach, momentum, and a growing audience that began to take notice. And if that's the case, his family finds solace in knowing that through their pain—
they may have helped others find answers. In part one, we looked at the reports documenting the investigation into Dave's disappearance. There was mention of Dave showing interest in buying or selling some properties. In the hours before he went missing, Dave was frustrated with his wife because he wanted her to drive him to meet someone who had called about a property. But she already had other plans that she couldn't change.
Rosemary wishes now that she had just dropped those plans, or at the very least asked more questions that morning. Who was this person that Dave was so eager to meet, enough to get frustrated when she couldn't take him? Why hadn't anyone followed up after he failed to show? Those questions now weigh heavily on her, knowing how important those details could have been. That detail never seemed fully explored in the reports we received.
Did investigators ever find out who had reached out to Dave? Mark has wondered the same. Could there have been something going on with a real estate deal? Or a tenant dispute? Something that no one else knew about?
I do believe he was having, he had had some issues with some people. I don't know if it was like kind of grifters or if it was squatters or if it was just people not paying the rent or what. I do know he had to deal with that type of stuff because he had multiple properties out there and a lot of different places where he had made investments and had land. And I think some of the land that he owned might have even been wrapped up in people going into that land and using it for nefarious purposes.
Mark said that he's tried to keep his mind open to all possibilities. He's considered that maybe Dave walked off that day and got lost. But deep down, he struggles to believe that. His uncle knew that land better than anyone. The idea that he could vanish without a trace in a place so familiar just doesn't sit right for Mark.
So he definitely knew the area like the back of his hand. He had an old Jeep Willys, tons of four-wheel drive vehicles, and he's driven every back road within 100 miles of that town over and over again. So he knows every logging road, every little sneak, every little alley, because he bought and sold real estate there for decades. If he got lost, it would only be either A, because he had some kind of stroke or something happened mentally, or he...
kind of lost track of where he was or he didn't want to be found, which that can't be discounted either. Always a possibility.
In our first episode, Morgan voiced her frustrations about how she feels law enforcement has remained focused on the medical emergency theory. Yet despite extensive searches, even the trained search teams began to doubt that he was in the area. Morgan has gone over every theory countless times, trying to piece together what might actually make sense in this case.
I definitely have criticism at times of how things were handled and have truly felt they essentially decided on a narrative and what happened and just never really entertained any other ideas about it. The dominant narrative that was pursued was that he went out for whatever reason, had some kind of medical emergency, and we just never recovered his body. I think about this as a clinician a lot. Common things are common. And so it
It's certainly possible. But my problem with that theory has always been, well, why didn't we find a trace of him anywhere? And that's kind of one of my thoughts still to this day. Why didn't we find his cell phone? Why didn't we find his jacket or his hat? Maybe he did just go out and have a medical emergency and was found by an animal and dragged away. People post videos on social media all the time of their trail cams.
oh yeah, there was a couple of mountain lions on my property or a bobcat or there's a bear. But as far as like attacks go, no. So are the animals here? Absolutely. I mean, I suppose it's possible. I haven't seen a mountain lion here, but last summer we did see a print. So maybe it really is that simple. Maybe he fell down a mine shaft. There's tons of old mines in this area that have supposedly been sealed off, but who knows.
But there were all these other sort of unusual coincidences or synchronicities or just things that started to add up to look really suspicious. I'm trying to remain objective this whole time and trying to maintain relationships with law enforcement and be really clear about my communication. And a lot of these things, how can I go about connecting the dots?
Morgan shared that the search for her father continues today. She's deeply grateful for everyone who keeps showing up, committed to helping find her father.
The Colorado Forensic Canines team were deployed a couple of times down here, and they're led by a forensic anthropologist who really helped me understand kind of like what they're looking for and sort of the statistics behind things. You know, how far is a body found from its last live location? And then our family just periodically does our own sort of search of the area, even if it's at this point.
symbolic. I mean, of course, we're always looking, but just, you know, my husband and I, the last three years have taken some longer walks in the general area to see if we find any clues. And of course, we don't come up on anything. After years of searching, Morgan says her focus has shifted. It's less about uncovering what happened or seeking justice. What she truly wants now is simply to find her father.
I think I am privy to some connections between people that support my theories. And I try not to get bogged down in them too much just because ultimately justice would be nice. But that's not what I'm after. I don't want retribution. There's just a longing, I think, that will always be present. But I'm not out to ruin anybody's life or get them in trouble. Total forgiveness, even to the coroner.
I'm so grateful for my family. I don't feel like we were ever, ever focused on that so much as just finding him. And I think about it. Why is it important to be able to say goodbye and bury somebody? And I've written a lot about grief since this all happened. And I just think my dad was so connected to nature that if
if he just went back to nature, that's okay too. Ultimately, that's what happens. But, you know, we lost a cat recently and my kids were really sad and it became very important to them to bury our beloved family pet and have a place where we could go to say goodbye and all that. And now my kids are starting to ask questions too, like, oh, your dad's dead. And, oh, where is he buried? I don't have an answer to that. I
I just think it is important, and I'm not exactly sure why it's important. So that would be ultimately all I'm after. Mark never expected the twists and turns that have come up in his uncle's case. It's opened his eyes to just how many possibilities there are, and serves as a reminder that you can't rule anything out, no matter how unlikely it may seem, until you have solid proof.
I think that given the number of red herrings with this, it's got like every red herring you can have. And it's made it that much more difficult to rule out what's a made up thing that there's no possibility of it being true. And the situation we're in now, which is kind of like, well, almost anything goes, even some of the craziest stuff that we never would have even thought possible. Oh, we got a rule that out now too? Like, you know, there's nothing we've got...
people getting thrown in holes by the people you're supposed to trust and then you can't trust that. So it's really hard to know where to go.
Dave's disappearance has forever changed his daughter Morgan. She had to find the courage to ask difficult questions and challenge a system within her own community that often feels impenetrable. At the same time, this journey has opened her eyes in powerful ways. Morgan has seen the darker side of things, the hidden corners where people take advantage of others, and where respect and dignity are too often denied.
Sometimes in life, we go through experiences that are so devastating that they leave lasting scars. But those scars shape us profoundly, revealing the strength and resilience we never knew we had. Through it all, Morgan's resolve has only grown stronger to live each day with kindness and to fight for the dignity every person deserves.
That's, I think, one of the things that makes this so challenging is because it's really hard to believe that any of this happens. And you really have to expand your worldview to kind of fit it around all of this. And I think that's been one of the huge takeaways for me is just that anything is possible. As much as I want to believe that the world is all sunshine and rainbows, which I still hold firm in my perception of the world that way.
But that, yeah, there are still people out there who want to take advantage of other people and want to not treat people with respect, dead or alive, and thinking that nobody would ever find out that we put these bodies in here because who's going to come looking for them? So what happened to Dave Shire after he walked away from his home on February 11th, 2022? Dave was known by those who loved him as a kind, generous man.
someone who looked out for others and opened his door to friends in need. When he disappeared, law enforcement believed it was a straightforward missing persons case, expecting he might simply be lost or injured nearby. A trail camera captured Dave walking away from his home around noon that day. Extensive search efforts combed the area, but no sign of Dave was ever found. This absence of clues has left his family grappling with questions and theories that don't quite add up.
They still wonder about the cemetery. They also wonder about this mysterious person that Dave wanted to meet on the day he went missing, and also about a friend he trusted, someone he allowed to use as workshop. They're left wondering if he may know more. The Shire family wanted to share Dave's story, not only in hopes of uncovering new information, but also to draw attention to a system that too often fails the people it's meant to protect. They
They believe that by telling Dave's story, they're helping push for change, not just for him, but for others who have been forgotten or overlooked. And while Dave's story has brought to light so much pain and injustice, it's also a story of resilience and hope. Dave's family continues their search. Their journey reminds us all that even in the darkest moments, hope persists. And as long as there's hope, there's a chance for change.
If you have any information regarding the disappearance of David Shire, please contact the Los Animas County Sheriff's Office at 719-846-2211. To me, it just seems like they don't want to touch it because it could open up all kinds of bad stuff. He had a passion for tractors. Matter of fact, we're putting three of his tractors in our Labor Day parade this year, I guess kind of to celebrate him a little bit because we haven't been able to have a funeral or anything like that.
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That brings us to the end of episode 491. I'd like to thank everyone who spoke with us for this story. If you have a missing loved one that you'd like to have featured on the show, there's a case submission form at thevanishedpodcast.com. If you'd like to join in on the discussion, there's a page and discussion group on Facebook. You can also find us on Instagram. If you like our show, please give us a five-star rating and review. You can also support the show by contributing on Patreon.
where you can get early and ad-free episodes. We're taking next week off for the 4th of July holiday. We'll be back on Monday, July 14th with a new case from Washington. Thanks for listening.
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