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cover of episode What Really Happened to Shane Cheetham?

What Really Happened to Shane Cheetham?

2021/11/2
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Murder, She Told

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Shane Cheetham的女儿Shana
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Shane Cheetham的妹妹Angela
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Shane Cheetham的母亲Mary Ann
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Shane Cheetham的母亲Mary Ann:Shane从小聪明、有趣,但也有害羞的一面。他热爱艺术和户外活动,对家人充满责任心。Shane与妻子Heather关系紧张,经常争吵,这给他带来了很大的压力。 Shane Cheetham的妹妹Angela:Shane是一个负责任的哥哥和父亲,他努力工作,并尽力照顾家人。他与Heather的关系非常不稳定,Heather经常对他进行言语和肢体上的虐待。Shane患有躁郁症,但为了支付妻子的医药费,他停止服用自己的药物。Shane在死前曾表达过对生活的消极看法,但他从未有过自杀的企图。法医报告显示枪击入口在Shane的右太阳穴,这与Heather的证词和警方的结论相矛盾,因为Shane是左撇子。警方没有进行枪击残留物测试和毒物学检测,也没有找到弹壳和弹匣,这些都增加了案件的疑点。 Shane Cheetham的女儿Shana:Shane是一个好父亲,他热爱户外活动,并经常带家人去远足。他很擅长修理汽车,女儿遇到汽车问题都会向他求助。Shane的死对她的儿子造成了很大的打击。 Heather:Heather的陈述前后矛盾,她在911电话中说她看到Shane自杀,但在后来的警察报告中却说她没有看到。她还承认曾向Shane扔东西,并与他发生争吵。 警官Boudreaux:警官Boudreaux到达现场后发现Shane倒地,枪支在他腿边,枪膛里只有一发子弹,没有弹匣。他坚持认为法医报告错误,并拒绝重新调查此案。 警官Mills:警官Mills审查了法医报告,并与其他政府官员进行了讨论,但他仍然裁定Shane自杀,并结案。 Shane Cheetham的母亲Mary Ann:Shane从小就展现出聪明和独立的性格,他是一个充满爱和责任感的人。 Shane Cheetham的妹妹Angela:Shane是一个负责任的哥哥和父亲,他努力工作,并尽力照顾家人。他与Heather的关系非常不稳定,Heather经常对他进行言语和肢体上的虐待。Shane患有躁郁症,但为了支付妻子的医药费,他停止服用自己的药物。Shane在死前曾表达过对生活的消极看法,但他从未有过自杀的企图。法医报告显示枪击入口在Shane的右太阳穴,这与Heather的证词和警方的结论相矛盾,因为Shane是左撇子。警方没有进行枪击残留物测试和毒物学检测,也没有找到弹壳和弹匣,这些都增加了案件的疑点。 Shane Cheetham的女儿Shana:Shane是一个好父亲,他热爱户外活动,并经常带家人去远足。他很擅长修理汽车,女儿遇到汽车问题都会向他求助。Shane的死对她的儿子造成了很大的打击。 Heather:Heather的陈述前后矛盾,她在911电话中说她看到Shane自杀,但在后来的警察报告中却说她没有看到。她还承认曾向Shane扔东西,并与他发生争吵。 警官Boudreaux:警官Boudreaux到达现场后发现Shane倒地,枪支在他腿边,枪膛里只有一发子弹,没有弹匣。他坚持认为法医报告错误,并拒绝重新调查此案。 警官Mills:警官Mills审查了法医报告,并与其他政府官员进行了讨论,但他仍然裁定Shane自杀,并结案。

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Shane Cheetham's early life and personality are explored through memories shared by his family, highlighting his intelligence, creativity, and love for the outdoors.

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You can connect with me at MurderSheTold.com or follow on Instagram at MurderSheToldPodcast.

This episode heavily discusses and contains descriptions of suicide. Please listen with care. If you are currently struggling with thoughts of suicide, help is available 24-7. I encourage you to hit pause and call the National Suicide Hotline at 800-273-8255 or 988 in participating states. You are important and your life matters.

Shane Cheatham was born on June 12, 1975. He was the oldest of three siblings. His younger brother, Chris, and baby sister, Angela, would come along in 1978 and 1981. He grew up with his siblings between South Carolina and Maine. He was three years old, and his brother was just born. And we had to take his brother for his six-week checkup.

And of course, Shane came and his brother was having his vaccinations. And Shane said, am I going to have a shot too? And I said, yeah, you are. And he says, then I'm getting the hell out of here. I mean, he was funny. He was only three years old.

But I don't know. He was very precocious. But in a way, he was very shy and very, very intelligent. When he was five years old and it was Christmas morning...

We got up, went downstairs, and there was Shane in the middle of the living room with everything unwrapped. My husband at the time wrapped everything up for the other children, so they had something to open up also on Christmas morning.

That was Shane's mom, Mary Ann. One of his sister's earliest memories was of Shane walking her or taking her on his bike to her brownie meetings with the Girl Scouts. She remembered the sounds of the main coast living in Harpswell.

Probably when I was about eight or nine, we had moved to Lisbon and we lived right on a river. So we used to take the canoe out and go fishing. And he got this survivalist book, which told him how to make like crawdad traps and, you know, how to get worms for fishing and that sort of thing. And so, you know, he was always trying to better himself into almost like being a little survivalist at a young age. You know, he was...

Very active in the outdoors, love being outside. You know, there wasn't a whole lot to do. You know, I wouldn't say we grew up poor, but it's not like we had a whole lot of money either. And so with my parents working odd shifts, my father sleeping most of the day because he worked nights, you know, Shane was kind of our entertainment and person to watch us during the day. And so we found this big blue barrel and we would stuff the person inside and roll them down the hill. And I remember when we put Shane in there and me and my other brother rolled him down,

He ended up somehow with a worm falling into his mouth, and I just remember him jumping up and freaking out, trying to spit it out. Shane was six years older than his sister Angela, and he naturally assumed the role of big brother, pitching in to help, getting her ready for school, and looking after her. He and his younger brother Chris were only three years apart and had contrasting personalities.

He was very, very meticulous. Everything had to be in its place. He shared a room with his brother, and it got to the point where Shane put a line through the middle because he was Mr. Clean and the other side was a pigsty.

But, you know, he was like that throughout his life. Everything had a place. In fact, he always kept, and I was surprised when he passed away and we went through his things. He had everything his daughters ever made for him. You know, he cared for it. Everything was in perfect shape. He had them in a special box. He was just thoughtful. Order.

cleanliness, right brain thinking. But Shane's interests were varied and didn't fit in with the traditional mold.

We grew up with parents that did a lot. Like we'd always go camping. We were always, you know, doing something, going fishing, that sort of thing. So in that dynamic, like we had a really great home life as far as our parents, you know, trying to do things with us. They were very actively involved as parents. You know, they didn't get along. So, I mean, that was the downfall to, you know, growing up in a family where, you know, your parents are on the verge of divorce. And I think it was pretty apparent.

But I mean, throughout it all, like my father worked nights for the most part. He worked at BIW and my mom used to work at Grumbacher's, which is a big mill, you know, where the Thompson Bridge is closed down now. But

But she used to make art supplies like paintbrushes and pads of paper and things like that. And so I think that's where Shane's love of art kind of came along because she'd bring home all these free supplies and he'd dive right in, you know. You could ask him to draw anything and it would be exactly like, you know, the image in your head or the picture you're showing him. He was just really great at it. He got into calligraphy as a result, too. He was really good at that.

I mean, not typical things you would really, you know, kind of see a kid wanting to do calligraphy, you know. He loved drawing. He went to art school for a while.

And then he stopped doing that because of the music. From a young age, he played guitar, which honestly drove me crazy because he had an electric guitar at the time and he would play Metallica songs. Oh, my. I didn't even know what Metallica was till I listened to that. It was enough to drive anybody crazy. But, you know, he liked it. So we listened to it.

Shane had a small group of friends to whom he was loyal. He was shy and kept to himself, but he was generally well-liked. Angela remembered his time at Lisbon High School.

Out of all of our siblings, he was the only one that graduated. I got my GED, but he was the only one that got his diploma. He never, from my knowledge, got poor grades. It was average or above. He wasn't one to skip school or anything like that. He went every day. He loved home economics, too. I kind of teased him. I'm like, oh, you're just doing that for the girls, but he loved to cook.

Shane met Trish Dobson, his then-girlfriend and future mother of his children, in high school. She was two years his junior. When he graduated in 1993, she was still in school and was pregnant. They ended up moving into an apartment together and stayed in a long-term relationship for about 10 years. When it was

was born, they weren't sure that she was going to live because she was premature. I want to say she was born at like 26 weeks or young, maybe younger than that. But she was barely over a pound. And so she was in the hospital for the first six months of her life. And, you know, that was a pretty stressful time for them. You know, here they are, a young couple just kind of trying to make it. And they're going to the hospital to see their baby as often as they can. And I remember when she first came out of the hospital, we had to buy our Cabbage Patch doll clothes. They didn't have

preemie clothes back then. So we had to buy doll clothes just to make sure that she had something that would fit her. So that kind of brought him down a little because, you know, all his dreams and everything seemed to, you know, to him wasn't going to come true anymore. But

He kept on going. He was young when he had his kids. And I think first he started high school and he's doing that, you know, getting good grades and that sort of thing. And then he jumps into family life. And so like he never really got a time to like party or do his thing. And I think that he kind of always felt like that part of his life, you know, it wasn't fair. He missed out on that.

And so I think some of that kind of pushed over into his adulthood. And that was a pretty big conflict between him and Trish. I think ultimately that's probably why they split up. You know, she just she just got to a point where it's like, you know, you go out and have a couple of beers with your buddies after work. And here I am taking care of the kids or being at work and you get to enjoy yourself. And I think that really bothered her a lot.

I mean, he was always financially there, made sure that the bills were paid. You know, he always took the girls to go fishing and hiking and just camping, you know, outdoorsy fun things. So he was very involved with his children. Like,

My mom would work on the weekends, even when they were still together, and he would make sure that every weekend we weren't in the house. We'd be doing something. Even if it was raining, like I said, he would take us to different museums. We went to the train museum. I'm not sure where that is. And he took us to this rock quarry place.

place one time and I remember going and looking at a bunch of different old cool rocks with him and stuff so it was mostly outside stuff that he liked to do he would take us fishing he loved going hiking so we would go to Bradbury Mountain quite a bit that's the one that I remember doing a lot and

And he liked to go camping. He liked to shoot guns and bow and arrow. He bought me and my sister, when we were little, our own kids' bow and arrow and taught us how to shoot that, which was pretty fun. That was Shane's younger daughter, Shana.

I got my name because he wanted a boy and his name is Shane Michael Cheatham. So he named me Shana Michaela Cheatham because he wanted his junior, but he knew I was going to be his last kid. So he wanted to kind of pass his name on in a different way.

When I was younger, I used to love to watch wrestling with him. And he would take me to wrestling and he would draw me these posters for whoever my favorite person was at the time. Whenever he did that, anything that I asked him to draw, he would.

And in like fourth grade, I had this project I had to do for art and we had to build a castle and it had to have at least one working part to it. So he helped me build this awesome castle and he made, there was like a little moat around it and he made it so a boat would go through the moat and the bridge would come down. Shana recalled as she got older and got her own wheels that her dad was her first call if she ever needed help with her car.

Oh my gosh, he could do anything that you needed done, fixed on a car, he could fix it for you. He automatically knew I could call him up, be like, my car is doing this, what's wrong with it? And he would tell me, well, try replacing this. And normally his first guess that he had, he knew exactly what was wrong with it.

When Shana was about 19, she had a son, and her dad was very involved with him. He used to call my sons Meatball or Monster. That was their nicknames. Meatball. I have no idea where it came from. He would always tell me, they're my little meatballs.

He would take my oldest son, who's now seven, or he'll be seven in December, but he would take him a lot throughout the year. Like every other weekend, he would take him. And he got him into liking fishing and going outside and stuff like that. Though Shane would often take his family hiking to share his passion for the outdoors, he would often go by himself.

He always wanted to do the full Appalachian Trail. That was one goal that him and my other brother had. And, you know, I mean, just kind of between jobs and kids and that sort of thing, it kind of kept getting pushed back and pushed back. But it was always a dream of his to do the full trail. He had this book and it was Maine's tallest mountains that you can hike or something like that. And it had a spot in the back of the book that you could cross off which mountains you've hiked. And he had quite a bit of them crossed off.

He wrote everything down. He had a book that he used for hiking. But it was very intricate. It was, I mean, somebody like me who couldn't hike would be able to go buy that book and it would be a perfect hike. Around 2005, Shane and Trish split up for good. Shane dated a bit and then found Kelly, the next love of his life.

Shane and Kelly got married and were together until about 2012 when they got divorced. Shane worked primarily at Quality Insulation, a contractor that insulates buildings. He held down that job for many years and was always there financially for his young family. Despite Shane's many responsibilities to his two daughters, to their children, to his different romantic partners, he always felt like there was something missing.

He had a saying that he always, in fact, it was on his vehicle. It was not all who wander are lost. But Shane added a little bit towards the end and he put, or are they? You know, to add that bit in there was maybe looking more into him. I'm not sure.

He was always looking for something. He never did find it. He never, all the girls he was with after that, because he was married twice. But I don't think he ever found what he was looking for. He saw himself eventually as a waste. You know, looking back on his life, he said he wasted, he was 40 years old.

And really, what did he accomplish? So everything to him since out of high school, even keeping a job was hard for him. Everything he did was good. He could just never settle down for one type of thing, whether it was automotive, whether it was building houses. And it's not like it didn't satisfy him. It's just he was never happy with it. It was just hiking out in the wild and

I guess basically being by himself and pondering things when he went on these trips, he would come back very refreshed and very happy. Shane never gave up on love and found Heather through their mutual enjoyment of whitewater rafting. And after dating for a while, he decided to move in with her at her family's place in Rome, Maine, just west of Waterville.

The five or six acre property had about an acre or so cleared where there were three structures. On the right was a mobile home that Heather lived in. On the left was a trailer that her father lived in, and in the center was a barn. Things were a little volatile.

We didn't talk too much when he was with Heather, other than when he wanted to take my sons for the weekend. Really anything that he would say about Heather wasn't always the greatest. They didn't seem to get along and then they would get along and then she wanted to get married. So he said, okay. And they ended up getting married. Oh, they were living together for like five, six years when they met. They were only married for a couple of years. He

He didn't invite anybody to the wedding. It was very small and at her aunt's house. You know, it's like, honey, get like your guest list will be small as a result. But out of our side of the family, he only had invited me and my mother. We seemed happy that it happened. She seemed happy, you know, but everybody's happy at a wedding. Their honeymoon phase was short-lived.

She was throwing things. That's when he would, you know, he would leave for a little bit. He didn't come here. I don't, I think he just stayed out in his vehicle for a few hours and then went home.

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That's knix.com promo code TRY15 for 15% off life-changing period underwear. That's K-N-I-X dot com. As Marianne had alluded to earlier, Shane struggled with depression, but he also had another serious mental diagnosis, bipolar.

Being bipolar, you kind of go through big highs and really low lows, you know, but he was on medication. So he was able to kind of even all that out. And even throughout a lot of this stress and everything else, I mean, you know, he'd be upset and sometimes he'd call me crying. But, you know, it was always about shit going on with Heather and how she was being so cruel to him.

He was on it for a few years. He did stop it because he had to pay for hers, his wife's medication, which was very expensive. But that's what he did. He gave up on his. I mean, it got to the point where he was pawning some things to pay for hers. He always thought of other people before he thought about himself.

At this point, Shane was still in the construction business, hanging sheetrock. Heather wanted space, and so Shane moved out and they became separated. He moved back in with his mom in Windsor, just east of Augusta, and with his new dog, Paige, that he'd gotten around June 2018.

She kept asking him to come back. And then when he'd go back, she'd tell him to leave again. I mean, all I can say is it was a good thing he had a place to come home to, which he did keep his things here. So I think he knew that she was always going to send him back. He did just about everything around here because my husband passed away in 2017 and Shane moved in with me in 2018 at the beginning of the year. And it was like a godsend. He didn't...

He did everything around here that I didn't have to worry about. But he did say one thing to me because I've had a heart attack. And he said, you know what, Mom? He said, you don't think you can do much. He said, but you'd be surprised on how much you can do. And now, yeah, I do it all. And I keep thinking about what he said to me. And he was right. Things were going well living with his mom. Shane and Heather were still on the rocks, and Heather took an extended trip to Alaska to be near her mom.

It happened a couple times. She had went up to Alaska because that's where her mom lived. And she ended up coming back and my dad had said that she had a boyfriend in Alaska. And they ended up arguing.

And him and my mom got back together for a couple months because they had been together for like 14, 15 years before. And then my mom just said, it's not going to work out the second time around. It didn't work the first time. And he ended up going back to Heather at that point.

You know, and at one point she had taken off to Alaska and she was dating another guy. And then I guess that didn't work out. And she decided she wanted to come home. So Shane sold a lot of his priceless, you know, to him, priceless bows and some of his guns that he absolutely loved just to be able to pay for her flight to get back home.

After Heather returned, she began floating the idea of moving to Alaska more permanently. Things were winding down between them. She told them she wanted the divorce. So they went to a divorce. They filed for it. And then at the last minute, she didn't want it. I mean, like he he just wanted so badly to be with her and for things to work out. But I think deep down he knew, you know, it was never going to get better.

Shane felt like he had failed again. And Angela had some insight into how important it was for Shane to have a partner. I kind of feel like a part of him always felt like he was less than if he wasn't with someone. And so I feel like that was probably part of the reason that he stuck around in some of these verbally negative or whatever relationships because he felt like, well, you're supposed to make it work.

Towards the end, he was depressed. He was depressed. And I told him, I said, why don't you go to the doctors for help? And he said, because I can't afford it for me. And I said, you know what? Why don't you go and we'll worry about your medication after you go. That doctor's visit never happened.

On Saturday, August 24, 2018, Shane's mom, Mary Ann, and Angela and her kids all went on a trip to Florida, to Disney World. Shane agreed to watch his mom's animals at the house. That same weekend, Shana had big plans.

I was actually moving that weekend and he had took two of my sons and I was pregnant with my third at the time. So he was like, well, I'll take Hunter and Tanner so you can move and not be stressed about it. So he had them that whole weekend while I was moving.

He was supposed to work that morning and he would go meet up with his boss and him and his boss would drive to work together. Well, his boss lived like five minutes down the road from my mom. So he was just going to drop the kids off to my mom in the morning. But then he had texted my mom and said, I decided I don't want to go to work today. I'm going to keep the kids a little bit longer. I'll drop them off around lunchtime. And

And then later that night after she got done work, because she works from home, she brought them to my house to help me finish moving the last few things from my old house to where I'm living now. After he dropped off the kids, he went over to Heather's to confront her about something. The details in this next sequence might be a little graphic for some listeners.

According to her account to police, he was waiting for her when she got home and had had a couple of beers. He was rolling cigarettes on his green Subaru. He suspected that she might be poisoning his dog, Paige, and he told her as much. She denied it, saying that his dog and her dog ate out of the same bowl. They continued arguing.

She got the mail from the mailbox and saw that some had been addressed to him, which she threw at him. She also threw a glass mason jar at him which shattered on the pavement. Heather had a child who wasn't home, so it was just her and Shane. It was at this point that she said that he put his Beretta .45 caliber handgun to his head and pulled the trigger. Heather got his cell phone from his pocket, the only working nearby cell, and called 911.

The operator dispatched assistance from both EMS as well as the police.

While on the phone with the operator, it appeared that Shane was struggling to breathe. The call's transcripts implied that he was on his back, making it easy for blood to pool in his throat. So she rolled him to his side to try to help clear his airway. She got some paper towels from inside and applied pressure to the wound, hoping to stem the bleeding. But there was a tremendous amount of blood. She stayed on the phone with the 911 operator until first responders arrived.

Within a short time, approximately 10 minutes, Officer Boudreaux, a deputy with the Kennebec County Sheriff's Department, arrived on the scene. Boudreaux found Shane lying face down on the ground near the northeast corner of the property. He ran over to Shane and found his right cheek on the pavement. The gun was about two feet from his legs. Boudreaux grabbed the gun, checked to see if there were any live rounds, and put it in the back of his cruiser.

Oddly, there was no magazine in the gun, and there was a report of only a single round fired, so that meant that there was just one round in the chamber before it was discharged. Shane was moving. He raised his left arm and attempted to touch a large bump above his left eye. Boudreaux radioed dispatch to expedite EMS. EMS arrived and loaded him immediately onto a stretcher and brought him to Main General Hospital in Augusta.

In the meantime, Boudreaux interviewed Heather. In addition to the details of their afternoon, Heather told him that they were splitting up and that she was moving to Alaska. Her flight was booked for the beginning of September, only a week or two away. She also explained that Shane had put the gun to his head multiple times before and said that the gun was in his left hand as he faced the stairs on the front of the porch.

Another officer, Sergeant Dettille, arrived, and they spent an hour looking for the spent shell casing but were unable to locate it. After taking some photographs, Boudreaux used the garden hose to clean the blood off the rocks and then they left together. Shane had been stabilized in Augusta and was transferred to Portland by helicopter immediately following. News of the gunshot had begun to travel.

So I was inside of my house and I was giving my kids a bath before me and my mom left to go get the last load of stuff. And my phone was in the car. So we went back to my mom's car after and I noticed I had a missed call and it said dad, but there was no text or anything after. So I was like, well, maybe it wasn't super important or anything. So we started driving and we got like five minutes down the road and we

My mom's car, her phone connects to the car and it popped up and said that it's that Shane was calling. So she answered it and it was Heather.

telling us what had happened. With my mother and my kids down in Florida and around seven o'clock, maybe seven thirty, I'd gotten a phone call from Trish and she says, you know, I need you to step away from your mother and your kids and I need to talk to you for a minute. And I'm thinking, Jesus, what the hell is going on now? You know what I mean? And she says he finally did it. And I says, what are you talking about?

And she says he finally shot himself. He's on his way to the hospital right now. And so at that point, like I hang up with her and I'm immediately trying to call the hospital. And he shows up to the hospital as a John Doe, which I find odd because 9-1-1 was informed of his name and the police officers were informed of his name and the police officers state they told the EMTs his name. And they said, you know, we don't have a 43 year old male here, but we got what appears to be a 25 year old male.

And I said, my brother looks younger than his age. You know, I start whittling off tattoos that he has because I figured that's the easiest way to, you know, identify him. And they said, yeah, that's definitely him. He didn't stay there very long. I think they just wanted to stabilize him and move him immediately down to Portland. And so at that point, we're scrambling to get a flight to get home. You know, I mean, being a gunshot to the head, the chances of him surviving is probably not good. And we just wanted to be able to see him, you know, before he had died. Right.

By 10 p.m., Trish, Shana, and his younger brother Chris had all gathered at Portland Hospital to see Shane. He was unconscious and unresponsive. So we ended up going outside to go smoke a cigarette, and you have to go across the street from the hospital to smoke. So we were standing right on the corner, right across from the hospital, and my uncle ended up showing up.

And my mom noticed Heather's car and Heather got out of the car. She wasn't crying. She wasn't, she didn't look upset. She didn't look like she had been crying. And she got out of the car yelling at me and my mom and my sister and my uncle. Shana was pregnant. And so my brother stepped in between us.

Shayna and Heather to keep them from, you know, a fist fight. Her and my uncle started arguing more and she ended up punching my uncle in the face. I'm surprised my brother Chris didn't hit her back because he has no qualms in doing that. And security came out and Heather just kind of left.

They went back into the hospital and discussed his situation with medical staff. They learned that Shane was brain dead. He had zero brain activity, and there was no hope for recovery. Shana was pregnant. I mean, we're all worried she's going to, you know, go into early labor or something, but she was so brave to sit there with her father and hold his hand, you know? I just, I can't imagine what that was like for her.

At 12.55 a.m. that night, they made the decision to pull the plug on life support, and Shane was pronounced dead.

The next morning, Mary Ann and Angela got flights back from Florida to Maine. Unfortunately, too late to see Shane alive. The arrangements surrounding his death were already underway. Because Heather was still his legal spouse, she was in charge of many of the decisions following his death. She had a crematory take his body right away. The family contacted Heather to find out her intentions with his ashes.

and she told them where she had it done and if they wanted his ashes, they could go and pay for them and retrieve them. Medical examiner Michael Ng did a visual examination of Shane and prepared a report. The report indicated that there were two skin wounds on Shane's head that corresponded with skull damage underneath. One of the wounds was at the right temple and irregularly shaped and quite large, approximately one and three quarters by one inch.

There was another small round wound in the middle of his left eyebrow. He determined that the entry wound was at the right temple through the presence of sooty stippling on the edge of the wound. He classified the distance between the gun and the skin as the closest possible category, perhaps touching the skin or just within an inch.

Though perhaps physically possible, it is extremely unlikely that Shane could have used his left hand to shoot himself in the right temple with a high-caliber handgun. This revelation changed everything for the Cheatham family. Everything that they had been told so far was based on the premise that Shane had used his left hand.

But now, they discovered that it was a virtual impossibility. If Shane had died by suicide, the examiner's report strongly implied that he used his right hand to do it. This conflicted with both Boudreaux's assessment of the wound as well as Heather's account of seeing him do it.

From day one, I think I always had that inkling that something wasn't right. And I don't know, it was probably five or six months after he passed away. I decided definitively that I was going to ask the ME for their medical report. And, you know, I wanted to get him like right after he had passed away. But, you know, my parents, my parents were grieving. His daughters were grieving. And I'm thinking, you know, I just don't think this is probably the right time. But he just kept eating at me and eating at me. So I said, you know what? I'm just going to get it.

And if nothing is in there, nobody's going to know I have it or got it or questioned anything. No harm, no foul, right?

And, you know, I'm sitting down reading this report because they emailed it to me. So it was instantaneous upon my request. And, you know, I immediately noticed the right side entry and I'm thinking, what in the hell is going on? And so I called the medical examiner, you know, can you clarify this for me? Is this what I'm reading? Because, you know, I'm not a medical person. There's a lot of medical terminology in there. And I said, you know, this is my surmization of what I'm reading here. Is that correct? And she says, yes.

And I said, well, is there a reason that the police haven't looked into it as suspicious at this point? And she says, I really can't answer that for you. We did send that over, you know, immediately upon, you know, it being signed, it gets sent directly over to them for them to file with their records. So the police were aware or should have been if they read it, you know, that it was right side entry. But I guess they figured, well, the family's not pressing it. Nobody's looking. So we're just going to ignore that fact.

I mean, the, you know, two months before he had passed away, I asked him if he wanted to do an offhand shoot competition with me. And he's like, I can't, I, I, I'm not even not to mention accurate. I just, I can't do it. He's like, I've worked with offhand knife skills. You know, I can flip out my butterfly knife with my right hand, but I, you know, this, I, I can't do the shoot competition. You know, okay, well, no big deal.

While Shane was in the hospital still alive, the doctor kept asking my nieces, are you sure he's left-handed? And they're like, yes. Why do you keep asking us this? But of course he couldn't really tell them or didn't because he must have recognized and realized that this is a right side entry, not left. The doctor had asked me if he was left or right-handed and he was left-handed. And the

And the doctor said, that's what I thought. So I thought that the doctor thought that it was for sure suicide. He did it and it was left entry. But it turned out that it was not a left-handed entry. It was a right-handed entry. Angela thought that perhaps the police hadn't realized this discrepancy. So she called Deputy Boudreau to bring it to his attention. Things got a little heated.

I emailed Doudreau and he was adamant that the medical examiner was incompetent and wrong that, you know, he has ballistics background, you know, as part of his training and there was mushering and what that means that it's an entry area. And, you know, he's holding that area, he said. And I'm thinking you've got blood gushing out. Of course, you're going to hold it. You're trying to keep it in, you know, but he just didn't see it that way. He just kind of

you know, Emmy's wrong. You're being misled. That's not what happened. I was there. Finally, I kind of got a little abrasive with him and I said, look, you're not a medical examiner. You don't have close to a decade of medical background under your belt. You have basic ballistic training through your job. You need to remember your place and allow the ME to do their job. And

And in that, that means now you need to do your job. And he didn't like that at all. And at that point, he told me not to contact him again and to go through his superior, which is Sergeant Mills. Angela then called Boudreaux's boss, Sergeant Mills, and he looked into the case.

Mills reviewed the medical examiner's report and discussed it with other government officials, an investigator at the medical examiner's office, and a detective at the state police. But he still ruled it a suicide and kept the case closed.

Angela wasn't satisfied, so she kept digging. She tried to get copies of the police reports from the Kennebec County Sheriff's Office. They were difficult about that, too. Like, they kept sending me to different departments that didn't even deal with records. And then I would go into the police station, they're like, oh, it costs $50. And I'm thinking, all right, well, you know, I don't have cash on me. And plus, I had to be home. It's all the way in Augusta, which is a little over an hour from me. And so I said, okay, I'll come back. And I just kept pushing it off. Well, what

Well, when I went in there and finally retrieved it, you know, a few months ago, there was no charge.

I didn't get charged anything for it. So it's like they were always just trying to throw me down the rabbit hole of never-ending cycles of things that were never going to pan out. They knew I was never going to get the police report through the state police. Maybe they're trying to cover for themselves, you know, in a way. Like, they realize that, gee, maybe we should have checked her for gunshot residue. Maybe we should have checked him for toxicology. You know, and I'm kind of wondering if maybe they just kind of realized, like, well, shit, it's too late to go back and do all that now. Let's just try to cover our tracks and hope the family don't ask questions.

Angela was frustrated and hitting a dead end when, through dumb luck, she made a contact with someone who might really be able to help, a guy named Mark Babbitts, who moonlighted as a private investigator.

through conversation, he had said that he was with the main cold case alliance. And I said, you've got to be shitting me. I said, I got a story for you. And so like, he called me up and he's a very chatty guy. And, you know, he sat there for hours, just like trying to get the full details and everything. And he says, you know, part of my job through cold cases, you know, I do some private investigative work. He's like, I'm not going to like come there and actively like do things because I live in Illinois. He's like, but I'd be more than happy to make some phone calls, rattle some cages and let's just see what comes of it. And

And whatever he did, it worked. She finally got copies of the police reports from the sheriff's office. It was in these reports that she learned about the final moments of Shane's life. In the report, Heather said that he put a gun to his head multiple times prior and compared it to a boy who cries wolf. It was reported that Shane's final words were, there's one more in the chamber and pulled the trigger.

The next thing she was after was photos from the crime scene. She initially tried to get these photos from the medical examiner's office to no avail. So she tried getting them from the police department. There's photos of the crime scene that Boudreaux took.

but nobody will give them to me, which I find ironic because initially Boudreaux had offered them. He's like, I don't think you want to see images of your brother laying like that. But you know, if you do, I'll mail them to you. And at that point I was like, no, he was fresh. You know, he just died. I was like, no, I really don't want to see those. But when I finally did request them later on, you know, I was denied immediately. So it's like, they'll throw the bone when they think you're not going to accept it. But the moment you do, they're like, oh, sorry, that's off the table now.

Though she was unable to get the crime scene photos, after careful review of what she did have, she felt like it was enough to reach out to the Maine State Police to see if they would reopen the investigation. Per the recommendation from the Maine Cold Case Alliance, she sent everything to Colonel John Cody, commanding officer of the Maine State Police.

He responded promptly, and Ryan Brockway, a state police detective, called her the next day. They have since questioned Heather and her father, and it's not clear whether the investigation of the case is officially reopened or if it remains classified as a suicide.

You know, I kind of keep getting sideburnered by him and I understand newer cases come first. You know, that's just the way the cookie crumbles. But, you know, he's been saying for months that we'll sit down and talk about all of what he's been doing and, you know, where he thinks that this is going. But he just keeps pushing me off and pushing me off.

There were a lot of questions, a lot of questions that weren't answered. And when the state police decided they would reopen the case and they would look into it, we had hope. And for some reason, I don't know what happened. And he was gung-ho. I mean, he was really coming up with some good things. And then all of a sudden it stopped. I don't know why, but it just stopped.

In the state of Maine, 911 calls are part of the public record, but you cannot get the audio, only a written transcript. Angela got the transcript of Heather's initial call to 911 at 6.33 p.m., the afternoon of Shane's death, which confirmed some things and raised some new questions. She had said in the 911 call that she saw him do it.

But then she told the cops that she didn't see him do it. She had her back turned and she only heard it. But in the 911 call, she said, I watched him do it. We have the transcript and it states, I just watched him shoot himself in the head, which she later reiterated when police arrived. But in the same call, she seemed unclear on what had happened.

She said, "'Above the left brow is where I think it went in, and later, I don't know if it's an exit or an entrance.' The bullet entered his right temple, and I would think that anyone with a clear view just a few feet away would know how the gun was being held, and which wound was the entry wound."

In the police report, Boudreaux wrote down Heather's account. Shane presented a firearm and put it to his head using his left arm. And it was from Heather that Boudreaux learned that Shane was left-handed. Questions about the case were mounting. I asked Angela if he'd ever attempted suicide in the past.

No, he's never made any attempts, you know, be it with pills or, you know, trying to hurt himself in an accident or anything like that. Nothing that he's ever done intentionally to try to harm himself ever.

He had made comments before, just, I'm so sick of Heather and her bullshit. Like, I just wish it was all done. I just want to end it. And then he would just kind of laugh it off and be like, you know, I'm not serious. But then he would get in a mood again and he would be like, I don't know what to do anymore. Yeah.

But he came to grips with the fact that Heather was going back to Alaska in September and he was supposed to, Heather's dad was supposed to let him keep renting the trailer even after Heather moved.

moved out so it seemed like he realized that it was just going to be the end of heather and he was gonna just move on with everything he was just i'm just i'm gonna stay here i'm gonna pay rent i'm gonna she wants to go to alaska because that's what she wants to do then that's what it is i'm not gonna try to stop her from going anymore

That was the one thing he always said, like, I don't want to take the chance of fucking it up. He's like, I'll end up having my diaper changed and be food-bend by you guys the rest of my life. He's like, I don't want to be a burden on nobody. And, you know, I mean, I can totally understand where he's coming from. So to use your right hand, I mean, you know, it just made no sense. Shane and Heather's relationship was winding down, and though disappointed, Shane seemed to be making peace with it.

He was moving on. He had substantially moved out of Heather's, and he was living at his mom's house. Heather had plans to move to Alaska. It seemed that the only reason he was at Heather's that Monday was because he wanted to confront her about his dog's health. He believed that she was poisoning her. He had a deep love for animals.

He loved animals. Absolutely loved them. We had a bunny when I was younger and she lived for like 10 years and I was devastated when she passed away and he felt so bad. He buried her in our backyard and he went into the garage and made a cross with the bunny's name on it and put it like as a marker to where he buried her. And he was just always, always, always loved any animal.

While his mom was out of town, he agreed to take care of her animals, and she found it hard to reconcile his apparent suicide with his responsibilities to her pets. That's what I thought was strange, was he wouldn't have left my animals the way he did. He knew that he had responsibilities over here with them, to feed them and everything they needed. And

You know, it was a, I don't know. You know, I try not to dwell on it. I know what I know. I feel what I feel. And like I said to you, the bullet went in the right side of his head and he's left-handed, totally left-handed. There's no way he could have done it. Another strange thing that happened in the wake of Shane's death is that Heather filed a restraining order against five members of the Cheatham family.

When the state police came and gave it to me and I said, I don't understand why I'm getting this. She was just here a week ago, you know, coming to see what he had left.

And she was very pleasant to me. So I don't understand why I'm getting this. The state police officer didn't understand it either. But he said, make sure and explain it to the judge when you get there. Well, we didn't even have to explain because we were all sitting there and the judge, she didn't show up. So we were all not charged with anything and no restraining order. So, I mean, that was, we all took the day off for that from work.

After she came to see me, she went on the plane, went to Alaska. Between the spent shell casing never being recovered, the magazine missing from the gun, the allegations that Heather was poisoning Shane's dog, the evidence of violence from Heather with the broken mason jar and thrown mail, the everything normal voicemail from Shane the day of his death to his family, it seemed like there was enough evidence to convince the Maine State Police to reopen the case.

Shana wished that things had been done differently from the moment the police arrived on the scene.

I have wanted to know, like, why the cops never did gunshot residue tests on Heather or on her clothes. I feel like it was just super quick. Like, they didn't talk to her long. I feel like they just kind of took her word for he was suicidal. He did it himself. With all of the lingering questions, I asked Angela what she would like to see done by police.

I think if anything, you know, we just like his medical records to reflect that it's suspicious, that it's not suicide because they don't know that it is. And they probably will never prove either way. We'll probably never know. But there's so much evidence to back up the fact that it could be considered suspicious. We just at least like that changed. The police report from Detective Sergeant Mills of Kennebec County Sheriff's Office stated the status of the case unequivocally.

It is the latest written information that Angela has gotten from law enforcement. This case will remain closed and categorized as a suicide based on the facts, circumstances given at the scene, and the evidence derived from the medical examiner's office. If new information develops, the case will be reopened and assigned to a detective for further investigation.

I carried him for nine months under my arm, and he's still in my heart. I'm not going to stop until I get the answers to everything I question, which there are so many, but I don't think I'm ever going to live long enough to see it.

it's difficult. It kind of weighs on you. It's something you think about every single day. If I didn't have Angela, she's a little pit bull, I'll tell you what. She's not going to give up. She's still going forward. She's still hunting down information. And I'm afraid it's consuming her life. Like I've told her, I said, you know, Angie, you've done, I think, everything you can do. It's

It'd be nice to know the truth, but I don't think we ever will because for some reason, I don't think we're getting the whole truth from Kennebec County and also right now the state police. She's done everything. I don't know what I would do without her because I couldn't have done it by myself.

Shane left a lasting legacy with the people who loved him, both big and small. An impact he probably never realized was happening, and one that left an imprint on even the smallest of lives. But how do you tell a little one that somebody they admire isn't coming back?

It absolutely devastated my oldest son. Like, he still sometimes tells me that he misses him and he wishes he could see him and he wants to talk to him and he wants to go to his house. And he's six, so he was four when it happened, so he didn't really understand. But over the past three years, I've tried to explain to him, like...

I'm sorry, but you're not going to be able to see him. He's not coming back. And it seems to be hard on him a lot. Though Shane's life ended, there was still the question of what to do with his physical remains. The crematorium had reduced Shane's body to a one-gallon Ziploc bag of ashes. His family retrieved them and considered how to carry out Shane's final wish.

His big thing was that, you know, when he passed away, he wanted his ashes to be spread on Avery Mountain. And it took about two years, but I was able to finally find somebody because I have asthma. There's no way I'm climbing any mountains anytime soon, you know? And so I found someone that was willing to take his ashes up there and spread them for us.

hiking group volunteered to go, which made the rest of us very happy because that's where he wanted to be. He had this favorite poem, you know, that he really liked, not all those who wander are lost. He absolutely loved that. And, you know, because

That's kind of the way he was. You know, he wandered around in his adventures and hiking, but he wasn't lost. He was in his element, you know, and so that that poem really like stuck with him in that way. And so she brought him up there and did exactly what we wanted and sent video and read the poem, which was amazing of her to do. That poem by J.R.R. Tolkien is called The Strider.

All that is gold does not glitter; not all those who wander are lost. The old that is strong does not wither; deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken; a light from the shadows shall spring. Renewed shall be blade that was broken; the crownless again shall be king.

The mountain where Shane's ashes were scattered is named after Myron Avery, a man whose passion as a defender and champion of the Appalachian Trail saved it from oblivion in the face of overwhelming forces, the Great Depression, and the Second World War.

Avery, though he had a full-time career as a lawyer, spent virtually all of his free time working to maintain, develop, and connect the network of trails that would ultimately run from Shenandoah to Mount Katahdin.

For decades, his bold personality and vision for the future galvanized thousands of volunteers to take up his cause and fight for the trail. Shane had planned to hike the full Appalachian Trail with his brother, Chris. A huge ambition. I found at least a dozen different photos he took and posted to Facebook that showcased the iconic AT logo, or a signpost with the words Appalachian Trail.

Though Shane would often take his meatballs, go hiking with his daughters or with his brother, Shane would often hike by himself and would post photos of nature or vistas or peak markers of trail signs to his Facebook profile saying to the world, "I was here." Perhaps he was sharing his passion with his friends or maybe he was showcasing his accomplishments of bagging another peak.

But I would wager that there was something deeper at work. According to his mother, he had an extensive knowledge of nature, an ability to identify plants, mushrooms, trees, to anticipate changes in the weather, and that he would take detailed notes along the trail about his experience.

Shane found solace in hiking. He found rejuvenation. He found purpose. Something about the pristine beauty of the forest uplifted Shane in a way that the rest of his life did not. I'd like to close this story with a quote from Myron Avery, and find a little bit of Shane in your heart when you take your next hike in the woods.

To those who would see the Maine wilderness tramp day by day through a succession of ever-delightful forest, past lake and stream, and over mountains, we would say, follow the Appalachian Trail across Maine.

It cannot be followed on horse or a wheel. Remote for detachment, narrow for chosen company, winding for leisure, lonely for contemplation, it beckons not merely north and south, but upward to the body, mind, and soul of man.

If you are currently struggling with thoughts of suicide, help is available 24-7. I encourage you to hit pause and call the National Suicide Hotline at 800-273-8255 or 988 in participating states. You are important and your life matters. ♪

I want to thank you so much for listening. I'm so grateful that you chose to tune in and I couldn't be here without you. Thank you. Special thanks to Angela, Marianne, and Shaina for sharing their memories with me. All links for sources and images for this episode can be found on MurderSheTold.com, linked in the show notes.

Special thanks to Byron Willis for his research and writing support. If you loved this episode, please consider sharing it with a friend or on social media and leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. It's one of the best ways to support an indie podcast. If you're a friend or a family member of The Victim, you're more than welcome to reach out to me.

at hello at MurderSheTold.com. If you have a story that needs to be told or would like to suggest one, I would love to hear from you. My only hope is that I've honored your stories and keeping the names of your family and friends alive. I'm Kristen Sevey, and this is Murder She Told. Thank you for listening.