The Phone
Call
(Page 1 of 7)
Jan. 19, 2006
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Shannon Melendi had big plans in life. One of
her goals was to become a Supreme Court justice.
(CBS)
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(CBS) Shannon Melendi was
a 19-year-old college sophomore at Emory University when
she disappeared without a trace on March 26, 1994.
Shannon’s parents immediately told police their daughter
had been kidnapped but authorities dismissed that theory
until a mysterious phone call and a clue would take this
investigation to a whole new level.
Correspondent Troy Roberts reports.
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It was just a week before Easter, and nearly everyone in
Atlanta had heard the news that Shannon Melendi had
vanished without a trace.
Authorities eventually launched an extensive and frantic
search throughout the city, combing the ball park where
Shannon was last seen, the backwoods and the rivers, but
found nothing. The young woman had disappeared without a
trace.
Shannon grew up in Miami with her parents Luis and
Yvonne and her kid sister Monique. Shannon loved the
outdoors, especially water skiing in the Florida Keys.
"We were an extremely happy family. We had two beautiful
children and we loved it," remembers Shannon's mother,
Yvonne Melendi. "We were happy. We went places, we
shared things. We lived the American dream."
It was a dream especially sweet for Shannon's father,
Luis Melendi, a Cuban immigrant who is an award-winning
professional photographer and owns a successful portrait
studio.
The Melendis, who had become high profile in the Miami
social scene, say they knew their daughter was born to
be a leader. She was class president, captain of the
debate team and maintained a high GPA.
When it was time for college, she chose Emory University
in Atlanta. Her long-term goal was to become a Supreme
Court justice. As part of her commitment to public
service, Shannon worked at The Carter Center, the
non-profit organization founded by former President
Jimmy Carter.
Shannon even found time for a part-time job working at a
softball field. She was working as a scorekeeper on the
day she disappeared.
Shannon’s roommate, Athena Perez, became worried when
Shannon didn’t return to her dorm room that evening.
Hours later, Athena and her friends discovered Shannon’s
car, a black Nissan 240 SX, abandoned and called police.
Athena remembers a female officer arrived at the scene.
"She took all of our information, but was very laid back
about it. She said, 'Okay, go ahead, drive it, the car,
back to campus.' That’s what we did."
It would become the first of many mistakes authorities
would make.
As the hours passed, Athena became even more frightened
and decided to call Shannon’s family.
"I remember dialing that phone number," she says. "And
just dreading that moment because I thought, 'How do you
tell someone’s parents you can’t find their child? You
don’t know where she is?' "
Shannon’s father, Luis, remembers getting an “eerie
feeling.” "I fell to my knees and I said ‘It’s Shannon.
We’ll never see her again.’"
Shannon’s parent’s immediately left for Atlanta,
arriving dazed and devastated. All they knew was that
their beautiful 19-year-old daughter had vanished. What
they couldn’t have imagined was the reception that they
got from the very people they had expected to help them:
the police.
When the Melendis talked to police, they say they told
officers their daughter was not missing but kidnapped.
What stunned them even more was what authorities told
them had happened to their daughter.
"Ah, 'She ran away, she’s a college student, don’t worry
about her. She’ll show up,' " Yvonne recalls police
telling her.
Yvonne and Luis couldn’t believe what they had heard and
insisted that the police had it all wrong. Luis says
police were dismissive and disrespectful.
Investigators not only believed that Shannon had run
away, they were convinced that those who knew her best
knew exactly where she was. So they zeroed in on
Shannon’s friends.
"I was pulled out of class," remembers Shannon’s
roommate, Athena, who says police questioned her for
more than eight hours. “ 'Shannon ran away, you guys
know where she is, you know, you’re hiding her.' I was
like, 'You are crazy, you’ve got to be kidding me. I’m
not hiding her,' " she recalls.
The Phone Call
(Page 2 of 7)
Jan. 19, 2006
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Shannon Melendi had big plans in life. One of her goals
was to become a Supreme Court justice. (CBS)
(CBS)
Luis and Yvonne now believed they were in a race against
time to find Shannon, and decided to take matters into
their own hands. They turned to their friends, like
Shannon’s old high school teacher, Angel Menendez, who
within a matter of hours helped raise thousands of
dollars.
Posters of Shannon offering a $10,000 reward were
plastered all over Atlanta and billboards lined major
highways.
The Melendis also tapped in to some of Miami’s top
celebrities, including Bo Jackson and Andy Garcia, who
appeared in public service announcements. And they
appeared on national television programs including
“America’s Most Wanted.”
For almost two weeks, there was no sign of Shannon,
until April 6, 1994, when an anonymous male caller
phoned the Emory University counseling center with a
message.
"In that call, which was very brief, he said that he had
Shannon and she was OK. And that he would make his
demands later and hung up the phone," says DeKalb County
prosecutor Mike McDaniel.
The FBI traced the call to a pay phone and found
evidence intentionally left behind by the caller that
would link him to Shannon. It was wrapped in masking
tape.
Wrapped inside the masking tape was a bag, and inside
the bag was a ring, which Yvonne Melendi says was
Shannon's, given to her by her godmother.
The mysterious phone call and the bizarre discovery of
Shannon’s blue topaz ring confirmed what the Melendis
had believed all along: that their daughter had been
taken against her will.
Finally authorities agreed with them.
"That was, I would say, the real turning point," says
Yvonne. "It gave us hope that she was still alive."
A 1993 family portrait taken by Luis would prove to be
critical to the case since the topaz ring can be seen on
Shannon's hand in the photo.
Three weeks after Shannon had disappeared, Luis and
Yvonne returned to Miami and were reunited with their
younger daughter, Monique. Yvonne says returning home
without Shannon was "horrible."
"Her room basically turned into a shrine," remembers
Yvonne. "We had candles everywhere. We had prayer vigils
in there. It became a crying room. We’d go in there and
we’d lay on her bed and we’d cry and we’d pray and we’d
curse God."
DeKalb County Police Sergeant Ray Ice was named the lead
investigator assigned to Shannon’s case and he was
determined to make up for lost time.
"It became my responsibility to do an overview of the
entire case. Find out what mistakes had been made," says
Ice.
One of the more glaring mistakes, according to Ice, was
the initial handling of Shannon’s car.
"We corrected it quickly, but you know the damage may
have been done by then," he says.
DeKalb County prosecutor John Petrey agrees. "The
initial treatment of this case as it’s just 'College
Girls Gone Wild,’ it’s an MTV show, you know. Shannon’s
run off to be with her buddies in Cancun or whatever.
Giving the car back to the roommates was a huge
mistake."
Two weeks after Shannon was kidnapped, investigators
finally shifted into high gear. They reconstructed her
final hours at the softball park, talking to everyone
they could who had been there on the day Shannon had
vanished.
Among them was Jerry Chastain, who pitched the very game
where Shannon had worked as a score keeper.
"The home plate umpire, he would not pay attention to me
while I was pitching. I would throw a pitch and then,
mid-stride, he would turn around and look at the
scorekeeper behind the fence," says Chastain.
Chastain kept mentioning the umpire, 33-year-old Colvin
Hinton, III, also known as “Butch.”
"It was like he was obsessed with her," Chastain says.
"He went to her between innings, he went to her while I
was pitching. He was interested in her more than he was
the ballgame."
Sometime during Shannon’s lunch break that Saturday
afternoon, authorities believe she and softball umpire
Butch Hinton crossed paths. At first glance, Hinton
seemed like a regular guy. He was married and a father,
he owned a home and had a good job, and he even taught
Sunday school.
But when investigators took a closer look at Hinton, his
claims about his whereabouts that day conflicted with
what other people had told them. The FBI asked Hinton
about his involvement in Shannon’s disappearance and
gave him a lie detector test.
"He basically failed it," says Ice. "At the time they
didn’t have substantial evidence to keep him. He didn’t
confess. They released him and began following him."
Investigators pressed forward in their search for
Shannon, and re-examined evidence, taking a closer look
at how Shannon’s ring was discovered.
"In this case the best piece of physical evidence that
we had that was the most value to me was Shannon’s ring
in this cloth bag wrapped in tape," says Ice.
The fabric bag that was wrapped inside masking tape
turned out to be no ordinary bag. It was a product made
for and used only by Delta Air Lines.
At the time of Shannon’s disappearance, Butch Hinton
worked in the machine shop at the Delta Airlines
Technical Operations Center.
"The tape that was wrapped around the bag, we found nine
rolls of it in his house," says Sgt. Ice. "And several
rolls of that same tape at his workstation at Delta Air
Lines. Now we have a direct link to Butch."
Butch Hinton, the softball umpire, was now a suspect in
Shannon Melendi’s kidnapping. But authorities still
didn’t have enough evidence to arrest him.
The Phone Call
(Page 3 of 7)
Jan. 19, 2006
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Shannon Melendi had big plans in life. One of her goals
was to become a Supreme Court justice. (CBS)
(CBS)
As each day without their daughter passed, Luis and
Yvonne slowly began to realize that Shannon would not be
coming home alive.
"My husband, from day one, said, 'We’ll never see
Shannon again.' But after that phone call he really got
a little ray of hope there I think," recalls Yvonne.
"Shannon’s still alive and the hardest thing was coming
to grips within yourself that she’s not. That we would
never see her again and being able to look at each other
and say, 'She’s gone. Our baby is gone' is hard.”
"It was a reasonable assumption that she was murdered at
that point," says Ice.
But if Shannon had been murdered, frustrated
investigators could not find any evidence of the crime.
In the months that followed Shannon’s disappearance,
Hinton became the focus of a feeding frenzy by the
Atlanta media.
In Sgt. Ice's opinion, not only was the initial
investigation botched, but also the first two searches
of the Hinton home.
“In my opinion, that search wasn’t done quite correctly.
Some things were missed," he says.
So investigators tried again. This time, police used
search dogs and a bulldozer to dig up Hinton’s yard.
Authorities had received a tip from a neighbor that
Hinton may have buried evidence there.
One of the search dogs was a cadaver dog, highly trained
to only alert on human body remains and blood. Ice says
the dog quickly focused under the backyard deck, on a
small door leading to a crawlspace.
“The dog got in the crawl space and went nuts. Very,
very strong alert,” says Ice. “So It indicated to me
that a body was stored there.”
Ice says investigators took samples and sent them to the
lab for testing.
Then the cadaver dog ran to what had been a fire pit in
the backyard. A neighbor said Hinton had built a roaring
fire there, the morning after Shannon disappeared.
Ice says investigators began excavating the area,
looking for clues. "I think he disposed of her. Then he
cleaned and he wanted to destroy everything he used.
Built a fire pit in his backyard and tried to burn it
up.”
But investigators were shocked when the samples from the
crawlspace came back negative and when they failed to
find any human remains in the fire pit.
But what they did find was startling.
Ice says they found wire ties, cleaning utensils, female
sweaters and plastic pants that investigators wear at
crime scenes to prevent blood from getting onto
clothing.
Investigators found eight to 10 women’s sweaters, along
with other women’s clothing. None of it belonged to
Hinton’s wife at the time or to Shannon. Whom they
belonged to remains a mystery. But authorities say they
have a pretty good idea why they were buried there,
calling them trophies of what might be many other
crimes.
“A very distinct possibility,” says Ice. Asked if he
thinks there are other victims, Ice says, "There have to
be."
The Phone Call
(Page 4 of 7)
Jan. 19, 2006
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Shannon Melendi had big plans in life. One of her goals
was to become a Supreme Court justice. (CBS)
(CBS)
Police had a theory but with no hard evidence and there
were no grounds for arrest.
But what police had discovered, while investigating
Shannon’s disappearance, was that Hinton had a violent
criminal past, a disturbing rap sheet with attacks on
several women, beginning when he was just a teenager.
Among his victims is a woman named Tammy, who asked 48
Hours to obscure her identity. She was just 14 years old
when Hinton kidnapped and sexually attacked her in 1982.
“There was a certain evil presence that seemed to take
over his personality,” Tammy says.
Tammy says Hinton tricked her into meeting him.
“The next thing I knew, there was a blade against my
neck. And he said, 'You better cooperate with me or I’m
gonna use it on you,' " she says.
She says Hinton hog-tied her with rope and gagged her,
then loaded her into the trunk of his car. He drove her
to his home.
“He threw me on the bed," Tammy says. "He got on top of
me. I screamed and turned my head and begged, 'Please
don’t do this to me!' And he then stopped abruptly. And
he put my clothes back together."
She says Hinton took her down to his basement and tied
her up in the corner. At some point, Hinton’s wife came
home, heard Tammy’s screams for help, and rescued her.
“If it wouldn’t have been for his wife coming in at that
time, I don’t believe I’d be talking to you right now,”
says Tammy.
His wife later divorced him. Hinton himself was arrested
and charged with kidnapping and taking indecent
liberties with a child. He agreed to a plea of guilty
but mentally ill and was sentenced to four years in
prison. In the end, Hinton served less than half of
that.
"If he would have gotten 20 years, Shannon would be
alive today!” says Luis Melendi.
Shannon’s mother, Yvonne, says she is convinced Hinton
killed her daughter. "Absolutely … No question.”
Now, more than a decade after the assault on Tammy,
investigators believe Hinton murdered Shannon Melendi.
But when police started to focus on him, the story took
an even more bizarre turn when he set his own house on
fire.
Asked what he thinks may have motivated the arson, Sgt.
Ice says, "To destroy any trace evidence that we missed
during the first two searches.”
But in an incredible twist of events, Hinton tried to
collect the fire insurance money on his house. He was
charged with fraud and sentenced to more than nine years
in federal prison.
During that time, the Shannon Melendi murder case
languished. But in late 2003, right around the time
Hinton was to be released, a new lead prosecutor, John
Petrey, came on board. Despite gaping holes in the case,
he was resolved to finding justice for the Melendis with
the help of the FBI.
"I realize what an incredible injustice not bringing
this case to trial would have been and would be at this
point,” says Petrey.
And, so, more than a decade after Shannon Melendi
disappeared and some eight months after his release from
federal prison, police and FBI agents arrested Hinton
and charged him with her murder.
Luis remembers he was thrilled when he learned of the
arrest. “I didn’t think the trial was going to happen.”
So what do prosecutors have? There’s no crime scene, no
murder weapon, no DNA and no real proof that Shannon’s
even dead.
The Phone Call
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Jan. 19, 2006
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Shannon Melendi had big plans in life. One of her goals
was to become a Supreme Court justice. (CBS)
(CBS)
In 2005, more than 11 years after she had vanished,
Hinton went on trial for the murder of Shannon Melendi.
For Shannon’s parents, the trial may well be their last
opportunity to learn what happened to their daughter.
“There’s a lot of things kept from us,” says Luis. "So
we don’t know how he murdered her, how much he made her
suffer.”
But that’s something the prosecutors don’t know, either.
In fact, there’s a lot they don’t know about Shannon’s
disappearance, giving defense attorney B.J. Bernstein
plenty of ammunition to go on the attack.
“The evidence in this case does not and can not show you
beyond a reasonable doubt what happened to Shannon
Melendi,” Bernstein says in court. "That’s a case that
should never make it to a jury. A judge should throw it
out!”
Hinton’s family attended the trial but refused to talk
to 48 Hours.
Bernstein says bringing the case to trial sets a
horrible precedent.
“It’s the only time in the state of Georgia in which
there has been a prosecution for murder when there is no
body and no crime scene,” Bernstein says. "Without a
crime scene, you don’t know what, exactly, happened.”
Prosecutors Mike McDaniel and John Petrey concede that
point but are determined to keep Hinton behind bars.
“To acquit Butch Hinton in this case actually sends the
message: ‘Okay, perverts. Okay, sexual predators. If
you’ve got enough time to completely hide the evidence
of your crime, you can rape and murder with impunity,' ”
says Petrey.
The prosecutors are convinced Hinton did make some
mistakes though, mistakes that would help do him in like
using a traceable bag and masking tape to wrap Shannon’s
ring.
It’s the most critical physical evidence in the case,
but it wasn’t treated that way by the FBI agent who
found it.
On the stand, the agent testified that when he was
opening the masking tape parcel, he wasn't wearing any
gloves, and admitted that he didn't use the techniques
that forensic people would use in handling a piece of
evidence.
The prosecutors don’t consider that testimony fatal and,
in fact, using lab tests they have found one more way to
link Hinton to the tape used to wrap Shannon’s ring.
Technicians have discovered minute particles of unusual
metals on the tape.
“It's used specifically in high technology industries,
like the aircraft industry, it was found also in tape at
Butch Hinton’s workplace and also in tape that was in
Butch Hinton’s car,” says McDaniel.
“And that was very compelling evidence that Butch Hinton
was the person who made that phone call to Emory and had
Shannon’s ring and wrapped it up and left it there,” he
adds.
But Hinton's lawyer dismisses the discovery.
"These are particles where a lot of people work. So
using that to convict someone and that being the
‘smoking gun’ is frightening and should be frightening,”
she says.
The stress of the trial began to take a toll on the
Melendis. Especially difficult for them was the dreaded
moment when Yvonne had to testify.
"I was moved to tears listening to my wife. Knowing the
pain that she has suffered for what this man did to
Shannon,” says Luis.
Prosecutors Petrey and McDaniel know they’re handicapped
with only a circumstantial case linking Hinton to
Shannon’s disappearance. But they’ve come up with a
strategy they think will win over the jury, using
Hinton’s violent criminal past against him by laying out
a disturbing pattern of attacks against other women.
But will the judge allow it? Bernstein is determined to
keep it out.
“The law says that we should be convicted solely on the
evidence in a current case, what happens right now, not
necessarily that you look at the past,” says Bernstein,
who is afraid Hinton’s past would repulse the jurors and
prejudice the verdict.
The Melendi’s are hoping she’s right.
“They need to know that … this is a pattern in his
life,” says Yvonne.
“If you’re a sexual predator and that’s what you do for
a living, let everybody know that you gonna be judged
because of what your history is," Luis adds.
It may well be the most critical moment during the
trial. The judge rules that some of Hinton’s criminal
past may be revealed because of similarities to the
charges against him in this case.
The Phone Call
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Jan. 19, 2006
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Shannon Melendi had big plans in life. One of her goals
was to become a Supreme Court justice. (CBS)
(CBS)
The ruling was a major blow to the defense and Bernstein
admits it hurt her client.
Jurors heard from two of Hinton’s former victims,
including Tammy, the young woman who told 48 Hours her
chilling story.
And prosecutors have more. They say that while serving
time for insurance fraud in federal prison, Hinton came
close to making a confession in conversations with other
inmates. Several of them were called to testify.
“I said, 'Well, you better hope they don’t ever find a
body because if they do, with this new DNA thing, you’ll
be in trouble. And he said, ‘I’m not worried about 'em
finding her body,' ” one inmate testified.
“I went to sleep. And then I woke up. I heard a loud
scream," another inmate testified at Hinton's trial. "He
was crying … I said, ‘Butch, are you OK?' Then he looked
at me and said, 'I didn’t kill her. The demon inside of
me did' and I was like, 'What did you just say?' ”
But Bernstein says the inmates know there can be a
benefit if they testify in a high profile case that
results in a conviction. Prosecutors emphatically denied
any deals were made with the inmates.
Finally, some four weeks into the trial, jurors began
their deliberations.
On day two of the deliberations, lead prosecutor John
Petrey was uncertain what the jurors would decide;
putting Butch Hinton on trial was a gamble but one he
was willing, even eager, to take.
“I knew we had done our work,” says Petrey. “Every time
I started feeling like we had met a roadblock, that we
had a hurdle in the case, I would go back and watch the
video that Lewis had made of Shannon’s life.”
But day two ended without a verdict.
It was a difficult time for the Melendis, who realize a
conviction in the case would not necessarily bring them
closure.
“There’s nothing that can ever bring Shannon back, and
we know that,” says Luis.
Mid-morning of day three, the jurors sent the judge a
message that they had reached a verdict.
The jury had found Colvin "Butch" Hinton, III, guilty
for the kidnapping and murder of Shannon Melendi.
The verdict brought mixed emotions for the Melendis.
“I was grateful that they saw it the way I saw it. It
was relief, joy, sadness, all in one,” Luis explains.
“I’m very glad that he won’t be getting out and hurting
another family.”
The emotion of the moment was also overwhelming for lead
prosecutor John Petrey.
“It was a flood of relief. It was a flood of relief,” he
says. “It was just an incredibly emotionally draining
case even before we got to the trial stage.”
Hinton never took the stand and has never revealed any
information to authorities about Shannon’s
disappearance.
His sentencing came at a hearing just two hours after
his conviction.
But before the sentence was issues, Shannon’s family had
a chance to confront Hinton in court.
“If hatred could have killed him there, he would have
been dead in the seat,” Yvonne says. "I wanted him to
know that he couldn’t hurt me anymore.”
Yvonne Melendi faced Hinton and told him, "Listen very
carefully to what I have to say to you. This is the
first and the last time I will ever speak to you. You
murdered Shannon but you did not kill her spirit. She
will live in our memories forever.”
Unable to prove exactly how or where Shannon was killed,
prosecutors chose not to seek the death penalty, which
would have made it a tougher case to win. Instead, the
judge imposed a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment.
The Phone Call
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Shannon Melendi had big plans in life. One of her goals
was to become a Supreme Court justice. (CBS)
(CBS)
Asked if Luis wanted death for Hinton, he says no. "I
want him to just live 110 years, and let him suffer with
whatever happens in prison, which is, I’m sure, not a
very nice place to be in."
The Melendis now set their sights on a new mission,
believing that if Hinton had been adequately punished
for his attacks on Tammy and other women, their daughter
would be alive today.
They’re seeking longer prison sentences, especially for
repeat offenders such as Hinton.
Pushing for tougher sentences is their way of trying to
honor Shannon’s memory. But for the Melendis, serious
questions remain.
“He didn’t say what he did with her body. We never
recovered her body. Her remains,” says Luis.
Does Yvonne Melendi feel she needs to know the details
about the circumstances surrounding her daughter’s
disappearance?
“There’s a difference between need and want. Definitely,
I would like to bury Shannon, but I don’t need it,” she
says.
“To give him control, to say to him: ‘Please tell us
what you did with our daughter,’ I am not going to do
that. I’m gonna have to live with that,” says Luis.
“Sometimes it’s very difficult to remember how happy we
were before. People say, 'Where do you go from here?'
I’m thinking to recapture some of that happiness,” says
Yvonne.
“I live because I have to," says Luis. "But as far as
the joy of living that I used to have, I think I’m going
to have to work real hard to get that — some semblance
of getting that back.”
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