- FEMALE NARRATOR: A popular teen is found dead
at a local party spot.
- VICTOR: I don't even know how to describe it. It was horrific.
- NARRATOR: As investigators dig into the case,
they'll uncover a slew of suspects...
- NARRATOR: And shocking allegations will cast
a dark shadow on this small town.
- VICTOR: There was cult activity.
In fact, the rumor was that
it was some sort of ritualized killing.
- BOBBY: Her body was burned beyond recognition.
- NARRATOR: As authorities
navigate a twisted investigation,
the body count rises.
- VICTOR: When they looked down in there,
there was a dead body hung up on some lumber
or a tree or something.
- NARRATOR: A trail of blood links two murders,
but will the killer walk free?
- PAUL: Very few of these cold case files
ever come to fruition.
- CAROL: I want the world to know there's somebody out there
that murdered two people.
- *
- NARRATOR: The Prescott National Forest
provides Prescott, Arizona residents
with endless recreational activities.
- MELINDA: People rode their dirt bikes out there
and would go shooting out there during the, you know, daytime.
- NARRATOR: On the evening of September 29th, 1988,
one target shooter is just finishing up for the night.
As he makes his way back to his truck,
he comes across one of the area's many fire pits.
- VICTOR: So there was a pile of garbage bags there,
and a portion of it had been burned,
and he saw what he thought was a stick poking up
out of the burned area.
- NARRATOR: But as the gentleman moves closer,
he makes a horrific discovery...
- VICTOR: He realized it was an arm.
At which point he had to go to-
I believe he went to a drugstore to call 911.
- NARRATOR: Within minutes,
the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office
responds to the area just out of Prescott city limits
known to locals as "Gordo's Pit."
Where they quickly locate a body.
- TOM: You can tell that there was stuff
that had been dumped on- on top
and had been set on fire.
It was- was incredibly brutal and- and demeaning.
- The body was burned beyond recognition.
- VICTOR: I don't even know how to describe it. It was horrific.
- NARRATOR: Investigators look around for clues,
but have little success.
- TOM: A lot of the other stuff that was around
was hard to discern whether that was trash
or associated with the- with the homicide.
The scientific testing that we do now with DNA,
we can learn very quickly from a lab whether it's related
to our- our case or not.
Back then they didn't have a lot of those tools.
- VICTOR: Could've been the murder location
and the dump site,
or it could've just been the dump site,
but there was no way to determine
if that was the murder site.
- *
- NARRATOR: As investigators continue assessing the scene,
the victim is transported to the coroner's office.
- VICTOR: The medical examiner,
he labeled it homicidal violence,
but he couldn't determine what actually caused the death.
Because of the condition of her body,
there was no way to determine more.
What was found at autopsy were heat-killed fly larvae
as he documented it.
So, from the time the body dies, there's a period of time before
the larvae can grow to a certain level,
and then they were burned.
- The general area of the scene was fairly clear.
It was likely they were killed at another location.
- NARRATOR: While the cause of death is unknown,
the coroner is able to identify the victim.
- BRENDAN: There was a dental records comparison made
and it was determined that the victim was Pamela Pitts.
- *
- BRENDAN: The night Pamela Pitts was last seen
was the night of September 16th, 1988.
Pam was missing, you know, 13 days.
- TOM: Pam was originally reported as a missing person
within the city limits of- of Prescott,
so the Prescott Police Department
had an investigation into her as a missing person.
- NARRATOR: The Yavapai County Sheriff's Office
alerts Prescott PD about the discovery,
and both entities join forces.
- TOM: Once we know who the victim is,
the first place you go is to the people that they knew.
You go to the family.
- *
- PAUL: They came to my house at- in the evening
and came in and sat down and said that they had, uh,
recovered a body.
And that according to the dental records,
that it was Pam.
- NARRATOR: Pam's family is devastated by the news.
- PAUL: It was like, I don't even know
how to describe that.
It was not only heartbreaking but mind-boggling
at the same time, so I was trying to balance
all that stuff a- and figure out who in the heck
could've done this to my daughter, you know?
- *
- NARRATOR: 19-year-old Pam Pitts
was known for her bright smile and zest for life.
- PAUL: Pam was a wonderful kid.
She was always doing something, always wanting to have fun,
and she was the type of person
who could make friends with anybody.
She was outgoing and just excited about life.
- NARRATOR: The oldest of four,
Pam loved nothing more than her family.
- CAROL: She was my sidekick.
She was awesome with all the kids,
and she was an awesome mentor.
- KERRIE: Pam was a pretty amazing big sister,
and she took me under her wing.
She would guide me through life, basically.
She was always there. I could count on her.
I was able to confide in her.
- *
- NARRATOR: By age 19, Pam was ready to leave the nest
and moved in with her new friend, Shelly Norgard.
- PAUL: I think she met Shelly
by mutual contact with other friends.
- BRENDAN: They became really good friends,
and they did a lot of things together.
They had some, uh, friends in common.
- KERRY: Shelly was always kind of awkward.
I don't recall Shelly ever talking about her background.
It had always been a mystery to me
where she came from and, you know, where her parents were.
It seemed like they were never around or in the picture.
It was just- just Shelly, and Shelly was just there.
- *
- NARRATOR: For 18-year-old Shelly,
living with Pam was finally her chance to have
a family connection after years of struggling
with her own.
- VICTOR: From what I've seen, it almost appears as though
Shelly had some abandonment issues
in the way that the divorce happened, and the mom left.
Um, and then th- there was pressure
between her and her dad.
Her dad was pretty strict.
He seemed to be a stern taskmaster,
and she made it really clear
that she did not want to have to move back with him
if Pam was to move out of the house.
- *
- NARRATOR: After moving in with Shelly
during the summer of 1988,
Pam got a job at a local restaurant
to make ends meet.
Though she had many interests, she wasn't quite sure
what she wanted to do with her life.
- CAROL: She talked about going to beauty college,
and that was one of her goals.
I figured she'd get into something like that,
beauty college or fashion design or something.
She was very artistic.
- *
- NARRATOR: In August of 1988, a month after the move,
Pam reconnected with an old flame named Bobby Kitchener.
- BOBBY: We were taking it slow.
She was reinvigorated about hanging out with me,
which was very exciting to me because I, I still had
a lot of feelings for her at the time.
- KERRIE: Her life really revolved around
friends and family and hanging out with people
and having a good time.
- *
- NARRATOR: But on September 16th, 1988,
the popular teen vanished without a trace.
- PAUL: Shelly called and she said, uh, wanted to know
if I knew where Pam was,
and I said, "No, I- I don't know."
She goes, "Well, I'm- I'm not sure where she's at.
"I haven't seen her.
She, uh, took off and didn't come home last night."
- NARRATOR: At first, Paul wasn't too concerned,
but when Pam failed to show up to work on Monday,
he became worried.
- PAUL: She just wasn't that kind of person,
that she would just disappear, no contact, no nothing.
And so at that point, I said, "Something's wrong."
So, I called the police department about it.
- NARRATOR: And now, 13 days later,
it seems Paul's worst fear has come true.
- PAUL: They came right out and told me the condition
of Pam's body at the time they found it.
That her body had been set on fire
and burned beyond recognition.
When I got that information,
the first thing that goes through your mind is,
who could do something like this?
And why would somebody do this to Pam?
- NARRATOR: Coming up:
as investigators search for a killer,
they unearth a bigger feud...
- VICTOR: She said that
"Everything that's wrong in my life, she's responsible for."
- NARRATOR: And a shocking statement raises a red flag.
- PAUL: At that time,
anybody was a suspect as far as I can say.
- *
- NARRATOR: September 29th, 1988.
The Yavapai County Sheriff's Office
and Prescott police are searching for
the killer of 19-year-old Pam Pitts, a Prescott local
who'd gone missing nearly two weeks prior.
- PAUL: It just knocks the wind out of you
and breaks your heart.
- *
- NARRATOR: Speaking with homicide detectives,
Pam's father Paul says
not long after he reported Pam's disappearance,
he learned some troubling news.
- PAUL: I found out from the police, actually,
that Pam's car was at home this whole time.
Her purse and all her personal belongings
were in the house.
Shelly never pointed any of that out to me.
I know that if it was somebody that I lived with
and they were gone,
but all of their personal belongings were there,
I wouldn't've left that detail out.
- VICTOR: There's obviously some suspicion going on.
- NARRATOR: According to Paul,
Pam and her roommate Shelly Norgard's friendship
had recently become tumultuous.
- PAUL: They were having issues over money
within a couple of months.
What she told me was is that the rent wasn't getting paid,
and she told me, she says,
"I'm ready to move back home, dad."
She said, "You okay with that?"
And I said, "Of course I'm okay with that."
And I said, "When do you want to do this?"
And she says, "Well, I haven't told Shelly yet,"
but she said, "I"m gonna let her know.
I'll, uh, tell you how it goes."
- NARRATOR: Paul says he was happy
with Pam's decision to move out--
as he had heard of Shelly's reputation around town.
- PAUL: From the other kids that had contact with her,
they said that she was not very trustworthy,
that she told a lot of stories and lied a lot,
and that she wasn't an honest person.
- *
- NARRATOR: With Pam and Shelly's relationship
seemingly on the rocks,
investigators have their first person of interest.
But when they sit down with Shelly on October 5th,
she paints a very different picture.
- NARRATOR: Shelly explains that
rooming with Pam was great at first,
but after a while,
the two got into a financial bind over the rent.
- NARRATOR: Investigators press Shelly for her alibi
the night Pam disappeared.
- VICTOR: Shelly's story is she got off work,
she went and got Ray Clerx, her boyfriend.
They went to Jack-in-the-Box to meet friends,
then they went out to
some other Embry-Riddle student's apartment
to watch a movie.
- VICTOR: So between about four o'clock and seven o'clock
in the morning, she just drove around.
- NARRATOR: Sensing Shelly may be waffling,
detectives keep pressing her for more information.
- VICTOR: Because she started crying, they took a break,
and then they never started over again.
They basically just had her sign a document saying
she doesn't know anything or who killed Pam.
- *
- NARRATOR: After releasing Shelly,
investigators turn to the next closest person
in Pam's life, her boyfriend, Bobby Kitchener.
According to Bobby,
he had spent the evening of September 16th with Pam.
- BOBBY: I had been downtown, and she was in my car,
her and I together,
on the other side of the courthouse.
It was a parking lot,
and we would hang out there and talk with friends
and watch the other people cruise by.
- NARRATOR: Bobby tells investigators he left Pam
with their friends and headed to work around 9:30.
- She told him at that time that she was just gonna
spend the evening at home, so that's the last time
we know for sure that Pam was around.
- BRENDAN: We want to look at boyfriends, you know,
because they would've been in Pam's inner circle,
and so they were able to determine that
Bobby Kitchener, he had an alibi.
- *
- NARRATOR: After striking Bobby from the suspect list,
investigators circle back to confirming Shelly's alibi -
and bring in her boyfriend Ray Clerx for questioning.
- VICTOR: They asked Ray for his timeline
for the night of the 16th.
And he basically tells them
he doesn't know what Shelly did after eleven-thirty
because that's when she went home.
So then the detective immediately says,
"Well, she told us she went home
at two-thirty in the morning."
And Ray says to them, "Well, that could be.
It might've been two thirty."
- NARRATOR: Ray says he can't remember exactly which night
they're referring to since it was weeks before...
but he assures investigators he has no idea
who could've killed Pam.
- VICTOR: He basically told them he was tired of talking to them
and didn't- didn't- didn't want to talk to the cops anymore.
So, that pretty much put an end to- to Ray's involvement.
- *
- NARRATOR: With Ray unable to confirm Shelly's alibi,
detectives speak to more of the friends she was with
on the night of the murder, exposing a shocking revelation.
- BRENDAN: They said Shelly was angry,
and she was looking for Pam on the night of the 16th.
- VICTOR: While they're conducting these interviews,
they learn Shelly said, "Have you seen my roommate?
"She's doing bad things.
"Everything that's wrong in my life, she's responsible for,
and I'm trying to find her."
It did not sound like the relationship was as happy
as she had made it out to be Thursday night.
- NARRATOR: Shelly's friends also remember
some unusual things she had said in the past.
- VICTOR: She would make comments about
how she knows how to get rid of a body.
The best way to get rid of somebody is to first make them
a missing person, and then either burn them
beyond recognition or to drop them in a mineshaft.
It was well-known that- that Shelly
had some pretty strong theories
on how to make people disappear and get rid of the evidence.
- NARRATOR: Alarmed by these allegations,
detectives immediately bring Shelly in for another interview.
- NARRATOR: Coming up:
as investigators zero in on Shelly,
new theories emerge...
- BOBBY: I heard a satanic cult was involved.
- TOM: Kids who were out at that party talked about
this possible fight.
- NARRATOR: And a horrific discovery
throws investigators a curveball.
- VICTOR: It was a white male in a state of decomposition
who had been dropped down in a vertical mineshaft.
- *
- NARRATOR: October 1988.
It's been a month since the body of Prescott teen Pam Pitts
was found burned and dumped in a forest.
Now investigators wonder if bad blood between Pam
and her roommate Shelly Norgard
could've led to her brutal murder.
- PAUL: At that time anybody was a suspect
as far as I can say.
- *
- NARRATOR: Investigators obtain a warrant
to search Shelly and Pam's apartment.
- TOM: There were searches of that residence.
It was difficult to determine
that anything happened there in the house.
- VICTOR: There was simply no evidence
to point to anybody, you know.
There was no physical evidence.
There was no DNA evidence. There was- there was nothing.
They also had what they believed was a- was a pretty solid alibi
from Shelly in that she was with all these people
throughout the night.
- *
- NARRATOR: Still at a loss
for where Pam was actually killed,
investigators decide to look closer at the site
where Pam's body was found... and they catch a break
when they learn there may have been witnesses in the area
on the night of the 16th.
- VICTOR: A couple weeks later, they learned about the party
that occurred at Gordo's Pit
from the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office.
The Sheriff's Office responded to that party that night
and chased all the kids off, and then came back later
and made sure there was nobody there
and there weren't any fires burning and that kind of thing.
- NARRATOR: Investigators interview local teens
to see if anyone saw Pam at the party that night.
- VICTOR: They eventually found a couple guys that said
they had seen Pam at the party.
- NARRATOR: But some of Pam's friends tell detectives
that they believe more ominous events than just parties
were taking place at the popular hangout spot.
- I heard a satanic cult was involved.
- KERRIE: There were a lot of rumors.
One of 'em was about
it was a satanic worshiper sacrifice.
You know, back in the '80s, that was a big thing.
- VICTOR: In fact, there was cult activity.
That was confirmed by, uh, an- an investigator.
The rumor was that Pam was somehow used
in some sort of ritualized killing.
- *
- NARRATOR: While rumors run rampant
in the town of Prescott,
investigators run down every lead, but months pass,
and nothing materializes.
- PAUL: That was a complete and total thing
that came out of the rumor mill, I guess you would say,
in this thing.
- VICTOR: These are all the stories that fell apart.
They looked into them, couldn't corroborate them,
and let them go.
- NARRATOR: But in the summer of 1989,
after reviewing past witness statements,
investigators finally uncover a promising lead.
- TOM: A small number of those interviews talked about
this possible fight between Melinda Perry and Pam Pitts.
- TOM: The theory was that maybe Melinda tracked her down later.
Maybe Pam was over there by the fire pit
where she was located and that maybe Melinda
because of that leftover rage had finished her off.
- NARRATOR: Investigators immediately haul in
18-year-old Melinda Perry for questioning...
- NARRATOR: Detectives press Melinda for her alibi.
- VICTOR: All of a sudden, after a year without a suspect,
they have a good suspect.
They kept asking her questions and doing interviews,
and she kept telling them,
but she wasn't telling them what they wanted to hear.
They wanted her confession.
- NARRATOR: Authorities still aren't convinced
she didn't kill Pam... and in August of 1989,
Melinda is summoned to appear before
an investigative grand jury.
- VICTOR: I think their theory was that they could put her
on the stand and- and under oath compel her to tell the truth.
- MELINDA: I tell them, I never fought Pamela Pitts.
I was never in a fight with Pamela Pitts.
After that, I felt I was free to go, you know what I mean?
- NARRATOR: But not long after, Melinda is arrested for perjury.
- MELINDA: Somebody told them that I kicked her head,
I kicked her head until she passed out,
and they booked me for three counts of perjury,
said that I had lied on the stand.
- BRENDAN: It was determined that Melinda Perry had made
inconsistent statements to the grand jury.
- NARRATOR: Investigators interrogate Melinda once more,
but she doesn't waver.
- MELINDA: I was scared, to say the least.
Yeah, I was a kid.
I didn't know what to do.
- NARRATOR: Eventually,
Melinda's perjury charges are dropped.
- VICTOR: Her whereabouts were pretty well-documented
for that weekend,
and obviously that charge didn't hold up.
- MELINDA: For two years, I fought that,
and then they had to close the case.
They didn't have any evidence of that.
I left. I left Arizona.
I went to Nevada that very day. It was just traumatic for me.
- NARRATOR: Though investigators head back to the drawing board,
nothing sticks.
- VICTOR: I would say about three years,
it had gone fairly stale and cold.
It becomes a cold case when you run out of leads,
you run out of people to interview,
and you have no more evidence to analyze.
I mean, at that point,
you need something to- to trigger it again.
- PAUL: Very few of these cold case files
ever come to fruition.
You know I was willing to do whatever it took
and wait as long as I had to wait
for something to break in her case.
- *
- NARRATOR: Suddenly, on May 25th, 1991,
a shocking discovery dredges Pam's case
back into the light...
- VICTOR: Prescott college students are exploring a cave
and then it led to a vertical mineshaft
and when they looked down in there, there was a dead body
hung up on the lumber or a tree or something.
- The Sheriff's Office came in to begin the investigation.
- VICTOR: It was a white male- young male
from what they could tell and in a state of decomposition,
who had been wrapped in a waterbed liner,
like a waterbed mattress liner,
and then dropped down in the vertical mineshaft.
- *
- NARRATOR: After retrieving the body,
the coroner quickly determines the cause of death.
- VICTOR: The autopsy revealed that he'd been shot in the head.
He was in a state of decomposition,
so it'd have been some time, several weeks.
- BRENDAN: The Yavapai County medical examiner
was able to determine through dental records
that the deceased individual located in the, uh, mineshaft
was Ray Clerx,
boyfriend of Shelly Norgard.
- *
- VICTOR: Ray's family actually ended up
reporting him missing.
He was supposed to have showed up for a wedding
in California and didn't, and that really alarmed everybody
because apparently he was very responsible,
he was gonna be a pilot, and he would just not
miss something without letting people know.
- *
- NARRATOR: According to Ray's missing persons report
filed on May 28th, 1991,
Shelly and Ray had been living together
at the time of his disappearance three days prior.
- VICTOR: The detectives recognized that, hey,
this is the second roommate that Shelly's had go missing
and turn up dead.
Maybe we oughta look into Shelly a little more.
- *
- NARRATOR: When investigators notify Ray's family
about his death,
they are clear on who they believe is responsible.
- VICTOR: Ray was planning on moving back to California
and was not gonna take Shelly with him,
and then the relationship was going to end, basically.
- NARRATOR: Investigators have heard the story before.
- BRENDAN: You have two individuals,
Pamela Pitts and then Ray Clerx,
who have decided that they're going to leave
Shelly Norgard in a physical way and in an emotional way.
She doesn't want that.
She's angry.
- NARRATOR: Coming up:
new evidence finally connects to an all-too-familiar suspect.
- BRENDAN: One print was recovered
from one of the flashlights.
That of course put her in the mineshaft.
- VICTOR: And I was like, oh my goodness, finally, something.
- *
- NARRATOR: After discovering
the body of 24-year-old Ray Clerx,
incriminating physical evidence now suggests his girlfriend,
21-year-old Shelly Norgard, is responsible for his death.
- BRENDAN: Shelly Norgard's fingerprints, or one print,
was recovered from one of the flashlights
that they located in the mineshaft.
So that of course put her in the mineshaft.
- *
- NARRATOR: With evidence mounting,
investigators head to the home Shelly and Ray shared
with a search warrant in hand.
- VICTOR: The big thing with that case was Shelly's car.
When they walked up to the car,
they immediately noticed the smell of death
in and around Shelly's car.
In the trunk, they found evidence
that a dead body had been stored there.
There was blood present
and it was the same blood type as Ray's.
- NARRATOR: The evidence is enough to place Shelly
under arrest on June 4th, 1991.
- *
- VICTOR: After a couple years of it being in the court,
she eventually pled guilty.
So as a term of her guilty plea,
she had to provide a statement on what happened to Ray.
- *
- NARRATOR: Shelly tells the court it all started
when Ray broke things off.
- VICTOR: They were out watching stars,
stargazing, I guess,
and he was laying on top of the car,
and when he told her he was going to take the dogs with him,
she lost her mind.
- BRENDAN: Shelly shot him in the head
while he was laying on the hood of the car.
- NARRATOR: Shelly says after that, she panicked.
- VICTOR: She says then she was so shocked by what she had done
that she got a blanket out and covered Ray up
so she couldn't see him anymore
and then put him in the trunk of the car
and basically drove the car out in the woods
and left it there for a couple weeks
before she could get a four wheel drive truck
to come transfer the body to the top of the mountain
to drop him in the mineshaft.
- BRENDAN: It was midway through the trial in 1993
that she decided to accept a plea deal.
The charge was dropped from murder in the first degree
to murder in the second degree,
and so her sentence was 20 years in Arizona State Prison.
- *
- NARRATOR: News of Shelly's confession and plea
quickly spreads to the family of Pam Pitts.
- I felt that she got off easy.
She should've gotten life or the death penalty.
That's how I felt about it.
- KERRIE: I was glad that she was in jail 'cause, you know,
at least then she couldn't kill anybody else.
- NARRATOR: Pam's family hopes the sentence will buy some time
for investigators to finally connect Shelly
to Pam's case as well.
- PAUL: She might've been afraid that he was gonna tell on her
or let that secret out at some point.
- NARRATOR: Though investigators are suspicious of Shelly,
their hands are tied.
- VICTOR: The issue you had is there's still no evidence.
Regardless of whether Shelly killed Ray or not,
it doesn't still indicate that she killed Pam
without something more.
- *
- NARRATOR: 18 long years pass with no new leads on Pam's case.
- CAROL: It just went kind of cold for a long time.
Just really cold.
- PAUL: At first, you want revenge.
You know, you want to find this person and you-
you don't care what happens to 'em.
But, you know, as time goes on,
it's not about hate and revenge anymore.
It's about justice for your daughter.
- NARRATOR: In March of 2011, 23 years after Pam's murder,
a cold case team reopens the investigation.
- VICTOR: When it was handed to me,
I- I didn't know anything about the Ray Clerx murder.
I think the lieutenant intentionally kept that from me
so as not to taint my thought processes.
- NARRATOR: But it doesn't take long for Detective Dartt
to get up to speed.
- VICTOR: I remember looking at it going, wait a second,
wait a second, Shelly killed somebody in 1990. What?
Now I've got somebody in this case who's capable of murder.
- NARRATOR: Not to mention Shelly was the only one
who seemed to have a motive to hurt Pam.
- VICTOR: She was making that very clear
on the night of the 16th that that Pam was behind
all the bad things in her life, and she was going to find Pam
and she was going to deal with it,
and she was going to take care of the problem.
- *
- NARRATOR: In February of 2011,
investigators re-interview Shelly about Pam's case,
hoping the added pressure will cause her
to incriminate herself on recorded jail calls.
- Shelly was due for release within a few months,
so I talked to Shelly for about an hour in the prison,
not to interrogate her, just to remind her that
we're still looking into this.
- VICTOR: So they had that conversation with her
and then they immediately begin collecting
all of her phone calls from that point.
- NARRATOR: Unfortunately, investigators cannot find
anything against Shelly in the 97 phone calls
she made between the interview and her release in May of 2011.
- *
- VICTOR: She got released from Department of Corrections,
and she got a job.
She meets a man, they end up getting married,
moving in together.
- PAUL: Her name now is, instead of Shelly Norgard,
it's Shelly Norgard-Harmon.
She kind of assumed, I guess a new life, you would say.
- NARRATOR: Investigators continue efforts
with Pam's case, but department moves
and heavy caseloads cause delays.
- *
- NARRATOR: Finally, in the spring of 2017,
six years after Shelly's release,
investigators hit pay dirt.
- VICTOR: I remembered,
hey, I wonder whatever happened to those calls,
so I actually listened to all 97 of them myself.
She called her dad and told him the detectives were here,
they're still looking into the Pam Pitts case.
He asked her, "Are we okay?"
Um, you can tell he's concerned about what's going to happen
and they talk about Shelly's going to get an attorney.
- VICTOR: And then the line just goes silent.
When I heard that, the hair stood up on my arms,
and I was like, oh my goodness, finally, something.
So, that statement, in the context of them
talking about the night Pam went missing,
that was enough with all the other circumstantial evidence
we had to get an indictment on Shelly.
- *
- NARRATOR: On June 2nd, 2017, investigators make their move.
- VICTOR: I went in, identified myself,
told her where I was from,
and you could just see this- this- this look,
like, almost like defiant resignation.
- NARRATOR: Coming up:
as the trial looms,
prosecutors face an uphill battle...
- A lot of our witnesses are either dead
or just simply don't remember.
It's kind of a long shot.
- NARRATOR: And Pam's family makes a tough choice.
- KERRIE: You can't tell me that this was, oh,
this was an accident.
I- I don't believe it.
- PAUL: That's something that is extremely personal
and shows a lot of hate for somebody.
- *
- NARRATOR: June 2017.
After serving 20 years
for murdering her former boyfriend Ray Clerx,
Shelly Harmon now faces charges for the 1988 murder
of her former roommate, Pam Pitts.
- VICTOR: My favorite part of the whole thing
was being able to meet with Pam's dad and tell him
that the arrest had been made.
That was the best feeling I've had in my entire career.
- PAUL: I couldn't believe it.
After 30 years, I just couldn't believe it.
I- I got up and shook his hand and hugged him and...
I just kept saying, I can't believe it.
Thank God.
- *
- NARRATOR: But as the case heads to trial,
it faces a number of setbacks.
- VICTOR: The problem remains that it is a 30-year-old case,
and a lot of our witnesses are either dead or have dementia
or just simply don't remember what all happened back then,
so to try to this case, to say it was a 50-50,
it's kind of a long shot
that- that we actually get a conviction out of it.
- *
- NARRATOR: Prosecutors are forced to present
Pam's family with a catch-22.
- KERRIE: So they tried
to have this plea agreement set up.
The defense said that the only way that she would
change her plea to guilty
would be if she didn't have to do any more time.
- CAROL: Knowing that she would not confess
and tell the actual truth,
I felt that it was best just to go with the guilty plea.
- NARRATOR: On March 1st, 2021,
nearly four years after her arrest,
Shelly stands before the court and gives her version
of the events that transpired on September 16th, 1988.
- *
- KERRIE: She said she had gone out looking for Pam
at the party, and when she found her,
she just wanted to talk to her.
They had gone off from the side of the party
and got into a heated debate and started getting into a fight.
- PAUL: She goes, "I don't know what happened.
"I hit her and- and I knocked her down
"and I just got on top of her and I couldn't stop hitting her,
"and I just kept hitting her and hitting her,
and- and then she stopped breathing."
- VICTOR: And she heard voices coming,
so she got up and left.
That- that was essentially he confession.
She would not talk about the body
or what happened after she killed Pam,
so we did not get any of that.
- KERRIE: You can't tell me that this was
oh, this was an accident.
I- I don't believe it.
- PAUL: I think she went so far as to pour gasoline on her body
and set her on fire,
and that's something that is extremely personal
and shows a lot of hate for somebody.
- NARRATOR: Following her statement,
Shelly is released from custody at the age of 50.
- VICTOR: She got credit for 20 years
for the time she served in prison for Ray Clerx's murder
and the three or four years that she sat in county jail
waiting for trial in the Pam Pitts case,
and for the confession that she killed Pam,
she got to walk out.
- PAUL: I look at it and I go, well, the main thing is
is she did confess to it, and she did get convicted.
It was justice for Pam.
Did it look like we want it to look like?
No, in terms of, you know, I would like to have seen her
get the maximum sentence for what she did.
But you have to take the sometimes small victories
that you get and hang on to those and cherish those.
- *
- CAROL: I want the world to know that there's somebody
walking the streets.
There's somebody out there that murdered two people.
Two people that she so professed to love,
a boyfriend and a best friend.
- *
- NARRATOR: Though two lives were taken,
Pam and Ray's memories live on
in the hearts of all that knew them.
- VICTOR: Ray had a lot of potential, you know?
He wanted to be at- uh, a commercial airline pilot,
and that was kind of ran in the family,
and that family was extremely tight,
so the tighter the family, it is the more it hurts
when you lose that.
- PAUL: I want Pam to be remembered
as a young lady who loved life
and couldn't wait to get out there
and live it.
It's a shame that it got cut short like it did.
But I- I know she would- she would've been quite the fireball
if she was alive today.
- *