When I was young, I wasn't allowed
To ask or know questions or stuff about my mom.
The story that my dad told me was that my mom just left me
And that she didn't care. My dad's ex-wife had burnt
All my baby pictures and everything I had
Of my mother. So it wasn't until
I got to know my aunts that I got to hear stories
And she was definitely loved.
When I heard that kelly was taking on the case,
I have been telling my aunts and family, this is our one shot.
And I'm hoping.
♪♪♪
♪ mirrors and smoke ♪
♪ I know you're close ♪
♪ white light, late night sleep walking around ♪
♪ just like you're home ♪
I'm very happy to see you little miss terri hook.
I'm happy to see you, too.
- Oh, it's so exciting. - It is exciting.
It's been how long since I saw you?
- 2018. - Dang.
I worked with terri hook,
The captain of the oneida county sheriff's department,
When we solved the 1982 murder of barbara mendez.
What do you think, terri?
Whoever killed barbara mendez was not there about money.
What was bob mendez's sentence?
- Life. - Yes.
Now I've asked terri to assist me to look
Into the murder of another young mother.
20 year old shannon poteet.
She's like the cute little girl in town that everybody liked.
She was a cheerleader. Popular.
She was doing her best to support her daughter.
Shannon was a warm, fun loving young girl
Who had recently separated from her high school sweetheart,
And she was starting a brand new chapter in her life
As a single mom to their 11 month old daughter, sara.
She's trying to go off and be independent,
Raise your baby by herself and figuring out her life.
And then she goes missing when she's only 20 years old.
According to her estranged husband, lonnie,
On November the 8th, 1986,
Shannon left the baby with him and never returned.
Three days later, her car was found with blood in the trunk.
The mystery of her disappearance lasted for eight years
Until her partial remains
Were found outside of town in a forest.
It was just luck, or fortune, or god
That they even found any of her bones.
It was somebody that just stumbled upon them.
I mean, there's so much space out here.
I can't even imagine trying to search this.
Decomposition and scavengers cause shannon's remains
To be of little help in determining how she was killed
And who did it. But her estranged husband, lonnie,
Became the primary suspect, meaning baby sara
Grew up not only without a mom
But being raised by the primary suspect in her disappearance.
We just want to know what happened.
We just want to know the truth.
Sara and the rest of shannon's family deserves that.
♪ don't make me let, go ♪
It has been 16 years and still no answer.
Reporter 1: Police consider her killing a cold case.
Reporter 2: Years later, the case is still unsolved.
Kelly: I've chosen cold cases from across the country
And teamed up with the best detectives to solve them.
We are more determined than ever to bring justice
To these victims.
- Ready, girl? - Yes.
- Hello. - Hello.
- I'm kelly. - I'm mike george.
Mike george, terri hook.
- Nice to meet you. - Hi, vern king.
- Hi, vern. - Kelly. Pleasure.
You're the sheriff. Nice to meet you.
- Good morning, sheriff. - Good morning.
I'm so, so thankful. I feel blessed
To have you folks here to help us out.
This particular case has impacted the community,
Probably more than any other case.
When I was a teenager, I was on the search for shannon's bones.
Wow.
I'll never lose the memories of searching for shannon's remains.
The victim so young.
My community has been wounded for a long time,
And I can't wait to see if we can get that healed.
Let's start with putting shannon's picture
Up on the board.
She's very pretty. She's native american indian?
- Terri: Yes. - Mike: Correct.
She was a member of the colville confederated tribe.
She was employed by the forest service.
Her life was around her daughter.
After only two years of marriage,
Shannon and lonnie separated in August of 1986,
Agreeing to share custody of sara.
Shannon was newly independent with her own apartment,
And she had just started dating other young men.
But her focus was on being a great mom.
Tell us what happened? What's the story?
November 1986. Shannon was not seen for a couple of days.
Her sister, roberta, went down to the apartment
That shannon had rented and there was no shannon.
Kelly: Shannon's sister last saw her on Friday, November the 7th.
According to lonnie, he last saw shannon on Saturday morning.
When he met her in a parking lot downtown.
She gave him the baby because she had plans for that day,
But she never returned.
By Monday, shannon had not shown up for work
And she was still nowhere to be found.
After that, shannon's car was located on the 11th
And parked behind the doctor's office.
The seat of the car was all the way back.
Shannon was a small person, probably 5'1,
So she would have had the seat all the way forward.
Terri: Shannon's car was located about two miles
From her apartment.
Investigators found bloodstains in her trunk,
Suggesting foul play.
Samples were tested, but they couldn't determine
Who's blood it was and without enough evidence to prove
That shannon was dead, her case remained unsolved.
1994, eight years later, a lady walking in a field
Walks up on some bones, and particularly a skull.
I helped organize the search, and we were fortunate
In that we found part of the jaw bone and teeth
For identification purposes.
There was no doubt who it was.
While investigators could not determine
Shannon's cause of death, her manner of death
Was determined to be homicide.
All right, so let's start over here
On our suspect board with lonnie.
And he was how old when this happened?
Terri: 24.
So what are they fighting over in their marriage?
- He's not keeping a job. - His unemployment.
His unemployment.
Vern: He's seeing other women.
She actually found him with another girl in their house.
Kelly: What else?
Shannon told her sister that lonnie had headbutted her
At one point, but she's not telling anybody.
And when roberta does bring it up,
She doesn't want to talk about it.
It's common for abuse victims to not be open about it,
Especially back in 1986, so we may never know the extent of it.
It's possible it was a factor in shannon leaving lonnie
A few months before her murder.
The question is how did lonnie feel about their separation?
And could that be related to a possible motive?
All right, let's put clay kjos up on the board.
Clay kjos was lonnie's best friend,
And when he was questioned by the sheriff's department,
He admitted to seeing lonnie on that Friday night
That it's believed that shannon was murdered.
Clay admitted that lonnie asked for a pair of gloves
And clay's response was, well, it was cold outside,
So he didn't think anything was wrong.
So he becomes part of the story of what happened that night.
Is he involved... What else do we know about clay?
The girlfriend of clay.
She said there was a couple of blood stains
On the shoes of clay.
It doesn't appear clay had a motive
To have killed shannon on his own.
But the possible blood on his sneakers makes you wonder
If there's more to this story than he's admitting.
So we've sent his sneakers,
Along with the bloodstained lining
Of shannon's vehicle off for forensic testing,
And the results could go a long way
In determining his involvement.
It becomes a big question of did clay help?
Does he know, is he involved or did he just figure it out later?
- Does he know anything? - Right.
Without a cause of death or a crime scene,
Solving this case is going to rely
On circumstantial evidence and witnesses.
We'll need to nail down the nature of shannon
And lonnie's relationship.
Find out if there was any animosity
In their recent separation.
See if lonnie or clay made any kind of admissions
Over the years and analyze lonnie's story for holes.
And if he didn't kill shannon,
Then we need to figure out who did.
♪ ooh, I can feel you ♪
♪ warming the air as I sleep ♪
♪ ooh, how I need you ♪
Kelly: You know her sister, roberta?
I know roberta. I interviewed her many years ago, part of '95,
Somewhere in that time frame.
What kind of connection did she have with sara back then?
I don't know that she had much of a connection.
Right.
Because lonnie had taken the child and moved out of the area.
After shannon's murder, lonnie gained custody
Of their daughter sara.
And in all the years that followed, he never allowed her
To have contact with any of shannon's family,
Including shannon's sisters, roberta and charlene.
Hello, ladies, how are y'all?
- Hi. - Hello.
But when sara got to high school, she reached out
To her aunt, and together the three of them
Formed a common goal of getting justice for shannon.
Roberta. It's mike george.
- Oh, good lord. - Yes.
All right.
So I'm still trying to help out.
Oh, bless your heart.
What was it like for y'all?
She's growing up. You lose your sister.
Now, you can't even talk to your niece.
It was, um, it was hard.
I mean, it was exciting to like, when we finally got
To meet her and she looked just like shannon.
Can you talk about her, what she was like?
Shannon was my best friend.
And she was charlene's best friend.
Fun. Beautiful. Smart.
She was working full time for the forest service,
But she wanted to be a nurse.
Kelly: Oh, really? Okay.
That was her long time plan, huh?
Yeah, it's been almost 35 years from the day
Shannon disappeared.
It's still hard.
Every birthday, there's a candle lit in honor of her.
She's missed, but she's not forgotten.
She'll never be forgotten. Ever.
You weren't even one year old when it happened, right?
So you have no memory, no nothing,
Just pictures and what they tell you, huh?
I begged my dad just to tell me anything about my mom.
I wasn't allowed to talk about my mom.
I'd probably say that I grew up without parents.
My dad was there, but I would have been better off...
Without him there.
When I was really young, the story that my dad told me
Was that my mom just left me and that she didn't care.
And it's pretty gut-wrenching, you know?
So, it wasn't until I got to know my aunts
That I was told how happy and genuinely nice she was.
And hear stories, and now I'm like,
I have so much of my mom in me.
What happens November the 7th?
It was Friday night. I went to her apartment.
We watched the newlywed game together and then shortly after,
I left, and that was the last time I'd seen her.
That was about what time?
I wanna say sometime between 7:30 and 8.
Okay. And what was she going to do for the rest of the night?
Shannon was dressed for half way to go to bed.
She had no plans to go anywhere.
Have you ever talked to lonnie since then?
It was her birthday a week later and they hosted
A little birthday party and lonnie held you on his lap.
He just smirked.
But he never told you anything?
Yeah. You know, it's about this young lady
Who's been robbed all these years.
We're going to try our hardest, okay?
- Thank you. - Terri: Let's go hard.
When you have a child left behind like sara,
That's not even one year old, there's nothing
In her life that wasn't affected.
What she's been through, what she's suffered,
What she's lost, all that pain.
How do you not do everything that you can to try
And help get justice for her mom?
♪♪♪
kelly: I thought it was like in the middle
Of a couple of blocks in town.
- So it's out here by itself. - Yeah.
We don't know exactly how or where shannon poteet
Was murdered back in 1986, but the sheriff's department
Has always believed that she was killed in her apartment,
Her body was transported in the trunk of her car
And dumped in the woods outside of town.
So what we want to do now is go back and revisit
All of those locations to try to get a clearer picture
Of exactly what we think happened.
Shannon's landlord lived next door to him.
- Do I have that right? - Mike: Yeah.
♪ the end is near ♪
Kelly: Hello.
- Mike: You know why we're here? - Yes.
Mike: And that's because of shannon poteet.
- Yes. - What was sharon like?
Oh, shannon was very lovable.
Real sweet gal.
According to her sister, that Friday night,
Shannon was popping popcorn and playing with her baby,
Just enjoying a quiet night in her new apartment
She'd only been in for a few months since her separation.
This is the shannon side, right here.
We don't know how shannon was murdered,
And her scattered remains didn't really give us any clues.
What we do know, though, is that there was blood
In the trunk of her car.
After shannon's abandoned vehicle was recovered,
It was taken down to the sheriff's department
For processing and it's been there ever since.
What kind of car is it, guys?
- It's a thunderbird. - Let's go take a look.
We won't know for sure if the blood in the trunk of the car
Is shannon's until we get our dna results back.
But it is what we're all thinking.
Yeah, there's plenty of space.
- Yeah. - When a killer moves a body,
Especially in the victim's own car,
They run a huge risk of being caught.
So why do it?
Well, usually it's because the location of the murder
Helps to identify who did it, and hiding the body
Buys the killer some time.
And in shannon's case, it took over eight years
For her body to be found.
And you all remember this being the spot where you looked--
This is the approximate location.
It's difficult to pinpoint exactly because
- They've logged the area. - Okay.
You couldn't actually see any of that because of the timber
That would have been growing up here.
I can remember some of the bone fragments we found
Were just tiny.
If you were to walk within 10 feet of it
And if you weren't looking for it or looking down,
You probably wouldn't have seen it.
We were lucky that we did find what remains we did.
But the lucky thing was you found the skull
That had teeth in it.
Once you got her outside of the trunk of that car,
You could roll them right out there
And you would probably never find the body.
We didn't for almost eight years.
Eight years.
I thought that whoever did it took shannon
Out of the car and walked away into the woods.
But your point is, once you got to here,
- There was no work left to do. - Yep.
If lonnie poteet did kill shannon, it's possible that he
Could have disposed of the body, driven the car back into town,
Abandoned it, and walked home all by himself.
But what about that potential blood stain
On his friend clay kjos's shoes?
Is it possible that we're missing something?
Oh, it's a beautiful area.
It is pretty, pretty, pretty lonely.
It's more remote and you think.
It is. All right, let's go.
- Okay. - All right.
Somebody took a 21-year-old living breathing human
Who was a mother of a one-year-old baby
And threw her inside the trunk of a car
And drove off with her and dumped her down
The side of a mountain like she's a piece of trash.
And then, you know, you have to consider the possibility
That there is a crying, screaming baby in the back seat
Of the car the whole time with their mother laying there dead.
So it's pretty horrible.
♪♪♪
Terri: This was like jody's case, right?
Mike: Yeah.
Jody, it's mike.
We need to examine lonnie's story about the last time he saw
Shannon early that morning when she dropped off the baby.
So we're going to talk to the initial investigator
He told that to in the days after shannon's disappearance.
Take me back through when you first got the call
About this case.
Lonnie didn't have a car, and he's saying that
Shannon dropped off their 11-month-old baby to him
To walk half a mile in the cold.
According to the weather data, it was 27 degrees outside.
It seems unlikely that any mother would drop
Their child off in that type of weather when they could
Have just given their child a two minute ride.
Did you ever ask him why he would have to come down there
To get clothes or anything like that?
According to lonnie, shannon was only going
To be gone for one day, so it makes sense that
He only had one day's worth of clothing.
But if he did murder shannon, why would he bring
Law enforcement back to the scene of the crime?
Is lonnie dumb or is he really innocent?
♪♪♪
♪♪♪i think we'ree leaving a lot of messages
And then we'll just try to catch this phone
When it rings back in between people, right?
While we wait on our dna results from our victim
Shannon poteet's trunk
And also from the stains on clay kjos's shoes,
We want to start talking to civilian witnesses.
Shannon and her estranged husband, lonnie,
Were high school sweethearts, so many of our potential witnesses
Are their classmates from back in high school.
- You got the number. - Yeah, let me find my notes.
But when you're dealing with a 35 year old case,
People relocate.
So for us, that's going to mean a lot of phone calls.
This is in reference to the cold case homicide
Back in 1986 with shannon poteet.
Do you remember anything about that?
What kind of person was lonnie?
All the stories that we hear about lonnie headbutting lockers
And things throughout the school seems kind of crazy.
But when you take into account that shannon says
He also headbutted her, it doesn't seem so harmless.
It looks like lonnie had a history
Of terrorizing people and that together
With his quick temper and his unpredictable attacks,
Paint a pretty frightening picture of his personality.
But was his best friend and our other suspect anything like him?
Did you know clay kjos?
What was clay like?
Do you know clay kjos?
It seems like clay did not have quite the reputation
That lonnie did, but with lonnie being such a bully,
It makes you wonder if he could have pressured
Or threatened clay in any way.
♪♪♪
Are y'all ready for the dna results?
- Yes. - Yes, ma'am.
Okay, well, I'm super excited, so I'm gonna merge in
- Phillip with our dna lab. - Terri: Okay.
The investigators recovered very little physical evidence
In shannon's murder, but what they did recover could be huge.
And it's time for the results.
What did we send to you first to get tested
And tell us about those results.
We did not have a sample of shannon's dna
To provide for testing.
But what we do have is her daughter, sara's dna.
We also have a sample that was provided by lonnie
From back during the initial investigation.
So what we're trying to determine is sara's dna
A combination of lonnie's dna, plus the blood in the trunk?
If it is, then that's shannon's blood in the trunk.
Oh, my god.
Well, now we know that it was shannon
That was in there for sure.
The blood in the trunk of that car is shannon's.
That is undeniable physical evidence that we can now use
To lock down our theory of what happened to shannon.
♪♪♪
Clay, this is mike george.
I'm working with the ferry county sheriff's office
Up here in republic, washington on the shannon poteet case.
Although we now know that the stain on clay kjos's
Tennis shoes isn't blood.
He did admit to being with lonnie poteet
The night we believe shannon was killed.
So we still need to talk to him to try and figure out
If he's an accomplice or maybe our best witness.
What can you tell us about that weekend
That she disappeared and what you were doing?
How well did you know shannon?
I believe you were with lonnie on the night
That shannon went missing.
How did he get to your house?
Remind me what time that was.
Mike: Where was it going? Did he tell you?
After that night, what did he tell you?
Do you have any contact with lonnie at all?
Were you afraid of him?
How come?
Clay kjos is cooperative. He is consistent.
He does not sound like he's trying to hide anything.
He's never said a lot of detail because he's not a nosy guy.
He just minds his own business and he doesn't really
Want to know, especially when it comes to ask lonnie questions.
At this point, there is no reason to think
He played any part in shannon's murder.
It is time for us to refocus our attention on lonnie poteet.
♪♪♪
How are you doing? I'm kelly.
We're here because we're working on shannon poteet's
Murder case, and we wanted to pick your brain
About anything you might know from 35 years ago.
We've learned that lonnie poteet has this pattern of aggression
And violence, but did he kill his wife and why?
We need to dig deeper into their estranged marriage.
Let's go sit down, vern.
We're gonna have some good luck here.
We've tracked down a close friend of theirs from back then,
Who we're hoping can give us some insight.
So, kymbra, in all the times you hung out with lonnie,
Did you ever have a conversation where he talked about
How he felt about shannon or anything like that?
I knew he was jealous.
I knew he said "my possessions are my possessions."
You weren't his partner or his equal, you were his possession.
And that's how he treated shannon.
Shannon was a shrinking violet, you know?
She had low self-esteem.
Shannon wanted to feel protected and sheltered.
And lonnie made her feel like that.
That's the only thing we can figure that she saw in him
Because they didn't have anything in common.
He was a drinker and a partier, she wasn't.
He was loud and obnoxious,
And she was quiet and a little wallflower.
They couldn't have been more, more separate.
But it all really escalated once they had the baby.
All what escalated?
Just their-- their fighting. And I think
That motherly instinct finally gave her a backbone, you know?
And she started calling him out.
He was just a loser, and she was supporting him.
He'd just be drinking and driving around
And messing around. Just it's oil and water.
And I never even got to know sara.
Once this happened, he disappeared
And I never even knew where they went, until she showed up
Back here with her own kids and her husband.
Everybody said that she always wanted to find out
What went on, and the older she got,
The more she saw her dad's actions weren't to protect her.
They were to keep her from the truth.
♪♪♪
we need to call the attorney now.
At the time of her murder, shannon poteet
And her estranged husband, lonnie,
Had been separated for three months
And were sharing custody of their daughter, sara.
According to reports, shannon had just hired
A divorce attorney named rebecca baker.
Hello, we're helping the ferry county sheriff's office
Investigate the shannon poteet case.
We need to find out if shannon told anything
To her lawyer about this divorce being contentious.
Is that normal for you to save a file like this?
What kind of things did shannon tell you?
Okay.
And she was able to get custody back?
According to rebecca, lonnie had taken sara
Out of town in order to try to get shannon to come back to him.
And instead, on November the 3rd,
She took lonnie to court and the judge ordered lonnie to give
The baby back and go back to their old custody agreement.
This sounds like lonnie didn't want his baby
So much as he wanted to control shannon.
♪♪♪
Okay, imma call mr. Borgman now, I guess.
Let's get her done.
With their divorce proceedings in motion,
Lonnie scheduled a counseling session between him
And shannon with a local pastor on November the 7th,
The night that we believe shannon was murdered.
Hello, mr. Borgman. This is mike george.
Learning more about what happened at that meeting
Could be crucial to figuring out
What happened to shannon later that night.
I know that you guys had a counseling session.
Lonnie, shannon, and you.
Can you tell us about that?
How come?
Okay.
We've heard that lonnie was controlling
And considered shannon his possession.
He said my possessions are my possessions
And that's how he treated shannon.
Kelly: If he did kill shannon, it makes you wonder
If this last failed effort by lonnie to keep shannon
In his life was his breaking point.
Apparently, lonnie then called you after she went missing.
How did he sound?
- That's huge. - Yeah.
According to the pastor, lonnie said shannon
Went out of town with a boyfriend,
Which is inconsistent with
What lonnie told the investigators back then.
Plus, with everything that we now know about shannon's fear
Of leaving sara in lonnie's custody, it makes no sense that
She would have left her daughter with him the way he's saying.
This pastor might have just become the number one
Witness in this case. Oh, that's a good one.
He was even better than we thought he would be.
♪♪♪
- Are we going to-- - see ed bacon now.
Ed bacon now.
We feel like we've nailed down this volatile relationship
Between shannon and her estranged husband, lonnie,
As well as poked holes in his story.
Now we want to find out if he's possibly made
Any admissions after all these years.
So we're going to talk to the witnesses closest to him.
Vern: You and lonnie went to school together, right?
In the same grade?
Ed bacon is a person that he went to high school with
And he played football with.
Maybe lonnie opened up to him about shannon.
Terri: So when you confronted him, what did he say to you?
Why would he be so nervous if he wasn't involved
And he wasn't around shannon that night?
Vern: You're sure it was lonnie?
Vern: About what time?
Vern: Was he by himself?
Vern: Where was he headed?
We know from the dna test that shannon's blood
Was in the trunk of her car.
That suggests that she was transported in her car
To the woods the night that we believe she died.
According to ed, that same night,
Lonnie was driving her car.
This is huge.
[phone ringing]
Jeff: Hello?
- Is this jeff? - Jeff: Yes.
Jeff owens is lonnie's brother.
We're hoping that at some point over all these years,
They've had a heart to heart about what happened to shannon,
And maybe he'll tell us what that was.
What can you tell me about lonnie?
Did you have any contact with your brother
After shannon disappeared?
You want to think that there's this moment
When every murderer realizes the horror of what they've done,
Probably when they're all alone with their thoughts.
But oh, my god, did lonnie's brother actually witness it?
Nice. Nice!
The circumstantial evidence is piling up against lonnie poteet.
And it's time for the team to drive all the way
To montana to confront him.
- Let's do it, team. - All right.
We've heard that lonnie was controlling,
Abusive, and frustrated because shannon
Finally stood up to him and was leaving the marriage.
Vern: Hello. Lonnie.
If lonnie's temper got the best of him that night and he killed
His wife, any inconsistencies can make this case even better.
Shannon's homicide happened 36 years ago,
And so we're here to talk to you about that.
I did not have anything to do with my wife's disappearance.
I wasn't even around when it happened.
Vern: You remember where you were that night?
Yeah, I remember where I was, but I mean, I wasn't around her.
That's what I'm saying.
I didn't see her till the following morning,
When she gave me my daughter and I met her
At the library parking lot, I believe is what it was.
Terri: And then you went from there where?
I went-- I walked up all the way back down
To lou and anita springles.
Terri: Why didn't she give you a ride there?
That doesn't make any sense that she'd make you walk in the cold?
Good lord, you ask her.
Lonnie is still telling the same story he did 35 years ago
That shannon made him walk with sara in the freezing weather.
It still sounds ridiculous, especially after all we've heard
About shannon and what a devoted mom she was to sara.
The last day I saw her, before I picked up the kid.
We started counseling and the pastor told me
At that point that this is going to be a long road
Because she was done with me, period.
Terri: Okay, and then you guys would have to share sara?
Yeah. And shannon was fine with that.
And when we met that day, it didn't work.
So, you know, she pulled her stunt and she disappeared.
I don't know with who. But I still say it wasn't in town.
They just wanted an easy target. We're going through a divorce.
So yeah, that would make me the easy target.
Terri: We are looking at you because you were
The husband going through a divorce.
People said that you were unhappy about it
And you had a reputation for being a bad ass.
I was pretty free with my hands on men.
And I've never hit a woman.
- Terri: Okay, well, that's-- - have you been abused, hun?
No.
You know, all of these things about how
I was when I was a kid, I can't tell you I was a saint,
But I had nothing to do with shannon.
Okay.
And that's the honest to god truth.
You put together all the circumstances around what was
Going on back then, and that's why we're here talking to you.
You put together the circumstances
That were laid before you and most of them weren't true.
- Terri: Well, you were-- - the narrative doesn't fit.
The-- listen, I'm not going to debate it with you.
I'm through talking, it's starting to rain.
- I appreciate your time. - Terri: Okay, thank you lonnie.
If you need to speak to me again we do it through an attorney.
Lonnie had an answer for every question that I asked him,
Because lonnie has been thinking about this for 35 years.
He's created his own narrative about what he's going to say
Has happened and we know his story.
It doesn't make any sense at all.
That was so awesome.
♪♪♪
♪♪♪ all right, wd to everybody,
Y'all driven out of state to interview lonnie.
We got clay on the phone.
It's time for us to review everything we've learned
And make a decision as to the involvement
Of our two suspects in the murder of shannon poteet.
Let's start with what we think about clay kjos
And his involvement.
His story hasn't changed in all those years.
Clay kjos tells the same story 35 years later
And seems like he has nothing to hide.
Kelly: And the stains on clay's shoe came back negative
For blood, further pointing to his innocence.
He answered every question we had. He cooperated.
I have no reason to believe that he was actually
- Involved in the murder. - Okay.
I would not say that he's an accomplice.
- I'd say he's a witness. - All right.
We're all in agreement that clay kjos
Comes off the suspect board.
- Right. - Yes.
Clay has been in the middle of this investigation
Since it began, but there is no evidence
To suggest he's been involved in shannon's murder.
That leaves lonnie poteet.
Let's start with the relationship
Between lonnie and shannon.
They at one time were crazy about each other
And things went south very, very quickly.
It was an abusive relationship.
It was a violent relationship.
Him being a bully that did not mind hurting people.
Right. How many people did we talk to who could talk
About his horrible temper?
Shannon was afraid of lonnie and wanted to get the divorce.
And then you go to day of.
They end up the counselor's office.
There was a lot of anger, and lonnie was upset
Because shannon wasn't going along with what he wanted.
And crucial eyewitness with-- when he saw lonnie
- Driving the vehicle alone. - Yes.
We also now know from jeff, his brother.
What were the words out of lonnie's mouth?
"I can't believe I did it".
Do you really think that shannon poteet gave that baby
On a cold winter morning over to lonnie at 6:00 am
In a parking lot and didn't even give him a ride home?
- Absolutely not. - Then how in the world
- Does he end up with the baby? - He took that baby.
That baby changed shannon's life.
That baby made shannon independent,
Made shannon grow up, made shannon decide
To take charge of her life and get rid of that loser.
- And she stood up to him. - Because she was trying
To protect that baby to her death.
And that's what happened.
As far as circumstantial evidence cases go.
We have checked every single box,
And now it's time to present this case
To ferry county district attorney katherine burke
In the hopes of charging lonnie poteet
For the murder of shannon.
- Everybody fired up? Yes. - Yes.
♪♪♪
We've got a better case now than we've ever had.
You ought to feel pretty good, you ought to feel proud.
We've presented the case to the d.A.
- Hello, ladies. - Good morning.
And now it's time to tell shannon's family the news
They've been waiting thirty five years to hear.
I've always thought about this case over the years.
Back in the 90's, when I actually worked
Part of this case, I wasn't as confident as I am today.
We had met with the prosecutor in ferry county yesterday,
And she seems very positive about this case.
She likes what she hears,
And all the evidence points to lonnie.
♪ breathe in ♪
I know he's your dad, baby.
I know, but I feel like you've known
For a long time what really happened.
What we've been fighting for for the past 34 years
Is finally coming to the beginning of the end.
It's relieving. I know my mom's been with me
And I know my mom will always be with me.
You need to know that everybody here supports you.
- Yes, absolutely. - Kelly: They do.
They remember you as a little baby.
They remember how much your mom tried to take care of you.
You were lied to. So many lies.
There were so many victims
And there were so many lives affected by this tragedy.
Thank you so much.
Sara's entire life has been filled with unimaginable pain.
♪ I'm on my own and I feel fine ♪
Hopefully, knowing that she's closer than ever
To getting justice for her mom can help her begin to heal.
♪♪♪