How a Persistent Detective and a TV Show Solved a Cold Case
Pam Shelley’s death initially deemed suicide was indeed a murder.
In January 2001, the small town of Cuero, Texas was shaken by the death of Pam Shelley. The woman was found dead from a gunshot to her head in the house where she lived with her boyfriend Ronnie Hendrick and her two kids — 12-year-old daughter, Kayla, and 9-year-old son, Dustin.
It seemed like a plain case of suicide — both from the testimony of her live-in boyfriend as well as the medical examiner, who ruled the case a suicide, and the case was closed.
However, Carl Bowen who was part of the investigating team, wasn’t convinced that this was a suicide, and along with the victim’s family, he had a strong belief that this could have been a homicide.
In 2008, Bowen decided to reopen the case investigation. While he had been part of the investigating team in 2001, he wasn’t the man-in-charge, but now with his new investigation duties at the DeWitt County Sheriff’s office, he decided to go with his gut and get to the bottom of his case.
The Facts of the Case and Rationale for Suicide
The death happened the evening of January 6, 2001, in her boyfriend Ronnie Hendrick’s house in…
