MURDERED: Carmen Van Huss

Summary

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Crime Junkie Podcast Summary

Episode Title: MURDERED: Carmen Van Huss
Host: Ashley Flowers (with co-host Brit Prawat)
Date: July 6, 2026
Main Theme:
This episode delves into the brutal 1993 murder of 19-year-old Carmen Van Huss, examining the initial investigation, years of frustration for Carmen’s family, the relentless pursuit of justice by a determined police sergeant, and the eventual resolution—along with systemic failures and the advocacy that led to legislative reform.

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Episode Overview

Ashley and Brit unspool the decades-long journey to justice for Carmen Van Huss—a young woman murdered in Indianapolis—exploring the lack of early investigative action, the case’s endurance as a cold case, and the pivotal role of Sergeant Bill Carter and new forensic technologies, including DNA testing and genetic genealogy. The case’s conclusion brings both accountability for the perpetrator and legislative change in Indiana (“Carmen’s Law”) to help other families in similar situations.

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Detailed Breakdown

The Night of the Crime (02:15–10:00)

• Setting: Turtle Creek Apartments, Indianapolis, March 23, 1993.
• Crime: Around 1:00am, neighbors hear 30 minutes of Carmen’s desperate screams ("get off me"), but no one intervenes or calls police—only a noise complaint is registered.
• Discovery: Carmen’s father, James, finds her dead the following day, the apartment in chaos and bloodied. He calls police after seeing the horrific scene.
• Key Evidence: No forced entry, the presence of food and drink items, suggesting Carmen knew her attacker. 60 stab wounds—gruesome, violent—suggest personal motive but no murder weapon found.
• Quote:
  "For decades, people who should have helped Carmen in life and in death have turned their back on her. But thanks to one tenacious man who believes in doing the right thing, someone has finally been charged with Carmen's murder." – Ashley Flowers (05:09)

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Early Investigation & Family Background (10:00–14:00)

• Investigative Theories: Police focus on close acquaintances, especially boyfriends. DNA and forensic capabilities are minimal in 1993, latent prints are inconclusive.
• Carmen’s History: Complicated upbringing; split between her biological and adoptive families; longing for acceptance and love. Lifestyle faced judgment from investigators.
• Family’s Frustration: Police seemingly dismiss the case due to Carmen’s circle and perceived lifestyle.
• Quote:
  "[The detectives] kind of just brush her death off, like, well, this is the lifestyle she chose to live..." – Ashley Flowers (11:45)

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Piecing Together the Last Night (14:10–20:00)

• Timeline:
  • Hospital visit with family, drops them at home ~9:30pm.
  • Phone call with boyfriend Rob (in Arizona) at 9:49pm; mentions encountering an “old friend” (name forgotten).
  • Neighbors hear her return to the complex at 11:00pm with a man; by 1:00am, screaming ensues.
  • No clear evidence on food wrappers or whether laundry room (shared) is scene of encounter.
• Rob and Exes: Rob cleared due to solid alibi. Police also investigate two exes—one (Josh) quickly cleared; other (Peter) had made threats over a petty dispute but has a verified out-of-state alibi.

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Cold Case Era and the Entrance of Sergeant Bill Carter (22:16–30:00)

• Case Stalls: All immediate suspects cleared; the case grows cold. Pam (Carmen’s sister) keeps annual contact with investigators.
• Bill Carter’s Involvement:
  • Carter, an IMPD officer with a knack for cold cases, digitizes Carmen’s file in 2013 and pushes for DNA testing overlooked in years prior.
  • Partial male DNA profile is developed from semen and a bloody paper bag in the apartment. Over 40 local men are tested and ruled out.
• Quote:
  "With Sergeant Carter at the helm, it feels like for the first time, they might actually be getting closer to justice. Unlike previous detectives, he's not looking into this case because he has to. He is looking into it because he wants to." – Ashley Flowers (27:26)

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Departmental Controversy and Funding Roadblocks (30:22–36:15)

• DNA Mixup: Wrong sample tested (Carmen’s DNA), not the attacker’s. Carter asks for a correct re-test but is denied funding.
• Carter’s Solution: Carter crowd-funds the cost via GoFundMe, quickly hitting the target, but IMPD halts the effort; Carter is disciplined and removed (temporarily) from the case—then reinstated after public pressure.
• Quote:
  "This is the bull politics of policing, that I have zero patience for your toes and your fragile egos. What's the right thing to do by Carmen? ... Everything else that gets in the way of the right thing is the wrong thing." – Ashley Flowers (33:44)

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The Power of Genealogy and Breakthrough (36:15–44:00)

• Persistence: Carter continues, aided by a Crime Junkie and Season of Justice (Ashley Flowers’ nonprofit) connection.
• Genetic Genealogy: DNA sent to Parabon Nanolabs; profile indicates the suspect is a Black man.
• Investigative Break:
  • A distant genetic match leads analyst Meera Patel to two brothers, the Shepards, who lived in the complex in 1993.
  • Investigation focuses on Dana Shepard, who is living in Missouri.
  • His DNA directly matches the crime scene. He is arrested in 2024, 31 years after Carmen’s murder.
• Quote:
  "On August 30, 2024, 31 years after Carmen’s death, Dana Sheppard is arrested in Missouri on charges of murder and rape with deadly force." – Ashley Flowers (42:47)

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Family Response and Legal Aftermath (44:00–47:32)

• Family’s Gratitude:
  • “...I want to say thank you to Bill and Mira and every single person that had a hand in this...” – Jimmy Van Hus (Carmen’s brother, 42:52)
• Dana Shepard’s Background: No significant violent criminal record; his family is shocked and maintains his innocence.
• Community and Family Impact:
  • Pam Van Huss advocates for legislative reform ("Carmen’s Law") to allow families to access advanced DNA testing.

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Major Updates & Resolution (49:00–End)

• Plea Deal and Sentencing:
  • Days before trial (Jan 26, 2026), Dana Shepard takes a plea deal and is sentenced to 45 years for murder, with other charges dropped.
  • The presiding judge describes the case as the worst he’s seen.
  • The family finds closure “bittersweet,” still left with unanswered questions, but relieved at accountability.
• “Carmen’s Law” Passed:
  • Pam’s advocacy leads to a bill (now law) establishing private funding for advanced DNA testing in cold cases of 5+ years’ duration in Indiana.
  • “That means that there will now be an established framework for private funding of advanced DNA testing in all cases that have gone unsolved for five or more years.” – Ashley Flowers (52:10)
• Quote:
  "While this plea deal was not our first choice, we are grateful that after 33 years, the man responsible for Carmen's brutal rape and murder is finally being held accountable." – Pam Francis (Sister, 50:12)

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Notable Moments & Quotes

• Community Neglect:
  "Not a single person gets up. Not a single person goes to her door. No one bothers to even pick up the phone and call 911. For 30 minutes, she screams and struggles before one set of hurried footprints can be heard, leaving, disappearing into the night." – Ashley Flowers (03:41)
• On Bill Carter’s Doggedness:
  "But if it's not already clear, Bill Carter is not most investigators." – Ashley Flowers (31:03)
• Family’s Endurance:
  "Pam's dad, Bob, and then Pam herself, continue calling investigators at least once every year for updates. But Pam says that it's always the same answer. The file is sitting on my desk, but we don't have anything new." – Ashley Flowers (20:05)
• Advocacy’s Impact:
  "That bill that Pam was working on to expand access to advanced DNA testing for cold cases — Carmen's Law — it was passed unanimously by the Indiana State Senate and in March it was signed into law by the Governor." – Ashley Flowers (51:45)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:15] — Crime described; neighbors hear screams
• [07:02] — Details of Carmen’s injuries, missing weapon
• [14:10] — Timeline of Carmen’s last night
• [22:16] — Bill Carter’s introduction, approach to the case
• [24:35] — DNA evidence and challenges
• [31:03] — Carter crowd-funds testing; department backlash
• [39:54] — Genetic genealogy narrows suspect pool
• [41:39] — Focus narrows on Shepard brothers
• [42:47] — Dana Shepard identified and arrested
• [49:00] — Plea deal, sentencing, and “Carmen’s Law”

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Conclusion

This episode traces 33 years of struggle, resilience, and advocacy—exposing police errors, institutional obstacles, and the difference tenacious individuals and family can make. Carmen Van Huss’s story ends with hard-won justice, but not without highlighting the gaps that systemically fail victims. The changes celebrated here—both in legal accountability and legal process, with “Carmen’s Law”—showcase the powerful ripple effects of dedication and advocacy born of tragedy.

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Transcript

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[Britt]

Hi Crime Junkies, it's Britt. If you're like me and you're ready to dive into even more cases, there's another podcast I think you're going to love. Park Predators. In Park Predators, host Delia d' Ambret dives into the haunting crimes that happen in some of the most beautiful and unexpected places across the globe. Delia has helped host a couple of episodes of Crime Junkie in the past, and if you've listened to her before, you already know her investigative approach brings the facts of each case and their chilling details to life, making Park Predators the perfect mix of captivating and informative storytelling. So once you're done with this episode of Crime Junkie, go check out Park Predators. New episodes drop every week. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ashley Flowers]

Hi Crime Junkies. What you're about to hear is an episode that we originally recorded and released in the Crime Junkie Fan club back in January when this case was still actively unfolding. But in the months since then, there have been some major developments. So today we wanted to bring this story to a broader audience. You'll get to hear the full episode that has never been released wide. And then I'm going to come back in towards the end and pick up where our reporting in January left off to tell you how this case was ultimately resolved. Hi Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.

[Britt]

And I'm Britt.

[Ashley Flowers]

And today's story begins at the Turtle Creek Apartments, part of a gated Community on the northwest side of Indianapolis, Indiana. The complex is made up of two buildings, four wings and three floors per wing. So 262 apartments in total. And on March 23, 1993, around 1am, something terrible is happening inside one of them. Neighbors who are awake hear loud screams coming from apartment 302A. And those who weren't awake before are now. I mean, it is so loud and the walls are so thin that they can hear what she's saying, even get off me. I mean, she repeats this in between crying and banging noises. Get off me. There is no mistaking these cries for horseplay or teenage antics, even though they know the tenant is young, a 19 year old girl named Carmen Van Huss. But no one cares. Our reporter Nicole Kagan spoke to one neighbor who lived in the apartment right across the hall from Carmen's. And he said, quote, I just heard a scream in the middle of the night. I turned over and went back to bed. That's all I know. Not a single person gets up. Not a single person goes to her door. No one bothers to even pick up the phone and call 911 for 30 minutes. She screams and struggles before one set of hurried footprints can be heard, leaving, disappearing into the night. And everyone just goes back to sleep. For decades, people who, who should have helped Carmen in life and in death have turned their back on her. But thanks to one tenacious man who believes in doing the right thing, someone has finally been charged with Carmen's murder. And the trial that decides his fate is about to begin. Though none of Carmen Van Huss neighbors could be bothered to call police or check on her when they heard her screaming for 30 minutes straight. least one person did take the time to call the apartment management and file a noise complaint. There was a handwritten note from management tacked to her door. When Carmen's dad, James arrived a day later to check on her, he had gotten a voicemail from Carmen's friend Missy, who said that Carmen had been a no call, no show for work that day. And she had tried to go check in on her, but she wasn't really familiar with where she lived. She ended up kind of getting lost on the way to her complex. So she's hoping that Carmen's dad could go by and check on her. And he likely saw the note first, the one scolding his daughter for being too loud and reminding her to be more considerate of her neighbors. Moving forward. But there would be no moving forward. He knew that instantly when he opened the unlocked door. Of the studio apartment. I mean, he had a direct line of sight to his daughter, clearly dead, Lying on the floor next to her bed, covered in blood. And the whole apartment was a mess. I mean, the living room table was knocked over, Clothes were scattered across the floor, and there was blood everywhere. It was splattered on the walls and smeared in the kitchen. James couldn't even bear to take another step inside, so he beelined to a neighbor's apartment, Banging on the door so he could use their phone to call 91 1. When Marion County Sheriff's detectives responded that evening, Sergeant David Wilkes takes charge of the investigation While lab techs process the scene. I mean, it's obvious to them that there was a struggle inside Carmen's apartment. But they suspect right away that the interaction with her killer May have actually started out friendly because there's no sign at all of forced entry. And there are some fast food cups and some bottles of beer that make it seem like she might have been maybe even eating a meal with someone before things took a turn.

[Britt]

And how do they know that that stuff is from that night?

[Ashley Flowers]

Well, I mean, they don't. I mean, not for sure, but food or no food, they still end up thinking that things started out friendly with her killer. Because after they talk to neighbors, Many of them report having heard Carmen come home at around 11pm and it sounded like she was with a man. They hear the two of them talking, laughing as they walk up the hall

[Britt]

to her door, and then, like, two hours later, she's screaming for help.

[Ashley Flowers]

Yeah. And lord only knows what happened in those two hours, but the escalation was severe. Carmen had 60 stab wounds to her head, face, body, and genitalia. And the attack was apparently so violent that the stab wounds to her head penetrated her skull.

[Britt]

What was the murder weapon, Like a knife?

[Ashley Flowers]

That is actually still unknown. Now, multiple different news outlets over the years have published that Carmen was likely stabbed to death With a screwdriver or a pocket knife. But investigators told our reporter that while the wounds were consistent with something like that, Something small and pointed, could have been a screwdriver, could have been a pocket knife. The actual murder weapon has never been found, and neither of those objects turn up in Carmen's apartment or anywhere else in the course of their investigation. There is plenty of other evidence, though. They collect evidence from Carmen's body at autopsy and from the scene. They collect a bedspread, clothing, bloodied items in the kitchen that the assailant likely touched, Notably a bloody white paper bag in the kitchen trash can. But because this is 1993, DNA testing isn't very widespread or readily available, and there's nothing I can find showing that these things go to a lab for testing. Back then. They do dust the apartment for prints, and they find a number of latent smudges, but there are no matches to anyone in the system. And it's not even clear if these prints belong to an attacker. They could have just belonged to someone that Carmen had over. We don't even know if they're relevant.

[Britt]

We have no idea when the prints got there.

[Ashley Flowers]

So with everything they have at that point, evidence of a late night meal, noises of laughter in the hallway, and no forced entry, investigators feel pretty certain that Carmen's attacker was someone she must have known well, someone she trusted. So investigators start making a list of Carmen's boyfriends, current and former. And it's not a short list. Carmen's sister, Pam Francis, who we spoke to for this episode, said that in her eyes, these relationships were just Carmen's way of seeking acceptance. She had this innate desire to be loved by everyone, which Pam says was likely a result of her upbringing. You see, Carmen's family situation was a bit complicated. When she was 3, her biological parents, Gail and James, they sent her to live with her aunt, Gertie Schott. Gail and James, like, weren't together at the time. Carmen was their first child, and they just knew that they weren't going to be able to give her the upbringing that they wanted. So Carmen joined the Schott family as the youngest of eight children. And listen, by all accounts, they raised her as their own. Carmen considered all of the Shot kids her siblings. She called Gertie and her husband Bob, mom and dad.

[Britt]

And did she still see her biological parents at all at that time?

[Ashley Flowers]

Yeah. So the Shots actually even moved from Illinois to Indiana when they took Carmen in so that she could still be close to her dad, James. But according to Pam, who was like the next youngest girl in the Shot family, James lived a very different lifestyle. So the Shots are very like, by the book. They're loving, they're rule following this Catholic family. James's life was much less structured. I mean, he had some substance use problems, but Carmen, he's her dad. She loved him regardless. She idolized him, even. And in Pam's eyes, straddling these two completely different environments was really difficult for Carmen. She would try to imitate the things she saw her dad doing to feel closer to him. Smoking, drinking, living on the edge, which was okay around him, but then not so much around the shots. And to add to all of this, When Carmen was 14 or 15, a third household came into the mix when she reconnected with her biological mother. And so, for a teenager bouncing back and forth between these different lives, it's a lot to navigate. And Pam says that this need to be loved by everyone, like Carmen carried it with her all her life. She had a large group of friends that were into punk rock and skate parks and sometimes recreational drugs, so she got into those things, too. But according to Pam, these friends were obviously more aligned with, like, Carmen's dad's lifestyle. And so Carmen kept them and her various boyfriends pretty removed from the shot family. So there's a lot happening in Carmen's formative years. She never finished high school, but she did get her ged. And at the time of her death, things were actually starting to really fall into place for her. I mean, after a stint of living in her own car, she finally moved into a studio apartment. She had a boyfriend of about a year who she was totally in love with. And along with working a stable job at Pizza Hut, she was following her passion by taking classes at the Heron School of Art and Design. Pam said everything finally seemed like it was working. But early on, at least, Pam feels like investigators see the crowd of people Carmen hung out with, and they kind of just brush her death off, like, well, this is the lifestyle she chose to live sort of thing. And so, in their minds, it's just a matter of finding out which friend or ex boyfriend is responsible, which is incredibly frustrating.

[Britt]

Does the family feel like they should be looking somewhere else? Like, is there another direction the family wants them to be going in?

[Ashley Flowers]

It seems like they don't know what to think. I mean, even her friends don't really know which direction to point investigators in. But as they start watching the sheriff's office pull Carmen's circle of friends in one by one for questioning, Missy and Pam both said that everyone was suspicious of one another. Even the funeral was its own traumatizing experience, because they spent the whole time looking around, like, wondering who among them was a killer.

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[Britt]

to try and

[Ashley Flowers]

figure out who was with Carmen the night she died, police needed to retrace her last movements. What they pieced together was that On Monday night, March 22, Carmen spent the evening visiting her grandmother in the hospital with her dad James and James's three year old son. Carmen drove them there in her boyfriend Rob's car because hers was in the shop and she dropped them off back at home at around 9.30pm now, before she left, James asked Carmen to just stay the night there with them, but she told him she needed to get home to wash her Pizza Hut uniform for work the next day. Now the drive back to her apartment would have taken about 30 minutes, but I think she got home quick because when they talk to her boyfriend Rob, he tells them and call logs confirm that he spoke to Carmen from where he was in Arizona at 9:49pm Eastern Time on March 22. And interestingly, when they spoke, she told him that she had run into an old friend that night.

[Britt]

When did that happen and who was the friend?

[Ashley Flowers]

Rob says that Carmen told him she didn't remember this friend's name.

[Britt]

No.

[Ashley Flowers]

As for when though, I don't know because it's not like she would have had time to stop anywhere right? If she's talking to him at 9:49pm she had to have gone straight home. Not even enough time to stop and get fast food. Carmen's sister, Pam Francis, told Nicole that she thought the food or like the stuff in her apartment might have been from Subway. And she was pretty sure she remembered hearing that there was enough food for three people, but she didn't know who picked it up or when or how many sandwiches it was, if the sandwiches were there at all. But knowing the timeline that we're working with, to me, like, one of three things seems possible. Like, one, the stuff in her apartment really was old wrappers or cups or whatever. It's not from that night. Two, someone else brought it to her place. Or three, she had to have gone out again after she got home, after she talked to Rob, maybe while her laundry was going. Now, she didn't have her own washer and dryer in her unit, so she would have needed to go to the communal laundry room in her building to get her uniform washed. I'm guessing this would have been around 10:20 after her 32 minute call with Rob. Now, the big question is, does she do this? Does the laundry get done? God help me. But this is a question I cannot seem to get answered. But it feels like it should have been an easy one to answer. Was her clean uniform in her apartment? Did anyone go check the laundry room? From the information we have, it seems like the laundry room kind of just gets ignored. Which is wild considering that it is very possible that is where she could have crossed paths with her killer. Yeah, whatever she is doing from 10:20 to 11, we don't know. But by 11, that is when she is heard walking up the stairs in the company of someone else.

[Britt]

Well, and another big question is, is that the same someone who was there at 1, or did the guy she was with at 11 look, leave and someone else just sees an opportunity?

[Ashley Flowers]

Exactly. But if these are two different people, then why is an 11 o' clock guy coming forward? Oh, no one is admitting to being with Carmen that night. And if you're 11 o' clock guy and you didn't kill her, what's the

[Britt]

harm in coming forward?

[Ashley Flowers]

Come and talk to police. It seems more likely that we're actually looking at someone who's like one in the same.

[Britt]

And her boyfriend, just to be clear, is for sure in Arizona, 100%.

[Ashley Flowers]

He had flown to Arizona with his family on March 19 to visit his aunt. And he'd actually called Carmen a number of times from a calling card while he was there, including that call, like just hours before she died. So no way he Was in Indiana. Pretty rock solid alibi. So with Rob pretty much cleared, it's on to Carmen's most recent ex boyfriend, who we'll call Josh. According to her friend Missy, investigators really gave Josh a hard time. Almost as hard of a time as they gave her.

[Britt]

Wait, why are they giving Missy a hard time?

[Ashley Flowers]

Dude, I'm not kidding when I say they looked at everyone in her circle, even, like, women, girls. Missy was one of the first people that they looked out, and it was just because they found a pack of Missy's cigarettes in Carmen's car with the word death written on it. And, like, I can't imagine being her. She's probably, like, the same age as Carmen, right? She's, like, 19. She's in this detective's, like, interrogation room or wherever they're talking about her, and

[Britt]

then set down this pack of cigarettes that say death on it.

[Ashley Flowers]

She has to explain to them that her boyfriend at the time hated the fact that she was a. And so she wrote death on her cigarette box in an effort to, like, try and get herself to quit. She's like, this isn't a threat of

[Britt]

any kind of, like, her own reminder of this wasn't good for her.

[Ashley Flowers]

It was just this weird, terrible coincidence that she did that and then happened to leave it in Carmen's car, like, before this happened. But anyways, so they're looking at Carmen's ex now, Josh. They had heard somehow that Josh was upset because of Carmen's new boyfriend. But other than him being a recent ex, there is nothing else I can find to really make him look suspicious at all. They say that he's got an alibi. The motive ends up really not being solid. So they quickly pivot to another ex. We'll call him Peter. And this is the first suspect where there actually seems to be a real red flag, because the year before her death, Carmen had called the police on Peter. Now, it wasn't for anything violent. According to police records, Peter had taken Carmen's car and just wouldn't return it. Now, he was stopped and arrested by the Lawrence police department, and Carmen got her car back. But dude was busted in more ways than one, because when Carmen went to go pick up her car, she found that Peter had left this little gift bag inside with a card for her. Like, how sweet, right? Well, there was also a card in there addressed to a different girl. And different girl got a set of Beastie boys concert tickets in her card. So Carmen, like, not one to be played, I take it? Takes the tickets and goes to the Concert herself. Okay, but apparently that really pissed Peter off. So much so that he was going around telling people that he was going to, quote, get revenge.

[Britt]

So this theory is that Peter brutally murdered Carmen over Beastie Boy tickets.

[Ashley Flowers]

People have done awful things for way less, but, yes, this is the motive they're working with. Only thing is, just like Rob, Peter has a rock solid out of state alibi. A representative from the Social Security office in San Francisco vouched that Peter was in her office over 2000 miles away on the day that Carmen was murdered. And it's the same story with a handful of others. Friends, boyfriends. One by one, they're interviewed and they're cleared. And shortly after that, the case goes cold. Pam's dad, Bob, and then Pam herself continue calling investigators at least once every year for updates. But Pam says that it's always the same answer. The file is sitting on my desk, but we don't have anything new. So the years keep passing, and Carmen's case gets handed from one investigator to the next as people either retire or take other roles. Now, some of the initial persons of interest are interviewed again, but nothing really notable happens until 2013. That's 20 years after Carmen's murder. That is when someone not employed by the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department's homicide or cold case unit takes an interest in Carmen's case. Sergeant Bill Carter. And he is, by all accounts, the last person anyone expects. Not because he isn't this brilliant investigator, but because he has exactly zero professional cold case homicide training, or any homicide training at all for that matter. He started his law enforcement career as a state revenue agent.

[Britt]

You literally don't have to tell me. I already know Bill Carter. Because, Ashley, you're kind of obsessed with him.

[Jimmy Van Hus]

That's true. I am.

[Ashley Flowers]

He's making the hero. Like anyone who listened to our episode on Amy widener back in 2018 will know that. I love Bill Carter. But just a quick refresher if you're new here. So he was in the state revenue office, and then he moved to domestic violence, then nuisance abatement, which is basically like an officer who investigates community disturbances, underage drinking, animal cruelty. Gotta love a guy who takes down animal abusers. And while in that position, he kind of stumbled onto his first cold case. He was the guy in the department who knew the Facebook back then. And a detective needed help getting into one of those, like, memorial pages for a case that that guy was working on. It was Amy's case. They basically wanted to monitor the comments, whatever. So Bill helps them and then he,

[Britt]

like, gets in it.

[Ashley Flowers]

It's hard not to. He ends up getting super interested. He ends up reading the whole case file, digitizing it, even talks to the family.

[Britt]

I mean, he basically starts his own investigation in his spare time.

[Ashley Flowers]

Yeah, and he told our reporter Nicole that when he first started looking into Amy's case, there was a note in her file that literally said, all that could be done was done. Well, hold his beer, because in a matter of months, he solved Amy's case. Now, does he get cheers and accolades for solving a cold case that no one else could? Not exactly. Not even an invitation to come join the team, but whatever. Not why he did it. Amy's family is thrilled. Bill is happy to just play his part. And so he goes back to nuisance abatement. But then he gets approached by an IMPD Officer who went to high school with Carmen. And this person's basically like, listen, I saw the amazing work that you did on Amy's case. There is this other case that has always haunted me. I would just be forever indebted to you if you could look into it. So, of course, Sergeant Carter dives in head first. He digitizes Carmen's case file and starts going through it page by page. And there are no big misses, per se. He comes to the same conclusion that they did back in 1993, that whoever killed Carmen was likely someone that knew her. But at this point, it's 2013, and Sergeant Carter has DNA testing on his side.

[Britt]

Wait, so no one's gone back before for this moment and done testing?

[Ashley Flowers]

No, not necessarily. So by this point, they had entered Carmen's DNA into, like, state and national databases.

[Britt]

And when you say Carmen's DNA, you mean like the DNA evidence found at Carmen's crime scene?

[Ashley Flowers]

No. No, I don't.

[Britt]

Wait, you mean the victim's DNA?

[Ashley Flowers]

Yeah. And we asked Carter about this. He didn't know why that was done either. But her DNA had been entered into databases. That's all that had been done at this point. So now, in 2013, as you can imagine, there's, like, a ton that can be done. So he assists a cold case investigator in sending off evidence from Carmen's case to be examined. And the lab comes back with good news. Great news, actually. Not only were they able to develop a partial male profile from swabs containing semen that was collected from Carmen's body, but they also got a full profile from the blood staining on the white paper bag that I mentioned at the top.

[Britt]

And do these two profiles match?

[Ashley Flowers]

They both match. And that full profile is suitable to be put into codis, which they do, but no dice. And this sucks, but it actually is, you know, partly good because it clears persons of interest who were already in the system. I guess there were some, but there were plenty more that weren't. So that's when investigators begin the painstaking task of tracking down everyone who could have crossed paths with Carmen to get samples from them for comparison. One by one. And by the year's end, through voluntary and covertly obtaining samples, they are able to conclusively eliminate at least 40 men. That's including Carmen's boyfriend, Rob, her exes Josh and Peter, even her neighbor across the hall.

[Britt]

So there's a chance that this isn't someone that she knew after all.

[Ashley Flowers]

Maybe everyone's wrong. There's only one way to know. They have to widen their search pool. Sergeant Carter makes a plea to the media for coverage, and he starts looking way beyond the initial persons of interest list, interviewing friends of friends and distant associates. He tries to track down the repair shop where Carmen's car was at the time of her murder, thinking, you know, maybe if the people working there had her car keys, maybe they could have also had the key to her apartment. The he even takes the time to look into all of the police runs that happened the night of Karma's murder to see if anything there sticks out. Like maybe her attacker went on a crime spree or ended up needing medical attention. And Sergeant Carter actually does find a man who police interacted with that night who had stab wounds that looked very similar to Carmen's. But neither that guy nor any of these other guys that he ends up talking to match the DNA from Carmen's crime scene.

[Britt]

Is Carter still doing all of this in his spare time? Like, does he officially get put on the case at this point?

[Ashley Flowers]

Oh, no. According to the files, he is technically only assisting the cold case detectives, which, I mean, in my opinion, just doesn't capture the extent of the time and effort that he's putting into this. And Carmen's friends and family recognize that, too. With Sergeant Carter at the helm, it feels like for the first time, they might actually be getting closer to justice. Unlike previous detectives, he's not looking into this case because he has to. He is looking into it because he wants to. And take it from someone who has seen both play out many times. There is a big difference. But wanting to solve a case isn't everything. And as hard as Carter works, as many people as he gets DNA from and rules out, he is just not getting any Closer to the answer. So in 2014, he works with investigators to get some additional DNA testing done to see if the lab can figure out anything more about Carmen's attacker to help him focus his investigation. But what no one knows at the time is that this $1,600 DNA test, which the city organizes and pays for, somehow ends up spurring a departmental controversy that throws Carmen's case into jeopardy and lands Sergeant Carter in a bucket of hot water with IMPD. 89% of dog parents consider their pup their best friend. And 31% would even let them eat off their fork. I think the other 58% are just liars. But I'll keep your secret, boo, because we are all dog obsessed. And if anyone gets being completely dog obsessed, it's Ollie. Ollie delivers fresh human grade food in five drool worthy flavors like beef with sweet potato and turkey with blueberries. Honestly, I think my pup Maggie eats better than I do. Cause real chefs develop these recipes with gut friendly ingredients that support better digestion, shiny coats and higher energy. Everything is customized, arriving in perfect portions with a handy puptainer for easy storage. Plus, the Ollie app offers vet calculated feeding guides and health tracking to monitor their well being. So get ready for both you and your pup to be obsessed. Head to ollie.com crimejunkie Tell them about your dog and use code CRIMEJUNKIE to get 70% off your welcome kit when you subscribe today. Plus, it's risk free with their obsession guarantee. That's O L L I e.com/CrimeJunkie and enter code CRIMEJunkie to get 70% off your first box. Ollie Feed the Obsession. The controversy in Carmen's case all started in 2015. When the results from the DNA test come back. Carter remembers the cold case sergeant coming by his desk and saying, well, you know, we got a problem. Our killer is a European female.

[Britt]

The original profile was developed from a semen sample. How is that even possible?

[Ashley Flowers]

It's not like it turns out the city sent the wrong sample to the lab. What they likely tested was Carmen's own DNA.

[Britt]

I'm sorry, how does that even happen?

[Ashley Flowers]

Not totally clear. I don't know if this has anything to do with the fact that like early on, they sent her profile to codis.

[Britt]

That's like where my mind immediately went.

[Ashley Flowers]

All Sergeant Carter can assume is that the people who send off the DNA somehow got mixed up. Whatever. Human error. People make mistakes, right? Luckily, this isn't one where we like used up the last sample or anything. We just like go back and do it. Again.

[Britt]

Yeah.

[Ashley Flowers]

Well, when Sergeant Carter asks for another test, he gets shut down. Officials tell him that they won't pay for the test, that they don't usually cover this particular kind of testing anyway, and that the first time they did it was actually a mistake. And this would typically be the point where most investigators would give up or move on. But if it's not already clear, Bill Carter is not most investigators. He gets this idea to crowdsource the funds for the DNA tests himself. He knew that the police department had crowdsourced donations in the past when a police horse with skin cancer needed surgery. So he thinks, I mean, if we can do it for a horse, surely we could do it for Carmen. Like, the logic is sound, right?

[Britt]

Yeah.

[Ashley Flowers]

So Sergeant Carter creates this GoFundMe page, and in just seven hours, he raises over twelve hundred dollars. He only needs 996 for the test. So he says that after paying for the testing, pays the bill, he'll donate the rest of the money to Crime Stoppers. But he never gets the chance to give any money to anyone because almost as quickly as Sergeant Carter raised the funds, IMPD Makes him send it all back, and they remove him from Carmen's case.

[Britt]

Why? Like, what is happening right now? He's, like, the only one doing any considerable work on this.

[Ashley Flowers]

So, according to The Indianapolis Star, IMPD says that Sergeant Carter's removal had nothing to do with the GoFundMe. And he was removed after a review of departmental assignments and procedures.

[Britt]

Interesting timing.

[Ashley Flowers]

Officials go on to say that Sergeant Carter is not a member of the cold case squad, and Carter, quote, we just want to make sure that people stay in their lanes. We have cold case investigators, and we want to let them do their job. End quote.

[Britt]

Stay in their lanes. Just to be clear, correct me if I'm wrong, no one was working on Carmen's case. Right? Like, that lane was pretty empty. Literally. He's doing the job that no one else wanted or had time to do. You know, just to get a murderer off the streets.

[Ashley Flowers]

Who might still be out there, by the way.

[Britt]

No big deal. Help a family and all in his spare time, right? Like free time. Does his? Dude should be getting a promotion.

[Ashley Flowers]

Well, there's no promotion. It actually goes the other way for him. He gets slapped with a 10 day suspension. Carter told our reporter Nicole, that before this, he had never been disciplined before. I mean, this guy was by the books, hardworking. I mean, he'd only taken four hours of sick time in his entire career, and now he is getting punished for what he thought was doing the right

[Britt]

thing, which, like, to be fair, was the right thing. And this, like, not just what he thought.

[Ashley Flowers]

This is the bull politics of policing, that I have zero patience for your toes and your fragile egos. What's the right thing to do by Carmen? What is the right thing to do by her family? That is what matters. And everything else that gets in the way of the right thing is the wrong thing. I am so sick of this world playing sides and angles. There is right and there is a wrong. And I am losing my mind watching everyone lose sight of that. Especially with my tax dollars.

[Britt]

Right?

[Ashley Flowers]

And however upset I am, Carmen's family was infuriated tenfold. Carmen's brother is quoted in the news saying, the only person that's ever made any progress is Bill Carter. And if Carter's off the case, the case is over. So coming out of this, Carmen's family actually makes an online petition to get Sergeant Carter reinstated, which quickly gets over 500 signatures. And IMPD doesn't say whether it's this petition or something else. But within days, they totally walk back on reports that they pulled Sergeant Carter from the case and say that he's still working it.

[Britt]

And see, this is why public pressure and attention matter. It's like holding public service agencies accountable. Yes, like it makes things happen.

[Ashley Flowers]

But pay attention to the details. What do we say? Always go a layer deeper. Because that one shiny article that says, nevermind, nothing to see here isn't the end all be all. Sergeant Carter is back on the case. But like, back on is very, very much in quotation marks. IMPD still returns all of the donations that he raised, saying that they will look into whether or not the test is really needed. And at this point, Sergeant Carter wants to help, but I mean, he also doesn't want to lose his job. You know, I mean, he'd already interviewed tons of people, gotten dozens of DNA samples, and without this next test, there is not much more he can do to actually work this case. He keeps collecting samples when he can, and he gets a list of everyone living in Carmen's apartment complex when she was killed. But this is the point where the case kind of stalls. But this is where we have to work together, build off each other's work. Carter might have felt like he failed or that the system was against him, but it was against him in such a big way that it got my attention. The news about him having to give the money back and no testing being done is what made me pay attention to this case. Before Crime Junkie was A thing. Or actually, it was like, right at the time we decided to make this a thing as I was working on our first episode. I don't know what undeserved confidence came over me, but I just cold emailed this man on October 17, 2017, and

[Britt]

I were in the thick of it

[Ashley Flowers]

then, dude, I went back in my emails and I found it. I wanted to die. I'm reading it. Of course I'm going to have you read it.

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This is like.

[Ashley Flowers]

Yeah, I gave it to you.

[Britt]

Okay. Detective Sergeant Carter.

[Ashley Flowers]

Which, by the way, I don't even know if he was officially a detective. He's a sergeant.

[Britt]

You're just going for it. I love it. My name is Ashley, and I am on the board of directors at Crime Stoppers. You were very proud of that, obviously.

[Ashley Flowers]

It's, like, the only one I have.

[Britt]

I'm working on a new type of media outreach for them to draw attention to cold and unsolved cases in Indianapolis. There are two cases high on my priority list. Carmen Van hus and Linda McDaniel. I know you are not a cold case detective, but your name has been mentioned in media articles regarding both women. I wanted to see if I could buy you a coffee or beer sometime. I'd love to tell you what I'm trying to do, and if you think you can help, great. If not, no harm in a meeting. Would you be open to that girl I know.

[Ashley Flowers]

God bless. That man met me for lunch. There wasn't much he could do back then. Like, the water was still hot. Yeah, but talking to him about Carmen's case, like, what needed to be done, that is what planted the seed. It took years to grow, but that conversation was the inspiration behind Season of Justice, the nonprofit that I founded. How could we be this close to progressing a case and have funding be the only thing that's stopping us? So when I started Season of Justice, I told our director at the time, like, this is the case. We have to get IMPD on board to let us help fund testing. Well, little did I know they had already started. In 2018, they sent a DNA sample to Parabon Nanolabs to get a genetic genealogy assessment. And do, like, one of those snapshot things. Yeah, tell me the physical traits of our perpetual. And in 2019, one of the cold case detectives shares with Carter, who's now a lieutenant, that as a result of the testing, Parabon is able to conclude that the DNA sample belongs to a black man, which helps narrow down their suspect pool. So Lt. Carter, who has no genealogical background by the way starts trying to build out his own family tree for this, based on the DNA matches from Parabon's profile. And over the next year, he spends his time traveling all over the country to talk to people and try and get reference samples to continue narrowing them down. But the DNA matches that he's working with are, like, very distantly connected to Carmen's attacker. We're talking, like, fourth generation distant, he said. And one of these trees has 2,800 people on it. But he is still desperate to figure this case out. So by now, where he's at, it's 2020. And turns out Season of Justice can help after all. Soj steps in with a grant to fund 15 hours of genealogical research and cover the fee to upload the suspect's DNA profile to another online database. And that is how, after almost a decade of working on this case, Lt. Carter finally gets what he calls the magic hit. On June 2, 2023, Parabon reaches out to Carter, now a captain.

[Britt]

At least someone's recognizing this guy's work at this point.

[Ashley Flowers]

I know. And Parabon says that they may have found a close relative to their person of interest. Apparently, a great niece, once removed from the suspect, had uploaded her DNA to 23andMe, but that's as far as they could go with the grant. And again, he has no genealogical training whatsoever. So he taps impd nuisance abatement analyst Meera Patel, who is more familiar with open source databases, and she starts investigating this relative and her family. And this work brings the investigation the closest it's ever been to a name. Meera concludes that Carmen's attacker is possibly related to these two brothers with the last name Shepard. And Shepard rings a bell. Remember that list Captain Carter got of the people who lived in Carmen's apartment complex at the time of her murder? Both brothers are on it. Captain Carter and Meera actually go out to the apartment complex to see just how close their apartment would have been to Carmen's. It takes them like, 30 seconds to get from one to the other. I mean, the apartments are connected by a common area, which, by the way, includes the laundry room.

[Britt]

So she probably did make it there that night.

[Ashley Flowers]

I think that makes the most sense because from speaking to her family and friends, the only connection that these two brothers had to Carmen was living in the same complex. So on February 7, 2024, Captain Carter meets with the IMPD Cold Case Unit to share what he and Meera have found and to suggest that they get warrants to obtain swabs and fingerprints from Dana Shepherd.

[Britt]

And why just the one brother?

[Ashley Flowers]

Well, according to Captain Carter, they only started with Dana simply because he was living closer. He was living in Missouri, working as a university custodian, and his brother had moved even further south. So they'll start there, right? IMPD's warrant is granted by the Boone county judge in Missouri, and on February 15th, they serve it to Dana on the University of Missouri campus. Police tell him that they need to eliminate him as a suspect in an assault case. And according to police records, Dana is, like, visibly shaking as he reads the warrant. And he tells police that he has not done anything for a long time. And then he keeps asking if this warrant is from Missouri.

[Britt]

And at this point, it sounds like they went to the Wright brother first.

[Ashley Flowers]

Four months later, they're sure of it. Dana's DNA matches the DNA in Carmen's case. So on August 30, 2024, 31 years after Carmen's death, Dana Sheppard is arrested in Missouri on charges of murder and rape with deadly force. When the charges are announced at an IMPD press conference, Carmen's younger brother, Jimmy Van Hus, gets the chance to say a few words.

[Jimmy Van Hus]

From the bottom of my heart and on behalf of my dad and our entire family, I want to say thank you to Bill and Mira and every single person that had a hand in this. There's a lot of people that put in a lot of work for a lot of years into every single one. We're all very, very thankful. There's a lot of people that miss Carmen all these years. She had a lot of family, a lot of friends. She had cousins that loved her like sisters. She had aunt and uncle that loved her like a daughter. She wasn't able to experience her college graduation or have a wedding or any of life's events that she missed out on. We were coming a lot closer just as she was taken from us. For my dad to have to find his daughter after what was brutally done to her makes this day bittersweet. I wish she was here to see it. She was taken from me when I was a freshman in high school. And I'm thankful that finally the man that did it is where he needs to be. I do have hope that any similar case with DNA can get this same treatment. With the genealogy and everything we have available today, I want all of them to get the same attention and get maybe we can have some more outcomes like this. I think that's it.

[Ashley Flowers]

Dana pled not guilty at his arraignment, and as of this recording, he has been Extradited to an Indianapolis jail, where he's awaiting his trial that is set to begin right around the corner. January 26, 2026. And in a huge win for Carmen's family, the prosecution recently decided that Captain Bill Carter will be the lead detective for the prosecution in this case, rather than one of IMPD's Cold Case Unit guys, which the family is thrilled about, because they know that at this point, nobody knows this case as well as Captain Carter does.

[Britt]

Well, and he's really the person who cares the most, too, right?

[Ashley Flowers]

Yeah. I mean, their best chance is with him. He's gonna. He's gonna get on the stand and, like, there's me, no him hauling ums like he knows this case.

[Britt]

Yeah. Do you think there's anything more that's gonna happen at trial? Like, any more of a connection? Any more of a. There's never a reason, but, like, any more of a reason?

[Ashley Flowers]

I don't know. I'm finding more and more with these genealogy cases. There are no answers or, like, no satisfying ones, at least. But I don't know what the trial's gonna reveal. Carmen's family and friends that we spoke to had never even heard Dana's name before. But after Pam learned that he lived in the same apartment complex as Carmen, she said that it made sense. Sense to her. She told our reporter Nicole, that if Carmen ran into somebody in her building, she would definitely have been friendly with them. So her guess is that Carmen and Dana had probably seen each other around maybe a few times, and she can imagine a scenario where on the night of the murder, the two ran into each other, maybe in the laundry room, and Dana, who was 20 at the time, about the same age, asked to hang out. Pam said that it wouldn't have been surprising at all for Carmen to agree and let him come to her apartment.

[Britt]

And what about the. Like, the possible food for three? Is there someone else in the mix here that we might not know about?

[Ashley Flowers]

Well, Nicole asked Captain Carter about that, and he said that there were two subway cups on Carmen's table and then a bag from a pizza place. But he said it wasn't clear to him that those items were purchased that night or even that they were used that night. Investigators didn't find any actual food at the table, and no receipts or anything were found either. So if they were found or stuff like that was found, nobody documented it or collected them. So when it comes to the official record, the details of Carmen's last night are still technically unknown.

[Britt]

And what do we know about Dana? Like, did he have any kind of record or history? I mean, was this guy truly, like, squeaky clean?

[Ashley Flowers]

I mean, not squeaky, but nothing like what you'd expect, knowing what happened to Carmen. I mean, the sample from Carmen's case before it was tied to him never matched any other cases in. In codis. And Carter did go through and check to see if there were any unsolved cases not in CODIS that Dana might have been connected to, but there was nothing that he found. What I know is that Dana was arrested a few times in, like, the 90s and early 2000s, mostly for nonviolent offenses. Though in 1996, he was arrested for battery on a woman who he'd had a child with four years earlier. He was found guilty, but walked out free with time served. After that, he moved out of Indiana, got married, had more kids, grandchildren even, and then started working as a custodian at the University of Missouri.

[Britt]

And what does his family say?

[Ashley Flowers]

Well, so he's got a big family. Dana is the youngest of 10 children. Nicole was able to speak to his mom, Jesse, and then two of his sisters, Denise and Yvette. And when they heard about Dana being charged, they said they were completely shocked. They had never heard of Dana doing anything like that before or being violent towards anyone. And they also said they had never heard of Carmen until Dana was arrested.

[Britt]

What about the siblings who lived in the apartment complex with him? Did they see him that night?

[Ashley Flowers]

So there were actually four shepherd children that lived there in total. They all had separate units, though. The brother that Dana was closest to didn't want to talk to us for this episode, but Denise, she was one of the ones who lived there. She told Nicole that she doesn't remember seeing Dana or Carmen that night or hearing anything out of the ordinary at all. She said to her knowledge, Dana didn't use drugs and said that she doesn't think that he could be capable of something like Carmen's attack. And I only mentioned the drug thing because the attack at the time, it was so brutal that they've kind of always assumed that whoever killed her was on drugs. But, I mean, they also thought Carmen knew her killer, so maybe the drug thing was wrong, too. Dana's mom just reiterated everything that his sister said, and it seems like they believe he's innocent.

[Britt]

I mean, have any of them asked him about it, like, straight up?

[Ashley Flowers]

They have been talking to him in jail over the phone, but they said that they don't talk about the case. And we tried reaching out to Dana's attorney for comment Whether they, you know, let us talk to him or the attorney would say something. But as of this recording, we haven't heard back from him or his attorney. After almost 33 years, Carmen's family is the closest that they have ever been to getting closure. But Pam says that, strangely, with all that's happening in the media and in the courts, she has felt farther from her sister lately, almost like her memory has become her murder. So recently, she's been trying to reconnect with Carmen the person rather than Carmen the case. And she does this by reading her diary entries and looking back on photos that they have together and to make sure that no other families have to endure the pain of waiting for answers that feel like they're never going to come. Pam is actually working to get a bill passed in Carmen's honor that will create a formal process in Indiana for families, not just law enforcement, to request advanced DNA testing in their loved ones cold cases. So what you just heard was right around where we ended our original episode. And now I'm hopping in with two major updates. First and foremost, if you follow us on social media, you know that we were all set to cover this trial in person when less than a week before the jury selection was slated to begin. In a move that no one saw coming, Dana shepherd decided to take a plea deal. On January 23rd of this year, 2026, our reporter Nicole was in the courtroom when Dana pled guilty to one count of murder and was sentenced to 45 years at the Indiana Department of Corrections. While handing down the sentence, the presiding judge actually said, this case, Carmen's case, was the worst he's seen. Now, what this plea deal means is that Dana accepted responsibility for Carmen's murder in the eyes of the law. But per the agreement reached with the state, the second murder charge and the charge of rape with a deadly weapon were both dropped. The plea also means that Dana doesn't have to ever get on the stand or make his case for what exactly happened on March 23, 1993. Which still leaves us, and more importantly, Carmen's family, with a lot of unanswered questions. They told us it's sort of bittersweet. In a statement, Carmen's sister Pam said, quote, while this plea deal was not our first choice, we are grateful that after 33 years, the man responsible for Carmen's brutal rape and murder is finally being held accountable. For decades, the perpetrator was able to live a normal life. After taking that right away from Carmen and from our family, Nothing can undo that loss or erase the injustice of him living freely for so long. But we are thankful that the truth has finally come to light and that he has not escaped justice. That justice is what has been fueling Pam. Justice for Carmen and justice for other families who are in the same position she was. Which brings me to update number two. That bill that Pam was working on to expand access to advanced DNA testing for cold cases, Carmen's Law, it was passed unanimously by the Indiana State Senate and in March it was signed into law by the Governor. That means that there will now be an established framework for private funding of advanced DNA testing in all cases that have gone unsolved for five or more years. And it's due to the tireless efforts of Carmen's sister Pam, who championed this bill not only on behalf of her sister, but also for all of the other families out there who will no longer have to feel powerless like her and her family did for so long. We are going to link to more information about this bill and all of the source material for this episode on our website, Crime Junkie and be the first to know about updates in any of the cases we've covered by following us on Instagram @CrimeJunkie podcast and you guys, we will be back next week with a brand new episode. Crime Junkie is an audio Chuck production. I think Chuck would approve.

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