Jeffrey Dale Nichols (6 of Diamonds, Utah)

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Deck – Jeffrey Dale Nichols (6 of Diamonds, Utah)
Host: Ashley Flowers (Audiochuck)
Date: March 11, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Deck explores the cold case disappearance of Jeffrey Dale Nichols, the "6 of Diamonds" from Utah, who vanished the morning of June 8, 2004. The show chronicles the confusing and contentious events leading up to Jeff's disappearance, the complicated relationships involved—especially with his ex-wife Shelby—and the twists, dead ends, and possible missed clues that have haunted the case for over two decades. Through interviews with family, ex-girlfriend Carla Eddy, investigators, and an in-depth review of case files and phone records, host Ashley Flowers aims to expose not only what went wrong in the investigation, but also the human toll of an unsolved mystery.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Last Morning: Conflicting Arrangements

• [00:00–08:31]
  • Carla Eddy recounts her final calls with Jeff, who was supposed to meet ex-wife Shelby regarding golf clubs or, per Shelby, for a "family meeting" at McDonald's. Carla describes her increasing panic when Jeff never checked in or returned calls.
    • Quote (Carla Eddy, 02:08): "That is the last time I actually spoke to him."
• Shelby later calls Carla, acting concerned after allegedly being notified by their son's school, but omits discussion of the meeting.
• Jeff had told Carla weeks earlier that if he ever went missing, "Shelby and her father Vernon Brown had something to do with it."

Reporting Jeff Missing & Initial Police Response

• [05:57]
  • Carla describes frustration and dismissal from Detective Carl Marino at Salt Lake City PD.
    • Quote (Carla Eddy, 05:57): "He said to me, 'you are a jilted girlfriend. Would you just get over it?...People do this all the time.' I was shocked, to say the least."
• Jeff’s family and friends launch their own search, hire a private investigator, and his brother searches via plane.

Early Investigations and Shelby’s Attorney

• [09:16–11:31]
  • Detective Marino calls Shelby; she immediately invokes her right to an attorney and refuses to speak.
  • Private Investigator Richard Romano reaches Shelby, who claims the meeting was for family matters, not golf clubs, and denies seeing Jeff. On a subsequent visit, Shelby passes a murder attorney's business card and refuses to cooperate.

Jeff & Shelby’s Contentious Relationship

• [14:15–21:52]
  • Shelby’s official statement (with her attorney present) details a confusing account of the morning, contradicting what Jeff had told Carla, and omits references to golf clubs.
  • Shelby presents a "burn book" containing damaging but unsubstantiated claims about Jeff (drug use, sexuality, parental alienation).
  • Jeff’s sister Wanda verifies there were no complaints about Jeff to child services or the school. She shares evidence of escalating conflict: custody disputes, financial fraud allegations, and fights over money, including the forging and cashing of checks by Shelby and her father.

Financial & Legal Tensions Before Disappearance

• [19:35–21:52]
  • Shelby files a protective order citing abuse and threats—a retaliatory move following fraud allegations. Jeff files counter-claims and seeks custody.
  • Shelby files for bankruptcy in March 2004, concealing over $39,000, later resulting in federal indictment (after Jeff’s disappearance).

The Investigation Stalls

• [23:08–26:37]
  • Police subpoena phone records, which seem to corroborate parts of Shelby's timeline, but overlook key discrepancies with tower locations and call timings noted by Wanda.
  • Jeff's truck is found towed from an apartment complex around July, a month after his disappearance, with no significant forensic evidence inside.

International Move & Faded Lead

• [28:02–29:00]
  • After her one interview with police, Shelby moves to Arizona and then, along with her parents and son, to Ireland—effectively removing herself from the U.S. investigation, and making her and her son unreachable for further questioning.

Missed Interviews & Late Investigative Discoveries

• [29:00–31:45]
  • Carla is interviewed by a detective in 2010 for the first time, revealing that investigators confused photos of a neighbor’s apartment (containing drug paraphernalia) for Jeff’s, mistakenly bolstering Shelby’s claim that Jeff was a drug user.

The “Burn Book” and Patterns of Malice

• [35:24–37:06]
  • Wanda recounts Shelby’s descriptions of a revenge "burn book" that she filled with dirt on ex-partners, enabled and encouraged by her father Vernon—accounting for Shelby’s manipulative behaviors and the tactics later used against Jeff.
  • Wanda discovers that Shelby fabricated stories about previous revenge tactics.

Missed Law Enforcement Opportunities

• [37:06–38:33]
  • Shelby returns to the U.S. in 2009 for her bankruptcy trial and is briefly jailed, but local investigators do not attempt to question her about Jeff’s disappearance during this opportunity.
  • A 2010 search of Vernon’s former business warehouse yields no evidence.

The 20-Year Clue Hidden in Phone Logs

• [40:05–41:54]
  • A crucial revelation: reporter Regine Wright reviews Jeff’s cell logs and discovers a key 6:34am call from Shelby was coded MF (mobile forwarded)—meaning it went directly to Jeff’s voicemail. Shelby had claimed the two spoke, but records show they never connected.
    • Quote ([41:49] Detective Parks): "Well, that would mean that Shelby lied then, wouldn't it?"
• Detective Parks says this new information could provide leverage if Shelby can ever be re-interviewed.

Family Legacy and Ongoing Heartache

• [42:17–43:18]
  • Wanda details the family's lasting grief, recalling Jeff’s humor and kindness as a father. Carla remembers Jeff as joyful and devoted to his son.
    • Quote ([42:58] Carla Eddy): "Fun lovin’, happy-go-lucky man that absolutely adored his little boy… If you ever see this, you know that your dad loved you more than life itself."

Reflections on "What Ifs"

• [39:26–40:05]
  • Detective Parks laments that today’s technology (cell videos, license plate readers, GPS) could have led to a swifter resolution, and reflects on how more thorough early police work could have also changed the case’s trajectory.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

Early Dismissal by Police

• "You are a jilted girlfriend. Would you just get over it?...He’ll be back when he’s ready." —Detective Marino (paraphrased by Carla, [05:57])

Contradictory Accounts

• “Shelby said… the meeting was supposed to be at a McDonald's…But Jeff never showed.” —Detective Parks ([14:15])
• “I answered the phone and Shelby was acting like this, oh, so concerned mother…they told me that you’d been there looking for Sam and Jeff.” —Carla ([08:10])

Revelation About Investigation’s Flaw

• "That’s not Jeff’s house…That was not Jeff’s house. And the guy was like, oh, my gosh." —Carla ([30:14])

Burn Book Lore

• “She just always had, like, a front, like, really tough. And I remember her telling us about a revenge book that her and her father shared.” —Wanda ([35:24])

Critical Call Log Discovery

• “That would mean that Shelby lied then, wouldn’t it?” —Det. Parks ([41:49])

On Family Pain & Memory

• “He was always like telling jokes and corny jokes.” —Wanda ([42:50])
• “Fun lovin’, happy-go-lucky man that absolutely adored his little boy, Samuel Nichols.” —Carla ([42:58])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00–04:51 – Carla’s last morning with Jeff, her search for him
• 05:57 – Carla’s initial dismissal by police
• 09:16–11:31 – Private investigator’s encounter with Shelby
• 14:15–17:08 – Shelby’s first official statement, introduction of burn book
• 19:21–21:52 – Financial, legal battles; Shelby’s bankruptcy and fraud
• 23:08–26:37 – Examination of phone records, discovery of Jeff’s truck
• 28:02–29:00 – Shelby and family abscond to Ireland
• 29:00–31:45 – Carla finally interviewed; investigative blunders revealed
• 35:24–36:58 – Wanda’s recounting of Shelby and Vernon’s “burn book”
• 39:26–40:05 – Detective Parks, “If this were reported today…”
• 40:05–41:54 – Revelation about call log discrepancy: the voicemail clue
• 42:17–43:18 – Family’s grief and remembrance

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Tone and Style

The episode is methodical yet emotionally charged, mirroring Ashley Flowers’ blend of investigative rigor and empathy. The tone shifts from dry police indifference, to mounting familial concern, to the frustration and heartbreak that lingers decades later.

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Final Call to Action

If you have information about the disappearance of Jeffrey Dale Nichols or the location of his remains, please contact Salt Lake City Police Department at 801-799-3000.

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Summary

Through interviews and case materials, the episode underscores the consequences of investigative missteps, the dangers of manipulation in contentious divorces, and a family’s enduring hope for answers. The discovery of an overlooked call log code—that Shelby’s key claim was a lie—may be a crucial step forward, but unless new witnesses or evidence emerges, the case remains cold, leaving Jeff’s loved ones with only memories and unanswered questions.

Transcript

[Narrator]

Whispers in the dark. Phenomenon that slip past logic. Legends that refuse to die when the unknown stirs. Its trail leads to our podcast, so Supernatural. I'm Yvette Gentile. And I'm her sister Racha Pecorero. Together we explore all of the world's most bizarre mysteries. Listen to so Supernatural every Friday, wherever you get your podcasts. Our card this week is Jeffrey dale Nichols. The six of diamonds from Utah. Early one June morning in 2004, Jeffrey Nichols told his girlfriend that he was meeting his ex wife in a shopping center parking lot to buy a set of golf clubs. But his ex wife told police that they were getting together at a McDonald's for a family meeting. No matter which version is true, one thing is for certain. After the morning of June 8, 2004, Jeff was never seen again. And not only does his story include an honest to God real life burn book, we also found a clue that had been sitting in plain sight for the past 20 years that just might prove someone is lying. I'm Ashley Flowers and this is the deck. On the morning of June 8, 2004, Karla Eddy was up early. Her boyfriend Jeff had asked her to give him a 5am wake up call so he could go meet his ex wife Shelby about a set of golf clubs that she'd gotten a lead on.

[Carla Eddy]

She had a client that was needing some extra cash and had a set of golf clubs. And Jeff was an avid golfer and whatever these clubs were, I knew nothing about golf, so I don't know. But they were this fancy set and they were super expensive. But they were going to sell them to him for 200 or $300. So I called him and he says, carla, I am so tired. Could you call me back in 15 minutes? And you know, just kind of like a snooze on my alarm clock. I said sure. Well, I forgot to call him. So it was half an hour later I called and I'm like, oh my gosh, Jeff, sorry I forgot to call you. Hurry, get up. And you know you gotta get up. So obviously he got up in a panic because I forgot to call him. And that is the last time I actually spoke to him.

[Narrator]

Of course, Carla didn't know it would be the last time. She just thought Jeff would call her on his way to work after he met up with Shelby in the parking lot at 4570 South street in Murray, Utah. When Carla didn't hear from him that morning, she thought maybe he'd gotten a little too excited about the new clubs and played hooky. So he could test them out. But with every call to him that went unanswered, she questioned that conclusion.

[Carla Eddy]

So I called him and I said, hey, where are you? Did you leave and go golfing instead? You know, not go to work. And never heard from him. So later in the day, I don't know how many times I text and called, and they never got through. So then later in the day, I went to the gym, and I thought, okay, when I get out of the gym, he'll call. Never heard from him. So of course I'm calling again and don't hear from him. And then probably 9 o' clock that night, I started just getting the creeps. And I thought, you know, you know what? Something's wrong. Something's happened to him.

[Narrator]

Karla got in her car and drove about 60 miles from her house in Brigham City, Utah, to Jeff's place in Salt Lake City. She had a key to his duplex, so when Jeff didn't answer the door, she let herself in.

[Carla Eddy]

And I went in, and nothing was misplaced. All of his clothes were there. All of his medication was there. All of his. I mean, everything was there. Like, he left in a hurry. His bed wasn't made, which was unusual. His lunchbox was still sitting on the floor because obviously he didn't have time to make his lunch. Because I called him late, and I just walked around looking at everything going, where is he? What happened to him?

[Narrator]

That's when Carla decided to look for Jeff. The last place she knew he was going, that parking lot where he was supposed to pick up those golf clubs.

[Carla Eddy]

I actually drove down to that parking lot and drove around and looked, and I started getting the heebie jeebies. And I'm thinking, you know, you're a dumb girl all by yourself down here.

[Narrator]

There was no sign of Jeff or his truck, a 2000 Ford Ranger super cab. So Carla called a friend in another county who worked with search and rescue. That friend told her that she couldn't file a missing persons report until Jeff had been MIA for at least 24 hours. So while those hours ticked by, car. She hit the phones. Carla called local hospitals, police departments, even morgues, to see if anyone had made contact with Jeff. But there was nothing. The next morning, Carla called Jeff's boss, and when she learned that he hadn't seen or heard from Jeff either, that's when she called Salt Lake City PD to file a missing persons report. Carla's memory of what the officer told her on the phone is fuzzy, but she remembered going to the police department and speaking to Detective Carl Marino. That is a meeting that she doesn't remember fondly.

[Carla Eddy]

He was just arrogant and almost like I had no right to be there. Like, this is stupid. What are you doing here? And I said, you know, he's missing. This is uncharacteristic of him. He would not do this. His boss even said, you know, that this is weird. And the guy's just looking at me like, come on, come on, get it over with. Like, he was. He couldn't wait to get away from me. And he said to me, you are a jilted girlfriend. Would you just get over it? He's a big guy. He's just fine. He'll be back when he's ready to come back. People do this all the time. Just get over it. I was shocked, to say the least.

[Narrator]

Carla couldn't just get over it. And she didn't know where this jilted lover stuff was coming from. She and Jeff had been together for nearly a year. After meeting on a dating website in August of 2003 when they met, Jeff was separated from his wife, Shelby. Their divorce was finalized later that year. And by the following March, Carla and Jeff were talking about living together or even getting married.

[Carla Eddy]

Jeff was fun. Jeff was a breath of fresh air. He was happy, go lucky. Just a good guy. And very giving, very loving, very affectionate. He was really just kind of a dream.

[Narrator]

Now, that's not to say everything was easy for them. Jeff and his ex Shelby shared custody of their seven year old son, Sam, which meant Jeff wasn't willing to totally sever communication with Shelby. Even after their post divorce relationship got contentious. Sometimes Carla would hear Shelby scream at Jeff over the phone, but he just had to put up with it for his son. And his son is the reason Carla knew Jeff didn't just take off. He would never leave Sam. So when she checked with Sam's school and found out that he'd been attending classes as normal, she knew she needed to start notifying his family. So she called Jeff's sister from his duplex and left word with Jeff's brother in law. And when Jeff's phone rang later, it wasn't his sister calling, but his ex, Shelby.

[Carla Eddy]

I answered the phone and Shelby was acting like this, oh, so concerned mother. And oh my gosh, I hear Jeff's missing. Do you know where he is? What happened to him? And I'm like, how do you know? And she says, well, the school called me. They told me that you'd been there looking for Sam and Jeff.

[Narrator]

Shelby didn't mention anything about the planned meeting with Jeff or ask Carla when she last spoke to him. Which is odd, considering Jeff was the father of her son. And in the back of Carla's mind, she remembered something Jeff had said to her just weeks before. At the end of May, he told her if he ever went missing, Shelby and her father, Vernon Brown, had something to to do with it. The day after Carla's initial report, SLCPD Detective Carl Marino was officially assigned Jeff's case. Cold case consultant and former detective Corden Parks told our reporter that one of the first things Detective Marino did was give Shelby a call.

[Detective Corden Parks]

He made an attempt to contact her to find out if she was present at this meeting that she was supposed to be involved in. And she immediately invoked her rights to an attorney, would not answer Moreno's calls or contact him.

[Narrator]

While Shelby was dodging police, Carla was joining a search party organized by Jeff's co workers.

[Carla Eddy]

The co workers and I all got together, and we plotted the whole grid of Salt Lake around 4500 South. And we each took a grid and drove through every parking lot and every street we could to see if we could find his truck. And we never found it.

[Narrator]

Jeff's family was involved, too. They flew into Salt Lake City and hired a private investigator to push for answers. And concerned that Jeff could have driven off the road or into a ravine, his brother, a pilot, flew a private plane to search the area. Now, we were obviously interested in what the private investigator, Richard Romano, was able to find out, but sadly, he passed away in 2022. Lucky for us, though, Jeff's sister, Wanda Schmidt, still had the report that he wrote, and she gave us a copy. The first thing that caught my attention was that the private investigator, unlike police, was able to get Jeff's ex wife, Shelby on the phone. According to Richard's notes, Shelby told him that she was supposed to meet Jeff the morning of June 8th at McDonald's for a, quote, family meeting. But Jeff never showed. When Richard tried to talk to Shelby for a second time in person at her House on June 10, that's when he had about as much luck as police. She refused to speak to him. Carla remembers Richard describing the interaction as troubling.

[Carla Eddy]

She only opened the door a crack, and when they asked her about Jeff or anything, she sticks a business card through the door and says, I've got nothing to say about this. You need to call my attorney, and you need to leave me alone. You're harassing me, and slams the door. Well, they look at the card. It's A murder attorney in Salt Lake. Why did you hire a murder attorney? Like what?

[Narrator]

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[Detective Corden Parks]

Shelby said they were required to have a, quote, family meeting every month with Shelby and Jeffrey and their son. And usually that took place in a dinner setting. But for some reason, this meeting was arranged for early morning hours, 6am on 8 June. And her statement is that the meeting was supposed to be at a McDonald's at 7200 south and 700 east in Midville.

[Narrator]

This is the same story Shelby gave the PI and of course, is not what Jeff told Carla he was doing that morning. I looked this McDonald's up, and it's almost five miles from where Jeff told Carla that he was supposed to meet Shelby. We're talking about two completely different locations. And Shelby's account didn't include any mention of golf clubs. Now, Shelby went on to explain that Jeff just never showed up. But she did say that she spoke to him.

[Detective Corden Parks]

He called her early, 6:03am I believe, and he said, where are you? You know, and she told him, well, we're at the McDonald's waiting. And he said, oh, I'm in the wrong place. And then they hung up. And he was supposed to be en route to the McDonald's from 4500 south, stayed in Sutley. He never arrived. And so she called him back some minutes later, about half an hour later, he called her back, or she called him back to see where he was. And he said something had come up and he wasn't going to make the move. And that was the last contact anybody had with Jeffrey.

[Narrator]

During the meeting with Detective Marino, Shelby also whipped out a giant binder. And we have copies of some of the documents that she had saved in there. And it reads as kind of a burn book. On the first page, Shelby included a letter to the detective explaining that the documents in it were all gathered as part of her divorce and custody battle with Jeff, which explains why they're so explosive.

[Detective Corden Parks]

She made a lot of claims about Jeff, and one claim that she made was that he was a drug user. He liked cocaine, and he used cocaine to reduce his stress. And she described in detail how he beat the regular routine drug tests that the FAA gives their employees. She also insinuated that he was closet homosexual. She made statements in the binder that she had caught Jeffrey lying about going out of town to one location, when in fact, Jeffrey actually went To San Francisco and frequented gay bars. And she made another statement about Jeffrey, and that was that he was being inappropriate with their son, not sexually, but that he was trying to poison the son's mind against Shelby.

[Narrator]

We can't say for certain what police did to verify or dispute any of these claims, but we do know that Jeff's family independently tried to get to the bottom of some of them. Our reporter spoke to Jeff's sister, Wanda Schmidt, at length. She's essentially done her own investigation into her brother's disappearance. She said her interactions with law enforcement didn't leave her with a lot of hope.

[Wanda Schmidt]

My interaction with the police was. It was like an argument. I was trying to convince them that something was wrong. And this is already two to three

[Narrator]

weeks after Wanda told us that she went so far as to contact both Sam's school and the Utah department of child and family services to see if any claims, complaints, or concerns had been filed about Sam or his father. She found nothing. But Wanda was well aware of how contentious Jeff and Shelby's communications had become. In an interview with our reporting team, Wanda shared a number of documents that paint a troubling picture of the months leading up to Jeff's disappearance. Vicious emails back and forth about their custody battle, and sometimes just personal attacks. Additional records show that Shelby and Jeff had been fighting about money since the divorce. And when I say fighting about money, I don't mean just griping about child support. I mean possible fraud. Wanda told us that back in February 2003, this is 16 months before Jeff's disappearance, Jeff found out that two checks had been cashed against his home equity line of credit, But Jeff hadn't written them. One was for $5,000 and one was for $50. What Jeff learned was that in December 2002, a man had called the bank and requested that checks for the account be rushed delivered. This man correctly answered all of Jeff's security questions, and four days later, voila. UPS delivered the checks to a woman at the address the man had provided. About a week later, those checks were written and cashed against the line of credit.

[Wanda Schmidt]

So he filed a complaint because he knew it was Shelby and her dad that did it. Someone, a male, called the bank, got the checks on the equity line and some. And Shelby was really good at forging his name.

[Narrator]

On Jeff's end, nothing ever came from the complaint. But within a week, Shelby filed a protective order against Jeff. In a four and a half page letter, she accused Jeff of abandonment, Violent outbursts, death threats, substance abuse, and causing Sam to have Nightmares similar to the claims that were in her binder when she talked to Detective Marino in 2004, she requested that any contact with Sam be supervised by her father. Within a week of that, Jeff had hired a lawyer and responded to the protective order. In his almost 10 page response, Jeff flat out denied Shelby's claims, saying that he never abused or threatened her and that he financially supported her and Sam even after their marriage dissolved. In fact, he countered that Shelby and her parents, Vernon and Barbara Brown, were the ones that could be engaging in fraud and manipulation, and said that he intended to fight for custody of Sam in lieu of the protective order. A mutually agreed upon restraining order was issued the first week in March, and it prevented Shelby and Jeff from committing any kind of abuse against each other. It also barred them from contacting one another unless it was about Sam. And Shelby and Jeff had to stay away from each other's homes and workplace, except to pick up and drop off Sam. Their divorce finalized in November of 2003, and the court order granted Jeff joint custody of Sam. The order stated that neither parent was allowed to move Sam more than an hour's drive away without the other parent's permission. Which brings us to the next pressure point for shelby. March of 2004. That is the month that Shelby filed for bankruptcy. Now, I'm not going to go into all the details of all of this. The important part is that those bankruptcy proceedings showed that Shelby neglected to report a significant amount of money that she received from Jeff as part of the divorce settlement. The month before, court records showed that she allegedly concealed more than $39,000 by moving the money to an account under an assumed name. And the whole situation gave Jeff some hope.

[Wanda Schmidt]

He thought that, you know, she could go to jail, and then he thought maybe he could get custody of Sam.

[Narrator]

Jeff wasn't wrong to be optimistic. The $39,000 Shelby hadn't reported ended up being a bit of a sticking point at the end of March 2005. Shelby was eventually indicted by the federal government, and the charges include concealment of assets, fraud transfer, false bankruptcy declaration, false bankruptcy documents, and last but not least, false bankruptcy oath. But that's getting a little ahead of the story. Back in the summer of 2004, Wanda just knew that her brother was missing and that the person he had been having the most trouble with was his ex wife. Wanda shared all the details that she had with the police, and when we spoke to Detective Parks, he acknowledged that law enforcement was aware of Shelby's bankruptcy case. But from the records that we reviewed, we weren't able to see much movement that focused on investigating her. I mean, they didn't have much physical evidence to go on. Detective Marino did check Jeff's credit and banking records and discovered that there was no activity on Jeff's accounts. And after June 8th. And phone records that police subpoenaed actually did line up with Shelby's account of that morning.

[Detective Corden Parks]

The subpoenaed cell phone records show just a few phone calls on June 8th in the morning at 6:03, it showed Jeffrey called Shelby. And then at 6:34, a half hour later, Shelby called Jeffrey. And then at 6:52am the victim called Shelby again. And that would sort of go along with Shelby's version of events, that Jeffrey had arrived at the wrong place and called her to see where she was at 6:03. And then she waited for half an hour and called him to say, you're not here. Where are you? And then at 6:52, the victim called Shelby back and said, something has come up and I can't make the meeting. We have to reschedule.

[Narrator]

The document police shared with us show that Jeff's first call to Shelby at 6:03am Connected to a cell tower in Murray, Utah. Then the calls at 6:34am and 6:52am both hit towers in Salt Lake City within five minutes of the last call. Shelby's home phone registers an outgoing call on the landline at 6:57am Wanda believes this timeline is super significant because if Jeff had gone to that State street location that Carla said he was headed to and then he realized he was in the wrong place, it should not have taken him 50 plus minutes to drive from the State street location to the McDonald's where Shelby was waiting. Those two places are about four and a half miles apart. And Wanda pointed out something else that doesn't make sense. That landline call from shelby's home at 6:57. Again, if her story is correct, how could she place a call from McDonald's at 6:52am and then have her home phone be making a call five minutes later? Now, she could get home to use the landline. It was only about a mile away, but not that fast. And it's unlikely that it would have been anyone else using it because Shelby told police that her parents had moved and she and her son were the only ones in the house. And there were even more strange things in the call logs from that same day. Jeff's records show that there was a single outgoing call at 1:10pm that afternoon. It lasted for 18 seconds and was placed to a car dealership in Sandy, Utah. That call pinged off a tower in the South Salt lake area almost 10 miles from the pings that morning. And that call was the last one from Jeff's phone. His phone was never active after that. Detective Marino did try to get in touch with that car dealership, but he couldn't establish a reason the call was placed. Jeff's phone has never been recovered by police, even though they were eventually able to track down his truck. That turned up at an apartment complex around mid July near the parking lot where Carla believed that Jeff planned to meet. Shelby. The manager of the complex, had the truck towed, and unfortunately, it sat in an impound lot until the company sent notice to Jeff's address and it was intercepted by his family.

[Detective Corden Parks]

Immediately the family notified the police, and the police went out and seized the truck from the impound lot, and it was brought to our impound lotion, an evidence storage facility, and later it was processed for evidence.

[Narrator]

By the time police searched the truck, there wasn't much to find. They didn't find any forensic evidence, and they weren't able to determine if the truck had been left unlocked while it sat in the lot. So without physical evidence or witnesses, there was nothing to push Jeff's case forward. And in the family's opinion, the investigation took a backseat. It's worth mentioning that there was a really high profile missing persons case in Salt Lake City that happened right after Jeff's Lori hacking. The pregnant 27 year old went missing in July of 2004, and that story took over local news. Carla actually told us that she had tried to get local outlets to cover Jeff's disappearance too. But everyone was focused on Lori, whose remains were found that fall, and the trial of her husband, who was eventually convicted of her murder. So very quickly after Jeff disappeared, the investigation stalled. But not just because of the Lori Hacking case. Perhaps it was also because police didn't really talk to many people. Carla was not interviewed by detectives, for example, even though she was the person who had reported Jeff missing. There was barely any canvassing of Jeff's neighborhood or the areas around where he was supposed to meet Shelby. And by the way, that lag in the case also had a lot to do with Shelby.

[Detective Corden Parks]

About one week later, after her one interview with Detective Moreno, she moved to her parents house in Phoenix, Arizona. Of course, she took her son Sam with her, which meant Sam has never been available to the police for an interview. And then within months of that, the whole family, Vernon, Barbara, and Shelby, all moved To Ireland. So it appears that Shelby absconded from the investigation in late June 2004. And then as soon as they could arrange it, they moved to Ireland.

[Narrator]

And with the family's move, the only people of interest in this case were now on foreign soil. Carla didn't get many updates after that. Not that police were talking to her much before. But then out of the blue, in June 2010, years after Jeff disappeared, the phone rang. It was Detective Charles Anderson with the slcpd.

[Carla Eddy]

And I said, oh, my God, did you find Jeff? And he said, no, but that's what I'm calling you four. He said, okay. He said, I'm looking through all these records and I'm not finding anywhere that they interviewed you. And I said, well, they never did. He says, what do you mean they didn't? Didn't you turn in the missing person? And I said, yeah, I did. He said, well, there's no interview. I said, no. And he said, would you be available to come down to Salt Lake and talk to me? So the next day I went to Salt Lake, and they put me in this gray padded cell room. So he and I were in this room, and all there is is a table, and behind all these walls are a bunch of microphones.

[Narrator]

Carla said she learned from Detective Anderson that when they'd been reviewing missing persons cases, Captain Marino said that this case haunted him and he wanted someone to look at it again. Detective Anderson had two citrus crates of 4 inch thick binders containing various records and photographs. Anderson showed the pictures to Carla, some of which included the inside of Jeff's duplex.

[Carla Eddy]

So the guy's showing me these pictures and he's like, well, you know, there's these pictures. And I said, well, that's not Jeff's house. And he went, what? What do you mean? I said, that's the one next door to Jeff. Jeff's kitchen's on the other side. That's not the same rug Jeff has in his house. And that's not his couch. Those aren't his dishes on the counter.

[Narrator]

We've tried to confirm this with Salt Lake City pd, but there aren't any notes about this in the documents that they have. And since Detective Parks wasn't involved in the case at the time the photos were taken, he hasn't been able to confirm one way or the other if Carla is correct. However, we've seen some of the evidence photos, and to anyone who knew Jeff, it seems reasonable that this wasn't his house. I mean, one photo has a child's playpen And a bassinet. Sam was seven at that point. And it just so happened that the couple that lived on the other side of the duplex had just had a baby that spring, and Carla and Jeff visited them to give them a baby gift.

[Carla Eddy]

And the guy goes, what do you mean? He said, this is where we found all the drug paraphernalia. And I said, yeah, the guy was a drug addict and got put in prison. That was not Jeff's house. So when Shelby told him that Jeff was a drug addict, they used these pictures and believed that for all those years to find out, no, that was not Jeff's house. And the guy was like, oh, my gosh.

[Narrator]

Foreign. Hi, everyone. Ashley here with some exciting news. The Deck will not only land right here in your feed for you to listen to every week, but now we are also on camera for you to watch on YouTube. Now you can see the cards, the case files, and the people behind the coldest cases as I share these stories with you. So no matter where you get your podcast, whether you prefer to listen to watch or or maybe both, I will be there with stories you need to hear. Join me for the Deck on YouTube. Subscribe to Audiochuck Investigates on YouTube today. Now that Carla finally had the detective's attention, she told him what she never got the chance to share back in 2004, namely that Jeff had been afraid of Shelby and her father, Vernon. Jeff told Carla that they'd been watching him. He was even worried that they would shoot him. And this went back years before he'd gone missing. All of this seems to be backed up by emails between Jeff and Shelby, along with the 10 page letter Jeff sent to his lawyer. In one email from Shelby to Jeff, dated February of 2004, she wrote, My father hired a private investigator on you, quote, quite some time ago, and he already has a book about one and a half inches thick on your comings and goings with Sam. And he is nearly finished investigating your finances for the last three years, end quote. Based on what Jeff told Karla, he thought all this came down to their custody agreement. He thought Shelby wanted to move away from the Salt Lake City area. But per the divorce order, neither parent was allowed to relocate Sam more than an hour's drive away, at least without the other's permission. Carla specifically remembered talking about this on a trip that she took with Jeff a few weeks before he went missing. Jeff and Carla actually had done a little detective work of their own. They called Shelby's property rental company from the car as they drove.

[Carla Eddy]

I remember the road we were on and everything. And the person that answered the phone with the rental company said, as a matter of fact, I've got one coming available July 1st. Well, this would have been May 27th that we were calling, and we're like, oh, really? Which one is it? You know? And he gives us Shelby's address.

[Narrator]

Sure, Shelby might have been just moving apartments, but to Jeff, it didn't feel that way. And Jeff's concern made Carla concerned. Now, little did Carla know, but when detective Anderson brought her in, he'd already been suspicious of the same thing. He'd already searched the family's former rental property with a cadaver dog. The dog didn't alert on anything. But detectives did learn something interesting while they were there. The property owner had told detective Anderson that Vernon and his wife had given notice that they would be moving out by the first week of June, 2004. And at the time, apparently, Vernon was very upset that Shelby couldn't move with them because of custody issues. According to the homeowner, Vernon was, quote, on the edge of a threat towards the guy. Over the years, Wanda has wondered if Shelby and Vernon were more of a team than Shelby and Jeff were. And as she's gone back through her memories, there were a number of different interactions that all seemed strange in hindsight.

[Wanda Schmidt]

She just always had, like, a front, like, really tough. And I remember her telling us about a revenge book that her and her father shared.

[Narrator]

This was at a family gathering not long after Jeff and Shelby got married. It was Wanda's first time really getting to know Shelby. So obviously, this was insane. Our reporter asked Wanda to describe the book.

[Wanda Schmidt]

It was just a small little book. I mean, it wasn't really thick.

[Carla Eddy]

It was.

[Wanda Schmidt]

And I don't remember if it was hard copy or paper. I think it might have been a paper bag.

[Narrator]

Wanda remembers Shelby saying this is where she kept dirt she collected on an ex husband, someone she'd been married to before Jeff, and that some of the dirt was gathered by a private detective that Vernon had hired.

[Wanda Schmidt]

Her ex husband had cheated on her, and her dad hired a private detective to follow him around and that he was in the shower and she removed him from the house naked, at gunpoint is what she told us. Then she said they took animal urine and had injected it through the rubber in his car. And this was in Arkansas. And so in the middle of summer, 90 degrees. The guy had to drive around with all of his windows down because of the smell.

[Narrator]

But perhaps the wildest part. Years later, Wanda tracked down Shelby's ex Husband and found out not everything Shelby said was true.

[Wanda Schmidt]

It turns out she lied about the whole thing. I actually got a hold of him, and he said none of that happened.

[Narrator]

Detective Parks says that Shelby is and was a suspect, as is Vernon, although finding opportunities to talk to them hasn't been easy with the whole international move of it all. In July 2009, Shelby came back to the US and when she returned, she was taken into custody on charges related to the false bankruptcy filing. The judge ordered that she was a flight risk and held her without bonds bond. She eventually pled guilty to one count of falsification of records and ordered to pay $10,000. She also spent five months in jail and was released in December 2009. You'd think that would have been the perfect opportunity for the Salt Lake City investigators to sit down with her, maybe even explore the possibility of working out a deal with federal authorities. But that didn't happen. Salt Lake PD has not talked to Shelby since that very first time, and they never interviewed Vernon. Detective Parks believes that the family is living in Ireland now. Our team tried to get in touch with Shelby and Vernon to ask for comment on this story, but we couldn't reach them. Neither Vernon nor Shelby have ever been charged in connection to Jeff's disappearance. But lack of cooperation doesn't mean detectives have been totally out of options. In 2010, Detective Anderson and a forensic team searched a warehouse where Vernon had once owned a business, looking for DNA evidence. According to the police report, Vernon had sold that business in 2001, telling the New owner he had cancer. Now, this was several years before Jeff disappeared, so Vernon no longer had access to the property around the time in question. But a note from 2010 in the files says that the location where Jeff was supposed to meet Shelby, the apartment complex where his car was found, and this warehouse that they eventually search were all within less than a mile of each other. So the proximity alone made it worth a closer look. As you've probably guessed, though, they didn't find anything. So now it is Detective Park's turn to take a stab at this case with fresh eyes. But he feels a bit hampered by the era in which this case took place.

[Detective Corden Parks]

If this case were reported today, I think it's very likely we'd have a different outcome, and that's because there's so much more available to police now than there was in 2004. Now, we have license plate readers put up all over town. We have video everywhere in our society. If Jeffrey were parked in the parking lot, 4500 south in State today. Very likely there would be a video camera that covered him. There's more. That's done with cell phone technology. Cars have GPS locators in them now. I mean, it's very, very likely this case would have been solved if it would have happened today.

[Narrator]

While all of that may be true, I can't help but wonder what might have happened if, back in 2004, detectives had slowed down, taken a closer look at everything, especially the call logs. At the 11th hour, our reporter Regine Wright, took a fresh look at the call logs from Jeff and Shelby's phones on June 8, and she was trying to make sense of each one, the duration, what cell tower it pinged from. And she looked closer at the coding on the Verizon log, and she realized that there was an important piece of information that had been hiding in plain sight for 20 years. Standard outgoing calls were all coded. MO short for mobile origination. That would be a call from Jeff's phone to someone else. His cell records also have another code, MF that is short for mobile forwarded, AKA an incoming call to Jeff, going to his voicemail. So, quick question. Why does the call From Shelby at 6:34am say MF? This is the call where Shelby says she's asking Jeff where he is. She told SLCPD that they actually spoke, but that is not what the call log says. Now, we've confirmed. Confirmed this with a telecommunications expert, Ben Levitin, who has three decades of experience in the industry, including at Nextel, Sprint, and Verizon. He actually worked at Verizon back in 2004 when this case took place. Regine took this information back to Detective Parks to see what he had to say.

[Detective Corden Parks]

Well, that would mean that Shelby lied then, wouldn't it?

[Carla Eddy]

Yes, it would.

[Narrator]

So, any idea on how that would impact the investigation?

[Detective Corden Parks]

Well, it'll give us a twist to use on Shelby if we ever manage to sit down and talk with her again.

[Narrator]

We've also shared this news with Wanda, though I'm not sure it changes much for her. Just further confirms suspicions that she's already had.

[Wanda Schmidt]

Our family misses him terribly. It was devastating. I mean, I told you, we have a blended family. Our natural dad, dog. He never recovered from Jeff's disappearance, ever.

[Carla Eddy]

He.

[Wanda Schmidt]

He since passed away.

[Narrator]

It.

[Wanda Schmidt]

I think it's. It's been hard on everybody. This is for the deck, right? I was trying to figure out what card he would be, and I. I said that to my mom. But I got to tell you what she said first. She goes, he's the joker

[Narrator]

because he

[Wanda Schmidt]

just, he was always like telling jokes and corny jokes.

[Narrator]

Carla remembers Jeff's sense of humor too.

[Carla Eddy]

What I want them to remember about Jeff Fun lovin, happy go Lucky man that absolutely adored his little boy, Samuel Nichols. If you ever see this, you know that your dad loved you more than life itself.

[Narrator]

One thing that would really help detectives get traction in this case would be locating Jeff's body. So if you have any information about the disappearance of Jeffrey Dale Nichols, the location of his remains, or if you have any insight into the lives and dealings of those mentioned in this episode back in 2004, you can call the Salt Lake City Police Department at 801-799-3000. The Deck is an Audio Chuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about the Deck and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast.com I think Chuck would approve. Hi everyone. Ashley Flowers here. If you're like me, diving into true crime is about more than just the details of a case. It is also about giving a voice to the victims and understanding the lives behind the headlines. And this is what host Kylie Lowe does each week on her podcast, Dark Down East. Every Thursday, Kylie dives into New England's most gripping mysteries, uncovering stories in a way you won't hear anywhere else. And she digs through archives, connects with families, and shines a light on the voices that deserve to be heard. From cold cases to moments of long awaited justice, Dark down east is the perfect blend of investigations and honoring the stories behind them. You can find Dark down east now wherever you're listening.