14. Shelley's Last Days

Summary

The Unforgotten – Episode 14: “Shelley’s Last Days”

Podcast: The Unforgotten
Host: Wes Ferguson & Carol Dawson
Date: April 7, 2025
Season: 1, “The Labor Day Ghost”
Episode theme: A fresh, in-depth look at the crucial final days of Shelley Salter Watkins – the young mother, at the center of a haunting Texas murder mystery – with new witness accounts and a detailed narrative mosaic of her last days.

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Overview

This bonus episode, “Shelley’s Last Days,” features host Carol Dawson’s carefully reconstructed account of Shelly Watkins’ final days, interwoven with fresh eyewitness accounts and reflections on the persistent failures and gaps in the original investigation. Hosts Carol and Wes give voice to new witnesses, scrutinize past rumors, dispel alternate theories, and shine a light on overlooked evidence and lost opportunities. Throughout, they stress their commitment to journalistic rigor and an open-minded investigation, even when scrutiny of other suspects led nowhere.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. New Witnesses Step Forward

[00:24 – 02:42]

• Carol Dawson shares that the recent publicity and interest in Shelley’s case (including TV coverage) has made people feel safer about coming forward.
• Multiple new witnesses have come forward recently, including one with a “startling” eyewitness account (not disclosed yet for the witness’s protection, but passed to law enforcement).
• Another witness posted on the “Corsicana Talk” Facebook group and later spoke to Carol in detail, providing significant new insight.

2. Handling Sensitive Information

[01:27 – 03:43]

• The hosts explain their promises to protect sources, share information responsibly, and always report findings to law enforcement (“case building”).
• They explain the law enforcement’s dual need: physical evidence (with hope placed on recovered DNA samples) or a witness coming forward with the full truth.

3. Revisiting Suspects and Alternate Theories

[04:27 – 09:49]

• Jerry Mack Watkins, Shelley's husband, was indicted, arrested, and nearly went to trial for her murder in 1994. The trial never occurred due to unrelated events.
• Carol and Wes emphasize they maintained objectivity, chasing all plausible alternate theories and rumors. “None of them fit the facts.” – Carol Dawson [06:10]
• Examples include the local “Waffle House story” (debunked on timing alone) [08:20] and various unsupported rumors.
• Quote (Wes Ferguson, [07:54]): “We followed all the leads, we did extensive reporting. We certainly did not just focus on Jerry Mack Watkins.”

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4. The Mosaic of Shelley’s Final Days

Carol shares her essay reconstructing Shelley's last days using new and old sources, including withheld witness accounts and changing names where needed for privacy.

Major Elements:

• Shelley grew convinced her husband was cheating again. She previously tolerated infidelities but now suspected a new affair, even with close friend Kay Bryant [12:30].
• Shelley and Kay recently returned from a trip, both coming down with a stomach virus.
• During this time, Shelley was reportedly “jittery,” possibly abusing diet pills (rumored but contradicted by toxicology report).

Notable Witness Account – “Liz”

[15:50 – 17:59]

“All of a sudden she just pops out of her mouth and says, ‘Liz, how many men have you had sex with?... Well, I’ve had sex with 96 men.’”
– “Liz” (witness, name changed), quoted by Carol Dawson [16:35]

• Liz recalls Shelley's erratic, agitated behavior, which she attributes to diet pills. Carol later notes the autopsy found no such substances.
• Carol interprets Shelley’s “96 men” statement as fiction, likely a provocative jab in response to her husband’s infidelities. “She was taunting or challenging her husband, who was the real philanderer in their marriage.” [18:02]

Shelley’s Previous Reaction to Jerry Mack’s Infidelity

• In Rome, Shelley left Jerry Mack after discovering him with another woman—while seven months pregnant, she boarded a plane home alone [18:25].

Labor Day 1993 Fight

[18:30 – 22:00]

• On the morning of Labor Day 1993, a ferocious, public argument occurred between Shelley and Jerry Mack at the lake house. Witnessed by Weldon and Pam Hatley Caldwell, Jerry Mack can be heard yelling “bitch,” and both physically shoved each other.
  • Pam Caldwell immediately told colleagues at the sheriff's office about the altercation, unaware Shelley was missing at that point [21:38].
• The significance: This fight was omitted by guests and family interviewed by law enforcement; instead, a trivial argument about jet skis was floated.

Jerry Mack’s Inaction After Disappearance

• Unlike his Rome response, Jerry made no effort to locate Shelley during the week she was missing—no police reports, missing posters, or searches [22:30].

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5. Investigation Failures & Lost Testimony

• When Shelley's body was found, key information about the lake house fight was not conveyed to the case’s lead investigators in Henderson County—a major missed lead [25:30].
• Pam Caldwell’s account (“knockdown, drag out fight” and Jerry Mack’s explosive language) may have significantly accelerated the issuance of a search warrant, but was lost as the case changed jurisdictions.
• “It just bewilders me as to why it didn’t get passed on.” – Carol Dawson [33:45]

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6. Suspicion, Motives, and Aftermath

[25:45 – 29:58]

• After Shelley's murder, many family members and locals suspected Kay Bryant as Jerry Mack’s lover.
• Kay Bryant was quickly by Jerry’s side after the murder, received a suspicious early-morning call from him, inserted herself with the orphaned daughters, divorced her husband, and later married Jerry Mack after his murder trial was quashed.
• Carol details how efforts by Jerry Mack’s relatives and Kay Bryant attempted to overturn the grand jury indictment, citing feeling “intimidated” by police—ultimately, these motions failed.
• The trial was derailed by unrelated District Attorney misconduct, and eventually, the indictment was dismissed.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “We are placing a huge amount of hope, of course, on the DNA that was retrieved by the Henderson County Sheriff's Office through that California lab.”
  – Carol Dawson [03:58]

• “We went into this to try to look at all the facts… we really did enter with an open mind, a joint open mind to see if we could find actually what happened.”
  – Carol Dawson [05:00]

• “When you have… motivated reasoning, you have a reason to want the facts to lay a certain way. And so you end up just kind of latching on to whatever fits your prior opinions and biases… When they turn out to be false, it’s really hard to let go of that.”
  – Wes Ferguson [08:51]

• “The picture that emerges tells us of a shift in Shelly Watkins’ state of mind. It shows us her concerns, her rising suspicions, her frustrations with her marriage, and her outspoken anger at her husband's behavior.”
  – Carol Dawson reading her essay [11:14]

• “Contrary to what he had done when Shelley had deserted him in Rome… Jerry Mack did not try to track her down during that week that she was missing… He did nothing to trace his wife.”
  – Carol Dawson [22:30]

• “They [the original witnesses] misled law enforcement investigators by omitting any mention of the major pre-lunch dispute…”
  – Carol Dawson [24:50]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:24 – 02:42: New witnesses, case publicity prompts people to come forward
• 03:43 – 06:33: Law enforcement’s focus; Carol & Wes reflect on their open-minded approach
• 07:17 – 09:49: Dead-end rumors and official focus on Jerry Mack Watkins
• 11:14 – 18:02: Carol’s narrative: Shelley's suspicions, relationships, erratic behaviors
• 15:50 – 17:59: Notable “Liz” witness interview segment
• 18:25 – 22:30: Major fight on Labor Day; witness accounts; Jerry’s inexplicable inaction
• 25:45 – 29:58: Suspicion falls on Kay Bryant; efforts to overturn the indictment; aftermath
• 30:17 – 34:10: Critical point: Pam Caldwell’s lost account and law enforcement handoff
• 35:39 – 36:09: Carol’s appeal for new information and reflection on Shelley’s legacy

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Episode Tone & Language

The episode is somber, methodical, and driven by respect for the victim and journalistic integrity. The language is precise but conversational, with Carol’s essay delivering emotional weight and the hosts regularly pausing to clarify context, feelings, and investigative process.

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Conclusion

“Shelley’s Last Days” uses new and old evidence to reconstruct, with poignant detail, the personal and investigative landscape around Shelley Watkins’ murder. With honest self-examination, Carol and Wes illustrate how fact and rumor intermingle in small towns and how fragile justice can be when evidence is missed or mishandled. The invitation to listeners: if you know something, speak up—so Shelley’s story might finally reach its rightful end.

Transcript

[A]

Hello, I'm Wes Ferguson.

[B]

And I'm Carol Dawson.

[A]

And we are back with another bonus episode of The Unforgotten Season 1, the Labor Day Ghost, Shelley's Last Days.

[B]

Hi, Wes.

[A]

Hey, Carol.

[B]

How's it going?

[A]

It's pretty good. I hear you've been doing some extreme research and learning even more about Shelly Watkins case.

[B]

Oh, most definitely I have. And it is especially poignant to me to see how many people who have heretofore been really scared about coming forward and sharing things have now, I think because the case has received plenty of publicity and also has been featured on one television news program and is going to be featured on others. I think the fact that people realize, even if they haven't listened to the podcast, that it's now a lot safer to talk than it has been in the past, they are a little more willing to come forward and share things they know. And some of what has been shared with me through the past few weeks has been profound. For instance, there is one eyewitness account that we cannot share during this particular podcast, although I hope we can in the future. That is startling to say the least, but we're still very protective of the person who has shared it. So we can't go there for this particular episode.

[A]

But, yeah, yeah, we've made a lot of promises to people throughout this project and not disclosing names, not revealing what they've told us off the record. But, yeah, hopefully one of these days all of this will come to light. So correct me if I'm wrong. The news segment airs in Dallas on a Friday night, and then that weekend, people are talking and you are on Facebook and Corsicana Talk, the Facebook group, and someone just says, oh, yeah, this is what I remember. And it was stunning. Right. Is that how it happened? What did you find out?

[B]

That's exactly how it happened. And I'm going to be sharing the story of Shelly Watkins final days in this podcast, and part of that is going to be what was revealed to me by this person who had not listened to the podcast, but she came forward quite openly, sharing her name and her own experience. And it really sheds some major light on the final day that Shelli was alive.

[A]

Yeah. So not only did you read about it in that forum, but you contacted her and arranged to speak, and then she told you in much greater detail and was able to confirm some things that do shed a lot of light.

[B]

Yes. And as I say, another person came forward who had shared something with a relative years before and she had not listened to the podcast. The relatives had said, it's time that you open up about your own eyewitness experience. That's something we can't yet share, but, boy, it's amazing. There are several things that I want to cover in the course of this conversation and in what I have to share with everyone as a narrative about Shelley's final days that are really heart rending. And also there is a puzzlement about one person particular factor that we can talk about at the end.

[A]

Okay, that sounds good. And just to backtrack for a quick second. And also, you know, even though we're not sharing these stories with the public, we have passed those along to law enforcement. So it's not like they're just out there in the ether doing no good. We are trying to facilitate that information and getting it to the appropriate authorities at every opportunity.

[B]

Absolutely. As soon as anything drops with me, I go straight to law enforcement and share it. And there is, as a result, progress being made. And as one particular law enforcement officer put it, case building. And it's the case building. When an actual structure is being built, Law enforcement wants more than anything else to have either physical evidence, and we are placing a huge amount of hope, of course, on the DNA that was retrieved by the Henderson County Sheriff's Office through that California lab, and. Or somebody finally coming forward and telling the truth, opening up.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And either or both of those things would be very, very powerful to finally bringing this case back into a courtroom. And that is what is hoped for. So I want to add, Wes, that when you and I started this project, we already knew that Jerry Mack Watkins had been indicted, arrested, and was looking at a potential murder trial set for August 15th in 1994. And of course, that didn't happen. And that didn't happen for reasons that truly had nothing to do with the trial itself or with the original indictment. And because of that, there was the assumption on a number of people's parts that Jerry Mack actually committed this murder. Now, you and I are both journalists, and we went into this to try to look at all the facts, all the facts, and to see if it was possible that some other thing had happened. It was not the conclusion of law enforcement that anything else had happened. They dismissed those possibilities pretty quickly and for very, very good reasons. And we've already talked about those reasons a number of times in previous episodes. But their conclusion was given the preponderance of circumstantial evidence that they were justified in arresting Jerry Mack Watkins. You and I went in to this whole project thinking, okay, what if we find something else. What if we find something so convincing and. Or even so suggestive that something else might have happened and we were willing to portray that, we were willing to go after that. The irony to that is that several different people have come to me in the past and to you with off the record ideas, rumors, gossip, potential scenarios, but none of them fit the facts. And I think that's really important for us to stress at this point. Because we really did enter with an open mind, a joint open mind to see if we could find actually what happened.

[A]

Sure. As a journalist and former newspaper crime reporter, I've covered so many cases. And I always go into those investigations thinking there will be competing narratives, people will have different opinions and ideas. And I did not give short shrift to any of those. And expected some of the other theories to be more plausible. And we tried to follow those leads, and they just were dead ends. They just were not based on any kind of reality. And lots of rumors flying around that just didn't pan out like I thought they might. They just weren't plausible. And so we ended up following the appropriate thread. Which was why Jerry Mack Watkins was the one who was indicted for the murder of his wife, Shelley.

[B]

Exactly. Exactly. You know, it's even been proposed to me at one point that someone had heard that somebody else thought that it was possible that Shelly had met somebody out on the lake while she was on her jet Ski. And had arranged to meet that person later in the evening. And it's like. Well, that directly contradicts what Jerry Mack himself told law enforcement. And that's just one example of just a whole array of different stories that have come my way. We cannot quote those. We cannot cite them, because there's no basis for them. Any that we've been able to find.

[A]

I think people listening, and thank you for listening. You might be wondering why we've been going on and on about this without any kind of explanation. And I think we should just come out and say, you know, we. We received some criticism that, well, y' all just focused on Jerry Mack and you said you were gonna look elsewhere. So we just wanna make it plainly clear that we followed all the leads, we did extensive reporting. We certainly did not just focus on Jerry Mack Watkins.

[B]

Exactly. Exactly. For instance, there was the Waffle House story. That supposedly Shelly showed up at the Waffle House down the road. Or a blonde woman in disarray who looked like she had been through some stuff, showed up and that a waitress had observed her. Well, it turned out that waitress went off her shift at 9:30 that night. And so it's. And no, that wasn't Shelley.

[A]

Yeah, the timing was impossible.

[B]

Yeah. That's just another example of some of the things that have been brought to our attention.

[A]

Yeah. It's just when you have. I think it's what it's called motivated reasoning, you have a reason to want to believe the facts lay a certain way. And so you end up just kind of latching on to whatever fits your prior opinion, opinions and biases about a case that happens in your town to people you know. And then you have, what, 30 years to. To hold on to those beliefs, and when they turn out to be false, it's really hard to let go of that.

[B]

Yeah, it is. Well, it's always hard to let go of a belief system, even after the belief system has been proven to be utterly false.

[A]

Most people double down at that point rather than changing their mind.

[B]

Yeah. They would rather hang on to what they prefer to believe than to just face. Well, it just doesn't fit the picture. It doesn't fit what's actually happening. Anyway, okay, as I said before, I have composed. It's a sort of essay and it's a picture of the final days of Shelly Watkins. So I'd like to share that with our listeners.

[A]

Yeah, I'm excited to hear what you've written. And before you get into that, I want to also just share an announcement. I was able to make contact with one of the fishermen who discovered Shelley's body in the Trinity river in 1993 and played phone tag for a while. I finally met up with him and his wife, and we had lunch and he told me the complete story of that day. And it fills in a lot of gaps. And there's also some things that the official narrative had a little off. Nothing huge, but really interesting details that fill in this portrait of that crucial day. And so I'm working on another bonus episode and a newsletter entry about that, and our paid newsletter subscribers will get that first. And so I'm aiming to have that done a few weeks after this episode comes out. So keep an eye out for it. Best way to find it [e-mail] and I think that's all I have, Carol, if. If you're ready to share your essay.

[B]

Yeah, but that's pretty fantastic, to finally get specific eyewitness. The moment that Shelley's body is actually seen by this fisherman on the Trinity river and the effect it had on him and his two friends and the time of day and, oh, My God. I mean, can you imagine coming across a package like that?

[A]

It's something he's never forgotten.

[B]

No, I wouldn't think so. Okay, here's what I have to say. At last. After years of interviews, research and investigation, we've been able to assemble a partial picture of Shelly Salter Watkins final days leading up to her murder. It's made up of different pieces of information that we've gathered from disparate sources, eyewitnesses willing to come forward and share their experiences with us. These pieces fitted together, make a kind of mosaic. Although there are, of course, still gaps between some of the pieces, the picture that emerges tells us of a shift in Shelly Watkins state of mind. It shows us her concerns, her rising suspicions, her frustrations with her marriage, and her outspoken anger at her husband's behavior. At least one of these sources remains strictly off the record, so we haven't heretofore published their information. Their account in this report means they have agreed that their information can be included, although their identity will remain hidden. Another party has given us recorded permission to publicly share anything they have told us if we exclude their real name and or voice specifically. This party told us, I don't mind you quoting things I said, but I just don't want my name involved in it. Which is completely understandable considering what a small, tight community Corsicana is and that this particular person doesn't believe Jerry Mackay is guilty of Shelley's murder. Both of these parties were witnesses originally interviewed by law enforcement. They later went on to testify before the grand jury during Jerry Mack's indictment hearings, along with at least 33 other eyewitnesses or people closely involved with the case. In fact, the state listed more than 75 potential witnesses to testify before the grand jury, although not all of the. As you'll hear now, though, there were two vital witnesses who, for some inexplicable reason, never made it to that list. And they most certainly should have. We've tried to keep these mosaic pieces as sequential as possible throughout the weeks before she was murdered. On the night of the Labor Day holiday, September 6, 1993, Shelley grew convinced her husband, Jerry Mack Watkins, was having an affair. Shelly already knew of Jerry Mack Watkins past promiscuity during the periods of his life before she'd married him. Early on in their relationship, she'd been ambushed by the discovery that he'd fathered a child out of wedlock. Later on in their married years, she expressed exasperation at the number of women in town who had reputedly slept with Jerry Mack. Now she'd come to believe that he was once again involved in a sexual relationship with an unknown woman. At this time, Jerry Mack was frequently traveling out of town to Houston to attend equipment auctions. So she might have thought it was possible that he was meeting someone there or elsewhere closer by. It was during a vacation stay with his sister and Corsicana the summer before that fatal Labor Day night that a revealing moment was witnessed by Shelly's brother, Rob Salter. He walked in on a romantic embrace and kiss between Kay Kirgan Bryant, former neighbor, whom Shelly had come to regard as one of her closest friends, and Jerry Mack in the garage of the Watkins home during a social evening that had included dinner at the Old Mexican Inn, favorite local eatery, and pictures of margaritas. Rob did not tell Shelly what he'd observed, but he was shaken enough to tell the friend who was with him on that Corsicana visit and to tell his sister Sandy after he got home to Atlanta. Thus, Shelley remained ignorant of the transgression. Just a short time after that kiss, a couple of weeks before Labor Day, Shelley traveled to Mackinac Island, Michigan, for a getaway. Kay Bryant accompanied her. When they returned home, Shelly became so ill with a stomach virus that she checked into the hospital ER to receive IV fluids. Kay developed what appeared to be the same illness. A few days later, she too became so ill that Shelly voiced sympathy about her. This suggests that Shelly still had no suspicions of her husband's and Kay's betrayal, but continued at that time to think of Kay as one of her best friends. The week of her stomach virus bout, while still in recovery, Kay nonetheless insisted on attending the Labor Day Lighthouse celebration party alongside her husband, Dennis Bryant. A view of Shelley's state of mind during this period emerges from another person's recorded interview with us, dated December 2023.

[A]

Carol's about to read just a little bit from the transcript of our interview with this person. And because she didn't want us to use her identity, Carol changed her name to Liz. Okay, here we go. This is Liz.

[B]

They were always real nice to me, like I said, and Shelly was always nice. There was one time she was ugly to me, and it was right before her death. And it was when she was taking them diet pills. And it was a very embarrassing situation that she put me in. And I lost a lot of respect for her that day. They were at our house. We were just sitting there talking. I don't even know, you know, what we were talking about. And all of a sudden she just pops out of her mouth and Says, liz, how many men have you had sex with? You know? And I'm just sitting there like, oh, this is, you know.

[A]

Carol jumps in with a question.

[B]

She said that in front of your husband? LIZ yeah, we're all sitting there, and I'm just very embarrassed about it and thinking, why is she asking this? I didn't say anything. I just sit there a little bit, and she just says, well, I've had sex with 96 men.

[A]

Carol.

[B]

She named that number. LIZ yeah. And I thought, who keeps up with something like that? And she just keeps kind of on and on. Finally, Jerry looks at her and says, leave her alone. You need to shut up and leave her alone. I don't even know why she did that. CAROL Was she maybe tipsy? LIZ no, but I think she was on them pills that she'd been taking. I think she'd been abusing the diet pills there at the last. I really do. Taken more than she needed to because she had been acting very erratic about things and just flying off the handle. You know how people get jittery and nervous when they're on something like that, kind of acting like that. She was jittery, shaken, like she was on speed. Yeah, everybody had noticed it. I don't know if anybody would admit that, but everybody had noticed it. And it was concerned about the situation because one thing, she just got skinny as a rail, probably not eating like she should, trying to work out every day, just working, working, working. They had a whole workout room in their house that she had him put in and, you know, all kind of that stuff.

[A]

Okay, back to the rest of Carol's essay.

[B]

And we already know from the toxicology report that accompanied the autopsy report that no diet pills or amphetamines or any other kind of what is called an upper were found in Shelley's system at the time. In fact, the only things that were found were a certain amount of alcohol and a trace of a Tylenol mixed painkiller. Knowing now what we've learned about Shelley's character and history, I personally consider this statement of 96 erstwhile lovers to be entirely fictitious on her part. I think it was an impulsive lie to goad her listeners. I think that perhaps she was taunting or challenging her husband, who was the real philanderer in their marriage, and that for whatever reason, she had no qualms about putting Liz on the spot, too. She already suspected that Jerry Mack was secretly having sex with someone else. She already knew that he'd had sex with many other women. Fed up and wrathful with this flagrant behavior, she had already left him at least once. During a vacation in Rome, Italy. After a shopping excursion with her sister in law, Barbara. She had entered a bar to join Jerry Mack and his brother Ronnie. There she discovered a strange woman sitting on Jerry Mack's lap, wrapping herself around his body. Shelly's reaction was immediate. She left the bar, marched to her hotel room, packed her bags, went to the airport, boarded a plane and flew straight home alone. Without informing her companion. At the time, she was seven months pregnant with her younger daughter, Lane. Quite late at night, Shelley arrived at Beaten Lake Estates from the Dallas Fort Worth airport. Jerry Mack trailed her back to Texas that same night, clearly concerned enough to take her angry exit from him seriously. And lately we have learned about the explosive argument that took place before lunchtime at the Watkins Lake house that labor day morning of September 6, 1993. We know from Barbara Watkins admissions, when initially questioned by the investigators, that Shelly was observed to be real nervous and jittery, unquote, and on the edge that day at the lake, not herself, as Barbara put it, to her daughter Brandi. This comment was included in the official search warrant affidavit. It's interesting to note that her descriptor words match those of our interviewee who suggested to us that Shelly was abusing diet pills. Thirty years after Barbara first spoke the words jittery and nervous to the investigators. And as we've already repeated, no diet pills, amphetamines, any kind of upper or speed or anything else was found in Shelley's body during the autopsy and afterwards. As reported in the toxicology report that morning, argument was so ferocious and violent that it was seen and overheard by Weldon and Pam Hatley Caldwell, who were fishing the COVID next to the lake house. It occurred outdoors in front of the other adult guests who were seated at the tables in the yard, as well as all the children present. Thanks to a breeze that carried sound toward the fight and away from the fishing couple, Weldon and Pam could only discern yells, screams, shrieks, and one clear word that Jerry Mack yelled bitch. Both members of the couple physically shoved each other, watched by the Caldwells. The very next day, on September 7, the day after Labor Day, when Pam Hatley Caldwell arrived at work at the sheriff's office, she told several people about the public quarrel she had just witnessed the day before. Of course, at that time she had no idea that Shelly Watkins had disappeared the same night of the argument. No one would know Shelly's status as a missing person until the following Sunday. One whole week after she had vanished. And Wes, it's very interesting to me that contrary to what he had done when Shelley had deserted him in Rome while pregnant with their second child and flown by herself back to Texas, Jerry Mack did not try to track her down during that week that she was missing. He did not hire a private detective. He did not alert the public. He did not put up missing signs. He did nothing to try to trace his wife. One week later, on the following Monday, when Pam first learned that Shelly was missing, she again reminded her colleagues at the Corsicana Sheriff's Office building about the argument. This was the day after the authorities had finally been informed that Shelley was officially missing and had actually been missing since the night of September 6th. Only the day before, on Sunday, September 12th, the search for Shelley had been turned over to the Navarro County Sheriff's jurisdiction following the revelation to Corsicana's chief of police that Sergeant Louis Palos had skipped protocol four days prior and filed a missing persons report on Thursday, September 9, without informing anyone else at the city police station, including his own boss. No one in Navarro county law enforcement seems to have ever conveyed Pam Hatley Caldwell's witness comments to Henderson County. Once Shelly's body was found, Pam Caldwell can to this day still cite the people's names whom she told of the argument. She is, as she states on the record with this information, as she has been for the past 31 years. And I know for a fact that if Larry Warrick, the chief homicide investigator on this case, as well as Ranger Ray Nutt, had any idea Pam Caldwell and her husband Weldon had witnessed this argument, they would have been over to Corsicana like a shot to interview her and add her information to everything they had already learned. To continue, we now also know that following the recovery of Shelley's body, the guests and family members who were there that day on Labor Day at the lake house misled law enforcement investigators by omitting any mention of the major pre lunch dispute between Shelly and Jerry Mack. They claimed only that there was tension between the couple and that Shelly had argued with Ronnie Watkins regarding the use of jet skis. Later that evening, Barbara Watkins added that Shelly was upset upon learning that Jerry had already taken their two little daughters home and left her at the lake. And later that night, Shelley wound up dead, struck at least eight times on the back of her skull, presumably after she had turned her back on whoever decided to hit her, and with a furrow around her throat that indicated possible strangulation. All this is according to to the official autopsy report Wes I don't know if you've ever tried to imagine standing behind somebody and bringing your arm down eight full times on the back of their head. The first couple of blows would probably send them to the floor. After that, you'd have to bend over them to continue to hit. I have physically tried to do this, and it's very, very challenging. It's like a whole physical experience that is shocking to the system. I challenge any listener who wants to learn what that's like to do the experiment that I did and try it. Shortly after Shelley's death, several people began to strongly suspect Kay Bryant to be Jerry's mystery lover. These included Shelly's cousin Mike Russ, Shelley's sister Sandy, and other members of Shelley's family, as well as some local Corsicanons. Kay's constant, close presence at Jerry's side during Shelly's funeral and afterwards at the grave ceremony struck them as inappropriate and bizarre. So did the fact she'd admitted to law enforcement that Jerry Mack had phoned her at 6:45am After Shelly's disappearance to tell her that he and Shelly had had a fight the night before, during which Shelly said she was leaving him and taking their daughters with her and that he had told Shelly she couldn't take the girls. This later grew more notable since Kay had frequently expressed her desperate wish to have children, vocally mourned her inability to do so, stated her devotion to Shelley's two daughters, and quickly jumped in to fill the void left in their lives by their mother's murder. Other circumstances reinforced these impressions as well. For instance, the frequent publicly observed socializing of Jerry Mack with Dennis and Kay Bryant on Cedar Creek Lake in the months following Jerry Mack's arrest. Kay Bryant would in fact, eventually go on to divorce her husband Dennis and marry Jerry Mack Watkins. A few months after Jerry Mack's murder trial was suspended and his case was canceled by Henderson County. Which brings us to another fact, the reasons why the case was canceled at all. Jerry Mack Watkins was scheduled to be tried for first degree murder on August 15, 1994. That same day, Eray Andrews was compelled to resign his district attorney by the Texas Attorney General. The previous April, following the pretrial hearing, Jerry Mack's defense attorney, Jack Zimmerman, had filed a motion to quash the original indictment on several grounds, including how three witnesses before the grand jury had felt intimidated during their testimonies due to the presence and behavior of the two lawmen who had previously questioned them, Texas Ranger Ray Nutt and homicide investigator Larry Warrick. These three witnesses claimed that their resultant nervousness might have given the grand jury a bad impression of their credibility and maybe left the grand jury thinking they might be lying. Out of the 35 witnesses testifying under oath, only these three first appeared on the motion to quash the indictment filed by Jack Zimmerman, the defense attorney. They were Jerry Mack's brother, Ronnie Watkins, Jerry Mack's sister, Janice Watkins King, and Jerry Mack's soon to be wife, Kay Bryant. Needless to say, all three had strong motives to wish the indictment overturned, considering their closeness to the accused. Nonetheless, the motion failed and the trial date was set. It would take a bribery scheme charge against the district attorney to finally affect what defense attorney Jack Zimmerman had attempted to do the previous April. But the capper that eventually helped fulfill the motion's purpose, after the trial date had come and gone and District Attorney Eray Andrews had smudged the case's status, came in the form of a document later. Appended to it. That document was another supplemental submission in support of motion. And it added one more name to the witness's complaint about the lawman, Karen Williams. Karen Williams lived across the street from the Watkins house. She was the mother of two boys and the wife of another state witness, David Williams. She worked in a Corsicana salon. She was not related to anyone involved in the case. Her older 11 year old son, Chad, had stated that he had watched the Watkins house through his second story bedroom window on Labor Day night. He reported seeing activity and lights to his father that night around 1:30 in the morning, and others through the following years until 4:00 the next morning. As shared with us by his father, David Williams, and some of those others, Karen, therefore seemingly had no agenda in helping to crush the indictment. There can be little doubt, however, that the addition of her name added more weight to the effort to erase the grand jury's judgment that Jerry Mack Watkins had murdered his wife. And on August 26, 1994, when Judge Jack H. Holland dismissed the indictment, it did just that. Since the first time we ever read the Watkins case file, we have felt puzzled as to why, out of all the scores of potential witnesses that might have joined their names to the motion to quash Jerry Mack's indictment, Carrion Williams was the sole volunteer. But I suspect that she believes Jerry Mack Watkins to be innocent.

[A]

Okay, thank you. I'm so struck by Pam's witness account from the lake that morning and so puzzled as to why no one at the Navarro County Sheriff's Office ever passed along, or seems to have passed along that very pertinent account of what she and her husband observed at the lake that day, with the fight happening on shore, with Shelley and Jerry Mack pushing each other, Jerry Mack calling her a. As Pam recalls, that just adds so much more to the potential motive. And it certainly would have been included in that search affidavit if investigator Larry Wark had been aware of it. Do you know why or do you have any opinion as to why that never got back to investigator Warwick?

[B]

The only thing I've been able to come up with, and this is based on something Pam herself told me, because she worked for a justice of the peace in the building that houses the sheriff's office in Corsicana. That was her job, which is why she was in the building the day after Labor Day. She told at that time, Jimmie Johnson, who was deputy sheriff. She told other of her colleagues. And then a week later, after Shelly's body was found, she reminded them, oh, my gosh, I saw that horrible fight. Remember I told you? But it is quite clear that that information was never conveyed. And it's just like, how is that possible? Well, the only reason that it might be likely is that that they never passed it on is that they no longer wanted anything to do with this case. They handed it over to Henderson County. They dusted off their hands and said, thank goodness somebody else is having to handle this, because it's so Corsicana based and Corsicana centric. And I know that, for instance, Sheriff Les Cotton was a really good guy. I know from personal experience as well as discussions with people who worked with him and from Pam herself, that he was a very conscientious sheriff. He'd only been sheriff for eight months when this happened. But I don't know that she shared that information directly with Les Cotton. She shared it with Jimmie Johnson, who had been asking all kinds of questions about this case. I do know that she shared it with other people there in the office. And the only thing that we can think of is that is to say Pam and I, is that they just went, okay, we're done. It's all up to Henderson county now. But it's such a vital piece of information that it just bewilders me as to why it didn't get passed on. And also I have to think it would have hastened that search warrant issuance a great deal. You know, they had to wait so long to gather enough circumstantial evidence to take to the judge so that the judge would finally issue a search warrant. Because Jerry Mack Watkins was stonewalling law enforcement completely about the search of his own home and property. He wouldn't let him in. He would not allow law enforcement to come in and search the property after Shelley was dead. And it took months for them to assemble, or as law enforcement puts it, case build enough to justify that search warrant being carried out at the property against Jerry's will. And of course, by then, there'd been a huge cleanup. There was a complete repaving of the front driveway. There was a repainting of the garage floor under which they had found what they felt were three blood spots through the use of Luminol. And so there had been plenty of time to take care of things. And it just stuns me when I think of how much faster that search warrant might have been issued if they had conveyed that information from NA county to Henderson County.

[A]

Yeah, gosh, I just. I really hate to think that they withheld that just because they were washing their hands of the case. We reached out to Jimmy Johnson, who's retired now from the Navarro County Sheriff's Office, and he declined to comment. I exchanged a bunch of texts with his wife, Pat, and she ultimately never spoke to me. But he seemed dedicated to the case during that limited time when it was in his sheriff's office's jurisdiction. So if there's any other reason why he or someone or any of his colleagues didn't pass that along, we'd love to hear why. And then we'll pass that along to you. And also going back to the fight between Jerry Mack and Shelley at the lake, it just makes so much more sense than the official story from the Watkins family. As Jackson detailed in that affidavit, they said that Shelley and Jerry's brother Ronnie were fighting about Jet Skis, which always just seemed so stupid, you know, just absurd. Like, oh, yeah, they were fighting about being out on the Jet Skis too long, and that led to this huge blow up between not Shelly and Ronnie, but between Shelly and Jerry Mack back at the garage. So the fact that they were in this knockdown, drag out fight much earlier in the day just makes so much more sense to the putting together the puzzle pieces of Shelley's last day. So I'm really grateful to you for following up with Pam and hearing her complete story of that observation. And I'm so hopeful that it will help further this case.

[B]

So am I. Once again, to anybody listening out there, if you have more information, please come share it with us, because the more information we have, the clearer the picture becomes of exactly what did happen to Shelly Watkins that wound up prompting her murder. And the incredibly grisly and disrespectful way in which somebody tried to erase her presence from any visible trace on the Earth.

[A]

Okay, well, thank you Carol. I think that does it for now, but we will be back soon.

[B]

Okay, thanks Wes.

[A]

The Unforgotten is a Free Range production. Season one, the Labor Day Ghost is created, written and hosted by Carol Dawson and me, Wes Ferguson. I'm the Executive Producer at Free Range. Our theme song, Ghost, was written and recorded by Corsicana's own Will Mechatron Jones. Get updates, photos, case files and more when you sign up for our [e-mail] thank you for listening.