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- [00:01]
A
You there?
- [00:02]
B
I'm here. Can you hear me?
- [00:03]
A
Yeah. There you are. Yeah.
- [00:04]
B
Okay, cool. Did you read the email?
- [00:08]
A
Yes.
- [00:09]
B
Would you be willing to talk with me about what it was like growing up?
- [00:14]
C
This is my older brother, Mark.
- [00:16]
A
Gosh, Carol, I don't know if I can handle revisiting those old memories. They're just too. Haunting. Yeah, sure, of course.
- [00:28]
B
Oh, good. Okay. So we grew up together in a house across the street from the mysterious Mr.
- [00:36]
C
Drain in his big estate.
- [00:38]
B
What do you remember about that?
- [00:41]
A
Well, I remember it being no man's land. It was fenced in forest with a road that went down into the heart of it and just seemed to disappear in the woods. So it was very mysterious. It was a place of real foreboding. And of course, that just made it all the more alluring to us.
- [01:07]
C
When Mark and I were kids in Corsicana, Texas, the owner of this closed off property was a reclusive, one armed multimillionaire named Mr. Drane. Every day Mr. Drane steered his Rolls Royce down the long drive to his front gate and to empty his mailbox. And then turned right around and swept back to his house. Hidden amid woods and ponds, the huge estate grounds were forbidden to everyone, including neighbors, and guarded by a manager carrying a shotgun.
- [01:39]
A
He was just encased in this mystique about him. Everything from the one arm to the rarity in which we would ever see him, always in that Rolls Royce. And also the fact that we had very explicit instructions never to go down there from dad.
- [02:01]
B
Did you know about the way his father died?
- [02:05]
A
The only thing I knew about the way his father died was that just that one occasion when dad told a very abbreviated story of it and never mentioned again. You know, it was kind of left you in the dark about what happened other than the macabre nature of anybody cutting his own head off at a buzz saw.
- [02:32]
C
Not until I was an adult did I hear how Mr. Drain had inherited his estate. Early one morning, his father, the senior Mr. Drain, who'd made all the money officially committed suicide by cutting off his own head with a buzzsaw in one of his estate workshops. Right after leaving his son exactly $1 in his will, and instead using his fortune to create a foundation that would benefit all the folks in Navarro county with education and medical care. Of course, the one armed Mr. Drane contested that will after his father's so called suicide, gutted the foundation and wound up with everything.
- [03:11]
A
And you know, it's so completely disappeared now, it's like this whole domain has just vanished.
- [03:21]
C
And here's an interesting coincidence. Decades later, another Corsicana resident who was the subject of much gossip and speculation, Jerry Mack Watkins built himself and his fourth wife Kay, a palatial 9,500 square foot home on 40 acres of that same old drain estate, just two blocks from the original multimillionaire's house and a few more blocks from my childhood home. My name is Carol Dawson and this is my co host.
- [03:52]
D
I'm Wes Ferguson. We want to know more about Jerry Mack's life before he built the mansion on the mysterious old Drain estate in Corsicana before he married Kay. We want to find out how he met his third wife Shelly, how they fell in love, the days leading up to Shelley's mysterious death, and why her murder has never been solved. You're listening to the Unforgotten Season one the Labor Day Ghost Chapter two the.
- [04:22]
C
Fairy Tale They've won the grand championship several times. If you've heard of Corsicana, Texas, it might be because you've seen the hit Emmy award winning Netflix series Cheer about the Navera College cheerleading team whose coach drilled some talented athletes into winning national championships.
- [04:52]
B
And now we have so much talent from everywhere and they want to come.
- [04:56]
A
To this little old town in Corsicana.
- [04:58]
D
Which I probably would have never heard of where I guess I'm going there.
- [05:03]
C
Nevera Cheer coach Monica Aldama is said to be a good friend of the extended Watkins family. In fact, one Netflix show was filmed at Jerry Mack Watkins home with one of Shelley's two small grandchildren featured racing into the swimming pool alongside the cheerleaders. For me, this was apparently just before one of the Nevera cheerleaders was arrested for the sexual assault of minors. Corsicana has had more than its share of scandals. I came to see the town, which was located about 55 miles southeast of Dallas and 55 miles northeast of Waco. As a central nexus between several regions, a mix of southern manors, west Texas rancher altitudes, cotton farmers and most especially piles of money. When oil was accidentally struck in 1894, Corsicana became the first major oil boom site west of the Mississippi, which brought massive wealth. Eight new hotels, 35 saloons, 500 front yard oil rigs, numerous brothels and the births of the future ExxonMobil and Texaco corporations into what had previously been a quiet little farming village and county seat of where everybody knew everybody in this century. The town's most famous family owned business is the Collins Street Bakery.
- [06:29]
A
And the most famous fruitcake in the.
- [06:32]
D
World is made right here at the.
- [06:34]
A
Collins Street Bakery in Corsicana Texas. There's a lot of energy in fruitcake. There's a lot of energy in fruitcake.
- [06:41]
C
But the Collins Street Bakery suffered a cash leak when his corporate controller embezzled $16.7 million. Just because he and his wife wanted to fit into Corsicana's oil moneyed high society and own a few nice things, like a BMW, a Mercedes, a Bentley, a Rolls Royce, multiple Lexuses, fabulous jewels, furs, wines, a Santa Fe dream house, chartered jet vacations, all on an annual $50,000 salary. But they did fit right in for a little while, which right there tells you something about Corsicana's priorities.
- [07:17]
D
What does any of this have to do with Shelly Watkins, the young mom who was murdered and thrown in the Trinity river in 1993? Well, Corsicana, Texas is the place where Shelley called home for the last several years of her life. And it's a town where her memory has become twisted over time. While investigating Shelly Watkins death, we've heard so many wild rumors attacking her character, it's like some Corsicana residents are trying to blame the victim for her own death. We've heard that Shelly was a stripper who met her future husband, Jerry Mack in a nightclub in Dallas, and she followed him home.
- [07:53]
C
In Corsicana, as in many other small towns and cities, there are always a few voices ready to sniff out and assign scandal, especially to newcomers. She was trailer trash, born and raised in some podunk backwater up north somewhere to become a good looking gold digger searching for a well heeled mate. Or she was just plain entitled, blessed with beauty that allowed her to manipulate her husband for whatever she wanted. And a negligent mom to her two daughters to boot.
- [08:24]
D
For the record, all these rumors are bunk. Carol and I both know that. But as journalists, it's our job to separate fact from fiction. We've got to track down the people who knew Shelley best, the friends and loved ones who can show us the real Shelly Watkins. Because this story doesn't begin in Corsicana, Texas.
- [08:45]
C
Shelly Salter Watkins was born into a middle class family in Toledo, Ohio, a thousand miles away from the Texas town of Corsicana.
- [08:53]
B
My dad was a pharmacist and we grew up in a healthy atmosphere in Toledo.
- [09:01]
C
That was Sandy Salter Cripps, Shelly's older.
- [09:04]
B
Sister from the time she was little until her death. She walked into a room, you saw her not only because she was stunningly beautiful, but because she just had that personality that people just gravitated to her.
- [09:21]
C
Linda Dupuis is another person who knew Shelley from their early childhood on it was really outgoing.
- [09:28]
B
She just drew people to her. She always had so many friends everywhere she lived. She just was something special.
- [09:39]
C
After the sixth grade, Shelley spent her middle school years in the small town of Edgerton, Ohio. Robert Day, currently the mayor of Edgerton, remembers his own encounter with the way Shelley loved helping people while she was still young.
- [09:54]
A
Not only was she the heartthrob, she was, you know, just popular personality. We had a junior high New Year's Eve we roller skating party and I had asked Shelly to skate during one of the couple only skates and she said no. But later that same evening I was out screwing around, took a tumble and face planted the floor and busted both my front teeth. And so while I was waiting for my mother to come pick me up, that 20 minutes away, a lot of pain with an exposed nerve on your front teeth every time you would breathe. So I tried not to open my mouth, but Shelly came up to me while I was sitting there and said, do you still want to skate? A couple skate? And I nodded my head and so off we went. And she just did most of the talking and made the time pass until my mother got there. And that night in that situation, Shelly stepped in and helped.
- [10:51]
C
Shelly also made a lasting impression on Robert's future wife, Michelle, who grew up next door to the Salter family.
- [10:59]
A
My wife and her sisters, they would watch her come home from a date and they were probably four or five years younger and she saw them over there one time, crawled in their bedroom window and just sit down and talking to them. And my wife Michelle said to us it was like a, you know, big deal that Shelly waited till her date left and she come over. How many high school girls would do that?
- [11:22]
C
When Shelly was 17, her family again moved, this time to Lapeer, Michigan. She quickly became close, lifelong friends with a fellow teenager named Jennifer Baruch.
- [11:33]
B
She was very community minded, you know, service minded, oriented zonies. And she was one to put what she could toward it because she, you know, very smart, very capable, but she.
- [11:46]
C
Also had a great sense of humor and she knew how to have fun.
- [11:50]
B
Oh my God, she's hilarious. She's hilarious. Just classy, you know, classy, Always classy. We love to dance. I'd go over to her house and the song that reminds me of her is the song September by Earth, Wind and Fire. We would crank it up and we'd dance in her living room and just, you know, free, very free, just laughing and dancing.
- [12:21]
C
Shelley met a drummer in a local rock band called the Twilight Express. His name was Jeff Shelley and her best friend Jennifer attended Jeff's shows all over the Detroit area. Shelly and Jeff got married. They moved to Florida where they divorced. Shelley reconnected with a guy from her old hometown of Edgerton and moved with him to Dallas. Although the relationship didn't last, Shelly stayed in Dallas and became a salesperson.
- [12:51]
B
Shelly took a job out of Dallas selling like some sort of tools and she ended up calling on Watkins Construction. And there is where it began.
- [13:07]
C
Watkins Construction is a company founded by Carmack Watkins, a former dirt farmer, as the locals say, who was born and married and had his children out in the country before starting his concrete and paving concern back in 1957 with a single backhoe and growing it into what is now a quarter billion dollar per year pipeline industry. Colossus of car. Mack Watkins three children. The youngest, Jerry Mack, was the chosen one, the one to whom his father handed the company reins when he retired back in 1985. When Shelley first met her future husband and father in law, Watkins Construction was a natural place for a tool company sales rep to visit.
- [13:51]
B
She met Jerry and she met Carmack and they took her to lunch and she and Jerry hit it off.
- [13:59]
D
Did she talk to you about how head over heels she was?
- [14:02]
B
Oh my gosh, they were both just smitten. Absolutely. They were so taken aback by each other. I mean Jerry back then was a very, very good looking guy, probably one of the nicest guys, just good southern guy and you know, they just, they were like very, very much in love. It was kind of fairy tale like.
- [14:27]
D
By the time he met Shelley, Jerry Mack was in his early 30s. He'd already been married twice. His first wife left him after just eight months of marriage. Her reason, according to multiple people with close and credible knowledge and was Jerry Mack's infidelity. Jerry Mack met his second wife Charlotte at a local watering hole called the Courtyard. Charlotte was 10 years Jerry Mack Senior, a divorcee with two sons, Kyle and Kelly.
- [14:52]
A
Yeah, there's this young guy, marries this woman that already has two boys and he had the world at his fingertips. Good looking guy from good family, could, you know, have anything. But he chose this sweet woman with two boys.
- [15:07]
D
This is Kelly Davis. He turned 11 years old, an impressionable age around the time Jerry Mack became his stepdad in 1981.
- [15:15]
A
Come to find out he was just an excellent stepdad. He took us in as his own.
- [15:20]
D
Kelly says Jerry Mack took him hunting, took him to the office, taught him to drive tractors and pickup trucks.
- [15:27]
A
He was a kind person, patient. He talked to me A little bit about the birds and bees. He told me, hey, dude, it's time for you to wear deodorant. I can see smell you. No, it's just being a dad of a middle schooler.
- [15:42]
D
Kelly has remained friendly with Jerry Mack even after his mom, Charlotte died in 2012.
- [15:47]
A
The way I saw him treat my mother was, was pretty good, he says.
- [15:51]
D
Both his mom and his former stepdad explained that their marriage ended after three and a half years because Jerry Mack was caught having yet another affair.
- [15:59]
A
He was a little bit of a playboy, I guess she's kind of one of those like, ah, okay, I can't do this, I'm had enough. Let's just have a quick divorce, cut the losses now. And their separate ways they went. Years later, she only had positive things to say about him other than he got called extramarital affairs and they divorced. But it was very positive marriage other than that. And he was still a young guy that was kind of good looking and from a wealthy family and just kind of had the whole world in his hands. That's where she put it like, you know, he was probably better off being single.
- [16:37]
D
Around two years later, Shelly happened to call on Watkins Construction in Corsicana, Texas, and Shelley laid eyes on Jerry Mack Watkins.
- [16:46]
C
Tall, handsome and affable. It's easy to see how he and such a dynamic beauty from far outside his own world might have been wildly attracted to each other and fallen in love. Although Shelley had been married and divorced once, she and Jerry Mack immediately jumped into a relationship together, sweeping one another up in a romance romantic whirlwind. And despite having already been married and divorced twice, within the social environs of native Corsicanons, the wealthy and good looking Jerry Mack Watkins was regarded as quite an eligible catch who had now been caught by a total outsider. Nonetheless, it looked like the ideal marriage between the ideal beautiful couple.
- [17:29]
B
And boy, I don't know, they were married. In less than a year. They came back here to Atlanta and they rented this beautiful southern plantation. It was a small wedding, but beautiful. Oh my God, it was exquisite.
- [17:46]
C
To Sandy, her sister's new life in Texas seemed like a fairy tale. Sandy and her husband Gary often visited Shelly and Jerry Mack and their two daughters.
- [17:55]
B
Everything was great. My parents adored him. All was good. We would all be there and, and stay at the house. It was beautiful because my sister, you know, obviously she loved fashion, but she had a tremendous flair for decorating. But she made it a beautiful home, absolutely beautiful. And then they had the lake house and, you know, their life was Good, but nothing like what he's lived the last 30 years. Nothing like that.
- [18:22]
C
Once they were married, Shelley grew active in certain aspects of Corsicana life. She apparently cared nothing for the pre established social hierarchies there and had little interest in cultivating a prestigious position. But she joined a church, Westminster Presbyterian Church, a different denomination from the Watkins longtime preference of Northside Baptist Church, and pursued her community work with energy and zest. She became a force within the American Cancer Society fundraising corps. She also joined other civic organizations as well as working on local beauty contests. Janet Bailey Gummelt remembers Shelly's enthusiasm.
- [19:03]
B
Well, we were in the junior service skill together. Ah, so she was charitably minded. Oh, yes. And the thing about Shelley, a lot of people got into the Junior Service Guild because, you know, it's the social thing to do. Shelley got into it to do good things.
- [19:23]
C
Janet says Shelley volunteered at a local orphanage, the state home. She baked cookies with the children and took them to restaurants. Janet also says her friend was the life of the party.
- [19:35]
B
You knew Shelly Watkins was in the room and she was so inclusive. From the moment I met her, I felt like I had known her forever. There were no hoes barred with Shelly. If she had the question, she asked it and she expected you to answer it too. You had to be a little thick skinned maybe to be around Shelly because she would ask whatever was in her head and that's okay. That was the beauty of her. She was so down to earth. She was who she was and she didn't try to put on any airs about things. And I think sometimes maybe that's why she didn't possibly fit in so well with the established social cliques in Corsicana. She really didn't care if she fit in with them or not.
- [20:27]
C
Janet also says Shelly was like the big sister in their friend group, the one they could turn to and trust when they needed a listening ear.
- [20:35]
B
She had really good stage advice for things and she was just a good friend. I've met a lot of people in my life. I've never met anyone like her. She was such a positive influence for so many people. It breaks my heart that we didn't get to have Shelly longer.
- [21:03]
C
By the time Shelly and Jerry Mack had had their two daughters about three years apart, Shelly had integrated herself as fully as she was going to into Corsicana life and the life of her immediate neighborhood. She and her family lived in a small development called Beaton Lake Estates, just beyond the city limits. Two of her best female friends lived directly across the street. Another one Lived roughly a quarter mile up the S shaped road. That friend, Kay Bryant, was married to Jerry Mack's old friend and college roommate, Dennis Bryant. It seemed to be a tight little community with much socializing and get togethers among the houses and young families. Children's birthday parties, adult parties, card games and group trips to the Watkins Lake House on Cedar Creek Lake, about 40 miles away. That lake house will play an important part of this story.
- [22:01]
D
Did you go to the lake house when you visited Corsicana?
- [22:04]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [22:06]
C
This is Shelly's sister again, Sandy.
- [22:08]
B
It's beautiful. It sits right on the water's edge. Really nice lake, nice rolling grass down to the water, of course. Pontoon boats, jet skis, ski boat, they had it all and they, you know, they enjoyed it a lot. A lot of holidays spent there. And yeah, you picture a lake house with all of its warm and fuzzy. That was it definitely. And we had such good times out there.
- [22:40]
C
But not all was well in the Watkins home life. By the time their older daughter Ashley turned four years old, arguments between her two strong willed parents had grown more frequent and fiery. It didn't help that early in the relationship Shelly had discovered her new lover. Jerry Mack had recently fathered a son through an affair with his previous girlfriend, a woman who was furious that Jerry had moved on and left her holding the baby. Tensions apparently continued to increase over the next several years. Shelley did not, however, usually share them either with her sister or or her friends. During the summer of 1993, Shelley's younger brother Rob Salter came to Corsicana from Atlanta for a weekend getaway accompanied by his friend Ben o'. Neill.
- [23:32]
A
We just went out to visit Shelly and she entertained us for the weekend and it was a lot of fun. I do remember Jerry, he wasn't around that much. We went out on his boat. I remember him having a lot of money. He had a really nice place and a lot to show off.
- [23:50]
C
One night during the visit, Rob and Ben went into town with Shelly, Jerry Mack and a group of friends to dine at the Old Mexican Inn, a longtime favorite Corsicana restaurant. Some of the Watkins neighbors were included in the party, but not their friends Dennis and Kay, who had moved into a house on the other side of town. That didn't stop Kay and Dennis from joining the partiers after dinner at the Watkins home.
- [24:16]
B
I don't know, is it even pertinent? Yes, it's very pertinent. Just say it. Okay. Friday nights were typically go to this Mexican restaurant, everybody's drinking margaritas and it's kind of A, you know, everybody gets pretty drunk. And apparently my brother walked out into the garage and caught Jerry and Kate kissing. And I've never brought it up because, you know, I didn't see it. My brother did, but he came back and he said something. I said, God, maybe they were just drunk. Well, don't. Don't bring that up, because I didn't know they were really having marital problems. Not at that point. I didn't even know they were that drastic, even when it happened. But I didn't want to stir up trouble for Shelley if it was just drunk. But anyways, that always was a part of it that I've kind of. I don't even. Probably didn't even ever tell the police. I just didn't know how pertinent it was. But for us, we know dang good and well that there was something going on between those two. I wish you had told the police. Oh, I wish you had. Now. Did he tell you that immediately after he had gotten back to Atlanta? Yeah, I believe so. Yeah. It made an impact on him. Well, yeah, it would. So we didn't. And we didn't know there was anything wrong with their marriage, so of course it was. But, you know, I kind of regret my response because, you know, my response was probably not very good. But I also didn't want to rock the boat with Shelley. And, you know, if. If I knew that it wasn't a scenario where they were partying and drinking margaritas, I would have probably taken it differently. But I have seen people do really stupid things in those conditions, and I. I didn't have any reason at that point to believe that Kay was anything other than they were just all good friends.
- [26:12]
C
Rob Salter has confirmed the intimate scene he stumbled onto that night in an email. Rob also said that his ex wife clearly remembers him telling her about the kiss not long after he had observed it. What about Ben o', Neal, Rob's friend and travel companion that weekend?
- [26:31]
A
I don't remember that detail. I do remember Rob talking about him cheating on Shelly.
- [26:37]
C
I remember that Shelly never talked about this sort of thing with Sandy. But Sandy remembers another time when Shelly brought up a fraught subject involving her husband.
- [26:48]
B
I will tell you that Shelly was a very proud person. And if there were some things going on, she probably would have tried to have kept it under wraps just because she was very proud and she loved her life the way it was. We were very close, but I never got a call. Oh, my God, Dan, I'm scared. I'm going to tell you guys Something. So I do have an interesting little tidbit. Shelly came to visit, like, right at tax time, a couple weeks, three weeks after my youngest was born. And we were having coffee one morning and just chatting away. And she said, you know, I gotta tell you, Sam, she always was a little dubious of Carmack, and she definitely didn't get along with the brother.
- [27:45]
C
Sandy is referring here to Jerry Mack's older brother, Ronnie. Ronnie is the eldest of the three Watkins offspring, older than Jerry Mack by 10 years. Jerry Mack, though, was clearly the heir apparent to his father, Carmack, and to Watkins Construction.
- [28:01]
B
And she said, I gotta tell you, though, that I've overheard. I pay attention. There are different things that I've heard that if I ever disclosed, the Watkins could be in a lot of trouble. And I looked at her three weeks after having a baby, and I said, shelly, if you ever, ever. I said, the Watkins have a lot of power. Don't ever say that to anybody. Forget it. Be done. That was the only eye opener I ever, ever got from her. That I was like, man, you don't want to come up against Ronnie, Jerry and Carmack. Good Lord. In my head, that is the only thing that could possibly have been the reason her life was taken. I think everybody's just always been afraid of it. Afraid of the Watkins.
- [29:07]
A
I remember driving around with Jerry.
- [29:09]
B
Can you hear my husband?
- [29:10]
D
Just barely.
- [29:12]
A
They just have too much money and too much power in that area. I remember we went out there to Texas one time before Sheldon was killed. And we were driving around, and I drove around with Jerry for an hour, just kind of road trekking. We're in a truck and we're driving around, having some beers, and we didn't stop in an intersection that he didn't look this way or that way and say, we own this, we own that next road over. We own this, we own that. It was like they owned all the real estate in that area. I mean, it was just incredible. I. I couldn't imagine the. The wealth and the money that they had just in land holding.
- [29:53]
D
So you have no idea what she might have been referring to.
- [29:57]
B
Business dealings is what. I know some business dealings. And I, you know, I'm the older sister by two years. There's the difference. I'm like, no, no, I don't do that. No, no, no. And Shell's like, really? Well, that's bullshit. She was. She was very feisty like that. But I didn't feel that that was an area that we needed to be priced. She had her family and all was good. You know, she. They lived kind of a little bit of a traditional, whatever, Texas life. Like every Monday the boys had dinner at Carmax. And I can't think of the mom's name right now. She's been gone a while. Norma. She would fix dinner for the boys and it was their boys night every Monday dinner. That drove my sister crazy.
- [30:58]
D
So the wives were not invited?
- [31:01]
B
No.
- [31:02]
A
Really.
- [31:03]
B
And she used to say to Jerry, that is crap. Shelly wasn't going to turn the other cheek. I'm married to you, Jerry. I should be able to sit there and listen to whatever you guys are talking about. That was a big bone of contention.
- [31:18]
C
We have found no evidence of wrongdoing by Watkins Construction. However, former game warden Rick Thomas, whom you heard in the first chapter, says that the family patriarch, Carmack Watkins, was known in law enforcement circles as the Godfather.
- [31:34]
A
The father in law is known as the Godfather. He was always nice to me, but you don't see the other side. And he definitely had another side from what I understood.
- [31:47]
C
On Monday, September 6th of 1993, Jerry Mack, Shelley and their two little daughters joined other members of the Watkins family at the family's Cedar Creek lake house for a Labor Day celebration. Their elder daughter was six weeks short of her fifth birthday and the younger daughter was only one and a half, still a baby. Partygoers joining them included Jerry Mack's older brother Ronnie, Ronnie's wife Barbara, their teenage daughter Brandy, and several other friends and couples, including Dennis and Kay, the friend of Shelley's who'd been suspected of having an affair with Jerry Mack. By mid afternoon, the lake party was in full swing, both in and out of the water, drinking alcohol and making merry, or as merry as they could considering the climate of tension. According to Shelley's sister in law, Barbara. Shelly seemed real nervous and jittery. And Barbara would also state to law enforcement that on that day she told her daughter Brandi Shelly was not herself. Barbara also admitted that Shelley had an argument with Ronnie, her own husband, and Jerry Mack's brother. According to newspaper reports, Ronnie was angry that Shelley and Brandy were still riding jet skis around the lake after darkness had fallen. We contacted Ronnie Watkins to ask about his Labor Day argument with Shelley at the lake house.
- [33:12]
A
I don't really know what you're talking about. I can't confirm anything that you haven't told me.
- [33:18]
D
Could you just tell me what you remember from that day?
- [33:21]
A
I'm 80 years old and that was what, 20 years ago? 30. 30 years ago. And. And you expect me to remember that?
- [33:32]
C
Barbara told investigators One more detail that might have surely thickened the hostile atmosphere. Shelley, she said, grew upset after she discovered that Jerry Mack had already driven away from the lake house, taking their two little girls with him and leaving her behind. We don't know how Shelley got home from the lake house, whether she caught a ride or drove another vehicle. But the real fireworks that exploded to mark that Labor Day holiday's finale allegedly occurred around 11pm which was when Shelly supposedly got back from Cedar Creek Lake to her own home at Beaten Lake Estates. Apparently, that's when all hell broke loose, according to Jerry Mack Watkins himself. Jerry Mack told everyone he had already put both little girls to bed by the time Shelley got home from the lake. By then, she was fuming. The argument that ensued took place either outdoors, as Jerry Mack would confide to Kay Bryant early the next morning, or inside the garage where both their vehicles were parked. In whichever sight the argument flared up, it bloomed hotter and bigger, presumably inflamed by accusations. Eventually, Shelly announced to Jerry Mack that she was going to wake their two daughters up. She was leaving him right then and there and taking the two little girls with her. Such an absolute declaration would seem to indicate that whatever troubles and grievances their marriage had endured, she had finally had enough. But Jerry Mack wasn't going to allow her to leave. Instead, he said, he grabbed her car keys to prevent her from driving away. At which point, according to his account, at approximately 11:30pm she stormed off on foot into the darkness, never to be seen alive again. Their final argument, by Jerry Mack's estimate, had lasted almost exactly 30 minutes. Jerry said he went back into the house, got into bed and went to sleep. Here's Beaton Lake Estates. This was the home of Jerry Mack Watkins and Shelly Watkins.
- [35:57]
D
If you couldn't tell, we're in Carol's car right now. She's showing me around the old Watkins neighborhood.
- [36:03]
C
This is the house from which she, presumably, according to Jerry Mack, at 11:30 at night, stomped off, just on foot after he had snatched her car keys away, off into the night, disappearing forever alive from human sight. And he, he said, went to bed.
- [36:31]
D
As Carol mentioned earlier, Shelly had several close friends in the neighborhood. Her neighbor and friend who lived right across the street, Carolyn Taylor, was a night owl.
- [36:41]
C
This was the home of Carolyn Taylor, who ran a gambling house way out here in the country. Look, just stuck. Behind this main house is another house that was known as the party house. She kept a poker game running. Willie Nelson was a good friend and a very regular attendant to that poker game.
- [37:05]
D
No joke. When Carolyn died in 2023, the website Poker News ran an obituary describing her as the first woman in Texas poker. Famed gambler Amarillo Slim called Carolyn's house The Poker Palace, 60 miles south of Dallas. It would have made sense for Shelley to seek refuge at Carolyn's doorstep, but she didn't. She didn't knock on the front door of any of her other friends in the neighborhood either. The Watkins House sits within view of Interstate 45, the freeway that runs through Corsicana and connects the cities of Dallas and Houston. Later, Jerry Mack said that as far as he could guess, Shelly might have been picked up by a passing motorist on I45 or the service road leading to it. Then she was killed.
- [37:51]
A
It really didn't make a whole lot of sense to us.
- [37:54]
D
This is Mike Head. He would later get involved with the case as a prosecutor.
- [37:59]
A
I think their theory was that she got picked up by someone, you know, on Interstate and that person killed her and then disposed of the body. But we had talked to some experts, and they didn't feel like that was consistent with what the evidence actually showed. I mean, her body was wrapped and taped, and that they felt like that required more thought than, you know, someone who is just going to pick someone up and kill them. They wouldn't take the time to do that. They would just dispose of the body. So there were reasons why we didn't feel like that story held up, but it was. It was a pretty good story, you know, for them to put together.
- [38:48]
D
The only things missing from Shelly's body were her rings and watch, which might suggest she was the victim of a robbery. Her expensive purse, we think it was a Dooney. And Burke has also never been found. For the random robbery theory to make sense, the motorist would have needed to possess enough local knowledge to leave Interstate 45 and drive on several country roads in the middle of the night to the remote farm to Market Road bridge where Shelley's body was thrown in the Trinity River.
- [39:18]
A
It would take someone with some knowledge of the area and the exit, you know, from where they would have picked her up to where they would have exited. To go to that bridge was not really far enough that you would think someone would, you know, who just picked someone up would formalize a plan to kill them, do all of those things, and then go there to dispose of the body. A lot of that just didn't make sense if it was a random person.
- [39:54]
D
Here's another interesting detail. Not at the bridge, but back in Corsicana at Shelly's old neighborhood. Right across Interstate 45 from Beaten Lake Estates, a one minute drive from Jerry Mack and Shelly Watkins house is one of the town's thriving businesses, Watkins Construction. At the time, Jerry Mack was the company president. Here's Shelley's sister again, Sandy, with her friend Kathy.
- [40:19]
B
They went to pretty elaborate dealings for her between the cinder blocks and the chains and the wrapping and which was all linked back to the materials at Watkins Construction. Right.
- [40:32]
D
Okay, now that's an important question I have is that, that's something that has been documented that those materials came from Watkins Construction.
- [40:40]
B
They did. They had been documented.
- [40:43]
A
They weren't documented that they came from Watkins Construction.
- [40:47]
D
Now you're hearing Sandy's husband Gary, but.
- [40:49]
A
They are the exact same materials that Watkins Construction had on site because they purchased them locally. All the clips, all the plastic, all the chains, all the cinder blocks, all Watkins Construction had purchased and had on hand. But you can't prove that because other people have also bought them. But it did defeat the whole theory and the whole thing saying, oh, it was just a stranger that abducted her and did this. No, because a stranger does not do all of this, right? Stranger does not. They just throw it in ditch when they're done. Somebody that knows her and wants to get rid of a body does what they did.
- [41:36]
D
Witnesses, neighbors and others suggest that during the week long period that Shelley was missing, Jerry Mack assured them that she'd just gone off somewhere to let off steam, that she would come back when she was ready. David Williams was one of those neighbors. He and his wife Karen lived across the street from the Watkins one house over from poker queen Carolyn Taylor.
- [41:57]
A
Everybody out there knew each other, was neighbors. We say hi, fine, you know, that kind of stuff. And Forres went over. Everybody was friendly. I never had any issues with nobody. We couldn't believe it when we found out about it. You know, we didn't know what she was. We just thought she was missing for some reason. Got mad, left, you know, didn't come back a week later. When I get over there.
- [42:19]
D
From what you knew of Shelly was that that wasn't surprising that she would take off in the night like that.
- [42:24]
A
No, she, she, she. I don't, you know, I just never have understood none of it. You know, sometimes people get mad at each other or work to tell you to get back together. I might talk about. She might have went out of town with a friend and stuff like that. But why he didn't know about it, I don't know, but I had. You have to ask him all these questions because he'd know more than I know.
- [42:45]
D
As we've mentioned before, Jerry Mack Watkins has always maintained his innocence in the death of his wife Shelly. His older brother, Ronnie, also stands by Jerry Mack's innocence. Do you think that Jerry is. Is innocent or guilty?
- [42:59]
A
Oh, definitely he's innocent.
- [43:02]
D
Okay, well, that's great to hear. Could you tell me a little more about that?
- [43:07]
A
I just told you I'm not going to give you my life history on the telephone.
- [43:14]
D
And, and. But you don't want to do that in person either.
- [43:17]
A
No, I do not.
- [43:19]
C
In the days after Shelly vanished, some of her friends thought she might be lying injured in the woods scrub or mesquite brush in the fields nearby. Others actually took the trouble to comb the area.
- [43:32]
A
Me and Stacey walked in our service road to see if there was a purse or anything, you know, just any type of evidence out there.
- [43:39]
C
This is the current Corsicana Police chief, Robert Johnson, a neighbor who at that time worked as head of security for a hospital in Dallas. Stacy is Robert's wife and was a close friend of Shelly's.
- [43:51]
A
We walked all the way to that next exit and all the way down past that service station. You have been out there, you know, that closed down service station that shoots out. And then we went all the way down to that next exit. I remember that, you know, because if somebody's going to grab you, there's going to be evidence of something been out. A purse, you know, broken fingernails, some papers or some dickies.
- [44:16]
C
Of course, the Johnsons had no luck finding any clues. Neither did anyone else during those crucial first days following Shelley's disappearance. Whoever did kill Shelly Watkins simply failed to add into their calculations the fact that after eight days of immersion, in spite of the concrete blocks intended to keep her way down to the river bottom, she would rise again, thanks to the gases created inside her decomposing body. And by the time she did rise, a whole week had been lost that could have been spent tracing her movements, gathering clues, and tracking her killer down. All that week, while his wife was in the river, Jerry Mack Watkins kept busy doing things his neighbors found increasingly difficult to explain. Coming up next time on the other Unforgotten.
- [45:10]
A
She's pretty decomposed. She could have been beaten and strangled. She could have been theoretically knocked unconscious, thrown into the creek and drowned. Why would a guilty guy do that? I'll tell you why. Because it's a distraction.
- [45:23]
B
I mean, what was all unfolding was something out of a terrible movie, you know.
- [45:34]
A
Foreign.
- [45:42]
D
Thank you for listening to the Unforgotten. Get updates, photos, case files and more when you sign up for our newsletter@unforgottenpod.com 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 here at Free Range. Audio recording, editing and mixing by Austin Sisler at Eastside Studios in Austin, Texas. Scored by Austin Sisler and Jamie Cummins. Our theme song, Ghost, is written and performed by Corsicana's own Will Mechatron Jones. If you support our efforts to shine a new light on Shelly Watkins Cold Case, please like subscribe, give us a review and tell your friends thanks again and see you soon.