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- [00:00]
Ryan Reynolds
There's a reason Chevy trucks are known for their dependability. It's because they show up no matter the weather, push forward no matter the terrain, and deliver. That's why Chevrolet has earned more dependability awards for trucks than any other brand in 2025, according to J.D.
- [00:12]
power.
- [00:12]
Because in every Chevy truck, like every Chevy driver, dependability comes standard. Visit Chevy.com to learn more. Chevrolet received the highest total number of awards among all trucks in the J.D. power 2025 U.S. vehicle Dependability Study Awards based on 2022 models. Newer models may be shown. Visit J.D. power.com awards for more details. Chevrolet Together hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here
- [00:31]
for Mint Mobile Now. I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills. But it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try@mintmobile.com switch upfront payment
- [00:52]
Mint Mobile Announcer
of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for a 12 month plan required $15 per month equivalent to taxes and fees. Extra initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes. Me slow when network is busy. See terms SA.
- [01:40]
Nick (Host)
Welcome to True Crime Garage wherever you are, whatever you're doing. Thanks for listening. I'm your host, Nick and with me, as always, is a man who earned his nickname by being lost at sea. Here is the Captain.
- [01:52]
Colonel (Co-host)
Sometimes I wonder if I ever made it back. It's good to be seen and good to see you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling a friend.
- [02:06]
Nick (Host)
This week we are very thankful to be sipping on some Route 33 Pale Ale by the good hard working folks over at Outer Belt Brewing in beautiful Fairfield, Ohio. Route 33 is a splendidly flavorful pale ale, pleasantly hopped with Columbus Mosaic and Cascade Hops Garage Grade three and three quarter bottle caps out of five and and let's give some thanks and praise to our friends for helping us fill up the fridge this week. First up, a cheers to Kelly Sesik from Denton, Texas. And last but certainly not least, we have Kate in Northgate, Washington. Everyone we just mentioned, they went to our website truecrimegarage.com clicked on the pint glass and helped us out with this week's beer fund. And for that we thank you.
- [02:51]
Colonel (Co-host)
Yeah BWRN beer run. Make sure you go to truecrimegarage.com we are running our Thanksgiving sale so get some swag and help out the show. Keep the lights on and that's enough of the business.
- [03:08]
Nick (Host)
All right everybody gather round. Grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime. An abandoned barn in rural Ohio goes up in flames. Fire investigators dig through the rubble and smoking embers only to find that the dilapidated outbuilding wasn't empty as suspected. First one charred set of remains and then a second is located. Two sets of human remains were unearthed from the ruins of this barn. Fire turned body recovery site. And of course it wasn't difficult to quickly determine that the fire was no accident. Someone or someones had something that they did not want you or anyone else to find. A peaceful community outside of the big city of Columbus, Ohio was about to be shaken to its core. Two were dead and an arsonist and killer was living among them. This is True Crime Garage. And this is the case of Abby Worrell and Jamie Kelly. September 25, 1994, Karen Worrell called the Licking County Ohio Sheriff's office. She told the dispatcher that her daughter Abby was missing and so was her daughter's friend, Jamie Kelly. Both girls, Abby Worrell and Jamie Kelly, were 16 years old. Deputies were sent out to talk to Karen at her home in Pataskala, Ohio. Karen reported the following the night before, Abby and Jamie went to a party in the Beechwood Trail subdivision. The two teenagers returned to Karen's home, also located in Beechwood Trails. They returned by 1am Karen saw them. At this time, Jamie was sleeping over and Karen witnessed the two girls getting ready for bed. The next morning, Karen and the girls, they had plans. At 10am Karen got tired of waiting so she went to Abby's room to wake the girls. She was quite surprised to see that they were not there. She found a window open in the room. She looked around and noticed that the clothes that the girls were wearing the night before were missing as well. She and the deputies surmised that Abby and Jamie likely went back out that night, leaving the house voluntarily. Jamie's mom and stepdad Connie and Frank Swaney called the sheriff's office later that same morning to report Jamie missing as well. So now we have two parents from two separate households calling to report 16 year old daughters missing.
- [06:58]
Colonel (Co-host)
Law enforcement would be told by Karen that her daughter ran away once before,
- [07:03]
Nick (Host)
at least once before. And it seems possible that the authorities may have been involved in one of those occasions. Now unfortunately, nothing will make a missing person's investigation less of a priority for local law enforcement than the prior actions of a rebellious teen who likely ran out to party or meet up with Some friends.
- [07:25]
Colonel (Co-host)
Yeah. I always complain on this show that we need law enforcement to take these missing person reports very serious. And they normally jump to the conclusion that somebody just ran away on their own. So when you have a prior history of this, that's obviously more likely to have law enforcement jump to that conclusion.
- [07:47]
Nick (Host)
Per the Newark Advocate, sightings of the girls had placed them in several locations out of town. Now we have the sheriff's office, the Licking County Sheriff's office, Captain Ray back, he said, quote, we don't know what they were getting into between here in Columbus. So we're talking, this is about roughly, let's say an hour drive from Columbus to this location. And he's simply saying we got two teenagers out. We don't know where they are. We've had some sightings of them. We, we don't know what they're up to. But the girls didn't come home. So eventually an investigation was opened and the sheriff's department personnel began talking to other teens, teens that knew the girls, to see if they could get a bead on their whereabouts. This is late September. Now we're going to fast Forward to Sunday, October 2nd. This is about a week after the girls went missing. The Fairfield County Fire Department was called out to a barn fire. This was an abandoned barn off of Ohio Route 158, about 10 miles south of Pataskala. A newspaper carrier who was out on his pre dawn route saw the blaze, calls it in.
- [09:10]
Colonel (Co-host)
So the firefighters get to the barn, they're putting out the blaze. Now they got to figure out what caused this. It's a banded barn. They're looking for evidence of arson or again, just how this fire got started. And they're going to be surprised and not pleasantly surprised.
- [09:31]
Nick (Host)
Correct. Because they're trying to determine a point of origin for the fire. And that's when they're surprised. They're going to find human remains among the smoking rubble. And it appeared to be two bodies that they were looking at. The corpses were removed. Licking county authorities were notified and they realized that they could have a problem on their hands. We have Abby and Jamie, who were still missing at this time.
- [09:58]
Ryan Reynolds
Right.
- [09:59]
Nick (Host)
And now there were two unidentified bodies in a neighboring county. So on Monday, they contacted the Royals and the Kelly's and asked for dental records. After receiving them, they were identified fairly quickly. Abby and Jamie were unfortunately dead. Their bodies found in that abandoned barn. This is 10 miles from their home in a rural section of Fairfield County. What could have happened here? Well, according to the autopsies, it didn't take long to determine that the girls had not been killed in any fire. The fire was not the cause of their death.
- [10:39]
Sponsor Announcer
Right.
- [10:39]
Nick (Host)
Dr. Keith Norton, forensic pathologist and deputy coroner of Franklin county, issued an autopsy report stating that Jamie Kelly's date of death could have been anywhere from three to seven days before the body the remains were located. And the same for Abby. They were so decomposed and burned that it was hard to determine time of death. Abby and Jamie had both been shot. Jamie once in the head and Abby three times in the chest and once in the head as well. For evidentiary purposes, the best condition bullet removed was determined to be a.45 caliber. Rifling specifications correspond to those found in some Ruger Blackhawk and Dakota brand single action revolvers, but could also be found in some other types of handguns as well. But that's the best that they could seem to narrow it down with their findings. Meanwhile, we have the fire scene investigators who are pouring over the barn. This barn, they determined was owned by a Mary Rhodes. She told them that she did not know how the barn could have started to burn. But it was quickly ruled an arson because they were able to determine, Captain, that gasoline was used as an accelerant to start this fire.
- [12:04]
Colonel (Co-host)
Yeah, very tough situation here. You got two parents looking for the missing children. And the fact that they left the house, I think that would bother me as a parent. They obviously came home. That was their ruse to then go back out. What reason did they have to go back out into the night? Who are they meeting up with? Why wouldn't they just tell me where they're going? I think this stuff would plague you. And then, like you said, not much later, law enforcement is calling for an identifier, dental records. And when you hear that as a parent again, that'd be something very devastating to deal with. But now you have a situation where. Where, okay, we have two victims. They were murdered and now there was a cover up. Just the fire in general. And the way these victims were found, I would think makes it a little more difficult for law enforcement to. To figure out what happened.
- [13:07]
Nick (Host)
Yes, it does. And here, here gets to be the problem with your investigation right away. So you have these other sightings, possible sightings, you can't fully verify if it was actually the two missing girls. And then your time of death skews your investigation a bit too, because you have the experts telling you that they were probably killed three to seven days before being found. Well, if it's seven days, then that means they weren't actually Missing. And a lot of those potential sightings are not true. It was not our two victims.
- [13:41]
Colonel (Co-host)
What we see a lot of times in missing person cases that you have false accounts, false eyewitness accounts of seeing individuals that went missing. And not because those eyewitnesses want to throw law enforcement or the parents off the track. It's because people want to help. So when they hear of these missing girls, almost eyewitnesses come out of the woodworks. Oh, I might have saw them here, I might have saw them there. And that kind of gives you a false sense of hope.
- [14:13]
Nick (Host)
Your investigation would lead you to talking to friends of the girls, talking to other teenagers, their peers, naturally. But in this instance, what you have too is, you know, or at least through talking with mom and what you're seeing at her house. It's believed by all parties that the girls willingly, voluntarily left that home late that night. So they sneak out of the house. The kickstarter for your investigation, as said, you would talk to peers anyway. But what you do know is they didn't sneak out of that house to hang out with each other. Likely they were going to be meeting up with somebody else or someone's else. So this would lead you. This would be the kickstarter for your investigation. We need to talk to all these people that. All the peers of, of theirs that knew them, knew them well and might have heard or talked to somebody that maybe they were going to meet up with later that night. They were hanging out with people prior to going back to Karen's house.
- [15:14]
Guest
Right.
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Nick (Host)
So the difficult thing will be the interviews, and that's what we're getting to now. So we have Abby Marie Worl and Jamie K. Kelly. Again, both 16 years old. They're both students at the same school. This is Watkins Memorial High School. Abby's mom was single at this time. Unfortunately, Abby's father was deceased. Jamie's parents were divorced and her mom was remarried. Their deaths were a terrible blow to Watkins, which had seen a weird rash of deaths among its student body as of late.
- [15:50]
Ryan Reynolds
Right.
- [15:51]
Nick (Host)
In July of 1993, a male student accidentally shot a female and then took his own life. And while Abby and Jamie were still missing, you know, they're missing for a little over a week. A female student had taken her life as well. So the total number of fatalities among the student body, five in just a 15 month time period.
- [16:14]
Colonel (Co-host)
And if you're law enforcement, I think this would make it a little more complicated because, yes, we have the student body that we need to interview and figure things out. But we don't have one victim, so we don't have one inner circle. We have two victims, so we have two inner circles.
- [16:31]
Nick (Host)
That's correct. And meanwhile, we're trying to sort this out. And we have the school who is trying to address this weird situation with its student body and trying to cope and to help the student body who many of these young people are sad and confused by all the tragedies that are going on around this time. Now. Initial media reports state that investigators had no suspects, and this did not ease the minds of the community. Obviously, the deranged killer of two innocent teenage girls could be somebody likely as somebody in their community. The other threat here is that it's very possible that it's somebody at the high school.
- [17:18]
Colonel (Co-host)
Yeah. And it makes you wonder, if there's two victims, are there two murderers?
- [17:24]
Nick (Host)
Yeah. You had one. Freshman girl, when interviewed by the local news, is saying, look, the killer could be roaming these halls, the halls of this school that we're all showing up to five days a week. Fairfield County Sheriff Gary Demasri took charge of the investigation. He told the Columbus Dispatch, that's our major local newspaper here, he said, quote, we don't have many homicides in Fairfield county, and when we do, we like to solve them and get the people in jail who are responsible for them, end quote. Not going to argue with that. Demastry assigned all nine of his detectives as well as some deputies to the case. So this is an all hands on deck situation, and you have to applaud
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Colonel (Co-host)
law enforcement for throwing all their resources at this case.
- [18:12]
Nick (Host)
Investigators with Fairfield county and Licking County Sheriff's offices jointly set out interviewing family, friends and classmates of the girls, trying to piece together what they could from the stories that they were told, mostly from youths. So this would be about 75 people total that they would interview. And they had a difficult task of trying to get teens to talk openly with them. This was before cell phones and texting was not a thing, of course. So police did not have the ability to search social media or phone interactions to get to the bottom of things. It seems that investigators figured out very quickly that the murders had happened close to home. Basing what they're finding, talking to these youngsters, they're starting to piece this kind of convoluted story, confusing story together. One of the first good tips that they get comes from an individual named Matt Young. He's 16 at the time, he told police that Abby had a feud going with an older girl. Her name was Sonya Hawkins. She's 19. Remember our victims are 16. Sonia's longtime boyfriend was a guy named Robert Daniel. He's 16. He goes to Whitehall, so he goes to a different school. But the word around school was that Sonya hated Abby. A source told the Columbus Dispatch that Sonya had beat up Abby at one point, saying, quote, kids in school were afraid of Sonya. She was tough. But another kid told investigators that although Abby and Sonya had a beef in the past, that at some point they had made up. Another kid they talked to was Robert. He's known as Bobby Sheets. Several others had told them that Bobby used to date Abby. He told them he heard that the girls were missing, but he didn't have any idea where they would be. But other kids told them this. Bobby Sheets actually had made plans to hang out with Abby to meet up with Abby on the night that the girls went missing, that they snuck out of the house. He was in a car waiting when they did sneak out and went back to his house. So that's the rumor that's going around town and around the school that police are getting tipped off to. Apparently, it wasn't the first time that Abby had fled to Bobby's other teens told the cops that Abby ran away once before and had hid at Bobby's home. Another kid told investigators that Bobby Sheets behavior had started to become very strange in the time that the girls were missing, leading up to the time that the bodies would be found in the barn.
- [21:04]
Colonel (Co-host)
Well, if I'm law enforcement, I mean, you have this beef between these two high school girls or one now at a high school, but that normally does not turn into what it seems to be almost two executions and then a barn set on fire to cover up the evidence.
- [21:27]
Nick (Host)
Yeah, and very strangely, too, you have a situation where we don't have a great, great grasp of time of death. But regardless, what the science is telling the coroner is the minimum three days before they were found. Well, that barn wasn't on fire for 72 hours. That barn was on fire for a short period of time before it was located, and they're attempting to put out the blaze. So why the discrepancy in this time frame? Why. Why isn't this timeline a little more direct? It almost seems like whatever took place or whoever's responsible for killing the girls then sat and waited to try to completely discard of the bodies and completely conceal them, maybe for good.
- [22:21]
Colonel (Co-host)
So if I'm picking up what you're putting down, what you're saying is you think that the crime probably took place on that night, that they left their house but then maybe the bodies were placed into that barn and then a couple days later the barn set on fire.
- [22:42]
Nick (Host)
That's what I'm thinking. And who knows how long or where the bodies were concealed. But what the statistics would tell us is that typically, yes, when an individual goes missing and later found to be murdered, it's often that they are killed relatively quickly after the time that they vanished or disappeared. And here's the weird thing too. The sheriff's detectives, they're kind of getting this vibe after talking to all these different teenagers, one, they're kind of clued into this beef that's going on or may have gone on and ended.
- [23:17]
Guest
Right.
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Nick (Host)
But now they're, they're kind of getting this vibe that some of the kids don't want to talk. And they think that maybe some of the kids are either afraid because of rumors that they've heard or possibly have been threatened by someone.
- [23:32]
Colonel (Co-host)
Yeah, but at least some individuals are talking. So even if it's just rumors, even if it's just hearsay, at least you're getting some names and some leads so you can go question them as law enforcement.
- [23:48]
Nick (Host)
We have one teenager. This is a 16 year old boy, but won't name names here for obvious reasons. He's interviewed by investigators and he says he tells them that he had received a death threat. Doesn't go into great detail, just that he has received a death threat. We also have one 15 year old girl who tells investigators that she received a phone call on October 5th from a man with deep voice warning her to keep her mouth shut about the murders or she would be next. The boy that was threatened. This is where we're going to get a little bit more information here because he's having a second meeting with investigators and he tells investigators that Bobby Sheets, now this is the second time that we've heard this name was involved in whatever happened to the girls. But as far as he knew, Bobby had only intended to tie Abby up to a tree and beat her up. This boy said that he heard it all went down in a graveyard somewhere behind Bobby's house. He also said that there was a rumor that Bobby carried a.45 caliber handgun. The rumor was that this gun was hidden somewhere. I guess it was like near a bridge or near Bobby's home somewhere.
- [25:16]
Ryan Reynolds
Right.
- [25:17]
Nick (Host)
The difficult thing here is we know that this Bobby Sheets name has come up a couple of times. Right. We know that it's rumored that when one of the girls had left before that she had even hit out with Bobby. We know that one of the girls had a relationship with Bobby Sheets at some point. Some of this has got to sound a little strange, a little bizarre to investigators when you are hearing these things of, oh, I, I heard he was involved, but he was supposed to just tie her up and beat her up.
- [25:49]
Colonel (Co-host)
And so that's extreme.
- [25:51]
Nick (Host)
That's very extreme. So that's going to be interesting to your investigation. But also it's. And then it went down in a graveyard behind Bobby's house. Some of this has got to feel like a giant game of telephone to some of these investigators who was telling who what and how extreme is that? Are the details becoming after they've been regurgitated from teenager to teenager to teenager?
- [26:18]
Ryan Reynolds
Right.
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Nick (Host)
So now you have to sort out, does this individual actually have real knowledge of something or is he just trying to be helpful and he's telling you all of these distorted rumors that have come about with the. Because let's face it, this is going to create all kinds of, and I hate to use this word, but for lack of better term, excitement in the school. Right? Extreme levels of sadness, extreme levels of fear, extreme levels of also trying to figure out what happened to these people that maybe you didn't even know. Maybe you just knew the name or heard the name because you went to the same school. The other weird thing too here, Captain, is that another student tells the detective that somebody else was rumored to have a gun. When asked who is this person that has the gun, he says it's a Tanya Hawkins notice, it's a variation of a name that we've heard before, Sonya Hawkins. And we know that she's 19. Detectives said early in the investigation, two news reports, it's all related, but we're still sorting things out. They were still in the thick of interviews and information gathering when they got a big break in the case. Foreign.
- [27:58]
Guest
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- [29:31]
Sponsor Announcer
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Nick (Host)
Plus it's easy to track your child's
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Nick (Host)
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- [32:29]
Ryan Reynolds
here from Mint Mobile. Now I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills. But it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try@mintmobile.com switch upfront payment
- [32:50]
Mint Mobile Announcer
of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for 12 month plan required $15 per month equivalent taxes and fees Extra initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes. Me slow when network is busy see terms.
- [33:06]
Colonel (Co-host)
I want to wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving. Cheers to everybody out there. Cheers to you Colonel. I am thankful to have a intelligent, thoughtful and respectful host and partner and this true crime crazy world. So cheers to you and cheers to all the beautiful listeners.
- [33:27]
Nick (Host)
Me as well, Captain. And cheers to everybody out there. Have a safe, a very safe week especially for those traveling to see their loved ones on October 9th. This is the big break that police were hoping for. We get a woman and her boyfriend come into the sheriff's office. They're reporting that some of their guns were missing and one of them was a.45 caliber handgun. Remember, investigators believe that this was the kind of gun that may have been used in the double homicide. This couple, Laverta Carroll and her boyfriend Dwayne Baker. They weren't exactly certain when some of their guns went missing. They did tell police, look, we believe it was sometime between August 15th and September 24th.
- [34:14]
Mint Mobile Announcer
Right.
- [34:16]
Nick (Host)
This is an interesting lead though. They also tell investigators Laverta's daughter Sonia might know who took the guns. Right. You got a teenage daughter, there's probably teenagers in and out of your house. It's reasonable to believe that maybe the daughter might have a clue who stole these guns. So now investigators are going to sit down with 19 year old Sonya. She's a student at Watkins High School. So having a little trouble graduating it sounds like to me. According to records under questioning, Sonya made statements that incriminated herself and actually two other teens in the girls deaths. The two teens that she incriminated were Bobby Sheets, age 15 of Baltimore, Ohio. Remember he's a student at Watkins and Rob Daniels, 16, of Whitehall. He went to a different high school. He went to a high school in Whitehall, Ohio. So this is going to lead us to some searches, because this is powerful information in their investigation. Having heard from some of the kids that it all went down, or the rumor was that it all went down at Bobby's. Sheriff's deputies obtained search warrants for the Sheets residence, which is on Blacklick Road. They also obtained search warrants for the Sheets family's vehicles and an outbuilding. Now, they failed to find the gun, the murder weapon, which was the primary thing that they were looking for. But what we do get is Sheriff Demasry saying to the media, quote, during the search, behind one of the walls in the outbuildings, we did find some articles of clothing that had stains that appeared to be blood. They also found newspapers with blood stains on them as well. After some testing and a little bit of time, they're able to determine that the blood that was found on these items matched Abby's blood.
- [36:28]
Mint Mobile Announcer
Yeah.
- [36:30]
Nick (Host)
So now we have a very big problem. We didn't find that murder weapon that we were looking for, but we found our victim's blood at a home, at a property where one of the individuals that we've been told by others may have been involved or may know what happened. This very quickly is going to lead to an arrest, but not just one arrest, Captain. Four arrests were made. So the suspects that were arrested were Bobby Sheets, as we would suspect. He's 15. Robert or Rob Daniels, who we've brought up, he's 16, Sonia Hawkins, 19, and Elsie Sheets. This one's very interesting. Who is Elsie Sheets? It's Bobby's mom. 54 years old.
- [37:18]
Colonel (Co-host)
What?
- [37:20]
Nick (Host)
Remember, the other weird thing here, too, Captain, is that we had at least one student who tells police there's somebody else that you know. There's a person that is rumored to have a gun is Tanya Hawkins. Well, we have a Sonja Hawkins, who is a suspect that's arrested. So likely that kid was trying to give information, good information to law enforcement and just got the name wrong.
- [37:45]
Colonel (Co-host)
Right.
- [37:47]
Nick (Host)
So the charges for Rob and Bobby were actually delinquency counts of aggravated murder, theft of a handgun, and tampering with evidence. The charges for Elsie, Bobby's mom, and Sonya, three counts each of complicity to commit aggravated murder, tampering with evidence, abuse of a corpse, and arson. Sonya was also charged with theft of a firearm. According to Sheriff Demastri, Abby and Jamie ended up meeting up with Bobby, Sonia and Rob late that night after they snuck out to and continued to party. This apparently is believed to be in a field behind Bobby Sheets home on Black Lick Road.
- [38:31]
Colonel (Co-host)
Well, this would make sense with the rumors that the murders took place behind his house and possibly in a cemetery.
- [38:40]
Nick (Host)
The girls were shot there on the same night that they climbed out the bedroom window. Both boys were involved in the shooting. Jamie and Abby were transported to a barn about one and a half miles away, and the barn was later set on fire. This is the belief, this is the theory that the police are working with after making these arrests, after collecting a bunch of evidence.
- [39:05]
Colonel (Co-host)
I wonder, after having this evidence, if they were able to go back and talk to neighbors to find out if they heard any gunshots. So maybe not eyewitnesses, but possibly some ear witnesses of the night of the murder.
- [39:22]
Nick (Host)
There is some type of graveyard or cemetery that's not terribly far from Bobby's home either. So you can see how that kind of got all wrapped up in some statements that were given to detectives.
- [39:33]
Colonel (Co-host)
Right.
- [39:34]
Nick (Host)
Sheriff Demasry also made a statement that Elsie Sheets was being charged even though she did not witness the murders. According to the allegations against Elsie, quote, when they returned from disposing of the bodies, she made a pizza for everyone at the home, end quote. Sheriff Demasry said that the only motive they could come up with was some bad feelings between the teens. The allegations made by the sheriff were hard to believe, of course. Why would teens kill each other? Well, hopefully we're about to find out and get to the bottom of this story.
- [40:11]
Colonel (Co-host)
Well, just so I'm clear, so when they come back, the murders take place, then they transfer the bodies to this barn. So now they have the bodies hidden, they go back to one of the kids house, and the mother that's being charged, she makes a pizza for the kids.
- [40:31]
Nick (Host)
Correct. If the police theory, if the sheriff's theory is correct, then that's really the simple version of how this all played out.
- [40:40]
Colonel (Co-host)
So then are they assuming that then she heard information about what happened that night and she just didn't come forward to law enforcement?
- [40:49]
Nick (Host)
Well, here's the best part. At this point in our timeline, you now have four people under arrest, four people charged with some serious charges, some of them, you know, varying from one another. But now you have them in your custody, separated, and you're interviewing them individually to try to piece together exactly what happened to make sure that the right people are getting charged with the right charges.
- [41:15]
Colonel (Co-host)
Now, it's a very smart tactic because you can prove that as far as the timeline, you can prove that the mother is Involved, but there's no proof that she has information. But just by arresting her, that's going to put pressure on her. That's going to put pressure on her daughter. That's going to put pressure on all the other kids. Because if you're a kid, you go, well, maybe the other kids won't crack. But you're more likely to believe that the adult in this situation is going to do the adult thing and tell the cops the information they know.
- [41:54]
Nick (Host)
In his post arrest interview, Bobby Sheets claimed that Abby called him from a party on the night of September 24th. Remember, that's the night that they eventually snuck out and went missing. And he says that the two of them made plans to meet up later. She brought Jamie with her for this later meetup. They all sat outside Bobby's house drinking. Rob wanted to have sex with Jamie and she refused. Now keep in mind, this is just according to one of the individuals arrested. In his post arrest interview, Bobby says that Rob then pulled out a gun and ordered Bobby to kill the girls. Bobby admitted to holding the gun and he said, rob told me to do it and I decided he wanted me to shoot Abby, end quote. I said, no, I wouldn't do it. Then he just reached over and went trigger happy. Bobby Sheets told the police, I never shot it. He shot Abby one time first, and then he reached over and shot Jamie. And after that he started shooting a couple of times at Abby. Bobby said that then his mother just sat there in a daze, just freaking out. So they're on Bobby's property. You said earlier you want to interview neighbors to see if they heard anything. This is Bobby in his interview after he's arrested saying, my mom heard the shots.
- [43:20]
Guest
Right.
- [43:21]
Nick (Host)
And so he tells police, my mom just sat there in a daze, just freaking out. As he, meaning Rob and Sonja, moved the bodies to the barn. He said Rob and Sonya carried Abby inside and Rob came out wiping blood off of a knife and told Bobby that he and Sonia had stabbed Abby and she was dead. They then dumped Jamie's body in the barn as well. When they got inside, to their surprise, Abby was still moaning at this. Rob picked up a concrete block and threw it on her head to kill her. Of course, Bobby made sure that in his version of the events, he hadn't actually done anything wrong. Right. He didn't stab anybody, he didn't shoot anybody. He didn't throw the concrete block. He didn't even move the bodies according to his version of the statements.
- [44:15]
Colonel (Co-host)
Right, sorry.
- [44:15]
Nick (Host)
His version of the story. He also said that Rob had been the one to order the barn to be burnt to the ground in order to hide all of the evidence. Now, of course, Bobby's not going to be the only one to give a story to police. Rob was interviewed as well on the day of his arrest. In his statement, Rob claimed that two weeks before the slayings, Bobby Sheets Jr. And his mother, Elsie Sheets and Sonya Hawkins, all three of the other people that were arrested, plotted to beat up Abby Worrell because she and some friends had been harassing the Sheets family. Speaking of Elsie Sheets, Rob stated, yes, she knew exactly what was going on because she helped Bobby plan it. So according to Rob, he's telling a very different story, right. That this was something that was planned out, not, hey, I tried to have sex with this girl. She refused, and then I went trigger happy, like Bobby says. He's saying, these three told me about this plan weeks before they were killed. He goes on to tell police that Elsie was involved and so much so that she paid him, Rob, $40 to keep quiet. So Rob says he had known about it for weeks, but did not get notified that they were actually going to do the deed until that night. Major Robert Lowry later testified that in his interview. In this interview with Rob, Rob changed his story multiple times. He says that first Rob admitted to firing a gun, but that he had been told the weapon was loaded with blanks. Then he said that Bobby shot Abby four times and then Rob shot Jamie because she was a witness. Rob also said in his statement that we were supposed to kill them in the cemetery, but Bobby got scared, so we went back to his house. So Rob, while there might be some truth to Rob's story, we have the officer saying he gave us several different versions of how this all played out.
- [46:23]
Colonel (Co-host)
Well, and this becomes an issue for law enforcement because, yes, you have these suspects arrested, but you have to put together a case to get a conviction. And so when you have differing accounts in court, you can play that against each other and possibly not get somebody charged and sentenced for this crime.
- [46:46]
Nick (Host)
Yeah, you run that risk. I think the bigger risk that you have here, too is if these trials are going to go to a jury, is not being able to lay out a clear cut narrative backed with evidence and witness statements to confirm that narrative, that, that theory that you're laying out for the jury.
- [47:06]
Ryan Reynolds
Right.
- [47:07]
Nick (Host)
And if you get confused juries, then what, what it looks like to me by this point, Captain, given these statements, given some of the evidence that they have, that they have a pretty solid case against at least the Three youngsters. The mother gets a little bit tricky here, but we still have two more post arrest statements to get to. Right, but, but the. But the risk. You're exactly right. The risk you run here is that maybe they don't get charged to the fullest, to the, to the full extent of what their actual crimes were. So Sonia, in her interview, she admitted that she and Rob had stolen three guns from her mom and Dwayne's house. So mom and Duane were right. You might want to ask our daughter. She might have an idea who stole these guns. Well, it turns out she admitted to stealing them with her boyfriend, Rob. Bobby was on the lookout during the theft of the guns. According to Sonya. Their plan was to sell the guns, she said, but instead, one of them was used to kill Abby and Jamie. Sonia initially had told authorities that Bobby shot Abby and Rob shot Jamie, but then later changed her story and she said Rob killed both girls. Then she said that she didn't see the first shot fired as she was running to hide behind a tree, but then did see Rob fire the gun, shooting Jamie once and Abby three times. So this is really just a mess, a big mess for investigators. As we've discussed the interviews and the statements, we got him. We got a bunch of different statements here. It looks like we got the right people. The problem is none of their stories are meshing well together. So it looks like a soup of lies at this point.
- [48:54]
Colonel (Co-host)
Well, on top of that, the evidence we do have is we do have these victims were shot. So when you have these suspects saying, well, we threw a concrete block or this individual stabbed them, some of that evidence is covered up by the fire. And so that makes it even a little more difficult to parcel out what is the truth and what is lies. Because if you know that evidence, you have a clearer idea of what happened. And so whatever they tell you can't muddy up the actual facts.
- [49:30]
Nick (Host)
A lot of the upcoming information comes from the Columbus Dispatch, which did terrific coverage on this case. And of course, we relied heavily on them for the research of this episode. But what you get here, Captain, now that you have these arrests, remember there were some threats made. There were some of the teenagers that were scared. And now some of that fear has gone away now that you've got people behind bars and charges that have been filed, while the investigators still sort out the details of what exactly happened. So now we have others coming forward that, that were previously talked to that are giving further details and some rumors that they had heard. One of them was that Bobby had told A few people that he wanted Abby dead for several reasons. Apparently, that there was some beef or some harassment between her and Bobby Sheets and his mother, Mrs.
- [50:27]
Guest
Sheets.
- [50:28]
Nick (Host)
Remember, there was talk of some kind of harassment going on. There's also a report that said that Abby was trying to collect $200 from Bobby Sheets because he had taken her class ring. And we know that they were in a relationship at some point prior to these events. Others were now telling detectives that Bobby said that Abby was pregnant with his kid and that at some point she had aborted his baby. Now, to be perfectly straight up here, we do not know whether this is true or not. This is just some of the information that was coming out. There was also information that came out that Elsie Sheets hated Abby because of that perceived harassment that we talked about. But she also believed that Abby had vandalized Bobby's car at some point. And we don't know what's discussed between mother and son, but if he seems to believe that Abby was pregnant and aborted the baby, well, it's likely she could be very upset about that situation as well. So it turns out what we end up hearing is that Rob, Bobby, Sonia, and Elsie had all discussed killing Abby, and other people were somewhat aware of pieces and parts of that information or those rumors. Right.
- [51:55]
Colonel (Co-host)
Which would make all this premeditated.
- [51:58]
Nick (Host)
So we know from the four arrested, their statements and now the statements of others that we have the right for suspects, that doesn't seem to be in question. It just remained unclear how everything went down. Exactly. Now, the best that we can tell from sorting everything out is it seems likely that Bobby, Rob and Sonya, Abby and Jamie all walked back together to the Sheets residence from the graveyard. At some point, Bobby pulls out a gun and shot Abby. Then at some point, Rob grabs the gun and shot Jamie. This took place behind a garage on the Sheets property. Now, keep in mind that we are talking about a very large property one. But also, we're trying to sort this out from multiple different tales of who shot who. Sonya said that she didn't see the first shot that hit Abby, but she saw Rob shoot Jamie once and then shoot Abby three more times. Rob said that he shot Jamie, but Bobby shot Abby all four times. And Bobby said that Rob did all the shooting. So we got a bunch of people pointing the fingers at one another. The Newark Advocate News summed it up the best. I believe they said, quote, despite testimony regarding the statements of three people charged in the deaths of Jamie Kelly and Abby Worrell, it is still not clear who fired the shots. End quote.
- [53:30]
Colonel (Co-host)
But if we're law enforcement, we have to take all these stories and try to piece something together that we think
- [53:38]
Nick (Host)
makes sense and that you can back up some of it with the evidence. Now, keep in mind, remember that barn, it does not belong the Sheets family.
- [53:45]
Ryan Reynolds
Right.
- [53:46]
Nick (Host)
And it's now believed that the girls were killed on the Sheets property. So at some point the three teens transported the bodies. The I'm basing this off of the vehicle that they had, a Pontiac Firebird, and the number of individuals involved here. And based off of some of the further details of their statements, that we don't have time to get into all those details. But sounds to me, Captain, like it's likely that they transported the bodies one at a time back to this barn area or to this abandoned barn area, discarded of the gun at some point in the process, and then afterward driving back to Bobby's house. Now, here's where things get more mind blowing. And this is not something that's really in question here. This seems to be hardcore fact. So eventually the kids arrive back at the Sheets house, this around 4:00am at this point, they're all covered in blood and they actually tell Bobby's mom what had happened. That in one of the statements, one of the perpetrators says, it was done. We told Bobby's mom it was done. That backs up the. The prior statements that some of this was premeditated, if not all premeditated, and all discussed by all four people. Elsie does not freak out like Bobby said she did. She did not sit the kids down and tell them, hey, turn yourself in. Nor did she call in even an anonymous tip to try to be helpful. No, Elsie actually tells the kids, take off all your clothes. Remember, they're bloody, they're dirty. At this point, she washes the clothes for the kids and meanwhile the kids are out washing and cleaning out the vehicle that they use to transport the bodies.
- [55:34]
Colonel (Co-host)
So as she's doing laundry, she's like, he I might as well make them a pizza.
- [55:38]
Nick (Host)
Well, she goes even a step further. Elsie then went to the grocery for frozen pizza and cigarettes, and they all sat around eating pizza and smoking cigs.
- [55:48]
Colonel (Co-host)
What's wrong with this world?
- [55:49]
Nick (Host)
Then the four discussed how they were going to keep this whole thing quiet, how they were going to get away with it. Now, according to Rob, Elsie said that she would pay him $120 to keep quiet, but she only had 40 on her, so that's what she gave to him. Later that same day, the teens drove Elsie's Pontiac to Big Walnut park in Columbus, where they hid a black garbage bag and a drainpipe. Inside the bag were Jamie's and Abby's jackets. One of the leather jackets had several bullet holes in it. Police later recovered these items from the drain pipe. So they're able, you see how they're able to verify parts of these stories based off of the evidence. A week later, Bobby, Elsie and Sonya decided to burn the barn. Now, whether or not Rob actually ordered it to be burned is a matter of contention. Right, but it has been stated that Elsie was the one who knew where the barn was and actually that she may have been the one who selected it as a place to conceal the bodies in the first place. So she's very hands on. It appears in this whole operation, Elsie drove Bobby and Sonia to a gas station to buy a five gallon can of gasoline and then drove them out to the barn where it said that she waited in the car while they set the entire place, including the bodies, on fire. The record reflects that Rob stated Abby was killed because Bobby Sheets was tired of her and that he and her mother did not like her at all. They, they had this problem with her. And he further stated that Rob killed Jamie because she was a witness and we didn't want any witnesses. So unfortunately, unfortunately, Abby was the target all along and it looks like Jamie was just a collateral victim. The legal proceedings got very difficult in the early stages. Captain, the best way to sum it up is we have a couple of people that are minors he year. So you have the, the problem, the hurdle of, well, do we try them as adults or as minors? And just as we saw in our episodes, the Jordan Brown case in episodes 551 and 552, it's a similar situation. If these juveniles are convicted as juveniles, they'll only be held in prison till, or an institution till the age of 21. Yeah, but if they're tried as adults, they could face life in prison, which I think that's what they deserve.
- [58:23]
Colonel (Co-host)
Well, some would say or can make an argument that these individuals deserve to be executed and lit on fire.
- [58:32]
Nick (Host)
Premeditated murder is a very serious charge. And so with that should come very serious consequences if found guilty. Now, In January of 1995, Sonia actually pled guilty to the charges against her and she sat and cried. And throughout the the guilty plea, the judge sentenced Sonia to a concurrent 15 years to life for the two complicity to murder charges. The judge also sentenced her to 13 and a half years for the convictions on the lesser charges, plus a mandatory three year term because a gun was used in the slang. So in total, her term is going to be 28 and a half years to life. Sonya will become eligible for parole in 22 years. She was going to have to spend her 20s and her 30s in prison, thinking about what she had done. Now, as part of her plea agreement, Captain, Sonya was required to testify against the three other suspects, Elsie, Bobby, and Rob. Elsie's case actually goes to trial, and her defense is simply that she didn't know exactly what was going on and what parts she was involved in. She was defending or protecting her son.
- [60:01]
Guest
Yeah.
- [60:01]
Colonel (Co-host)
And she could state or make whatever defense she wanted to, but at the end of the day, we know that she was involved and that she helped cover this all up.
- [60:11]
Nick (Host)
Exactly. And that's going to be the jury's findings as well. They deliberated for four hours on day one, five hours on day two, but eventually they'll come back with a guilty verdict on all of the charges for and against Elsie. That leads us to Bobby, who's really, to me, at the very center of all this as far as looking at each and every one of these suspects. Eventually he's going to. This was quite the surprise move because what he does is, to everyone's surprise, he pleads no contest to the charges of complicity to commit aggravated murder, and in fact, pleads no contest to all of the charges. So he's saying, look, he's admitting to the truth of the facts of the indictment without actually admitting any actual guilt.
- [61:05]
Colonel (Co-host)
Normally, when you make a plea deal, you are stating that you are responsible for the crime. This deal, not so much. He doesn't have to admit responsibility.
- [61:19]
Nick (Host)
Exactly. He doesn't actually have to tell the court or confirm for the court that he actually shot anyone. And so it's a bit of a chicken way out. Or. Or maybe he's got hopes that he's going to get some kind of lesser sentence.
- [61:38]
Colonel (Co-host)
Right.
- [61:38]
Nick (Host)
In the end, he's going to get convicted of and sentenced to very similar punishment as the other two perpetrators. In the end, Bobby will serve about 36 years in prison before he is eligible for parole. And if he is released at that time, he'll be in his 50s at that point. And then what we have here is Rob, who had admitted that he shot Jamie because she was a witness to the murder of Abby, it was decided that he's going to be tried as an adult as well, just like Bobby was. And he's 16 and a half at the time of the killings. Now he tries to do the insanity plea. And so a Psychological evaluation is court ordered.
- [62:32]
Colonel (Co-host)
Yeah.
- [62:34]
Nick (Host)
Which eventually finds him to be competent to stand trial.
- [62:38]
Colonel (Co-host)
They also determined that he was a piece of shit.
- [62:42]
Nick (Host)
Right. And then on May 25, Judge Joseph T. Clark sentenced Rob to consecutive terms of life in prison. So what happens here? This is weird, Captain, because he tries the insanity plea, they confirm that he is competent to stand trial. And during this hearing and during this process, once it's ruled that he's competent, he then says, I want to plead no contest to the charges as well. So this gets a very similar sentence as Bobby did. So he will not be eligible for parole until he serves 36 years.
- [63:28]
Colonel (Co-host)
But overall, I mean, this is just,
- [63:32]
Guest
it's.
- [63:33]
Colonel (Co-host)
It's pathetic, it's sad. And yes, you have these conflicts when you're a child entering adulthood, but just, they could have just let it go.
- [63:47]
Nick (Host)
These are. These seem like very juvenile problems that turned into double homicide.
- [63:54]
Colonel (Co-host)
Yeah.
- [63:55]
Nick (Host)
And now at each one of these trials or the court proceedings or the hearings, you know, we have four different situations here with each of the accused who all end up convicted. We get the. The families who stand and they give very powerful statements. But I do want to read two of the statements this, both from Rob's sentencing. And we have Jamie's mom, Connie Swaney, who stood up in front of the court, in front of the judge and says, quote, rob, Daniel, you are the only person that night that took my daughter away from all of us who loved her. I gave her life. Which you took away in two or three seconds. You changed all of our lives, including your family. I'm sorry. I can't ever forgive you for what you took away from us, for what you took away from Jamie, end quote. And then you had Karen Warren, who stood up. She gave very powerful statements at all of the sentencing hearings for each of these individuals. At this one, she says in her statement that she believed that it was wrong that Rob was allowed to plead no contest to the charges instead of admitting his guilt, saying, quote, he was a killer for hire. Remember, he actually says, elsie said she's going to pay me $120. She only had 40 on her and paid me that, that night, 40 bucks to keep quiet. So Karen Warren says he was a killer for hire, paid in money and goods to murder my daughter Abby. Then he summarily executed Jamie to silence a witness in an effort to avoid capture. He is a cold blooded psychopathic killer who was not even charged with all of the crimes he committed, end quote. So, as you said, Captain, horrible situation, very sad situation. These seem like juvenile Problems that did not need to escalate to this level at all. So here we sit all these years later with two dead teenage girls, four people convicted of murder, but really no real concrete answers as to exactly what happened, right? What is the truth about the identity of the shooter or shooters on that fateful night? Perhaps, as Sonya testified, both Bobby and Rob were the bad actors here. But Sonya, at 19, was more than complicit. As someone who notoriously hated Abby, she seems like she might have been the driver of the plot.
- [66:32]
Ryan Reynolds
Right?
- [66:32]
Nick (Host)
And then there's Elsie Sheets, the one actual air quotes, actual adult in the group who, rather than being a guiding force for good and a moral compass for these kids, was vengeful, vindictive, calculating and conspiring. It seems possible that the whole murder plot was her brainchild, if she had a brain.
- [66:56]
Colonel (Co-host)
Apple doesn't fall too far from the tree.
- [66:58]
Nick (Host)
But if she had not goaded and urged these youths to murder Abby, who's to say that they would have taken things this far? Elsie's maternal approval was surely a factor for these kids in the tragic, irrevocable decisions they made that night. Decisions that ruined countless lives in the time it took to pull a trigger.
- [67:33]
Colonel (Co-host)
Want to thank everybody for joining us here each and every week in the garage. Colonel, do you mind if I give the audience, the beautiful listeners, a recommended reading?
- [67:44]
Nick (Host)
Happy Thanksgiving to everybody and Captain, please.
- [67:48]
Guest
Yes.
- [67:49]
Colonel (Co-host)
If you have not listened to the Delphi Murders by yours truly, Nick Edwards, I don't know who that guy is. The Crispy Colonel. It should say Nick Edwards, AKA the Crispy Colonel. Check it out on Audible. It's a great listen. Narrated by the one and only Kevin Pierce. For that title and other great true crime titles, check out our recommended page@truecrimegarage.com
- [68:21]
Nick (Host)
and until next week, be good, be kind, and don't listen. Sa.