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True Crime Garage
Free Roaming Predator /// Part 2 /// 940
01:00:58
In 2006, the Greenville, South Carolina Police Department announced that they had connected one of their unsolved homicides from 1990 to two unsolved homicides that had occurred hundreds of miles away in Missouri. This meant that investigators were not dealing with isolated, unrelated crimes. They were dealing with a linked series. Events connected by a single source, a single method, a single offender who traveled. Yet, the announcement came with a crucial limitation: they did not know the identity of the killer. But they knew the nature of the threat.
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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 with a butt full of dreams.
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Captain (Co-host)
Here is the Captain and it's a big old butt. It's good to be seen and good to see you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling a friend
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Co-host / Analyst
today.
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Nick (Host)
We still have some Way Bird Hazy IPA from Half Acre Beer Company. This is a very well balanced hazy, I love the citrus to hops, sweet to bitter ratios with this one. And the can art is very sort of early 80s yacht rock. So very cool. Four and a half bottle caps, garage grade and garage friends toast and cheers to Karen and parts unknown. And last but certainly not least, let me try to get this one right or mess it up completely. We don't know. Double cheers. This goes to Michelle and Euros Nicolic of Reroute Yoga, Tom's River, New Jersey
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Captain (Co-host)
Sounds close enough to me.
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Co-host / Analyst
Nailed it.
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Nick (Host)
Everyone we just mentioned went to true crime garage.com and helped us fill up the old garage fridge for this week's show by donating to the beer fund for the beer run. And for that we thank you.
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Captain (Co-host)
Yeah, BW Double Ruin Beer Run. If you have a big old butt, check out true crime garage.com and sign up on the mailing list. And Colonel, that's enough of the beast.
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Nick (Host)
All right everybody gather round, grab a chair, grab a beer. Lets talk some true crime. When we left off with episode one of the of this particular case here, Captain, we talked about an article that came out, a very lengthy Sunday article that came out locally in Greenville regarding where the case was and all the work that had been done on it over the course of a span of 16 years. And so that's really where the case was sitting. It was. It was being worked, and being worked pretty well, I believe. But ultimately, it wasn't really going anywhere.
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Captain (Co-host)
Right.
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Nick (Host)
We will be able to understand why that was very quickly here, because we do get some very positive movement on this case. So, look, after 16 years, it looks like this renewed interest in the case from the public may have stirred something up in the universe, because action creates momentum, and momentum, my friends, is hard to stop. So just days after that article ran, there is an announcement about a huge and a significant break in the Jenny Zatriki homicide case. So that Same month, on April 26, 2006, a story ran from the Greenville News, the same newspaper that we were talking about in episode one, that laid out a development that the Greenville investigators had been waiting years to see. DNA had finally stitched together the murder
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Co-host / Analyst
of Jenny Zatricki in Greenville from 1990, with two violent crimes committed in two other states eight years later. So this would be in 1998.
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Nick (Host)
Of course, the article starts with the Zatricki case, the case that Greenville Police Department would never let go of, never give up on, with finding her dead in the bathtub in her apartment in 1990, a crime scene that was brutal and personal. She'd been beaten and strangled. But then the article goes into the murder case in the investigation, you know, after the shock goes away, it settles into this long, grinding reality of an unsolved homicide and an investigation that's dragging on year after year after year. One where every new tip had to be chased, every possibility checked, and every small detail preserved in a case that science would catch up to later. So 16 years had passed by this time. Captain. Leads came in, they were worked, they went nowhere. According to Greenville Police Chief Willie Johnson, investigators spent those years pushing the case forward in every way that they could, eventually running down more than 150 leads. Even with that effort, the identity of the person who killed Jenny Zatricki remained out of reach for investigators. Then a database changed the trajectory of this case altogether.
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Captain (Co-host)
You're just going to gloss over the fact that the guy's name is Willie Johnson. I thought we were friends.
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Nick (Host)
Lieutenant Michael Graham Brell of the Greenville Police Department explained that DNA evidence from the Zatricki homicide was entered into the combined DNA index system, CODIS. This was in 2005. Now, remember, we're talking about a newspaper article and a big break in the case taking place with this announcement in 2006. And what they're stating here is that this wasn't as simple as it would seem. Okay. So early on in the CODIS database, when the DNA databases were first being built out, they were largely populated with known samples, right? DNA samples that have a name and identity connected to them. Now, also keep in mind this is a federal or national database. And each and every state that is providing and adding to this database, they sort of have their own approach to collecting and contributing DNA to the database.
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Co-host / Analyst
So in this case, the Jenny's a tricky homicide. Greenville, all they had was an unknown DNA sample that they collected from the crime scene. What they were saying was because the databases were heavily populated with known samples that they had a bit of difficulty getting their sample in because they needed to get. And I'm using his words, all right? We are at the mercy of using the words in what Greenville PD stated publicly in the case. They said it took some time getting the quote, appropriate amount into the system. So they say this would be enough of a sample, reliable enough for a comparison. And they said that that took time in their case, but once it was in codis, then did what it was designed to do. It compared and it searched for a match.
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Nick (Host)
The match that came back didn't just point to a single related incident. It reached across state lines and across time. Chief Johnson said the DNA samples from the Zatriki homicide matched samples tied to a shooting in Portageville, Missouri. This was a double homicide shooting in Portageville. Those Missouri events weren't isolated either. The Portageville shootings had already been connected through ballistic tests to a separate incident and attempted carjacking in Dyersburg, Tennessee. I want to be clear here. It's reported in this article to be an attempted carjacking in Dyersburg, Tennessee. We'll get into the details of that unsolved crime because nowhere else is it reported as a carjacking. But that's neither here nor there for the moment. The Missouri crime and the Tennessee crime happened hours apart on the same day, March 28, 1998. So that would be eight years after Jenny was killed in 1990. All the way in Greenville, South Carolina. The officer, Officer Grimbrell, said that ballistic reports from the Tennessee shooting, occurring roughly two and a half hours after the Portageville slayings, showed that the same weapon had been used in both places. So in other words, investigators already had and did have for many years a strong weapon based link between Missouri and Tennessee.
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Captain (Co-host)
Right.
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Nick (Host)
The crimes that took place in March 28th of 1998, what they didn't have was a bridge back to Greenville in The murder in 1990 DNA supplied that bridge got him? Well, no, because we don't know who any of this DNA belongs to.
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Captain (Co-host)
Okay. Premature gotti this.
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Nick (Host)
So the DNA connections triggered direct cooperation between a bunch of agencies. Right. So I'll break this down for you real quick. What they figured out is that the DNA from Greenville matched the DNA in the homicides in Missouri. And the gun used at the Missouri homicides was then used later that same night in what was actually an attempted break into a home where the gun was. Was fired. Okay, so you got ballistics linking the two, and now you have DNA linking the other two together. And a combination tells you that likely committed all by the same person. And the DNA confirms that at least two of them were. Okay, so this is going to trigger
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Co-host / Analyst
basically a task force, although they never refer to it as that. On the Missouri side, we're going to have agencies that get involved. We're also going to have agencies that get involved from Tennessee and from South Carolina. Now, in regard to the DNA on the Missouri side of it, they had their own timeline of evidence that was entered into the system. So the Missouri DNA sample had been entered into CODIS in March of 1998. That's what this article says. Again, it's quite a bit more complicated than just that. And I'll have some better details and detailed information for you in just a bit as we parse through this. So later, after Missouri investigators reviewed the case, an additional DNA sample was entered in March of 2006. This would be what would ultimately connect the incidents for authorities.
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Captain (Co-host)
Well, and what's interesting in this investigation is early on, they were looking at other crimes. And are there any other crimes that. Because we have some weirdness here. We have the victim in water. So is that happening in other crimes? And can we connect those crimes to this crime? So it shows that law enforcement was looking into other crimes, and are they connected? Are there some similarities here? I think the other thing that's interesting in this case is also the manner of death. We have strangulation with blunt force trauma, but I'm sure the amount of cases that have that similarity are very large.
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Nick (Host)
Yeah, it can be. The, you know, one thing we talked about in our. Of our previous episodes recently was the blunt force trauma is a. Is typically a more rare form of homicide here with the strangulation. I think the strangulation was less intentional and more practical with Zatri. I think that the killer thought that he had beaten her to death and then used the pantyhose to move her and did so by tying Them around her neck and then in dragging her, whatever life was left ended at that time. Now, Bud Cooper, a spokesman for the Missouri State Police, described the investigation as complicated, which, I mean, we can already see that. But he says, quote, it's a tricky case. And he talks about how both states were now comparing details, looking for similarities that might identify the same offender across multiple crimes and of course, across multiple jurisdictions and state lines. So we have this multi agency task force, if you will, that was created that would ultimately bring together the Greenville City Police Department, the Missouri State Highway
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Co-host / Analyst
Patrol, the State Law Enforcement Division, or
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Nick (Host)
better known as SLED, the FBI, the the 13th Circuit Solicitor's Office, the U.S. marshal Service, and retired SLED Major Jim Christopher. Okay, so we have a lot of
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Co-host / Analyst
people involved in several agencies involved in
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Nick (Host)
what is ultimately three homicides and what
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Co-host / Analyst
I would call an attempted fourth or
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Nick (Host)
maybe even fifth homicide.
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Captain (Co-host)
Right, but these are just the crimes that we know of. There could be many other crimes in this case.
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Nick (Host)
On the Missouri side of things, their double, their double homicide case had been prominent enough to be featured multiple times
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Co-host / Analyst
on America's Most Wanted.
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Nick (Host)
And investigators had already released a composite sketch. Greenville police in turn released that same composite sketch connected to the Missouri case along with a suspect description. A white male, 30 to 50 years old, small build, wearing glasses, with straight medium length graying hair and a graying mustache. For Greenville investigators, this was the kind of break that justifies years of hard work, years of interviews and evidence handling. This is a tricky case. Had been assigned to the department's cold case unit in 2005. And by April of 2006, the case was no longer simply a local tragedy sealed in old files. It had become part of a larger pattern linked by DNA reinforced by ballistics, and now pursued by a network of agencies working collectively. Now the article closes not with a conclusion, but with the reality that a link connecting cases is not an arrest and the perpetrator had yet to be identified. Okay, so this is major news, obviously for our investigation.
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Captain (Co-host)
Absolutely.
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Co-host / Analyst
But what, but what is up with this newspaper?
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Nick (Host)
Again, it gives us no names. It simply just references this double homicide in Missouri, like, like it referenced the serial killers in other states but didn't name name them. They're hesitant to name anybody outside of their state for some reason.
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Captain (Co-host)
So maybe you should worry about yourself and let them live their best life.
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Nick (Host)
Living their best life would be providing the best news coverage that they possibly can. And that often involves naming people, even if they don't live in the state of South Carolina. So here we go. Again, Captain, we need the victims names from the DNA linked cases. That will help make telling our story more complete. So we go to the Missouri State Highway Patrol and from them we get names and more importantly, a very clear and concise timeline of events here.
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Ad Reader / Brief Commentator
Captain.
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Co-host / Analyst
So this is March 28, 1998, rural Portageville, Missouri.
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Nick (Host)
And from my understanding, I think there's only like 3,000 residents that lived there at the time.
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Co-host / Analyst
So most of it's probably pretty rural anyway.
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Nick (Host)
At approximately 7pm that night, the bodies of Sherry Shearer, age 38, and Megan Shearer, age 12, were discovered in their home. Both had been murdered and Megan, the
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Co-host / Analyst
girl, had been sexually assaulted. This is from the St. Louis Post
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Nick (Host)
Dispatch just days after the double homicide. And it reads. I'll just read a little bit part of it here. It says the weekend murder of Sherry Ann Shearer and her daughter Megan Elizabeth Shearer, hit hard in Portageville. So far no arrests have been made. Anthony Shearer discovered the bodies of his wife and daughter Saturday night at the
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Co-host / Analyst
family's home in rural Portageville.
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Nick (Host)
Shearer and his son were returning home after completing farm work in nearby fields. Authorities have not said how the mother and daughter were killed, but Missouri Highway Patrol spokesman Brett Davis said robbery was not a motive.
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Co-host / Analyst
He reported no signs of forced entry to the home. And it says more than three dozen officers in several departments have been called in to help investigate the crime. Many of the town's 3,000 residents offered to help investigators fixing meals, providing soda and coffee. Dr. David Boyd, a local dentist, help cook chicken for police on Sunday, saying,
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Nick (Host)
we are a strong community and we
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Co-host / Analyst
will help the Shearers through this. So this is a double homicide at the Shearers farmhouse. And while that article from the the Early Points just days after the homicides does not describe how they were killed. Of course, later in 2006, when we get our big breakthrough in the Jenny Zatriki case, we know that a gun was involved, they were killed, they were shot to death.
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Captain (Co-host)
Right.
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Nick (Host)
And then later, a lot different than
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Captain (Co-host)
the case that we're looking at.
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Co-host / Analyst
Absolutely. And then later, about two and a half hours or so later, we have this. That same gun is used in Dyersburg, Tennessee. All right, so approximately two and a half hours later, an attempted home invasion and shooting was reported. A man in a van stopped, asked for directions and then attempted to force himself into the residence of a 25 year old female who was there alone with a child.
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Captain (Co-host)
Ban the van.
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Nick (Host)
The man produced a handgun and fired a shot during a struggle with the female.
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Co-host / Analyst
A bullet struck her in the arm.
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Nick (Host)
And she was able to fight off this dude and retreat inside her home. Ballistics connected the Dyer's or the Dyer county incident in Tennessee to the Shearer murder. Now, where we get the composite sketch
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Co-host / Analyst
obviously comes from the woman that fought this dude off. So this female provided a description of the suspect and assisted with a composite drawing of the suspect.
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Captain (Co-host)
I bet he looks like a real doucheburger.
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Nick (Host)
So this is where the case gets really complicated, as the police were talking about to the public. So, in 1998, a partial DNA profile was developed from evidence at the Shear homicide scene. However, that profile lacked enough markers for entry into codis. So while they had a sample, they did not have enough qualifying markers in that sample to submit it to codis. So it's there, they have it, but it's never entered. And then from 1998 to 2006, investigators conducted numerous interviews, followed hundreds of leads in the Missouri case. And the cases, the Missouri case and the composite drawing sketch from the Tennessee incident were featured on America's Most Wanted. Unfortunately, that doesn't lead to identifying the suspect. By 2006, we have significant advances in DNA testing, which led to evidence from the double homicide being resubmitted to the Missouri State Highway Patrol's crime laboratory, which then they develop a full suspect DNA profile, and it is then entered into CODIS, resulting in the match that takes place to the April 6, 1990, murder of Jenny Zatricki. So you can see how complicated and how over time, these law enforcement agencies refusing to give up on these cases is what is. Is now steering this ship and getting things moving in the right direction. Now, obviously, what they're going to do here, Captain, you have different jurisdictions, different states, and you have different timelines because Jenny's killed in 1990. These double homicides, the double homicide takes place in 1998. So clearly what they want to do now is figure out, all right, do we have anybody that lived in both places during when these murders were committed?
- [22:36]
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Captain (Co-host)
Because we have a distance in time and we have a distance in distance. Right, Right.
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Nick (Host)
Did somebody live somewhere in the greater Greenville area, kill Jenny, and then later moved to the greater Portageville area?
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Ad Reader / Brief Commentator
Yeah.
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Nick (Host)
And then commits the homicides there. From my understanding, the good thing here is you're also going to be looking in Dyer county in Tennessee as well, because you have the ballistics connecting the gun.
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Captain (Co-host)
Yeah. Or is he a. A traveler, like a Israel Keys type?
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Nick (Host)
So they find five. I believe it was reported that five individuals had actually lived in these two locations during the times that they're concerned about. They they put all five of these individuals under the microscope and realize these aren't their guys right now.
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Co-host / Analyst
These guys are the guy and I
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Nick (Host)
would bet that they probably were able
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Co-host / Analyst
to connect or, sorry, collect DNA samples buckle swabs from these individuals to confirm via DNA that that it wasn't them.
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Captain (Co-host)
Open up, it's time for your buckle swab.
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Co-host / Analyst
Following the DNA match, investigators From South Carolina, Tennessee and Missouri, as said, work together to investigate over 1,200 leads. And once again they feature the case on America's Most Wanted. This time adding the South Carolina Greenville Jenny is a tricky portion to the case.
- [24:23]
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Nick (Host)
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Captain (Co-host)
Cheers to the people in the back.
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Nick (Host)
Cheers to you Captain. And cheers to the hard working men and women of these law enforcement agencies that kept working this case even as others come in. Right. And they, they stuck with it and made the connections. Here we're going to have another connection.
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Co-host / Analyst
In May of 2017, the investigated yield.
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Nick (Host)
The investigation yielded a CODIS match to a March 11, 1997 rape of a 14 year old female in Memphis, Tennessee. So.
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Co-host / Analyst
So different location.
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Nick (Host)
Yeah.
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Co-host / Analyst
The victim and four other individuals were
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Nick (Host)
at a residence in Memphis when a man knocked on the door.
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Co-host / Analyst
This sounds very similar to the Dyersburg situation. As the resident attempted to close the door, the man pulled a revolver and pushed his way into the residence. The victim and witnesses provided a description and assisted with a composite drawing of the suspect. And of course this is 2017, so it's going to take. It wouldn't be until 2017 when they connect this to this 97 rape.
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Nick (Host)
But now we have one more violent crime.
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Co-host / Analyst
Thankfully at this location no one was killed.
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Captain (Co-host)
Yeah, but this tells us something, I think, because in our case, in Jenny's case, you go, okay, this guy knew his victim was going to be alone. But in these other cases it's almost like he didn't. Doesn't care if the person's alone or not. Especially if I have a gun, I can control the situation, I can control the other individuals well.
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Co-host / Analyst
And some of these, I try to
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Nick (Host)
play them out with very little information. And I wonder with the Dyersburg, Tennessee case if the mother and daughter that were killed in Portageville, Missouri would have been killed fairly early in the day because we know that their bodies are found by 7pm by the, the husband and father who had returned home two and a half hours later as it's reported. And this is only 40, this is only 40 miles away. So I think that when we, when we talk about the time, it gets a little convoluted for some. And you think that the distance is greater than what it is. It's actually only 40 miles away. I think that it was maybe misreported as an attempted carjacking because I think that maybe the assailant first encountered the victim maybe when they were walking from their vehicle into their home. Because, remember, it was stated that he had knocked on the door and asked for directions. And I just wonder if maybe they had recently arrived home and this, this attacker saw a female by herself walking into the house. I'm just kind of guessing here.
- [30:28]
Captain (Co-host)
That makes sense, though.
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Nick (Host)
What we do have is we have a serial rapist, serial murder, serial offender. And in almost all of these cases, when we are provided with some details about the crimes, the victims, the crime scenes, what was done, what was not done at the crime scenes, we can typically see an evolution, an evolution, if you will, to their behaviors. They, unfortunately, the ones that go undetected for long periods of time, they learn from their mistakes. They learn from their. Their. Their actions that in evidence that almost got them caught or identified prior, and they, they get better at what they're doing. You can almost see where this is. This is having some kind of evolution. We're just not able to put it all together here yet. And we have almost no information regarding the. The Missouri cases, the double homicide there. Even though they were FA featured on America's Most Wanted, they talked so little about that crime. Everything they were looking for was based off of this is the kind of gun that was used or the. The caliber of gun that was used. And this is our suspect composite sketch. That's really all they had on the America's Most Wanted segments. Regarding that case in 2018, where, where we are at on our timeline, investigators sought the services of Parabon Nano Labs, a DNA technology company. They're based in Virginia. So Parabon's snapshot DNA analysis technology combines DNA testing and genetic genealogy analysis to establish the relationship between an individual and their ancestors. Parabon's process provided leads to law enforcement investigators that when combined with traditional investigative techniques, led them to the identification of Robert Eugene Brashers, or as some say, Brashears, a white male. Date of birth, March 13, 1958. As a suspect for the aforementioned cases, Beshears has been deceased since 1999. Investigators obtained DNA samples from Mr. Beshears surviving family members. Traditional forensic STR test results indicated that Mr. Beshears was, with very little doubt, responsible for those crimes. So those crimes being the murder of Jenny Zatricky, the murders of the two Shears from Missouri, and also this would be right. We have Sherry Ann Shears and her daughter Megan Elizabeth Shears. And then we know that the gun, the same gun was used in what I think probably had he gained access to that dwelling, would have resulted in the death of the woman that fought him off and the child that was inside.
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Captain (Co-host)
Right, but we also have him connected to that rape as well. Right?
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Nick (Host)
Absolutely, absolutely. So he, he is the person who committed all these crimes, deceased since 1999. They don't figure this out until 2018. And so who is this guy? Right. Robert Eugene Beshears. What we learn, he lived on Pelham Road. So he lived less than a mile from Jenny Zatriki at the time of her murder. And he had been released from prison just months before Zatriki's murder after serving time for beating and shooting a woman in Florida. So records show the guy. Yeah, records show that Bershears lived in an apartment now called the park at Bonito at 25 Pelham Road in Greenville, South Carolina. Now, his truly, it truly was the Brashears life of crime when you look at his, his life and his timeline. So Robert Eugene Beshears entered the World on March 13, 1958. The story that followed would be marked again and again by violence, confinement, and a trail of harm that investigators would spend decades trying to fully understand. Spent most of his childhood in Huntsville, Alabama, growing up there before his family eventually moved north to South Bend, Indiana.
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Co-host / Analyst
His school years were split between those
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Nick (Host)
two places, one high school in Huntsville and another in South Bend. By the time he finished high school, his life had already carried the sense of motion, relocations, new environments, shifting identities
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Co-host / Analyst
that would continue throughout his adulthood.
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Nick (Host)
After graduating, he entered and served in the United States Navy. But this was pretty brief here. Captain. He only served about 10 months before he was discharged due to what was described as a personality disorder or personality disorders. Not long after, in the early 80s, he moved to Louisiana and lived for a time in New Orleans. Then by the mid-1980s, he relocated again,
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Co-host / Analyst
this time to Fort Myers, Florida.
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Captain (Co-host)
Well, if you have one disorder, you probably should have multiple disorders.
- [35:52]
Nick (Host)
It was in Florida that one of the earliest clearly documented acts of extreme violence attributed to him took shape. On November 22, 1985, Beshears was arrested in Port St. Lucie, Florida, accused of assaulting a 24 year old woman named Michelle Wilkerson. So according to the reports, Beshears and Wilkinson met in Fort Pierce. They spent part of that evening together at a bar. Afterward, they left together in Brashear's vehicle. He drove them to a nearby citrus grove, where they stayed in the vehicle, parked, drinking Budweisers. At some point, Robert Beshears makes sexual advances. Michelle Wilkerson was not interested. And she then attempts to leave the vehicle. That attempt to get away or leave the vehicle turned the situation violent. He reacted aggressively and a fight broke out. During the struggle, he shot Wilkerson twice. Once in the neck, once in the head. Now, despite the severity of these wounds, these injuries, somehow she manages to get out of the vehicle. She runs and she hides. Beshears gets out. He's looking around for her. Eventually he gives up. He can't find her. So then he drives his truck to the beach, which is nearby here in Florida. He's going to start to want to try to cover up this crime, right? So he tosses his gun into the ocean.
- [37:31]
Co-host / Analyst
But luckily for us, or luckily for who knows how many people, because he
- [37:36]
Nick (Host)
gets locked up for a period of
- [37:38]
Co-host / Analyst
time, his little trip down to the beach is what gets him caught. His truck got stuck in the sand,
- [37:43]
Nick (Host)
and so now he's walking out of there. Meanwhile, our victim, Wilkerson, she is able to get to safety, find her way to safety.
- [37:53]
Co-host / Analyst
She's eventually taken to the hospital. But before this, she reports the crime and she tells patrol officers, look, she's
- [38:01]
Nick (Host)
describing the attack, describing her attacker, describing
- [38:05]
Co-host / Analyst
the vehicle that she was in. And the response was immediate.
- [38:09]
Nick (Host)
Within minutes, Beshears is apprehended while he's
- [38:13]
Co-host / Analyst
still walking along the beach late at night.
- [38:16]
Captain (Co-host)
Yeah.
- [38:16]
Co-host / Analyst
So he gets charged, Captain, with attempted
- [38:18]
Nick (Host)
first degree murder, aggravated battery, and using a firearm during the commission of a crime.
- [38:23]
Co-host / Analyst
He receives a sentence of only 12 years in prison.
- [38:27]
Captain (Co-host)
Not long enough. And look, most of the time, the Sasquatch is the champion of hide and seek. But luckily for Wilkinson, on that day, she was the champion of hide and seek. And so glad that she was.
- [38:45]
Nick (Host)
Well, and keep in mind here, too, that back then in the 80s and before this as well, of course, they were much more lenient back then with incarceration, with prison sentences the length of them. And unfortunately, this is going to lead to Brashear's ultimately getting an early release for good behavior. So he gets 12 years, but he's released on May 4, 1989. Right. And what we know is that less than one year later, he kills Jenny Zatricky.
- [39:20]
Captain (Co-host)
But isn't it a little bizarre? Our system, okay, this guy shoots his victim twice. Okay, she lives, but now he gets charged with attempted murder. It should just fall under the same category. The outcome just didn't go in his favor. Or the outcome didn't go the way he planned. So what, you're going to spend the rest of your life in prison? Because we know that you have the capability of doing this.
- [39:52]
Co-host / Analyst
Oh, absolutely.
- [39:53]
Nick (Host)
And I mentioned evolution earlier. With these repeat offenders, these serial rapists
- [39:58]
Co-host / Analyst
and serial killers, we also have the
- [40:01]
Nick (Host)
evolution of our societies. You know, in today's trailer, I reference the significant drop in violent crime recently here in the United States and significant drop in homicide rates. Part of that comes. It comes through by way of. Of. Of a lot of different things here and a lot of different aspects. But. But it also. Part of that is that we have, as a society, gotten tougher on crime. And these violent offenders, especially the extremely violent ones like we're talking about here today, they're getting much lengthier sentences. I don't know, because it's not in the report to say that it never took place. But I'll take a guess here.
- [40:44]
Co-host / Analyst
When he was released, he wasn't placed on parole. If he.
- [40:46]
Nick (Host)
If somebody was released today, they'd be placed on parole. I'm guessing he wasn't paroled, that he was just released because he lives in another state.
- [40:56]
Captain (Co-host)
Right.
- [40:56]
Nick (Host)
When you're on parole, typically they don't allow you to go move to another state. You have to get a lot of permission. And there's a lot of things that go into that here. He's just kind of living in South Carolina, free to do what he wants.
- [41:09]
Co-host / Analyst
And what he wanted to do was
- [41:10]
Nick (Host)
break into some young, attractive woman's apartment in the middle of the night and rape and kill.
- [41:16]
Captain (Co-host)
Yeah.
- [41:17]
Nick (Host)
Now, okay, so we know that he's out, and he gets out in 89 kills in 90.
- [41:24]
Co-host / Analyst
By 1992, Bears was arrested again, this time in Cobb County, Georgia. So one thing I do want to point out here is when. When you review the totality of the
- [41:36]
Nick (Host)
violence and murder and evil that this guy did, we also do need to
- [41:41]
Co-host / Analyst
be thankful that he was locked up a couple of times. And in both cases, it was for roughly a handful of years.
- [41:50]
Captain (Co-host)
Right.
- [41:50]
Nick (Host)
Who knows how many lives were spared
- [41:53]
Co-host / Analyst
because of him spending, what was it,
- [41:55]
Nick (Host)
about five years for that attempted murder?
- [41:58]
Co-host / Analyst
Here he gets caught again in 92. This time, when he's arrested in Georgia, he's arrested, he's in possession of a stolen pistol, a stolen vehicle.
- [42:07]
Nick (Host)
What police found with him during that
- [42:09]
Co-host / Analyst
arrest painted a picture of someone preparing for more than just simple theft.
- [42:13]
Nick (Host)
Okay. In his possession, officers discovered a police scanner, a police coat or jacket, burglary tools, and a fake Tennessee driver's license.
- [42:23]
Co-host / Analyst
So that little collection of items suggest planning, disguise, and an intent to Evade
- [42:29]
Nick (Host)
detection, and I think intent to commit some very horrific crimes.
- [42:35]
Captain (Co-host)
Yeah.
- [42:36]
Co-host / Analyst
So he's returned to prison, and he spent approximately five years incarcerated.
- [42:42]
Nick (Host)
He's released in February of 1997. So for a time that might have seemed just like another cycle for this guy, crime capture, prison release, we have something a little bit different here. He's going to be met with consequences far beyond what authorities could offer or a prison sentence could offer. Now, as we said, while he's out, we know that he commits that double homicide in Missouri, 1998, the murder of Sherry and Megan Shears, the attempt in Dyersburg, Tennessee, and also just before that, shortly after he was released. Is that rape and hostage situation or, you know, he ties up the. The victims. The other victims that he didn't. Sexually assault in the house in Memphis, Tennessee.
- [43:32]
Captain (Co-host)
Yeah, all of his crimes are similar, but they're also different. And I think that makes him kind of unique.
- [43:41]
Nick (Host)
Well, and I'm wondering.
- [43:43]
Captain (Co-host)
He's a unique piece of shit.
- [43:45]
Nick (Host)
Yeah. But I'm. I'm wondering what prevented him from killing anybody in the Memphis situation, in the Memphis crimes, Because what we don't know about that incident was this. Did. Did he choose not to kill, or did something stop him from killing?
- [44:03]
Opportunity at Work Advertiser
Right.
- [44:03]
Nick (Host)
Did he have to flee for some reason? Was whatever he wanted to do ultimately cut short? It's. It's very hard to say. But what we do know is that we do have several crimes that he gets caught for because somebody fights him off or in this situation. Let's go to 1998. Beshears was arrested again, this time for another incident where he tried to break into a home of a single woman who he had previously done some handyman work for. Okay, so I'm guessing that he makes bond here and then just fled. Look, I know that some people say it's unconstitutional or whatever. Sometimes, sometimes people should not be allowed bail or bond. They just shouldn't in this situation. If that's why he wasn't in prison, wasn't in jail waiting for the trial, then this was a huge mistake. Okay, so this is a guy, clearly, he's got. He's got a very violent history. He's got. Even though they've not. They don't know that he's raped and murdered at this point. He's arrested for this crime where he's attempting to break into the home of a single woman who he had done some handyman work for. And listen to this. When he's arrested, he's caught with a firearm and in his possession for some Strange reason. He has a video camera, burglary tools, and he had cut the phone line to the house.
- [45:25]
Captain (Co-host)
Well, at this point, though, we do have the attempted murder. So you got that?
- [45:31]
Nick (Host)
Absolutely. That's why I'm saying I don't understand why he was released. What we do know is he was released from custody the day after the arrest. All I have for this one, captain, unfortunately, is 1998. So the, the actual release date is unclear to me, but again, I'm guessing he made bail and they released him without having more details of this situation. So less than a year later, his story, thankfully, will reach its end point. On January 13, 1999, officers found a vehicle with a stolen tag at a motel in Connect, Missouri. Beshears was located in a motel room at a Super 8 motel, along with his wife and children.
- [46:18]
Co-host / Analyst
It says children.
- [46:19]
Nick (Host)
He only has one daughter, so this would be step kids. What followed was a four hour standoff. During the standoff, Beshears releases his wife and children.
- [46:29]
Co-host / Analyst
Then he shoots himself.
- [46:31]
Nick (Host)
He did not die immediately. He was taken to a hospital. He died six days later. So that places his death as January 19, 1999. Now, after his death, the cases did not end. They lingered unsolved, partially understood, or disconnected from one another until advances in DNA work and forensic genealogy began stitching separate events into a single terrifying pattern. Okay, so after his death, many years after his death, we realize and learn that he's responsible for killing Jenny Zatricky and the double homicide in Missouri and then the other crimes that were very violent and scary that did not result in murder.
- [47:15]
Captain (Co-host)
It's crazy to think that somebody married this guy.
- [47:18]
Nick (Host)
Yeah, it's. So after they figure out that he's responsible for all of this, these horrible activities, on October 5, 2018, the Greenville Police chief named the killer as Robert Eugene Brashers for Jenny Zatricki's death and the Shears death in Missouri, and said, quote, he's a violent serial rapist and murderer. Now, even with all those revelations, we did still not know the extent, the true extent of his evil or his crimes. And I sit here and say this in the middle of 2026, and I don't think we still know the extent of his violence and his crimes and probably murders as well, because now we may never know. Yeah. So let's, let's go to the yogurt shop murders. December, 6, 1991. And at the I Can't Believe it's yogurt shop in Austin, Texas. Around closing time, investigators say someone entered the store through the back door and attacked and killed 14s before setting the building on fire. Their hands were tied with underwear and their mouths gagged with cloth. They were each shot in the head, their bodies found by firefighters who were battling the blaze. Longtime listeners of this show know that we've covered the yogurt shop murders and talked about them at length multiple times. We covered the Austin yogurt shop murders, as it was titled in February of 2017 in episodes 81 and 82. Also, yogurt shop murders 30 years later was the title when we revisited the case in November of 2021 with episodes 539 and 540. Again in August of 2025 with two episodes. An update in September of 2025 with episode 913. That one where we, because of the good work of Austin pd, were able to name Robert Eugene Brashears as the person responsible for the yogurt shop murders.
- [49:30]
Co-host / Analyst
So what led to that was, again, it was ballistics and DNA.
- [49:37]
Captain (Co-host)
Okay, so some would say one, two, punch.
- [49:40]
Nick (Host)
Yeah, which. Which is what got him with those other cases as well. So in 2022, Austin Police Department began re examining the 91 yogurt shop murders in Texas, collecting and testing DNA from the scene. And they began working with and using YSTR testing and genetic genealogy. This is what would ultimately connect Brashears to the these murders. So here we sit in 2026 with a lot more knowledge about this guy. Several cases finally closed and solved. And we know that this guy, Robert Eugene Brashear, has committed eight murders spread out over time from 1990 to 1998, and spread out over distance with four different states. South Carolina, then Texas, then Missouri, and ultimately Kentucky, because he is then later connected to another murder that took place in the state of Kentucky, and that
- [50:46]
Co-host / Analyst
was the murder of Linda rutledge.
- [50:50]
Nick (Host)
She was 43 years old.
- [50:51]
Co-host / Analyst
And this took place in Lexington, Kentucky.
- [50:56]
Nick (Host)
Rutledge's body was found in a fire at a hearing aid business in Lexington on November 7, 1998. Eight investigators determined that she had been
- [51:06]
Co-host / Analyst
shot in the head multiple times.
- [51:07]
Captain (Co-host)
But that's what's fascinating though is, and some of the crimes, he's using water to try to cover up the crime. In some cases, he's using fire. And then when you see the totality of the. The brute, the brutal carnage that this guy, like you said, the evolution, it makes the yogurt shop case make a lot more sense. He didn't care if there was two people there or four people there. It didn't matter to him. We've Seen him in other crimes go, hey, doesn't matter that there's other people here, as long as I can control them. And then we see I can control you with the gun and they can control you by binding you.
- [51:50]
Nick (Host)
Yeah. And 91, he was probably, he may have still been living in South Carolina. He lived in a, in several different states over the years.
- [52:01]
Grooms Advertiser
He did.
- [52:02]
Nick (Host)
His father lived out west at some point and he would travel out to see him. And he also traveled for work, conveniently for his purposes from time to time. And it could be as simple as he stops in the yogurt shop, I think not for the purpose of getting a snack. I think he may have stopped there on purpose because young people tend to hang out there. These types of businesses can be high risk for robbery. While robbery may not have been his motive, maybe he stops in for a snack, I don't know. But what, what I'm getting at here is what do we see in some of these crimes? They're all sexually motivated homicides. The break ins are all sexually motivated. He, he rapes and he murders. But when, when given the opportunity, when there's more than one female present, once
- [52:57]
Co-host / Analyst
he takes control of the scene, he
- [52:59]
Nick (Host)
sexually assaults the youngest female there.
- [53:02]
Captain (Co-host)
Right.
- [53:03]
Nick (Host)
And I think that somehow he ended up at that yogurt shop on that fateful night and he discovered, oh, there's a couple teenage girls working. And if in fact he was the individual that went to the back to use the restroom, as we know did take place that night, based off of several customers that were there that night, a male did go to the back to use the restroom at some point. If he encountered the other two girls that were staying back there that were waiting for the, their, the girls to get off work to close the shop. He encountered two younger girls and he realizes, oh, I have a situation here. There's no adults, there's no male, he may have wedged something in that back door and came in later, or he may have remained seated at one of those tables later that night.
- [53:49]
Captain (Co-host)
Like you said, the other crime that took place where he had other victims that he had tied up, committed the rape and didn't kill the victims. We don't know if his plan was foiled and, but this guy is just like the definition of violence.
- [54:10]
Nick (Host)
I spent a good deal of time praising law enforcement here in these cases, and rightfully so. They, they did great work on these cases. This is where I'm going to talk to, well, to give a little critique here because what do we have where it sits 2026. We have multiple agencies all saying the same thing. Look, we think he's probably good for other homicides in other states, other locations, what have you. Okay, how about you provide us with a physical description of this bastard? Right. We provided to you a general appearance. A description of his general appearance based off of what they collected and who they were looking for from the Tennessee case. The. The attempted break in when he attempted to push that door in. And we have a composite sketch of the guy, but nowhere, after more than a week of searching could I find any department anywhere telling us his height and his weight. You have multiple agencies that all seem to agree that this guy's likely killed elsewhere, but they do not provide us with his height and his weight. Size. We are told that he was on the smaller side. But help us to help you. We saw in our recent case Suspect Number One, as we titled the episodes, how something so simple as just the height of an individual is very important to an investigation. It can separate someone and place them into one of two categories. A good suspect or someone that we are not so interested in.
- [55:50]
Captain (Co-host)
Seems like some of these guys are small and angry.
- [55:54]
Nick (Host)
He reminds me because of the way that the case is both played out and their level of violence and how evil these guys are. Were. This is very similar to the Colonial Parkway murders where they ultimately determined that Alan Wade Wilmer Senior was responsible for some of those homicides. And of course, they didn't figure that out until after he was dead.
- [56:21]
Captain (Co-host)
Yeah. There's something, I guess, not as satisfying.
- [56:27]
Co-host / Analyst
Oh, absolutely.
- [56:28]
Captain (Co-host)
Because you want them to have to face those charges, to face society.
- [56:37]
Co-host / Analyst
But so what else has this guy done?
- [56:41]
Nick (Host)
I think hopefully, if he's responsible for more, that we will find that out and we'll get closer again. If you are a member of one of those agencies or you have access to the information that we are seeking, let's let us know. His height and his weight. Look, he. He had driver's license. He was sentenced to prison multiple times. So that information, those records exist. There's no reason to not put them out there. Especially when your agency is saying, we think he's good for something else. Don't just walk away from this guy because you cleared and closed your case in your jurisdiction.
- [57:15]
Captain (Co-host)
Yeah. And like in the Colonial Parkway murders, when they figured out who it was that was at least connected to one or two of the crimes, they released a bunch of photos of this individual.
- [57:27]
Zazzle Advertiser
All.
- [57:27]
Captain (Co-host)
All of his prison photos. And you could see that his look did change throughout the years. So by releasing that information you might get somebody else that never came forward.
- [57:41]
Nick (Host)
Yeah. And you may have a incident where you don't have the DNA or you don't have the ballistics. So we have the Missouri crime and the D. Dyersburg crime. We should point out that it'd be nice to know exactly where he lived and when. If that information, if those records do exist, he did live for a considerable amount of time in Arkansas near the end of his life. And in fact, where he committed suicide in Missouri, where he committed the double homicide in Missouri, and where he committed the attempted break in. In Dyersburg, Tennessee, were all very close to where he was living in Arkansas. But he was sophisticated enough to know, you know what? I'll just. Because it's nearby, I'll just drive across state lines. And that will be advantageous to me potentially getting away with these murders, which ultimately he. He did. When you think about it, he. While he did take his own life and he didn't live a full life, thank God, He, He. He did get away with it while he was here.
- [58:47]
Captain (Co-host)
Yeah, he spent a little time in prison, but for the most part of his life, he spent freely roaming the country committing these horrible crimes.
- [58:56]
Nick (Host)
And I don't know where he's buried now. He may be in the same cemetery as he was before, but he was buried for a time in Arkansas.
- [59:03]
Captain (Co-host)
Well, let's go find his grave and pee all over it.
- [59:06]
Nick (Host)
At least buried there before he was exhumed. The body was exhumed for further DNA testing to confirm. Confirm everything. What I'm really curious about here, Captain, based off of what we know about serial killers, and typically when they start in life now, they're all unique. They're all different from one another, and they all behave differently and start. And may even stop at different times of their lives. But I'm. He would have been old enough that I'm really curious about his time in New Orleans in Louisiana. I would look for a female victim there with a very similar MO as what we saw in the poor Port St. Lucie case. We know that Brashear is attacked and killed close to home with the Port St. Lucie and Greenville cases. So I would look close to home for possible crimes, rapes, murders. Early in his adult life. He also had some time in Tennessee and Georgia as well. The. The other thing that scares me is, is the police jacket, the fake driver's license. He's showing up to a crime scene with a video camera. So Brashear's family life, later in life, he's committing crimes a little bit further Away. He's kind of driving out and doing this. And maybe this is because he's getting, you know, he's got family by this time, his life has changed a little bit. But in regard to his family life, Bashir's family, his daughter, and remember, there would have been some step kids there. His wife's mother. His wife's mother told her that you let the devil in when you met this man. And she could not have been more right now. This is before anybody knew that he had committed all these murders. Beshear's daughter Deborah, who would now be in her 30s, was interviewed by reporters to recount some details of her father's life. This is before he was identified as the perpetrator of the yogurt shop murders. So she says she was born in 1991. She says that she first saw her father in early 97. This makes sense because he would have just been released from prison at that time. Right. She's born in 91. He gets locked up in 92, goes away for about five years. She only actually knows her father for two years because, remember, he dies by suicide in 1999. But according to the daughter, for those two years, Beshears lived with her, her mother and her half sisters. Deborah believes that her mother, Dorothy, who died in December of 2018 at the age of 53, knew about her father's past activities, because she says that they were told as kids to call him by different names at different times and to keep him inside the house. In addition to all of this, the daughter Deborah stated that his job at a construction firm led him to be absent from the house, sometimes for weeks at a time. And we know that this guy, it's in his blood. He's evil to the core. He's always looking for a victim. Now, one tool here, and this will be the recommendation for this week. There is a interactive map that was put together by W V L T8 News 8. This is at WVLT TV. They have a great online coverage of
- [62:42]
Co-host / Analyst
this story on their website that they
- [62:44]
Nick (Host)
put out in January of this year. I'll attempt to share that link on Instagram and Twitter. There is a video and several pictures.
- [62:54]
Co-host / Analyst
These are images of the many victims of Brashears. But this also contains an interactive map
- [63:02]
Nick (Host)
so you can click on it on
- [63:03]
Co-host / Analyst
the different points and it will bring up different parts of the story. Because with all of the movement and
- [63:09]
Nick (Host)
all the different markers on our timeline
- [63:11]
Co-host / Analyst
here, this is not an easy story. Just like the detective said, this is a complicated case.
- [63:18]
Nick (Host)
This is a tricky case.
- [63:40]
Captain (Co-host)
Want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage. Thanks for telling your mother. Thanks for sharing on social media and make sure you subscribe to the podcast until next week.
- [63:49]
Nick (Host)
Be good, be kind, and don't live.
- [64:27]
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