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Zachariah Juwaun Shorty ////// 847
01:05:25
Zachariah Juwaun Shorty ////// 847 Part 1 of 1 www.TrueCrimeGarage.com July 20, 2020: 23 year old Zachariah Juwaun Shorty went missing from a motel room at the Journey Inn, located at 317 N. Airport Drive in Farmington, New Mexico. According to Zach’s mother, there were four individuals staying there in addition to her son. This was two men and two women. The room number was 129. The F.B.I. has announced an $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of those responsible. If you have any information regarding the still unsolved murder of Zachariah Juwaun Shorty please contact the F.B.I. at 1-505-889-1300 OR tips@FBI.gov AND Farmington Police Department 1-505-599-1053. Beer of the Week - Pepe Loco by Santa Fe Brewing Company Garage Grade - 3 and a half bottle caps out of 5
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- [00:00]
Oregon Lottery Representative
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- [00:30]
Nick
SA Foreign 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 is excited that we are less than 100 days from a regular season NFL kickoff. That's right. So hang in there folks. Here is the Captain.
- [01:28]
The Captain
We're also less than 100 days away from CrimeCon Denver, so get you some. It's good to be seen and good to see you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling a friend.
- [01:38]
Nick
That's exactly right, Captain. We will be in Denver, Colorado that night that the NFL kicks off because CrimeCon starts the very next day. We hope all of you can join us in Denver this September. Use our code tcg. Save some cash if you want some tickets. This week we are drinking Pepe Loco by the fine folks over at the Santa Fe Brewing Company. Pepe Loco is not just a beer, it's a challenge to all of the other Mexican style lagers out there. As the Santa Fe Brewing Company says, Pepe Loco was built to crush other beers. But you my friends were built to crush Pepe Loco. This is a delicious crisp and lighter, little lighter than I had expected. Mexican style lager ABV 4.8% garage grade three and a half bottle caps out of five. And here's some cheers and thanks to our good friends who are out there crushing it as well. First up, a big shout out to Connor Martin of Oakford, Illinois.
- [02:42]
The Captain
And a big we like your jib goes out to Kelly from Crown Point, Indiana.
- [02:47]
Nick
Next up we have a cheers to Penny Berry from Fayetteville, West Virginia.
- [02:51]
The Captain
Next up, a tall cans in there to Rebecca Hope from Gold Coast, Australia. Cheers mate.
- [02:58]
Nick
Cheers. Here's a cheers captain to Jill up in Lansing, Michigan. And last but certainly not least we have Miriam from West Milford, New Jersey. Everybody we just mentioned went to truecrime garage.com and helped us out with the beer fund for this week's beer run. And for that we thank you.
- [03:17]
The Captain
Yeah bwr. You and beer run for everything. True Crime Check out true crime garage.com while you're there. Sign up on the mailing list and Colonel, that's enough of the B.
- [03:28]
Nick
All right, everybody, gather round, grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime. Foreign While every murder represents a tragic, personal and familial loss, the case we are covering today is sadly just one among many far, far too many. The statistics on the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous relatives in the United States reveal a substantial and distressing issue not limited to a specific region or area, but rather the entire country. Before we dive into the case, let's examine the numbers. In the United States, American Indian and Alaska Native populations experience much higher death rates for assault, homicide, and intentional self harm and suicide compared to other Americans, and Indigenous women in particular face disproportionately high rates of violence. More than 84% will experience violence in their lifetime, meaning they have a better chance of being a victim of sexual or domestic violence than they would of attending college. These statistics emphasize an urgent need for continued efforts to address and prevent violence against Indigenous communities. However, it is crucial to first closely examine the underlying causes of these widespread failures. First and foremost, a complex and jurisdictional landscape. Depending on location and other specifics, crimes involving Native Americans can fall under multiple jurisdictions, federal, state, or tribal. However, it isn't always clear which agency is in charge, and this complexity often leads to confusion and delays in investigations. Anyone who follows true crime understands that a lack of coordination and poor communication leads to cases going neglected, unworked and cold. Moreover, tribal law enforcement frequently faces challenges stemming from a lack of resources, including inadequate funding, limited staffing, and restricted access to technology. Finally, there are also legal barriers to contend with, including laws restricting the ability of tribes to prosecute non Native offenders who commit crimes on tribal lands. When 23 year old new Mexico resident Zachariah Jawan Shorty was found murdered on Navajo nation land in 2020, his mother, Evangeline Randall Shorty, would embark on a mission to hold accountable those responsible for his death. Along the way, she would find herself becoming a powerful advocate for a larger movement. She became a spokesperson for the loved ones of missing and murdered Indigenous relatives across the country. One woman's quest to attain justice for her son would lead to the exposure of a broken system, one hampered by a dismal mix of jurisdictional confusion, a lack of law enforcement resources and and a culture of indifference. This is true crime Garage, and this is the still unsolved murder of Zachariah Jawan Shorty. Zachariah Jawan Shorty was born May 5, 1997. He was the youngest child of Evangeline Randall Shorty's three children and the only child of father Myron Shorty. Evangeline prefers to be called Vanjie, so we shall do just that. Zach had an older brother, his name is Christian and a son, sister Katrina. For simplicity sake, we will refer to him as Zach going forward. However, it should be noted that his mother Vanjie alternatively called him Zach but also called him by his middle name, Jawan. This family of five, they were lifelong residents of Kirtland, New Mexico and enrolled members of the Navajo Nation, more accurately known as the Denis Nation. My apologies if I'm not saying that correctly. Zach was a happy baby, a chunky, lovable toddler who adored his siblings, particularly his older brother Christian. Growing up, Zach enjoyed all of the everyday kid stuff, but he especially enjoyed football as well as chess and cooking. Now as he matured, his creative tendencies began to emerge. Music became his passion, particularly rap and hip hop music. He also became a skilled tattoo artist and had an interest in Welding. In 2015, sadly, Zach and the family suffered an unspeakable loss. This is when brother Christian was killed in a tragic vehicle accident. Zach both admired and idolized his older brother. Christian was driving drunk the night of his death and he was not wearing his seatbelt. There were some other persons in the vehicle with Christian and thankfully they survived. And from my understanding Captain, there was not another vehicle that was involved in this accident. This very tragic accident that will forever change this family. Vanjie and Zach witnessed Christian's broken lifeless body at the scene of this accident. And both mother and son would be forever traumatized by the sight. In the following year, Zach graduated high school in nearby Farmington, New Mexico. But he had at some point turned to drugs and alcohol. And it's believed, and there's proof of this, that this was straight up an attempt to cope with the bottomless sorrow that he felt from losing his older brother.
- [10:13]
The Captain
Something that's pretty common especially with a young person dealing with such a traumatic time in their life and they start self medicating.
- [10:21]
Nick
And not just a loss that is this profound and this significant, but it's also you got, you compound that with the fact that he went to the scene and witnessed his brother dead there. I mean that's with some of what we do here. I have to remind myself sometimes that we can't, as much as we want to get hands on with the evidence in these cases, we have to remind ourselves that there are things that you cannot unsee and things that you cannot unhear. These can have a very long lasting and profound effect on people, especially when we're talking about a loved one. And Zach was very close with his family. He also began expressing suicidal ideations as he descended further into this drug fueled darkness that he was kind of putting himself into. Although undoubtedly troubled, Zach consistently shared a deep and loving bond with the remaining family members, particularly his mother. He even went to this is such a nice kind gesture that I always fear that families don't communicate and don't talk enough and don't tell each other what they actually mean to, to one another. But Zach often would tell his mother that she was his best friend. He was a devoted father. He, after high school had a young daughter. Her name was Christiana, clearly named after his older brother at the time when he was taking care of his daughter, his young daughter. He did share this baby with his live in girlfriend. Her name is Ingrid Toledo. So they did. She did live with Zach's family for a period of time. That will change at some point in the timeline when I don't, I don't know exactly. Despite these challenges, Zach worked several jobs and supported his loved ones the best he could. Zach worked for a while as a tire technician at a place called Desert Mountain. He enjoyed his work changing tires on semi trucks, always challenging himself to perform faster than his previous times. Beyond trying to be the best tire guy in the biz, Zach had a big heart, was known to go out of his way to help hungry and homeless people, even at times coming up with creative ways when needed to figure out how to feed the needy. Not unlike many of the victims discussed here in the garage. Zach, while a great guy and a kind man to his family and even strangers, he was no saint. Due to the deep depression caused by the death of his older brother, along with his increased drug and alcohol use, and then exacerbated by all of that with the fact that Zach was seeking comfort and friendship from others who were regularly doing drugs and abusing alcohol as well. This truly captain was setting the table for something terrible to happen to this young man. Eventually, Zach becomes seriously dependent on drugs and alcohol and often talking about suicide. His drug of choice was methamphetamine. Our good garage friend Mike Morford's show, the Murder in My Family featured Zach's mother. And with brutal honesty, his mother shared on that show that Zach was a totally different person under the influence of meth, to the point of calling him a monster and characterizing him as an angry and hateful young man when he was under the spell of. Of this terrible drug.
- [14:06]
The Captain
Yeah, it's a sad story because you don't know if he would have went down this path if his brother didn't pass away. Then it's hard to wrap your head around why anybody would want to do methamphetamines. But it. It also just didn't seem like he had much of a will to live. So it's like, well, if I do methamphetamines and they kill me, well, that's not going to be that bad, because whatever I'm dealing with in my head and my heart is something that I'm not able to cope with right now.
- [14:37]
Nick
This is one of those horrific, horrifically sad situations. And we've seen it. We've all seen it. And a lot of us listening to this and even us here in the garage, we have either experienced this with somebody in our family, somebody we're related to, or friends of friends, friends of family, that there's somebody out there. This. This young man desperately needs help. He desperately wants help. And what I'm talking about is at the core of it, not help from getting clean from these drugs. He wants help to just feel better. He's choosing and finding whatever comfort that is or whatever help that he thinks he can get, even if it's just temporary, from the use of these drugs, where he has loving individuals around him who. That could help him in a. In a different healthy manner. And I. I just hate to. I. I hate telling this story, but it needs to be told. But I hate telling it because we've all, in some form and fashion, I believe, witnessed this where the individual needs help and they just got blinders on. And it's a very. It's a very difficult situation. Very difficult situation. Not just in Zach's, but in. In all of our experiences out there. And Vanjie, his mom, is doing the very best she can with this. She says that on every anniversary of Christian's death or Christian's birthday, she feared that her youngest son, Zach, would. That she would find him dead from suicide because she was monitoring, like she was aware of his drug use and she would keep. Keep mental note of that. It seemed to escalate. And his suicidal thoughts seem to escalate around these difficult times.
- [16:21]
The Captain
Well, sometimes because they feel that the pain is so deep in their heart and in their head, they overdose on purpose or they just. Or they feel like if I just keep taking more drugs, it will eventually numb the pain. And it doesn't. It causes a accidental overdose.
- [16:44]
Nick
Zach was always turning to music in dark times. He. It's. He begins to write song lyrics and to express his pain and anguish over his brother's death. He's getting creative and he's writing music, he's making music. He created a YouTube channel where he wrote and produced original rap music. He began under the moniker of Shorty Styles, which eventually morphed into isolated music, helped him process the loss. But it wasn't enough to quiet his addictions. Due to his drug use, Zach began to get into trouble with law enforcement.
- [17:22]
The Captain
But the other problem with music, especially this style of music in the early 2000s, that's mainly the work that I would get was guys that wanted to be rappers or wanted to be producers. And every time there was a session, it wasn't a guy showing up by himself with acoustic guitar singing love songs. It was 20 people in the mixing room drinking and smoking pot. And so even though some people would view this as like a positive thing, normally the people in those sessions, it's a party. It's not just a positive outlet. It can be also a negative thing when you have a drug addiction.
- [18:01]
Nick
Lets go to 2019. And many people wonder if this next event in this young man's life, if it may have had some direct relation to Zach's murder. This is when Zach gets arrested on drug charges. Several of these charges come as a big surprise to Zach's mother, Vanjie. Now, she was worried about her son, obviously, right, Knowing about his drug use and addiction. But this is when she finds out that Zach gets caught for selling drugs. She's worried about her son knowing that he's a user. He gets busted for selling. And that was news to Vanjie. She had no idea that he was selling drugs. And it gets even worse than that for Vanjie because the arrest is. It's both her son Zach and his father, Myon, who get arrested for selling drugs to an undercover police officer. Zach's father had also at some point become dependent upon drugs. This leads to the San Juan County Sheriff's Office attempting to get Zach to turn Baby face and become a police informant or a CI confidential informant in exchange for reduced charges. Now, I want to be clear on this matter here, Captain. It sounds to me they call them confidential informants for a reason. It's not. It's not known. It's not supposed to be known that somebody is doing this work or turning in people, snitching on people. And we need to be clear Here, I couldn't find a statement that 100% confirms that that is what Zach did. All I can say is it appears to be there was speculation and that people close to Zach believe that the San Juan County Sheriff's Office attempted to get him to be a police informant. Now, whether he did or not, we don't know. The police would know, of course. Zach pleads guilty to one felony count of trafficking a controlled substance, and his father pleads guilty to one felony count of conspiracy to commit drug trafficking. Both men were convicted and given probation as their punishment. Vanjie puts Zach into counseling, but his dark thoughts persist to the point where In June of 2020, Zach attempts to hang himself in the backyard. However, the belt that he used broke. So he survives this when he comes to and finds himself lying on. On a punching bag. So the way that I understand this, Captain, you know, people will hang up a punching bag. I think he may have removed the punching bag and set it down to put the belt up there.
- [20:50]
The Captain
Right.
- [20:51]
Nick
And the belt broke. He. So he comes to, and he actually assumes that either his mother or father had cut him down. And he approaches them and. And he is angry. He's extremely angry at them for cutting them down. And both of them tell them, like we did. We didn't know you were doing this. They were asleep. So they deny this. And then he wonders if maybe perhaps the spirit of his brother somehow saved him from death. I went onto YouTube and I found some of Zach's music. And while a musician's lyrics are not always about the musician themselves and what they are feeling, but in Zach's case, it seems kind of obvious to me, going off of his words and the songs I listened to, he mentions his brother and his brother's tragic death often. And what I heard in those sounds like Zach was very angry at God for taking his brother.
- [21:50]
The Captain
Right.
- [21:51]
Nick
To simplify, what I heard was, because of his brother's death, that it sounds like he lost his faith and his hope in this life.
- [22:00]
The Captain
Yeah. And he's probably a little bit mad at his brother for drinking and driving. He's probably disappointed in his brother because of that. And so that's. Those are just layers of emotion. And then, obviously, like you said, probably mad at the world, mad at God, mad at his family.
- [22:21]
Nick
And that's when I just wish he was here so I could shake him and just go, dude. And I don't know. I'm not pretending to be any kind of therapist or anything. I don't know what's up or down when it comes to mental health, but I just want to shake this guy and go, dude, use this anger. Use this anger that you have for your brother making mistakes. Use this anger you have at God or. Or for this situation and let it fuel you and drive you to take care of your daughter. Focus on the. On the living more and not the dead. And don't make the same mistake that your brother did. Don't do. I. I'm not trying to accuse his brother of anything, but his brother made choices that were bad choices.
- [23:04]
The Captain
Right.
- [23:04]
Nick
And don't do to your daughter what your brother did to you. Sorry.
- [23:09]
The Captain
Yeah.
- [23:10]
Nick
Gonna be a little worked up here. A little heated in the garage.
- [23:12]
The Captain
No, but I had a. A friend I grew up with that became a junkie. And then we don't know if it was an accidental overdose or if it was on purpose, but after his death, I ran into his. His older brother. And his older brother was mad and angry, but seemed mad at his brother, like. And. And he. He used terms like, my brother was a loser and he was a junkie. And. And then cut to five years later, the older brother just couldn't get past that hurt and the anger, and he became a junkie as well. And you, like you said, you just want to shake the individual and say, you're going to put your mom through all this again. Like, you. You see how much you're grieving, and you can see how much your family's grieving, and you're making these decisions. And I think, you know, I think it's fair to say, I think his family would say because of Zach's grief and anger, that he's making decisions that are put in him and bad situations.
- [24:21]
Nick
Eventually, Vanjie calls Zach's probation officer in Aztec, telling him that her son desperately needs help. The social worker contacts him. Zach persuading him to check himself into the San Juan Regional for a mental health evaluation. Upon arrival, Zach decides he doesn't want to be there. He's attempting to leave, so the facility puts him on suicide watch, to which he's then flown to Albuquerque so he could be observed more closely. He does remain in Albuquerque for a week, at which time Vangie asked his probation officer at Aztec if Zach could be fitted with an ankle monitor. They agree. But when she takes her son to the facility, he leaves the next day without an ankle monitor. Okay, so he's not given a GPS or an alcohol monitor, which could at least have prevented drug and alcohol use. Vanjie has is on the record saying that he did at some point have an alcohol and drug monitor which helped him to get clean and sober and he was much better when, when that was taking place. However, it doesn't take place here. What's interesting to me is because he's an adult but still lives with mom and dad, he's not, he's not leaving their house and property to go out and do drugs and alcohol. He, he, he is on occasion, but he's also doing a lot of this at home and mom and dad have to work and they can only monitor him so much. And this monitor, while the GPS might make sense to some, I think the alcohol and drug monitor makes more sense in this scenario because he's, he's not leaving to go.
- [26:20]
The Captain
Yeah.
- [26:20]
Nick
Or to go get messed up.
- [26:22]
The Captain
Yeah. Or they could try to put him on a prescription that would just make him sick anytime he uses. But I mean this would be a very difficult situation because obviously their decisions are going to be different now that they lost a child.
- [26:40]
Nick
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- [29:41]
The Captain
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- [30:25]
Nick
Literally.
- [30:25]
The Captain
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- [31:26]
D
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- [32:55]
Nick
I don't wanna be. I don't wanna be here.
- [33:12]
The Captain
All right, we are back. Cheers, mates. Cheers to you, colonel.
- [33:16]
Nick
Cheers to you, captain. Look, I know we promote sipping cold beers here in the garage and we always will. But of course, drink responsibly. And if, you know, this is one of these cases and this is not, you know, while he, he went by the name isolated on, on his YouTube channel. This is not an isolated incident as far as the garage is concerned. We've featured many cases that have similarities to, to this one. And.
- [33:44]
The Captain
Well, no, and it's, it's, it's sad. I mean, because one, state the obvious. There's people out there that if something bad happens to somebody that's doing bad things, some people just don't care. But the problem is you have this young individual that went through a tough time, didn't know how to deal with it. And the other difficult thing too is a lot of these families, they lose the person before they lose the person.
- [34:14]
Nick
Yeah.
- [34:14]
The Captain
And you know, like I said with, with my buddy, it was like when I'd run into him, it was, it was sad. And if I found out that he was working as A cook or somewhere, you know, at a local restaurant. I'd not go there because I one, I couldn't get through to him. I couldn't get him to change his lifestyle. And every time I saw him, he was so happy to see me. And I think it's because I was a representation of what life was before this mess that he got into.
- [34:50]
Nick
And there are people out there that lack empathy for these types of victims. For persons who are in the throes of alcohol and drug abuse. I want to. To point out here in this specific situation and in others, but this one specifically, we are talking about a young man here. He was very early in his life, and he may have gotten clean. He may have turned this around. He didn't get the opportunity to. Somebody denied him and his family of that opportunity.
- [35:24]
The Captain
And if you ever have a friend that turns their life around, it's. It's one of the most amazing things. And you cherish those moments in the back of your head. You can remember when you almost lost them or when you did lose them for a time period, because they weren't the person that you knew well.
- [35:44]
Nick
And we can see evidence of Zach fighting as well and trying to get better. He maintains a job. He continues working despite all of his. His troubles. He maintains a relationship with his daughter and close relationship with his mom and dad. He does talk about a desire to get clean. And he is busy working on his passion project, creating content for his YouTube channel. More music, more songs under the name Isolated. This provides his. What may be his only outlet for his. His own only positive outlet for his grief over the loss of his brother. Creating these songs was truly a powerful thing for this young man. He had so many reasons to keep fighting. And when I say keep fighting, it was a fight for this young man, a fight to just keep going. Many, many of these days and nights were a struggle, not just addiction, but with a lot of inner demons. And he fought because of his daughter, and he fought because of his music and his mother. On July 20, 2020, Zach goes out to record music with some of his friends. According to his mother, one of the guys that he was meeting was someone that he had a strained relationship with for years. So this is. Sounds like it was somebody that he was friends with when he was a youngster. And at some point, these two had beef. They didn't get along. It sounds like this was an ongoing theme, that she was a little curious why he was hanging out with this guy, because they didn't seem to like each other. They didn't seem to get along, but they were going to get together with some other folks and make some music. I guess the way this was originally going to go down here, Captain, is that Zach wanted to have these people over at his house, work on the music there, record the music there. But Zach's father was not having it. He did not want these people coming over. He didn't want them in his house. So instead of doing it at the shorty's house, they this group, Zach and this group, they go to a motel. This is the nearby Journey In Motel in Farmington. The plan is to stay there all evening and all through the night working on their beats and creating music.
- [38:00]
The Captain
Well, like I said, some of these music creating sessions were also, AKA a party.
- [38:07]
Nick
They were going to be renting a room for at least one night. Now, in the room, Vanjie, Zach's mom, would later confirm that four people in addition to Zach were in this room. So two men and two women. One of these people was a young woman named Kay, or that could be a fictitious name and we'll get into that here in a minute. Now, I have to be perfectly honest, I couldn't sort out what kind of relationship these two, Zach and Kay had, but they were definitely in some kind of relationship. I don't know if they were just having fun or if they were simply in the early stages of a relationship, but there's conflicting reports on what kind of relationship they they had. But it was kind of ongoing and it was there was romance involved, as I understand it. According to what I heard from more than one interview with Zach's mother, Vanjie, her thoughts were that Kay considered herself to be in a serious relationship with Zach. But Vanjie thinks that Zach was trying to and hoping to work things out with his daughter's mother, Ingrid. Unfortunately, Zach is not here to tell us any better. But we know that K is one of the people staying at this Journey in motel. The other people are known to people close to this case, but I've not seen their names in any publications. All right, now pay attention closely because in these next several paragraphs here in our notes, these are the details to concern yourself with, in my opinion, in this mystery. Let's start at 4am so it's now July 21st at 4am this is when Vanjie receives a call from Zach asking if she can come and pick him up from the motel. She and Zach's father get in the car and drive to the Journey in to pick up their son. When they get there, Zach gets in the car with a friend. This is the woman Vanjie identifies as K. Right now. This could be a pseudonym, as I have not seen a last name from K provided in any publication. Vanjie assumes that they will drop Kay off somewhere on the way home. But on the ride, Zach asks if she can come over to their house and mom is uneasy with this idea and denies the requests.
- [40:30]
The Captain
Right.
- [40:30]
Nick
She knows her son is in this, what she refers to as a short term relationship with this woman. Vanjie believes that he's only in this short term relationship with this woman simply in order for Zach to have easy access to drugs, which sounds like persons believe that this K did have easy access to drugs. They argue a bit, mom and son. But ultimately Vanjie drops off both her son and K at the Troy King at Troy King Road. This is where K's family lives. She then returns. Mom returns home to sleep before she had to go to work the following morning. A few Hours later, at 7am, Zach calls again asking for another ride. Vanjie agrees, but knowing that he had stayed with K, reminds her son before agreeing to pick him up that she's not welcome to come home with him or not welcome to come with him. He says, okay, let me call you back. He calls back five minutes later and asks her to drop them both off at the Journey in. So now he wants to return to the motel where they they were previous. He says they needed to finish some of the music that they were working on. Priority. It's still July 21st on our timeline. Vanjie picks Zach and Kay up, drives him back to the Journey, and on the way she repeatedly reminds her son that he has a virtual court date. We are in the COVID year, so he has a court date that he absolutely cannot miss. After dropping them off at the motel, she texts him throughout the morning until around noon, reminding him of the appointment. He's responding up until about noonish. Then it is nothing from Zach until around 3pm so three hours later, when Vanjie hears from her son who is now calling from a phone number that is different from his own, she doesn't recognize his phone number. He tells her his battery, his phone battery has died. He's requesting that she bring him a charger for his phone. She's only like five minutes away. Mom's only about five minutes away. So she does leave the home to drop off a phone charger. When she arrives at the journey in, she says her son was intoxicated and probably high. She gives Zach the Charger, she's warning him, you better be careful. She tells him she gets off work at 6 and she can come back and get him then.
- [42:54]
The Captain
Yeah, but think about this situation. I mean, Zach's at the point in his life that he's supposed to be going off into the real world and being an adult. And all day long you're now having to give your adult kid rides to places. You're not picking them up and sending him to places to make his life better. But because of this tragic situation with your other son, it's understandable why she's doing this, because somebody from the outside could look in and go, man, she seems like she's really babying her adult son. But that's the situation that a lot of these people put their parents in.
- [43:32]
Nick
Yes, and it's a unique situation. When reviewing everything here, I think one factor we need to remind ourselves about is his age. Right. He's of age, and he could, he could walk away from this family if he wanted to. And I'm sure the family feared that outcome because at least with. At least in this world that they're living in at the moment, they feel some control over the situation that they. That they can at least are there to help. And while I believe for a very long time, up until a few years ago, maybe 10, that the word enabler or enabling was not used enough, and then at some point, I think it's overused. And I think that somebody could look at this scenario and say, well, she's enabling him. She's practically waiting on him hand and foot. But I don't. I don't see it at that. I. I almost feel like as much as he loved his mother, his addiction and his demons are kind of holding his mother and his family hostage in a way.
- [44:38]
The Captain
Well, again, I think if you ask her personally, would. Would she change anything or. Or how she was reacting. She already lost a son. So when you watch shows like Intervention, you'll hear the people doing the intervention or telling the parents, you gotta let him sink or swim on his own. But that becomes way more difficult when you've already lost one of your kids.
- [45:06]
Nick
Zach calls his mother back around 6:45, maybe 7:00pm IST, to tell her that they are still working on their music, but they're hungry. He's requesting if she could pick up some food. She agrees. She goes to a nearby Little Caesars, picks up a pizza for Zach and his friends or, or people he thought as was were his friends. While she is picking up the food, she gets a Call another call from Zach and he's asking if she could go pick up K on her way to the motel to drop off the pizza to them. Yeah, and this is confusing to Vanjie because she was under the idea that K was still with the group, Right. But Zach tells her that actually that Kay had left earlier and was now at the Economy Hotel in Farmington. So Vanjie drives to the hotel in Farmington. Kay's waiting outside. And then now they're on their way to the the Journey In. And as Vanjie and K. Are pulling up to the Journey in, they can see Zach. He's outside talking to someone on the phone. He's talking to the mother of his child and he's begging her. It's. I mean, this is, it's obvious to everybody what's going on. He's begging the mother of his daughter that they work things out between the two and that they get married at some point. K, who he has this short term relationship with, is standing right there listening to the man that she believes she's in a relationship with, begging the mother of his child to give him a second chance. Zach sends K into the room while handing the phone to his mother, pleading with her to fix the relationship for him. Get on the phone, talk to, talk to Ingrid and fix this relationship for me. Vanjie gets on the phone, tells Ingrid, look, my son is completely out of his acts, completely out of it. He's not in his right mind, and she is going to try to talk some sense into him once he sobers up. She tells her son, you better get something to eat, eat some pizza and ask him if he's ready to come home. He tells her he just has to finish up the track they were working on before returning home and that he'll call soon when he's ready. Vanjie tells her son that she loves him. She gives him a hug, she cautions him to be careful and then leaves. This will be the last time that she sees her son alive. At 11:30pm, Vangie receives a Facebook messenger call from K. K claims that Zach had stepped outside for a cigarette and never returned to the room. Vanjie asked K To go back outside, look around, see if she could find him, and then call her back. Meanwhile, she calls her son's phone, right? She's on high alert now. I got to get a hold of my son. She calls her son's phone, but Kay picks up the phone. Vanjie's baffled, obviously. Why would K Have his phone?
- [48:07]
The Captain
Yeah.
- [48:07]
Nick
Kay brushes it off, claiming, saying that, well, the phone kept falling out of his pocket so I held it for him. He went out and smoked a cigarette, never came back. So Vanjie and Zach's father, Myron, they drive to the Journey In. They decide to take two separate vehicles. So once there, if they have to drive around looking for him, they. They can cover more ground more quickly. K is waiting for them there. Vanjie and K. K gets in the car of Vanjie and drives around the neighborhood looking for any sign of Zach. It's very late at night, very early in the next morning when they agree that they. They simply can't find any trace of Zach. It will be on July 23rd that after the family and K continue to search for Zach, finding nothing, they've been reaching out to family and friends, but no one has seen the young man. So Vangie makes an official and calls the Farmington Police Department for a missing person's report. After giving them the details of her son's disappearance, they make flyers. Vangie and supporters are passing out these flyers, handing them out, posting them. Zack is listed as an endangered missing person. Vangie goes to the Journey in with the purpose of handing out flyers. She's going door to door asking people that are there if they had seen her son. Several people actually say yes, they had seen him but didn't know where he was. Currently, one man who introduced himself as Justin confirms that he had seen Zach and that he was, quote, starting shit around here. No further details are available to us at this time. On. On this matter. On Friday, July 24, they decide to organize a search party since law enforcement, according to the family, did not appear to be doing much of anything to find Zach. Vanjie received some strange phone calls that day as well. One from a person who claimed to be in the motel at the recording session she claims she'd heard. So it's a female caller. She claims she'd heard that Zach was gone, meaning dead. Then Kay contacted her again through Facebook messenger, alleging that she was being held hostage and needed Vanjie and Myron to rescue her. Vanjie suspected. Yeah, Vanjie suspected that she was being set up and she's too smart for this. So she wisely contacts the Farmington Police Department who locate K, along with a female friend of K's, find the two young women unharmed. The friend, however, has an outstanding warrant, is and is promptly arrested.
- [50:49]
The Captain
Well, a big problem with this investigation is and it's not privy to the public, so we don't know who was in this quote unquote recording session. But like I said, I've been the producer behind the computer. In these quote unquote recording sessions. It wasn't uncommon for throughout, let's say a four or five hour period for people just to stop by. And maybe it's just a group of five people or maybe it's a group of 10 people, or it's a group of two people and they stay for 30 minutes and get bored and they leave. So who knows how many individuals were coming and going from this quote unquote recording session that lasted all night and until the next day.
- [51:36]
Nick
And a recording session at a ship motel. Okay, this motel is. This is not the only room at the motel that has drug activity and people without standing warrants.
- [51:48]
The Captain
Right. So how many people were just staying there had nothing to do with this recording session that just dropped by? And some of these. Look, I've done it myself, just, I've stood on corners of the street just handing out free records before because you're just trying to get noticed. So somebody just stumbles upon the recording session and goes, hey, what are you guys doing in there? Oh, we're making some music. Come check it out.
- [52:15]
Nick
I'll be in in a minute with my glass pipe, right?
- [52:18]
The Captain
Or, hey, man, I'm a rapper too. Let me, let me spit everybody real quick.
- [52:23]
Nick
Yeah, that's why it's so hard to break into the biz. So let's go back. Speaking of warrants, let's go back to this. This female friend of K's getting picked up, right? She has an outstanding warrant. She has a boyfriend there. The friend that gets picked up has a boyfriend there with her who is upset about the arrest. This boyfriend with his phone is taking pictures of Vanjie's car and license plate. His name has been mentioned several times. As the group was searching for any signs of Zach. Later, Vanjie would surmise that this had been orchestrated as some kind of distraction, that the we've been taken hostage ruse. Right, this is, was just meant to be a distraction. This makes a whole lot of sense because later we're going to learn that they're only a few miles away from the site where Zach was murdered. On Sunday, July 26, Vanjie takes a break from the search. But Myron, her husband, continues looking for their son. Vanjie had heard a rumor that a body had been found and it may have matched, maybe a match for Zach's description. On Monday the 27th, she learns that the body at San Juan Regional Hospital had been Taken to the office of the medical investigator in Albuquerque. She tried calling Farmington pd, but no one answered the phone, despite it only being late. Monday afternoon, she drives to Farmington only to find the police station closed and locked up. This is what. This is what she's saying. I can't verify that this is fact, but if. If this is. If. If this is correct, this is right, this is five years ago. Not even five years ago. So it sounds to me like if. If you're looking to do something bad, do it on a. On a Monday evening, the police might have be gone there in Farmington, gone for the night. Nobody's watching. Nobody's watching the place. Meanwhile, Van's calling the medical examiner's office. She gives the person that she speaks with a description of her son. This includes, like, what he was wearing and his tattoos. And this person does confirm that they do have a body there that is matching that description. However, they would not confirm it was or was not Zach without running the fingerprints first.
- [54:39]
The Captain
Right.
- [54:40]
Nick
So mom and dad are desperate. They're trying to figure out what's going on here. The family is simply told to wait for these fingerprints to come back. Throughout this night, while they're waiting to. To receive information if it was. If the body was that of their son or not, Vanjie receives. This is a more strange communication. Receives text messages and phone calls from a phone number that she does not recognize. The mystery caller is demanding ransom, a ransom for the release of her son Zach, and telling them, do not contact the police. The contact, the caller, is demanding $7,000 for the safe return of Zach. Think about this. There's no way for any of us to put ourselves in the shoes of this poor woman. But you are holding on to desperation. You are holding on to any glimmer of hope out of desperation, given the options of your son being on the slab at the medical examiner's office or. Or being held for a ransom. You're hoping he's being held for a ransom.
- [55:47]
The Captain
Right?
- [55:47]
Nick
As strange as it may sound to some people, this is some new hope. They decide to drive around Kirkland. This is very smart. These people are very smart, Zach's parents, because they decide, you know what we need? We can't call this in. We want to. We want to notify law enforcement about this ransom demand. But we. We don't want to call it in because what if they send out a call over the scanner and. And this is real. And the people that took our son hostage would may hear on the scanner about this call to Send an officer to the home to take a report or to meet with these people. So they decide, let's go out, hop in the car, we'll drive around until we find a cop car. And they do. So they're telling the police officer that they talk to what's going on so he can communicate in person with, with the other officers. Not over CB or not over the scanner. She, Vanjie surrenders her phone to the officers so that they can use her phone in an attempt to get to the bottom of whatever these messages are. At 5pm on that same day, a couple of police officers along with a family advocate show up at the doorstep of Vanjie and Myron's home. The couple invite the officers in, the family sits down with the officers only to learn that the body had been confirmed as belonging to their beloved son. The officers would not. They declined to say where Zach had been found or how he had died, claiming that they could not share the information at the time. Vanjie is not told that her son was a homicide victim nor is she provided any details around the discovery of his remains. Some time goes by. She receives the death certificate and she makes a request for the autopsy. It is only then that she learns that her son died of gunshot wounds. She requests not just the autopsy report but toxicology reports as well and is traumatized to learn the details regarding his death. So Zach was shot seven times. There were seven gunshot wounds. And he, the evidence says he was killed where he was found. Now she still doesn't know where her son was found.
- [58:23]
The Captain
I mean this is so bizarre.
- [58:26]
Nick
So she's going to start pretty much her own investigation to try to fill in the blanks of the mystery of her son's murder. She goes to a location called Nanina and I probably butchered that. We, you know, I, I research how to say that. And then we talked for two hours before we hit record. So I've, I've done forgotten.
- [58:52]
The Captain
Well, say this is a small if you're going to be wrong like Miles Davis said, if you're going to be wrong, be wrong twice.
- [58:58]
Nick
Well, if I say it slow, I'm a little more confident. Nanina Nazad. I think I added an extra N in there, but that's people in this general area know what I'm talking about. This is a small community in San Juan County, New Mexico. It's located on the Navajo Nation. Lance it lies about. So this is like 15 miles west of Farmington and about 24 miles east of Shiprock. Poor mother Vanjie is going door to door and just asking the people, whoever answers the door if they knew anything about what was going on. I'm guessing she could. She learned from the paperwork that that is the approximate area, right? The. The. The small community where he was found. And so she's there going door to door. She eventually learns the name of someone who seemed to know something, and she goes and finds this person. This person tells Vangie that it was his daughter who had found Zach's lifeless body. The way I understand this is this man's daughter would go out for a jog or for a run, typically every day, weather permitting. But the weather didn't permit for a couple of days. That likely that couple of days when Zach was missing. And when the weather. When there's a break in the weather, she goes out and jogs her typical route. And it's on that route that she sees something that catches her eye. And sadly, we learned that it was Zach's body. So he was found on a dirt road trail. Oh, sorry. He was found on a dirt trail south of the San Juan river, approximately a half mile west of a chapter house there. The family takes her to this location so she can see where they had found Zach. It's basically an isolated field. Later, Vangie would refer to it as the lonely spot where Zach's body was. Was laying. And again, the evidence says he was killed there. There's some things about this case that really stand out to me. One, there's some troubling hurdles to get over. Now, I'm not saying these are hurdles that cannot be cleared. Right. Maybe there could be some justification on some of these hurdles. They might be able to be cleared, but I'm having a hard time getting. Getting over them without further information. One, it's very strange to me that this air quotes K friend. There's obvious speculation that she could have been upset with Zach given the circumstances. She's the one that messenger calls Vanjie. But then she's in possession of Zach's phone. Now, maybe she couldn't unlock it to. To call her or what have you. That would stand to some reason, but that one seems strange to me. Family, of course, saying he's never without his phone. We do know by his own family's admission that he was intoxicated and probably high, so maybe he wasn't thinking straight. Maybe he just set his phone down and went out to grab a smoke.
- [62:08]
The Captain
Right.
- [62:09]
Nick
I feel like, given the location, it. It's not out of the realm of possibility that he may have started Something with somebody or somebody started something with him while he was outside. As said, this is a shady. Maybe while the owners are not trying to have a shady operation, there are shady people that are in and out of the place.
- [62:30]
The Captain
Right.
- [62:30]
Nick
And I just feel like with so much drugs involved with the persons that were sharing the room with him not being named, where he's found being shot seven times. This. This feels very much to me like we're talking about friends or not friends, but people that were on. At least on the fringes of the this young man social circles. This all screams to me that these were young people that killed this young man, that they were about his. They were in Zach's age group, definitely. And I think that there are not only. I think there's a chance that there. We know there's at least one trigger person. There could be more than one person that pulled the trigger. But. But there's every reason. And we don't even have to go down this road too far. You can just hear the words that we said during this episode, and it's. It's not difficult to believe that several people believe or several people know who's responsible and what happened to this young man.
- [63:33]
The Captain
Well, you're not even staying the obvious. I mean, when you have individuals calling, saying, hey, you give us $7,000, we're gonna release your son. Those individuals have to be suspects. This K individual has to be a suspect. But again, it gets very complicated because what do we see from this quote unquote recording session? K. She. She came and went. Zach himself came and went. Who else came and went? Or is it. Or is it a possibility that there's just some scumbag that comes around, doesn't know any of these individuals, gets involved in the situation, and there's an altercation between that individual or multiple individuals and Zach?
- [64:26]
Nick
And some called us crazy when we reviewed JonBenet multiple times. And we were just looking at the information and questioning it and throwing out some options and some possibilities. But the pushback we received from some people that heard those episodes were, well, why would. Why in the hell would the person that may. The person that already knows that she's dead be trying to get a ransom? And we said, it's simply because you got nothing to lose, right? You got everything to gain. And here's a situation, Captain, where we might be faced with a similar idea. We can't rule out the idea of these people that were trying to squeeze a ransom out of these poor folks of $7,000, that they weren't the ones responsible for killing the young man.
- [65:16]
The Captain
Right. And Zach has his issues with drugs. He's a drug addict. He's hanging out with other drug addicts. What do drug addicts need to keep their addiction going? Money.
- [65:28]
Nick
On August 5, 2020, the family laid 23 year old Zachariah Jawan Shorty to rest. Mourners gather to remember the beloved son, brother, father and friend at a funeral ceremony at the Journey Church in Farmington, followed by his burial in Kirtland. One thing that struck a chord with me, well, there were multiple things obviously, but one thing that stands out, that I want to make sure we point out before we wrap up here today in the garage, is the interviews I heard with Zach's mother, Vanjie. She pointed out that some of the people that she thought were her son's friends, whether she liked them or not. Right. Because some of these persons were in and out of trouble and using drugs as well, whether she liked them or not. But these were people that he hung out with, people that he shared time with so he would believe that they were friends. These people were not present at the gathering to lay this young man to rest or to remember his life.
- [66:35]
The Captain
Right. See, I don't find that suspicious though in the sense of what are these individuals? They're drug addicts. They might not even know what day of the week it is. They might not even of heard what really happened to him. I mean, this case is so frustrating and like I said, there's going to be some people going, he was a drug addict, who cares? Normally I'd say somebody knows something, somebody needs to say something and we need to get justice for Zach. But I say in this case, we need to get justice for Zach's mother and for, for Zach's family. Because could you imagine one, you lose one son, now you have another son that's going down the wrong path. You're basically waiting on him hand and foot and then this bad thing happens and, and on top of that, it's the cause and it's the wild goose chase that these horrible people sent her on. She deserves justice. She deserves some answers.
- [67:46]
Nick
Zach's mother, Vangie Randall Shorty, is her son's unshakable and relentless Advocate. Following his July 2020 death and months after his burial, Vanjie was at a loss how to cope with her anger and sadness over her son's unsolved murder. In October, she attended a memorial for victims of gun violence in Albuquerque called Robbed. And thus started her advocacy Journey. Law enforcement offered help and she began to realize the power of collective action. At her first Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women rally, she was able to publicly speak of her son's unsolved murder. She continues to advocate for families of the missing and murdered in the Four Corners, traveling the country and speaking on her son's death and the tragedy of missing and murdered indigenous people. Zach went missing from a motel room at the Journey inn, located at 317 N. Airport Dr. In Farmington, New Mexico. It was a typical New Mexico summer night. According to Vangie's account, there were four individuals at the recording session in addition to her son, two men and two women. The room number was 129. In terms of overall crime rate in 2020, Farmington, New Mexico had a crime rate of 36 per 1,000 residents, making it one of the higher crime rate in the US Compared to communities of all sizes. Violent crime in particular was notably high, with offenses including rape, murder and armed robbery and aggravated assault. The chance of becoming a victim of violent crime was 1 in 94. Farmington's crime rate was higher than an astonishing 92% of the communities in New Mexico. As an overall crime grade, Farmington was awarded a dismal D minus. Zach's music videos can be viewed on his YouTube channel isolated the FBI has announced a ten thousand dollar reward for information leading to the arrest of those responsible for the death of Zachariah Jawan Shorty. If you have any information regarding the still unsolved murder of Zachariah Joanne Shorty, please contact both the FBI at 1-505-8893, 1300 and tips FBI.gov and the Farmington Police Department at 1-505-599-1053.
- [70:33]
The Captain
Want to thank everybody, everybody for joining us here in the garage. Make sure you go to truecrimegarage.com and sign up on our mailing list. Colonel, do we have any recommended reading for the beautiful listeners?
- [70:43]
Nick
Yes we do Captain. This week you've seen him on tv. He's a great storyteller and so I'm happy to recommend I Will Find you Solving Killer Cases From My Life Fighting Crime by Detective Lieutenant Joe Kinda. This is a collection of different stories from his now historical police and detective career throughout the years. This one's as good of a read, if not better than the shows that I've seen him on. So check out I Will Find you Solving Killer Cases From My Life Fighting Crime by Detective Lieutenant Joe Kenda. You can find that recommendation and many more on our website true crimegarage.com and.
- [71:23]
The Captain
Until next week, be good.
- [71:24]
Nick
Be kind and don't litter.