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Body in the Water
Body in the Water (2025) S01E03
Body in the Water (2025) Season 1 Episode 3
Body in the Water (2025) S01E03
Body in the Water (2025) Season 1 Episode 3
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00:00Transcribed by ESO, translated by —
00:30Transcribed by ESO, translated by —
01:00Transcribed by ESO, translated by —
01:02Even though this is a beautiful creek, you get a lot of kayakers in here that love the scenery. It's still a sinister place.
01:13You see all the cypress trees and the different trees. That's what colors the water.
01:20The tannic acid from the swamps makes it a dark water.
01:26One area, Lofton Creek, is especially popular with anglers like John Spivy.
01:34But in February 2001, it was his father-in-law, a seasoned shrimp fisherman, who experienced the darker side of these waters.
01:44My father-in-law came home and told us he had found a body down at Lofton Creek.
02:00He went fishing early that morning, cold winter morning.
02:08And he came in, and when he was loading his boat up, the boat wake actually pushed a body from underneath the dock.
02:18And, uh, it was wrapped up in something.
02:24And he was pretty shook up.
02:28This is the dock.
02:32I believe that the body was washed up under.
02:36And it must have been at low tide when the body was dumped because there's no way for a body to get under this dock at any tide except low water.
02:48He tied the body to one of these cleats on this dock so it would not float away while he went and contacted the authorities.
03:00I remember it to be partly cloudy, which is typical for that time of the year, and high humidity.
03:08Right around lunchtime, I heard over our police radio that there was a body that was located in Lofton Creek.
03:15And it was partially wrapped in what appeared to be a shower curtain.
03:21It's not typical for us to have somebody drown in Lofton Creek.
03:25So I started responding to the call as the detective assigned to the area.
03:31I'm going through my mind of, okay, you know, do I think this is going to be a suicide?
03:36Do I think it's going to be a homicide?
03:38Do I think it's going to be just a natural death?
03:40The information coming from dispatch, it's popping into my mind that we may be looking at another dumb job.
03:47The woods, the creeks, the rivers, that's where people a lot of the time dump bodies after they've murdered somebody.
03:54Oftentimes it's for convenience or proximity or depending upon the location, there's some hope that this person is not going to be found because it's a remote location or some predator is going to help them dispose of the body.
04:13Most of the time when you have a dump job, it's going to be criminal activity related.
04:22So this is a replacement doc.
04:26But if this has been the original doc, he would have been tied off right there.
04:32He was down in the water.
04:34We could see based on his position that he had tattoos on his body.
04:43And upon further inspection while he was still on the water, there was evidence of a gunshot wound.
04:49So on this case, that kind of starts the ball rolling.
04:55Crime scene investigators could tell the victim was a black male in his early 30s.
05:02But the watery crime scene made further examination of the body more difficult.
05:08There were remnants of the shower curtain and I remember the wildlife being in the area.
05:15It was a pretty gruesome scene.
05:23Sometimes bodies in water are bodies found after a few days.
05:27The wounds and the injuries can be obscured by things like the water or by insects or other creatures that may feed on that area.
05:36In this case, there was an injury to the head and there were fish in that area.
05:42Staring at the body and the staring at the water, it's very, very dark brackish water.
05:51So I knew that this was going to be a challenge to see what evidence may be in the water.
05:56Some of the locals call it coffee water.
05:59It's when fresh water and salt water mix and then you've got the sediments off the trees, off the bark.
06:05Specialist divers from the Florida Department for Law Enforcement were called in to assess the body before moving it.
06:18Remains, once they're in water, and especially if they're in water for an extended period of time, become very fragile.
06:28In this case, police divers are faced with the challenge of being extra careful because the remains had already been altered by those who found them.
06:38An added challenge to this case is the fact that they had little to no visibility.
06:44So everything they have to do, most of the time, it's by feel to figure out the condition of the body, but be careful as to not destroy any evidence.
06:55Police hoped they could still use fingerprinting to identify the victim.
07:00Skin slippage and wrinkling is very common.
07:03This can make it difficult to collect fingerprints.
07:06However, there are several ways that dive and forensic professionals can combat this issue.
07:13One of the most common ways to roll prints is to actually carefully remove the skin from the hand, slide a living hand into that, and then roll the prints.
07:25Another method is when you have significant wrinkling is you can actually rehydrate the finger, which causes the wrinkling.
07:33It kind of tightens the skin, then resulting in the ability to roll prints.
07:38Identification was relatively quickly in this case because the body had only been in water for three to five days, and so the fingerprints were relatively preserved.
07:48The dead man was identified as Paul Sheely.
07:52Paul Sheely's name was in the database because of a minor infraction, so it was already there, and when they ran the fingerprints, they got a match.
08:01Paul had his children tattooed on his body, and in this case, it proved to be very valuable.
08:09Detectives discovered Paul Sheely was a father of eight.
08:16Lofton Creek, where his body was found, was just 24 miles from his home in Jacksonville.
08:26He was a resident of the northwest side of Jacksonville, which is an area commonly known to us as being a violent area that homicides do take place in.
08:39So many questions come up when you're presented with a gunshot wound death.
08:44Whether or not the body has spent time in the water.
08:48First is, was this self-inflicted or do we have a homicide?
08:54Most people who shoot themselves shoot themselves either on the side of the head or under the chin or in the mouth.
09:04So I think the initial call of a suicide needed to be taken seriously because it's always a possibility.
09:11And so, given the fact that we don't know that, they're going to then start doing what we forensic psychologists call like a psychological autopsy.
09:18Which is to begin researching that person's life and the events leading up to that death to see if, does this person have the risk factors of suicide?
09:29What indications do we have that this person was thinking about it?
09:33And as they began doing this, there was nothing in Paul Sheely's background or recent history that would suggest he was in that frame of mind.
09:46The position of Paul's bullet wound also ruled out suicide.
09:50So we have an entrance gunshot wound in this particular case on the forehead.
09:56According to the investigation, the wound was caused by a .38 caliber firearm and it was matched back to a weapon that Paul Sheely himself owned.
10:10And if that weapon is fired fairly close to the head, one would expect significant injuries to the skull and the brain.
10:20And depending on which part of the brain is injured, death can be very, very quick.
10:27The autopsy suggested Paul died instantly.
10:32Paul was actually found wrapped in a shower carton and one gunshot wound to the head.
10:37He would not have been able to have done that to himself to wrap himself in a shower carton after he shot himself.
10:42Therefore, it was determined to be a homicide.
10:45And that's really where we start the process of gathering information and starting to formulate in our mind what may have taken place.
10:58Start coming up with predictions of where, when, who might have committed this crime.
11:04In Florida, police now know that the body found in a creek with a gunshot wound to the head is 31-year-old Jacksonville man, Paul Sheely.
11:26He's been murdered.
11:29Evidence from the body also suggests there's a second crime scene.
11:36The fact that there was no significant fluid in the lungs indicates to me that the primary scene is not the creek
11:46and that Paul Sheely was shot somewhere else and then the body was dumped in the creek.
11:52We don't find any evidence that there is blood there or that there is any kind of tissue
11:58or anything to indicate a struggle at that crime scene.
12:01So everything that we find indicates that this was purely a dump site.
12:06That Paul was killed someplace else, put in the shower carton and then taken to this place.
12:11I think one immediate question would be, why is this person in this creek?
12:28And who would have knowledge of this creek? Who's familiar with this area?
12:33We do know that most, you know, perpetrators tend to place a body, most of them, not all,
12:41place them relatively close to their home or in areas they're familiar with.
12:45So that would be one, I think, potential avenue of questioning.
12:50My theory is it was dumped off the bridge and washed under here.
12:55The people that disposed of the body must have knew the area, the title, the gators that were in here.
13:05It's really close to the highway, but they knew that the tide would wash the body out or a gator would get it.
13:15In the state of Florida, especially in Northeast Florida, it's common for people to dump homicide victims in water,
13:26thinking that alligators are going to get rid of the body or dispose of the evidence from the body.
13:32When the body starts to decay, there again is this odor, this putrid odor,
13:37that typically will put off alligators and they won't attack.
13:40Alligators and crocodiles are predators, however, they are not scavengers.
13:49Which is why in this case, although the remains were in a body of water with several gators known to be in the area,
13:56there was no trauma to the body.
13:59Next, detectives turn to Paul Sheely's background, looking for a possible motive to his murder.
14:07So we were able to determine that he did not have a Monday through Friday full-time job.
14:15But he did have at least $1,000 in cash on him at any given time.
14:20But also that he had twin .380 caliber pistols that he'd like to carry with him.
14:26Gang activity is prevalent in that area of Jacksonville, also narcotics activity.
14:33Is he involved in the drug trade?
14:36It may he have ripped off somebody, not paid them, owed somebody money.
14:41And was that what caused this?
14:46They also discovered he had a complicated love life with eight children by several different women.
14:53One of his girlfriends at the time was Aisha James.
15:08I met Paul when I was about 24 years old.
15:12I met him working at a men's clothing store.
15:16Yeah, Paul was very, very much of a ladies man.
15:20He loved women.
15:22He just came up to me to ask me would I help him with some clothes.
15:27And I did.
15:28He was nice looking.
15:30Short, but he was nice looking.
15:32He had a great style by himself.
15:35Kind of like goofy, but he was sweet.
15:39He was very, very sweet.
15:41And then afterwards, he was like, can I get your number?
15:44Can I take you out for a drink?
15:45And I was like, sure, no problem.
15:48And then we headed off from there.
15:53He was pretty much a free spirit, spontaneous, loved to travel, loved to be around family.
16:01He spent a lot of time with his kids.
16:04He took them shopping.
16:06The latest tennis shoes came out.
16:08Jordan's, he was there buying all of his kids' clothes and all of the kids' shoes.
16:14Just everything.
16:15He spoiled his kids.
16:17One of the things I think is important to realize is that even though he, you know,
16:23had multiple children with different women and didn't really seem motivated to settle down
16:28with any of the women, he absolutely adored his children and tried to be very involved in their life.
16:33And as a matter of fact, had their names tattooed on him.
16:37And people who knew him said he talked about his children all the time.
16:41His eldest son was Paul Sheely III.
16:46He was only 10 when his father's body was found.
16:50My dad definitely, when it came to his children, he did, you know, above and beyond.
16:57He was a hell of a guy.
16:59I carried his name.
17:00You know what I'm saying?
17:01I would look like him, walk like him, talk like him, dress like him, act like him.
17:06Paul loved to dress from head to toe.
17:10We had to match, including down to his socks and underwear, his shoes, everything.
17:16Paul loved to wear jewelry from, like, necklaces to watches, rings.
17:25He had a lot of jewelry, for sure.
17:28Anywhere from 20 to probably $25,000 worth of jewelry.
17:34Paul was very, very flashy.
17:37He would pull out watts and watts of money and buy anyone a drink that, you know, that he knew.
17:44He had a lot of cars, so it's not like it was just one car.
17:49He also liked the Jacksonville Jaguars, our NFL professional football team.
17:53So he had his vehicles painted like a Jaguar fan would have their vehicle painted.
18:00He had it painted in the Jaguar colors.
18:03He had it painted in teal and gold.
18:08So this is a person that liked to draw people's attention towards him.
18:13Was he so flamboyant that he showed so many people that he had money, jewelry, guns, everything like that?
18:20Did somebody just decide to rob him?
18:24At first, evidence from the body seemed to support the robbery theory.
18:31We noticed that he was not wearing any jewelry.
18:33He was not wearing flashy clothes.
18:35And every time the newest version of the Nike Air Jordan came out, he was the first one to have it.
18:41So finding the body without the flashy clothes, the jewelry, and specifically the Air Jordans, which are high-dollar shoes,
18:48gave us a little bit more of an idea that this may have been a robbery.
19:04Our last conversation, it was on Sunday.
19:07We stayed out together for a long time, just talking until almost three hours in the morning.
19:14And we had a deep conversation, you know, just about life in general.
19:20I told him I love him, and he told me he loved me, and, you know, things are going to be okay.
19:28But at the same time, it was, like, surreal.
19:34I called him on a Monday, and I didn't hear any word from him.
19:38I just had a bad feeling.
19:40It wasn't a day to go in by that my dad don't talk to his mom.
19:47So for her not to hear from him, one day, it's weird.
19:51But two or three days, it's just, that's something wrong.
19:55Something's not right.
19:56My grandma came and picked me up some stuff from daycare one day.
20:08And when we got back to the house, there was a note on the mailbox.
20:11A detective's card actually, and it said, you want to give me a call?
20:15So she called him.
20:17I remember he said, you might want to take a seat.
20:21And she just fell out, and she just started crying.
20:24And she was like, my baby gone, my baby gone, my baby gone.
20:30You got to understand, my grandmother was told that she couldn't even have kids.
20:33And that was her only child.
20:35So there was no words for, you know, saying that, hey, you know, your child is gone.
20:41And he said, have a couple more.
20:44Because I seen the news report about a guy, you know, they found the body.
20:50And it was a 31-year-old man.
20:53It was like an eerie feeling when I seen it.
20:57And I went around to one of his friend's house.
21:01And the look on his face kind of told it all.
21:07His friend told me that it was Paul.
21:11I broke down crying.
21:14It was very, very emotional.
21:18The autopsy put Paul's murder between three and five days before his body was found.
21:25It also raised serious doubts about the investigation's working motive for the killing, which was robbery.
21:32One of the things also looked at at autopsy is something we call defensive injuries.
21:37In this case, there were no defensive injuries found on Paul.
21:41And that indicates that there was no struggle.
21:43He had no significant blunt force trauma.
21:48And there were no antemortem injuries consistent with binding of the hands or feet by ligatures that would have left bruising on those areas.
22:02I believe the most information that we got was that he was very street wise, that he always paid attention.
22:09He always knew when there was trouble brewing, he did not want to get involved in the trouble.
22:13So that started really making us go down that path of, okay, it's not robbery.
22:18There was also no evidence Paul's murder was related to gang crime.
22:23So when we started getting the information that he would leave town to be involved in whatever activity he was being involved in,
22:30he would come back with large sums of money, which would point towards criminal activity.
22:35But the information that we gathered from family members and friends was that they never saw anybody come in town to deal with him.
22:44After eliminating several lines of inquiry, investigators were left with one probable motive for Paul's murder.
22:53Paul had several children with several different women.
22:57And in fact, during the beginning parts of this investigation,
23:00we had determined that there was a young lady that was pregnant with Paul Sheely's child,
23:05but it wasn't the person that he was currently with at the time.
23:09Do we have a crime of passion?
23:12Do we have a situation where a girlfriend, a lover had found out that he was being unfaithful?
23:17And could that be part of this?
23:19Detectives investigating the murder of Paul Sheely found dumped in a Florida creek with a gunshot wound to his head.
23:24Detectives investigating the murder of Paul Sheely found dumped in a Florida creek with a gunshot wound to his head now suspect one of his many lovers could be the killer.
23:43They launch a fingertip search of the swampy water where his body was found, looking for evidence to support their theory that this is a crime of passion.
24:04When a body is found in water, there's a lot of complexity to the investigation.
24:17The body can travel because this is a tidal area, so anytime the ocean tide goes out, our tributaries go out also.
24:25It also affects where we're going to find evidence that may have been dumped with the body.
24:32So when they dive in the water, they use a combination of intense lighting to try to see what's there, metal detectors, side scanning sonars, and then just touch and feel.
24:44When police divers have to conduct searches in water where there is no or limited visibility, this often requires the diver to be tethered by a line and someone on shore is guiding them through a water using a search pattern.
25:03The diver is responsible for slowly pulling themselves along the bottom of the water, feeling anything that comes along their path.
25:16Once an item is found, the diver at that point should use some form of flotation device to actually mark the location of the item in situ.
25:26It is up to the dive team to properly recover the item while minimizing the amount of contamination.
25:35As well as the shower curtain Paul's body was wrapped in, divers retrieved a large rug, a gold chain, and a pair of glasses.
25:45And these glasses look like women's glasses.
25:48Because they were found in the proximity of this shower curtain.
25:52They're really hopeful that this might be a significant piece of information, particularly if they can find somebody they belong to or somebody who has a similar pair of glasses like these.
26:02While they waited for forensic results on the items found in the creek, detectives began to get a clearer picture of Paul Sheely's love life.
26:11We were seeing each other probably just a couple of months.
26:16Then I got pregnant.
26:19And he's like, OK.
26:22He told me that he was going to be there for me and my son.
26:26You know, he was like, when the baby is born, I'll, you know, I'll be there to help you out no matter what.
26:35We saw a lot of each other while I was pregnant.
26:40And we talked on the phone pretty much every other day.
26:44I called one day to find out where he was because he was supposed to come in and visit me.
26:51And when I called a female announcer, which was his girlfriend at the time, Alicia Lee,
26:57I knew that he was in a relationship in the beginning of our relationship.
27:02Alicia Lee, a single mother of three, had been living with Paul in Jacksonville for more than a decade.
27:11He was dropping off one of his kids at daycare.
27:14She was a daycare worker, and they really hit it off right away.
27:17And I think this was pretty unusual for Paul to actually have that kind of relationship where he moves in with somebody.
27:24So I think he was quite smitten.
27:26I also get the sense that in some respects she was, you know, kind of different from a lot of the women that he had relationships with that were more casual.
27:35And I think from Lisa's point of view, I don't think that she thought of philandering, for example, as part of that relationship or an acceptable part of it.
27:45Alicia told me that she, you know, that she's his girlfriend.
27:50They've been together for 10 years, and pretty much he's not going anywhere.
27:54So, you know, just leave him alone and stop calling his phone.
27:58I proceeded to tell her.
28:00I said, I'm not sure if he told you or not, but I was pregnant, you know, with a son.
28:05I can sense from her, the phone conversation that she was very, very hurt, very, you know, disappointed and disgusted with him.
28:19I think she would have certainly told herself that he wouldn't do this to her because they had a different kind of relationship.
28:26And I think it would have been very frustrating and caused a lot of rage and disappointment to discover that, no, that you're not special in that way, that Paul's behaving with you just as he has with every other woman in his life.
28:44We exchanged words, cuss words back and forth.
28:47And after we hung up, that was it.
28:51Miss Lee's very upset.
28:53So now we've determined, OK, that was within a couple of days of Paul going missing, not being seen.
29:00That kind of gave us more of that idea of, OK, there are some heated passions here.
29:06Could that be the way that this went?
29:09One of the things that becomes clear is that there were some bad blood between them and some serious jealousy.
29:18You know, you look at the motives for murder, you know, love slash jealousy slash revenge.
29:28That's at the top of the list in terms of why people murder other people that they're involved with.
29:35Detectives questioned Alicia Lee about the days before the discovery of Paul's body in Lofton Creek.
29:44Miss Lee had provided a little bit of a time frame for the Sunday, a potential time that this could occur.
30:02She advised that Paul had come home, either from out of town or somewhere else in Jacksonville, that she believed that he was with one of the other girls that he was having a relationship with.
30:15And then when he got home, he went to sleep.
30:19She got her children up. She got them dressed. She had them eating breakfast in the kitchen.
30:24She takes them to church, pretty consistent with what she's done in the past.
30:28She drops off her children at the aunt's house and then goes back over to her house.
30:34When she returned home, Paul was gone. The car was gone. She decided to replace the mattress on her bed that her and Paul shared.
30:48Why would you replace the mattress all of the sudden actually on a Sunday morning?
30:54We determined we needed to get the Florida Department of Law Enforcement forensic team out there and process the house with a search warrant.
31:03The team did forensic tests in the main part of the house.
31:08They did come up with a small amount of blood in one of the sinks. Again, not consistent with the amount of blood that would have been lost during a gunshot wound.
31:15There were no shell casings. There was no other physical evidence that was found during this processing.
31:21One of our main concerns with a case like this is it turning into a cold case, turning into a situation where, yeah, we know there was a homicide.
31:41We have potential suspects, but we cannot prove what occurred.
31:46We have a good idea that, OK, this probably happened in the city of Jacksonville, but we cannot prove that.
31:54Nobody's talking. Nobody's given us any more information than giving us an idea of who he is.
32:00So we know that it's just going to take that one person to tell us, yeah, this is what happened.
32:06To blow this thing open, unfortunately, we were unable to get over that hurdle in the initial part of the investigation.
32:14It's very hard, I think, for a family to really grieve not knowing what happened to their loved one, not having justice, not having answers.
32:26And unfortunately, this case for a number of months kind of just kind of stagnates.
32:35So it starts moving into that cold case field, which is very difficult to get out of.
32:45And then one day I got a phone call saying, hey, guess what?
32:50Jacksonville Sheriff's Office busted the case wide open.
32:53For nearly a year, Florida detectives have drawn a blank in their hunt for the killer of Paul Sheely, whose body was found in a Florida creek.
33:18They suspect this is a crime of passion committed by his long-term girlfriend, Alicia Lee, but can't prove it.
33:27We have potential suspects, but we cannot prove what occurred.
33:32There was nothing indicating any other way that this was going to go, but we just could not get over that last hurdle.
33:38DNA tests on the items found near the body in the creek, a pair of women's glasses, a gold chain, a shower curtain, and a large rug also offered no answers.
33:51The evidence that was found in the water posed several difficulties, especially when considering an item such as a rug.
34:08Because of the fact it was in very murky water, there likely would have been a lot of algae, vegetation, mud and other debris on the rug.
34:18So the investigators are now faced with the challenge of trying to find a way to remove the debris while still preserving any forensic evidence.
34:28And also without removing too much of those environmental factors that link the rug to that body of water.
34:36The type of water that evidence is recovered in will directly impact if any DNA can be recovered from the pieces of evidence.
34:48Where there's a lot of debris, a lot of vegetation, and when they're in warmer environments like the state of Florida, there's a lot of bacteria.
34:56That bacteria can quickly eat away at any DNA evidence that might be left on any of the items found in the water.
35:04And that's exactly what happened in this case.
35:06Then, detectives got a breakthrough.
35:20Daniel Reddick, who was serving time for attempted burglary, confessed that he and three accomplices dumped Paul's body in Lofton Creek.
35:30This is an acquaintance of both Ms. Lee and Mr. Sheely had been arrested and started providing information on what actually took place that Sunday,
35:40how the body was dumped, where the body was dumped.
35:44Prior to her shooting him and wanting him dead, what did she step to you, sir?
35:50She asked me, what did I do with it?
35:53Was it hard to end for killing anybody?
35:56And what did you tell her?
35:58I told her, no.
36:01Reddick denied shooting Paul.
36:04Instead, he claimed it was Sheely's girlfriend, Alicia Lee, who had planned and executed the murder.
36:10She said she sent him on the way, meaning he sent him home.
36:14Meaning what, sir?
36:15She killed him.
36:19He pretty quickly kind of fesses up and says that he did help hide this body and that he did this at the request of Alicia Lee,
36:31who had made no bones about the fact that she wanted Paul Sheely dead.
36:37He said that she had asked him if he would murder him.
36:42And he had said, no, I won't do this.
36:44And he said, I thought that was the end of this.
36:46Until she calls me out of the blue and says that she's done it.
36:51Reddick admitted he and three friends helped Alicia Lee dispose of the body and the mattress.
36:58Then, Lee rewarded them by divvying up Paul's jewelry and expensive sneakers.
37:05And I think it's just, it is somewhat mind boggling that you have these four individuals who have had nothing to do with the actual murder,
37:14who were willing to just assist her in getting rid of his body.
37:19Now certain that Paul and Alicia's Jacksonville house was the primary crime scene,
37:29forensic teams returned for a second time.
37:32Their focus?
37:34The master bedroom.
37:36The brain starts working.
37:38That mattress.
37:39That bedroom.
37:40Jacksonville Sheriff's Office took their forensic unit.
37:43They lumen all that bedroom.
37:45And they found plenty of evidence showing that the crime had actually occurred in that bedroom.
37:52So now it's time to bring in your person of interest.
37:57The only real suspect you've had during this entire process, you bring Miss Lee in and start questioning her.
38:04And that was ultimately successful.
38:09Lee denied murdering her partner.
38:12But it was the pair of women's glasses found with the body which would finally prove her guilt.
38:19When they were interviewing her, they provided her with something to read.
38:24She actually pulled out a set of reading glasses.
38:27And a very astute detective remembered seeing those glasses in the pictures of the physical evidence
38:33that was collected at the bottom of Lofton Creek.
38:36And it was an absolute match for the ones that she had on her then.
38:41Lee had lost an identical pair in the shower curtain she'd used to wrap Paul's dead body in.
38:47I believe that's what took the wind out of her sails along with everything else
38:52that made her finally confess to committing the murder.
38:57Later, Lee reenacted for detectives the moment she shot Paul in the head as he slept.
39:04And this hand was shaking and I was trying to hold this hand with that hand and pull the trigger.
39:11You sure?
39:12What did surprise me and I thought was interesting is her demeanor during this confession.
39:18She's very matter of fact in how she talks about the very specific details of murdering him.
39:28Did anybody promise you anything?
39:30No.
39:31Why are you doing this?
39:32I don't get any sense of remorse from her.
39:37It is jealousy, I think, that motivated Alicia, but I think it was more revenge.
39:45Alicia Lee was charged with first-degree murder and sent to trial.
40:00This is what we think happens.
40:04Paul Sheely had come home.
40:06He had gone to bed.
40:08The children were in the kitchen.
40:11She's made up her mind to kill him.
40:14She recalls that Mr. Redick advised her that a way to silence a gun is with a potato.
40:21She waited until he was good asleep.
40:26She made sure her children were busy in the other room.
40:31She went into the closet and got his gun and got the potato and, you know, put it on there as a silencer.
40:40And then she just, she went in there and just shot him while he slept.
40:46And then goes about her business for the rest of the day, taking the kids to church, taking them over to Ann's house,
40:52and then dealing with the four other people to get rid of the body, get rid of the mattress, get rid of the evidence,
40:58take it up to Nassau County, and dump it into Wofden Creek.
41:03Well, when I was told, it shocked me because I didn't think or suspect that she, you know, would have did anything like that.
41:13Because she was such a quiet person, a laid-back, chill person.
41:19When you look at Alicia Lee, it's hard to see anything at all in her background that would predict this.
41:27She goes to church.
41:29She takes her kids to church.
41:31She has a steady job.
41:33She's a childcare worker.
41:35She's responsible.
41:37This is somebody you would never think would engage in some kind of violence, certainly murder,
41:42of somebody they're in a relationship with.
41:46The story and how she did it is the most disgustingest thing that I could ever think of.
41:58Like, you killed them, and then you got your kids ready for church.
42:02You took them to church, came back, and dispose of the body with some friends.
42:09She actually came to the funeral.
42:11She was on the porch with us crying and consoling my grandmother.
42:17That is wild.
42:32In March 2006, Lee accepted a plea bargain, admitted second degree murder, and was sentenced
42:39to 30 years in prison.
42:43Her four accomplices got between three and five years for disposing of Paul's body in Lofton Creek.
42:51What makes this case so bad was not only the fact that she had done this while her children were in the house.
42:58She then drew other people into this murder investigation, into this conspiracy,
43:05had them help her get him to Lofton Creek in Nassau County,
43:10and then to pay them by telling them that they can divvy up those flashy jewelry pieces,
43:17the flashy clothes, everything that everybody had told us in the beginning
43:21was part of Paul Sheely, what made Paul Sheely Paul Sheely.
43:25It was just, it was cold-blooded.
43:30You're not giving that person any chance to defend themselves, explain themselves,
43:34think of other options.
43:36I mean, you've made a decision, you've made a unilateral decision, right,
43:39that I'm going to end this person's life.
43:41That, I think, is cold.
43:44Do I think that perhaps in Alicia Lee's mind,
43:48she justified it by saying, Paul made me do this?
43:52I've reached the breaking point.
43:54He pushed me over the edge.
43:56I can see her thinking that.
43:58Nobody pushes anybody over the edge.
44:01They step across that line.
44:03But I do think that that would have been possibly a reason for her,
44:08a justification for her making this decision to end his life.
44:13justice was done.
44:16But Paul Sheely's family and those involved in the investigation would feel the consequences of his murder for years to come.
44:25It definitely affected my life, especially during that time because I was getting in so much trouble.
44:34I was rebelling, man.
44:36You know, I don't have a father, and I'm not getting the things that I'm used to getting.
44:41It was hard.
44:42It was hard.
44:43My father-in-law actually was a little afraid that his name would get out and the people that had murdered the victim would come after him because he found the body.
45:01And that was something that disturbed him the rest of his life.
45:08Paul had eight kids, and my son was number nine.
45:15I think he would have been a proud dad.
45:19If he was still around, he would be there at everything that happened in my son's life.
45:28Still to this day, I'm still to this day still angry, for sure, because the hurt never goes away.
45:37People speak of closure, but it's no real closure.
45:45Being here in this context, not a lot of change here, and it really brings it back to mind.
45:52The sadness of a father of nine coming to this end, in this location, in this manner, it's a terrible thing.
46:07Do you listen to me still to this day?
46:08It's a terrible thing.
46:09It was a terrible thing.
46:11It was just a terrible thing, so it's not even worth it.
46:13It was really terrible if it was true, but it was just not a lot.
46:17You think it was, you know, not a lot of change here.
46:19So I really would be a possibility of thinking about the problem.
46:20But I think it was really interesting.
46:21I really would say it was a terrible thing.
46:23If you could try and a lot of change here, I really could look for it.
46:25I really would've had to be a time to take care of Mother's Mom.
46:28Transcription by CastingWords
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