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