- 2 days ago
When a promising high school track star is murdered, Philadelphia detectives zero in on her network of friends, both on and off the track, eventually uncovering the horrifying truth behind who killed
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00:12Shelly was a star. Shelly had all these trophies.
00:17Shelly had aspirations of going to the Olympics.
00:23A woman called 911 to report her daughter Shelly Turner as missing from their residence.
00:30We were getting ready to run in a track meet. She's not here and nobody had seen her.
00:40There was something horribly wrong. A gentleman and his dog found a body in a
00:49wooded area of Fairmount Park. I was definitely in disbelief. I did not want to believe that.
00:56I said, did you kill Shelly? To this day, I still get chills in my bones.
01:02It just is so shocking. You don't want to believe it. You just, anything but that.
01:26In Philly, we're passionate about all sports, from the big leagues to little league and everything in between.
01:32But sometimes the real story happens off the field. In 1993, Philadelphia police are faced with a senseless tragedy involving
01:42a 17-year-old Olympic hopeful.
01:49On Tuesday, January 19th of 1993, a woman who identified herself as Vivian King called 911 to report her daughter
01:58Shelly Turner as missing from their residence.
02:03Uniformed police officers responded to the location of their house on Edgewood Street in West Philadelphia.
02:12Shelly Turner was last seen leaving her house on Edgewood Street to go to a party with another girl.
02:21She had left her house on Sunday. Shelly Turner was a member of the William Penn High School track team
02:28and had a very important track meet on that Monday, which she failed to show up for.
02:35And that was concerning to all involved.
02:41It was a really big deal that Shelly missed her track meet because she was not only the star of
02:46the team, she was always there.
02:48She would never, ever not have shown up. She wasn't that kind of kid.
02:56With Shelly's friends and family so adamant that she would never miss a big race, police consider her a missing
03:02person and immediately begin tracing her last known steps.
03:06So the police went to Vivian's home. She told them that her daughter was going to a dance and she
03:13didn't want her to go because she had had this track meet the next day.
03:17But they talked about it and Vivian decided to let her go.
03:22So when Vivian woke up that morning and Shelly wasn't there, she just assumed she had probably stayed over at
03:29a friend's house.
03:31And it wasn't until later when people from the school called and spoke with Vivian that it became a point
03:38of concern for everyone that Shelly was not to be found.
03:48The morning of her disappearance, we were getting ready to run in a Martin Luther King Invitational indoor track meet.
03:57So as the coach was making his rounds to pick us up, he stopped at her house first and she
04:05wasn't there.
04:09So when he got to my house and only I came out, he's like, is Shelly still in the house?
04:14I'm like, no, she's not here.
04:17He's like, her mom said she was over at your house.
04:21I'm like, no, she's not here.
04:23I don't know why her mom thinks she's here.
04:28So we gave each other this look and all the girls in the van looked at each other like, what
04:33is going on?
04:39It was a huge deal for Shelly to miss a track meet.
04:42And for many of her neighbors, runners like Shelly embody a sense of pride and hope.
04:49If you lived in a community where you had a school that had a really great track team, it was
04:54very, very exciting.
04:56You could be 50 years old and can't run down the block, but when you see them sprinting, it just
05:01feels so, it was invigorating.
05:04And it was hopeful at a time in the city where sometimes it felt hard to find hope.
05:08In Philadelphia, the best of the best run for William Penn High School, and no one runs faster than Shelly
05:16Turner.
05:19Shelly Turner was 5'9 and 130 pounds.
05:23She was tall, statuesque, athletic, built.
05:27She was amazing.
05:28She was super talented.
05:31When I talked to people in the neighborhood, they all loved her.
05:34They were all so proud of her.
05:36You know, when you talk about Philadelphia and sports and hopes and dreams, she was the hopes and dreams of
05:41that neighborhood.
05:44I transferred to William Penn during my senior year, which was 1992.
05:50And I was on the track team with Shelly Turner.
05:55On the track, she was just a leader.
05:58I never had that where athletes run the practice, motivate you to get this workout done.
06:04I've been on teams where people would say, I don't feel like running fast today, so don't run fast, Quandah,
06:10because I don't feel like doing this.
06:11That was not the case when I joined William Penn.
06:15It was like, come on, let's go.
06:18And everyone fell into place.
06:21And she was like a coach, almost.
06:25Shelly had aspirations of going to Clemson.
06:29And Shelly wanted to go to the Olympics.
06:36Outside of track and field, Shelly was very welcoming and really easy to talk to.
06:43We just hit it off immediately.
06:46Shelly had two siblings, an older sister, Trina, and her younger sister was Clara.
06:53Clarence Jones was, I believe, the stepfather to Shelly, who lived in a home.
06:59Shelly was definitely responsible for her younger sister.
07:02Her mother, Miss Vivian, worked, so Shelly did have to watch her a lot.
07:10Miss Vivian and Shelly's relationship was the typical mother-daughter relationship with the expectation of respect, responsibility.
07:20She was very direct.
07:22She was always very nice to me.
07:26Shelly and I liked to watch movies, just teenage stuff, do hair, plan out outfits, talk about boys.
07:34But we definitely loved as a tribe called Quest.
07:38We sang those songs.
07:40We rapped, we danced, and all that type of stuff all the time.
07:44So I actually have a tough time listening to Boyz II Men and Jodeci.
07:56I would think after all this time that it would be hard to talk about everything.
08:05The emotions tied to the bond that we created.
08:13Okay, I'm okay.
08:22From speaking to Shelly's friends, the Missing Persons Unit learns that on the evening of Sunday, January 17th,
08:29Shelly visited a neighbor named Andrea.
08:35When we first went to speak with Andrea, she told us how Shelly had told her mother that she was
08:42actually going to a dance.
08:45The big thing that comes out of that interview is that Shelly was not at the dance.
08:52Instead, she was going to be meeting this guy, Sean Williams, who had just started school and, you know, she
09:00kind of liked.
09:02And Andrea said that she would cover for Shelly in case her mother called, that they were both going to
09:08that party or dance.
09:09And Andrea, in fact, did not go there either.
09:13Andrea told us that Shelly did not want her mother, Vivian, to know that she was actually seeing a boy.
09:21A lot of teens lie to their parents.
09:23But now that Shelly is nowhere to be found, investigators need to know more about what she was trying to
09:29hide.
09:31Andrea said that Shelly came there.
09:34She was very excited, and she was wearing a track outfit in purple, and it was cold out.
09:43So Shelly was wearing her purple track suit and a coat that didn't match the suit.
09:49Andrea was like, no, no, no, no, no, no.
09:52I'm going to lend you my dad's leather jacket, which looks a lot better.
09:57So Andrea walked Shelly to a bus stop around 7 p.m., and she's going to take that bus to
10:02go visit Sean.
10:07And that's the last time she saw her.
10:12After speaking with Andrea, they want to talk to Sean.
10:19Coming up.
10:20The last person that saw her alive was Sean.
10:24Vivian pleaded for her daughter's return.
10:28They had to defrost the body before they could do the autopsy.
10:32The worst thing happened.
10:34Who would take her life like that?
10:37He was wearing the black leather jacket that she had lent to Shelly on the night Shelly had disappeared.
10:49It's been 48 hours since Shelly Turner took the bus across town to see Sean.
10:54And detectives need to track down the mysterious boyfriend that Shelly's mother knows nothing about.
11:00Sean Williams was 18 years old.
11:03He had lived in Philadelphia, but he had just started going to William Penn High School.
11:09He was fairly new to our school.
11:11He would come around and, you know, introduce himself and everything like that.
11:17So we knew that they were starting to date and hang out.
11:21But Shelly obviously didn't want to tell her mother about him.
11:25So she apparently did not think that Vivian would have approved.
11:34The last person that saw her was Sean.
11:38And after that, nobody had seen her.
11:42Sean lived off of Girard Avenue around 10th and Girard in the North Philly section of Philadelphia.
11:48We went to Sean's and we identified ourselves and spoke with him inside his house for approximately 10 to 15
11:54minutes.
11:55And asked him if he'd be willing to come with us.
11:59Because we had additional questions that we wanted to ask.
12:03Actually, when we left this location, there were a number of other males near where Sean lives.
12:08And they were yelling at Sean not to go with us.
12:10That he would never come home if he went with us.
12:20Sean Williams, take one. Mark.
12:23I was down at the police station, 17 year old kid, just for hours and hours until the wee hours
12:30of the morning.
12:32When I think about that part of it, you know, anything could have been laid at my feet.
12:37And if I had been not telling the truth, you know, something that would have came back to kind of
12:43bite me.
12:44Because I didn't have any representation there with me.
12:47You know, I was just down at the police station.
12:55In 1992, around September, I transferred to William Penn.
13:01I met Shelly pretty early on.
13:03Only because when I would stay after school to play basketball, the track team would practice in the gym.
13:13Shelly was one of the track stars there at William Penn.
13:16You know, when she walked into a room, she kind of lit the room up.
13:19You know, either with her smile or, you know, just her big energy.
13:30She came to my house that evening.
13:32I remember she was wearing a track suit, a lavender track suit.
13:37She mentioned that that was like one of her favorite colors.
13:42Sean said that Shelly came over to his location and they spent some time downstairs with his family.
13:50And then eventually they went upstairs to his room and spent time up there listening to music.
13:55And before they knew it, it had gotten to be really late, approximately 1.30 or so in the morning.
14:03We had to kind of look at a bus schedule to see what time the bus would run.
14:09After we walked to the bus stop, the 15 bus came and I asked for a kiss, but she kind
14:16of turned me down.
14:18Letting me know that she kind of don't do the public display of affection.
14:24I did make sure she got on the bus.
14:28You know, said good night and that was, that was the last time I saw her.
14:41After speaking with Sean, the detectives went to SEPTA, which was the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority,
14:48to find out who the bus driver was who was driving the bus that he had put Shelly on.
14:55The 15 bus driver remembered her getting on the bus at 10th and Gerrard, a boy being with her and
15:02staying there.
15:03And then she riding the bus by herself.
15:06So that absolutely cleared Sean.
15:11The bus ride from North Philadelphia to Shelly's neighborhood spans about 50 blocks and takes between 30 and 40 minutes.
15:18That would put Shelly in West Philly somewhere between 2.45 and 3 a.m.
15:24The bus driver remembered her getting off at 60th and Gerrard.
15:28The last place he saw her was walking north from there towards her house, which was approximately six blocks away.
15:41By the evening of January 19th, police begin scouring the blocks surrounding Shelly's home, hoping to find any new leads.
15:48And many concerned citizens are there to help.
15:52I love her. I miss her. My home is lost without her.
15:57The first rally I went to was probably about a week into her being missing.
16:02What I remember about that rally was just how Vivian King pleaded for her daughter's return and how concerned people
16:15were about Shelly.
16:18Miss Vivian acted very concerned.
16:21Our parents communicated on the phone.
16:24So we went over there just to console her and say, hey, everything is going to be okay.
16:31No new clues whatsoever.
16:34None.
16:34We're talking since January 17th.
16:37Correct.
16:38Must be driving you crazy.
16:40It is. It is. I am so hysterical.
16:44Despite the massive search, Shelly remains missing.
16:47Then, more than a month after she was last seen, police get a call that changes everything.
16:57A gentleman and his dog found a body under a tarp in a wooded area of Fairmount Park.
17:10And this area was behind the Mann Music Center and near Georges Hill, which were heavily used in the summertime,
17:19but not in the wintertime.
17:22So this was a desolate area, a heavily densely wooded area.
17:33When we arrived, there were uniformed police officers there that directed us to the specific location where this body was.
17:41We were able to move aside partially the coverings that was over the body.
17:49And it was then that we saw that it was a female.
17:55It was apparent when we saw the body that the person had been shot in the face and also had
18:01suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and also to the left hand.
18:07The body was frozen because it was so cold and they had to defrost the body before they could make
18:17any identification or do the autopsy.
18:22But there was a purple tracksuit that the person was wearing.
18:36Teen track sensation Shelly Turner has been missing for over a month.
18:40Her mother Vivian has been leading a city-wide search for her.
18:44But when the frozen body of a young female is discovered in Fairmount Park, the hunt for her killer begins.
18:56The medical examiner's office had responded to the scene.
19:01They took their photographs, their measurements, and the body was subsequently transported from that location to the medical examiner's office.
19:11During that day, Vivian had gone to the medical examiner's office.
19:17Vivian King confirmed that it was in fact her daughter Shelly Turner.
19:24I was home in bed and it came on the news.
19:31And my mom screamed.
19:36I was upset.
19:40I was upset because I did not want that to be the outcome.
19:46When you know how much potential someone has, and you love someone like your own sister, not just a teammate,
19:55that's really hard.
20:03An autopsy was performed and it was determined that the immediate cause of death was multiple gunshot wounds.
20:11And the manner of death was ruled a homicide.
20:15There were injuries to her forehead area that indicated that she had been struck with some type of an object.
20:23And then she was shot in the head.
20:25She was also shot in the chest.
20:29And the gunshot wound that she had suffered in her left hand indicated to us that she had possibly raised
20:34her hand trying to ward off the onslaught of the bullets that were being fired towards her.
20:42To us, they appeared that they were all done from a close range.
20:48Because she shot multiple times, but there's no evidence of any kind of sexual assault.
20:54It seemed to be a personal kind of motive.
21:00The worst thing happened, you know?
21:03Who would take her life like that?
21:06No one could quite figure out, like, what happened here?
21:11It, like, didn't make any sense.
21:15Who did this to her?
21:16Who would want to do this to her?
21:18And you put yourself in her shoes.
21:21Because I would not want to imagine being out in the park alone.
21:27What happened to my friend?
21:38It was later that evening when Detective Gibson and I went to Vivian's house.
21:45When we asked Vivian that night, did she have any idea who could have done this to Shelley,
21:50she directed us towards Tim Hickey, the coach of the girls' track team at William Penn.
21:59Vivian was trying to tell us that she thought it was inappropriate for a male to spend so much time
22:05with the girls of the track team.
22:08And that she felt that Tim Hickey was taking a very strong liking to Shelley.
22:14Mr. Hickey had a van.
22:16In order to make sure that we all arrived at the track meet, he would pick us up, drive us
22:23to a track meet, drop us off at home.
22:28Tim Hickey spent a tremendous amount of time with the girls on the track team from William Penn.
22:34And we needed to ascertain whether that was a healthy relationship or if there was a problem in that relationship.
22:48Tim Hickey was asked about was there a possibility that his relationship with Shelley had gotten into a personal level.
22:56And he was very shocked and hurt that anyone would insinuate that.
23:02Investigators dig into Coach Hickey's background searching for anything that might be important to the case.
23:09He was a believable suspect.
23:12A single man, always around a young lady, taking us up and down the road, state to state.
23:20Tim Hickey told the homicide detectives that he had been at a party that night with multiple people.
23:29During the course of the next few days, detectives located the people that Tim Hickey had informed us that he
23:35had been with.
23:36And they corroborated everything that Tim Hickey had told us.
23:39At that point, again, started to reach the conclusion that Tim Hickey had nothing to do with whatsoever with what
23:45happened to Shelley.
23:50I would never have in a million years suspect Mr. Hickey to have any involvement with her disappearance, hurting her
24:00in any kind of way.
24:01He was definitely like a father figure.
24:09With the coach now cleared, investigators are back to square one.
24:14And that's when a former witness remembers something that was missed.
24:20A short time after the body was found, we got a phone call.
24:25Shelley's friend Andrea had something she wanted to tell us.
24:29We went back out to our house.
24:33And she informed us that she actually remembered seeing Clarence Jones, Shelley's stepfather, come out of the house.
24:44And he was wearing the black leather jacket.
24:49And she was 100% sure that that was the jacket that she had lent to Shelley.
24:57On the night Shelley had disappeared.
25:01Now it became clear that Shelley must have come home.
25:05Because she had been wearing the jacket.
25:08And now the jacket appears on Clarence Jones.
25:12So now the detectives are wondering, okay, well, if Shelley got home, what happened after she got home?
25:25Coming up, I wasn't sure if Clarence was telling the truth or not.
25:31That is not the way a grieving mother acts.
25:36Even with a confession, I didn't want to believe it.
25:45In February of 1993, just days after Shelley Turner's body is found in Fairmount Park, investigators get a troubling new
25:54lead.
25:55Her stepfather Clarence was recently seen wearing the same jacket that Shelley was wearing the night she disappeared.
26:04Clarence was brought down to homicide and interviewed.
26:06He was asked about the jacket and Clarence had no memory of the jacket.
26:11It was cold wintertime and he just grabbed something to wear.
26:15He did not remember what jacket it was that he did pick up and he did not know where that
26:19jacket was at that point in time either.
26:25I wasn't sure if Clarence was telling the truth or not.
26:30Because we also knew at that point that Clarence would get up at approximately 3, 3.30 in the morning
26:36to go and deliver the papers that he delivered.
26:40And that would have given him a possible opportunity.
26:44Did he encounter Shelley on the outside of the house as she was coming up or inside the house?
26:54Detectives from my squad did contact his employer and they found that he did report for work that morning and
27:01all the papers were delivered on schedule.
27:05So it would have been very difficult for him to have done anything, you know, as far as Shelley was
27:11concerned.
27:14Police know the city's layout. An hour wouldn't have been enough time for Clarence to take Shelley to Fairmount Park
27:20and still return to work downtown on time.
27:30So I went to Shelley's funeral because I wanted to pay my respects to Shelley and also to Vivian.
27:39Like I felt so incredibly bad for Vivian King that I felt like I should be there in support of
27:47the family.
27:51I couldn't see Vivian very well because she was in the front and the church was packed.
27:57But then when the service was over, you know, how they wheel out the casket and then the family stands
28:04behind.
28:05Her sisters were crying hysterically and Vivian was looking around and waving at people.
28:14And she looked at me and she was like, hey, hi. Hi, Yvonne, who are you? Kind of thing.
28:20And I was like, I got such a like a chill, like went through my whole body. Like I was
28:26like, that is not the way a grieving mother acts.
28:34There was something horribly wrong.
28:40Most mothers would be inconsolable.
28:43Vivian King's presentation was was quite the opposite.
28:47There was what we call the flat affect.
28:50What you saw was almost like somebody that was at some type of a social event that they were hosting
28:55holding court.
28:56So it was it was a very odd presentation that was not a typical behavior of a grieving mother.
29:06As investigators, we know that people process grief in different ways.
29:10In this case, detectives did start hearing whispers about Shelly's mother, Vivian.
29:16But when she decides to go on a local radio show, the whispers only get louder.
29:22The thing I remembered next was the Mary Mason interview.
29:28Mary Mason was a talk show host in Philadelphia and she's very, very popular.
29:34And she's really plugged into the community and she decided to have Vivian King on.
29:43You know, everybody wanted whoever did this to be caught and to keep the media spotlight on the story because
29:49the story could have easily have gone dark.
29:51And so she invited her on the show and Vivian went.
29:59What I remember about the show was Vivian describing in detail what Shelly looked like when she was shot and
30:10killed.
30:12She said her teeth were glistening in the moonlight.
30:21Mary got very shaky over the way Vivian described Shelly in the moonlight.
30:30And I think that's what really turned Mary against Vivian.
30:35It struck Mary Mason as very odd to the extent that she called the detectives and told them about this
30:46interview.
30:48That moment was very important to the detectives.
30:54I mean, how could she know that unless she was there at the time and saw it?
31:01And that was when I think the suspicion really started to fall on Vivian King.
31:17After Vivian King's strange appearance on a local radio show, investigators begin to hear rumors that Vivian may know more
31:24about her daughter Shelly's murder.
31:27The rumors were that Shelly was not close with her mother and that she and Shelly fought a lot.
31:35Tim Hickey related that Shelly had told him how she was not happy in the house and that there were
31:42just a tremendous amount of problems between Shelly and Vivian in the house.
31:49Shelly felt it was very unfair how Vivian made Shelly do all the housecleaning, a lot of the cooking and
31:56also more than anything taking care of her younger sister.
32:08On Saturday at approximately 11am, Vivian King, Clarence Jones and their youngest daughter Clara came to homicide.
32:20We told them that we'd like to interview them, but we'd like to interview them separately.
32:24Clarence Jones went to one interview room, Vivian went to another interview room, and Clara went to another area.
32:34I had asked Vivian basically would she run through, what happened that day when Shelly disappeared.
32:40And at one point Vivian again started directing us towards Clarence that Clarence may have been responsible for what happened
32:46to Shelly.
32:50I finally asked Vivian to take a break, and I wanted to go in and see Clarence.
32:56I basically looked at Clarence, and I said, Clarence, did you kill Shelly?
33:02And Clarence looked at me, and he said, I can only tell you I didn't kill Shelly.
33:07And that's all I had to say about it.
33:10So at that point in time, I went back and talked to Vivian again.
33:15Vivian then wanted to know, well, what can we do to help her since she came here to help us?
33:20And basically I said, you know, we can see if you're willing to take a holograph test.
33:25Vivian asked me, well, what kind of questions would be asked?
33:28I said, well, one of the questions that they'll ask you probably will be something along the lines, did you
33:33kill your daughter Shelly?
33:35And Vivian put her head back and opened, her mouth opened really wide.
33:46An ungodly laugh came from inside her.
33:50To this day, I still get chills in my bones of the way that she laughed at such a question.
33:57And it was at that point in time, it may not be Clarence that was involved in this, it may
34:01just be Vivian.
34:05She agreed to take a polygraph exam.
34:14And she had been informed by the polygraph detective she had not passed the test.
34:21We could see that Vivian was in there crying.
34:25And it was at that point we went in and we spoke to Vivian.
34:29Her first words was that, you must think I'm a monster.
34:33Only a monster could have done this.
34:39One would have to question the root of the emotion.
34:43Is she becoming emotional because now it has completely clicked that she has taken the life of her daughter who
34:49she loves?
34:50Or is she becoming emotional because the gig is up, it's over and she got caught?
35:00We told her basically that maybe she would feel better if she were to tell us what happened.
35:08Vivian related to us that she was up that night waiting for Shelly to come home.
35:14She had been drinking a lot.
35:16Shelly came home, she was extremely angry at Shelly for coming in so late.
35:20Shelly wasn't very sorry that she had been out late.
35:24Vivian was very furious.
35:26The two of them started to get into a physical confrontation.
35:29And at that point, Vivian went and retrieved her gun upstairs in her bedroom.
35:35She told Shelly she was taking her to the police.
35:38She tells her, I'm going to abandon you in the police station.
35:42I don't want you.
35:43I don't want you living with us anymore.
35:46Shelly goes into the car with her, believing that she's going to drive her to a police station.
35:51But instead, she drives her to Fairmont Park.
35:55They parked behind the man music and got out of the car and got into a physical confrontation there where
36:00she hit Shelly on the side of the head.
36:03And then proceeded to shoot Shelly.
36:12Shelly was shot by Vivian in the head, the chest, and also in her left hand.
36:20It was overkill.
36:22I mean, she wasn't shot once.
36:24She was shot six times.
36:26This was a crime that looked like the person who did the shooting knew the other person and was angry
36:32and hated them.
36:33It wasn't for you to just injure them.
36:35It was to really want them to suffer and have them die.
36:41Vivian King ran track when she was a child, but she wasn't nearly as successful as Shelly.
36:49I believe that Vivian was really jealous of Shelly.
36:52I mean, Shelly was a star.
36:54Shelly had all these trophies.
36:57Shelly was who the college recruiters were coming to Philly to meet with.
37:01Shelly was getting the applause at the track meets, which Vivian didn't even go to.
37:08Shelly was a star and Vivian was not.
37:14Two weeks after Shelly was found shot to death, police arrest Shelly's mother Vivian for the murder.
37:21I was definitely in disbelief, but again, I did not want to believe that.
37:26Even with a confession, I didn't want to believe it.
37:29I didn't want to believe that a mother could hurt her child the way that she was hurt.
37:37I don't want this to be.
37:39Even growing up in the inner city, living in Philadelphia, I didn't know a world where the mother was killing
37:45her kid.
37:46And it just is like almost so shocking.
37:48You don't want to believe it.
37:50You just anything but that.
38:01With the city reeling from the revelation that Vivian King had confessed to the murder of her daughter, Shelly, it
38:07seems like an open and shut case.
38:08But when it comes to homicide cases, nothing is that simple.
38:13A few days after she was arrested, we started hearing through her lawyer that she had recanted what she had
38:19told us.
38:20That she had been coerced into giving us a statement.
38:25You know, that's really the only evidence they have is the confession.
38:29I was worried about them getting a conviction.
38:32But the prosecutors press on.
38:35We knew we had no problems with standing up in court because there was no coercion whatsoever.
38:42I thought we had the right person.
38:44And I thought we had enough evidence to convict.
38:51In October of 1993, Vivian King goes to trial for the murder of her daughter, Shelly Turner.
38:59The trial was crazy.
39:01The courtroom was packed every day.
39:03It was a lot of people.
39:07A lot of emotion.
39:13As the trial begins, the prosecution lays out its case using Vivian's own words against her.
39:21Vivian's confession was very important.
39:24Vivian's confession was the main point of the trial.
39:28And of our evidence.
39:31The gun was never recovered.
39:33And she never admitted what she had done with it or where she had gotten it.
39:39We believe that she had probably thrown the gun away at some point.
39:45The main part of the defense was that she didn't do the killing.
39:49And that the confession was not voluntary.
39:53And that she hadn't actually said those things.
39:57And to deny it.
40:01Vivian was called as a witness by her defense counsel at trial.
40:06And she didn't do a particularly good job on cross-examination.
40:12And I think her demeanor came across to the jury.
40:17How combative she was.
40:23I think the easy answer on who Vivian King is would be to just say, oh, she's evil.
40:29But I think it's a lot more complicated than that.
40:33I think she was a very troubled woman.
40:36Probably someone that was depressed and lonely.
40:40And, um, needed help.
40:48After a two-week trial, the jury deliberates.
40:51It only takes four hours for them to come back with a verdict.
40:55Because the jury believed that Vivian King was too drunk to really know what she was doing,
40:59she is convicted of third-degree murder instead of first.
41:03And sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison.
41:09It was not enough time.
41:12I don't care if it's first-degree, second-degree, third-degree, or whatever.
41:17To take someone's life, you should pay the price.
41:21For the fact that Shelly would never breathe, smile, run, live her life again.
41:28You should not have an opportunity to live your life again.
41:42This was just cold-blooded murder.
41:46Just cold-blooded.
41:48And Shelly was a star.
41:51She was a star.
41:52And there's no doubt in my mind that all these years later, had she lived,
41:58you know, we would be talking in celebration of all her accomplishments.
42:04And I think it would have been a beautiful, beautiful Philadelphia story of a kid from West Philadelphia who ran
42:11track on the streets to the Olympics.
42:18If I could say one thing to Shelly, I would tell her that I miss her, and that I love
42:27her, and that she left us too soon.
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