Tag: murder

“I killed the wrong Sharon Jones” – A Murderer’s Phone call

Image courtesy of Who Murdered Sharon Beatrice Jones? Facebook Page

On the day of the funeral, a grieving sister received the worst of phone calls.

“I’m sorry. I killed the wrong Sharon Jones,” the caller hung up before she could get more information. What happened to the ECSU student in dorm room #125 on March 4, 1984? How did she end up strangled with a belt and tied to her own bedpost? Forty years and still no one knows why.

Sharon B. Jones, 21 returned to the ECSU campus early from spring break to prepare for her student teaching job. She arrived around 9:30 pm and spoke to the Assistant Housing Director, Herbert Williams to gain entry into the Mitchell Lewis Dorm on the S.E. side of the campus. Williams and his cousin Adrian Douglas escorted the woman to her room.

Image courtesy of Who Murdered Sharon Beatrice Jones? Facebook Page

Monday morning Sharon’s body was discovered in the room. She was naked and lying face down. She had been strangled with a white belt tied to a bedpost. There was evidence of blunt force trauma above the right eye and bruising above the left ear. Strangely the window was broken from the inside of the room leaving glass outside on the ground. A small amount of blood was found on the windowsill. Detectives found a bloody dumbbell under one of the beds when searching the room.

It seemed like the case was doomed from the beginning. Williams and Douglas told investigators that Jones was nervous walking to her room alone when she noticed a light above her dorm room when no one was supposed to be there. Investigators researched the light and found there was one other woman who had stayed on campus during spring break. Her name was Angela Jones. (No Relation)

Angela was dating a 31-yr-old man by the name of Delantry Terrial Tafton. Tafton was somewhat of a campus troublemaker and had recently received a 14-week suspension. Although he wasn’t supposed to be on campus, he had spent the night with Angela and left around 7 am the next morning. Both Angela and “Tee” claimed a stranger had knocked on their door around 11 pm asking for their names.

The police chief stated within days that the motive must have been malice or jealousy since they couldn’t find evidence of a robbery and the sexual assault tests were inconclusive. They dialed in on Tafton and refused to look elsewhere. This hasty rush to a motive effectively eliminated other possible suspects and is most likely the reason why this case is still cold 40 years later.

During the chaos that engulfed the campus after the brutal murder, the funeral arrangements were made for Sharon Beatrice Jones. On the day of the funeral, Sharon’s sister Lisa gets a phone call from a stranger. The man sounded young. Before she could say anything, the man pleaded his case.

“I’m sorry. I killed the wrong Sharon Jones.”

Before the confused woman could respond the line went dead. Lisa didn’t know what to think and now three decades later no one knows why Sharon died or who killed her. I realize Tafton shouldn’t have been on campus, but I’m wondering why no one thought it was suspicious for two men to escort one girl to her dorm room all because of a light. Did anyone investigate Williams and his cousin? Why was his cousin there anyways? Did he work there?

If you have any information on this case, please contact the Elizabeth City Police Department at (252) 335-4321

This blog post is an excerpt from Synova’s book: Shattered

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Shattered: Behind Every Story Is A Shattered Life (Synova’s Case Files Series)

Follow the heart-rending cases Synova first wrote about on her blog in 2018. Filled with missing persons’ cases, unsolved homicides, and even serial killer cases, this book will give you a greater insight into the shattered lives behind every story. Cases Included in this book: Jayme Closs, Haley Owens, Josh Robinson, Timothy Cunningham, Carol Blades, Pam Hupp, Arthur Ream, Angela Hammond, The Springfield Three, Jennifer Harris, Danny King, Angie Yarnell, Jack Robinson, Madelin Edman, Alexis Patterson, Amber Wilde, Sandra Bertolas, Jennifer Casper-Ross, Crystal Soulier, Jody Ricard, Carmen Owens, Brandon Tyree McCullough & The I-70 Serial Killer

This book has recently been updated and now has 40 cases for you to read!

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A Serial Killer’s Little Black Book – The Tiffany Sessions Murder Mystery

This blog post is an excerpt from Synova’s book: Shattered

The daughter of a powerful real estate mogul was snatched on her evening powerwalk just a short distance from her apartment. Thirty-five years later cold case investigators find a clue in a serial killer’s tattered black address book. Eleven years have passed since the discovery, and still, Tiffany Sessions’ body hasn’t been found. What happened to this college student?

________________________________________

Tiffany Louise Sessions, 20 was a finance/economics major at the University of Florida in 1989. Her roommate said she returned from the holiday break on a fitness craze trying to lose a goal of 14lbs. She had a trip planned and like many other coeds wanted to look great for the summer. This had prompted the young blond to start power walking in the evenings near her apartment complex. On the night of February 9, 1989, she set off promising the roommate she would return within the hour. She left behind her keys, wallet, and jewelry, but not her favorite golden watch given to her by her father. She never took that thing off.

When Tiffany didn’t show up within the hour, the concerned roommate jumped in her car and drove along Tiffany’s usual route. Perhaps she had fallen and needed medical attention. Tiffany was nowhere in sight, and the police were called in. That phone call would set off a thirty-five year investigation that is still unsolved today.

Tiffany’s parents divorced when she was three months old, but both parents vowed to find their daughter whatever it took. Tiffany was Hillary Sessions’s only child. She set out trying to find every way possible to distribute flyers and posters. Patrick Sessions was the President of a major real estate corporation, and that’s how he handled the case. Instantly, he took charge and began pouring resources and manpower into the search. While there is much animosity between the two parents, and it’s easy to start blaming each other, both of them are doing everything in their power to find Tiffany.

A thousand volunteers joined to search for the missing coed, but her body was never located. Police plowed through false leads, false confessions, and pranksters preying on the victim’s families. Twenty-five years passed without answers. In 2014, the authorities finally found an obscure connection that pointed to an incarcerated serial killer.

Photo courtesy of Murderpedia.com

Paul Rowles was convicted in a case that had a ton of eerie similarities. The astute detective began to research Rowles movements at the time of Tiffany’s disappearance and found everything lined up. Rowles not only lived in the area, but he also worked delivering scaffolding to a construction site along Tiffany’s jogging route. Rowles had missed work on the very day of Tiffany’s abduction and moved from the area a short time afterward.

Investigators visited the prison to interrogate Rowles but found he was dying of cancer in the prison hospital. The convicted serial killer was in a coma. Time had run out. After the monster’s death, investigators raided his cell for any clues. There they found a tattered black address book. In this book, he had documented many illicit things including the date of Tiffany’s disappearance. Beside the fateful date was written, “#2.”

Photo courtesy of Alachua County Sheriff’s Office

According to the timeline of murders, Tiffany Sessions would have been his second killing. Although the investigators and the family agree that Paul Rowles killed Tiffany, there hasn’t been enough evidence to prove it without a doubt, and Tiffany’s body has never been recovered. The eerie clue was found eleven years ago, and investigators are still running down leads.

Do you have any information that would help solve this mystery? If so, please contact the Alachua County Sheriff’s Cold Case Unit at (352) 367-4161.

Check Out Synova’s Chasing Justice Video On this Case:

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This blog post is an excerpt from Synova’s book: Shattered

Buy Book

Shattered: Behind Every Story Is A Shattered Life (Synova’s Case Files Series)

Follow the heart-rending cases Synova first wrote about on her blog in 2018. Filled with missing persons’ cases, unsolved homicides, and even serial killer cases, this book will give you a greater insight into the shattered lives behind every story. Cases Included in this book: Jayme Closs, Haley Owens, Josh Robinson, Timothy Cunningham, Carol Blades, Pam Hupp, Arthur Ream, Angela Hammond, The Springfield Three, Jennifer Harris, Danny King, Angie Yarnell, Jack Robinson, Madelin Edman, Alexis Patterson, Amber Wilde, Sandra Bertolas, Jennifer Casper-Ross, Crystal Soulier, Jody Ricard, Carmen Owens, Brandon Tyree McCullough & The I-70 Serial Killer

This book has recently been updated and now has 40 cases for you to read!

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Youtube has started restricting my videos because of their true crime content. This hinders my channel’s monetization, sure, but more importantly it makes it hard to get these stories the publicity they need. Please consider following me on Rumble to help avoid these issues and to raise awareness about these unsolved cases.

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Jennifer Casper-Ross: The Tragic Story of a Ballerina’s Mysterious Disappearance

Jennifer Rayleen Casper was born on April 30, 1975, and grew up in Pocatello, Idaho. She learned to love the art of dance as a child and thrived in the industry. While many little girls take dance lessons when they are young, very few are talented and dedicated enough to make a career out of it. At a young age, Jennifer achieved every little girl’s dream and became a professional ballerina.

At 19, she would be the youngest woman to ever audition for the Greg Thompson Productions. She would go on to be the youngest hired by the production company. Her career in show business had finally taken off, but sadly, eleven years later, she would disappear without a trace. What happened to this beautiful dancer? The disappearance of her starlet was devastating for Jennifer’s mother, Carla. The beautiful young woman seemed to have the world at her fingertips.

After graduating from Highland High School, Jennifer moved to Las Vegas and danced in the American Superstars show. Her dreams were coming true. Jennifer was featured on show posters, giant billboards, and commercials. Everyone loved the tall, slender brunette, and she was living her dream.

In 1995, Jennifer moved from Las Vegas to Reno, Nevada, and got a job dancing for Harrah’s Hotel & Casino. The studious young woman immediately enrolled in college and began working on a major in Veterinary Medicine. Like many college students, she would eventually change her major. She had big dreams for her future and decided she wanted to find a cure for autism and cancer.

While working at Harrah’s, she meets and falls in love with a crewman named Sean Ross. They married and had a son four years later. Sadly, her career was cut short by an injury, so she began giving ballet lessons to help make a living. Life was good until then, but she continued pressing forward, battling her demons and trying to make a good life for her son. The showgirl glitz was pretty from the outside, but Jennifer was struggling with mental health issues and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. If that wasn’t enough to deal with, her marriage was also beginning to crumble.

Most people have heard the term bipolar, but few understand what it really is. Bipolar disorder is a mental health issue that can range from mild to severe. This condition can cause extreme mood swings with bouts of severe depression. Coupled with losing her dancing career, motherhood, and marital woes, this would have been quite an overwhelming load.

Jennifer was a showgirl from childhood. She was smart, talented, and beautiful. She knew this, but her identity was on the stage, and she found it hard to find herself now that her life of glitz and glamour had vanished. She always had the adoration of those around her, but now she felt hopelessly inadequate.
How do I know this, you might ask? Because I’ve been there. Mental health issues are hard to deal with, especially for a driven, successful person. Now, everything she had worked so hard for was going up in smoke. What could she do now?

In a fit of despair and drowning in debt, the beautiful ballerina took a job as an exotic dancer at the Wild Orchid Gentleman’s Club. She wasn’t happy about it but couldn’t find another option with her current mental state.

Like many women, Jennifer also suffered from postpartum depression, or so her husband claimed, and her life spiraled down from there. That’s when her drug and alcohol use began again, according to her husband. Her family vehemently disputes this, and there isn’t any official record of Jennifer having postpartum depression.

In 2005, Jennifer sought professional help with her anxieties and mental health issues. She was diagnosed with Bipolar disorder and postpartum depression. It is unclear if the postpartum depression was just something Sean mentioned or if she was diagnosed with it as well. Whatever the case, Jennifer was given a high-powered concoction of medications and treatment to help her get her life back in order.

She seemed to respond well to the treatment in the following weeks. There was one problem. However, Jennifer was still unable to cope with drinking and experimenting with drugs along with her medications.
No one knows what happened between husband and wife, but the fighting came to a breaking point in the early morning hours of May 5, 2005, and Jennifer stormed out of the house. Sean says she left with a red bag full of clothes, but no one could verify this story, and no other reports mention the bag.

Jennifer walked to the Peppermill Resort, Spa & Casino, which was only a mile from her home. There, she shared a few drinks with a friend, and some witnesses recall marks on her wrists and arms. Were they from abuse, or were they self-inflicted? No one knows for sure.

Around 5 a.m., she used her friend’s cell phone to call her father in Las Vegas. She told him she wanted to come to visit. Then, around 5:30 a.m., she took a cab to the Reno Sparks Cab Company. There, she hoped to see her mother, who usually worked the graveyard shift.

Unfortunately, her mother was off that night. Witnesses say she was seen climbing a fence and walking off. No one has seen her since. Here, the story begins to get a little strange. A beautiful woman is clearly upset and out on the town alone. She has a few drinks, paid for by an unknown gentleman, and then leaves the Peppermill to go to her mother’s job.

While interviewing family members, I was made aware of one gentleman who was particularly infatuated with the tall, gracious dancer. It was never brought out in the police reports, but it would seem a man at the cab company (I won’t name him) was always asking her mother if she had ditched Sean. He wanted to marry her and probably would have if it were an option. Here’s my question. Was this man ever questioned? Did his infatuation with the dark-eyed ballerina drive him to some nefarious scheme? We may never know.

Sean Ross called in a missing persons report when Jennifer didn’t return home the following day. Those closest to Jennifer found this odd because, according to Sean’s statements, Jennifer had run off before and would be gone for a few days. These reports could never be verified, but he would choose to call in a missing persons report right away if this were true. Wouldn’t waiting and seeing if she came home first make more sense?

Initial police reports say the investigators found two blood-stained notes in the home. After testing, they confirmed that the missing woman had written them and it was her blood. Were they written under duress? Was the medication and alcohol mix causing her to lose control? Maybe, but there’s more.

The young woman with a 3.9 GPA at the University of Nevada is on the opposite side of this dark spectrum. In 2001, she was inducted into the Dean’s List and remained there every year thereafter. She majored in veterinary medicine but switched to biomedical engineering and was awarded the NASA national space-grant college and fellowship program in 2000. She was smart, passionate, and independent. Was she pulling away from Sean? Was it more than he could handle?

Some people want to insinuate that Jennifer committed suicide, but would that really be like her? No one knows for sure. Yes, she was desperate, but she only had one year left before she received the degree she had worked so hard for. Surely, things would get better then.

Was her world really crashing down, or did an unknown monster bring it down? Investigators follow the night’s events and try to piece together a timeline of Jennifer’s last known hours. They talk to the employees at the cab company and hear a bizarre tale. The intoxicated woman had shown up that morning looking for her mother. When she was told her mother had the night off, Jennifer panicked and ran off into the night. She turned so quickly that the heel of her shoe broke. She ditched her high heels and ran off barefoot, jumping a small fence and heading toward her house.

Tracking dogs were brought in to help with the investigation. They found Jennifer’s scent behind the cab company and followed her trail until she reached the road. There, the trail was lost. Did someone stop and pick up the heavily intoxicated woman? The couple’s marriage problems and financial woes were a well-known fact. Did those issues cause Jennifer to want to abandon her life and start over somewhere else? Her family doesn’t think so. She adored her son, and no one believed she would run away. So, what happened to Jennifer?

Sean Ross is given a lie detector test shortly after his wife’s disappearance and fails. A second test is scheduled because everyone knows the tests aren’t 100% reliable. Sean agrees to the second test but never shows up. As if that weren’t suspicious enough, Sean told his mother-in-law that he thought Jennifer might be in the river before Jennifer was even officially declared missing. Investigators noticed his lack of emotion during the process.

Of course, everyone grieves differently, but that wouldn’t be the end of Sean Ross’ odd behavior. Three months after his wife’s disappearance, Ross divorces Jennifer and files for sole custody of their son. Who does that? Did he think she was out there somewhere refusing to come home, or did he know more? The strange behavior continues when Sean sells the home and moves to California with their son.

According to the divorce decree, Jennifer was supposed to receive half the proceeds from the house sale. Where is that? Is it still in the courthouse?

When this case was first reported, several news outlets claimed Sean had been cleared as a suspect, but that is not the case. Dateline did a write-up about this case recently, and the investigator claims Sean and one other unnamed individual are still persons of interest. I wonder who the unidentified person is. Could it be the guy at the cab company? I have no idea. I will leave that up to you to decide. The investigator also makes sure to mention the supposed suicide notes. He said they do not believe they were definite proof of suicide because they cannot prove that Jennifer wasn’t coerced into writing them. Sadly, Jennifer’s son is now coming of age and asking questions about his mother.

If you have any information about this case, please contact the Reno Police Department at (775)334-2155.

Watch Synova’s Video on this Case:

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Youtube has started restricting my videos because of their true crime content. This hinders my channel’s monetization, sure, but more importantly it makes it hard to get these stories the publicity they need. Please consider following me on Rumble to help avoid these issues and to raise awareness about these unsolved cases.

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Buy Book

Shattered: Behind Every Story Is A Shattered Life (Synova’s Case Files Series)

Follow the heart-rending cases Synova first wrote about on her blog in 2018. Filled with missing persons’ cases, unsolved homicides, and even serial killer cases, this book will give you a greater insight into the shattered lives behind every story. Cases Included in this book: Jayme Closs, Haley Owens, Josh Robinson, Timothy Cunningham, Carol Blades, Pam Hupp, Arthur Ream, Angela Hammond, The Springfield Three, Jennifer Harris, Danny King, Angie Yarnell, Jack Robinson, Madelin Edman, Alexis Patterson, Amber Wilde, Sandra Bertolas, Jennifer Casper-Ross, Crystal Soulier, Jody Ricard, Carmen Owens, Brandon Tyree McCullough & The I-70 Serial Killer

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Murder Mystery – Room 1046 – Part 2

 

room-1046

 

Roland T. Owen walked into the Kansas City hotel carrying a comb, a brush, and a tube of toothpaste. After several strange encounters with hotel staff, Owen would be carried out on a gurney a few days later. Blood covered the walls and bed in room 1046, and investigators say it was already solidified leading them to assume Owen had been bleeding for over six hours. Who tortured and killed this man? Why was his door always locked from the outside? Who were the anonymous benefactors that paid for his burial?

 

Last week I quickly highlighted this Alfred Hitchcock style murder mystery for my readers. This story was so strange and mysterious; I knew it would take more than one post to cover it. If you haven’t seen that post, you can follow this link to read Part One of the mystery.

 

Strange Sighting: (Thursday, January 3, 1935 – 11 PM)

Robert Lane was driving down 13th Street when he saw a man dressed in trousers and an undershirt. The man’s attire seemed strange in the cold winter weather of January. He was running and waving frantically. Robert Lane pulled over, and the stranger ran up to the door. He looked surprised.

“I’m sorry. I thought this was a taxi. Can you take me to where I can find a cab?”

Lane agreed, and the man climbed into his back seat. The man looked as if he’d been in a scuffle and Lane made a remark about this. The man mumbled, “I’ll kill that__________ in the morning.”

While all the newspapers were too proper to write the actual word that was uttered, 84 years later it could have helped investigators if there was some sort of record of this remark. Was the stranger talking about a male or a female? Who knows?

Lane noticed the man had a large cut down his arm and was cupping his hands trying to catch the blood. As the car reached a nearby intersection, the passenger jumped out and ran across to a parked cab. Seeing the driver wasn’t with his car, the stranger honked the horn. Presently, the cab driver rushed out of a nearby, and that was the end of Robert Lane’s interaction with the stranger.

Police disputed this story since no one noticed Owen leaving his room. Police would discount this and take the investigation in different directions. I find this odd because no one ever saw Owen coming or going from his room. Who was locking the door from the outside if Owen was still sitting inside? At one point the housekeeping staff walked into the room thinking it was empty to find Owen laying across the bed fully clothed and staring into the darkness.

To understand this story, you must understand the hotel’s door locking mechanism. The door could be locked from the inside and could not be opened externally. It could also be locked from the outside with a key, and the hotel staff could use the passkey to open the door and clean. On more than one occasion this outer lock was used while Owen was still inside the room.

By Friday morning the staff noticed the phone was off the hook in Owen’s room. The first contact that was made by the hotel staff was around 7 am. Evidence would later show that Owen was already beaten, stabbed and bloody by this time. That’s when the bellboy heard a voice call through the door and say, “Come in. Turn on the light.” Was this Owen trying to get the man to come in and help him? We’ll never know.

To make the story, even more, perplexing the second time a bell boy was sent to the room that morning, he opened the door with the hotel passkey. This, of course, means that between the bell boy’s first contact and second contact someone had left that room and locked it from the outside. The attendant used his key and opened the darkened room. He noticed the side table was knocked over, and the phone was on the floor. A shadowy figure of a naked man lay sprawled across the bed. The bellboy would later note that there were dark shadows on the sheets around the man, but he didn’t turn on the light. Instead, the bellboy replaced the phone, closed the door, and reported that the guest was drunk on the bed. Could this man have saved Ronald T. Owen if he had taken a moment to check on him?

An hour and a half later the phone was still off the hook, and finally, the bellboy had lost his patience. He opened the door and switched on the lights to discover a horrific scene. Owen was two foot from the door and naked with a rope tied around his neck, wrists, and ankles. He was on his knees and elbows. His bloody head was in his hands. When police asked who did this Owen replied, “Nobody.” He would slip into a coma on the way to the hospital and die shortly after midnight on January 5th.

Strange Clues:

The police immediately began searching for evidence in Room 1046 but found it had been stripped. Owen’s clothes, all of his belongings, even the hotel’s shampoo and soap were missing. The only things found in the room were: a hairpin, a safety pin, a label from a tie, a bottle of undiluted sulfuric acid, and two glasses. One broken glass was in the bathroom sink and was missing a shard of glass. Four little fingerprints were found on the lampshade leading the investigators to believe they could have been from a woman.

Anonymous Benefactor:

Investigators quickly realized the name Roland T. Owen was an alias and began digging for the man’s identity. In the meantime, the body was transported to the local morgue where it was placed for public viewing in hopes of getting a definite identification on the man. Many people came forward thinking they knew the victim, but all were dismissed. This is when Robert Lane came forward and confirmed the man in the morgue was the man he had picked up on that Thursday night. Authorities claim they can’t prove this, but I find it the most credible. Owen didn’t look overly normal. With his height and scars, he was a rather imposing figure which would make him hard to forget.

After much ado, the papers announced the unknown victim with the alias Roland Owen would be buried in a pauper’s grave since no one claimed him. This prompted another series of strange events. Before the body could be buried the funeral director received an anonymous call from an unknown male. He asked them two wait a little longer in burying Owen and he would send money for a proper burial. A few days later the funeral home received an envelope filled with cash wrapped in newspaper. The donor requested the body to be buried in Memorial Park Cemetary so he could be next to the donor’s sister.

“Love Forever, Louise”:

The florist received an anonymous phone call around the same time from an unknown male. He requested 13 roses to be sent to the grave of Ronald T. Owen and the card should be signed, “Love forever, Louise.” The florist tried to ask a few questions, but the man simply stated that he was just doing this for his sister.

Another phone call:

After the newspaper article about this case was printed, the editor received a phone call from a woman. She said the report was wrong and Roland’s funeral arrangements were paid.

Searching for Don:

During one of the interchanges with the hotel staff, Owen was heard speaking on the phone to a man he called “Don.” Another time the housekeeper saw a note with the same name. Was Don a friend? Was he a Mafia Don? Investigators searched for years and couldn’t find the true identity of Don.

Artemus Ogletree:

Eighteen months after the newspaper article about this mystery a woman saw the pictures and claimed Roland T. Owen was her son Artemus Ogletree. Although original reports claimed he was in his mid-20’s, Ogletree was 17 at the time of his death. To make matters more mysterious, Mrs. Ogletree had received three separate letters from her son. They were all typewritten which she thought was strange since her son didn’t know how to type. Also, these notes used a lot of slang terms Mrs. Ogletree had never heard her son use. After researching this story, she realized those three letters could not have been from her son. Someone out there not only knew what happened Roland T. Owen in that hotel room, but they also knew his real name and his mother’s address.

One More Mysterious Caller:

If that wasn’t enough of a mystery for you, there was a new chapter to this tale that happened to a Kansas City Librarian in 2003. John Horner spent a lot of time researching this case and writing it up for the library’s blog. One day he too received a strange phone call. It was an out of state caller claiming to be going through a deceased relative’s belongings. They found a large box of newspaper articles from about the Roland T. Owen case and in the box was a specific object that had been referenced in the original newspaper article. Then, the line went dead. What was in the box? Who were the mysterious caller and their relative? Was it the woman Louise? Was it Don? Like all good mysteries. We may never know the truth in this strange tale.

Despite spreading this case across two blog posts, there are even more details I couldn’t include here. Below are some links for further reading on this strange tale.

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