Sweet talked to her for quite awhile and said that he believed that Sunnycalb had valid information. He told her that he’d tried to pass that information on to the Thorntown police several times without any results.
The next day, Sweet received another telephone call, this time from Jeff Heck, a lieutenant with the Indiana State Police. He, too, was looking into the Shannon Sherrill case and wanted to know about Sunnycalb.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
June 22, 2006
The afternoon that Heck called Sweet, the 27-year Indiana State Police veteran was nearing the end of his career. He’d been the sort of cop who believed that being a police officer was who you were, not what you did for a paycheck; that when something bad happened and someone needed to step forward and take responsibility to try to make it right, it would be him. They were traits he’d inherited from his father, who’d also been an Indiana State Trooper and detective, and Jeff had never wanted to be anything else.
Oh, there’d been some thought of going to law school, with encouragement from his father. Like any parent, Loyd Heck wanted his son to have it better than he did, perhaps with less trauma. He’d experienced the dangers of being a police officer, and in thirty-four years as a state police officer, he’d seen enough of the impact of crime to last a lifetime. That included being an investigator of the infamous Hollandsburg Massacre in which four young men, for no other reason than wanting to know what it was like to kill, broke into a mobile home in Hollandsburg, Indiana, on Valentine’s Day in 1977 and executed four other young men, and critically injured their mother, with shotguns. But beginning in grade school, then high school, and college at DePauw University, Jeff had wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps. Law school was only a fleeting consideration, and in 1978 he became an Indiana State Trooper.
Although he hoped to become a detective like his father, Jeff Heck had spent the first part of his career as a uniformed patrol officer working traffic and criminal complaints in Boone County, a “donut” county that surrounded the metropolitan area of Indianapolis. Bisected by Interstate 65, there was always plenty of activity, whether dealing with highway accidents or crimes.
In 1986, the year after Shannon Sherrill disappeared, he got his wish and was promoted to detective. Or, at least, he got part of his wish. While a uniformed trooper, he’d hoped to replace Francis Shrock when he retired as the detective in Boone County. He’d even dropped humorous “hints” by picking up applications at various employers in the region and putting them in the senior detective’s mailbox. But Shrock was still going strong when an opening popped up at ISP headquarters in Indianapolis, so Heck took the job in the White Collar Crime Section.
For the next seven years, Heck worked mostly white collar crimes and specialty property crimes, drug trafficking, and auto theft, rising to the rank of sergeant. In 1994, he was promoted to lieutenant and commander of the special investigations unit. One of the units under his command was Crimes Against Children. The unit investigated complaints of physical and sexual abuse, eventually leading to the creation of a Cyber Crime Unit that dealt with the forensic examination and prosecution of child pornography.
However, the one case that stuck with him was the disappearance of Shannon Sherrill; nor had it ever been forgotten in Thorntown. Every year as the anniversary of the crime came around, or some other child disappeared, some reporter was bound to interview Mike Sherrill at the gas station he owned. He’d talk about how he still hoped that someday, somehow, his daughter would come home. Dorothy Sherrill also gave several interviews, but they seemed to take so much out of her that she appeared less and less in the media.
Every so often, there’d be a sighting, or someone would call claiming to have experienced a memory “flashback,” or was feeling guilty that they hadn’t called sooner. Or someone would hear someone boasting at a bar about knowing something related to the case. Psychics gained notoriety and a few minutes of fame in the media by claiming that they “knew” Shannon was still alive.
With each new claim or story, the tragedy would come alive all over again. Shannon’s parents, including Mike’s second wife, Becky, would get their hopes up, and then have to relive the pain and put it behind them again when the tips proved to be false or meaningless.
Town Marshal Campbell never got over it. He died young from multiple sclerosis; confined to a wheelchair before his death, he lamented that his biggest regret was not having solved Shannon’s abduction.
Shrock, who’d headed up the Indiana State Police side of the investigation, retired in August 2001 still haunted by the tragedy. Other than his own father, Shrock and Boone County Sheriff Ern Hudson were Heck’s greatest influences as a state police officer. Shrock was a hard worker, very dedicated and yet also very compassionate towards victims and suspects. Many of the leads that came in on the Sherrill case went directly to him because he was so well known in the county and had worked on the original investigation.
Hudson retired and moved to Colorado to work as an undersheriff in Larimer County. He, too, was troubled by the one case of a missing child that had never been solved. But there was nothing anyone could do; Shannon was gone, and her abductor remained an evil mystery.
The Sherrill case was a caveat on Heck’s career. He’d had a great run, solved a lot of crimes—been that guy who stepped forward and took responsibility. However, there was a “but;” as in, he’d had a great career “but” wished they’d been able to find who took Shannon and bring her remains home to her family.
Then in July 2003, the case came roaring back into Heck’s life when he got a call at home from Shrock. The retired detective said that the new Thorntown marshal had just reached out to him about a woman who claimed to be the long-lost Shannon Sherrill. The mystery woman had convinced Shannon’s parents that she was legit.
The Thorntown marshal needed help, but it was a Sunday and no one else was available, Shrock said. He knew that Heck had been involved as a young trooper in the original investigation and, with every other law officer who’d been part of the investigation dead or gone, he’d turned to him.
As the commander of the Special Investigations Section, Heck didn’t normally take on cases himself, but instead assigned them to one of his officers. This time, however, he decided to look into the woman’s claims himself. If someone had asked him, Heck would have said he assigned himself to the case because there was no one else around that afternoon, and he didn’t want to wait. The truth was that he was going to work the case no matter what.
Heck called the marshal, who relayed the story: The day before, July 26, a woman who gave her name as Beth Ann Harris called Dorothy Sherrill and said, “I think I might be Shannon.” She said she was calling from Virginia and had been in therapy when she suddenly began remembering things from her childhood in Indiana and being abducted.
A series of telephone calls flew back and forth between Shannon’s parents and Harris and other people who said they were Harris’ family. Harris had also called the marshal and other police agencies. Mike, Becky, and Dorothy were convinced; their daughter was back from the dead. Harris also called the national media, who picked up on the feel-good story and by Monday had arrived en masse in Thorntown, as well as in Lebanon, the Boone County seat, where television trucks with their big antennae crowded the courthouse square. The local press breathlessly reported that Harris’ dental records, scars, and even a birthmark were all a match for the missing girl, though none of that was true.
Heck spoke to Harris and her relatives, and in spite of his initial skepticism, started to believe the story could be true. The woman seemed to recall some Indiana landmarks and even some personal items about the Sherrill family. Looking back, he would realize that he’d desperately wanted it to be true, and even when it started to go wrong, he held onto the hope that his suspicions, not Harris, were false.
However, by Monday afternoon Heck knew Harris was a charlatan. It became clear that like a sideshow fortune-teller, she’d gleaned little bits o
f information from the Sherrills, which she then turned around, as if the details were from her own memories. Then, in combination with information she’d found on the internet, she wove a convincing tale. She’d even used three different names and three voices to convince the Sherrills and investigators, including Heck, that they were speaking to her relatives.
As Heck’s investigation continued, her story unraveled. She gave him a telephone number, a list of schools she’d attended, and even a Social Security number, none of which were real. He then traced her telephone calls back to an apartment in Topeka, Kansas, inhabited by a woman named Donna Walker.
Thirty-five years old, which was twelve more than Shannon would have been, Walker was already known to other law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, for other elaborate hoaxes, assuming other identities, and attempting to provide false information on other high-profile cases.
Assisted by the Topeka Police Department, Heck arranged for a warrant to have Walker arrested, all of which took several days. In the meantime, he got the Indiana State Police public information office to deflect some of the media attention. Although he wanted to tell the Sherrills what was going on, he hesitated. While he could count on Dorothy to stay quiet—in fact, sometimes she was criticized by the public for being “unemotional” because she declined to comment—he’d learned that what he told Shannon’s father and Becky usually found its way to the media. With the national media camped out in Thorntown, he didn’t want Walker to hear about her impending arrest and flee.
He was forced to reveal the truth when he learned from Dorothy that her two sisters were in their car and on the road to Virginia to “pick up Shannon.” He had to tell her the truth, and then ask her to keep it quiet. She broke down and began to cry, but agreed that she’d keep the secret.
However, he still waited to tell Mike Sherrill. He didn’t blame the man for doing whatever he felt was necessary after all he’d been through, but Heck couldn’t take a chance. He then flew to Kansas, arrested Walker, and brought her back to Indiana. On the flight, she was chatty and seemed to think of it all as a big adventure.
The next day, Mike Sherrill arrived at the press conference expecting to hear that the investigation had confirmed that Harris was his daughter. He even hoped that she might be present at the press conference for an emotional reunion. Instead, the press information officer announced that that it had all been a cruel hoax and that Walker was in Indiana State Police custody. His hopes shattered, Shannon’s father began to sob and collapsed on the floor.
Present at the press conference, Heck felt terrible for Shannon’s father. He couldn’t imagine the pain of having lost a child in such a way, or of having his hopes raised so high only to have them dashed. Although he believed the secrecy was necessary, he would always regret it.
Shannon’s parents weren’t Walker’s only victims. Dorothy’s mother was taken to the hospital complaining of chest pain when told it was a hoax. Also, at the same time she was pretending to be Shannon, Walker was telling a dozen young, childless couples, including an Indianapolis police officer and his wife, that she was a young pregnant woman who had chosen them to be the lucky adoptive parents of her baby. Their hopes, too, disappeared with the revelation that she was an imposter.
In retrospect it was difficult for Heck to understand why Walker created such elaborate, cruel hoaxes. She never asked for money—not from the Sherrills and not from the young couples. Walker’s lawyer described her as a mentally ill woman who thought she was helping people by pretending their dreams were about to come true. But Heck had another theory; he acknowledged that Donna Walker might have some mental issues, but he also saw her as a bully who enjoyed causing other people pain.
Nor were strangers through hurting Dorothy. Shortly after the hoax was exposed, she appeared on the Montel Williams television show, where a psychic named Sylvia Browne told her that her daughter was still alive. The psychic claimed that Shannon had been brainwashed into believing that she was someone else’s daughter and that Donna Walker might have more information about it than she’d revealed to police. Browne said it would all come out at the trial when Walker was questioned on the witness stand.
None of it, of course, was true. Walker didn’t know anything more than she’d picked up on the internet and by winnowing details from the family. Nor did Browne. In fact, there was no trial. Walker pleaded guilty to felony attempted identity deception and misdemeanor false informing. She was sentenced to eighteen months in prison—a term Mike Sherrill described as “a slap on the wrist”—and four years probation. She served nine months and then returned to her home in Kansas.
The surprising thing was despite all the national publicity generated by the Walker case, the police did not receive a single new tip. What that told an experienced investigator like Heck was that the perpetrator was either dead or in prison. People talk; it’s human nature, and sooner or later, he believed, the killer would have said something to someone who reported it.
After the Walker hoax, Heck stayed in touch with the Sherrills. He wanted to show them that their daughter was not forgotten and to give them a name and a face to turn to when they needed it. Most of his contact was with Dorothy. He’d gone out of his way with the media to let them know that her previous silence was at his request. But broken-hearted for a second time, she withdrew into what she told one reporter was a “big, old dark hole.”
It was Mike who called Heck at home late on the night of June 21, 2006, and wanted to know “what are you going to do about that letter?”
“What letter?” Heck asked, confused.
The Thorntown marshal’s office had a letter that said an Ohio prison inmate had information about Shannon’s disappearance, Sherrill said.
“How do you know about it?”
A reporter with the Kokomo Tribune named Megan Durbak had seen the letter, along with an amateur private investigator from Maine named Mark Harper, who’d volunteered his services to Mike Sherrill. Heck was skeptical, but he said he’d look into it.
The next day, Heck drove to Thorntown and met with the marshal, who showed him the letter Durbak and Harper had seen in the file. Written on November 29, 2005, it was from an Ohio inmate named Jeffrey Sunnycalb. As Mike Sherrill had said, Sunnycalb claimed to have information about Shannon’s disappearance and said that a Texas detective named Gary Sweet could vouch for him.
That afternoon, Heck called Sweet and talked to him at length about Sunnycalb and the cases in Texas. His skepticism disappeared. The delay in the contents of the letter being investigated would later cause the town marshal to be harshly criticized in the media, and even issue an apology to the family. But in the meantime, Heck was back on the case.
Five days later, Heck drove to the Warren Correctional Facility in Ohio to speak to Sunnycalb. Again, working cases was not his responsibility, plus he was less than a year from retirement. But the fact that he lived Lebanon, had worked the area as a trooper, participated in the original investigation into Shannon’s’ disappearance, and taken the lead in the Donna Walker case made him the logical choice to pursue this lead. He also felt an obligation to work the case—that he owed it to Shrock, Hudson, and Campbell. It felt like he was carrying the torch for the other lawmen for whom their careers were marred by the “but” that was the Sherrill case. He was honored to do it; there was simply no way he was going to let someone else work the case.
Heck didn’t tell Sunnycalb that he was coming. When the inmate was pulled into a small interview room, he was leery and worried that other inmates would find out he was talking to a cop. Like two poker players, neither the informant nor the detective wanted to show their hands. It was obvious to Heck that Sunnycalb had an end game and wasn’t willing to talk in detail until he’d figured out how to get what he wanted. He said enough to interest Heck, but the detective also wanted to make sure the tail wasn’t wagging the dog.
After leaving the prison, Heck called Megan Durbak and asked if she would hold the story while h
e looked into it. She agreed, and he then spent the next couple of weeks gathering as much information as he could, especially talking to Sweet. He wanted to know Penton’s patterns, as well as what other inmates had said that tied the killer to Thorntown, Indiana, and Shannon Sherrill.
Then on July 6, Heck traveled back to the prison in Ohio to speak to former police officer and current inmate Tim Creighton. Where Sunnycalb had let him know that he didn’t appreciate him showing up unannounced, Creighton couldn’t have been more cooperative.
By the time they were done, Heck was convinced that Creighton, who’d brought notes he’d made of his conversations with Penton, was credible. Penton had described specific areas of Thorntown—a creek, a railroad overpass, a hidden drive, and gate—that could have only come from someone who’d been there. Then Creighton picked Shannon’s photograph out of a lineup; he said Penton had once had another picture of the girl in their cell.
One of Creighton’s notes referred to Penton saying he’d disposed of Shannon’s body in a large park area in southern Indiana by throwing her off a cliff into a ravine. Heck led a large search party to search the area, and though they found a cliff and ravine that matched the description, it was a large area and no remains were located. Nor were there any reports of unidentified remains having been located in that area when he checked with the local coroner’s office, the sheriff, and local police, as well as the state natural resources department.
Heck spent the summer going back and forth between Indiana and Ohio to speak with Sunnycalb and Creighton, as well as accepting collect calls from them. Some of the inmates the Texas detectives interviewed were out of prison, so he had to go find them, particularly Howard Guiher and Tony Baker.
Bogeyman: He Was Every Parent's Nightmare Page 19
