In short
The 1993 murder of 19-year-old Carmen Van Huss in her Indianapolis apartment, the decades-long failure to identify her killer, and the eventual DNA/genetic genealogy breakthrough leading to Dana Shepard’s arrest and later guilty plea.
Guest backgrounds
Pam Francis is Carmen’s sister; she describes Carmen’s upbringing across multiple households, her need for acceptance, her punk/skate/drug-influenced social circle, and the family’s frustration with investigators. (Other key voices include Sgt. Bill Carter and family members, but the named guest is Pam.)
Key claims
Neighbors heard Carmen scream “Get off me” for about 30 minutes yet didn’t call 911. Investigators found no forced entry and suspected the killer was someone she knew. The murder weapon was never recovered. The case was revived in 2013 using DNA testing and later Parabon genetic genealogy, narrowing suspects to apartment complex resident Dana Shepard.
Notable examples
semen and blood DNA profiles from a white paper bag matched; Carter crowdsourced a DNA retest after a mix-up; Shepard’s DNA matched in 2024. In 2026, Shepard pled guilty to murder and received 45 years.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOBackground on the Case
0:44 to 1:20
Details about the previously unreleased episode and case developments.
“What you're about to hear is an episode that we originally recorded and released in the Crime Junkie fan club back in January, when this case was still actively unfolding.”
The Crime Scene
1:20 to 3:10
Description of the events leading to Carmen Van Huss's murder.
“And today's story begins at the Turtle Creek Apartments, part of a gated community on the northwest side of Indianapolis, Indiana.”
Investigation Begins
3:10 to 5:30
Initial findings and the investigation into Carmen's death.
“There was a handwritten note from management tacked to her door when Carmen's dad, James, arrived a day later to check on her.”
Carmen's Relationships
5:30 to 8:00
Exploration of Carmen's background and relationships leading up to her death.
“may have actually started out friendly, because there's no sign at all of forced entry.”
Family Dynamics and Impact
8:00 to 11:05
Discussion about Carmen's upbringing and how it affected her life choices.
“Carmen's sister, Pam Francis, who we spoke to for this episode, said that in her eyes, these relationships were just Carmen's way of seeking acceptance.”
Retracing Carmen's Last Movements
12:43 to 14:00
Analyzing Carmen's activities on the night of her murder.
“To try and figure out who was with Carmen the night she died, police needed to retrace her last movements.”
The Timeline of Carmen Van Huss's Last Night
14:00 to 27:32
Explore the timeline and circumstances surrounding Carmen's final hours and the investigation that follows.
“If she's talking to him at 9.49 p.m., she had to have gone straight home.”
The Controversy of Carmen's DNA Case
28:30 to 30:43
Discover the unexpected twists in the investigation of Carmen's case.
“Carter remembers the cold case sergeant coming by his desk and saying, well, you know, we got a problem.”
Sergeant Carter's Persistence
30:43 to 33:29
Explore how Sergeant Carter fought against the odds to seek justice for Carmen.
“He's like the only one doing any considerable work on this.”
The Birth of Season of Justice
33:29 to 36:27
Learn how a conversation sparked the creation of a nonprofit to help cold cases.
“because that one shiny article that says, never mind, nothing to see here, isn't the end-all be-all.”
Show all 15 chapters
Advancements in Genetic Genealogy
36:27 to 40:04
Follow the groundbreaking DNA advancements leading to a breakthrough.
“We have to get IMPD on board to let us help fund testing.”
Arrest and Impact on Carmen's Family
40:04 to 42:00
Hear the emotional response from Carmen's family following the arrest of the suspect.
“Well, according to Captain Carter, they only started with Dana simply because he was living closer.”
Carmen Van Huss Case Updates
42:00 to 47:28
Learn about the latest developments in the Carmen Van Huss case and the prosecution's approach.
“She was taken from me when I was a freshman in high school and I'm thankful that finally the man that did it is where he needs to be.”
Plea Deal and Its Implications
47:28 to 49:56
Explore the implications of Dana Shepard's plea deal on the case and the family's response.
“So what you just heard was right around where we ended our original episode.”
Carmen's Law Passed
49:56 to 50:39
Discover the successful passage of Carmen's Law aimed at improving cold case investigations.
“That bill that Pam was working on to expand access to advanced DNA testing for cold cases, Carmen's law, It was passed unanimously by the Indiana State Senate.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Ashley Flowers:Hi, Crime Junkies. It's Britt. If you're like me and you're ready to dive into even more cases, there's another podcast I think you're going to love. Park Predators. In Park Predators, host Delia D 'Ambra dives into the haunting crimes that happen in some of the most beautiful and unexpected places across the globe. Delia has helped host a couple of episodes of Crime Junkie in the past, and if you've listened to her before, you already know her investigative approach brings the facts of each case and their chilling details to life, making Park Predators the perfect mix of captivating and informative storytelling.
0:33Ashley Flowers:So once you're done with this episode of Crime Junkie, go check out Park Predators. New episodes drop every week. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, Crime Junkies. What you're about to hear is an episode that we originally recorded and released in the Crime Junkie fan club back in January, when this case was still actively unfolding. But in the months since then, there have been some major developments. So today, we wanted to bring this story to a broader audience. You'll get to hear the full episode that has never been released wide. And then I'm going to come back in towards the end and pick up where our reporting in January left off to tell you how this case was ultimately resolved.
1:20Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And today's story begins at the Turtle Creek Apartments, part of a gated community on the northwest side of Indianapolis, Indiana. The complex is made up of two buildings, four wings, and three floors per wing, so 262 apartments in total. And on March 23rd, 1993, around 1 a.m., something terrible is happening inside one of them. Neighbors who are awake hear loud screams coming from apartment 302A. And those who weren't awake before are now. I mean, it is so loud and the walls are so thin that they can hear what she's saying even.
2:04Get off me. I mean, she repeats this in between crying and banging noises. Get off me. There is no mistaking these cries for horseplay or teenage antics, even though they know the tenant is young. a 19-year-old girl named Carmen Van Huss. But no one cares. Our reporter, Nicole Kagan, spoke to one neighbor who lived in the apartment right across the hall from Carmen's. And he said, quote, I just heard a scream in the middle of the night. I turned over and went back to bed. That's all I know. Not a single person gets up. Not a single person goes to her door. No one bothers to even pick up the phone and call 911.
2:43For 30 minutes, she screams and struggles before one set of hurried footprints can be heard leaving, disappearing into the night, and everyone just goes back to sleep. For decades, people who should have helped Carmen in life and in death have turned their back on her. But thanks to one tenacious man who believes in doing the right thing, someone has finally been charged with Carmen's murder, and the trial that decides his fate is about to begin.
3:48Though none of Carmen Van Huss' neighbors could be bothered to call police or check on her when they heard her screaming for 30 minutes straight, at least one person did take the time to call the apartment management and file a noise complaint. There was a handwritten note from management tacked to her door when Carmen's dad, James, arrived a day later to check on her. He had gotten a voicemail from Carmen's friend, Missy, who said that Carmen had been a no-call, no-show for work that day. And she had tried to go check in on her, but she wasn't really familiar with where she lived. She ended up kind of getting lost on the way to her complex.
4:24So she's hoping that Carmen's dad could go by and check on her. And he likely saw the note first, the one scolding his daughter for being too loud and reminding her to be more considerate of her neighbors moving forward. But there would be no moving forward. He knew that instantly when he opened the unlocked door of the studio apartment. I mean, he had a direct line of sight to his daughter, clearly dead, lying on the floor next to her bed covered in blood. And the whole apartment was a mess. I mean, the living room table was knocked over. Clothes were scattered across the floor. And there was blood everywhere.
5:03It was splattered on the walls and smeared in the kitchen. James couldn't even bear to take another step inside, so he beelined to a neighbor's apartment, banging on the door so he could use their phone to call 911. When Marion County Sheriff's detectives responded that evening, Sergeant David Wilkes takes charge of the investigation while lab techs process the scene. I mean, it's obvious to them that there was a struggle inside Carmen's apartment, but they suspect right away that the interaction with her killer may have actually started out friendly, because there's no sign at all of forced entry.
5:37And there are some fast food cups and some bottles of beer that make it seem like she might have been maybe even eating a meal with someone before things took a turn.
5:46Ashley Flowers:And how do they know that that stuff is from that night? Well, I mean, they don't. I mean, not for sure. But food or no food, they still end up thinking that things started out friendly with her killer because after they talk to neighbors, many of them report having heard Carmen come home at around 11 p.m. and it sounded like she was with a man. They hear the two of them talking, laughing as they walk up the hall to her door. And then like two hours later, she's screaming for help. Yeah. And Lord only knows what happened in those two hours. But the escalation was severe. Carmen had 60 stab wounds to her head, face, body and genitalia.
6:24And the attack was apparently so violent that the stab wounds to her head penetrated her skull. What was the murder weapon? Like a knife? That is actually still unknown. Now, multiple different news outlets over the years have published that Carmen was likely stabbed to death with a screwdriver or a pocket knife. But investigators told our reporter that while the wounds were consistent with something like that, something small and pointed, could have been a screwdriver, could have been a pocket knife, the actual murder weapon has never been found. And neither of those objects turn up in Carmen's apartment or anywhere else in the course of their investigation.
7:00There is plenty of other evidence, though. They collect evidence from Carmen's body at autopsy and from the scene. They collect a bedspread, clothing, bloodied items in the kitchen that the assailant likely touched, notably a bloody white paper bag in the kitchen trash can. But because this is 1993, DNA testing isn't very widespread or readily available, and there's nothing I can find showing that these things go to a lab for testing back then. They do dust the apartment for prints and they find a number of latent smudges, but there are no matches to anyone in the system. And it's not even clear if these prints belong to an attacker.
7:40They could have just belonged to someone that Carmen had over. We don't even know if they're relevant.
7:43Ashley Flowers:We have no idea when the prints got there. So with everything they have at that point, evidence of a late night meal, noises of laughter in the hallway and no forced entry, investigators feel pretty certain that Carmen's attacker was someone she must have known well, someone she trusted. So investigators start making a list of Carmen's boyfriends, current and former. And it's not a short list. Carmen's sister, Pam Francis, who we spoke to for this episode, said that in her eyes, these relationships were just Carmen's way of seeking acceptance. She had this innate desire to be loved by everyone, which Pam says was likely a result of her upbringing.
8:22You see, Carmen's family situation was a bit complicated. When she was three, her biological parents, Gail and James, they sent her to live with her aunt, Gertie Schott. Gail and James, like, weren't together at the time. Carmen was their first child, and they just knew that they weren't going to be able to give her the upbringing that they wanted. So Carmen joined the Schott family as the youngest of eight children. And listen, by all accounts, they raised her as their own. Carmen considered all of the Schott kids her sibling. She called Gertie and her husband Bob mom and dad.
8:52Ashley Flowers:And did she still see her biological parents at all at that time? Yeah, so the shots actually even moved from Illinois to Indiana when they took Carmen in so that she could still be close to her dad, James. But according to Pam, who was like the next youngest girl in the shot family, James lived a very different lifestyle. So the shots are very like by the book. They're loving, they're rule following, this Catholic family. James's life was much less structured. I mean, he had some substance use problems, but Carmen is her dad. She loved him regardless. She idolized him even. And in Pam's eyes, straddling these two completely different environments was really difficult for Carmen.
9:31She would try to imitate the things she saw her dad doing to feel closer to him, smoking, drinking, living on the edge, which was OK around him, but then not so much around the shots. And to add to all of this, when Carmen was 14 or 15, a third household came into the mix when she reconnected with her biological mother. And so for a teenager bouncing back and forth between these different lives, it's a lot to navigate. And Pam says that this need to be loved by everyone, like Carmen carried it with her all her life. She had a large group of friends that were into punk rock and skate parks and sometimes recreational drugs.
10:07So she got into those things too. But according to Pam, these friends were obviously more aligned with like Carmen's dad's lifestyle. And so Carmen kept them and her various boyfriends pretty removed from the Schott family. So there's a lot happening in Carmen's formative years. She never finished high school, but she did get her GED. And at the time of her death, things were actually starting to really fall into place for her. I mean, after a stint of living in her own car, she finally moved into a studio apartment. She had a boyfriend of about a year who she was totally in love with. And along with working a stable job at Pizza Hut, she was following her passion by taking classes at the Heron School of Art and Design.
10:48Pam said everything finally seemed like it was working. But early on, at least, Pam feels like investigators see the crowd of people Carmen hung out with, and they kind of just brush her death off. Like, well, this is the lifestyle she chose to live sort of thing. And so in their minds, it's just a matter of finding out which friend or ex-boyfriend is responsible.
11:12Ashley Flowers:Which is incredibly frustrating. does the family feel like they should be looking somewhere else? Like, is there another direction the family wants them to be going in? It seems like they don't know what to think. I mean, even her friends don't really know which direction to point investigators in. But as they start watching the sheriff's office pull Carmen's circle of friends in one by one for questioning, Missy and Pam both said that everyone was suspicious of one another. Even the funeral was its own traumatizing experience because they spent the whole time looking around, like wondering who among them was a killer.
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12:48To try and figure out who was with Carmen the night she died, police needed to retrace her last movements. What they pieced together was that on Monday night, March 22nd, Carmen spent the evening visiting her grandmother in the hospital with her dad, James, and James's three-year-old son. Carmen drove them there in her boyfriend Rob's car because hers was in the shop. And she dropped them off back at home at around 9.30 p.m. Now, before she left, James asked Carmen to just stay the night there with them. But she told him she needed to get home to wash her Pizza Hut uniform for work the next day.
13:22Now, the drive back to her apartment would have taken about 30 minutes. But I think she got home quick because when they talked to her boyfriend Rob, He tells them, and call logs confirm, that he spoke to Carmen from where he was in Arizona at 9.49 p.m. Eastern Time on March 22nd. And interestingly, when they spoke, she told him that she had run into an old friend that night.
13:47Ashley Flowers:When did that happen? And who was the friend? Rob says that Carmen told him she didn't remember this friend's name. No. As for when, though, I don't know. Because it's not like she would have had time to stop anywhere. Right. If she's talking to him at 9.49 p.m., she had to have gone straight home. Not even enough time to stop and get fast food. Carmen's sister Pam Francis told Nicole that she thought the food or, like, the stuff in her apartment might have been from Subway. And she was pretty sure she remembered hearing that there was enough food for three people. but she didn't know who picked it up or when or how many sandwiches it was if the sandwiches were there at all but knowing the timeline that we're working with to me like one of three things seems possible like one the stuff in her apartment really was old wrappers or cups or whatever it's not from that night two someone else brought it to her place or three she had to have gone out again then after she got home, after she talked to Rob, maybe while her laundry was going.
14:50Now, she didn't have her own washer and dryer in her unit, so she would have needed to go to the communal laundry room in her building to get her uniform washed. I'm guessing this would have been around 10, 20 after her 32-minute call with Rob. Now, the big question is, does she do this? Does the laundry get done? God help me, but this is a question I cannot seem to get answered. But it feels like it should have been an easy one to answer. Was her clean uniform in her apartment? Did anyone go check the laundry room? From the information we have, it seems like the laundry room kind of just gets ignored, which is wild considering that it is very possible that is where she could have crossed paths with her killer.
15:34Whatever she is doing from 1020 to 11, we don't know. But by 11, that is when she's heard walking up the stairs in the company of someone else.
15:46Ashley Flowers:Well, and another big question is, is that the same someone who was there at 1 or did the guy she was with at 11 leave and someone else just sees an opportunity? Exactly. But if these are two different people, then why is an 11 o 'clock guy coming forward? Oh. No one is admitting to being with Carmen that night. And if you're 11 o 'clock guy and you didn't kill her. What's the harm in coming forward? Come and talk to police. It seems more likely that we're actually looking at someone who's like one in the same. And her boyfriend, just to be clear, is for sure in Arizona. 100%. He had flown to Arizona with his family on March 19th to visit his aunt.
16:25And he'd actually called Carmen a number of times from a calling card while he was there, including that call like just hours before she died. So no way he was in Indiana. Pretty rock solid alibi. So with Rob pretty much cleared, it's on to Carmen's most recent ex-boyfriend, who we'll call Josh. According to her friend Missy, investigators really gave Josh a hard time. Almost as hard of a time as they gave her.
16:50Ashley Flowers:Wait, why are they giving Missy a hard time? Dude, I'm not kidding when I say they looked at everyone in her circle, even like women, girls. Missy was one of the first people that they looked at. And it was just because they found a pack of Missy's cigarettes in Carmen's car with the word death written on it. And like, I can't imagine being her. She's probably like the same age as Carmen, right? She's like 19. She's in this detective's like interrogation room or wherever they're talking to her. And they like set down this pack of cigarettes that say death on it. She has to explain to them that her boyfriend at the time hated the fact that she was a smoker.
17:23And so she wrote death on her cigarette box in an effort to like try and get herself to quit. She's like, this isn't a threat of any kind.
17:31Ashley Flowers:As her own reminder of this wasn't good for her. It was just this weird, terrible coincidence that she did that and then happened to leave it in Carmen's car before this happened. But anyways, so they're looking at Carmen's ex now, Josh. They had heard somehow that Josh was upset because of Carmen's new boyfriend. But other than him being a recent ex, there is nothing else I can find to really make him look suspicious at all. They say that he's got an alibi. The motive ends up really not being solid. So they quickly pivot to another ex. We'll call him Peter. And this is the first suspect where there actually seems to be a real red flag.
18:11Because the year before her death, Carmen had called the police on Peter. Now, it wasn't for anything violent. According to police records, Peter had taken Carmen's car and just wouldn't return it. Now, he was stopped and arrested by the Lawrence Police Department. and Carmen got her car back. But dude was busted in more ways than one because when Carmen went to go pick up her car, she found that Peter had left this little gift bag inside with a card for her. Like, how sweet, right? Well, there was also a card in there addressed to a different girl. And different girl got a set of Beastie Boys concert tickets in her card.
18:53So Carmen, like not one to be played, I take it, takes the tickets and goes to the concert herself. But apparently that really pissed Peter off. So much so that he was going around telling people that he was going to, quote, get revenge.
19:11Ashley Flowers:So this theory is that Peter brutally murdered Carmen over Beastie Boy tickets? People have done awful things for way less. But yes, this is the motive they're working with. Only thing is, just like Rob, Peter has a rock-solid out-of-state alibi. A representative from the Social Security office in San Francisco vouched that Peter was in her office over 2 ,000 miles away on the day that Carmen was murdered. And it's the same story with a handful of others. Friends, boyfriends, one by one, they're interviewed and they're cleared. And shortly after that, the case goes cold. Pam's dad, Bob, and then Pam herself continue calling investigators at least once every year for updates.
20:00But Pam says that it's always the same answer. The file is sitting on my desk, but we don't have anything new. So the years keep passing and Carmen's case gets handed from one investigator to the next as people either retire or take other roles. Now, some of the initial persons of interest are interviewed again, but nothing really notable happens until 2013. That's 20 years after Carmen's murder. That is when someone not employed by the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department's homicide or cold case unit takes an interest in Carmen's case. Sergeant Bill Carter. And he is, by all accounts, the last person anyone expects, not because he isn't this brilliant investigator, but because he has exactly zero professional cold case homicide training or any homicide training at all, for that matter.
20:52He started his law enforcement career as a state revenue agent.
20:56Ashley Flowers:You literally don't have to tell me. I already know Bill Carter because, Ashley, you're kind of obsessed with him. I am. He's making the hero of all. Like anyone who listened to our episode on Amy Widener back in 2018 will know that I love Bill Carter. But just a quick refresher if you're new here. So he was in the state revenue office and then he moved to domestic violence, then nuisance abatement, which is basically like an officer who investigates community disturbances, underage drinking, animal cruelty. Gotta love a guy who takes down animal abusers. And while in that position, he kind of stumbled onto his first cold case.
21:31Because he was the guy in the department who knew the Facebook back then. And a detective needed help getting into one of those like memorial pages for a case that that guy was working on. It was Amy's case. They basically wanted to monitor the comments, whatever. So Bill helps them. And then he like gets in it. It's hard not to. He ends up getting super interested. He ends up reading the whole case file, digitizing it, even talks to the family.
21:56Ashley Flowers:I mean, he basically starts his own investigation in his spare time. Yeah. Yeah, and he told our reporter, Nicole, that when he first started looking into Amy's case, there was a note in her file that literally said all that could be done was done. Well, hold his beer, because in a matter of months, he solved Amy's case. Now, does he get cheers and accolades for solving a cold case that no one else could? Not exactly. Not even an invitation to come join the team. But whatever. Not why he did it. Amy's family is thrilled. Bill is happy to just play his part. And so he goes back to nuisance abatement.
22:33But then he gets approached by an IMPD officer who went to high school with Carmen. And this person's basically like, listen, I saw the amazing work that you did on Amy's case. There is this other case that has always haunted me. I would just be forever indebted to you if you could look into it. So, of course, Sergeant Carter dives in headfirst. He digitizes Carmen's case file and starts going through it page by page. And there are no big misses per se. He comes to the same conclusion that they did back in 1993, that whoever killed Carmen was likely someone that knew her. But at this point, it's 2013.
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23:11And Sergeant Carter has DNA testing on his side.
23:15Ashley Flowers:Wait, so no one's gone back before this moment and done testing? No, not necessarily. So by this point, they had entered Carmen's DNA into like state and national databases. And when you say Carmen's DNA, you mean like the DNA evidence found at Carmen's crime scene? No, I don't. Wait, you mean the victim's DNA? Yeah. And we asked Carter about this. He didn't know why that was done either. But her DNA had been entered into databases. That's all that had been done at this point. So now in 2013, as you can imagine, there's like a ton that can be done. So he assists a cold case investigator in sending off evidence from Carmen's case to be examined.
23:52And the lab comes back with good news, great news, actually. Not only were they able to develop a partial male profile from swabs containing semen that was collected from Carmen's body, but they also got a full profile from the blood staining on the white paper bag that I mentioned at the top.
24:12Ashley Flowers:And do these two profiles match? They both match, and that full profile is suitable to be put into CODIS, which they do, but no dice. And this sucks, but it actually is, you know, partly good because it clears persons of interest who were already in the system. I guess there were some, but there were plenty more that weren't. So that's when investigators begin the painstaking task of tracking down everyone who could have crossed paths with Carmen to get samples from them for comparison, one by one. And by the year's end, through voluntary and covertly obtaining samples, they are able to conclusively eliminate at least 40 men.
24:53That's including Carmen's boyfriend Rob, her exes Josh and Peter, even her neighbor across the hall.
24:59Ashley Flowers:So there's a chance that this isn't someone that she knew after all. Maybe everyone's wrong. There's only one way to know. They have to widen their search pool. Sergeant Carter makes a plea to the media for coverage, and he starts looking way beyond the initial persons of interest list, interviewing friends of friends and distant associates. He tries to track down the repair shop where Carmen's car was at the time of her murder, thinking, you know, maybe if the people working there had her car keys, maybe they could have also had the key to her apartment. He even takes the time to look into all of the police runs that happened the night of Carmen's murder to see if anything there sticks out.
25:38Like maybe her attacker went on a crime spree or ended up needing medical attention. And Sergeant Carter actually does find a man who police interacted with that night who had stab wounds that looked very similar to Carmen's, but neither that guy nor any of these other guys that he ends up talking to match the DNA from Carmen's crime scene.
25:59Ashley Flowers:Is Carter still doing all of this in his spare time? Like, does he officially get put on the case at this point? Oh, no. According to the files, he is technically only assisting the cold case detectives, which, in my opinion, just doesn't capture the extent of the time and effort that he's putting into this. And Carmen's friends and family recognize that, too. With Sergeant Carter at the helm, it feels like for the first time they might actually be getting closer to justice. Unlike previous detectives, he's not looking into this case because he has to. He is looking into it because he wants to.
26:33and take it from someone who has seen both play out many times, there is a big difference. But wanting to solve a case isn't everything. And as hard as Carter works, as many people as he gets DNA from and rules out, he is just not getting any closer to the answer. So in 2014, he works with investigators to get some additional DNA testing done to see if the lab can figure out anything more about Carmen's attacker to help him focus his investigation. But what no one knows at the time is that this$1 ,600 DNA test, which the city organizes and pays for, somehow ends up spurring a departmental controversy that throws Carmen's case into jeopardy and lands Sergeant Carter in a bucket of hot water with IMPD.
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28:29The controversy in Carmen's case all started in 2015 when the results from the DNA test come back. Carter remembers the cold case sergeant coming by his desk and saying, well, you know, we got a problem. Our killer is a European female.
28:46Ashley Flowers:The original profile was developed from a semen sample. How is that even possible? It's not. Like, it turns out the city sent the wrong sample to the lab. What they likely tested was Carmen's own DNA. I'm sorry, how does that even happen? Not totally clear. I don't know if this has anything to do with the fact that, like, early on they sent her profile to CODIS. That's, like, where my mind immediately went. All Sergeant Carter can assume is that the people who send off the DNA somehow got mixed up. Whatever. Human error. People make mistakes, right? Luckily, this isn't one where we, like, used up the last sample or anything.
29:25We just like go back and do it again. Well, when Sergeant Carter asked for another test, he gets shut down. Officials tell him that they won't pay for the test, that they don't usually cover this particular kind of testing anyway, and that the first time they did, it was actually a mistake. And this would typically be the point where most investigators would give up or move on. But if it's not already clear, Bill Carter is not most investigators. He gets this idea to crowdsource the funds for the DNA test himself. He knew that the police department had crowdsourced donations in the past when a police horse with skin cancer needed surgery.
30:03So he thinks, I mean, if we can do it for a horse, surely we could do it for Carmen. Like, the logic is sound, right? So Sergeant Carter creates this GoFundMe page, and in just seven hours, he raises over$1 ,200. He only needs$996 for the test. So he says that after paying for the testing, pays the bill, he'll donate the rest of the money to Crimestoppers. But he never gets the chance to give any money to anyone. Because almost as quickly as Sergeant Carter raised the funds, IMPD makes him send it all back and they remove him from Carmen's case.
30:42Ashley Flowers:Why? Like, what is happening right now? He's like the only one doing any considerable work on this. So according to the Indianapolis Star, IMPD says that Sergeant Carter's removal had nothing to do with the GoFundMe and he was removed after a review of departmental assignments and procedures. Interesting timing. Officials go on to say that Sergeant Carter is not a member of the cold case squad and quote, we just want to make sure that people stay in their lanes. We have cold case investigators and we want to let them do their job. End quote. stay in their lanes? Just to be clear, correct me if I'm wrong, no one was working on Carmen's case, right?
31:23Ashley Flowers:Like, that lane was pretty empty. Literally, he's doing the job that no one else wanted or had time to do, you know, just to get a murderer off the streets. Who might still be out there, by the way. Right, no big deal. Help of family, and all in his spare time, right? Like, free time. This dude should be getting a promotion. Well, there's no promotion. It actually goes the other way for him. he gets slapped with a 10-day suspension. Carter told our reporter, Nicole, that before this, he had never been disciplined before. I mean, this guy was by the books, hardworking. I mean, he'd only taken four hours of sick time in his entire career.
31:59And now he is getting punished for what he thought was doing the right thing.
32:04Ashley Flowers:Which, like, to be fair, was the right thing. Like, not just what he thought. This is the bullshit politics of policing that I have zero patience for. Your toes and your fragile egos. What's the right thing to do by Carmen? What is the right thing to do by her family? That is what matters. And everything else that gets in the way of the right thing is the wrong thing. I am so sick of this world playing sides and angles. There is right and there is a wrong. And I am losing my mind watching everyone lose sight of that. especially with my tax dollars. And however upset I am, Carmen's family was infuriated tenfold.
32:46Carmen's brother is quoted in the news saying, the only person that's ever made any progress is Bill Carter. And if Carter's off the case, the case is over. So coming out of this, Carmen's family actually makes an online petition to get Sergeant Carter reinstated, which quickly gets over 500 signatures. And IMPD doesn't say whether it's this petition or something else. But within days, they totally walk back on reports that they pulled Sergeant Carter from the case and say that he's still working it.
33:19Ashley Flowers:And see, this is why public pressure and attention matters. Like holding public service agencies accountable. Yes. Like it makes things happen. But pay attention to the details. What do we say? Always go a layer deeper. because that one shiny article that says, never mind, nothing to see here, isn't the end-all be-all. Sergeant Carter is back on the case, but like, back on is very much in quotation marks. IMPD still returns all of the donations that he raised, saying that they will look into whether or not the test is really needed. And at this point, Sergeant Carter wants to help, but I mean, he also doesn't want to lose his job, you know?
34:00I mean, he'd already interviewed tons of people, gotten dozens of DNA samples, and without this next test, there is not much more he can do to actually work this case. He keeps collecting samples when he can, and he gets a list of everyone living in Carmen's apartment complex when she was killed. But this is the point where the case kind of stalls. But this is where we have to work together, build off each other's work. Carter might have felt like he failed or that the system was against him, but it was against him in such a big way that it got my attention. The news about him having to give the money back and no testing being done is what made me pay attention to this case.
34:43Before Crime Junkie was a thing, or actually it was like right at the time we decided to make this a thing. As I was working on our first episode, I don't know what undeserved confidence came over me, but I just cold emailed this man on October 17, 2017. And we were in the thick of it then. Dude, I went back in my emails and I found it. I wanted to die. Are you going to read it? Of course I'm going to have you read it. Oh, okay. Yeah, I gave it to you. Okay. Detective Sergeant Carter. Which, by the way, I don't even know if he was officially a detective. He's a sergeant.
35:17Ashley Flowers:You're just going for it. I love it. My name is Ashley and I'm on the board of directors at Crime Stoppers. You were very proud of that. Obviously. It's like the only thing I had. It's the only thing you had. I'm working on a new type of media outreach for them to draw attention to cold and unsolved cases in Indianapolis. There are two cases high on my priority list, Carmen Van Huss and Linda McDaniel. I know you are not a cold case detective, but your name has been mentioned in media articles regarding both women. I wanted to see if I could buy you a coffee or beer sometime. I'd love to tell you what I'm trying to do, and if you think you can help, great.
35:51Ashley Flowers:If not, no harm in a meeting. Would you be open to that? Girl, I know. God bless that man met me for lunch. There wasn't much he could do back then. Like the water was still hot. But talking to him about Carmen's case, like what needed to be done, that is what planted the seed. It took years to grow. But that conversation was the inspiration behind Season of Justice, the nonprofit that I founded. How could we be this close to progressing a case and have funding be the only thing that's stopping us? So when I started Season of Justice, I told our director at the time, like, this is the case. We have to get IMPD on board to let us help fund testing.
36:36Well, little did I know, they had already started. In 2018, they sent a DNA sample to Parabon Nanolabs to get a genetic genealogy assessment and do like one of those snapshot things. Yeah. Tell me the physical traits of our perp. And in 2019, one of the cold case detectives shares with Carter, who's now a lieutenant, that as a result of the testing, Parabon is able to conclude that the DNA sample belongs to a black man, which helps narrow down their suspect pool. So Lieutenant Carter, who has no genealogical background, by the way, starts trying to build out his own family tree for this based on the DNA matches from Parabon's profile.
37:19And over the next year, he spends his time traveling all over the country to talk to people and try and get reference samples to continue narrowing them down. But the DNA matches that he's working with are like very distantly connected to Carmen's attacker. We're talking like fourth generation distant, he said. And one of these trees has 2 ,800 people on it. But he is still desperate to figure this case out. So by now, where he's at, it's 2020. And turns out, Season of Justice can help after all. SOJ steps in with a grant to fund 15 hours of genealogical research and cover the fee to upload the suspect's DNA profile to another online database.
38:03And that is how, after almost a decade of working on this case, Lieutenant Carter finally gets what he calls the magic hit. On June 2nd, 2023, Parabon reaches out to Carter, now a captain.
38:19Ashley Flowers:At least someone's recognizing this guy's work at this point. I know. And Parabon says that they may have found a close relative to their person of interest. Apparently, a great niece once removed from the suspect had uploaded her DNA to 23andMe. But that's as far as they could go with the grant. And again, he has no genealogical training whatsoever. So he taps IMPD nuisance abatement analyst Meera Patel, who is more familiar with open source databases. And she starts investigating this relative and her family. And this work brings the investigation the closest it's ever been to a name. Mira concludes that Carmen's attacker is possibly related to these two brothers with the last name Shepard.
39:07And Shepard rings a bell. Remember that list Captain Carter got of the people who lived in Carmen's apartment complex at the time of her murder? Both brothers are on it. Captain Carter and Mira actually go out to the apartment complex to see just how close their apartment would have been to Carmen's. It takes them like 30 seconds to get from one to the other. I mean, the apartments are connected by a common area, which, by the way, includes the laundry room. So she probably did make it there that night. I think that makes the most sense because from speaking to her family and friends, the only connection that these two brothers had to Carmen was living in the same complex.
39:49So on February 7th, 2024, Captain Carter meets with the IMPD cold case unit to share what he and Mira have found and to suggest that they get warrants to obtain swabs and fingerprints from Dana Shepard.
40:03Ashley Flowers:And why just the one brother? Well, according to Captain Carter, they only started with Dana simply because he was living closer. He was living in Missouri, working as a university custodian, and his brother had moved even further south. So they'll start there, right? IMPD's warrant is granted by the Boone County judge in Missouri, and on February 15th, they serve it to Dana on the University of Missouri campus. Police tell him that they need to eliminate him as a suspect in an assault case. And according to police records, Dana is like visibly shaking as he reads the warrant. And he tells police that he has not done anything for a long time.
40:42And then he keeps asking if this warrant is from Missouri.
40:46Ashley Flowers:And at this point, it sounds like they went to the Wright brother first. Four months later, they're sure of it. Dana's DNA matches the DNA in Carmen's case. So on August 30th, 2024, 31 years after Carmen's death, Dana Shepard is arrested in Missouri on charges of murder and rape with deadly force. When the charges are announced at an IMPD press conference, Carmen's younger brother, Jimmy Van Huss, gets the chance to say a few words. From the bottom of my heart and on behalf of my dad and our entire family, I want to say thank you to Bill and Mira and every single person that had a hand in this.
41:25Ashley Flowers:There's a lot of people that put in a lot of work for a lot of years into every single one. We're all very, very thankful. There's a lot of people that miss Carmen all these years. She had a lot of family, a lot of friends. She had cousins that loved her like sisters. She had aunt and uncle that loved her like a daughter. She wasn't able to experience her college graduation or have a wedding or any of life's events that she missed out on. We were coming a lot closer just as she was taken from us. and for my dad to have to find his daughter after what was brutally done to her makes this day bittersweet.
42:00Ashley Flowers:I wish he was here to see it. She was taken from me when I was a freshman in high school and I'm thankful that finally the man that did it is where he needs to be. I do have hope that any similar case with DNA can get this same treatment with the genealogy and everything we have available today. I want all of them to get the same attention and maybe we can have some more outcomes like this. I think that's it. Dana pled not guilty at his arraignment. And as of this recording, he has been extradited to an Indianapolis jail where he's awaiting his trial. That is set to begin right around the corner, January 26, 2026.
42:36And in a huge win for Carmen's family, the prosecution recently decided that Captain Bill Carter will be the lead detective for the prosecution in this case, rather than one of IMPD's cold case unit guys, which the family is thrilled about because they know that at this point, nobody knows this case as well as Captain Carter does.
42:56Ashley Flowers:Well, and he's really the person who cares the most too, right? Yeah. I mean, their best chance is with him. He's going to get on the stand and like there's going to be no him hawing ums. Like he knows this case. Yeah. Do you think there's anything more that's going to happen at trial? Like any more of a connection? Any more of a, there's never a reason, but like any more of a reason? I don't know. I'm finding more and more with these genealogy cases, there are no answers or like no satisfying ones at least. But I don't know what the trial is going to reveal. Carmen's family and friends that we spoke to had never even heard Dana's name before.
43:30But after Pam learned that he lived in the same apartment complex as Carmen, she said that it made sense to her. She told our reporter, Nicole, that if Carmen ran into somebody in her building, she would definitely have been friendly with them. So her guess is that Carmen and Dana had probably seen each other around maybe a few times. And she can imagine a scenario where on the night of the murder, the two ran into each other, maybe in the laundry room. And Dana, who was 20 at the time, about the same age, asked to hang out. Pam said that it wouldn't have been surprising at all for Carmen to agree and let him come to her apartment.
44:02Ashley Flowers:And what about the like the possible food for three? Is there someone else in the mix here that we might not know about? Well, Nicole asked Captain Carter about that, and he said that there were two Subway cups on Carmen's table and then a bag from a pizza place. But he said it wasn't clear to him that those items were purchased that night or even that they were used that night. Investigators didn't find any actual food at the table and no receipts or anything were found either. So if they were found or stuff like that was found, nobody documented it or collected them. So when it comes to the official record, the details of Carmen's last night are still technically unknown.
44:41Ashley Flowers:And what do we know about Dana? Like, did he have any kind of record or history? I mean, was this guy truly, like, squeaky clean? I mean, not squeaky, but nothing like what you'd expect knowing what happened to Carmen. I mean, the sample from Carmen's case before it was tied to him never matched any other cases in CODIS. And Carter did go through and check to see if there were any unsolved cases not in CODIS that Dana might have been connected to. But there was nothing that he found. What I know is that Dana was arrested a few times in like the 90s and early 2000s, mostly for nonviolent offenses.
45:13Though in 1996, he was arrested for battery on a woman who he'd had a child with four years earlier. He was found guilty, but walked out free with time served. After that, he moved out of Indiana, got married, had more kids, grandchildren even, and then started working as a custodian at the University of Missouri.
45:32Ashley Flowers:And what does his family say? Well, so he's got a big family. Dana is the youngest of 10 children. Nicole was able to speak to his mom, Jesse, and then two of his sisters, Denise and Yvette. And when they heard about Dana being charged, they said they were completely shocked. They had never heard of Dana doing anything like that before or being violent towards anyone. And they also said they had never heard of Carmen until Dana was arrested. What about the siblings who lived in the apartment complex with him? Did they see him that night? So there were actually four Shepard children that lived there in total.
46:04They all had separate units, though. The brother that Dana was closest to didn't want to talk to us for this episode. But Denise, she was one of the ones who lived there. She told Nicole that she doesn't remember seeing Dana or Carmen that night or hearing anything out of the ordinary at all. She said to her knowledge, Dana didn't use drugs and said that she doesn't think that he could be capable of something like Carmen's attack. And I only mentioned the drug thing because the attack at the time, it was so brutal that they've kind of always assumed that whoever killed her was on drugs. But, I mean, they also thought Carmen knew her killer, so maybe the drug thing was wrong, too.
46:40Dana's mom just reiterated everything that his sister said, and it seems like they believe he's innocent. I mean, have any of them asked him about it, like straight up? They have been talking to him in jail over the phone, but they said that they don't talk about the case. And we tried reaching out to Dana's attorney for comment, whether they, you know, let us talk to him or the attorney would say something. But as of this recording, we haven't heard back from him or his attorney. After almost 33 years, Carmen's family is the closest that they have ever been to getting closure. But Pam says that strangely, with all that's happening in the media and in the courts, she has felt farther from her sister lately.
47:17Almost like her memory has become her murder. So recently, she's been trying to reconnect with Carmen the person rather than Carmen the case. And she does this by reading her diary entries and looking back on photos that they have together. And to make sure that no other families have to endure the pain of waiting for answers that feel like they're never going to come, Pam is actually working to get a bill passed in Carmen's honor that will create a formal process in Indiana for families, not just law enforcement, to request advanced DNA testing in their loved one's cold cases. So what you just heard was right around where we ended our original episode.
47:58And now I'm hopping in with two major updates. First and foremost, if you follow us on social media, you know that we were all set to cover this trial in person when less than a week before the jury selection was slated to begin in a move that no one saw coming, Dana Shepard decided to take a plea deal. On January 23rd of this year, 2026, our reporter Nicole was in the courtroom when Dana pled guilty to one count of murder and was sentenced to 45 years at the Indiana Department of Corrections. While handing down the sentence, the presiding judge actually said, this case, Carmen's case, was the worst he's seen.
48:40Now, what this plea deal means is that Dana accepted responsibility for Carmen's murder in the eyes of the law. But per the agreement reached with the state, the second murder charge and the charge of rape with a deadly weapon were both dropped. The plea also means that Dana doesn't have to ever get on the stand or make his case for what exactly happened on March 23, 1993, which still leaves us and more importantly, Carmen's family with a lot of unanswered questions. They told us it's sort of bittersweet. In a statement, Carmen's sister Pam said, While this plea deal was not our first choice, we are grateful that after 33 years, the man responsible for Carmen's brutal rape and murder is finally being held accountable.
49:29For decades, the perpetrator was able to live a normal life after taking that right away from Carmen and from our family. Nothing can undo that loss or erase the injustice of him living freely for so long, but we are thankful that the truth has finally come to light and that he has not escaped justice. That justice is what has been fueling Pam. Justice for Carmen and justice for other families who are in the same position she was. Which brings me to update number two. That bill that Pam was working on to expand access to advanced DNA testing for cold cases, Carmen's law, It was passed unanimously by the Indiana State Senate.
50:09And in March, it was signed into law by the governor. That means that there will now be an established framework for private funding of advanced DNA testing in all cases that have gone unsolved for five or more years. And it's due to the tireless efforts of Carmen's sister, Pam, who championed this bill not only on behalf of her sister, but also for all of the other families out there who will no longer have to feel powerless like her and her family did for so long. We are going to link to more information about this bill and all of the source material for this episode on our website, CrimeJunkie.com.
50:48And be the first to know about updates in any of the cases we've covered by following us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast. And you guys, we will be back next week with a brand new episode.
51:40Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. I think Chuck would approve. Whoa!
From the publisher
On March 23, 1993, screams tore through the thin walls of a gated Indianapolis apartment complex as 19-year-old Carmen Van Huss fought for her life. Neighbors heard the attack, but no one called 911. Carmen was assaulted, mutilated, and killed. For decades, her murder remained unsolved – until a relentless investigator identified a suspect. And after more than 30 years, Carmen’s family finally saw justice.
Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit: https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/murdered-carmen-van-huss/
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