Fan Favorite - "The Shadow in the Doorway"

0:00Today's episode is a fan favorite. The audio and the story has been remastered for today's episode.

0:30the covers up tight around her chin, and looks straight down towards the crack in the door, out into the hallway. A moment later, she saw the outline of a person standing right outside her room. She squinted, trying to make out a face, wondering if maybe it was one of her parents checking in on her. But as quick as the shadow appeared, it vanished into thin air. And then a moment later, the little girl heard a loud bang. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.

1:05So if that's of interest to you, please replace the Follow Buttons hairspray with bear repellent. Okay, let's get into today's story.

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2:36On the evening of February 7, 2008, 36-year-old Ben Oxley pulled his truck into the parking lot at the Douglas County Fairgrounds, located near the town of Minden, Nevada, a half an hour east of Lake Tahoe. He killed the engine and then zipped up his jacket. racing for the windy, cold weather outside. Ben glanced in his rearview mirror and he saw his six-year-old daughter Alyssa sitting in the back seat. She was bundled up in her winter jacket and she was grinning ear to ear. Alyssa had been looking forward to this night for weeks. It was the annual pre-Valentine's Day father-daughter dance where dads brought their daughters to the local fairgrounds for a night of dancing and candy.

3:15Ever since Ben and his wife Melissa took Alyssa out shopping for a fancy new dress for this occasion, the dance had become all she could talk about. And Ben had been excited too. He jumped at basically any chance to make special memories with his daughter, especially given the trauma that she had endured over the past few years. He felt a pang of guilt just thinking about it. Ben's relationship with Alyssa's mother, Dawn, had always been rocky. They were divorced, but during their marriage and after, they had fought constantly. They had also both cheated on each other. Ben was short-tempered and angry while they were together, and even though they had broken up when Alyssa was just a toddler, he feared that relationship and its fallout had done lasting damage.

3:56They had shared custody of Alyssa for a while, but Don was a drinker, and Ben suspected she was also using other drugs. She also brought sketchy people home with her, and she was always broke with a hundred excuses about why she couldn't hold a job. Ben felt like Don always blamed everybody else for all her problems. which was yet another thing that just drove him crazy. So a few years ago, he decided to just file for sole custody of Alyssa. It had been a very ugly court battle, but the judge ultimately ruled in his favor. And so Ben, after taking custody of Alyssa, had worked hard to make her life as stable as possible, even though he knew, you know, every other weekend his daughter would go and see Dawn, and he really had no control over how that interaction went.

4:38But for now, Ben just pushed the thought of his ex-wife out of his head, and he stepped out of his truck. Then he opened up the passenger door and held his hand out for Alyssa, helping her climb out of the truck without getting dust on her brand new beautiful dress. The father and daughter followed the sound of the loud music across the parking lot and into the fairgrounds event building. Once inside, they found a very crowded party. Alyssa immediately saw a few friends waving at her from the dance floor, and so Ben helped her out of her winter coat and then watched as she went running across the room to say hello.

5:10Ben smiled to himself. He knew the drill with these father-daughter dances. Alyssa would run around with her friends for a few hours before eventually, right at the end, finding him for just the final dance of the night. That was it. But even though he really didn't see his daughter much during this dance, for him, as long as Alyssa was happy, he was happy. And in fact, Alyssa really did seem to be doing quite well these days. I mean, during the custody battle, she was very unhappy. And then initially, when Ben had begun dating his current wife, Melissa, Alyssa was, you know, she was two years old, but she just didn't really like Melissa.

5:43But eventually she had adjusted to her and seemed to really like her. And, you know, when he and Melissa got married a little over a year ago, nobody was happier about it than Alyssa, which had been a huge relief. And so now he's looking out, seeing his daughter, and it just seemed like she was super well-adjusted and living her best life. And so Ben made his way over to the snack table and poured himself a glass of punch. Then he wandered over to a table full of other dads, and he sat down in one of the folding chairs and started chatting. A few hours later, the DJ came over the speaker and announced that it was going to be the last song of the night.

6:16And sure enough, Alyssa came running around the corner to find her dad. Ben took his daughter out onto the dance floor and twirled her around as the first notes of a song called Butterfly Kisses came on, which just so happened to be their special song. Ben tried his best to soak in every second of the dance. It had been a long road to get to a night like this.

6:39A couple weeks later, on the evening of Wednesday, February 20th, Ben cleared dinner plates from the dining room table while his daughter Alyssa, his wife Melissa, and Melissa's teenage brother Craig sat down in the living room to watch a movie. Craig had come to live with them a few weeks ago. His mother's new boyfriend had moved into his house, and Craig didn't like the boyfriend very much, so here he was. And for the most part, Craig fit right in, so his presence in the house really was not a big deal. Grocery bills had gotten more expensive, and the house was definitely more crowded, but these were minor inconveniences, and Ben was happy to give Craig a comfortable place to live.

7:15Ben set the dinner dishes in the sink, grabbed a bag of candy, and made his way into the living room where he sat down beside his wife. She had the movie queued up, and she rested her head on his shoulder and then hit play. And within minutes, Ben heard a quiet snore and knew that Melissa had fallen asleep. Ben passed the candy bag over to Craig and Alyssa for them to share, and then the family settled in for the movie. By the time it was over, only Ben and his daughter were the ones left awake. Ben sent Alyssa off to brush her teeth, then slowly he got up from the couch, trying hard not to wake up his wife.

7:48He guided her head down onto a pillow and then grabbed a blanket and put it over her. Craig was asleep on the other end of the couch, so Ben threw a blanket on him too. Then he turned off the TV and quietly made his way to the back of the house to tuck his daughter into bed.

8:04A few hours later, Ben's wife Melissa woke up in a panic, feeling totally disoriented and convinced she was late for work. It took her a minute to even realize she was on the couch in her living room, and then she looked up at the clock above the mantle and saw it was only 2.30 in the morning. And so she realized she must have fallen asleep during the movie again. She looked down at the other end of the couch and saw there was just a crumpled blanket where Craig must have been sitting. He must have fallen asleep too, but at some point before her, woke up and went to his own bed. Melissa rolled off the couch and then headed to the back bedroom where she crawled into bed next to Ben, who was already fast asleep.

8:42And it felt like she had only just dozed off when suddenly there was this ear-splitting loud bang that ripped her from her sleep. Her ears were ringing and she was totally disoriented. She had no idea what it was. And so confused, she rolled over and tried to shake Ben awake, but he was fast asleep. And so she just pulled herself out of bed and went to go investigate the noise herself. As she walked out into the hall, she looked over at the nightstand and saw the clock said 3.30 a.m. So she'd only been asleep for maybe an hour. Once she was out in the hallway, she began walking around looking for Craig or Alyssa, but the house seemed empty.

9:18But at the end of the hallway, she felt this rush of cold wind, and she looked up and saw the front door was wide open, letting all the winter air blow in. And at that point, Melissa froze. Someone clearly had been inside their home. Terrified, she turned around and ran back to the back bedroom. She flipped on the light and was about to tell Ben to wake up, somebody's broken in, when she stopped. Because now with the lights on she could see, the bed sheets were soaked with blood.

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13:28Melissa called 911, and within minutes, two officers from the Douglas County Sheriff's Department pulled up in front of their home, which was a ranch out in rural Nevada. The officers stepped out of the cruiser with their guns drawn. They knew they were about to walk into an active crime scene, and there was a chance the perpetrator could still be on the premises. One officer pointed his flashlight and gun towards the house, illuminating the front door, which was wide open. He looked over at his partner. Dispatch had told them backup was on the way, but there was also an injured man inside this house.

14:00They couldn't wait for more officers to get here. They had to act now. So they moved towards the house. Once inside, they entered the living room, and it was dark, and there was no one in there. They turned into the hallway and made their way down until they stopped outside of a closed door on their immediate right. One of the officers let it swing open. They looked inside and shined their flashlights, and they could see it was a bedroom. In the beam of one of their flashlights, they could see that there was somebody hiding beneath a pile of covers on the bed. The officers shouted out, Police!

14:31And ordered the person to come out with their hands up. But the bundle of covers didn't move. The officers then heard ragged breathing coming from beneath the blankets. Slowly, they approached the bed and yanked off the covers, and a teenage boy whipped his hands into the air, visibly shaking as he screamed out that his name was Craig Nichols and he lived here. One of the officers told Craig to stay put. Then he told his partner to stay with Craig as he continued to go search the rest of the house. Back out in the hallway, that officer was about to continue his scan of the property when he turned and he nearly fell over when he saw this woman come barging out of a back bedroom, soaked in blood, and she was holding hands with this little girl who was sopping to herself.

15:12The woman looked completely panicked, and she turned and saw the officer, and she could barely speak, but she just said, my husband's in there, pointing to the bedroom, and she said he's badly injured. The officer nodded and realized this must be the woman who called 911, and so he rushed past her and the little girl and made his way into the back bedroom. But the second he looked down onto that bed, he knew this woman's husband was not just badly injured. This man was dead.

15:3915 minutes later, Sergeant Ron Elges of the Douglas County Sheriff's Department stepped through the door of the small ranch home, which was now lit up outside with blue and red police lights, and inside with every light switch in the house flipped on. Crime scene techs were beginning to file in, and uniformed officers outside were keeping all the neighbors back. One of the first responding officers came to meet Sergeant Elges in the kitchen. He told him that a man named Ben Oxley was the deceased man in the back bedroom. He'd been shot in the head while he was asleep next to his wife, Melissa, who had called 911.

16:12When the responding officer and his partner arrived, he said the front door of the house was wide open, and the only people inside the house were Melissa, her 16-year-old brother Craig, and her 6-year-old stepdaughter. And none of them said they saw or heard anything except for the six-year-old. She said that she had heard floorboards creaking and had seen a shadow. The officer also said there was no sign of forced entry and nothing appeared to have been stolen. Elgis nodded and thanked the officer for the info. Then he strode down the hallway to the back bedroom. Ben's body was still on the bed.

16:46Elgis stepped closer to get a better look at the blood spatter on the sheets, and he noticed little pellets scattered all across the bed, which he immediately recognized as the remnants of a shotgun blast. But beyond the bed being just a grisly mess, nothing else in the bedroom was out of place. The killer had clearly snuck into the bedroom, taken their shot, and fled. Elgis left the bedroom and went over to where Melissa was sitting on the couch in the living room, draped in a blanket and crying. The little girl was sitting next to her, looking terrified and confused. Elgis wanted to speak to Melissa, But before he did, just by looking at her, he noticed something strange.

17:24Melissa had said she had been asleep next to Ben when he was killed. But she had no injuries. Despite the fact that shotgun pellets had clearly sprayed across the bed. I mean, a shotgun is more of an area weapon. It fires in more than one direction. And interestingly, there really wasn't any blood spatter on her. Not on her face, not on her clothes. You know, she's laying next to her husband when he's shot with a shotgun. you would think blood would spatter all over her. And she did have blood on her, quite a bit, on her hands and arms, but it looked like it got there from her touching her husband after the fact.

17:58Just then, an investigator tapped Elges on the shoulder and let him know that they had found shotgun shells on a dresser in Craig's bedroom, as well as two actual shotguns in the garage, and that Craig, the 16-year-old, had said they were his. Elges glanced down at Melissa again, and then over towards Craig, who was sitting on his bed talking to an investigator. Then he looked at Alyssa, and he saw she was crying. As far as he was concerned, this little girl was the only certain victim here this evening. Melissa and Craig, on the other hand, he wasn't so sure. To him, this was clearly a murder committed by someone who knew Ben.

18:33After all, there was no attempt to rob the place, no sign of forced entry either, which meant whoever shot Ben either had access to the house or was already inside. Before leaving, Elgis asked some of the officers to canvass the neighborhood to see if anybody had seen or heard anything suspicious. And then he told Craig and Melissa to get themselves organized because when they were ready, he wanted to seat them down at the station for questioning.

19:02An hour later, Elgis walked into an interview room at the Douglas County Sheriff's Department. Melissa was already sitting at a table waiting for him. Her face was red and puffy, and she was disheveled. She looked very distraught, and the moment she laid eyes on Elges, she just started bawling. Elges sat down in a chair next to her and pressed record on the tape player between them on the table. Then he told Melissa that he understood how difficult his request was going to be, but he needed her to walk him through what happened that night, step by step. And he needed to get her whole story on tape, because he needed to clear her as a suspect.

19:37Melissa gasped and grabbed a tissue from the box on the interview table. It seemed like the idea of her being a suspect had sent her into a new wave of sadness, and it took her a few minutes before she was calm enough to even speak. When she finally began rehashing all the details of the night, her voice was very shaky, and Elgis couldn't help but feel like her grief seemed very sincere. But it was also hard to ignore the fact that if she was lying next to her husband when he was shot, she really should have had blood spatter all over her. And she should have been hurt by at least one or two of the shotgun pellets.

20:11And yet she had walked away with virtually no blood spatter and unhurt. And so Elgis actually brought this up to Melissa. He said, I think it's odd that these things are not here. And he watched for any signs of defensiveness in her response. But Melissa just shrugged and agreed that yeah, it was strange. She must have just gotten very lucky or something. Elges nodded, but he was not necessarily convinced, and so he changed tactics and he asked Melissa whether she knew if Ben had any enemies who might want to hurt him. Melissa sighed and explained that Alyssa's mother, Dawn, was a total nightmare, and she had some awful friends that Ben had fought with her about.

20:50Melissa said she and Ben barely let Alyssa spend any time at Dawn's house because Dawn's general lifestyle felt literally too dangerous for a small girl to be around. That information piqued Elges' interest, and so he knew one of his very next steps was going to be tracking down and speaking with Don. If Melissa was painting an accurate picture of her, Don could be a viable suspect. At that point, Elges stopped the tape recorder and told Melissa to hang tight. He might have other questions as the morning unfolded. Melissa nodded and took another tissue. Back in the hallway, an officer waved Elges down and handed him a report.

21:27Forensics had done a preliminary analysis of the shotgun pellets that they'd collected from the scene, and they were a match for number eight birdshot shells, which was the exact kind of shells that had been found in Craig's room. Elgis raised his eyebrows, then he thanked the officer and walked straight into the interview room next to Melissa's. This is where Craig was waiting. And only 15 minutes into the interview with Craig, Elgis was even more suspicious of Craig. He answered every question with unnerving calm, like this was just a casual conversation, not an interview about a murder case.

22:02And so at some point, Elgis just asked him point blank, did he kill Ben Oxley? Craig was quick to say no, and so Elgis asked him if he would submit to a polygraph test. Craig said, of course, whatever he could do to help. But he still looked weirdly calm. That is, until Elgis stood up to go arrange for this lie detector test, at which point, Craig's face suddenly crumpled and a loud sob escaped his mouth, and he burst into tears. The sudden flip of emotions really caught Elgis off guard, and instinctively, he walked over and offered Craig a tissue. Now, Elgis was not about to dismiss Craig as a suspect, just because now he seemed to be having a more natural reaction to the death of a family member, especially when you considered the fact that there were number 8 shells found in Craig's room, the same type that were used to kill Ben.