Cold Case Closed From Hospital Bed After Nearly 60 Years

(TotalConservative.com) – A cold case in Ohio that has remained unsolved for nearly sixty years was finally closed after a witness came forward while hospitalized, fearing his death was imminent, admitting to witnessing the murder and identifying the suspect.

On Saturday, March 30, the 1964 cold case of homicide victim Daisy Evelyn Shelton was closed after several decades. The 43-year-old from Dayton was killed and dismembered sixty years ago, her remains scattered over several different locations, according to a statement by the Miami County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO).

The first discovery of Shelton’s body was made by a fisherman in Tipp City who snagged an arm out of a gravel pit in June 1964. Four days later, in a channel of the Miami Erie canal, another fisherman discovered Shelton’s torso in a burlap sack. After a search began, law enforcement eventually recovered her head in the canal, as well as one of her legs.

MCSO said the investigation hit a dead end and remained cold until a witness came forward in 2017, fearing he was close to death. The witness confessed to a nurse that he witnessed the murder, after which he survived and was eventually interviewed by detectives. The witness claims he witnessed Shelton bludgeoned to death in a home and said her body was subsequently cut into pieces and scattered across different bodies of water in the area of Tipp City.

Neither the witness nor the suspect who was identified was named in the MCSO statement, which said the suspect had been interviewed multiple times, initially denying that he knew Shelton but eventually admitting to knowing the victim, who used to work for the same employer and lived on the same street as the suspect. He also claimed the witness was trying to set him up while admitting he, indeed, “looked guilty” and would most likely “be convicted in court.”

The witness gave testimony to a Grand Jury but died before the prosecution began. In September 2022, the suspect died at the age of 92. A third suspect was also implicated in Selton’s murder.

Shelton’s granddaughter, Maria Walling, reflected on the murder and told WHIO TV that it was “shocking” to her that any human “can do that to another.”