Up next,
she answers a knock at her door
and pays with her life.
There was a ton of blood.
I was very, very upset
about the entire situation.
No one knows why this
victim has been targeted for death.
It didn't look like this
was a random act.
The only solid evidence?
A couple of shell casings.
They recovered two fired
Is this enough
to solve a m*rder?
The answer comes years later,
after a seemingly unrelated
road rage incident
a hundred miles away.
I was shocked.
I didn't know that this type
of technology existed.
A*F Agent Butler calls me
and tells me
that they have a positive hit
on our cartridge.
I couldn't believe it.
I was ecstatic.
Close to the border
of the United States and Canada,
the town of Hope, Idaho,
was the ideal place
for Daryl and Shirley Ramey
to raise their family.
The marriage, that ultimately
resulted in two children,
two grandchildren, and two
great-grandchildren,
was an old-school romance that
came about completely by chance.
Oh, she was a good-looking gal. She...
I was working up
at Bonners Ferry at the time,
and a friend there was
working with me.
He says, "Hey, I know where
we can go to a dance."
And that's where I met my wife,
was out there.
And I courted her for about nine
months before we got married.
In this area, g*ns are
nearly as commonplace as cars.
Most locals get familiar
with g*n safety
practically from birth,
and incidents
of g*n v*olence
are few and far between.
It doesn't hurt that
the population density...
about 25 people
per square mile...
is among the lowest
in the country.
Most of the patrol areas
that we cover are in dirt roads.
Very rural.
You get directions by going
towards the end of the road,
and there's a big cedar tree
with a "Y,"
and you may turn right and go
to down this road or that road.
After happy
and successful careers,
Daryl and Shirley settled into
a well-deserved retirement.
On the afternoon of April 5,
to play cards with old friends
at the local senior center.
I asked her what she wanted
to do for dinner that night,
Being Friday night,
a lot of times, we went out,
and she said,
"Well, why don't you bring
home a bacon cheeseburger?"
So after cards, I went over
to the restaurant
and bought the bacon
cheeseburger and come home.
Daryl got back about 5:00.
As he walked up to the house,
he saw a sliding glass door
was wide open.
He wondered why.
It was cold outside.
As he stepped into the house,
he got the answer.
When I come home, she was
laying there on the floor.
She was laying in a pool
of blood,
and I just said, "Oh, my God.
Oh, my God."
Police and paramedics
arrive to find a m*rder
not often seen in rural Idaho.
Shirley Ramey
had been sh*t twice
at nearly point-blank range.
There was no forced entry.
At first glance,
it appeared nothing
had been stolen from the house.
It was a m*rder with
no apparent motive.
After all, who could
possibly have a reason
to carry out
an execution-style hit
on a 78-year-old
great-grandmother?
It was very, very strange.
Shirley was an elderly lady.
She was well-liked
in the community.
It didn't make
a whole lot of sense.
We didn't have
any enemies, especially Shirley.
She didn't have anybody
that she didn't like, you know,
and it's the same way with me.
I don't have any enemies, and I
couldn't figure out who it was.
Neither could law enforcement.
This m*rder had
no apparent motive,
no eyewitnesses,
and very little evidence.
As the shock
of Shirley Ramey's m*rder
rippled across her
rural Idaho community,
homicide investigators
were faced with a crime scene
nearly devoid
of useful information.
The crime scene appeared
to be very neat, orderly.
It did not have the appearance
that there had been
a rummaging through,
as you oftentimes would see
in a home invasion,
a burglary, a robbery.
There was nothing
that was astray.
The only thing
apparently missing from the house
was an old hunting r*fle,
a .308 caliber.
And this definitely was not
the m*rder w*apon.
Analysts knew this because
about the only solid information
at the scene
were two shell casings found
just feet from Shirley's body.
Those shell casings
were both 9mm,
semi-auto shell casings
with an "RP" stamped on them,
Remington Peters.
They had primer strikes
that we recognized
consistent with Glock.
Most g*ns use
a round f*ring pin.
A Glock uses more of
a triangular-shaped f*ring pin.
As for the k*ller
being someone Shirley knew,
given the lack of forced entry
and the absence of a struggle,
that seemed possible,
even likely.
But her husband, Daryl,
with a solid alibi,
was immediately written off
as a potential suspect.
In fact, the Rameys
were well-known
to local law enforcement
for all of the right reasons
and none of the wrong ones.
I knew Shirley and Daryl personally,
as we attended community events
in Hope and East Hope.
Another clue
leading investigators
to believe Shirley
might have known her k*ller
was the remote location
of her house.
The Rameys lived on
Trestle Creek Road.
It's only accessible for part
of the year by automobile.
A lot of the winter
and into the spring,
it is snowmobile only.
So there are very few residences
up that road.
There are not a lot
of people live up there.
We live right in a canyon.
Not a lot of property
to develop in there.
The area saw
so little human traffic
that some fresh shoe prints
at the scene
became crucial evidence.
We have more than four seasons
here in North Idaho,
and one of them is mud season.
And so, we did identify footprints.
It looked like
it was a set of tennis shoes,
but the ground was too moist
and unable for us
to do any castings.
The prints
led to a camping trailer
about a half-mile
from the Ramey's house.
There was a vagrant living in
a small trailer house below me.
He was living in
kind of a rudimentary trailer
without, you know, electricity
and plumbing
and creature comforts.
He's not unusual in the sense
that people here in North Idaho
can tend to be
living off the grid.
They live in a manner
that perhaps other people
in other parts of the country
don't really understand.
This person... Daryl Ramey
said he'd never met him...
was identified
as 41 year-old Nathan Utt.
Nathan Utt had a lot
of brush-ins with the law.
He suffered from schizophrenia,
and he had a record of stalking,
of sort of harassing people.
Nathan Utt,
who was hearing-impaired,
wasn't at his trailer.
But someone had been there recently.
And that someone had
apparently fired a g*n.
We noticed that
there were b*llet holes
that were caused from a g*n
sh**ting from the outside in.
And all of the holes
were identified
from coming and being sh*t
from the roadway.
Trajectory analysis
and standard ballistic tests
showed these b*llet holes
were fresh
from right around the time
Shirley Ramey was sh*t.
We found two more shell casings
that matched the 9mm
"RP" head stamp
alongside the road,
consistent with a location
that could have caused
the two b*llet holes
in Nathan Utt's trailer.
So where was Nathan Utt?
And was he a k*ller?
Or possibly a victim himself?
When Nathan Utt
emerged as a potential suspect
in the m*rder of Shirley Ramey,
detectives learned he had
no prior contact
with the Ramey family.
And although he didn't own
a g*n, he had access to one.
We had talked to
some of his friends,
and they had said
that he was present
when some of his friends
had come over to his trailer
and were sh**ting a 9mm.
Now detectives got a surprise.
They were contacted by
Nathan Utt's brother,
who told them a shocking story.
Nathan was talking
about k*lling people,
or in an animated gesturing.
Again, because Nathan is deaf,
communication is done through,
largely, a combination
of sign language and verbiage.
But Nathan had been in a bar
talking about k*lling two people
or sh**ting several people.
This was not some rumor
that got blown out of proportion.
Nathan Utt's threatening
conversation with his brother
was caught on camera.
There was a tape
from the restaurant.
The investigators were actually
able to secure that tape.
And from the tape,
it was clear Nathan Utt
was making wild arm gestures.
It was clear that
his brother's statement
was verified by the tape.
He made the motion
of "bang, bang"
during that conversation.
And we had some real concerns
that may implicate him
of following through
with those threats
and maybe being responsible
for sh**ting and k*lling
Shirley Ramey.
Investigators in Bonner County
are looking for this man,
He's considered to be armed
and dangerous
and wanted for m*rder of
an elderly woman in Sandpoint.
Media all over
the Pacific Northwest
was given Nathan Utt's
description.
He was soon located
on a commuter train.
The U.S. Marshals
were able to find Mr. Utt
and ultimately arrest him
as he was returning to Idaho
from Portland, Oregon,
on Amtrak.
Nathan Utt told
investigators he was returning home
after checking himself in
to a mental-health facility
in Oregon.
He said he had nothing to do
with Shirley Ramey's m*rder
and could prove it.
Numerous people had seen him
during the time she was sh*t.
His thr*at to k*ll someone
was just idle talk.
I was extremely surprised
that Mr. Utt had a valid alibi.
I certainly believed that he
had committed this homicide.
And within an hour of him giving
that interview to investigators,
I was able to get him
out of jail.
Soon, the story of
this bizarre unsolved m*rder
came to the attention
of A*F Agent James Butler,
who thought the A*F could help.
A*F is not in the business
of investigating homicides,
but what we can do
is provide other assistance
to law enforcement agencies
to assist with their cases.
In 2020,
nearly 8 in 10 of the murders
committed in America
involved a firearm.
All those g*ns
and the b*ll*ts used in them
are a rich source of evidence.
The A*F's National Integrated
Ballistic Information Network,
or NIBIN, uses a machine
called BrassTrax
to take three-dimensional scans
of the millions
of brass cartridge casings
recovered from crime scenes
or from confiscated weapons
that were later test-fired.
Those images allow investigators
to compare markings
on vast numbers
of cartridge cases
with extraordinary speed.
Within 24 to 48 hours
of a sh**ting scene,
they have the ability to
recover cartridge cases
from a sh**ting scene
and identify whether the firearm
that fired those recently
recovered cartridge cases
has left any other
cartridge cases
that were acquired into NIBIN.
The casings from the
m*rder of Shirley Ramey were entered.
To the consternation
of investigators,
there were no matches.
But that didn't mean
the search was over.
In fact, in a roundabout way,
this search uncovered
the surprise connection
that ultimately solved
the mystery
of who sh*t Shirley Ramey.
I was ecstatic.
This is the first real lead
that we've had
during the entire case,
and it just got better
from there.
To find out
who k*lled Shirley Ramey,
detectives wanted to locate
the m*rder w*apon,
a Glock 9mm handgun.
But all they had
were shell casings
found near Shirley's body.
The A*F's NIBIN system, which
tracks shell casings recovered
from crime scenes,
turned up no matches.
So A*F Agent James Butler
took a chance.
He reached out to regional law
enforcement with a question...
Did anyone have a Glock 9mm
used in a crime
that had not yet
been test-fired?
I would continually ask that
if you have a 9mm
in your custody,
can we test-fire that so that
we can place that into NIBIN?
I didn't get any more specific
than that.
And that went on
for numerous months.
It turned out that
police in Lincoln County, Montana,
about 100 miles from
Shirley Ramey's unsolved m*rder
in Idaho,
had a Glock 9mm
in their evidence vault.
And now investigators in Idaho
got an incredible bit
of information
about that g*n
and about their unsolved m*rder.
That g*n had been picked up
several hours before
we even knew we had a homicide.
This Glock 9mm
belonged to a 57-year-old woman
named Judith Carpenter.
She used that g*n
to thr*aten a couple
during a road-rage incident
in the town of Libby, Montana.
The authorities were called,
and the Libby Police Department
arrested Judy Carpenter
for aggravated as*ault.
This happened just
hours after Shirley Ramey's m*rder.
On the afternoon
of this road-rage incident,
responding officer
Sergeant Bo Pitman
found more than a Glock 9mm
on Judith Carpenter.
She also had a .308-caliber
hunting r*fle in her car.
Pitman wanted to know,
why was this woman
packing so much firepower?
She told me that while she was
traveling down Highway 200,
she pulled off to urinate.
And when she'd pulled off
the road,
she found the r*fle
on the side of the road.
This didn't make a lot of sense.
Judith Carpenter was brought in
for questioning.
Judith Carpenter
was highly paranoid.
You could also mix in
some confusion
when she was trying
to explain her whereabouts
over the last couple of days.
I thought she was deliberately
being dishonest with me.
In a bizarre turn of events,
this interrogation about Judith
Carpenter's road-rage incident
happened on the very afternoon
of Shirley Ramey's m*rder.
But detectives on Shirley's case
didn't see this tape
until two years later.
Huh?
Following my interview,
I concluded
that she did commit the crime
of as*ault with a w*apon,
but she also had
mental health issues.
So I had her booked
into our jail.
And I also requested
a mental-health evaluation
to be conducted.
Judith Carpenter spent
several court-appointed weeks
being treated
for mental health issues
and was ultimately released.
But her Glock 9mm
remained in custody.
At the time, there was no reason
for police in Montana
to make a connection between
Judith's road-rage incident
and a m*rder in Idaho.
But now, a possible connection
had been made.
Could Judith Carpenter
be a k*ller?
Could the g*n she was carrying
tell the story?
That would turn out to be
the linchpin of this case.
The 9mm Glock was test-fired
and put into NIBIN,
and, lo and behold,
it came back as the g*n
that was utilized
in the Shirley Ramey case.
I was so excited.
It was a total match to the g*n
that was used
in the Ramey homicide.
How all this ended up in m*rder
is a story
that defies explanation.
Investigators say it appears
that Judith Carpenter,
in the midst of
a full-blown mental crisis,
had been driving
hundreds of miles
and simply had to go
to the bathroom.
She knocked on the door
of Shirley Ramey's house,
which just happened to be
the first one she came upon.
Shirley, faced with
a visibly unwell stranger,
who might have had
a g*n in her hand,
refused to let
Judith Carpenter in.
Judith responded by
fatally sh**ting Shirley.
While going through the house,
Judith saw the Rameys'
As she was driving away,
for reasons no one can explain,
she fired two sh*ts
into Nathan Utt's trailer.
Four hours later,
she was arrested in Montana
for using her Glock 9mm
in a road-rage incident
and was eventually exposed
as Shirley Ramey's k*ller.
To this day, Judith Carpenter
claims no memory
of what happened.
In 2021, she pleaded guilty
to second-degree m*rder
and got 15 years to life
in prison.
I was at the sentencing.
I told her that...
I didn't really have
any ill feelings toward her
and I hope that, you know,
the Lord will come
and take care of her body
and her mind.
This was...
I hope it does happen someday.
And I hope
to take care of me, too.
The Lord has been good to me.
Investigators freely admit that
the k*ller in this case
almost walked free.
But new forensic technology
and an old-fashioned commitment
to leaving no stone unturned
combined to tell
the bizarre story
of what happened
to Shirley Ramey
that April afternoon.
To me, this case
is an excellent example
of what can happen when
multiple agencies come together,
work together, and each fulfill
their duties flawlessly.
We were able to take
those two shell casings,
and we were able to link them to
the m*rder*r of Shirley Ramey.
The forensic evidence
in this case was essential.
Without the forensic evidence,
without the g*n being test-fired
and put in the NIBIN system
in Montana,
this case would not be solved today.