11x26 - Ring Him Up

[bunniefuu]

For 10 years, the
disappearance of a college

co-ed was a mystery, until
new scientific testing cast

a different light on a man who
had been a suspect all along.

After immigrating from
Cuba as a young man,

Luis Melendi and his
wife Yvonne wanted

a better life for
their children.

So they stressed the
importance of education.

Their 19-year-old
daughter Shannon

shared those dreams and planned
to pursue a legal career.

- Shannon would light up a room.

She was just unbelievable.

Her presence was felt
when she came into a room.

- She was every mother
or father's dream child.

She was outstanding
in whatever she did.

She approached everything
in life with gusto.

President of her class
at Miami Southwest High School,

Shannon graduated
cum laude, and was

a member of the
National Honor Society.

After high school she attended
Emory University in Atlanta,

- She knew exactly
what she wanted.

And she was going for it.

- Her first two years there were
uneventful until March of 1994,

when she suddenly
disappeared without a trace.

- Basically we had a


who dropped off the
face of the earth.

Completely disappeared.

On the day Shannon vanished,

she worked at a softball
tournament to earn extra money.

- She kept score
during morning games

for the first time in her life.

They broke for lunch.

She was seen leaving
the field and was

never seen or heard from again.

- A friend of my
sister-in-law's came up

to tell him that
Shannon was missing.

And my husband
fell to the ground

and he said we'll
never see her again.

When the local police
department learned of Shannon's

disappearance, they initially
thought it was a college prank.

- For days and days
and days, the attitude

was, this is college
girls gone wild.

Shannon has just come back from
a great spring break vacation.

She's met lots of
new guys and girls.

She's probably just hanging
out with one of them.

Shannon's college
roommate found Shannon's car

the next day, abandoned at a
local gas station with the keys

still inside.

Police told her to
drive it back to campus.

- So that car was never,
ever treated as evidence

until many days after
Shannon's disappearance.

Many days in which a number
of people were in that car.

Many days after a number
of people drove that car.


Shannon's disappearance,

school officials got
a telephone call.

- Male voice called
Emory University

on their hotline number, and
said that he had Shannon,

and that he would
make demands later.

- The man said, I
have Shannon's ring.

I have the ring that
her aunt gave her.

Shannon is OK, she misses
her family, and hung up.

- We really thought that Shannon
was still alive at that point.

We were hoping that we
would hear from them again,

but we did not.

The FBI traced
the call to a payphone

about 20 miles away.

They didn't find
any fingerprints.

They did, however,
find a small cloth bag

with Shannon's ring
wrapped in masking tape.

- There was hope.

It was the first time that
maybe we can recover Shannon.

- Please bring us
our daughter back.

Please giver her back to us.

We love you Shannon.

Been missing since March 26...

The Emory University

student was last seen...

Family and
friends can only hope someone

saw what happened...

It's the Melendi family

posted a $10,000 reward...

Friends continue to put

up posters of Shannon's picture.

- I just told going to be OK.

I hope the people that
took her feel guilty

and they just leave her alone.

Police interviewed
everyone at the softball field

where Shannon was last seen.

The club manager said Shannon
worked as a score manager

for an early softball game.

The picture of that game told
police an astonishing story.

- Lord have mercy.

Anybody would have
had to pay attention

to what was going on that day.

It was so bizarre.

Nothing like that
has ever happened

to me in a softball game before.

Chastain said that
the plate umpire couldn't keep

his eyes off of Shannon Melendi.

- I mean, in the
middle of a pitch,

he would physically
turn around, and then

go back and start
talking to this girl.

And here I am in the
middle of a pitch,

and he had the nerve to turn
around and look and go, ball.

I said, How do you know?

You weren't even looking.

Maybe because I
started walking folks.

The plate umpire
was 33-year-old Butch

Hinton, a mechanic
at Delta Airlines.

- He was a charismatic guy.

He taught Sunday school to kids.

He was very active
in his church.

He played sports.

He umpired honestly.

- When questioned
by police, Hinton

admitted speaking
to Shannon that day,

but said he didn't see
her after the game.

He said, he went
directly home and made

several telephone
calls to friends.

A check of his phone
records confirmed his alibi.

- We knew from telephone
records and from speaking

with other people
that Butch had made

telephone calls from his home.

Police also got a search
warrant for Hinton's home,

but found nothing.

And the trail of Shannon's
kidnapper went cold.

It was frustrating
for the police

and especially the family.

- It seems like a lifetime.

I remember things as before
Shannon and after Shannon.

It's like two different people.

I'm not the man I used to be.

- Six months after
Shannon disappeared,

police returned to
Butch Hinton's home.

This time to
investigate a fire that

started upstairs in
one of the bedrooms.

He alleged it was an accident
with a vacuum cleaner.

Then you look at how
the fire started.

It was clearly an arson.

An accelerant was poured
on the floor and ignited.

He made an insurance claim.

Fraud was involved.

While investigating this fire,

police learned something else.

A neighbor told police
that Hinton set a bonfire

in his backyard
six months earlier,

the same night
Shannon disappeared.

- They described
it was very eerie.

They said it was
chilling to them.

Very bizarre.

So investigators searched
Hinton's home again.

This time, they used
a backhoe to excavate

the fire pit in his backyard.

And they discovered
something odd.

Nearly a dozen women's sweaters.

All petite sizes.
- I knew his wife.

I actually went to
high school with her.

And the clothing that I
was finding in the fire pit

was not her size.

It didn't belong to
anybody that lived here.

The Melendi family
did not recognize

any of the sweaters
as Shannon's.

- That is not the norm that
somebody would bury women's

clothing in their
backyard, particularly when

the clothing didn't
belong to their wife.

How do you feel to
have the federal authorities

digging up your yard
and your property?

Hinton denied any
knowledge of these sweaters.

He thought they
might have been left

there by the previous owner.

The police didn't buy it.

- Makes you wonder
who else is there.

Who are we missing?

How many other victims
do we not know about?

The FBI's forensic
science unit in Washington, DC

didn't find blood or any
other forensic evidence

on the sweaters.

Also in the fire pit,
police found wire ties,

cleaning products
and plastic pants

like the ones used by
crime scene investigators.

In Hinton's garage, they
found it nine rolls of tape.

But none of this
pointed to m*rder.

- I was in touch with Clint van
Zandt, who was an FBI profiler.

And him and I got very close,
and he told me a lot of things

that I wouldn't tell my family.

He assured me that Shannon
was m*rder*d by Butch Hinton,

very early.

And I kept that to
myself for a long time.

Butch Hinton did go
on trial for the arson fire

and mail fraud for
sending the false claim

to his insurance company.

He was sentenced to
nine years in prison.

And during that
time, no one heard

from either Shannon
Melendi, or her kidnapper.

For almost a decade,
no one knew what

happened to Shannon Melendi.

Her parents continued
to search for answers,

and they heard plenty of
theories, but no hard proof.

- It is life-changing.

It takes a big toll on everyone.

Takes a toll on your marriage.

Takes a toll on your children.

Friends, family.

We lost a ton of friends.

We had people
point-blank tell us

that they just didn't want to
hear about Shannon anymore.

Because they wanted to
hear about happy things.

Since the
prime suspect was already

in prison for arson, Shannon's
case fell by the wayside.

It was never closed.

Over time, there were
other priorities.

- There were so many
different circumstances

that got in the way of the case.

OJ Simpson was
three months after.

That took a lot from the FBI.

There was Oklahoma.

There was the Centennial Park.

All of those things were
bigger than Shannon's case.

Prosecutors John
Petri and Mike McDaniel

reopened Shannon Melendi's case,
because they were convinced

Butch Hinton was
somehow involved.

- John Petri was one of
those movies you see.

The miracle, the saint comes in.

He was silent for several
seconds, and then he said,

"I've been waiting for 10
years for this phone call."

There was additional
pressure on the prosecutors

since Butch Hinton was
about to be released

from prison for his
arson conviction.

- The FBI sent us boxes
and boxes of file folders.

And I just started
going through them.

Starting with number one.

Using little sticky pads and
notes and highlighters to mark

things that I thought
were either A,

strong points to indicate that
Butch Hinton was guilty, or B,

strong points to indicate
that no, he wasn't.

I had no agenda at that point.

But first, they
needed forensic evidence.

And for that, they started
at the very beginning,

with the bag holding
Shannon's ring, left

by the kidnapper
at the pay phone.

- The ring didn't yield
any results forensically.

There were no fingerprints,
no trace fibers

on it to link anything to.

But the bag was an important
piece of physical evidence

that we had.

Prosecutors
learned that the bag was

manufactured by the
Millheiser Cooperation

- Millheiser had
only one customer

in Georgia that
bought those bags.

That was the Fulton
Paper Company in Atlanta.

Fulton Paper Company had only
one customer for those bags.

That customer was
Delta Airlines.

Coincidentally, Butch Hinton

worked for Delta
Airlines as a mechanic.

Delta employees used
the bags to ship

small engine parts for repair.

During the original
investigation,

police found similar cloth bags
in Butch Hinton's desk at work.

So now, 10 years later,
forensic scientists

compared one of the bags from
Butch Hinton's desk to the bag

found with Shannon's ring.

- We measured the distance
of the warp and weft,

the two directions of the weave.

And we also did a thread count.

Mary Miller
determined both bags were

consistent in
construction and size.

And the weave pattern
was identical as well.

Both drawstrings were
made of the same cotton

polyester microfiber.

Then scientists analyzed
the masking tape

that had been wrapped
around Shannon's ring.

And compared it to
the rolls of tape

confiscated from Butch
Hint's garage years earlier.

- They were consistent
with respect

to the width of the tape,
the adhesive that was used

on the tape, and the
coating surface of the tape.

The non-sticky side.

But on the tape,
wrapped around Shannon's ring,

Miller noticed
something that had

been overlooked years earlier.

Tiny metallic particles,
clearly visible

using an infrared spectrometer.

- It was not a situation
where you can ignore

that these particles
were present.

That took us on
a different path.

So it was really
remarkable to find.

Scientists placed the
samples on a carbon substrate

so they could see them under the
scanning electron microscope.

- We looked at it by
back-scattered electron

imaging.

And in that kind of
imaging, metal particles

stand out very bright
against everything else.

- That indicated to us that
there were elements that

were of a higher atomic
weight, and further

down the periodic table.

In other words,
these particles were unique.

- It was a copper nickel
alloy that I had never

seen in an environmental sample.

A tungsten cobalt
alloy that I've

never seen an
environmental sample.

A little research
identified the origin.

Investigators discovered
that the only industry using

this alloy was the
aerospace industry.

Unbelievably, at the time
of Shannon's disappearance,

Delta Airlines was using this
alloy to coat jet engine parts.

- To find out that those metals
were only to be found in a jet

engine aircraft manufacturing
and repair plant,

I think that was very,
very critical in the case.

Scientists
found the same metal alloy

on the rolls of masking tape
confiscated from Butch Hinton's

garage, probably because he
had taken them from work.

- What we found in
the '10 or so tapes

that we had examined there,
was that collectively we

saw all of these same unusual
types of metal particles

that we had seen on the tape
from the telephone booth,

and on a small piece of tape
from Butch Hinton's car.

And prosecutors
found one last item

in Butch Clinton's background
that astonished everyone.

When the FBI sent prosecutors
their case files on Butch

Hinton, they discovered
some shocking information.

Before he moved to
Atlanta, Butch Hinton

had three prior
convictions in Illinois

for sexual as*ault
and kidnapping.

In one of those cases, his
first wife walked in on him

while he was assaulting
a 14-year-old girl.

She later testified against him.

- Silver tape on her mouth.

She had electrical
tape, silver tape, rope.

Some kind of wire bounding
around her wrists,

and around her ankles.

Hinton was
sentenced to only four years

in prison for that crime.

- This judge gives
Hinton four years.

Then gets out in two.

Moves out of the state.

Moves into Georgia.

And eventually
kills my daughter.

In Shannon Melendi's case,

prosecutors know that Hinton
met her at the softball game.

They may have had lunch
together at a nearby restaurant.

But Shannon didn't
return to the softball

field for her afternoon games.

Prosecutors believe he
took Shannon to his home

and assaulted her.

Later that afternoon, he
made several telephone calls

to his wife and friends in
order to establish an alibi.

He drove Shannon's
car to a parking lot

and left the keys inside,
then returned home,

where he most likely k*lled
Shannon later that night.

Whether he cremated her
body in his backyard,

or disposed of her remains
elsewhere, is still a mystery.

Hinton kept Shannon's ring,
wrapped it in masking tape,

and put it inside a cloth bag.

Both items he had
stolen from work.

He never realized that these
items contained the rare metal

alloys from his workplace that
would tie him to the crime.

After hearing the evidence, the
jury's verdict was predictable.

We the jury find the defendant,

Colin C. Hinton
the Third, guilty.

As to count two, felony m*rder,

how does the jury find him?

We the jury find the defendant

Colin C. Hinton
the Third, guilty.

Hinton was
sentenced to life in prison.

- Not a dry eye in the courtroom.

Just getting that
verdict, and knowing

that we had done the right
thing for that family,

and that this person would never
see the light of day again.

- Why I felt driven in this case,
I don't think I'll ever know.

A lot of it, I think, goes
back to that first conversation

I had with Lewis, when he said,
I've been waiting 10 years.

God, how can I
disappoint this man?

- The focus of our
family has always

been to stop Butch Hinton
from hurting another family.

From putting another
family through what

we've been through.

There's many Butch
Hinton's out there.

And we must change our
laws so families don't have

to go through what
we've been through.

- I used to be a big proponent
of the death penalty.

But I think death would
be too quick for him.

- They took something
as small as a bag

and turned that into a suspect.

And that's just
amazing that they

can do something like that.

That just tells you how far
we've come in this world.

It's wild.