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was life-flighted to San Antonio, but she died on arrival. An autopsy was performed, but the medical examiner was told upfront that it was a suspected suicide. Did that color his findings? When the contact wound and path of the bullet reflected a typical suicide, Shelly’s death was ruled as such.
     
    Officers asked Hendrick to take a polygraph test, and he agreed, but then failed to show up to at least two separate appointments. Soon after this, he disappeared.
     
    With no local friends or family to make sure Shelly’s side of the story was heard, the case languished. It would be another seven years before anyone took a more detailed look at the case.
     
    In 2008, a law enforcement officer named Carl Bowen became an investigator under the DeWitt County Sheriff. Bowen had been on the force when Shelly’s death occurred, and although he hadn’t been assigned to the case he had known about it.
     
    He’d taken an interest in the investigation, and it had always bothered him that Hendrick had never taken the polygraph test.
     
    Even more suspicious was the fact he’d disappeared soon after Shelly’s death. All these years the case had left questions in his mind, and now with his new appointment he was able to do something about it. He approached the Sheriff, Jode Zavesky, about re-opening the case, and was given permission.
     
    Then, in the summer of 2008, Hendrick appeared in the DeWitt County Jail. He’d been arrested and charged with domestic abuse, beating up his new live-in girlfriend. Bowen also discovered at this time that during the time between Shelly’s death and his recent appearance, Hendrick had been in jail in South Dakota for a felony DWI. Now he knew that Hendrick was a convicted alcohol abuser and violent man. Alarm bells were now ringing.
     
    Bowen approached Hendrick about finally undergoing the polygraph, and Hendrick agreed. Perhaps predictably the results indicated deception from Hendrick for the events surrounding Shelly’s death. When questioned after these results, he asserted his right to counsel.
     
    However, after the polygraph Hendrick told three different people that he’d lied to the police. He was still denying he’d killed her, but now said that he had been in the room with her, a significant change in his story. Previously, he’d told police that he had been outside when she had shot herself.
     
    Bowen took the case to the district attorney’s office, but he was rejected. They did not feel there was enough evidence to make the case. Although they believed that Hendrick had at least been involved in her death, the autopsy report still stated the death as suicide, and that was a major sticking point.
     
    Then in 2012, Bowen approached their office again to ask for their support in contacting a cold case TV show regarding Shelly’s case. The assistant district attorney (ADA) in charge of the case didn’t thinking anything would come of it, but saw no reason to deny the request. He wanted to be able to say that every stone had been unturned in the hunt for the truth.
     
    Despite the district attorney’s skepticism of the show ever making it to air, the producers of the show jumped right in. The idea behind the show was that a former ADA, Kelly Siegler, and former crime scene investigator, Yolanda McClary, would come in and help small and often under-staffed law enforcement agencies take a fresh look at a cold case.
     
    They soon learned that Siegler’s reputation was well earned. She interviewed witnesses, and reinvestigated the crime scene and all facets of the case. They also gave the investigators access to the latest technical advances in forensic investigations with a quick turnaround. The gun was analyzed for touch DNA, the slug for ballistics, and a bloody t-shirt found in the laundry hamper for DNA. They also did computer modeling of the scene.
     
    Despite all this, there was still not a break in the case. The touch DNA test found nothing, and the DNA on the