shirt was all Shelly’s. The slug matched the revolver found at the scene, and the computer modeling revealed nothing significant.
The TV team investigated the evidence given by the Hendrick’s family, and discovered their lies. There had been no history of depression in Shelly’s family, and she had never been on anti-depressant medication herself. They also found no evidence of previous suicides in her family. The case for Shelly’s death truly being a suicide was starting to look shaky.
From there, Seigler’s team started to look at the likelihood that it was murder. They found that Hendrick had committed several serious assaults on other women, both before and after Shelly’s death. In one that was eerily similar to the circumstances of Shelly’s death, he nearly killed the woman.
Johnny Bonds, a former interviewer with the Houston Police Department with an excellent reputation, re-interviewed multiple people involved in the original incident, including Hendrick himself.
So had someone else been involved in Shelly’s death? Had she been murdered and the original investigation missed it? Still the biggest weakness in the case was the gunshot wound.
It’s very difficult to get the gun barrel right up against the temple of an unwilling victim. Even if they are held still, most still manage to pull their head back slightly. How then did Shelly have a contact wound if she had not pulled the trigger herself? There was really only one way.
If Hendrick had crept up on Shelly while she was in the bathroom using the mirror, and she had seen him and turned to face him just before the gun went off, that would produce the same wound pattern. Despite now having an explanation for the wound pattern besides suicide, the DA was still not ready to take the case to trial.
Then, a few weeks after the filming the show, the final piece fell into place. Bowen found Shelly’s ex-husband, Jessie. He was incarcerated in a prison in Texas. He told Bowen that he had spoken to Shelly on the day of her death. According to his testimony, he and Shelly were getting back together. He was the father of her eldest child, and she was planning to move back home with the kids and be a family together again.
During the phone call, Hendrick had grabbed the phone and told Jessie that the only way Shelly would be returning to Arkansas was if she was in a pine box. Jessie was also polygraphed, and when he passed with flying colors, the district attorney was ready. The case for Shelly’s murder was taken to a grand jury.
Hendrick was indicted by the grand jury in November of 2012. He was incarcerated until his trial in September 2013.
Meanwhile, the reality TV show episode was due to run just days before jury selection. With the gathering media attention, the DA started to worry that ironically the whole case would fail because of the attention given to it by the very thing that helped to break it open in the first place. The producers of the show however refused to delay the broadcast, and it went to air only days before the real trial began.
Thankfully, on the day of the trial the judge asked the jury members to raise their hands if they had watched the show. A third of them did so. As they were interviewed and most admitted that they already thought Hendrick had killed Shelly, a mistrial was declared.
The only solution that the DA could see was to change venues. However, the show had been broadcast nation-wide. The judge reset the case to be tried again in June of 2014, hoping that the fanfare would have died down by then.
The DA then approached Hendrick’s attorney. He told them that when he brought the case to trial the delay would mean he’d only have more evidence, and also pointed out that nearly everyone who had seen the TV show already thought Hendrick was guilty.
In the end, Hendrick pled guilty to murder just a day later. He was sentenced to twenty-two years in