Crime Junkie - MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF: Sherese Walker Bingham Part 2

Episode Date: December 13, 2021

The investigation into Sherese Walker Bingham’s death points police in one direction: toward her husband, Eugene Bingham Jr. But all of their evidence isn’t enough to make a murder charge stick.If you have any information regarding this case, regardless of how insignificant it may seem, please contact Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana at 317-262-TIPS (8477). For current Fan Club membership options and policies, please visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/. Source materials for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/mysterious-death-sherese-walker-bingham-part-2/ 

Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And we're back with the second part of our story about Cherise Walker Bingham, the Indianapolis woman who was shot and killed while walking her dogs in White River State Park on December 12, 2012. Now, if you didn't hear part one of this, go back and listen before this episode, or nothing is going to make sense, and I am about to drop a lot of spoilers. This is your chance.

When we left off, Cherise's husband Eugene Bingham Jr. had become the main focus of Indiana State Police as they tried to figure out how and why this happened. By the end of January 2013, the investigation is in full swing. Eugene has been interviewed by police multiple times and has even taken two polygraph tests, both of which were inconclusive but close to failure. And at this point, police know about Eugene's long-time affair with a woman we're calling Jane. And they're also well aware that Eugene stood to gain $450,000 from Cherise's two life insurance policies. But they're about to find out a whole lot more.

When the full results of Cherise's autopsy come back, investigators learn that the single gunshot that struck the right side of her chest and killed her was of indeterminate range, meaning they can't tell just how far the gun really was from her body when it was fired. But according to an affidavit written by Indiana State Police Detective Lester Norbell, the autopsy results are inconsistent with the idea that the gun went off accidentally while in Cherise's front coverall pocket. And they're also inconsistent with the gun falling or being dropped and hitting the ground. Remember, Eugene has two main theories that he shared with police.

The first is that one of their German shepherds might have jumped on Cherise and somehow caused the gun to discharge while in her breast pocket. And the other is that she might have just dropped the gun. So that's the end of those theories then? Well, to some degree, but nothing is certain. I was talking to a detective that I know about this and he said that inconsistent basically means more than likely it didn't happen that way, but never say never kind of thing.

Okay, I guess that's fair. And along the same line, Cherise's manner of death is labeled undetermined, pending the result of the police investigation. Basically, they can't rule something a homicide until police show legit proof that it's a murder. Now, there's no way of knowing exactly what time Cherise was shot. There were no eyewitnesses to the actual shooting and police can't find any surveillance footage of the area to help them pin down Cherise's movements. But investigators are able to build a rough timeline for the night of the shooting.

Obviously, they know Eugene's timeline is wrong since he says Cherise left the house around 7.30, 7.45 at night an hour after her body was found. Instead, detectives think Cherise left her house around 6.20 p.m. It takes about eight minutes to drive from her home on Kessler Boulevard North Drive to North White River Parkway where she had parked her SUV before the walk. And there was apparently a witness who saw a black female with two dogs in the area right around the time she would have been getting out of her car. So that would have been like right before 6.30 p.m.

Right. Cherise's Aunt Deborah McMurray told us that a friend of Cherise's also saw her that night in the same area around the same time. Cherise's death certificate lists the time of her injury as 6.39 p.m. but that's probably just the time she was found by the cyclist walking the trail because first responders were dispatched one minute later. So all things considered, she was probably shot right as she and her dogs were like just starting their walk. But here's the absolutely horrifying thing. The Marion County Coroner's Office says that Cherise probably lived for 7 to 10 minutes after she was shot.

Oh my god, so she didn't die right away? No, and if that's the case, it could explain why her cell phone was on the ground next to her flipped open. Like she was trying to call for help? Yeah, that's what police think. They assume that her phone was out and opened up because she had tried to call for help. If what Eugene says about Cherise rarely having her cell phone on is true, then she would have had to power it up before she could actually use it, which would have taken at least a minute or two. But police can only speculate that she tried to call 911 because her phone records don't show any activity in that time window.

In fact, Detective Norville says that there wasn't much activity in general. So Eugene's claim that Cherise didn't use it on a regular basis probably is true. Eugene's phone activity, on the other hand, is a different story. So remember how he told investigators during his first formal interview that he hadn't deleted anything from his phone or his call history or whatever? Uh, yes, let me guess, that's not entirely accurate. Bingo! When police get a look at his phone records from Sprint, they realize he deleted 9 calls from December 11th through December 12th. The day Cherise died.

And one of those calls was from Cherise's chiropractor, who was also friends with her and Eugene. Apparently, the chiropractor called Eugene on December 12th at 7.41pm because he had heard about a woman's death on the news and wanted to make sure it wasn't Cherise. Wait, who jumps to that conclusion? Like, I have never once heard about a death in Indianapolis and been like, oh my goodness, I bet it was Ashley. Fair, but it was actually because of a specific detail in all the news coverage. They had actually mentioned that there were these two dogs who seemed to be protecting the body of a woman found walking on a trail at White River State Park. Now, unfortunately, most of the web links for news articles or videos from that night don't work anymore, so I don't know what specifically the chiropractor heard or read or saw on TV. But I guess whatever it was made him immediately think of Cherise and her dogs.

Anyway, when the chiropractor made that call, Eugene's phone pinged off of a cell tower to receive it. And that ping didn't hit on the tower closest to his and Cherise's house, which is where he said that he was at the time. Instead, it pinged off a cell tower in the area surrounding Cherise's body. Oh, and did Eugene say anything interesting or sound weird or different when he talked to this guy? Well, Eugene didn't actually answer that call at all. But having a record of him being away from his house during this time when he swears he was home is a big deal for investigators, especially because the call had been deleted on purpose. And Eugene lied about it and he had already told authorities that he was the only one with access to his cell phone.

So he says he didn't loan it out to anyone. It was in his possession. So if anything got deleted, it had to have been deleted by him. Now, before I go too far down this Eugene path, exactly how reliable is this cell data? Like, we've seen it work kind of in both ways in other cases before. And you did mention that the Binghams don't live that far from this trail. I mean, is there a chance that the cell tower his phone pinged off of could also be near their house? So that is a good point, but there's an explanation in the affidavit that makes this a little clearer. I don't even want to try and paraphrase it because it's so complicated.

So Britt, I'm going to have you actually read it word for word. Okay, Detective Norville writes, quote, As it was explained to me, the tower Eugene's telephone hit off of is located east of the couple's home near 18th Street and Kessler Boulevard North Drive. And even further east of the tower, his telephone would normally hit off of if he were home when he received the call. There's a possibility the call would have skipped the tower closest to his home and hit off the tower that it actually hit off of. However, if that had happened and he were home, it would have hit off the sector that faced west in the direction of his home. The call in this case hit off the sector facing south, which covers the area where his wife's body was found. The information has been verified and the verification shows his telephone is definitely not at his home,

where he has consistently said he was at the time, sleeping, end quote. Okay, that whole thing was kind of legally gibberish to me. Fair. So again, I wanted you guys to hear it like how it was written. The way I understand it is that, okay, there is a scenario where it would skip off like the first tower and go to the next one. But if it did that, if he's home. So like if the tower has four sides, it would hit a particular side versus a different side. It would hit off of the sector that faced west in the direction of his home. But his hit off of one that was facing south, which actually covers the area where his wife's body is found.

So even if he's home, even if the first tower, whatever, it skips over that one and goes to the other one, it should be a different part of that tower. So still, his story doesn't seem to be lining up. Now the call from the chiropractor is just one of the nine calls Eugene deleted from his phone after Sharice's death. Unfortunately, we couldn't get much information from police about the other eight calls. But according to the affidavit, during a discussion with investigators about the deleted calls, Eugene mentions that phone call that he made to Sharice as he was leaving their house to go look for her. So again, reading between the lines to me, that at least implies that Eugene counted that among the deleted calls. But he had already told police he had called her, right?

Like why would he delete a call that he had told them about? Well, if he deleted it, I think it's because the timing of the call didn't match up with the timing of the rest of his story, maybe. Remember, Eugene says that when Sharice took Mayday and Tsunami on their walk that he stayed home, watched the game, dozed off, woke up 9.15, 9.30, realized she wasn't home. And Eugene says that he called Sharice's cell phone from their landline. Then he went out to look for her, calling her again from his cell phone as he left their house. So all of those little details and times he mentions are really important because Eugene says that he's sure that when he started looking for her, Sharice still had time to go to work for her 10.30pm shift. But the phone records show that when he called her from their landline, it was 11.02pm.

And when he called her from his cell, it was 11.09pm. That's like an hour and a half after he claims that he woke up from his nap and it definitely wasn't before her shift started. Yeah. So when police ask him why there's this gap of time when he says that he woke up and when he's making these calls, he says that the timestamps of the calls just can't be accurate, like the records must be wrong. And he says, you know, by 11.09pm, I'd already spoken to detectives, I knew my wife was dead. But that's not true either because according to the detective's report, Eugene pulled up to Sharice's car at 11.23pm. And he said he stopped at two other places to look for her before checking White River State Park, right?

Like, do we know how long it would take to check all three places? Based on the distance from their house to each of those locations, we figured out that the route he most likely would have driven takes about like 16 minutes. So theoretically, if he left his house right after he made that landline call at 11.02pm, he could have checked all of those places by 11.23pm, but it's a pretty tight window. And you have to imagine, like, when he's stopping, he's also searching at least a little bit, right? Potentially. I mean, again, all of us making assumptions. But hang on because we're not done with the phone records just yet.

It turns out that Eugene and his longtime girlfriend, Jane, called each other. Wait for it. 110 times from December 3rd through December 11th, 2012. Okay, Ashley, I'm going to be honest. I'm not going to say I haven't made contact with a significant other that many times in a short amount of time. I will say I was more than likely 14 years old and completely out of my mind in love with someone. Yeah. And 14.

That's a lot of times. Way too many times, especially right before your wife dies. What? Yeah, let me break it down even further. So during that week leading up to Sharice's death, Eugene called Jane 38 times and she called him 72 times. But interesting fact, do you want to guess how many times they called each other on December 12th, the day Sharice was shot and killed? How many? I'm afraid if it's more or less, to be honest.

Zero. What? Yeah, none. And that really sticks out to police because clearly Eugene and Jane talk on the phone a lot. Detectives want to know why they would call each other so much in the days leading up to the shooting and then on the day of, just like, stop cold. Plus, the calls pick up again after the shooting. Jane called Eugene nine times on December 13th, but then they go radio silent again from the 14th through January 17th, 2013. There's only one call which Eugene made to Jane on December 27th.

Okay, so at this point, are police thinking that Jane was involved too? Well, detectives want Jane to take a polygraph of her own. And so on February 8th, 2013, she does. There isn't a ton of information available about the interviews that the investigators conducted with Jane on the day of the polygraph. But we do know that she's asked three relevant questions. And here, Brett, I'm going to have you read them this time. Quote, one, did you shoot that woman? Two, are you the one who shot that woman?

And three, did you participate in the shooting of that woman? End quote. Jane answers no to all three questions and she fails. Even after failing her polygraph, Jane insists she's telling the truth. But she doesn't give police any additional information. And since investigators have literally nothing else to hold her on, she's free to go. Later that day, detectives get a call from a lawyer who says that he's representing Jane. So that's the end of that. No more interviews with her.

While police are obviously suspicious of Jane, it still comes down to the dogs. If Cherise's own gun was used in the shooting and, you know, they're thinking Jane in this scenario, they can't figure out how Jane would have been able to disarm Cherise and kill her with Tsunami and Mayday right there. And that's something that Cherise's family can't stop thinking about either. Here's her brother, Keith Walker, who you heard from in part one. It still leads back up to him because of the dogs. It all is going to revolve around the dogs because nobody could get close to her with the dog unless it was him. According to Detective Norvel, a quote reliable source told police that Jane was deeply afraid of dogs.

So it's hard for them to imagine that she's the one who pulled the trigger. Now, here's where another twist comes in. Police already knew that Cherise had two life insurance policies worth a total of $450,000. But after the polygraphs, they find out about a third policy. This one is worth $410,000. Oh my God. And Cherise got it through her job at Pepsi when she started working there in June 2012. So altogether, we're talking about like almost a million dollars.

Yep, and $860,000 seems like a lot of life insurance. Again, especially considering all the things we talked about last episode, they didn't have any kids. Now, they were paying two mortgages, one in the house that they lived in and another on a duplex that they rented out. But even with those mortgages, this is a significant amount of money all going to Eugene. So how did police find out about this third policy? I mean, it doesn't sound like Eugene brought it up during those polygraph interviews. So I don't know if police were notified by Pepsi or by Pepsi's insurance company, which is Minnesota Life, but it wasn't Eugene who told them. Now, in fairness, we're not sure exactly when he found out about the policy.

I would think Cherise told him about it when she got it, but I don't know that for a fact. We couldn't find anything documenting that. So according to civil court records, Detective Norvell notifies Minnesota Life on February 23, 2013, that Cherise's death is being investigated as a homicide, and Eugene Bingham Jr., the named beneficiary of the policy, is a suspect. Now, a couple of weeks later, in March 2013, the state police lab conducts ballistics testing on the gun found at the scene and compares it to the bullet from Cherise's body. And they officially confirm what everyone has kind of assumed from the start that Cherise was killed with her own gun. Lab technicians do a trigger pull test, which helps determine how much force is needed to be applied to the gun's trigger for it to fire, and they find out that Cherise's gun required 10 pounds of pressure to fire it with a round chambered.

Basically, the heavier the trigger pull weight, the more effort it takes to pull the trigger. And investigators say 10 pounds is actually at the heavier end of trigger pull weights. So this isn't a gun with a really sensitive trigger. Okay, so did police test Eugene's skin or clothing for gunshot residue after the shooting? No, so Detective Norvell says that as an agency, the Indiana State Police doesn't generally conduct gunshot residue testing because of how unreliable it can be. And also, the detectives said that the lab didn't find any fingerprints on the gun. And not just like fingerprints of suspects, what's interesting is they didn't find Cherise's, they didn't find Eugene's, nobody's. There were also no fingerprints detected on the shell casing that was found at the scene or the bullet recovered from Cherise's body.

And again, like, even if we found stuff, like, and say it was Eugene's, he already told police that he was one who cleaned their guns, so he'd be able to explain that stuff away if it came up. Right, and he had an identical gun of his own, so if they handled the same ammunition, it wouldn't have been out of the question. Yeah, but like, for there to be nothing on there? Doesn't that seem strange to you? For sure. So meanwhile, Cherise's family is waiting for answers. Some of her loved ones have been suspicious of Eugene all along. Here's Cherise's Aunt Deborah McMurray talking about Cherise, who, again, everyone called Reesey and Eugene, who everyone called Bo Peep. What was your initial thought when you heard that she had been shot? Did you think it was, like, a random shooting?

You know, first thing jumped in my mind was Bo Peep. That's the first thing jumped in my mind. Has her family pretty much cut him off by this time? Well, there wasn't much of a connection in the first place. Like, even though Cherise was married to him for nearly three decades, her family says that they were never all that close with Eugene. According to them, Eugene was not the most social person. He apparently spent a lot of time down in the basement of his and Cherise's home, where he had sort of like this man cave set up. And remember, Deborah already didn't trust Eugene because of all the stuff she had heard from Cherise. But not everyone felt that way.

Even though they weren't close, Cherise's brother Keith said that he initially tried to comfort Eugene, until speaking with Detective Norville about the investigation. I didn't think nothing about him doing that. I think every day I called him to lift him up and pray for him. I did that for a while. You know, just man to man, just praying, what can I do for you? You know, stay strong. Just whatever came to my heart to say, to encourage him. And then everything turned when the detective came in the picture. Detective Norville knows how badly the family wants justice for Cherise, and he shares what he can with Keith, trying to keep him in the loop.

So her family does know about the suspicion surrounding Eugene. Then everything changed. I stopped calling. And no more contact after that. I just left her alone. So what about Eugene's family? I guess I'm wondering if they were close to Cherise. If they were surprised to find out about Jane and all this stuff. You know, I'm not sure what the deal was at the time of Cherise's death, but Cherise had listed Eugene's mother as one of the contingent beneficiaries on the first life insurance policy that she got. So that means if the money couldn't go to Eugene for some reason, his mom would get a share. So you gotta figure that they must have been close at some point.

But his family also knew Jane already. And I have no clue when they found out about the nature of Eugene's relationship with her, but our reporter Nina found a Facebook post from 2006 that shows Jane at some sort of reunion or gathering that Eugene's family held. So they knew she existed. Now, I'm not sure what Eugene's family knows about the investigation as it moves along. But in June 2013, police get some information that strengthens their case against Eugene. When the lab's analysis of Cherise's clothing comes back, the lab had found defects like rips and holes and tears that were made by the bullet, which helped them determine the bullet's trajectory.

And it turns out that the defects in the right sleeve of the top two layers of clothing were consistent with Cherise having her arm out in front of her, like in a defensive position when she was shot. So that puts the suicide theory to bed, I mean, once and for all. There's no way those defects were caused by an intentional self-inflicted gunshot because she wasn't holding the gun. So you would think by now, police are pretty sure that they have their guy. But as the months pass by and the one-year anniversary of Cherise's death comes and goes, there are still no arrests. In March 2014, the Marion County Prosecutor's Office brings this case to a grand jury. But everything is happening behind the scenes and the public is pretty much in the dark until the summer of that year.

That's when the Indiana State Police announced that they've made an arrest in the shooting death of Cherise Walker Bingham, the person in cuffs, her husband, Eugene Bingham Jr. But that is far from the end of the story. On Monday, July 28, 2014, state police asked Eugene to come to the district station so they can update him on their investigation. When he gets there, they serve him with an arrest warrant and charge him with one count of murder. Why did it take so long to charge Eugene if they had all this evidence a year ago? I don't know because as far as I can tell, it's not anything new happened right then and there's nothing we could get our hands on that kind of lays out everything that happened during the investigation and when it happened.

We just know that Eugene continued to be a suspect throughout the last few months of 2013 and into 2014 because of one of the life insurance companies that documented that. So to the people who were already suspicious, like Cherise's pastor, Bishop Charles McClain Jr., Eugene's arrest is validation. Of course, you're innocent and to proven guilty, but at the same time, it was one of those things. Well, we're not surprised. I never got a good feeling from him at all. And I'm typically not wrong about that. It made sense to me. It made sense. Eugene is sent to the Marion County Jail, but I don't know exactly how long he stays there. Keith says that he thinks Eugene's sister put up her house for collateral to get him out on bail around Labor Day of 2014.

The day that he walked out of that courtroom and they released him, it was the saddest day of my life. So Eugene's family is sticking with him. What about Jane? Oh, they were together. In fact, detectives found out from Jane that she and Eugene started seeing each other, quote, exclusively in February 2013. What? That's like three months after Cherise was killed. Yep. And what we learned is actually Jane was actually one of the people to testify for the grand jury. Now, grand jury proceedings are secret, but witnesses can discuss their own testimony. So I have to imagine that she told Eugene what she said, which apparently wasn't much because according to the affidavit,

Jane didn't provide any new relevant information. Now, Eugene gives his sister power of attorney about a month after his arrest so she can handle any kind of financial decisions for him. He also hires a lawyer, a guy named David Hurley, and starts to prepare for his trial. But the murder charge isn't the only legal battle Eugene is facing. Keith petitions the court and becomes administrator of Cherise's estate. And once his request is granted, he files a civil wrongful death lawsuit against Eugene to try and keep his sister's life insurance out of his hands. Quick question. Did Eugene also have life insurance? So Detective Norville says that police confirmed Eugene did have life insurance, but he's not sure if the amount was ever verified.

He remembers multiple policies on both of them, though. Now, if Eugene is convicted of Cherise's murder, he can't collect the life insurance anyway, but nobody knows what's going to happen in the criminal trial. Right. So as this trial gets closer, do we have any sense of what police think happened that night? Like, do they think that Eugene approached Cherise and they got into a fight or something? Well, there doesn't seem to be a specific theory, although based on the timing and the location of the shooting, it's kind of hard to picture a whole argument taking place. And this is a good time to bring something up.

We asked Cherise's family and police if they thought domestic violence played a role in her death. Now, obviously, if Eugene did kill his wife, he committed the ultimate act of domestic violence against her. But, you know, we were trying to get a sense of whether or not there was, like, a history of any physical abuse during their marriage. And everyone we talked to said, no, like, there's no record of any incidents. In fact, Eugene had no prior criminal record. Now, we know that doesn't necessarily mean anything. You can never really know what's going on in someone else's relationship and you don't know what it looks like behind closed doors. And domestic violence is often one of the most underreported crimes.

Right, right. But for what it's worth, the people closest to Cherise don't think that she was being physically abused. Ultimately, the courts decide to put the civil lawsuit on hold until a verdict is reached in the criminal case, because, you know, there might not be a need for a civil lawsuit. But one month before the trial is set to begin, Cherise's family gets a heartbreaking blow. The state of Indiana drops the case against Eugene. Wait, what? Yeah, the court grants a motion from prosecutors to dismiss the murder charge on August 10, 2015.

According to the deputy prosecuting attorney, the state can't proceed with the case due to a lack of physical or corroborating evidence. But the motion also says that the prosecutor's office will refile the charge if they could get additional evidence against Eugene. Now, we have a copy of the motion to dismiss in the blog post if you want to read it, but it really doesn't go into a whole lot more detail. But we did get some more information from Detective Norvell. Now, remember how the cell tower data showed that Eugene's phone pinged off of a tower near Cherise's body when that chiropractor called him that night? Yeah. Well, I guess because of how calls are routed when they go specifically to voicemail, Sprint couldn't confirm the exact location of Eugene's phone. Essentially, Sprint couldn't say that for sure Eugene wasn't in the park area, but they also couldn't say for sure that he was either,

which meant that they wouldn't testify to their own cell tower data in court. And the case against Eugene was always circumstantial. I mean, again, there's no eyewitnesses to the shooting, no confession from Eugene, but with all things considered, including the cell tower data, the prosecutor felt the case was strong enough to charge him with murder. Without the cell tower evidence, they no longer thought so. And it was a strategic decision because if Eugene is brought to trial and acquitted, that's it. Indiana can never charge him for Cherise's murder again. By dismissing the charge without prejudice, the door is still open to charge him if the case can be made stronger with additional evidence.

Of course, that's of small comfort to Cherise's family. So, with no murder charge hanging over him, Eugene files a petition to collect Cherise's life insurance. But there's still that wrongful death suit to consider. Eugene is represented by the same lawyer who handled his defense in the criminal case. He admits Cherise died of a gunshot wound, but denies that her death was a homicide. Well, was it ever actually ruled a homicide? Well, there's actually some question of that. Two of the court records we found say that Cherise's death was ruled a homicide,

and it was obviously considered a homicide when Eugene was charged with murder. And state police refer to it as a homicide even after the charge was dropped, at least they have in press releases. But officially, according to the medical examiner, Cherise's manner of death is undetermined. And when we asked if there were any other versions of the report, the coroner's office told us that that's the one quote available to the public. And that's really where the lawsuit comes in. You don't need the same standard of proof in a civil case that you do in a criminal case. During the summer of 2016, everyone's gearing up for this wrongful death trial, like maybe the family can finally get some answers. But after a mediation session in the fall of that year, Keith actually agrees to settle the case with Eugene.

Most of the terms of the settlement are confidential, so we don't know what specific reasons led to the decision. But we do know that the estate got $75,000, and we also know that the estate can't sue Eugene for her wrongful death ever again. You know, I feel like a lot of times in these cases, they're settled because the family doesn't want to be put through all of that emotional turmoil of, like, actually going to trial for a civil case. Yeah, totally. I mean, lawsuits can drag on for years. But even with the settlement, the wrongful death suit against Eugene gives us a window into the criminal case, because there's a ton of documents filed for the civil case, which are still available to the public, even though most of the criminal court records are not. And there are a lot of details in there, especially about Sharice's life insurance. Now, Eugene had previously told investigators that he took out two of the policies when he and Sharice first married. But based on the information in the court records, that's not true.

Sharice first got life insurance in 1987, and the policy was for the same amount as the mortgage Eugene had just taken out a year before to buy their home, $36,500. What's interesting is that on that life insurance application, Eugene is referenced as Sharice's boyfriend, even though they had apparently been married for two years by then. Oh, that is weird. It is. And again, no explanation for it. It's a strange detail. Again, kind of like the pastor didn't know she was married. It literally could have been a simple mistake on the application. Who knows? And we actually checked records all over Indiana trying to find their marriage license and actually couldn't locate it, but her family says that they married in the Bahamas. Anyway, Sharice defaulted on the premium payments for that first policy a year after she got it. So the value of it dropped to just $36.50.

But she didn't get the $250,000 policy until 2003, which doesn't line up with what Eugene told police. For the $200,000 policy, all we know is the amount and that it's from all state. Really, no info on it because it doesn't seem like anything was filed in court about it. And then like I said earlier, she got the largest policy just six months before her death. Pepsi gives its employees basic life insurance equal to their salary. But she also opted for add-ons like accidental death and dismemberment benefit, which boosted it to 10 times her salary. Oh, wow. With no legal claims standing in his way, Eugene collects the life insurance proceeds minus the money that goes to Sharice's estate and lawyers.

And Britt, what do you think he does? Honestly, at this point, do I even want to know? Probably not. Well, for one thing, he gets his arrest record expunged. Because of the expungement and the fact that this is still an open case, there's almost nothing record-wise that's available to the public. The prosecutor's office gave us a copy of the charging information and Detective Norville's affidavit. They also gave us the motion to dismiss the murder charge. And those records have been helpful as far as, you know, resource materials.

But of course, it's a far cry from everything that's been filed in this case. And that's not all. In April 2017, Eugene does something else that for Sharice's family, just pours salt in their open wounds. That spring, Eugene and Jane get married. They also buy a house for nearly half a million dollars, according to property records. Eugene pays off the mortgages he and Sharice had on their own house and their rental duplex. He sells the duplex, but it looks like he still owns the home on Kessler Boulevard North Drive. As you can imagine, watching all of this unfold has been maddening for Sharice's family.

Her sister-in-law Linda Walker and Aunt Deborah spoke about it during an interview with Nina. They were together all these years, married together all these years, you know, she never had kids, you know, lived a pretty decent life, you know, then all of a sudden she walks her dogs and what she did every day. Then she comes up dead. Her husband has no emotional feelings about how she died. It doesn't appear that he ever was interested or cared what happened to her. Now her life is snuffed out. He's gone on, married the mistress, living a better life than he did with her.

And it's just so, it really is aggravating to the family to think about her life got snuffed out. Nobody knows how it got snuffed out. And he's got all, I mean, and the money doesn't even matter. It doesn't matter, but it's the fact of the matter that he is living a better life with a lady that he was dealing with the whole time. They pretty much were married and her life is gone and nobody even knows what happened to her. It's mind boggling. You see this kind of crap on television, but not real life. She had so many nieces and nephews and family members she never had an opportunity to spend time with.

And her life was just taken too quickly and nobody knows why. Nobody knows why. We don't even know how. We just know she was laying on the ground, you know. In a pool of blood. In a pool of blood dead. She never says Eugene came up to her at a grocery store one time. She thinks it was after his murder charge was dropped. She said he was basically pleading his case like, listen, I would never hurt your niece. But besides that, Sharisa's family hasn't had any contact with him in years.

I know this is a little bit on brand for us, but do we know what happened to Mayday and Tsunami? I mean, I was wondering if Eugene kept them since you mentioned that police source who said that Jane was really scared of dogs. And their vet, Dr. Greg Geeker, told us that the dogs were well cared for during the time that they were patients of his. And sometime in 2013, their records were transferred to another animal clinic. So that's the last we know about them. I don't know if that woman who called, we talked about in the last episode, got the dogs if they were adopted out. I'm not sure. But around the time Sharise died, Eugene told police that the dogs were eight and four years old.

I read that the average lifespan of a German shepherd is usually 11 to 13. So, you know, nine years later, those devoted protective dogs that were standing over Sharise's body have probably moved out, as I like to say. To this day, police believe that the right person was charged with Sharise's murder. But it all comes down to what can be proven in court. And there are so many questions we still don't have answers to. What's frustrating is a lot of those questions can only be answered by Eugene and maybe Jane. But it's not like they're talking. Nina called and text both of them multiple times.

She never heard back from Jane. She did manage to reach Eugene who told her he didn't have anything to say. And Nina told him, listen, we know what Sharise's family thinks. We know what the police think, but we want your side of the story too. And you're the only one who can tell it. Eugene's response was, quote, that's good. Keep that side. End quote. Sharise's loved ones do what they can to keep her story in the public eye.

Local media covers a vigil Keith holds for his sister on the anniversary of her death right on the trail where she was shot. And it's a way to keep her memory alive. But it's also a reminder of all that they've lost. We miss her. We miss her so much. I just want closure. I just want to know who did this to my baby. Indiana state police are sure that someone out there has vital information that could help bring long awaited justice to Sharise and her family. Their hope is that that person's conscience will eventually lead them to coming forward. Anybody with information regardless of how insignificant it might seem should contact Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana at 317-262-TIPS.

That's 317-262-8477. That number can also be found on the blog post for this episode and right in the show notes. You can find all of the photos, documents, maps and sources for this two part episode on our blog post at crimejunkiepodcast.com. And be sure to follow us on Instagram at crimejunkiepodcast. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Crimejunkie is an audio chuck production. So what do you think Chuck? Do you approve?