MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - Ice and Fire (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

On a night in March of 2017, a bonfire lit up the yard at a house party in Youngstown, Ohio. A group of friends in their 20s and 30s sat around the fire, drinking beer, talking, and having a good time. And as the night went on and they kept partying, they couldn’t imagine that this bonfire would soon help police solve one of the most horrific crimes the city of Youngstown had ever witnessed.For 100s more stories like these, check out our main YouTube channel just called "MrBallen" -- https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallenIf you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @mrballenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey Prime members, you can binge 8 new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. On a night in March of 2017, a huge bonfire lit up the yard at a house party in Youngstown, Ohio. A group of friends in their 20s and 30s sat around the fire, drinking beer, talking and having a great time. And as the night went on and these friends kept on partying, none of them could have

imagined that this bonfire would soon help police solve one of the most horrific crimes the city of Youngstown had ever witnessed. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, please invite the follow button to a costume party, but don't tell them it's actually a wake. On On February 24, 2017, 28-year-old Shannon Graves sat on the couch watching TV with her boyfriend in her apartment in Youngstown, Ohio.

Shannon changed the channel, and right away she could see that her boyfriend, who was a man in his early 30s named Arturo Naveau, looked annoyed by what she wanted to watch, so she flipped the channel to something else. Then Shannon glanced over at Arturo, but he still looked annoyed. Shannon sighed, trying her best to keep her cool. It was not that long ago that sitting on the couch with Arturo would have made for a relaxing evening at home. But now, every time the two were around each other, they just seemed to argue about everything. Even meaningless stuff like what to watch on TV. Shannon put the remote down and then leaned back on the couch and didn't say anything.

She hoped that maybe if she just sat there in silence, they could avoid a fight. But in reality, Shannon knew that this TV show she chose or whatever little thing they ended up arguing about next was actually just a symptom of a much bigger problem. Her and Arturo's relationship was clearly falling apart. The two of them met almost a year earlier at the club where Shannon had been working nights as a dancer while she went to classes during the day to earn her cosmetology degree. And despite their obvious differences, at first they had gotten along great. Shannon was outgoing and always seemed to be on the move, while Arturo was quiet and

more reserved. But they thought their differences actually complemented each other really well. So after dating for only a few months, Shannon and Arturo moved into an apartment together. And that's when things started to go bad. It was like right away, they just both stopped trusting each other. Arturo accused Shannon of still being into her ex-boyfriend, a guy she'd actually been living with

before she met Arturo. And Shannon was convinced that Arturo had a thing for this woman who was always hanging around him when he would come to see Shannon at the club. But whether or not those things were true, Shannon knew her issues with the relationship ran deeper than just thinking Arturo might like some other girl.

Shannon had always been someone who loved change, she just never wanted to feel stuck. And so to avoid that feeling, she would often do things like dye her long black hair green and blue, or she'd take much bigger steps like she would occasionally just leave town for weeks at a time to go on an adventure by herself without telling anyone where she was. But living with Arturo had definitely made Shannon feel stuck, and over the last few months that feeling had really worn her down. Back in the apartment, Shannon eventually just stood up from the couch and began to walk out of the room. But as she did, Arturo snapped at her for some reason, and then before long the two

of them were just yelling at each other. And the argument escalated, even though neither of them really knew what they were even fighting about. Until finally, Arturo said maybe he should just leave for good, and then he stormed out. Shannon stood there in her apartment for a minute, trying to catch her breath and calm down. She was mad, but she also couldn't help but feel this sense of relief. If Arturo was gone, like really gone, she could now do anything she wanted.

She could make a change. She could go someplace new. A few months earlier, Shannon had finally earned her cosmetology degree. She had worked really hard for it, and she was proud of herself. Some people had been surprised because they thought getting a degree sort of went against Shannon's need for constant change, but Shannon saw things differently. Her degree could open doors and give her a chance to work as a cosmetologist in different cities. Or maybe she could even become a highly sought after makeup artist who would get to travel all over the world. But Arturo had

never really supported her dreams, so she had kind of given up on them. Now she could start putting her degree and her talents to work. And she would not have to do that in Youngstown, Ohio. And just thinking about the possibilities for the future got her really excited. Shannon walked to the bathroom, got undressed, and turned on the shower. In her mind, she would wash off all the bad stuff that had happened recently, and it would be like the first small step towards a fresh start. On June 22, 2017, so four months after Shannon and Arturo had their big fight, Detective Mike Lambert of the Youngstown Police Department looked up from his desk, and he saw a uniform

police officer standing there with a woman who looked very pale and worried. Detective Lambert asked how he could help. The woman said her name was Debbie DePaul, and she needed to file a missing persons report. She said that nobody had seen or talked to her younger half-sister, Shannon Graves, in four months. A confused look came across Lambert's face, and for a second he thought he must have misheard her. And so he asked her again, you know, how long has it been since anybody talked to your half-sister?

And Debbie repeated herself and said again it had been four months. This blew Lambert away. In all his time as a detective, he'd seen family and friends typically file missing persons report, if anything, too soon, like before they really needed to. Not four months after the fact. In fact, in the majority of cases he'd worked, the supposed missing person had turned up before the cops could even launch a real search.

So he really couldn't understand why Debbie, or anyone else close to Shannon, had waited this long to talk to the police. Lambert told the other officer he could leave, and he asked Debbie to take a seat and walk him through what was going on here. After the officer left, Debbie sat down and said she knew how strange it must sound that she had waited this long.

But if Lambert knew her sister Shannon, it would make way more sense. She said that Shannon had a history of just sort of taking off and not talking to anyone for long periods of time. It was something she'd done since she was a teenager. And as difficult as it was to deal with that, Shannon's friends and family had sort of come to accept it about her. It was one of the things that made Shannon who she was. But now, they noticed that Shannon had not called on a couple of family birthdays, and

she also hadn't checked in when her best friend had a baby. And that was not like Shannon at all. Even when she went away without telling anyone, she would always call on these important days. Detective Lambert didn't say this, but he knew four months might as well have been an eternity when it came to a missing persons case. If Shannon had really left town like her sister claimed she liked to do, well, Shannon could be anywhere in the world by now. But Lambert figured he would just start his investigation the same way he would if

Shannon had only been missing for a few days. So he took down information about Shannon's physical appearance, her last known address, and the places she had worked. He also learned small details, like Shannon's favorite color was pink, and she loved wearing friendship bracelets. And so after only speaking to Debbie for a few minutes, Detective Lambert had a pretty good picture of who Shannon was. But he had one more question. He asked Debbie if Shannon had a romantic partner. Debbie said yes, Shannon had a boyfriend, or at least she did the last time they had

spoken. She had been living with a guy named Arturo Naveau, and Shannon had told Debbie that she and Arturo fought all the time. The following day, Detective Lambert sat down with Arturo in a small interview room at the station. Lambert had looked into Arturo the night before. He knew Arturo had a couple of minor run-ins with the police, but nothing big, and he had no record of violent crimes or anything like that. So Lambert really just hoped that Arturo knew where Shannon was, or at least had heard from her over the past four months, and also, if he hadn't, he hoped to get a good idea of

what Arturo and Shannon's relationship had been like. But when Lambert asked Arturo when he'd last seen or talked to Shannon, Arturo seemed surprised by the question. He said he'd already told all this to Shannon's family when they'd called him like a month or so earlier. He said he and Shannon had broken up back in February. He admitted that things ended pretty badly, so they had not spoken to each other since. The last he'd heard, Shannon was living with some guy in Cleveland, which was over an hour

away from Youngstown. Arturo didn't know the name of the man that Shannon was supposedly living with, so he really couldn't provide much more color than he already had. And so Lambert wrapped up their conversation soon after that, and then he reached out to Shannon's sister, Debbie, to see if she knew of any men other than Arturo that Shannon could possibly be with. Debbie said before Shannon had started dating Arturo, she'd been in a serious relationship with a man named John Scorada. Just hearing that name shocked Lambert, and it caused him to immediately begin planning his next move, because he knew John Scorada all too well.

John had a substantial criminal history. In fact, he had done time in prison on drug charges, and Lambert knew that John had a substantial criminal history. In fact, he had done time in prison on drug charges, and Lambert knew that John had gotten out of prison right around the last time anyone had seen Shannon. After speaking to Debbie, Detective Lambert got to work right away tracking down John. And it would turn out he was not in Cleveland.

He was in Youngstown, trying to get his life together after getting out of prison. The following day, when John Scoratta walked into the interview room at the station, he greeted Detective Lambert like they were old friends. And when the detective brought up Shannon, John didn't seem surprised at all. He said he'd learned Shannon had disappeared not long after he'd gotten out of prison. So Lambert asked if he was worried about her. And John, in response to this, did something that Lambert did not see coming at all. John leaned forward in his chair and said yes, he was really worried. In fact, he was so worried,

he'd started his own investigation. Lambert was so caught off guard by this that he didn't really know how to react. What did John mean he was doing his own investigation? But just then John grabbed his phone out of his pocket, pulled up his photos, and showed them to Lambert. And Lambert saw multiple pictures of different cars that had been parked right outside of Shannon's apartment over the past few months. John had staked out the place, looking for Shannon or for anything or anyone that seemed out of the ordinary.

Lambert felt a little conflicted. He believed if something bad had happened to Shannon, John had to be a major suspect here. But he couldn't deny that he did want to track down all of these cars John had photographed at Shannon's apartment. So ultimately, Lambert did get the license plate numbers of all the cars, and he told John to stop staking out Shannon's place and to just let the police do their jobs. John said he totally understood, he just wanted to find Shannon and make sure she was okay.

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Dive into uninterrupted true crime stories today. Detective Lambert Detective Lambert knew John had connections to the criminal world of Youngstown, Ohio. So there really was a chance that John thought he was the best person to find Shannon, a woman he claimed to still be in love with. Ohio, so there really was a chance that John thought he was the best person to find Shannon, a woman he claimed to still be in love with. But there was also a chance that John was just trying to send the police on some kind of wild goose chase to keep them off of his trail, because maybe he had something to do

with what happened to Shannon. So in the days following their meeting, Lambert and his team tried to get a clear picture of everywhere John had been since he'd gotten out of prison, and if he'd had any communication with Shannon near the time she'd supposedly disappear. Police also questioned Shannon's friends, her family, and her co-workers at the nightclub, and they also followed up on all those cars John had photographed. But for Shannon's half-sister Debbie, the police were not moving fast enough. She now believed that she and her family had waited way too long to get the cops involved,

and so she felt like she had to do something to make up for that. So in late June, about a week after she had filed the missing persons report, Debbie knocked on the door of a house in Youngstown that looked pretty much like all the other houses around it, except for the sign in the window that advertised psychic readings. A woman with a soft smile opened the door and led Debbie down a hallway to a small dark room. The woman told Debbie she was a psychic medium, which meant she claimed to be able to communicate with spirits or the deceased and then was able to relay their messages to the living.

Debbie sat down at a table with the medium and described Shannon and talked about how she'd been missing for months. The medium closed her eyes and listened carefully. For a moment, she told Debbie she could see something, a bridge. This medium didn't know exactly which bridge this was, but she was sure it was not far away from here. And somehow, this bridge had to be connected to Shannon's disappearance. Debbie left the medium's house and immediately called a friend of hers and told her what the medium had said. And both women decided it was clear what they had to do next. They

would have to search every bridge in Youngstown, Ohio. And so for the next couple of weeks, Debbie and her friend went around town visiting every bridge they could find. And it started to feel like a waste of time. That is, until one afternoon when Debbie and her friend approached a small bridge that neither of them had driven on before. As they stepped out of the car, they saw something laying on the ground near the base of one of the bridge's girders.

When Debbie walked over to it and knelt down to get a better look, she almost started crying. Because there, laying on the ground, were saw blades, a rope, and a pink sock. Debbie and her friend took pictures of the objects, and then drove straight to the police station. Debbie told Detective Lambert about the medium's vision and showed him took pictures of the objects and then drove straight to the police station. Debbie told Detective Lambert about the medium's vision and showed him the photos of what they'd found at the bridge. Lambert had learned from Debbie when they first met that Shannon's favorite color was pink and that she loved wearing pink clothes.

He couldn't just ignore saw blades and a rope being found out in the middle of nowhere next to a pink sock, so the detective told Debbie that he and his team would look into it right away. But as Lambert headed out to this bridge, he started to feel like this case was getting away from him. He was already dealing with the missing woman's ex-boyfriend conducting his own investigation and now he was following up on a lead that apparently came from a psychic medium. And Lambert still had no idea what had happened to Shannon. She really could just be in Cleveland, or anywhere else, purposefully avoiding her friends and family. Or she could be the victim

of a horrible crime. One way or the other, Lambert needed some piece of concrete evidence to point him in the right direction. And while he didn't want to rule anything out, he doubted that that piece of evidence was going to come from a psychic vision. About a month later, on the afternoon of July 29th, a woman was making Italian food at her house in a small town just a few miles from Youngstown. As she cooked, she looked down at the food she was making and suddenly she got mad at herself. She realized she didn't have enough meat to make the meatballs she was planning to serve with this meal. She thought about taking a quick trip to the

grocery store, but then she remembered something. So she called out to her husband in the next room and told him to keep an eye on the stove. She left the kitchen and walked down a set of old wooden steps into the basement. She passed by their washer and dryer and walked over to a white rectangle-shaped chest freezer that was standing up against the wall. Now, this woman knew there was meat inside this freezer and she could use it to make her meatballs woman knew there was meat inside this freezer and she could use it to make her meatballs. But there was a problem. The freezer had a padlock on it.

But the woman was undeterred. She grabbed a nearby screwdriver off a work table and used it to pry the entire metal latch that the lock was connected to off the freezer. And so now with the freezer unlocked, the woman opened it up and immediately she began to scream. At about 5.30 that afternoon,

two hours after that woman had looked inside the freezer, crime scene investigator Tony Marzullo walked down the stairs into the married couple's basement. Marzullo walked down the stairs into the married couple's basement. Marzullo worked out of Youngstown, but he helped in the surrounding smaller towns when he was needed, and today he'd gotten one of the strangest calls he'd ever received from police dispatch in one of those smaller towns. Marzullo put on his gloves and approached the freezer.

The freezer door was still open, and he could see inside of the freezer was an orange plastic bucket with trash bags sticking out of it. Marzullo got closer and leaned over the freezer and looked inside of that bucket, and the instant he did he reflexively put his hand over his mouth and tried to collect himself. Even the call from dispatch had not prepared him for this. Because in the bucket, Marzullo was looking at the top half of a frozen severed human head. Marzullo looked down deeper into the freezer and he saw the entire thing was basically

filled with trash bags. And as he pulled out each of these bags and looked inside of them, he found human legs, human arms, and human hands. Marzullo had no idea who the victim was, but instinctively, he grabbed his phone and called Detective Lambert. Later that evening, Detective Lambert stood in the basement with Marzullo and a group of police officers and forensic technicians. Like Lambert had expected, the psychic vision and the objects found at that bridge had not given him any new leads in Shannon's case, and neither had any of the interviews Lambert had conducted to this point.

Basically, the case had stalled. He had no idea where Shannon was or what happened to her. But now, as he stood over the freezer, he had a sinking feeling that the body he was looking at could be hers. Now, they would need to run some tests to officially identify the body, but Marzullo was very confident they could do that quickly. Forensic techs would allow the severed hands they'd found to defrost. Then they would use a saline solution to rehydrate the fingers on those hands,

which would allow them to pull clean fingerprints. While Lambert waited for those results, he interviewed the married couple who lived at the house to try to figure out how a dismembered body had wound up in their basement. The couple proved to be extremely cooperative. They said that freezer was not theirs. A friend had asked to store it in their house because the electricity in his house had been cut off and he didn't want the meat in the freezer to go bad. When their friend had brought it over, they did think it was odd that the freezer had a padlock on it, but they'd assumed the freezer door just didn't stay shut on its own, so their friend must have locked it just to make sure the meat inside stayed frozen. The woman went on to tell

Lambert that the only reason she had broken into the freezer is because she really wanted to make meatballs. Lambert thought the story was definitely strange, but none of it sounded untrue. So he asked who was this friend who gave them the freezer. They said his name was Anthony Gonzales, but he was trying to become a hip-hop star, so sometimes he went by the name Tony G. That night, Lambert began his search for Anthony Gonzalez, aka Tony G. But despite it seeming like a pretty common name, he could not find a single Anthony Gonzalez living in Youngstown. And before Lambert could expand his search for Anthony to nearby towns, he got a call from Marzullo.

Marzullo told him the lab had successfully pulled fingerprints from the now defrosted hands they'd found, and they were able to officially identify the victim. The body in the freezer was Shannon Graves. Now that police had finally found Shannon's body, and this had become a homicide investigation, news of the grisly discovery in the basement spread across Youngstown. And in the days following the discovery, Detective Lambert got an unexpected visitor at the station. Shannon's ex-boyfriend, John, had returned. John had heard about Shannon's body, and he admitted right off the bat to Detective Lambert that, despite what he'd promised him, he said he had not actually given up his own investigation

into Shannon's case, and in fact now, he had discovered something huge. John heard from a friend of his about a house party that had taken place a few months earlier. And at this house party, a man named Andrew Herman had been burning some of Shannon's stuff in a huge bonfire. With help from John, Detective Lambert and several other investigators found their way to the house where this party had taken place. As soon as they got out of their cars, they could see the remnants of a bonfire in the front yard. There was a big pit filled with ashes and big pieces of wood around it that looked like they'd been used for seating.

Lambert and a crime scene investigator walked across the dying grass in the front yard. They put on their gloves and began sifting through the large pile of ashes. They found what looked like charred clothing and some burned pieces of plastic. But to their utter shock, it looked like one object had survived the fire and remained almost perfectly preserved. And as Lambert bent down and pulled this object out of the ashes, he almost couldn't believe it. Because of all the possible things he could have found, this was like the perfect clue.

The object was a friendship bracelet with small plastic beads strung on it that spelled out Shannon. There was no doubt that John had been right. Somebody had been burning Shannon's things. Investigators headed back to the station with this new piece of evidence, and Lambert set up a meeting with Andrew Herman, the man John said had been burning Shannon's things. But John warned Lambert to watch out, because Andrew was a total psychopath. A guy who was into black magic, and who worshipped the serial killer cannibal, Jeffrey Dahmer.

On August 7th, 2017, so about a week and a half after the discovery of Shannon's body, Detective Lambert led Andrew into an interview room. And Lambert had to admit that Andrew was not anything like what he'd expected. Andrew wore a well-fitted suit and tie, and his hair was short and neatly combed. He looked way more like a guy who worked at a bank than somebody who was into black magic and serial killers. But Lambert knew the way this guy was dressing didn't prove anything one way or another. Detective Lambert told Andrew right away that they had gone to the site of the house party and discovered a friendship bracelet inside

of a fire pit that they were sure belonged to Shannon Graves, and that they'd heard Andrew was the one trying to burn it. Andrew nodded and said yep, the bracelet was Shannon's and he was trying to burn it, and he also admitted that he and a couple other people had also burned some of Shannon's other things at that party. Lambert just looked at him and said it seemed very suspicious that they had burned the belongings of a woman who'd recently been found brutally murdered. But Andrew did not flinch. In a perfectly calm voice, he said they had burned the stuff as a favor for a friend, Anthony Gonzales. Now, Detective Lambert did not react to what he was hearing, but inside,

after hearing that name, he felt like he was about to lock up this investigation. Because he was now able to connect Anthony, aka Tony G., the man who'd brought the freezer to the married couple's basement, directly to the bonfire that had been used to get rid of Shannon's personal belongings. So Lambert asked why his friend, Anthony, had wanted to burn Shannon's stuff in the first place. Andrew sat there in silence for a minute, and then he began to speak. And when he did, without ever losing his cool, he told a story that was even gorier and more disturbing than any story Detective Lambert had ever heard in his life. And by the time Andrew stopped telling this story, Lambert knew exactly what had happened

to Shannon Graves. Based on information from Andrew, evidence found in the basement freezer, and interviews conducted throughout the investigation, the following is a reconstruction of what police believe happened to Shannon on February 24th, 2017 and the following days. The killer walked through Shannon's apartment, breathing heavily and clutching a hammer in their hand. They could hear the shower running, so they headed for the bathroom. Once there, they opened the door and stepped inside. Shannon shouted something and pulled back the shower curtain, but before she could even

figure out what was happening, the killer raised the hammer and slammed it into the top of her head. Shannon's body collapsed in the shower, and blood began to run into the drain. As for the killer, they continued to swing the hammer over and over again into Shannon's head. Her body twitched and then eventually stopped moving. She was dead in the shower. The killer turned off the water and just stood there for a second,

staring down at what they'd done. And for the first time, they realized that killing Shannon was actually just the beginning. Now they had to get rid of her body. The killer rushed to the kitchen, found trash bags, and came right back. They opened up a bathroom cabinet, grabbed an electric razor, and turned it on. Then they leaned into the shower and shaved Shannon's head, believing this would help disguise her identity. When they were finished, the killer put the razor back, opened one of the trash bags, and awkwardly pulled Shannon's body out of the killer put the razor back, opened one of the trash bags,

and awkwardly pulled Shannon's body out of the shower onto the bathroom floor. They tried to stuff Shannon into the trash bag, but quickly realized that was never going to work. So they tried to wrap the trash bag around her, but that failed too. The bag just wasn't big enough. The killer started to panic. They knew they had not thought this through. So they grabbed their phone and called their girlfriend.

A few minutes later, there was a knock at the door. The killer opened it and quickly led their girlfriend into the bathroom and showed her Shannon's body. The girlfriend did her best to stay calm. She said after dark, they could move Shannon's body to her place and figure out what to do with it from there. So the killer and their girlfriend spent a couple of hours in Shannon's apartment just kind of waiting around with Shannon's dead body only a few feet away. Not long after sunset, the killer and the girlfriend grabbed

Shannon's clothes off the bathroom floor, they took her purse, and then did their best to wrap Shannon's body up in trash bags. Then they carried her body and her belongings out into the darkness, and put everything into the trunk of the girlfriend's car. They drove to the girlfriend's house and brought Shannon's body inside, and laid it in the bathtub. Then the killer called the one friend they thought could help. Later that night, that friend arrived with a fully formed plan and a machete. The killer, the girlfriend, and the friend of the killer spent the entire night dismembering

Shannon's body. At some point, the friend told the killer to order sulfuric acid online and to set up a delivery at a bulk store nearby. In the meantime, the friend gathered up all of Shannon's stuff the group had in their possession and went to a house party, where they knew there was going to be a big bonfire, and they burned everything. Not long after that, the sulfuric acid arrived at the bulk store. Killer picked it up, and the three of them covered the now

dismembered body parts in the sulfuric acid, hoping to melt Shannon's skin down to the bone. But they soon discovered a problem. In an effort to save money, the killer had bought off-brand sulfuric acid, and it just was not doing the trick. Large parts of Shannon's body were disintegrating in the acid, but not all of it was. So the friend took the machete and started hacking away even more at Shannon's body while the killer went out and bought a chest freezer. And eventually the three of them were able to get Shannon's body parts into trash bags and a bucket, and they crammed all of that into the freezer and locked it.

And at that point the killer's friend, who made a point of studying serial killers, believed they had completely covered their tracks. Andrew Herman, the man who supposedly worshiped Jeffrey Dahmer, oversaw the disposal of Shannon's body and her belongings. And his friend, Anthony Gonzalez, who also went by his hip-hop name, Tony G, murdered Shannon. But it would turn out, Anthony Gonzalez and Tony G, those two names, were both aliases.

Anthony, aka Tony G, was actually Shannon's boyfriend, Arturo Naveau. On the night that he and Shannon had fought and he stormed out, Arturo did not leave for good. Instead, he came back, grabbed a hammer, and killed Shannon. But Arturo had not thought the murder through. So after it was done, he called his other girlfriend, the woman who Shannon had seen him hanging around with at the nightclub, for help. This girlfriend, who knew Arturo by his alias, Anthony Gonzalez, was very devoted to him and was willing to do whatever it took to protect him, which is why she was willing to help dispose of Shannon's body. Police had considered Arturo a suspect, and when they interviewed him after the missing

persons report was filed, Arturo worried they would start closing in. So he had taken the freezer with Shannon's body in it to the house of a married couple he knew. He told them he had no electricity at his place and asked them to store the freezer so the meat wouldn't go bad. And they agreed. After the discovery of Shannon's body in their basement, police had begun to look for Anthony Gonzalez, which the married couple believed was their friend's real name who

owned the freezer. But it was when the couple showed the police a picture of Anthony that the police knew they were onto something. Because they could tell, the photo was not of Anthony. The photo was of Arturo. And finally, Shannon's ex-boyfriend John, who had his own investigation, helped Detective Lambert solidify his case. When John led Lambert to the remnants of the bonfire and Shannon's friendship bracelet,

it allowed Lambert to bring in Andrew for questioning, because that's who John said was burning all the stuff. And Andrew, when he was interviewed, just told Detective Lambert all about the horrors that had taken place from the moment Arturo killed Shannon until the moment the freezer ended up in the married couple's basement. Arturo was ultimately sentenced to 48 years to life in prison. His girlfriend was sentenced to 18 years for her role in the crime, and Andrew was sentenced to 12 years.

A quick note about our stories, they are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved, and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. Mr. Bollin Podcast, and also Mr. Bollin's Medical Mysteries, Bedtime Stories, Wartime Stories, Run Fool, and Redacted. Just search for Bollin Studios wherever you get your podcasts to find all of these shows. To watch hundreds more stories, just like the ones you heard today, head over to our YouTube channel, which is just called Mr. Bollin. So that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time, see ya. Hey Prime members, you can binge 8 new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today.

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