The Deck - Sheree Allen (2 of Hearts, Utah)

Episode Date: April 26, 2023

Our card this week is Sheree Allen, the 2 of Hearts from Utah. Sheree Allen was last seen alive at the (former) Colonial Motel in downtown Salt Lake City on January 23, 2005. The next night, her body was found in a dumpster in West Valley City, Utah wrapped in trash bags. There have been several viable leads in the case, but none have ever resulted in charges or arrests. If you have any information about Sheree’s murder, you’re asked to reach out to the Utah Cold Case Coalition at 385-258-3313. Or you can call the West Valley City Police Department or the Utah Department of Public Safety’s cold case tip hotline at 833-377-7233. To learn more about The Deck, visit www.thedeckpodcast.com. To apply for the Cold Case Playing Cards grant through Season of Justice, visit www.seasonofjustice.org Follow The Deck on social media and join Ashley’s community by texting [phone] to stay up to date on what's new!

Our card this week is Shari Allen, the two of hearts from Utah. In early 2005, Shari was newly single and staying at a motel in Salt Lake City before figuring out the next turn she wanted to take in life. But one night that winter, a gruesome discovery inside a suburban dumpster shattered any dream Shari's family had for her. And despite years of investigating and some promising leads, answers have been hard to come by. I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is The Deck. The January 24th was a cold night in West Valley City, Utah, but the frigid temperatures weren't

going to stop David Wetterstrup from dumpster diving. In 2005, it was something he often did to look for valuables. And tonight, David was heading toward a dumpster behind a Hollywood video located in a strip mall. It wasn't far from a radio shack, so he figured he might find some salvageable electronics in it when he climbed inside. Around 11.30 pm, I imagine the inside of the dumpster must have been pretty dark, as David searched around through the rubbish to look for treasure.

In the back of the bin, something caught his attention. It was a plastic trash bag in the back that was too heavy to move, so he reached over to touch it. But what he felt made him recoil. It was a bony texture like a spine, so he ripped the bag open. David later recalled that moment to ABC for Utah.

That's when I seen her back. I didn't want to believe that that woman's body was mostly wrapped in plastic trash bags and curled up in the fetal position. He was freaked out. He didn't know if whoever killed the woman was still lurking nearby, so he hightailed it out of there and into the Hollywood video to call police. The West Valley City Police Department responded and met David at the dumpster. The first officer on the scene parked in a way so that his cruiser headlights would give

them some light. And then he climbed on in. The officer's supervisor got there and told him to use a pocket knife to cut the bag open more because they wanted to confirm that it was a human body before calling for backup and the medical examiner. It took him just a few seconds to verify that it was the fully intact, nude body of a woman. Police called for a tow truck to remove the entire dumpster from the lot, attempting to keep any potential evidence that might be in there with the woman. They set up a mobile command unit

with lights to look at everything in detail. Police also sent an officer to look at other nearby dumpsters behind businesses to check for any suspicious items, or worst-case, more bodies. More than 20 other trash bins in the area were checked, but nothing noteworthy was found. Detectives also contacted the Waste Company, a1 disposal because according to reporting by the Daily Herald in 2005, police said that the last time the dumpster had been emptied was three days prior, that would have been a Friday, which told police that that body had been in the dumpster anywhere from 24 to 72 hours. The body was taken to the ME's office and the next day, January 25th, an autopsy was done. The victim had abrasions on her neck and wrists, swelling on her face, and apparent drag marks

on her body. There was no doubt that she'd been murdered. And even though a pathologist was able to determine how she died, police have never revealed Sheree's official cause of death. Now around the same time, a fingerprint search came back matching 22-year-old Sheree Allen. Detectives were sent to track down Sheree's mom, Lily Allen, who worked as a chef at a local restaurant back then. Lily told our reporter about that moment. I was at the restaurant steal. I mean, I was working that day at the restaurant. But all I saw were the officers and undercover police officers.

And I said, what is this? Let's be police? They did the day in the restaurant. It didn't even register in Lily's mind that all those officers were there to give her heart-breaking news about one of her kids. When one of them came up to the window and said, are you Lily? I said, oh my goodness, sir. I said, please don't take me to jail.

I said, I know. I haven't paid some of my bills, but I'm working on it. He just left and he says, no, I'm not here for that. He said, but are you Lilliel and I said, yes, sir, I am. And he showed me a picture of her. He said, can you identify this person? I said, yes, this is my daughter, Sharree. Lily said the police asked her to go to the morgue to make the official identification.

That was the hardest thing that I ever done in my life. With the go in there and see my baby land up there. Confirming Sharree's name right off the bat gave police a solid place to begin their investigation. They already knew Share had an arrest record because of her fingerprint match in Aifis, but they wanted to find out more about her. A quick search told them Sheree had a few local addresses

and was also known to go by Sheree Green or Latasha Smith. They found out she lived in Utah with her family since 1989 and was a graduate of West High School where she was in the band and played the flute. When Sheree was killed, she was a mom of four small kids, two sets of twins. But at the time of her death, Sheree was struggling with substance use. She was known for sex work, living in a motel, and she was wanted on a warrant. The picture of Sheree's life started to come into focus for investigators.

And what they saw was a nice young woman with a family who loved her and was having a rough go of it lately and possibly hanging around with a tough crowd. As Sheree's murder made the news, phone calls started flooding police. Some people made reports of seeing men acting suspicious by various dumpsters in the city.

Others reported cars they'd seen parks near the dumpster at Hollywood video. And then, that same morning, another call came into the West Valley City Police from a man who wanted to report Sheree as a missing person. The man's name was Carl Swannigan. Apparently he hadn't seen or read the local news and was calling because he was getting worried about his girlfriend Sheree who he hadn't seen in the last day or so. They of course asked Carl to come into the station that very day, though they didn't

yet tell him that Sheree was already dead. They wanted his statement first. He told police that he and Sheree were an on-again, off-again couple, and that they'd recently broken up again, which prompted Sheree to move into the colonial motel in downtown Salt Lake. Police wanted to know when and why the two broke up, and Carl said it had been a few days prior around January 18th.

The two just got in a normal argument and she took off. Carl said he couldn't find her for several days and he even walked the streets looking for her. But finally on the 23rd, a mutual friend tipped off Carl to Sheree's location, and so Carl and his cousin Thomas found her at the colonial motel. Carl said he and Sheree made up and then they spent the day together and all was well. Carl, who, by the way, was also known as Big Smooth, said that the two just hung out at the motel. His aunt brought them some food, and Sheree left around 7 or 8 pm. Carl said he stayed the night at Sheree's motel room because he wanted to be there when

she got back, but she never returned. So he left around noon on Monday to look for her and continued walking around searching for her until the next morning when he called police. Now Carl seemed to have caught on by then that something was terribly wrong because he became upset and demanded to know what happened to Sheree. I'm not sure exactly how police delivered the news because I'm sure they were also wondering if Carl was even telling the truth. I mean, he was basically admitting to having a fight with her and being the last to see Sheree alive.

But also, why would he report her missing less than 24 hours later if he was guilty of murder? A strategy to seem innocent, maybe? Either way, it wasn't enough to hold him on. Plus, police had someone else that they wanted to question. Sheree's husband, Eric Green. Now, the two were separated, but still got to check out the husband. So the next day, on January 26, police tracked Eric down. He agreed to an interview and said that he and Cherie had broken up in the fall of 2001,

and the two hadn't even crossed paths since 2004. Eric also said he had an alibi for the night of the 23rd. He'd been watching a football game with his girlfriend and some other friends. Now, I can't find any record of police verifying this alibi, but they must have, or they had no reason to believe Eric had motive to kill Sheree, or maybe both. And I think this, because it seems like they checked Eric off their list and just moved on. Police didn't want to waste more time, so detectives headed to downtown Salt Lake City

to the Colonial Motel to Canvas and see what else they could find out. The manager there, a man named James told police that Sheree showed up on January 20th and rented room 23. And that a few days later, someone started staying with her. That would have been Carl. In fact, Carl was still staying in the room but was planning to check out on the 27th. James said Carl had just paid his rent, and when he had, Carl mentioned that Sheree had gone missing and he was worried about her. James told police that he hadn't had any problems

with them during their stay and no one had reported any issues. He also noted that neither of them seemed to have a car. Police also talked with James' girlfriend Tammy, who worked at the motel, and she said that she saw Sheree on the afternoon of Sunday the 23rd because she collected rent from her. But she hadn't seen her since. Police obtained a search warrant to look through Sheree's motel room. They didn't find anything too interesting, aside from a few receipts from a motel-a-sharee must have stayed at prior to living at the colonial. But while detectives continued canvassing over the next couple of days, someone who was renting a room near

Sheree told officers that two men had been at the motel looking for Sheree on Sunday. She said that the men actually asked her if she was Sheree, and she told them no. And then she went to Sheree's room to tell her that there were men there for her, and Sheree responded by asking if the men were white or black. She told Sheree they were two black men, and Sheree turned around and went back inside her room. During one of a few canvassing efforts at the motel, another woman told police that she knew Carl and he was a nice guy. She said he seemed very worried about Sheree, the last time they ran into each other at

the motel. But another guy who knew Carl told police that he was known as a quote-unquote gorilla pimpe. Now I hadn't heard that term before, but it's pretty awful. Basically, it means a trafficker with a bad temper. Someone who controls sex workers by using physical force. And this man also just straight up said that he thought Carl killed Sheree. But could he prove it?

No. What made him think that? I wish I knew. Over the next few days, police worked to find any possible forensic evidence and even searched the dumpster for fingerprints and trace evidence, but they didn't find anything. As leads were dwindling, West Valley City Police got an anonymous tip on a hotline. This was about four days after Sheree's body had been found, and it had been all over the news by then.

This tipster mentioned unpaid federal court cause and something about the church that Sheree's mom Lily worked for and was associated with. This guy implied that Carl was also associated with the church. The tipster didn't leave a ton of details, but police must not have looked too far into it, because that's all that's mentioned in reports. Maybe the tips weren't detailed enough, or maybe police thought the caller was conspiratorial, either way detectives changed course after that. On January 31st, detectives traveled to the Utah State Prison to interview a guy named Willie Moore. How come? Well, Willie had Sheree listed as his wife. According to police reports, detectives looked to see if Willie had

made or received any phone calls the week Sheree was murdered. He did call a relative, and police listened to the recorded conversation where Willie asked his relative if Sheree had been found dead. Another phone call Willie made to that same relative had nothing to do with Sheree, and he had not had any visitors during his incarceration which started the year before. Willie did tell police though that Sheree had his cell phone, and they should try and find it.

He explained that before Sheree got into drugs, the two were a couple, and even moved out of state for a few years before returning to Utah in 2003. Willie was forthcoming with officers, even telling them that one time Sheree told him that a man named Frank had tried to sexually assault her at a motel. Willie also said an older man named Poppy was acquainted with Sheree and might know something. By the time police left, they were pretty sure he didn't have anything to do with Sheree's

murder from behind bars. But they did ask prison officials to just keep an eye on Willie's mail. As police were scrambling to follow those leads hoping one would stick, Cherie's family was preparing for her funeral, which was held on February 2, 2005. The ceremony made Lily ponder all the things her daughter was going to be here on the surface living doing fun things she likes to do, raising up family, being with her kids, enjoying her kids. Maybe someday her grandkids, but now she'll never know what it's like to have those grandkids and enjoy those grandkids. kids and have them call the granny or whatever she would prefer him to call her. She will never have that chance because someone took it away from her. That is her so much. As it was, I could just hold her, tell her one more time, one more time, love her. And

then things would have been alright. Lily holds on to the happy memories of her daughter and sometimes wonders what she would be doing today. She was a very funny girl. She liked to have fun. She laughed all the time. She was always, she's a person that loved to help people. She would go out of a way to help anybody, no matter who, where, what she would do,

whatever she could do for you, she would do it. Everyone, she was a baby. I thought she was full of the crowd lot, but she didn't, she smiles a lot. She always gave me joy, she would always say, hello, mother, how are you, mother?" Lily hates the fact that her daughter was murdered during one of the hardest chapters of her life, because she feels like that's what's reiterated in the news over and over again. Sherry's a rest record, her mug shot the active warrant. But Lily said that's not who Sherry was. She just sometimes is silly girl, but she wanted to grow up and she wanted to be a nurse,

but she never got a chance to do that. She would come by the restaurant. I was always working, but she would come by the restaurant. We'd have holiday dinners together. We'd exchange presents for brothers and and sisters we'd get together. We were a uniting family. We always did things together. If I didn't do it with them, she would do it with the brothers and sisters.

The last time Lily ever saw Sheree was less than two weeks before she was murdered. I was working at the Ristarite. I'm with Sheree. I don't I'm retired from it. And she came into the restaurant on 13th, South London on Temple. I asked her where she is. She said, yes, mother. I said, you always home. She said, yeah, that's true, mother. And so we sit out and we talked, I fixed something to eat. And she said, the last thing she said to me, she said, it was the day before knowing it was my birthday.

And she said, Mother, I'm going to get your birthday present and I'll be back. But she never came back. Thank you. On February 7th, a woman who was arrested by Salt Lake County said that she had information about Sheree's murder. West Valley City detectives met with the woman in jail who said that she was a sex worker, and that quote, word on the street is, that big smooth did this to Sheree." Now remember, that's what Carl went by, so detectives were like, okay, you got any proof? And the woman said, actually yes, she said that big smooth

had threatened to quote unquote, throw her in a dumpster. And not only that, this woman claimed to have personally heard Carl, or a.k.a. big smooth, threatened Sheree before her death, saying, quote, �You ain't nothing, and nobody would miss you. I could throw you in a dumpster��." It was May by the time police tried to interview Carl again, and he refused. He denied having anything to do with Sheree's death, and he refused to give a DNA sample, though I'm not even sure what evidence they have to test it against.

By spring 2005, Leeds about Sheree's murder had pretty much dried up, but that summer, something happened that made some wonder if Sheree's killer had struck again. On July 15th, just after 12.30 a.m., an employee at Metro Waste in Salt Lake City was compressing some garbage at the Waste facility plant after a round of dumpster collections when he came across a woman's body. According to Old News report, she was wrapped in a plastic trash bag, and the compressing ripped open the bag and exposed the woman's shoulder. Soon after a preliminary autopsy was done, the woman was identified as 35-year-old Suzanne

Maxwell, who had a history of being a sex worker. Because Suzanne's body was already at the Waste facility, it was hard to tell which trash bin in the city that she'd been in. But the president of Metro Waste told reporters back then that it wouldn't be impossible to identify a few potential locations. But either that was never done or the information was never released to the public. Police didn't find any missing person's reports filed about Suzanne, and they were hesitant

to say that she was murdered. Assault Lake City PD spokesperson at the time just called it suspicious. Then, all of a sudden poof, a month later, police announced that Suzanne had actually died of an overdose, and that they would not be investigating her case as a murder, because it was probably accidental. Oh, but according to reporting by the Deseret News, they said that they would still be interested in knowing who put her body in trash bags and then into a dumpster, because that part is a crime, and that person could be charged with illegally dumping a body. I have so many questions about this,

but there's no other information and no mention in the files we have that West Valley City and Salt Lake City Police ever got together to compare information in Sheree and Suzanne's cases. Years went by without any action in Sheree's case. That is until 2011, when police were contacted by Sheree's estranged husband again, Eric Green. He said that he had gotten into a fight with a guy over him talking about knowing who killed Cherie. This guy said that two men, known as LA and Pops, were responsible for Cherie's death

because she had not kept her end of a drug and sex deal. This guy even knew in what manner Pops had killed Sheree, which, we're told, matched her actual cause of death. And remember, that's never been released publicly. Unfortunately, Eric didn't know the real names of these men, and the investigation came to a screeching halt. A few years later, in 2013, Carl, a K.A. Big Smooth Swann again, passed away.

In 2018, the West Valley City Police Department put out a press release to the local media around the greater Salt Lake area. It was around the 13th anniversary of Sheree's murder, and it was basically just a call-out looking for new tips. It doesn't really seem like anything came from it, though. The case file has shuffled from detective to detective since then without any breakthroughs. In January of this year, the police department put a call to action on its Facebook page. The post said, quote,

�Leads on this case have dried up, and WVCPD detectives are looking for new information. Please share Sheree's story, help us find her killer and bring her family some small measure of peace. End quote. Willie and her family hope this isn't the end of Cherie's story or the investigation into her murder. I would like to see Maureen investigation done and I would like to move forward if they have a suspect to take it to court. Let's get this done. And we can know I can get some closure and some rest of this.

I don't want this to drag on for another 17 years because it would be unfair to me and unfair to her and her children and her brothers and sisters. My daddy always saying we were a stubborn family and we were determined to do what we started and we don't give up until we finish it. So I'm not giving up. The fight is still on. It's still on. I don't know how long I have on this earth but I hope that the jail law gave me If you have any information about Sheree's murder, there are a few ways you can help. If you know the real names of LA or Pops, you're asked to reach out to the Utah Cold Case Coalition at 385-258-3313. Or you can call the Utah Department of Public Safety's Cold Case Tip Hotline at 833-377-7233. The Deck is an audio chuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about the Deck and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast.com.

So what do you think Chuck? Do you approve? Woo!