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Welcome back to Postmortem. I'm CBS News correspondent Natalie Morales stepping in today as your host to speak with 48
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hours correspondent Ann Marie Green about her report on the murder of 31-year-old Shea Brier. It was on
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January 12th, 2020 when Sha Brier was found incoherent on a remote bridge in J County, Indiana. Now, it turned out he
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had been shot in the back with a bullet lodged in his heart, and he later died from his injuries. Now, when a homicide
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investigation was launched, detectives uncovered a shocking plot involving not one, not two, but three individuals. An
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Marie is joining me now to chat with me. Hey, Amry. Hello. Hello. Hello. And thank you. I love it when we do it like
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this. I like to It's fun being on the other side. It's fun for me, too, being on this end of it. Now, I just want to
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remind our listeners if you have not listened to the 48 hours episode yet, you can find the full audio just below
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this episode in your podcast feed. So, just go take a listen, then come right back for our conversation.
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So, Amarie, it's rare that we see a woman as a killer, but in this case, we have three women who are charged with
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killing Sheay or being involved in his death. Yeah. Um, we start things off with EJ. Um, she's 29 years old. She's
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pretty much the first person that comes under suspicion for detectives because she's the only person who's had a
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conflict with Sheay. People love this guy. Um, she is Sha's ex fiance and the mother of his child, but their
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relationship wasn't that kind of relationship. you know, they kind of didn't really date until after they had
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become parents, if you will, and and then became um, you know, engaged. But then later, we learn about these two
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other young women who are involved. And I say young women cuz they're teenagers,
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right? We have 18-year-old Hannah whose parents van was used. She was driving her parents' van that night. And then
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there's 18-year-old Shelby who is the one who shot. Let's talk about that age difference and and who the mastermind of
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this was. I mean, who was the one who was sort of seen as the the person who was pulling the strings on this
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operation? >> Yeah, I guess you know that's a bit of the the question. You know, you have to
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understand that EJ has known these two other women for quite a long time. She's 10 years older than them. She's a
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softball coach. She's coached them. Um, and they basically have known her since they were children. You have to wonder
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about the nature of her influence over them. >> And you see it in the hour. A lot of
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people, you know, speculated as to whether or not there was more to the relationship between Shelby and EJ. No
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one saw EJ without Shelby being around. We also learned that EJ's name was in Shelby's phone as bae. I know you've
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probably heard that nickname, bae. And it's normally spelled B A E. It was spelled B A Y. They could have just
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spelled it wrong. I don't know. But we all know what that means, my bae. That's my sweetheart, right? Um, of course, you
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know, both ladies say that there was nothing romantic between them. They were just very close friends. But the other
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thing is it really was Shelby who seemed to really dislike Sheay and she's the one who shot the gun. So Ambry, let's
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talk about the apparent motive in this case which is just so sad because all it is it seems is that is that Sheay just
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wanted to be involved in his daughter's life. Now that was something that EJ did
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not want according to prosecutors. So when Sheay hired an attorney and then filed those court documents to establish
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paternity, a friend of EJ said that EJ started talking about getting rid of him. I'm curious though, why didn't
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Sheay already have certain rights in place? I mean, that's his daughter. Yeah. So his name was not on the birth
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certificate and so then he sort of realized that he had to go a more formal legal route. And like I said, the nature
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of their relationship before they became engaged is kind of murky. You know, his
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family had never even heard of her really before. Um, and and so the impression that we get is, you know,
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there wasn't much of a relationship. She becomes pregnant though she has the child and so they try to establish
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something. Sheay really wanted to be a dad. He did not have a great relationship with his own father and he
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wanted to kind of like correct that family story, if you will. You know, he wanted to be a father and be a good one.
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So, what's interesting is given that whole, you know, what was going on in their relationship on the night that
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Sheay was killed, he had received a late night call from EJ to meet with him. And
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at this point, as you said, Emry, they had been broken up for a while. They didn't seem to have a relationship at
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all. So, it seemed to be somewhat contentious, if anything. So, why did he even agree to meeting up with EJ and
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getting in that van? That's like the million-dollar question. It's late at night. The weather was terrible. They
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hadn't really been talking. But I asked the same question to detectives as well,
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and I want to play a little sound from the interview that actually didn't make it into the hour. Why do you think Sheay
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got into that van? I think Sheay got into the van thinking that they could possibly rekindle their relationship. He
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wanted to raise his daughter. He wanted parental rights. I think he would have probably done anything to do that.
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>> Even get into that van. >> Even get into the van. >> Just it's just so sad that you know he
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goes there with a sliver of hope and then what happens to him happens. Yeah. Um, now I know you visited Jay County
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and you walked along that bridge where he was found practically dead. Um, he then succumbed to his injuries in the
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hospital. But what was it like to be out there? Beautiful and and eerie. This is,
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you know, a rural town, but this area is even sort of out in the country for for
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them. Um, I would say it was about a 20 minute drive outside of the center of town. Um, there's nothing around. Uh, I
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think there's an abandoned barn way off in the distance, but other than that, it's just fields with this creek. Um,
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there's really no reason to go there and stop really. >> Um, other than maybe to take in the
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scenic view, but it's a road to get to somewhere else. The fact that anyone found Sheay is a miracle in and of
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itself. You know, it is heartbreaking that no one came by sooner, but I'm not surprised. You just wouldn't go there by
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mistake, really. >> And Emory, as we saw, you interviewed Christy Cyber. She was the one,
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remember, who called the detectives the very minute she heard about Shea's murder, but she told detectives that EJ
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had come to her and seemed to be venting about Sheay. Even talked about getting rid of him. And it's interesting because
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watching Christiey's interview, she seems to really carry a lot of guilt about, you know, not realizing what EJ
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was saying and and, you know, not understanding. Is she just venting? Like a lot of people. I think a lot of us do
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that. Like, if only I was, you know, rid of him. If only there was a way to get him out of my life, right? I think we
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all do that. So, it raises the question, how do you tell the difference between somebody who's just venting or somebody
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who is actually admitting to wanting to do something? >> Yeah. Yeah. Because Christy, as you
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know, is a former police officer, right? So, she really feels guilty. But to your
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point, Natalie, I mean, I I have friends who are going through like some challenging divorces and they say like,
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"I wish he would just get out of the house. I wish he would just disappear." Like, you get it. Um, and I think for
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Christie, >> I got the feeling that she recognized that for whatever reason, these girls
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needed a place to go to or another adult where they could just sit and unload, you know, like everyone needs like that
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that auntie or whatever. It's not your mom, so they're not going to lecture you. Um, it's that other adult that's
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still going to kind of guide you. And so I think she like allowed them to feel comfortable, allowed them the space to
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just kind of be themselves, I think, in the hopes of nudging them in the right direction. And she would give EJ advice.
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She would say like you're never going to get rid of him, right? So like now just
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think about how are you going to manage co-parenting? Like she would do that. Um
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and she just never believed. I mean, even after that experiment where they threw stuff in his drink, she just
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never believed that they would take it this far. >> Yeah. I mean, that right in itself right
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there, chopping up pills and putting it into his drink, that's a big, you know, if if you're saying you did something
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like that, that's one step away. And it, as it turns out, it was one step away. >> Yeah. And I mean, when EJ asked if, you
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know, she could babysit, that was one thing. But then she shows up really late. Um, and then she says, "Trust me,
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you're going to read about it in the papers tomorrow." That's that's a problem. >> But it was Christy, who was the first
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person the minute she heard about Sha's murder, who went right to the police and
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told them everything that she knew and had heard. She did. She did. Welcome back. All right, Ann Marie,
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let's talk a little bit more about who Shelby was and who Hannah is. How did these women get wrapped up in this pot?
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I tell you um so often uh Natalie I think about how in a in a very small moment if people make a different
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decision their life is completely different right like that's the thing about 48 hours you're like oh if you had
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just delayed that one thing that you did 30 seconds maybe none of this would have
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happened these ladies had you know plans in place for their life I'm just going to like read a little bit Shelby she was
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studying to become u an EMT before she was arrested She wanted to become a nurse. Hannah was already in college
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because after this incident, she goes back to college. She's on a scholarship. She also thought in the future she would
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be perhaps opening a nursing home. And then during the interrogation, Shelby says something which gives you a sense
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of maybe her understanding or lack of understanding about how much trouble that they're all in. Um, but so this
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didn't make it into the show, but I want to play it. >> Can I just ask one thing? Absolutely.
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>> Can it stay on Facebook? Does it have to be put out there? >> The seriousness of this is going to go
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far. Uh it's going to be on Facebook. It's going to be on >> everyone's going to know.
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>> Oh yeah. I mean, do you understand that the the level of this? It's been on the
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news that he his body was found. You know [clears throat] what I'm saying? >> To stay off of Facebook. I mean, oh my
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goodness. That's crazy. >> Yeah. So, that gives you a sense of the disconnect, >> like not realizing just how just the
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amount of trouble that they're in >> and also not feeling remorse or guilt in that moment because she was the one who
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was practicing in the parking lot and was the one who admittedly who pulled the trigger. Right.
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>> Yeah. Um, you're right. no concept of the damage that has been done, the life
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the lives that have been devastated, including her own. Including her own. >> Yeah. And she's worried about if it's
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going to end up on Facebook. Well, guess what? It's on 48 hours now. Shelby. Um,
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so EJ, Shelby, and Hannah, they're going to be tried separately in court. EJ goes
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to trial first, and she's the one who then turns on Shelby when she takes the stand. And what did she say? Yeah, you
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know, she basically says, "I was totally surprised. I had no idea Shelby was planning this sort of thing. Even though
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Even though she was there when Shelby was sort of test firing the gun, right? I had no idea." Um, you know, even
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though they put the pill in the drink, her defense, as we heard in the hour, is I just wanted to talk to Shay. We were
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talking about our relationship. If if if I had known Shelby was going to shoot him in the back, why would I be standing
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right next to Shay? I mean, that's a lot of confidence in Shelby, you know, firearms ability, if she's a good shot
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or not. Um, and so that was her defense. Obviously, it didn't work. So, EJ is found guilty. She's sentenced to 55
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years in prison, but then Shea's family has to go through it all over again. Uh,
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another trial with Shelby and to see and hear all that evidence again, which has
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to be so painful. Yeah. And I mean, we're talking about that video, the police body cam of Sheay, you know, he's
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on that bridge. You can hear him and they have to watch that again. Sheay was really surrounded by strong women.
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[clears throat] His mom, his aunt, and his grandmother. I love these women. Um, they have such
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an incredible tight bond. They adored him. Um they believed in his ability to do great things and they really
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supported him. Um and they wanted the defendants in this case to know that he was loved.
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>> Yeah. >> Shelby, as we heard, found guilty as well, sentenced to the same as EJ, 55
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years, >> and and she apologized to the family. So in the end, I guess maybe she felt a
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little bit bad about her participation. I I think so. And I think, you know, in terms of the people who spoke on her
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behalf, um they really felt like she had been manipulated by EJ. And this is actually what a family friend said at
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sentencing. I'm going to read it. She had the misfortune of finding comfort in a wannabe cult leader who literally
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destroyed several families for her own self-interest. So, those are some really strong words.
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a wannabe cult leader. Um that suggests even more than, you know, a strangely close relationship, right? That is about
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manipulation and control. >> Yeah. You know, and again, it goes back to that odd dynamic and the age
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difference. >> So Hannah was the only one who got a plea deal. She pleaded guilty to
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voluntary manslaughter. And in the episode, we learned that Sha's family, I mean, the reason she got the plea deal
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is they felt that another trial would just be too much for them to bear. But there were also other factors at play in
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Hannah's case, right, Amarie? Yeah, certainly Sha's family felt like Hannah out of all three of them um was the
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least culpable. Of course, they say, "Hey, you could have done something. You could have called 91. You could have
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done anything." Now, the thing about Hannah is she is actually from one town over, Fort Recovery. Um, and when we
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talk to some of the other people, they kind of characterize Fort Recovery as a little wealthier, a little nicer, like
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the right side of the tracks. But they also said that the entire community rallied around Hannah. They
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were raising money for her defense. somebody described kind of like one of those containers that you see on like a
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counter in a store, you know, throw throw a couple bucks in for a cause or whatever. So, there was she really had a
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lot of support from the entire town, not just her family. Um, and that may have had an an impact on the deal that she
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got. Of course, you know, she's she's also spending time behind bars as well. Um and she was basically right about to
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kind of launch, you know, she finally she gets a scholarship to college, she's gonna launch. And so her her life has
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certainly been derailed significantly. Well, as you said in your reporting and you put it so well, each one of them had
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the opportunity at one point in time to do the right thing and all three did not. And so, you know, the final act, I
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think, is, you know, just taking the phone away from him and throwing it into the river. I mean, that tells you right
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there. They were basically leaving him to die, to bleed out on that cold pavement. So, it doesn't get much colder
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than that. That is spoton. I mean, they had left and they turned back around. It
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is callous. And what sort of adds to the mystery um is the nature of the gun. This is a small
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caliber gun. This is the kind of gun, Natalie, that maybe if you live in an area where people hunt, they might give
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this gun to a child, kind of like their first gun to to learn how to hunt. This is the type of bullet that if it hits
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you, you're probably going to survive. Sheay was hit directly in the heart and it it was it is because of that that he
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was not able to survive something that probably would have been survivable. But you just never know. You know, you don't
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know if if somebody had intervened a minute earlier if that would have made a difference and they had the ability to
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make that difference and they didn't. >> That's right. And and then at the end we
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see that is EJ's family. They're the ones who end up with primary custody of his daughter. What kind of relationship
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though are his family able to have with the daughter? So, um it was really important for obviously for Shea's
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family to maintain a connection with her. And so, they have an arrangement and I believe it's kind through the
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courts that they get to see her once a month. You know, she's still very, very young. So,
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I don't know how both families will tackle this um situation as she gets older. But right now, those three women,
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his grandmother, his mother, and his aunt, they want to do nothing more than just sort of pour into that little girl
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and and make sure that she feels love in the middle of this great loss. >> Well, once again, Anie, a a wonderful
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episode. Thank you so much for bringing it to us and for talking with me today. Thank you, Natalie.
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