00:00:09
in the midst of a promising dance career
00:00:12
tracy joe shine suddenly dropped out of
00:00:15
school and shortly afterward
00:00:17
disappeared
00:00:19
twelve years later
00:00:21
debris from an old refrigerator would
00:00:23
warm up what had become
00:00:26
a very cold case
00:00:31
[Music]
00:00:55
tracy joe shine grew up in houston texas
00:01:00
she was a good student a girl scout and
00:01:02
played sports
00:01:04
but her real interest her passion
00:01:07
was dance
00:01:11
[Music]
00:01:22
oh
00:01:28
at the age of 13 she auditioned and was
00:01:31
accepted at the prestigious high school
00:01:33
for performing arts in houston
00:01:36
it was a dream come true
00:01:39
and while away at school
00:01:40
tracy joe began to experiment with drugs
00:01:44
that's when
00:01:45
[Music]
00:01:46
she started having the problem she
00:01:47
started meeting the wrong people
00:01:49
and started getting involved in taking
00:01:51
drugs and uh
00:01:53
and i at that time just really didn't
00:01:55
understand it or didn't know what to do
00:01:58
she started skipping classes her grades
00:02:00
began to slip and she became
00:02:02
romantically involved with 31 year old
00:02:05
michael neal who had recently been
00:02:07
released from prison
00:02:10
the first time i'd met him and she
00:02:12
brought him over to my apartment he
00:02:14
seemed to be polite enough and seemed to
00:02:15
be nice enough
00:02:17
eventually tracy joe abandoned her
00:02:19
dreams of a career in dance dropped out
00:02:22
of school and at the age of 18 moved in
00:02:24
with her boyfriend michael and his
00:02:26
mother
00:02:30
tracy joe's mother didn't know what to
00:02:32
do next
00:02:34
tracy was not the tracy that she was
00:02:36
before she did the drugs
00:02:38
tracy had become someone else it was
00:02:40
controlled by drugs
00:02:42
and i just kept praying that you know
00:02:44
she just lived through this
00:02:45
and get out of all of it and then we
00:02:47
could have our lives together again and
00:02:50
go on
00:02:52
michael neal had recently been
00:02:54
implicated in a racially motivated
00:02:56
drive-by shooting
00:02:58
detective marcel dion went to neal's
00:03:00
home to question him
00:03:02
neal wasn't home
00:03:04
but tracy joe was
00:03:06
[Music]
00:03:07
how long have you known him tracy had
00:03:09
just taken a
00:03:10
a shot the
00:03:12
syringe was still there on the couch
00:03:14
right there with her at first you could
00:03:17
make heads or tails out of anything she
00:03:18
was saying
00:03:20
so he arrested tracy joe for using drugs
00:03:24
she'd been arrested two other times i
00:03:26
believe for the
00:03:28
drug problem she said she had tried to
00:03:30
stop i had attempted to see if there was
00:03:33
some way that i could get tracy
00:03:36
committed
00:03:38
to a drug program
00:03:40
and i was finding that there was a
00:03:41
waiting list at different places and
00:03:44
there really wasn't a whole lot i could
00:03:46
do since she wasn't a child anymore
00:03:49
at police headquarters tracy joe offered
00:03:52
to make a deal
00:03:54
she said her boyfriend michael was the
00:03:57
one who committed the drive-by shooting
00:03:59
and she agreed to testify against him in
00:04:02
return for a lighter sentence for her
00:04:05
drug charge
00:04:08
detective dion agreed to the
00:04:12
deal early the next morning
00:04:15
michael neal walked into police
00:04:17
headquarters and put up the bail for
00:04:19
tracy joe
00:04:21
she was never seen again
00:04:25
nobody had seen or heard it from
00:04:27
so at that point is uh
00:04:29
you start calling her friends and start
00:04:31
calling anybody that she'd been
00:04:33
associated with well nobody had seen her
00:04:36
and nobody had heard from her
00:04:38
marcel dion discovered that michael neal
00:04:41
was a member of the aryan brotherhood a
00:04:43
violent white supremist group
00:04:46
this explained neal's alleged
00:04:48
involvement in the drive-by shooting
00:04:50
which occurred
00:04:52
in a black neighborhood
00:04:54
when dion asked michael neal about tracy
00:04:57
joe's whereabouts he said that tracy joe
00:04:59
left home shortly after her arrest and
00:05:03
that he hadn't seen her since
00:05:05
[Music]
00:05:06
dion wasn't so sure
00:05:13
the day after tracy joe shine was
00:05:15
released from prison on drug charges she
00:05:17
visited her mother to borrow some money
00:05:20
although tracy joe had always stayed in
00:05:23
touch with her mother and brother that
00:05:25
visit was the last time her family saw
00:05:28
her
00:05:29
tracy joe had simply
00:05:31
dropped out of sight
00:05:34
something
00:05:35
was the matter
00:05:37
i
00:05:38
for some reason just felt
00:05:40
something
00:05:42
was wrong
00:05:43
virginia contacted tracy joe's boyfriend
00:05:46
michael neal
00:05:49
i called over there to find out about
00:05:51
tracy because i hadn't heard from her in
00:05:54
a couple of weeks
00:05:55
and to see what was happening
00:05:57
and they told me she wasn't there
00:05:59
anymore
00:06:03
when michael neal wasn't forthcoming
00:06:05
virginia had no other choice but to file
00:06:08
a missing person's report
00:06:11
detective marcel dion immediately
00:06:13
suspected foul play
00:06:17
[Music]
00:06:19
then a few weeks later dion received an
00:06:22
anonymous telephone call
00:06:24
yes i'd like to report a murder she was
00:06:26
telling me about this girl that was
00:06:28
apparently killed by her boyfriend
00:06:30
stuffed in a refrigerator
00:06:32
and taken out to a car lot
00:06:36
the informant eventually revealed the
00:06:38
identity of the dead girl
00:06:42
it was tracy joe shine
00:06:46
the informant also said that the
00:06:48
refrigerator used to store tracy joe's
00:06:51
body was still at the used car lot owned
00:06:54
by michael neal and his brother robert
00:06:59
armed with the search warrant
00:07:01
detectives went to the car lot found the
00:07:04
refrigerator but discovered it had
00:07:06
recently been cleaned with bleach
00:07:10
we took the refrigerator apart we
00:07:12
collected a piece of
00:07:14
human tissue from the freezer unit and
00:07:18
it had some hair follicles on it
00:07:20
forensic scientists attempted an rflp
00:07:23
dna enzyme analysis on that tissue but
00:07:26
were unsuccessful
00:07:29
the hair was compared visually to hair
00:07:32
taken from tracy joe's hairbrush
00:07:35
but that comparison was inconclusive
00:07:38
with no other leads
00:07:40
detective dion spent the next few months
00:07:42
looking all over houston anywhere he
00:07:44
suspected a body might have been buried
00:07:48
i took a lot of heat everybody thought i
00:07:50
was crazy because i was digging up half
00:07:51
of harris county i was draining ponds we
00:07:54
used horses we used four wheelers i was
00:07:57
given the nickname of digger because
00:07:59
every time i received a phone call i
00:08:01
would dig him somewhere
00:08:03
but none of the leads were fruitful
00:08:05
i knew that she had to be out there
00:08:08
somewhere i just wouldn't give up
00:08:10
dion also questioned michael neal's
00:08:12
mother barbara at her consignment shop
00:08:16
there
00:08:17
dion noticed something suspicious
00:08:20
in the display case was some women's
00:08:22
jewelry which was identical to jewelry
00:08:25
owned by tracy joe shine
00:08:28
i just couldn't believe the way they
00:08:31
they had taken tracy joe's jewelry and
00:08:34
placed it in a
00:08:35
in a
00:08:36
glass case
00:08:38
at the business they were running and
00:08:39
selling it over the calendar
00:08:42
barbara mcallister told police that
00:08:44
after tracy joe moved out of her home
00:08:47
she simply took the jewelry tracy joe
00:08:49
left behind and was trying to sell it
00:08:52
although it may have been in poor taste
00:08:55
it still didn't prove foul play
00:08:59
but with nowhere else to turn
00:09:01
the investigation faltered
00:09:04
dion had no choice but to attend to
00:09:07
other cases
00:09:09
i ordered all the evidence plus the
00:09:11
refrigerator stored in our property room
00:09:14
and basically just about every year
00:09:16
almost of the day they would call me and
00:09:18
want to get rid of the refrigerator
00:09:20
and i kept telling him no this is an
00:09:22
open case i'm still working it
00:09:25
michael neal was later arrested for
00:09:27
another shooting incident and was
00:09:29
convicted he was sentenced to life in
00:09:31
prison
00:09:32
his brother robert neal was arrested on
00:09:35
a methamphetamine charge he too was
00:09:37
convicted and sent to prison
00:09:40
despite their convictions the neil
00:09:43
brothers continued to insist they knew
00:09:45
nothing about tracy joe's disappearance
00:09:50
it would take another 10 years before a
00:09:52
cold case unit took a fresh look
00:09:55
at the disappearance of tracy joe shine
00:10:03
[Music]
00:10:05
nothing was heard from tracy joe shine
00:10:08
for over a decade
00:10:10
and police could find no solid evidence
00:10:13
of what might have happened to her
00:10:15
during those years there had been no
00:10:18
credit card activity no applications for
00:10:21
driver's licenses no history of
00:10:23
employment nothing
00:10:26
tracy joe's ex-boyfriend michael neal
00:10:29
and his brother robert were serving time
00:10:31
in prison for crimes unrelated to her
00:10:34
disappearance
00:10:35
[Music]
00:10:36
then in 1999
00:10:39
the harris county sheriff's department
00:10:41
formed a new cold case unit headed by
00:10:44
detective roger wedgeworth and harry
00:10:46
fakaris
00:10:48
the tracy joe shine case was one of the
00:10:50
first to cross their desk
00:10:52
tracy's like a lot of young girls if you
00:10:55
look at her
00:10:57
her upbringing
00:10:59
she was a girl scout
00:11:01
very much loved by her mother just a
00:11:03
normal
00:11:05
kid who goes up goes to high school goes
00:11:07
to proms and everything and she got
00:11:09
mixed up in drugs
00:11:11
and of course one of the worst mistakes
00:11:13
of her life was meeting our suspect in
00:11:15
this case michael neal
00:11:18
as a first step
00:11:20
they decided to retest the tissue sample
00:11:23
found in michael neal's refrigerator
00:11:25
with the new more sophisticated pcr dna
00:11:28
test
00:11:30
but after more than 12 years
00:11:33
the sample was too badly degraded
00:11:37
then there was another setback
00:11:39
the hair found with the tissue sample
00:11:41
could not be located
00:11:44
but vacaris and wedgeworth were
00:11:46
astonished to learn that the
00:11:48
refrigerator was still in the sheriff's
00:11:50
department property room
00:11:53
in a long shot
00:11:55
investigators decided to take a look at
00:11:57
the refrigerator one more time
00:12:01
we opened it up and it looked fairly
00:12:02
clean but we knew that it had been laid
00:12:05
down on its back and we thought if if
00:12:08
there was any kind of body fluids or any
00:12:11
kind of evidence that may have drained
00:12:13
into the wiring harness on the back side
00:12:15
of it
00:12:16
forensic scientists swabbed every square
00:12:19
inch of the refrigerator and this time
00:12:22
included the wiring and harness areas
00:12:25
for any biological material that might
00:12:28
be present
00:12:29
there's so many nooks and crannies in a
00:12:32
refrigerator or any other machine like
00:12:34
that that
00:12:35
they have body fluid and things like
00:12:36
that's going to seep through there's
00:12:38
just it would be impossible probably to
00:12:40
clean it all
00:12:41
the swabs were sent to the forensic lab
00:12:44
i was skeptical that we would find
00:12:46
anything of any value in the
00:12:48
refrigerator
00:12:49
simply because of the amount of time
00:12:51
that it had been stored and the fact
00:12:53
that
00:12:54
like so many other evidence storage
00:12:56
areas the environment was not ideal for
00:12:58
preserving the evidence
00:13:01
when watson looked closer at the swabs
00:13:04
he discovered what appeared to be
00:13:06
a piece of human skin
00:13:09
[Music]
00:13:11
watson tested that skin sample using a
00:13:14
pcr dna test
00:13:17
pcr testing essentially takes my new
00:13:20
traces of dna then amplifies or makes
00:13:24
enough copies of it so that it can be
00:13:26
analyzed
00:13:28
the analysis was long and arduous and
00:13:31
unfortunately was unsuccessful
00:13:35
after months of frustration watson heard
00:13:38
about a new test the fbi laboratory had
00:13:41
been experimenting with a test using
00:13:44
mitochondrial dna
00:13:47
traditional dna testing uses dna from
00:13:50
the cell's nucleus
00:13:52
mitochondrial dna is taken from the
00:13:55
mitochondria which exists outside of the
00:13:58
cell's nucleus
00:14:00
it's not as precise as traditional dna
00:14:03
testing but in some cases it's all
00:14:06
scientists can get
00:14:08
and this time
00:14:10
watson was successful
00:14:12
the next step was to find a known sample
00:14:16
of tracy joe shine's dna for comparison
00:14:21
bill watson took letters written by
00:14:23
tracy joe over a decade earlier to see
00:14:26
if her dna could be identified in the
00:14:29
saliva from the envelope flaps
00:14:33
but the dna from the saliva was too
00:14:35
badly degraded
00:14:39
mitochondrial dna
00:14:41
is passed from generation to generation
00:14:43
maternally meaning the tracy joe's
00:14:46
mitochondrial dna profile would be
00:14:49
identical to her mothers
00:14:52
even though we didn't have a sample from
00:14:55
tracy joe to compare to the tissue that
00:14:58
was inside the refrigerator we did have
00:15:00
her mother
00:15:01
and we were able to get a mitochondrial
00:15:03
profile from her mother
00:15:05
when the mitochondrial dna from the
00:15:07
refrigerator was compared to virginia
00:15:10
shine it matched
00:15:13
the biological material most likely was
00:15:16
that of tracy joe shine
00:15:20
had tracy joe's dna been discovered on
00:15:24
the handle of the refrigerator
00:15:26
that might not have been unusual
00:15:30
but skin found on wiring on the back
00:15:33
harness was a completely different
00:15:36
matter
00:15:37
it's a wonderful wonderful feeling it's
00:15:39
uh
00:15:40
you know you finally feel like all that
00:15:42
hard work is finally coming together but
00:15:45
even
00:15:45
even whenever we got that we knew that
00:15:48
this guy would never do the right thing
00:15:50
and step up to the plate and tell the
00:15:52
truth
00:15:53
with this discovery
00:15:55
michael neal was charged with murder
00:15:59
his brother robert hoping to gain an
00:16:02
early release from prison for his drug
00:16:04
conviction offered to make a deal
00:16:07
after all these years that he'd spent in
00:16:09
prison i guess he finally realized he
00:16:11
would never be getting out of
00:16:12
prison
00:16:13
unless he did something
00:16:15
and we know you have something to tell
00:16:17
us and we sat down worked out a deal and
00:16:19
he gave us his honest testimony which we
00:16:22
felt mostly was honest testimony and
00:16:25
told us
00:16:26
what he knew about the case
00:16:28
robert not only revealed his brother's
00:16:30
involvement in the murder he also
00:16:32
implicated his mother his sister and
00:16:35
himself
00:16:40
robert neal told police that his brother
00:16:43
michael feared tracy joe shine would
00:16:45
testify against him for the drive-by
00:16:47
shooting in exchange for a lighter
00:16:50
sentence for her drug arrest
00:16:53
so when michael went to veil tracy joe
00:16:55
out of jail
00:16:57
he did so to eliminate a potential
00:17:00
witness
00:17:01
the most important thing that robert
00:17:03
told us was he actually showed us how
00:17:05
michael neal killed her and robert made
00:17:08
this motion like this like a choking
00:17:09
motion so we knew that she'd been
00:17:11
strangled
00:17:14
robert said michael killed tracy joe
00:17:17
in his bedroom
00:17:19
and left her body there for three days
00:17:26
the smell of decomposition prompted
00:17:28
michael's mother to look into the
00:17:30
couple's bedroom where she saw the body
00:17:35
she goes into the bedroom she sees that
00:17:38
she's turning purple i mean that's a
00:17:41
clue right there that something is not
00:17:43
right
00:17:47
neal's mother
00:17:48
never reported tracy joe's death to
00:17:51
police
00:17:52
[Music]
00:17:55
after the body was removed robert said
00:17:58
his mother and sister cleaned the
00:18:00
bedroom and burned incense to remove the
00:18:03
odor
00:18:07
robert admitted helping michael
00:18:09
transport the refrigerator with the body
00:18:11
inside to the used car lot the brothers
00:18:14
owned
00:18:15
robert told us that he never saw the
00:18:18
body
00:18:19
he said his brother just told him help
00:18:21
him move the refrigerator basically
00:18:24
don't ask me any questions
00:18:26
and i won't tell you anything we'll just
00:18:29
move this refrigerator out to the car
00:18:31
lot
00:18:32
he said i can assume
00:18:34
that tracy joe shine was in there but i
00:18:37
never saw her in there
00:18:39
i never saw her in there
00:18:42
robert said he sat outside
00:18:45
while michael placed the body in a
00:18:47
55-gallon drum
00:18:50
where michael later took the barrel
00:18:52
is unknown
00:18:55
but michael neal didn't realize the
00:18:58
tissue invisible to the naked eye would
00:19:01
lead to his downfall over a dozen years
00:19:04
later
00:19:04
[Music]
00:19:05
michael made a lot of mistakes at the
00:19:07
very beginning by leaving the body in
00:19:09
there for several days
00:19:11
by
00:19:12
his mother finding out that tracy was
00:19:15
dead
00:19:16
instead of immediately disposing of the
00:19:19
body
00:19:20
it allowed us to get evidence out of the
00:19:22
refrigerator the fact is science always
00:19:24
progresses
00:19:26
always moves forward and as it has
00:19:29
we've been able to develop the type of
00:19:31
testing that could let us test those
00:19:33
smaller and smaller samples and match it
00:19:35
up so his his biggest mistake was in
00:19:38
thinking he'd get away with it
00:19:40
although prosecutors had no body
00:19:43
michael neal was convicted of tracy joe
00:19:45
shine's murder and was sentenced to an
00:19:48
additional 45 years in prison
00:19:51
he won't be eligible for parole until
00:19:53
2017
00:19:55
when he'll be 60 years old
00:19:58
michael neal can look you straight in
00:20:00
the eye
00:20:01
and there's no doubt in my mind
00:20:03
that
00:20:04
he could cut you he could shoot you he
00:20:07
could
00:20:08
uh do anything humanly possible to you
00:20:11
would not change his impression in any
00:20:12
way
00:20:13
his brother robert is still serving time
00:20:16
for his earlier conviction for
00:20:17
manufacturing methamphetamine
00:20:20
michael's mother barbara denied any
00:20:22
knowledge of the murder saying
00:20:24
she thought tracy joe had died of a drug
00:20:27
overdose
00:20:28
neither barbara nor her daughter jeannie
00:20:30
were ever prosecuted for their alleged
00:20:33
involvement in concealing evidence or
00:20:35
abuse of a corpse since the statute of
00:20:37
limitations for those crimes had expired
00:20:41
virginia shine says
00:20:43
she will never stop looking for her
00:20:45
daughter's grave
00:20:47
even though michael neal stubbornly
00:20:49
refuses to say
00:20:51
where it is
00:20:53
the sad part of it is is if he's just
00:20:56
trying to just keep on being the one in
00:20:58
control
00:21:00
is that he won't let us know where she
00:21:02
really is
00:21:04
so that
00:21:06
i can have some kind of peace there
00:21:08
because i mean it's not going to be any
00:21:10
worse for him
00:21:12
to tell me
00:21:14
to tell us the real truth
00:21:16
and uh
00:21:20
and so i can't ever forgive him for that
00:21:23
marcel dion's insistence on preserving
00:21:27
the refrigerator for all those years
00:21:29
provided the crucial forensic evidence
00:21:32
necessary for a conviction
00:21:35
i just couldn't believe it to me it was
00:21:38
just a huge white off my back
00:21:42
i've never been so happy over anything
00:21:44
in my life
00:21:45
the amount of effort that went into the
00:21:47
sample processing on the front end
00:21:50
was as much as you would put in any
00:21:53
any case any very difficult case i mean
00:21:55
it was just
00:21:57
on a scale of one to ten i would say it
00:21:59
was an eight or a nine
00:22:03
[Music]
00:22:13
[Music]
00:22:19
[Music]
00:22:36
you
