The Murder of Ted Shaughnessy
For this case, I watched an episode of Dateline. It’s season 32 episode 23, titled ‘Ghosts Don’t Talk.’
A woman calls 911 after being woken up by several gunshots.
Background
Ted Shaughnessy and his wife, Corey lived in Austin, Texas, and owned a jewelry store called Gallerie Jewelers. They had a son named Nicolas, who they had adopted from Ukraine when he was about 16 months old.
Ted was the face of the jewelry store and Corey was the appraiser. Ted took a genuine interest in people. He was an avid racer and loved go-karting. From the outside looking in, the Shaughnessy’s seemed like a very tight-knit family.
Ted Shaughnessy
Ted and Corey
The Murder
On March 2, 2018, Ted and Corey woke up around 4:30 am to the sound of their dogs barking. Corey said that Ted got out of bed and grabbed his gun while she stayed in bed. She then heard one gunshot followed by several more.
Corey said she got out of bed and grabbed her gun. She described seeing a bright white light coming through the curtain as she walked out of the bedroom. One of their dogs, a Rottweiler named Bart, had been lying by the foot of the bed and had been shot and killed instantly.
Corey said she and the gunman began firing at each other. Corey said she ran out of ammo and just needed to make it to the phone to call 911. She ran to the closet and called 911.
From the closet, Corey called the police. She explained that she could hear somebody moaning and didn’t know if it was her husband. Corey didn’t know if Ted was dead or if the shooter was still in the house.
The Investigation
On the 911 call, the dispatcher told Corey that the police would be approaching her house. However, no one was there. The police went to the neighbor’s house by accident as the houses looked very similar.
When they finally arrived, they walked inside and found Ted dead on the ground.
Corey was understandably devastated and hysterical. She contacted their son and her best friend. Nicolas told Corey that he and his girlfriend, Jackie Edison would drive there from College Station.
When Nicolas arrived, he was described as being very urgent. Corey soon learned that she and Nicolas were being looked at as suspects.
The Evidence
In the kitchen, the police found 2 different caliber shell casings. The shell casings were from a .40 and a .38 caliber guns. It was clear that there had been 2 shooters.
In Nicolas’ old bedroom, the police found an open window where the shooters had entered. A fingerprint was found on the glass of the window. An empty gun box for a .40 caliber gun was also in the room.
The alarm system had been turned off. Corey said they only used the system when they were out of the house. However, the system detected that the window was opened at 4:27 am. About 17 minutes later, the system recorded broken glass.
The police spoke to several neighbors about the Shaughnessy family and if they had seen anything suspicious. One neighbor told the police that it hadn’t been the first time that the Shaughnessy home had been targeted.
The Family
The police interviewed Nicolas about his parent’s relationship. He said they had a “solid” relationship and had just celebrated their 30th anniversary in January. He said they bickered from time to time but had never threatened each other.
At the police station, the police collected Corey’s pajamas that she had been wearing. They had also swabbed her hands for gunshot residue. Corey had been honest from the beginning about shooting her gun.
The police found Corey’s story suspicious. They believed that the shooters would have seen the vehicles out front and known that someone was inside. Corey was released later that day.
Nicolas told the police about a time that his dad had been robbed in the 90s when he owned a pawn shop. Ted and the robber had opened fire at each other, and the robber was sent to prison. Nicolas suggested that the robber could have been released and wanted revenge.
Nicolas also revealed something about the Shaughnessy’s neighbor, Kim. He said Kim’s husband had been cheating on her. Kim had hired Nicolas to follow her ex-husband and put a tracking device on his car.
Nicolas believed that the husband could have discovered this and wanted revenge. However, Kim said that her ex-husband didn’t know anything about the tracking device.
The Motive
The police learned that Corey was the beneficiary of Ted’s $1 million policy. Their home and business was also worth a lot of money. Corey learned that she wasn’t able to get any of the money because the police were suspicious. Corey was eventually cleared, and the investigation was leaning more toward Nicolas.
Corey returned to the house just a few days after the shooting. Nicolas and Jackie moved in with her. Nicolas and Jackie also took jobs at the jewelry store to help Corey keep it afloat. They revealed that they secretly got married in the summer of 2017 when they were 18.
The police couldn’t get past that the shooters kept Corey alive. They also found it odd that the shooters were in the house for 17 minutes before the shooting occurred. Nothing had been stolen from the house.
Nicolas was asked about the missing .40 caliber gun. He told them that Ted had let him borrow it but he had returned it.
Corey eventually began to become more suspicious of Nicolas and Jackie. She noticed that they loved shoes, clothes, traveling, and buying things for their apartment.
Corey said she needed to know what the bright white light had been from the night of the murder. She said Jackie and Nicolas helped her reenact that night. Corey learned that the bright white light was from a cell phone.
The Best Friend
The fingerprint from the window in Nicolas’ bedroom was a dead end. It had belonged to a man who installed the window. But, the police learned that Nicolas had used that window to sneak in and out of the house when he lived there. His best friend, Spencer also knew about this.
Spencer was interviewed by the police. He also knew about where Ted and Corey kept the safe in their home.
The police searched Spencer’s house, car, and cell phone. In the car, the police found a .380 caliber gun. It was sent in for testing, but it was not one of the murder weapons. Spencer’s phone also placed him at home during the morning of the murder.
Spencer was cleared as a suspect, but he did tell the police that Nicolas had asked him if he would kill his parents.
The Plan
The police had always been suspicious of Nicolas, but now they 100% believed that he was involved.
Nicolas said there had been tension between him and his parents before the murder because they had loaned him $30,000 to fund his day trading business. Nicolas also wanted to skip college and make a career out of day trading stocks. Nicolas said his parents weren’t happy about that.
In this episode, Corey said she had allowed Nicolas to move in with Jackie. They hoped that Jackie would talk him into going to school as she had been studying engineering at Texas A&M.
Corey and Ted also helped pay some other expenses. They expected Nicolas to pay them back. Ted’s best friend also loaned Nicolas some money.
Corey and Ted cut Nicolas off. She said he was not happy about it, but he did pay them back a few months before the murder.
The police searched Nicolas and Jackie’s apartment. They were shocked at how many cameras they had installed in the apartment. The cameras proved that they had been home on the morning of the murder. In their safe, they found jewelry, ammunition, and weapons. One of the boxes of ammo was the same brand and caliber as one of the murder weapons. It was from a .380 SIG Sauer, and it was missing 6 bullets.
The Hitmen
Nicolas and Jackie’s phones were searched. They had deleted several text messages that had synched to Nicolas’ computer.
On February 23, 2018, Jackie texted Nicolas, “Do they want 50k or not?” Jackie eventually withdrew $1,000.
On March 2, 2018, the morning of the murder, Nicolas accessed his parent’s alarm system through the app at 5:39 am. This was about 5 minutes before Corey had called him to tell him about Ted.
On May 29, 2018, Nicolas and Jackie were arrested and charged with capital solicitation of murder. Corey still believed that it was a mistake. She said she needed absolute proof that they were involved.
Two weeks after Jackie’s arrest, she was released on bail.
The police collected surveillance footage from Nicolas and Jackie’s apartment. On February 28, 2 men arrived at the apartment. A few minutes later, one of the men walked outside and was seen wearing a Renewal by Andersen t-shirt. This company was the same one that had installed the window and had left behind a fingerprint on the window in Nicolas’ old bedroom. The police contacted the window company. The man was identified but he hadn’t worked at the company in years. He was also ruled out as being a suspect as he left the apartment when the conversation turned to murder.
One of the shooters was identified as Johnny Leon. He was the other man in the surveillance footage. He was arrested and revealed that he had traveled to Austin with Nicolas a few days before the murder. He said they parked across from the Shaughnessy home. Nicolas went up to the house and came back and said he couldn’t get in. He said they drove back to College Station.
Johnny claimed that he was not involved after that night. However, his cell phone placed him in Austin on the morning of the murder.
Johnny didn’t reveal the name of the 2nd shooter, but his phone did. He had been in communication with a man named Arieon Smith. Smith claimed he had been with his girlfriend and that she could alibi him. His girlfriend revealed that he had left her in a motel room on the morning of the murder. He left in her car and she tried to call him several times but he didn’t answer.
The girlfriend told the police that he had been carrying around a .40 caliber gun in the days after the murder. The gun was located and had been found with a family member of Smith’s. Smith was arrested and charged with murder.
Corey didn’t want to believe that Nicolas and Jackie wanted to kill her and Ted. She thought that maybe they revealed information to the wrong people and that they were targeted because they were jewelers or had money.
More Questions Than Answers
From jail, Nicolas sent his mom letters. He asked for items such as books. Corey paid for Nicolas’ defense attornies.
Corey finally was able to see Nicolas after he had been in jail for 2 years. Nicolas’ attornies had wanted him to take a plea deal.
Corey knew a lot of information about Nicolas and Jackie’s case but she still didn’t know how the .40 caliber gun had been used. The gun had belonged to Ted.
Nicolas had given the gun to Arieon Smith. Once this was revealed, Corey said that she then knew that Nicolas was involved. She had been on his side up until this point.
Corey wrote Nicolas a letter and suggested that he take the plea deal. The sentence would be 35 years with the possibility of parole. In April 2021, Nicolas accepted the plea deal.
Both Arieon Smith and Johnny Leon were sentenced to 35 years with the possibility of parole.
Smith told the police that after they shot Ted, he heard shots coming from the bedroom and heard a woman crying. Smith said he begged Leon to not kill Corey and to leave the house. They left because they didn’t want to be shot.
The Final Sentencing
Jackie tried to downplay her involvement in the planning of the murder.
Jackie claimed she didn’t know anything about the murder or the hitmen. The police knew she was lying because according to her deleted text messages she did. She admitted to driving to Austin with Nicolas on several occasions but said she never took Nicolas seriously when he spoke about murder.
Jackie divorced Nicolas as he sat in prison. In March 2022, Jackie’s charge was changed to conspiracy to commit murder.
In June 2023, Jackie pled guilty to attempted conspiracy to commit murder. She was given deferred adjudication, meaning she was allowed to plead guilty and be given probation. She spent 120 days in jail. She will be on probation for 10 years. Every year for 10 years on the anniversary of Ted’s murder, she will have to spend 2 days in jail.
The police and Corey believe that Jackie got off way too easily. The Travis County DA claims that Jackie gave them information and was cooperative. In a taped victim impact statement, Corey called Jackie evil. She also revealed that she hasn’t spoken to Nicolas since his arrest.
Nicolas was interviewed from prison in this episode. He said he was searching for a new identity in his teenage years. He wanted to impress Jackie and be rich.
Johnny Leon, Nicolas Shaughnessy, and Arieon Smith
Jackie Edison
FINAL THOUGHTS
I think Jackie should have been given the same sentence as the other 3 who were involved. Jackie was involved in the planning and even traveled with Nicolas to Austin on numerous occasions. It’s sickening to know that Nicolas and Jackie both lived with Corey knowing what they had done. It’s worse for Nicolas because Ted and Corey adopted him and gave him an amazing life and he took that from them. Thank god Corey wasn’t killed but now she has to live life without Ted or Nicolas.
Sources
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ted-shaughnessy-murder-austin-nick-shaughnessy-jackie-edison-48-hours/
