Post by Graveyardbride on Feb 6, 2015 23:08:36 GMT -5
Unsolved: 1955 Murder of Gambling Man
PINELLAS PARK, Fla. – The box for case No. 55-352 had not been opened in years when Det. Michael Bailey removed its cover, revealing crumbling rice paper, typewritten witness statements, and handwritten notes by detectives from more than half a century ago. The brittle pages chronicle what may be Pinellas County's oldest unsolved murder: On February 8, 1955, an avid gambler and married father of five was shot dead in front of his slaughterhouse (above), a butcher's apron still tied to around his waist. Sixty years later, Bailey said there's only one thing that could possibly close the case.
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Although one of his sons warned him not to, Shelton, 56, always carried rolls of bills, sometimes up to $30,000, in his pockets. A survivor of the Great Depresson, he didn't trust banks. Besides running the family business, Shelton's Slaughterhouse, he was a tobacco-chewing dog track bettor and card player, known for gambling at the store for food on his grocery list.
The four Shelton boys helped him at the slaughterhouse, north of Park Boulevard where a mobile home park stands today. "He was a worker. He'd get up at 4, 5 o'clock and go to work," said James Shelton, 78, his father's only living son. "Us boys would want to lay in bed and he'd come wrestle us out about 7 or 8." He and his younger brother, Ronnie, 18 and 14 at the time, were sleeping in a cabin several yards away from the slaughterhouse that Tuesday morning. A knock on the door jolted them awake. It was 16-year-old Frank Gazzo, their father's assistant.
"I just had on my socks," James later told detectives. "Me, Ronnie, and Frankie ran over to where he was and I knew he was dead when I saw him." A medical examiner determined he had been shot once in the chest, the bullet exiting his back, records state. With Shelton's money and brown leather wallet missing, detectives believed the motive was robbery.
The Pinellas County sheriff, Pinellas Park police chief and state attorney at the time got involved. Detectives interviewed dozens of people, among them a dairy owner, a mail carrier, gamblers, an Orlando man who reportedly gave Shelton a worthless $700 check, and several poker players. They recovered a shell casing near Shelton's body. His family offered a $1,000 reward. A bloodhound picked up a trail that led investigators to fresh tire tracks. Crime scene photos show detectives making castings of the tracks.
Three witnesses said a grey Cadillac was driving near the slaughterhouse that morning. "Now, you see a tremendous amount of cars coming and going," Bailey said. "But at that time, you would see one car and then sometime later, you could see another car."
A tire shop worker said a man came in to replace the new tires on a Cadillac. He took the first set of tires with him. Detectives tracked the Cadillac to a man that Shelton had done business with. He admitted to investigators he did get his tires replaced, but no longer had the original ones, records state. "He was interviewed extensively," Bailey said. "There was not really anything linking him to the crime except circumstantial evidence."
The Shelton family eventually sold the slaughterhouse and Shelton's wife took a job at a laundromat and later worked at a factory packaging frozen pizzas, James Shelton said.
Within a few years, momentum in the case halted.
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At the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, Bailey, a veteran homicide detective, began reviewing the agency's 37 cold cases more than a decade ago. He remembers opening the box containing the Shelton files for the first time. He scanned the documents and crime scene photos into a computer and stored the tire castings in property and evidence.
Then he visited the only person of interest in the case: the man with the Cadillac. In 2007 when Bailey spoke with him, he was in his 80s and still living in Pinellas County. "He wasn't shocked to see us," Bailey relates. "He said, 'I know you're here about that murder.'" The detective told him if he ever wanted to talk, the sheriff's office wanted to hear from him.
Bailey is retiring in May and said he'll miss the cold cases the most. These are the murders he loved to investigate: the ones with the degrading evidence, the lack of DNA, the conflicting statements from witnesses long dead. Many of these murders can be closed only with a confession. "These are extremely problematic. That's why I like them," he says. "They deserve to be solved."
Source: Laura C. Morel and Caryn Baird, The Tampa Bay Times, February 6, 2015