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In the summer of 2004, 22-year-old Molly Dattilo was taking college classes at Indiana University-Purdue University when she suddenly vanished on July 6 while she was at a party & she has never been seen since. Molly went on to be declared dead but her remains have never been found. This year marked the 20 year anniversary of Molly’s disappearance
Molly was born on June 13, 1982 to parents Fred & Cherie Dattilo & she was the youngest of nine children & lived in Madison, Indiana. In 2000 she graduated from Madison Consolidated High School where she was known for being a runner, competing in both track & cross country & also participated in choir. According to Molly’s sister Tara, Molly was top ten in the state of Indiana throughout her four years in high school.
Molly’s family described her as smart, highly ambitious, very trusting & social. She would go out of her way to help others & if a friend needed help, she was the first to show up. Looking back, her family feel that her incredibly trusting nature is likely what led her into the hands of someone evil. She was an amazing student, & a gifted runner & in addition to taking summer classes that year, she had been pouring her efforts into singing lessons with the goal of auditioning for American Idol.
At the time of her disappearance, Molly stood at 5’0” & weighed 100#. She had light brown hair & hazel eyes & had been wearing a pink tie-dye t-shirt with a white collar. There was a birthmark near her right elbow & her left thumb was disfigured from a childhood accident.
Molly had actually been attending Eastern Kentucky University on a running scholarship, but that summer, she’d traveled to Indianapolis to take summer classes. At the time of her disappearance, she was living with her much older brother Nicholas in the city’s west side Westlake Apartments.
On Tuesday, July 6, 2004, Molly headed to her scheduled classes & went shopping after in order to pick up some things she needed for school as well as a few hobby items & a toy for her nephew’s birthday party that was planned for later that month.
At about 7 pm, she left her brother’s apartment & rather than driving, she walked the half mile to Wendy’s to drop off a job application. On her way, she bumped into her brother’s friend & the two chatted for a bit.
A few hours later Molly headed to a party within her brother’s apartment complex where she met a man named John Shelton. According to Molly’s family John was in the process of either moving in or out of the apartment complex. Molly knew John’s brother Benji since he was a maintenance man within the complex. Molly & John got to talking & hit it off & decided to leave the party together. They took a rowboat out onto the complex’s retention pond which they likely had access to because Benji worked at the complex. After, they stopped off at a nearby Taco Bell & at about 11 pm they drove to Thornton’s gas station on Crawfordsville Road which was about three miles away from the Taco Bell. It was later noted that the gas station was in the opposite direction of the apartment complex & in order to get there, they would have passed at least two other gas stations along the way so it’s unclear why they chose that location.
After Molly disappeared, police were able to trace a call that she made to a friend at about 11 pm from the pay phone at Thornton’s gas station. Sadly the call disconnected & the two were never able to talk so no one ever knew the intention of that phone call. This would have been the last contact that anyone had with Molly before she vanished. It was later discovered that Molly didn’t have her cell phone with her at the time since it was later found at her brother’s apartment. Some wonder if maybe she brought it back to the apartment for safekeeping when she decided to go onto the boat with John or maybe she hadn’t brought it to the party at all.
According to John, he indicated that he was aware that Molly had used the pay phone at Thornton’s but didn’t have any further details about the nature of the call. Her family could only speculate why she used the pay phone that night; did she realize she was in trouble?
Molly wasn’t reported missing until two days later since her brother Nicholas hadn’t initially realized that something was wrong. Nicholas was busy with his own schedule & accustomed to his sister coming & going with her busy class schedule & social life so he didn’t immediately notice her absence. When it dawned on him that he hadn’t actually seen his sister in two days, he grew worried. Noting her absence, he began to look around the apartment & realized that Molly’s personal belongings were still there. This was when Nicholas made the decision to contact the police on Thursday, July 8 to report Molly missing.
Nicholas was adamant with authorities that something was wrong, but because Molly was legally an adult, police were hesitant to begin investigating her absence as a missing person’s case. It is a well known fact that the first 48-72 hours are so critical in terms of witness accounts & evidence & sadly, in this case, this timeframe had well passed by the time Molly’s disappearance was taken seriously.
As Molly’s family got involved & told authorities that her cellphone, car, money & ID’s remained at Nicholas’s apartment, they began to suspect that foul play may be involved. As her brother looked through her car, he found paperwork that indicated that Molly had recently signed up & paid for classes; it didn’t make sense that she would have voluntarily disappeared. They also learned about the birthday party, class & hobby supplies she had purchased on the day she vanished as well as the Wendy’s application she handed in.
Weeks went by & despite the fact that Molly was always in touch with those she was close with, no one heard from her. It wasn’t until the Dattilo family contacted the media & demanded that something be done about her case that the police finally began their investigation.
Police wanted to speak with Molly’s brother’s friend who she’d bumped into the night she vanished on her way to Wendy’s. He indicated that at the time he saw Molly, he noticed she had her cell phone with her. Police found this detail unusual since they ultimately found her cell phone at her brother’s apartment. They wondered if she had simply left it behind or if her potential kidnapper could have returned to her brother’s apartment since Molly had been wearing a lanyard around her neck on the night of the party with her apartment key attached which would have allowed him access to the unit.
As police began their investigation, they quickly discovered that Molly had been with John Shelton on the night that she disappeared. They also learned that John’s brother Benji worked as a maintenance man at the apartment complex where she was staying with her brother. They searched the retention pond on the property after they realized that John & Molly had been out on a boat, but found no clues to help lead to Molly’s whereabouts. When police traced the phone call she made on the night of her disappearance, they learned that Molly called her friend while she was at the Thornton’s gas station.
Molly’s family felt that the police weren’t working quickly enough to help find their daughter; many potential witnesses within the apartment complex & those that had attended the party the night of her disappearance hadn’t been questioned until a year after her disappearance. One particular witness spoke with the police & told them that Molly & John had gone into an apartment within the complex, but they couldn’t recall which unit. It’s possible that had this witness been questioned sooner, their memory may have been sharper & they could have provided investigators with more specific information.
Because the Dattilo family felt the police weren’t doing enough to help, they decided to conduct their own investigation. They contacted the media to spread awareness of Molly’s disappearance in hopes that someone might know something. They began investigating potential leads in hopes that they could find Molly. After looking into every possible lead, they were convinced that John Shelton & his father, Edward Shelton, were responsible for whatever happened to Molly on the night she vanished. The police received an anonymous tip from a church that John went to his dad on the night of Molly’s disappearance & asked for his father’s help in hiding a body.
According to the Dattilo family, they were not updated with the status of the investigation & when they came to investigators with the information they’d gathered in their own efforts, they didn’t feel that they were being taken seriously. When Molly’s sister Celestra traveled to Indianapolis she learned that despite the fact that a week had passed since her sister went missing, the police had yet to even go to the Westlake Apartment complex where Molly had been living.
It was clear that Molly hadn’t left on her own accord since all of her belongings had been left behind & she had been making future plans. As much as they wanted to hold out hope for a positive outcome, Molly’s family were sure that something terrible must have happened to her.
At the five week mark of Molly’s disappearance, her cousin, who worked as an editor for Fox in L.A., contacted the producers of America’s Most Wanted for assistance & they agreed to help. When they reached out to the Marion County Sheriff’s Department, the department turned them down indicating that Molly’s case did not have priority. Molly’s cousin was furious & decided to fly to Indianapolis where she arranged a 5K run in Molly’s name to help spread awareness about Molly’s case. She went on to contact local news stations as well as the police station. Five detectives showed up for the run & informed the family that they had too many chiefs in the family & they were planning on choosing one detective to deal with one family member. This frustrated her family since the police were making them feel like a bother when all they wanted were answers in Molly’s case.
Despite the fact that John was the last known person with Molly & had a long criminal record, both he & his father faced no charges & remained free. John had been questioned on at least one occasion & admitted to being with Molly on the night of her disappearance. He indicated that after they left the gas station, he drove Molly home.
However, everything was found as Molly had left it on the night she vanished, which indicated that she had not come home after the party. The hobby supplies & birthday gift for her nephew she’d purchased still sat inside her car which was parked at the apartment complex. Her bank account had no activity, her Wendy’s job application had been filled out & ready to drop off & she never returned to school.
The Dattilo family learned through their lawyer James Spencer that when John Shelton’s car had been searched, investigators found vomit inside & they speculated that Molly could have been strangled to death inside his car.
Molly’s brother Ben spoke out during a 2007 press conference & said, We have every reason to believe she placed her last phone call in the man’s presence from this Tornton’s location. We do not know what happened after this phone call, but it’s our family’s sincerest hope that others may have information about what happened that night or what happened to Molly or where she is now.
The Dattilo family decided to file a civil lawsuit against John & Edward Shelton & in 2010 they won by default since the two men failed to appear in court or to offer any information or explanation as to what may have happened to Molly. The lawsuit claims that the men attacked Molly, possibly causing her death. The Dattilo family was awarded 3.5 million dollars though they realized that they would likely never see the money & it was not the money they were interested in. By this time, John Shelton was in prison & Edward’s whereabouts were unknown. John Shelton later went on to appeal the lawsuit, but lost the appeal.
The Dattilo family felt that the lawsuit would bring public awareness to Molly’s case & they also wanted to hold John & Edward accountable. Most importantly, they wanted to get John talking so they could understand what happened on the night that Molly vanished. The judge ordered that the police share all the information they had gathered from the investigation with the family.
On November 18, 2010 the Marion County prosecutor urged the Dattilo family to back off on their mission to obtain access to the case or risk the authorities halting their investigation into the case. Despite hoping to gain more information on where they stood in the investigation, the Dattilo family was back at square one & remained in the dark on the status of the investigation. They were devastated but remained determined to hold firm & not back down, if not for themselves & Molly, then for future victims.
Because Molly’s family wasn’t taken seriously when they first reported her missing, they hoped to implement new laws that would require law enforcement to immediately begin investigating missing adults. In 2007 the Molly Dattilo Law was enacted & was later strengthened in 2013 & requires that law enforcement accept missing persons reports immediately & identifies those as high risk even if they are adults.
In an unrelated incident, John Shelton was arrested in 2013 & served one year of a four-year sentence for operating a vehicle with a lifetime forfeited license. Only July 3, 2014 Fox’s 59 reporter Nicole Pence reached out to John in regards to an interview which he agreed to. When she arrived at his apartment, his girlfriend told Nicole that she could come up but the camera had to stay down. As she began to speak with him about Molly’s case, he admitted that yes, he had been with her on the night she vanished & elaborated, I was the only person dumb enough to admit I was with Molly that night. As their conversation continued, he became agitated to the point that he punched a hole in the wall of his apartment. The interview quickly ended & Nicole left his apartment.
In September of 2017, thirteen years after Molly vanished, the Jefferson Circuit Court judge signed an order declaring that Molly is presumed to be deceased & her day of death was listed as July 6, 2004, the day that she went missing. Her family felt a sense of closure to help them to move on while never forgetting Molly.
In 2006 the Dattilo family founded an annual Molly Dattilo Run & Walk in her honor in order to keep her memory alive. Molly loved running from the time she was a little girl & the event remains very special to her family & friends. According to her family, Molly was always a fantastic runner & she always encouraged others, even if they were on a competing team.
Money earned from the annual 5K race initially helped cover the costs of a private investigator & later went towards raising money for track scholarships. Throughout the years, hundreds of people participated & by 2013, there were more than 1,000 runners. In addition to running, Molly also loved to sing & each year during the event, they play a CD of Molly singing the national anthem.
In 2019 John Shelton was arrested & faced charges for armed robbery, burglary with a deadly weapon & for being a felon carrying a handgun. In March of 2019 he was arrested again, this time for dealing meth, unlawful drug & firearm possession as well as being a habitual offender. He was placed behind bars as he awaited his trial. On July 20, 2020 he was found guilty & on August 13, 2020 his sentencing hearing was held & it was noted that he failed to pay any of the money owed to the Dattilo family from the civil lawsuit. He was given a 26 year sentence & his earliest release date will be in 2040.
More than 20 years have passed since Molly disappeared & her remains have never been found. Molly’s father Fred Dattilo passed away in 2005 & never got to see justice or find closure in his daughter’s case. There have been no criminal charges filed in Molly’s case.
If you have any information about Molly’s case, please call 317-262-TIPS.
References:
- RoundAbout: Molly Dattilo family gets closure with judge’s order on case
- Medium: The unusual disappearance of Molly Dattilo
- Madison Courier: Molly Dattilo remembered 20 years after her disappearance
- Fox 59: Family of woman missing for 10 years speaks to Fox59 about their struggle
- The Courier-Journal: New details released on missing Indiana woman
- Cold Case Chronicles: The search for Molly Dattilo
- Wave 3: Molly Dattilo’s sister answers questions about links to Gibson
