In April of 2006, Ashley Reeves was 17-years-old & a junior at Columbia High School who lived in Millstadt, Illinois with her parents & her younger sister Casey. Ashley was very social & a great student who kept up good grades in high school; her friends described her as funny & bright. Her parents adored her & she was dating a boy named Jeremy for close to two years. Ashley’s parents approved of the relationship & felt that Jeremy was wholesome & caring toward their daughter. On Thursday, April 27, 2006, Ashley told her parents that after school, she was making the 20 minute drive to Fairview Heights for an interview & then heading to play basketball afterwards with a friend, but she assured them that she would be home by her 10 pm curfew.
She took a change of clothes with her & headed out at 3:30 pm, driving Jeremy’s SUV which she borrowed for the day. When her curfew passed & Ashley hadn’t come home by 10:30 pm that night, her parents began to worry. Michelle, Ashley’s mom, asked Casey if she’d spoken to Ashley & she said that she hadn’t. After calling Ashley multiple times with no answer, Michelle’s worry only grew since it wasn’t like Ashley to be out of touch. They reached out to her friends & Jeremy but no one had heard from her. Michelle decided to call the St. Clair County Sheriff’s Office & when she did, they tried to assure her that there was likely an innocent reason she hadn’t come home; maybe she lost track of time while hanging out with friends or that her cell phone died. Police told Michelle they would look for the car she’d been last seen driving & put out an alert for patrols to be on the lookout.
Eight hours into the investigation, Jeremy’s car was found abandoned in Laderman Park in Belleville, 15 minutes away from Ashley’s house. Inside the car, investigators found the clothes that Ashley planned to change into for both the interview & basketball. Police began to question Ashley’s family & friends & when they spoke with Jeremy, he said that he’d actually been out of town when Ashley went missing & he explained that he’d loaned her his car so that she could get to the interview & basketball. Police confirmed this story & Jeremy was cleared as a suspect.
The cell phone bill had incidentally arrived that day & as Michelle scanned the numbers from Ashley’s cell phone records, she noticed a number that she didn’t recognize over & over. Michelle called the number & a man named Sam Shelton picked up the phone. Michelle said he was very polite & he told her that he hadn’t seen or talked to Ashley & didn’t know where she was. He sounded concerned & told her that she probably had nothing to worry about. He said if he heard from her, he would let her know & quickly hung up. In the meantime, police continued to speak with Ashley’s friends as they questioned why she chose to play basketball at a park farther from her house when there were much closer options. A friend explained that she often met an older man at a park to play ball with, someone they were familiar with, 26-year-old school teacher at Freeburg High School, Sam Shelton who had been Ashley’s middle school teacher when she was in 7th grade in 2001. They also told them that the two were romantically involved. Ashley’s family was completely befuddled, not understanding why a teacher would be frequently communicating with their daughter outside of school. Sam quickly became a top person of interest.
In the meantime, Ashley’s family was sick with grief & worry, wondering where she could be, was she hurt or suffering? Was she cold & scared? Was she alive?
Police & family learned that Shelton taught PE & driver’s ed at a different school than the one Ashley attended. Ashley & Shelton had reconnected in February of 2006, the month before Ashley went missing. Police soon learned that Shelton was a very popular teacher that was well liked by the students & community. He was a pro-wrestler on the side. His nickname was “The teacher” & some of the female students referred to him as the cute teacher while others felt he seemed full of himself. He was very athletic & played in multiple sports, including a fast-pitch softball league. He seemed to be very polite & friendly & was often seen doing chores for his mom & grandma, helping them to maintain the property. Shelton lived near Laderman Park where Jeremy’s car was found abandoned in an upscale neighborhood called Wildwood Lake Estates where he lived with his mom & grandma, both of whom he was very close to.
Police found Shelton at softball practice & brought him in for questioning; he was calm, friendly & cooperative. When police asked about his whereabouts during the time-frame that Ashley went missing, he explained that he’d had a typical day, teaching middle school class on Thursday & Friday during the day & he said he went to a bar on Friday night & participated in line dancing. He told investigators that he hadn’t seen or heard from Ashley in days & he had no idea of her whereabouts. He denied having any sort of inappropriate relationship with Ashley & insisted that they were just friends, explaining that he had taught her during middle school & they’d simply stayed in touch, occasionally playing basketball together.
Continuing to insist their relationship was strictly platonic, police informed Shelton that Ashley’s friends made statements that their relationship was sexual & romantic & at that point, he changed his story. He told police that Ashley had become obsessed with him, calling him at all hours of the day & night. He said he’d been avoiding her for days, hoping she would take the hint & leave him alone. He eventually admitted that he & Ashley had sex once in a car but he was trying to break things off.
He said that on the night Ashley went missing, he had met up with her with the intention of breaking things off. He said he was driving when they began to argue about the relationship ending & Ashley got upset & started screaming; he claimed he’d pulled over & Ashley refused to get out of his car. He said he pulled her out of the car & left her on the side of Radio Range Road, insisting that she was still very much alive when he pulled away. He claimed before he left, she had been mad to the point that she was kicking & screaming. He said that he cared about her & was concerned for her well-being but review of phone records indicate that Shelton hadn’t called Ashley to check in on her & make sure she was okay. He indicated that he also avoided driving by the spot he’d left her, afraid he would see her laying in a ditch & he couldn’t stand that since he has a very weak stomach when it comes to gore movies & couldn’t handle seeing her laying on the side of the road.
As the thirty hour mark was approaching since Ashley disappeared, police pleaded for him to tell the truth since time was running out. During a bathroom break, Shelton happened to run into a familiar face, the department’s lead detective, Steven Johnson. Shelton had been an Explorer in their law-enforcement Explorer post as part of the Boy Scouts & Johnson served as an advisor. Johnson took over the interview & began speaking to Shelton about his grandma, knowing their close relationship. When he did, Shelton told him that he wanted to go home to explain to his mom & his grandma what happened on the night that Ashley went missing. Johnson told Shelton that it was important that he tell the truth to honor his mom & his grandma. With that, Johnson left a weeping Shelton alone in the interrogation room, hoping time would allow for the guilt to sink in. When detectives returned, Shelton was ready to confess.
Shelton told police that after he pulled the car over, he unclicked Ashley’s seat belt & tried to forcefully drag her out of the car while placing her in a chokehold. Being much larger in stature than Ashley, he told police that he’d accidentally hurt her when he pulled her out of his car & he heard a loud pop & believed he had broken her neck. He said that Ashley had gone limp & he panicked, removing her from the car & dragging her body into the woods. He told police that he wanted it to look as if someone had attacked Ashley at that location so he initially strangled her with his hands until he realized that Ashley was still breathing & switched to his belt which he wrapped around Ashley’s neck, using his foot for leverage. He told officers that he’s not sure how long he held on, but he had to turn his head because he didn’t want to see. He said he heard gurgling noises & when he let go, foam was coming out of Ashley’s mouth; he said, “She was the sickest color I’d ever seen, her tongue was like kind of protruding like that, between the teeth.” He continued to pull the belt with such force that it broke. At this point, he repositioned Ashley & went back to using his bare hands to finish choking her for a third & final time until there was no more breathing, no more frothing & no more changing of facial color. Then he left Ashley to die on the ground, deep within the woods, saying, “I just took off. I mean, literally darted through there like a bat out of hell.”
Police tried to understand why he hadn’t called for help when he believed her neck had been broken & he said that he didn’t want to be blamed for her death & feared the repercussions, including losing his job.
He said that the next day, he went about his routine as usual & taught his high school classes. When police spoke with students & staff, they said that he seemed completely normal, without stress & joked around with everyone as he typically did. That night, as Ashley’s body lay in the cold, dark woods, he went out for drinks & line dancing.
After his confession, Shelton told police that he would take them to the area where her body could be located in Citizens Park, a 45 acre park in Belleville, 12 minutes away from Ashley’s house. At this time, it was dark outside, the weather was terrible with torrential rain so he struggled to find the correct location. Police frantically searched the area with flashlights for twenty to thirty minutes & began to believe that Shelton was playing with them, taking them on a wild goose chase until they finally came across Ashley’s body; she was soaking wet & covered with insects, thousands of bites over her body. Her hands were pulled up to her chest & her tongue protruded from her mouth.
Police were devastated that they’d been unable to save her & thought about the horrific task of informing her parents. Suddenly, someone shouted out, “She’s breathing! She’s breathing! Get EMTs!” They suddenly saw Ashley’s hands move & her chest rise. Ashley was miraculously alive after being strangled three times & left in the cold for more than 30 hours. EMTs quickly rushed her to the hospital, not believing she would even make it out of the woods alive. When Ashley got to the hospital, she was put into a medically induced coma.
Shelton was arrested & charged with first-degree attempted murder. When he was taken into custody, he asked for a private bathroom, claiming he suffered from a urinary stress disorder that would make him miserable to urinate in front of others. He also worried about getting a contact case & solution, with seemingly no regard for what he’d done to Ashley. Shelton showed no sign of remorse & pleaded not guilty & was released on bail & placed on house arrest, allowed to be in the comfort of his own home in the year he waited for his trial to begin after nearly brutally killing a young girl.
Before he faced attempted murder charges in court, Susan, Shelton’s mom, called 911 after Shelton attempted suicide with prescription pills & alcohol. When responders arrived, he was found in a seemingly unconscious state with the words “do not resuscitate” written on his chest. As EMTs worked to revive him, he immediately became alert & began striking them with his fists. He was transported to the hospital where he allegedly made racial slurs toward a nurse & kicked her in the face.
Shelton’s mental state was questioned though a psychiatrist deemed him competent to stand trail, the suicide likely a way for him to gain empathy from a jury. Ashley’s family signed off on a plea deal to avoid the turmoil of her facing a trial. Susan, Shelton’s mom, said that the family “reluctantly” accepted the deal, insisting that he wouldn’t have gotten a fair trial because of the “continuing demonization of Sam.” Shelton accepted the deal & was sentenced to twenty years in prison for first-degree attempted murder & according to the Illinois Department of Corrections, his projected parole date is April 22, 2024 which will be three years shy of his 20-year sentence; he’ll be 44-years-old on release. He’s since been moved to a minimum security prison in preparation for his possible upcoming release. He’s currently 42-years-old.
When she was found, Ashley was barely breathing & paramedics rushed her to the hospital & her prognosis didn’t appear promising. Ashley suffered from traumatic brain injury as well as a broken neck & the only memory she had from the attack was that a fight occurred between her & Shelton after she tried to break things off. She has barely any memory of the days leading up to the attack or the weeks after. During her three month hospitalization, the once trained athlete needed to learn how to talk, swallow & use her limbs. Her mom had to change her diapers as her muscles recovered. A newspaper article from one year after the attack indicated that she was able to drive at that point, she walked but in a stilted manner & her typical routine was meeting with a speech therapist at 9 am, an occupational therapist at 10 am & a physical therapist at 11 am. She worked with a private tutor a few times a week, unable to attend regular classes at Columbia High School. At that point, doctors still weren’t sure how much she would recover from the brain damage since it was too soon to tell.
There was a period during her recovery where she would just scream, her parents terrified that she was lost forever. Michelle felt it was like her mind was locked into being strangled & when she looked at you, she looked through you with no recognition. Before Ashley was able to speak again, she would blink once for yes and twice for no & Michelle would use playing cards to test her mind, showing her cards & asking her yes & no questions about them. A year after the attack, Ashley was dating a new guy & admitted that it was hard for her to trust a guy again.
After a year of rehab, Ashley was amazingly able to make a full recovery. She says she remembers her first drink of water & it was amazing. In a 2017 interview with Elizabeth Smart for Crime Watch Daily, Ashley indicated that she’d only recently watched Shelton’s interrogation tapes & was only able to watch a minute and a half because she couldn’t stand to listen to his lies. She also visited the spot where she was rescued for the first time & said that it made her feel that maybe she is as tough as everyone says she is & she’s a fighter who keeps wanting to push herself.
In 2021, Lifetime premiered a movie based on Ashley’s story, Left for Dead: The Ashley Reeves Story.
Other than the 2017 interview with Elizabeth Smart, Ashley has tried to put everything behind her & move forward. She’s currently 34-years-old, married with two kids, living in Illinois & working as a caregiver. Ashley urges others, “Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up on yourself. There’s bigger, better things out there. I’ve gone through plenty of hardships, and it’s just, just keep fighting. Every day it’s a struggle, but you gotta keep on trudging.”
References:
- Fox 2 Now: Former teacher’s attempted murder shook the region; he’s now close to parole
- Medium: Left for Dead by Her Teacher: Ashley Reeves, a Survival Story
- Bustle: Left For Dead Revisits The True Story Of A Teacher-Student Relationship Turned Violent
- Vizaca: Ashley Reeves Fought Her Life 3 Times For The Same Incident
- True Crime Daily: Exclusive: Illinois teen survives older lover’s murderous attack, returns to scene where she was left for dead
- Fox 2 Now: Lifetime’s ‘Left for Dead’ about Millstadt murder attempt
- St Louis Post-Dispatch: Ashley’s second beginning
