254\. The Woman Who Dreamed a Murder
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Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. And I'm back. And I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband. I wasn't sure you would be able to be back this week, so I'm actually really happy. You guys should have seen what he looked like. Now, for those who don't know, this will be my 10 seconds as well, I got a hair transplant. I've got no problem saying it. I went and got one, and I'll be honest, it was rough.

Not the procedure itself. That part was great. Everything went smooth. But the next few days after that were rough. I still haven't really been able to sleep at night. I'm on day about 9 or 10. And I still just have a lot of pains and stuff. But it's getting there. I'm taking some pain medication. My face was... My face, my eyes were swollen shut on day like 3.

it was it was crazy it wasn't expecting that kind of glad no one told me because i don't know if i would have done it but also not everyone reacts the same way that i reacted it's kind of what happened to me uh if you're watching on youtube you can see a bunch of scabs in the front um so all right here is just pure scab that's why it looks like a straight line genuinely people don't understand how

Swollen your face was he looked like he had just gone Literally out of a UFC fight where he didn't throw one punch the entire time No, it was I didn't know a face could get that swollen. I guess it's like my head was like Plato It was like demented will tell people oh his eyes are swollen and they'll be like, oh yeah, and then I'll pull up a picture Oh my gosh, I'm like no you don't understand like my whole entire face was like a balloon like his his head was swollen and

it was bad it was pretty bad not swollen anymore my head just hurts but it grew back so fast i'm getting there here i am so that's why i was gone i don't know i don't got much to say i'm not gonna lie it's been a been a pretty tough week i am really tired i haven't slept for a week but you know that's okay i'm making my way i chose it i did it to myself

And Daisy's barking at me to go outside. So I'll pass it off to Peyton. All right, you guys. Our sources for this episode are cbsnews.com, wesh.com, wftv.com, abcnews.go.com, mynews13.com, murderpedia, floridatoday.com, sa18.org. So I think that...

that most of us can relate to having a bad nightmare from time to time. You know that feeling of waking up in a cold sweat, remembering every vivid little detail, like maybe it was just a little too real.

But a few minutes after returning to reality, most of us can shake it off. Like genuinely, when I have a nightmare, I actually shake it off. And then a dream at that point is just a dream. And there's nothing real or truthful about them, at least not usually. But every once in a while, those nightmares leave us with a lingering feeling, a what if, maybe like an omen, a premonition. The question is, do you act on it?

Well, if you asked Sheila Trott, she would say she didn't have a choice. When she had a dream about one of her good friends dying, she had to tell someone. And because her premonition was right, it actually put her at the center of a murder investigation. I mean, imagine that. Imagine having a dream that one of your friends is dead. And then you go to police and say, hey, and then it turns out she was murdered. And police are like, well, you're, you know.

How did you know that? Yeah. I feel like that could happen a lot. You know what I'm saying? I feel like it's someone who's close to you. It's your family. It's your friends. I feel like I've had dreams that friends and family are dead. I think the coincidence of it happening is pretty crazy, but I do feel like it's pretty plausible. Okay. Just saying.

So it's 2010 and we are in Indialantic, Florida, a tiny little town on the eastern coast with no more than 2,800 people at the time. Okay, 2,800 people in 2010. And this is where 46-year-old Kelly Brennan lives.

And while I don't know a whole lot about Kelly's upbringing, I know that she was pretty popular around town. Kelly had worked as a registered recovery nurse at Holmes Regional Medical Center just a few miles away in Melbourne, Florida. And when she wasn't tending to her patients there, she was out in the world living her life to the fullest.

Kelly and her husband of six years, a restaurant manager named Gino, they didn't have any kids, which meant Kelly had plenty of time for her personal passions like kayaking, bike riding, hiking, anything outdoorsy. She also spent her time volunteering overseas with organizations like ISMS Operation Kids, which brought her to Morocco.

So Kelly's friends and family said she was always keeping busy, that there was never a dull moment with Kelly, whose contagious laughter could turn around anyone's day. They say that people really gravitated toward her and looked up to her when they needed a leader. And actually at the hospital where she worked, she was given the nickname the Sarge because she wasn't afraid to stand up and just take the lead.

And shockingly, she managed to do a lot of these things through one of the toughest periods of her life.

This was when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis just a few years back. And friends said even with this diagnosis, it never slowed Kelly down. Even when she would have bad flare-ups, Kelly would work through it, refusing to give her condition any power over her. And it only made the people who admired Kelly love her even more, including her good friend, Sheila Trott.

Now, Sheila was a transplant to this area in Florida. She actually grew up in Ontario, Canada. But...

Throughout the years, she gained an obsession with the water, which ultimately drew her to Florida for college, where she also worked part-time as a dive instructor. And it was around that time, back in the late 80s or early 90s, that Sheila and Kelly first met, actually. Kelly was a nursing student, and Sheila, fresh out of school herself, was working three different jobs to help pay for her fiancé, Daniel Trotz.

flight training. Sheila at this point apparently would have done anything for Dan so it wasn't surprising she was working three jobs to get him through school and when they eventually tied the knot in August of 26, 1989 it's possible that Kelly was even invited to that wedding.

But over the years, Kelly and Sheila would sort of go their separate ways, live their own lives. Sheila became a real estate agent. She had two boys, Creighton and Graham, all while her husband, Daniel, became that licensed pilot before going into politics in 2002.

But even then, there was no bad blood between Sheila and Kelly. In fact, they had the kind of friendship where even if they didn't speak for a few months or even years because their lives kind of went separate ways, it felt like they could pick right back up where they left off when they started talking again. At least this is according to Sheila. She even said the two sort of leaned on each other when they were going through hard times in their marriages.

See, by the end of 2009, Kelly and her husband, Gino, were not in a great place. The two had been growing apart, and it seemed as if Kelly wasn't sure whether their marriage would continue. So she reaches out to Sheila, and Sheila could sympathize with that. By that point, she and Daniel were separated and on the road to divorce as well. And Sheila was pretty eager to get the whole thing settled and put the past behind her.

which is why she made an odd suggestion to Kelly when the two went out to dinner one night. So Sheila tells Kelly, her friend, hey, I actually think you and Dan would make a pretty nice couple.

Now, Dan is Sheila's husband that she's currently trying to divorce. So she's telling her friend Kelly, you can go for it. Like have my almost soon to be ex-husband. You have my permission. I think you guys would make a great couple. But according to Sheila, she felt like this would actually help speed up the divorce process if someone else was in the picture. Like if Daniel. Yeah, it makes sense. Okay. Yeah. And so would maybe even save thousands in legal fees. And.

And it seems like Kelly goes along with the suggestion. I'm not sure how long the two were seeing each other for. It was at least a couple months. But I know Sheila was obviously aware of

And apparently Gino learned about this in the hard way because one night he shows up at Dan Trott's apartment while Kelly is there. He kicks in the front door and according to Daniel, he's carrying some sort of Jack in his hand, which he used to hit Daniel in the hands and face and

Kelly ends up leaving with Gino that night, her husband, on The Rock's marriage, perhaps as an attempt to kind of calm him down. But that didn't end the relationship between Dan and Kelly. And I do need to preface that although Dan's...

wife ex-wife Sheila knows what's going on I mean she suggested it Kelly and Gino are not yet divorced and so Gino is looking at this as an affair it wasn't like reported to the police or anything the attack yeah no okay so all of this Gino coming over and beating up Dan actually pushes Kelly

further into Dan's arms. It seems Kelly moved in with her friend Jane after the altercation and as she looked for a way out of the marriage she and Dan kept seeing each other. So this goes well into February of 2010. But on the night of the 15th Kelly was supposed to meet with her personal trainer at her local gym for a 9 p.m appointment and when she didn't show the trainer alerted Kelly's roommate.

And after two hours of trying to reach Kelly and checking with every police station, fire rescue and hospital in the area, they decide it is time to file a missing persons report because no one can find Kelly. Now, I don't think her friend Sheila was high up on the list of emergency contacts for Kelly. So it is possible she hadn't even heard about Kelly's disappearance on the night of the 15th.

But that evening, Sheila has her own set of strange experiences. After coming home from a trip to Walmart, Sheila's teenage sons notice she's not doing well. She's dizzy and shaky, almost having seizure-like symptoms. So her son's girlfriend is like, hey, we need to call 911. So the paramedics show up to the house. Keep in mind, Kelly's missing at this point.

They run a bunch of routine checks on Sheila. She seems to be fine. So they say, hey, if anything gets worse, call us, but we're going to leave. And then another hour later, the girlfriend calls 911 again, says, hey, she's still acting out of sorts. She's had another seizure. Can you come back? So this time they come back and they take her to the hospital. But again, after a bunch of routine tests, they cannot find anything wrong with

with Sheila. It's bizarre, but they release her. They tell her to go home and get some rest, and she does.

Which, like, personally for me, if I was having unexplainable seizures and not feeling well. Yeah, probably be in the hospital. I would be like, no, I'm not going home. That's weird. Like, you can try to discharge me, but I'm not going home. Yeah, that's weird. But she does. And she falls asleep in her own bed for a few hours. And doesn't wake up. But then she wakes up in the middle of the night calling for her youngest son, 16-year-old Graham. She tells him, I just had a terrible dream.

In it, she says, I kept seeing snapshots of Kelly Brennan's face. Kelly, her friend, who's now dating her ex-husband. And she thinks that Kelly is hurt based on this dream, maybe even in danger. And she tells her 16-year-old, we need to find her.

That's weird. That's weird. Sheila's like, I think she's somewhere by the beach over by a place called Mark's Landing. Yeah. See, we're getting a little too specific now. So Sheila's sons say, okay, mom's insisting we go. Let's take her out there, drive her around. No way. Calm down her fears and show her everything's okay. So they get there. They get out of the car. They walk around the area. And just as the boys are about to say, see, mom, everything's fine. We can leave.

They spot something. There are feet sticking out of the brush on this Florida beach and a shadow of a body in workout clothes can be seen. So they begin to panic. They get back in the car. They're like,

mom just had a premonition or a dream that she was going to be here and be in trouble. And then this is what they find. They're like, mom, you were right. And she goes, okay, but we also need to go somewhere else. There is a vacant lot nearby that we need to go to. So the boys drive her to that destination as well, where she finds a reusable grocery bag. And inside of it is Kelly's purse and wallet and her ID. Okay.

Okay. Now, her kids are probably thinking, mom, what did you do? Like, what have you got yourself into? They are 16 and 18, so they figure, okay, we're just going to take her home. We're not going to call the police, even though we just saw a dead body. Oh, I wouldn't...

I don't know. It's their mom. Yeah. I'd probably be like, mom, you got to figure something. You got to handle this. I'm not handling it. You're not telling anyone that you had a dream. They're teenagers. And so they go home and they're like, I know exactly what we're going to do. We're going to take mom home and we're going to call grandma. And we're going to make grandma figure this one out. You say you'll learn a new language every year, but few of us actually commit to it. Babble though, makes it easy for you to learn one in less time than you think.

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So write your story with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash husband today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash husband. Let's get into the episode. Luckily, Sheila's mother, Grandma Margaret, lives close by. And so she rushes over in the middle of the night to help the kids. And when she gets there, she finds Sheila curled up on the floor in the fetal position.

And that's when her son looks at Grandma Margaret and says, Grandma, I'm pretty sure Mom killed Kelly.

And so Margaret's like, okay, we are calling 911. Okay. She tells the operator on this 911 call, I think there's been some sort of murder. My daughter has had a nervous breakdown and she's killed somebody. Oh, okay. So the police rush over to Sheila's condo. And now at this point, she's saying over and over, not just that she had a bad dream, but

but that she thinks maybe she hurt Kelly. So Sheila's having a nervous breakdown, and in this breakdown, she's saying, I think I hurt her. I think I hurt Kelly. Like, how else would I have known? How else would I have had this dream? No, she's going, she's, I mean...

Sadly, she's going crazy. So they get the name out of Sheila and they realize obviously it matches the missing person's report that they had just received the night before. And that is for Kelly Brennan. So within the hour, police are putting two and two together and they are flooding the area of Mark's Landing.

And for some reason, they don't seem to locate Kelly's body, the one the boys saw, just by searching on foot. So I'm assuming they didn't bring Sheila's sons back to the scene with them to point out exactly where the body was.

Instead, they deploy a police helicopter. They do an overhead search of the area and that's when they make it out. Just along a footpath, there's a patch of brush and Kelly's feet and running shorts are seen sticking out from there.

So they land the helicopter. They're thinking maybe is Kelly alive, but when they get there and they see the injuries to her head, well, they realize quickly that Kelly definitely not survived the attack that she had had. It appears she'd been hit repeatedly in the head with a flat roundish object of some sort. And they're thinking a hammer and there's a trail of blood leading through the brush. Okay.

But Kelly doesn't have any sand on her shoes or legs, which suggests that she probably wasn't walking through the sand to get to this spot in the brush. She was likely killed off-site and then either carried or dragged.

To this part by her feet off the walkway. So something that's confirmed further when they finally locate Kelly's car on a street called Caddo Court about half a mile away from Kelly's home. They find plenty of Kelly's blood inside her vehicle, which was clearly what was used to transport her.

But the autopsy later shows there were no signs of a struggle. That whatever happened between Kelly and her attacker, these blows to her head, Kelly did not see them coming. She was blindsided by this. She didn't even have a chance to fight back. It was swift and vicious. They likely snuck up behind her and with a few quick blows, knocked her unconscious before she could even understand what was happening. Oh, I'm trying to figure out if it was her or not.

I mean, it has to be, right? You would think that the obvious says it was her. Something happened. She broke. She had a nervous breakdown and went crazy, whatever you want to call it. And she killed her. But maybe she can see the future. Or not the future, I guess. Maybe she just has a gift. So at this point, the police are like, okay, who?

attacked kelly is it sheila or do we like what is like this is the strangest case because wasn't sheila just in the hospital earlier that night but this happened the night before oh okay so naturally one of the first people the police are going to explore in any case is a spouse so

They know they have Sheila, but they're like, we're just going to look into the spouse, obviously. And let's face it, it wasn't looking good for Kelly's husband, Gino. After Daniel Trott tells them about the time he came banging down his door and attacking him like, hey, I was seeing his wife. My wife, Sheila, knows everything.

I can't even imagine. It's already strange enough for police to be like, oh, Sheila saw her friend in a dream and then went and found her body. And now they're learning, oh, Sheila also offered up her ex-husband to date Kelly. And Kelly's cheating on Gino. It's just such a mess. And so Daniel tells him, oh, yeah, Gino's definitely violent. Like he came and did this. But here's the problem.

Gino has an alibi, and it's a pretty good one at that. He is seen on video surveillance footage at a Walgreens during the time of Kelly's death. So this is enough for police to rule him out for the time being, which is why they immediately are like, hey, well...

Now we just circle back to the woman that basically confessed to the murder. And that was her friend, Sheila Trott. Cause it's not just the dreams that make Sheila a bit suspicious to the police. Once they dig in a little more, it's not even the odd seizure like symptoms she was experiencing earlier that night.

It was what she did even prior to that. Remember how her son said that she started having those episodes and then they called 911 right after she had returned from a trip to Walmart. She'd gone to Walmart, come back and started having those episodes. This Walmart trip took her four hours.

Like when they start interviewing the kids. Now, believe me, I know you can get held up in a place like Walmart, but four hours is very, very long. And interestingly enough, when police ask, the kids are like, oh, actually she came home empty handed. She had no groceries. Like she went to Walmart, but came home without anything.

Still, the police feel pretty confident at this point that the intel Sheila had about Kelly's murder, it wasn't a dream. Sheila isn't some psychic. The odds are far more likely that Sheila did something to her longtime friend, Kelly Brennan. And according to those who knew Sheila, the divorce between her and Daniel was a lot uglier than she had made it seem to Kelly and honestly was making it seem to everyone. Apparently,

While Sheila and Dan were married, Dan had been having affairs with other women long before the two decided to separate in 2009, around the same time that Kelly and Gina were trying to figure things out. So after Sheila caught Dan without his ring on one too many times, she finally confronted him about it and eventually told him she wanted a divorce. And that story about her setting Kelly and Dan up to speed up the process,

Well, that may have been Sheila's version of events, but Daniel claimed that he and Kelly had connected when he joined this new cycling group after the separation, one which Kelly Brennan was already a part of. And once the two started hooking up, they kept it a secret from everyone, including Kelly's husband, Gino, and Sheila. So Dan is like,

No, Sheila didn't tell Kelly to date me. Me and Kelly just started dating on our own. So if you ask Dan, there was no setup. In fact, several people who knew the couple were like,

No, that's weird. Sheila never would have told Kelly to date Dan. Because according to people, Sheila is obsessed with Daniel. Maybe some part of her was hoping the time apart would be good and they would finally make their way back to each other. Only Kelly Brennan threw a pretty big wrench in those plans. It also didn't seem like a coincidence that Daniel and Sheila were supposed to start mediation on February 17th, 2010, two days after Kelly was killed.

Here's the thing, though. As far as concrete evidence against Sheila Trott, there just isn't any. That reusable grocery bag with Kelly's purse and wallet, the one that Sheila's sons said their mom led them to, the police can't find it anywhere. What is she saying? Like, what is...

like what is she saying about this what is she saying i did it she's saying i didn't do it is she saying it was just a dream like what is she saying about this she's saying no i think it's just a dream but when she was having her nervous breakdown she was throwing out like besides that point like to have they brought her into question her does she have an attorney yeah so they do bring her in and actually this is gonna like speed up okay really fast so let me just keep going they can't find that bag that

that the sons claim they found in the parking lot just no longer exists so there's no dna connecting sheila to the crime no witnesses no fingerprints no murder weapon no bruising cuts not so much as a broken nail on sheila trot so say sheila is an expert at leaving an immaculate crime scene why would she then go the distance just to rat herself out hours later

The whole thing is incredibly bizarre because there was, I mean, police wouldn't even have suspected her. There was nothing pointing to her. But right now, police figure she's the best they've got. So just three days after Kelly's body is found, they arrest 44-year-old Sheila on February 18, 2010. I'm surprised they made an arrest because... Well, they're going to say that she confessed, essentially. Okay.

I just don't think. I personally believe that confession could get thrown out. I was going to say, that's not going to hold up in court. Right. She was having a nervous breakdown. Yeah, it's not going to. Good luck. But then also you tell a jury, well, she led us right to the body. Yeah.

That's a little suspicious as well. So not only is she facing first degree murder charges for killing her soon to be ex-husband's girlfriend, who was also her friend. She's also denied bail. So Sheila Trott sits behind bars for four and a half years. Whoa. Awaiting her trial. And the entire time she insists...

She's innocent. She's like, I was just freaking out. I really did just have a dream. I did not do this. How did she sit that long? She's denied bail. So you can't get out while you're prepping for trial. And it's just kind of up. It's just case to case about who gets denied bail and who doesn't. That's so interesting because say she's, I don't know what's going to happen, but say someone's denied bail and then they're proven innocent.

Not guilty. Can you then sue for... I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure no, because that is just the way the justice system works. And like, even though you were found not guilty, it still took...

The proper channels of you building a defense. I guess I would understand their proper channels if it's been like six months. But also you. But it's been four and a half years. Okay, but you have a right to a speedy trial. Yeah, so that's not exactly. What I'm saying is I think technically her defense could have said, no, we need to go to trial now, even if the state wasn't ready. Correct. But they must not have. Something happened. They just, they must have been trying to build a defense as well. Yeah, I'm curious the legalities behind it.

Wow, that's wild. So she's like, I'm innocent the whole time. As soon as she gets arrested, she says, I'm innocent. And because of this, she doesn't take a plea deal. She had took a deal. She probably would have been. It wouldn't have taken four years. She waits until September of 2014 for her day in court. Now, the defense feels pretty confident at the very least that they have a good case for at least some reasonable doubt.

As I mentioned, there's practically nothing in a way of physical evidence against Sheila, but the prosecution paints a convincing narrative for the jury of what they believed happened that night at trial. And this is what they say. On the evening of February 15th, back in 2010, Sheila left her house sometime between 6 to 7 p.m. telling her sons she was making a trip to Walmart.

But that was a total lie. Instead, Sheila went to Kelly Brennan's house, waited in her yard, and as Kelly was leaving, she snuck up behind her, ambushed her, and attacked her from behind, likely with a hammer for the autopsy, even though no weapon was ever found. And Kelly never saw it coming.

They suggested that Sheila then put Kelly in her own car and drove the 13 miles to Mark's Landing where she left her body, and then drove back to Caddo Court, parked Kelly's car there, before making the half a mile walk back to her own car that was still parked at Kelly's house.

Now, part of this narrative is based on two things that they found in Kelly Brennan's yard. A drag mark and blood seemingly leading to Kelly's vehicle. So this is where they believe the initial attack happened, was at Kelly's home. But the defense...

Has a lot of problems with this version of the story. For starters, they're like, there's no way 115 pound Sheila Trott was able to attack and then transport the 146 pound Kelly Brennan on her own. They're like, how do you drag a dead body like to multiple places at 115 pounds when that body weighs 146 pounds? Yeah.

Much less lift her up inside an SUV. And even if Sheila did sneak up behind Kelly on her front lawn, ambush her and managed to get her in the car despite her size. How the heck did Sheila do that without a single witness or neighbor seeing that happen in real time? This was in the front yard.

Not to mention that blood found in Kelly's yard that police believe was the evidence showing that it happened there. Only one sample of that blood was collected and sent to a lab during the investigation. And when they ran it against Kelly's blood, it came back negative. I don't think you can find her guilty. I don't think there's enough evidence.

So this is wild. What police didn't test was the blood found near Kelly's body at Mark's landing, which the defense is like, this is just shoddy police work because that could have been blood from an attacker. Yeah. And you guys never tested it. So you can't prove if it wasn't my client.

Aside from that, there's not a single piece of DNA, blood, hair, anything that puts Sheila Trott at the scene of the crime. But the prosecution comes back with an explanation for that, too. Based on one neighbor who said they did see a blonde woman at Kelly's house earlier that night and she was wearing a light colored outfit. One that detectives deduced might have been Sheila in a yellow hazmat suit.

So the neighbor said, oh, she was in like a light colored outfit. She was blonde. And the prosecution was like, that was Sheila wearing a hazmat suit, which is why we found no DNA. This is getting thrown out. This is 100% getting thrown out. Also, I've come to realize how many, after doing so many of these cases, how many neighbors, how many people just start saying they saw stuff that they didn't even see. Well, they could have actually seen a woman. Which is true. But I'm just saying in general. People just start saying stuff and it's like, wait, no, you didn't.

I think this is more on the prosecution because how do you take that testimony of a light colored outfit and turn it into a hazmat suit, which is why there's no DNA.

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From what I can tell, police didn't do much to collect samples from either Kelly's house or where her body was found. And before you scream at me through your phone right now, I am not defending Sheila. Okay. I'm not in pro Sheila camp right now. What I'm saying is I feel like there was more investigation that could have been done as far as physical evidence.

in this investigation that would have just helped overall in any trial whether that was against or for Sheila or not like I said they really didn't collect samples from Kelly's house or where the bodies found there was blood where the bodies found and they didn't collect it which is why the defense thinks there's another more likely suspect in this and they believe it's Geno

He had already threatened Daniel at his home after he first learned about the affair. Remember how he showed up with that car jack, caused injuries? According to Dan, Gino brought Kelly home that night and began choking her in the garage, meaning he was violent with her too. And then two months later, Kelly's dead. But once Gino took the stand, he placed the focus back on Sheila. Not only did Gino have a solid alibi during the time that they think Kelly died, but

caught on that security footage he said that sheila would call and email him all the time trying to provoke him into doing something about the affair but gino said that sheila so the woman being accused of killing kelly would call and email him all the time trying to provoke him into doing something about their basically spouses affair in fact she was the one who told him it was happening

But Sheila denies all of this, saying, no, I never sent messages hoping to trigger Gino or turn him violent. That she really wasn't upset about the affair itself. Obviously, she has to say that for her defense. Just how much money Dan was spending now on his new girlfriend. But the prosecution still had one final trick up their sleeve. Two witnesses willing to take the stand to describe their experiences from that night. And it was Sheila's sons.

Graham and Creighton Trott. Graham tells the jury exactly how strange his mother was acting that evening once she came home empty-handed from her four-hour Walmart trip. How she was banging her head against the wall, which was why he thought she was having a seizure. But he also describes what happened after the hospital visit that night. How she woke up from a dream saying she had seen Kelly's face on a beach. How she thought Kelly was hurt.

But Graham's testimony now is a little different from what he told police back in the day in February of 2010.

Now he's saying he never heard his mother that night later on claiming she hurt Kelly, only that she was hurt. So he changes and says, no, my mom never actually confessed that night, which is not on those police transcripts from four years ago. In those, he tells police that later on his mother was repeating over and over that maybe she was the one that hurt Kelly.

But when that's brought up in court, it doesn't look great for Sheila Trott. Neither does the rest of her son's stories about her taking them to the exact spot where Kelly was found and the fact that they drove her to the lot where she discovered Kelly's purse and wallet. But before the trial wraps, there's one last twist, a final piece of evidence presented to the jury, and it comes from Sheila Trott herself.

It is a 22-page letter that was written while Sheila was behind bars. It is her personal account of what really happened on the night of February 15, 2010. And in it, Sheila makes a confession, just not the kind that you'd think. In it, she writes that dream that she had that evening, she now knows it wasn't a dream, it wasn't a premonition, it was a memory.

of what she witnessed earlier that evening. So this is her story now at trial. Oh gosh, okay. She claims she stopped by Kelly's house on the way to Walmart that evening when she noticed another car she didn't recognize in her driveway. She had to park on the street because there was no room, but when she got out and approached the house, she saw a man standing before Kelly's front door and the two were arguing.

Sheila couldn't make out the guy who he was because she said it was too dark outside, but she figured this had to just be another one of Kelly's lovers, maybe one she wasn't familiar with.

Seems a little. Okay. Instead of intruding on their conversation, Sheila says she goes back to her car and watched from there because she was being nosy. Sheila said the argument got nasty after she heard Kelly say to the man that she was done with him and that she needed to leave because she had plans that night. And that's when Sheila said the mystery man turned violent. She watched from her car as he began hitting Kelly,

pursued her to the front lawn and continued beating her until eventually placing her in her own vehicle. But rather than race off or call the police, Sheila said something came over her like she was possessed to follow the car to where it drove away from the house. She said she tailed it all the way to Mark's Landing where she saw the stranger pull Kelly's body from the passenger side and drag it to the trail.

And that's when she raced home, eventually had her panic attack, got her sons involved, goes to the hospital in a crisis, and then plays it off as a dream later that night.

Now, there's a lot that doesn't really make sense in this version, like why Sheila wouldn't have just gone to the police after witnessing Kelly be murdered. Why she would have done something, said something. Yeah, there's so many questions. Why she would have lied about it being a dream. Yeah. And how she managed to stumble upon the bag of Kelly's belongings later on. Plus, her version does not match what the autopsy said, that this was a swift attack from behind.

Now, it's very likely that a lot of these plot holes came up during the trial, but Sheila never took the stand, meaning many of these questions went unanswered. Though, really, it seems the jury didn't need to hear any of it. She had already said enough. Less than three hours after deliberation, the jury of six returned with a verdict. Sheila Trott was guilty of first-degree murder. No way. She was sentenced to life in prison.

To this day, Sheila Trott maintains her innocence. She says Kelly's real-life killer is out there walking free. Sheila believes her crime was not stopping the attack when she saw it happen in real time or going to the police. And while she's filed appeal after appeal, Sheila has not been granted any sort of retrial. Both of her sons have told the press that they actually believe their mother is innocent, that what she says in that 22-page letter matches up

most accurately to what they saw that night. As does Sheila's mother, Margaret, who called 911 and said, my daughter killed somebody.

Whether or not that's true, Margaret has told the press that she blames herself for her daughter's prison sentence. It eats her life thinking if on that 911 call, she had not said, I think my daughter killed somebody and had just said someone's in trouble. Would it have made a difference? Probably not. No. But if that had been the case, then Kelly Brennan's friends and family might still have a lot of unanswered questions today as well. I would think they still do to because be honest. Okay.

You're going to look at... Just speaking from a justice system and the evidence that was presented in court, I don't think there was enough evidence to say that it's life in prison. Okay, but... You think there is? You think there's enough evidence? It's insane some of the crimes we've covered and people get off not guilty and there's way more evidence than this. Can I say what I was going to say? Yes. Not having enough evidence to convict...

Is different than you thinking she's innocent. Correct. So I don't know whether she's innocent or guilty. You just think she deserves a retrial. I think there's not enough evidence to convict. Because there was no physical evidence. There's no way. And they didn't test the blood. There's no way there's enough evidence to convict. He was on that damn jury.

Who's on that jury? Okay, don't blame the jury. They can be persuaded to do anything. Very rarely is it the jury's fault. If you were on that jury and you're listening to this, you did a crappy job. Oh my gosh. Listen. There's no way there's enough evidence to convict. This is all I'm saying. Bull crap, man. I feel like she probably deserves a retrial just based on the fact that the investigation wasn't done very well.

I don't know though at the retrial there's nothing to retest. They didn't collect the blood. I just think there's not enough evidence to convict. But what are the chances she didn't do it? I mean crazier things have happened. I understand but like I too would have a nervous breakdown if I murdered my friend. I too would also have a nervous breakdown if I saw someone murder my friend. No.

No, you wouldn't. You would call the cops. But you don't know that. I know. I know. Everyone's different. I mean, it's completely possible that she watched someone do it and had a nervous breakdown instead. The amount of people, I mean, it's no different than when people talk about, well, if you were getting raped, why didn't you just say no or something like that? It's like, you don't know what you would do in that situation. Right. You have no idea.

You never know what the human brain's going to do. I would say most people probably wouldn't fight back in a situation like that because of the fight or flight instinct. I think if most people saw someone they knew getting killed, they would freeze up. Yes, but I think nine times out of ten, they would call the police. Maybe. We don't know. We don't know. But then why did she... She had all the time in the car. Oh my gosh. Give me the dang bar test. I'm going to become an attorney. I just... I understand that she could have been in a haze. Call me soft.

I understand that she could have been in a haze following there, right? But then where does this bag? I'm just still very confused. All the sources weren't very clear about this bag that contained the belongings because then all of a sudden it just went missing. I don't know. It just feels to me like the investigation, but it's almost like I can't. Okay, I'm going in circles, but it's almost like I can't blame the police because if you get a call from someone who's

Ex-husband that according to everyone else, she's still in love with is dating this girl who's now dead. And she said, I might've done it. What else are the police going to do? Listen, remember that case we did cover where that guy had a dream and it was real and it was real.

Yes. He actually... So... I just feel like you're writing a little hard right now. Okay. I'm not writing hard for the fact that I don't know if she did it. I'm writing hard for the fact that I'm kind of sick of people being convicted when we don't have enough evidence. And I would agree with that. We are 100% on the same page in that regard. In order for our... If someone does something and she did kill someone...

I don't want to talk to them ever again. Put them in prison. Kill them. I don't care. I'm pretty harsh about that stuff. In order for our justice system to work correctly, it has to be black and white. And if there is not enough, if there is reasonable doubt, someone should not be convicted. Even if it feels like they did it. There was so much reasonable doubt in that and they were just like, eh, nah, let's just put her in prison.

But there's also reasonable guilt. It's just hard. The jury's, it's just hard. Justice system, man. The circumstantial evidence is just really heavy hitting in this one. I don't know. All of her family thinks she's innocent. That's a doozy of a case. That's a crazy case. All right, you guys, that was our episode and we will see you next time with another one. I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye.

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