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To get this episode of Forensic Tales ad-free, please visit patreon.com/forensictales. Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. In August 2013, in a quiet corner of small town USA, Ohio, something unspeakable unfolds along a desolate stretch of road. A man behind the wheel notices a Jeep parked roadside.
Curiosity leads him to make a U-turn, drawn by the still glowing headlights. As he nears closer, he sees a young woman covered in blood. Shockingly, an innocent infant in the backseat is also hurt. A crime that shook a community and left us with one important question. Who could do this? This is Forensic Tales, episode number 206. The unexplained murder of Brittany Stikes.
Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell-Ariola.
Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast covering real, spine-tingling stories with a forensic science twist. Some cases have been solved with forensic science, while others have turned cold. Every remarkable story sends us a chilling reminder that not all stories have happy endings.
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Thank you so much to Anita H., Amy, Melinda D., and Giselle M. for supporting the show. Now, let's get to this week's episode. It all started on a normal day in Ripley, Ohio, a small town in the USA. 22-year-old Brittany Stikes got the news she was hoping for. She was on the verge of landing a better job to help her growing family. Brittany had an online job interview on Wednesday, August 28, 2013.
She asked her mother-in-law if she could borrow the computer from her house for the interview. So that afternoon, Brittany and her 14-month-old daughter, Aubrey, left their home in Ripley, Ohio, and drove the 30-mile drive to her mother-in-law's house in Bethel. But Brittany and her daughter, Aubrey, weren't the only two in the car that afternoon. Brittany was also pregnant with her second child.
Brittany grew up in the country on a small farm in Ripley, Ohio, about 30 minutes away from Cincinnati, and Brittany loved it. She loved playing with her four siblings, caring for the farm animals, and spending time with her parents. As a kid, she rode horses, showed goats and chickens at the local county fair, and loved to work on cars. When she grew up, she wanted to build herself a motorcycle from scratch.
Brittany had recently quit her job at Walmart a few months earlier when she found out she was pregnant. She immediately started looking for a new job to accommodate her and provide a better schedule. So she was excited when she got the interview with the Internal Revenue Service, the IRS, that afternoon. By all accounts, the job interview went well. Brittany was excited about the position and felt confident that she was going to be invited to the next round.
So after finishing the interview, she stayed at her mother-in-law's house for dinner. Before leaving, Brittany thanked her mother-in-law for letting her come over and use her computer and told her she planned to stop at her parents' house before going home that night. Brittany said bye and walked out the door. She was never seen alive again. Brittany left the house around 7 p.m. that night with her daughter Aubrey.
She walked out carrying a plate of leftovers, chicken, mashed potatoes, and mac and cheese. She planned to take the food home to give to her husband, Sean, who she knew would be hungry. She put Aubrey in her car seat when she got to the car. Then Brittany started driving north back to her parents' house in Ripley. That night was her father's 49th birthday, so she wanted to stop by and wish him happy birthday before she went home.
But she never made it to her parents' house. Around 8 o'clock p.m., a man driving on US-68 noticed headlights shining out from the woods. Concerned that a fellow driver might be in trouble, he made a U-turn to see if they needed help. When he got closer, he saw a yellow Jeep parked on the side with its headlights on and the engine still running. He got out and took a look inside.
Panic immediately sunk in as he saw a young, blood-soaked female with her head on the steering wheel. He pounded on the window to get her attention, but she wasn't answering. She was drenched in blood. At first, he thought maybe she had been in a car accident, but he didn't see any immediate damage to her Jeep. Maybe she accidentally drove off the side of the highway, but it wasn't only Brittany inside the car.
Her daughter Aubrey was also inside the car, still strapped into her car seat with a bullet wound to her head. At 8.11 p.m., the man called 911 and told dispatchers this, quote, there's a Jeep in the woods. Looks like somebody drove off the road into the woods and they're passed out at the wheel, end quote. But Brittany and her daughter didn't simply drive off the road and end up in the woods.
Because if that's what happened, the story would be over. No. Instead of a car crash, both were shot. Brittany was shot three times, and her daughter shot once in the head. When the police and paramedics arrived at 8.20 p.m., they rushed to the Jeep. The vehicle was covered in blood. They found Brittany unresponsive behind the wheel and her daughter screaming in the backseat.
Both were immediately rushed to the hospital, but only Aubrey survived. Despite being shot in the head, she was still alive. Her mom, 22-year-old Brittany, and her unborn child were pronounced dead at the hospital. When Brittany and her daughter were shot inside their car, they were only a couple of miles away from her parents' house.
They were so close that after the police and paramedics were called, Brittany's parents could hear the sirens from their living room. And when they heard them, their first thought was, where's Brittany? They knew she was returning from her mother-in-law's house and should be home any minute. Their worst fears were realized when Brittany's parents got to the scene. All of the commotion was, in fact, for their daughter and granddaughter.
Brittany always had a close relationship with her parents and would go to their house almost every day. They didn't live far from her and her husband's house. She usually went there when her husband was at work so she wouldn't be alone. So when they found out what happened to her, they were utterly devastated and heartbroken. Police immediately started collecting evidence. Based on the hospital report, they knew Brittany was shot three times and her daughter was shot once in the head.
The bullet had entered Aubrey's forehead and exited from the top of her head, so they knew they were looking for at least four bullets, possibly more. If they could find the bullets or the casings, they might be able to work backward and find a potential gunman based on what type of gun was used. When investigators examined the Jeep, they found five bullet holes in the driver's side door.
They knew that at least two of the bullets hit Brittany. One hit her in the neck and the other went through her chest and right arm. One of the bullets traveled through the car into the back seat where her daughter was seated in her car seat. Aubrey had been shot once in the head. The bullet entered her forehead and exited through her head. It was a miracle that she was even alive. And then the other bullet must have missed both of them.
Next, investigators needed to figure out where the shots came from. Did someone pull up next to them on the side of the road and shoot them from another car? Was it someone on foot? Were multiple guns used? Based on the bullets placement and the damage to the car, the police came up with a theory. They believed someone fired at Brittany's Jeep from a distance away. They didn't actually have to get up close to the car.
Now exactly how far away they were at the time of the shooting isn't clear. But the theory is, is that the gunman was a reasonable distance away when they fired those five bullets. This theory also seems to be supported by what the medical examiner found at Brittany's autopsy. Her entire body was examined for gunshot residue, but they didn't even find a speck of it. So nothing was suggesting that she had been shot from close range.
Now, taking a deeper look at Brittany's autopsy, investigators uncovered more essential details. Brittany had several abrasions to her face, right arm, and fingers. She also had some strange injuries to her right leg, but no one had any idea how she could have gotten them. A complete toxicology report was also done. No drugs or alcohol were found in her system, so neither drugs or alcohol played a part in her death either.
Plus, when Brittany's body showed up at the medical examiner's office for the autopsy, she still had all of her jewelry on, and she also had a little over $100 in cash inside her wallet. So that seemed to rule out the possibility of a robbery gone wrong. The gunman wasn't after her money or any valuables. This seemed to be about something entirely different.
Not surprisingly, one of the first people the police spoke to was Brittany's husband, Shane Stikes. We've all heard it before. The husband always did it. If a young mom and wife turn up dead, it's usually the husband who has something to do with it. That's just how it goes. So when the cops showed up at Shane's door at 11.30 p.m. that night...
Not only did they have to break the news about what happened to Brittany, but they also needed to get his alibi. Shane agreed to go down to the Brown County Sheriff's Office for questioning. He said he didn't have a problem answering any of their questions. He was just as anxious as they were to get down to the bottom of what happened to Brittany.
From the outside looking in, he acted and looked exactly like a grieving husband who just found out that his wife and unborn child were shot and killed. But investigators first wanted to know more about his and Brittany's relationship. Were they happy? Were they fighting at the time she was killed? They wanted to know everything.
Shane explained to them that he and Brittany met when she was 20 and he was a little bit older, 38 years old at the time, and had two kids of his own from a previous relationship. The two met at a Subway fast food restaurant that she worked at, and he, trying to eat healthier, frequently visited. But they didn't start dating immediately. Brittany had a boyfriend at the time, and Shane never wanted to get in the way.
But after Brittany broke up with her boyfriend, she started talking to Shane and the two started dating in 2011. Not long after that, they found out she was pregnant and they married about a year later. According to Shane, the wedding was sort of a spur of the moment thing. But he was adamant with investigators that they were happy and they both wanted to get married. Then four months later, their daughter Aubrey was born.
The two settled into a home near Brittany's parents' house. And by all accounts, Brittany loved being a mom. She completely doted on Aubrey and would have done anything for her. She even became a stepmother to Shane's two older children from a previous relationship. Two sons aged 14 and 6 at the time. According to Shane, she treated them just like her own children.
Despite their 18-year age difference, Shane said the two of them got along really well, especially in the weeks and months leading up to her murder. She was pregnant with their second child, and they were excited about being parents to a newborn again.
He admitted that money was a little tight because they were only living off of his income, but he said they were making it work. Plus, she had that interview with the IRS, so they were doing what they could to make a little extra money and take the financial burden off of him. So when it came to a motive, Shane explained to investigators, well, he didn't have one for wanting his wife dead.
She didn't have any life insurance policies, and she was pregnant with their baby. As far as an alibi goes, this is what Shane told Brown County investigators. He had been at work all day. At the time, he worked at Star Manufacturing in a few towns over in Tri-County, Ohio, a place about 15 minutes away from their home.
After he got off work, he said he stopped by the gym to work out for a little bit before heading home for the night. He said he knew Brittany had plans to go to his mom's house to use the computer and have dinner. So he didn't think much about it when it was starting to get late and she still hadn't returned home. He figured she decided to stay a little bit later. He really didn't have any reason to suspect that anything else was going on.
He also knew that she was going to stop by her parents' house to wish her dad a happy birthday. So, again, maybe that kept her even longer. Before Brittany and their daughter got home, Shane said he fell asleep, and he only woke up after two deputies came knocking on his front door to tell him what happened to his wife. He said before that he had passed out asleep and had no idea anything was wrong with Brittany.
Shane agreed to take a gunshot residue test to see if there was any evidence suggesting he had recently fired a gun, but nothing was found. They didn't find any GSR in his hands or clothing, so it didn't seem likely that he had recently used a gun. So after a few more hours of questioning, he was released and allowed to go home. But that didn't mean the cops didn't consider Shane a possible suspect.
He was still suspect number one. He was the husband, after all. Although his GR test came back negative and he had a solid alibi, the police still wondered if he had something to do with Brittany's murder. But from the start, they struggled to come up with a motive. Who would want to shoot and kill a young pregnant wife and mother? And if Shane had something to do with it, why? What would his motive be?
So it's pretty much clear to say she didn't have any enemies who would want her dead.
Several days after the shooting, the Brown County Sheriff's Office held a press conference to provide an update about the investigation. It's not every day a young mother and her unborn child are gunned down inside their car along the side of the road. So naturally, everyone who heard about the case wanted answers, and they wanted to know what the police knew.
At the press conference, Brown County Chief Deputy John Skadel assured everyone that his department was using all available resources to try and make an arrest. Although they were just as desperate to solve the case, he admitted that no one stood out as a person of interest.
Brittany's husband, Shane, had a solid alibi that checked out. Three officers had been working out in the same gym that Shane went to, and all three of them were able to confirm that he was there when the shooting happened. But they didn't only rule out Shane at this press conference. They essentially said that they didn't have any suspects. According to the police chief, they weren't able to find anyone with any reason to want Brittany killed.
So the entire investigation seemed to be on a dead end right from the get-go. The police offered a $5,000 reward for any information leading to an arrest. They hoped that someone out there knew something. And they simply needed one good tip to turn this entire investigation around. Initially, the reward money seemed to work. They got a lot of phone calls from the public, but none of them developed into anything serious.
And for the next six weeks, the case was stalled. Six weeks after the shooting, the police provided another update. But it was pretty much the same update they had the first time. No arrests, no suspects, and no leads. They were, however, able to get their hands on some surveillance footage and some of Brittany's last phone calls and text messages. Now here's what we know about her last known whereabouts from that night.
Brittany was captured on surveillance cameras a few times during her drive from her mother-in-law's house to her parents' house. She was captured once by the Georgetown Police Department and another time passing a McDonald's. But they didn't find any evidence that someone was following her. Everything appeared to be completely fine, and nothing really stood out in the tapes as unusual.
After this update from the police, both videos were posted to the sheriff's office website and are still up today. So if you're interested in checking them out for yourself, they're still online. But according to the police, nothing stood out from the tapes. According to cell phone records, around 7.15 p.m. that night, Brittany sent a text to her family saying she was getting close.
The text read, quote, it's raining up in town, just a ways from your house. Aubrey was out five minutes ago, end quote. After that text message, her family never heard from her again. And the 911 call was placed a little after 8 p.m. So what could have happened? One of many possible theories the police considered throughout their investigation was that Brittany might have been killed in some sort of road rage incident.
Maybe she got into a heated argument with another driver and they took it a little bit too far. It wouldn't be the first time road rage turns deadly. But there wasn't any solid evidence of that. Another theory they considered was that this crime was completely random. Although they suspected she was shot from a reasonable distance away, there was no way of actually proving that for sure. She might have been shot from a passing car.
Or someone could have been standing across the highway on the other side. They also couldn't rule out the possibility this was a targeted attack. Just because they couldn't find any particular person who had a motive, that didn't mean she wasn't targeted. Maybe it was someone overlooked by the police. A mysterious shooter who wanted her dead. As the police struggled to move the case forward, they decided to go back to her husband, Shane.
Despite the alibi, despite the lack of motive, despite no history of domestic violence or abuse, they turned their attention back to him. They wondered if there was any tension in their marriage that they just didn't know about or that Shane didn't want to admit. The police decided to conduct a DNA test on Brittany's unborn baby.
The idea was that if Shane wasn't the biological father, maybe that was a possible motive for murder. But when the DNA test results came back, they confirmed that Shane was in fact the biological father, so that had to be ruled out. They then had Shane take two separate polygraph exams. According to the reports, he passed both of them.
So eventually, the police had to once again move on from Shane and officially rule him out as a possible suspect. Police also administered polygraph tests on several other people besides Shane. One of those examined was an ex-boyfriend of Brittany, but everyone passed, including the ex-boyfriend. So none of them stood out either. As the weeks and months went by, Brittany's family grew more and more frustrated with a lack of progress in the case.
Brittany's mom, Mary, told investigators that they were desperate to find out who did this and said this, quote, End quote.
Three months later, in November 2013, the Brown County Sheriff's Office announced that witnesses had been subpoenaed to appear in front of a grand jury and testify in connection to the murder. One of the witnesses called to testify was Shane's ex-girlfriend. Although the exact reason why she and two others were called to testify is unclear...
She was one of three people that the police said were reluctant to answer questions early in the investigation, and the identities of the other two people are still unknown. And the outcome of the testimony is a complete mystery to the public. If anything was gained from this testimony, the sheriff's office hasn't released it yet. And the grand jury didn't bring any arrests or major announcements connected to the case.
Over the next 12 months, very little, if any, progress was made in the investigation. For many people, this seems like a case that should have been solved within days. A young wife and mother shouldn't be shot to death inside her car just a few minutes away from her parents' house, and then no one's arrested. This should have been an easy open-and-shut type of murder investigation.
The police should have identified someone with a motive to kill Brittany. Or there should have been eyewitnesses or critical pieces of forensic evidence discovered that tied everything together. But that couldn't be farther from the truth. According to the sheriff's department, no one had motive. Even Brittany's own husband was cleared by passing two polygraph tests and had a solid alibi.
There were no eyewitnesses to the shooting, at least not that came forward to the police. This all happened on a relatively quiet highway. Finally, when it comes to the forensic evidence, there's almost nothing. First, the police were never able to find the shell casings, so they couldn't even figure out what type of gun was used in the shooting, let alone figure out who the gun belonged to. There weren't any fingerprints or DNA either.
Whoever shot Brittany was far enough away so that they didn't leave any prints or blood behind. Which begs the question, was someone lying in wait for Brittany and her daughter off the side of the highway? Did they know she was driving home to her parents' house that night and knew that she would have driven that route? If the Brown County Sheriff's Department had any suspects, they kept it to themselves.
Shane, however, told reporters that he thought he knew exactly who murdered his wife. According to Shane, it was someone that he knew, but not personally. He even provided detectives with the full name and address of the person that he thought was involved. But if you ask Shane, he will say the police didn't follow up on his lead. And if you ask the police, they said that they did.
In fact, they claim they followed up on more than 70 leads, including this one, and were working on the theory that they believed might solve the case. However, no additional information was released, and it's unclear who exactly Shane thinks shot Brittany. Fast forward to September 2015, two years after the murder.
The police raided a home in Kentucky, a place about an hour and a half's drive from where the shooting happened. According to an article by Uncovered.com, a man's ex-girlfriend came forward to say that he had confessed to her about Brittany's murder and said that it was over an unpaid debt that Shane Stikes owed him. Well, that seems like a pretty good motive for murder, right?
Someone claims Shane Stikes owes him a lot of money and to get revenge, he shoots and kills his pregnant wife. This woman also claimed that he told her he took her what he described as a trophy photo of Britney after he shot her.
According to an article by WCPO Cincinnati News, this woman came forward to police in June 2015 with, quote, information about a suspect, a motive, and knowledge of the case that went well beyond that of the general public, end quote. In her statement to investigators, the woman said she was in the passenger seat of a car with her ex-boyfriend on August 28, 2013, and
when he spotted a yellow Jeep Wrangler at a gas station and started following it. After about 25 minutes, she said he plugged a portable blue police light into the car's cigarette lighter and waved Britney down off U.S. Route 68 near Gooselick Road. She also said someone paid Britney's killer two payments of $10,000 to perform the hit.
and that the shooter was someone with a lot of experience and secrets. So where is this so-called trophy photo? And is there any truth to what this informant said? Well, if one exists, it's never been released. In fact, if anything important was found during this September 2015 raid by the police, nothing specific was ever shared, and no arrests were ever made.
Which is strange because according to this same news article, the police claimed the search was a complete success. And they said they collected a total of 19 pieces of evidence. But again, no arrests were made. So who was this ex-boyfriend, Brittany's alleged killer? Well, when the raid was performed, he was in jail on unrelated charges. And since then, he's never been arrested in connection to Brittany's case.
He's also never had his name fully released, at least not what I could find. Now, following that, the case went cold again, at least in the eyes of the public. But if you ask the sheriff's department, they say the case was never cold, and it still isn't today. If detectives receive a tip, they investigate it. And they said that they've never stopped actively working the case. Now, fast forward two more years to 2017.
In January 2017, the Brown County Sheriff's Office hosted another press conference. But this one seemed more about wanting to move the case forward than sharing any new information or evidence gathered. This time, they were offering a $50,000 reward. They were convinced that there were people out there with information about Brittany's murder, and it only takes one person to come forward to change everything.
They also shared at this press conference that Ohio's Bureau of Criminal Investigation was now working with the Brown County Sheriff's Office on the case. Together with the prosecutor's office, they had formed a dedicated task force. But this press conference only confirmed their suspicions of many people. The police had nothing and hopes of solving this case were fading fast.
So where does Brittany's case stand today? Well, the short answer to that question is that it stands exactly where it stood 10 years ago. To date, the case remains unsolved. Detectives still have no idea if this was a targeted attack, a case of mistaken identity, or a freak accident. At this point, nothing's been taken off the table.
If this was a targeted attack, why haven't the police found any evidence yet? It should have been relatively easy to connect the dots back to someone. Someone who disliked Brittany or held a grudge against her. Someone who thought she or Shane owed them money. Or maybe even a disgruntled ex-partner. If this was a case of mistaken identity, then this might be a lot harder to solve.
It's possible whoever shot her actually thought she was someone else, but no one has stepped forward. Maybe the shooter was stalking a different target that night and this entire tragedy was just a case of mistaken identity. But if that's the case, this is going to be extremely difficult to solve without someone coming forward. Or maybe this was a freak accident.
Is it possible that the gunshots were a mistake? I don't know about that one. Five gunshots are too many to simply be a freak accident or a mistake. Finally, there's the burning question. Is it too late for Brittany's case to be solved? In my opinion, absolutely not. This was a solvable case 10 years ago, and it still is today.
Hopefully, promising forensic evidence will be discovered. A new type of forensic testing that wasn't available 10 years ago. We all know that forensic science evolves almost every single day. Old cases, once considered unsolvable, are now solved by new technology. Or maybe it's going to be a witness who's just completely riddled with guilt who will finally come forward.
Whether it's forensic science or not, I think this case can and will ultimately be solved. Brittany Stikes was only 22 years old and five months pregnant when she was gunned down inside her car in 2013 on the way to her parents' house. Her daughter Aubrey was also shot once in the head, but against all odds survived. But she still asks about her mom almost every single day.
Her parents and family have never forgotten. Every year on the anniversary of her murder, they speak about their desire to get to the bottom of this and find out the truth and to bring a cold-blooded killer to justice. If you or anyone you know has any information about Brittany Stikes' murder, please contact the Brown County Sheriff's Office at 937-378-4435.
Or, if you have any interesting ideas about how forensic science can be used to crack this one, please send them my way. You can email your ideas to Courtney at ForensicTales.com. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this case. To share your thoughts on this story, be sure to follow the show on Instagram and Facebook.
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