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Soon, I will upload even more exclusive content to the $10 Plus Club. So, make sure you don't miss out. For eight years, whenever Danny Billingsley saw a cream-colored van, he'd think of Dana Sanchez. Then he'd run the license plates, each time hoping the driver would turn out to be her killer.
Her murder in 1995 was the type of case that haunted even a seasoned homicide investigator like him. Just 16 years old, Sanchez had been violently raped, causing severe tearing and internal bleeding, before being garroted to death with a toothbrush. Sanchez was not the first Latina to be robbed of her young life in a violent manner.
Three years earlier, two other young Hispanic girls on the north side of town had been similarly assaulted and strangled. The second girl was only nine years old, and we will get into details about both tragedies and more later in the show. The killings haunted investigators. The innocence of those girls, and knowing we were dealing with a sexual predator,
It's just different, says Billingsley, a Harris County Sheriff's lieutenant. Every day I'd think about those girls. Every day it was on my brain. Sanchez had disappeared almost eleven months after the nine-year-old's murder. A week passed before a man called KPRC-TV with directions to the field where her body lay. Then he added something that police had suspected—
But I'd hoped it wasn't true. A serial killer was on the loose. Police were convinced that the anonymous tipster was the killer himself, hungry for attention, eager to display his handiwork, daring them to catch him, just like a clichéd Hollywood crime movie.
As I have mentioned several times on this podcast, one very notable feature that is very common among serial killers is their pathological need for attention. Mental health experts will tell you a plethora of theories as to why this is. I don't like to speculate too much, especially since I am no mental health expert,
But it does seem feasible that a lack of attention from friends and loved ones in childhood and youth could trigger otherwise dormant extreme behavior among psychopaths. The cops and deputies formed a task force, desperate to stop him. Only when leads fizzled out and the killer refrained from striking again did the task force disband and its detectives take on other cases.
but they never really moved on. Billingsley thought about the killer every time he went to the post office on West's cavalcade, as the girl Sanchez had lived just across the street, or whenever he saw a van that matched the one spotted at the crime scene. Several questions arose from the killer's mysterious disappearance. Why had he thrust himself into the limelight and then stopped? Did he die?
Was he in prison for something else? Had he moved away? Only after they caught him did they realize it was none of the three. In the eight years after Sanchez's death, he'd gotten married and divorced, fallen in love again, and started a business. This was very much in similar manner as a far more famous serial killer, Dennis Rader, a.k.a. B.T.K.
He too had went on a serial killing rampage for several years, taunting police and the public with lewd letters, before suddenly stopping. Rader was, as my dear listeners probably know, finally caught as a result of his own hubris, his desperate need for public attention. Anthony Tony Shaw had crossed paths with law enforcement numerous times.
He'd been in a squad car at least once, in criminal court and at the police station. But no one ever really noticed the friendly, dark-haired guy with the pierced chin. And that's how it had always been, for sure. Born the 25th of June, 1962, he seemed, even as a child, driven by two impulses. To seek attention, and to molest girls. He went from grabbing and groping,
to killing. He cruised high schools, molested his own daughters, tried to pick up a hooker. Then, after a few murders, he called a TV station to give police an added push. Everyone who might have stopped him, from relatives to social workers to prosecutors, seemed to be looking the other way. Even the people who detected his odd behavior failed to put the pieces together.
And as Houston police detectives worked tirelessly to catch the killer, their own DNA lab failed to test the evidence that could connect Shore to the crimes. In the end, it was left to science to nab him when Shore finally confessed it was to more crimes than investigators had suspected. The murders of four women, the violent rape of a fifth.
Personally, I believe Shore could be responsible for far more murders than that, especially considering his supposed long cooling-off period. When it comes to serial killers, Tony Shore is more akin to Ted Bundy than Jeffrey Dahmer. His hairline was starting to recede when he was in prison.
But he was still good-looking, with dark puppy-dog eyes and a neat goatee. He had long been fastidious, even as a child. He hated to get dirty. His sisters used to tease him for folding his socks over a hanger, for insisting on silk underwear, for instructing them on the importance of eating their sandwiches in a straight line, teeth marks precise, as a row of type.
Shore was born in South Dakota. His father, Rob, was stationed at an Air Force base there. His mother, Diana, had been honorably discharged after getting pregnant with Tony. After Rob's discharge, the Shores relocated to California.
the first of nine moves the family would make before Tony started high school, crisscrossing from California to Florida, before finally ending up in Houston. Rob Shore stated in interviews that he had no qualms about uprooting his family to move long distances. If a job opportunity with better financial rewards presented itself, they moved.
Since he was in, and I quote, computers before there were computers, end quote, there was no shortage of offers. Tony was well behaved and hyper competitive. He always had to be the best. His family marveled at his ability to play any instrument, from piano to trombone to guitar.
He won mention in the Sacramento Bee for his recital of Bach when he was just five years old, but he was terrible at sports, and not much better with his peers. Unlike his younger sisters, Gina and Laurel, he had trouble adjusting to new schools. He cried easily, his mother says.
And he was arrogant. He liked to use big words. He'd raise his hand and say, I need to defecate, end quote. He seemed to require abnormal amounts of attention. He'd make straight A's, but he wasn't content to make them. He wanted acknowledgement for them as well. The one teacher he remembered as an adult was the one who disliked him.
It didn't sit well with classmates. He was beat up a lot, said Gina. It was humiliating, and some of these were bad beatings. He didn't handle it real well. In other words, young Anthony was, as so many other serial killers, severely bullied growing up. I noticed from the comments made by his family
that they probably didn't have much in the way of sympathy for the young lad when he was bullied. This was quite common at that time, as being bullied wasn't something dealt with by the adults, but expected to be dealt with by the victim on their own, to quote-unquote toughen them up.
However, in our 21st century society, we know all too well how damaging bullying can be, and what awful scars it can leave on young fragile minds, and what terrors it can release in those minds that are not fragile, but monstrous.
even at an early age. The opposite sex was a big challenge and mystery to young Anthony, and he behaved very strangely around girls. Gina recalls that when they biked around the neighborhood together, Tony would pick out houses of girls he wanted to harass. He'd send Gina to knock on the door and ask for the little girl residing there.
When she came out, Tony would grab her and try to fondle her. Now, this was not a young predator in his teens showing his teeth. This was a young child of less than 13 years old going around sexually assaulting younger children. Back then, extremely disturbing behavior like that was usually not taken seriously for some reason.
Anthony might be disciplined a bit, but usually it would be brushed off as kids being kids, doing silly things. Today, Anthony would most probably have been taken into a facility and given mandatory psychiatric treatment. The girls being assaulted as a result of Anthony's so-called pranks and games was naturally very distressed as a result of this.
Finally, a woman who answered the door turned out to be one of Gina's teachers, putting a final stop into Gina's participation. Her brother's disturbing behavior only escalated. When he was 13 and living near Orlando, Tony told his sister that he and his buddies had beaten up a bum in a swampy area behind the Publix grocery store. I think we killed the guy.
She recalls him saying, over and over. He seemed agitated, but he never cried.
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$45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes. See details. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. As a family man with three kids, I know firsthand how extremely difficult it is to make time for self-care. But it's good to have some things that are non-negotiable.
For some, that could be a night out with the boys, chugging beers and having a laugh. For others, it might be an eating night. For me, one non-negotiable activity is researching psychopathic serial killers and making this podcast. Even when we know what makes us happy, it's often near impossible to make time for it.
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Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash serialkiller today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash serialkiller. He told her not to mention it again. He certainly never did. She was his little sister and his friend.
She listened and then tried, unsuccessfully, to forget. Rob Shaw finally settled in Houston in the mid-70s, but his family still had one more difficult move ahead. In 1976, when Tony was 14 and attending Clear Creek High School, his parents got divorced. Deanna returned to her native California with the three kids.
Rob didn't fight her for custody. I figured she'd be a better single mother than I'd be a single father, he said. Although they differ on details, Deanna and Rob say the marriage ended when Rob, who hadn't hit Deanna before, beat her up. He says he told her he was leaving and she shattered a beer stain over his head. When someone hits me in the back of my head with a beer mug,
"'I respond very badly,' he said in an interview. Tony often tried to buffer his mother during his parents' arguments. He inserted himself between the couple. That caused Tony to face his father's wrath instead, and his belt. Although this is only claimed by his sister, Anthony himself claims no memory of this ever happening. But Anthony did hate his father.'
and was hardly sad to see his parents' divorce. He said, Good, we're rid of him, according to his mother Diana. Anthony now wanted to replace his father as the head of the household, but Diana wouldn't allow it. I told him what the rules were, she said. When Tony borrowed her car one night while she was sleeping, she called the cops.
Back in Sacramento, she was going to school and working two or three jobs, including a long stint as a waitress at Denny's. Often she'd come home, make dinner, and head out to work again. She remembers Tony as a great help, but she wasn't home enough to monitor his activities. He'd found new ways to get attention. He joined a jazz band and starred in theatrical productions.
He told his family that, while hiking one day, he'd almost died in an avalanche. There, he said, he'd seen the face of God, an epiphany that briefly compelled him to criticize family members for smoking, or cursing. He'd grown into a handsome young man, a clothed horse who enjoyed sporting the tight pants and gold chains of the seventies.
His mother thought he looked like Pernell Roberts, who played Adam on Gunsmoke and later starred as the titular Trapper John, M.D. He told his mom that he signed up for ballet classes to meet girls. He always seemed to have a girlfriend. However, even though he supposedly got enough attention from the opposite sex...
and no longer was being bullied, his aggression towards girls continued. Gina remembers cruising bus stations and high schools with him. He'd ask girls if they wanted a ride home, and then pointedly remind his sister that she had to be somewhere else. "'They'd see me in the car, and they'd be more comfortable getting in,' she explains. "'But then he dropped me off.'
She was always sure he then molested the girls. She tried to talk to him about it when they were alone, but he said it was no big deal and that all the young men were doing it. For some reason, his sister seemed to be satisfied with that. It appears she might have had a serious case of hero-worship going on for her big brother.
After dropping out of community college, Tony returned to Texas, took a job working for Southwestern Bell, and got married. He was 21. In three years, he and his wife, who was also named Gina, had two daughters. Even then, he was on the prowl. He still cruised the high schools, even though he'd grown much older than the girls he was trying to seduce.
even though he was married. And so it was. At 24 years of age, police say, Shore became a killer. Fifteen-year-old Lori Lee Tremblay left her house the 26th of September 1986 at 6.30 a.m. to catch a metro bus to her school for the troubled kids in Mentros.
An hour later, her body was found behind a Nina's restaurant three miles from her apartment complex. She had been strangled to death. Tremblay hadn't been robbed, and he had only unsuccessfully tried to rape her. He probably didn't manage to maintain an erection, and in a fury, ended up killing the young girl. While she had only enough money for a one-way bus fare—
The people who caught that bus had never heard anything about her catching a ride, ever. The police got tips, but none mentioned a telephone installer named Tony Shore. Some of Shore's relatives, however, began to suspect he had taken a wrong turn in life. "'He was halfway slurry to me,' says Ogoretta Worley, his mother-in-law. "'I thought he was messing with dope,'
He always looked at me suspicious, like I was looking through him. His sister, Gina, came to visit soon after earning her bachelor's degree in psychology, a few years after Tremblay's murder. She became convinced her brother was molesting his older daughter, who was then about five years old. He insisted on bathing her himself,
kissing her on the lips, ignoring typical father-daughter boundaries. When Gina complained about this to her mother, Diana Shore was unconvinced. She told her to call Children's Protective Services, CPS, if she was concerned. Gina says she did call, but supposedly never heard back from them. If this is true,
Especially considering how Gina had covered up and even participated in Anthony's crimes earlier in life, it is not known, and I would venture to say downright implausible. Diana visited soon after, and didn't notice signs of abuse. But one thing seemed odd. There was no food anywhere in the house. She also noticed that Tony and his wife's bedroom was off-limits to their kids.
Police say that Tony killed his next victim on the 16th of April, 1992. She was 21-year-old Maria del Carmen Estrada, a slender Mexican immigrant with long, dark hair. As with his first victim, she left home at 6.30 a.m., planning to walk to work. Four hours later, they found her body in a Dairy Queen drive-thru.
less than a mile from her residence. Nude from the waist down, she too had been strangled. Police never connected the two killings. Despite a similar time of day and method, almost six years had passed. Unlike Tremblay, Estrada had been brutally raped before having her life strangled out of her. The killer had also taken her purse.
In 1993, when an intruder raped a 14-year-old girl in her home a year later, police didn't connect that either. The girl luckily survived, and her name is withheld by authorities. One year after that, in August 1994, 9-year-old Diana Reboulard left her house around noon to buy sugar for her mother.
Police found her body behind a vacant building 12 hours later. I feel I need to comment more thoroughly on this. A 9-year-old girl has not reached puberty and her reproductive organs are not even close to being fully developed. When a child as young as Diana is raped, it always causes extreme pain, trauma,
and the vaginal and/or anal tearing it causes can oftentimes result in death from blood loss and shock. Anthony Shore first bludgeoned her into submission, hopefully unconsciousness, before raping her and then finally strangling her to death with a homemade tourniquet. Diana Reboulard was the same age as Shore's youngest daughter.
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And so, we come to end of part one out of two parts in the story of Anthony Alan Shore. Next week, I will give you the conclusion to this case, and in addition to that, something special. A morsel of true crime delight, if you will. So, as they say in the land of radio, stay tuned. I have been your host,
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