Episode 253

Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is not intended for all
audiences. Listener discretion is advised. She's just trying to do her job.
That makes sense. What doesn't make sense is that attack on her. That
attack and you decide your mind to go with her under to such force and
dinges that that much blood is produced. Hello and welcome. This is season
ten, episode two hundred and fifty three of Sword and Scale, a show
that continues to reveal that the worst possible monsters are real. If you still
have not downloaded our app available on iOS and Android, it's available, but
we're working on a new one which will be coming out really really soon.
We got lots of stuff planned for twenty twenty four. In fact, stay
tuned. If you've ever accepted a moderate or high paying job, then you've
probably had people work for you or under you. Well, it might not
always feel like it. This can be a really powerful position to be in
to a boss or supervisor, having employees is just part of the job,
but to the employees themselves, the supervisor is pretty much the gatekeeper of their
livelihoods. An employee's necessities of life are dependent on what their supervisor thinks of
them and their work performance. In many cases, the relationship between a boss
and employee is at minimum tenable. There is this baked in understanding that the
boss gives an order or direction and the employee follows that direction. There are,
of course, many many exceptions to this, but generally speaking, that
is usually how it works, which is kind of amazing when you think about
it. Up until the moment of becoming coworkers or colleagues or whatever you want
to call them, a boss and an employee are usually just strangers very well
might have never associated with each other had it not been for their chosen place
of work. That is, they may have personalities that clash and completely different
perspectives on life. They may come from completely different backgrounds, have different cultural
ideals. They may even have completely different opinions on how a particular job should
be done, or if a particular job should be done at all, And
that is where things can go wrong and the relationship can break down. This
is when the employee's livelihood can be put at risk. And when someone's livelihood
comes under threat, well, there's no telling how they might respond and what
they might do. On the morning of June fourteenth, twenty thirteen, a
young man in Baltimore County, Maryland, finished making arrangements to have his car
towed from his apartment complex. His car had recently broken down and he needed
a taken to a repair shop. After the car was carted off, the
young man returned to his apartment, but he wasn't there for long before someone
began banging on his front door. Startled and confused, the man answered the
door and saw the apartment complex's cleaning lady. She was in tears, completely
hysterical, and it looked like she had just seen a ghost. Bottomer County
nine one one. What is see address of your emergency. I'm actually has
two Augusta Ridge Road in versus Down, Maryland. I have a cleaning lady
who cleans the rental office main office in my door. I have not walked
into the rental office, but she said that the girl that's inside do you
think that she does? Showing just off the northern edge of Maryland City of
Baltimore is the towns of Harvest View, a townhouse style apartment complex often referred
to simply as Harvest View. This complex is owned by its parent company,
ba Zudo, and it offers potential residents a fairly standard package when it comes
to apartment living. Naturally, their website adds a few bells and whistles to
exaggerate what they provide. Spread Out and relax and town home style comfort and
our spacious two and three bedroom apartments. Experience the joy of gas cooking in
an exceptionally appointed kitchen. You can find room to breathe in open layouts,
relax on your private balcony, and cozy up by your living room fireplace,
all in the same day. Ah. Yes, don't we all just love
to experience the joy of gas cooking. Don't get me wrong. Harvest View
seems like a perfectly fine place to live, according to most of the online
reviews. The apartments are clean, there's lots of space, the grounds are
well maintained, and management is typically helpful and prompt when addressing any issues that
the tenants may have. But on June fourteenth, twenty thirteen, not all
was well at Harvest View. A crying and hysterical cleaning lady had alerted one
of the tenants that she found something horrible in the leasing office. According to
the cleaning woman, a bloody body was lying on the floor in the office
and they appeared to have been shot. Was she knocked on your door to
cleaning lady? She just knocked on my door. She must have just gotten
back in other places. Was just saying in my door, and I'm like,
who is this? You know? So I Randolf stairs and she's there.
She's crying, and I thought she said this girls hurt or she got
shot. I'm going to see this clean lady. It's almost every day right,
always here, right. I don't know where the maintenance guy is.
He's always here two and I don't see him either. Oh my god,
I can't believe this happened. Oh my god. Okay, just stay on
the line with me. I have them on their way. Okay, okay,
okay. As the nine one one operator worked to get emergency services dispatched
to the scene, she also attempted to get as much information as possible.
This wasn't exactly easy because the caller hadn't actually been inside the leasing office and
they hadn't witnessed anything. I have not walked in. She has. She
cleaned here the grounds, and she had left and she'd come back, and
she said that she walked in the return the vacuum cleaner, and she said
that the girls shot. I haven't walked in. Okay, I understand.
That is the female still standing there with you, mister Lee. Okay,
now ask her why does she say that? What happened for her to say
that? Let me ask her real quick. Okay. The reason the caller
didn't just hand the phone over to the cleaning woman was because she was completely
hysterical, and well she wasn't fluent in English, if that's a surprise to
you, So a kind of telephone game had to be played. So she
walked in the side and she's on the ground, okay, Okay, the
blood there, she's been her blood everywhere, Okay, And she believes she's
been shot. Is that correct? Does she see anyone? Did you see
anybody? Do you see anybody come and go? The thing is I was
just outside maybe twenty minutes ago, which is strange. Anything you didn't hear
anything? Well, I didn't hit my paw code. I've been out here
this whole time. Bizarrely, nobody heard any gunshots, and neither the callar
nor the cleaning lady saw anyone come and go from the leasing office. If
someone fired a gun, surely someone would have heard it. Something wasn't making
sense, asked her, and she said it was blood everywhere. Okay,
let me ask her. The blood everywhere? There's blood everywhere, a lot
of blood. Blood. There's something in her back. Okay, So is
she bleed? Is the bleeding serious? Is she bleeding a lot? She
said, there's blood over the window and everything. Okay, I'm not walking
in there. Okay, that's fine. Ask the cleaning lady. Does she
see anybody leaving somedayil or does she know who's responsible for doing this? Did
anybody leave? I mean I just didn't. I was just outside. So
ask her does she hear any gunshots or anything? I don't think she was
here? Okay, okay, okay, she said she was, okay,
and then when I was crazed with my car coast, she has just left.
And then I guess she must have come back just now. At this
point, nobody knew who the supposed victim was, but everyone that lived at
Harvest View knew who worked in the leasing office. There was really only one
person that it could be about. How old is this female? If the
girl I know that work here, I think she's probably about thirty, about
thirty, okay, now ask her is she awake? No, she says
she she moving? Or no, is she moving? No, she's just
laying on the floor. Okay, is she breathing? I don't know.
Is she breathing? Breathing? Is breathing? I still no, she's okay,
okay, okay, yes, saying that's fine. I don't know if
you have any kind of cameras in there. I hope they do. Yeah.
Wow, Oh my god, Oh my god, this is crazy.
I know this girl too, because she's the one we kind of us off
for this place. The person in the rental office. Yeah, her name's
Melinda something. So that I can see your car at here. Twenty nine
year old Melinda Shaeffer was born in August nineteen eighty three. She grew up
and spent most of her life in San Diego, California, but at some
point in her mid twenties, Melinda decided that she wanted to move to the
East Coast. Melinda settled on moving to the Baltimore, Maryland area because some
of her extended family also lived there. Not long after Melinda made this move,
she landed a job as the assistant property manager at Harvestview. She also
met and married her husband, Mike Shaeffer, who was welcomed into Melinda's family
with open arms. Michael Maltese says his daughter grew up in California but wanted
to live on the East Coast. Her extended family is in Baltimore. Maltese
says, Melinda just got married. It's the best guy you could ever imagine.
And uh and he just got married a year ago. Around the time
that she got married, Melinda was also promoted from assistant property manager to property
manager. This promotion came as no surprise because Melinda was good at her job,
like really good. Melinda oversaw every aspect of the Harvest View property.
This included maintenance, grounds, upkeep, dealing with tenant concerns, marketing,
and more. She excelled on all fronts. But that wasn't all. Melinda
was working on having a private website built just for her tenants and organizing gatherings
and events so that the tenants could meet each other. Melinda wanted Harvest View
to be more than just the run of the mill apartment complex. She wanted
it to be a community. Unfortunately, she didn't have many hands to help
her with much of anything. Aside from the cleaning lady. The only other
regular employee at Harvest View was the maintenance supervisor. Anybody else that does that?
No, she's me. Theres only no other office worker. No,
from what I understand. No, okay, it'sn't even cleaning lady. She
only come up three days weeks. Clinton lady comes up three d the week.
Did clean that place for a time. Melinda did have an assistant help
her with daily office operations, but that assistant had recently been fired for repeatedly
coming into work late, among other reasons. So Melinda was left on her
own to run the leasing office, which had an open door policy during normal
working hours, anyone could walk in for any reason at all that that rental
office. Did she keep the door locked or anything? Or is it always
open so it potential customers can come in? Yeah, always open, both
doors open. Front end. Well, we'll keep the toddle lot top of
stays locked. Yeah. Basically it's just a school, okay. Yeah,
so even like the residence, even if they live on that side, they
don't even come through there. No, Just like any apartment complex, Harvest
View had its fair share of complainers some tenants. No matter what anyone does
for them will always find something to moan about. They're similar to Sword and
Scale listeners in that regard. But even so, unlike me, Melinda was
extremely well liked by all of her tenants. She apparently had this way of
talking with people that made them feel like their concerns or issues were truly important
and she wanted to help. Melinda wasn't all talk either. She wasn't one
of these fake fucks. She always went out of her way to make sure
the Harvest View residents were well taken care of. Melinda was personable and friendly,
and she genuinely cared about people. According to the maintenance man, there
wasn't anyone at Harvest View that would have any reason to hurt her. Has
she talked to you about? How many problems with anybody? Do you know
of any residents that are upset with her? Would not would necessarily hurt even
with the company. Nah, anybody caused issues. I didn't know as got
ahead them technics. We always got complainers belt yeah, well blown two or
or something yeah based somebody know what I mean. But yeah, Nah,
for the most part, everybody's cool. You know. She usually tell me
stuff. On June fourteenth, twenty thirteen, at about eleven am, police
in Baltimore County arrived at the leasing office where Melinda worked. When they walked
inside, they found a chaotic and bloody scene. When police arrived at the
scene, we found evidence of an extremely violent confrontation police a Shaeffer fought for
her life. There was blood all over the walls and blinds, The office
was in shambles, furniture and files everywhere, and detectives responding to a call
from a cleaning lady found Shaeffer lying face down in her own blood. The
police found that Melinda's office was a complete mess. Her desk was slid across
the room, paper documents, and broken office equipment were strewn all over the
floor. The vertical window blinds were lopsided, and an office chair was tipped
over. Clearly a violent struggle had taken place. The police also found that
the office was a gory bloodbath. There was blood spatter and blood smears everywhere,
and the apparent source of blood was the dead body lying face down on
the floor. Twenty nine year old property manager Melinda Schaeffer was found in responsive
in a large pool of her own blood. When medical responders arrived, they
pronounced her dead on the scene. Baltimore County homicide detectives were assigned to the
case, and to them, it was obvious that Melinda had been brutally murdered
during a very violent attack. But what they didn't immediately know was that this
was going to be a very difficult case to solve. Due to the communal
nature of the crime scene and the fact that many people would frequently walk in
and out of the office. The detectives weren't going to be able to rely
on DNA or forensic evidence to solve this. They are going to have to
use old fashioned police work to find out who murdered Melinda Shaeffer and why.
On June fourteenth, twenty thirteen, the dead body of twenty nine year old
Melinda Shaeffer was found in the leasing office of the Harvest View Apartments in Baltimore
County, Maryland. Was the property manager at Harvest View, and shortly after
Melinda's body was found, a nine to one one call was placed. The
cleaning lady had told one of the apartment residents that Melinda had been shot,
but when police examined the scene, they found that no shots had been fired.
Well, you say, Melinda Schaeffer was stabbed over and over again in
the leasing office of the towns at Harvest View Apartments in Westerstown. The twenty
nine year old was the property manager. The leasing office was a wreck of
the chairs, the desks were strewn everywhere, and there was blood all over
the walls and the blinds. The cleaning woman was wrong. Melinda had not
been shot. She had been stabbed a total of seventy nine times in her
upper body and her head. Her murder was vicious and bloody. The killer
were killers had seemingly made a brief attempt to clean up, as there were
several areas in the office where blood was smeared with some kind of rag or
cloth. Melinda had clearly fought for her life. The leasing office was a
disaster, the documents and office equipment all over the place. The office chair
was turned over, the desk was pushed to the other side of the room.
The blood spattered window blinds were lopsided and nearly torn off the window frame.
Notably, nothing appeared to be stolen. Melinda had bank cards and a
signed check still in her purse for police. Whatever happened in the office that
morning, it clearly wasn't a robbery. After Melinda was pronounced dead, her
family was made aware of what happened. This included her father. What kills
me the most is that my poor daughter. We never hurt a person in
her life, and to have something as brutal and senseless as as to her
drives me insane. Melinda's parents lived in California, over three thousand miles from
where Melinda was living in Baltimore County, Maryland. Even so, Melinda communicated
with them almost daily. When Melinda's dad was interviewed by the media, his
reaction to his daughter's murder appeared to be rage well. Milinda's mom responded with
a broken heart and indiscernible sadness. I'll never get over this never. It
seems like it's getting her. It's left me feeling still empty in my heart.
Like I said, don't think I'll ever get over this. As Melinda's
family mourned, detectives at the Baltimore County Police Department worked the case, but
for several weeks appeared to be no new developments at all. Baltimore County Police
tal eleven News they are aggressively working on the murder case of twenty nine year
old Melinda Shaeffer. She's the property manager of the towns that Harvest the U
town Home Complex and Reisterstown, who police said died from multiple stab wounds while
she was working in the leasing office two weeks to the day, and no
word on who did this or why as far as potential suspects were concerned.
The detectives started where you might expect, with her husband, of course,
according to the maintenance supervisor at Harvest View, Melinda's husband, Mike Shaeffer,
had visited Melinda at her office on a few occasions before she was killed.
Did she ever have personal visitors come there? Did you know your ninety office
all the time? Don't her husband come to right? When Melinda's husband was
questioned by detectives, he was especially cooperative and appeared willing to do anything,
in everything he could to help the police find out who had murdered his wife.
He explained that the last time he saw Melinda was on the morning of
the murder, just before they both headed off to work, and his last
communication with her was a text message Melinda had told him to have a good
day. When detectives looked into Mike Shaeffer's story, they found that he was
working around the time of the murder, and they couldn't make any timeline fit
that placed him at Melinda's office. With the husband pretty much eliminated as a
potential suspect, the detectives turned their attention toward the Harvest View tenants and Melinda's
co workers. Maybe someone at Harvest View had an axe to grind. Maybe
Melinda or the company she worked for made someone very, very angry, unable
to control their own emotions type angry. The process of looking into all of
these people took a lot of time, which is why the case appeared to
drag still. The media and public kept asking questions, and the police department
assured them that they were working very hard to deliver answers. Police say Melinda
was the only one working in the leasing office at the time, and sources
say this appears to be an isolated incident and that Schaeffer was targeted. Our
detectives continue to work this case very aggressively. They do have some leads that
they've been pursuing over the past two weeks. In researching Melinda's work life,
detectives learned that Melinda had until very recently been working alongside an assistant, but
that assistant was let go just two days before Melinda was murdered. Any ex
employees, anybody got beat with her early company, I mean the only of
the Cherchon never haven't worked over There was nothing. She just got five okay.
Twenty year old Vanessa Coates worked in the Harvest View leasing office for a
short time. She didn't so much work with Melinda, as she filled in
for her when needed. Harvest View's district management preferred to have the leasing office
open and available to tenants and potential residence as often as possible, so on
weekends and whenever Melinda needed to be out of the office, Vanessa filled in
for her. Unfortunately, Vanessa was either unwilling or unable to live up to
the requirements of the job. Frankly, she kind of sucked at being an
assistant property manager. At least that's what Melinda seemed to think. She got
some trouble foot being leads. Yeah, okay. Was there any bad blood
there the company or Vessa and her? I think with Vanessa and her.
She had told me a couple of times about how she got right enough.
Melinda and Vanessa ended their work partnership on bad terms. Perhaps this disgruntled ex
employee was angry enough to attack and murder Melinda. When detectives tracked Vanessa Coats
down and questioned her, she admitted that Melinda wasn't her favorite person. But
Vanessa also explained that on the morning of the murder, she was sleeping at
her boyfriend's house several towns away from the Harvest View leasing office. Using Vanessa's
cell phone records, detectives were able to confirm this, and, just like
Melissa's husband, Vanessa Coates was eliminated as a suspect. As far as coworkers
went, there were really only two other people left that could be considered potential
suspects. The cleaning lady that was hysterically crying when she found Melinda's dead body
or the maintenance super. How long you've been employed by the end by the
company there. I've been in Zuto for about two years now, okay?
Is that the only property that you you worked at a run before I went
to harves Okay, your maintenance super bows with there? How many guys for
people are on me? Just you? Okay? And I assume you work
day work, Yeah, like eight to four, eight to five, on
friders. Okay. Twenty seven year old Rashad Williams was hired to work at
Harvest View in twenty eleven, and as the maintenance man, he worked closely
with Melinda almost every day. What is it about maintenance men and murder?
What do you call her? Melinda? Okay? Has she been there the
whole time you've been there? Yeah? She was for me? Okay,
she has for me that I'm sorry jay is Yeah. Do you consider her
a friend? Yeah? Wenda school, Yeah, I mean business at the
end of the day, going out and hanging out or no, but I
mean According to Rashaan, his relationship with Melinda was all business and he had
nothing against her. To him, she was just his boss and they would
usually meet every weekday morning to discuss anything that needed to get done. Come
in around nine, going to office. We sit down. Good, who's
going on for the day? That's what Melinda? Yeah, you always sit
down with her most of the time. We tried to Yeah did you do
that today? Yeah, we actually did. We was talking about the touchho
claim they needed to get done. On the morning of the murder, Melinda
was preparing for new tenants to move into Harvest View and she tasked the cleaning
lady with some touch up cleaning that needed to be done to their apartment.
According to Rashaan, during this typical morning meeting, Melinda talked about the new
residents while Rashawn collected everything he needed for the day's work. So after your
and you said, you pick up your tickets and stuff too, right?
Yeah, tickets, keys in my kneed. Let's get the work. So
how long did that meeting take today? Twenty minutes? Give the tea.
Rashawn claimed that he left the leasing office and delivered keys to the cleaning lady
so that she could get into the apartment that needed some touch ups. He
then returned to the leasing office to get the company debit card. After you
give her the key, and where do you go from there? Back to
the office. My head to go get some called batteries for the remotes.
So I went to get the h called Linda for that. What'd you get
at the office? Is the property card? RD? How you go buy
the the for the Yeah? Some of the garage remotes that Harvest View needed
their batteries replaced. So Melinda gave her Seawan the company debit card and tasked
him with going to the nearby dollar store to buy some fresh batteries, which
he did at the batteries, came back. Did you return the double card
to her? Was anybody there with her? No? By ourselves. You
stick around and have more conversation with her, do you want? Yeah,
a little conversation here, Nick, because she uh, she had told me
to fix the door closet door head came off, so I put that and
fixed that real quick, and then we talked about going to home Depot looking
to that lawn for the garage. Rashaan explained that after he returned from the
dollar store, Melinda tasked him with going to home Depot to get supplies for
some other garage repairs that needed to be done, and Rashaan left the office
again to do exactly that. But when he returned from Home Depot, he
found a swarm of cops around the leasing office, and for Sean's story was
accurate, it meant that he was the last person to have seen Melinda alive.
After detectives spoke to Rashaan, they began looking for ways to either verify
his story or discredit it. After a few days, they questioned him again.
You guys had a little discussion, and then how do you get the
car from her? How's that worked? She gave it to me, all
right, And then you walked there too. That Soolo true batch your batteries
and when you came back out down, you just walked back to the office.
So while you while you're in there, he said, you fixed the
door with the screwdriver, right, yeah, okay, And then you guys
have a little conversation. And the conversations were about what you're going to do.
Yeah, basically just small talk. During this second interview, you Reshawn's
story was consistent with the first time he told it, but now the detectives
had new information that contradicted what he was telling them. Where is anybody in
there besides you and her? No? Okay, so you're the last So
what was the last time? So you estimate maybe you saw her a while.
See, I don't know. Maybe they're not there to give a teake
somewhere non thirty to give her safety, okay. On the morning of the
murder, Melinda's last known contact with anyone was at about eight fifty am,
when she sent an email to a tenant. About an hour later, at
nine to fifty am, a different tenant called the leasing office, but the
call went unanswered, as did all the other calls made to the leasing office
after that one. Then one more hour later, at ten fifty am,
the cleaning lady discovered Melinda's body. The cops believed that Melinda was murdered between
the one hour window of eight fifty am and nine to fifty am. According
to Rashaan, he left the leasing office to go to home depot around nine
thirty. And then you go to home depot. What route did you take
to home depot? Highway? Highway? Like? Can you give me?
And where'd you go for seven nine five h seven ninety five six ninety five?
Just go straight up from me? Nowhere else you stopped on the way.
Okay. The route that Rashawn described would take him about twenty minutes to
get from Harvest View to home Depot, placing him there around nine to fifty
or ten am. So you go there, and when you were in there
anything, Now, I wouldn't look around for the lawn and didn't see it.
That's the guy about it. He said, he didn't take it down
yet, that's that today? And why didn't you buy? Well? Why
he said he didn't take it down too. I forgot to go the cub
Diet, the Club Baier, and then you came back here. And the
time he says, the maybe you got here ten minutes later, something twenty
minutes later, So now we're maybe like ten thirty give or to you.
Rashaun claimed that he didn't buy anything at the Home Depot because the supplies he
needed weren't ready, and because he forgot to get the Harvest View debit card
back from Melinda. If for Seawn's story was true, it would have put
him arriving at Home Depot at around ten am and returning to Harvest View thirty
minutes later at around ten thirty am. But there was a problem. The
surveillance camera at Home Depot captured Rashaan arriving there at ten forty am. I
realized that all these times I'm throwing at you might make things a little hard
to follow. But all you really have to know is that what Rashwan told
detectives was inconsistent with the surveillance footage that was shown to them. For police,
this inconsistency in Rashawn's story was pretty important, and there was also something
else that happened that morning that made Rashawn's story pretty hm hmm. Suspect your
your boss had told us Stans that was the maintenance firm. Yeah. Yeah,
I had thought I had left it in the office, but when they
said that, maybe y'all had pro took it. When do you think you
lost it in there? I don't know what, because sometimes I set my
phone down for a second while I'm doing something and I thought I might have
just a end. So you have no idea, and you didn't ring it
to see maybe so your house. Yeah, I checked all that, you
checked all that, but it's As the maintenance supervisor, Rashawn was a shoe
to work cell phone by Harvest View. This way, tenants or Melinda could
get in touch with them if there was some kind of repair that needed to
be addressed quickly. On the morning of the murder, that cell phone had
seemingly vanished. During his first interview with detectives, Rashawn didn't mention a lost
cell phone at all. I think about nine in your possession. Okay,
So where did you lose the son that? That's what I'm saying. I
didn't know. I thought, I mean, maybe it might have fought on
my pocket or something. Sell out of your pocket. There was one more
important thing about Rashawn that caught detective's attention, and it had to do with
what Rashawn was wearing on the morning of the murder. Did you have on
those pis? No, I don't think of this team you said. Never
did. It's like these. It's like a straight cake. You though you
could so Friday when you want to, I don't know. I'm trying to
her dollars tree. You had on straight Khakisslisa. Did you have one on
a jacket or anything? And you didn't change clothes on all side that you
remember, I was like pants or anything like that was no reason, sir.
On the morning that Melinda was killed, Rashawan purchased batteries at the nearby
dollar store at around nine to twenty am, and the surveillance camera in the
store captured him wearing a Harvest View issued black jacket and ten cargo pants.
At ten forty am, after Melinda had been killed, the surveillance cameras at
home depot captured Rashwan wearing a black polo shirt and straight white khakis. Yet
Rashwan claimed that he never changed his clothes that morning and that he would have
had no reason to change them at all. When asked about his harvest view
jacket, Rashad did admit that he owned one. If you have the jacket,
W also all right, thanks? We checking your truck after Yeah,
I checked sonca all wait. Conveniently, Rashawn was never able to find his
harvest view jacket. The second interview with Rashawn was conducted three days after Melinda
was murdered, after which all went quiet for a while. For two more
months, detectives continued to work the case, and all the DNA testing relating
to the crime scene came back in conclusive. Of course, even so,
between the inconsistencies in Rashawn's story, the lost cell phone, and his change
of clothes, the detectives did have enough evidence to make an arrest. Good
evening, every one, our big story tonight, and arrest has been made
in the murder upper property manager who was found stabbed to death inside a Reisterstown
and tonight, a maintenance worker is being held without bond, charged in that
brutal attack. Police say the suspect has not confessed, but a change in
clothing was enough to charge him. We have asked this to fend and to
produce the clothing that he was wearing in the Dollar General video. He has
been unable to do that. Police say that Williams could not explain the discrepancy
in what the surveillance video shows, and police say at this point they don't
have a motive in the case. Just over two months after Melinda Schaeffer was
murdered, Rashawn Williams was arrested and charged with a crime. While things did
look pretty bad for Rashwan, all the evidence against him was circumstantial and there
were no witnesses and no forensic evidence to link him to the murder. The
detectives could prove that Rashawn had the means and opportunity, but if they had
any hope of making the murder charge stick, they were going to need one
very important thing, a motive. On August twentieth, twenty thirteen, in
Baltimore County, Maryland, the maintenance supervisor at the Harvest View apartment complex was
arrested and charged with brutally murdering his boss, Melinda Schaeffer. Twenty seven year
old Rashawn Williams, the man police say is behind the brutal killing of twenty
nine year old Melinda Maltese Schaeffer, the leasing agent, was found stamped to
death inside her office in June at the towns of Harvest View. Before Melinda
Shaeffer was murdered, she was living in Baltimore County with her husband. They
had only been married for about a year before she was brutally stabbed at death
on the morning of June fourteenth, twenty thirteen. Melinda's body was discovered in
her office by the apartment complex's cleaning lady. When police arrived at the scene,
they found the office was wrecked. Melinda's chair was overturned, her desk
was slid across the room in files and office equipment were scattered all over the
floor. The police also found blood spatter and blood smears everywhere, and they
later determined that Melinda had been stabbed sixty nine times in her upper body and
her head. After an exhaustive investigation, Baltimore County homicide detectives determined that the
maintenance supervisor, twenty seven year old were Shawn Williams, was the killer,
and they arrived at that conclusion based on inconsistencies in Rashon's statements to police.
Williams told investigators he'd left a Dollar General store around nine to twenty am.
He went to the leasing center from nine thirty to nine forty five, the
time frame in which detectives believe Shafer was killed. Williams is then seen on
a surveillance tape at a home depot at ten thirty three am. Let security
cameras here at the Dollar Generals show Williams wearing a completely different outfit than he
was wearing at the home depot just an hour later. Before Rashawn was arrested,
he had been questioned by police about Melinda's murder on two separate occasions,
once on the day of the murder and again three days later. Two months
later, he was charged, arrested, and brought in for a third and
final interview. So why are you bring me up for you again? Because
you're getting charged with the murder based on what the probable calls that we submitted
on the applications of the commissioner. So that's that works. We wrote down,
we wrote the warrant, some of the information that we have submitted to
the commissioner, get signed off on the warrant, gets his shooting, and
the guys can down wrest what probably because you'll have me talking about it.
Don't make no sense. This third interview with Rashawn ended up being mostly a
jousting match between him and one of the detectives. While the detective was trying
to get Rashaan to confess, Rashawan was trying to find out exactly what cops
had on him. I'm giving your information. Did you give me the information?
What was it? Would you tell me I was on vacation for two
days? Yeah, but take that to the bank, get right? Yeah?
Who. Throughout this interview, Rashawan tried to play cool and collected.
He also did this really annoying thing where he feigned exhaustion and yawned over and
over again, as if to say that being charged with first degree murder it
was a little boring and not much more than a small inconvenience for this fine
gentleman. You talking about nothing, though, Man, you might have told
about anything. I'm talking about something. I'm talking about the death of a
young lady. That's understandable, But that's what I'm talking about. That might
not be anything to you, but a sound to me. I don't know,
I don't know, I didn't know. I never got a chance to
know I would like to what I hear is a nice lady. I know
I had it. That's why, despite Rashawon's performance, the detectives were entirely
confident that he was the killer. But the one thing they didn't know was
if Rashawn had planned to murder or or if it happened on a moment of
unexpected rage. That piece that we're looking for as to whether the person planned
it out, whether the person snapped which caused death. You know how many
people can say that say what it was? What one the person? M
end of the day that day, girl, we got to deal with nummy.
Yeah, lead up to the people decide whether or not just planned or
whether it happened off the cuffs for a moment we should come. Man,
Rashawn wasn't willing to provide insight into his final thought process on the day of
the murder, so detectives began questioning Rashwan about the inconsistencies in his original statements
to police. At one point in that morning, did you change your clothes?
You don't know you remember changing your clothes. Well, one of the
times that we talked to you said you didn't change it. Clothes in the
following days. I was said I changed smoke. Who you said I changed
my Well, I mean I know, I know you changed it clothes,
Okay, I'm just asking when I don't know. Again, detectives knew that
Rashwan changed his clothes on the day of the murder. The Dollar Store surveillance
camera captured him wearing a black jacket and tan cargo pants. About ninety minutes
later, the home depot surveillance camera captured him wearing a black polo shirt and
straight white khakis. Who wears white khakis? By the way, because I
can tell you that it happened between Dollar General and Home Depot? So why
are you asking me? Man? Because there's a bit of a window in
there. So if you shed some light on when you change them and where
you change them, I just say I don't remember changing. I tell me
I can ask the question man. Yeah, but that's redundant. It's the
same question over and over and over again, same as they want bout some
clothes. I just told you all because it's important. I just said I
don't remember. Rashaan maintained that he had no memory of changing his clothes that
morning, and he also seemed unable to understand why this was important to the
case, whether that or he was just pretending that he couldn't understand. You
knew I changed my clus So if as you say so, as you say
you knew I changed my CW, you see why why that can be a
bitter than this in our eyes? Right? So it's that yob probably because
it's a piece of power costs. I'm gonnati see locked me up and changing
clues to a piece of it. Crazy. But when you change your clothes
in the timeframe, and in that time frame is also when the person gets
killed, it goes towards that probable cause. And then when we talked to
you a couple of days after the murder and ask you about change your clothes,
you say you would have no reason to change your clothes. So when
you take those two things couple with the fact that you change your clothes,
it's a bit of a red flag force. Because Melinda gets brudely murdered in
a very bloody scene. I know this, dude, and in that time
you change your clothes. Something else that the detectives focused on was Rashawan's work
cell phone, which went missing on the morning of the murder. When Rashawn
was first questioned, he never mentioned anything about the phone to detectives. One
of the other things I wanted to go over with you was an issue I
know that you and Patrick talked about. Was the work cellphone that you lost
that day? Is that ring belt? Any reason you didn't tell us that
it was that it was missing? No, didn't know what She called Patrick
hat two something to tell me it was missing. And I talked to you
at the starting at three. Sure say, I'm saying that you call Patrick
Patrick had two something to let him know that the cell phone was missing,
but you didn't didn't tell us that it was missing, didn't tell the police
department I was missing. But then in just a minute ago you said that's
because you didn't realize he was missing yet clearly did did you call Patrick Patrick
and told him you didn't even make sense? Yeah? You know what I'm
saying. On the contrary, what the detective was saying made a lot of
sense. There is no doubt that Rashwan knew his work phone was missing because
he called the company to tell them about it, and he made this call.
Get this, He made this call while sitting in the police interrogation room
as he was waiting to be questioned for the first time. You just can't
fix dumb. Hey, pat, Hey, Hey, it's for Sean.
Are you feeling you all right? And I was telling you about is that
I didn't have a work phone, so if getting calls was coming through,
I wouldn't be getting grabbing anything to close. I think I might have left
it in the office. I'm not sure I was. I was looking for
it, but I couldn't see it. Yeah, I believe so might have
been. I could have fell out of my pocket. I'm not sure.
For detectives, there was only one reason why Rashawn would have changed his clothes
and ditched his work phone, because they were covered in Melinda's blood. The
key us just keep in your pocket, and the cell phone that you keeps
in your pocket all missing because the pants were bloody and you had to take
them off and get rid of them. You gotta get rid of him.
He got blood on them. That's why I hum depot with different pants on.
That makes sense. You can say it doesn't make sense, but that
makes sense. You struct you all those contents in your pockets missing, still
missing to this day, with the pants all because Milennu was so brutally murdered
that there was blood everywhere and on your pants, and you had to get
rid of them. You had to. That makes sense. What doesn't make
sense is that attack on her, that attack, and you decide your mind
to go with her with such force and vengeance that that much blood is produced
that ends upon your pants. Regarding the missing phone, the police were able
to obtain two notable phone records that occurred shortly after the murder. At ten
twenty eight am, the phone received a missed call, and at ten point
thirty two am, the phone used a cell tower to download some kind of
automatic software update. These two events placed the phone and likely Rashan near a
shopping plaza about ten miles north of the Harvest View apartments, just a few
minutes away from the home depot. The detectives believed that Rashan dumped the phone
and his bloody clothes into a dumpster around this time and around this area.
None of these items wherever recovered. Again, the detectives had a decent case
against Rashaan, but all their evidence was circumstantial. A lot of circumstantial cases
up there in Baltimore doesn't mean the murder didn't happen. Rashan had lied to
the police several times. He had the means and opportunity to commit the murder.
But if a prosecutor was going to convince twelve people in a jury box
that Rashan was guilty, they were going to need a motive. Pieces with
peace, What causes holding to have in that catalyst? What made a snap?
What went off? Like I said, people either planet or having spur
of the moment. So you're not even thinking we wouldn't gone, got a
warrant that was the case, and you got a bunch of bullshit. I
take a bunch of shit, jump put it together. I'm sorry, on
a witch witch hunt, find the person who did this. During this interview,
Rareshawn doesn't so much just deny the accusations against him as much as he
claims that the cops have nothing on him, which in itself is interesting.
I don't know about you, but if I was charged with the murder I
didn't commit, I wouldn't be telling the cops they don't have enough evidence.
I'd clearly be telling them I didn't do it. That's not what was happening
in this particular circumstance, though nonetheless, Rashawn was either confident that he would
not be convicted of this crime, or he was pretending to be confident and
he wasn't about to share his motive. But that was okay because detectives had
figured it out and they had evidence to back it up. You know,
if you talk to Fanessa, if he talked about before, she gave us
a little background on all deleation ship. Yeah, yeah, yeah, leading
ship. That's one of the ones we wouldn't talk to. And she told
us about Melinda and her workouts, and she's tough holding people accountable for stuff,
and not the easiest thing, the easiest to work for. Sometimes everybody's
got their own styles, you know what I mean, that's what supposed to
you. Yeah, I mean that's definitely some people. Yeah, some people
look at it. That's what she's supposed to do. That's her job as
a boss, just to hold people accountable. Vanessa seemed to think that it
was made a little over the top and she had a little bit of an
issue with her, so I guess it's part of the recent love to her
being fired. Melinda Schaeffer was extremely good at her job and she always went
above and beyond with the job asked of her. She sincerely cared about her
tenants and making Harvest View a great place to live. Naturally, any other
employee at Harvest View that didn't share that attitude and that goal was going to
clash with Melinda, and that's why her former assistant, Vanessa Coates was fired.
Unsurprisingly, it turned out that Rashawn was having a similar issue. Poor
were performance, at least in the eyes of the supervisor. That's typically what
leads up to a person being fired, right, right, And did we
know that you had some issues to some work issues. I guess there was
a time when I guess the work was kind of slipping a little bit in
somebody's eyes, maybe not your eyes. As detectives investigated this case and began
looking into Melinda's work life, they found an interesting text exchange on her cell
phone between her and Rashaan. Rashawn had asked Melinda, quote, are y'all
getting rid of me over this? End? Quote? This text related to
a repair issue on the property that Rashaan was supposed to have resolved but never
did. As a result, Melinda ended up needing to hire and pay a
third party repairman, which kind of you know, defeats the fucking point.
On top of that, Rashon was already on thin ice because he'd recently gotten
into trouble for lying and covering for Vanessa Coates when she came into work late.
This lie landed Rashaan on work probation for thirty days, and he was
told that if there were any more infractions, he would be fired, no
matter how minor or major the infraction was. Do you think you're in uh
good graces with the Zoo the entire time? HM, as far as your
work performance, you think so, despite the fact that you were put on
in probation in period I was with fire, was helling he was leading up
to that point. She said, Lyn's got a lot of documentation, Like
I said, She's a healthy note taker. The detectives knew that Melinda was
either about to fire Rashaan or was seriously considering it because she told her regional
manager about Rashaan's crappy work performance on more than a few occasions. There was
also a ledger on her desk that documented his screw ups. The detectives also
discovered that Melinda had edited a personnel action form on her computer the night before
she was killed. This forum is basically a pack up your shit, you're
fired notice that is given to an employee when they are let go. Of
course, for someone to commit murder just because they are about to be fired
is pretty extreme, but Rashon had more to lose than just his job.
Rashon wasn't the only maintenance supervisor at Harvest View. He was also a tenant,
and because of his employment, his rent was reduced considerably. Rashan lived
with his wife, his eight year old daughter, and his two year old
son. The roof he was keeping over their heads was dependent on his Harvest
View employment, the employment he seemed to take for granted. This whole thing.
You've been suspended. I mean basically, if you get fired from there,
you lose your job, possible to lose your place of to live where
your family can live. You and your wife and get two kids. So
if you just find out that Vanessa, if you just find out the Vanessa
guy laid off, now, next thing you know, you think that it's
coming at you. You're the next one line. Because you know that they
don't think that you're doing a good job, they go stretching it again.
I'm not stretching anything. I know Vanessa fired, and I know that you
were under a microscope. If me, Linda comes to you with something about
needing to get your stuff together. Now one little nagging piece of her causes
you to snap. She's just trying to do her job. She's just trying
to hold you accountable for doing yours. I don't sunderstand. I had nothing
to do with it. Man, you're not doing your job. You're on
the verge of being fired, and she's holding you accountable. So she comes
at you and she tells you, yeah, I get yourself together. Then
you go after Freeze and somehow that turns into his brutal attack. On the
morning of Melinda's murder, Rashan returned to the leasing office after buying batteries at
the nearby dollar store. We don't know and we'll probably never know, what
conversation he and Melinda had when he got back, but detectives believe that Melinda
either warned Rashaan that he was going to be fired, or Rashaan saw the
personnel action form on Melinda's desk and put two and two together. Either way,
this caused Rashon to snap and violently attack Melinda like an animal. There
was an intense struggle between them. Melinda fought for her life, but Rashwan
got the best of her and stabbed her sixty nine times in the upper body
and head with a knife. After Melinda was dead, Rashan attempted to clean
up the scene, but there was too much blood and he had to know
that the cleaning lady would be returning to the office at any minute. Rashan
fled the office through the back door, taking his work phone and the murder
weapon with him, but he later threw away at a nearby shopping plaza dumpster,
along with his bloody work jacket and bloody work pants. Again, none
of these items were ever recovered. Detectives believed that after Rashaan disposed of the
evidence, he went to home depot and the real reason why he didn't buy
anything was because he was only there to establish an alibi, only there to
get his mug on cam. You asked me if we if I found the
person. Yeah, I found the person. You killed her, Marshall that
she killed her. So you think, mm hmmm, I'm sorry that you
think it's funny. It's funny. I'm not comunicated. You think it's your
whole situations it's funny. We don't think any of its funny. I've been
saying this situation is funny. I mean it's not funny. It's not funny
with would happen. I'm not saying that's funny, but I'm saying what y'all
present is like, come on, man, be for real, like y'all
really gonna lock me up that you never said now one logical thing for none
of this logical to you. I don't enough to go up. Just charge
somebody, like explained him. We got we ain't got nothing, man,
We got some old ship about some missing keys and missing phones. The fuck
fuck it. I can't believe you even got a charge because of that.
Rashawn may have been overconfident, but he wasn't entirely wrong. The evidence against
him strongly suggested that he was guilty, but it was also circumstantial. The
detectives worked hard to solve the crime, but they didn't have anything rock solid,
like DNA fingerprints or a murder weapon. A prosecutor was going to have
to try to convince twelve American jurors of Rashawn's guilt. While defense attorneys challenged
all of the circumstantial evidence, trying to poke holes in anything they possibly could,
as they do. In April twenty fifteen, two years after Melinda was
killed, Rashawn's murder case went to trial. The trial lasted for five days,
and several members of Melinda's family were in attendance, including her father.
She cared about everybody. This is what burns me up. I don't want
to see this guy on the face of the sort anymore. If you want
to know, donestly got true. I wanted a guy to be prosecuted to
the full extent of the law, and I hope to guy and I pray
that he goes away for the rest of his life. For five agonizing days,
Melinda's family watched and listened as the prosecution laid out their case against Rashawn
Williams, which included describing Melinda's final horrific moments alive in the painful, brutal
way that she was killed. My daughter was stabbed sixty nine times, and
when they talk about that, it crushed us. The prosecution's theory was Williams
snapped when it appeared Schaeffer was about to fire him. Documents detailing Williams's poor
work performance, and a termination form were found on her desk in the leasing
office. Felisa. Williams also couldn't explain why surveillance video at two stores that
morning showed him in two different outfits right before and right after Schaeffer's death.
In the end, the evidence wasn't enough to convict Rashaan a first degree murder,
and the jury returned a not guilty verdict. However, they also returned
another verdict, apparently after hearing all of the evidence, the jury was convinced
that Rashwan had committed the crime, but they believed that it wasn't planned.
As a result, Rashawn was found guilty of second degree murder. For that,
Melinda's family was grateful. I want to thank first of all the jury
for their verdict, and today in Baltimore County Circuit Court, Williams was sentenced
to thirty years in prison, ending a tough case for Shaffer's family, who
came from California to listen to in court. He hasn't said yet exactly why.
One day, maybe he will. Maybe one day he'll reach out and
say to me why. As of March twenty twenty, three. Rashawn Williams
has not explained why he did what he did, but it's not difficult to
make an educated guess. Melinda Schaeffer was a young woman just doing her job,
and it was a job that she did so well. She excelled at
that job. She expected people around her to excel at their own jobs as
well. Imagine that, Imagine expecting people to do their fucking job. Imagine
what a world it would be. Rashaan's shitty work performance clashed with Melinda's exceptional
work ethic, and Rashwan found himself on the chopping block. His livelihood was
threatened, and as an employee and a resident of Harvest View, he had
a lot to lose, and when he saw it all slipping away, he
didn't work harder to try to keep it. He didn't do any self reflection
and realize how it was kind of his fault to begin with. Rashaan didn't
consider that maybe he was the reason for all the bad things that were happening
to him, because couldn't be. That couldn't be personal responsibility, that can't
be it. Instead, he blamed Melinda, the white girl at the leasing
office, and in a fit of blind rage, he brutally stabbed her to
death. That's reality. You can like it or not, doesn't change it
from being reality. Sadly, this is another one of those cases where evil
is seemingly one. A young wife and beloved daughter lost her life and what
was truly a senseless murder. At least thanks to some good police work,
Melinda and her family got a little bit of justice, a little bit of
peace and maintenance man for Sean Williams got thirty years to think about the lives
that he destroyed. That's going to do it. And as we look forward
to Thanksgiving here, I am very thankful for all of you. So have
a wonderful Thanksgiving. Stay safe, Hey, Mike. Last Thanksgiving, it
was my first Thanksgiving by myself. I just went through a divorce over I
guess kind of a woke crap that's going on. But you talked about how
we should all be safe and loved as we should be, and we all
want that. But then he said that we're all a part of this big
family, and that means a lot to me at the time. It still
means a lot to me now. So I just want to say thank you
for all you do. I know It takes a lot of hard work,
and you've got a lot of pressure and a lot of haters on you,
but thank you b