The Short Family

On 15 August 2002, the bodies of 50-year-old Michael Short and 36-year-old Mary Short were found in their southern Virginia home. Each had been shot in the head once while sleeping. However, missing from the scene entirely was the couple's 9-year-old daughter, Jennifer…

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On the morning of February 20th, 2019, members of the Collinsville Fire Department responded to a call received at approximately 4:00 AM.

The destination was a vacant home in southern Virginia, which had been uninhabited for the better part of two decades. A hopeful renovator had purchased the home more than ten years prior, but the home had sat empty and inactive for the duration of his ownership. The first sign of life came now, in the early morning hours of February 20th, in the form of a raging fire.

Firefighters were able to quell the flames, which they battled for several hours, but the fire left the home - essentially - destroyed.

Despite recovering a gas can at the scene, investigators and fire marshals were unable to determine how the fire had been started. An exact cause was never found... if it was, those details were never released to the public.

The location of the fire is now an empty lot, and the home's destruction continues to bewilder those that lived in the region, who remember the property as the home of the area's most high-profile criminal investigation. Carolyn Short, whose brother Michael had been murdered inside the home, recalled to news station WDBJ-7 that year:

"How does a house catch on fire? We didn't have a storm. There was no electricity in the house for months... They've cleaned it up quickly, so it seems to me that something is trying to be hid."

This is the story of the Short family.

Michael Wayne Short was born on February 18th, 1952 into a family with one brother and two sisters. In his adulthood, Michael would marry and have three kids - all sons - but his marriage would ultimately fail.

Mary Frances Hall was born on April 20th, 1966, more than fourteen years after Michael. She came from a larger family - being just one of seven kids - but grew up in the same area of southern Virginia.

Michael and Mary would eventually meet and begin a romantic relationship together. They ultimately married and had one child together, a daughter named Jennifer Renee Short, who was born on July 12th, 1993. Described as a sweet girl that was close with her parents, by the summer of 2002, Jennifer was set to begin the fourth grade at Fisbro Elementary School.

The Short family lived together in Oak Level, Virginia, a small community just outside of Bassett, located about an hour south of Roanoke and an hour north of Greensboro, North Carolina. With a population just under a thousand - a number that has only decreased with time - Oak Level is little more than a stop on a map for many. The Shorts lived just off of U.S. Route 220, a busy thoroughfare in the region, near a handful of motels and gas stations, at the address of 10820 Virginia Avenue.

There, Michael, Mary, and Jennifer were known as a quiet, close-knit family that often kept to themselves, but were friendly and welcoming to those they knew. The three always seemed to get along with each other - including their larger extended families, which included Michael's three adult sons - and didn't have any publicly-known squabbles or disputes.

One of the Short's closest neighbors, Ruby Emberson, would later recall to the Free Lance-Star:

"They were always outdoors together in the yard mowing the grass or whatever. They seemed as happy as could be."

A family friend of the couple would later recall to reporters:

"They were good people, quiet. They never bothered anybody as far as I know. Just down-to-earth, everyday people."

In Oak Level, Michael and Mary both worked for the same company, M.S. Mobile Home Movers. The "M.S." in the company name stood for Michael Short, who owned and managed the fledgling business that transported mobile homes, which had started to falter throughout the new millennium. By 2002, the family had put their home on the market due to financial issues, and were temporarily planning to move into a mobile home of their own. As recounted by their real estate agent, Marlene Dalton, who later spoke to the Free Lance-Star:

"Mr. Short said business was just slow. He said, 'I've got a trailer of my own and we're going to move and live in that for a while."

Throughout 2002, Michael would reportedly consider moving the family to South Carolina, a state where he had conducted a lot of business in the past. He viewed the possibility as a fresh start, a place for Mary and him to raise their nine-year-old daughter, Jennifer.

Sadly, none of them would get the chance to start anew.

On the evening of Wednesday, August 14th, 2002, Michael was with an employee of his, Chris Thompson. Chris was working together with Michael on a vehicle of his, but would eventually return to a motel down the road - where he had been staying - at some point after sunset.

The last time that Michael, Mary, and Jennifer would be seen together was at approximately 11:00 PM that evening, when they drove through a Burger King drive-thru in nearby Collinsville, grabbing a late-summer dinner.

The family is believed to have gone to bed sometime after midnight, but the next several hours remain a mystery to this day.

Michael's employee, Chris Thompson, returned to the Short's home just before 9:00 AM. He planned to meet up with Michael and drive with him to Christiansburg, where they were to pick up a truck for Michael's mobile home moving business. When he got to the Short's home, he noticed that the garage door was open, and figured that Michael would be inside; either sleeping or working on a truck.

Michael had a couch in the garage, where he normally fell asleep by watching TV. Word has it that Michael's snoring tended to keep Mary awake, so he slept out in the garage from time to time.

Inside the garage, Chris found Michael laying on the couch. However, as he got closer, he realized right away that Michael wasn't sleeping.

Officials with the Henry County Sheriff's Office were called out to the scene a short time later, where they found the body of 50-year-old Michael Short in his family's attached carport. After doing a scope of the family's home, officials announced that another body was inside the home - that of Michael's 36-year-old wife, Mary - but a third body had not been found.

Missing from the scene was the Short's nine-year-old daughter, Jennifer, who was nowhere to be found. Police would begin to reach out to the Short's known relatives and friends, most of whom lived in the immediate area, but none knew where Jennifer was. Speaking to the press, Henry County Sheriff's Captain Kimmy Nester would state:

"Nobody knows where this child is. That's not normal. The family is all in shock."

After failing to track down Jennifer within a couple of hours, an Amber Alert would be issued for the missing girl that afternoon - August 15th, 2002 - and would expand well beyond the immediate vicinity of the crime. Because an untold amount of time had passed since Michael and Mary had been murdered, the Amber Alert extended hundreds of miles out, including in the Washington D.C. metro area (where it coincidentally happened to be the first use of the area's Amber Alert system). News alerts would break out nationwide, and Jennifer's picture would be featured all over local and regional news broadcasts. Larger networks, such as CNN, would even run with the story early on.

Searches would be carried out throughout the next few days, which included not only loved ones of the missing girl but dozens of volunteers and numerous police units. In addition to bringing out ATVs and horses to help search the rolling hills behind the family's home, police officials would authorize the use of canine units and a helicopter to search from above when rainfall began to hamper the search efforts.

Tragically, none of the efforts were able to uncover any trace of Jennifer, whose status as a missing child remained unchanged for the foreseeable future.

Unable to find any trace of the missing child, investigators focused their case on what they had: a sprawling crime scene that spanned throughout the entire Short household.

Michael's body had been found outside in the family's attached, enclosed garage, laying on a couch. If you recall, this was a spot where he often laid and watched TV while trying to fall asleep. According to unnamed sources on the online message board, Websleuths, the body of Michael Short was found nude, but I don't know how much stock I'd put into that.

The body of Mary Short, meanwhile, was found lying in the couple's bed, inside their home.

By all indications, both had been taken completely unaware, as no sign of any struggle was found. This indicated that both Michael and Mary had been killed in their sleep, with the killer using a single, small-caliber weapon to kill both at some point between midnight and 9:00 AM. The married couple had each been shot once in the head, in a manner described by many news outlets as "execution-style." The usage of a smaller-caliber firearm likely helped avoid waking up the 2nd victim while shooting the first, with the soft thud of a .22 gunshot blending into the summer sounds of crickets and air conditioners.

During their original search of the home, police had been surprised to see Jennifer's bedroom empty. No sign of the child was found inside the crime scene, although investigators would note that her pillow was found on the floor and her bed had been moved approximately two inches from its usual positioning in the bedroom.

In an incredibly eerie note, investigators would find that the phone lines to the home had been cut, indicating that the killing of Michael and Mary Short - and the subsequent abduction of Jennifer - had been a premeditated act. This was clearly not something carried out on a whim, this was something that the killer had carefully considered ahead of time.

Police would keep the Short's home closed off to their loved ones for more than two weeks, carefully scanning every inch of the property for potential clues. They pulled an untold amount of DNA evidence from the home, but officials with the Henry County Sheriff's Office have never specified what kind or how much. In official affidavits, however, they would pull approximately 66 items from the home as evidence, which included:

- Two .22 shell casings found near the bodies (1x in bed, next to Mary's body; 1x in garage, next to Michael's)

- 12-gauge Winchester shotgun

- Box of 12-gauge shotgun shells

- .22-caliber rifle

- Partial box of .22-caliber ammo

- Approximately $600 in cash, which had been left on the kitchen counter

- Business checkbook

- Computer disk

- Unidentified documents (contained in a briefcase)

- And a reported note from the kitchen table (contents of which remain shrouded in mystery)

Police would even pull a latent impression of a message written on a window in the garage, which read "I'm glad to see." It's unknown if this message was related to the crime or not, as it could have been a partial message written by one of the family members, but was pulled nonetheless.

Early on, it was reported that Michael's dark pickup truck was missing from the home, but I can only assume that it was located later on and/or accounted for, as this detail isn't mentioned in any later reporting.

In the days to come, authorities would conduct searches throughout the area, including a small pond near the Short home, which was the only sizeable body of water in the area. This search proved to be fruitless, as was the search carried out at the Circle C motel near the family's home, which had been known to attract drug addicts and transients in the past. Motel owner Loraine St. Clair would tell reporters with the Daily Press that police "just wanted to check everything out."

In the early days of this investigation, police would reveal that they were looking for a vehicle seen in the area, with Sheriff H.F. Cassell telling reporters about this lead:

"There is the possibility of a red or dark colored van or truck or pickup... sometime prior to 9 [a.m.]. But it's been so vague that it hasn't been any great use so far. We're hoping to develop that."

Initially, police theorized that Jennifer might have escaped from the home when her mother and father were shot and killed, and in the surrounding wilderness, might have gotten lost or caught up in misadventure. In fact, as the development of the crime scene was unfolding, Sheriff's officials insisted that there was no evidence that Jennifer was "seriously injured in any way, shape or form."

However, when the girl hadn't turned up within a handful of hours, police began to change their tune. They listed Jennifer's disappearance as a potential abduction, bringing out bloodhounds to try and track her scent. However, these canines were only able to pick up Jennifer's scent in areas that police knew she had previously been, such as the family's home and a convenience store next door, so they were unable to develop anything worthwhile.

An investigator at the scene of the crime told reporters nearby:

"We presume that she was kidnapped, abducted from her own home after her parents were killed and taken against her will."

When speaking to the press, Henry County Sheriff H.F. Cassell would state (as reported by CNN):

"This is a very unusual case. We don't see many like this. We've had a lot of horrific murders, but I don't remember a genuine child abduction in this area."

After issuing an Amber Alert for the missing girl on the afternoon of August 15th, officials would receive tips from states as far away as Missouri, but none of them led investigators to the whereabouts of nine-year-old Jennifer Short.

No apparent suspects would emerge in the early days of the investigation, with the person that discovered the bodies of Michael and Mary - Chris Thompson, one of Michael's employees - fully cooperating with investigators.

Chris had been with the Shorts the night before their murder, working with Michael on a vehicle in the family's garage. Chris reportedly told police that when he had left late on the evening of August 14th, the entire family was still alive and well, and Jennifer had already gone to bed. He was questioned extensively by police in the weeks to come and was presumably cleared as a suspect, with officers insisting that he was open and cooperative.

Because the Shorts had recently put their home up on the market, real estate records were pulled to see who had recently toured the family's home. It's unknown whether or not this led to any new leads, but investigators seemed to believe that whoever had committed this crime might have used the property's open houses to get a good look at the home's layout.

More than a week after the bodies of Michael and Mary were discovered - on August 23rd, 2002 - their bodies were finally laid to rest with a public funeral. Unbeknownst to the public, however, police had set up cameras to film the event, hoping to pick up on any red flags or aberrant behavior by the guests. However, authorities were unable to find anything of note in the footage, with no one at the ceremony seeming to act out-of-the-ordinary.

Intriguingly, just a week or so later on September 4th, authorities would exhume the body of Michael Short for additional testing. When this happened, many online (and in the local area) began to theorize that he was not the paternal father of Jennifer Short... a claim that would be halfheartedly denied by Henry County Sheriff H.F. Cassell, who unexpectedly fed fuel to the theories early on by refusing to state whether or not the exhumation had been conducted to prove Michael's paternity. At the time, Sheriff Cassell claimed that this knowledge was integral to the investigation, and refused to answer; instead, insisting that the exhumation's primary focus was to retrieve hair samples, which - in a glaring oversight - had not been taken during the original autopsy.

Later, Sheriff Cassell would admit that Michael was Jennifer's father, but his department's original hesitancy led to a lot of baseless theories... which manifested themselves into the first widespread theory of the case.

In the earliest days of the investigation, police would state that approximately ten years before her murder, Mary Short had what appeared to be a stalker... someone that had repeatedly harassed her at her workplace.

Back in the early 1990s, Mary had worked at a Pluma Inc. plant in the Bowles Industrial Park, a now-defunct workplace that had closed back in 1999. There, she had worked as a seamstress and was often referred to by other coworkers as "Little Mary," a nickname that was remembered by many years later.

On multiple occasions, a man looking for Mary had been asked to leave the plant's property, including once in 1992, when he had physically entered the plant. In that incident, he had been asked to leave by a plant manager, who described the man leaving in a white pickup truck.

Speaking to this, Sheriff H.F. Cassell would tell reporters a decade later, following Mary's murder in 2002:

"We don't know if she was stalked per se. We know that someone at one time or another was angry with her. We don't know who it was or what it was about... The two persons who escorted him out of the plant didn't know him."

Despite obtaining this information early on in their investigation, however, police could find no record of Mary having filed a restraining order - nor any other kind of protective order. In fact, following the 1992 incident involving the Pluma plant manager, Mary had asked them not to contact the police.

To me, this indicates someone that she knew well, who she perhaps didn't want to see get into any trouble. However, this individual was not recognized by any of her coworkers and was not her husband, Michael, whom she was already with. The couple's child, Jennifer, was born the following year (1993) and it's possible that the timing of this strange encounter led police to question the paternity of Jennifer Short.

Despite investigators determining that Michael Short was definitively Jennifer's father, this strange encounter from Mary's past cast a grisly pall over the early days of the investigation... which was eventually overshadowed by a grisly discovery made approximately six weeks later...

In the wake of this horrifying crime, a lot of the media attention - rightfully - focused on the missing nine-year-old girl, who hadn't been seen since the evening of August 14th, 2002. Through statements to the press, family members and police officials would plead with the girl's abductor to release Jennifer and let her return to her loved ones, who promised to care for the girl in the absence of her parents.

Throughout Virginia's Henry County, which was undergoing a significant economic downturn at the turn of the century, Jennifer's disappearance became a rallying cry for citizens, who all banded together in an attempt to raise awareness. Not only was every street corner decorated with photos of Jennifer's toothy grin, but her neighbors and loved ones had successfully pushed her story into the consciousness of the entire region; news anchors regularly updated their viewers with details from the investigation, which also appeared in nationally-syndicated segments.

Sadly, it was all in vain.

In September of 2002, a man living about an hour south of the crime scene in Oak Level, Virginia made a weird discovery in his front yard. A dog belonging to Eddie Albert turned up with what appeared to be hair from a wig. Believing it to be just that, Eddie threw the hair into his trash... but his dogs would return two days later, on September 25th, with what first appeared to be a turtle shell. Eddie, however, quickly realized that the item was a human skull.

Police were called to Eddie's home in Stoneville, North Carolina, a small town in Rockingham County. Eddie directed them to the skull discovered by his two dogs, as well as the hair in his garbage from a few days prior, which he had errantly thrown away. A larger search of the area would unfold that day, eventually locating remains belonging to a child, which had been dumped near a pond along a rural road. In addition to the skull and hair, teeth and bone fragments were found under a nearby bridge, as well as part of a rib cage, but no more than a quarter of the skeleton was ever recovered.

Because of the proximity to the Short family's home - about 35 miles north - many believed that this discovery could be the remains of nine-year-old Jennifer. However, police originally denied that these remains were a match for Jennifer, even though it seemed evident that they were; after all, the skull of the young girl or woman also happened to have a single, small-caliber gunshot wound to the head, which had been the same fate suffered by Michael and Mary Short.

The remains were sent off for testing and weren't officially identified for over a week. During that span, the loved ones of the victims had to fear that this is where their hopes and dreams for Jennifer's safe return came to an end.

On October 4th, 2002, authorities revealed that the remains had positively been identified as Jennifer Short. While they could determine her cause of death (a gunshot wound to the head), other factors like sexual assault were impossible to tell because of the decomposed state of her remains.

Speaking to the press, Sheriff H.F. Cassell stated:

"She's gone now, she's safe now, and no evil can befall her."

Early on, a lot of speculation in this case surrounded the potential motivations of the unsub: why they had decided to kill everyone in the Short household, but singled out nine-year-old Jennifer Short for abduction. While this speculation remained unanswered following the discovery of Jennifer's body in September of 2002, many believed that the girl had been targeted by their killer, since she was the only victim abducted.

The level of foresight into the crime (such as the unsub cutting the phone lines) indicated that someone had gone through great lengths to carry out this crime. Because they had chosen to shoot and kill Jennifer's parents inside the home but didn't rob or steal anything of note, that eliminated most possible motives. So one of the few that investigators had left related to the abducted nine-year-old, who had died an indeterminate amount of time between her abduction and the discovery of her body (a time of about six weeks).

Investigators believed that someone that had previously seen or known Jennifer might have become infatuated with the idea of her. However, Jennifer rarely ever strayed far from her parents and had a loving and healthy relationship with both. She was known to occasionally head over to a convenience store next to the family's home - a Circle C, just a few hundred feet away - where she knew and was friendly with the staff and locals. But most of those people were all questioned extensively in the weeks after the murders and were presumably cleared.

The media speculated about the possible theories for weeks after Jennifer's abduction, but would seemingly become distracted in the months and years ahead, as investigators began narrowing the scope of their investigation down to just one person... a man that was, at times, described by police as either a witness, a person-of-interest, or a suspect.

Garrison Storm Bowman was a 66-year-old carpenter and avid outdoorsman, who became an integral part of this story in the weeks after Jennifer Short's skeletal remains were discovered under a bridge in rural Rockingham County. Originally named a "material witness" by authorities, Bowman clearly became investigators' main suspect early on for several reasons.

Police officials alleged that Bowman had fled to Canada the day after the murders, weeks before authorities managed to find Jennifer's body. Days later, police would receive a call from Bowman's landlord, who said that two days before the murder, Bowman had mentioned paying a man in Virginia to move his mobile home and that if he didn't follow through or return his money, "he would have to kill him." This seemed to provide a clear indication that he harbored ill-will towards someone in the mobile home moving industry... potentially Michael Short, whose business specialized in that very thing, despite not having a license to operate in North Carolina.

Garrison Bowman's landlord then claimed that on August 15th, the date of the Short murders, he had seen Bowman with a pistol. The next day, Bowman was gone, and his trailer was nowhere to be found. It was later discovered approximately one mile away from where Jennifer's body was found in September of 2002, on the property of a friend that lived in the area.

After receiving these phone calls from Garrison Bowman's prior landlord, police searched a piece of property belonging to the 66-year-old carpenter and discovered a map in his possession that seemed to mark a specific route to the home of Michael and Mary Short. According to some publications, an "X" was marked on the location of the Short's property.

John Beasley, a friend of Garrison Bowman's, would attempt to explain away his friend's actions, including his move to Canada. Beasley claimed that Bowman had been planning to make that trip for years... he just-so-happened to leave at around the same time as the murders. Beasley also claimed that Bowman's trailer had not been abandoned, as had been posited by police, but that he had offered to keep it on his property until the buyer from Michigan could come and pick it up. Again, it just-so-happened that his property was approximately one mile away from where Jennifer Short's remains were recovered in September of 2002.

Other friends would claim that Garrison Bowman, an avid alcoholic that started drinking beer at 7:00 AM and didn't stop until he fell asleep, physically couldn't have carried out the crime. Some friends vouched for his whereabouts on the afternoon and evening of August 14th, and claim that he was too drunk to have been able to commit any kind of violent crime.

On October 15th, 2002, police announced that they were planning to travel to Yellowknife, a city in Canada's Northwest Territories, to find and speak with Bowman, who had been planning to live off of the grid for a time. However, his intentions were relatively short-lived, because Bowman had already been detained by Canadian authorities in Inuvik, a town about as far north as north gets, located above the Arctic Circle. There, he had been arrested for drunk driving - as well as violating immigration laws, having lied about his prior criminal history, which included past convictions for drinking and driving. He was quickly deported back to the U.S. and would remain in police custody throughout the month.

On October 30th, Bowman appeared in court in Henry County but was released from police custody later that day. He would remain released on his own recognizance until November 12th, when he appeared in front of a grand jury in Roanoke, Virginia, in a hearing related to the Short family murders. However, no indictment would follow the convening of this grand jury, indicating that there was not enough evidence to even consider charging Bowman with involvement.

Later that month, Garrison Bowman was convicted for his drunken driving offense from Canada and was sentenced to a paltry seven days in jail (despite it being his second impaired driving offense since 1997).

In the years to come, no charges were filed against Bowman for involvement in the murders of Michael, Mary, and Jennifer Short. The man would continue to deny involvement in the crime, not only to police during repeated bouts of questioning, but to the public, on the rare occasion that he answered any questions from reporters.

Speaking to the News & Record of Greensboro in 2004, he stated:

"This will hang over me for the rest of my life, unless they find the person who did it."

Speaking to the Roanoke Times that same year, he repeated:

"This will live with me until the day I die, or until it's solved. I'll always, in some people's mind, I'll be the guy that got away with it."

Despite never being charged with any violent crimes, police continued to label Bowman a "person of interest" in the Short case.

It wasn't until 2005, nearly three years after the crime, that the spotlight began to move away from Garrison Bowman. That year, U.S. Attorney John Brownlee unveiled a case against two men, Timothy Fennon Sampson and Jerry Riley Mills, who he alleged had lied to investigators. These two had claimed to see Garrison Bowman leaving the Short home carrying a young girl on the night the murders took place. Their false statements to investigators had led to the case being built around Bowman, and hundreds (if not thousands) of man-hours were spent chasing down leads concerning their claims.

Sampson and Mills were charged with a litany of crimes, including conspiracy, perjury, and providing false information to law enforcement. They were also reported to have threatened two men investigating the crime, wanting to pocket the reward money by linking Bowman to the case. They seemed to not care if they ruined Bowman's life in the process.

Another man, Tony Lee Epperson, was charged with lying to investigators and was similarly involved in the case unveiled by U.S. Attorney John Brownlee in 2005. All three men were ultimately convicted and sentenced to many months in prison.

It's believed that the claims by these three men had led to investigators fixating on Garrison Bowman early on, and in a way, had helped ruin this investigation beyond repair. The time that investigators had spent looking into the men's claims was time that could have been spent pursuing other leads and was impossible to replicate years later.

In 2007, police would finally admit that - despite years of scrutiny from themselves and the public - Garrison Bowman was no longer a suspect in the unsolved triple-murder. He would ultimately pass away in December of 2014.

Even though a large part of the conversation about this case focused in on Garrison Bowman between the years of 2002 and 2005, other facets of the investigation carried on in the background, earning occasional mentions in the media coverage of the story.

On July 22nd, 2003, nearly a year after the murders, the creek where Jennifer's skeletal remains were found was diverted to search for more evidence. Henry County Sheriff Cassell said that multiple "articles" were recovered during the search, but declined to elaborate any further, citing the unsolved nature of the case.

A few months later, in September, the remains of nine-year-old Jennifer were exhumed for "forensic purposes." However, authorities weren't keen to reveal whether or not any additional evidence was recovered during this sweep, with her remains reburied the following morning. If you recall, her father Michael's remains had similarly been exhumed and reburied the year prior, with police similarly coy at the time about their reasoning for that.

With this exhumation came additional theories that Jennifer wasn't Michael's biological child, but police finally addressed the elephant in the room, explaining their hesitancy to refute those rumors early on. Police officials claimed that they had been intentionally evasive about the topic while they believed Jennifer to still be alive, fearing that disclosing Michael was her father might have prevented her abductor from returning her safely. They theorized that if the abductor believed Jennifer was his child, he might have abducted her to keep her safe.

Obviously, the discovery of her remains six weeks later seemed to bring that to an end, and only then did police feel comfortable addressing the paternity claims.

Sheriff H.F. Cassell later explained that he was "afraid [her abductor] would dispose of her," elaborating:

"We did what we did. I would risk anything to save a little girl's life. But she's gone now, and she's safe now. No evil can befall her."

Later that year, in December of 2003, authorities would travel to an airport in Kamloops, British Columbia, in pursuit of clues regarding a mystery woman, who the News & Record of Greensboro noted, might "be able to shed light on the case." These investigators met with Canadian officials at the airfield and tried to establish a timeline for a person-of-interest that reportedly met there with this mystery woman. As recounted by Cpl. Joanne Skrine of the R.C.M.P.:

"A meet took place at the airfield between the woman and a person of interest in the investigation. That person may have had contact with this woman in or around that area during the time of the investigation."

While details about this woman remain scarce, authorities revealed that she was a slim Caucasian woman in her late 40s or early 50s with reddish-blonde hair.

In 2004, Frank Arrington, the uncle of Michael Short, would publicly express dissatisfaction with the job done by investigators, claiming that they had mishandled the case from the jump by allowing so many people in and around the crime scene immediately after the bodies were found. While other family members disagreed, Arrington asserted in the Roanoke Times:

"I'm telling the facts the way I see them. It should have been handled differently."

In 2006, it was announced that several members of the Henry County Sheriff's Office - the main investigative body looking into this case - had been indicted for corruption. Among the officers implicated was none other than Sheriff H.F. Cassell, who had been the public face of the investigation since its inception back in 2002.

Approximately a dozen officers had conspired to sell drugs and guns seized from criminals, which they filed in official paperwork as having been destroyed. While doing so had personally profited each of them, their conspiracy had helped bolster up a drug distribution and money laundering ring in the region... and not only permanently damaged the integrity of their department, but the county's most high-profile investigation to date.

If the investigators in charge of this case had been this corrupt, there was no telling where their motivations had been in this case. Perhaps they had been trying to deter any outside bodies from investigating them, so they insisted on deflecting attention elsewhere; perhaps south, in Rockingham County, where the remains of Jennifer Short were found, or towards Garrison Bowman, who lived in North Carolina at the time. That argument didn't even get into the moral failings of those involved, which made them evidently unfit to handle a sensitive case like this.

New officials would come in to lead the local, county-centric investigation, and helped hand it off to other authorities; not only regional authorities, but federal, with both taking a more active role in the Short family investigation moving forward.

A task force assembled the year prior - which was comprised of FBI agents, members of the Virginia State Police, Henry and Rockingham County Sheriff's Department officials, and an ATF agent - began meeting regularly to discuss work on the case. They would begin pooling work on the case file's nearly 3000 leads and would compile several persons-of-interest over the next few years... refusing to divulge any specific info about them to the public.

On March 18th, 2009, the FBI released several sketches to the public, including a composite sketch of a potential suspect: a man seen near the Short family home at around the time the murders took place. This man was described as being in his forties with a "weathered" complexion, and the sketches revealed not only what he looked like then, but what he might look like seven years later.

Also included in this public release was a sketch of a white, single-cab, flatbed body truck with wooden rails, which the FBI theorized had been made between 1998 - 2002 (making it a newer model at the time of the murders). It's believed that this truck was seen near the Short family home in the early morning hours of August 15th, 2002.

Later, when speaking to reporters with Fox 8, an unnamed FBI special agent stated about the odd timing of this disclosure, nearly seven years after the murders:

"I'll say there's a specific reason why... we released it at that point in time. And I can't go into detail why those sketches were released at that point in time."

The following May (2010), FBI agents would visit several coastal cities in South Carolina, where they spoke to several people about the still-unsolved triple-murder. The cities visited included Bennettsville, Conway, Florence, and Myrtle Beach, which - coincidentally - were all cities that Michael had traveled to in the months before the murder, and were all cities that he had considered moving the family to.

Unfortunately, because so many details of the investigation remain shielded by police officials, there is not much that we can surmise about the unknown subject responsible for the deaths of Michael, Mary, and Jennifer Short.

We do know that this unsub was likely familiar with the region, due to the location where Jennifer's remains were found. This area, in rural Rockingham County, is not well-traveled and is quite a bit out of the way for anyone that doesn't know it exists. While they might have happened upon this location by convenience, they likely wouldn't have felt comfortable disposing of the murdered girl's remains there unless they felt comfortable doing so. To me, that indicates someone familiar with North Carolina's Rockingham County - and likely, Virginia's Henry County, as well.

This individual was likely not inspired to rob the Shorts of any money or material possessions. There was no sign of robbery inside of the home, and approximately $600 in cash was easily found by police on the kitchen counter. Additionally, Michael and Mary had likely been shot while sleeping, so if the unsub had attempted to rob them, they had done a crap job of it.

The unsub likely had some knowledge of the Short's movements, knowing that Michael would likely be asleep in the garage. I think that he would have been targeted first, thus eliminating the physical threat of a man, and the sound of the gunshot out in the garage might have been relatively muffled for those sleeping inside.

Before carrying out this crime, however, this individual had carefully considered it, cutting the phone lines before shooting and killing Michael and Mary where they slept. Then, they had chosen to abduct Jennifer Short for an unknown reason; one doesn't want to think about the rationale for this abductor having done so, but it's hard not to think about her being the primary motivation for the crime. Because her remains were found heavily decomposed, police were never able to determine whether or not she had been sexually assaulted, but it's difficult not to consider that a possibility, given the rest of the circumstances.

It seems like investigators agree, as, in 2015, they announced that they were shifting focus from Michael and Mary to their nine-year-old daughter, Jennifer. After spending approximately thirteen years investigating Michael's movements and business dealings throughout the area (including in South Carolina), as well as the alleged stalking incidents previously linked to his wife Mary, investigators decided to change focus to the most obvious motivation: because Jennifer had been the only person abducted by this unknown subject, she had likely been the target of the killer, with her parents becoming collateral damage in the process.

Approximately one year after the murders of the Short family, a bridge was renamed in Jennifer's honor. This was the bridge in North Carolina's Rockingham County, along Grogan Road, under which Jennifer's remains had been found. The bridge, now known as the Jennifer Renee Short Memorial Bridge, has become home to many memorial events and bike rides, many of which have been organized by loved ones and neighbors of the Short family.

Those that live (or lived) in the same small community as Michael, Mary, and Jennifer continue to raise awareness for the story, in the hopes that it might inspire someone to come forward. Ray Reynolds, a former neighbor of the Shorts, has been one of the most vocal advocates for their case. Every year, he organizes a bike ride in their honor, which crosses over Jennifer's Memorial Bridge, with the money raised going towards a scholarship in the Shorts' name at Bassett High School. Dozens of kids have used this scholarship to help achieve their dreams since its founding nearly two decades ago.

Reynolds remembers the family fondly and mourns the life that Jennifer Short never got to live. Speaking to the Rockingham Now in 2018, he stated:

"This is a child that never got to go to high school and enjoy cheerleading or sports. This is a kid that I didn't want to be forgotten. The whole family was taken from us and the community stands behind [these events] 100 percent and they are all for it because they want this thing solved."

The Short's family home, which was auctioned off in December of 2002 (approximately four months after the murder), would remain standing but mostly vacant for the better part of the next sixteen years. As I mentioned in the episode introduction, however, a suspicious fire resulted in the property burning to the ground in February of 2019; a blaze whose cause remains unknown to this day.

Some believe that the fire could be related to some other fires that were started in the area at the time - likely related to a local arsonist - while others suspect something more nefarious. More than a handful of locals believe that the offender might have returned to finish the job, destroying any evidence that they might have left behind back in August of 2002, perhaps fearing the rising popularity of genetic genealogy.

That, however, is just a rumor.

While nearly two decades have passed, the case remains open and active, with investigators continuing to work on the case sporadically, whenever tips or leads come into them. An $80,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person(s) responsible still stands, and anyone with information can forward it to the Henry County Sheriff's Office.

Until such a time, the stories of Michael, Mary, and Jennifer Short will remain unresolved.

Episode Information

Writing, research, hosting, and production by Micheal Whelan

Published on on August 15th, 2021

Producers: Roberta Janson, Travis Scsepko, Ben Krokum, Quil Carter, Steven Wilson, Laura Hannan, Jo Wong, Damion Moore, Scott Meesey, Marie Vanglund, Scott Patzold, Astrid Kneier, Aimee McGregor, Sara Moscaritolo, Sydney Scotton, Thomas Ahearn, Marion Welsh, Patrick Laakso, Meadow Landry, Tatum Bautista, Denise Grogan, Teunia Elzinga, Sally Ranford, James Herington, Ryan Green, Rebecca O'Sullivan, Jacinda Class, Stephanie Joyner, James Weis, Kevin McCracken, Brooke Bullek, Lauren Nicole, Matthew Traywick, Sara Rosario, and Stacey Houser