Slain teen Hailey Dunn would be 27, here’s what we know about her death:

Family continues fighting for justice

Editor’s Note: The video above first aired in 2023.

(KMID/KPEJ)- It’s been a “nightmare” seemingly without end for more than a decade for Clinton Dunn and his children; a nightmare that is never far from their minds, especially on days like today as they celebrate what would have been Hailey Dunn’s 27 ^th birthday.

“It would be cruel for us to simply wish her a ‘Happy Birthday in Heaven’ without acknowledging why she isn’t here to celebrate this special day with her loved ones. No good comes from pretending her life wasn’t stolen. No good comes from moving on without seeking justice for this beautiful girl. To do so would be further insult to the short life she lived, full of love and laughter, jokes and pranks, Guitar Hero and singing with her friends and family. No good comes from ignoring the “why”. The only way we can ever begin to make this right is to guarantee justice for this beautiful little girl. Hailey, you are loved, and you are missed. Your sisters and Daddy include you every day. Because of them, you will never be forgotten, and they will advocate for your justice every day until it is received.”

Who Killed Hailey Dunn Facebook Page

That was a message to Hailey posted Wednesday by a group dedicated to bringing Hailey’s killer to justice. It’s that search for justice we want to address today, as we consider the case so far. Here’s what we know:

The 13-year-old cheerleader from Colorado City went missing on December 27, 2010. Her mother reported her missing the next day and despite a massive search expanding much of West Texas, there was no sign of Hailey until March 16, 2013, when her remains were found near Lake JB Thomas in Scurry County.

Court documents showed that authorities believe that Dunn was struck in the head with a blunt object; the only arrest ever made in the case came in June of 2021 when Shawn Adkins, of Big Spring, was charged with murder. Adkins, who had long been considered a person of interest in the case, was dating Hailey’s mother and lived in the home where Hailey was last seen.

He’d not been arrested previously because authorities said there wasn’t enough evidence.

In 2020, the district attorney for the 32nd Judicial District, Ricky Thompson, consulted with the Texas Rangers Unsolved Crimes Investigation Program regarding the case, and the Rangers took a new look at the investigation. The Rangers interviewed several people, and investigators ultimately narrowed in on Adkins.

A search warrant was issued to collect Adkins’ DNA; he was eventually arrested and booked into the Howard County jail after those samples were collected. According to an affidavit released after his arrest, authorities believed Adkins killed the teen and tampered with her corpse.

Adkins was later indicted by a Grand Jury, and a trial date was set for June of 2022, but the discovery of new information pushed the trial back to April of 2023- that date was pushed again when Adkins’ defense team asked for a continuance. Then, in late May of the same year, Hailey’s family were informed that Adkins and his defense team rejected a plea deal that would have sent him to prison for 30 years.

Then, the Dunn family was dealt another blow when they learned the case had been dismissed altogether, again citing lack of evidence.

In June of 2023, after spending two years in jail awaiting trial, Adkins was released from custody.

Documents released at the time showed that the case was dropped without prejudice. This means the state can re-file the charges against Adkins at any time.

“To be clear, the prosecution views (Adkins) as the primary suspect in the Hailey Dunn murder,” a motion to dismiss read.

However, levying charges against Adkins again would require more work from law enforcement agencies; the same people who dropped the ball on multiple occasions, according to the Dunn family.

Court documents explained that “further investigation is needed in order to prove elements of the offenses beyond a reasonable doubt”. Called a “complex circumstantial case”, court records showed that several leads and potential evidence were collected and worked with for more than a decade. This included soil, cell records, and even a polygraph test.

Clinton has alleged that the investigation was mishandled from the very beginning and said files connected with the case were “disorganized” and reports have gone missing and a “critical test”, which may have connected Adkins to the area where Hailey’s body was found, is now being disputed.

According to court documents, that particular piece of evidence involved a “soil analysis” using Near Infrared Spectroscopy and found that soil collected from Adkins’ work boots “had a high degree of chemical similarity” with soil samples collected from the site where the teen’s remains were found. Clinton said that test came back a 94-95% match.

However, court documents showed that the soil was also sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for analysis using a different method. Prosecutors said that analysis determined that the soil samples did not match. Scientists with the FBI said that NIRS testing is not a “methodology sanctioned by the forensic community for soil analysis and… should not be relied on in a criminal trial”.

Additionally, when Hailey’s body was found in 2013, a forensic anthropologist found blunt force injuries to her skull and determined the injuries had been inflicted at or near the time of death and likely resulted in significant bleeding. While multiple searches of the house were conducted by law enforcement, there wasn’t any forensic testing done in the house in the days following Hailey’s disappearance so there’s no evidence to test to see if blood was present in the home at the time.

Also, multiple searches of Adkins’ car, as well as the location in Scurry County, were conducted; however, none of the evidence collected was ever forensically tested, court records show.

“Before this case proceeds to trial, that evidence should be thoroughly tested to determine if it has any value”, the motion read.

Another piece of evidence was the cell records and cell tower records of Hailey and Adkins. An analysis of these records showed that on December 27, 2010, Hailey sent a text at 2:16 p.m. and 2:27 p.m. At the same time, Adkins’s cell connected to a cell tower in Big Spring at 1:53 p.m. and again at 2:40 p.m. Adkins also took a call at 2:56 p.m. which connected to a cell tower along I-20 east of Big Spring but west of Colorado City. A minute later, an incoming call to Hailey’s cell phone connected to a cell tower in Colorado City. These facts show that Hailey MIGHT have been alive before 2:57 pm on December 27.

There are also issues with the timeline. The day before, on December 26, Hailey’s brother spent the night with two friends and returned home on December 27 at about 5 p.m. When he got there, according to court documents, he talked to Adkins, and Hailey was not there. At 6 p.m., Adkins left and picked up Hailey’s mother from work in Snyder. Adkins wasn’t alone again until the following morning.

With that timeline in mind, court documents said that if Hailey was alive when Adkins arrived at home, he would have been alone with Hailey for at most about two hours from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. This would mean Adkins would have had to kill her, clean up any blood and other incriminating evidence in the home and hide her body in a relatively short amount of time. While not impossible, that timeline could be a challenge for prosecutors especially when considering the overall lack of evidence in the case.

The motion to dismiss the charges against Adkins stated that there is no direct eyewitness to Hailey’s murder, nor any known current forensic science evidence directly linking Adkins to the murder. Because of this, “the current state of the evidence is not sufficient for the prosecution to proceed to trial.”

Prosecutors said that additional investigation is needed, but has that been done? We don’t know because investigators have been notoriously tight lipped about the case.

Despite all the grief and unanswered questions, Clinton and his children have continued to fight for justice for the slain teen.

In a recent podcast, Clinton talked with Grieving Our Babies about his daughter and all the unanswered questions that still remain. You can listen to that podcast here , or following this Facebook page as the search for answers continues.

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