Teacher Who Strangled Student Dragged Her Into Woods And Left Her To Die, Is Out Of Prison Early
2024-04-28
Sam Shelton (right in 2006) thought he killed Ashley Reeves (left in 2006) after strangling her with a belt. He was wrong.Photo byInside Edition.com
A high school teacher in Freeburg, Illinois, who admittedly tried to a strangle a teenage girl in 2006 and confessed when he erroneously thought the victim died is now walking free from state prison.
Samson “Sam” Shelton, who turned 44 years old in March, had been serving a 20-year sentence for the attempted strangulation murder of Ashley Reeves, who was 17 years old at the time of the horrific attack. In the years since, Reeves has spoken publicly about her survival and recovery.
Reeves said she didn’t remember the events immediately before or after she was left out in the freezing woods of Illinois for 30 hours.
In a 2017 Crime Watch Daily interview with Elizabeth Smart, a rape survivor who was kidnapped in 2002 when she was 14 years old, “Do you remember anything about that day?” Smart asked.
“No. I don’t remember a couple days prior and I don’t remember weeks after. I especially don’t remember anything about that day,” Reeves said, noting that she had to learn how to eat and drink again. “I remember my first drink of water and it was amazing.”
Shelton infamously confessed to strangling Reeves. Shelton told investigators that he and Reeves had a sexual relationship at the time, saying: ”I will say this: we never kissed. We never kissed. Yes, we did have sex in the back of the vehicle, and after that day I felt absolutely terrible.”
Leading up to the confession, Reeves’ mother in a whirlwind of panic and concern, called numbers from her daughter’s phone bill in an attempt to get any information on her daughter. According to investigators, Michelle Reeves noticed that her daughter called one number more than most of the others and reaches out to that person; Shelton.
Investigators say that Shelton tells Reeves’ mother he has no idea where she might be and then goes back to dancing at a local club.
Things began to align and come into focus when friends of Reeves told investigators that she had been seeing an older man and planned to meet him on the night she went missing, according to investigators.
That is enough for detectives to call in Shelton for questioning.
Shelton started off by telling investigators that Reeves is a persistent young woman who had long been pursuing him and making constant calls. After telling a few lies, he began telling what really happened. Shelton said that he put Reeves in a wrestling chokehold that caused her to stop breathing and that he feared he had killed the young woman.
As a bright idea, Shelton said he decided to drag her into the woods at a local park to die.
"I dragged her to a wooded area, I tied this thing around her neck to make it look like someone choked her out there," Shelton told investigators.
"I was a nervous wreck, thinking, 'What do I do? What do I do? I wanted to make it look like she had gotten, she got strangled there in the woods," he recalled.
Shelton says that he then took a belt and repeatedly strangled Reeves, pulling so tight that he broke the belt at one point.
"All of a sudden I heard like a gurgle. And when I heard the gurgle, I let go. And when I let go, she had like spit, foam, coming out of her mouth. And then I had seen that she was the sickest color I had ever seen," Shelton said.
Shelton then told investigators he would take them to where he left Reeves.
At the time, investigators were stunned that Reeves was alive. "It was almost disbelief that she was still alive," investigator Steve Johnson of the St. Clair County, Ill., Sheriff's Department, recalled. They had to clear brush and trees to get a stretcher to the girl, then rushed her to Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital in St. Louis, where she was in serious condition.
Shelton, a driver’s education teacher and pro wrestler known as “The Teacher” in his spare time, the 6-foot, 1-inch, 200-pound Shelton is listed as a wrestler in the Ultimate Wrestling Alliance and has appeared in several metro-east prize rings, including in Fairview Heights and Cahokia, went on to plead guilty to attempted murder in 2007.
Illinois Department of Corrections records show that Shelton was paroled on Monday and will remain on parole for three years after serving 17 years of a 20-year sentence for attempted murder.
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