Sam Shelton and Ashley Reeves were making plans for their wedding when the terrible thing happened.
In the end, Sam Shelton was found guilty of trying to kill his own fiance.
Ashley Reeves, who was 17, was attacked by Shelton, who was 26, in April 2006. This is shown in the new Lifetime movie “Left for Dead.”
According to a story from CBS News at the time, Reeves was found in a park with a lot of trees more than 30 hours after Shelton tried to strangle her with a belt and cracked her neck with his arm. When the police found her, she was paralyzed and covered in mosquito bites.
Plans for the wedding of Sam Shelton and Ashley Reeves
Everyone was surprised that Sam Shelton and Ashley Reeves were planning to get married, since they were so different in age.
It is said that Shelton tried to kill Ashley Reeves in 2006. She was frozen for 30 hours, but she was still able to survive the attempt to kill her.
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Sam Shelton did something to Ashley Reeves
The woman was being led into a sexual relationship by Shelton, who taught at the college for women. She finally found him at the time of the attack and told him she had to break up with him because they were not good for each other.
Shelton, on the other hand, didn’t want to let go. During this particular fight, which happened in the car, he grabbed Reeves and put her in a chokehold before dragging her outside. She tried hard for a while but finally gave up.
Before it broke, he choked the woman again because he thought she had given up. Then he left the woman in the madhouse to die. She had terrible wounds and had been alone in the woods for 30 hours.
The police thought the woman had gotten away, but when they found her, she had moved, so they took her to the hospital anyway.
Where is Sam Shelton?
Sam Shelton was given a life sentence plus 20 years in prison. He had been locked up at first as a young suspect, but when the police realized he was the most trustworthy person to talk to Reeves, they let him go.
After being told to wait for 12 hours, he changed their story many times before giving up. He eventually admitted that he had talked about Ashley and insulted the woman.
Even though he had forgotten the exact location, he led the police to where he had left the woman. Officers were able to find the woman and take her to a hospital. Reeves had been found after they were caught.
He was allowed to post bail and put on home arrest for a year so that he could get ready for the test. Sam only tried to kill himself once in the whole year. In 2007, he agreed to plead guilty.
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Sam Shelton was a teacher, right?
Sam Shelton did teach, that’s true. Sam used to teach Ashley when she was in the seventh grade. Sam was a professional wrestler and a gym trainer. People who knew them both say that they talked again in February 2006, two months after she disappeared.
Sam Shelton and Ashley Reeves were making plans to get married.
Sam Shelton and Ashley Reeves did talk about getting married before she was taken.
Is Sam Shelton still in jail?
Sam Shelton was given a 20-year prison sentence, so he is still behind bars.
What did Sam Shelton do to Ashley Reeves?
Sam Shelton tried to kill Ashley Reeves, the woman he was going to marry.
Sam Shelton said that trying to strangle a teenage girl and leaving her for dead was just a mistake. A jury, however, did not believe him.
“Left for Dead,” a new Lifetime movie, is based on the true story of Ashley Reeves, who was attacked by Shelton, who was 26, in April 2006. CBS News reported at the time that she was found in a heavily wooded park more than 30 hours after Shelton broke Reeves’ neck with his forearm and tried to strangle her with a belt. She was paralyzed and full of bug bites when investigators found her.
Anwen O’Driscoll stars in the Lifetime show “Left for Dead: The Ashley Reeves Story,” which starts on June 12 at 8pm ET/PT. Photo: Lifetime
Shelton went out on the town to celebrate the fact that he thought he had killed Reeves. CBS News says that he was caught on video that night line dancing at a country music club nearby.
Shelton, who taught Reeves in middle school, courted the high school junior and got her into a relationship with him that was sexually abusive.
When Reeves didn’t come home by her curfew time of 10 PM, police moved quickly to find Shelton. Before he said what he did, the police questioned him for 12 hours. A judge would later let the public see video of that questioning.
Shelton said that he choked Reeves during an argument when she wouldn’t get out of his car. She said he attacked her when she tried to end the relationship because it was so bad. Shelton told the police that when he heard Reeves’ neck snap, he got scared and tried to hide the fact that he had killed him. He then dragged her out into the woods and tried to hide what he thought was her dead body.
In the end, he took the police to the place where he had left her and where, against all odds, she had managed to stay alive.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch said in 2009 that Shelton tried to kill himself by taking an overdose of antidepressants at his mother’s house. He had been released on bond while waiting for his trial. When doctors and sheriff’s deputies came to help, Shelton is said to have gotten violent, spitting on a deputy and kicking people who were trying to help him.
“Emergency room staff told me he had something written on his chest with a marker that said “Don’t save me” or “Don’t resuscitate me” or something similar,” Swansea Police Chief Steven Johnson told Crime Watch Daily in 2017.
In 2007, Shelton admitted that he had tried to kill Ashley Reeves. At the time, his family said that they only agreed to the plea deal because they didn’t want “Sam to keep being made out to be a bad guy.”
“I just want to go on with my life and not worry about it,” Reeves told The Oklahoman after Shelton was sentenced and while she was going through a long process of learning to speak and walk again after her ordeal.
Shelton is still serving his 20-year sentence at the Hill Correctional Center in Illinois. In 2024, he will be able to get out of jail again.
When Ashley Reeves went missing at the end of April 2006, her parents were very confused. The 17-year-old wasn’t rebellious, and whenever she was late, she always let someone know. As more and more phone calls and texts went unanswered, the tension in Ashley’s home grew. When the phone company was called, it turned out that Ashley had talked to Sam Shelton several times before she went missing.
Sam Shelton was well-known in the area as a teacher of driver’s ed and physical education. At first, he seemed calm and helpful, but his constantly changing story showed that he knew something about what happened to Reeves.
Sam Shelton finally agreed to show the police where he had left Ashley. But the rain in the area made it hard for him to remember where he left her. Police looked through the woods quickly until they thought they found Ashley’s body.
Ashley was curled up in a ball, her tongue sticking out, and bugs were eating away at her skin. Investigators were happy to see that Ashley was still alive when her chest moved all of a sudden. She was taken to the hospital quickly by EMTs, where doctors put her in a coma to give her time to heal.
When Ashley went missing, the police first talked to Ashley’s boyfriend, Jeremy. She had been driving his car, but the police couldn’t find anything wrong with Jeremy. Jeremy told the police that he gave Ashley his car so she could go to an interview and then to a basketball game.
The police found Jeremy’s car in Laderman Park in Belleville, Illinois. Ashley didn’t need to be there because there was a basketball park near her house. Ashley had to have driven to Belleville to meet someone, because that was the only explanation that made sense.
Phone records showed that Ashley had called Sam Shelton several times. Sam lived in Belleville, close to Laderman Park, which is where Jeremy’s car was found by the police. So, the police brought Sam in to talk to him because he was a possible suspect.
He said that after an argument with Ashley, he choked her and pulled her out of his car. Ashley’s neck was broken by the hold, and she went limp. Sam then took her body into the woods and strangled her again with his hands.
Sam put a belt around her neck and pulled until it broke when he saw that she was still breathing. Sam tried to kill Ashley three times, and each time he failed.
Due to the damage to her brain, Reeves couldn’t remember what happened during the attack. She had to learn how to walk, talk, and swallow all over again. She now lives in Illinois with her two kids and works as a caregiver.
Ashley went to the place where Sam left her for dead in a 2017 episode of Crime Watch Daily. Ashley said, “It’s kind of hard to believe that this is where I was for so long and in such bad shape.” “It makes me think I might be as tough as everyone says I am. I’m a fighter, and I just want to push myself harder and harder.”
Surprisingly, a court let Sam go free on bail and told him to stay at home. Sam tried to kill himself with pills and alcohol while he was waiting for his court date.
He wrote “do not resuscitate” on his chest to try to stop EMTs from bringing him back to life. EMTs didn’t listen to the message and woke up Sam, who was angry and violent when he came to.
He talked about her race and kicked her in the face at the hospital. The episode made the judge in charge decide that Sam’s mental health should be checked. The prosecutors said that Sam faked having a mental illness to get the jury to feel sorry for him.
Sam passed a mental test and was found to be able to stand trial. Sam, on the other hand, agreed to 20 years in prison before his trial.
Susan, Shelton’s mom, told CBS News that the family agreed to a plea deal “reluctantly.” They said that Sam couldn’t get a fair trial because people kept saying bad things about him.
Reeves’s family also didn’t want him to talk in court. Robert Haida, who is the state’s attorney for St. Clair County, said that Ashley needed to be left alone.
After the case was over, Ashley felt relieved. She said, “I’m glad it’s over.” “I just want to live my life without worrying about it.”
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