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good evening i'm anthony robart this is crime beat tonight an aspiring actress finally
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making headways in her career vanishes. She hadn't spent any money she hadn't touched her facebook
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she wasn't on her phone. Although there are no indications of foul play it is out of character
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for her to not be in touch with family and friends and we are we are all concerned for her
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welfare
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and now here's Nancy Hixt with Shannon Madill's last audition
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Tell you a little about me? just a general me um okay i am interning uh for my radio and television program
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shannon madill love to perform and truly came alive on screen a couple of lines
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does that work for you? a couple of lines how exciting.
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i'm not sure if i can give you a couple of lines sir i don't know how i'll be able to do that
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okay yeah you got it? she spent years trying to make it as an actress and at 25
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it was looking like she might finally land her big break this video was an
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audition for a role in a tv series it was recorded november 26 2014. okay thanks
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hours later she vanished
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days went by and there was no word from shannon
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after more than a week her family made a plea for shannon to call home
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this is my sister she's a lovely outgoing girl and shannon if you see this please you're not in
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trouble we all love you and we miss you so much we don't need to know where you are we just want
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to know that you're safe it wasn't completely out of character for shannon to be hard to track down
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but it was unusual for her to disappear for so many days police said there was no evidence to
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suggest foul play would the young actress simply take off could she have been in an accident
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her family was desperate for answers you are so loved and you are so missed and we just
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just please let us know that you're okay wherever you are shannon was the youngest of four medal
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children and even as a child she loved performing oh she loved the spotlight her favorite thing was
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a microphone and a spotlight from the time she was tiny shannon was very outgoing even from a small
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age she loved doing like the plays at the church and that and the plays at school and she was
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a real performer she loved to be in front of an audience performing and that never changed she was
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just such a little ham she loved to she just loved to play and be silly of course i'm probably going
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to tell this story wrong but she met my uncle when she was about two or three at the airport
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for the first time and she ran up to him and said kiss me kiss me like you've never kissed me before
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so yeah she's she's been a ham since she was really really young
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shannon played 15 instruments including the trombone and the french horn
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has it all been worth it here i am the queen
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she was always a bit of a spitfire she like she that red hair and fiery personality were always
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very present um and i mean i think that probably partly just came from being the baby of the family
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where you can like there's everyone's been through it so no one's really paying attention to you as
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much anymore um you know nothing that she could do could be as worse as anything that's come before
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her so she kind of had the freedom to to be a little bit more out there
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after high school shannon went to university but left soon after to pursue acting
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i was really really concerned about it at the time i'm not going to lie as somebody who did used to
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do a bunch of performing i know how hard it can be and the scariest part of course is that it's
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a lifelong rejection you're constantly it's you're constantly on a job interview really when shannon
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was 21 she fell in love so she met josh at a party it was a mutual friends that they were all there
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and that would have been 2010. i want to say it was probably about december 2010. josh burgess was
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the opposite of shannon personality wise so they seemed to balance each other out for a perfect
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fit they found a happy medium together because they both very much enjoyed the quiet times
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at home they both enjoyed watching tv together playing video games together some d they had a
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lot of nerdy interests that they shared and that was where they were able to have that overlap of
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interest shannon seemed to really like him so we all started to really like him we enjoyed having
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him around and he seemed to make her happy which made us happy after dating for about four years
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shannon and josh got married and all of a sudden out of the blue i got a call on a wednesday to
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find out they were getting married on the saturday and that would have been may of 2014. so they were
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in a car and they decided you know what let's just get married and they're both super star wars nerds
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so they decided may the fourth was coming up on that saturday and they called it justice of the
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peace and found out that they were available so they decided they would do a quick wedding at the
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jp's house in the months that followed shannon was busier than ever trying to make it as an actress
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and juggling auditions a lot of those took her to edmonton a three-hour drive north of calgary so
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she spent a lot of time on the road commuting back and forth but she was making it work
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in late november of 2014 she planned to meet up with her older brother
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at a calgary dinner theater but shannon didn't show up i mean the 30th was the day she was
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supposed to be going to stage west with brett her brother shannon was a marvelous person she had
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many things but she was a little flighty at times and she could you know sort of forget
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things or that and not necessarily let people know i mean i sent her a text right away
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at that point saying where are you you're supposed to be at dinner with brett and uh
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and i didn't hear anything back that night which didn't totally surprise me when i i tried again
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in the morning and didn't hear anything back and i thought well you know what she's probably she
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knows i'm not happy and she probably just wants to avoid hearing it from me personally so i phoned
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aaron so on december 1st which was a Monday I was at work i got a phone call from my father saying
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that shannon had missed dinner with my younger brother and that nobody was she wasn't answering
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her phone calls my dad had been calling her my younger brother had been calling her and she just
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wasn't picking up one of the things that happened with shannon is if she get really overwhelmed or
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depressed she would sometimes completely switch up her sleep schedule so i thought it was possible
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that maybe she had fallen asleep in the afternoon because she'd been doing late nights recording
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and she'd slept through the dinner and now she was just too embarrassed to pick up the phone
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because she didn't want to admit that she'd messed up so i was i decided to call her hoping that she
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wouldn't avoid my phone call since i wasn't mad at her but she didn't answer my phone call so
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i left her a message saying that you know just let us know you're okay we're worried about you
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we were actually out at dinner it was about seven o'clock on the monday night and aaron says well
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i've been over to her place i can't she's not there josh doesn't know where she is and so on and
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i said hey i think we should go to the police days later police and family made a plea for help in
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finding shannon although there are no indications of foul play it is out of character for her to not
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be in touch with family and friends and we are we are all concerned for her welfare shannon's family
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stood side by side appealing for information about her disappearance this is josh this is shannon's
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husband uh this is my mother lisa this is lindsey our sister-in-law our brother brett this is my
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other brother tyler and that's my father david it was surreal i think is the word i would use
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it almost disembodied you felt like you were present but you were watching yourself being there
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coming up as police ramp up their search for shannon madill
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some mysterious photos found posted in a city park lead to a potential break in the case
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welcome back the family of an up-and-coming actress who mysteriously vanished
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search for answers as police investigate new clues
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and now here's nancy hixt with Shannon Madill's last audition
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the days that followed are a blur for shannon's family as they tried to make sense of her sudden
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disappearance as you're trying to piece together the story you're you know you start asking
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questions that people aren't answering like where you know well where's your car where's
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her phone where's her purse where like you know is it still there how the dog is being left at
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the house like that doesn't make any sense for shannon the big theory was was oh she probably
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went up to edmonton and she might just be laying low with this guy there was no sign
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of shannon where could she possibly be if she was still alive why hadn't she contacted her family
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she hadn't spent any money she hadn't touched her facebook she wasn't on her phone
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there was no contact that's when people start to really get concerned because in this day and age
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it's impossible to not leave a digital footprint at least in some manner and to still be able to
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function it wasn't like she had a whole bunch of cash laying around she wouldn't be able to support
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herself nearly two weeks later there was a major development in the case photos of a woman whose
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face was covered by her hair and flowers were found attached to trees in a park in calgary it
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looked like it could be shannon the resemblance was enough to spur a massive search of fish
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creek provincial park one of the largest urban parks in canada police spent two days scouring
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the area for clues they even brought in a cadaver dog dogs specially trained to find human remains
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i remember those two days while they were doing those searches your stomach is just on
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edge um you're so concerned about what they're gonna find and every time my phone would ring
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it was like your stomach just drops out because you think every time the phone rings this is
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when you find out this is when they found her she's dead it's over that search came up empty
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it turned out the photos in the park were not related to shannon's disappearance
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instead they were a part of a student art project those involved came forward to police after seeing
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the search on the news it was all just an eerie coincidence shannon was still missing i withdrew
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into myself i did not want to get out of bed did not want to eat anything
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it was it was dreadful it was really dreadful there's just this oppressive feeling of
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are you gonna are you going to survive it let alone what's going to be the outcome
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i was concerned that if we found her alive what conditions she would be in what mental
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condition she would be in police prepared shannon's family for all possible outcomes
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there had been an incident that none of us heard about till after the fact where
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shannon had called josh from the lrt you know uh claiming that that she was considering
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jumping and and that uh the police had been called and involved in that
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i became obsessed with the river
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it's almost like you pick the lesser of all evils and somehow her having a quick drowning
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became the least horrible answer to me so i became obsessed with finding her in the river
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i mean to this day i still can't drive by the bow river without remembering that police
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searched the rivers but again no luck it seemed like the investigation hit a dead end
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by may of 2015 nearly six months passed with no sign of Shannon Madill
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that's when veteran calgary police detective Christina Witt took over the case at the time
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detective witt was working in the missing persons unit but she'd worked in the homicide unit before
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that she's well known for being a determined and tenacious investigator whit went over every detail
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of the case and took another look at the people in shannon's life starting with her
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husband he seemed like a nice genuine person he was very cooperative with police they were
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allowed into the residence with his consent on at least two occasions and they looked around
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and didn't see anything suspicious he was always very cooperative when asked to come for interviews
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you'll recall josh stood by shannon's family as they made a plea for help just days after she
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went missing you know the family was very close to josh and never once did they suggest that he could
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have harmed shannon which that also played into it for us i think because a lot of times the family
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would be like look you gotta look at her husband or you gotta look at this and and then we will
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trust the family's instincts to an extent as well and look into those things and
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the family did not think that at all they he was not on their radar at all they loved
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josh they trusted josh they didn't have any reason for themselves to think that he could
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have harmed shannon that's when police learned josh wasn't the only man in shannon's life
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coming up would those new revelations about Shannon Madill's romantic interest
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help police solve her disappearance that's coming up after the break
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welcome back police discover Shannon Madill's husband
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isn't the only man in her life and she's not the only woman in his and now here's nancy hixt
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her and josh we learned very early on through josh that they had an open marriage
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they had been married for seven months at by this time and this according to josh was
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shannon's idea to have an open marriage shannon was open with her family about her relationship
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shannon told me that they didn't have a conventional marriage and that josh wanted to
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have a girlfriend on the side and shannon wanted to keep her options open because she enjoyed
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having flings aaron said they were committed to each other just not physically committed
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in their relationship it wasn't considered cheating and it was all openly discussed while
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many might find shannon and josh's arrangement unconventional aaron said it worked for them
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i didn't actually have concerns they had a lot of open communication
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shannon would actually meet josh's girlfriends so she was very well aware of who josh was dating
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and spending his time with so it was very it was a very open honest conversation that they
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were both willing to have with each other and it was respectful on both sides for police the
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open marriage created some complexities to the case and more people to look at and investigate
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could this missing persons case have been foul play after all so that was also something we had
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to look at was this could there been harm done to her by someone that she was dating that we didn't
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know so there was about seven i think different people who whether she was acquaintances or had
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dated that we needed to interview as well six months into their marriage right before
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shannon disappeared in the fall of 2014 the couple hit some bumps in their relationship
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things got so bad they were ready to call it quits the very next day josh came home and told shannon
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that he'd overreacted and he would actually like to try to work on the marriage after all they
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decided that the best way to work on that would be to focus only on the marriage and they agreed
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that they would close off the marriage until they sorted through what was going on but closing the
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marriage wasn't so easy shannon ended up finding out about a week later that he was still seeing
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the girlfriend he told shannon that he was going to break it off and shannon sent the girlfriend a
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text they always had open communication and open phones and then about a week later she found out
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that his phone was locked she asked him to open it and when shannon opened up the phone she found
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out that he'd actually been in communication with the girlfriend and he'd requested to go
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and break up with her in person and it turned out in that in-person meeting he actually told
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the girlfriend that he was planning on leaving his wife and that she would become the primary partner
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so shannon was pretty hurt shannon was incredibly hurt she felt incredibly deceived
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shannon had some tough decisions to make her acting career was leading her to edmonton and
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given the unraveling marriage she decided to move out as that transition happened they made a point
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of avoiding each other at their home so there was a often that she would go out and wouldn't be home
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for a couple of days and then would come home and they would miss each other and their schedules
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were completely different because josh was doing the nine to five and shannon was usually working
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in the evenings to do stand-up or she would be working overnight reading her books so it was very
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common that they wouldn't actually see each other during that time on the night she went missing
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josh told police he spoke to her briefly then went to bed when he woke up the next morning
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she was gone investigators said shannon's footprints of life ended november 27 2014.
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those are digital footprints like bank transactions emails texts any normal activities
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that show someone is still alive in shannon's case that stopped at about 12 30 a.m on november 27
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2014 except for some strange phone activity 12 hours later in her alley our tech crimes unit
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examined her cell phone records and they were able to determine that on the afternoon of the 27th
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her phone is out in the alley kind of does a walkabout in the alley and back into the residence
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and so that was a flag because josh hadn't found the phone right away but he does notify police
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within a few days that he'd found her phone
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and couldn't really give an explanation of how the phone is out doing this walkabout
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in the alley so she was last seen like in the early morning hours of november 27th and so then
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this is like 12 hours later in the afternoon that the phone is out and about in the alley
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eight months after Shannon Madill's disappearance police decided they needed to take another look
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at her husband's story we've now had several interviews with josh and he's you know the
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important time period he's he's vague and isn't giving a lot of detail and it's not really adding
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up the strange cell phone activity in the alley created suspicion we didn't reveal to him right
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away about the cell phone doing the walkabout and he certainly wasn't offering an explanation of why
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perhaps her phone would be even still on after that kind of time period right because
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cell phones typically the battery dies so you know there was no um
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real obvious thing but the totality of all those things together raised the suspicion enough to
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believe that yes she could have been murdered police applied for warrants to seize josh's cell
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phone along with the vehicle they shared the difficulty was in order to get a court order
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you need to believe that offense had occurred and early on that just that threshold wasn't being met
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because of the concerns for suicide and the family's suggestion that she could just be
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away somewhere and not wanting to talk to anyone by that point police had already searched the home
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twice each time they found nothing out of the ordinary he's definitely starting to look more
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suspicious to us at that point he's our only good possible suspect at that point we ruled out a lot
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of possibilities by through all those witness interviews he's the last person to see her alive
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during domestic relationships at that point where they're looking to break up or separate
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those are usually the most volatile times and so that all
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played into our level of increasing suspicion of josh
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the mysterious missing person's case was about to take a dramatic
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turn that's coming up on crime beat
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welcome back to crime beat the mystery of what happened to Shannon Madill unraveled quickly
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and unexpectedly and now here's nancy Hixt
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on july 2nd 2015 just over seven months after shannon disappeared detective witt went to josh
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burgess's home one more time this time to execute the search warrant i knocked on the door and i
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called his cell phone and he didn't answer the first time and but we could hear the movement
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in the room so we also had already identified but said again you know josh it's the police
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we just want you to come to the door we have a warrant for your cell phone and your car we
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would like you to come out technically we have the authority to come in but we just want you to come
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to the door so that we can talk to you and deal with this um he answered the phone the second time
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and he i felt like he was trying to buy some time like he was stalling with me and he's like i just
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need a few minutes i need to go downstairs i need to put my pants on and they're in the wash and
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you know he's kind of upset and he's like well why do you need to speak to me and i'm trying
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to explain and you know i'm getting a little frustrated i'm like josh honestly we just need you
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to come to the door we just want you to talk to us we have this court order come to the door so that
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this is a lot easier than it has you know let's make this easy for you and me and come to the door
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and so he's kind of stalling and i think really he was just trying to figure out what he was going to
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do what his next step was because we caught him off guard detective witt said what happened next
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was the last thing she expected he gets very upset and starts crying and blurts out to me that
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i killed her i killed my wife i verbalized that so that the other people with me understand
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what's happening and i'm like i'm sorry josh can you say that again and he's like
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yes i killed my wife and i said you killed shannon he said yes i killed shannon and so then that was
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just a complete transition they changed the situation and from that point on we went from
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him just coming to the door to give us his cell phone to now we need to negotiate
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to get him out of the house safely safely for him safely for us detective witt kept him on the
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phone for an hour and 20 minutes until finally he came out he wasn't really wearing anything
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other than a pair of underwear and he was covered in blood which i wasn't expecting josh burgess
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was taken to hospital he had used a small like a pocket knife and had been cutting at his neck
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so once he was assessed medically it was determined that he hadn't cut any main artery
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so he hadn't lost he'd lost quite a bit of blood but it required some stitching
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he didn't require surgery but then he had to be held over for a psych assessment
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in the meantime police got another warrant they needed to search the home it was the next night
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after josh was released from hospital that he was arrested and taken to calgary police headquarters
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detective kurt jacobs was the first to try to get josh to open up hey josh hey doing all right
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consider him i'm kirk i know that shannon's dead
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and i also know that you're responsible for her death
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i know that definitively what's going through your head buddy i really miss her you miss her yeah
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yeah look at this picture and tell me what you would say to her if you could
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same thing i always said to her yeah what was that that i loved very much that you love her very much
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well into the wee hours of the following day detective witt went in to talk to burgess
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you can tell me do the right thing for shannon and tell me but burgess wasn't willing to talk
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anymore detectives decided to let him rest but before they did they let him know one more thing
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the cadaver dogs are finding some stuff right now so there's a lot
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going on at the house so we're going to focus our attention on that right now
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and you can have a sleep and someone will be in to speak with you tomorrow
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as cadaver dog searched his home josh burgess slept morning josh
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get any sleep i think so a little bit in the morning detective jacobs came in with an update
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we have shannon body she's been recovered but there's no doubt
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you're responsible for the death of shannon we have evidence you've
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already admitted to killing her her body's been recovered on your property
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police found shannon she had been at their home all along
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did you intend for this to happen josh
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can you put your head up for a few minutes i know it's listen i know this is tough josh
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i know it's difficult for you but i realize that
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burgess was again left alone he stared at shannon's head shot and whispered
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josh i just got some stuff here i'm gonna hook up
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i'm a detective at the home segment a short time later a third officer detective ray bangloy
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took over the interview my goal my purpose of this interview is try to get the truth out of him
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ultimately this is for for court purposes and obviously the more
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information we have the better and it's also for the victim's family so they can understand as to
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what happened and why this happened detective bang loy is a veteran police investigator and
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wit's current partner he does undercover work and that's why we're not showing his face
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he's well known for his interview skills and for getting offenders to confess i'm not here to judge
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you detective bangloy had the green light from the prosecutor to charge him but he wanted to
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give burgess one final chance to tell his side of the story i came home she was on the couch
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there's a little bit of misunderstanding where shannon believes that josh said break up sex and that's when she kind
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of just goes off on on josh and starts saying very cruel things he mentions um to josh that
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she regretted marrying him that she never needed him by her side and that he was the worst husband
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and just a lot of very cruel things and after that josh was trying to just calm
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her down and actually puts his hand on her mouth and shannon bites his hand
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and screams i just wanted her to stop talking you wanted her to stop talking but what was she saying
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she said she was disgusted touching you what else did she do what else did she say
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and what happened i
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he choked shannon until she was lifeless he seemed very remorseful and as he was
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telling me uh what happened he was he was crying and very emotional um but once he did get the
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story out you could just tell it was it was cathartic and it was like a huge weight off his
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shoulders you know you think about it eight months of carrying this lie and betraying the family that
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took him in it was a huge emotional relief for him shannon was gone murdered by her husband
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the entire time she was missing he kept her at their home while police searched the house more
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than once they never looked inside the storage containers on the back porch he said he put bags
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of empty bottles all around her so no one would notice then just two weeks before his arrest he
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moved her body and buried her in the yard i chose my lawn because it i just didn't want her to leave
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i didn't want to hide her burgess maintained his silence right up until that day he blurted his
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confession out to detective wit he even stood with the family as they made a plea to the public for
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help knowing the whole time exactly where shannon was i think josh was still very attached to her
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and didn't and this isn't something he'd ever done before i think he didn't know
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what to do with her body and he didn't know how to really part with her in maybe some ways and i
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don't know if that's what led to him hanging on to her for so long certainly not something you
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would normally see usually people try to get rid of the evidence quickly and that's not what he did
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after the break shannon's family finally learns the truth about what happened to shannon
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but would there be justice in her case
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police had a confession but would the punishment fit the crime in her family's eyes
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and now here's nancy hickst with the conclusion of shannon mcdill's last audition
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josh burgess was charged with the second degree murder of Shannon Madill her family
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finally began to grieve the loss a memorial is being planned for this sunday for a calgary woman
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murdered earlier this year the family of shannon madill burgess has been on an emotional roller
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coaster first she was missing for months then her body was discovered and her husband is charged
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with her murder nancy hicks is covering this story and nancy her family wants to celebrate shannon's
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life well this family has really been through the worst possible nightmare first not knowing what
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happened to shannon and then getting the worst news possible when her body was found so now
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nine months after she was last seen her family is going to hold a tribute to the 25 year old
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the sister will always be there to listen to laugh to lean on to comfort or simply to care
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there's no one who's more in your corner and no one you're more grateful to
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there's no better friendly sister and no better sister than you
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the truth about what happened that fateful night wouldn't come out until more than two years later
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during the court proceedings good afternoon we have breaking news from the calgary court center
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joshua burgess has pled guilty to second-degree murder in the death of his wife shannon
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global's nancy hixt is at the court with the latest nancy what can you tell us on this
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well the justice in this case will be passing his sentence in just a few minutes burgess faces an
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automatic life sentence defense and the crown have made a joint submission
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for parole ineligibility suggesting that burgess served 10 years before
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he is eligible for any kind of release there were tears in the courtroom as the details of
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the killing of shannon Shannon Madill burgess were read along with emotional victim impact statements
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joshua burgess admits he strangled his wife to death first with his hands and then his belt
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he then hit her body in a large plastic container that he kept on his patio for about seven
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months before burying her in his front yard he waited until the very last second to plead guilty
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based off of his behavior with the murder with everything he did afterwards
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the ways in which he intentionally went around to save his own hide repeatedly
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i find it very hard to believe that his choice to plead guilty had anything
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to do with helping us i believe it was entirely a selfish decision
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because he didn't want his confession to be aired and he didn't want to have to sit through a trial
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i should clarify because there was no trial the videotaped confession wasn't played in court the
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first time his confession was made public was on an episode of my crimebeat podcast about shannon's
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case josh burgess was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for at least 10 years
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no sentence would ever be sufficient to make up for the loss we've endured i think it's something
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that we've all kind of had to to to weigh uh you know the sense of betrayal of him sitting with us
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conversing with us and um you know that i think just makes it that much more difficult to
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to process shannon's family trusted josh he was like family to them so this
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was the ultimate betrayal the fact that that he led us on for seven months and was quite
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prepared to pretend he knew nothing about it and let us you know have to live with all of the
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the not knowing and that betrayal was really the only emotion that i felt i was not angry with him
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i was not i didn't want to harm him it was sadness and betrayal it was how could you do
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this to us and to our family we supported you when we thought that your wife was missing and you've
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done this thing the real gut punch happened when i finally found out the whole story because at this
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point in time i still believed that even if he was involved it had to have been an accident some way
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i never thought that he actually intentionally would hurt her but more you have a fight at the
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top of the stairs push her she hits her head on the way down and he panicked that was sort of the
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narrative that i had up until this point it wasn't it wasn't an accident he he chose to kill her
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josh burgess is eligible to apply for day parole in july of 2022 shannon's
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family plans to attend those hearings so the parole board fully understands the impact
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of his crime the way i like to describe it is that there's a little piece of my heart that's died
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and that's where she lives and sometimes i can take it out and grieve over it
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and then i can put it away and go back to what i was doing before
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shannon used to come to this spot to walk her dog or take in a view of the city it's
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just blocks from where she lived with josh it's where her ashes are scattered and it's where her
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family comes to remember her on her birthday and raise a glass in her honor she was such a
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an amazing funny creative intelligent individual that i just find it so sad that that that was
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taken away and you know i'm selfish i i'm i'm very sad it was taken away from me i'm sad it was taken
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away from all of the family and beyond that i'm sad that it was taken away from the world that
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because i think she could have done some really amazing things if she'd been given the time to
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the countless home videos of shannon are treasures her family holds dear
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there even just for a few moments she comes alive again on screen
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at the end of her final audition tape recorded the same day she was killed shannon signs off it's the
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closest thing to a goodbye her family ever got to hear so so yeah uh that's me uh are we good
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thanks i'm gonna go i have to do this editing thing for tonight you're gonna edit this right
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a memorial scholarship was handed out in Shannon Madill's name in 2019
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the gems for gem charity organization presented the special award to a survivor
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of domestic abuse to honor shannon's memory with the gift of education
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i'm anthony robart thank you for joining us tonight on crime week
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want more on this crime beat episode listen to my crimebeat podcast
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now for free on apple podcasts spotify or wherever you find your favorite
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