Authorities in Ohio have closed a six-decade-old cold case involving a woman killed and found dismembered in a gravel pit and canal channel.
The scattered remains of Daisy Shelton, 43, were found near Tipp City in June 1964, starting with a severed arm pulled from a gravel pit by a fisherman.
Nearly 60 years later, Miami County Prosecutor Anthony Kendall approved closing the case, the Miami County Sheriff's Office said Friday.
The decision was made based on information from a key witness and statements from a suspect, both of whom are now dead, the sheriff's office said.
Kendall considered the case solved based on evidence gathered before the death of the key witness, officials said.
The grisly case began in 1964, when a fisherman found Shelton's severed arm in a gravel pit outside Tipp City, officials said.
Four days later, another fisherman found a burlap bag containing a human torso in a channel of the old Miami Erie canal, authorities said. A head and leg were later found in the canal.
The remains were identified as those of Daisy Evelyn Shelton of Dayton.
But for more than a half-century, the investigation stalled, until 2017 when a witness of the murder, who feared he was dying while in the hospital, confessed to a nurse. The witness survived and was interviewed by detectives.
He told them he saw someone kill Shelton by striking her in the head with a hammer at a home on Springfield Street in Dayton.
The witness said that Shelton was dismembered in the home, her body discarded in bodies of water in and around Tipp City.
The person named as the suspect was cooperative with detectives and consented to multiple interviews. Neither the witness nor the suspect was identified by name by authorities.
Initially, the suspect denied knowing Daisy Shelton despite their living on the same street and working for the same employer. During an interview in August 2017, the suspect reluctantly admitted to knowing Shelton.
The focus of the interviews turned to a box used to transport Shelton's dismembered body parts, brought up by the suspect of his own volition, authorities said. He claimed that his DNA was on the box as the result of a set-up perpetrated by the witness, officials said.
He eventually conceded that a box from his house was used to carry Shelton's dismembered body parts, and said that Shelton might have been killed in his home, according to authorities.
He ultimately admitted that he looked guilty and could be convicted if the case went to trial, officials said. The witness gave testimony to a grand jury but died before the case could be prosecuted. The suspect, in turn, died in Sept. 2022 at the age of 92.
"Cold case homicides are among the most difficult investigators confront, but the Miami County Sheriff's Office remains dedicated to pursuing all open cases," Chief Deputy Steve Lord of the Miami County Sheriff's Office wrote in the statement. "Revisiting cases is a crucial aspect of bringing a sense of justice to the victim's family, even if it comes long after the crime occurred."
