LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — October 4 marked a darkish anniversary within the annals of Las Vegas crime. On that date in 1986, a 15-year-old Las Vegas lady named Sandy Shaw was arrested, charged with one in all Nevada’s most sensational homicide instances of the twentieth century, a criminal offense that got here to be often called the “Show and Tell Murder.” Sandy Shaw is out of jail and granted an unique interview with Chief 8 Information Now Investigator George Knapp.
Information cameras have documented Shaw’s bodily transformation over the many years. In the course of the authentic trial, she resembled a diminutive waif. She ultimately morphed right into a seemingly despondent inmate who feared she would by no means be launched from jail.
In 2025, Shaw resides a traditional life, having been paroled and pardoned for her crimes. She has risen to a administration place inside a Nevada firm that has workplaces on each ends of the state. Her co-workers say they consider her as a part of their household.
Las Vegas residents of the Nineteen Eighties possible keep in mind the salacious particulars of the homicide case that made Sandy Shaw right into a family title. Media reviews referred to it as “The Show and Tell Murder” based mostly on allegations that Shaw took a number of classmates out to see the physique of the sufferer within the days after the crime.
In the course of the trial, prosecutors painted a diabolical image of the circumstances. They alleged that 15-year-old Shaw was a “teenage temptress” and the “cold-blooded mastermind” of the homicide and theft, that she had lured an harmless Canadian vacationer named James “Cotton” Kelly out to the desert, the place he was shot a number of occasions by two different youngsters, Troy Kell and Billy Merritt.
A witness in the course of the trial claimed that Shaw bragged about planning the homicide the day earlier than the crime had occurred and that Shaw additionally mentioned she had pulled the set off that despatched a bullet into Kelly’s head “right between the eyes.”
Shaw informed 8 Information Now that just about each element offered within the trial was a wild extortion of the info. She additionally mentioned she did not admire the outline of her delivered by the chief prosecutor.
Sandy Shaw displays on Las Vegas ‘Present and Inform’ homicide trial. (KLAS)
“He said, ‘Don’t let her angelic looks fool you. The girl she appears to be today is not who she really is. She is a cold-blooded murderer,'” Shaw recalled in a current interview.
Shaw invited 8 Information Now to the house she now owns and brazenly mentioned what her supporters say are notable irregularities in her case. Though Shaw was 15 years outdated when she was arrested, the case was faraway from juvenile courtroom, and he or she was tried as an grownup. When she was convicted, Shaw was despatched to Nevada’s most safety jail as an alternative of a juvenile facility.
Throughout her prison trial, she was represented by an actual property lawyer who had by no means earlier than tried a prison case, and definitely had by no means represented a homicide defendant. Shaw believes her lawyer did his finest, however was overmatched in opposition to skilled prosecutors. Additionally, Shaw famous, the proceedings moved at an astonishing tempo. The trial started a mere 4 months after the homicide and was concluded in a mere 5 days.
Shaw mentioned the sentence was handed down instantly, throughout the identical listening to the place she first discovered she was discovered responsible. The choose sentenced Shaw to 2 phrases of life in jail with out parole and dominated the 2 life sentences could be served back-to-back.
Shaw thinks the sentencing was unlawful beneath Nevada regulation.
“[In] Nevada, it’s mandatory that you have a pre-sentencing investigation. You have a first-degree murder trial, you have a penalty phase, and a sentencing hearing,” she informed 8 Information Now. “I never had a presentencing investigation, and I didn’t have a penalty phase, nor did I have a sentencing hearing.”
Shaw added that the courtroom by no means discovered that James Kelly was not the sufferer’s actual title, and he was in Las Vegas not as a vacationer however most probably to launder cash for what Canadian lawmen described as a large-scale narcotics ring, an operation allegedly run by different members of his household. For weeks, Shaw alleges, Kelly, who was in his early 20s in 1986, had been stalking 15-year-old Shaw and had provided her cash to pose nude for him.
Sandy Shaw in a 2012 interview with KLAS. (KLAS)
An much more vital omission from the trial, Shaw defined, was the tumultuous private historical past that she had endured, occasions that Shaw’s relations say precipitated her to vary from an honor pupil and cheerleader right into a troubled teen. Two years earlier than the “Show and Tell Murder,” then-13-year-old Shaw was visiting a pal within the plush Rancho Circle growth when three individuals had been murdered. Shaw watched because the killer shot and killed three individuals.
Shaw remembered the second when an offended, gun-toting man burst into the room and roared, “You stupid son of a bitch, I’ve had enough,” as Shaw watched him shoot his first sufferer within the head. The lady “fell like a rag doll,” in response to Shaw. The sufferer’s head landed on Shaw’s ft, and items of her mind connected to Shaw’s clothes. She will be able to nonetheless think about the odor of gunpowder.
4 individuals died on the homicide scene that evening, together with the shooter, who took his personal life. Years later, a jail physician recognized Shaw with PTSD, most probably the results of what she noticed and heard on the evening of the triple homicide. Shaw doesn’t declare the sooner expertise is an excuse, nor does she let it dominate her life now.
Shaw is resolute.
“I’m not going to be bitter. I can’t, you know. I try to be kind to people. I mind my own business. I just kind of do my own thing,” she mentioned. “I’m not very trusting when it comes to people. I don’t go out of my way to meet people. I’m just more protective of Sandy now, probably be like that for the rest of my life.”
Shaw served a complete of 21 years behind bars earlier than she was paroled. In 2022, she acquired a pardon from the state in gentle of latest proof that was made public, proof that was not admitted throughout her 1986 trial.
One cause that is all developing now could be that she and a author, Dan Gleason, have collaborated on a tell-all e-book titled “Life Without.” It’s being launched Oct. 16, however is offered for pre-order now.
8 Information Now might be sharing extra of our interview with Shaw within the days forward.
