welcome back to dateline extra. i m craig melvin. who killed shelly nance? police were focusing on two potential suspects. shelly s roommate and her boyfriend. both denied any involvement in her murder. but according to his roommate nathan was obsess would her. and police had found the bloody baggy in his bathroom. soon even more details of troubling behavior would emerge, but this time not about nathan. here again keith morris. reporter: they took shelley nance s body back to italy, texas, not quite a week after the murder. held her funeral at the family s church. and it seemed like the whole town was there, along with many of shelley s fellow students from the art institute of dallas. it s the most horrible thing we ve ever been through. the day after the funeral, i was ready to kill somebody. reporter: the institute held a memorial, too.
your king. a legacy of leaders, speeders and serpent feeders. the alfa romeo giulia, stelvio and c37. reporter: to say that murder victim shelley nance had a boyfriend was perhaps an overstatement, at least as the term is generally used in the 21st century. his name was nathan shuck. he was a classmate at the art institute 20 years old, like shelley, and from a dallas suburb, where he grew up with his mom and grandmother. like shelley, he seemed reserved, at least to most people. but in class and with close friends, he was energetic. shelley and nathan had been going out if you could call it that for a couple of months.
said she knocked on shelley s closed bedroom door, got no response and then entered the room. i saw her feet and she wasn t moving. so i turned on the light, and said hey, shelley, are you okay? she wasn t moving? so i went in and i shook her in her bed was she covered up? originally the blanket was on her and you shake her with her blanket over her. yes, sir. and you shake her and she don t wake up. you pull the cover off of her and you shake her again? i saw the blood and and i touched her arm and she was cold. and [ crying ] as soon as you seen that, what happened? i yelled her name i don t know how many times. reporter: ashley told the detective it was all just an innocent mistake when she told the art institute she d seen shelley alive and well the night before when, in fact, shelley was dead by then, which didn t
police zero in on three fellow students. the dead girls friend. a small group of shelley s fellow students. had a budding artist designed a seemingly perfect murder? there was the boyfriend, fascinated with weapons. he had daggers. knives. swords. who collects that kind of stuff? reporter: there was the guy always hoping to get her attention. trying to corner her in the hallways at school. texting her on the phone. she s like, he s really weirding me out. reporter: but maybe the brutality of the crime pointed to the roommate. something like a lover would do. a spurned lover. absolutely. shelly nance was a shy girl. a budding artist who greatest pleasure was to sit in her room and draw. with thattal entd. she earned a scholarship to the art institute of dallas. she was thriving. then, the unthinkable happened. shelly was stabbed to death.
hell. not ever. she was very smart. non-athletic. didn t like@athletics. that was our department. just very shy. she sit in her room and read a book. play video games. never had to worry about her. she wasn t into like tattoos and piercings. and alcohol. and sex for sure. she avoid td majority of everything that could have gotten her into trouble. i was happy because of that. when she was a senior. her teachers suggested she enter an art contest. sponsored by the art institute of dallas. she s like ot not that gad. the art teacher said you are. and she won. the same piece of art they took and put in the national competition. and it won her fourth place