like jermeir she also worked in law enforcement. he met shannon back in 2000 when he was in the police academy. shannon was a 911 communicator and she was one of the people that was in the training session. reporter: shannon was 21 then. tall, striking, and single, raising two kids. and this is her family. brother keith jr. and her parents anne and keith crawley. she was determined to give her kids a good life and a nice home. and a good education. very caring and loving mother. and if you ask her, she d say, i m just a mom. and that s how she put it, i m just a mom. reporter: now at the durham police department detectives wanted to know more about shannon s relationship with jermeir stroud, so they interviewed jermeir, who was cooperative, but guarded. he said, yeah, she caught my eye. i mean, she s 5 10 , long pretty hair, thin. and we spoke for a short time. that was in 2000. around 2004 they bumped in again
police thought they had the rite person. they arrested shannon and charged her with the murder. investigators hadn t completely taken their eyes off him. the man who was involved simultaneous with both women. shannon s father, her mother. and her brother never doubted her. is it possible that you don t want to believe she s a murder. no. she s not a murderer. not in her nature or character. i thought she was lying about it. i wouldn t be on camera saying that. i wouldn t be sitting here. in may of 2007, shannon was out on bail. she and her attorney walked into the police station. this wasn t just another interview. shannon was prepared to share
he says, no, that s preposterous. you can check my phone, you can check my work logs, you can see where i was. i ll do whatever you need me to do. reporter: but shannon told police all the evidence they needed just might be sitting in jermeir s garbage can, which was where she suggested he stashed the knife. and sure enough, jermeir s going out to put his garbage in his can and sees the knife in there. he immediately calls his police department and that s when they find the neighbors who said, yeah, they saw the night before some other car come up and heard a thump and somebody saw somebody throwing something in his can and leave. it wasn t shannon. no identification was made about that. reporter: just a dark figure in a hoodie. that s correct. reporter: was the knife planted? there s no proof either way, but it was tested, and there was nothing that connected it to jermeir. as for his whereabouts at the time of the alleged rape? he actually was on the phone and didn t
intimidate her, what s the point in disguising his voice? correct. it was just no way in my mind that that was jermeir. because when i heard these tapes i knew i had the right person. reporter: the crawley family was infuriated. they were certain the calls cleared their daughter and revealed jermeir as denita s killer. they also insist jermeir was lurking in the charlotte neighborhood where shannon was staying. what we went through in charlotte with him stalking her because he was, to me, he was stalking me as well. honestly, i believe that he was his intention was to kill both of them. i do. i think they both rejected him and he was going to kill both of them. reporter: then something happened that seemed to bear out their worst fears. shannon was out on bail and living with family in charlotte some 100 miles from greensboro, where jermeir stroud still lived and worked for the police department.
welcome back. north carolina jury found shannon crawly guilty. rejecting her story that stroud was actually the strigtrigger m. she agreed to sit down with us. answering questions and offering new details. the north carolina correctional institution for women in raleigh. it s where you will find shannon crawley today. after weeks of discussions she finally agreed to talk with us behind bars. it s still not too late to say you don t want to do this. you went through a lot of trouble. reporter: but as our cameras rolled, shannon began to tell the story of her relationship with jermeir stroud. he was charming.