by his own admission, otto was the last known person to see shamaia alive when he picked her up at her home on the day she disappeared. otto allowed police to conduct an initial search of his property, but asked them to leave when he realized they brought cadaver dogs. in order to perform a more detailed search, detectives needed both a warrant and lots of heavy equipment and manpower. there were two jurisdictions involved in this. there was a substantial rainstorm that came during that week that hampered the efforts and they all came together causing an eight-day delay. not only could the rain storm have washed away any evidence, but eight days gave otto plenty of time to clean up a possible crime scene. all of our fears are realized when the police go on the property. ken otto is in a full-sized tractor, attempting to bury the
ken otto was a regular at the kahoots club where shamaia worked and he admitted he had given shamaia a ride to work that afternoon. he said that he called shamaia nd when he called her, she requested that he bring her to work because she didn t have any transportation. so he agreed to bring her to work. he said that he last saw her going through the front doors of the kahoots and that he drove off. but police found another customer who insisted he had given shamaia a ride to kahoots that afternoon. his name was harold brown, another regular customer. he claimed he not only dropped shamaia off at the club, he stayed and went inside for a few hours. he also claimed he drove shamaia home later that night but according to her family, she never made it inside. so police now had two men, both
frame of his 30-foot trailer that was demolished and burned. mr. otto s property looked like manmade hell, a person that was in the process of destroying everything. trees, digging holes, destroying the dirt road that goes into the property. but the one thing otto hadn t yet destroyed was the fire pit. i was very happy to see that the fire pit hadn t been disrupted all that much. almost immediately detectives got a break. in the embers they found a house key. i took the key, cleaned it up, placed it in the door lock of shamaia smith s home and it unlocked and opened the house. so it was shamaia smith s house key. but this didn t prove otto killed her. in the fire pit, police also
when cadaver dogs picked up the scent in the fire pit, otto asked police to leave. and he had eight days to carry out the most extensive cover-up investigators had ever seen. but he couldn t destroy everything. investigators found shell casings, a spent bullet, shamaia s house key, hundreds of bone fragments, and even part of her foot, which all told the gruesome tale of a needless murder. i think she was very naive about everyone she knew. like she just put her trust in everyone, and you cannot do that. ken otto was tried and convicted of shamaia s murder and tampering with evidence. at the end of the day, he s a cold-blooded killer.
there was the smell of fuel. but something else bothered investigators. apparently otto didn t mind the police looking around but the cadaver dogs were another story. he became very upset when the dogs arrived. it appeared to me he was worried we were going to find something. there was a wood chipper on the property. there s history of cases in the past where people have used wood chippers to dispose of human bodies. at this point, convinced he had cooperated as much as he needed to, otto asked the police to leave. you know what? i need you to wrap this up. all right. now. when someone grants a consent to search their property, they are entitled to revoke that, but by this time the cadaver dogs had already picked up a scent in the fire pit. one of the dogs found a chunk of flesh that we it appeared to be animal flesh.