with fresh eyes. john, who was the chief assistant da for dekalb county georgia. well, we never really had much at all until the u.s. attorney s office did in fact bring the boxes to. us and i was able to find an empty store room in the courthouse. and created, what i call a war room for this case. so i buried myself in his office, started going through the file. one thing was clear, hinton had been the key is suspect early on because he had a criminal past. as petri came across the file he came across a single name. tammy singleton. she told the same story she had told the fbi. it was a real small town. i did know anybody. back in before the disappearance, she was 14 years old and living with her parents in illinois. one day, she got a call from the ex-boyfriend.
per se, to anybody, but he made horribly incriminating statements to three inmates that, to me, we re just so believable. one of them remembered an eerie late night conversation. busch had waked up in the middle of the night and said, i didn t do this, the demon inside of me killed that girl, and then went back to sleep. yet, jailhouse niches, as a call, to get a lot of side i. yes they do. right. the state had other witnesses to bring in stories of his criminal past. tammy singleton came to court to tell how hinton kidnapped and assaulted her when she was 14. and to show he no longer had any power over her. are you seeing him? are you making eye contact? i look directly at him. he tried to avoid my stare, but i did look directly at him. i forcefully said what had transpired. i needed people to understand that he did have a modus
and he actually punched me. and i somehow managed to connect with his thumb and i bit him. and then he recoiled because he was in pain bleeding. and his wife came running down the stairs behind him. she sees me. she says, what s going on? i said, gail, it s me, tammy singleton. he tried to rape me. and she breaks down into hysteria and is crying and and immediately he s like a chastised little boy. and she takes control so his demeanor of the situation. has changed again, huh? yeah, he and he s begging begging. she says, butch, you ve got problems. you need to get help. butch hinton was arrested and charged with kidnapping, and taking indecent liberties with a child. he entered a plea of guilty but mentally ill. how long was he inside? he received a four-year sentence and he served about 21 months and came out after the 21 months in jail. that short prison sentence in tammy s case back in the 80s meant that he was a free man. free to divorce and remarry,
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didn t you have? well, we never really had much at all until the u.s. attorney s office did, in fact, bring the boxes to us. and i was able to find an empty store room in the courthouse and created, what i called, a war room for this case. so i buried myself in this office, started going through the file. one thing was clear, hinton had been their key suspect early on because he had a criminal record. as petrey began poring through the file, he came across a name, tammy singleton. she sat down with us to tell the same harrowing story she told to the fbi. really small town, everybody knew everybody. back in 1982, 12 years before shannon s disappearance, tammy was 14 years old and living with her family in neponset, illinois. one day she got a call from the brother of her ex-boyfriend. the brother was 22 years old, already married. he asked tammy to get together, and she agreed to meet him on her way to a slumber party. i m waiting around with my overnight bag, and he finally p