reggie basile fired the third shot. shannon touchet stayed outside, leaving the shoe impressions in the sand. benson and basile took rosana inside and forced her to open the safe. for reasons that are unclear, they didn t take all of the valuables inside the safe, but they spared rosana s life. i think my daughter saved my life that night. when i told that man that i was pregnant, it just did something to his mind that decided not to kill me. and yes, my daughter saved my life. while running to the getaway car, they dropped the box full of jewelry. as they drove away, benson threw his ski mask out of the car, unaware that it contained his dna. shannon touchet left ammunition
car, similar to the one witnesses saw near the murder scene. when questioned, both reggie basile and ronald benson denied any involvement in the robbery and murder. police obtained a search warrant and confiscated all of the shoes belonging to the two men, but none matched the shoe impressions found inside shaw s home. so investigators decided to look for genetic material inside the red ski mask that had been discarded after the murder. the forensic scientist turned the mask inside out and swabbed around the mouth area, hoping to pick up cells from saliva. using the entire surface area of the swab to collect as much of the potential cellular material that s there. using a dna test called str, or short tandem repeats,
the murder weapons have never been found, nor the shoes that left the impressions inside the shaws home. shannon touchet and reggie basile both pled guilty to first-degree murder and aggravated robbery and were sentenced to life in prison. ronald benson chose to go to trial. the jury found him guilty. he got the same sentence life in prison. the forensic efforts on the part of our crime lab were invaluable to the final conclusion in this case. without them, there would have been no conviction for any of the three defendants. it was amazing to me the about the dna, the shoe prints, all the evidence they can gather from the crime place, you know, that can help find out who did it. there s a lot of technology. if things are done right, everything falls into place. and sometimes a little bit of luck helps.
to go in the house when she opened the door. i was going to stand outside and wait for them. shannon said that the motive was robbery. this was how shannon repaid ron shaw for giving him a job at his grandfather s request. i was talking about my job, which mr. shaw, he was paying me good. i was telling them about that and how he had money and stuff. we started planning for, like, two weeks before, and then we finally went and did it. prosecutors say the three men drove to ron shaw s neighborhood and waited for the shaws to come home. witnesses saw the three men loitering in the area. when the shaws arrived, they were ambushed. ronald benson fired twice. [ gunshots ] reggie basile fired the third shot. shannon touchet stayed outside, leaving the shoe impressions in the sand.
material that s there. using a dna test called str, or short tandem repeats, scientists found dna from three different individuals inside the mask, but investigators needed to know who was wearing the mask before it was discarded. to find out, they analyzed the swab from the ski mask to determine who left most of the saliva behind, and the results of this test were clear. in this case, the major contributor of dna matched that of ronald benson. the red ski mask was very important because it corroborated the story that we were able to receive from mrs. shaw. mrs. shaw indicated that the person with the red mask was the most aggressive in the robbery. the identity of the other two dna profiles in the mask was inconclusive.