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whatever you say, mr. otto, you can stand up. on the count of murder, into the custody of corrections. for a period of 60 years. >> that was a great feeling, not only to bring the case to an end, but also, again, for the family, you know, to have a -- a good outcome for the family was very important to me. >> for virtually everyone involved, the most difficult aspect of the crime was determining ken otto's motive. >> mr. otto exhibited sadistic behavior with his treatment of animals and he may have been deciding to carry that kind of behavior to a higher level and harm a human being. couldn't understand why he would do what he did. >> we all have unanswered
>> he told us that that he was unable to perform sexually due to some surgery, a condition that he had. >> he has erectile dysfunction. it was not very successful. >> investigators checked shamia's cell phone records and discovered that five days before her disappearance she made two cell phone calls that bounced off a tower directly across the street from a 75-acre piece of land owned by ken otto. >> we thought maybe there was a possibility that she might be there being held against her will. i had officers on the ground and i directed that they go on to the property and confirm that there was no one there in field of assistant. >> police asked ken otto if they could search the property. >> he agreed to consent search of his property on easter sunday. >> when police arrived they noticed construction equipment, a trailer, some vehicles and a fire pit.
clubs. >> ken otto was a regular at the kahoots club where shamia worked and he admitted he had given shamia a ride to work that afternoon. >> he said that he called shamia and 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 he last saw her going through the door of kahoots and drove off. >> but another customer insists that he had given shamia a ride to kahoots that afternoon. his name was harold brown, another regular customer. he claimed that he not only dropped her off at the club, he stayed and went inside for a few hours. >> he also claimed he drove her home later that night but according to her family she never made it inside. so police now had two men, both insisting they were the last ones to see shamia alive and shamia's boyfriend was still a suspect.
don't -- you just can't trust everybody. >> in ken otto's version he claimed shamia walked into the club on the day he gave her a ride. but the club's security tapes disputed that. >> we viewed the surveillance tapes from kahoots and found that she never entered the establishment on the day she went missing. >> in harold brown's version he not only claimed that shamia went into the club after he dropped her off, he also said he went in, too, and stayed for several hours. again, the security tapes didn't show shamia or harold brown in the club that day, but the security tapes from the day before explained brown's confusion. it was determined he brought her home the day prior to her going missing. brown had simply gotten his dates confused. >> it was apparent that he was being truthful. there was no motive that we
two customers of the kahoots gentleman's club both claim they drove shamia smith to work on the day she disappeared. one of those men, ken otto, took a particular interest in shamia. >> other dancers at the kahoots said that ken otto would spend more time with shamia. he would give her extra attention and sit next to her and buy her drinks and talk with her. >> ken otto also admitted he had given shamia $500 to continue her education. >> and i told her nobody is going to give you $500 just for nothing. you had to do something, and i was like just promise me you won't never go alone with anybody again like. that because people -- you
could establish why he would commit a crime. >> so police focus their attention on ken otto since he had left a message on shamia's phone several hours before he admitted picking her up. on a hunch shamia's sister decided to try subterfuge. she called ken otto and left a message on his voice mail. >> i called him to pretend to be shamia. i'm like, kenny, it's mia. just wanted to know if you wanted to hook up and call me when you get this message. >> she never received a phone call back and that was very telling because now you ask yourself why wouldn't he call her back then and ask how she's doing. >> when police asked ken otto directly if he'd ever had a sexual relationship with shamia he said, that was impossible.
>> taking mr. otto into custody was a pretty proud moment in my life. >> by his own admission, ken otto picked shamia up for work, but the evidence shows that instead of taking her to the kahoots gentleman's club, he drove 30 miles to his property on the outskirts of town. no one knows what happened after that. >> just sit down for a second. >> i have to go to work. >> sit down. >> but prosecutors believe that at some point otto shot and killed shamia inside the trailer with a .40 caliber handgun. then he rolled her body in a piece of carpet, creating the bloodstains later found by forensic analysis. then he burned shamia's body for days in the fire pit. when cadaver dogs picked up the scent in the fire pit, otto asked police to leave. and he had eight days to carry
>> there was heavy burning in the fire pit. 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 that we were going to find something. there is a woodchiper on the property. there's history of cases in the past where people would use wood chippers to dispose of human bodies. >> at this point convinced he cooperated as much as he needed to, otto asked police to leave. >> you know what? i need you to wrap this up. >> all right -- >> now. >> when someone grants a right 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
out the most extensive cover-up investigators had ever seen. but he couldn't destroy everything. investigators found shell casings, a spent bullet, shamia'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 put her trust in everyone, and you cannot do that. >> ken otto was tried and convicted of shamia's murder and tampering with evidence. >> at the end of the day, he's a cold-blooded killer.
property, ken otto is in a full-sized tractor attempting to bury the 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 that 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 shamia smith's home and it unlocked and opened the house. so it was shamia smith's house key. >> but this doesn't prove otto killed her. in the fire pit police also found a spent bullet and three