On March 22, 1993, nineteen-year-old Carmen Van Huss visited her sick grandmother in the hospital with her dad and brother. She drove them home, and her father suggested she stay the night—it was late, and her apartment was on the other side of town. Carmen said she needed to do laundry to have her uniform ready for her shift at Pizza Hut the next day. She hugged them goodbye and drove off.
Two days later, a friend of Carmen’s stopped by the pizzeria hoping to ask for help getting a job there. Carmen wasn’t there. The manager said she hadn’t shown up for her shift the day before. He’d tried calling her several times, got no answer, and assumed she’d quit without notice.
Her friend knew Carmen better than that. Carmen was responsible and never mentioned wanting to leave. She asked the manager to check emergency contacts. Carmen’s dad was listed.
Her father said he’d tried calling Carmen the day before, too, but she hadn’t answered. He assumed she was busy working. Now he was worried. He drove straight to her apartment complex.
The first thing he saw was her boyfriend’s car in the parking lot—Carmen often drove it, and her purse was still inside. He went up to her door and found a note from the building manager: neighbors had complained about late-night noise, and she was asked to keep it down. He knocked. No answer.
Then he noticed the door was unlocked. He stepped inside and found his daughter lying on the floor in a pool of blood, most of her clothes missing. He ran out and called an ambulance. When paramedics arrived, Carmen was already dead.
It didn’t take long to realize this was murder, and police were called in. Investigators spoke to the neighbors. Around 11:30 p. m.
on March 22, they heard Carmen come home. She wasn’t alone—a man was with her. They heard her laughing and heard his cheerful, calm voice. Then, around 1:30 a.
m. , they heard Carmen scream: “Get away from me. ” After that, someone ran out of the apartment, and it went quiet. None of the neighbors called the police.
They only complained to the building manager the next morning, assuming the man was Carmen’s boyfriend. Inside the apartment, police found empty food wrappers and beer bottles. Carmen had clearly spent the evening with someone she knew. The crime scene showed a struggle: a flipped table, torn clothes scattered on the floor.
Detectives believed the killer went into the kitchen afterward to wash blood off before leaving. The coroner found over sixty stab wounds. Carmen had also been sexually assaulted, and biological material was recovered from the perpetrator. But DNA technology at the time wasn’t advanced enough to produce a profile.
No fingerprints, no DNA matches, no leads. Nothing of value was taken, so robbery was ruled out. Police first looked at her boyfriend. He was in Arizona, thousands of miles away, and his alibi checked out.
Then they looked at friends and coworkers, but no one could be connected to the crime. With no solid evidence, the case went cold. Carmen’s funeral was held a week later. During the service, her father got a call from the hospital: Carmen’s grandmother had passed away.
The family had lost two people in days. They couldn’t afford another funeral, so friends and neighbors organized a fundraiser to cover the costs. For years, Carmen’s family fought for justice. They stayed in touch with police, gave interviews, and begged the public for any information.
Nothing worked. Carmen’s father never recovered from the loss. In 2002, he died in a car accident. Her younger brother Jimmy took up the cause, staying in contact with the police, but detectives always told him the same thing: no leads.
In 2013, Detective William Carter took an interest in the case. He wasn’t in the homicide unit, but he had a record of solving cold cases on his own time. He reached out to Carmen’s family and started digging. The process stretched on for months.
He asked for fresh analysis of the evidence and obtained partial male DNA, but it wasn’t enough to identify anyone. In 2015, Carter pushed for DNA analysis of the biological samples taken from Carmen’s body, hoping modern technology could give them a profile. The results were shocking: the DNA belonged to a woman. Carter knew something was wrong.
He discovered the lab had mixed up samples. He asked for a new analysis, but the lab refused, saying they lacked funds—and the police department had already paid $1,600 for the botched results and wouldn’t pay again. Carter refused to give up. He started a crowdfunding campaign and contributed his own money to show his commitment.
The response was enormous. In just seven hours, he went past his goal. Any extra money, he said, would go toward the existing $10,000 reward for information. Two days later, Carter called Carmen’s brother with bad news: he had been ordered to stop working on the case.
The department claimed the decision wasn’t linked to the fundraiser, but the public backlash was fierce. People demanded to know why the department wasn’t paying for a crucial test. Carmen’s brother started a petition to get Carter reinstated. The outcry grew so loud that the department held a press conference, calling it a misunderstanding.
They insisted Carter was never barred, refunded all donations, and promised to cover the DNA test themselves. Carter was allowed back on the case. This time, the lab used the correct sample and extracted a full DNA profile of an unknown man. But the profile didn’t match anyone in the FBI’s database.
The mystery remained. For years, Carter looked into every man Carmen might have known. He was sure the killer was someone she trusted. But he kept hitting dead ends.
In 2023, the police brought in Parabon, a company specializing in forensic genetic genealogy. The method uses voluntary public DNA databases to find distant relatives of an unknown suspect, then builds family trees until the most likely candidate emerges. It was their last hope. After several months, experts identified a man who fit the profile: fifty-two-year-old Dana Shepherd.
At the time of Carmen’s murder, he hadn’t just lived in the same apartment complex—he lived right next door. Shepherd had a long criminal record, but mostly for nonviolent crimes: theft, carjacking, driving without a license. That’s why his DNA had never been in the FBI’s database. What shocked detectives was that Shepherd’s name appeared nowhere in the original case files.
He was never considered a suspect. Perhaps because neighbors reported hearing footsteps running down the stairs, police assumed the killer fled the scene. They never considered the possibility that he lived just steps from Carmen’s apartment. Shepherd was living in Missouri, working as a janitor at a university.
Detectives got a warrant and drove out to see him. When they showed up at his door, Shepherd started shaking but cooperated and gave a DNA sample. The lab confirmed it was a perfect match. In September 2024, Dana Shepherd was arrested and extradited to Indiana to face justice.
He denied any involvement. The case went to court. The prosecution’s version is that Carmen knew Shepherd well. He came over for dinner and drinks that night.
At some point, he made unwanted advances, and when Carmen resisted, he attacked her with a knife. Shepherd remains in custody, denied bail, awaiting trial. Carmen’s brother thanked the investigators for finally naming a suspect, even after more than thirty years. The family is bracing for a trial that could take years.
If convicted, Shepherd faces up to 105 years in prison. The prosecution may hold back additional evidence to reveal at trial, but the DNA match alone could be enough to secure a conviction—or push Shepherd to take a plea deal.
