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In 2010, Hailey Dunn was a 13-year-old girl who lived in Colorado City, Texas, an area located in Central West Texas in Mitchell County, 250 miles (402 km) west of Dallas. At the time of this case fifteen years ago, the city had a population of a little over 4,000 residents.
Hailey was an outgoing 8th grader at Colorado City Middle School where she was a cheerleader who was full of love & laughter. On top of cheerleading, she loved softball, ran track, played basketball & played the saxophone in the band. She had a love of the outdoors, had no issues getting dirty & she was quick to stand up for what she believed was right. She was smart, she loved to tell jokes or play pranks on people & she adored Guitar Hero & singing with her friends & family.
Hailey was born on August 28, 1997 to parents, Clinton “Clint” Dunn & Billie Jean Dunn & she had an older brother by three years, David. In 2008, Clint & Billie Jean separated & in order to maintain a sense of consistency, they decided the kids would stay in their home with their mom while Clint moved in with his mom until he was able to find his own place.
Hailey vanished two days after Christmas on Monday, December 27, 2010. At the time, she was living with her mom, her mom’s boyfriend, Shawn Adkins & her brother, David. According to her grandmother, Connie Jones,when the family came to celebrate on Christmas day, she seemed to be in good spirits & was excited about her gifts, including her new iPod.
David left their home on Sunday night at 9 pm to go to a sleepover with two friends & the last time he saw his sister, Hailey was playing on his Xbox. By the time he got back at 4 pm on Monday, she was gone. Billie Jean said that she last saw her daughter on Sunday night somewhere around 10 or 11 pm when Hailey was laying in her bed, watching TV. When she left the next morning for work at 6 am, she peeked in on her daughter, who was asleep in her bed.
Shawn Adkins was the last known person to see Hailey & when he later spoke with investigators, he indicated that when he got home at about 3 pm that Monday, Hailey was watching TV in the living room & he headed to the bedroom he shared with Billie. He said that Hailey came in & told him that she was going to stop by her dad’s house & then have a sleepover with her friend, Mary Beth. At the time, Clint was living in an apartment just across the street. Before she set off on foot, she asked Shawn to tell her mom her plans when she got home from work.
However, after it was determined that Hailey was missing, Clint told investigators that his daughter hadn’t stopped by that day & he last saw his daughter on Sunday, one day earlier so Hailey never made it to his house, had that truly been her intended destination nor had she arrived at Mary Beth’s house. When investigators later spoke with Mary Beth, she told them that they never made any plans to have a sleepover. This meant that either Hailey was lying to Shawn when she left the house or Shawn’s story was untrue.
When Hailey still hadn’t come home on Tuesday, Billie Jean called Clint from work at about noon & he explained that he hadn’t seen Hailey the previous day. At this point, Billie Jean contacted authorities to report their daughter missing.
In the first three days after Hailey was reported missing, her case was treated as a runaway despite the fact that the Dunn family were adamant that Hailey would have never run away. According to Clint, who appeared on the Grieving Our Babies Podcast, he was contacting the FBI several times a day as well as local news stations during this time, begging for something to be done to no avail. Three days later the case was reclassified as a missing child case.
When an investigation did begin, a search for Hailey expanded across much of West Texas, but there was sadly no sign of her. On January 4, 2011, one week after Hailey vanished, the FBI & Texas Rangers also became involved. Bloodhounds tracked Hailey’s scent to a local motel, but when the motel’s surveillance video was checked, there was no sign of her.
By January 2011, Hailey’s disappearance gained national attention after Nancy Grace as well as other media outlets reported her case. It was during this time when suspicions began to grow against both Billie Jean & Shawn as many found Shawn’s version of events questionable. When word got out that the couple hosted a New Year’s Eve party despite the fact that Hailey was missing, people became even more alarmed.
According to Clint, the first time he ever interacted with Shawn ended in a physical altercation with an arrest on Shawn’s end. After the police responded to the altercation, they found a weapon in Shawn’s car & Clint indicated that he wanted to press charges.
Shawn & Billie Jean had a tumultuous relationship & in February 2010, when they got into a fight, Billie Jean contacted authorities. During a recorded phone call, she explained that he threatened to kill both her as well as her children. According to Clint, Shawn told her that he would do something that everyone would remember forever.
Sadly, as the search for Hailey continued, days turned to weeks which turned into months & throughout this time, investigators interviewed various people & followed all leads.
Investigators learned that on the day that Hailey disappeared, Shawn incidentally quit his job in Snyder where he worked for a pipeline company. His boss indicated that after he came in for his shift at 6 am, he got a Coke, stayed for about ten minutes & left after they got into an argument.
Not only was Shawn the last known person to have seen Hailey, but when questioned about her disappearance, both he & Billie Jean failed their polygraph tests. During Billie’s first polygraph, she was found to be under the influence of narcotics & she went on to fail her second exam. This was something she could not explain & ended the interview by walking out of the room.
Despite the fact that Shawn volunteered to take a polygraph test, he walked out of the exam on two occasions. He failed the first phase of his third exam & during the second phase, he indicated that Hailey could be found in Scurry County, but when he was asked more specific questions about her location, he refused to complete the exam.
A major component of the investigation was cell tower records & cell phone data which were analyzed by the FBI’s Cellular Analysis Survey Team (CAST). Shawn initially told investigators that after he quit his job in Snyder just after 6 am, he made the 50 minute drive to his mother’s house in Big Spring, however, between 6:35-6:56 am, his phone was connecting to cell towers near the home he shared with Billie Jean & her children in Colorado City (38 miles/61 km away from Big Spring). Since David was with his friends for a sleepover & Billie Jean left for work before 6:30 am, Hailey would have been the only one home at this point. Analysis of Shawn’s cell phone data proved that there was a gap in his pings between 7-9 am.
From 9:38 am-2:40 pm Shawn’s cell phone connected to towers near his mother’s home in Big Spring, 38 miles away from Colorado City. He told investigators that when he got back home at 3 pm Hailey getting ready to leave, however, this is questionable since his phone connected to a tower on I-20 between Big Spring & Colorado City at 2:56 pm. Since the drive back to Colorado City would have taken at least 34 minutes total, 17 minutes had he been halfway home, he would not have been back by 3 pm (rather, he would have arrived at 3:13 pm at the earliest).
Hailey used a phone that belonged to her mother which police seized for the investigation & phone records indicate that she sent an outgoing text message at 2:16 pm on the Monday she went missing, December 27, 2010 as well as a second text at 2:27 pm. One of the texts was sent to her friend, Mary Beth, who she claimed to be having a sleepover with that evening; the text read, WYD or WRUD (meaning, what are you doing?). There was never a response from Mary Beth.
In mid-January 2011, authorities found a box inside Billie & Shawn’s home that contained hundreds of documents about crimes that spanned from serial killers to mass murderers, sexual sadists, murders of family members. When confronted about his, Billie claimed that these interests were only a hobby
On February 25, 2011, authorities found thousands of pictures of child pornography on a memory stick in both Billie’s home as well as on a computer in Shawn’s mother’s home.
On March 17, less than a month later, when authorities arrived at Billie’s house to execute a search warrant for Shawn, she told them that he wasn’t there, but when they searched the home, they found him hiding in a closet. Billie was arrested for making a false report to police, hindering prosecution & possession of a dangerous drug. She was charged & later sentenced to one year of probation in June 2011, right around the time she, David & Shawn relocated to Austin.
During an interview in 2013, Billie indicated that after her daughter initially went missing, she defended Shawn Adkins because she believed that he was innocent. However, as time went on, she began to consider the possibility of his involvement based on his actions during their break up. When she finally managed to get him to move out, he continuously harassed & threatened her which allowed her to see another side of him. She denies that she ever covered for him after Hailey went missing
On the day that his sister went missing, David came home from his friend’s house at 4 pm & found his house locked. He began pounding on the door & when he still couldn’t get in, he climbed through a window & later told his dad that he found Shawn standing in the hallway with a deer in the headlights look.
Shawn left at 6 pm to make the 30 minute drive to pick Billie up from work in Snyder & according to an affidavit, he & Billie later made two ATM withdrawals totaling $140 which they used to purchase drugs from someone in Snyder.
Sadly, years went by & there was no sign of Hailey & no arrests were made in regards to her disappearance. Hailey’s family waited more than two agonizing years for any answer in regards to her whereabouts & when news did come, it was devastating.
On March 16, 2013, a man named Curtis Lloyd was out hunting for arrowheads when he came upon human remains which included a skull, a tooth & a femur as well as blue sweatpants. On the day she disappeared, Hailey had been wearing blue sweatpants, a short-sleeved shirt & pink & white tennis shoes. These remains were near Lake JB Thomas in Scurry County, a 30 mile (48 km) distance from where she was last seen, a location that had been previously searched.
With the use of dental records, a little more than a month later, on April 26, 2013, these remains were positively identified as belonging to Hailey.
After Hailey’s remains were located, they were sent to the University of North Texas where a forensic anthropologist found blunt force injuries to Hailey’s skull that would have been inflicted at or near the time of death & likely resulted in significant bleeding.
Her remains were eventually laid to rest in Luling City Cemetery in Luling, Texas in January 2017, nearly four years later.
Sadly, despite finding her remains, the years continued to tick by & no one faced justice for brutally murdering the innocent teen girl.
It wasn’t until 2020, a decade after Hailey’s murder, when Ricky Thompson, the district attorney for the 32nd Judicial District, consulted with the Texas Rangers Unsolved Crimes Investigation Program & the Rangers decided to take a fresh look at the investigation. As they interviewed various people, investigators honed in on Adkins.
It wasn’t until June 2021, eleven years after Hailey was murdered & eight years after her remains were located, when a then 35-year-old Shawn Adkins, the sole person of interest in the case, was arrested. He was transferred to the Mitchell County Jail & held on a $2 million bond.
On December 30, 2022, Shawn was indicted by a grand jury on one count each of murder & tampering with evidence in the death of Hailey Dunn. Court documents revealed for the first time how they believe Hailey was murdered. Shawn was accused of striking Hailey in the head with an unknown object causing her death. The tampering of evidence stems from him allegedly disposing of her remains near the lake after her murder.
Shawn’s trial date was set for June 2022, but findings of new evidence pushed the trial back to April 2023. When his attorneys asked for a continuance, once again, the trial was pushed. In late May 2023, Hailey’s family were told that Adkins’ defense team rejected a plea deal that would have resulted in a 30 year prison sentence.
However, in June 2023, after Adkins spent two years behind bars awaiting trial, the Dunn family were given the devastating news that the case was dismissed altogether, citing lack of evidence, & with this, Adkins was released a free man.
According to documents, the case was dropped without prejudice, meaning the state can refile the charges against him at any time. Meanwhile, prosecutors continue to view him as the primary suspect in Hailey’s murder.
The Dunn family were left feeling defeated & disgusted, believing that law enforcement agencies dropped the ball on multiple occasions. It is Clint’s belief that from the beginning, his daughter’s case has been mishandled. He feels that the initial investigation was done by a small police force with inexperienced officers which resulted in evidence being mishandled or contaminated by the time the FBI & the Texas Rangers got involved. Files connected to the case have gone missing while a critical test that could have connected Shawn to the location where Hailey’s body was found, is now being disputed.
Court documents indicate that experts have conducted soil analysis using Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) which determined that soil collected from Adkins’ work boots had a high degree of chemical similarity to that of soil samples collected from the site where Hailey’s remains were found. According to Clinton, the test came back with a 94-95% match.
On the other hand, court documents indicate that the soil was also sent to the FBI for analysis utilizing a different method which proved that the soil samples were not a match. According to scientists within the FBI, NIRS testing is not a methodology sanctioned by the forensic community for soil analysis & should not be relied on in a criminal trial.
Clint also feels he has not been kept up-to-date in regards to his daughter’s investigation & has been blindsided. While he continues to meet with new anthropologists & labs to request additional & scientifically recognized testing, the grieving father believes that Adkins’ release is a result of more than a decade of disorganized investigation, failure to follow-up on critical information & poor communication between agencies.
Because many agencies were involved in Hailey’s investigation, prosecutors also believe that many of the tips & leads were not properly investigated or cleared.
Multiple searches were done of Hailey’s home while the State of Texas is unaware of any forensic testing that was done in the house immediately following her disappearance or at the site where her remains were located. However, at some point in time, Hailey’s bed sheets were removed from her bedroom, potentially to test for the possibility of sexual molestation prior to her murder. A vehicle was also searched & evidence was collected that was never forensically tested.
There are also questions in the timeline of events. If Shawn returned to the home at 3 pm, he would have only had a short time to clean the crime scene, had he attacked & murdered Hailey while they were together at home. Some sources indicate that David came home at 4 pm while others indicate 5 pm which would have given him no more than two hours to murder Hailey, erase evidence & dispose of her remains had she been murdered at the home in the 3 o’clock hour. If she was murdered at her home, according to the forensic anthropologist, the blunt-force trauma she suffered would have resulted in significant bleeding.
Court documents say that Shawn was the last person to have seen Hailey on December 27, 2010 while investigators believe that she was kidnapped & transported against her will.
Because there is no direct eyewitness to implicate Shawn, nor any current forensic evidence that directly links him to the crime, the prosecution believe that evidence is insufficient to proceed to trial & additional investigation is needed.
You can follow updates about Hailey’s case at the Who Killed Hailey Dunn Facebook page.
If you have any information in regards to Hailey Dunn’s murder, please contact the Texas Rangers Cold Case Unit at 1-800-252-TIPS (8477) & use reference number 153. Tips can be left anonymously. There is a $3,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest.
References:
- Your Basin: Father of slain Colorado City teen says investigation was ‘mishandled’
- YouTube: Grieving Our Babies Podcast: Hailey Dunn’s father shares his heartbreaking experience
- The State of Texas vs. Shawn Adkins
- Your Basin: Slain teen Hailey Dunn would be 27, here’s what we know about her death
- Wikipedia: Colorado City, Texas
- News West 9: State explains reason for dismissal of Shawn Adkins case
- CBS News: Texas Rangers arrest suspect Shawn Adkins for murder of teenager Hailey Dunn in 2013
- Big Country Homepage: Document: Improper vetting, unreliable forensic testing, cell phone data among
- KTXS 12 abc: Man who found Hailey Dunn’s remains likely won’t receive Colorado City reward
- KTXS 12 abc: Hailey Dunn: Missing Colorado City teen’s mom now questions ex-boyfriend’s story about disappearance
- Transcripts: Nancy Grace – Mystery text in missing Hailey Dunn case
- Big Country Homepage: Recapping the Hailey Dunn story
- KCBD: Shawn Adkins indicted on murder, tampering with evidence charges in Hailey Dunn case
- Law & Crime: Man indicted for 2010 murder of girlfriend’s 13-year-old daughter as prosecutors reveal cause of death for the first time
- News West 9: Disturbing details in Hailey Dunn case emerge from court documents
- Find a Grave: Hailey Darlene Dunn
- KCBD: Texas Rangers Cold Case Unit officially investigating Hailey Dunn murder
- True Case Files: The disappearance & murder of Hailey Dunn
