At the crime scene, police found the body of the jewelry store owner and one of the family’s two dogs.
After the death of the jewelry store owner, his wife – Corey Shaughnessy, was considered a suspect in her husband’s murder as she was the sole beneficiary of a multimillion-dollar life insurance policy. However, not long after, the police obtained a new suspect’s name, someone whom Corey initially believed was mistaken.
A Horrific Scene
Ted Shaughnessy and his wife Corey Shaughnessy lived in Austin, Texas, USA, and co-owned a jewelry store. They had an adopted son named Nicolas, whom they had adopted when the boy was just 16 months old. To those around them, they appeared to be a very close and happy family.
But everything came to an end on the early morning of March 2, 2018, when the Travis County police received a call from Corey about a gunshot explosion at their home.
In a state of panic, Corey reported that she was hiding in the closet. “There’s gunshots… Help me! Help me!”, Corey cried hysterically. Even while hiding, the woman couldn’t escape the horror unfolding inside the house. “I could hear terrible moans,” Corey said. “I saw Ted’s legs, I thought he was dead.”
Police immediately rushed to the scene. However, upon arrival, they found no one there. They quickly realized they had gone to the wrong house as the houses in the area looked very similar.
Finally entering the large house of Corey and her husband, the police found everything resembling a battlefield. Windows shattered everywhere, bullets embedded in walls, and bullet casings scattered across the floor. Law enforcement officials noticed that the bullet casings were not of the same type, belonging to .40 and .380 caliber guns, indicating two gunmen.
Ted’s lifeless body lay in a pool of blood near the kitchen table. The 55-year-old man had been shot in the head, back, thigh, and buttocks. One of the family’s two dogs was also shot dead in the master bedroom.
The Gunfight in the Night
According to Corey’s account, she and her husband woke up around 4:30 a.m. because of barking dogs. Ted immediately got out of bed, grabbed a gun, and went to check while Corey remained in the room. Shortly after, she heard the first gunshot followed by a series of others.
Corey stated that she quickly got out of bed and grabbed her own gun. She saw a beam of white light through the curtains as she stepped out of the bedroom. One of their Rottweiler dogs named Bart, lying under the bed, was shot dead immediately.
According to Corey, she and her husband kept about 20 guns in the house. She took a .357 caliber revolver to shoot back at the attackers. When she ran out of bullets, Corey hid in the closet and called the police for help.
From inside the closet, Corey said she heard someone moaning and didn’t know if it was her husband or not. Corey didn’t know if Ted was dead or if the shooter was still inside the house.
Corey told law enforcement that she didn’t see the faces of the attackers but believed she knew why they had come. Although the couple rarely kept valuable items in the house, owning a jewelry store could have made them a target.
Strange Discoveries
Corey became frantic after the incident. She made a distress call to her son Nicolas. At that time, Nicolas was living with his girlfriend Jackie Edison in College Station, about a 2-hour drive away. Both immediately returned to meet their mother around 8 a.m. on March 2, 2018.
Nicolas, Jackie, and Corey all agreed to assist fully with the investigation. Corey allowed the police to search her cell phone. Nicolas and Jackie did the same, although they claimed they hadn’t been home for about a month.
In the kitchen, police found two bullet casings of different calibers, belonging to .40 and .380 caliber guns, indicating two gunmen.
In Nicolas’s former bedroom, they found an open window, where the gunmen had apparently entered. A fingerprint was found on the window glass. In a drawer, police found an empty box for a .40 caliber gun, which could be the gun box the intruder used.
Upon closer inspection, investigators discovered that the home’s alarm system had been turned off. Corey said they only activated the system when leaving the house. However, police found it strange that the account history showed a window open notification at 4:27 a.m. on March 2. About 17 minutes later, the system recorded a broken glass notification. They believed this was when a bullet shattered the glass inside the house.
The Suspicious Wife
Police spoke with neighbors and learned that this wasn’t the first time Corey’s family home had been targeted.
Police interviewed Nicolas about his parents’ life. Nicolas asserted that they had a happy relationship and had just celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary. They sometimes argued but never threatened each other.
Nicolas revealed that in the 1990s, his father was once robbed while owning a pawnshop. Ted and the robber exchanged gunfire. The robber was later sent to prison. Nicolas speculated that this person might have been released and sought revenge.
Additionally, Nicolas also disclosed about their neighbor named Kim. Suspecting her husband of deceit, Kim had hired Nicolas to follow him and placed surveillance devices in his car. According to Nicolas, the man might have discovered this and sought revenge. However, Kim insisted that her husband knew nothing about the tracking device.
At the police station, police confiscated the pajamas Corey was wearing. They also swabbed her hands for gunshot residue. Investigators found Corey’s story suspicious and questioned whether the sole surviving victim might be a suspect.
The Sole Survivor
Investigators found Corey Shaughnessy’s story about the intruders who shot and killed her husband, Ted Shaughnessy, rather suspicious.
They believed that the gunmen knew what was inside the house. However, they were still uncertain whether the murder was part of a random attack, a failed jewelry robbery, or a deliberate assassination.
And after examining the crime scene, they began to suspect that Ted knew who had attacked him. The house was too large and too dark for random burglars or thieves targeting jewelry to navigate. Notably, nothing was stolen.
Police also did not find any strange fingerprints at the scene. From there, they began to question whether the sole surviving victim – Corey Shaughnessy – might be the perpetrator.
Through investigation, Corey and Ted met in the early 1980s. The couple quickly developed a relationship after discovering many commonalities, including a love for jewelry. They married and opened their own jewelry store.
As their business grew, Ted and Corey also decided to adopt Nicolas, then just 16 months old, from an orphanage in Ukraine in 2000. Nicholas had everything a child could wish for. At the time of the murder, the Shaughnessy family’s assets were worth millions of dollars.
Corey was suspected of being involved in her husband’s death because she was the sole beneficiary of Ted’s $1 million life insurance policy along with the house and business premises. Additionally, within hours of the murder, Corey announced that there would be no funeral arrangements and requested the house to be cleaned up.
Strange Behavior
However, Corey was not the only family member under suspicion. At the scene that morning, Nicholas initially appeared very emotional but quickly became disinterested in assisting the police. He and his girlfriend, Jackie Edison, continuously answered media interviews outside the house, despite police requests for them to stop and remain quiet at the scene.
And then, Nicholas did something peculiar. He walked straight to check the open window on the side of the house, leading to his old room, where the attackers had allegedly broken in.
Additionally, something else on Nicholas’s phone also caught investigators’ attention, an app that allowed access to his parents’ home alarm system.
Corey said that she and her husband often deactivated the alarm system, but police found it suspicious that the account history showed a window open notification at 4:27 a.m. on March 2, followed by a broken glass notification. They believed this was when a bullet shattered the glass inside the house.
Police also noticed inconsistencies in Jackie’s behavior. Investigators intended to test gunshot residue on the hands of all members, so they separated them. But at this point, Jackie appeared distraught and panicked. Nicholas and Jackie claimed they were at their home an hour’s drive from their parent’s house when the shooting occurred.
When searching the young couple’s apartment, police found bullets with the same brand and caliber found at the crime scene. Moreover, they discovered evidence that the couple was keeping a secret.
The Secret Marriage
Not only that, they also discovered evidence that this couple had a secret. It was the marriage certificate of Nicholas and Jackie. Throughout police interviews, neither had ever mentioned being married.
They had secretly married eight months prior, in the summer of 2017, when they were both 18, with the help of an old friend who was also an online minister named Spencer Patterson.
This discovery not only surprised the police but even Corey Shaughnessy – Nicholas’s foster mother – had no idea her son was married.
Nicholas met and dated Jackie since high school. At that time, Jackie’s parents were divorced, and she moved to Austin to live with her father.
Nicholas introduced his girlfriend to his family in 2016. Jackie quickly won the affection of her boyfriend’s family. Jackie’s stay became so frequent that she eventually moved into the Shaughnessy household.
In August 2017, the young couple decided to move out to start a new life with financial support from Nicholas’s parents. Jackie went to school while Nicholas worked from home as a short-term stock trader. Less than a year later, tragedy struck the Shaughnessy family.
A Mother’s Trust
Though not entirely pleased to learn her son had married so young, considering they were both still too young in her eyes, as a mother, Corey promised to help her children plan a proper wedding.
A few days later, Nicholas and Jackie moved back in with Corey. They also began working at the jewelry store, assisting their mother in running and maintaining operations.
But for investigators, this was alarming. Initially, they considered the involvement of all three individuals in the murder case, but now their suspicions focused solely on Nicholas and Jackie, even fearing these two might continue to target their mother.
However, for Corey, what worried her was the possibility that her son was being falsely accused by the authorities. The woman knew the police suspected Nicholas and Jackie and didn’t believe it. Corey even hired the best lawyer to defend her son.
But as the investigation deepened, the police found more evidence implicating Nicholas and Jackie in planning the murder of both father and mother.
Although phone records showed Nicholas was over 160 km away from the crime scene when the murder occurred, it also revealed he lied about not being in Austin for a month.
Nicholas’s phone signal indicated he was in Austin on February 28, two days before Ted was shot dead. Text messages on Nicholas and Jackie’s phones showed a suspicious conversation.
Revelation from Close Friends
In messages sent on February 23-24, Nicholas said he was “doing that.” Jackie replied, “Do they want 50K?”
In another exchange, Nicholas asked Jackie to withdraw money from her account so that “if that happens, there will be cash on hand.” Jackie withdrew $1,000 from the bank just days before the murder. Authorities suspected this wasn’t a random coincidence.
Fingerprint analysis from the bedroom window of Nicholas’s parents’ house didn’t yield much significance as it belonged to a window installer. However, the police knew that when living there, Nicholas often used this window whenever he needed to sneak in or out of the house.
By May 2018, the police located Spencer Patterson – the close friend who acted as the online minister for Nicholas and Jackie’s wedding. Spencer not only knew his friend’s habit of going through windows but also knew where Ted and Corey kept the safe in their house.
Key Witness
The police then proceeded to search Spencer’s home, car, and mobile phone. In the car, they found a .380 caliber handgun. It was sent for examination and concluded not to be the murder weapon. Mobile phone data also showed Spencer was at home during the time of the murder.
Initially, investigators thought Spencer might be a suspect. But eventually, they found a crucial witness.
According to Spencer, just before the murder, Nicholas talked about making $8 million when his parents were gone. Spencer also lets the police see even colder messages, showing Nicholas trying to hire him to kill a family. “Just walk in and shoot the whole family… no mask needed cause they will all be dead,” Nicholas wrote.
For months, Corey always stood by her foster son but eventually began to suspect Nicholas and Jackie. Corey noticed the young couple loved to buy shoes, clothes, travel, or buy things for their apartment.
One day, Corey mentioned wanting to know what the bright white light on the night of the murder was, so she asked Jackie and Nicholas to help her reenact that night. It turned out the light was from a mobile phone.
After reading the affidavits and seeing the evidence, Corey’s steadfast belief in her children’s innocence crumbled. Meanwhile, the police, who had always suspected Nicholas, were now certain of his involvement.
On May 29, 2018, the police arrested Nicholas and Jackie for solicitation of capital murder.
Discovery in the Safe
The police had always suspected Nicholas Shaughnessy, and with new evidence, they became increasingly convinced of his involvement in the death of his foster father, Ted Shaughnessy.
Nicholas admitted to tensions between him and his foster parents before the murder. He was loaned $30,000 by his parents to support his business endeavors. However, Nicholas wanted to drop out of college to pursue a career in stock trading. Ted and his wife, Corey Shaughnessy, were not pleased with this.
Corey mentioned that she and her husband agreed to let Jackie Edison move in with their family when she was Nicolas’s girlfriend, hoping she would persuade Nicholas to continue his education. After moving out, the couple received further financial assistance from their parents. Ted’s close friend also lent Nicholas some money.
When the police searched Nicholas and Jackie’s apartment, they were surprised by the number of surveillance cameras installed inside. The cameras proved that both were at home on the morning of the murder. But in the safe, they found jewelry, ammunition, and firearms. One of the ammunition boxes matched the brand and caliber of the murder weapon. It was a .380 SIG Sauer pistol, missing six bullets.
On May 29, 2018, the police arrested Nicholas and Jackie for solicitation of capital murder. Both refused to answer when asked who had pulled the trigger.
The Man at the Front Porch
In early July 2018, four months after the murder, the investigation took a turn when the police closely examined surveillance camera footage from the front porch of Nicholas and Jackie’s home.
In footage recorded just two days before the attack, they saw two men appearing at the front of the apartment. One of the men wore a blue uniform shirt from a window installation company.
Inquiries led the police to discover that the man was named Cameron Vosmek. However, he had quit his job four years ago after a short tenure.
Obtaining Cameron Vosmek’s address, the police went to search for him but only found his wife. The woman revealed that a few months ago, a man named Johnny Leon had proposed to hire Cameron for a murder, but he had declined.
Johnny Leon turned out to be the second man appearing in the security footage from Nicholas and Jackie’s front porch. When brought in for questioning, Johnny claimed he wasn’t the killer but admitted that Nicholas had once tried to hire him for the job for $100,000.
Johnny was then arrested for murder. On Johnny’s phone, the police found clues suggesting he wasn’t acting alone. Call logs showed Johnny had been in contact multiple times with a man named Arieon Smith around the time of the murder. Both had criminal records, being arrested for drug-related offenses a year earlier.
During questioning, Arieon admitted to meeting Nicholas and revealed details about that fateful night.
Belief Crumbles
Call logs showed that Johnny Leon – the suspect in the death of Ted Shaughnessy – had repeatedly contacted a man named Arieon Smith around the time of the murder.
Arieon claimed he was with his girlfriend at the time and she could provide an alibi for him. However, his girlfriend revealed that on the morning of the murder, Arieon left her at the apartment and took her car, ignoring her repeated calls.
According to the girlfriend’s revelation, Arieon carried a .40 caliber handgun in the days following the murder. He was immediately arrested and charged with murder.
During questioning, Arieon admitted to meeting Nicholas Shaughnessy – the victim’s foster son – and revealed details about that night. He confessed to firing the fatal shot and disclosed the location of the murder weapon. It was a .40 caliber handgun missing from a box in Nicholas’s old bedroom. Arieon claimed Nicholas had given him the gun.
Arieon stated that after shooting Ted, he heard gunshots from the bedroom and Corey Shaughnessy crying. Arieon suggested to his accomplice, Johnny, not to kill Corey. They then left the house together.
For months, Corey had always stood by Nicholas. But now, her belief in her foster son’s innocence began to crumble. Corey didn’t want to believe that Nicholas and Jackie Edison wanted to kill her and her husband. As a mother, Corey only thought that both somehow had a connection, not intentionally. Until now, Corey remained by her foster son’s side. The woman wrote a letter advising her son to accept a plea deal. In April 2021, Nicolas accepted the plea deal.
The Truth Emerges
Jackie confessed that Nicholas hired a hitman because of failed business ventures with numerous overdue debts, including a $30,000 loan from his parents.
Both Nicholas and the two hitmen, Arieon Smith and Johnny Leon, were charged with murder. All three accepted plea deals, sentenced to 35 years in prison with the possibility of parole.
Jackie Edison
Nicholas admitted to hiring a hitman because he didn’t want to wait for his inheritance. But he said he would never have done it if not for Jackie. Nicholas wanted to become wealthy, impressing Jackie.
When discussing this intention, Nicholas was supported and encouraged by his wife. Jackie even planned to spend the money. Corey also mentioned discovering Jackie’s choice of a car to buy for her mother.
Jackie tried to downplay her involvement in the crime. She asserted that she knew nothing about the murder or the hitmen. However, the police knew she was lying based on deleted text messages.
Jackie admitted to driving with her husband to her in-laws’ place on several occasions but claimed she never believed Nicholas would actually go through with killing his parents. Jackie said she later tried to stop Nicholas, but the police found no evidence of this.
Jackie divorced Nicholas while he was in prison. In March 2022, Jackie’s charges were upgraded to conspiracy to commit murder. She didn’t go to trial as she reached a plea deal with prosecutors, only serving 120 days in jail and 10 years of probation. Corey disagreed with this sentence. The woman believed Jackie knew what was going to happen but did nothing “because she wanted it to happen.”
On October 17, 2023, Jackie was released, but if she violated the terms of her probation within 10 years, she could face 20 years in prison. Additionally, as part of the parole conditions, for the next 10 years, on the anniversary of Ted’s murder, Jackie had to spend 2 days in jail.
