Show notes
A Videotape and a First Grade Mind: The Shelton Holloway Story
In April of 1987, 17 year old Patricia Ann Hannah disappeared after a school dance in York, Alabama, and two weeks later her body was found behind an Alabama Power office. A fellow Sumter County High School student named Shelton Jerome Holloway, a special education student with a documented intellectual disability, was arrested and eventually convicted based largely on a videotaped confession. The legal question at the center of the case wasn't whether he said the words on that tape. It was whether a young man functioning at a first grade level could actually understand what he was giving up when he waived his rights. This one pulls you into a small Alabama town, a missing girl, and a confession that split experts, courts, and advocates for decades. The crime and the trial end up asking two completely different questions, and neither one has an easy answer.
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In April of 1987, 17 year old Patricia Ann Hannah disappeared after a school dance in York, Alabama, and two weeks later her body was found behind an Alabama Power office. A fellow Sumter County High School student named Shelton Jerome Holloway, a special education student with a documented intellectual disability, was arrested and eventually convicted based largely on a videotaped confession. The legal question at the center of the case wasn't whether he said the words on that tape. It was whether a young man functioning at a first grade level could actually understand what he was giving up when he waived his rights. This one pulls you into a small Alabama town, a missing girl, and a confession that split experts, courts, and advocates for decades. The crime and the trial end up asking two completely different questions, and neither one has an easy answer.
🔔 Subscribe for True Crime Cases multiple times a week
Never miss a story. Subscribe to 10 Minute Murder for bite-sized true crime episodes delivered fresh every week.
Get a weekly email from me about the upcoming cases and more: 10minutemurder.com/newsletter
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Check out True Crime Blueprint, also created and hosted by Joe.
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/43zuDpH01HtdIrH0ShCAid?si=86b2281063334139
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/true-crime-blueprint/id1877878404
iHeartRadio: https://iheart.com/podcast/323307878
Amazon Music/Audible: