In any event, there are many questions to be answered by one or both of the Sheltons:
··· The physical evidence against Clint Shelton. Why would someone who once served court papers for a living stupidly wear a mask and gloves to do so? Especially since, because it's his lawsuit, state law forbids him from serving papers himself. Clint Shelton responds that he was simply trying to find Hierro so that she could be served, not to serve her himself.
Michael Hogue
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Kester Gilhome
Catherine Shelton with her lawyer, Randy Taylor. "Why would she try to kill someone knowing the finger would be pointed at her?" asks a defense team investigator. "And then...not even finish the job?"
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··· Why is one of Catherine Shelton's best friends, Judith Mercer, representing Clint Shelton in his divorce proceedings? Clint Shelton says he doesn't know that they were "best friends."
"I do know that she is a top-notch, highly ethical lawyer who is also a ball-buster," he says. "We talked about it before she took the case. She asked me, 'How nasty do you want me to be?' I said, 'I want to play it by ear.'" (Reached on her cell phone, Mercer said she would call back for an interview, but never did so.)
··· Why did they have a mask made out of underwear in their trash? They say it wasn't a mask at all. "They've made a big issue out of my worn-out underwear," Clint Shelton says. "Why, I don't know." The question for a jury will be, was it underwear that had holes in it from being worn and from Catherine Shelton using it as a housecleaning rag, as she now says? Or was it a mask with no mouth-hole -- which would mean it matches the mask Marisa Hierro independently described to police as worn by the female who was with her attacker?
"Look," Catherine Shelton says. "If I'd been with him [Clint] that night, as she says I was, do you think I'd let him stop at a Port-a-Can and throw away his mask [the pantyhose mask found at the scene, with DNA linking it to Clint Shelton] before we ran away? And mine [the alleged underwear mask] wouldn't have been there too? It's confabulated."
Shelton talks until there is no more tape left to record her. Then she walks me through her dark house, reiterating points of her story. She is, naturally, concerned that she may harm her civil cases or any possible criminal case by speaking out, but she says, as does her husband, that the suspicion they are under is largely the result of media and political pressure. She finds a picture of herself, unretouched, and hands it over. "That's the real me," she says. "Not pretty, but not guilty."
