‘We got the guy.’ Witnesses led to closure of MO cold case — after suspect died

Several sources, and what detectives describe as two witnesses, led authorities to close a 34-year-old cold case of a woman who was raped and murdered in southwest Missouri.

McDonald County Detective Lorie Howard said Thursday that for years a local man was the suspect in the death of Shauna Beth Garber — known for more than a decade as “Grace Doe.”

But it was only recently, Howard said, that her agency had enough information to say that Talfey Reeves, of Pineville, killed the 22-year-old woman in 1990.

“We are 100 percent certain we got the guy,” Howard said in a news conference Thursday afternoon announcing closure of the 1990 cold case. “What breaks my heart is he’s not alive.

“I know he has a family and people who love him, but he should have had to pay for what he did. Maybe he is, I don’t know. But we do have the right guy.”

Reeves, who had a lengthy criminal history in southwest Missouri, died Nov. 15, 2021 in a traffic crash. He was 58. Media reports say he attempted to make a U-turn on a scooter and traveled into the path of a car.

Garber’s siblings — who became separated from Shauna when they all were put in Kansas foster care in the 1970s — have been looking for her for decades. They only learned in March 2021, after DNA linked her to them, that she was killed.

And they hoped that someday they would learn who killed her and watch the suspect be held accountable.

“I guess karma got him, you know,” said Rob Ringwald, Garber’s brother, after learning that Reeves had died in 2021, just months after his sister was identified. “I‘d prefer to see him in prison, but you reap what you sow.

“... I guess in the grand scheme of things, it’s poetic justice. He ended up getting killed himself.”

For years, Howard and Wise couldn’t figure out why “Grace Doe” was in McDonald County. But during their investigation they eventually learned why.

A news release by the McDonald County Sheriff’s Department elaborated on the whereabouts of Garber — who after being adopted, her legal name was Shauna Robin Harvey.

”It was determined through a statement made by her case worker that once Shauna aged out (of foster care), she went to the Vinita (and) Claremore, Oklahoma area to find family,” the release said. “Detectives were made aware that she was living in the area and being transported to and from work via a work program.

“It is believed that this is what brought her to McDonald County.”

Howard, along with Detective Rhonda Wise, said Reeves was “on the radar” for many years. But after the pair interviewed Kansas serial killer Dennis Rader, known as BTK, last year — and ruled him out as a suspect — they looked at their case with fresh eyes.

“This time around it was much more successful because I didn’t have people that were afraid to talk about our local suspect,” Howard said. “And rest assured, I still have people today that are afraid to talk about this man who is no longer with us because there’s other people who are still around.

“They feel like they’re in danger.”

Never enough information … until now

The detectives would build their case against Reeves based on information from six sources, Howard and Wise said in the Thursday news conference.

“Six corroborating individual sources that are not related to Talfey,” Howard said, “have given us statements that we have been able to verify that he is responsible for Shauna’s death.”

In addition, there are the two witnesses, one who said she heard “everything he did” and then “saw what he did.”

Though authorities have spoken to many of these people over the years, it wasn’t until recently that they provided more details.

“The problem you’d run up against in years passed,” Howard said, “is nobody really wanted to go on the record when he was alive. They weren’t comfortable saying what he did.

“... They would give us information but never enough to go forward with the prosecution.”

It was only after Reeves died that detectives said they could gather enough information.

The detectives had one other piece of information that further solidified Reeves as the one who killed Shauna Beth, Howard said.

In 2004, four years before she was even told about the 1990s cold case, the sheriff back then put a letter the department had received on her desk. Back then, the words didn’t have the meaning they do now.

“It starts with, ‘I want to tell you about something Talfey Reeves did,’” Howard recalled of the letter that gave details of what happened to a young woman. “And it was absolutely the details of what happened to Shauna.”

The letter was signed.

As Howard put it: “The letter itself is extremely important, but it doesn’t stand alone. It’s the letter, it’s the sources, it’s the facts, it’s the left-out information, it’s the corroboration, it’s the witnesses, it’s the vehicle, it’s finally … “

Wise picked up her thought: “All the pieces of the puzzle had come together.”

In front of reporters at Thursday’s news conference, Howard described what she and Wise believe happened after Reeves picked up Garber as she was walking along the road.

“He took her in an old black Ford truck that is consistent with what we know went up that hill that night,” Howard said. “ A loud truck with no muffler, we have a witness to that. We know who the truck belonged to. We know it went up the hill that night and two doors slammed.

“We know he bound her with the chords that were in the back of this truck because that was convenient. That’s what was in the truck, it was an old farm truck.”

Reeves raped Garber, Howard said.

“And we know that because we have a witness who was terrified in 2010, 2015, 2017 to talk,” the detective said.

But eventually, authorities said all sources came forward and “no one knew what the other was saying.” Together they told a story of what happened to Grace Doe.

Howard said Reeves “raped her, he bound her and he overdosed her to shut her up, because she was screaming so loudly that it began to scare him in that valley, because it echoed. We know that’s how she passed.

“My witness left and saw Shauna within hours of what she knew happened.”

‘Angry that (Reeves) died’

Though for detectives the case is closed, Howard said “I still have holes.”

“I want a picture of her,” the detective said.

Her siblings do, too. Sister Danielle Pixler, of Topeka, Kansas, said she needs more than the small snapshot from when Shauna Beth was a little girl. And more than the forensic drawing of what she may have looked like.

And Ringwald said he needs an image to picture in his mind when he thinks of his little sister. Which he often does.

“I haven’t seen her since she was five years old,” said Ringwald, of Bucklin, Kansas. “It’s been a long time and it’s hard for me to remember what she looked like. And last time I saw her, I do remember bandages.

“So I would like to see what she looked like when she grew up.”

Garber and her siblings were removed from their home after the unthinking happened in 1973. Rob was seven and Shauna Beth was five.

The children’s mother put lighter fluid on Shauna Beth and lit her on fire. The little girl was badly burned.

Like her siblings, she ended up in foster care and family and detectives learned over the years that she was adopted at some point only for that to fail. She then went back into the system and aged out of foster care. Never knowing that her siblings were looking for her.

Howard and Wise feel as if they know the woman they’ve spent years identifying and then finding who killed her.

“She was only 22 years old and I don’t think she ever had an ounce of joy in her life,” Howard said. “She was somebody, she was important to me, she was important to us.”

That’s why they say it’s hard to not see charges file and the suspect go to trial.

“I’m not going to lie about it,” Howard said. “It makes me angry that (Reeves) died. It’s like he got off. I wanted to see him charged.”

Added Wise: “It would have been nice to see him face the consequences of his actions.”