The murder of Shannon Melendi
Atlanta, Dekalb County, Georgia · 1994
Overview
Shannon Melendi, a 19-year-old Emory University sophomore from Miami, disappeared on March 26, 1994, during a lunch break from her part-time job keeping score at the Softball Country Club on North Decatur Road in DeKalb County, Georgia. Her car was found at the gas station across the street, unlocked, with the keys in the ignition. A caller claiming to hold her led police to a pay phone where her ring was found, wrapped in a bag and tape. Suspicion fell at once on Colvin Hinton, known as Butch, the umpire of her last game, a Delta Air Lines maintenance worker with earlier convictions for attacks on women, who had left the club within minutes of her. Police searched his Clayton County home and found pits in the yard but no trace of her; six months later his house burned, and he went to federal prison for arson. There he talked to fellow inmates, one of whom said Hinton woke screaming and told him a demon inside him had killed her. After the DeKalb County district attorney's office took over the file, a grand jury indicted him and he was arrested on August 30, 2004. With no body and no crime scene, a jury convicted him of malice murder on September 19, 2005, and he was sentenced to life. The Georgia Supreme Court affirmed on June 12, 2006, and on July 17, 2006, Hinton confessed to kidnapping Shannon at knifepoint, raping and strangling her, and burning her body in his back yard. Her remains have never been found.
How it was solved
The case against Hinton was built from the outside in, and what finally closed it was what he said to other prisoners. DeKalb County police suspected him within days: he umpired the game Shannon scored, cancelled the rest of his shift saying he had a date, and left the club within about five minutes of her; his accounts of his afternoon did not agree, and the Georgia Supreme Court later recorded that he asked one witness to disregard what he had told him. The FBI traced the bag and masking tape around Shannon's ring, left at a pay phone by a man claiming to hold her, to materials used at his Delta workplace. Searches of his home in Rex found three pits in the back yard, one holding wire ties, and the saw he had borrowed from his father that morning. But there was no body, no scene and no witness to a crime, and the county could not charge him. After his house burned in September 1994 he was convicted of arson in federal court. According to the Supreme Court's summary of the trial evidence, fellow inmates there heard him talk: a cellmate said he woke to a scream, found Hinton crying, and was told that Hinton had not killed her, the demon inside him had; another said Hinton asked how to find law-library cases in which no body was found; another said Hinton worried his scorebook had been left in Shannon's car; a fourth said Hinton described cutting up a body, crushing the bones and putting the pieces in a river. Emory Magazine reported that the DeKalb County district attorney's office took over the files in 2003 and pursued charges in August 2004 on the strength of this new development. A grand jury indicted Hinton in the July 2004 term for malice murder and felony murder, and he was arrested on August 30, 2004, eight months after his release from federal prison. At trial in 2005 the state combined the inmates' accounts with the ring, the pits, the timeline and his earlier attacks on women in Kentucky and Illinois, which the judge admitted as similar transactions. The jury convicted him on September 19, 2005. Ten months later, with his appeal exhausted, he confessed to police in prison; District Attorney Gwen Keyes Fleming said he described kidnapping Shannon at knifepoint, tying her up at his home, raping her, strangling her, burning her body in a backyard fire pit and landscaping over the ground.
Sources
- Hinton v. State, No. S06A0459, Supreme Court of Georgia (decided June 12, 2006)
“She was never seen alive after that day and her body has never been found.”
- Shannon Melendi: A timeline of events (March 25, 2024)
“March 26: Melendi, a 19-year-old Emory University student, vanishes during a lunch break from her part-time job at a DeKalb softball complex.”
- GA convict admits murder of Emory University student (July 17, 2006)
“District Attorney Gwen Keyes Fleming said Butch Hinton made the detailed confession in an interview with police at Rogers State Prison in Reidsville, where he is serving a life sentence for the 1994 murder of 19-year-old Shannon Melendi of Miami.”
- Convicted Murderer Confesses to Crime (July 18, 2006)
“He disposed of her body by burning it in one of several fire pits in his backyard and disposed of her ashes in another location. He then re-landscaped over the area in order to avoid being detected.”
- Shannon Denise Melendi (case file, last updated March 4, 2022)
“Prosecutors cited new evidence, including alleged confessions Hinton made to cellmates, as the reason for Hinton's arrest.”
- Precis: A decade of grief (Autumn 2004)
“This August, the DeKalb County District Attorney's office, which took over the Melendi files last year, pursued charges against Hinton and had him arrested for Shannon's murder, based on a new development: Hinton may have talked about the crime to other inmates in jail.”
- Colvin Hinton denied parole; next consideration by the Parole Board scheduled for 2025 (March 9, 2020)
“The Parole Board previously denied parole for Hinton in 2012, his first parole consideration. Under Georgia law, according to his sentence, Hinton became eligible for parole after serving seven (7) years following the 2005 murder conviction.”
- Shannon Melendi's Family Fighting To Keep Her Killer In Prison (March 26, 2018)
“Melendi disappeared without a trace on March 26, 1994 while working as a part-time scorekeeper during a softball game in Atlanta where she attended Emory University. Hinton was an umpire that day.”
- 30 years after Shannon Melendi's murder, family honors her memory, works to keep killer in prison (March 19, 2024)
“Hinton was convicted even though Shannon's body has never been found. Her family works tirelessly to keep Hinton behind bars, but he's up for parole again in 2025.”
- Family fighting to keep killer behind bars on 30th anniversary of Shannon Melendi's murder (March 26, 2024)
“It took a decade, but in 2004, Hinton was arrested for Shannon's murder.”
- Family remembers young Miami woman 30 years after shocking kidnapping and murder (March 19, 2024)
“Hinton became eligible for parole in 2012 but has been denied parole multiple times, most recently in 2020. His next parole consideration is scheduled for 2025.”
- More Grief for Melendi Family (November 12, 2009)
“A body was never found, but Hinton was always a suspect. It took years but an Atlanta detective team put the case together and a jury did the rest.”