Cold case solved 60 years after grisly murder of Dayton mother; Investigators speak on the case

TIPP CITY — A Miami Valley Murder Mystery went unsolved for 60 years. That changed this week.

As first reported on News Center 7 at 11 on Thursday, the cold case involving Daisy Shelton’s 1964 homicide has been closed. This came as the Miami County Prosecutor’s Office approved closing the case.

>> PHOTOS: Local cold case from the 1960s solved

Shelton died in Dayton when she was 43 years old. After she died, the killer cut up her body and spread body parts around the Tipp City area.

A man fly fishing at a local gravel pit hooked a grisly catch; a human arm. The next day, divers found the woman’s other severed arm, and that discovery launched a full-blown recovery effort that brought in search boats and pumpers to lower the water level in the gravel pit.

“It was a very grisly murder, even by today’s standards,” Chief Deputy Steve Lord, of the Miami County Sheriff’s Office, said.

Lord said investigators identified Shelton and since she lived in Dayton they believed the crime took place there, but no other evidence developed.

The big break in the case came in 2017 when a cooperating witness surfaced. Lord painstakingly uncovered evidence that one man killed Shelton with repeated hammer blows to the head. Two more men had involvement in dismembering and disposing of her.

All three men died before the case could be brought to court.

>> PREVIOUS COVERAGE: ‘What kind of animal are they?;’ Cold case solved 60 years after grisly murder of Dayton mother

News Center 7 spoke to Shelton’s granddaughter, Maria Walling. She said her father also died before learning what happened to his mom.

“They never found the killer when they found all the body parts and it really messed him up,” Walling said.

Walling knows the names of the people involved in her grandmother’s death, but deputies will not release them.

“They could still be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law,” Lord said.

With the prosecutors allowing the closing of the case, investigators were allowed to inform Shelton’s family and Miami County residents. They say, unfortunately, this 60-year-old killing resembles too many murders in modern-day.

“It was just a dispute between two people and it escalated into violence,” Lord said.

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