Dr. Sam Sheppard: The Sensational 1954 Murder and the Trial That Launched The Fugitive
An 18-year-old college freshman, full of creativity and ambition, walked out of her dorm room one cold February night and never made it back. Her family knew something was wrong immediately, but from the start, the investigation into her disappearance was plagued with delays and unanswered questions.
A Young Life Full of Promise: We introduce Megan Trussell, a young woman born in Denver, Colorado, in 2006. She was a gifted artist and a bright student who had just begun her college career.
The Disappearance: Megan walked out of her dorm room at Arapahoe Community College on February 20, 2024, and was officially reported missing the next day. Her family's fear was compounded by a lack of urgency in the initial response, as is often the case with missing young adults.
A Stalled Investigation: Six days later, Megan's body was discovered in a nearby canyon. Despite the grim discovery, the investigation quickly stalled, leaving her family desperate for answers. We explore the critical lapses in the early investigation and the frustration of her loved ones.
The Fight for the Truth: Megan's family is still tirelessly seeking justice. We discuss the challenges of seeking answers in a cold case, including the family's efforts to raise funds for independent testing and investigation. They continue to ask anyone with information to come forward, offering a substantial reward.
This is a heartbreaking story about a family's relentless pursuit of justice for their daughter whose life was cut tragically short. Join us as we detail the facts of the case and share the information needed to help solve the murder of Megan Trussell.
If you have information about Megan’s case, call or text 678-636-9771 or email TrussellTips@Vigilante-PR.com. Support the family’s efforts here: gofundme.com/f/support-the-megan-memorial-fund
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TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00] An 18-year-old college freshman full of creativity and ambition, walked out of her dorm room one cold February night and never made it back. Her family knew something was wrong immediately, but from the start, the investigation into her disappearance was plagued with delays and unanswered questions.
Six days later, her body was found in a canyon and what came next would leave her family searching for the truth that still hasn't come.
Hey guys, and welcome to the Moms and Mysteries podcast, a True Crime podcast featuring myself, Mandy, and my dear friend Melissa. Hi, Melissa. Mandy, how are you? I am doing wonderful. We both have kids. Back in school. Yeah. And we're back to being able to record on our time, which is the middle. Exactly, exactly.
Yeah. The middle of the day, it works out wonderfully. You text me and said, would you rather do this during the middle of the day or do it [00:01:00] at the end of the night? I'm like, no, no, no. Let's do it middle of the day because it is. At night. It's just chaos. Absolute chaos, for sure. Yeah. And then you have thunderstorms in the afternoon and just a million other things that derail us, I feel like in the evening.
So this is so lovely to be here with you before lunchtime on a Tuesday. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. So we'll get right into the story that we have for you guys today. Megan t Trussell was born on September 12th, 2006 in Denver, Colorado. She grew up surrounded by love. She was raised by her parents, Vanessa and Joseph with her big sister Lindsay at her side.
Even after Megan's parents divorced, they worked hard to co-parent and the family was very close knit. Megan was also close with her uncle and her cousin. Isabella Travel was a very big part of their lives. At one point, the family took a road trip from Canada all the way down to Mexico in a Volkswagen van.
Another one of Meghan's [00:02:00] favorite stops was Red Frog Beach in Panama, where she discovered what she believed was the best virgin pina colada in the world. And as a pina colada lover, I now have that on my list of places to visit. As for Meghan, she was truly an unforgettable person. She had a very quick wit and a sharp sense of humor, but she also had a warmth about her that made people gravitate towards her.
Megan was artistic and she always sketched scenes from life and the people around her in various notebooks that she had. She also loved music and listened to everything from Jayco Pastorius, the Smashing Pumpkins and TV girl. She grew up listening to her dad's nineties grunge playlists, and she herself played the bass guitar and had a collection of vintage CDs.
Megan was bilingual and spoke both English and Spanish, and she had a gift for picking up accents once she was cast in the school play where she had to play a Russian character and she did the accent for the character so well that some of her classmates [00:03:00] actually thought she was Russian for the rest of the school year.
Megan was also extremely smart. She scored in the 100th percentile on state vocabulary tests, and she had dreams of studying abroad in Spain. At some point she decided that she wanted to study film. She really loved movies, particularly the Whodunits like Knives Out and Clue. But she also enjoyed those campy classics like the Bird Cage.
And so I married an ex murderer. Her love of movies was another thing that she got from her father. They would spend entire summers at binge watching those classic movies. She was still young. Meghan was very politically aware and justice driven. She believed in accountability and fairness, and she wasn't afraid to speak up when something wasn't right.
She graduated from Northfield High School and went on to attend Colorado University Boulder, where she was majoring in film. Megan absolutely loved college. She loved her classes. She loved the independence, and she loved the new friends that she was making [00:04:00] there. During the first week of school, she texted her dad college rules.
As a parent, that sounds like the best thing you could get first week of school. Yes, that's exactly what you wanna hear. Amazing. But the excitement turned to panic. On Wednesday, February 12th, 2025, Megan's mom, Vanessa, and her sister Lindsay, realized that no one had heard from Megan in a few days. The last contact with her was on February 9th, which was Super Bowl Sunday, but she wasn't answering text or calls since then, which was really totally unlike her.
Vanessa checked Megan's cell phone records and saw that her phone went dark on the ninth with the last activity being around 8:45 PM that night. Vanessa later said that she knew in that moment that something bad had happened. Megan's family spring into action immediately. Vanessa started calling anyone and everyone that Megan had been in contact with, but no one had seen her.
Lindsay lived close to the college campus, so she decided [00:05:00] to go over to Megan's dorm to look for her there. But Megan's roommate said that she also had not seen her since Sunday night. Even more concerning was that the roommate never told anyone that Meghan was missing. When Vanessa and Joe realized that something was wrong, they tried to report Meghan missing to the CU Boulder police, but they were brushed off and told that Meghan was probably just couch surfing and that she'd turn up, but Meghan did not turn up.
It's always so frustrating to me when in cases where a younger person or a college student goes. Missing. The first thought is always they'll turn up like they just went to a friend's house or they went somewhere completely really ignoring parents and friends who are saying like, well actually she wouldn't really do that.
Or It's been several days. Like there's no way that she just is couch surfing. Like that doesn't make any sense, but it really is unfortunate how common it is for, um, authorities not to initially take that very seriously. No, totally. And you know your kids, so you know if your kid's couch surfing, they're gonna text you and [00:06:00] say, by the way, this is what I'm doing, or whatever.
So that is frustrating for sure. By the next day though, campus police finally started taking things more seriously. Eventually, the FBI was called in and investigators pieced together. What happened the night Meghan disappeared. It was determined that Megan was in her dorm room at Hallett Hall on the evening of February 9th.
Megan's boyfriend had come over while her roommate was at work, but around 9:00 PM the roommate came back to the dorm while she was on her break, which is actually something she never usually did. When the roommate walked in and found Megan in the dorm with her boyfriend, an argument broke out, and this wasn't the first time Megan and her roommate had a fight.
There had been growing tension between them for a while, mostly because the roommate was letting someone else stay in the dorm, and Megan didn't want them there, so things were tense After the fight, Megan's roommate went back to work to finish her shift. According to Megan's boyfriend, he just didn't wanna be caught up in all this drama, so he [00:07:00] suggested that the couple take a break, the relationship was still relatively new, but things had gotten more serious after the holidays.
But that night he decided to leave. He walked out of the dorm hall at 9:17 PM and according to his mom, he was home within 15 minutes. At 9 36, Megan was seen on security footage leaving her dorm and walking across campus alone. She had on white platform tennis shoes that were three inches tall, red pants, a black short sleeved t-shirt, and a light denim jacket.
She was also carrying her favorite purse with her, and this wasn't just any purse. It was actually a custom made blue and pink cross body bag with a star on it that was made by her mom. Megan adored this bag and she wore it everywhere, and even when she was just sitting on the couch at home, she would have this bag with her.
It was really more like a security blanket than a purse in Megan's eyes. The last time Megan was seen on campus was at 9 52 near the Champion Center, [00:08:00] but after that, she disappeared from sight and was never seen again on any camera footage or by any witnesses. With the temperature that night dropping into the twenties, Megan's parents believed that she was not planning to be gone for long because she wasn't dressed for it and she didn't have a coat with her.
She was also scared of the dark, so it was unlikely that she would stay out very late by herself just under an hour after she was last seen on camera. Megan's phone ping near a local park right at the mouth of Boulder Canyon, and this actually would've been a 52 minute walk from Megan's dorm. At 11:55 PM her phone pinged several miles further up the canyon, and after that, the phone either died or was shut off.
None of this made any sense to Megan's family for the reasons that we mentioned before. Why would Megan set out for a walk into the canyon at night in freezing temperatures all by herself? Megan would sometimes walk to her sister's or to the Circle K store nearby, but the area where her phone [00:09:00] pinged was nowhere along the path to those locations.
So her family isn't really sure why she was going the way she was going. To add to the panic, Boulder Canyon wasn't exactly known for being a safe place, especially at night. There's actually a large unhoused population and heavy drug use in the area, and students at the university are warned to avoid the area, especially if they're by themselves.
Search teams comb the area after Megan was reported missing. They used drones, search dogs and dive teams, but yet. They couldn't find Megan or any sign of her anywhere in their initial searches. Then on February 15th, six days after Megan was last seen, park Rangers returned to the canyon near the 40 mile marker.
The day before they had found a backpack and a pill bottle. It was a bottle of prescription medication with Megan's name on it. So they went back to search again, and that's when they made the tragic discovery. Megan's body was lying on snow covered rocks near [00:10:00] the creek. She was covered in a layer of fresh snow, about two or three inches deep, and the only way to reach her was by repelling down the steep slope from the road.
Meghan was wearing the same outfit. She was last seen on camera wearing, but she was missing her right shoe. Meghan's left arm was outside the sleeve of her jacket, which had been ripped. Her right hand had a black fingerless glove on it that was turned inside out, and her parents don't believe that this glove was hers.
Meghan was lying on top of a pair of gray pants that did not belong to her, and no one's ever been able to explain them. Nearby. They also found a broken stick, unfortunately. Details about what Meghan was found with. Don't always line up. It depends on which report you're looking at. One of the deputies wrote that he saw what looked like a tarp or blanket covering Meghan's body, but later the sheriff's office denied that and said No TARP was ever recovered.
And that's just one of many, many inconsistencies in this [00:11:00] case. And we still have so much more to get into after a quick break to hear a word from this week's sponsors. When we left off, Megan had been last seen on campus the night of February. Ninth hours later, her phone pinged miles away in Boulder Canyon, which is a place she never would've gone alone at night.
Search team scoured the area for days, but came up empty, and then nearly a week later, rangers returned to the canyon and found Megan's body on the snowy rocks near the creek. After Meghan's body was found, the case shifted into the hands of the Boulder County Sheriff's Office, and soon the coroner performed an autopsy.
Megan's parents were told that there was no signs of trauma and that Megan just had a single scratch on her leg that looked consistent with possibly brushing against a branch, but that was not the full or true story. Once Joe and Vanessa received the full autopsy report, they learned that she had suffered a long list of injuries all over her body.
These injuries included [00:12:00] bruises on her left ankle and bottom of her foot, scrapes across her knuckles, multiple bruises and scrapes along her left calf and arm, a seven and a half by three inch area of contusions on her arm, a two and a half inch bruise on her wrist, a dark contusion on her hip, and several abrasions on her lower back.
Some that were as long as five inches. That was just on the left side of her body, on her right side where she was missing a shoe. She had abrasions on her ankle and toes and bruising on her arm. The fingertips on her right hand had abrasions as though she'd been clawing at something. Megan's chest also had contusions and her forehead and nose were scraped.
There was a three quarter inch laceration across her forehead, and she had a two and a half inch contusion on her scalp. She also had two broken teeth on the left side of her mouth. In total, over a dozen separate injuries were noted across her body. Yet none of that had been communicated with Megan's family in those early [00:13:00] conversations, but there was one more finding in the autopsy that completely floored Megan's parents.
Her esophagus and stomach were filled with an unknown abundant pill material, and we're not just talking about traces of this. Her upper digestive tract was filled with it, and the coroner hadn't sent it off for testing to figure out what it even was. Megan's parents were shocked and had no idea what that could even mean.
Megan did have her Adderall prescription with her when she disappeared, but why would her stomach be so full of undigested pills and why wouldn't the coroner test it right away to find out exactly what it was? Instead, the coroner did basic toxicology testing that would take weeks to come back.
Meanwhile, Boulder County Sheriff's Office made a statement that they did not believe there was or had ever been a threat to the community. Meghan's family felt like the police were essentially saying that they believed Meghan died by [00:14:00] suicide. And once that idea was introduced, the investigators seemed to change course and started to lean into that conclusion rather than continuing to in investigate the possibility of foul play in the face of autopsy results that didn't make much sense to Meghan's family, and a sense that the investigators weren't taking her case seriously.
Her family suffered another blow. 10 days after Megan was found, the Boulder County Sheriff's Office called Vanessa and told her that Megan's phone and purse were missing. No one had told them this before, and Megan's parents assumed her belongings were collected into evidence right away. They actually had no idea that two of Megan's most important possessions were actually unaccounted for, especially that purse that meant so much to Megan and her mom.
I can imagine being so upset hearing this. Vanessa was asked if they could release photos of the missing items, and she agreed, but Megan's family wasn't about to sit around and wait anymore. Vanessa and her friends hit the streets of Boulder themselves. They were asking people in the [00:15:00] unhoused community what they might do if they found a phone, and eventually someone mentioned to them that they'd probably try to sell it at an Eco ATM, which is a kiosk that buys use electronics.
Incredibly. This was a lead that Vanessa needed. She filed a claim with Eco ATM, and within two days she got a message saying that Meghan's phone had turned up. Investigators were able to recover it, but by then it had been completely wiped. And whatever clues it may have held about Meghan's last moments were gone forever.
Investigators did manage to find out who sold the phone. It was a man named Elliot Befor who was unhoused and had ties to an encampment near the culvert where Megan's body was found. At first, he told police he had stumbled on the phone along a trail, but then he changed his story and said he actually got it from someone named Travis.
So this Travis person turned out to be a man whose real name was Alexander Connor. He told the police that he got out of jail [00:16:00] sometime between February 13th and 22nd, and he went back to the encampment to collect his things. That's when he said he found Megan's purse. According to Alexander, the purse wasn't hidden or tucked away.
It was just lying out in the open, and he admitted to taking it with him, but said that the only thing he kept out of it was her vape. He eventually ditched the purse along a bike trail near Highway 36, which is nowhere near where Meghan's body was found. It was actually miles in the opposite direction, but Alexander was telling the truth at least about where he dumped the purse.
On March 5th, a woman riding her bike ended up spotting it and calling it in. When the police got their hands on the purse, they found an empty prescription bottle with Megan's name on it. Inside. Her credit cards were also inside, but her earbuds and any cash that she may have had were gone. The clasp on her purse had also been torn open, and Vanessa immediately thought something was fishy about that because she made that purse herself.
And she even had [00:17:00] installed this reinforced clasp to make it extra strong. And she knew that Meghan took great care of the purse and she wouldn't have willingly left it behind. Police said that the people who handled Meghan's purse had no connection to her or her death, and that her belongings somehow just got scattered around by chance.
Meghan's parents though didn't believe that. It was just too hard to think that's what happened when these two men had ties to the exact encampment near where their daughter's body was found. Megan's missing shoe was never found, and to this day, her family isn't sure if anyone ever really searched for it.
Reports mention efforts to track down her purse and phone, but there's no mention of the missing shoe. When Megan's parents met with the sheriff in early March, they asked about these missing items and they were told sometimes weird things happen in an investigation and we never find out why. To Megan's parents, that answer sounded like the police had really already made up their minds about what happened, and they just weren't going to do anything about the pieces of the puzzle that didn't quite fit their [00:18:00] conclusion.
And we have more to get into after one last break to hear a word from this week's sponsors. Before the break, we learned that Meghan's purse and phone turned up in strange and troubling ways. Her phone had been sold at a kiosk after being wiped clean, and her purse was discovered, ripped open miles away from where her body was found.
Despite these red flags, investigators seem to brush off their significance, even telling Megan's parents that sometimes weird things happen in an investigation and we just. Never find out why. So for weeks, Megan's parents waited anxiously for the toxicology results to come back, but they were told over and over that the results just weren't ready yet.
Finally, on May 4th, they got the call that they've been waiting for. The report showed amphetamine, specifically Adderall, at 1900 nanograms per milliliter, which is a lot, but not necessarily fatal. For some context, deaths reported from amphetamine overdoses have ranged anywhere from [00:19:00] 500 all the way up to 41,000 nanograms per milliliter with the average and fatal cases being around 9,000.
So Megan's level of 1900 was still well below that average. It suggested that she had consumed a large dose, but it wasn't automatically a death sentence. Still, the coroner ruled that Megan died from the toxic effects of amphetamine with exposure to the cold listed as a contributing factor. The coroner classified Megan's death as a suicide, and Joe and Vanessa had a hard time hearing that Megan had never shown any signs of being suicidal.
In fact, it was really just the opposite. She'd been thriving. She just started college. She loved her classes, and she was having a blast reconnecting with old friends and making new ones. Even the autopsy report noted that there were no previous suicidal ideations or attempts known. There was no note, no message, and no clue that Meghan had been planning to harm herself.
Meghan's family is also still confused by all of the injuries. Meghan was [00:20:00] found to have all the bruises, scrapes, broken teeth, dirt under her nails, and ripped jacket. They feel that those things don't line up neatly with the idea that she took her own life. When the coroner met with Megan's family, they emphasized the abundant pill material found in her stomach and esophagus, and said it was the most pill material they'd ever seen in 14 years on the job.
Megan's parents asked what kind of pills they were, but they were absolutely stunned to learn that the pill material had never been tested, and so no one knew what it was for. Sure. So Megan's death was ruled as suicide based on the assumption that the pills in her system were hers and that she took them intentionally, but no one actually confirmed what those pills were.
Her family couldn't help but wonder if there might be another explanation. Could Megan have been attacked or could someone have forced those pills into her mouth? The bruising on her face, the broken teeth? It all really raised possibilities that were never [00:21:00] explored. Joe and Vanessa insisted that the pill material be tested, and eventually it was, but not until weeks later.
In the meantime, on May 27th, the sheriff's office doubled down on its stance. They released a joint statement with the coroner officially ruling Meghan's death, a suicide. The coroner's office said. Our opinion was based on several factors including but not limited to toxicology results and the presence of undigested prescription medication found during examination.
The Sheriff's office said We have found no evidence to suggest that Megan was physically harmed or killed by another person, but Megan's family feels differently. They read the list of injuries and they knew Meghan's personality and all of her hopes and plans for the future. They don't believe that any of it lines up with the suicide theory.
Her dad said quote, never once did she ever self-harm, self-medicate, contemplate anything. [00:22:00] She was a very resilient young woman and she absolutely loved college. Once the suicide ruling was official, Megan's family finally gained access to the investigative files and what they saw was disheartening. They discovered that a lot of the evidence that was collected in Megan's case was never tested, including fresh blood samples from the culvert near where she was, found fingernail clippings and swabs taken during the autopsy that were never analyzed.
The forensic pathologist told detectives that Megan's injuries were consistent with the terrain, but she never actually visited the scene and she couldn't explain how the specific pattern of injuries across Megan's body happened or why so many of them were concentrated on the left side, which was the same side that she carried her purse.
Megan's family still doesn't know whose gray sweatpants Megan was lying on, and they don't know how her foam was wiped clean or who handled it before making its way to that eco ATM. They don't know why her purse was ripped open and dumped miles away, or what happened to her [00:23:00] missing shoe. When the pill material was finally tested, the results brought no clarity.
In July, the coroner announced that the contents confirmed amphetamine and ethanol, but the levels really just didn't make sense. Her stomach tested at 1,700,000 nanograms per milliliter compared to only 1900 in her blood. Joe and Vanessa were told that only a small portion of the stomach contents were tested, and then those results were used to estimate the concentration overall.
But they wonder how the pills could have killed her if they weren't even broken down, and why wasn't everything tested To be absolutely sure. Joe and Vanessa do not believe their daughter's death looks like a suicide, and they think investigators locked in on that idea early on and never allowed any room for alternatives.
As a result, they believe Megan's case was never fully investigated. Megan's parents feel that CU Boulder and Boulder County wanted to distance themself from the case from the start because they [00:24:00] didn't want the shadow of a possible murder hanging over the school or the city. Joe and Vanessa also believed there could be another reason why Megan's case was quickly dismissed.
In 2024, Sundance Film Festival announced it was looking for a new home, and after a year's long process, Boulder was chosen as one of the three finalists. In March of 2025, it became official Boulder would host the film festival starting in 2027. It took $70 million in incentives from the city, the University of Colorado, and local organizations to persuade them to move the festival from Utah to Boulder.
The trestles believe it's possible. The city who wanted the Sundance Film Festival to move there had a lot of money riding on the idea that Boulder is a safe and welcoming area, not somewhere that college students get killed. As of today, Megan's family is still seeking justice and they're raising funds to support independent testing [00:25:00] and investigation.
They ask that anyone with information, please come forward. They've set up a tip line and offered multiple thousand dollars rewards. If you have information, please text or call their private tip line at 6 7 8 6 3 6 9 7 7 1. We'll also have the email address listed in our show notes. And a big thank you to the lovely Hailey Gray who worked with Megan's family to make this episode happen.
Mandy, you and I were talking before the episode about our oldest and how they're getting ready for college and stuff like that. So man, it really just broke my heart for the family to have their daughter going to college, loving it and then for this to happen is just absolutely so heartbreaking. It's so heartbreaking.
And thinking back to when I was 18, you know, I thought that I was as. As much of an adult as I was ever going to be. But now that I am a parent of a child who was approaching 18, it's a lot more clear that at 18, um, they really still are [00:26:00] just our babies. And so this is such a heartbreaking story and I really, really do hope that Megan's family gets some of the answers that they are looking for.
Absolutely. Thank you guys so much for listening this week. That was our episode. We will be back next week. Same time, same place. News story. Have a great week. Bye.
