What would you do to please your mother? For 15-year-old Elizabeth Shannon, the answer was simple: kill.

In the summer of 2002, the top songs on the radio were by Nelly, Christina Aguilera, and Nickelback, and the popular kids were likely decked out from head-to-toe in the newest Aéropostale. Most kids were just kids. However, childhood slipped away too quickly in some darker corners of the country, giving way to a terrifying adolescence. This was true for Shannon, who was enlisted by her mother, Joan, to murder her stepfather, Army Maj. David Shannon.

The circumstances in which Elizabeth grew up act as an omen of her future. As the product of an abusive relationship, Elizabeth was already estranged from her biological father, but Joan and David’s relationship didn’t provide much solace. They were conservative, wholesome beacons by day, but Joan and David were “swingers” by night and sometimes conducted their activities in their family home.

Joan’s upbringing was also tenuous in completely different ways. As a 12-year-old, she experienced neglect at its ugliest when she walked into her home after school to find her parents had moved away, leaving her totally alone. Her older sister became her guardian briefly, but that didn’t last, and Joan landed in foster care.

A string of bad situations–seedy jobs, abusive relationships, and even worse men–somehow led Joan to David Shannon, whose sister says they were “definitely soulmates.” The couple had two sons together, and David became the adoptive father of Elizabeth and Daisy, who is two years older.

Post-marital bliss only permeates the household for so long, and neighbors attested that “there were a lot of complaints” about Daisy, who fell pregnant at 17, and Elizabeth, who had been expelled from school for inciting fights. “The kids just didn’t want to be saved,” David’s sister said. While the Shannons seemed to be settling in aside from the domestic issues, their illicit, clandestine activities would soon catch up with them.

The morning of July 23, 2002, had just barely arrived when, at 3:30 A.M., Joan Shannon desperately called 911 and said, “Somebody killed my husband while we were sleeping… somebody shot him.” A whirlwind of interviews and questioning followed, and Joan’s demeanor was described as “not overly distraught” after discovering that her husband was murdered in the bed next to her.

A search of the house uncovered the “smoking gun,” i.e., homemade sexually-explicit media found under the bed and on computers. Jeffrey Wilson of “Fayetteville Gang Bangers,” a swinger’s club, was quickly identified as a love interest for Joan Shannon. According to the prosecutor, “Major Shannon became concerned about how much Joan was seeing Jeffrey.” The sexual tension between the pair escalated into a romantic relationship.

A few days later, an anonymous call reached the local police station, naming Elizabeth Shannon as Maj. Shannon’s killer. The police, quickly catching on to the mother-daughter duo’s plot, arrested the two in early August 2002. Elizabeth had fled the family home and was found under a couch in Sunset Mobile Park.

In the lead-up to the trial in 2005, prosecutors began to uncover more damning evidence. After bringing Elizabeth in for questioning, her tough-girl exterior allegedly “cracked,” and she claimed pressure from her mother was the motive for Maj. Shannons’s brutal execution. It was also revealed that Elizabeth’s friend, who slept over at her house the night of the murder, was suspected to be the anonymous caller.
After nearly a month of court sessions, Joan Shannon sat stone-faced as she was sentenced to life without parole. Her daughter, Elizabeth, was sentenced to 25 years in prison in exchange for pleading guilty and testifying against her mother. The opposing stories presented by the prosecution and defense have split the Shannon family in half, further reinforcing the already-present cleavages and differing opinions about the women.

“Elizabeth [was] a very vindictive, evil child,” said Joan Shannon’s sister-in-law. “She has been that way ever since I first met her. She is evil.”