They really, really need to find who did this. May she rest in peace.
Posted on 12/18/2003 7:59:08 PM PST by martin_fierro
SHELBY — A cancerous tumor when she was 11 months old. Twelve years of chemotherapy. A near-fatal car wreck in her high school senior year. Life confined to a wheelchair.
Shelley Webber could survive anything. Anyone who knew her would tell you that.
Anything — except this.
Shelley, 24, was found murdered early Wednesday morning, outside the small one-room home she rented from her parents on 116½ Dellinger Road.
Police say the cause of death appears to be blunt-force trauma — in other words, she was beaten to death.
“We’re comfortable that the person who committed the crime did know her,” Shelby Police Chief Charlie VanHoy told The Star at 9:30 Wednesday night.
Ms. Webber had “lots of friends” but no known boyfriend, VanHoy said.
Because the left half of Ms. Webber’s body was paralyzed after a 1996 accident, she rarely got out of her wheelchair.
“She just couldn’t fight back at all,” said her sister, Jennifer Webber Hyde.
The body was found at 8:30 a.m. by customers of Webber Auto Electric, the business owned by Shelley’s father, Mike Webber, VanHoy said. Police say she could have been killed anytime between 7 p.m. Tuesday, the last time her family saw her alive, and Wednesday morning.
The body showed no initial indications of shooting or stab wounds, according to VanHoy.
The autopsy report, which will determine the cause of death, could be available today, he said.
Police worked on the murder case through Wednesday night and said they were “hopeful” about making an arrest before the night was through but did not have “any red flags” at that point.
“I would be hopeful; I think it would be premature if I said ‘yes,’” VanHoy said when asked about an arrest.
“We’re still working it. We have a lot of good leads,” VanHoy said late Wednesday. “We’re following up on them.”
Asked whether police had suspects, VanHoy repeated that there were “red flags jumping out at us.”
There are no known witnesses to the crime.
“This one will be as hard as they get,” VanHoy said earlier Wednesday. “There will be a lot of detective work in this case.”
“No, I can do it myself”
A local legend, Ms. Webber made headlines at least four times in The Shelby Star during her 24 years of life: Once, when she became the youngest person in the state to get her pilot’s license, on her 16th birthday; again when a head-on collision nearly claimed her life at 17; once when she woke from a 22-day-long coma to be told that she would never walk again; and again, when she defied the odds and walked — alone — across the stage at Cleveland Community College to get her diploma last May.
“She was handicapped but she didn’t want anybody to treat her that way,” Mrs. Hyde said. “If you tried to open the door for her, she’d say, ‘No, I can do it myself.’”
Ms. Webber clipped out every article and saved it in a white book, along with pictures documenting her miraculous recovery at Carolinas Medical Center following the wreck.
The devastating accident happened Nov. 30, 1996, but Ms. Webber didn’t wake up until Valentine’s Day of 1997.
Her recovery amazed doctors, who thought she would never speak or stand again.
But Ms. Webber had amazed doctors before.
When she was 11 months old, a knot on the left side of her neck was diagnosed as a rare cancer-like tumor. Doctors tried surgery, cutting a nerve and partially paralyzing the left side of her face. But they couldn’t get the tumor out.
“They told my parents to take me home and let me live as normal a life as I could, and I’d probably die by the time I was 5,” Ms. Webber told The Star last May. “My parents wouldn’t settle for that.”
Instead, she entered into weekly chemotherapy treatments. After 12 years of treatment, the tumor finally stopped growing.
“She was sick from the time she was born,” Mrs. Hyde said. “She was in a coma forever, and now somebody killed her.”
‘She had a big heart’
On Wednesday, Mrs. Hyde sat on her parent’s porch and wept. Several feet away, yellow police tape separated the front yard from the beginning of the crime scene.
Ms. Webber’s close friend, Brandie Blanton, knelt down beside Mrs. Hyde.
They clasped each other’s hands.
“She never had any enemies,” Ms. Blanton said. “She had a big heart.”
Together, the two women tried to hold back tears.
The last time Mrs. Hyde saw her sister was 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, after Ms. Webber picked up Mrs. Hyde’s children from daycare.
That’s when Ms. Webber told her sister that earlier that day, someone had scratched her van with a key while she was at a doctor’s appointment.
Ms. Webber said she didn’t know who had done it and appeared slightly upset about it, Mrs. Hyde said.
Then, at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, Mrs. Hyde’s dad called and told her the news of her sister’s death.
Family and friends have only one question: Why?
“She was well loved by everybody,” said her brother-in-law, Jason Hyde. “I don’t know why this would happen to her.”
Kids were Ms. Webber’s joy. This week, she was scheduled to take a test that could have allowed her to fulfill her dream of being a teacher for kids with special needs.
“She was worried about it,” said Mr. Hyde.
“Tweety Bird”
A family friend playfully gave Ms. Webber the nickname of “Tweety Bird” when she was younger, because she ate like a bird.
To go along with that, Ms. Webber asked for a yellow car on her 16th birthday. And she got it — a yellow Hyundai Scoop.
But before she drove the car, she made her first solo flight at the Shelby airport, becoming the first girl in North Carolina to get her pilot’s license before her driver’s license.
Her father said he bet his daughter that she couldn’t do it — and lost the bet.
Ms. Webber put a tag on her new car that said “Tweety Bird.”
Duane Heafner remembers making that tag for her.
He also remembers the time his family’s old convenience store, The Mustang, raised money to help Ms. Webber after her wreck.
After a few days, the community filled buckets with more than $500 in donations for Ms. Webber.
“She was a real nice girl. She was a real sweet person,” Heafner said.
“A testimony to her faith”
Ms. Webber’s personality was also a sign of her spirituality, said her cousin, Matt Webber. He was also her Sunday school teacher.
“Each time she was able to attend, she was prepared with prayer requests — not for herself, but for friends and family members,” he said. “Never once did she call attention to her own disabilities or daily challenges, but her mind was always on the struggles of others. She had an amazing witness among our class members.
“It was humbling to be around Shelley because her summoning the strength to simply get out of bed each morning made you realize how insignificant your own problems were,” Matt Webber said.
“She lived her life as a testimony to her faith, and the impact she made on so many people will certainly outlast the shock of her death that we’re feeling right now.”
They really, really need to find who did this. May she rest in peace.
I couldn't read beyond this.
Nice choice of wording there Charlie.
Shelby police arrest murder suspect
Updated: 12/18/2003 5:01 PM
By: Colin Resch, News 14 Carolina
SHELBY, N.C. -- Shelley Webber was a survivor. As a child, she beat brain cancer. As a teenager, she was involved in a crippling car accident. But the one thing she could not overcome was an intruder in her Shelby home.
Police arrested Teddy Brian Scism, 30, on Thursday in connection with Webber's murder.
Police believe Scism entered Webber's home on Wednesday morning, killed her and then dragged her body outside. The official cause of death was blunt force trauma.
While Scism confessed to the crime, police are still trying to figure out a motive.
"He did show sadness in what he had done," said Chief Charlie Van Hoy of the Shelby Police Department. "I think he realized the full implication of what he had done, but he offered no explanation as to why."
Webber, 24, was found just after 8 a.m. Wednesday.
“It is just tragic to see a lady that has fought through so many battles through her life and overcame each of them courageously, to be the victim of a violent crime,” Van Hoy said.
Police said that Scism and Webber were acquaintances.
The murder concerns area residents, who said they consider their neighborhood safe.
“I came home from work last night, and our car was broken into,” neighbor Jonathan Sloan said Wednesday. “I just figured it was going to be us, and then this morning there were cops everywhere and we heard that the girl had been killed next door.
“It hits home when something like that happens and you are in your hometown. You feel scared to get off work at 3 a.m. and come home.”
Scism is being held in the Cleveland County Detention Center.
With a police chief like VanHoy, I am not sure they will ever solve this crime. First he says he's comfortable that the person who did this knew her. But then says there are no red flags, then says there are lots of good leads and then says there are red flags jumping out all over. Then he says it will envolve a lot of detective work, then says he can do it himself. Seems like a lot of double talk to me.
Poor Girl, according to the article survived through 12 years of chemotherapy. Most people don't even make it through a whole round of Chemo and then all the other things in her life that happened and someone would do this to her.
How sad.
Maybe the guy thought he was putting her out of her misery.
I think there's a special place in hell for people like that.
Amen, martin.
And I hope they fry the vermin who did this.
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