Sandy Shaw's life took a devastating turn in September 1984 when, as a 13-year-old girl, she became the sole survivor of a brutal triple homicide that would haunt her for decades and ultimately lead to her own imprisonment.
A childhood shattered by violence
On September 23, 1984, Sandy attended what should have been an ordinary sleepover at her best friend Jessica's home in Rancho Circle, one of Las Vegas's most exclusive gated communities. The affluent neighbourhood with its round-the-clock security should have been one of the safest places in the city.
Instead, in the early hours of Sunday morning, business magnate Alex Egyed - the estranged husband of Jessica's mother Virginia Mallin Egyed - embarked on a murderous rampage through the house. Sandy recalls the terrifying moment he burst into their room and shot Virginia's friend Betty diFiore point blank in the head.
"I was so close that bits of Betty landed on me," Sandy remembers. "Her body slumped to the floor like a rag doll."
The two teenagers desperately hid in a bathtub and then under a bed as Egyed continued his killing spree, murdering Virginia and her friend Jack Levy before turning the gun on himself as police arrived.
The descent into darkness
With limited victim support resources available in the 1980s, Sandy received no counselling for the severe PTSD and night terrors that followed. She began self-medicating with alcohol and drugs to numb the trauma, which led to her falling in with what she describes as "the wrong type of people".
Just one year after the triple murder, at age 14, Sandy witnessed another shooting - this time watching helplessly as a man shot a pregnant girl point-blank in the head while she waited for her mother to pick her up from school. She cradled the critically injured victim in her arms until an ambulance arrived.
Her life took another dark turn when she met James 'Cotton' Kelly, a 21-year-old man who began stalking the then-15-year-old Sandy. "It started with numerous phone calls all throughout the day and the night," she recalls. "Then he started showing up at my school and my house."
After police told her they could do nothing due to the lack of stalking laws at the time, Sandy took matters into her own hands. She arranged for childhood friend Troy Kell, then 18, to rough up Cotton and warn him to leave her alone.
The fateful night that changed everything
On September 29, 1986, the plan went horribly wrong. Kell brought along his friend Billy Merritt, 17, and unbeknownst to Sandy, was armed with a gun. The four drove to the desert outside Las Vegas, where Kell shot Cotton six times and left his body in the desert.
"It took me back to when I was 13, to that moment when I witnessed the triple murder," Sandy said of hearing the gunshots.
Five days later, Sandy, Kell and Merritt were arrested and charged with Cotton's murder. Prosecutors falsely alleged that Sandy had taken friends to view Cotton's body and boasted about his murder, earning her the sensationalised nickname 'Show and Tell' killer in the Vegas press.
A justice system stacked against her
From the moment of her arrest, Sandy believes the justice system was stacked against her. Her defence attorney was a civil real estate lawyer who had never handled a criminal case before, let alone a murder trial.
Multiple prosecution witnesses later confessed to lying on the stand, accusing prosecutor Dan Seaton of threatening them with prison time if they didn't tell the story he wanted to hear. Despite Merritt - who cut a deal and pleaded guilty - confirming that Kell pulled the trigger, the jury was told that Sandy was the mastermind who had fired a bullet between Cotton's eyes, despite no such wound existing.
The 15-year-old was convicted of capital murder and use of a deadly weapon in the commission of a robbery, receiving two life sentences with no possibility of parole. This made her the youngest female ever incarcerated in Nevada, sent to an adult prison before her 17th birthday.
The long road to freedom
Sandy served 21 years behind bars before being resentenced to life with parole and granted freedom in 2007, just before her 37th birthday. She had spent more of her life in prison than out of it.
"I missed out on the normal things - all the time with my family, being able to move out and get an apartment with my sister or brother, having relationships, getting married, having kids," she reflects.
Another 15 years passed before, on June 28, 2022, the state of Nevada granted Sandy's request for a pardon. It had been 13,056 days - approximately 35 years - since Cotton's murder.
Over the years, several key witnesses walked back their testimony, apologising for their role in her conviction. Sandy has forgiven them, noting that "they were just kids themselves" at the time.
Her pardon was supported by retired Las Vegas homicide Detective David Hatch, who stated the only crime Sandy should have ever been charged with was conspiracy to commit misdemeanour assault.
Life after incarceration
Now 54, Sandy shares her home with her two "big babies" - her pit bull mix pups Zion and Aria - and works six days a week in a management role at a company she's been with for 18 years.
"For me, life now is pretty simple. I go to work, come home, spend time with my dogs," she says.
Surprisingly, she's somewhat thankful for the hand she was dealt, believing that her time in prison may have saved her life by forcing her to confront the trauma from the Rancho Circle triple murder. It was only in prison that she was finally diagnosed with severe PTSD and received counselling.
"It did make me a better person, and I was able to work through a lot of my traumas," she says of her time inside.
Meanwhile, Kell remains on death row in Utah for murdering another inmate, while Merritt is serving life for sexual assault after serving just four years for Cotton's murder.
In her new memoir, 'Life Without', Sandy shares her complete story - a tragic tale of how witnessing murder as a child set her on a path to becoming Nevada's youngest female inmate, and her decades-long fight to reclaim her freedom and identity.
