Ashley Flowers

And the case is more than 10 years cold by this point.

And once again, like, after this letter, when this leads nowhere, like, they're out of leads.

Right.

Now, I haven't touched on this yet, but Detective Belk, remember, he has been on this case from like day one.

Over the years, he builds a super solid relationship with Cheryl's family.

And what are solid relationships based on?

Trust.

How do you earn trust?

Transparency.

And that's what he's been giving them.

Like, he doesn't share anything that could jeopardize the investigation, of course, but he has been keeping them in the loop, step by grueling step, which has given them...

Like, all along, this sense of, like, yes, Cheryl's case is actually being actively worked by one of the best.

Yes, which is, like, what so many families want.

And in all honesty, this case is, like, his great white whale.

And he really wants to solve it before he retires.

And, you know, because of all this transparency that he was giving them, Shane actually shared a 2005 email chain with us.

It was between them and Detective Belk, or Detective Belk and Barbara.

And...

In this, Detective Belk lists out all of the men who have been excluded based on the DNA evidence, which at that time was 17 names deep.

He even assures them that in this list, the infamous railroad killer Rafael Resendez has been ruled out thanks to CODIS.