The Badge That Shouldn't Exist: How Shelby Creek Lied to Killers

The Badge That Shouldn't Exist: How Shelby Creek Lied to Killers

A laminated badge found on a murder victim’s chest in 1973 carried a name and a lamination date stamped December 4, 1973 - almost eleven months after the body was discovered. How could a badge that could not have existed be placed on Patricia Bishop, and what hidden records finally unraveled the lie?

In this episode, we follow the timeline from Patricia Bishop’s last drive to work to the moment a detective pulled a decades-old employment record and noticed one small, decisive line. The episode traces the unusual clue of a Shelby Creek Municipal Water Authority badge and asks: who used access to the water authority to disguise a killer?

Person: Patricia Bishop Date: January 14, 1973 Location: Shelby Creek Item: Laminated badge - Name: Donald Pratt Record discovery: 2003

- Patricia Bishop was 54 years old and had lived in Shelby Creek for 19 years. - Her body was found on a frozen lot by Kenneth Tucker on the morning of January 14, 1973. - The badge on her chest read Donald Pratt and had a lamination stamp dated December 4, 1973. - Thomas Edwards ran Edwards Maintenance Services and held the contract for maintenance at the Shelby Creek Municipal Water Authority. - Detective Lloyd Sullivan noticed the badge’s lamination date while reviewing the case file in 2003 after Beth Sandoval’s digitization project.

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