On the night of January 17, 1987, 19-year-old Travis Melton, a young man working at the Shelby III adult bookstore in Shelby, North Carolina, was tragically killed in a brutal attack. The bookstore, located on U.S. 74, was known to attract a gay male clientele. On that fateful winter night, masked gunmen burst into the establishment, ordering Melton and other men to get down on the ground. The assailants then shot Melton and two other men, 29-year-old Kenneth Godfrey and 26-year-old Paul Weston, in the head, leaving them for dead. The attackers also set the bookstore on fire before fleeing the scene. Two other men, James Parris and John Anthony, survived the attack with serious injuries and managed to escape the burning building.
The investigation into the murders initially explored various motives, including a mafia hit, a business dispute, or a crime of passion involving a jilted ex-lover. However, authorities later focused on Frazier Glenn Miller Jr., the leader of the North Carolina-based White Patriot Party . Miller, along with Douglas Lawrence Sheets, Robert Eugene Jackson, and Anthony Wydra, was arrested on April 30, 1987, in Ozark, Missouri. Inside the mobile home where they were apprehended, law enforcement discovered a large cache of weapons, including C-4 and dynamite explosives, automatic assault rifles, and a half-ton of ammunition.
Miller implicated Sheets and Jackson in the murders, leading to their indictment in November 1987. Despite the charges, Sheets was tried and acquitted for the murders in 1989, and the charges against Jackson were subsequently dropped. As of 2024, the murders remain officially unsolved. The case has left a lasting impact on the community, with the memory of the tragic events still resonating with those who knew the victims.
