Shetisha D. Sheeley, a 28-year-old mother from Cleveland, Ohio, was described in her obituary as the loving daughter of Kimmetta Sheeley and the cherished mother of her daughter, Angel. Her life was cut short in the fall of 2012, though her family would not know her fate for nearly a year. She was last in contact with them in September 2012, after which she seemingly vanished, leaving her loved ones to wonder and worry.
Her attorney, who represented her in a minor case that was dismissed that same month, recalled her as a vulnerable woman from a troubled background who was struggling to make her way in life.
The harrowing answer to Shetisha’s disappearance came ten months later, in July 2013. On July 19, employees of a cable company in East Cleveland reported a foul odor emanating from a garage behind their building. When police investigated, they discovered a decomposing body wrapped in multiple layers of trash bags. The garage was leased to a 35-year-old registered sex offender named Michael Madison. The next day, the search expanded, and two more bodies were found nearby—one in a brush pile behind the garage and another in the basement of a vacant house.
The body found in the brush pile was soon identified as Shetisha D. Sheeley. The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner used fingerprints and tattoos to confirm her identity. Her body, like the others, had been bent at the waist, folded into a fetal position, and bound before being sealed in the bags. Due to the advanced state of decomposition, the medical examiner could not determine a precise cause of death but noted a deep bruise on her face that was inflicted while she was still alive. Her death was ruled a "homicidal violence by unspecified means." The other victims were identified as 38-year-old Angela Deskins and 18-year-old Shirellda Terry.
After a brief standoff at his mother's home, Michael Madison was taken into custody. During days of interrogation, he signed a four-page confession. He admitted to choking a woman, later identified as Shetisha, in his apartment in the fall of 2012. He claimed he left her there while he went out drinking, and when he returned, he "folded her up," placed her body in several trash bags, and moved her to the garage. He left her remains there for months before moving them to the brush pile where they were eventually found.
In May 2016, Michael Madison was found guilty of the murders of Shetisha Sheeley, Angela Deskins, and Shirellda Terry. The jury recommended the death penalty, and a judge formally sentenced him to death. His convictions included three counts of aggravated murder, kidnapping, rape, three counts of gross abuse of a corpse, and having weapons under disability. During the sentencing, the father of victim Shirellda Terry lunged at a smiling Madison in a moment of raw grief that captured national attention.
The Ohio Supreme Court later affirmed Madison's convictions and death sentence in 2020, although it reversed two of the kidnapping specifications, finding insufficient evidence that Shetisha and Angela were held against their will before being killed. The court upheld the death sentence based on the finding that Madison murdered the three women as part of a course of conduct. Upon learning of her daughter's identification, Shetisha's mother, Kim Sheeley, asked for prayers, telling a local news station that her daughter's death had been "really, really" hard on her. Michael Madison, known as The East Cleveland Strangler, remains on death row.
