Almost three months after she'd been reported missing, Chanty's body was located in a wooded area along Highways 9 and 22 in the Nixburg Community. Chanty Shiverdecker was a 15-year-old White female whose disappearance from Alexander City, Alabama, on December 9, 1994, became an enduring unsolved homicide investigation. Her family had moved to Alexander City from Eureka, Illinois, only about six weeks earlier. Chanty was active in sports and had joined her new high school’s basketball team. That Friday, the team held an additional practice at Radney School because of an upcoming tournament.
Her parents were away from home, and the plan was for Chanty to telephone her older brother, Christopher, after practice so he could pick her up.
Practice ended at approximately 6:30 p.m., but the expected call never came. As the evening passed, Christopher became increasingly concerned. By around 10:00 p.m., he began driving around looking for his sister. After searching for roughly an hour without finding her, he contacted their parents, who told him to notify police. Searches began the following morning, with search parties concentrating on an area around the school. Although authorities initially considered the possibility that Chanty had left voluntarily, the investigation eventually shifted toward the possibility that she had met with foul play.
For nearly eleven weeks there was no confirmed sign of Chanty. On February 24, 1995, her body was found at an abandoned lumber or wood yard off Highway 9 in the Nixburg area of Coosa County, approximately ten miles from where she had last been seen. More detailed accounts describe the remains as being in a wooded area near an abandoned mobile home. Her body was unclothed and had decomposed significantly during the time she had been missing. Forensic examiners were unable to establish a specific cause of death, but investigators determined that her death was a homicide. The evidence therefore established that Chanty had been killed, even though authorities could not determine exactly how she died or publicly establish the precise date on which she was killed.
Investigators were also left with missing pieces of Chanty’s belongings. Accounts of the investigation state that her clothing and backpack were never recovered. Her books and purse were reportedly found later in the spring along the same highway where her body had been located, and their condition and location led to the belief that they may have been discarded from a moving vehicle. Those discoveries provided investigators with additional evidence but did not identify the person responsible for her death.
One potential suspect emerged several years later. A man being held in the Seattle, Washington, area claimed responsibility for Chanty’s killing and reportedly confessed to other killings in Wyoming and Florida as well. Authorities investigated his claims, but they ultimately concluded that there was not enough evidence connecting him to Chanty’s homicide. Further investigation discredited the confession, and he was not prosecuted for her death. Publicly available case information does not identify any other person who has been formally charged as Chanty’s killer.
The case has remained active through the years. In September 2017, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey issued a proclamation offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible. The proclamation specifically stated at the time that the perpetrator was unknown and that there were no suspects. Central Alabama CrimeStoppers later renewed publicity around the case with another $5,000 reward while investigators continued asking anyone with information to come forward.
Investigators continued revisiting the evidence decades after the killing. Alexander City police said in 2022 that detectives were reading through the case material, interviewing people, following new information and exhausting every lead they received. Chanty’s brother has also expressed his belief that someone still knows what happened and that information from a witness or another person with knowledge of the crime could finally break the case.
As of the most recently available public case information in 2026, Chanty Shiverdecker’s homicide remains open and is still being treated as a joint investigation involving the Coosa County Sheriff’s Office, the Alexander City Police Department and state investigators. No arrest, murder charge, trial or conviction has been publicly reported in connection with her death. More than three decades after she disappeared following basketball practice, the identity of the person who killed Chanty and the circumstances that led to her death remain unresolved.
