Telltale dog leads to detention of wife, husband she said died
Posted on Saturday, November 8, 2008
For Monica and Matthew Sheppard, a walk with their dog landed them in jail.
Former Searcy resident Monica Sheppard, 30, was being extradited from Iowa to Cleburne County on Friday after the U. S. Marshals Service found her living with relatives in the Des Moines suburb of Urbandale, Iowa, last month.
Authorities say the couple’s Labrador retriever, Fluke, is the same dog that Monica Sheppard reported that her husband had tried to rescue from the Little Red River near Heber Springs on Feb. 17.
At the time, she told police her husband — who was facing legal trouble in White County — had fallen into the water and drowned. Rescue workers never found a man or a dog in the fastmoving, 39-degree water.
But Aug. 29, members of the Marshals Service found Matthew Sheppard, 42, after they spotted him walking Fluke in Yankton, S. D., a Cleburne County detective said Friday.
As marshals entered the home, “Monica Sheppard started screaming, ‘ He is not here, ’” according to an affidavit prepared by Monty Vickers, a criminal investigator with the Arkansas Insurance Department. But Matthew Sheppard was there, “trying to hide underneath the bed,” the affidavit says.
The Insurance Department became interested after Monica Sheppard reportedly filled out a claim in April on her husband’s life-insurance policy worth $ 657, 000, with double indemnity for accidental death.
In January, before he vanished, Sheppard had raised his company life insurance policy to the maximum amount allowable, according to the Cleburne County sheriff’s office.
Authorities did not issue an arrest warrant for Monica Sheppard, who they said was using an alias, until Sept. 23.
“By the time the charges were filed [against her ], she had left that area [of South Dakota ]. It took a while to... run her down,” said J. R. Howard, U. S. marshal for the Eastern District of Arkansas.
The Marshals Service finally found her in late October, when she, too, was spotted taking Fluke for a walk in a Des Moines suburb, where she was living with relatives, said Sgt. Alan Roberson, a detective with the Cleburne County sheriff’s office.
Now, both husband and wife are in custody, being held on $ 50, 000 bail each.
Matthew Sheppard is charged in Cleburne County with committing a fraudulent insurance act and in White County with felony theft of property by deception. White County authorities have said he stole tens of thousands of dollars from his former Searcy employer, Eaton Corp.
Monica Sheppard is charged with one felony count of filing a false report with law enforcement and one felony count of committing a fraudulent insurance act or knowingly interfering with the enforcement or investigation of possible insurance-related violations.
Roberson said Matthew Sheppard had posted a resume on the employment Web site Monster. com and was supposed to start a new job the day he was arrested.
FEEDBACK:
Something to say about this topic? Submit a Letter to the Editor online
