48 Hours - Vegas Heat

On December 14, 2005, the charred corpse of a young woman was found in a burned-out Jaguar on a Las Vegas, Nevada desert road. The car was registered to Kelly Ryan, who was married to Craig Titus, and both were stars of the body building world. Craig and Kelly claimed their car had been stolen the day before by Melissa James, their 31-year-old live-in assistant and a dancer, who was headed to New Jersey to spend Christmas with her mother. Melissa never made it to New Jersey. “48 Hours" correspondent Peter Van Sant reports. This classic "48 Hours" episode last aired on 9/18/2010. Watch all-new episodes of “48 Hours” on Saturdays, and stream on demand on Paramount+.

Duration: 40m
Broadcast on: 26 Dec 2023
Audio Format: other

[Music] Four o'clock in the morning. [Music] Report was a brush fire. Possible brush fire on the Sandy Valley Road. We have so many car fires down there people not wanting to make the payments anymore on their cars so they take them down there and burn them up on that road. [Music] The car was on fire from the back seat all the way in the front and then I got my big spotlight. I could see something in the trunk

and it was a body. These things that these people did to her the beauty that they took out of her it was just unimaginable what it must have been like. I saw what looked to be a human body that was uh curled up in somewhat of a fetal position. [Music] Fireman that had first arrived at the scene had recorded the license plane numbers. We were able to determine that the car was registered to Kelly Ryan. Kelly Ron was incredible there was nobody like her that's competed in fitness. Congratulations Kelly. I never would have imagined that things would have ended up this way.

We're in Vegas we play the odds you expect it to pan out one way sometimes you get a curve ball. I was expecting to have to tell her husband she was deceased. Well we knocked on the door and she comes to the door she identifies herself as Kelly Ryan. I'm thinking if you're Kelly Ryan who's the body in the car? [Music] Vegas heat two nights 48 hours mystery. [Music] We're in the receiving area for the Clark County coroner's office. That charred body was placed on this gurney and then was taken into this room. Was there a recognizable face on this body? Unfortunately there was not. Clark County coroner Mike Murphy had a mystery on his hands. A charred corpse discovered on Sandy Valley Road. So you have a body that is burned beyond recognition you know it's female but you have no idea who this is. That's correct. Fingerprints were not a possibility because of the burning of the body. Facial recognition was not a possibility. He named the body Sandy Valley Jane Doe. It would take weeks to make a positive identification. It was found that the face was covered with duct tape. Duct tape duct tape. So the next question is why would that occur? I can tell you that there was evidence that there was some type of an accelerant used. An accelerant like lighter fluid used to start and spread the fire. In our investigations the sooner you can identify your victim, the sooner you can identify your suspects. It was dawn on December 14th 2005 that Las Vegas homicide detectives Robert Wilson and Dean O'Kelly came upon the smoldering car. But this is as it was the whole dash was burned away.

Transcription truncated.