Dakota Spotlight: True Crime & Cold Case Investigations
Aug 13, 2026 · 39 min · 16 segments
James interviews Tony Hulm, former bartender at the Burnt Creek Club, and revisits questions about Shelly’s final days, the Comfort Inn, the railroad workers, and other leads still left to examine…
James WolnerHost
Tony HolmGuest
Let's look a little closer at that occurrence at the Comfort Inn Hotel swimming pool about 15 hours after Shele dropped off Jayden.
On Sunday night, July 31st, 1994, Shele was seen talking to two railroad workers outside the Elbow Room Bar at 1:00 AM.
We don't know what Shele did that night, only that she picked up Jayden the next morning at 10:30 AM.
Due to this sighting, Bismarck investigators wanted to follow up on which railroad workers were in town that week.
Also, Shelly's car was found at the Comfort Inn Hotel parking lot, a hotel that routinely hosted railroad workers.
So back in '94, Detective Walls called up an investigator for the railroad and asked if he could help them identify who these two railroad workers were that Shelly spoke with on Sunday.
The investigator did provide four names, and he told Walls that he'd learned that two of the men had been kicked out of the swimming pool at around 3:00 AM on August 3rd, which would have been about 15 hours after Shelly dropped off her son.
Tony Holm, now after listening to the first three episodes of this podcast, has shared with us that he recalls Shelly calling him up stating she'd been thrown out of the hotel pool.
Tony Holm never mentioned any of this to law enforcement back in 1994, but he wasn't asked about it either really.
Today, Tony's memory is that this happened on early Monday morning, not early Wednesday morning.
Of course, it's possible that Shelly's swimming pool occurrence is a different occurrence than the one involving the railroad workers.
And so I'm gonna play for you now the full police report about all this narrated by a colleague of mine.
Let's look a little closer at that occurrence at the Comfort Inn Hotel swimming pool about 15 hours after Shele dropped off Jayden.
On Sunday night, July 31st, 1994, Shele was seen talking to two railroad workers outside the Elbow Room Bar at 1:00 AM.
We don't know what Shele did that night, only that she picked up Jayden the next morning at 10:30 AM.
Due to this sighting, Bismarck investigators wanted to follow up on which railroad workers were in town that week.
Also, Shelly's car was found at the Comfort Inn Hotel parking lot, a hotel that routinely hosted railroad workers.
So back in '94, Detective Walls called up an investigator for the railroad and asked if he could help them identify who these two railroad workers were that Shelly spoke with on Sunday.
The investigator did provide four names, and he told Walls that he'd learned that two of the men had been kicked out of the swimming pool at around 3:00 AM on August 3rd, which would have been about 15 hours after Shelly dropped off her son.
Tony Holm, now after listening to the first three episodes of this podcast, has shared with us that he recalls Shelly calling him up stating she'd been thrown out of the hotel pool.
Tony Holm never mentioned any of this to law enforcement back in 1994, but he wasn't asked about it either really.
Today, Tony's memory is that this happened on early Monday morning, not early Wednesday morning.
Of course, it's possible that Shelly's swimming pool occurrence is a different occurrence than the one involving the railroad workers.
And so I'm gonna play for you now the full police report about all this narrated by a colleague of mine.
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