NBC Dateline: Who killed Emory University sophomore Shannon Melendi and where is he now?

On August 12, 2022, at 10/9c, NBC Dateline: Shannon's Story will examine the gruesome kidnapping, r*pe, and murder of 19-year-old Emory University student Shannon Melendi. Over a decade after the incident, authorities convicted Colvin Cornelius "Butch" Hinton III in connection with Shannon's disappearance and murder.

Last seen alive on March 26, 1994, Shannon disappeared after a softball game where she was keeping the score. Incidentally, Butch Hinton was the umpire in the game and had been flirting with Shannon before she went missing. The deeper the investigators dug inside Hinton's residence and records, the more shocking their discoveries were.

Tune in to Friday night's episode to learn more about the harrowing case and shocking details of the investigation that led authorities to convict Butch Hinton.

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NBC Dateline: Who killed Shannon Melendi?

Shannon Melendi was an ambitious and bright student on a scholarship at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. On March 26, 1994, she was keeping score at a softball game in DeKalb County, after which she vanished.

Butch Hinton was a full-time employee of Delta Airlines and served as an umpire at softball games. While umpiring the game where Shannon was also present, he constantly flirted with her and was the last person to see her the day she disappeared.

Given his criminal history of assaulting and molesting women, he quickly became a prime suspect in the case. He was imprisoned in the 1980s for abducting and molesting a 14-year-old girl. NBC Dateline: Shannon's Story will delve deeper into Hinton's criminal past and his horrendous crime against the Emory University sophomore.

When police began investigating his Clayton County home in September 1994, he set fire to it, burning down the crime scene and any evidence that might be inside. In 1995, he was convicted of arson and insurance fraud and was imprisoned for seven years.

While he was in prison, prosecutors and law enforcement authorities continued to look for evidence to tie him to Shannon's disappearance. Before the arson, investigators had received a mysterious phone call from a man claiming to have Shannon. Authorities traced the call to a phone booth in McDonough, where they found Shannon's ring wrapped in tape in a pouch.

Investigators traced the tape and pouch back to Hinton and used statements from his fellow inmates where he had implicated himself in convincing a jury that he had murdered Shannon Melendi.

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NBC Dateline: Where is Butch Hinton now?

The tape and pouch discovered near the phone booth were analyzed by experts to reveal traces of cobalt, which came from an aircraft manufacturer or an aircraft repair place. Hinton worked for Delta Airlines at the time, so the microscopic evidence connected him to the case.

Further, investigators dug up his yard to find buried sweaters, skirts, and blouses that did not match his wife's size. They concluded that it pointed towards evidence of violent crimes against many other women, thus establishing Hinton as a s*xual predator.

In 2005, after his failed appeals to claim his innocence, Hinton finally confessed to all of it. He admitted to having kidnapped Shannon, r*ping her twice before strangling her. NBC Dateline's Friday night episode will explore more about his confession.

He even revealed that he was the one who tipped off the authorities about the tape and the pouch and that he had burned Shannon's body in his backyard while his wife was away for the weekend.

Hinton became the first person in Georgia to be convicted without a body or a crime scene. According to prosecutor John Petrey, at the time of his confession, it wasn't under the laws at the time to seek a life sentence without parole. The upcoming episode of NBC Dateline will further detail Hinton's trial without a body.

In 2005, Colvin Cornelius "Butch" Hinton III was convicted of Shannon's murder and was sentenced to life in prison, eligible for parole every seven years, under Georgia law.

Since then, Shannon's parents, Yvonne and Luis Melendi, and her younger sister Monique Melendi, have flooded the parole board with letters and petitions to keep Hinton behind bars.

In 2020, he was denied parole, only to be eligible again after seven or eight years. The Melendis continue fighting to keep him behind bars with the grim knowledge that he might be free one day.

NBC Dateline: Shannon's Story airs on NBC on August 12, 2022.