Jason Shenfeld had sex with a woman in his bedroom with a dead body in the closet, but he didn't want to spend an entire night alone in that room.
So the next day he told his girlfriend, Mia Dipadua, he was locked out of the house he shared with his parents near Palm Beach Gardens, and they weren't there to let him in, according to newly released documents.
Dipadua asked her mother, Kimberly Shad, if she and Shenfeld could stop by since Shenfeld had no place to go. Shad agreed to the request, she told a state attorney's investigator in a sworn statement. When Shenfeld came over, Shad wasn't pleased to overhear him tell her daughter that her mother was "hot." But Shenfeld generally made a good first impression on her and her husband, she said.
"And we thought ... well, what a nice kid," she said.
Did he appear nervous? Upset? Sad?
"Not one bit," Shad said.
Shenfeld, 27, is charged with first-degree murder in the strangulation of Amanda Buckley - an 18-year-old former softball player at Palm Beach Gardens High School - the day before he visited Shad's home. Dipadua told authorities she and Shenfeld had sex in his bedroom the evening of July 18 - the same day it is believed Buckley was slain. They spent the night in his room, she said.
Shad said her daughter called a second time the following evening and said that Shenfeld was still locked out of the house. She asked if the two of them could spend the night there, Shad recalled. Shenfeld got on the phone, said he used to be a cocaine dealer, that some girl was missing who had overdosed on drugs and that he needed to see his attorney in the morning.
Shad now had doubts that Shenfeld was a "nice kid," but allowed him and her daughter to spend the night in a guest bedroom. The following night, Shenfeld was arrested at a North Palm Beach motel where he had holed up.
While there, he asked Dipadua and a second woman he dated in 2006 to come see him. Neither did, and Dipadua tipped police to where Shenfeld could be found.
The second woman, Kellie Lynn Yeats, told a detective that Shenfeld once helped her move, then claimed he got carjacked and that all of her tattooing equipment was stolen.
Shenfeld refused to reimburse her, and wouldn't discuss details of the supposed carjacking. "We quit talking after that because I was mad," she said.
Drugs might have been the link between Buckley and Shenfeld. Several people told authorities that he sold them and Buckley used them.
Michael Albanese told an investigator that he dated Buckley shortly before her death. He said that Buckley and a man named Wesley both dealt cocaine and Wesley owed Shenfeld money. He said Buckley also used cocaine.
It was Jason Shenfeld's father, John, who found her body in the closet. After meeting with the family's lawyer, he called 911.
"I found out about an hour ago," John Shenfeld told the 911 operator. "It's like my whole life is over now. I'm ... I'm done."
> Jason Shenfeld
Let me guess. Is he an American citizen of European descent?
>>2
There's a lot of those.