When an entire family is murdered in the dead of night, the investigation is complicated by a law enforcement agency teeming with secrets.

Smalltown Virginia meets major crime in this episode of Last Seen Alive is brought to you by Audible, my favorite source for all the best true crime

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Last Seen Alive. I'm your host, Leah, crime analyst by day and

true crime storyteller by night. I'm your host, Scott, security guard by night and true crime

listener by day. The short family was last seen alive on August 14th, 2002. The family of three,

mother, father, and daughter went through the Burger King

Drive through late that night near Martinsville, Virginia. Like, all three of them are

last seen alive, or is it just like... No, this is all three. This isn't unsolved triple homicide.

That's surprising. It's unusual, yeah. And Martinsville

is a small city in Henry County, a largely rural parcel of the southernmost part of Virginia,

located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. And this area was home for the shorts,

all three of them. They lived in Bassett, a census-designated

area outside of Martinsville with a population of just over 1,000. In such a tiny community,

murder has a seismic impact, and the annihilation of an entire family, it's almost unthinkable,

but it happened to the shorts and 19 years later,

people in Henry County and beyond are still haunted by it, wondering who destroyed this family and why.

Over the past 19 years, stunning twists in the investigation have repetitively attracted the media limelight,

and the painful mystery

of it all has been woven into the cultural fabric of Henry County. And on that note, I want to say

...