Thirty-four years ago, a woman who was previously in foster care in Garnett was raped and murdered. Her murder has been unsolved since that time. Shawna Harvey, born Shawna Garber in 1968, was in local cares in the mid 1970’s to mid 1980s. Her body was found in an abandoned farmhouse in McDonald County Missouri in the southwest corner of Missouri. Investigations came up empty. Even the infamous BTK killer, Dennis Rader, of Wichita was a suspect at one time, but counted out after an interview. Leads have been pursued ever since, but a forensic genetic genealogy company in Texas…Othram, who specializes in DNA based investigations, found a half-sister in Topeka who says Shawna, after aging out of the foster care system in Garnett, moved to Vinita, Oklahoma.
Police believe she was 22 years old when she was picked up on a rural road by a man named Talfie Reeves, a man with a bad reputation. Apparently Reeves and Harvey were acquainted in Nowl, Oklahoma and he would transport her to and from her work at Hudson Foods. Reeves died in a car wreck in 2021. Six witnesses have since come forward with information pointing to Reeves as the killer.
