July 3, 2025 – One of the two women found murdered in the basement of a Charlotte Avenue home in 1987 has now been identified as Sheila Cummings, 23, of Elgin, Illinois.
The two victims were murdered by James Shaffer, who confessed to the killings after they were discovered in shallow graves within the dirt floor of the basement years later.
This past January, both unidentified women were disinterred for contemporary forensic analysis. Two days prior to the collection of DNA samples, a woman called the Cold Case Unit after seeing information online and reported her mother had been missing since 1984.
The DNA samples were collected from Sheila Cummings’ daughters and were returned on Wednesday as a confirmed match.
Investigative work still continues to identify the other victim, known as “Lil Bit”, whose new forensic rendering was publicly released in April. She was a 20–40-year-old black female who stood at 5’7” and had an open-faced gold overlay on her right lateral incisor.
She was also discovered wearing a copper Grim Reaper ring. Anyone with information about her is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 615-742-7463, the MNPD Cold Case Unit at 615-862-7329.
