CRUEL

Man Admits to Police He Left Unconscious Woman to Die in Snow

Justin Holman told police he and Shanel Smith had been drinking in his car but she “would not wake up so he pulled her out of the vehicle and left.”

An Indianapolis man admitted to police that he dragged an unconscious woman into the snow in February and left her there to die. Shanel Smith, a 50-year-old mother of two, succumbed to “environmental cold exposure,” according to a coroner’s report. Justin Holman, 36, said the two had been “hanging out and drinking” in his car the night of Feb. 19 when she fell asleep. He has been charged with reckless homicide for leaving her body behind the Indianapolis laundromat. Surveillance video from the night in question shows a man dragging a woman’s body out of the passenger seat of his black sedan, dumping it, and driving away. He told police that Smith “would not wake up so he pulled her out of the vehicle and left.”