Episode 186: Renee Pernice – Bite-Sized Crime

When a nurse disappears from her home, investigators must follow a trail of evidence to uncover the truth. What happened to Renee Pernice?

Episode Media

Episode Sources

Episode Transcript

Welcome back to Bite-Sized Crime. This week I’m bringing you a case that will feel all-too familiar. This episode discusses sensitive topics, so listener discretion is advised.

Renee Michelle Pretz grew up in Kansas City, Kansas, a large metropolitan area divided by the state border of Kansas and Missouri. Renee was a bright student, graduating valedictorian of her class at Turner High School and pursuing her nursing degree at the University of Kansas. She wanted to make a difference in the world.

In the spring of 1999, Renee married Shon Pernice, and the couple moved to the Missouri side of Kansas City. Shon had a daughter from a previous relationship, and Renee loved being a stepmom. Around 2001, Renee gave birth to their first son, followed by a second son two years later. According to Renee’s family, she built her life around her children and would do anything for them.

Renee’s marriage to Shon was rocky at times. In 2005, Renee filed for divorce, but she and Shon later reconciled, and Renee filed for a dismissal in January of 2007. She wanted to make her marriage work.

All the while, Renee was working full-time in the St. Luke’s Hospital System while also taking classes for a masters degree in nursing. In 2007, she was hired to teach at St. Luke’s College of Nursing, training up the next generation of nurses. Renee was passionate about the work, and her colleagues spoke highly of her.

Shon, who had previously served in the United States Navy in the early 1990s, had enlisted once again, this time in the Army. In 2007, he was deployed to Iraq as a combat medic and was gone for a long stretch of time. When he returned home in the spring of 2008, he got a job as a paramedic with the Independence Fire Department and volunteered part-time with the Missouri National Guard.

But after Shon’s long absence, he and Renee struggled to rebuild their relationship. Shon battled with PTSD after his time at war, and his violent outbursts put a strain on the marriage. By Christmas of 2008, Renee and Shon decided to separate. Renee told her sister that Shon was going away for a two-week training with the National Guard, and when he returned, he would be moving out of the house.

On January 3, 2009, Renee’s sister Lisa noticed that she had multiple missed calls from Renee’s cell phone. When she tried to call her back, Renee didn’t answer. Worried that something might be wrong, Lisa called Renee’s house phone and was surprised when Shon’s voice came across the line. Lisa knew that Shon was supposed to be at training – he had been scheduled to leave on January 2nd. Shon told Lisa that Renee wasn’t at home and he didn’t know where she was; he hadn’t seen her since New Year’s Day.

Although Shon didn’t seem worried, Renee’s family certainly was. They went directly to the Kansas City Police Department and filed a missing persons report. Her father Rick told an officer that he had spoken to Renee on the phone the night of January 1st, and everything had seemed just fine. It wasn’t like Renee to disappear without letting anyone know, and they were concerned about the welfare of her children. The family asked an officer to accompany them to Renee’s house to check on her.

When they knocked on the door, no one answered, so the family used the spare key Renee had given them. Inside the home, they searched through Renee’s belongings, hoping for some indication of her whereabouts. Her purse and keys were there, and her car was in the garage. It was the middle of winter, so it seemed unlikely that she would go anywhere on foot, but even if she had, she would have taken her keys.

While the family was searching the house, Shon arrived with an attorney. He told Renee’s family that they needed to leave, but he agreed to speak with the police officer. Shon told the officer that he hadn’t seen Renee since the morning of January 2nd. He had been sleeping in the basement when Renee came downstairs around 9am and told him she was leaving. The children had spent the night at a neighbor’s house, so Shon just went back to sleep, assuming his wife was going for a walk. When she hadn’t returned home, he figured she must be with her family.

According to Shon’s attorney, once Shon realized that Renee had been gone far too long, he took the children to his mother’s house and searched the neighborhood for his wife. However, Renee’s family wondered why he hadn’t called the police or reported her missing. This sort of behavior was out of character for Renee, and Shon should have gotten help.

Renee’s father Rick told the Kansas City Star that they had their doubts from the start. “We fear something bad has happened. It is unbelievable to feel she walked off and [left] her children.”

That same day, police got word that Renee’s cell phone had been found. According to an affidavit, a pedestrian had spotted the phone lying in the grass near E 6th Street in Northeast Kansas City, approximately 12 miles from Renee and Shon’s home. It wasn’t an area of town that Renee was known to frequent, so how had her cell phone ended up there? Search teams scoured the area, but they didn’t find anything else that they could connect to Renee.

Although Shon told police that his and Renee’s relationship was solid, they learned from Renee’s family that she had asked him to move out after his National Guard training. When investigators searched Renee’s office at St. Luke’s College, they found paperwork from several law firms indicating that Renee was planning to file for divorce again. They also found a photograph in the office that showed Shon with a woman who was not Renee.

Investigators knew they needed to pay close attention to Shon Pernice. Police placed a GPS tracker on Shon’s vehicle, and undercover officers surveilled him in the days following Renee’s disappearance. On January 6th, officers spotted Shon at Line Creek Park, a hiking trail less than two miles from the house. They watched Shon park the family minivan, release one of Renee’s beloved dogs, and drive away. The officers waited for Shon to return, but when he didn’t, they picked up the dog themselves. They later learned that Shon had told his children that the dog ran away.

On January 8th, police executed a search warrant on the Pernice home. Kansas City Police Captain Rich Lockhart told reporters that the house was not a crime scene, they were simply looking for clues to help them find Renee.

Over the course of several days, officers removed more than a dozen bags of evidence, including firearms and computer equipment. Crime scene investigators swabbed the kitchen and bathroom sinks and took patches of carpet from various rooms in the house. They also noted that the floor of the garage had been acid-etched – a process in which acid is applied to concrete with a power washer to create a clean and smooth surface. Investigators worried that this process could have been used to destroy evidence.

While the house was being searched, multiple ground and air searches were also taking place around Kansas City. Officers on horseback joined ATV and K9 units in a search of a large wooded park off Cliff Drive, not far from where Renee’s phone had been found. Renee’s family organized a community search of the wooded area across from the Pernice home, two acres of thick brush and trees. Notably, Shon Pernice did not assist with the search.

According to an affidavit, Shon had been at a local bar while the community search was taking place. He asked the bartender to turn on the local news. A witness told police that when Shon saw a news story about the search, he commented that they wouldn’t find Renee in those woods.

A few weeks into the investigation, police uncovered surveillance footage showing a white pickup truck traveling in the area where Renee’s phone was found on the morning of January 2nd. The Kansas City PD put out an alert with a picture of the truck and the woman driving it, saying that she might be connected to Renee’s disappearance. They asked the public to call in with any information.

It wasn’t long before police were able to identify the woman as Kelli Sharp, a local schoolteacher with whom Shon had been having an affair. Shon and Kelli had met while he was deployed – he had written letters to her students as a part of a soldier pen pal program. When he returned to the States and his marriage started to fall apart, Shon and Kelli reconnected.

Not only had Kelli been seen on surveillance video driving the white truck, she had also been spotted with Shon at a casino just days after Renee disappeared. Cameras captured the couple kissing in the hotel elevator while Renee’s friends and family were out searching for Shon’s missing wife.

Kelli was interviewed by police and cooperated fully with their investigation. Detectives did not believe she was directly connected to Renee’s disappearance.

In February, Kansas City Police announced that they believed Renee Pernice was no longer alive. Her case was officially declared a death investigation. At a press conference, Clay County Prosecutor Daniel White said, “All of the evidence points to the fact that, I strongly believe, Renee Pernice is no longer alive… We believe foul play is involved… She was a devoted family woman, a dedicated career woman, and had numerous family members and friends with whom she was in frequent contact. There has been no contact for over a month. That indicates she cannot make calls or communicate with family and friends.”

Renee’s family announced that they were offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to Renee’s recovery. Her father told reporters that they were hoping to find closure. “From the moment we heard Renee was missing, we knew what the situation was. Maybe you hold it in the back of your mind because you just wish, but logic told us otherwise. So this is not a surprise.”

Since Renee’s disappearance, Shon had been largely silent, taking his attorney’s advice and not speaking to the press. But in March of 2009, Shon gave an interview to local crime blogger Alonzo Washington in which he adamantly denied harming his wife. Shon publicly admitted to his affair with Kelli and said he and Renee were ready to divorce. He also shared his theories on what happened to his wife. “She either left with a nice rich doctor and she’s happy somewhere, which I hope it is, or she, like, jumped in somebody’s car and that’s it.”

Despite his declarations, investigators believed that Shon Pernice had done something to harm Renee, but they didn’t have enough evidence to prove it. They continued to track his movements, hoping he would lead them to Renee.

But as the months passed, Shon seemed to become increasingly agitated and paranoid. In February, Shon was arrested and charged with felony theft for stealing a neighbor’s gun. In July, he was arrested again after an altercation in which he threatened to kill two neighbors who were witnesses in his gun case. On a 911 call, a clearly intoxicated Shon could be heard making threats and saying he was prepared to protect himself. His 8-year-old son was also heard asking his father to put down the knife. Shon was charged with disturbing the peace, witness tampering, and endangering the welfare of a child.

Up until that point, Shon had been keeping his sons away from Renee’s family, only allowing them monitored visits. But after his arrest, Renee’s mother and stepfather filed for emergency custody. Linda told the Kansas City Star, “We definitely feel like we need to get the children in an environment that is good for them.” In July of 2009, the boys went to live with their grandparents, and in January of 2010, Shon agreed to sign over full custody.

Several months later, a grand jury convened to examine the evidence gathered in the investigation of the disappearance of Renee Pernice. Prosecutors laid out the timeline, focusing on Shon’s conflicting stories and his suspicious movements. They explained how Shon had been having an affair in the year leading up to Renee’s disappearance, and Kelli Sharp testified about the relationship. Prosecutors showed evidence of Shon covering his tracks, including dumping the family dog at the park and throwing away some of Renee’s personal belongings in a trash can at his sons’ school.

They also provided evidence that at 4:26am on January 3, 2009, Shon had used his electronic key card to enter Station Five of the Independence Fire Department and access the hazardous materials unit, which housed cleaning supplies and industrial solvents. Shon had not been assigned to Station Five and had no reason to be there, especially in the pre-dawn hours of the morning.

In May of 2010, the grand jury indicted Shon Pernice for first-degree murder. He was arrested and held on a $1 million bond. He entered a not guilty plea.

Renee’s father told the Kansas City Star that the family was grateful for the progress made in the case. “We were certainly hoping this day would come. We are halfway there. We are strong, we have made it this far. I hope the toughest part is over.”

As the case moved towards trial, Shon’s attorneys tried to get much of the evidence against him thrown out, saying that police didn’t have the correct warrants to search his vehicles or access his phone records. They also argued that police had illegally placed the GPS tracker on Shon’s car, citing a Supreme Court ruling that would make the evidence inadmissible in court. But in the end, his attorneys saw the writing on the wall. In February of 2012, one week before his trial was set to begin, Shon Pernice took a deal, pleading guilty to manslaughter in exchange for a lighter sentence.

In court, Shon’s attorney stated that Shon had confessed to killing Renee accidentally on the morning of January 2, 2009. Renee had accused Shon of stealing money from her sister at a family Christmas party, and their argument quickly turned violent. Shon hit Renee in the head and pushed her down the stairs, causing her death. Shon then put his wife’s body in a duffel bag and drove it to another part of town, where he dumped it in a trash bin. Based on the routes of the city’s sanitation trucks, Renee’s body likely ended up in the Shawnee landfill outside the city. Sadly, the two-acre pit was too large to search with any hope of success.

Shon Pernice was sentenced to 15 years in prison. After the hearing, Renee’s mother told reporters that while the family had hoped for a longer sentence, they were glad Renee would get some measure of justice. “I believe that we got justice as best we could in this situation that we had. We will never get our daughter back, so there will never be closure, but we feel good about this.”

In 2023, Shon was released from prison after serving 11 years of his sentence. He earned his bachelor’s degree behind bars and claims to have been rehabilitated. But no amount of regret or alleged change of heart can bring back Renee. Her children had to grow up without her, their precious bond broken by a man who could not control his anger. Renee was a good person, a loving daughter, sister, and mother. She was a skilled and passionate nurse who wanted to help others and leave her mark on the world. May her memory bring comfort to those who loved her.

If you or someone you know is in an abusive relationship, please contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 or text START to 88788. Help is free and confidential. You don’t have to suffer alone.