NEED TO KNOW

James "Cotton" Kelly was shot to death on the outskirts of Las Vegas in September 1986

The murder was inadvertently set in motion after 16-year-old Sandy Shaw says she asked her longtime friend Troy Kell to rough up Kelly in an attempt to convince him to stop stalking her

Shaw — along with Kell and another teen — was convicted of the murder and spent over two decades in prison for the killing before being paroled and eventually pardoned

The plan that night was supposed to be simple, 15-year-old Sandy Shaw told herself. She would lure 21-year-old James “Cotton” Kelly into the desert on the outskirts of Las Vegas, and then her childhood friend Troy Kell would rough him up in an attempt to force Kelly to stop his monthslong campaign of stalking and harassing her.

But inste

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