GUILTY NV - Ben Oxley, 36, shot to death in his bed, Minden, 21 Feb 2008

I came across this case on AMW website and after doing a search did not see anything here about Ben.

On February 21st 2008 around 3:30am while Benjamin Oxley was home in bed sleeping with his wife while his 6yr daughter slept in the next room someone entered their home and shot Ben in the back of the head. LE says they think someone entered the home but did not break in because the door was already unlocked. LE also said that Ben's wife is not a suspect.
There is quite a conversation in the forums at AMW.com where Ben's sister posts. There was definitely some family issues with Ben's new wife, Melissa. She was trying to get full custody of Ben's daughter he had with another woman and they apparently had an amicable relationship and worked out custody between them and were happy with it. According to Ann, Ben's sister, Melissa has had 7 or 8 boyfriends since Ben's death.
Melissa's fifteen yr old brother was in the house the night Ben was shot.
It is obviously suspect that Melissa seemingly slept through a gun being shot near her head. Certainly blood splatter analysis would confirm if she is telling the truth about being in bed at the time - she would have blood on her and there would not be any blood where she was lying.

Ben worked as a heating/air condition installer and foreman.

There was apparently a break-in at their house the night before Ben was murdered.

There is a lot of information on the web regarding this case.

http://forums.amw.com/foxamw/messages/?start=Start+Reading+>> (ben's sis is 'missingben)

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=363628094

http://www.nevadaappeal.com/article/20080305/OBITUARIES/462395649 (obituary)

http://www.kolotv.com/home/headlines/15848067.html

http://www.recordcourier.com/article/20080312/News/944811681/-1/NEWS

http://www.recordcourier.com/article/20080229/News/830599607/-1/NEWS

http://aroundcarson.com/2008/02/21/johnson_lane_murder (interesting comments)

Did investigators state why they were so sure Melissa wasn't a suspect? Was she wearing earplugs?

Hi KarlK - I registered at AMW forums yesterday to ask Ben's sister that exact question. There is a 48hour waiting period before I can post. I have read all the articles posted above and have not seen one good reason why LE says she is not a suspect. Either they have evidence to the contrary, they are trying to build a case against her without alerting her or they are just guilible.
Ben's sis did mention the blood spatter evidence but only to say LE has not released that information so she doesn't know what story it tells.

I read a lot about this case, Ben Oxley. I too first noticed it at amw.com.

From all I read, Ben's wife, Melissa and his 6 yr old daughter and Melissa's 15 yr old brother, were in the home when Ben was shot.
It was 3:30a.m.
LE say his wife is not a suspect.
But, I have found nothing to rule her out.
The door was left unlocked.
They had just moved into the house recently.

IMO: I feel there is something strange why the police ruled the wife
out so fast.
Did the wife wake up when Ben was shot? Did she see anyone or anything?
Was there blood spatter on her nightgown?

One thing: After Ben's death, his wife went to court to get parenting visitation with her stepdaughter.

There will be a memorial on anniversary of his death, Feb. 21.

There is a my space page done by Melissa, Ben's wife's brother.
Nice.

dreamweaver said:

I read a lot about this case, Ben Oxley. I too first noticed it at amw.com.

From all I read, Ben's wife, Melissa and his 6 yr old daughter and Melissa's 15 yr old brother, were in the home when Ben was shot.
It was 3:30a.m.
LE say his wife is not a suspect.
But, I have found nothing to rule her out.
The door was left unlocked.
They had just moved into the house recently.

IMO: I feel there is something strange why the police ruled the wife
out so fast.
Did the wife wake up when Ben was shot? Did she see anyone or anything?
Was there blood spatter on her nightgown?

One thing: After Ben's death, his wife went to court to get parenting visitation with her stepdaughter.

There will be a memorial on anniversary of his death, Feb. 21.

Click to expand...

Thank you dreamweaver for your input! I didn't know she had filed for visitation rights.

There definitely seemed to have been something weird going on with Ben's wife and her relationship with her step-daughter. Eventhough Ben and his ex-wife had an amicable visitation agreement Melissa had been trying to get full custody of the little girl and tried to get parenting visitation after Ben's death. That is weird to me. Was it jealousy? She didn't want Ben having any kind of relationship with his ex-wife? She didn't like the fact he had a daughter with someone else so her solution was to get full custody of the girl and basically pretend like it was their child and the ex-wife would be out of the picture?

On the forum at AMW there seems to be a lot of speculation on if the door was left unlocked on purpose. Someone had tried to break in the house the night before and then the very next night they leave the door unlocked? Very unlikely. It sounds like the night before the plan to kill Ben was botched so they tried again. Either that or the break-in was planned to happen the night before so LE would think that that the burglars tried again and Ben was killed this time.

From what I understand the wife said she did not wake up when Ben was shot - seems very unlikely - I have not heard anything regarding blood splatter. Ben's sister said that LE has not released that info. I think this case hinges on the blood spatter evidence. It will either corroborate or dismiss Melissa's story. If she were in bed there would be blood on her nightclothes, there would not be blood on her side where she would have been lying. I wonder if LE performed a GSR test on her (gunshot residue) to see if she had residue on her hands which would be consistent with firing a gun. If they took her nightclothes as evidence I would think that they could still test her dress for GSR.

If they have really dismissed her as a suspect that seems pretty irresponsible of LE.

This case is no longer a cold case.

Melissa was in fact totally innocent. The ex-wife Dawn had her very young boyfriend James murder Ben. She also wanted him to kill Melissa but he did not. Dawn received limited immunity and testified against James. James was convicted.

Alyssa now lives with her stepmother Melissa. Seeing how this has played out Melissa seems like an amazing woman and Alyssa seems very lucky to have her.

There was a great episode of Dateline covering this.

http://www.today.com/id/47293241/ns...er-bed-urges-forgiveness-killer/#.UfSyvcu9KK0

i remember when this aired on Dateline 2 years ago.

so tragic that melissa was under suspscion all that time, grieving her husbands death while trying to stay in her stepdaughters life........while the courts handed alyssa back to who turned out to be the real killer. yes, i believe the 'mother' was the killer. she put her boyfriend up to it. and then ben's sister, had the nerve to go from everyone from america's most wanted to ben's own daughter and put the blame on melissa.

absolutely disgusting. i hope dawn and her boy toy burn in hades.