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Georgia Horse Trainer Brutally Killed by Ranch Hand Who Had Affair with His Wife
Richard Brian Whiting called 911 to report his employer, Charles "Chuck" Shriner, missing. But details of a scandalous affair and murder eventually came out.
Douglas County, Georgia, a rural area 20 miles west of Atlanta, is dotted with green hills and storied horse farms.
On one of these ranches, investigators worked the puzzling case of a missing horse trainer that began with a 911 call on Friday, March 18, 1994.
The caller sounded frantic. “His boss, Charles ‘Chuck’ Shriner, had disappeared,” David McDade, a former Douglas County District Attorney, said in the “Homicide on the Ranch” episode of The Real Murders of Atlanta, airing Saturdays at 9/8c p.m. on Oxygen.
Richard Brian Whiting, who was the one who phoned police, was a friend of Shriner as well as a live-in employee at the 70-acre property.
He told authorities that, “Chuck walked out the back door around midnight,” according to Scott Cosper, a retired Douglas County police officer.
Shriner, who was in his socks at the time, according to Whiting, was nowhere to be found Friday morning.
In addition to checking area hospitals and jail, search teams scoured the Shriner property and buildings. They found no signs of foul play in the house or Shriner’s truck. They also didn't find Shriner.
Who was Chuck Shriner?
Authorities contacted Shriner’s wife, Lori, who was visiting relatives in Ohio. She explained that she and Shriner met at her family farm in Ohio, where he trained horses. They eventually married.
After her parents’ deaths, Lori inherited a “considerable amount of money,” said McDade, adding that the money helped them start their own equestrian center in Douglasville, Georgia.
“Lori painted a picture that they had an up-and-coming, thriving horse training business, and that Chuck Shriner was the heart and soul of the business,” McDade told The Real Murders of Atlanta.
Six months pregnant, Lori said that she and Shriner were just starting a family.
Chuck Shriner’s friends weigh in
Chuck’s friends interviewed by law enforcement described him as “the kind of person that a lot of people sort of gravitated towards,” said McDade.
They agreed that his vanishing into thin air was completely out of character. His life and future was on the ranch.
Chuck’s inner circle explained to authorities that he wanted to parlay his love of horses into a golden opportunity with the Summer Olympics that were coming to Atlanta two years later in 1996.
“In his mind, he could rent the stables to a country and make a lot of money to help pay for the place,” said Douglasville resident Jon Agnese.
Persons of interest emerge
Upon her return, Lori was questioned. The interview helped lead to a ranch employee who’d been fired. “He didn’t work hard enough, and Chuck told him he had to go,” said Bill Torpy, an Atlanta-Journal Constitution reporter.
Investigators learned that the day before Shriner vanished, he and the fired ranch staffer had an altercation. The former employee told authorities it stemmed from a dispute over his desire to claim income tax.
The heated argument escalated when Whiting, Shriner’s right-hand man, intervened and chased the man with an ax, according to The Real Murders of Atlanta. The fired employee fled in his vehicle.
“It did put questions and doubts in my mind about Brian,” said Donna Foster, a retired sergeant with Douglas County Sheriff’s Office.
The fired ranch worker’s account for his whereabouts at the time Shriner went missing were checked out and confirmed.
Clues from Chuck Shriner’s financials and ranch
Intrigued by Shriner’s argument based on tax filings, investigators focused on his financial situation.
“There were no life insurance policies involving Chuck Shriner or his wife, Lori,” said retired Cobb County Police Department homicide detective sergeant Eddie Herman.
Officials learned that Lori had no financial motive for her husband’s death — and that Shriner was not particularly good with money, according to The Real Murders of Atlanta.
Desperate for a break in the case, police launched a more thorough search of the Shriner farm with cadaver dogs, helicopters and scuba divers. Officials did not turn up anything, which convinced them that Shriner wasn’t on his property.
Days into the investigation, detectives strongly suspected foul play. They used the media to ask the public for information.
Police focus on Brian Whiting
The media blast paid off the following day, when a former ranch employee said that in December, he’d seen Whiting and Lori kissing in the barn.
“He said there was an affair between Lori and Brian that had been going on for weeks, if not months,” Torpy told The Real Murders of Atlanta.
Police immediately shifted gears to focus on Whiting. “When we’re looking at the motive for a crime, lust can be an incredibly motivating factor,” said McDade.
Lori Shriner interrogated about affair
Questioned by police about her affair with Whiting, Lori admitted she’d had sex with him after discovering that Shriner had cheated on her. “I don't know if I did it out of spite,” she said in the recorded interview.
She claimed that she had called the affair off, adding that “Whiting was obsessed with her,” said Herman. “He didn’t want to let it go, so he continued to pursue her.”
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Lori told officials that she was “100% sure” that she was pregnant with Shriner’s baby. “I got pregnant sometime about the end of September, when I was not having sex with Brian," she told investigators.
Investigators took her claims with a grain of salt. The tipster reported seeing her kissing Whiting three months later, in December. But she insisted she had no plan to leave her husband.
“She made it clear to us that Chuck was her life, her world, and that she would do anything she could to find him,” said McDade.
Chuck Shriner's house searched again
Whiting admitted to have an affair with Lori, but insisted he had nothing to do with Shriner’s disappearance. When he lawyered up, authorities discovered that he had an outstanding warrant for a probation violation.
Whiting was taken into custody on that offense. While he was in custody, police returned to search the Shriner home for a closer look. This time they turned up a trail of blood in the den that had been covered up.
“There was a lot of blood that was in the carpet, underneath the padding and on the subfloor,” said Cosper. “I knew I had a homicide.”
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Detectives found a bloody ax in the garage, which led them to a theory about what happened to him. “Shriner was obviously attacked and killed, most likely while he slept on a loveseat in the downstairs area of the house,” said McDade.
Police believed Shriner had been attacked in the den, and then dragged out to his truck.
Brian Whiting arrested for murder
As they dug deeper into the case, police cleared Lori as a suspect. They intensified their search of Douglas County. On June 11, 1994, a body was found nine miles from Shriner’s ranch on a farm in Cobb County, Georgia.
Police learned that Whiting had previously worked on that property. The badly decomposed body, which had been wrapped in a tarp, was identified as Shriner through dental records.
“His skull had been caved in by a very heavy, blunt object,” said McDade.
Whiting was charged with murder. In August of 1995, his trial began. On September 14 of that year, he was convicted and sentenced to life without the chance of parole.
Learn more about the case in the “Homicide on the Ranch” episode of The Real Murders of Atlanta, airing Saturdays at 9/8c p.m. on Oxygen.
