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Amish man’s alleged confession to assault and strangulation of a woman to be excluded from trial

January 27, 2026·56 min·3 clips

Wellington Dickens III allegedly kept four children in a trunk while using Grindr and hosting men at the house.

1. True Crime News: The Podcast covers the Amish case involving Samuel Hall Shelter and the Dickens family deaths involving Wellington Dickens III. 2. Guest host Alison Treasel leads the episode with Dr. Nikki Jackson, a criminal justice professor and victim’s advocate, because both cases turn on confessions and Miranda rights. 3. The episode asks whether Samuel Hall Shelter’s statements to police were knowing, intelligent, and voluntary, and whether Wellington Dickens III’s alleged 911 confession explains four child deaths. 4. Alison says Samuel Hall Shelter is 18, charged with aggravated murder, rape, and kidnapping in the March 2025 death of Rosanna Kinzinger in Rutland, Ohio. 5. The discussion notes that Samuel grew up Amish, primarily speaks Pennsylvania Dutch, and lived in a 10-family Amish community in Meigs County, Ohio. 6. Alison describes Rosanna Kinzinger as a community figure who made goat milk products like soap and was found dead after not appearing from her trailer all day on March 13, 2025. 7. Nikki says the key question is not whether Samuel confessed, but whether his incriminating statements were obtained after a proper Miranda warning. 8. Alison explains that police brought Samuel to the sheriff’s office on May 5, 2025, said they needed a DNA sample, and questioned him before taking the sample for more than an hour. 9. Nikki says the officers used leading questions and a READ-style approach, and Alison recounts Samuel’s account of consensual sex, a blanket over Rosanna’s face, and the claim that she was dead when he removed it. 10. The legal dispute turns on the judge’s decision to suppress Samuel’s statement because he did not understand his rights in the context of Amish language and culture. 11. Alison quotes the ruling’s comparison of an attorney to an Amish bishop, and Nikki says that analogy could make confession seem like a path to forgiveness. 12. Nikki emphasizes that the issue is pretrial and constitutional, not yet a guilt determination at trial. 13. Alison says the state lacks DNA, eyewitnesses, and useful video, while the autopsy was described as inconclusive. 14. Nikki raises a corpus delicti concern and says the prosecutors may have a difficult time proceeding if the statement stays out. 15. The episode then pivots to Wellington Dickens III, 38, who is charged with four counts of first-degree murder after allegedly calling 911 and saying, “I killed my children.” 16. Alison lists the children as Sean, 18, Leah, 5, Zoe, 9, and Wellington, 10, and says authorities found their bodies in the trunk of a Honda Civic in the garage. 17. The episode adds that Wellington’s wife Stephanie Ray Jones Dickens died after a miscarriage in April 2024, and that a separate one-month-old son, Riley, was allegedly buried in the woods behind the house. 18. Nikki and Alison describe the children’s decomposing bodies, the smell inside the garage, and allegations that Wellington used Grindr while men came to the home during the period of the killings. 19. The tone is legal, case-driven, and conversational, with Alison summarizing the facts and Nikki translating them into Miranda, coercion, and suppression analysis. 20. Listeners who follow true-crime courtroom fights and Amish-community cases will get the most from this episode, while people avoiding graphic child-death allegations may skip it.

As heard by us

A suppression fight that leaves the rest of the case looking thin.

The defendant's statement sits at the center of the case, but the real question is whether it should have made it into court at all. The hosts take their time with the suppression fight, and the attention to the language barrier, limited formal education, and the defense's claim…

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When a confession may be the difference in a case with no forensic backup.

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