PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) -- The disappearance of a Philadelphia track star in 1993 baffled police for weeks. Later, the discovery of who was behind it shocked the city. The story is the subject of a TV show airing Thursday night.
"Buried in the Woods: Guilt or Grief," an episode of Oxygen's series "Buried in the Backyard," tells the story of 17-year-old William Penn High School senior Shilie Turner.
“She was a track star from a very young age," producer Mister Mann Frisby said. "Incredible talent. It was undeniable."
Frisby is from Philadelphia. He also ran track, and he knew Turner. He says she was an Olympic hopeful with a full ride scholarship to Clemson. But darkness took over on January 18, 1993 -- Martin Luther King Jr. Day -- when Turner didn’t show up to a track meet.
“We knew she wasn’t a runaway, but we knew that wasn’t her character, to miss track, to miss school,” Frisby said.
So the community rallied behind her mother, Vivian King, as she searched for Turner. Weeks later, Turner's beaten body, shot six times, was found in Fairmount Park.
“It was horrific," Frisby said. "I remember girls were catching the bus together. It was like: Don’t go nowhere by yourself."
King later confessed to killing her daughter in a drunken rage.
“It turns your stomach just to think about it," Frisby said.
Her friends still think about Turner, even as her mother is a free woman.
"We are still dealing with it," Frisby said.
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"Buried in the Backyard" airs Thursday at 8 p.m. on Oxygen Network.
CLARIFICATION: Turner lived in North Philadelphia and went to school in West Philadelphia.