NOLAN COUNTY, Texas — It has been nearly a month since Shawn Adkins was released from Mitchell County Jail after he was accused of killing 13-year-old Hailey Dunn.
Now, Hailey's father, Clint Dunn, is speaking up about supposed allegations he had with the over decade-long investigation.
Dunn was unable to attend a virtual press conference held Monday morning due to illness, but his personal team spoke about the number of problems he had with investigators from multiple counties.
Prosecution dropped the charges against Adkins after he was offered a 30-year plea deal — a deal Adkins rejected.
A deal that, according to Erica Morse, a senior private investigator with Jensen Investigations of Indiana, "blindsided" Dunn.
"We feel very strongly that the clock ran out on this case," Morse said. "Shawn sat behind bars for two years, and we think this was an issue of timing more than anything. They had to pull that trigger so to speak, and have this trial move forward, or they had to release him and conduct more investigation and get their ducks in a row."
Dunn's frustrations with the case made him voice a number of allegations against the investigators of Mitchell, Scurry and Nolan Counties.
Dunn and his team allege that investigators miscommunicated with Dunn and his team and mishandled evidence, specifically about Adkins' work boots and soil tests they requested be done on the boots.
They even claim that there were attempts to keep Dunn quiet on the investigation.
"We have some real problems going on in this case," Morse said. "There has been, not only a lack of communication to Clint, but we do not feel like there has been accurate truth telling going on here."
Meanwhile, Dunn's team, unhappy with the investigation, would like to take the fight to court.
They're hoping to find an attorney, but claim they've had little success
"We have paid for multiple consultations with attorneys from West Texas all the way to East Texas, Houston, Corpus [Christi], Austin, you name it," Morse said. "They all are very interested until they realize it is the Hailey Dunn case."
Meanwhile, Dunn has drafted a bill that he calls the "Police Accountability and Transparency Act," that would improve police forces and add new rules and regulatory bodies.
However, the bill is only a draft, as he is still looking for lawmakers to help co-write it.
Hailey Dunn's case, according to Dunn's team, is now a cold case.
We have reached out to district attorney's and sheriff's offices in Nolan, Scurry and Mitchell Counties about the allegations Dunn and his team made, but they were either unavailable or unable to speak about the allegations.