Shuck, 24, had schizophrenia and struggled in the past with drug use. She was staying in a Silver City, New Mexico, motel in 2006 as her mother tried to help her. Atwood came to the motel one April day to bring her daughter medication but learned that Shuck had checked out 10 to 15 minutes earlier...
Ten days later, Shuck appeared in her mother's dream, screaming that she wanted to come home, Atwood said. When she woke up at about 2 or 3 a.m., Atwood knew something had happened. Two thousand miles away, about the same time Atwood was waking up from that dream, a passing driver found Shuck's body on the shoulder of I-70 east, a mile west of Md. 27...
Little is known about how a pretty young mother came from New Mexico to the side of a Maryland highway. Because of the distance she traveled and the proximity of her body to the New Market truck weigh station, Maryland State Police Detective Rick Bachtell suspects her death was the work of a truck driver, possibly a serial killer or someone who struggled with Shuck before killing her elsewhere and dumping her body with little fore or afterthought.