Shawn Sheridan’s girlfriend opens up about police shootout

CANTON, New York (WWNY) - When St. Lawrence County fugitive Shawn Sheridan was shot and killed by a New York state trooper 2 weeks ago in the woods, he was not alone. We hear from Sheridan’s girlfriend who, for a month, survived with Sheridan living in a tent and eating wild game they caught in traps.

Chantelle Myatt thought it was a camping trip and says she was unaware that Sheridan was hiding from the law.

The night before a shootout in the woods that would cost fugitive Shawn Sheridan his life, his girlfriend, 19-year-old Chantelle Myatt, boiled a possum for dinner.

“We had live traps. We hunted bird game. We made minnow jerky. So fish, crawdads, anything we could get out hands on out there,” she said.

That’s how the couple survived in the Downerville State Forest near Russell for close to a month.

Myatt says she thought it was a camping trip and didn’t know Sheridan skipped bail and was running from the law. He didn’t show up for sentencing following a plea deal for shooting his former fiancée in the neck.

Myatt went willingly.

“At first, yes. There were some altercations out there that made it to where it was difficult for me to be able to step away and that is all I’m really comfortable with saying at this time,” she said.

On the morning of August 11, the couple woke to a helicopter overhead. Sheridan left their tent, telling Myatt they had to move to a different location.

Myatt joined Sheridan on top of a ridge when she heard someone aggressively yell out to them. Scared, she left Sheridan’s side.

“I ran down the hill and I stumbled and fell and only made it 15 feet away from him and during this time I heard three distinct gunshots. By the time I had hit my knees at the bottom of the hill and turned around, he was already on the ground and the dog had just gotten to him,” she said.

Sheridan was dead; shot in the face. State police say Sheridan fired at a trooper first.

Myatt remembers police walked her out of the woods, in cuffs, right by the man who is the father of her unborn child.

“They walked me right past him, which is an image I will always have in my head now and then they finally sat me up on the ridge beyond him and I sat there for a few minutes,” she said.

Myatt’s lawyer, Ed Narrow, says his client plans to speak with state police, the district attorney and the attorney general’s office which is investigating the trooper-involved shooting.

Meanwhile, Myatt doesn’t want people to think the worst of Sheridan.

“I just want people to know that Shawn wasn’t this demon, this mean man that was a fugitive that was out to get everybody. He was a very scared soul who didn’t know where his life was going and he just wanted some sort of control of it,” she said.

How state police found Sheridan’s location hasn’t been made public. But Myatt says Sheridan did have a cell phone on him and they were camping in an area that was close to his family camp.

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