Nashville Woman Found Buried In a Basement Nearly 40 Years Ago Finally Identified
Toni L. GordonCredit: Metropolitan Nashville Police Department
Nashville Metropolitan Police announced this week that a second murder victim in a 1987 double homicide has finally been identified as Toni L. Gordon
Gordon was found dead and buried in a Nashville basement along with Sheila Cummings
James Shaffer was charged with their murders and died in prison in 2004
Nashville police have finally identified a Tennessee woman who was found dead and buried in a basement nearly 40 years ago.
Investigators with the Nashville Metropolitan Police announced in a news release on Monday that Toni L. Gordon was finally named as the second of two murder victims who were found dead in 1987.
Nashville police previously announced in 2025 that the first victim was identified as 23-year-old Sheila Cummings.
The two women are believed to have died in 1985, according to investigators. Two years later, their bodies were discovered buried in the basement of a Nashville home.
James Shaffer was arrested shortly after their bodies were discovered and was charged with their murders. According to police, Shaffer “confessed to the killings after they were discovered in 1987 in shallow graves within the dirt floor basement of a home he had rented.”
Gordon was 31 years old when she died, investigators said.
Investigators say they identified Gordon “through forensic genetic genealogy.”
Detectives struggled for nearly four decades to identify Gordon, who was only known to them as “Lil’ Bit” – a nickname by which Shaffer had referred to her.
Shaffer died in prison in 2004.
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“Family members believed that Gordon moved out of state and lost contact with them,” said Nashville police, adding that detectives had notified Gordon’s family of her identification.
Shaffer received two life sentences for the murders.
The Nashville Metropolitan Police Department said it worked with DNA Investigative Solutions, Bode Technology, the National Missing & Unidentified Persons System, the Davidson County Medical Examiner’s Office and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigations over the last 39 years while trying to identify the women.
Source: Crime
