On A Sunday Night After Getting Ice Cream With Her Friends, She Was Shot In Her Driveway: It’s Been 3 Years And Her Killer Hasn’t Been Caught

Bre Avery Zacharski |

Nov 2, 2021

Aliquippa, Pennsylvania. It was a Sunday night, May 13th, 2018, to be exact, when Rachael DelTondo went out to get ice cream with her friends.

She arrived back home and was standing in her driveway when she was shot and killed.

It’s now been 3 years without her killing being caught, but David Lozier, the Beaver County District Attorney, insists that Rachael will not just be another statistic.

He mentioned that he is very happy with where the investigation into her death is going, and he’s confident Rachael’s killer will pay for what they did.

Here are the most recent updates in Rachael DelTondo’s murder investigation and everything you need to know, below.

Facebook; pictured above Rachael DelTondo smiles while wearing a white dress

We’re going to quickly recap what happened shortly before Rachael’s death, first. Rachael DelTondo was suspended from her job as an elementary school teacher following an incident with an underage student who attended another local school.

The student was just 17-years-old at the time, and his name was Sheldon Jeter Jr.

Rachael knew him very well because she used to date his older brother, Rashawn Bolton. Not only did Rachael date Rashawn, but she was also out getting ice cream with him the night she was murdered.

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Police found the two of them parked in Rachael’s car late one night in a wooded area with the windows steamed up. Rachael and Sheldon both told police that they were just talking that night, but their late-night chat led to Rachael’s suspension from her job and the end of her engagement, even though no charges were ever filed against Rachael.

48 Hours aired an investigation into Rachael’s murder in May of 2019. Just hours after Rachael’s investigation called “What Happened to Rachael?” aired on TV, someone connected to her was found unconscious on the side of the road.

This someone was none other than Sheldon Jeter Jr. Yes, the same Sheldon she was found talking to in her parked car before she was murdered.

Sheldon was 21-years-old when he was found to be unconscious, and he was apparently partying hard in Pittsburgh that night. At 4 in the morning on Sunday, May 19th, a 911 call was placed saying there was an unconscious man just lying on the side of the road.

The caller mentioned they had seen a blue-colored truck at the scene speeding away. When firefighters got to the side of Orchard Street, they found Sheldon.

Sheldon appeared to be suffering from an overdose, so first responders gave him Narcan and were able to revive him. Michael Santicola, Sheldon’s attorney, said that Sheldon was not overdosing when he was found. He also says Sheldon has no history of using drugs at all.

Sheldon just had too much to drink that night and blacked out on the side of the road, his attorney maintained. Sheldon remembered nothing. He did remember blacking out, he didn’t remember being revived, or the first responders who helped save his life.

After he was revived, he flipped off the first responders and just walked off towards home. Some display of gratitude.

Even though Mr. Santicola insisted Sheldon was just drunk, the curious thing about Narcan is that it won’t revive you if you’re suffering from alcohol poisoning or an overdose of that kind of cocktail…..

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that Narcan is only successful in reviving patients who have overdosed on opioids.

If that isn’t curious enough for you, it turns out that Rachael and Sheldon were romantically involved. Mr. Santicola even admitted that Sheldon and Rachael were romantically involved for quite some time, but he pointed out that Sheldon is innocent and had nothing to do with her death at all.

“He’s a good kid Sheldon was put in a difficult situation over the holidays drawn into this thing that probably should have been nipped in the bud in 2016,” Mr. Santicola said to Channel 11 about what happened between them.

“On occasion they were romantic,” Mr. Santicola mentioned about the two. “But they were not exclusive or anything.”

Rachael and Sheldon texted and called one another quite frequently. Mr. Santicola also revealed that Rachael told Sheldon that she was trying to expose the police corruption going on in their town and with her investigation.

“We find it far from a coincidence that she was murdered within days of having to testify,” Mr. Santicola added. Rachael was allegedly supposed to testify before her death about the corruption of the police department, though this has been denied by authorities.

Rachael also told Sheldon she was getting death threats, although she didn’t really go into too much detail on that.

Mr. Santicola said to CBS News, “I think it’s fair to say that he (Sheldon) is a suspect.”

“But there is a cast of characters that all could be considered suspects … I would say her fiancé is a possible suspect.”

Facebook; Rachael wears a black dress and a smile in the above photo

So, let’s take a look at Rachael’s ex-fiancé and what happened there. Rachael was engaged to Frank Catroppa. Frank was quite a successful businessman, even being dubbed the Wolf of Aliquippa at one point.

Frank and Rachael dated for 8 years, but it was on again, off again before their engagement ended. When the police found Rachael and Sheldon together in her car at 2 a.m., she begged them not to tell her fiancé Frank.

Even though the police didn’t tell Frank that evening, he found out eventually.

Rachael told him different details about that night, though. She said she and Sheldon met up at 10 p.m. and that they were in a well-lit local parking lot, instead of off in the woods in a secluded spot.

Frank says that he was very much in love with Rachael at one point in their relationship. Before this all happened. He remembers her as kind and beautiful.

After 5 years together, Frank proposed to Rachael in Paris. At that point, she had really been pushing for a ring and had given Frank several different deadlines to propose by.

He proposed to her with an enormous six-carat oval-shaped diamond ring. It was the stuff dreams were made of. Rachael was overjoyed, but her mom wasn’t sure if it was because Frank finally asked the question or if it was because of how big her new rock was.

Pictured above Rachael and Frank share a kiss in front of the Eiffel Tower after Frank proposed in Paris

Rachael immediately started planning their wedding. She bought elaborate shoes worth $3,000. She picked out a $10,000 wedding dress.

Rachael’s mom says Frank was trying to control all of the wedding planning, but he says Rachael’s family was getting far too controlling and involved.

This next part was the first thing that truly ended up ruining the relationship between the two before Sheldon had come along…

Frank asked Rachael to sign a prenup. He was a young and wealthy man. It made sense for him to ask her to do this. Rachael initially agreed. She didn’t want Frank to think at all that she just wanted to be with him for his money.

Glass Hat – stock.adobe.com

Ultimately, Rachael ended up refusing to sign a prenup though. Frank says he is positive her mom Lisa was the one who got in her head because she was so willing to do that in the beginning. Rachael’s mom admits that she did not want her to sign it at all.

After Rachael said she would not sign a prenup, that’s when everything fell apart.

Frank says all of the wedding plans stopped. They weren’t really engaged anymore. It’s not clear what happened to that gorgeous engagement ring, but Frank says Rachael still hung out with him. Rachael’s family was very upset, so she started lying to everyone about still being around Frank.

He says that’s when it all became pretty common for her to lie. Frank started pulling away, and who could really blame him? Their wedding was off…they were no longer engaged….he said their relationship wasn’t the same anymore and it couldn’t go back to what it was.

10 months after Frank and Rachael’s engagement was officially called off, Rachael showed up to Frank’s birthday party that he throws for himself every year in an Aliquippa bar located downtown. Rachael’s friend Jen was also at the party with her boyfriend, and she told CBS that she remembers Rachael looked really off.

bennnn – stock.adobe.com

Her boyfriend noticed that she didn’t look right either, and they thought Rachael was using drugs. Jen confronted her, saying she was worried. Rachael exploded and hit her in the face at the party. Frank noticed the commotion and came over to see what on earth was going on.

Jen admits that in retaliation, she blurted out to Frank that he needed to ask Rachael what she was really doing in the car that night with Sheldon, so many months ago at this point.

Rachael still insisted she was innocent and just trying to help a kid who needed her help. Frank still believed her.

A few months after his birthday party incident, Frank felt he needed answers.

He went down to the Aliquippa Police Department and inquired as to whether there was an incident report from that night. Turns out, there was.

The Assistant Police Chief spoke with Frank, and he told CBS that Frank wanted to know the truth because Rachael was trying to get back together with him and he didn’t want to look like an idiot.

When Frank got his hands on the incident report, it turns out Rachael really had not told him the truth or all of the details about that night. In fact, she had told him a very different story. A few days after Frank saw the report, someone anonymously leaked it to Rachael’s school, to the media, and to even the mayor of the town.

Facebook; Rachael smiles for the camera in the above photo while she holds a drink in her hand

To this day, police still have no idea who leaked it. Rachael’s mom insists Frank leaked it, but he maintains he never did. He did, however, show the report to a few friends asking if they knew anything about the incident first hand.

“We wanted to be very, very clear publicly that Frank Catroppa has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with what happened,” Stephen Colafella, Frank’s lawyer, has said about the case. “And it’s important to him, and it’s important to his family that the public knows that.”

The very next day after the report came out, Rachael was suspended from her teaching job. Rachael’s mom says she was a complete wreck after this happened. She couldn’t eat anything. She couldn’t sleep. She went to go see a doctor she was feeling so upset.

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Rachael even spent three days in a psychiatric ward, her mom told CBS.

Rachael’s mom completely believes that nothing happened between Rachael and Sheldon. It makes sense that Rachael would not have wanted to tell her mom that she was seeing someone underage.

Facebook; Rachael smiles big in the above photo

Now, Rachael stopped hanging out with a lot of her friends, as you can imagine, after this all blew up. Rachael confined her social circle to Sheldon’s older brother Rashawn, and a former student of hers, 17-year-old Lauren Watkins.

Rachael’s mom admits her therapist told her not to be friends with Lauren. Lisa also says that she was very concerned about their difference in age. Lauren was 17. Rachael was in her 30s.

The night Rachael was murdered, she had gone out for ice cream with Lauren and Rashawn.

oatawa – stock.adobe.com

Lauren was driving. She dropped Rachael off in her driveway that night, and just 4 minutes after she drove off, Rachael was shot and killed at the very end of her driveway.

Authorities are saying that Rachael’s killer either knew she went out and waited nearby her home for her to return, or her killer followed her around that night as she went out and came home.

Regardless of how Rachael’s killer was aware of where she was the fateful evening, they’re still out there and they have yet to be arrested for taking her life.