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foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
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listening thanks for telling a friend [Music] this week we are very happy to be featuring daycation by one of the very
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best in the beer making business Highland Brewing and beautiful Asheville North Carolina this is a hoppy floral
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three and three quarter bottle caps out of five and Captain you know who wishes that they were skipping work on a beer
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everybody gather round grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime foreign
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[Music] December 26th the day after Christmas 1985 Deborah Ann Wolfe is a 28 year old
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nurse at the VA hospital in Fayetteville North Carolina she worked the first shift as normal
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during the shift she had lunch with Roger rushing a co-worker she called her mom Jenny Edwards around
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3 30 asking for gift suggestions for her sister-in-law's birthday it was in every way a routine day
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Debbie clocked out at 4 pm and it is presumed that she went straight home a 15 to 20 minute drive
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the next day Friday December 27th Debbie did not show up for her 8 AM shift at the hospital
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this was not just unusual it was totally out of character her supervisors at the
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hospital called her house and got no answer her mom Jenny called the hospital at
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midday and was told that Debbie never arrived at work Jenny tried Debbie at her home but she
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did not answer the phone Jenny sent her husband John Edwards and their friend Kevin Gordon over to
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Debbie's house when John and Kevin got to the house Debbie's car was there with her
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Christmas presents still inside the vehicle they found Debbie's dogs roaming outside
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the kitchen door was locked but the living room door was unlocked inside the electric heater was on
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articles of clothing lie on the kitchen floor it seemed that Debbie was nowhere on the
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property John and Kevin assumed that Debbie had left with someone possibly in a hurry and would be back
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they fed the dogs turned down the heater and left the next day John returned to the cabin
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again he found the dog bowls empty and still no sign of Debbie everything was the way John had left it
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the day before he walked the property saw nothing unusual and then left but things were unusual
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because Debbie was close with her family and yet no one knew where she was to this day so many questions remain
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unanswered this is true crime garage and this is the mysterious case of Debbie Wolf
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[Music] today we are going back to just after Christmas 1985 near Fayetteville a
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well-populated All-American City in the beautiful state of North Carolina Debbie
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Wolfe lived alone with her two dogs Mason and Morgan and a small one level home 100 yards off of MacArthur Road
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just about four miles outside of Fayetteville this is a rustic cabin surrounded by Tall Pine trees and no
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Neighbors at the time Debbie was driving a 1975 Pontiac that belonged to her mother Debbie was at work on December
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26th and then life as they say it turns on a a dime because 24 hours later she does not show up for work and she cannot
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be located her stepfather and family friend go to check on her and finding one door to her cabin unlocked and the
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dogs roaming the property note that the dogs were outside dogs they always stayed outside they were roped to a
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stake during the day when Debbie was at work and at night they roamed freely by Sunday her family was starting to become
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seriously alarmed John Edwards Dave Thomason and Kevin Gordon went to the cabin to take a more thorough look
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looking under the bed Kevin located Debbie's purse it was wedged into a corner of the waterbed this being an odd
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place in my opinion to find one's purse but nothing else seemed suspicious there
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was no sign of any struggle or any type of confrontation so again they left the property
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on Monday Debbie once again did not show up to work Jenny her mother decided it was time to call the authorities this is
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the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office Captain Jack Watts the Cumberland County Sheriff responded to take a report and a
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photo of Debbie but he didn't show the level of concern that Jenny felt was warranted she gathered a group of
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friends and they met up at Debbie's cabin and decided they were going to walk the property looking for Clues to
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where she possibly could be they hiked through the woods that surrounded the small retention Pond
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behind the house and found nothing by 4 30 PM Jenny and John were back home at their house when detective William
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Nichols showed up and said that they planned to search Debbie's cabin and property the following day
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well it's nice of them to let them know hey we're going to search tomorrow one thing I never understand in these cases
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here captain and we've seen this time and time again where especially when we talk about cases from the 70s and 80s
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there seems to be a lack of concern when someone isn't where they are supposed to
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be they're reported missing I get that they are waiting for it to become an official missing person's case as many
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people often turn up within an hour or a couple hours later right however I've never understood why they can't just go
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okay we've taken your report we'll swing by their property and take a look around you know maybe peek in a
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window or walk the property or try calling the house anything I mean you're on duty at the time you have to fill up
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your day and your hours with tasks why not just go and briefly look for the person in the land that this cabin sits
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on do you know how much property they actually own I think it was a few Acres but from my understanding Captain the
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pond was quite small I think what gets a little difficult to understand here where her property and just how big her
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property actually was is that there are no neighbors surrounding her so it's not
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easy for one to look at the property all these years later and determine just how
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big her property was but also the pictures and there's only a couple pictures of the property online it looks
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like it's lined with woods so that would be make it a little bit harder to decipher
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that's correct and they did this case was featured on Unsolved Mysteries back in the day I believe it was season three
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one of the later episodes in that season and so the reenactments I'm not certain
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Captain if they were filmed at the actual location or not but I've seen that episode and it certainly just adds
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more to the mystery now as planned the next day the sheriff's deputies did arrive to scout the house in the
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surrounding area they conducted a search of the cabin and property looking for Debbie any clues
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in their opinion nothing was amiss there was no signs of a struggle or anything concerning to the officers Bloodhounds
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were brought into the scene and they didn't find anything as well really deputies did not search the pond on the
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property they told John his her stepfather that there was no indication that anything would be found in the
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water now Jenny was so concerned about Debbie and at such a loss to explain her disappearance that she asked Kevin this
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is a family friend to help and Kevin called his buddy this is Sergeant Gordon Childress who was an
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Army paratrooper stationed at nearby Fort Bragg anybody that's listened to this show for a while remembers us
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talking about Fort Bragg in the past Childress was a scuba diver and so he agreed to assist in the search for
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Debbie by diving into this retention Pond behind her home so he arrives at the cabin this is 12 30
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p.m on Wednesday and after helping search the area he gets on his scuba gear and he enters the
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water around 3 pm Now by this time Captain she's been missing for I believe it's six days if that math checks out
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that's a long time for her to be missing when he goes into the water okay first he says the water's cold it's
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murky water but he's only in there for a couple minutes and he pops back up and says he saw a body in the water right
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but you like you said it was a small pond correct at 3 30 pm on January 1st 1986 the Cumberland County Sheriff's
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Office was called in and the body was pulled from the shallow Pond the body in the pond was quickly determined to be
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that of Debbie Wolf she was found fully clothed the Fayetteville Observer reported that she
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was wearing Nike white leather shoes ankle socks a and red knee socks a black T-shirt a
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brown checkered shirt brown corduroy pants blue underwear and a new regulation army field jacket the autopsy
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was performed by Dr William Oliver and it determined that she had drowned in the pond
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this was based on a small amount of water found in one of her bronchial tubes according to the Sheriff's Office
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spokesperson no marks or other signs of struggle or violence were found on Debbie's body
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there was no foul play the autopsy ruled the Fayetteville Gazette reported that there were some bruising but nothing too
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definitively prove she either had or had not been assaulted right and there was no evidence of sexual assault a
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toxicology report found no drugs or alcohol and Debbie's system and although no one was sure when Debbie had died
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the date of death was fixed at December 26 1985. now do we know how deep this Pond gets
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yes I've heard Jenny Edwards describe the pond she describes it as a small but not too small pond her her
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definition of this Pond's a little confusing it's small but not too small it's not deep but it's deep in spots
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I have one report that states that the deepest spot is believed to be about five and a half feet so it's possible we
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have Debbie on her property by herself it doesn't make a lot of sense why she'd go into the pond
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with her clothes on and a jacket on and shoes on in December but it's possible that she went in for some reason and had
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an accident and she died in the pond and she drowned one thing we're going to find in this case Captain is the lack of
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information I'm saying lack of information because I'm hoping that they did they being the sheriff's department
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did some more work on the case than what is publicly available now one thing we've seen in other cases involving
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water one thing that they're quick to do and mind you they did this In The West Memphis Three investigation which we saw
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how botched that thing was but one thing that they did at least did in that investigation is you take the
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temperature of the water okay when you find a body in or out of water you're going to take the temperature of the
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body but when you find a body in the water you want to know the temperature of the water as well because that will
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contribute to to the state of the body as you find it I also want to point out something here as well Captain with the
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date of death we need to be clear here there was no determination absolutely when this young
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woman died they put the date of death on the death certificate as December 26th in most
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States the ruling is that it can be up to the family you can put the date of death
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when it's undetermined as when the person went missing or when they were found so that you know often becomes up to the
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family I don't know if they were asked in this particular case but that's the date that they gave gave it
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um this makes me think of the Delphi case where if you look at the date of death they give one date to one of the
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victims and the next day as the date to the other victim and a lot of people point out that that
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means oh they know something they know one girl was killed on this day and the other girl was killed on the following
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day that's not true it's just the date that was chosen by the families a 1988 article we're going to jump ahead here a
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year or two and then jump back but a 1988 article in the Fayetteville Observer archives that has been largely
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ignored in this case probably because it's behind a paywall and it doesn't come up in any internet searches
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contains some what I believe to be crucial information and it says the death certificate
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filed on February 24th 1986 lists the cause of death as pending and the determination of the death as a murder
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suicide undetermined or natural causes also pending a supplemental report lists the cause of death as drowning
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undetermined is typed in the blank where the medical examiner is required to State whether the date was due to
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accident suicide or homicide so what do all those words mean what that means is when they first did
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the autopsy it was pending the determination of death was pending whether it was a murder suicide
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undetermined or natural causes it was a later changed to say drowning but the drowning was listed as undetermined
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meaning she died by drowning but could not determine if it was due to an accident a suicide or homicide yeah
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because we don't like you said we have some bruising but we don't have any puncture wounds we don't have clear-cut
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indication that she was strangled to have a clear-cut distance between the the cabin and this Pond from my
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understanding it's fairly close to the back of the cabin the thing here that I'm pointing out
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with the death certificate with the autopsy is that there's no way given what it states on the report that the
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Sheriff's Office can then say well we did what we could there's no homicide to investigate here because it was ruled an
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accident it was it was ruled of drowning but never determine why the drowning happened that article goes on to say
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that Dr William Oliver conducted an autopsy and after lengthy delay mind you the last time this woman was seen was on
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the 26th of December the death certificate was filed on February 24th almost two full months later doctors
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stated that the body had undergone changes characteristic of cold water drowning or immersion syndrome in which
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death is believed to occur from cardiac arrest he said he found no evidence of beating
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stabbing shooting or strangulation on the body now this is interesting because this is something we've not discussed
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here in the garage before but from what I've been told immersion syndrome is a phenomenon in which sudden Cardiac
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Arrest is brought on by immersion into icy cold water It is believed that sudden immersion and
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freezing water can in some people cause the body to go into shock and possibly even Cardiac Arrest resulting
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in death Cumberland County Sheriff's detectives ruled Debbie's cause of death accidental
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by Drowning so that was the determination by the Sheriff's Office so who was our victim well Debbie Wolfe
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she was born in June of 1957 in Arkansas she had three brothers Pete Joseph and John the family moved to North Carolina
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after reportedly living in England for some time Debbie's mom Jenny remarried John
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Edwards and Jenny owned a local bar in Fayetteville called The Pub Debbie had been a nurse for about two
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years at the time of her death she loved her job and she was known to be Dependable responsible and dedicated
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she was also a jokester with a wicked sense of humor she sent her mom a male stripper for her 50th birthday and an
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inflatable novelty doll for Christmas just the day before she was last seen on the day after Christmas she went to
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work at the hospital toting a giant stuffed unicorn that she received as a gift she was known as a happy person and
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had no known enemies Debbie also had a serious boyfriend now one report we read said that they had recently decided to
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step up their relationship by all accounts Debbie was a happy person in a good place in her life at
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the time that she went missing and then later was found dead inside are they saying that they're more than boyfriend
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and girlfriend that that she might have been this individual's fiancee I don't know if they were that far but that's
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from what I found it was getting pretty serious now Debbie was found at the bottom of the pond behind her house
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captain you asked just how far it was the pond from my notes was about 100 yards from her cabin
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but several Publications including the Asheville citizens times reported that Gordon Childress who dove into the pond
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in his scuba gear to find Debbie said that he saw through the murky and brackish water what looked like a body
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fully clothed protruding from a rusted metal Barrel sitting at the bottom of the pond so he's the one that finds
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Debbie initially in the pond he says that when he found her she is inside of this Barrel
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and she's in there like head first so he could only see like a foot or maybe both
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feet sticking out of this Barrel right he went into the pond and he said without touching anything or disturbing
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anything he finds the body the Sheriff's Office their deputies arrive on the scene they're going to put their own
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divers into the pond to recover the body but Childress is going to assist them in
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this process so he along with two officers recovered the body and brought it back
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to the bank I'm guessing at this point rigor mortis has already set in on the body yes that
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would be correct again we don't have a time or date of the actual death itself now according to a Fayetteville
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observer's 1988 article the one of the divers for the Sheriff's Office this is Don Smith and I'm going to do a direct
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quote here quote told reporters he also had seen the barrel and Smith was filmed
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by a television cameraman as saying to Major Charles Smith of the barrel major I saw that sucker right out there he
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pointed to the spot where the body was found end quote and here's a report from the day after the body was found that
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said this was from the Wilson Daily Times January 2nd quote Cumberland County authorities are
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waiting for autopsy results on 28 year old Deborah wolf whose body was found in a barrel in a pond near her cabin on New
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Year's Day a sheriff's spokesman says Miss wolf a registered nurse at the Veterans Administration Hospital lived
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alone in a log cabin near the pond Harold little spokesman for the Cumberland County Sheriff's Department
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said today quote I'm reasonably positive it will be investigated as a murder but
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we're awaiting the results of the autopsy little said adding there was no official indication of how she died the
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woman's fully clothed body was found in a submerged Barrel little said but he wouldn't comment on reports that
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Footprints had been found leading into the water Miss Wolf's body was discovered by a
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friend who saw the footprints at the pod put on scuba gear and found the barrel according to a news report but little
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said he had no comment on the report but now that we have two officers saying that her body was found in this Barrel
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in this Pond behind her house any idea of an accidental death or suicide not buying it no more this Barrel being
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put into place in the crime scene this is a direct indication of Foul Play [Music]
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[Music] all right we're back friends cheers to all of you cheers Captain the day after
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they were moved Debbie's body deputies returned to the cabin to retrieve the Barrel in an effort to find the barrel
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deputies drain the pond to a level of two to three feet no Barrel was found major Charles Smith chief of detectives
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at the time told the media that there was no Barrel in the pond Sheriff's divers never saw a barrel when they went
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in to retrieve the body he said well this seems a little strange there were at least two officers with the Sheriff's
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Office quoted talking about the barrel the man who found the body before Sheriff's divers were brought in Gordon
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Childress said quote there was no doubt in my mind I am 100 positive that it was
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an old burn barrel or something of that nature you know metal rusted 55 gallon type drum that the body was in end quote
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Jenny Edwards says quote my diver said there was a barrel the sheriff's diver said there was a barrel not only that
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Debbie had a barrel in her yard it disappeared end quote this is Jenny recalling that Debbie had a 55-gallon
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drum type Barrel on her property sitting right near the cabin well this is going
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to start making you think if you're the family what the hell is wrong with the police officers
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why are they lying about this item so Chief Sheriff's detective Jack Watts says this this is verbatim in the
00:28:27
Unsolved Mysteries episode quote in my opinion and the opinions of some of the investigators what appeared to be a
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barrel to some of the divers could have been Debbie's jacket which may have ballooned out as she was lying at that
00:28:41
angle in the bottom of the pond there was never a barrel touched by any of the divers according to their statements uh
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most definitely by none of our divers did we ever touch a barrel end quote even though we have two statements about
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a barrel okay yeah so something doesn't add up here he's pointing out that no one touched a barrel and that would go
00:29:03
along with all of the statements and everything that was quoted before no one has ever said that they touched a barrel
00:29:09
only people saying that they saw a barrel he's pointing out that it could have been an optical illusion
00:29:17
right now Gordon Childress the man who originally found the body admitted that his visibility was limited as the pond
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was quite dirty but he does say on record time and time again I thought I saw a barrel
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this was the theory that was adopted by the Sheriff's Office investigators where
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they're saying hey the pond was dirty so they concluded that the barrel was an optical illusion caused by Debbie's
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large unfastened jacket floating around her in a semi-circle in the dark murky Waters of that pond here's a couple
00:29:54
things I wonder okay one if there was just a body in this Pond when the body then at some point go to
00:30:02
the surface because of the gases and stuff inside the body but if you have this Barrel maybe the barrel would be
00:30:10
helping to keep the body down she was wearing a good amount of clothing I don't know if here's some difficult
00:30:19
things about this case first we don't know when she went into the water regardless of how she got
00:30:26
there we don't know when she went in right and I would imagine the bloating the gases that stuff it takes a bit of
00:30:32
time and of course you're right most of the time a body will rise to the top I don't know if all of this clothing the
00:30:39
heavy clothing if it absorbed the water if it became heavy enough to weight her down we don't have any statements
00:30:44
however of anybody saying that she was you know Tethered to anything in the pond or in this Barrel to keep her under
00:30:52
water to keep her submerged so that part's all very difficult the other thing that's super difficult and I you
00:30:59
know people might get crazy with me here but we're going to hover around this Barrel
00:31:04
a lot during this episode because it to me this is the centerpiece of the case because no matter whether people saw a
00:31:11
barrel or not everyone agrees that when the detectives the detectives return to the scene on Thursday the day after to
00:31:19
retrieve a barrel right that's agreed upon when they get there there is no Barrel to be found anywhere that's also
00:31:27
agreed upon now you wonder is there somebody at the scene that's responsible for this murder that
00:31:33
believes that this Barrel is a a vital piece of evidence and takes the barrel why they wouldn't take it the first day
00:31:42
doesn't make any sense to me but then to give law enforcement the benefit of the
00:31:47
doubt we don't have a great understanding of this pawn and we know that they're draining it two to three
00:31:54
feet is it possible that when they were searching for the barrel they just weren't capable of finding it okay so
00:32:00
you bring up several good points and you brought this up before we went to the break well that's what I do on the show
00:32:06
as I bring up these amazing points your point being before the break that if there was a barrel if she's found inside
00:32:13
the Barrel in the pond it has to be murder or Foul Play she doesn't commit suicide put herself
00:32:21
into a barrel she doesn't accidentally drown and magically end up inside of the barrel well even with too much of a
00:32:28
coincidence yeah but even without the barrel I think me and you would both lean to this looks more like a homicide
00:32:34
if there were no Barrel present I could be easily convinced that this was an accidental drowning
00:32:40
now with the barrel present I go back to what you said before the break it has to
00:32:47
be some type of Foul Play so then the thought is well did someone come back and retrieve the barrel and
00:32:55
that's exactly what her mother Debbie has insinuated over the years that someone who murdered her daughter came
00:33:02
back to the property and removed the barrel so that it could not incriminate them so that maybe it would be
00:33:09
determined to be an accidental death and there would be no homicide investigation
00:33:13
right interestingly enough though you also point out something that just seems outwardly bizarre why wouldn't they just
00:33:22
take the barrel with them on the day that they recovered the body the Sheriff's Office why not just take
00:33:28
it with you well I can I can give them a little leeway here and say all right well maybe they didn't have proper
00:33:34
equipment to drain the pond and maybe they decided that the easiest way to remove the barrel was to in fact drain
00:33:40
the Pod however you are responding to a call where someone is telling you we have located a body of a person we've
00:33:50
located a body on the property of a person that was previously reported is missing inside of a pond you're not
00:33:58
going to bring any kind of any kind of equipment to drain the pond with you or at least call it in and say
00:34:04
hey we're going out to the scene to see if we find a body could you get to work on bringing in this draining equipment
00:34:09
well they didn't take her serious when they said that she was missing it so that part seems like a big misstep by
00:34:17
the sheriff's department here's the other thing okay maybe you decide that tomorrow we have to come back tomorrow
00:34:23
to drain the pond retrieve the barrel put a freaking officer at the scene and guard the damn scene yeah because well
00:34:31
one if you found a body in a car and you couldn't determine if it was a homicide
00:34:35
or an accident or what have you you would remove the vehicle that day with the body or at the very least put an
00:34:44
officer at the scene so you could retrieve it later none of this was done well and John Douglas would tell you
00:34:50
look this is a remote scene so the fact that it's a remote scene I'm I'm putting
00:34:55
some officers around this area to see if any but he comes by to see if we found the
00:35:03
body yet because like we know Killers will return to the crime scene from time to time when we're working on the show
00:35:09
we do this a lot where we go oh well sometimes if if one of us is is not filling up to the work that day will go
00:35:16
oh well we'll just get that tomorrow and normally the best work we do is when we
00:35:21
just push through no no let's not wait till tomorrow let's get it done today and that's what it seems like this law
00:35:28
enforcement did was like oh well they handled her missing person case so and just such a lazy fashion and then to
00:35:37
come back and go okay well now that we found her but okay well we'll just clean up this area tomorrow
00:35:44
it makes zero sense to me and if this Pond is not that deep why aren't you just removing this Barrel
00:35:54
and maybe it's 50 pounds but that's not it's not 500 pounds it well it seems obvious to me that whatever the
00:36:02
situation they determine the easiest way to or the best way is what I think I should say the best way to remove the
00:36:09
barrel would be to drain the pond and again that's fine that's well and good put an officer at the scene in a car and
00:36:17
just sit by the pond for the night it's very simple easily done if they also came back and said look we we're going
00:36:25
to come back tomorrow to drain the pond for two reasons one to get that Barrel but two we're going to see if we can
00:36:31
find any other evidence within the pawn and that would make a lot more sense to me but it doesn't even seem like they
00:36:38
were looking where other instruments that could have been used in the in the death of Debbie
00:36:45
per the investigation investigators were not able to locate anyone who saw Debbie
00:36:50
after she left work on the 26th so this helped them to fix her date of death on that particular day since she failed to
00:36:58
show up for work the next morning it's not at all clear whether they processed her car and her house for fingerprints
00:37:06
we don't know if they checked into her phone records or interviewed her co-workers and Friends there's also no
00:37:12
discussion of whether there was any suspicion of her boyfriend or whether he was looked at it all
00:37:18
either very little investigation was actually done in Debbie Wolf's case or very little was made public about what
00:37:27
was done right and you would think that we'd have maybe we have the family questioning law enforcement so we'd
00:37:34
think that we'd get some more information from her mother saying okay well maybe they didn't publicize that
00:37:40
they they searched her house but they did search her house well it's going to be basically just a straight down the
00:37:47
middle disagreement between the two sides between Debbie's family and the sheriff's department now we mentioned
00:37:53
earlier Footprints are possible Footprints Gordon Childress said he saw two sets of footprints on the bottom of
00:38:00
the pond he says they led to the direction of the body keep in mind though he's also said that the pond was
00:38:07
very dirty it was it was a very you know murky water dirty water he had a hard time seeing uh now bear in mind that
00:38:15
this Pond is about five and a half feet deep at its deepest point so this is this is where you go all right someone
00:38:22
could walk into the pond and reach the spot where Debbie was found so she could have easily been placed there but if
00:38:30
there were two sets of footprints on the bottom of the pond you have to wonder what does this mean
00:38:35
does this mean that there were two perpetrators placing her and the Barrel in the pond
00:38:42
or was this one perpetrator placing these items in the pond and then the second set is the footprints back
00:38:50
out of the pond right but hold your questions because none of this is straightforward and it's about
00:38:57
to get even more confusing the Sheriff's Office spokesman this is Harold little told the Asheville citizens times that a
00:39:05
sheriff's deputy at the scene asked Childress to show him the footprints and Childress could not find them and little
00:39:12
went on to say that the bottom of the pond was not actually mud or silt that would show Footprints but moss on which
00:39:20
Footprints did not make an impression so Footprints would not be possible at the
00:39:25
bottom of the pond so law enforcement 100 percent does not back up the existence of these Footprints now
00:39:33
Childress says Debbie was in the barrel he's the first diver the friend of the family
00:39:39
reports were that a barrel was seen by two divers Sheriff's divers then it's reported to the media by the Sheriff's
00:39:47
Office investigator that there was no Barrel of course the key question is what did
00:39:53
the law enforcement divers who went down and got Debbie out of the pond actually
00:39:58
see because whether or not there was a barrel really changes everything in this case
00:40:06
the Asheville citizen times reported quote it was possible Debbie was playing with her dogs and accidentally fell into
00:40:14
the pond she was wearing an army field jacket and it may have become waterlogged causing her to sink below
00:40:22
the surface investigators also say she may have been standing on ice when it gave way causing her to enter the water
00:40:30
or she may have fallen into the pond and panicked Chief detective Charles Smith said we have no idea how she got into
00:40:38
the water Smith also stated that Debbie could have suffered some other kind of accident once she was in the pond in the
00:40:46
dark in the freezing water she became disoriented and moved away from rather than toward the Pond's Edge so the
00:40:54
Sheriff's Office couldn't come up with a great reason that Debbie would have entered the pond
00:41:01
but once she was in there they believed that she became frightened and disoriented in the water and instead of
00:41:07
moving toward the shallow Edge she went out deeper where she became a victim of this immersion syndrome so there's still
00:41:15
a lot of questions in regards to this explanation right yeah the pond is only five and a half
00:41:20
feet deep you could walk into it and out of it in a better description of the pond is as follows the water at the edge
00:41:28
of the pond is only about an inch or two deep the bottom gently slopes and the pond is only Knee Deep five feet from
00:41:37
the edge Debbie was found 30 feet from the bank so given the gentle grade she would have
00:41:44
been able to stand up and walk out of the pond if she fell in unless this is a ray Rivera situation where
00:41:51
God only knows how she fell and she magically fell into the center of the pond right
00:41:57
Knee Deep at five feet in inches deep around the the very edge of the pond so if she fell in by accident
00:42:07
I don't know I it just makes very little sense to me how one could end up working their way deeper rather
00:42:14
than just standing up or even getting on your hands and knees and crawling out yeah this is such a bad explanation that
00:42:23
makes this also very difficult is the 26th of December it was reported that it was only 25 degrees or so that
00:42:33
day so frigid for North Carolina this will also provide a possible explanation the Sheriff's Office
00:42:41
maintained that it was possible that she was playing with her dogs perhaps running with them or she tried to help
00:42:47
one of the dogs and stepped onto very thin ice maybe she thought it was thicker ice and fell through and then
00:42:55
drowned in the pond yeah it's possible that you would let your dogs out and maybe they'd get into a situation where
00:43:02
you'd have to help them so I could see that being accidental death but again the the size of the pond like
00:43:10
you said at some point you can just stand up well of course the family contends that
00:43:16
Debbie was murdered they don't agree with the sheriff's office they challenge the autopsy findings the family says it
00:43:25
was murder and a bumbling inept or maybe even corrupt investigation got it all wrong Jenny Edwards was not happy with
00:43:34
the Sheriff's Office and she let them know it on the public front the Fayetteville Observer said quote
00:43:40
unanswered questions contradictions and the victim's mother adamant refusal to accept Theory's voiced by law
00:43:47
enforcement authorities have shrouded the death and mystery well we bash law enforcement enough so let's give them a
00:43:55
little credit because even they knew they were out manned so they call in the SBI yeah I don't know
00:44:02
if it's so much a question of being outmanned or just doing due diligence a little checks and balances if you watch
00:44:09
the Unsolved Mysteries episode keep in mind it's a great show Captain loves it colonel loves it everyone loves it it's
00:44:16
a shame we're not hosting the show on Netflix however it's actually pathetic that we're not the the co-host that's
00:44:24
still one of the great Unsolved Mysteries of our lifetimes maybe next season however
00:44:29
keep in mind when you watch that show specifically the ones from the the 80s and 90s
00:44:35
you when you view a case for the most part you're getting the nine or ten minute version of the case that's why
00:44:42
you step into the garage to get the rest of the story something that was not covered in the Unsolved Mysteries
00:44:48
episode was the sheriff calling in the SBI so on January 5th note that date January 5th it was
00:44:58
reported that Cumberland County Sheriff Otis Jones requested the help of the state Bureau of Investigation
00:45:06
specifically he requested that the SBI look into his Department's handling of the Debbie Wolfe investigation this is
00:45:15
extremely unconventional especially given that the investigation was only days old at this point
00:45:22
Sheriff's spokesman Harold little said the department was bringing in the SBI assistance the Fayetteville Observer
00:45:30
reported the SBI agent Marshall Evans was given the case review assignment he talked to County detectives family
00:45:39
members and others he visited the scene several times and although Evans wasn't able to determine exactly what happened
00:45:47
to Debbie he told the Observer that he does not believe that the death was murder interesting find there by SBI but
00:45:55
I go back to her personal life do we have any indication that there's violence in any relationship that she
00:46:02
had or or that or do we know of any questionable questionable suspect that lives in that area that would know that
00:46:15
she was out there living alone so that's an interesting point there Captain as far as her relationship goes
00:46:21
with her boyfriend's serious boyfriend whatever label you want to put on it there seems to be zero suspicion by the
00:46:28
family friends the Sheriff's Office and the media regarding the boyfriend there does seem to be a little suspicion
00:46:37
from family and possibly the media regarding one or two of her co-workers and we'll get into that but we all
00:46:45
before we get into that I want to go through some more of the family's allegations specifically Jenny's her
00:46:51
mothers so these are the things that Jenny Edwards has alleged were hinky about her
00:46:58
daughter and the scene and the way the investigation was going down you know when they went through Debbie's Home
00:47:05
these were some things that they found that they thought pointed more towards Foul Play
00:47:11
now this item was not in any of the original reports but Jenny says that drag marks
00:47:18
were found down into the pond these apparently were observed by Childress the diver
00:47:25
and reported by Jenny or reported to Jenny by Kevin Gordon this is interesting to me when we were
00:47:32
talking about the footprints earlier I'm thinking okay if there's a barrel these Footprints if they existed at all
00:47:40
are only good in my mind if they are accompanied by drag marks these alleged drag marks have become
00:47:47
part of The Narrative of Debbie's case but have never ever been mentioned by law enforcement or anyone other than
00:47:57
Debbie's family and friends Jenny also points out that the driver's seat in Debbie's car was pushed all the
00:48:05
way back Debbie was only five foot three inches tall so she would sit with the seat pulled forward to drive and her
00:48:13
mother says that Debbie would never adjust the seat because it was sticky and it was hard to move
00:48:21
she goes on to state that Debbie was found wearing clothes that she and her family did not recognize
00:48:28
including a Pittsburgh Steeler shirt that her friends her boyfriend and family says they had never ever seen
00:48:37
Jenny said that the clothes that that she was wearing were the wrong size for her daughter the jacket she was wearing
00:48:45
was a men's size small field jacket and looked brand new but had no tags on it this field jacket is a weird thing
00:48:53
because Debbie's boyfriend former Army criminal investigation division agent Steve McDonald
00:49:02
said he did not give this jacket to Debbie and he had never seen it before and he goes on to say that he is
00:49:10
positive he would know if anyone else had given the jacket to Debbie so no one knows where this jacket came
00:49:18
from or why she would be wearing it or need it at all as she had a field jacket of her brothers on the hook inside of
00:49:28
her cabin when her body was found this is equal to the barrel to me where it points to homicide almost where if you
00:49:36
could go okay regardless if there was a barrel or not maybe I could get on board
00:49:40
and believe that this jacket ballooned out and caused some kind of optical illusion right but then again where the
00:49:46
hell did the jacket come from yeah and um again we don't know what the search of the house
00:49:56
presented I I would think even if the cops searched the house but there was definitely a struggle there was evidence
00:50:03
in there that the family would be able to come forward and say look there's a struggle inside the house
00:50:09
I don't even know if that's the case I you this this crime could have taken place somewhere else and this individual
00:50:17
could have known where she lived and just said hey I'm going to dump her in her own pond that's where I'm going to
00:50:22
get rid of the body now this next item are a pair of brown corduroy pants that Debbie was wearing again
00:50:31
the family says these pants were way too big that they would have fit somebody approximately six foot tall
00:50:39
they go on to say that she was wearing a bra that was way too large for her uh both in cup size and around the the
00:50:47
body these next two items I really think we can toss these out you know um I'm throwing in my own little
00:50:56
opinion as we go through some of these one is a is the pair of Nike tennis shoes that Debbie was wearing the family
00:51:02
says these were too big that they were at least a size if not two sizes too big we do have the the Sheriff's Office
00:51:10
investigator Jack Watts who is on camera on record saying we do know for a fact that the tennis shoes
00:51:17
we had on were her tennis shoes he says we have photos of her with those tennis shoes on prior to her death
00:51:27
I'm going to I'm going to go ahead and believe the officer Watts there I don't believe
00:51:33
he would go out of his way to be on camera on Mike and say we have pictures of her wearing these shoes the next item
00:51:42
was it stated that Debbie was clean that there was no noticeable dirt on her sneakers or shoes or clothing uh and
00:51:50
they question how could she have been in this dirty Pond for six days without being dirty that the divers that found
00:51:58
her were their their articles their diving gear everything was extremely dirty when they recovered her and
00:52:05
brought her to the edge I don't know what the hell that's supposed to prove that that whole
00:52:10
statement really confuses me because we know she was in the water right the water was dirty or it wasn't
00:52:16
dirty whatever how how she was clean I don't know but we one we know she was in the water and two we know she was in the
00:52:23
water longer than the divers were so I I don't know what that is supposed to to point out here yeah and again but like I
00:52:31
said if if you start thinking you know a little outside the box and you go well what if yeah what if she went home with
00:52:39
a one of her co-workers the the murder the attack happens there then she's in their house for
00:52:51
who knows how long and then they start searching for and maybe they go out to the property but
00:52:56
maybe she's not in the pond at that time and she's not in that pond until the day
00:53:01
that they they discover her well it's possible another item of concern is a what is called a summer
00:53:10
weight uniform so remember she was a nurse so these are scrubs a summer weight uniform was found lying on the
00:53:16
kitchen floor inside the cabin one of course an odd location to just find you know pants and a shirt lying in the
00:53:25
middle of the kitchen floor but the family says that she would have been wearing a long sleeve shirt and not
00:53:34
lightweight uh uniform in the winter months and this is kind of backed up by the co-worker
00:53:41
remember we mentioned she was having lunch with a Roger rushing he backed this up by saying that she was
00:53:48
definitely wearing a long sleeve shirt at work that day whatever this uniform was that the
00:53:54
family and Roger rushing believes that she was wearing on the 26th was never found at her cabin or in her home so
00:54:03
either they're wrong and she was in fact wearing the uniform that was found on her kitchen floor or
00:54:10
there's something terribly wrong with this whole crime scene one thing that I think is is maybe a big
00:54:18
deal here captain it is reported and this seems to be agreed upon by both the family and the sheriff's office so
00:54:28
let's examine this thing here it's reported that beer cans littered the yard of Debbie's yard
00:54:34
and the family says and points out that Debbie was neat tidy clean she wouldn't have littered in her yard she she wants
00:54:43
to live out in the beauty of nature so she's not just going to the willy-nilly throw beer cans out in the
00:54:49
yard she's not going to be a giant piece of [ __ ] that litters these were found
00:54:54
around the area where her vehicle was parked the other thing that the family points out is okay if you want to
00:55:02
believe that she threw them there well that's not the kind of beer that she drank so they're kind of doubling down
00:55:08
on this idea that she wouldn't have thrown these beer cans in the yard well now that you're not able to click the
00:55:14
barrel you have a bunch of extra space in your evidence Locker collect these cans so one day that we can test them
00:55:21
well the talks remember the toxicology screening on Debbie came back is clean yeah so she wasn't drinking or doing any
00:55:30
type of drugs leading up to her death so these beer cans are all another big part of the mystery of course her family
00:55:41
says that this all adds up plus the barrel all adds up to pointing to Foul Play and murder in this one and going
00:55:48
through my research uh you know we we share outlines and stuff and and on your outline you have the hat which I did not
00:55:56
find can you tell me about this hat yeah there was another potential clue found according to the family A friend
00:56:04
of Debbie's this is Franz shof who went to feed the dogs after Debbie died after she was found
00:56:13
this person found a wool stocking cap that everyone says belonged to Debbie and found this hat in the mud at the
00:56:23
opposite end of the pond so you have the cabin you have a little bit of distance then
00:56:31
you have this Pond she's found kind of in the middle of it on the opposite side of the pond is
00:56:38
where this hat was located so I don't know what this could possibly point to we don't know how or where she
00:56:47
got into the water from but I think at least this begs the question how thorough was the pond in
00:56:55
the property searched if this hat was still lying there more than a week after Debbie
00:57:02
was located so I I mean the Hat could go either way right she she possibly was wearing the
00:57:08
Hat took it off or it floated away or it fell off when they were taking their body to the water exactly but
00:57:17
again it also it to me it just brings up the idea that it wasn't an extremely thorough search of the property or when
00:57:26
things were found they weren't noted or taken in as evidence again again we don't know the exact size of the pond
00:57:32
but if you're able to drain it a few feet you think that we're at least have an officers walk around the pond to see
00:57:41
if we find any more evidence it just seems like a very lazy like you said lazy investigation
00:57:48
not a thorough investigation and I almost think they only called in CBI just to kind of save their hide it's
00:57:55
possible but I'm still going to give them credit for doing so I think that look I I've reviewed a lot of people
00:58:02
who've posted comments online on other people's message boards regarding this case and a lot of people seem to believe
00:58:09
that the this is look maybe in some cases I can believe it but I can't believe it here
00:58:16
and in most cases I don't believe it Captain this this following statement the Sheriff's Office know who did this
00:58:23
and they're covering it up most of the time that is just freaking false it's not true at all that these
00:58:29
were collectively as a department we're all going to put our asses on the line because somebody we know killed somebody
00:58:36
bogus the other thing too is we have the coroner's report the autopsy States it was a drowning cause of drowning
00:58:45
undetermined so the coroner is corrupt too knows who did it and choosing to cover it up
00:58:52
they brought in this other the state investigative Bureau to double check their work when
00:58:59
they were covering up for a friend of the Departments it just that doesn't make any sense if
00:59:05
you think that the Sheriff's Office got it wrong it's just because they got it wrong not because they are covering for
00:59:12
a buddy of the department and again one of the reasons why I think they could call ncbi is there's somebody that they
00:59:19
knew that used to work in the department so we're going to call this guy in he's
00:59:24
going to act like he's double checking us but he's really going to be um essentially are are our friendly Alibi
00:59:34
to say that well we didn't do anything wrong here even though they were just lazy about the whole investigation
00:59:43
that's possible and and I don't I don't have any reason to firmly disagree with that I just think we have a situation
00:59:51
where the sheriff's being incredibly responsible in saying look this woman and her family are
01:00:00
challenging our findings and our investigation let's bring in a you know a state agency
01:00:08
to at least take a look at this thing and if we're wrong maybe they can find something we didn't find or if we're
01:00:18
right she's going to get the same answers that we already gave her and hopefully that
01:00:24
will give the family some kind of satisfaction some kind of closure look there if the family's wrong you know we're
01:00:33
beating up on the sheriff's office here a lot but there's a chance the family could be wrong if the family's wrong in
01:00:39
this situation they're grieving people that are trying to understand the bizarre mysterious death of a loved one
01:00:46
it's a very difficult thing to process on the episode of Unsolved Mysteries besides the barrel
01:00:56
probably the biggest mystery in this case would be the phone call or message that was found on Debbie's answering
01:01:05
machine I love these that's why one of the reasons why uh I miss answering machines so Jenny
01:01:13
later told this story to the Fayetteville examiner it says when John and Kevin went over to Debbie's to look
01:01:21
for her they noticed that there was a message blinking on her machine for those that have never experienced The
01:01:27
Wonder of an answering machine that's how you knew you had a message when you came home the little light would be
01:01:33
blinking and you go oh boy somebody called me and you'd hit the button and it would play the message
01:01:38
Jenny says that uh quote what they heard was a stranger's voice on the tape the two then really became concerned the
01:01:47
message had been left earlier that day the voice was a man calling from the veterans hospital this would be where
01:01:55
Debbie worked to see how Debbie was doing the man's message indicated that Debbie had missed many days of work
01:02:03
this struck Jenny Edwards as odd because she knew this was not true at the time of the message that the message was left
01:02:11
Debbie had only missed she had not missed days of work only a few hours at Best all right let's dissect this a little
01:02:20
bit here because one could the meaning of the message be misconstrued by these two individuals
01:02:30
you've missed a lot of days no by the time we're listening to this message she's only missed one day she didn't
01:02:37
show up today and she's only missed a couple of hours is it possible that the person calling and leaving the message
01:02:43
is referring to her work history you've worked here for two years is what our records indicate that she worked
01:02:50
there two years did she miss several days over the course of those two years and some work environments that's not
01:02:58
acceptable right the other thing in the garage it's not acceptable right the other thing that we
01:03:06
need to keep in mind they they did a great job on Unsolved Mysteries of reenacting the message on the answering
01:03:14
machine but that's not like an actual recording that they're playing from my understanding the only two people who
01:03:23
have ever heard this message was those two men men on that day John and Kevin who went to look for Debbie
01:03:31
they played the message erased the message so I'm not saying that they didn't hear
01:03:37
the message I'm not questioning that I would I wouldn't go that far to to suggest that these people would make
01:03:45
this up but what I do find odd is Jenny's statement to the newspaper is they became very concerned well
01:03:56
maybe they did but your other statement was they didn't find anything wrong with
01:04:01
the cabin they assumed that Debbie had left possibly left with somebody in a hurry so they fed the dogs turned off
01:04:08
the heater and left the house right so which was it were they concerned or was everything just normal I think the tough
01:04:15
thing here is the location of the cabin I mean there's not a lot of neighbors so
01:04:20
we don't have a lot of eyewitnesses that saw her coming into the property with somebody following her or maybe that she
01:04:28
was at the property with a different vehicle meaning that she was there with somebody else but we have clear-cut
01:04:34
eyewitness accounts saying that she was at work and then we obviously have her punching out of work for that day so
01:04:40
it's very difficult it is very difficult I can say this uh regarding the voicemail or the answering
01:04:49
machine message that it looks like law enforcement was able to determine who in fact left the
01:04:56
message and did question this individual according to Jenny this individual did work
01:05:04
with Debbie the family believes that he was one of two men that were interested in Debbie
01:05:12
that was trying to pursue kind of some kind of relationship with Debbie refuse their advances as they this guy was
01:05:20
looked at Jenny says that he did not want to take a polygraph test but the Sheriff's Office also say you
01:05:28
know we talked to everyone that the family asked us to interview and we couldn't find anything in the
01:05:36
course of those interviews that would lead us to believe anything other than it was in accidental drowning we
01:05:41
couldn't find anything at the scene that led us to believe anything other than an
01:05:46
accidental drowning yeah but they're staying in that and also omitting any signs of footprints drag marks or a
01:05:57
barrel if any of that existed again it's it's very confusing because you have one
01:06:04
group one Camp saying we have these pieces of evidence and the other Camp saying none of that stuff ever existed
01:06:12
the tricky thing though is I go back to the beginning of this case you have two officers
01:06:19
on record talking about a barrel you have the department who decides we're going to come back tomorrow and
01:06:26
collect a barrel there seemed to be at one point regardless if there was a barrel or not
01:06:34
a Collective Agreement by the sheriff's department that a barrel existed so that part is all very confusing to me
01:06:44
what Jenny Edwards believes and what her family believes is kind of a Theory as to what possibly happened is
01:06:53
that somehow Debbie was taken from her property held captive for hours probably days
01:07:03
and killed in a manner that didn't leave much in the way of detection probably my
01:07:10
guess would be smothered and then placed into the barrel and dragged into the pond placed in the pond
01:07:19
the sheriff's department removes the body and whoever put her there came back and
01:07:25
took the barrel away in the middle of the night there are a lot of things that have to
01:07:30
line up for that to be possible is it impossible no certainly not impossible and again for
01:07:37
me Captain all I can do is label this a mysterious unexplained death because we don't have any definitive
01:07:47
answers or definitive proof or evidence for me to lean one way or the other if there was a barrel there if she was
01:07:55
found in a barrel I'm saying murder I'm saying Foul Play Argo wants to a step further I'm with
01:08:02
you if there's a barrel definitely this is a homicide needs to be investigated as such but it's the clothing
01:08:11
get rid of that Barrel fine you can't get rid of the fact that she's found in clothes that are not recognizable to
01:08:17
anybody friends family or loved ones gear spot on there captain and it's just like what we saw in the Asia degree case
01:08:28
if you cannot if you cannot find a reasonable explanation why she had a photo of an unknown unidentified girl in
01:08:37
her possession then you cannot explain why she disappeared or why she left her home
01:08:43
that night this is the same thing if there's a barrel that Barrel must be explained
01:08:49
there must be a reason why that Barrel exists and how she ended up in it the other thing you're right take it a step
01:08:54
further where did this clothing come from she didn't just drive home on the 26th
01:09:00
and go out and buy a bunch of clothes that are way too big for her that she didn't need put them on and fall into
01:09:05
the middle of a pond and drown so it's all very difficult I think that I think that the family is right to keep
01:09:14
pursuing this I think the sheriff's office was right to call in another agency estate agency
01:09:20
to take a look at it it's just a shame that here we are all these years later with a very uncomfortable uneasy feeling
01:09:28
of we don't have any real answers we don't have a great understanding for what happened to this young woman with a
01:09:35
promising future I think as the Fayetteville Observer pointed out I think they nailed it when they said
01:09:42
there are many questions in this case for which law enforcement officers admit they do not have the answers
01:09:52
teacher [Music] for everything true crime garage check us out at truecrime garage.com and you
01:10:08
can follow us on Instagram Twitter or Facebook at True Crime garage and make sure you join us back here in the garage
01:10:16
next week for a new off the Record and a new case until then be good be kind and
01:10:22
don't live foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music]