Debbie Wolfe ////// 488 | Forensic Files

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

Debbie Wolfe ////// 488

Part 1 of 1 www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

This week we review a cold case from Fayetteville, North Carolina. Debbie Wolfe, a nurse in her twenties vanished after leaving work at 4pm on December 26th, 1985. Her family became concerned and went to check on her at her home. When they got there they discovered her car but no Debbie. Items were out of place, something was not right and things were not as they seemed to be. Join us in the Garage for this mysterious, unexplained death case.

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Brief Summary

Debbie Wolfe vanished in 1985; her body was found in a pond, raising questions about foul play and investigation failures.

Key points

The Disappearance of Debbie Wolfe. Debbie Wolfe, a nurse, goes missing after Christmas 1985, sparking concern from her family.
Body Found in the Pond. Debbie's body is discovered in a pond, raising questions about her death.
Autopsy Results. The autopsy reveals Debbie drowned, but many questions about her death remain.
Investigation as a Murder. Sheriff's Department spokesperson indicates a murder investigation is underway.
Body Found in a Barrel. Details emerge about the discovery of Debbie's body in a barrel.
Confusion Over the Barrel. Contradictory statements arise regarding the presence of a barrel at the crime scene.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

To this day so many questions remain unanswered.

Introduction to the mysterious case of Debbie Wolf.

5:48WatchNov 7, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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