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

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[Music] crime [Music] Thursday December 26th the day after Christmas 1985 Deborah Anne wolf is a 28-year-old
nurse at the VA hospital in fville North Carolina she worked the first shift as normal during the shift she had lunch
with Roger rushing a cooworker 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 400 p.m. 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: a.m. 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
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 fville a well-populated All-American City in the
beautiful state of North Carolina Debbie Wolf lived alone with her two dogs Mason and Morgan in a small onlevel
home 100 yards off of McArthur Road just about 4 miles outside of fville 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 like life as they say it turns on 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 roam 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 p.m. 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 SE 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 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 task why not just go and briefly look for the person and 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 picture 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 3 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 arrived 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 a Miss there was no signs of
a struggle or anything concerning to the officers blood hounds were brought into
the scene and they didn't find anything as well really deputy 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 childis 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 childis 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 3:00
p.m. now by this time Captain she's been missing for I believe it's 6 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 p.m. on January 1st
1986 the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office 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 fville 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
the autopsy Ruled The fville Gazette reported that there were some bruising but nothing to 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 in Debbie's system and although no one was sure when Debbie had died the date of death was fixed at
December 26th 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 her
definition of this Pond is 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 5 and 1/2t so it's possible we have Debbie
on her property by herself 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 3 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 uhhuh 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 deli case where if
you look at the date of 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 fville Observer archives that has been large
ignored in this case probably because it's behind a pay wall 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 list the cause of death as pending and the determination of the death as a murder suicide undetermined or natural
causes is 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 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 cuz 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 do we have a clearcut distance
between the the cabin and this Pond from my understanding it's fairly close to the back of the cabin mhm 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 a drowning but never determined 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 in freezing water can in some people cause the body go into shock and possibly even Cardiac Arrest
resulting in death Cumberland County Sheriff's detectives ruled Debb's cause of death accidental by Drowning so that
was the determination by the sheriff's office so who was our victim well Debbie Wolf 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 fville called The
Pub Debbie had been a nurse for about 2 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 toing 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 and 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 in the
sorry they saying that they they're more than boyfriend and girlfriend that that
she might have been this individual's fiance 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 childis who dove into the pond in his scuba gear to find debie 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 childis 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 riam 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
fville obs observers 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 they 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
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 pond 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 by buing it no more this
Barrel being put into place in the crime scene this is a direct indication of Foul
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cheers to all of you cheers Captain the day after they removed Debbie's body deputies returned to the cabin to
retrieve the Barrel in an effort to find the barrel deputies drained the pond to
a level of 2 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 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 childr 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 55g 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 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 Debb's jacket which may have ballooned out as she was lying at that
angle in the bottom of the pond there was never a 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 childis 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 a semicircle 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 wouldn't 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 mhm 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 to me this is the center piece of the case because no matter whether people
saw a barrel or not everyone agrees that when the detectives the 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 2 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 this show is 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 without it's 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 pond 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 as 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 cuz 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 bu comes by to see if we found the body yet because like we know killers
were returned 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 we'll 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 into 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 lbs but that's not it's not 500 lb 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 pond and that would make a lot more sense to me but it doesn't even seem like they
were looking for other instruments that could have been used in the 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 at 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 or possible Footprints Gordon childis 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 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 citizen times that a
sheriff's deputy at the scene asked chis to show him the footprints and childis could not find them and little went on
to say 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% does not back up the existence of these Footprints now chis 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 and
accidentally fell into the pond she was wearing an army field jacket and it may have become water logged 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 5/2 ft deep
you could walk into it and out of it and 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 5T from The Edge Debbie
was found 30 ft from the bank so given 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 5T 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 it's such a bad explanation that makes this also very difficult is the 26th of December it was reported that it
was only 25 Dees or so that day so frigid Ford North Carolina this will also provide a
possible explanation the Sheriff's Office maintained that it was possible 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' get into a situation where you'd have to help them so I could
see that being an 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 fville Observer said quote unanswered questions contradictions and the victim's mother
adamant refusal to accept theories voiced by law enforcement authorities have shrouded the death in mystery well
we bash law enforcement enough so let's uh give them a little credit because even they knew they were
outmanned 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 it's a 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 9 or 10 minute version of a 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 wolf investigation this is extremely unconventional especially
given that the investigation was only days old at this point Sheriff spokesman Harold little said the department was
bringing in the SBI assistance the uh fville Observer reported that 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 questional 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 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 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 childis 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 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 Debb'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 5' 3 in
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 side for her daughter the jacket she was wearing was a men's siiz
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 any one 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 brother's 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 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 um again the family says these pants were way too big that they would have
fit somebody approximately 6 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 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 mic and say we have pictures of her wearing these shoes the
next item was 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 6 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 the murder the attack happens there then she's in their house for who
knows how long and then they start searching for her 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 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 coworker remember we met mentioned
she was having lunch with a Roger rushing he backed this up by saying that she was definitely wearing a longsleeve
shirt at work that day whatever this uniform was that the family and Roger rushing believes that
she was wearing on the 26 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 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
they're kind of doubling down on this idea that she wouldn't have thrown these beer cans in the yard y well now that
you're not able to collect 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 tox remember the toxicology screening on Debbie came back as
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 Cas well in going through
my research uh you know we 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 Debbies this is France cha who went to feed the dogs after Debbie died after she was was
found this person found a wool stocking cap that everyone says belong to Debbie and found this hat in the mud at the
opposite end of the pond so you have the cabin you have uh 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 her 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 having 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 have 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 I 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 the these we
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 corers report the tosy States it was a
drowning cause of drowning undetermined so the coroner 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 in CBI 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 cheing us but he's
really going to be um essentially our our 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 fville Examiner and 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 would 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 the person calling and leaving the
message is referring to her work history you've worked here for 2 years is what our records indicate that she worked
there two years did she miss several days over the course of those two years in 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 ing 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 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 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 uh the family believes that he was one of two men that were interested
in Debbie that was trying to pursue kind 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 an 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 saying in that and also omitting any signs of footprints drag
marks or a barrel if any of that existed again it's 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 I'll go one step 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 and I think you're 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 explain
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 I think that I think that the family is right to keep pursuing this I think that
the sheriff's office was right to call in another agency a state 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 fville 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 [Music] answers for everything true crime garage
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Debbie Wolfe ////// 488

Part 1 of 1

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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 Wolf went missing in 1985; her body was found in a pond, raising questions about foul play and investigation failures.

Key points

The Disappearance of Debbie Wolf. Debbie Wolf, a nurse, goes missing after a routine day at work.
The Search Begins. Debbie's family grows concerned when she doesn't answer her phone.
Discovery of the Body. Debbie's body is found in a pond after days of searching.
Autopsy Results. The autopsy reveals Debbie drowned, but questions about her death remain.
Body Found in a Barrel. Deborah Wolf's body was discovered in a barrel in a pond, raising suspicions of foul play.
Conflicting Reports on the Barrel. Witnesses claim to have seen a barrel, but law enforcement denies its existence.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Debbie was close with her family and yet no one knew where she was.

Describing the mystery of Debbie's disappearance.

6:46WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

65/ 100Some tension

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