Forensic Files (HD) - Season 13, Episode 33 - Deadly Rebellion - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[Music] up next a young aspiring singer disappears a telltale sign of you know someone who
was running away from something she had a history of running away she's always come back
surveillance cameras tell at least part of the story when i saw the video i started feeling
very confident that we were focusing on the right guy all they had to do now was to find him
[Music] i wanna love someone that would stand by my side sixteen-year-old yoshan ashbrook had
dreams of stardom her sister and yoshan used to write songs all the time different little lyrics and and things
and they wrote one song called wanna i wanna love you but could you love me too i i feel so safe
when i'm with you i wanna love you and yo sean sang this song and they um really wanted to to get it recorded and
to do something nice with it and she just didn't get the chance to finish that and if a singing career
didn't work out she had a backup plan yes sean wanted to be an entertainment lawyer she could
make deals and make everybody happy like many teenagers joshan had her share of conflicts with her parents
but they were usually resolved yoshan did have a history of running away normally she would run away spend the
night somewhere else and come home the following day or maybe two days later but after an argument with her parents
about smoking marijuana she left this time for good yoshian's parents were very concerned
about her they were aware that she had substance abuse problems her parents notified the police called
all her friends and went to all of her known hangouts towards the end of the evening
it was more frustrating because it was like we had no other leads we had nowhere else to go
we couldn't think of any other places or any other people to talk to the next morning electricians working
for the power company spotted a woman's body off the side of the road outside of tampa florida
the body was identified as joshon ashbrook you could see that her throat was cut
blunt trauma to her face her head there was cuts defensive wounds on her hands yoshan's pants weren't found at the
scene looking at her body being nude from the waist down you cannot help think that maybe she was sexually
assaulted gosh i don't know how to describe that feeling i'm never going to see my
daughter get married or have babies [Music] i'm never going to hold her first child
and i'm never going to see her make her dreams come true investigators found a single hair in a
defensive wound on yoshan's thumb it appeared that this might be the hair from her attacker
like if she went to grab him and when she was fighting him and she grabbed him and it just got embedded in
there the hair had the root intact about 30 feet from the body refreshed tire tracks
it was obvious that whoever was driving that vehicle backed into the area and then dragged
her body into the woods the tire tracks were in the sand a surface ideal for making
plaster casts these were so clear i could say that there was not any rain or had occurred or any damage in the
environment at that time because they were such nice clear quality impressions no one knew of
anyone who wanted to harm your sean but for investigators these clues were a very good start
as police search for joshon ashbrook's killer the medical examiner learned that the
knife wound to her throat was not the cause of death the medical examiner explained that the
suspect may have put her in some type of wrestling move like a half nelson and turned or put extreme pressure on
her which dislocated which broke her neck an autopsy found no evidence of sexual
assault in a search for suspects yushan's family suggested police interview john hanson a 60-year-old family friend
who lived nearby john was an older gentleman he hung out at the house all the time with us
but in my opinion he seemed after a while to get too close to the children he always wanted to be their friend more
so than the friends of an adult within 24 hours of finding yoshan's body investigators went to hanson's trailer
to question him but he was gone we've talked to the park manager and some of the neighbors and
they said they hadn't seen him in a day or two there was no sign of violence in his
trailer a background check revealed hanson a day laborer estranged from his wife had no history
of violence a 60 year old man having teenagers visit the house and hang around i think it
does lead to suspicion as to what is going on so now he is somebody we really want to
talk to while police searched for hansen criminalists measured the tire impressions found near
yoshan's body those measurements and tread patterns were entered into a computer database of
20 000 different tires manufactured around the world there was then seven different
manufacturer models that could have made that entire impression at the crime scene different
manufacturers sometimes sell their mold to other manufacturers so therefore you would have
the same mold but yet under different manufacturer model names all seven of these tire models were for
larger vehicles which meant your sean's killer was driving either a truck or an suv
then police got an important lead from a woman who saw yoshon the day she ran away
[Music] hi it's yoshon she received a phone call from yoshan about 8 30 in the morning on july 31st
she wanted to know if her son was there could she stop by sure you can stop by yoshan's asked if she could come by and
drop off a letter within minutes a red ford pickup pull-up yoshan gets out runs to the door the
note was for the woman's son max who was yoshan's boyfriend it was i miss you i love you i'll call
you later that type of note she just appeared to be in a hurry and wanted to leave the woman said the
driver was a middle-aged white male but she didn't get a good look at his face she did however
provide a valuable piece of information max's mother provided us with the cell phone number that was on her caller id
when investigators called the number a man answered the phone we were able to get a
person on the phone he said his name was phillip thompson and he was asked if he knew anybody of the
name of joshon ashbrook and if he had picked up anybody or knew this female philip thompson confirmed he and his
daughter had picked up yoshan when she was hitchhiking took her to her boyfriend's house to
leave the note and then they dropped her off at the local walmart and that's the last that he had seen of
her philip thompson agreed to meet police later that day but he failed to show up
for his appointment investigators looked at that as possibly you know a telltale sign of you know someone who
was running away from something but police received some troubling news the cell phone wasn't registered to
philip thompson it was registered to philip parton a convicted killer phillip hardin was convicted of a
murderer that he committed in 1987 in which he strangled a man with a phone cord or some kind of
cord short version was that phillip hart was what they call a hustler a male prostitute he had picked up this
gay math teacher at a local club they went back to the teacher's place something happened there
parton beat him strangled him to death with a telephone court once he killed him he took his wallet
money credit cards got into the guy's car and drove off parton was convicted of second-degree
murder served six years in prison and was released in 1995. police believed that it was partner they'd been speaking
to about yoshan parton said he and his daughter dropped yoshan off at this walmart the morning she
disappeared but that's not what store surveillance tape showed the walmart surveillance video
shows them pulling in at around 8 48 you see the suspect you see yoshan and you see
the suspect's little girl they spend 5-10 minutes purchase a couple fishing items
and then they leave get back in the vehicle and drive off the videotape left no doubt joshon was
with parton a convicted murderer just hours before her body was found when i saw the video i started feeling
very confident that we were focusing on the right guy there was only one problem where
was he police searched nationwide for philip parton a convicted killer who had already
admitted to police during a phone call that he'd picked up joshon ashbrook while she was hitchhiking
investigators learned that parton and his daughter were living in newport richie florida with a friend
he'd met in prison he agreed to let him live in one of the rooms at his house hardin had his daughter patricia with
him so they move in there when questioned parton's roommate said he hadn't seen parton or his daughter
since yoshan's murder was covered in the local news he also said he'd never seen joshon
ashbrook at his house either with a search warrant police examined the room parton and his
daughter had been using and initially found nothing suspicious we lifted up a throw rug that was in
between the two beds and when we pulled the throw rug back there was a huge discolored stain
the stain was about four feet long and smelled of bleach it looked like someone had recently tried to clean it
so criminalists lifted the carpet and found traces of blood underneath which they collected for dna
testing forensic analysts also went over every inch of the room they started searching
and on the wall they found a speck of blood that looked like it might have been a
cast off a little teardrop the blood on the wall and underneath the carpet yielded
a genetic profile and it matched your sean's dna we can say that yo sean was killed in that bedroom
parton's roommate insisted he had nothing to do with your sean's murder but wouldn't cooperate further i did not
want to cooperate with the investigators nor the state attorney's office very belligerence this
hated authority despised us meanwhile the search for philip parton wasn't going well
even though he was in constant contact with police via his cell phone detective philip
liked to talk he would question detectives as to what do you have on me why do you think i'm the one that did
this he was seeking answers you have nothing on me the problem was parton would make a call and then drive away so
it was impossible to pin down his location one call came from across the country in
washington state this was just another way of mr pardon taunting the detectives finally the phone call stopped
completely but then two months after yoshan's murder police found an abandoned red pickup truck in a
walmart parking lot 50 miles away from where your sean's body was discovered the license plate showed it was parton's
truck but on the truck were four bald tires that didn't match the tire impressions
at the crime scene was parton trying to show he wasn't the killer by using decoy tires and he's got to know we were
going to take tire casts and we're going to know what kind of vehicle he was driving
was pretty smart but if that were the case parton made a colossal mistake in the glove compartment investigators
found three rolls of film when developed one picture showed his truck with different tires
one of them was a wild country brand tire i was able to determine that the tire impressions made at the crime scene
was made by one of seven and one of them being the cooper wild country tire this became a crucial piece of evidence
for us in this case with the help of an informant police found pardon's seven-year-old daughter parton
had dropped her off at a friend's home after the murder and never came back pardon tells her
you don't know where i'm at you know where i'm going and and don't tell anybody take care of my
child i'll get back with you later on he's never seen again parton's daughter confirmed yoshan's whereabouts on the
night of the murder and said yoshan never left the bedroom she remembered that they went back to
the house where they live went into the bedroom and that she and yoshan played video games and watched tv parton's
daughter said she was asleep in the living room while her father and your sean were in the bedroom
when she awoke dushan was gone we asked her at what time did yoshan leave and she didn't remember
probably after she went to bed she had no knowledge of when they left and she couldn't tell investigators
where her father was hiding this guy's pissing me off all the evidence in the joshua ashbrook
murder pointed to one man philip parton he was the last known person to see your sean alive his truck
once had the same brand of tires that left tracks just feet from her body his own daughter
put him with the victim the night of the murder and perhaps most tellingly of all
when police went to question him he went on the run but he couldn't control his curiosity about the case and called
detectives from all over the country he was pumping detectives as much as we were trying to pump him
for information he ultimately thought he could beat the system well in doing that we were able to trace
his phone calls with a warrant investigators tapped his roommate's phone just to see if parton would eventually
call him and that's what he did when parton called his roommate the police were listening in
they traced the call to a pay phone in fayetteville north carolina we knew that mr parton
was involved in the air conditioning business he had a general area where the phone
call came in from so we concentrated our search in that area and that's exactly where they found him
mr pardon was quite shocked to see detectives he was taken into custody on a warrant
upon questioning by detectives he refused most of the questions that he didn't confess
remember yo sean if i showed you a picture you don't know how many girls i've made
you know so i'm talking about the one i am talking about the one that uh was at fritz house
you two were together i'm listening to you but i i still don't know but dna finally told the tale
parton's dna matched dna on the hair found on yoshan's body this dna just sealed the deal to see
whether parton's roommate was involved investigators searched his suv and on the front seat found a blood
stain but a test on the blood stain didn't match joshon ashbrook it was dna from the man's son
the roommate also claimed he was at work in tampa on the night yoshan was murdered
an alibi corroborated by his employer he was obviously in pinellas or tampa with these people he couldn't have been
involved in her murder believe parton picked up yoshan while she was hitchhiking
pardon gained your sean's trust by having his daughter with him and by helping her with her errands
the security tapes show the three of them went shopping later that morning bought
some fishing gear and according to parton's daughter went fishing later that afternoon parton's daughter
said they returned to their rented room sometime late in the day after dark parton's daughter fell asleep on the
sofa parton may have made a sexual advance towards you sean which he rebuffed there was a fight
desean grabbed some of his hair and parton used a knife to cut her throat blood spatter got onto the wall but
it was a broken neck that caused yoshan's death parton took yoshan's body to the woods
15 miles from her home she had in her hand his dna parton left his tire impression in the
sand later parton attempted unsuccessfully to clean the blood from the bedroom philip parton is an opportunist who
preys on young victims and vulnerable victims i would consider him a sick individual
it's hard for the defense to look at this evidence and take off in a different direction
saying hey my client's not guilty philip parton went on trial for first degree murder he was found
guilty and sentenced to death i held a lot of anger in and so that's what got me through the trial
was my anger he would stare at me and he would wink at me and um just be as cocky as he could be
the forensic evidence was the case it was the case her dna in the bedroom and his dna his hair found in her
finger that's the case everything else was circumstantial mr pardon had a tattoo on his body that
said live free or die and that was his motto that he he went by either either let me free or
kill me and ultimately i think it speaks for [Music] itself

Even though their daughter had run away before, she'd always come back. Her parents were sure this time would be no different, but they were wrong.

Brief Summary

Yoshan Ashbrook's murder leads to Philip Parton's arrest and conviction through forensic evidence and surveillance footage.

Key points

The Disappearance of Yoshan Ashbrook. A young aspiring singer vanishes, leaving her family desperate for answers.
The Trial of Philip Parton. Parton is found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to death.
The Discovery of Yoshan's Body. Tragic news strikes as Yoshan's body is found, revealing signs of violence.
The Convicted Killer. Philip Parton, a convicted murderer, becomes a key suspect in Yoshan's case.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I'm never going to see her make her dreams come true.

A mother reflects on her daughter's tragic fate.

2:52WatchMar 5, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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