Latest / Crime and Horror / The WEIRDEST murder motive EVER -- SOLVED Mysteries, Episode 3

Transcript

The WEIRDEST murder motive EVER -- SOLVED Mysteries, Episode 3 · Crime and Horror

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The clue that finally solved this murder was right in
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: front of everyone the whole time, but it would take
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: almost a decade and the intervention of a secret crime
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: solving society for investigators to finally understand its disturbing significance.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: But before we get into today's story, if you're a
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: fan of the strange, dark and mysterious delivered in story format,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: and you come to the right channel, because that's all
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: we do, and we upload three, four, even five times
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: every week. So if that's of interest to you, please
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: recrust the light buttons, smuckers, uncrustables. Also, please subscribe to
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: miss any of.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Our video uploads.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: All right, let's get into today's story. When classes began
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: at Drexel University in Philadelphia on the morning of November thirtieth,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four, students walking into Randall Hall made a
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: gruesome discovery. Crumpled at the bottom of an outdoor stairwell,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: underneath a gray jacket was the body of a young woman.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: She had cuts and bruising all over her face, and
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: she had a deep purple line that went all around
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: her neck from where she had been strangled to death.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: She had no purse, no backpack, nothing to identify her.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: There was no evidence of sexual assault because she was
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: fully clothed, although she was missing her shoes and socks.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Police immediately cordoned off the area. Their first suspicion was
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: this was a robbery that turned deadly. But right away
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: the police knew they were in for a very difficult
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: investigation because one, there were no cameras inside or outside
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: of Randall Hall, so they couldn't just review the footage
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: to see what happened to Debbie, and two, there was
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: a virtually unlimited number of suspects because Drexler University was
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: not an isolated campus. Its buildings were integrated into West Philadelphia,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: and Randall Hall itself was located right along a known
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: cut through that residents that lived in and around Drexler
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: would use almost every single day. And it was clear
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: this young woman had not been killed in this stairwell.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: She had been killed elsewhere and then dragged a great distance,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: losing her shoes in the process, before being dumped at
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: this spot. But just a couple of hours after the
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: body was discovered, the police received a lucky break when
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: a young man, who was combative and frantic, rushed the
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: closed off crime scene and demanded he'd be let through
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: because he said he knew the identity of the dead girl.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: The police were immediately suspicious because they didn't even know
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: who this dead girl was, so they pulled the young
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: man aside and they interview him, and he tells police
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: his name is Kurt Rayner. He's a student at Drexel University,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: and he believes the girl they had found the dead
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: girl was his girlfriend, twenty year old Debbie Wilson, who
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: was also a student, and then he proceeded to give
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: police a very long and complicated explanation of how he
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: figured out the girl inside was his girlfriend. He said
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: the night before he was with Debbie in Randall Hall
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: in the computer lab in the basement. He said Debbie
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: had a big project that was due the next day
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: and that he had offered to just keep her company
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: while she worked, but by about one point thirty in
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: the morning, Debbie still had a lot of work to do,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: and Kurt said he was just really tired and didn't
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: know if he could stay awake any longer, and so
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: he asked Debbie if it would be okay if he
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: took off early.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: Debbie said it was totally fine.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: She was used to working late at this computer lab,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: and Kurt, even though he wanted to stick around and
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: walk her safely to her car when she was done,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: he felt like she was okay, and so he took
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: off on his own. On his walk back to the dorm,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Kurt said he passed by a campus security guard and
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: he actually asked him if he wouldn't mind checking on
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: his girlfriend in the computer lab because she was all
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: alone and it was late, and the security guard said,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: no problem, I'll make sure she's okay. The next morning,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: when Kurt woke up, he heard rumors from other students
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: on campus about a woman's body being found just outside
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: of Randall Hall and that apparently it looked like murder.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Kurt said he didn't think much of it.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: At first, but that day when he went into campus
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: to meet up with Debbie, he saw her car still
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: parked in the computer lab parking lot, looking like it
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: had never left, and then when he got to the
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: meeting site, Debbie never showed, and he said it was
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: at that point that he realized the dead woman in
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Randall Hall must be Debbie.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: And he wasn't wrong. It was Debbie, but the police
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: not buying his story.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: He was the last person to see Debbie alive, and
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: by his own admonition, he had heard that morning about
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: a dead woman being found at Randall Hall, the very
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: place he had left his girlfriend the night before, all alone,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: but it took him hours to bring this up to anyone.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: The police also noticed he had bruises on his knuckles
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: and a deep cut between his fingers. Suddenly, Kurt seemed
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: like the killer, and this crime that initially looked like
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: a robbery gone wrong now looked like something much more personal.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Strangulation is intimate.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: The killer almost always is face to face with their victim,
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: and it takes a lot of time and a lot
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: of rage.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: And afterwards, the killer had covered Debbie's body with her jacket,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: an act that indicated remorse or even respect, and investigators
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: know that generally when a woman is murdered, her romantic
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: partner is the culprit. Instead of tipping off Kurt that
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: they were looking at him as the primary suspect, they
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: told him to go back to his dorm room.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: And they would be in touch with him as the
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: investigation developed.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: In the meantime, investigators turned their attention to the computer
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: lab in Randall Hall, where Kurt said Debbie had been
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: last Debbie had logged into a computer at the front
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: of the lab, but had not logged out. Her computer
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: cursor was left blinking mid sentence at one thirty eight am,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: leading investigators to.
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: Believe she was interrupted by her attacker.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: Inside of the lab, investigators found two extension cords on
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: the ground near this computer that matched the ligature marks
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: on Debbie's neck.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: They also found a small spot.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Of blood on the back of Debbie's chair that they
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: sent off for testing. As police swept the computer lab,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: they began commenting on how neat everything looked, considering that
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: there must have been some sort of death struggle that
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: took place in there, and that's when they realized there
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: had been a huge setback in this case. The janitor
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: that morning had cleaned the computer lab and the hall
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: right outside, likely destroying critical physical evidence. They interviewed the janitor,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: who had a rock solid alibi and was incredibly remorseful
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: at unintentionally destroying the crime scene. And so they asked
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: the janitor, before you cleaned it up, was there anything
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: strange about the computer lab or the hallway right out side.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: Of the computer lab, and the janitor.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Said no, it was all normal, but she did say
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: it looked like the tables and chairs had been moved
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: around inside of the computer lab, but they didn't stand
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: out to her because it always looked that way when
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: she went in to clean it up. Because the police
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: lacked physical evidence, they couldn't just go arrest Kurt, even
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: though they wanted to, and so instead they asked him
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: if he'd be willing to come down to the station
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: for a formal interview, and he said he would. During
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: the interview, Kurt insisted he had nothing to do with
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Debbie's death. As for the bruises and cut on his hand,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: he said he had punched a wall after finding out
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: what had happened to Debbie, and the cut in the
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: middle of his fingers was from working on his car,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: but neither of those things could be proven. After this
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: interview yielded no new results and they still had no
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: evidence on Kurt, they told him he could go, and
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: in the interim they began digging into his alibi. Kurt
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: had previously told police that after leaving Debbie in the
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: computer lab, on his walk back to his dorm, he
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: had passed a security guard and asked that security guard
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: to check on Debbie, and so the police were able
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: to track down that security guard who confirmed Kurt's alibi.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: The security guard's name was Bryce Clattman, who was a
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: longtime employee of Drexler University with a stellar work record.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: And no criminal history. Clatman said he spoke.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: With Kurt around one thirty in the morning as Kurt
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: was walking back towards the dorms. After speaking with Kurt,
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Clatman radioed Bronson Ziegler, who was one of the two
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: security guards that were working in Randall Hall that night,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: and he told him that he or the other guy,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: David Dixon, would need to go down into the basement
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: and check on this girl. Shortly after radioing Ziegler, Clatman
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: would say he saw a person, presumably a student, come
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: out of Randall Hall. He said he was just too
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: far away and it was too dark that he couldn't
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: make out any features, but he definitely saw someone walking
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: around the premise around one thirty in the morning. Clatman
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: told police he never stepped foot inside of Randall Hall
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: that night and that he was willing to take a
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: lie detector test. Police ran the backgrounds of Bronson Ziegler
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: and David Dixon. Dixon was a military veteran with a
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: pristine record who was still in the Army reserves. As
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: for Ziegler, he had spent time in jail for burglary
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: and had actually lied about it to get his job
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: as a security guard. The police interviewed Ziegler. He was
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: evasive and frustrated, and he said that he did receive
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: the message from Clapman to go check on the girl,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: but he didn't feel like doing it himself, so he
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: radioed Dixon and said he should go do it. Ziegler
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: insisted he had done his rounds properly and he had
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: never stepped foot inside of the computer lab. He told
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: detectives they could check his security guard clock that he
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: carried with him every time he did rounds, which was
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: basically like a punch card, where there was designated stations
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: along his security rounds where he would punch this card
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: that stamped a time that he had arrived at that station,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: and so over the course of the night, he would
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: punch his card at each of these stations, and there
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: was a record of what time he arrived and what
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: time he left, and so when they checked this record,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: it showed that Ziegler had hit all the stations at
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: the correct time, but that didn't mean he didn't kill her,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: because there was lots of time in between rounds that
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: he could have attacked her. Towards the end of the interview,
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: Ziegler accused detectives of messing with him, and then he
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: sarcastically said he had killed Debbie, and then he refused
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: to take.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: A lie detector test.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: When the police interviewed Dixon, he said that Ziegler had
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: never radioed him as asking him to check on the
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: girl in the computer lab. However, he did say he
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: was aware of someone working late in the computer lab
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: because around two fifteen in the morning he had walked
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: past and the lights were on and he heard the
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: sound of printers working inside, and so, not wanting to
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: disturb whoever was in there, he didn't even poke his
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: head in. He disfigured he would come back in a
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: couple hours and make sure they were gone, and so
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: over the next couple of hours he chatted on the
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: phone with his girlfriend, and then around four in the morning,
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: he went back down to the computer lab, and the
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: lights were off and the door was locked, and so
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: he figured whoever had been in there had finished up
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: and left, and Ziegler had locked up after them. When
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: asked why he or Ziegler had not discovered Debbie's body,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: he said their security rounds did not leave the building
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: and so that stairwell was considered outside of the building
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: and so they never would have seen her. At this point,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Clapman and Dixon were ruled out as suspects, but Ziegler
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: became a primary suspect. But just as with the boyfriend
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Kurt Rayner, there was no physical evidence tying Ziegler to
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: the crime, and so they couldn't arrest him. Investigators decided
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: instead to try to track down that person Clapman had
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: seen walking around Randall Hall around one point thirty in
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: the morning. After speaking with Kurt and after radioing Ziegler,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: it would turn out to be twenty eight year old
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: PhD student Ashland Barhard, who was known for keeping long
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: hours and was also known for sneaking up behind the
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: female secretaries that worked in his office and suddenly holding
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: a pencil up to their neck.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: And threatening to kill them.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: His office also happened to be directly above where Debbie's
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: body was ultimately found inside of that stairwell. When interviewed
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: by police, Ashland said he had been in Randall Hall
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: the knight Debbie had been killed, but didn't know Debbie,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: had no interaction with her, and didn't leave his office
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: the whole night. He quickly agreed to take a lie
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: detective test, but he failed it. Scrambling to explain it,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: he named two other students that were in the office
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: with him that could be his alibi, but when police
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: spoke to these two other students, they said no, Ashland
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: was not in the office the whole time. He left
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: around one in the morning and was gone for about
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: three hours. He said he was going to take a nap.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: When the police approached Ashland with this information, he said, oh,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: you know what, I forgot to tell you about my nap.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: Yes, I left for a few hours.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: I stepped outside for breath of fresh air, went back
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: inside and slept in one of the study hall rooms.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: But besides that, I was inside of that building for
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: a full twenty four hours and I never saw Debbie.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: I had no interaction with her.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: It's just coincidence that my nap coincided with when she
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: was killed, but detectives were not buying it. They believed
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: wholeheartedly that now finally they had found their killer, but
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: just like with Kurt and with Ziegler, they had no
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: physical evidence tying Ashland to the crime, and so they
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: couldn't arrest him. And because they were not able to
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: make any arrest, the police just continued to look for
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: more suspects, and so they began speaking to some of
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Debbie's friends and acquaintances, and it came out that Debbie
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: actually had a stalker. It was another student named Alan Smith,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: who had previously been one of Debbie's very close friends,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: but at some point he wanted to take the relationship
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: from platonic to romantic, and Debbie rejected him. Alan apparently
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: didn't take this very well and took to following Debbie
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: around campus, trying to get her to stop and talk
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: to him and try to reconcile their relationship. Debbie every
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: time would just say no, and Alan got increasingly more
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: angry about it, and just the day before Debbie was killed,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: their friends saw Debbie fighting with Allan in the middle
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: of campus, where Alan had actually grabbed her shoulder and
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: was shaking her and yelling at her.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: Police track down Allan, and he was cooperative.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: And said he did not kill Debbie, but he didn't
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: have an alibi.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: He just said he was alone in his apartment on
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: the night that Debbie was killed. And so, like all the.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Other primary suspects in this case, there was no physical
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: evidence tying Allan to the crime, and so they couldn't
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: make an arrest. Around this time, the lab that tested
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: the blood spatter that was on Debbie's chair inside of
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: the computer lab came back with their results. DNA profiling
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: was not available back then, so all they could provide
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: was blood type. The blood type that came back from
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: that little spot was Type A and Debbie's blood was
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Type OH, meaning this blood spot likely belonged to Debbie's killer,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: who during their struggle must have gotten wounded and then
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: bled on the chair. And so right away the police
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: got Kurt Rainer, Bronson Ziegler, Ashlyn Barhart, and Alan Smith
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: to all come in and provide a blood sample, and
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: they figured if any one of them was.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: Type A that they probably were the killer.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: But unbelievably, when their test results came back in, none
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: of them were type A.
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: It was a crushing blow to the investigation.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: The first few days after Debbie's killing seemed so full
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: of promising leads, but now with this blood type development,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: investigators had no suspects, and all of a sudden, the
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Drexel community was starting to panic. Students were outraged at
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: the light security and wondered why these security guards were
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: not allowed to carry weapons.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: The administration put up a ten thousand dollars reward for
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: any information.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: About who could have done this, and the president of
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: the university told students to use the buddy system and
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: never be alone on campus because he believed the killer
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: was one of us. No one could understand why anyone
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: would want to target Debbi in.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: The first place.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: She seemed like such a wonderful person that was nice
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: to everyone. She had modeled in high school, but she
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: wasn't vain. She'd actually turned down getting braces because she
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: was worried it might affect her clarinet playing. She was
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: an average student, but she had an uncommon drive. She
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: worked really hard to get good grades. Whenever she was
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: feeling down or wasn't feeling motivated, she would scare at
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: a picture of a Mercedes Benz car that was there
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: to inspire her and remind her what she could achieve
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: if she continued to work hard. When she was killed,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: that picture of the Mercedes Benz still hung above her desk.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: It was ultimately her work ethic that put her in danger,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: because she was prepared to stay at that computer lab
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: as long as it took to make sure her project
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: was perfect. The few pieces of physical evidence the police
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: had didn't fit together. The crime wasn't really a robbery.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: While she was missing her shoes and socks, her backpack
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: had turned up at the campus, lost and found about
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: a week later, and no one knows how it got
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: there or who put it there. Inside, it appeared all
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: of her belongings were still there. Also, when she was discovered,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: she was still wearing her expensive watch. Her murder looked personal,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: but the police could not prove that someone who actually
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: knew her was the one who killed her. Police considered
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: a few other suspects, but like all the others, there
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: wasn't enough evidence to make any arrests, and so eventually
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: Debby's case went cold.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: Five, the Philadelphia Inquirer ran a story about unsolved cases
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: that most haunted detectives, and Debbie's was one of them.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Some of the detectives that were involved in the case
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: said they believed this was a random killing and that
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: the killer would most likely strike again. Debbie's case eventually
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: disappeared from headlines and it languished for eight years, and
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: then in the spring of nineteen ninety two, Debbie's murder
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: was assigned to a cold case squad led by Detective
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Bob Snyder, and desperate to crack the case, Snyder threw
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: a hail Mary. He took the case to the VDOC Society,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: which is a private and highly selective club of geniuses
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: from all walks of criminology, homicide detectives, prosecutors, defense attorneys,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: FBI agents, forensic scientists, even an aeronautic physicist. They came
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: from all over the world for these monthly closed door
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: sessions where they would talk about these unsolvable cases and
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: try to solve them. So in one of their monthly
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: closed door sessions, Detective Snyder stood in front of the
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: VDOCK Society and laid out.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: The details of Debbie Wilson's murder.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Then he opened the floor to questions and for hours,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: the societ alty got nowhere. Then Richard Walter, who was
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: a founding member of the society, said that he had
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: a theory. Walter was a famous criminal psychologist who had
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: profiled some of the world's most infamous killers. Most of
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: his work is actually still confidential. He believed the killer
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: was a power assertive, macho type guy that liked being
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: in control. Walter pointed to one clue that detectives and
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: everyone seemed to have overlooked after all these years, and
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: that was Debbi's missing shoes. He said the missing shoes
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: were not random, they were the most important clue. The
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: killer Walter predicted was a foot fetishist. Detective Snyder had
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: nothing else to go on and he was really intrigued
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: by this idea. So he brought the information back to
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: the cold case squad and they began reinterviewing everybody involved
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: in the case.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: When they spoke with.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: The manager of the computer lab at Randal Hall, he
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: told them he was always.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: Bothered by one particular detail.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: The printers in the lab always turned off after ten pm,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: and so he was always confused how the security guard
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: David Dixon could have heard the sound of printers inside
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: the lab at two fifteen in the morning, like he claimed.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: Detectives were shocked somehow no one had picked up on
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: this discrepancy. They began looking more closely at David Dixon,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: who had been ruled out as a suspect and was
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: viewed by and large as this pristine military veteran with
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: no criminal history, and they dug all the way to
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: the back of his military file, where they discovered in
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine, the first year he was in the service,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: he had gotten in trouble for stealing another soldier's white
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: rebox sneakers, the exact.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: Type of shoe that Debbie was known to wear.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Police began interviewing Dixon's former and current neighbors, and at
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: least four women reported having a break in when Dixon
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: was living next to them, and the only thing missing
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: was their white sneakers and dirty socks, although none of
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: these women actually ever found out who was responsible. When
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: they raided Dixon's apartment, they found in one of his
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: closets twenty sets of used women's white shoes that were
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: all wrapped in plastic like they were trophies. They also
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: found seventy seven homemade videos, presumably shot by Dixon, that
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: are just filming the feet of women walking around in
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: white shoe. Dixon's alibi on the night that Debbie was
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: killed was that most of the time he was on
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: the phone with his girlfriend. His girlfriend had become his wife,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: and then she became his ex wife, and so when
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: detectives spoke to her, she told them that they had
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: only spoke for a couple of minutes that night, not
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: for a couple of hours. Police arrested Dixon in June
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety three, and he never admitted to anything,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: but as soon as he got into his cell, he
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: started bragging to his cellmate about how he had killed
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Debbie because he wanted to have his way with her feet,
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: and his cellmate immediately told on him. Dixon was ultimately
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: found guilty of killing Debbie Wilson, and he was sentenced
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: to life in prison.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: So that's going to do it.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Guys. If you found the secret in today's episode, let
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: us know in the comments what it is and where
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: you found it. So give us the timestamp, and if
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: you're the first to do that, we'll pin you at
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: the top of the comments section. If you enjoyed today's
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: video and you haven't done this, already. Please recrust the
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: light buttons Smucker's Uncrustables.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: Also, please subscribe to.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: Our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: miss any of our weekly three, four, even five video uploads.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with me, you
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: can direct message me on Instagram or on Twitter. Username
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: for both platforms is the same. It's John Balin four
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: one six. I also have a ton of content over
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: on TikTok, where my username is mister Ballin. If you
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: have a story suggestion, please submit it to our subreddit
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: just called mister Ballin. It's linked to the description below.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: So whether I see you on Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Reddit, YouTube,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: or some combination, just know that I really appreciate your
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: support and until next time, that's going to do it.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: See you