Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / 9-yr-old girl abducted, raped & murdered less than half a mile away from home. Who brutalized Debbie Randall?

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9-yr-old girl abducted, raped & murdered less than half a mile away from home. Who brutalized Debbie Randall? · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:07
Speaker 1: How does a nine year old girl seemingly disappear off
0:12
Speaker 1: the face of the earth. How does that happen? How
0:16
Speaker 1: do you not know what happened to your little girl?
0:20
Speaker 1: That is the nightmare that Debbie Randall's parents live through.
0:34
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. What happened when Debbie Randall,
0:46
Speaker 1: just nine years old goes missing? I Nancy Grace, this
0:51
Speaker 1: is crime Stories. Take a listen now to our friends
0:54
Speaker 1: at w x I A eleven alive Jessica Ole January thirteenth,
1:00
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two. At that time, Debbie Lynn's family lived
1:04
Speaker 1: in an apartment complex on one side of the street,
1:06
Speaker 1: and the laundromat where she was abducted sat on the other.
1:10
Speaker 1: I think it would like fifty seven feet from her
1:13
Speaker 1: front door to the laundromat. The fifty seven feet was old.
1:18
Speaker 1: Debbie Lynn's kidnapper needed her mother found the box of
1:21
Speaker 1: soap she tried to bring home scattered on the ground.
1:25
Speaker 1: Detective Morris Knicks was a team when it happened. I
1:29
Speaker 1: remember vividly. I came in the house, were on the news.
1:32
Speaker 1: People were afraid, they were angry, and it was frightening
1:38
Speaker 1: with me an all Star panel to break you down
1:40
Speaker 1: and put it back together again. The detective who has
1:44
Speaker 1: a roort to this case for so long, Detective Morris Knicks,
1:49
Speaker 1: owner Knicks and Associates, also polygraph examiner, thirty eight years
1:55
Speaker 1: in law enforcement. Guy Watkins, Member Cobb County District Attorney's
2:00
Speaker 1: Cold Case Unit, now Gatekeeper Global at Gatekeeper Global slash
2:06
Speaker 1: us dot com. Joseph Scott Morgan, Professor Forensics, Jacksonville State
2:10
Speaker 1: University and author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon.
2:15
Speaker 1: Doctor Bethany Marshall, psychoanalyst, joining us out of Beverly Hills
2:19
Speaker 1: at doctor Bethany Marshall dot com. But now to Cheryl McCollum,
2:24
Speaker 1: Director and founder of the Coldcase Research Institute. I want
2:26
Speaker 1: to start at the beginning. Cheryl, tell me how Debbie Randall,
2:30
Speaker 1: just nine years old, goes missing Nancy. It was a
2:33
Speaker 1: Thursday night, January thirteenth, nineteen seventy two. And Debbie, I mean,
2:38
Speaker 1: she's adorable, She's freckle faced, little nine year old girls.
2:42
Speaker 1: She loves her goals, she loves playing with her friends.
2:45
Speaker 1: Her mom is not feeling well. So where stepfather? Says
2:49
Speaker 1: me and Debill golcov Street into the laundry. Her brothers
2:53
Speaker 1: stay home because they're gonna be with their mom and
2:55
Speaker 1: they're watching their favorite shows, The Rifleman. So they go
2:59
Speaker 1: literally fifty seven feet door to door and they start
3:03
Speaker 1: doing the laundry. When it's finished, Debbie asked if she
3:06
Speaker 1: can stay and play with these little girls whose mom
3:09
Speaker 1: is washing clothes and holding laundry. He said, yes, but
3:13
Speaker 1: be home by seven thirty, no problem. So they're playing
3:17
Speaker 1: together and he leaves about seven thirty. She doesn't get home,
3:22
Speaker 1: and her parents begin to worry about her, so they
3:25
Speaker 1: go looking for her at the laundry map and they're
3:28
Speaker 1: on the ground. They'd see the detergent that she was
3:32
Speaker 1: carrying spilled in the ground next to a VW bug.
3:36
Speaker 1: A bug not a van. Correct The reason I asked,
3:39
Speaker 1: because if it's a bug, someone walking by and driving
3:43
Speaker 1: by it might see what happened. If it's a van
3:45
Speaker 1: and she's on the other side of the van, you
3:48
Speaker 1: would it would be totally obscured for vision. But you're
3:51
Speaker 1: saying the laundry detergent is found by a VW bug. Correct, corret,
3:56
Speaker 1: but spilled all over the parking area. Okay, let's go
4:01
Speaker 1: straight out to Detective Morris Nicks, who's thirty eight years
4:05
Speaker 1: in law enforcement on the case. To Detective Nicks, thank
4:09
Speaker 1: you for being with us. Detective Nicks, I want to
4:11
Speaker 1: analyze what we know so far about Debbie Randall's disappearance.
4:15
Speaker 1: We know that Debbie Lynn Randall shoulder lying brown hair
4:20
Speaker 1: that even she had it tied back in a yellow bow,
4:24
Speaker 1: and she has big green eyes. She goes with her stepfather.
4:30
Speaker 1: They go over to the laundry mat just fifty seven
4:33
Speaker 1: feet from their apartment. She wants to play with the
4:38
Speaker 1: little girls. I thought some of them had dolls, and
4:43
Speaker 1: the dad says, yes, fine, but be home an X
4:47
Speaker 1: number of minutes, and she agrees and she's never seen
4:52
Speaker 1: alive again. Take me up from the beginning to that
4:56
Speaker 1: point where we find the detergent strown all out in
5:00
Speaker 1: the parking lot. Start at the beginning and take me
5:03
Speaker 1: to the laundry detergent. Detective Knicks. Okay, we know that
5:06
Speaker 1: Debbie stayed behind played with the dolls. Um When she
5:10
Speaker 1: got ready to leave, she um took the box with her.
5:16
Speaker 1: Hold on what who had the dolls? Debbie had doll?
5:20
Speaker 1: Debbie had a doll. She brought a dog with her okay,
5:24
Speaker 1: don't Yeah, their friend dogs. I don't know if she
5:26
Speaker 1: had a dog with her. Okay. One of the one
5:29
Speaker 1: thing people that I talked who said that that was
5:32
Speaker 1: common they would meet there and play with their dolls. Um.
5:38
Speaker 1: Once she left, she went around around the corner. She
5:43
Speaker 1: come out the door, E gole around the corner, and
5:45
Speaker 1: that's where she was abducted. Now I talked to one wall.
5:50
Speaker 1: Explain to me, well, hold on, I want to hear
5:52
Speaker 1: about the soap detergent. You're taking me up to the
5:56
Speaker 1: point of the soap detergent. Why is that? Did her
6:01
Speaker 1: dad leave her with soap detergent when she's supposed to
6:04
Speaker 1: bring that home? Explain? I haven't ask him she specifically
6:07
Speaker 1: left her with detergent. Someone told me that Debbie would
6:11
Speaker 1: judge just what she did. She would gather what was
6:13
Speaker 1: left and take it. I don't know if she had
6:16
Speaker 1: the box, whether or if she picked it up inside
6:18
Speaker 1: the lawn her myth Okay, you're cutting out on me,
6:21
Speaker 1: Detective Nicks, and I really want to hear every single
6:24
Speaker 1: word you say. It's my understanding. Not only did she
6:29
Speaker 1: love to play with her dolls, she was the neighborhood
6:32
Speaker 1: baseball team Queen, and she collected and stacked soap boxes.
6:38
Speaker 1: She collected left over detergent and would gather it together
6:44
Speaker 1: and take it home to her mother. Is that correct,
6:48
Speaker 1: Detective Nicks, That is correct, that developed the habit of
6:53
Speaker 1: doing she collected the soap powder or when she left,
7:05
Speaker 1: another little girl wanted to go with her, and her
7:09
Speaker 1: older sister said, no, you're going to stay here and
7:13
Speaker 1: help full clothes. So I asked her, I said, when
7:18
Speaker 1: Debbie went around the corner, do you think she ran
7:23
Speaker 1: into someone she knew or do you think someone just
7:27
Speaker 1: happened to be there. She is convinced that Debbie ran
7:35
Speaker 1: into someone that she knew, and he probably called her
7:38
Speaker 1: over to the vehicle just one second before I go
7:41
Speaker 1: any further. I've gotten a lot of emails and text
7:46
Speaker 1: regarding the parents to doctor Bethany Marshall Psycho Alan's joining
7:50
Speaker 1: me out of Beverly Hills at doctor Bethany Marshall dot com.
7:53
Speaker 1: Doctor Bethany. The parents have taken a lot of grief
7:59
Speaker 1: because they let her play with her friends. And I
8:03
Speaker 1: would just want to remind everyone that this neighborhood had
8:07
Speaker 1: practically zero crime and she was fifty seven feet away
8:29
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, guys were talking about a
8:34
Speaker 1: nine year old little girl, Debbie Lanne Randall, who's fifty
8:38
Speaker 1: seven feet away from her parents at a laundry mat
8:41
Speaker 1: and she goes missing. For instance, in the book that
8:47
Speaker 1: I am just finishing, Don't be a victim, I talk
8:50
Speaker 1: about children going to playgrounds or ballparks and the parent
8:54
Speaker 1: may go get hot dogs or corn dog or drinks
8:58
Speaker 1: and then come back and their children are there playing.
9:02
Speaker 1: That is basically it's tantamount to what happened here. It's
9:06
Speaker 1: just fancy go ahead, you know. I Well, if a
9:10
Speaker 1: predator wants to get a child, they will. It's what
9:13
Speaker 1: we call a crime of opportunity. So they are going
9:17
Speaker 1: to look for the one moment that the child is
9:21
Speaker 1: temporarily out of eyesight. And we can't keep our children
9:25
Speaker 1: in cages. You're right, this was just I think this was.
9:28
Speaker 1: This laundromat was half a block from the family's apartment complex.
9:33
Speaker 1: And remember she was playing with another little girl. That
9:36
Speaker 1: little girl had parents there, a mother there, so that
9:39
Speaker 1: implies that she was left in the supervision of other adults.
9:43
Speaker 1: She wasn't just roaming the streets by herself that this
9:46
Speaker 1: other little girl wasn't remember that, No, you remember Madeline mccam.
9:53
Speaker 1: I was just thinking about that. Now. Those parents are
9:56
Speaker 1: like at least one football field away. Their children were
10:00
Speaker 1: asleep in a vacation rental. They were having dinner with
10:06
Speaker 1: friends that evening, and they would go back and check
10:11
Speaker 1: on Mattie McCann every twenty minutes. And the last time
10:14
Speaker 1: they went back to check on them, the other children
10:17
Speaker 1: were there and Mattie McCann was gone. And those parents
10:21
Speaker 1: have taken so much h double l about that. But
10:24
Speaker 1: to Joe Scott more Good, Professor Forensics, jacksonvill State University,
10:27
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the scene where all the
10:29
Speaker 1: laundry to church it was found strewn across the parking
10:34
Speaker 1: lot where the VW bug was. What does that tell you?
10:38
Speaker 1: Tells me there was a struggle. Yeah, yeah, potentially a struggle.
10:42
Speaker 1: And let's also keep in mind this is one interesting
10:45
Speaker 1: little fact that that I've kind of dug out and
10:48
Speaker 1: it was just kind of curious to me. Immediately adjacent
10:51
Speaker 1: to the strewn detergent the on the ground where you
10:56
Speaker 1: meant you were talking about this VW bug. All right,
11:00
Speaker 1: the things that keeps coming up over and over again,
11:02
Speaker 1: is that there was a tiny handprint that was found
11:05
Speaker 1: on the surface of this bug. It implies at least
11:10
Speaker 1: that it's on the side of the bug, okay. And
11:12
Speaker 1: the interesting thing about it is the position of the print.
11:16
Speaker 1: The print is essentially with the hands facing downward. If
11:20
Speaker 1: if the listeners will put their hands down by their
11:22
Speaker 1: side and turn their palms facing backwards. This print was
11:26
Speaker 1: inverted just like that and was found on the side
11:30
Speaker 1: of the car. Now, I think my question as a
11:33
Speaker 1: forensics guy, were they ever able to tie that print
11:39
Speaker 1: back to this child's hand. All they're saying is is
11:42
Speaker 1: that it was a small handprint and it was apparently
11:46
Speaker 1: adjacent to the soap powder. And I think that's that's
11:49
Speaker 1: significant because you know, we can only get into that position, Nancy,
11:54
Speaker 1: if we're kind of backing up and bracing ourselves as
11:57
Speaker 1: we back into a surface. Everybody's done this at some
12:00
Speaker 1: point in time to kind of catch yourself or if
12:02
Speaker 1: we're forced backwards. Okay, So that kind of goes along
12:06
Speaker 1: with the potential for a struggle. And let me now
12:08
Speaker 1: go to Guy Watkins. Remember Cobb County District Attorney's Cold
12:13
Speaker 1: case Unit. Now at Gatekeeper Global LC guy Watkins. Was
12:20
Speaker 1: there an attempt to match that palm print up to
12:22
Speaker 1: Debbie Randall? Honestly, I do not remember any notation and
12:27
Speaker 1: then the file that we had that there was to
12:32
Speaker 1: have attempt. But I'm I'm looking right at that palm print.
12:35
Speaker 1: What do you know, Marris Knicks, do we know if
12:37
Speaker 1: the palm print was matched up to Debbie? It was not.
12:40
Speaker 1: It was my understanding. Did they try to match it
12:43
Speaker 1: and it wasn't a match, or was it never attempted.
12:46
Speaker 1: It was my understanding that they simply discarded it on
12:49
Speaker 1: the scene. Jess Goot Morgan, if you and I have
12:53
Speaker 1: the palm print, that means it can still be matched. Yeah,
12:58
Speaker 1: it's it's quite possible that you could match a palm
13:01
Speaker 1: print if but this is the problem. If there was
13:05
Speaker 1: a print, a full palm print taking of her at
13:09
Speaker 1: the medical Examiner's office when the body was examined at
13:14
Speaker 1: that point in tom most of the time when bodies
13:16
Speaker 1: come into the emmy's office, they only do fingerprints most
13:20
Speaker 1: of the time. Back then, Yeah, okay to Cheryl column,
13:26
Speaker 1: hold on, jump in what about this palm print? Nay?
13:29
Speaker 1: If it was discarded at the scene, the reason that
13:31
Speaker 1: would have been happening is if you look at the VW.
13:34
Speaker 1: If it's dusty or has pollen on it, you're not
13:37
Speaker 1: going to get any friction ridge. I can't see it.
13:41
Speaker 1: I can already see the ridges. No, no, I see
13:45
Speaker 1: the ridges on the fingertips. To Cheryl, you gotta look
13:49
Speaker 1: at this print, especially on the thumb. I mean, I
13:52
Speaker 1: see a great print on the thumb. It's a fantastic print.
13:57
Speaker 1: As far as finger pall, Detective Nick said it would
14:00
Speaker 1: disguarded at the scene. I don't know why. Well, if
14:02
Speaker 1: I've got it, somebody's got it. But you know what,
14:05
Speaker 1: you know what, For years I heard defense attorneys argue
14:11
Speaker 1: there's no fingerprints, therefore we don't have a case. But
14:17
Speaker 1: that's not necessarily true. Take a listen to your cut eight.
14:24
Speaker 1: This is me talking to a witness, Sandra Walker. Sandra,
14:31
Speaker 1: I know it was a while back, but please put
14:34
Speaker 1: your mind back to the evening Debbie disappeared. What did
14:40
Speaker 1: you observe, Lady Mike gar her real they thought they
14:44
Speaker 1: got hurt. There was like a playground that was behind
14:48
Speaker 1: the laundromat, and also a place there where you would
14:52
Speaker 1: go and get Line Morris to cut people's grass, and
14:55
Speaker 1: there was a tree right there beside the laundromat where
14:58
Speaker 1: there was no one deserted thing on the side. I've
15:02
Speaker 1: seen this black pickup trup stop. The driver got out.
15:07
Speaker 1: Lets this door open, let's the truck running. He ran.
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Speaker 1: He went over to Debby. He grabbed her and she
15:15
Speaker 1: was kicking her feet and kicking, kicking a little hard
15:19
Speaker 1: and screaming and yelling. And he had held her over
15:24
Speaker 1: his shoulders, so she was screaming and kicking. He threw
15:27
Speaker 1: her in the truck and then he almost ran over me.
15:30
Speaker 1: So guys, you know, yes, I wish we had had
15:33
Speaker 1: a match on that handprint of Debbie Randall leaning back
15:36
Speaker 1: against that VW bug when she was kidnapped. But I
15:41
Speaker 1: have heard to talk laundry detersient that she had collected
15:45
Speaker 1: and she would take home in a laundry mat. People
15:48
Speaker 1: don't use all their laundry detersient. She would gather it
15:51
Speaker 1: up and take it home to her mother to save money.
15:55
Speaker 1: She'd take the excess laundry detergent home. We have that
15:59
Speaker 1: strung own all over the parking lot. Not only that,
16:02
Speaker 1: we now have a witness that states she was taken
16:05
Speaker 1: forcibly by a man in a black pickup. Now, she
16:09
Speaker 1: is a child witness at the time. And let me
16:12
Speaker 1: tell you something, in courts of law, very often child
16:15
Speaker 1: witnesses are treated as less important than adult witnesses. It's
16:20
Speaker 1: my experience just the opposite. I think children make much
16:24
Speaker 1: better witnesses than adults do. But let's see what Sandra
16:28
Speaker 1: Walker has to say about an idea of the kidnapper.
16:32
Speaker 1: What did the truck look like? All I know is
16:37
Speaker 1: it was a black truck because I was twelve years old,
16:41
Speaker 1: But I can remember it like it was yesterday. I've
16:44
Speaker 1: had nightmares about it through Ever. What did he look like?
16:50
Speaker 1: Who was a white man? And I was maybe one
16:54
Speaker 1: hundred and forty feet to one hundred and eighty feet
16:57
Speaker 1: from him, so I couldn't tell you what he looked like,
17:01
Speaker 1: but I could tell he was white. And do you
17:06
Speaker 1: recall what he had on? He had a pants and shirt,
17:10
Speaker 1: but I mean, I don't other than that. I just
17:13
Speaker 1: looked long, long, long pants and a shirt. And I
17:18
Speaker 1: remember it because, um, I looked at somebody that was
17:24
Speaker 1: walking with me. I said, did you just say that?
17:27
Speaker 1: And when I heard her screaming hell, and I said oh,
17:29
Speaker 1: somebody has done got in trouble time stories with Nancy Grace. Guys.
17:48
Speaker 1: A disappearance of a nine year old little girl goes unsolved.
17:53
Speaker 1: Is there a chance to solve it now? Debbie Randall's
17:57
Speaker 1: parents tortured over her disappo parents. The search was massive.
18:04
Speaker 1: To Detective Maurice Nick has been on the case from
18:06
Speaker 1: the get go. This little girl gets reported missing. Tell
18:11
Speaker 1: me about the beginning of the search that Thursday night.
18:14
Speaker 1: What happened? Well, Mary had to sent out people in
18:17
Speaker 1: the neighborhood knocking on doors and trying to get information.
18:22
Speaker 1: They did not get very much. At that point, they
18:25
Speaker 1: started trying to organize and people quickly volunteered, with college students.
18:31
Speaker 1: They had helicopters, boy scout troops. Who wait a minute,
18:38
Speaker 1: so you got boy scout troops, helicopters, scores of volunteers
18:45
Speaker 1: all out looking for Debbie Randall. Take a listen. Now,
18:51
Speaker 1: after a massive search, what we know? This is true
18:55
Speaker 1: crime chronicle Jessica Noel a Chili Rainy de Sixteen days
19:01
Speaker 1: after she disappears, thousands in a search party combed through
19:05
Speaker 1: a heavily wooded area. Four and a half hours into
19:08
Speaker 1: their search, a man discovers drag marks dug into the
19:11
Speaker 1: wet ground. Her body was discovered by Mike, Mike Mahon,
19:16
Speaker 1: and he was a student in Southern Tech and a
19:20
Speaker 1: group of students had agreed to search and they were
19:22
Speaker 1: that's the area that they were assigned to. And Mike
19:26
Speaker 1: said that he just hung back from Vietnam, had seen
19:32
Speaker 1: a lot of combat in Vietnam, and he said when
19:35
Speaker 1: he went there, he noticed the appeared to be drag marks,
19:39
Speaker 1: and so he followed the drag mark down there he
19:41
Speaker 1: spotted Debby's body and he stopped. He didn't go all
19:44
Speaker 1: the way down to the body, and that's how she
19:49
Speaker 1: was found. You know what's interesting to Cheryl McCollum. Very
19:53
Speaker 1: often the person that finds the body is immediately under suspicion.
20:02
Speaker 1: Not true in this case to my understanding, because this
20:05
Speaker 1: was someone that had been solicited and volunteered to search. Absolutely,
20:10
Speaker 1: he was a war hero, he had just been home.
20:13
Speaker 1: He's at the college, he volunteers to help, and he
20:16
Speaker 1: has a reason to take that path. He does recognize
20:20
Speaker 1: the drag marks, he'd seen it in Vietnam, and it
20:24
Speaker 1: was about one hundred and fifty feet into the woods.
20:26
Speaker 1: Nathy and again he didn't go any further. He didn't
20:29
Speaker 1: disturb it at all. So you know, nothing that would
20:33
Speaker 1: have belonged to him or would pinpoint him in any way,
20:36
Speaker 1: would ever owned her. So he did everything right. Guys,
20:40
Speaker 1: we are talking about the disappearance of Debbie Lynn Randol.
20:46
Speaker 1: She's a third grader, a third grade girl. Take a
20:52
Speaker 1: listen to our friend w XIA eleven alive, Jessica Knowles.
20:58
Speaker 1: Her brother was at the orhand and up flyers if
21:01
Speaker 1: you had seen it that she had come up missing.
21:04
Speaker 1: And that's when I put two hundren together. And she
21:07
Speaker 1: still carries the heartache of what happened that day. How
21:11
Speaker 1: people think that you gotta let it go and I
21:14
Speaker 1: can't when her little curl didn't the room she reserved
21:20
Speaker 1: behind the way. Debbie Lynn was found sixteen days later
21:24
Speaker 1: during a mass search of the woods. Was cold and rainy.
21:28
Speaker 1: She was abducted in one area, attagged in another area, redressed,
21:34
Speaker 1: and then her body was taken to even another area
21:37
Speaker 1: on Johnson Ferry Road. LI say Debbie Lynn had been
21:40
Speaker 1: found raped and suffocated, the killer likely using her own
21:44
Speaker 1: coat to muffle her screams. Like take a listen to
21:48
Speaker 1: more of what we learn about the crime scene from
21:52
Speaker 1: Jessica All. Her lifeless body is fully clothed, wearing a
21:56
Speaker 1: long sleeved lavender dress with small yellow flowers and tiny
22:01
Speaker 1: green leaves, and a dark blue hooded coat zipped all
22:04
Speaker 1: the way up to her chin. She's wearing Bobby socks,
22:09
Speaker 1: but her favorite lavender Christmas shoes are missing. She's been
22:13
Speaker 1: suffocated with her own coat. Investigators believe the man covered
22:17
Speaker 1: her face, possibly to muffle her screams. She's missing an
22:21
Speaker 1: ear and has been violently raped. Dark brown hair is
22:25
Speaker 1: found on her body and is tested. It's from a
22:28
Speaker 1: white male, approximately eighteen to thirty years old and maybe
22:32
Speaker 1: dark complexed. Good chance that possible. Debbie knew her. The
22:43
Speaker 1: body is found, this little girl. You know what all that?
22:47
Speaker 1: Detective Nicks. Tell you with me, Detective Morris Nis. Detective Nicks,
22:53
Speaker 1: what happened to Debbie Randall? How was she killed? What
22:57
Speaker 1: did she endure before her death? It's his almost indescribable
23:02
Speaker 1: m Daby was taken to a place. She was assaulted
23:09
Speaker 1: with a foreign object. She was Wait a minute, when
23:13
Speaker 1: you say assaulted with a foreign object, don't talk to
23:16
Speaker 1: me like a cop. That means she was raped with
23:20
Speaker 1: something like a bottle or a can or something correct.
23:27
Speaker 1: And one part of report it says they think it
23:29
Speaker 1: may be a shock. Abjelber, I have no idea what
23:32
Speaker 1: to say. That possibly a bottle. She was torn open,
23:36
Speaker 1: she was bleeding profusely. At some point her attacker takes
23:44
Speaker 1: a rag of cloth in search of the vaginal area.
23:48
Speaker 1: We believe he did that because she was bleeding so badly,
23:51
Speaker 1: and he knew that he was going to put her
23:54
Speaker 1: back into his vehicle. And that's why I believe that
24:01
Speaker 1: he had to move the body because where this as
24:04
Speaker 1: salt occurred, he was for me or that location, and
24:07
Speaker 1: it was a very isolated location. You would have had
24:11
Speaker 1: to have known it was there. And once she gets
24:16
Speaker 1: her back in the truck, he only takes her just
24:19
Speaker 1: a very short ways down the road. I think either
24:24
Speaker 1: one she was bleeding in his truck profusely or two
24:30
Speaker 1: Jordan did no my prayers that she was. But he
24:38
Speaker 1: stops the vehicles right down the street, takes her over
24:42
Speaker 1: into the woods that pleasure it was wooded them. But
24:46
Speaker 1: the pleasure now is where the Houston restaurant was on
24:49
Speaker 1: Polas Burry Road. It was a horrific assault and he
24:59
Speaker 1: leaves her there. I don't think that was planning. I
25:03
Speaker 1: don't think Keith thought I'm gonna saulter her here and
25:07
Speaker 1: take her right down the street. I think something all
25:10
Speaker 1: of a sudden made him stop there. Otherwise he would
25:13
Speaker 1: have gone down, perhaps to the river, but he stopped
25:17
Speaker 1: just right down the street. I think he says, oh,
25:20
Speaker 1: there's problem. So she's either leaving a lot of blood
25:25
Speaker 1: in his truck or again, she wasn't deceased. The depravity
25:33
Speaker 1: of this mind is something I've tried all these years
25:36
Speaker 1: to wrap my head around. I just don't understand how
25:39
Speaker 1: you do that. But I do know this to Guy Watkins,
25:46
Speaker 1: member of Cobb County distric Attorney's Cold Case unit now
25:50
Speaker 1: with Gatekeeper Global LLC, Guy, I do know that she
25:55
Speaker 1: was alive for the horrific and brutal rape as Nick
26:03
Speaker 1: just said, possibly with a shock absorber on this nine
26:07
Speaker 1: year old third grader because of the profuse bleeding. If
26:12
Speaker 1: she was dead at the time of the sex assault
26:16
Speaker 1: in sodomy, she would not have bled so much. So
26:19
Speaker 1: I know that she is alive and endured that what
26:25
Speaker 1: with what was she asphyxiated? Guy Watkins. I believed that
26:30
Speaker 1: she was affixed with her own dress. There were certainly
26:35
Speaker 1: DNA samples that were taken from her clothing and from
26:43
Speaker 1: her and also from the victim crime story. He's with
27:00
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace. Guys, we're talking about Debbie Randall, a third
27:05
Speaker 1: grader who goes missing from the laundry mat and after
27:08
Speaker 1: a massive search involving college students, war vets, and boy scouts,
27:14
Speaker 1: her body is found in a remote and isolated area.
27:18
Speaker 1: To doctor Bethany Marshall, psychoanalysts joining us from Beverly Hills.
27:23
Speaker 1: What does it say to you that she was then
27:27
Speaker 1: redressed to a t and the outfit she had gotten
27:32
Speaker 1: for Christmas. That's what she was wearing, minus the little
27:36
Speaker 1: lavender shoe she had gotten for Christmas. Remember this is
27:39
Speaker 1: in January, right. What does it tell you? Do you
27:41
Speaker 1: remember Ted Bundy after he would rape and murder his victims,
27:46
Speaker 1: he with them, bathe them, sometimes do their hair and
27:51
Speaker 1: makeup and redress them. What does that mean? Well, I
27:55
Speaker 1: would love to first address the shock absorber and the
27:59
Speaker 1: bleeding for how he addressed her, If you don't mind,
28:03
Speaker 1: I think it's important for the listeners to know that
28:06
Speaker 1: there is more than one MMO when it comes to
28:09
Speaker 1: child abduction. One is to possess and control the child
28:14
Speaker 1: and to have sex with a child, but the other
28:17
Speaker 1: is something called sadism, where you purposely inflict pain and
28:22
Speaker 1: cruelty because the sexual satisfaction comes from the terror that
28:27
Speaker 1: you're inflicting on the child. And usually with this we
28:30
Speaker 1: see anal in general mutilation, we see burnmarks on the
28:37
Speaker 1: child's body. If I heard correctly and ere was missing,
28:41
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm wondering how did that happen? I mean,
28:44
Speaker 1: if the m was just playful sexual satisfaction and the
28:49
Speaker 1: orientation is towards children, he would have had intercourse with
28:52
Speaker 1: her and then killed her. So she couldn't ide him that.
28:56
Speaker 1: In this case he wanted to torture her. Then he
29:00
Speaker 1: the rests her, and I heard some report that he
29:03
Speaker 1: put her underwear back on in a peculiar way, which
29:06
Speaker 1: I would love to know more about. But I think
29:09
Speaker 1: there is some strange thing that happens after somebody commits home.
29:14
Speaker 1: If they temporarily humanize the body, you will often see,
29:19
Speaker 1: like you once told a story of somebody drive you know,
29:22
Speaker 1: dying in a driveway and the person who finds him
29:26
Speaker 1: puts a pillow under his head. Or we see people
29:28
Speaker 1: who have been disposed of in the forest, but they
29:31
Speaker 1: have a blanket over them. And I think sometimes there's
29:34
Speaker 1: a peculiar type of humanity that enters after the horrific crime.
29:38
Speaker 1: To Cheryl McCollum, forensics expert, founder of the Cold Case
29:42
Speaker 1: Research Institute, way in on the crime saying, Cheryl, for me,
29:46
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty big into the woods is significant. Again,
29:50
Speaker 1: he knew the area. There's no doubt in my mind
29:52
Speaker 1: about that this is an organized killer. He had transportations,
29:56
Speaker 1: he had the object for race, he had the location
29:59
Speaker 1: for the thought, he had the abilities after the fact
30:02
Speaker 1: to cover her face. This was planned. This is somebody
30:05
Speaker 1: that was a predator that sat between a laundromat and
30:09
Speaker 1: a playground. And if you think about any laundromat you've
30:12
Speaker 1: ever seen, in the front is a bank lendon. So
30:17
Speaker 1: he's able to watch those children in the laundromat just
30:19
Speaker 1: as openly as he can watch the children in the playground.
30:22
Speaker 1: And he waited, he waited for the perfect opportunity, and
30:26
Speaker 1: sadly that happened. Let me ask you something, Cheryl McCollum,
30:30
Speaker 1: We know that she had a white male's dark brown
30:34
Speaker 1: hair or brown hair on her person. What about the
30:38
Speaker 1: possibility even now to do a genome study. It's crazy
30:44
Speaker 1: that you just mentioned that. Literally three days ago I
30:48
Speaker 1: spoke with an expert that has developed a way to
30:51
Speaker 1: get DNA from a rootless hair, and I cannot wait
30:56
Speaker 1: talk to take the mix and share that information with
30:59
Speaker 1: him in the person's phone number. We've had here before
31:04
Speaker 1: on cold cases, but without the route, we were never
31:07
Speaker 1: able to contract the DNA. It's possible now, So this
31:10
Speaker 1: is a good opportunity to once again tell people sometimes
31:15
Speaker 1: science catches up. You know. Um, explain just in a
31:19
Speaker 1: nutshell very quickly to Joseph Scott Morgan, forensics expert, what
31:24
Speaker 1: we're talking about when we say a genome study and
31:26
Speaker 1: how significant that may be to this case. Oh well,
31:29
Speaker 1: I think that what's going to be significant is if
31:33
Speaker 1: they can apply what we know, perhaps like for instance,
31:37
Speaker 1: with a golden State killer, where we can go back
31:41
Speaker 1: and find DNA or partial DNA and track this back
31:45
Speaker 1: through a familial line. I gotta tell you, Nancy, based
31:50
Speaker 1: on what I have heard and what I've read, I
31:52
Speaker 1: don't think this is this guy's first time. I Okay,
31:56
Speaker 1: I agree with all of that, but my specific question
31:59
Speaker 1: to you objection judge not responsive to the question. Let
32:03
Speaker 1: me just tell you. I'll Q and A with myself
32:05
Speaker 1: for a moment. Joe Scott the genome study, while it
32:10
Speaker 1: cannot act as DNA deoxy ribony clake acid, what it
32:15
Speaker 1: can do is basically give us a composite sketch of
32:20
Speaker 1: the purp. We could possibly find out what color his
32:25
Speaker 1: eyes are. Hit me, Cheryl, take Joe Scott Morgan to
32:29
Speaker 1: school in a nutshell. They use phenotyping, and when they
32:34
Speaker 1: get that phenotype, it will tell you complexion, hair color,
32:37
Speaker 1: whether or not they had frestels, their race. It can
32:41
Speaker 1: tell you, you you know, basically, this is what the killer
32:45
Speaker 1: looked like. It will give you literally a complement. So,
32:48
Speaker 1: Joe Scott Morgan, now I want you to do what
32:51
Speaker 1: you do best. Analyze the death scene, especially that missing
32:57
Speaker 1: ear on a nine year oh girl. I mean, how
33:01
Speaker 1: can I even say with a straight face a missing ear?
33:04
Speaker 1: The little girl is rape possibly with a shock absorber.
33:07
Speaker 1: The guy plugs a rag and this little girl, this
33:13
Speaker 1: third grade girl's vagina so she'll stop bleeding on his truck,
33:18
Speaker 1: then totally dresses her in her Christmas outfit and dumps
33:22
Speaker 1: her body. That's the way you have to tell a jury.
33:25
Speaker 1: Is it nice? Is it pretty? No, it's not. But
33:28
Speaker 1: I want this guy in jail, So hit me, Joe Scott,
33:33
Speaker 1: give me everything you got on the crime scene. Yeah,
33:35
Speaker 1: it's ugly stuff and messy business. Nancy. Let's start with
33:40
Speaker 1: the ear. The ear is significant to me because this
33:43
Speaker 1: can go down two ways. Either this was done the
33:48
Speaker 1: ear was removed, and I've had cases where ears have
33:50
Speaker 1: literally been ripped off. If you've got an adult male
33:54
Speaker 1: going up against a very young girl, that's possible. However,
33:59
Speaker 1: I think what I want to know is was the
34:01
Speaker 1: ear dissected off, did it have clean margins? Did the
34:05
Speaker 1: individual actually use a sharp instrument to remove this ear?
34:09
Speaker 1: And secondly, was it done anti mortem before death or
34:13
Speaker 1: was it done post mortem? And thirdly did they ever
34:16
Speaker 1: recover the ear? And this is important because we got
34:19
Speaker 1: to tie this back with these shoes that she was
34:21
Speaker 1: in love with. Because of all those serial cases, serial
34:26
Speaker 1: homicide cases I've worked, there have been a certain group
34:29
Speaker 1: of them that are trophy takers, and so this is
34:32
Speaker 1: something that they could potentially hold onto. Now I have
34:37
Speaker 1: to go back for a moment relative to this ear.
34:39
Speaker 1: Let's go back to the year. It was nineteen seventy two.
34:43
Speaker 1: There were a lot of guys coming home from Vietnam.
34:46
Speaker 1: My dad was one of them. Okay. One of the
34:49
Speaker 1: things that you hear about and you see about from
34:51
Speaker 1: Vietnam are something called ear necklaces. And these necklaces were
34:56
Speaker 1: literally created, literally created from ears that were taken from
35:00
Speaker 1: the enemy. And there are pictures. People can search this out.
35:03
Speaker 1: There are pictures of our troops in Vietnam wearing ear necklaces.
35:09
Speaker 1: So in this particular point in time, I'm really wondering
35:13
Speaker 1: if this individual had not seen these images before, or
35:17
Speaker 1: were they a vet perhaps that had been traumatized by
35:20
Speaker 1: the war. Now, may I interrupt champ in quickly? The
35:23
Speaker 1: ear it was partially missing, and it was attributed to
35:26
Speaker 1: wild animals because she had laided the wood for like
35:29
Speaker 1: sixteen days. Okay, that is the possibility. Yep. What about
35:34
Speaker 1: the attempt to obscure the body, Joe Scott, if you
35:37
Speaker 1: could touch on that, well, you know, she's so far
35:40
Speaker 1: off of the road. Just like Cheryl had mentioned, she
35:43
Speaker 1: is essentially obscured. This individual would have known something about her,
35:47
Speaker 1: but I think that what I want to know was
35:49
Speaker 1: the body actually posed in any particular way. Was she, say,
35:54
Speaker 1: for instance, spread eagle on the ground, was she faced up,
35:57
Speaker 1: face down? Was her buttocks raised in the air or
36:00
Speaker 1: her hips elevated in the air? Detective next up her
36:05
Speaker 1: face down on her side? Unt dun't okay? What does
36:11
Speaker 1: that mean to you, Joe Scott, Well, that would mean
36:14
Speaker 1: that the individual had done this in a rather rapid,
36:17
Speaker 1: rapid moment. Just as the detective said earlier. This gives
36:20
Speaker 1: us an indication to this sudden, stark realization. This individual
36:25
Speaker 1: comes to where she's bleeding out, he's got to get
36:27
Speaker 1: rid of the body. Remember this is on what's called
36:30
Speaker 1: powers Ferry Road. The river, the Chattahoochee River, which we
36:33
Speaker 1: all know about because of Wayne Williams many years later,
36:38
Speaker 1: would have been a prim dumping area. You know, all
36:40
Speaker 1: the evidence would have been washed away. But he couldn't
36:43
Speaker 1: quite make it there. He had to get her off
36:45
Speaker 1: the truck. And if he leaves her in this kind
36:47
Speaker 1: of what we call in medicine a left or right
36:50
Speaker 1: recumbent position, that means on your side, maybe fetal position,
36:54
Speaker 1: that means that he's not taking a lot of time
36:56
Speaker 1: at the scene, so that would have given the detectives
36:59
Speaker 1: at that point an indication that this may have been
37:02
Speaker 1: a frenzied event. Last question to you, frenzied, how does
37:07
Speaker 1: that jive with redressing her? As far as redressing Nancy,
37:11
Speaker 1: I would really like to know how she was redressed.
37:15
Speaker 1: You know, they throw this term around a lot. I've
37:17
Speaker 1: actually heard somebody say that she may have been suffocated
37:20
Speaker 1: at one point time with her own jacket. Well, how
37:22
Speaker 1: is that possible if the jacket is on her body
37:25
Speaker 1: and zipped all the way up? You know what I mean?
37:28
Speaker 1: She obviously was redressed because their underwhear we're put back on.
37:31
Speaker 1: So what does and what is the fact that her
37:35
Speaker 1: shoes are missing mean to you? Well, again, with the shoes,
37:37
Speaker 1: I think that this is key. A lot has been
37:40
Speaker 1: made out of these shoes. She was proud of these shoes. Well,
37:43
Speaker 1: who in her little orbit that she lived in in
37:46
Speaker 1: that particular time would have had an awareness that she
37:50
Speaker 1: had brand new shoes, these little shoes she had gotten
37:53
Speaker 1: at Christmas. Who would have known about how much pride
37:56
Speaker 1: she would take in the shoes? Does she show them off?
37:59
Speaker 1: Does she talk, well, hey, look out on your shoes,
38:02
Speaker 1: so you believe they were taken as a trophy. That's
38:05
Speaker 1: my suspicion, Yes, guys. The tipline in the death of
38:10
Speaker 1: brutal murder of Debbie Randall seven seven zero five two
38:14
Speaker 1: eight three zero three two repeat seven seven zero five
38:18
Speaker 1: two eight three zero three two. For more in depth information,
38:23
Speaker 1: go to crime online dot com. Nancy Grace crime story
38:27
Speaker 1: signing off, Goodbye friend.