[female narrator] in rural north carolina,
A long-buried secret is finally unearthed.
[narrator] the discovery reopens
A 15-year-old missing persons case.
January 19th was the last time I'd saw her.
She was getting into a car,
And she had left the baby sitting on the deck.
As they pursue these leads,
Her disappearance really becomes kind of a cold case.
[narrator] as a homicide investigation gets underway,
Shocking discoveries lead detectives
Back to one woman's doorstep.
She knew things about the wrong side of the law
That normal people wouldn't even think of.
When she was 18 years old, she shot and killed her father.
[amy] and then there's also the question of
Her own brother, who's been missing for years.
I can't grasp what kind of person would do that.
[brandon] we never would've foreseen
How gruesome this case would've ended up.
[music]
[theme music]
[music]
[narrator] nash county, north carolina
Is a quiet community about an hour from the state's capital.
Nash county is a rural area.
It's very nice. It's up and coming.
Got a lot of mom-and-pop businesses popping up here.
[jeff] most people know their neighbors
And just down to earth so, southern people.
[narrator] but even a close-knit area like this one
Has its secrets.
And on October 24th, 2019, one of them is exposed.
[keith] nash county sheriff's office
Received a tip from fighting crime,
Which is a nonprofit organization here
That, uh, one lady basically runs,
And she has a large following on social media.
[katheryn] I own fighting crime news,
And what I do is I take tips from citizens
That really don't want to talk to law enforcement,
And those tips are passed on to law enforcement.
I work with multiple agencies,
And they work on the tips as I give them to them.
And everything is--remains 100 percent anonymous.
That's the reason fighting crime
Has been so successful in our area,
Because it's confidential information.
And the other citizens don't know
That they provided this information.
[music]
[narrator] this time, the tip is about a cold case
From 15 years ago.
[amy] this was a missing mother of four, deborah deans.
There had been some attention that was paid to it in the past,
But it--the case had grown cold.
[narrator] according to the anonymous caller,
Deborah isn't missing...
She's dead.
[katheryn] I chatted for a few minutes,
Got the person's information,
And made contact with nash county sheriff's office
With lieutenant sherrod.
[jeff] they called her,
Said that the body would be in a shallow grave
Behind a building,
And that it would be wrapped up in some kind of carpet.
[keith] our criminal investigation team
Is then notified
And they're deployed out to do an investigation
On wiley road, a very rural part of nash county.
[sirens wailing]
[narrator] police find the area described
In a wooded property behind two mobile homes.
[jeff] I was one of the investigators with a shovel.
We probably dug less than a foot and hit something.
So, we started carefully moving the, the dirt from the area
And saw what we believed to be carpet.
The adrenaline starts pumping.
You know, you're thinking, this tip is true.
We were able to pull that carpet back,
And at that time is when we found a tarp.
We saw what we thought to be, uh, human remains.
At that time, we stopped
And went and tried to call the anthropologists
To assist us with removing the body.
Once we were able to uncover human bones,
There was no doubt in my mind,
Based off the information we had received from fighting crime,
It was gonna end up being debbie.
[music]
[narrator] debbie deans was born in maryland
On September 26th, 1974.
[elaine] she was a happy little girl.
She was always happy.
She was friendly and sweet and talented.
She had a happy childhood.
But her father, um, was a long-distance truck driver.
And he was older than I was.
And he could be difficult to be around.
So we separated when debbie was about nine, 10 years old.
[narrator] after the divorce,
Debbie's mother, elaine, became the sole provider.
She was able to land a job in rocky mount, north carolina.
But the move wasn't easy for debbie.
[elaine] we moved when she was
In eighth or ninth grade.
She became bored and she wanted to quit
Because she said she would go and get her ged.
They told her it would take her two years.
I think it took her, like, 10 months.
She was very smart.
She did take college courses.
She didn't graduate.
But she went the local college there
That's right in rocky mount.
Her first job was at a barbecue place in rocky mount,
And she loved it.
She was good with children
And she just had that instinct to serve
And be able to do it well.
She was very people-oriented,
But she could be very hard-headed
And very independent.
[narrator] debbie longed for a family of her own,
And at 18, she fell in love with a man named william.
[elaine] she started dating william,
And I think it went much quicker
Than I would ever have wanted it to go.
And then they moved in together.
[narrator] debbie soon announced that she was pregnant,
But the relationship fell apart as quickly as it began.
[music]
I'm not exactly sure what transpired
When she broke off with william.
She called up and said, "come get me."
That's exactly what I did.
When I got there, I said, "what do you want to do?"
She said, "I want to go home with you."
[narrator] debbie gave birth to a little girl she named jessica.
Things might not have turned out quite the way she wanted,
But that didn't stop her from trying again.
[elaine] debbie knew so many different people.
She'd known robbie for a long time.
But it wasn't until two years after she had jessica
That, that she started talking to him.
She married robbie,
And it was an on again, off again relationship.
And she was back home with me
When my grandson, robbie, was born.
I vaguely remember what happened after they split up, or why.
But me and my brother, robbie,
Were all still very close growing up.
My mom was always a very happy person
And we were really big on coloring together.
She would always sit down and color pictures with us.
Even when she wasn't around,
She was sending us pictures that she had colored.
She blew me out of the water
With some of the things that she would think of
To teach her children.
She always wanted what was best for her kids.
[music]
[narrator] after her divorce,
She moved on with a man named thomas,
And was soon pregnant again.
As debbie struggled to balance being a single parent
While making ends meet,
She sought ways to escape.
She was dating him, and she moved in with him,
And she had michael.
When she went to have michael at the hospital,
She tested for, positive for drugs.
And I really thought that putting michael in foster care
Would be the wakeup call that debbie would need
To get her life back on track.
Sadly, it was not,
And she kept on this downward spiral
Until she had samantha.
[music]
[narrator] by the age of 29,
Debbie was a single mother
Struggling to take care of four children
With unreliable fathers.
[jessica] I'm the oldest. Next is robbie.
He's probably about three years younger than me.
They tried to hide a lot of the troubles from us.
[elaine] william didn't have to pay child support.
Robbie, on the other hand, he did pay child support.
I think it was like thirty-five dollars a week,
But he paid it.
[amy] she was trying to get by
And really be there for her four kids.
During that time, her mother kind of stepped in
To help with the childcare.
Kimberly hancock had also stepped in to help.
[music]
[narrator] kimberly hancock was robbie's sister--
Debbie's former sister-in-law--
And she'd remained close to debbie after the divorce.
Her willingness to help was put to the test in 2003,
When debbie was convicted of fraud and larceny.
It was clear that she had some financial issues.
Here she was, a single mother, raising four kids on her own.
[katheryn] debbie went to jail
For writing some bad checks.
And while she was in jail,
Kimberly had to help take care of the children.
[elaine] kim had samantha.
Michael was in foster care.
And I had robbie and jessica.
[narrator] less than four months later,
When debbie was released in January 2004,
She seemed determined to make up for her mistake.
[elaine] when she got out, she knew
That she needed to be a better mother,
And that she needed to straighten her life out.
[narrator] kimberly invited debbie to live with her
While she got back on her feet.
She was a very determined person.
When she set her mind on it,
Once she had a goal in mind,
She worked towards it.
She wanted her kids back.
[narrator] but within days of her release,
Debbie mysteriously disappeared.
January 19th was the last time I saw debbie.
Really wasn't surprising.
Kind of let it go.
And I thought, okay, sometimes she gets mad at me
And she ignores me.
But when I didn't hear from her for jessica's birthday,
Then I knew something was wrong.
[narrator] on April 16th, 2004,
Almost three months since debbie was last seen,
Her mother finally decided to contact police.
One of the first people they spoke to
Was debbie's former sister-in-law, kimberly,
Who also hadn't seen debbie since January.
[jeff] kimberly told rocky mount police department
That debbie had came to her house with the baby samantha,
And they were inside the house and, um,
She heard a car drive up in the yard.
When she looked outside the door,
Debbie was getting into a car leaving,
And she had left samantha, the baby, sitting on the deck.
[narrator] the sheriff's office conducted an investigation,
But were unable to come up with any solid leads.
[amy] as they pursue these leads,
They just don't really get anywhere.
The case is still on their radar,
But as time passes,
Debbie's disappearance really becomes kind of a cold case.
[music]
[narrator] debbie's two older children
Stayed with her mother,
While the two youngest went into foster care
And were eventually adopted together.
For the next 15 years,
Elaine held out hope for her daughter's return.
I'm not a bible-thumping person,
But I do believe that, in god.
And one of my prayers has always been
That we would find debbie.
[music]
[narrator] now, 15 years after her disappearance,
Hope has been extinguished with the discovery of
What appears to be debbie's remains,
And investigators face a challenge.
We never would've foreseen how gruesome this case
Would've ended up.
[katheryn] she was in a very shallow grave,
Wrapped in carpet, and just tossed out like trash.
The whole time the suspect's walking around.
[narrator] coming up:
Debbie's mother makes a startling accusation.
It wasn't proof. It was just what my gut told me.
[narrator] leading detectives to a family member
With a nefarious past...
This is somebody who is capable of murder
Because they've done it before.
[gunshot]
[theme music]
[narrator] after a 15-year search,
North carolina police believe they've found the body
Of missing mother of four, deborah deans.
However, they can't be positive until they examine the remains.
We had reason to believe that it was her.
But in situations like this,
Because there was no actual flesh or dna that was visible,
We had to wait on the state to do their extensive research
For us to come back with a positive identification.
Once the medical examiner came,
They slowly moved more dirt off the carpet and the tarp.
[brandon] the scene was processed.
They were removing the dirt, the topsoil,
The canvas, the carpet,
The wire that was attached to it.
They took photographs.
Every step of the removal of the body was carefully detailed.
[narrator] while the process continues,
Homicide detectives begin their investigation.
We started out by trying to find out who the landowners were.
[narrator] they're surprised to discover
The two trailers are owned by laura hancock--
And her mother, kimberly.
[amy] kimberly hancock, she's the one
To have last seen debbie deans alive.
Kimberly had said that debbie just left
On the 19th of January and she hadn't seen her since.
[amy] you have to imagine that
Authorities were pretty surprised, shocked even,
That so close to where debbie was last seen,
That that's where her body had been all of these years.
[music]
[narrator] neither kimberly nor laura are home.
While officers try to track them down,
Investigators notify debbie's mother, elaine.
[elaine] when you have someone missing,
It's not quite the same as when they are dying
And you've accepted the death.
They're missing. You don't know where they are.
There's still that sliver of hope in your heart.
[narrator] but as elaine grapples with the likelihood
That the remains belong to debbie,
She tells detectives she's long suspected
That kimberly was involved in debbie's disappearance.
Kim told elaine, debbie's mom,
That she had spoken with debbie several times
And that she's safe, she's with friends,
She's out and about on her own.
And so, it sort of appeases elaine initially,
But then as, you know, the weeks and months go by,
Elaine knows something is wrong.
[elaine] I knew kim.
I didn't believe anything she ever said.
Although debbie may have run off
And done something stupid and dumb,
She would have been in contact with her children.
It wasn't proof.
It was just... What my gut told me.
[music]
[narrator] the information leads detectives
To re-examine the missing persons investigation from 2004.
We get the old files from rocky mount police department
And see what they had done over the years.
[narrator] 15 years prior, in January of 2004,
Debbie had moved in with kimberly
After her release from prison.
Kimberly claimed that only days later, on January 19th,
She saw debbie get into a car with someone and drive away.
No description of the person that she may have left with,
So they really had nothing other than what kimberly said.
[narrator] records also reveal a potential motive
For kimberly to want debbie out of the picture.
While debbie was behind bars,
Kimberly was caring for these kids.
And because of that, there were some social security checks
That were intended to help support these kids.
The checks that were cashed by ms. Hancock
Were payable to ms. Deans.
She took it upon herself to go to a local bank in spring hope
And cash the checks,
And I believe the checks were in the amount
Of one hundred dollars each.
[narrator] debbie's disappearance
Six days after her release
Didn't stop kimberly from cashing those checks.
[brandon] about a year later,
A check surfaced in the spring hope area
Where she was, uh, attempting to cash a check
And forged her name for ms. Deans'.
[jeff] they arrested her
And that case ended up
Eventually getting dismissed in court
Because the state had no victim to come in
And testify against kimberly that it was forgery.
[narrator] despite the forgery,
There was never concrete proof that debbie's disappearance
Involved foul play.
It's important to keep in mind that debbie is an adult.
She's allowed to go with her friends
And, you know, leave her family if she chooses to.
And here we have kimberly saying that's what happened.
[music]
[narrator] now it seems to investigators
That kimberly may have known debbie's body
Was in her backyard the entire time.
[katheryn] the reason debbie's case went cold,
I think it's because of all the lies
And fabricating information
That kimberly was giving to the police.
[narrator] when investigators check kimberly's record,
They make another startling discovery.
During our investigation, we learned that
Kimberly had shot and killed her father.
[brandon] ms. Hancock, when she was 18 years old,
She discharged one round with a .25.
And was initially charged with murder of her father.
[jeff] she went to court and she pled to a reduced sentence,
To manslaughter, and got probation.
But there were also allegations in the house
That the father was abusing her.
So, I believe that she didn't go to jail for any amount of time.
Kim goes on to have some relationships,
To have two kids,
To befriend debbie.
And so she seems like she has a relatively normal life.
[jeff] kimberly grew up around nash county,
Outside of the spring hope area.
Um, and it's my understanding that's where she's always lived.
I know she got married at one time.
[elaine] kim didn't work.
She had two children, um, from two different fathers.
I think that she got support for them.
[amy] it definitely left investigators kind of wondering,
You know, this isn't an innocent mother
That they're dealing with.
This is somebody who is capable of murder
Because they've done it before.
What's to stop them from doing it again?
[theme music]
[narrator] in nash county, north carolina,
News of the unearthed remains
Believed to belong to deborah deans
Spreads like wildfire.
[katheryn] when the body was found, it was big news.
Several tv stations were there getting the story.
It was really unbelievable.
And I think we all had a sense of relief,
And it was also sadness.
And the children all these years wondering where debbie is.
And now she's found,
But it's not the outcome that they were hoping.
[music]
[narrator] her former sister-in-law, kimberly hancock,
Appears to be the prime suspect.
While investigators work to track her down,
Police receive another call from the anonymous tipster
Who told them where to find the body.
[amy] the tipster is able to tell them that,
After all these years,
They just couldn't hold that information back anymore.
It was something that had weighed on them,
And so they wanted to get the information to the right people
So that ultimately, there would be some justice for debbie.
They say around the time that debbie disappeared,
Suddenly kim wanted to redo or redecorate her home.
And going to kim's home, they notice some small blood stains
On certain items.
So, it kind of makes you wonder,
The timing of all this is very suspect.
Remodeling her home right after that,
Probably destroying most of the evidence in the carpet,
Where she wrapped her up.
[narrator] after so many years,
It's unlikely any evidence is left to support the claim.
But detectives get a potential break
When they're able to get in touch with kimberly's daughter,
Laura hancock.
[jeff] we went and picked up laura
And asked her if she would speak with us about this case.
When we got to the sheriff's office,
Uh, laura was kind of reluctant to begin with, to talk to us.
But then, as the interview went on,
Laura told us that she had just got through talking to kimberly
And that, uh, her mom had told her everything.
[amy] laura and her mother would appear to be close.
They lived right next door.
Laura says that kim reached out to her and told her
That she was going to prison.
[katheryn] the daughter was like,
"what are you talking about?"
She said, "they know. They know I did something to debbie."
[music]
[jeff] kimberly ended up telling laura
That she was buried in the backyard,
And that she was gonna be wrapped in some kind of,
Um, carpet.
[amy] laura tells them that this happened
Because of the checks.
[brandon] ms. Hancock was still receiving
Debbie's monthly checks.
But when she got out, she was confronted by ms. Deans,
And an argument ensued.
And I think that's when the idea went into ms. Hancock
To eliminate ms. Deans.
[narrator] but the revelations from laura don't stop there.
According to laura,
Kimberly is planning to pin the murder on her own family.
[jeff] laura told us that she was going to say
That it was her brother, roger, who we call kojack,
And her other brother, named robbie,
Who had actually passed away from a health condition.
During the interview with laura,
You could tell it was definitely hard on her.
She would cry several times.
She tussled with the idea of, of telling on her mom
Compared to giving her cousins and her other aunts and uncles
The closure that they needed to be able to put this behind 'em.
[music]
[narrator] surprisingly, kimberly appears at the property
Of her own volition.
At that time, I approached kimberly,
Told her I needed her to ride with me to the sheriff's office
To speak with her, and she agreed.
There's, like, a thousand questions we wanna ask her.
And she was pretty much nonverbal
And not reacting like a normal person should.
[music]
[narrator] in the interview room,
Kimberly denies any involvement
And sticks to her original story.
So investigators confront her with their recent discovery.
[amy] you have to think that
She is just kind of full of it at this point.
Here is a body that is found on her property, behind her home.
Her own daughter has said that she admitted to doing it.
She was the last person to see debbie alive.
It seems very clear, when you put all these pieces together,
That kim was clearly involved.
We just wanted to see if she would break
And tell us what we needed to know
So that we can give that family the closure
They've been looking for 15 years.
[narrator] coming up:
Investigators turn up the heat.
[narrator] and a new witness comes forward.
It's just dawning on him that what he saw was not a dream.
[theme music]
[music]
[narrator] north carolina detectives
Are interrogating kimberly hancock
In connection to the murder of
Her former sister-in-law, debbie deans.
She tries to pass the blame to
Her two brothers, robbie and kojack.
Robbie passed away a couple of years
After debbie went missing.
Roger--everybody calls him kojack--
He went missing from the castalia area.
[dean] kojack was last seen in July of 2009.
It's very weird when a person like that goes missing,
Uh, that's well liked in the community
And hadn't been seen since.
[amy] kojack just vanished
Five years after debbie's disappearance.
You have to wonder if there's some kind of connection there.
One of her brothers is dead. Another is missing.
So there's no way for police
To validate any of that information.
She never alluded to us that
What they were trying to tell her
Was that debbie was in the backyard, buried.
But we knew that, based on the information from laura,
It was just all bs,
Just a story to get out from under.
We just cut the interview off
And told her she was under arrest for murder.
[music]
[narrator] following kimberly's arrest,
Experts study the skeletal remains
To confirm their identity.
They lay it out on a table.
They determine if there's any fragments, broken.
They learn that the cause of death
Was a gunshot wound to the back of the head.
[brandon] in this situation,
Because there was no, no flesh, no hair,
Or anything able to be pulled from the victim,
They do what's called a forensic examination
To try to positively identify her.
They'll go into the bone marrow and try to extract some dna.
The medical examiner's office in greenville
Was able to extract dna from the femur bone that we located.
Then, we went and got a sample from ms. Elaine,
Who is deborah's mom.
We then sent that off to the crime lab in raleigh.
They were able to positively identify her
Because it was a match based on the dna
From ms. Deans and her mother.
My reaction to learning it was a match
Just confirmed what I believed the whole time.
I truly felt, from the moment we found that first bone,
It was gonna be debbie.
I had prayed, "please don't let me die until we find her
And I get these kids through this."
My first thought in my brain was,
"oh, god. It must be time for me to die now."
[jessica] I was relieved we finally had an answer.
But now, not only am I losing my mom,
But my daughter's never gonna meet her grandmother.
That was a hard time.
[narrator] although kimberly has been charged with a crime,
Police still don't have any direct evidence she did it.
But another witness comes forward--
The girlfriend of kimberly's son, david.
The girlfriend said that david got a little intoxicated
And told her that he remembered when he was, um, a small kid,
That he saw his aunt, debbie, tied up in the building
Behind the house.
He was approximately about seven or eight years old.
[amy] david actually went to his teacher and told him about
What he had seen in the shed.
That teacher then reaches out to kim, his mom,
To see what's going on.
And that's when kim tells them that, obviously,
Her son had a dream and, and made it all up.
[narrator] when detectives asked david to come to the station,
He agrees.
He says his mother convinced him what he saw wasn't real.
But now, 15 years later, he realizes that was a lie.
He tells them, like, it's just dawning on him
That what he saw was not a dream.
[narrator] the memory dredges up
Something else for david as well--
A threat his mother made to keep him quiet.
Ms. Hancock turned to him and said,
"you know, you keep talking about this,
You're gonna end up with your aunt in the backyard, buried."
[narrator] the timing perfectly matches debbie's disappearance,
And combined with the rest of the facts,
Investigators form a theory of
How the murder might have occurred.
Debbie gets out from behind bars
And realizes that those social security checks,
Intended for caring for that fourth child,
Aren't going to the right place.
And there's definitely some frustration and anger there
That that money hadn't been used as it had been intended.
She was going to move away from kim's.
When she told kim
That kim wasn't going to get that check anymore,
That's what triggered what happened.
I believe kim snapped
When she was confronted by ms. Deans about the money.
And they started arguing,
And one thing led to another.
Kimberly just pulled out a gun and shot debbie.
[music]
She wrapped her up with some carpet, the tarp,
And just drug her 10 feet.
And nobody knew it was back there.
[brandon] she didn't think five steps ahead.
I believe that ms. Hancock just decided to move the body
And keep it on the property.
Debbie's body wasn't 10 feet away from an area in the yard
Where these kids ran around and played.
She let her children play in this yard.
She let her grandchildren play in this yard.
I can't grasp what kind of person
Would do that.
[narrator] however, members of
The online crime-fighting community
Have their own theories.
Kimberly is a small person like me,
So it's hard to believe that she'd done that by herself,
In my opinion.
A rolled carpet weighs a good bit,
A good bit by itself.
And then you have debbie on top of that.
So, I, I really think she had some help.
Rumors have been speculating
That maybe kojack had helped her.
Over the years, between 2004 and 2009,
He was possibly threatening her and telling her,
"I'm going to tell that you killed debbie."
And rumor is that she may have done something to kojack
To keep him quiet.
[music]
[amy] all of this seems to fit a very concerning pattern
That kim has.
First she kills her dad.
Then she kills debbie.
And now her brother is missing.
I mean, what's the likelihood all these people go missing?
I mean, it just seems at some point
That there might've been some foul play
Involving kojack's disappearance
And that kim, again, might be behind it.
[narrator] now, prosecutors face convincing a jury
Of her involvement.
After all this time, there was no dna
Or no specific evidence actually tying kim to debbie's remains.
So, there is that possibility that the jury won't convict
And then kim walks.
[theme music]
[narrator] after a month-long investigation,
Kimberly hancock is in jail for the murder of debbie deans.
But prosecutors aren't convinced they have enough to go to trial.
It's the sheriff's office responsibility
To make sure that we can make the best case we can
For the district attorney to take it to trial.
I believe that we did that.
What district attorneys do and what defense attorneys do
Is basically not our call.
[narrator] they continue to build their case,
Searching for the murder weapon
Or any other physical evidence linking kimberly to the crime.
Then, in August 2022,
Three years after kimberly's arrest,
A new witness steps forward.
I received a letter from a inmate in the nash county jail.
They had talked to kimberly and asked her why she was in jail.
And kimberly made the comment that,
"you remember the girl that was buried in the backyard?
Well, that was me."
And she had also made a comment
That the only person that could hurt her was assumed dead,
Which would be kojack.
[narrator] according to the informant,
Kimberly implied she got rid of her brother as well.
[jeff] she made the comment that
She didn't have to worry about kojack
Because kojack may have been taken to the hog shed
And the hogs ate him.
[music]
[narrator] unfortunately, the allegations
Are impossible to prove.
And prosecutors have another problem--
The caller who originally told them
Where to find debbie's body refuses to testify.
[jeff] you always run into that with, with witnesses in court.
They want you to have the information
And they want you to tell,
But they're not willing to go to court
And stand in front of 12 jurors
And the person that they told on to give a statement.
[amy] the tipster was so clear and strong
About remaining anonymous
And didn't want to testify,
You would assume that would greatly weaken
The prosecutor's case.
[music]
[narrator] ultimately, the prosecution and defense teams
Agree to a plea deal.
Kim's attorney kept bringing up the fact
That she, you know, was moved around from jail to jail
And had some health issues.
She ended up taking the alford plea.
An alford plea is you don't really admit to the crimes,
But you don't contest it.
[katheryn] when kimberly took the alford plea,
The judge gave her eight years, eight months, and ten days
For aiding and abetting murder and for concealing a death.
[narrator] for debbie's loved ones
And those involved in the investigation,
The outcome doesn't feel like justice.
[jessica] we went through years and years of,
Like, emotional trauma,
And...It, it wasn't met with what she got.
She got off really easy
With everything that she had done.
[brandon] I believe kim should've gotten
At least 20 years.
She has deprived a family of a daughter,
A mother of children.
I think that was just a slap in the face.
She killed debbie.
She kept living her life and put her in the backyard
And just kept going.
[elaine] debbie counted kim as a friend.
I don't think kim ever counted anyone as a friend.
I think she counted people as who she could use.
Kim has very little value for human life.
The fact that she murdered her father
While he was sleeping,
That she would kill her sister-in-law,
And then there's the question of her own brother,
Who's been missing for years...
There's just been so many rumors out there,
But what I need is the same kind of tip that I got with debbie
To, to bring me to where kojack is
And what really happened to him.
The family deserves closure on that.
[music]
[narrator] two decades after debbie's murder,
Questions still linger.
But her family is doing their best to move on.
[elaine] debbie would not have told you she was perfect.
I am just grateful that her children know
Where she is right now.
[jessica] my mom had four of us.
We're all still very, very close.
We joke with my youngest sister all the time
That she is the spitting image of my mom.
So, I, I feel like she's living on in,
In everybody that's around us.
[music]