Paper: Fayetteville Observer, The (NC)
Title: THE HOLLYWOOD DETECTIVE
Author: LARRY CHEEK, STAFF WRITER
Date: May 13, 1991
Section: Local & State

By LARRY CHEEK, STAFF WRITER



NBC's "Unsolved Mysteries" telecast in December the story of Fayetteville nurse
Debbie Wolfe's drowning death. Now the magazine "TV Guide" has gotten involved
in a somewhat unorthodox way.



The magazine turned over the Debbie Wolfe case to a Hollywood private detective
named Robert Frasco and asked him to solve the mystery based solely on the
evidence that was shown on TV.



TV Guide printed the results in last week's issue. Under the headline "The Case
of the Dubious Drowning," here's what the magazine had to say about Debbie
Wolfe's death:



"The coroner said she'd drowned," said the detective, "but the pond was full of
silt and her body was clean." That leads Mr. Frasco to conclude that "her body
was placed in the pond after she was killed."



Mr. Frasco notes (the magazine story continues) with some interest that the
driver's seat of the woman's car had been pushed back much farther than it
should have been for a woman her size.



"The car seat would only have been pushed back like for that for a huge man,"
said Mr. Frasco. He surmised that "she was probably held hostage while he was
driving the car."



The Answering Machine Voice



A more telling clue: the corpse was found in an empty oil barrel. And just days
after the body was discovered by divers, the barrel mysteriously vanished. The
way Mr. Frasco pieces the crime together, the killer put his victim in the
barrel to help sink the corpse and subsequently returned to the scene of the
crime to remove it "probably because it had incriminating information, such as
fingerprints."



Mr. Frasco believes the killer probably abducted the nurse from her home,
murdered her and then brought the body back to the pond, where he set about
making the murder look like an accidental drowning.



But who killed her? To answer that, Mr. Frasco points to a cryptic message left
on Debbie Wolfe's answering machine. Mr. Frasco believes the message was left by
a disappointed suitor:



"Do a voice analysis of the tape and you'll have your man."



End of story.



I have three comments in reaction. If murder occurred - how was it done? What
actually killed Debbie Wolfe? The point remains obscure.



There is also disagreement about the barrel. Did it exist? If so, what happened
to it?



And identifying the man on the answering machine won't help much, because there
is no evidence that the man committed any crime.



So despite the intervention of a genuine Hollywood detective, the case remains
what it always has been - a mystery.



The Rooster In My Yard



Speaking of mysteries, when I got up Friday morning, there was a chicken in my
yard. Or a rooster. I'm not sure which, because I've been off the farm for a
long, long time.



I was washing my hair when my wife announced that the rooster - it looked cocky
enough to be a rooster, if you'll pardon the expression - was pecking at the
azalea bush just outside the sun room window.



A few minutes later I went to look. And there he was.



Our vet lives behind us. Could have been his rooster, I suppose, but I'd never
seen one hanging around his yard before.



Three little boys live across the street. Might have been their rooster, but I
don't think their mother would let them have one.



Or maybe it was your rooster (I have at least two suspects in mind who shall go
unnamed). It was small and white with a black tail. My cat and I ran him into a
neighbor's yard. I was thinking my cat might eat the rooster, being as partial
to birds as he is, but Feets (that's my cat) did nothing but make that little
chirping-meow noise when he looked at the rooster.



Which wasn't for very long and I don't understand why, because if I was a cat,
don't you suppose I'd love to chase a small rooster?



Ah, well. If it is your rooster, at least now you know where he was Friday
morning. Although I have no idea where he might have gotten to by now.

Author: LARRY CHEEK, STAFF WRITER
Section: Local & State

Copyright 1991, 2002 The Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer

****************************************************

Paper: Fayetteville Observer, The (NC)
Title: IN THE BOX, QUESTIONS
Author: LARRY CHEEK, STAFF WRITER
Date: October 26, 1990
Section: Local & State

By LARRY CHEEK, STAFF WRITER



Jenny Edwards keeps the cardboard box in the back room of The Pub, a warm and
friendly neighborhood watering hole which she owns. Regular patrons even have
their own name tags at the bar. It's that kind of place, but on the Monday night
I visited there, rain was pouring down outside and only three people had their
elbows up, talking some kind of politics.



Deborah Wolfe was Jenny Edwards' daughter. Debbie died almost five years ago.
The medical examiner said she drowned. The sheriff's department said it was an
accident.



But Jenny Edwards believes her daughter probably was murdered.



Unanswered questions surround the strange case of Debbie Wolfe. Many of those
questions are in the cardboard box, which contains the clothes she wore when her
body was taken from the water.



"Debbie had a field jacket," said Jenny Edwards, digging into the box. "This
wasn't it. Her jacket belonged to her brother, who was six feet, 185 pounds. It
was found hanging in the cabin. This jacket - the one that was found on her - is
a men's small. It's brand new, with no markings. Look in the pockets. No lint.
No sand. If she was in the water six days and nights, where's the debris?"



Seeing The Next Life



The next item she pulled out of the box was a pair of tennis shoes. They were
two sizes too large for Debbie, her mother said.



"Look at these pants," Jenny Edwards continued. "Debbie was 5-foot-3. Hold them
up. You'll see."



I did as she suggested. The pants descended to the tops of my shoes, almost in
a line with the pants I was wearing. I am six feet tall.



"This shirt," said Jenny Edwards. "It says Pittsburgh Steelers. I never saw it
before. Neither did any of her friends."



Glass beads and a handmade Indian necklace came out of the box next. Inside a
pouch on the necklace was "an evil eye. It enables the spirit to see its way
into the next life. I never knew Debbie had anything like these."



Jenny Edwards says she is "positive" the clothes aren't Debbie's. "Someone else
dressed her. And what happened to the uniform she was wearing that day?"



Recall yesterday's column. I mentioned that Debbie's uniform was long-sleeved
and had had both coffee and peas spilled on it when she had lunch with Roger
Rushing on the last day she was seen alive.



A uniform was found on the kitchen floor of the cabin where she lived. But it
was a "lightweight summer uniform that had come from the closet. And the panty
hose were not what she'd wear with the uniform she'd really had on."



That uniform, the one with the coffee and the peas, was never found, said Jenny
Edwards, who believes it was messed up "when she was killed, or taken away."



What About The Barrel?



According to Mrs. Edwards, other unanswered questions hover in the air:



* The driver's side car seat was so difficult to adjust that Debbie never
touched it. She always kept the seat in a forward position. Yet the car seat was
pushed all the way back when the car was found, parked in a strange position in
Debbie's yard. Why?



* Debbie's purse was wedged into a difficult-to-reach part of her water bed.
Who put it there?



* Beer cans of a brand Debbie never drank were found in the yard. Who threw
them there?



And then there's the infamous, ephemeral barrel, the one divers say the body
was stuffed in when they found it. Yet when the pond was drained the next day -
no barrel.



"My diver said there was a barrel," said Jenny Edwards. "The sheriff's diver
said there was a barrel. Not only that, Debbie had a barrel in her yard. It
disappeared."



Did someone come and remove the barrel in the night, thus erasing evidence of a
murder? Debbie's mom leans toward that theory, though law enforcement officers
decided there never had been a barrel, that what divers saw was merely Debbie's
coat, floating around her head.



Needed: A Confession



So what happened to Deborah Wolfe - dedicated nurse, lovely young woman and
all-around happy person? Roger Rushing says she was "done away with." Jenny
Edwards feels her daughter was killed, and is critical of the sheriff's
department's handling of the case.



"I think she saw something she wasn't supposed to see," said Mrs. Edwards,
citing scenarios and circumstances I can't repeat here, and even if I could,
remember. There's no evidence to back up any of her theories, just as the
conclusion that Debbie drowned accidentally is impossible to prove.



So that is where the case stands. It is not being actively investigated and
hasn't been for years. Will any of the questions ever be answered? Are they
correct questions, even?



We probably will never know.



"There would likely have to be a confession," said Jenny Edwards. "I'll never
give up, though. Would you?"

Author: LARRY CHEEK, STAFF WRITER
Section: Local & State

Copyright 1990, 2002 The Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer

****************************************************

Paper: Fayetteville Observer, The (NC)
Title: AN UNSOLVED MYSTERY
Author: LARRY CHEEK, STAFF WRITER
Date: October 25, 1990
Section: Local & State

By LARRY CHEEK, STAFF WRITER



On New Year's Day, 1986, the body of Deborah Wolfe was discovered at the bottom
of a small pond off McArthur Road. An autopsy declared the cause of death to be
drowning. The Cumberland County Sheriff's Department said Debbie had died
accidentally. It is a conclusion that never has been accepted by Jenny Edwards,
Debbie Wolfe's mother.



"She was born," Mrs. Edwards said of her daughter. "She lived. She died. And
some say forget it. I won't forget it. When someone dies without a cause, you
want to know why. I don't shut up. And I don't go away."



Not only is Jenny Edwards not going away. The case isn't either. NBC's
"Unsolved Mysteries" has been filming in this community off and on since August,
and will air the story of Deborah Wolfe on national television sometime this
fall.



It is a story filled with unanswered questions:



* Why was Debbie Wolfe wearing clothes Jenny Edwards insists did not belong to
her when she was pulled from the pond?



* Was her body stuffed into a barrel, as the divers who found her claim, and if
so, why was no barrel found when the pond was drained?



* Why was her car parked in a way she never parked it, and why was the driver's
seat pushed all the way back, rather than left in a forward position, as Debbie
always had it?



* And why was the uniform she was wearing on the day she disappeared never
found?



A Stuffed Unicorn



Let's go back to Christmas, 1985. In an act not surprising for someone who had
once conspired to procure a male stripper for her mother's 50th birthday, Debbie
Wolfe gave Jenny Edwards male and female "novelty" dolls for Christmas.



"Who, me, mother? I wouldn't do that," she had replied when mom opened the
package and found the remarkable duo. But she had done it, and she'd also come
to an agreement with her boy friend that they would "get serious."



It was a happy time for Debbie and her happiness showed the next day when she
showed up for work at the Veterans Administration Medical Center, where she
worked as a nurse.



She was even lugging the huge, stuffed unicorn her mother had given her for
Christmas.



"We had lunch that day," recalled Roger Rushing. "As we were talking, I spilled
coffee on her long-sleeved uniform. Then she spilled peas on the front of it. I
didn't feel like such a klutz any more. We arranged to meet for lunch the next
day. But she didn't come to work."



She didn't come to work because she couldn't. Either she was already lying dead
at the bottom of the pond behind her house, or she was being held against her
will by someone.



Like She'd "Gone To Sleep"



Debbie was not seen again until New Year's Day. Jenny Edwards persuaded friends
to dive into the pond to look for her body. They found her, "stuffed head first
into an oil drum," according to news reports at the time - although as I said,
no drum was found when the pond level was lowered.



Mrs. Edwards saw her daughter when she was taken from the water.



"Debbie looked like she'd gone to sleep," she said. "Her eyes were closed. Her
mouth was closed. I don't think she had been in the water six days and nights.
If so, how could I have had an open casket funeral?"



A slight amount of water was found in a bronchial tube. There was some
bruising, but nothing to definitely prove she either had or hadn't been
assaulted.



The medical examiner's office in Chapel Hill said drowning was the cause of
death. After all - nothing else was obvious and she had been discovered under
the water.



So drowning it was and drowning it remains.



Whose Clothes?



But the question remains - how could an active, 28-year-old nurse drown in what
was a gently sloping, fairly shallow pond? If she fell, it would have been into
the shallow part and she could easily have gotten out. Yet she hadn't gotten
out. Was it because she was dead when she went into the pond?



Jenny Edwards has not yet heard a satisfactory theory on the point.



Roger Rushing is a respiratory therapist at the VA hospital. He says he has
seen many drowning victims and "she would have shown bloating (there apparently
was none) and bluish discoloration."



Yet two autoposy reports - Jenny Edwards had an independent one done - declare
that the condition of the body was consistent with immersion in the water for
six days and nights.



The two biggest unanswered questions have to do with the barrel and the
clothes. Jenny Edwards says she was very familiar with her daughter's wardrobe,
at least partially because "half of it used to be mine."



And she swears the clothes her daughter had on that New Year's Day in 1986 were
someone else's.



TOMORROW: The Box In The Back Room.



Photo



Caption: Debbie Wolfe and Mason

Author: LARRY CHEEK, STAFF WRITER
Section: Local & State

Copyright 1990, 2002 The Fayetteville (N.C.) Observer

****************************************************

Thanks! This segment gave me bad nightmares.

That was a creepy one. When Unsolved Mysteries first came on, I had to tape the episodes at night and watch them during the day, or I couldn't sleep. :( Was this case ever updated or solved? :confused:

This case is the definition of a mystery. No real suspects, just a bunch of conjecture. Any ideas from anyone out there? It doesn't look like this case has been discussed very much. I have to assume her mother (who was interviewed on the UM segment) has passed away by now.

Thank you for this post. It is an excellent reference. If the contemporary articles printed in 1986 and 1988 by the North Carolina Newspapers could be added it would be great. I couldn't figure out how to access the entire articles much less copy or download them. In my opinion the Body in the Barrel (2019) Fayetteville Observer article should be avoided. It is confusing and contains too many errors.

The last remaining member of Debbie's family her youngest brother Joseph passed away in 2015.

Thank you for this post. It is an excellent reference. If the contemporary articles printed in 1986 and 1988 by the North Carolina Newspapers could be added it would be great. I couldn't figure out how to access the entire articles much less copy or download them. In my opinion the Body in the Barrel (2019) Fayetteville Observer article should be avoided. It is confusing and contains too many errors.

The last remaining member of Debbie's family her youngest brother Joseph passed away in 2015.

thank you for posting that info! welcome to the boards.

Paper: Fayetteville Observer NC
Title: After Two Years, Drowning is still shrouded in Mystery
Author: By Pat Reese staff writer January 1, 1988

It's been two years since the body of a Cumberland County woman was recovered from a small pond on the Brock Farm near Ft Bragg, and investigators may never be able to prove if her death was accident, suicide or murder. The victim Deborah Ann Wolfe a 28-year-old nurse at the Veterans Administration Medical Center, lived alone in the cabin by the shallow pond, not far from Johnson Farm Road in northeastern Cumberland County.

Investigators haven't been able to find anyone who saw Wolfe after she left the hospital at 4 p.m. Dec. 26.

Unanswered questions, contradictions, and the victim's mother's adamant refusal to accept theories voiced by law enforcement authorities, have shrouded the death in mystery.

The death certificate filed February 4, 1986, lists the cause of death as "pending" and the determination of death as murder, suicide, undetermined or natural causes also "pending".

A supplemental report filed the same date lists the cause of death as "drowning". Undetermined is typed in the blank where the medical examiner is required to state whether the death is due to accident, suicide or homicide.

Detectives with the Cumberland County homicide squad, assisted in their investigation by the Bureau of identification, on January 3 announced that death was by "drowning".

Maj. Charles Smith, then chief of detectives advanced the theory that Wolfe was walking her dogs in the woods or searching for firewood and fell into the water.

The body was found 30 feet from shore, and Smith said at the time Wolfe must have lost her sense of direction in the water and moved away from the bank.

Wolfe's mother Jenny Edwards refuses to accept that theory.

Photographs taken of the cabin the day after the body was found show a large stack of wood next to a chimney. Another photograph shows kindling and wood in a container inside the house.

And Wolfe's two German shepherds, Mason and Morgan, were released from their chains every afternoon and remained free through the night until Wolfe left for work in the morning.

Smith said it was possible one of the dogs fell into the pond and Wolfe drowned trying to help him.

"She never took those dogs for a walk like they said, and both were excellent swimmers" Edwards argues.

The late Sheriff Ottis Jones called on the State Bureau of Investigation to conduct an inquiry. Marshal Evans, then stationed in Clinton, was given the assignment. Evans now assistant superviser of the Fayetteville SBI district office came to Fayetteville and talked to county detectives, family members and others. He visited the scene several times.

Dr. William Oliver, a pathologist at N.C. Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill, conducted an autopsy and after a lengthy delay, reported the body had undergone changes characteristic of "cold weather drowning" or "immersion syndrome", in which death is believed to occur from cardiac arrest. He said he found no evidence of beating, stabbing, shooting or strangulation.

Although the case still is not closed in the SBI files, Evans told the Fayetteville Observer he does not think the death was murder.

Wolfe's body was found in 5 1/2 feet of water 30 feet from the bank. The water at the edge of the pond is only about an inch or two deep. The bottom gently slopes, and the pond is only knee-deep five feet from the edge.

The question Edwards continues to ask is how Wolfe who was a good swimmer, ended up 30 feet from the bank. If she happened into the pond accidently, Edwards insists, she would have immediately turned and walked out.

If she fell she would have been in only inches of water.

County detectives offer the theory that Wolfe became frightened and disoriented in the water moving towards the deeper water where she became a victim of immersion syndrome.

Edwards said if her daughter had been able to move to where her body was found, she would have been gasping for air and there would have been water in her lungs.

The autopsy found only about half a teaspoon of water in Wolfe's upper bronchial area.

There are many questions for which law enforcement officers admit they do not have answers.

Wolfe was wearing Nike white leather shoes, ankle socks and red knee socks, blue insulated underwear, a black t-shirt, a brown checkered shirt, brown corduroy pants underwear and a new regulation army field jacket.

The corduroy pants were unzipped.

One of the unanswered questions involves the Army field jacket. Wolfe had an old Army field jacket that had been given to her by her brother, and she usually wore it when she was outside during cold weather.

Her boyfriend former Army Criminal Investigation Division agent Steve McDonald, said he did not give the new jacket to Wolfe and had never seen it before.

McDonald who is now stationed in California, said he is positive he would know if anyone had given the jacket to Wolfe.

There was no nametag on the garment and no way to trace it to its original owner.

Another unanswered question involves a white, short sleeved nurses uniform found on the kitchen floor when her stepfather went to the cabin on Dec. 27. It was not the uniform Wolfe had worn to work on Dec. 26.

Investigators surmised that she had dropped the uniform on the floor after arriving home from work and changed into warmer clothes.

Edwards later sent the uniform to a lab in Dade county, Fla. and experts wrote her the uniform had not been worn sonce it was last washed.
Roger Rushing, a worker at the VA hospital, says he was with Wolfe during lunch at the hospital cafeteria on Dec. 26 and that he accidentally spilled coffee on the sleeve of her uniform. He is positive she was wearing long sleeves.

"We never found that uniform she was wearing Dec. 26" said Edwards.

Still another question involves a wool stocking cap Wolfe usually wore outside in inclement weather. It was found mashed in mud by Franz Shoaf, a family friend, at the opposite side of the pond from the point officers said Wolfe is believed to have entered the water. Shoaf had gone to the house to feed the dogs after Wolfe's body was discovered.

There was a thin layer of ice on the pond Dec. 26 so the cap could not have floated to the other end.

The Nike tennis shoes Wolfe was found wearing were at least two sizes larger than what she normally wore, Edwards said. They were mens shoes size 6.

There was no mud or residue on the shoes when they were returned to Edwards by the SBI."They told me they had not washed the shoes, that they were the same as they were when they were removed from her body" Edwards said.

Investigators said there was soft mud around the edges of the pond.

Edwards still has the clothing her daughter was wearing when she was pulled from the pond.

The bra returned by the SBI is a size 38-C. Wolfe wore a 34-B, Edwards said.

The pathologist report stated Wolfe was 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighed 140 pounds. Her mother stated that she was 5 feet 3 inches tall and weighed less than a 120 pounds.

When the body was recovered she was wearing a black t-shirt with the words "Pittsburgh Steelers across the front.

Edwards and her husband, retired Army sergeant John Edwards, said they never saw the shirt before. Wolfe's friends do not remember her wearing the shirt.

The corduroy pants she had had 30-inch waist and 30-inch length. Wolfe wore 28-28 slacks.

The Observer traced the events surrounding the drowning from the day Wolfe was last seen alive until her body was found.

Thursday, Dec. 26, Wolfe called her mother from the hospital at 3:30p.m., asking for suggestions on what she could buy her sister-in-law for a birthday present. A member of the volunteer services said she saw Wolfe leave work at 4 p.m. No one else has come forward to say they saw the victim alive after she left the VA hospital. She probably arrived home 15 or 20 minutes after getting off work.

Friday Dec. 27, Wolfe did not show up for work. Her mother called the hospital sometime between noon and one p.m. and learned she had not reported for duty. Her stepfather loading kindling into his car and accompanied by a friend Kevin Gorton drove to the cabin. They found the kitchen door locked and the livingroom door unlocked. A nurses uniform and shoes were on the kitchen floor. The electric heater was turned up. The 1975 Pontiac that had been loaned Wolfe by her mother was parked in the yard with all the doors locked. Several Christmas presents could be seen on the seats of the car. The dog's feeding dishes were nearly empty and it was evident they had not been fed since the previous day. The men placed dog food in the feeding dishes. They remember seeing a stack of wood by the fireplace. Thinking Debbie had gone off with someone, they turned down the heat and left.

Saturday Dec.28 Wolfes stepfather and a tenant from one of his apartments, Dave Thomasson, drove to Wolfe's cabin and discovered once again the dogs had not been fed since the previous day. Edwards said everything appeared the same as the day before. He and Thomasson walked into the wooded area and around the pond but found nothing.

Sunday Dec. 29 at 11a.m. Edwards, Thomasson and another tenant Kevin Gorton drove back to the cabin they fed the dogs and looked over the house again. Edwards said he got down on his knees and found Wolfe's purse under one corner of the bed. They looked around the cabin area found nothing suspiscious and left.

Monday Dec. 30, At 8:30 a.m. Mrs. Edwards calls the hospital and learned Wolfe had not returned to work. She called the Cumberland county Sheriff's Department, and a deputy arrived later to fill out a missing persons report and obtain a photograph of Wolfe. A number of friends joined the Edwards in walking through the woods and around the pond. At 4:30p.m. Lt. William Nichols arrived at the Edwards mobile home park on Murchison Rd. He told Mrs Edwards he had gotten lost trying to find the cabin and promised searchers would be at the cabin site the next morning. Nichols has since resigned from the department and is believed to be working out of state.

Tuesday Dec 31 Edwards and Thomasson drove to Wolfe's cabin where several deputies were searching with the assistance of a bloodhound. The deputies told Edwards they could see the bottom of the pond and there was no indication there was a body in the water. Officers searched the cabin and told Edwards they could clean up the cabin.

Wednesday Jan 1 Edwards, Thomasson and Gorton returned to the cabin at 9:30 a.m. and continued their search at 12:30 p.m. Sgt Gordy Childress an Army trooper who is a scuba diver, volunteered to conduct a search of the pond bottom. He entered the water at 3 p.m. At 3:20 p.m. he surfaced and called to say he had found a body face down in an oil drum with the feet sticking out. They went to the cabin and reported the discovery to Wolfe's mother, who called the Sheriff's Department.

According to their statements the first officers didn't arrive until 40-45 minutes after the call. Childress pointed to the area about 30-35 feet from the bank where he had found the body. Deputies delayed entering the water because they had to wait for an air gauge. Gorton drove to his house to get a gauge he loaned to the deputy. Deputy Don Smith, a member of the sheriff's departments E-platoon, went into the water with Childress and surfaced minutes later. Smith, Childress and other officers recovered the body and brought to the bank. Smith told reporters he also had seen the barrel.

Smith was filmed by a television cameraman as saying to Maj. Smith of the barrel," Major I saw that sucker right out there." He pointed to the spot the body was found.

Investigators drained most of the pond and reported there was no barrel a week later.

They insisted the Army jacket Wolfe was wearing may have ballooned out over her head and may have appeared to be a barrel.

Wolfe was buried in Louisiana on Tuesday after her body was found.

Mrs Edwards after learning of the autopsy, decided to have the body exhumed and a second autopsy done by Forensic Pathologists Inc. in Bossier City La.

No real conclusions can be drawn from the differences in the two autopsies. There were some bruises on Wolfe's body, along with small cuts on her right knee and hands. The second autopsy stated there was severe intercostal hemorrage along the thoracic spine.

Both autopsies stated some of the bruises were probably postmortem discoloration not uncommon in drowning victims.

"Two years have gone by and the pain has not lessened" Mrs Edwards who owns The Pub in Eutaw Village said this week." There are so many questions and not even one answer."

She says she believes the investigators " have decided it will be much easier to keep it under the proverbial rug" she said concrete leads given to investigators were ignored.

She is bitter and will never give up her efforts to prove her daughter was murdered.

thank you for posting that info! welcome to the boards.

Indeed. And if you didn't know it, there is a whole Debbie Wolfe thread: https://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/forumdisplay.php?f=322. Lots of differing opinions on that thread like so many others, but your info will add some new light to the discussion.