Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Cold case update: New witness in Debbie Randall kidnap/murder

Episode Date: June 27, 2017

A new witness to the 1972 kidnapping/murder of Debbie Randall emerged after our first podcast about the case. A Marietta, Ga., woman tells Nancy Grace about seeing the 3rd grader's abduction when she was 12. Cold case detective Morris Nix says new DNA evidence has been found.   Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. vanished. It's been more than 43 years. This is Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Group of retired detectives volunteering their time, determined to bring her family answers. She was a beautiful kid. You can look at her picture and you can see the innocence. Detective Nix is part of a rare group of retired police officers who specialize in solving Cobb County's cold cases. If you're an investigator, if you're a detective, if you're a cop, that's what you live for, that phone call, that family saying, sit down because I've got some good news for you.

I'd give anything if I could find out who it was before I passed away. We have it forgotten, and we're not going to give up. My children, my twins, that are my whole world, are in the third grade. They are nine years old. And the other day, John David said, so-and-so said the S-word. And I'm like, you're kidding. Who said the S word in the third grade? And he said, so-and-so said it.

They just outright called so-and-so stupid. The S word is stupid. The S-H word is shut up. The F word is fat. Okay? That's the world a third grader lives in or should live in, right? Not Debbie Lynn Randall. Not Debbie Lynn Randall, a third grader at Pine Forest Elementary School.

Debbie was murdered, kidnapped, and murdered. And I want to know who did it. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. With me, of course, the Duke, Alan Duke, out of L.A. With me, special guest, Detective Morris Nix, who has been on this case from the get-go. And also with us, a very special guest.

Detective Nix, I will let you introduce our special guest. Okay, Nancy. We got very fortunate. I had someone call me and said, hey, I think I know someone who may know something about this. And so I contacted Sandra. And of course, I'm always skeptical. But Sandra hit on some points immediately that I could relate to. We have always worked on the premise that the perpetrator was driving a black pickup truck. And Sandra immediately said he was driving a black pickup truck.

That had not been released. And she also told me the route that he had taken once he abducted Debbie. And we knew that there were only two ways he could have gone. And she was very affirmative in pointing out the way that we thought that she had gone. And I've talked to several people in the past, but I find her very credible. Detective Nix has been on the case of first a missing girl, Debbie Lynn Randall, and now, sadly, the Cole case of this murdered third grader. Before we go out to our special guest, a newly emerged witness. What happened in this case, Alan, is that this little girl had gone to a laundromat, Suds and Duds.

It was so close to her home, like a block. And I recall that because my family for a long time didn't have a washer and dryer we couldn't afford one so we would go to the laundromat between morning services and evening services on Sundays and I went in there many a time and folded laundry and piled it into our basket by myself. This little girl did something very similar to that. She would go play trade Barbie doll outfits with friends at the laundromat where their family did their weekly laundry including a 7 p.m. visit which is about the time that we would go. Okay we'd go right before he went to evening services. Her stepdad was with her, but he left early.

Just 30 minutes later, she walked out of the laundromat with a bottle of detergent, going home. She never made it. According to the Marietta Police Department, witnesses saw a pickup truck driving along around the time Debbie vanished, it stopped right in front of the home, backed up into a secluded area. Police later found the detergent bottle splashed on the ground in that same spot. It was the bottle Debbie had been carrying while she walked home. Volunteers from a local school, Southern Polytechnic University, all volunteered and one of the volunteers found the little girl's lifeless body. It had been so abused.

All these years we have searched for answers as to who murdered Debbie. I want to go out to Sandra that Detective Nix just told you about. Sandra, what made you decide to come forward this much later? My sister works for Cobb County Jail, and she told me the case had been reopened, and I thought it had been closed a long time ago. And I told her, I saw it happen. And she said, well, somebody might be calling you and getting in touch with you.

And I said, okay. And that's when she was talking to a detective. And I called her one day. And she said, well, this is a coincidence. And she put him on the phone and he asked me if I would be willing to talk to Detective Nix. And from there on, it's just connection to you. Sandra, I know it was a while back, but please put your mind back to the evening Debbie disappeared. What did you observe?

They did not get her where they thought they got her. There was like a playground that was behind the laundromat and also a place there where you would go and get lawnmowers to cut people's grass. And there was a tree right there beside the laundromat where there was no windows or anything on the side. I seen this black pickup truck stop. The driver got out, left his door open, left the truck running. He ran.

He went over to Debbie. He grabbed her, and she was kicking her feet and kicking real hard and screaming and yelling. And he had her over his shoulder, so she was screaming and kicking. He threw her in the truck, and then he almost ran over me. What did the truck look like? All I know is it was a black truck because I was 12 years old. But I can remember like it was yesterday, I've had nightmares about it forever. What did he look like?

He was a white man. And I was maybe 140 feet to 180 feet from him, so I couldn't tell you what he looked like but I could tell he was white. And do you recall what he had on? He had a pants and shirt but I I mean I don't other than that I just looked long yeah long pants and a shirt. And I remember because I looked at somebody that was walking with me. I said, did you just see that? And when I heard her screaming and yelling, I said, oh, somebody done got in trouble. And, I mean, like I said, I must have fell because I got up. But when I did, I cussed him as he went by me.

But he went out. Did you think that was her father? I didn't know. I just thought it was, I didn't know. Because I didn't know Debbie myself. I had not met her or anything like that. The way I found out about it was the next day, I had went to the little store that was in the Marietta place. And her brother was handing out flyers asking if anybody had seen anything or heard anything.

And back then I told him that I would talk to somebody. Because there was no other way he would have been able to get out except to go if he I lived on 4th street and if he went around 4th street he would still hit Fairground street if he had went straight he would hit Fairground street I had another girl with me this because we were taking her clothes to the laundromat and I mean I don't I don't know what happened with her because back then seeing what the detective says she was just I don't know I don't know you know I don't know what was going on with her but when I saw her later on and I mean she had turned into an alcoholic so you know that's been 30 years ago. At the time, did you ever get to talk to police?

Detectives came to my house when I lived on 4th Street, and that was the last thing I heard anything. I mean... Did you speak to them? From there on, I didn't hear anything else. Did you tell the detectives what you saw? Yes. And that was then, and then you never heard anything else about it?

No, ma'am. Detective Nix, what then you never heard anything else about it? No, no. Detective Nix, what do you make of what she is saying? I find it credible what you mentioned, the truck, and the ride is credible. Sandra told me also which way did they go. And I knew there was only two ways they could have gone, and the direction she gave was exactly what we were looking at um we are going to try to contact the other person and Nancy I want to share with your listeners if I might um we believe Debbie's body was taken to a place called Dixie Casting Stone. It was off Powerspirit Road. It was very secluded.

As a teenager, I'd been up and down Powerspirit Road a thousand times. I never knew Dixie Casting Stone was there. The building is no longer there. But the business is still in business. But the business is now in the Austell-Potter Springs area. So I couldn't figure out in my mind initially why they would have gone there, and it was later we found out that the original Dixie Casting Stone was on Polis Ferry Road. So we go find out where the building should have been, we go back to where the body was found, and guess what? It's less than a quarter mile.

Her body was dumped less than a quarter mile from Dixie Castle Stone. And how that becomes relevant is that in the initial investigation, they did soil samples. And the type of soil that was found on Debbie's clothes and on her body was very specific to the Mississippi, Louisiana area. They also had that same type of soil at Dixie Castle and Stone. I think she was abducted at Rondermatt. I think she was taken down by Ferryville Street up in front of Lockheed, taken over to Windy Hill to Powers Ferry and to Dixie Castle Stone. So I started trying to find the history of Dixie Castle Stone.

So if there are any listeners listening to this that can tell us more about Dixie Castle Stone, we want to hear it. The same family still owns it, but they had no payroll records. They had nothing. But the son who now owns it told me, he said, it was not unusual for my father and the company to go to the Cobb County jail on weekends and get laborers. That they would get people who had just gotten out of jail for drunk or, you know, something minor, and they would take them over to work as laborers.

Is that a connection? I don't know. But I am convinced that she was taken to Dixie Casting Stone. She was assaulted. Her body was redressed. And at this point, I started to speculate. Did he think that she was already dead? Did he find out after he got her and was quick that she wasn't

and he pulled over to the side of the road? I pray that she was, but we desperately are seeking someone who would have a connection from Dixie Casper Stone from approximately 1968 to 1974 in that time area. If you contact and say, I do, that's not going to make them a person of interest but it will help hopefully locate

somebody who can tell us something about people who work there let me ask you a question detective Nix you're referring to Dixie Casting and Stone which was a company

Cast and Stone, which was a company. Dixie Cast and Stone. Cast and Stone that worked out of Marietta, Georgia area. And what exactly is that? What do they create? What do they do? It's my understanding that they build concrete forms. I don't know what all they use them for, but that's primarily what they do. Now, you said that on her body and clothing is soil from Louisiana and Mississippi, I believe you said.

Correct. And that soil, of course, would not be in Marietta, Georgia, but you believe that particular soil was an ingredient used at Dixie Cast in stone. Is that correct? Correct. We do. We do. Okay. So that's where, that's where, okay. That's where you're getting that from. Okay. I wanted to nail down your interest in the soil. So she had to be at Dixie Casting then because the only place that soil composition would have turned up. Okay. And I'm wondering, would someone that worked there full time have taken her there

or someone that just knew about the place, which tends to go toward your day laborer aspect? Correct. And, you know, I talked to the owner, and they to go toward your day laborer aspect. Correct. And, you know, I talked to the owner, and they've been very cooperative. He said back in 1972, there was no gate. There were no lights. He said, you could have driven around behind the sand pits. And he said, nobody would have heard you. He said, whoever took care of there had to have known it was over there.

They had to have felt comfortable going there and they had to have known they couldn't leave her body there. And when he left with her, he had taken a piece of cloth in her vaginal area. He did that with bleed so that she wouldn't bleed all over the trunk. And he redressed the body. Nancy, I don't know why, but I just feel like he was headed to the Chattahoochee River. I don't know why I feel that way, but I just do. You feel that what? He was headed to the Chattahoochee River.

You feel what? I believe he was headed to the Chattahoochee River. I don't really feel that way, but I do. Detective, the Chattahoochee River is actually just probably a quarter mile from where you're talking about anyway if you walk through the woods, right? Correct, but he never made it. He whipped it on the side of the road, takes her about 40 yards back in the wood, and that's where they find the body.

And I hope and I suspect either she was breathing so much that he wanted to get her out of the truck or she was still alive. And, you know, my prayer is that she wasn't. For anyone that has information, the tip line is 770-528-3032. And with us, a newly emerged witness comes forward again, Sandra. After hearing about the case, our podcast, the case being reopened by Detective Nix, and what we believe is newly discovered evidence. Not evidence that did not exist then,

but evidence that had not necessarily been analyzed the way it can be analyzed now. 770-528-3032. Sandra, you said that over these years, you have had one nightmare after the next about this incident. What do you dream about? I was a street kid back then. And, I mean, that year I would have been 13 years old, but my life had been really turned upside down

with my mom and dad getting divorced. And I was just mean. I was just really, really mean back then. I was, I really was mean. And I mean, I thought about this for 44 years, you know, and I always wondered where she was buried at, and Detective Nix told me, and so I want to go out and visit her grave and tell her I'm sorry because if it had been just a few minutes later, I would have been beside her. So what is your nightmare? Repeat.

What is the bad dream you have? It's this dream about her and the things that she had went through. The man who done it, I can't see his face, but I can see him. You know, his face is, it's like his face is black, but I can, he was, I wouldn't say he was skinny. He was a medium built, maybe even a little bit chunky. I couldn't tell because of the shirt. But it's just about her. I mean, she was an angel.

And this should not have happened to her. Detective Nix, what about DNA? We took some material that was going on by the room. We sent it to the Avenue. I was thinking we didn't have a prayer. You know, we're saying this is 40-plus years old. It's not going to happen. It's not going to work.

And miraculously, because Marietta Peace Department did a great job maintaining the evidence, we got a profile. And we know that it is a single donor. We know that it is a white male. And one of the things we had often wondered about is, okay, if he abducts Debbie and she's resisting, how does he drive the truck? How does he keep control of the truck and control of her at the same time? So I started asking people that knew Debbie, do you think that she would have fought or do you think she would have been so terrified that she just kind of

cowered down? Sandra says she did not see another person in the tree. I'm very curious, was there anyone else with this guy? Perhaps she just did as she was told. Maybe he had a knife. I don't know. But, yes, we do have DNA. If we can match it with the right person, game over.

And I believe there's a very good chance of living. I think this is a doable case, and I think we have just got to stay on finding the person that we can match it with. Somebody who lived in that complex, somebody who worked at Dixie Captain Stone can give me an idea. And if you give it to me, I promise you I'm going to look it up. With me, Detective Morris Nix, renowned investigator and detective who has been on this case from the very beginning and never let go. And now coming forward

again after all these years, our guest Sandra is with us. If you have any information, please dial 770-528-3032. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.