Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - DESPERATE SEARCH FOR MISSING WARREN MOM OF 2, CAR ABANDONED: WHERE'S ASHLEY?

Episode Date: January 14, 2025

Just after the new year  Ashley Elkins leaves home early in the morning. Her family sees her leave, wearing a long black coat with fur around the hood and black leggings, with the light freckles on her face.  Just 10 minutes after Ashley leaves her mother Monika arrives wanting to share a dream with her daughter.  Ashley Elkins leaves her home on January 2nd at 8:30 am. Her mother, Monika Elkins, arrives 10 minutes later, wanting to tell Ashley about a dream she had. Having just missed Ashley, Monika sends a text to her daughter about the dream she had involving Ashley taking her mom's truck while leaving her car in the driveway. Ashley replies to the description of the dream, writing "Awe, man." Monika feels this is a strange and uncharacteristic response for Ashley and attempts a "face time" call immediately upon receipt of the text from Ashley's phone.  But Ashley doesn't answer the facetime  Family members reach out to Ashley Elkins with minimal success. Hours after sending a text but not answering a face-time call from her mother, another family member gets a text from Ashley, saying she is going to a beauty supply store. This isn't the way Ashley Elkins usually communicates with the family and her mother says Ashley's phone is turned off after the text about going to beauty supply store, before it is turned back on again.    Joining Nancy Grace today Maurice Morton - Uncle to Ashley Elkins Ben Powers - Criminal Defense Attorney, Facebook: Legal Powers PLLC, https://legalpowers.com Dr. Shavaun Scott - Psychotherapist, Author of “The Minds of Mass Killers: Understanding and Interrupting the Pathway to Violence” Brian Fitzgibbons - Director of Operations for USPA Nationwide Security,  uspasecurity.com, Instagram: @uspa_nationwide_security, Fmr. Marine and Iraq war veteran Scott Eicher - founding member of the FBI’s Cellular Analysis Survey Team (C.A.S.T); Historical Cellular Analysis Expert; Former FBI agent of 22 years; Former Police Officer and Homicide Detective with Norfolk Virgina Police Dept.  Precision Cellular Analysis,   https://www.pcaexperts.com/ Alexis Tereszcuk  - Crime Online Investigative Reporter   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. The desperate search for a missing Warren, mother of two. Her car found abandoned. Where's Ashley? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us.

A mom of two vanishes without a trace after leaving her apartment. Family pleads for help. Where is this beautiful Warren missing mom of two? Her mother is tipped off, as we have seen most recently, with a very odd series of texts that don't sound like her. Let's start at the beginning. Listen. Just after the new year, Ashley Elkins leaves home early in the morning. Her family sees her leave wearing a long black coat with fur around the hood and black leggings with light freckles on her face, just 10 minutes after Ashley leaves, her mother, Monica, arrives.

You know, the mom arrives just after she leaves. How many times have I heard witnesses, families say, I just missed her or him. And that chance miss makes all the difference. Listen. I texted her I had a dream of her car being stolen. And she replied back, oh man, which is weird to me. So I FaceTimed her. She didn't answer.

Well, talk about a mother's intuition. That's from our friends at WXYZ in Detroit. So mom, believe it or not, has an eerie premonition type dream where her daughter's car gets stolen. So she tries to go immediately to visit the daughter. She misses her literally by minutes. She wants to tell her about the dream. So she texts her and gets this odd response going, Oh man, that doesn't sound like her daughter at all. And gets this odd response going, oh, man. That doesn't sound like her daughter at all.

So, listen. Monica Elkins arrives wanting to tell Ashley about a dream she had. Having just missed Ashley, Monica sends a text to her daughter about the dream she had involving Ashley taking her mom's truck while leaving her car in the driveway. Ashley replies to the description of the dream writing, oh man. Monica feels this is a strange and uncharacteristic response for Ashley and attempts a FaceTime call immediately upon receipt of the text from Ashley's phone. But Ashley doesn't answer the FaceTime. Joining me, an all-star panel, including family of Ashley's. First, I want to go to Brian Fitzgibbons joining me, Director of Operations, USPA, Nationwide Security, leading a team of investigators to find missing people. And not only that, Marine and Iraqi war veteran.

Brian, thank you for being with us. Nobody knows a child. And this is a grown child, Ashley, this gorgeous young mom of two, like your own mother. Nobody knows you like your mother. The mom has this eerie premonition dream and she doesn't just call. She goes over to the apartment, to Ashley's place to tell her, whoa, I had this crazy, powerful dream. Ashley's not there. She texts and then gets a text that she thinks is off.

How many times, Brian, does law enforcement, God bless them, they're the best witnesses I've ever put on the stand, ignore hunches or intuition? I don't ignore it. We see it all the time, Nancy, in a number of cases that you and I have discussed. In this case, Ashley's mother was immediately able to recognize something that was deviating from Ashley's normal pattern of behavior. That tech, the lexicon used in that text, not answering the FaceTime, very concerning.

Also joining me, Scott Eicher, founding member of the FBI Cellular Analysis Survey Team. Let that sink in. Founder, founding member of the FBI Cellular Cell Phone Analysis Survey Team. Homicide detective, 12 years, missing people, currently with precision cellular analysis. Scott, isn't it true that the lexicon, the vernacular used in text can raise a red flag? Most definitely. That's one of the first things that we try to do when we're dealing with a missing person is deal with the last people that have talked to them. Things that are important are, is the phone ringing directly to voicemail?

Is it going through a bunch of rings and not being answered? I agree that not answering a FaceTime and an odd text back, we've seen that hundreds of times. Well, recently we saw a heartbreaking case of Gabby Petito. Listen. On August 27th, Petito and Laundrie get into another dispute in public. A witness says Gabby is crying and Laundrie is visibly angry. August 30th, Gabby Petito's mother gets a text message where Gabby refers to her grandfather by his name, Stan. This text message was considered odd by Petito's mother, Nicole Schmidt. Schmidt tells police that Gabby refers to her grandfather by his name, Stan. This text message was considered odd by Petito's mother, Nicole Schmidt. Schmidt tells police that Gabby never calls her grandfather by his first name,

and it doesn't sound like Gabby. Calls to Gabby are unreturned. On September 1st, Brian Laundrie arrives in Florida without Gabby Petito. Gabby is missing. Laundrie isn't talking. Petito's body is found September 19th. She died from strangulation. I mean, joining me right now is longtime colleague, investigative reporter Alexis Torres-Truck, CrimeOnline.com. Alexis, come on.

You know my dad and my mom. Would I have ever said, hey, mother, where's Walter Malcolm Gray, Sr.? Of course that's not her texting. No, and that's what her mother knew immediately. Ashley's mom, she knew that when she sent her this thing and it's sort of a desperate message. I had this terrible dream and the dream was so bad that I've come to your house. You're not here. She missed her by 10 minutes instead of running back, you know, oh, mama, that's I'm fine. I'm safe. Don't worry about it. And I have my car. All she gets back is, oh, man, that that's I'm fine. I'm safe. Don't worry about it. And I have my car. All she gets back is all man.

That that's not something that she would ever have heard. Well, here's another problem. I better throw this to our veteran trial lawyer, Ben Powers, joining us. He's at Legal Powers LLC. Hey, Ben, you know, it would be a cold day in H-E-L-L that I tried to introduce something in front of a jury I couldn't prove. That's why I've never even considered psychics, even though many of them have actually helped find dead bodies and missing people. They have. But to tell a jury that they would possibly discount the whole state's case if one of them is a non-believer. Same thing with premonitions or dreams like mom had, but being powers in this case, I think I'd bring it on because not only did the mom have this premonition dream about her daughter, she woke up and went, I'm going over there. That's real. It's not just

something she made up later. She got in the car and went over there to warn her daughter. It was that strong. I believe I would let that into evidence. So I think that statement alone probably is not a good idea to bring into evidence by itself, but it certainly tells the story and humanizes the story. You know, it's a concerned mother. She has a bad feeling. She texts her daughter. She gets an odd response. Ten minutes later, her daughter's gone. And so then you anchor that to the rest of the story through admissible proof, admissible evidence, possible forensics, cell data. I wouldn't make the whole case a premonition case, but I would anchor that premonition. I didn't say I'd make the whole case a premonition case.

I said I would. Hey, O.J. Simpson case. The timeline started with a dog, Akita, wailing in the background. The neighbors described it as a plaintive well. Okay. That's when the timeline started. Okay. Uh, in this case, when the mom goes over there, goes to the daughter's place after a bad dream, it was so vivid. That's where I would start my timeline right there. And, uh, do you recall the name Kelsey Barrett, Ben Powers? Do you know that name? Just be honest. I don't know that name. Okay. I will never forget it because Kelsey Barrett,

I believe, was not only a murder victim, but her phone had been taken by the perps and a series of fake messages were sent. Listen. Patrick Frazee receives a short text from his fiancee, Kelsey Barrett's phone that simply says, do you even love me? Frazee replies, why would I bend over backwards and stand behind you through everything if I didn't? So to answer your question, yes, I do. Turns out those messages were typed and sent three days after Patrick Frazee had murdered Kelsey Barrett, and he was in the middle of covering up the crime with the help of his mistress turned state's witness, Crystal Lee. Prosecutors proved Frazee beat Barrett, his fiancee and mother of his child, to death on Thanksgiving Day.

He is sentenced to life without parole. Joining me is Dr. Siobhan Scott. Dr. Scott, psychotherapist and author of The Minds of Mass Killers. Understanding and Interrupting the Pathway to Violence. If that didn't give you a nightmare, I don't know what would. But Dr. Scott, aside from the mom's premonition, I'm moving on. Why do people believe they're the smartest one in the room? They can outsmart everybody. I go into the room thinking these people know more than I do about this topic.

Okay, that's a given. But why do people think three days after Kelsey goes missing, they can send a series of fake text messages and fake everybody out? Why are people that arrogant? Yeah. Yeah. You're really describing somebody with what we call the cluster B disorders. Right. And that's somebody with a criminal mind. And they do tend to be very arrogant. You see this with so many different kinds of murderers, including the serial killers, where they really think they're going to out game everybody and get away with it. So it really is an aberrant type of personality that unfortunately we see in these kind of cases

all the time. Well, mom doesn't just knock at the door and then go back to business as usual. Listen. During the day of January 2nd, family members reach out to Ashley Elkins with minimal success. Hours after sending a text but not answering a FaceTime call from her mother, another family member gets a text from Ashley saying she is going to a beauty supply store. This isn't the way Ashley Elkins usually communicates with the family. And her mother says Ashley's phone is turned off after the text about going to the beauty supply store before it is turned back on again. This beautiful young mom of two.

I mean, she's gorgeous. She doesn't even look real. She's so beautiful. Where is Ashley? So, mom, beside herself, listen. So I said to her, you know, just be mindful of what's around and pay attention to where you're going? And she didn't call back. That's not like her. And she never called back. And she never texts back. I don't know how mom is even able to speak right now.

Ashley gone. Can't find her. The two little children want mommy. Oh, by the way, that's from our friends at WXYZ Detroit. So, let's move forward. She goes to the house, knocks on the door. She can't find Ashley. The family joined together to start looking for Ashley.

This is so uncharacteristic. Listen. Monica Elkins gets a text reply from her daughter, Ashley, but the text isn't consistent with the way Ashley texts. Later, when another text is received from Ashley's phone, it's not sent the way Ashley normally texts. Family members are concerned when they can't get Ashley to answer the phone, so they use the Find My iPhone app to locate her phone. According to Ashley's phone, her last known location was in the 20,900 block

of Pinehurst Street in Roseville. By the time family members drive by, there is no sign of Ashley Elkins or Ashley's 2010 gray Chevrolet Malibu. So what exactly is a ping? What does it mean? And how reliable is it? Scott Eicher, founding member, FBI Cellular Analysis Survey Team, what is a ping? And how reliable is it? Pings are things that you can see, well, let's start with Find My iPhone, because that's very important. People can do that for their family members if they have that set up. That's very important people can do that for their family members if they have that set up that's very important to get a more quicker look at it before they get the police involved if they're just trying to find their friend or family member you can get pings from the phone companies themselves now that takes a court order that takes information that someone's missing or endangered.

But we can get that also. Now, the accuracy of the pings does depend on the terrain and what type of systems being used to do it. So sometimes they're very accurate. They use GPS. We can get it down to like 10 meters. Very accurate. Sometimes those pings are very large, 1300 meters, stuff like that. So it really just depends on the type of technology that is being used

and where the phone is at that point in time. Of course, it has to be on to be able to ping it. Where is this gorgeous mom of two, her family, distraught? And speaking of family, joining us right now is her uncle, Maurice Morton, coincidentally a former Wayne County homicide prosecutor. Mr. Morton, thank you for being with us. Ashley's family, mom, siblings, get in touch with you almost immediately. What was their state of mind at that time? They were frantic. I mean, they were very upset. You know, Ashley was missing at this point. They were asking me about the 48 hours, right? They were like,

oh my gosh, you know, we know that after 48 hours, you know, things tend to go south. And they had a lot of questions about, you know, these type of investigations. They wanted my assistance at that time dealing with the police and the media, because at that point, you know, the police weren't convinced anything had occurred and the media was not. Oh, no, no, no, Mr. Morton. Please don't tell me when they contact police that police say, oh, she's just off with her boyfriend or, oh, she's a single mom. Maybe she needed alone time.

We don't think she's really missing. Did they do that? I almost hate to ask the question. They absolutely did that. Oh, okay. I'm gonna need an aspirin. Guys, what happens next? The mom's so distraught about Ashley being gone, she reaches out to brother attorney Maurice Morton. The family now taking the search into their own hands. Listen.

After failing to find Ashley Elkins or even have a meaningful communication with her on January 2nd, her family reports her missing in Warren, Michigan on January 3rd. Investigators confirmed her last known location is Roseville and say they are canvassing area businesses for video and using digital forensics in the case to try to track her whereabouts. Ashley Elkins is a 30-year-old mother of two young boys. She is 5'2 to 5'3, a black woman weighing around 150 pounds. And then what they think is going to be a break. Listen. Conducting video canvases and examining digital evidence, investigators are interviewing friends

and family members as they try to locate Ashley Elkins. On Tuesday, January 7th, authorities find Ashley Elkins' car abandoned a few miles from her ex-boyfriend's Roseville apartment. After locating Ashley's 2010 Chevy Malibu, investigators go to Booker's apartment with a search warrant. The discovery of a missing person's car usually is a huge break in the case. What, if anything, will it reveal? Is there blood? Is there fingerprints?

Is the car simply out of gas or with a flat tire? That could indicate where is Ashley. We just covered this in the case of missing mom, Nikki Chan. Listen. A days passed from when Nikki Chang's Ailey McCain was last seen by her family and the day her truck was found abandoned in Tahoma County. The 2002 Avalanche is found on the side of the road in a remote area. Doesn't appear to have suffered any damage. Investigators aren't saying if the vehicle was operational when abandoned or if it simply

ran out of gas. Alexis Tereschuk, in our case in chief, Ashley's car is found. Where was it? Her car was found about a six-minute drive away from her home, so about three miles away. Still, we're saying Roseville. This is a suburb of Detroit. Detroit is a very big city, just a few miles away from a lake. This is, but still a very urban center found there. But you know what was not found in her car? Her pocketbook was not found in her car. Her cell phone was not found in her car, but her car was found. Back to Ashley's uncle, Maurice Morton, joining us. Maurice, so her pocketbook and cell phone missing from the car. Let me ask you a couple of questions regarding Ashley's car found about six minutes away from her home. Did it have a flat tire?

No, it did not. Was it out of gas? No, it was not. Had it been in a fender bender or any accident at all? No, it had not. So six minutes away, Ashley, we're supposed to believe Ashley just gets out of her car and walks away? I mean, her mother must be like a knife in her heart. Ashley would never do that. Maurice, just get out of the car and walk off. No, she wouldn't. And the mother was very clear about that, that all of these actions, you know, would have been uncharacteristic of Ashley. She always kept in touch with her family. She had a 10-year-old and 7-year-old children who she cared for regularly.

In fact, the 7-year-old is autistic. Ashley loved her children to death. She was always there. She would have never done this. She would never just walked away. And, you know, Ben Powers joining me, veteran trial lawyer at LegalPowers.com. You said you can't build a case on the mom's premonition about the car. Well, I think you have to introduce that at the get-go because the car is a recurring thread in this. Now we've got the car abandoned on the side of the road. There's nothing wrong with it. Not out of gas, no fender bender, no tire nothing so ben you think ashley just got out said hey i think i'll go for a little walk bs i think you're going to need to be able to establish why she and the car are no longer connected you know why the car is six minutes away from her house

and who or what caused her to leave her car if she didn't leave voluntarily. Otherwise, it's speculation as to why her car is by itself. Okay, yeah, you just tell that to a jury. You ask any woman on that jury, she's going to park her car on the side of the road and take a walk, okay? You're going to get nowhere with that. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

Another question for Maurice Morton. This is Ashley's uncle joining us. Maurice, what about the keys to the car? Were they ever recovered? You know, we don't know that at this time. So we know that we heard that the keys were not in the vehicle, but we don't know if they were recovered. You know, to Brian Fitzgibbons, I want to talk to you about potential evidence found in a car. And to Scott Eicher, I'm going to bring up the specter of Alex Murdoch and what all we learned from his vehicle, the Suburban.

He drove away from a murder scene the night his wife and son were murdered by him. But to you, Brian Fitzgibbon's joining us, a veteran, veteran when it comes to searching for missing people. Normally, you can get a treasure trove of evidence from a car. Absolutely, Nancy. And police are going to be pretty tight to the chest with this. You know, they are likely finding a tremendous amount of forensic evidence in there. You know, this could be fingerprints. This could be DNA evidence. This could be items that corroborate a timeline or refute statements made by the family or those techs. So there's going to be quite a bit of information gathered from this vehicle. Well, I'm thinking about blood. Maurice Martin, let me know, were there forensically viable probative, they proved something, fingerprints, blood, hair,

sign of a struggle? Was the front seat pulled back too far? I know that you recall, Maurice, the case of missing teacher Tara Grinstead. In her case, her car was found right where it should be, parked in her garage. But she, Maurice, was neat-nick, complete neat-nick. When I went into her home, it looked like a model home out of a magazine. But then her mother took me out to look at her car. You know those cars that people keep smelling like a new car? Her car smelled like a new car, but the sides were covered in mud. And the front seat was reared back so somebody six feet or taller could drive. And Tara was very petite.

So there's all kind of evidence you can get from a car. Do we know if the driver's seat was pulled back for a taller person? We don't know. Unfortunately, you know, the police have not given us a whole lot of information about the vehicle. What they have said, though, interestingly, is that there is substantial evidence. And they use the word substantial without getting into detail. And they use those words quite a bit. So, you know, we're guessing that there was, you know, possibly quite a bit of evidence. Scott Eicher, you're hearing what Brian Fitzgibbons and Maurice Mortner are saying. But I want you, a founding member of the FBI cellular analysis team, I want you to think about what else we can learn from this car. This car was of a model and make

that should have some sort of nav system, navigation system in it. As you recall from the Alex Murdoch double murder trial, we learned more about NAV systems than we ever wanted to know. For instance, we know exactly when Alex Murdoch cranked up his Suburban and left the murder scene. scratched off that he, and we learned all this from the nav system, that he lowered the window, electric, electric windows, right where Maggie, his wife's cell phone was thrown out on the side of the road, let up the window, then floored it. We know when he reached his mother's house, which she used as an alibi, when he put that car in park, turned it off. And when he got back in to go back to the murder scene and find the two dead bodies. I can tell when he put it in park, reverse, drive, you name it. So what can I learn from Ashley's car? Nancy, there's a ton of stuff you can learn

from the car. As you said, the vehicle telematics, there's a lot of programs that we can use to download the data from the car itself. Just plug it in like a mechanic does, and it downloads all this information like you talked about in those other cases. It's very accurate and very helpful in cases. A lot of the cars also have cell phones in them. That's helpful to us too. We can ping a car. We can use tower information to help us track a car over time. There's tons of information that you can get from a car. Not only the physical evidence, as you mentioned, but the vehicle's information, when brakes were applied, you know, when an accident occurred,

all that information is recorded in some of these cars. What more do we know? We know that in addition to feeling someone had been following her as she drove her car, there were a lot of red flags. No one really knew how to interpret. Listen. DeAndre Booker and Ashley Elkins have been dating long enough that Ashley's mother and other family members think the two will be getting married in the future. Booker is smart and really good with computers, but there are a couple of red

flags popping up. Ashley Elkins has developed a career as a hairstylist and is able to maximize profits by working out of her home until DeAndre Booker doesn't like men coming to Ashley's home to have their hair cut. So Ashley spends the money to rent a facility to conduct business. What? Okay, hold on just a moment. Maurice Morton is joining me, Ashley's uncle. You're a practicing lawyer. That would be like my husband saying, you know what? I don't want you in the courtroom because there's too many male lawyers and defendants. I couldn't practice law for Pete's sake. So the boyfriend tells her he doesn't like men clients coming to her home salon. That cuts out about 50 percent of her business.

Yeah, that's that's true. I mean, you know, that was an early on red flag about him and his personality. Obviously he was controlling very jealous type And and and the mom and Ashley began to see that have thought. But he, you know, that was one of the first red flags of how controlling he was. Dr. Siobhan Scott joining us, a renowned psychotherapist, author of The Minds of Mass Killers. Dr. Siobhan, controlling doesn't necessarily mean killer. But when I look back at cases I've handled, prosecuted and investigated, very often it's the reverse. I have seen so many cases where the perp, boyfriend or husband, lover, ex-lover, has also been controlling. The converse can very often be true. When we say he's controlling,

what does that mean? You heard Maurice Morton, who knows Ashley, knows the boyfriend, knows the family, say he was controlling. That in itself is not a deal breaker, but it's not good. No, it's not good. It's definitely a red flag definitely a red flag a couple decades ago i was a director of counseling in a domestic violence women's shelter and and that was really the standard was these jealous controlling men and they're very seductive you know that's the thing i can't under emphasize is how seductive they can be and how charming. Because if that was the only thing the woman ever saw, of course, they would recognize this is a dangerous, unsafe relationship.

But often there's an undercurrent of the control and it's layered with things that are very nice about the relationship. So the women get confused. You're giving me a headache. And I wanna tell you why. If I thought I had to go through my husband's text messages and find him on live 360 and blah, blah, I'd shoot my foot. I tried to read his messages. One time they were so boring, my eyes just started bleeding. Why do people stay in relationships where they don't trust the other

one? There's all these red flags. It's exhausting, Dr. Siobhan. Yeah, yeah. And it becomes like an addiction sometimes, particularly for these men that, you know, when we think of love, we think of giving and nurturing and wanting the best for the other person. But I think for men like this, the woman is an object and his sense of ownership for her takes precedence. And often there's this mix of desire and hostility. And it's very confusing to be the female partner in a relationship like that because very often he's wonderful and they also know how to manipulate their vulnerabilities younger women in particular can have a lot of vulnerabilities they can have low self-esteem and these men know how to manipulate

that well speaking of red flags uh listen to this Ladies, if you hear something like this about your boyfriend, even your husband, you run for the hills as if you had seen a monster. Listen to me. Take a listen. Booker shows off his computer skills by creating fraudulent documents. But the final straw that breaks the relationship is when Elkins discovers Booker has been creating profiles of people online and using the fake profiles to come to comment on his own posts on social media, as well as track Ashley's online behavior. Elkins and DeAndre Booker break up in September. OK, well, wait, wait, wait. So he creates a fake online persona to comment on his post. Do I have that right, Alexis Tereschuk? Yes, he has been doing this. This is something he creates. He has his own website, you know, his own social media.

Then he creates other people to say, oh, you know, you're so great. Look at this guy, things like this, just to make himself seem so much better. Then she finds out that he's been that he has been doing this. She sees, oh, it's not just you. You are the one that is creating all of these people commenting on this. And she fully breaks up with him. She ends the relationship. Okay. What a whack-a-doodle. I see Siobhan Scott, Dr. Scott, just shuddering at that, but there's no other way to put it. Maurice Morton, you're her uncle. So she is involved in this guy's around her children. That's making up fake people on multiple fake IDs online so they can comment on how great his posts are. Yeah, just it just doesn't sound like a reasonable person. It did say a lot about him. And then at that point, you know, Ashley and the mom began to really question, you know, mom was very clear.

She thought he was a fraud and this was someone that she adored. And eventually she said, hey, she thought he was a fraud. They didn't know what to believe about him, what was real or wasn't. Just because you delete something off of your computer doesn't mean it doesn't exist in the cloud or somewhere deep buried in your computer. Take a listen. For someone known as computer savvy, investigators were able to retrieve some of the basic internet searches that included answers to the question, what to do while on the run. Booker also allegedly wants to know if blood is traceable, fastest routes from Flint, Ohio, how to beat a polygraph test, and what he probably should have started with, deleting Google search history.

Okay, the word idiot springs to mind. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. To Maurice Morton, this is Ashley Elkins' uncle. What more, if anything, do you know about these damning computer searches on Booker's devices? Yeah, when we saw that, it was very alarming. At that point,

when you see that, you're figuring that, hey, this guy was planning to commit a crime. And so it really raised, you know, the concern within the family of what he was planning to do or what he had done, because we have been aware of these search messages since that Friday after she was missing. It brings to mind a case that's going to be proven almost entirely based on damning Google searches. I'm talking about another missing mom of two boys, Anna Walsh, husband Brian Walsh's computer, a treasure trove of incriminating evidence. Listen. Brian Walsh begins the first day of a new year at 4.55 a.m. by searching the internet for, quote, how long before a body starts to smell. He follows that by searching how to stop a body from decomposing, 10 ways to dispose of a dead body if you really need to,

how long does DNA last, how to remove blood from a wooden floor, can you identify a body with broken teeth, and finally, can you be charged with murder without a body? One of the searches conducted by X Booker is what to do while on the run. Much like Scott Peterson, he did go on the run. Explain Alexis Therese Chuck. He'd come to her house on New Year's Eve, December 31st. He actually booked an appointment with her, but not as himself. So remember we said he pretends to be other people. He uses different

identifications. He even did this to her. So he booked an appointment at her home salon, the one that he didn't like her to have and showed up at her house. She saw him from out inside the home and she had people over her house. She told everybody to be quiet. He knocked on the front door. He knocked on the side door. Everybody stayed inside and didn't make a sound. And then he left. So then people tried to find him. Nobody can find him. He is just as missing as she is for a couple of days. Then police are finally able to find him. Take a listen to this.

The day Scott Peterson is arrested, he has dyed his brown hair blonde and grown out a goatee. His Mercedes stuffed with survival gear, camping gear, several changes of clothing, two driver's license. He has his and his brother's four cell phones, 15 grand in cash and 12 Viagra pills. To you, Ben Powers, much like Scott Peterson with his blonde hair. This guy, Booker, goes on the run. That's evidence of guilt, Flight. While your girlfriend, your ex, is missing, you suddenly decide to go on the run? It's damning. I mean, he's allowed to travel. It's not running from anything at that point. He's allowed to go from one place to another. They would have to establish that he knew he was the subject of an investigation and that he fled that

investigation. But there's nothing unlawful. We actually have a right to travel. And so he's free to move about as he wants. They're going to have to tie that to knowing that he was under investigation and fleeing that investigation. Speaking of red flags, what about a rap sheet? Listen.

DeAndre Booker served in the United States Army, but was removed from the military with a less than honorable discharge after going AWOL in 2017. This happened after he was charged the previous year with several other crimes, including larceny and possessing fake identification documents while still serving on active duty in the Army. He went AWOL after the charges and then was given his less than honorable discharge. I'm starting to see a course of conduct that repeats itself. He goes AWOL in the Army and now he's AWOL during the search for his love interest, Ashley, Ashley Elkins. Maurice Morton, did Ashley have any idea that Booker had a rap sheet? That came as news to the family about his background with the military and him being AWOL. Absolutely had no idea. Maurice Morton joining me as she's uncle. What led police to go to a landfill? Well, when they conducted the search of DeAndre's apartment, they indicated to us they found

substantial evidence without telling us what they found they also hauled away a dumpster and you know they indicated to me that there was also substantial evidence in there so we we kind of gleamed uh through the lines that they found blood evidence um also that dumpster apparently had been dumped on that Saturday after she went missing. And so, you know, reading between the lines, we figure they kind of then went to the landfill next. Brian Fitzgibbons, joining me, Director of Operations, USPA Nationwide Security, leads a team of investigators trying to find missing people. Brian, you and I both have been involved in grid searches at landfills and dump sites. Very difficult.

Absolutely. And this one was made more difficult with the cold temperatures that Michigan has been experiencing. So they were able to narrow it down to a six to seven acre location at the landfill, a plot of area about seven acres square. So that's going to be a difficult search as they go grid by grid. The family on pins and needles as the search for Ashley leads police to a Macomb County landfill. Back to Ashley's uncle, Reese Morton, joining us. I understand, Mr. Morton, that DNA has been obtained. What's the source and what can you tell us about it? Yeah, police indicated to us that from the evidence they collected at his apartment and from the dumpster, They wanted to collect some samples

to do a DNA match. So they did do swabbing of the mother and her children in order to get a DNA match. We have not gotten the results back from that DNA sample. Mr. Morton, how is the family holding up? Who has Ashley's two little boys? Her boys are staying with their father and grandparents. The families are, you know, coming together to support them. You can imagine, Nancy, this has been really tough. And, you know, someone asked me the question, being a former prosecutor, you know, how does it feel to be on the other side? Right. You know, but they actually asked the question, but it's tough. And I've dealt with victims all my life. But to be on this side, you see the pain, you see the heartache, you see all the questions, you see how difficult it is

dealing with the media, police, trying to get answers, fighting for answers because you want your loved one back home, it's very difficult. If you know or think you know anything, maybe you saw her car, maybe you saw her, maybe you saw DeAndre Booker driving her car, please dial Warren PD 586-574-4784. Or Roseville Police Crime Stoppers. Toll free. 800-Speak-Up. That's 800-773-2587.

Her boys want their mother. One of them unable to understand what's going on. He's autistic. Let's stop and remember an American hero, Jacqueline Montanaro, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, who died trying to save her own daughter from a fire, served over 16 years with Homeland Security,

leaving behind husband, now widower, William, and daughter, Elena. American hero. Homeland Security, Jackie Montanero. Nancy Grace signing off. Goodbye, friend. you're listening to an iHeart podcast