The Deck - Deborah Perry (King of Spades, South Carolina)

Episode Date: December 11, 2024

Our card this week is Deborah Perry, the 3 of Spades from South Carolina. Three decades have passed since 29-year-old Deborah Perry was found shot to death on a rural cul-de-sac outside Columbia, South Carolina, and her killer has never been caught. As cold case investigators follow new leads, Deborah’s daughter wonders if a pair of flowered pants and men’s underwear her mother was found holding could be the key to cracking the case.If you have information about the 1994 murder of Deborah Perry please contact Crimestoppers at 1-888-CRIME-SC.View source material and photos for this episode at: thedeckpodcast.com/deborah-perry Let us deal you in… follow The Deck on social media.Instagram: @thedeckpodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @thedeckpodcast_ | @audiochuckFacebook: /TheDeckPodcast | /audiochuckllcTo support Season of Justice and learn more, please visit seasonofjustice.org. The Deck is hosted by Ashley Flowers. Instagram: @ashleyflowersTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieTwitter: @Ash_FlowersFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AFText Ashley at 317-733-7485 to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more!

Our card this week is Deborah Perry, the King of Spades from South Carolina. Now many of you may recognize my voice from other audio chuck shows like Counter Clock, Season 7 literally just kicked off last month, or Park Predators, our summer show which is now a weekly show. I know last week you heard from Kylie Lowe, host of Dark Down East. Well, this week Ashley is passing the mic over to me to tell you about a cold case from the Carolinas that needs your attention. For 30 years, the unsolved murder of a young mother found shot to death on an isolated South Carolina cul-de-sac has haunted her family. They feared they'd carry the

mystery of Deborah's death to their own graves. That is, until our investigation raised new questions and sparked fresh hope. I'm Delia D'Ambra and this is the Deck. At At 1120 a.m. on Sunday, October 23rd, 1994, two officers from the Richland County Sheriff's Department responded to a call about a possible homicide on quiet rural Chartell Circle. As they pulled towards the end of the one-block street, they spotted something eerie that honestly sounds like a scene from a horror movie. Four people standing at the edge of a cul-de-sac, all pointing in the same direction, at the body of a young woman lying motionless on the asphalt. He walked up and the first thing he noticed was blood around the head of this female, partially clothed,

shoes, and another clothing material, materials awry around her body. I'm pretty sure that the first thing he thought, oh, this is a murder. Not like an accident or something. It looks pretty heinous. That's Richland County Sheriff's Department cold case investigator Jeff Fuller. He said when the officers took a closer look, they saw the woman had an apparent gunshot wound to the head, a likely source for all that blood pulled under it. And there was so much blood. He said there was no doubt she'd been shot right there where she lay now.

The young woman was wearing a white crewneck sweatshirt with a black bra underneath, but she was nude from the waist down, except for the socks on her feet and a pair of blue and green flower-printed pants clutched against her chest and draped over her torso. It looks like she's trying to cover herself up. So apparently that was done before she was shot, because she was shot in such a way that she couldn't do it afterwards, I don't think. There was no size marked on the tag of the pants, but when police carefully removed them from her grasp, they found a pair of men's briefs, size 32-34 waist, that were inside. As far as what else they gathered from around the scene, it was kind of a mixed bag.

Some items felt significant, but they also had to wade through a lot of trash that was scattered around the general area. For some context, the cul-de-sac itself was surrounded only by weeds and woods, and the area seemed to be a popular spot for the things people do in the dark. Those remote areas tax people doing things so attention-seeking, whether they're making out or drinking beer or doing drugs. It's everywhere on those kind of areas. It's kind of like going to a state park and trying to figure out Joe Smith's beer can

out of all those that are laying around here. It's hard to do. Officers gathered more than a dozen items from the general vicinity, including beer cans, some discarded clothing, and a towel found along the edge of the woods. They didn't know if any of that would relate to their victim, but better safe than sorry. There were some other items closer to where she was found, though, that felt more promising. Officers collected two 9mm shell casings, one from under her head and one by her feet. They also collected a condom and a condom wrapper and a pair of white high-top sneakers

that had been placed on the soles side by side near her feet. Officers also photographed some tire skid marks on the pavement at the entrance to the cul-de-sac, more than 50 feet from where she lay. The only other physical evidence they got would come from her autopsy. According to that report, she appeared to have been pretty healthy before her death. way. The only other physical evidence they got would come from her autopsy. According to that report, she appeared to have been pretty healthy before her death. The coroner found she'd actually been shot twice in the head. The first bullet entered her left cheek and exited just above her right ear, and the second

entered the right side of her head, near the top of her skull. That one was found lodged around her left cheekbone. The location and upward angle of the first gunshot wound told investigators she was likely in a car and possibly trying to get out when she was shot. Now, at this point, you don't know if that's a fatal shot. It could have gone through the sinus cavities. It's probably a fatal shot shortly. But then is the person jumping out of the car when this happens and the head's tilted down making that shot. How does that get to be at that angle? Are they jumping out and get shot? And then I think you could make a very high percentage guess that once the person was

on the ground, there was a shot to the head." Now a sexual assault exam didn't provide any forensic evidence and her nails were too short to be tested. But after running her fingerprints, they finally got a name. Deborah Perry. She was 29 years old and had gotten into some legal trouble for forged checks a couple of years prior. That's why they had her prints. Along with her name, they got an address where she'd last been living, seven miles from Chartel Circle. A few residents in the area reportedly saw her leaving home the night before, Saturday, October 22nd.

She told at least one of them she was going to make a phone call, and this is 1994, so she was probably heading to use a payphone at a nearby corner store. But who she called, where she called from, how she got from there to Chartel Circle, and why she was there at all is a mystery. It's not an easy walk from that apartment to the cul-de-sac, and it isn't somewhere you just happen to come across, which would indicate she got there by car.

Fuller told us investigators learned she might have known people in the Chartel Circle area and been involved in sex work. And a toxicology report came back positive for cocaine in her system, so maybe she was there to purchase from someone or to meet a client and things got out of hand. There were too many questions and not enough answers, but investigators hoped her family might be able to give them more. Soon after Deborah was identified, Richland County investigators learned she had seven children, all of whom were in foster care, having been removed from her care sometime

after her arrest for the forgery charge. The father of her children, a guy named Danny Davis, was in prison on an accessory to robbery charge. So, they contacted Danny's sister, Jennifer Davis, who would end up helping raise Debra's children along with her mom and her grandmother. Jennifer actually went down to the morgue to identify Debra.

Debra's hair was cut very short, and that wasn't the only physical change since Jennifer had last seen her several years earlier. She had lost a whole lot of weight. Like she just was running, you know, just in the streets, just running. It was terrible. I can say I'm a whole lot of weight. Like she just was running, you know, just in the streets, just running. It was terrible. I can say I'm a tough cookie.

And I've been in the nursing field also. So I guess I was able to handle that. That was Jennifer. And after speaking with her and the family, investigators learned Debra's struggles began early. She'd grown up in New York City, close to Jennifer and Danny's family. Jennifer told us she'd actually visited the Perry family apartment in the late 1970s or

early 80s. I noticed that it was not a home, not the way that my mom had a home. My mom had a home, you understand what I mean? Like when we walked into her home, there was no furniture. The walls were dark. There was one mattress on the floor in the living room. So when she took us into the kitchen, there was just a small little table there with a bottle of Thunderbird, ashes, and an ashtray. She opened up the refrigerator like a young kid would, you know.

And when she opened up the refrigerator, me and my siblings were standing there. There was nothing in the refrigerator. No supervision because her mom was on drugs. And when I did see her mom, her mom was getting high with her brothers. So that would be Deborah's uncles and they would be sitting outside playing music, getting high. It was always like on a Friday.

By the time she was 10 or 11, Deborah had fallen into the same habits as the rest of her family. And when she and Danny started dating when they were both young teens, he fell into those habits too. I've always asked him from time to time, you know, why did you turn to drugs when she introduced it to you? And he said he loved her. And he felt that if this is what she's doing, then I need to do the same thing that she's doing. That was his mindset. By 1984, Danny and Debra had three kids and were bouncing from shelter to shelter in New York.

So Jennifer's mom sent them money to help them relocate to South Carolina, where she and Jennifer were living at the time. The family was hoping a new start would mean a fresh start for Danny and Debra, but it wasn't. The substance abuse continued. Both had run-ins with the the law and Deborah had four more children before her life was cut short.

She had visits with the children, Jennifer said, but no one in the family knew much about the details of her life in the final few years. With little information from family, investigators also struggled to find solid leads, and the few solid leads they did have, Detective Fuller couldn't tell us much about. For instance, according to the case file on November 10th, they brought in a man for a polygraph. He'd been arrested by the Richland County Sheriff's Office in 1990,

but the file doesn't say what the charge was and Fuller didn't know either. We do know the results of that polygraph test showed deceptive intent. If investigators dug more into this guy, I can't say. There's nothing in the file about an alibi and the absence of any other information about him from that point on makes it seem like investigators thought he was a dead end. They ended up determining that the two 9 millimeter bullets used in the murder

came from the same gun, a Luger. We know they tested them against two weapons that Detective Fuller says were used in another crime. It was just standard procedure to run the comparison, I guess. So, they weren't necessarily surprised when neither was a match. And those shoes found near Deborah's body were assumed to be hers, but there's no record of any forensic testing on them. Forensic testing on the condom, the beer cans, and the other items they found towards the edge of the woods also led nowhere.

And the flowered pants, those were still a big question mark. Based on our research, it seems pretty likely these pants, which didn't have a fly, are women's, but that doesn't fully explain the men's underwear inside of them. Sure, they could have been hers, but it was never determined. And investigators didn't do any initial testing on a spot of blood on the pants. In fact, they either didn't notice it or assumed all the blood came from Deborah. Which I know feels a little infuriating, but this was the early 90s. The use of DNA testing in cases was a precious resource, not always utilized for, pick your favorite reason. So it's not all that surprising that Deborah's case went cold.

Her kids grew up without their mom and believed they'd never get answers about what happened to her. But in 2009, they saw on the news that her case had been reopened and the Richland County Sheriff's Department was asking for tips. According to that story on News 19 in Columbia, police had spoken with a witness who claimed to have seen a man with a medium build walking on Chartel Circle the night of Debra's murder. And get this, the witness said the man was wearing flowered pants. Debra's daughter, Janetta Holmes, told us that detail made her stop in her tracks. Not

because she knew her mom had been found with flowered pants. In fact, she'd never heard that detail. It was because she knew a man who'd regularly worn flowered pants back when her mom was killed. It was someone her mom had been romantically involved with. We'll call this man Gerald, and Janetta's aunt Jennifer said he operated a club where Debra worked for a time when she and Danny were broken up and Danny was in prison. Gerald was married when he and Debra got involved, but he had a temper and may not have liked that Debra was also involved with other men. Jennifer believes that jealousy could have been a motive for the murder. "...just kind of picture if a man knows that you're a cheating woman, you're a woman that

runs the streets, you're with all kinds of men. And you are on drugs. But he loves you. And he catches you out there with another man. So now he's just to the point where he's getting crazier and crazier. He fights you because he did fight her. He was abusing her physically. And for him to see whatever he's seen, I guess he just, he could have shot her. It felt like a solid theory.

And Janetta says a family member did go to police with it, but they never heard if investigators did anything with the tip. Well, we found out that they had done something. You see, by 2009, when they got this tip from family, they'd already had new forensic testing done on the crime scene evidence. They'd learned that spot of blood on the pants had actually come from a man, and they even had a partial DNA profile. So once they got the tip about Gerald, they went and got a DNA sample from him. But it was not a match. Fuller didn't know if investigators had asked Gerald if the pants and

underwear found with Debra belonged to him, so we tried to reach Gerald for ourselves to see if Debra could have borrowed his clothes on a previous visit. But as of this recording, we haven't been able to make contact with him. As for the witness who claimed to have seen a man walking in flowered pants on Chartel Circle the night of the crime, it's possible that person actually saw Debra. At 5'2'' and 130 pounds, she was definitely smaller than a man with a medium build, but since her hair was cut in a pixie cut, it's possible that the witness just mistook her for a guy from afar.

The man in the flowered pants might be a dead end, but it wasn't the family's only theory. And some of the other theories they had, they'd never shared with police. But they did share them with us. Not long after Jennifer identified Debra in the morgue and noticed her short hair, she'd heard a disturbing story that Debra had been attacked by a group of girls who cut off her hair. But if Debra had been involved in some ongoing feud, there was no record of it in the case file and Jennifer didn't know the names of the alleged attackers. Jennifer also told us that soon after Debra was murdered, a relative overheard a man discussing the crime and claiming he was present when it happened.

But the relative was too scared to tell her who it was for fear that they'd be killed. And she said Danny had an encounter while he was locked up with someone who knew about Deborah's murder. He told me there were guys talking. As you know, in jail, they find out everything that's going on in the streets.

There were some guys talking about the situation and what happened to her. Danny's out of prison now and living in Burlington, Vermont. was some guys talking about the situation and what happened to her." Danny's out of prison now and living in Burlington, Vermont. So our reporter Madison gave him a call and he agreed to talk. He said that back around 1997, he was working in the wood shop in a prison in Greenville, South Carolina. A guy in the shop overheard Danny saying that the mother of his children had been murdered near Columbia. Here's Danny recalling hearing this. Danny said when he showed the guy a picture of Debra, the guy said,

"...I know her." He told Danny he'd been in a relationship with Debra while Danny was locked up, and that they'd gone to New York together, and he thought Debra might have been running drugs. "...it was like yo, for all I know, she went to get a kid coke and a kid, her off. And he said yo, when she got back, said, this cat robbed her and they murdered her. And he said, the kid that I believe did it, he got murdered too. I'm like, really?

But despite this, there's absolutely no way for us to know if either one of these guys, the relative who claimed he overheard someone admitting to the murder or the guy Danny met in prison, actually know anything about it. But Danny and Debra's daughter, Janetta, believes there could be something there. Her dad doesn't remember the name of the guy he talked to in prison and he doesn't know the name of the kid who was the alleged trigger man, who also got murdered, but he does have at least

partial names for the people who supposedly set it up. One went by the name of Milton, and another guy went by the name of Polo. They were the two big dog drug dealers in Columbia. They went by those nicknames. Jennifer also thinks the story the guy in prison told Danny is plausible based on what Danny has told her about Debra and her drug dealings over the years.

From what he said to me, what I can remember is that the guy started talking to him and telling him that she was rough. She was a rough cookie. And also that whoever the guys were that was trying to, I guess, put her on to selling with them or selling for them, they pulled a gun out on her. And before they could pull, she had already pulled. So they said, oh, so you're a roughneck, you know, you don't play. So it's like we want you on our team. So I guess that's when she got initiated in or whatever the case may be.

They trusted her, probably gave her drugs to sell, not realizing that she was on drugs. And like any other, you know, drug deal gone bad, she probably used it. When they were looking for their money, she had already used it. It certainly wouldn't be the first time a drug deal gone bad turned into a murder, but there's really no way to verify any of this since we don't know who Milton or Polo are. So put all that information firmly in the rumor category.

Fuller hadn't heard those names either, so after our team spoke with Jennifer, Janetta, and the rest of the family, we made sure to put them back in touch with the Richland County Sheriff's Department so investigators could follow up on any new leads. And there is still hope for new leads. In 2022, Fuller was reviewing cold cases and realized there was evidence in Debra's case that could be

retested for familial DNA links to a suspect. He sent the male blood found at the scene for additional analysis, hoping new technology would provide a break. The blood was sent for DNA analysis beyond the capability of our lab because it was so degraded that special extraction techniques had to be done. It took three times to get that done to the point that any kind of genome count at all and it was very, very low.

There's simply not enough information in the maps that generate additional leads on the identity of the subject. Now it may change as people donate, get their DNA in the public. Fuller said that DNA testing conducted on the men's underwear in 2010 was a bust, but the underwear wasn't submitted for new testing in 2022 along with the blood stain from the pants. And Fuller said he's now checking to see if it can be retested to determine who was wearing it, Debra or a suspect. Janetta and her family are hoping that new forensic technology will provide a break in the case, or that new witnesses will come forward with information

that leads to Deborah's killer. Janetta grew up living with her paternal great-grandmother and is now 36 and a mother herself. She's broken the cycle of poverty and addiction that had such a devastating impact on her mother's short life. Her aunt Jennifer and grandmother Maddie are proud and think Deborah would be too.

But this one was raised by my father's mother. And she, having stilled all of those old values, she can cook her behind off. Listen, she takes care of her kids. They are so loving and caring, and oh my goodness. So out of all of her siblings, she's the mother. Janetta believes her mother wanted to do better by her children and might have had she had the chance.

Even though my aunts and my grandmothers stepped up, they did everything they could, it still doesn't take the place of having my biological mother. And you know, still yet things have happened to me while growing up. You know, my siblings and I And still yet, things have happened to me while growing up. My siblings and I, all kinds of things has happened to us. But I feel as though if my mother was here, it could have been a little different. Things could have went a little different because in due time, people do change.

But the things that my siblings and I have been through, I mean, it only made us stronger. But still, it's not right. She also told us her mother has come to her in her dreams. When she came to me, it was always to let me know that I was expecting a baby every single time. Jennifer also believes that Deborah's spirit is restless and wants the case solved. She even believes Deborah played a role in our decision to cover the case for this podcast.

For you to pick her, that lets me know she wants her children to know exactly who killed her. And hopefully the police can find who this person is because the kids are broken, even though they're adults, even though they have children of their own and husbands of their own. It still plays in the back of their minds and it never leaves because it's unresolved. If you have information about the 1994 murder of Deborah Perry, please contact Crimestoppers at 1-888-CRIMESC.

The Deck is an AudioChuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about The Deck and our advocacy work, visit the deckpodcast.com. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode and another special surprise. So what do you think Chuck? Do you approve?