The Deck - Deshawna Wilkerson (3 of Clubs, Ohio)

Episode Date: January 17, 2024

Deshawna was a bright, recent high-school graduate who was so excited for her future in nursing. She loved helping others, and she wanted to make it her career. But late one night in October 2001, someone saw to it that Deshawna would never have a chance to help anyone ever again.If you know what Sam’s phone number or numbers were back in 2001, please contact the Dayton Cold Case Unit at [phone], or you can submit a tip to the Miami Valley Crime Stoppers at 1-800-637-5375.If you have been sexually assaulted, please contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673. Let us deal you in… follow The Deck on social media.Instagram: @thedeckpodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @thedeckpodcast_ | @audiochuckFacebook: /TheDeckPodcast | /audiochuckllc The Deck is hosted by Ashley Flowers. Instagram: @ashleyflowersTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieTwitter: @Ash_FlowersFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AFFollow The Deck on social media and join Ashley’s community by texting [phone] to stay up to date on what's new!

Our card this week is Dishana Wilkerson, the three of clubs from Ohio. Dishana was a bright, recent high school graduate who was so excited for her future in nursing. She loved helping others and she wanted to make it her career. But late one night in October 2001, someone saw to it that Dishana would never have a chance to help anyone, ever, again. I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is The Deck. After I night out at the bar with some friends, a man in his mid-20s, who we'll call John, arrived back home a little before midnight on October 21, 2001. He walked into his bedroom, which he occasionally shared with his new girlfriend Asana.

And he was thrown off when he saw the gifts and roses he had put on the bed for her were just sitting there there untouched. It was sweet as day the day before, and if you've never heard of this holiday, you're not alone. I've never heard of it either. But based on my research, it's a holiday, basically like a pre-Valentine stay in October. And this day was a big deal to John, and he was already a little annoyed that DeShana hadn't called him to thank him for the gifts, but now it seemed like she hadn't even seen them. He knew that she had gotten off work at 11 just a little while before he got home and he was expecting that her mom would have dropped her off by now.

So John walked out of his room to ask his mom where Dishonet was. John lived at home with his mom who we'll call Beth, and she told him that Dishonet did get home a little after 11 that night, but just a few seconds after setting foot inside, she told Beth that she had to step out to take a phone call. She said she'd be right back, so Beth didn't even think about it again until now, but now Beth is realizing that Dishana never returned. In an instant, John was worried, less that something bad had happened and more that Dishana

hated his gifts. He started calling Dishana over and over and over again. He did this through the night and into the next day when he felt like it was a reasonable ish enough hour to call Dishana's mom, Danita. And Danita told John the same thing Beth had that she dropped her daughter off a little after 11 and everything seemed normal. She hadn't come back to pick her up at any point, so she had no idea why Dishonn wouldn't be at John's and Beth's.

And that's when it hit John where she might be. Even though she spent most of her time at John and his mom's house, she had just turned 18 and had gotten her own apartment. John had a key, so he and Anita worried herself now went over to check things out. Here's retired Sergeant Bruce May, who's working cold cases with the Dayton Police Department. And they went out to her apartment

that she had rented just recently, and it was the same, very clean, very nice. Nothing was disturbed, and they checked it out, and everything was fine, but disturbing because she hadn't been there. Seeing Dishon as apartment, and everything was fine, but disturbing because she hadn't been there. Seeing Dishon as apartment, tidy and untouched, just confused John and Anita even more. Still worried that maybe Dishon had seen his gifts and not liked them, John decided to

stop it in nearby gas station and get her an extra gift just in case. He wasn't sure if she was mad at him or just having a bad day, but he wanted to cover all his bases. At the gas station, John noticed a large police presence, just a block away. Now, he didn't think anything of it then, and just focused on getting his extra gift. But what he didn't know was that those officers were establishing a crime scene around the very person he was looking for. Around 1130 that morning, the police department had gotten reports that the deceased body of a severely beaten woman had been discovered into an alleyway in West Dayton. It appeared as though she had been dragged back there and dumped, and considering this

was a pretty high traffic area, responding officers concluded that she couldn't have been there for very long. Her eyes were nearly swollen shut and she had signs of other blunt force trauma all over her body. A later autopsy would show that she had been stomped on, so hard that seven of her ribs broke. But what ultimately killed her was being strangled from behind by some kind of ligature. This poor woman hadn't even had the chance to defend herself because her hands had been tied up behind her back with shoe strings. Probably the ones from her left shoe, which was missing. That shoe wasn't anywhere in the alley with her, but her left sock was. Just not on her foot. It had been stuffed in her mouth to silence her. Now, there were obvious signs of sexual assault,

though officers didn't think that that happened there. Her purple-flowered scrub top was pushed up, exposing one of her breasts, and her green scrub pants were pulled down to her knees. There was no idea on this woman, not a phone, not a purse, nothing. But she did have a large tattoo that spelled out a name. Dishonor. Though, they didn't know if that was her name or someone she knew, so while they were still getting their arms wrapped around the case, she was listed as a Jane Doe. Within a few hours, that would change. John and Danita had come to the conclusion that they needed to report Dishonor

missing. So the two of them walked into the police station to file a missing person's report, and that is when everything fell into place. John and Danita knew then why Doshana never came home, and detectives finally knew who their Jane Doe was. But now they had a bigger mystery to solve. Who killed Doshana? The first person they wanted to talk to was John. The age gap between him and Doshana stuck out to detectives.

She just turned 18, but as far as out to detective, something she just turned 18. But as far as a violent history, he didn't have one. John had a criminal record, but his criminal record has been quite old. The latest thing was 99, and that was a criminal damaging. And that's been a long time ago. And he hasn't anything since then. He also is gainfully employed." John was quickly ruled out as a person of interest. His friends backed his story of being out at a pub the entire window of time between Wendashan arrived home and then when she disappeared.

Beth tried as best she could to fill in the little bit of that 12-hour window. She told Detective that Dishonn is seemed happy and relaxed when she got to their house. She wasn't nervous or anxious about whatever call she was stepping out to take, and Beth wasn't expecting her to go anywhere. I mean, she made it seem to Beth like this was a call that would only take a second. She really couldn't wrap her head around what had happened because if something was wrong, she felt like Dishonn would have said something. Because Beth wasn't just the boy friend's mom.

She and Dishonn were close. Not like DeShana would have said something, because Beth wasn't just the boy friend's mom. She and DeShana were close. I mean, DeShana even called Beth Mom and she loved spending time with her. But DeShana was lucky and that she also had a close relationship with her biological mother, DeNita. So, detectives hoped that maybe she would know more than Beth. When DeNita came in to talk to them, she painted a glowing image of her daughter and all her aspirations.

Doshana was an exemplary girl. She had just graduated from high school. She was planning on attending Sinclair. Sinclair is a two-year college here in Dayton. She wanted to be a nurse, but she was a great woman and a great lady. She had no background in any type of crime. Doshana was a bright girl who loved writing poetry, but she was a little shy when it came to her writing, so she'd only share her favorite writings with family. She didn't have any known enemies, and Denita couldn't think of a single person who'd want to hurt her daughter. Jen spoke to her at all in the crucial 12-hour window detectives were trying to fill, but she suggested

that they go talk to Dishonn's co-workers at the nursing home where she had worked that night. Maybe they would know more about her state of mind that night, or what she'd been planning if anything. And those co-workers did know something helpful. They said that there was one person who seemed to be at odds with Dishonn right before her death, someone who lived actually close to where her body had been found. It was another one of their co-workers, a man who will call Frank.

They told detectives that a few days before Dishonor's murder, Frank had come into work with scratches on his hands. And they found out that those scratches came from Dishonor when she and Frank had gotten into a fight, they'd even witnessed it. So Frank was next on their list to talk to. In just 48 hours after the crime, Frank was called down to the police station and immediately told detectives that he'd tell them everything. Frank said that he worked with Doshana at the nursing home, and he'd had a crush on her for a while. He was about three or four years older than her, and he'd developed feelings when they were working together.

He said that he'd finally worked up the courage to ask her out, but it didn't go well. His advances were too forward, and it made her angry. He said, yeah, she scratched me me and she didn't want me around. He appeared to be very truthful. The detectives at the time were satisfied. He said he was too aggressive in the fashion of trying to date her and she shut him down. And he said, I was shut down, coldly.

I don't know the gravity of the scratches. And they call him down and usually, if you are the perpetrator, you make up lies. Everything he said was the truth. They never put him anywhere near her at that time, and he had good alibis. Frank even agreed to a polygraph, but due to medication he was on, the polygraph wasn't able to be completed. Detectives still felt like he was telling the truth, though. And whatever his alibi was, they say that it was solid enough that even despite the physical

altercation, he was pretty much at the bottom of their suspect list. A list that honestly didn't have many names on it at this point. Detectives hope that maybe any evidence collected at the scene could help give them their next break. They asked the lab to check her clothes and what little belonging she had left for latent prints and blood, and they submitted her vaginal swabs for the presence of semen. They also pulled records for Dishonn's phone and pager, thinking that if they could track down that last call she left to make, or maybe any weird numbers calling her they could find her killer. But before they got any results back,

they got some unsettling news. In December 2001, just five weeks after Dishana was murdered, John's mom Beth was attacked. She was assaulted in her home, tied up with shoe strings, and robbed before the perpetrator fled out of the bathroom window right as cops were arriving. The similarities in this weren't lost on detectives. The shoe strings, the fact that Beth was targeted in the exact same home that Dishana had last been in before her murder,

I mean, the big difference was that Beth had made it out with her life. But that meant she could name her attacker. And she did, because it turned out that Beth knew him. He was one of John's friends. Someone we're gonna call Sam. But forget talking to Sam about Dishonus murder, because they couldn't even find him to arrest him for Beth's attack.

I mean, dude was in the wind. So while a manhunt was underway, they hoped maybe that evidence would continue to help them build their case, maybe have some DNA to test against Sam if and when they found him. Those results arrived in January of 2002, but they were the opposite of helpful. The item submitted came back negative for latent prints, and the analysis of the vaginal swab was inconclusive for semen. Though, they weren't completely devoid of DNA. The testing showed that there was a mixture of DNA of some other kind. They know Doshana was one of the contributors, but the technology wasn't advanced enough at the time to give any more information on who the other contributor might be.

The cell records they got were unhelpful, too. Now, we weren't given a ton of details on the exact numbers that came in or were dialed out, probably because there is still some fuzziness around it for cold case detectives. May told us that he's been trying to get in touch with the OG detective on this case, but he hasn't heard back from him. But the one thing May did tell us is there's a suspicious call placed to Dishonors phone at 12.02 am on October 22, 2001. Now the number might have been from a burner phone, they aren't sure.

But they have some questions that they think the public now can help them with, so I'm actually going to give you some more information on how you might be able to help at the end of this episode. With that, though, every piece of evidence got filed back away for safekeeping in hopes that it could be tested again later on. All of 2002 passed with no progress, and no Sam. But he finally surfaced in January of 2003. He was arrested and made to stand trial for his attack on Beth. And listen, court proceedings rarely play out like you see them on TV, but this trial, this one had a peri-mason moment, and if you don't know what it is, ask your mom.

On the stand, Beth told everyone about her attack in December 2001. She was robbed and physically assaulted in her own home. She told the court how her son's friend Sam knocked on her door really and asked to speak with her son John. When she told him John wasn't there, he asked for his phone number, but something in her gut told her not to give it to him. So instead, she said she'd go get her phone and call John for him. Now as she's walking back to her bedroom and searching her phone for John's contact,

she presses dial to call John, and at the same time, Sam was suddenly behind her holding a knife to her throat. He demanded that she give him all her money, and he told her, quote, I'm getting ready to leave town. She said she dumped her purse on the bed and gave him the $23 she had, but he demanded more. Now what Sam didn't realize is that the call to John that Beth had been making had actually gone through. He picked up and he was hearing all of this on the other end of the line. So he freaked out and he had the friend he was with, called his sister and called

the police while he stayed on the line with his mom. So that's why police ended up showing up and Sam ended up fleeing. Now back in 2001, Beth had told police that Sam tied her up and escaped out of the window just as police were arriving and Beth's daughter were coming into the house. So during trial, Sam's defense attorney is like poking at her, poking at this, saying things like, okay, well, other than tying you up, did he touch you? But did he touch you? And I know what he was doing.

The case against his client wasn't looking great, so best he could do at that point was mitigate. It seems like he was trying to make it seem like what happened to her wasn't that bad, but that backfired. Because that is when the truth that she had kept to herself for almost two years can pouring out of her. For the first time, in court on the stand, Beth told everyone that Sam had actually raped her that night. Beth recalled the assault in detail, including how Sam made her wash herself in front of him before

he left to retrieve shoe strings from John's room to tie her up. Beth told Detectives that she never got medical treatment and never told anyone about the sexual assault because she was afraid if her son found out he would do something to hurt Sam and end up in jail. Thankfully, though, it was Sam who ended up in jail. He faced charges of aggravated robbery, kidnapping, felonious assault, and rape. But in the end, he took a plea deal.

He pled guilty to aggravated robbery and kidnapping, and the assault and rape charges were dropped. So he was sentenced to seven years for his crimes against Beth. While Sam was incarcerated, detectives began looking into his history and found that this wasn't his first assault. In 1986, when Sam was a teen, he was convicted on sexual assault charges and spent about nine years in prison. When Sam was 18, he attempted to rape. A young lady in La Roosevelt Center, it was an office building, and we have a lady that we'll call

Deb. There was a temporary there by Sam. Sam Inardin, he had a knife with him at that time, which was commonality with him. He seems to carry knives during his assault. He also seems to choke people, and he confronted Deb. He was very physical with her. He hit her so hard she took 14 stitches in her forehead where he hit her in the head. She was a small build, five foot tall, hundred pounds, and she was about 40. And he tried to stab her. And when he did, she was wearing a large medallion, and the knife went into the medallion and bent it, which is probably what saved her life. And he continued to try to cut her,

and she had several superficial cuts. Of course, she was screaming and yelling during this period of time. He also, he was telling her different sexual things on what he was going to do to her, while he was beating her. A security guard for the Roosevelt Center heard her screams, responded, and scared Sam away

from the scene and he escaped that day before a brief period of time until he was arrested at that time for attempt murder, attempt rape, and felonies assault. Nine years in jail for that, I'm always amazed at how attempted murder is treated in our courts. Violent, deviant attempted murder. The medallion got in your way, so better luck next time. And we'll give you a sentence that'll ensure there is an X time. Sam is a sure rapist.

We already have three that we believe he is intimately involved with, been convicted of two out of three. Also, because of his violent nature, where the two that he was convicted on appears the only thing that stopped him was some interruption from law enforcement and or security and or family, and he would have killed them. We feel that he would have followed through on all of them,

especially Beth because he knew her, she knew him. And Sam knew Dishana through John, and he lived only about eight blocks from where her body was found in the alley. Sam was a large man, he was about six foot three, two seventy five at the time, and they believed that he would have been fully capable of overpowering Dishana, who was five nine and a strong woman. They also find the timing of Beth's attack and what he told her meaningful. I mean, it was just a few weeks after Dishana's murder when he was at Beth's to rob her,

saying that he needed to get out of town. Luckily, Sam was incarcerated now, so they felt like they had a little time to confirm their suspicions before going to Sam directly with their questions. When detectives sat back down with John, they asked him about his relationship with Sam. John told them that he was sick, knowing what Sam had done to his mom, especially because he thought him and Sam were friends. I mean, John and Sam worked together. They hung out sometimes outside of work.

And John thought Sam was alright, though he knew that Dishonn hated him. It just never occurred to him that Sam could be so evil. John actually choked up when he talked about Sam's potential connection to Dishon's death, but he told detectives he wanted to help however he could. After their conversation, on January 17, 2003, detectives headed to the prison where Sam was kept and asked him for a DNA sample. Retired Detective Doyle Burke, who worked on the case back in 2003, remembers Sam's exact words to him.

I ain't giving up, okay? So we decided to call the Trump card on that and go get a search warrant to get his DNA from him, which we did search for him. He was signed by Judge McCallum on February 3rd, and we got his DNA. And vaginal swabbing's recovered at the autopsy showed there is DNA out of the victim and that was why we did that. Technology was still not advanced enough in 2003 to confirm whether Sam was the perpetrator or not.

But he was locked away unable to harm other people, or at least he would be for, you know, seven years tops. Again, better look next time, Sam. It wasn't until 2009 and 10 that detectives took another look at the case and resubmitted the evidence, hoping that they would get hits on any of the DNA. But still, nothing. DNA has advanced so much in recent years that it is so much better than 2003, or the last time things were submitted in 2009 or 10, it just increases by the day and in six months you're going to have something better.

We have a lot of hope that it can solve this case. The problem with cold case investigators run into is we get a lot of hope up all the time and when it comes back it destroys our feelings because it hurts. And we hate to see it through the victims and everything. Year after year, working on cold cases can take a toll on detectives. But the continued fight for justice is what makes big or small breakthroughs even sweeter. Like May said, DNA advancements are moving forward at lightning speed. And hits of DNA are coming off clothing and items that have been stored correctly so much more

than they have in the last 10 to 15 years. And these days, Detective May has the big guns helping him test it, the Bureau of Criminal Investigation. The Bureau of BCI is what that's called. And BCI is so professional and above board that not only are they analyzing our stuff in a greater fashion because of scientific development and everything, but they're also doing it because they have to overcome any questions that may be asked about the previous analyzation. In doing so, they put us through a rigorous exercise of submitting every facet of it to a board.

The board approves what it's looked at. Then they analyze it and they want to be able to say, we never let anything influence us. We have analyzed this individually with all the policy procedures across the nation in the highest example. They have this board. they have analytical people there, they have the supervisors of the various squads, which means they not only listen to and have a submit,

all the reports from all the witnesses, all the crime scene pictures, everything like that, totally inclusive in this investigation. Then, in this is what we love about them, they will take apart all the evidence you have, and this is what we love about them, they will take apart all the evidence you have, and sometimes we go up there because the DNA people are so good, they see things that we don't see that they can get DNA off of, and we've had a recent cold case from back in 1978, and they got the DNA off of her clothing where a perpetrator

grabbed and pulled it. That was spectacular and that's still under investigation now. And I can't brag about BCI enough. They're not reinventing the wheel. They're making sure that your case is airtight. Retired Sergeant May and his team submitted their case in November last year. And now the Dayton Cold Case Unit is waiting on results from the BCI, which sometimes takes a while.

We have such a violent society right now, and I'll call them hot cases, take precedent over cold cases because we want to stop the people that are here inflicting harm as we speak. We understand that some of our cold cases cannot take a priority. And we're last in line in homicides world when it comes to amylizations. I know it's how it works, but that sucks. It feels almost like working backwards sometimes. A cold case is one where the perpetrator got away, as in is still out there, maybe creating hot cases as Detective May put it.

I know everyone's doing what they can with what they have, but if we don't keep asking how it can be better, I don't think it ever will be. But I'm not ending this on a downer, because even though it's taken time, the BCI has the case now, and the Dayton police are hoping there's enough evidence in their case to resubmit everything for DNA testing, and the unit is confident that they won't be waiting for very long. So they're still doing what they can to keep things moving on their end. And they're under more pressure than ever because the clock actually ran out on Sam's time in jail.

He got out somewhere around 2011 to 2013. He's been out ever since he's residing in Dayton now. May has gone back looking into similar cases that fit Sam's MO in the area around the 90s and early 2000s. And they have found some. One happened in 1999 and it involved a robbery, shoe strings, and a sexual assault. Except in this case, there were two men, one of which matching closely to Sam's profile at the time. That's all we can say for now. Oh, other than the fact that the house she was at was like two to three blocks away from where Sam lived at the time. May believes that there are many more cases that haven't been reported. And actually, that's part

of the reason they wanted us to do this episode. We are very, very curious from anybody that's hearing this sub-roadcast. If you have been raped, please tell us if you're holding back because you're protecting your family, don't do that. We really need all the information we can on this man to get him off the street. all the information we can on this man to get him off the street. The Dayton Police are asking anyone who may have been attacked by Sam to contact them. Remember, Sam is not his real name, but investigators are confident that those who live in the area or knew him will know who he is despite the pseudonym. Now, even if you weren't attacked by Sam, but you know him or knew him, this is where

I told you I was going to ask for help. If you knew what his phone number or numbers were, back in 2001, retired Sergeant May and the Dayton Cold Case Unit want to know. You can reach them at 937-333-7109. Or if you need to remain anonymous, you can submit a tip to the Miami Valley Crime Stoppers at 1-800-637-5375. And finally, if you were the last phone call to Dishana, if you talked to her on October 21, 2001 around 11.30 or a midnight, detectives will love to talk to you.

And if you yourself have been sexually assaulted, by Sam or anyone else, I want you to know that there are safe spaces where you can talk to someone about what happened. The National Sexual Assault Hotline number is 1-800-656-4673. 4, 6, 7, 3. The Deck is an audio chuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about the Deck and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast.com. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?