True Crime with Kimbyr - Black Friday Horror: The Shocking Murder of Ashley Anne Harris: Part 2

Episode Date: April 9, 2025

As investigators dig deeper into Ashley Anne Harris’s tragic murder, shocking details begin to emerge. In this gripping episode of True Crime with Kimbyr, Kimbyrleigha unpacks the events leading up to that fateful Black Friday and the key suspects in the case. Was Ashley’s death a random act of violence, or was there something more sinister at play? With new revelations and disturbing twists, the search for justice intensifies. Who had a motive, and what secrets were lurking beneath the surface? Don’t miss this crucial chapter in Ashley’s heart breaking story. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In order to get to the bottom of this, he decided it was time to question those witnesses. One of them was Alexis Torres. She explained she had seen Ashley the previous afternoon at a gathering with friends on Thanksgiving Day. And according to her, Ashley had to work on Thanksgiving in order to prep the store, American Eagle, for Black Friday. It was going to be a rush the next day. Ashley was scheduled to work from 6 p.m. to 3 o'clock in the morning. The mall actually closed at 8 p.m., But the after hours Black Friday preparations would then begin thereafter, and she would most likely not get off work until after three. So their group of friends decided to have an early Thanksgiving dinner so that Ashley could attend.

Now during dinner, Alexis had agreed to go over Ashley's apartment during her shift to stay with Nala. And this was not a strange request. Everyone knew how much Nala meant to Ashley, and she wouldn't want to leave her alone too long. Ashley finally arrived back home from work at around 3.40 a.m. in those early morning hours of November 28th. And Alexis was there to greet her. They visited with one another in Ashley's apartment until about 4.45 in the morning.

At that point, Ashley needed some sleep because she told Alexis she had to take a nap before waking up and heading right back into work for Black Friday. Alexis also told Detective Sidio that Ashley had asked her to stay over, but she couldn't because she had her dad struck that night and she needed to take it back to him. That was the last time she saw Ashley. Alexis said she remembers Ashley locking the door when she left.

Then, about two hours later, at 6.56 a.m., Ashley had attempted to call Alexis, but she missed that call. So about two to three minutes later, when she noticed she had a missed call from Ashley, Alexis said she tried to call her back, but she was unsuccessful in reaching her. If Alexis' story is true, then that meant whoever committed this heinous crime had done so between the hours of 6.56 a.m. and 7.30 a.m. that morning. And that's not a big window of opportunity. So Sidio decided to keep his eye on Alexis,

but he knew he had a lot more interviewing to do. Now, remember the man who called 911, Patrick Sweet? Well, when he was interviewed by detectives, he provided some very crucial information much more than he did on that 911 call. On the morning of November 28th, he was awakened by what sounded like a scream, and then he glanced at his clock,

which showed it was 7.30 a.m. This was only about 30 minutes from the time that Alexis missed Ashley's call. So Patrick laid in bed wondering what was going on upstairs, and that's when he heard a loud thud right above him, and he could hear labored breathing. Patrick was sitting there thinking, what should he do? And that's when he heard Ashley's front door closed. He was thinking it was her going to work, so he got up, and he looked outside for confirmation. And he did this because what he heard was concerning. When Patrick looked out the window, he saw darkly tinted black infinity driving away.

And that was not the vehicle that Ashley drove. But not wanting to assume the worst, he figured maybe a friend or a coworker of hers had picture up for work. So we laid back down and tried to go back to sleep. But before he could, his carbon monoxide detector went off. So now he went to check his apartment for problems, and that's when he noticed that water was dripping from his ceiling in the bathroom. This was from the automatic sprinkler system,

and it was triggered by the smoke and fire. And he figured it must be happening upstairs since it wasn't happening in his unit. And that is when he called 911. But why hadn't he mentioned the screams? Well, he told detectives that after calling 911, he then took some of his belongings and moved his car across the street away from the apartment building. Before firefighters arrived, he saw a neighbor from the back of the building and one of the maintenance men enter Ashley's apartment. At that point, he was unaware that Ashley was inside until later when he saw the looks. on the firefighter's faces. At that point, he realized

that the noises he heard earlier were out of the ordinary, and that's why he told detectives about them. I know no one wants to assume the worst, but if you hear something like that, I would encourage you to just call 911. I know that sometimes operators will give you a hard time if he didn't see anything,

but it's better they come out and check because you'd rather be safe than sorry. Now detectives interviewed Jeff Kaiser, and that's the friend who kicked in Ashley's door with the maintenance person. He said he won't. woke up to the sound of fire alarms that same morning. He quickly got dressed and ran over to the building where Ashley lived.

He saw her truck parked outside, so when a neighbor said they thought that smoke was coming from her unit, Jeff didn't hesitate. He ran upstairs and he kicked open her door. Jeff said the door was locked, that the dead bolts were engaged, which was actually interesting to detectives. How did the killer gain entry to her apartment if her doors were locked? But now they have another clue. Ashley's white Dodge pickup. Detective Sidio wanted to search inside, but the keys to that vehicle

were missing. They searched the apartment but couldn't find where Ashley kept them or had put them. Could the killer have taken them and then locked Ashley's door behind them? It was a possibility. The crime scene was still being processed. So for now, Detective Sidio moved on and interviewed another neighbor, Stephen Lee. He was a former law enforcement officer. He lived right downstairs and diagonally across from Ashley. According to the police, According to Stephen, he had the very same routine every morning. He would go outside and smoke a cigarette around 7 a.m. and just watch the parking lot. And he did this every day due to his background as an officer.

He said he found it peaceful. That morning he noticed one car that didn't belong. It was a black Infinity G-35 with a faded toll tag sticker on the roof, and it was parked right next to Ashley's white pickup truck. While this car stuck out to him and he'd never seen in the parking lot before, he wasn't wasn't actually suspicious because it was the holidays. Anyone could be there visiting family or friends, but Steven said the car was still parked there

when he left for work around 7.30 a.m. But recall that Patrick also noticed this car and said it was driving away sometime after 7.30, because that's when he first woke up to those screams. So now CDO goes back to the people he already interviewed and asked them if they knew anything about a black infinity and they said no. However, Alexis passed this information

on to Chris Cravey, who was still waiting in the crowd. Now, earlier that morning, one of his other assistant managers had called him to say that Ashley had not shown up for her shift, and they couldn't get a hold of her. They had also heard a rumor that her apartment might be on fire. So Chris rushed over there to her complex, hoping that he could help Ashley in some way, but of course, we know what happened after he arrived.

Now, when he hears this new information, his heart sank. And he ran as fast as he could to speak with detectives. Chris was confident, he knew whose car that was. Chris tells Sidio he had a former employee who drove a Black Infinity G-35. Their name was Carter Servantes. To Sidio's surprise, Chris makes him aware

that Carter is a 25-year-old woman. I guess Carter's usually a boy's name, I don't know, but this wasn't too much to go on. Many people who live in this area work at establishments nearby, like the mall. But Chris tells Sidio that Carter worked at the Amarillo, Texas location that's actually five hours away.

So now it seemed even more of a remote possibility that this woman could have been all the way over in Fort Worth. Many people drive Infinity G35s. It's one of the most popular models. So Sidio thanks Chris for this information, but then goes back to focus on the evidence at the crime scene. He was there until after 1.30 that morning. It had been a long day.

So Sidio decided to head home and get some sleep before continuing with the investigation. However, no matter what he tried to do, he could not stop thinking about this case and that must be so hard. I know that I'd be tossing and turning. So in the early morning hours, he decided he'd had enough and he got up to start his day. He had nothing to go on except the name Chris had given him of the woman who drove that Black Infinity. So he decided to look her up, and he found her address. And to his surprise, she was living approximately two miles from Ashley's

apartment. So this could mean it was normal for her to be in that area. Maybe she was visiting a friend or maybe she was connected to the crime. She was already connected to Ashley through the fact that they both worked for American Eagle. So Sidio figured that he would dig deeper. He decided to drive by that address on file in the early morning hours of Saturday, November 29th. But there was no sign of a Black Infinity

in the parking complex. So Sidio decided to wait outside for Carter to emerge from her residence. Meanwhile, he called Chris for all the information he had on this former employee. Chris explained that initially Carter was hired at the location in Amarillo, Texas, and she worked there for a considerable amount of time.

By the time she was 24, she'd worked her way up to assistant manager. From what Chris gathered from other employees, Carter was nice to your face and tried to be your friend, but you actually wanted to be on her good side because once she had something against you, it seemed like she would do whatever it took to make sure you were working in a living hell.

Lots of drama surrounded her when it came to her interactions with other store employees. While she wasn't anyone's favorite manager, nothing too major happened. It was kind of the usual office gossip. There were no rules broken until Carter hired 19-year-old David Mallory. Not only did she give him special preferential treatment, but it was rumored that the two of them were romantically involved, which was against the rules. She was his superior. She was in charge of his payroll, his schedule, who he worked with, and it wasn't allowed. When word traveled to their district manager, Carter was given two choices,

quit or get transferred to another location. This wasn't that out of the ordinary. It happens. People meet at work and they get involved with one another. And Carter wasn't a terrible employee, so they gave her those options. She chose to move to a different location. That way both she and her new boyfriend could remain gainfully employed and stay together. For whatever reason, Carter decided to move six hours away to work at the Fort Worth American Eagle

location at the Hewlin Mall, the same location that Ashley was working at, as an assistant manager as well. Now, employment for Carter's much younger boyfriend at the Amarillo location did not last very long. Maybe he was only working there to be close to Carter because after she left, he missed three shifts in a row, which means you get automatically terminated. He was put in their system as not suitable for rehire

at any American Eagle location, and eventually he moved in with Carter all the way in Fort Worth. Soon after Carter began working at the location, word got around to Chris that Carter had something against Ashley, who was loved by everyone. She was regarded as like the mother of that store. Chris thought Ashley was a phenomenal employee, so he inquired about this supposed attention. Lindsay Green, another American Eagle employee, told Chris she believed that Carter saw Ashley as her competition, because Carter was trying to catch the attention of the district manager so that she could get a

promotion. Well, that's not that out of the ordinary, it's pretty normal, that there's some sort of competition between employees. But then in June 2014, Chris had a time to take a leave of absence for medical reasons. And since he knew Ashley longer, he trusted her to manage the store while he was gone. And she was temporarily moved into a manager position and was appointed to run the entire store. Well, that didn't seem to go over well with Carter. But Chris was back from surgery before any problems occurred. However, while Chris was out, Carter found a very creative way to circumvent American Eagle's system. She was able to hire her boyfriend David at the Fort Worth location. What did she do? She just altered David's social security number in the database,

making it look like he was a brand new employee so that do not hire alert, it didn't show up. None of the employees at the store knew David, so it never raised any red flags. But then, just two months later in August on the 24th, the Fort Worth location was robbed. Remember this happened the day after tax-free weekend and I told you that once a year, Texas allows people to purchase their items tax-free. It's one of the busiest times a year for retail stores like American Eagle. The day after, the money was collected and still in the safe. While Chris tells Sidio, the Ashley was the one who found the safe open

with $18,000 missing when she opened the store the following morning. And the footage showed an individual walked straight to the safe and open it. The thing is, you had to have a key in order to gain access. This meant this person was in possession of one of the store keys, because they easily opened it, took the money, and walked right out of the store. They knew it had to be someone who worked at American Eagle, either in the past or the present, because they didn't trip the alarm or even have to search around. They just went straight to where they knew the money would be.

Remember Ashley was interested in possibly working with loss prevention? So she diligently looked over that video footage from 11.m. on August 24th, and we have this footage here. Upon further investigation, the key was found left inside the same. safe, and it belonged to an assistant manager named Yasmin, but Yasmin had not closed the store the night before the theft occurred. And she didn't appear to be the person in the video. It was apparent that the back door had been left open just a crack, which allowed this individual to enter. Now, everyone believed this had to be an inside job, given all of this evidence. Ashley was confident

that the person who came inside was David Mallory, and by extension, Carter, since she was his girlfriend and she had closed the store the night before. Yasmin informed Chris that she had left her store keys unattended on a table for approximately five minutes the previous day while Carter was in that area folding jeans. Later that night at closing, Carter insisted on being the one to take out the trash, even though normally she assigned that task as someone else. The trash was taken out through the back door,

and when she came back inside, they know she failed to secure the door on purpose. It made perfect sense. Also, when they called the police and also called Carter that morning to tell her they needed all hands on deck, Carter responded with, I don't know what the big deal is, insurance can cover this. And until this point, Chris had been completely unaware that Carter had hired David to work at the store. And once all these pieces came together, Chris and Ashley informed Carter, she was suspended until further notice. So she handed over her store keys calmly and then just exited the store. Then one week later, Chris called Carter and told her she had been terminated for leaving the store unsecured. She was really upset, and she requested the regional manager's

phone number. Despite everyone believing that Carter and David were responsible, they were never arrested or formally declared suspects. In fact, this incident would have probably been insignificant to the case at hand if it wasn't for the fact that Ashley was the one to say something about thinking this was Carter. And even though she was never charged with theft, she was let go from a position at the company. And after this, David did it again. He stopped showing up for his shifts and he was fired just like he was at the other location. So after hearing all this, Detective Sidio was more sure than ever. They were on the right track. Based on his findings, he put in an application for two search warrants. The first was for David and Carter's cell phone

records and the second were for their vehicles. The evidence found in both would be shocking. But for now it was a waiting game. Sidio and his partner earned Ernie Pate were outside in their vehicles parked in Carter's parking lot. They identified a white Cadillac that matched the license plate and description of the one David owned. Now Sidio had his eyes on both cars as he waited. Four hours later, at 7.45 a.m., he saw the lights on the Black Infinity flash like someone had remotely unlocked the doors. And sure enough, Cidio observed Carter and David emerge from the complex and walk through the parking lot towards the vehicle. David gets in the driver's seat

and Carter jumps in beside him in the passenger side. Then they drove away, with Sidio following close behind an unmarked car. The detectives could not believe where they were headed. They pulled right into the parking lot of the Huland Mall, which is where the American Eagle was where Ashley worked. Sidio was automatically suspicious, I mean, they were driving where a murder victim was last seen before she returned home to be killed and set on fire.

Not to mention, it's where two people have been accused of robbing two months So Sidio knew it was also too early for mall patrons to be in the mall. The only people inside would be employees. He knew that both David and Carter had been fired from their jobs at American Eagle. So why were they headed there? When David parked the car, only Carter got out and walked into the mall by herself, wearing black pants, shoes, a black scarf, and a dark gray sweatshirt. Sidio parked his car and followed Carter while paid stayed back to question David.

When questioned David told Detective Pate that he drove Carter over to the mall so she could fill out new employee paperwork at the Aeropostal store. She had recently been hired there. Pate relayed this information to Cidio as he proceeded inside the mall to see if it was true, and Pate stayed with David. And that's when he learned that he was driving without a license, and this is a misdemeanor in Texas, so he was able to take David into custody. Their goal was to talk to him and secure the Black Infinity for analysis. They were still waiting on search warrants to be approved. Meanwhile, Cidio was speaking with the manager at AeroPostal. who was telling him he had no idea who Carter was,

and he definitely had not hired her. This confirmed the detective suspicions, and he headed for American Eagle to see if he could find Carter there. His thought was that she was there to rob the store after the biggest sale of the year. It's when the most money would be in that safe, and Carter's former co-workers had told Chris that she had once joked,

and putting air quotes, joked, to say if she was ever going to steal a deposit, it would be on Black Friday or tax-free weekend. Well, we know that she and David possibly already took that $18,000 on tax-free weekend. So Sadiol was convinced she was trying to get her hands on even more cash this time. Retail stores can bring in anywhere from $70,000 to even over $100,000 in cash after Black Friday, and Carter knew that. But instead of finding Carter at the front of American Eagle, he found Chris waiting outside

a locked gate. He asked Chris, why aren't you opening the door? and he said, well, the corporate office had changed the lock after hearing about Ashley's murder, and he was waiting on someone to bring him the new key. Now, Detective Sidio was kind of caught off guard. The reason for this is that he had made sure not to tell anyone that the only thing missing from Ashley's apartment was her key ring. Only law enforcement knew that information. On that ring was the key to her truck, which was still in the parking lot, her keys to her apartment,

and her keys to the American Eagle store. All of them were missing. And of course, detectives noted that her apartment door had been locked before her neighbor broke it down. This confirmed that whoever killed Ashley had also stolen her keys. Sidio had put two and two together. Carter knew Ashley had the keys to the store since she was the other assistant manager. It was all coming together. Sidio asked Chris why the locks were changed, because he hadn't told Chris that Ashley's keys were gone.

And Chris explained, no, no, this is company policy. The locks are always changed after a key holder dies or is fired. To Sidio, he thought it was most likely that whoever stole the keys didn't know about this policy when they took them. And that person was most likely Carter. Sidio asked Chris if he happened to see Carter walk by and he said he had not. Well, Sidio felt like he was on the right track. He headed back to Carter's apartment complex to try to track her down and it didn't take him long to find her. She was in the business office of the complex where the laundry facilities were located

and she was no longer wearing her black, baggy clothes. Instead, she was in bright pink scrubs. She willingly went back to the police station for questioning. Now, Sidio started with very simple questions, just small talk. One of the first ones was whether she went by Carter or Carol. And she said, Carter. Carol was her middle name. This woman was calm.

She was pleasant. She appeared to be educated and well-spoken. And she also didn't seem to know why she was being questioned. she actually asked Cidio why she was there. And he explained, there had been a recent attempt at a robbery in the mall, and anyone who was there that day had to be questioned. Carter seemed to calm down after this. And then Cidio eased back into the interview or interrogation. He asked Carter what she did for Thanksgiving and what she ate. And Carter just happily responded all about the turkey she made, that there was stuffing and mashed potatoes and green beans and green bean casserole and this

cabbage bacon salad that her mother really liked to make. But she didn't think her boyfriend David liked it very much. I made turkey and there was stuffing and mashed potatoes and green bean casserole and this cabbage bacon salad that my mom really likes to make, but I don't think David liked it very much. After this, Sidio asked her where she went to school and she said she attended West Texas A&M University. He wanted to know what brought her to Fort Worth and she explained that she had a job opportunity with a He knew there was much more to that story, but at the time of the interview, Cidi didn't question her much about her answer. Carter actually did end up admitting she was

let go in September due to leaving a door unlocked and a robber gaining access to the store. She also said she was the manager of the store, and we know that's not true. Now she told Cidio she was doing volunteer work at a local hospital, thus explaining her scrubs. Instead of pressing her on any of the things he knew about David and Carter stealing from American Eagle. He asked her what her and her boyfriend did after Thanksgiving dinner, and Carter told him they watched movies until they went to bed. She seems so ordinary and so innocent in this interview. But at that point, Sidio's questioning gets a little more serious. He asked Carter to walk him through what she had done that morning. She told him she woke up around 7.30, 7.45.

She said she talked to David for a little while, and then she went back to sleep. And then when she woke up, David wasn't there. Well, Sidiot knew that this was a straight-up lie. So he let her know that. But Carter denied she was lying. She's like, how is that a lie? And Sidiot is like, you know how I know it's a lie? Because I saw you come out of your apartment and get into your car with David.

That's how I know it's a lie. This morning. Okay. All right. This morning. Okay. What time do you get up? About 7.30.

745. And then what happens then? And then we talked and I went back to sleep. When I woke up, he wasn't. Okay. I know that's a lie. No, it's not. You know why? I know it's a lie. Why do you know it's right?

Because I saw you come out of your apartment and get in the passenger's steal of that car and I saw him drive out of there. That's why I know it's a lie. Well, Carter became irritated, saying that she knew what she did that morning. She wasn't lying. She knew where she went. She wasn't giving in to Sidio's persistence, even though he told her she was about to make the biggest mistake of her life by lying to him. but she just wouldn't quit. She said, no, I got up this morning, I put the laundry in,

I went to check my email, and that's it. I got up, I went and put the laundry in, and I went and checked my email. That's all you found me on my apartment. She said, you know, you found me on the apartment premises. At this point, Detective Sidio had had enough, and he left the room. This was a chance to leave Carter all alone and observe her actions, and she did something very strange and telling. She takes a sip from a water bottle, and then she kind of looks at it and immediately puts it down on the table,

and then kind of spills some out on purpose. Grabbs a tissue acting like she's cleaning it up, only to wipe the part where she put her mouth on it. To Sidio, this meant that she was worried that they were going to try to get a sample of her DNA and possibly find a match somewhere at the crime scene. It still wasn't hard proof of anything, though. So Detective Sidio saw David in the hallway

at the police station. He initially thought he was wearing a toboggan, but it turned out to be a ski mask. And it was apparently in new condition without any noticeable wear, with a plastic price tag fasteners still attached, and I'll get to why this is important. Photographs were taken of David, and they showed that he had a fresh injury to his lower lip, which was swollen. Unfortunately, at this point in time, Cidio had nothing but a bad feeling, so he couldn't hold them there. David was processed on his misdemeanor charge, and then he and Carter were free to be. but by this time that search warrant for the apartment that the couple resided in as well as their cars and their cell phones had gone through they had more than enough

probable cause after these interviews and I told you the evidence would be shocking