True Crime with Kimbyr - Black Friday Horror: The Shocking Murder of Ashley Anne Harris: Part 3

Episode Date: April 10, 2025

In the dramatic conclusion of True Crime with Kimbyr’s deep dive into the Ashley Anne Harris case, the truth is finally revealed. After shocking confessions and a gripping investigation, justice is served—but was it enough? Kimbyrleigha takes you through the courtroom drama, the emotional aftermath, and the lingering questions that still haunt this case. How did greed and betrayal turn a holiday into a tragedy? And what lessons can we take from Ashley’s heart breaking story? Tune in for the final twists in this chilling true crime case Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

But before I tell you the details, I want to tell you about Ashley's autopsy results. So Dr. Richard Fry's, a deputy medical examiner at the Tarant County Medical Examiner's office, performed the autopsy on Ashley's body. The autopsy revealed she had numerous injuries, and I didn't want to leave any of them out. She had a laceration on the right side of her scalp, a small cut with a surrounding bruise also on the right side of her scalp, a patterned bruise on the right side of her face, a bruise right between her eyes. Another bruise around her left eye, a small incision across the bridge of her nose, a laceration across her right cheek, with a bruise surrounding that area, a scrape on the right

side of her nose and her upper lip, a bruise on her right upper lip, a laceration on the less side of her face, a scrape and a laceration on both of her lips, a scrape mark on her chin, a star-shaped laceration with a surrounding bruise behind her left ear, which was consistent with being pistol-wipped, a cut on the right side of her neck, which was caused by a knife or a sharp-bladed weapon, a bruise on the right side of her neck, bruises and abrasions on the left side of her neck, and I wish I was done, but I'm not. She also had patechiae or broken blood vessels on her neck, in her eyes, and on her throat area. She had a bruise on the front of her chest, a bruise on her right arm, a scrape on that elbow,

a bruise on the back of her left arm, and a bruise on the back of her left hand. another bruise at the base of her left thumb, which was likely due to the duct tape that was around her wrist. She also had an abrasion on her left pinky finger, a cut in the inside of her upper lip, additional lacerations and bruises on the inner lower lip, and most notably, fractured chrycid cartilage in her larynx. Now, Dr. Fries concluded that the injuries observed on different parts of Ashley's face indicated they were caused by multiple blows. He explained that the patiki eye in her eyes reflected asphyxia or strangulation. And this would have occurred by someone actually tying a cord or a rope around her neck and squeezing tightly.

According to the doctor, it would take quite a while and quite a bit of pressure for someone to be fully exfixated. And this fracture in this part of her neck was the least common place where they see fractures for exfixia or strangulation-type deaths. It's because it consists of cartilage that's pliable. He explained that these kind of fractures. are mostly seen in motor vehicle accidents or something involving a very significant amount of force. The sample of Ashley's aorta blood that Dr. Frys tested was negative for carbon monoxide.

This indicated that Ashley was not alive when the fire was set. But since there were burn marks on her body that were not made by a taser, for instance, someone intentionally attempted to set her body on fire after she was deceased. Dr. Fry's concluded that Ashley's cause of death was exphyxia, and blunt-forced trauma to her head and neck, and the manner of death was, of course, a homicide. Wow. All of this was incredibly horrific. This poor woman, it's unreal that a human being

could do this to another human being. And over what? Well, money, of course, because that seemed to be the motive in this case. The first search that was conducted was of David and Carter's apartment. Now, during the first search on November 29th, Detective Matthew Barron with the Fort Worth Police Department, Homicide Unit saw a plastic tub near the front door, and it contained bungee cords, rope, and he found a lock located in the kitchen drawer. In the trash, he found a box associated with a taser and a charging cord, which is why I brought it up in the medical examiner report, stating

there were no taser marks on Ashley's body. Exceptive Barron also found some strands of duct tape, which was collected and analyzed to see if it matched the duct tape found on Ashley's wrists and ankles. A damaged deadbolt lock was found in the apartment along with two additional locks that had apparently been for practice. It included one conveniently labeled lock picking practice lock. I am not kidding. You'd think the criminals or want to be criminals would be smarter than this, but there was something else found during the search of the apartment, a significant discovery. Credit card receipts. And this led investigators to these locations that were listed on these receipts and through footage captured on CCTV,

the detectives were able to determine that on November 21st, just days before Ashley's murder, Carter was seen on video purchasing several items that appeared to be part of what they call a murder kit, things like short-handed shovels, gloves, a tarp, and duct tape. Wow, I wondered if their plan had been even deeper, because why did they need shovels? It's eerie.

I think there should be some kind of silent alarm or something that goes off when someone buys too many incriminating items all at once, but I guess one could argue you need those for some everyday gardening or home improvements. I still think that somehow stores should keep track of that. But now under the search of Carter's Black Infinity, which was conducted by Officer J.J. Jeans with the Fort Worth Police Department Crime Scene Unit. He took photos of items that were found in the vehicle including a plastic bag inside of a black trash bag, a sharpening stone for a knife, a 9mm cartridge, a cell phone, a walkie talkie, a walkie talkie.

several knives. One was a folding pocket knife, another was a buck knife with a sheath. There was also a plastic tub with some men's boots that had what looked like blood on them. And another cell phone inside those boots. Some clothing, a toboggan with a hole cut in it, a tarp still inside its package, and a kitchen knife. It is not looking good for David and Carter. Not at all. Then under the driver's seat, Officer Jeans found a loaded Glock 19, with a bullet in the chamber. The officer also found various documents in the car, including a receipt reflecting an order

from a lock picker's mall for a cutaway practice lock that was sent to the address of the apartment where the couple lived. And we know that one was found there. There was also a lock picking instruction manual found during the search of a vehicle, and the floor mat from the driver's side revealed what looked like the presence of blood.

So it was sent to the lab for analysis along with those men's boots. Now, when they searched, Search David's Cadillac. They opened the trunk, and they found that pair of shovels that Carter had been seen purchasing. And guess what? They had been used. There was dirt on both of them, as well as bungee cords and zip ties in the back in a box of plastic sheeting and a box of craftsman sockets. To Sidio, this looked like all the items you would need to wrap up a dead body, but we know they never got that chance with Ashley. So was there a second victim that?

that we didn't know about. Now onto the cell phones. In the photo roll for both David and Carter's phones, there were pictures of Ashley's apartment complex, including photos of her front door. Clearly, they had been casing her apartment complex weeks before at the murder. And then when they looked through texts between the couple,

things got worse. The two seemed to be texting about their plan to hurt Ashley, but they were doing it so casually, like they were talking about having dinner. At one point, Carter says that she just picked up the supplies, including zip ties, bungee cords, shovels, and a plastic tarp. The key about these text messages, though, was that they were purposely vague. No one text message had enough to implicate them in a crime.

For example, a special agent with the FBI and a member of this cellular analysis survey team found a text between David and Carter's phones that was sent at 1152 a.m. on November 28, which was hours after Ashley was found dead. And here's how that exchange went. Carter texted, hey, remember that thing you said I didn't clean well? Did you clean it? Did we leave it behind? And David responded with, we left it.

I didn't touch it. And Carter texts back, well, damn, that's not good. Take out all the trash and leave that. Then five minutes go by. And then Carter texts David again and says, David, I need to take care of that. I'm so sorry I forgot. If all of this wasn't enough, there was one more piece that fell into place. After the contents of David's cell phone was analyzed even further,

one of the text messages he sent to Carter from his phone contained latitude and longitude coordinates. And after entering them into Google Earth, Detective Sidio drove to that specific location, which was near Luters, Texas. And when he arrived at the intersection of the coordinates, he discovered a hole in the ground, which he described as a prepared human grave.

It was approximately six feet long and two and a half feet wide and three feet deep. That is unbelievable. And based on everything that they had gathered, this is what they believed happened. After Carter was fired, she and David started to plot revenge on Ashley. They decided they were going to kill her and they were going to take her so they could break into American Eagle again. And the pair chose Black Friday because Carter knew that it was when the safe would have the most money inside. So in the early morning hours of November 28, Carter and David both entered Ashley's apartment. She could have still been awake from the time Alexis left around 5 a.m.,

but we know she told her she was going to try to take a nap. Either way, when the couple entered, Ashley was alerted and a fight ensued. Ashley put up more resistance than they expected, which resulted in an excessive force used by the couple. Not only was Ashley pistol-whipped and stabbed, her throat had also been slit. Because more time had passed than they had imagined, and the fight was more intense than they anticipated,

They changed her original plan and they decided not to bury Ashley, but instead they were going to start a fire at the last minute as an afterthought, just like the fire inspector predicted. On the way out, they took Ashley's keys and they locked her front door. Later that morning, when Carter went to the mall, she planned on quickly getting into the American Eagle safe using Ashley's key. She was going to grab that money and then quickly changed out of her darker clothes into those pink scrubs she was found in later. However, she didn't anticipate that those locks would be changed so soon. She left them all and she saw David being questioned by the police so she walked home alone. To confirm his suspicions, Sidio has the mall pull footage from inside American Eagle and outside in the parking lot. And sure enough, they see that person that matches Carter's height and body type dressed in black pants and wearing a gray sweatshirt with a black scarf and something wrapped around their face,

swiftly walking up to the roll-down gate in front of American Eagle at around 8 a.m. on the morning after Black Friday and the day after Ashley was found dead. This person kneels down and tries to unlock the lock, clearly not knowing that corporate had changed the locks after Ashley's body was found. Once they realized the key didn't work, they quickly get up and walk away. Now on the footage from the exterior of the mall, it catches a person matching Carter's description now wearing those same pink scrubs and that gray sweatshirt wrapped around her waist that Carter was seen wearing at her apartment complex when Sideo brought her in for questioning. It's the same exact outfit, so it's her. So it stands to reason it's also her inside trying to unlock that gate.

She changed real quick before exiting the mall, and then she escaped the mall before anyone could catch her, and she walked all the way back to her apartment. I was thinking she could have gone through the back hallways of the mall because I know when I worked at Abercrombie, there was an entire back area of the mall where deliveries would come in. After gathering all of this evidence, Detective Sidio secured an arrest warrant for both Carter and David, December 4th, 2014, charging them with capital murder. Shortly after the arrest warrant was secured, a second search was conducted on Carter's apartment. This time, a business-type key was found in the kitchen trash can. This key opened the dressing rooms and the storage closet, an American Eagle

and Heelan Mall. The key was not in the trash during the first search of the apartment. most likely because Carter was still in possession of it at the time. Now, two days later, on December 6th, David was taken into custody. And later that day, Carter turned herself in with her lawyer present as a show of good faith. And at this point, does it really matter? But I guess she had to do something. Both were booked and given $500,000 bond while they awaited their trial. They were tried separately.

But the evidence presented was almost exactly the same. The only difference was in their defenses, which I'll get to in a moment, because I think it's pretty interesting. The prosecution showed that there was no difference between the fibers, the adhesive, the backing, the width, or the color of the duct tape found in the trash at Carter's, and the duct tape found on Ashley's body. So they could have originated from the same role.

The swabs of blood taken from the floor mat and the infinity revealed that the partial major DNA profile originated from Ashley Harris. Her blood was also found on the boots in the car, which suggested David traced it from in her apartment to the front seat. as he got in and drove away. The DNA profile obtained from the swab

of the grip of the Glock 19 that was found in the infinity was a mixture of David and Ashley's DNA. Carter was excluded as a contributor, which suggested that David had used the gun to pistol whip Ashley. I told you the evidence in both trials were the same, but the defenses were different. Well, despite her lawyer's protests,

Carter wanted to take the stand and testify. She presented a very different story than the one the prosecution had laid out. She claimed that she only acted under David's orders, that she was scared of him. According to Carter, even when they lived back in their hometown, David had power over her. He controlled what she ate, what she drank, when she slept, and he forced her to rehire him when she moved to Fort Worth.

I was very afraid of David. I thought he was going to kill me. I'm telling me what to drink, what to eat, and he made me have sex dependent, and he would be there. He had mastermind, the original Robert. as well. On the day that Ashley was killed, she said she woke up and David was nowhere to be found. When he eventually came home, he handed her the American Eagle keys and told her she needed to go to that store and take the deposit. At first, she said she refused, but then he pointed the gun in her face and said it again. Carter claimed that she again refused, but according to her, David became even more sinister. He told her he would kill her.

And on top of that, there was someone sitting outside of her parents' house right then and there. She had to do exactly what he said, or her and her parents would die. Gave me some gloves. Told me to put him on. And then he handed me a set of American Eagle Peaks. And he said, go in and open the gate and bring me that fat-ass deposit. And he just pointed it at me. I shook my head that I wasn't going to do it.

And he said, you don't understand. If you don't go in, I'm going to kill them. and then I'm going to kill you. She felt like at that point she had no other choice but to steal the money. She described how upset she was when she realized the locks had been changed, but she said it was because she didn't know what David would do when he found out. Carter concluded her version of the story by making a startling revelation to the court. She claimed that David had brought two individuals that she referred to as, quote,

ghetto, end quote, men into her house with the intention of sexually violating her. His shocking allegation was apparently a part of David's plan to silence her regarding the details of Ashley's murder. Somebody pushed me down right when I got into the apartment. He said, I'll make her follow directions. And took off my sweatpants and pulled him down into my ankles. And they raised me. I was screaming. Carter even tried to explain away her actions at the police station, specifically wiping down that water box.

bottle because according to her, that was not an attempt to remove her DNA evidence. Instead, she clarified it was an act that was driven by a powerful memory of that violation she experienced, which caused her to feel the need to eliminate any lingering scent associated with the traumatic experience. A nice try, but she could have been an actress instead of a wannabe criminal mastermind because she might be able to cry on cue, but she was an amateur when it came to being a murderer. She left a ton of evidence behind. Her story didn't explain the text messages that she exchanged that dated back weeks before the murder took place. There were also messages after the murder that indicated she had been present in the apartment, even though she said she was never

there during Ashley's murder. At the end of it all, the jury did not believe her story, and it sealed her fate. It took the jury less than two hours to deliberate before they unanimously agreed on a verdict of guilty for Carter. And his defense attempted to pin everything on Carter. The jury saw through this desperate attempt to excuse away such horrific actions, and they found him guilty of Ashley's murder. Both he and his little girlfriend were handed identical sentences of life in prison without the possibility of parole. They were so young, and so was Ashley. They all had so much of their lives to live.

I don't understand the reasoning and the thinking. I know that they're young, you know, 19 and 25 years old. Why would you ever think that money is worth taking somebody's life and not even thinking about your future, spending the rest of your life in prison? And this is only a small bit of justice. Ashley deserves so much more. Her family wanted to see them get the death penalty. But they understood it doesn't always work that way. And they were grateful to all the law enforcement officers involved for seeing it all the way through to the end. They were glad that Ashley's killers were behind bars. For her mother, Monica,

She holds on to the memory of the last time she saw Ashley. It was a week before her murder. She had called her mom and she asked her to come play bingo. And Monica almost didn't go. She felt like she had so much on her plate, but she listened to her gut. And she decided to spend time with her daughter. And she will forever be grateful that she did. She'll always remember walking in and seeing the big smile on Ashley's face and telling her

I love you one last time. Nowadays, Monica tries to remember her daughter in a event. very unique way. Even though she initially struggled with Ashley's sexuality, she embraced the women in her life that she loved and loved her so much, her ex-girlfriend's Laura and April. Monica takes both of them to Bingo Hall on a regular basis. And April has even mentioned that sometimes Monica will refer to her as her daughter. For all of them, when they gather together, they truly feel like Ashley is still with them. And that is one thing that made me smile after all of the terrible things that we learned happened to poor Ashley. In light of everything that happened to her,

many of her closest friends believe that her tattoo of that Bible verse is very upsetting. I read it to you in the beginning. It's Jeremiah 29-11, and it reads, quote, for I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future, end quote. A few of Ashley's friends have mentioned that she talked about feeling like she was going to die young. She couldn't explain why she felt that way or when, but she thought it was going to happen. She just believed that it was true. No one really knows what to make of this or her chosen verse to tattoo on her body. They just know that Ashley was a beautiful soul who was taken too soon from this world.

These cases always make me sad because there is so much life for these people to live and so unfair. It's unbelievable how much greed can make someone do. I thank you all so much for being here for Ashley's story. Thank you so much for watching. I will see you in my next video. Bye.