True Crime with Kimbyr - Part 1: Suitcase of Horror: The Heart breaking Murder of Ashley Mead

Episode Date: September 28, 2025

On this episode of True Crime with Kimbyr, we uncover the haunting case of 25-year-old Ashley Mead, who vanished on Valentine’s Day 2017 under chillingly ordinary circumstances. Her disappearance took a horrifying turn when a purple suitcase behind an Oklahoma gas station revealed the unthinkable. Who was Ashley, and how did investigators piece together the truth that led to justice? Join True Crime with Kimbyr as we explore Ashley’s life, her love for her daughter, and the tragic story behind one of Colorado’s most heart breaking crimes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A young mother and her baby vanish. The oven was prepped, burritos were still inside, the lights were on in every room. Her phone was sitting on the stairs with a shoe print pressed into the glass. It was a Tuesday morning in Boulder, Colorado. And 25-year-old Ashley Mead was nowhere to be found, and neither was her one-year-old daughter.

The front door was unlocked. Her cat was pacing the floor, and if you didn't know better, you would think that maybe she just stepped out to grab the mail. but then hours past. Her coworkers call her, her friends text, nothing. We think that these moments,

the ones that change everything, will look different. We think they'll come with a warning, but sometimes they don't. Sometimes they begin in the middle of the most ordinary day of your life. Hi, everyone, welcome back to my channel, and if you've never been here before,

I am Kimberlea. It's nice to finally meet you. I'm going to jump right in. It was a Tuesday morning in Boulder, Colorado, February 14th of 2017. Valentine's Day, actually. A day that's usually filled with love and couples celebrating one another.

Or if you're single, a nice Galentine's Day dinner with your friends. But for 25-year-old Ashley Mead, it was the first day that people close to her knew that something wasn't right. Ashley's boss was the first to notice that something was just off. It was 9.20 a.m. and Ashley wasn't at work.

That wasn't like her. She's glued to her phone. She would be the type to quickly just text you, I'm running late. or even call if something came up. But that day, nothing. And when her supervisor, Erin Machado, kept getting her voicemail and no calls back, she decided to call the police. It was that out of character.

But it was also because Ashley had a 13-month-old daughter. Both of them were absent at Head Start preschool where Ashley was interning at the time. Boulder police head out. They conduct a welfare check at Ashley's apartment. It was located at 690 Manhattan Drive in Unit 12. Unit 12. They see it's an attached townhouse. It has a screen door and a Valentine's Day wreath with pink, purple, and red hearts hanging on the front door. They knock, letting anyone

inside know that the police were there, and they get no answer. They tried the knob, and to their surprise, it's unlocked. Also uncharacteristic for Ashley. So they enter. They're calling out, they're announcing themselves once again, and there's no response. Now inside, all the lights are on. In the living room, there's an orange and white leather couch. It's got a pillow and a blanket tossed on it. There's a baby bottle that's sitting next to the couch on the hardwood floor. And Ashley's black purse was right next to it at the base. There is miscellaneous everyday items all around, but it wasn't necessarily messy.

It just looked lived in. And nothing really looked that out of place. Officers make their way to the kitchen. Now this is when things get a little confusing and a bit concerning. This kitchen that's usually lively, it's now quiet. They noticed that the oven is open just a bit, but it's turned off. With two burritos inside, uncooked, but prepped like someone was just about to set a timer. There was a set of prongs attached to the handle on front of the oven and pans on the stove, along with two ice trays that looked ready to be filled with water and set inside the freezer. It was odd.

It looked like Ashley had been cooking a meal and just vanished into thin air, like she disappeared right from where she'd been standing. It was really eerie. There was even a cabinet that was open, and it had all of her seasonings inside of it. Another sign that she was in the middle of making a meal as though she was grabbing for the right bottle, but never had a chance to take it off the shelf.

Now, something that I hadn't seen before was this writing on her refrigerator. Now, to me, it looked like maybe some kind of chalk marker, you let me know if you do the same thing. But this was like a long list of things, that she probably needed to get done or buy. It said fridge magnet, sandpaper, containers, a deck brush, a nonstick pan.

Like I said, assuming maybe a to-do list, things that she needed to buy. But more than anything, this was a sign that Ashley wasn't planning on leaving. She was planning on getting things done, things sorted out in her life. The officers kept looking. There was a set of stairs that went up to the second level

where the bedrooms were, and at the top was a little rocking horse horse and a couple grocery bags on the floor. But again, nothing unusual or out of the ordinary, but then in the main bedroom in Ashley's bedroom, there were glasses, a pair that she usually wore. They were still there. And they were these distinctive hexagon-shaped big black frame glasses. And not only that, her driver's license was sitting on a dresser near her bed, and her passport was still there. That mattered, because let's just say that Ashley left on her own. She would not leave her personal belongings behind. Certainly not her identification. Now, her mother, Claudia,

was contacted and she was very concerned, especially for the safety of Ashley's baby, 13 months old. And that really hit close to home because I currently have a 14-month-old. And they were nowhere to be found, which of course was concerning to Claudia. She said to the police, listen. If Ashley's cat Zina is there, she did not leave willingly. And sure enough, the cat is seen pacing around, it's hungry, it's all alone in this apartment. Ashley would never leave her cat behind. It went everywhere with her. When she went home for the holidays to Pennsylvania for Christmas, her cat came with her and her baby, and her social media was dark. She was always online, posting cute photos of her

daughter, sharing posts about herself and her life, but nothing since February 7th, almost a week earlier. Now that didn't make sense. And When Claudia talked to her daughter all the time, they at least texted every day, and she hadn't heard from her since February 10th. Now officers know why. Well, at least why no one can contact Ashley at this point, because they find her iPhone. It's sitting on the crook of a staircase, on the banister, kind of in an odd spot. That was it.

Ashley was officially reported as missing because there was just no way that she would leave all her personal things behind, her phone, baby things that she would need for her daughter. And that's where this mystery began. A young mom, her baby, her car, gone without a trace in the middle of a perfectly normal Tuesday. Ashley owned a white Volvo station wagon and it was not parked outside in its usual spot. But if she had left with the baby, where would they have gone? You've probably heard about stories like this. Remember when Gabby Petito's Instagram still showed her smiling a cute road trip selfies just days before the world learned that she was already gone. Or what about Shanan Watts? Her purse, her phone, and her keys found inside her house,

like she just stepped away for a moment. We think that we're going to see a warning, some kind of creepy figure in the background, a scary situation that you could spot from a mile away. But sometimes there's no warning. It's just life as usual until it isn't. And if you're a mom or you know how your mom normally acted when you were growing up, you would know this, they wouldn't just leave, not without their phone, things that are important, the baby's diaper bag, not without a thousand little things that you know they would never be caught without,

because as moms, we plan for everything. So the idea of Ashley just taking off without any of that and not telling anyone, it didn't make sense. Something was not right. Now the first thing Boulder Police Department want to know is, who is Ashley? Maybe that would help them explain where she went. So I'm going to tell you all about her. Ashley Elizabeth Mead was born on November 14th of 1992 in Warren, Pennsylvania, to her mother Claudia and her father, Edward Mead. Ashley was one of three girls in the Mead family.

Her sisters Allison and Casey were both close in age, with Casey being three years older and Allison five years younger. And the girls did everything together. It's truly like having a built-in best friend. Ashley and Casey were especially close. And from a young age, Ashley stood out. She was the middle child, the one that probably had to be a little louder to get noticed. And if you have siblings, you know the deal. Yes, there were fights over borrowed clothes and bathroom time, but there was also this unshakable bond that they had. Her sister said that Ashley was protective, loyal, and always the first to cheer you on when you were going through something. By high school, She was the kind of person that teachers would remember.

She didn't just show up to art class. She made it fun. She'd be dancing around the room, singing under her breath, skipping along, hyping her friends up. She had this energy that made people feel lighter and fun. It was just really pleasant being around someone like her. Some people actually calls her a brilliant light. And you know that we hear the phrase,

they lit up a room. We hear that when someone's gone. But with Ashley, it was literal. She just radiated. And others, called her eccentric. Some say she had an eclectic style. I would call it unique. She had that quality about her. Her smile alone was very unique. It had a little gap right between her two front teeth. She would wear colors of the rainbow. She would wear different color tie-dye leggings and socks

that didn't even match. Clothes that would definitely make a statement without Ashley even having to say a word. But she wasn't the quiet type, so you usually would hear her talking. She loved theater, She loved putting on a show, even if it was just for family. And above all, she loved traveling. She was a true traveler, not just, hey, let's go to Florida for spring break. No, no, no. 42 states, Canada, Mexico. And she had a way of finding beauty in every single place that she visited.

And she would pour those experiences into her writing. She was a poet. She had already published two books of poetry by the time she was in her 20s, weaving her love of nature and of people into all of her words. You could read even just a few lines and immediately know that she was someone who noticed the little things in life, the things that we are sometimes too busy to even appreciate. That was Ashley.

But as much as she loved adventure, Ashley was also grounded. She had studied liberal arts in New York City. She went on to Centenary College and then Louisiana State University. She was planning grad school at Colorado State in Boulder. She had big dreams. But it was the kind that you knew that she would actually reach because she had the work ethic to match. And she loved animals, cats and dogs, but she really love dogs. You know those kind of people who have to stop and pet every single one they see? That was Ashley. She would talk to your dog before she would ever even talk to you. And I can actually

picture this because guess what? I'm guilty of it too. I will totally ignore the owner, not even make eye contact and be like, oh my god, look how cute you are. To the their pet at every chance I get. Boulder was where Ashley wanted to be in coincidentally. I think that this video like I said was coming out when I will be in Colorado for CrimeCon. That wasn't on purpose. But Colorado is absolutely gorgeous. I can see why Ashley was drawn to it. She wanted to get the feel for the town before completely committing to grad school there. But that would come later because something more important was happening. She found out she was pregnant and this was such a

happy time for her and her family. Especially when they found out it was another girl coming from a family of three girls, it figures, but they could not wait to meet her. Now, of course, I have to go back just a little bit because of there was a man in Ashley's life, Adam Densmore. I know that people usually use the line. He was tall, dark, and handsome, and Adam was tall, and he had dark hair and a full beard, and Ashley, of course, thought he was absolutely handsome and charming and funny. He could also cook. He wasn't just the kind of guy that would say, hey, let me cook you some pasta tonight for dinner, put your feet up because you're always in the kitchen. No, no, no. He was an actual chef. So that was a big plus. Ashley met Adam a few years earlier and he had just gotten out of the army and was looking

to go into a new career. And as they got to know one another, they decided they both wanted to move out to Boulder. So they made it happen. He began studying at Augustine Escofay School of Culinary Arts. And his specialties were crispy duck appetizers, mozzarella salad, fried tuna, wanton, and of course, desserts. My favorite keeline pie was on his list. He also made peach tarts, raspberry amaretto tureen, and he was an expert in what he did. He loved cooking. He also loved to read,

which I hope is not really a lost art. I really hope not. But I think people say, if they could find a guy who reads, they're really hard to find and to keep them. He posted on Instagram, with the hashtag bookshelves are sexy showcasing his growing collection. Something else he posted a lot was his girlfriend, Ashley, mostly pictures of her sleeping with one of their two puppies. And their relationship got more and more serious since moving in

with one another. And they seemed to make a really good team. Adam even posted a picture of their whiteboard with all their chores and even a place where they kept up with their bills. Adam started working at Zeal Restaurant in Boulder and things were good. Now let's flash forward to January 6th of 2016. Now Adam was posting on Facebook that a baby was coming, and the very next day he shared an adorable photo of himself and his new baby daughter, captioning it, I'm pretty sure my new daughter is a redhead.

I feel inadequately prepared. Oh dear gods, they named her Winter Daisy Maeve. I wouldn't have expected anything else from someone like Ashley who was so unique. Both Adam and Ashley absolutely adored Winter. They posted nonstop. They shared every milestone, starting with meeting her for the very first time at the hospital.

They look like a very proud parents. There was even an adorable photo of Adam asleep on a bed with baby Winter Daisy on his chest. He also liked to grow his own vegetables. He wasn't gonna let fatherhood stop him either. He strapped little baby Winter Daisy onto him and the baby carrier went out on the farm and this photo got a lot of attention online from friends.

it looked like it could have come right out of a homesteading magazine. Winter Daisy was their world. But something changed in Ashley after she was born. Of course, Ashley still had ambition. She still wanted to go to grad school. Those dreams had not changed. They were just kind of put on hold because she wanted all of her time and effort

to go into her new daughter, her baby, her new world. This is not uncommon. I think it's also part of having this motherly instant. It's just inside you and you want to do everything for them. You want to set them up right from the beginning. And family had always been very important to Ashley. She was close to her mom. She even posted a tribute to Claudia on Instagram for Mother's Day,

saying, quote, Thanks for being my mentor, my bestie, my therapist, my reason for therapy, my shoulder to cry on, my pain in the ass, motivation, my cheerleader, and my mom. I can't wait for you to be the mom to my darling baby. baby, I love you more than all the stars." And it wasn't long before Ashley was traveling back home so that her entire family could meet

Little Winter Daisy. It's like every family member got a chance to hold her and Ashley took a photo of each and everyone, making memories, making plans for their future, and her Instagram bio even said, newly a mom. Now that's my life, sigh. I am that girl and I love it. Ashley decided it was going to be really hard for her to leave Winter Daisy in someone else's care. So she started to look for jobs around Boulder that she could actually do with her daughter.

And there weren't that many choices. But she landed on Head Start preschool and it was perfect. That way Ashley could dedicate her time to something that she really loved, children, but also have free daycare for her daughter. It made sense. Adam also made a career move. He left a Zeal restaurant and he started working working as a line cook for The Hungry Toad.

Ashley and Adam did not slow down. They brought Winter Daisy everywhere they went, whether they were going to an art festival, the farmer's market, a petting zoo, or even having a little mommy and daddy time and stopping to have a beer together. They were those cool parents that didn't let having a kid stop them

from doing the things that they loved before she came along. Now the investigators knew a lot more about this missing mom. Now, her last Instagram post was so normal. She and Winter Daisy painting hearts for Valentine's Day. This didn't seem like a woman that was planning a trip with her infant. Not a secret, spontaneous birth moment getaway.

No, not without her license, passport, cell phone. No way. Officers decide that they're going to do a second welfare check. At 5.41 p.m. They're back at Ashley's place once again. And they notice her car is still not in her parking spot. It's still vacant. Her car is nowhere in any of the spots.

So officers, Trudy Hunter and Rick Smith, they knock again, and there's no answer. So they let themselves inside. Officer Hunter noticed that right inside the front door was a small wooden bat lying on the floor at the bottom of the stairs, along with a few pairs of men's hiking boots. Ashley's iPhone still sat on the staircase banister. The battery was nearly dead by that point. Now, in the living room, they found two additional phones, one, was completely dead and the other looked like it was really old and hadn't been used in a while.

When they're looking at items in the living room, they do notice a bookshelf with one of those torchlighters and next to it was an ashtray full of smoked marijuana joints, old ones that were just sitting there and cocaine residue on a countertop. So they took note of that. Then they made their way up the stairs to the main bedroom. Inside, they saw that there was a phone charger still plugged into the wall, but this time they noticed something significant. It was the door to the guest bedroom. Both hinges were hanging from the door frame. They were broken.

And it appeared like that door had been forced open and inside. There were clothes and boxes on the floor, baby toys, miscellaneous items, nothing hanging in the closet. And this room was messy. There was a large brown moving box up against one of the walls, which was half full, this big box that I'm showing you, half full,

with empty, marijuana bottles. They were prescription bottles and they were Adams, but there was something more concerning found in that closet, a black rifle case with a Romania 30 caliber rifle inside. They had more questions than answers at this point. And Ashley's mom, she asked the officers who called her if they had spoken to Adam and they informed her they were in the process of attempting to get in touch with him, but it looked like he was missing as well. The number they had for him kept going straight to voicemail. And as a matter of fact, the officers were canvassing this apartment complex. They were knocking on neighbors' doors and asking, have you seen this family? Do you know this family?

When was the last time you saw Ashley, Adam, and Winter? And as a reminder, this was Tuesday, the 14th of February. Officers started with the units that were closest to Ashley's, the ones that shared a wall with her on either side. First, they spoke with the neighbors on one of the sides that were a couple. They said, they knew. that a man, a woman and a child lived in apartment 12, but they weren't really familiar with them. However, they did see them on a regular basis. And the last time they saw Ashley was about three or four days earlier around 7.30 in the morning doing what she always did when they saw her, which was leaving in her car, probably to go to work. When the officers asked if they heard

or saw anything out of the ordinary, they said no. They had never heard anything unusual coming from Ashley's unit, no arguing, no fighting, and they'd never seen any signs that any of them were in any kind of trouble. Not Ashley, not the baby, not Adam. Now, at this time, nobody answered the door to the unit on the other side that shared a wall with Ashley's, so the officers moved to the other units.

One neighbor stated that the last time she saw Ashley was around noon on Saturday, February 11th, that Ashley had told them she had a four-day weekend ahead, but she didn't know if she was going to stay home or if she was going to make plans to leave town. Now, this neighbor wasn't sure when the last time was that they saw Adam, but that he had been in and out

and that he came and went and seemed to have more of an irregular work schedule. Now, another neighbor said, they saw Ashley the very same day on Saturday morning around 9.30. She was playing with Winter Daisy outside, acting completely normal. And yet another neighbor said, they too saw Ashley that same morning around 10 a.m.

Now, there was another couple, a few units down, that actually saw Ashley on Sunday the 12th, around 8.30 in the morning. They said Ashley had been walking towards the dumpsters on the north side of the apartment complex, and they noticed she was dressed more nicely than usual, their words. She'd been wearing jeans and a heavier jacket. Now, this stuck out to them because they said, Ashley didn't usually dress like that. They informed officers that that trash is emptied on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. And they weren't the only neighbor to see Ashley going to that dumpster.

Another neighbor told the officers, they saw Ashley taking trash to the dumpster on that same day Sunday, the 12th, but this time it was around 5.30 p.m. And they said that Ashley appeared to be acting normal. That was all the information they gathered up into this point. Now they have a starting point to investigate even further. And at this point, Detective Ross Rickert and Detective Andrew Kirschbaum were assigned to Ashley's case. Their objective was to get in contact with Adam as soon as possible since the phone that was registered to him in Colorado was off and it kept going to voicemail. So Detective Kirchbaum decided he would reach out to Adam's father, Douglas Densmore, who lived out in Haught in Louisiana, with Adam's mother, Donna, and Adam's brother, Benjamin.

He told Douglas that Ashley and Winter Daisy were missing, and he was attempting to get in contact with Adam. The detective was a bit surprised to learn from Adam's father that Adam had just been at his residence in Louisiana the day before. Douglas informed Detective Kirchbaum that Adam and Winter Daisy were, but Ashley was not with them when they came to visit. Douglas explained further that he missed a call from Adam in the middle of the night on February 12th into the 13th, and this call woke him and Donna up. So he calls his son back, and all Adam had to say was he was coming home to visit. That was about a 16-hour drive from Boulder, Colorado, and Adam arrived sometime around 8 p.m.

on February 13th, driving Ashley's, 2011 white Volvo station wagon with 13-month-old Winter Daisy. And when they arrived, Douglas even asked his son if Ashley, who had been exclusively breastfeeding, if she was cool with this, with Adam having the baby. And Adam told him, yeah, everything's fine. It's cool. But later, Adam was overheard telling his mom that this was a stupid idea coming there, especially with the baby. But then to his father, he actually later on told him that he'd

did something stupid, but didn't say anything more. When Douglas was questioned about what he thought his son might have meant by that, he repeated that it was probably bringing the baby all that way by himself, that that was kind of a stupid idea, something he did that was stupid. Detective Kirstbaum asked Douglas where his son and his grandchild were now, and he informed the detective that Adam had already left their residence that day on February 14th to visit his grandmother in Arkansas. But he doesn't know exactly when, because he and his wife left for work early that more. However, he explains, his other son, Ben, was home, and his daughter Joy, who was in college

out in Texas, two hours from Louisiana, heard that her brother Adam was coming home, so she drove out to surprise him. So maybe the siblings would have more information. Ben told detectives that he left the house at 10.30 that morning, and the last thing he recalled was Adam asking, what's your schedule for the rest of the day? He told him he wouldn't be back till that evening. Then detectives talked to Adam's younger sister Joy, who told them she arrived to the family home to find Adam in the back of the house. And then she was a bit taken back by a strong odor coming from the guest bathroom. When she looked inside, she noticed that all the towels were gone from the shelves and the towel holders, which she thought was a bit odd. And then she saw her brother.

He told her he had gotten sick. He wasn't feeling well. He threw up all over the bathroom. And he was in the middle of trying to clean up when he accidentally spilled bleach all over the floor. So then he had to clean that up too. He did appear fidgety, like he didn't really want to be there, like he was uncomfortable and anxious. But the family knew that Adam suffered from PTSD, from the military,

and had been diagnosed with bipolar in the past. So it wasn't really that odd for him to occasionally exhibit anxious behavior. But bleach? Isn't that a big red flag? Every time I hear bleach, the first thing I think of is more than an average cleanup. you were really trying to get something taken care of. And of course, the detectives are putting all these things together. He calls his parents in the middle of the night on the last day that anyone saw Ashley.

He took the baby that Ashley was breastfeeding on a 16-hour car ride with Ashley's vehicle. It sounds really suspicious. And now she's missing. Detectives talked to Adam's father again, asking if there was any other contact information that he could provide for his son at this point. And Adam's dad,

kind of gets defensive. He said that he felt like they were insinuating that Adam had done something wrong. And he went on to explain that that baby, Winter Daisy, she looked healthy and normal, as in, my son's taking good care of his daughter. But none of that explained where Ashley was. And Douglas did admit he was more concerned about her

than his son or Winter Daisy. And you told the detectives that Adam left his house around 5 p.m. And if he hears from him, he'll let them know. Well, the very next morning, on February 15th, Detective Kirchbaum receives a voice message. It's from Adam. And he's stating that he heard the police were looking for him, and he was heading back towards Colorado.

He said he would give Detective Kirschbaum a call a little later in the day because he mentioned his phone was turned off to conserve the battery. The number he called from was the one registered in Boulder. But the name on this account wasn't Adam Densmore. It was Sammas Adams. And that name, Sammas Adams, was searched. And a Facebook profile came up with Adam's picture on it.

Now, I will say this a million times over again. Social media is a great place to find out what kind of thing someone cares about, what they share, especially when I'm doing research in true crime cases. I will go all the way back in time, especially on Facebook. Because you can learn a lot about someone's mindset by what they choose to post or not to post about. But only, of course, if they're active and Adam was active on Facebook. Very active. He pretty much posted every single day, if not multiple times a day. I feel like you can get a lot of insight into who someone is just by scrolling through their posts.

And some of Adams were hard to look at. There were lots of politically driven reposts. There were memes and videos mixed in in between with very opinionated and even sexist posts. It was almost like he despised women. He would call them names, he would degrade them names, he would degrade, degrade them. He didn't think they deserve certain medical care, and he thought that they made bad decisions. He was also very vulgar. Now, to each their own, when I'm not here on YouTube, do I use things like the F-bomb here and there? Sure, I do. Do I use it every other word? No, but I also don't get offended if someone does. I just wanted to give you some insight into what his posts were about. And it made me think about something. I say this in a lot of my private videos that I do on my membership

and my Patreon, but I am a big sister and I'm also a mom to two girls. So I naturally feel inclined to be protective and to give advice and I don't usually do that in these videos, but I feel like if you're interested in getting to know someone better and you think you want to date them, especially if you want to get into a serious relationship with them, and they have social media, Facebook in particular, I suggest you do some digging. And if you want to do a background check, I think you should. That's one thing. But if you want their true background,

In my opinion, from every case I've done, scroll through their posts. I mean, go back in time. Who were they five years ago? Have they evolved? Have they changed for the better? Are you in agreement with the things that they post? Or are you appalled by them? I don't know about you.

I wasn't looking for Prince Charming, but I also didn't want to end up with a dumpster fire. You know what I mean? And I know people can change. All I'm saying is it can be insightful. You could be going on dates with someone. They could be really charming. you could even be on dating sites looking at what they wrote.

But that's not the same as going through what they decided to share with the world. Adams' posts only went back to 2015, and detectives were going through them, so so did I. One of his first posts was him captioning, quote, I've always had a healthy obsession with my own orgasms, end quote. Yeah, but a lot of his post seemed to be him deciding whether or not to consume alcohol. He would post things like, I do not need to go keep drinking. it be. Or then he would ask his Facebook friends if he should have a drink. And when he did go

out, he would tag the locations like the West Flanders Brewing Company in Boulder, Colorado on December 7th, captioning some needed alone time. That was just a couple months before Ashley went missing. And later, that same day, he was at Connor O'Neills, an Irish pub, checking in again on Facebook. But ever since his daughter, Winter, came into the world, a lot of his Facebook posts had to do with her. Cute photos with captions like, what's not to love having grilled cheese of the mountain sun with Winter Daisy? Love our daddy daughter dates." It was a bit eerie for me to see pictures of little winter smiling and sitting on that same kitchen counter, the one where they found those burritos left behind in the open oven. Like Ashley had just vanished. There weren't

any posts that were too concerning on Adam's Facebook, but his last post, was on February 4th. And all it said was the ayahuasca was good. Now, ayahuasca, if you don't know, it's a powerful psychoactive brew from the Amazon. It combines plants containing

this powerful psychedelic compound called DMT, which is actually federally controlled and it's illegal in the United States. It's known for its intense psychoactive effects. It can include vivid visions, altered states of consciousness, and emotional experiences. But a lot of people use it for here.

healing and for spiritual reasons. But it can also cause intense and even life-threatening side effects. But what many people don't know going into it until afterwards, and they later report this, is that they had a more negative experience than a positive one on the substance. It can trigger conditions to become worse, like schizophrenia, or even someone suffering from mental illness. And they knew at this point, Adam had been diagnosed in the past with bipolar and PTSD, like I mentioned. So in this particular case, they would have. We're very concerned reading that, especially because some people can continue to have what's called hallucinogen persisting perception disorder from taking ayahuasca only once.

And if this happens, they'll see visions, objects flash before their eyes, and they even report going into full psychosis. And this is exactly why ayahuasca is not recommended for people that have been suffering from things like schizophrenia, bipolar, or other psychological conditions. So at this point, the Colorado detectives are so concerned they have the Louisiana detectives, bring Adam's dad, Douglas in for an interview at the police station that morning. Now this is still February 15th. Now while that interview was taking place, Douglas provided the detectives with the information on Adam's grandmother, where her home was located in Arkansas, and whether Adam had any other phone on him while he was traveling.

And the investigators back in Colorado make contact with one of Ashley's best friends, Amelia Perry. She's known Ashley for the past 11 years, and this is when they get more insight on Ashley's state of mind and what she was doing in the days leading up to her disappearance. Amelia tells detectives that she used to speak to Ashley on a daily basis up until February 12th, that they exchanged one last message, a text at 10.48 a.m. Ashley said she had been arguing with Adam and was in her words, quote, very fed up with him. so much so. She was contemplating leaving her residence because of it. Ashley further told Amelia that Adam was an alcoholic and a broken person. She also called him a blob, and she shared a picture of Adam passed out on a couch in the apartment. Amelia said she did not know Adam personally, but she thought that he and Ashley's relationship was definitely strange,

and that he seemed like a very hard person for her to communicate with. They were not good for each other according to her. Those were her words. She also told detectives that she text Ashley over and over again the last two days with no response. We know why. Her phone is sitting on that banister back at the apartment. Amelia was able to offer a lot of insight into Ashley and Adam's relationship, things that she might not have even told her family, because she confided in Amelia in a different way than she would with maybe her mom or her sisters. First of all, many of Ashley's friends

did not like Adam, including Amelia. He seemed to break Ashley down, down, bring out the worst in her, and she was quite miserable when they got together. Now this was back in Louisiana, where Amelia explained that Adam and Ashley met when they were working at a restaurant together. And at first, it was a casual thing. And it was a thing that did not work out. They broke up back in Louisiana. It was Adam who started to go to school on a GI Bill to become a chef out in Boulder, Colorado.

And while he was out there, Ashley found out she was pregnant. Amelia said that she was so scared, but they talked about it. And Ashley decided that she was going to move to Colorado. Even if she wasn't going to be with Adam, she wanted to be there so that her daughter could be near her father. And as scared as Ashley was, it turned out, the little winter Daisy was the best thing that ever happened to her. Amelia said, quote, I'd like to think I'm a good mom,

but I've never seen a better mom than Ashley. She literally wore that baby, end quote. And what she meant was that Ashley carried Winter attached to her in a baby wrap all the time. There's tons of photos of this. Amelia explained that Ashley was so excited when she got the job at the preschool as a teacher's aide, and this was back in October.

But she also explained that Ashley and Adam, they weren't together anymore. They agreed they were better co-parenting Winter Daisy than not being in a romantic relationship. Ashley was still allowing Adam to live with her though. She wanted to have a stable upbringing for winter for the time being. And after all, she let him move in with her when she moved out there because he was living with a group of friends. And of course, at the time, they were

trying to make things work and kind of get back together. And she didn't really like that living situation. She felt that it was only right. She gave him a place to stay since it was her idea for him to leave his apartment with his friends and come be more of a family unit together with their baby. But this was something that Adam wanted really bad. And things were good for a while. But there were some odd things happening. For example, Adam refused to sign Winter's birth certificate, his reasoning. He doesn't go by Adam Densmore anymore. He doesn't feel like he identifies as Adam. He believed he was Samus Adam. And because obviously, you can't put that on a birth certificate because it's not his legal name, he wouldn't sign. And when they pulled up that record,

sure enough, there was no father listed. And the baby took Ashley's last name, need. As they were digging further into all of this, they find out from more of her friends and people close to the couple that Adam wouldn't even introduce Winter as his own daughter. He would introduce her as Ashley's daughter. But to be fair, I saw many, many posts on his Facebook where he was calling her his daughter. Apparently, it got into Adam's head, though, and maybe because Winter was a redhead, like he said, or because of the fact Ashley eventually wanted to break up. And she also said she was going to be seeing new people, which she did just a week leading up to her disappearance. But for whatever reason, Adam started to doubt that he was Winter Daisy's father at all. And this was all the way

back before December. And he starts expressing his doubts to Ashley and to other people in their social circle. As you can imagine, Ashley was taken aback by this. She felt frustrated. She felt like he didn't trust her, and no one wants to feel like people are calling them a liar, especially about something as big as a man being the father of your child. So Ashley naturally started to pull away. She expressed her friends. She was very unhappy in the relationship. She even tried to get Adam to leave their apartment for several months. And as a matter of fact, back during the holidays, Ashley went to visit her family without Adam. And at that point, Ashley got him to agree to take a paternity test. The results had just come in on February 8th, just days before Ashley disappeared.

So now investigators are wondering, did Adam find out? Was he not Winter's father and he did something to harm Ashley? But then why would he take Winter with him? Family and close friends did confirm that Ashley had a new boyfriend, and she was extremely happy. She got her confidence back. She finally felt like she could move on from Adam. And this was just about a month before this. This might have enraged at him. They knew, at the very least, he would refuse to babysit his own daughter,

which I always think it's funny when they say that the men are babysitting when it's literally their kid, they're the other parent. But now in his mind, he wasn't even sure he was the dad. So we refused to watch the baby if Ashley had to go out on a date or, you know, if she did anything with anyone besides him. She was honest with him, though. She had just told him she was dating someone else. She texted one friend on January 28th with some pretty negative things about Adam.

She said, quote, I hate him on all levels, end quote, saying that all Adam really had left was her and winter, and he was about to lose both of them as well. Overall, what detectives gathered was that there was jealousy, there was a lot of drinking on Adam's part, and he was aggressive. There were times recently when he showed up at Ashley's workplace. her coworkers witnessed him being kind of nasty. The receptionist Debbie Bethlehem said that on more than one occasion,

she witnessed arguments between Ashley and Adam. And just about two weeks earlier on January 27th, he came into Ashley's work to let her know that he's not her babysitter. And after this incident, Ashley, who was normally really upbeat and happy, she began to show signs that there were issues. And these issues with Adam were seeping into her work place. She was quieter and she wasn't herself anymore. It was reported that Adam had quit his job

recently and told people he had to because Ashley was taking away the baby. Even his friends, and I'm putting friends in air quotes, because they said they were more like acquaintances. They said that he was disrespectful, narcissistic, and he thought he was better than everybody else. He even bragged to them that he killed people in the army and that the real reason that he and Ashley broke up before she found out she was pregnant was because he allegedly killed one of their puppies. Yeah. Instead of taking it to the vet to get cared for, he put it out of its misery. What the F? As you can probably imagine, none of this is sounding very good. And they had finally gotten in touch with his grandma, Peggy Densmore. And the first thing she let investigators know was that she told her

grandson to call the Boulder Police Department because they had gotten in touch with his father Douglas, And she said, I told him that Ashley was missing. And he seemed very upset over that. He told her that he'd been trying to contact Ashley. There was no answer. Peggy also said that Adam told her that he had gotten into an argument with Ashley. It was about her seeing someone else. And because she was also thinking of leaving with Winter Daisy.

All she knows is that he got to her place in Conway, Arkansas, around 751 on February 14th. And he stayed until the morning of the 15th. Now, she has no idea where he is now, but she said he was heading home to Colorado. Adam didn't have a criminal history in Colorado, but he did have one in Louisiana. As a matter of fact, his criminal history revealed he was arrested in 2008 in Louisiana for battery.

And in that report, his then wife, not Ashley, they were never married, but another woman that he was married to before he and Ashley met had told police that she told him she was too young to. married and she wanted out of the relationship. And when she told this to Adam, he started yelling at her and police were called. And when they arrived, they found Adam with his hands around his wife's throat. Wow. So now more than ever, all of this information has painted a picture that Adam is probably a dangerous person. He might be in psychosis because he might have done ayahuasca. He had already

been suffering from some mental health conditions. And he is now alone with a 13-monthed baby. whose mother is missing. So they put out a bulletin presuming that foul play could be involved in this case. And they asked the public for help in providing any tips in case they seen Ashley, Adam, or the baby between the night of February 12th and the morning of February 15th. Well, they didn't have to wait long

because Adam actually called Detective Kirschbaum back. And this was around 1230 Mountain Time that afternoon. And Adam told the detectives that he and Winter were okay. they were safe, but he was really worried about Ashley. He said the last time he saw her, they were at her apartment in Boulder on Sunday, February 12th, that evening. And that night, Adam explained that he and Ashley had the worst argument that they had ever had before.

Adam described it as a massive argument, and he actually admitted to the detective that he told Ashley, I hate you and I hope you die. Adam expressed that when he said, that to Ashley during the fight, he meant it. He did hope that she would die. Yikes. But Adam said, now he regrets saying that, you know, because with her missing and all, but he left the apartment with Winter that night and Ashley was alive and well. He added that the argument had never gotten physical. He described Ashley, though, as verbally and emotionally abusive. Now here's

part of that 30-minute recorded call, just a portion of it, just so that you can hear what Adam was telling the investigators. Detective. Adam, how are you doing? He's not okay. That's part of what we're trying to figure out. Yeah, yeah. When was the last time you talked to Ashley?

Sunday night. We got into a massive fight, probably the worst fight. What do you mean by, I mean, like, not to probably too much, but what do you mean by, you know, she gets like that or? He's verbally and emotionally abusive. Specifically to call. Winners with you still? Obviously, I mean, I'm not to verify that. Yeah.

How long have you been thinking that's been going on? Three weeks to too much. No much. I am too. That's, we're all worried about it. You're not going to be calling me too much. Don't sweat that at all. Don't sweat that at all.

All right, man. I'm going to go back to focusing on the road. Yep. All right. We'll chat soon. Hmm. I'm wondering what that sounds like to you. He said that he's worried.

He's concerned that Ashley might have called the police on him for taking the baby. Interesting way to phrase that. He sounds like he's trying to be buddy buddy with the investigator saying that he and Ashley got in a massive fight too, and that he left because it was going to escalate into physicality. So he needed to get out of there and he took the baby to keep him from drinking. And that Ashley was the one mistrating him.