True Crime with Kimbyr - Part 2: Suitcase of Horror: The Heart breaking Murder of Ashley Mead

Episode Date: September 29, 2025

In part two of True Crime with Kimbyr, we continue the heart breaking story of Ashley Mead and the shocking “suitcase of horror” that stunned the nation. This episode dives deeper into the investigation — from chilling evidence to the unravelling of the suspect’s lies. How did detectives finally connect the dots and secure a conviction? And what did Ashley’s loved ones endure in their fight for justice? Join True Crime with Kimbyr as we uncover the gripping courtroom twists, disturbing revelations, and the lasting impact of a crime that should never have happened. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I like how he decided to drop that part about her seeing someone else in the end into the conversation, and then making it sound like, oh, and I don't know if it's one or more than one guy. And she's just rubbing it in his face. Now, you might be thinking what the detectives were thinking because they're not buying the story. From everyone they spoke to, there was no way in hell, especially if Ashley had just gotten in a fight with Adam, that she would have let that baby go out that front door. If he had left with the baby without her permission, she would have called the police.

And he's the one with the history of violence against a partner. So while Adam is on the phone, detectives are able to ping his cell phone and they get his exact GPS location. He's driving on Highway 412, west of Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the direction of Colorado. Well, the authorities, contact detectives, local to Oklahoma,

and they have a warrant out for us suspicion that he's in violation of a custody order. So they put an APB out for him for the white Volvo and someone matching his description with a 13-year-old baby. And this bulletin says he should be detained if he's located. This story is a wild one to me because there's so much more. So much. I kept going deeper and deeper and it kept getting twisted and convoluted and there was so much to what it was taking me forever to research because I didn't want to leave anything out. And if you know my stories, you'll probably understand. my style, and I'm just flipping through tons of legal documents on this case and trying to figure out

all of this information. Anything the authorities had as it was happening moment by moment. And by 1.13 p.m., the Oklahoma Highway Patrol located the Volvo. They pull Adam over. And what's ironic is that at the same time, Detective Kirschbaum was like, you know, I have like a couple more questions I want to ask him. So we called Adam back. And he picked up the phone. mid-arrest, mid-cars all around him, stopping him in the middle of the highway. All Detective Cursebaum could hear was screaming, and Adam was saying, they've got guns pointed at me, they've got guns in my face. And he was like, I don't understand.

I said it was coming back. What's going on? He was looking to Detective Curse-Bomb for advice. He kept saying, they're commanding me to do things. The detective was like, you better listen to them. So we did. And from that point forward, he did not speak to law enforcement. Oklahoma Department of Human Services responded as well,

and they took custody of the baby. Now, Adam was booked into jail due to him taking the baby with him out of state. And meanwhile, this investigation is still active in an attempt to locate Ashley. Multiple agencies in various states, including Arkansas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma, are now assisting in the search.

Detectives were now going back in time. They're tracking Adam's phone from the night of the 12th until he was arrested, and they're looking for all the locations he was in, And by this time, they found selfies and surveillance footage of Ashley. She had been to Target. She posted pictures trying on a black dress. And then later, she and the baby were caught on CCTV footage

at a Sprout's grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, at 4.40 p.m. on that same day, February 12th. That was the last time that there was any activity on Ashley's bank account. And then later, when canvassing the neighborhood around Ashley's apartment complex, a woman named Jesse Hollister, who is a general manager at a house a place called Bailey's Wine and Spirits, which is a liquor store near the apartment that Ashley and Adam lived in. She told authorities she saw Adam not once, but twice on February 12th, buying two six packs of beer at 10 a.m. And another six pack at 6.30 p.m. And the day before that, Adam's debit card transactions show he was at three different bars.

It looked like he was on a bender drinking nonstop day and night the day before and the day of Ashley's disappearance. Even this general manager from the liquor store who knew Adam from him coming in all the time said that the first time he came in the morning, he was upbeat, he was his normal self, but the second time, he was really down. And he started talking to her. And she was trying to find out, you know, like, what's wrong? And it seemed like he wanted to continue to say something, but he kind of held his tongue. GPS record showed that hours later at 9. 16 p.m., Adam's phone headed south on Interstate 25 through New Mexico and Texas before arriving at his parents' house in Louisiana at 7.53 p.m. Mountain Time on February 13th. So what happened to Ashley between the time she was seen with Winter on that CCTV footage at the grocery store until all of her social media and her phone activity stopped, which was at 8.40 p.m. on February 12th. Adam's phone registered multiple phone calls to Ashley that night, but she wasn't picking them up. This was after 9.16 p.m., However, there were also voice messages letting her know what he was doing with the baby, where he was almost like he was giving her updates.

And then there were a few messages that talked about how he was so upset with her that she was with this other guy, and he hoped she was having fun with him, kind of being sarcastic and condescending, but those calls stopped after he got to his parents' house. Ashley had been corresponding with her new boyfriend. She'd only been seeing him for the last few weeks, so the investigators did have to do their due diligence and reach out to him, especially after they begin to dig through Ashley's phone, and they saw some pictures that they thought were, you know, questionable. They were sexually explicit, just things you would exchange with a new guy you were talking about if you were an adult

and into that thing. But it made the officers uncomfortable given that she was missing now. This new boyfriend said that he did not see Ashley that night, and he had an alibi. He was with a group of friends that corroborated his story. His cell phone data also showed he was nowhere near Ashley's apartment and their phones were never in the same place that day or any time after she went missing. But remember how I told you. There were two neighbors who shared a wall and that one of those neighbors were not home when the officers first went out there inquiring about whether anyone heard or seen anything. Well, there was a woman and her son, her name was Amelia Torres and her teenage son and they lived in that other unit with the adjoining wall. And they finally

got in contact with the police. Amelia and her son, and her son, and her son, said they both remember that around 9 p.m. on February 12th, the last day anyone saw or communicated with Ashley, they both heard a loud noise that came from her unit that sounded like someone falling down the stairs. Amelia Torres said it sounded like a person, but there was no yelling or screaming, and then they heard what sounded like someone

going up and down the stairs time and time again, multiple times. That's pretty interesting. Considering they found Ashley's actually, They found Ashley's cell phone with a shoe print on the screen right near the stairs in that little nook. So now they're doing a full forensic analysis of this entire apartment. They had canines out in the neighborhood and they had towed Ashley's vehicle that Adam had been driving to a crime lab out in Oklahoma for testing.

CSI were scouring this place and at first glance it didn't appear to the naked eye that there was any blood evidence in that apartment. But of course, then they sprayed luminal in both. in both the upstairs and the downstairs bathrooms, and they lit up all over the sink, the walls, and the pattern was swipes and smears, and it showed that someone had attempted to clean up. Then they sprayed the stairs.

Places lit up there as well, and even in the living room, clearly, a physical altercation occurred in that residence, but all the areas were smeared and there were no spatters of blood, no pooling anywhere, so they couldn't determine how this blood got there. They could only tell that it had been sopped up and cleaned, but of course, not good enough. You're probably putting it together right now. The baseball bat, the loud noise heard by the neighbors through the wall, as though a person had fallen down the stairs. Blood evidence on the stairs, blood evidence in the living room. Detectives and probably most of

few believe that Ashley was hit with that bat when she was at the top of the stairs. Remember they found a few grocery bags there? Perhaps she had just come home from running her errands when she was attacked from behind. She fell down the stairs. She's bleeding, she gets up, she runs into a living room, tries to escape through the front door, but she's stopped in her tracks. Her purse ends up at the bottom of the couch on the floor.

Could she have had it on her during the altercation and it fell when she was fighting back? Maybe she's beat again, maybe she was grabbed and strangled. But blood was in both of those bathrooms. Most likely because whoever did this try to clean themselves off and use the bathrooms to dispose of paper towels and other items that were used to clean the blood in those other areas.

Now, every time a person rings out a towel in a sink, let's just say, little blood splashes in other places, even if it's diluted, and you might not be able to see it. You'll be smearing it around thinking you're cleaning it, but there's residue left behind that you can't see unless you use a substance like luminal. And that was what this apartment looked like, like a struggle had occurred, and a cleanup job was done. But where was Ashley? It was going to take some time for them to actually test that blood to find out if it was hers. But again, this is not looking good.

And what was even more concerning is that the Volvo was examined, and there were a number of stains that tested positive for blood on the back seat. In addition, there were blood on napkins and even on a calendar and a scrapbook. Red stains. There was also a pair of Ashley's glasses in that car, a tablet, and a set of journals that belonged to Adam. They were all seized as evidence, but now it appeared as though Ashley's body had been in the backseat of her own car. The one Adam drove for miles and miles through a number of states with his daughter inside. I couldn't help but think how cruel, how heartless. I mean, all signs point to Adam Densmore and all evidence pointing to Ashley Mead no longer being alive.

A 911 call came in that same afternoon on February 15th. It was from a Murphy's gas station employee out in Akamolki, Oklahoma. Kind of sounds like the middle of nowhere. The caller was a 23-year-old woman named Alex Cargola. And she explained to the dispatcher that a truck had come early that morning around 10.30 a.m. to empty out their dumpster. But around 1.45, she was doing her routine cleaning of all the trash bins at the gas pumps, and she gathered them all up to throw them away in that same dumpster.

She explained that that dumpster is kind of an in a close, space where there's a fence around it. But when the truck had left, the worker didn't close the gate like they usually did. So she's able to look inside. And what caught her eye was a big, new-looking, bright purple suitcase in the middle of this empty dumpster. Not only did it look out of place, which gave her cause for concern, but she knew that the company she worked for would be fined. They would be in trouble if improper items were disposed of in that gas station

dumpster. So Alex, of course, wanted to remove the suitcase. But there was something about it that felt off to her. So much so it took her three separate trips back there just staring at it until she attempted to pull it out. And that's when she realized it was way too heavy to remove by herself. So she asked one of her co-workers, Jackie Newman, if she would assist her. Now, both of them, they're pulling on the suitcase and they're finally able to lift it out of the dumpster and get it on the ground in a position where they could open it. And when they unzipped it, they saw a black garbage bag inside. And both of them freaked out. They were so nervous. They didn't want to open up any further. They were scared. They were also determined to figure out whether it was merely trash or something more

sinister. So they finally got the courage to rip the bag only to find another black garbage bag inside of it. And that made them freak out even more. And I thought to myself, it sounds like they're one of us. They're educated on true crime. They've seen something like this play out in other cases. So Jackie rips a hole just a few inches wide in the second garbage bag. And the girls jumped back when they saw skin. But they thought that it was too small to be a person the way it was situated and it was probably an animal. It was probably a pig, actually. So they had to get back to work. They left the suitcase right there outside of the dumpster. Later on, Alex went back to dump the suitcase back inside.

But at that exact moment, a gust of wind blew through the bags, and it started to loosen up enough to where Alex could see that this wasn't an animal. It looked odd. It looked concerning. And she realized that it was a woman's body. Part of it anyway. I'm sure that was so terrifying. But Alex looked closer and she realized it would just the torso. That's when she panicked because, of course, she had never seen anything like that before.

And she called 911. I mean, who has? It wasn't just a torso. Because saying that, you would envision a body from maybe below the neck down to under the buttocks without limbs. And yes, that was the state it was in. And it appeared to be washed. But when the officer came out there, he was shocked. He saw this huge incision from the chest to the lower abdomen, disembowelment, organs missing, removed, gone, the stomach, intestines, bladder, uterus, kidneys, liver, and pancreas. This gas station was close to where Adam had been stopped and arrested earlier that same day. So the police requested the CCTV footage from the gas station, as well as the adjoining Walmart parking lot.

They could not positively ID this body as Ashley Meads. but there were indications that it was her. For one, the proximity, as I just said, but the remains had piercing holes in both nipples and Ashley had removed her jewelry from that area to breastfeed. That matched up. But not only that. The responding officer found two baggage tags,

you know, the ones that you put onto the airport on the suitcase with the name Joy Densmore on them, as in Adam's younger sister. I hope you haven't forgotten about Adam's family members relaying to detectives. They smelled the odor of bleach in the guest bathroom, right after Adam had been all alone in the house for several hours on his little visit. Well, of course, the police getting searched warrant for that property as well. Remember Adam told his own father that he did something stupid?

But that sounds more like a confession. Maybe he was trying to vaguely get something off of his chest. Regardless, CSI examined that guest bathroom, and even without an alternative light source or even spraying luminal, they saw numerous red stains that looked like blood on the inside and the outside edge of the bathroom door. It was on the floor, on a cabinet, on the ceiling, and even on a light switch, and in the bathtub. How did his family not see that? When they did spray luminal, you can see it lights up near the train. in other areas of the tub.

Again, there were also smear patterns. There was a cleanup attempted in this room as well. And what's even darker is, remember Adam's sister said that he was at the back of the house? Well, out there, there was a tool shed. And inside, they found a reciprocating saw. It's a power saw. They're large with long, metal blades with sharp teeth on them

that can tear through many surfaces, wood, trees, metal, even plumbing. Heavy duty. And on that saw was fleshy material and blood. There was also blood all over a tarp. It was like a grill cover in that shed. Dried blood inside. How horrifying would it have been for detectives to realize what this monster had potentially done to this young mom, someone that he's supposed to love his daughter's mother. That saw would easily cut through skin, muscle, and bone. And authorities believe that Adam actually used it to cut Ashley and dispose it for remains, possibly transporting them to and from that guest bathroom in that grill cover, and then into a container of some kind. Like a suitcase, a purple Riba brand suitcase that came in a matching set of three, two of which were missing from the Densmore's house.

And one of which had already been found in the gas station dumpster. Adam's sister told law enforcement, she borrowed the luggage on a recent trip, but she brought them all back to her mother upon her return. Detectives believed that Adam dismembered Ashley in his parents' guest bathroom, put her torso in the biggest suitcase, with her limbs and severed head in other containers,

and deposited them anywhere from Louisiana to Arkansas and back to Oklahoma over the course of the last few days. So they actually released this picture that I'm showing on the screen if you're watching of a set of this luggage. just in case the public recognized them and had seen them in an unusual place. But they also feared

that they'd already been picked up by waste management and taken to a landfill. It would be nearly impossible to know which state, which landfill, and even if they narrowed it down, that kind of search is tedious and very costly. And if you think Adam was going to offer up any information, that's a no. He still wasn't talking to anyone.

Well, that's not actually true. He had spoken to someone, a woman. Jessica Punches, a social worker, after Winter Daisy had been handed over to the state until she could be placed with family members. Adam opened up to Jessica. Maybe he didn't think he was being recorded because he wasn't at the police station,

but he was being recorded. She asked about the last time he saw Ashley and about what led up to their argument that night. Let's listen. We came back I got some beer before we got home, I had a couple, and we had sex. I think she was making me feel better or trying to make me feel better. And not long after that, we started fighting.

About anything in particular? Just some insane stuff. It's been coming up over the past long time. And that she's been seeing somebody new. Okay. That was a big part of it. Should that get physical? I slapped it.

Okay. I'm very certain. That was the absolute second day. Why he didn't get out of the way? So he says they were home, that he had a couple beers, but we know from the clerk at the allegor or it was more than a couple beers. He said they slept together.

Now, I didn't believe that was true. Because they were broken up for at least two months at this point, and Ashley was dating someone else. And the way that Adam said it, it, as though this was a way for Ashley to try to make him feel better that just made me feel icky. Because he says after that they start arguing. Why do I think that it went more like he was trying to get her to sleep with him while he's all drunk and sloppy, and she's resisting? This is a woman who calls him a blob and shows pictures to where friends of him pass out

on the couch. Why do I say all that? Well, he jumps right into the fact that she's been seeing someone else and that was a big part of their fight. But, but, But the most telling part was when he admitted that the fight, the argument, I mean, it did get physical. He slapped Ashley. Detectives know he did much more than that, but this admission alone is more than he said to them. But he frames it as if that's when he knew he had to leave so that it wouldn't escalate any further. We know he didn't leave until after nine hours after Ashley was last seen at 5.30. at our apartment complex, and after he went home from the liquor store at 6 p.m.

He also had cuts all over. A couple small ones on his forehead and both of his cheeks, a large scratch on his right forearm, as well as a good-sized abrasion right there, too. Cuts behind his ears, a bite mark on his left chest area, and another bite mark on his right inner thigh. He had cuts on his hands, wrists, knuckles, and all of his knuckles were swollen and red. And the crocks that he was wearing had the same exact pattern that was on the screen of Ashley's phone, which meant to detectives he probably stepped on it to keep her from calling for help. But man, did she fight hard? Her baby was there.

She wasn't going to give up without a fight and she fought for her life and it broke my heart to think about how much she loved her little girl. It tears me up and it's so unfair that monsters like this can get to decide. who lives and who dies. Ashley's family was still holding out hope that she was going to be found alive and unharmed and she was going to come back to them and be back with her baby.

But her sister Casey feared the worst as soon as she heard that Adam was with Winter all alone. She just knew the outcome was not going to be good. She said she was bracing herself for the bad news. And on Thursday, February 16th, Dr. David Arbo, a forensic pathologist, conducted the autopsy on the torso that was found stuffed in the purple suitcase. First of all, there was a distinctive characteristic found on the back of this body.

A sublime logo, you know the band, the smiling sun, while Ashley had the same tattoo in the middle of her back, but it was unique because her tattoo, her sublime logo, had a little gap between the two front teeth to match her little gap in hers. It was the same tattoo. And before this finding, they were already about 99.99% sure that this was Ashley. And it was sad for me to hear that even after her mother was informed

that it was most likely her daughter, she still hung on to a 1% chance that it wasn't. That's just heartbreaking to me. And unfortunately, this medical examiner could not determine Ashley's cause of death. He explained that in this type of case where they don't have a full body, especially very important parts of a body, it's

very difficult. He went on to note there were many methods of homicide that would not produce a lot of blood loss. For example, strangulation, suffocation, blows to different parts of the body that could cause internal damage to the organs or to the brain. However, those organs were missing, especially the head and the neck. The doctor could not test for any of those types of death. There were injuries, though, that were observed on the torso, bruises and marks on the back, abrasions that happened before or in close proximity to the time of death. Because of the removal of the limbs and the head, they called in a forensic anthropologist Stephen Sims to examine her bones and how the cuts were made. Now, I'm just going to tell you, this next part had me sick to my stomach. I actually felt physically ill, so I'm just putting that out there as a warning.

But Ashley's right shoulder had extensive damage. There were marks from two or even three separate tools, things that could be compared to a sharp knife, a scalpel, and a reciprocating saw. And possibly a tool that created an even smoother cut. We already know a saw like that was found in Adam's father's tool shed. Well, inside the Volvo were wrappers for disposable scapals. The cuts to this arm were much different. Compared to the other limbs, Sims referred to these cuts as a learning curve.

Yeah. To detectives, this meant that the killer was practicing. Maybe he didn't have or was familiar with the right equipment or the right tool to make a clean cut. So he tried a few. And to me, that was disturbing. On the other arm and the head and the legs, there were clean cuts, so no practicing. What was sick was that Sims noted, instead of trying to cut through an entire limb, The person who did this cut away the flesh and the tendons

and then popped the limbs out of the sockets. He said, quote, it's rather predictable because you have that socket, you just have to loosen that up. End quote. It gave me a visual that I never wanted to see of someone doing that to somebody. There were cuts to her pelvis

and the internal organs in that area had been removed. And as for the head, a sharp instrument had been used to cut between the fifth and the sixth vertebrae. As for the amount of time this would have taken, Sims estimated each limb would take about 30 minutes to remove, so about two to three hours minimum. Wow. And if you need a break after hearing all that, I completely understand.

Imagine her family, them knowing this. Her mother, her mother said she cried and cried. Her daughter was gone. Her daughter's potty was gone. Pieces of her were missing, and she was never coming back. And little Winter, Daisy, was without a mommy. But Ashley's sister Casey stepped up immediately, and Casey and her husband took in Winter and loved her like she was her own.

It was bittersweet to me because Winter was so young, she wouldn't remember the pain of losing her own mother, but that loss was obviously felt so deeply. she was so incredibly loved by Ashley's family. She was surrounded by her grandparents, her cousins, her aunts and uncles, and many people who filled that emptiness. From what I could see on Facebook, she lived a wonderful life, a fun life, adventures, creativity, busy, and loving, almost perfect, even though she did lose her mother.

And the fact that Ashley was not whole, that added an additional layer to their grief. These investigators were determined to find out where the rest of Ashley was, so they could lay her to rest, and also to find as much evidence as possible to charge Adam Densmore with her murder. And the first step was the CCTV footage I told you about. Now, there were a number of cameras at the gas station property, and on more than one, you can see the white Volvo station wagon

pulling in at 12, 25 p.m. on February 15th. It drives right up to the dumpster in broad daylight, parks, Someone matching Adams' description gets out, opens the dumpster lid, pull something out in the back seat of the car, and throws it inside. And then he drives to a pump, goes inside the gas station, is on camera paying in cash, and goes in pumps gas. He's wearing jeans, a dark beige jacket with a cream-colored collar, and a gray beanie.

And after that, he gets back into the car and drives it over to the Walmart parking lot. I'm still making the shirt that says there's always a Walmart because there usually is. And that CCTV footage from that parking lot showed him parking, getting winter out of the car seat. And then the internal cameras in the store catch a clear shot of them coming through the front door. It's like, how? How is he holding her in the same arms that he just used to kill her mother? And do all the rest of the stuff to her. How? It's unreal. And he's just casually walking in like it's a normal day, even smiling as he walks out with his daughter.

It's more than heartless. It is inhuman. Now, the GPS from Adam's phone followed the same path as the Volvo turning off the main road, going through the gas station parking lot, stopping at the dumpster, going around towards a pump, and then to Walmart. It was all mapped out. Clear path. Adam's GPS went on to show he made another stop at a gas station dumpster in Morrillton, Arkansas, after he went to his grandma's house. They get CCTV from that gas station as well, and you can see the same. and Volvo pull up to another dumpster. Adam gets out. He removes something from the back seat,

puts it into a black trash bag, and sticks it in the side opening of the dumpster. Now, it is thought that this is perhaps Ashley's head and that her legs and arms were put into the other smaller suitcase and that they were dumped elsewhere. Or this could have been tools, towels, gloves, other bloody items that he needed to get rid of and maybe her remains were just in that one other suitcase.

They didn't over. for sure. But they were able to get in touch with waste management, and they knew exactly where this particular trash would have been placed inside the landfill. And as they explained, this is not only costly, but tedious. And I'm going to get back to that part because that came later. But remember that paternity test? Well, the results had come back just four days before Ashley was killed. And they proved that Adam was Winter Daisy's father, her biological father. So you might be asking, what's the motive? Those journals that they found inside the car shed some light on that aspect of this case.

Because this did not happen on a whim. It didn't occur overnight. This was a plan that was simmering in Adam's mind for quite a while. There was a theme to his writings, Ashley, being in his words, cruel to him. It started with the story about how he was the one that invited Ashley to move to Boulder and live with him so that he could be closer to winter. And later when things fell apart leading up to her murder, Adam wrote that even though they were no longer dating, he, quote, would never be shed of her and the misery she carried with him, end quote. And that he wanted to leave many times was too afraid because he thought she would take the baby away from him. He said, quote, it's better just to endure the pain to stay close to my beautiful blossom, end quote, referring to winter.

His writings get darker and darker. He begins to write about imagining Ashley dying or being hurt badly. In these entries, it's as though he's talking to himself. He says he has a, quote, soft feeling of satisfaction, end quote, when he fantasizes about Ashley being hurt in a car crash. But then he tells himself to stop thinking about. because we both know what's next. Both? That had me thinking, is he Adam?

Or is he his alter ego, Samus? I don't know. But he wrote things like, I'm so tired of her. I'm so tired of her not seeming to give a good goddamn about me and my wants and my needs. I long to hit someone hard. And again, I want someone to feel

the frustrating helplessness of a beating, end quote. And it seemed he wanted that person to be Ashley more than, than anyone else. But she wasn't the only one he wrote about hurting. He apparently had disdain for his own mother and wrote about wanting to beat her as well, not just recently, but dating all the way back

to when he was only five years old. At times in this journal, it was as though he was addressing Ashley. Because one entry said, quote, I hope you're ready because you're gonna get it. You're about to feel the wrath, end quote. And he blamed every negative thing in his life on her. even as drinking. And he wrote, quote,

I'm so angry all the time. I want to violence on everyone I see. I want her gone. I need to be cruel. And now you're imagining her being hurt or dead. And now you're imagining hurting her. End quote. And then there was a final entry that read, quote.

I was wrong. I know that. Hells. I knew it when I was doing it, but I did it anyway. The worst of sins, and I'm ashamed for it, dear gods, but it felt So good, though.

Wow. I can't even fathom someone being so out of touch, so cold, so cruel, using his word, to do what he did, and he did do it. The DNA results came back. The swabs taken from Adam's parents' guest bathroom belonged to Ashley. It was her blood on the saw, on the blade, and on that grill cover, and in her car. However, when it came to the blood at Ashley's apartment, only one swab from a hand. Tamper came back as a match to Ashley's DNA.

All the others were inconclusive. But there was a reason for that. Bleach. It contaminates and it erases and breaks down DNA. But they had enough evidence to charge Adam with first-degree murder, tampering with a corpse, abuse of a corpse, and tampering with physical evidence in the death and dismemberment of 25-year-old Ashley Elizabeth Mead.

I already told you about his previous arrest for DEV in Louisiana in May of 2008, but he also was arrested for a DUI, in 2010 and there was a warrant for his probation violation in 2011. He was charged with a traffic violation in 2012 and disturbing the peace in 2013. This case wasn't anywhere near over yet. Investigators still hadn't found Ashley's other body parts, and they did do an exhaustive search of that landfill in Arkansas. From 6.30 a.m. until 5.30 p.m., Monday through Friday, they sifted through trash looking for

Ashley. For five weeks, looking for for any trace of evidence, but ultimately they found none. And it was heartbreaking. They felt defeated. But who knows if body parts were ever in that bag that was thrown into the Arkansas dumpster? We don't know that.

It could have been trashed, towels, et cetera. And that may have been really hard to differentiate from normal trash. Either way, it was a loss for them. They felt awful not being able to return all of Ashley to her family. Not even her torso was available to her family because it was still evidence.

A year later in April of 2018, it was finally time for 33-year-old Adam Densmore to stand trial in front of a jury. The opening statement by the prosecutor was so powerful. She showed a photo of the purple suitcase, and she said, inside this suitcase is horror. Inside the suitcase is a dismembered, disemboweled, headless corpse of 25-year-old Ashley Mead.

The man who did this to her is the defendant, Adam Densmore. He murdered and dismembered her. because he felt she was mean to him. He murdered and dismembered her because he was fixated on the idea that she was going to leave the state with their child. She explained that by the time Ashley's loved ones were looking for her, Adam had already driven her hundreds of miles away, lying right beneath their infant daughter's feet

in the back seat of her own car. And then inside his parents' guest bathroom, he carefully removed each of Ashley's limbs from her body to get ready to stuff her into a purple suitcase. The prosecutor talked about the journals. They said, quote, his words of hatred towards Ashley flowed as effortlessly as the blood he spilled

from her body, end quote. And because he threw her body parts away like trash, the prosecutor explained, a coroner was never able to determine a cause of death. She told the jury, you're not going to hear the answer to that question because the defendant took great pains to ensure that she wouldn't. But he made a few mistakes, and he left a couple clues behind.

And we already know the CCTV footage, the GPS, the tags on the luggage with Adam's sister's name on them. And the prosecutor went on to say, he was carrying Winter Daisy with the same hands he had just used to ensure that she would never, ever see her mother again. And then it was the defense's turn with attorney Jennifer Chanu addressing the jury. Three important questions, she said, would be really important for them to keep in mind. the where, when, and how, stating that these questions will remain unanswered at the end of this trial. When you can't answer one of these questions, that's reasonable doubt.

And when you have reasonable doubt, you must find Mr. Densmore not guilty. The defense told the jury that all the prosecution was going to do was present a theory about what they think happened to Ashley. But they can't prove what actually happened or even when or where it happened. Your job is not to solve a murder mystery or to figure out the answer these questions. It's the prosecution's burden to prove every single one of them. She went on to ask the jury not to merely assume that Adam's paranoid panicked and rash decisions were signs of guilt, saying, you're going to hear about some horrible, gruesome things, and you may feel disgust and distressed and distraught. You may want to solve Miss Mead's death.

You may want to figure out answers to these questions, but you cannot let that cloud sworn oath that you took as members of this jury, the oath that you will not jump to conclusions, that you will not make any decisions based on sympathy, bias, or prejudice. You swore that you would set all of that aside and ask yourself. Am I left with questions? Where, when, and how? Also pretty powerful.

But then the prosecution laid out everything that I already told you in this video, all the evidence, every connection, and even witnesses that you haven't heard about yet. There was Jennifer Thurber who met Adam online almost two decades before this. They kept in touch all of those years and she testified for the prosecution. She showed the jury all of her Facebook and text messages, specifically in the months leading up to Ashley's murder. And many of them, he called her cruel, said that he was tired of fighting with her. He was so tired and he also said, I'm ashamed of the third.

thoughts I have of her most days, and there was even testimony from a neighbor who saw Adam cleaning out the white Volvo and loading a purple suitcase inside of it. But some of the strongest evidence was a scientific kind, the DNA. How do you explain Ashley's blood in her ex-boyfriend's parents' house if her ex-boyfriend wasn't the one who put it there by dragging her deceased body into the bathroom and taking her apart? Explain that. Because to the defense's point, there's another question that the jury has to ask themselves. And that's who? Who else would have access to his parents' house?

Who else would have access to her car? Who else would have access to Ashley, except for him? It's almost insulting to all the investigators, all these scientists who diligently put this evidence together to act like someone else could have done this. Don't let the fact that he took her apart lend itself to his innocence. Sure, because they can't find parts of her body,

they don't know exactly how she died, but he already put his hands around his ex-wife's neck in the past. Now, I don't think the jury was going to have that information. Maybe they did, I don't know, but either way, all the evidence presented that two weeks was very compelling. And then Adam had to decide whether he was going to take the stand. He asked the judge if he could sleep on it because it was a very, you know, heavy decision for him to make.

Any guesses? He came back in the morning and he decided not to do that. to take the stand. At least I think he didn't, because I didn't read anything about it. But his defense attorney in her closing tried to spin everything. All the journals? Oh, that was him growing as a person. She was like, how are you supposed to grow and reflect if you're not able to write everything and anything you want in a journal? Even if it means writing nasty things about someone. That's not motive, she said. The blood? She said five droplets on a hamper. She's like, you know what that is? reasonable doubt. She even tried to diminish the gruesomeness of what happened Ashley's body by saying,

oh, the prosecution's trying to use that to invoke your passions. That's not permissible. She said, what the prosecution's attempting to do is to use speculation to prove something that they can't prove. She didn't want the jury's emotions to be involved in their deliberation. And after a full day, the jury still had not come to a verdict. Actually, the jurors submitted two questions. One, they asked for some clarity on one of the elements of the first-degree murder charge. They wanted to understand the after-deliberation part. The judge couldn't give them advice, but the instructions read, The length of time required for deliberation need not be long,

but that an appreciable amount of time must have elapsed. The jury also asked to see two surveillance videos, one of Ashley at the Sprouts grocery store, and then one of Adam at the liquor store. They also requested a video that Ashley took when she took when she said, she was at home with her family for Christmas without Adam. I think the reason they wanted to see that video was because in the video, you can see her sitting next to a suitcase that she brought with her.

One that investigators never found. Now, this was something that related to a theory the prosecution had, that Adam had used that suitcase, Ashley's suitcase at her apartment to put her inside so we could bring her from the apartment to the Volvo. However, the defense argued the suitcase was too small, so maybe the jury wanted to look at that video and decide for themselves.

Now, the next day on April 26th, the jury did reach a verdict. Guilty on all accounts. And as for Ashley's family, they decided not to make any comments. But Claudia, Ashley's mother, approached Adam's mom, and they held on to each other and cried. She recognized the loss that they both experienced, and I have to give Ashley's mom a lot of credit. She was able to extend that kind of compassion. But you know what they lacked? A confession. That's what they wanted.

Even some remorse or to know where Ashley's body was. But Adam refused to reveal what happened the day Ashley's murder happened or where he disposed of the rest of her remains. And they're not going to hold their breath. Because it doesn't look like he'll ever be willing to speak. He was ultimately sentenced to life plus 12 years. Following Adam's conviction, Ashley's remains were held by authorities for over a year before finally being released to her family.

And that delay was very difficult for her loved ones. But when they were finally able to honor her with a proper funeral, they did this beautiful ceremony. Her coworkers spoke about how positive she was, how great she was in the classroom. They said, thank you for putting a rainbow in our classroom every day. And at the memorial, one of her friends suggested that everyone that attended honor her memory by planning wildflower seeds.

The purpose was to make sure that the beautiful colors that Ashley brought into this world would continue to live on after her tragic murder. Wildflowers are a symbol of resilience, beauty, and hope. And they can serve as a reminder that even in the darkest of times, there's still beauty to be found in the world. And then several of Ashley's friends gathered at the Boulder Public Library, which is one of her favorite places,

and they shared memories about her. The people there, mostly mothers and teachers themselves, who knew her from, drop off, and pickups at the preschool where Ashley had worked, said that they found her to be honest, and they admired how Ashley treated their children as equals. It was Ashley's trademark smile, her oversized glasses, and the attachment to her daughter

that she carried around wrapped against her chest were highlights in all the pictures they showed at a slideshow. The void created by her absence is irreplaceable, and her family misses her immensely. She was fearless, brave, and lived her life to the fullest. Her mother believes that Ashley knew that her time on Earth was limited, which is why she tried to enjoy every moment of her life. Even though Ashley's life was short-lived,

she left an incredible mark on her family and everyone who knew her, so I never want you to forget her. And I thank you so much for being here for Ashley's story. I hope to see you in my next one. Bye.