True Crime with Kimbyr - Vanished on Her Morning Drive: The Chilling Disappearance of Jessica Dishon: Part 2

Episode Date: January 6, 2025

In Part 2 of True Crime with Kimbyr, we dive deeper into the investigation of Jessica Dishon’s disappearance. As Jessica’s family and friends grapple with her sudden absence, the search intensifies, uncovering chilling details that lead to more questions than answers. Who could have targeted a kind-hearted teen with a bright future? As detectives work tirelessly, suspicions grow within the close-knit community. Is the truth hidden in the shadows of those closest to Jessica? Tune in as Kimbyrleigha pieces together the clues in this heart-wrenching and baffling case. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

And among the numerous calls that came in, one was significant. It came from a truck driver. He had communicated through his CB radio, and he claimed to have seen Jessica at a truck stop. The detectives in this case followed up on every single lead. They didn't want to leave any stone unturn, but despite their efforts, they were not able to locate anything with that tip. Eventually, they did offer a $10,000 reward for information leading to Jessica's whereabouts. Residents were scared. They didn't want to let their kids go outside.

And one of the Dishon's neighbors, Sherry Breeding, she said this whole incident, quote, makes you look twice when you get in your car and lock the doors, end quote. I'm sure I can imagine in a small town anywhere this would be frightening. The FBI was doing all they could at that moment. They even got subpoenas for records from phone booths. Do you remember phone booths? So they got call records from phone booths in the area, and they requested videotapes from all over at stores that Jessica normally went to.

The FBI was also focusing on interviewing friends and family and the neighbors. During the interviews, they talked to the son of that property owner next door who shared that boundary line. Remember him? His name was Bucky Brooks. His dad owned a farm that was located just yards away from Edna and Mike's home. I'm going to show you right here. This is the Additions family home. And these properties right here belong to the Brooks.

I told you in the beginning that the Dission family and the Brooks family were very close. they were friendly. They even played softball together. But there was something about Bucky that just did not sit right with investigators. When they asked him when he had last seen Jessica, he said that it had been almost a year. This is their neighbor. How could it be almost a year without seeing her coming and going? Because in a subsequent interview, Bucky contradicted himself. Then he said, no, no, I saw Jessica the day she vanished. I just got the chills. She was walking towards where her high school was located. Now, that was eight miles away, and she had a car.

So why would she go walking? She even had a cell phone. So wouldn't she have called someone for help if she was stranded because her car didn't work? And we know she left that phone behind. So detectives asked him, well, Buckie, what were you doing on the morning that Jessica went missing? And he said, I was helping my father out on the farm. And I just saw her walk to her car. That's all.

But this statement was suspicious. If the timeline that they did have was correct, then Bucky's story made him the last person to see Jessica before she disappeared. And because of that, he had to be brought in for formal questioning. And at this point, he underwent a polygraph. Now, I know this is like a broken record. We know polygraph machines are not, they're not reliable. It's not admissible in court as a lie detector.

They're not an exact science. However, I've said this in previous cases. sometimes these tests can help detectives. They can make a suspect feel under pressure and that helps to narrow down their list. When the results of Bucky's test came in, it was not looking good because he failed. After this, those police divers were sent out to search a small pond on the land his family owned. This pond was only 50 yards from where Jessica's car was parked. Six divers went in there in their wetsuits, and it was in way steep water, so they didn't do a dive. Instead, they did a line search.

They went shoulder to shoulder, and they took tiny steps until they covered the entire pond. Nothing was found. Clearly, at this point, they wouldn't be searching for someone alive. They were already thinking the worst. They were looking for a body. Edna told the media, quote, It just seems like a nightmare that you're trying to wake up from, but you can't. end quote. It would be a nightmare. For any family or loved one, this would be heart-wrenching,

especially when you know that they're looking at a pond, thinking that this isn't even a disappearance anymore. Mike said he thought that someone must have been stalking his daughter. He told reporters, quote, whoever did this had to know the routine of when we left the house that day, end quote, and he suspected it was someone close to home. Bucky Brooks. Even one of the FBI, Jeffrey Lepinski said, quote, the odds of this being a stranger, someone just passing through, a drifter, walking by, and just happening to encounter Jessica, are quite low, end quote. Remember, this is a pretty rural area. It's not like you're going to be walking to your nearest restaurant or convenience store in a busy town

and run across Jessica. You almost had to have known where she lived. However, Bucky wasn't the only person that was. was suspicious to investigators. Reports had come in from people who swore they had actually seen Jessica after she was reported missing. And one witness was a manager of a bar in the area. They said they saw Jessica on Sunday after she had disappeared.

He said he knew it was Jessica because she had a short, strawberry blonde bob, exactly like Jessica. When investigators asked what Jessica was seen doing, this man told them, she was reaching into a dark car holding up a can of soda and a bag of chips. Now this dark car was actually mentioned by a few witnesses and two names kept popping up in connection with this black car, Jason Dunford and James Coulter. These two men were said to be driving a black Camaro and Jessica was allegedly spotted

in that same vehicle on more than one occasion. Now one of the witnesses who claimed to have seen Jessica in this black car was a woman named Belinda Kyle. Belinda knew the Dishin family and she knew what Jessica looked like. She said that the girl she saw looked just like Jessica and she was sitting in the front seat of a black car. When they asked what Jessica was doing, she told them that Jessica looked upset as though she had been crying. Do you ever wonder if people just make this stuff up? Because I remember during the Gabby Petito case, there were people going on TikTok, there were people going all over YouTube and elsewhere, even in the news.

And they were saying they saw things out. I don't know if they were ever confirmed, but a lot of times people thought it was questionable. I'm not saying that any of these people are lying. I mean, maybe they do just want their five minutes of fame. But have you ever thought that maybe after the fact when someone goes missing, people think they might have seen them? Like you rack your brain, you're like, wait, did I see her? Maybe I did see her. And maybe seeing their photo actually convinces you that you witnessed the person.

Because many times, I witness testimony is not as reliable as people think it. Yet another witness came forward and said that she had seen a man who looked just like James at a gas station not too long after Jessica went missing. And according to that report, Jason had scratches all over his arms and face. Because of all these witnesses' accounts, the police actually brought Jason and James in for questioning. I mean, yeah, that does sound pretty suspicious, especially because Belinda said she saw Jessica or someone who looked like her inside that black Camaro. Now, James did say he knew Jessica, but he said he didn't see her on the morning that it said she went missing. But he did admit that he sold her some drugs. LSD and marijuana, according to him. Remember, this is what he said.

Jessica isn't here to confirm or deny this. But according to his interview, he and Jessica had met at his house on Thursday. So a day before she went missing. And after their little transaction, they simply just went their separate ways. However, he said she did contact him about midnight that night, so this would be going into Friday at midnight, to ask if she could get her hands on some more drugs, again, according to him, allegedly. But he said that he told her he wasn't going to be home at the time, but she could go over there because she could buy the drugs from the person who was there. By now, officers believe that they are on the right track with this investigation. They have a few viable suspects and some strong leads to follow, but they were about to.

realize that this suspect pool would only get larger the more they spoke to people who knew Jessica. And that's kind of unusual in such a small town, but then again, as they say, idle hands are the devil's playground. And people in this town have a lot of time on their hands, but do they have blood on them as well? That's what detectives wanted to know. After chatting to some people from Jessica's high school, they found out that two months before she disappeared, she had been in an argument with another girl. The argument was about her boyfriend supposedly. And witnesses said it got really heated. So could Jessica have been kidnapped by a jealous classmate of a female, a girl in her school? Investigators also learned that someone Jessica had worked with at Hardee's had actually threatened her

recently. Not much was known about the context of this threat, but the investigators talked to this coworker and they insisted that everything was fine. Whatever caused tension between the them had been totally over by then. As days went on with no sign of the teenage girl investigators had their hands full trying to narrow down their suspect list. Was Jessica taken by a creepy neighbor from next door? Was the drug dealer to blame? Or the co-worker? Maybe it was the jealous girl from school and she wanted to get rid of her competition. One thing investigators were sure of, though, was that whoever had taken Jessica must have known their way around Shepherdsville. That meant that someone in the sleepy little town was hiding a big secret. For days, Shepherdsville remained in limbo.

No one knew who to trust. And the bubble of safety that had been once around that town had been fractured. Jessica's family was not giving up their search. Mike actually went to the nearby river bottoms to look for his daughter and his brother, Stanley, went with him. They stayed out there all day as long as they could. But Stanley started to feel sick. So eventually the men had to turn around and go home. But the search for Jessica. it was taxing emotionally on everyone involved and they were starting to grow even more pessimistic that they were going to find her but finally on september the 27th 17 days after jessica's disappearance there was a significant break in this case that day karen hobbs a bus driver was traveling along

her usual route in a secluded wooded area of bullet county off greenwell ford road when something caught her eye near the Salt River. This was only about seven miles away from Jessica's home. The area was thick with brush, and it was known as a dumping ground for all sorts of trash and debris, but still, Karen spotted something that just didn't seem to fit, so she pulled over to take a closer look. What she saw would play over and over again in her nightmares for years to come. There in the brush was the body of a young woman. It was obvious that she was deceased. The body had actually been propped up against a tree,

and her pants were halfway down. There was also a rope that was stained with spots of red, silver, and gray paint that was wrapped around her legs. It was obvious that animals had also gotten to the remains. So this bus driver, never, ever imagining she would stumble upon this. She didn't know what to do. And she wasn't even sure that she was seeing what she saw. So she called a friend Amanda McKim

to come to that site and confirm her findings. And once Amanda and Karen went back to that location, they were 100% certain that it was not only a body, but that this was Jessica Dition. So they immediately ran to the nearby home of Nanette Ashbaugh and they told her, we think we found Jessica. And they wanted to use her phone to call the police.

Now, Nanette, she was, wasn't a stranger. Karen actually knew her. They saw each other every day and Karen knew that Nanette lived close by so she felt safe going there for help. After they alerted the authorities, all three women went back to the site and they waited for the police to arrive. Once the investigators were told that a body had been found, they thought they'd finally found 17-year-old Jessica Dition. So they immediately descended upon the scene. The first thing they had to do was confirm that this really was the missing teen that they had been searching for. They saw she was wearing a class ring. And when they mentioned it to Nanette, she said she knew right away that it was Jessica.

Nanette and her husband were friends with the Dition family. They were out searching for her on horseback with their dogs when she first went missing. She knew that that ring was Jessica's. She had actually looked in this area, but she hadn't noticed anything here before her and her husband specifically searched that area of the river bottoms because they said if anything bad happens in Bullitt County, it usually happens in that area. Now they needed to confirm that it really was Jessica. So officers had to tell Edna and Mike what they had found. They knocked on their door that evening and Edna was hoping for the best. But she knew that after all this time had passed, the news probably wasn't going to be good. The officers told them, we found your.

daughter. And Mike asked, is she alive? And that's when they had to break the news that she was not. And it was devastating for this family. It would be for any of us. It's the worst news that anyone can get, but they weren't done. The investigator said they needed someone to identify the body. Edna was so brave. She agreed to go out to that scene. Can you even imagine? A scene where there was a deceased female to find out if it was really her missing daughter. And as she was driving there, she was praying, she was hoping that the police had gotten this wrong, that it was someone else,

that she wouldn't be the mother that would have to face the realization that their child, their only daughter, was dead. And when Edna arrived, she looked at the scene and she noticed something right away. It was the jewelry. It looked familiar. Her daughter had the same necklace and the same class ring.

but then she saw something that left no doubt in her mind. On the girl's hip was a tattoo of a butterfly, and that's when she knew. The badly beaten body that was lying there was her child. It was Jessica. And how incredibly heartbreaking if you just take a moment to realize the impact that would have had being a mother. Once the coroner Tommy Capelle was on the scene,

they could tell that Jessica was most likely strangled death and it looked to be from someone's bare hands. The state of decomposition also indicated that Jessica's body had been left out in the woods for days for those two weeks when she was missing. But how could that have been? If she had been in that area, the one where she was found, they would have spotted her much earlier. Okay, this was a remote area, that's for sure, but Karen had been able to spot Jessica just fine from the road. And Nanette and her husband, they said they were in this exact location and nothing had been out there. Someone would have seen that body if it had been in that same spot for that long.

This information provided a very disturbing realization that that rope that was around Jessica's lakes had probably been used to move her body to drag her body from another part of this area, and maybe even more than once. And sure enough, about 15 feet away, they not only found hair, but also bodily fluid. And after seeing this, it was suspected that about 18 hours before she was found, Jessica was dragged from another part of these woods to where she was located. The final location she was found was significantly closer to the road,

and she was positioned in a way that would make it very easy for her to be found, which meant that whoever had done this, wanted her to be seen. But why? What would a killer have to gain from the police finding Jessica's body? This could be some sick game that they were playing, or there could be more to the story than met the eye.

An autopsy was done by medical examiner, Dr. Emily Craig, a forensic pathologist, on September 29th. They wanted to determine the official identification, as well as the manner and cause of death. Dental records confirmed that the body was Jessica's and she was in very bad shape. Her jaw was broken.

It actually looked like someone had punched her so hard that they had crushed her face. She had bruises all over her body. The medical examiner determined that she had lived through a horrible torture before her death. And the fact that her pants had been pulled down signified that she was forced to have intercourse. However, because of the stage of the decomposition, the doctor could not conclusively determine that that had happened. The cause of death, manual strangulation, and the manner of death, obviously a homicide. It was also determined that Jessica had most likely been kept alive and tortured for at least three days before she was killed.

That is absolutely horrifying, and you'll know why I'm saying this a little later because I told you about a few things that we're going to talk about. There was also some kind of tiny pieces of foam material that was found on her body, which meant she had not been killed in these woods. Instead, she had been deposited there after she was murdered. And because she had possibly been moved more than once, they kill her most likely was someone that lived in this area that was able to get around easily and not be seen. Maybe someone that no one would suspect. On October 2nd, a crisp fall day in Kentucky, Jessica Don Dishan was laid to rest. Over 400 people gathered inside the church to pay their final respects to the

young woman whose life had been cut short. Her friends, her family members, aunts, uncles, cousins, as well as so many members of the community were left grieving and searching for answers. Jessica's blue and black casket was lowered into the ground and there was a question in so many people's minds. Why did this happen to Jessica? After her body was found, the investigation began to ramp up significantly because everyone wanted answers. They wanted the killer caught so that they could feel safe in their home again and the sense of security they had back again. Investigators go back to the drawing board and brought in their prime suspect again. The one person that stood out from the rest 40-year-old farm worker, David Bucky Brooks.

Jessica's neighbor, you already know that there were inconsistencies during his prior interviews, and he actually failed multiple polygraphs. But there was also some things he said during his interrogation that made investigators feel very uneasy. For example, When he was being asked where he thought Jessica might be, he said he didn't know where her body was. Well, that's very interesting considering this interview occurred before her body was found. Investigators found that to be very strange that he would refer to her as body instead of as a living person. That's definitely a red flag. But then there was the fact that the police had asked for permission to search the Brooks family farm and they said no.

So this made both the police and the Dishin family very suspicious. Why would they have something to hide? There were some members of the Dition family that already started to accuse the Brooks family of having something to do with Jessica's disappearance. And word was getting out that the Dishans felt this way. And in retaliation or maybe in their own defense, Bucky and some of his brothers allegedly started to harass and stalk members of the Dission family.

That's not cruel at all, especially with every. everything they're going through at the time. Why? They also allegedly made very disturbing phone calls to members of Jessica's family. And the allegations of harassment were eventually proven because the distant family tracked those phone calls. And they were the Brooks. With this evidence, the authority stepped in and they arrested the brothers for harassing this poor family. Bucky was ordered not to come within a thousand feet of Jessica's family. But on more than one occasion, of course, he violated that restraining order. He even landed himself in jail for 30 days because he decided it would be wise, for whatever reason,

to go on the Dishan's property in the middle of the night one night. Clearly, the Brooks brothers were drawing a lot of attention to themselves and the police were taking notes. They also noticed that Bucky's story about where he was on the morning that Jessica disappeared, it kept changing. But finally, he said that he never saw her because he was at work. yet nobody that he worked with could definitively back up his alibi. Not only that. In one instance, when they inquired about Bucky's potential response,

if they were to tell him that his fingerprints were discovered on Jessica's body, to their surprise, Bucky said, if they told him that, he would be compelled to confess to her murder. These responses definitely deviated from the norm. So they raised even more questions about Bucky's involvement. But did all this circumstantial evidence prove that Bucky was Jessica's killer? The short answer is no. The long answer?

Well, the nail in the coffin for Bucky came when investigators eventually gained access to that farmland. A search warrant was obtained to see if they could find Jessica's missing shoe or any other evidence that connected the murder to Bucky Brooks. As the cadaver dogs searched this farm, they came across a pair of gloves. And these gloves not only made the dog stop, but they smelled so badly like human remains. Later, investigators came across rope in Bucky's work van that looked very similar to the one that had been tied around Jessica's ankles.

The investigators recognized the potential significance of this discovery, and they sent that rope in for analysis. Detectives were confident that they were progressing with this investigation as they were focusing on Bucky, and this confidence was further reinforced when they got a tip. There was evidence that Bucky rent a carpet cleaning machine at 11 p.m. on September 27th, and he returned it at 8 o'clock in the morning.

That was the night that Jessica's body was discovered. So of course, the detectives thought he's trying to conceal evidence. However, Bucking his brother, they willingly provided their blood, their hair samples, and they said they had nothing to do with Jessica's death. Bucky Brooks failed four of the six polygraphs they gave him. The other two that he didn't fail were just inconclusive. So all of this evidence being found, it escalated into a family feud between the additions and the Brooks. And because this was a small town, the whole community was in an uproar because they knew both of these families. They didn't want to have to pick sides and they didn't know what to believe. There were people on both sides. Some that say there's no way, Bucky did it. Some people

that say, yeah, they were definitely involved. Eventually, when the crime lab was examining that rope found in Bucky's van, they determined that it was identical to the rope found on Jessica's body. I mean, look how close these properties are. It makes perfect sense that he could easily have done this. So with all this evidence, investigators concluded that Bucky Brooks had indeed kidnapped, tortured, and murdered Jessica. They also determined that Bucky had enlisted the help of his brothers to clean up the crime scene and dispose of her body on the side of the road. And now it was time to build their case against them.