The WEIRDEST murder motive EVER -- SOLVED Mysteries, Episode 3

the clue that finally solved this murder was right in front of everyone the whole time but it would take almost a decade and the intervention of a secret crime solving society for investigators to finally understand its disturbing significance but before we get into today's story if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious delivered in story format then you come to the right channel because that's all we do and we upload three four even five times every week so if that's of interest to you please re-crust the like buttons smuckers uncrustables also please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our video uploads alright let's get into today's story when classes began at drexel university in philadelphia on the morning of november 30th 1984 students walking into randall hall made a gruesome discovery crumpled at the bottom of an outdoor stairwell underneath a gray jacket was the body of a young woman she had cuts and bruising all over her face and she had a deep purple line that went all around her neck from where she had been strangled to death she had no purse no backpack nothing to identify her there was no evidence of sexual assault because she was fully clothed although she was missing her shoes and socks police immediately cordoned off the area their first suspicion was this was a robbery that turned deadly but right away the police knew they were in for a very difficult investigation because one there were no cameras inside or outside of randall hall so they couldn't just review the footage to see what happened to debbie and two there was a virtually unlimited number of suspects because drexler university was not an isolated campus its buildings were integrated into west philadelphia and randall hall itself was located right along a known cut-through that residents that lived in and around drexler would use almost every single day and it was clear this young woman had not been killed in this stairwell she had been killed elsewhere and then dragged a great distance losing her shoes in the process before being dumped at this spot but just a couple of hours after the body was discovered the police received a lucky break when a young man who was combative and frantic rushed the closed off crime scene and demanded he be let through because he said he knew the identity of the dead girl the police were immediately suspicious because they didn't even know who this dead girl was so they pulled the young man aside and they interview him and he tells police his name is kurt raynor he's a student at drexel university and he believes the girl they had found the dead girl was his girlfriend 20 year old debbie wilson who was also a student and then he proceeded to give police a very long and complicated explanation of how he figured out the girl inside was his girlfriend he said the night before he was with debbie in randall hall in the computer lab in the basement he said debbie had a big project that was due the next day and that he had offered to just keep her company while she worked but by about 1 30 in the morning debbie still had a lot of work to do and kurt said he was just really tired and didn't know if he could stay awake any longer and so we asked debbie if it would be okay if he took off early debbie said it was totally fine she was used to working late at this computer lab and kurt even though he wanted to stick around and walk her safely to her car when she was done he felt like she was okay and so he took off on his own on his walk back to the dorm kurt said he passed by a campus security guard and he actually asked him if he wouldn't mind checking on his girlfriend in the computer lab because she was all alone and it was late and the security guard said no problem i'll make sure she's okay the next morning when kurt woke up he heard rumors from other students on campus about a woman's body being found just outside of randall hall and that apparently it looked like murder kurt said he didn't think much of it at first but that day when he went into campus to meet up with debbie he saw her car still parked in the computer lab parking lot looking like it had never left and then when he got to the meeting site debbie never showed and he said it was at that point that he realized the dead woman in randall hall must be debbie and he wasn't wrong it was debbie but the police were not buying his story he was the last person to see debbie alive and by his own admonition he had heard that morning about a dead woman being found at randall hall the very place he had left his girlfriend the night before all alone but it took him hours to bring this up to anyone the police also noticed he had bruises on his knuckles and a deep cut between his fingers suddenly kurt seemed like the killer and this crime that initially looked like a robbery gone wrong now looked like something much more personal strangulation is intimate the killer almost always is face to face with their victim and it takes a lot of time and a lot of rage and afterwards the killer had covered debbie's body with her jacket an act that indicated remorse or even respect and investigators know that generally when a woman is murdered her romantic partner is the culprit instead of tipping off kurt that they were looking at him as the primary suspect they told him to go back to his dorm room and they would be in touch with him as the investigation developed in the meantime investigators turned their attention to the computer lab in randall hall where kurt said debbie had been last debbie had logged into a computer at the front of the lab but had not logged out her computer cursor was left blinking mid-sentence at 1 38 am leading investigators to believe she was interrupted by her attacker inside of the lab investigators found two extension cords on the ground near this computer that matched the ligature marks on debbie's neck they also found a small spot of blood on the back of debbie's chair that they sent off for testing as police swept the computer lab they began commenting on how neat everything looked considering that there must have been some sort of death struggle that took place in there and that's when they realized there had been a huge setback in this case the janitor that morning had cleaned the computer lab and the hall right outside likely destroying critical physical evidence they interviewed the janitor who had a rock-solid alibi and was incredibly remorseful at unintentionally destroying the crime scene and so they asked the janitor before you cleaned it up was there anything strange about the computer lab or the hallway right outside of the computer lab and the janitor said no it was all normal but she did say it looked like the tables and chairs had been moved around inside of the computer lab but it didn't stand out to her because it always looked that way when she went in to clean it up because the police lacked physical evidence they couldn't just go arrest kurt even though they wanted to and so instead they asked him if he'd be willing to come down to the station for a formal interview and he said he would during the interview kurt insisted he had nothing to do with debbie's death as for the bruises and cut on his hand he said he had punched a wall after finding out what had happened to debbie and the cut in the middle of his fingers was from working on his car but neither of those things could be proven after this interview yielded no new results and they still had no evidence on kurt they told him he could go and in the interim they began digging into his alibi kurt had previously told police that after leaving debbie in the computer lab on his walk back to his dorm he had passed a security guard and asked that security guard to check on debbie and so the police were able to track down that security guard who confirmed kurt's alibi the security guard's name was bryce clattman who was a long-time employee of drexler university with a stellar work record and no criminal history clatman said he spoke with kurt around 1 30 in the morning as kurt was walking back towards the dorms after speaking with curt clatman radioed bronson ziegler who was one of the two security guards that were working in randall hall that night and he told him that he or the other guy david dixon would need to go down into the basement and check on this girl shortly after radioing ziegler clapman would say he saw a person presumably a student come out of randall hall he said he was just too far away and it was too dark that he couldn't make out any features but he definitely saw someone walking around the premise around 1 30 in the morning clapman told police he never stepped foot inside of randle hall that night and that he was willing to take a lie detector test police ran the backgrounds of bronson ziegler and david dixon dixon was a military veteran with a pristine record who was still in the army reserves as for ziegler he had spent time in jail for burglary and had actually lied about it to get his job as a security guard when police interviewed ziegler he was evasive and frustrated and he said that he did receive the message from clapman to go check on the girl but he didn't feel like doing it himself so he radioed dixon and said he should go do it ziegler insisted he had done his rounds properly and he had never stepped foot inside of the computer lab he told detectives they could check his security guard clock that he carried with him every time he did rounds which was basically like a punch card where there was designated stations along his security rounds where he would punch this card that stamped a time that he had arrived at that station and so over the course of the night he would punch his card at each of these stations and there was a record of what time he arrived and what time he left and so when they checked this record it showed that ziegler had hit all the stations at the correct time but that didn't mean he didn't kill her because there was lots of time in between rounds that he could have attacked her towards the end of the interview ziegler accused detectives of messing with him and then he sarcastically said he had killed debbie and then he refused to take a lie detector test when the police interviewed dixon he said that ziegler had never radioed him asking him to check on the girl in the computer lab however he did say he was aware of someone working late in the computer lab because around 2 15 in the morning he had walked past and the lights were on and he heard the sound of printers working inside and so not wanting to disturb whoever was in there he didn't even poke his head in he just figured he would come back in a couple hours and make sure they were gone and so over the next couple of hours he chatted on the phone with his girlfriend and then around four in the morning he went back down to the computer lab and the lights were off and the door was locked and so he figured whoever had been in there had finished up and left and ziegler had locked up after them when asked why he or ziegler had not discovered debbie's body he said their security rounds did not leave the building and so that stairwell was considered outside of the building and so they never would have seen her at this point clapman and dixon were ruled out as suspects but ziegler became a primary suspect but just as with the boyfriend kurt rainer there was no physical evidence tying ziegler to the crime and so they couldn't arrest him investigators decided instead to try to track down that person clapman had seen walking around randall hall around 1 30 in the morning after speaking with kurt and after radioing ziegler it would turn out to be 28 year old phd student ashlyn berhard who was known for keeping long hours and was also known for sneaking up behind the female secretaries that worked in his office and suddenly holding a pencil up to their neck and threatening to kill them his office also happened to be directly above where debbie's body was ultimately found inside of that stairwell when interviewed by police ashland said he had been in randall hall the night debbie had been killed but didn't know debbie had no interaction with her and didn't leave his office the whole night he quickly agreed to take a lie detector test but he failed it scrambling to explain it he named two other students that were in the office with him that could be his alibi but when police spoke to these two other students they said no ashlynn was not in the office the whole time he left around one in the morning and was gone for about three hours he said he was going to take a nap when the police approached ashland with this information he said oh you know what i forgot to tell you about my nap yes i left for a few hours i stepped outside for a breath of fresh air went back inside and slept in one of the study hall rooms but besides that i was inside of that building for a full 24 hours and i never saw debbie i had no interaction with her it's just coincidence that my nap coincided with when she was killed but detectives were not buying it they believed wholeheartedly that now finally they had found their killer but just like with kurt and with ziegler they had no physical evidence tying ashland to the crime and so they couldn't arrest him and because they were not able to make any arrests the police just continued to look for more suspects and so they began speaking to some of debbie's friends and acquaintances and it came out that debbie actually had a stalker it was another student named alan smith who had previously been one of debbie's very close friends but at some point he wanted to take the relationship from platonic to romantic and debbie rejected him allen apparently didn't take this very well and took to following debbie around campus trying to get her to stop and talk to him and try to reconcile their relationship but debbie every time would just say no and alan got increasingly more angry about it and just the day before debbie was killed their friends saw debbie fighting with alan in the middle of campus where alan had actually grabbed her shoulder and was shaking her and yelling at her police tracked down allen and he was cooperative and said he did not kill debbie but he didn't have an alibi he just said he was alone in his apartment on the night that debbie was killed and so like all the other primary suspects in this case there was no physical evidence tying allen to the crime and so they couldn't make an arrest around this time the lab that tested the blood spatter that was on debbie's chair inside of the computer lab came back with their results dna profiling was not available back then so all they could provide was blood type the blood type that came back from that little spot was type a and debbie's blood was type o meaning this blood spot likely belonged to debbie's killer who during their struggle must have gotten wounded and then bled on the chair and so right away the police got kurt raynor bronson ziegler ashlyn bearhart and alan smith to all come in and provide a blood sample and they figured if any one of them was type a that they probably were the killer but unbelievably when their test results came back in none of them were type a it was a crushing blow to the investigation the first few days after debbie's killing seemed so full of promising leads but now with this blood type development investigators had no suspects and all of a sudden the drexel community was starting to panic students were outraged at the light security and wondered why the security guards were not allowed to carry weapons the administration put up a ten thousand dollar reward for any information about who could have done this and the president of the university told students to use the buddy system and never be alone on campus because he believed the killer was one of us no one could understand why anyone would want to target debbie in the first place she seemed like such a wonderful person that was nice to everyone she had modeled in high school but she wasn't vain she'd actually turned down getting braces because she was worried it might affect her clarinet playing she was an average student but she had an uncommon drive she worked really hard to get good grades whenever she was feeling down or wasn't feeling motivated she would stare at a picture of a mercedes-benz car that was there to inspire her and remind her what she could achieve if she continued to work hard when she was killed that picture of the mercedes-benz still hung above her desk it was ultimately her work ethic that put her in danger because she was prepared to stay at that computer lab as long as it took to make sure her project was perfect the few pieces of physical evidence the police had didn't fit together the crime wasn't really a robbery while she was missing her shoes and socks her backpack had turned up at the campus lost and found about a week later and no one knows how it got there or who put it there inside it appeared all of her belongings were still there also when she was discovered she was still wearing her expensive watch her murder looked personal but the police could not prove that someone who actually knew her was the one who killed her police considered a few other suspects but like all the others there wasn't enough evidence to make any arrests and so eventually debbie's case went cold in 1985 the philadelphia inquirer ran a story about unsolved cases that most haunted detectives and debbie's was one of them some of the detectives that were involved in the case said they believed this was a random killing and that the killer would most likely strike again debbie's case eventually disappeared from headlines and it languished for eight years and then in the spring of 1992 debbie's murder was assigned to a cold case squad led by detective bob snyder and desperate to crack the case snyder threw a hail mary he took the case to the vedoc society which is a private and highly selective club of geniuses from all walks of criminology homicide detectives prosecutors defense attorneys fbi agents forensic scientists even an aeronautic physicist they came from all over the world for these monthly closed-door sessions where they would talk about these unsolvable cases and try to solve them so in one of their monthly closed-door sessions detective snyder stood in front of the vedoc society and laid out the details of debbie wilson's murder then he opened the floor to questions and for hours the society got nowhere then richard walter who was a founding member of the society said that he had a theory walter was a famous criminal psychologist who had profiled some of the world's most infamous killers most of his work is actually still confidential he believed the killer was a power assertive macho type guy that liked being in control walter pointed to one clue that detectives and everyone seemed to have overlooked after all these years and that was debbie's missing shoes he said the missing shoes were not random they were the most important clue the killer walter predicted was a foot fetishist detective snyder had nothing else to go on and he was really intrigued by this idea so he brought the information back to the cold case squad and they began re-interviewing everybody involved in the case when they spoke with the manager of the computer lab at randall hall he told them he was always bothered by one particular detail the printers in the lab always turned off after 10 pm and so he was always confused how the security guard david dixon could have heard the sound of printers inside the lab at 2 15 in the morning like he claimed detectives were shocked somehow no one had picked up on this discrepancy they began looking more closely at david dixon who had been ruled out as a suspect and was viewed by and large as this pristine military veteran with no criminal history and they dug all the way to the back of his military file where they discovered in 1979 the first year he was in the service he had gotten in trouble for stealing another soldier's white reebok sneakers the exact type of shoe that debbie was known to wear police began interviewing dixon's former and current neighbors and at least four women reported having a break-in when dixon was living next to them and the only thing missing was their white sneakers and dirty socks although none of these women actually ever found out who was responsible when they raided dixon's apartment they found in one of his closets 20 sets of used women's white shoes that were all wrapped in plastic like they were trophies they also found 77 homemade videos presumably shot by dixon that are just filming the feet of women walking around in white shoes dixon's alibi on the night that debbie was killed was that most of the time he was on the phone with his girlfriend his girlfriend had become his wife and then she became his ex-wife and so when detectives spoke to her she told them that they had only spoke for a couple of minutes that night not for a couple of hours police arrested dixon in june of 1993 and he never admitted to anything but as soon as he got into his cell he started bragging to his cellmate about how he had killed debbie because he wanted to have his way with her feet and his cellmate immediately told on him dixon was ultimately found guilty of killing debbie wilson and he was sentenced to life in prison so that's gonna do it guys if you found the secret in today's episode let us know in the comments what it is and where you found it so give us the time stamp and if you're the first to do that we'll pin you at the top of the comments section if you enjoyed today's video and you haven't done this already please re-crust the like button smuckers uncrustables also please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly three four even five video uploads if you want to get in touch with me you can direct message me on instagram or on twitter my username for both platforms is the same it's john ballen416 i also have a ton of content over on tick tock where my username is mr ballen if you have a story suggestion please submit it to our subreddit just called mr ballin it's linked in the description below so whether i see you on instagram twitter tick tock reddit youtube or some combination just know that i really appreciate your support and until next time that's gonna do it see ya

Channel: MrBallen

Views: 1,478,245

Rating: 4.9571891 out of 5

Keywords: mystery, mysterious, strange, dark, Drexel, Drexel university, foot, feet, foot fetish, fetish, vidocq, secret society, crime, true crime, scary, scary story, true, true story, college, college student, 1980s, 1984, navy, army, veteran, reebok shoes, reeboks, reebok, storage locker, break in, burglary, Pennsylvania, philadelphia, west philly, philly, computer, computer lab, strangle, strangled, asphyxia, asphyxiation, can't breath, tragedy, mrballen story, mrballen stories, tragic, senseless, French detective

Id: GCIZ1mnWAHw

Length: 19min 23sec (1163 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 29 2020