By Jennifer Jimenez ’25

 

Christmas season is usually a time to focus on positive and uplifting things; that said, let’s talk about a Christmas crime mystery!

Debbie Wolfe was a nurse who lived in a small town in North Carolina. Wolfe was known as a kind and gregarious person, quick to help anyone in need. On Christmas day 1985, Wolfe celebrated the holiday with loved ones. The following day she reported to work, leaving the hospital at 4PM.

She was never seen alive again.

After not hearing from her that evening, Wolfe’s parents and Kevin Gorton, a family friend, decided to go to her house which was essentially a cabin in the “middle of nowhere”. When they arrived she was not there and, even more concerning, everything was out of place. Wolfe was known as a neat and meticulous person, however what her parents discovered was many beer cans scattered around, her uniform thrown on the floor, and the kitchen a mess.

Moreover, they also found a voice message that seemed very strange to her mother; it was from a man Debbie had met in the hospital telling her that he missed her because she had been away from the hospital for many days. However, Debbie’s mother knew she had only been missing for hours and that she had not missed several days at work.

They continued looking outside the cabin and in the surrounding area, but to no avail. They then called the police but they said that they couldn’t do anything until 3 days had passed since she was missing. Ultimately, according to Debbie’s mom, it wasn’t until after 5 days that the police began to look for her in earnest.

On January 1, 1986,Kevin and another friend named Tyler returned to a pond near her house and found 2 footprints and drag marks. Tyler dove into the water and claims to have found a barrel with Debbi’s body inside, They called the police, who determined that the cause of death was accidental drowning, and that there had been no barrel, but rather her coat had filled with water, giving it a barrel like appearance.

A subsequent autopsy revealed no drugs or alcohol in her system, which begs the question, who drank the beer? Furthermore, A few months after Debbie’s death, her mother had a chance to examine the clothes found on her body, and determined–in her opinion–that the clothes could not have been hers. According to her mother, the pants appeared to be too large, the field jacket did not belong to her or her brother (she had borrowed one from him), the bra had a cup size that was three times too large for her, and the shoes were three sizes larger than her normal shoe size. However, the police insist that the clothes belonged to her.

Ultimately police felt Debbie was playing with her dogs, fell in the pond, and drown. However Debbie’s parents insist she was murdered—possibly by a volunteer at the hospital she worked at. What do you think?