203: Abandoned House of Terror: Mom Lured Daughters to Their Deaths
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Sponsored by the Coalition for Medicare Choices. Learn more at MedicareChoices.org. Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialist League.

Hey everybody, welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialistly with me, Annie Elise. I hope you guys are having a good start to your week. We have got a very interesting and wild case to talk about today. And as a reminder, we are currently on tour and you can catch one of these episodes live in person. This Thursday, I will be in Salt Lake City. I'm going to be in Salt Lake City for a little bit.

I'm going to be presenting a brand new exclusive case that I have never covered before. I also have a very special guest joining me that I know you guys are going to be so excited to hear from. So grab your tickets. You can get them at AnnieElise.com. Just then hit the events tab and you can get everything there. Grab your friend, grab your spouse, come alone. A lot of people come alone and meet new friends. We also do a free meet and greet directly following the show. So I get to meet so many of you. We take photos, all the things.

So join me in Salt Lake City this Thursday. Can't wait to see you there. And again, you can get your tickets at AnnieElise.com on the events tab. So today's case, it takes us back to 2009. And it is one of the more haunting and harrowing cases that I think I've ever talked about, not only just on the podcast, but even on my YouTube channel, 10 to Life. It's a really difficult one, not only because of the depravity and the brutality of it, but also because it's

There's still so many questions, and you'll understand that as we go. So this takes us to 2009, as I said, and on June 5th, 2009, a 911 operator got a call that was something straight out of a nightmare. The caller didn't want to give this dispatcher her real name or her exact address of where she was, but she did say on this call that her two daughters, 12-year-old Kelsey and 13-year-old Kirsten, had been brutally attacked.

One of the little girls was unfortunately already dead, but the other one needed medical help right away. Are you in your car? No, I'm not in my car. I'm in the house walking around. And one of them's still alive for real. She's asking to be saved, and I couldn't handle that. And so now she's in an abandoned house. It's been a long time. She might already die. So she's flat out alive. Hold on. What, baby?

She said, please come to her.

The woman that you hear on that call is 32-year-old Debra Jeter. Debra had long brown hair, light skin. She was somebody who just kind of truly had like a natural beauty to her. But that day, she didn't look like herself. Not at all. She had these deep circles underneath her eyes like she hadn't slept in a while. She looked very, very stressed.

which of course we know makes sense given the situation and that 911 call, right? But even setting all of that aside, Debra was under a lot of stress in her life. See, she was in the process of going through a pretty tumultuous divorce with her husband. Her husband's name is Lester Jeter. He was a local car dealer, and he also went by Lee for short. Now, earlier that day, before she called the police,

She had a scheduled, unsupervised visit with her two daughters, and it apparently had started off really well. This visit was, you know, happy, good, exciting, and, you know, all of the things. She even promised the girls that she had a really big surprise for them. And Kelsey and Kirsten seemed really excited when they jumped into their mom's car and drove off to see what this surprise was. Nobody had expected that this day was going to add incomplete bloodshed.

Well, kind of. See, maybe nobody knew exactly what would go down on that specific afternoon, but the idea that Debra's children were in danger absolutely had occurred to lots of people in their lives. Now, to understand everything, we need to backtrack a little bit. Until super recently, Debra had lived with her husband and with her two daughters in Hillsboro, Texas. And think of

Hillsboro as kind of like this perfect place that's a compromise between small town living and big city life, the big city hustle and bustle, but then you have like this small farm country type living. Hillsboro is about 60 miles away from Waco, Dallas, and Fort Worth, so it really was the perfect place for people to settle down if they wanted to work in the busy city, but then also have that feeling of safety, community, all of the things that come with

farm country and small town living. However, Debra's life really was anything but peaceful or quiet. See, in 2004, about five years before this 911 call went through, Debra was accused of physically abusing her children. I don't know the full details on exactly what she supposedly did to them or who even accused her, mostly because the charges were dropped pretty soon after the accusation was made, but regardless, it's hard to say much about the incident.

But whether or not it was true, this was just the very first red flag that something wasn't right in Deborah and Lee's household. However, you wouldn't know it from the outside looking in. They not only looked like a happy family, a loving family, but their two daughters appeared like normal, happy preteen girls.

Kelsey, the younger daughter, had long, bright red hair, she wore glasses, and she was very active in Girl Scouts. She also did well in school, she loved to read. Anytime that she had downtime in the classroom, she seemed more interested in finishing whatever she was reading rather than, like, going out to recess or break or gossiping with her friends.

In fact, even when she would walk down the halls from class to class, she would just have her head buried in a book, not even worried about who she might bump into, run into, knock over, nothing like that. So much so that she actually got it down pat to open up her locker with only one hand. She'd have one book in one hand, looking at it, her face just buried in the pages, and then one hand unlocking her lock without even looking at it. I mean, she was...

Truly a bookworm through and through. And in addition to books, Kelsey love, love, loved theater. I mentioned before that she had this bright red hair that was long, and according to somebody who went to school with her, Kelsey got cast in the lead of the school play, which, with that red hair, you can only imagine what that play was, right? I'll give you a hint. The sun will come out to

two more, okay, I can't sing, but you get what I'm saying? It's Annie. Annie, guys, Annie. So she was overall just a really good kid, a good student, somebody who had these extracurricular hobbies, and just a happy middle school girl. Kelsey was also very, very proud of her mom and bragged to her teachers about her mom all the time. Because you see, Deborah was enrolled in nursing school while Kelsey was also in middle school.

so she liked that they were both students at the same time. Even though, yeah, like I said, Kelsey was only in middle school, not nursing school, she felt like this is something that bonded them together. They were both in school together, and she bragged to her teachers all the time about it. She was super stoked on it. Now, whenever the girls were out of school, whether it was after school or on the weekend, Kelsey and her sister Kirsten loved riding their bikes.

would ride all throughout the neighborhood they would ride past the school they would just laugh have fun they would smile and wave at anybody who they passed it was just like innocent fun something that we don't really see much of these days especially with social media being so many kids priorities right but here you had two sisters

who were not only close in age, just 12 and 13 years old, but close in spirit, in friendship, in everything. Basically, they were what any parent hopes that sisters will become. They weren't just family members, they were best friends. And that dynamic actually ended up being better for them than anybody could have ever imagined.

Because the truth was, they didn't have many other people that they could rely on or trust. And that's because right around the same time as those abuse allegations surfaced, their parents Deborah and Lee started fighting all the time. It ended up becoming a pretty toxic and tumultuous household.

The neighbors could actually hear the sound of their constant fighting and arguing all the way up and down the street. People were calling the police over and over again, either to complain about the noise or because they thought that there was a serious domestic disturbance going on. However, it doesn't sound like the police were able to do much of anything to make things calm or quiet in any sort of long-term way, because the fights, they just kept happening. And before long, it became super obvious to everyone, including Lee and Debra, that their marriage just was not working.

And the stress of all of this really affected Debra. I mean, I think it's worth keeping in mind that she had gotten together with Lee when she was super young. She was only 19 years old when their first daughter Kirsten was born, and then Kelsey came the year after that. So it's not like she and Lee had spent much time being independent single adults, you know, apart from one another, building their own independent lives, having the confidence and everything that comes with that.

So now it seemed like she might be losing her husband, and that she was going to be alone for the very first time ever. So that reality caused Deborah to begin having some serious mental health issues. Despite all of this, though, Deborah remained hopeful. She was thinking about the future. She was thinking about when things would get a little less dark, a little less sad.

She was still in nursing school and she was doing very well. She even got accepted into a very good program. However, she ultimately turned the program down because that program wouldn't end up with her being a registered nurse. And that was her goal. She wanted to be an RN. So as bad as things were now going with her marriage and with everything else feeling like it was falling apart in the house, she was still working to achieve her dreams. It was like she could see the light at the end of a very dark tunnel and if she could just get through to the other side.

But before she could reach that light, things got bad enough that in May of 2009, Debra tried to take her own life. Even worse than that, she did it at her home, right in front of her two daughters. Which, let me just repeat that, her daughters were watching as she tried to kill herself.

Which, what a horrific thing to witness, right? I can only imagine what kind of trauma those girls would have carried with them if they actually had seen her succeed in taking her own life. But even the fact that she survived and the fact that she tried it in the first place, I'm sure that left them with some pretty serious damage. But thank goodness they didn't actually witness their mother die right before their eyes. The good news was in all of this that, as I said, Deborah survived this attempt. She also got medical help.

First for her physical injuries, and then for her mental state. She ended up checking into a mental health facility in Waco, Texas. She stayed in that facility from May 22nd to May 26th, 2009. So it wasn't a super long amount of time, just four days, but at least it was something, right? Now, even though it was only four days, it was apparently long enough for her husband, Lee, to decide that things were not getting any better. This was his sign that the marriage, it was over for real, truly this time.

so he officially filed for divorce right after she was admitted. Now, around that same time, Lee also took out a restraining order against Debra. He said that it was because he was worried that she was unwell enough to try to hurt their daughters, since she had also tried to hurt herself in front of their daughters. Now, I don't know if this solely was just his reaction to her trying to harm herself in front of them, or if that past history of alleged abuse was also a factor in this, but I do know that he seemed to really not trust her by this point.

And I also understand his fear for wanting to protect his children, not only for their own safety, but for witnessing something that horrific. Sometimes the trauma and the emotional effects of witnessing a tragedy like that can be just as impactful as physical trauma being put onto you. So I get him wanting to be a good parent and shield his children at all costs.

So given that Lee was divorcing her and also took out this restraining order, you might be thinking to yourself, okay, well, by all indications, he certainly does have some hesitations about leaving her alone with these girls again, right? I mean, it only makes sense given that restraining order. But for some reason, Lee dropped the restraining order almost right away after Debra got out of the hospital.

And on June 4th, 2009, he agreed to show up in court to talk about whether or not she should be able to have unsupervised visits with her daughters. Which, surprising to everybody, he was absolutely in favor for. Which I want to mention, it wasn't like Debra had spent months recovering and proving that she was ready for the responsibility that comes with being a parent, with being a mom. She had been away from her girls for an extended period of time, yes, but that extended period of time, in total, was only 15 days.

it had only been two weeks since she had tried to take her own life right in front of her daughters so is that really enough time to show that you have made some sort of long-term lasting progress i don't know but in any event lee told the court that he was okay with letting deborah have unsupervised visits and during that same hearing as a precaution lee also formally requested a copy of the medical records from her time at that mental facility and the judge agreed to it so

So the plan was that Debra was going to be reunited with her daughters the very next day, on June 5th. Now, their dad, Lee, must have told the girls about the upcoming visit because 12-year-old Kelsey immediately jumped on Facebook and she wrote, "'I get to see my mom today. Yay!' Just so excited that she was going to be reunited with her mom."

It's not clear to me if either of the girls knew anything about where their mom had been, or the fact that their dad Lee had been worried about their safety. I mean, I'm assuming that he told them something given what they witnessed and all, but they were just excited to see their mom again. It had been two weeks, and they missed her.

So that day, Lee drove the girls out to Debra's place, because now she had been living on her own ever since he had filed for divorce in the beginning, and ever since she had been discharged from that mental facility. When he dropped the girls off at around 6pm, Debra said that she had a surprise for Kirsten and Kelsey. Now these two young girls, preteens and one teenager, were obviously...

really excited to see what this surprise was. But Deborah told him, sorry, the surprise isn't here. We have to drive to it. We're going to have to go somewhere to see it. So Lee was kind of basically like, okay, great, have fun. He didn't ask what the surprise was or where they were going or anything like that. It was Deborah's time to have with her daughters. So Kelsey, Kirsten, and Deborah all climbed into Deborah's car and they started driving to a town in Texas called Corsicana.

But then when it was time to head back home, Deborah made a detour. She took Kirsten and Kelsey out to the middle of nowhere. There were a ton of abandoned houses all along the way, and each time she saw one, she sort of just slowed down and watched it as they drove past it.

Almost like she was trying to find something specific. Just creepily, slowly driving past all of these scary, abandoned-looking houses. Now, I don't think that the girls had any idea what she was looking for as they were driving. Maybe they were wondering if those houses had anything to do with that surprise.

that she had planned and the one that she had promised. Maybe they thought she was lost and she was looking for something familiar, who knows? But I do think that it's interesting that Debra was being so thoughtful about where to go. It makes me think that everything that happened next...

was absolutely planned in advance. It was all premeditated. At one point, when Deborah was driving down those rural roads in Texas, all past those houses, she must have found a house that she liked because she stopped in front of it, broke inside, and then told the girls to head inside and head to the bathroom. But once they were inside that bathroom, that's when their mother, Deborah, picked up

up a knife and started stabbing her two daughters. She started with her oldest daughter, 13 year old Kirsten. And like any good protective loving big sister, Kirsten's first thought in all of this was she needed to help keep Kelsey, her younger sister safe. So even while this knife was digging into her, stabbing her, she screamed at her younger sister, "Run away, run, get out of here." So Kelsey did, she followed direction and she just started running.

which can you imagine the amount of fear that both those two young girls had in that moment? Being in this abandoned house in the middle of nowhere and then your mother coming at you with a knife. It is horrifying to think about because think about it too. At their age, they can't jump in that car and drive away. They don't know how to drive. They're stuck. They're trapped.

So, as Kelsey started running away, fleeing from her mother, Deborah would not have it. She left Kirsten alone, and then she ran after Kelsey. When she caught up to Kelsey, Kirsten, still trying to be that protective older sister, she ran over and tried to protect Kelsey. She literally threw herself in between Kelsey and the knife, and in the process of that, Deborah ended up stabbing her multiple times in the back.

This was on top of the already many stab wounds that she had from her mom. Which this just absolutely breaks my heart because Kirsten loved her sister so much. She was only 13 years old, but she was willing to die for her. She was doing everything she could, literally shielding Kelsey with her body. But it still wasn't enough. Debra finally had stabbed Kirsten so many times to where she was hurt badly enough that she couldn't fight back.

And then, once Kirsten was out of her way and not trying to get in the middle of her and Kelsey, she slit 12-year-old Kelsey's throat. However, it did not instantly kill her. Now, I know I've mentioned this before, but cutting somebody's throat is not like this immediate, instant death. Not the way that it sometimes looks in movies. It can take somebody a while to suffocate or to choke on their own blood.

So most likely, Kelsey spent five minutes or so conscious, fighting for her life. And the whole time, she probably knew that she was going to die. Known that her own mother had done this to her, and that there wasn't any clear reason as to why. And she would have known that her sister Kirsten was also still in danger, and might be next.

In fact, once Kelsey became still and stopped thrashing around, fighting for her life, Debra tried to finish what she started with Kirsten, her 13-year-old daughter, and she cut her throat as well. However, just like with Kelsey, Kirsten didn't die right away. She stayed alive and conscious. She stayed alive long enough to beg her mom to call an ambulance because she didn't want to die. Now, for a moment, and I've talked about this in some episodes that have a similar thread in the past, but...

For a moment, close your eyes, not if you're driving, and just think about knowing you're about to die or being attacked. And it's by somebody you trust, somebody you love the most, somebody who is supposed to be taking care of you, a parent figure, a partner, a child in some cases,

against their own parent, and you're being betrayed in the worst possible way by somebody who is supposed to love you. And as much fear as there already is, knowing that you most likely are going to die, there's the whole other added layer on top of that of the fact that it's at the hands of somebody who you love, and who you thought you could trust, and who you thought loved you. It's

incredibly heartbreaking and I mean the level of betrayal it makes me sick to my stomach just thinking about the realization in that moment of what was happening. So Kirsten is fighting for her life as I mentioned and she's begging her mom to call 911 and this next part of the story is truly baffling. I don't understand it at all. I don't even understand how this happened.

But Deborah listened to Kirsten. Literally just a few minutes ago, she had been trying to kill her own daughters, a precious 12-year-old and an innocent 13-year-old, both whom had never hurt anybody. But now, when Kirsten said that she didn't want to die, Deborah decided to save her?

Now, obviously, I'm relieved that she did this, but I also don't understand how anybody can go from this monstrous child killer in one second, then calling for ambulances to try to save their life the next. Good and evil don't usually work like a light switch in situations like this.

It's all super confusing, but the important thing to know is that she did get a hold of 911, and she told them everything that was going on. I played a short clip of this call earlier, but I'm going to let you hear the entire thing now because it is absolutely chilling. Hill County 911, what's your emergency? I just killed my children. Excuse me? I just killed my children. Where are you? I'm in the abandoned house on Highway 77 right after you go underneath the highway.

One of them's still alive. Hurry. Under what highway? You're on Highway 77 where? I'm on Highway 77 right after you go under 35 going towards Milford. Get an ambulance out here to save the one that didn't die. Come on. Hurry up. What's your name? Bitch, call them. Have you already called them? Yes, ma'am, I have. Okay. I need your name. I don't want to tell you my name. Hello? Hello. Are you still there? Yes, I'm still here. Are you in your car?

Now I'm not in my car, I'm in the house walking around. And whatever's still alive for real, she passed in to be saved and I couldn't handle that. And so now... She's in an abandoned house at that point. It's been a long time. She might already die. So she's flat out alive. Hold on. What, baby?

Okay, we've got people in route. Can you tell me what happened? Ma'am? Hello? Ma'am? Can you tell me what happened?

I can't get the door open. You can't get one door open, darling. The front door, but y'all can come in when y'all get here. Why won't it open? I don't know.

Are you on the right-hand side of the road or the left-hand side of the road, sweetie? They're coming. They're coming. I just want to try to clarify exactly where they are. Can you tell me what happened? Well, they're on their way.

My partner's getting them to you just as quickly as she can. How many children do you have? Two. Two? One of them is dead. She's dead, but the other one, she wants to be saved. She needs to be saved, and I don't see any life. Tell them to get down here. Honey, they're coming. They're coming. One of them is dead.

Do you have any weapons? I do. I have a knife. She has a knife. No, ma'am. Just put it in. She's got a knife. Can you not tell me what your name is?

What's your name, darling? How old are your children? They are coming. They're on their way.

You should be hearing lights and sirens. Seeing lights and hearing sirens. Are you still with me? Hello? They're on their way, sweetheart. They had to come from different parts of the county. Okay. She doesn't want to get shot because she doesn't have a gun.

Okay. When they get there, I want you to lay the knife down. When you get the door open, I want you to lay the knife down so they can see that you don't have any weapons. Okay.

Oh my God, she's dead. Oh my God. How old are the children? I don't know. She wants you to hurry. Honey, they are coming. They're coming as fast as they can. They're trying to be sure. Do you see them? They're coming. Do you see them?

Do you see them? No, it's on the other side of the tunnel. Yeah, the one down there back off the tree.

Can you see the lights? No. I see something down at the end of the road. She's calling us, but not calling us, not police watch. She says they're at the end of the driveway. She says they're at the end. I hear them. Okay. Okay. I know. I understand that. She said...

She's got her hands up except for the fact that the one that she's on the phone with. She's out in the yard. She said she's out in the yard beside the house. Okay, goodbye.

- I see them, they're right here, goodbye. - All right, bye. - Now there is so much to unpack from this call, right? But I wanna start by talking about Deborah's tone of voice. There's a lot of discussion out there about how calm she sounded in this call. And it does really stick out to me just how she opened this call up by saying, "I just killed my children." Almost in the same tone where you might say, "Oh, it's raining outside," or, "Oh, I just ordered food." So I'm not gonna pretend to be a psychologist or anything of the sorts, anything close to that,

But I did find an interesting conversation on Reddit. Not that Reddit is always the best place for super reliable information, I get it. But some people think that the calmness and her tone of voice mean that she actually was freaked out. I know that that's not the way that it's supposed to work, if you're panicking you usually do not sound calm, but there's this theory that she was so traumatized by what she had just done, and so upset, that she almost like disconnected from the real world. Disassociated.

Like she wasn't on Earth anymore, I mean, mentally speaking. I'm not sure I quite buy that theory, but I am curious to know what you guys think about it. Because then there are a couple of minutes during that call where it sounded like Deborah's cool, calm collectedness was kind of cracking a little bit. Like when she mentioned how Kirsten was still alive and asking for help, and she said, "I couldn't handle that."

I don't know if that means that she couldn't handle the guilt of her daughter begging for her life, or if maybe she just literally could not handle the sounds of Kirsten struggling. Like, maybe she thought so little of her daughter that she was annoyed by the sound of her fighting for her life. And when Debra did try to step outside and she couldn't get the door open, again, I think she sounded a bit freaked out then.

It's not clear if it was because she was worried that she was going to get in trouble or not, like the police were going to hurt her if she didn't cooperate and surrender, or maybe if it was because the reality was actually settling in and she was realizing what she had done. I mean, the longer that the call went on, the faster Debra was talking, which does make it sound like she was getting more and more amped up.

And that's also when she started asking the operator why it was taking so long. Could the cops hurry? Why aren't they here yet? You know, all of the things. So I think that the way that you interpret this call really comes down to what you think was going on in Debra's head. Also what her mental state looked like, because there are a lot of different theories out there. Things that make this case even more bizarre to understand.

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The police showed up right away, and they found everything just like how Debra had described it. She walked out of the house as they were pulling up, and she surrendered right away with both of her arms right there straight up in the air. The phone was even still in her hand because she had literally just hung up with 911 a few seconds before. So the police arrested her on the spot.

Then, they decided to search the area, probably figuring that they shouldn't take anything that Deborah said at face value. Which, fair enough, she didn't sound like the most honest person with a ton of integrity or anything like that. So when they were searching, they ended up finding a knife that was sitting on top of a car that was parked outside of this house. It's not clear to me if this was the same knife that she used to kill her daughters, but if it was, that begs the question that...

she must have gone outside sometime between when she stabbed them and slit their throats and when she surrendered to the police. Like, maybe she was trying to clean up the scene of the crime, maybe she was trying to leave and then changed her mind and decided to save Kirsten. It's just an interesting detail.

There's also the possibility that maybe this was just a backup weapon. Again, I'm not super sure what the deal was with the knife, and the news coverage doesn't really get into it in a very detailed, in-depth sort of way. I do know that when the detectives went inside, they found Debra's youngest daughter, 12-year-old Kelsey, dead in the bathroom of that abandoned house. Too much time had passed from when her throat was cut and when help got there. She was beyond saving. Kirsten, however, the 13-year-old, she was still alive.

So a life flight helicopter showed up, picked her up, and then rushed her off to a hospital for emergency surgery. Now, in the meantime, the police had to notify the girl's father, Lee. Remember, he had told his daughters goodbye just three hours earlier. And even though he hadn't heard a peep from Debra since then, he didn't think that he had any reason to worry, right? They were all together. They hadn't seen each other in weeks. She had this amazing surprise planned for her daughters. I mean, for whatever reason, he trusted Debra.

So Lee was hanging out in front of his house with his cousin when all of the sudden, all of these squad cars just came speeding up. The police jumped out. They told Lee there was an emergency. They needed to speak with him. They said he had to get to the hospital right away because Kirsten was badly hurt. Now, of course, Lee's first thought after he got over the shock of hearing this news was...

Okay, well, what about Kelsey? What about Deborah? What actually happened to Kirsten? Was this some sort of car accident? Was this something else? Like, tell me more. So when he asked the police about it, they said that Deborah was under arrest and that she had something to do with what happened to Kirsten. However, they wouldn't even say Kelsey's name.

Now, the reason why they didn't say her name is because they wanted to be able to break the news to him and not have Lee too freaked out before he even made it to the hospital to see what was going on with Kirsten. However, Lee was savvy and smart enough to know that if Kelsey really was okay, somebody would have said so. The police wouldn't have been so evasive unless the news was absolutely devastating.

So the fact that they said nothing at all about her actually spoke volumes. He ended up figuring out the news by the time that they pulled up to the emergency room. Deep in his gut, Lee understood that his youngest daughter was dead. But before he even had time to begin to process her death, Lee wanted to talk to the surgeon who had operated on Kirsten. The good news was Kirsten had survived her surgery. She was also recovering well, which truly is incredible when you realize just how badly she was hurt.

The surgeon told Lee that when Kirsten's throat was slit, Debra had cut one major artery and also her trachea. Basically, she shouldn't have been able to breathe or get any blood to her brain. So it truly was a complete miracle that she didn't die in that abandoned house beside her sister. And in a very harrowing and haunting detail, but I do want to share it with you so that you understand just how much of a miracle this truly was, in order to save her life, the ER surgeons had to sew her neck back together.

sew it back together. It is just so incredibly horrific and gruesome. Now, in spite of how much of a horror show all of this was, the doctors thought that Kirsten was going to make a complete recovery. In fact, while she was in the hospital, slowly gaining her strength back, Kirsten did everything that she could to be upbeat and positive for the rest of her family.

still trying to be the strong one. Given everything that she had been through, I don't think that anybody would have blamed Kirsten at all if she became closed off, quiet, depressed, I mean, just feeling and grieving all of the things. But instead, she tried to remind everybody else to be optimistic.

One family friend even told a reporter, quote, Now through all of this, given how close she was with her sister, understandably nobody wanted to have a funeral without her being able to be attend, be there present, be there by her sister's side.

So it took close to 10 days from when Kirsten was attacked until she could be released from the hospital. And as soon as she got out, the first thing that Kirsten did was go to Kelsey's memorial. So did 400 other people. It was a massive turnout. The community really came together to honor this girl who had died in such a truly senseless and horrific way. Her gravestone had an inscription on the back of it which read, quote,

fly fly little wings to where only concrete angels sing where you are hidden up above just know that you will always have our love and

The inscription was signed by Lee, Kirsten, and then other family friends. But I think it goes without saying that Deborah did not get her name on that inscription. But still, there were so many unanswered questions. Was this just a case of familicide? Was this mental health? Was there something else that nobody knew about from all of that tumultuous time in the household leading up to this?

What was the truth? By this point, she had been charged with Kelsey's murder and with attempted capital murder for her attack on Kirsten.

When the judge set bail for her, they put it at $1.5 million, and I guess that that was because everybody wanted to make sure that she definitely would not get out and wouldn't have the chance to hurt anybody else, which was great. They needed to protect Kirsten and also the public, right? Now, as I'm sure you can imagine, everybody involved in this case at every single level was beyond disturbed by what had happened. In fact, a district attorney actually went to that abandoned house where the attacks took place.

Afterward, he described it as, quote, There was no question whatsoever that Debra had done this. She had committed this murder and this attempted murder. I mean, also, she basically confessed right there on that 911 call, right?

Weirdly, though, she still gave a not guilty plea when she had to go to her arraignment on September 21st. Not that anybody thought that this was a sign that she was actually innocent, but it was interesting nevertheless. The only real big question leading up to Debra's trial now was: why did she do it? It's pretty clear that Debra had some pretty major mental health problems, and there isn't much debate on that.

Between the earlier suicide attempts and her time in the facility, it sounds like she was kind of waving every red flag she could to show that something wasn't quite right in her brain or in her thinking. But it's not clear to me how her mental state led to her decision to murder her own children. Or, more than that, how everyone around her seemed to miss these warning signs. So let's revisit the mental facility just for a minute.

They kept Debra there for four days, right, all while they tried to figure out if she was a threat to herself or to anybody else. Ultimately, they said that she was fine, and they discharged her. Now, I know that mental health isn't an exact science, so you can't always blame the doctors when somebody goes into treatment and doesn't totally get better, but you've also gotta wonder whether Debra's doctors and nurses dropped the ball at all here.

Because they let her out in just four days and without any precautionary measures in place? In fact, not long after the attacks, a reporter talked to a bunch of different employees and administrators at the hospital. She asked them all the same thing. How did you let this happen? But they all basically just gave the same answer. Mental health care isn't always predictable. You can't read anybody's mind and know what they're going to do once they get out. Which, yes, fair enough.

But people were wondering if the hospital really did everything that they could do to make sure that Debra was safe enough to be released. Is four days really enough time to clear somebody who has been accused of abusing their kids? Who has tried to take their own life right in front of their children? What if somebody had stepped in and said, you know, let's hold on just a little bit longer, just in case. And I don't want to make it sound like Debra gets a pass for any of this and for what she did. Absolutely not at all.

It's not like the doctors were more to blame than she was. She had blood on her hands. She always will. But it is crazy to me that there were so many other people who could have potentially stepped in and perhaps stopped this from happening. And also, remember, just a few days before the murder, Lee had filed a restraining order against Deborah, where he literally said, quote, "...I am concerned about her possible actions regarding the children," end quote.

So, he knew that she might be a danger to them, and he said so explicitly. And he said he needed it to protect the safety and well-being of the children, and any other person who has been a victim of family violence committed by Debra. Yet then, just a few days later, he showed up in court and said that he was okay with her seeing his daughters unsupervised. Maybe when Lee showed up to testify, he didn't quite understand how sick Debra truly was, even though he was aware of that suicide attempt by that point?

Maybe he was hopeful that she was better? Although at the very least, it's my opinion that Lee probably should have read those medical records first, then decided whether or not he was still okay to leave his girls with their mother unsupervised. That's not to victim blame Lee in this, he certainly is a victim, it's just again another educational red flag that I think everybody should know, god forbid you're ever in a situation like this.

Maybe don't be so trusting. Maybe take a pause, let that person prove that they're not a safety threat. Maybe that could have been the difference between life and death. But in fact, at one point, he ended

he ended up telling some reporters that he thought that deborah had killed kelsey and tried to murder kirsten because he thought that she was trying to quote help them in some type of super warped messed up way the idea according to lee was that deborah was very mentally ill she was miserable she was unhappy and her life was so bad that she thought that death was the only way out it's part of the reason why she apparently tried to take her own life according to him

So if Debra was that miserable, she might have had a hard time imagining how anybody else could ever be happy. Almost like the idea that other people didn't want to die and be done with life never even occurred to her. Yeah, she, I actually spoke with her right after they sentenced her to prison, which was the first time in almost a year. And she told me that she was heartbroken and was hurting that bad and she felt bad.

That if she was hurting so badly, then me and the girls must have been hurting so badly, so she was going to take away all of our pain. So in some twisted way, Debra thought she was helping her girls when she stabbed them. And if she really wanted them dead, she wouldn't have called 911 after she slit Kirsten's throat, right? I mean, I could see a situation where she somehow thought Kelsey and Kirsten wanted to die, maybe, if she was like that...

that mentally unstable, and then when Kirsten kept fighting for her life and started begging for help, it was sort of like this light bulb going off in Debra's head, like, oh jeez, I made a mistake, I better try and save her life now. But that being said, I can't imagine being so calm on the phone if that really was the case. From her tone of voice, Debra didn't sound like she cared whether or not her daughter lived or died. Even

Even when she was getting more panicky and asking why the police were taking so long, she didn't come across as loving at all. Even if we're defining love in this warped way where you, you know, mercy kill your own daughters because of your depression, it didn't come across like that. So Lee had another explanation for why Debra might have done what she did. He explained it in an interview that he did with CNN in June of 2010, so this was almost exactly one year after Kelsey died and after Kirsten survived her attack.

During the interview, Lee said that Debra tried to kill both of their daughters in order to hurt him, basically to punish him for filing for divorce and leaving her. To hear Lee tell it, Debra never had any sort of mental health issues that were anything close to as serious as what was reported in the news, which I do find interesting because this is basically the complete opposite of what he said in those other interviews, where he said that she tried to kill the girls because she was in pain, she figured that her daughters were in pain as well. So

So I don't know if Lee changed his mind about Debra's mental state after he had more time to process the crime or what really transpired, but now he was saying that she was way too logical and way too careful about how she planned everything for it to be some sort of mental break from reality.

So instead, according to Lee, when Deborah tried to kill herself, she was doing it to teach him a lesson. And the same thing was then going on when she tried to kill both of their girls. It was all about Lee, putting him in his place because he tried to leave her. He dared to divorce her and leave. So because of that, she wanted to get revenge by taking away something that was precious to him.

his two daughters. And Lee even thought and said that if Kirsten hadn't survived and begged for her mom to call 911, Debra's next step would have been to try to kill him too. She even figured out how to do it. She was going to wait until he fell asleep and couldn't fight back. Now get this, he based this whole theory on a conversation that he had with Debra. The conversation took place while she was in jail. She admitted to all of that.

She admitted that she had been meaning to murder everybody right from the get-go, all because she was mad at Lee because of the divorce. And in that conversation, she also told Lee that she hated him. Which, I'm gonna be honest, I don't know about this theory.

Even knowing Debra basically admitted to all of it, I don't know if she's someone whose opinion we should just take at face value, right? On the one hand, stuff like this does certainly happen, and I think Lee's whole theory would be easier to accept if the genders maybe were swapped. Because think about it. A woman tries to leave her husband, and she takes the kids away with her.

He gets angry, he gets possessive, so he then threatens to kill himself to try to pressure her to stay. But when that doesn't work, he kills the children and tries to kill the wife. It's a story that I personally have covered on this podcast multiple times. So was that the case in this situation? Or was there something more at play? This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

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So when Debra was charged with Kelsey's murder and with Kirsten's attempted murder, she had to see a court psychologist to prove that she was mentally healthy enough to be held responsible for the crimes. And after she was examined and assessed by the psychologist, their findings said, quote,

So basically, they figured that she was well enough to be held accountable for what she did, but she also had delusions or other issues with her mental well-being. And unfortunately, those things aren't mutually exclusive. You can be a controlling asshole,

and also have delusions or mental problems. We have seen it, again, in many cases that we have covered. But even that is all different from what Lee was saying, that Deborah just calmly, coldly planned all of this, you know, to get back at him. Which, in my opinion, that could have possibly been part of it, but...

I don't necessarily think that that is entirely the root of the issue. I certainly think medical issues are at play, and again, this is just my opinion, but it seems almost that she did think that she was somehow protecting herself and her daughters. And the only reason I even suggest that or say that is because

I have seen that with so many cases like this. The first one that's coming to mind is, what's his name? Chad Dorman, I think, in Ohio, which he finally just pled guilty. He had been pleading not guilty for so long, but he killed his sons. It's a horrific case. He chased after them, brutally killed them, all while the mother watched. It's barbaric. But

But right after the arrest, he had started confiding in the police and the investigators about these delusions and these voices that started creeping into his head almost a year prior, these evil thoughts. And I can't recall at the moment if he had said like his kids were evil and that's what these voices were telling him, or if the evil voices were saying they were all coming after his family. But we also saw this, and I'm not going to remember the guy's name off the top of my head, but the surf coach from Santa Barbara who fled to Mexico, and I think he used a machete on his child,

and he had been suffering from hearing voices, to where these people, whether it's true or not, I don't know, but what they allege and what they claim is that they hear these voices to where they're truly convinced that they are protecting their children, protecting them from some sort of evil spirit in the world,

or protecting them from the evil brutality of the other parent if they truly think that parent is evil. There's a lot of cases like this. So given everything we know about this one, that is where my mind kind of tends to lead me, but I'm interested to know what you think as we go through the theories.

That's kind of where I'm sitting, but if more information comes to light, that may change. Now on the upside, Debra didn't fight the murder charges or try to come up with some sort of wild, over-the-top theory to try to convince anybody that she was innocent, even though she did initially plead not guilty. In 2010, she changed her stance.

That's when she pleaded guilty to murdering Kelsey and trying to kill Kirsten. She was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole. As of right now, she's living in Gatesville Christina Melton Crane Unit, in prison, incarcerated. Now, I'm not a therapist or anything.

But part of me does wonder if the sentence fits more with that idea that Debra did have a better handle on what she was doing than you would expect if she had experienced some sort of mental break with reality. So while I was just saying that it's my opinion maybe she did suffer from delusions, the sentence kind of indicates that maybe that was not the case, and that's why there is so much division on this.

Because think about it, she wasn't sentenced to spend time in any sort of psychiatric facility. She also didn't try to say that she was not guilty by reason of insanity. So what's the truth here? It makes you kind of wonder, was she in control of herself? Which then actually makes her crime even more impossible to wrap your head around.

It was so senseless and so cruel, I mean, there's no explanation or justification for it, but it makes you wonder, what was the root cause? What was the true reason and motive? Now, as for Lee, technically, he and Debra were still married when she was arrested.

The divorce hadn't been finalized at that point yet, but Lee did eventually end their marriage, and I'm happy to say that he was able to move on, and in 2015, he married a new woman named Emily. And even though Lee hasn't been a super public figure, he hasn't done a lot of interviews or posted a ton publicly on social media, the little bit that is out there makes it seem like he and Emily are looking ahead at the future and...

really just doing their best to move forward. They even have a little girl. Not that you can ever replace a child that you've lost, not at all, but it does sound like Lee is letting Kelsey's legacy live on a bit. He's trying to honor her and remember her, but also embracing all of the love and all of the good things that he can still have in his life as a survivor. Now, as for Kirsten, I want to talk about Kirsten a bit because this is where it gets kind of wild to me. Kirsten, Lee's oldest daughter, the one who survived the attack, of course,

When she got out of the hospital, she promised her dad that she was not going to be defined by what happened to her. She didn't want to let what her mom did ruin the rest of her life. She's my inspiration to keep going, you know. I got to be strong for her. She's actually doing really well. She completed the whole school year. She's doing real good. She's always got a smile on her face.

She's living life. She said she wasn't going to let this ruin her life, and I believe she meant it. So she kept going to school, kept getting good grades, and even did her best to stay positive every single day. Deborah even told Lee that she was happy for her. Well, she said she was proud that she's doing good. And, of course, she had told her that she was sorry and wanted her to know that she didn't want her dead, didn't hate her.

And she's real happy that she's able to move on. Now, here's the interesting, bizarre part in all of this. As of this recording, Kirsten is 28 years old.

She's mostly kept out of the limelight and she's tried to have a private life, but unfortunately, not everybody wanted to let that happen. Apparently, Kirsten used to have a couple of different social media accounts, and, you know, she was 13 years old in 2009. That's when Twitter, Facebook, MySpace were all kind of trendy, some of those were new, and according to some online rumors, after Kelsey was murdered and Kirsten was attacked...

There was a lot of news coverage, and Kirsten's name was plastered all over the internet and all over the TV. So with that, all of these strangers started coming out of the woodwork and friend requesting her on all of those platforms. Which, I mean, I get it. You see a news story, you feel for the person, maybe you want to connect with them. But Kirsten just wanted to be left alone.

So she kept rejecting all of these requests, and eventually she even posted a status update that said she didn't want any requests from anybody unless they knew her in real life. Kind of like, hey, if you're only looking me up because you heard about me on the news, go away. I don't want the attention. I don't want this to be my whole life.

Now again, I don't know if all of that is exactly true, in part because if you look up Kirsten on Facebook or Twitter or any of the places, nothing comes up. She either deleted all of those old accounts or maybe used a fake name so that she would be harder to find. I don't know for sure, but obviously that's because she doesn't want anybody to know. But there are also a bunch of rumors going around that Kirsten might have created a TikTok account.

And there are a whole bunch of accounts on TikTok that are claiming to be her. Like, a lot, guys. So either she created a ton of accounts for some reason, which I don't think is the case, or most of those accounts were all made by fakes and liars, which...

It's such a bizarre thing to do. To impersonate a victim is so incredibly bizarre. However, and I hate that I always reference this as like, you know, the anchor case, a lot of people did that with the Watts case too. They pretended to be Chris Watts. It was freaking weird. So I also think it's interesting that none of these TikTok accounts actually show Kirsten's face.

They're only people who are showing the same pictures which anybody could find on Google or online or on all of these news sources, you know? So it looks to me like people are pretending to be Kirsten just so that they can get these clicks and views, get the attention. Because think about it, if Kirsten was actually behind anything

any of these accounts, even one of these accounts, if she wanted to share her story, you would think that the story she shared wouldn't be identical to what was in the news stories all the way back in 2009. There'd be some different angle, some new detail, something like that.

It's clear to me that Kirsten doesn't want to be famous for this. She doesn't want her life to be under a microscope. So it's kind of annoying that people are basically impersonating her online and almost like forcing her back into this, even if it's only to say, hey, these accounts aren't me. It's weird and disgusting. Kirsten deserves a quiet, safe, happy life. I mean, she didn't ask to be attacked.

And when she was in maybe the worst situation that a person could possibly ever experience, she chose bravery. She tried to save her younger sister's life. And I'm reminding you, she was only 13 years old when she did that. So even if we'll never understand the why of it all, I do wish her all the best and all of the good things that she deserves. Because truly, she is the kind of person that we can all aspire to be if we're ever unlucky enough to find ourselves in a life-threatening situation like that.

So if you're one of those TikTok accounts and you're listening to this right now, leave her alone. Delete your account and just quit being a freaking weirdo. It's weird. I can't imagine what it's like being her, having to witness all of this after it's now been literally 15 years since she's gone through all of this. Also still trying to grapple with the fact that you don't have your sister who is your best friend and then you see all these poser weirdos. It's just scary.

sick. So knock it off, knock it off. And don't forget this Thursday, come to Salt Lake City, see one of these episodes in person, special guest, all the things, free meet and greet after. I can't wait to meet so many of you. All right, guys, thank you so much for tuning in to another episode with me today. I will be back on the mic with you on Thursday on the podcast. As a reminder, that episode does not get cross posted to YouTube. It is a podcast exclusive episode every single Thursday.

where we talk about all the breaking headlines going on this week, where we talk about case updates, all the things, so you can gain access to that through the podcast. Other than that, I will be back on the mic with you first thing next Monday with an all-new deep dive case. But until then, guys, please stay safe, be nice, don't kill people, don't join a cult, all the things, protect yourself. All right, thanks again, guys, and until the next one, I'm signing off.

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