Davina Buff Jones
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To get this episode of Forensic Tales ad-free, please visit patreon.com/forensictales. Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. In 1999, a young rookie cop from Bald Head Island, North Carolina, was found mysteriously shot to death while on duty. The local DA was quick to rule the incident a suicide.

But the forensic evidence pointed towards something else. Something far more sinister. This is Forensic Tales, episode number 170. The Davina Buff-Jones story.

Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell-Ariola.

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In the early evening of October 22, 1999, Davina Buff-Jones stopped by a local gas station to pick up coke and cigarettes before boarding a ferry headed toward Bald Head Island, North Carolina. Before she headed out the door that night, she kissed her two beloved Australian Shepherd dogs goodbye.

At 33 years old, Davina was headed to the island to start the night shift, working as a police officer for the Bald Head Island Police Department. She had only been working with the department for a little over 10 months, so she was still considered a rookie police officer. As Davina boarded the ferry, she didn't look like your typical cop. She stood only 4 feet 11 inches tall and weighed about 90 pounds, soaking wet.

Maybe with all of her police gear on, she could crack 100 pounds. The ferry ride to Bald Head Island took about 20 minutes. According to the city's website, when you board the ferry for the 20-minute ride to Bald Head Island, North Carolina, you leave your car behind, along with all the stress of the mainland world. On the way over, Davina noticed three men on the ferry who appeared to be heavily intoxicated.

As a police officer, she made a mental note about what the men looked like just in case any of them decided to do something stupid. Then she kept to herself, waiting for the ferry to dock. Once the boat arrived, Davina and everyone else on board got off and headed toward wherever their destination on the island was. For Davina, she was headed to clock in for her shift. Davina was scheduled to be on duty that night with her partner, Officer Keith Kane.

Since Davina was sworn in as a Bald Head Island PD officer, she was assigned to work with Officer Kane as her partner. Although he had only been a police officer with the department for less than two years, he was considered her superior because he had been on the force longer. So while Davina and Kane worked as partners together, he was considered her superior.

The start of Davina Jones and Keith Cain's shift was completely normal until about 11.30 p.m. That's when emergency dispatchers received a radio call from Davina. Davina announced over the police radio, quote, show me out with three. Stand by, please, end quote.

This was protocol for Davina to let dispatch know she was initiating an interaction with these people. In other words, she's stopping and questioning three individuals in the line of duty as a police officer. Seconds after Davina told dispatch she was talking with three individuals, she said something else over the police radio. This time she said, quote,

"'There ain't no reason to have a gun here on Bald Island, okay? "'You want to put down the gun? "'Come on, do us a favor and put down.'" But she could never finish that sentence because about 15 minutes later, when her partner, Officer Keith Kane, arrived at the scene, Davina was lying on the ground with a single gunshot wound to the back of her head. Davina Jones was dead at 33 years old in only 10 months on the force.

The mystery surrounding her untimely death would haunt this quiet island and the entire state of North Carolina for years to come. Did this up-and-coming young police officer take her own life, or was there someone else responsible? Davina Buff-Jones was known simply as Dee to those closest to her.

Born to parents Loy and Harriet Jones, Dee grew up as the middle child, and some might have argued that she had all the characteristics of a middle child who was often overshadowed by her younger and older siblings. She could be sweet and friendly, but she also had a temper, and if you crossed her the wrong way, she would let you know about it. Loy and Harriet raised Dee and her siblings in Charlotte, North Carolina.

It's in Charlotte where the family owned and operated a family-owned steakhouse restaurant. And growing up, that's where Dee and her siblings worked as teenagers. Most of Dee's friends and classmates in school described her as a bit of a tomboy. She wasn't your typical young girl who liked to play dress-up and play with Barbie dolls. Instead of playing with girls her own age, she usually hung out with the boys, spitting and smoking. That's where she felt more comfortable.

Instead of playing dress-up, she liked to curse and play in the dirt. She was also never afraid of a little confrontation. If someone did something that bothered her, she would let them know. Or, if someone did something wrong, she was the first to tell a teacher about it. But Dee could also be incredibly sensitive and feminine growing up. On occasion, when she wasn't playing in the dirt with the boys, she liked to throw on girly dresses every once in a while.

She also journaled almost daily about her thoughts and feelings. In her journal, she shared some of her deepest thoughts and secrets. Thoughts she was too insecure about sharing with anyone else. But other of these entries weren't as serious. In one of them, she wrote, quote, Life is not like a box of chocolate. Life is like a can of jalapenos. You never know which one is going to burn your ass. End quote.

By her 30th birthday in the mid-90s, Dee had already been married and divorced twice, and had a few other hiccups with her relationships. In 1994, she was charged with simple assault for getting into a physical altercation with the mother of her then-husband's child.

Fortunately, this simple assault charge didn't have a big impact on her career path because in 1999, she joined the Bald Head Island Police Department in North Carolina. Bald Head Island is a small town about two miles offshore. It's the southernmost part of North Carolina's Cape Island, between the Cape Fear River and the Atlantic Ocean, and the only way to get to the island is by ferry.

The ferry picks people up at the Deep Point Marina on the mainland and drops them off at the harbor on Bald Head Island. Every day, the ferry leaves the mainland at the top of the hour and returns back on the half hour. As soon as you arrive on Bald Head, one of the first things you see is their iconic lighthouse, originally built in 1817.

Almost everyone who lives or stays on the island gets around by a golf cart. The only people who typically drive cars there are number one police officers and number two firefighters. Everyone else uses a golf cart or simply walks to get around. The entire island is around 12,000 acres big, but only about 2,000 acres are actually used.

The other 10,000 acres on the island are completely untouched beaches, marshes, and forest preserves. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, Bald Head Island was a popular hideaway for pirates. Years later, the island served as a base for the U.S. Life Saving Service. The agency was created to protect the waters until the modern-day Coast Guard was established. And during World War II, the island became a lookout for the Army.

Most people who visit Bald Head Island do so to get away for a night or a long weekend. Once you arrive on the island, there are so many things to do. According to its website, it has a full-service marina, a day spa, newly renovated golf courses, and a variety of small boutique shops and restaurants. Most homes or property there are either rented out for vacationers or they become second homes. Almost every home there is worth well over a million dollars.

Because Bald Head Island is a small vacation destination, violent crime, or really any other type of crime for that matter, isn't common. Most of the crime there is either property or small-time offenses like public intoxication or parking a golf cart somewhere it shouldn't be. If someone wants to become a police officer for a department that is generally considered low-risk, Bald Head Island Police Department is the right place.

In fact, until Davina Jones, no Bald Head Island police officer had ever died while on duty. Another reason why her sudden death instantly baffled the entire community. Although Dee had only been on the force for about 10 months before she died, she quickly became a stickler for the law. She was never the type of cop to witness a crime and turned a blind eye.

Instead, she was the first person to respond whenever she saw someone breaking the law, no matter how insignificant it was. If someone did something wrong, Dee was the first person to let them know about it. But this was something not everyone on Bald Island appreciated about Dee. In the few short months that she was a police officer with the department, many people had come forward complaining about her police tactics and style.

According to many of them, she was just too high-strung and always seemed like she was out there looking for people breaking the law. But like many first-year cops, Dee didn't believe in bending the rules for anyone. Not locals on the island, not first-time vacationers. According to Dee Jones, no one was above the law on Bald Head Island.

When Dee got on the ferry from Deep Point Marina to head toward Bald Head, it seemed like the start of an ordinary work day. She and her partner, Officer Keith Kane, were assigned to work together like they did almost every shift, and it started as a relatively quiet night on the island.

Around 10 o'clock p.m., both Dee and Keith Kane braked for dinner. But before they could sit down and start eating, a call came in on the police dispatch about a stolen golf cart near the marina. Now, stolen golf carts weren't uncommon on the island. Sometimes it was simply a mistake where someone accidentally drove off with someone else's golf cart.

Other times, it was an unattended teenager who decided to take a quick joyride. So when Dee and her partner received the call about the stolen golf cart in the marina, they didn't really think too much about it other than the fact that it was disturbing their dinner break. Dee and Officer Kane drove in two separate police cars on their way to the scene. Kane drove in his Chevy Blazer and Dee went in her white Ford Ranger pickup truck.

When they first got to the marina, they didn't see anything. No sign of the golf cart, and the area was pretty quiet. By that point in the night, this is after 10 o'clock p.m., most people who weren't staying on the island overnight had already taken the ferry back to shore. So after waiting around for just a few minutes without seeing anything suspicious, they decided to drive back to the police station.

Once they got back, Dee went to sit at her computer desk and her partner went back to the microwave to reheat his dinner. But Dee didn't sit at her desk for very long. Only a few minutes after they got back to the police station, Dee told her partner that she was going to take a ride around the island.

She didn't say what she was planning to do or where she was planning to go, and before her partner could even ask any of these questions, she was already out the door. At 11.59 p.m., just before midnight, Dee stopped at a payphone near the marina and placed a phone call to her ex-boyfriend.

Now, it's unclear what exactly this phone call was about because Dee and this ex-boyfriend had allegedly just recently broken up, and the phone call between her and the ex only lasted a few minutes. After the short phone call, she returned to her pickup truck and drove toward Old Baldy, the island's signature lighthouse. A few minutes after she arrived near the lighthouse, she placed that mysterious call to police dispatch.

Minutes later, she was found dead outside her patrol car with a single gunshot wound to the back of the head. As soon as Dee made the dispatch call, her partner, Officer Kane, rushed to the lighthouse. On his way over there, he repeatedly radioed back to dispatch, asking them if Dee had said anything about who she was with. But they had no idea.

They also said that they had repeatedly tried to get Dee to respond, but her radio was dead silent. About 15 minutes after Dee made the first call over the radio, Officer Kane finally found her white pickup truck. It was parked in a dead end about 20 yards away from where the street turned off. The parking lights were on and the engine was still running. Dee's flashlight was also still sitting on the front passenger seat.

Her partner, Officer Kane, said that she would never get out of her truck at night without her flashlight. The first thing Kane saw was Dee's pickup truck, but he didn't see any sign of her, not at first. So he decided to walk toward the base of the lighthouse and noticed that the door was open, but he still didn't see anything suspicious. That's when he decided to walk toward the Lighthouse Foundations Museum.

a building that was under construction about 20 feet away. He walked directly up to what appeared to be a pile of dirt and trash, but it wasn't just a pile of dirt or trash. It was his partner, Dee. She was lying face down on her stomach. Her head was turned slightly to the right with her cheek resting on the ground. Her hair was soaked in blood, and a Glock pistol was underneath her right hand.

Seconds after discovering his partner had been shot, Officer Kane managed to get out just three words on the police radio, rescue for help. Word about Dee's death rocked not only the small island, but the entire state of North Carolina. According to the Charlotte Magazine, police officers on Bald Head are more likely to help an elderly resident carry groceries inside than to investigate a violent crime.

Bald Head would be one of the last places you'd expect to have a police officer killed on duty. So what exactly happened to Dee that night right there by the lighthouse? The answer to that question took months. And when everything was said and done, the answer was almost more shocking than the incident itself.

Dee's complete autopsy was released to the public within just a few days of her death, and rumors around the small island began to swirl about this possibly being a suicide, a small-town rumor that infuriated Dee's family and friends. According to the regional medical examiner in Jacksonville, based on the evidence, Dee's death was highly consistent with a suicide for a couple of reasons. One, she was a little bit of a

Number one, the detectives who investigated her death found no witnesses suggesting foul play. In fact, not one single person came forward who said that they heard or saw anything around the lighthouse around the time Dee was shot. The only person investigators identified was an island worker who said that he heard what thought was like the lid of a trash can slamming shut just before midnight.

but he didn't say anything about hearing a gunshot. So the lack of witnesses seemed to suggest this could be a suicide. At least, that's the only conclusion the detectives could come up with. Number two, a lack of credible suspects. According to the investigators, they couldn't find even one person they could consider a possible suspect.

They looked into everyone in Dee's life, her friends, acquaintances, co-workers, ex-lovers, and they couldn't find a single person with a possible motive for wanting her dead. Plus, the island of Bald Head is extremely small, which means not many people live there. And most of the people who go to the island only go there to visit and then they go back home. And the only way to get to Bald Head is by ferry.

So the police knew every single person who got on and off the ferry the night of Dee's death. And according to them, no one who either went to or left the island that night presented themselves as a credible suspect. Then, without a credible suspect in mind, the only other logical conclusion is suicide.

The third reason the police and the medical examiner leaned toward suicide was the gunshot wound itself. Based on the autopsy results, we know Dee was shot once in the back of her head, and that single shot was fatal. The police also found her government-issued service weapon underneath her right hand when her partner discovered her. According to forensic testing performed by the FBI's crime lab,

The bullet that killed Dee came from her own gun. In other words, she was shot in the head with her own police weapon. This specific detail only further led investigators to suspect that Dee had used the gun on herself. This suicide theory only gained more momentum after investigators searched Dee's house.

Immediately after her death, a team of investigators went to her house to look for clues to figure out what might have happened. Did she have any enemies? Would they find any evidence she was depressed? Well, after they searched the entire house up and down, they said they did find evidence that Dee might have been suicidal and considering ending her life.

The first thing they saw when they looked around the place was a note sitting on top of her kitchen table. Dee had written herself a note to one, buy laundry detergent, and number two, heartworm medications for her two dogs. But another note was also on the kitchen table. And this was a note that was basically reminding herself to go pick up a prescription at the pharmacy.

But that's not what stood out to investigators. What really piqued their attention was a bottle of Effexor, an antidepressant medication sitting right there on the kitchen table. And the bottle of antidepressants was completely empty. The search of Dee's house also turned up her journal. But nothing about Dee's journal seemed unusual.

None of the entries talked about depression or suicide. It was all just journal entries about some of her thoughts and some of the things that were going on. There wasn't any mention of committing suicide.

But that didn't prove, in the eyes of investigators at least, that she wasn't thinking about suicide. Because not everyone who is suicidal talks about it or even journals about it. In fact, many people don't talk about it. And according to investigators, maybe Dee was the type of person who didn't talk about her feelings, not even in her journal. But according to investigators, there was more.

Between 1994 and 1998, investigators discovered Dee reportedly received outpatient treatment for, quote, adjustment disorder with mixed emotional features and chronic depression.

Adjustment disorder refers to, quote, an emotional or behavioral reaction that develops within three months of a life stress and which is stronger or greater than what would be expected for the type of event that occurred, end quote.

During this four-year time frame between 1994 and 1998, she visited the doctor for treatment over 170 times. Over the last few years of her life, Dee also made several trips to her own doctor, Dr. Keith Rushley. Her visits with him became even more frequent during the year and a half leading up to her death.

During these doctor visits, her doctor prescribed her Zoloft, a commonly prescribed antidepressant. Then about one month before her death, he switched her medication to Effexor. On her last visit with him, she was prescribed a 30-day supply. This was the same empty bottle the police found on her kitchen table just hours later. Throughout the investigation, Dee's personal life was also scrutinized.

They were looking for anything that might suggest she was under a lot of stress when she died. And after a bit of digging, they found something. Just five nights before the shooting, October 17th, Dee was at home contemplating breaking up with her on-and-off-again boyfriend, Scott Mosin. Scott was also a police officer and worked for the Oak Island Police Department.

But the relationship between Scott and Dee wasn't good. They were constantly getting into fights, breaking up, and then getting back together. This was a cycle that went on for months. So on the night of October 17th, just five days before the shooting, she was thinking about ending her relationship with Scott for good.

On the night of October 17th, Dee called Will Hewitt, another ex-boyfriend and former cop, to talk about the breakup with Scott. According to Will Hewitt, she sounded really upset, but he doesn't recall her ever crying over the phone. Instead, he said Dee said something that bothered him.

He said it bothered him so much that he wished he did something about it after Dee said it. According to Will, on this phone call, Dee mentioned she wanted to go for a swim in the ocean and just never come back. She said everything was messed up in her life and she didn't know how she was ever going to fix it.

This was the last time Will ever heard from her, and the conversation happened just five days before she died. Will Hewitt told investigators that her comment on the phone call bothered him so much that he considered getting in his car and driving to her place. But the weather was so bad that night because of Hurricane Irene, he decided against it, a decision that he would later come to regret.

Three days before the shooting, Dee had her last doctor's appointment. At this particular visit, she told the doctor she was experiencing suicidal thoughts and talked about swimming into the ocean and never coming back, the same comment that she made to her ex-boyfriend. That's when her doctor referred her to go see a psychiatrist, and they set an appointment for October 27th.

but she never made that appointment because just three days later, she was dead. After Dee's last doctor's appointment, she called her boyfriend, Scott. She told him she wanted him to come over so that they could talk about their relationship.

But when he got there, he said Dee was completely hammered. She was drunk out of her mind, which was completely out of character for her. She wasn't known to be a big drinker or much of a drinker at all for that matter. So when he got there and she was drunk, he was instantly taken back. And that's when he said he knew that their relationship was over for good.

According to phone records, Dee and Scott talked on the phone three times the day she died on February, October 22nd. Their last conversation happened just a couple of hours before the shooting. During one of these last phone calls, Scott told investigators that she said something like, no matter what happened between us, I want us to still be friends. And that's one of the last things she said to him.

Between the doctor visits, the boyfriends, and the prescriptions, the police had become convinced this was a suicide. And D's autopsy seemed to further support this suicide theory. The medical examiner who performed the autopsy noted in the official report that, quote, the bullet's trajectory went up and to the left. He also noted the wound was, quote, a hard contact gunshot wound.

This means that the gun's muzzle was in direct contact with the back of Dee's head when the shot was fired, something that is highly consistent with suicide. Most people who use a gun to shoot themselves place it directly against the skin before firing. But Dee's family wasn't buying the suicide theory. Everyone who knew her all said the same exact thing. Dee wasn't suicidal. She wouldn't have shot herself.

So what about the forensic evidence? Besides the autopsy results, what did the forensic evidence say about what might have happened? Was there any forensic evidence left behind by a potential gunman? Or did all the evidence collected at the scene belong to Dee, suggesting she was the gunman? Well, the answers to some of these questions might depend on who you ask.

But some of those questions might never be answered because of how the crime scene was originally handled. Shortly after Dee's partner discovered her body, he moved her service weapon closer to his truck. But according to him, the gun was lying on the ground underneath one of her hands. Then once additional officers arrived at the scene, they moved the gun a second time. This time they moved it to the floorboard of Officer Kane's car.

That means the gun used to shoot and kill Dee was moved at least twice before it was ever sent to the lab to be tested. But that wasn't the only problem with the investigation. Once the gun was finally sent to the forensic lab for testing, the results came back inconclusive.

The lab wasn't able to find any fingerprints anywhere on the gun. They didn't find Dee's prints or anyone else's. The gun had been wiped completely clean of any prints. Maybe it's because the gun was moved so many times before it was tested. Or maybe there is another possible explanation. But whatever the case is, not a single fingerprint was found anywhere on the gun.

Wouldn't you expect to find at least a few of her prints if, in fact, Dee shot and killed herself? Or even the fact that it's her gun? You'd probably expect to lift her prints simply because the gun belonged to her. It was her service weapon. But they didn't find anything. It had been wiped completely clean. But the handling of the gun wasn't the only problem with how the crime scene was processed.

Less than 24 hours after her body was discovered, the entire scene was hosed down with water, instantly destroying any valuable forensic evidence. Dee hadn't even been dead for a day before the entire area was washed clean with a fire department hose.

It was washed down at the fire captain's orders because a wedding was scheduled to take place close by, and they didn't want anyone coming to the island for the wedding to know about the shooting. The fire captain was worried about people thinking that the island might not be safe. For decades, Bald Head Island relied on tourism to support its economy.

And if people thought the island wasn't safe because there was a killer on the loose, what would happen to tourism? So less than 24 hours after the shooting, the entire crime scene was washed away. And with it went all the forensic evidence. Most of the forensic evidence found at the scene before it was washed away was never tested.

and the items that were tested supported the suicide theory, at least according to what those in power said happened. Some of the evidence included a bloody palm print on the back of Dee's pickup truck, blood on the back of her hand, and drag marks. Photographs taken on the night of the shooting clearly show a bloody handprint on the back of the pickup truck.

But the crime lab never received a sample of the blood, so it was never tested. So we have no way of knowing who the blood belonged to. Was it Dee's blood or someone else's? Well, according to the authorities, they didn't need to test the bloody palm print because they already know who it belongs to. According to them, the print likely belongs to Dee's partner, Officer Keith Kane, the person who discovered her.

They said the blood on the back of Dee's truck got there when her partner was frantically trying to secure the scene in the minutes following the shooting. And in the frenzy of the moment, he touched the back of the pickup truck after he touched Dee's body looking for a pulse. But that statement is hard to prove. All we have is the word of the authorities. The bloody print was never collected for evidence and the crime lab never tested it.

So the theory that it belongs to her partner is simply that. A theory, it's not factual evidence. There was also a small amount of blood found on the back of Dee's hand. According to the authorities, the blood could have gotten there after Dee shot herself. Their theory is that she held the Glock pistol with both hands and brought her arms over her head, turning the gun upside down.

She then pressed the gun against the back of her head and pulled the trigger with her thumbs. This could explain how the blood got on the back of her hands. It also explains how the authorities say Dee was able to shoot herself in the back of the head. Throughout the investigation, the authorities kept saying they didn't find any signs of a struggle.

Besides some drag marks in the dirt, they didn't find anything. There wasn't anything at the scene to indicate that a crime had occurred. Dee's clothes were perfectly fine and she had no defensive wounds on her arms or hands. Besides a small tear in her pants, they didn't find anything to suggest that she was involved in a fight or a struggle. And if she wasn't involved in a fight, it had to be suicide.

From the moment the police, medical examiner, and prosecutor announced Dee's death as a suicide, her family fought back. They were adamant this wasn't a suicide, and they became determined to prove that. Over the next several years, Dee's family fought to have her case reexamined. They feared there was a cover-up going on.

Maybe it was because this small town of Bald Head Island couldn't afford to have people thinking a killer was running loose on the island. Because if that were true, no one would want to visit. And if no one came to visit, the economy on the small island would be destroyed and property values would plummet. Or maybe the cover-up was something much bigger than tourism.

No matter the explanation, Dee's family was determined to get to the bottom of what they believed was a massive cover-up headed by the state police, medical examiner, and prosecutor's office. Dee's family decided to take the case to the North Carolina Industrial Commission, the state's lead agency that deals with workers' compensation claims.

Under North Carolina law, officers killed in the line of duty are entitled to death benefits and payouts from the state of North Carolina. But there's one big exception to this rule, suicide. A police officer who commits suicide isn't entitled to these state benefits.

This was something that frustrated Dee's family because as long as her death was ruled a suicide, they weren't entitled to any state benefits. Nearly four years after the shooting in 2003, the Industrial Commission granted the family a hearing. This allowed for both Dee's family and prosecutors to present evidence and experts to testify and help determine if this was a suicide or not.

One of the experts hired by the family was Dr. Alan Berman, a clinical psychologist. Dr. Berman was hired to conduct a psychological autopsy, a process that is sometimes used to help law enforcement determine if someone died by suicide or not. According to Dr. Berman, after his analysis, he didn't think Dee shot herself.

Not only was there no forensic evidence suggesting suicide, but according to him, it was likely impossible for her to have shot herself in the back of the head. In the original autopsy, the medical examiner said the bullet entered Dee's head and traveled up and to the left. But Dr. Berman doesn't think that's possible.

He doesn't think that she could have manipulated the gun in a way to hold it behind her head, pull the trigger, and have the bullet then go up and to the left. During the commission hearing, three people hired by the family attempted to recreate the scene. All three tried to manipulate the gun, put it behind their head, and pull the trigger exactly as Dee would have had to have done.

None of them could do it in a way that matched up with the autopsy findings. Another big part of the family's case was Dee's radio call just moments before she was shot. In this call, which is available online if you're interested in looking it up and listening to it,

you can hear her say, quote, there ain't no reason to have a gun here on Bald Island, okay? You want to put the gun down? Come on, do us a favor and put down the gun. Seconds later, the radio goes dead silent. So unless it's a strange coincidence that Dee calls dispatch to say that she's talking with three people who have a gun, then she's found shot to death, something isn't adding up.

Why would she call dispatch and say that she's talking with three people if she's just minutes away from committing suicide? Now, there's one big hiccup for Dee's family here, and that's the gun. Based on the autopsy, the state authorities believe that Dee was shot with her own gun. She wasn't shot from anything else, not anyone else's gun.

So the state officials want to know why Dee radioed about someone else having a gun, but that's not the gun that shot her. She was shot with her own gun. So did the people she was talking to somehow get a hold of her gun and then shoot her? Why wouldn't they just do it with their own gun? That's one of the many questions neither Dee's family nor the authorities can really answer.

Following weeks of testimony by both Dee's family and state investigators, the Industrial Commission issued a ruling in July 2004. This was now over four years after the shooting. And for once, the family was happy with what they had to say. In this commission's ruling, they said, quote,

The report made some pretty harsh comments about how the authorities conducted their investigation.

from not properly securing the crime scene to washing away valuable forensic evidence less than 24 hours later. They said, quote, End quote.

Following the commission's ruling, the state was ordered to pay Dee's parents $25,000 plus cover their legal fees. But for Dee's family, the hearing was never about money. According to them, they just want answers. They want to know what really happened to their daughter, a person who they believe would never kill herself. But the family's celebration didn't last long.

The state immediately filed an appeal, but it was denied. The commission upheld its original decision, plus awarded an additional $25,000 to Dee's estate, making the total payout $50,000. Several years later, state authorities and North Carolina prosecutors seem to have a change of heart.

Fourteen years after the shooting, in December 2013, North Carolina District Attorney John David officially amended Dee's cause of death to be listed as undetermined. It doesn't say suicide. It doesn't say homicide. It's simply undetermined. In a public statement, David had this to say, quote, I can say with confidence today that we don't know exactly what happened.

we are able to say conclusively that the earlier determination of suicide is not appropriate in light of what we know now, and we're also expressing a desire moving forward to invite anyone who had knowledge about this case to come forward, end quote.

Rex Gore, the former North Carolina district attorney who handled Dee's case in 1999, was arrested years later on one felony charge in an unrelated incident. The charge was for conspiracy to obtain property by false pretenses. In August 2013, he agreed to plead guilty in exchange for the charge being reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor.

The former sheriff who ordered Dee's body to be moved shortly after arriving on the scene was also arrested on unrelated federal weapons charges. He ultimately died in police custody. Today, the death of Davina Buff-Jones remains unsolved, and her death is now considered undetermined. Was this a suicide like state authorities have said for so many years?

Had she become so depressed that she decided to shoot herself in the back of the head? But was that even possible? Could someone manipulate a gun in such a way as to shoot themselves in the back of the head and cause an upward bullet trajectory? Or did something else happen that night in 1999? Some say there's been a massive cover-up initiated by the people in power.

Others say drugs might have been involved. Just weeks before she was shot, Dee told several people in her life that she was investigating drugs on the island. Is it possible that this drug investigation had something to do with her death? Or did someone on Bald Head Island have it out for Dee? Locals weren't too happy with this rookie cop because she was a stickler for the law.

Or still, is there another possible explanation? An explanation that's been washed away just like the forensic evidence was. To share your thoughts on the story, be sure to follow the show on Instagram and Facebook. To find out what I think about the case, sign up to become a patron at patreon.com slash forensic tales.

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Thank you so much for joining me this week. Please join me next week. We'll have a brand new case and a brand new story to talk about. Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings. ♪

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Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings.