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In 2020, in a small California mountain town, five women disappeared. I found out what happened to all of them, except one. A woman known as Dia, whose estate is worth millions of dollars. I'm Lucy Sheriff. Over the past four years, I've spoken with Dia's family and friends, and I've discovered that everyone has a different version of events.
Hear the story on Where's Dear? Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Voices for Justice is a podcast that uses adult language and discusses sensitive and potentially triggering topics, including violence, abuse, and murder.
My name is Sarah Turney and this is Voices for Justice. Today I'm discussing the case of 25-year-old Samantha Sperry from Graves County, Kentucky.
She was last seen alive on March 27th, 2018 when she went four-wheeling in the woods. Samantha's family calls and texts her phone, but it's off. The witness who last saw Samantha describes their interaction in a way that doesn't really make sense. This commences her family's unrelenting search for Samantha and the truth. This is the case of Samantha Sperry. Samantha Sperry was born Samantha Rose Jones in the small town of Murray in western Kentucky.
She's surrounded by family from the very beginning. Her mother, Tina, her aunt, Amanda, and her father. Eventually, Samantha's joined by her little sister, Kimberly, and her little brother, Tyler. As a toddler, Samantha is headstrong and enjoys playing dress-up like most kids. Her interest in grown-up items doesn't stop there, though. In a recent Facebook video, Amanda reminisced about young Samantha's misadventures with a perfume set her mom received as a Christmas gift.
and you love to play dress up. I remember one night someone had given your mom a perfume set for Christmas. You were in bed. I was going to bed and I had to walk by your room to get to my room and I could smell like all this old lady perfume. And I was like, what is that? And I opened the door. I hit you with the door because you were behind the door.
And you had taken a sip of one of them, decided that it tasted terrible. And so you were just pouring the rest out in the floor. So we had to call the boys in control. It was a big thing, but you, you were fine.
Samantha has strawberry blonde hair and hazel eyes. She grows up athletic, headstrong, and fierce. She never hesitates to speak her mind. Amanda recalls how she and Samantha argued sometimes because they had such similar personalities. Even so, Amanda sees how caring Samantha was, too. Samantha's mom, Tina, tells WPSD News her daughter is very loyal and always willing to help.
She would give you the shirt off her back if you needed it, go out of her way to help you. If you needed her help, she would be there for you. Within her family, Samantha is famous for her tight hugs, which she couples with calling the person by their nickname. During Thanksgiving and Christmas, Samantha loves cheesecake so much that she has an entire cheesecake made for her to eat and take home.
When it comes to her own cooking, she isn't very good at it, and her family always teases her about it. But Samantha does seem to have a green thumb in the garden. Her grandmother gives her trimmings, and Samantha turns them into flourishing plants.
While growing up, Samantha meets and becomes friends with a local boy named Wren Hendrickson. According to Wren's interview with the local news station WPSD, they become really good friends and wind up dating for a bit. At one point during her youth, Samantha gets involved in drugs, but she goes to rehab and becomes sober. I don't have a lot of information about this time in her life, but I do know that she's proud to be sober, and rightfully so.
Battling addiction is a difficult and complicated journey. And Samantha does find happiness. She marries a man named Jacob Sperry and takes his last name. By the time she's 25 years old in 2018, they have two young kids, who she loves more than anything. Being a mother is hugely rewarding for her. But Samantha and Jacob seem to have split by then.
She gets a job at the local McDonald's and feels ready to love again. She messages her old flame, Ren, and they get back together. The relationship isn't perfect, though. Ren and Samantha break up and get back together a ton of times. Adding to the turbulence, Samantha argues with her Aunt Amanda. Now, it's kind of normal for this headstrong family to butt heads at times, but this is really serious. It's about Samantha's drug addiction.
Now, there's not a lot out there about this case. I don't know if she relapses or just has a hard moment. But Amanda and Samantha send each other text messages. And I don't know what those say either. But by the end of it, Amanda wants to give Samantha time to cool off. Amanda plans on reaching back out to Samantha in a couple days to encourage her niece to return to rehab.
And that brings me to March 27th, 2018. I think it's incredibly important to note that right now, the only information we have about that day comes from Wren and his biological father, Dusty Holder. There are a lot of holes in this story. And Wren has admitted that his recollection of this day is not clear, because he was under the influence of meth. Graves County Sheriff John Hayden even tells WPSD News that the timeline doesn't quite add up.
And then when you evaluate it and take a step back to look at it objectively, a lot of what we've been told just doesn't pass the smell test. It just doesn't make any sense. This episode of Voices for Justice is sponsored by Ibotta. Are you planning your dream vacation but dreading the cost? With
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I'm going to break it down for you the best I can. That afternoon, Samantha and Wren went to his Uncle Paul's house in Simsonia. This is about 30 miles away from Samantha's home in Murray. That's where Dusty lives. We don't know why they go to see Dusty or what exactly happens here, but we do know that Samantha does not bring her phone. According to the Graves County Sheriff's Department, Dusty claims Wren and Samantha argue, but Wren denies this.
Either way, Samantha's upset for some reason and walks along a line of trees near the house. Wren is on his cell phone trying to get more meth. Soon, Dusty pulls up next to her on an ATV. Wren talks about this to WPSD News. I was busy doing something I shouldn't have been on the phone when she got on the four-wheeler. She's like, I'm going to go ride, take a ride with your dad. I was like, all right. Didn't think nothing of it. About 10 minutes later, I was asked to leave.
You know, sounds like, well, what about her? He's like, you're high? Get out of here. My uncle said that. Wren then leaves Dusty's home and takes Samantha's car, a Ford Taurus, back to her home in Murray, about half an hour away. From here, Samantha gets on Dusty's ATV and they head to a place called Kaler Bottoms. Formerly known as Kaler Bottoms Wildlife Management Area, it's a 2,000-acre wetland, and it's located within minutes of Dusty's house.
Now, Kaler Bottoms is really rural, remote, it's swampy, and there's a lot of wooded area with low terrain. And when there's rain, the bottoms get extremely wet, limiting access to the area a lot.
And March 2018 did have a lot of rain. Still, Samantha and Dusty rode off to Kaler Bottoms. And I feel like it's kind of a theme in this episode, but again, we don't really know exactly what happens here. Or how far they go into this 2,000 acre wetland. But it's safe to assume that it is muddy, and Dusty says that the ATV gets stuck in that mud. Making matters worse, it's starting to get dark.
Dusty tells Dateline NBC that he and Samantha decide to spend the night on the ATV. He says they stay warm by keeping the engine on, and Samantha doesn't contact anyone from her family about this situation. Now, this could be plausible, but it also doesn't make sense for several reasons. First, as I mentioned, Kaler Bottoms isn't too far from Dusty's home. It does seem kind of weird that they don't think they can make it back before the sun sets.
Then again, like I said, to play devil's advocate, we don't know how far they drove into this 2,000 acres. But we do know that because of this recent rain, there is limited access around the area. Second, Samantha is a mom to two young kids. And she has a close-knit family that definitely notices when she does not come home at night. And that's exactly what happens. Her sister Kim and the rest of the family are texting and calling her non-stop, but nothing gets through. Samantha's phone is off.
As I mentioned earlier, Samantha does not have her cell phone with her. But one question a lot of people ask is why didn't Samantha ask Dusty to use his phone? Third, I'm sure you've probably seen an ATV, but for those who haven't, they kind of look like a small car combined with a motorbike. Some even look like sleek, fancy golf carts. But unlike a car, sometimes there isn't a roof or hood covering it. There's typically no backseat to take refuge in.
We don't know the size or make and model of this ATV, but it likely didn't have a lot of room to sleep in. And that's really another thing that I keep coming back to in this case. Why spend a cold night on an ATV when you're so close to home? Even if you have to walk. But according to Dusty's account to Dateline NBC, that's what happens. Hours pass, the ATV runs out of gas, and their heat source is gone.
In the morning, Dusty and Samantha venture out of the woods and arrive at Highway 131. This is a very busy state route that's basically like the main road in this area. From here, they walk off in different directions. And again, I can't tell you why. Dusty says he then walks to a nearby general store, and Samantha heads toward the highway to go to her cousin's house. But this is a direction that her mom Tina doesn't think Samantha would ever take, because it is such a busy highway.
And if she does go that way, Tina thinks it's kind of odd that no one else sees her daughter walking on the side of the road. Tina told WPSD News, quote, There would have been parents taking their kids to school to drop them off and headed to work. There would have been someone that would have seen her. End quote. The Graves County Sheriff's Department also tells the media that they can't confirm Samantha took this route. There are no witnesses.
Even so, Dusty is the last person to see Samantha alive, and this is the only account that exists of Samantha's last known whereabouts. During the next day, March 28th, Samantha's family is of course incredibly worried. She's still not home or answering any calls or texts. And now, Ren's concerned too. She hasn't returned to her house in Murray where he stayed overnight.
Wren goes back to visit Dusty using Samantha's car. Dusty tells Wren what happened with Samantha, but we don't know exactly what Dusty says. We do know that Wren becomes extremely distressed by it. In some interviews, Wren says he doesn't know Samantha's missing till later. Either way, Wren tells WPSD News he doubts Dusty's story. I've asked him numerous times. I asked him right after it happened, I said, Dad, what happened? What happened?
I actually didn't say that. I said, "Dusty, I..." And it's like, "Man, we need to talk, man." I was like, "Look, dude, you need to give me some answers." He told me to shut up. "Why are you asking so many questions?"
During the evening of March 28th, Ren's reaction is extremely troubling. He goes into a wooded area off Doomschapel Road and Highway 131, just down the road from Simsonia. He uses his iPhone to FaceTime his mom and tells her that he just took a bunch of pills. Ren tells his mom he wants to die by suicide. Later, he tells WSPD News that he's high and thinks he's being followed, though he doesn't say by who.
Naturally, Wren's family panics and they call the sheriff's office, where they are familiar with Wren and his history of being arrested for being violent and armed. Emergency Management Director Chief Deputy Davent Ramage takes this information into account and decides not to endanger his officers. Ramage doesn't send anyone into the woods to look for Wren. He says it's dark outside, and he doesn't know if Wren is armed or how the pills might be affecting him.
He instead decides to send officers to search for Ren in the morning. And now I really want to note here that no one knows that Samantha's missing, which is why no one is searching for her yet.
Now, despite this lack of action, Wren's situation is discussed on a call to all law enforcement and services, like the volunteer fire department. And Samantha's brother Tyler is a volunteer firefighter. Luckily, he hears the call, and even clocks that Wren drove Samantha's Ford Taurus into the woods. This is when it hits him.
If Ren is in trouble and has Samantha's car, something might have happened to Samantha, and it's obviously not good. Tyler immediately contacts his family. Their mom Tina calls Samantha's job at McDonald's to see if she ever arrived for her 9pm shift. Her co-workers say that she never did.
So right now, both Samantha and Wren are missing. Her car is abandoned and soon impounded. And the only person who might have any inkling of what's going on is Dusty Holder. On March 29th, 2018, Tina officially reports her daughter Samantha missing, and the sheriff's office immediately looks into Dusty. Deputies begin interviewing people to verify Dusty's whereabouts for the past few days and to get more information.
Samantha's car and apartment are searched, but they don't find anything out of the ordinary. According to Samantha's family, because of her history, the police basically assume that she's probably on drugs. The officer even tells them that she'll probably just eventually come back home. This is so unfair. Not only for Samantha's family, but for Samantha.
But the next day, March 30th, the police do launch their first search for Samantha in the woods. Meanwhile, detectives and deputies meet with Dusty. He tells them his account of that night, the version I just took you through.
On March 31st, the police receive a tip from someone who thinks they saw Samantha in Calloway County, which is where Samantha lives in Murray. The tip says that she was in a white Chevrolet Camaro from the late 80s to the early 90s with a loud exhaust. It's a bit of hope for Samantha's family.
Around this same time, Ramage asks an unnamed independent Kaler Bottoms expert to examine the area. Again, we don't know a lot about this guy, but we do know that he spent his life in this region and grew up hunting there, so he apparently knows it very well. He does find Dusty's ATV that broke down that night. He also finds proof of a small fire and two cell phones, both of which belong to Dusty.
But most importantly, he finds footprints. And I feel like this part is crucial. He only finds one set of footprints. They go around the ATV and out of the woods. Obviously, this evidence does not match up with Dusty's story. And there's no way to prove that Samantha had even been there that night. It only proves that Dusty went off-roading into Kaler Bottoms with his ATV and started a fire at some point.
While this doesn't provide us any information about what might have happened to Samantha, it does tell us that there's something wrong with Dusty's story. And this is followed by another major development. Two days later on April 1st, more people and police search for Samantha and Kayler Bottoms. That night, Wren Hendrickson walks out of the woods after spending five days there.
He's taken to the hospital and treated for hypothermia and dehydration. After his treatment, deputies question Wren about his and Samantha's disappearance, but he doesn't seem to know any other details. As the search for Samantha continues, the last two men to see her, Wren and Dusty, sit for polygraph tests, and they pass.
Now, we know that polygraph tests aren't considered trustworthy evidence that someone is lying or telling the truth. In fact, I think it's worth noting that the American Psychological Association says that there's no proof that lying correlates with any psychological reactions. There's a lot of junk science out there. Now, under certain legal conditions, polygraph test results can only be used as evidence in roughly half the states, and Kentucky isn't one of them.
So the polygraph results aren't saying that Dusty and Ren are innocent, but the police do feel that they need to turn their attention to other people. As you might guess, this is incredibly frustrating to Samantha's family. Not only has she been missing for several days at this point, but the two people who say that they last saw her haven't been much help.
Her family also believes that searching for Wren in the woods took away valuable time the police could have used to look for Samantha. Really, they feel like the sheriff's office didn't even take her case seriously until Wren resurfaced. And now an unreliable polygraph test seems to be clearing Dusty and Wren of any guilt. At the same time, no other evidence emerges to prove that either man is involved in Samantha's disappearance.
Now, one other lead does crop up, but it doesn't last for long. A year later, on April 3rd, 2019, detectives walked around Kaler Bottoms with a canine unit, and the dogs find an underground bunker. Not only that, there's a man living there. A 41-year-old fugitive named Ernest Hendrickson. I know, but we don't know if Ernest has any relation to Ren Hendrickson.
But Ernest is on the run from police for a long list of charges in Graves and three other counties. Of course, deputies think that maybe he was involved in Samantha's disappearance. But they quickly find that Ernest was in jail during that time. Three months later, Graves County Sheriff John Hayden takes office. He brings in the Kentucky State Police and FBI to help, but it doesn't do much.
Unfortunately, even after Samantha's case is featured on Dateline NBC, there still isn't any new information.
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This is Jessica Knoll, host of the new series Back in Crime. If you're a follower of true crime, you're probably familiar with some of the most shocking stories from our history. Horrific tragedies like the Columbine Massacre. He turned the gun straight at us and shot. And my God, the window went out. And the kid standing there with me, I think he got hit. And notorious criminals like cult leader Charles Manson.
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In the years since, Tina, Amanda, and the Graves County Sheriff's Office continue to talk to the media about Samantha's case. In 2021, Sheriff Hayden does tell WPSD News that the police are still putting effort into this case. As for Wren and Dusty, both men are in jail for unrelated crimes. According to the Kentucky Department of Corrections, Wren was convicted of tampering with a monitoring device in June of 2023.
He was sentenced to five years in prison. A few months later, Dusty gets arrested and faces several charges, including firearms possession and possession of meth and cannabis.
But Samantha's family is holding out hope that she might come home someday. Since April 2018, her family has maintained a Facebook page called Bring Samantha Home. That's where I connected with her family. It currently has over 10,000 followers. Many members, including Samantha's Aunt Amanda, post updates and memories about Samantha.
Amanda also makes flyers, puts up yard signs, and holds yard sales, all to spread the word about Samantha. They also commemorate the day that Samantha went missing and her birthday, August 20th. In 2023, Amanda posts a video to the Facebook page addressing Samantha directly. She ends with the following message for her. You just had so much opportunity ahead of you. And I hate more than anything that that was taken from you.
I hate that you were taken from us. You were just so beautiful. And you just, you meant the world to me. And I fear every day that you didn't realize that. And I don't know how to find you. And I try and nothing seems to work out. I want so badly to find you. And I want to know what happened and how it happened and why it happened. I want to try to make sense of it and I can't.
In February 2024, Amanda wrote on Facebook that the family receives a lot of tips about Samantha, which they're thankful for. But they're always from second-hand sources and a lot of them don't seem to pan out. Unfortunately, Samantha's family still has so many questions about what happened to her and what the real truth is. Is it Dusty's unclear version of that night? Or is there another version of events? It seems clear that Dusty is not telling the whole truth.
Unfortunately, Samantha's family is left with a lot of questions and few answers about what the real truth is. Samantha's mom Tina told WPSD News about this, saying, We don't have our closure. We are stuck in a grief cycle that can't move forward. We can't go to the next phase simply because we have so many unanswered questions. That brings me right to our call to action. Please share Samantha's case.
Share this episode and share her family's Facebook page for her. If you'd like to help even further, please join that Facebook page. Her family talks a lot about local yard sales, raffles, ways to donate. So if you would like to contribute, if you'd like to become more involved, you can find the link for that in our episode description. I would love to see us rally around Samantha's loved ones and just show that support that they're seeking.
As a reminder, 25-year-old Samantha Sperry was last seen on March 27th, 2018 in Graves County, Kentucky. She is white, with strawberry blonde hair and hazel eyes. She weighs about 120 pounds and is 5'6". She was last seen wearing a gray hoodie and gray sweatpants with sneakers. She does have a tattoo of a rose with a skull on her right shoulder.
She also has two roses and the word rose on the right side of her lower abdomen, as well as a tiger lily and sunflower on her left thigh. Her eyebrow and ears are pierced. Anyone with information is asked to call the Graves County Sheriff's Office at 270-247-4501. There is a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction.
But as always, thank you, I love you, and I'll talk to you next time. Voices for Justice is hosted and produced by me, Sarah Turney, and is a Voices for Justice media original. This episode contains writing and research assistance by Mallory Cara. If you love what we do here, please don't forget to follow, rate, and review the show on your podcast player. It's an easy and free way to help us and help more people find these cases in need of justice.
Welcome to the Secret After Show. The studio door is open, the dogs are in, we have our emotional support puppies. Let's get into this case.
It's a frustrating case. I think that that's pretty clear from the episode that there's a lot of holes in these stories. There's a lot of information that we don't know, which does make it a harder story to tell. But I really hope that you are still here, still listening, because Samantha needs our help. And just because Dusty's version is incomplete or whatever, doesn't mean that Samantha's story shouldn't be told.
I think overall, it's just, it's frustrating. I get that you want the complete picture. I get that. I mean, I want the complete picture. Her family, most importantly, wants the complete picture. But I don't know. I can't look at a story, a case, talk to a family.
and go, well, you know, the story's not complete enough. My listeners will be dissatisfied. I can't do that. So if you're here, if you care, please support this family on Facebook. They need some love. And please share it. I wish more people would cover this case, you know, and maybe if they do, if the media pressure is heightened a little bit, more people will speak. I mean, maybe even Dusty and Ren while they're in prison. Who knows?
On to what's going on with me. I finally have a floor. Thank you so much. I am so sick of talking about this floor. But I am on this mission for peace, which means right now I am doing whatever I can in my house to make it as organized as possible, as clean as possible, and just live in a peaceful environment that...
one, doesn't make me feel insane, like I need to get up and clean something or repair something or like the dread of needing to repair something. If you own a home, you know what I mean. And I have an older home. I actually looked it up. I'm two years away from this being a historic home, which is so exciting. But yeah, so I'm on that journey and my floor is complete. Thank you so much for following me and tolerating this
This way too long journey with it. Essentially, my subfloor was all messed up. Again, I have a nearly historic home. So that needed to be repaired before I could do a floor. And there were a lot of tears. And for anybody that followed me when I was on TikTok, like crying with a butter knife trying to get this floor up. Thank you so much. It is now complete.
And I have learned so much. Oh my gosh, home renovation is so stressful. I never want to do it again. But I'm the girl who like doesn't throw things away unless they're broken. So hopefully that does not happen for a long time. No more home renovations for me.
I do have an update. So you guys might remember that I talked about my new fascination with this podcast called They Thought I Was You. It's about the Olsen twins. And I grew up watching the Olsen twins, like bought their clothes at Walmart when they made them, just like obsessed. I just I loved everything about them. And then when I got older and looked back, I was like, wow, I'm
Wow. What happened to them was not okay. So I really loved rediscovering this podcast. I talked about it a few weeks ago, about how I wanted to be on it. And like you guys do, you made another dream come true. The hosts reached out to me. They want to talk to me. They want me to be on the podcast. And I now get to talk about the Olsen twins. So I'm excited.
Now for our segment of hope, and this is kind of an update. I am talking about the amazing Kara Robinson Chamberlain. She came on the show, gosh, it feels like forever ago now, but she came and she told her story about being kidnapped and how she survived. She is truly, truly incredible. And if you didn't know, she has a Lifetime movie that she had a heavy hand in producing. Yay for family-led, survivor-led content. Of course, you guys know that's what I'm all about. But I'm also going to be talking about
um, so she had a heavy hand in producing this movie for a lifetime. It's called The Girl Who Escaped, The Kara Robinson Story, and, um, they were up for three Canadian Academy Awards and won all three. Um, I am just over the moon for her. She and the crew that she worked with is absolutely amazing, and I think it just shows that, um,
No one can tell these stories like the people involved. And I know I will die on that hill. I will die on that hill that there is so much context that people like I, Julie Marie, Kelsey German, Kara Robinson can add to these stories that never make a police report. It's all that context that may not get written down, may not be reported on. There's just, there's nothing like it. And I think that her movie winning these three awards is absolutely amazing. So that is our segment of hope that we're
Survivors, especially, really can tell their stories in an impactful way that resonates with audiences and wins awards. It just, it feels like this amazing graduation from me in 2019 trying to beg people to listen to me and really feeling quite...
invalid in this space. The reception of what I got in 2019 is so different from what I get today. And seeing that evolution, seeing Kara go in this space and thrive in this space and her movie to win these awards gives me hope. And I think it will give a lot of other families and survivors hope too. So go check out Kara's movie. Like I said, it's a
and go follow her everywhere. She makes really fantastic TikToks. She talks a lot about skincare and health and mental health. She's a really cool, inspiring person in this space, and I am so, so happy for her. But as always, thank you, I love you, and I'll talk to you next time.