The Yogurt Shop Murders and Serial Killer Robert Eugene Brashers: First Person: Deborah Brashers: Part One

Summary

Murder Sheet: "The Yogurt Shop Murders and Serial Killer Robert Eugene Brashers: First Person: Deborah Brashers: Part One"

Original Air Date: November 25, 2025
Hosts: Áine Cain (B), Kevin Greenlee (C)
Guest: Deborah Brashers (A), daughter of Robert Eugene Brashers

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Episode Overview

This intense episode of the Murder Sheet delves into the chilling legacy of Robert Eugene Brashers, a serial killer whose violent crimes included the infamous Yogurt Shop Murders in Austin, Texas. Journalists Áine Cain and Kevin Greenlee interview Deborah Brashers—Robert’s daughter—who recounts her childhood, the dualities in her father’s behavior, and the devastating aftermath of his suicide, all from the deeply personal perspective of someone who loved him before learning his horrific truth. The hosts emphasize the importance of understanding how perpetrators can hide in plain sight and the emotional fallout experienced by their unsuspecting families.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Background on Robert Eugene Brashers

• Timeline of Crimes ([02:14] - [06:18]):
  • Born 1958 in Virginia. Lived in Alabama and Indiana. Family history includes siblings (some with criminal records, some not).
  • 1985: Shot a woman in Florida (she survived), imprisoned, released in 1989.
  • 1990-1998: Series of violent attacks, rapes, and murders across several states including the notorious Yogurt Shop Murders.
  • 1999: Committed suicide during a standoff in front of Deborah and her family.
• Weapon Link: Used the same .380 pistol in multiple crimes, including his own suicide.

2. Meet Deborah Brashers

• Introduction ([07:39]):
  • The episode features an interview with Deborah, who had no idea about her father’s crimes during her childhood.
  • Deborah is clear: She is not excusing or glorifying her father but sharing her truth to help others understand how predators can appear “normal” and how families cope with shocking revelations.

3. Deborah’s Childhood and First Memories

• Meeting Her Father ([10:33]):
  • Didn't meet her dad until age 5, after his release from prison in 1997.
  • "My father just pulled in the driveway one day with my grandpa and said, hey, I'm your dad."
• Contrasting Childhoods:
  • Pre-father: “Chaotic was normal.”
  • With father: Sudden improvement—stability, outdoor activities, family bonding.
  • "For the little bit of time we lived with him, things were great and then they weren’t." ([10:33])

4. Surface Normalcy vs. Dysfunction

• Was He a Good Dad? ([14:43]):
  • "He was a great father. He was very supportive. He was there for us. He done anything that you would think a normal father would do."
• Idyllic Moments ([14:43]):
  • Valentine’s Day: “He brought me and my sisters single red roses to school and walked into our classrooms.”
  • Outdoor activities, pets, and family celebrations.

5. Early Signs of Turmoil

• Glimpses of His Dark Side ([15:36]-[19:08]):
  • Deborah recalls incidents of domestic violence: a fistfight between her mother and father, physical abuse of a sibling, witnessing her father’s suicide attempt, and increasing instability due to substance abuse.
  • "He used to get drunk ... The liquor store was in Missouri ... He would buy us bubble gum so we wouldn’t tell." ([15:41])
  • "He whooped my sister very badly ... he broke her pinky." ([19:08])
• Suicide attempt ([19:08]):
  • Self-harm during a period of intense distress; the family only understood the incident’s gravity in retrospect.

6. Family Background and Enabling

• About Brashers’ Upbringing ([26:11]):
  • Grandfather was a "successful" NASA employee, but possibly an enabler, mortgaging his house to bail Robert out.
  • "My grandfather put off that he would be there for his son no matter what, right or wrong." ([28:54])

7. Normalization and Impact of Childhood Trauma

• Processing Childhood Experience ([29:17]):
  • Deborah reflects on how witnessing violence and chaos became “normal” and shaped her resilience.
  • "It set a precedent of how my life would go ... Oh, my dad’s a serial killer now? Okay, what else is new?" ([29:33])
• Effect on Parenting:
  • "I strive to make sure my child does not see anything I grew up with." ([30:33])

8. Personality and Family Dynamics

• Father’s Personality ([33:20]):
  • "If I tell you to do it, you do it ... He was stern ... but also sweet and kind ... when everything was going good, he was the father you thought you wanted."
  • Recounts a story where Brashers showed remorse after accidentally killing the family dog.
• Relationship with Mother ([36:20]):
  • Outwardly loving and supportive; mother shielded children from much of the underlying turmoil.

9. Mother’s Perspective and Family Life

• Mother's Denial and Struggle ([39:03]):
  • Deborah's mother never accepted Robert’s guilt, blaming his friend Thomas Mitchell for the crimes.
  • "She couldn't believe the man we loved that much ... could do that." ([39:03])
• Prior family life was chaotic with previous stepfathers involved with drugs and violence:
  • "Before my father come in, it was not a normal childhood." ([41:20])

10. The Night of Robert Brashers' Suicide

• The Standoff and Aftermath ([43:31]-[55:37]):
  • Family was present at the hotel during the police standoff.
  • "We wake up to guns, lights, police screaming, 'Get out from underneath the bed.' ... my sister jumps in between all that and says, 'No, Robert, you're not going to shoot my daddy.'" ([46:39])
  • After the gunshot, family evacuated; police confirmed suicide.
  • Deborah recounts viewing her father’s body, attending the funeral, and the confusion and trauma of those events, especially as a child.
    • "His hand is warm. How can he be dead?" ([46:40])

11. Life After Brashers’ Death

• Deterioration of Family Life ([55:40]):
  • “We had a car ... my mother got with my little sister’s father ... moved back to Alabama ... that was just chaos."
  • More instability, substance abuse, run-ins with the law, and additional trauma, including abuse by her father’s friend.
• Deborah’s attitude towards victimhood:
  • "I don’t look at myself as a victim ... that’s the poor, pitiful me role ... but that’s normal, that’s a normal day growing up, it’s trauma." ([58:54])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On her father’s duality:
  "He was a great father. He was very supportive. He was there for us. He done anything that you would think a normal father would do." — Deborah ([14:43])

• On realizing the normalization of chaos:
  "Growing up and being in a chaotic situation was very normal to me." — Deborah ([10:33])

• On the violence she witnessed:
  "He whooped my sister very badly ... he broke her pinky ... That was the night we saw a glimpse of it." — Deborah ([19:08])

• On denial and the shattering of illusions:
  "She never accepted his guilt because she couldn’t believe the man that we loved that much ... could do that." — Deborah ([39:03])

• On the trauma of Brashers’ suicide:
  "We wake up to guns, lights, police screaming, 'Get out from underneath the bed.' ... my sister jumps in between all that and says, 'No, Robert, you’re not going to shoot my daddy.'" — Deborah ([46:40])

• On wrestling with the truth:
  "Until the day ... they knocked on my door in 2018 ... my father was held on a pedestal." — Deborah ([55:37])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment / Topic Description | |---------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:14-06:18 | Overview of Robert Eugene Brashers' criminal timeline and connections to major cases | | 10:33-14:43 | Deborah’s introduction and first memories of her father | | 14:43-15:36 | "Was he a good dad?" — Deborah on father’s role in her life | | 15:36-19:08 | Incidents of family violence, substance abuse, early signs of dysfunction | | 26:11-29:17 | Brashers’ extended family, grandfather’s enabling | | 29:17-30:33 | Effects of witnessing violence and childhood normalization of chaos | | 33:20-36:20 | Father’s personality, quirks, emotional dynamics in family | | 39:03-41:06 | Mother's inability to accept Brashers' guilt and her perspective | | 43:31-55:37 | Detailed, shocking account of Brashers’ suicide and its impact on Deborah & family | | 55:40-59:19 | Deborah's post-suicide life, instability, abuse, and reflection on victimhood |

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Tone & Takeaways

The episode is deeply empathetic and sensitive, emphasizing the normalization of chaos in childhood trauma, how evil can be hidden beneath a mask of geniality, and the confusion/shame families of offenders often feel. The hosts credit Deborah with bravery and honesty in using her story to help shed light on the human side of notorious cases.

Key takeaway: Family members of notorious offenders are often victims of deception and manipulation themselves, and sharing their stories is crucial for understanding both the nature of hidden predation and the long-term psychological impact on families.

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Next Episode

Stay tuned for Part Two, where the interview with Deborah Brashers continues.

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End of detailed summary for Murder Sheet, November 25, 2025.

Transcript

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[B]

Anya and we're going to be speaking with Deborah, the daughter of serial killer Robert Eugene Brashears, who will talk about her early childhood growing up with no awareness of his many violent crimes.

[C]

Content Warning this episode contains discussion of suicide, domestic abuse, murder and rape, including the rape and murder of children.

[B]

Robert Eugene Brashears was a serial killer. Let's go over a quick timeline of his life and the crimes that we know about.

[C]

He was born on March 13, 1958 in Newport News, Virginia. He lived in Huntsville, Alabama as well as South Bend, Indiana, briefly. His father, Doulas Brashears Sr. Was from Perigold, Arkansas. He had a sister, Deborah, who died as a baby. He also had two older brothers, Doulas or Woody Jr. Who died in a shootout after murdering Alabama trooper David Temple in 1979, and Gary Dean Brashears, who by all accounts lived a law abiding life.

[B]

On November 22, 1985 in Port St. Lucie, Florida, Beshears shot a 24 year old woman named Michelle Wilkerson twice after she rejected his sexual advances. She survived. He was imprisoned, sentenced to 12 years and then for some reason released in 1989.

[C]

On April 5, 1990, Brashear slipped into the Greenville, South Carolina apartment of 28 year old Genevieve or Jenny Zatricki. He bludgeoned her as she slept and raped her. She died as a result of that attack.

[B]

On December 6, 1991, Bershears went to the I Can't believe it's yogurt shop in Austin, Texas. There he found 17 year old Eliza Thomas, 13 year old Amy Ayers and sisters 15 year old Sarah and 17 year old Jennifer Harbison. He bound and gagged them with their own clothing and then shot them to death. The Harbisons and Thomas were killed with a.22 caliber gun. Amy Ayers was also shot with this gun as well as a.380 caliber pistol. Then Brashear set the place on fire. Two young men, Michael Scott and Robert Springsteen were wrongfully convicted in this case and Maurice Pierce, enforced Welborn, were also wrongfully charged.

[C]

On December 8, 1991, less than two days after the quadruple homicide, Border Patrol stopped Richears at a checkpoint between El Paso, Texas and Las Cruces, New Mexico because he was driving a stolen car from Georgia. He was carrying a.380 pistol, the same weapon he would later kill himself with.

[B]

On March 11, 1997 in Memphis, Tennessee, Bershears forced his way inside a home. He tied up the four occupants and proceeded to rape a 14 year old girl. He did not kill any of those victims. He was armed at that time with a revolver.

[C]

On March 28, 1998, Bershears entered the rural Portageville, Missouri home of the Shearer family. He tied up the 38 year old mother Sherry and her 12 year old daughter Megan. He raped Megan and then shot them both to death. Two hours later he tried to shove his way into a home in nearby Dyersburg, Tennessee. But the 25 year old mother living there with her family successfully fought him off. She was shot in the process, but survived. Detectives linked ballistics from the Tennessee case to that of the Shearer crime scene. Brashears used the same.22 caliber gun in both.

[B]

On April 12, 1998, Brashears attempted to break into the home of a woman in Perigold, Arkansas. He was arrested, but he was able to bond out. And then he went on the run.

[C]

There is also an unknown case out of Kentucky that Beshears has been linked to. We believe that this is the case of Linda Rutledge. On November 6, 1998, someone murdered 43 year old Linda Rutledge. She was killed in her parents business, the Nixon Hearing Aid Center. She was shot multiple times. Then the building itself was set on fire. That was in Lexington, Kentucky. According to Austin police, bershears used the same.380 gun in the yogurt shop murders to kill the as Yevy officially unidentified woman in Kentucky.

[B]

On January 13, 1999, police tracked down Bershears at a hotel in Kennett, Missouri. They engaged in a standoff. He shot himself. He died on January 19, 1999. He killed himself with what was believed to be the same make and model of a gun used in the yogurt shop murders and the Kentucky murder, as well as the same exact gun he had on him at The Texas stop, a.380 pistol.

[C]

This is a likely incomplete litany of crimes committed by Brashears. But what do we know of the man himself?

[B]

Well, today we are going to talk with someone who knew him, who respected him, who who loved him. Today we will talk to this serial killer's daughter, Deborah Brashears. In this episode, she will focus on her childhood and her relationship with her father. Brashears was Debra's biological father. He came into her life when she was very young and raised her and her half sisters, his stepdaughters, for a number of years. Now, here's something that may surprise you in light of what we've just talked about. Brashears and his heinous crimes. In Debra's experience, Beshears was a great dad. She will talk about intermittent instances of dysfunction and even violence. She will talk about the trauma of his suicide, which involved a police raid that occurred right in front of Debra when she was just a little girl.

[C]

But as Debra will tell us, that chaos was normalized for her during her upbringing. Remember, a young child adapts to their family life. Whatever happens within their household, they tend to normalize from a survival perspective. That means often normalizing dysfunctional or even violent behaviors by parental figures. It is very Important to keep that in mind. Deborah is not normalizing or whitewashing him. She is just expressing what she grew up with. For Deborah, her father was still someone she admired and loved and mourned for years before she learned the horrible truth.

[B]

Debra wants to stress this. She is not sharing that side of Brashear's life to praise him or glorify him or make excuses for him or make you think he's a good guy. She's just hoping to raise awareness of how predators can hide in plain sight and of how jarring the truth can be for a perpetrator's family. We think that what Deborah's doing is incredibly brave, valuable, and commendable, something that helps us all fill in the gaps about Brashear's whereabouts as well as his personality. We also think this can help families of other perpetrators come to grips with the guilt and confusion they might feel in the wake of revelations like this. My name is Anya Cain. I'm a journalist.

[C]

And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney.

[B]

And this is the Murder Sheet.

[C]

We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews, and deep dives into murder cases. We're the Murder Sheet.

[B]

And this is the Yogurt Shop Murders and serial killer Robert Eugene Brashears, First Person, Deborah Brashears, Part one.

[C]

Sam first of all, Deborah, we just.

[B]

Wanna say thank you so much for joining us today on the Murder Sheet. It really means a lot.

[A]

Well, thank you very much for having me. I really appreciate it.

[B]

Absolutely. Today we're going to talk a bit about your father, who is Robert Eugene Brashers. And I guess maybe the best place to start is can you just tell us a little bit about growing up and sort of your childhood?

[A]

I did not meet my father until I was five years old when he got out of prison in 1997, before I thought my stepfather was my father. And my father just pulled in the driveway one day with my grandpa and said, hey, I'm your dad. Like, before that, my sisters and cousins had teased me, like, you know, we had a picture of my father and they're like, this is your father. And I'm like, no, this is not my father at all. And they're like, yes, this is your father. But when we met him, it was our childhood wasn't the greatest. Before my father coming our lives and after he did, it was night and day. Like, we had an amazing childhood. For the little bit of time we lived with him, it was. Things were great and then they weren't. Sometimes when we first moved out to Parricult, Arkansas. We got. My father got us a house that was really big to me. We had a really nice house. He tilted up the whole front yard for. And then laid the one by one squares or for my mother, for the certain kind of grass that she wanted. We'd have bonfires, we'd go camping, canoeing some. He took my sister's canoeing when I was younger or when I was a baby, if I'm not mistaken. And then, of course, he went back to prison and then come back. But it was a normal childhood for the little bit of time that we lived with him. To me, because everything before that was chaotic. So chaotic was normal. Growing up and being in a chaotic situation was very normal to me. But we never had to worry where we were going to lay our heads, where food was going to, anything like that with my father around. And after my father killed himself, of course we went back to the way we were living before we come back to Alabama. And it just, it. It. Him killing himself messed up our entire life. We thought he had mental health issues.

[B]

I want to go back a little bit. So you met him when you were five. Was that after his imprisonment for the attempted murder in Florida?

[A]

No, he. The attempted murder in Florida was 1985. We met him after he got out for the impersonating a police officer in Georgia. And now recently finding out that he also got arrested in 2000 Texas days after the yogurt shop murders, and went also that was tied into the Georgia case as well, because he stole a vehicle from Georgia, drove it to Texas, got caught with it, got bonded out and went back to Georgia and stole more vehicles. And then got the impersonating a police officer charge as well, because he had a police radio, a kill kit, all of the above on him.

[B]

And so in terms of. And then where you guys were living when he sort of came back, was that Alabama?

[A]

Yes, we lived in Alabama. I thought that my father was going to jail the day I was born. That's what I was told growing up, but come to find out that's not true. He didn't go to prison until 1992. And then, of course, the arrest in Texas in December of 91. My question finding out everything there recently was, where were you at when I was born? Because you weren't at the hospital. So you're not at the hospital when I'm born. Then you do all of that in Texas, three months after I'm born, go back to Georgia, end up getting those charges as well. Go to prison, get out in 1995 and came straight to Alabama and got me and my sisters and my mother. Wow.

[B]

So there's really like a timeline that we can look at here and sort of see, okay, what was going on at this point.

[A]

He got out in February of, if I'm not mistaken, it was February of 95. Or I'm sorry, 97. February of 97, went to Memphis, Tennessee, raped a 14 year old girl, hold the, held the whole house hostage, did not murder anyone there and then come to Alabama to get us.

[B]

Actually, I want to go back to the childhood aspect of it though, because you, you mentioned, you know, you brought some stability in some ways to, to the household. And it sounds like in some ways it was a, you know, idyllic childhood with some of the stuff you're talking about, canoeing, outdoor activities, on the surface at least. Was he a good dad?

[A]

Yes, he was a great father. He was very supportive. He was there for us. He done anything that you would think a normal father would do. He went on Valentine's Day of 1998, he brought me and my sister's single red roses to school and walked into our classrooms. It was a thing that my mother done for me growing up after my father passed away that I thought now puts this little feeling in my stomach of sickness because of everything I found out. But growing up I made it to where, you know, we held my father on a pedestal because of how great he was. Myself, my two sisters and my mother, we held him on a pedestal. He was the greatest person in our entire life. That little bit of time that he was in our lives, our lives were the best that they had been that we could remember.

[C]

Did you ever get any glimpses of this other side of him while he was with you?

[A]

Yes. He used to get drunk like he was trying to go to the liquor store one day. And for some reason our mother stopped letting us go with him. We, he. The liquor store was in Missouri. We lived right on the repair Gold, Arkansas like outskirts in the country. So right on the Arkansas, Missouri state line. And he was so very well known that we used to go to the drive through liquor store and they knew us by name. So we would go there and he would get us a big thing of bubble gum, like the individual bubblegum, but it was the big tub of it. And that was the thing of. Don't tell your mama we went to a liquor store, buy us bubble gum. Okay. We won't say anything really. I think it was mainly me because I had a big mouth. Growing up, my sisters wouldn't say anything really, but I would. I tell my mother everything. That was my best friend.

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[A]

And she come out one day screaming and hollering saying, get my effing kids out of that car right now. And they got into a fist fight. He started beating her up. He put a goose egg on her forehead because he hit her so hard in the head. And she went crazy on him, like went AWOL on him, kicked him between the legs and he fell to the ground screaming and hollering and crying, oh Rose, please stop, please stop. Because she was beating the crap out of him. And then he, we ran to the car. He grabbed my sister and held her and said, please, please, please, you know this isn't me. Please, please, please, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. My mother's screaming, get in the car. And we left. We went to a friend of hers house, she worked third shift, so she went to work and we woke up to him even after getting hit right in the head. My mother was a very strong woman. She had to go to work. She knew she had children to support. She went to work. We woke up to him being in the house telling every one of us he was sorry and begging for our forgiveness. And we knew he was this great man, so we didn't want to cause any problems between him and my mother. Another incident was he whooped my sister very badly. We were playing in the floor with the. In the Arkansas heat during the August summers. We were laying in the floor, we didn't have central heat and air. And they were laying in the floor playing on the plane going ah, you know, little sounds through a fan. And he come in there and told us to shut up. My sister, of course, the smart mouth that she had, she said something and he grabbed her by her pinky and drug her from the bedroom to the living room. And we, me and my other sister watched him just lose it on her that night. We saw a glimpse of it. Then he stopped. He broke her pinky. And then the next incident was when he tried to kill himself. We were at a family friend's house and he shows up and something's going on. And he has a gun on him. And one of the family friends, the males, grabs the gun and takes it out of his car because he's saying, I'm going to kill myself, yada yada yada. And he takes it out of the car and takes off running with the gun or the bullets? One. And my father jumps in his van and tries to run this man down and run him over for that gun. It was the gun for the gun. Of course, at that time we did not know what was on that gun at the time. Now we do. That was the first time I learned my father even had a gun on him ever. Even carried a gun. But we always knew. And I'm not sure where it come from, but he wasn't going back to prison. He would never go back to prison. Why? Where it come from? I'm not sure. I just remember that when we were little, he said himself he's never going back to prison. Did not know what that meant. Of course. Eventually we found out. But he went home after trying to run that guy down. I'm guessing he got his gun back, I'm not really sure. And after he went home, he tried to kill himself. He cut his own neck and his own arm. Wrecked the van in the field because we lived in the country, so there was a field next to us, like crop field. And he wrecked the van over there in the field. The police show up, they find blood everywhere. He goes to the police, show up at our house, they find blood everywhere. Figured all this out from reading police reports and stuff. But they come to the house where we were currently at and I see my mother go out there to the car and talk to the police. And she looks in the back of the car and then she starts screaming and hollering and crying. I'm not sure if she was just looking in the back of the car. There was something in there when they told her some information. But come to find out my father almost cut his own carotid artery and cut his whole arm up. Said we were told that he wrecked the van and his arm and his head went through the windshield and his arm went through the window. But that was not true at all. We figured out later on that when him and my mother got into an argument one time that he actually cut his own neck. He got real bad on pain pills and Valiums. And my mother goes to work one night and my sister's friends are over. There's like four or five of them. And me, my two sisters and my mother they come up with this game so that I don't freak out, don't let daddy out the house. He's so tore up and so messed up off the medication and stuff. And my mother told us don't let him out of the house when she went to work. So they played a game of don't let him out the house. People went to each like playing ping pong with a person like that. But that's how my father was being the ping pong himself of running around the house and everything, trying to get out. Not sure what he was trying to do getting out of the house. I don't know. I didn't ask my mother all these questions in between the time of finding out about my father killing him or finding out that he was a serial killer to the time that she passed away. But I never questioned my mother about my father growing up because it was a very hard subject. That was her heart, that was the love of her life. And up until the day she died, she felt that maybe someone else, which was a family friend of his, or I'm not a family friend, a friend of his maybe have been the person to do all this and not my father. But those were the few incidences that I remember. I don't even. We did not even know that he went to jail while we lived in Paragould, Arkansas. When he cut the phone line of the woman in Paragould, we didn't even know he done that. We just know he. I found out recently that it was on Easter. So I'm wondering where was it? Where it was Easter morning that he done it? Where were you on Easter? What lie did my mother spend to us? That, you know, story did you spin to us to tell us as to where my father was at while he was locked up in jail? We go to school the next day and we go. The school bus used to drop us off on at the ball field because my sisters played softball. They come to pick us up on the ball field after the game and it says just married. Rode in the dirt, the dirt dust on the back of the van. Just married. We never knew they get. We didn't even know why they got married or we didn't know they got married. I'm sorry. We knew. We thought it was because he was going to adopt my two sisters. It's easier to adopt someone if you're married. So that's what we were told. And that wasn't the truth. It was so that they could not use my mother against my father. Because when he Was in that woman's garage and got caught. He left the gun in the fender wheel of her car. He went to jail. Called my mother over the phone, told her that he had left the gun there. The police heard it, of course, said call my grandpa, who would have laid his life down for his son at any time, whether he, right or wrong, he done anything, saved my father from any situation he ever put himself in, ever.

[B]

Were you able to piece anything together about your dad's upbringing and what his family was like? I understand his. His father was working for Nassau and was a pretty successful man in that regard.

[A]

I did learn recently that he was an alcoholic. I'm not sure when it started or when it stopped. I know that they had a daughter that passed away and that was my. It went my uncle Doulas Jr. Who died in a shootout with Huntsville police state or in the state troopers. My. It went my aunt, who I'm named after, Deborah Caber Shears. Then it went my Uncle Gary. Then my father. My father was the baby. So my uncle Doulas was an evil seed is what I found out. My aunt passed away at a very young age. My uncle Gary is a very God fearing man and he's a upstanding member of society. And then there you have my father. I found out my grandpa saved my father. And Doulas Jr. Or Woody Jr. Is what they called him all his, all their lives. Out of every situation, he would always, you know, be there to save them. And I don't know anything of if there was abuse in the home of any sort at all. When I met my grandfather, who was a very. You didn't question him. Just like my father, that feeling of, you know, nowadays kids will question you all day long. Why? Why? Why? But when we were growing up, you didn't question adults very much. It was that Persona of, you just don't do that. And that's how we grew up. So my grandfather, you didn't question him. He just had that aura and that feeling of he walked in a room, he got respect. And there was never anything of negative about my grandfather. Of course he was World War II vet, watched Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. A normal grandfather, taught me how to garden. Ate my first tomato sandwich with him. Even after my father died, we went and stayed with him for one or two summers and my sisters were little rebellious teenagers and he wasn't able to handle them. So he was like, yeah, we can't do this no more. But there was never. He never gave any signs of anything negative at all when my grandfather had cancer surgery and had to get a colostomy bag and stuff. We went to Mud island in Missouri. If I'm not mistaken, that's where it's at. We went there and it was normal. They had a normal relationship. But you. My grandfather put off that he would be there for his son no matter what, right or wrong.

[B]

Do you remember any times he kind of was bailing him out or any like, were there any specific times or just. Was that the vibe?

[A]

That was the vibe. I didn't know anything of him going to jail, my father going to jail. I did not know my grandfather mortgaged his house to give my father money or to bond him out of jail, put his house up for bond. I didn't know any of that.

[C]

You were telling us some of the terrible things that happened with your father when you were growing up. And it's upsetting to hear, and I'm an adult. How did it affect you to actually witness those things as a child?

[A]

It's very hard to answer that question because growing up the way I did after my father, like I'm five to seven years old, so that's a big staple in my life of where I'm starting to remember everything. So that was, of course, the start of the chaotic lifestyle for me. For my sisters, it was more calm than it was before. My father come around to them. Cause they were older, they're four years older than me. But it kind of set a precedent of how my life would go and how I'm able to be like, oh, my dad's a serial killer now. Okay, what else is, you know, like, that sounds very nonchalant about it. And I feel like I'm not caring for the victims. When I say what I just said, that instantly popped in my head as soon as I myself it said. I felt that when I said it.

[B]

I don't. I don't think so. I don't think it comes across like that. You come across, you. You saw some stuff when you were a kid, but when a kid, everything's normal.

[A]

And I strive to make sure my child does not see anything. I grew up with. I try my hardest to, you know.

[B]

Is it fair to say that the violence you mentioned, you know, the incident where he whooped your sister, you mentioned the incident where he and your mom got into this fist fight. Is it fair to say that that happened? But it wasn't like regular or was that regular?

[A]

That wasn't very regular. But it was one time incident, you know, that one time incidents that you look over because everything else around it, love bombing, grand gestures, those are narcissistic, you know, behaviors of, oh, that only never going to happen again. And it didn't happen again. I mean, I remember one time he whooped me. Then he didn't whoop me like very hard or beat me or anything. It was just the reason he whooped me is what upset me. I'm a child. I have pennies in my mouth. Of course I swallowed a penny. My mother's at work at third shift. We had a bag phone. I'm not sure why he didn't use that phone. We thought, I thought we were rich. We had a big house, you know, to me it's a big house in the country, long driveway. My father has a bag phone. The first ever cell phone. Might as well say like we're rich. He didn't use that though. He went all the way to the store to call my mother to find out if I needed to go to the hospital or not and told me when he left if I don't need to go to the hospital or if I do, either way, I'm still getting my butt whooped once I get home, when he comes home after taking me to the hospital, but left me at the house to go to the store to call my mother. I didn't understand that at all. He got come home and he whooped my butt like I got a butt whooping. That was the first time he ever whooped me that I can remember. But growing up, it. That was a normal, that was the norm. Like you, you do it one time and then I'm oh so sorry. It won't happen again. Everything goes great. We. I'm not sure if you know what cattails are. They're like the plants. He would go find these really big ones and we'd have bonfires and we'd have all kind of people over. To me, my father was the man in the, in the. That I looked at now I'm starting to see my rose colored glasses. Of course, for a lot of my childhood I, I work third shift now, so of course they work third shift. You have really nothing else to do. I'm a yard dog at Amazon. So you really have nothing else to do but think sometimes. So I contemplate on my childhood a lot here lately and the rose colored glasses are coming off. But to me, my father was the man that everyone looked up to. He was, you know, the big man, or at least he made himself that way.

[B]

I want to ask you more about his personality. What other quirks and. And good and bad things about his personality do you remember?

[A]

He was very, very just. If I tell you to do it, you do it. Like he. It was stern. It was. Wasn't harsh, but it was very cutthroat the way he talked sometimes. And so that's why we didn't question him because he was a He. He was very. I'm not sure the right word to say with that, but that's how he was. He. But he was. He was also sweet and kind and had a deep voice and. Sorry, I'm. He. He was very loving and very kind and very sweet. And when everything was going good, he was the father that you thought you wanted. The father that you, you know, you see the white picket fence in the house and the family with kids and the dog. We had a dog that got as a back to school president is what it was. We got a dog. He ran the dog over on accident. The dog chased after the van and he ran the dog over. He brought the dog home in his arms, crying, falling like a baby and buried it. Looking back, that was a little. You know, I'm not sure how he split everything and how he was able to keep it under the wraps like he did for so long, but it was everything you wanted. Emotions were there, the support was there, the strength was there. He was the backbone in my eyes. That's what he was to a lot of people in my family, though, like my grandmother, my mother's mother, she told my mother that he was the devil way before he killed himself. From back when I was a baby of. He got into a fistfight one time with my stepdad, who I thought was my father, and they got into a fight one time that they almost killed each other type of thing. Like, my stepdad told me that he seen evil in my father's eyes that night and he thought he was going to kill him. So it was either kill or be killed. And that's how. With a drill. I was a couple of months old. This was around the time of the yogurt shop stuff, I think my cousin told me I was like three or four months old. About three or four months old. So it had to have been. I was a baby. Said I was a baby in a little bassinet or play or baby bed. Still very. I was brand new is how he put it. But it was. I never seen that side except for a few times. And it was never pointed towards me.

[B]

Right, right. What was his relationship like with your mom? Like how. What was their Dynamic.

[A]

A loving relationship to us that was. My mother hid a lot from us. She was. Or me, at least at the very end of the time before my. When my father went on the run from after the charge and breaking and breaking and entering charge, Imperial. They weren't together. Like they weren't together in a relationship. They were only together for my sake. I'm not sure why my mother done it that way, but she did. She was very adamant about making sure my father was in my life and in my sister's lines. So. But before that, they were just growing up watching the. The sitcoms and stuff. That's what you, you, you look at your parents as. And that's what it reminded me of. My mother worked third shift, come home, went to sleep. My father worked first shift, went to work, we went to school. We'd come home, my mother'd be up, she cooked dinner. We had family birthday parties, family get togethers. Of course, it was just my father's dad or, you know, our family friends and all of that. But it was a normal relationship between them except for the few times that they fought or like my mother would get really mad at my dad. And I remember being told a few times that we may be going back home to Alabama. But we never did, of course, until after he passed away.

[B]

With their jobs, what were their respective jobs and professions?

[A]

My mother worked at the bakery, third shift at Walmart, and then towards the end of us living in Arkansas, she got a job at a restaurant. She was a waitress. My father was a construction worker, a carpenter, a roofer. He could build anything from hand, from scratch, or he could build a house. He could work on the roofs. He could do anything he owned on his own business, his own carpenter business. It was Brashear's Custom Crafts or custom Craftsman. And to us, he had business cards and everything. He was very. We thought his business was very upstanding and parable. We went to work with him and all.

[C]

Yeah. You said your mother never accepted his guilt.

[A]

No, not a. She never accepted it because she couldn't believe the man that we loved that much. That she loved that much. Even though they got married so that they could not use a gun charge or use her against him in court over the federal charge in case that he was going to have to go to court for. She still didn't believe that he could do that. The man that swooped in and saved her children and her life there for the longest. There is no way, even though he was. She knew he used to steal vehicles. He used to go to Walmart with his checkbook and the invisible ink pen before, they used to run the checks through the machine and write a check to buy everything, get money back on cash, and they go back later and their check wouldn't be there. It'd be somebody else's fake ID there, somebody else's bank account, their names. He'd open bank accounts and I'm guessing other people's names with the multiple security numbers and identities that he had. And it was. That's just what he done. My mother knew that part. She told me after everything come out about in 2018, that she was also told at one time that he used to dress up and go to waffle houses and huddle houses in the middle of the night. You should dress up in women's clothing and go in there and rob them. So they didn't know who he was. But I'm not sure for sure as to how true that is. But maybe that's just what he was spinning off as to why he had the different wigs and glasses and everything else that he had. Maybe that's she. I feel like my mother believed anything my father told her. She didn't question it because she didn't know. She didn't know to question it. He gave her no reasons and no signs of he was a pedophile or he was the way he was at all, a serial killer. Never once did he give off those.

[B]

Vibes when you say that he saved her or that she perceived him as saving her and the whole family. Was your stepfather like a chaotic person or what was he saving everybody from?

[A]

My mother ended up going to jail. I had a couple of my. I had two stepfathers before my father come into my life. One was on drugs, the other one in and out of prison. But it was chaotic at our household a lot. A whole lot. And my sisters, they're not here to speak on it. I don't want to speak on anything they've told me, of course, but they tell me that it was not a very good life before my father come in our life. I remember sometimes of one of my stepdads doing drugs in front of us. Not my sister's father, not my half sister's father. But I remember one of them doing drugs in front of us and not caring and beating my mama up, knocking her around the same way that my dad did one time. And I guess my mama just got the guts to fight back for my father. But it was very chaotic before my father come in. It was not a normal childhood. We mother used to pick up beds on the side of the road for us to sleep in. Them moments we didn't have a bed or it was just very hard is the easiest, the nicest way to put it without putting anything else out there. Of what my sisters went through. Because my mother, they. I can say that they used to have to miss kindergarten to take care of me. Because my mother would be passed out on the couch. They would. One would get their twins. One would get in the baby bed and push me out because I was real big, a little chunky baby. One would get in there and start pushing me out, rolling me over the bars. And the other one be out on the other side catching me. And they used to take care of me when I was a baby. So that. That gives you insight on when my father come around. They got to have a normal life. They got to have a norm. They got to play softball, they got to hang out with their friends. We had birthday parties. We had a good life prior to my father coming in. And we had a even harder life after my father killed himself. Right, right.

[B]

I wanted to ask you about, you know, the suicide and sort of can you tell us about the events leading up to that and then sort of what happened with that? I mean, it must have been a horrible, horrible shock tip you and your whole family.

[A]

We were there the night that happened. We were in the hotel room when the standoff happened. A father went on the run. And when he went on the run, we saw him one time. We saw him twice before he killed himself. One time he come to our house. We went and got a rug. He went, picked him up from somewhere. I do not remember where we picked him up at. This was around the time of the Kentucky case that they are saying that happened in 98. This was around that time. He's on the run. We go and pick him up from somewhere, do not know. And we go by this big rug, area rug, so that we can carry, put him in the inside of the rug and him walked while we, you know, a mother and three children, three girls, it's going to be hard for them to carry a big area rug. Now I'm thinking, why would you unravel a big area rug? When it comes rolled up, it's so much easier to carry, you know. But we got it and brought him in the house. He stayed for a weekend and then he left. We went to school and come back and he was gone. Then we have the incident in January when he killed himself. We went to Kennet, Missouri and to stay the weekend with him at the hotel. It was a normal weekend. Like, we knew he was on the run. We knew that if we told him, we said his real name in public, that he could possibly get caught. So we called him Mitch, which was his friend's name, who my mother thought that could have been the person that done all these crimes and not my father. Thomas Mitchell was his real name. After reading the police reports, I found that out. He was a very evil man as well. But we go there. We have a family weekend at a hotel. Of course, the pools closed, so my father went and bought Uno for us to play. And we raced up and down the stairs and the elevators like my sister's jump in the elevator. We go down the stairs. Who could get down to the bottom first? Go get snacks from the vending machine. Took us out to eat one night. My mother was sick or couldn't go. One, I'm not sure. And so we go out to eat. He takes us to Walmart. He had given us the money. And my mother said, when you take them to Walmart, make sure they use their money. Do not use yours. Well, of course he used his money and let us keep ours. My mama was mad, got upset with him about that because she didn't want him doing that all the time. And he wore a wig and a hat when we went out to eat so that they wouldn't know who they. Who he was. And we didn't know what he was hiding from. We're in Missouri, so this is, of course, the case, the Sharer case in March of 98, and this is 99. So he's afraid he's going to get caught and his DNA could get tested. Didn't know none of that. But he takes us out to eat.

[C]

He.

[A]

We have fun. He buys me a doodle bear. I write I love my daddy all over it. Me and him write messages back and forth throughout the night. We played Uno that night. I remember playing Uno that night. And then we go to sleep and we wake up to guns, lights, police screaming, get out from underneath the bed. My mother's screaming and hollering and she's belligerent. And my sister got hot and she's 12 years old. She steps out of the bed, or 11 12. She steps out of the bed. She didn't have a shirt on or a bra. She was covered up in the blanket. And the police officer standing there staring at my sister. My mother kicks him in between the legs and calls him a pervert and starts screaming and hollering and everything else. It goes completely chaotic. My other sister, she jumps out of the bed and runs over there in between the police and my father laying underneath the bed. There's a police officer in the corner holding the bed up with his gun drawn at my father. And then there's like five or six police to the left. And my sister jumps in between all of that and says, no Robert, you're not going to shoot my daddy. They, he tells the police to get out. And then they hold. He holds us in there for a second and then they take us out and put us in the hallway. And we're sitting at the very end of the hallway and you can look in the window and see the reflection down the back of the hallway and see everything that's going on outside of the room. You see my father open the door. I wouldn't see my father, but my father opens the door and starts throwing stuff out. He threw out a wig, some bullets, a gun, a whole bunch of stuff. And then I remember hearing a bang. And then my mother's screaming and hollering, my children are cold. Are you not gonna give em a jacket or your coat? Cause they had suits and stuff on. The investigators did. Are you not gonna give them your coat? Because they're cold and they wouldn't. So my mama being my mama with no bra on underneath at all, she takes her shirt off, her button up shirt and takes it off. And of course the police get mad about that, but covers us up because we are freezing. And then I see the police run into the room is what I thought like in. But it looked like they were trying to like break into the door. Should I say like you hear a big bang of them trying to break into the door. And then we get taken downstairs. Everyone had been evacuated from their rooms, of course. The whole entire lobby is screaming and hollering and mad at us. The whole time we're upstairs my mother's screaming at us to look down at the pool because we can see everything in the mirror. So that's why they took us downstairs because my mother kept snapping and going off on them because we could see everything that was going on. So they take us to the lobby and there's this random woman who was very sweet, bought us snacks and everything, did not judge us the way everyone else in the lobby was judging us at all. And she come to the police station with us. We got there, the police questioned us, we all said, that's Thomas Mitchell. Thomas Mitchell, Thomas Mitchell. And then I remember being woke up to My mother crying, I'm in her arms, I'm like wrapped around her asleep. And I remember being woke up to my mother crying. And then my mother felt guilty for having us lie or my mother taught me to be not to lie. So I felt guilty and my mother did a little bit for having us lie about who my father was. So I told the police I was sorry myself. And then I remember going to the hospital and sitting in the room with my sisters and my grandfather and my mother coming in and telling us that my father was dead and on life support and that they were going to be pulling the plug soon and that we could go see him. All you saying was his chin. And I got to hold his hand and I'm asking over and over and over again, his hand is warm. How can he be dead? My favorite person growing up, my auntie Uncle Jamie. How my family got there so fast. To me it was a matter of a few hours. But I didn't realize that it was like most of my family was up there by the time my grandmother, my. My grandfather, this is all my mother's family. My uncle, my auntie, Uncle Jamie and my grandmother, my grandfather, my cousins, they all get up to al. To Arkansas and to me it's a matter of just a little bit of time. So I'm thinking they got on an airplane. No, they all drove up there as soon as my mother called them and told them what happened and we got to go see him. And then I remember walking downstairs through the hospital or somewhere holding my auntie Uncle Jamie's hand and talking to him and he's explaining to me that the machines that he's on are what keeping him alive and that they have to unplug the machines because his brain is no longer working. Then I remember going to his funeral. After that I don't remember very much of like all my family come in, they got a hotel. I think we. There was a little teen nightclub in Arkansas in Paragould at that time. And I think we went there, if I'm not mistaken, in those couple of days. And my sisters got in trouble for dancing on the little poles up there, acting like rebellious teens and told on my mother. Tried to make sure it was as normal as possible, tried her hardest. And I was told that the police killed my father because telling a seven year old that their father killed himself is not an easy task. But that's what I was told the night of his funeral. My mother wouldn't let us go in there and see him until she showed up. Not sure why she wanted to be there. I'm guessing, I'm really not. That's my children. Those are my daughters. Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine. She always was adamant about that, no matter if she was liberated in a bad situation or not. Those are my children and they're going to go with me. So we get there, we wait on my mother and we go in there and see him. I remember walking in there and I asked my cousin to go in with me and she made it a few. She'd already been in there to see my father. She made it a few steps in there and she broke down crying and ran out of the room because she said that it hurt her seeing me having to walk up to my father's casket. Then I remember the day, that was the night of the funeral, the night of the viewing. And then the next day was his funeral. I remember going to the funeral and I have a picture. I'm not sure if I took it at the viewing or at the funeral. I have a picture of me. I've hid it in my house from myself. But standing next to my father's casket, smiling, because that's what you do when you take pictures, you smile no matter what, you smile. And there's pictures of him in his casket. Of course everybody was. Did you see the bullet hole? Did you see the bullet hole? No, you couldn't see it. I even looked because we, you know, we're told he got shot in the head. I'm trying to figure out that's really what happened to my father. And then I told my cousin, my other cousin, I said, hey, look, when they go in there to close that casket, I was so adamant about it when they closed the casket, please make sure he's still in there. Because the seven year old child is thinking that they're going to take his body out of the casket and donate it to science. They're going to take him and put him and start cutting him up and everything else. That's what I'm thinking. So they promised me, he promised me, stood in there while they closed the casket and then we go to the funeral. I remember my family being there. We all gathered to take pictures at the restaurant afterwards or before one where my mother worked at. And they wanted us to leave when they went to bury him to crank down the casket and I wouldn't because yet again, they're about to take my daddy's body out of that thing, you know, and they're about to hurt my daddy. The police done killed my father. I'm not about, you know, I was very adamant about making sure he was okay. Oh. Until the day, of course, they knocked on my door in 2018. And I figured everything out. My father was held on a pedestal.

[B]

And I'm just so sorry that you. You had to experience that.

[A]

I really appreciate it. I. I don't look at myself as a victim at all of none of this, no matter what, because that's the poor, pitiful me role that I feel like I can't. I know being a victim is not a poor, pitiful me thing at all, but I feel like if the way I've grown up and the situations I've been in and the way I've been dealt with by certain family members, oh, it's, oh, poor, pitiful me. Oh, Deborah K. Poor, pitiful me. So I can't take on the victim role because of childhood trauma. It will not allow me to. We moved back. My mother ended up getting drunk a lot after my father died. I remember her. We had a car. My mother got with my little sister's father, my stepfather, new stepdad now again. And the people that were at our house the night we played Don't Let Daddy out of the House, they turned into being our stepbrothers and stepsisters when their dad got out of prison. Before my father died, my mother and him started talking. They weren't actually together together until after my father died. It's what a lot of people say, but if you ask a lot of other people, that was. They were together before my father died, but my mother and father weren't actually together when he died. They were just doing the happy go lucky thing for the children. You do it for the kids. We ended up moving back to Alabama because my mama was getting really messed up on drugs and drinking and she had. We had a car and for some reason she took our car and went and left it at a family friend's house and borrowed their car and went and wrecked their car. Ran from the. Wrecked it into a tree, hit a stop sign, wrecked it into a tree, jumped out of the car, ran from the police and said, I'm going to get my effing children. They're in school. They're going to get off the school bus. I've got to go. And ended up in jail. My dad's dad showed up and picked us up that day and told us, hey, your mama went to jail. Then my mother and stepfather moved us back to Alabama, and then they split up. And the man, Mitch, who is my father's friend, that we knew or that we didn't know him before Arkansas. Once we moved back to Alabama, he. I'm, I'm not sure how him and mama kept in contact or what, how that happened at all. But he come and stayed with us for a little while and took care of me and my sisters and he done things that he shouldn't do. And then my mother confronted him about it and he either stole her car or just took the car. I'm not sure they gave it to him and told him just leave. And he ran off and was never heard from again. And I'm currently trying to figure out exactly who he is and where he's at and everything else because the leads that I have, he's a very evil man. My father met him in prison is what I was told. So obviously he's not a very good person. If my father finding out who he is, is a friend from prison.

[B]

Right. God, that, I mean, there's just so much chaos growing up and I just, like, I. My heart goes out to you and your sisters. I know you don't consider yourself a victim. Surviving that is just so, you know. I mean, I just commend you.

[A]

I know there's domestic violence survivors and, You know, all kinds of survivors, but I don't know how to put what I've survived from in one word. Except for trauma. But that's normal. That's a normal day growing up. It's trauma.

[B]

Thanks so much to Debra for speaking with us. Tune in to part two next for more of this conversation.

[C]

Thanks so much for listening to the Murder Sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email [e-mail] if you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.

[B]

If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com murdersheet if you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www. Buymeacoffee.com murdersheet we very much appreciate any support.

[C]

Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for the Murder Sheet and who you can find on the [e-mail].

[B]

If you're looking to talk with other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join the Murder Sheet Discussion group on Facebook. We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much. We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages. Thanks again for listening. We've run into some pretty creepy people in our true crime journey and we've even gotten some threats as a result. Safety is often top of mind for Kevin and I.

[C]

That's why we trust our long term sponsor, SimpliSafe. SimpliSafe is a home security system that's both innovative and proactive. They're not just about sounding the alarm when someone breaks through your front door. They seek to prevent the break in from even happening. We've used them for years. The reason is the peace of mind they give us every day right now. Murder Sheet listeners can save 50% on a SimpliSafe home security system just go to simplisafe.com msheet SimpliSafe deploys so many.

[B]

Technologies and techniques to keep you safe. I'm talking about AI powered cameras. Not to mention they're always looking out for you. Professional monitoring agents are on hand to intervene in real time. They'll switch on the two way audio to confront possible prowlers. Start blaring sirens and spotlights to get rid of them.

[C]

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[B]

Right now my listeners can save 50% on a SimpliSafe home security system at simplisafe.com msheet that's simplisafe.com msheet there's no safe like Simplisafe.