It was Christmas Day 1985. 28-year-old nurse Debbie Wolfe spent the evening with her family. After a delicious dinner, she sat with her parents and siblings in the living room and exchanged presents. Debbie received a stuffed unicorn from her mother and she adored it so much she took it to work the next day and showed it to all her patients. It was a Christmas filled with joy and laughter. Sadly, it would be Debbie’s last.
Debbie Didn’t Show Up For Work
Debbie worked at a Veteran’s Hospital in Fayetteville, North Carolina, the home of one of the country’s largest military bases, Ft. Bragg. She lived seven miles outside of town in a quaint, isolated cabin with her two beloved dogs, Mason and Morgan. She was the last person to ever live there.
On December 26, 1985, Debbie worked her regular shift at the hospital and had lunch with a colleague, who would later tell the police that he spilled coffee on her sleeve. He was embarrassed until Debbie spilled peas on the front of her nurse’s uniform — and they both burst out laughing.
Debbie was last seen leaving the hospital at 4:30 pm. She made plans to have lunch with her colleague again the next day but she never showed up.
She was never seen alive again.
Debbie’s Uniform Was Never Found
On December 27th, Virginia Edwards received a concerning phone call from the Veteran’s Hospital informing her that her daughter Debbie had not shown up for her shift. Virginia sent Debbie’s stepfather John, a retired army Sgt., and their friend Kevin Gorton to check on her at the cabin.
When John and Kevin arrived they found Debbie’s dogs running loose and their food and water bowls empty. Beer cans were strewn about all over the yard which was unusual since Debbie was known to be very clean and tidy.
A white nurse’s uniform was on the kitchen floor but it was short-sleeved, not long-sleeved and it didn’t have any coffee or pea stains on it. Bizarrely, the stained uniform that Debbie last wore to work has never been found.
Debbie was only 5’3″ yet the driver’s seat of her car was pushed all the way back and it was not parked in its usual spot in the yard.
Kevin found Debbie’s purse stuffed under her bed as though someone had tried to hide it. Everything was still inside including her ID and bank cards.
Someone Left Debbie a Strange Voicemail
A red light was blinking on Debbie’s answering machine. Hoping that she had left a message explaining her whereabouts, John hit play.
In the message, a man asked Debbie to return his call and said that he was concerned about her because she had missed days of work. This is strange because Debbie had not missed any shifts. When the message was left on her machine, she would have only missed a few hours of her shift.
It was almost as though the caller knew that Debbie was missing and had not expected anyone to discover her disappearance for at least a few days.
Debbie Was Found on New Year’s Day
John and Virginia called the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office to report Debbie missing immediately but they were told to call back in 72 hours.
A search finally began five days later. The authorities brought bloodhounds to the cabin to track Debbie’s scent but they were unsuccessful.
A 5″ foot-deep irrigation pond sat near Debbie’s cabin and when her parents asked the police to search it, they refused. Frustrated, Virginia enlisted the help of her friends, Kevin Gorton and Gordon Childress, an army sergeant, and a scuba diver, to search the pond.
Within five minutes, the men found two sets of footprints in the silt, drag marks, and Debbie’s body pushed head-first into a rusty 55-gallon oil drum.
Debbie Was Dressed in Men’s Clothing
Debbie did not have any drugs or alcohol in her system despite the fact that beer cans sat all over her yard — a brand her family said she didn’t drink.
Debbie was found wearing men’s size 6 Nike sneakers (she was a women’s 7), a bra several sizes too big, a men’s size small jacket, a Pittsburgh Steelers t-shirt, and brown corduroy pants that were 6 feet long and 3x too big. None of Debbie’s friends or relatives recognized any of the clothing.
Debbie had multiple abrasions on several of her fingers (possible defensive wounds) and there was only a teaspoon of water in her lungs, which is indicative of someone who was killed before being placed in the water.
Debbie Told Everyone That She Had a Stalker
Some reports state that an unnamed volunteer at the Veteran’s Hospital was stalking Debbie. Some state that he was actually a mentally ill patient. All sources agree on one thing: the man was utterly obsessed with her.
Shortly before her death, the man told Debbie that he loved her and wanted to be together but she turned him down because she had a boyfriend.
While at Christmas dinner with her loved ones, Debbie beamed from ear to ear as she recounted how overjoyed she was that her relationship with her boyfriend, whose identity has not been revealed to the public, had become serious. Debbie also told everyone from her friends to her colleagues that the man at the hospital was stalking her.
Investigators questioned the man. He had an alibi and refused to take a polygraph test. He left the state a few days after Debbie was found dead.
Did Debbie Fall Victim to Immersion Syndrome?
Despite all the unexplained inconsistencies surrounding the case, the medical examiner ruled Debbie’s death an accidental drowning.
Investigators concluded that Debbie was playing with her dogs when she fell into the pond and became a victim of immersion syndrome; sudden cardiac arrest upon exposure to cold temperatures.
What Happened to the Oil Barrel?
But if Debbie did die as a result of accidental drowning, how did her body end up inside a rusty 55-gallon oil barrel with holes in it?
Well, depending on who you ask, the barrel didn’t even exist.
Investigators claimed that Kevin and Gordon mistook Debbie’s jacket for a barrel and that when they drained the pond, no barrel was found.
However, the two men insisted that Debbie had been face-first inside a barrel. Virginia also noticed that a barrel used for target practice and to store firewood was missing from her daughter’s yard yet the imprint was still present. To this day, no one knows what happened to the barrel.
RIP Deborah Ann Wolfe
Virginia and John Edwards insisted that Debbie had been murdered. They pleaded for further investigation but the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office closed the case and since they had ruled out foul play, any record of that fateful day was destroyed.
Deborah Ann Wolfe was a devoted nurse who adored her dogs and shared a close bond with her family. Her parents and siblings have since passed away but unanswered questions surrounding her death live on nearly four decades later and her case is famously known as one of the most confounding mysteries in the history of Fayetteville, North Carolina.