Kimberly Hancock

In rural North Carolina, a long buried secret is finally unearthed. Three women with a chop shot. I feel a bone. Yes, right there. There he is. Right there. Right there. The discovery reopens a 15-year-old missing person's case. January 19th was the last time I saw a birth. She was getting into a car. She had left the baby sitting on the net. As they pursue these leads, her disappearance really becomes kind of a cold case. As a homicide investigation gets underway, shocking discoveries lead detectives back to one woman's doorstep. She knew things about the wrong side of the law that normal people wouldn't even think of. When she was 18 years old, she shot and killed her father. And then there is also the question of her own brother who's been missing for years. I can't grasp what kind of person would do that. We never would have foreseen how gruesome this case would have ended up. I can't feel the anger, I didn't do nothing wrong! Nash County, North Carolina, is a quiet community about an hour from the state's capital. Nash County is a rural area. It's very nice, it's up and coming. I had a lot of mom and pop businesses popping up here. Most people know their neighbors and just down earth selling people. But even a close-knit area like this one has its secrets. And on October 24th, 2019, one of them is exposed. Nash County Sheriff's Office received a tip from Fighting Crime, which is a nonprofit organization here that one lady basically runs and she has a large following on social media. I own Fighting Crime News and what I do is I take tips from citizens that really don't want to talk to law enforcement and those tips are passed under law enforcement. I work with multiple agencies and they work on the tips as I give them to them. And everything remains of 100% anonymous. That's the reason Fighting Crime has been so successful in our area because it's confidential information and this other citizens don't know that they provided this information. This time, the tip is about a cold case from 15 years ago. This was a missing mother of four Debra Deans. There had been some attention that was paid to it in the past. But the case had grown cold. According to the anonymous caller, Debra isn't missing. She's dead. I chatted for a few minutes, got the person's information and made contact with Nash County Sheriff's Office with Lieutenant Sherrod. The caller said that a body would be in a shallow grave behind a building and that it would be wrapped up in some kind of carpet. Our criminal investigation team is then notified and they're deployed out to do an investigation in Bonwale Road, a very rural part of Nash County. Police find the area described in a wooded property behind two mobile homes. I was one of the investigators with the show, and we'd probably dug less than a foot and hit something. So we started carefully moving the dirt from the area and saw what we believed to be carpet. You know, adrenaline starts pumping. You know, you're thinking this tip is true. We were able to pull that carpet back and that that time is when we found a torque. We saw what we thought to be a human remains. At that time, we stopped and went and tried to call the anthropologist to assist us with removing a body. Once we were able to uncover human bones, there was no doubt in my mind based off the information we had received from the fight crime and it was going to end up being Debbie. Debbie Deans was born in Maryland on September 26th, 1974. She was a happy little girl. She was always happy. She was friendly and sweet and talented. She had a happy childhood, but her father was a long distance truck driver. And he was older than I was. And he could be difficult to be around. So we separated when Debbie was about nine, ten years old. After the divorce, Debbie's mother Elaine became the sole provider. She was able to land a job in Rocky Mount North Carolina. But the move wasn't easy for Debbie. We moved when she was in eighth or ninth grade. She became bored and she wanted to quit because she said she would go and get her GED. They told it would take her two years. I think it took her like ten months. She was very smart. She did take college courses. She didn't graduate, but she went to the local college there that's right in Rocky Mount. Her first job was at a barbecue place in Rocky Mount and she loved it. She was good with children and she just had that instinct to serve and be able to do it well. She was very people oriented, but she could be very hard-headed and very independent. Debbie longed for a family of her own and at eighteen she fell in love with a man named William. She started dating William and I think it went much quicker than I would ever have wanted it to go. And then they moved in together. Debbie soon announced that she was pregnant, but the relationship fell apart as quickly as it began. I'm not exactly sure what transpired when she broke off with William. She called up and said, "Come get me. That's exactly what I did." When I got there, I said, "What do you want to do?" She said, "I want to go home with you." Debbie gave birth to a little girl she named Jessica. Things might not have turned out quite the way she wanted, but that didn't stop her from trying again. Debbie knew so many different people. She'd known Robbie for a long time, but it wasn't until two years after she had Jessica that she started talking to him. When she married Robbie, it was an on and off again relationship and she was back home with me when my grandson Robbie was born. I vaguely remember what happened after they split up or why, but at me and my brother Robbie, we were all still very close growing up. My mom was always a very happy person and we were really big on coloring together. She would always sit down and color pictures with us even when she wasn't around. She was sending us pictures that she had colored. She blew me out of the water with some of the things that she would think of to teach her children. She always wanted what was best for her kids. After her divorce, she moved on with a man named Thomas and was soon pregnant again. As Debbie struggled to balance being a single parent while making ends meet, she sought ways to escape. She was dating him and she moved in with him and she had a Michael. When she went to have Michael at the hospital, she had tested four positive for drugs. I really thought that putting Michael in foster care would be the wake up call that Debbie would need to get her life back on track. Sadly, it was not and she kept on this downward spiral until she had some anthem. By the age of 29, Debbie was a single mother. struggling to take care of four children with unreliable fathers. - I'm the oldest, next is Robbie. He's probably about three years younger than me. They try to hide a lot of the troubles from us. - William, in that big challenge support, Robbie, on the other hand, he did pay challenge support. I think it was like $35 a week, but he paid it. - She was trying to get by and really be there for her four kids. During that time, her mother kind of stepped in to help with the child care. Kimberly Hancock had also stepped in to help. - Kimberly Hancock was Robbie's sister, Debbie's former sister-in-law, and she'd remained close to Debbie after the divorce. Her willingness to help was put to the test in 2003 when Debbie was convicted of fraud and larceny. It was clear that she had some financial issues. Here, she was a single mother, raising four kids on her own. - Debbie went to jail for a ride in some bad checks, and while she was in jail, Kimberly had to help take care of the children. - Kim had Samantha. Michael was in the foster care, and I had Robbie and Jessica. - Less than four months later, when Debbie was released in January 2004, she seemed determined to make up for her mistake. - When she got out, she knew that she needed to be a better mother, and that she needed to straighten her life out. - Kimberly invited Debbie to live with her while she got back on her feet. - She was a very determined person. When she set her mind on it, once she had to go in mind, she worked towards it. She wanted her kids back. But within days of her release, Debbie mysteriously disappeared. - January 19th was the last time I'd saw Debbie. Really wasn't surprising. Can I let it go? And I thought, okay, sometimes she gets mad at me and she ignores me. But when I didn't hear from her for Jessica's birthday, then I knew something was wrong. - On April 16th, 2004, almost three months since Debbie was last seen, her mother finally decided to contact police. One of the first people they spoke to was Debbie's former sister-in-law, Kimberly, who also hadn't seen Debbie since January. - Kimberly told Rocky Mountain Police Department that Debbie had came to her house with the baby Samantha, and they were inside the house. And she heard a car drive up in the yard. When she lit outside the door, Debbie was getting into a car, leaving and she had left Samantha the baby sitting on the deck. - The Sheriff's Office conducted an investigation, but were unable to come up with any solid leads. - As they pursue these leads, they just don't really get anywhere. The case is still on their radar, but as time passes, Debbie's disappearance really becomes kind of a cold case. - Debbie's two older children stayed with her mother while the two youngest went into foster care and were eventually adopted together. For the next 15 years, Elaine held out hope for her daughter's return. - I'm not a Bible thumping person, but I do believe that in God. And one of my prayers has always been that we would find Debbie. - Now, 15 years after her disappearance, hope has been extinguished with the discovery of what appears to be Debbie's remains and investigators face a challenge. - We never would have foreseen how gruesome this case would have ended up. - She was in a very shallow grave, wrapped in carpet and just tossed out like trash. - The whole time suspects walking around. - Coming up, Debbie's mother makes a startling accusation. - It wasn't proof, it was just what my gut told me. - Leading detectives to a family member with a nefarious past. - This is somebody who is capable of murder because they've done it before. (upbeat music) - After a 15 year search, North Carolina police believe they've found the body of missing mother of four Deborah Deans. However, they can't be positive until they examine the remains. - We had reason to believe that it was her, but in situations like this, because there was no actual flesh or DNA that was visible. We had to wait on the state to do their extensive research for us to come back with a positive identification. Once the medical zamory came, they slowly moved more dirt off the carpet and a tarp. - The scene was processed. They were removing the dirt, the topsoil, the canvas, the carpet, the wire that was attached to it. They took photographs. Every step of the removal of the body was carefully detailed. - While the process continues, homicide detectives begin their investigation. - We started out by trying to find out who the land owners were. - They're surprised to discover the two trailers are owned by Laura Hancock and her mother, Kimberly. - Kimberly Hancock, she's the one to have last scene, Debbie Deans a lot. - Kimberly had said that Debbie just lived on the 19th of January and she hadn't seen her since. You have to imagine that authorities were pretty surprised, shocked even that so close to where Debbie was last seen that that's where her body had been all of these years. - Neither Kimberly nor Laura are home. While officers tried to track them down, investigators notified Debbie's mother Elaine. - When you have someone missing, it's not quite the same as when they were died and you've accepted the death. They're missing. You don't know where they are. They're still that swivel of hoping apart. - But as Elaine grapples with the likelihood that the remains belong to Debbie, she tells detectives she's long suspected that Kimberly was involved in Debbie's disappearance. - Kim told Elaine, Debbie's mom, that she had spoken with Debbie several times and that she's safe, she's with friends, she's out and about on her own. And so it sort of appeases Elaine initially, but then as the weeks and months go by, Elaine knows something is wrong. - I knew Kim, I didn't believe anything she ever said. Although Debbie may have went off and done something stupid and dumb, she would have been in contact with her children. Was it proof? It was just what my gut told me. - The information leads detectives to re-examine the missing person's investigation from 2004. - We get the old files from Rocky Mountain Police Department and see what they had done over the years. - 15 years prior, in January of 2004, Debbie had moved in with Kimberly after her release from prison. Kimberly claims that only days later on January 19th, she saw Debbie get into a car with someone and drive away. - No description of the person that she may have left with, so they really had nothing other than what Kimberly said. - Records also reveal a potential motive for Kimberly to want Debbie out of the picture. - While Debbie was behind bars, Kimberly was caring for these kids. And because of that, there were some social security checks that were intended to help support these kids. - The checks that were cashed by Miss Hancock were payable to Miss Deans. She took it upon herself to go to a local bank in Spring Hope and cash the checks and I believe the checks were in the amount of $100 each. - Debbie's disappearance six days after her release didn't stop Kimberly from caching those checks. - About a year later, a check surfaced in the Spring Hope area where she was attempting to cash the check and forged her name for Miss Deans. And they arrested her and that case ended up eventually getting dismissed in court because the state had no victim to come in and testify against Kimleigh that it was forgery. Despite the forgery, there was never concrete proof that Debbie's disappearance involved foul play. It's important to keep in mind that Debbie is an adult. She's allowed to go with her friends and leave her family if she chooses to and here we have Kimberley saying that's what happened. Now it seems to investigators that Kimberley may have known Debbie's body was in her back yard the entire time. The reason Debbie's case went code, I think it's because of all the lies and fabricated information that Kimberley was given to the police. When investigators check Kimberley's record, they make another startling discovery. During our investigation we learned that Kimberley had shot and killed her father. Miss Hancock, when she was 18 years old, she discharged one round with a 25 and was initially charged with murder of her father. She went to court and she pled to a reduced sentence to manslaughter and got probation, but there was also allegations in the house that the father was abusing her. So I believe that she didn't go to jail for any amount of time. Kim goes on to have some relationships, to have two kids, to be friends Debbie. And so she seems like she has a relatively normal life. Kimberley grew up around Nash County outside of the spring her period and it's my understanding that's where she's always lived. I know she got married at one time. Kim didn't work. She had two children from two different fathers. I think that she got support for them. Definitely, left investigators kind of wondering, you know, this isn't an innocent mother that they're dealing with. This is somebody who is capable of murder because they've done it before. What's to stop them from doing it again? In Nash County, North Carolina, news of the unearthed remains believed to belong to Deborah Deans, spreads like wildfire. When the body was found, it was big news. Several TV stations were there, getting the story. It was really unbelievable. It was really unbelievable and I think we all had a sense of relief, and it was also sadness in the children. All these years, wondering where Debbie is now, she's found, but it's not the outcome that they were hoping. Her former sister-in-law, Kimberly Hancock, appears to be the prime suspect. While investigators work to track her down, police receive another call from the anonymous tipster who told them where to find the body. On the time that Debbie disappeared, suddenly Kim wanted to redo or redecorate her home. In going to Kim's home, they noticed some small blood stains on certain items. So it kind of makes you wonder the timing of all this is very suspect. Remodeling her home right after that probably destroyed most of the evidence in the carpet where she wrapped her up. After so many years, it's unlikely any evidence is left to support the claim. But detectives get a potential break when they're able to get in touch with Kimberly's daughter, Laura Hancock. We went and picked up Laura and asked her if she was speaking with us about this case. When we got to the sheriff's office, Laura was kind of reluctant to begin with to talk to us. But then, as the interview went on, Laura told us that she had just got through talking to Kim and that her mom had told her everything. Laura and her mother would appear to be close, they lived right next door. Laura says that Kim reached out to her and told her that she was going to prison. The daughter was like, "What are you talking about?" She said, "They know I did something to Debbie." Kimberly in the telling Laura that she was buried in the backyard and that she was going to be wrapped in some kind of carpet. Laura tells them that this happened because of the checks. Miss Hancock was still receiving. Debbie's my monthly checks, but when she got out, she was confronted by Miss Deans and an argument ensued. And I think that's when the idea went into Miss Hancock to eliminate Miss Deans. But the revelations from Laura don't stop there. According to Laura, Kimberly is planning to pin the murder on her own family. Laura told us that she was going to say that it was her brother Roger, who we call co-J. And her other brother named Robbie, who actually passed away from a health condition. During the interview with Laura, you could tell it was definitely hard on her. She was crying several times. She toasted with the idea of telling her mom, compared to giving her cousins and her other aunts and uncles the closure that they needed to be able to put this behind them. Surprisingly, Kimberly appears at the property of her own volition. At that time, I approached Kimberly, told her I needed her to rob me to the sheriff's office to speak with her. And she agreed. There's like a thousand questions we want to ask her. And she was pretty much nonverbal and not reacting like a normal person should. In the interview room, Kimberly denies any involvement and sticks to her original story. So investigators confront her with their recent discovery. And she says, "I don't know anything, I don't know anything, I'm trying to make you feel bad. I can't feel bad because I didn't do nothing wrong." Nobody is trying to make you feel bad. I always want you to do this tear of the truth. You have to think that she is just kind of full of it at this point. Here is a body that is found on her property behind her home. Her own daughter has said that she admitted to doing it. She was the last person to see Debbie alive. It seems very clear when you put all these pieces together that Kim was clearly involved. We just wanted to see if she would break and tell us what we needed to know so that we can give that family the closure they've been looking for 15 years. Coming up, investigators turn up the heat. And a new witness comes forward. It's just donning on him that what he saw was not a dream. North Carolina detectives are interrogating Kimberly Hancock in connection to the murder of her former sister-in-law, Debbie Deans. She tries to pass the blame to her two brothers, Robbie and Kojak. Robbie passed away a couple of years after Debbie went missing. Roger everybody calls him Kojak, he went missing from the Castellia area. Kojak was last seen in July of 2009. It was very weird when a person like that goes missing this well-liked and community in heaven. been seen since. Kojak just vanished five years after Debbie's disappearance. So you have to wonder if there's some kind of connection there. One of her brothers is dead. Another is missing. So there's no way for a police to validate any of that information. She never alluded to us that what they were trying to tell her was that Debbie was in a backyard bird. But we knew that, based on the information from Laura, it was just RBS, just a story to get out from under it. I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but I don't believe that at all. You've known-- no, yes you have. You've known for 15 years that that body's been mine, you know? I'm trying to tell you, I did not harm her. I did not lay my hands on her. I did not do nothing to her. But then you need to tell us what did, and that not include your two dead brothers. Then arrest, because I can't tell you no more. I don't know. I don't know. It was not there. I did not see anything. I did not do it. I'm three. I'm three. You all get to go to arrest me? Please let me call my mom and tell her how much I love her. We just cut interview off, and told her she was under arrest for murder. [MUSIC PLAYING] Following Kimberly's arrest, experts study the skeletal remains to confirm their identity. They lay it out on a table. They determine if there's any fragments broken. They learned that they caused a death was a gunshot one to the back of the head. In this situation, because there was no flesh, no hair, or anything able to be pulled from the victim, they do what's called a forensic examination to try to add positively identify her. They'll go into the bone marrow and try to extract some DNA. The medical examiner's office in Greenwood was able to extract DNA from the femur bone that we located. Then we went and got a sample from Missy Lane, West Ever's Mom. We didn't send that off to the crime lab in Raleigh. They were able to positively identify her, because it was a match based on the DNA from Miss Dean's and her mother. My reaction to learning it was matched just confirmed what I believed the whole time. I've truly felt, from the moment we found that first bone, it was going to be Debbie. I had prayed. Please don't let me die until we find her, and I get these skin serious. My first thought in my brain was, oh, God, it must be time for me to die now. I was really doing finally on the answer. But now only my losing my mind, but my daughter's never going to meet her grandmother. That was a hard time. Although Kimberly has been charged with the crime, police still don't have any direct evidence she did it. But another witness comes forward-- the girlfriend of Kimberly's son, David. The girlfriend said that David got a little intoxicated and told her that he remembered when he was a small kid that he saw his aunt, Debbie, tied up in the building behind the house. He was approximately about seven or eight years old. David actually went to his teacher and told him about what he had seen in the shed. That teacher then reaches out to Kim, his mom, to see what's going on. And that's when Kim tells them that obviously her son had a dream and made it all up. When detectives ask David to come to the station, he agrees. He says his mother convinced him what he saw wasn't real. But now, 15 years later, he realizes that was a lie. He tells them it's just dawning on him that what he saw was not a dream. The memory dredges up something else for David as well, a threat his mother made to keep him quiet. Ms. Hancock turned to him and said, you know, you keep talking about this. You're going to end up with your aunt in the backyard buried. The timing perfectly matches Debbie's disappearance and combined with the rest of the facts, investigators form a theory of how the murder might have occurred. Debbie gets out from behind bars and realizes that being those social security checks intended for caring for that fourth child aren't going to the right place. And there's definitely some frustration and anger there that that money hadn't been used as it had been intended. She was going to move away from Kim's. When she told Kim, the Kim wasn't going to get that check anymore. That's what triggered what happened. I believe Kim snapped when she was confronted by Ms. Deans about the money and they started arguing and one thing led to another. Can't believe just put it out again and shot Debbie. She wrapped her up with some carpet, the tarp, and just drilled her 10 feet. When nobody knew it was better. She didn't think five steps ahead. I believe that Ms. Hancock just decided to move the body and keep it on the property. Debbie's body wasn't 10 feet away from an area in the yard where these kids ran around and played. She let her children play in the yard. She let her grandchildren play in the yard. However, members of the online crime fighting community have their own theories. Kimberly is a small person like me. So it's hard to believe that she done that by herself in my opinion. A roller carpet weighs a good bit by itself and then you have Debbie on top of that. So I really think she had some help. Rumors have been speculating that maybe Kojak had helped her over the years between 2004 and 2009. He was possibly threatening her and telling her around until that she killed Debbie. And Rumor is that she may have done something to Kojak to keep him quiet. All of this seems to fit a very concerning pattern that Kim has. First she kills her dad, then she kills Debbie. And now her brother is missing. I mean, what's the likelihood all these people go missing? I mean, it just seems at some point that there might have been some foul play involving Kojak's disappearance and that Kim, again, might be behind him. Now prosecutors face convincing a jury of her involvement. After all this time, there was no DNA or no specific evidence actually tying Kim to Debbie's remains. So there's that possibility that the jury won't convict and then Kim walks. After a month-long investigation, Kimberly Hancock is in jail for the murder of Debbie Deans. But prosecutors aren't convinced they have enough to go to trial. It's the sheriff's office responsibility to make sure we can make the best case we can for the district attorney to take it to trial. I believe that we did that. What district attorneys do and what defense attorneys do is basically not our call. They continue to build their case, searching for the murder weapon or any other physical evidence linking Kimberly to the crime. Then, in August 2022, three years after Kimberly's arrest, a new witness steps forward. I received a letter from a inmate in the Nash County jail. She had told a Kimberly and asked her why she was in jail. And Kimberly made the comment that you remember the girl that was buried in the backyard, but that was me. And she had also made the comment that the only person that could hurt her was Osloom dead, which would be Kojak. According to the informant, Kimberly implied she got rid of her brother as well. She made the comment that she didn't have to worry about Kojak because Kojak may have been taken to the hog shed and the hog's eating. Unfortunately, the allegations are impossible to prove and prosecutors have another problem. The caller who originally told them where to find Debbie's body refuses to testify. You're always running to that with witnesses in court. They want you to have the information and they want you to tell, but they're not willing to go to court and stand in front of 12 jurors and the person that they told them to give a statement. The tipster was so. So clear and strong about remaining anonymous and didn't want to testify, you would assume that would greatly weaken the prosecutor's case. Ultimately, the prosecution and defense teams agree to a plea deal. Kim's attorney kept bringing up the fact that she was moved around from jail to jail and had some health issues. She didn't take into alpha plea. In addition, alpha plea is, you don't really admit to the crimes, but you don't contest it. When Kimberly took the alpha plea, the judge gave her eight years, eight months and ten days for eating in a bedding murder and for concealment of death. For Debbie's loved ones and those involved in the investigation, the outcome doesn't feel like justice. She went through years and years of emotional trauma and it wasn't met with what she got. She got off really easy with everything that she had done. I believe Kim should have gotten at least 20 years. She has deprived a family of a daughter, a mother of children. I think that was just a slap in the face. She killed Debbie. She kept living her life and put her in the backyard and just kept going. Debbie counted Kim as a friend. I don't think Kim ever counted anyone as a friend. I think she counted people as who she could use. Kim has very little value for human life. The fact that she murdered her father while he was sleeping, that she would kill her sister a lot and then there's the question of her own brother who's been missing for years. There's just been so many rumors out there, but what I need is the same kind of tip that I got with Debbie to bring me to where Kojaki is and what really happened to him. The family deserves closure on that. Two decades after Debbie's murder, questions still linger, but her family is doing their best to move on. Debbie would not have told you she was perfect. I mean, just grateful that her children know where she is right now. I'm a mom head for us, we're all still very, very close. We joke on my youngest sister all the time that she is the spitting image of my mom. So, I feel like she's living in everybody around us. Kimberly Hancock is scheduled for release in 2027. Her brother Roger Kojak IceQ is still missing.