October 17, 2025 • 66 mins
In June 2022, in the quiet city of Alton, Illinois, Heidi Noel found her 22-year-old daughter, Liese Dodd, savagely murdered in her apartment. A disturbing investigation uncovered missed warning signs, a fractured relationship, and a chilling unraveling. This is the story of a young woman who gave too many chances to the wrong person - and the silence surrounding her final moments.
Get instant access to all episodes, including premium unreleased episodes, commercial-free at swordandscale.com
Get instant access to all episodes, including premium unreleased episodes, commercial-free at swordandscale.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is
not intended for all audiences.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Listener discretion is advice.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Who's a child deadly?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
And that baby is an extension of her mother and
the rest of her family, so they lost a child
as well.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Some assholes said at some point that brevity is the
essence of wet, so we might as well get on
with it. This is episode three hundred and twenty three
of Sword and Scale, a show that reveals that the
worst monsters are real. She turns on to Bolivar Street
(01:38):
like the car is driving itself. She feels numb, too
numb to be its driver. She's been here before, too
many times to count, but today's different. Her stomach is unsettled.
Why hasn't her daughter Lisa responded to her in more
(01:58):
than fifteen hours. They have an understanding, she thinks. If
I don't hear from you, I'm coming to find you.
It's the way moms and daughters operate. That bond is
never truly broken. The building comes into view at the
far end of the block. It looks like a regular
two story house, maybe a little worn around the edges.
(02:22):
There's a lawn, not big, but enough to push a
mower across and a long, narrow sidewalk that stretches up
to the sagging front porch. It's the kind of porch
you'd expect to creak under your feet, and it does.
It does. From where she parks, the trees at the
dead end street are in full bloom, tall and still.
(02:45):
A thick line of woods makes the gray, two story
house feel almost peaceful. If you didn't know any better,
you'd think this was a residential house in a rural setting,
not an apartment within the city limits. She walks the sidewalk,
one foot in front of the other. Her hands are
tight around her phone. There's no answer. She's been calling
(03:08):
and calling, and she's tired of hearing her daughter's voice
on the voicemail greeting. She knows the entry code by heart,
the four digits her daughter gave her months ago, just
in case. She punches them into the keypad at the
front of the apartment building and climbs to the second floor.
It's too quiet, except for a fluorescent ball buzzing in
(03:32):
the hallway. Her stomach is already starting to twist. The
apartment door is closed, but not locked. She pushes it open.
Something is off. Even the air smells wrong. She calls
out Lisa's name, but there's no answer. Still nothing screams danger.
(03:55):
It's just an eerie silence. Is sleeping, Maybe her phone died. Maybe.
She moves through the kitchen and then the small hallway
that leads to the bedroom. The light is on. This
gives her one second of hope. The light is on.
(04:18):
She turns the corner to enter the bedroom, and her
mother's intuition has already taken over. She steps closer. She
calls her name again, nothing. Just as she turns to
leave the room, she catches something in her peripheral vision.
Lisa is on the floor on her back. Time is
(04:40):
now in slow motion. As she makes her way to
her daughter. A towel is wrapped tightly around her head,
almost like a turban. Blood is soaked through it in
dark patches. She sees that her shirt is lifted slightly
over her swollen belly. She reaches out and touches her
daughter's pregnant stomach and finds it cold. She thinks, maybe,
(05:06):
just maybe it's not too late, Maybe she can still
do CPR, maybe the baby. But her hands are shaking.
She feels the panic set in so she dials nine
to one one.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah, hi name, what do I know your name?
Speaker 4 (05:31):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (05:31):
I eat?
Speaker 3 (05:33):
And yeah?
Speaker 6 (05:34):
Is she on Bolivar right now?
Speaker 7 (05:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (05:38):
I remember check.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
At that moment, Heidi Noel crosses a threshold no parent
is ever meant to cross.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
So I was a single mom with two children. I
had Lisa when I was about twenty seven years old.
She was my mini me.
Speaker 8 (05:56):
We had a lot of.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
Same characteristics and behavior. Is My older daughter Shelby just
doted on Lisa. It was kind of like her living
baby doll. So as they were growing up, as any siblings,
they went through their their close times and then their
separate times where they couldn't stand each other, which is
(06:19):
pretty normal. But they as they became adults, they became
the best of friends. And they used to call themselves
twins seven year apart, so they were quite the team.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
And the chaos of that moment, her calling for help,
trying to make sense of what she's just seen, Heidie's
recollection of the night before stuck with her. The last text.
Speaker 8 (06:44):
I go, I asked, got a message from right.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
What time did you last?
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Hear?
Speaker 8 (06:51):
From her text?
Speaker 1 (06:55):
That last text read simply you okay? A mother's intuition
told her Lisa was not. Okay, they're on the way.
Speaker 5 (07:06):
Okay, that's her name, that's her vehicle.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Do you see the officers?
Speaker 8 (07:17):
Many? Okay, you see the officer now, okay, okay, here,
you're welcome away.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
What she holds onto now came long before that tragic night.
The moments that still make her laugh, The moments that
made Lisa Lisa.
Speaker 8 (07:42):
She was a good student. She was very thoughtful and courteous.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
She when she was we moved up to Jerseyville when
Shelby was entering middle school and Lisa was still one
year away from kindergarten, so did complete all of her
schooling here in Jerseyville. And at Shelby's middle school orientation,
Lisa dressed with a Tierra and Princess outfit. So she was,
(08:14):
like I said, around five six years old. So she
attended Shelby's much to Shelby's dismay middle school orientation and
a Tierra and Princess gown and those little plastic princess
shoes that they used to sell at the store.
Speaker 8 (08:28):
So she was a character.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Lisa was just twenty two years old, but was already
living on her own in an apartment about half an
hour away from her mom and stepdad. She was responsible,
She had her own car and a job, but her
main goal was to become a nurse like her mother,
because she loved caring for people. That was obvious.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah, I got office on the way.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
She was pregnant, almost eight months pregnant. The nursery wasn't
finished yet, but the baby shower invitations had already gone out.
The party was planned for the end of June, pink
and white decorations. Her mom had just picked up the balloons.
The due date was late July, just weeks away. Just
(09:22):
the night before, Heidi and Lisa had been talking about
names for the baby. She wasn't ever nervous, just excited.
She text her mom about baby stuff constantly, crib styles, diaperbags,
and ultrasounds.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
And she had, even in her younger years, had always
kind of wanted to be a mom.
Speaker 8 (09:45):
She has some cousins.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
I think at the time she had about three cousins,
and she doted on them and would kind of babysit
with them, and so she was very much into She
was looking forward to being a mom. Like she never
she never shied away from being a mom or the
responsibility of that, and during the one of the first ultrasounds,
(10:08):
you know, when a baby's really small, it looks kind
of like a bean, a little jellybean, and so that's
where she then started referring to her baby as baby Bean.
So that's where the nickname came from, and we all
just embraced it and went with it. So the restaurant
that she worked at here in Jerseyville was going to
allow us to use their space to host her baby shower.
(10:32):
So we were talking about how we were going to
decorate it, and I had asked her if she decided
on a name yet, and she's like, no, not really.
Speaker 8 (10:41):
Not for sure.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
I thought about Leilani, and I'm like, why Leilani? You know,
I'm like, we're not Hawaiian, and she goes, that's not
a Hawaiian name, and I'm like, well, I said, it's
still a beautiful name. But I said, I thought you
were leaning towards Genevie and she's like, no, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
So she had no idea that she wouldn't get to
see any of it.
Speaker 6 (11:01):
Now.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
She sat rocking back and forth to sue herself as
she waited for police and emergency responders to make their
way to Lisa's apartment. Car after car, sirens blazing and
lights flashing were descending onto the place. It seemed like
(11:24):
the entire police department was crowding onto the front lawn,
and Heidi was just well, she was just numb. You
have a keat again, right here, right here, this one.
Of course, Heidi wasn't thinking clearly. They would need the
same code to enter the building. As for the key,
(11:47):
She left Lisa's apartment unlocked as she walked away and
shock unsure of where the killer was. The police announced
themselves as they stormed the building. Oh even they were
stunned at what they saw in Lisa's bedroom.
Speaker 8 (12:09):
You want to go talk to her.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
The scene was a bloody mess, and the suspect was
long gone by the time Lisa's mom and the police
got there. Whoever killed her fled in her car, a
black Kia Optima. They left behind a dead body and
a grieving mother.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Takes some big, deep breaths for me.
Speaker 7 (12:39):
Okay, there, and that's.
Speaker 5 (12:59):
Not She moved the towel.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
It was partial, It was faint. The sound of Heidie's
voice asking officers a question that an hour earlier would
have seemed absurd. Did you find her head? She asked
when she turned into the doorway of her daughter's bedroom.
She almost left without seeing her daughter in it at all.
(13:24):
This was because Lisa lay on the floor, But then
Heidie caught sight of her daughter's pale skin smeared with blood,
and then a towel wrapped around her head like a turban,
except there was no head. It was hard for even
seasoned police to come to grips with the sight.
Speaker 5 (13:47):
I don't know the whole story of tod Like mom
came here to take on found daughter just dead upstairs.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Obviously you can hear one or something.
Speaker 8 (13:58):
Her paytent cut off.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
So I mean, I don't think there's anything. Yeah, I
don't there's anything, all right.
Speaker 9 (14:04):
So that's what we're trying to do and get in.
Speaker 5 (14:07):
These other partments everywhere else, all right, I just check.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Well, A few officers waited outside with Heidi. Some went
into the building to ask if anyone in the other
units knew anything. This wasn't something they came across every day,
and even they were shocked. Yeah, I'm not going to
go any further, and we didn't get it.
Speaker 10 (14:35):
I'm right, up and the how but.
Speaker 8 (14:41):
Some kind of it looked fairly clean.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
That like movie.
Speaker 6 (14:47):
I do know it's not bride and take that.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
The police had looked everywhere for Lisa's head, even the
refrigerator and freezer, but it was nowhere. According to the
police report, first responders found blood throughout the floor of
the apartment. Most police were instructed to wait outside while
the scene was processed. Once in the bedroom, they saw
(15:14):
Lisa's decapitated body lying on the bedroom floor next to
the bed. They noticed blood stains on her torso, and
most of the stains seemed to be blood spatter or smearing,
But then they saw something odd, a symmetrical stain on
her left side. It was rectangular with small circles inside
(15:37):
the rectangle. It's unclear but likely that Lisa was already
dead when her head was severed. There was no mention
of arterial spurting in the police report. This was her
mother's perspective.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
In her words, I'd had turned to just get ready
to leave, and out of the corner of my eye
I saw.
Speaker 8 (16:00):
Skin, the color of skin. Again.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
I'm a nurse, and I think I was like, oh,
I think that was skin. So when I turned and
looked in the bedroom. I saw her laying on the ground,
and so I ran over to her, saying, you know, Lisa, Lisa, what.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
A painful realization that the child you brought into this
world was whole when she got here and pieces when
she left. The towel bundled up at the top of
Lisa's body did not contain the rest of her and
her hand was lying on top of a book about pregnancy,
(16:41):
of all things. This was the same hand that used
to tuck back long strands of strawberry blonde hair from
her bright face and smile. But where was that smile? Now?
Where was her face? For that matter, Heidi was already
begging the police to find it and find the monster
(17:04):
who did this. On January ninth, twenty twenty two, in Alton, Illinois,
(17:37):
police responded to a call from a mother who had
discovered her daughter's body. Twenty two year old Lisa Dodd
was seven months pregnant. She was found dead inside her apartment,
her head missing. As officers started processing the scene, a
larger story was already unfolding, one that hadn't started that day.
(18:01):
Lisa had been living with a boyfriend for months. It
was a young man her age, and she'd been seeing
him for almost two years. According to Heidi, she was
an exceptional student who wanted to follow in her mom's
footsteps and study to be a nurse.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
So Lisa had started at Lews and Clark, which is
the local community college here, and she was looking at
also becoming a nurse. She was just starting the prerequisites
and stuff. But then COVID hit so that had given
her some extra time. But they actually met through a
social media I'm not sure which, whether it was Facebook
(18:41):
or one of those social medias. She said he was
an acquaintance of one of the people that she was
friends with, and then they saw each other in DMS
or something, and that's how they started communicating.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
It's how everybody looks for a romantic connection in twenty
twenty five dating apps. But Facebook, that's more like twenty ten.
Nowadays it's hinge, Tinder or I don't know, Grinder, I
guess furryfucks dot com. Who the hell knows? I have
no idea. So anyway, this guy's name was DeAndre Holloway
(19:20):
and he lived about an hour away.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
When she first started meeting up with them or seeing him,
I wasn't aware of that until June of twenty twenty.
She finally brought him around to introduce him to me,
and probably within the first couple times of meeting him,
I recognize some of those signs, characteristics, and behaviors that
(19:44):
he kind of portrayed. But I had a few relationships
where they were emotionally kind of controlling and abusive in
that way, emotionally and mentally.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
You know, the kind it's all about them. They're needy,
kind of lost, the kind of person who never quite
seems to have their life together, but always has a
story about why, why they don't have a place to stay,
why they don't have a job, why their family situation
is quote unquote complicated. They're the kind of people who
(20:23):
text a whole lot. They're always checking up on you,
not according to them, because they're controlling you, but because
they can't stay in the silence. They suddenly show up
unannounced if you're having coffee with your girlfriends and act
like that's totally normal, and if they're not actually surveilling
your activities. They don't have a car, or when they do,
(20:46):
it's always in the shop. Again, it lives there in
the shop because they don't have the fifty bucks to
get it back, and they always seem to need some help,
a lot of it, a free ride, a little money,
a second chance, and somehow there's always a person that
gives it to them, somebody who sees their potential and
(21:08):
believes that if they just had someone stable in their lives,
somebody who's patient with them and doesn't give up on
them like everyone else has, they'll finally be okay. Lisa
was that someone for DeAndre.
Speaker 8 (21:24):
There was one time that.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
They had been over visiting here at my home and he,
I don't know if he got tired of being here
or just wanted to leave, and he was just gonna
leave on foot, and she was like, no, don't leave,
and so there was a little verbal like no, I'm leaving.
And I was like, Lisa, if he wants to leave,
let him go. You know, if he's that adamant that
(21:48):
he wants to leave, let him know.
Speaker 8 (21:49):
He can't walk. And in Jerseyville, it is.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
A smaller community and the African American population is not
that large here, so she was afraid that, you know,
he might be differently walking down the side of the
street or whatever. So she was very adamant that he
you know, didn't leave on foot, and just that interaction
at that time, I could already kind of see the
manipulation of you know, him escalating things like I'm just
(22:18):
leaving on foot and her trying to fix the situation.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
And that's the very kind of relationship that pulls you
in and can eventually pull you under. It keeps you
busy and focused on someone else's problems in instead of
your own. Not that Lisa had any problems, but she
had goals and a full life ahead of her. DeAndre
did not as aware of the dynamic as Heidi was.
(22:46):
She knew better than to dictate to her adult daughter
what she could and couldn't do and whom she could
and couldn't see.
Speaker 4 (22:55):
It's a very fine line between navigating this with them.
And I also recognize now I'm in I'm in my
mid midlife, but I remember being younger and the more
my parents tried to clamp down and control who I
talk to or how I talk to or how long
I was, the more almost.
Speaker 8 (23:15):
Rebellious I was.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
So I recognize that it's that fine line where you
have to try to be there as much as you
can and set boundaries for them but also recognizing that
that could also cause them to go the entire opposite
direction and become very rebellious. Him acting that way is
not really appropriate, and he's kind of using that to
(23:38):
get you to do what he wants you to do.
And you know, I don't really think this is a
good relationship, but she was just, yeah, just very adamant
that no, like she could help him. You know, I
know he's got all this stuff going on. He wasn't
currently living at home. He was living with friends in Highland.
So I'm not one hundred percent of all the facts
(24:01):
in his backstory, so I don't want to allude to
things incorrectly, but I do know that he had troubles
at home in his home life, and so whether he
left on his own or whether they had asked him
to leave at that time, I'm not sure, but he
was not living at home, so I think she felt
like he could help him through those situations that he
(24:21):
was having in his own family life.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
To his acquaintances, DeAndrea came off as quiet, sometimes distant.
He didn't talk much about his personal life. His family
described him as someone who drifted between homes, often staying
with his mother or sister and showing up unannounced, the
kind of guy who you ask where you staying at
instead of where you living at? You know, like normal people.
(24:49):
His sister said that growing up he was a loner.
He'd stay in his room for hours, rarely brought friends over,
and didn't seem to connect easily with others. You could
say he was sensitive. He'd be thrown off when plans
changed or when he felt misunderstood. Sometimes he could get
(25:10):
a job, but he could never keep it. When things
fell through, it was usually someone else's fault. A lot
of that going around these days. At one point, his
mother kicked him out of the house because he wasn't
contributing and would become combative. During a phone conversation with Heidi,
he explained why he struggled with confrontation. He said that
(25:33):
in his family, if someone challenged you, he took it
outside and settled it outside. That's just how he learned
to handle things.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
I recognized that at different times I did talk to
both of them, like I had talked to her about
ending the relationship at different times, and that it wasn't
a good relationship and things, you know, weren't proceeding like
healthy relationships do. And then I had also said the
same things to him, like it's okay that you guys
(26:04):
aren't together or you break up, and you know you
seem better as friends than you do when you're together,
and people get divorced, and trying to support that they
didn't have to be together to stay friends, and even
the maybe you guys just don't need to be together
now until you mature and get older and then you
can come back together later in life.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
It was a classic toxic relationship, the push and the pull.
Liza was working on trying to hold the relationship together,
and her mother was using all the tools in her
toolbox as a mom and a nurse to guide her
daughter down the right path. But you know, twenty two
is then you twelve, isn't it? Kids are dumb as
(26:49):
fuck these days. Somewhere in the last couple of decades,
something shifted. We started recognizing young people as adults on paper,
but emotionally and socially there stunted. They're still trying to
figure it out, sometimes into their thirties and forties. Lisa
wanted to help him, and she thought she could, but
(27:10):
his problems were a whole lot bigger than im maturity.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
I would probably say the first time I noticed it
really escalating was in the spring of twenty twenty one.
He had been homeless and she would go out with
him in the evening until early early in the morning
and then would drop him off at parks or wherever
(27:36):
he would say he could stay. So then they had
which I did not like that she was out that late.
And then it came to a point where they had
found a place to stay in Hillsboro, Illinois, and he
had She called me one evening and he was having
an episode where he was rocking and having he always
(28:03):
called it a reaction. He was having some type of
reaction where he was talking about people that were talking
in his head and seeing a person in the room.
And I told her, I said, Lisa, you need to
call nine one one because he's having I said, it
sounds very much like schizophrenia if he's hearing voices and
seeing things. Again, I'm not diagnosing him, but it sounded
(28:28):
very much like that. So I was like, this is
not something that you can handle as a twenty I
guess she was twenty one at that time. I said,
I'm a nurse and have been, but that's not my specialty,
so you need to call nine to one one to
help him, to get him assistance, which she finally He
had also had some previous run ins with the law
in twenty nineteen, so she didn't want to call the
(28:51):
ambulance or the police or nine one one because she
didn't want him to get in trouble and go back
to jail. But she did end up I finally convinced
turn that that was the best option. So she did
call nine to one one and he was taken to
a hospital in Hillsborough there for a psyche valuation. So
(29:11):
that was kind of my first like big, oh my
gosh moment where like this is bigger than just, you know,
not a healthy relationship.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Now, we've been told for years by the so called
experts that those with mental illness are more likely to
be victims than perpetrators. But what's also true is that
if your boyfriend cuts off your head, he's more likely
to be mentally ill than not. In fact, it's just
about guaranteed those two things can be true at the
(29:45):
same time. By the way, it's called a logical fallacy.
For all you college educated experts out there. Liza hesitated
to call nine one one because DeAndre had previously been
in trouble with the law, but Heidi finally convinced her
it was too much for her to handle alone. He
was placed in psychiatric holding for seventy two hours and
(30:07):
sent home with medications, and for a while he was
doing a lot better, but then his meds ran out,
so the next.
Speaker 8 (30:18):
The very first time that it was very chilling was
the end of May of twenty twenty one.
Speaker 4 (30:28):
She had come and had a black eye and bruises,
and he had during one of the altercations, he had
choked her out, and she stated that she lost consciousness.
And now I may get emotional, because I've not ever
really told this story. He had choked her out to
(30:49):
where she had lost consciousness, and actually she said she
saw people.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Let's be clear, these were not the same people that
the mentally ill deal Andrea was seeing. These were not
demons or gods or whatever the hell was telling him
what to do.
Speaker 9 (31:07):
Now.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
These are the kind of people you see at the
end of the tunnel of light if you catch my drift.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
And I explained to her that that was probably her dying.
You don't normally see people, and that it's a very
serious situation that he could kill her. So at that
time she did get away from him. We actually put
her on a plane to We had a discussion about it,
and she was very adamant, you know, that she wanted
(31:35):
to end the relationship and get away from him, and
so we bought her a one way ticket to Colorado.
I have family in Colorado, so she was actually going
to move out there. She also has a friend that
had relocated, a best friend that relocated to Colorado, so she.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Was going to stay with her, but that lasted about
a week.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
I will say as a parent that is one of
the hardest and difficult things of trying to assist your
kids through these things is because of cell phones and
social media, there is really no way to disconnect them
from each other unless they make that full effort to disconnect.
(32:18):
They can talk on Snapchat, they can messenger, they can
instagram each other, they can dm they can Facebook, they
can so it's not just a phone anymore. That is
a communication tool. There's so many ways they can still communicate.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Maybe someday someone will have the balls to do a
study on how many deaths social media is indirectly or
directly responsible for. From that point on, Heidi panicked every
time the phone rang. She kept all the local police
numbers in her phone in case of an emergency. She
told Lisa that she was always one hundred percent welcome
(32:56):
to move back home, just not with DeAndre. She knew
if that happened and there were problems, she had her
husband to think about. What if he popped off and
did something to intervene and hurt DeAndre and the next
thing you know, he lands himself in jail. It felt
like there was no good end, no good options, as
(33:19):
long as her adult daughter chose to stay with this boyfriend.
Deandre's violence escalated to the point where practically everybody who
knew them knew about it. Lisa could only make excuses
about running into doors or tripping downstairs for so long
it was becoming obvious even to her employer.
Speaker 6 (33:41):
Okay, when she had went out on break, she didn't
come back from break, and the manager on duty had
called me to let me know, and I was concerned
for Scia texted Lisa to see if she was okay,
and a couple hours later she texted me back and
said that her boyfriend had They had gotten in an
altercation and that she was at the Ligual Housepold emergency
room and thought that her nose was broken. And then
(34:03):
she texted me back and said she hadn't seen the
doctor and was waiting on the X race and that
she would be into work the next day, but her
nose was broken. And so what were they in the
car when that happened. They were in the car, and
we have cameras on the back of the building. We
actually tried to roll the cameras back, but they're not
very good definition, so we weren't able to actually see it.
Oh craw, Yeah, I wanted to call the.
Speaker 8 (34:23):
Police since she did not want to do that. Okay, okay,
and I probably should have.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Finally, an incident happened and Heidi called nine to one one.
She just got back from a run. She takes out
her earbuds and wipes her forehead and steps into the
front door. On a hot summer day, She's making her
way into the kitchen for a drink of water when
she sees Lisa's car pull up. She can tell by
(34:50):
the frantic expression on her daughter and Deandre's faces that
they're arguing again and he's been smacking her runs into
the house and starts banging on the door. Well, Heidi
lets Lisa in. Her husband rushes out to confront the
screaming boyfriend, who is rage walking towards the house. Her
(35:13):
mind raises as she sees and hears him yelling at DeAndre, No,
get out of our driveway. We don't want you here,
just leave now. Lisa's stepdad is shouting this as he
makes his way to her car, grabs Deandre's things and
throws them onto the street and gets the keys. That's
(35:33):
when Lisa's mother downs nine to one one.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
And also just reliving it in your head is like
you just can't even imagine I'm a cry being in
those high those high intensity situations is just so unbelievable
to look back on. So I had I did call
(35:57):
nine one one at that time, but I didn't realize
when I had gone for my run I would use
earbuds and when I had come home, actually when she
was banging on the door, I pulled the earbuds out
of my ear and had gone outside to tell him
to go and that I was calling nine to one one,
And when it was connecting to nine to one one,
it was actually connecting through the earbuds and not my phone,
(36:20):
so I never actually spoke to the police. In the meantime,
my husband, like I said, had gone outside and gotten
Dre's belongings out of her car and handed them to
him and told him to just go on down the road.
So Dre took off walking down the road, and as
I was sitting next to Lisa, I could see her
(36:42):
eye turning black from him smacking her.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Heidi says the cops did drive down her street several times,
but by that time DeAndre was on foot and long
gone somewhere. Lisa had finally had enough again understand that
statistically it takes about seven attempts at leaving an abusive
relationship before it's actually final, which is bonkers by the way.
(37:11):
To help her along, Heidi took her phone for over
a week just to make sure there wouldn't be any
immediate contact with DeAndre. Then, when it seemed like she
was able to think straight and was living with her
sister Shelby for a few weeks, she got her phone back.
The weeks turned into months, and even though Lisa still
(37:31):
had some communication with DeAndre, they did not see each
other in person. Supposedly, he'd left the state and was
in Memphis, Tennessee. It was during this time that she
discovered that she was pregnant. She was planning on going
it alone. This was in the Winner of twenty twenty one.
(37:53):
Fast forward to the spring of twenty twenty two and
guess who's back. Yeah, DeAndre, wanting to make things work,
saying he was a new person now and once again
monopolizing Lisa's life. This time, Heidi had a serious talk
with him. She told him that she was onto him
and all the bruises he'd inflicted on Lisa. She showed
(38:17):
him a file of pictures with exact dates, times, and
documentation that she'd put together so that if he ever
laid a hand on her again, his whole life would
be taken to the police. It was in some ways
like a small security blanket for Heidi, but DeAndre just
looked her dead in the eye. In so many words,
(38:40):
he said, that doesn't really matter. I'm crazy and everyone
knows it, so I'll just play the crazy card.
Speaker 4 (38:48):
I did let him know that, yes, because the whole
time I told him, you know, abusing someone you supposed
to love is not really appropriate and it's not okay,
and it is abuse, and you know, people go to
jail for that.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
And he.
Speaker 4 (39:05):
Had said to me on more than one occasion that
it didn't matter because he would just pull the crazy card,
and he felt like nothing would happen to him because
he did have some mental health issues. And I don't
know if he had that feeling because that's what he'd
used in the past to get out of any situations
(39:25):
he had with the authorities, or if that was just
his own personal feeling, but yes, more than once he
said that to me, that it didn't matter because he
would just pull the crazy card.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
There you go.
Speaker 9 (39:38):
There.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
It is the result of no repercussions because dumb people
keep making dumb laws that protect violent assholes. Intersection of
crime and politics. Y'all know about intersectionality, right. He'd said
this more than once, but this time it felt like
(40:00):
a real threat, maybe even a confession of what was
to come, because this wasn't just someone with a short
temper or a bruised ego. According to his family, DeAndre
had been hearing voices for years. He told them there
was three of them. One of them had a name, Ruth,
(40:23):
lover Steakhouse.
Speaker 5 (40:23):
By the way.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Ruth told him who he could trust and who he couldn't.
She told him what to do, sometimes that she was
looking out for him. She'd tell him who he could
and couldn't forgive, and sometimes it felt like Ruth was
the one in charge, not DeAndre. The morning after Eliza's
(40:46):
body was discovered, surveillance footage captures someone walking away from
the apartment. It looks kind of like a woman, her
face wrapped in a yellow scarf, and she's wearing oversized
female clothes, clothing Lisa's clothing, a hoodie, sneakers, and joggers.
She's carrying a white laundry basket and moving calmly, methodically
(41:11):
walking towards a dumpster. Police said it was DeAndre, but
watching it now, frame a frame, you have to wonder,
is that really him or is that Ruth. It's possible
that Ruth was hiding inside Deandre's mind all along, or
maybe she just showed up on special occasions. Whatever the
(41:34):
case may be. He was acting normal the last time
they were reunited, in fact, so normal that Heidi was surprised.
He seemed to take her ultimatum seriously. There were no
more bruises, and for months as Lisa's belly grew, the
couple got along better than ever.
Speaker 4 (41:54):
In March of twenty twenty two, we did the gender
reveal at the apartment there outside and she did one
of those I got one of those comfetti cannons, and
then we also did a T shirt and I put
pink watercolor in a water gun and she sprayed the
(42:17):
shirt and that's how we did the gender reveal.
Speaker 8 (42:20):
That the pink water came out of the gun and
dyed the T shirt pink.
Speaker 4 (42:26):
So he participated. He's the one that discharged the pink
gun and the competti gun. And he actually, I think
had a T shirt on that said father to be.
She had one on that said mom to be. I
had one for Grandma to be coming soon, and then
Shelby had a ant T shirt on, so yeah, and
(42:47):
Shelby's fiance was there, so yeah, he participated in that
and we had a nice day.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
Outwardly, everything seemed fun. DeAndre was there for the gender reveal.
He smiled for the pictures. He helped load gifts into
the car. He said he wanted to be part of
it all. To anyone watching, he looked like he meant it.
There was no scene except a happy one. And he
(43:16):
was going to be a dad. But and get this,
this is the m night Shyamalan twist. This is why
you pay me the big bucks. Are you ready?
Speaker 5 (43:28):
All right?
Speaker 1 (43:29):
Enough dilly dallying, let's get on with it.
Speaker 9 (43:32):
Here it is.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
The baby wasn't his. On June ninth, twenty twenty two,
(44:16):
Lisa Dodd was found murdered in her Alton apartment. She
was twenty two years old and seven months pregnant. That afternoon,
her mother discovered her daughter's body her hand, lying on
top of a book about pregnancy. The thing is, even
though babies are viable at thirty three weeks, they can't
(44:37):
live for more than ten minutes without their mother's blood
circulating through their body. Lisa's blood had already run cold.
Heidi found her that afternoon in a state she never
should have seen, a body without a head. By the
next morning, her boyfriend DeAndre, dressed as the incarnation of Ruth,
(45:00):
an imaginary person in his head, was gone and the
investigation was just starting.
Speaker 5 (45:09):
If you go and do not touch anything, okay, ma'am
he so deepress.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
Okay, yeah, I mean I'm freaked down, but I'm okay.
Speaker 5 (45:25):
When you take some depress for me.
Speaker 8 (45:27):
Okay, he was going to do this in the past.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
Police knew who they were looking for. Surveillance footage showed
him leaving the apartment with a laundry basket. Then he
went back into the apartment and came back out with
more discarded things three separate trips. The last time he
was seen, his face was wrapped in cloth. He was
wearing Lisa's hoodie and sneakers. While DeAndre was making his
(46:04):
way across Litchfield, Illinois, investigators back in Alton were knocking
on doors, unit by unit, floor by floor. The occupant
living in unit two was a nineteen year old female
whose mother was with her when police were asking questions,
I'm just.
Speaker 3 (46:22):
Gonna stay, don't even listen, Regis coach, that's a fairly.
Speaker 11 (46:35):
She said that this always happens, that they always have
his name at why you.
Speaker 3 (46:42):
Would be regarder the downstairs neighbor.
Speaker 10 (46:48):
Three?
Speaker 8 (46:49):
Yes, what's three units?
Speaker 5 (46:52):
Yeah, she's under.
Speaker 3 (46:57):
When she said she heard stuff last night and keeping
here like well, she said, like.
Speaker 11 (47:01):
No something she heards something real loud, but she didn't
go to chick and she lives by herself, so she
said it was almost ten o'clock. But she's a daughter,
is like a little like young when she's settled out
of college.
Speaker 8 (47:13):
She's nineteen. She's gonna come at two o'clock.
Speaker 6 (47:17):
To her she's at work and not let the station
up here.
Speaker 3 (47:24):
Tell her she's gonna have to be doing her. Yeah,
they just want you to come to this station. Just
tell her that God detective asked for a detective.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
This young woman and other neighbors had heard everything. Everyone
knew that DeAndre and Lisa had a volatile relationship, and
they had to have known she was being abused. Lisa
had the black eyes to prove it, but that night
was unusually chaotic and loud. One neighbors said it started
(47:58):
with the arguing, not unusual for that unit, but this
time the arguing didn't stop. It escalated. Another said it
turned into screaming, then muffled yelling like someone was trying
to shout through something. Then five maybe six heavy thuds
(48:21):
it sounded like someone was chopping wood, according to a witness,
and then silence. Someone else said they heard footsteps after that,
someone walking out of the building with calm steps, but
no one called nine one one. It was just business
(48:42):
as usual. They'd heard the fighting before and everything turned
out okay, why should they intervene. They could have prevented
Lisa from being beaten in the face and head, suffocated
and then decapitated. And the odds shaped rectangle and circles
on her body, those were bloody leftover imprints from the
(49:04):
knife handle her killer used and then casually placed on
her body before getting rid of it. Lisa's black Kia
Optima was missing. Also, it was obvious who took it,
and it was easy to find just blocks away at
a local business with a first sale sign on it.
Although they knew right away it was her car, it
(49:27):
was sitting on private property and the owner wasn't around,
just an employee who didn't want to get involved.
Speaker 3 (49:34):
There's nothing looking at you, but we need somebody to
contact here.
Speaker 5 (49:36):
But it's a serious thing that happened over there, has
nothing to do with you.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
I don't want to be contact about whatever happened back
to you because okay, but we need to contact here,
whether we're going to subpoena or not.
Speaker 6 (49:45):
I need people to contact here.
Speaker 3 (49:46):
I just need a point of contact.
Speaker 9 (49:48):
So I either need a name of the owner.
Speaker 6 (49:49):
Or I need your phone number.
Speaker 8 (49:52):
So I would say sometime between twelve am to twelve pm.
Speaker 5 (49:56):
But it's probably the car hit on a license plate
reader at one in the morning, don't maybe optimum I'm
to say, yeah.
Speaker 8 (50:05):
So that last hit there and that's probably.
Speaker 1 (50:08):
What we're looking for.
Speaker 5 (50:09):
Anytime somebody might have been around that vehicle and when
it left.
Speaker 1 (50:13):
At two thirty in the morning, Deandre's sister is at
her grandmother's place in Litchfield. She wakes up from her
slumber for some reason and now here's her brother, DeAndre
knocking at the front door. This isn't unusual. Grandma's house
is frequented by some of her grandkids, but not usually
at this hour. Lights from his car outside illuminate the
(50:36):
driveway and she can hear the engine still running. She
looks out the window from where she is and sees
his girlfriend's car, so she assumes he's just stopped by
for some reason. For a minute, and Lisa is still
in the car. She's not really sure why he's here,
but after just a little bit, he says he forgot
(50:56):
to give his girlfriend her car keys and leaves the house.
His sister dozes off, and when she wakes up again
a few hours later, the car and DeAndre are gone.
Later that morning, DeAndrea shows up at another sister's place
close by with no call ahead. He walks in wearing
oversized clothes that she's seen before on Lisa. She asks
(51:20):
him what he's wearing, but he doesn't explain. Instead, he
goes straight to the bathroom and locks the door. She
hears the buzz of clippers through the wall. When he
comes out, his long dreads are gone, just scattered pieces
left behind in the sink. This isn't right. She thinks
(51:40):
he spent two years growing out those dreads and said
he was never going to cut them off in a
million years. She doesn't say anything because he seems agitated.
She knows what he's like when he's in this state.
He rocks back and forth. If his mood gets worse,
he might start punching himself in the head or face,
(52:01):
so she stays quiet. Then he walks through the kitchen
and picks up a bottle of bleach. For some reason,
he starts dumping it out on the floor. Now she
asks what the fuck are you doing. His response is
to shrug and tell her he thought it was soap.
The hell does that me? She notices he doesn't grab
(52:23):
anything to eat. Even though she's offered, he just says
he's going to go mow lawns, but he doesn't take
the mower. He walks out the door and disappears. A
short time later, Litchfield police spotted him on a bike
that happened to be stolen, just what they needed to
take him in.
Speaker 8 (52:42):
And hold him the best I can. Yes, drink you are.
Speaker 4 (53:01):
An idea that was just.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
At first, DeAndre was quiet but polite. He thought he
would just be questioned about a bike and then let
go at least until he could figure out a better
plan or get out of town. But that wasn't going
to happen. Pretty soon he was complaining that police were
keeping him from his job. What a joke. For maybe
(53:27):
the first time in his life, he was concerned about
being fired, but everybody knew that he didn't have a job.
Speaker 10 (53:34):
So again, you're going to get me fired because you
were holding me from.
Speaker 9 (53:43):
You understand how the wind of a job, dude, also,
and part of that job was jogging you and kind
of stole down some things that have been going on.
Speaker 10 (53:53):
And if you can let us do we can hopefully you.
Speaker 9 (53:59):
Know what some of that from the hugeon and you know,
trying to figure out where we go from here, you know.
Speaker 4 (54:04):
What I mean, But like.
Speaker 9 (54:07):
On some level, like we do have to work with
each other to a certain excident, you know, and you know,
first and foremost for us, you know, we want to
make sure that you're taking care of here, that you're
not under any specific distress or anything.
Speaker 6 (54:25):
I don't have any kind of physical the most.
Speaker 10 (54:28):
Ornam mental struggle or whatever. And then ultimately I can
try to talk to you about some of the stuff.
Speaker 1 (54:34):
That's been going on today. There were no voices. It
was just playing old DeAndre, and he seemed to be
well sane. I guess he wasn't playing the crazy card
at least, just the belligerent one, except for one point
when he let the word disassociate slip from his mouth.
Speaker 9 (54:58):
You mentioned a man agoan think your word for it.
You say you disassociated?
Speaker 4 (55:03):
Is that something like being?
Speaker 9 (55:06):
Is that something trouble with on a regular basis, or
like do you see like a doctor or I would
say it's a problem for sure. Do you do you
have medicine that you think I don't take it.
Speaker 10 (55:20):
Let's probably exposed.
Speaker 3 (55:22):
To or something or.
Speaker 5 (55:24):
About not necessary.
Speaker 9 (55:27):
We'll talking about prescriptions for sites for psych right now,
ye speaking, I.
Speaker 10 (55:33):
Don't believe it's taking because I'm seeing you right now.
I'm composing myself.
Speaker 9 (55:38):
Okay, that's what type of stuff can you do to
try and like, so you have like other like other
methods that you can use or whatever.
Speaker 8 (55:47):
Like what you what are you trying to do?
Speaker 3 (55:49):
Typically? Do you like?
Speaker 10 (55:52):
I don't make personally my exercise. That's one of the
ways I kind of helped.
Speaker 8 (55:56):
Keep my head in the right space. Mhm.
Speaker 9 (56:00):
Everybody has there any different things.
Speaker 10 (56:01):
Some people have to you know, write a journal, war,
or some people have to you know, take a walk,
or some times family in.
Speaker 11 (56:10):
Your you know whatever.
Speaker 1 (56:13):
Here was his chance to pull the crazy card. He
admitted he'd been evaluated and given medicines, and then he
said he didn't take them. But hey, look I'm sitting
here and I'm fine. The only thing he did seem
to focus on was work. It was a little weird.
Speaker 9 (56:32):
Stuff stuff I have to I'm actually glad you said that,
because I think we went on in again. I was
already in emotion. Don't do that when I'm in emotion,
leaves I'm asking nicely, don't.
Speaker 8 (56:47):
Do this stuff when I'm an emotional.
Speaker 2 (56:50):
So I understand how that goes.
Speaker 9 (56:51):
And I'm sitting here trying to go to work.
Speaker 8 (56:54):
Can you always see here keeping.
Speaker 11 (56:56):
Me from my job?
Speaker 9 (56:57):
I'm he upset because again iey top of mob hops.
Speaker 10 (57:03):
All too sure?
Speaker 4 (57:04):
That's all again?
Speaker 8 (57:05):
Can I go to work?
Speaker 4 (57:06):
Please?
Speaker 6 (57:06):
I'm asking you, and I say, if this is your job,
I'm sure you see me again?
Speaker 9 (57:09):
Right?
Speaker 8 (57:10):
Oh exactly? So again, why can't I go to work?
Pans don't say it, because again I know that's what
I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (57:16):
I'm going to go to work.
Speaker 8 (57:17):
I'm on compacting like.
Speaker 2 (57:18):
That because I can't go to work.
Speaker 4 (57:20):
I don't think this stuff too.
Speaker 9 (57:21):
Man, Before before we get any further with any of
these conversations, like you mentioned to write something we're doing,
and like one of the really important things that our
job in tails is making sure you understand your rights.
Speaker 10 (57:34):
Okay, that's so I think we should probably go.
Speaker 2 (57:38):
Through those ones you.
Speaker 1 (57:40):
It was a long interview with a lot of silence
from DeAndre, who just kept repeating that he had to
go do some work. Work, work, work. Imagine that a
homeless guy worried about going to work. The detectives just
weren't buying it. They knew what was up.
Speaker 8 (57:57):
I'm not being detanged.
Speaker 9 (57:59):
I literally was just opposed to.
Speaker 10 (58:02):
Be leaving already.
Speaker 4 (58:03):
Yeah, well I gotta I can't leave.
Speaker 8 (58:05):
I can't leave from right here.
Speaker 3 (58:07):
We go.
Speaker 1 (58:09):
Right stop stop. I'm sure DeAndre felt challenged. I mean
they were out right laughing at him. And you know
what DeAndre said about being challenged. Surprisingly, he didn't demand
that they settle it outside. Finally, after he was read
as rights, he gave up and asked for a lawyer.
(58:30):
So they put him in handcuffs.
Speaker 8 (58:33):
That's a little time, okay, And I say it.
Speaker 4 (58:35):
That's a little time. I say it.
Speaker 1 (58:37):
This one you just put on.
Speaker 8 (58:38):
It's a little tight insact.
Speaker 4 (58:40):
I feel my finger, this is in it. This is
literally in this thing. That one thing.
Speaker 9 (58:48):
I see the face, okay, I'm not I see him
walking stretch of something back that is I had one
all right, all day walking who it's not?
Speaker 10 (58:58):
So it can't please ask uniz.
Speaker 9 (59:05):
Could loss?
Speaker 1 (59:08):
I wonder how often the whole I'm asking you nicely
bullshit has paid off for him in the past that
veiled threat. After his arrest, DeAndrea Holliday was charged with
multiple felonies, including first degree murder, intentional homicide of an
unborn child and concealment of a homicidal death. Apparently, the
(59:29):
motive didn't have anything to do with the child being
someone else's. According to statements he made, he was okay
with that because he had a girlfriend during the same
time he and Liza were apart. That girlfriend became pregnant,
so in his mind it was tit for tat. The
motive was nothing more than a mentally unfit, abusive, and
(59:52):
sick person grasping for control and losing it during an argument.
He lost control and Liza lost her life. He must
have quote unquote asked her nicely a whole lot that day.
At first, questions came up about his mental fitness to
stand trial. I mean he did hear voices, including the
(01:00:16):
voice of that imaginary woman Ruth. At first he was
found unfit and committed to a state institution for treatment,
but after several months he was deemed competent to stand trial.
In December twenty twenty four, Holloway pleaded guilty to the charges.
In January twenty twenty five, he was sentenced to sixty
(01:00:37):
years in prison, thirty years for first degree murder, twenty
years for the homicide of an unborn child in ten
years for concealment of a homicidal death. During the investigation,
authorities discovered the final but most important thing that was missing.
It was Liza Dodd's beautiful but sever head in a
(01:01:02):
dumpster behind a business on Milton Road, wrapped in bedding
inside a white laundry basket. Liza's neighbors, who heard it all,
will never forget that they failed to call nine to
one one that night, and you can't really help but
feel sorry for them at least a little bit. I mean,
(01:01:22):
how the hell were they supposed to know that those
dull thuds that they heard that night were chopping sounds.
Speaker 2 (01:01:30):
They let us know that somebody was found dead next
door to have to lose.
Speaker 5 (01:01:37):
A child that way, and.
Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
That baby is an extension of her mother and the
rest of her family, So they lost a child as well,
they lost two. Her family would not be burying her
in their grandchild.
Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
Monsters thrive in darkness and complacence. See it makes them
powerful and unstoppable. Heidi saw what so many others didn't.
She saw the danger. She named it, she documented it.
(01:02:16):
She took her daughter's phone, called the police and begged
her to come home. She stood between Lisa and the
chaos with everything she had, but it was never her
problem to solve. All she could do as a parent
was exactly what she did. Sometimes, no matter how hard
(01:02:38):
you'd try to help and guide your children, it's up
to them to decide their own path, and that path
can be treacherous and filled with monsters. Haidie's words to
DeAndrea at sentencing.
Speaker 5 (01:02:52):
Were these, I do not hate you. The world holds
enough anger and hate for you that I don't have
to carry those emotions. I'm sad and disappointed in you.
Disappointed that you didn't keep your word when you told
me you wouldn't come back the next time you left.
Sad you thought your mental instability was a free pass
(01:03:16):
from being held accountable for your crimes. Sad that you
destroyed so many lives, so many hopes and dreams, including
your own.
Speaker 4 (01:03:29):
That night that I saw her on June eighth, when
we were having our conversation about the baby shower, she
had actually said, I wish I could see baby being tonight.
Speaker 8 (01:03:38):
I'm ready to see my baby now. I'm akra agan,
and I said, well, she's not ready yet. It's you know,
she was thirty three weeks.
Speaker 4 (01:03:48):
When this happened, thirty three weeks along and I said, well,
she's not ready, and she goes, but you know she's
viable if people have babies at twenty two and twenty
four weeks and they live. And I'm like, well that's true,
but you know, let's let her cook in there a
little bit longer. So the fact that that night she
got to be with her baby does bring me comfort,
(01:04:09):
and in my mind's I see God and being waiting
for Lisa to join them, to walk her home.
Speaker 1 (01:04:23):
Unfortunately, sometimes your baby just isn't ready yet, and no
matter how much you try to help them make the
right decisions to let go of those toxic relationships and
move on to better things, they just aren't ready yet.
(01:05:28):
As horrific as that was, we hope you enjoyed that one.
I don't know why you people listen to this stuff.
I really don't think you're probably mostly sociopaths. Anyway, head
on over to our store stored outswordscale dot com. Go
buy yourself a sociopathic shirt, and go check out swords
Scale TV at swordscale dot com
Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is
not intended for all audiences.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Listener discretion is advice.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Who's a child deadly?
Speaker 2 (00:14):
And that baby is an extension of her mother and
the rest of her family, so they lost a child
as well.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Some assholes said at some point that brevity is the
essence of wet, so we might as well get on
with it. This is episode three hundred and twenty three
of Sword and Scale, a show that reveals that the
worst monsters are real. She turns on to Bolivar Street
(01:38):
like the car is driving itself. She feels numb, too
numb to be its driver. She's been here before, too
many times to count, but today's different. Her stomach is unsettled.
Why hasn't her daughter Lisa responded to her in more
(01:58):
than fifteen hours. They have an understanding, she thinks. If
I don't hear from you, I'm coming to find you.
It's the way moms and daughters operate. That bond is
never truly broken. The building comes into view at the
far end of the block. It looks like a regular
two story house, maybe a little worn around the edges.
(02:22):
There's a lawn, not big, but enough to push a
mower across and a long, narrow sidewalk that stretches up
to the sagging front porch. It's the kind of porch
you'd expect to creak under your feet, and it does.
It does. From where she parks, the trees at the
dead end street are in full bloom, tall and still.
(02:45):
A thick line of woods makes the gray, two story
house feel almost peaceful. If you didn't know any better,
you'd think this was a residential house in a rural setting,
not an apartment within the city limits. She walks the sidewalk,
one foot in front of the other. Her hands are
tight around her phone. There's no answer. She's been calling
(03:08):
and calling, and she's tired of hearing her daughter's voice
on the voicemail greeting. She knows the entry code by heart,
the four digits her daughter gave her months ago, just
in case. She punches them into the keypad at the
front of the apartment building and climbs to the second floor.
It's too quiet, except for a fluorescent ball buzzing in
(03:32):
the hallway. Her stomach is already starting to twist. The
apartment door is closed, but not locked. She pushes it open.
Something is off. Even the air smells wrong. She calls
out Lisa's name, but there's no answer. Still nothing screams danger.
(03:55):
It's just an eerie silence. Is sleeping, Maybe her phone died. Maybe.
She moves through the kitchen and then the small hallway
that leads to the bedroom. The light is on. This
gives her one second of hope. The light is on.
(04:18):
She turns the corner to enter the bedroom, and her
mother's intuition has already taken over. She steps closer. She
calls her name again, nothing. Just as she turns to
leave the room, she catches something in her peripheral vision.
Lisa is on the floor on her back. Time is
(04:40):
now in slow motion. As she makes her way to
her daughter. A towel is wrapped tightly around her head,
almost like a turban. Blood is soaked through it in
dark patches. She sees that her shirt is lifted slightly
over her swollen belly. She reaches out and touches her
daughter's pregnant stomach and finds it cold. She thinks, maybe,
(05:06):
just maybe it's not too late, Maybe she can still
do CPR, maybe the baby. But her hands are shaking.
She feels the panic set in so she dials nine
to one one.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah, hi name, what do I know your name?
Speaker 4 (05:31):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (05:31):
I eat?
Speaker 3 (05:33):
And yeah?
Speaker 6 (05:34):
Is she on Bolivar right now?
Speaker 7 (05:36):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (05:38):
I remember check.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
At that moment, Heidi Noel crosses a threshold no parent
is ever meant to cross.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
So I was a single mom with two children. I
had Lisa when I was about twenty seven years old.
She was my mini me.
Speaker 8 (05:56):
We had a lot of.
Speaker 4 (05:58):
Same characteristics and behavior. Is My older daughter Shelby just
doted on Lisa. It was kind of like her living
baby doll. So as they were growing up, as any siblings,
they went through their their close times and then their
separate times where they couldn't stand each other, which is
(06:19):
pretty normal. But they as they became adults, they became
the best of friends. And they used to call themselves
twins seven year apart, so they were quite the team.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
And the chaos of that moment, her calling for help,
trying to make sense of what she's just seen, Heidie's
recollection of the night before stuck with her. The last text.
Speaker 8 (06:44):
I go, I asked, got a message from right.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
What time did you last?
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Hear?
Speaker 8 (06:51):
From her text?
Speaker 1 (06:55):
That last text read simply you okay? A mother's intuition
told her Lisa was not. Okay, they're on the way.
Speaker 5 (07:06):
Okay, that's her name, that's her vehicle.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Do you see the officers?
Speaker 8 (07:17):
Many? Okay, you see the officer now, okay, okay, here,
you're welcome away.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
What she holds onto now came long before that tragic night.
The moments that still make her laugh, The moments that
made Lisa Lisa.
Speaker 8 (07:42):
She was a good student. She was very thoughtful and courteous.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
She when she was we moved up to Jerseyville when
Shelby was entering middle school and Lisa was still one
year away from kindergarten, so did complete all of her
schooling here in Jerseyville. And at Shelby's middle school orientation,
Lisa dressed with a Tierra and Princess outfit. So she was,
(08:14):
like I said, around five six years old. So she
attended Shelby's much to Shelby's dismay middle school orientation and
a Tierra and Princess gown and those little plastic princess
shoes that they used to sell at the store.
Speaker 8 (08:28):
So she was a character.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Lisa was just twenty two years old, but was already
living on her own in an apartment about half an
hour away from her mom and stepdad. She was responsible,
She had her own car and a job, but her
main goal was to become a nurse like her mother,
because she loved caring for people. That was obvious.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Yeah, I got office on the way.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
She was pregnant, almost eight months pregnant. The nursery wasn't
finished yet, but the baby shower invitations had already gone out.
The party was planned for the end of June, pink
and white decorations. Her mom had just picked up the balloons.
The due date was late July, just weeks away. Just
(09:22):
the night before, Heidi and Lisa had been talking about
names for the baby. She wasn't ever nervous, just excited.
She text her mom about baby stuff constantly, crib styles, diaperbags,
and ultrasounds.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
And she had, even in her younger years, had always
kind of wanted to be a mom.
Speaker 8 (09:45):
She has some cousins.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
I think at the time she had about three cousins,
and she doted on them and would kind of babysit
with them, and so she was very much into She
was looking forward to being a mom. Like she never
she never shied away from being a mom or the
responsibility of that, and during the one of the first ultrasounds,
(10:08):
you know, when a baby's really small, it looks kind
of like a bean, a little jellybean, and so that's
where she then started referring to her baby as baby Bean.
So that's where the nickname came from, and we all
just embraced it and went with it. So the restaurant
that she worked at here in Jerseyville was going to
allow us to use their space to host her baby shower.
(10:32):
So we were talking about how we were going to
decorate it, and I had asked her if she decided
on a name yet, and she's like, no, not really.
Speaker 8 (10:41):
Not for sure.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
I thought about Leilani, and I'm like, why Leilani? You know,
I'm like, we're not Hawaiian, and she goes, that's not
a Hawaiian name, and I'm like, well, I said, it's
still a beautiful name. But I said, I thought you
were leaning towards Genevie and she's like, no, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
So she had no idea that she wouldn't get to
see any of it.
Speaker 6 (11:01):
Now.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
She sat rocking back and forth to sue herself as
she waited for police and emergency responders to make their
way to Lisa's apartment. Car after car, sirens blazing and
lights flashing were descending onto the place. It seemed like
(11:24):
the entire police department was crowding onto the front lawn,
and Heidi was just well, she was just numb. You
have a keat again, right here, right here, this one.
Of course, Heidi wasn't thinking clearly. They would need the
same code to enter the building. As for the key,
(11:47):
She left Lisa's apartment unlocked as she walked away and
shock unsure of where the killer was. The police announced
themselves as they stormed the building. Oh even they were
stunned at what they saw in Lisa's bedroom.
Speaker 8 (12:09):
You want to go talk to her.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
The scene was a bloody mess, and the suspect was
long gone by the time Lisa's mom and the police
got there. Whoever killed her fled in her car, a
black Kia Optima. They left behind a dead body and
a grieving mother.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Takes some big, deep breaths for me.
Speaker 7 (12:39):
Okay, there, and that's.
Speaker 5 (12:59):
Not She moved the towel.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
It was partial, It was faint. The sound of Heidie's
voice asking officers a question that an hour earlier would
have seemed absurd. Did you find her head? She asked
when she turned into the doorway of her daughter's bedroom.
She almost left without seeing her daughter in it at all.
(13:24):
This was because Lisa lay on the floor, But then
Heidie caught sight of her daughter's pale skin smeared with blood,
and then a towel wrapped around her head like a turban,
except there was no head. It was hard for even
seasoned police to come to grips with the sight.
Speaker 5 (13:47):
I don't know the whole story of tod Like mom
came here to take on found daughter just dead upstairs.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Obviously you can hear one or something.
Speaker 8 (13:58):
Her paytent cut off.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
So I mean, I don't think there's anything. Yeah, I
don't there's anything, all right.
Speaker 9 (14:04):
So that's what we're trying to do and get in.
Speaker 5 (14:07):
These other partments everywhere else, all right, I just check.
Speaker 4 (14:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Well, A few officers waited outside with Heidi. Some went
into the building to ask if anyone in the other
units knew anything. This wasn't something they came across every day,
and even they were shocked. Yeah, I'm not going to
go any further, and we didn't get it.
Speaker 10 (14:35):
I'm right, up and the how but.
Speaker 8 (14:41):
Some kind of it looked fairly clean.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
That like movie.
Speaker 6 (14:47):
I do know it's not bride and take that.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
The police had looked everywhere for Lisa's head, even the
refrigerator and freezer, but it was nowhere. According to the
police report, first responders found blood throughout the floor of
the apartment. Most police were instructed to wait outside while
the scene was processed. Once in the bedroom, they saw
(15:14):
Lisa's decapitated body lying on the bedroom floor next to
the bed. They noticed blood stains on her torso, and
most of the stains seemed to be blood spatter or smearing,
But then they saw something odd, a symmetrical stain on
her left side. It was rectangular with small circles inside
(15:37):
the rectangle. It's unclear but likely that Lisa was already
dead when her head was severed. There was no mention
of arterial spurting in the police report. This was her
mother's perspective.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
In her words, I'd had turned to just get ready
to leave, and out of the corner of my eye
I saw.
Speaker 8 (16:00):
Skin, the color of skin. Again.
Speaker 4 (16:03):
I'm a nurse, and I think I was like, oh,
I think that was skin. So when I turned and
looked in the bedroom. I saw her laying on the ground,
and so I ran over to her, saying, you know, Lisa, Lisa, what.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
A painful realization that the child you brought into this
world was whole when she got here and pieces when
she left. The towel bundled up at the top of
Lisa's body did not contain the rest of her and
her hand was lying on top of a book about pregnancy,
(16:41):
of all things. This was the same hand that used
to tuck back long strands of strawberry blonde hair from
her bright face and smile. But where was that smile? Now?
Where was her face? For that matter, Heidi was already
begging the police to find it and find the monster
(17:04):
who did this. On January ninth, twenty twenty two, in Alton, Illinois,
(17:37):
police responded to a call from a mother who had
discovered her daughter's body. Twenty two year old Lisa Dodd
was seven months pregnant. She was found dead inside her apartment,
her head missing. As officers started processing the scene, a
larger story was already unfolding, one that hadn't started that day.
(18:01):
Lisa had been living with a boyfriend for months. It
was a young man her age, and she'd been seeing
him for almost two years. According to Heidi, she was
an exceptional student who wanted to follow in her mom's
footsteps and study to be a nurse.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
So Lisa had started at Lews and Clark, which is
the local community college here, and she was looking at
also becoming a nurse. She was just starting the prerequisites
and stuff. But then COVID hit so that had given
her some extra time. But they actually met through a
social media I'm not sure which, whether it was Facebook
(18:41):
or one of those social medias. She said he was
an acquaintance of one of the people that she was
friends with, and then they saw each other in DMS
or something, and that's how they started communicating.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
It's how everybody looks for a romantic connection in twenty
twenty five dating apps. But Facebook, that's more like twenty ten.
Nowadays it's hinge, Tinder or I don't know, Grinder, I
guess furryfucks dot com. Who the hell knows? I have
no idea. So anyway, this guy's name was DeAndre Holloway
(19:20):
and he lived about an hour away.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
When she first started meeting up with them or seeing him,
I wasn't aware of that until June of twenty twenty.
She finally brought him around to introduce him to me,
and probably within the first couple times of meeting him,
I recognize some of those signs, characteristics, and behaviors that
(19:44):
he kind of portrayed. But I had a few relationships
where they were emotionally kind of controlling and abusive in
that way, emotionally and mentally.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
You know, the kind it's all about them. They're needy,
kind of lost, the kind of person who never quite
seems to have their life together, but always has a
story about why, why they don't have a place to stay,
why they don't have a job, why their family situation
is quote unquote complicated. They're the kind of people who
(20:23):
text a whole lot. They're always checking up on you,
not according to them, because they're controlling you, but because
they can't stay in the silence. They suddenly show up
unannounced if you're having coffee with your girlfriends and act
like that's totally normal, and if they're not actually surveilling
your activities. They don't have a car, or when they do,
(20:46):
it's always in the shop. Again, it lives there in
the shop because they don't have the fifty bucks to
get it back, and they always seem to need some help,
a lot of it, a free ride, a little money,
a second chance, and somehow there's always a person that
gives it to them, somebody who sees their potential and
(21:08):
believes that if they just had someone stable in their lives,
somebody who's patient with them and doesn't give up on
them like everyone else has, they'll finally be okay. Lisa
was that someone for DeAndre.
Speaker 8 (21:24):
There was one time that.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
They had been over visiting here at my home and he,
I don't know if he got tired of being here
or just wanted to leave, and he was just gonna
leave on foot, and she was like, no, don't leave,
and so there was a little verbal like no, I'm leaving.
And I was like, Lisa, if he wants to leave,
let him go. You know, if he's that adamant that
(21:48):
he wants to leave, let him know.
Speaker 8 (21:49):
He can't walk. And in Jerseyville, it is.
Speaker 4 (21:52):
A smaller community and the African American population is not
that large here, so she was afraid that, you know,
he might be differently walking down the side of the
street or whatever. So she was very adamant that he
you know, didn't leave on foot, and just that interaction
at that time, I could already kind of see the
manipulation of you know, him escalating things like I'm just
(22:18):
leaving on foot and her trying to fix the situation.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
And that's the very kind of relationship that pulls you
in and can eventually pull you under. It keeps you
busy and focused on someone else's problems in instead of
your own. Not that Lisa had any problems, but she
had goals and a full life ahead of her. DeAndre
did not as aware of the dynamic as Heidi was.
(22:46):
She knew better than to dictate to her adult daughter
what she could and couldn't do and whom she could
and couldn't see.
Speaker 4 (22:55):
It's a very fine line between navigating this with them.
And I also recognize now I'm in I'm in my
mid midlife, but I remember being younger and the more
my parents tried to clamp down and control who I
talk to or how I talk to or how long
I was, the more almost.
Speaker 8 (23:15):
Rebellious I was.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
So I recognize that it's that fine line where you
have to try to be there as much as you
can and set boundaries for them but also recognizing that
that could also cause them to go the entire opposite
direction and become very rebellious. Him acting that way is
not really appropriate, and he's kind of using that to
(23:38):
get you to do what he wants you to do.
And you know, I don't really think this is a
good relationship, but she was just, yeah, just very adamant
that no, like she could help him. You know, I
know he's got all this stuff going on. He wasn't
currently living at home. He was living with friends in Highland.
So I'm not one hundred percent of all the facts
(24:01):
in his backstory, so I don't want to allude to
things incorrectly, but I do know that he had troubles
at home in his home life, and so whether he
left on his own or whether they had asked him
to leave at that time, I'm not sure, but he
was not living at home, so I think she felt
like he could help him through those situations that he
(24:21):
was having in his own family life.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
To his acquaintances, DeAndrea came off as quiet, sometimes distant.
He didn't talk much about his personal life. His family
described him as someone who drifted between homes, often staying
with his mother or sister and showing up unannounced, the
kind of guy who you ask where you staying at
instead of where you living at? You know, like normal people.
(24:49):
His sister said that growing up he was a loner.
He'd stay in his room for hours, rarely brought friends over,
and didn't seem to connect easily with others. You could
say he was sensitive. He'd be thrown off when plans
changed or when he felt misunderstood. Sometimes he could get
(25:10):
a job, but he could never keep it. When things
fell through, it was usually someone else's fault. A lot
of that going around these days. At one point, his
mother kicked him out of the house because he wasn't
contributing and would become combative. During a phone conversation with Heidi,
he explained why he struggled with confrontation. He said that
(25:33):
in his family, if someone challenged you, he took it
outside and settled it outside. That's just how he learned
to handle things.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
I recognized that at different times I did talk to
both of them, like I had talked to her about
ending the relationship at different times, and that it wasn't
a good relationship and things, you know, weren't proceeding like
healthy relationships do. And then I had also said the
same things to him, like it's okay that you guys
(26:04):
aren't together or you break up, and you know you
seem better as friends than you do when you're together,
and people get divorced, and trying to support that they
didn't have to be together to stay friends, and even
the maybe you guys just don't need to be together
now until you mature and get older and then you
can come back together later in life.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
It was a classic toxic relationship, the push and the pull.
Liza was working on trying to hold the relationship together,
and her mother was using all the tools in her
toolbox as a mom and a nurse to guide her
daughter down the right path. But you know, twenty two
is then you twelve, isn't it? Kids are dumb as
(26:49):
fuck these days. Somewhere in the last couple of decades,
something shifted. We started recognizing young people as adults on paper,
but emotionally and socially there stunted. They're still trying to
figure it out, sometimes into their thirties and forties. Lisa
wanted to help him, and she thought she could, but
(27:10):
his problems were a whole lot bigger than im maturity.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
I would probably say the first time I noticed it
really escalating was in the spring of twenty twenty one.
He had been homeless and she would go out with
him in the evening until early early in the morning
and then would drop him off at parks or wherever
(27:36):
he would say he could stay. So then they had
which I did not like that she was out that late.
And then it came to a point where they had
found a place to stay in Hillsboro, Illinois, and he
had She called me one evening and he was having
an episode where he was rocking and having he always
(28:03):
called it a reaction. He was having some type of
reaction where he was talking about people that were talking
in his head and seeing a person in the room.
And I told her, I said, Lisa, you need to
call nine one one because he's having I said, it
sounds very much like schizophrenia if he's hearing voices and
seeing things. Again, I'm not diagnosing him, but it sounded
(28:28):
very much like that. So I was like, this is
not something that you can handle as a twenty I
guess she was twenty one at that time. I said,
I'm a nurse and have been, but that's not my specialty,
so you need to call nine to one one to
help him, to get him assistance, which she finally He
had also had some previous run ins with the law
in twenty nineteen, so she didn't want to call the
(28:51):
ambulance or the police or nine one one because she
didn't want him to get in trouble and go back
to jail. But she did end up I finally convinced
turn that that was the best option. So she did
call nine to one one and he was taken to
a hospital in Hillsborough there for a psyche valuation. So
(29:11):
that was kind of my first like big, oh my
gosh moment where like this is bigger than just, you know,
not a healthy relationship.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Now, we've been told for years by the so called
experts that those with mental illness are more likely to
be victims than perpetrators. But what's also true is that
if your boyfriend cuts off your head, he's more likely
to be mentally ill than not. In fact, it's just
about guaranteed those two things can be true at the
(29:45):
same time. By the way, it's called a logical fallacy.
For all you college educated experts out there. Liza hesitated
to call nine one one because DeAndre had previously been
in trouble with the law, but Heidi finally convinced her
it was too much for her to handle alone. He
was placed in psychiatric holding for seventy two hours and
(30:07):
sent home with medications, and for a while he was
doing a lot better, but then his meds ran out,
so the next.
Speaker 8 (30:18):
The very first time that it was very chilling was
the end of May of twenty twenty one.
Speaker 4 (30:28):
She had come and had a black eye and bruises,
and he had during one of the altercations, he had
choked her out, and she stated that she lost consciousness.
And now I may get emotional, because I've not ever
really told this story. He had choked her out to
(30:49):
where she had lost consciousness, and actually she said she
saw people.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Let's be clear, these were not the same people that
the mentally ill deal Andrea was seeing. These were not
demons or gods or whatever the hell was telling him
what to do.
Speaker 9 (31:07):
Now.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
These are the kind of people you see at the
end of the tunnel of light if you catch my drift.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
And I explained to her that that was probably her dying.
You don't normally see people, and that it's a very
serious situation that he could kill her. So at that
time she did get away from him. We actually put
her on a plane to We had a discussion about it,
and she was very adamant, you know, that she wanted
(31:35):
to end the relationship and get away from him, and
so we bought her a one way ticket to Colorado.
I have family in Colorado, so she was actually going
to move out there. She also has a friend that
had relocated, a best friend that relocated to Colorado, so she.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Was going to stay with her, but that lasted about
a week.
Speaker 4 (31:57):
I will say as a parent that is one of
the hardest and difficult things of trying to assist your
kids through these things is because of cell phones and
social media, there is really no way to disconnect them
from each other unless they make that full effort to disconnect.
(32:18):
They can talk on Snapchat, they can messenger, they can
instagram each other, they can dm they can Facebook, they
can so it's not just a phone anymore. That is
a communication tool. There's so many ways they can still communicate.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
Maybe someday someone will have the balls to do a
study on how many deaths social media is indirectly or
directly responsible for. From that point on, Heidi panicked every
time the phone rang. She kept all the local police
numbers in her phone in case of an emergency. She
told Lisa that she was always one hundred percent welcome
(32:56):
to move back home, just not with DeAndre. She knew
if that happened and there were problems, she had her
husband to think about. What if he popped off and
did something to intervene and hurt DeAndre and the next
thing you know, he lands himself in jail. It felt
like there was no good end, no good options, as
(33:19):
long as her adult daughter chose to stay with this boyfriend.
Deandre's violence escalated to the point where practically everybody who
knew them knew about it. Lisa could only make excuses
about running into doors or tripping downstairs for so long
it was becoming obvious even to her employer.
Speaker 6 (33:41):
Okay, when she had went out on break, she didn't
come back from break, and the manager on duty had
called me to let me know, and I was concerned
for Scia texted Lisa to see if she was okay,
and a couple hours later she texted me back and
said that her boyfriend had They had gotten in an
altercation and that she was at the Ligual Housepold emergency
room and thought that her nose was broken. And then
(34:03):
she texted me back and said she hadn't seen the
doctor and was waiting on the X race and that
she would be into work the next day, but her
nose was broken. And so what were they in the
car when that happened. They were in the car, and
we have cameras on the back of the building. We
actually tried to roll the cameras back, but they're not
very good definition, so we weren't able to actually see it.
Oh craw, Yeah, I wanted to call the.
Speaker 8 (34:23):
Police since she did not want to do that. Okay, okay,
and I probably should have.
Speaker 1 (34:30):
Finally, an incident happened and Heidi called nine to one one.
She just got back from a run. She takes out
her earbuds and wipes her forehead and steps into the
front door. On a hot summer day, She's making her
way into the kitchen for a drink of water when
she sees Lisa's car pull up. She can tell by
(34:50):
the frantic expression on her daughter and Deandre's faces that
they're arguing again and he's been smacking her runs into
the house and starts banging on the door. Well, Heidi
lets Lisa in. Her husband rushes out to confront the
screaming boyfriend, who is rage walking towards the house. Her
(35:13):
mind raises as she sees and hears him yelling at DeAndre, No,
get out of our driveway. We don't want you here,
just leave now. Lisa's stepdad is shouting this as he
makes his way to her car, grabs Deandre's things and
throws them onto the street and gets the keys. That's
(35:33):
when Lisa's mother downs nine to one one.
Speaker 4 (35:36):
And also just reliving it in your head is like
you just can't even imagine I'm a cry being in
those high those high intensity situations is just so unbelievable
to look back on. So I had I did call
(35:57):
nine one one at that time, but I didn't realize
when I had gone for my run I would use
earbuds and when I had come home, actually when she
was banging on the door, I pulled the earbuds out
of my ear and had gone outside to tell him
to go and that I was calling nine to one one,
And when it was connecting to nine to one one,
it was actually connecting through the earbuds and not my phone,
(36:20):
so I never actually spoke to the police. In the meantime,
my husband, like I said, had gone outside and gotten
Dre's belongings out of her car and handed them to
him and told him to just go on down the road.
So Dre took off walking down the road, and as
I was sitting next to Lisa, I could see her
(36:42):
eye turning black from him smacking her.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Heidi says the cops did drive down her street several times,
but by that time DeAndre was on foot and long
gone somewhere. Lisa had finally had enough again understand that
statistically it takes about seven attempts at leaving an abusive
relationship before it's actually final, which is bonkers by the way.
(37:11):
To help her along, Heidi took her phone for over
a week just to make sure there wouldn't be any
immediate contact with DeAndre. Then, when it seemed like she
was able to think straight and was living with her
sister Shelby for a few weeks, she got her phone back.
The weeks turned into months, and even though Lisa still
(37:31):
had some communication with DeAndre, they did not see each
other in person. Supposedly, he'd left the state and was
in Memphis, Tennessee. It was during this time that she
discovered that she was pregnant. She was planning on going
it alone. This was in the Winner of twenty twenty one.
(37:53):
Fast forward to the spring of twenty twenty two and
guess who's back. Yeah, DeAndre, wanting to make things work,
saying he was a new person now and once again
monopolizing Lisa's life. This time, Heidi had a serious talk
with him. She told him that she was onto him
and all the bruises he'd inflicted on Lisa. She showed
(38:17):
him a file of pictures with exact dates, times, and
documentation that she'd put together so that if he ever
laid a hand on her again, his whole life would
be taken to the police. It was in some ways
like a small security blanket for Heidi, but DeAndre just
looked her dead in the eye. In so many words,
(38:40):
he said, that doesn't really matter. I'm crazy and everyone
knows it, so I'll just play the crazy card.
Speaker 4 (38:48):
I did let him know that, yes, because the whole
time I told him, you know, abusing someone you supposed
to love is not really appropriate and it's not okay,
and it is abuse, and you know, people go to
jail for that.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
And he.
Speaker 4 (39:05):
Had said to me on more than one occasion that
it didn't matter because he would just pull the crazy card,
and he felt like nothing would happen to him because
he did have some mental health issues. And I don't
know if he had that feeling because that's what he'd
used in the past to get out of any situations
(39:25):
he had with the authorities, or if that was just
his own personal feeling, but yes, more than once he
said that to me, that it didn't matter because he
would just pull the crazy card.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
There you go.
Speaker 9 (39:38):
There.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
It is the result of no repercussions because dumb people
keep making dumb laws that protect violent assholes. Intersection of
crime and politics. Y'all know about intersectionality, right. He'd said
this more than once, but this time it felt like
(40:00):
a real threat, maybe even a confession of what was
to come, because this wasn't just someone with a short
temper or a bruised ego. According to his family, DeAndre
had been hearing voices for years. He told them there
was three of them. One of them had a name, Ruth,
(40:23):
lover Steakhouse.
Speaker 5 (40:23):
By the way.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Ruth told him who he could trust and who he couldn't.
She told him what to do, sometimes that she was
looking out for him. She'd tell him who he could
and couldn't forgive, and sometimes it felt like Ruth was
the one in charge, not DeAndre. The morning after Eliza's
(40:46):
body was discovered, surveillance footage captures someone walking away from
the apartment. It looks kind of like a woman, her
face wrapped in a yellow scarf, and she's wearing oversized
female clothes, clothing Lisa's clothing, a hoodie, sneakers, and joggers.
She's carrying a white laundry basket and moving calmly, methodically
(41:11):
walking towards a dumpster. Police said it was DeAndre, but
watching it now, frame a frame, you have to wonder,
is that really him or is that Ruth. It's possible
that Ruth was hiding inside Deandre's mind all along, or
maybe she just showed up on special occasions. Whatever the
(41:34):
case may be. He was acting normal the last time
they were reunited, in fact, so normal that Heidi was surprised.
He seemed to take her ultimatum seriously. There were no
more bruises, and for months as Lisa's belly grew, the
couple got along better than ever.
Speaker 4 (41:54):
In March of twenty twenty two, we did the gender
reveal at the apartment there outside and she did one
of those I got one of those comfetti cannons, and
then we also did a T shirt and I put
pink watercolor in a water gun and she sprayed the
(42:17):
shirt and that's how we did the gender reveal.
Speaker 8 (42:20):
That the pink water came out of the gun and
dyed the T shirt pink.
Speaker 4 (42:26):
So he participated. He's the one that discharged the pink
gun and the competti gun. And he actually, I think
had a T shirt on that said father to be.
She had one on that said mom to be. I
had one for Grandma to be coming soon, and then
Shelby had a ant T shirt on, so yeah, and
(42:47):
Shelby's fiance was there, so yeah, he participated in that
and we had a nice day.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
Outwardly, everything seemed fun. DeAndre was there for the gender reveal.
He smiled for the pictures. He helped load gifts into
the car. He said he wanted to be part of
it all. To anyone watching, he looked like he meant it.
There was no scene except a happy one. And he
(43:16):
was going to be a dad. But and get this,
this is the m night Shyamalan twist. This is why
you pay me the big bucks. Are you ready?
Speaker 5 (43:28):
All right?
Speaker 1 (43:29):
Enough dilly dallying, let's get on with it.
Speaker 9 (43:32):
Here it is.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
The baby wasn't his. On June ninth, twenty twenty two,
(44:16):
Lisa Dodd was found murdered in her Alton apartment. She
was twenty two years old and seven months pregnant. That afternoon,
her mother discovered her daughter's body her hand, lying on
top of a book about pregnancy. The thing is, even
though babies are viable at thirty three weeks, they can't
(44:37):
live for more than ten minutes without their mother's blood
circulating through their body. Lisa's blood had already run cold.
Heidi found her that afternoon in a state she never
should have seen, a body without a head. By the
next morning, her boyfriend DeAndre, dressed as the incarnation of Ruth,
(45:00):
an imaginary person in his head, was gone and the
investigation was just starting.
Speaker 5 (45:09):
If you go and do not touch anything, okay, ma'am
he so deepress.
Speaker 3 (45:19):
Okay, yeah, I mean I'm freaked down, but I'm okay.
Speaker 5 (45:25):
When you take some depress for me.
Speaker 8 (45:27):
Okay, he was going to do this in the past.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
Police knew who they were looking for. Surveillance footage showed
him leaving the apartment with a laundry basket. Then he
went back into the apartment and came back out with
more discarded things three separate trips. The last time he
was seen, his face was wrapped in cloth. He was
wearing Lisa's hoodie and sneakers. While DeAndre was making his
(46:04):
way across Litchfield, Illinois, investigators back in Alton were knocking
on doors, unit by unit, floor by floor. The occupant
living in unit two was a nineteen year old female
whose mother was with her when police were asking questions,
I'm just.
Speaker 3 (46:22):
Gonna stay, don't even listen, Regis coach, that's a fairly.
Speaker 11 (46:35):
She said that this always happens, that they always have
his name at why you.
Speaker 3 (46:42):
Would be regarder the downstairs neighbor.
Speaker 10 (46:48):
Three?
Speaker 8 (46:49):
Yes, what's three units?
Speaker 5 (46:52):
Yeah, she's under.
Speaker 3 (46:57):
When she said she heard stuff last night and keeping
here like well, she said, like.
Speaker 11 (47:01):
No something she heards something real loud, but she didn't
go to chick and she lives by herself, so she
said it was almost ten o'clock. But she's a daughter,
is like a little like young when she's settled out
of college.
Speaker 8 (47:13):
She's nineteen. She's gonna come at two o'clock.
Speaker 6 (47:17):
To her she's at work and not let the station
up here.
Speaker 3 (47:24):
Tell her she's gonna have to be doing her. Yeah,
they just want you to come to this station. Just
tell her that God detective asked for a detective.
Speaker 1 (47:37):
This young woman and other neighbors had heard everything. Everyone
knew that DeAndre and Lisa had a volatile relationship, and
they had to have known she was being abused. Lisa
had the black eyes to prove it, but that night
was unusually chaotic and loud. One neighbors said it started
(47:58):
with the arguing, not unusual for that unit, but this
time the arguing didn't stop. It escalated. Another said it
turned into screaming, then muffled yelling like someone was trying
to shout through something. Then five maybe six heavy thuds
(48:21):
it sounded like someone was chopping wood, according to a witness,
and then silence. Someone else said they heard footsteps after that,
someone walking out of the building with calm steps, but
no one called nine one one. It was just business
(48:42):
as usual. They'd heard the fighting before and everything turned
out okay, why should they intervene. They could have prevented
Lisa from being beaten in the face and head, suffocated
and then decapitated. And the odds shaped rectangle and circles
on her body, those were bloody leftover imprints from the
(49:04):
knife handle her killer used and then casually placed on
her body before getting rid of it. Lisa's black Kia
Optima was missing. Also, it was obvious who took it,
and it was easy to find just blocks away at
a local business with a first sale sign on it.
Although they knew right away it was her car, it
(49:27):
was sitting on private property and the owner wasn't around,
just an employee who didn't want to get involved.
Speaker 3 (49:34):
There's nothing looking at you, but we need somebody to
contact here.
Speaker 5 (49:36):
But it's a serious thing that happened over there, has
nothing to do with you.
Speaker 1 (49:39):
I don't want to be contact about whatever happened back
to you because okay, but we need to contact here,
whether we're going to subpoena or not.
Speaker 6 (49:45):
I need people to contact here.
Speaker 3 (49:46):
I just need a point of contact.
Speaker 9 (49:48):
So I either need a name of the owner.
Speaker 6 (49:49):
Or I need your phone number.
Speaker 8 (49:52):
So I would say sometime between twelve am to twelve pm.
Speaker 5 (49:56):
But it's probably the car hit on a license plate
reader at one in the morning, don't maybe optimum I'm
to say, yeah.
Speaker 8 (50:05):
So that last hit there and that's probably.
Speaker 1 (50:08):
What we're looking for.
Speaker 5 (50:09):
Anytime somebody might have been around that vehicle and when
it left.
Speaker 1 (50:13):
At two thirty in the morning, Deandre's sister is at
her grandmother's place in Litchfield. She wakes up from her
slumber for some reason and now here's her brother, DeAndre
knocking at the front door. This isn't unusual. Grandma's house
is frequented by some of her grandkids, but not usually
at this hour. Lights from his car outside illuminate the
(50:36):
driveway and she can hear the engine still running. She
looks out the window from where she is and sees
his girlfriend's car, so she assumes he's just stopped by
for some reason. For a minute, and Lisa is still
in the car. She's not really sure why he's here,
but after just a little bit, he says he forgot
(50:56):
to give his girlfriend her car keys and leaves the house.
His sister dozes off, and when she wakes up again
a few hours later, the car and DeAndre are gone.
Later that morning, DeAndrea shows up at another sister's place
close by with no call ahead. He walks in wearing
oversized clothes that she's seen before on Lisa. She asks
(51:20):
him what he's wearing, but he doesn't explain. Instead, he
goes straight to the bathroom and locks the door. She
hears the buzz of clippers through the wall. When he
comes out, his long dreads are gone, just scattered pieces
left behind in the sink. This isn't right. She thinks
(51:40):
he spent two years growing out those dreads and said
he was never going to cut them off in a
million years. She doesn't say anything because he seems agitated.
She knows what he's like when he's in this state.
He rocks back and forth. If his mood gets worse,
he might start punching himself in the head or face,
(52:01):
so she stays quiet. Then he walks through the kitchen
and picks up a bottle of bleach. For some reason,
he starts dumping it out on the floor. Now she
asks what the fuck are you doing. His response is
to shrug and tell her he thought it was soap.
The hell does that me? She notices he doesn't grab
(52:23):
anything to eat. Even though she's offered, he just says
he's going to go mow lawns, but he doesn't take
the mower. He walks out the door and disappears. A
short time later, Litchfield police spotted him on a bike
that happened to be stolen, just what they needed to
take him in.
Speaker 8 (52:42):
And hold him the best I can. Yes, drink you are.
Speaker 4 (53:01):
An idea that was just.
Speaker 1 (53:05):
At first, DeAndre was quiet but polite. He thought he
would just be questioned about a bike and then let
go at least until he could figure out a better
plan or get out of town. But that wasn't going
to happen. Pretty soon he was complaining that police were
keeping him from his job. What a joke. For maybe
(53:27):
the first time in his life, he was concerned about
being fired, but everybody knew that he didn't have a job.
Speaker 10 (53:34):
So again, you're going to get me fired because you
were holding me from.
Speaker 9 (53:43):
You understand how the wind of a job, dude, also,
and part of that job was jogging you and kind
of stole down some things that have been going on.
Speaker 10 (53:53):
And if you can let us do we can hopefully you.
Speaker 9 (53:59):
Know what some of that from the hugeon and you know,
trying to figure out where we go from here, you know.
Speaker 4 (54:04):
What I mean, But like.
Speaker 9 (54:07):
On some level, like we do have to work with
each other to a certain excident, you know, and you know,
first and foremost for us, you know, we want to
make sure that you're taking care of here, that you're
not under any specific distress or anything.
Speaker 6 (54:25):
I don't have any kind of physical the most.
Speaker 10 (54:28):
Ornam mental struggle or whatever. And then ultimately I can
try to talk to you about some of the stuff.
Speaker 1 (54:34):
That's been going on today. There were no voices. It
was just playing old DeAndre, and he seemed to be
well sane. I guess he wasn't playing the crazy card
at least, just the belligerent one, except for one point
when he let the word disassociate slip from his mouth.
Speaker 9 (54:58):
You mentioned a man agoan think your word for it.
You say you disassociated?
Speaker 4 (55:03):
Is that something like being?
Speaker 9 (55:06):
Is that something trouble with on a regular basis, or
like do you see like a doctor or I would
say it's a problem for sure. Do you do you
have medicine that you think I don't take it.
Speaker 10 (55:20):
Let's probably exposed.
Speaker 3 (55:22):
To or something or.
Speaker 5 (55:24):
About not necessary.
Speaker 9 (55:27):
We'll talking about prescriptions for sites for psych right now,
ye speaking, I.
Speaker 10 (55:33):
Don't believe it's taking because I'm seeing you right now.
I'm composing myself.
Speaker 9 (55:38):
Okay, that's what type of stuff can you do to
try and like, so you have like other like other
methods that you can use or whatever.
Speaker 8 (55:47):
Like what you what are you trying to do?
Speaker 3 (55:49):
Typically? Do you like?
Speaker 10 (55:52):
I don't make personally my exercise. That's one of the
ways I kind of helped.
Speaker 8 (55:56):
Keep my head in the right space. Mhm.
Speaker 9 (56:00):
Everybody has there any different things.
Speaker 10 (56:01):
Some people have to you know, write a journal, war,
or some people have to you know, take a walk,
or some times family in.
Speaker 11 (56:10):
Your you know whatever.
Speaker 1 (56:13):
Here was his chance to pull the crazy card. He
admitted he'd been evaluated and given medicines, and then he
said he didn't take them. But hey, look I'm sitting
here and I'm fine. The only thing he did seem
to focus on was work. It was a little weird.
Speaker 9 (56:32):
Stuff stuff I have to I'm actually glad you said that,
because I think we went on in again. I was
already in emotion. Don't do that when I'm in emotion,
leaves I'm asking nicely, don't.
Speaker 8 (56:47):
Do this stuff when I'm an emotional.
Speaker 2 (56:50):
So I understand how that goes.
Speaker 9 (56:51):
And I'm sitting here trying to go to work.
Speaker 8 (56:54):
Can you always see here keeping.
Speaker 11 (56:56):
Me from my job?
Speaker 9 (56:57):
I'm he upset because again iey top of mob hops.
Speaker 10 (57:03):
All too sure?
Speaker 4 (57:04):
That's all again?
Speaker 8 (57:05):
Can I go to work?
Speaker 4 (57:06):
Please?
Speaker 6 (57:06):
I'm asking you, and I say, if this is your job,
I'm sure you see me again?
Speaker 9 (57:09):
Right?
Speaker 8 (57:10):
Oh exactly? So again, why can't I go to work?
Pans don't say it, because again I know that's what
I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (57:16):
I'm going to go to work.
Speaker 8 (57:17):
I'm on compacting like.
Speaker 2 (57:18):
That because I can't go to work.
Speaker 4 (57:20):
I don't think this stuff too.
Speaker 9 (57:21):
Man, Before before we get any further with any of
these conversations, like you mentioned to write something we're doing,
and like one of the really important things that our
job in tails is making sure you understand your rights.
Speaker 10 (57:34):
Okay, that's so I think we should probably go.
Speaker 2 (57:38):
Through those ones you.
Speaker 1 (57:40):
It was a long interview with a lot of silence
from DeAndre, who just kept repeating that he had to
go do some work. Work, work, work. Imagine that a
homeless guy worried about going to work. The detectives just
weren't buying it. They knew what was up.
Speaker 8 (57:57):
I'm not being detanged.
Speaker 9 (57:59):
I literally was just opposed to.
Speaker 10 (58:02):
Be leaving already.
Speaker 4 (58:03):
Yeah, well I gotta I can't leave.
Speaker 8 (58:05):
I can't leave from right here.
Speaker 3 (58:07):
We go.
Speaker 1 (58:09):
Right stop stop. I'm sure DeAndre felt challenged. I mean
they were out right laughing at him. And you know
what DeAndre said about being challenged. Surprisingly, he didn't demand
that they settle it outside. Finally, after he was read
as rights, he gave up and asked for a lawyer.
(58:30):
So they put him in handcuffs.
Speaker 8 (58:33):
That's a little time, okay, And I say it.
Speaker 4 (58:35):
That's a little time. I say it.
Speaker 1 (58:37):
This one you just put on.
Speaker 8 (58:38):
It's a little tight insact.
Speaker 4 (58:40):
I feel my finger, this is in it. This is
literally in this thing. That one thing.
Speaker 9 (58:48):
I see the face, okay, I'm not I see him
walking stretch of something back that is I had one
all right, all day walking who it's not?
Speaker 10 (58:58):
So it can't please ask uniz.
Speaker 9 (59:05):
Could loss?
Speaker 1 (59:08):
I wonder how often the whole I'm asking you nicely
bullshit has paid off for him in the past that
veiled threat. After his arrest, DeAndrea Holliday was charged with
multiple felonies, including first degree murder, intentional homicide of an
unborn child and concealment of a homicidal death. Apparently, the
(59:29):
motive didn't have anything to do with the child being
someone else's. According to statements he made, he was okay
with that because he had a girlfriend during the same
time he and Liza were apart. That girlfriend became pregnant,
so in his mind it was tit for tat. The
motive was nothing more than a mentally unfit, abusive, and
(59:52):
sick person grasping for control and losing it during an argument.
He lost control and Liza lost her life. He must
have quote unquote asked her nicely a whole lot that day.
At first, questions came up about his mental fitness to
stand trial. I mean he did hear voices, including the
(01:00:16):
voice of that imaginary woman Ruth. At first he was
found unfit and committed to a state institution for treatment,
but after several months he was deemed competent to stand trial.
In December twenty twenty four, Holloway pleaded guilty to the charges.
In January twenty twenty five, he was sentenced to sixty
(01:00:37):
years in prison, thirty years for first degree murder, twenty
years for the homicide of an unborn child in ten
years for concealment of a homicidal death. During the investigation,
authorities discovered the final but most important thing that was missing.
It was Liza Dodd's beautiful but sever head in a
(01:01:02):
dumpster behind a business on Milton Road, wrapped in bedding
inside a white laundry basket. Liza's neighbors, who heard it all,
will never forget that they failed to call nine to
one one that night, and you can't really help but
feel sorry for them at least a little bit. I mean,
(01:01:22):
how the hell were they supposed to know that those
dull thuds that they heard that night were chopping sounds.
Speaker 2 (01:01:30):
They let us know that somebody was found dead next
door to have to lose.
Speaker 5 (01:01:37):
A child that way, and.
Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
That baby is an extension of her mother and the
rest of her family, So they lost a child as well,
they lost two. Her family would not be burying her
in their grandchild.
Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
Monsters thrive in darkness and complacence. See it makes them
powerful and unstoppable. Heidi saw what so many others didn't.
She saw the danger. She named it, she documented it.
(01:02:16):
She took her daughter's phone, called the police and begged
her to come home. She stood between Lisa and the
chaos with everything she had, but it was never her
problem to solve. All she could do as a parent
was exactly what she did. Sometimes, no matter how hard
(01:02:38):
you'd try to help and guide your children, it's up
to them to decide their own path, and that path
can be treacherous and filled with monsters. Haidie's words to
DeAndrea at sentencing.
Speaker 5 (01:02:52):
Were these, I do not hate you. The world holds
enough anger and hate for you that I don't have
to carry those emotions. I'm sad and disappointed in you.
Disappointed that you didn't keep your word when you told
me you wouldn't come back the next time you left.
Sad you thought your mental instability was a free pass
(01:03:16):
from being held accountable for your crimes. Sad that you
destroyed so many lives, so many hopes and dreams, including
your own.
Speaker 4 (01:03:29):
That night that I saw her on June eighth, when
we were having our conversation about the baby shower, she
had actually said, I wish I could see baby being tonight.
Speaker 8 (01:03:38):
I'm ready to see my baby now. I'm akra agan,
and I said, well, she's not ready yet. It's you know,
she was thirty three weeks.
Speaker 4 (01:03:48):
When this happened, thirty three weeks along and I said, well,
she's not ready, and she goes, but you know she's
viable if people have babies at twenty two and twenty
four weeks and they live. And I'm like, well that's true,
but you know, let's let her cook in there a
little bit longer. So the fact that that night she
got to be with her baby does bring me comfort,
(01:04:09):
and in my mind's I see God and being waiting
for Lisa to join them, to walk her home.
Speaker 1 (01:04:23):
Unfortunately, sometimes your baby just isn't ready yet, and no
matter how much you try to help them make the
right decisions to let go of those toxic relationships and
move on to better things, they just aren't ready yet.
(01:05:28):
As horrific as that was, we hope you enjoyed that one.
I don't know why you people listen to this stuff.
I really don't think you're probably mostly sociopaths. Anyway, head
on over to our store stored outswordscale dot com. Go
buy yourself a sociopathic shirt, and go check out swords
Scale TV at swordscale dot com
Popular Podcasts
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.