Chapter 75: A Mother's Fight for Answers-The Murder of Deverrie Schiller

0:00 Hi guys. I'm Courtney and I'm Lisa, and welcome to the next chapter in the Book of the Dead. Brought to you by Dark Cast Network indie podcasts with a twist, The Missing Magnolia's podcast tells the stories of the missing and murdered. Ultimately, these kids went to stay hussy and they never came out. Together with Missing Persons expert doctor Michelle Johnnie's we uncover the real true crime experience. Every time we do another interview, I'm like, how do we find so many badass women? We hear from victims who turn their pain into something positive. We didn't find out two we're eleven or twelve years old that our mom was murdered in Times Square. It said Mickey Schunich fought for her life. An expert who think outside the box to sell cases. Nice scour missing Person's database is like namous to see if they're uploaded to that database.

1:04 Subscribe to Missing Magnolia's on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts today. Hello, Hello, Welcome to the next chapter. Prior to our break, I was put in contact with a woman named Debbie Fons who has been waiting for a resolution in her daughter's murder. As you all know, working with family members is something that we take very seriously and means a lot that family members would put their trust in us to tell their loved one story. Well, this is happening a lot later than I thought it would. All cases deserve to be told correctly and with care and thought put behind it, and I won't put out an episode unless it's told the way it's deserved to be told. Debbie said to me during our phone conversation that she was not looking for justice, as justice would be getting her daughter back.

1:51 Since that is impossible. The one thing she can hope for is an arrest to be made, and she is adamant she knows who killed her baby. Today, i'll tell you about the murder of Devere Schiller. Before we get into the case, I want to tell you a little bit about where the case takes place, since I think it shed some light on why this case is still unsolved. According to California dot Com, California City, or Calcity as it is known to some, is one of the most interesting cities in the state and is located in the northern Antelope Valley in Kern County. It's an hour outside of Los Angeles and was established in nineteen sixty five. It's a collection of empty streets and land waiting for development that never actually happened.

2:35 According to All That's Interesting. The eighty two thousand square foot area was purchased by sociology professor Nat Mendelssohn as a way to make money off the California housing market during the post war real estate boom. Housing prizes were through the roof, and an uptick in the population drove it even higher, with not enough homes to accommodate all of the people waiting to live there. Nat had already had experienced developing a smaller town called Arlanza Village that was thriving, so a city was NAT's next step. However, things didn't go well. California City was in the desert, far from most of the places people would want to go, and with only one thousand residents, Mendelssohn gave up and by nineteen sixty nine sold his share and abandoned his dream. However, even though he had given up, cal City did start to grow, but as the population increased, the wells that fed water to the city that never seemed to run out of water finally started to and population growth crawled, and by twenty twenty there were fewer than fifteen thousand residents living there. Now, for a city with such a small population, you would almost think that crime in this area would be pretty low, but on the contrary, it's rather high for its size. According to crimegrad dot org, the crime rate in cal City is actually higher than the average US city, and its filing crime rate is around eight per one thousand residents a year. While violent and property crime rates are quite high, murder is not. The north side of the city has a murder rate of one in eleven thousand, while the south side has a rate

4:09 of one in thirty three thousand. While statistics suggests it's not that common, murder does happen, and in a city as small as this, the resources to solve them really aren't there. In twenty twenty three, CCPD chief Jesse high Tower, according to an article for turn to twenty three dot com, said that he was about six officers short of what an ideal staffing number should be and was looking for about fifteen cities and volunteers to help fill that gap. These volunteers would do non threatening duties like checking on homes while residents were on vacation, traffic duties and running the lobby at the station so that officers could go out and work on various cases. But lack of officers, budget cuts, and few resources has been an ongoing problem in cal City, and its residents are suffering as a result. That's not to say that law enforcement doesn't care, but they aren't equipped with the thing it's necessary to solve cases, and Debrie's is one of them. In fact, her case is one of eight unsolved crimes in kel City. Five of them are homicides and three of them are missing persons. So the resources are not there. They don't have enough people to work these cases, you know what I mean? Yes, I do it because it's a small police force. They don't have the manpower. They don't at all. And you know, if there's fifteen thousand residents and they're say twenty police officers, I don't know how many there are, but if they're say twenty on the police force, that's not even one

5:43 police officer per resident. No, not even close. Now, when you ask Debbie to describe her daughter, Debris, she'll tell you how Debris was funny, beautiful, and she was absolutely stonied, gorgeous girl, protective of her mother and her family, Intelligent, and an asshole. Not one to Min's words. Debbie told me that while she could sing her daughter's praises, it was unrealistic to say she was perfect, because Debry could absolutely be an asshole. She was also tough as nails. When Debry was a baby, she came up behind one of their dogs, and the dog, thinking the baby was their other dog, whipped around and bit Debris like on the face.

6:25 No, she wasn't hurt badly, just like a small cut on the nose. But instead of crying, Devery reprimanded the dog. This like little one looked at that dog and said, no wolf, wolf, no bite bad wafers Like this little toddler is reprimanding the dog. Well, she's she knows what's right and what's wrong. Like give her that. Even as a toddler. Yeah, she took no shit from anyone as a baby, and she was not going to take it from anyone as an adult. Growing up, Debris was as feisty as ever, not afraid to stand up to anyone for anything she believed in. Debbie told me how before she was born, Debry's older sister was obsessed with Full House and her favorite character was DJ, and she desperately wanted her baby sister to be DJ too, which is how Debray got her name, Debory Janet. But the nickname DJ never took.

7:24 In fact, most of her nicknames didn't as she grew up and expressed that she didn't like the nicknames that she would be given. But one finally did, and that was Boo. Because Debriy, with her fiery spirit, was reminiscent of a grown man twice her size that probably went by the nickname Boo. Okay, that works. Yep, It's like it's funny. It's so funny to me, and I think the nickname definitely suited her, So DeVry was Boo. As Debray got older and Debbie battled with her health, Debrie stood by her mom and helped take care of her. They were so close and their relationship or mind me of ours, Debbie told her daughter similar things that you've told me growing up, like how if I were at a party and drinking to call you, you would come get me, no questions asked.

8:11 And that was how Debbie was with her daughters to mom after my own life. It's all about keeping you guys safe, exactly. And she told him that they could be honest with her and tell her anything, no matter what. And I honestly, I wish I could play the entire hour long phone call I had with Debbie, because she just regaled me with stories of debriis. And not only did Deburie sound like a riot, but Debbie is a riot as well. Now, Debbie, while having grown up in cal City herself, actually raised her daughters in Montana. And she told me how about eight years ago she and her family moved back to cal City. Now, they were only supposed to be there for about six months fixing up the house and then they were gonna move on, But they were still there, and Debbie is still there even now. But they were still there in June of twenty sixteen when Devery was killed. Now, on the evening of June twenty fifth, twenty sixteen, Debry was twenty three years old, and she was leaving the house to go to the store with the front of hers She had asked Debbie if when she returned, she could take the car to grab some food at Taco Bell, which was about two towns over Now, that night, Debbie was exhausted. She told me that the truck had broken down earlier in the day and they were stuck in one hundred plus degree weather in the desert for hours before they got home. So soon after Debray left to go to the store with her friend, Debbie fell asleep. So the next morning, around nine to thirty ish in the morning, Debbie's mom texted Debbie

9:41 after receiving a NIXEL alert. Now, next, alerts are an alert you can receive on your phone for different things in your area, sep your weather, criminal activity, missing persons alerts, things like that. And the police or whoever sends out these alerts to whoever subscribed, and you'll get them right on your So, Debbie's mother had gotten an alert about a body that had been found in a park across the street from where Debbie lived. Now, prior to getting this message, Debbie was not concerned so that Debris wasn't home. She was an adult, She was a badass, and Debbie knew that Debry could handle herself. However, after getting this message, Debbie tried to get in contact with her daughter, calling and texting Debrie demanding she called back.

10:26 This was in sos, you need to get back to me, but Debury never answered. So Debbie got in the car and drove around to the houses of Debrie's friends looking for her, but no one had seen her. Debbie returned home around four o'clock and soon after was told by her roommate that the police were at the door, and Debbie just knew. The police confirmed her worst fear that the body found across the street was that of her daughter and that she had been murdered, she was strangled. But didn't she go to the store with her friend, like where was her friend? Or to get into the investigation. But that was where my thought process was as well, what about her friend? Now? They actually couldn't determine a time of death for Debris as it took so long for the coroner to get there to do a preliminary examination due to a devastating fire with many casualties that had happened farther away. I think it was like sixty miles away or something, so the corner was there, okay. So by the time the coroner arrived, Debry had been in the sun all day. And if you're curious, there is actually a law in most states that a body cannot be moved from where they have died until a coroner arrives to do this preliminary examination and make a pronunciation of death, which would be why she was not moved, even though they had to wait so long. Now, Debry's body had been discovered that morning by a few children, and they called over one of the mothers, who called the police. They had gone to believe there was an apartment complex

11:58 nearby, and they ran home, got one of the mombs and came back. So she calls the police. And this part it makes my blood boil. While waiting for the police to arrive, something possessed this woman to photograph debris and post the images to social media. Why in the hell would you do that? I don't, I can't, like I can't wrap my brain around it. And even when I was talking to Debbie about it, I was flabbergasted. What would possess a person to do that. This is someone's child, this is someone's loved one, sister and wife. I mean, she was old enough, she was an adult, she could have had children.

12:46 Why would you do that? I have no idea, I have no idea. I mean the pictures were taken down almost immediately. But from what Debbie told me, this woman tried to say that the police told her to take the pictures, which is obviously not true, and no law enforcement officer ever anywhere would be like, yeah, take pictures and post them online of this decedent. Never, absolutely never, And in fact, Debrie's time of death is actually listed as when the woman called the police, which is interesting to me because the woman, as Debbie rightly told me, was not qualified to make that determination, nor did she have the right to do so.

13:28 But that is when Debries's time of death is listed, is when this woman found her. And we'll come back to that, because just talking about it now is just it makes me see like it. In terms of the investigation, Debrie's was more involved than the other cases that are unsolved in Kal's city, and that primarily is because of Debbie taking the investigation into her own hands. And that's not to say that the police weren't doing their jobs. They were, and Debbie was very She told me she absolutely appreciated the police and the detectives working on her daughter's case, but a lot of the investigating they were able to do was due to the leads that Debbie herself was following up on Debbie had told me that she put herself in a lot of dangerous situations getting information. I'm sure she did, because there's nothing that a mom or a father, you know, dad, would not do. They would walk through the fires of hell for their children. It's point blank walk through the fires of hell, no questions asked. So I can one percent see Debbie doing whatever it took and whatever it takes to help the police arrest the person or persons that committed this heinous crime. Absolutely. Now for our For an

15:00 example, the friend that Debry went to the store with that night wasn't even questioned for the first six months, as he had just like fallen off the face of the earth, until Debbie had heard that moving vans were outside of his house and she alerted the police that he was apparently going to move. She's like, you need to go talk to him now, he's going to leave. So they did manage to catch him before he left town. It was I think by the time they got like all the paperwork in order, he was like almost at city limits when they caught up to him. But they caught up to him and they interviewed him and this friend was ultimately cleared his DNA was not a match to the DNA collected from Debury, and so it was pretty definitive that he wasn't the one responsible for Debry's murder, even though him falling off the face of the planet was, you know, kind of suspicious. Well, I wasn't saying anything about the friend. I just thought if they were together, maybe this person, this friend, would have had information. Oh no, absolutely absolutely, but he so it wasn't you know, it wasn't a slam to the friend. Do not get me wrong, people, It was not a slam. It was just if they had gone together, maybe he had information. Oh, she met somebody, she you know, she decided to go with them to wherever. You know, they were the last ones that saw her. No. Absolutely, but he, at least from what I can tell, didn't really have any helpful information

16:33 for police, and he was cleared as being not being involved. Additionally, none of the children that were there when Debray was found wherever interviewed, and these children were all under the age of eighteen, so the parents had to consent for them to be interviewed, and none of the parents agreed to it, which is just astounding to me. And I had said this to Debbie, this is this is one of those situations where I don't have to imagine what I would do, Like I know I would be consenting because my thought process would be as a mother, if my child could potentially give information to help get answers for another mother's murdered child, my kids would absolutely be at the police station talking to police. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that exactly.

17:19 Like I'm sure there's gonna be people out there that disagree, but well, it's not like you're talking to a toddler exactly. These were I mean, they were children. I don't I don't know what their age range was. I just know they were, you know, they were old enough to be playing in the park like by themselves. So it's not like they were like four or five years old. Well that's what I mean. They're They're not little little children where you know it might be or I'm sure it would be very traumatizing. And I'm not saying that it would be not traumatizing for an older child, don't get me wrong, but you know, if they they could potentially have information, yeah, it was more or less. You know, maybe they saw someone in the park that they didn't recognize, or someone that they did recognize, you know, that kind of thing. So I am fully under the belief that they should have been interviewed. And that's not even on the police. That's on the parents, you know, because they can't do anything without that consent. And it's ridiculous to me that none of the parents said, yes, you can talk to my child. I agree with you. Now. Unfortunately, Debrie's case went cold pretty quickly, and a lot of that had to do with the lack of police resources I mentioned in the beginning. But while the police may have been unable to really work on Debrie's case the way it should be worked on Debbie was not giving up. Remember those pictures that the woman took, How could I forget?

18:48 Well, two years after Debris was murdered, Debbie had them reenacted. Sergeant Shannon Hayes, who is working on Debrie's case and who Debbie commended for his work and for putting up with her quote, it was rather shocking to see the recreation she had with her friend laying as we had found every that day. It's kind of hard to look at, which was the point in that same article Debbie had said, quote, I want everyone to see what I see in my head every day. I don't know what else to do to get somebody's attention. Somebody somewhere knows something. Nobody can tell me that that's not true. Somebody probably has kids, and maybe if they see their kid laying there, I just need someone to do the right thing and help me.

19:30 The whole reenactment is honestly powerful to me. First of all, I hope that the woman that took the picture saw the reenactment and knows that what she did was horrific and disgusting. And second of all, I hope that the person who did this saw that and the gravity of what they did punsies them in the face. Like I hope it haunts them. I would hope it would haunt them too. But there's a lot of people out there that I wish their actions would haunt them, some of these cases that we've covered. That same year. Inspired by the movie Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Debbie put up her own billboards. Now. In the movie, a mother puts the billboards where her daughter was killed, urging police to solve her daughter's murder, and Debbie did the same thing. She placed three billboards on California City Boulevard. That's say quote, bust and grow houses is good, Busting killers is better. DeBie Schiller, October ninety two, June sixteen, Murder Unsolved. This was in response to the fact that while Debbie understands resources for police are limited, it seems as if the resources they do have are being used to bust marijuana growers instead of solving the cold cases that are haunting Cow City. According to kron four, California City had seen a mass amount of marijuana aids in twenty eighteen, which is frustrating because, as confirmed by Sergeant Hayes, it was absolutely taking resources away from these murder investigations. As

21:02 Debbie told me, the focus was put on these busts because medical marijuana had been legalized and these illegal growers were taking the profit, which absolutely makes sense as to why there was a focus, like, of course they were going to bust the growers because they and by day I need the government wasn't making money on the medical marijuana if people were going out and buying it from other people. But all of their focus was on that, and that should not have been the priority. No, absolutely not. Now, I will say, well, there may not be an official suspect. Debbie firmly believes she knows who is responsible for Debris's murder. Now, I obviously cannot say absolutely that this is the case, and that's for legal reasons. But I can tell you that Debris had a boyfriend by the name of Jerome Williams at the time of her death. Now, Jerome, needless to say, is not what I would call an upstanding member of society. He has a track record as long as is my arm, for various things, and was arrested in September of twenty twenty two according to the Desert News for quote suspicion of attempted, wilful, deliberate or premeditated murder, suspicion of assault with a firearm on a person, shooting at an inhabited dwelling or vehicle, et cetera, attempted, willful, deliberate or premeditated murder, driving without a license, hid and run resulting in property damage, discharging a firearm in a negligent manner, addict in possession of firearms, and violation of probation. Just in one month.

22:33 That seems a little bit much, meaning I don't understand how this person was still walking around free with this laundry list of crimes that they have either committed or they were suspected of committing. And you know, if you break pro probation, that's kind of a it's not a get out of jail free card, that's a go right back into jail card. That's what I'm saying now. Debbie told me that she knew that Debry wanted to break up with Jerome.

23:18 Devery was sick of the bullshit. And what Debbie thinks may have happened again this is not confirmed, is that on the night of Debrie's murder, Jerome and Debry were in the park. Jerome must have met up with her at some point after she got back from the store, and she tried to break up with him, and things got hostile, and Devere, being someone who was not afraid to stand up to anyone, didn't back down and things turned violent. Was there any I want to say, forensic evidence either on her body or near her body, or were they you know, bruising. I'm trying to, you know, understand the I want to say, what she had gone through that night that she was murdered. And why he wasn't looked into. So there is DNA evidence in Debry's case. The problem is that this evidence is circumstantial. If Jeram's DNA was on Devery's person, say, under her fingernails, that doesn't necessarily prove anything. And Debbie had described it very accurately because I didn't I didn't think of it at the time, and I asked her this question, if I scratch her back, your DNA is under my fingernails. No, that I that I fully understood. So, but if something were to have happened to you, your DNA is under my fingernails. But they can't say I did anything because it's circumstantial. I

24:49 scratched her back. You know, she's my mom. You know, if the police talked to him, it could be the same thing where we found your DNA under her fingernails while we were in a relationship. No, I fully get all of that. But all you've told us so far is that she was found in the park. No, nothing else was related. No, absolutely, and I understand what you're saying. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of evidence, at least evidence that I'm pretty to because it's still an ongoing investigation. Again, there is DNA evidence, DNA evidence that I am assuming is linking back to Jerome, but without any thing concrete, the DA will not move forward even if he is absolutely responsible for Debrite's murder, because they, in their mind, I guess, do not have a strong enough case against him, even though he is a career criminal and has been arrested for attempted murder at least once, if not more than ones. Well, let me let me play. Let me pose this question that if the only DNA that was found on her under her fingernails, on you know, on her hand, if the only DNA is one person's DNA, then wouldn't that

26:26 one person have at least some explaining to do. I agree. Have they talked to him in regards to her murder? I don't know. They have no idea. Well, as you said, they found DNA, yes, so if it's not his DNA, then they need to look for the DNA match. You know, they have all of these these brand new things, not really codis, and you know, all these different databases. Now, I'm not saying this person has a record or anything like that. They may not be in any of these databases, but at least one person is in this it's in this database, which would be her boyfriend or ex boyfriend or whatever you want to term him. You already know he's in the database.

27:19 So if the only DNA that is found on her matches him, I would at least think there was some major explaining to Dick. I agree, and I hope that they did talk to him. Maybe they did talk to him and they have something, but not enough. I I don't know. And she's frustrated with the DA as well. Ge I wonder why. I'd probably be camped outside of their office on what you know, what are you doing for me today? What are you doing for my daughter today? Because you haven't done much so far. So yeah, I'd be camped out. And Debbie pretty much has been good for her, absolutely good for her. She pretty much has been now. Unfortunately, as of today, Debie's case is still at a standstill and the cal City Police still really don't have the resources to solve her case. And it's not for lack of trying, but as I mentioned before, it's very difficult to work a case when you really don't have very many people even working at the police station. In fact, Debbie told me. There is currently only one person going over the on solved cases right now, just one, because that's all that can be afforded right now.

28:37 And this is an older gentleman. I believe he's retired, Like one person eight cases. Well, wouldn't it be time for the cal City Police Department to hire more police officers that have the correct and adequate training to do this? Didn't we go over another case where there was actually a group of former detectives and FBI whatnot that they look at cold cases? Is that not? Was that not one of the cases that you covered? If I'm from my round correctly, it's Elizabeth Salgato and the Utah Cold Case Coalition headed by Jason Jensen. But wasn't there another like almost I know you just mentioned Utah, but wasn't there one that If anybody can answer this question, I would very much like the answer to this one, please. I thought there was one that was more or they handle cases from all oh, all over, and I'm thinking of California and Shara Resmusem's case where they had detectives specifically working on cold cases in California. Well, this would be a perfect case for them to investigate yes, I agree it would be and part of the reason that there aren't enough police officers is that cal City doesn't have the budget for more. I'm not gonna say anything for that one. I just can't because

30:11 I'll get on a soapbox and it will be another hour or two before I get off. Since soapbox, Debbie has been waiting almost eight years for answers in Debry's case, and frankly, that's eight years too long. She is a woman fighting for an arrest to be made, and she has worked tirelessly to get these answers. But it has been a long fight with a lot of roadblocks. It is exhausting. She is not in the best of health and it's a lot of work, but she will not give up. She will continue to fight and call the police every week to discuss the case and make as much noise as she can raising hell until someone is named responsible for her daughter's murder. She calls every Tuesday. Good for her, You go, girl, absolutely. Deburie was a vibrant, beautiful, sassy woman who is dearely missed and her family deserves answers. Debbie, I know you're listening, and I hope you get these answers, because I know you won't stop until you get them. If anyone out there knows anything about Deborie Schiller's murder, please call Cal CITYPD at seven six zero three seven three eight six zero six or secret Witness at six six' one three two two four zero four zero. I am fully on Debbie's side. She is a mom that, as you said, will not stop. I fully am on her side with

31:45 the fact that there is somebody out there that knows something and they need to come forward. There should be no fear in coming forward and do the right thing. I mean, it has to haunt the person that knows something because they've kept silent for all of these years. Knowing that you know this, this family is suffering, It would certainly haunt me. I absolutely agree. I absolutely agree. It's frustrating, and as I was researching this case, it was frustrating because there's there's still no answers, and as Debbie said, you know, there's no there's no just real justice because she won't ever get every back, but she at the very least can see an arrest be made and someone be held accountable. Absolutely with that, I hope someone out there hears this and can come forward with any sort of information. And to Debbie, I hope and hope and hope and pray that you get those answers and you an arrest is made because it's been too long with that one. But with that, we will see you guys in the next chapter. Have a lovely rest of your week. Bye, guys, thank you so much for listening to this chapter of the Book of the Dead. As always, check the source notes for resources used in this chapter, and don't forget that you could follow us on Instagram at Book of the Dead Pod or shoot us an

33:15 email with ak suggestion at bookofthedeadpodat gmail dot com. We just hope that you have a wonderful rest of your week. We will be back next week with another chapter of the Book of the Dead and always remember to stay curious, stay safe, and stay vigilant. Bye guys, Bye,