Our card this week is Andrea Durham, the Ace of Clubs from Florida. February third was National Missing Persons Day, and in order to bring awareness, AudioChick has been doing something a little special this week that actually started with Andrea. While digging into her case, we discovered that she was one of 36 missing kids that were featured in Soul Asylums music video for their song, Runaway Train. 21 of those cases have been resolved thanks to that video, and we want to help raise that number. In doing so, multiple audio check shows will be telling the stories of those on the list who still remain missing. So if you haven't tuned in yet, we released a bonus episode on Crime Junkie yesterday, highlighting seven more of those cases. Seven stories all in one episode. And then Dark Down East will be releasing an episode on one of the cases tomorrow. And I'm going to tell you about Andrea's story right right now. Last Thursday, February first, 2024, marked 34 years since Andrea Durham disappeared during a routine chore in her own home, and whoever took her could still be out there. I'm Ashley flowers, and this is The Deck.

When Rosanne Sterling returned to her apartment a little after 9:00 PM on February first, 1990, she reached in her purse to grab her key, probably had a pure habit. She always locked the door when she left her 13-year-old daughter, Andrea, home alone. That evening had been no exception when she and her 15-year-old daughter, Asha, left for a meeting around 7:30. But when her hand met the knob, it wiggled slightly like it had already been unlocked. Weird, maybe, but she had no need to worry yet. She had to remind herself that her once little girl was now a young teen, becoming more and more independent by the day. But when Roseanne stepped in eye, she saw something that seemed out of place, which made her unease grow. It was the vacuum. Here's Okalusa County Sheriff's office Senior Investigator Kelly Henderson.

According to the family, no matter who vacuum the residence, the vacuum would immediately be put back in its place upon completion, and it was in the middle of the floor, which was very uncommon.

Rosanne had asked Andrea to clean up, but something about this felt unsettling. I mean, the vacuum was just standing there as if her younger daughter had been abruptly interrupted mid-chore. Roseanne's eyes darted around the room looking for any other signs that she should be concerned, but there were none. No broken windows, no overturned tables or chairs. I mean, there was still even cash sitting out, and Andrea's pricey tennis equipment hadn't even been touched. Trying to suppress their growing worry, both mom and daughter made their way to Andrea's room to check things out, but it was more of the same. Nothing appeared to be out of place. It looked the exact same way it had since they recently moved in, a classic pre-teen bedroom. According to reporting from Northwest Florida Daily News, stuffed animals decorated the dresser and bed, and pictures of celebrities torn from magazines were taped on her baby blue walls. Her clothes were all neatly organized in the closet. Even her jacket and purse were there. You might be thinking, who needs a jacket in Florida, right? But it was a February evening. And for a Fort Walton Beach girl, it was cool enough for a light jacket.

So they knew Andrea wouldn't have gone far without it or without her bag, and of course, her latest obsession, her makeup. All of that was still in the apartment. All signs pointed to the fact that Andrea would be back any minute. And so honestly, the predominant feeling in the family was mostly agitation that she seemingly had run off without leaving behind a note. But Thirty minutes passed, then an hour, and then three. Agitation left and fear swooped in to take its place. After waiting it out for those few hours, Rosanne decided that she needed to call police to report Andrea missing. It was just after midnight by the time she made the call, and investigators from the Okalusa County Sheriff's office arrived at the apartment just minutes later. However, despite the quick response time, they were operating under the assumption that Andrea may have just decided to stay out late or had even run away. Because even though she had never left home in the past, the more they learned about what was going on in her life at the time, the less they believed foul play was involved. You see, police had learned that she'd recently gotten into some trouble.

Two months before, some kids that she'd been hanging out with were caught stealing things from cars. And although Andrea hadn't done any of the actual breaking in and theft, she had acted as the lookout. She was facing missing probation and was set to appear in juvenile court within the next couple of weeks. Though it's worth noting that it seems likely her punishment would have just been some community service. We're not talking like severe jail time or anything here. But this wasn't even the only thing going on in her life. See, the family had only moved into this apartment complex less than a month prior. Rosanne and Andrea had been living in another area of Fort Walton Beach, and Asha had been living with her dad in Pensacola, so both girls were forced to move schools. And as you can imagine, this caused a bit of a stir. Obviously, a stressful situation for two teens to have to start over again in unfamiliar territory. And Andrea, in particular, had not been too happy about it. And believe it or not, she had actually just started at prior middle school the very day she went missing. So according to her family, she had been moody that morning and did not want to go to the new school, but she did end up going begrudgingly.

So it's all of this played into police's narrative that she could have had a reason to want to run. Now, despite having her own doubts, Asha told us that she went along with the idea that her sister could have left to just hang out with friends, or at least she went along with it at first. But talking to her today, in hindsight, she says that that story didn't really make sense to her. Yeah, Andrea was bummed about having to switch schools, sure, but she didn't seem to be phased by getting into trouble. So she wouldn't have wanted to run away just to get out of some community service. And again, Andrea would have never left her makeup. That's the thing she keeps pointing back to. But more than anything, running away just didn't fit with Andrea's personality.

She was very skittish. She didn't like taking the trash out by herself. I don't see her walking around the streets by herself. I was always much more brave than she was. So that's unlike her character to just just walk off. She was godly. When they used to do the commercials about send your money to Africa, she would send her money. She prayed a lot, which for someone younger not to be raised in the church was pretty unique, I thought. I consider her a goody two shoes as an older sister.

Early that same morning, investigators drove around town to search for Andrea to see if they could quickly locate her. They also canvas the apartment complex, searching for the missing teen, and they started speaking to neighbors who may have seen or heard something between 7:30 and 9:15 PM. But no one they spoke to saw or heard a thing. No suspicious vehicles, no commotion, nothing. Same thing with workers at the nearby convenience store they checked. There is, however, some controversy about how well the apartments were actually canvassed. Asha said her mom claimed many of her neighbors weren't actually spoken to back when Andrea first went missing, and she felt she had to pick up the slack. She even started a petition urging police to question everyone in the large complex. Investigator Henderson said she didn't remember seeing anything in the case file regarding this petition, so it's unclear if it pushed police to try and talk with more of Andrea's neighbors or what. However, the notes she did see indicated detectives knocked on doors and talked to everyone who was available at the time. Now, that first week, there was at least some consideration given to the idea that maybe Maybe someone else was involved in Andrea's disappearance.

We know this because Investigator Henderson said that there are reports that detectives scanned the area for sexual offenders in an attempt to rule out any of them who may have lived or worked close to the neighborhood. They even went as far as making some house visits, checking to see if there were any signs that Andrea was with any of them or had been at some point. But in doing this, they found nothing. None of these people were considered persons of interest. I think one of the main reasons this case was so frustrating for law enforcement is that there was so little evidence, not only at the scene, but they also didn't see or have any witnesses that placed her in a vehicle or in the company of anyone. We also didn't have a lot of surveillance cameras like we have today. We have the ring doorbells that you might be able to canvas the area for. Back then, we just didn't have that available. That new voice is Nicole Hodgkins, the Emerald Coast crime stoppers coordinator. She's the one who's been filtering through any tips coming in on Andrea's case today. Asha and our reporter, Madison, traveled back to the neighborhood, including the old apartments, to get a better feel for the setup there.

And this wasn't like one apartment building or anything. It's pretty big with nine buildings, mostly two stories each and a lot of places to park. The family's apartment building was at the back of the complex. You can find pictures on our blog post for this episode. Now, there are no other buildings directly behind Andrea's apartment. There's just a grassy yard area and a road close by. Asha said, if anything, that area would have been even less populated back in 1990, so it would have potentially been easy for an outsider to come in undetected. But that was the thing. There was no evidence that someone had come in. And even though it had now been almost a week since Andrea vanished, they were still considering the idea that maybe she did leave on her own. So police spoke to her friends and classmates, hoping that one of them might know who she was with or where she was. But they learned nothing of significant interest. So they really had to consider the possibility that she could have been abducted by someone in her family. I mean, statistically, that would be the most plausible. Andrea's parents were divorced, and police wondered if there could have been a brewing custody battle.

But almost as soon as that idea came to them, it was quickly ruled out. Andrea's father had no idea where she was and was putting in a lot of effort to help find his daughter. It looks like the biological father also hired a private investigator who actually cooperated fully with the Oklahoma County Sheriff's Office investigators. Of course, Rosanne and Asha were quickly ruled out, too. They helped distribute flyers and push out news releases with Andrea's information. Her family also helped look for Andrea in areas surrounding the apartment complex. In our area, we really have so many wooded areas, lots of recreational areas. It's like searching for a needle in a high stack. Days passed, then weeks, then months with no sign of Andrea. Any notion that she had willingly run away fated with the passage of time, which left one terrifying possibility. Andrea was abducted.

To me, it seems like it's a crime of opportunity. Maybe somebody was casing the parking lot and saw mom leave, saw sister leave, knew that she was in there by herself, knocked on the door back in the '90s, yeah, it's not uncommon. Even for a 13-year-old, opened the door and then it seemed as if she was just yanked right then and there and pulled away.

It's also possible that she opened the door for someone she was familiar with. Investigators learned that Roseanne had a schedule where she tended to be gone many nights during the week between 7:00 and 9:00. So even though the family hadn't been in the area for very long, it's totally possible someone could have caught wind of her usual routine and knew that there was often at least one teenage girl, sometimes both, left behind at the apartment.

I see her going with them if they said, Hey, something's happened to your mom and your sister, and you need to come with me. I totally would see her going and doing that.

Who knows what ruse the individual may have used to gain entry into the apartment. Maybe it was, I'm a handyman. I'm here to fix something, or could you help me come with this. I've got a flat tire. Anything. We don't know what approach was used that could have possibly given them access to get her out of the apartment. Even though months passed with no word from her sister, Asha held on to the hope that she could still come back one day. This was more than just blind hope. Sometime after Andrea vanished, her mother met and eventually married a man who had a story of his own to tell. As a teenager, he ran away from home and eventually reunited with his family about 20 years later.

He was gone years and years and years. I said, How could you be gone that long and not want to come back? He was like, Well, I just thought nobody was looking for me anymore. He said, And after a while, I thought, What am I going to say? Just show up. For a long time, that was my hope story. Obviously, as the years went by, I don't think anything would keep her away that long.

As you can imagine, that first year after Andrea's disappearance was tough for Asha and her mom. Roseanne held on tight to the only child she had left, which over time felt suffocating. Tensions were high, so much so that Asha moved out of her mother's place at the young age of 16. She just couldn't deal with the stress of her mother's constant worries over her well-being. For the next few years, buzz around Andrea's disappearance was nothing but a low hum since no new information was coming in about what may have happened to her. But according to an article by People magazine, in the early '90s, before the age of Amber Alerts and social media, Andrea did get some newfound attention from a rather unexpected source. Popular rock band, Soul Asylum, released a music video for their hit song, Runaway Train, which aired on MTV. According to an article from CNN and Northwest Florida Daily News, the band featured, Powerful vignettes of about 36 children who have gone missing. That included Andrea. Apparently, there was more than one version of this music video, as it was said to have been recut multiple times in order to highlight a diverse array of missing children.

While we weren't able to track down a copy of the version with Andrea in it, and neither could her family, we were told that one definitely existed at some point in time. Problem is we just can't see it or vouch for its validity. In a Guardian article from 2022, it says, The first to come home was Elizabeth Wiles, a teenager who'd run away from home with an older guy. She'd been watching TV with friends, seeing herself in the runaway train video, and called her mom. Some cases were very sad. They didn't come back because they were dead. But each time a kid was found, we'd recut the video with a new missing person. We eventually found 21 of the 36 kids we featured, end quote. But unfortunately, Andrea wasn't one of them. Asha and Roseanne never stopped searching for a face in the crowd. No matter how how far they went, no matter how unlikely it seemed, they couldn't help but check out other people passing by, praying that one of them could be their person.

Definitely in the first 5, 6, 7, 10 years, that was a constant thing. And in the very beginning, my mom went all over the country looking after leads and whatnot. But anytime I see a couple of little actresses that just have that innocent look in their face, and my girl is one of them. I can't remember her name, Anyway, she looks just like her, the way her mannerisms are and the way that she acts. That's how Andrea was. You see that in certain people, and it just reminds you of her.

Asha and Roseanne even published emotional letters addressed to Andrea in the local paper, letting her know that she was loved and missed, begging her to come home. They still have these newspaper clippings preserved in a binder stuffed with mementos and records of Andrea's case today. And her mom even kept a journal and timeline of the happenings in her daughter's case so that she would never forget the details no matter how many years passed. And many years did pass. And in that time, tips trickled in here and there, but they were never anything substantial. Still, both investigators and Roseanne would follow up on every single one. Rosanne would even fly out to wherever the tips came from, and at one point even hired private investigators to make sure every lead was investigated fully until she could no longer afford it. As the case grew colder, detectives were well aware that Andrea would have been getting older, too. So a new age progressed photo was released sometime in the mid '90s, showing what Andrea would look like as a young adult. And that did spark a few new tips. But Unfortunately, none of them helped the case.

I would say that most of the crime service tips that came in were suggestions like, Hey, you might want to check this area, or you might want to check over here. She could be buried here. But it never really gave us any a suspect name or anything else like But there was a suspect name that made the radar around 1998. A Florida Department of Law Enforcement agent named Dennis Haley approached detectives who were looking into Andrea's case, and he had questions about a very dangerous man who had brought up Andrea's name during an interview. That man was Mark Reby. While behind bars for the murder of Donna Callahan, a 29-year-old pregnant woman who he abducted from a convenience store where she in 1989, Reby stunned Agent Haley when he proceeded to confess to murdering a staggering 12 additional women, only to later recant these spine-chilling admissions, clouding the case further with claims of only confessing to protect his son. Now, Andrea was not one of the additional 12 Reby named. However, this guy apparently brought up Andrea's name out of the blue while talking to Agent Haley about the other him in, saying that he didn't have anything to do with that missing girl.

Trying to figure out why Reby would even mention Andrea's case without being prompted, Agent Haley wanted to talk to the county investigators who have Andrea's case about a potential connection between the two. So that's when he approached them. Our reporter, Madison, was able to track down the now retired agent to see what he remembered about all of this. And while he was never actually assigned to Andrea's case, he did his due diligence to look into the possible connection between the young girl and this alleged serial killer. He said that he thinks Reby probably blurted out Andrea's name because he had picked it up from talking with other people. Plus, Andrea's case would have been under the media spotlight at the time. And although Reby and his family had lived near Andrea around 1990, Agent Haley thinks that Reby was staying with family, maybe in Orlando at the time she went missing. So for those reasons, he concluded that Reby likely wasn't responsible for Andrea's disappearance. With each passing year, Andrea's family accepted the growing possibility that if Andrea were to be found, it may be her remains that are recovered. So Roseanne gave DNA to law enforcement in case there was ever a match with discovered remains.

But even then, they never, ever gave up hope. They continued working to find answers, even making TV appearances to help bring Andrea home. But the tips generated from all this attention didn't bring them any closer to finding Andrea. According to a CNN article, at least one of these shows left Andrea's sister feeling exploited. It was one where with a camera in tow, producers convinced her to confront a fast food restaurant employee, a girl that somehow they thought might have been her sister, even though Asha knew in her heart that there was no way this person was her. Despite this bad experience, Andrea's family still jumps at any opportunity to draw attention to her case. For nearly two decades, that's all they really could do to keep moving forward. That is, until more tangible tips started coming in. In 2019, there was a new strong development, but that tip didn't come into crime stoppers or police. It actually came right to Asha, and that tip circled right back to Mark Reby. Asha received this information secondhand from someone who would be very familiar with Reby and his family. And this person suggested that Andrea may have known one of Reby's sons back in 1990, around the time that she went missing.

And they're saying she either knew him from the local tennis center or she had even maybe been to his house to hang out, meaning that Reby could have been familiar with her. The problem is no one we spoke to could verify this tip. We asked Investigator Henderson about Reby being a possible suspect, and she said that he has been looked into in the past, and he is still someone that they're looking at today. And while she wasn't able to elaborate any further, she did confirm that Reby could have either lived nearby or traveled through the area where Andrea and her family lived when she disappeared. And while this is definitely a lead worth looking into, there are a few reasons why Reby actually doesn't totally make sense as a suspect. As someone who studied the man for more than two decades, retired FDLE agent Dennis Haley still does not think that the two are connected. Then there's the fact that what happened with Andrea doesn't really seem to be his MO. I mean, for one, she's much younger than his potential victims. And while he was known to kidnap, knocking on someone's door and luring them out doesn't necessarily fit.

Retired agent Haley didn't seem to put much stock into the story about Reby's son knowing Andrea. But until someone can say for sure, we'll just have to sit on it. After that, there wasn't much solid to go off of for two two more years until 2021. That's when a concrete tip came in involving inmates who could have potentially been responsible for Andrea's disappearance. And this led detectives to finally search somewhere specific.

After getting those names and doing a little bit of research in different databases, law enforcement were able to identify the areas where that person had either lived or had access to. We made contact with the current owners of property and had consent to search several different areas. When we started to strategize and to get that search underway, we brought in an organization with Cadaver Dogs to help with that process and ground penetrating radar to help to see for any disturbances underneath the ground. Then if we found one, then we would do a dig to see if we could locate any remains or clothing that may be involved with the victim.

According to Investigator Henderson, the only solid solid thing that came out of one of those searches was an extra large plain white T-shirt, just like the one Andrea had been wearing as she was lounging around and cleaning the same night she went missing. But to everyone's disappointment, in Investigators discovered that that specific brand and style of shirt wasn't produced until 1998, meaning that the shirt couldn't have been the same one Andrea was wearing that night she disappeared. But investigators didn't have to wait too long for their next new lead, because that same year, 2021, a viable and very specific crime stopper's tip came in, and that is what drove the most recent search for Andrea back in January of 2022.

A crime stopper's tip said, You should look at this specific address for Andrea Durham.

In addition to that, it gave precise instructions as to exactly where her remains would be found on this property. I mean, we're talking cardinal directions and number of feet here. So needless to say, this tip seemed promising.

The property at the time of her disappearance, it was wooded. There was no house built on it yet. There was some construction work going on nearby where there was construction workers in and out, but easily accessed and not populated by people. So we made contact with the property owners, and they said, Absolutely, you have our consent. I remember sitting there talking to them on the porch while the cadaver dogs were out there, and they did find some disturbances, but no evidence or any value came out of it. Some of it was trash that had been dug, or a hole had been dug and trash had been placed in. So we didn't find any significant evidence.

While it turns out some of those previous jailhouse informants were mentioned earlier, only brought up Andrea's name some sick street cred, there are actually two men still currently incarcerated who Investigator Henderson is looking into.

I still have two people of interest that I am strategizing to go out and talk with. I am also constantly getting emails, phone calls from other agencies, especially in Florida, where they have located unidentified remains, and we are comparing those remains to Andrea's dental records to verify if that is her or not. So we are still actively doing that quite often.

Investigator Henderson didn't want to name these two inmates specifically. When asked what makes these particular two people worth pursuing further, Henderson hinted that the time frame when they were out of jail and where they lived at the time of Andrea's disappearance line up.

Yeah, definitely. It could be the connection to the area or if it's a similar MO or victimology of why they're in prison to begin with. If they're already charged or incarcerated on a a missing juvenile or a juvenile that they have kidnapped and then killed. Is that case? Does it have similarities to our current missing juvenile case?

When Asha has the time for social media, she spends it updating a Facebook page dedicated to her sister, Andrea Durham, missing, not forgotten. So when she logged back into her personal account after a few years, she was surprised to see a name pop up in her inbox that she hadn't seen in a long time. The message was from one of Andrea's childhood friends, Matt. The two were buddies back in their old neighborhood before the Durham sisters moved to their new apartment complex. Practically an expert at this point dedicated to her sister's case, she was shocked to learn a tidbit of information from him that she hadn't heard before.

He said that he had spoken to her the night that she disappeared, probably about 30 minutes before we had gotten home because he was upset the things he was reading, that they thought she had run away or that something happened to her when she went to the store, and he was like, That's not the case. I was on the phone with her 30 minutes before she disappeared. And he said, It haunts me now that I'm the last one that probably talked to her before she disappeared.

We weren't able to get a hold of Matt's original statement, but Asha said that he did tell her he was interviewed by police multiple times. Matt said that the last conversation with Andrea was casual, mostly just catching up since she had recently moved out of the neighborhood. But he was able to recall that Andrea kept mentioning that she needed to hop off the phone to vacuum. Now, if you haven't had a loved one go missing, this may seem like an insignificant detail. But for Asha, being able to close just one small gap in the potential timeline gives her a clearer picture of what may have happened that February night more than three decades ago. Like Investigator Henderson, it makes her feel like it's more likely someone lured her sister out of what was supposed to be a safe space, their home.

It's hard. It's hard during milestones. When I got married or when I had my first child, I don't have any other siblings, so it's always been me and my mom and Andrea. I'm sure it's the same way for my mom. I had survivor's guilt for a while. It should have been me, not her. So that's been tough. It's tough never stopping looking. You have the guilt, the guilt that's always there. At this At this point, I'm fairly confident she's not with us anymore. I feel like there was nothing in our childhood or nothing that would make her stay away this long. Even if my stepdad, he started to live a life, I don't think that's the case anymore. There's been too much media, there's too much out there for her to check back and see and obviously see that we've been crushed by this. I can't see her doing that.

Married now, Asha refuses to drop the last name Durham, yearning for that slim chance that someone somewhere out there wants to contact her to get a long-kept secret off their chest.

It's time to come forward. There's no reason for them not to come forward. Our family has discussed this. We are not looking to prosecute anyone. We are not looking for justice, even at this point. My mom wants to know where her little girl is before she dies. That's what we want to know to make sure Andrea has been at peace. If she's been at peace all this time, we just need to know.

That's what motivates Investigator Henderson to keep moving forward on this daunting case with so little evidence. To find this missing girl from Okalusa County to bring her home and to bring her family, even just the slightest sense of peace. After all, she was only officially handed the Durham case in December of 2022, but she's always taken her police to heart to serve and protect.

As a parent, all you want is to be able to take care of your child and to keep them safe and know where they're at and know that they're okay. As an investigator, that's also your job. My job is to keep every citizen in Okalusa County safe. And when you have a 13-year-old that's missing, just completely disappeared, you have failed her and you have failed her family. And her family is, I'm assuming, having to I wake up every day wondering, one, is my child alive? Two, what did my child go through? And three, if she's not alive, where is she?

I want to close out this episode by reading one of the notes that Andrea's sister wrote in the local newspaper after she first went missing. As someone who has a little sister myself, it really resonates with me, as I'm sure it will with many of you. I used to fight with Andrea. She'd really tick me off. We drive my mom crazy, yelling and telling all the time. Although once in a while, we would gossip and share and somehow become bestest of friends. But now she's gone. It seems like forever. I don't know where she is. If only she'd come home, I'd show her how much I care. And once again, we'd be together. At the time of her disappearance, Andrea Durham stood at 5 feet, 3 inches tall and weighed around 110 pounds. She has green eyes and dark, dirty blonde hair. She was last seen wearing a white T-shirt, fated black jeans, and white sneakers. If she were alive today, Andrea would be 47 years old. We have an age progressed photo of her in her mid-30s up on our blog post for this episode that you can check out. If you know anything about the disappearance of Andrea Durham, please contact Emerald Coast Crime Stoppers at 850-863-8477, or you can visit their website to submit a tip anonymously.

Today. Don't forget to head over to the Crime Junkie feed to hear more cases from the Runaway Train music video. Don't miss Dark Down East bonus episode tomorrow. The Deck is an audio Chuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about The Deck and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast. Com. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?