0:00

I have some very important, thank you is to send out to those who have donated so generously to my coffee fund.

0:07

I couldn't possibly even, I couldn't drink the amount of coffee funds you have all sent to me.

0:14

And I thank you so much for your support for supporting me, for supporting the show.

0:18

I want to thank Claudia, Julie, Laura, Melanie, Paige, Molly, Jennifer, and Gina.

0:26

Thank you so much for your support.

0:29

When

0:29

Ashley

0:29

pond

0:29

disappeared

0:29

in

0:29

January,

0:29

2002

0:29

on

0:29

her

0:29

way

0:29

to

0:29

school,

0:29

the

0:29

investigators

0:29

first

0:29

wondered

0:29

if

0:29

she

0:29

had

0:29

run

0:29

away

0:29

as

0:29

they

0:29

were

0:29

investigating

0:29

Ashley's

0:29

friend

0:29

Miranda

0:29

goddess

0:29

also

0:29

disappeared

0:29

on

0:29

the

0:29

same

0:56

route. The bus stop. The town feared a mysterious predator was on the loose, but it turned out he was in full view the entire time I'm Charlie and welcome to crime lines.

1:06

Welcome

1:06

to

1:06

crime

1:06

lanes

1:06

in

1:06

this

1:06

week's

1:06

episode,

1:06

I

1:06

wanted

1:06

to

1:06

say

1:06

just

1:06

right

1:06

before

1:06

we

1:06

get

1:06

started,

1:06

I've

1:06

been

1:06

doing

1:06

a

1:06

few

1:06

more

1:06

guest

1:06

spots

1:06

on

1:22

podcasts. For some reason, you know, sometimes I get asked all the time.

1:27

Sometimes I never get asked. Well, recently I've been getting asked quite a bit.

1:30

And so I did a guest spot on the podcast, riddle me that where I did what I usually do when I do these guests spots, I had very little filter and I talked true crime.

1:41

M M I w cases.

1:43

And just podcasting in general.

1:45

Again, that podcast is riddle me that you can go check it out.

1:49

We discussed case era stops pretty places specifically, and I'll leave a link in the description box, assuming I remember.

1:58

Okay. So aren't you, this week's episode, which does come with a content warning.

2:01

This episode deals with abuse of children and sexual assaults.

2:05

And that is polar roll.

2:07

When I bring up the first instance, you may think, okay, that was it.

2:12

But it won't be, I won't be getting terribly graphic, but listener discretion is advised.

2:18

Let's start in Oregon city, Oregon, which is about 30 minutes south of Portland in 2002 twelve-year-old Ashley pond lived there with her mother and her sisters in a decently sized affordable housing project that had about 125 units.

2:36

Ashley was a seventh grader at the local middle school where she was a member of the dance team.

2:41

And also the swim team.

2:42

Ashley was a pretty quiet kid, but she would get really chatty when she got to know her.

2:47

And she was well liked in school with a large group of friends on January 9th, 2002, Ashley was eating a quick breakfast with her little sister she needed to up, or she was going to miss the school bus.

3:01

This bus stop was about half a mile up the hill from her home.

3:05

So it would normally be less than 10 minutes to get up there.

3:10

But like I said, she was running late.

3:12

So she was heading out quickly, immediately afterschool Ashley had dance practice.

3:18

So her mother Lori expected a call around six or six 15.

3:22

That dance practice was over when Ashley didn't call Laurie called the school and found out that not only was Ashley not there for dance practice, she had never made it to school in the morning.

3:36

Ashley had left the house around 8:00 AM and now it was after 6:00 PM and Delore knew they had lost a valuable hours if something had happened to Ashley.

3:49

So she immediately called the police.

3:51

When the police arrived to take her statement and make the report.

3:56

Laurie told them that nothing in Ashley's room was missing aside from what she would have taken with her to school.

4:03

Laurie did not believe that Ashley would have run away and there was no evidence she did while the investigators also didn't see any evidence.

4:13

She ran away, they did run some checks and it did look like Ashley's home.

4:18

Life had not been entirely happy or stable either in the year, leading up to her disappearance, child services and or the police were called five to eight times to check on the welfare of the children or for domestic disputes.

4:34

The calls varied from just general welfare checks on the children to two calls, specifically accusing Laurie of locking her children out of the home.

4:45

Each time it was determined that the home was minimally adequate and the children were left in Lori's custody.

4:53

So while on paper, it may look like Ashley had a reason to run away.

4:59

The police did check with the kids on her bus.

5:02

No one saw her that morning at all.

5:04

And none of her friends had seen or heard from her.

5:07

And she wasn't hiding out with any of them.

5:09

They also checked Ashley's internet usage, mind you we're talking 2002, mostly email and maybe some chat rooms that didn't give any indication in anything there that she made plans to leave quite the opposite.

5:25

She was excited for even just dance team practice after school, on the day of her disappearance.

5:32

And there were no recent arguments with her mother or with her sisters or with friends that would give her a reason to run away.

5:41

The police also had to explore the possibility that this was a non-custodial parental kidnapping, because Ashley did have a recent trauma involving her biological father.

5:51

And he was from my understanding barred from ever seeing her.

5:56

Again, we do have to go back a few years to fully understand the situation.

6:01

Ashley was initially raised by her mother, Lori and David pond, who she thought was her father.

6:07

But when they divorced, when Ashley was around eight, David wanted paternity tests done.

6:13

It was discovered in this process that Ashley was not his biological child.

6:19

Her father was actually a man named Wesley Roker, Jr.

6:23

Ashley began having weekend visits with her father after paternity was established though, he was a relative stranger to her.

6:33

Then in December, 2000, the then 11 year old Ashley disclosed that Wesley had been sexually abusing her for years, Wesley was arrested and charged with 40 counts related to this years, long sexual abuse of Ashley in September, 2001, Wesley managed to plead no contest to one count with the rest of the counts being dropped.

6:59

He was given 10 years of probation, but he was not able to see Ashley again.

7:04

Then four months after he got a slap on the wrist, Ashley went missing.

7:10

This had to be investigated, but Wesley had an alibi.

7:14

This poor kid, Ashley was dealing with a lot of chaos and trauma in her short life.

7:21

One teacher called Ashley, one of the most badly abused children she had ever seen.

7:27

And she said Ashley was a child who fought to survive.

7:31

But

7:31

in

7:31

the

7:31

months

7:31

after

7:31

her

7:31

father's

7:31

plea

7:31

deal

7:31

and

7:31

the

7:31

end

7:31

of

7:31

the

7:31

court

7:31

case,

7:31

Ashley

7:31

actually

7:31

started

7:31

turning

7:31

around

7:31

a

7:41

bed. Her mood lightened, she was more bubbly.

7:44

Her grades began improving.

7:47

So while the police could see why Ashley might've run away, they ruled it out pretty early on, on January 18th, the FBI came in to aid the investigation and the searches for Ashley on March 1st Ashley's 13th birthday came and went without any clue as to where she was please from the police to the public for tips and leads on where Ashley could be continued in the media for two months, when the headlines took a sharp turn and started talking about another girl Ashley's friend, 13 year old Miranda, Gaddis Miranda lived in the same apartment complex as Ashley.

8:30

She went to the same school and she was even on the same dance team on the morning of March 8th, 2002 Miranda's mother Michelle left for work around seven 30 in the morning.

8:42

Miranda was expected to have left her house around eight to walk that same path.

8:48

Ashley had to the bus stop around one 20 that afternoon.

8:52

One of Miranda's sisters, their mom, and told her that Miranda had not made it to school that day.

8:59

Michelle called the school to confirm, and then immediately called the police, just like Ashley.

9:04

It looked like Miranda had never even made it the half mile to the bus stop.

9:10

Also like Ashley, the only things missing for Miranda's room were her school things, no clues were taken and no friends had been contacted.

9:20

The similarities in circumstances had the cases linked, obviously from the start though, they were also investigated individually as well.

9:30

Just like Ashley's family was looked at.

9:34

So was Miranda's.

9:36

But the two families insisted from the start that Miranda and Ashley had been abducted and by the same person, and they also believed it was someone, the girls knew, perhaps someone who pulled over and offered them a ride to school as they walk to the bus stop.

9:53

The family did not believe that either girl would have gone with a stranger.

9:58

So whoever it was and whatever ruse they used to learn the girls away, it was someone they trusted while the police said the connection between the abductions was one of many theories.

10:12

The school buses and Oregon city began picking kids up in front of their apartments, in their homes.

10:18

They completely disbanded the idea of bus stops.

10:22

While this was being investigated.

10:24

Parents were terrified that there was someone stocking, bus stops, or children walking to them to abducted them.

10:33

You can imagine with the public in fear and the investigation underway, it was very intense.

10:41

There were large scale searches, organized and conducted by both the police and volunteers America's most wanted came in.

10:50

They ran two segments, one on March 16th and one on April 6th, talking about both cases to the widest audience possible in the time between the airings of the two America's most wanted episodes, a lead came in from clear across the country.

11:09

A twelve-year-old boy was in a marina in Florida.

11:13

When he found a plastic bag with the words, please help written on it inside the bag was a note that said, hi, my name is Ashley, and I know my mom is crying.

11:27

So please help me get away and go home to my mom.

11:31

I am 13 years old and my friend Miranda is 13 also.

11:36

And she is with me.

11:38

Please help us get home fast.

11:40

I love my mommy.

11:42

The letter was sent to the FBI for analysis, but there was an indication.

11:47

This letter was fake from the start Miranda for one thing, spelled incorrectly.

11:53

Ashley knew Miranda well enough.

11:56

And for long enough that she would have known how to spell her name, that this letter came right after the case got national attention also seemed suspect, and it was eventually ruled out as a credible lead.

12:09

It's possible. This was a hoax by some reckless teens.

12:13

And I can only imagine what the contents of this letter did to the families of these girls, but the bulk of the leads the police got were coming from much closer to home in July, 2002, the authority said they were focusing on about 10 to 20 people who were all locals.

12:32

And we know a few of the people who were looked at because for some reason, they decided to talk to the media.

12:40

One guy did not want his name to be used.

12:43

And he said, he was told he was the prime suspect in the case.

12:47

And the FBI asked for access to his mental health records, but he was not the only one who said he was told he was the prime suspect.

12:59

So I think the authorities may have been using that as a pressure tactic.

13:04

Another man who spoke to the media, lived in the same apartment complex as Ashley and Miranda.

13:11

He told them that he fully cooperated with the police, letting the authority search his apartment.

13:16

He took a polygraph, but he said, not even that got the police office back.

13:21

He said, when he would go out with his own daughters, the police would follow him around.

13:25

But the person who was in the media the most was a man named ward Weaver.

13:30

His name was floating around town for a few reasons.

13:34

One was because Ashley and Miranda were both friends with his daughter and they were known to spend a lot of time at his house.

13:42

And second, his house was pretty much steps away from the bus stop.

13:48

Ward talked to the media because the media came to him, a Portland Tribune reporter named Jim Redon got a direct tip called into him to go talk to ward Weaver.

14:01

According to Jim in an interview with Willamette weekly, a lot of the reporting up to this point, hadn't been blunt about the home lives of Miranda and Ashley.

14:14

And I do see what he means.

14:18

No one needs to dispute that their mothers were absolutely devastated and gutted by their daughter's disappearances.

14:24

Nobody needs to question the love they had for their daughters, but in Jim's words, they weren't stereotypical soccer moms either as they were being portrayed, the people allowed around the girls where people who had accusations or convictions for things like child molestation and violent crimes.

14:47

If

14:47

the

14:47

girls

14:47

were

14:47

in

14:47

the

14:47

sphere

14:47

of

14:47

dangerous

14:47

people

14:47

and

14:47

the

14:47

belief

14:47

was

14:47

they

14:47

were

14:47

abducted

14:47

by

14:47

someone,

14:47

they

14:47

knew

14:47

this

14:47

really

14:47

opens

14:47

up

14:47

the

14:47

possible

15:00

suspects. So Jim openly wrote about this when no one else was so a source who knew the families saw Jim's reporting.

15:10

And basically said, since you're willing to tell the truth about this, go talk to ward Weaver.

15:17

And so Jim did one Sunday in late June, 2002.

15:22

He knocked on the door.

15:24

This was over three months since Miranda was last seen, not only did ward let this journalist in, he talked and then he talked some more.

15:34

He was so open about the case and what he knew, including stories about Ashley's home life that others showed up to talk to him, including national news, like good morning America.

15:47

They interviewed him in July after the Tribune's article cran.

15:51

So I'm going to consolidate the contents of the interviews for the sake of clarity to credit the interviews though.

16:01

They were from the Portland Tribune.

16:03

Good morning, America, K a T U Portland, the Oregonian and inside edition, like I said, word Weaver kept talking.

16:14

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16:41

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16:48

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17:12

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17:29

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17:39

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19:42

Word openly said that yes, he was being investigated, but he was cooperating fully.

19:47

He allowed the authorities to search his home and his property, and he willingly took polygraph tests, which he failed, but he took them.

19:57

We know that within the first two weeks after Ashley's disappearance, the investigators were on word's doorstep at least three times, not just to talk to him, but also his daughter who was a friend of Ashley's.

20:11

He

20:11

said

20:11

he

20:11

let

20:11

them

20:11

look

20:11

around

20:11

his

20:11

house

20:11

at

20:11

that

20:15

point. And in his yard, when the authorities brought dogs to search his yard, another time word consented to it word told the media that Ashley had a year before this been a regular at his house, staying for days at a time, and even living with him for part of the year, because her life at home was so unstable.

20:37

He said he even took her on vacation with him and his daughter to California over the summer of 2001.

20:44

However ward said he hadn't seen Ashley in months because he wouldn't let her come over anymore.

20:51

After Ashley accused him of molesting her that his right word Weaver told the media that he had been accused of sexually abusing a child who is now missing.

21:06

So when I say he was open with the media, I mean, he was open with the media.

21:13

The accusations against ward came after Ashley's father.

21:17

Wesley had been arrested for his abuse of her.

21:21

And this was one of the reasons Wesley got that sweetheart deal, basically walking out of jail.

21:28

Remember he had 40 charges against him.

21:31

30 were serious felonies.

21:33

They give you an idea of how horrible the abuse against Ashley was.

21:40

Instead. Wesley pleaded no contest to just one of those charges and avoided prison entirely.

21:46

And this is because Wesley heard that Ashley accused another man of abuse.

21:52

That man was word Weaver.

21:55

Wesley's attorney interviewed ward who denied all allegations.

21:59

He said it was a lie. And he was willing to testify in court.

22:03

That Ashley was a liar with the credibility of a young victim.

22:10

In question, Wesley was able to leverage that, to get this plea deal.

22:16

So instead of facing decades in prison, he was a free man.

22:19

As for the accusations against ward.

22:23

Ashley disclosed this to multiple people which included her mother, a district attorney and a teacher.

22:30

The mandated reporters in this situation did report this to the department of human services.

22:36

However, it went largely uninvestigated.

22:39

We are going to talk about why later, because I think it's important to understanding how the system works.

22:46

Anyway, word said he barred Ashley from coming over to his house after that.

22:52

And it caused a lot of issues for Ashley socially.

22:55

Most of her friend group hung out at Ward's house with his daughter.

23:01

Many of them shunned Ashley initially after word told them she was a liar.

23:07

And we have no reason to doubt that ward disparaged, Ashley too.

23:14

And in front of her friends, because he did it to the media while she was missing.

23:18

He made comments about how she, as a 12 year old dressed and acted, and he made comments about her mother, Lori, I do think we have a clue here as to why Ashley's mood improved after her father's court case was over her grades improved.

23:37

And she seemed to be doing better.

23:39

Not only was the court case done and the stress that and being interviewed and re-interviewed over that abuse word, Weaver was largely out of her life.

23:52

Her two primary abusers had no access to her anymore.

23:57

I don't want to stop and say poor girl every five minutes in this episode, but definitely no I'm thinking it.

24:05

And I think at about Miranda, just as much, because she had also suffered trauma and abuse in her home when she was six, her father was arrested and convicted for kidnapping and sexually assaulting two girls.

24:20

When the police showed up to arrest him, he grabbed Miranda and used her essentially as a shield threatening to hurt her.

24:30

If the police didn't back off, they managed to get them down and away from Miranda.

24:34

But that had to be absolutely terrifying for her.

24:38

Her parents split up at this point and one of her mother's boyfriends, sexually abused her.

24:47

He was tried and convicted of this Miranda was placed in foster care for a year and a half during all of this happening.

24:55

So she experienced trauma.

24:58

She then experienced abuse and trauma, and then she was separated from her mother.

25:03

Miranda did receive counseling through the school.

25:07

Thankfully. So both girls had trauma and ward told the media that he assumed Ashley and Miranda had run away together to get away from their home life.

25:20

That was an angle the authorities looked at, but they doubted it from the start.

25:26

So we do know ward was on the radar for sure.

25:30

His home, his property, even his favorite camping spot were all searched.

25:35

And as much as the investigators may have said, you're our prime suspect to multiple people for pressure, we can actually say ward probably was if they had any lead suspect, he was it.

25:50

Various investigators were given multiple persons of interest to follow up on, but word had people dedicated to just investigating him.

25:59

But he still wasn't.

26:02

The only suspect there were multiple people being looked at and the investigators needed some type of evidence that would steer the investigation to a specific person.

26:15

And that evidence came in a very big way.

26:19

In August, 2002.

26:22

At the time ward Weaver had been making plans to move out of Oregon.

26:26

He moved most of his belongings into a storage unit.

26:30

Andy talked to some relatives about taking custody of his daughter, who was 13 at the time on August 13th, 2002 ward, his son Francis his 19 year old girlfriend over at his house.

26:46

Some reports say she was helping him pack.

26:49

And other say she had given him a ride somewhere that day and he made an excuse for them to stop at his house while they were inside the house, ward attacked her in the bathroom.

26:59

He raped her and attempted to strangle her.

27:03

She fought him off and managed to run out of the house naked.

27:07

She got the attention of someone driving down the street who gave her a ride to a phone so she could call nine one one.

27:16

After she had escaped the house word, got into his own vehicle and took off, but he was leader pulled over and arrested later that day, when Francis his son learned what word did to his girlfriend, he called 9 1 1 himself.

27:34

And he told them that word had confessed to him that he had killed Ashley pond and Miranda Gaddis, according to Francis word, was driving him to the gym one day and told him he was going to send his daughter to live with family and then flee to Mexico.

27:50

He said he had to do it because of his involvement in Ashley and Miranda's cases.

27:55

Francis said that he wasn't sure he believed his father.

28:00

He actually thought ward might be testing his loyalty because word had a strict family code that no one snitched on each other, no matter what period.

28:11

End of story.

28:12

So Francis thought word may have falsely confessed.

28:17

Juicy of Francis would keep his mouth shut or not.

28:20

But after word attacked, his girlfriend Francis decided to come forward and let the authorities investigate it.

28:28

Some of ward and Francis's family came forward and said they didn't believe it.

28:35

They said that Francis was known to lie.

28:38

He was obviously an understandably angry with his father.

28:44

And even as mother said, she thought he misled the investigators about Ward's confession.

28:51

They believed Francis basically did this to get back at his father, but the residents of Oregon city were not quite so sure.

29:02

Ward was a suspect.

29:04

And he had poured a concrete slab behind his house in close proximity to the girls going missing.

29:13

He said it was for a hot tub, but for one thing, he was renting the house.

29:19

That's a pretty big purchase. And it wasn't clear that he had even consulted the landlord about it.

29:25

And for a, another thing, word never bought a hot tub.

29:29

There was just a slab in the backyard that kind of looked like a little bit of a patio.

29:35

So it didn't stick out as weird, but it also didn't line up his story and the timing was suspicious.

29:43

It was so suspicious that Ashley's former stepmother went to the property and stuck a sign on the slab that said, dig me up.

29:56

People were growing impatient pretty quickly here because it seemed like with the new attack and the tip from ward sun, that the police should descend on this property and just dig the whole thing up, looking for the girls.

30:10

But the truth is they didn't have a lot of evidence except for the statement from it.

30:16

Admittedly angry son.

30:18

It took a little bit more before they had enough to get a search warrant right before the search warrant was issued on August 24th.

30:29

Word Weaver gave a consent to search the property.

30:32

According to his attorney, ward wanted to give the families closure, but ward waited until it was inevitable that they were going to dig up his property without his permission.

30:46

That's when he decided to give his permission.

30:49

So I'm definitely not buying this as some act of kindness.

30:53

It was calculated to look like he was cooperating when he had nothing left to lose both Ashley and Miranda's grandfathers went to the search site to wait to hear if they found anything around 3:00 PM.

31:09

On the first day of the search activity picked up any fenced area of the property.

31:13

Then a vehicle from the medical examiner's office showed up and backed up to a shed near the house.

31:22

The FBI then told both of their grandfathers.

31:25

It was time to go home and be with their families.

31:30

So they knew something was found and they both did, as they were told, they went back to be with their families.

31:38

When the news of whatever was found, came behind the shed where all the activity was searchers found the remains of a girl using the dental records of Miranda and Ashley.

31:53

They were able to quickly confirm that this was Miranda.

31:57

Gaddis Miranda was found undressed except for socks.

32:02

She was bound apparently after death and wrapped in several layers of plastic, her body was then put inside a cardboard box that was then sealed with tape and wrapped in more plastic.

32:15

According to the autopsy, Miranda's body had been left somewhere cooler for a period of time.

32:23

And she had not been in that spot the entire time since her death, they determined that Miranda had been strangled.

32:31

The search continued and they eventually dug up the cement pad under it.

32:40

They found metal drums, buried metal drums.

32:44

That word told people were for either footing or support for the slab inside.

32:51

One of those drums was a another body.

32:53

This one was Ashley pond.

32:56

Annette lake Miranda.

32:59

Ashley was found, dressed like Miranda.

33:02

She was strangled bound after death and kept somewhere cooler before being buried.

33:08

There

33:08

was

33:08

a

33:08

chest

33:08

freezer

33:08

found

33:08

in

33:08

Ward's

33:08

kitchen

33:08

that

33:08

was

33:08

taken

33:08

into

33:15

evidence. The plastic sheeting used in the burials and the barrel were all from wards workplace.

33:23

But we have to remember that word was not the only one living in that house.

33:28

There were other people who either lived there or had regular access to it, which included Ward's sons who were 15, 17, and 19.

33:38

At the time, the investigators had to prove that ward was the one who did this so they could get an indictment.

33:46

Fortunately, for the sake of this case, they had time to do this because word was already locked up on the rape charge and he wasn't going anywhere.

33:57

A lot of the evidence against ward came straight from his children.

34:02

We already know he confessed to Francis and to his 17 year old ward told him he had done something very bad, which he interpreted to me and his father was involved in the girl's disappearances.

34:15

And

34:15

as

34:15

for

34:15

Ward's

34:15

daughter,

34:15

the

34:15

friend

34:15

of

34:15

both

34:15

victims,

34:15

she

34:15

told

34:15

investigators

34:15

that

34:15

ward

34:15

had

34:15

her

34:15

lie

34:15

about

34:15

where

34:15

she

34:15

was

34:15

when

34:15

Miranda

34:15

disappeared

34:15

word

34:15

had

34:15

previously

34:15

told

34:15

the

34:15

police

34:15

that

34:15

his

34:15

daughter

34:15

was

34:15

sick

34:15

on

34:15

March

34:15

7th,

34:15

the

34:15

night

34:15

before

34:15

Miranda

34:36

disappeared. So she stayed home sick from school on the eighth.

34:40

That meant ward was home taking care of her at the time Miranda disappeared.

34:46

And she was his alibi, but the truth was, his daughter was not home sick.

34:52

She wasn't even home.

34:54

The night before Miranda went missing word insisted his daughter spend the night at her mom's house and drove her over there.

35:02

But Miranda did not want to spend the night at her mom's house and talked her into driving her back to her dad's house.

35:09

After she came inside, ward told her to get into his vehicle and he drove her back to her mom's insisting.

35:18

She had to spend the night there.

35:21

So she was with her mom, but ward told her to tell the police.

35:25

She was home sick.

35:27

Word's

35:27

17

35:27

year

35:27

old

35:27

son

35:27

also

35:27

said

35:27

he

35:27

helped

35:27

dig

35:27

the

35:27

hole

35:27

for

35:27

the

35:27

concrete

35:33

slab. After both girls went missing and he helped bury the barrels, but he never saw Ashley's body in one of them and had no idea where to even had his daughter stay home from a vigil for Ashley and Miranda to help with the digging.

35:51

As for forensics, we don't know how much was found.

35:56

We do know word's fingerprint was found on the tape, used to seal the box with Miranda's body.

36:02

Extensive DNA testing did not provide any slam dunk evidence, but it did uncover a family secret word Weaver was not Francis Weaver's biological father.

36:16

Neither of them knew that, but the investigators took the evidence.

36:21

They did have put it in front of a grand jury.

36:23

And in October, 2002 word Weaver was indicted for the murders.

36:28

He pleaded not guilty.

36:30

So who was word Weaver?

36:33

Let's go ahead and back up to his childhood.

36:35

Ward's parents split up when he was a toddler and he didn't see much of his birth father.

36:41

After that, his mother remarried an incredibly violent and abusive man word followed in his stepfather's footsteps and turned into a bully of his younger siblings.

36:54

They were pretty much as afraid of him as their abuser, as they were of their stepfather at 17 ward enlisted in the Navy.

37:03

And he was scheduled to go to training right after he turned 18.

37:07

Shortly before he left a family member, went to the police and accused ward of raping.

37:13

Her word was interviewed.

37:15

There was a hearing held, but in the end they opted not to press charges because word was about to leave for the Navy.

37:26

It seemed like it would be difficult to prosecute him after he left because he would be going overseas.

37:32

But I also get the strong sense.

37:34

They were saying he won't be our problem much longer.

37:38

And they let him go.

37:39

Ward lasted about a year in the Navy in May, 1982.

37:46

He was given an other than honorable discharge.

37:49

And he returned home to the Portland area from where he was stationed in the Philippines.

37:55

He moved into his mother's basement with his girlfriend, Maria, who he had met in the Philippines word was a controlling and abusive partner, which I'm sure surprises no one Maria's first trip to the hospital due to intimate partner.

38:11

Violence was two months after arriving in the U S she was five months pregnant at the time with Francis ward was arrested for the assault.

38:22

But when Maria declined to press charges, the case was dropped.

38:25

Even Ward's mother tried to get Maria to pursue charges, but she was young pregnant, and in a new country, she was completely dependent on ward in 1984, Maria Ward and Francis moved to California where ward and Maria married and then had more children in the end.

38:46

They would have four total, three boys and a girl.

38:48

Their relationship continued to be volatile to say the least both ward and Maria accused each other of physical abuse and drug and alcohol abuse.

39:00

The children were taken into foster care likely more than once though, that isn't clear and word and Maria would separate and get back together.

39:09

A number of times while living in California in mid 1986, warden, Maria had just barely gotten the kids back from foster care.

39:21

Ward was 23 years old and the family was living with another family that had two teenage daughters on a Sunday in June, 1986, the two teen daughters picked to up from a local bowling alley in Fairfield, California, to bring him home.

39:40

He was drunk and he had also taken some speed.

39:43

As they drove.

39:45

Ward said he had to use the bathroom.

39:47

So the 16 year old pulled the car over.

39:50

So he could do that on the side of the road word got out, but instead of walking off to pee, he actually yanked the front passenger door open.

40:01

He had a chunk of concrete in his hand and smashed the 15 year old in the head with it.

40:09

She crumpled.

40:11

And then he grabbed the 16 year old and pulled her down to the floor of the car.

40:15

This physical attack was out of the blue word had seemed completely calm and reasonable before that.

40:23

And during the attack, he seemed like he didn't even recognize the girls as they screamed at him.

40:32

Both of them managed to escape before the attack progressed any further than this.

40:38

Thankfully and ward was arrested the next day, he was convicted for the assaults and given a three-year sentence.

40:45

He served about 60% of it before he was released in January, 1988.

40:51

He Maria and their children packed up and moved back to Oregon.

40:56

Five years later, ward and Maria separated and divorced for the final time.

41:02

And pretty much right away.

41:04

The 31 year old ward Weaver started dating an 18 year old named Christie.

41:10

Their relationship was honestly deja VU, even up to ward, attacking Christie, getting arrested and her not proceeding with the charges.

41:20

Christie told the prosecutor, she was too scared to testify against him.

41:25

They did split up after this incident for a while, but reconciled and then married in 1996, they managed to get custody of all of awards for children.

41:38

And it was around this time that word's daughter became friends with Miranda and Ashley, Christie and ward would eventually divorce word, put himself out there in the community as this hardworking single data for.

41:53

And that's how he got his daughter's friends.

41:57

And more importantly, their parents to trust him, to give you an idea of how much they trusted him.

42:05

After Miranda went missing, her younger sister went to a sleepover at Ward's house.

42:12

Parents were still sending their kids over there because initially they liked and believed award.

42:21

They heard the rumors.

42:22

Sure, but they could have imagined ward had actually done anything.

42:27

He was a great guy and he has been described as what we now know is a convincing liar.

42:35

He had the media come into his home to talk to them about the case.

42:40

And those reporters have said that word seemed so open.

42:44

That surely he couldn't be lying.

42:46

There

42:46

is

42:46

news

42:46

footage

42:46

of

42:46

him

42:46

standing

42:46

on

42:46

the

42:46

cement

42:46

slab,

42:46

talking

42:46

to

42:46

a

42:46

reporter

42:46

in

42:46

that

42:46

same

42:57

interview. He leaned on the chest freezer in the kitchen with the reporter right there, talking to him.

43:04

He barely flinched.

43:06

But now that he was arrested and in jail ward did flinch quite a bit.

43:13

He started pushing to see his daughter who wanted to see him, but the judge would only agree to it.

43:20

If the daughter's therapist suggested it would be good for her word was angry and distraught that they wouldn't give her a letter from him.

43:29

He wrote her even more letters.

43:31

He carved her name into his arm, and he started telling people that the real reason he was in jail was because he spanked his daughter word was given a psychological exam, of course.

43:44

And he was diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder and major depression.

43:49

Ward said he heard voices, but the state psychologist who examined him believed he was faking it, or at least exaggerating some of these more severe symptoms.

44:00

But seeing as this was a death penalty case, the judge made the decision that it was more important to get this right than it was to push the case through the trial process.

44:11

In 2004, word was sent to a mental hospital for four months.

44:16

At the end of his stay, he was found fit to stand trial.

44:20

And the trial was scheduled to start two years after the girls' bodies had been found.

44:26

And once the now 41 year old ward Weaver realized was headed to trial.

44:32

He played let's make a deal.

44:34

If they took the death penalty off of the table, ward agreed to plead guilty to seven charges and he would plead no contest to 10 others.

44:44

The families did agree to this deal.

44:47

Now this case was a slam dunk for the prosecution.

44:50

They say, you never know what a jury will do, but in this case we do ward was going to get convicted and he had a good chance at getting the death penalty.

45:00

So why make a deal with him?

45:03

We've talked about the cost of a trial and the impact a trial has on a family.

45:08

So now let's talk about the cost and the impact of the appeals with the death penalty word would automatically get a direct appeal.

45:16

And he had the right to counsel for that, that meant the taxpayers would continue to pay his public defender.

45:23

And who knows how many more appeals would come up after that?

45:27

And even before the recent moratorium on the death penalty in Oregon, it was not a state that put people to death regularly.

45:36

This isn't Texas or Florida.

45:38

So why put the families and the taxpayers through the trial and all the appeals when the death penalty was unlikely to be carried out anyway and watered, even if he knew he was unlikely to be executed, he still didn't want the death penalty because he knew from his birth father, how bad death row was, how isolating it is because yes, ward Weaver, the third's father ward Weaver Jr.

46:10

Was on death row in California.

46:12

And his crimes have so many similarities to ward Weaver.

46:17

The thirds that you are going to be doing the nature versus nurture debate in your head.

46:24

After this in 1981, Robert Radford and Barbara LaVoy were traveling from Pinedale, California to Las Vegas when their car broke down, ward Weaver Jr.

46:36

Who went by Pete, which helps keep this story less confusing, pulled over and offered to help instead of helping he murdered Robert on the spot and he kidnapped raped and murdered Barbara Pete had his ten-year-old son Ward's half-brother help him dig a hole.

46:57

The pretense was to look for a broken sewer pipe.

47:02

When the little boy went to school, Pete buried Barbara in the hole and filled it with concrete.

47:09

And that is almost exactly what war did to hide Ashley's body, including having his son help dig the hole barber's body was found after Pete was arrested for another crime, a rape and attempted murder, just like ward and Pete confessed to a cellmate that he had committed a murder.

47:35

The cellmate turned informant and said there was a body under a slab in Pete's backyard.

47:40

They dug it up and that's where they found Barbra's body.

47:44

Pete was confronted and he confessed after talking to his mother first and he made the shocking offer to keep confessing.

47:56

He said that as a long haul trucker, he had murdered around two dozen people in various jurisdictions.

48:04

If they took the death penalty off the table, he would give them the details.

48:10

This deal was turned down.

48:13

It wasn't that the prosecutor didn't think Pete was telling the truth.

48:17

It's that he didn't see why Pete should get rewarded for having committed more than two murders.

48:25

And that is certainly one way you could see it.

48:28

But in my mind, the murders already happened.

48:33

It's not like he was being enticed or incentivized to commit more murders.

48:39

These are crimes that already happened in these cases could have been closed, but Pete wasn't given the deal and he was sent to death row.

48:49

So he did not talk, but that hasn't stopped people from trying to figure out if he did in fact have other victims.

48:57

One good thing about truckers is that they have to keep detailed the logs of where they are using these logs.

49:06

And cross-referencing them with unsolved murders and missing people around 25 possible matches have been made.

49:13

Pete Weaver is still on death row.

49:16

He is in his seventies.

49:17

California has a moratorium in place right now on the death penalty.

49:22

So Pete is not going to be executed anytime soon if ever.

49:27

And there is no bargaining chip to go back and try to negotiate again, to get the names of his other possible victims.

49:35

And this is something else.

49:37

People think word Weaver.

49:39

The third may have in common with his father, more victims, word attacked two girls.

49:45

When he was 23 years old, who knows how far that attack would have gone, had they not managed to escape.

49:51

And then when he was 39 years old, he killed two girls within two months, time.

49:58

Then five months after that, he raped and attempted to kill a third woman.

50:05

Again, someone who managed to escape, what are the odds that word Weaver didn't kill anyone in the 15 years from the first known attacks to the murder of Ashley pond.

50:18

And then after killing Ashley, he killed or attempted to kill two more people in less than a year.

50:27

How likely is it that we have no victims in those 15 years?

50:34

I need to be clear that there have been no cases directly linked to ward Weaver.

50:41

Even after the investigators looked in both California and Oregon, they have not publicly said any.

50:48

Were I saw that they even suspected him in other cases, just that they were investigating it.

50:54

So it's really just my opinions, my thoughts, my speculation, that there's something that happened in those 15 years.

51:01

We don't know about.

51:02

So after word pleaded guilty and was sent away for the rest of his life, there was still a big question hanging over this case.

51:09

Why, what was the motive here?

51:14

It took years before ward would say, and he eventually answered this to Miranda's younger sister, who at the time he talked to her, she wasn't adult words said he murdered Ashley because she disclosed the abuse and he was afraid he was going to get arrested, which sounds like it makes sense.

51:34

Except Ashley disclosed the abuse five months before this, she disclosed it to the authorities and nothing happened four or five months.

51:47

She walked by his house to the bus stop four or five months without doing anything.

51:53

So why that day, why the sudden fear he was going to be arrested personally.

52:00

I think there's more to it than that.

52:03

I don't think this was the motive.

52:05

Whether word will admit it or not.

52:07

I don't think he's giving the whole picture.

52:09

Now, as for Miranda, two motives have come out.

52:13

According to ward, he said he saw Miranda walking towards the bus stop and thought she saw something.

52:20

He was doing that he didn't want her to see.

52:23

He claimed he panicked and told her that Ashley who had been missing for two months at that point was in his house.

52:31

She wanted to go home, but she was too scared to Miranda.

52:36

Went in there to do what any friend would do, which is talk to her friend.

52:40

And that is how word learned her into the house.

52:44

He then murdered her to stop her from going forward with whatever she saw.

52:49

But again, words, explanation sounds like it makes sense.

52:54

But think about it.

52:55

Ward sent his daughter to her mother's house the night before she tried to come home and he made her go back.

53:04

He wanted his daughter out of the house.

53:08

And to me that says, premeditation, not panic that morning.

53:12

And if you think maybe ward had his daughter get out of the way so that he could do the thing that Miranda accidentally saw him doing.

53:21

Why was word doing that?

53:23

When were going to the bus stop?

53:26

He knew the schedule.

53:28

He lived right there.

53:29

If he wanted to do something out of the view of everybody, why was he doing it?

53:34

When he knew someone would be walking by, I don't buy it.

53:39

There is a second motive that came from Ward's ex ex-wife Maria.

53:43

She said that he found out a couple of weeks before Miranda's murder.

53:49

That Miranda had told another girl that ward had molested Ashley Miranda warned this other girl to be careful around ward and not to be alone with him.

54:01

Miranda's warnings to her friend were actually something she learned when she got therapy, after her own abuse, she was taught about enforcing boundaries and speaking up when a situation just wasn't quite right.

54:16

And that's what Miranda was doing here.

54:19

She was trying to protect her friend, but ward was furious that Miranda was spreading this information around the absolute, last thing ward needed at that moment.

54:31

Was anyone looking any closer at the accusations Ashley made against him?

54:39

He didn't need that heat on him.

54:41

That extra attention, since at that moment, Ashley's body was in his house likely in his deep freezer.

54:50

This motive seems a lot more reasonable to believe than that.

54:57

He just panicked the morning after he just so happened to get his daughter out of the house.

55:03

I believe ward made sure he was home alone that morning.

55:09

And he waited for Miranda to come up the hill.

55:12

So we have the criminal process in this case, closed word was in prison for the rest of his life.

55:19

And then there were some civil cases that had to do with how child services handled.

55:24

The reports of Ashley disclosing the abuse from ward Weaver, the man who ultimately murdered her and Miranda Gaddis.

55:31

One of the cases was a wrongful termination.

55:34

After DHS fired a caseworker and a supervisor who were over Ashley's case, the other lawsuits were civil wrongful death suits filed by various people involved in the case Ashley's mother Miranda's mother, and even the 19 year old rape victim filed a case.

55:55

So in Ashley's mother Laurie's lawsuit, she sued the state department of human services.

56:03

She sued the Sheriff's office, the police department, and also named some individual employees of these agencies.

56:13

A lot of details about how the system works in a situation like this actually came out during these lawsuits.

56:23

So I thought it was interesting because I absolutely had a knee-jerk reaction about why did DHS not do anything after Ashley told multiple people, she was sexually abused by word Weaver.

56:35

And we know it was reported.

56:37

One of the people who called it in twice was the da who was prosecuting the case against her father.

56:45

After he heard from her father's attorney, that Ashley accused someone else of abused.

56:50

He asked Ashley and Laurie about it.

56:54

This is in late August, 2001.

56:56

Laurie told him that she knew Ashley had said word molested her.

57:02

She had told her a few weeks before, but she did not report it.

57:07

The da was a mandated reporter.

57:09

So he did call it in to the DHS child abuse hotline.

57:13

He called again, when he interviewed Ashley a few days later and she gave more details of what happened.

57:21

It was in this timeframe that Ashley's teacher, also a mandated reporter called according to the DHS records.

57:30

They reported the allegations to the Sheriff's office around two weeks later, but they did not take action themselves as for why DHS didn't investigate it's because they couldn't.

57:43

This wasn't their lane.

57:45

DHS is not law enforcement ward was not a relative of Ashley's and Ashley did not live with him.

57:54

He had no visitation or legal rights over her.

57:58

He was a neighbor.

57:59

Lori said she would keep Ashley away from word Weaver's house.

58:04

So what was left for them to do you don't remove a child from their parents because they said a third-party abused to them.

58:14

Particularly when the parents said she was taking the steps to protect her child.

58:18

And there was no evidence, she wasn't doing that as for why the police didn't pursue it.

58:26

Well, that's the real question here.

58:28

The attention was on DHS and what they did wrong, but I didn't find nearly that much scrutiny on why the report from DHS didn't trigger a criminal investigation.

58:40

The civil lawsuits didn't go very far.

58:43

Ashley's mother did settle for a relatively small amount of money considering what she was doing for Miranda's mother turned her focus on suing word Weaver, but it really, I don't think it was about the money so much as it was finding where the system broke down and left Ashley and ultimately Miranda and the surviving victim vulnerable to a man like ward Weaver.

59:08

There were changes made at the department of human services in the aftermath of this.

59:14

They increased training and they set up a better process for communication between DHS law enforcement.

59:21

Because this guy, ward Weaver apparently fell through a massive jurisdictional.

59:28

Crack. DHS has a specific job and role law enforcement has a specific job and role.

59:34

They do different things, but they need to be able to communicate.

59:37

So this doesn't happen.

59:38

Ashley and Miranda's mothers both have spoken out on behalf of missing and murdered children and their families.

59:45

They've advocated for support for the families, laws that protect children and for more people to listen to and protect kids like Ashley and Miranda, who both spoke up to warn people about word Weaver.

59:59

Now that wasn't enough to save them, but maybe we've learned enough about listening to children, that we can use that to save the next child.

1:00:12

Thank you for listening.

1:00:14

You can find crime lines on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tech-Talk crime lanes is also on YouTube where I post two to three true crime videos a week, including an occasional after show where we go over any visuals from that week's podcast episode crime lanes is also on patron where I offer early in ad-free episodes, as well as bonus content, visit patrion.com/crime lines.

1:00:39

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1:00:48

And if you need a palette cleanser after listening to heavier true crime shows, check out rusty hinges and occasionally funny history, mystery and true crime podcast that I co-created and write for.

1:01:00

I have some very important, thank you is to send out to those who have donated so generously to my coffee have some very important thank you is to send out to those who have donated so generously to my coffee fund. I couldn't possibly even, I couldn't drink the amount of coffee funds you have all sent to I couldn't possibly even I couldn't drink the amount of coffee funds you have all sent to me. And I thank you so much for your support for supporting me, for supporting the show. I want to thank Claudia, Julie, Laura, Melanie, Page, Molly, Jennifer, and Gina. Thank you so much for your support. When Ashley Bond disappeared in January two thousand two, on her way to school, we investigators first wondered if she had run away. As they were investigating, Ashley's friend Miranda Gaddis also disappeared. On the same route to the bus stop. The town feared a mysterious predator was on the loose, but it turned out he was in full view the entire time. I'm Charlie, and welcome to crime lines. Welcome to Crime Lines in this week's episode. I wanted to say just right before we get started. I've been doing a few more guests spots on podcasts for some reason. You know, sometimes I get asked all the time. Sometimes I never get asked. Well, recently, I've been getting asked quite a bit. And so I did a guest spot on the podcast riddle me that, where I did what usually do when I do these guest spots, I have very little filter and I talk true crime, MMIW cases, and just podcasting in general. Again, that podcast is riddle me that. You can go check it out. We discussed Quesare stops pretty places specifically, and I'll leave a link in the description box, assuming I remember. Okay. So on to this week's episode, which does come with a content warning. This episode deals with abuse of children and sexual assaults. And that is polar that is plural. When I bring up the first instance, you may think, okay, that was it, but it won't be. I won't be getting terribly graphic, but listener discretion is advised. Let's start in Oregon City. Oregon, which is about thirty minutes south of Portland. In two thousand two, twelve year old Ashleys lived there with her mother and her sisters in a decently sized affordable housing project that had about a hundred and twenty five units. Ashley was the seventh grader at the local middle school where she was a member of the dance team and also the swim team. Ashley was a pretty quiet kid, but she would get really chatty when she got to know her, and she was well liked in school with a large group of friends. On January ninth two thousand two, Ashley was eating a quick breakfast with her little sister. She needed to hurry up or she was going to miss the school bus. This bus stop was about half a mile up the hill from her home. So it would normally be less than ten minutes to get up there, but Like I said, she was running late, so she was heading out quickly. Immediately after school, Ashley had dance practice, so her mother Lori expected a call around six or six fifteen that dance practice was over. When Ashley didn't call, Lori called the school and found out that not only was Ashley not there for dance practice, she had never made it to school in the morning. Actually had left the house around eight AM, and now it was after six PM. And the Lori knew they had lost valuable hours if something had happened to Ashleys. So she immediately called the police. When the police arrived to take her statement and make the report, Lori told them that nothing in Ashley's room was missing aside from what she would have taken with her to school. Lori did not believe that Ashley would have run away and there was no evidence she did. While the investigators also didn't see any evidence she ran away, they did run some checks and it did look like Ashley's home life had not been entirely happy or stable either. In the year leading up to her disappearance, child services and or the police were called five to eight times to check on the welfare of the children or for domestic disputes. The calls varied from just general welfare checks on the children to two calls specifically accusing Lori of locking her children out of the home. Each time it was determined that the home was minimally adequate and the children were left in Lori's custody. So while on paper, it may look like Ashley had a reason to run away, The police did check with the kids on her bus. No one saw her that morning at all. And none of her friends had seen her heard from her and she wasn't hiding out with any of them. They also checked Ashley's Internet usage. Mind you, we're talking two thousand two, mostly email and maybe some chat rooms. That didn't give any indication in anything there that she made plans to leave. Quite the opposite. She was excited for even just dance team practice after school on the day of her disappearance, and there were no recent arguments with her mother or with her sisters or with friends that would give her a reason to run away. The police also had to explore possibility that this was a non custodial parental kidnapping because Ashley did have a recent trauma involving her biological father and he was from my understanding barred from ever seeing her again. We do have to go back a few years to fully understand this situation. Ashley was initially raised by her mother, Lori, and David Pond, who she thought was her father. But when they divorced when Ashley was around eight, David wanted paternity tests done. It was discovered in this process us that Ashley was not his biological child. Her father was actually a man named Wesley Roker junior. Ashleys began having weekend visits with her father after paternity was established, though he was a relative stranger to her. Then in December two thousand, the then eleven year old Ashley disclosed that Wesley had been sexually abusing her four years. Wesley was arrested and charged with forty counts related to this year's long sexual abuse of Ashley. In September two thousand one, Wesley managed to plead no contest to one count with the rest of the counts being dropped. He was given ten years of probation, but he was not able to see Ashley again. Then four months after he got a slap on the wrist, Ashley went missing. This had to be investigated, but Wesley had an alibi. This poor kid. Ashley was dealing with a lot of chaos and trauma in her short life. One teacher called Ashley, one of the most badly abused children, she had ever seen. And she said Ashley was a child who fought to survive. But in the months after her father's plea deal in the end of the court case, Ashley actually started turning around a bit. Her mood light end, she was more bubbly, her grades began improving. So while the police could see why might have run away. They ruled it out pretty early on. On January eighteenth, the FBI came in to aid the investigation and the searches for Ashley. On March first, Ashley's thirteenth birthday came in went without any clue as to where she Ashleys from the police to the public for tips and leads on where Ashley could be continued in the media for two months when the headlines took a sharp turn and started talking about another girl, Ashley's friend, thirteen year old Miranda Gaddis. Miranda lived in the same apartment complex as Ashley. She went to the same school, and she was even on the same dance team. On the morning of March eighth two thousand two, Miranda's mother, Michelle, left for work around seven thirty in morning. Miranda was expected to have left her house around eight to walk that same path Ashley had to the bus stop. Around one twenty that afternoon, one of Miranda's sisters called their mom and told her that Miranda had not made it to school that day. Michelle called the school to confirm and then immediately called the police. Just like Ashley, it looked like Miranda had never even made it the half mile to the bus stop. Also like Ashley, the only things missing from Miranda's room were her school things. No clothes were taken and no friends had been contacted. The similarities in circumstances had the cases linked obviously from the start. Though they were also investigated individually as well. Just like Ashley's family was looked at, so was Miranda's. But the two families insisted from the start that Miranda and Ashley had been abducted and by the same person. And they also believed it was someone the girls knew. Perhaps someone who pulled out and offered them a ride to school as they walked to the bus stop. The family did not believe that either girl would have gone with a stranger. So whoever it was and whatever rules they used to lure the girls away, it was someone they trusted. While the police said the connection between the abductions was one of many theories, the school buses in Oregon City began picking kids up in front of their apartments in their homes. They completely disbanded the idea of bus stops while this was being investigated, parents were terrified that there was someone stalking bus stops or children walking to them to abduct them. You can imagine with the public in fear and the investigation underway, it was a very intense. There were large scale searches organized and conducted by both the police and volunteers. America's most wanted came in They ran two segments, one on March sixteenth and one on April sixth, talking about both cases to the widest audience possible. In the time between the earrings of the two America's most wanted episodes, a lead came in from clear across the country. A twelve year old boy was in a marina, in Florida. When he found a plastic bag with the words, please help written on it. Inside the bag was a note that said, hi, my name is Ashleys, and I know my mom is crying. So please help me get away and go home to my mom. I am thirteen years old and my friend Miranda is thirteen also and she is with me. Please help us get home fast. I love my mommy. The letter was sent to the FBI for analysis, but there was an indication this letter was fake from the start. Miranda for one thing was spelled incorrectly. Ashley knew Miranda well enough and for long enough that she would have known how to spell her name. That this letter came right after the case got national attention also seemed suspect, and it was eventually ruled out as a credible lead. It's possible this was a hoax by some reckless teens and I can only imagine what the contents of this letter did to the families of these girls. But the bulk of the leads the police got were coming from much closer to home. In July two thousand two, the authorities said they were focusing on about ten to twenty people who were all locals. And we know a few of the people who were looked at because for some reason They decided to talk to the media. One guy did not want his name to be used and he said he was told he was the prime suspect in the case. And the FBI asked for access to his mental health records. But he was not the only one who said he was told he was the prime suspect. So I think the authorities may have been using that as a pressure tactic. Another man who spoke to the media lived in the same apartment complex as Ashley and Miranda. He told them that he fully cooperated with the police letting the authority search his apartment. He took a polygraph, but he said not even that got the police office back. He said when he would go out with his own daughters, the police would follow him around. But the person who was in the media the most was a man named Ward Weaver. His name was floating around town for a few reasons. One was because Ashley and Miranda were both friends with his daughter and they were known to spend a lot of time at his house. And second, his house was pretty much steps away from the bus stop. Ward talked to the media because the media came to him. A Portland Tribune reporter named Jim Ruddin got a direct tip called into him to go talk to ward weaver. According to Jim in an interview with Willamette Weekly, A lot of the reporting up to this point hadn't been blunt about the home lives of Miranda and Ashley. And I do see what he means. No one needs to dispute that their mothers were absolutely devastated and gutted by their daughter's disappearances. Nobody needs to question the love they had for their daughters. But in Jim's words, they weren't stereotypical soccer moms either as they were being portrayed. The people allowed around the girls were people who had accusations or convictions for things like child molestation and violent crimes. If the girls were in the sphere of dangerous people and the belief was they were abducted by someone they knew This really opens up the possible suspects. So Jim openly wrote about this when no one else was. So a source who knew the families saw Jim's reporting and basically said, since you're willing to tell the truth about this, go talk toward weaver, and so Jim did. One Sunday in late June two 2002. He knocked on the two, he knocked on the door This was over three months since Miranda was last seen. Not only did Ward let this journalist in, he talked, and then he talked some more. He was so open about the case and what he knew including stories about Ashley's home life that others showed up to talk to him, including National Newsley, Good Morning America, They interviewed him in July after the Tribune's article ran. So I'm going to consolidate the contents of the interviews for the sake of clarity. To credit the interviews though, they were from the Portland Tribune. Good morning, America. KATU Portland, the Oregonian, and insight edition. Like I said, Wordweaver kept talking. I I want to welcome better help back as a sponsor again, here on crime lines, better help is a service that will assess your needs and match you with your own licensed professional therapist from the comfort of your own home, better help is not want to welcome better help back as a sponsor again here on crime lines. Better help is a service that will assess your needs and match you with your own licensed professional therapist from the comfort of your own home. Better help is not self help. It's not a crisis line. It is professional It is professional counseling. They will assess anything that is preventing you from achieving your goals, things that are interfering with your happiness, and will help you Reevaluate. 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That's code crime That's code crime lines at molecule dot com. WORD openly said that yes, he was being investigated, but he was cooperating fully. He allowed the authorities to search his home and his property, and he willingly took polygraph tests, which he failed, but he took them. We know that within the first two weeks after Ashley's disappearance, the investigators were on word doorstep. At least three times, not just to talk to him, but also his daughter who was a friend of Ashley's. He said he let them look around his house at that point and in his yard. When the authorities brought dogs, to search his yard another time, word consented to it. Word told the media that Ashley had a year before this been a regular at his house, staying for days at a time, and even living with him for part of the year because her life at home was so unstable. He said he even took her on vacation with him and his daughter to California over the summer of two thousand one. However, Ward said he hadn't seen Ashley in months because he wouldn't let her come over anymore after Ashley accused him of molesting her. That is right. Wordweaver told the media that he had been accused of actually abusing a child who is now missing. So when I say he was open with the media, I mean he was open with the media. The accusations against Ward came after Ashley's father, Wesley, had been arrested for his abuse of her. And this was one of the reasons Wesley got that sweetheart deal basically walking out of jail. Remember, he had forty charges against him. Thirty were serious felonies. They give you an idea of how horrible the abuse against Ashley was. Instead, Wesley pleaded no contest to just one of those charges and avoided prison in highly. And this is because Wesley heard that Ashley accused another man of abuse. That man was word weaver. Wesley's attorney interviewed Ward who denied all allegations, he said it was a lie, and he was willing to testify in court that Ashley was a liar. With the credibility of a young victim in question, Wesley was able to leverage that to get this plea deal. So instead of facing decades in prison, he was a free man. As for the accusations against Ward, Ashley disclosed this to multiple people, which included her mother, a district attorney, and a teacher. The mandated reporters in this situation did report this to the Department of Human Services. However, it went largely uninvestigated. We are going to talk about why later because I think it's important to understanding how the system works. Anyway, word said he barred Ashley from coming over to his house after that, and it caused a lot of issues for Ashley socially. Most of her friend group hung out at Ward's house with his daughter. Many of them shunned Ashleys initially after word told them she was a liar. And we have no reason to doubt that word desperaged Ashley to and in front of her friends because he did it to the media while she was missing. He made comments about how she as a twelve year old dressed and acted. And he made comments about her mother, Lori. I do think we have a clue here as to why Ashley's mood improved after her father's court case was over. Her grades improved. And she seemed to be doing she seemed to be doing better. Not only was the court case done and the stress of that, and being interviewed and reinterviewed over that abuse, word weaver was largely out of her life. Her two primary abusers had no access to her anymore. I don't want to stop and say poor girl every five minutes in this episode, but deaf I don't really know I'm thinking it. And I think it about Miranda just as much because she had also suffered trauma and abuse in her home. When she was sick, her father was arrested and convicted for kidnapping and sexually assaulting two girls. When the police showed up to arrest him, he grabbed Miranda and used her essentially as a shield. Threatening to hurt her if the police didn't back off. They managed to get him down and away from Miranda, but that had to be absolutely terrifying for her. Her parents split up at this point, and one of her mother's boyfriend sexually abused her. He was tried and convicted of this. Miranda was placed in foster care for a year and a half during all of this happening So she experienced trauma, she then experienced abuse and trauma, and then she was separated from her mother. Miranda did receive counseling through the school, thankfully. So both girls had trauma, And Ward told the media that he assumed Ashley and Miranda had run away together to get away from their home life. That was an angle the authorities looked at, but they doubted it from the start. So we do know Ward was on the radar for his home, his property, even his favorite camping spot were all searched. And as much as the investigators may have said, your prime says suspect to multiple people for pressure, we can actually say word probably was if they had any lead suspect. He was it. Various investigators were given multiple persons of interest to follow-up on, but word had people dedicated to just invest mitigating him. But he still wasn't the only suspect. There were multiple people being looked at And the investigators needed some type of evidence that would steer the investigation to a specific person. And that evidence came in a very big way in August two thousand two. At the time Ward Weaver had been making plans to move out of Oregon. He moved most of his belongings into a storage unit, Andy talked to some relatives about taking custody of his daughter who was thirteen at the time. On August thirteenth two thousand two, Ward had his son, Francis's nineteen year old girlfriend over at his house. Some reports say she was helping him pack, and others say she had given him a ride somewhere that day, and he made an excuse for them to stop at his house. While they were inside the house, Ward attacked her in the bathroom. He raped her and attempted to strangle her. She fought him off and managed to run out of the house She fought him off and managed to run out of the house naked. She got the attention of someone driving down the street, who gave her a ride to a phone so she could call nine eleven. one. After she had escaped the house word, got into his own vehicle and took off, but he was leader pulled over and arrested later that day, when Francis his son learned what word did to his girlfriend, he called 9 1 1 After she had escaped the house, Word got into his own vehicle and took off, but he was leader pulled over and arrested. Later that day when Francis, his son, learned what word did to his girlfriend. He called nine eleven himself, and he told them that word had confessed to him that he had killed Ashley Pond and Miranda Gaddis. According to Francis, Word was driving him to the gym one day and told him he was going to send his daughter to live with family and then flee to Mexico. He said he had to do it because of his involvement in Ashley and Miranda's eases. Francis said that he wasn't sure he believed his father. He actually thought Ward might be testing his loyalty. Because word had a strict family code that no one snitched on each other no matter what period end of story. So Francis thought word may have falsely confessed, Julius, if Francis would keep his mouth shut or not. But afterward attacked his girlfriend, Francis decided to come forward and let the authorities investigate it. Some of Ward and Francis's family came forward and said, they didn't believe it. They said that Francis was known to lie. He was obviously and understandably angry with his father. And even his mother said She thought he misled the investigators about words confession. They believed Francis basically did this to get back at his father. But the residents of Oregon City were not quite so sure. Word was a suspect and he had poured a concrete slab behind his house in close proximity to the girls going missing. He said it was for a hot tub. But for one thing, he was renting the house. That's a pretty big purchase and it wasn't clear that he had even consulted the landlord about it. And for another thing, word never bought a hot tub. There was just a slab in the backyard that kind of looked like a little bit of a patio, so it didn't stick out as weird. But it also didn't line up with his story and the timing was suspicious. It was so suspicious that Ashley's former stepmother went to the property and stuck a sign on the slab that said, dig me up. People were growing impatient pretty quickly here because it seemed like with the new attack and the tip from word sun, that the police should descend on this property and just dig the whole thing up looking for the girls. But the truth is they didn't have a lot of evidence except for the statement from it admittedly angry son. It took a little bit more before they had enough to get a search warrant. Right before the search warrant was issued on August twenty fourth, word weaver gave a consent to search the property. According to his attorney, Ward wanted to give the family's closure. But Ward waited until it was inevitable. That they were going to dig up his property without his permission, that's when he decided to give his permission. So I'm definitely not buying this as some act of kindness. It was calculated to look like he was cooperating when he had nothing left to lose. Both Ashley and Miranda's grandfather went to the search site to wait to hear if they found anything. Around three PM on the first day of the surge, activity picked up in a dense area of the property. Then a vehicle from the medical examiner's office showed up and backed up to a shed near the house. The FBI then told both of their grandfathers it was time to go home and be with their families. So they knew something was found. And they both did, as they were told, they went back to be with their families when The news of whatever was found came. Behind the shed where all the activity was, searchers found the remains of a girl. Using the dental records of Miranda and Ashley, they were able to quickly confirm that this was Miranda Gaddis. Miranda was found undressed except for socks. She was bound apparently after death and wrapped in several layers of plastic. Her body was then put inside a cardboard box that was then sealed with tape and wrapped in more plastic. According to the autopsy, Miranda's body had been left somewhere cooler for a period of time and she had not been in that spot the entire time since her death. They determined that Miranda had been strangled. The search continued and they eventually dug up the cement pad Under it, they found metal drums buried. Metal drums that Ward told people were for either footing or support for the slab. Inside one of those drums was another body. This one was Ashley Pond. Unlike Miranda, Ashley was found dressed. Like Miranda, she was strangled, bound after death, and kept somewhere cooler before being buried. There was a chest freezer found in Ward's kitchen that was taken into evidence. The plastic sheathing used in the burials and the barrel were all from Ward's workplace. But we have to remember that word was not the only one living in that house. There were other people who either lived there or had regular access to it. Which included Ward's sons who were fifteen, seventeen, and nineteen at the time. The investigators had to prove that Ward was the one who did this so they could get an indictment. Fortunately for the sake of this case, they had time to do this because Word was already locked up on the rape charge and he wasn't going anywhere. A lot of the evidence against Ward came straight from his children. We already know he confessed to Francis, And to his seventeen year old, Ward told him he had done something very bad, which he interpreted to mean his father was involved in the girl's disappearances. And as for Ward's daughter, the friend of both victims, She told investigators that Ward had her lie about where she was when Miranda disappeared. Ward had previously told the police that his daughter was sick on March seventh, the night before Miranda disappeared. So she stayed homesick from school on the eighth. That meant Ward was home taking care of her at the time Miranda disappeared and she was his alibi. But the truth was his daughter was not homesick. She wasn't even home. The night before Miranda went missing, Ward insisted his daughter, spend the night at her mom's house, and drove her over there. But Miranda did not want to spend the night at her mom's house and talked her into driving her back to her dad's house. After she came inside, Ward told her to get into his vehicle, and he drove her back to her mom's. Insisting she had to spend the night there. So she was with her mom, but Ward told her to tell the police she was homesick. Word seventeen year old son also said he helped dig the hole for the concrete slab after both girls went missing and he helped bury the barrels, but he never saw Ashley's body in one of them and had no idea. Word even had his daughter stay home from a vigil for Ashley and Miranda to help with the digging. As for forensics, we don't know how much was found. We do know words fingerprint was found on the tape. Used to seal the box with Miranda's body. Extensive DNA testing did not provide any slam dunk evidence, but it didn't cover a family secret. Word weaver was not Francis Weaver's biological father. Neither of them knew that. But the investigators took the evidence they did have, put it in front of a grand jury, and in October two thousand two, Ward Weaver was indicted for the murders. He pleaded not guilty. So who was Ward Weaver? Let's go ahead and back up to his childhood. Ward's parents split up when he was a toddler and he didn't see much of his birth father after that. His mother remarried an incredibly violent and abusive man. Word followed in his stepfather's footsteps and turned into a bully of his younger siblings, they were pretty much as afraid of him as their abuser as they were of their stepfather. At seventeen, Warden listed in the navy, and he was scheduled to go to training right after he turned eighteen. Shortly before he left, a family member went to the police and accused Ward of raping her. Word was interviewed there was a hearing held, but in the end, they opted not to press charges because Ward was about to leave for the Navy. It seems like it would be difficult to prosecute him after he left because he would be going overseas. But I also get the strong sense they were saying, he won't be our problem much longer and they let him go. Ward lasted about a year in the navy. In May nineteen eighty two, he was given an other than honorable discharge and he returned home to the Portland area from where he was stationed in the Philippines. He moved into his mother's basement with his girlfriend, Maria, who he had met in the Philippines. Word was a controlling and abusive partner, which I'm sure surprises, no one. Maria's first trip to the hospital due to intimate partner violence was two months after arriving in the US. She was five months pregnant at the time with Francis. Ward was arrested for the assault but when Maria declined to press charges, the case was dropped. Even Ward's mother tried to get Maria to pursue charges, but she was young, pregnant, And in a new country, she was completely dependent on Ward. In nineteen eighty four, Maria Ward and Francis moved to California were Ward and Maria married and then had more children. In the end, they would have four total, three boys, and a girl. Their relationship continued to be volatile to say the least. Both Ward and Maria accused each other of physical abuse and drug and alcohol abuse. The children were taken into foster care likely more than once though that isn't clear. And Ward and Maria would separate and get back together a number of times while living in California. In mid nineteen eighty six, Werta and Maria had just barely gotten the kids back from foster care. Ward was twenty three years old and the family was living with another family that had two teenage daughters. On a Sunday in June nineteen eighty six, the two teen daughters picked Ward up from a local bowling alley in Fairfield, California to bring him home. He was drunk and he had also taken some speed. As they drove, Ward said he had to use the bathroom so the sick sixteen year old pulled the car over so he could do that on the side of the road. Word got out but instead of walking off to pee, he actually yanked the front passenger door open. He had a chunk of concrete in his hand and smashed the fifteen year old in the head with it. She crumpled and then he grabbed the sick sixteen year old and pulled her down to the floor of the car. This physical attack was out of the blue. Word had seemed completely calm and reasonable before that. And during the attack, he seemed like he didn't even recognize the girls as they screamed at him. Both of them managed to escape before the attack progressed any further than this thankfully and Ward was arrested the next day. He was convicted for the assaults and given a three year sentence, he served about sixty percent of it before he was released in January nineteen eighty eight. He, Maria, and their children, packed up and moved back to Oregon. Five years later, Ward and Maria separated and divorced for the final time. And pretty much right away, the Thirty one year old Ward Weaver started dating an eighteen year old named Christie. Their relationship was honestly, deja vu, even up to award attacking Christie, getting arrested, and her not proceeding with the charges. Christy told the prosecutor she was too scared to testify against him. They did split up after this incident for a while, but reconciled and then married in nineteen ninety six. They managed to get custody of all of awards four children, and it was around this time that Ward's daughter became friends with Miranda and Ashley. Kristian Ward would eventually divorce. Were to put himself out there in the community as this hardworking single data for and that's how he got his daughter's friends and more importantly their parents to trust him. To give you an idea of how much they trusted him, after Miranda went missing her younger sister went to a sleepover at Ward's house. Parents were still sending their kids over there because Initially, they liked and believed Ward. They heard the rumors, sure, but they couldn't imagine Ward had actually done anything. He was a great guy, and he has been described as what we now know is a convincing liar. He had the media come into his home to talk to them about the case. And those reporters have said that word seemed so open that surely he couldn't be lying. There is news footage of him standing on the cement slab talking to a reporter. In that same interview, he leaned on the chest freezer in the kitchen with the Reporter, right there talking to him, he barely flinched. But now that he was arrested and in jail, Ward did flinch quite a bit. He started pushing to see his daughter who wanted to see him, but the judge would only agree to it if the daughter's therapist suggested it would be good for her. Word was angry and distraught. That they wouldn't give her a letter from him. He wrote her even more letters. He carved her name into his arm, and he started telling people that the real reason he was in jail was because he spanked his daughter. Word was given A psychological exam, of course, and he was diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder and major depression. Ward said he heard voices, but the state psychologist who examined him believed he was faking it or at least exaggerating some of these more severe symptoms. But seeing as this was a death penalty case, the judge made the decision that it was more important to get this right than it was to push the case through the trial process. In two thousand four, Ward was sent to a mental hospital for four months. At the end of his day, he was found fit to stand trial, and the trial was scheduled to start two years after the girl's bodies had been found. And once the now forty one year old warned Weaver realized he was headed to trial, he played, let's make a deal. If they took the death penalty off of the table, Ward agreed to plead guilty to seven charges, and he would plead no contest to ten others. The families did agree to the steel. Now this case was a slam dunk for the prosecution. They say you never know what a giroiro do, but in this case we do. Ward was going to get convicted and he had a good chance at getting the death penalty. So why make a deal with him? We've talked about the cost of a trial and the impact a trial has on a family. So now let's talk about the cost and the impact of the appeals. With the death penalty, Ward would automatically get a direct appeal, and he had the right to counsel for that. That meant the taxpayers would continue to pay his public defender. And who knows how many more appeals would come up after that? And even before the recent moratorium on the death penalty in Oregon, it was not a state that put people to death regularly. This isn't Texas or Florida. So why put the families and the taxpayers through the trial in all the appeals when the death penalty was unlikely to be carried out anyway. And Ward, even if he knew he was unlikely to be executed, he still didn't want the death penalty because he knew from his birth father how bad death row was. How isolating it is. Because yes, word weaver the third's father, word weaver junior, was on death row in California and his crimes have so many similarities to word weaver the thirds that you are going to be doing the nature versus nurture debate in your head after this. In nineteen eighty one, Robert, Bradford, and Barbara Lavey were traveling from Pinedale, California to Las Vegas when their car broke down. Ward Weaver junior who went by Pete, which helps keep this story less confusing, pulled over and offered to help. Instead of helping, he murdered Robert on the spot and he kidnapped rapid and murdered Barbara. Pete had his ten year old son, words half brother, help him dig a hole The pretense was to look for a broken sewer pipe. When the little boy went to school, Pete buried Barbara in the hole and filled it with concrete. And that is almost exactly what war did to hide Ashley's body, including having his son help dig the hole. Barbara's body was found after Pete was arrested for another crime, a rape and attempted murder. Just like Ward. And Pete confessed to a cell mate that he had committed a murder. The cell mate turned in forment and said there was a body under a slab in Pete's backyard. They dug it up and that's where they found Barbara's body. Pete was confronted, and he confessed after talking to his mother first, and he made the shocking offer to keep confessing. He said that as a long haul trucker, he had murdered around two dozen people in various jurisdictions. If they took the death penalty off the table, he would give them the details. This deal was turned down. It wasn't that the prosecutor didn't think Pete was telling the truth, It's that he didn't see why Pete should get rewarded for having committed more than two murders. And that is certainly one way you could see it, but in my mind, the murders already happened. It's not like he was being enticed or incentivized to commit more murders. These are crimes that already happened in these cases could have been closed. But Pete wasn't given the deal and he was sent to death row so he did not talk. But that hasn't stopped people from trying to figure out if he did in fact have other victims. One good thing about truckers is that they have to keep detailed the logs of where they are. Using these logs and cross referencing them with unsolved murders and missing people, around twenty five possible matches have been made. Pete Weaver is still on death row. He is in his seventies. California has a moratorium in place right now on the death penalty. So Pete is not going to be executed anytime soon if ever, and there is no bargaining chip to go back and try to negotiate again to get the names of his other possible victims. And this is something else. People think word Weaver. The third may have in common with his father, more victims, word attacked two the third may have in common with his father. More victims. Ward attacked two girls when he was twenty three years old. Who knows how far that attack would have gone had they not managed to escape? And then when he was thirty nine years old, he killed two girls within two months time. Then, five months after that, he raped and attempted to kill a third woman, again, someone who managed to escape. What are the odds that word weaver didn't kill anyone in the fifteen years from the first known attacks to the murder of Ashley Pond. And then after killing Ashley, he killed or attempted to kill two more people in less than a year, how likely is it that we have no victims in those fifteen years? I need to be clear that there have been no cases directly linked to ward weaver even after the investigators looked in both California and Oregon. They have not publicly said any. Were I saw that they even suspected him in other cases, just that they were investigating I saw that they even suspected him in other cases just that they were investigating it. So it's really just my opinions, my thoughts, my speculation that there's something that happened in those fifteen years we don't know about. So afterward pleaded guilty and was sent away for the rest of his life, there was still a big question hanging over this case. Why? What was the motive here? It took years before Ward would say and he eventually answered this to Miranda's younger sister who at the time he talked to her she was an adult. Words said he murdered Ashley because she disclosed the abuse and he was afraid he was going to get arrested, which sounds like it makes sense except Ashleys disclosed the abuse five months before this. She disclosed it to the authorities and nothing happened for five months. She walked by his house to the bus stop for five months without or doing anything. So why that day? Why these sudden fear he was going to be arrested. Personally, I think there's more to it than that. I don't think this was the motive whether Ward will admit it or not. I don't think he's giving the whole picture. Now, as for Miranda, two motives have come out. According to Ward, He said he saw Miranda walking towards the bus stop and thought she saw something he was doing that he didn't want her to see. He claimed he panicked and told her that Ashley, who had been missing for two months at that point, was in his house. She wanted to go home, but she was too scared to. Miranda went in there to do what any friend would do, which is talk to her friend, and that is how Ward lured her into the house. He then murdered her to stop her from going forward with whatever she saw. But again, word's explanation sounds like it makes sense, but think about it. Ward sent his daughter to her mother's house. The night before. She tried to come home and he made her go back. He wanted his daughter out of the house and to me that says premeditation not panic that morning. And if you think maybe Ward had his daughter get out of the way so that he could do the thing that miranda accidentally saw him doing, why was Ward doing that when people were going to the bus stop? He knew the schedule. He lived right there. If he wanted to do something out of the view of everybody, why was he doing it when he knew someone would be walking by. I don't buy it. There is a second motive that came from words ex wife, Maria. She said that he found out a couple of weeks before Miranda's murder, that Miranda had told another girl that Ward had molested Ashley. Miranda warned this other girl to be careful around Ward and not to be alone with him. Miranda's warnings to her friend were actually something she learned when she got therapy after her own abuse. She was taught about enforcing boundaries and speaking up when a situation just wasn't quite right. And that's what Miranda was doing here. She was trying to protect her friend. But Ward was furious that Miranda was spreading this information around. The absolute last thing word needed at that moment was anyone looking any closer at the accusations Ashley made against him. He didn't need that heat on him, that extra attention since at that moment. Ashley's body was in his house, likely in his deep freezer. This motive seems a lot more reasonable to believe than that he just panicked the morning after he just so happened to get his daughter out of the house. I believe Ward made sure he was home alone that morning and he waited for Miranda to come up the hill. So we have the criminal process in this case closed. Word was in prison for the rest of his life. And then there were some civil cases that had to do with how child services handled the reports Ashley disclosing the abuse from word weaver, the man who ultimately murdered her and Miranda Gaddis. One of the cases was a wrongful termination after DHS fired a caseworker and a supervisor who were over Ashley's case. The other lawsuits were civil, wrongful death suits filed by various people involved in the case. Ashley's mother miranda's mother, and even the nineteen year old rape victim filed a case. So in Ashley's mother Lori's lawsuit, she sued the state department of human services. She sued the sheriff's office, the police department, and also named some individual employees of these agencies. A lot of details about how the system works in a situation like this actually came out during these lawsuits. So I thought it was interesting because I absolutely had a knee jerk reaction about why did DHS not do anything after Ashley told multiple people she was sexually abused by word weaver and we know it was reported. One of the people who called it in twice was the DA who was prosecuting the case against her father. After he heard from her father's attorney that Ashley accused someone else of abuse, He asked Ashley and Lori about it. This is in late August two thousand one. Lori told him that she knew Ashley had said word molested her. She had told her a few weeks before, but she did not report it. The DA was a mandated reporter, so he did call it in to the DHS child abuse hotline. He called again when he interviewed Ashley a few days later and she gave more details of what happened. It was in this time frame that Ashley's teacher, also a mandated reporter, called. According to the DHS records, they reported the allegations to the sheriff's office around two weeks later. But they did not take action themselves. As for why DHS didn't investigate, it's because they couldn't. This wasn't their lane. DHS is not law enforcement. Word was not a relative of Ashley's and Ashley did not live with him. He had no visitation or legal rights over her. He was a neighbor. Lori said she would keep Ashley away from word weaver's house, so what was left for them to do? You don't remove a child from their parents because they said a third party abused them. Particularly when the parents said she was taking the steps to protect her child, AND THERE WAS NO EVIDENCE SHE WASN'T DOING THAT. AS FOR WHY THE POLICE DIDN'T PURSU IT, WELL, THAT'S THE REAL QUESTION HERE. The attention was on DHS and what they did wrong, but identify nearly that much scrutiny on why the report from DHS didn't trigger a criminal investigation. The civil lawsuits didn't go very far. Ashley's mother did settle for a relatively small amount of money considering what she was suing for. Miranda's mother turned her focus on suing word weaver But really, I don't think it was about the money so much as it was finding where the system broke down and left Ashleys and ultimately Miranda and the surviving victim vulnerable to a man like word weaver. There were changes made at the Department of Human Services in the aftermath of this. They increased training, and they said up a better process for communication between DHS and law enforcement. Because this guy, Ward Weaver, apparently fell through a massive jurisdictional crack. DHS has a specific job and role Law enforcement has a specific job and role. They do different things, but they need to be able to communicate so this doesn't happen. Ashley and Miranda's mothers both have spoken out on behalf of missing a murder children and their Ashleys. They've advocated for support for the families. Laws that protect children, and for more people to listen to and protect kids like Ashley and Miranda, who both spoke up. To warn people about word weaver. Now that wasn't enough to save them, but maybe we've learned enough about listening to children, that we can use that to save the next child. Thank you for listening. You can find crime lines on Facebook, Twitter Instagram and TikTok. Cremelise is also on YouTube where I post two to three True Crime videos a week, including an occasional after show where we go over any visuals from that week's podcast episode. Crime lines is also on Patreon where I offer early in ad free episodes as well as bonus content. Visit patreon dot com slash crimelines. 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