A Sister's Search

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Speaker 4 I'm Lester Holt, and this is Date Live.

Speaker 5 You said Leslie didn't show up for work, and I just went instantly felt wrong.

Speaker 5 We had to figure out what had happened to her.

Speaker 4 She was an actress on Friday Night Lights. Then suddenly, the drama turned real.

Speaker 6 Hi, I'm here to plead for help to find my sister, Leslie.

Speaker 4 Her sister and her sister's husband both vanished.

Speaker 5 Like what if something terrible happened to both of them?

Speaker 8 Missing persons' cases are not usually your department.

Speaker 1 No, they're not. But this was different?

Speaker 9 This was different.

Speaker 10 She mentioned going underground.

Speaker 11 Yes, she did.

Speaker 9 Could have both taken off, but it seems suspicious. Our spuddy senses were up.

Speaker 4 To solve the mystery, police would roll the dice. I thank you all for being here this morning and stage the ultimate Hollywood performance.

Speaker 13 I'm the lead investigator for this case.

Speaker 5 I was just floored by what was happening.

Speaker 4 Here's Josh Mankiewicz with A Sister's Search.

Speaker 18 In the movies and on TV, people can just disappear without a trace, leaving family and friends with nothing more than memories, questions, and worry.

Speaker 21 In real life, vanishing is more a magician's trick than an everyday occurrence.

Speaker 16 Which brings us to that crossroads where magic and entertainment collide.

Speaker 26 Hollywood.

Speaker 27 The cops who roll down these streets call it Hollyweird because they know anything can happen here.

Speaker 29 And sometimes what does happen makes no sense.

Speaker 23 Hollywood's a real place, but it's also a myth, and the fantasy of what might be has always drawn the hopeful from every town in America with a bus station.

Speaker 17 For quite different reasons, it drew these two sisters, Leslie and Asha.

Speaker 28 Maybe you recognize Asha Davis.

Speaker 16 She's one of those lucky few for whom that Hollywood fantasy came true.

Speaker 21 Her star rose quickly within a few years of her move west.

Speaker 29 When she landed roles such as

Speaker 17 Waverly, the sharpest attack teenage preacher's daughter, on the NBC series Friday Night Lights.

Speaker 6 You asked me all your questions and blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 5 We caught up, so just go score some goals.

Speaker 30 Recurring appearances on Comedy Central's drunk history.

Speaker 37 And in 2019, she led the cast as a local sheriff's deputy in the film The Long Shadow.

Speaker 26 But 10 years earlier, in 2009, A real-life drama began that tested Asha's strength in a way that Climb Up the Hollywood Ladder never had.

Speaker 6 Hi, I'm here to plead for help to find my sister Leslie.

Speaker 36 Asha was used to facing the cameras, but this wasn't on a set or for a publicity tour.

Speaker 21 The scene was a news conference where Asha begged for help from anyone who would listen.

Speaker 6 We are heartbroken and extremely concerned for her well-being.

Speaker 23 Any sister would be frantic with worry.

Speaker 17 But Asha and her big sister Leslie were closer than most, despite their gap in age.

Speaker 26 Leslie was how much older?

Speaker 5 She was nine years older than me.

Speaker 14 And so she was sort of a surrogate mom when you were mom wondering?

Speaker 5 Yeah, she was almost like having another mom because my mom was a single mom, so she worked day and night, double shifts, and Leslie was in charge of us. She was a mama bear.

Speaker 38 Leslie always wanted things a certain way, her way.

Speaker 33 She was definitely type A.

Speaker 18 Everyone in the family knew that if Leslie was in charge, everything would be just right.

Speaker 31 I'm sure they love that.

Speaker 5 But that's who she was. She made sure that we were taken care of.

Speaker 32 Leslie never stopped feeling responsible for Asha.

Speaker 20 And so a few months after Asha moved west in late 97, Leslie followed.

Speaker 34 She found herself an office job that some of us would call boring.

Speaker 28 But in it, Leslie saw material for for stories that kept her sister laughing.

Speaker 5 She was so charismatic and such a great storyteller. She could take a little tiny thing like a, you know, a tape dispenser and create this amazing story.

Speaker 7 The move west had been good for both sisters, especially for Leslie, after she met the right guy in an unlikely place.

Speaker 40 The 99 Cent store.

Speaker 5 By the time we were checking out, you know, he was giving her his number and I think they went to the movies afterwards and were inseparable after that.

Speaker 24 His name was Lyle Herring, and he had a good job as a recruiter at a local university.

Speaker 38 He'd grown up in Los Angeles, and his wooing of Leslie was spent introducing her to her new city, a courtship at warp speed.

Speaker 5 She called me one day and she said, do you want to be a witness at my wedding? And I was like, you're getting married?

Speaker 11 She's like, yeah.

Speaker 18 Married less than a year after they met.

Speaker 26 Leslie and Lyle were clearly happy together.

Speaker 16 They seemed a pretty good match.

Speaker 41 Yes.

Speaker 33 Vivian Telford, Leslie and Asha's mother, thought her oldest daughter had found, for her, the perfect man.

Speaker 11 Leslie and Lyle even dressed alike. They had the same jackets, they had the same sweaters, they had the same caps.

Speaker 27 And they were together all the time?

Speaker 26 All the time.

Speaker 14 It was funny about Lyle. After the marriage, he became closer to Leslie's family than he was to his own.

Speaker 28 Vivian felt it.

Speaker 11 He always told me he loved me more than he loved his own mother. And he told me that my family was better to him than his own family.

Speaker 35 You loved him like a son.

Speaker 11 I loved him like a son.

Speaker 23 As for Leslie, she was the mama bear, first to Asha, and then, after they got together, to her husband Lyle.

Speaker 26 But it was her own mother, who lived all the way across the country, to whom Leslie turned for comfort.

Speaker 25 And you talked to her almost every day?

Speaker 11 Every day.

Speaker 11 A quarter of 11 every morning on her way to work and sometimes in the afternoon.

Speaker 2 How old was she?

Speaker 11 45.

Speaker 8 And she's still calling her mom every day.

Speaker 11 She called me in the morning so we could pray together. And then sometimes I say to her, where are you now? She said, I'm in the elevator.

Speaker 11 I said, you make me pray all the way to the the elevator she said

Speaker 11 they shared daily prayers and they shared confidences in fact leslie would talk to only her mother during those rare times when she was ticked off at lyle whenever she was unhappy if i wanted her to laugh i would always say to her what do you expect you met him in the 99 cent store

Speaker 32 Soon enough, Asha was married too.

Speaker 28 And in 2008, she and her husband Jesse found out out she was pregnant with a boy.

Speaker 5 Leslie was so excited to have a nephew, and she was so supportive. She threw my baby shower.
She was going to get to see her little sister become a mom.

Speaker 37 The little boy named Ever joined the family in January of 2009.

Speaker 30 And though Aunt Leslie was sick with a cold, she couldn't resist coming by to look through the window.

Speaker 8 at her brand new nephew.

Speaker 23 Those should have been happy times for Asha and her sister, a time of the family bonding with its newest member.

Speaker 25 But then Asha got a phone call from Leslie's boss that changed everything.

Speaker 5 He said, Leslie didn't show up for work yesterday and she's not here today, and I just went, instantly felt wrong.

Speaker 35 The joy of new motherhood melted away.

Speaker 37 It was Tuesday, February 10th.

Speaker 33 Leslie had missed two days of work and she hadn't called in sick.

Speaker 17 Together, it was completely out of character for the always responsible Leslie.

Speaker 5 I instantly call the two people who would know where she is, and that's the one she's always with, Lyle Herring, and my mom, who she talks to twice a day.

Speaker 23 Asha's mom hadn't heard from Leslie, and now they realized Lyle couldn't be found either.

Speaker 28 But no one disappears without a trace.

Speaker 26 Do they?

Speaker 43 When we come back.

Speaker 20 Leslie's missing and Lyle's missing.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 23 Yeah, did you think that wherever they were, they were probably together?

Speaker 4 Yes, like a Hollywood special effect, Lyle suddenly reappears. But the scene only adds to the mystery.

Speaker 43 He got into the back seat, slides down in the seat, and pulls my suit coat over his head.

Speaker 26 He's hiding, he's hiding.

Speaker 33 When someone you love disappears, it's hard to know what to do.

Speaker 34 There are no drills like for fires or earthquakes, no how-to books.

Speaker 15 Asha Davis had a million questions and almost no answers.

Speaker 5 We were wondering if we had to file a missing persons for both of them.

Speaker 5 We were nervous about

Speaker 5 what will we find in the apartment, like what if they got robbed.

Speaker 26 Asha's sister Leslie and her husband Lyle were always together during their marriage.

Speaker 7 Now they were both suddenly gone.

Speaker 25 Leslie's missing and Lyle's missing.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 23 Did you think that wherever they were they were probably together?

Speaker 5 Yes.

Speaker 30 Asha and her husband Jesse grabbed their newborn son and headed to the Herrings condo complex in the Hollywood Hills to see what, if anything, they could find there.

Speaker 44 Leslie's car's there in her assigned parking spot and

Speaker 45 that made it feel a little heavier.

Speaker 44 All of a sudden, you're like,

Speaker 44 like, her car's here, and she's not answering the phone.

Speaker 23 They went into the building to knock on Leslie and Lyle's front door.

Speaker 30 Asha wondered if Leslie, who suffered from migraines, might be sick inside.

Speaker 23 But their knocking got no response.

Speaker 2 They waited, and they waited.

Speaker 28 They returned to the garage, where they saw a man parking in the spot next to Leslie's.

Speaker 43 We both said, have you seen the woman who owns this car?

Speaker 44 He's like, oh, I haven't seen her, but I saw her husband yesterday.

Speaker 22 That was strange.

Speaker 35 So Asha and Jesse waited in their car by the front gate.

Speaker 30 Because if that neighbor was right, maybe they'd find Lyle when he came home from work.

Speaker 44 And I remember a few cars coming in, like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then all of a sudden, a car that matched his description came in.

Speaker 40 But then the car turned away from Lyle and Leslie's building.

Speaker 5 And we said, oh, I guess it's not him.

Speaker 18 Because it went in a different direction. Yeah, I it didn't ride.

Speaker 5 That's what we thought.

Speaker 23 Asha and Jesse probably would have waited all night, but they had a new baby with them.

Speaker 33 So they headed home.

Speaker 36 It wasn't the last time Asha would have to balance being a sister and being a parent.

Speaker 14 While all this was going on, you had a brand new baby.

Speaker 8 So I'm guessing you weren't sleeping a whole lot anyway.

Speaker 14 I'm thinking maybe

Speaker 26 this made it just about impossible.

Speaker 5 I did not sleep at all. It was like such an amalgamation of,

Speaker 5 sadness and fear and love and excitement for this baby. It was what kept us going, was him.

Speaker 28 A new life is always a reason for hope.

Speaker 27 But the situation with Leslie and Lyle both missing was leaving the family feeling hopeless, so they called the LAPD.

Speaker 28 Asha and Jesse couldn't get into the Herring condo, but police could.

Speaker 24 Officers went inside and found nothing that looked unusual.

Speaker 26 They also found no Lyle and no Leslie.

Speaker 26 Asha worked the phones.

Speaker 23 Friends and relatives knew nothing.

Speaker 16 Then she reached Lyle's boss, who said he hadn't heard from Leslie, but he thought he'd seen Lyle on Tuesday, which was the day after Leslie missed work.

Speaker 33 No less confused, Asha decided it was time to file that missing person's report.

Speaker 5 We went to the police station and we gave them, you know picture of Leslie

Speaker 5 and the guy said thank you and he put her you know her picture on a pile and

Speaker 5 I mean in California I'm sure I don't know how many people go missing especially in Hollywood a day.

Speaker 21 A lot of people come to Hollywood from somewhere else but their dreams of making it big here don't always work out.

Speaker 23 They can lose touch with their families. Then suddenly the folks back home are calling the cops thinking they're missing.

Speaker 20 when really they're just lost in the meat grinder that is Hollywood. Asha desperately needed something that would make Leslie's case stand out.

Speaker 5 We went back to the car and we thought,

Speaker 5 I don't know where to go from here, you know, and the phone rang and it was

Speaker 5 Malcolm Thomas.

Speaker 26 Malcolm Thomas is Lyle Herring's cousin.

Speaker 29 He wanted to talk about a very distraught Lyle, whom he'd also seen in the days days after Leslie missed work.

Speaker 47 Malcolm told Asha that Lyle seemed almost suicidal.

Speaker 35 Did he mention Leslie at all?

Speaker 43 He said, don't bring up her name anymore. He doesn't want to hear about her anymore.

Speaker 48 Did you get the feeling that was because they'd had a fight or they were splitting up or she dumped him?

Speaker 43 I thought maybe there was a disagreement.

Speaker 43 People do have disagreements.

Speaker 2 People

Speaker 43 split up for short periods of time and get back together. And I said, well, maybe he's just upset over something.

Speaker 18 Lyle asked Malcolm to drive with him to his condo complex.

Speaker 26 Lyle led the way in his SUV.

Speaker 25 You're following Lyle to his house.

Speaker 26 Yes, I am. But he doesn't go straight to his house, does he?

Speaker 43 No. As soon as we pulled into the driveway, he made a sharp left turn, and that was different.

Speaker 26 Away from his home.

Speaker 43 Away from his home.

Speaker 25 They ended up in a remote garage underneath the condo complex.

Speaker 43 He opens up my back passenger side door. He got into the back seat, closes the door, slides down in the seat of the car, and pulls my suit coat over his head.
He's hiding. He's hiding.

Speaker 43 And I said, man, don't do that in my car. I said, what's going on? He said, there are some people at the end of the driveway.
that he doesn't want to see or have them see us.

Speaker 21 Some people near the end of the driveway?

Speaker 7 as she listened to Malcolm's story, Asha suddenly realized that's you.

Speaker 5 It was us.

Speaker 5 And so we ran back into the police station, took the baby out, back out the seat, went back in, and we said, you know, we just talked to my sister's husband's cousin, and he had, you know, a really

Speaker 5 a really frantic interaction with him. The policeman said, wait a second, I'm going to get you guys a detective.

Speaker 17 The next person Asha met was Detective Chris Gable.

Speaker 7 Missing persons' cases are not usually your department.

Speaker 1 No, they're not. But this was different?

Speaker 9 This was different.

Speaker 4 Coming up.

Speaker 4 Inside Leslie and Lyle's home, a strange clue buried in a closet. And then inside their marriage, something buried there, too.

Speaker 8 She found out about that.

Speaker 26 Yes.

Speaker 48 And I'm guessing was pretty furious.

Speaker 11 She was furious.

Speaker 4 When Dateline continues.

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Speaker 37 Wednesday, February 11, 2009.

Speaker 7 Detective Chris Gable was working the homicide table that night at the LAPD's Hollywood station when the officer from the front desk walked Asha, Jesse, and their baby back to detectives.

Speaker 5 We went back to the detectives and we explained everything about Leslie and about how worried we were. We didn't know what was going on.

Speaker 7 Lyle and Leslie were both missing and unreachable.

Speaker 24 Maybe they were together.

Speaker 26 Maybe they weren't.

Speaker 37 Maybe they were safe.

Speaker 14 And maybe they weren't.

Speaker 9 My instincts are that there's something suspicious going on. I still don't know what it is.
They could have both taken off. I don't know these people.
You know, they live a pretty isolated lifestyle.

Speaker 9 But from the the things that I've found so far, it seems suspicious.

Speaker 26 Gable checked hospitals, coroner's offices, and the highway patrol and came up with exactly nothing.

Speaker 26 He put out a bolo to be on the lookout for, asking police throughout Southern California to look for Leslie and Lyle Herring.

Speaker 23 And he brought cousin Malcolm in to hear firsthand about Lyle's strange behavior.

Speaker 8 Most of the family is telling you that the relationship between Lyle and Leslie is terrific.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 8 Malcolm's the only one who sends up some sort of red flag.

Speaker 9 Based on his conversations with Lyle in the previous days after she was missing, yes.

Speaker 23 Whatever had happened was beginning to feel like foul play.

Speaker 15 Gable knew he had to move fast.

Speaker 26 And so at 3 a.m., some 11 hours after first meeting Asha, Gable and his partner Vicki Bynum were in the Herring condo, search warrant in hand.

Speaker 8 The apartment didn't appear to be a place where murder had just been committed.

Speaker 5 It didn't, but the apartment was real telling to me about the two people that lived there. We didn't know much about them, but it was almost like an apartment divided.

Speaker 5 The part of the apartment that was Leslie's, for example, was very orderly and put together. And then there was a room that was Lyle's, and it was just like a tornado had been through it.

Speaker 8 But still, no sign of a struggle.

Speaker 2 No. No blood.

Speaker 9 No visible blood. The only thing that caught my attention that night was there was a large amount of towels hanging over the showers of both bathrooms.

Speaker 9 And I just made note of it, but I thought there was some sort of a flood or something that they sopped up.

Speaker 7 Inside the apartment, he also saw spilled candle wax.

Speaker 28 If the OCD-intensive Leslie had seen that, she'd have cleaned it up right away.

Speaker 36 So did it happen after she left?

Speaker 18 And Gable and Bynum found something else.

Speaker 16 A receipt from Starbucks dated February 9th at 9.17 p.m.

Speaker 26 That was the first day Leslie missed work.

Speaker 25 Where did you find that receipt?

Speaker 9 That receipt was found inside of a purse, inside of Leslie's purse, inside of her closet.

Speaker 8 So presumably it was Leslie who went to Starbucks.

Speaker 9 Exactly.

Speaker 30 It was 6 a.m. when they finished collecting their evidence, and night turned to day in Hollywood.

Speaker 18 And what had dawned on these detectives was that this may not have been the happy home of a happy couple.

Speaker 23 A visit with Asha and Leslie's mother, Vivian, gave them a glimpse behind the bright picture Leslie had always painted.

Speaker 11 That weekend they were feuding. Lyle cooked some food and he put a certain spice in the food.
And when she asked him what spice he had in the food, he couldn't tell her.

Speaker 18 Vivian knew that certain spices triggered Leslie's debilitating migraines.

Speaker 17 But Vivian also knew and was the only one who did know, that this fight over spices was just a symptom of so much that was going wrong between Mr.

Speaker 23 and Mrs.

Speaker 26 Lyle Herring.

Speaker 8 Things had not been good between your daughter and Lyle.

Speaker 11 No, they had financial problems.

Speaker 28 To say these were financial problems is to understate what had been happening.

Speaker 47 Vivian said Leslie had told her that Lyle needed cash badly.

Speaker 29 So badly.

Speaker 24 that he had committed identity theft against his own wife.

Speaker 11 He forged our signature and he took money from her credit cards.

Speaker 8 And she found out about that? Yes.

Speaker 48 And I'm guessing was pretty furious.

Speaker 11 She was furious.

Speaker 32 It turned out that for months, Leslie had been telling her mother she was nearing the end of her rope.

Speaker 23 Vivian cautioned Leslie not to tell Lyle she was thinking of leaving it.

Speaker 11 I said if you want to leave,

Speaker 11 You cannot let him know what your plans are.

Speaker 11 Just leave.

Speaker 20 So don't tell him in advance.

Speaker 31 No. Don't leave a note.

Speaker 11 No.

Speaker 20 Was this mother just trying to hold on to anything that might mean her missing daughter was still alive?

Speaker 26 Or

Speaker 17 did she know more than she was saying?

Speaker 4 Coming up,

Speaker 4 a new clue pushes the investigation into high gear.

Speaker 8 I'm guessing you watched that video several times. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 4 Why this changed everything.

Speaker 14 No one seemed to know where Leslie Herring was.

Speaker 23 Her husband Lyle had been seen but wasn't returning anyone's calls, not even those from the LAPD.

Speaker 28 Had Leslie simply left her husband?

Speaker 21 without a word to anyone.

Speaker 23 It seemed unlikely, but then her sister Asha was still in the process of learning about Leslie's marriage, how bad it really was, how unhappy Leslie was, things Leslie was apparently telling only their mother.

Speaker 5 The thing about my sister is I think she really wanted people to believe that she had it all together so she would wouldn't tell us about the problems that she was having with Lyle.

Speaker 8 She'd always taking care of you.

Speaker 26 You're on TV and doing great. And maybe she thought, you know what,

Speaker 48 I'm not going to break Asha's concentration for a minute.

Speaker 5 Oh, definitely. Yeah, out of protection, a little bit of pride.

Speaker 29 So perhaps Leslie was still alive somewhere and just keeping her head down.

Speaker 33 It's what Vivian was hoping.

Speaker 11 I believed that Leslie would come home. I went to sleep every night and imagined I could hear the doorbell ring.
I could imagine that there were knocks on the door. I imagined the phone would ring.

Speaker 24 She believed it because Vivian knew something Asha didn't know, something Vivian didn't tell the detectives right away.

Speaker 26 That Leslie had spoken openly to her mother months earlier about some people who could help her just vanish and underground.

Speaker 10 She mentioned going underground.

Speaker 11 Yes, she did.

Speaker 8 Did she seem serious about going underground?

Speaker 11 Yes, she wanted to leave.

Speaker 23 As much as he knew her family wanted to believe that, Detective Chris Gable knew it didn't make sense.

Speaker 9 You would bring something. She had a lot of cash she left behind.
She would certainly have her migraine medication. For all intents and purposes, from what we could tell, there was nothing.

Speaker 9 She took nothing with her.

Speaker 22 And one week after Leslie was a no-show at work, their investigation changed course.

Speaker 7 Remember that Starbucks receipt police found in Leslie's handbag?

Speaker 7 Gable and his partner Vicki Bynum got their first look at the security video from Starbucks showing the cash register at the exact time the purchase was made.

Speaker 8 I'm guessing you watched that video several times.

Speaker 2 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 29 It's pretty clear video, and it's pretty clear that it isn't Leslie.

Speaker 5 And lo and behold, it's Lyle Herring. Lyle Herring by himself, no wife with his long dreadlock hair, and he purchases a single item.

Speaker 8 He doesn't buy another cup for somebody who might be waiting outside.

Speaker 5 No, and you know, we're looking for that, obviously.

Speaker 8 You thinking you were meant to find it in Leslie's purse?

Speaker 9 I suspected so, and as the investigation moved forward, I knew that we were expected to find it there.

Speaker 14 Three more days passed, an instant in Hollywood, an eternity for Asha and her family.

Speaker 26 And then the bolo got a hit.

Speaker 28 Lyle Herring had been stopped at the Mexican border, not fleeing, but returning to the United States.

Speaker 33 The detectives dropped everything and headed south.

Speaker 8 You didn't want to wait till the next day?

Speaker 9 Oh, no. Our spuddy senses were up, thinking that something could be awry.
We didn't know, so we needed to get down there and talk to him. And Chris Gable, that's a friendly beach.

Speaker 9 And we needed to find out if Leslie was with him. If not, where is she and what does he know?

Speaker 10 Finally, the detectives heard a story from Lyle that explained just about everything. He confirmed what his mother-in-law had told the cops that he and Leslie had been fighting that weekend.

Speaker 7 They'd been fighting a lot, but this time he said it was different.

Speaker 24 Leslie had apparently had about enough of him.

Speaker 14 And Lyle said that when he woke up in their apartment that Sunday morning, Leslie was gone.

Speaker 51 Did she just wait to go to the store and never came back?

Speaker 46 Or, I mean, how that happened? Did she just write up things on that?

Speaker 26 The detectives were surprised to hear all this from a closely cropped Lyle Herring, a man who'd been known for years for his long dreadlocks.

Speaker 24 Lyle explained to the detectives that he owed money to some gang members and that when he couldn't pay them back, they held him down and cut off his hair.

Speaker 8 You used to work the gang unit. Yes.
Have you ever heard of a gang holding someone down and giving them a haircut as a way of getting money that they wanted?

Speaker 9 Not only have I not heard of that, but the shave was a little added

Speaker 9 touch that I had never heard.

Speaker 4 A little hard to keep a straight face when I heard that.

Speaker 17 Lyle said that before she dumped him, he and Leslie had planned a Valentine's vacation in Mexico and that he'd gone there to look for her a week after she had disappeared.

Speaker 51 So we were both in Canada going on. Okay, yeah.
So he went so part of it was to look for her?

Speaker 51 It's a little stupid, right? No, it's not stupid at all. If it was me, I'd be looking for my wife wherever I could.

Speaker 14 But Lyle had come up empty.

Speaker 51 Do you have any idea where your wife is? I have not.

Speaker 26 Then Gable asked Lyle if, during his search, he had tried to phone or email his wife.

Speaker 26 Listen to Lyle's answer.

Speaker 51 I called her, but

Speaker 51 I believe

Speaker 51 I can't verify because my mind has been so tired, but

Speaker 51 I guess you can verify from my cell phone or to the home. You can check my cell phone records, you know, I guess.

Speaker 8 He volunteered to check my cell phone records. Yes.
Did you think he wants me to see his cell phone records the same way he wanted me to see that Starbucks receipt?

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 7 Suspicious?

Speaker 26 Yes.

Speaker 34 But proof of a crime?

Speaker 26 Not even close.

Speaker 32 Lyle Herring was not under arrest for anything.

Speaker 28 But Gable was able to seize Lyle's SUV.

Speaker 27 He then brought in Indiana bones from the LA County Coroner's Office, a German shepherd trained to sniff out the scent of human decomposition.

Speaker 36 They sent the dog through Lyle's SUV and also through a classic Cadillac he owned.

Speaker 47 In both vehicles, she stopped in her tracks and alerted.

Speaker 8 The dog told you that at one time a dead body had been in the back of Lyle's car. Correct.
That's when you know Leslie's dead.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 9 Now I know she's dead.

Speaker 18 Gable did not share that with Leslie's family because he wasn't close to closing this case.

Speaker 20 There was still so much he didn't have.

Speaker 33 A crime scene, a witness, or the one thing most homicide investigations begin with.

Speaker 18 A body.

Speaker 35 Had you ever done a murder case in which you didn't have a dead body?

Speaker 9 No, this is the first one.

Speaker 8 You've never done that before?

Speaker 9 No, I never have.

Speaker 23 The Herring case wasn't going to be easy.

Speaker 33 So Detective Gable decided he needed a little help from the media.

Speaker 14 He held a press conference.

Speaker 38 But this would be a press conference unlike any you've ever seen.

Speaker 32 It would be pure theater, worthy of Hollywood.

Speaker 24 Everyone would be there.

Speaker 17 Detectives, family, even the prime suspect.

Speaker 26 Coming up.

Speaker 4 Leslie's husband center stage in a command performance.

Speaker 9 He didn't want to speak.

Speaker 12 I'd like to introduce Lyle Herring.

Speaker 9 Our captain said the next person to speak is Lyle Herring. I think he had no choice at that point.

Speaker 4 When dateline continues.

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Speaker 49 Hey weirdos, I'm Elena and I'm Ash and we are the host of Morbid Podcast. Each week we dive into the dark and fascinating world of true crime, spooky history, and the unexplained.

Speaker 53 From infamous killers and unsolved mysteries to haunted places and strange legends, we cover it all with research, empathy, humor, and a few creative expletives.

Speaker 49 It's smart, it's spooky, and it's just the right amount of weird.

Speaker 53 Two new episodes drop every week, and there's even a bonus once a month.

Speaker 49 Find us wherever you listen to podcasts.

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Speaker 29 Leslie Herring was still missing.

Speaker 24 She hadn't turned up dead or alive.

Speaker 23 Now, detectives turned to Leslie's family with a request, and it wasn't an easy one.

Speaker 14 You and your mom

Speaker 26 all give police a DNA sample.

Speaker 8 Now,

Speaker 14 you know that when police get to that point,

Speaker 48 they're probably not looking for a live person anymore.

Speaker 5 That was

Speaker 18 hard to do.

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 5 It's like you end up talking and dealing with all these morbid things, talking about finding bodies and where is she,

Speaker 5 what kind of ending did she have.

Speaker 42 Those were questions Detective Gable had, too.

Speaker 29 Questions he wasn't close to answering.

Speaker 35 So 44 days after Leslie went missing, the LAPD held what started as a press conference and ended as something quite different.

Speaker 12 I thank you all for being here this morning.

Speaker 25 Cable hoped that getting Leslie's story in the news might jog someone's memory in a way that would roll the investigation forward.

Speaker 24 Asha and her entire family were there, and so was Lyle.

Speaker 7 Did you think he was going to speak at the press conference?

Speaker 9 He didn't want to speak.

Speaker 12 I'd like to introduce Lyle Herring, the husband of Leslie at this time.

Speaker 9 Our captain just went ahead and said the next person to speak is Lyle Herring and I think he had no choice at that point.

Speaker 50 If Leslie's out there listening to us, please give us a call, come home, let us know what's going on.

Speaker 17 Then it was Asha's turn.

Speaker 6 It's very unusual for her not to be in touch with her family. She is a creature of habit and

Speaker 6 this is why her disappearance is so alarming to us.

Speaker 23 For Asha the actress, this day played out more strangely than any script she had ever followed.

Speaker 5 The press conference was really difficult because it was the first time I was going to see Lyle since it happened.

Speaker 36 How did you not run up to him and start shaking him?

Speaker 5 To me, approach everything with love. I didn't think shaking him was going to get an answer.
I, you know, I hugged him like I always do when I see him.

Speaker 11 But that didn't work either. No.

Speaker 45 She did not run away.

Speaker 23 Unlike his sister, Asha and Leslie's brother Lyndon did not approach Lyle with love.

Speaker 45 And I would like you, Lyle, to tell me what's going on here because we came a long way to know what's going on.

Speaker 8 This is killing our family.

Speaker 23 Through it all stood Lyle Herring, either a husband worried about his wife or a killer worried about being caught.

Speaker 13 I'm the lead investigator for this case.

Speaker 18 When Detective Gable began to speak, a reporter asked if Lyle was being helpful in the search for his missing wife.

Speaker 13 Had he been cooperative, I would describe his cooperation as fragmented and

Speaker 50 less than helpful.

Speaker 33 At one point, reporters asked Detective Gable,

Speaker 26 is Lyle cooperating?

Speaker 14 And with Lyle standing right there, Detective Gable says, not really.

Speaker 5 I was, you know,

Speaker 5 just floored by what was happening.

Speaker 23 And Gable wasn't done laying out the inconsistencies in Lyle's story to an audience of eager listeners that included Lyle.

Speaker 13 He left the condominium on Tuesday, the following Tuesday, and went down to San Diego to apply for jobs at some colleges down there.

Speaker 13 Following that, he went down to Mexico for a day.

Speaker 42 Then reporters turned on Lyle.

Speaker 45 Everything said he's less than cooperative.

Speaker 50 Those are some rubber charge statements.

Speaker 35 Lyle told Gable he did not want to answer.

Speaker 46 This is your opportunity to speak.

Speaker 46 This is your opportunity to speak.

Speaker 18 And Lyle took it.

Speaker 31 Let me clarify one thing.

Speaker 50 So we're going to be taking things out of context, okay? I had an opportunity to take a trip.

Speaker 50 We've had an opportunity to take a trip to

Speaker 50 Mexico, Rosarita, to celebrate for Valentine's Day. I went down there to look for her.
I went for all the places that I thought she would be. Okay, that's one of the places that we had planned to go.

Speaker 50 Okay, so for you to, for Detective Gable to take out a context, just throw it out there arbitrarily, well, he went to Mexico, yes, to look for my wife.

Speaker 30 But Gable had never believed that Lyle went to Mexico to look for Leslie.

Speaker 9 It's obvious he's lying, and I can see he's lying.

Speaker 26 Seeing through Lyle's lies was one thing, but what Gable really needed was a break.

Speaker 8 I kind of get the feeling that what you were hoping for with that press conference was not somebody who had seen Leslie alive, but maybe somebody who had seen Lyle

Speaker 8 in the process of moving or disposing her body.

Speaker 9 Yes, that's what I was hoping for.

Speaker 8 Somebody maybe you hadn't talked to before.

Speaker 2 Correct.

Speaker 8 And it paid off.

Speaker 9 It paid off immediately. Thank you very much for coming down.

Speaker 4 Coming up, what a new witness claims he saw. A stunning revelation.

Speaker 8 You think that was Leslie? Absolutely.

Speaker 4 And then, what little sister Asha believes could have changed everything.

Speaker 5 I really, really wish she had.

Speaker 50 Yeah, I do.

Speaker 50 All her friends are going to gather. We're going to get quiet.
We think about her as hard as we can. It's all about her today.

Speaker 24 In the weeks after that surreal press conference, Asha Davis continued getting the word out about her sister Leslie Heron.

Speaker 8 She was amazing.

Speaker 35 Lyle Herring continued to play the part of the grieving husband.

Speaker 31 Inside Hollywood Station, detectives Gable and Bynum were continuing to put the case together against Lyle.

Speaker 24 One with no DNA, no blood, and still no body.

Speaker 7 But there was evidence that came in tiny little pieces.

Speaker 23 They'd found an undated Dear John type letter that Leslie had written to Lyle, saying she was leaving him, that she was broken.

Speaker 17 And detectives finally got those cell phone records that Lyle was so eager for them to see.

Speaker 9 Here we have February 7th and this is their condominium right here. Here's a cell site tower.

Speaker 32 It turns out Lyle did call Leslie after the time he said she'd run off.

Speaker 37 But the records had more details than Lyle expected.

Speaker 9 There was activity between both phones. That part is true.

Speaker 9 But the problem was

Speaker 9 where the phones were located.

Speaker 9 Based off the cell towers, we were able to show that the phones were in the same location.

Speaker 8 Suggesting that what Lyle was holding his phone in one hand and dialing Leslie's phone, which was in his other hand. Exactly.

Speaker 40 And then came the lead spawned by that press conference.

Speaker 9 Thank you very much for coming down.

Speaker 30 A neighbor from the condo complex had seen Lyle Herring getting into the elevator at around 12.30 a.m.

Speaker 23 Sunday on that weekend that Leslie disappeared.

Speaker 24 Lyle was moving what looked like a big rolled-up carpet.

Speaker 36 How

Speaker 9 like the diameter, would you say?

Speaker 1 If you were to take a look at

Speaker 1 a no, it was round, like round enough for a body to be inside it.

Speaker 8 You think that was Leslie inside that carpet? Absolutely.

Speaker 26 It would take more than a year, but in April 2010, Lyle Herring was finally arrested and charged with the murder of his wife, Leslie.

Speaker 25 It would take three more years to get to trial.

Speaker 45 Over the next few weeks, my colleague here and I are going to present to you the layered web of evidence that caught him, put him in this courtroom,

Speaker 2 and proves

Speaker 45 beyond a reasonable doubt that that man, that calculating husband, that killer, is the defendant, Lyle Heron.

Speaker 8 What do you think happened?

Speaker 9 I learned throughout the investigation that one of the things that Lyle does when they're having arguments is that he washes Leslie's hair.

Speaker 8 As a way of what?

Speaker 9 Getting back into her good graces.

Speaker 16 Gable believes the Herring's bathtub was the real crime scene.

Speaker 9 And I believe that they were talking about the letter that he had already received and she was likely adamant that she was leaving. He was going to have no part of that.

Speaker 9 And I think he just pushed her under.

Speaker 8 And drowned her right there in a while.

Speaker 2 Drowned her right there.

Speaker 16 Remember all those towels Gable saw he believes Lyle used them to mop up the bathroom then he wrapped up Leslie put her on the dolly and had the bad luck to run into a neighbor in the elevator that night the defense said none of that happened that Lyle was not guilty because Leslie wasn't murdered she's not even dead I don't want you to expect or hold me to any promise that there's going to be some Perry Mason moment and Leslie's going to walk through the door and just say, here I am.

Speaker 39 am.

Speaker 39 But I will tell you at the conclusion of this trial,

Speaker 39 there will be more than sufficient evidence to believe

Speaker 39 that she in fact could.

Speaker 5 I wish they were right. Let me say that.
You know, I would love to be hugging my sister and I wish that were true, but I know who she is and I know she's not alive.

Speaker 25 We are on the record of the matter.

Speaker 26 After a three and a half week trial, a jury agreed with Asha.

Speaker 54 We, the jury in the above entitled Action, find the defendant Lyle Stanford Herring Sr. guilty of the crime of murder.

Speaker 33 June 2013, Lyle Herring was sentenced to 15 years to life for murder in the second degree.

Speaker 26 It's not quite the end because Lyle is holding on to one last secret from a marriage that apparently had a lot of them.

Speaker 28 He's never told anyone where Leslie's body is.

Speaker 24 Lyle's probably going to see this program.

Speaker 41 I know.

Speaker 48 Anything you want to say to him?

Speaker 26 Yes.

Speaker 11 We pray that you will tell us where Leslie is so we could have closure in our life.

Speaker 11 We know that you know exactly where she is.

Speaker 26 Through her pain and loss, Asha is trying to find a lesson.

Speaker 5 It's so important to me that women or anyone who's fearful about what other people are going to think about the way they're living their life.

Speaker 5 It's hard to not live up to what we think is success, but it's so much more important that you share even your sadness with people.

Speaker 35 You wish Leslie had talked to you.

Speaker 5 I really, really wish she had. Yeah, I do.

Speaker 5 I don't think I'd be here right now.

Speaker 42 But Asha has also had an opportunity to bring some laughter back into this family.

Speaker 37 A few years after Leslie vanished, Asha starred in a web series called The Unwritten Rules.

Speaker 18 Happy Juneteenth!

Speaker 26 Yes, I did. Happy Juneteenth.

Speaker 14 It's a comedy about a black woman working one of those deathly dull jobs in a mostly white office.

Speaker 26 It's a little like Leslie's life.

Speaker 5 And I read those scripts and I just, I felt Leslie. I felt her in my heart.
I felt, I laughed again the way she used to make me laugh. So excited to be back with my racy.

Speaker 26 I missed you, girl. I did.

Speaker 29 And so one sister is paying homage to another.

Speaker 20 It won't bring Leslie back, but it makes her her loss a little less painful.

Speaker 40 In this Hollywood story, it's the only happy ending that's available.

Speaker 4 That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt.
Thanks for joining us.

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