Episode 323

Independent election experts, community groups, and President Obama agree.

Yes, on Prop 50.

As Trump tries to rig the next election by stealing congressional seats, Prop 50 defends checks and balances and reaffirms California's commitment to independent, nonpartisan redistricting.

This November, defend democracy.

Yes, on 50.

Add paid for by Yes on 50, the Election Rigging Response Act, Governor Newsom's Ballot Measure Committee, Ad Committee's top funders, Fund for Policy Reform, and HMP for Prop 50.

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Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences.

Listener discretion is advised.

We lose a child that way,

and

that baby is an extension of her mother and the rest of her family, so they lost a child as well.

Some asshole said at some point that brevity is the essence of wit, so we might as well get on with it.

This is episode 323 of Sword and Scale, a show that reveals that the worst monsters are real.

Independent election experts, community groups, and President Obama agree, yes, on Prop 50.

As Trump tries to rig the next election by stealing congressional seats, Prop 50 defends checks and balances and reaffirms California's commitment to independent, nonpartisan redistricting.

This November, defend democracy.

Yes, on 50.

Add paid for by Yes on 50, the Election Rigging Response Act, Governor Newsom's Ballot Measure Committee, Ad Committee's Top Funders, Fund for Policy Reform, and HMP for Prop 50.

She turns on to Bolivar Street, like the car is driving itself.

She feels

numb,

Too numb to be its driver.

She's been here before, too many times to count, but today is different.

Her stomach is unsettled.

Why hasn't her daughter Lisa responded to her in more than 15 hours?

They have an understanding, she thinks.

If I don't hear from you, I'm coming to find you.

It's the way moms and daughters operate.

That bond is never truly broken.

The building comes into view at the far end of the block.

It looks like a regular two-story house, maybe a little worn around the edges.

There's a lawn, not big, but enough to push a mower across, and a long, narrow sidewalk that stretches up to the sagging front porch.

It's the kind of porch you'd expect to creak under your feet, and

it does.

It does.

From where she parks, the trees at the dead end street are in full bloom, tall and still.

A thick line of woods makes the gray two-story house feel almost peaceful.

If you didn't know any better, you'd think this was a residential house in a rural setting, not an apartment within the city limits.

She walks the sidewalk, one foot in front of the other.

Her hands are tight around her phone.

There's no answer.

She's been calling and calling.

And she's tired of hearing her daughter's voice on the voicemail greeting.

She knows the entry code by heart, the four digits her daughter gave her months ago, just in case.

She punches them into the keypad at the front of the apartment building and climbs to the second floor.

It's too quiet, except for a fluorescent bulb buzzing in the hallway.

Her stomach is already starting to twist.

The apartment door is closed, but not locked.

She pushes it open.

Something is off.

Even the air smells wrong.

She calls out Lisa's name, but there's no answer.

Still, nothing screams danger.

It's just an eerie silence.

Maybe Lisa is sleeping.

Maybe her phone died.

Maybe.

She moves through the kitchen and then the small hallway that leads to the bedroom.

The light is on.

This gives her one second of hope.

The light is on.

She turns the corner to enter the bedroom, and her mother's intuition has already taken over.

She steps closer.

She calls her name again.

Nothing.

Just as she turns to leave the room, she catches something in her peripheral vision.

Lisa is on the floor, on her back.

Time is now in slow motion as she makes her way to her daughter.

A towel is wrapped tightly around her head, almost like a turban.

Blood is soaked through it in dark patches.

She sees that her shirt is lifted slightly over her swollen belly.

She reaches out and touches her daughter's pregnant stomach and finds it

cold.

She thinks, maybe, just maybe,

it's not too late.

Maybe she can still do CPR, maybe the baby.

But her hands are shaking.

She feels the panic set in.

So she dials 911.

911 was the other separation.

Yeah.

Hi.

Name?

What do you think?

Lisa, L-I-E-S-E.

God, is she on boulevard right now?

No.

She's in her apartment.

I remember check on him.

At that moment, Heidi Noel crosses a threshold no parent is ever meant to cross.

So I was a single mom with two children.

I had Lisa when I was about 27 years old.

She was my mini-me.

We had a lot of the same characteristics and behaviors.

My older daughter, Shelby, just doted on Lisa.

It was kind of like her living baby doll.

As they were growing up, as any siblings, they went through their close times and then their separate times where they couldn't stand each other, which is pretty normal.

But as they became adults, they became the best of friends and they used to call themselves twins seven years apart.

So

they were quite the team.

In the chaos of that moment, her calling for help, trying to make sense of what she's just seen.

Heidi's recollection of the night before stuck with her.

The last text.

I don't.

I last

got a message from her last night.

How was the last time?

What time did you last hear from her?

It was like 9:05 or so.

I had sent her a text.

That last text read simply,

You okay?

A mother's intuition told her

Lisa was not okay.

They're on their way.

Okay.

No, that's her name.

That's her vehicle.

Doing it now.

Do you see the officers, man?

I hear this, Brian.

I hear this.

Tell me when you see the officer.

Okay, stand with me.

Okay, you see the officer now?

Okay, I'm going to let you go, okay?

Okay, you're welcome.

What she holds on to now came long before that tragic night.

The moments that still make her laugh, the moments that made Lisa Lisa.

She was a good student.

She was very thoughtful and courteous.

She

when she was

we moved up to Jerseyville when Shelby was entering middle school and Lisa was still one year away from kindergarten.

So Lisa did complete all of her schooling here in Jerseyville.

And at Shelby's

middle school orientation, Lisa dressed with a tiara and princess outfit.

So she was, like I said, said, around five, six years old.

So she attended Shelby's, much to Shelby's dismay, middle school orientation in a tiara and princess gown and those little plastic princess shoes that they used to sell at the store.

So

she was a character.

Lisa was just 22 years old, but was already living on her own in an apartment about half an hour away from her mom and stepdad.

She was responsible.

She had her own car and a job.

But her main goal was to become a nurse like her mother because she loved caring for people.

That was obvious.

She was pregnant, almost eight months pregnant.

The nursery wasn't finished yet, but the baby shower invitations had already gone out.

The party was planned for the end of June.

Pink and white decorations.

Her mom had just picked up the balloons.

The due date was late July, just weeks away.

Just the night before, Heidi and Lisa had been talking about names for the baby.

She wasn't ever nervous, just excited.

She'd text her mom about baby stuff constantly.

Crib styles, diaper bags, and ultrasounds.

And she had, even in her younger years, had always kind of wanted to be a mom.

She has some cousins.

I think at the time she had about three cousins and she doted on them and would kind of babysit with them.

And so she

was very much into she was looking forward to being a mom.

Like she never, she never shied away from being a mom or the responsibility of that.

And during the one of the first

ultrasounds, you know when when a baby's really small it looks kind of like a bean a little jelly bean and so that's where she she then started referring to her baby as baby bean so that's where the the nickname came from and we all just embraced it and went with it so the restaurant that she worked at here in jerseyville was going to allow us to use their space to host her baby shower

so we were talking about how we were going to decorate it and I had asked her if she'd decided on a name yet.

And she's like, no, not really.

Not for sure.

I thought about Leilani.

And I'm like, why Leilani?

You know, I'm like, we're not Hawaiian.

And she goes, that's not a Hawaiian name.

And I'm like, well, I said, it's still a beautiful name.

But I said, I thought you were leaning toward Genevieve.

And she's like, no, I'm not sure.

So

she had no idea that she wouldn't get to see any of it.

Now she sat rocking back and forth to soothe herself as she waited for police and emergency responders to make their way to Lisa's apartment.

Car after car, sirens blazing and lights flashing, were descending onto the place.

It seemed like the entire police department was crowding onto the front lawn, and Heidi was just.

Well, she was just numb.

You have it keyed again?

Right here, right here.

This one.

Do you have this key?

Of course, Heidi wasn't thinking clearly.

They would need the same code to enter the building.

As for the key, she left Lisa's apartment unlocked as she walked away in shock.

Unsure of where the killer was, the police announced themselves as they stormed the building.

Even they were stunned at what they saw in Lisa's bedroom.

You want to go talk to her, dude?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll hold her.

The The scene was a bloody mess, and the suspect was long gone by the time Lisa's mom and the police got there.

Whoever killed her fled in her car, a black Kia Optima.

They left behind a dead body and a grieving mother.

Take some big deep breaths for me, okay?

She moved the towel.

It was partial.

It was faint.

The sound of Heidi's voice asking officers a question that an hour earlier would have seemed absurd.

Did you find her head?

She asked.

When she turned into the doorway of her daughter's bedroom, she almost left without seeing her daughter in it at all.

This was because Lisa lay on the floor.

But then, Heidi caught sight of her daughter's pale skin smeared with blood.

And then a towel wrapped around her head like a turban.

Except, there was no head.

It was hard for even seasoned police to come to grips with the site.

I don't know the whole story, but it's only mom came here to take on her daughter.

Found daughter just dead upstairs.

Okay.

Obviously, okay.

Can you wanna

cut off?

Oh.

So, I mean, I don't think there's anything.

Yeah, I don't think there's anything.

So, all right, so just some more rooms.

That's what we're trying to do.

Get in these other apartments just to make sure that

everybody else is.

I just got a proper game.

I'll just check in to see.

Yeah.

While a few few officers waited outside with Heidi, some went into the building to ask if anyone in the other units knew anything.

This wasn't something they came across every day, and even they were shocked.

Yeah, it's not good enough.

We didn't see it.

I'm assuming maybe wrapped up in that towel, but

I think some cut.

It looks fairly clean, too.

Yeah,

The police had looked everywhere for Lisa's head, even the refrigerator and freezer.

But it was nowhere.

According to the police report, first responders found blood throughout the floor of the apartment.

Most police were instructed to wait outside while the scene was processed.

Once in the bedroom, they saw Lisa's decapitated body lying on the bedroom floor next to the bed.

They noticed bloodstains on her torso, and most of the stains seemed to be blood spatter or smearing.

But then they saw something odd.

A symmetrical stain on her left side.

It was rectangular with small circles inside the rectangle.

It's unclear, but likely, that Lisa was already dead when her head was severed.

There was no mention of arterial spurting in the police report.

This was her mother's perspective and her words.

I had turned to just get ready to leave, and

out of the corner of my eye, I saw skin, the color of skin.

Again, I'm a nurse, so

and I think I was like, I think that was skin.

So when I turned and looked in the bedroom, I saw her laying on the ground.

And so so I ran over to her,

saying, you know, Lisa, Lisa.

What a painful realization that the child you brought into this world was whole when she got here and in pieces when she left.

The towel bundled up at the top of Lisa's body did not contain the rest of her.

And her hand was lying on top of a book about pregnancy, of all things.

This was the same hand that used to tuck back long strands of strawberry blonde hair from her bright face and smile.

But where was that smile now?

Where was her face, for that matter?

Heidi was already begging the police to find it

and find the monster who did this.

Independent election experts, community groups, and President Obama agree.

Yes on Prop 50.

As Trump tries to rig the next election by stealing congressional seats, Prop 50 defends checks and balances and reaffirms California's commitment to independent, nonpartisan redistricting.

This November, defend democracy, yes on 50.

Add paid for by Yes on 50 the Election-Rigging Response Act, Governor Newsom's Ballot Measure Committee.

Add Committee's top funders.

Fund for policy reform and HMP for Prop 50.

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Independent election experts, community groups, and President Obama agree.

Yes, on Prop 50.

As Trump tries to rig the next election by stealing congressional seats, Prop 50 defends checks and balances and reaffirms California's commitment to independent, nonpartisan redistricting.

This November, Defend Democracy.

Yes, on 50.

Add paid for by Yes on 50, the Election Rigging Response Act, Governor Newsom's Ballot Measure Committee, Ad Committee's top funders, Fund for Policy Reform, and HMP for Prop 50.

On January 9th, 2022, in Alton, Illinois, Police responded to a call from a mother who had discovered her daughter's body.

22-year-old Lisa Dodd was seven months pregnant.

She was found dead inside her apartment, her head missing.

As officers started processing the scene, a larger story was already unfolding, one that hadn't started that day.

Lisa had been living with a boyfriend for months.

It was a young man her age, and she'd been seeing him for almost two years.

According to Heidi, she was an exceptional student student who wanted to follow in her mom's footsteps and study to be a nurse.

So Liusa had

started at Lucin Clark, which is the local community college here.

And she was looking at also becoming a nurse.

She was just starting the prerequisites and stuff, but then COVID hit.

So that had given her some extra time, but they actually

met through a social media.

I'm not sure which, whether it was Facebook or one of those social medias.

she said he was an acquaintance of one of the people that she was friends with, and then they saw each other in DMs or something, and that's how they started communicating.

That's how everybody looks for a romantic connection in 2025.

Dating apps.

But Facebook?

That's more like 2010.

Nowadays, it's Hinge.

Tinder, or, I don't know, Grinder, I guess.

FurryFucks.com?

Who the hell knows?

I have no idea.

So anyway, this guy's name was DeAndre Holloway, and he lived about an hour away.

When she first started meeting up with him or seeing him, I wasn't aware of that until June of 2020.

She finally brought him around to introduce him to me.

And

probably within the first couple of times of meeting him, I recognized some of those signs,

characteristics, and behaviors that he kind of portrayed.

But I had a few relationships where they were emotionally kind of controlling and

abusive in that way, emotionally and mentally.

You know the kind.

It's all about them.

They're needy, kind of lost.

The kind of person who

never quite seems to have their life together, but always has a story about why,

why they don't have a place to stay, stay, why they don't have a job, why their family situation is, quote-unquote, complicated.

They're the kind of people who text a whole lot.

They're always checking up on you.

Not, according to them, because they're controlling you, but because they can't stand the silence.

They suddenly show up unannounced if you're having coffee with your girlfriends and act like that's totally normal and that they're not actually surveilling your activities.

They don't have a car, or when they do, it's always in the shop.

Again, it lives there in the shop because they don't have the 50 bucks to get it back.

And they always seem to need some help.

A lot of it.

A free ride, a little money, a second chance.

And somehow, there's always a person that gives it to them.

Somebody who sees their potential.

and believes that if they just had someone stable in their lives, somebody who's patient with them and doesn't give up on them like everyone else has,

they'll finally be okay.

Lisa, was that someone for DeAndre?

There was one time that

they had been over visiting here at my home.

And he, I don't know if he got tired of being here or just wanted to leave, and he was just going to leave on foot, and she was like, no, don't leave.

And so there was a little

verbal like, no, I'm leaving.

And I was like, Lisa, if he wants to leave, let him go.

You know, if he's that adamant that he wants to leave, let him, no, he can't walk.

And in Jerseyville, it is a smaller community, and the African-American population is not that large here.

So she was afraid that, you know, he might be looked at differently walking down the side of the street or whatever.

So she was very adamant that he, you know, didn't leave on foot.

And just that interaction at that time,

I could already kind of see the manipulation of,

you know, him escalating things like, I'm just leaving on foot and her trying to fix the situation.

And that's the very kind of relationship that pulls you in and can eventually pull you under.

It keeps you busy and focused on someone else's problems instead of your own.

Not that Lisa had any problems, but she had goals and a full life ahead of her.

DeAndre

did not.

As aware of the dynamic as Heidi was, she knew better than to dictate to her adult daughter what she could and couldn't do and whom she could and couldn't see.

It's a very fine line between navigating this with them.

And I also recognize

now

I'm in my midlife, but I remember being younger and the more my parent tried to clamp down and control who I talked to or how I talked to or how long I was, the more almost rebellious I was.

So I recognize that it's that fine line where you have to try to be there as much as you can and set boundaries for them, but also recognizing that that could also cause them to go the entire opposite direction and become very rebellious.

Him acting that way is not really appropriate.

And he's kind of using that to get you to do what he wants you to do.

And, you know, I don't really think this is a good relationship but she was just yeah just very adamant that no like she could help him you know i know he's got all this stuff going on he wasn't currently living at home um he was living with friends in highland so i'm not 100 of all the facts in his backstory so i don't want to allude to things incorrectly but i do know that he had troubles at home in his home life.

And so whether he left on his own or whether they had asked him to leave at that time, I'm not sure, but he was not living at home, so I think she felt like he could help him through those situations that he was having in his own family life.

To his acquaintances, DeAndre came off as quiet, sometimes distant.

He didn't talk much about his personal life.

His family described him as someone who drifted between homes, often staying with his mother or sister and showing up unannounced.

The kind of guy who you ask, where are you staying at, instead of where you living at.

You know, like normal people.

His sister said that growing up he was a loner.

He'd stay in his room for hours, rarely brought friends over, and didn't seem to connect easily with others.

You could say he was sensitive.

He'd be thrown off when plans changed or when he felt misunderstood.

Sometimes he could get a job, but he could never keep it.

When things fell through, it it was usually someone else's fault.

A lot of that going around these days.

At one point, his mother kicked him out of the house because he wasn't contributing and would become combative.

During a phone conversation with Heidi, he explained why he struggled with confrontation.

He said that in his family, if someone challenged you, you took it outside and settled it outside.

That's just how he learned to handle things.

I

recognized that I at different times I did talk to both of them.

Like I had talked to her about ending the relationship at different times and that it wasn't a good relationship and things, you know, weren't proceeding like healthy relationships do.

And then I had also said the same things to him, like, it's okay that you guys aren't together or you break up and you you know, you seem better as friends than you do when you're together and people get divorced and trying to support that they didn't have to be together to stay friends and and even the

maybe you guys just don't need to be together now until you mature and get older and then you can come back together later in life.

It was a classic toxic relationship, the push and the pull.

Lisa was working on trying to hold the relationship together.

And her mother was using all the tools in her toolbox as a mom and a nurse to guide her daughter down the right path.

But, you know, 22 is the new 12, isn't it?

Kids are dumb as fuck these days.

Somewhere in the last couple of decades, something shifted.

We started recognizing young people as adults on paper, but emotionally and socially, they're stunted.

They're still trying to figure it out, sometimes into their 30s and 40s.

Lisa wanted to help him, and she thought she could, but his problems were a whole lot bigger than immaturity.

I would probably say the first time I noticed it really escalating was in the spring of 2021.

He had been homeless and

she would go out with him in the evening until early, early in the morning and then would drop him off at parks or wherever he would say he could stay.

So then they had,

which I did not like, that she was out that late.

And then it came to a point where they had found

a place to stay in Hillsborough, Illinois.

And he had, she called me one evening and he was having an episode where he was rocking and having, he always called it a reaction.

He was having some type of reaction where he was

talking about people that were talking in his head and seeing a person in the room.

And I told her, I said, Lisa, you need to call 911 because he's having, I said, it sounds very much like schizophrenia if he's hearing voices and seeing things.

Again, I'm not diagnosing him,

but it sounded very much like that.

So I was like, this is not something that you can handle as a 20, I guess she was 21 at that time.

I said, I'm a nurse and have been, but that's not my specialty.

So you need to call 911 to help him to get him assistance, which she finally,

he had also had some previous run-ins with the law in 2019.

So she didn't want to call the ambulance or the police or 911 because she didn't want him to get in trouble and go back to jail.

But she did end up, I finally convinced her that that was the best option.

So she did call 911 and he was taken to a hospital in.

Hillsborough there for a psych evaluation.

So that was kind of my first like big, big, oh my gosh, moment where like this is bigger than just, you know, not a healthy relationship.

Now we've been told for years by the so-called experts that those with mental illness are more likely to be victims than perpetrators.

But what's also true is that if your boyfriend cuts off your head, he's more likely to be mentally ill than not.

In fact, it's just about guaranteed.

Those two things can be true at the same time, by the way.

It's called a logical fallacy for all you college-educated experts out there.

Lisa hesitated to call 911 because DeAndre had previously been in trouble with the law, but Heidi finally convinced her it was too much for her to handle alone.

He was placed in psychiatric holding for 72 hours and sent home with medications.

And for a while, he was doing a lot better.

But then his meds ran out.

So the next, the very first time that it was

very chilling was

the end of May of 2021.

She had come and had a black eye and bruises, and

he had,

during one of the altercations, he had choked her out.

And she stated that she lost consciousness.

And now I may get emotional because I've not ever really told this story.

He had choked her out to where she had lost consciousness and actually she said she saw people.

Let's be clear.

These were not the same people that the mentally ill DeAndre was seeing.

These were not demons or gods or whatever the hell was telling him what to do.

No, these are the kind of people you see at the end of the tunnel of light, if you catch my drift.

And I explained to her that that was probably her dying.

You don't normally see people, and that it's a very serious situation that he could kill her.

So at that time, she did get away from him.

We actually put her on a plane to, we had a discussion about it, and she was very adamant, you know, that she wanted to end the relationship and get away from him.

And so we bought her a one-way ticket to Colorado.

I have family in Colorado.

So she was actually going to move out there.

She also has a friend that had relocated, a best friend that relocated to Colorado.

So she was going to stay with her.

But that lasted about a week.

I will say as a parent, that is one of the hardest and difficult things of trying to assist your kids through these things is because of cell phones and social media, there is really no way

to disconnect them from each other unless they make that full effort to disconnect.

They can talk on Snapchat, they can messenger, they can Instagram each other, they can DM, they can Facebook, they can, so it's not just the phone anymore that is a communication tool.

There's so many ways they can still communicate.

Maybe someday someone will have the balls to do a study on how many deaths social media is indirectly or directly responsible for.

From that point on, Heidi panicked every time the phone rang.

She kept all the local police numbers in her phone in case of an emergency.

She told Lisa that she was always 100% welcome to move back home, just not with DeAndre.

She knew if that happened and there were problems, she had her husband to think about.

What if he popped off and did something to intervene and hurt DeAndre?

And the next thing you know, he lands himself in jail.

It felt like there was no good end, no good options, as long as her adult daughter chose to stay with this boyfriend.

DeAndre's violence escalated to the point where practically everybody who knew them knew about it.

Lisa could only make excuses about running into doors or tripping downstairs for so long.

It was becoming obvious, even to her employer.

Okay.

She had gone out on break.

She didn't come back from break, and the manager on duty had called me to let me know, and I was concerned for her.

So I had texted Lisa to see if she was okay.

And a couple hours later, she texted me back and said that her boyfriend had gotten in an altercation and that she was at the Litchville Hospital emergency room and thought that her nose was broken.

And then she texted me back and said she had seen the doctor and was waiting on the x-rays and that she would be into work the next day, but her nose was broken.

So were they in the car when that happened or were they outside the car?

No, they were in the the car and we have cameras on the back of the building.

We actually tried to roll the cameras back, but they're not very good definition, so we weren't able to actually see it.

Oh, crap.

Yeah.

I wanted to call the police and she did not want to do that.

Okay.

Okay.

And I probably should have.

Finally, an incident happened and Heidi called 911.

She just got back from a run.

She takes out her earbuds and wipes her forehead and steps into the front door on a hot summer day.

She's making her way into the kitchen for a drink of water when she sees Lisa's car pull up.

She can tell by the frantic expression on her daughter and DeAndre's faces that they're arguing again, and he's been smacking her.

Lisa runs into the house and starts banging on the door.

While Heidi lets Lisa in, her husband rushes out to confront the screaming boyfriend who is rage-walking towards the house.

Her mind races as as she sees and hears him yelling at DeAndre.

No, get out of our driveway.

We don't want you here.

Just leave.

Now.

Lisa's stepdad is shouting this as he makes his way to her car, grabs DeAndre's things, and throws them onto the street and gets the keys.

That's when Lisa's mother dials 911.

And also, just reliving it in your head is like you just can't even imagine.

I'm a cry

being in those high

those high intensity situations is just so unbelievable

to

look back on

so I had I did call 911

at that time but I didn't realize when I had gone for my run I would use earbuds And when I had come home, actually when she was banging on the door, I pulled the earbuds out of my ear and had gone outside to tell him to go and that I was calling 911.

And when it was connecting to 911, it was actually connecting through the earbuds and not my phone.

So I never actually spoke to the police.

In the meantime, my husband, like I said, had gone outside and gotten Dre's belongings out of her car and handed them to him and told him to just go on down the road.

So Dre took off walking down the road.

And as I was sitting next to Lisa, I could see her eye

turning black from him smacking her.

Heidi says the cops did drive down her street several times, but by that time, DeAndre was on foot and long gone, somewhere.

Lisa had finally had enough.

Again.

Understand that, statistically, it takes about seven attempts at leaving an abusive relationship before it's actually final, which is bonkers, by the way.

To help her along, Heidi took her phone for over a week, just to make sure there wouldn't be any immediate contact with DeAndre.

Then, when it seemed like she was able to think straight and was living with her sister Shelby for a few weeks, she got her phone back.

The weeks turned into months, and even though Lisa still had some communication with DeAndre,

they did not see each other in person.

Supposedly, he'd left the state and was in Memphis, Tennessee.

It was during this this time that she discovered that she was pregnant.

She was planning on going it alone.

This was in the winter of 2021.

Fast forward to the spring of 2022, and guess who's back?

Yeah,

DeAndre.

Wanting to make things work, saying he was a new person now, and once again monopolizing Lisa's life.

This time, Heidi had a serious talk with him.

She told him that she was onto him and all the bruises he'd inflicted on Lisa.

She showed him a file of pictures with exact dates, times, and documentation that she'd put together so that if he ever laid a hand on her again, his whole life would be taken to the police.

It was, in some ways, like a small security blanket for Heidi.

But Deandre just looked her dead in the eye.

In so many words, he said,

That doesn't really matter.

I'm crazy, and everyone knows it.

So I'll just play the crazy card.

I did let him know that, yes.

Because the whole time I told him, you know, abusing someone you supposedly love is not really appropriate and it's not okay.

And it is abuse.

And, you know, people go to jail for that.

And

he had said to me on more than one occasion that it didn't matter because he would just pull the crazy card and he felt like nothing would happen to him because he did have some mental health issues.

And I don't know if he had that feeling because that's what he'd used in the past to get out of any

situations he had with the authorities, or if that was just his own personal feeling.

But yes, more than once he said that to me, that it didn't matter because he would just pull the crazy card.

There you go.

There it is.

The result of no repercussions because dumb people keep making dumb laws that protect violent assholes.

The intersection of crime and politics.

Y'all know about intersectionality, right?

He'd said this more than once.

But this time, it felt like a real threat.

Maybe even a confession of what was to come.

Because this wasn't just someone with a short temper or a bruised ego.

According to his family, DeAndre had been hearing voices for years.

He told them there was three of them.

One of them had a name,

Ruth.

Lover Steakhouse, by the way.

Ruth told him who he could trust and who he couldn't.

She told him what to do sometimes, that she was looking out for him.

She'd tell him who he could and couldn't forgive.

And sometimes it felt like Ruth was the one in charge, not DeAndre.

The morning after Lisa's body was discovered, surveillance footage captures someone walking away from the apartment.

It looks kind of like a woman.

Her face wrapped in a yellow scarf and she's wearing oversized female clothing.

Lisa's clothing.

A hoodie, sneakers, and joggers.

She's carrying a white laundry basket and moving calmly, methodically, walking towards a dumpster.

Police said it was DeAndre, but watching it now, frame to frame, you have to wonder, is that really him?

Or is that Ruth?

It's possible that Ruth was hiding inside DeAndre's mind all along, or maybe she just showed up on special occasions.

Whatever the case may be, he was acting normal the last time they were reunited.

In fact, so normal that Heidi was surprised he seemed to take her ultimatum seriously.

There were no more bruises, and for months, as Lisa's belly grew, the couple got along better than ever.

In March of 2022, we did the gender reveal at the apartment there outside.

And she did one of those.

I got one of those

confetti cannons.

And then we also did a t-shirt.

And I put pink

watercolor in the

water gun and she sprayed the shirt and that's how we did the gender reveal.

The pink water came out of the gun and

dyed the t-shirt pink.

So

he participated.

He's the one that discharged the pink gun and he, the confetti gun.

And he actually, I think, had a t-shirt on that said father to be.

She had one on that said mom to be.

I had one for grandma to be coming soon.

And then Shelby had an aunt t-shirt on.

So yeah, and Shelby's fiancé was there.

So yeah, he participated in that and we had a nice day.

Outwardly, everything seemed fine.

DeAndre was there for the gender reveal.

He smiled for the pictures.

He helped load gifts into the car.

He said he wanted to be part of it all.

To anyone watching, he looked like he meant it.

There was no scene except a happy one, and he was going to be a dad.

But,

and get this, this is the M-Night Shyamalan twist.

This is why you

pay me the big bucks.

You ready?

All right, enough dilly-dallying.

Let's get on with it.

Here it is.

The baby

wasn't his.

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On June 9th, 2022, Lisa Dodd was found murdered in her Alton apartment.

She was 22 years old and seven months pregnant.

That afternoon, her mother discovered her daughter's body, her hand lying on top of a book about pregnancy.

The thing is, even though babies are viable at 33 weeks, they can't live for more than 10 minutes without their mother's blood circulating through their body.

Lisa's blood had already run cold.

Heidi found her that afternoon in a state she never should have seen.

A body.

without a head.

By the next morning, her boyfriend DeAndre, dressed as the incarnation of Ruth, an imaginary person in his head, was gone.

And the investigation was just starting.

If you're going, do not touch anything.

Okay?

Ma'am.

Yes, some deep breaths, okay?

Yeah,

I mean, I'm freaked out, but I don't care.

Totally understandable.

Okay, I want you to take some big deep breaths for me, though, okay?

Fuck, I knew he was going to do this.

I have pitches where he abused her in the past.

Police knew who they were looking for.

Surveillance footage showed him leaving the apartment with a laundry basket.

Then he went back into the apartment and came back out with more discarded things.

Three separate trips.

The last time he was seen, his face was wrapped in cloth.

He was wearing Lisa's hoodie and sneakers.

While Deandre was making his way across Litchfield, Illinois, investigators back in Alton were knocking on doors, unit by unit, floor by floor.

The occupant living in Unit 2 was a 19-year-old female whose mother was with her when police were asking questions.

Just get a statement.

She said that this always happens, that they always have this.

They fight a lot.

Why do you think you would need to go to

our marriage?

Um, the downstairs neighborhood directly below you.

What's your apartment number?

Three ain't it.

Yeah.

I'm number two.

She's two.

She's right under the city.

She's up to the left.

She She said she heard stuff last night and she was going to come here.

Like, wasn't it?

She said, like, nine or something, she heard something real loud, but she didn't go to check.

Like, she lives by herself, so she said it was almost 10 o'clock.

But she's a, my daughter's like a little young one.

She's straight out of college.

She's 19.

She's going to come at 2 o'clock.

She's at work, and we're not letting her.

I have to move on to the station though, okay?

Just didn't come here.

So

just tell her.

Yeah, they just want you to come to this station.

Just tell her that God is ask for a detective.

Ask for detective.

What just any detective?

Any detective.

What's her name, Deer?

This young woman and other neighbors had heard everything.

Everyone knew that DeAndre and Lisa had a volatile relationship.

And they had to have known she was being abused.

Lisa had the black eyes to prove it.

But that night was unusually chaotic and loud.

One neighbor said it it started with the arguing, not unusual for that unit.

But this time the arguing didn't stop.

It escalated.

Another said it turned into screaming, then muffled yelling, like someone was trying to shout through something,

then five, maybe six heavy thuds.

It sounded like someone was chopping wood, according to a witness.

And then

Someone else said they heard footsteps after that, someone walking out of the building, with calm steps.

But no one called 911.

It was just business as usual.

They'd heard the fighting before and everything turned out okay.

Why should they intervene?

They could have prevented Lisa from being beaten in the face and head, suffocated, and then decapitated.

And the odd-shaped rectangle rectangle and circles on her body, those were bloody leftover imprints from the knife handle her killer used and then casually placed on her body before getting rid of it.

Lisa's black Kia Optima was missing also.

It was obvious who took it, and it was easy to find.

Just blocks away at a local business with a fur sale sign on it.

Although they knew right away it was her car,

it was sitting on private property and the owner wasn't around, just an employee who didn't want to get involved.

There's nothing looking at you, but we need somebody to contact her.

It's a serious thing that happened over there.

It has nothing to do with you.

I don't want to be contacted by whatever happened back there.

Okay, but we need to contact her whether we're going to subpoena or not.

I need people to contact her.

I just need a point of contact.

So I either need a name of the owner or I need your phone number.

So I would say sometime between 12 a.m.

to 12 p.m., but it's probably the car hit on a license plate reader at 1 in the morning.

Maybe a black key at Octoma.

I have to say, yeah, it's always fun thing too.

Yeah, so that last hit there, and that's probably what we're looking for anytime somebody might have been around that vehicle and when it left.

At 2.30 in the morning, DeAndre's sister is at her grandmother's place in Litchfield.

She wakes up from her slumber for some reason and now hears her brother DeAndre knocking at the front door.

This isn't unusual.

Grandma's house is frequented by some of her grandkids, but not usually at this hour.

Lights from his car outside illuminate the driveway, and she can hear the engine still running.

She looks out the window from where she is and sees his girlfriend's car, so she assumes he's just stopped by for some reason for a minute and Lisa is still in the car.

She's not really sure why he's here, but after just a little bit, he says he forgot to give his girlfriend her car keys and leaves the house.

His sister dozes off, and when she wakes up again a few hours later, the car and DeAndre are gone.

Later that morning, DeAndre shows up at another sister's place close by with no call ahead.

He walks in wearing oversized clothes that she's seen before on Lisa.

She asks him what he's wearing, but He doesn't explain.

Instead, he goes straight to the bathroom and locks the door.

She hears the buzz of clippers through the wall.

When he comes out, his long dreads are gone, just scattered pieces left behind in the sink.

This isn't right, she thinks.

He spent two years growing out those dreads and said he was never going to cut them off in a million years.

She doesn't say anything because he seems agitated.

She knows what he's like when he's in this state.

He rocks back and forth.

If his mood gets worse, he might start punching himself in the head or face, so she stays quiet.

Then, he walks to the kitchen and picks up a bottle of bleach.

For some reason, he starts dumping it out on the floor.

Now, she asks, what the fuck are you doing?

His response is to shrug and tell her he thought it was soap.

The hell does that mean?

She notices, He doesn't grab anything to eat, even though she's offered.

He just says he's going to go mow lawns, but he doesn't take the mower.

He walks out the door and disappears.

A short time later, Litchfield police spotted him on a bike that happened to be stolen.

Just what they needed to take him in and hold him.

I thought I would.

The best I can.

I guess not the best I can do.

At first, DeAndre was quiet, but polite.

He thought he would just be questioned about a bike and then let go.

At least, until he could figure out a better plan or get out of town.

But that wasn't going to happen.

Pretty soon, he was complaining that police were keeping him from his job.

What a joke.

For maybe the first time in his life, he was concerned about being fired.

But everybody knew that he didn't have a job.

So again, you're going to get me fired because you are holding me from work.

You understand though that we have a job to do also?

And part of that job is talking to you and kind of sorting out some things that have been going on.

And

if you can let us do our job, we can hopefully, you know, like clear up some of that confusion and, you know, try and figure out where we go from here.

You know what I mean?

But like

on some level,

like we do have to work with each other to a certain extent, you know.

And,

you know, first and foremost

for us is we want to make sure that you're taken care of here, that you're not under any specific distress or anything you're not having any kind of physical or emotional or mental struggle or whatever.

And then ultimately, I can try to talk to you about some of the stuff that's been going on.

Today, there were no voices.

It was just plain old DeAndre.

And he seemed to be, well,

sane, I guess.

He wasn't playing the crazy card, at least.

Just the belligerent one.

Except for one point when he let the word disassociate slip from his mouth.

You mentioned a minute ago that you dis, I think your word for you said you disassociated.

Is that something

like do you, is that something you have trouble with

on a regular basis?

Or like, do you see like a doctor?

Or like.

I'd say it's a problem for sure.

Okay.

Do you have medicine that you take?

I'll take it.

Okay.

But probably exposed to or something?

Well, no, no, that's not necessarily.

Okay.

We're talking about prescriptions for

psych right now,

speaking on.

I don't believe in taking it because I'm sitting here right now composing myself.

Okay.

Gotcha.

What type of stuff do you do to try and like

so you have like other

methods that you use or whatever, like what do you what do you try and do typically?

Do you like Like I know for me personally, like I exercise.

Like that's one of the ways I kind of help keep my head in the right space.

Everybody has their own different things.

Some people like to, you know, write in a journal, or some people like to,

you know, take a walk or

spend time with family or, you know, like whatever.

Here was his chance to pull the crazy card.

He admitted he'd been evaluated and given medicines, and then he said he didn't take them.

But hey, look, I'm sitting here and I'm fine.

The only thing he did seem to focus on was work.

It was a little weird.

I gotta quit.

I have to quit.

Dean, I'm actually glad you said that because I think

we went on because again, I was already in motion.

Don't do that when I'm in motion.

Please.

I'm asking nicely.

Don't do that stuff.

When I'm in motion, I understand how that goes.

I'm sitting here trying to go to work, and y'all are sitting here keeping me from my job.

I'm getting upset because again there's money out of my pocket out of my family's pocket I'm sure y'all will be pissed off too sure yeah so again can I go to work please I'm asking you nicely if this is your job I'm sure you'll see me again all right

hope not exactly so again why can't I go to work

please don't say it because again I know that's what I'm saying I'm really trying to go to work I'm acting like that because I can't go to work I don't get pissed off too man

Dean, before we get any further with any of these conversations, like you mentioned your rights a minute ago, and like one of the really important things that our job entails is making sure you understand your rights.

Okay.

So I think we should probably go through those ones together.

It was a long interview with a lot of silence from DeAndre, who just kept repeating that he had to go do some work.

Work, work, work.

Imagine that, a homeless guy worried about going to work.

The detectives just weren't buying it.

They knew what was up.

I'm I'm not being detained.

I literally was just supposed to be leaving already.

Yep, well,

I can't let you leave from right here.

So we've got to walk back over to work.

Stop.

Stop it.

I'm sure DeAndre felt challenged.

I mean, they were outright laughing at him.

And you know what DeAndre said about being challenged?

Surprisingly, he didn't demand that they settle it outside.

Finally, after he was read his rights, he gave up and asked for a lawyer.

So they put him in handcuffs.

That's a little tight.

I said that's a little tight.

I said this one you just put on.

It's a little tight.

It's section.

I can feel my finger.

This is in it.

This is literally in this.

Okay, let's do one thing at a time.

One thing at a time.

Okay, when I sit in the walk, it scratches on the back of this.

I have one already from all day walking around.

Who?

Exactly.

So again, please, I'm asking you nicely.

Please put this.

I wonder how often the whole I'm asking you nicely bullshit has paid off for him in the past.

That veiled threat.

After his arrest, DeAndre Holiday was charged with multiple felonies, including first-degree murder, intentional homicide of an unborn child, and concealment of a homicidal

Apparently the motive didn't have anything to do with the child being someone else's.

According to statements he made, he was okay with that because he had a girlfriend during the same time he and Lisa were apart.

That girlfriend became pregnant, so in his mind it was tit for tat.

The motive was nothing more than a mentally unfit, abusive, and sick person grasping for control and losing it during an argument.

He lost control and Lisa lost her life.

He must have quote unquote asked her nicely a whole lot that day.

At first, questions came up about his mental fitness to stand trial.

I mean, he did hear voices, including the voice of that imaginary woman, Ruth.

At first, he was found unfit and committed to a state institution for treatment, but after several months, he was deemed competent to stand trial.

In December 2024, Holloway pleaded guilty to the charges.

In January 2025, he was sentenced to 60 years in prison, 30 years for first-degree murder, 20 years for the homicide of an unborn child, and 10 years for concealment of a homicidal death.

During the investigation, authorities discovered the final but most important thing that was missing.

It was Lisa Dodd's beautiful but severed head in a dumpster behind a business on Milton Road, wrapped in bedding inside a white laundry basket.

Lisa's neighbors who heard it all will never forget that they failed to call 911 that night.

And you can't really help but feel sorry for them, at least a little bit.

I mean, how the hell were they supposed to know that those dull thuds that they heard that night were were chopping sounds.

They let us know that somebody was found dead next door

to have to lose a child that way.

And

that baby is an extension of her mother and the rest of her family.

So they lost a child as well.

They lost two.

Her family would not be burying her and

their

grandchild.

Monsters thrive in darkness and complacency.

It makes them powerful and unstoppable.

Heidi saw what so many others didn't.

She saw the danger.

She named it.

She documented it.

She took her daughter's phone, called the police, and begged her to come home.

She stood between Lisa and the chaos with everything

she had.

But it was never her problem to solve.

All she could do as a parent was exactly what she did.

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try to help and guide your children, it's up to them to decide their own path.

And that path can be treacherous and filled with monsters.

Heidi's words to DeAndre at sentencing were these:

I do not hate you.

The world holds enough anger and hate for you that I don't have to carry those emotions.

I'm sad and disappointed in you.

Disappointed that you didn't keep your word when you told me you wouldn't come back the next time you left.

Sad you thought your mental instability was a free pass from being held accountable for your crimes.

Sad that you destroyed so many lives, so many hopes and dreams, including your own.

That night that I saw her on June 8th, when we were having our conversation about the baby shower, she had actually said,

I wish I could see baby bean tonight.

I'm ready to see my baby.

Now I'm a craggin.

And I said, well, she's not ready yet.

It's, you know, she was 33 weeks

when this happened, 33 weeks along.

And I said, well, she's not ready.

And she goes, but, you know, she's viable.

People have babies at 22 and 24 weeks and they live.

And I'm like, well, that's true, but, you know, let's let her cook in there a little bit longer.

So the fact that that night she got to be with her baby

does bring me comfort.

And

in my mind's eye, I see

God and Bean waiting for Lisa to join them, to walk her home.

Unfortunately, sometimes your baby just isn't ready yet.

And no matter how much you try to help them make the right decisions, to let go of those toxic relationships and move on to better things,

they just

aren't ready yet.

As horrific as that was, we hope you enjoyed that one.

I don't know why you people listen to this stuff.

I really don't.

I think you're probably mostly sociopaths.

Anyway, head on over to our store, store.swordscale.com.

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