Andrea Durham (Ace of Clubs, Florida)

February 3rd was National Missing Persons Day, and in order to bring awareness, Audiocheck

has been doing something a little special this week that actually started with Andrea.

While digging into her case, we discovered that she was one of 36 missing kids that were

featured in Soul Asylum's music video for their song Runaway Train.

21 of those cases have been resolved, thanks to that video, and we want to help raise that

number.

In doing so, multiple Audiocheck shows will be telling the stories of those on the list

who still remain missing.

So if you haven't tuned in yet, we released a bonus episode on Crime Junkie yesterday,

highlighting 7 more of those cases, 7 stories, all in one episode.

And then Dark Down East will be releasing an episode on one of the cases tomorrow.

And I'm going to tell you about Andrea's story right now.

Last Thursday, February 1st, 2024, marked 34 years since Andrea Durham disappeared during

a routine chore in her own home, and whoever took her could still be out there.

I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is The Deck.

In 1990, she reached in her purse to grab her key, probably out of pure habit.

She always locked the door when she left her 13-year-old daughter Andrea home alone.

And that evening had been no exception when she and her 15-year-old daughter Asha left

for a meeting around 7.30.

But when her hand met the knob, it wiggled slightly, like it had already been unlocked.

Weird, maybe, but she had no need to worry yet.

She had to remind herself that her once little girl was now a young teen becoming more and

more independent by the day.

But when Roseanne stepped inside, she saw something that seemed out of place, which

made her unease grow.

It was the vacuum.

Here's Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office Senior Investigator Kelly Henderson.

be put back in its place upon completion, and it was in the middle of the floor, which

was very uncommon.

I mean, the vacuum was just standing there, as if her younger daughter had been abruptly

interrupted mid-chore.

Roseanne's eyes darted around the room, looking for any other signs that she should

be concerned.

But there were none.

No broken windows, no overturned tables or chairs.

I mean, there was still even cash sitting out, and Andrea's pricey tennis equipment

hadn't even been touched.

Trying to suppress their growing worry, both mom and daughter made their way to Andrea's

room to check things out, but it was more of the same.

Nothing appeared to be out of place.

It looked the exact same way it had since they recently moved in, a classic pre-teen

bedroom.

According to reporting from Northwest Florida Daily News, stuffed animals decorated the

dresser and bed, and pictures of celebrities torn from magazines were taped on her baby

blue walls.

Her clothes were all neatly organized in the closet.

Even her jacket and purse were there.

And you might be thinking, who needs a jacket in Florida, right?

But it was a February evening.

And for a Fort Walton Beach girl, it was cool enough for a light jacket, so they knew Andrea

wouldn't have gone far without it, or without her bag, and, of course, her latest obsession,

her makeup.

All of that was still in the apartment.

All signs pointed to the fact that Andrea would be back any minute.

And so honestly, the predominant feeling in the family was mostly agitation, that she

seemingly had run off without leaving behind a note.

But 30 minutes passed, then an hour, and then three.

Agitation left, and fear swooped in to take its place.

After waiting it out for those few hours, Roseanne decided that she needed to call police

to report Andrea missing.

It was just after midnight by the time she made the call, and investigators from the

Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office arrived at the apartment just minutes later.

However, despite the quick response time, they were kind of operating under the assumption

that Andrea may have just decided to stay out late, or had even run away.

Because even though she had never left home in the past, the more they learned about what

was going on in her life at the time, the less they believed foul play was involved.

You see, police had learned that she'd recently gotten into some trouble.

Two months before, some kids that she'd been hanging out with were caught stealing

things from cars.

And although Andrea hadn't done any of the actual breaking in and theft, she had acted

as the lookout.

She was facing probation, and was set to appear in juvenile court within the next couple of

weeks.

Though, it's worth noting that it seems likely her punishment would have just been

some community service, we're not talking like severe jail time or anything here.

But this wasn't even the only thing going on in her life.

See, the family had only moved into this apartment complex less than a month prior.

Roseanne and Andrea had been living in another area, a Fort Walton beach, and Asha had been

living with her dad in Pensacola, so both girls were forced to move schools.

And as you can imagine, this caused a bit of a stir.

Obviously, a stressful situation for two teens to have to start over again in unfamiliar

territory.

And Andrea, in particular, had not been too happy about it.

And believe it or not, she had actually just started at prior middle school, the very day

she went missing.

So according to her family, she had been moody that morning and did not want to go to the

new school.

But she did end up going begrudgingly.

So it's all of this that played into Polisa's narrative that she could have had a reason

to want to run.

Now, despite having her own doubts, Asha told us that she went along with the idea that

her sister could have left to just hang out with friends, or at least she went along with

it at first.

But talking to her today, in hindsight, she says that that story didn't really make

sense to her.

Yeah, Andrea was bummed about having to switch schools, sure.

But she didn't seem to be phased by getting into trouble.

So she wouldn't have wanted to run away just to get out of some community service.

And again, Andrea would have never left her makeup.

That's the thing she keeps pointing back to.

But more than anything, running away just didn't fit with Andrea's personality.

She didn't like taking the trash out by herself.

I don't see her walking around the streets by herself.

I was always much more brave than she was.

So that's unlike her character to just walk off.

She was godly.

Like, when they used to do the commercials about send your money to Africa, she would

send her money.

She prayed a lot, which for someone younger not to be raised in the church was pretty

unique, I thought.

I consider her a getty tissue as an older sister.

they could quickly locate her.

They also canvassed the apartment complex, searching for the missing teen, and they started

speaking to neighbors who may have seen or heard something between 7.30 and 9.15 p.m.

But no one they spoke to saw or heard a thing.

No suspicious vehicles, no commotion, nothing.

Same thing with workers at the nearby convenience store they checked.

There is, however, some controversy about how well the apartments were actually canvassed.

Asha said her mom claimed many of her neighbors weren't actually spoken to back when Andrea

first went missing, and she felt she had to pick up the slack.

She even started a petition urging police to question everyone in the large complex.

Investigator Henderson said she didn't remember seeing anything in the case file regarding

this petition, so it's unclear if it pushed police to try and talk with more of Andrea's

neighbors or what.

However, the notes she did see indicated detectives knocked on doors and talked to everyone who

was available at the time.

Now, that first week, there was at least some consideration given to the idea that maybe

someone else was involved in Andrea's disappearance.

We know this because Investigator Henderson said that there are reports that detectives

Police scanned the area for sexual offenders in an attempt to rule out any of them who

may have lived or worked close to the neighborhood.

They even went as far as making some house visits, checking to see if there were any

signs that Andrea was with any of them or had been at some point.

But in doing this, they found nothing.

None of these people were considered persons of interest.

that there was so little evidence, not only at the scene, but they also didn't see any

or have any witnesses that placed her in a vehicle or in the company of anyone.

And we also didn't have a lot of surveillance cameras like we have today.

We have the Ring doorbells that you might be able to canvass the area for.

Back then, we just didn't have that available.

She's the one who's been filtering through any tips coming in on Andrea's case today.

Asha and our reporter Madison traveled back to the neighborhood, including the old apartments,

to get a better feel for the setup there.

And this wasn't like one apartment building or anything.

It's pretty big, with nine buildings, mostly two stories each and a lot of places to park.

The family's apartment building was at the back of the complex.

You can find pictures on our blog post for this episode.

Now there are no other buildings directly behind Andrea's apartment.

There's just a grassy yard area and a road close by.

Asha said, if anything, that area would have been even less populated back in 1990.

So it would have potentially been easy for an outsider to come in undetected.

But that was the thing.

There was no evidence that someone had come in.

And even though it had now been almost a week since Andrea vanished,

they were still considering the idea that maybe she did leave on her own.

So police spoke to her friends and classmates,

hoping that one of them might know who she was with or where she was.

But they learned nothing of significant interest.

So they really had to consider the possibility that she could have been abducted by someone in her family.

I mean, statistically, that would be the most plausible.

Andrea's parents were divorced, and police wondered if there could have been a brewing custody battle.

But almost as soon as that idea came to them, it was quickly ruled out.

Andrea's father had no idea where she was and was putting in a lot of effort to help find his daughter.

They helped distribute flyers and push out news releases with Andrea's information.

Her family also helped look for Andrea in areas surrounding the apartment complex.

Days passed, then weeks, then months with no sign of Andrea.

Any notion that she had willingly run away faded with the passage of time, which left one terrifying possibility.

Andrea was abducted.

Maybe somebody was casing the parking lot and saw mom leave, saw sister leave, knew that she was in there by herself, knocked on the door.

Back in the 90s, yeah, it's not uncommon.

Even for a 13-year-old, open the door and then it seemed as if she was just yanked right then and there and pulled away.

Investigators learned that Roseanne had a schedule where she tended to be gone many nights during the week between 7 and 9.

So even though the family hadn't been in the area for very long,

it's totally possible someone could have caught wind of her usual routine and knew that there was often at least one teenage girl,

sometimes both, left behind at the apartment.

I totally would see her going and doing that.

You know, like maybe it was, I'm a handyman, I'm here to fix something.

Or could you help me come with this? I've got a flat tire.

Anything, we don't know what approach was used that could have possibly given them access to get her out of the apartment.

And this was more than just blind hope.

Sometime after Andrea vanished, her mother met and eventually married a man who had a story of his own to tell.

As a teenager, he ran away from home and eventually reunited with his family about 20 years later.

And I said, how could you be gone that long and not want to come back?

And he was like, well, I just thought nobody was looking for me anymore.

And he said, and after a while, I thought, what am I going to say? Just show up.

So for a long time, that was my hope story.

And obviously, as years went by, I don't think anything would keep her away that long.

Roseanne held on tight to the only child she had left, which over time felt suffocating.

Tensions were high, so much so that Asha moved out of her mother's place at the young age of 16.

She just couldn't deal with the stress of her mother's constant worries over her well-being.

For the next few years, buzz around Andrea's disappearance was nothing but a low hum since no new information was coming in about what may have happened to her.

But according to an article by People magazine, in the early 90s, before the age of amber alerts and social media,

Andrea did get some newfound attention from a rather unexpected source.

Popular rock band Soul Asylum released a music video for their hit song Runaway Train, which aired on MTV.

According to an article from CNN and Northwest Florida Daily News,

the band featured, quote, powerful vignettes of about 36 children who have gone missing, and that included Andrea.

Apparently, there was more than one version of this music video, as it was said to have been recut multiple times in order to highlight a diverse array of missing children.

And while we weren't able to track down a copy of the version with Andrea in it, and neither could her family,

we were told that one definitely existed at some point in time.

The problem is we just can't see it or vouch for its validity.

In a Guardian article from 2022, it says, quote,

The first to come home was Elizabeth Wiles, a teenager who'd run away from home with an older guy.

She'd been watching TV with friends, seen herself in the Runaway Train video and called her mom.

Some cases were very sad. They didn't come back because they were dead.

But each time a kid was found, we'd recut the video with a new missing person.

We eventually found 21 of the 36 kids we featured, end quote.

But unfortunately, Andrea wasn't one of them.

Asha and Roseanne never stopped searching for a face in the crowd.

No matter how far they went, no matter how unlikely it seemed, they couldn't help but check out other people passing by, praying that one of them could be their person.

And in the very beginning, you know, my mom went all over the country looking after leads and whatnot.

But anytime I see a couple of little actresses that just have that innocent look in their face,

and my girl, I can't remember her name, but anyway, she looks just like her.

The way her mannerisms are and the way that she acts, that's how Andrea was.

You see that in certain people, and it just reminds you of her.

letting her know that she was loved and missed, begging her to come home.

They still have these newspaper clippings preserved in a binder, stuffed with mementos and records of Andrea's case today.

And her mom even kept a journal and timeline of the happenings in her daughter's case,

so that she would never forget the details, no matter how many years passed.

And many years did pass.

And in that time, tips trickled in here and there, but they were never anything substantial.

Still, both investigators and Roseanne would follow up on every single one.

Roseanne would even fly out to wherever the tips came from,

and at one point even hired private investigators to make sure every lead was investigated fully,

until she could no longer afford it.

As the case grew colder, detectives were well aware that Andrea would have been getting older, too.

So a new age-progressed photo was released sometime in the mid-90s,

showing what Andrea would look like as a young adult.

And that did spark a few new tips, but unfortunately, none of them helped the case.

like, hey, you might want to check this area, or you might want to check over here,

but it never really gave us any kind of a suspect name or anything else like that.

A Florida Department of Law Enforcement agent named Dennis Haley approached detectives

who were looking into Andrea's case,

and he had questions about a very dangerous man who had brought up Andrea's name during an interview.

That man was Mark Reby.

While behind bars for the murder of Donna Callahan,

a 29-year-old pregnant woman who he abducted from a convenience store where she worked in 1989,

Reby stunned Agent Haley when he proceeded to confess to murdering a staggering 12 additional women,

only to later recant these spine-chilling admissions,

clouding the case further with claims of only confessing to protect his son.

Now, Andrea was not one of the additional 12 Reby named.

However, this guy apparently brought up Andrea's name out of the blue

while talking to Agent Haley about the other women,

saying that he didn't have anything to do with that missing girl.

Trying to figure out why Reby would even mention Andrea's case without being prompted,

Agent Haley wanted to talk to the county investigators who have Andrea's case

about a potential connection between the two.

So that's when he approached them.

Our reporter Madison was able to track down the now-retired agent

to see what he remembered about all of this.

And while he was never actually assigned to Andrea's case,

he did his due diligence to look into the possible connection

between the young girl and this alleged serial killer.

He said that he thinks Reby probably blurted out Andrea's name

because he had picked it up from talking with other people.

Plus, Andrea's case would have been under the media spotlight at the time.

And although Reby and his family had lived near Andrea around 1990,

Agent Haley thinks that Reby was staying with family,

maybe in Orlando at the time she went missing.

So for those reasons, he concluded that Reby likely wasn't responsible

for Andrea's disappearance.

With each passing year, Andrea's family accepted the growing possibility

that if Andrea were to be found, it may be her remains that are recovered.

So Roseanne gave DNA to law enforcement in case there was ever a match

with discovered remains.

But even then, they never, ever gave up hope.

They continued working to find answers,

even making TV appearances to help bring Andrea home.

But the tips generated from all this attention didn't bring them

any closer to finding Andrea.

According to a CNN article, at least one of these shows

left Andrea's sister feeling exploited.

It was one where, with the camera in tow,

producers convinced her to confront a fast food restaurant employee,

a girl that somehow they thought might have been her sister,

even though Asha knew in her heart that there was no way this person was her.

Despite this bad experience, Andrea's family still jumps at any opportunity

to draw attention to her case.

For nearly two decades, that's all they really could do to keep moving forward.

That is, until more tangible tips started coming in.

In 2019, there was a new strong development.

But that tip didn't come into Crimestoppers or police.

It actually came right to Asha.

And that tip circled right back to Mark Reby.

Asha received this information secondhand from someone

who would be very familiar with Reby and his family.

And this person suggested that Andrea may have known one of Reby's sons

back in 1990, around the time that she went missing.

And they're saying, like, she either knew him from the local tennis center

or she had even maybe been to his house to hang out,

meaning that Reby could have been familiar with her.

The problem is, no one we spoke to could verify this tip.

We asked Investigator Henderson about Reby being a possible suspect,

and she said that he has been looked into in the past

and he is still someone that they're looking at today.

And while she wasn't able to elaborate any further,

she did confirm that Reby could have either lived nearby

or traveled through the area where Andrea and her family lived

when she disappeared.

And while this is definitely a lead worth looking into,

there are a few reasons why Reby actually doesn't totally make sense as a suspect.

As someone who studied the man for more than two decades,

retired FDLE agent Dennis Haley still does not think that the two are connected.

Then there's the fact that what happened with Andrea doesn't really seem to be his M.O.

I mean, for one, she's much younger than his potential victims.

And while he was known to kidnap,

knocking on someone's door and luring them out doesn't necessarily fit.

Retired agent Haley didn't seem to put much stock into the story

about Reby's son knowing Andrea,

but until someone can say for sure, we'll just have to sit on it.

After that, there wasn't much solid to go off of for two more years until 2021.

And that's when a concrete tip came in involving inmates

who could have potentially been responsible for Andrea's disappearance.

And this led detectives to finally search somewhere specific.

we, law enforcement, were able to identify the areas

where that person had either lived or had access to.

We made contact with the current owners of the property

and had consent to search several different areas.

And when we started to strategize and to get that search underway,

we brought in an organization with cadaver dogs to help with that process

and ground penetrating radar to help to see for any disturbances underneath the ground.

And then if we found one,

then we would do a dig to see if we could locate any remains

or clothing that may be involved with the victim.

the only solid thing that came out of one of those searches

was an extra large plain white t-shirt,

just like the one Andrea had been wearing as she was lounging around and cleaning

the same night she went missing.

But to everyone's disappointment,

investigators discovered that that specific brand and style of shirt

wasn't produced until 1998,

meaning that the shirt couldn't have been the same one Andrea was wearing

that night she disappeared.

But investigators didn't have to wait too long for their next new lead

because that same year, 2021,

a viable and very specific Crime Stoppers tip came in.

And that is what drove the most recent search for Andrea back in January of 2022.

you should look at this specific address for Andrea Durham.

it gave precise instructions as to exactly where her remains would be found

on this property.

I mean, we're talking cardinal directions and number of feet here.

So needless to say, this tip seemed promising.

It was, there was no house built on it yet.

There was some construction work going on nearby where there was construction

workers in and out, but easily accessed and not populated by people.

So we made contact with the property owners and they said, absolutely.

You have our consent.

I remember sitting there talking to him on the porch while the cadaver dogs

were out there and they did find some disturbances,

but no evidentiary value came out of it.

Some of it was like trash that had been dug or a hole had been dug and trash

had been placed in.

So we didn't find any significant evidence.

earlier, only brought up Andrea's name for some kind of sick street cred.

There are actually two men still currently incarcerated who investigator

Henderson is looking into.

with.

I am also constantly getting emails,

phone calls from other agencies,

especially in Florida where they have located unidentified remains and we are

comparing those remains to Andrea's dental records to verify if that is her

or not.

So we are still actively doing that quite often.

When asked what makes these particular two people worth pursuing further,

Henderson hinted that the timeframe when they were out of jail and where they

lived at the time of Andrea's disappearance line up.

It could be the connection to the area or if it's a similar M.O.

or victimology of why they're in prison to begin with.

You know,

if they're already charged or incarcerated on a missing juvenile or a juvenile

that they have kidnapped and then killed.

Is that case,

does it have similarities to our current missing juvenile case?

she spends it updating a Facebook page dedicated to her sister,

Andrea Durham,

missing,

not forgotten.

So when she logged back into her personal account after a few years,

she was surprised to see a name pop up in her inbox that she hadn't seen in a

long time.

The message was from one of Andrea's childhood friends,

Matt.

The two were buddies back in their old neighborhood before the Durham sisters

moved to their new apartment complex.

Practically an expert at this point,

dedicated to her sister's case.

She was shocked to learn a tidbit of information from him that she hadn't

heard before.

about 30 minutes before we had gotten home because he was upset.

The things he was reading that they thought she had run away or that

something happened to her when she went to the store.

And he was like, that's not the case.

I was on the phone with her 30 minutes before she disappeared.

And he said,

haunts me now that I'm the last one that probably talked to her before she

disappeared.

but Asha said that he did tell her he was interviewed by police multiple

times.

Matt said that the last conversation with Andrea was casual,

mostly just catching up since she had recently moved out of the

neighborhood.

But he was able to recall that Andrea kept mentioning that she needed to hop

off the phone to vacuum.

Now, if you haven't had a loved one go missing,

this may seem like an insignificant detail,

but for Asha being able to close just one small gap in the potential

timeline,

gives her a clearer picture of what may have happened that February night

more than three decades ago.

Like investigator Henderson,

it makes her feel like it's more likely someone lured her sister out of what

was supposed to be a safe space.

Their home.

When I got married or when I had my first child,

I don't have any other siblings.

So it's always been me and my mom and Andrea.

I'm sure it's the same way for my mom.

You know, I had survivor's guilt for a while.

It should have been me, not her.

So that's been tough.

It's tough never stopping looking.

You have the guilt, the guilt that's always there.

At this point, I'm fairly confident she's not with us anymore.

I feel like there was nothing in our childhood or nothing that would make her

stay away this long.

Even if like my stepdad, he started to live a life.

I don't think that's the case anymore.

There's been too much media.

There's too much out there for her to check back and see,

and obviously see that we've been crushed by this.

I can't see her doing that.

yearning for that slim chance that someone somewhere out there

wants to contact her to get a long-kept secret off their chest.

There's no reason for them not to come forward.

I mean, our family has discussed this.

We are not looking to prosecute anyone.

We are not looking for justice even at this point.

My mom wants to know where her little girl is before she dies.

So, that's what we want to know.

To make sure Andrea has been at peace.

If she's been at peace all this time, we just need to know.

on this daunting case with so little evidence.

To find this missing girl from Okaloosa County,

to bring her home, and to bring her family

even just the slightest sense of peace.

After all, she was only officially handed the Durham case in December of 2022.

But she's always taken her police oath to heart,

to serve and protect.

and to keep them safe and know where they're at,

and know that they're okay.

As an investigator, that's also your job.

My job is to keep every citizen in Okaloosa County safe.

And when you have a 13-year-old that's missing,

just completely disappeared,

you have failed her and you have failed her family.

And her family is, I'm assuming, having to wake up every day

wondering, one, is my child alive?

Two, what did my child go through?

And three, if she's not alive, where is she?

that Andrea's sister wrote in the local newspaper after she first went missing.

As someone who has a little sister myself,

it really resonates with me, as I'm sure it will with many of you.

I used to fight with Andrea.