SPEAKER_01 0:00

In Tragedy, a true crime podcast, we discuss missing persons' cases, violent crime, and other sensitive topics that may be difficult for some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. Our show is a place where every story matters and every voice deserves to be heard. To support this podcast, you can subscribe at www.tragedy a true crime podcast.com for early access to new episodes. And join our Facebook community, Tragedy, a True Crime Podcast, for updates, discussions, and ways to support the families we feature. Welcome to Tragedy, a True Crime Podcast. I'm Elisa.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

And I'm Michael.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Today we're beginning a case that has haunted a family for more than three decades. It's a story that starts in Killeen, Texas, in the summer of 1990, and one that remains unresolved to this day. Before we introduce you to the people who knew and loved Deanna Merryfield, we wanted to take some time to provide context for this case. Because, like many missing persons' cases, understanding what happened requires understanding the person at the center of the story and the circumstances surrounding her disappearance. Deanna Merrifield was born on February 2nd, 1977 and raised in Killeen, Texas. Killeen was and still is a community shaped by proximity to Fort Hood, now known as Fort Cavazos. Military families moved in and out of the area regularly, creating a town where some residents stayed for generations, while others came and went every few years. Deanna was one of four sisters. She had an older sister Amy, a fraternal twin sister, and a younger sister named Melissa. By all accounts, the sisters were extremely close. They spent their childhood playing together, riding bikes, exploring their neighborhood, and finding ways to entertain themselves despite difficult circumstances at home. And difficult circumstances would become a recurring theme in Deanna's young life. The girl's mother struggled with alcoholism, and when Deanna was still a child, their mother got married. In 1989, Deanna and her sisters disclosed that that man had been abusing them. Ultimately, only Deanna's report resulted in criminal charges. The man was convicted of indecency with the child and received probation along with a requirement to register as a sex offender. For Deanna, speaking up took tremendous courage. Years later, her family would describe her as someone who often protected her sisters, even when she herself was carrying burdens no child should have to carry. The aftermath of the investigation created even more upheaval. The sisters were separated and placed with different relatives. Deanna went to live with her grandmother, her twin lived with an uncle, and Amy was staying with various relatives and friends. Melissa's situation was different still. This is an important detail because many people assumed the sisters were all living together when Deanna disappeared, but they were not. The separation was difficult for all of them. Family members have described a period of instability where the girls were moved between households and struggled to maintain a sense of normalcy. Despite that, Deanna reportedly made every effort she could to stay connected with her sisters. If she wanted to see them, she would find a way. Friends and family remembered Deanna as bright, independent, and fiercely loyal. As a young child, relatives nicknamed her Prissy because she loved traditionally feminine things. Her twin sister later described her as a free spirit. She loved music, especially the hard rock bands popular at the time, and she was intelligent, did well in school, and even had been placed in gifted classes. But as the abuse and instability in her life took a toll, people began to see changes in her behavior. Some would later label her troubled. Her sister Melissa sees it differently. Melissa had said that Deanna wasn't a troubled kid, she was a hurt kid. It's an important distinction and one that we'll return to throughout this series. By the summer of 1990, Deanna was 13 years old. She had recently completed seventh grade and was preparing to enter eighth grade that fall. Then came the night of July 22nd, 1990. According to available information, Deanna was staying with her grandmother at a home on Alamo Avenue in Colleen. That evening seemed ordinary enough. Deanna and her grandmother stayed up late watching movies together. Around one o'clock in the morning, her grandmother went to bed. And sometime after that, Deanna left the house. What happened next has become one of the central questions in this case. Investigators believe Deanna left to visit her twin sister, who was living with their uncle at Oak Springs Trailer Park on Dimple Street, approximately two miles away. Whether she walked the entire distance or accepted a ride along the way remains unclear. What we do know is that about 3:30 in the morning, her sister briefly spoke with Deanna outside the trailer. Her sister later reported that Deanna had arrived with two older males in a brown or bronze four-door sedan. The men have been described as either white or Hispanic and possibly older teenagers or young adults. Her sister did not recognize them. A few moments later, her sister watched her get back in the car, and that would be the last confirmed sighting of Deanna Merryfield. The following morning, her grandmother assumed Deanna was sleeping in, but when she checked her room, Deanna wasn't there. Family members began looking for her. Soon after she was reported missing. And this is where the story takes a turn that continues to frustrate and pain her family to this day. Despite the fact that Deanna was only 13 years old, despite leaving no note, taking no belongings, and telling no one she planned to leave, law enforcement classified her as a runaway. That designation would shape nearly everything that followed. According to family members, little investigative work occurred in those early days. There was no large-scale search. There was minimal media attention. Leads were not aggressively pursued. As the years passed, the case became tangled in a series of confusing developments. In 1993, police reportedly received a phone call from a woman claiming that Deanna was home safe and could be removed from missing persons records. There was no confirmed follow-up, and nevertheless, the case was closed. Years later, Deanna's grandmother learned what had happened and pushed for the case to be reopened. It was. Then it was closed again. For much of the next decade, very little happened. As you'll hear from Deanna's sisters in future episodes, the family itself was struggling to understand what happened. Because they had been separated into different households, they weren't always receiving the same information. Some grew up believing one version of events, others heard something entirely different. The result was confusion, frustration, and decades of unanswered questions. In 2007, 17 years after Diana vanished, her younger sister Melissa contacted law enforcement and learned the case had once again been closed. Melissa pushed for investigators to take another look, and this time there was a renewed effort. Age progressed images were created, DNA was collected, friends and relatives were interviewed. Investigators attempted to reconstruct what had happened after all those years. But even then, the case remained complicated. There were reported sightings that couldn't be verified, phone calls from people claiming to be Deanna, stories that changed over time, tips that generated hope before ultimately leading nowhere. And through it all, one fact never changed. No verified evidence has ever shown that Deanna was alive after July 22nd, 1990. Her social security number has never been used, no confirmed sightings have been established, and the men in the sedan have never been publicly identified. Today, however, there is renewed momentum. Recent years have brought new investigators, new witnesses, and multiple organized searches. Melissa has become a tireless advocate for her sister. She has worked alongside private investigators, volunteers, and law enforcement personnel who believe this case is still solvable. New information has led to search efforts in and around Colleen. While those searches have not yet provided the answers the family seeks, they have a renewed hope that truth may still be uncovered. And that brings us to where we are today. More than 35 years have passed since Deanna disappeared. She would be 48 years old today. For her family, this has never been about revenge. It has never been about sensational headlines. It has always been about finding answers and bringing Deanna home. Over the next several episodes, you'll hear from people who knew her best: her sisters, her cousin, a childhood neighbor, and an investigator working to understand what happened on that summer night in 1990. Together, they'll help us piece together not only the circumstances of Deanna's disappearance, but also the story of the young girl at the center of it. Because before she became a missing person, Deanna Maryfield was a daughter, a sister, a granddaughter, a friend, and a child who deserved to be protected. And after more than three decades, her family is still searching for the answers she deserves. This is the story of Deanna Merryfield.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Thank you very much for that narrative.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

I found out about this case through Instagram. I stay pretty active on social media. We have our tragedy Facebook group and we have the Tragedy Instagram. And I've been connecting and linking with a lot of different podcasters and things like that through that platform. And as I was scrolling one day, I saw finding Deanna. And I reached out directly to the page moderator, which happens to be Melissa Deanna's sister. We communicated a little bit through Instagram and then I gave her a call. And she's very interested in partnering with us, and that's how we got to where we are today.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

I do.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

There was a phone call made to Colleen De police department. Whoever made the phone call said that Deanna was safe. You'll hear from Melissa and some other people in the family that that wasn't really followed up on. But they closed the case.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

So what you're saying now is the case was closed twice, and we don't really have a whole lot of justification as as to why.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

That's right. It was closed once in 1993 due to the phone call that came in to the police department that said Deanna was safe. They didn't do any follow-up or check to see if she was actually there. They just closed it. And then it was closed again in 1995, less than a month after it had been reopened, and that was due to a lack of information. So yes, closed twice.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

But obviously the case is open now, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Yes, it's open now. It's been open since 2007. And at that time, Melissa went into the police department to get an update on what the you know what the status of the case. She found out that it had been closed since 1995.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

And she obviously From sorry, sorry, from 1995 to what date again? 2007. So the case was closed this entire time and the family had no idea.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

Yeah, she went in to get an update and that they were like, Oh, this case is closed. And so she convinced the police to reopen the case. And this time she reached out to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. And they are partnering with the Kaleen Police Department from 2007 moving forward.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

So starting in 2007, we've got the case reopened and it stayed open. So I I guess my question is what's compelling law enforcement to keep the case open now when there were so many opportunities to work the case back then and they just closed the case. So what's changed and what's what's changed in the the trajectory of this case?

SPEAKER_01 14:06

So as we have learned with all of the other cases, there's we've always come in contact with one fierce person, right? One person who keeps all the emails, keeps all the screenshots, goes out in the middle of the night, goes to the police department, calls the sheriff's office, and and we have that here in Deanna's case as well. And it's Melissa Twardowski, Deanna's sister, who we had a great opportunity to meet when we were at CrimeCon a couple of weeks ago. That was so so awesome to meet Melissa and her husband, Luke. And Melissa has not only done a really good job of leveraging social media that she has connected with several nationally known organizations that support families of missing children and just missing people in general, such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which started by John Walsh after the disappearance and murder of his son. And then additionally, there's a group that we another group that we had a chance to meet at CrimeCon. Um they are the advocacy blueprint. They host an annual advocacy convention, which I'm hoping we'll be able to attend. We met them, talked with them a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Well, just to be clear, we didn't just meet them. Melissa specifically said you have to meet these people. And so we made a point after that conversation when we sat down with her in kind of the food court in the casino.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

And yeah, so we were able to speak directly with representatives from the advocacy blueprint, and graciously Melissa then shared a summary that they had put together several years ago. And that helps us to to share with our listeners a case review and just really get the context context and the grounding of what happened to Deanna.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

Another thing that's unique in this case is the fact that we've learned already that they have a private investigator that's really helping them with this case. And even more so, we got a private investigator that's willing to talk to us. And so coming up during this series, you're gonna hear that interview. Now, there's not there's a lot of details that he can't share with us because he's treating us like a like it's an active case, but the very big difference between talking to him versus some of our experience with law enforcement is he is forthcoming and telling the story, explaining what he's kind of working on, some of the directions he's considering, and most importantly, he is actively keeping the family updated in from what I remember from his interview weekly.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Yeah, I really enjoyed talking with Steve because you know, we've said this all multiple times. We're not investigators. This is not a field that we are trained in, and we've been looking to have a private investigator come on the show just to even globally talk about what they do and and how they move cases forward, and having the opportunity to have Steve come on and speak to that and specifically to what he has learned about Deanna within the realms of what he is able to share has been just a really great opportunity for us. You've been listening to Tragedy, a true crime podcast. Our purpose is to honor victims by sharing their stories through the voices of friends, family, and those whose lives were forever changed. If today's episode resonated with you, we encourage you to subscribe, leave a review, and share the podcast so these important stories continue to be heard. Together, we can preserve their memories and ensure their voices are never forgotten. If you have ideas for cases we should cover or questions about what you heard, you can connect with us through our Facebook group, Tragedy a True Crime Podcast, on X at Tragedy Podcast, by email at Tragedy a True Crime Podcast at gmail.com, or by visiting our website www.tragedyatrucrime podcast.com. Thank you for listening, and we hope you'll join us next time.