The Trail Went Cold - Episode 124 - Ashley Estell

The Trail Went Cold

Robin Warder

True Crime, Tv & Film

4.5 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 15 May 2019

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

September 4, 1993. Plano, Texas. While attending a soccer game at Carpenter Park with her family, seven-year old Ashley Estell goes missing after an apparent abduction. The following day, Ashley is found strangled to death next to an isolated dirt road six miles away. The investigation soon leads to a paroled sex offender named Michael Blair, who is subsequently convicted of Ashley’s murder and sentenced to death. However, as the years go by, the case against Blair begins to fall apart and DNA testing eventually exonerates him of the crime. So who was actually responsible for the murder of Ashley Estell? This week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold” explores a controversial case which led to the passing of some new laws, but failed to bring the right perpetrator to justice. Additional Reading: https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2001/june/did-this-creep-really-kill-ashley-estell/ https://www.innocenceproject.org/cases/michael-blair/ https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=3030 https://starlocalmedia.com/planocourier/news/plano-who-is-ashley-estell-s-killer/article_8e1b99a3-3e0f-5db7-ba5f-56db0ae7ea7b.html “The Trail Went Cold” will be appearing on podcast row at CrimeCon 2019 from June 7th-9th at the Hilton Riverside hotel in New Orleans. Listeners can receive a 10% discount on the purchase of a standard badge by using the promo code “COLD19”. “The Trail Went Cold” will also be appearing at True Crime Podcast Festival 2019 on July 13th at the Marriott Downtown in Chicago. Please visit their website for more details. The Trail Went Cold will be appearing at the event, “True Crime Podcasts: Live in Toronto”, being held at the Royal Cinema in Toronto on Sunday, August 18. For more information and to purchase tickets to the event, please visit this website. “The Trail Went Cold” is on Patreon! Visit www.patreon.com/thetrailwentcold to become a patron and gain access to our exclusive bonus content. The Trail Went Cold is produced and edited by Magill Foote. All music is composed by Vince Nitro.

Transcript

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0:00.0	September 4th, 1993.
0:04.0	Plano, Texas.
0:06.0	While attending a soccer game at a park with her family,
0:10.0	seven-year-old Ashley Estelle goes missing.
0:12.0	The following day, Ashley is found strangled to death next to a dirt road.
0:17.0	The investigation soon leads to a paroled sex offender named Michael Blair, who is subsequently convicted of Ashley's murder and sentenced to death.
0:26.1	However, the evidence against Blair turns out to be faulty, and DNA testing eventually exonerates
0:31.9	some of the crime. but Ashley's real killer is never found.
0:36.5	After that, the trail went cold. Oh, uh, yeah.
0:43.0	Oh, uh, uh, uh, and. Oh, uh, uh,
0:54.0	uh, uh, uh, uh, Hello everyone and welcome to the latest episode of The Trail Went Cold.
1:18.0	I'm your host Robin Warder and today we're going to be exploring a brutal crime which led to all sorts of controversy,
1:25.0	the 1993 murder of seven-year-old Ashley Estelle.
1:29.2	This case was originally suggested to me a while back by a listener named Jamen, and only a few weeks later, another
1:35.5	listener named Leslie sent in a request to cover it, so I thought it deserved a look.
1:40.8	A suspect named Michael Blair would be convicted and sentenced to death for Ashley's murder,
1:45.3	and since he was a convicted sex offender who had been paroled after serving less than two years,
1:50.6	this led to the passing of some new legislation called Ashley's laws, which sought stronger punishment for criminals who harm children.
1:59.0	But in an ironic twist, it would later turn out this legislation was based around a wrongful conviction as the man sent
2:06.1	to death row for Ashley Estelle's murder wound up getting exonerated via a DNA testing.
2:12.1	Now even though he did not actually kill Ashley Michael Blair was most
2:15.8	definitely a dangerous sex offender who deserved to be locked up but this story is a
	...

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