The Trail Went Cold - Episode 302 - Deborah Sanders

The Trail Went Cold

Robin Warder

True Crime, Tv & Film

4.5 • 3.2K Ratings

🗓️ 9 November 2022

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

September 29, 1984. Chicago, Illinois. 23-month old Deborah Sanders is taken from her mother, Norell Sanders, who claims she was violently attacked by the child’s estranged father, Odell Sheppard, before Deborah was abducted. Nearly one year later, Odell is tracked down and arrested, but he no longer has Deborah with him and maintains that he returned her to Norell. After serving a prison sentence for child abduction, Odell winds up being sent to jail for contempt of court after he refuses to produce Deborah. Even though is never charged with a crime or put on trial, Odell remains incarcerated for over ten years before he is released and he never reveals what actually happened to his daughter. On this week’s episode of “The Trail Went Cold”, we explore a tragic unsolved missing children’s case which unexpectedly wound up making legal history. If you have any information about this case, please contact the Illinois State Police at (847) 294-4400. Additional Reading: https://charleyproject.org/case/deborah-lyyn-sanders https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-01-29-mn-25605-story.html https://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/28/us/10-years-in-jail-without-ever-a-charge.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1998-01-29-9801290191-story.html https://apnews.com/article/0e8ce58923b6515ecea928d78ed3da07 https://casetext.com/case/sanders-v-shephard-1 https://law.justia.com/cases/illinois/supreme-court/1994/77016-7.html https://www.anylaw.com/case/02-10-94-norell-sanders/appellate-court-of-illinois/02-10-1994/Ja9lS2YBTlTomsSBYm6X https://www.newspapers.com/image/388378083/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/388416871/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/388842155/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/389436902/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/311862193/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/389903906/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/241293225/ https://www.newspapers.com/image/241225319/ Follow “The Vanished” on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts or listen early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. “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 now doing a weekly livestream show on Vokl every Thursday from 7:00-8:00 PM ET as part of their “True Crime Thursday” line-up. For more information, please visit their website. 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	This episode is sponsored by The Vanished, a podcast that tells the stories of often overlooked and unsolved missing persons cases.
0:07.0	Follow the Vanished on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, or listen early in ad-free by joining Wundry Plus in Apple Podcasts or The Wundry App. Thank you and enjoy the show.
0:17.0	September 29th, 1984 Chicago, Illinois.
0:23.0	23-month-old Deborah Sanders is taken from her mother, Norell Sanders, who claims she was violently
0:28.1	attacked by the child's strange father, Odell Shepard, before Deborah was abducted. Nearly one year later, O'Dell is tracked down and arrested, but he no longer has Deborah with him, and maintains that he returned her to Norell. After serving a prison sentence for child abduction, Odell winds up being sent to jail for contempt of court after refusing to produce Deborah.
0:50.0	Odell remains incarcerated for over 10 years before he is released, but he never reveals what happened to Deborah, whose whereabouts remain unknown.
0:58.0	After that, the trail went cold. I'm going to So can't be. Hello everyone and welcome to our latest episode of the Trail went cold. I'm your
1:41.6	host Robin Warder and today we're going to be exploring a truly
1:45.0	tragic case involving a missing toddler, the 1984 disappearance of 23-month-old
1:50.5	Deborah Sanders. So obviously, cold cases involving missing children who are that young are incredibly
1:56.8	heartbreaking, but if there's ever a potential silver lining, it's the possibility that the
2:01.5	child might still be alive somewhere under a false identity
2:05.0	completely unaware of who they are.
2:07.0	In many of these cases, infants and toddlers are stolen by people who either want to sell them on the black market or raise the child as their own.
2:15.0	But this particular story is quite a bit different and wound up going in an unusual direction.
2:21.0	At the time of her disappearance, Deborah Sanders was being raised by her mother,
2:25.1	Norell Sanders, until a domestic dispute took place, which led to her being abducted by her father,
2:30.8	O'Dell Sheppard. Norel and Adele never married and were no longer living together,
2:36.0	but because they had never gone to court to establish who actually had legal custody of Deborah,
2:41.0	the laws on the books at the time, made it unclear
2:44.0	a Odell had actually committed a crime. Since Deborah was a child who
2:48.3	hailed from a low-income African-American family, her disappearance got no media coverage at all for years, but the case eventually
	...

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