Gone in a Blink
There are an estimated 8 billion people in the world. In the US, approximately 2,300 people go missing every day. While some of those cases may be of their own accord, others are because of something far more sinister. Gone in a Blink is a true crime podcast that dives head first into the most mysterious and terrifying missing person cases in existence. Hosts Heather and Danielle take a deep look into some of the most horrific missing person cases that will leave you on the edge of your seat and absolutely terrified at just how fast a person can be Gone in a Blink.
Gone in a Blink
Silent Shadows: The Jessica Hamby Case
What if a mother's desperate attempt to reclaim her life led her down a path of uncertainty and disappearance? Jessica Hamby, a mother of three, was on a mission to overcome her struggles with addiction by entering a detox program in Haleyville, Alabama. However, after an intense confrontation at the center, she vanished, leaving a trail that seemed to evaporate after her last known locations—a camper and a residence connected to Eric Edwards. Join us as we reconstruct the mysterious timeline of her final days, scrutinizing her interactions and the enigmatic individuals she encountered. The story takes a puzzling turn as we dissect the investigation's baffling elements, especially around the Edwards property, where no trace of Jessica has been found despite extensive searches and the use of cadaver dogs.
As we unravel these complexities, the specter of drugs, potential police bias, and the question of a cover-up lurk in the background. Could the authorities' focus on a possible accidental overdose be overshadowing critical details? By examining these facets, we highlight the importance of community involvement in uncovering the truth. We encourage listeners to reach out with any information they might have, stressing that even the smallest lead could break the case wide open. Special thanks go to Larissa Lael for bringing this intriguing case to our attention. Follow us on social media for updates and share your thoughts or future case suggestions through our email. Your input is invaluable in our quest to uncover the truth behind Jessica's disappearance.
Sources:
https://www.solvethecase.org/case/2018-4/jessica-leeann-hamby
https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2018/03/i_want_to_bring_her_home_mothe.html
https://charleyproject.org/case/jessica-lee-ann-hamby
Music:
Crime Trap by MuzaProduction
Dark Tension by Leberchmus
What you want by Unknown
Gone in a Blink is created by Heather Hicks and Danielle E.
Written and produced by Heather Hicks and hosted by Danielle E. and Heather Hicks.
Gone in a Blink theme: Crime Trap created and produced by Muzaproduction
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Thanks for joining us on the airwaves. And remember......Be Safe, Be Smart, and Try Not to Blink.
Every single thing we do in our lives has an outcome, good or bad. It ignites a series of events, often referred to as cause and effect. Events often referred to as cause and effect. For every action there's a reaction, and the people who we cross paths with in our lifetime can play a huge part in our own personal cause and effect, sometimes leading us to a place we may never escape from.
Speaker 1:When you're 24 years old, most of us really don't think about what could happen. We live in the moment. We tend to be just naive enough to believe that everyone we meet is our friend, and the people they cross paths with now become your friends, whether you know them or not. You trust them because everyone else does. Besides, people don't really ever have bad intentions, do they? One moment you're hanging out laughing and joking with your newfound friends and the next moment you're gone. This is the case of missing mother of three, jessica Hamby, and this is Gone in a Blink. Hey, true crime fans, I'm your host, heather, and I'm Danielle. Welcome to episode 33 of Gone in a Blink. I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend. Danielle, did you watch the Super Bowl? You know I did. I have to be honest if it wasn't for our own Kansas City Chiefs in the Super Bowl, I would more than likely only watch the halftime show. Kendrick Lamar and SZA I was excited about both of them. Actually, my daughter loves SZA a lot. What did you think of their performance?
Speaker 2:Well, it was interesting to say the least. I'll just leave it at that.
Speaker 1:It was pretty exciting. I'm just really excited that the Chiefs were in the Super Bowl and everything and it was fun. It was fun nonetheless, so today's case was suggested by Larisia Lael. Today's case was suggested by Larisia Lael. Today, we are talking about the disappearance of Jessica Hamby, so if you're ready, let's jump right in.
Speaker 1:Jessica Leanne Hamby was a devoted mother of three. She loved her children more than life itself. However, she had been struggling with addiction, and this made it really hard for her to be the mother that she felt her kids deserved. So, in an effort to help get their daughter straightened out, jessica's parents, keith and Lynn Hamby, took her children, ages 9, 5, and 4, into their home in Russellville, alabama. Jessica was really determined to get her life back on track and had made it several months drug-free. However, she ended up relapsing at one point, and it was at that point that she knew that she was going to need help getting clean, and so she voluntarily checked herself into a detox program at Lakeland Community Hospital in Haleyville.
Speaker 1:On January 2nd 2018, jessica and another woman in the program had an altercation with another individual at the center. At 9 pm, jessica's phone had turned on and she began text messaging with an acquaintance of hers by the name of Alicia Motes. Motes was with her boyfriend, eric Edwards, at his parents' residence in the Hackleburg area, which is approximately 15 miles, or just over 24 kilometers, northwest of Haleyville, where the detox center was located. Jessica and Alicia made plans for Jessica to come there, so Jessica, along with the other patient who'd been involved in the altercation, voluntarily checked themselves out of the detox facility, and Jessica caught a ride with the other woman whose boyfriend picked them up from the rehab center. So, according to law enforcement, who were able to track Jessica's whereabouts through geofencing, which, according to the website HowStuffWorks, geofencing is actually a digital technology that establish on a map around a specific area and then the geofencing technology monitors different devices such as smartphones, wi-fi, cellular data or GPS in that particular area. Before heading to Eric's house, the two women, along with the boyfriend, made at least a couple of stops along the way, so at 10.05 pm, they arrived at a camper near a construction site located near a bridge on Highway 43. The camper was owned by a man named Gilbert Shaw, who was working on a construction project in the area. According to reports, alicia Motes, her boyfriend, eric Edwards, a man named David Shane Reynolds, gilbert Shaw and Alicia's brother, derek Motes, were all at the camper.
Speaker 1:Now it's after this point that Jessica's phone falls off the geofencing radar and it's a bit unclear where she had been. After this point, did Jessica ever actually make it to Edwards' house? Well, according to the group of people that I mentioned earlier who were with Jessica in the camper, everyone left late that night and spent the rest of the night and early morning hours at a residence on Elgin Cochran Road which is presumed to be the home of Eric Edwards. This residence is owned by his father, raymond Edwards. Raymond claims that he and his wife got home around 11 pm on the night of January 2nd and that they left the following morning around 8 am to head to work. Raymond and his wife both maintain that they never saw Jessica at their home. While police believe there's a possibility that Jessica did spend some time there, there is no true evidence to back up the assumption that this was the last place she was seen.
Speaker 1:According to the timeline of events reported by Solve the Case and according to Geofencing, after leaving Gilbert Shaw's trailer, jessica's phone was tracked at 10 26 pm, approximately four miles or 6.4 kilometers away to the area of Harper's Junction and by 11.26 pm her phone location showed that she was more than likely on Elgin Cochran Road. At 11.38 pm, jessica's phone was reported moving at a speed that indicates that she was in a vehicle and that she had left the area of Elgin Cochran Road heading north. Then by 11.42 pm she was pinged in the area of Military Trail. Okay. Then on January 3rd, at 1 39 am, jessica's phone shows that she was more than likely on Elgin Cochran Road, which again is presumably the Edwards home. This is the vicinity that it shows on the geofencing and authorities are thinking that she was at Eric Edwards home. At 2 42 am, jessica's phone indicates that she left Elgin Cochran Road and was traveling by vehicle. At 7 31 am, jessica's phone had left the area again of Elgin-Cochran Road and by 7.33 am she was pinged in the Northwest Hamilton location.
Speaker 1:At 7.52 am on January 3rd, jessica's phone was detected one last time in the area of Rideout Falls. Rideout Falls is approximately 6.9 miles, or just over 11 kilometers, northwest of Elgin Cochran Road. Around this time Jessica sends Eric Edwards a text message that says, quote hey, they ain't gonna shoot me for walking unquote. One minute later she calls Eric walking unquote. One minute later she calls Eric. However, he doesn't answer. This is the last time that geofencing picks up Jessica's signal and she has not been seen or heard from since.
Speaker 1:So I feel like there were a lot of conflicting reports while researching this case, which just leaves a lot of room for people to have no choice but to speculate. And I think this is because some are reporting on what authorities are relaying to the public based on what witnesses have told them. So it had also been reported that between the time that Jessica arrived at the camper and the time that her phone was tracked for the last time near Rideout Falls, jessica had spent nearly 10 hours trying to connect with friends and family basically acquaintances, anyone she could using Facebook Messenger in the hopes of finding a ride. This occurred up until her phone was last pinged around 8 am on January 3rd. I guess my question is if she was already traveling by car just before that time, why was she still searching for a ride? I guess there could be a lot of reasons for this, but I just wonder who was she riding with when she went out to ride out falls? That couldn't take her back home.
Speaker 2:I think something that we have to keep in mind.
Speaker 2:Heather, in that area that is a pretty remote area of Alabama. It kind of prompted me to do a little bit of my own research kind of on the location, because once upon a time I lived, lived in Alabama and I know our cell reception was junk, it just was, and so, especially when you're going into falls or hills, I feel like it's a little unreliable that geofencing is a little unreliable because of the cell service. And so, looking to kind of see where you had mentioned Russellville and then Haleyville near Bear Creek, I mean it's all these little towns in there, so we're kind of looking in between Huntsville and looking here to the I mean you're getting close to the Mississippi line and it's just off of Highway 22. So some of what we have found and maybe one reason where it was peening off and on is because they're going through some pretty remote areas and you would think in 2025 that they would have that all figured out as far as geofencing. Unfortunately they don't, especially in rural areas. That's something that we need to keep in mind.
Speaker 1:Well, and I'm not familiar with the area, so I was wondering just how remote all of this is. So I could understand that maybe geofencing isn't the most reliable, but I will get into more of that a little later in the story, because it wasn't just geofencing. Once the call dropped from there, cell phone towers began picking up different areas, so I will get into that in a moment. But according to the Charlie Project, jessica spent part of the night at Eric Edwards' home. However, eric himself, along with Alicia Motes and her brother Derek, told authorities that there had been an argument just after 6 am on January 3rd. They reported that Jessica then left the house, telling them that she was going to watch the sunrise, despite the fact that the temperature that morning was only six degrees and Jessica wasn't even dressed for that type of weather. They claim they never saw her again after that, and some news outlets are saying that the text messages sent from Jessica to Eric before she disappeared were sent from the Edwards property. Now that is conflicting, so I will bring that up again later in the story.
Speaker 1:So 10 days later, on January 13th 2018, jessica was reported missing and her parents hadn't really thought anything was wrong for the first week or so after Jessica disappeared, because they were used to not hearing from her for a little bit and really they knew that she had checked herself into the detox program, so they probably didn't expect to hear from her until she completed the program.
Speaker 1:Authorities interviewed the people who had been with Jessica that night and it was reported that they had given statements that were inconsistent with each other. According to police, they say that they have no evidence to suggest that Jessica ever left Elgin Cochran Road. So I'm not sure if they're just not taking the NELOS system tracking seriously or what. And for those that are unfamiliar with the technology, much like myself, nelos stands for Network Event Location System and that was what was used to estimate the location of Jessica's phone. Unfortunately, police are taking the word of the individuals who were with Jessica that night, despite the fact that their stories were inconsistent and the fact that, after given polygraph tests, the results detected deception, and the ABI, the Alabama Bureau of Investigation, has confirmed this.
Speaker 2:I think that's where it comes in. What I was saying earlier is that the technology, while in larger areas is very helpful, I feel like in remote areas, even to this day, it's going to produce inconsistent results. So what it sounds like is that the police were trying to do what they could and other forms of trying to figure out where she's, at which that to me would make sense, but the polygraph they were showing that there was deception.
Speaker 1:You said yeah, the results of the polygraph showed deception. So I think, as we go further into this, a lot of the listeners might agree that something happened to this girl. Obviously something happened, and the people that she was with appear to be trying to cover something up. So NELOS tracking confirmed that, although it is more than likely so that Jessica had been at Eric Edwards' home at some point, she did leave that area and she was traveling by car away from the area of Elgin Cochran Road. And when she sent that final text message to Eric, she was not on the Edwards' property.
Speaker 1:After Jessica's phone dropped from geofencing which is a mystery in itself as to how that even happened Jessica's phone was still able to be tracked through cell tower data through her cell phone provider. The real question here, besides where on earth is Jessica is why would the NELOS logs be ignored? Like you mentioned earlier, maybe they're not totally ignored, but maybe they just don't prove to be as reliable. However, the cell phone tower pings are reliable and they're used all the time in cases such as this. The people whom she was with that night have not proven to be credible, and yet they are saying that Jessica was at the Edwards house that night and part of the morning until she walked out into the frigid temps to watch the sunrise. The NELOS data clearly showed this to be false and that she was actually traveling in a vehicle most of the night and into the early morning hours and, according to logs, Jessica was not on or near Elgin Cochran Road at the time that all communication from her completely stopped and her phone simply vanished from cell towers.
Speaker 1:This is absolutely insane to me, and it was reported by solvethecaseorg that police have narrowed in on the Edwards house and focused most of their efforts on that property. The property owner, Raymond Edwards, has allowed police to search the property using cadaver dogs and he's been very forthcoming in all of that. Police have also conducted searches of nearby wells. However, their searches have turned up nothing, so I guess there's a few red flags, one of which. So I guess there's a few red flags, one of which. If she was there all night, why would Eric's parents have come home at 11 o'clock, Edwards? And if she's on the property all night, why is she messaging and trying to call him if he's there?
Speaker 2:It's things like that that just don't make a lot of sense to me. It's not making a lot of sense and you would hope it not be the case, but I wondered was anybody using in the house at the time? And that could explain also some inconsistencies as well. Was she high, was she not? I know they just got out of a drug rehab program, so you would hope not, but I'm wondering, I mean just kind of what was going on. It's such a hard thing because that could be why there was no sign of her. We don't know the layout of the property. Maybe they have multiple buildings. Sign of her. We don't know the layout of the property. Maybe they have multiple buildings. If the owner of the property got home at 11 am and was gone by 8 am, I kind of feel like they wouldn't have been looking either, especially if there's multiple properties that people could be on.
Speaker 1:I definitely don't feel like they would have been particularly looking for her, but they didn't see any sign of her. I didn't find anything that said they saw any sign of anyone else at the party or the get-together that was there, but no one saw Jessica. And then this group of people. Their story is that she just took off walking in the frigid temperatures, never to be seen again. I don't know, I just. I think there's so much more to the story and I do put a lot of faith in the cell tower data itself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, that's probably what is the most consistent is the cell tower. They've advanced that technology over the years quite a bit, and so I think it's just so odd that we're showing that she was on the Edwards property the whole time. But then the inconsistencies in the story you never know with that, maybe people are trying to hide something else, and who knows why. People lie right. I think you also have to take into account that there has been a polygraph and if they weren't lying because they say sometimes polygraphs can be inconsistent as well they were nervous. They were nervous about something. So I mean, I don't know, it's very interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that there's a lot kind of entangled into this that maybe investigators are not saying themselves, but also what is not being relayed to investigators pertaining to her disappearance. So many people following the case feel that police are not focused on any events leading up to Jessica's disappearance and are instead seeing tunnel vision when looking at her case. And some even feel that Jessica's disappearance is being treated as more of an accidental overdose and I noticed that a lot. When you have someone who goes missing who just happens to be fighting drug addiction, it seems like all too often the police want to chalk it up to being an overdose, don't you feel like?
Speaker 2:that and that's what's hard is because I can see both sides of it, and actually I was just talking to somebody that admitted to drug abuse this week and we were trying to get her into an inpatient facility. These drugs, these mind altering drugs, they are made to make you feel good and to kind of take away worry. However, that's exactly what they cause, like if you already have anxiety and depression, that's going to make it worse. So I say all of that. So, on this side of it, that she was trying to get clean and I really commend her for that, because that's super hard to do for anybody that is addicted to drugs. So there is that chance that she was trying to get clean and she did not take any drugs. She had met friends and was trying to get her life back together.
Speaker 2:I think where the police come in on that of just assuming that it's a drug overdose is because they see that too often. Unfortunately, when you are in a rehab facility, you know you do your 30 days and then a lot of people just go back to their old ways, not saying that. That was the case here, and I would hope that the police would look into that a little bit further. I wonder if they're not getting a whole lot of answers on the other side of that. So right, as you kind of said, that they're just assuming and that doesn't make it right. It's just unfortunately that they've probably seen it so many times and I'm wondering with the Edwards the owner that the people that are involved, if they've had multiple crimes and if the police again not right, are just because of their history, is kind of assuming some of these things as well.
Speaker 1:Well, and this is definitely a good possibility, and I don't like to see authorities just jump to that conclusion and I get that. They probably see this very often and it is a very plausible explanation that she did overdose. We don't know, we don't have anything saying that they were doing drugs, so we don't technically know. But is it a possibility? Absolutely, and it is a possibility that she could have OD'd and that they could have covered it up, because they're not going to call the police if they're all at this house doing drugs and then she overdoses and she dies. They're going to try and cover it up. More than likely, they're going to try and cover that up.
Speaker 2:Too many times with any kind of crime. That's not the intent. Something ends up happening like somebody ODs or couldn't handle some kind of drug and then they're just dead, and that puts the people that are still there in a tough situation. They may feel like they have to lie, so they can't save this girl now, but they can save themselves. That's kind of like the mentality, to a certain extent, which that could be for anybody we never know what we're going to do until we're put in that situation. And I don't care where you come from. That that's just kind of the universal thinking.
Speaker 2:But yeah, that I mean that's what it's sounding like, especially with the polygraph, because even though polygraphs cannot necessarily be 100% accurate, they've they've figured that out. I feel like it's also like a nervousness as well. I mean, you talk to FBI agents or however. They're looking at other mannerisms when they give the polygraph of the person's behavior to. However the polygraph comes out. They're highly trained in looking at other scenarios, other happenings in the person's body, that is, taking the polygraph to try to decide that, and of course that's out of my expertise, but it's. It is interesting if you've ever seen any documentaries on it how they figure that out, so that's what it's looking like so far. Unfortunately, maybe some other things were going on and they were worried about themselves.
Speaker 1:The deception from the polygraphs could have also come from the possibility that they know what happened to her. That's the deception. I'm not saying that is actually the deception because I don't know what the deception was, but it could have been that they weren't telling the truth because they know what happened to her. Maybe they didn't actually kill her or maybe they did, we don't know. But they could know what happened to her and know where she's at, because you still have the issue with the cell phone towers picking up that she was driving in a car. Even when she sent that text message or that Facebook message to Eric, cell phone data shows she was not at the Edwards home when she sent that. So you still have that situation right there.
Speaker 2:And that's a mystery in itself. I think we don't know who took the polygraph's history, criminal history, drug history however, we don't have like a clear understanding of that. So I do want to point out and why the polygraph can be inconsistent. You're going to have somebody that's pretty nervous taking that polygraph and perhaps not thinking clearly, and that could give that negative result because they were so nervous.
Speaker 1:There were some strange things that occurred before Jessica went missing, and I don't think these things were looked into enough, if at all, one of which was the disappearance of a good friend of hers by the name of Jeremy Abbott, who went missing from the town of Haleyville, alabama, in June of 2017. Now, if you remember, haleyville is the same town where Jessica attended the detox program, so it's very close. It was reported that during the first several weeks that Jeremy was missing, jessica made a comment to her parents that she in fact knew where Jeremy's body was and that she felt that she needed to tell police. However, she was extremely fearful that if she did so, something would happen to her as well. Then, a little over a month later, jessica did go to the Alabama Police Department in Haleyville and told authorities where they could find Jeremy. It was reported that the following morning, investigators went to the location where Jessica said they would find Jeremy, and they did. He was reportedly hanging from a tree at the edge of the woods next to the person's property whom he was last seen with before his disappearance.
Speaker 1:Marion County Sheriff's Department came out to the scene and quickly ruled Jeremy's death a suicide, before even removing his body from the scene. It has been reported that a coroner never even came out to the scene and that an autopsy was never performed. And unfortunately we've seen this happen a lot too, where evidence is looked over and police are all too quick to rule it a homicide. In fact, the same thing happened in a case we did over the summer on the mysterious death of Libby Caswell. Remember there was an overwhelming amount of evidence to suggest that her death had been a homicide. However, police ruled it a suicide. And they were super quick to rule that a suicide. And I think all too often police are just quick to make that call without sifting through all the facts and maybe the events leading up to the disappearance, no matter how far back you have to go to get that information I'm wondering.
Speaker 2:I mean because I totally agree that too many times police are just jumping to conclusions and who knows why. I mean maybe funding. Maybe because you get into these small counties in the middle of nowhere, such as what's going on in this situation. It's not real close to a whole lot of things. So maybe funding, but personally I think that that's no excuse, especially for the family, that they deserve to know what happened and a full investigation.
Speaker 1:So after this happened, naturally Jessica was extremely afraid for her safety. She had even told many of her friends that she was getting threats and she was scared that they whoever they were were going to kill her. And she even left the state of Alabama for a while just to kind of lay low and let the dust settle before returning home. It's unknown how long Jessica stayed away before returning home, but we do know that at some point she came back and decided that she needed to get clean again after relapsing from her drug addiction. She checked herself into the detox facility and she reportedly told staff at the facility that she had checked herself into the detox facility, and she reportedly told staff at the facility that she had checked herself into the program because she had witnessed a murder and she felt that she'd be safer being there than being at home. And then, just five and a half months after reporting Jeremy's death to authorities, jessica Hamby disappeared. So what really happened to Jessica? A lot of the same investigators who ruled Jeremy's case a suicide are the same ones who are working on Jessica's case. How can they not see a correlation between the two, especially when the details surrounding Jessica's disappearance are so bizarre? Jessica's parents have since hired a private investigator from Sound Mind Investigations to work her case. Jeff Means has worked tirelessly to find out what actually happened to Jessica and to bring closure to the Hamby family. Eric Edwards is currently in prison on drug charges and no one has been charged in Jessica's disappearance. Jessica's three young children believe that someday their mother will come home to them. Jessica's father, keith Hamby, struggles daily with all the unanswered questions surrounding his daughter's disappearance. His sadness is apparent as he is quoted as saying there's no evidence she left. No evidence. She was picked up by someone. No evidence she walked away. He no longer believes that his daughter is alive, but wants nothing more than to bring her home so the family can lay her to rest.
Speaker 1:Jessica Leanne Hamby went missing on January 3rd 2018 from Hackleburg, alabama. She is a white female with brown hair and hazel eyes. She is five foot two inches tall and weighs approximately 125 pounds. She has pierced ears and may be wearing glasses. She has bodicua tattooed on her right wrist and a forever tattoo on her left hand. She was 24 years old at the time of her disappearance and would be 31 years old today.
Speaker 1:If you have any information about this case, please contact the Marion County Sheriff's Department at area code 205-921-2101 or area code 205-921-7433. You can also contact the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency at area code 334-353-2250, or private investigator Jeff Means of Sound Mind Investigations at area code 256-508-0047. And once again, I want to give a huge shout out to Larissa Lael. Thank you so much for recommending this case. Thank you for listening to another episode of Gone in a Blink. If you like our show, please consider giving us a five-star review on apple podcast or on spotify and to get all the latest updates on the cases we cover. You can follow us on any of our social media sites. We're on facebook at gone in a blink, and on instagram at gone in a blink pod, and if you have an idea for a show that you'd like us to cover, drop us an email at gone in a blink pod at gmailcom. And remember be safe, be smart and try not to blink.
