Transcript of The After Show: You Took My Daughter

Thanks for listening to 2020. Remember, you can follow us on Amazon Music to hear this podcast and other ABC news podcasts ad-free, or you can ask Alexa to play the podcast 2020 on Amazon Music. Hello, everybody. Welcome to 2020, The After Show. I'm Deborah Roberts, and here with another episode of one of our 2020 broadcast, but an opportunity to We'll pull back the curtain, as we often like to do, on the making of our stories. And this episode centers around an army nurse by the name of Holly Lynn James. And her story is so intriguing because there's a whole military component here which we're going to get into. Holly went missing in July of 2008 after she didn't show up for work at Womack Army Medical Center in Fayetteville, North Carolina. She was an American soldier whose job it was to protect our country, but in the end, nobody really could protect her from what would happen to her. Holly's body would be found burned with a gunshot wound, and she was buried in a shallow grave. And there were so many questions in the beginning, who would want to kill this beloved woman who was so devoted to her family and her career?

Well, in this episode, you're going to hear exclusive letters from Holly's killer, who is in prison right now. And also, you'll hear about her father's desperate plea to mind answers and to bring justice to his daughter. The episode is called You took my daughter. Our correspondent, Bob Woodrow, reported this story. He broke it all down for us. You can stream this episode on Disney Plus and Hulu if you haven't already Betty. So without further ado, Bob Woodrow. Hello, sir.

It's always great to be with you.

You, too. But we never sit long enough. I know. We're passing in the halls, usually.

I need to do more 2020 with you.

You absolutely do. Well, you do a lot of 2020. We just don't get a chance to do the podcast. So what's so interesting about this is that listeners get a chance to know not just more about the story, but the reporters, the correspondence. And you haven't done a podcast with me yet, but you and I have been here for almost 30 years together walking the halls and reporting. And you, of course, have traveled the world. And many people know that you have done a lot of military reporting. In fact, you were injured in Iraq many, many years ago. So tell listeners a little bit about you and your career and your interest here.

I was always infatuated with going overseas and far away. And of course, wars became the story for me after 9/11. We were based over in London, and then we knew what was happening. And within about five hours, it took off after the attack. Ted over to Pakistan and to Afghanistan to cover the beginning of that war. Fast forward, of course, we had the invasion of Iraq. I was over there on assignment in Iraq six different times. But the last time that I went there, I was actually embedded with the army, and we're going village by village. And IED exploded off to the left, hit my cameraman, Doug and me. I was out for the next 36 days, miraculously saved. But I lived through it. And since then, I've been very close with the other soldiers and marines, all of the military that I've actually gotten to know very well. This is not on the field out there in the middle of the front lines, but the ones I've met in the world that they go to when they return from the I should say we are just all so grateful that you are still here and reporting and doing well.

This has become a little bit of a passion. When you heard about this story, it dates back to 2008. You've been working so closely with servicemen and women. This is a story about domestic violence, a lot of things that we're going to get into, and this woman who's murdered. What caught your attention right away?

This is a murder case. This happened back in 2008, as you said, so quite a long time ago. But what had never been, what never happened before this was that Holly, the victim, her father and her brother, finally wanted to talk. So we got the chance to talk to them.

So it was an exclusive interview for us.

It was two exclusive interviews about this. And this is the one that turned the story around in many ways because this was really the world of emotion. Imagine the family when they lost, when the father lost his daughter, when the son lost his sister.

Tell us a little bit about Holly. She was this beloved woman, two children when this happened, young children, and by all accounts, just so devoted to her work.

She joined the military. She wanted to join the army a long time ago. Her father actually served as well, Jesse James, and a great guy, of course, who I met. When she was young, she really wanted to join. A lot of this was because of patriotism, because of 9/11, which had happened about seven years earlier, and she wanted to join up. Her dream was to be a nurse, so she became a nurse. Within in the army, and she really wanted to actually go to the front lines and serve over in the zones that others had-So she wanted to be in the action. She wanted to be in the action. But also, everything we heard is Holly, there's something about her soul that she wanted to help people. That, of course, is one reason why she joined the army as well, because she wanted to serve the country for that reason. But she also, that both her father, Jessie, told me and several other people that we interviewed for this story, said that she was this person that would be smiling all the time. She had so much respect for her and loved for her that we had the chance to go back to the hospital where she was serving as the nurse.

On that wall, there's her picture. She's honored, not any others that I saw. But she, of course, she served, and it was a case that is extremely well known. And her father, Jessie, wanted us to go and see it. You can see that the respect and love that she had when she was serving in that hospital.

The pride that he had. I have members in my family who are members of the military, and I have a little bit of a sense of that world. It's a very insular world. They are very tight. They're very close. This was a big shock to folks there when they found her body eventually. But in the very beginning, when she was reported missing, police didn't find her right away. They were called to her apartment, and they found a very bizarre site. The apartment had been torched. There was gasoline. There were knives missing. There was a weird note that said, She shot herself, and I tried to make it look like an accident. What did authorities make of that in the very beginning? It's so strange.

It's a letter that's left behind. If you think you're going to commit a crime like this, would you leave a letter like that? Because it seems to be obvious he's trying to reverse the story, or she, we didn't know at that time. That seems like one of these tactics was going to be to have the opposite impact of it. The experts on this thought if you really wanted to get rid of the evidence that may be on the ground inside that building, you would have ventilation. You would have to open the windows. If they're closed and you try to light it on fire, it doesn't detonate much. It doesn't burn very much. So that was a piece of evidence that they're not even good at what they were doing. There was obviously was a bullet in the wall that was found. So you knew this was a shooting fairly early on. It seemed very clear that this was not a suicide, which was one of the fears that people had when they could not, didn't have no idea where she went.

Police often go to the spouse right away, and she was married to a guy by the name of John Weymuck. But they quickly zeroed in on one of his friends, Kyle Alden.

She was army, and they believed at this point that it was possibly her husband, John, who was Marine. They, of course, went to Camp Lejeune to try to find out the people that he knew, check out his background, where was he, what had he done that day, and Alden was one of his closest friends, or at least he was one that he knew well. We heard later on in the case that he was not really respected by John because he didn't seem like the most brilliant man, let's put it that way. He made a lot of mistakes along the way. But they wanted to see. They looked around all of the Marine base and see if they could talk to others that knew any information about John. And of course, Alden, he became the number one most important witness to them.

Kind of a person of interest. So they start questioning him. They show pictures of Holly and the children. They know they can get to him on a very personal level. And then they said that they could see that he was lying. They could see something like the arteries in his neck. He showed signs that he wasn't being truthful.

Yeah. The Detective Locklear, he's a brilliant man. He was an incredible investigator in all of this. When they sit him down, Alden, to be interviewed, he had this, in some ways, this military skill that he could read what was inside his soul. And yeah, he could see that he would sweat a little different when they asked him certain questions. You can see when he's lying because he sweats differently. He had a different smell that he could read while he was doing the investigation. That's crazy. He realized that he was lying. He says he was relying about it. And he also knew already he had some of this evidence, a video of him and John in the Walmart parking spot. They realized that something was happening that day, and they were actually working together.

So they put those two together, and ultimately, the investigation starts taking them to the two. Four days after her disappearance, the two of them were charged with arson. Soon police went after Weimack. He's charged with first-degree murder. So the investigation moved pretty quickly. They both pleaded guilty. Weimack, of course, was possibly going to get the penalty, so he was able to avoid the death penalty. But when they began to look a little closer, there were rumblings that there were problems in that marriage. There was violence in their marriage.

He also said that he was expressed to her that he wanted to commit suicide. And put a bullet to his head and kill himself. So this is pieces of evidence that he was already a threat. And we always wondered, why is it that she didn't just go straight to the police and report all this to get thrown in jail. But we don't really know. It's something that she didn't really think this was going to end in her life or it wasn't going to be a physical attack on her. But the sad thing is that even though she had these threats and she did approach the government to try to keep him away, but she never followed through on it. And so ultimately, it did not end the way that she had hoped.

There was talk of whether she going to stay with him or not. What did you learn about the restraining order that she filed?

She was trying to get a restraining order, but she didn't come to the court to follow through completely on this. So she did not get the restraining order.

Apparently, her family didn't know, but some people did. And her family wasn't really clued in to what she was dealing with, right?

Yeah. And Jesse has said many times, why did not learn more about what was happening? He had no idea that she ultimately did not get the domestic violence dealt dealt with. He didn't know about it. And so he had a lot of guilt about not knowing more as a father.

There were big questions about why Wyamuk would want to kill his wife. What would be his motive? And that also still haunt Holly's family to this day. And her brother wrestles with a certain amount of guilt because he introduced them. I want to talk with you more about that, Bob. So don't go anywhere, folks. We'll be right back.

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You put them together. The man that you introduced to your sister ultimately killed her. Right. It's part of what haunt me for a long part of my life. Absolutely. But that's looking back. Nobody can ever predict something that they already learned. But once you go through something, it's really hard to take it away. Pretending it didn't happen is hard, but coming to terms with it is even harder.

That was a clip from this past 2020's episode called You Took My Daughter, the story of Holly James, an army nurse who was found dead in 2008. Bob Woodrow is here with me talking about the story that he reported on. And, Bob, this is fascinating because you spoke with her brother Bo, who has not spoken publicly, and shared with you the guilt that he feels because he introduced his sister to her husband, Weimack.

Deborah, this is one of the points that made me very interested in this story because I can't imagine what it would be like to have done this. But the fairness is that he had no idea this would ever happen. That John and him, Bo, they serve together in the Marines in Iraq, side by side, witnessed the same things, had the same experience. They become extremely close.

Kind of like brothers.

It's like they're like brothers. Yeah, they would do everything for each other. So he comes back, both of them come back, and they're now at the base, Camp Lejeune. And he says, Listen, John, you got to meet this great woman, my sister, Holly. So he introduces them together. So they were close. And then suddenly, this is going to take that turn. This is the story that made it unbearable to him. His thoughts about guilt for being the one that introduced his sister to the one ultimately killed her. I can't imagine what that would be like. Yeah. And he wonders if they had never met, he'd still have a sister.

And he also deals with PTSD, having served in the military.

Well, I think some of this is so many things you know about a couple of things about a military that have served in the wars. Yes, there is post-traumatic stress, which, of course, from everything that they witnessed. When you get deployed over to the war zone, there's really no way to escape the danger that's around because it's supervised explosive devices, IEDs that are ones that are killing most of those over there, the ones under the ground. So you have no idea where you're going, that there's something under the ground or next to the ground, or people could with their bullets, shoot you from far away. Imagine the post-traumatic stress is happening to all those who've served there for deployments up to 13 months, either, sometimes even more than that. So he was certainly suffering through that. One of the other things that we learned about John and Holly is that Holly outranked him. She had a higher rank in the army than he had in the Marines. And so this was that machismo feeling that you have in the military. I mean, all of us, as men, go to the thing to some degree. But in the military, it's a little bit more extended.

And there's a lot of thoughts, even though he, John, never admitted anything, didn't even express any, never gave him apologies. But we're told by those that are around that he had this... He expressed it once in a about the fact that he couldn't quite take it.

And that can be a big contributor to some stress in the relationship. Bob, from your military perspective, clearly, they had a comfort level with you. And when we talk about how his dad, Jesse, a retired US Army sergeant, he was relentless in his search for answers. And I want to talk more about that, but they must have felt a little bit comforted that you understood their world a little bit.

I think we got concerns that Bo would interview with us. Certainly, his father did want to talk to us. Jesse certainly did, but we were worried about Bo. In fact, he expressed that he's not really sure he really wants to talk about it yet because of his guilt that he felt. But he had not spoken about this case since it happened back in 2008. But he was willing to do it, but he was back and forth about it. And then finally, he was able to text back and forth with Bo, and it was just talked about what we would talk about, the way that I feel. And the one that was really, and I've known this in my relationship with the others that had served over in these wars, you feel closest to the people that have gone through similar things or lived through the the same things and witnessed the same things. I think that's when they feel most comfortable. I think all of us are the same. Of course. I feel the same way, too. I feel very close. I know others that have gone through wounds, visible or invisible, post-traumatic stress like he has.

We could actually share stories. So before I even sit him down to talk to me, I would be in the kitchen and just tell stories. And he just loosened up. That makes a difference. He wanted to tell everything. During the interview, and you can see this, that he just almost became a professional interviewee.

You clearly brought it out in him and his dad. And the dad actually wrote a letter to John Weymack in prison. Let's take a listen to this clip to hear what was said.

John, John, both my son, Jesse and I carry no anger toward you, but only grief for the loss of Holly. The level of grief we carry leaves no room for you.

Well, this is one of the most important parts of the story is why is it that Jessie, her father, actually wanted to talk and relive this again, her brother, Bo, to do the same, is because there is a charity group online. It offers those that are in prison for life, to figure out a way to communicate with those on the outside, to talk to people. It might be sometimes with the victims, but largely just anybody, so they can live outside this prison room that they've been and will be for the rest of their lives. So here was this father. Jesse found out that he could actually have possible communication with John, the man who murdered his daughter.

To my surprise, I did receive a response to my letter. The response goes like this: Thank you for reaching out to me. You are entitled to answers to which I will give them to you as best I can. I hope this will provide some closure for all parties involved.

Bob, what gets me is that Weimack doesn't offer anything really to them. Oh, he's very procedural. Oh, well, yes, we should try to get together. Oh, let's try. Here's how you have to do it. This man wanted just to... He just needed to know something. And Weymack is putting him through the emotions. Nothing there. I mean, that had to be difficult for him.

It was not emotional. There was no apology. It was very formulaic. There was no form of love or anything. Wasn't no regret. That is purely almost like a lawyer trying to lay out what the policy is of the prison in order for them to talk because Jesse really wanted to possibly see him actually in the prison. The process of even communicating is difficult to do that. Who knows if that would ever been impossible. But then so he writes back another letter essentially saying, This is never going to be a forgiveness. Whatever, we will talk, but This will never be a forgiveness for what you did. And then there was no response from John, from the prison, at least not yet.

You took him back to the scene of where his daughter's body was found, and that was so emotional. It had to be for you, too.

It was very emotional. Jessie had never been to that spot before. Right after the murder, when her body was found out in this spot out there in the middle of the woods, he wanted to go, but he didn't go. So fast forward, he told us that he would like to go out there and see that spot for the first time. And I remember we were at the hotel where we stayed, and he went out and he bought some flowers that he wanted to put flowers where his daughter's body had been found. Burnt, buried halfway in the ground. And he wanted to get this out of his soul. I always wonder how much that would really help, but he said that it did to go there to see it and talk to the details.

We've had that happen in stories before, and I certainly have gone with people to these sites that, I guess, feel somewhat sacred. Bob, it's a powerful, powerful story, and you bring such heart and understanding to the story, which is so important. Thank you. Thanks for stopping by. It's good to have a convo with you. This is great. We got to do more of this.

I know. We got to do this more. This is an amazing place. Pretty good.

Bob Woodrow, thank you for joining us. Just ahead, we have got some warning signs that might save your life or somebody that you know. In the US, an average of 20 people are physically abused by intimate partners every minute. And that's a sobering statistic, if you think about it, from the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. It equates to more than 10 million abuse victims every year. We're going to talk about what's available out there to help victims and to try to keep them safe. So stay with us.

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Welcome back to 2020 The After Show. As you just heard, this story centered on a story that is, sadly, not too uncommon here in the US. We told the story of Holly James, who was a loving army nurse, a mom of two children who was killed at the hands of her own husband. And it turns out that domestic violence is really an epidemic and impacts millions of people every year. So we thought it would be interesting to talk a little bit about that part of this story in more detail. And joining me now is emergency psychiatrist Dr. Ajua Smalls-Montey. Thank you so much for being here with us. Let's talk about some of the stats. One in three women have been abused by an intimate partner. You see this a lot in emergency rooms because you see people when they come in after abusive situations. Let's talk about as it relates to the case of Holly James. We heard there were rumors of violence in her relationship. Her family really didn't know about it. Tell us what you see when people come into the emergency rooms like that. Is that common that families often don't know the danger that these women have been in?

Unfortunately, yes. It is really something that is going on more and more. We've learned from the domestic violence shelters and hotlines that there are more people seeking their services, like you mentioned. In the emergency room, I see people that have come right after a violent attack whether it is a physical assault, a sexual assault. But I also see people that have gone through it for so long, and now they feel ready to address it, and they're breaking down emotionally from what they have experienced. And what you about people not being able to tell their families is something that is very, very common because there's a lot of embarrassment surrounding this. There's a lot of shame, there's a lot of anger and frustration, and there's also a feeling of, what can I do? Who will believe me? And a lot of people that are victims of violence, they have grown up in environments where they have seen other people be victims. And one of the things that perpetrators do do is try to make you feel like there is no way out, there's no one that you can talk to.

In this case, Bob mentioned that Holly's family was just at a loss. They did not know that she was dealing with this, and they didn't particularly see any warning signs. What are warning signs that people should be looking for?

So some of the things that you should be looking for are, you think about how do we get to the point of somebody being involved in a domestic violence relationship. And a lot of times, it can start off as a lot of good feelings. The relationship progresses very quickly. Almost there's a lot of bombing that can happen, a lot of adoration, and people might say, Oh, wow, this is too good to be true. And then things start to happen. So if you notice that they're checking in very frequently, Where are you? They're texting you frequently. They want to know everyone in your life. They want to be with you all the time. That's a sense of control that the abuser is trying to have. And so somebody on the outside might notice, Oh, wow, this person has shown up to every single event. You can't get a minute away from them. Another thing that we tend to see is that people then feel like there is a threat of violence. The person will actually say, If you do this again, I'm going to do this or that. So it doesn't necessarily always come out of the blue for some people.

They might threaten to hurt you. They might threaten to hurt themselves if you leave because people can start to sense like, Okay, something is wrong. And then comes the acts of violence, and that is what is really, really hard. And it comes as a shock and a surprise. But then the perpetrator will say, Oh, it'll never happen again. And they try to placate you, and you think, How can this happen? So people think they believe we're humans. We have hope. And so we stay around. We might think, Okay, this will never happen again.

What about the idea of getting coming out. Bob Woodrow mentioned in the report that she had actually filed some paperwork. There was some effort on her part, but yet she didn't follow through. She didn't show up in court. Common?

It is common that people don't want to to report things. Even when you start to report things, people then might get scared. Is something going to happen to me, or will this actually be effective? And they don't go through the process. That's where I say it is very important to have at least one confident, one major support that can help you get through this, help you see it to the end, and to not only keep this situation to yourself. You do have to be discreet with who you're telling about this situation.

Because you need to know it's somebody you can trust. You also say that there are things that people should do, too, when trying to get out. I mean, they should have some money set aside. You have some real tips.

Like you mentioned, there's increasing rates of domestic violence, unfortunately. We also know that when people try to leave in that two-week period, that is the highest risk of actual physical harm and even murder or death to the person that is trying to leave. So you can't just always pick up and leave, and you need to be very strategic in your planning. So if you are able to plan things that you want to do are document what is happening. You write in a journal. If you have a physical injury to yourself, make sure you're going to the doctor. Make sure this is written down, because later on, when legal proceedings might start happening, you will need that.

It can be useful in court.

A hundred %. And then the other thing that you want to do is have a to-go bag ready. You want to have in there your ID. You want to have money, enough money, because one of the reasons why people don't go is because they don't have enough money. But start trying to build a secret bank account. You want to have documents. Another reason why people don't leave is because of children. What is going to be your plan for your children? Where are you going to go? Make sure you have your children's important documents, too. And you may not want to keep the originals. You might want to keep only copies at that time, because if your partner starts to know you're trying to get out, they can try to stop you. The violence can escalate at that time as well.

A real strategy.

And then I want to say, when you make that decision to leave, you want to be definitive. You want to leave to go as far away as you can or to a very safe place. And there are different shelters that you can go. They're not marked so that it is hard for anyone to find out where you are. And finally, that is when I would actually say, after you have left, you want to maybe start the process of doing a restraining order because when you start that, people know that they're caught.

That's right. And then the tension really flares in a relationship. What about resources out there? Because some people may not have the resources. They worry they can't do anything. What's available out there to help someone who wants to leave an abusive relationship?

So the first call I would make is to the National Domestic Violence Hotline. There's a sexual assault hotline in different cities like New York City, New York State, there are also hotlines for domestic violence. You can make a plan with a person that is there to help you. If you also need to just get away in an emergency, you can go to a police precinct and say, I need to be safe. You can go to a hospital. We have victim services there available for people, and that can get you in a place connected to someone that can help make a plan for you. One of the things that we talked about is planning and being very strategic and when you're trying to leave. But sometimes an emergency or you might be in such peril and physical danger, you have to get out immediately. I say make up an excuse. Say that you're feeling sick, go to the hospital. No one can really argue with that. When you're in the hospital, the doctor has to examine you by yourself, and then you can tell your doctor what's going on. And that has happened to me a couple of times, and we can make an excuse to get that person out of the hospital so that you're safe for that time, and things will proceed from there.

The most important thing is to try to get yourself out safely. Well, these are such great tips and such great information. Dr. Smalls, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. To our listeners, we thank you for joining us again for this podcast episode. And of course, a reminder, you can watch us for our latest 2020 episodes on Friday nights, of course, on ABC. And you stream episodes like this one anytime on Disney+ and Hulu. And we want to point out that if you're experiencing abuse, you can get help by reaching out to the National Domestic Violence Hotline for confidential support 24/7, 365 days a year. They can be reached at 1-800-799-7233.

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