On a Saturday, specifically the 21st of September 2002, a pair of passionate car aficionados named Alisson Alvarez and Joshua Samples, both 19 years old, attended the NOPI National Car Show, taking place at the Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, Georgia. Alongside them were four of their friends, all equally excited to partake in the day’s festivities. However, in the grand scale of the event, Alisson took leave to use the restroom as she didn’t feel well. Sadly, this would be the final moment she was seen by her friends and boyfriend.
Once Alisson’s absence extended for an unusually long period, Joshua and the rest of their party began to grow concerned. They then embarked on an extended search across the extensive speedway for several hours, culminating in a report to the venue’s security. Ironically, Alisson had left her purse and mobile phone with Joshua before her departure to the restroom, and the promising day quickly turned into a mystery with Alisson inexplicably gone and unable to contact.
Her inexplicable disappearance didn’t end at the speedway. Alisson’s absence was still evident when she didn’t return to the hotel where they all had been staying. Alarm bells were rung when, on the following day, Sunday, September 22, Alisson missed her work, which led Joshua to notify the police and initiate a missing person case, a terrifying new chapter for everyone closest to her.
During their investigation, law enforcement discovered that Alisson was originally from Colombia. She journeyed to the United States when she was 17 years old, where she then lived with her uncle in Miami, carrying the dream of a better life in her heart. According to her close friend Tatiana Cubillos, she moved to achieve the proverbial ‘American Dream’. Her path eventually crossed with Joshua’s, or would-be boyfriend, at their mutual workplace, Wendy’s restaurant, following which she moved to the Duluth suburb in Atlanta with Joshua and his family.
Joshua’s family received Alisson with warmth; his mother, Margaret Samples, noted they saw Alisson not just as Joshua’s girlfriend but also as an additional daughter to their family. Joshua, subsequently distressed and desperate to help with the investigation, turned over Alisson’s belongings she left with him – her cell phone and purse. He also provided the law enforcement with a recent photograph of Alisson to aid the search.
In their quest for substantial leads, the police also reached out to the rest of Joshua’s friends who were present at the car show. Unfortunately, since none of them were with Joshua and Alisson when she stepped out, they could not provide any additional information. The series of investigations pointed towards Joshua as a potential suspect, but the line of questioning and subsequent surveillance subsequently cleared his name.
A comprehensive search began within two days, which saw the authorities undertaking a sweeping investigation across the Atlanta Motor Speedway, focusing their efforts on the speedway premises accessible to the public. Jason Bolton, a detective sergeant from the Henry County Police during the time, compared the search to ‘looking for a needle in a haystack’. Despite the thorough efforts, the initial search failed to bear any fruitful leads.
After the initial search failed, the police made the public aware of Alisson’s disappearance on September 25, hoping to obtain useful leads. Amid the influx, one particular tip suggested that a woman resembling Alisson had been spotted at a local airport on the day she vanished; however, this came to naught in the end as the woman in question turned out not to be the missing Alisson.
However, another potentially substantial lead came in the form of a call from Brandon Dudley on the same day, September 25. He informed the local 911 that he had a conversation with someone who confessed to killing a woman inside one of the VIP suites at the speedway, an area that was off-limits to the public during the car show and hence had not been a part of the initial search territory.
This information led the investigators back to the speedway, where they discovered a sock near one of the unsecured VIP suites. Further examination of the suite revealed evidence of recent disturbance – a dislodged ceiling tile. Concealed within the ceiling compartment were clothes matching Alisson’s attire from the day she disappeared, leading to the gruesome discovery of Alisson’s lifeless body in the vicinity of the grandstands.
Upon discovering Alisson’s body, the case took a dire twist and became a murder investigation. The preliminary examination revealed evidence suggestive of strangulation as the cause of death, as well as defensive wounds that hinted at Alisson’s struggle with her assailant. Traces away from the body pointed to the likelihood of her being moved post-death from the VIP suite to the grandstands.
Investigation of the call tip led them to interrogate Brandon Dudley, during which he confided about hanging out with brothers Toby and Josh Dearing. Josh had made a disturbing claim about Toby being the culprit behind Alisson’s deplorable demise. Outraged at this revelation, Dudley refused to become an accomplice to this heinous act, and alerted the police after seeing Alisson’s missing person poster.
Further inquiries showed that Toby Dearing, at the time of Alisson’s death, was employed at a food stall within the speedway. On being questioned, he initially claimed to have come across a disoriented Alisson, and later confessed to strangling her and then moving her body to the grandstands with the help of his brother. Toby, then 24, and Joshua, 20, were arrested and charged for murder and concealing death, respectively. Toby faced a life sentence without parole after a plea deal in 2004, while Joshua received five years of probation for tampering with evidence and aiding his brother.
The post Unsolved Mystery Solved at Atlanta Speedway Show appeared first on Real News Now.
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