Chapter 1: What happened on the night of Sarah Stern's disappearance?
It's the middle of the night in a small town on the Jersey Shore. Someone reports an abandoned car on a bridge. A search gets underway for the missing driver, 19-year-old Sarah Stern. Is it a missing person? Is it a suicide? At this point, nobody knows. Old friendships, buried cash, and a sinister plot that was once pitched as a movie plays out in real life.
I'm Juju Chang from 2020 and ABC Audio. Listen now to Bridge of Lies wherever you get your podcasts.
Step into the 2020 true crime vault. Listen to our most gripping stories. This case has stuck with me till this day. A five-year-old is stabbed that many times. It breaks your heart, and you can only picture in your mind your own child.
We got some more people in the group. Devin Donover was five years old when her body was found in some brush near her home.
The magnitude of this case with two children involved absolutely blew me away. Now, a 12-year-old is about to be charged in the murder. Why did you confess to this? No, I was confused. I did not kill Devin. I've never forgotten my interview with Anthony, so young at the time. And more than 20 years later, I speak with him again as a grown man.
Why have you decided to sit down with us and talk about this? It just felt like now was the time for me to kind of speak about what happened. What the world was just tearing me apart. Everybody's jaw dropped at that point. No one really believed he was responsible. We just couldn't believe that they found her in that spot when we knew we had just been there.
How did nobody see her until the next day? I kept saying, it's not dumb. It's not dumb. There's still an unsolved murder. Stole away the hours. WJER News. It's 73 degrees and time now for a look at news.
Saturdays are very slow here, and normally it's a very quiet day. My name is Amy Smith. I'm the general manager here. I started working at WJER as a senior in high school.
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Chapter 2: How did the community respond to the search for Devin Donover?
Thank you, Carlotta. It's 11.05, and our news continues now. That particular day, we were expecting bad weather. There were thunderstorms moving in, and that's the day that I received a call that a little girl was missing in New Philadelphia. It was, you know, a child went out to play and hadn't come home. Little kids wander off playing outside all the time.
So my thought at that time does not go to she's been abducted or even worse. It's a small town. Things like that don't happen here.
Devin was a five-year-old who was full of life, full of energy, happy, definitely happy, spoiled. Little girl, always wanted to wear a dress.
However, she wanted to play with the boys also.
When Devin's family had moved into that apartment in front of us, my mother and her mother became friends. I sometimes help her draw, help her paint. She's like a sister to me. Devin Donover was living in New Philadelphia in an apartment complex with her mother and her brother, Dylan. My cousin said this is the safest place to raise children.
She said it was good schools, good community, good people. Therefore, I moved to New Philly. But during the afternoon of June 27, 1998, everything would change for Lori. We had gotten home. and she went outside to play. Everything was fine, and she'd come home at 1.30. I said, we're going to go to the grocery store. Do not go nowhere. I went upstairs to get ready.
Her son was in the house for a while, and then Devin had gone outside. I came down at 10 minutes till 2, and I had asked Dylan, where's Devin? He said she went outside, and Dylan and I yelled for her, and she never came. It was around 2 p.m.,
when lori donever realized her daughter isn't where she thinks she should be when i got to the house i noticed devon's mom was outside looking you know calling for her and asking for her this was about probably five after two somewhere around there anthony was at that point was coming from the woods she had asked me if i could help look for devon and she gave me five bucks it's okay well five dollars to a 12 year old kid it's a lot
I was searching for my heart. I mean, she was five years old. She had no reason being away from home. She was very independent. We were assuming that she was down at a little girl named Caitlin's house. We had been down to Caitlin's numerous times, and the little girl was not home. and we just kept searching. Lori did what a lot of parents would do.
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Chapter 3: What led to the arrest of Anthony Harris?
Lori had indicated that she'd last seen her daughter at 1.30 in the afternoon. And she didn't call the police department until 11 minutes after 8 that night. Right away, we're six hours behind on trying to locate her.
Police called here and gave the official word that there was a search with neighbors and that they were desperately seeking this girl.
And our news director, Jennifer Clark, had arrived and took that phone call and began making announcements on the air. The weather was going to be really bad, so we really wanted to find her. So we wanted to get on the air what was happening. Do you want to help? This is where you go. My daughter-in-law called me and said they had just heard on the radio there was a little girl missing.
And because my son went missing for about seven hours when he was just under three years old, there wasn't a place else for me to be but out searching for Davin. The community really pulled together, and it was amazing, actually. I don't know the exact number for Saturday night, but I think it was like around 4 to 450 people that were searching.
You're maybe picturing this little five-year-old girl who might be hurt somewhere. I mean, I can only imagine the intensity that I would have felt if I was searching. The flyer that they gave us had Devon's picture, her description, what she was wearing. I was thinking about her green shirt and how it would blend into all the green that was around here.
Her red shorts, you know, her skin would probably be pale if she's been laying out here injured for all this time. There were several neighbors looking between houses, looking under shrubs, looking in sheds and garages. Any place that she could be hiding, we were looking. We searched all around her house, and we searched in the woods behind where she lived, and she wasn't there.
There was flashlights all over the place, and the whole field looked like fireflies. They went through the woods and looked everywhere and looked all over the place. Could not find Devin. We searched all night for her up until the next morning. I was just panicked. Just everybody was like, oh, Lori, it's going to be okay. It's going to be okay. And I knew it wasn't going to be okay.
And not this length of time that she'd been gone. I never expected what I found. When we went searching, I just said, oh my God, oh my God, call 911. Would you all come together? Would you all bow your heads in reverence, please? Heavenly Father, let this happen today, Lord, that they find this young girl, Father God, find her safe.
It was a Sunday morning, and we heard on the radio that they were asking for volunteers because this little girl was missing. At that point, my husband and I looked at each other and said, we have to go. The weather was nice. It was nothing like it was the night before.
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Chapter 4: What was the outcome of the interrogation of Anthony Harris?
I got up in the morning, 8 o'clock, I walked over to that area and just searched that spot. When we searched, it was very, very strategic, very down on the ground, pulling apart everything. My husband would go inside where I could not see him, and we had long sticks. And we would poke through until I could see him again, so that that way, between the two of us, we could see everything.
She wasn't there. It was afternoon, probably maybe around one-ish, when one of the ladies that I worked with as an EMT, she called me and asked me if I'd be interested to help look for this little girl.
We've been here for a couple hours, and we've searched the pond three times.
When we got there, they told us that she was wearing red shorts and a green shirt. When we went into the woods, we was moving towards the apartment where she lived at. I looked over to my left, And there was a tree that was down over there, and I looked all around the tree. I figured if, you know, maybe if it just fell that, you know, possibly she could be underneath there.
And then I turned away from the tree, and I turned back to my right, and there was another patch of woods that there was briar bushes and stuff all there. Something said, you know, look over to your left. I approached the bushes. I could see her red shorts. I just said, oh my God, oh my God. I found her, call 911.
Donover's body was found on the next day, 24 hours after her mom realized she was gone in this wooded area behind her house. I had to climb over the briar bushes And I leaned down and tried to check for a pulse to see if hopefully she was still alive, but there was no pulse.
New Philadelphia Police Captain Jeff Urban, the lead detective on the case, would discuss the investigation in a later deposition. Two women had discovered the body. And I went with one of them who showed me where the body was and pointed it out. The body was underneath what I believe now to be honeysuckle that was leaning out over top of her.
When Captain Irvin came in, he stood at the doorway and he said, oh, we found her. I could tell just the way he said it. And I took off in the living room screaming. I remember my sister Jill saying, is she breathing? And Captain Urban said, no. And that was unbelievable.
She would be found in a field a block from her home. Authorities say there are no blatant signs of trauma. She was fully clothed.
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Chapter 5: What evidence was presented during Anthony Harris's trial?
That stuck out even at the time as a teenager, how strange that was. We just couldn't believe that they found her in that spot when we knew we had just been there. It did seem kind of uncanny that you have all these people in a relatively small area and nobody sees this?
This whole town is grieving and hoping a killer is caught.
How do you feel about her death? It's very, very, very painful. I cry sometimes because she's gone. It's very, very hard. You think this happens to other people. This can't happen to us. It's not reality for everyday people. And it is. It really is. The outcome is heartbreaking. So our next objective is to find a culprit to get a conviction. It was terrifying.
Now not only do we have the tragic loss of a little girl, but we also have a murderer on the loose. It's a crime that stunned a small Tuscarawas County community.
When the body of five-year-old Devin Donover was found, the community of New Philadelphia began to ache in many ways.
All of a sudden, you have this young girl that they find at 2.30 on a Sunday afternoon, stabbed in the neck, killed. This is a community where, at that time, we had an average of about one homicide per year for the entire county. They simply didn't have a lot of homicides to investigate. Are we equipped? Are we ready? I don't believe you're ever ready to handle a homicide of a child.
At the time, the new Philadelphia police captain and lead detective, Jeff Urban, was heading up only his second murder investigation in his then 18-year career. As in most cases, Detective Urban starts by looking at the parents. Who wants to think of a mom or a dad, for that matter, that murders their kids? Police took notice Lori waited six hours to notify them of Devin's disappearance.
The time element was the problem that I had with it. At 1.30 in the afternoon, not to report her missing to the police department until 8.11 that night. As a parent, I would have contacted the police department immediately to activate any resources available to attempt to locate this little girl.
The day after Devin's body is found, Detective Urban tells Lori he wants to come back later to conduct a search of her home. I signed papers for them to search my house. Police report finding nothing suspicious in Lori's home. Ultimately, as other leads emerge, authorities no longer consider Lori a person of interest.
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Chapter 6: How did the appeal process unfold for Anthony Harris?
Police would eventually rule this sex offender out after giving him a lie detector test, which he passed. And then you have the neighbor, Anthony Harris.
As lead detective Urban tries to piece together the timeline, he learns that Devin was last seen headed toward the woods at around 1.45 p.m., which is around the same time that young Anthony Harris, Devin's neighbor, told police he was in that area. And you had lived in that neighborhood for how long? In that neighborhood for about a year and a half. What were the neighbors like?
The neighbors were good. We had great neighbors.
I took my neighbor's trash out for them. I help people when they ask me. I just do things that please people.
Anthony was like almost six foot tall. He's 12. He looked like an older kid. What kind of sports do you like to do? I love basketball. Anthony's very happy-go-lucky. He plays. Very creative young man. The family's life had been
I worked as a photographer.
You know, the kids would go to school, come home, mom would take supper. We'd talk about homework, how did school go.
Just your typical life.
While talking to Anthony, police noticed Anthony was inconsistent with the time he arrived home and how he arrived home on the day Devin went missing. Anthony, you said you came home at what time? What happened that day at around 1.45 when you were coming from Ryan's house? Nothing. What did you do? Which way did you walk? I walked right through the woods.
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Chapter 7: What were the implications of the confession on the case?
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Police still need your help in the murder case of Devon Donover. The five-year-old was found dead in a wooded area about a block from her new Philadelphia home.
On July 15th, just two weeks after five-year-old Devin Donover was found murdered, Anthony Harris is taken to the new Philadelphia police station to meet with neighboring Millersburg police chief Thomas Vaughn. His mother Cindy is able to watch Anthony through a two-way mirror, but she's unable to hear anything that's being said.
The police officer introduced me to the police chief who was going to be conducting the voice stress test. They just said, you know, it's like a lie detector test for teenagers.
They did some preliminary questioning to talk to him, help him relax. We had nothing to hide. No big deal. Sitting there behind the glass next to Cindy was Detective Urban, who she considered a friend. Their kids went to school together. The voice stress test would be kind of a prelude to the next step. And if you fail the test, now we're going to take it a step further.
That relaxing conversation turned into an 80-minute interrogation, all recorded on audio tape. Did you do this crime, Anthony? I can only help you if you help me. You're sorry you did this, aren't you? And then Chief Vaughn hones in on race as a possible motive. New Philadelphia, it's predominantly a white community. Everybody involved in the case was white.
The only people that were African-American in this whole thing was the Harris family. And I know that people react different ways. And there are certain things that trigger everybody. They talk to Anthony about, you know, I know that you hold some of this racial feeling in you. I think she just either called you the N-word or she called you some name. or she hit you with something.
And you got mad and you stabbed her. Those are the things the police pointed to because they had no evidence. Investigators had collected Anthony's clothing for testing, but at this point, it's very important to note they do not have any physical evidence linking Anthony to Devin's murder. Those test results are going to stand on their own, and it's just like any other evidence.
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Chapter 8: What is the current status of the investigation into Devin Donover's murder?
That day was just such a bad day. My mother and I were together one last time. And we were crying. And I'm on her arms over here asking to go home. Yeah, oh my goodness, that one hurt. Oh God, it hurt. Yeah, she was... She was... So she held on to you. Yeah. We held on to each other. Yeah, we did. We were just in this puddle of tears.
Even when the police officer thought that Anthony had confessed, when he turned to you, Anthony didn't confess. He denied it. You've got a 12-year-old child sitting in a room taught to respect authority, that the police are good. It felt like Anthony was being pushed into saying things. At that point, they didn't need to put him on the voice stress test. They had his confession.
It seemed as if once we honed in on Anthony Harris, done. If you're a parent, you can't even begin to understand it. They asked me, just come pluck your child out of your life for no reason. My son did not do this. Anthony's mom was frustrated with law enforcement. I feel like we were set up.
It was immediately after the confession of Anthony Harris, the district attorney said, he's confessed, let's arrest him. Good afternoon. I do not have a prepared statement, but I'm... She directed that you arrest Anthony Harris? Yes, sir. You said you were concerned. Why were you concerned?
As to what was going to happen to Anthony, what was going to happen to his mother, where this was going to go as far as newspapers and the mess that that was going to create. Meanwhile, Devin's mother can't believe a 12-year-old who played with her daughter all the time has been arrested for allegedly taking Devin's life. Just a regular kid. I really liked him. I really did.
Lori would later express a drastic change of heart. Without a doubt, without a reasonable doubt, any doubt, he definitely killed her. I feel very sorry for Lori's family. It is a shame that her daughter is gone. I wouldn't wish that on anybody. It's horrible. But my son did not do this. Police say that you killed this little girl. Yes. What do you say? I didn't. Never did it. Never did it.
Never harmed her. Never harmed her.
It was unlike any other trial I covered. He needs the death sentence. He deserved exactly what he gave my daughter.
She got the death sentence for playing outside. I felt like it was a movie.
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