Chapter 1: What happened to Daphne Hope in the summer of 2001?
There was evidence in the house and they would not listen to me. The Proof podcast is back with a new case and a new season. And this time, the stakes are higher than ever before. The letter from the doctor said I have six months or less to live. I'm scared shitless right now. A dying man is serving a life sentence for a murder he says he didn't commit.
Did you ever question if they got the right person? I don't think I believed it at the time. I don't think I believe it now. I'm scared to be sitting here in this damn chair talking about this shit.
Chapter 2: What theories exist about Daphne's disappearance?
How many other cold cases we're going to come forward and go, hey man, you need to look at my shit because I didn't do it. How many more do we have? You can listen now to Season 3 of Proof wherever you get your podcasts. And follow along with us as we reinvestigate the murder at the bike shop.
Everything I tell you is the truth. I'm not bullshitting one way or the other. I hope I don't bring a ton of shit down on me. I really do.
Our card this week is Daphne Hope, the Eight of Spades from Colorado. In the summer of 2001, Daphne Hope vanished. And for over seven long years, her case disappeared into the reams of files at the Denver Police Department. And even when new detectives did start digging, no one has been able to piece together exactly what happened to Daphne.
Over the years, theories about her disappearance have varied widely, from sex work and drug deals to a serial killer. There was even speculation that Daphne wasn't missing at all, that she was hiding in protective custody. And then there's the man she lived with at the time. What might he know about her disappearance? I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is The Deck.
In November of 2008, the Aurora Police Department started looking into a seven-year-old missing persons case, that of 34-year-old Daphne Hope. The case had just been transferred from the Denver PD, who had discovered while moving older files to a new database that Daphne had technically gone missing from Aurora.
So Denver had sent over a letter and a one-page file, both which contained old details about the case, along with some recent follow-up.
The detective that came across this case and realized it needed to go to us did do a social security number check on Daphne to see if there had been any activity in the last seven years, and there was none.
That's Detective Jason McDonald of the Aurora Police Department. Now, he didn't start working Daphne's case until September of 2025. And he was able to dig into the limited detective notes from 2008 to share what the Aurora team had to work with, including other information that stood out.
Daphne still had an outstanding warrant in the system. So we knew from that that she hadn't been contacted by any law enforcement for the last seven years.
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Chapter 3: How did the Aurora Police Department get involved in Daphne's case?
Here's an actor reading from Gary's statement.
A few weeks before Daphne disappeared, we were sitting, relaxing, and having a drink. And she said, Sterling, I've got to leave for a little while, but I'll be back. She said, I saw this ad in this X-rated paper and sent in a response to the ad and received a correspondence. She mentioned the Colorado Springs area and said it involved the money she needed to pursue her dream.
She also mentioned an alias that she would be going by and told me to remember the alias, which I forgot. I mean, it was a simple name. Carla, Shimon, something simple.
Gary had also mentioned a few other people who Daphne had been mixed up with before she went missing.
A week or so before Daphne disappeared, she and another female named Jackie got into an argument at the Flair Club on Montview Boulevard in Clinton. The argument started over a pimp drug dealer named Pablo who had offered Daphne a ride that night to my house. Daphne came home that night and told me the next morning about what had happened.
She said, Sterling, you won't believe how Jackie acted last night. She said, I've been knowing this guy Pablo for a long time and last night I ran into Pablo at the Flair Club. She said, we talked in the club for a while. It was getting late and he offered me a ride home. I said, yeah.
Then she said, when they approached his car, Jackie ran out of the club, started cussing me out, calling me all kinds of hoes and said I needed to take my ass back to Gary's house. She said that she told Pablo to forget it. She just walked to my house and she did. She told me that the next morning.
Jackie supposedly had seen Daphne being given to some people by Pablo and that those people took Daphne away.
Jackie comes back over to my house and tells me that she feels bad. I asked her about what and she said, I'm mad at Pablo. We got into it because I told him he needs to tell them people about Daphne. I said, what happened to Daphne? She said, Pablo shouldn't have did that girl like that. He took her to this Mexican that was parked and waiting on the Potomac in Colfax and gave her to him.
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Chapter 4: What were the findings during the initial investigation into Daphne's disappearance?
But there was one big thing Detective Connor could do. Search Gary's place. He was still living in the same house that Daphne had disappeared from seven years prior. The same house with the same yard where a neighbor maybe saw Gary once digging, according to Gary. And Connor had heard another story from Daphne's cousin Maureen, one that made him extra interested in getting inside that place.
Maureen said that earlier that summer, before Daphne went missing, she and a friend hid from police in the basement of Gary's home. There was this crawlspace area down there, and at one point after Daphne disappeared, the family thought that that area might be worth taking a closer look at.
At first, Gary was cool with Daphne's family going to look in the basement, but then he backpedaled, wouldn't let them. So the Aurora PD told Gary they wanted to search his property. And on December 18, 2008, a warrant in hand, they arrived at his house.
Rather than whip the search warrant out, they actually had Gary sign a consent to search, and he was happy to do so.
This would be the first time this property would be searched. An outside company used ground-penetrating radar both inside and outside, although the search wasn't without hiccups. Snow in the backyard made the GPR results less accurate, and the conditions inside were somehow even worse.
I understand Gary's house was a total nightmare, just a mess, like hoarder-type mess. We have no way to account for what's gone missing over the last seven years. What items Daphne left behind versus if they're still there, where they went. We just don't know. Seven years is a long time to pass. Certainly with people living in that house, things are going to change on a daily basis.
And so being behind the eight ball with a seven-year gap really hamstrung us.
While no remains were found, Detective Connor told our reporter that a purse was found in the basement. But they don't know if it was Daphne's purse. And even if it was, that wouldn't prove much since Gary's story was that Daphne had left her purse behind. And this meant that Aurora PD had zero physical evidence.
So Gary had pretty much provided everything he could. He gave that long written statement. He allowed us into his house. He didn't know where Daphne was. He had provided everything he could.
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Chapter 5: What did Daphne's family and friends reveal about her life before she went missing?
And so if your listeners have any idea who those people are, I'd really appreciate that tip. I got to figure out who these people are and talk to them and find out what they know.
If you have any information about the disappearance of Daphne Hope in August of 2001, please get in touch with Detective Jason McDonald of the Aurora Police Department. That number is 303-739-6013. We're also going to put his direct email address in the show notes. The Deck is an AudioChuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis.
To learn more about The Deck and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast.com. I think Chuck would approve.