Deborah Frazier dialed 911 with a chilling report that would soon grab attention.

Upon returning to her apartment in Zanesville, Ohio, on August 10, 2023, the 35-year-old was confronted with a terrifying scene: two masked intruders had allegedly entered her home.

“I think someone’s in the apartment,” Frazier informed the dispatcher in a call that was later broadcast on Oxygen’s Snapped. “The door was unlocked. There’s stuff everywhere. And I can’t find my boyfriend.”

As the dispatcher advised her to cautiously retreat from the apartment, the situation took a grave turn—a gunshot echoed through the call.

“Help,” Frazier urgently cried. “I’ve been shot. Oh my god, I’ve been shot.”

First responders arrived to find Frazier shot in the leg and her 66-year-old boyfriend Thomas Waddell dead in a back bedroom. It looked like a violent home invasion, until investigators took a closer look and uncovered a series of lies and a cold-blooded murder plot.

Deborah Frazier and Thomas Waddell Meet Through Work

Waddell and Frazier met while both were working at a retail store. For Waddell, a manager at the store who loved rescuing animals and woodworking, it seemed like he’d finally found his match after five failed marriages. 

“Deborah Frazier was intriguing,” Zanesville Police Detective Bryan Ruff explained. “She didn’t have a big support group and she kind of put herself on an island. There were only a couple people that she was close with.” 

Although there were breaks in the relationship, by the summer of 2023 Frazier and the since-retired Waddell had moved in together and were establishing a life together. 

“If you look in the apartment there’s pictures of them together,” assistant prosecutor John Little explained. “They had a cookbook which said you know, Tom and Debbie’s cookbook.” 

But that life came to an abrupt end on Aug. 10. 

Unusual Clues at the Scene of Thomas Waddell’s Murder

Police arrived at the couple’s apartment and found Frazier lying on the ground near the front door with a gunshot wound to the thigh and a revolver lying nearby. 

Yet they found it unusual that Waddell’s body was hidden under a blanket in a closet in the bedroom.

“He was wrapped in black trash bags, black duct tape, a blanket,” Ruff remembered, “and there was some blood on the carpet.”

Zanesville Chief of Police Scott Comstock also noted that it looked as though Waddell had been dead for some time. 

Investigators didn’t believe that a robber would take the time to wrap and try to conceal the body. They also found the trash bags and duct tape neatly placed back where they belonged in the apartment.

Authorities also noted that it didn’t look as though any valuables had been taken from the home.

“There was still money in drawers,” Ruff said. “There were valuable guns all over the place.”

Plus, they found photos of the couple together that had been torn up, suggesting there may have been a more personal motive to the crime.

Little concluded, “The things that were present at the scene weren’t adding up to a home invasion.” 

Yet, at the hospital, Frazier continued to insist that she’d come home and stumbled upon two masked men in the apartment. During a scuffle, she told detectives, she tried to grab their gun and it went off, hitting her in the leg. 

Thomas Waddell’s Autopsy Reveals Telling Detail

During the autopsy the next day, officials discovered that someone had also wrapped a blue strap around Waddell’s legs, possibly to allow them to more easily move the body.

They also learned that Waddell died from a single gunshot wound to the head from a .22 caliber revolver, just like the one recovered from the scene.

But perhaps most telling, Licking County Coroner Dr. C. Jeff Lee concluded that Waddell had been killed approximately 12 to 16 hours before the 911 call was placed. 

“At that point that didn’t make sense based on the timeline,” Zanesville Police Sgt. Phil Michel remarked. “Why would you kill somebody, go to the extent of taking your time to wrap him up, put him in a closet and then come back a whole day later?” 

Deborah Frazier’s Secret Boyfriend

Investigators turned their focus to Frazier. An analysis of her phone showed that she had been researching how long gun shot residue stays on the skin at 8:16 a.m. the morning of Aug. 10, hours before the supposed robbery, and a later analysis showed other suspicious searches, including how to load a gun.

Frazier told police that before the alleged robbery, she’d been staying with John Anderson, someone she described as an “old friend” from college, yet, detectives learned that the pair had been involved in a romantic relationship.

Anderson was completely unaware that she was dating Waddell and believed Frazier was acting as the elderly man’s hired caretaker.

“His understanding from Ms. Frazier was that she was working as a home health care, live-in for Mr. Waddell because he had dementia,” Prosecutor Ron Welch said. “So, he is very, very shocked by all this.”

He told police he’d received a panicked call from Frazier on Aug. 9 and he picked her up. They drove around and then returned to his house, where they spent the night.

Anderson told police that he dropped her back off at her apartment sometime the next morning.

He also remembered that just days earlier, Frazier had asked him to make a staged call to her Alzheimer’s patient pretending to be from a bank. She asked him to tell Waddell they were currently looking into his fraud claim and planned to investigate it.

“It really starts to add up as to what was the motive behind killing Mr. Waddell,” Welch said. “Now that we have some indication that Ms. Frazier is responsible, there were more than 20 warrants that were issued to collect information on emails, phone records, location services, financial records.” 

Evidence Points to Deborah Frazier

Investigators discovered that there had been large monetary withdrawals from Waddell’s banking account and Frazier had created a fake email address supposedly from a banking institution’s fraud department that authorities believed enabled her to steal money from him.

They also learned Frazier’s account had been connected to the apartment’s wifi the night of the murder, putting her in the apartment. Hair found in Waddell’s hands during the autopsy also matched to Frazier along with a fingerprint lifted from the duct tape.

Blood was also found on Waddell’s recliner, suggesting that’s where he’d been attacked.

Given the evidence, authorities concluded that Frazier walked up behind Waddell as he was relaxing in his recliner, shot him in the head and then tied straps around his legs to move the body. They believe her initial plan may have been to dispose of the body, but after realizing how hard it was to maneuver, she opted to create the fake home robbery instead.

“He didn’t deserve that,” Waddell’s daughter Olivia Denton told Snapped. “No one deserves that.” 

When investigators dug into Frazier’s past, they found a string of other troubling behavior. She was estranged from her parents after making unfounded abuse claims and had previously made what authorities suspected was a false claim that she’d been attacked in a park.

Little remarked, “I don’t know that I’ve ever dealt with a person who was so dishonest and so manipulative with so many people over such a long period of time.” 

Frazier was arrested on multiple charges including aggravated murder on Sept. 7, 2023. She pled guilty In March 2024 and was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 23 years.