Nefertiri “Neffie” Trader (Queen of Hearts, Delaware)

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waiting for you inside. There is nothing better than getting cozy and diving into a story that you can't put down. And now you can take the missing half anywhere, crack the spine, roll the cover, and lose yourself in a mystery that will keep you guessing until the very end. And in paperback, the ending extends beyond where the story has before. And just when you think you have it all figured out, now there is a new chapter, one more piece of the puzzle,

one more twist that you didn't see coming. If you're ready for a story, full of secrets, surprises, and a final turn that will stay with you. Grab your paperback copy of the missing half now wherever books are sold. Our card this week is Nefertiri Neffey Trader, the Queen of Hearts from Delaware. In the early hours of June 30, 2014, 33-year-old Neffey was kidnapped from her own front yard. In the dark, she was

dragged into her car away from the town home that she shared with her mom and three children. Even though Neffey's kidnapping was witnessed, it would be almost 19 hours before police learned that Neffey was missing. After an investigation failed to find out what happened in Neffey,

a Delaware court declared her legally dead, but her body has still never been found.

“Could the identity of Neffey's kidnapper lie with friends that she saw just hours before she vanished?”

Or is the suspect convicted killer out for revenge? I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is the deck. [Music] Neffey Trader's neighbor was awake at around 4.15 in the morning on June 30, 2014, when he heard a woman's scream. Civilian investigator Theresa Williams of the Newcastle County Police Department told us that the sound was concerning enough that he got up and looked through his

second four window. So he looks out as window. He sees his neighbor and he describes her as wearing pink.

And when he sees her, she's engaged in some type of verbal altercation with what he thinks is a male. And he says that he sees her car. He sees the man kind of engaging in a physical altercation, pulling her back. She gets in the driver seat at the car. Then he sees that male on top of her. And then there's some type of struggle. And he actually sees this male subject pick her up and put her in the back seat of the car. And just the way you know, when you think about somebody,

the way they phrase things, and the way they say, he was dragging her. And then he said,

“"I don't remember if these are exact words, but then he says he picked up the body."”

Somebody say in that too, you're like, "Something really bad happened to this lady." We reached out to the neighbor to ask him about what he saw, but he didn't respond to our reporter's text messages or phone calls. Whether she was dead or not, we still do this, they don't know. That's Master Corporal Joshua Smith. He's currently working with investigator Williams on Nephi's case, and we interviewed them together. But at that time, obviously, we're getting this

information. There's concern for her safety at this point. This is more at this point and just a typical missing person. We have people go missing every day. The information that we're getting at this point, this is going beyond. After the neighbor saw someone being dragged, picked up and driven off, he didn't call 911. For the next 19 hours, police were unaware of the precious time they were losing. It wasn't until Nephi's mom called to report her missing around 11pm, and they came out

“to canvas that they finally heard this neighbor's concerning story. So why didn't he call 911?”

I asked him that exact question, and it was, "I just didn't want to get involved with other people's business." That was Sergeant Matthew De Sabatino, one of the original investigators.

very normal, nice people. It's a one-way-in, one-way out neighborhood. It's not in common for people to

“argue over parking spots or loud music coming from the neighbor's house. That's typical.”

So for him to say, he didn't want to get involved in one of those aspects would have been completely normal. Why he chose not to get involved with this when he saw somebody getting physically assaulted and kidnapped, it's beyond my comprehension. I don't know his background, I don't know his story, but has his own reasons, whatever they are for not telling the police. I think if we had been, if the police had been called sooner, I think this may have

had a different result. Maybe it didn't, but we would have had a better chance to locate Matthew had we been notified sooner. Investigators talked with the neighbor several times, and even after multiple conversations, they didn't believe that he was a suspect. There was no evidence that he'd been in contact with Neffy that morning. No sign that they'd had a long-running dispute or argument. They were just two people who happened to live on the same street.

But the neighbor's first-hand account of Neffy's kidnapping was important because along with giving

them confirmation of foul play, it also confirmed that it was Neffy's own car that she was driven off in, a silver 2000 accurate. So the first thing that police did was push out a

“below for the vehicle. The best thing we know at that point in time is, the sooner we get a”

description of the car out, the sooner we get the picture out to the media, that's the sooner we can ask the public for help. So that was something real important that we did right away. Neffy's family didn't need the neighbor sighting to know that something was very wrong. To them, there were signs. She lived at home with her mom and her three kids, and even though she'd been out at a club the night before, they expected her home by morning. In fact,

what made this so concerning to them is that there had been evidence she had made at home.

They found a collection of items left on the front stoop, a loaf of bread, two cups of coffee, and an unused condom still in the wrapper. Investigated to Sabatino was there that day, and he remembers one of those pieces of evidence very well. On the front porch,

“stoop of her townhome, was the loaf of bread that we found, and it looked like it had been stepped on.”

We believe it was one of the things she was buying for the children for that day. The loaf of bread is just a typical grocery store, loaf of bread, non-descript, and it looked like a shoe impression had been made into it. It wasn't enough for anything that we could actually form a cast off of, and then utilized that. But it was enough to say, this wasn't somebody who was just holding a loaf of bread and it got squashed. It was flattened out.

But that was just one more indicator that something is a miss. Investigators would learn that Nephi had purchased the bread, and the other items at a nearby 7/11, roughly 10 to 15 minutes, before she was kidnapped. So this is a photograph of Nephi Trader at the 7/11 making her purchases. And it's time Sam's 4/3am. So this is right prior to her abduction, prior to her arriving home that morning, and after her night at the club. So in the photograph, you can see the two clubs

of coffee, you can see the loaf of bread, the columns kind of obscured in this picture. But this is her and the pink outfit, making those purchases at the 7/11. The items Nephi purchased seemed to tell a story. Two cups of coffee, one condom. It seemed like Nephi was planning to meet someone. Or perhaps she was already with someone that night. This is pure speculation, but she was at the club tonight before. It's not

impossible to leave. She had met an individual at the club, and she was driving home, and that's the individual who drove her from the 7/11 to the residents. It's possible, but I can't prove that. We know from some of the items that were purchased at that 7/11, that is a possibility. But I can't say definitively, that's where it occurred. Unfortunately, the 7/11 footage doesn't clear this up. Nephi appears to be alone inside,

and the outside camera fails to show how she arrived or with whom. When Feliz tried talking to some of the friends that they found out Nephi had been with at the club that night. They shared nothing. I'm told the club that they'd been at was an underground off the book sort of thing. So it's possible they just didn't want to get in trouble, or maybe they simply knew nothing. But no one could tell Feliz who Nephi was hanging out with there,

who she might have left with if she was alone, her plans, or who if anyone had given her a ride. But people did have a lot to say about another night at a different club that might be at the

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hear. Join me for the deck on YouTube. Subscribe to audio check investigates on YouTube today. Investigators told us that in the early days there was one man who kept coming up in their interviews. A man who allegedly wanted revenge on Nephi. According to Corporal Smith, that was Roddy Prince. So he is kind of well-known to law enforcement in this general area due to an incident that happened several years ago where he did,

I guess you consider a mass shooting in Maryland. The mass shooting took place in 2017, years after Nephi went missing, but it gives you insight nonetheless into who this guy is. Roddy shot and killed three of his co-workers at a granite company in Maryland and injured two

“others. But the reason Roddy came up in Nephi's case is because of an incident that happened”

roughly four months before she went missing in February 2014. Roddy's connection was back in the city of Wellington. There was a club that's no longer open anymore, but he was at this club with his sister. Nephi was there celebrating her birthday. Nephi and Roddy's sister knew each other from childhood. So at some point Nephi joined up with them and they all decided to get into a car and smoke weed together. Next thing you know, the corridor opens, Roddy's grabbed, he's assaulted,

and assaulted pretty badly and actually left a permanent scar on his forehead. According to investigators, Roddy became convinced that Nephi had set him up for the attack. Now this made no sense to investigators because Roddy and Nephi weren't in a relationship,

“they weren't close, they just been smoking lead together that night. The timing investigators say”

was pure chance and there is no evidence that Nephi did set him up. But Roddy became completely paranoid after he was assaulted. He was certain that everyone including Nephi was out to get him. At the time, information that we were getting later on was that he was asking people you know who Nephi trader was and where she lived because he believed that she set him up for that robbery and that assault. Investigators tried on several occasions to talk to Roddy.

The closest they got was talking to the woman Roddy lived with at the time. According to investigators, she said Roddy was with her when Nephi was kidnapped. But even when Roddy was in prison for the mass shooting in Maryland, he still refused to answer any questions about Nephi. Investigators looked closer at other people in Nephi's life like the father of her children who was questioned but not considered

a suspect. They also talked to her current boyfriend who had the rock solid alibi of being in jail at the time of her abduction. Investigator de Sabotino remembers that conversation very well.

I have never seen somebody break down emotionally the way he did. He was one of the most

emotionally distraught individuals I had ever seen. If we can't say we've ruled him out 100 percent, you never do, but he was definitely not high up on the list of suspects. Hitting roadblock after roadblock. Investigators figured forensic testing might be the answer. Specifically testing those items that Nephi bought at the 7/11. Maybe the suspects DNA was on that, but even this they knew was going to present its own challenges. Corporal Smith explained

those challenges to our team. When we first made contact with the family and made, they made us aware that they'd actually brought some of these items inside the house, so they'd already touched some of these items. They still attempted testing on the bread,

coffee cups, and condom. But ultimately, there was nothing of evidentiary value found.

If DNA is going to crack Nephi's case open, it's likely going to come from something else. Something investigators still can't locate. The biggest piece of evidence that we could

which the data has never been found. Potentially that crime, the initial crime that occurred,

“and subsequent crimes that happened afterwards happened in that car. What happened to that car”

is a huge part of this mystery. Making a person disappear is one thing. A person and a car, that's harder. Our reporter, Laura Frater, asked about it. Are you surprised that the car just disappeared? Is there a hard to do that? I am. I am. I am. Unless Nephi's body and the car are together, maybe in a body of water. But over the years, police tried and failed to locate it. It wasn't for a lack of divers, both from the FBI, Delaware State Police. We have significant

amount of water in Delaware, and a lot of deeper bodies of water. A lot of marshland, there's a lot of places to look for vehicles. And obviously, it remains like if you run her vehicle through the system nationally today, it will come up alert and then fly for Newcast County Police

“in Delaware. Investigators hope Nephi's phone could shed some light on her movements or”

communications, but it's never been found. And when they analyze data from a cell phone tower

that they believe Nephi's phone interacted with, they couldn't find any new leads. In a case, like Nephi's, which has been called for so long. The other way it could be solved is if someone decides to come forward. Maybe someone who is no longer afraid to speak out, or maybe someone with a conscience who needs to get the truth off their chest. Investigator Williams believes that person is not necessarily the guy who abducted Nephi,

but someone else. Because she believes that there had to be another person who helped cover up the crime. Somebody besides just the really bad guy that hurt her. Somebody else knows what that person did. And the big thing we think about too, and we know this from doing this for so long, is that people are go through different stages of their life. A lot of times, especially if it was a second person involved as a third person, at the time, maybe they were scared,

maybe they were in the rest, whatever it may be. And then their life changes, their circumstances change, and then 10 years pass, and they're in a different part in their life where they can feel a little bit more comfortable. I'll talk about something that happened in the past. The other thing I really look at too is to take her and her car. You had to get there. Delaware is not a place like a city like Philadelphia or New York City or something where you'll

walk everywhere you go. You drive in Delaware, and we do have public transportation, but not a four-clock in the morning. Somebody knows what happened to this woman. Obviously the person that harmed her and took her, but there's somebody else that knows too. You had to get rid of her car. And even if you got rid of her car, somehow in a body of water, somewhere, how are you getting back to your house? Nephi's family didn't want to participate in this episode, which we understand.

But all the investigators on Nephi's case still think about her loved ones, especially Nephi's mom Denise. We're dealing with a mother Denise Trader who has no idea where her daughter is or if she's ever coming home. The lack of closure, the lack of figuring out where is my love to

“and why are they not home? Is it something I did? Is something a family did? The lack of answers?”

Denise has said this multiple times where I just want to know what happened to my daughter. I just want to know what happened to my daughter. Nephi was a young single mom. She had life in front of her for her to disappear in the way she did. That sets with me. I think it's a horrible thing when somebody in your family's a victim of violent crime and they're murdered. But it's another thing

to not know. Not be able to bury your loved one. I always think about her mom and I think about her

children. When her mom has to go through the holidays and she's always still to this day thinking maybe one day she'll walk through that door. If you have any information about the disappearance of Nefertiri Trader, you can contact the Newcastle County Police Department at their non-emergency number, which is 3-0-2-5-7-3-2-8-0-0. Or you can call crime shoppers at 1-800-10-3-3-3. The deck is an audio truck production that theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about the

Julia Diambra, an investigative journalist, avid park enthusiast and host of park predators. A weekly

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