Twenty-six-year-old Deborah Poe brushed aside her parents’ concerns about working the graveyard shift at a convenience store. In addition to having a new car to pay for, she had big dreams such as wanting to purchase a house and start her own catering business, and she wanted to do both quickly. Both ventures required money, so Deborah, in addition to a full-time day job, worked five nights a week from 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. at the Circle K convenience store in Orlando, Florida.
Worried about their daughter becoming exhausted but more concerned for her safety, Alvin and Nancy Poe pleaded with Deborah to quit the night job. Even after being harassed by several drunks and having a naked man leap over the counter and lunge at her, Deborah was undeterred. She believed she could handle herself, but it appears that this was one instance where mother and father knew best.
The customers who entered the Circle K convenience store in the early morning hours of February 4, 1990, found no one inside. Thirty-four years later, no one, other than her presumptive kidnapper, knows what happened to Deborah Poe.
Deborah Poe
Deborah had been in Orlando for only five months, having moved from her native Virginia with her friend and roommate, Lori Tillman, in October 1989. Deborah found work in the sales department of the Orlando Sentinel, the city’s largest newspaper. Because the pay was modest, she also took the graveyard shift at the Circle K convenience store in the Goldenrod area of Orlando. She was almost always the only employee working, and the morning of February 3, 1990, was no exception.
Deborah’s Double Duty
Shortly after 11:30 p.m. on the evening of February 3, a friend stopped at the store to discuss housing plans with Deborah. They talked for approximately twenty minutes before her friend left, planning to return later. Deborah’s boyfriend, Scott Iaggi, saw her in the store at approximately 1:00 on the morning of February 4.
Several customers came into the store and were waited on by Deborah over the following three hours. She was last observed at approximately 3:05 a.m. standing behind the counter. Forty-five minutes later, the friend who had stopped shortly before midnight returned to the convenience store only to find it empty.
Deborah’s car, a Toyota Celica, was in the same spot it had been when the friend stopped earlier, but he found no sign of her. After several minutes of searching surrounding areas but still not finding any trace of her, he called the police.
Deborah Disappears
Inside the Circle K, a cup of coffee and a carton of chocolate milk sat on the floor behind the counter atop the stack of house plans Deborah’s friend had brought earlier. Her smock was also neatly folded behind the counter. Nothing suggested the store been robbed as the cash register was locked and no signs of a struggle were evident.
The doors to Deborah’s car were also locked and her purse was sitting on the back seat, undisturbed. Her keys and paycheck were inside as were her other pertinent identification and items.
A bloodhound tracked Deborah’s scent from the convenience store to a road beyond a wooden fence near the Shoals Apartment Complex. The dog lost the trail at the road’s pavement, suggesting Deborah had entered a vehicle, likely involuntarily.
Probable Abduction
On February 7, three days after Deborah’s disappearance, an Orlando woman contacted police after reading a newspaper article about the case. The woman had stopped at the Circle K convenience store between 3:15-3:30 a.m. on February 4, only ten-to-twenty-five minutes after Deborah was last seen. As she parked her car, the woman noticed a black van with a mural of the heavy metal band Megadeth airbrushed on the side. Upon entering the store, she saw a man with long, stringy dark black hair and dark eyes behind the counter. He was wearing a black t-shirt with Megadeth written on it, accompanied by an image of a dragon spitting fire. The woman had not seen or heard anyone else in the store.
The customer asked the man, whom she presumed to be the clerk on duty, for a specific brand of cigarettes which were behind the counter. She said he gave her the wrong cigarettes and she had to point out the brand she wanted. The man appeared not to know what he was doing as he also had trouble operating the cash register. He further stood out to the woman because she says he scolded her, in an irritating manner, for smoking.
The customer who had last seen Deborah had not seen “Megadeth Man” nor had any of the other customers in the store earlier on the evening of February 3 or on the morning of the fourth. Police believed he may have been involved in Deborah’s disappearance but also say he could have been a customer who, upon entering an empty store, took the opportunity to shoplift. When the woman customer came into to the store, he could have then pretended to be the clerk. A store inventory done after Deborah’s disappearance, however, determined no items were missing. The store was not equipped with video cameras.
Megadeth Man was described as having a muscular build, appearing to be between nineteen and twenty-five-years-old, and approximately five-feet-ten-inches tall. In addition to his Megadeth attire, he also wore a wire earring with a cross in his right ear and a skull ring on his left ring finger.
Composite of “Megadeth Man”
Police initially believed Deborah Poe’s case may have been connected to the disappearances of two other women who also worked graveyard shifts at Florida convenience stores.
On August 6, 1989, six months before Deborah’s disappearance, twenty-nine-year-old Donna Callahan vanished while working overnight at the Sunshine Jr Food Store in Gulf Breeze, four-hundred-fifty miles northwest of Orlando in the Florida panhandle. She was a single mom and three months pregnant at the time. As with Deborah’s disappearance, no signs of a struggle were found at the store.
Five weeks later, on September 18, thirty-six-year-old Darlene Messer was abducted from the Suwannee Swifty in Lake City, one-hundred-fifty miles northwest of Orlando and three-hundred miles east of Gulf Breeze.
Donna Callahan Darlene Messer
Darlene Messer’s bludgeoned body was found two days after her disappearance. She had been brutally beaten to death. I did a write-up on her case; the link is below.
In 1996, nearly seven years after she disappeared, Donna Callahan’s remains were found on the property of Alex Wells and his half-brother Mark Riebe. She had been strangled to death.
Wells and Riebe were both convicted of Donna’s murder, and each was sentenced to life in prison. Although nothing directly links them to the disappearance of Deborah Poe, they were considered suspects because they were together the weekend of her abduction, had a relative in the Orlando area, and because the female customer at the Circle K picked Wells out of a photo lineup as being Megadeth Man.
Some investigators believe Wells and Riebe may be serial killers, but most no longer believe Deborah Poe to be one of their victims.
Mark Riebe Alex Wells
Wells and Riebe are mentioned as suspects in the 1992 disappearance of Pamela Ray, whose case I also wrote about. The link is below.
In 1996, six years after Deborah’s disappearance, police announced they believed Megadeth Man was the boyfriend of one of her coworkers and that they no longer considered him a suspect in her disappearance. They still, however, wished to locate and question him, but the coworker had long since broken up with him and did not know his whereabouts.
I could not find anything stating what Megadeth Man’s name is or if he was ever located.
Megadeth Man Cleared
In March 2002, twelve years after Deborah Poe’s disappearance, police searched land near Orlando’s Chapel Hill Baptist Church, roughly five miles from where she was last seen. Deborah’s remains were not found but, following the search, authorities announced a re-examination of the evidence had led them to a suspect. They have not publicly identified the individual or revealed what led them to their suspicions.
Searches Come Up Empty
Some have speculated the man police suspect in Deborah’s disappearance is her boyfriend, Scott Iaggi, because, at the time of the 2002 search, he lived across the street from the examined area, had previously been a pastor at the Chapel Hill Baptist Church, and had also worked at the Circle K convenience store.
While viewed with suspicion by Internet sleuths, Iaggi, who now lives in Kentucky, passed a polygraph test and has never been named as a suspect in Deborah’s disappearance.
Deborah’s Boyfriend, Scott Iagii, and Father, Alvin Poe
In January 1990, approximately two weeks before Deborah’s disappearance, a naked man entered the convenience store and climbed over the counter and tried to hug Deborah. She managed to get away, but the man chased her around the store and continued doing so as she ran outside. Deborah eluded him and made her way back inside and locked the door. She called the police, but they were unable to find the man or determine his identity. They would still like to question him in regards to Deborah’s disappearance.
Investigators also interviewed and cannot rule out a former boyfriend whom they say Deborah feared because he was mentally unbalanced. In addition, another suspect who frequently talked about Deborah’s disappearance has now “lawyered up.”
Unnamed Suspects
Deborah Deann Poe has been missing since February 4, 1990, when she was twenty-six- years-old. She was five-feet-three-inches tall and weighed one-hundred-five pounds. She had blue-hazel eyes and curly and streaked dark blonde hair. Both of her ears were triple-pierced, and she had a burn scar on her left shoulder.
Deborah Poe would today be sixty-years-old. If you have any information on her disappearance, please contact the Orange County, Florida, Sheriff’s Office 407-836-3700.
Still No Deborah Poe
Deborah also loved to dance and took ballet lessons for fourteen years.
Dancing Deborah
The Circle K convenience store from which Deborah Poe disappeared in now a Citgo.
The Former Circle K Where Deborah Poe Was Last Seen
SOURCES:
- Charley Project
- CrimeBloggers1983Blogspot.com
- Doe Network
- NamUs
- Orlando Sentinel
- Unsolved Mysteries
If Megadeath Man was the boyfriend of a coworker, I wonder if she was ever investigated.