What happened to Aasha Davis' sister Lesley Herring? Details explored ahead of Dateline: Secrets Uncovered

The upcoming re-airing of Dateline: Secrets Uncovered, one of the most popular true crime shows around, will focus on the case of Lesley Herring, who also happened to be the sister of American actress Aasha Davis. Dating back to 2009, the case remains one chilling exploration of a crime done right in the history of Los Angeles.

Lesley Herrign seemingly disappeared from the face of Earth on February 7, 2009, never to be seen again. Her husband, who has been charged with the crime, tried every way of covering his tracks, but perhaps did too much in the end, resulting in the attention of the police.

The episode covering this originally aired on December 6, 2019. The synopsis for the same reads:

"Aasha Davis moves to Hollywood with big dreams; her sister Lesley follows for support; Lesley goes missing and Aasha is desperate to find her; in a town built on deception, the police come up with a high-stakes plan to smoke out their suspect."

This episode will premiere again on May 22, 2024, at 7.00 PM EST. Ahead of that, here is a breakdown of what happened to Lesley Herring.

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Who was Lesley Herring and what happened to her?

Lesley Herring was the older sister of Friday Night Lights star Aasha Davis. She had initially moved to LA to support her sister's big dream of making it in the industry. Lesley lived a modest life and was extremely meticulous in her methods.

She worked at SimplexGrinnell, a fire alarm and security company in Los Angeles, where she rarely, if ever, missed a day of work without informing. She was also quite superstitious and kept close contact with her family members, especially her mother.

When she disappeared, Lesley was 44 years old and was married to Lyle Herring, her husband of 11 years. Lyle worked as a college recruiter at California State University, Northridge.

The first alarm bells rang when Aasha Davis received a call from Lesley’s employer that she hadn’t shown up to work for two days. This was enough to cause panic in the family as Lesley Herring almost never did anything out of whim or sudden urge. She planned, prepared, and informed about nearly everything.

Also, she was extremely meticulous about everything in the house. Hearing about this, Hollywood LAPD detective Chris Gable said at the time:

"The house looked very clean, very nice, except a couple of things that we noticed offhand,...There was some spilled candle wax on the kitchen counter, a pretty good amount, as if a candle had spilled over, and what we'd already learned about Lesley is that's not the kind of thing she'd leave out on the counter, so that was a little unusual."

Almost no one, at least those who knew Lesley Herring, thought it was a case of disappearance. Rather, there was something more sinister at play.

Eventually, police did not find her body, but some signs could not be ignored. First, Herring's purse, identification, keys, money, cell phone, and ATM card were all found in the trunk of her car. Later, her husband was caught trying to cross to Mexico. He explained that he was supposed to go on a vacation to Mexico with his wife, which is why he was going there to search for her.

Police got suspicious about this. Moreover, the cadaver dog Indiana Bones also indicated that bodies were present in the trunks of both cars at Lyle Herring's house.

The body was not found, but Lyle was still charged with the murder in a rare, but not unheard of, instance. With more evidence against him, which included the man trying to plant misdirecting clues about Lesley Herring's disappearance, the court found him guilty of second-degree murder. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

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The upcoming re-airing of Dateline: Secrets Uncovered will shed more light on the disappearance of Lesley Herring.