Speaker 1: School of Humans.
Speaker 2: Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold case murders in
Speaker 2: an effort to raise public awareness invite witnesses to come
Speaker 2: forward and present evidence that could potentially be further investigated
Speaker 2: by law enforcement. While we value insights from family and
Speaker 2: community members, their statements should not be considered evidence and
Speaker 2: point to the challenges of verifying facts inherent in cold cases.
Speaker 2: We remind listeners that everyone has presumed innocent until proven
Speaker 2: guilty in a court of law. Nothing in the podcast
Speaker 2: is intended to state or imply that anyone who has
Speaker 2: not been convicted of a crime is guilty of any wrongdoing.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3: It was Thursday night, November one, two thousand and seven.
Speaker 3: An eighteen year old Justin Gaines was getting ready for
Speaker 3: a night out with his friends at Wild Bills, a
Speaker 3: club in Duluth, Georgia. Justin was a freshman college He
Speaker 3: had just started at Gainesville State, which was about an
Speaker 3: hour away from where his family lived his mom, Erica Wilson,
Speaker 3: his stepfather, Stephen Wilson, and his siblings. Justin was fairly
Speaker 3: newly single. He had broken up with his girlfriend of
Speaker 3: two years pretty recently, but according to Atlanta magazine they
Speaker 3: were still friends. In fact, Justin talked on the phone
Speaker 3: to his ex shortly before he went out that night.
Speaker 3: This was a close blended family. When Justin's mom and
Speaker 3: his stepfather married, they each brought their own children to
Speaker 3: the relationship. There were seven kids in all, and apparently
Speaker 3: they all got along. Justin also had a good relationship
Speaker 3: with his stepdad, Stephen, who worked at a roofing company.
Speaker 3: Sometimes Justin would do odd jobs for Stephen to pick
Speaker 3: up some extra cash. Justin was handsome five foot eleven
Speaker 3: two hundred and thirty pounds. He was muscular and fit.
Speaker 3: He had blue eyes and short brown hair that he
Speaker 3: wore in a buzz cut. On the Thursday night, Justin
Speaker 3: was wearing a gray Abercrombie and Fitch long sleeve shirt
Speaker 3: and rip blue jeans. He also had a pair of
Speaker 3: diamond stud ear rings that he sometimes wore. That night,
Speaker 3: he was wearing a single diamond stud in his left ear.
Speaker 3: On thirsty Thursdays at Wild Bills, you only had to
Speaker 3: be eighteen years old to enter the club, but Justin
Speaker 3: did have a couple of fake id's with him so
Speaker 3: that he could buy drinks at the bar. He used
Speaker 3: the names Brad Allen and Brad's Shoe. His mom, Erica,
Speaker 3: later clarified on web slue that technically these weren't fake IDs,
Speaker 3: they were the IDs of some older friends that Justin
Speaker 3: would use. I relate to this because I did a
Speaker 3: lot of that when I was younger, old enough to
Speaker 3: get into the club, but too young to drink. So
Speaker 3: Justin didn't take a wallet out with him that night.
Speaker 3: He had no credit cards, just cash, his fake IDs,
Speaker 3: and his cell phone. His stepfather told Atlanta Magazine, which
Speaker 3: by the way, did a really long and in depth feature
Speaker 3: on this case, that he remembered that night very well
Speaker 3: because apparently, right before he went out, Justin was joking
Speaker 3: around with Stephen about what shirt he should wear to
Speaker 3: impress the ladies. Justin was a big, very fit guy.
Speaker 3: He could take care of himself. He was also charming
Speaker 3: and confident and, according to his mother, very social, someone
Speaker 3: who had no trouble talking to anyone, including strangers. He
Speaker 3: was a regular at Wild Bills. He knew the bartenders,
Speaker 3: and apparently he also knew some people who were going
Speaker 3: to be there that night. Justin had a car, but
Speaker 3: he wasn't driving. He left his car at his mom
Speaker 3: and stepdad's house. He caught a ride with a friend
Speaker 3: of his named Chris Byers and Chris's girlfriend, Amanda. According
Speaker 3: to Atlanta Magazine, Chris and Justin had been friends for
Speaker 3: a long time, ever since high school. They were now
Speaker 3: college roommates. Chris and Amanda picked Justin up at his
Speaker 3: house and they headed to Wild Bills. Along the way,
Speaker 3: they stopped at a gas station where Justin mixed some
Speaker 3: vodka and gas station energy drink in one of those
Speaker 3: big fountain cups. Again, I used to do this all
Speaker 3: the time as a team. It's an easy way to
Speaker 3: save money. Later at the bar, Wild Bills is huge.
Speaker 3: This club could hold thousands of people. It's closed now,
Speaker 3: but back in the day they had seven different bars
Speaker 3: and each bar had kind of a different vibe. They
Speaker 3: even had a tiki bar in there, and they would
Speaker 3: host all different kinds of events. They would host phone parties,
Speaker 3: sometimes mma fights, and they had line dancing nights. Most
Speaker 3: of their nights tended to have a country theme, but
Speaker 3: on Thursday Thursdays, the mechanical bull and cowboy boots were
Speaker 3: replaced with girls dancing on platforms and a DJ who
Speaker 3: would spend R and B mixed with hip hop. Thursdays
Speaker 3: were also apparently the only night where eighteen year olds
Speaker 3: could go into the club. So Chris, Amanda, and Justin
Speaker 3: got to the bar and were ready to party. They
Speaker 3: were aiming to get there by eleven pm, but they
Speaker 3: were a few minutes late, and this twist of fate
Speaker 3: being a few minutes late changed everything because after eleven pm,
Speaker 3: Wild Bills had a cover charge. It went from being
Speaker 3: free to ten dollars per person. Justin saw someone in
Speaker 3: line who he knew, so he was able to get
Speaker 3: a pass to get in for free, but Chris and
Speaker 3: Amanda could not, and they did not want to pay
Speaker 3: the cover charge, so they left Wild Bills and Justin
Speaker 3: went in on his own. He said that it was
Speaker 3: no problem, he would find a ride. This was something
Speaker 3: that he did often. Again, he was this big, strong
Speaker 3: guy who could handle himself. A while later, in the
Speaker 3: early morning hours of November two, two thousand and seven,
Speaker 3: Justin walked out into that parking lot in Duluth and
Speaker 3: no one ever saw him again. I'm Catherine Townsend. If
Speaker 3: you have a case you'd like me and my team
Speaker 3: to look into, you can reach out to us at
Speaker 3: our Helen Gone Murder line at six seven eight seven
Speaker 3: four four six one four or five. That's six seven
Speaker 3: eight seven four four six one four or five. This
Speaker 3: is Helen Gone Murder line. The disappearance of Justin Gaines
Speaker 3: became a big story in Atlanta because no one could
Speaker 3: figure out how this guy just walked out into the
Speaker 3: night and never showed up again. So remember this was
Speaker 3: two thousand and seven. Instagram had just launched, and even
Speaker 3: though pretty much everyone had a cell phone then people
Speaker 3: weren't constantly shooting video all the time like they do today.
Speaker 3: There were cameras at Wild Bills, so there was some
Speaker 3: surveillance footage, but according to Justin's mom, Erica, most of
Speaker 3: the cameras were focused on areas that handled money, like
Speaker 3: the register and the front and back doors. Erica did
Speaker 3: an interview with a podcast called Unfound, and in that
Speaker 3: interview she explained that an FBI agent who was a
Speaker 3: friend of her, someone she knew, had come in to
Speaker 3: unofficially help her with the case, and the FBI agent
Speaker 3: was able to pull some of that surveillance footage. The
Speaker 3: footage showed that at the club, Justin had some drinks,
Speaker 3: he was on camera talking to a female bartender who
Speaker 3: he knew. Later, that bartender talked to Erica and told
Speaker 3: her that Justin seemed normal, like he was having a
Speaker 3: good time, and she said he did not appear to
Speaker 3: be super intoxicated. He apparently even made a comment to
Speaker 3: this bartender about not getting too smashed. While he was
Speaker 3: in the club, Justin made a couple of phone calls
Speaker 3: to friends of his who he believed were inside. We're
Speaker 3: not sure exactly what Justin was doing the whole time
Speaker 3: he was in the club because we only have a
Speaker 3: few moments on camera, but at one point he apparently
Speaker 3: did start talking to a girl. Later in some media reports,
Speaker 3: some reporters asked questions about what they called a minor
Speaker 3: altercation over a woman who Justin was apparently dancing with. Apparently,
Speaker 3: this woman had a boyfriend, and Justin and the guys
Speaker 3: who were with this woman exchanged a few words. Some
Speaker 3: of these details came from a private investigator who was
Speaker 3: later hired by Erica Justin's mom, but the PI said
Speaker 3: he could never nail down a description of the two
Speaker 3: guys who Justin was supposedly talking with. There are a
Speaker 3: lot of moments from Justin's time inside the club and
Speaker 3: afterward that are missing. But Justin was there for a
Speaker 3: while after he talked to this girl. He seemed to
Speaker 3: be in good spirits and he was chatting to people. Then,
Speaker 3: at around one point thirty he got ready to leave.
Speaker 3: Justin walked outside the club at one thirty eight am.
Speaker 3: You can see that on the security footage. He started
Speaker 3: calling friends trying to find a ride home. Again, remember
Speaker 3: this was a time before ride shares became a huge thing.
Speaker 3: Uber didn't come on the scene until around twenty ten.
Speaker 3: There were taxis, but it's never been reported how much
Speaker 3: cash Justin was carrying, So I wondered did he have
Speaker 3: a big wad of cash or just enough to cover drinks.
Speaker 3: He may not have had enough money to call a cab,
Speaker 3: and even if he did, some of his friends said
Speaker 3: he wasn't really a person who had a habit of
Speaker 3: calling taxis. He would hit up his friends for rides instead.
Speaker 3: His mother, by the way, made it clear that he
Speaker 3: could have called home at any time and she or
Speaker 3: her husband would have come to get him. She told
Speaker 3: Atlanta Magazine quote, I think he didn't call Stephen because
Speaker 3: he didn't want to disappoint us, and that haunts me,
Speaker 3: you know, because nothing the kids do would ever disappoint me.
Speaker 3: End quote. I find myself really feeling for Justin again here.
Speaker 3: He just wanted to go home. He made a ton
Speaker 3: of calls, but no one was able to come get him.
Speaker 3: And I can relate to this part too. He probably
Speaker 3: didn't want his parents to know he'd been drinking again.
Speaker 3: As a fit guy, he probably thought he could take
Speaker 3: care of himself. Often a person's size, especially a man's size,
Speaker 3: will give them a false sense of security. Most guys
Speaker 3: I know, especially young ones around this age, just don't
Speaker 3: feel that they're in danger in the same way in
Speaker 3: general as young women would. Plus, this was a safe area.
Speaker 3: Over the next half hour or so, Justin made twenty
Speaker 3: four calls to eleven different people, none of them could
Speaker 3: come get him. Justin's last call was to Chris, the
Speaker 3: friend he rode with to Wild Bills. He made that
Speaker 3: call at two two am. Chris later told Atlanta Magazine
Speaker 3: that Justin had called him and he was kind of
Speaker 3: half asleep. He remembered Justin asking for a ride, but
Speaker 3: Chris said he had borrowed his girlfriend's dad's car. He
Speaker 3: said he couldn't really go out at that time of night,
Speaker 3: and asked for the car again. He thought that Justin
Speaker 3: would be fine, and later of course, said that if
Speaker 3: he had had any idea that his friend was in trouble,
Speaker 3: he would have gone and gotten him instantly. After that
Speaker 3: phone call nothing. At first, Erica wasn't worried when Justin
Speaker 3: didn't come back home the next morning. She knew he
Speaker 3: was going out to party and he's an eighteen year
Speaker 3: old guy. But then the weekend went by. She didn't
Speaker 3: hear from him on Saturday, and on Sunday morning, she
Speaker 3: started calling his friends. He never came home to get
Speaker 3: his wallet or to pick up his car, and on
Speaker 3: Monday morning, November fifth, she became seriously alarmed because he
Speaker 3: never showed up to give Chris a ride back to school.
Speaker 3: Remember they were roommates. Erica told Dateline that at that
Speaker 3: point she logged onto Justin's online school portal, which she
Speaker 3: had access to. That's when she saw that he had
Speaker 3: not turned in some homework, and she knew that that
Speaker 3: was completely out of character. She reported Justin missing friends,
Speaker 3: family and volunteers started trying to retrace his last steps.
Speaker 3: The police did a search as well, but Erica said
Speaker 3: that it really took about two weeks for police to
Speaker 3: start seriously searching. Everyone was trying to retrace Justin's steps.
Speaker 3: They were trying to figure out from that parking lot
Speaker 3: what his next move would be. Several people came forward
Speaker 3: and said that they had seen him sitting on a
Speaker 3: bench in the back parking lot on his cell phone.
Speaker 3: We know that he was making a ton of calls
Speaker 3: during that time. Shortly after two two am, Justin's phone
Speaker 3: pinged one more time, and then the phone appeared to die.
Speaker 3: Erica said that he had a habit of sometimes letting
Speaker 3: his phone die. So did the battery die or did
Speaker 3: someone shut it off? Did Justin get tired of waiting
Speaker 3: for a ride, did he decide to try to walk
Speaker 3: toward home or could someone have picked him up there.
Speaker 3: In the weeks following Justin's disappearance, some news outlets checked
Speaker 3: Justin's court history. They saw that Justin had a public
Speaker 3: intoxication charge on his record from the summer of two
Speaker 3: thousand and seven. It happened after he fell asleep in
Speaker 3: the backseat of his car with an open bottle of
Speaker 3: vodka in there. He got caught with the open container
Speaker 3: and a fake ID. So some people suggested that maybe
Speaker 3: Justin had left voluntarily to avoid going to court on
Speaker 3: November twenty first. But this seemed extremely far fetched right
Speaker 3: from the beginning, and his family immediately dismissed this theory.
Speaker 3: They knew it wasn't plausible. Also, these were not serious charges.
Speaker 3: There was no reason for Justin to have left on
Speaker 3: his own. And by the way, if he was leaving,
Speaker 3: why would he leave his wallet with his real ID
Speaker 3: and everything else behind. Justin's family did everything they could
Speaker 3: to help the search. Erica turned her home garage into
Speaker 3: an office. She started printing up flyers. The family put
Speaker 3: billboards up on Highway I eighty five. This tidbit was
Speaker 3: in the Atlanta magazine article. By the way, and it's
Speaker 3: so heartbreaking to me, because I've heard this before in
Speaker 3: Rebecca Gould's case and in some others. According to the article,
Speaker 3: people called Justin's stepfather to report buzzard sightings, and he
Speaker 3: would take his four wheeler out to look and see
Speaker 3: if there was a body out there, but he never
Speaker 3: found anything other than animal carcasses. Of course, police talked
Speaker 3: to Justin's friends. There were rumors early on that Chris
Speaker 3: wasn't being super helpful to law enforcement. Apparently, Chris believed
Speaker 3: that police were too hard on his girlfriend, Amanda, but
Speaker 3: Erica later clarified on a web sluse forum that after
Speaker 3: some initial friction, all of Justin's friends had been cooperative
Speaker 3: and police confirmed Chris and Amanda were at home in
Speaker 3: bed when Justin went missing. Erica told the Unfound podcast
Speaker 3: that she does not believe that Justin walked out of
Speaker 3: that parking lot. It was late, but not super late.
Speaker 3: There were people around, and Justin was in the back
Speaker 3: parking lot, which was less busy than the front parking lot,
Speaker 3: but it wasn't deserted. In fact, it was somewhere where
Speaker 3: in the past Justin had hung out and had some
Speaker 3: drinks with friends again Wild Bills was in a safe area,
Speaker 3: pretty much in the middle of suburbia. Erica believes that
Speaker 3: if Justin decided to walk along the highway toward home,
Speaker 3: she believed someone would have seen him, and I think
Speaker 3: she's right. A big guy like that probably would have
Speaker 3: been spotted on a camera somewhere or by some witnesses,
Speaker 3: which means that Justin almost certainly got picked up in
Speaker 3: that parking lot, So the question is who picked him up.
Speaker 3: Police have said they believe that Justin may have been
Speaker 3: picked up by a blonde woman, possibly driving a black car.
Speaker 3: They got this information from a friend of Justin's named James. Now.
Speaker 3: According to Erica, James, who knew Justin from college, saw
Speaker 3: him getting into a car with a blonde woman wearing
Speaker 3: a black dress. Unfortunately, James has since passed away. So
Speaker 3: who is this mystery woman? Was it someone who knew
Speaker 3: Justin before or a stranger who lured him into the car?
Speaker 3: Was she alone or was she with people? Could this
Speaker 3: have been some kind of robbery set up. Justin did
Speaker 3: not seem to have any enemies, but the Atlanta magazine
Speaker 3: reporter did talk to a friend of Justin's. This person
Speaker 3: wasn't named, but they told the reporter that he and
Speaker 3: Justin would occasionally break into cars that were unlocked around
Speaker 3: their off campus apartment. Basically, what they do is just
Speaker 3: pull the handle of the car see if it was unlocked,
Speaker 3: and if it was, they would go in and take money.
Speaker 3: The friends said there was a drug dealer living there.
Speaker 3: Apparently Justin thought that this person might have a lot
Speaker 3: of cash in his car, so they went up to
Speaker 3: the car, but they said the drug dealer was standing
Speaker 3: right there on the porch, so in the end they
Speaker 3: didn't go to the car and there was no confrontation.
Speaker 3: But it did get me thinking if he had a
Speaker 3: habit of pulling on car doors, could he have opened
Speaker 3: someone's car or maybe tried to sleep in someone's car
Speaker 3: if he couldn't find a ride in his battery was dead.
Speaker 3: Stranger things have happened. According to Justin's mother, Erica, one
Speaker 3: very early name that came up to her was Dustin
Speaker 3: Dylan Glass, a career criminal and gang member. Now apparently
Speaker 3: Dustin showed up at a pawn shop in the early
Speaker 3: morning hours of November two. Police have found surveillance footage
Speaker 3: that pawnshop and there is an image of Dustin. He's
Speaker 3: wearing a diamond studd in his ear that looked very
Speaker 3: much like the one that Justin had been wearing that night.
Speaker 3: I'm not clear on why police first got tipped off
Speaker 3: to him, but once Dustin's name was mentioned, police continued
Speaker 3: to track him. Time went by with no arrest and
Speaker 3: no sign of Justin and no body. Tips started coming
Speaker 3: in from everywhere, everything from random sightings of Justin that
Speaker 3: would turn out to be bogus to psychics who said
Speaker 3: that they believed that he was in a body of
Speaker 3: water somewhere, which is, by the way, what psychics always
Speaker 3: seem to say. It drives me crazy. Side note there.
Speaker 3: The Walton County Sheriff's Department cold case investigator Michael Rising,
Speaker 3: who is now in charge of the investigation, told Dateline
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty three that police had investigated a couple
Speaker 3: of different theories early on. One that Justin could have
Speaker 3: been flirting with a girl who had a boyfriend and
Speaker 3: that there was some kind of altercation, and the other
Speaker 3: theory was that someone targeted Justin for a robbery based
Speaker 3: on his clothes and his diamond earring. On the Wild
Speaker 3: Bill's website back in two thousand and seven, there was
Speaker 3: a statement about Justin being missing and it read quote
Speaker 3: last scene walking toward a car that he called his ride,
Speaker 3: with two men standing by the car. Reports also say
Speaker 3: he was seen in the parking lot of Barnacles another
Speaker 3: bar with these same two men end quote. Now this
Speaker 3: is just a rumor. It's unconfirmed, and honestly, I can't
Speaker 3: find that information anywhere else. I don't know if it's
Speaker 3: just something someone posted, or if it was a legitimate tip,
Speaker 3: and I wonder who first said it. There does seem
Speaker 3: to be more than one source saying that Justin was
Speaker 3: talking to some men that night. Again, it wouldn't have
Speaker 3: been out a character for him to talk to people.
Speaker 3: His mom and his friend say he talked to strangers
Speaker 3: all the time. But for a while, those two police
Speaker 3: theories appeared to just be dead ends. Over the next
Speaker 3: few years, justin moms Erica said openly she struggled. Even
Speaker 3: though she was printing up flyers and stickers and talking
Speaker 3: to the media, there were days where she found it
Speaker 3: hard to get out of bed, and the family had
Speaker 3: another setback in twenty eleven when one of Justin's brothers died.
Speaker 3: But even when she was going through dark times herself,
Speaker 3: Erica never stopped trying to get media coverage of this case.
Speaker 3: Police looked in a lot of different directions. They really
Speaker 3: didn't have anything to go on. They looked into rumors
Speaker 3: that could have been the National Forest serial killer Gary Hilton,
Speaker 3: but there was absolutely no evidence of that, and of course,
Speaker 3: every single time an unidentified body was found in the area,
Speaker 3: the family would have to go through the agony of waiting.
Speaker 3: None of them were Justin. As we said before, Erica
Speaker 3: hired a private investigator named Bob Pulno. He started his
Speaker 3: investigation in two thousand and eight and basically he's never stopped.
Speaker 3: According to Atlanta Magazine, Bob is retired now, but this
Speaker 3: is one of those cases he can't let go of.
Speaker 3: Bob did lots of interviews and in two thousand and
Speaker 3: eight he said he identified several people of interest. He
Speaker 3: also looked into theories that Justin could have been extremely
Speaker 3: intoxicated or drugged. The PI also tried to track down
Speaker 3: everyone who Justin talked to on the phone that night,
Speaker 3: and he found a pattern. No one felt that Justin
Speaker 3: was behaving out of the ordinary. It's the same story
Speaker 3: with the video surveillance footage. Eric has said. And if
Speaker 3: you look online, you can see Justin walks out of
Speaker 3: the club. He's calmly walking forward, not stumbling. He has
Speaker 3: his phone pressed to his ear. He looks like he's
Speaker 3: walking with purpose, and he's talking on the phone. Seven
Speaker 3: years after Justin disappeared, a local news station WXIA broadcasts
Speaker 3: some additional footage that was taken from inside the club
Speaker 3: that night. This footage showed Justin walking out the door
Speaker 3: toward the back parking lot. Right after him, a group
Speaker 3: that looked like three girls and a guy walked outside
Speaker 3: the club. Justin seems to kind of veer left, and
Speaker 3: they look like they're veering right, but there are also
Speaker 3: a couple of other guys standing outside in that parking lot.
Speaker 3: A few minutes later, two men and a woman enter
Speaker 3: the club. They come from the same direction Justin was
Speaker 3: seen leaving. Another couple leaves. This woman has long, dark
Speaker 3: hair and jeans on. You can only see the guy
Speaker 3: from the back, but he's wearing a number twenty two
Speaker 3: jersey that the news anchor pointed out as pretty distinctive.
Speaker 3: There are also two guys and white shirts. They look
Speaker 3: like they're going into the club, but then they turn
Speaker 3: around after Justin passes them. They don't go in, and
Speaker 3: then when footage is shown from a few minutes later,
Speaker 3: you can see them entering the club. Now, I'm not
Speaker 3: saying that any of these people had anything to do
Speaker 3: with Justin's disappearance, but they may have seen something, even
Speaker 3: something small, that could help crack this case. Again. Wild
Speaker 3: bills can hold thousands of people. It was a crowded night.
Speaker 3: It is mind boggling that no one saw anything. In
Speaker 3: September of twenty fifteen, seemingly out of nowhere, there were
Speaker 3: two arrests and someone said they knew exactly what happened
Speaker 3: to Justin Gaines. That it went down at a dark
Speaker 3: garage at a house in Snellville. This person said Justin
Speaker 3: had been lured to that residence and then when he
Speaker 3: walked in, he was attacked, robbed, beaten, and murdered. In
Speaker 3: September of twenty fifteen, after a long period of silence,
Speaker 3: there were two arrests in connection with the disappearance and
Speaker 3: now police believed death of Justin Gaines. In two thousand
Speaker 3: and seven, the police's original person of interest was Dustin
Speaker 3: Dylan Glass. He had been arrested for distributing methamphetamines, among
Speaker 3: other things, and was facing some serious charges, according to
Speaker 3: the arrest warrant. After he was arrested, he started cooperating
Speaker 3: with police. He told police that he and another man,
Speaker 3: fifty seven year old Martin Leonard Wilkie, had assaulted Justin
Speaker 3: and robbed him. He said that this assault and robbery
Speaker 3: of Justin had ended with Justin being fatally shot. Dustin
Speaker 3: told police that he took the earring from Justin, but
Speaker 3: said that Justin was alive when he left him. The
Speaker 3: detective who talked to reporters later said he believed Dustin
Speaker 3: was saying this to kind of confess in a roundabout way,
Speaker 3: and it seemed to me the detective believed Dustin was
Speaker 3: kind of taunting the detective. Martin Wilkee was arrested and
Speaker 3: charged with concealing a death. Then a woman backed up
Speaker 3: Dustin's story. She said she had participated in helping get
Speaker 3: rid of the body. And the crazy part was that
Speaker 3: this woman was Dustin's own mother, Alma Ruth Below. Let
Speaker 3: me back up for a minute, because I was trying
Speaker 3: to make sense of this story and how everything went down.
Speaker 3: So of course I went back through hundreds of pages
Speaker 3: of court records, and I found out that after Dustin
Speaker 3: got arrested, so of course he's in custody. Of course
Speaker 3: he had a residence that he wasn't staying at because
Speaker 3: he was in jail. Well, it turns out that during
Speaker 3: this time police were doing surveillance on Dustin's house. They
Speaker 3: were there on August twenty eighth, and they saw Thelma
Speaker 3: Dustin's mother and some other men carrying white bags, which
Speaker 3: they later determined had been stolen from a local concrete company.
Speaker 3: Thelma confessed that she'd strip some copper wire and stolen
Speaker 3: some supplies for the company and was hoping to seldom
Speaker 3: on she was arrested on burglary charges in Walton County.
Speaker 3: She told the authorities she helped Martin Wilkee and her
Speaker 3: son Dustin get rid of Justin Gaines's body. She said
Speaker 3: they disposed of Justin's remains in the High Shoals area
Speaker 3: near the Appalachi River, Walton County. Thelma led investigators to
Speaker 3: a well there, and police searched different wells for several days,
Speaker 3: but in the end they found nothing. Thelma later told
Speaker 3: police that she had lied in order to get out
Speaker 3: of trouble. After that, Thelma was charged with making a
Speaker 3: false statement to police. So after this happened, After Thelma
Speaker 3: was arrested and charged with lying, it seemed like police
Speaker 3: and the district attorney were split over whether or not
Speaker 3: she was at all credible. Some of the detectives seemed
Speaker 3: to believe that, yes, Thelma and Dustin had lied about
Speaker 3: some stuff, but they thought there were grains of truth
Speaker 3: in what they were telling the authorities, while the Gwinette
Speaker 3: County District Attorney, Danny Porter, said he thought the whole
Speaker 3: thing was a dead end. He told Fox five, quote,
Speaker 3: I think they are following up on an unproductive lead
Speaker 3: that has already been investigated end quote. He basically went
Speaker 3: on to say that Thelma and Dustin would come up
Speaker 3: with a different story every time they got arrested to
Speaker 3: try to get police to cut them a brake on
Speaker 3: other charges. In two thousand and seven, there was more news.
Speaker 3: Authorities told WSBTV Channel two that they believed that Justin
Speaker 3: was robbed and killed, and that his body was taken
Speaker 3: to Lake Lanier in a white van and dumped. It
Speaker 3: seemed as though they were now disclosing more details of
Speaker 3: the story that Thelma had told the police. The lead
Speaker 3: investigator on the case at the time, Detective Simms, said
Speaker 3: that he believed that Justin got a ride from a
Speaker 3: blond woman, that the woman took him to a house
Speaker 3: in Snellville, and that he was attacked there and robbed,
Speaker 3: then killed, and his body was dumped in Lake Lanier.
Speaker 3: Then a few days later, on November fifth, Justin's body
Speaker 3: apparently floated up to the surface. After that, police say
Speaker 3: they believe his killers panicked, put the body into a
Speaker 3: black metal toolbox and carried it to another location, eventually
Speaker 3: dumping it in a well. At the time, Detective Sims
Speaker 3: said they had a vehicle of interest. He said, right
Speaker 3: after Justin went missing, the nineteen eighty four Chevy white
Speaker 3: work van that belonged to Thilma's boyfriend at the time
Speaker 3: also went missing. Police tried to locate it, but never
Speaker 3: found that vehicle. Detective Sims also talked about Justin's earring.
Speaker 3: He said, quote, this is a photograph of Justin Dillon
Speaker 3: Glass the day after Justin Gaines went missing, wearing an
Speaker 3: almost identical earring. Of course, the photos aren't that great,
Speaker 3: but if you look at it like this and compare them,
Speaker 3: you're gonna see this earring is pretty much the same
Speaker 3: as this earring. Dylan Glass has told me and has
Speaker 3: confessed in his own way. He said that he took
Speaker 3: that earring out of Justin's ear the night that he
Speaker 3: was killed. End quote. Police did try to run down
Speaker 3: the lead on this earring. They did go to the
Speaker 3: pawn shop and eventually they found the earring, but Erica
Speaker 3: said when they tried to run a DNA test on it,
Speaker 3: apparently there was no trace of DNA. So in the
Speaker 3: end police had a kind of confession, but they had
Speaker 3: no trace of Justin. The people who were talking to
Speaker 3: them had their own reasons why they could be lying
Speaker 3: to police so and they already felt like they'd wasted
Speaker 3: a lot of time on these searches. Eventually, a couple
Speaker 3: months after his arrest, the charges against Martin Wilkie were dismissed,
Speaker 3: and Martin Wilke has always denied he had anything to
Speaker 3: do with Justin's disappearance or his death. Over the next
Speaker 3: few years, occasionally stories would come up about things being
Speaker 3: dragged up from the one hundred and sixty foot depths
Speaker 3: of Lake Lanier. In twenty seventeen, a house boat named
Speaker 3: six Pack Sally, which was kind of a local legend
Speaker 3: because the boat was a wreck that had apparently been
Speaker 3: sold for a six pack of beer, was slowly sinking,
Speaker 3: and the news story about this boat sinking was interesting
Speaker 3: to me because it talked about how many houseboats have
Speaker 3: gone to the bottom of the lake. It got me
Speaker 3: wondering what else was down there. It's also interesting because,
Speaker 3: according to Erica, the theory that the police believe is
Speaker 3: credible is that Justin's body was taken out and dumped
Speaker 3: in Lake Lanier, that it was done on a houseboat,
Speaker 3: and they also confirmed that Thelma's boyfriend at the time
Speaker 3: owned a houseboat and a home on that lake. In
Speaker 3: twenty nineteen, human remains were found near Lake Lanier again,
Speaker 3: though they were not connected to Justin. Erica also said
Speaker 3: in an interview that Thelma's boyfriend at the time owned
Speaker 3: the white van, the one police were unable to find.
Speaker 3: So we have this person out there who allegedly owns
Speaker 3: a houseboat, a house on the lake, and a van
Speaker 3: of interest. But this person was never charged with anything,
Speaker 3: and unfortunately, according to reports I've read, this person has
Speaker 3: also passed away. Since Justin went missing. In twenty twenty two,
Speaker 3: a new investigator came on the case. We've talked about
Speaker 3: him a little before. His name is Michael Rising. He
Speaker 3: works with the Walton County Sheriff's Department and he's a
Speaker 3: cold case investigator. He has stated he's following several leads
Speaker 3: and theories that Justin may have been interested in someone
Speaker 3: else's girlfriend or may have been targeted for a robbery.
Speaker 3: So this is kind of what police have said before.
Speaker 3: Of course, we don't have access to the whole case file,
Speaker 3: but I find myself wondering what if it was both?
Speaker 3: What if Justin met an attractive woman who he was
Speaker 3: talking to and she lured him into that vehicle in
Speaker 3: order to set him up for a robbery. Through the years,
Speaker 3: Erica has kept going, even through the false sightings, all
Speaker 3: the tips, and even people leaving her messages with their
Speaker 3: theories about the brutal ways in which they said that
Speaker 3: Justin was murdered, including someone who told her that he
Speaker 3: had been put through a wood chipper. Erica told Atlanta
Speaker 3: Magazine she had heard it all, but she kept doing
Speaker 3: media interviews and getting the word out there. Justin's family
Speaker 3: once answered, but their priority is bringing him home. So
Speaker 3: let's go back and take a closer look at Dustin
Speaker 3: Dillon Glass because police, even though they believe that he
Speaker 3: was lying about certain details, seem to still have his
Speaker 3: name on their radar after all these years, and when
Speaker 3: they do make statements to the media, they continue to
Speaker 3: refer to the story that was told by Dustin and Thelma.
Speaker 3: So I wanted to know more. I've seen some references
Speaker 3: to Dustin being a gang member. Well, it turns out
Speaker 3: that this is more than just a rumor. I did
Speaker 3: a deep dive into this guy, and Dustin is a
Speaker 3: member of a very notorious gang in Atlanta called the
Speaker 3: Ghost Face Gangsters. I've seen Dustin's mugshot, and his entire
Speaker 3: face is covered in tattoos. I highly doubt that Justin,
Speaker 3: even if he was super intoxicated, which people say he
Speaker 3: was not, would have gotten into a car with a
Speaker 3: stranger whose face is covered in gang tattoos. So a
Speaker 3: little background on the Ghost Face Gangsters or GfG. They
Speaker 3: started around the year two thousand inside a Georgia prison,
Speaker 3: and basically the GfG is a white supremacy prison gang,
Speaker 3: but it's spread to the streets and it's now apparently
Speaker 3: the largest gang in Georgia. It has thousands of members,
Speaker 3: and these gang members have been responsible for huge crime waves.
Speaker 3: They've also since spread out to other states too. According
Speaker 3: to a twenty twenty two report by the Anti Defamation
Speaker 3: League on white supremacist gangs in prison, the Ghost Face Gangsters,
Speaker 3: while they're definitely racist, are not as overtly white supremacist
Speaker 3: as some other groups. Apparently the ghost face gangster's loyalty
Speaker 3: is to making money, so they do have racist beliefs,
Speaker 3: but for example, they will form alliances outside prison with
Speaker 3: gangs that have primarily black members. And I also learned
Speaker 3: today that there are white gangs, even white supremacist gangs
Speaker 3: that sometimes have Hispanic members. Again not to say that
Speaker 3: these groups aren't racist. Their loyalty is to the crimes
Speaker 3: they're committing and money above any sort of racial loyalty.
Speaker 3: Within the GfG, the seven original members are called the Pillars.
Speaker 3: New members are all supposed to have bloodlines they're supposed
Speaker 3: to trace back to one of those original founding members,
Speaker 3: and over the years they have been involved in a
Speaker 3: tremendous number of crimes, including drugs, murder, kidnapping, assaults, and
Speaker 3: obviously witness intimidation. There have been many high profile busts
Speaker 3: of the GfG in recent years, but in two thousand
Speaker 3: and seven, when Justin disappeared, this gang was not really
Speaker 3: making headlines yet. In twenty fifteen, after Dustin Glasses meth charges,
Speaker 3: mushroomed into a federal indictment for racketeering and conspiracy commit murder.
Speaker 3: He pleaded guilty to multiple counts of conspiracy commit murder,
Speaker 3: aggravated assault, violation of the Street Gang Terrorism Act, and
Speaker 3: possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.
Speaker 3: So he was facing some serious federal charges. In the end,
Speaker 3: Dustin Glass was sentenced to sevent ten year sentences, but
Speaker 3: they're running concurrently, so actually it's not seventy years. This
Speaker 3: guy got just over fourteen years in federal prison instead
Speaker 3: of being behind bars for the rest of his natural life.
Speaker 3: I tried to find all the documents on this case.
Speaker 3: Some of them are sealed, so I really wonder what
Speaker 3: information he gave prosecutors to cut a deal like that.
Speaker 3: So now we go back to Justin's case. We have
Speaker 3: a lot of pieces and theories. We have the earring,
Speaker 3: we have Dustin's gang affiliation and the story that he
Speaker 3: told about being there when his alleged accomplice fatally shot
Speaker 3: Justin and then they all allegedly disposed of Justin's body.
Speaker 3: But there's no physical evidence. There's no body, and the
Speaker 3: people of interest are liars and not credible. So police
Speaker 3: seem to be saying they're not going to believe these
Speaker 3: people unless there's actual evidence to back them up, and
Speaker 3: also if there is not a lot of evidence. Then,
Speaker 3: even if they did bring charges against Dustin or anyone
Speaker 3: else right now, there's a very high possibility that that
Speaker 3: person could get acquitted and then the charges could never
Speaker 3: be brought again. They need evidence. The prevailing theory now
Speaker 3: seems to be Justin Gaines was at the wrong place
Speaker 3: at the wrong time, and that while he was outside
Speaker 3: on that bench, a little bit tired, a little bit
Speaker 3: buzzed with a dying foam battery, and desperately in need
Speaker 3: of a ride, someone saw his nice clothes and diamond
Speaker 3: earring and targeted him. I do believe that someone lured
Speaker 3: him into the car. Was it the two men or
Speaker 3: was it the mystery blonde woman or both or someone
Speaker 3: completely different? I should say that on my deep dive
Speaker 3: into the Ghost Faced Gangsters, I saw all that while
Speaker 3: women aren't allowed to be full members, they do play
Speaker 3: a crucial role in recruiting members, smuggling contraband into prisons,
Speaker 3: and luring targets to be robbed and sometimes murdered. The
Speaker 3: gang very often works in groups of several guys and
Speaker 3: one or two girls. Erica also told the Unfound podcast
Speaker 3: something else that I think was very interesting. She talked
Speaker 3: about the last time when Justin's phone pinged right before
Speaker 3: it died. It turned out that just after two am
Speaker 3: when the phone pinged, it pinged in the opposite direction
Speaker 3: of his house, a few miles toward Lake Lanier. So
Speaker 3: where was he going? Was he afraid at that point?
Speaker 3: Did these people kidnap him? Or did someone ask him
Speaker 3: if he wanted to go to a party, And if
Speaker 3: it was a woman, did she know what was going
Speaker 3: to happen to him? Or could it, As my friend
Speaker 3: Derek Levasso brought up when he discussed this case on YouTube,
Speaker 3: could this have been some sort of accident, like she
Speaker 3: thought he was cute and then took him to a
Speaker 3: party and the men who saw Justin there were jealous
Speaker 3: or intimidated by him and jumped him. Now, let me
Speaker 3: say there's no evidence that the GfG is connected to
Speaker 3: Justin's disappearance, but just knowing about some of the people
Speaker 3: who have talked to police and their affiliations, knowing more
Speaker 3: about the gang, I think that if Justin's disappearance turns
Speaker 3: out to in any way be connected to the gang
Speaker 3: or anyone like that, the accidental theory becomes less likely
Speaker 3: because anyone who knew these guys would have to know
Speaker 3: that any interaction that Justin has with these men is
Speaker 3: probably going to end in disaster. This is the same
Speaker 3: gang who in twenty eighteen orchestrated a prison break and
Speaker 3: the men who escaped murdered to corrections officers. Another gang
Speaker 3: member was arrested separately in twenty eighteen after police found
Speaker 3: the body of his six month old baby in a
Speaker 3: motel freezer. Reading the list of crimes that the GfG
Speaker 3: have committed and looking at their mugshots is like watching
Speaker 3: a real life horror movie. The gang made headlines again
Speaker 3: when several members went to the home of someone they
Speaker 3: didn't like. Their intention was to steal guns and beat
Speaker 3: him up, but he wasn't home. Unfortunately, his fourteen year
Speaker 3: old daughter was. When she saw these ghost Face Gangsters
Speaker 3: members coming to her door, she grabbed a BB gun
Speaker 3: and tried to defend herself. They started shooting, and this
Speaker 3: fourteen year old girl was killed. After the fatal shooting
Speaker 3: of the fourteen year old girl and the corrections officers,
Speaker 3: the federal and state authorities accelerated their crackdown on the gang.
Speaker 3: In July twenty nineteen, it was announced Operation Vanilla Gorilla.
Speaker 3: By the way, they always have the craziest code names
Speaker 3: for these things. Just a side note there resulted in
Speaker 3: the arrest of forty three defendants. In twenty twenty one,
Speaker 3: seventy seven Ghost Face Gangsters members were arrested. So they
Speaker 3: are cracking down on these gangsters. But authorities still say
Speaker 3: that the Ghost Face Gangsters is the fastest growing white
Speaker 3: gang in the country and the most dangerous and violent
Speaker 3: gang in the state of Georgia. And Dustin Dillon Glass,
Speaker 3: one of the police's primary people of interest, is a
Speaker 3: member of this gang, and yet I've never seen that
Speaker 3: affiliation mention anywhere on the news. Officially, police have said
Speaker 3: they're treating Justin's case as a kidnapping and presumed homicide.
Speaker 3: They have said a number of Walton County residents are
Speaker 3: witnesses to Justin's disappearance and possess knowledge of the incident
Speaker 3: that would be of great value to the investigation. This
Speaker 3: mystery blonde woman, who by the way, may not be
Speaker 3: blonde anymore, seems to be the key. Is she connected
Speaker 3: to Dustin or one of his associates. Is she someone
Speaker 3: totally random? We need to find out. I know that
Speaker 3: a lot of people have posted on social media that
Speaker 3: the police have been unresponsive. I think it might be
Speaker 3: because there was some confusion about who was handling the case.
Speaker 3: It spanned two counties. But the investigator to contact now
Speaker 3: we can confirm is Michael Rising at Michael that's m
Speaker 3: I C H A E L dot Rising R I
Speaker 3: S I N G at CO dot Walton dot g
Speaker 3: A dot us. You can also text seven seven zero
Speaker 3: three five four eight three four. I've never talked to
Speaker 3: Michael Rising, but I've seen where he has gone on
Speaker 3: Facebook and personally responded to comments with his contact information.
Speaker 3: So please, if you know something, if you were in
Speaker 3: the parking lot that night, if you know who this
Speaker 3: woman is, please reach out. In twenty seventeen, Erica talked
Speaker 3: to eleven Alive about how much Justin was missed by
Speaker 3: his family. He miss seeing his family members grow up,
Speaker 3: He missed seeing his nieces and nephews born. He missed
Speaker 3: graduating from college and all the milestones that his proud
Speaker 3: parents should have been able to share with him. I'm
Speaker 3: Katherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone
Speaker 3: Murder Line is a production of School of Humans and
Speaker 3: iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend
Speaker 3: and produced by Gabby Watts. Music is contributed by Ben Sale.
Speaker 3: Jesse Niswonger scored and mixed this episode. Executive producers of
Speaker 3: Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and L. C. Crowley. If you
Speaker 3: have a case you'd like me and my team to
Speaker 3: look into, you can reach out to us at our
Speaker 3: Helen Gone Murder line at six seven eight seven four
Speaker 3: four six one four five. That's six seven eight seven
Speaker 3: four four six' one four.
Speaker 1: Five school Of humans