Speaker 1: School of Humans. Over the past few weeks, we've been
Speaker 1: covering two cases in Arkansas, the murder of Gale Vaught,
Speaker 1: whose body was found on March seventeenth, nineteen eighty, and
Speaker 1: the strange death of Dennis Flowers. Police believed that Dennis
Speaker 1: was responsible for the execution style murders of Lee Dixon,
Speaker 1: a pharmacist who had become addicted to cocaine and started
Speaker 1: dealing it with Dennis and Lee's wife, Karen Dixon, who
Speaker 1: was eight months pregnant. A few days after the brutal
Speaker 1: double homicide, Dennis's body was found under extremely mysterious circumstances.
Speaker 1: The cause of death was listed as drowning in less
Speaker 1: than three feet of water, and the manner of death
Speaker 1: was listed as a suicide. One of the many questions
Speaker 1: that I see over and over that has come up
Speaker 1: in these cases and so many others, is were these
Speaker 1: crime scenes as they appeared to be or could they
Speaker 1: have been staged? I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past five
Speaker 1: years of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've
Speaker 1: learned there's no such thing as a small town where
Speaker 1: murder never happens. I've received hundreds of messages from people
Speaker 1: all around the country asking for help with an unsolved
Speaker 1: murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities. If
Speaker 1: you have a case you'd like me and my team
Speaker 1: to look into, you can reach out to us at
Speaker 1: our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight seven
Speaker 1: four four, six one four or five. That's six seven
Speaker 1: eight seven four four six one four five. This is
Speaker 1: Helen Gone Murder Line. Now, as an investigator, I think
Speaker 1: one of the most valuable skills that I can have
Speaker 1: is knowing what I don't know, Because no matter how
Speaker 1: many autopsies I've seen, or cases I've covered, or episodes
Speaker 1: of forensic files that I've watched, I'm not a professional
Speaker 1: death investigator. So I decided to find one. I did
Speaker 1: this for another reason too, because I get so many
Speaker 1: emails and messages from people out there who have similar
Speaker 1: issues to the ones that Gail and Dennis's relatives have.
Speaker 1: These are people who have a death that they would
Speaker 1: like reinvestigated. Sometimes it's an unsolved murder. Other times it
Speaker 1: may be a death that was ruled a suicide where
Speaker 1: these family members don't believe that their loved one took
Speaker 1: their own life. I wanted to talk to an expert
Speaker 1: of out the way that they work, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to try and answer one of the biggest questions that
Speaker 1: we have in the Gail Vault case. Was Gale sexually assaulted?
Speaker 1: Or are the condom, condom wrapper, and gun box that
Speaker 1: were found near her body evidence that her crime scene
Speaker 1: could have been staged. This is Arthur Steve Chanceller, a
Speaker 1: death investigator who runs a company called Second Look Training
Speaker 1: in Forensic Consulting. They provide investigative and forensic case consultation
Speaker 1: and training.
Speaker 2: I have been in law enforcements for a little over
Speaker 2: fifty years. Spent a couple of years in the uniform,
Speaker 2: and then I transitioned to a special Agent detective with
Speaker 2: the Army Cromoal Investigation Division, which is similar to NCIS right, Okay,
Speaker 2: that's that's the TV. But yeah, it was very rewarding.
Speaker 2: It was a really good career. So I did DA
Speaker 2: for twenty years. I then retired. I went to work
Speaker 2: in a state to Mississippi or the crime Lab, doing
Speaker 2: homicide crime scenes all over the state. Then I transferred
Speaker 2: to the Bureau of Investigation and I created their cold
Speaker 2: case unit. And then after seven years the retirement, I
Speaker 2: went back to work with the Army CID as a civilian,
Speaker 2: so I spent you know, I spent about the last
Speaker 2: twelve years here at Fort Bragg. I was a supervisory
Speaker 2: especial agent, so I supervised about five different CID offices.
Speaker 2: So I've had a chance to work several hundred felony investigations,
Speaker 2: and over the course of my career, I've probably reviewed
Speaker 2: or helped supervise about ten balloton I'm lucky enough. I
Speaker 2: got a lot of really good experience, have a master's
Speaker 2: degree in criminal justice. I'm a graduate at the FBI
Speaker 2: National Academy. I've written a couple of textbooks on death
Speaker 2: investigations on state scenes and one on investigating sexual crimes.
Speaker 2: I'm under a contract right now to write another book
Speaker 2: about investigating the suicides.
Speaker 1: I tell Steve that we get a lot of calls
Speaker 1: about suicide cases. The case is like Dennis Flowers, where
Speaker 1: the death has been ruled a suicide, but circumstances at
Speaker 1: the crime scene make people believe that this person did
Speaker 1: not take their own life. And yet in so many
Speaker 1: of these cases, these deaths are very quickly ruled suicides.
Speaker 1: So I ask, what can families or other concerned citizens do.
Speaker 1: We're told to let the police do their job, but
Speaker 1: so often people feel as if they're walking a fine line.
Speaker 1: They want to know how they can help, how they
Speaker 1: cannot impede the police investigation, not annoy the police. But
Speaker 1: at the same time they want to be proactive, especially
Speaker 1: when they feel that in the case of a death investigation,
Speaker 1: they believe that things could be falling through the cracks
Speaker 1: or that law enforcement could just be going through.
Speaker 2: On our company website, which is a www. Second Look
Speaker 2: training dot Com, we actually have kind of a self
Speaker 2: paced PowerPoint presentation that is designed to help folks walk
Speaker 2: in all the path of how to deal, what to
Speaker 2: expect from the police, how to get answers from the police,
Speaker 2: how basically to work with the police and not be confrontational,
Speaker 2: and it's designed just to help families.
Speaker 1: I looked at the presentation on Steve's website and it's
Speaker 1: very helpful. One of the best tips that I saw
Speaker 1: was to make a note of any recent developments in
Speaker 1: the victim's life. For example, did they just leave a
Speaker 1: relationship where they arguing with someone about money. Write these
Speaker 1: down in bullet points, and write down the questions you
Speaker 1: have when you go to the police so that you're organized.
Speaker 1: It reminded me of when you go to the doctor's
Speaker 1: office and the doctor's giving you information. All these expert
Speaker 1: websites tell you to write down your questions. It seems
Speaker 1: like such an easy thing, but for example, I never
Speaker 1: do it, and I always walk out of the doctor's
Speaker 1: office feeling like I've forgotten something. I think that it's
Speaker 1: a good idea when you are talking to the police
Speaker 1: to bring a friend with you and either you or
Speaker 1: the person you're with to document everything. Again, we're looking
Speaker 1: at Gail's pattern of life, and any changes in regular
Speaker 1: routine should be noted. The website said something else that
Speaker 1: I think is super important when you're talking to law enforcement.
Speaker 1: It is super important to stick to facts, not opinions.
Speaker 1: This is something that I try to follow myself when
Speaker 1: I'm reporting on a case. I know it's easy to
Speaker 1: get sidetracked by following a theory just because of the
Speaker 1: way our minds work. Even if we are really objective,
Speaker 1: we want to try to make that evidence fit your theory.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, I'm an investigator.
Speaker 1: It's all about examining facts, going from the crime scene
Speaker 1: and working our way backwards.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, suicigns. Typically what happens, and I'm talking you know,
Speaker 2: ninety five percent of the time, I can almost guarantee
Speaker 2: you what happens, and that is the police will come
Speaker 2: to the scene. If everything looks like they think it
Speaker 2: should look, that case is closed out, probably in one
Speaker 2: or two days. There are multiple cases that I've worked
Speaker 2: that they didn't even do an autopsy. So they come in,
Speaker 2: they do what I describe is the bobblehead to come
Speaker 2: in to kind of nod, look around and what should
Speaker 2: be required as an investigation, and that ends up being
Speaker 2: a three or four page report.
Speaker 1: The sad thing is evidence can be lost, and Steve
Speaker 1: explains that even in a best case scenario, if a
Speaker 1: company like his is able to find evidence, even what
Speaker 1: they believe to be definitive evidence, at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, it's up to the police whether or not
Speaker 1: to pursue it, and often the reality is they don't.
Speaker 2: What a frustrating, however, is we have reviewed a case.
Speaker 2: We concurred with the family that there is no way
Speaker 2: that this was a suicide, and we actually found forensic
Speaker 2: evidence in the form of bloodstain analysis that showed that
Speaker 2: after the victim had been shot and injured. Her hand
Speaker 2: had been moved and replaced, so we were able to
Speaker 2: show that to the police and they've done nothing. It's
Speaker 2: extremely frustrating for the families, you know, if nothing else
Speaker 2: just confirmed that it is a suicide. But sure the thought,
Speaker 2: the thought process to the cops is suicide is not
Speaker 2: a criminal offense, right, so if it looks like it's
Speaker 2: a suicide, basically we're not going to waste any time
Speaker 2: on it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's really unfortunate.
Speaker 2: I can tell you I have reopened the suicide, improved
Speaker 2: this a murder. Well, we talked to the family and
Speaker 2: somebody came forward with the new information. The difference is
Speaker 2: just happened in the military. But in the military, the
Speaker 2: Army Cide did a complete crime scene examination, a complete
Speaker 2: laboratory analysis. So when I went in to reopen, I
Speaker 2: actually had a lot of stuff to work with, had
Speaker 2: good scene photographs and stuff like that. The only thing
Speaker 2: is that even if I give you an outstanding report,
Speaker 2: what's going to happen? Because I just told you about
Speaker 2: the case we had, but we actually had forensic evidence.
Speaker 2: My partner is a bloodstain expert, so he identified a
Speaker 2: bloodstain that was peer reviewed by another bloodstain expert which
Speaker 2: said the same thing. Yet absolutely this hand was moved,
Speaker 2: and the police just shrugged it off, like dam they
Speaker 2: don't care.
Speaker 1: We start talking about Gail's case. I tell Steve about
Speaker 1: the condom that was lost and about the fact that
Speaker 1: a number of tests weren't done that I believe could
Speaker 1: have more definitively answered the question about time of death
Speaker 1: and possibly whether or not Gail's body had been moved,
Speaker 1: including insect activity, which I did not see on the
Speaker 1: autopsy report. Steve said he also noted that the lack
Speaker 1: of insect activity being documented, and I asked him about
Speaker 1: one of the most crucial elements of this case, Gail's
Speaker 1: time of death.
Speaker 2: This is an example will be called tunnel vision, and
Speaker 2: that is I've identified the suspect. So don't confuse me
Speaker 2: with the facts that leads me to anywhere else.
Speaker 1: Because remember, Gail's boyfriend, Ray was basically never charged, largely
Speaker 1: due to the fact that police believed Gail had been
Speaker 1: killed the night before. But as we said in last
Speaker 1: week's episode, I believe that the evidence points to the
Speaker 1: possibility that Gail's could have been killed later early in
Speaker 1: the morning on March seventeenth. That would explain why parts
Speaker 1: of her body were still warm, and why rigor mortis
Speaker 1: had begun in her face but not progressed down her body.
Speaker 1: We also talk about the rain, and this is why
Speaker 1: I love talking to experts, because Steve found things that
Speaker 1: I didn't see. I mentioned in last week's episode that
Speaker 1: one of the reasons I believed why Gail had been
Speaker 1: killed later than the police believed was because of the
Speaker 1: tire tracks. The tire tracks were very detailed, and in
Speaker 1: the police report it was noted that there had been
Speaker 1: rained the night before, torrential rain at around two am.
Speaker 1: But Steve pointed out that in the autopsy report there
Speaker 1: was some conflict about whether the rain had started at
Speaker 1: two am or ended at two am, which could potentially
Speaker 1: be very important.
Speaker 2: There were some conflicting information. Was it a torrential rain
Speaker 2: at two o'clock or did it stop raining at two o'clock,
Speaker 2: So there's real conflict, that's what I mean. So that
Speaker 2: would be some of the stuff that I would have
Speaker 2: to check out because the body was the was wet. Now,
Speaker 2: some of the things that I noticed, first of all,
Speaker 2: the gunshot, probably a small caliber twenty two or twenty five,
Speaker 2: probably not anything heavier, but it never penetrated the skull,
Speaker 2: so it kind of slid along. Okay, which is good. Now,
Speaker 2: it did cost some bruising contusions to the brain and
Speaker 2: some skull fractures, but it didn't end the brain. So
Speaker 2: clearly she was killed by being run over. Okay. Now,
Speaker 2: the thing that I caught that really caught my attention, however,
Speaker 2: is the medical examiner investigator I think is who it is,
Speaker 2: or the assistant one of them is out there, makes
Speaker 2: an observation how she is described lying in the ground
Speaker 2: on her right side, shoulders down. That she said that
Speaker 2: it looks like her right foot had moved back and forth.
Speaker 2: So that's important because that tells me that she was
Speaker 2: probably killed right in that spot. Maybe not shots, but
Speaker 2: killed in that spot. Yeah. Now I'm going to kind
Speaker 2: of go off subject just a little bit because one
Speaker 2: of the things that I looked at I've been scratching
Speaker 2: my head, and that is her pants are down, but
Speaker 2: they're not all the way off, so they.
Speaker 3: Were it said that her clothes they found her clothes
Speaker 3: twenty ten feet away or twenty feet away in the bushes.
Speaker 2: Well, but there's conflicting information because there's another report that
Speaker 2: said her pants was around her, around her ankles. So
Speaker 2: you saw there there's a conflict.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't notice that.
Speaker 1: We discussed the fact that, according to the police report,
Speaker 1: Gail's clothing was found several feet away from her in
Speaker 1: the woods. Steve says that in the autopsy report there's
Speaker 1: also a reference to her pants being around her ankles.
Speaker 1: In the crime scene photos, Gail is naked from the
Speaker 1: waist down, so this is probably a mistake unless someone
Speaker 1: took her pants off at the crime scene, which seems unbelievable.
Speaker 1: But then again, this is a strange case. Steve and
Speaker 1: I talk again about crime scene staging. Gail doesn't appear
Speaker 1: to have been hit with the car, and she doesn't
Speaker 1: have defensive wounds on her hands. So was she forced
Speaker 1: out of the car at gunpoint or could she have
Speaker 1: been shot somewhere else and then her killer took her
Speaker 1: body out to dump her in the woods. Could they
Speaker 1: at that point have realized that Gail was still alive
Speaker 1: and decided to stage a sexual assault to throw off
Speaker 1: the investigators.
Speaker 2: So one of the things that I will tell you
Speaker 2: that I started looking at is one of the most
Speaker 2: popular themes to use when you stage the scene is
Speaker 2: the sexual assault of sexual homicide. Right, So, I mean
Speaker 2: I started looking at that, and I'm thinking, you know,
Speaker 2: I have to me, this is so odd that she's
Speaker 2: clearly but she wasn't dumped out of the car. She
Speaker 2: wasn't thrown down because she doesn't have any of the
Speaker 2: contusions or she doesn't have any of the upraisings that
Speaker 2: I would expect that she had been pushed out right,
Speaker 2: I'm not seeing that. So and the other thing is
Speaker 2: is I always the hair on the back of my
Speaker 2: neck stands up every time I feel like I'm being
Speaker 2: led down a path. Because if this is the guy
Speaker 2: and he's a sexual offender and he's out and he's
Speaker 2: gonna kill this girl, then why does he leave a
Speaker 2: condom behind?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I I agree. I have seen people
Speaker 3: do dumb things. But then on the on the flip side,
Speaker 3: or the condom could have been totally unrelated. It could
Speaker 3: have just been out there, maybe some people talking up
Speaker 3: out there.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, exactly, And that's the other that's the other possibility.
Speaker 2: But then we have she's undressed, but there's really no
Speaker 2: indication of recent sexual activity.
Speaker 3: No, I think in the in the report, it said
Speaker 3: she had had sex with her boyfriend like two nights earlier,
Speaker 3: and that would have been consistent with that.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, exactly, because so that that could be
Speaker 2: present for up to ninety six hours. So I'm sitting
Speaker 2: here and I'm looking at it, and I said, you know,
Speaker 2: I know about sex offenders, and I said, this doesn't
Speaker 2: This doesn't pass the common sense test that some sexual
Speaker 2: offender has this girl and he can do whatever he wants,
Speaker 2: but he doesn't do anything. Now, there are offenders that
Speaker 2: might kill her and then maybe masturbate over her. Now
Speaker 2: that there, Yeah, exactly. And I don't see any elements
Speaker 2: of her being no bondage. I don't see any indication
Speaker 2: that she was anally assaulted, which is something else I
Speaker 2: would expect for those type of offenders who do that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So I'm sitting here scratching my head that I don't
Speaker 2: know if you're dealing with the true sexual offender are
Speaker 2: someone who's trying to make it look like a sexual offender.
Speaker 1: We're split on whether this could be a staged crime
Speaker 1: scene or just a panic sex offender. Steve asked me
Speaker 1: more about the location where Gaile's body was found, which
Speaker 1: is another extremely odd factor in this case, because why
Speaker 1: would gles kill her not leave her in the woods?
Speaker 1: They were surrounded by these very dense woods and trees.
Speaker 1: Why did they choose to dump her out in the
Speaker 1: middle of a road. Did they panic and have to
Speaker 1: leave quickly? Or could this have been an indication they
Speaker 1: wanted her body to be found?
Speaker 2: You have to look at us. When was the body
Speaker 2: actually found, because that's when you need to start working
Speaker 2: yourself back.
Speaker 3: Well around just after ten am was when it was
Speaker 3: found and the cops were there by like ten thirty.
Speaker 2: And I guess that's not a very well traveled road.
Speaker 2: No it's not.
Speaker 3: It was a back road off of a off of
Speaker 3: a two lane highway. But no, it's a back dirt road.
Speaker 3: To eat APU kind of know where it was.
Speaker 2: It's like a logging road. Okay. How far away from
Speaker 2: her residence?
Speaker 3: About three miles little less than three miles, so yeah.
Speaker 2: And then the other thing is if this is a
Speaker 2: stranger doing all this, then what I would expect if
Speaker 2: this was a stranger, that after the incident, they would
Speaker 2: have taken her to the next county or something like that,
Speaker 2: and done it not right there?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is weird, Yeah, really weird.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it has I mean there was interesting, interesting,
Speaker 2: interesting case for sure.
Speaker 1: So what do we know for sure? Gail was almost
Speaker 1: certainly shot before she was run over, because it was
Speaker 1: being run over that killed her. Steve said that, in
Speaker 1: his opinion, Gail's wounds indicate that she was run over
Speaker 1: by a vehicle with a higher undercarriage, one that was
Speaker 1: higher off the ground. Steve said it could have been
Speaker 1: a jeep which Gail drove, or a pickup truck. Remember
Speaker 1: last week we talked to the former sheriff, Herb Marshall.
Speaker 1: He told us that he believed Gail had been run
Speaker 1: over in her own jeep.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, she may have gone out there and
Speaker 2: or to you know, maybe regain consciousness, or maybe she
Speaker 2: never lost consciousness, because remember, I mean, it's just like
Speaker 2: like a like a big concussion, okay, is the type
Speaker 2: of injuries Okay, And then they get out there and
Speaker 2: and he figures out, shit, I got to do something
Speaker 2: or else. He's not struggling, right, I am imagining, takes
Speaker 2: her out on the road and just lips your pants
Speaker 2: off and runs over it. Now, the other thing that
Speaker 2: I did see with some of the autopsy photographs that
Speaker 2: are not great, but they're okay. I think you're looking
Speaker 2: at a pickup truck rather than a car. Hmm.
Speaker 3: Interesting. The police think her deep and I don't know
Speaker 3: where they got that from.
Speaker 2: I don't they don't know that well anything that's the
Speaker 2: higher that the body is higher off the ground, because
Speaker 2: what I what I didn't see. And I've seen bodies
Speaker 2: that are hit by cars, you know, the body runs
Speaker 2: into the the undercarriage and there's all kinds of nicks
Speaker 2: and scratches and stuff like that. And I didn't see anything,
Speaker 2: although I did find some pattern injuries. And what I'm
Speaker 2: looking at this at is you know, this is to me,
Speaker 2: these are caused by her laying across or laying on something.
Speaker 2: Well interesting, Yeah, it's on her lower I think left leg.
Speaker 3: Would that have been like something in that road or something?
Speaker 3: Or do you think or do you think someone shot
Speaker 3: her and then took her out there?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I think she was shot somewhere else, quite honestly,
Speaker 2: I mean maybe not. I don't know. I don't have
Speaker 2: her clothing, so I don't know if there's any blood
Speaker 2: own her clothing.
Speaker 1: I remember that there were no pictures of Gail's clothing,
Speaker 1: but the police report indicated that her clothes had been
Speaker 1: thrown in the woods about ten feet from her body.
Speaker 1: Her underwear and jeans were balled up as if they
Speaker 1: had been pulled off together, and there was fecal matter
Speaker 1: in her underwear. This next part is a little bit upsetting,
Speaker 1: but we have to examine the forensic evidence, so I'm
Speaker 1: just going to plow forward. It was noted in the
Speaker 1: report the police thought that, due to the fact that
Speaker 1: there was no feces smeared on Gail's buttocks, they believe
Speaker 1: the feces was expelled when she was run over by
Speaker 1: the vehicle, rather than, for example, when she was shot
Speaker 1: in the head. This is one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: police believe Gail was shot before she was run over.
Speaker 1: But when I talked to Steve, he believes that the
Speaker 1: evidence points to Gail's clothing being stripped off before she
Speaker 1: was run over, not after.
Speaker 3: I would think it would be possible that, you know,
Speaker 3: after you were shot in the head, that would happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but yeah, I mean it's that you know that
Speaker 2: got a aweso because it is a I awakened and
Speaker 2: experience as you might imagine, Yeah, being run over first
Speaker 2: and then the pants off, I suppose, but you know,
Speaker 2: with her broken pelvis, that may have been a little
Speaker 2: bit more difficult.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it seems like it'd be difficult to take off.
Speaker 3: And if they had to and if you do type
Speaker 3: tight jeans or tighter jeans off a girl, right, you're
Speaker 3: going to move things in a certain way, you know. There,
Speaker 3: I don't know, right, Yeah, it's so sad. I mean,
Speaker 3: the whole thing is actually I think about it a
Speaker 3: lot because I can't imagine a worse death. Really, it
Speaker 3: means horrible.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh no, absolutely, you know, especially if it's
Speaker 2: if it's somebody at one time you had a relationship
Speaker 2: with or whatever, which is which was you know, generally
Speaker 2: what what happens. And one of the things that we
Speaker 2: that we always stay on a stage crime scene, don't
Speaker 2: look out signed on a stage crime scene, look towards
Speaker 2: the victim, because it's going to be somebody that has
Speaker 2: to point at somebody else. Yeah, they want to misdirect
Speaker 2: the police away from them, away from their activities.
Speaker 1: But it's also possible that she was run over by
Speaker 1: a pickup truck and Gail's boyfriend Ray drove a pickup truck,
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking about what Steve said about police not
Speaker 1: checking out about I've found this to be a theme
Speaker 1: over and over in so many of these cases, which
Speaker 1: you will know if you listen to this podcast. Remember,
Speaker 1: Ray's story was that he borrowed Gale's jeep the night
Speaker 1: before because his own vehicle was dead and not running.
Speaker 1: How do we know for sure that his truck was
Speaker 1: out of action? Ray said that on Friday, after he
Speaker 1: went home after his night out, He said that he
Speaker 1: slept in his truck and then he supposedly called some
Speaker 1: friends to come over to try to help him get
Speaker 1: the truck started and push it. He said that it
Speaker 1: did start briefly but then installed again. But I wonder
Speaker 1: did anyone actually check that. Did they look inside the truck?
Speaker 1: Did they ask Ray how his truck stopped working and
Speaker 1: when that happened? Did it really die months earlier or
Speaker 1: could it have stalled much more recently, for example, after
Speaker 1: running over something heavy. Steve believes, at least based on
Speaker 1: what he's seen so far from the autopsy report, that
Speaker 1: this scene has some of the hallmarks of a stage
Speaker 1: crime scene.
Speaker 2: You know, it could have been you know, teenagers out
Speaker 2: there exercising, and that's one of the rappers there. But again,
Speaker 2: that just it always bothers me when I see that.
Speaker 2: It's like I'm being led down the path, you know.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, so it's a little why would someone leave?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: I mean, on the flip side, I've seen really dumb
Speaker 3: people do really dwmb things, especially when they're panicked. But
Speaker 3: I don't know, it's weird.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, but he's But here's the thing we
Speaker 2: always look at. We always look at what we call
Speaker 2: it offended the ecotomy. So here's a guy that's apparently
Speaker 2: so clever as he can murder this person and leave
Speaker 2: her out there and leave basically no signs that they
Speaker 2: were there, no evidence. But then he turns around and
Speaker 2: leaves the condom. Yeah, that's the best evidence in the world.
Speaker 1: So it's looking more likely that Gail was shot in
Speaker 1: the head and then her pants and underwear were stripped
Speaker 1: off before she was run over. After that, there are
Speaker 1: two main possibilities. Either her killer took off her pants
Speaker 1: and then dropped the condom and gunbox there to stage
Speaker 1: the crime scene, or that Gale was shot and had raped.
Speaker 1: Did Gail's killer leave her in that open road because
Speaker 1: they wanted her to get found, which would be more
Speaker 1: characteristic of a stage crime scene. Or was them dumping
Speaker 1: her there a panicked reaction to something that got out
Speaker 1: of control. Did her killer panic for some reason and
Speaker 1: have to take off suddenly. One thing that Steve and
Speaker 1: I both agree on immediately is the fact that Gail's
Speaker 1: killer was almost certainly not a random stranger. It was
Speaker 1: someone local, someone who knew these woods well and believed
Speaker 1: that on that road at that time they would not
Speaker 1: be disturbed.
Speaker 2: Right, and the stranger would put her somewhere's else because
Speaker 2: that gives him a chance to get more distanced than
Speaker 2: the topspineing them. Yeah, so this is that was my
Speaker 2: impression as well, that somebody wanted her found. And the
Speaker 2: other thing is is that this is a dirt road.
Speaker 2: I asked myself, how would a stranger know how to
Speaker 2: get out there or why took the road.
Speaker 1: I mentioned to Steve the interview with laith Lane, the
Speaker 1: man who said that he saw Gail hitchhiking on the
Speaker 1: side of the road on Thursday, and too, as I
Speaker 1: pointed out, for some reason, when he was interviewed on Friday,
Speaker 1: just hours after Gail's body was found, knew exactly what
Speaker 1: Gail had been wearing when she was killed. We look
Speaker 1: back at our location map. Gail's apartment that she shared
Speaker 1: with Ray was about three miles from where her body
Speaker 1: was found. According to her sister, it was a distance
Speaker 1: that was a little bit too far to walk. Also,
Speaker 1: when she was found, she was wearing socks but no shoes,
Speaker 1: so she probably did not walk out there. Someone probably
Speaker 1: drove her to that location. Now, laith Lane may have
Speaker 1: a totally reasonable explanation for how he knew this. We
Speaker 1: know that word travels fast in that neck of the woods.
Speaker 1: A lot of people had cbe radios and police scanners. Also,
Speaker 1: laith Lane's mother lived near that crime scene, so he
Speaker 1: may have actually seen Gail at the crime scene. We
Speaker 1: just don't know. What bothers me is that I don't
Speaker 1: know an answer to a crucial question, actually one of
Speaker 1: the same ones that Steve asked me.
Speaker 2: So everybody that lives around there would know about it,
Speaker 2: but someone who's coming to Memphis probably wouldn't know about it.
Speaker 3: Oh No, I don't think any I don't think it
Speaker 3: was a stranger from like out of town. It might
Speaker 3: have been a stranger to her or something she didn't know. Well,
Speaker 3: that's possible, but I don't. I think I think you're right.
Speaker 3: I think it was someone.
Speaker 2: From Yeah, and that's what I meant by that. It's
Speaker 2: you know, it's probably somebody local rather than someone just
Speaker 2: driving through happened upon her.
Speaker 1: We start talking again about Gail's pattern of life. Where
Speaker 1: was Gail in the twenty four hours before she disappeared. Now,
Speaker 1: unfortunately the record of where she was on Thursday is
Speaker 1: not super well documented in the police reports, but I
Speaker 1: tell them what we know. Gail had her jeep on
Speaker 1: Thursday morning. She was seen at the job site talking
Speaker 1: to people, behaving normally. Then she left the job site
Speaker 1: on Thursday night, just after eight pm. She called her
Speaker 1: supervisor and asked if they would be working the next day.
Speaker 1: When she was told no that because the rains had
Speaker 1: been too heavy, that she would not be working on Friday,
Speaker 1: Gail told her supervisor she planned to come in and
Speaker 1: pick up her paycheck the next morning. Friday morning. Again,
Speaker 1: most of the things that happened that day in Gail's
Speaker 1: life seemed to be unfolding completely normally, except for one
Speaker 1: incident that was completely out of the ordinary and stood
Speaker 1: out the fact that Gail supposedly let Ray borrow her
Speaker 1: jeep that night. Steve once again talks about how crucial
Speaker 1: it is to identify a victim's pattern of life and
Speaker 1: to truly get inside the mind of the victim. I
Speaker 1: know a lot of people may think that I go
Speaker 1: over and over the same facts a million times on
Speaker 1: this podcast, but that is what I'm trying to do.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to understand Gaile's routine. What was she doing
Speaker 1: during all of the spaces in the police report where
Speaker 1: there are these unexplained gaps of time.
Speaker 2: Well, the big thing I always look for is any
Speaker 2: change of routine is what we call a coincidence, Right,
Speaker 2: any change of routine. Well, usually when we teach law enforcement,
Speaker 2: we say, every time you hear a coincidence, the many
Speaker 2: thing you hear is probably a lie. So in this
Speaker 2: particular case, she never lets anybody use her car, but
Speaker 2: that night she does. That's a change of routine, That's
Speaker 2: a coincidence.
Speaker 1: Once again, Steve and I discussed the fact that Gail,
Speaker 1: according to her friend Sheila, never let anyone borrow her vehicle,
Speaker 1: and then it seems weird to both of us. That
Speaker 1: suddenly Ray was out all night with her jeep and
Speaker 1: told the police later that Gail was fine with that.
Speaker 1: That's a definite red flag. That makes the hairs on
Speaker 1: the back of my next stand up.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a there's an awful lot of stuff.
Speaker 2: Quite honestly, it's it's a it's a pretty good case.
Speaker 2: It's I wish the cops had done obviously a little
Speaker 2: bit better.
Speaker 1: Ray has passed away, so if the evidence does ultimately
Speaker 1: end up pointing to him, obviously he can't be prosecuted.
Speaker 1: But Gail has a sister, Teresa, who is still alive
Speaker 1: and who still has to go to sleep at night
Speaker 1: wondering what really happened to her sister all those years
Speaker 1: ago and why. Steve agrees with me that the laith
Speaker 1: Lane lead should have been investigated further, and he asks
Speaker 1: another one of the same questions that I've been lying
Speaker 1: awake at night, tossing and turning and thinking about obsessively.
Speaker 2: Here's the important question. Did the police contact him or
Speaker 2: did he contact the police first?
Speaker 3: Exactly? You know what? I asked that, and nobody can
Speaker 3: tell me the answer to that, because I was like,
Speaker 3: I'm just I just want to know how this guy
Speaker 3: got involved, like with he at the crime scene? Did
Speaker 3: he live? Did he happen to pass by? And then
Speaker 3: maybe you know, because that would explain it. But I
Speaker 3: just need to know an otherwise. It is very strange.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I always I'm always suspicious of anybody who
Speaker 2: tries to interject themselves into the into the case.
Speaker 1: Something else bothers me. This idea that once someone is
Speaker 1: elderly above say age sixty five or seventy, that they
Speaker 1: are somehow harmless.
Speaker 2: I'm with you. Yeah, I don't care who it is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're gonna at least look at these things. But
Speaker 3: there's something weird. To check it out.
Speaker 2: Well, most most criminals will burn themselves out between forty
Speaker 2: five and fifty. But there's two people that will never
Speaker 2: burn out. That they will offend and up until the
Speaker 2: day they die if they can. Okay, that's a pedophile right,
Speaker 2: and a sexual statist. Now, this is the guy who's
Speaker 2: into the d s M. Often they reach the stage
Speaker 2: that their whole intent is to sexually torture someone all
Speaker 2: the way up to the timely murder them like Bundy
Speaker 2: like BTK. Now, those are all sexual status. So those
Speaker 2: little guys that never burn out. They will offend continuously
Speaker 2: if they can.
Speaker 1: You can find Steve's company, Second Look Training and Forensic
Speaker 1: Consulting online at second Loooktraining dot com. You can also
Speaker 1: reach them at nine to one nine three six zero
Speaker 1: three five one eight. So where does this leave us
Speaker 1: with Gail's case. It's possible that Gail's killer is dead,
Speaker 1: But what if they're not. What if there is a
Speaker 1: killer walking around out there right now, one who now
Speaker 1: maybe has children and grandchildren. I'm thinking about the information
Speaker 1: that Steve gave me. What if that crime scene wasn't staged.
Speaker 1: What if there's a sexual sadist out there, one who
Speaker 1: got away with murder? What else have they been doing
Speaker 1: since nineteen eighty? I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen on
Speaker 1: Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line is a production of
Speaker 1: School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated
Speaker 1: by me Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts. Music
Speaker 1: contributed by Ben s Lee. Executive producers of Virginia Prescott,
Speaker 1: Brandon Barr, and Elsie Crowley. Special thanks to Amy Tubbs
Speaker 1: for her research assistance. If you have a case, you'd
Speaker 1: like me and my team to look into. You can
Speaker 1: reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line.
Speaker 1: It's six seven eight seven four four six one four five.
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Speaker 1: School of Humans