Speaker 1: School of Humans. On May fourth, nineteen ninety one, nine
Speaker 1: year old Christina Pipkin was selling jewelry door to door
Speaker 1: for a school fundraiser in her hometown of Hickory Ridge, Arkansas.
Speaker 1: Christina was supposed to be home before dark, but she
Speaker 1: never made it back. Her parents, Freda and James frantically
Speaker 1: looked for her. They called friends and volunteers and scoured
Speaker 1: the area, but found no signs of Christina. This little
Speaker 1: girl seemed to have vanished into thin air. They got
Speaker 1: an answer, but it wasn't the answer they were hoping for.
Speaker 1: Three days later, on May seventh, nineteen ninety one, Christina
Speaker 1: Pipkins's body was found floating in cow Lake Ditch. Almost
Speaker 1: twenty three years later, this case is still unsolved. I'm
Speaker 1: Catherine Townsend. If you have a case you'd like me
Speaker 1: and my team to look into, you can reach out
Speaker 1: to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six
Speaker 1: seven eight seven four four six one four five. This
Speaker 1: is Helen Gone Murder Line. By the way. As you
Speaker 1: can tell, I've been talking to a lot of people
Speaker 1: this week, so I've lost my voice a little bit.
Speaker 1: Please excuse me. I'm in Hickory Ridge, for a meeting
Speaker 1: with Amy Tubbs, who, as I mentioned in the last episode,
Speaker 1: is married to Robbie Tubbs Junior. She's the daughter in
Speaker 1: law of Robbie Tubbs Senior, who is a suspect in
Speaker 1: Christina's murder. Back in the nineties, Robbie was arrested and
Speaker 1: he was charged with Christina Pipkins's murder, but as we
Speaker 1: said in the last episode, he was released after there
Speaker 1: was a mistake with the DNA testing. The prosecutor, Fletcher Long,
Speaker 1: admitted that instead of testing hair from a vehicle once
Speaker 1: owned by Robbie Tubbs, law enforcement tested the wrong hair,
Speaker 1: and then when they tried to correct that error, they
Speaker 1: said that there wasn't enough DNA on the hair that
Speaker 1: was inside Robbie Tubb's car to test. I still wonder
Speaker 1: is that hair still around and with today's technology, could
Speaker 1: it be retested that. It's just one of the many
Speaker 1: questions we're going to be asking as we investigate this case.
Speaker 1: Amy said that since she started dating her husband, they've
Speaker 1: never really had contact with his father, Robbie Senor. She
Speaker 1: said she's heard that Robbie Senior has a criminal background
Speaker 1: and that he's in her words, and not a great guy,
Speaker 1: but as she pointed out, that's quite a different thing
Speaker 1: from being a child killer. Amy wanted to know if
Speaker 1: Robbie Senor was capable of committing this horrific crime. She
Speaker 1: is clear, if he is the right person, he needs
Speaker 1: to be charged, and if it's someone else, we need
Speaker 1: to figure out who they are and where they are.
Speaker 1: Either way, charging a suspect and then having those charges
Speaker 1: fall apart and seeing the person you believe is guilty released.
Speaker 1: As I've said for a long time, this should not
Speaker 1: be a stopping point for law enforcement. Either you need
Speaker 1: to get more evidence on your suspect, or you need
Speaker 1: to find the right person to charge. Amy and our
Speaker 1: meeting in Hickory Ridge in the morning. There's really only
Speaker 1: one place in town, the only coffee shop for miles,
Speaker 1: Cafe forty nine. How do you get around the not
Speaker 1: being an Arkansas resident? Jazz so Amy and I are
Speaker 1: catching up. We've had some exciting developments. Both of our
Speaker 1: Foyer requests were granted, so we now have access to
Speaker 1: the entire Christina Pipkin case file, all two hundred pages
Speaker 1: of it. That's the good news. The bad news is
Speaker 1: that there is no audio of the original interviews, and
Speaker 1: there are no photos. The Arkansas State Police have also
Speaker 1: not released the autopsy report. It's not part of the
Speaker 1: case file. There are also almost no transcripts, so all
Speaker 1: we have of the police interviews are these short type pages.
Speaker 1: Presumably they were taken from notes and then transcribed. Since
Speaker 1: I have a lot of experience with case files, I
Speaker 1: want to verify every thing ourselves. I want to get
Speaker 1: in touch with everyone we can who isn't dead and
Speaker 1: is willing to talk. We've come here to East Arkansas
Speaker 1: to see if there was anyone around who was there
Speaker 1: on the day Christina went missing. This could be our
Speaker 1: only hope for getting new information. Would I'll take one more.
Speaker 1: Amy brought Denise, who describes herself as an amateur sleuth
Speaker 1: who's been working on the case for a long time.
Speaker 1: Denise has also brought a friend who says she just
Speaker 1: wants to be in the background. She spends her time
Speaker 1: as Denise's sidekick, helping her find addresses and get into
Speaker 1: contact with people. After we get our coffee, we start
Speaker 1: talking to some other people in the cafe. Was that
Speaker 1: the little girl? She's found it in a ditch right
Speaker 1: out here? Yeah? Yeah, I think I wat. I mean
Speaker 1: this was this happened before I was born, And now
Speaker 1: what I heard was that her stepdad had drowned her.
Speaker 1: And now she said that she heard Christina's stepdad had
Speaker 1: drowned her. That was one of the rumors We've been
Speaker 1: hearing a lot, that someone in Christstina's family did this
Speaker 1: to her and then there was a cover up. Some
Speaker 1: people have blamed Christina's mom, others her dad. Some people
Speaker 1: have even mentioned a step dad, even though that would
Speaker 1: be impossible since Christina didn't even have a stepfather. But
Speaker 1: I've heard that story. I've heard that story too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I heard that story too, But no, she didn't have
Speaker 1: a step bead. This is just one of many versions
Speaker 1: of rumors that have been flying around town since Christina
Speaker 1: went missing. The woman we talked to brought her mom over,
Speaker 1: and her mom knew a lot. She said she was
Speaker 1: in high school at the time and was part of
Speaker 1: the search party. I just I remember searching the town.
Speaker 1: It's heard that she didn't just go on door to
Speaker 1: door selling something for school. Just we searched for days
Speaker 1: and days and days and days. She mentioned another rumor
Speaker 1: that I've heard a lot of that the reason she
Speaker 1: believed someone in Christina's family did. This was because apparently
Speaker 1: no water from the ditch where Christina's body was found
Speaker 1: was found in her lungs. He had chlorinated, so it
Speaker 1: had to have come from a bathtub or something there
Speaker 1: about this led them to believe she had been drowned
Speaker 1: in a bathtub and then taken out there and dumped.
Speaker 1: This is one of those rumors we can shut down
Speaker 1: right now because even though we didn't get the actual
Speaker 1: autopsy report as part of the case file, we did
Speaker 1: get some documents that refer to interviews with a medical
Speaker 1: examiner and to forensic testing that was done on Christina's body.
Speaker 1: The results of those tests showed that the water and
Speaker 1: mud in Christina Pipkins's lungs matched the water from Cow
Speaker 1: Lake Ditch, the body of water where she was found.
Speaker 1: We also learned from the case file that Fammi Malick
Speaker 1: did the autopsy because one of the investigators put a
Speaker 1: report in the case file. He talked about meeting with
Speaker 1: doctor Malick to discuss some of his conclusions. I've talked
Speaker 1: a lot about doctor Malick's controversial history on previous podcasts.
Speaker 1: He was the medical examiner in Arkansas who was found
Speaker 1: to have botched hundreds of autopsies back in the eighties
Speaker 1: and nineties. In fact, the time period when he did
Speaker 1: Christina's autopsy was not long before he was forced into retirement.
Speaker 1: But for the moment, until we're proven otherwise, we're going
Speaker 1: to take the information that we get about the autopsy
Speaker 1: at face value. Doctor Malik indicated there was obvious decomposition.
Speaker 1: We knew she had been in the water for three days.
Speaker 1: He also said there were no signs of strangulation. He
Speaker 1: said he had X rayed Christina's body from the outside
Speaker 1: and from the inside. He said he could find no
Speaker 1: stab wounds, no obvious cuts of bruises, and there was
Speaker 1: water and mud found in Christina's stomach, water that matched
Speaker 1: the water from the ditch. Doctor Malik also found pickles
Speaker 1: and carrots and Christina's stomach. We know that Christina ate
Speaker 1: pot pie for lunch that day. We also know that
Speaker 1: Elsie Lyles, her next door neighbor and sometimes a babysitter,
Speaker 1: gave her a pickle as a snack at around four pm.
Speaker 1: The report reads, quote Doctor Malik was emphatic he could
Speaker 1: find no other cause of death other than drowning. End quote.
Speaker 1: But it also says when given the supposition that one
Speaker 1: could smother an individual to the point of unconscious and
Speaker 1: then throw that person into the river, Doctor Mallet could
Speaker 1: make no comment regarding this, but said that this was
Speaker 1: a possibility. In other words, we can't tell from the
Speaker 1: limited information we have whether Christina fell into the water
Speaker 1: on her own or was thrown in there, or whether
Speaker 1: she was conscious at the time, but we can rule
Speaker 1: out the rumor that Christina was drowned at home and
Speaker 1: then taken out to that site where she was dumped
Speaker 1: by the way. Christina's father, James, and everyone else in
Speaker 1: her family cooperated completely with investigators. James Pipkin took and
Speaker 1: passed a light detector test that's part of the case file,
Speaker 1: and he was cleared by law enforcement. I cannot imagine
Speaker 1: the pain of losing a child and then after that
Speaker 1: having people in town either think that you were involved
Speaker 1: somehow or that you were hiding something. Plus James had
Speaker 1: to go through the pain of being asked about his
Speaker 1: marital problems issues he had had previously with his wife Frieda.
Speaker 1: That must have also been a nightmare. But unfortunately, when
Speaker 1: law enforcement is looking through someone's pattern of life, they
Speaker 1: have to know the history of the family members. It's
Speaker 1: all part of solving the puzzle. There have been some
Speaker 1: other rumors in this town that refuse to die, so
Speaker 1: we need to check them out so we can figure
Speaker 1: out what to investigate further and what else to rule out.
Speaker 1: We went to the place where Christina and her family
Speaker 1: lived on Doughty Street. Okay, so this was the Bearcat
Speaker 1: right where apparently everyone in town went that day. There's
Speaker 1: the bank. The alle still runs behind the bank, so
Speaker 1: this whole thing is tiny. Yeah. And there's the tracks
Speaker 1: right there. Yeah. And then there's the little park school.
Speaker 1: All that is back there. This house, no, that house,
Speaker 1: this lot, this lot where there is no more house.
Speaker 1: There's no house there now, just a vacant, overgrown lot
Speaker 1: with a home next door. We have a couple of
Speaker 1: goals here today. First of all, we want to take
Speaker 1: a look at the place where Christina's house was on
Speaker 1: Doty Street and the place where she was last seen,
Speaker 1: the Bearcat grocery store. It's not there anymore now, it's
Speaker 1: a tire shop. Denise is talking me through the streets
Speaker 1: in Christina's neighborhood. So that was her house, and then
Speaker 1: the house they were saying that the backed up on
Speaker 1: her yard would have been that one over there. Maybe, well,
Speaker 1: I think that's something different or is it destroyed now? Maybe?
Speaker 1: Ye see how that's what I'm thinking, and those houses
Speaker 1: might have been the same. But we see from the
Speaker 1: case file that police talked to Christina's mom Frida and
Speaker 1: father James. They discussed what they did on the day
Speaker 1: Christina disappeared in a lot more detail than I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: On Saturday, May fourth, Frida said it started out as
Speaker 1: an ordinary Saturday. Frida went to the post office that
Speaker 1: morning between nine thirty and ten. When she got home,
Speaker 1: Christina and her brother Adam were watching cartoons. Frida said
Speaker 1: she had some coffee with her neighbor Pat Moore. Then
Speaker 1: Pat left. After a few minutes, Frida started cleaning and
Speaker 1: doing laundry because Saturday was wash day. At around eleven
Speaker 1: thirty or twelve, Freda warmed up some pop pies. They
Speaker 1: ate the pop pies, and they had iced tea to drink.
Speaker 1: After lunch, she was hanging clothes out on the line
Speaker 1: when James came out and showed her a picture of
Speaker 1: a used car he had been looking out in the
Speaker 1: local magazine She and James took Christina and Adam and
Speaker 1: they went to Walmart and went They bought a few
Speaker 1: things there for the house. Then they went to Cherry Valley,
Speaker 1: a town about fifteen miles east of Hickory Ridge. They
Speaker 1: looked at the car, a blue Mustang that was parked
Speaker 1: out in the seller's yard. They took a quick look
Speaker 1: at the car, asked about the price, and left there
Speaker 1: around one pm. At some point they stopped at Gaskin's
Speaker 1: grocery store in vandal They bought some pork rines, and
Speaker 1: apparently Christina had a few of the porkskins on the
Speaker 1: ride home, but she didn't really eat a lot of
Speaker 1: them because apparently they were a little bit pink and
Speaker 1: she didn't love the taste. The family got back home,
Speaker 1: Adam and James were hanging out watching TV. Christina played
Speaker 1: with one of Frida's old makeup compacts that she had
Speaker 1: found lying around. James was programming the VCR to tape
Speaker 1: the movie The Hunt for Red October that was airing
Speaker 1: that night. At some point, Christina asked her parents if
Speaker 1: she could go door to door to sell her jewelry.
Speaker 1: She headed out at around four thirty or five PM.
Speaker 1: Now I should say that what's in the case file
Speaker 1: differs from what we've read in the newspapers, because in
Speaker 1: the newspapers it said she asked her dad, James, if
Speaker 1: she could go out. He said no at first, then
Speaker 1: said okay, but you have to be home before dark.
Speaker 1: But in the case file, James said he believed that
Speaker 1: Christina had asked her mother if she could go sell jewelry,
Speaker 1: though he does mention the kids knew not to cross
Speaker 1: over to the other side of the railroad tracks. At
Speaker 1: around seven or seven thirty pm, Frieda realized she still
Speaker 1: needed a few things from the store. She ran up
Speaker 1: to the Bearcat Grocery, a couple of blocks from their house.
Speaker 1: The bear Cat was next to the only bank in town,
Speaker 1: Cross County Bank. The two businesses shared a parking lot.
Speaker 1: At the store, Frida bought onions and gravy and potatoes
Speaker 1: and mushrooms. She said she was only in there for
Speaker 1: around five minutes and then she went right back home.
Speaker 1: She started to make dinner to fry potatoes. At some
Speaker 1: point it started to get dark, and that's when Christina's
Speaker 1: parents realized that she hadn't made it home. Frida sent
Speaker 1: Adam out to look for his sister. Pretty quickly, he
Speaker 1: came back and said he couldn't find her. That's when
Speaker 1: Frida said, quote, I had a gut feeling something was
Speaker 1: not right. This is a mother's concern. I sent Adam
Speaker 1: out to find Christina. When he came back and said
Speaker 1: he couldn't find her, I knew something was wrong with
Speaker 1: my baby girl. End quote. James and Frieda went around
Speaker 1: the neighborhood. They went to some apartments near by where
Speaker 1: Christina had been selling her jewelry in the days before
Speaker 1: she went missing. They went to the Bearcat store, and
Speaker 1: then they went back home in case Christina came back.
Speaker 1: They called the police to report her missing, and the
Speaker 1: search started. James said in his statement quote after the
Speaker 1: police came, we started a house to house search. I
Speaker 1: went to several houses and went back home to see
Speaker 1: if anyone had found her. After my brother in law
Speaker 1: got to the house, we went out searching. I kept
Speaker 1: hoping she would show up. I did not believe this
Speaker 1: was happening. I wondered what happened to her? Where could
Speaker 1: she be? As we drove around looking for her, I
Speaker 1: was hoping to see her walking. I thought if she
Speaker 1: could just get away. I might see her on the road.
Speaker 1: On Sunday we went searching some more. I didn't eat
Speaker 1: because I couldn't eat, not knowing if my baby girl
Speaker 1: had had anything to eat. I was wondering how she
Speaker 1: was being treated. Was she cold? Was she hungry? I
Speaker 1: kept hoping that whoever took her would let her go.
Speaker 1: I kept looking up the street, hoping that I would
Speaker 1: see her. I kept believing we would find her alive,
Speaker 1: even if she was hurt. We could get help for that.
Speaker 1: But when they told me they had found her and
Speaker 1: she was dead, how do you describe how do you
Speaker 1: feel when you find out your daughter is dead? Angry, hurt, confused?
Speaker 1: I don't know how to describe it. End quote. I
Speaker 1: don't know how many of you have ever seen the
Speaker 1: movie rasham On, but it's something I think about a
Speaker 1: lot when I'm doing an investigation. Now. In that movie,
Speaker 1: there are three different people, and they're telling the story
Speaker 1: of an assault and a murder. Each of them witnessed
Speaker 1: this from their point of view. Everyone saw exactly the
Speaker 1: same thing, but each person gives you a different piece
Speaker 1: of the story. Each person has another piece of the puzzle.
Speaker 1: It's the same thing with a murder investigation. We have
Speaker 1: all these people who are present at the Bearcat convenience
Speaker 1: store and the bank that afternoon. Each of them saw
Speaker 1: a small slice of Christina's day, and we really need
Speaker 1: to put all those multiple versions together. Now. Admittedly there's
Speaker 1: a separate problem, which is that memory itself changed just
Speaker 1: ever time, even if you have great recall, But we'll
Speaker 1: get to that later. First, we need to get as
Speaker 1: many points of view as possible to try and fill
Speaker 1: in some of these holes on the timeline. So let's
Speaker 1: go back to May fourth, nineteen ninety one, Christina is missing.
Speaker 1: Over the next few days, police started talking to people, and,
Speaker 1: as happens often in small towns, a few names got
Speaker 1: thrown around. We noticed something else in the case file
Speaker 1: that during this time, quite a few people also mentioned
Speaker 1: they had seen a blue car with a man driving it,
Speaker 1: one that was in the bank parking lot and hanging
Speaker 1: around town in general around the time when Christina went missing.
Speaker 1: That what we were about to find out was that
Speaker 1: people had a lot of different descriptions of exactly what
Speaker 1: that man and that vehicle looked like. We measured the
Speaker 1: distance from where Christina was last seen to where she
Speaker 1: was found. It was around three and a half miles
Speaker 1: so I think police were right. She was almost certainly
Speaker 1: driven to that location. So who drove her there? In
Speaker 1: a town this small, it seems like somebody would have
Speaker 1: to have seen something. We need to find that car.
Speaker 1: We need to explore all of those suspects, figure out
Speaker 1: exactly where everyone was on the day Christina went missing,
Speaker 1: and also find out where this rumor about a blue
Speaker 1: car started. One person the police talked to was the
Speaker 1: Long family. They live right by Christina's house at two
Speaker 1: eighty nine Doty Street. Michael Long, who was twenty six
Speaker 1: at the time, said that he was home that Saturday
Speaker 1: afternoon at around five pm. He said Christina stopped by
Speaker 1: the house looking for his little sister, who was ten
Speaker 1: Christina's age, presumably to go door to door jewelry selling
Speaker 1: with her. His sister wasn't home, so Christina left. Michael
Speaker 1: said he next saw Christina walking back south down Third Street.
Speaker 1: Then he saw her turn west on Laurel Street toward
Speaker 1: the Bearcat's door and the bank. Michael told police that
Speaker 1: about five minutes after Ristina left, he went outside to
Speaker 1: check a ditch for snakes. Then he said he walked
Speaker 1: to the bear Cat for some cigarettes. When he came out,
Speaker 1: he saw Christina walking behind the alley at Cross County Bank.
Speaker 1: At that point, Michael said she was headed north. This
Speaker 1: would have been at around five thirty pm. After that,
Speaker 1: Michael said he didn't see her again. Another family that
Speaker 1: lived next to the Pipkins were the Moors, Pat and Connie.
Speaker 1: They had a blue car registered to them, a nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy three Ford Maverick. On the day Christina went missing,
Speaker 1: two friends of Theirs, Ricky Dawson and James the Sheers,
Speaker 1: who were eighteen and twenty at the time, came by
Speaker 1: the house at around four thirty. They were there to
Speaker 1: pick up Ricky's girlfriend, Jenna Algood and her friend April Jones,
Speaker 1: who were hanging out at the moorhouse. Ricky, James, and
Speaker 1: the two young women left for a night out on
Speaker 1: the town and Win, but before they left, Ricky said
Speaker 1: he remembered seeing Christina outside on her porch. Next door.
Speaker 1: Ricky Dawson was driving yet an other blue car, his
Speaker 1: mom's blue Camaro with rust on the side. He said
Speaker 1: that he, James, and the two girls went to Win
Speaker 1: between five thirty and six thirty. He said they didn't
Speaker 1: come back until around midnight. By that time, Christina was
Speaker 1: missing and a bunch of people were already out looking
Speaker 1: for her. So at that point, obviously things got pretty chaotic.
Speaker 1: It was Saturday night. People were having barbecues, making plans,
Speaker 1: going on dates, the sun was going down, and the
Speaker 1: night was just starting. But I want to go back
Speaker 1: to the timeline and mention a couple of other people
Speaker 1: who told police they noticed things that were slightly out
Speaker 1: of the ordinary, because obviously any event can have huge
Speaker 1: significance when someone goes missing. On May seventh, police went
Speaker 1: to the Hickory Ridge Elementary School and they interviewed several children.
Speaker 1: They asked about a stranger that the kids had seen
Speaker 1: around the time when Christina disappeared, but their descriptions were
Speaker 1: completely inconsistent. The police report said there were numerous in
Speaker 1: consistencies in the kid's stories, and so because of that,
Speaker 1: the officer could not follow through on completing a composite drawing.
Speaker 1: This doesn't surprise me because by the time those kids
Speaker 1: were interviewed, it had been several days, and unfortunately, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, what happened probably was that the kids talked
Speaker 1: to each other over the weekend, so their stories took
Speaker 1: on elements of each other's. This is not uncommon. So
Speaker 1: seventy two hours have passed, the whole town's talking about
Speaker 1: a kidnapping, and suddenly the mysterious stranger had gone from
Speaker 1: a white man with tanned skin to a Native American
Speaker 1: and quote Indian lookalike with high cheekbones and black hair. Now,
Speaker 1: because Christina lived in Cross County but her body was
Speaker 1: found across the county line in Jackson County, law enforcement
Speaker 1: met and decided that Jackson County would assist, but that
Speaker 1: the jurisdiction would stay in Cross County. Jackson County did
Speaker 1: question some people, mainly guys who were arrested for other
Speaker 1: things like dwi's, but police really seemed to have pretty
Speaker 1: much zero leads and not much to go on. There
Speaker 1: was another family, the Earls. They lived on Fourth Street,
Speaker 1: close to Christina's house. Kim Earles said that on Saturday night,
Speaker 1: just after midnight, she saw a young man in a
Speaker 1: blue car, which she described as a late model Transam
Speaker 1: or Camaro. She said it had one of those novelty
Speaker 1: brake lights that glow neon around the license plate when
Speaker 1: you put on the brakes. She said she saw that car,
Speaker 1: which seems like it would be pretty memorable at a
Speaker 1: McDonald's and win. She said the guy driving it was
Speaker 1: dark complexion with tan skin, medium bill, dark eyebrows, and
Speaker 1: that that person was around six foot two. Other people
Speaker 1: said there was a guy named James Hannah who had
Speaker 1: a car like that, but when police showed a picture
Speaker 1: of James Hannah to the girls, they said they knew
Speaker 1: James Hannah and this was not him driving the car.
Speaker 1: They described the driver as dirty looking and said that
Speaker 1: that person was a stranger to them. Kim said that
Speaker 1: she had seen that same man, the one driving the
Speaker 1: blue car with the light up brakes, around on Town
Speaker 1: for the past few months. She said that this mystery
Speaker 1: guy had been parked near the bank on Saturday. Her
Speaker 1: and her sister Angela said that they believed that this
Speaker 1: person had followed them to the tanning bed. Sharon and
Speaker 1: Ricky Holloman had a daughter who was friends with Christina.
Speaker 1: Sharon was another person who said she saw a blue
Speaker 1: car that day. She said it was sportsy looking and
Speaker 1: had primer or rest spots on it, and that it
Speaker 1: was speeding on the side streets. Of Hickory Ridge on
Speaker 1: Saturday afternoon. She described the driver as clean shaven, with
Speaker 1: short hair and chubby cheeks. She said that she had
Speaker 1: seen that same car several times a week, going over
Speaker 1: to what she thought was the Pipkin residence. Sharon and
Speaker 1: Ricky had a daughter, and their daughter was a friend
Speaker 1: of Christina's. She actually saw Christina on the afternoon that
Speaker 1: she disappeared, and she said she saw her with a
Speaker 1: young boy that had gone to school with Christina. The
Speaker 1: little girl said she didn't know the boy's name. She
Speaker 1: said for some reason, the boy would hide behind trees
Speaker 1: and Christina seen impatient, and that when this friend tried
Speaker 1: to talk to Christina, finally, she said, the boy caught
Speaker 1: up to Christina and started walking with her, and they
Speaker 1: went off in the other direction. Christina's friend said the
Speaker 1: last time she saw Christina, Christina was walking south on
Speaker 1: the southbound shoulder of Highway forty nine in front of
Speaker 1: the bear Cat Store, so between the Bearcat Grocery Store
Speaker 1: and the post office. She said the blue car was
Speaker 1: following Christina, driving slow, and that Christina was shaking her
Speaker 1: head no to the person driving the car. She described
Speaker 1: it as an older blue colored car with some type
Speaker 1: of brownish rust colored stains or rust on the lower
Speaker 1: portions of the car. The friend said that she rode
Speaker 1: her bike around the bank one more time and that
Speaker 1: by the time she got back to the road, she
Speaker 1: could not see Christina or the car. The little girl
Speaker 1: didn't know what time this was, but her mother said
Speaker 1: they had only gotten back to their house at around
Speaker 1: seven pm, so would have had to have been a
Speaker 1: little bit after that. If that's true, then this little
Speaker 1: girl may have been the last person and the case
Speaker 1: for at least to have seen Christina alive. Christina Pipkins's
Speaker 1: math teacher also said she saw Christina outside of the
Speaker 1: bear Cat grocery that afternoon, and she said that Christina
Speaker 1: was barefoot. This seems to solve another mystery because remember
Speaker 1: we mentioned that Christina's mother said she was wearing white
Speaker 1: sandals on the day she went missing, but her sandals
Speaker 1: were not found with her body. But it seems like
Speaker 1: Christina had already ditched her sandals because she was walking
Speaker 1: around that parking lot barefoot, so it seems less likely
Speaker 1: that her killer took them or that they slipped off
Speaker 1: during some kind of struggle. I still wonder though where
Speaker 1: are the sandals? But in my mind, if she was barefoot,
Speaker 1: that means it's even less likely she would have made
Speaker 1: that over three mile walk out to the area where
Speaker 1: she was found. Another name that was mentioned in the
Speaker 1: case file early on was Charles Cotton Junior. Charles Cotton
Speaker 1: Junior has a criminal record, including charges for lewde acts
Speaker 1: against a child. Now, Charles Cotton would later tell a
Speaker 1: journalist in Juno, Alaska, where he was living, that that
Speaker 1: was all mistake, that what happened was a child had
Speaker 1: walked in on him and either his wife or girlfriend
Speaker 1: having sex on a couch. That the whole thing was
Speaker 1: blown out of proportion. That's what a lot of sex
Speaker 1: offenders say. And the fact of the matter is Charles
Speaker 1: Cotton did have a lengthy criminal record. At the time
Speaker 1: when Christina went missing. Charles Cotton was married. According to
Speaker 1: his wife, Rebecca Cotton, who was twenty one years old
Speaker 1: at the time, the couple was living a little bit
Speaker 1: out of town. But we've also been told by people
Speaker 1: close to Christina's family that Charles Cotton was living right
Speaker 1: next door. We're still trying to figure out his exact
Speaker 1: location and movements at the time. We do know that
Speaker 1: Charles Cotton was introduced to Christina's father, James, by their
Speaker 1: next door neighbor, Pat Moore, So as far as I
Speaker 1: can tell, Charles Cotton did spend some time at the Moorhouse.
Speaker 1: That could potentially be why some people believe that Charles
Speaker 1: was living next door. These guys all had completely different
Speaker 1: physical descriptions. Robbie Tubbs was white with tan skin and
Speaker 1: dark wavy hair that went down toward his shoulders. Charles
Speaker 1: Cotton had blue eyes and blonde hair. We mentioned in
Speaker 1: the last episode that after hair testing and the trial,
Speaker 1: the charges against Robbie Tubbs were dropped. He walked away
Speaker 1: a free man. His last known address is in Sulfur Spring, Texas,
Speaker 1: but he's challenging to find. Charles Cotton is much easier
Speaker 1: to find. He's in federal prison in Washington State. After
Speaker 1: Christina's death, Charles Cotton got into some more issues with
Speaker 1: the law and eventually he found love. In twenty eleven,
Speaker 1: Charles reconnected with a woman named Penny. They actually grew
Speaker 1: up together and they met while they were both students
Speaker 1: and win high school back in the day. Back then.
Speaker 1: They dated, but they broke up and they didn't see
Speaker 1: each other for years. This time, though, once they reconnected
Speaker 1: that relationship got serious. They got married and Penny moved
Speaker 1: with Charles to Juneo, Alaska, but their fresh start did
Speaker 1: not last long. In Juno, Charles Cotton started managing a
Speaker 1: hotel called the Bergmann Hotel. It was a historic structure
Speaker 1: that had become run down over the years. In twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: he took that dilapidated building that had become a hangout
Speaker 1: for people doing drugs and other illegal things and said
Speaker 1: he was going to turn it around. At one point,
Speaker 1: he actually made local news as someone who had a
Speaker 1: criminal record but was now a productive member of society.
Speaker 1: Charles told the Juno Empire during that interview, quote I
Speaker 1: come in and started getting the riff rafh out, started
Speaker 1: getting the thieves and the drugs out. I run them
Speaker 1: the hell off, and I'd do it any day of
Speaker 1: the week end. Quote. So in this article, Charles was
Speaker 1: described as this recovering addict who was kind of running
Speaker 1: his own alternative to narcannon called Choices. So the idea
Speaker 1: of the program was that Charles would get the addicts
Speaker 1: to do work on the crumbling building and they would
Speaker 1: get free room and board, but that good press did
Speaker 1: not last because the city came in and they found
Speaker 1: a ton of problems without building. There were toxins in
Speaker 1: the water, exposed wires, and apparently no heat or hot water.
Speaker 1: They slapped Charles with a fine, which he didn't pay.
Speaker 1: At some point they condemned the building. The city evacuated it,
Speaker 1: but Charles and his tenants refused to leave. It turned
Speaker 1: out that he was selling drugs again. At some point
Speaker 1: he had relapsed and gone from being a program for
Speaker 1: recovering addicts to a drug den. Charles was hit with
Speaker 1: a string of charges for distributing methamphetamine, and then on
Speaker 1: September twenty seventh, twenty seventeen, his wife, Penny Cotton, was
Speaker 1: found dead in a hotel room in Morris, Alaska. When
Speaker 1: Penny Cotton was found dead, she had been shot in
Speaker 1: the head. Her death was ruled a suicide, but her
Speaker 1: family back in Arkansas told reporters at the Mid South
Speaker 1: they did not believe that Penny would take her own life.
Speaker 1: The medical examiner did not order an autopsy, but Penny's
Speaker 1: family got some photos and they shared those photos of
Speaker 1: Penny's body with local media. These photos apparently showed Penny
Speaker 1: had been shot in the left side of the head,
Speaker 1: but Penny's family pointed out she's right handed, so to
Speaker 1: them that seemed to be impossible. In twenty seventeen, Charles
Speaker 1: was hit with charges of distributing methamphetamine and was arrested
Speaker 1: by the FBI. In twenty nineteen, Charles Cotton Junior and
Speaker 1: his son, Ricky Staplear Lisk were both sentenced for drug charges.
Speaker 1: Charles got ten years in prison, Ricky got five, and
Speaker 1: Charles is in prison today. There was a comment on
Speaker 1: Penny's obituary. It referred to her as being gangster and
Speaker 1: to her helping Charles with his business, and it was
Speaker 1: written by someone who had been in that building with
Speaker 1: Penny and Charles, so obviously Penny knew a lot about
Speaker 1: what Charles was getting up to. Could this have motivated
Speaker 1: someone connected to him to take her life. Charles Cotton
Speaker 1: Junior may have been involved in other legal activities, but
Speaker 1: what about Christina Pipkin. Let's look at Charles Cotton's connection
Speaker 1: to the Pipkin family. James Pipkin told investigators that he
Speaker 1: was introduced to Charles Cotton through his neighbor Pat Moore,
Speaker 1: but that before Christina went missing, he had never seen
Speaker 1: or spoken to Charles in his life. Charles Cotton said
Speaker 1: that on the day Christina disappeared, he was fishing with
Speaker 1: a friend of his from around one thirty to five
Speaker 1: thirty at an area called Bird Eye near Cherry Valley,
Speaker 1: a small town a few miles from Hickory Ridge. Apparently,
Speaker 1: Charles did stop by the Bearcat grocery store at some
Speaker 1: point on Saturday. Now, he said he didn't remember doing that,
Speaker 1: but a friend of his saw him there, and he
Speaker 1: mentions that in his discussion with investigators. He said that
Speaker 1: after he was finished fishing, he went home and watched
Speaker 1: TV with his wife, Rebecca, and the rest of his family.
Speaker 1: At around ten thirty, he said, a friend of his name,
Speaker 1: Neil Long, came by and asked if anyone had seen
Speaker 1: Christina Pipkin. That's when he said he found out Christina
Speaker 1: was missing. Charles said at that point he went out
Speaker 1: and borrowed a friend's three wheeler and started searching for her.
Speaker 1: By the way. Charles drove a seventy four light blue
Speaker 1: Dodge Charger at the time, yet another blue car. I
Speaker 1: have questions about Charles Cotton, mainly because reading through this
Speaker 1: case file, it seems like he was inserting himself into
Speaker 1: the investigation a lot. We know from James Pipkin's statement
Speaker 1: that Charles was very involved in the search for Christina.
Speaker 1: He kept looking constantly until she was found. Apparently, Charles
Speaker 1: even borrowed two hundred and twenty five dollars from James Pipkin.
Speaker 1: He claimed he had to pay a fine because he
Speaker 1: hadn't had time to go pay it. He'd been out
Speaker 1: looking for Christina and missed his chance. So James Pipkin
Speaker 1: felt sorry for him and gave him the money, which,
Speaker 1: of course James Pipkin never got back. Now, this could
Speaker 1: have been totally innocuous. This was a big story. This
Speaker 1: is a low girl. But the Pipkin family had only
Speaker 1: lived in Hickory Ridge for about four months at that point. Charles,
Speaker 1: Cotton and some other people seem to be getting very
Speaker 1: close to the family in that time. I wondered about this,
Speaker 1: and Amy and I made a few more stops. We
Speaker 1: were looking for old newspapers and we found one from
Speaker 1: the week when Christina's body was found. We were shocked
Speaker 1: when we saw Christina's obituary and there was a detail
Speaker 1: that had not been online the names of pallbearers, and
Speaker 1: one of those pallbearers at Christina's funeral was Charles Cotton.
Speaker 1: This seems very odd to me. Again, could be totally innocent,
Speaker 1: could be just someone doing a kindness for a neighbor.
Speaker 1: But why would someone who didn't know James at all
Speaker 1: suddenly be super involved in the search, then borrow money
Speaker 1: from James, and then show up as a pallbearer. Again,
Speaker 1: though that's all circumstantial, we have to go back to
Speaker 1: the place and time where Christina was last seen in
Speaker 1: and around the bear Cac grocery store in the Bank
Speaker 1: parking lot. Even though there are a lot of disparate reports. Actually,
Speaker 1: what we're finding out is that Christina went missing in
Speaker 1: a pretty small window of time, and we see something
Speaker 1: else in the case file that could potentially help police
Speaker 1: talk to the four people who were working inside the
Speaker 1: Bearcat grocery store that day. Now, three of the employees
Speaker 1: had either left or were otherwise occupied when Christina was around,
Speaker 1: but one person, the cashier, got a very good look
Speaker 1: at a stranger, someone who came into the store at
Speaker 1: around the same time as Christina was there, someone who
Speaker 1: she said no one in the store recognized. I wanted
Speaker 1: to find this cashier because in the whole case file,
Speaker 1: she was the only one who had a definite and
Speaker 1: good description of a potential suspect, who had been close
Speaker 1: to the unknown stranger and actually seen a detailed view
Speaker 1: of their face. I will not say exactly how we
Speaker 1: did it, and I won't use her name because I
Speaker 1: know that this person is very nervous, but we found her,
Speaker 1: and I'm putting this information out there because number one,
Speaker 1: this case file is public. These names are part of
Speaker 1: the public record, and also, most importantly, I believe this
Speaker 1: information is critical to solving this case. We asked the
Speaker 1: cashier about what she had seen that day before we
Speaker 1: showed her her police statement, by the way, which she'd
Speaker 1: never seen. In her statement, the cashier said she was
Speaker 1: working at the Bearcat grocery store on Saturday, May fourth,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one. She said, at about five forty five pm,
Speaker 1: an individual a stranger, came in and bought some cigarettes.
Speaker 1: In her statement to police, the officer who interviewed the
Speaker 1: cashier noted she said that the stranger drove a mid
Speaker 1: or late seventies model Oldsmobile four door and it looked
Speaker 1: blue gray in color. In a statement, she said the
Speaker 1: stranger pulled in heading north. The statement reads quote she
Speaker 1: saw him on the side walk looking north and south
Speaker 1: and making a U turn and went south. Quote. The
Speaker 1: statement described the stranger as a white male, mid thirties,
Speaker 1: five foot nine and around one hundred and forty five pounds,
Speaker 1: hair dark brown, almost reddish in color, clean hair almost
Speaker 1: shoulder length, not curly, almost straight. She further stated he
Speaker 1: had a mustache and that his hair was cupped around
Speaker 1: his face, which was thin. She said he wasn't wearing
Speaker 1: glasses or a hat. He had on older jeans and
Speaker 1: bell Crow type tennis shoes with a gray T shirt
Speaker 1: underneath an older shirt that was short sleeved. She said
Speaker 1: no tattoos were visible. In her statement, she said the stranger,
Speaker 1: who was white but had tan skin, looked like Richard Gear,
Speaker 1: that he bought cigarettes and left, and that he stared
Speaker 1: at her. The police report was very brief, but when
Speaker 1: we talked to the cashier, she gave us a lot
Speaker 1: of details that were not in the police report. Again,
Speaker 1: it's important to note that we asked her about her
Speaker 1: memories before we showed her her own. Most of the
Speaker 1: police statement match which she told us, but there were
Speaker 1: some very important differences. First of all, she said she
Speaker 1: got a very good look at the stranger's car, and
Speaker 1: she emphatically said it was brown or tan in color,
Speaker 1: not blue. Also, when you read the police report, it
Speaker 1: kind of makes it sound like the stranger was standing
Speaker 1: on the sidewalk. She clarified what she meant. She said
Speaker 1: he pulled his car all the way up on the sidewalk.
Speaker 1: In fact, he pulled it so far up that he
Speaker 1: had to get out on the passenger side, and she
Speaker 1: remembers looking out the window at that car because that
Speaker 1: was annoying. She described the car as dirty, but definitely
Speaker 1: brown or tan. And she clarified when she said the
Speaker 1: stranger looked like Richard Gear, she was really talking about
Speaker 1: the distinctive nose shape and eyes. She said. The stranger
Speaker 1: walked into the store and bought Marlboro Reds in the
Speaker 1: hard pack. Then he asked if she had some matches.
Speaker 1: She said, yes, sir, we do, and gave him some
Speaker 1: of the freebie matches. Then he left, and because he
Speaker 1: had parked so close to the building up on that sidewalk,
Speaker 1: he had to get in through the passenger side of
Speaker 1: the car and shift over to the driver's side. She
Speaker 1: said he was alone. He drove away and she never
Speaker 1: saw him again. The next page after the cashier's statement
Speaker 1: in the case file is a page that explains that
Speaker 1: a sketch artist met with her. They developed a composite photo,
Speaker 1: and that the completed composite would be made part of
Speaker 1: the case file. But the photo copy of the composite
Speaker 1: drawing is not there as far as I can tell.
Speaker 1: I don't know if the police just aren't including it,
Speaker 1: or if it's not in the case file at all anymore.
Speaker 1: I asked the cashier about it, and she remembered that
Speaker 1: image very clearly. She said she might still have a
Speaker 1: copy and said she would go home to look in
Speaker 1: her safe. Then she texted me and said she found it.
Speaker 1: She had the original composite photo. It had been sitting
Speaker 1: in her safe for over thirty years. We showed her
Speaker 1: some pictures of the people who were mentioned by police
Speaker 1: back in the day, including Charles Cotton, but she says
Speaker 1: that was not the stranger she waited on. Then Amy
Speaker 1: shows her an old picture of Robbie Tubbs, her father
Speaker 1: in law. The cashier blinked looked shocked and said, who
Speaker 1: is this? How did you get this? We asked her
Speaker 1: if she believed that was the man she saw in
Speaker 1: the bear Cat that day. Later, we texted her a
Speaker 1: couple more pictures from that era. She texted me back,
Speaker 1: I got cold chills. I think this is the man
Speaker 1: who was in the store that day. I know that
Speaker 1: IDs are not definitive proof of anything. Often people are wrong,
Speaker 1: and even if Robbie Tubbs was in town that day,
Speaker 1: that does not mean he had anything to do with
Speaker 1: Christina's death. But I do find it interesting that the
Speaker 1: description of the car was different from the one in
Speaker 1: the case file, and that the cashier seems so haunted
Speaker 1: by looking at the image of Robbie Tubbs next two
Speaker 1: that drawing she has had in her say for the
Speaker 1: past thirty years. I know positive ideas are not definitive proof,
Speaker 1: but it means we need to keep digging. I'm Catherine Townsend.
Speaker 1: This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line
Speaker 1: is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1: It's written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced
Speaker 1: by Gabby Watts. Music contributed by Ben so Lee executive
Speaker 1: producers of Virginia Prescott Brandon Barr, and Helsey Crowley. 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 five. That's six seven
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