Speaker 1: The School of Humans. In January of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: Jason Lyrell was visiting some friends in Madison County, Arkansas,
Speaker 1: when he disappeared without a trace. On February thirteenth, twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, a few weeks after Jason went missing, a
Speaker 1: man was arrested in Barry County, Missouri on shoplifting charges
Speaker 1: and had blood on his hands and all over his clothing.
Speaker 1: He claimed to be Clint Phillips, the man who was
Speaker 1: originally charged with and acquitted of the nineteen ninety four
Speaker 1: murder of Billy Jean Phillips. But the man with the
Speaker 1: blood on his clothes was not Clint Phillips. In fact,
Speaker 1: his name was Jimmy Evans. Jimmy Evans had known Jason
Speaker 1: Lyrel since they were kids, and according to this police report,
Speaker 1: Jimmy Evans said that he had information about Jason Lyrell
Speaker 1: and that Madison County would want to talk to him
Speaker 1: about a capital murder. We're going to go back to
Speaker 1: January twenty third, twenty twenty two, where we left off
Speaker 1: last week. In the timeline, Jason had been staying at
Speaker 1: his friend Miriam's house for a couple of days. Remember,
Speaker 1: he arrived there on January twenty first. He was driven
Speaker 1: there by a guy named Don, who had known Miriam
Speaker 1: for a long time Anne, who also knew Jason back
Speaker 1: in the day. For the first couple of days that
Speaker 1: Jason was at Miriam's, things appeared to be going well.
Speaker 1: He and Miriam had reconnected after a long time. They
Speaker 1: seemed to like each other, and there were also some
Speaker 1: other people around, including Charity and Troy, who Miriam said
Speaker 1: had been living there on her property for a few months.
Speaker 1: Don was also around, and also a guy named Aaron
Speaker 1: came over. Some other people had been coming and going
Speaker 1: over the next couple of days. They hung out together,
Speaker 1: did some drugs, partied, and everything seemed to be going
Speaker 1: pretty well. But on January twenty third, things took a
Speaker 1: darker turn, and then Jason vanished. It's been over two
Speaker 1: years and no trace of Jason Lirell has been found.
Speaker 1: Police indicated in their report that there were several theories
Speaker 1: about what could have happened to Jason. I've had several
Speaker 1: possibilities mentioned to me as well. One is that Jason
Speaker 1: could have taken an accidental overdose and wandered off and
Speaker 1: then possibly succumbed to the elements or frozen to death.
Speaker 1: Another possibility was that he was murdered, burned, or possibly
Speaker 1: buried somewhere on Miriam's property. There's also some evidence of
Speaker 1: a third possibility that Jason could have been the victim
Speaker 1: of a sexual predator. I'm Catherine Townsend. If you have
Speaker 1: a case you'd like me and my team to look into,
Speaker 1: you can reach out to us at our helengoone murder
Speaker 1: line at six seven eight seven four four six '
Speaker 1: one four or five that six seven eight seven four
Speaker 1: four one four or five this is Hell and Gone
Speaker 1: murder line. Last week we talked about Jason's timeline, but
Speaker 1: just to review, Jason was going through a divorce. He
Speaker 1: had separated from his wife, Jamaica, and their divorce was
Speaker 1: going through the court system. Then sometime in the winner
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty two, Jason started having issues with drugs.
Speaker 1: Jason had missed a court ordered drug test on January
Speaker 1: nineteenth that was real related to custody of his son.
Speaker 1: After that, it seems that things started going on more
Speaker 1: of a downward spiral for Jason. So last week we
Speaker 1: talked to Jason's sister Sarah. We got the timeline from
Speaker 1: her point of view, we learned that on January twenty fourth,
Speaker 1: she was texting back and forth with Jason. He was
Speaker 1: planning to be back at the apartment that they shared
Speaker 1: in Fayetteville, Arkansas, on January twenty fifth, because Sarah had
Speaker 1: to go on a work trip. Jason was going to
Speaker 1: dog sit for her dog, Woodie, but Jason never showed up.
Speaker 1: Sarah told us that she believes the text messages that
Speaker 1: she received on January twenty fifth were perhaps not sent
Speaker 1: from Jason. She said they were misspelled, they didn't sound
Speaker 1: like something that he would have sent. But the last
Speaker 1: text she got from Jason's phone indicated that he was
Speaker 1: in Hinesville. This was on the afternoon of January twenty fifth,
Speaker 1: a little after four pm. Hinesville is near both Down's
Speaker 1: residence and Miriam's resid where Jason had been staying. So
Speaker 1: now we're going to go more in depth about what
Speaker 1: was actually going on out in the woods while Jason
Speaker 1: was at Miriam's house. What we know from Miriam, and
Speaker 1: when I say what we know, I mean she gave
Speaker 1: this information to the police. She's also posted this information
Speaker 1: and a detailed timeline to social media. There are some
Speaker 1: discrepancies in Miriam's and other people's stories, and we are
Speaker 1: going to go in depth into those. I initially got
Speaker 1: involved with this case when I talked to someone who
Speaker 1: formerly worked in law enforcement in Madison County. This person
Speaker 1: also knew Jason from high school. He said that he
Speaker 1: became disillusioned with how things in Madison County were operating.
Speaker 1: He goes under the pseudonym Jay Brown and regularly posts
Speaker 1: to the website Jason Lirel Missing Persons. He also grew
Speaker 1: up in the area and is very familiar with this terrain.
Speaker 1: He says he's put well over one thousand hours into
Speaker 1: this case. He's trying to help Sarah and the rest
Speaker 1: of Jason and his family and friends get answers and justice.
Speaker 1: By the way, just a side note here, Miriam has
Speaker 1: insisted that she's done everything she can to help the investigation.
Speaker 1: She's provided information to Jason's family, she's cooperating with law enforcement,
Speaker 1: she let them voluntarily search her property, and she says
Speaker 1: she has no idea what happened to Jason and that
Speaker 1: she had nothing to do with it. Jay Brown acknowledged
Speaker 1: there were some discrepancies in Miriam's narrative, but for what
Speaker 1: it's worth, he said he believed that Miriam was, for
Speaker 1: the most part truthful. He said it appeared that she
Speaker 1: cared deeply for Jason.
Speaker 2: In the days he was there, they were taking walks together,
Speaker 2: hanging out with Miriam's kid, talking about getting cleaned together,
Speaker 2: talking about opening the hot dog stand on the dock
Speaker 2: and living on the property and just trying to restart
Speaker 2: their life. She's expressed extreme remorse and broken down numerous
Speaker 2: times in my presence when discussing this, and she said
Speaker 2: she thought she was inviting him to a safe area,
Speaker 2: and she feels in part responsible for his death because
Speaker 2: she's the one that kind of asked him to come there.
Speaker 1: I'm really hoping this is true because we really need
Speaker 1: Miriam to continue to share information if we're going to
Speaker 1: get to the bottom of this. Jay told me that
Speaker 1: he's also heard several rumors. He's heard that Jason's remains
Speaker 1: were buried somewhere near where there is a rail buggy
Speaker 1: in a muddy area. He's heard the body was put
Speaker 1: into a barrel and dropped into Beaver Lake. He's also
Speaker 1: heard that several people shot Jason, possibly because they believe
Speaker 1: that he was a police informant. Since there's so many
Speaker 1: rumors surrounding this case, I need to take a step back.
Speaker 1: We have to really try to stay focused on the
Speaker 1: tangible physical evidence, and there is some physical evidence. The
Speaker 1: first piece of evidence is Jason's black Honda Civic. Actually
Speaker 1: the car belonged to Sarah, but she loaned it to
Speaker 1: Jason and he'd been driving it. Now we mentioned that
Speaker 1: Jason's car was found about a week after he went
Speaker 1: missing in the parking lot of J C. Pennies at
Speaker 1: the Northwest Arkansas Mall in Fayable. We know that Jason
Speaker 1: was a gun lover. He had several weapons, which of
Speaker 1: course are expensive. He took his guns with him when
Speaker 1: he left Sarah's, but the guns were not recovered. With
Speaker 1: the rest of his property. Jason kept some of his
Speaker 1: clothes and some other stuff in a duffel bag. Sarah
Speaker 1: met police at that parking lot and they went through
Speaker 1: Jason's car. According to the police report, the detectives used
Speaker 1: black light to explore the car interior and look for
Speaker 1: body fluids, including siemen, saliva or sweat. They saw no
Speaker 1: signs of blood and found no fingerprints. The detective noted
Speaker 1: that the car was very dirty, so in his opinion,
Speaker 1: it had not been vacuumed or wiped down or cleaned
Speaker 1: by whoever parked it there. And the detective wrote that
Speaker 1: based on this information, police did not believe that whoever
Speaker 1: left the car there had cleaned it in order to
Speaker 1: destroy evidence. In other words, it seemed that police were
Speaker 1: theorizing that the car was not the crime scene. The
Speaker 1: officer measured the position of both front seats and noted
Speaker 1: the driver's seat was sixteen inches from the front of
Speaker 1: the driver's doorframe. The passenger seat was backed up nineteen inches. Now,
Speaker 1: this backs up Sarah's story what she was telling us
Speaker 1: last week, that the car seat did not seem to
Speaker 1: be in its usual position, and that she believed that
Speaker 1: someone other than Jason had dropped the car there. There
Speaker 1: were also a lot of bullets in the car and
Speaker 1: a box of ammunition, but Sarah said that wasn't unusual
Speaker 1: for Jason. He had a collection of guns, and like
Speaker 1: a lot of people in this area, he liked to
Speaker 1: go shooting, but police did not find any of his
Speaker 1: weapons there. The detective did find a lot of empty
Speaker 1: drink bottles in the car, including lippten iced tea in
Speaker 1: San Pellegrino. He swabbed each of the bottles and took
Speaker 1: samples from around the car. Police carefully packed the evidence.
Speaker 1: The detective noted the methods he used to maintain chain
Speaker 1: of custody, and I just want to say, I know
Speaker 1: we criticized law enforcement a lot here, and I always
Speaker 1: want to take a minute to acknowledge when a job
Speaker 1: is thoroughly done, and it was thoroughly done at that
Speaker 1: crime scene. Police also noticed that there was some damage
Speaker 1: to the trunk's lock. It looked like it might have
Speaker 1: been busted open. There were also some pawn slips in
Speaker 1: the vehicle. Now in the police report, it's noted Jason
Speaker 1: did pawn one of his weapons, but what about the
Speaker 1: rest of the guns. Did Jason pawn those guns himself
Speaker 1: or did someone else do it? And could that have
Speaker 1: been the same person who broke into the trunk. Police
Speaker 1: submitted a search warrant on February tenth to Verizon, Jason's
Speaker 1: cell phone carrier, and to Google to access Jason's Gmail account.
Speaker 1: They got the information back within a week. On February fifth,
Speaker 1: police came to Jason and Sarah's apartment in Faible they
Speaker 1: searched Jason's room, they took a DNA sample from his toothbrush. Now,
Speaker 1: during this time, Sarah was reaching out to Jason's friends,
Speaker 1: and some of them were being helpful, though later Sarah
Speaker 1: said she wasn't sure if they were trying to help
Speaker 1: her or trying to misdirect. One of these people was
Speaker 1: Don Don, Remember, was the friend who drove Jason to
Speaker 1: Miriam's house, and Don was around during crucial parts of
Speaker 1: the next few days. After Sarah started posting on social
Speaker 1: media about Jason's disappearance, Don sent Sarah a message on
Speaker 1: Facebook explaining that Jason's Harley Davidson night Train motorcycle was
Speaker 1: at his friend Randall and Rachel's house. These were the
Speaker 1: friends whom Jason had been staying with before he came
Speaker 1: to Miriam's on the twenty first. Jason's motorcycle keys, by
Speaker 1: the way, were never found, so that part of the
Speaker 1: timeline does gel with what Sarah said and with Miriam's
Speaker 1: description of what happened. Remember, she said Jason didn't want
Speaker 1: to take his motorcycle to her house and that he
Speaker 1: had left it parked at Randall's. It's just a guess,
Speaker 1: but I imagine the reason the motorcycle keys were never found
Speaker 1: is because they were with Jason, and those keys might
Speaker 1: be wherever Jason is. There's a podcast that a journalist
Speaker 1: named Nicole Castile made called Hell in the Highlands. She
Speaker 1: did a long interview with Miriam. Now, between that interview
Speaker 1: and the material that Miriam put on social media, Miriam
Speaker 1: has given a lot of details about what happened during
Speaker 1: the time when Jason was at her house. As we
Speaker 1: said before, at first, things seemed great, everyone was having fun,
Speaker 1: but on January twenty third, things started to get weird.
Speaker 1: On that day, Miriam said, Jason and Don left the
Speaker 1: house together. Miriam told multiple people that Jason's Duffel bag
Speaker 1: was with him when he left the house. She said
Speaker 1: he threw it in the back of Don's truck as
Speaker 1: he was leaving. According to Miriam, Jason said he would
Speaker 1: come back later to hang out with Miriam again. And
Speaker 1: as Miriam's telling this story, it's hard to figure out
Speaker 1: she only realized that in hindsight, or if that's something
Speaker 1: that was weighing on her mind, because it did seem
Speaker 1: like there was tension building in the days leading up
Speaker 1: to Jason's disappearance like something bad was gonna happen. Miriam
Speaker 1: said on that podcast that apparently Don and Jason at
Speaker 1: some point ran into Aarin on the dirt road, and
Speaker 1: Miriam said that Aaron stopped at her house for a
Speaker 1: few minutes. I've heard through multiple people, and this is
Speaker 1: just a rumor. I don't know if it's true, but
Speaker 1: that Aarin had had an on and off relationship with Miriam.
Speaker 1: And I only note that because I'm looking for any
Speaker 1: potential conflicts that could have happened. But a member of
Speaker 1: Aaron's family contacted me and said that Aarin was not
Speaker 1: at that property after January twenty first. But either way,
Speaker 1: there is no indication that Aarin saw Jason at all
Speaker 1: on the twenty third or any time after that. And
Speaker 1: bring this up because remember later Aaron's van was stolen,
Speaker 1: and when he called the police and they came to
Speaker 1: his house, Jason's clothes were on the porch. I'm just
Speaker 1: trying to understand exactly what chain of events led to that.
Speaker 1: Later that same day, on January twenty third, Jason and
Speaker 1: Don went to Don's property. During this time, Don supposedly
Speaker 1: took a shower. Miriam claims that she took a nap
Speaker 1: and woke up several hours later, and it was already dark.
Speaker 1: She was in the house by herself. She said that
Speaker 1: Don showed up and was hysterical now. She also said
Speaker 1: that at some point Don told Miriam that Jason had
Speaker 1: agreed to have some sort of a homosexual encounter with him.
Speaker 1: She said at the time she did not believe that,
Speaker 1: but when Don got back to the house without Jason,
Speaker 1: he said that he and Jason had been in his
Speaker 1: truck together and that Jason had randomly jumped out of
Speaker 1: the truck by a waterfall. While she's digesting this, a
Speaker 1: little while later, a friend of theirs named Reese had
Speaker 1: stopped by the house and they asked Rees to go
Speaker 1: out and get Jason. So Reese did that and he
Speaker 1: brought Jason back to Miriam's house. Miriam said she went
Speaker 1: out to Reese's vehicle and Jason was asleep in Reese's truck.
Speaker 1: When Jason came back to Miriam's house, he was acting
Speaker 1: very strangely, like something traumatic had happened. Whatever was going on,
Speaker 1: Don and Jason had clearly had some kind of issue
Speaker 1: out there, and there was tension. But over the course
Speaker 1: of the night. From what Miriam said, it seemed like
Speaker 1: things got somewhat back to normal. Everyone seemed to be
Speaker 1: getting along again. Miriam said she didn't want to pride.
Speaker 1: Jason was exhausted, and so everyone just went to bed.
Speaker 1: Miriam said something else. She said that after that morning,
Speaker 1: when Jason had thrown his Duffel bag in Don's truck,
Speaker 1: he had left his duffel bag at Don's. We'll come
Speaker 1: back to that bag and the rest of Jason's stuff
Speaker 1: in a little bit, but just remember that, because again
Speaker 1: we need to know where every piece of physical evidence is.
Speaker 1: That is key. According to Miriam, on January twenty third,
Speaker 1: that duffelbag went to Down's and she never saw it again.
Speaker 1: Now we come to the most crucial part of the
Speaker 1: timeline January twenty fourth, twenty twenty two. Sometime in the
Speaker 1: afternoon of January twenty fourth, Jason went outside. Miriam said
Speaker 1: he went to take a walk, but then she said
Speaker 1: Jason did not come back as it was getting dark.
Speaker 1: Miriam claimed that she called Jason and asked what he
Speaker 1: was doing, and he said that he was hunting. She
Speaker 1: asked him if he needed a ride. He said he
Speaker 1: did not need a ride. Yet another guy they knew,
Speaker 1: a guy named Shane who was friends with Miriam and Jason,
Speaker 1: came over. He was apparently doing some work at the property. Now,
Speaker 1: at this time, Jason still was not back, so at
Speaker 1: around eight thirty pm, they called Jason and asked again
Speaker 1: if he needed a ride, and this time he said yes,
Speaker 1: so Shane went out and picked him up. Shane was
Speaker 1: driving a champagne colored Pathfinder and he picked Jason up
Speaker 1: at the end of the dirt road and drove him
Speaker 1: back to Miriam's again. When Jason came back to Miriams,
Speaker 1: according to her, she said that night he asked to
Speaker 1: use the washing machine. He wanted to wash some clothes.
Speaker 1: But while he was washing clothes, apparently he was walking
Speaker 1: around naked in the yard and acting very confused. Miriam
Speaker 1: used the word schizophrenic. She said he looked like he
Speaker 1: was having some kind of a mental issue, and when
Speaker 1: Miriam started talking to Jason, she said that he had
Speaker 1: a strange story. Miriam claims Jason told her that the
Speaker 1: police were at the end of the dirt road, that
Speaker 1: they had put him in a barrel and rolled him
Speaker 1: down a hill. Miriam said that Jason's knuckles were bloody.
Speaker 1: It looked like something had happened out there. Now, excuse
Speaker 1: my language, but I just want to pause to say
Speaker 1: this is a fucked up story, and I do wonder
Speaker 1: why she didn't act ask him more questions at this point.
Speaker 1: But then I also remembered there were drugs being consumed,
Speaker 1: and it is possible for people to hallucinate and imagine
Speaker 1: things that aren't there and become paranoid. So I'm not
Speaker 1: sure exactly what went down, but from what Miriam said,
Speaker 1: it seemed like she thought maybe he was just hallucinating.
Speaker 1: Miriam said after Jason told her that strange story, she
Speaker 1: told him go downstairs and take a shower, get something
Speaker 1: to eat, and come upstairs. She said she went upstairs
Speaker 1: to bed. Jason went downstairs, according to her, and she
Speaker 1: said she heard the shower start running. She said that
Speaker 1: was the last time she knew for sure that she
Speaker 1: had seen Jason. Miriam said she went to sleep. Now again,
Speaker 1: the stories we've heard have been slightly different because she
Speaker 1: has stated that at some point the night before, Jason
Speaker 1: was lying on her bed wrapped in one of her blankets.
Speaker 1: That was a blanket that she apparently later identified on
Speaker 1: Aaron's porch, but either way in both versions of the story,
Speaker 1: Miriam said on the morning of January twenty fifth, she
Speaker 1: does not remember seeing Jason at all. Miriam said on
Speaker 1: that day, Dawn woke her up pretty abruptly. She needed
Speaker 1: to go to town to get some groceries. She ran
Speaker 1: downstairs and pretty much straight out the door. She and
Speaker 1: Charity did some errands. They were cashing checks at a
Speaker 1: convenience store called Shawna's Corner in Huntsville. By the way,
Speaker 1: it sounds like a lot of people were cashing checks
Speaker 1: at this place. So if anyone out there knows people
Speaker 1: from Shawna's Corner, I would really really love to talk
Speaker 1: to them because they could have checks in their possession
Speaker 1: that have dates on them, and those dates could become
Speaker 1: really crucial. I have no idea if the police have
Speaker 1: talked to them or not, but I would like to
Speaker 1: talk to them. Miriam said that on that day she
Speaker 1: and Charity also drove across the border to Missouri to
Speaker 1: meet a guy named Moses. They shot guns at Moses's
Speaker 1: house and basically waited for him to score them some drugs,
Speaker 1: some meth. Based on what she said, Miriam said after
Speaker 1: all that they got home after dark around nine pm.
Speaker 1: No one was in the house. Don and Jason were gone.
Speaker 1: She said Don had sent her text messages at around
Speaker 1: four pm and said that he and Jason had left
Speaker 1: at five point twenty. That afternoon, another message came in
Speaker 1: from Jason. This was the one with the picture of
Speaker 1: the bottom half of someone's legs wearing a pair of
Speaker 1: jeans and some brown suede boots. Miriam said the message
Speaker 1: didn't make a lot of sense to her, but she
Speaker 1: thought maybe Jason had sent the message from her property.
Speaker 1: She said she recognized the tree in the picture as
Speaker 1: a tree from her property, and she said that she
Speaker 1: checked on iPhone to figure out the day and time
Speaker 1: when the picture was taken. Based on what she saw,
Speaker 1: she said she figured out the picture was actually taken
Speaker 1: the day before. The way she explained this was that
Speaker 1: because she lives in this remote area, sometimes if you're
Speaker 1: in an area that's out of cell service, messages will
Speaker 1: come in out of order. I've looked at that picture
Speaker 1: several times, and I have to say I find it
Speaker 1: strange that she would recognize a tree in the middle
Speaker 1: of the woods. Then again, it is her property. I'd
Speaker 1: also really like to know how she verified that that
Speaker 1: text had been sent the day before. I would be
Speaker 1: very interested to see the digital evidence of that. I
Speaker 1: know it's possible for phones to pop in and out
Speaker 1: of service out there, but if that text message was
Speaker 1: sent for Miriam's property. I would also note that the
Speaker 1: messages that Jason sent to his sister Sarah from the
Speaker 1: time when he was at Miriam's on the twenty fourth,
Speaker 1: they all got to Sarah in order, and they were
Speaker 1: all blue. This wasn't the only cryptic picture that Miriam
Speaker 1: shared on social media. She also shared something else, a
Speaker 1: photo of a noose hanging from a tree at night,
Speaker 1: one that she said was found on her property. I
Speaker 1: just want to take a minute to talk about the
Speaker 1: noos because it tains to something else that has come
Speaker 1: up during this case. Odinism. Now, for those of you
Speaker 1: who may not be familiar with this, Odinism is a religion.
Speaker 1: It's an ancient Nordic religion and it's based on the
Speaker 1: worship of the pagan gods, including Thor and Odin. So
Speaker 1: people who follow this religion, and there are a lot
Speaker 1: of different branches, just like with anything else, but they
Speaker 1: typically do things like where pendance of Thor's hammer. Sometimes
Speaker 1: they go and read poetry and have rituals in the woods.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they sacrifice animals. In recent years, this religion has
Speaker 1: taken on another context because it's also been a religion
Speaker 1: that a lot of white supremacist groups, especially in prison,
Speaker 1: have taken up. Apparently they believe Christianity in that whole
Speaker 1: turn the other cheap mentality is too passive for today's world,
Speaker 1: so they chose to worship the old gods. From what
Speaker 1: Miriam said, one of the people staying at her house
Speaker 1: is an odonist, and she posted pages from what she
Speaker 1: said is this person's journal online, and in those pages
Speaker 1: it seems to indicate that on January twenty fourth, from
Speaker 1: around seven forty five pm to nine ish, this person
Speaker 1: was out in the woods doing his ceremony and then
Speaker 1: he went into his room. There's no indication that this
Speaker 1: person had any type of conflict with Jason. I'm only
Speaker 1: bringing it up because there was a noose found in
Speaker 1: the woods. So there have been a lot of rumors
Speaker 1: that Jason could have been sacrificed, or that it was
Speaker 1: some kind of satanic ritual, and I just want to
Speaker 1: say there's absolutely no evidence of any of that. There's also,
Speaker 1: by the way, no evidence that the person who is
Speaker 1: practicing Odinism has any connection to white supremacy. What we
Speaker 1: learned was that this was someone who was performing a
Speaker 1: ritual out in the woods. That's what the news was for,
Speaker 1: and it had nothing to do with Jason Larrell. Here's
Speaker 1: Jay Brown.
Speaker 2: Talking about it organism, which is of the spin off
Speaker 2: of Norse paganism. That time frame, the time of year
Speaker 2: was when they would have been celebrating Yule Blot, and
Speaker 2: it's a reference I believe to Odin hanging in a
Speaker 2: tree for basically nine days, and it goes into the
Speaker 2: deeper parts of the religion. But I think it's just
Speaker 2: metaphoric for that, not unlike a Christian would hang across
Speaker 2: up at Christiana High.
Speaker 1: So let's go back to the police investigation. I did
Speaker 1: a freedom of information request and I got the police
Speaker 1: report from Fayetbule. So let's see if the story any
Speaker 1: of these people told police matched what Miriam and others
Speaker 1: have said on social media. On February seventh, police called Don.
Speaker 1: According to the police report, Don first told law enforcement
Speaker 1: that he took Jason to Miriam's and I'm reading the
Speaker 1: report verbatim here, it reads quote he meaning Don said
Speaker 1: Miriam told him Jason walked away from her residence was
Speaker 1: not heard from again. End quote. So Don told police
Speaker 1: that Miriam was the last person to see Jason, but
Speaker 1: when police called Miriam, she had a completely different story.
Speaker 1: She told police Jason was picked up by Don on
Speaker 1: or around January twenty fourth, and that after Jason left
Speaker 1: with Don, she never saw him again. We're going to
Speaker 1: go into more of these discrepancies a little bit later,
Speaker 1: but right now I want to flag something else up
Speaker 1: because Miriam also said something else that was very interesting.
Speaker 1: She said Don had a sexual interest in Jason. Later,
Speaker 1: Don met with police, and at that meeting, Don had
Speaker 1: changed his story. He said he picked Jason up and
Speaker 1: took him to his home on January twenty fifth. This
Speaker 1: is all according to documents provided by the police. Don
Speaker 1: told police that he was in the bathroom and Jason
Speaker 1: walked out of his house and that Don had not
Speaker 1: seen him since. Again, this appears to be a different
Speaker 1: story from the one he originally told police. Now this
Speaker 1: police report reads quote Don said everything was fine and
Speaker 1: there was no sexual activity between the two. Don said
Speaker 1: he did not proposition Jason for sex. Don said he
Speaker 1: took a shower around eight pm. When he got out
Speaker 1: of the shower, he noticed Jason had walked out of
Speaker 1: the house, and Don saw him walking toward the end
Speaker 1: of his driveway. Don said that was the last time
Speaker 1: he had seen or heard from Jason, and that he
Speaker 1: had no idea why he left the house or where
Speaker 1: he was headed. Don said that he took Jason's clothes
Speaker 1: back to Miriam's house because he believed Jason would go
Speaker 1: back there, but police also talked to Don's father, Daniel,
Speaker 1: and Daniel said that he found some clothing items black
Speaker 1: gloves and a T shirt scattered near their mailbox and
Speaker 1: that he'd given them to Don. Police looked at the
Speaker 1: clothes and confirmed that they belonged to Jason, and they
Speaker 1: found something else. Inside don truck, they found more of
Speaker 1: Jason stuff, including a black backpack, a black Alaskan Bran jacket,
Speaker 1: a black Alaskan brand ball cap, and an Alaskan Brand
Speaker 1: T shirt. Don admitted to the police that this was
Speaker 1: Jason stuff. Police took Don's phone and in the police report.
Speaker 1: While police were going through the phone, the report read
Speaker 1: it appeared messages around the time Don said he had
Speaker 1: last seen Jason had been deleted. Police also found a
Speaker 1: Harley Davidson ball cap, a plastic mask, more black gloves
Speaker 1: and head coverings, plus a brown leather vest. All of
Speaker 1: these items Don admitted belonged to Jason. This is a
Speaker 1: huge red flag to me because, first of all, why
Speaker 1: would Jason leave any of his clothing behind? And secondly,
Speaker 1: why would he leave his leather bite gear. This stuff
Speaker 1: is very expensive and in my mind, there's no way
Speaker 1: he would have left this stuff at Don's house. But
Speaker 1: then we get to the biggest red flag because police
Speaker 1: looked inside the wood burning stove and they found clothes
Speaker 1: in there. The report reads quote during the search, burnt
Speaker 1: clothing items, along with drug paraphernalia were found partially burnt
Speaker 1: in the wood burning stove. Don initially denied knowing how
Speaker 1: the items got into the stove, but later said he
Speaker 1: had burned his jack rag and was embarrassed to say.
Speaker 1: The shirt had been cut off around the neck and
Speaker 1: in half. Don said he cut the shirt to make
Speaker 1: it a midriff because he wanted it to fit tight.
Speaker 1: The shirt did not appear to have semen or other
Speaker 1: bodily fluids on it end quote, why would Don be
Speaker 1: cutting and burning clothes? Also, that Jack rag comment made
Speaker 1: the hairs on the back of my neck stand up,
Speaker 1: because in my experience, often in cases, someone will say
Speaker 1: there's a piece of cloth that they masturbated into present somewhere.
Speaker 1: They do that to explain the presence of their DNA
Speaker 1: somewhere where potentially it shouldn't be. If that was a
Speaker 1: washcloth that Don was masturbating into, why would he burn
Speaker 1: it instead of just throwing it in the washing machine.
Speaker 1: After going through Don's phone, police got a search warrant
Speaker 1: for that phone. They also talked to Randall's son, Randall,
Speaker 1: Jason's friend whose house he was staying with before going
Speaker 1: to Miriam's on the twenty first. Randall's son told police
Speaker 1: that he was suspicious of Don because of Don's sexually
Speaker 1: aggressive behavior toward men. That's exactly how you put it,
Speaker 1: and Randall's son said he was afraid that Jason may
Speaker 1: have been killed. He said he believed that police should
Speaker 1: search around beaver Lake. Beaver Lake is just a few
Speaker 1: miles from Don and Miriam's properties. Police were also processing
Speaker 1: the search warrants from Jason's phone and Gmail account. Verizon
Speaker 1: records showed Jason's phone last pinged on January twenty seventh
Speaker 1: from a cell phone tower located on on the Highway
Speaker 1: twenty three in Carroll County. Data mapping showed the area
Speaker 1: of that ping to be in Madison County, in close
Speaker 1: proximity to both Don and Miriam's residences. They also discovered
Speaker 1: that Jason's phone was shut down or turned off on
Speaker 1: January twenty seventh, and that explains why the last text
Speaker 1: message that Sarah sent to Jason's cell phone, which was
Speaker 1: sent on the twenty seventh, turned green not blue, because
Speaker 1: Jason's phone was almost certainly already switched off. The police
Speaker 1: report reads quote Jason's last known location was at Don's
Speaker 1: residence in Huntsville, Arkansas, on or around one twenty five,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. In the police report, they mentioned they
Speaker 1: have contacted several other individuals and the most consistent information
Speaker 1: obtained is that Don was the last person seen with Jason.
Speaker 1: They talk about some of the theories that have been
Speaker 1: suggested to investigators, including that Jason had been dumped in
Speaker 1: Beaver Lake or buried or burnt on Miriam's property. Then
Speaker 1: they had other people telling him that Jason had possibly
Speaker 1: given himself a lethal dose of drugs and then walked
Speaker 1: away from his own and died from an overdose. So
Speaker 1: let's take these theories one by one. The theory that
Speaker 1: Jason gave himself a lethal dose of something and then
Speaker 1: wandered off on his own seems pretty absurd. I guess
Speaker 1: theoretically it's possible, but let's be real, there are many
Speaker 1: other possibilities we need to consider before that, considering that
Speaker 1: people's stories don't match about when they last saw Jason.
Speaker 1: By the way, there were a lot of people at
Speaker 1: Miriam's house over that few day period. Why haven't police
Speaker 1: put them into an interrogation room and questioned them separately.
Speaker 1: A lot of people that Jason interacted with before he
Speaker 1: disappeared did have criminal histories. Jay Brown has been working
Speaker 1: on a theory he says he's found as evidence that
Speaker 1: he believes points to multiple people being involved in Jason's murder.
Speaker 1: He believes that some of these people may have thought
Speaker 1: that Jason was a police informant, possibly making a controlled
Speaker 1: drug buy. We do know that a lot of the
Speaker 1: people in this case have been arrested on drug charges,
Speaker 1: including Don Aaron and Miriam and Moses, the guy who
Speaker 1: Mariam and Charity got drugs from on January twenty fifth.
Speaker 1: By the way, I am not suggesting that being arrested
Speaker 1: for drugs means that anyone would have anything to do
Speaker 1: with a murder. I'm just trying to explore everyone's background
Speaker 1: so that I can figure out whether or not them
Speaker 1: being afraid of a controlled by or possibly having a
Speaker 1: nark on that property would be something that would motivate
Speaker 1: them to hurt someone. Miriam was charged in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: one with possession of methamphetamines and other controlled substances. Moses
Speaker 1: was most recently arrested in charge with second degree battery
Speaker 1: after allegedly breaking bones in a woman's face, and he
Speaker 1: was also hit with forty counts of issuing bad checks.
Speaker 1: Aaron was arrested on July twenty fourth, twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: after allegedly delivering drugs to a victim who ended up
Speaker 1: dying from a drug overdose. The toxicology report showed the
Speaker 1: victim tested positive for benzo oxycodone, morphine, and benzodiazepines, the
Speaker 1: active ingredient of valium. Aarin was arrested and charged with
Speaker 1: death by delivery. Again, just to clarify, there's absolutely no
Speaker 1: suggestion that this overdose was anything other than accidental. It's
Speaker 1: just the way the charging was phrased. A family member
Speaker 1: of Aarons, who was speaking on his behalf, did reach
Speaker 1: out to me to clarify a couple of points about
Speaker 1: that stolen van. We know from the police report that
Speaker 1: the van was reported stolen and it was towed back
Speaker 1: to Erin's and returned to him on January twenty fifth.
Speaker 1: This person told me that Aaron was allegedly the one
Speaker 1: who called the police to tell them that those clothes
Speaker 1: were on his property. That's when police came to his
Speaker 1: residence and found that ball of clothes on Aaron's porch,
Speaker 1: including clothing items that one of Jason's relatives identified as
Speaker 1: belonging to him, and the blanket that Miriam allegedly identified
Speaker 1: as the one that came from her house, the one
Speaker 1: that Jason was wrapped in. And again this person clarified
Speaker 1: Aaron had zero involvement in any of this, he was
Speaker 1: not at Miriam's after the twenty first, during that crucial
Speaker 1: time period, and that he's been fully cooperative of law
Speaker 1: enforcement at every point in this investigation. I really appreciate
Speaker 1: it when people reach out to me, because I know
Speaker 1: it would be nice to think that we should just
Speaker 1: let the police do their jobs and they're going to
Speaker 1: handle it. But I have to be honest with you.
Speaker 1: There have been a lot of people that I've spoken
Speaker 1: to who, in my opinion, the police should have followed
Speaker 1: up with by now. So if we want to get
Speaker 1: answers in this case, sometimes you can rely on law
Speaker 1: enforcement to do everything. You really have to get statements yourself,
Speaker 1: put everything in a report and try to get it
Speaker 1: to the right person. I still wonder how much do
Speaker 1: these people know and when did they know it. Police,
Speaker 1: of course, haven't revealed much. They made a kind of
Speaker 1: cryptic comment and said that Jason's friends were a tight
Speaker 1: circle of people with a very wide footprint. There are
Speaker 1: a lot of weird rumors and rabbit trails in this case.
Speaker 1: But if we just keep it to the basics to
Speaker 1: what we know, someone knows something. We know who was
Speaker 1: on those premises over the days when Jason was there,
Speaker 1: and the window of time, that crucial period of time
Speaker 1: when Jason disappeared. The window of possibility is getting smaller
Speaker 1: and smaller as we reach out to more and more people.
Speaker 1: I just want to go back to the beginning really
Speaker 1: quickly and touch on Clint Phillips because that's where we started.
Speaker 1: Because actually, Clint Phillips has nothing to do with Jason case.
Speaker 1: His only connection was that he had acquaintances who mentioned
Speaker 1: his name when they got arrested and tried to pretend
Speaker 1: to be him. Clint Phillips did know Jason. They also
Speaker 1: knew each other from Huntsville High School. A lot of
Speaker 1: times in these cases, we'll talk about six degrees of separation,
Speaker 1: but in Madison County there appear to be two at most.
Speaker 1: As we said in our last episode, Clint Phillips has
Speaker 1: been in and out of prison over the years. He
Speaker 1: was arrested on metamphetamine charges, and last time I checked,
Speaker 1: he was incarcerated. Jay Brown commented on this connection. Here
Speaker 1: he's talking about one of the officers involved in the case,
Speaker 1: Clint Ham, who is apparently Jimmy evans brother in law.
Speaker 1: He's asking if they are related, why was Deputy Ham
Speaker 1: allegedly the person who questioned Jimmy Evans, and if that
Speaker 1: should be a conflict of interest all of.
Speaker 3: Them know each other. Of Ham, Evans, Phillip's all plus
Speaker 3: the ninety four hunt for high school as well as
Speaker 3: mother people. The other people also that were involved the
Speaker 3: Billie Phillips murderer were all plus or ninety four. Either
Speaker 3: they're connected to more bad things than another homicide potentially,
Speaker 3: or that got.
Speaker 2: Into law enforcement.
Speaker 1: Jason's sister, Sarah is still searching for answers, and not
Speaker 1: only has she had to deal with her brother being missing,
Speaker 1: but she's also had predatory people messaging her telling her
Speaker 1: they would give her information about her brother if she
Speaker 1: would send them money. She kept going because she never
Speaker 1: knew who might have a piece of crucial information about
Speaker 1: Jason's case. She reached out to everyone she could think of,
Speaker 1: and this includes Jimmy Evans. We still don't know what,
Speaker 1: if anything, Jimmy Evans told officers about what he allegedly
Speaker 1: knew about capital murder or about Jason. Lirell Jay Brown
Speaker 1: talked about how he was able to get a FOYA,
Speaker 1: which mentioned Jimmy's arrest. He also touched on his frustrations
Speaker 1: with the system because even though he used to work
Speaker 1: in law enforcement and he knows how the works, he
Speaker 1: still says he's getting Stone.
Speaker 2: Especially gives an outline of when Jimmy came in, he
Speaker 2: was giving the BS name so on and so forth. He's
Speaker 2: threatened to take him to the APIs machine and you know,
Speaker 2: charging for every false name he gave. And that's when
Speaker 2: Jimmy made the utterance, you know, Jay Madison County's gonna
Speaker 2: want to talk to me about homicide. And then they
Speaker 2: collected his blood so closed submitted evidence that part we
Speaker 2: can't get information on. Trust me. I took me three
Speaker 2: months to get my foy s Slash Sunshine Line request
Speaker 2: out of Barry County. I had to threaten, I had
Speaker 2: to contact a member of the county administration and then
Speaker 2: and I had a pretty direct conversation with him, saying, listen,
Speaker 2: if I don't get what I want, I'm going to
Speaker 2: get an attorney. I'm gonna file suit for it. And
Speaker 2: beyond that, I'm also going to file a complained with
Speaker 2: Missouri statyturn General's office. So I've had to get pre
Speaker 2: assertive and it's been it's been a roller coasters, it's
Speaker 2: been a writing.
Speaker 1: Sarah wonders what role Jimmy Evans has in all this.
Speaker 1: On January twenty eighth, right after her brother went missing,
Speaker 1: Sarah got which she described as a very weird social
Speaker 1: media call from Jimmy Evans, who at that point, she
Speaker 1: said she hadn't heard from in years. It read can
Speaker 1: I ask a favor Sarah Jean. Then two minutes later
Speaker 1: there was a messenger call, which because it was in
Speaker 1: the middle of the night, she missed. She later messaged
Speaker 1: him back, writing where the fuck is my brother? Last
Speaker 1: I heard he was with you When they did talk,
Speaker 1: Jimmy told Sarah he had no idea what happened to Jason.
Speaker 1: He said he was only at Miriams for a few
Speaker 1: minutes very early in Jason stay there, and that when
Speaker 1: he saw Jason it was the first time he'd seen
Speaker 1: Jason in like eight years. He said. After he left Miriams,
Speaker 1: he texted Jason and told him to get out of there.
Speaker 1: Jimmy implied to Sarah he had a bad feeling about
Speaker 1: Jason being there. He told Sarah he never heard from
Speaker 1: Jason again after that. Sarah did give Jimmy some money
Speaker 1: in the end, she wrote on social media quote, believing
Speaker 1: that he may have information to find you, he basically
Speaker 1: swindled me out of around three hundred dollars. I was
Speaker 1: desperate to find you and would have come up with,
Speaker 1: however much money that would take. Recently, I've been told
Speaker 1: there may have been a confession to murdering you by
Speaker 1: jim when he went to jail in Barry County. This,
Speaker 1: like many stories, may not be true, and I definitely
Speaker 1: hope not because if it is true, it means that
Speaker 1: I gave money I didn't have to the person that
Speaker 1: killed you. End quote. I can't imagine the torment that
Speaker 1: Sarah is going through. The bottom line is she is
Speaker 1: not the one who should have to be investigating her
Speaker 1: brother's case. I wonder too, what was that miscall really about.
Speaker 1: Was it really just about putting money on a phone,
Speaker 1: or was there something else that Jimmy wanted to tell
Speaker 1: Sarah that night. Police have asked anyone with any information
Speaker 1: that could help find Jason to contact the Madison County
Speaker 1: Sheriff's Department at four seven nine seven three eight two
Speaker 1: three two zero or the FBI Little Rocket five oho
Speaker 1: one two two one nine to one zero zero. The
Speaker 1: FBI is also in and there is a thirty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars reward for any information that will lead to the
Speaker 1: location and recovery of Jason Lirell. The way they phrased.
Speaker 1: It just makes my heart sink because they use the
Speaker 1: term recovery there, and it just makes me think about
Speaker 1: Sarah and the rest of the family and the fact
Speaker 1: that they have no body, they have no way to
Speaker 1: grieve and no peace. And I really urge everyone out
Speaker 1: there to think about this. Think about if this was
Speaker 1: your friend, your brother, your son, wouldn't you want someone
Speaker 1: to come forward? And I think about Jason during those
Speaker 1: last days. Clearly something bad was happening to him. He
Speaker 1: was becoming injured and confused, and he was hurting. I
Speaker 1: wonder why didn't he leave? And then I think about
Speaker 1: a quote from a book that I reread recently called
Speaker 1: Norwegian Wood by Hruki Murakami, and that quote goes like this,
Speaker 1: if you're in pitch blackness, all you can do is
Speaker 1: sit tight until your eyes get used to the dart.
Speaker 1: That makes me think about how vulnerable Jason was, and
Speaker 1: I wish that someone, the right person, had been there
Speaker 1: to guide him out of those dark woods. 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 Sale, Executive producers
Speaker 1: of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Elsie Crowley. If you
Speaker 1: have a case you'd like me and my team to
Speaker 1: look into, you can reach out to us at our
Speaker 1: Helen Gone Murder Line. It's six seven eight seven four four,
Speaker 1: six one four or five. That's six seven eight seven
Speaker 1: four four six, one four or five. School of Humans.
Speaker 3: Uh,