WEBVTT - S1 UPDATE: Confession, But Questions Remain 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:03.120 Hi, Helen Gone listeners. We are so excited to share 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:05.600 these case updates with you. Did you know that you 0:00:05.640 --> 0:00:09.559 can hear this bonus episode plus three more, completely ad 0:00:09.600 --> 0:00:12.559 free and before everyone else in the I Heart True 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:16.840 Crime Plus channel, exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Don't wait weeks 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:19.960 for the new episode. Subscribe today to get early access 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:23.560 to all the available case updates with no ads. Subscribe 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:25.800 to Helen Gone on the I Heart True Crime Plus 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:39.920 Channel today, exclusively available on Apple Podcasts. I am driving 0:00:40.240 --> 0:00:45.920 from my dad's house in Mountain View to Melbourne down 0:00:46.000 --> 0:00:48.440 Highway nine. This will be the first time that I've 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:51.720 been on Highway nine in quite a while. The drive 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:54.600 has not gotten any easier. It is a rough drive. 0:00:55.680 --> 0:00:58.280 It's really curvy. It's almost like as soon as you 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:02.080 cross over the bridge says sharp curves for the next 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:05.600 twenty miles and you have to really concentrate and there's 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:08.480 no shoulder and the road gets really skinny. So I 0:01:08.520 --> 0:01:12.360 find the drive, even in the daytime, um a little sketchy, 0:01:12.760 --> 0:01:16.039 even more so at night. So I'm driving to the 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:20.800 pre trial hearing. So far there's been a hearing for 0:01:20.880 --> 0:01:26.880 emotion to suppress Billy Miller's confession and that was denied. 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:30.040 This is the pre trial hearing. I have no idea 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:32.839 what they're gonna be covering. Um, I'm just gonna show 0:01:32.920 --> 0:01:35.680 up and see what I find. I don't know how 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:37.920 many people are gonna be there. I just I don't 0:01:37.920 --> 0:01:40.080 know anything. I'm just gonna go in blind and see 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:50.800 what happens. The last time I drove this specific route 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:54.639 down Highway nine was four years ago. At that time, 0:01:54.680 --> 0:01:57.160 I drove from Mountain View and went to a specific 0:01:57.200 --> 0:02:01.040 outlook about five miles from Melbourne. It's a scenic beauty spot, 0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:03.800 but it's also a place where some people stopped to 0:02:03.840 --> 0:02:08.640 dump trash. I went there because more than eighteen years ago, 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:11.880 this is the place where police found the body of 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:16.160 twenty two year old Rebecca Gold. Rebecca Gould disappeared on 0:02:16.200 --> 0:02:20.040 September twenty one, two thousand four. All I knew about 0:02:20.040 --> 0:02:21.560 the case at the time was what I read in 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:24.720 the papers that on the day before, on the morning 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:28.800 of September two thousand four, she dropped her boyfriend, Casey 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:34.080 McCullough off at work at Sonic. After that, Rebecca stopped 0:02:34.080 --> 0:02:36.520 at a gas station called the Possum Trot to buy 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:39.680 a breakfast sandwich and coffee, then she went back to 0:02:39.760 --> 0:02:45.480 Casey's trailer to pack her stuff. Rebecca's life was in transition. 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:49.200 She had just enrolled at a college in Fayetteville and 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:53.160 moved into an apartment there with her sister, Danielle. She 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:55.960 was supposed to pick Danielle up that morning so that 0:02:55.960 --> 0:02:59.520 they could drive back to school together, but Rebecca never 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:03.800 showed up up. Danielle spent the day frantically calling her friends, 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:07.760 but no one had seen Rebecca, and the next day, 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:12.600 Rebecca was officially reported missing. At Casey's trailer where she 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:17.200 was staying. Law enforcement found blood everywhere on the mattress, 0:03:17.240 --> 0:03:20.600 in the carpets, and in the washing machine, but Rebecca 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:24.799 was gone. It was a week later when searchers found 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:28.639 her body in that embankment off Highway nine. She was 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:31.640 still wearing her cropped black T shirt with the word 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:36.040 music printed on it in rhinestone's and her underwear. Her 0:03:36.080 --> 0:03:43.800 body was badly decomposed. For the next eighteen years, Rebecca's 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:47.160 case would be one of the most notorious cold cases 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:50.880 in the state of Arkansas. I had followed Rebecca's case 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:55.200 for years. I'm from Arkansas and my younger sister, Caroline 0:03:55.440 --> 0:03:59.640 was very good friends with Rebecca's baby sister, Danielle. They 0:03:59.640 --> 0:04:02.160 went to high school together, and my dad and my 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:05.680 sister still live in Mountain View. That's in Stone County, 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:08.680 which is right next to Iszard County where Rebecca was murdered. 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:11.920 And in two thousand eighteen, I showed up with a 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:15.760 couple of producers to make a podcast that became the 0:04:15.840 --> 0:04:19.440 first season of Helen Gone. By the end of the season, 0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:24.159 I believed that the lead Arkansas State Police investigator, whose 0:04:24.200 --> 0:04:27.520 name was Dennis Simmons, was doing nothing to investigate the 0:04:27.560 --> 0:04:31.080 case and that he was fixated on someone else, a 0:04:31.080 --> 0:04:33.800 guy named Chris Kntrell, who had nothing to do with 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:38.200 the murder. The crime scene indicated that Rebecca was murdered 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:42.039 in Casey's trailer and then her killer or killers took 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:44.400 her body out and dumped it by the side of 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:47.719 the road where it was found. Based on that crime 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:51.760 scene and interviews with witnesses, I developed a theory. I 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:56.279 believed that either Casey McCullough or someone connected to Casey 0:04:56.360 --> 0:04:58.960 McCullough or his family had something to do with it. 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:02.479 But because I thought that anyone who would bother to 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:04.800 clean up that crime scene would have to have a 0:05:04.839 --> 0:05:09.320 reason for doing it. In January of two thousand twenty, 0:05:09.800 --> 0:05:13.080 a new lead investigator named Mike McNeil was assigned to 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:16.320 the case. He called me in early two thousand twenty 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:19.440 and said he'd heard I had some audio. He wanted 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:23.080 us to send it to him, And over the next 0:05:23.080 --> 0:05:26.440 several months there seemed to be renewed interest in the case. 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:30.719 Journalist and true crime author George Jared and Jennifer Buckle's, 0:05:31.000 --> 0:05:34.800 a private investigator and professor of criminology, started a Facebook 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:38.919 group called Unsolved Murder of Rebecca Gold. And then in 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:42.080 November of two thousand twenty, we got the news that 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:45.760 we've been waiting for for so long. There had finally 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:50.120 been an arrest. The man who was arrested was forty 0:05:50.160 --> 0:05:52.640 four year old William Miller, and he goes by Billy. 0:05:53.440 --> 0:05:58.160 He's Casey McCullough's first cousin. Now that Billy has been caught, 0:05:58.680 --> 0:06:01.279 we're beginning to answer a lot of the questions we've 0:06:01.279 --> 0:06:05.600 had for so many years about Rebecca's case. New information 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:09.240 has been revealed, and some parts of the story aren't 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:12.960 adding up. I still have a lot of unanswered questions, 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:16.080 and I made a promise to Rebecca and to all 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:18.880 of you in the first season that I wouldn't stop 0:06:18.960 --> 0:06:21.720 until I did my best to get justice and answers 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:26.560 for Rebecca. I'm Catherine Townsend, and in these bonus episodes 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:29.760 for season one, I'm gonna walk you through everything that's 0:06:29.760 --> 0:06:33.120 happened in the past few months and figure out what's missing. 0:06:34.040 --> 0:07:11.120 This is Helen Gone. First, let's go through Billy Miller's confession. 0:07:12.360 --> 0:07:14.480 We learned that Billy had been in the Mountain View 0:07:14.520 --> 0:07:18.240 area for a brief period of time visiting family. He 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:21.160 claimed that he was helping his mom and brother Jeremy, 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:25.120 moved from Arkansas back to Texas. If you remember, on 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:28.080 season one of Helen Gone, we talked to someone who 0:07:28.120 --> 0:07:31.200 said they had seen a man, a white man with 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:34.600 a darker complexion and black hair, a man who matches 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:38.640 Billy's description with a woman at Casey's trailer talking to 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:41.920 Rebecca and then weed eating, and that witness said that 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:45.440 Rebecca seemed comfortable and that the man they saw was 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:48.840 talking to Rebecca for about twenty minutes. The witness said 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:51.920 the man was driving a blue car with Texas plates. 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:56.040 After Rebecca's murder. Billy Miller left town with his family 0:07:56.440 --> 0:07:59.520 and never came back to Arkansas. He spent some time 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:02.760 living into Texas. Then he got married and started a 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:05.960 family of his own. Later, he moved to the Philippines, 0:08:06.200 --> 0:08:10.040 where he worked on oil rigs. His first marriage ended 0:08:10.360 --> 0:08:13.400 and he married for a second time. His new wife 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:17.840 was from the Philippines. They had another child. Meanwhile, Mike 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:21.440 McNeil had taken another look at the case. He testified 0:08:21.480 --> 0:08:23.800 at a pre trial hearing that when he looked at 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:27.400 Rebecca's case file, he stated that based on the evidence 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:31.320 he saw, he believed that either Casey McCullough or someone 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:36.000 connected to him committed the murder. Mike noticed that Billy 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:38.960 had been interviewed in two thousand four briefly by some 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:42.559 investigators in Texas, but based on the fact that Billy 0:08:42.640 --> 0:08:45.079 had been mentioned as someone who was present in Casey's 0:08:45.080 --> 0:08:49.240 trailer shortly before Rebecca was murdered, Mike decided to take 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:53.760 another look at him. Mike testified that when he saw 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:57.640 that Billy had allegations of violence and sexual assault in 0:08:57.679 --> 0:09:01.880 his past, he became more interested in him as a suspect, 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:05.160 and he decided that he wanted to interview him. Mike 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:08.080 learned that Billy had come back to where some of 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:12.360 his family members were living in Cottage Grove, Oregon. Sources 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:15.040 close to his family have told me that Billy was 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:18.720 planning to relocate his family there from the Philippines, and 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:21.520 he was looking at buying property in that area. In 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:25.400 November of two thousand twenty, investigator Mike McNeil made a 0:09:25.440 --> 0:09:29.920 trip to Cottage Grove, Oregon to interview Billy. During that interview, 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:32.960 Mike told Billy that he had a wash rag from 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:36.800 the crime scene, one that had DNA on it. In reality, 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:39.960 Mike had no physical evidence, but Billy didn't know that, 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:45.640 and it's not illegal to lie to murder suspects. Billy 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:48.200 tried to make up a story about seeing two strange 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:50.720 men on the back porch of the trailer on the 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:55.280 morning when Rebecca was murdered, but Mike McNeil was clearly 0:09:55.440 --> 0:10:00.400 not buying Billy's story. He said, quote, what you saying 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:03.640 is ridiculous. Tell me what you did, Billy, or tell 0:10:03.679 --> 0:10:07.760 me how you helped Casey cover it up. At that point, 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:11.440 Billy looked visibly shaken on the video. He asked if 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:13.120 he could step outside of the room to talk to 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:16.600 his mother, and when he came back into the room, 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:22.440 he started talking. Billy said that he committed the murder alone. 0:10:22.960 --> 0:10:25.400 He said that he killed Rebecca and that he had 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:30.320 played everyone for a fool all these years. Billy never 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:33.880 really offered a motive for killing Rebecca, but he did 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:39.400 say at one point, I am a monster. Billy said 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:44.320 that on that Monday morning, September four, after Rebecca dropped 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:46.880 Casey off at work at Sonic and went back to 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:50.280 his trailer, he happened to be hunting in an adjacent 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:53.880 field near the mcculla's land. He said that he saw 0:10:53.960 --> 0:10:57.360 her car and realized that she was in there. He 0:10:57.400 --> 0:11:00.280 said that on Sunday, he and his mother and his brother, 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:02.719 we're getting ready to move back to Texas, and they 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:05.959 went over to see Casey. While he was there on Sunday, 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:09.280 he saw Rebecca, but he didn't actually talk to her. 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:12.920 So Billy said that that Monday morning when he came 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:15.400 to the trailer was the first time that he'd ever 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:18.680 actually had an encounter with her. Billy said that he 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:21.880 hid his truck in the woods to disguise it. Then 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:24.959 he walked up to the door and knocked. Rebecca let 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:28.080 him in. He told her he was Casey's cousin and 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:31.320 he needed to use the phone. Billy said that the 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:34.160 phone excuse was really just a pretext to get inside 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:37.319 the house. After that, Rebecca turned around and went back 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:40.120 to the bedroom. He said she was lying on her 0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:43.280 bed with her head facing away from the door, and 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:47.120 Billy said that he got an urge, an overwhelming urge 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:49.680 to kill her. He said that he'd had these kinds 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:53.280 of urges before. He was pacing around like an animal, 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:56.560 in this kind of murderous frenzy, debating what to do. 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:00.559 While he was pacing, his leg knocked again the piano. 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:05.160 The piano leg was loose, It had kind of just 0:12:05.200 --> 0:12:09.200 been propped up there. Billy said, it rolled down and 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:12.480 he grabbed it. Then he said he went inside that 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:16.520 bedroom and he hit Rebecca. He hit her twice, and 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:20.160 at that point the injuries were catastrophic and she was 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:23.079 bleeding out. He said that he took a necktie from 0:12:23.120 --> 0:12:27.839 the closet and strangled her until she stopped moving. After that, 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:30.560 he was in a panic. He decided to do a 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:34.800 quick cleanup. He cleaned up for about fifteen minutes. Then 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:37.520 he said he threw the bloody sheets and the pillow 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:41.120 cases into the washing machine. Billy said that he tried 0:12:41.160 --> 0:12:44.680 to stuff Rebecca's body into her black suitcase, the one 0:12:44.720 --> 0:12:47.600 that Danielle, her sister, had told us was missing from 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:50.720 the crime scene, the one that was never found. But 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:54.160 Billy said that the body wouldn't fit, so he said 0:12:54.160 --> 0:12:56.679 that he took some of the bloody betting material and 0:12:56.720 --> 0:13:00.080 put that in the suitcase. Then he threw her body, 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:02.120 along with all that stuff, into the back of his truck. 0:13:03.080 --> 0:13:06.559 Billy said that he drove right through Melbourne with Rebecca's 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:09.640 body exposed in the back of the truck. He pointed 0:13:09.679 --> 0:13:11.760 out the fact that he had passed very close to 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:14.719 the turn off to the police department, and then when 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:18.600 he got to Highway nine, to that scenic overlook, he 0:13:18.720 --> 0:13:22.080 pulled off the side of the road and dumped her body. 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:25.160 After that, he put the piano leg the murder weapon, 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:29.120 in a trash can at a nearby car wash. When 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:32.760 police asked about the black suitcase, he told them he 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:35.720 could direct them to the exact place in Izard County 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:39.760 where that suitcase was. According to information that came out 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:43.480 during the pre trial hearing, police officers did follow Billy's 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:47.040 directions and they found the suitcase, but they did not 0:13:47.120 --> 0:13:50.080 provide any information about where it was found or what 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:56.320 was inside. After Billy confessed, he was arrested for Rebecca's murder. Eventually, 0:13:56.480 --> 0:14:00.880 he was extradited back to Arkansas. Since November two thousand twenty, 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:04.480 he's been in jail awaiting his murder trial, but due 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:07.600 to COVID and other issues, the trial date kept getting 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:12.240 pushed back. The date was finally set for October thirty one, 0:14:12.440 --> 0:14:16.480 two thousand twenty two, but before the trial, there were 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:20.480 some hearings. First, there was a suppression hearing to determine 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:24.000 which evidence would be allowed in court. The first hearing 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:26.880 was in August of two thousand twenty two, and at 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:30.320 that hearing, Billy's confession was played and the judge ruled 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:34.560 that it was admissible. Billy's confession was played for a 0:14:34.680 --> 0:14:38.280 room full of reporters, family members, and people who had 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:42.880 been following this case for years. I really was worried 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:47.520 about seeing him because of what he did, but one 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:51.560 I remember seeing his mug shot and thinking how cruel 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:56.960 and awful he looked. And everything then got into trial. 0:14:57.360 --> 0:15:01.240 They hading dressed in khaki and then nice navy's shirt 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:05.240 and tie, and I thought, no way, no way. I 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:10.400 looked Attie like, how could you do something this cruel? 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:15.400 This is Diana Cox. She's a resident of mountain View, Arkansas. 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:19.000 Diana and her sister Karen have been attending all the 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:22.360 suppression hearings of William Miller because they, like so many 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:25.760 residents of mountain View and Melbourne, are highly invested in 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:29.760 Rebecca's case. Diane is active in George Jared and Jennifer 0:15:29.800 --> 0:15:32.560 Buckolets his Facebook group. She keeps up to date with 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:35.400 all the new information coming out of Iszard County. I 0:15:35.480 --> 0:15:39.000 also found out that Diana's late husband, Junior, was very 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:43.680 good friends with my dad. They grew up together in Alzheimer, Arkansas. So, 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:46.080 as it turns out, I've been hearing stories about Diana 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:48.600 for years, and it was great to finally be able 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:50.600 to put a name to the face and to meet 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:53.360 someone else who cared so much about Rebecca and her case. 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:58.000 My name is Diana Cox, and I got involved in 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:01.880 this when Catherine came out with The Hell and Gone. 0:16:02.400 --> 0:16:06.160 I had never listened to any podcast before, but this 0:16:06.200 --> 0:16:09.160 seemed to be a big interest and everybody got so 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:12.920 excited over it. So that's how I got interested, and 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:16.640 I'm still interested. I love it, and I think my 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:20.480 sister and I missed our calling of being detectives. But anyway, 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:24.600 what's what do you mean? It's too late. Diana and 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:27.560 Karen were at the suppression hearing back in August, and 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:30.920 she told me about her impressions of Billy's confession video 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:36.320 when he finally said I did it. I killed her. 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:41.480 Nobody else knows. Nobody else was involved. This is what 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:46.280 he said. That's nobody else but me and Catherine. It 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:49.720 was kind of like, in a way he was reading 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:53.640 like what we have read on different things, you know, 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:58.240 on our website and things like that. It was like 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:02.240 kind of like he was reading it. I don't know 0:17:02.320 --> 0:17:16.440 what what it was about it. Well, um, that was crazy. 0:17:16.680 --> 0:17:19.280 So I just got back from the pre trial hearing 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:23.359 I found out there was a ton of wow. It 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:28.840 was just it was pretty incredible. On October three, two two, 0:17:29.320 --> 0:17:32.359 I traveled back to Arkansas to attend the pre trial hearings. 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:36.359 That's where I met Diana. On that day, the judge 0:17:36.400 --> 0:17:40.120 would be deciding which autopsy photos and crime scene photos 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:43.240 would be allowed into evidence, and I wanted to be there. 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:46.600 It was really important that I was at this pre trial. 0:17:47.320 --> 0:17:50.560 To my knowledge, I was the only journalist there, and 0:17:50.640 --> 0:17:54.720 if the photos were ruled inadmissible or for some other 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:58.359 reason the trial didn't happen, this could be my only 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:01.840 chance to ever see photo of what Rebecca's body looked 0:18:01.880 --> 0:18:05.720 like and what the crime scenemed looked like. We weren't 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:08.800 allowed to record inside, so it was just me and 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:22.280 my notebook for hours. So here's what happened. First, I 0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:25.520 saw Billy Miller in person for the first time. It 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:27.800 turned out that instead of having the hearing in the 0:18:27.840 --> 0:18:31.000 main Iszard County Courthouse, it was held in the Izard 0:18:31.000 --> 0:18:34.960 County District Court, which is basically a tiny room inside 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:38.800 the sheriff station. I got very up close and personal 0:18:38.840 --> 0:18:42.040 with Billy Miller. He was sitting right in front of me, 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:45.560 unto the left, about five ft away from me. He 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:48.439 did not look like a psychotic killer. In fact, he 0:18:48.480 --> 0:18:52.080 looked utterly forgettable, which might be one of the scariest 0:18:52.119 --> 0:18:56.560 things about him. He didn't say anything during the pre trial. 0:18:57.280 --> 0:19:00.160 He had several lawyers, and they were challenging the admissibility 0:19:00.200 --> 0:19:04.040 of some of the autopsy photos, arguing that they were inflammatory, 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:06.199 and they were also trying to get some of the 0:19:06.240 --> 0:19:09.200 crime scene photos which were taken at Casey's trailer thrown out. 0:19:10.920 --> 0:19:14.119 The autopsy photos have never been seen by the public. 0:19:14.960 --> 0:19:18.320 Before they started showing the photos, the judge said, if 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:20.680 you don't have to be here, you can leave the 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:27.920 room now. I'd seen diagrams of Rebecca's autopsy, but this 0:19:28.080 --> 0:19:31.080 was the first time I actually saw what she looked 0:19:31.080 --> 0:19:35.520 like when she was found. They started showing the photos, 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:39.439 they flipped through them rapidly, so we only had a 0:19:39.440 --> 0:19:45.360 few seconds to see each one. From what I could tell, 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:49.000 if you're looking at Rebecca's body from above, she seemed 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:52.360 to be kind of crouched down. Her legs were apart 0:19:52.440 --> 0:19:55.360 and what I would call almost like a frog position 0:19:55.800 --> 0:19:59.040 when your legs are splayed out. To me, it looked 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:01.680 like the killer had dumped her down that embankment on 0:20:01.760 --> 0:20:04.800 Highway nine. It looked like she could have tumbled over 0:20:04.840 --> 0:20:08.399 a few times and then landed in that position, stuck 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:12.120 between two trees. On one side of her body. From 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:15.959 a certain angle, you could see hair hanging down across 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:19.639 her face, and there was some skin remaining, but Once 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:23.040 the body was turned over on the autopsy table upright, 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:27.600 you could see that there was hardly anything left. Rebecca's 0:20:27.640 --> 0:20:30.320 body was in much worse shape than I ever could 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:34.320 have imagined. I was shocked at the level of decomposition 0:20:34.400 --> 0:20:37.320 that the Arkansas, Indian summer causes, and I think it's 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:41.200 really important to understand how decomposed she was, because looking 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:44.200 at it as someone without medical training, I would have 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:47.240 thought she'd been out there for a month. She had 0:20:47.320 --> 0:21:04.640 almost no skin. She was a skeleton. I'm really glad 0:21:04.880 --> 0:21:07.679 that Rebecca's dad, Larry, and the rest of her family 0:21:07.760 --> 0:21:11.080 were not present at that hearing, because no parents should 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:14.760 ever have to see that. But I looked at every 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:17.760 single autopsy photo because I believe that I owe that 0:21:17.800 --> 0:21:28.520 to Rebecca. As an investigator, that was my responsibility. Then 0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:31.720 we got to the photos of the crime scene. Those 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:34.960 were also a little shocking for different reasons, because a 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:37.439 lot of what we had been told about the crime scene, 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:40.720 things that have been reported in the paper, we're actually wrong. 0:21:41.320 --> 0:21:43.440 And this was the first chance that I ever had 0:21:43.520 --> 0:21:47.359 to look at that and to figure it out. We've 0:21:47.359 --> 0:21:49.760 been told that the first officer on the scene back 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:52.879 in two thousand four was Charlie Melton. He was the 0:21:52.920 --> 0:21:55.879 police officer who came into the trailer with Casey, and 0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:59.840 he supposedly secured the scene after that. Now, presumably that 0:22:00.000 --> 0:22:02.280 would mean that nothing was moved in there before those 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:05.359 photos were taken, but other sources have told me that 0:22:05.359 --> 0:22:09.119 there were multiple people at the crime scene, so I 0:22:09.240 --> 0:22:12.360 just don't want to totally discount the possibility that law 0:22:12.440 --> 0:22:15.400 enforcement or someone else could have moved some of those 0:22:15.400 --> 0:22:21.240 things around before they were photographed. There were about thirty 0:22:21.240 --> 0:22:24.760 photographs and all, and because they were just showing them 0:22:24.760 --> 0:22:27.119 to see if they could be admissible in court, it 0:22:27.160 --> 0:22:30.040 took a few minutes to present them. All the lawyers 0:22:30.040 --> 0:22:33.800 and judges briefly discussed each one, which is why I 0:22:33.880 --> 0:22:37.959 called up Diana afterwards. I wanted to see if she 0:22:38.040 --> 0:22:40.919 remembered the same things as I did, just because we 0:22:41.000 --> 0:22:43.000 had to view them so quickly and we were all 0:22:43.000 --> 0:22:46.800 trying to take notes. First, I wanted to address the 0:22:46.840 --> 0:22:50.480 mattress because since the beginning of this case, we've been 0:22:50.520 --> 0:22:55.200 hearing about this blood soaked mattress. I pictured the mattress 0:22:55.280 --> 0:22:58.560 to really have a lot of blood on it, but 0:22:58.720 --> 0:23:01.800 there was only as we're looking at the mattress on 0:23:01.880 --> 0:23:06.359 the right top corner was a pool of blood or 0:23:06.400 --> 0:23:09.360 a big blood stain about the size of a basketball. 0:23:09.680 --> 0:23:12.200 That was about it. And did you notice the stuff 0:23:12.280 --> 0:23:16.320 under the bed the pillows, Yes, okay, I remember the 0:23:16.359 --> 0:23:19.560 picture that they were stuffed under the side of the 0:23:19.600 --> 0:23:23.280 bed and you could see blood. It wasn't a lot 0:23:23.320 --> 0:23:26.440 of blood on them, but it was spotted blood on them, 0:23:26.720 --> 0:23:29.960 and they were stuffed under the under the bed, just 0:23:30.000 --> 0:23:34.240 stuffed right there. Evidently whoever stripped the bed or whatever 0:23:34.320 --> 0:23:38.000 they done, they forgot about the pillows. That makes sense. 0:23:38.000 --> 0:23:39.520 So like they stripped the bed and through it in 0:23:39.520 --> 0:23:43.639 the washing machine, but they forgot about the actual pillows. Yeah, exactly. 0:23:44.000 --> 0:23:46.880 And what do you remember about the washing machine? The 0:23:46.920 --> 0:23:52.000 first picture that I remember saying was really bloody water. 0:23:52.840 --> 0:23:55.240 And then in that thing like up on top of 0:23:55.240 --> 0:23:58.680 your washing machine that you put bleach in, it was bloody. 0:23:58.800 --> 0:24:02.120 It was real old bloody. What do you remember about 0:24:02.160 --> 0:24:07.200 the suitcases? Okay, whenever they were scanning around the room, 0:24:07.840 --> 0:24:12.120 there was two suitcases sitting up against the wall. They 0:24:12.160 --> 0:24:15.280 were kind of a bluish color, and there were two 0:24:15.320 --> 0:24:18.040 of them. Like the suitcases you pull around got the 0:24:18.080 --> 0:24:21.680 wheels on it. There was two of them, and that 0:24:21.800 --> 0:24:26.360 really caught my eye. The suitcases, because all we've talked about, 0:24:26.520 --> 0:24:30.560 or anybody's talked about, is the black suitcase. That was 0:24:31.200 --> 0:24:35.919 you know, Rebecca's supposedly Rebecca's right. What about what do 0:24:35.960 --> 0:24:41.600 you remember about the interior, Well, it was you know, 0:24:41.720 --> 0:24:46.120 like the bathroom was very neat clean. What stood out 0:24:46.160 --> 0:24:50.199 to me was all those cleaning supplies, paper towel and 0:24:50.240 --> 0:24:52.640 stuff like that. I think it was on a table 0:24:52.920 --> 0:24:56.159 or a bar or something that stood out to me, 0:24:56.280 --> 0:24:58.960 all the cleaning stuff. I was real focused on the 0:24:59.000 --> 0:25:02.480 cleaning products too. Yes, they really stood out. There was 0:25:02.520 --> 0:25:05.919 a lot of cleaning products on the table or whatever 0:25:05.960 --> 0:25:08.159 it was. Um and also you I think you were 0:25:08.160 --> 0:25:11.040 telling me that that you didn't notice any folded clothes, right, 0:25:11.040 --> 0:25:13.520 because we've been talking about how that the clothes like 0:25:13.560 --> 0:25:17.760 they were supposedly clothes folded on the bed, which was 0:25:17.800 --> 0:25:20.200 the reason that like he I guess presumably someone took 0:25:20.240 --> 0:25:21.840 him out of the suitcase, put him on the bed, 0:25:22.040 --> 0:25:24.560 and then either put her or put other stuff in 0:25:24.560 --> 0:25:28.600 the suitcase. Yes, that that was one thing that that 0:25:28.640 --> 0:25:34.400 we've heard that her clothes were neatly stacked on the mattress. Well, 0:25:34.440 --> 0:25:38.000 there was nothing on the mattress, you know the pictures 0:25:38.040 --> 0:25:40.600