Speaker 1: School of Humans. Hey, man, what's up. Hey, how's it going.
Speaker 1: It's going okay. A guy just called me and said
Speaker 1: we're in a fight against God and Satan and demonic entities,
Speaker 1: and it was just insane, insane. After a long week
Speaker 1: of writing an investigation, I'm very ready to get home,
Speaker 1: and as per usual in the Ozarks, I have no
Speaker 1: cell reception. But this time, when I get back into range,
Speaker 1: my phone has one hundred miscalls and text messages. One
Speaker 1: of them is Chris's sister. So here's what happened. I
Speaker 1: hear that Chris has been arrested. It turns out that
Speaker 1: he was arrested for making terroristic threats and for burglary.
Speaker 1: That's what I hear. Even though I don't think Chris
Speaker 1: had anything to do with the murder of Rebecca, he
Speaker 1: is not doing himself any favors by visiting her ex
Speaker 1: boyfriend's house. Chris's kids are getting tech, according to the sisters,
Speaker 1: saying that you know your dad's a killer, and it's
Speaker 1: just awful. This is an awful situation. In September of
Speaker 1: two thousand and four, twenty two year old Rebecca Gould
Speaker 1: was brutally murdered in a remote area of the Arkansas Ozarks.
Speaker 1: Fourteen years later, her killer is still out there. I've
Speaker 1: come back to Mountain View with one mission to get
Speaker 1: justice for Rebecca. I'm Catherine Townsend and this is Helen Gone.
Speaker 1: The story we heard from the police is that Chris
Speaker 1: went over to Justin's house and he told him if
Speaker 1: he talks, he'll kill him. That's not what happened. Chris
Speaker 1: and his friend happened to be over Justin's house because
Speaker 1: of was had a friendship with Justin's wife or whatever,
Speaker 1: and they were over there to see her. And you know,
Speaker 1: then Justin came home and I'm sure because of the connection.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there were words exchanged about the case because
Speaker 1: they haven't seen each other in a long time. But
Speaker 1: that wasn't the cause of him going over there at all.
Speaker 1: Tommy went over there, not Chris. We don't know what
Speaker 1: went down behind closed doors. It all sounds very fishy
Speaker 1: that that Chris is the only one with charges against him,
Speaker 1: and he gets charged with burglary, not because he took anything,
Speaker 1: but because if you're at someone's house without permission, you
Speaker 1: can get charged with burglary. I think it's very fishy
Speaker 1: also that A headline came out in the paper saying
Speaker 1: suspect in two thousand and four murder as if you know,
Speaker 1: it just looks like they're trying to throw it on
Speaker 1: Chris once again. It feels like that. It really does
Speaker 1: extremely guilty right now? Is there overall where Chris did
Speaker 1: do it? No? No, I mean I do and he
Speaker 1: doesn't help himself. Wait, so when did this actually happen?
Speaker 1: I don't know. The article got posted yesterday, but from
Speaker 1: what I from what I hear, it was a few
Speaker 1: days ago. I'm trying to I'm getting the affiday but
Speaker 1: now and figuring out when it happened and getting all
Speaker 1: the details. Well, I mean, where the case right now?
Speaker 1: That's it. Dennis told Chris's sister that all the evidence
Speaker 1: in the case points to Chris and that he wants
Speaker 1: to get this case slid before he's retired. And he said,
Speaker 1: all the evidence points to Chris. Your family's trash and yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's that's what's on. You said that to her.
Speaker 1: I believe her. So that's what's going on. But they
Speaker 1: don't blame us. The good the good news from that
Speaker 1: is even Chris and his sister don't blame they know,
Speaker 1: like they're calling us and trying to help, so get
Speaker 1: this right. The sister's trying to bail him out, and
Speaker 1: she's like, Chris keeps saying, and this is so Chris,
Speaker 1: my word is my bond. I don't need a lawyer.
Speaker 1: I've got my word. And I'm like, you know, you
Speaker 1: might not want to get him lawyer, and she said,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get him a lawyer. We don't have
Speaker 1: any money, Chris. This is like the fifth job. Chris
Speaker 1: is lost because these guys keep arresting him. You know,
Speaker 1: she said, Now he's not blameless in this. Chris does
Speaker 1: some really dumb stuff. You know, he's getting himself in trouble.
Speaker 1: Now that Chris is in jail, it is even more
Speaker 1: vital that we find Rebecca's killer. I reached out to
Speaker 1: Casey at the beginning of my investigation and he hasn't
Speaker 1: gotten back to me yet, even though he's the one
Speaker 1: person who's been officially ruled out as a suspect by
Speaker 1: the police. Now I want to find out if his
Speaker 1: AWLIBI is as air tight as they claim it is.
Speaker 1: I still have hope. I mean, maybe I'm wrong and
Speaker 1: maybe and look if he doesn't. If he doesn't get
Speaker 1: back to us ever, maybe it will come to knock
Speaker 1: it on his door. But like, I still have some
Speaker 1: hope that he might get in touch with us. Everyone
Speaker 1: said how much he loved her and what a good
Speaker 1: guy was. There's that topics Did you see that topics
Speaker 1: port about him, and it says, sorry, I met this
Speaker 1: guy named Casey something and he used to sing in
Speaker 1: a band. Anyone know who I'm talking about? Yeah, And
Speaker 1: then and then everybody says, well, this one says, fairly
Speaker 1: decent guy. I think he works at Melbourne Sonic. He's
Speaker 1: really sweet. He's been done wrong by the past. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's definitely haunted him. It's definitely hot. It seems to
Speaker 1: have really haunted him, and now he seems to be
Speaker 1: happy and settled and everything. But it's really it's also
Speaker 1: really crazy because you think about it and you're like,
Speaker 1: she should have all those things. She should have a
Speaker 1: husband and a baby, and you know, she should have
Speaker 1: the opportunity to be an aunt to her sister's kids
Speaker 1: and you know, all those things, and like she doesn't
Speaker 1: have any of those things now. But then eventually it's
Speaker 1: gonna be like, look, dude, like you say, you love
Speaker 1: this girl. You know, she was so important to you,
Speaker 1: and like she got murdered brutally, you know something. And
Speaker 1: if he has nothing to hide, he should be willing
Speaker 1: to talk about it because that was his friend and
Speaker 1: he loved her and you know, and he should want
Speaker 1: to find who did this. Not only that, but I
Speaker 1: mean his house was destroyed. I kissed if somebody murdered
Speaker 1: somebody in my house. So we go back to the
Speaker 1: timeline and what we know of September twentieth, two thousand
Speaker 1: and four. Casey told police that after Rebecca dropped him
Speaker 1: off at work in the morning, he was at work
Speaker 1: all day until his shift ended. Then he went to
Speaker 1: the movies and stayed out with his friends that whole night.
Speaker 1: But some people in town have heard a different story.
Speaker 1: Remember Alicia, she was the plumber's daughter. Her husband was
Speaker 1: the one who owned the sonic where both Casey and
Speaker 1: Rebecca worked. She were saying, like at his place, I
Speaker 1: thank when she would come up from school, but not
Speaker 1: you know, she wasn't It wasn't been a full time
Speaker 1: thing that she was there all the time. But I
Speaker 1: mean they were together quite a bit. They always worked together.
Speaker 1: I know on that particular day. It was weird day
Speaker 1: that she had brought him to work and dropped him
Speaker 1: off that day. I don't know why. I think maybe
Speaker 1: because she was up on school, she was at working.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure she wasn't off on break or something,
Speaker 1: but she had dropped him off for at sonics that morning.
Speaker 1: That was the last fan that he saw her. The
Speaker 1: very fact. They said that he had went, that he
Speaker 1: lest work, and I guess Rebecca wasn't supposed to be there.
Speaker 1: She was supposed to be leaving to go back to Fayetteville.
Speaker 1: And so he left work with a friend and they
Speaker 1: actually went out to the movies and you know, hung
Speaker 1: out that night, and he said he didn't return home,
Speaker 1: you know, till really late and into the next morning.
Speaker 1: I think they said he was there for the whole
Speaker 1: entire shift that day, and that he left work with
Speaker 1: that friend of his, and that they were supposed to
Speaker 1: go out to a movie. Or what she's saying matches
Speaker 1: the story that was reported in the papers and what
Speaker 1: I've heard from others. Casey was at work all day
Speaker 1: and out with his friends all night. He was really
Speaker 1: shook up. He seemed like it after you know, they
Speaker 1: don't want to Reaca about what I found odd was
Speaker 1: he said that he went back to the house and
Speaker 1: that he couldn't tell anything that happened there, but that
Speaker 1: her stuff was still there and her belongings. And I
Speaker 1: just think that's not accurate, because you know, they said
Speaker 1: that you could physically tell something happened, and how could
Speaker 1: you go into your own home and not notice that
Speaker 1: something happened there, or to how to say that you
Speaker 1: don't noticed that something happened. I just I don't understand that.
Speaker 1: Do you think that your ex husband could help us
Speaker 1: with the records of who was working at Sonic that day? Yeah? Probably?
Speaker 1: All right? So Licia unloads some new information I haven't
Speaker 1: heard before. She said that Casey may have stopped at
Speaker 1: home at some point before he went there with the
Speaker 1: police on Tuesday. Your call has been forwarded to an
Speaker 1: automated voice messaging system. He's not available at the Tell him.
Speaker 1: Please record your message. When you've finished recording, you may
Speaker 1: hang up form Alicia's husband, Joey isn't calling us back.
Speaker 1: Sometimes people don't want to get involved because they're hiding something.
Speaker 1: Other times, especially in this case, it can be because
Speaker 1: they are scared. George has proven to be a valuable
Speaker 1: member of our team. He's the only one who was
Speaker 1: there at the time reporting on the murder and is
Speaker 1: emotionally and physically removed enough to give me some real answers.
Speaker 1: What do you think about Casey? Now? I don't know.
Speaker 1: He talked to me several times, initially after her body
Speaker 1: was found, and then I contacted his wife, his now wife,
Speaker 1: probably in twenty sixteen. I called her at work and
Speaker 1: she's like, oh, because I wanted to talk to him,
Speaker 1: you know, because I want to to kind of update
Speaker 1: the case, and I wanted to get dive into some
Speaker 1: more details because, like you said, it's been you know,
Speaker 1: at that time, it had been twelve years. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're getting to the point where it doesn't matter if
Speaker 1: you're still interviewing people. This is a cold case, and
Speaker 1: you never know when one little thing will break in
Speaker 1: a case. One story runs, one rumor starts, and then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, everything changes. So I just wanted
Speaker 1: to talk to him, and so I called her, and
Speaker 1: she was really nice, very nice, very friendly, gave me
Speaker 1: her phone number and his phone number, and I tried
Speaker 1: to contact him and he would not talk to me. Well,
Speaker 1: then I try to contact her, and she wouldn't contact
Speaker 1: me back, and she had told me. She goes, oh,
Speaker 1: he'd love to talk to you. But then so then
Speaker 1: I finally contacted her at work again and I said, hey,
Speaker 1: I've been trying to get ahold of you in casey
Speaker 1: and I haven't get hold of you. Guys, she goes, oh,
Speaker 1: he doesn't want to talk about it. He doesn't think
Speaker 1: it'll do him any good to talk to you. And
Speaker 1: I said, well, that may be true. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: just a journal but I would like to talk to him.
Speaker 1: You know, the story is, you know, she went and
Speaker 1: dropped him off at work, and then she went to
Speaker 1: the Possum Trot convenience store, got a couple of things,
Speaker 1: and then left went back to his house, and then
Speaker 1: somewhere sometime during the morning she died. Well, then he
Speaker 1: got off work and then he went to it stayed
Speaker 1: at night at a friend's house, and then went straight
Speaker 1: to work the next day. So he never returned to
Speaker 1: his house to see the full new clothes and all
Speaker 1: this other stuff. Well, then I heard a separate story
Speaker 1: that he did go home the next morning to get
Speaker 1: some fresh clothes for work, and so I just you know,
Speaker 1: that's a kind of a big detail. It's a big detail.
Speaker 1: So I just wanted to know. And you know, he
Speaker 1: obviously didn't want to talk about it, and to this
Speaker 1: day I have not spoke to him about it. I
Speaker 1: tried to, but he just doesn't want to talk. Turns
Speaker 1: out he's heard the same thing we heard that at
Speaker 1: some point before the police arrived on Tuesday, Casey went
Speaker 1: home to change shirts. Even if her car was just
Speaker 1: still there, he still wouldn't have left, you know, to
Speaker 1: go to a friend's house, do you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It never made sense to me that he there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: everything was there. I mean, even if you wanted to assume,
Speaker 1: let's say her car was there. Let's say he comes
Speaker 1: home the next morning, sees her car there. Maybe another
Speaker 1: friend came and picked her up, went and stayed the night,
Speaker 1: you know, with another friend. Something happened to you know,
Speaker 1: she was supposed to pick her sister up. Maybe the
Speaker 1: arrangement changed. She wouldn't have left her purse. In his defense,
Speaker 1: to this degree, we don't know for certain that he
Speaker 1: returned to the house. That it's it's just again a rumor.
Speaker 1: When you talk to Casey, what did he seem like
Speaker 1: when you seem really emotional upset. He seemed really distant,
Speaker 1: like you could tell that there was a shock factor
Speaker 1: with him. And I was actually at the Sheriff's department
Speaker 1: when they brought him in for questioning one time, and
Speaker 1: the family was there, and I mean there was fire
Speaker 1: in a lot of those people's eyes. And actually one
Speaker 1: of Rebecca's ex boyfriends, Justin, he was there and he
Speaker 1: started like just tears started coming down his face and
Speaker 1: he was really angry. It looked like just watching the
Speaker 1: police lead him into the Sheriff's department. Considering that we
Speaker 1: now know Rebecca and Justin saw each other just a
Speaker 1: week before her death, I can't imagine the tension inside
Speaker 1: that police station. So when I talked to him, he
Speaker 1: seemed shocked. I talked to him maybe twice after that,
Speaker 1: and he just very quiet, very soft spoken. You know
Speaker 1: he you know, I suspect he probably knows some things,
Speaker 1: but you know, I can't He won't talk to me,
Speaker 1: so I can't prove it. So I might be scared.
Speaker 1: He may be scared. That's that's a very viable possibility.
Speaker 1: Being like a CUB reporter at the time, I made
Speaker 1: some mistakes because he did talk to me after the fact,
Speaker 1: and I could have found these details out immediately. All
Speaker 1: I had to do was ask the questions and guess
Speaker 1: what didn't ask questions, And so now I have to
Speaker 1: spin my wheels fourteen years later to try to find
Speaker 1: the answers. Now, I think that Casey at one time
Speaker 1: may have been named as a suspect quote unquote, but
Speaker 1: they cleared him pretty quickly. Now, Casey did tell me
Speaker 1: that they did interview interrogate him hard. I mean he
Speaker 1: literally said that they just came at him, I mean,
Speaker 1: and they were very combative, telling him he knew it,
Speaker 1: he knew they knew he had something to do with that.
Speaker 1: He knew something. So but anyway, it would be nice
Speaker 1: if you know they should have some suspects. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back until we can find someone else who knew Casey.
Speaker 1: Danielle will have to help us understand Casey and Rebecca's relationship,
Speaker 1: which seems more and more complicated the more we learn.
Speaker 1: They I think went out for over a year. I mean,
Speaker 1: he was obsessed with her. He wrote music about her, poems,
Speaker 1: you know. Every now and then he would freak out.
Speaker 1: He was very He's kind of controlling. And on our
Speaker 1: way back to Mountain View in the car, Rebecca had
Speaker 1: said we had she had mentioned Casey and she was like, Hey,
Speaker 1: he wants to be my boyfriend, and you know she
Speaker 1: didn't want that. So that was really strange that she
Speaker 1: had said that after all the years and just not
Speaker 1: getting anywhere. I don't know, Yeah, what do you think? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And you were saying his dad wouldn't let you search
Speaker 1: the land or he wouldn't like we were allowed to
Speaker 1: search the land? No, which seems really weird. That's where
Speaker 1: it happened. Yeah, and they're really good. But he's supposedly
Speaker 1: really good friends with her and loved her, so right,
Speaker 1: why wouldn't you let you search? Right? We've heard that
Speaker 1: Casey's dad supposedly did not allow the land surrounding the
Speaker 1: crime scene to be searched. Was there no search warrant?
Speaker 1: And how much land are we talking here? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: feel like we got a lot to do. So I
Speaker 1: need the address for the Isra County assessor because I
Speaker 1: have no is There county assessor. Let's see. So we
Speaker 1: drive to Melbourne to get the tax records to find
Speaker 1: out we're trying to find out I'll not need to
Speaker 1: go to the park's office. But if we're trying to
Speaker 1: find out who owns a piece of land, okay, well
Speaker 1: that's the thing. They have the address I have, I
Speaker 1: have it on that and there have been two different
Speaker 1: addresses for it. So can you do it by cordinate me?
Speaker 1: You know, I'm sorry. Okay. So it would be like
Speaker 1: this area right here, does it have a house on it? Yes,
Speaker 1: so there should be an right So where from this
Speaker 1: is the property that you're looking for. It's sort of
Speaker 1: behind it, so the house is behind it. The house
Speaker 1: is spread by the road, and then it's like there's
Speaker 1: some land behind it. Okay, so it's just the raw
Speaker 1: land that you're asking. Yes, it's who owns it. That's
Speaker 1: who owns that's who owns the mobile too. How far
Speaker 1: does his property? How far does that property line go?
Speaker 1: He's got kind a bit of property there. Wow, it's
Speaker 1: a lot. Okay, thank you very much. Back at the car,
Speaker 1: we unroll the map from the assessor. So this is
Speaker 1: the house. That's the trailer house, right, so look where's
Speaker 1: where's Highway nine? Anyway, just for my own interest, I'm
Speaker 1: like glad we saw that because he has a big
Speaker 1: ass piece of land back there. I'm just curious to
Speaker 1: see if there was a quicker way for Casey to
Speaker 1: cut through, or anyone else to cut through. It's only
Speaker 1: about four and a half miles in that cut through,
Speaker 1: and it's a really well paved road. I found another
Speaker 1: back road. There's a dirt road that starts out right
Speaker 1: next to Sonic in Melbourne and comes out on Highway
Speaker 1: fifty just under a mile from Casey's house. I drive
Speaker 1: slowly down the dirt road, passed several farms and over
Speaker 1: a rickety wooden bridge. It's about four and a half
Speaker 1: miles from the Sonic to Casey's house, about ten minutes,
Speaker 1: and I didn't pass one single car on the road.
Speaker 1: I kind of can't let go the fact that Casey
Speaker 1: could have left work that day, and again, since we're
Speaker 1: trying to rule him out as a suspect, I just
Speaker 1: want to explore every possibility for how he could have
Speaker 1: gone between those two locations. One of the questions we've
Speaker 1: been trying to answer was whether Rebecca's body was taken
Speaker 1: straight to the dump site or kept somewhere else and moved.
Speaker 1: So we take another look at the autopsy, reading through
Speaker 1: the gory details of the kinds of insects that consumed
Speaker 1: Rebecca's body makes me feel in a strange way like
Speaker 1: I'm invading her privacy. But it's one of the only
Speaker 1: pieces of solid physical evidence that we have access to
Speaker 1: in this case. So we owe it to Rebecca to
Speaker 1: leave no stone unturned, even if the details are stomach turning.
Speaker 1: This is doctor Eric Merritt. He's a forensic entomologist. Most
Speaker 1: of the time, and I'd say ninety nine percent of time.
Speaker 1: It's a group called the blowflies, and these are the
Speaker 1: green and blue bottleflies that hang around your garbage can
Speaker 1: and if there's rotting meat, these are the first flies
Speaker 1: to come to a body, whether it be a deer, rabbit,
Speaker 1: or anything that dies. If you put it out, say
Speaker 1: in the backyard, the first thing that come to him
Speaker 1: within minutes will be blowflies. So what happens is as
Speaker 1: soon as a person dies, they give off odors, okay,
Speaker 1: and generally they come into the ears, no eyes, nose,
Speaker 1: and mouth. That's their first area they come to and
Speaker 1: lay their eggs. So within ten to fifteen minutes after
Speaker 1: someone dies and they'll come in and they'll lay their eggs.
Speaker 1: Within twelve to twenty four hours of dead bodies, and
Speaker 1: once they lay their eggs in these maggots what we
Speaker 1: call the eggs hatch into maggots or larvaew we call them.
Speaker 1: And these things hatch from the eggs after twenty four
Speaker 1: to forty eight hours, and they go through a number
Speaker 1: of what we call stages or in stars, in stars
Speaker 1: the scientific term. But they hatch, they molt, and they'll
Speaker 1: be a bigger larvae, and then they'll mold and they'll
Speaker 1: be a bigger larva. And so they grow at a
Speaker 1: constant rate based on temperature. It was Arkansas, Indian summer.
Speaker 1: During the week Rebecca's body was in the woods, the
Speaker 1: temperature climbed a highs around eighty five degrees. So what
Speaker 1: we do is when a person found like this body
Speaker 1: I read your report where she had maggots won sixteenth
Speaker 1: to one half inch. So the one half inch would
Speaker 1: indicate that there's probably some late stage larvae that are
Speaker 1: ready to migrate away from the body and go into
Speaker 1: the soil and turn into what we call the resting
Speaker 1: stage or the pupa, and then eventually they'll come out
Speaker 1: as an adult. These are probably third instars. It goes
Speaker 1: through three in stars, first, second, and third, and there's
Speaker 1: certain characteristics of the larva that we can look at
Speaker 1: and determine what stage they're in. When I saw that
Speaker 1: half inch, that's about fourteen called the fourteen millimeters, and
Speaker 1: that's about a third stage larvae. So it's based on
Speaker 1: the normal development of a fly that I'm used to
Speaker 1: that would be about a week old. Doctor Merritt explains
Speaker 1: that while it's not an exact science, forensic entomology can
Speaker 1: be one of the best ways to determine time of death.
Speaker 1: I've heard, for example, someone talking about this case. They said, oh, well,
Speaker 1: based on the maggots, they can get the time of
Speaker 1: death down to like thirty minutes, And I didn't. I
Speaker 1: from everything I know, that's not true. If you can
Speaker 1: get the depth down to win a thirty minutes based
Speaker 1: on magots, then you should be a suspect. But if
Speaker 1: you can get better than anybody else generally by the
Speaker 1: medical examiner or by the detectives and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and even the anthropologists, you can do better than they can.
Speaker 1: So if you have a magets and you collect them,
Speaker 1: and you know, we can identify them, and we can
Speaker 1: do pretty darn close to when that person probably died,
Speaker 1: but not thirty minutes or anything like that. Based on
Speaker 1: my drive through the back roads, I estimate that someone
Speaker 1: could have killed Rebecca and disposed of her body in
Speaker 1: under an hour. All of the evidence points to the
Speaker 1: fact that she was in the woods for a week
Speaker 1: and that her body was put there within a few
Speaker 1: hours after her death, not kept somewhere else. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back. During our investigation, we've learned a lot about Jennifer, Chris, JB,
Speaker 1: and Justin, but more than anyone else in this case,
Speaker 1: Casey is an enigma. By all accounts, he was distraught
Speaker 1: after Rebecca's death. He's the polar opposite of Justin, JB.
Speaker 1: And Chris, who come across as tough. Casey is the
Speaker 1: acoustic guitarist, strumming, sensitive musician who wrote poems to his girlfriend.
Speaker 1: For several years after Rebecca's death, he traveled around the
Speaker 1: country working various jobs. A few years ago he'd moved
Speaker 1: back to Melbourne. His new wife is attractive, young and blonde,
Speaker 1: just like Rebecca. She worked at Sonic too. They got married,
Speaker 1: They had children. At least on the surf, Casey seemed
Speaker 1: to find love and live happily ever after, the happy
Speaker 1: ending that Rebecca never got. But what I can understand
Speaker 1: is when everyone else in town was searching for the
Speaker 1: girl he was madly in love with, Casey seemed to
Speaker 1: be m I a. Casey is the only person we've
Speaker 1: looked at so far who didn't help with the search.
Speaker 1: I tracked down Casey's friend Patrick at the store where
Speaker 1: he works. He's friendly and welcoming. When I tell him
Speaker 1: I'm there to talk about Casey and Rebecca's murder, he
Speaker 1: takes me into the back office. Casey's one of my
Speaker 1: best friends. Yes, yeah, Casey. After the whole or dealer
Speaker 1: and everything, of course, you know, he was still standing
Speaker 1: out there at the trailer, which he hated. I ended
Speaker 1: up talking to him and we let him move, actually
Speaker 1: move in with me and my wife, and he stayed
Speaker 1: with us for I don't know how long long time.
Speaker 1: I mean, I still remember that entire day. I was
Speaker 1: actually in town getting We had one of our lug
Speaker 1: nut bolts on our tire break off. We had to
Speaker 1: get it fixed, heard about it and everything. But I
Speaker 1: remember right after that all happened and everything else I
Speaker 1: heard about it. I remember Casey and them, saying that
Speaker 1: he had nothing out with laring to them because we
Speaker 1: were going We used to have a huge group of
Speaker 1: saw people Every Wednesday, we'd go out to Larens and
Speaker 1: have this Halo night where we would bring TVs and
Speaker 1: xboxes to play. After I heard about everything else, of
Speaker 1: course Casey was distraught, and while he was I guess
Speaker 1: being interviewed and everything else, I went around town to
Speaker 1: the different gas stations and stuff, asking and saying, hey,
Speaker 1: do you have any cameras pointing towards the road, trying
Speaker 1: to verify his story everything, And I guess the Possum
Speaker 1: trot or he used to be paulsing Trot has some
Speaker 1: cameras out there and which we informed the police about.
Speaker 1: And then I guess that's one of the cameras they
Speaker 1: found when you guys when he went to Larenz. Do
Speaker 1: you know what he was doing that night that I
Speaker 1: don't that I don't so back then, which I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's changed now as far as fight with Larying,
Speaker 1: then we've all they've all had whole house slipped forward.
Speaker 1: But back then, you know, they were big into marijuana.
Speaker 1: Stuff like that smoked marijuana and that was their big things.
Speaker 1: So I imagine if they got together, that's probably what
Speaker 1: they were doing that night, which I guess they probably were,
Speaker 1: because I guess whenever Casey did the light detector and
Speaker 1: tests stuff like that, I guess there were some issues.
Speaker 1: If you smoke marijuana so far before you take one,
Speaker 1: they say you can mess up the tests or something.
Speaker 1: I called a polygraph examiner and asked if marijuana can
Speaker 1: make you fail a light detector test. He said, without
Speaker 1: a doubt, marijuana cannot make you pass or fail. What
Speaker 1: was their relationship like his and Becca's far as a
Speaker 1: no good? I mean, I do know they had some
Speaker 1: issues as far as, like, you know, staying together, because
Speaker 1: I guess there were some other guys that it was
Speaker 1: in a relationship before Casey and you know, so there
Speaker 1: would be breaks up, breakups and stuff like that to
Speaker 1: where she would go back with one of them. But
Speaker 1: far as I know, there at the end they were
Speaker 1: doing great. He was pretty distraught about it. I mean,
Speaker 1: like I said, for a long time and when we
Speaker 1: lived with us, he was he was scared to even
Speaker 1: be at the house by himself, you know, because he
Speaker 1: didn't know what or who happened to her. Of course,
Speaker 1: you know, of course we all had our suspicions about
Speaker 1: some certain individuals out of the mountain view and everything.
Speaker 1: But like I said, he didn't of course, you know
Speaker 1: what if they come after me, you know what if
Speaker 1: they have any things like that. So he was always
Speaker 1: bearing not I remember first couple of nights and stuff.
Speaker 1: For the first couple of weeks that he actually stayed
Speaker 1: with us, he wouldn't go in the trailer. If we
Speaker 1: were gone, like a convas with something, we'd come back.
Speaker 1: I would go into the trailer, check everything, make sure
Speaker 1: you know, no one's hiding out of there. What happened
Speaker 1: to the trailer? Ever? Is it still there that he
Speaker 1: lives in it now? Back in he didn't live there
Speaker 1: for like I said, a couple of years. At least
Speaker 1: his dad still live there. Then I guess his grandpa
Speaker 1: ended up going into like some top of nursing home
Speaker 1: or something. So his dad moved out of the trailer,
Speaker 1: moved in with moved into his panpa's the place. Just
Speaker 1: to clarify, Casey is living in the house that his
Speaker 1: girlfriend was murdered in. Well, then, Casey I believed that
Speaker 1: the times actually there's a cabin on the same property
Speaker 1: is down all he was standing living down there for
Speaker 1: a little while and he ended up being his wife
Speaker 1: that he's with now, Hannah. And then after they started
Speaker 1: getting married and they found out theory and I have
Speaker 1: a kid, they moved into the trailer last living ever since.
Speaker 1: What sort of Casey theory or your theory about who
Speaker 1: did it? So? I'm not real good with names. I
Speaker 1: don't remember names. It's hard hard to remember them. But
Speaker 1: of course there was one of my old bosses, what
Speaker 1: was her name, female, Jennifer, Yes, yes, Jennifer. And there
Speaker 1: was one other, but I didn't know that individual. I
Speaker 1: guess it was from what I understand was her dealer
Speaker 1: at the time. Sounds like Patrick is just regurgitating all
Speaker 1: the rumors. So what is Casey's theory? You know? I
Speaker 1: think about it, especially whenever I see stuff on Facebook
Speaker 1: about it and stuff like that. I remember about a
Speaker 1: year ago, year and a half, two years ago. I
Speaker 1: don't seem like I was that long. I saw the
Speaker 1: thing pop up on Facebook where they talk about how
Speaker 1: they had a lot more leads about they heard some
Speaker 1: college students and stuff over and it was our college
Speaker 1: talking and stuff talking about them committing the crowd and everything.
Speaker 1: So I was hoping. I think, okay, well great, you
Speaker 1: know it's finally going to again too. I was really
Speaker 1: you know, but and then just got off nothing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: i'd heard, and everyone's related and everybody. It's just a
Speaker 1: tough it's difficult to untangle. I've never once thought Casey right,
Speaker 1: never once, just because I've been friends with him so long.
Speaker 1: But almost seemed like the person had been at the
Speaker 1: house before, because I knew where everything was at cleaning supplies,
Speaker 1: you know, things like that using the watcher. It just
Speaker 1: seems odd to me that someone feel comfortable enough to
Speaker 1: stay there at the house end that much time. Thank
Speaker 1: you very much. It was one number, and yeah, I
Speaker 1: feel think of anything. Family, I'm glad to go to
Speaker 1: somebody's actually looking at it. Yeah, I'm on I'll connect
Speaker 1: on Facebook. I'm on Facebook too, and we do like
Speaker 1: updates and stuff. But sure, Yeah, I met Casey when
Speaker 1: he was with Rebecca. I think we're at Tiffany's graduation
Speaker 1: in Fabelle and all my kids were there and Casey
Speaker 1: came with Rebecca, and so I met him there. Other
Speaker 1: than that, I don't think I had met him before.
Speaker 1: I don't remember because it was just you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was I was involved with Tiffany, and but there
Speaker 1: were photographs and I just don't I don't remember having
Speaker 1: an impression of them. Rebecca's father didn't know Casey very well.
Speaker 1: They only met once. I mean, did you see him
Speaker 1: at all that week? No, not that I recall. But
Speaker 1: you have to remember that I didn't know some of
Speaker 1: these people. I would be introduced to some people and
Speaker 1: then I could place them, but there was there were
Speaker 1: there were so many people out there that were helping
Speaker 1: that I was introduced to. And of course we were
Speaker 1: you know, you're just you have tunnel vision. You're just
Speaker 1: not looking at Hey, this person over here could be
Speaker 1: the killer. I'm pretty sure that Justin was there, and
Speaker 1: I think Justin was there with his new girlfriend who
Speaker 1: was pregnant, and I believe I got introduced to her.
Speaker 1: And aside from that, we just went off looking and searching.
Speaker 1: So nothing, nothing made any sense. But then then everything's gray.
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, I know, Casey got back
Speaker 1: in the trailer and the things were unlocked. It was
Speaker 1: left in a state where somebody could come in and out.
Speaker 1: But if these other state police guys came, they would
Speaker 1: have known enough to to, you know, kind of set
Speaker 1: up a perimeter around it or something where people couldn't
Speaker 1: be there. But and why they didn't, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It could be that it was because the jurisdiction is
Speaker 1: set up initially that it's the sheriff's department, and that
Speaker 1: at some point it gets turned over to the state
Speaker 1: Police at the request of the sheriff's department, And how
Speaker 1: much time went by until that happened could have been days.
Speaker 1: According to multiple sources, Casey walked in and out of
Speaker 1: the crime scene. Former Izard County Sheriff Joe Martz talked
Speaker 1: to Ak Barnes in twenty sixteen about the crime scene.
Speaker 1: He was open about the fact that the local sheriff's
Speaker 1: office was overwhelmed. He said that investigators spent thirteen hours
Speaker 1: inside the house bagging evidence, so many that he had
Speaker 1: to go to Miller's grocery store to get more paper
Speaker 1: bags and boxes to send to the state crime lab.
Speaker 1: He said that they took hundreds of items from the
Speaker 1: trailer and turned the case over to the Arkansas State Police.
Speaker 1: Larry has also heard the rumors that Casey went home
Speaker 1: at some point before returning to the crime scene on
Speaker 1: Tuesday with the police. I wonder where this rumor originated.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure Danielle told me her mom called the police.
Speaker 1: Have to look back at everything to make sure. But
Speaker 1: also there was a note that her mom had gotten
Speaker 1: a call from Casey that was alarming about the stuff
Speaker 1: being in the house, but she wasn't. Her stuff was there,
Speaker 1: but she wasn't, So I guess I'm just wondering, was
Speaker 1: that while the police were there or could that have
Speaker 1: been If that was before the police got there, then
Speaker 1: that means that he went home before the police got there,
Speaker 1: and that would conflict with the story he told the
Speaker 1: police where heard the two stories that he that he
Speaker 1: went home and actually went into the trailer before anybody
Speaker 1: knew anything. And I don't know, if you can't talk
Speaker 1: to him, you can't pin it down now, he told
Speaker 1: he called either Danielle or her mother, and he also
Speaker 1: just said, aple of people, it's on it. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: that's what we're working on out because as soon as
Speaker 1: we can get someone saying, as soon as we have
Speaker 1: someone nailing down saying that he said that, I mean
Speaker 1: that totally the reason in my opinion, he was written
Speaker 1: off as his suspects early is because of the altby.
Speaker 1: He supposedly had this alby and he was gone the
Speaker 1: whole night and multiple witnesses and all this. So if
Speaker 1: we can show that he there's a hole in that,
Speaker 1: then I mean there's something weird about his story no
Speaker 1: matter what. So yeah, and even the various descriptions of
Speaker 1: what the trailer was like, I have something in writing
Speaker 1: that one of the loustters that came in later said
Speaker 1: the thing was just what was his expression? Not disheveled,
Speaker 1: it was can't think of the term, but it was
Speaker 1: a mess. And then you have others that said that said, well,
Speaker 1: I didn't notice anything, So I can't believe the case
Speaker 1: He would have could have gone there and have Rebecca's
Speaker 1: car there perse there obviously some other things were there
Speaker 1: that we know now, and he didn't that something was wrong,
Speaker 1: and then all the other things that you know about
Speaker 1: just doesn't make any sense. Casey shut down, and Casey
Speaker 1: to me still has to be one of the primary suspects.
Speaker 1: And the fact that he won't come forward and spend
Speaker 1: time really talking to people and going through things and
Speaker 1: showing his innocence and answering questions, a lot of the
Speaker 1: answers that I've seen in written form, answers that I've
Speaker 1: seen in and just responses he's given other people conflict.
Speaker 1: According to Larry, the events after Rebecca went missing or
Speaker 1: a blur. Remember George Jared described him taping up Rebecca's
Speaker 1: missing poster over road signs on the Highway. It's obvious
Speaker 1: that he was devastated by Rebecca's death. Both Patrick and
Speaker 1: George mentioned the fact that Casey was distraught after Rebecca's murder.
Speaker 1: And we know that trauma can make people behave irrationally.
Speaker 1: We now know that justin, Jennifer, Chris and JB were
Speaker 1: all around, all of them searched for Rebecca, all of
Speaker 1: them except Casey. Now it's just becoming a glowing red flag.
Speaker 1: Every single person. Chris and these guys have so much
Speaker 1: to lose if they say the wrong thing. And they're
Speaker 1: still cooperating, right, all these guys. The one that's not
Speaker 1: is Casey. We did get to one of Casey's friends,
Speaker 1: but I really think it's the Sonic people who hold
Speaker 1: the key to if or when or how Casey may
Speaker 1: have gone home on Monday. Nobody seems to know shit
Speaker 1: about Casey, who's in this friend group. By the way,
Speaker 1: they didn't even really know Rebecca was Datingum. And he's like,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that guy. I think I met him once.
Speaker 1: And Chris is like, you know, I didn't know where
Speaker 1: that cat. I didn't even know where that place was.
Speaker 1: I'd never been there, told the police I'd never been there.
Speaker 1: And that's like a bold statement. He's like, take my
Speaker 1: DNA because I've never been there. None of these people
Speaker 1: went to that cabin. Not only that, but they just
Speaker 1: don't look like people that would mesh at all. Because
Speaker 1: we were kind of talking about it, Casey's like, he's
Speaker 1: in a band, he's kind of he was a little
Speaker 1: bit more. He was a hipstery hipstory dude. You know,
Speaker 1: like smoke Pot went to Larren's house of smoke pot,
Speaker 1: like playing a band, Like you said, yeah, pot was
Speaker 1: the drug of choice rather than meth, and like you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Yeah, yeah, surely, yeah, Casey, definitely. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They just didn't mix. They just didn't. They were in
Speaker 1: different cities, different groups of people. This whole rumor that
Speaker 1: they were all partying at that house just never happened.
Speaker 1: That never happened. As far as I know, Casey's not
Speaker 1: even real, right, Yeah, he could just be a fake
Speaker 1: Facebook account, you know, like you're right, there's there's literally
Speaker 1: it's like a ghost hound. Then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: our ghost appears. Casey sends me a Facebook message. He
Speaker 1: tells me he doesn't want to talk and that he
Speaker 1: has a family he needs to protect. He declines to
Speaker 1: speak with me and makes it clear that the only
Speaker 1: people he will with moving forward are the police. It
Speaker 1: looks like if we're going to find out more about Casey,
Speaker 1: it's not going to be from him. Oh yeah, no, listen,
Speaker 1: it would because we've heard obviously, like we've heard some
Speaker 1: of these names. I'm sure in some rumors. But if
Speaker 1: the person who actually heard people talking about it is yeah,
Speaker 1: that's really valuable. And I mean, no, listen, I really
Speaker 1: really appreciate. I mean I wonder, I mean, did did
Speaker 1: Casey have any theories about who did it? Over the years? Yeah,
Speaker 1: because that's been that has actually been one of the
Speaker 1: things that struck us about it, that the you know,
Speaker 1: that place is so remote, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: It's like, who would know who'd be able to know
Speaker 1: that it was there? That's been kind of a from
Speaker 1: the beginning, you know. All right, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: All right, thanks bye. Okay, that was extremely interesting. This
Speaker 1: is Casey's best friend. Interesting for reasons other than you know,
Speaker 1: it's not like, oh he thinks he did it. No,
Speaker 1: it's this is his best friend. He basically lived in
Speaker 1: that house at the time, lived in that trailer. You know,
Speaker 1: he was there all the time. I was very I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask him way more questions, but he was
Speaker 1: kind of like kind of had to go. And anyway,
Speaker 1: he basically he works around town. He is a coworker
Speaker 1: who he said, this guy said he heard the other
Speaker 1: day about the case getting reopened, so that's obviously through
Speaker 1: our stuff, and he was talking about it with the
Speaker 1: co worker, and the co worker sort of said that
Speaker 1: he heard it a party, that it was a group
Speaker 1: of people who did it, and was given details and things.
Speaker 1: But interestingly, he was out of town for like three
Speaker 1: days during the murder. He was working on a tugboat,
Speaker 1: I think, he said. But when he got back he
Speaker 1: said Casey was staying with his sister. And he also
Speaker 1: said that Casey cried in his arms about it, and
Speaker 1: you know, it was just all upset, right, But he said,
Speaker 1: you know, really it really got to me. That cabin
Speaker 1: so remote, nobody knows where the hell that place is.
Speaker 1: You know. He was literally saying that, and he goes,
Speaker 1: I straight out asked him, did you do it? He said,
Speaker 1: friend of friend, did you do it? And then he
Speaker 1: kind of went off and he goes, of course he
Speaker 1: was at work, so blah blah. He just kind of
Speaker 1: went off. But I'm thinking, like, like you can feel
Speaker 1: the wheels turning. He said, they were still really close,
Speaker 1: but like because Casey had a girlfriend, see, and everyone
Speaker 1: in Casey's life refers to Rebecca as the girlfriend, but
Speaker 1: everyone in Rebecca's life refers to Casey's just like some
Speaker 1: random guy who's like around and he's like, well no,
Speaker 1: He's like he it was just really painful, and I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: If your girlfriend got fucking murdered in your house, You're
Speaker 1: gonna solve it. You're gonna We're gonna be like us
Speaker 1: times one hundred on steroids. You're gonna be like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna solve this. I'm gonna find out who did this
Speaker 1: in my house, who came into my house and killed
Speaker 1: my girlfriend. You're not gonna be fired up. I mean,
Speaker 1: I get you go through Peter Greek. But after a while,
Speaker 1: you notice everyone else we've spoken to Chris JB. Everyone
Speaker 1: has theories or at least an idea of what even
Speaker 1: if if they don't know. They sit there and say,
Speaker 1: you know, I've thought about it for countless hours. It's
Speaker 1: haunted me. And yet this is Casey's best friend saying, well, no,
Speaker 1: I kind of wait for him to bring it up. No,
Speaker 1: he didn't really have any theory. You're gonna tell me.
Speaker 1: I mean, if it were me and it was my boyfriend,
Speaker 1: I would have a murder board in my house, and
Speaker 1: I would probably like I'd be like the guy in
Speaker 1: the Vanishing, you know who, like took a hotel room
Speaker 1: and put red strings everywhere. I do think that there
Speaker 1: are people who feature in this tale who may have
Speaker 1: at one point bragged about it or may have known
Speaker 1: people because just because they were either because they're trying
Speaker 1: to look hard and tough. I could even see Jennifer,
Speaker 1: even though even if she had nothing to do with it,
Speaker 1: She's got this hard bitch image, do you know what
Speaker 1: I mean? So I can see her plan. I don't
Speaker 1: see a downside to kind of I see why, I
Speaker 1: see why that would happen. I'm not saying it did,
Speaker 1: but I'm just saying when he told me, he asked
Speaker 1: his friend and then he on his own brought up
Speaker 1: the remoteness of that location. Of course he was at work.
Speaker 1: Is not really what you want to hear. You want
Speaker 1: to hear. There's no way im for could have done that.
Speaker 1: You know, he doesn't have it and he never would
Speaker 1: have hurt anybody, not while he was at work. Oh Catherine,
Speaker 1: here's the other thing that really bothers me about this
Speaker 1: whole investigation has since to start. In part of your
Speaker 1: victimology profile, you're supposed to interview the people closest to
Speaker 1: the victim. And I don't know if the police talk
Speaker 1: to Danielle or and by the way, she's a trauma victim,
Speaker 1: so like at the time it should have been done
Speaker 1: in a way like a very sensitive you know, you
Speaker 1: gotta be really careful with trauma victims, and you know
Speaker 1: this is the person that your best Okay, And I'm
Speaker 1: just not sure that they ever. Don't think they ever
Speaker 1: got anything about the temper or you know, any of
Speaker 1: these things about Casey. I just I don't even know
Speaker 1: if they ever I don't know if they questioned her,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm Katherine Townsend and this is Helen Gone.
Speaker 1: Helen Gone is a joint production between How Stuff Works
Speaker 1: in School of Humans. It is written and recorded by me,
Speaker 1: Catherine Townsend. Taylor Church is our producer and story editor.
Speaker 1: Audio editing and designed by Jonathan Sleeve, mix engineer Glenn
Speaker 1: Mattulo audio mixing and love by Tunewelders. Executive producers Brandon
Speaker 1: Barr and Else Crowley for School of Humans and Connell
Speaker 1: Byrne and Bryant for How Stuff Works. Our field producer
Speaker 1: is James Morrison. Our researcher is Sandy Klosterman. Themon original
Speaker 1: score by Ben Solee available wherever you get your music.
Speaker 1: To dig into the investigation, please visit helengonepodcast dot com
Speaker 1: or follow us on social media. School of Humans