Speaker 1: School of Humans.
Speaker 2: Last week we talked about the mystery regarding whether or
Speaker 2: not Deputy Blake Castle of the Madison County Sheriff's Office
Speaker 2: ever went out to the area near Highway twenty one
Speaker 2: and Madison County twenty five thirty five. That's where on
Speaker 2: August fifth, at twelve thirty four am, a nine to
Speaker 2: one one caller reported that she heard a woman screaming
Speaker 2: that it sounded like she was being raped or tortured.
Speaker 2: The dispatch report reads quote, a caller advised she believes
Speaker 2: that she heard a woman in the woods behind her
Speaker 2: house yelling. Stated she believes at one point the woman's
Speaker 2: screamed for help. Caller advised there is not a physical address,
Speaker 2: but it is in an area where a bunch of
Speaker 2: homeless people were camped out.
Speaker 1: End quote.
Speaker 2: We know that the caller waited all night for the
Speaker 2: Madison County Sheriff's Office to respond, but no one ever came.
Speaker 2: And then a few weeks later, on September ninth, Taylor's
Speaker 2: remains were found in a field near where the nine
Speaker 2: to one one call was made. The Madison County Sheriff's
Speaker 2: Office has said they are investigating Taylor Barksdale's death as
Speaker 2: a homicide, and the Madison County Sheriff's Department said only
Speaker 2: one deputy, blake Castle, was working the overnight shift from
Speaker 2: August fourth to August fifth. Madison County Sheriff Ronnie Boyd
Speaker 2: said that blake Castle had told dispatch that he had
Speaker 2: responded to the call, when actually he didn't. Later that
Speaker 2: same day on August fifth, when blake Castle's supervisor, Sergeant
Speaker 2: Drew Scott, questioned him, he said he didn't respond to
Speaker 2: the call because, quote, he had just been out to
Speaker 2: that area thirty minutes or an hour earlier end quote.
Speaker 1: But is that true.
Speaker 2: We requested the AVL data from the deputies vehicle. We're
Speaker 2: going to figure out where he really was in the
Speaker 2: early morning hours of August fifth.
Speaker 1: I'm Catherine Townsend.
Speaker 2: Over the past five years of making my true crime podcast,
Speaker 2: Helling Gone, I've learned that there is no such which
Speaker 2: thing as a small town where murder never happens. I
Speaker 2: have received hundreds of messages from people all around the
Speaker 2: country asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them,
Speaker 2: their families, and their communities. If you have a case,
Speaker 2: you'd like me and my team to look into. You
Speaker 2: can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder
Speaker 2: Line at six seven eight seven four four six one
Speaker 2: four five that's six seven eight seven four four, six
Speaker 2: one four or five. Or you can send us a
Speaker 2: message on Instagram at Helen Gonepod. This is Helen Gone
Speaker 2: Murder Line. So there was a big development this week
Speaker 2: in this case. According to an article in the Madison
Speaker 2: County Record, the Sheriff of Madison County, Ronnie Boyd, has
Speaker 2: filed paperwork to request blake Castle's decertification. I thought this
Speaker 2: would mean that Blake Castle could no longer serve as
Speaker 2: a law enforcement officer in Arkansas, but it turns out
Speaker 2: that's not entirely accurate. I want to back up a
Speaker 2: little bit and talk about exactly what is involved in
Speaker 2: police decertification. The decertification process starts when a police officer
Speaker 2: commits certain kinds of misconduct. The reasons why officers can
Speaker 2: be desertified bury from state to state. Thirty one states
Speaker 2: have agencies in the state that make the decisions about
Speaker 2: which officers to decertify. Arkansas is one of them. In Arkansas,
Speaker 2: the agency is the Commission on Law Enforcement Standards and Training.
Speaker 2: They meet four times a year, and according to the
Speaker 2: Arkansas Advocate, they have at least a dozen officers who
Speaker 2: are considered for decertification every time they meet. In the
Speaker 2: case of Blake Castle, Sheriff Ronnie Boyd apparently wrote a
Speaker 2: letter to the commission to get this process started, but
Speaker 2: once again there's a question about what date everything took place.
Speaker 2: The letter from Sheriff Boyd is dated October twenty ninth.
Speaker 2: By the way, decertification sounds like it would be a
Speaker 2: good thing. If an officer does something that violates ethics
Speaker 2: or something else that would compromise their integrity, there is
Speaker 2: a remedy, but officers are only decertified after they are
Speaker 2: fired or quit, and even though they may be temporarily
Speaker 2: barred from working in law enforcement, in some cases they
Speaker 2: can be recertified. A big problem in Taylor Barksdale's case,
Speaker 2: in my opinion, but also in Arkansas in general, is transparency.
Speaker 2: There is a lack of transparency in everything, including the
Speaker 2: desertification process. Again because according to the Arkansas Advocate, Arkansas
Speaker 2: is one of only fifteen states that keep the identities
Speaker 2: of officers private. Now they claim that that's to protect the
Speaker 2: identity of undercover officers. But a lot of critics say
Speaker 2: this is just not valid. First of all, undercover officers
Speaker 2: don't normally use their real names. Also, other states find
Speaker 2: ways to provide names that does not compromise officer safety.
Speaker 2: So why are police officers decertified? Well, usually they go
Speaker 2: up for decertifications when they're involved in a situation that
Speaker 2: involves ethical violations, something that means that they no longer
Speaker 2: have the trust of the public or of their department.
Speaker 2: For example, in twenty fifteen, a detective retired from the
Speaker 2: Saline County Sheriff's office after being accused of using racist
Speaker 2: remarks while in duty, and in that case, the commission
Speaker 2: voted to let that officer keep their certification even though
Speaker 2: he'd been fired. In another case I read about, decertification
Speaker 2: was requested when a police supervisor found out that two
Speaker 2: officers were having an appropriate relationship I believe because they
Speaker 2: were married to other people.
Speaker 1: And then lied about it.
Speaker 2: According to NPR, these types of administrative panels have voted
Speaker 2: to decertify officers for things like failing to respond to
Speaker 2: nine to one one calls and lying about excessive force.
Speaker 2: These things can end up going to trial because the
Speaker 2: commission that decertifies officers does ask the police department for evidence.
Speaker 2: That could be a good thing, but in practice, a
Speaker 2: lot of times it doesn't go to trial. The officers
Speaker 2: end up either not being decertified or moving around and
Speaker 2: getting a job somewhere else. Sheriff Ronnie Boyd rightly pointed
Speaker 2: out they were seriously understaffed in Madison County. That's a
Speaker 2: problem all around Arkansas and all around the country. The
Speaker 2: Arkansas Advocates started asking questions. They started working with other
Speaker 2: news organizations to compile certification data, at least they tried to.
Speaker 2: They wanted to track what they call wandering officers, officers
Speaker 2: who were fired and then quietly go to work somewhere else.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty two, a video of a suspect being
Speaker 2: beaten in northwest Arkansas went viral. Now, according to the Advocate,
Speaker 2: two officers were arrested on federal charges related to that arrest.
Speaker 2: One of them has gone back to work for the
Speaker 2: police department he was working for before in Mulberry. In
Speaker 2: another example, one officer was convicted of negligent homicide. That
Speaker 2: officer went on to another town and became the police chief.
Speaker 2: I really don't understand the need for secrecy here. I
Speaker 2: mean members of the public are able to check people's
Speaker 2: licenses for everything these days, from private investigators to doctors,
Speaker 2: all kinds of medical licenses, even things like licenses to
Speaker 2: operate in nails salon.
Speaker 1: All these things are public record.
Speaker 2: So why aren't the names of people who literally make
Speaker 2: life or death decisions for.
Speaker 1: The community publicly available?
Speaker 2: Ellen Creth reported in the Madison County Record that the
Speaker 2: Arkansas Division on Law Enforcement Standards and Training had received
Speaker 2: a letter that was dated October twenty ninth from Madison
Speaker 2: County Sheriff Ronnie Boyd. This was the letter where he
Speaker 2: explained why he wanted blake Castle to be decertified. But again,
Speaker 2: the timings have been hard to verify because the paper
Speaker 2: reported that on November fifteenth, someone from the agency emailed
Speaker 2: Ronnie Boyd. They asked him to fill out a desertification
Speaker 2: form online and to send through evidence. Then, the paper
Speaker 2: said that Sheriff Boyd told them that he filled out
Speaker 2: the online form and sent back the evidence they were
Speaker 2: asking for. On November nineteenth, the Madison County Record talked
Speaker 2: to Sheriff Boyd. The sheriff said, quote the desertification process
Speaker 2: is new to him, and he thought the October twenty
Speaker 2: ninth letter would start the process end quote. Apparently they
Speaker 2: asked for evidence. Sheriff Boyd sent them letters from blake
Speaker 2: Castle's disciplinary files, a call log, and blake Castle's AVL data.
Speaker 2: Sheriff Boyd wrote in his letter, quote, although I think
Speaker 2: mister Hassell learned his lesson for not responding in the
Speaker 2: first place and lying about it, I believe the public's
Speaker 2: trust will forever be eroded by this incident of failing
Speaker 2: to protect life, which is a fundamental duty as outlined
Speaker 2: in our Code of Ethics end quote. So Sheriff Boyd
Speaker 2: wrote right there in his own letter that blake Castle lied.
Speaker 2: The newspaper asked blake Castle for comment, and blake Castle
Speaker 2: actually issued his own statement to the Madison County Record.
Speaker 2: He said he was in the area where Taylor Barksdale's
Speaker 2: remains were found. He said that at the time of
Speaker 2: the nine to one one call, he was quote work
Speaker 2: king a very high priority investigation end quote. His statement
Speaker 2: also read quote due to my past experience of false
Speaker 2: nine one one calls at that location and vagueness of
Speaker 2: the call, it was not determined to be a high
Speaker 2: priority at that time end quote.
Speaker 1: We took a look.
Speaker 2: At some of the dispatch reports and it turns out
Speaker 2: there were two recent calls involving disturbances that were made
Speaker 2: from the area of Madison twenty five thirty five. One
Speaker 2: was on March twenty first, the report was about neighbor trouble.
Speaker 2: On April tenth, another disturbance was reported. So that's only
Speaker 2: two calls several months before August fifth. Two calls months
Speaker 2: before is objectively not a lot of calls, And honestly,
Speaker 2: even if there were frequent calls from that area, that's
Speaker 2: part of the job. Obviously, some areas are going to
Speaker 2: be more high crime than others or receive more calls
Speaker 2: for police assistance than others. That's the nature of the job.
Speaker 2: But let's go back to blake Castle's other claim, because,
Speaker 2: again according to the letter that Sheriff Ronnie Boyd wrote,
Speaker 2: which we did a FOY request for regarding his termination,
Speaker 2: blake Castle claimed that he had just been out to
Speaker 2: that area thirty minutes or an hour before the nine
Speaker 2: to one one call was made. We did FOY requests
Speaker 2: for blake Castle's disciplinary file, but our requests were denied.
Speaker 2: We did get the AVL data, and the AVL data
Speaker 2: map shows that blake Castle's vehicle was at two locations
Speaker 2: on the night of August fifth. One of them was
Speaker 2: in an area by the Huntsville Airport where I'm told
Speaker 2: that law enforcement has a place to refuel the vehicles.
Speaker 2: The other is the Madison County Sheriff's Department. AVL data
Speaker 2: shows that that vehicle was parked there all night. So
Speaker 2: if blake Castle said that he was at the location
Speaker 2: of the nine to one one call anytime on the
Speaker 2: night of the fourth to the fifth, his AVL data
Speaker 2: shows that's not true. There's something else. A quote from
Speaker 2: Sheriff Foyd's letter to the Commission director. It read quote
Speaker 2: when Deputy Hassele was questioned about the incident the following day,
Speaker 2: he did admit to not responding and was counseled on
Speaker 2: the importance of answering calls and not letting past incidents
Speaker 2: cloud present events end quote. Boyd also wrote, quote everything
Speaker 2: is pointing to that timeframe as most likely being the
Speaker 2: last time that the female was alive, and that she
Speaker 2: was the person who had have been yelling for help.
Speaker 1: End quote.
Speaker 2: We did a foyer request, and we obtained the statement
Speaker 2: related to blake Castle's termination. It was a typed letter
Speaker 2: dated August fifth, and it talked about how Drew Scott
Speaker 2: gave blake Castle verbal counseling, basically a verbal warning, because
Speaker 2: blake admitted to Drew Scott that he didn't go to
Speaker 2: the nine one one call. But as I mentioned before,
Speaker 2: there was a handwritten part of the letter, a date
Speaker 2: had been crossed out and the date August fifth had
Speaker 2: been written in the Madison County Record requested the original
Speaker 2: letter without the correction, and when they got it back,
Speaker 2: the original date was August sixth. So the newspaper tried
Speaker 2: to talk to Sheriff Boyd about that discrepancy. He said
Speaker 2: that blake Castle and Drew Scott had talked on August fifth,
Speaker 2: But then he said a few days later he remembered
Speaker 2: that he Sheriff Foyd, had waited until the sixth to
Speaker 2: figure out how to deal with all this. So Sheriff
Speaker 2: Boyd said he asked Drew Scott to change the date
Speaker 2: of that letter, to cross out the sixth and write
Speaker 2: in August fifth. Now, again, this seems like a small detail,
Speaker 2: but if the police are not being forthcoming, with minor details.
Speaker 2: It naturally leads family members and others in the community
Speaker 2: to wonder what else could they be hiding or leaving
Speaker 2: out of this narrative. After this verbal counseling, blake Castle
Speaker 2: was allowed to continue at his job. On September ninth,
Speaker 2: Taylor's remains were found in the field near where the
Speaker 2: nine to one one call was made, and it was
Speaker 2: only after that, on September eleventh, two days later, when
Speaker 2: Sheriff Boyd called blake Castle into his office. At that point,
Speaker 2: Sheriff Boyd told blake Castle that the woman whose remains
Speaker 2: they found, Taylor, was likely the victim who had been
Speaker 2: on the call that he had been dispatched to and
Speaker 2: failed to respond to.
Speaker 1: The report reads quote.
Speaker 2: I informed him that all signs were leading back to
Speaker 2: that night of the call that he failed to respond
Speaker 2: to and lied saying he did end quote.
Speaker 1: The statement reads quote.
Speaker 2: I advised Deputy Hassle just because he was out there
Speaker 2: then does not mean something was not happening at the
Speaker 2: time he had received the call. Deputy Hassle agreed he
Speaker 2: should have gone back out there and he did not.
Speaker 1: End quote.
Speaker 2: From that statement, it really makes it seem like blake
Speaker 2: Castle claimed that he had been at the location of
Speaker 2: the nine one one call earlier. We wanted to solve
Speaker 2: this mystery, so we went back again. We requested all
Speaker 2: of the AVL data from August fourth to August fifth
Speaker 2: and some other dates. We got back two hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty pages of data, and all of it showed that
Speaker 2: that vehicle. Blake Castle's vehicle was at the matt Wison
Speaker 2: County Sheriff's Department all night. So unless Deputy Housel went
Speaker 2: out to that scene in another vehicle, he never responded
Speaker 2: to that call. Sheriff Boyd said that he waited until
Speaker 2: October twenty ninth to request the desertification because he wanted
Speaker 2: to be absolutely sure about what he was doing. The
Speaker 2: desertification process was put through on November nineteenth, after The
Speaker 2: Madison County Record ran multiple articles and filed multiple freedom
Speaker 2: of information requests, and after this podcast aired two episodes
Speaker 2: on Taylor's case and also filed multiple freedom of information requests.
Speaker 2: We're still trying to find people who saw Taylor Barksdale
Speaker 2: in the last days of her life. The Madison County
Speaker 2: Sheriff's Department has said that this is an active investigation.
Speaker 2: That they are out there questioning people and trying to
Speaker 2: find out who killed Taylor. There are a lot of
Speaker 2: pieces of evidence that they're still waiting on. Em They
Speaker 2: say they still have not received the autopsy report. Taylor's
Speaker 2: aunt has said that Sheriff Ronnie Boyd has not reached
Speaker 2: out to the Barksdale family since September, which has been frustrating,
Speaker 2: and honestly, it's still difficult to tell in what capacity
Speaker 2: the Arkansas State Police are involved. We've been told the
Speaker 2: Madison County Sheriff's Office is the lead investigative agency and
Speaker 2: that the Arkansas State Police are assisting. I don't know
Speaker 2: exactly what that means. I do know multiple people have
Speaker 2: told me that when they contacted the ASP, they were
Speaker 2: directed back. They were told to contact the Madison County
Speaker 2: Sheriff's Office. Sheriff Boyd says the police are actively investigating leads.
Speaker 2: I want to say, I'm sure that's true. I understand
Speaker 2: them not wanting to make certain elements of the investigation public. However,
Speaker 2: there's a big difference between leaking information that could be
Speaker 2: harmful to the case and public transparency. I think the
Speaker 2: latter is extremely important when it comes to building trust
Speaker 2: between law enforcement and the community. Sheriff Boyd also told
Speaker 2: the Madison County Record something that I think is actually
Speaker 2: pretty wild. He said, quote, I'm not going to correct
Speaker 2: that information. I'm just not going to comment on what's
Speaker 2: true and what's not end quote, which does not seem
Speaker 2: to be the right approach to take in my opinion,
Speaker 2: if you're trying to build trust with a murder victim's
Speaker 2: family or with the public. Sheriff Boyd told the newspaper
Speaker 2: that he had seen so much in correct reporting he
Speaker 2: was afraid to say anything anymore. But if he wants
Speaker 2: accurate information to be disseminated in the media, surely he
Speaker 2: should be informing the media and the public what's going on,
Speaker 2: keeping them updated, because remember, there is a killer on
Speaker 2: the loose.
Speaker 1: People are terrified.
Speaker 2: The sheriff, in my opinion, needs to reassure the public
Speaker 2: and build trust. After speaking to Deputy Hassle on September eleventh,
Speaker 2: Sheriff Boyd offered him to choices. He could resign or
Speaker 2: be fired. Blake Castle chose to resign. I want to
Speaker 2: go back to the statement that Deputy blake Castle gave
Speaker 2: to the Madison County Record because he told the record, quote,
Speaker 2: I was physically at the location of concern twice on
Speaker 2: that night, just prior to the nine one one call.
Speaker 1: There were no signs of anyone being there.
Speaker 2: Residents at that location were known to be off their
Speaker 2: medication and not in their proper states of mind.
Speaker 1: End quote.
Speaker 2: In addition to the fact that his AVL data shows
Speaker 2: that he was never in that location, which, if correct,
Speaker 2: would suggest that he lied again, this statement by Blake
Speaker 2: Castle makes things much worse in my opinion, because he
Speaker 2: seemed to be saying he made the decision to blow
Speaker 2: off the nine to one one call because of false
Speaker 2: nine one one calls in the past. Dispatch reports do
Speaker 2: not show multiple nine one one calls from that location.
Speaker 2: He said he was working a high priority investigation that night,
Speaker 2: presumably from his desk at the Sheriff's office. What high
Speaker 2: priority investigation was he working on. We have no idea
Speaker 2: and the police aren't saying. Also, Blake Hassel is not
Speaker 2: a doctor. He has no idea who has prescribed what medications,
Speaker 2: if any, that they're on or when they're off them. Also,
Speaker 2: I cannot imagine a more insensitive way to view vulnerable people.
Speaker 2: If someone is having mental health challenges that would make
Speaker 2: them more vulnerable, not less.
Speaker 1: The Barksdale family.
Speaker 2: Told the newspaper, quote, the family would like for the
Speaker 2: public to know that, no matter whether a resident was
Speaker 2: on or off their medication, there is no excuse for
Speaker 2: a nine to one one call reporting a woman screaming
Speaker 2: for help to be ignored. For Hasel to assume it
Speaker 2: was a resident off their medication is asinine. We as
Speaker 2: a family choose to remember the good times we shared
Speaker 2: with Taylor. Just because she had struggles does not give
Speaker 2: a deputy the right to not do his job, which
Speaker 2: led to her being taken away from us too soon.
Speaker 1: End quote.
Speaker 2: Sheriff Ronnie Boyd on social media has written, of course
Speaker 2: Blake Castle should have responded to the nine one one call.
Speaker 1: He wrote, quote, I.
Speaker 2: Want to make absolutely clear that the deputy should have
Speaker 2: responded when he received a call where someone was screaming
Speaker 2: for help. That is law enforcement's number one duty and
Speaker 2: there absolutely is no excuse for that end quote. But
Speaker 2: other statements that I've read seem to be much more equivocal,
Speaker 2: and in my opinion, he's continuing to be defensive when
Speaker 2: he's asked about confirming the most basic facts about the case.
Speaker 2: We are going to start a new case next week,
Speaker 2: but we are going to keep going. We're going to
Speaker 2: keep following Taylor's case. I keep thinking about Taylor. Taylor
Speaker 2: Barksdale was out there alone for weeks. We know that
Speaker 2: she got into a big argument with someone from the
Speaker 2: Dispatch report that shows she was outside a home in
Speaker 2: Huntsville on July twentieth. After that, she didn't go back
Speaker 2: to her ex boyfriend's residence. She was off and on
Speaker 2: with friends. Some of her clothing was found scattered in
Speaker 2: the Big Clifty area, and somehow she ended up in Kingston.
Speaker 1: Two of the men she was seen with.
Speaker 2: B one and B two hung around in the area
Speaker 2: near where the nine to one one call was placed.
Speaker 2: One of them lived there. We don't know if law
Speaker 2: enforcement has been back to question these men or the
Speaker 2: other man whose camper has been moved from that area.
Speaker 2: We also still have a lot of unanswered questions about
Speaker 2: Jason Lierrel's case.
Speaker 1: Have police questioned.
Speaker 2: The guy who's home Jason was last believed to be
Speaker 2: at in Huntsville, What happened to Jason's clothing that was
Speaker 2: found there, has it been tested? And could there be
Speaker 2: other deaths that are connected to these cases. So far,
Speaker 2: there are a lot of rumors but no hard evidence,
Speaker 2: but there do seem to be a lot of mysterious
Speaker 2: deaths in Madison County. I know that a lot of
Speaker 2: people are going home for the holidays this week, and
Speaker 2: I've been thinking a lot about people who may be
Speaker 2: disenfranchised or vulnerable. It's sometimes easy for people to think
Speaker 2: of people who may be using drugs or who aren't
Speaker 2: in the best situations as separate from everyone else, but
Speaker 2: they're not. So many people in this world are one
Speaker 2: paycheck away from being homeless, or one traumatic event away
Speaker 2: from turning to drugs.
Speaker 1: We are all connected.
Speaker 2: Sheriff Boyd wrote something else in his statement on social media.
Speaker 1: It read quote, if.
Speaker 2: We hear, we know somebody is actually wanting help, we
Speaker 2: need to respond.
Speaker 1: That's all there is to it. End quote.
Speaker 2: Every single one of us has been vulnerable at one
Speaker 2: time or another in our lives. If someone is screaming
Speaker 2: in a dark field, imagine what would you want someone
Speaker 2: to do if that was your family member. I actually
Speaker 2: would have worded the Sheriff's statement differently. If someone needs help,
Speaker 2: they need to respond. In the meantime, my way of
Speaker 2: helping people in need is to keep asking questions and
Speaker 2: trying to get answers, and to keep pushing for more
Speaker 2: transparency and for justice for Taylor and Jason's families. I'm
Speaker 2: Katherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone
Speaker 2: Murder Line is a production of School of Humans and
Speaker 2: iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me Katherine Townsend
Speaker 2: and produced by Gabby Watts. Special thanks to Amy Tubbs
Speaker 2: for her research assistance. This episode was sound design and
Speaker 2: mixed but Noah Cammer. Our theme song is by Ben Sale.
Speaker 2: Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and l. C.
Speaker 1: Crowley.
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Speaker 1: If you were.
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Speaker 2: you have a case you'd like me and my team
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