Speaker 1: School of Humans.
Speaker 2: On May fourth, nineteen ninety one, nine year old Christina
Speaker 2: Pipkin was selling jewelry door to door for a school
Speaker 2: fundraiser in her hometown of Hickory Ridge, Arkansas. Christina was
Speaker 2: supposed to be home before dark, but she never made
Speaker 2: it back. Her parents, Freda and James frantically looked for her.
Speaker 2: They called friends and volunteers and scoured the area, but
Speaker 2: found no signs of Christina. This little girl seemed to
Speaker 2: have vanished into thin air. They got an answer, but
Speaker 2: it wasn't the answer they were hoping for.
Speaker 1: Three days later.
Speaker 2: On May seventh, nineteen ninety one, Christina Pipkins's body was
Speaker 2: found floating in cow Lake Ditch. Almost twenty three years later,
Speaker 2: this case is still unsolved.
Speaker 1: I'm Catherine Townsend.
Speaker 2: If you have a case you'd like me and my
Speaker 2: team to look into, you can reach out to us
Speaker 2: at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight
Speaker 2: seven four four six one four five. This is Helen
Speaker 2: Gone Murder Line.
Speaker 1: By the way.
Speaker 2: As you can tell, I've been talking to a lot
Speaker 2: of people this week, so I've lost my voice a
Speaker 2: little bit.
Speaker 1: Please excuse me.
Speaker 2: I'm in Hickory Ridge, for a meeting with Amy Tubbs, who,
Speaker 2: as I mentioned in the last episode, is married to
Speaker 2: Robbie Tubbs Junior. She's the daughter in law of Robbie
Speaker 2: Tubbs Senior, who is a suspect in Christina's murder. Back
Speaker 2: in the nineties, Robbie was arrested and he was charged
Speaker 2: with Christina Pipkins's murder, but as we said in the
Speaker 2: last episode, he was released after there was.
Speaker 1: A mistake with the DNA testing.
Speaker 2: The prosecutor, Fletcher Long, admitted that instead of testing hair
Speaker 2: from a vehicle once owned by Robbie Tubbs, law enforcement
Speaker 2: tested the wrong hair, and then when they tried to
Speaker 2: correct that error, they said that there wasn't enough DNA
Speaker 2: on the hair that was inside Robbie Tubb's car to test.
Speaker 2: I still wonder is that hair still around and with
Speaker 2: today's technology, could it be retested. That's just one of
Speaker 2: the many questions we're going to be asking as we
Speaker 2: investigate this case. Amy said that since she started dating
Speaker 2: her husband, they've never really had contact with his father,
Speaker 2: Robbie Senor. She said she's heard that Robbie Senior has
Speaker 2: a criminal background and that he's, in her words, and
Speaker 2: not a great guy, but as she pointed out, that's
Speaker 2: quite a different thing from being a child killer. Amy
Speaker 2: wanted to know if Robbie Sr. Was capable of committing
Speaker 2: this horrific crime. She is clear, if he is the
Speaker 2: right person, he needs to be charged, and if it's
Speaker 2: someone else, we.
Speaker 1: Need to figure out who they are and where they are.
Speaker 2: Either way, charging a suspect and then having those charges
Speaker 2: fall apart and seeing the person you believe is guilty released.
Speaker 2: As I've said for a long time, this should not
Speaker 2: be a stopping point for law enforcement. Either you need
Speaker 2: to get more evidence on your suspect, or you need
Speaker 2: to find the right person to charge. Amy and our
Speaker 2: meeting in Hickory Ridge in the morning. There's really only
Speaker 2: one place in town, the only coffee shop for miles,
Speaker 2: Cafe forty nine. How do you get around the not
Speaker 2: being an Arkansas resident? Jazz, So Amy and I are
Speaker 2: catching up. We've had some exciting developments. Both of our
Speaker 2: Foyer requests were granted, so we now have access to
Speaker 2: the entire Christina Pipkin case file, all two hundred pages
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 1: That's the good news.
Speaker 2: The bad news is that there is no audio of
Speaker 2: the original interviews. And there are no photos. The Arkansas
Speaker 2: State Police have also not released the autopsy report. It's
Speaker 2: not part of the case file. There are also almost
Speaker 2: no transcripts, so all we have of the police interviews
Speaker 2: are these short type pages. Presumably they were taken from
Speaker 2: notes and then transcribed. Since I have a lot of
Speaker 2: experience with case files, I want to verify every anything ourselves.
Speaker 2: I want to get in touch with everyone we can
Speaker 2: who isn't dead and is willing to talk. We've come
Speaker 2: here to East Arkansas to see if there was anyone
Speaker 2: around who was there on the day Christina went missing.
Speaker 2: This could be our only hope for getting new information.
Speaker 1: Would I'll take one more.
Speaker 2: Amy brought Denise, who describes herself as an amateur sleuth
Speaker 2: who's been working on the case for a long time.
Speaker 2: Denise has also brought a friend who says she just
Speaker 2: wants to be in the background. She spends her time
Speaker 2: as Denise's sidekick, helping her find addresses and get into
Speaker 2: contact with people. After we get our coffee, we start
Speaker 2: talking to some other people in the cafe.
Speaker 1: Was that the little girl? She's found it in a
Speaker 1: ditch right out here? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I wat I mean, this was this
Speaker 2: happened before I was born, and then what I heard
Speaker 2: was that her stepdad had drowned her. And now she
Speaker 2: said that she heard Christina's stepdad had drowned her. That
Speaker 2: was one of the rumors We've been hearing a lot,
Speaker 2: that someone in Christina's family did this to her and
Speaker 2: then there was a cover up. Some people have blamed
Speaker 2: Christina's mom, others her dad. Some people have even mentioned
Speaker 2: a step dad, even though that would be impossible since
Speaker 2: Christina didn't even have a stepfather.
Speaker 1: But I've heard that story. I've heard that story too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I heard that story too, But no, she didn't have
Speaker 1: a step bead.
Speaker 2: This is just one of many versions of rumors that
Speaker 2: have been flying around town since Christina went missing. The
Speaker 2: woman we talked to brought her mom over, and her
Speaker 2: mom knew a lot. She said she was in high
Speaker 2: school at the time and was part of the search party.
Speaker 1: I just I remember searching the town.
Speaker 2: It's heard that she didn't just go on door to
Speaker 2: door selling something for school. Just we searched for days
Speaker 2: and days and days and days. She mentioned another rumor
Speaker 2: that I've heard a lot of that the reason she
Speaker 2: believed someone in Christina's family did. This was because apparently
Speaker 2: no water from the ditch where Christina's body was found
Speaker 2: was found in her lungs. He had chlorinated so it
Speaker 2: had to have come from a bathtub or something there
Speaker 2: about this led them to believe she had been drowned
Speaker 2: in a bathtub and then taken out there and dumped.
Speaker 2: This is one of those rumors we can shut down
Speaker 2: right now because even though we didn't get the actual
Speaker 2: autopsy report as part of the case file, we did
Speaker 2: get some documents that refer to interviews with a medical
Speaker 2: examiner and to forensic testing that was done on Christina's body.
Speaker 2: The results of those tests showed that the water and
Speaker 2: mud in Christina Pipkins's lungs matched the water from Cow
Speaker 2: Lake Ditch, the body of water where she was found.
Speaker 2: We also learned from the case file that Fammi Malick
Speaker 2: did the autopsy because one of the investigators put a
Speaker 2: report in the case file. He talked about meeting with
Speaker 2: doctor Malick to discuss some of his conclusions. I've talked
Speaker 2: a lot about doctor Malick's controversial history on previous podcasts.
Speaker 2: He was the medical examiner in Arkansas who was found
Speaker 2: to have botched hundreds of autopsies back in the eighties
Speaker 2: and nineties. In fact, the time period when he did
Speaker 2: Christina's autopsy was not long before he was forced into retirement.
Speaker 2: But for the moment, until we're proven otherwise, we're going
Speaker 2: to take the information that we get about the autopsy
Speaker 2: at face value. Doctor Malik indicated there was obvious decomposition.
Speaker 2: We knew she had been in the water for three days.
Speaker 2: He also said there were no signs of strangulation. He
Speaker 2: said he had X rayed Christina's body from the outside
Speaker 2: and from the inside. He said he could find no
Speaker 2: stab wounds, no obvious cuts of bruises, and there was
Speaker 2: water and mud found in Christina's stomach, water that matched
Speaker 2: the water from the ditch. Doctor Malik also found pickles
Speaker 2: and carrots in Christina's stomach. We know that Christina ate
Speaker 2: pot pie for lunch that day. We also know that
Speaker 2: Elsie Lyles, her next door neighbor and sometimes a babysitter,
Speaker 2: gave her a pickle as a snack at around four pm.
Speaker 2: The report reads quote Doctor Malik was emphatic he could
Speaker 2: find no other cause of death other than drowning end quote.
Speaker 2: But it also says when given the supposition that one
Speaker 2: could smother an individual to the point of unconscious and
Speaker 2: then throw that person into the river, Doctor Mallet could
Speaker 2: make no comment regarding this, but said that this was
Speaker 2: a possibility. In other words, we can't tell from the
Speaker 2: limited information we have whether Christina fell into the water
Speaker 2: on her own or was thrown in there, or whether
Speaker 2: she was conscious at the time, but we can rule
Speaker 2: out the rumor that Christina was drowned at home and
Speaker 2: then taken out to that site where she was dumped
Speaker 2: by the way, Christina's father, James, and everyone else in
Speaker 2: her family cooperated completely with investigators. James Pipkin took and
Speaker 2: passed a light detector test that's part of the case file,
Speaker 2: and he was cleared by law enforcement. I cannot imagine
Speaker 2: the pain of losing a child and then after that
Speaker 2: having people in town either think that you were involved
Speaker 2: somehow or that you were hiding something. Plus James had
Speaker 2: to go through the pain of being asked about his
Speaker 2: marital problems issues he had had previously with his wife Frieda.
Speaker 2: That must have also been a nightmare. But unfortunately, when
Speaker 2: law enforcement is looking through someone's pattern of life, they
Speaker 2: have to know the history of the family members. It's
Speaker 2: all part of solving the puzzle. There have been some
Speaker 2: other rumors in this town that refuse to die, so
Speaker 2: we need to check them out so we can figure
Speaker 2: out what to investigate further and what else to rule out.
Speaker 2: We went to the place where Christina and her family
Speaker 2: lived on Doughty Street. Okay, so this was the Bearcat
Speaker 2: right where apparently everyone in town went that day.
Speaker 1: There's the bank. The alle still runs behind the bank,
Speaker 1: so this whole thing is tiny.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And there's the tracks right there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then there's the little park school.
Speaker 1: All that is back there.
Speaker 2: This house, no, that house, this lot, this law where
Speaker 2: there is no more house. There's no house there now,
Speaker 2: just a vacant, overgrown lot with a home next door.
Speaker 2: We have a couple of goals here today. First of all,
Speaker 2: we want to take a look at the place where
Speaker 2: Christina's house was on Doty Street and the place where
Speaker 2: she was last seen, the Bearcat grocery store. It's not
Speaker 2: there anymore now, it's a tire shop. Denise is talking
Speaker 2: me through the streets in Christina's neighborhood. So that was
Speaker 2: her house, and then the house they were saying that
Speaker 2: backed up on her yard would have been that one
Speaker 2: over there.
Speaker 1: Maybe, well, I think that's something different or is it
Speaker 1: destroyed now?
Speaker 2: Maybe?
Speaker 1: Ye see how that's what I'm thinking, and those houses
Speaker 1: might have been the same.
Speaker 2: But we see from the case file that police talked
Speaker 2: to Christina's mom Frida and father James. They discussed what
Speaker 2: they did on the day Christina disappeared in a lot
Speaker 2: more detail than I've ever seen. On Saturday, May fourth,
Speaker 2: Frida said it started out as an ordinary Saturday. Frida
Speaker 2: went to the post office that morning between nine thirty
Speaker 2: and two. When she got home, Christina and her brother
Speaker 2: Adam were watching cartoons. Frida said she had some coffee
Speaker 2: with her neighbor Pat Moore. Then Pat left. After a
Speaker 2: few minutes, Frida started cleaning and doing laundry because Saturday
Speaker 2: was wash day. At around eleven thirty or twelve, Freda
Speaker 2: warmed up some pop pies. They ate the pop pies,
Speaker 2: and they had iced tea to drink. After lunch, she
Speaker 2: was hanging clothes out on the line when James came
Speaker 2: out and showed her a picture of a used car
Speaker 2: he had been looking at in the local magazine. She
Speaker 2: and James took Christina and Adam and they went to
Speaker 2: Walmart and went They bought a few things there for
Speaker 2: the house. Then they went to Cherry Valley, a town
Speaker 2: about fifteen miles east of Hickory Ridge. They looked at
Speaker 2: the car, a blue Mustang that was parked out in
Speaker 2: the cellar's yard. They took a quick look at the car,
Speaker 2: asked about the price, and left there around one PM.
Speaker 2: At some point they stopped at Gaskin's grocery store in
Speaker 2: vandal They bought some pork rines, and apparently Christina had
Speaker 2: a few the porkskins on the ride home, but she
Speaker 2: didn't really eat a lot of them because apparently they
Speaker 2: were a little bit pink and she didn't love the taste.
Speaker 2: The family got back home, Adam and James were hanging
Speaker 2: out watching TV. Christina played with one of Frida's old
Speaker 2: makeup compacts that she had found lying around. James was
Speaker 2: programming the VCR to tape the movie The Hunt for
Speaker 2: Red October that was airing that night. At some point,
Speaker 2: Christina asked her parents if she could go door to
Speaker 2: door to sell her jewelry. She headed out at around
Speaker 2: four thirty or five PM. Now I should say that
Speaker 2: what's in the case file differs from what we've read
Speaker 2: in the newspapers, because in the newspapers it said she
Speaker 2: asked her dad, James, if she could go out. He
Speaker 2: said no at first, then said okay, but you have
Speaker 2: to be home before dark. But in the case file,
Speaker 2: James said he believed that Christina had asked her mother
Speaker 2: if she could go sell jewelry, though he does mention
Speaker 2: the kids knew not to cross over to the other
Speaker 2: side of the railroad tracks. At around seven or seven
Speaker 2: thirty pm, Frieda realized she still needed a few things
Speaker 2: from the store. She ran up to the Bearcat Grocery,
Speaker 2: a couple of blocks from their house. The bear Cat
Speaker 2: was next to the only bank in town, Cross County Bank.
Speaker 2: The two businesses shared a parking lot. At the store,
Speaker 2: Frida bought onions and gravy and potatoes and mushrooms. She
Speaker 2: said she was only in there for around five minutes
Speaker 2: and then she went right back home. She started to
Speaker 2: make dinner to fry potatoes. At some point it started
Speaker 2: to get dark, and that's when Christina's parents realized that
Speaker 2: she hadn't made it home. Frida sent Adam out to
Speaker 2: look for his sister. Pretty quickly, he came back and
Speaker 2: said he couldn't find her. That's when Frida said, quote,
Speaker 2: I had a gut feeling something was not right. This
Speaker 2: is a mother's concern. I sent Adam out to find Christina.
Speaker 2: When he came back and said he couldn't find her,
Speaker 2: I knew something was wrong with my baby girl.
Speaker 1: End quote.
Speaker 2: James and Frieda went around the neighborhood. They went to
Speaker 2: some apartments near where Christina had been selling her jewelry
Speaker 2: in the days before she went missing. They went to
Speaker 2: the Bearcat store, and then they went back home in
Speaker 2: case Christina came back. They called the police to report
Speaker 2: her missing, and the search started. James said in his
Speaker 2: statement quote after the police came, we started a house
Speaker 2: to house search. I went to several houses and went
Speaker 2: back home to see if anyone had found her. After
Speaker 2: my brother in law got to the house, we went
Speaker 2: out searching. I kept hoping she would show up. I
Speaker 2: did not believe this was happening. I wondered what happened
Speaker 2: to her? Where could she be? As we drove around
Speaker 2: looking for her, I was hoping to see her walking.
Speaker 2: I thought if she could just get away I might
Speaker 2: see her on the road. On Sunday we went searching
Speaker 2: some more. I didn't eat because I couldn't eat, not
Speaker 2: knowing if my baby girl had had anything to eat.
Speaker 2: I was wondering how she was being treated.
Speaker 1: Was she cold?
Speaker 2: Was she hungry? I kept hoping that whoever took her
Speaker 2: would let her go. I kept looking up the street,
Speaker 2: hoping that I would see her. I kept believing we
Speaker 2: would find her alive, even and if she was hurt,
Speaker 2: we could get help for that. But when they told
Speaker 2: me they had found her and she was dead, how
Speaker 2: do you describe how do you feel when you find
Speaker 2: out your daughter is dead? Angry, hurt, confused? I don't
Speaker 2: know how to describe it. End quote.
Speaker 1: I don't know how.
Speaker 2: Many of you have ever seen the movie Rashamon, but
Speaker 2: it's something I think about a lot when I'm doing
Speaker 2: an investigation.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: In that movie, there are three different people and they're
Speaker 2: telling the story of an assault and a murder. Each
Speaker 2: of them witnessed this from their point of view. Everyone
Speaker 2: saw exactly the same thing, but each person gives you
Speaker 2: a different piece of the story. Each person has another
Speaker 2: piece of the puzzle. It's the same thing with a
Speaker 2: murder investigation. We have all these people who are present
Speaker 2: at the Bearcat convenience store and the bank that afternoon.
Speaker 2: Each of them saw a small slice of Christina's day,
Speaker 2: and we really need to put all those multiple versions together.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: Admittedly there's a separate problem, which is that memory itself
Speaker 2: over time, even if you have great recall, but we'll
Speaker 2: get to that later. First, we need to get as
Speaker 2: many points of view as possible to try and fill
Speaker 2: in some of these holes on the timeline. So let's
Speaker 2: go back to May fourth, nineteen ninety one, Christina is missing.
Speaker 2: Over the next few days, police started talking to people, and,
Speaker 2: as happens often in small towns, a few names got
Speaker 2: thrown around. We noticed something else in the case file
Speaker 2: that during this time, quite a few people also mentioned
Speaker 2: they had seen a blue car with a man driving it,
Speaker 2: one that was in the bank parking lot and hanging
Speaker 2: around town in general around the time when Christina went missing.
Speaker 2: That what we were about to find out was that
Speaker 2: people had a lot of different descriptions of exactly what
Speaker 2: that man and that vehicle looked like. We measured the
Speaker 2: distance from where Christina was last seen to where she
Speaker 2: was found. It was around three and a half miles,
Speaker 2: so I think police were right. She was almost certainly
Speaker 2: driven to that location. So who drove her there? In
Speaker 2: a town this small, it seems like somebody would have
Speaker 2: to have seen something. We need to find that car.
Speaker 2: We need to explore all of those suspects, figure out
Speaker 2: exactly where everyone was on the day Christina went missing,
Speaker 2: and also find out where this rumor about a blue
Speaker 2: car started. One person the police talked to was the
Speaker 2: Long family. They live right by Christina's house at two
Speaker 2: eighty nine Doty Street. Michael Long, who was twenty six
Speaker 2: at the time, said that he was home that Saturday
Speaker 2: afternoon at around five pm. He said Christina stopped by
Speaker 2: the house looking for his little sister, who was ten
Speaker 2: Christina's age, presumably to go door to door jewelry selling
Speaker 2: with her. His sister wasn't home, so Christina left. Michael
Speaker 2: said he next saw Christina walking back south down Third Street.
Speaker 2: Then he saw her turn west on Laurel Street toward
Speaker 2: the Bearcat's door and the bank. Michael told police that
Speaker 2: about five minutes after Christina left, he went outside to
Speaker 2: check a ditch for snakes. Then, he said he walked
Speaker 2: to the bear Cat for some cigarettes. When he came out,
Speaker 2: he saw Christina walking behind the alley at Cross County Bank.
Speaker 2: At that point, Michael said she was headed north. This
Speaker 2: would have been at around five thirty pm. After that,
Speaker 2: Michael said he didn't see her again. Another family that
Speaker 2: lived next to the Pipkins were the Moors, Pat and Connie.
Speaker 2: They had a blue car registered to them, a nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy three Ford Maverick. On the day Christina went missing,
Speaker 2: two friends of theirs, Ricky Dawson and James the Seers,
Speaker 2: who were eighteen and twenty at the time, came by
Speaker 2: the house at around four thirty. They were there to
Speaker 2: pick up Ricky's girlfriend, Jenna Algood and her friend April Jones,
Speaker 2: who were hanging out at the moorhouse. Ricky, James, and
Speaker 2: the two young women left for a night out on
Speaker 2: the town and Win, but before they left, Ricky said
Speaker 2: he remembered seeing Christina outside on her porch. Next door,
Speaker 2: Ricky Dawson was driving yet an another blue car, his
Speaker 2: mom's blue Camaro with rust on the side. He said
Speaker 2: that he, James, and the two girls went to Win
Speaker 2: between five thirty and six thirty. He said they didn't
Speaker 2: come back until around midnight. By that time, Christina was
Speaker 2: missing and a bunch of people were already out looking
Speaker 2: for her. So at that point, obviously things got pretty chaotic.
Speaker 2: It was Saturday night. People were having barbecues, making plans,
Speaker 2: going on dates, the sun was going down, and the night.
Speaker 1: Was just starting.
Speaker 2: But I want to go back to the timeline and
Speaker 2: mention a couple of other people who told police they
Speaker 2: noticed things that were slightly out of the ordinary, because
Speaker 2: obviously any event can have huge significance when someone goes missing.
Speaker 2: On May seventh, police went to the Hickory Ridge Elementary
Speaker 2: School and they interviewed several children. They asked about a
Speaker 2: stranger that the kids had seen around the time when
Speaker 2: Christina disappeared, but their descriptions were completely inconsistent. The police
Speaker 2: report said there were numerous inconsistencies in the kid's stories,
Speaker 2: and so because of that, the officer could not follow
Speaker 2: through on completing a composite drawing. This doesn't surprise me
Speaker 2: because by the time those kids were interviewed, it had
Speaker 2: been several days, and unfortunately, in my opinion, what happened
Speaker 2: probably was that the kids talked to each other over
Speaker 2: the weekend, so their stories took on elements of each other's.
Speaker 1: This is not uncommon.
Speaker 2: So seventy two hours have passed, the whole town's talking
Speaker 2: about a kidnapping, and suddenly the mysterious stranger had gone
Speaker 2: from a white man with tanned skin to a Native
Speaker 2: American and quote Indian lookalike with high cheekbones and black hair. Now,
Speaker 2: because Christina lived in Cross County but her body was
Speaker 2: found across the county line in Jackson County, law enforcement
Speaker 2: met and decided that Jackson County would assist, but that
Speaker 2: the jurisdiction would stay in Cross County. Jackson County did
Speaker 2: question some people, mainly guys who were arrested for other
Speaker 2: things like dwi's, but police really seemed to have pretty
Speaker 2: much zero leads and not much to go on. There
Speaker 2: was another family, the Earls. They lived on Fourth Street,
Speaker 2: close to Christina's house. Kim Earles said that on Saturday night,
Speaker 2: just after midnight, she saw a young man in a
Speaker 2: blue car, which she described as a late model Transam
Speaker 2: or Camaro. She said it had one of those novelty
Speaker 2: brake lights that glow neon around the license plate when
Speaker 2: you put on the brakes She said she saw that car,
Speaker 2: which seems like it would be pretty memorable, at a
Speaker 2: McDonald's and win. She said the guy driving it was
Speaker 2: dark complexion with tan skin, medium bill, dark eyebrows, and
Speaker 2: that that person was around six foot two. Other people
Speaker 2: said there was a guy named James Hannah who had
Speaker 2: a car like that, but when police showed a picture
Speaker 2: of James Hannah to the girls, they said they knew
Speaker 2: James Hannah and this was not him driving the car.
Speaker 2: They described the driver as dirty looking and said that
Speaker 2: that person was a stranger to them. Kim said that
Speaker 2: she had seen that same man, the one driving the
Speaker 2: blue car with the light up brakes, around town for
Speaker 2: the past few months. She said that this mystery guy
Speaker 2: had been parked near the bank on Saturday. Her and
Speaker 2: her sister Angela said that they believed that this person
Speaker 2: had followed them to the tanning bed. Sharon and Ricky
Speaker 2: Holloman had a daughter who was friends with Christina. Sharon
Speaker 2: was another person who said she saw a blue car
Speaker 2: that day. She said it was sportsy looking and had
Speaker 2: primer or rest spots on it, and that it was
Speaker 2: speeding on the side streets of Hickory Ridge.
Speaker 1: On Saturday afternoon.
Speaker 2: She described the driver as clean shaven, with short hair
Speaker 2: and chubby cheeks. She said that she had seen that
Speaker 2: same car several times a week, going over to what
Speaker 2: she thought was the Pipkin residence. Sharon and Ricky had
Speaker 2: a daughter, and their daughter was a friend of Christina's.
Speaker 2: She actually saw Christina on the afternoon that she disappeared,
Speaker 2: and she said she saw her with a young boy
Speaker 2: that had gone to school with Christina. The little girl
Speaker 2: said she didn't know the boy's name. She said for
Speaker 2: some reason, the boy would hide behind trees and Christina
Speaker 2: seemed impatient, and that when this friend tried to talk
Speaker 2: to Christina, finally, she said, the boy caught up to
Speaker 2: Christina and started walking with her, and they went off
Speaker 2: in the other direction. Christina's friend said the last time
Speaker 2: she saw Christina, Christina was walking south on the southbound
Speaker 2: shoulder of Highway forty nine in front of the bear
Speaker 2: Cat Store, so between the Bearcat Grocery Store and the
Speaker 2: post office. She said the blue car was following Christina,
Speaker 2: driving slow, and that Christina was shaking her head no
Speaker 2: to the person driving the car. She described it as
Speaker 2: an older blue colored car with some type of brownish
Speaker 2: rust colored stains or rust on the lower portions of
Speaker 2: the car. The friend said that she rode her bike
Speaker 2: around the bank one more time and that by the
Speaker 2: time she got back to the road, she could not
Speaker 2: see Christina or the car. The little girl didn't know
Speaker 2: what time this was, but her mother said they had
Speaker 2: only gotten back to their house at around seven pm,
Speaker 2: so would have had to have been a little bit
Speaker 2: after that. If that's true, then this little girl may
Speaker 2: have been the last person than the case for at
Speaker 2: least to have seen Christina alive. Christina Pipkins's math teacher
Speaker 2: also said she saw Christina outside of the bear Cat
Speaker 2: grocery that afternoon, and she said that Christina was barefoot.
Speaker 2: This seems to solve another mystery because remember we mentioned
Speaker 2: that Christina's mother said she was wearing white sandals on
Speaker 2: the day she went missing, but her sandals were not
Speaker 2: found with her body. But it seems like Christina had
Speaker 2: already ditched her sandals because she was walking around that
Speaker 2: parking lot barefoot, so it seems less likely that her
Speaker 2: killer took them or that they slipped off during some
Speaker 2: kind of struggle. I still wonder, though, where are the sandals,
Speaker 2: But in my mind, if she was barefoot, that means
Speaker 2: it's even less likely she would have made that over
Speaker 2: three mile walk out to the area where she was found.
Speaker 2: Another name that was mentioned in the case file early
Speaker 2: on was Charles Cotton Junior. Charles Cotton Junior has a
Speaker 2: criminal record, including charges for lewde acts against a child. Now,
Speaker 2: Charles Cotton would later tell a journalist in Juno, Alaska,
Speaker 2: where he was living, that that was all mistake, that
Speaker 2: what happened was a child had walked in on him
Speaker 2: and either his wife or girlfriend having sex on a couch.
Speaker 2: That the whole thing was blown out of proportion. That's
Speaker 2: what a lot of sex offenders say. And the fact
Speaker 2: of the matter is Charles Cotton did have a lengthy
Speaker 2: criminal record. At the time when Christina went missing. Charles
Speaker 2: Cotton was married. According to his wife, Rebecca Cotton, who
Speaker 2: was twenty one years old at the time, the couple
Speaker 2: was living a little bit out of town, but we've
Speaker 2: also been told by people close to Christina's family that
Speaker 2: Charles Cotton was living right next door. We're still trying
Speaker 2: to figure out his exact location and movements at the time.
Speaker 2: We do know that Charles Cotton was introduced to Christina's father, James,
Speaker 2: by their next door neighbor, Pat Moore. So, as far
Speaker 2: as I can tell, Charles Cotton did spend some time
Speaker 2: at the moorhouse. That could potentially be why some people
Speaker 2: believe that Charles was living next door. These guys all
Speaker 2: had completely different physical descriptions. Robbie Tubbs was white with
Speaker 2: tan skin and dark wavy hair that went down toward
Speaker 2: his shoulders. Charles Cotton had blue eyes and blonde hair.
Speaker 2: We mentioned in the last episode that after hair testing
Speaker 2: and the trial, the charges against Robbie Tubbs were dropped.
Speaker 2: He walked away a free man. His last known address
Speaker 2: is in Sulfur Spring, Texas, but he's challenging to find.
Speaker 2: Charles Cotton is much easier to find. He's in federal
Speaker 2: prison in Washington State. After Christina's death, Charles Cotton got
Speaker 2: into some more issues with the law, and eventually he
Speaker 2: found love. In twenty eleven, Charles reconnected with a woman
Speaker 2: named Penny. They actually grew up together and they met
Speaker 2: while they were both students and win high school back
Speaker 2: in the day. Back then, they dated that they broke
Speaker 2: up and they didn't see each other for years. This time, though,
Speaker 2: once they reconnected, that relationship got serious. They got married
Speaker 2: and Penny moved with Charles to Juneo, Alaska, but their
Speaker 2: fresh start did not last long. In Juno, Charles Cotton
Speaker 2: started managing a hotel called the Bergmann Hotel. It was
Speaker 2: a historic structure that had become run down over the years.
Speaker 2: In twenty sixteen, he took that dilapidated building that had
Speaker 2: become a hangout for people doing drugs and other illegal
Speaker 2: things and said he was going to turn it around.
Speaker 2: At one point, he actually made local news as someone
Speaker 2: who had a criminal record but was now a productive
Speaker 2: member of society. Charles told the Juno Empire during that interview,
Speaker 2: quote I come in and started getting the riff rafh out,
Speaker 2: started getting the thieves and the drugs out. I run
Speaker 2: them the hell off, and I'd do it any day
Speaker 2: of the week end. Quote. So in this article, Charles
Speaker 2: was described as this recovering addict who was kind of
Speaker 2: running his own alternative to Narcanon called Choices.
Speaker 1: So the idea of the program was that Charles.
Speaker 2: Would get the addicts to do work on the crumbling
Speaker 2: building and they would get free room and board. But
Speaker 2: that good press did not last because the city came
Speaker 2: in and they found a ton of problems without building,
Speaker 2: There were toxins in the water, exposed wires, and apparently
Speaker 2: no heat or hot water. They slapped Charles with a fine,
Speaker 2: which he didn't pay. At some point they condemned the building.
Speaker 2: The city evacuated it, but Charles and his tenants refused
Speaker 2: to leave. It turned out that he was selling drugs again.
Speaker 2: At some point he had relapsed and gone from being
Speaker 2: a program for recovering addicts to a drug den. Charles
Speaker 2: was hit with a string of charges for distributing methamphetamine,
Speaker 2: and then on September twenty seventh, twenty seventeen, his wife,
Speaker 2: Penny Cotton, was found dead in a hotel room in Morris, Alaska.
Speaker 2: When Penny Cotton was found dead, she had been shot
Speaker 2: in the head. Her death was ruled a suicide. Her
Speaker 2: family back in Arkansas told reporters at the Mid South
Speaker 2: they did not believe that Penny would take her own life.
Speaker 2: The medical examiner did not order an autopsy, but Penny's
Speaker 2: family got some photos and they shared those photos of
Speaker 2: Penny's body with local media. These photos apparently showed Penny
Speaker 2: had been shot in the left side of the head,
Speaker 2: but Penny's family pointed out she's right handed, so to
Speaker 2: them that seemed to be impossible.
Speaker 1: In twenty seventeen.
Speaker 2: Charles was hit with charges of distributing methamphetamine and was
Speaker 2: arrested by the FBI. In twenty nineteen, Charles Cotton Junior
Speaker 2: and his son, Ricky staplele Lisk were both sentenced for
Speaker 2: drug charges. Charles got ten years in prison, Ricky got five,
Speaker 2: and Charles is in prison today. There was a comment
Speaker 2: on Penny's obituary. It referred to her as being gangster
Speaker 2: and to her helping Charles with his business, and it
Speaker 2: was written by someone who had been in that building
Speaker 2: with Penny and Charles, so obviously Penny knew a lot
Speaker 2: about what Charles was getting up to. Could this have
Speaker 2: motivated someone connected to him to take her life. Charles
Speaker 2: Cotton Junior may have been involved in other legal activities,
Speaker 2: but what about Christina Pipkin. Let's look at Charles Cotton's
Speaker 2: connection to the Pipkin family. James Pipkin told investigators that
Speaker 2: he was introduced to Charles Cotton through his neighbor Pat Moore,
Speaker 2: but that before Christina went missing, he had never seen
Speaker 2: or spoken.
Speaker 1: To Charles in his life.
Speaker 2: Charles Cotton said that on the day Christina disappeared, he
Speaker 2: was fishing with a friend of his from around one
Speaker 2: thirty to five thirty at an area called Bird Eye
Speaker 2: near Cherry Valley, a small town a few miles from
Speaker 2: Hickory Ridge. Apparently, Charles did stop by the Bearcat grocery
Speaker 2: store at some point on Saturday. Now, he said he
Speaker 2: didn't remember doing that, but a friend of his saw
Speaker 2: him there, and he mentions that in his discussion with investigators.
Speaker 2: He said that after he was finished fishing, he went
Speaker 2: home and watched TV with his wife, Rebecca, and the
Speaker 2: rest of his family. At around two thirty, he said,
Speaker 2: a friend of his name Neil Long, came by and
Speaker 2: asked if anyone had seen Christina Pipkin. That's when he
Speaker 2: said he found out Christina was missing. Charles said at
Speaker 2: that point he went out and borrowed a friend's three
Speaker 2: wheeler and started searching for her. By the way, Charles
Speaker 2: drove a seventy four light blue Dodge Charger at the time,
Speaker 2: yet another blue car. I have questions about Charles Cotton,
Speaker 2: mainly because reading through this case file, it seems like
Speaker 2: he was inserting himself into the investigation a lot. We
Speaker 2: know from James Pipkin's statement that Charles was very involved
Speaker 2: in the search for Christina. He kept looking constantly until
Speaker 2: she was found. Apparently, Charles even borrowed two hundred and
Speaker 2: twenty five dollars from James Pipkin. He claimed he had
Speaker 2: to pay a fine because he hadn't had time to
Speaker 2: go pay it. He'd been out looking for Christina and
Speaker 2: missed his chance. So James Pipkin felt sorry for him
Speaker 2: and gave him the money, which, of course James Pipkin
Speaker 2: never got back. Now, this could have been totally innocuous.
Speaker 2: This was a big story. This is a low local girl.
Speaker 2: But the Pipkin family had only lived in Hickory Ridge
Speaker 2: for about four months at that point. Charles, Cotton and
Speaker 2: some other people seem to be getting very close to
Speaker 2: the family in that time. I wondered about this, and
Speaker 2: Amy and I made a few more stops. We were
Speaker 2: looking for old newspapers and we found one from the
Speaker 2: week when Christina's body was found. We were shocked when
Speaker 2: we saw Christina's obituary and there was a detail.
Speaker 1: That had not been online.
Speaker 2: The names of pallbearers, and one of those pallbearers at
Speaker 2: Christina's funeral was Charles Cotton. This seems very odd to me. Again,
Speaker 2: could be totally innocent, could be just someone doing a
Speaker 2: kindness for a neighbor. But why would someone who didn't
Speaker 2: know James at all suddenly be super involved in the search,
Speaker 2: then borrow money from James, and then show up as
Speaker 2: a pallbearer. Again, though that's all circumstantial, we have to
Speaker 2: go back to the place and time where Christina was
Speaker 2: last seen in and around the bear Cat Grocery store
Speaker 2: in the Bank parking lot. Even though there are a
Speaker 2: lot of disparate reports. Actually, what we're finding out is
Speaker 2: that Christina went missing in a pretty small window of time,
Speaker 2: and we see something else in the case file that
Speaker 2: could potentially help police talk to the four people who
Speaker 2: were working inside the bear Cat Grocery store that day. Now,
Speaker 2: three of the employees had either left or were otherwise
Speaker 2: occupied when Christina was around, but one person, the cashier,
Speaker 2: got a very good look at a stranger, someone who
Speaker 2: came into the store at around the same time as
Speaker 2: Christina was there, someone who she said no one in
Speaker 2: the store recognized. I wanted to find this cashier because
Speaker 2: in the whole case file, she was the only one
Speaker 2: who had a definite and good description of a potential suspect,
Speaker 2: who had been close to the unknown stranger and actually
Speaker 2: seen a detailed view of their face. I will not
Speaker 2: say exactly how we did it, and I won't use
Speaker 2: her name because I know that this person is very nervous.
Speaker 2: But we found her, and I'm putting this information out
Speaker 2: there because number one, this case file is public. These
Speaker 2: names are part of the public record, and also, most importantly,
Speaker 2: I believe this information is critical to solving this case.
Speaker 2: We asked the cashier about what she had seen that
Speaker 2: day before we showed her her police.
Speaker 1: Statement, by the way, which she'd never seen.
Speaker 2: In her statement, the cashier said she was working at
Speaker 2: the Bearcat grocery store on Saturday, May fourth.
Speaker 1: Nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 2: She said, at about five forty five PM, an individual
Speaker 2: a stranger, came in and bought some cigarettes. In her
Speaker 2: statement to police, the officer who interviewed the cashier noted
Speaker 2: she said that the stranger drove a mid or late
Speaker 2: seventies model Oldsmobile four door and it looked blue gray
Speaker 2: in color. In a statement, she said the stranger pulled
Speaker 2: in heading north. The statement reads quote she saw him
Speaker 2: on the side walk looking north and south and making
Speaker 2: a U turn and went south.
Speaker 1: Quote.
Speaker 2: The statement described the stranger as a white male, mid thirties,
Speaker 2: five foot nine and around one hundred and forty five pounds,
Speaker 2: hair dark brown, almost reddish in color, clean hair almost
Speaker 2: shoulder length, not curly, almost straight. She further stated he
Speaker 2: had a mustache and that his hair was cupped around
Speaker 2: his face, which was thin. She said he wasn't wearing
Speaker 2: glasses or a hat. He had on older jeans and
Speaker 2: bell Crow type tennis shoes with a gray T shirt
Speaker 2: underneath an older shirt that was short sleeved. She said
Speaker 2: no tattoos were visible. In her statement, she said the stranger,
Speaker 2: who was white but had tan skin, looked like Richard Gear,
Speaker 2: that he bought cigarettes and left, and that he stared
Speaker 2: at her. The police report was very brief, but when
Speaker 2: we talked to the cashier, she gave us a lot
Speaker 2: of details that were not in the police report. Again,
Speaker 2: it's important to note that we asked her about her
Speaker 2: memories before we showed her her own statement. Most of
Speaker 2: the police statement match which she told us, but there
Speaker 2: were some very important differences. First of all, she said
Speaker 2: she got a very good look at the stranger's car,
Speaker 2: and she emphatically said it was brown or tan in color,
Speaker 2: not blue. Also, when you read the police report, it
Speaker 2: kind of makes it sound like the stranger was standing
Speaker 2: on the sidewalk. She clarified what she meant. She said
Speaker 2: he pulled his car all the way up on the sidewalk.
Speaker 2: In fact, he pulled it so far up that he
Speaker 2: had to get out on the passenger side, and she
Speaker 2: remembers looking out the window at that car because that
Speaker 2: was annoying. She described the car as dirty, but definitely
Speaker 2: brown or tan. And she clarified when she said the
Speaker 2: stranger looked like Richard Gear, she was really talking about
Speaker 2: the distinctive nose shape and eyes.
Speaker 1: She said.
Speaker 2: The stranger walked into the store and bought Marlboro Reds
Speaker 2: in the hard pack. Then he asked if she had
Speaker 2: some matches. She said, yes, sir, we do, and gave
Speaker 2: him some of the freebie matches. Then he left, and
Speaker 2: because he had parked so close to the building on
Speaker 2: that sidewalk, he had to get in through the passenger
Speaker 2: side of the car and shift over to the driver's side.
Speaker 2: She said he was alone. He drove away and she
Speaker 2: never saw him again. The next page after the cashier's
Speaker 2: statement in the case file is a page that explains
Speaker 2: that a sketch artist met with her. They developed a
Speaker 2: composite photo, and that the completed composite would be made
Speaker 2: part of the case file. But the photo copy of
Speaker 2: the composite drawing is not there as far as I
Speaker 2: can tell. I don't know if the police just aren't
Speaker 2: including it, or if it's not in the case file
Speaker 2: at all anymore. I asked the cashier about it, and
Speaker 2: she remembered that image very clearly. She said she might
Speaker 2: still have a copy and said she would go home
Speaker 2: to look in her safe. Then she texted me and
Speaker 2: said she found it. She had the original composite photo.
Speaker 2: It had been sitting in her safe for over thirty years.
Speaker 2: We showed her some pictures of the people who were
Speaker 2: mentioned by police back in the day, including Charles Cotton,
Speaker 2: but she says that was not the stranger she waited on.
Speaker 2: Then Amy shows her an old picture of Robbie Tubbs,
Speaker 2: her father in law. The cashier blinked, looked shocked, and said,
Speaker 2: who is this.
Speaker 1: How did you get this?
Speaker 2: We asked her if she believed that was the man
Speaker 2: she saw in the bear Cat that day. Later, we
Speaker 2: texted her a couple more pictures from that era. She
Speaker 2: texted me back, I got cold chills. I think this
Speaker 2: is the man who was in the store that day.
Speaker 2: I know that IDs are not definitive proof of anything.
Speaker 2: Often people are wrong, and even if Robbie Tubbs was
Speaker 2: in town that day, that does not mean he had
Speaker 2: anything to do with Christina's death. But I do find
Speaker 2: it interesting that the description of the car was different
Speaker 2: from the one in the case file, that the cashier
Speaker 2: seems so haunted by looking at the image of Robbie
Speaker 2: Tubbs next two, that drawing she has had in her
Speaker 2: say for the past thirty years. I know positive ideas
Speaker 2: are not definitive proof, but it means we need to
Speaker 2: keep digging.
Speaker 1: I'm Catherine Townsend.
Speaker 2: This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line
Speaker 2: is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2: It's written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced
Speaker 2: by Gabby Watts. Music contributed by Ben so Lee, Executive
Speaker 2: producers of Virginia Prescott Brandon Barr and Helsey Crowley. If
Speaker 2: you have a case you'd like me and my team
Speaker 2: to look into, you can reach out to us at
Speaker 2: our Helen Gone Murder line at six seven eight seven
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