Speaker 1: School of Humans. I'm Catherine Townsend.
Speaker 2: Over the past five years making my true crime podcast
Speaker 2: Helen Gone, I've learned there's no such thing as a
Speaker 2: small town where murder never happens. I've received hundreds of
Speaker 2: messages from people all around the country asking for help
Speaker 2: with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and
Speaker 2: their communities. And now they have a new way to
Speaker 2: reach out. If you have a case you'd like me
Speaker 2: and my team to look into, you can reach out
Speaker 2: to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six
Speaker 2: seven eight seven four four six ' one four five.
Speaker 2: That's six seven eight seven four four six ' one
Speaker 2: four or five. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. As
Speaker 2: you know, we're launching a new series, but I can't
Speaker 2: start something new without returning to the case that started
Speaker 2: at all on Hele Gone and the case that changed
Speaker 2: my life forever, the murder of Rebecca Gould. The case
Speaker 2: file was finally released in full a few months back,
Speaker 2: and since then I have spent countless hours, many of
Speaker 2: them very late at night, reviewing it. As most of
Speaker 2: you know, in October of twenty twenty two, William Billy
Speaker 2: Miller was convicted of Rebecca's murder. He was sentenced to
Speaker 2: forty years in prison, which means that he will almost
Speaker 2: certainly spend the rest of his life behind bars. I
Speaker 2: am very happy that a violent killer and sexual predator
Speaker 2: has been taken off the streets, and I absolutely believe
Speaker 2: that Billy Miller was responsible for Rebecca's murder, at least partially.
Speaker 2: Side note here. When I did my last update episode,
Speaker 2: I mentioned that I was upset that the prosecutor hadn't
Speaker 2: kept his word to release the case file to doctor
Speaker 2: Larry Gould, Rebecca's father before it became public. So back
Speaker 2: in December, I was put in this very surreal situation
Speaker 2: of having filed a freedom of information request and then
Speaker 2: being one of the first people in the state to
Speaker 2: have the entire case file, and then of having to
Speaker 2: call Larry and break the news to him that his
Speaker 2: daughter's autopsy photos were now public. But shortly after that,
Speaker 2: I got a call from Mike McNeil of the Arkansas
Speaker 2: State Police. Mike asked that I set the record straight.
Speaker 2: He said the prosecutor was a friend of his and
Speaker 2: had done excellent work, and that the case file being
Speaker 2: made public was an o recite by his office. And
Speaker 2: not by the prosecutor's office. I do appreciate the hard
Speaker 2: work that the prosecutor's office did and the fact that
Speaker 2: they put Billy Miller behind bars where he belongs. And
Speaker 2: I've always said this podcast is not meant to be
Speaker 2: anti law enforcement. They have a hard job to do.
Speaker 2: I've always believed that Mike McNeil did an amazing job
Speaker 2: on this investigation, especially what he had to work with
Speaker 2: after his predecessors finished with the case. So I did
Speaker 2: want to make sure to get that message across. So
Speaker 2: the case file is out, Billy Miller's been convicted, But
Speaker 2: as I said before, reading through this massive case file
Speaker 2: has not changed my opinion. I still feel like Billy
Speaker 2: Miller's conviction is not the end of the story. While
Speaker 2: I was waiting for the case file to come out,
Speaker 2: there was a lot going on behind the scenes. Myself
Speaker 2: and a lot of other people, including private investigator Jennifer
Speaker 2: Buckoltz who started the Facebook group Unsolved Murder, Rebecca Gould,
Speaker 2: and the journalist and author George Jarrett, and a lot
Speaker 2: of other people have been following up on leads. So
Speaker 2: once again I went back to the very beginning, back
Speaker 2: to one of the very first conversations I had with Taylor,
Speaker 2: who was my producer in season one. This was back
Speaker 2: in twenty eighteen. I was just starting out on this case.
Speaker 2: I was living alone in my grandmother's cabin in the woods,
Speaker 2: and after going on local public radio, I was getting
Speaker 2: a lot of random tips. People were calling and texting.
Speaker 2: Hundreds of tips flooded in, so to keep track of them,
Speaker 2: we would talk about these pieces of information that we'd
Speaker 2: gotten and decide which one seemed credible. We did our
Speaker 2: best to run down every single tip we got until
Speaker 2: we either got to a dead end or a point
Speaker 2: where we decided we need to investigate further.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let me go back to these tips.
Speaker 2: All right, just heard you on KWOZ with Gary, and
Speaker 2: I just wanted to let you know that on that Saturday,
Speaker 2: on the weekend Rebecca was killed, my family and I
Speaker 2: lived right beside them, and we all set out at
Speaker 2: my brother in law's house all day and not sure
Speaker 2: what time it was, but it was in the afternoon.
Speaker 2: There was a little dark blue car with a guy
Speaker 2: and a woman that came by and went up to
Speaker 2: the barn, right past the trailer. The guy got out
Speaker 2: and I thought he was going to use the bathroom,
Speaker 2: but he went to the back of the car, put
Speaker 2: on like jogging pants and got a weeded her out
Speaker 2: and weeded it a little bit. Rebecca came out on
Speaker 2: the porch when they drove back by and stopped, and
Speaker 2: she went to the end of the porch and said,
Speaker 2: did you get it done? And he said yes, and
Speaker 2: they drove off. They had Texas tags on the car.
Speaker 2: Then a little while later, Rebecca came out to her car,
Speaker 2: opened the door and got something out and went back
Speaker 2: inside the trailer. She was wearing a gray tank top
Speaker 2: and a pair of gray sweatpants. We did tell the
Speaker 2: Arkansas State Police, and not sure it has anything to
Speaker 2: do with anything. It was just really strange because he
Speaker 2: only weeded for maybe about fifteen minutes or so, not
Speaker 2: long at all, and it was where the old barn is.
Speaker 2: Just thought it was strange and never seen the guy before.
Speaker 2: He had black hair and was young looking. Couldn't really
Speaker 2: see the woman.
Speaker 1: So there it is.
Speaker 2: Billy Miller and his family were there the whole time,
Speaker 2: lurking in the background. Linda Miller told police that she
Speaker 2: and Jeremy were at Casey's trailer that weekend that was them,
Speaker 2: that little blue car with the Texas plates, and the
Speaker 2: young man with the black hair was Jeremy Miller. Now,
Speaker 2: Billy Miller has claimed that he acted alone. He said
Speaker 2: no one in his family or anyone else had any
Speaker 2: idea what he did.
Speaker 1: He said that he was a monster.
Speaker 2: But I made a promise to Rebecca way back when
Speaker 2: I started this investigation that I was going to keep
Speaker 2: digging until I'm satisfied that I have answered the question
Speaker 2: of what really happened to Rebecca Gould in September two
Speaker 2: thousand and four in that tiny trailer in the backwoods
Speaker 2: of Guyan I want to focus on facts. I'm really
Speaker 2: not here to focus on again. What are the well
Speaker 2: documented and factual what I believe to be catastrophic mistakes
Speaker 2: made by the previous investigator on the case, Dennis Simon's.
Speaker 2: But I do want to take a second to talk
Speaker 2: about the Dateline episode, the one that aired covering Rebecca
Speaker 2: Gould's case, because a lot of people have asked me
Speaker 2: about it. While the episode was pretty factual, there's no
Speaker 2: easy way to say this. Dennis Simon's blatantly lied in
Speaker 2: that episode, and it made me sick to watch the
Speaker 2: b roll of him typing his computer, acting like he
Speaker 2: was really busy, and then staring out at a body
Speaker 2: of water as if he was pondering the case as
Speaker 2: HELLNGNG listeners know this is the exact opposite of what
Speaker 2: happened as usual. There was a story behind the story
Speaker 2: about the dateline episode. For the past three years, I've
Speaker 2: been talking to a producer at forty eight hours, a
Speaker 2: rival program. A few months ago, she called me with
Speaker 2: some disturbing information. She let me know that when she
Speaker 2: called the Arkansas State Police to say that forty eight
Speaker 2: hours wanted to run an episode about Rebecca's case, the
Speaker 2: Arkansas State Police told forty eight hours that if they
Speaker 2: talked to me or George Jared or Jennifer Bucklet, and
Speaker 2: they mentioned all three of us, unprompted by name, that
Speaker 2: they would not participate in the program.
Speaker 1: The producer refused.
Speaker 2: She said that that type of request was a violation
Speaker 2: of First Amendment rights. I also want to make it
Speaker 2: clear that the one exception to this was Mike McNeil,
Speaker 2: because the producer told me when she talked to Mike
Speaker 2: that he did agree to do an interview even if
Speaker 2: they talked to us. He was fine with the producer
Speaker 2: speaking to me, George and Jennifer as long as we
Speaker 2: were asked the tough questions, which obviously is fine with me.
Speaker 2: I talked to the Dateline producer at length. I shared
Speaker 2: information with them, just like I do with everyone. And
Speaker 2: I do wonder why, if there were no condition, why
Speaker 2: they wouldn't have had not just me, but other people
Speaker 2: on for interviews, why they would have aired pieces from
Speaker 2: the podcast without giving me the courtesy of allowing me
Speaker 2: to comment. I was very disappointed that someone like Dennis
Speaker 2: Simon's was given airtime and that the Arkansas State Police
Speaker 2: was allowed to paint this narrative of him working diligently
Speaker 2: on the case for years, because everyone who listens to
Speaker 2: this podcast should know that's just not what happened. I
Speaker 2: called him in several lives on the show. First, he
Speaker 2: said that after I brought in the witness statement from
Speaker 2: the person who told me that Casey had confessed to
Speaker 2: Rebecca's murder, and he read details that no one else knew,
Speaker 2: Dennis said that he immediately understood how serious this was.
Speaker 2: He left out the part about how he refused to
Speaker 2: take evidence, and you can see this in the case file.
Speaker 2: When he did go to reinterview some people who were
Speaker 2: involved in Casey's ALBI, rather than any in depth interviews,
Speaker 2: he literally sent them their own statements that they had
Speaker 2: made back in two thousand and four, asked them if
Speaker 2: anything had changed, and when they said no, he moved on.
Speaker 2: His so called interviews were all done in around five minutes.
Speaker 2: What really happened over and over was me and other
Speaker 2: people going in to try and give Dennis evidence and
Speaker 2: him refusing to take it. He didn't want to see
Speaker 2: anything that didn't incriminate Chris Cantrell, who we now know
Speaker 2: had nothing to do with Rebecca's death. Dennis told me
Speaker 2: over and over he was making sure that Chris Cantrell
Speaker 2: did life on the installment plan by putting him in
Speaker 2: prison as often as possible. I urge everyone out there
Speaker 2: to do a Foyer request for yourself and read the
Speaker 2: entire case file, because you don't need to take my
Speaker 2: word for it. The work or lack of work he
Speaker 2: did over a fifteen year period will speak for itself.
Speaker 2: I really loved Dateline, but in this case, I think
Speaker 2: the producer users made a bad call by allowing Dennis
Speaker 2: Simons to have a platform. We have fought so hard
Speaker 2: to tell the truth about what was going on during
Speaker 2: his time as lead investigator in this case. I really
Speaker 2: feel that making it seem like he's working diligently behind
Speaker 2: the scenes does a massive disservice to everyone out there
Speaker 2: trying to deal with potentially incompetent or corrupt investigators. Let's
Speaker 2: get back to Rebecca's case. Once Mike McNeil took over,
Speaker 2: he testified at the pre trial hearings that after looking
Speaker 2: at the case file, he came to the same conclusion
Speaker 2: that we did in the podcast. The cleanup scene at
Speaker 2: Casey's home indicated that Casey McCulla or someone connected to
Speaker 2: him and to that trailer killed rebeccah Gould. So Mike
Speaker 2: went back to the beginning to see if there was
Speaker 2: something or someone that law enforcement had missed, and soon
Speaker 2: he saw what the neighbors told us on the podcast,
Speaker 2: that Billy Miller, Casey's cousin, came to town right before
Speaker 2: Rebecca was murdered, and that he left right afterward. I'm
Speaker 2: sure he also noticed that Casey mentioned Billy coming to
Speaker 2: the house in his first interview with police and then
Speaker 2: never mentioned him again, even once investigators specifically asked Casey
Speaker 2: for a list of people who had been inside the
Speaker 2: house and outside it. Billy did not make Casey's list.
Speaker 3: Going to conduct an interview with Casey McCullough.
Speaker 1: Mike interviewed Casey in twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: It is September the eighteenth, twenty twenty, approximately ten am.
Speaker 3: We're in Melbourne, Arkansas.
Speaker 2: Mike started out by asking Casey to drive him over
Speaker 2: to the area of Wolf Farm, where Casey's grandparents used
Speaker 2: to live. This was also the place where Linda, Jeremy
Speaker 2: and Billy Miller's stayed when they were in town. He
Speaker 2: was friendly and approachable and kept Casey talking.
Speaker 3: Little Bill William his birth name is William Alma Miller,
Speaker 3: that he goes by little Bill Bill. Okay, he came
Speaker 3: up to help Linda and Jeremy move back to Texas.
Speaker 4: Okay, now I'm starting to yeah, Okay, ring a bell.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 3: So in his statement, he said that the first thing
Speaker 3: he did when he got up here to Melbourne, to
Speaker 3: Izard County was that he visited family and spent time
Speaker 3: with his mom. So my thinking is is that he
Speaker 3: was at the grandparents' house visiting like he said he was.
Speaker 3: Whenever you showed up to give Claude your truck. Okay,
Speaker 3: how else it doesn't make sense to me. How else
Speaker 3: would you know that that was little Bill out on
Speaker 3: the dirt road just by looking out the window, unless
Speaker 3: you had seen him just hours before. This is so
Speaker 3: long ago, Yeah, I know, but I mean, just try
Speaker 3: to try to have that what I'm saying, I think
Speaker 3: makes makes sense. I don't know how because by your statement,
Speaker 3: you said, Rebecca looked out the window and saw somebody
Speaker 3: on the road, and then you looked out the window
Speaker 3: and noticed that it was little Bill. How would you
Speaker 3: have known that that was little Bill unless you had
Speaker 3: seen Little Bill earlier? And little Bill says he was
Speaker 3: visiting family, so it makes sense to me that he
Speaker 3: was probably at the grandparents' house whenever you dropped your
Speaker 3: truck off. Right, that makes sense.
Speaker 4: I feel like, I mean, it was so long ago,
Speaker 4: but yeah, I mean I feel like I recognized him.
Speaker 4: I knew it was him. But yeah, like as far
Speaker 4: as what he was driving then I can't tell you
Speaker 4: or anything like that, but I knew what he looked
Speaker 4: like and wright and all that, and only has to
Speaker 4: do winded down.
Speaker 3: Well because I want to say it well.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna be honest with you. I mean, you're you're
Speaker 6: telling me all this stuff and it's it's hard to remember. Yeah,
Speaker 6: you're telling stuff that I know that is he telling me?
Speaker 4: The truth is that you're actually telling me yeah I
Speaker 4: said this, or I'm not.
Speaker 3: I'm not trying to get you, uh hemmed up and
Speaker 3: put words in your mouth. I'm just I'm just going
Speaker 3: to got a job to do. Well, I know, I know,
Speaker 3: mm hmm.
Speaker 2: One of the first things that I ever said on
Speaker 2: Hell Gone was that Monday morning is a weird time
Speaker 2: for a murder. Mike challenges Casey about this, about the
Speaker 2: fact that whoever killed Rebecca would presumably have had to
Speaker 2: know that Casey wasn't there, that there was no forced entry,
Speaker 2: and that this person hung around and cleaned up the scene.
Speaker 3: Well, you know what we talked about before is whoever
Speaker 3: did this knew that you were at work without a vehicle,
Speaker 3: and they knew Claude was out of state on a run.
Speaker 3: They knew and they knew Rebecca was there. That those
Speaker 3: are the three things that this person knew.
Speaker 7: Who is that?
Speaker 3: Okay, that's that's That's not very many people. And I'm
Speaker 3: I'm just going through theories and I'm going through I'm
Speaker 3: processing the information that I have. Billy is one of
Speaker 3: those people, Jeremy is one of those people with without
Speaker 3: a without a doubt in my mind. So you know,
Speaker 3: I just have to I need to process anybody that.
Speaker 3: And another thing, you know, there wasn't forced entry to
Speaker 3: the trailer. You said on multiple times that when Rebecca
Speaker 3: told you, the last thing she told you was that
Speaker 3: she was going back to the trailer to go to
Speaker 3: bed and that she was going to sleep all day
Speaker 3: until she had to come pick you up. And you
Speaker 3: also said that any time Rebecca was there by herself,
Speaker 3: especially if she was sleeping, she's dead bolt that front door,
Speaker 3: because you, on multiple occasions showed up and had to
Speaker 3: knock and knock and knock to get her to come
Speaker 3: unlock that dead bolt. That's a statement you made just
Speaker 3: in one of your first, first or second interviews. You
Speaker 3: made that known. Well, without there being forced entry into
Speaker 3: the home, who has access to to that who has
Speaker 3: that key to that dead bolt? You made it known
Speaker 3: in your interviews that there are only two people that
Speaker 3: had access to that key, Claude and your grandpa. Okay, okay,
Speaker 3: well again it could. It is a possibility that Jeremy
Speaker 3: or Billy took that key from your grandpa, unbeknownst to
Speaker 3: your grandpa, without your grandpa's knowledge. Jeremy and Billy were
Speaker 3: both into marijuana back then, into drugs. Both of them
Speaker 3: were a mess, were heathens back then.
Speaker 2: It's a little hard to hear, but Casey once again
Speaker 2: suggests to Mike that it could be JB. Chris Cantrell,
Speaker 2: or Jennifer Turner, all names we've heard before, and he
Speaker 2: blames the podcast. He says during this interview that the
Speaker 2: podcast reported that there was a man and a woman
Speaker 2: at his house over the weekend. Mike kind of shuts
Speaker 2: him down there. He says, no, that pulled LEAs had
Speaker 2: talked to the neighbors and that it was in the
Speaker 2: case file.
Speaker 1: The neighbors saw.
Speaker 2: A man and woman there over the weekend. It wasn't
Speaker 2: just erroneous reporting by the podcast.
Speaker 4: Is there's nothing else that I can help you with?
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: Is there I feel like there is, but I know
Speaker 4: you don't want to tell me anything.
Speaker 3: What are you talking about?
Speaker 8: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I just I was the one that was that was
Speaker 4: hanging out with her. You know real close to her.
Speaker 4: So if somebody's saying something that I know is false
Speaker 4: in their line, you know other suspects. I know you,
Speaker 4: you gotta be careful, but you know I mean JB,
Speaker 4: Chris Control, Jennifer Turner. I'm I'm still on a different
Speaker 4: place than I know your I know y'r. But what
Speaker 4: what I had the most motive was Jennifer. Unless you
Speaker 4: want to watch the podcast, then it's me.
Speaker 2: Remember, Rebecca went missing on September twentieth, two thousand and four,
Speaker 2: after dropping Casey off at work early that morning, And
Speaker 2: as you all know, one of the big questions we've
Speaker 2: had this entire time was about Casey stopping at home
Speaker 2: on Tuesday morning before work. Casey has always said he
Speaker 2: never went home on Monday night. He went out with
Speaker 2: his friends and stayed over at Laryn's house. But one
Speaker 2: of the big questions we've always had was about Casey
Speaker 2: stopping at home on Tuesday morning before work. We wondered
Speaker 2: how he could have stopped at the house and walked
Speaker 2: through that trailer with blood on the floors and all
Speaker 2: of Rebecca's stuff there and not know something was wrong.
Speaker 2: And the case file does not clear this up. In fact,
Speaker 2: it makes this story even stranger because when Mark Colling's Worth,
Speaker 2: one of the original Arkansas State Police investigators on the case,
Speaker 2: talked to Casey on September twenty second, two thousand and four,
Speaker 2: Casey told Mark that he went home twice on Tuesday morning. Now,
Speaker 2: this doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. Casey
Speaker 2: said he went to work early, before eight am. He
Speaker 2: said he called Rebecca's mom and she said she hadn't
Speaker 2: seen Rebecca. He said at that point he told his boss,
Speaker 2: Bruce Shipman, that he wanted to go home to grab
Speaker 2: a fresh shirt. He said this was kind of an excuse,
Speaker 2: just to check on things at home. Bruce said he
Speaker 2: was gone for forty five minutes to an hour and
Speaker 2: then came back to work, but he didn't stay at
Speaker 2: work long. Just a few minutes later, he told his
Speaker 2: boss he was going to need the day off. He
Speaker 2: was worried about Rebecca. He wanted to see what was
Speaker 2: going on at home, so he left and on the
Speaker 2: way home, he was pulled over by Charlie Melton, the
Speaker 2: officer who had been sent to the trailer to do
Speaker 2: the welfare check by Rebecca's mother. Now, when they got
Speaker 2: to the trailer. Charlie Melton's report, which we can finally
Speaker 2: read after all these years, said that Casey went with
Speaker 2: him into the back bedroom where he and Rebecca had
Speaker 2: been sleeping. When they went in there, they saw that
Speaker 2: the bed had been stripped, and Casey made a comment
Speaker 2: about how he was surprised by that. Then Charlie asked
Speaker 2: him if he could look in the washing machine, which
Speaker 2: they did. That's when Charlie saw the bloody bedding in there.
Speaker 2: But in a separate interview that Casey did the day before,
Speaker 2: this time with special Agent David Lafferty, Casey said that
Speaker 2: on that first trip home, when he went to get
Speaker 2: a shirt, that he did look inside the washing machine
Speaker 2: before coming back with Charlie Melton. So if that was true,
Speaker 2: why did Casey act surprised about the sheets being off
Speaker 2: the bed and how could he have missed the blood
Speaker 2: in that washing machine if he did look in it.
Speaker 2: Remember these are not interviews taking place years later. This
Speaker 2: was literally two days after Rebecca went missing. In my opinion,
Speaker 2: those crime scene photos make it very hard to belie
Speaker 2: that anyone could have walked into that trailer and not
Speaker 2: known something was horribly wrong. There was blood everywhere all
Speaker 2: over the carpet smeared around the trailer. There were obvious
Speaker 2: signs that someone had tried to clean up. Casey also said,
Speaker 2: by the way that the back door was padlocked when
Speaker 2: he left for work. Now that door had been kicked out.
Speaker 2: Billy Miller later told investigators that's how he dragged Rebecca's
Speaker 2: body out of the house. He kicked the back door
Speaker 2: out and threw her body over the fence. So we're
Speaker 2: supposed to believe not only did Casey not notice any
Speaker 2: of the blood, but that he didn't notice his back
Speaker 2: door had been kicked out. I also studied the early
Speaker 2: interviews with the neighbors, because they, in my opinion, were
Speaker 2: the key to this case. They told police something else
Speaker 2: that was very interesting. They said that over the weekend
Speaker 2: they saw several people out there on the porch, not
Speaker 2: just Casey and Rebecca with a revisit from Billy, as
Speaker 2: Casey claimed. They said on Saturday night, there were four
Speaker 2: or maybe five guys on the porch, all young men
Speaker 2: and Rebecca. So who were these guys? When I started
Speaker 2: this case, One of the first things that Laryn McClure,
Speaker 2: who was a huge help to me, by the way
Speaker 2: in this case told me was that in Casey's friend group,
Speaker 2: not many people went to that trailer. Mainly it was
Speaker 2: just family there. So let's take a closer look at
Speaker 2: Casey's family. Casey McCullough has several brothers, Chris, Corey, and
Speaker 2: a half brother named Randy. Randy was away in the
Speaker 2: military at the time. Chris was working a job and
Speaker 2: had a young baby at home, but Corey, Casey's youngest brother,
Speaker 2: is more of an enigma. He was under eighteen at
Speaker 2: the time in high school. He told police he was
Speaker 2: living with his mother and that he was in Sarcy,
Speaker 2: Arkansas at the time Rebecca was murdered. But later my
Speaker 2: found out that this wasn't true because Casey's father, Claude McCullough,
Speaker 2: told police that Corey was there that weekend. Claude said
Speaker 2: that he saw Corey at their grandparents' house near Wolf Farm,
Speaker 2: the same home where Billy Miller, his mom, Linda, and
Speaker 2: Jeremy Miller were staying. It was a couple of miles
Speaker 2: from Casey's trailer. Back in twenty eighteen, I was contacted
Speaker 2: by someone close to Casey mccully's younger brother, Corey. This
Speaker 2: person told me that Corey and Casey had told them
Speaker 2: multiple times over the years that both of them Corey
Speaker 2: and Casey were in the trailer when Rebecca was murdered.
Speaker 2: Yet Corey had never been interviewed by the Arkansas State Police,
Speaker 2: not once in sixteen years.
Speaker 7: Been Your Day of Birth nine one eighty seven.
Speaker 2: Finally, in twenty twenty, Mike McNeil sat down with Corey
Speaker 2: for an interview.
Speaker 4: Here we go, so, uh, polygraph, Let's get a few
Speaker 4: things clear.
Speaker 2: Uh. First off, Corey said he'd only met Rebecca a
Speaker 2: few times. He described her as always happy, always smiling.
Speaker 2: Mike asked Corey about that weekend before Rebecca went missing.
Speaker 2: Corey said he didn't remember where he was. Mike sounds skeptical.
Speaker 2: He told him that he had spoken to Claude he
Speaker 2: knew Corey had been in Melbourne on Sunday. Mike asked
Speaker 2: Corey who he thought could have killed Rebecca. Corey said
Speaker 2: Casey had told him over the years that he knew
Speaker 2: who did it, but declined to mention names. Corey voluntarily
Speaker 2: took a lot of detector test. It came back inconclusive.
Speaker 2: He didn't pass, but he didn't fail either.
Speaker 5: Well, Corey, how was that stressful?
Speaker 3: Stressful?
Speaker 2: I've never been so stressed in alive. Mike had another
Speaker 2: piece of physical evidence that had been sitting in storage
Speaker 2: for years, a purple washcloth that had been wadded up
Speaker 2: under the bed where Rebecca slept and where some of
Speaker 2: the bloody bedding was dashed. Now nothing in the case
Speaker 2: while indicates that there was any usable DNA on this rag,
Speaker 2: but Corey didn't know that. Mike decided it was time
Speaker 2: to take a chance. Corey completely denied having anything to
Speaker 2: do with Rebecca's death or knowing who did. Basically, in
Speaker 2: the end, Corey called Mike's bluff. He said he needed
Speaker 2: to either arrest him or let him go, and Corey
Speaker 2: walked out of there. Mike was also tracking other family members.
Speaker 2: He was tracking Billy Miller's movements and investigating Billy's brother, Jeremy.
Speaker 2: At the time of Rebecca's murder, Billy was about twenty
Speaker 2: seven years old and Jeremy was fifteen. The story that
Speaker 2: the family told was that Linda had moved to the
Speaker 2: Melbourne area with Jeremy a few months before Rebecca's murder,
Speaker 2: but that Jeremy started having trouble in school. Linda decided
Speaker 2: she wanted to move, so Billy drove from Texas, where
Speaker 2: he was living at the time.
Speaker 1: To help them.
Speaker 2: Back then, Billy was married his first wife, Amanda, and
Speaker 2: they had two daughters. Eventually, after Rebecca's murder, he moved
Speaker 2: to the Philippines to work on oil rigs. He married
Speaker 2: a local woman and they had two children. Billy told
Speaker 2: investigators that he sometimes earned twenty five thousand dollars a month,
Speaker 2: which allowed him to live like a king overseas. They
Speaker 2: bought a pineapple plantation. Jeremy Miller stayed closer to home
Speaker 2: over the years. Even after he got married and Jeremy
Speaker 2: and his wife had a son, he continued to live
Speaker 2: with Linda. When they moved to Colorado, Linda moved with them. Eventually,
Speaker 2: Jeremy got divorced, but his mother never really left him.
Speaker 2: Jeremy and Linda moved to Oregon. Linda told police that
Speaker 2: Jeremy has always lived with her and that that's the
Speaker 2: way she likes it.
Speaker 1: Billy.
Speaker 2: Billy was planning to move back to America when his
Speaker 2: wife and kids after COVID. He bought a home in
Speaker 2: Cottage Grove, Oregon, so once again, Billy, Linda, and Jeremy
Speaker 2: Miller would be one big, happy family. In twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: Mike also reached out to Linda Miller.
Speaker 8: Hello.
Speaker 7: Hello, this is Linda Miller and I'm returning your car.
Speaker 8: Hey, Linda, how are you doing?
Speaker 7: Doing pretty good?
Speaker 2: She told him that Billy was out of the country
Speaker 2: and she wasn't sure when he'd be back. Listen to
Speaker 2: how sincere and helpful Linda sounds when she's talking to Mike.
Speaker 8: I just wanted to reach out to you guys and
Speaker 8: see what of course I get. You know, Billy's in
Speaker 8: the Philippines. I probably won't be able to talk to
Speaker 8: him for I don't know if he's planning on coming
Speaker 8: back anytime soon or do you know.
Speaker 7: I don't know.
Speaker 8: Oh, now you don't know.
Speaker 7: Things have been crazy with.
Speaker 8: The okay, right right?
Speaker 2: But Linda Miller was lying, and she had no idea
Speaker 2: that Mike McNeil was tracking her calls, because immediately after
Speaker 2: she hung up with Mike, Linda called her son Billy,
Speaker 2: and she sounded totally different to the person who was
Speaker 2: chatting happily to Mike in this voicemail. In my opinion,
Speaker 2: Linda sounds pretty cold and calculating.
Speaker 7: Hey, Billy. I made that call to the Arkansas State Police,
Speaker 7: and what he wants is to make an appointment to
Speaker 7: see us all. And I told him that I'll have
Speaker 7: to get with Jeremy and I never I said, you know,
Speaker 7: he wanted to know the last time you came in.
Speaker 7: I said, I don't recall that you usually come about
Speaker 7: ten days for your physical and stuff and then you
Speaker 7: go back. And I did not tell him that you
Speaker 7: were in the US right now. But I think it
Speaker 7: would be better if we all three saw him together.
Speaker 7: He's willing to fly in and meet with us in person,
Speaker 7: do his interview. Maybe that'll put a stop to this,
Speaker 7: all right, Love be back.
Speaker 2: Mike was building a profile on Billy Miller. He talked
Speaker 2: to several people who knew him. Some of them told
Speaker 2: disturbing stories about Billy Miller being a violent sexual predator
Speaker 2: and about it being what they called an open secret
Speaker 2: in his family.
Speaker 4: Hello Mike.
Speaker 2: A cousin of Billy's told Mike how back in the
Speaker 2: early two thousands, Billy inappropriately touched a young woman who
Speaker 2: was four years old at the time. This cousin described
Speaker 2: Billy as a sexual deviant. He told another disturbing story
Speaker 2: about hanging out in Corpus Christi, Texas with Billy back
Speaker 2: in the day and Billy wanting to solicit sex workers.
Speaker 2: This person said that Billy made a comment that he
Speaker 2: never forgot. They said Billy told them that it would
Speaker 2: be fun to kill a hooker and that no one
Speaker 2: would ever know about it, which even back then, this
Speaker 2: person said he knew was a huge red flag. And
Speaker 2: shortly after that he said he cut off all contact
Speaker 2: with Billy.
Speaker 9: His family on his mother's side are not their art.
Speaker 6: Can be being us evil.
Speaker 2: Then Mike talked to another one of Billy's former victims,
Speaker 2: and though this interview is part of the case file
Speaker 2: and her name is in it, we're not going to
Speaker 2: release her name publicly. I'm including this because I believe
Speaker 2: her story is super important because a lot of people
Speaker 2: commented on the fact that this young woman had had
Speaker 2: problems in her life over the years, and after hearing
Speaker 2: her story, it's clear that she is traumatized by what
Speaker 2: she says Billy did to her. She got very emotional
Speaker 2: during this interview. She said when she was young, she
Speaker 2: was hanging out with Billy and some other friends. She
Speaker 2: said he acted like he was being protective after a
Speaker 2: night of drinking, making sure that she got into bed. Okay,
Speaker 2: but she said he had far more sinister intentions. She
Speaker 2: said that Billy raped her that night, but it.
Speaker 9: Had gone out. I'm drinking and there was a friend
Speaker 9: of his that was actually my age that went to
Speaker 9: school with us, that went with us to Robbie Parker
Speaker 9: and I went and lay down. He said I could
Speaker 9: have his room because Robbie had the couch or whatever.
Speaker 9: And and that's when you know, I was, I was,
Speaker 9: I had too much for drink and I didn't feel
Speaker 9: like I mean, I was sick. And yeah, he and
Speaker 9: I kept push him away from me.
Speaker 7: That's than I could.
Speaker 9: But yeah, I just felt like I didn't.
Speaker 7: Have a strength to So I'm so sorry to bring
Speaker 7: this up.
Speaker 8: And I know it's it's an awful it's an awful
Speaker 8: thing to think about.
Speaker 3: And would you consider what Billy did to you, that
Speaker 3: he raped you?
Speaker 9: Yeah, there was a.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And this victim said when she heard about the
Speaker 2: allegations against Billy in Rebecca's case, she thought that Rebecca's
Speaker 2: murder must have been a date rape gone wrong. Finally,
Speaker 2: Mike was able to sit down with Billy Miller in Oregon.
Speaker 2: He asked him about these dark events from his past.
Speaker 2: Billy said that the allegations weren't true. He said the
Speaker 2: woman who accused him of molesting her four year old
Speaker 2: daughter was just a psycho x and he said the
Speaker 2: little girl's story kept changing. He also denied assaulting anyone else.
Speaker 2: Then Mike circled back to Rebecca's case and once again
Speaker 2: took us back to that crucial weekend. Billy downplayed any
Speaker 2: connection to Rebecca. He said he didn't know her at all,
Speaker 2: that he didn't even know what she looked like until
Speaker 2: he saw some information related to our podcast.
Speaker 5: After seeing the podcast and that stuff. You know, look,
Speaker 5: I could belond here, okay on Blue Eyed Girl in
Speaker 5: all the podcasts and the pictures you know I've seen.
Speaker 1: Mike asked Billy about Casey's version of events.
Speaker 5: So in Casey's interview, he said that Rebecca looked out
Speaker 5: the window and saw a car in the driveway on
Speaker 5: the road, and then Casey looked out and saw that
Speaker 5: it was you, and then he went out there and
Speaker 5: you guys talked for about fifteen minutes. So his mom
Speaker 5: was with us and all that stuff. No, not at
Speaker 5: this time. This was He said that whenever you got out,
Speaker 5: you said that you weren't going to stop because you
Speaker 5: didn't see Casey's truck, but you saw Rebecca there, so
Speaker 5: you know that's Casey had already given his truck to
Speaker 5: Claud in town and you were just you know, it
Speaker 5: was dark whenever this happened, whenever you stopped buying, you
Speaker 5: and Casey were talking.
Speaker 6: In the driveway.
Speaker 2: So Mike is calling out the fact here that it
Speaker 2: was dark outside. So looking from inside a trailer out
Speaker 2: into the darkness, how would you recognize someone you hadn't
Speaker 2: seen in years. And we're not talking about a big
Speaker 2: city where there are street lights.
Speaker 5: Here.
Speaker 2: It is pitch black out there in the wilderness. When
Speaker 2: the lights are out, you can't even see your hands
Speaker 2: in front of your face. Mike believed Billy had seen
Speaker 2: Rebecca and Casey together earlier that day. We know that
Speaker 2: on Saturday, Rebecca and Casey went together out to Wolf Farm,
Speaker 2: where Billy and his family were staying. They dropped off
Speaker 2: Casey's truck so that his father Claude could use it.
Speaker 2: Rebecca followed Casey to Woolf Farm. She was his ride home.
Speaker 2: So Mike believed that when Casey and Rebecca were at
Speaker 2: the house together, that Billy saw Rebecca there and that
Speaker 2: maybe that's when he decided to drive back to the
Speaker 2: house and look for her. Mike asked Billy to take
Speaker 2: a light detector test and to give a DNA sample.
Speaker 2: When Mike asked Billy if Billy's DNA would be in
Speaker 2: the house if there was any reason for that, Billy's
Speaker 2: answer is interesting.
Speaker 5: Would you be willing to provide your DNA? It would
Speaker 5: be a cheek swab. I don't want to take blood
Speaker 5: or flit away hands as if I've been in the
Speaker 5: house and all that stuff, my DNA would be in
Speaker 5: the well and point and that is on record.
Speaker 1: And we know that now.
Speaker 2: Remember both Billy and Casey claimed that on Sunday night,
Speaker 2: when Billy said he stopped by the house, he never
Speaker 2: went in. He only stayed on the porch. Something else
Speaker 2: came out of the case file, and that was the
Speaker 2: contact between Casey McCullough and Billy Miller because they were
Speaker 2: out of contact for a long time. But after the
Speaker 2: podcast came out, Billy started texting Casey. He interacted with
Speaker 2: Jennifer and he called me at the cabin where I
Speaker 2: was staying he was trying to insert himself into the
Speaker 2: investigation and basically to mislead people. Some of those text
Speaker 2: messages that he sent Casey are now part of the
Speaker 2: case file. He wrote, I want to make the Catherine
Speaker 2: lady look like shit. He actually called me a dumb
Speaker 2: shit several times, which actually doesn't bother me. In fact,
Speaker 2: knowing what happened, I weirdly take that as some kind
Speaker 2: of a compliment. Eventually, we all know Billy confessed to
Speaker 2: Rebecca's murder, but as we've said before, their aspects of
Speaker 2: his confession that just don't seem to make sense. Something
Speaker 2: else that jumped out to me while I was reading
Speaker 2: through the case file was that on the morning of Monday,
Speaker 2: September twentieth, Billy was up early. He said he drove
Speaker 2: to the area behind Casey's trailer to hunt deer, saw
Speaker 2: Rebecca's car in the driveway and didn't see Casey's truck. Now,
Speaker 2: Billy said this led him to conclude that Casey wasn't home,
Speaker 2: and that's when he knocked on the door, told Rebecca
Speaker 2: he had to use the phone, and made up that
Speaker 2: pretext for going inside the house. But if Billy stopped
Speaker 2: by on Sunday night and talked to Casey. Well, remember
Speaker 2: Casey had already dropped off his truck with his dad,
Speaker 2: so Casey's truck wasn't there then either. So what I'm
Speaker 2: getting at is that Casey's truck not being parked at
Speaker 2: that trailer did not mean that Casey wasn't home, and
Speaker 2: Billy knew that. So why would Billy assume that Rebecca
Speaker 2: was alone on Monday morning? Billy claimed that after Rebecca
Speaker 2: led him in the house, she went back to the
Speaker 2: bedroom to lie down. Then he felt a rage building.
Speaker 2: While he was pacing, he saw that there was a
Speaker 2: piano leg loose. He grabbed it, went into the bedroom
Speaker 2: and hit her with it. Then, he said, he wrapped
Speaker 2: her body in a blanket, did a quick cleanup, presumably
Speaker 2: with the cleaning products that had conveniently been dropped there
Speaker 2: by his mother, put the body in the bed of
Speaker 2: his truck, and then dumped her remains off Highway nine,
Speaker 2: where they were found a week later. Now, I will
Speaker 2: say there are definitely things that Billy has given police
Speaker 2: that indicate he was involved in this murder. We know
Speaker 2: that he was the one who led investigators to the suitcase.
Speaker 2: The black suitcase that had been missing since two thousand
Speaker 2: and four. Investigators found it. It was full of bloody bedding.
Speaker 2: So that suitcase was a smoking gun and it was
Speaker 2: the nail in Billy Miller's coffin. But if Billy did
Speaker 2: kill Rebecca, and if he acted alone, why has his
Speaker 2: story changed so many times? First he said he strangled Rebecca. Later,
Speaker 2: after he found out that our hyoid bone was not
Speaker 2: broken and that there was no evidence of a fracture,
Speaker 2: he never mentioned strangulation.
Speaker 1: Again.
Speaker 2: Many of the things that Billy mentioned investigators about the
Speaker 2: actual killing seemed to have been pulled straight off of
Speaker 2: social media, off of Facebook groups or things he's heard
Speaker 2: in a podcast are read in the papers, and it's
Speaker 2: clear that he's been following social media. You can see
Speaker 2: that in the case file, in the chats he had.
Speaker 2: He joined the Unsolved Murder of Rebecca Guld group. Throughout
Speaker 2: this entire investigation, Billy was trying to get information from people.
Speaker 2: He admitted this to investigators.
Speaker 5: So if you're asking about you know, yeah, I followed
Speaker 5: the podcast following every day. Then I had there and
Speaker 5: told my cousins Randy. I reached out to my cousin
Speaker 5: Randy and said, hey, if you need money for a lawyer,
Speaker 5: you know, I'll hit me up. And that was my
Speaker 5: way in and to keep an eye on what was
Speaker 5: going on though, okay, and then saying, hey, keep an
Speaker 5: eye on the slander and all that stuff on the podcast.
Speaker 5: So I would send him a home of just about
Speaker 5: you know that.
Speaker 2: And after he confessed to Rebecca's murder, Billy kept lying.
Speaker 2: He said that he had murdered several other women, all
Speaker 2: sex workers, all the same size and physical type as Rebecca.
Speaker 2: He said he strangled them and then dumped their bodies.
Speaker 2: Mike asked him, would you consider yourself a serial killer?
Speaker 2: Billy said that he was a sick individual. Then he
Speaker 2: referred to a demon he said he had living inside him.
Speaker 2: I was hoping the case file would provide some clarity,
Speaker 2: and in a way it really has. It showed me
Speaker 2: the utter incompetence of Dennis Simon's investigation and how this
Speaker 2: case stalled for years, and in my opinion, due to
Speaker 2: the laser focus on Chris Cantrell and JB.
Speaker 1: Yates.
Speaker 2: Mike McNeil did a great job in his investigation. He
Speaker 2: was able to secure a confession through what was in
Speaker 2: my opinion, a masterful interview technique, and he did everything
Speaker 2: by the book. Billy Miller has been caught in so
Speaker 2: many lives so far, and we hear him literally laughing
Speaker 2: about it. So even though I hope he does come clean,
Speaker 2: to be honest, I don't have high hopes that he will.
Speaker 2: And in less and until he comes forward with information
Speaker 2: that could be helpful to the case and that can
Speaker 2: be verified, I'm not going to give him any more publicity.
Speaker 2: So once again we come back to the question what
Speaker 2: really happened to Rebecca. Jennifer and others have made it
Speaker 2: clear they think she could have been killed on Sunday night,
Speaker 2: and I think that that is a possibility, but I
Speaker 2: think it's more likely that Rebecca did wake up on
Speaker 2: Monday morning, get out of bed, put her fuzzy pink
Speaker 2: slippers on, and, as Danielle, her sister, always believed, take
Speaker 2: Casey to work while she was still kind of half asleep.
Speaker 2: Then that she stopped by the Possum Trot and bought
Speaker 2: that breakfast sandwich and coffee. She went back home, probably
Speaker 2: dead bowl to the door the way she usually did
Speaker 2: when she was planning to take a nap, put her
Speaker 2: breakfast aside while she watched Regis and Kelly, and then
Speaker 2: planned to take a nap before she went back to school.
Speaker 2: I believe that someone knocked on the door and that
Speaker 2: Rebecca went to answer it, and I believe that Billy
Speaker 2: Miller was there that morning. I just don't think the
Speaker 2: evidence supports the murder happening the way he said it did.
Speaker 2: I think there could have been someone else there, or
Speaker 2: maybe more than one person. I believe my witness who
Speaker 2: said Casey confessed to him. He has no reason to
Speaker 2: lie and has actually lost a lot as a result
Speaker 2: of this case. I believe the facts indicate that at
Speaker 2: a minimum, Casey knew more than he let on. Dennis
Speaker 2: Simons and others have always insisted that when this case
Speaker 2: file came out, we would all see that Casey had
Speaker 2: an airtight alibi. But honestly, the release of the file
Speaker 2: just confirmed what we began to discover back in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 2: Not only was Casey's alibi not airtight, but there were
Speaker 2: multiple holes in it, not only on Sunday, but also
Speaker 2: on Monday morning. If anything, the interview with Bruce Shipman,
Speaker 2: the manager of Sonic at the time, who was on
Speaker 2: duty on Tuesday, and who was a very good friend
Speaker 2: of Casey's.
Speaker 1: Proves this because Bruce.
Speaker 2: Said that time cards could be altered, and now we
Speaker 2: know Casey went home not just once, but twice that morning.
Speaker 2: Everyone has a dark side, and in this case, one
Speaker 2: of the things that I learned was that sometimes the
Speaker 2: scariest people are not serial killers. They're the people living
Speaker 2: in our communities, people we trust, people who in other
Speaker 2: settings might be amazing partners or bothers or friends, but
Speaker 2: who have the capacity to turn on a young woman
Speaker 2: who was just starting out in life and beat her
Speaker 2: to death. I would encourage everyone out there to use
Speaker 2: the Freedom of Information Act make a Foyer request look
Speaker 2: at this case file. I am so proud of the
Speaker 2: work that we and that every single person listening to
Speaker 2: this has done. I stand by our work one thousand percent,
Speaker 2: and again I'm going to let the facts speak for themselves.
Speaker 2: I said way back when I started this that murder
Speaker 2: investigations are the closest we get to time travel, And
Speaker 2: years later, I can confirm once again that this is true,
Speaker 2: because we have come full circle. We end where we
Speaker 2: started back on that fateful day in twenty eighteen when
Speaker 2: I did a local radio program in Batesville. I remember
Speaker 2: sitting in that studio with Gary Bee, who I love,
Speaker 2: by the way, and I want to think again. Back then,
Speaker 2: I wasn't sure that anyone was listening, but they did
Speaker 2: and together we started a movement. So once again I'm
Speaker 2: ending this podcast on a call to action. Police have
Speaker 2: said if any new evidence comes to light, they will
Speaker 2: look at it and take it seriously. And this time
Speaker 2: I believe them because we have a competent investigator on
Speaker 2: the case. Hell and Gone accomplished its goal. The investigator,
Speaker 2: who in my opinion, was ignoring evidence is out of
Speaker 2: there and a competent investigator is in charge. So if
Speaker 2: you have any information that police should know, please call
Speaker 2: Mike McNeil at the Arkansas State Police. And if you
Speaker 2: have any information you want to share with me or
Speaker 2: my team, you can reach out to us at our
Speaker 2: Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight seven four four,
Speaker 2: six one four or five. I'm Catherine Townsend. This is
Speaker 2: Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone is a production of
Speaker 2: School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated
Speaker 2: by me Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts Music
Speaker 2: is by Ben so Lee. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott,
Speaker 2: Brandon Barr, and else Crowley. 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. This is Helen Gone Murder Line.
Speaker 1: School of Humans