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Speaker 1: presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
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Speaker 2: On the night of December second, nineteen seventy six, three girls,
Speaker 2: thirteen year old Teresa Williams, fourteen year old Crystal Danita Parton,
Speaker 2: and thirteen year old Cynthia Maybray, we're hanging out together
Speaker 2: at the Fairview of State's apartment.
Speaker 3: In Russellville, Arkansas.
Speaker 2: At some point that day all three girls disappeared. No
Speaker 2: one was quite sure what happened that day. All three
Speaker 2: girls lived in the same neighborhood and all of them
Speaker 2: disappeared at around the same time. Cynthia was last seen
Speaker 2: at her home in Fairview Estates on December second, at
Speaker 2: approximately five thirty pm. Teresa and Crystal were also reported
Speaker 2: missing that day by their families. I have read about
Speaker 2: this story over the years, but it turns out there's
Speaker 2: a lot of this story that never made it into
Speaker 2: any media reports. Most media reports that I've read indicate
Speaker 2: that three girls were hanging around when a strange man
Speaker 2: approached them and asked them if they wanted to get
Speaker 2: into his car and drink some alcohol, and they reluctantly accepted.
Speaker 3: The things that.
Speaker 2: I've read online make it seem like this could have
Speaker 2: been a case of stranger abduction. But as we're going
Speaker 2: to see, there is much more to this story that
Speaker 2: we uncovered. It turns out that the girls had made
Speaker 2: a plan to run away. Cynthia's mother, Doris Parton, told
Speaker 2: police she was aware that the girls had a plan.
Speaker 2: She believed that her daughter may have run away from
Speaker 2: home and that she and her two friends were believed
Speaker 2: to be headed for Fort Hood, Texas. The last time
Speaker 2: her mother saw Cynthia, she was wearing blue jeans, a
Speaker 2: white top, and a blue coat with a fur collar.
Speaker 2: Part of the story was true, those three girls did
Speaker 2: get into a car with a man, a man they
Speaker 2: knew and trusted. Then no one ever saw any trace
Speaker 2: of the girls again until ten years later Thanksgiving Day
Speaker 2: of nineteen eighty six, when a couple, Boy Duncan and
Speaker 2: his wife Bernice, were deer hunting south of Rock Cemetery
Speaker 2: when they found a human skull laying near a tree.
Speaker 2: This was just the beginning of an investigation into an
Speaker 2: Ozark serial killer. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past seven
Speaker 2: years of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've
Speaker 2: learned that there's no such thing as a small town
Speaker 2: where murder never happens. I've received hundreds of messages from
Speaker 2: people all around the country asking for help with an
Speaker 2: unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities.
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. That's six seven
Speaker 2: eight seven four four six one four five, or you
Speaker 2: can send us a message on Instagram at Helen gonepod.
Speaker 2: This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Before we get into
Speaker 2: the forensics, we have to go back to nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: six and try to understand how and why a serial
Speaker 2: killer kept slipping through the police's fingers and escaping justice.
Speaker 2: One person whose name came up early in the investigation
Speaker 2: was James B. Grinder, sometimes known as JB. Teresa Williams's
Speaker 2: cousin had told police back in nineteen seventy six that
Speaker 2: he saw James with Theresa that day, but when police
Speaker 2: talked to James, he told them yes, he had seen
Speaker 2: the three girls. He claimed that he dropped them off
Speaker 2: at the interstate exit for Pottsville. James told police that
Speaker 2: the girls had told him they were running away to Oklahoma,
Speaker 2: and James said he had an alibi he had been
Speaker 2: at his girlfriend, Donna's house.
Speaker 3: Since the victim's remains.
Speaker 2: Had not been found and James Grinder had an alibi,
Speaker 2: police assumed the girls were runaways. The investigative notes indicate
Speaker 2: that at the time police interviewed James, he refused to
Speaker 2: take a polygraph test, so in their investigative notes, they
Speaker 2: said they believed he was not being truthful about what
Speaker 2: had actually happened to the girls. But at the end
Speaker 2: of the day, the original investigators did not believe that
Speaker 2: he was capable of killing them, they let him go.
Speaker 2: That was in nineteen seventy six, but by nineteen eighty six,
Speaker 2: James was a suspect in another murder, this time in Missouri.
Speaker 2: On the early morning of January eighth, nineteen eighty four,
Speaker 2: twenty five year old Julianne Helton's parents were worried. Julianne
Speaker 2: had gone out to a party in New Cambria the
Speaker 2: night before on January seventh, but then she never came home,
Speaker 2: so they filed a missing persons report, and the Missouri
Speaker 2: State Highway Patrol ran across her abandoned car at the
Speaker 2: Marsoline junction in Macon County, Missouri. There were signs that
Speaker 2: her car had been sabotaged. Julianne's purse was also missing,
Speaker 2: so now police immediately suspected foul play in Julianne's death.
Speaker 2: After searching for her for several days, on January eleventh,
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty four, two volunteer searchers and railroad workers found
Speaker 2: Julianne's body in a field near the Santa Fe railroad tracks,
Speaker 2: about eight miles away from where her car had been found.
Speaker 2: Julianne was fully clothed, but police later determined she had
Speaker 2: been raped, beaten, and stabbed. Her hands had been tied
Speaker 2: together with bailing twine, they were bound together in front
Speaker 2: of her, and there were defensive wounds on her right hand.
Speaker 3: Now, according to.
Speaker 2: Media reports, police did find fingerprints on Julianne's car. Some
Speaker 2: of the reports stated they were a match to James Grinder.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure what happened to those fingerprints, if they
Speaker 2: were lost, if they were ever tested, or even if
Speaker 2: it's true that they were a match to James Grinder.
Speaker 2: But at the end of the day, with insufficient evidence,
Speaker 2: police apparently decided they couldn't make a case against him,
Speaker 2: so James Grinder was released. Still, after Julie's murder, there
Speaker 2: was a renewed interest in James Grinder, and investigators in
Speaker 2: Arkansas went back to question everyone they had spoken to
Speaker 2: ten years earlier. They were trying to do a deep
Speaker 2: dive into a man they believed might be a serial killer.
Speaker 3: James B. Grinder was born in nineteen forty five.
Speaker 2: There's not a ton known about his childhood, but he
Speaker 2: lived in Arkansas for a long time, and he had
Speaker 2: what can best be described as kind of a messy
Speaker 2: love life. At the time of the girl's disappearances, he
Speaker 2: was dating different women. In nineteen seventy six, James was
Speaker 2: involved with at least two women, Donna Hanson and Joanne Hinton.
Speaker 2: He stayed on and off with both of them. Joanne
Speaker 2: Hinton lived in the Fairview Estates Complex, the same complex
Speaker 2: as the three girls who went missing. Jo Anne had
Speaker 2: a daughter from a previous relationship named Sandra. Sandra was
Speaker 2: born in nineteen sixty three. She gave birth to James's son,
Speaker 2: James Junior, in nineteen seventy. After the three girls disappeared,
Speaker 2: James moved and settled in Macon County, Missouri, where he
Speaker 2: reportedly married and had a daughter in nineteen eighty, though
Speaker 2: he and the girl's mother did eventually separate. At the
Speaker 2: time of his arrest, he was working as a woodcutter.
Speaker 2: Sames Grinder had a criminal history in Arkansas. He had
Speaker 2: a lifetime pattern of stealing things, especially cars. In August
Speaker 2: of nineteen seventy six, according to the case file, he
Speaker 2: stole a septic tank truck, and then he and an
Speaker 2: accomplice also stole cars, including a nineteen sixty seven Ford Galaxy,
Speaker 2: a nineteen sixty six Plymouth Belvedere, a gold Ford Mustang,
Speaker 2: and some tools and supplies. They stole a lot of
Speaker 2: different items. In addition to cars, they also stole from
Speaker 2: a school. They would grab calculators and typewriters. They vandalized
Speaker 2: a trailer in the back of the school where they
Speaker 2: got eight track tapes, cameras, and a knife set. So
Speaker 2: coming back to the three missing girls, it turns out
Speaker 2: that the three girls, Cynthia, Crystal, and Teresa were planning
Speaker 2: on running way from home for a reason. They had
Speaker 2: been stealing welfare checks from apartments in the Fairview complex
Speaker 2: and they had also, according to what a witness told police,
Speaker 2: been stealing items from stores for James Grinder. They would
Speaker 2: steal things like jewelry and electronics. James would then fence
Speaker 2: the items for them and of course take a cut
Speaker 2: of the profits. One of the victims of this scam
Speaker 2: was a woman named Helen Freeman. She also lived in
Speaker 2: the Fairview apartment complex. She told police the last time
Speaker 2: she saw the girls was on December first. She claimed
Speaker 2: that on that day she didn't get her welfare check
Speaker 2: as usual, so the next day, on December second, she
Speaker 2: asked the mailman about it. The mailman said he was
Speaker 2: sure that he had put that check in her box
Speaker 2: the day before. She told police one of the three
Speaker 2: girls had stolen the check, and several witnesses told police
Speaker 2: they had seen the girls at a nearby grocery store
Speaker 2: trying to cash that welfare check. Apparently the store refused
Speaker 2: to cash it. Then, according to witnesses, the three girls
Speaker 2: were really freaked out by this. They thought they were
Speaker 2: going to get into big trouble. So after the store
Speaker 2: refused to cash the checks, they went back to joe
Speaker 2: Aanne Hinton's house and tried to burn the checks. Joe
Speaker 2: Anne Hinton was living on and off with James Grinder.
Speaker 2: He was also there that day. Helen told police she
Speaker 2: talked to joe Ane Hinton about all this. She said
Speaker 2: joe Anne had made a comment to her about the
Speaker 2: girls leaving town by the way. Helen also later told
Speaker 2: police she saw joe Anne at a later date wearing
Speaker 2: what she describes as a jacket she said was very
Speaker 2: similar to the jacket that one of the girls was
Speaker 2: wearing on the day they disappeared, a jacket with a
Speaker 2: fur Caller Police talked to Sandra, joe Anne's daughter, who
Speaker 2: had been around the girl's age when they disappeared. By
Speaker 2: the time of the interview in nineteen eighty four, Sandra
Speaker 2: was twenty one years old. She told them bluntly that
Speaker 2: James was crazy, weird, dirty, a thief, and that he
Speaker 2: had threatened to kill her mother on several occasions. She
Speaker 2: told law enforcement James had an interest in young girls,
Speaker 2: that he had tried to sexually assault his niece when
Speaker 2: she was aged twelve or thirteen. Sandra said she was
Speaker 2: the best friends with Crystal, Teresa, and Cynthia. She said
Speaker 2: they all hung around together at Fairview Estates. Sandra said
Speaker 2: that James made vulgar comments about them sometimes and would
Speaker 2: try to hang around with them when they were with Sandra.
Speaker 2: She said at one point he made a comment to
Speaker 2: her about wanting to have the girls over because he
Speaker 2: wanted some young stuff. Sandra talked about how James got
Speaker 2: the three girls involved in his check cashing scam and
Speaker 2: in his theft. He would drive them around the places
Speaker 2: they wanted to go. He got them to steal things
Speaker 2: from stores and give it to him to sell. Police
Speaker 2: asked Sandra what she remembered about that day in nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy six, the day when the girls disappeared. She said
Speaker 2: that she remembered James driving Cynthia, Crystal, and Teresa to
Speaker 2: a local store to try to cash those welfare checks.
Speaker 2: In fact, she said she went with them to the
Speaker 2: store to cash the checks, she distinctly remembered getting refused.
Speaker 2: Said that the five of them, her James, Cynthia, Crystal,
Speaker 2: and Teresa stopped at Walmart after that to buy cigarettes
Speaker 2: because someone wanted them. Then, she said they drove back
Speaker 2: to Fairview, where James and the girls let her out
Speaker 2: of the car. Sandra said she remembered that Crystal, Cynthia,
Speaker 2: and Teresa were worried about getting busted for that check scamp.
Speaker 2: They asked James to drive them to the interstate. Sandra
Speaker 2: said originally she was supposed to run away with the girls,
Speaker 2: but she decided against it, so in the end they
Speaker 2: dropped her back at home. Sandra told police she tried
Speaker 2: to talk her friends out of running away, but.
Speaker 3: In the end she couldn't.
Speaker 2: She remembers the last time she saw her three friends
Speaker 2: was around sundown. She said they were leaving in the
Speaker 2: car with James in his blue and white Chevy. She
Speaker 2: never saw Teresa, Cynthia, or crystal again. Sandra said that
Speaker 2: that night, James stayed out all night. This was confirmed
Speaker 2: by her mother, Joanne, who told him best gators the
Speaker 2: same thing.
Speaker 3: They said.
Speaker 2: James didn't come back until around nine am the next morning,
Speaker 2: and when he did, Sandra asked him what happened to
Speaker 2: the girls. He said he drove the girls to the
Speaker 2: Interstate Highway in Pottsville, gave them twenty dollars, and that
Speaker 2: was it.
Speaker 3: Joanne told police.
Speaker 2: When James came back to the house, he was wearing
Speaker 2: different clothes than he had on when he left. He
Speaker 2: told her he'd had car trouble. He was covered in
Speaker 2: grease and oil and wearing a long sleeved shirt. When
Speaker 2: Joanne asked him about it, James said he got the
Speaker 2: t shirt at Donna's house. He said he would contact
Speaker 2: the girl's parents and let them know that he'd dropped
Speaker 2: them off of the Pottsville exit, and apparently that was
Speaker 2: the end of the topic. But Joanne said James would
Speaker 2: sometimes wake up screaming in the dark after that, telling
Speaker 2: her I see three shallow graves. She told police that
Speaker 2: when he did that, she would tell him the only
Speaker 2: way he could be seeing that is if he killed
Speaker 2: those girls. She said she asked him point blank if
Speaker 2: he killed them, and that he denied it. Joanne told
Speaker 2: police James wasn't really violent with her, but others definitely
Speaker 2: saw his dark side. Sandra told police she knew he
Speaker 2: had an interest in young girls. She said on one occasion,
Speaker 2: James tried to rape her. She said he was giving
Speaker 2: her a ride somewhere, and then he pulled over to
Speaker 2: the side of the road and pulled a gun out
Speaker 2: of his boot.
Speaker 3: But Sandra said she.
Speaker 2: Was somehow able to wrestle that gun away from him
Speaker 2: and actually turn the gun on him.
Speaker 3: She said after that she.
Speaker 2: Forced James to drive her home at gunpoint. Needless to say,
Speaker 2: my heart completely goes out to in addition to the
Speaker 2: three victims, to Sandra what she was experiencing at home
Speaker 2: and how brave she was to pull a gun on
Speaker 2: her own stepfather. It turned out that a lot of
Speaker 2: people in and around Fairview Estates knew about the girl's
Speaker 2: plans to run away and saw them with James on
Speaker 2: the night of December second. An. Investigators stated in their
Speaker 2: report there was also an attempt to mislead them. Apparently
Speaker 2: a friend of James's, a trucker contacted the Russellville Police
Speaker 2: Department and told them he had picked up three runaways
Speaker 2: and they were at an address in Oklahoma. Investigators later
Speaker 2: concluded that address was false and that the driver quote
Speaker 2: had probably made the calls at the request of James Grinder,
Speaker 2: and that the information was totally false end quote.
Speaker 3: So it's hard for me.
Speaker 2: To imagine why James Grinder wasn't immediately arrested, or at
Speaker 2: least why he wasn't a major early suspect. It's possible
Speaker 2: that at the time they disappeared, maybe some of the
Speaker 2: young women who knew about the check cashing scams didn't
Speaker 2: tell police what they knew because maybe they were worried
Speaker 2: about getting in trouble themselves. But after Julianne's murder in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty four, people started talking. Police had a ton
Speaker 2: of circumstantial evidence, but still no bodies. Then came the
Speaker 2: gruesome discovery of Teresa, Cynthia and Crystal's bodies on Thanksgiving
Speaker 2: Day in nineteen eighty six. After the deer hunting couple
Speaker 2: found the skull, they went back the next day. They
Speaker 2: picked the skull up and actually ended up taking it
Speaker 2: to a local grocery store, where an employee contacted Pope
Speaker 2: County authorities. Investigators went to the area where the skull
Speaker 2: was found and kept searching. They found more remains. They
Speaker 2: included a pelvic bone, a piece of a lower tailbone,
Speaker 2: and some cloth. They also found a huge mass that
Speaker 2: had more bones, clothing, and roots all tangled up in it.
Speaker 2: They found one almost complete human skeleton wearing a decomposing
Speaker 2: coat and underwear over a two hundred foot area. Once
Speaker 2: they spread out, they found more and more bones. The
Speaker 2: remains that they found included a lower jaw with thirty
Speaker 2: five teeth, a partial skeleton in clothing including a piece
Speaker 2: of black cloth, a black and green overcoat, a great
Speaker 2: flavored chapstick, a pair of pants with white bleached spots, gloves,
Speaker 2: a pink comb, a blue sack, a wool scarf, backpacks,
Speaker 2: an empty roll of tape, some bags of potato chips,
Speaker 2: and two pairs of underwear and a handkerchief. I'm listing
Speaker 2: all of these items because someone out there might recognize
Speaker 2: some of them, and honestly, he got away with this
Speaker 2: for many years, and I think it's very possible that
Speaker 2: there could be more victims out there. Police believe those
Speaker 2: bodies were buried in a shallow grave, but then over
Speaker 2: the years removed, either due to animals dragging them or
Speaker 2: a massive flood that had hit that area in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty two. Investigators also found a weapon. They found an
Speaker 2: old number ten shotgun shell casing with nine buck shot
Speaker 2: near the bodies, but police later stated they don't believe
Speaker 2: that gun had any part in the murders.
Speaker 3: The girls had been stabbed, not shot.
Speaker 2: There were a lot of bones to go through. A
Speaker 2: state medical examiner initially concluded the remains belonged to three
Speaker 2: females in between the ages of twelve and fourteen. This
Speaker 2: made police believe they had found the three bodies of Teresa,
Speaker 2: Crystal and Cynthia, but later investigators announced there had been
Speaker 2: a mistake.
Speaker 3: There were only two bodies found, not three.
Speaker 2: Police stated they had confirmed through dental records the two
Speaker 2: sets of remains belonged to Teresa Williams and Crystal Parton,
Speaker 2: and police confirmed the girls were not shot. Both of
Speaker 2: them had been fatally stabbed in the neck, so they
Speaker 2: had found Teresa Williams and Crystal Parton, but there was
Speaker 2: still no sign of Cynthia. Maybrey now police knew for
Speaker 2: sure these three girls had not run away. Police suspect
Speaker 2: did James Grinder A lot of people, though believed that
Speaker 2: James Grinder did not act alone, that one or more
Speaker 2: other people may have been involved. Another name that came
Speaker 2: up in investigative reports was an acquaintance of James named
Speaker 2: Tony Wilson. Tony was living in the woods behind the
Speaker 2: Fairview Complex at the time of the girl's disappearances. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: the links between James Grinder and the three missing girls
Speaker 2: were becoming more and more obvious. Police spoke to another
Speaker 2: young woman, Carla Titterington. She was also around the same
Speaker 2: age as the three victims. She told police she was
Speaker 2: with the three girls at Joe Anne's house that night
Speaker 2: and that another man, Tony Wilson, was also there, but
Speaker 2: she said she wasn't sure if Tony left with James
Speaker 2: and the girls. She just remembers him being there hanging
Speaker 2: out at Joeanne's house. Police interviewed Tony Wilson in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty six as well. Tony said that at the time
Speaker 2: of the disappearances, he had recently graduated from high school.
Speaker 2: He said he was homeless and living in a sleeping
Speaker 2: bag behind the Fairview Estates. He said that he believed
Speaker 2: that in December of nineteen seventy six, he drove to
Speaker 2: Montana before the holidays. He said he was with a
Speaker 2: guy he knew who had family in Montana, but he
Speaker 2: said he couldn't be sure of the dates. Tony said
Speaker 2: he barely knew James Grinder, that he only knew of him.
Speaker 2: He said he had never ridden in his car, but
Speaker 2: he saw one of the three missing girls get into
Speaker 2: the car with him. The name of that victim is
Speaker 2: redacted in the case file report. Tony also said he
Speaker 2: was not at James's house on the night the girls vanished.
Speaker 2: This conflicted with other accounts by Carla and some others
Speaker 2: who say Tony was around when the girls went missing.
Speaker 2: In the end, though Tony Wilson was given a polygraph
Speaker 2: where he was asked if he was in the car
Speaker 2: and the night the girls disappeared, if he was there
Speaker 2: when the girls were killed, and if he knew who
Speaker 2: killed the girls. The results were that he was deceptive,
Speaker 2: but in the end there was zero indication that Tony
Speaker 2: was riding in the car with the girls on the
Speaker 2: day they disappeared, or that he was involved in any way.
Speaker 2: So in the end, the police had zero concrete evidence
Speaker 2: against Tony Wilson and so that lead was dropped. Joe
Speaker 2: Anne and James's son, Jimmy Grinder Junior, was also interviewed
Speaker 2: by police on December seventeenth, nineteen eighty six. Jimmy was
Speaker 2: only six years old when the girls disappeared, so he
Speaker 2: was also in the home. Not surprisingly, he told police
Speaker 2: he didn't remember anything from that night, but he did
Speaker 2: say that over the years he talked to his mother, Joanne,
Speaker 2: about the fact that all the girls went to Pottsville supposedly,
Speaker 2: and the girls didn't come back. He said that he
Speaker 2: and his mother both believed that James had killed the girls,
Speaker 2: and he said he continued to believe that. Jimmy told
Speaker 2: police quote, I'm afraid of him. You can't tell about him.
Speaker 2: He's crazy end quote. Jimmy said that he believed his
Speaker 2: dad would hurt him to silence him. Jimmy also told
Speaker 2: another wild story about his grandmother. Apparently, Jimmy said James
Speaker 2: was running the check scam and giving the proceeds of
Speaker 2: that scam to his mother, Jimmy's grandmother. On December second,
Speaker 2: he said James's mother was also spooked by the possibility
Speaker 2: of getting caught. Jimmy said she told James they needed
Speaker 2: to stop the scam. Jimmy said he actually saw James
Speaker 2: grab his own mother and try to throw her inside
Speaker 2: the trunk of his car. Police interviewed James's ex girlfriend,
Speaker 2: Donna Harris, who he lived with off and on in
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy six and who was his original alibi. According
Speaker 2: to an interview in the case file, she told police
Speaker 2: that in nineteen seventy six, when the three girls were killed,
Speaker 2: she was on and off with James, but that James
Speaker 2: was also dating Joanne Hinton. It turned out that in
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy nine, Donna had talked to investigators again. This time,
Speaker 2: she admitted that she had lied about James being home
Speaker 2: all night, but apparently either police didn't think this was
Speaker 2: important or declined to further investigate this tip for other reasons.
Speaker 2: Donna confirmed this information in nineteen eighty six. She said
Speaker 2: that on December second or third, James came home very
Speaker 2: late and said that if police asked, he wanted Donna
Speaker 2: to say that she was with him in the car
Speaker 2: with the three girls that they drove them to the
Speaker 2: Potsville exit and dropped them there. James also told Donna
Speaker 2: he would give her two hundred dollars if she lied.
Speaker 2: Donna stated that in the end, when she talked to
Speaker 2: the sheriff, she told investigators the truth. There's no record
Speaker 2: in the case file of investigators speaking to Donna in
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy six, but they did ask her in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty six what was going through Donna's mind after James
Speaker 2: told her he wanted her to lie to police. They
Speaker 2: asked her, didn't she wonder why? Donna said James told
Speaker 2: her he didn't want it admit that he had been
Speaker 2: with the three girls because they were miners and because
Speaker 2: he claimed they had stolen a bunch of checks and
Speaker 2: crossed the state line. He told Donna he didn't want
Speaker 2: any part of that. He mentioned that the three girls
Speaker 2: lived at Fairview. Donna said she was afraid of James.
Speaker 2: She said he had been abusive to her in the past,
Speaker 2: that he had beat her, and on one occasion, she said,
Speaker 2: he pulled a knife on her when she refused to
Speaker 2: have sex with him. She said he cut her underwear
Speaker 2: off with the butcher knife and put the knife to
Speaker 2: her throat. Then Donna said James continued to curse at
Speaker 2: her while he had sex with her. He pulled out
Speaker 2: a gun and pointed it at her head while they
Speaker 2: had sex. She told police, quote, if I didn't do
Speaker 2: what he wanted that night, he would have killed me,
Speaker 2: and I know he would have end quote. She admitted
Speaker 2: to police she was terrified of James. She said she
Speaker 2: believed he was capable of coming back and hurting her
Speaker 2: or hurting her children.
Speaker 3: But even with all of.
Speaker 2: This new information, and even after the bodies were found,
Speaker 2: police somehow still did not feel like they had enough
Speaker 2: evidence to arrest James Grinder, so once again he was free.
Speaker 2: James wasn't immediately charged with Julianne's murder either. Over the years,
Speaker 2: there was some movement on the case. In nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 2: police got blood samples from James and another suspect named
Speaker 2: Wilfrid Swank, a former Macon City policeman who they suspected,
Speaker 2: but in the end charges were dropped against both men
Speaker 2: when police said they didn't have enough evidence, and it
Speaker 2: was later announced that wilfrid Swank, the former policeman, had
Speaker 2: been cleared through DNA evidence, So once again the case
Speaker 2: went cold until March of nineteen ninety eight, James Grinder
Speaker 2: made news again when he, along with two other accomplices,
Speaker 2: were arrested for burglary. This was eighteen years after the
Speaker 2: three girls disappeared and twelve years after Julianne was raped
Speaker 2: and murdered. James spoke to police again. He was already
Speaker 2: going to prison for the burglary, and in the end,
Speaker 2: when confronted with evidence, he confessed to Julian's murder, but
Speaker 2: the details he gave at times didn't make sense. James
Speaker 2: changed his story several times and later recanted completely. Law
Speaker 2: enforcement absolutely believed they had the right person, but they
Speaker 2: weren't convinced they had a slam duncan trial, and so
Speaker 2: in June of nineteen ninety nine, Sheriff Robert Dawson took
Speaker 2: a very unusual step by contacting doctor Lawrence Farwell, a
Speaker 2: neuropsychiatrist and the inventor of a technique called brain fingerprinting.
Speaker 3: It's a very controversial method.
Speaker 2: The technology works a little bit like a lot of
Speaker 2: detector test, but it involves hooking a suspect up to
Speaker 2: an EKG and looking inside their brain while they are
Speaker 2: asked questions about the crime, questions that supposedly only the
Speaker 2: killer wouldn't know the answers to Lawrence Farewell had claimed
Speaker 2: that the accuracy rate for these tests was one hundred
Speaker 2: percent and that he got no false positives. Again, much
Speaker 2: like polygraph tests, this technique is controversial. The company Brainwave
Speaker 2: Sciences was around in the media a lot in the
Speaker 2: early two thousands. They ended up selling their technology to
Speaker 2: Singapore's police force. The Florida State Police has also reportedly
Speaker 2: used the technology, but according to report on the Verge
Speaker 2: that did a very deep dive into brain fingerprinting, it's
Speaker 2: really kind of impossible to verify a lot of these
Speaker 2: statistics because the testing is conducted by pretty much one person,
Speaker 2: Lawrence Farewell. There hasn't been any large scale peer review
Speaker 2: to my knowledge. Brain fingerprinting, by the way, is still used.
Speaker 2: It's not really a big thing in criminal cases. It's
Speaker 2: used more for diagnosing mental health issues. In James's case, though,
Speaker 2: he voluntarily submitted to this test, So Lawrence attached electrodes
Speaker 2: to James's head and had him sit in front of
Speaker 2: a computer screen while he asked him questions about the murder.
Speaker 2: He took detailed EEG readings of brain activity asking specific
Speaker 2: details about Julianne's rape and murder, and according to Lawrence Farewell,
Speaker 2: James failed. Lawrence later told a local newspaper quote, there
Speaker 2: is no question that JB. Grinder raped and murdered Julianne Helton.
Speaker 2: The significant details of the crime are stored in his
Speaker 2: brain end quote. With that confirmed, police believe they did
Speaker 2: have enough evidence to make their case against James Grinder
Speaker 2: for Julian's murder. James Grinder was convicted of Julianne Helton's
Speaker 2: murder in nineteen ninety nine and sentenced to life in prison.
Speaker 2: Questions remained about whether there could have been other people
Speaker 2: involved in Julian's murder. In addition to the former policeman,
Speaker 2: James had also named two brothers who he claimed were involved,
Speaker 2: but police eventually dismissed charges on all three of those
Speaker 2: other men due to lack of evidence. So James was
Speaker 2: behind bars in Missouri, convicted of murder. Now, the police
Speaker 2: in Arkansas wanted to talk to him again about the
Speaker 2: night in nineteen seventy six when Teresa, Crystal and Cynthia
Speaker 2: went missing. James was sent to Arkansas to face justice
Speaker 2: in Pope County. At first, he tried to talk his
Speaker 2: way out of it. He told police the same thing
Speaker 2: he had told Donna, that he gave the three girls
Speaker 2: a ride from Russellville to Pottsville, Arkansas, on.
Speaker 3: The day they went missing.
Speaker 2: Then he gave them twenty dollars and left them at
Speaker 2: the Interstate Police didn't buy his story, but they agreed
Speaker 2: to cut a deal with him to take the death
Speaker 2: penalty off the table if he confessed. He was already
Speaker 2: in for life without the possibility of parole, so he agreed.
Speaker 2: James said the first part of the story about driving Teresa, Cynthia,
Speaker 2: and Crystal to a liquor store in buying them alcohol
Speaker 2: was true. He said after they got into his car
Speaker 2: that he took a drive to buy the alcohol and
Speaker 2: went along with their story of running away, telling them
Speaker 2: that he was going to help them. Instead, he drove
Speaker 2: them to Brock Cemetery, where he raped Crystal and Teresa.
Speaker 2: After the rape, he claimed that he strangled Crystal and
Speaker 2: Teresa and then stabbed them in the neck before hiding
Speaker 2: their bodies under some brush off a nearby dead end road.
Speaker 2: He claimed that at this point Cynthia was still alive.
Speaker 2: So he took her into the Ozark National Forest and
Speaker 2: raped her. Then tried to beat her to death with
Speaker 2: a soda bottle, but Cynthia was still alive, so instead
Speaker 2: he beat her to death with a tire iron. He
Speaker 2: admitted that he dug a shallow grave and covered Crystal
Speaker 2: in Teresa's bodies with brush off of a dead end road,
Speaker 2: but he said that he left Cynthia out in the
Speaker 2: open in the forest. He said he did not attempt
Speaker 2: to bury her body, it was just left out in
Speaker 2: the open. In October of nineteen ninety eight, investigators stated
Speaker 2: they knew who killed Cynthia, Teresa and Crystal James B. Grinder,
Speaker 2: and that he was already in prison serving a life
Speaker 2: sentence for Julie Helton's murder.
Speaker 3: James was charged with capital.
Speaker 2: Murder, only one counts, since in Arkansas at the time,
Speaker 2: capital murder was described as a premeditated homicide of two
Speaker 2: or more people. James was convicted and sentenced to life
Speaker 2: in prison. He later requested that his sentence be reduced.
Speaker 2: He claimed that police forced his confession. He also claimed
Speaker 2: he didn't work alone, that there were others involved in
Speaker 2: killing the three girls, but all of his petitions for
Speaker 2: clemency were denied. No one believed him. I've read a
Speaker 2: lot of comments saying it would have been impossible for
Speaker 2: James to kill three young women alone, But I'm not convinced,
Speaker 2: because James Grinder had developed trust with these girls, he
Speaker 2: drove them around a lot, there was almost certainly alcohol involved,
Speaker 2: and it's certainly plausible that he alone could have overpowered
Speaker 2: three young girls, especially given their ages and his claim.
Speaker 3: That he separated them.
Speaker 2: At around six foot one and one hundred and eighty
Speaker 2: five pounds with a weapon, he had a significant physical advantage.
Speaker 2: James Grinder was sentenced to life in prison without the
Speaker 2: possibility of parole. In twenty ten, James passed away in
Speaker 2: prison of what was described as natural causes. He was
Speaker 2: sixty five years old. Cynthia Maybury's body has never been found.
Speaker 2: Her mother, Clara, passed away in twenty fourteen without ever
Speaker 2: being able to lay her daughter to rest. The Russellville
Speaker 2: Police Department is still handling the case of Cynthia Maybury's
Speaker 2: unrecovered remains. They have asked that anyone with any information
Speaker 2: about Anthea's remains please contact them on four seven, nine, nine,
Speaker 2: six eight three two three two. I'm Catherine Townsend. This
Speaker 2: is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line is
Speaker 2: a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's
Speaker 2: written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced by
Speaker 2: Etaily's Perez Special thanks to Amy Tubbs for her research
Speaker 2: assistance and James Wheaton for legal review. Noah camer mixed
Speaker 2: and scored this episode. Our theme song is by Ben Sale.
Speaker 2: Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and l. C.
Speaker 3: Crowley.
Speaker 2: Listen to Helen Gone ad free by subscribing to the
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Speaker 2: are interested in seeing documents and materials from the case,
Speaker 2: you can follow the show on Instagram at Helen Gone Pod.
Speaker 2: If you have a case she'd like me and my
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Speaker 2: at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight
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