Speaker 1: School of Humans.
Speaker 2: On Friday, December twelfth, nineteen eighty, at approximately six forty
Speaker 2: five in the morning, the Mississippi County Sheriff's Department got
Speaker 2: a call about a female body lying on the side
Speaker 2: of the road. The location of the body was on
Speaker 2: Highway one eighty one, just south of Highway one fifty eight.
Speaker 2: The caller was a man named Arbora dal Watkins who
Speaker 2: lived nearby in Manila, Arkansas. He told police he had
Speaker 2: been en route to his job at the Brown Shoe
Speaker 2: factory in Osceola when he turned south on the highway
Speaker 2: and saw the body lying in the edge of a ditch.
Speaker 2: He went to a nearby business, the Reese Wholesale Furniture Outlet,
Speaker 2: in contacted the Arkansas State Police in Jonesboro, who then
Speaker 2: called the Mississippi County Sheriff's office because the body was
Speaker 2: in their jurisdiction. Officer Richard Nash from the Mississippi County
Speaker 2: Sheriff's Department arrived at the scene at six fifty six am.
Speaker 1: He came to meet.
Speaker 2: The guy who had called police and to start processing
Speaker 2: the crime scene. The woman was dressed in a striped
Speaker 2: red colored dress and velveteen jacket.
Speaker 1: She was five foot five.
Speaker 2: She weighed around one hundred and fifteen pounds. The woman
Speaker 2: was carrying a reddish brown clutch bag under her right arm.
Speaker 2: Detectives were able to go into that bag and find
Speaker 2: her ID. That's when they knew who this woman was.
Speaker 2: Barbara and Bryan, a thirty year old mother of two
Speaker 2: from a ponto, Arkansas. It was not hard to figure
Speaker 2: out the cause of death. Barbara had massive holes blown
Speaker 2: into her body by a shotgun. The shots were so
Speaker 2: violent that pieces of her hair and skull were found
Speaker 2: twenty feet away. So, once again in rural Arkansas, we
Speaker 2: have a woman whose body was found in a ditch
Speaker 2: near a highway and her car was found several miles
Speaker 2: down the road. And just like in Amanda Tussing's case,
Speaker 2: which we discussed last week, there were suspicions that a
Speaker 2: police officer may have been involved, and Barbara's murder is
Speaker 2: also still unsolved. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past five
Speaker 2: years of making my true crime podcast Helen Gone, I
Speaker 2: have learned that there is no such thing as a
Speaker 2: small town where murder never happens. I have received hundreds
Speaker 2: of messages from people all around the country asking for
Speaker 2: help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families
Speaker 2: and their communities. If you have a case you'd like
Speaker 2: me and my team to look into, you can reach
Speaker 2: out to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at
Speaker 2: six seven eight seven four four six one four five.
Speaker 2: That's six seven eight seven four four six one four
Speaker 2: or five. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Police had
Speaker 2: responded to a murder scene along the shoulder of the road.
Speaker 2: From there things happened fast. The County corner was contacted
Speaker 2: at seven fifteen am. Arrangements were made to move Barber's
Speaker 2: body so that it could be tested. At seven twenty
Speaker 2: one am, Sergeant J. C. Brewer arrived on the scene.
Speaker 2: He noted the position of Barber's body. It was facing
Speaker 2: the west side of the road shoulder, her feet were
Speaker 2: facing the highway. She had what appeared to be a
Speaker 2: large shotgun wound to the chest and part of her
Speaker 2: left hand had been shot off. They found casings and
Speaker 2: shotgun shells scattered around.
Speaker 1: They also found.
Speaker 2: Buckshot, the casing from Barbara's watch and some inner parts
Speaker 2: of the watch were found several feet away from the
Speaker 2: body as well. In all, police found five shotgun shells
Speaker 2: and powder dividers, and two separate locks of blonde hair.
Speaker 2: All of the hairs they found were positively identified as Barbara's.
Speaker 2: Barbara had a large bloodstain and brain material under her head.
Speaker 2: It was obvious that these were catastrophic injuries. Police also
Speaker 2: noticed something else. They noticed a ring. It had a
Speaker 2: black center mounting with eight surrounding clear settings. The interesting
Speaker 2: thing about the ring was that it appeared to investigators
Speaker 2: that had been cut into and peeled open. From the
Speaker 2: way they describe it, it's not totally clear, but it
Speaker 2: seems like someone used a tool or something to try
Speaker 2: and remove the ring from Barbara's finger, and.
Speaker 1: In the end they couldn't do it.
Speaker 2: I can't be sure because the way the report is
Speaker 2: worded is slightly odd. In my opinion, it makes it
Speaker 2: sound like the center stone may have been missing. Now,
Speaker 2: this would be very interesting because that ring was on
Speaker 2: Barbara's ring finger, the fourth finger of her left hand,
Speaker 2: the finger that's traditionally used for engagement rings and wedding bands.
Speaker 2: The body was taken to the Chickisa album More at
Speaker 2: the request of the coroner, and then the investigation continued.
Speaker 2: Investigators figured out Barbara had been shot at least twice,
Speaker 2: possibly with a twelve or sixteen gage shotgun, the type
Speaker 2: of shotguns that are used for hunting. Both of these
Speaker 2: gun sizes, by the way, are used for hunting deer
Speaker 2: and for hunting other types of game. The twelve gage
Speaker 2: is slightly larger, but both of these weapons packed serious firepower.
Speaker 2: Barbara was shot at least twice at very close range.
Speaker 2: From the position that she was in, it seemed as
Speaker 2: though she was shot in the chest from behind on
Speaker 2: the left side. This severely damaged her lungs and would
Speaker 2: have been fatal. Then she was shot again. From the
Speaker 2: description of the autopsy report of the powder burns on
Speaker 2: Barber's hands and the fact that part of her left
Speaker 2: hand was missing, it seems as though she may have
Speaker 2: had her hand near her neck when she was shot.
Speaker 2: The state medical examiner, Dan Cook did find more wounds
Speaker 2: on Barber's head, but he said that they were most
Speaker 2: likely the result of the shotgun pellets rather than direct shots.
Speaker 2: So when people go hunting deer or other animals, they
Speaker 2: often do it with buckshot. That's literally what the ammunition
Speaker 2: is named for. The male deer, the buck. There are
Speaker 2: several large pellets that are packed into a shotgun shell. Now,
Speaker 2: according to Field and Stream, buckshot is ideal for quote
Speaker 2: close ranges inside fifty yards. Buckshot is lethal on thin
Speaker 2: skin targets from bobcats to coyotes, to leopards to people
Speaker 2: end quote. When you use a shotgun and buckshot, it
Speaker 2: comes out in a burst rather than a single shot.
Speaker 2: Forensic testing determined that the bullets had entered Barbara's left
Speaker 2: shoulder at a forty five degree angle, so it would
Speaker 2: be reasonable for police to consider the possibility Barbara knew
Speaker 2: her killer she was standing there talking to them, then
Speaker 2: she might have turned around to walk away before her
Speaker 2: killer shot her. Remember, she had her purse under her
Speaker 2: right arm. Police found a chalky white substance on the
Speaker 2: front of Barber's dress, just below her breast. They never
Speaker 2: really explained what that was. Now this is just a
Speaker 2: guest since I'm not a gun expert. I do know
Speaker 2: they use buffering powder inside shotgun shells made of polyethylene,
Speaker 2: so that might have been what it was. It could
Speaker 2: have been something totally different, like a deodorant stain, for example,
Speaker 2: So I can't say for sure, but a buffer powder
Speaker 2: is more likely in my opinion, because the medical report
Speaker 2: did point out one of Barbara's wounds had powder burn.
Speaker 2: What this means is that Barbara's killer shot her at
Speaker 2: very close range. The autopsy also mentioned Barbara was not
Speaker 2: wearing underwear. Now, this could have been a fashion choice,
Speaker 2: but we also have to consider the possibility that it
Speaker 2: might have been removed, possibly by the killer, maybe in
Speaker 2: an attempt to camouflage DNA, if the killer had any
Speaker 2: type of sexual encounter with her, either consensual or not
Speaker 2: before her murder. There were two shots fired, so it
Speaker 2: seems as though either Barbara's killer shot her in the
Speaker 2: back and then turned her over and shot her, or
Speaker 2: shot her and then fired the fatal shot as she
Speaker 2: tried to run away. Either way, this was an execution
Speaker 2: and it was brutal and judging by the way that
Speaker 2: her killer tried to wrench the ring from her finger,
Speaker 2: this was very personal. Barbara Brian's murder happened in the
Speaker 2: same general area as the murder of Amanda Toussing, the
Speaker 2: case that we discussed in a previous episode. As we mentioned,
Speaker 2: Amanda Tussing was making a forty mile drive from her fiance,
Speaker 2: Matt Irvin's home in Jonesboro to her parents house in Dell, Arkansas.
Speaker 2: It was raining hard that night and Amanda never made
Speaker 2: it home. Her car was found part just off Highway
Speaker 2: eighteen near Monette. Her body was found days later in
Speaker 2: a ditch near Lake City. Like Barbara's, Amanda's murder is
Speaker 2: still unsolved, and even though the causes of death are different,
Speaker 2: Amanda may have been strangled and there were no gunshots involved,
Speaker 2: while Barbara was very obviously fatally shot, there are some similarities.
Speaker 2: Both women were petite, both of their bodies were recovered
Speaker 2: my away from their cars, and both bodies were found
Speaker 2: in locations that made investigators believe the killer had to
Speaker 2: have a lot of local knowledge. A lot of people
Speaker 2: in this neck of the woods have connected Barbara and
Speaker 2: Amanda's cases over the years.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons why I was.
Speaker 2: So fascinated by this case is because while there is
Speaker 2: a ton of information about Amanda Tussing, there is very
Speaker 2: little information out there about the life of Barbara and
Speaker 2: Armstrong Brian. What we do know is that she was
Speaker 2: born in Caraway, Arkansas, in Craighead County, to Fleming's Skinny
Speaker 2: Armstrong and Agnes Armstrong. Barbara's dad Skinny was a farmer.
Speaker 2: She grew up in a Baptist household, like a lot
Speaker 2: of other kids in that region. She had a brother
Speaker 2: named Gary, and again, very much like an Amanda Tussing's case,
Speaker 2: when police found Barbara's purse, it had her car keys
Speaker 2: and all of her belongings inside it. Barbara's nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: four brown Chevy Nova was parked five miles from where
Speaker 2: her body was found.
Speaker 1: All of the door were locked.
Speaker 2: There was no sign of foul play inside the vehicle.
Speaker 2: Police found items inside the car personal items of Barbara's
Speaker 2: that did give investigators a clue about her movements right
Speaker 2: before she went missing. Inside the car, on the middle
Speaker 2: of the front seat, they found a white cloth jacket
Speaker 2: lying on top of a green overnight case. Next to
Speaker 2: the overnight bag, there was an envelope that was addressed
Speaker 2: to Barbara.
Speaker 1: So the investigator on the case, J. C.
Speaker 2: Brewer, talked to Barbara's closest girlfriend, a woman named Joyce Langston.
Speaker 1: Joyce told police she.
Speaker 2: Had been super close to Barbara for a long time,
Speaker 2: but she said she had stopped running around with Barbara lately.
Speaker 2: And these are her words because Barbara was dating married men.
Speaker 2: Police continued to process Barbara Brian's in nineteen seventy four
Speaker 2: Chevy Nova. They wondered about the location of the car
Speaker 2: versus the location of her body. Why if it was
Speaker 2: in fact Barbara driving, would Barbara parked her car and
Speaker 2: stopped there on that deserted strip of road. They took
Speaker 2: the car to the sheriff's department. Investigators wanted to check
Speaker 2: out the vehicle's condition. They were thinking, maybe the car
Speaker 2: broke down, Maybe Barbara encountered a stranger, maybe she stopped
Speaker 2: to pick someone up and he pulled a gun on her,
Speaker 2: or maybe she had someone with her in the car.
Speaker 2: The car broke down, something went wrong and they got
Speaker 2: into an argument. They had to consider all different types
Speaker 2: of scenarios. They saw that the gas gauge showed that
Speaker 2: the car was empty, but that was kind of a
Speaker 2: red herring because when police started the car up, it
Speaker 2: ran fine. Later they figured out the gas gauge itself
Speaker 2: was broken, but the car had plenty of gas in it.
Speaker 2: In the police report noted the vehicle exterior had do
Speaker 2: on it, so they weren't able to lift Layton prints.
Speaker 2: The vehicle was impounded to the Sheriff's department for further processing.
Speaker 2: But then I can't find anything more in this report
Speaker 2: about what happened to the car, whether they did take fingerprints.
Speaker 2: They got into her bag, they u zipped the carrier
Speaker 2: and found Barbara's stuff inside. They found a white pair
Speaker 2: of pants and maroon blouse, her makeup, her curling iron,
Speaker 2: all of the stuff that she would need to get ready,
Speaker 2: as well as two small plaster statues and an ankle bracelet.
Speaker 2: They also found photographs of two white men. So police
Speaker 2: got more information from Barbara's girlfriend, Joyce. She looked at
Speaker 2: the photos in Barbara's bag and said that one of
Speaker 2: them was Jerry Shaw. She said that Jerry Shaw and
Speaker 2: Barbara had been dating for several months and that things
Speaker 2: were going well. They found a greeting card inside and
Speaker 2: it was also written by Jerry Shaw. But then Joyce
Speaker 2: told them something shocking. Joyce said that for the past
Speaker 2: several years, Barbara had been dating someone else, a police
Speaker 2: officer named Johnny Williams. Johnny Williams lived in Black Oak,
Speaker 2: which was a small town nearby by the way. This
Speaker 2: was very close to the area where Amanda Tussing's body
Speaker 2: was found. Johnny was born in nineteen forty six, so
Speaker 2: by two thousand, when Amanda Tussing was murdered, Johnny would
Speaker 2: have been fifty four years old. He served in the
Speaker 2: Navy in Vietnam and then after that was a police
Speaker 2: officer in Black Oak, and he also worked in the
Speaker 2: neighbouring county at the Craighead County Sheriff's office. At one
Speaker 2: point he was an Arkansas State trooper. We mentioned that
Speaker 2: he became a suspect in Amanda Tussing's death because of
Speaker 2: his alleged behavior. Apparently he had a habit of following
Speaker 2: single women around in his police cruiser. But in nineteen eighty,
Speaker 2: Johnny Williams would have been thirty four and now we
Speaker 2: find out that he was dating Barbara Bryan. Joyce told
Speaker 2: police that Johnny was not happy about the fact Barbara.
Speaker 1: Wanted to end things.
Speaker 2: Joyce told police Barbara had told her that Johnny Williams
Speaker 2: flew into jealous rages. On the night Barbara was shot,
Speaker 2: she had a date with Jerry Shaw. Jerry lived in Blible,
Speaker 2: That's why Barbara had her overnight bag. She had her
Speaker 2: stuff ready for a weekend with her boyfriend. Joyce said
Speaker 2: two weeks before Barbara was murdered, Barbara called her and
Speaker 2: told her she had a violent confrontation with Johnny.
Speaker 1: She said she had told.
Speaker 2: Johnny she was dating another man, and that Johnny got
Speaker 2: extremely upset and beat on the dash of his car.
Speaker 2: Barbara told Joyce, according to the incident report, that Johnny
Speaker 2: was extremely jealous. Last week, when we talked about Amanda
Speaker 2: Tussing's case, we talked about the blue light rapist. The
Speaker 2: blue light rapist impersonated a police officer and committed a
Speaker 2: string of sexual assaults in this area, but of course
Speaker 2: he had already been arrested and sent to prison by
Speaker 2: the time Amanda disappeared. A lot of people at that
Speaker 2: time talked about the possibility that Amanda Tussing might have
Speaker 2: pulled over for a real police officer, and that perhaps
Speaker 2: a real police officer had.
Speaker 1: Been the killer.
Speaker 2: Johnny Williams worked for the Tyronza Sheriff's Department. Tyron'sa is
Speaker 2: a small town in the northeast part of the state.
Speaker 2: The population is only around seven hundred people and there
Speaker 2: are not a ton of jobs. A lot of people
Speaker 2: who live there commute to larger cities nearby, including Memphis,
Speaker 2: and Jonesboro.
Speaker 1: George Jared, who he worked.
Speaker 2: With on the Rebecca Gould case from season one of
Speaker 2: Helen Gon, wrote about Amanda Tussing's murder in his book
Speaker 2: Whispers in the Willows, and as part of that we
Speaker 2: mentioned the theories that Johnny Williams might have been involved
Speaker 2: in Barbara and in Amanda's murders. It seemed clear from
Speaker 2: what's out there in the public that the police suspected
Speaker 2: Johnny certainly in Barbara's death, but I had a lot
Speaker 2: of questions. It wasn't clear to me how much investigating
Speaker 2: they did, whether they ever questioned him. There was just
Speaker 2: nothing written in the media about it at all. Since
Speaker 2: Amanda's case is still open, police will not release the
Speaker 2: case file. But I hoped if we could get some
Speaker 2: information on Barber's case, maybe we could figure out whether
Speaker 2: Johnny Williams was a viable suspect in her murder or
Speaker 2: possibly in others. We did a Foyer request and we
Speaker 2: were able to get a copy of the incident report
Speaker 2: on Barbara's death. We got that from Mississippi County, Arkansas,
Speaker 2: and it turns out there was a lot more detail
Speaker 2: on record about Barbara Brin's death enough to make me
Speaker 2: really question why Johnny Williams was never arrested. I'll get
Speaker 2: back to that in a minute. Let's go back to
Speaker 2: the crime scene. Police were trying to figure out what
Speaker 2: Barbara was doing out there on that stretch of highway.
Speaker 2: They were looking for witnesses. Now, they knew from Barbara's
Speaker 2: friend Joyce, that Johnny Williams had been dating Barbara. They
Speaker 2: wanted to find out about his movements on December eleventh
Speaker 2: and December twelfth, nineteen eighty and they pretty quickly found
Speaker 2: a lead. I have actually never seen this happen before
Speaker 2: in a case that I can remember.
Speaker 1: They got a lot of.
Speaker 2: Information from a man named Clyde Eldridge. He told police
Speaker 2: that he would often sleep overnight at the Tyrone's A
Speaker 2: Police Department. Now, Johnny Williams also had an office in
Speaker 2: the Tyrone's A PD at that time. According to what
Speaker 2: I've been able to find, he was an Arkansas State
Speaker 2: Police trooper. Tyronza was in Pointsett County, not in Mississippi County.
Speaker 2: So once again we have a case that crossed county
Speaker 2: lines and all the potential complications that that entails. Police
Speaker 2: were trying to piece together where everyone was on the
Speaker 2: night of December eleventh. Apparently, on that night, Clyde Eldridge
Speaker 2: was sleeping in the tyronsa police station. He told investigators
Speaker 2: he got to the police station at twelve fifteen am.
Speaker 1: Clyde said that.
Speaker 2: Johnny Williams was there, that Johnny was sitting at his
Speaker 2: desk at the police department watching TV.
Speaker 1: Clyde said he sat.
Speaker 2: Around and talked to Johnny for a few minutes. Then
Speaker 2: he said he noticed a two toned leather gun case
Speaker 2: lying across Johnny's desk, but Clyde said he didn't really
Speaker 2: think anything about it, and I'm not surprised because it
Speaker 2: was super common to have guns in that neck of
Speaker 2: the woods. Johnny was a hunter, like a lot of people.
Speaker 2: The report read quote Clyde had asked Johnny if he
Speaker 2: had been hunting. Johnny stated to Clyde that he had
Speaker 2: been to Brandywine Island. Clyde advised he thought brandy Wine
Speaker 2: Island was closed. Johnny Williams stated to him, if you
Speaker 2: know who to contact, you can go hunting there.
Speaker 1: End quote.
Speaker 2: So after they discussed Johnny's hunting plans, Clyde said that
Speaker 2: sometime around one or one fifteen am, Johnny was trying
Speaker 2: to make a phone call from the police department. Clyde
Speaker 2: said he didn't exactly remember who the call was too,
Speaker 2: but he said that at around one fifteen am, it
Speaker 2: did seem like Johnny made contact with the person he
Speaker 2: was trying to call. Clyde said that after that he
Speaker 2: laid down on the couch in the office. He said
Speaker 2: he went to sleep. Sometime around two or two thirty am,
Speaker 2: he heard someone leaving the police station. He explained that
Speaker 2: when the front door is unlocked, it wakes him up.
Speaker 2: He stated he usually wakes up when someone opens the
Speaker 2: door and then gets up to see what they want.
Speaker 2: After he woke up, he walked to the front of
Speaker 2: the police department and looked outside. He noticed Johnny Williams
Speaker 2: was gone. Johnny Williams jeep Eagle was not parked in front.
Speaker 2: Clyde said he wasn't exactly sure of the time. He
Speaker 2: went back to sleep, and the next thing he remembered
Speaker 2: was at four forty five am, when the police chief,
Speaker 2: Floyd White, came into the police department and woke him up.
Speaker 2: This is almost like a movie about smalltown police, complete
Speaker 2: with people admitting to sleeping on their jobs at night
Speaker 2: and people crashing in the police station. Evidently police were
Speaker 2: very suspicious of Johnny Williams, because on the very next day,
Speaker 2: in December thirteenth of nineteen eighty, Johnny Williams was interrogated.
Speaker 2: Investigators gave him a lie detector test. The investigator's name
Speaker 2: was George Stewart. They administered the polygraph at the Mississippi
Speaker 2: County Sheriff's Department. The lie detector examiner said Johnny Williams
Speaker 2: had been deceptive, which means investigators concluded that Johnny Williams
Speaker 2: lied during that test. Again, I think we have to
Speaker 2: be very careful about putting too much faith into light detectors.
Speaker 1: We've talked about that a lot on this podcast.
Speaker 2: We know they're dependent on the skill of the person
Speaker 2: administering them. Also, there's a good reason why they're not
Speaker 2: admissible in court. But I do think it's really interesting
Speaker 2: that immediately the police, who sometimes people criticized for protecting
Speaker 2: one of their own, were suspicious of another officer, they
Speaker 2: do not hesitate to polygraph him.
Speaker 1: So this brings us to.
Speaker 2: December fourteenth, Barbara Bryan's body has been found. Johnny Williams,
Speaker 2: who she's been dating on and off for three years,
Speaker 2: is immediately pretty much a prime suspect. On December fourteenth,
Speaker 2: they informed Johnny Williams that he had failed the light
Speaker 2: detector test and he agreed to take a second test.
Speaker 2: This time it was administered by the Arkansas State Police,
Speaker 2: and once again, Johnny Williams failed that polygraph test, so
Speaker 2: now he's zero for two. Police found other officers who
Speaker 2: had seen Johnny Williams that night. They found a man
Speaker 2: named James Miles, a police officer in Laponto. He said
Speaker 2: he saw Johnny at around two thirty am on the
Speaker 2: morning of December twelfth. He said Johnny was traveled north
Speaker 2: on Highway one forty one thirty five. He saw Johnny
Speaker 2: driving his Jeep Eagle. He recognized Johnny and he recognized
Speaker 2: the car. He said he did not see him again
Speaker 2: during his shift, which ended at three am. Investigators pulled
Speaker 2: the desk log from the Tyronza Police Department from the
Speaker 2: night of December twelfth, nineteen eighty. They searched Johnny Williams
Speaker 2: Jeep Eagle in the back seat on the left armrest.
Speaker 2: There was a small piece of reddish orange string entangled
Speaker 2: in the carpeting. This was entered into evidence and cataloged.
Speaker 2: Investigators also found a pair of green hip boots and
Speaker 2: a pair of camouflage coveralls on the back floorboard. There
Speaker 2: was a rust colored vest in the back of the
Speaker 2: car too that had several Western number six shotgun shells
Speaker 2: inside it, as well as a plastic container of rifle cartridges.
Speaker 2: They had found Johnny Williams hunting gear immediately after Barbara
Speaker 2: Bryne's body was found. According to the incident report, police
Speaker 2: identified the man she had been dating, a police officer
Speaker 2: named Johnny Williams, as a suspect. He admitted that he
Speaker 2: had been in the Tyronza, Arkansas area, in the early
Speaker 2: morning hours of December twelfth. He said that the chief
Speaker 2: of Police, Floyd White, could verify this. The problem with
Speaker 2: that was Chief White told police that he had seen
Speaker 2: Johnny between the hours of four thirty and five am,
Speaker 2: but not before that. Floyd White said that he came
Speaker 2: back to the police station at around seven am that morning.
Speaker 2: He said by that time Johnny was gone, but his
Speaker 2: jeep was still parked in the lot. Then Floyd said
Speaker 2: he left again and came back a second time at
Speaker 2: eight thirty am. He said by that time, both Johnny
Speaker 2: and his vehicle were gone. Floyd said that Johnny did
Speaker 2: carry a gun, a separate gun, presumably from a service revolver,
Speaker 2: in a brown carrying case. Johnny admitted that was his
Speaker 2: deer rifle. Police interviewed Johnny. They asked him about Barbara's death,
Speaker 2: and he openly admitted he knew that because he had
Speaker 2: dated Barbara, that police considered him a suspect in the case,
Speaker 2: but Johnny completely denied having anything to do with her death.
Speaker 1: He said he had a close relationship with her.
Speaker 2: He said they had dated for three years and that
Speaker 2: at one point they were very serious. He said he
Speaker 2: knew she was seeing Jerry Shaw. He knew she had
Speaker 2: a date with Jerry on the night she disappeared. Johnny
Speaker 2: said that on Thursday night he went to Barbara's home,
Speaker 2: and he said that's when he found out she had
Speaker 2: a Friday night date with Jerry. He said that on
Speaker 2: that Thursday evening, prior to the homicide, he had gone
Speaker 2: to Barbara's house in an attempt to catch her coming
Speaker 2: in from work. He said he wanted to talk about
Speaker 2: their relationship, but he said he couldn't find Barbara, so
Speaker 2: he kept looking for her throughout the night, but his
Speaker 2: story was that he never connected with Barbara. This seems
Speaker 2: to conflict with him telling officers that he found out
Speaker 2: about the date with Jerry on Thursday night. I'm not
Speaker 2: exactly sure what the story there is if he's mixing
Speaker 2: up Thursday night and Friday night, but it doesn't seem
Speaker 2: to make any sense. However, he does not get called
Speaker 2: on it. Police were very suspicious of Johnny.
Speaker 1: He was jealous.
Speaker 2: He was seen driving around in the early morning hours
Speaker 2: of December twelfth. He admitted that he was in Laponto,
Speaker 2: the town where Barbara lived, at two thirty am Friday morning,
Speaker 2: looking for Barbara. You also have an officer from Laponto
Speaker 2: saying that he saw Johnny driving on Highway one forty
Speaker 2: in that area, and Johnny had an alibi another woman
Speaker 2: who apparently came to the police department and picked him up.
Speaker 2: He said that he spent the rest of the night
Speaker 2: with this other woman. This other woman's name was Gay Couch,
Speaker 2: and eventually Gay Couch became Gay Williams.
Speaker 1: She and Johnny Williams got married.
Speaker 2: We requested an officer fitness report on Johnny Williams and
Speaker 2: it came back clean. There is no suggestion that Gay
Speaker 2: knew anything, by the way, and even if for argument's sake,
Speaker 2: she did suspect something, because they were married, she probably
Speaker 2: could not be forced to testify against her own husband.
Speaker 2: There's nothing on Johnny Williams record, at least publicly, that
Speaker 2: would alert anyone to his fellow officer's suspicions about him. Eventually,
Speaker 2: Johnny Williams got cancer. He was sick for several years,
Speaker 2: fought back, but then a few months later he developed
Speaker 2: heart problems. He died in twenty ten. He was sixty
Speaker 2: three years old. In George Jared's book Whispers in the Willows,
Speaker 2: George mentions that he heard that on his deathbed, Johnny
Speaker 2: was questioned again about Amanda Tussing's murder, but denied having
Speaker 2: anything to do with it. After he left law enforcement,
Speaker 2: Johnny founded a company called Williams Trucking Company. And by
Speaker 2: the way, there are rumors Johnny was fired from law enforcement,
Speaker 2: but I can't find any official record of that. As
Speaker 2: we know from this podcast, there are a lot of
Speaker 2: instances where departments choose to quietly allow an officer to
Speaker 2: leave on his own terms so they can avoid the
Speaker 2: bad publicity. But to me, it's terrifying that these members
Speaker 2: of law enforcement, who have such an enormous amount of power,
Speaker 2: are out driving around and the public is completely unaware
Speaker 2: of any of these pretty terrifying suspicions that their fellow
Speaker 2: officers have about them. Johnny and Gay eventually had children.
Speaker 2: They were still married when he died. From what I
Speaker 2: can find in public records, it seems as though Barbara
Speaker 2: Brian's parents and her brother Gary have all passed away.
Speaker 2: So what are we left with because there seem to
Speaker 2: be a lot of missing pieces in this case file.
Speaker 2: For example, I never saw any mention of testing those
Speaker 2: fingerprints from the car. Again, I never found any interviews
Speaker 2: with Jerry Shaw, the man Barbara was dating. It seems
Speaker 2: like everyone kind of forgot about Barbara's case, but we haven't.
Speaker 2: I want to see if we can uncover more information
Speaker 2: about these police officers who may have thought their secrets
Speaker 2: were buried forever. Barbara Bryan, Amanda Tussing, and all the
Speaker 2: other victims whose bodies were found along random strips of
Speaker 2: Arkansas roads deserve that. I'm Katherine Townsend. This is Helen
Speaker 2: Gone Murder Line, Helen Gone Murder Line is a production
Speaker 2: of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and
Speaker 2: narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts
Speaker 2: and Miranda Hawkins. Music contributed by Ben Solee. Special thanks
Speaker 2: to Amy Tubbs for her research assistance. Noah camer mixed
Speaker 2: and scored this episode. Executive producers of Virginia Prescott Brandon Barr,
Speaker 2: and Elsie Crowley. Listen to Helen Gone ad free by
Speaker 2: subscribing to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 2: You can follow the show on Instagram at Helen Gone Pod.
Speaker 2: If you have a case you'd let 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 six seven
Speaker 2: eight seven four four six one four five
Speaker 1: School of Humans