Speaker 1: School of Humans. It was Thursday night, November one, two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven. An eighteen year old Justin Gaines was
Speaker 1: getting ready for a night out with his friends at
Speaker 1: Wild Bill's, a club in Duluth, Georgia. Justin was a
Speaker 1: freshman in college. He had just started at Gainesville State,
Speaker 1: which was about an hour away from where his family
Speaker 1: lived his mom, Erica Wilson, his stepfather, Stephen Wilson, and
Speaker 1: his siblings. Justin was fairly newly single. He had broken
Speaker 1: up with his girlfriend of two years pretty recently, but
Speaker 1: according to Atlanta Magazine, they were still friends. In fact,
Speaker 1: Justin talked on the phone to his sex shortly before
Speaker 1: he went out that night. This was a close blended family.
Speaker 1: When Justin's mom and his stepfather married, they each brought
Speaker 1: their own children to the relationship. There were seven kids
Speaker 1: in all, and apparently they all got Alongston also had
Speaker 1: a good relationship with his stepdad, Stephen, who worked at
Speaker 1: a roofing company. Sometimes Justin would do odd jobs for
Speaker 1: Stephen to pick up some extra cash. Justin was handsome
Speaker 1: five foot eleven, two hundred and thirty pounds. He was
Speaker 1: muscular and fit. He had blue eyes and short brown
Speaker 1: hair that he wore in a buzz cut. On that
Speaker 1: Thursday night, Justin was wearing a gray Abercrombie and Fitch
Speaker 1: long sleeve shirt and rip blue jeans. He also had
Speaker 1: a pair of diamond stud ear rings that he sometimes wore.
Speaker 1: That night, he was wearing a single diamond stud in
Speaker 1: his left ear. On thirsty Thursdays at Wild Bills, you
Speaker 1: only had to be eighteen years old to enter the club,
Speaker 1: but Justin did have a couple of fake id's with
Speaker 1: him so that he could buy drinks at the bar.
Speaker 1: He used the names Brad Allen and Brad's Shoe. His mom, Erica,
Speaker 1: later clarified on web slue that technically these weren't fake IDs,
Speaker 1: they were the IDs of some older friends that Justin
Speaker 1: would use. I relate to this because I did a
Speaker 1: lot of that when I was younger, old enough to
Speaker 1: get into the club but too young to drink. So
Speaker 1: Justin didn't take a wallet out with him that night.
Speaker 1: He had no credit cards, just cash, his fake IDs,
Speaker 1: and his cell phone. His stepfather told Atlanta Magazine, which
Speaker 1: by the way, did a really long and in depth
Speaker 1: feature on this case, that he remembered that night very
Speaker 1: well because Apparently, right before he went out, Justin was
Speaker 1: joking around with Stephen about what shirt he should wear
Speaker 1: to impress the ladies. Justin was a big, very fit guy.
Speaker 1: He could take care of himself. He was also charming
Speaker 1: and confident, and, according to his mother, very social, someone
Speaker 1: who had no trouble talking to anyone, including strangers. He
Speaker 1: was a regular at Wild Bills. He knew the bartenders,
Speaker 1: and apparently he also knew some people who were going
Speaker 1: to be there that night. Justin had a car, but
Speaker 1: he wasn't driving. He left his at his mom and
Speaker 1: stepdad's house. He caught a ride with a friend of
Speaker 1: his named Chris Byers and Chris's girlfriend, Amanda. According to
Speaker 1: Atlanta Magazine, Chris and Justin had been friends for a
Speaker 1: long time, ever since high school. They were now college roommates.
Speaker 1: Chris and Amanda picked Justin up at his house and
Speaker 1: they headed to Wild Bills. Along the way, they stopped
Speaker 1: at a gas station where Justin mixed some vodka and
Speaker 1: gas station energy drink in one of those big fountain cups. Again,
Speaker 1: I used to do this all the time as a teen.
Speaker 1: It's an easy way to save money. Later at the bar,
Speaker 1: Wild Bills is huge. This club could hold thousands of people.
Speaker 1: It's closed now, but back in the day they had
Speaker 1: seven different bars and each bar had kind of a
Speaker 1: different vibe. They even had a tiki bar in there,
Speaker 1: and they would host all different kinds of events. They
Speaker 1: would host phone parties, sometimes mma fights, and they had
Speaker 1: line dancing nights. Most of their nights tended to have
Speaker 1: a country theme, but on Thursday Thursdays, the mechanical bowl
Speaker 1: and cowboy boots were replaced with girls dancing on platforms
Speaker 1: and a DJ who had spend R and B mixed
Speaker 1: with hip hop. Thursdays were also apparently the only night
Speaker 1: where eighteen year olds could go into the club. So Chris, Amanda,
Speaker 1: and Justin got to the bar and were ready to party.
Speaker 1: They were aiming to get there by eleven pm, but
Speaker 1: they were a few minutes late, and this twist of
Speaker 1: fate being a few minutes late changed everything because after
Speaker 1: eleven pm Wild Bills had a cover charge. It went
Speaker 1: from being free to ten dollars per person. Justin saw
Speaker 1: someone in line who he knew, so he was able
Speaker 1: to get a pass to get in for free, but
Speaker 1: Chris and Amanda could not, and they did not want
Speaker 1: to pay the cover charge, so they left Wild Bills
Speaker 1: and Justin went in on his own. He said that
Speaker 1: it was no problem, he would find a ride. This
Speaker 1: was something that he did often. Again, he was this big,
Speaker 1: strong guy who could handle himself. A while later, in
Speaker 1: the early morning hours of November two, two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: Justin walked out into that parking lot in Duluth and
Speaker 1: no one ever saw him again. I'm Catherine Townsend. If
Speaker 1: you have a case you'd like me and my team
Speaker 1: to look into, you can reach out to us at
Speaker 1: our Helen Gone Murder line at six seven eight seven
Speaker 1: four four six one four or five. That's six seven
Speaker 1: eight seven four four six one four or five. This
Speaker 1: is Helen Gone Murder Line. The disappearance of Justin Gaines
Speaker 1: became a big story in Atlanta because no one could
Speaker 1: figure out how this guy just walked out into the
Speaker 1: night and never showed up again. So remember this was
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven. Instagram had just launched, and even
Speaker 1: though pretty much everyone had a cell phone then, people
Speaker 1: weren't constantly shooting video all the time like they do today.
Speaker 1: There were cameras at Wild Bill's, so there was some
Speaker 1: surveillance footage, but according to Justin's mom Erica, most of
Speaker 1: the cameras were focused on areas that handled money, like
Speaker 1: the register and the front and back doors. Erica did
Speaker 1: an interview with a podcast called Unfound, and in that interview,
Speaker 1: she explained that an FBI agent who was a friend
Speaker 1: of her, someone she knew, had come in to unofficially
Speaker 1: help her with the case, and the FBI agent was
Speaker 1: able to pull some of that surveillance footage. The footage
Speaker 1: showed that at the club, Justin had some drinks. He
Speaker 1: was on camera talking to a female bartender who he knew. Later,
Speaker 1: that bartender talked to Erica and told her that Justin
Speaker 1: seemed normal, like he was having a good time, and
Speaker 1: she said he did not appear to be super intoxicated.
Speaker 1: He apparently even made a comment to this bartender about
Speaker 1: not getting too smashed. While he was in the club,
Speaker 1: Justin made a couple of phone calls to friends of
Speaker 1: his who he believed were inside. We're not sure exactly
Speaker 1: what Justin was doing the whole time he was in
Speaker 1: the club because we only have a few moments on camera,
Speaker 1: but at one point he apparently did start talking to
Speaker 1: a girl. Later in some media reports, some reporters asked
Speaker 1: questions about what they called a minor altercation over a
Speaker 1: woman who Justin was apparently dancing with. Apparently this woman
Speaker 1: had a boyfriend, and Justin and the guys who were
Speaker 1: with this woman exchanged a few words. Some of these
Speaker 1: details came from a private investigator who was later hired
Speaker 1: by Erica, Justin's mom, but the PI said he could
Speaker 1: never nail down a description of the two guys who
Speaker 1: Justin was supposedly talking with. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: moments from Justin's time inside the club and afterward that
Speaker 1: are missing, but Justin was there for a while after
Speaker 1: he talked to this girl. He seemed to be in
Speaker 1: good spirits and he was chatting to people. Then, at
Speaker 1: around one point thirty, he got ready to leave. Justin
Speaker 1: walked outside the club at one thirty eight am. You
Speaker 1: can see that on the security footage. He started calling
Speaker 1: friends trying to find a ride home. Again. Remember this
Speaker 1: was a time before ride shares became a huge thing.
Speaker 1: Uber didn't come on the scene until around twenty ten.
Speaker 1: There were taxis, but it's never been reported how much
Speaker 1: cash Justin was carrying. So I wonder did he have
Speaker 1: a big wad of cash or just enough to cover drinks.
Speaker 1: He may not have had enough money to call a cab,
Speaker 1: and even if he did, some of his friends said
Speaker 1: he wasn't really a person who had a habit of
Speaker 1: calling taxis. He would hit up his friends for rides instead.
Speaker 1: His mother, by the way, made it clear that he
Speaker 1: could have called home at any time and she or
Speaker 1: her husband would have come to get him. She told
Speaker 1: Atlanta Magazine. Quote, I think he didn't call Stephen because
Speaker 1: he didn't want to disappoint us, and that haunts me,
Speaker 1: you know, because nothing the kids do would ever disappoint me.
Speaker 1: End quote. I find myself really feeling for Justin again here.
Speaker 1: He just wanted to go home. He made a ton
Speaker 1: of calls, but no one was able to come get him.
Speaker 1: And I can relate to this part too. He probably
Speaker 1: didn't want his parents to know he'd been drinking again.
Speaker 1: As a fit guy, he probably thought he could take
Speaker 1: care of himself. Often a person's sigh, especially a man's size,
Speaker 1: will give them a false sense of security. Most guys
Speaker 1: I know, especially young ones around this age, just don't
Speaker 1: feel that they're in danger. In the same way in general,
Speaker 1: as young women would, plus this was a safe area.
Speaker 1: Over the next half hour or so, Justin made twenty
Speaker 1: four calls to eleven different people, none of them could
Speaker 1: come get him. Justin's last call was to Chris, the
Speaker 1: friend he rode with to Wild Bills. He made that
Speaker 1: call at two two am. Chris later told Atlanta Magazine
Speaker 1: that Justin had called him and he was kind of
Speaker 1: half asleep. He remembered Justin asking for a ride, but
Speaker 1: Chris said he had borrowed his girlfriend's dad's car. He
Speaker 1: said he couldn't really go out at that time of
Speaker 1: night and ask for the car again. He thought that
Speaker 1: Justin would be fine, and later, of course, said that
Speaker 1: if he had had any idea that his friend was
Speaker 1: in trouble, he would have gone and gotten him instantly.
Speaker 1: After that phone call nothing At first, Erica wasn't worried
Speaker 1: when Justin didn't come back home the next morning. She
Speaker 1: knew he was going out to party and he's an
Speaker 1: eighteen year old guy. But then the weekend went by.
Speaker 1: She didn't hear from him on Saturday, and on Sunday
Speaker 1: morning she started calling his friends. He never came home
Speaker 1: to get his wallet or to pick up his car,
Speaker 1: and on Monday morning, November fifth, she became seriously alarmed
Speaker 1: because he never showed up to give Chris a ride
Speaker 1: back to school. Remember they were roommates. Erica told Dateline
Speaker 1: that at that point she logged onto Justin's online school portal,
Speaker 1: which she had access to. That's when she saw that
Speaker 1: he had not turned in some homework and she knew
Speaker 1: that that was completely out of character. She reported Justin
Speaker 1: missing friends, family and volunteers started trying to retrace his
Speaker 1: last steps. The police did a search as well, but
Speaker 1: Erica said that it really took about two weeks for
Speaker 1: police to start seriously searching. Everyone was trying to retrace
Speaker 1: Justin's steps. They were trying to figure out from that
Speaker 1: parking lot what his next move would be. Several people
Speaker 1: came forward and said that they had seen him sitting
Speaker 1: on a bench in the back parking lot on his
Speaker 1: cell phone. We know that he was making a ton
Speaker 1: of calls during that time. Shortly after two two am,
Speaker 1: Justin's phone pinged one more time and then the phone
Speaker 1: appeared to die. Erica said that he had a habit
Speaker 1: of sometimes letting his phone die, so did the battery
Speaker 1: die or did someone shut it off. Did Justin get
Speaker 1: tired of waiting for a ride, did he decide to
Speaker 1: try to walk toward home, or could someone have picked
Speaker 1: him up there. In the weeks following Justin's disappearance, some
Speaker 1: news outlets checked Justin's court history. They saw that Justin
Speaker 1: had a public intoxication charge on his record from the
Speaker 1: summer of two thousand and seven. It happened after he
Speaker 1: fell asleep in the backseat of his car with an
Speaker 1: open bottle of vodka in there. He got caught with
Speaker 1: the open container and a fake ID. So some people
Speaker 1: suggested that maybe Justin had left voluntarily to avoid going
Speaker 1: to court on November twenty first, But this seemed extremely
Speaker 1: far fetched right from the beginning, and his family immediately
Speaker 1: dismissed this theory. They knew it wasn't plausible. Also, these
Speaker 1: were not serious charges. There was no reason for Justin
Speaker 1: to have left on his own, and by the way,
Speaker 1: if he was leaving, why would he leave his wallet
Speaker 1: with his real ID and everything else behind. Justin's family
Speaker 1: did everything they could to help the search. Erica turned
Speaker 1: her home garage into an office. She started printing up flyers.
Speaker 1: The family put billboards up on Highway I eighty five.
Speaker 1: This tidbit was in the Atlanta magazine article, by the way,
Speaker 1: and it's so heartbreaking to me because I've heard this
Speaker 1: before in Rebecca Gould's case and in some other According
Speaker 1: to the article, people called Justin's stepfather to report buzzard sightings,
Speaker 1: and he would take his four wheeler out to look
Speaker 1: and see if there was a body out there, but
Speaker 1: he never found anything other than animal carcasses. Of course,
Speaker 1: police talked to Justin's friends. There were rumors early on
Speaker 1: that Chris wasn't being super helpful to law enforcement. Apparently
Speaker 1: Chris believed that police were too hard on his girlfriend, Amanda,
Speaker 1: but Erica later clarified on a web sluse forum that
Speaker 1: after some initial friction, all of Justin's friends had been
Speaker 1: cooperative and police confirmed Chris and Amanda were at home
Speaker 1: in bed when Justin went missing. Erica told the Unfound
Speaker 1: podcast that she does not believe that Justin walked out
Speaker 1: of that parking lot. It was late, but not super late.
Speaker 1: There were people around, and Justin was in the back
Speaker 1: parking lot, which was less busy than the parking lot,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't deserted. In fact, it was somewhere where
Speaker 1: in the past Justin had hung out and had some
Speaker 1: drinks with friends. Again, Wild Bills was in a safe area,
Speaker 1: pretty much in the middle of suburbia. Erica believes that
Speaker 1: if Justin decided to walk along the highway toward home,
Speaker 1: she believes someone would have seen him, And I think
Speaker 1: she's right. A big guy like that probably would have
Speaker 1: been spotted on a camera somewhere or by some witnesses,
Speaker 1: which means that Justin almost certainly got picked up in
Speaker 1: that parking lot. So the question is who picked him up.
Speaker 1: Police have said they believe that Justin may have been
Speaker 1: picked up by a blonde woman, possibly driving a black car.
Speaker 1: They got this information from a friend of Justin's named James. Now,
Speaker 1: according to Erica, James, who knew Justin from college, saw
Speaker 1: him getting into a car with a blonde woman wearing
Speaker 1: a black dress. Unfortunately, James has since passed away. So
Speaker 1: who is this mystery woman? Was it someone who knew
Speaker 1: Justin before or a stranger who lured him into the car?
Speaker 1: Was she alone or was she with people? Could this
Speaker 1: have been some kind of robbery setup. Justin did not
Speaker 1: seem to have any enemies, but the Atlanta magazine reporter
Speaker 1: did talk to a friend of Justin's. This person wasn't named,
Speaker 1: but they told the reporter that he and Justin would
Speaker 1: occasionally break into cars that were unlocked around their off
Speaker 1: campus apartment. Basically, what they do is just pull the
Speaker 1: handle of the car see if it was unlocked, and
Speaker 1: if it was, they would go in and take money.
Speaker 1: The friends said there was a drug dealer living there.
Speaker 1: Apparently Justin thought that this person might have a lot
Speaker 1: of cash in his car, so they went up to
Speaker 1: the car, but they said the drug dealer was standing
Speaker 1: right there on the porch, so in the end they
Speaker 1: didn't go to the car and there was no confrontation.
Speaker 1: But it did get me thinking, if he had a
Speaker 1: habit of pulling on car doors, could he have opened
Speaker 1: someone's car or maybe tried to sleep in someone's car
Speaker 1: if he couldn't find a ride in his battery was dead.
Speaker 1: Stranger things have happened. According to Justin's mother, Erica, one
Speaker 1: very early name that came up to her was Dustin
Speaker 1: Dylan Glass, a career criminal and gang member. Now Apparently,
Speaker 1: Dustin showed up at a pawn shop in the early
Speaker 1: morning hours of November two. Police have found surveillance footage
Speaker 1: to that pawnshop and there is an image of Dustin.
Speaker 1: He's wearing a diamond studd in his ear that looked
Speaker 1: very much like the one that Justin had been wearing
Speaker 1: that night. I'm not clear on why police first got
Speaker 1: tipped off to him, but once Dustin's name was mentioned,
Speaker 1: police continued to track him. Time went by with no
Speaker 1: arrest and no sign of Justin and no body. Tips
Speaker 1: started coming in from everywhere, everything from random side dings
Speaker 1: of Justin that would turn out to be bogus, to
Speaker 1: psychics who said that they believed that he was in
Speaker 1: a body of water somewhere, which is, by the way,
Speaker 1: what psychics always seem to say. It drives me crazy.
Speaker 1: Side note there. The Walton County Sheriff's Department cold case
Speaker 1: investigator Michael Rising, who is now in charge of the investigation,
Speaker 1: told Dateline in twenty twenty three that police had investigated
Speaker 1: a couple of different theories early on. One that Justin
Speaker 1: could have been flirting with a girl who had a
Speaker 1: boyfriend and that there was some kind of altercation, and
Speaker 1: the other theory was that someone targeted Justin for a
Speaker 1: robbery based on his clothes and his diamond earing. On
Speaker 1: the Wild Bill's website back in two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: there was a statement about Justin being missing and it
Speaker 1: read quote last scene walking toward a car that he
Speaker 1: called his ride, with two men standing by the car.
Speaker 1: Reports also say he was seen in the parking lot
Speaker 1: of Barnacles, another bar, with these same two men end quote.
Speaker 1: Now this is just a rumor. It's unconfirmed, and honestly,
Speaker 1: I can't find that information anywhere else. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's just something someone posted or if it was
Speaker 1: a legitimate tip. And I wonder who first said it.
Speaker 1: There does seem to be more than one source saying
Speaker 1: that Justin was talking to some men that night. Again,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't have been out of character for him to
Speaker 1: talk to people. His mom and his friends say he
Speaker 1: talked to strangers all the time. But for a while,
Speaker 1: those two police theories appeared to just be dead ends.
Speaker 1: Over the next few years, justin moms Erica said openly
Speaker 1: she struggled. Even though she was printing up flyers and
Speaker 1: stickers and talking to the media, there were days where
Speaker 1: she found it hard to get out of bed, and
Speaker 1: the family had another setback in twenty eleven when one
Speaker 1: of Justin's brothers died, But even when she was going
Speaker 1: through dark times herself, Erica never stopped trying to get
Speaker 1: media coverage of this case. Police looked in a lot
Speaker 1: of different directions. They really didn't have anything to go
Speaker 1: on into rumors that could have been the National Forest
Speaker 1: serial killer Gary Hilton, but there was absolutely no evidence
Speaker 1: of that. And of course, every single time an unidentified
Speaker 1: body was found in the area, the family would have
Speaker 1: to go through the agony of waiting. None of them
Speaker 1: were Justin. As we said before, Erica hired a private
Speaker 1: investigator named Bob Pulno. He started his investigation in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight and basically he's never stopped. According to
Speaker 1: Atlanta Magazine, Bob is retired now, but this is one
Speaker 1: of those cases he can't let go of. Bob did
Speaker 1: lots of interviews, and in two thousand and eight he
Speaker 1: said he identified several people of interest. He also looked
Speaker 1: into theories that Justin could have been extremely intoxicated or drugged.
Speaker 1: The PI also tried to track down everyone who Justin
Speaker 1: talked to on the phone that night, and he found
Speaker 1: a pattern. No one felt that Justin was behaving out
Speaker 1: of the ordinary. It's the same story with the video
Speaker 1: surveillance footage, Eric has said. And if you look online,
Speaker 1: you can see Justin walks out of the club. He's
Speaker 1: calmly walking forward, not stumbling. He has his phone pressed
Speaker 1: to his ear. He looks like he's walking with purpose,
Speaker 1: and he's talking on the phone. Seven years after Justin disappeared,
Speaker 1: a local news station WXIA broadcasts some additional footage that
Speaker 1: was taken from inside the club that night. This footage
Speaker 1: showed Justin walking out the door toward the back parking lot.
Speaker 1: Right after him, a group that looked like three girls
Speaker 1: and a guy walked outside the club. Justin seems to
Speaker 1: kind of veer left, and they look like they're veering right,
Speaker 1: but there are also a couple of other guys standing
Speaker 1: outside in that parking lot. A few minutes later, two
Speaker 1: men and a woman enter the club. They come from
Speaker 1: the same direction Justin was seen leaving. Another couple leaves.
Speaker 1: This woman has long, dark hair and jeans on. You
Speaker 1: can only see the guy from the back, but he's
Speaker 1: wearing a number twenty two jersey that the news anchor
Speaker 1: pointed out as pretty distinctive. There are also two guys
Speaker 1: in white shirts. They look like they're going into the club,
Speaker 1: but then they turn around after Justin passes them. They
Speaker 1: don't go in, and then when footage is shown from
Speaker 1: a few minutes later, you can see them entering the club. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that any of these people had anything
Speaker 1: to do with Justin's disappearance, but they may have seen something,
Speaker 1: even something small, that could help crack this case. Again,
Speaker 1: wild bills can hold thousands of people. It was a
Speaker 1: crowded night. It is mind boggling that no one saw anything.
Speaker 1: In September of twenty fifteen, seemingly out of nowhere, there
Speaker 1: were two arrests and someone said they knew exactly what
Speaker 1: happened to Justin Gaines. That it went down at a
Speaker 1: dark garage at a house in Snellville. This person said
Speaker 1: Justin had been lured to that residence and then when
Speaker 1: he walked in, he was attacked, robbed, beaten, and murdered.
Speaker 1: In September of twenty fifteen, after a long period of silence,
Speaker 1: there were two arrests in connection with the disappearance, and
Speaker 1: now police believed death of Justin Gaines in two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven. The police's original person of interest was Dustin
Speaker 1: Dylan Glass. He had been arrested for distributing methamphetamines, among
Speaker 1: other things, and was facing some serious charges, according to
Speaker 1: the arrest warrant. After he was arrested, he started cooperating
Speaker 1: with police. He told police that he and another man,
Speaker 1: fifty seven year old Martin Leonard Wilkie, had assaulted Justin
Speaker 1: and robbed him. He said that this assault and robbery
Speaker 1: of Justin had ended with Justin being fatally shot. Dustin
Speaker 1: told police that he took the earring from Justin, but
Speaker 1: said that Justin was alive when he left him. The
Speaker 1: detective who talked to reporters later said he believed Dustin
Speaker 1: was saying this to kind of confess in a roundabout way,
Speaker 1: and it seemed to me the detective believed Dustin was
Speaker 1: kind of taunting the detective. Martin Wilkee was arrested and
Speaker 1: charged with concealing a death. Then a woman backed up
Speaker 1: Dustin's story. She said she had participated in helping get
Speaker 1: rid of the body, and the crazy part was that
Speaker 1: this woman was Dustin's own mother, Thelma Ruth Blew. Let
Speaker 1: me back up for a minute, because I was trying
Speaker 1: to make sense of this story and how everything went down.
Speaker 1: So of course I went back through hundreds of pages
Speaker 1: of court records, and I found out that after Dustin
Speaker 1: got arrested, so of course he's in custody. Of course
Speaker 1: he had a residence that he wasn't staying at because
Speaker 1: he was in jail. Well, it turns out that during
Speaker 1: this time, police were doing surveillance on Dustin's house. They
Speaker 1: were there on August twenty eighth, and they saw Thelma,
Speaker 1: Dustin's mother, and some other men carrying white bags which
Speaker 1: they later determined had been stolen from a local concrete company.
Speaker 1: Thelma confessed that she'd strip some copper wire and stolen
Speaker 1: some supplies for the company and was hoping to sell
Speaker 1: them on. She was arrested on burglary charges in Walton County.
Speaker 1: She told the authorities she helped Martin Wilkie and her
Speaker 1: son Dustin get rid of Justin Gaines's body. She said
Speaker 1: they disposed of Justin's remains in the High Shoals area
Speaker 1: near the Appalachi River in Walton County. Thelma led investigators
Speaker 1: to a well there, and police searched different wells for
Speaker 1: several days, but in the end they found nothing. Thelma
Speaker 1: later told police that she had lied in order to
Speaker 1: get out of trouble. After that, Thelma was charged with
Speaker 1: making a false statement to police. So after this happened,
Speaker 1: after Thelma was arrested and charged with lying, it seemed
Speaker 1: like police and the district attorney were split over whether
Speaker 1: or not she was at all credible. Some of the
Speaker 1: detectives seemed to believe that, yes, Thelma and Dustin had
Speaker 1: lied about some stuff, but they thought there were grains
Speaker 1: of truth in what they were telling the authorities, while
Speaker 1: the Gwinnett County District Attorney, Danny Porter, said he thought
Speaker 1: the whole thing was a dead end. He told Fox five, quote,
Speaker 1: I think they are following up on an unproductive lead
Speaker 1: that has already been investigated end quote. He basically went
Speaker 1: on to say that Thelma and Dustin would come up
Speaker 1: with a different story every time they got arrested to
Speaker 1: try to get police to cut them a break on
Speaker 1: other charges. In two thousand and seven, there was more news.
Speaker 1: Authorities told WSBTV Channel two that they believed that Justin
Speaker 1: was robbed and killed and that his body was taken
Speaker 1: to Lake Lanier in a white van and dumped it
Speaker 1: seemed as though they were now disclosing more details of
Speaker 1: the story that Thelma had told the police. The lead
Speaker 1: investigator on the case at the time, Detective Simms, said
Speaker 1: that he believed that Justin got a ride from a
Speaker 1: blond woman, that the woman took him to a house
Speaker 1: in Snellville, and that he was attacked there and robbed,
Speaker 1: then killed, and his body was dumped in Lake Lanier.
Speaker 1: Then a few days later, on November fifth, Justin's body
Speaker 1: apparently floated up to the surface. After that, police say
Speaker 1: they believe his killer's panicked put the body into a
Speaker 1: black metal toolbox and carried it to another location, eventually
Speaker 1: dumping it in a well. At the time, Detective Sims
Speaker 1: said they had a vehicle of interest. He said, right
Speaker 1: after Justin went missing, the nineteen eighty four Chevy white
Speaker 1: work van that belonged to Thilma's boyfriend at the time
Speaker 1: also went missing. Police tried to locate it, but never
Speaker 1: found that vehicle. Detective Sims also talked about Justin's earring.
Speaker 1: He said, quote, this is a photograph of Dustin Dillon Glass.
Speaker 1: The day after Justin Gaines went missing, wearing an almost
Speaker 1: identical earring. Of course, the photos aren't that great, but
Speaker 1: if you look at it like this and compare them,
Speaker 1: you're gonna see this earring is pretty much the same
Speaker 1: as this earring. Dylan Glass has told me and has
Speaker 1: confessed in his own way. He said that he took
Speaker 1: that earring out of Justin's ear the night that he
Speaker 1: was killed. Enote. Police did try to run down the
Speaker 1: lead on this earring. They did go to the pawn shop,
Speaker 1: and eventually they found the earring, but Erica said when
Speaker 1: they tried to run a DNA test on it, apparently
Speaker 1: there was no trace of DNA. So in the end
Speaker 1: police had a kind of confession, but they had no
Speaker 1: trace of Justin. The people who were talking to them
Speaker 1: had their own reasons why they could be lying to
Speaker 1: police so, and they already felt like they'd wasted a
Speaker 1: lot of time on these searches. Eventually, a couple months
Speaker 1: after his arrest, the charges against Martin Wilkie were dismissed,
Speaker 1: and Martin Wilke has always denied he had anything to
Speaker 1: do with Justin's disappearance or his death. Over the next
Speaker 1: few years, occasionally stories would come up about things being
Speaker 1: dragged up from the one hundred and sixty foot depths
Speaker 1: of Lake Lanier. In twenty seventeen, a houseboat named six
Speaker 1: Pack Sally, which was kind of a local legend because
Speaker 1: the boat was a wreck that had apparently been sold
Speaker 1: for a six pack of beer, was slowly sinking. And
Speaker 1: the news story about this boat sinking was interesting to
Speaker 1: me because it talked about how many houseboats have gone
Speaker 1: to the bottom of the lake. It got me wondering
Speaker 1: what else was down there. It's also interesting because, according
Speaker 1: to Erica, the theory that the police believe is credible
Speaker 1: is that Justin's body was taken out and dumped in
Speaker 1: Lake Lanier, that it was done on a houseboat, and
Speaker 1: they also confirmed that Thelma's boyfriend at the time owned
Speaker 1: a houseboat and a home on that lake. In twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: human remains were found near Lake Lanier again, though they
Speaker 1: were not connected to Justin. Erica also said in an
Speaker 1: interview that Thelma's boyfriend at the time owned the white van,
Speaker 1: the one police were unable to find. So we have
Speaker 1: this person out there who allegedly owns a houseboat, a
Speaker 1: house on the lake, and a van of interest. But
Speaker 1: this person was never charged with anything, and unfortunately, according
Speaker 1: to reports I've read, this person has also passed away.
Speaker 1: Since Justin went missing. In twenty twenty two, a new
Speaker 1: investigator came on the case. We've talked about him a
Speaker 1: little before. His name is Michael Rising. He works with
Speaker 1: the Walton County Sheriff's Department and he's a cold case investigator.
Speaker 1: He has stated he's following several leads and theories that
Speaker 1: Justin may have been interested in someone else's girlfriend or
Speaker 1: may have been targeted for a robbery. So this is
Speaker 1: kind of what police have said before. Of course, we
Speaker 1: don't have access to the whole case file, but I
Speaker 1: find myself wondering what if it was both? What if
Speaker 1: Justin met an attractive woman who he was talking to
Speaker 1: and she lured him into that vehicle in order to
Speaker 1: set him up for a robbery. Through the years, Erica
Speaker 1: has kept going, even through the false sightings, all the tips,
Speaker 1: and even people leaving her messages with their theories about
Speaker 1: the brutal ways in which they said that Justin was murdered,
Speaker 1: including someone who told her that he had been put
Speaker 1: through a wood chipper. Erica told Atlanta Magazine she had
Speaker 1: heard it all, but she kept doing media interviews and
Speaker 1: getting the word out there. Justin's family wants answers, but
Speaker 1: their priority is bringing him home. So let's go back
Speaker 1: and take a closer look at Dustin Dillon Glass because police,
Speaker 1: even though they believe that he was lying about certain details,
Speaker 1: seem to still have his name on their radar after
Speaker 1: all these years, and when they do make statements to
Speaker 1: the media, they continue to refer to the story that
Speaker 1: was told by Dustin and Thelma. So I wanted to
Speaker 1: know more. I've seen some references to Dustin being a
Speaker 1: gang member. Well, it turns out that this is more
Speaker 1: than just a rumor. I did a deep dive into
Speaker 1: this guy, and Dustin is a member of a very
Speaker 1: notorious gang and called the Ghost Face Gangsters. I've seen
Speaker 1: Dustin's mugshot and his entire face is covered in tattoos.
Speaker 1: I highly doubt that Justin, even if he was super intoxicated,
Speaker 1: which people say he was not, would have gotten into
Speaker 1: a car with a stranger whose face is covered in
Speaker 1: gang tattoos. So a little background on the Ghost Face
Speaker 1: Gangsters or GfG. They started around the year two thousand
Speaker 1: inside a Georgia prison and Basically, the GfG is a
Speaker 1: white supremacy prison gang, but it's spread to the streets
Speaker 1: and it's now apparently the largest gang in Georgia. It
Speaker 1: has thousands of members and these gang members have been
Speaker 1: responsible for huge crime waves. They've also since spread out
Speaker 1: to other states too. According to a twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: report by the Anti Defamation League on white supremacist gangs
Speaker 1: in prison, the Ghost Face Gangsters, while they're definitely racist,
Speaker 1: are not as overly white supremacists as some other groups. Apparently,
Speaker 1: the ghosts Faced gangster's loyalty is to making money, so
Speaker 1: they do have racist beliefs, but for example, they will
Speaker 1: form alliances outside prison with gangs that have primarily black members.
Speaker 1: And I also learn today that there are white gangs,
Speaker 1: even white supremacist gangs that sometimes have Hispanic members. Again,
Speaker 1: not to say that these groups aren't racist. Their loyalty
Speaker 1: is to the crimes they're committing and money above any
Speaker 1: sort of racial loyalty. Within the GfG, the seven original
Speaker 1: members are called the Pillars. New members are all supposed
Speaker 1: to have bloodlines they're supposed to trace back to one
Speaker 1: of those original founding members, and over the years they
Speaker 1: have been involved in a tremendous number of crimes, including drugs, murder, kidnapping, assaults,
Speaker 1: and obviously witness intimidation. There have been many high profile
Speaker 1: busts of the GfG in recent years, but in two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven and when Justin disappeared, this gang was
Speaker 1: not really making headlines yet. In twenty fifteen, after Dustin
Speaker 1: Glass's meth charges, mushroomed into a federal indictment for racketeering
Speaker 1: and conspiracy commit murder. He pleaded guilty to multiple counts
Speaker 1: of conspiracy commit murder, aggravated assault, violation of the Street
Speaker 1: Gang Terrorism Act, and possession of a firearm during the
Speaker 1: commission of a felony, so he was facing some serious
Speaker 1: federal charges. In the end, Dustin Glass was sentenced to
Speaker 1: sevent ten year sentences, but they're running concurrently, so actually
Speaker 1: it's not seventy years. This guy got just over fourteen
Speaker 1: years in federal prison instead of being behind bars for
Speaker 1: the rest of his natural life. I tried to find
Speaker 1: all the documents on this case. Some of them are sealed,
Speaker 1: so I really wonder what information he gave prosecutors to
Speaker 1: cut a deal like that. So now we go back
Speaker 1: to Justin's case. We have a lot of pieces and theories.
Speaker 1: We have the we have Dustin's gang affiliation and the
Speaker 1: story that he told about being there when his alleged
Speaker 1: accomplice fatally shot Justin, and then they all allegedly disposed
Speaker 1: of Justin's body. But there's no physical evidence, there's no body,
Speaker 1: and the people of interest are liars and not credible.
Speaker 1: So police seem to be saying they're not gonna believe
Speaker 1: these people unless there's actual evidence to back them up.
Speaker 1: And also if there is not a lot of evidence,
Speaker 1: then even if they did bring charges against Dustin or
Speaker 1: anyone else right now, there's a very high possibility that
Speaker 1: that person could get acquitted and then the charges could
Speaker 1: never be brought again. They need evidence. The prevailing theory
Speaker 1: now seems to be Justin Gaines was at the wrong
Speaker 1: place at the wrong time, and that while he was
Speaker 1: outside on that bench, a little bit tired, a little
Speaker 1: bit buzzed with a dying Poham battery, and desperately in
Speaker 1: need of a ride, someone saw his nice clothes and
Speaker 1: diamond earring and targeted him. I do believe that someone
Speaker 1: lured him into the car. Was it the two men
Speaker 1: or was it the mystery blonde woman or both or
Speaker 1: someone completely different? I should say that on my deep
Speaker 1: dive into the Ghost Face Gangsters, I saw that while
Speaker 1: women aren't allowed to be full members, they do play
Speaker 1: a crucial role in recruiting members, smuggling contraband into prisons,
Speaker 1: and luring targets to be robbed and sometimes murdered. The
Speaker 1: gang very often works in groups of several guys and
Speaker 1: one or two girls. Erica also told the Unfound podcast
Speaker 1: something else that I think was very interesting. She talked
Speaker 1: about the last time when Justin's phone pinged right before
Speaker 1: it died. It turned out that just after two am
Speaker 1: when the phone pinged, it pinged in the opposite direction
Speaker 1: of his house, a few miles toward Lake Lanier. So
Speaker 1: where was he going? Was he afraid at that point?
Speaker 1: Did these people kidnap him? Or did someone ask him
Speaker 1: if he wanted to go to a party? And if
Speaker 1: it was a woman, did she know what was going
Speaker 1: to happen to him? Or could it? As my friend
Speaker 1: Derek Lavassa brought up when he discussed this case on YouTube,
Speaker 1: could this have been some sort of accident like she
Speaker 1: thought he was cute and then took him to a party,
Speaker 1: and the men who saw Justin there were jealous or
Speaker 1: intimidated by him and jumped him. Now, let me say
Speaker 1: there's no evidence that the GfG is connected to Justin's disappearance,
Speaker 1: but just knowing about some of the people who have
Speaker 1: talked to police and their affiliations, knowing more about the gang,
Speaker 1: I think that if Justin's disappearance turns out to in
Speaker 1: any way be connected to the gang or anyone like that,
Speaker 1: the accidental theory becomes less likely because anyone who knew
Speaker 1: these guys would have to know that any interaction that
Speaker 1: Justin has with these men is probably going to end
Speaker 1: in disaster. This is the same gang who in twenty
Speaker 1: eighteen orchestrated a prison break and the men who escaped
Speaker 1: murdered two corrections officers. Another gang member was arrested separately
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen after police found the body of his
Speaker 1: six month old baby in a motel freezer. Reading the
Speaker 1: list of crimes that the GfG have committed and looking
Speaker 1: at their mugshots is like watching a real life horror movie.
Speaker 1: The gang made headlines again when several members went to
Speaker 1: the home of someone they didn't like their intention was
Speaker 1: to steal guns and beat him up, but he wasn't home. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: his fourteen year old daughter was. When she saw these
Speaker 1: Ghost Faced Gangsters members coming to her door, she grabbed
Speaker 1: a BB gun and tried to defend herself. They started
Speaker 1: shooting and this fourteen year old girl was killed. After
Speaker 1: the fatal shooting of the fourteen year old girl and
Speaker 1: the corrections officers, the federal and state authorities accelerated their
Speaker 1: crackdown Lila the gang. In July twenty nineteen, it was
Speaker 1: announced Operation Vanilla Gorilla. By the way, they always have
Speaker 1: the craziest code names for these things. Just a side
Speaker 1: note there resulted in the arrest of forty three defendants.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty one, seventy seven Ghost Face Gangsters members
Speaker 1: were arrested. So they are cracking down on these gangsters.
Speaker 1: But authorities still say that the Ghost Face Gangsters is
Speaker 1: the fastest growing white gang in the country and the
Speaker 1: most dangerous and violent gang in the state of Georgia.
Speaker 1: And Dustin Dillon Glass, one of the police's primary people
Speaker 1: of interest, is a member of this gang, and yet
Speaker 1: I've never seen that affiliation mention anywhere on the news. Officially,
Speaker 1: police have said they're treating Justin's case as a kidnapping
Speaker 1: and presumed homicide. They have said a number of Walton
Speaker 1: County residents are witnesses to Justin's disappearance and possess knowledge
Speaker 1: of the incident that would be of great value to
Speaker 1: the investigation. This mystery blonde woman, who by the way,
Speaker 1: may not be blonde anymore, seems to be the key.
Speaker 1: Is she connected to Dustin or one of his associates.
Speaker 1: Is she someone totally random? We need to find out.
Speaker 1: I know that a lot of people have posted on
Speaker 1: social media that the police have been unresponsive. I think
Speaker 1: it might be because there was some confusion about who
Speaker 1: was handling the case. It spanned two counties. But the
Speaker 1: investigator to contact now we can confirm is Michael Rising
Speaker 1: at Michael That's m I C H A E L
Speaker 1: dot Rising R I S I N G at CO
Speaker 1: dot Walton dot g A dot us. You can also
Speaker 1: text seven seven zero three five four eight three four.
Speaker 1: I've never talked to Michael Rising, but I've seen where
Speaker 1: he has gone on Facebook and personally responded to comments
Speaker 1: with his contact information. So please, if you know something,
Speaker 1: if you were in the parking lot that night. If
Speaker 1: you know who this woman is, please reach out. In
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, Erica talked to Eleven Alive about how much
Speaker 1: Justin was missed by his family. He miss seeing his
Speaker 1: family members grow up, He missed seeing his nieces and
Speaker 1: nephews born, He missed graduating from college, and all the
Speaker 1: milestones that his proud parents should have been able to
Speaker 1: share with him. I'm Katherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone
Speaker 1: Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line is a production of
Speaker 1: School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated
Speaker 1: by me Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts. Music
Speaker 1: is contributed by Ben Sale. Jesse Niswanger scored and mixed
Speaker 1: this episode. Executive producers of Virginia Prescott Brandon Barr, and L. C. Crowley.
Speaker 1: If you have a case you'd like me and my
Speaker 1: team to look into, you can reach out to us
Speaker 1: at our Helen Gone Murder Line six seven eight seven
Speaker 1: four four six one four five that six seven eight
Speaker 1: seven four four six one four five School of Humans