Speaker 1: School of Humans. I'm in Hickory Ridge, Arkansas, trying to
Speaker 1: investigate the case of nine year old Christina Pipkin, who
Speaker 1: went missing from her home on Doty Street in May
Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety one. I'm with Amy Tubbs, whose father
Speaker 1: in law was a suspect in the case, Denise who's
Speaker 1: a friend of the families, who's been investigating this case
Speaker 1: for several years, and Denise's friend. We've been driving around
Speaker 1: town for a while now, and the whole town seems
Speaker 1: to be talking about this case. Hickory Ridge is pretty
Speaker 1: small right now. The population is between one and two
Speaker 1: hundred people. Needless to say, the entire town has been
Speaker 1: talking about the Christina Pipkin case. Our investigation has even
Speaker 1: made the local radio.
Speaker 2: Catherine Townsend, host of the Hell and Gone podcast, is
Speaker 2: investigating the nineteen ninety one kidnapping and murderer of nine
Speaker 2: year old Christina Pipkin and Hickory Ridge Pipkin with kidnapping kill.
Speaker 1: Christina was selling jewelry door to door for a school
Speaker 1: fundraiser on May fourth, nineteen ninety one, when she disappeared
Speaker 1: without a trace. Three days later, Christina's body was found
Speaker 1: in Cow Lake ditch, a body of water about three
Speaker 1: point five miles from her home. Police suspected foul play,
Speaker 1: but they haven't commented on the manner of death, and
Speaker 1: when Amy and I got the case file from the
Speaker 1: Arkansas State Police after our foury requests were granted, the
Speaker 1: autopsy was not included. Over thirty years later, this case
Speaker 1: is still unsolved. There's very little hard evidence in this case.
Speaker 1: With a lot of witnesses dead or missing, it can
Speaker 1: sometimes feel like we're chasing ghosts. We'll pull up to
Speaker 1: buildings and find vacant lots, we knock on a lot
Speaker 1: of wrong doors, and we've run into a lot of
Speaker 1: dead ends, but we are making progress. In our last episode,
Speaker 1: we track down the last place where Christina Pipkin was
Speaker 1: seen alive, the bear Cat Grocery Store on the main
Speaker 1: drag of Hickory Ridge, Arkansas. It shares a parking lot
Speaker 1: with a Cross County bank. In a case where rumors
Speaker 1: have been flying for three decades, it's hard to separate
Speaker 1: fact from fiction, but we do have two things that
Speaker 1: we know for sure. One that Christina was last seen
Speaker 1: by multiple witnesses in the area of the Bearcat Convenience
Speaker 1: Store in the bank and two the location where her
Speaker 1: body was dumped. We need to go to that site.
Speaker 1: We need to go to col Lake Ditch, so we
Speaker 1: head out Route forty two toward Bedeville to the spot
Speaker 1: where Christina's body was found in the water. I'm Catherine Townsend.
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 at six seven eight
Speaker 1: seven four four, six one four or five. This is
Speaker 1: Helen Gone Murder Line. In our last episode, we tracked
Speaker 1: down the cashier who worked at the Bearcat grocery store
Speaker 1: on May fourth, nineteen ninety one, the night when Christina
Speaker 1: Pipkin went missing. Police did talk to the other three
Speaker 1: employees who on the job that day, but according to
Speaker 1: the case file, either they didn't see the stranger or
Speaker 1: they were gone by the time he came in the store,
Speaker 1: even though they don't think they saw anything. I'm really
Speaker 1: hoping that we'll get in touch with us, because, as
Speaker 1: we've said many times before, the interviews that the police
Speaker 1: did were very brief. One tiny detail can be the
Speaker 1: thing that makes this case change course. We're looking for
Speaker 1: all of those missing pieces. The cashier who we talked
Speaker 1: to gave us the composite drawing the ones she did
Speaker 1: with the Arkansas State Police. It's been in her safe
Speaker 1: for over thirty years. She described a brown car that
Speaker 1: the stranger who came in the Bearcat that day was driving.
Speaker 1: The image that we saw in the composite photo looked
Speaker 1: very similar to photos of Robbie Tubbs back in the day.
Speaker 1: But I want to be clear, his being there, even
Speaker 1: if it's confirmed have been him, does not mean that
Speaker 1: Robbie Tubbs did anything wrong. There were several other people
Speaker 1: in the Bearcat's store that night. Based on what we're seeing,
Speaker 1: it seems like half the town passed through there that day.
Speaker 1: We need more information. One of the other cashiers who's
Speaker 1: working at the bear Cat that night has called me back.
Speaker 1: This person did not want me to use her name,
Speaker 1: but she said she was working at the register between
Speaker 1: around six and seven pm on May fourth. She vividly
Speaker 1: remembers Christina Pipkin coming into the store that night, and
Speaker 1: I think that the information she has could be crucial.
Speaker 1: Here's what she said.
Speaker 3: I was at one of the registers, and I'm not
Speaker 3: sure if I was fagging for someone, if I was
Speaker 3: actually running the register at scene. I was running the.
Speaker 4: Register and Christina walked in and nevertheless the carpet or
Speaker 4: the mat.
Speaker 3: The stores have, but she just walked at the door
Speaker 3: and stood there and we said, hey, Christina, goes up.
Speaker 4: I do not remember any kind of paper or pencil
Speaker 4: in her hands. I remember it was odd.
Speaker 3: You know, normally kids just like are not scared of
Speaker 3: my something, and they would have talked. I feel like
Speaker 3: she would have been selling jewelry at that point. She
Speaker 3: would have asked us, But that's beside the point. At
Speaker 3: the time I saw her, I did not know she
Speaker 3: was selling jewelry. That was later, but she, you know,
Speaker 3: was hey, what's up? And she just kind of shrugged.
Speaker 4: And the reason I don't think anything was in her
Speaker 4: hands because I can remember the expression on her face
Speaker 4: so clearly, and she just kind of shrugged. And you
Speaker 4: know how little girls are those shrugs in her hands
Speaker 4: in the air, you know, just like she didn't have
Speaker 4: a look of fear.
Speaker 3: I can see her expression in my mind when I
Speaker 3: shut my eyes. It was a fear.
Speaker 1: It was more like, how no, why.
Speaker 3: I stepped in? It was just I mean, she smiled
Speaker 3: and just turned around and walked out.
Speaker 1: I would still love to talk to anyone else, employees
Speaker 1: or people who were in the Bearcat store that night.
Speaker 1: So in the meantime, let's go forward in time to
Speaker 1: May seventh, the day when Christina's body was found in
Speaker 1: cal Lake Ditch.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's actually a good body dump place, but not a
Speaker 1: good swimming place.
Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they say it. One time it was they
Speaker 1: thought it was a swimming hold or something. Well, they
Speaker 1: said that.
Speaker 2: People have.
Speaker 1: We've looked at this location a lot on Google Maps,
Speaker 1: but sometimes you have to go to the source. You
Speaker 1: have to go to the site. But yeah, if you
Speaker 1: look at that value on the map and two figure
Speaker 1: runs to forever. Yeah, and when those fields are blooded
Speaker 1: like it. Jane, is Amy, Denise and I took a
Speaker 1: ride out to Calake Ditch. We were trying to figure
Speaker 1: out where Christina's body had been dumped and to see
Speaker 1: if the location could tell us anything about what happened
Speaker 1: to her. It's like down here, there's water down here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it has come up. As you can hear.
Speaker 1: Its windy and clear and cold. Right now. It's a
Speaker 1: sunny day. The ditch is low and the water is
Speaker 1: flowing pretty slowly, but we discussed the fact that if
Speaker 1: there had been rained recently, the current could get super
Speaker 1: strong like it was on the day Christina's body was found. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is the melon nowhere. Man, there's just you know,
Speaker 1: when you hear about it, you're like, oh, maybe it's
Speaker 1: like a local swimming hall, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: But this is late huh huh. As we said in
Speaker 1: the last episode, we did not get any access to
Speaker 1: the autopsy report as part of the case file, but
Speaker 1: we did get documents followed by Robbie Tubbs's defense lawyer,
Speaker 1: and in those documents he refers to forensic testing that
Speaker 1: was done on Christina's body. It showed that the water
Speaker 1: and mud in her lungs matched the water from cal
Speaker 1: Lake Ditch. We also got a few more details from
Speaker 1: the case file that came from the autopsy report. Doctor
Speaker 1: Fammi Malick, the medical examiner at the time, indicated that
Speaker 1: there was obvious decomposition. He believed that Christina had been
Speaker 1: in the water for about three days, meaning that she
Speaker 1: was not kidnapped and kept somewhere else. For example, she
Speaker 1: was almost certainly dumped there or fell in there on
Speaker 1: the day she went missing. Doctor Malick also said there
Speaker 1: were no signs of strangulation. He said he'd X rayed
Speaker 1: the body from outside and inside. He found no stab wounds,
Speaker 1: no obvious cuts or bruises. He also told investigators Christina's
Speaker 1: body had a blood alcohol level of point zero three percent,
Speaker 1: but he attributed that to the decomposition of the body.
Speaker 1: Blood alcohol level can rise as a side effect of
Speaker 1: the decomposition process. Other than that, the toxicology report. We're
Speaker 1: not quite sure what tests they performed in that talk screening,
Speaker 1: but according to what doctor Malick said in the case file,
Speaker 1: the results of those tests seemed normal. There was much
Speaker 1: found Christina's stomach. There were also pickles and carrots found.
Speaker 1: Investigators asked doctor Malick if he could figure out what
Speaker 1: had happened to Christina. Doctor Mallick quote was emphatic he
Speaker 1: could find no other cause of death other than drowning
Speaker 1: end quote. But when they asked him about the possibility,
Speaker 1: for example, that she could have been smothered or choked
Speaker 1: to the point of unconsciousness, doctor Malick said he didn't
Speaker 1: have enough information to know how to answer that for sure.
Speaker 1: The report reads quote when given the supposition that one
Speaker 1: could smother an individual to the point of unconscious and
Speaker 1: then throw that person into the river. Doctor Malleck could
Speaker 1: make no comment regarding this, but said that this was
Speaker 1: a possibility end quote. I know it's frustrating not to
Speaker 1: have access to the autopsy report, but again, we're like
Speaker 1: Sherlock Holmes here, we're trying to rule out the impossible
Speaker 1: and see what possibilities were left with. So we have
Speaker 1: ruled out the possibility that Christina drowned somewhere else. Whatever
Speaker 1: happened to Christina Pipkin happened out here in this ditch.
Speaker 1: So what we know is this cause of death drowning,
Speaker 1: manner of death undetermined. Christina's body was found about a
Speaker 1: mile and a half west of the Jackson and Cross
Speaker 1: County lines on State Highway forty two. Okay, Amy, Denise
Speaker 1: and I pull up to the address we have for
Speaker 1: a man named mister White.
Speaker 4: Where are you all going?
Speaker 1: We're just gonna walk up to the tour and hopefully
Speaker 1: he was the person who was out with his son
Speaker 1: when they found Christina's body on May seventh. Yes, you
Speaker 1: didn't leave him a business card? No? Because I think
Speaker 1: we need to kind of I feel like if they
Speaker 1: see it. Sometimes like it'll be like, oh, it's intimidating
Speaker 1: to call. But if you if we're really could come up,
Speaker 1: we're just like two nights agirls that you're just yeah.
Speaker 1: If we don't make contact at all, I will even
Speaker 1: note like explaining what it is, but I just think
Speaker 1: it's better to in this case, better if he sees us.
Speaker 1: One thing that seemed weird to me was that if
Speaker 1: Christina was dumped out here, this is a very rural area,
Speaker 1: if someone drove her here, I wondered, wouldn't that car
Speaker 1: have been seen by someone, maybe a neighbor. And it
Speaker 1: turns out, according to the case file, there were people
Speaker 1: at cal Lake Ditch on the evening of May fourth,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one. A man named Morgan Davis and some
Speaker 1: of his friends, Ricky has and Ricky's wife were out
Speaker 1: frog gigging. Now, for those of you who aren't from Arkansas,
Speaker 1: and even those who are, I'm from South Arkansas and
Speaker 1: I had no idea what frog gigging is. A lot
Speaker 1: of people know that frog legs are a delicacy in
Speaker 1: places like France, but some people don't know they're also
Speaker 1: a popular menu item in Arkansas, so people go bullfrog hunting,
Speaker 1: which they call gigging. The best and indeed the only
Speaker 1: time to go frog gigging is really at night. On
Speaker 1: May fourth, Morgan Davis launched his boat around nine to
Speaker 1: fifteen to nine thirty pm off Calai Ditch. I asked
Speaker 1: my dad about frog gigging, and he told me how
Speaker 1: it worked. To hunt frogs, you shine a flashlight around
Speaker 1: the water, and the idea is that you can see
Speaker 1: the frog's eyes reflect back at you. My dad tells me,
Speaker 1: by the way, if you see eyes reflecting red back
Speaker 1: at you and not white, you should run because it's
Speaker 1: probably an alligator. You also have to avoid a lot
Speaker 1: of other pitfalls at night, like water moccasins and tree
Speaker 1: branches and other hazards. There are apparently two types of
Speaker 1: frog traps, the ones that simply entrap the frog in
Speaker 1: a net and the kind that kind of look like
Speaker 1: a trident. People use that to basically stab and scoop
Speaker 1: the bullfrogs into the boat. Morgan, Ricky, and Ricky's wife
Speaker 1: stayed out all night. They came in when dawn was
Speaker 1: breaking on the morning of May fifth. During that time,
Speaker 1: they said they never saw any stranger or any strange car.
Speaker 1: Everything seemed completely normal, and they were in that area
Speaker 1: where Christina's body was found. Sagan also answered a question
Speaker 1: about the weather. A lot of people talked about how
Speaker 1: the area had been flooded and wondered if there had
Speaker 1: been rain the day Christina went missing, But he answered
Speaker 1: that question. He said, there was a big storm, but
Speaker 1: it happened on Sunday morning, the day after Christina went missing.
Speaker 1: On Saturday night, it was warm and dry. He said
Speaker 1: that the current was moving slowly. He said, quote, the
Speaker 1: current was not real strong at that time. I know
Speaker 1: that ditch and the current won't be real swift until
Speaker 1: the bio starts dropping. We got out of the ditch
Speaker 1: before the storm hit us that Sunday morning. I did
Speaker 1: not see any vehicles parked around the river bridge or
Speaker 1: ditch bridge at that time. End quote. None of them
Speaker 1: saw Christina Pipkin that night. None of them saw a
Speaker 1: strange car, and none of them heard any struggle or
Speaker 1: any screams for help. So the fact that Ricky and
Speaker 1: his boat, his party did not see anyone that night
Speaker 1: kind of makes me lean toward one of two possibilities.
Speaker 1: Either Christina was dumped somewhere else, loaded down to where
Speaker 1: they were and got stuck in that tree branch or.
Speaker 1: She was dumped much earlier, perhaps before nine pm, before
Speaker 1: dark when they launched their boat. So now we need
Speaker 1: to go back again. What can we learn from the
Speaker 1: case fall about who was where at that time in
Speaker 1: Hickory Ridge between around six thirty and nine pm that night.
Speaker 1: We're looking for any inconsistencies in their stories that we
Speaker 1: can find, or anyone we can talk to who could
Speaker 1: help filling these gaps. We talked about Charles Cotton in
Speaker 1: our last episode. He was one of many people of
Speaker 1: interest at the time who were interviewed by law enforcement.
Speaker 1: He was interviewed by investigator Steve Doser on May fifth,
Speaker 1: the day after Christina went missing. At the time, Charles
Speaker 1: told detectives he spent May fourth fishing at Burdeye at
Speaker 1: a place called the Bay Ditch near Cherry Valley between
Speaker 1: one thirty and five thirty pm. He said he was
Speaker 1: out there with a guy he knew named Edward Hoague.
Speaker 1: He told police that Edward Hoague had a criminal record
Speaker 1: of some kind. Charles said he believed Edward was, as
Speaker 1: he put it, wanted either in when or for a
Speaker 1: city at some point, presumably after they finished fishing, at
Speaker 1: around five thirty. Charles said that he remembered heading home,
Speaker 1: but he told police a friend of his had reminded
Speaker 1: him that he saw Charles that day at the Bearcat store,
Speaker 1: which would have put him at the convenience store at
Speaker 1: around the same time Christina was there, around five thirty
Speaker 1: to six pm. Charles's wife, Rebecca confirmed investigators that yes,
Speaker 1: she and Charles were in the grocery store that afternoon.
Speaker 1: Charles said that later that evening, presumably after they left
Speaker 1: the store, he and his family, including his twenty one
Speaker 1: year old wife Rebecca, who was pregnant at the time,
Speaker 1: were home watching TV. Then, he said, at around ten
Speaker 1: thirty or eleven, his friend Nea Long came over and
Speaker 1: told him Christina Pipkin was missing.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: At that point, he said, he borrowed a three wheel
Speaker 1: from another friend of his, and he and Rebecca volunteered
Speaker 1: to help with the search. Again, I just want to
Speaker 1: flag a couple of things up in Charles Cotton's statement,
Speaker 1: because it seemed like he was very invested in the search. Again,
Speaker 1: this could be completely innocuous. It could be because it
Speaker 1: was the biggest thing to happen around Hickory Ridge in
Speaker 1: a long time. He was trying to be a good
Speaker 1: neighbor whatever, But it does raise a couple of red
Speaker 1: flags for me. Because the Pipkins had only lived in
Speaker 1: Hickory Ridge for four months, how well could Charles Cotton
Speaker 1: know these people. Later, Charles Cotton told police that Pat Moore,
Speaker 1: who remember was the Pipkins neighbor who introduced James Pipkin
Speaker 1: to Charles, told Charles that another guy had been dreaming
Speaker 1: about a place on Highway forty two West. So Charles
Speaker 1: told police that he and a couple of his friends
Speaker 1: went out there to take a look at this place
Speaker 1: that this guy had seen in a dream. He said
Speaker 1: it was a shed and it was near a baby cemetery.
Speaker 1: He said they saw what looked like drag marks on
Speaker 1: the dirt inside the shed. Supposedly Charles called the police,
Speaker 1: but he said law enforcement never came out to look
Speaker 1: in that shed. Around this time, there were all kinds
Speaker 1: of rumors flying around about what could have happened to
Speaker 1: Christina Pipkin. This was before her body was found. There
Speaker 1: were psychics calling the police. Police were inundated with people
Speaker 1: trying to talk to them, and police were out conducting
Speaker 1: tons of interviews, So this was a time when lots
Speaker 1: of rumors were flying around. It's very strange that Charles
Speaker 1: would say he was going out to a location because
Speaker 1: of something someone saw in a dream. Maybe it's because
Speaker 1: he again was just trying to follow any lead, or
Speaker 1: maybe it's because someone was trying to misdirect this investigation.
Speaker 1: Investigators questioned Charles again about the money that Charles had
Speaker 1: borrowed from James Pipkin. Remember, he borrowed two hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty five dollars from James Pipkin because he said he
Speaker 1: hadn't been able to pay some fines related to bad
Speaker 1: checks because he had been so busy searching for Christina.
Speaker 1: Just another weird story in this case. In the case file,
Speaker 1: it said that Charles admitted he had borrowed the two
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty five dollars from James Pipkin. He produced
Speaker 1: a receipt that showed Charles did make a payment on
Speaker 1: bad checks to the police department. But the thing about
Speaker 1: that receipt was that the receipt was dated May tenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one, and the interview was done on May fifth,
Speaker 1: So I'm not sure what happened here. Did Charles produce
Speaker 1: that receipt a few days later and the officer just
Speaker 1: did not note that in his report, or was the
Speaker 1: receipt post dated to May tenth? I don't know. But again,
Speaker 1: this is just one of those confusing disrepancies in the
Speaker 1: police report that I have no answers to. There was
Speaker 1: another woman who said she saw something strange the night
Speaker 1: Christina went missing. She said she saw something odd happen
Speaker 1: with Charles's wife, Rebecca Cotton. This woman's name is Donna King.
Speaker 1: There's just one problem with this police report. I talked
Speaker 1: to Donna King and she said she never told police
Speaker 1: the story that they noted in this report. I've also
Speaker 1: talked to Donna's friend, the friend who was with her
Speaker 1: on the night Christina Pipkin went missing, and Donna's friend
Speaker 1: confirmed her story now again according to the case file.
Speaker 1: According to this report from nineteen ninety one, Donna told
Speaker 1: investigators that she and her husband had gone to Memphis
Speaker 1: from Hickory Ridge on the day when Christina went missing.
Speaker 1: Donna said in the report that they were on their
Speaker 1: way back into town at around nine thirty pm that
Speaker 1: night when she saw a woman quote walking the street
Speaker 1: between the Bearcat and that post office end quote. Donna
Speaker 1: told me that part of the report was correct because
Speaker 1: she was in Memphis that day and she was driving
Speaker 1: back to Hickory Ridge with her husband. But she said
Speaker 1: that after she got back to town, she met up with
Speaker 1: this friend of hers. She said they went riding around
Speaker 1: to help look for Christina. So at nine thirty pm,
Speaker 1: Donna was with her friend and she said they did
Speaker 1: not see any woman walking along the side of the road.
Speaker 1: In the police statement from nineteen ninety one, the police
Speaker 1: said that Donna had recognized the woman she saw on
Speaker 1: the side of the road as Rebecca Cotton, Charles Cotton's wife.
Speaker 1: In the report, police quote Donna as saying she seemed
Speaker 1: very sure that this was Rebecca, and that Rebecca seemed
Speaker 1: upset and was crying. Then police said Donna told them
Speaker 1: that she saw Charles Cotton drive up to Rebecca on
Speaker 1: a three wheeler, Rebecca refused to get on the three wheeler,
Speaker 1: and then Charles Cotton come back and pick her up
Speaker 1: in a car. This was a very detailed story, and
Speaker 1: the whole thing supposedly took place several minutes before the
Speaker 1: search party started to look for Christina, but Donna told
Speaker 1: me none of that ever happened. In fact, she said
Speaker 1: she didn't know Rebecca Cotton at all by sight. Now,
Speaker 1: remember Charles said he didn't go out on that three
Speaker 1: wheel er until after ten thirty, so that would be
Speaker 1: after the search started. Also, Rebecca told police that it
Speaker 1: was not her out walking on that road. She said
Speaker 1: she had never been upset that night, She was home
Speaker 1: watching TV with her family. Rebecca Cotton did tell police
Speaker 1: that she had a pregnant sister at the time who
Speaker 1: kind of looked like her. She suggested it could have
Speaker 1: been her sister who was out there, but police apparently
Speaker 1: never talked to Rebecca Cotton's sister, or if they did,
Speaker 1: it's not part of the case file. I thought this
Speaker 1: was just another inconsistency that was never resolved. But when
Speaker 1: I talked to Donna King, she was adamant she never
Speaker 1: said this. She never said she saw Rebecca Cotton. She
Speaker 1: believes that police may have mixed their notes up or
Speaker 1: confused her with someone else. Donna also said there was
Speaker 1: another statement that she did give police, and she said
Speaker 1: it was very detailed about a brown car she saw.
Speaker 1: It does not appear to be anywhere in the case file,
Speaker 1: and we will have details of what she says about
Speaker 1: that in next week's episode. For now, though I don't
Speaker 1: know what to think, this actually really shocks me. I've
Speaker 1: seen cases where police reports had details wrong, and I've
Speaker 1: seen instances where people didn't remember a lot of what
Speaker 1: they said thirty years ago. But this seems like police
Speaker 1: may have actually mixed people up or combined their stories,
Speaker 1: which I didn't even really know was possible. And it
Speaker 1: also begs the question if Donna King didn't tell police
Speaker 1: about seeing Rebecca Cotton on the side of the road,
Speaker 1: who did and is that person still out there? Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go back to May fourth, nineteen ninety one. Michael Long,
Speaker 1: the next door neighbor, saw Christina at the Bearcat store
Speaker 1: at around five thirty. Christina's math teacher saw a few
Speaker 1: minutes later, just after six pm. The cashier we talked
Speaker 1: to from the Bearcats store also saw Christina around the
Speaker 1: store that day at around five point thirty. She showed
Speaker 1: us the composite drawing that looked very similar to Robbie Tubbs,
Speaker 1: and she described a car that was brown at the time.
Speaker 1: Robbie Tubbs drove a nineteen eighty one brown cream colored
Speaker 1: four wheel drive AMC Eagle sedan. But then a lot
Speaker 1: of other people mentioned blue cars, and I'm trying to
Speaker 1: figure out who the first person was who mentioned this
Speaker 1: suspicious blue car. Was the blue car actually something that
Speaker 1: was seen with Christina or did it just become part
Speaker 1: of everyone's collective imagination. Over the next few days, one
Speaker 1: person who police wanted to talk to was Janetta, Robbie
Speaker 1: Tubbs's girlfriend. Remember, Robbie had a bit of an unconventional
Speaker 1: private life at the time. He was married to his wife, Sandra,
Speaker 1: but he had a girlfriend, Janetta. Investigators talked to Janetta
Speaker 1: and she gave more details about who Robbie was hanging
Speaker 1: out with at the time. Janetta stated that at the
Speaker 1: time when Christina went missing, she lived in Amagon, a
Speaker 1: nearby town, with her brother named Larry Gill. She mentioned Linda,
Speaker 1: the friend of Robbies that he sold his car to later,
Speaker 1: and she said that Robbie had another friend named Jackie.
Speaker 1: She didn't know Jackie's last name, but she said they
Speaker 1: would often go selling together. I write in my notebook
Speaker 1: Jackie question mark. Because we need to figure out who
Speaker 1: this mysterious friend is as we said in the last episode,
Speaker 1: Robbie claimed that Janetta and one of her children and
Speaker 1: a young woman who he believed could be Christina had
Speaker 1: all sat in his car at a nearby park. But
Speaker 1: Janetta refuted Robbi's alibi. She said she never went to
Speaker 1: the nearby park with Robbie Tubbs, her son, was never
Speaker 1: in the car with Robbie, and she had ridden in
Speaker 1: Robbie's car before, but never driven it. There are a
Speaker 1: couple of other sightings of Christina Pipkin that happened later
Speaker 1: after seven pm, but they're not confirmed. There was a
Speaker 1: boy his name is redacted, but he was a student
Speaker 1: at Hickory Ridge Elementary School. He was someone who went
Speaker 1: to school with Christina. He told police that on Saturday night,
Speaker 1: at around seven thirty or eight pm, he saw three
Speaker 1: parked cars at Burl's gas station in wien Or, Arkansas.
Speaker 1: He said he saw a girl standing by a blue car.
Speaker 1: He thought it was Christina. He couldn't remember what the
Speaker 1: little girl was wearing or really any other information, according
Speaker 1: to the case file. I find this very frustrating because,
Speaker 1: again I'm not trying to criticize what investigators were doing.
Speaker 1: I know it's a small police force, but there is
Speaker 1: a part of me that wants to jump back in
Speaker 1: time and ask more questions. I feel like if the
Speaker 1: investigator had spent a little more time talking to this kid,
Speaker 1: maybe he might have been able to get more information
Speaker 1: out of him, at least enough to look into it
Speaker 1: further to figure out who this girl might be. If
Speaker 1: it wasn't Christina, we could rule it out and get
Speaker 1: a more accurate timeline. Other than Christina's friend who said
Speaker 1: she saw Christina talking to someone in a blue car,
Speaker 1: which may have happened after seven pm, the last person
Speaker 1: who was sure about what time she saw Christina Pipkin
Speaker 1: was her math teacher, Sally Lamb. Miss Lamb said she
Speaker 1: was at the bear Cat between six thirty and six
Speaker 1: thirty five pm. She said Christina stopped her on the
Speaker 1: sidewalk and asked what they were going to be doing
Speaker 1: in school that Monday. Miss Lamb said, why our math
Speaker 1: of course. Then she saw Christina was carrying her jewelry
Speaker 1: order catalog. She said Christina was barefoot, which, honestly, which
Speaker 1: as we said last time, could explain why Christina's sandals
Speaker 1: were never found. Miss Lamb remembered that she said because
Speaker 1: she was thinking Christina wasn't really dressed appropriately for selling jewelry,
Speaker 1: and she didn't think she was going to make a
Speaker 1: lot of sales that day. Miss Lamb saw Christina talking
Speaker 1: to Don Payne on Second Street. She saw Don drive away,
Speaker 1: and she saw Christina continuing to walk south on Second Street.
Speaker 1: We tried to track down Don Payne, unfortunately he's passed away.
Speaker 1: Since we now have access to Robbie's wife, Sandra's statement
Speaker 1: as part of the case file, I want to take
Speaker 1: a closer look at that. Remember, Sandra Tubbs was murdered
Speaker 1: two years after Christina died, so we can't go back
Speaker 1: and talk to her. But her interview is one of
Speaker 1: the only ones in the entire case file that's actually
Speaker 1: transcribed pretty much word for word. So even though this
Speaker 1: evidence is circumstantial, I think it's really important to analyze it.
Speaker 1: Some of what Sandra told police is seriously disturbing. In
Speaker 1: October of nineteen ninety one, Sandra Tubbs told police that
Speaker 1: around the time when Christina went missing, Robbie Tubbs had
Speaker 1: made some disturbing statements. She said she'd been too afraid
Speaker 1: to come to them in the past, and that's why
Speaker 1: she had waited several months. Sandra said, quote, my husband,
Speaker 1: Robbie Tubbs, he came home and was talking about what
Speaker 1: it would be like to drown because, you know, me
Speaker 1: being under that water all the time. He says, it
Speaker 1: makes me wonder what it's like for somebody to drown,
Speaker 1: you know, whether they struggle or what's their last thought
Speaker 1: and stuff when somebody is drowning. End quote. Sandra said
Speaker 1: that later, after Christina went missing, Robbie made another comment,
Speaker 1: this time when a news story came on about Christina.
Speaker 1: Sandra said, Robbie told her, quote, they'll never find her.
Speaker 1: There's too many rice stitches and stuff around here for
Speaker 1: somebody to drown in. She's dead end quote. At that point,
Speaker 1: Sandra said she got a very bad gut feeling that
Speaker 1: something was very wrong. Robbie, like everyone else, had theories
Speaker 1: about the case. He told Sandra that police had already
Speaker 1: figured out someone in Christina's family had committed this crime,
Speaker 1: that they had found some jewelry she was wearing. At
Speaker 1: one point, he had another theory. He told Sandra he
Speaker 1: believed the Bruce boys did it. As a side note,
Speaker 1: this was when Sandra found out that her husband knew
Speaker 1: the killer siblings, known as the Bruce Brothers. The Bruce
Speaker 1: brothers were brutal killers and arsonists. They're notorious in their
Speaker 1: hometown of Camden, Tennessee. Like Robbie Tubbs, the Bruce brothers
Speaker 1: were musselshellers. Apparently they hung out with Robbie Tubbs. At
Speaker 1: the time when Robbie knew them, the Bruce brothers had
Speaker 1: already committed multiple murders. On January sixteenth, nineteen ninety one, Gary,
Speaker 1: Robert and Jerry Bruce set fire to the home of
Speaker 1: Danny Vine, a musselsheller they knew who kept a lot
Speaker 1: of cash in his property. His girlfriend, Della Thornton, also
Speaker 1: lived there. Both Danny and Della were shot execution style
Speaker 1: with a thirty eight caliber gun. The killers stole their money,
Speaker 1: which police estimated and around thirty thousand dollars. This case
Speaker 1: was really notorious and reminded me of some of the
Speaker 1: cases I've seen in Arkansas because police talked to the
Speaker 1: boys and they also talked to their mother, Kathleen Bruce,
Speaker 1: and their mother not only protected her sons, but a
Speaker 1: lot of people believe was involved in these murders. All
Speaker 1: of the Bruce boys, Gary, Robert Jerry, and their brother
Speaker 1: j C had violent criminal records. Jay C was actually
Speaker 1: convicted of raping and strangling a fifteen year old girl
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy five, but inexplicably he got pardoned by
Speaker 1: the governor of Tennessee at the time. Later, a former
Speaker 1: girlfriend of jay C's went to the police. She wanted
Speaker 1: to tell them what she knew, but she was terrified
Speaker 1: and she wanted protection. Eventually, though, the girlfriend disappeared and
Speaker 1: she has never been seen since. All the boys provided
Speaker 1: alibis for each other. They all covered up each other's crimes.
Speaker 1: In the end, Robert, Jerry, Lee, and Gary were all
Speaker 1: arrested and convicted. They got life sentences, and their mom,
Speaker 1: Kathleen Bruce, got eight years in prison for her role
Speaker 1: in covering up the crimes. Sheila Bradford, j C's former girlfriend,
Speaker 1: who tried to help the police, is still bill gone
Speaker 1: and her disappearance remains unsolved.
Speaker 3: J C.
Speaker 1: Bruce was never charged with the murders or with the
Speaker 1: disappearance of his former girlfriend. The stuff that Robbie told
Speaker 1: Sandra was odd because to my knowledge, no one else
Speaker 1: has ever mentioned the Bruce brothers in connection with this case.
Speaker 1: There's also no indication they were in Arkansas at that time.
Speaker 1: We're following that lead, but to me, it looks like
Speaker 1: Robbie kind of like the way he mentioned Christina's family
Speaker 1: and the jewelry being found, either was misinformed or just
Speaker 1: making an innocent comment about what he thought, or possibly
Speaker 1: was trying to misdirect the investigation. I keep going back
Speaker 1: to another name, Robbie's friend Jackie Jackie question Mark, because
Speaker 1: Sandra mentioned him too as someone who Robbie went shelling with.
Speaker 1: Sandra said, whenever Robbie shelled in that area, he went
Speaker 1: with Jackie. They always stopped in Hickory Ridge so he
Speaker 1: could let Jackie out near Waldenburg, a nearby town. The
Speaker 1: cashiers said that the man who came into the store
Speaker 1: the night Christina Pipkin went missing was alone, But what
Speaker 1: if Jackie was dropped off earlier? Could Jackie have been
Speaker 1: around that night somewhere? And this quote from Sandra really
Speaker 1: stays with me. She said, he, meaning Robbie, told me
Speaker 1: he wasn't the only one that liked the little girls,
Speaker 1: that Jackie liked the little girls too. She goes on
Speaker 1: to talk of more and more about Robbie Tubb's disturbing
Speaker 1: history of picking up young girls. She talked about an
Speaker 1: incident where she saw an eleven year old girl sit
Speaker 1: on Robbie's lap then run crying from the room, super upset,
Speaker 1: She said when she asked Robbie about it, he said, oh,
Speaker 1: she got picked on by some girls at school. He
Speaker 1: said he was just trying to make her feel better.
Speaker 1: But Sandra said that little girl was always hugging Robbie
Speaker 1: and sitting in his lap. She said it made her
Speaker 1: feel very uncomfortable. She thought something was going on. Sandra
Speaker 1: said these incidents happened starting in nineteen eighty one, and
Speaker 1: that they took place in Lagrange, Texas, and later in
Speaker 1: Sulfur Springs. Later, Sandra said, quote, there was this little
Speaker 1: girl teasing him and showing him her body. He would
Speaker 1: talk about it like it was some big joke or something,
Speaker 1: and then I went and told her daddy, and nothing
Speaker 1: ever happened about it because her daddy didn't believe it.
Speaker 1: End quote. These admissions are so disturbing to me, by
Speaker 1: the way, I want to add. Robbie Tubbs and his
Speaker 1: statement to police completely denied all of this. He said
Speaker 1: he'd never been attracted to young teenagers. He denied all
Speaker 1: of that, but it really is shocking to me for
Speaker 1: a number of reasons. One, these girls were potentially being
Speaker 1: abused and no one was doing anything to help them.
Speaker 1: And two the sheer number of potentially sexual abusive people
Speaker 1: who were around at the time, and the potential number
Speaker 1: of victims who could still be out there. Then Sandra
Speaker 1: talked about what happened in nineteen eighty three. This was
Speaker 1: the incident she talked about in depth of police She
Speaker 1: said Robbie picked up young woman who she described as
Speaker 1: twelve or thirteen years old, and her boyfriend and offered
Speaker 1: them a lift to Hot Springs. Sandra said at some
Speaker 1: point during this ride she got upset, and she said,
Speaker 1: even though she was seven months pregnant, Robbie kicked her
Speaker 1: out of the car and left with these two young teens. Then,
Speaker 1: she said, a few days later she showed up again.
Speaker 1: She went out to where they dropped the kids off
Speaker 1: what Robbie and the young woman were gone, and the
Speaker 1: young boy apparently told Sandra that at some point they
Speaker 1: went to a park and went to sleep. When he
Speaker 1: woke up, he said he saw Robbie and that young
Speaker 1: girl doing something sexual. And after that, he said, Robbie
Speaker 1: kicked him out of the car and made him walk.
Speaker 1: After that, Sandra said, she got back together with Robbie,
Speaker 1: which I really try not to judge of victims because
Speaker 1: I never know what anyone has been through and what
Speaker 1: their history is. But I do find it shocking. I
Speaker 1: can't help it. She said.
Speaker 2: Quote.
Speaker 1: I said, Robbie, don't you know you could get in
Speaker 1: bad trouble for that, You could go to prison for that.
Speaker 1: And he said, who the hell cares? The only one
Speaker 1: who could do anything about it was her mama. He said,
Speaker 1: her mama didn't care that she gave us a blanket
Speaker 1: end quote. Sandra said that Robbie became physically abusive and
Speaker 1: violent and had beaten her when she mentioned what he
Speaker 1: had said about Christina Pipkin. She said, after she threatened
Speaker 1: to tell police what she knew, he told her that
Speaker 1: she was crazy. He quote told me that I was
Speaker 1: crazy and they would never believe me, and it really
Speaker 1: made him mad, and he gagged me and choked me.
Speaker 1: This is all very disturbing, both the violence and the
Speaker 1: fact that, according to Sandra in her police statement, Robbie
Speaker 1: had a history of asking very young girls to ride
Speaker 1: with him in his vehicle, and then she claims sexually
Speaker 1: assaulting them or propositioning them. Robbie said that yes, he
Speaker 1: was driving a brown AMC Eagle at the time, but
Speaker 1: he said his car had torn up in the fall
Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety We know, though, that he didn't get
Speaker 1: rid of that car until the spring of nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 1: By the way, in his police statement, Robbie admitted, yes,
Speaker 1: he had had sex with a girl on the way
Speaker 1: to Hot Springs in the incident Sandra described, but he
Speaker 1: said the girl told him she was eighteen. It turned
Speaker 1: out he said she was only fourteen or fifteen years
Speaker 1: old at the time. Another odd thing about this case file.
Speaker 1: There are polygraph examinations of several people, all of whom
Speaker 1: passed their polygraphs, but there is not a polygraph of
Speaker 1: Robbie Tubbs. It would appear that he failed based on
Speaker 1: what investigators said, but we have no idea what happened
Speaker 1: to that polygraph. I wonder why it's not part of
Speaker 1: the case file. The man who discovered Christina's body with
Speaker 1: his young son told us something else that the sheriff
Speaker 1: believed Christina had been dumped further upstream and then floated
Speaker 1: down toward where she was eventually found. The sheriff at
Speaker 1: the time told this man that if Christina didn't get
Speaker 1: hung up on one of those branches, she would have
Speaker 1: floated out to the bayou and eventually to the Saint
Speaker 1: Francis River. Like we said earlier, it seems to go
Speaker 1: on forever. I haven't been able to make contact with
Speaker 1: the sheriff at the time, Sheriff Huey, though I have
Speaker 1: found out where he drinks coffee most mornings, so that's
Speaker 1: a start. But if this theory about Christina being dumped
Speaker 1: further upstream is right, that would explain while Morgan Davis
Speaker 1: and his friends didn't see any sign of her or
Speaker 1: of any other stranger that night, they also didn't hear
Speaker 1: anyone screaming for help. It is possible if this was
Speaker 1: some kind of accident, maybe Christina fell in and drowned quickly.
Speaker 1: We know she couldn't swim, and drownings can happen fast.
Speaker 1: But I believe the evidence points to Christina being driven
Speaker 1: out to that ditch. I agree with the police here.
Speaker 1: I believe that it's very possible that she was thrown
Speaker 1: in that water while she was either unconscious or dying.
Speaker 1: If if that happened, it was dark that night. So
Speaker 1: I'm asking myself, is it possible that Christina could have
Speaker 1: floated right past them in their boat? And I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about something else the sheriff said when he said, if
Speaker 1: she didn't get caught, if she wasn't entangled on that branch,
Speaker 1: she would have floated right out to the river with
Speaker 1: no one knowing about it. The next question that naturally
Speaker 1: follows is are there more bodies of missing children that
Speaker 1: floated out to the river and were never found. I'm
Speaker 1: Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone
Speaker 1: Murder Line is a production of School of Humans and
Speaker 1: iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend
Speaker 1: and produced by Gabby Watts. Music contributed by Ben Solee,
Speaker 1: Executive producers of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Elsie 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 Health and Gone Murder Line. Six seven eight
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