Speaker 1: School of Humans. Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold
Speaker 1: case murders in an effort to raise public awareness invite
Speaker 1: witnesses to come forward and present evidence that could potentially
Speaker 1: be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights
Speaker 1: from family and community members, their statements should not be
Speaker 1: considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts
Speaker 1: inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone has
Speaker 1: presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Speaker 1: Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply
Speaker 1: that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime
Speaker 1: is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2: I'm in Hickory Ridge, Arkansas, trying to investigate the case
Speaker 2: of nine year old Christina Pipkin, who went missing from
Speaker 2: her home on Doty Street in May of nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 2: I'm with Amy Tubbs, whose father in law was a
Speaker 2: suspect in the case, Denise who's a friend to the families,
Speaker 2: who's been investigating this case for several years, and Denise's friend.
Speaker 2: We've been driving around town for a while now, and
Speaker 2: the whole town seems to be talking about this case.
Speaker 2: Hickory Ridge is pretty small right now. The population is
Speaker 2: between one and two hundred people. Needless to say, the
Speaker 2: entire town has been talking about the Christina Pipkin case.
Speaker 2: Our investigation has even made the local radio.
Speaker 3: Catherine Townsend, host of the Hell and Gone podcast, is
Speaker 3: investigating the nineteen ninety one kidnapping and murderer of nine
Speaker 3: year old Christina Pipkin and Hickory Ridge. Pipkin was kidnapping,
Speaker 3: killed on me.
Speaker 2: Christina was selling jewelry door to door for a school
Speaker 2: fundraiser on May fourth, nineteen ninety one, when she disappeared
Speaker 2: without a trace. Three days later, Christina's body was found
Speaker 2: in cal Lake Ditch, a body of water about three
Speaker 2: point five miles from her home. Police suspected foul play,
Speaker 2: but they haven't commented on the manner of death and
Speaker 2: when Amy and I got the case file from the
Speaker 2: Arkansas State Police after our four requests were granted, the
Speaker 2: autopsy was not included. Over thirty years later, this case
Speaker 2: is still unsolved. There's very little hard evidence in this case.
Speaker 2: With a lot of witnesses dead or missing, it can
Speaker 2: sometimes feel like we're chasing ghosts. We'll pull up to
Speaker 2: buildings and find vacant lots. We knock on a lot
Speaker 2: of wrong doors, and we've run into a lot of
Speaker 2: dead ends, but we are making progress. In our last episode,
Speaker 2: we track down the last place where Christina Pipkin was
Speaker 2: seen alive, the Bearcat Grocery Store on the main drive
Speaker 2: of Hickory Ridge, Arkansas. It shares a parking lot with
Speaker 2: a Cross County bank. In a case where rumors have
Speaker 2: been flying for three decades, it's hard to separate fact
Speaker 2: from fiction, but we do have two things that we
Speaker 2: know for sure. One that Christina was last seen by
Speaker 2: multiple witnesses in the area of the Bearcat Convenience store
Speaker 2: in the bank, and two the location where her body
Speaker 2: was dumped.
Speaker 4: We need to go to that site.
Speaker 2: We need to go to cow Lake Ditch, so we
Speaker 2: head out Route forty two toward Bedeville to the spot
Speaker 2: where Christina's body was found in the water. I'm Catherine Townsend.
Speaker 2: If you have a case you'd like me and my
Speaker 2: team to look into, you can reach out to us
Speaker 2: at our Helen Gone Murder line at six seven eight
Speaker 2: seven four four six one four five. This is Helen
Speaker 2: Gone Murder Line. In our last episode, we tracked down
Speaker 2: the cashier who worked at the Bearcat grocery store on
Speaker 2: May fourth in nineteen ninety one, the night when Christina
Speaker 2: Pipkin went missing. Police did talk to the other three
Speaker 2: employees who were on the job that day, but according
Speaker 2: to the case file, either they didn't see the stranger
Speaker 2: or they were gone by the time he came in
Speaker 2: the store, even though they don't think they saw anything.
Speaker 2: I'm really hoping that we'll get in touch with us, because,
Speaker 2: as we've said many times before, the interviews that the
Speaker 2: police did were very brief. One tiny detail can be
Speaker 2: the thing that makes this case change course. We're looking
Speaker 2: for all of those missing pieces. The cashier who we
Speaker 2: talked to gave us the composite drawing the ones she
Speaker 2: did with the Arkansas State Police. It's been in her
Speaker 2: safe for over thirty years. She described a brown car
Speaker 2: that the stranger who came in the Bearcat that day
Speaker 2: was driving. The image that we saw in the composite
Speaker 2: photo looked very similar to photos of Robbie Tubbs back
Speaker 2: in the day. But I want to be clear, his
Speaker 2: being there, even if it's confirmed have been him, does
Speaker 2: not mean that Robbie Tubbs did anything wrong. There were
Speaker 2: several other people in the Bearcat store that night. Based
Speaker 2: on what we're seeing, it seems like half the town
Speaker 2: passed through there that day. We need more information. One
Speaker 2: of the other cashiers who's working at the Bearcat that
Speaker 2: night has called me back. This person did not want
Speaker 2: me to use her name, but she said she was
Speaker 2: working at the register between around them six and seven
Speaker 2: pm on May fourth. She vividly remembers Christina Pipkin coming
Speaker 2: into the store that night, and I think that the
Speaker 2: information she has could be crucial.
Speaker 4: Here's what she said.
Speaker 5: I was at one of the registers, and I'm not
Speaker 5: sure if I was bagging for someone, if I was
Speaker 5: actually running the register.
Speaker 6: At seems like I was running the register.
Speaker 5: And Christina walked in and nevertheless the carpet or the mat.
Speaker 6: The stores have, but she just walked out the door
Speaker 6: and stood there.
Speaker 5: And we said, hey, Christina was up. I do not
Speaker 5: remember any kind of paper or pencil in her hands.
Speaker 6: Because I remember it was odd. You know, normally kids
Speaker 6: just like are not scared of my thumb, and they
Speaker 6: would have talked.
Speaker 5: I feel like I should have been felling jewelry at
Speaker 5: that point.
Speaker 6: She would have asked us. But that's beside the point.
Speaker 5: At the time I saw her, I did not know
Speaker 5: she was felling jewelry. That was later, but she you know,
Speaker 5: was hey, what's up? And she just kind of shrugg
Speaker 5: and read.
Speaker 6: I don't think anything was in her hands, because I
Speaker 6: can remember the expression on her face.
Speaker 5: So clearly, and she just kind of shrugged and you
Speaker 5: know how little girls of those shrugs in her hands
Speaker 5: in the air, you know, just like she didn't have a.
Speaker 6: Look of fear.
Speaker 5: I can see her expression in my mind when I
Speaker 5: shut my eyes.
Speaker 6: It was a fear. It was more like, hell.
Speaker 5: No, why stepped in? It was just I mean, she
Speaker 5: smiled and just turned around.
Speaker 6: And walked down.
Speaker 2: I would still love to talk to anyone else, employees
Speaker 2: or people who were in the Bearcat store that night.
Speaker 2: So in the meantime, let's go forward in time to
Speaker 2: May seventh, the day when Christina's body was found in
Speaker 2: cal Lake Ditch.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's actually a good body dumb place, but not a
Speaker 2: good swimming place, you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: Yeah, because say it one time it was they thought
Speaker 4: it was a swimming well. They said that people.
Speaker 2: Have We've looked at this location a lot on Google Maps,
Speaker 2: but sometimes you have to go to the source.
Speaker 4: You have to go to the site.
Speaker 2: See if you look at that value on the map,
Speaker 2: two runs. Yeah, and when those fields are.
Speaker 5: What it like it.
Speaker 2: Janes is, Amy, Denise and I took a ride out
Speaker 2: to Calaike Ditch. We were trying to figure out where
Speaker 2: Christina's body had been dumped and to see if the
Speaker 2: location could tell us anything about what happened to her.
Speaker 4: It's like down here, there's water down here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it as you can hear. Its windy
Speaker 2: and clear and cold. Right now. It's a sunny day.
Speaker 2: The ditch is low and the water is flowing pretty slowly.
Speaker 2: But we discussed the fact that if there had been
Speaker 2: rained recently, the current could get super strong, like it
Speaker 2: was on the day Christina's body was found.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is melon nowhere. Man, there's just you know,
Speaker 4: when you hear about it, you're like, oh, maybe it's
Speaker 4: like a local swimming hall, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: But this is late huh huh.
Speaker 2: As we said in the last episode, we did not
Speaker 2: get any access to the autopsy report as part of
Speaker 2: the case file, but we did get documents filed by
Speaker 2: Robbie Tubbs's defense lawyer and In those documents, he refers
Speaker 2: to forensic testing that was done on Christina's body.
Speaker 4: It showed that the.
Speaker 2: Water and mud in her lungs matched the water from
Speaker 2: cal Lake Ditch. We also got a few more details
Speaker 2: from the case file that came from the autopsy report.
Speaker 2: Doctor Fammi Malik, the medical examiner at the time, indicated
Speaker 2: that there was obvious decomposition. He believed that Christina had
Speaker 2: been in the water for about three days, meaning that
Speaker 2: she was not kidnapped and kept somewhere else. For example,
Speaker 2: she was almost certainly dumped there or fell in there
Speaker 2: on the day she went missing. Doctor Malick also said
Speaker 2: there were no signs of strangulation. He said he'd X
Speaker 2: ray the body from outside and inside. He found no
Speaker 2: stab wounds, no obvious cuts or bruises. He also told
Speaker 2: investigators Christina's body had a blood alcohol level of point
Speaker 2: zero three percent, but he attributed that to the decomposition
Speaker 2: of the body. Blood alcohol level can rise as a
Speaker 2: side effect of the decomposition process. Other than that the
Speaker 2: toxicology report, We're not quite sure what tests they performed
Speaker 2: in that talk screening, but according to what doctor Malick
Speaker 2: said in the case file, the results of those tests
Speaker 2: seemed normal. There was mud found in Christina's stomach. There
Speaker 2: were also pickles and carrots found. Investigators asked doctor Malick
Speaker 2: if he could figure out what had happened to Christina.
Speaker 2: Doctor Malick quote was emphatic he could find no other
Speaker 2: cause of death other than drowning end quote. But when
Speaker 2: they asked him about the possibility, for example, that she
Speaker 2: could have been smothered or choked to the point of unconsciousness,
Speaker 2: doctor Malick said he didn't have enough information to know
Speaker 2: how to answer that for sure. The report reads quote
Speaker 2: when given the supposition that one could smother an individual
Speaker 2: to the point of unconscious and then throw that person
Speaker 2: into the river, Doctor Mallet could make no comment regarding this,
Speaker 2: but said that this was a possibility end quote. I
Speaker 2: know it's frustrating not to have access to the autopsy report,
Speaker 2: but again, we're like Sherlock Holmes here, we're trying to
Speaker 2: rule out the impossible and see what possibilities were left with.
Speaker 2: So we have ruled out the possibility that Christina drowned
Speaker 2: somewhere else. Whatever happened to Christina Pipkin happened out here
Speaker 2: in this ditch. So what we know is this cause
Speaker 2: of death drowning, Manner of death undetermined. Christina's body was
Speaker 2: found about a mile and a half west of the
Speaker 2: Jackson and Cross County lines on State Highway forty two. Amy,
Speaker 2: Denise and I pull up to the address we have
Speaker 2: for a man named mister White.
Speaker 4: Where are you all going? We're just gonna walk up
Speaker 4: to the tour and.
Speaker 2: Hopefully he was the person who was out with his
Speaker 2: son when they found Christina's body on May seventh.
Speaker 5: Yes, you didn't leave him a business card?
Speaker 4: No, because I think we need to kind of.
Speaker 2: I feel like if they see it sometimes like it'll
Speaker 2: be like, oh, it's intimidating to call.
Speaker 4: But if you if we're really could come up, we're
Speaker 4: just like two.
Speaker 6: Nights a girls.
Speaker 2: If we don't make contact at all, I will even
Speaker 2: note like explaining what it is.
Speaker 4: But I just think it's better to in this case,
Speaker 4: better if he sees.
Speaker 2: One thing that seemed weird to me was that if
Speaker 2: Christina was dumped out here, this is a very rural area,
Speaker 2: if someone drove her here, I wondered, wouldn't that car
Speaker 2: have been seen by someone, maybe a neighbor.
Speaker 4: And it turns out, according to the case file.
Speaker 2: There were people at cal Lake Ditch on the evening
Speaker 2: of May fourth, nineteen ninety one. A man named Morgan
Speaker 2: Davis and some of his friends, Ricky has and Ricky's
Speaker 2: wife were out frog gigging. Now, for those of you
Speaker 2: who aren't from Arkansas, and even those who are, I'm
Speaker 2: from South Arkansas and I had no idea what frog
Speaker 2: gigging is. A lot of people know that frog legs
Speaker 2: are a delicacy in places like France, but some people
Speaker 2: don't know they're also a popular menu item in Arkansas.
Speaker 2: So people go bullfrog hunting, which they call gigging the
Speaker 2: best and indeed the only time to go frog gigging
Speaker 2: is really at night. On May fourth, Morgan Davis launched
Speaker 2: his boat at around nine to fifteen to nine thirty
Speaker 2: pm off Calaike Ditch. I ask my dad about frog gigging,
Speaker 2: and he told me how it worked. To hunt frogs,
Speaker 2: you shine a flashlight around the water, and the idea
Speaker 2: is that you can see the frog's eyes reflect back
Speaker 2: at you. My dad tells me, by the way, if
Speaker 2: you see eyes reflecting red back at you and not white,
Speaker 2: you should run because it's probably an alligator. You also
Speaker 2: have to avoid a lot of other pitfalls at night,
Speaker 2: like water moccasins and tree branches and other hazards. There
Speaker 2: are apparently two types of frog traps, the ones that
Speaker 2: simply entrapped the frog in a net and the kind
Speaker 2: that kind of looked like a tried in. People used
Speaker 2: that to basically stab and scoop the bullfrogs into the boat. Morgan, Ricky,
Speaker 2: and Ricky's wife stayed out all night. They came in
Speaker 2: when dawn was breaking on the morning of May fifth.
Speaker 2: During that time, they said they never saw any stranger
Speaker 2: or any strange car. Everything seemed completely normal, and they
Speaker 2: were in that area where Christina's body was found. Morgan
Speaker 2: also answered a question about the weather. A lot of
Speaker 2: people talked about how the area had been flooded and
Speaker 2: wondered if there had been rain the day Christina went missing,
Speaker 2: But he answered that question. He said there was a
Speaker 2: big storm, but it happened on Sunday morning, the day
Speaker 2: after Christina went missing. On Saturday night, it was warm
Speaker 2: and dry. He said that the current was moving slowly.
Speaker 2: He said, quote, the current was not real strong at
Speaker 2: that time. I know that ditch and the current won't
Speaker 2: be real swift until the bio starts dropping. We got
Speaker 2: out of the ditch before the storm hit us that
Speaker 2: Sunday morning. I did not see any vehicles parked around
Speaker 2: the river bridge or ditch bridge at that time end quote.
Speaker 2: None of them saw Christina Pipkin that night, none of
Speaker 2: them saw a strange car, and none of them heard
Speaker 2: any struggle or any screams for help. So the fact
Speaker 2: that Ricky and his boat his party did not see
Speaker 2: anyone that night kind of makes me lean toward one
Speaker 2: of two possibilities. Either Christina was dumped somewhere else floaded
Speaker 2: down to where they were and got stuck in that
Speaker 2: tree branch, or she was dumped much earlier, perhaps before
Speaker 2: nine pm, before dark when they launched their boat.
Speaker 4: So now we need to go back again.
Speaker 2: What can we learn from the case file about who
Speaker 2: was where at that time in Hickory Ridge between around
Speaker 2: six thirty and nine pm that night. We're looking for
Speaker 2: any inconsistencies in their stories that we can find, or
Speaker 2: anyone we can talk to who could help filling these gaps.
Speaker 2: We talked about Charles Cotton in our last episode. He
Speaker 2: was one of many people of interest at the time
Speaker 2: who were interviewed by law enforcement. He was interviewed by
Speaker 2: investigator Steve Doser on May fifth, the day after Christina
Speaker 2: went missing. At the time, Charles told detectives he spent
Speaker 2: May fourth fishing at Burdeye at a place called the
Speaker 2: Bay Ditch near Cherry Valley between one thirty and five
Speaker 2: thirty pm. He said he was out there with a
Speaker 2: guy he knew named Edward Hoague. He told police that
Speaker 2: Edward Hoague had a criminal record of some kind. Charles
Speaker 2: said he believed Edward was, as he put it, wanted
Speaker 2: either in when or for a city. At some point,
Speaker 2: presumably after they finished fishing at around five thirty, Charles
Speaker 2: said that he remembered heading home, but he told police
Speaker 2: a friend of his had reminded him that he saw
Speaker 2: Charles that day at the Bearcat Store, which would have
Speaker 2: put him at the convenience store at around the same
Speaker 2: time Christina was there, around five thirty to six pm.
Speaker 2: Charles's wife, Rebecca confirmed investigators that yes, she and Charles
Speaker 2: were in the grocery store that afternoon. Charles said that
Speaker 2: later that evening, presumably after they left the store, he
Speaker 2: and his family, including his twenty one year old wife, Rebecca,
Speaker 2: who was pregnant at the time, were home watching TV.
Speaker 2: Then he said, at around ten thirty or eleven, his
Speaker 2: friend Neia Long came over and told him Christina Pipkin
Speaker 2: was missing. Now, at that point, he said, he borrowed
Speaker 2: a three wheeler from another friend of his, and he
Speaker 2: and Rebecca volunteered to help with the search. Again, I
Speaker 2: just want to flag a couple of things up in
Speaker 2: Charles Cotton's statement, because it seemed like he was very
Speaker 2: invested in the search. Again, this could be completely innocuous.
Speaker 2: It could be because it was the biggest thing to
Speaker 2: happen around Hickory Ridge in a long time. He was
Speaker 2: trying to be good neighbor, whatever. But it does raise
Speaker 2: a couple of red flags for me. Because the Pipkins
Speaker 2: had only lived in Hickory Ridge for four months, how
Speaker 2: well could Charles Cotton know these people. Later, Charles Cotton
Speaker 2: told police that Pat Moore, who remember was the Pipkins
Speaker 2: neighbor who introduced James Pipkin to Charles, told Charles that
Speaker 2: another guy had been dreaming about a place on Highway
Speaker 2: forty two West. So Charles told police that he and
Speaker 2: a couple of his friends went out there to take
Speaker 2: a look at this place that this guy had seen
Speaker 2: in a dream. He said it was a shed and
Speaker 2: it was near a baby cemetery. He said they saw
Speaker 2: what looked like drag marks on the dirt inside the shed.
Speaker 2: Supposedly Charles called the police, but he said law enforcement
Speaker 2: never came out to look in that shed. Around this time,
Speaker 2: there were all kinds of rumors flying around about what
Speaker 2: could have happened to Christina Pipkins. This was before her
Speaker 2: body was found. There were psychics calling the police, Police
Speaker 2: were inundated with people trying to talk to them, and
Speaker 2: police were out conducting tons of interviews.
Speaker 4: So this was a time when lots of rumors were
Speaker 4: flying around.
Speaker 2: It's very strange that Charles would say he was going
Speaker 2: out to a location because of something someone saw in
Speaker 2: a dream. Maybe it's because he again was just trying
Speaker 2: to follow any lead, or maybe it's because someone was
Speaker 2: trying to misdirect this investigation. Investigators questioned Charles again about
Speaker 2: the money that Charles had borrowed from James Pipkin. Remember,
Speaker 2: he borrowed two hundred and twenty five dollars from James
Speaker 2: Pipkin because he said he hadn't been able to pay
Speaker 2: some fines related to bad checks because he had been
Speaker 2: so busy searching for Christina. Just another weird story in
Speaker 2: this case. In the case file, it said that Charles
Speaker 2: admitted he had borrowed the two hundred and twenty five
Speaker 2: dollars from James Pipkin. He produced a receipt that showed
Speaker 2: Charles did make a payment on bad checks to the
Speaker 2: police department. But the thing about that receipt was that
Speaker 2: the receipt was dated nineteen ninety one and the interview
Speaker 2: was done on May fifth, So I'm not sure what
Speaker 2: happened here. Did Charles produce that receipt a few days
Speaker 2: later and the officer just did not note that in
Speaker 2: his report or was the receipt postdated to May.
Speaker 4: Tenth, I don't know.
Speaker 2: But again, this is just one of those confusing disrepancies
Speaker 2: on the police report that I have no answers to.
Speaker 2: There was another woman who said she saw something strange
Speaker 2: the night Christina went missing. She said she saw something
Speaker 2: odd happen with Charles's wife, Rebecca Cotton. This woman's name
Speaker 2: is Donna King. There's just one problem with this police report.
Speaker 2: I talked to Donna King, and she said she never
Speaker 2: told police the story that they noted in this report.
Speaker 2: I've also talked to Donna's friend, the friend who was
Speaker 2: with her on the night Christina Pipkin went missing, and
Speaker 2: Donna's friend confirmed.
Speaker 4: Her story now again. According to the case file.
Speaker 2: To this report from nineteen ninety one, Donna told investigators
Speaker 2: that she and her husband had gone to Memphis from
Speaker 2: Hickory Ridge on the day when Christina went missing. Donna
Speaker 2: said in the report that they were on their way
Speaker 2: back into town at around nine thirty pm that night
Speaker 2: when she saw woman quote walking the street between the
Speaker 2: Bearcat and that post office end quote.
Speaker 4: Donna told me that.
Speaker 2: Part of the report was correct because she was in
Speaker 2: Memphis that day and she was driving back to Hickory Ridge.
Speaker 4: With her husband.
Speaker 2: But she said that after she got back to town,
Speaker 2: she met up with this friend of hers. She said
Speaker 2: they went riding around to help look for Christina. So
Speaker 2: at nine thirty pm, Donna was with her friend and
Speaker 2: she said they did not see any woman walking along
Speaker 2: the side of the road. In the police statement from
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety one, the police said that Donna had recognized
Speaker 2: the woman she saw on the side of the road
Speaker 2: as Rebecca Cotton, Charles Cotton's wife. In the report, police
Speaker 2: quote Donna as saying she's seen very sure that this
Speaker 2: was Rebecca, and that Rebecca seemed upset and was crying. Then,
Speaker 2: police said Donna told them that she saw Charles Cotton
Speaker 2: drive up to Rebecca on a three wheeler, Rebecca refused
Speaker 2: to get on the three wheeler, and then Charles Cotton
Speaker 2: come back and pick her up in a car. This
Speaker 2: was a very detailed story, and the whole thing supposedly
Speaker 2: took place several minutes before the search party started to
Speaker 2: look for Christina. But Donna told me none of that
Speaker 2: ever happened. In fact, she said she didn't know Rebecca
Speaker 2: Cotton at all by sight. Now, remember Charles said he
Speaker 2: didn't go out on that three wheeler until after ten thirty,
Speaker 2: so that would be after the search started. Also, Rebecca
Speaker 2: told police that it was not her out walking on
Speaker 2: that road. She said she had never been upset that night,
Speaker 2: She was home watching TV with her family. Rebecca Cotton
Speaker 2: did tell police that she had a pregnant sister at
Speaker 2: the time who kind of looked like her. She suggested
Speaker 2: it could have been her sister who was out there,
Speaker 2: but police apparently never talked to Rebecca Cotton's sister, or
Speaker 2: if they did, it's not part of the case file.
Speaker 2: I thought this was just another inconsistency that was never resolved,
Speaker 2: But when I talked to Donna King, she was adamant
Speaker 2: she never said this. She never said she saw Rebecca Cotton.
Speaker 2: She believes that police may have mixed their notes up
Speaker 2: or confused her with someone else. Donna also said there
Speaker 2: was another statement that she did give police, and she
Speaker 2: said it was very detailed.
Speaker 4: About a brown car she saw.
Speaker 2: It does not appear to be anywhere in the case file,
Speaker 2: and we will have details of what she says about
Speaker 2: that in next week's episode. For now, though I don't
Speaker 2: know what to think, this actually really shocks me. I've
Speaker 2: seen cases where police reports had details wrong, and I've
Speaker 2: seen instances where people didn't remember a lot of what
Speaker 2: they said thirty years ago. But this seems like police
Speaker 2: may have actually mixed people up or combined their stories,
Speaker 2: which I didn't even really know was possible, and also
Speaker 2: begs the question if Donna King didn't tell police about
Speaker 2: seeing Rebecca Cotton on the side of the road, who
Speaker 2: did and is that person still out there. Okay, let's
Speaker 2: go back to May fourth, nineteen ninety one. Michael Long,
Speaker 2: the next door neighbor, saw Christina at the Bearcat store
Speaker 2: at around five thirty. Christina's math teacher saw her a
Speaker 2: few minutes later, just after six pm. The cashier we
Speaker 2: talked to from the Bearcats store also saw Christina around
Speaker 2: the store that day at around five thirty. She showed
Speaker 2: us the composite drawing that looked very similar to Robbie Tubbs,
Speaker 2: and she described a car that was brown.
Speaker 4: At the time, Robbie Tubbs drove.
Speaker 2: A nineteen eighty one brown, cream colored four wheel drive
Speaker 2: AMC Eagle sedan. But then a lot of other people
Speaker 2: mentioned blue cars, and I'm trying to figure out who
Speaker 2: the first person was who mentioned this suspicious blue car.
Speaker 2: Was the blue car action something that was seen with Christina,
Speaker 2: or did it just become part of everyone's collective imagination
Speaker 2: Over the next few days, one person who police wanted
Speaker 2: to talk to was Janetta, Robbie Tubbs's girlfriend. Remember, Robbie
Speaker 2: had a bit of an unconventional private life at the time.
Speaker 2: He was married to his wife Sandra, but he had
Speaker 2: a girlfriend, Janetta. Investigators talked to Janetta and she gave
Speaker 2: more details about who Robbie was hanging out with at
Speaker 2: the time. Janetta stated that at the time when Christina
Speaker 2: went missing, she lived in Amagon, a nearby town, with
Speaker 2: her brother named Larry Gill. She mentioned Linda, the friend
Speaker 2: of Robbie's that he sold his car to later, and
Speaker 2: she said that Robbie had another friend named Jackie. She
Speaker 2: didn't know Jackie's last name, but she said they would
Speaker 2: often go shelling together. I write in my notebook Jackie
Speaker 2: question mark, because we need to figure out who this
Speaker 2: mysterious friend is. As we said in the last episode,
Speaker 2: Robbie claimed that Janetta and one of her children and
Speaker 2: a young woman who he believed could be Christina had
Speaker 2: all sat in his car at a nearby park, but
Speaker 2: Janetta refuted Robbie's alibi. She said she never went to
Speaker 2: the nearby park with Robbie Tubbs, her son, was never
Speaker 2: in the car with Robbie, and she had ridden in
Speaker 2: Robbie's car before, but never driven it. There are a
Speaker 2: couple of other sightings of Christina Pipkin that happened later
Speaker 2: after seven pm, but they're not confirmed. There was a
Speaker 2: boy his name was redacted, but he was a student
Speaker 2: at Hickory Ridge Elementary School. He was someone who went
Speaker 2: to school with Christina. He told police that on Saturday night,
Speaker 2: at around seven thirty or eight pm, he saw three
Speaker 2: parked cars at Burl's gas station in wien Or, Arkansas.
Speaker 2: He said he saw a girl standing by a blue car.
Speaker 2: He thought it was Christina. He couldn't remember what the
Speaker 2: little girl was wearing, or really any other information, according
Speaker 2: to the case file. I find this very frustrated, because, again,
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to criticize what investigators were doing. I
Speaker 2: know it's a small police force, but there is a
Speaker 2: part of me that wants to jump back in time
Speaker 2: and ask more questions. I feel like if the investigator
Speaker 2: had spent a little more time talking to this kid,
Speaker 2: maybe he might have been able to get more information
Speaker 2: out of him, at least enough to look into it
Speaker 2: further to figure out who this girl might be. If
Speaker 2: it wasn't Christina, we could rule it out and get
Speaker 2: a more accurate timeline. Other than Christina's friend who said
Speaker 2: she saw Christina talking to someone in a blue car,
Speaker 2: which may have happened after seven pm. The last person
Speaker 2: who was sure about what time she saw Christina Pipkin
Speaker 2: was her math teacher, Sally Lamb. Miss Lamb said she
Speaker 2: was at the bear Cat between six point thirty and
Speaker 2: six thirty five pm. She said Christina stopped her on
Speaker 2: the sidewalk and asked what they were going to be
Speaker 2: doing in school that Monday. Miss Lamb said, why our
Speaker 2: math of course. Then she saw Christina was carrying her
Speaker 2: jewelry order catalog. She said Christina was barefoot, which honest, which,
Speaker 2: as we said last time, could explain why christina sandals
Speaker 2: were never found. Miss Lamb remembered that she said because
Speaker 2: she was thinking Christina wasn't really dressed appropriately for selling jewelry,
Speaker 2: and she didn't think she was going to make a
Speaker 2: lot of sales. That day, Miss Lamb saw Christina talking
Speaker 2: to Don Payne on Second Street. She saw Don drive away,
Speaker 2: and she saw Christina continuing to walk south on Second Street.
Speaker 2: We tried to track down Don Payne, unfortunately he's passed away.
Speaker 4: Since we now have.
Speaker 2: Access to Robbie's wife, Sandra's statement as part of the
Speaker 2: case file, I want to take a closer look at that. Remember,
Speaker 2: Sandra Tubbs was murdered two years after Christina died, so
Speaker 2: we can't go back and talk to her.
Speaker 4: But her interview is one of the only ones in the.
Speaker 2: Entire case file that's actually transcribed pretty much word for word.
Speaker 2: So even though this evidence is circumstantial, I think it's
Speaker 2: really important to analyze it. Some of what Sandra told
Speaker 2: police is Siria disturbing. In October of nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 2: Sandra Tubbs told police that around the time when Christina
Speaker 2: went missing, Robbie Tubbs had made some disturbing statements. She
Speaker 2: said she'd been too afraid to come to them in
Speaker 2: the past, and that's why she had waited several months.
Speaker 2: Sandra said, quote, my husband, Robbie Tubbs, he came home
Speaker 2: and was talking about what it would be like to
Speaker 2: drown because, you know, me being under that water all
Speaker 2: the time, he says, it makes me wonder what it's
Speaker 2: like for somebody to drown, you know, whether they struggle
Speaker 2: or what's their last thought and stuff when somebody is drowning.
Speaker 4: End quote.
Speaker 2: Sandra said that later, after Christina went missing, Robbie made
Speaker 2: another comment, this time when a news story came on
Speaker 2: about Christina. Sandra said, Robbie told her, quote, they'll never
Speaker 2: find her. There's too many rice stitches and stuff around
Speaker 2: here for somebody to drown in.
Speaker 4: She's dead end quote.
Speaker 2: At that point, Sandra said she got a very bad
Speaker 2: gut feeling that something was very wrong. Robbie, like everyone else,
Speaker 2: had theories.
Speaker 4: About the case.
Speaker 2: He told Sandra that police had already figured out someone
Speaker 2: in Christina's family had committed this crime, that they had
Speaker 2: found some jewelry she was wearing. At one point, he
Speaker 2: had another theory. He told Sandra he believed the Bruce
Speaker 2: boys did it. As a side note, this was when
Speaker 2: Sandra found out that her husband knew the killer siblings
Speaker 2: known as.
Speaker 4: The Bruce Brothers. The Bruce brothers were brutal.
Speaker 2: Killers and arsonists. They're notorious in their hometown of Camden, Tennessee.
Speaker 2: Like Robbie Tubbs, the Bruce brothers were muscleshellers. Apparently they
Speaker 2: hung out with Robbie Tubbs. At the time when Robbie
Speaker 2: knew them, the Bruce brothers had already committed multiple murders.
Speaker 2: On January sixteenth, nineteen ninety one, Gary, Robert and Jerry
Speaker 2: Bruce set fire to the home of Danny Vine, a musclesheller.
Speaker 2: They knew who kept a lot of cash in his property.
Speaker 2: His girlfriend, Della Thornton, also lived there. Both Danny and
Speaker 2: Della were shot execution style with a thirty eight caliber gun.
Speaker 2: The killers stole their money, which police estimated and around
Speaker 2: thirty thousand dollars. This case was really notorious and reminded
Speaker 2: me of some of the cases I've seen in Arkansas
Speaker 2: because police talked to the boys, and they also talked
Speaker 2: to their mother, Kathleen Bruce, and their mother not only
Speaker 2: protected her sons, but a lot of people believe was
Speaker 2: involved in these murders. All of the Bruce boys, Gary, Robert, Jerry,
Speaker 2: and their brother j C had violent criminal records. Jay
Speaker 2: C was actually convicted of raping and strangling a fifteen
Speaker 2: year old girl in nineteen seventy five, but inexplicably, he
Speaker 2: got pardoned by the governor of Tennessee at the time. Later,
Speaker 2: a former girlfriend of jay C's went to the police.
Speaker 2: She wanted to tell them what she knew, but she
Speaker 2: was terrified and she wanted protection. Eventually, though, the girlfriend
Speaker 2: disappeared and she has never been seen since. All the
Speaker 2: boys provided alibis for each other. They all covered up
Speaker 2: each other's crimes in the end. Robert, Jerry, Lee, and
Speaker 2: Gary were all arrested and convicted. They got life sentences,
Speaker 2: and their mom, Kathleen Bruce, got eight years in prison
Speaker 2: for her role in covering up the crimes. Sheila Bradford,
Speaker 2: j C's former girlfriend, who tried to help the police,
Speaker 2: is still gone and her disappearance remains unsolved.
Speaker 5: J C.
Speaker 2: Bruce was never charged with the murders or with the
Speaker 2: disappearance of his former girlfriend. The stuff that Robbie told
Speaker 2: Sandra was odd because to my knowledge, no one else
Speaker 2: has ever mentioned the Bruce brothers in connection with this case.
Speaker 2: There's also no indication they were in Arkansas that time.
Speaker 2: We're following that lead, but to me, it looks like
Speaker 2: Robbie kind of like the way he mentioned Christina's family
Speaker 2: and the jewelry being found, either was misinformed or just
Speaker 2: making an innocent comment about what he thought, or possibly
Speaker 2: was trying to misdirect the investigation. I keep going back
Speaker 2: to another name, Robbie's friend Jackie Jackie question Mark, because
Speaker 2: Sandra mentioned him too as someone who Robbie went shelling with.
Speaker 2: Sandra said, whenever Robbie shelled in that area, he went
Speaker 2: with Jackie. They always stopped in Hickory Ridge so we
Speaker 2: could let Jackie out. Near Waldenburg and nearby town. The
Speaker 2: cashiers said that the man who came into the store
Speaker 2: the night Christina Pipkin went missing was alone. But what
Speaker 2: if Jackie was dropped off earlier? Could Jackie have been
Speaker 2: around that night somewhere? And this quote from Sandra really
Speaker 2: stays with me. She said, he, meaning Robbie, told me
Speaker 2: he wasn't the only one that liked the little girls,
Speaker 2: that Jackie liked the little girls too. She goes on
Speaker 2: to talk of more and more about Robbie Tubb's disturbing
Speaker 2: history of picking up young girls. She talked about an
Speaker 2: incident where she saw an eleven year old girl sit
Speaker 2: on Robbie's lap then run crying from the room, super upset,
Speaker 2: she said when she asked Robbie about it, he said, oh,
Speaker 2: she got picked on by some girls at school. He
Speaker 2: said he was just trying to make her feel better.
Speaker 2: But Sandra said that little girl was always hugging Robbie
Speaker 2: and sitting in his lap. She said it made her
Speaker 2: feel very uncomfortable. She thought something was going on. Sandra
Speaker 2: said these incidents happened starting in nineteen eighty one, and
Speaker 2: that they took place in Lagrange, Texas, and later in
Speaker 2: Sulfur Springs. Later, Sandra said, quote, there was this little
Speaker 2: girl teasing him and showing him her body. He would
Speaker 2: talk about it like it was some big joke or something,
Speaker 2: and then I went and told her daddy, and nothing
Speaker 2: ever happened about it because her daddy didn't believe it.
Speaker 2: End quote. These admissions are so disturbing to me. By
Speaker 2: the way, I want to add Robbie tub Rubs and
Speaker 2: his statement to police completely denied all of this. He
Speaker 2: said he'd never been attracted to young teenagers. He denied
Speaker 2: all of that. But it really is shocking to me
Speaker 2: for a number of reasons. One, these girls were potentially
Speaker 2: being abused and no one was doing anything to help them.
Speaker 2: And two the sheer number of potentially sexually abusive people
Speaker 2: who were around at the time and the potential number
Speaker 2: of victims who could still be out there. Then Sandra
Speaker 2: talked about what happened in nineteen eighty three. This was
Speaker 2: the incident she talked about in depth of police. She
Speaker 2: said Robbie picked up a young woman who she described
Speaker 2: as twelve or thirteen years old, and her boyfriend and
Speaker 2: offered them a lift to Hot Springs. Sandra said at
Speaker 2: some point during this ride, she got upset, and she said,
Speaker 2: even though she was seven months pregnant, Robbie kicked her
Speaker 2: out of the car and left with these two young teens. Then,
Speaker 2: she said, a few days later she showed up again.
Speaker 2: She went out to where they dropped the kids off
Speaker 2: what Robbie and the young woman were gone. And the
Speaker 2: young boy apparently told Sandra that at some point they
Speaker 2: went to a park and went to sleep. When he
Speaker 2: woke up, he said he saw Robbie and that young
Speaker 2: girl doing something sexual, and after that, he said, Robbie
Speaker 2: kicked him out of the car and made him walk.
Speaker 2: After that, Sandra said, she got back together with Robbie.
Speaker 2: Which I really try not to judge of victims because
Speaker 2: I never know what anyone has been through and what
Speaker 2: their history is.
Speaker 4: But I do find it shocking. I can't help it.
Speaker 4: She said.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 2: I said, Robbie, don't you know you could get in
Speaker 2: bad trouble for that. You could go to prison for that,
Speaker 2: And he said, who the hell cares? The only one
Speaker 2: who could do anything about it was her mama, he said,
Speaker 2: her mama didn't care that she gave us a blanket
Speaker 2: end quote. Sandra said that Robbie became physically abusive and
Speaker 2: violent and had beaten her when she mentioned what he
Speaker 2: had said about Christina Pipkin. She said, after she threatened
Speaker 2: to tell police what she knew, he told her that
Speaker 2: she was crazy. He quote told me that I was
Speaker 2: crazy and they would never believe me, and it really
Speaker 2: made him mad, and he gagged me and choked me.
Speaker 2: This is all very disturbing, both the violence and the
Speaker 2: fact that, according to Sandra in her police statement, Robbie
Speaker 2: had a history of asking very young girls to ride
Speaker 2: with him in his vehicle and then she claims sexually
Speaker 2: assaulting them or propositioning them. Robbie said that yes, he
Speaker 2: was driving a brown AMC Eagle at the time, but
Speaker 2: he said his car had torn up in the fall
Speaker 2: of nineteen ninety We know though, that he didn't get
Speaker 2: rid of that car until the spring of nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 2: By the way, in his police statement, Robbie admitted yes,
Speaker 2: he had had sex with a girl on the way
Speaker 2: to Hot Springs in the incident Sandra described, but he
Speaker 2: said the girl told him she was eighteen. It turned out.
Speaker 2: He said she was only fourteen or fifteen years old
Speaker 2: at the time. Other odd thing about this case file.
Speaker 2: There are polygraph examinations of several people, all of whom
Speaker 2: passed their polygraphs, but there is not a polygraph of
Speaker 2: Robbie Tubbs. It would appear that he failed based on
Speaker 2: what investigators said, but we have no idea what happened
Speaker 2: to that polygraph. I wonder why it's not part of
Speaker 2: the case file. The man who discovered Christina's body with
Speaker 2: his young son told us something else that the sheriff
Speaker 2: believed Christina had been dumped further upstream and then floated
Speaker 2: down toward where she was eventually found. The sheriff at
Speaker 2: the time told this man that if Christina didn't get
Speaker 2: hung up on one of those branches, she would have
Speaker 2: floated out to the bayou and eventually to the Saint
Speaker 2: Francis River. Like we said earlier, it seems to go
Speaker 2: on forever. I haven't been able to make contact with
Speaker 2: the sheriff at the time, Sheriff Huey, though, I have
Speaker 2: found out where he drinks coffee most mornings, so that's
Speaker 2: a start. But if this theory about Christina being dumped
Speaker 2: further upstream, is right. That would explain while Morgan Davis
Speaker 2: and his friends didn't see any sign of her or
Speaker 2: of any other stranger that night, they also didn't hear
Speaker 2: anyone screaming for help. It is possible if this was
Speaker 2: some kind of accident, maybe Christina fell in and drowned quickly.
Speaker 2: We know she couldn't swim, and drownings can happen fast.
Speaker 2: But I believe the evidence points to Christina being driven
Speaker 2: out to that ditch.
Speaker 4: I agree with the police here.
Speaker 2: I believe that it's very possible that she was thrown
Speaker 2: in that water while she was either unconscious or dying.
Speaker 2: If that happened, it was dark that night, So I'm
Speaker 2: asking myself, is it possible that Christina could have floated
Speaker 2: right past them in their boat? And I'm thinking about
Speaker 2: something else the sheriff said when he said if she
Speaker 2: didn't get caught, if she wasn't entangled on that branch,
Speaker 2: she would have floated right out to the river with
Speaker 2: no knowing about it. The next question that naturally follows
Speaker 2: is are there more bodies of missing children that floated
Speaker 2: out to the river and were never found. I'm Catherine Townsend.
Speaker 2: This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line
Speaker 2: is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2: It's written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced
Speaker 2: by Gabby Watts. Music contributed by Ben Solee, Executive producers
Speaker 2: of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Elsie Crowley. If you
Speaker 2: have a case you'd like me and my team to
Speaker 2: look into, you can reach out to us at our
Speaker 2: Helen Gone Murder Line six seven eight seven four four six'
Speaker 2: one four or. Five that's six seven eight seven four
Speaker 2: four six one four. Five please subscribe and leave us
Speaker 2: a review wherever you listen to your Podcasts
Speaker 1: School Of humans