Speaker 1: School of Humans.
Speaker 2: As a lot of you probably already know, While I've
Speaker 2: been working on the Christina Pipkin case, I've also been
Speaker 2: exploring other unsolved deaths in Arkansas. Right now, I'm looking
Speaker 2: at an article from the Commercial Appeal newspaper that came
Speaker 2: out on Thursday, June third, nineteen ninety three. The title
Speaker 2: of the article is Authorities wonder if six kids deaths
Speaker 2: in East Arkansas are related.
Speaker 1: Those children in.
Speaker 2: The article referred to were Christina Pipkin, who as we know,
Speaker 2: went missing in May of nineteen ninety one, and also
Speaker 2: Steve Branch, Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers, the three eight
Speaker 2: year old boys who were murdered in West Memphis in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety three. It also includes sixteen year old Guardina
Speaker 2: Cross and thirteen year old Geneva Smith. Guardina and Geneva's
Speaker 2: bodies were found near Wynn, Arkansas, just a few miles
Speaker 2: Hickory Ridge. To be honest, I haven't seen any obvious
Speaker 2: connections between these children in East Arkansas.
Speaker 1: As we said.
Speaker 2: Before, these children were different ages, some were different races,
Speaker 2: and they had very different life circumstances. The boys in
Speaker 2: West Memphis and Guardina Cross had been brutalized, while in
Speaker 2: Christina's case, there didn't appear to be any outward signs
Speaker 2: of violence. So just on the surface, it does not
Speaker 2: seem like this was the work of a single serial killer.
Speaker 2: But there are a lot of weird coincidences in these cases.
Speaker 2: In fact, in three of the four cases, suspects were
Speaker 2: arrested but ultimately released. All of these children were found
Speaker 2: in or near bodies of water, and all of them
Speaker 2: are unsolved.
Speaker 1: I'm Catherine Townsend.
Speaker 2: Over the past five years of making my true crime podcast,
Speaker 2: Helling Gone, I've learned that there is no such thing
Speaker 2: as a small town where murder never happens. I've received
Speaker 2: hundreds of messages from people all around the country asking
Speaker 2: for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families,
Speaker 2: and their communities.
Speaker 1: If you have a case you'd like me and my.
Speaker 2: Team to look into, you can reach out to us
Speaker 2: at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight
Speaker 2: seven four four six one four five. That's six seven
Speaker 2: eight seven four four six one four five. This is
Speaker 2: Helen Gone Murder Line. I'm making my way through all
Speaker 2: these freedom of information requests I've done over the past
Speaker 2: few weeks. Obviously, we have Christina Pipkins case file, though
Speaker 2: there do appear to be some documents missing, including crime
Speaker 2: scene photos. The Arkansas State Police told me they believe
Speaker 2: the Geneva Smith case is still open, so they were
Speaker 2: not able to provide me with any information from that
Speaker 2: case file. And they weren't able to find Guardiana Cross's
Speaker 2: case at all. They said they had no record of
Speaker 2: it at the Arkansas State Police. Now, this could just
Speaker 2: mean that this case file is with the county. I
Speaker 2: filed a request in Cross County and I'll let you
Speaker 2: all know what happens. But even though the circumstances of
Speaker 2: all these children's deaths were so different, I want to
Speaker 2: take a look at some of the seemingly odd similarity
Speaker 2: in Christina Pipkins's case. Remembered there was a suspect, Robbie Tubbs.
Speaker 2: He was arrested years later in nineteen ninety nine, and
Speaker 2: then he was later released due to some pretty catastrophic
Speaker 2: mistakes with the hair fiber evidence that was found. In
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety two, Geneva Smith was thirteen years old. She
Speaker 2: left home to get on the school bus and she
Speaker 2: never came back. A few days later, her body was
Speaker 2: found floating in the Saint Francis River. Her remains were
Speaker 2: badly decomposed, so much that it was hard to identify her.
Speaker 1: I was struck by the fact that there.
Speaker 2: Is very little about Genevas Smith's murder out there. The
Speaker 2: theories about who killed her if you look on online forums,
Speaker 2: ranged from a serial killer to the KKK to a
Speaker 2: member of her extended family. Basically, it's a mixed bag
Speaker 2: and no one seems to have any real answers. There
Speaker 2: was an arrest in Geneva's case, but like in Christina
Speaker 2: Pitt Dolkin's case, the.
Speaker 1: Arrest came years later. In November of nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 2: The same year when police were building a case against
Speaker 2: Robbie Tubbs for Christina Pipkins murder, two men named Johnny
Speaker 2: Key and Freddie Jones were arrested and charged with Geneva
Speaker 2: Smith's murder.
Speaker 1: Police did not say.
Speaker 2: Much at the time, but apparently the case depended on
Speaker 2: the cooperation of a key witness.
Speaker 1: I found this.
Speaker 2: From a local newspaper back in the day. It read
Speaker 2: quote Freddy Jones twenty six of Earl and Johnny Key
Speaker 2: thirty six of Parkin appeared before Judge Richard L. Proctor
Speaker 2: on Monday and were bound over to Cross County Circuit
Speaker 2: Court to stand trial on one count of capital murder.
Speaker 2: The article goes on to say Sheriff Ronnie Baldwin said
Speaker 2: Rinne page twenty two of when was also arraigned on
Speaker 2: a charge of hindering apprehension of a suspect.
Speaker 1: In connection with the Smith case.
Speaker 2: She was being held in the Cross County jail Monday
Speaker 2: on unrelated charges when she was arrested in connection with
Speaker 2: the murder end quote.
Speaker 1: So the newspaper.
Speaker 2: Brings up two male suspects and one female who they
Speaker 2: believed were involved in Geneva Smith's murder. The newspaper also
Speaker 2: talked to the sheriff, and the article mentioned that the
Speaker 2: sheriff said that he had worked with the Arkansas State
Speaker 2: Police investigator Dale Arnold. Remember that's the same investigator who
Speaker 2: also worked on Christina Pipkins's case. The sheriff said that
Speaker 2: he and Dale Arnold felt they finally had enough information
Speaker 2: to make some arrest and the article said that all
Speaker 2: three of these suspects, Johnny Key, Freddie Jones, and Irene Page,
Speaker 2: had all been interviewed by police back in nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 2: when Genevasmith originally went missing. Police seemed fairly confident that
Speaker 2: they had a case, but then something happened. Apparently their
Speaker 2: key witness had a change of heart. The sheriff, Ronnie Baldwin,
Speaker 2: later confirmed this. He told the newspaper the case had
Speaker 2: fallen apart when that witness backed out. So I'm wondering
Speaker 2: about the woman who was arrested. If she was the
Speaker 2: witness and was twenty two years old in nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 2: that would mean that she would have been around sixteen
Speaker 2: years old, just three years older than Geneva back when
Speaker 2: Geneva was killed. So now I'm wondering who was this woman?
Speaker 2: What was her connection to Geneva Smith? And it's been
Speaker 2: years since these suspects were questioned and later released. Is
Speaker 2: law enforcement planning on building that case any further? Have
Speaker 2: they developed any new suspects, Do they have any new
Speaker 2: leads at all? And if not, would they consider turning
Speaker 2: over this case file and making it public like they
Speaker 2: have with Christina Pipkin's case. I am not sure what
Speaker 2: the decision will be in Geneva Smith's case. I do
Speaker 2: know Arkansas has made new rules to classify cases as
Speaker 2: officially cold when they've been unsolved for two years or more.
Speaker 2: Maybe they will release part of the case file. I
Speaker 2: do hope they'll consider it because in Christina's case it
Speaker 2: has helped. I've only been working on this case for
Speaker 2: a few weeks, and even though it has been almost
Speaker 2: thirty years since Christina Pipkin went missing and her body
Speaker 2: was found, we've been able to find a lot of
Speaker 2: people who've never been interviewed by the police. We've also
Speaker 2: gotten a lot of names out of the case file,
Speaker 2: and we were able to find a lot of them.
Speaker 2: As a result of that, we are filling in the blanks.
Speaker 2: I would love to be able to do the same
Speaker 2: thing for Geneva Smith's case. So if someone out there
Speaker 2: knows someone who knew Geneva Smith, anyone in her family,
Speaker 2: her friends, or anyone who saw anything, I would love
Speaker 2: to hear from these people. I did some very preliminary
Speaker 2: online sleuthing to try and find the people who were
Speaker 2: charged with Geneva's murder and what happened to them. I
Speaker 2: found Freddy Jones. It wasn't too hard because he's now
Speaker 2: in prison. Freddie Jones has a fairly long criminal record.
Speaker 2: According to records. In twenty seventeen, he was sentenced to
Speaker 2: forty years for aggravated robbery of a Valero gas station
Speaker 2: in Fayetvil. He also got an additional five years for
Speaker 2: carrying a firearm because he was a felon. According to
Speaker 2: court documents, this length of sentence, which does seem very long,
Speaker 2: was due to his status as an habitual offender. So
Speaker 2: let's go back to the newspaper article for a minute.
Speaker 2: The one I talked about at the top of the episode,
Speaker 2: the one that talked about potential connections in these child
Speaker 2: death cases. The reporter Rob Johnson talked about sixteen year
Speaker 2: old Guardina Cross, who was.
Speaker 1: Murdered in nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 2: Guardina was sixteen years old and in tenth grade at
Speaker 2: Wyn High School on October fourteenth, nineteen ninety two. She
Speaker 2: disappeared that same day on Moore Road, right outside of
Speaker 2: when a guy was collecting cans. When he found her
Speaker 2: body on the side of the road. Guardina was naked
Speaker 2: except for a bra. Her skull had been pierced and
Speaker 2: punctured with a small object.
Speaker 1: Police thought it could be some.
Speaker 2: Type of tool, maybe something like a screwdriver. Forensic testing
Speaker 2: later revealed that at the time of her death, Guardina
Speaker 2: was around five months pregnant, and then there were crickets.
Speaker 2: There was nothing more that I could find really ever
Speaker 2: reported about this case, but I think the reporter Rob
Speaker 2: Johnson got some crucial information. He went to interview Guardinia's
Speaker 2: great grandmother, Hattie Cross. He found out that Guardina already
Speaker 2: had a two year old daughter. That means that Guardinia's
Speaker 2: daughter must have been born around the time Guardinia was
Speaker 2: around fourteen years old. He was also the person who
Speaker 2: reported that she was five months pregnant at the time
Speaker 2: for death. Now, I don't want to rush to conclusions.
Speaker 2: The killer could have been a stranger. This could have
Speaker 2: been a random attack. But we also know that sadly,
Speaker 2: pregnancy can be one of the most dangerous times of
Speaker 2: a woman's life. One of the leading cause of death
Speaker 2: of pregnant women in America is homicide. So I want
Speaker 2: to know where that baby's father is, if that person
Speaker 2: was ever questioned, Maybe there was someone who was not
Speaker 2: happy about her pregnancy. And these are all things that
Speaker 2: we have to consider. Coming back to the Christina Pipkin case,
Speaker 2: I've been going through the case file and trying to
Speaker 2: reach out to people the police interviewed, and when I did,
Speaker 2: as you probably already know, there were a lot of discrepancies,
Speaker 2: not only that I saw something in this case I've
Speaker 2: never had happened before in anything I've ever investigated. One
Speaker 2: of the biggest issues we've had in trying to review
Speaker 2: this case file is the fact that basically none of
Speaker 2: the interviews were transcribed. Everything is just these brief, typed reports,
Speaker 2: So there are a lot of mistakes in those. I've
Speaker 2: seen errors and police reports before, but I've seen mistakes
Speaker 2: in Christina's case unlike anything I've ever seen. In our
Speaker 2: last episode, I talked to Donna King. Now in the
Speaker 2: case file, there is a police report where an investigator
Speaker 2: said he spoke to Donna King. She told them that
Speaker 2: on the night Christina Pipkin went missing, she saw Charles
Speaker 2: Cotton's wife, Rebecca Cotton, walking on the side of the
Speaker 2: road and that Charles Cotton was approaching her on a
Speaker 2: three wheeler. This was a very detailed description of what happened. Apparently,
Speaker 2: according to police, Donna said she observed Rebecca Cotton crying,
Speaker 2: looking annoyed at Charles and not getting on the three Wheeler.
Speaker 2: Then Charles Cotton apparently left and came.
Speaker 1: Back in a vehicle.
Speaker 2: This was a few minutes later, and he picked Rebecca
Speaker 2: Cotton up and they left together in the car. The
Speaker 2: only problem is Donna King said that this was absolutely
Speaker 2: not what she said to the police. She insisted that
Speaker 2: she never saw Rebecca Cotton on the night Christina Pipkin
Speaker 2: went missing. Donna King said that part of the story
Speaker 2: was correct. She was out of town that day. She
Speaker 2: and her husband had gone to Memphis, but she said
Speaker 2: as soon as she got back in town, she met
Speaker 2: up with a friend of hers. The friend of Donna's
Speaker 2: who she met up with is actually someone else we've
Speaker 2: spoken to. There were two cashiers at the Bearcat who
Speaker 2: we've talked to so far. The woman all call Cashier
Speaker 2: number one served the mysterious stranger who came in at
Speaker 2: around five forty five. She's the one who worked on
Speaker 2: the composite drawing with police. There was another cashier, we'll
Speaker 2: call her a Cashier number two now cashier too was
Speaker 2: working in the back section of the store where the
Speaker 2: video rentals happened for most of the night, but between
Speaker 2: seven and nine pm she worked the main register. After
Speaker 2: Donna came back to town. She met up with Cashier number two. Together,
Speaker 2: they rode around and looked for Christina Pipkin, and they
Speaker 2: both confirmed each other's stories.
Speaker 1: They said they never saw Rebecca Cotton that night.
Speaker 2: When I asked Donna what she thinks happened, she believes
Speaker 2: that maybe the police officers got her story mixed up
Speaker 2: with someone else's. This sounds crazy, but it's actually not
Speaker 2: that hard to believe, because even more disturbing than the
Speaker 2: wrong information Donna said the police included in that report
Speaker 2: was what she said they left out. Donna said that
Speaker 2: the next day after Christina went missing, she saw a
Speaker 2: stranger in a brown car near the area where.
Speaker 1: Christina's body was found.
Speaker 2: She is adamant, she said she described that person and
Speaker 2: that vehicle to the police, But there's no record of
Speaker 2: that brown car anywhere in the case file.
Speaker 1: So the question is where did the police get.
Speaker 2: The information about the person who supposedly saw Rebecca Cotton
Speaker 2: on the side of the road that night.
Speaker 1: And if that person wasn't Donna King, who was it.
Speaker 2: In the last episode, we talked about a couple of
Speaker 2: the names he keep coming up in this case, and
Speaker 2: I want to give you all an update. We have
Speaker 2: gotten more information about a friend of Robbie Tubbs, the
Speaker 2: man named Jackie. The person who I referred to is
Speaker 2: Jackie question Mark in last week's episode. Because we didn't
Speaker 2: know his last name, we were able to get his
Speaker 2: last name. I've been exchanging messages with a couple of
Speaker 2: different young women who told me that Jackie was, in
Speaker 2: their words, creepy and that he made her and several
Speaker 2: other young women very uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: I wanted to track Jackie down.
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask him questions about Robbie Tubbs and
Speaker 2: about what went on around the time.
Speaker 1: When Christina went missing.
Speaker 2: I wanted to know word Jackie and Robbie in or
Speaker 2: near Hickory Ridge that day. But I found out that
Speaker 2: Jackie passed away in two thousand and eight. Sadly, this
Speaker 2: is another dead end. The second cashier at the Bearcat
Speaker 2: who we talked to in the last episode, told us
Speaker 2: about the fear and panic that broke out in the
Speaker 2: town after Christina went missing.
Speaker 1: She described what the atmosphere was like the next day.
Speaker 3: I'm at work at twelve at Bearcat, and it was
Speaker 3: just horrific. Seeing it was horrific and how that awesome
Speaker 3: at the sun time, that so many people we're there,
Speaker 3: We're on the street, we're in the parking lot, we're
Speaker 3: you know, gathered together to try to you know, set
Speaker 3: up teams. You know, the community really came together.
Speaker 1: And she noticed the same thing that I noticed.
Speaker 2: She noticed that Charles Cotton seemed to have been very
Speaker 2: involved in the search for Christina Pipkins. She also found
Speaker 2: it out she said he wasn't someone who appeared to
Speaker 2: know the family well, and James had said he just
Speaker 2: met Charles Cotton through his neighbors.
Speaker 3: She may, I mean, I thought, is he really trying
Speaker 3: to make an incrusion? And it was just like gloved
Speaker 3: to the family, it seemed like. And I was just like,
Speaker 3: you know, of course we were all wanting to search
Speaker 3: and look absolutely, but I mean then I said, you know,
Speaker 3: candlelight Nis came down, there was a lot of publisty,
Speaker 3: and I just put it as you know, he was
Speaker 3: just wanting attention, and I didn't really you know, thinking
Speaker 3: much more about it.
Speaker 2: With help from some sources in town, I have mapped
Speaker 2: out the rest of Christina's neighborhood and there are other
Speaker 2: people who I would like to locate I have verified
Speaker 2: through multiple sources who were living in the neighborhood at
Speaker 2: the time, that Charles Cotton and his family were, contrary
Speaker 2: to what his wife Rebecca told the police, living in
Speaker 2: a house just a couple of doors down from the Pipkins.
Speaker 2: There was also another young family there. They lived in
Speaker 2: a trailer, They had several children, and according to the neighbors,
Speaker 2: they were only there for a few months. Apparently the
Speaker 2: family was from around Beadeville, the area near where Christina's
Speaker 2: body was found. Now people say this family was not
Speaker 2: around for a long time. They weren't sure of the
Speaker 2: exact dates. But I would like to know who those
Speaker 2: people were, and I would like to talk to them
Speaker 2: because if they left abruptly after Christina went missing, that's
Speaker 2: something we need to check out. We know from past
Speaker 2: cases that people who show up in town and leave
Speaker 2: shortly after a suspicious death need to be thoroughly vetted.
Speaker 2: And I want to go back and ask something that
Speaker 2: may seem obvious, But since part of this is investigating
Speaker 2: the investigation itself, we have to double check everything.
Speaker 1: We need to know.
Speaker 2: How can we be sure that Christina Pipkin drowned and
Speaker 2: how can we be sure that it was definitely not
Speaker 2: an accidental drowning. I want to take a step back
Speaker 2: for a minute, because there's been a lot of discussion
Speaker 2: during Christina's case about what we can learn from the
Speaker 2: limited facts we have without an autopsy report.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about drowning.
Speaker 2: According to report on NBC News, deaths by drowning are
Speaker 2: super challenging. They're among the hardest for investigators to prove.
Speaker 2: The way that medical examiners figure out that a death
Speaker 2: is by drowning is basically by the process of elimination.
Speaker 2: They have to rule out everything else. A lot of
Speaker 2: children drowned in the United States every year. According to
Speaker 2: a twenty twenty three article in The New Yorker, the
Speaker 2: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has listed drowning as
Speaker 2: the number one cause of death for young children, which
Speaker 2: they define as age one to four, and Arkansas has
Speaker 2: one of the highest rates of childhood drowning in the country,
Speaker 2: according to a study done by Quote Wizard, the third
Speaker 2: highest in the nation. Between twenty eighteen and twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: there were twenty five fatal drownings in Arkansas. Thirteen of
Speaker 2: those were children under the age of five. So how
Speaker 2: do we know if a body found in water did
Speaker 2: drown and if that drowning was intentional or accidental.
Speaker 1: In water, bodies tend to sink.
Speaker 2: First and then rise to the surface in warm, shallow
Speaker 2: water like at Cawlake Ditch as gases in the body
Speaker 2: accumulated from the decomposition process. This would have taken around
Speaker 2: seventy two hours. Christina's body was found three days after
Speaker 2: she went missing. Water investigations have come a long way
Speaker 2: in the past three decades. Now there are training seminars
Speaker 2: for investigators who are processing homicides that involve a body
Speaker 2: of water. There are a few different types of scenarios
Speaker 2: that can occur here. You have people who are killed
Speaker 2: on land and then dumped into the water as they
Speaker 2: are dead or dying, people who actually drowned in the
Speaker 2: body of water, and accidental drownings, and they all have
Speaker 2: some distinctive characteristics. We know that Christina could have accidentally drowned.
Speaker 1: Because she couldn't swim. That would have made sense.
Speaker 2: But the first question homicide investigators are told to ask
Speaker 2: is if the victim's location makes sense, and in Christina's case,
Speaker 2: it did not. It made zero sense that she would
Speaker 2: suddenly be miles away from home right before dark, when
Speaker 2: she had been hanging around very close to her house
Speaker 2: all day. But even though crime scene investigation techniques are improving,
Speaker 2: killers can still have a lot of evidence in pools
Speaker 2: of dirty water. I use a textbook for all of
Speaker 2: my investigations. I carried it around everywhere with me, so
Speaker 2: at this point it's kind of falling apart. But it's
Speaker 2: called Practical Homicide Investigations. I've talked about it before. It's
Speaker 2: by a former NYPD homicide detective named Vernon Gabirth. It's
Speaker 2: become the textbook that a lot of police departments used
Speaker 2: to train their detectives. In this book, he describes a
Speaker 2: lot of staged crime scenes involving drowning, and he has
Speaker 2: a lot of examples summer cases where the victim was
Speaker 2: drowned elsewhere like a bathtub, and then taken and dumped
Speaker 2: into the body of water. Remember, a lot of people
Speaker 2: thought this was what could have happened to Christina Pipkin,
Speaker 2: But we know the evidence in Christina's case indicates the
Speaker 2: mud and water found in Christina's lungs did match the
Speaker 2: water in.
Speaker 1: Cal Lake Ditch.
Speaker 2: I've also talked to a family member, and this person
Speaker 2: is attempting to access Christina's autopsy report. I hope that
Speaker 2: we can get access to that because there are a
Speaker 2: lot of things I think we could potentially learn. Among
Speaker 2: the questions I have are these. I want to know
Speaker 2: if there was any white foam present. It's called haemorrhagic
Speaker 2: edema fluid. This foam forms as a result of mucus
Speaker 2: from the throat mixing with water and blood. It's a
Speaker 2: major indication the person may have drowned, and we don't
Speaker 2: know from doctor Fawmi Malik the medical examiner's report if
Speaker 2: that was present.
Speaker 1: We do know.
Speaker 2: Doctor Malick said there were no signs of violence. He
Speaker 2: said he didn't find signs of a struggle, no bruising,
Speaker 2: no obvious signs of strangulation, nothing to show, for example,
Speaker 2: that someone held her head under water forcibly.
Speaker 1: But maybe there are other clues in the.
Speaker 2: Report, something that could tell us if she had less
Speaker 2: obvious signs, like the broken blood vessels, that could be
Speaker 2: indicative of strangulation. Also, I would love to know did
Speaker 2: Christina have anything in her hands. This could tell us
Speaker 2: if she was grabbing at some pointing for example, when
Speaker 2: she was in the water. If not, this could indicate
Speaker 2: she was unconscious when she went into the water. And
Speaker 2: I know that it's been a long time, but don't
Speaker 2: forget sometimes major breakthroughs can be made by a second look,
Speaker 2: even decades later. The NBC report had an example. The
Speaker 2: news channel talked about a case from Illinois where a
Speaker 2: woman had drowned in a bathtub and basically there was
Speaker 2: no sign of a.
Speaker 1: Struggle or forced entry.
Speaker 2: At first, it was ruled an accident, but eventually investigators
Speaker 2: brought a new pathologist in and that person found bruises
Speaker 2: on the victim's elbows, bruises that forensic testing had missed. Later,
Speaker 2: police focused on this woman's husband. They were able to
Speaker 2: find insurance policies that the husband had taken out and
Speaker 2: his wife.
Speaker 1: They eventually found a.
Speaker 2: Motive, but they wouldn't have even looked for that motive
Speaker 2: if they had not first gone back over the forensics.
Speaker 2: This is what I'm trying to do, both with the
Speaker 2: autopsy report and with the case file. But again, because
Speaker 2: the police reports were so vague, I've been really struggling
Speaker 2: with being able to verify concrete times in any part
Speaker 2: of this report, which brings me back to the very.
Speaker 1: Beginning of the case.
Speaker 2: One of the only things that we have a time
Speaker 2: for a definite time is that movie. And I've been
Speaker 2: thinking about that movie that James Pipkin was watching since
Speaker 2: this case started. In James's statement, he said on Saturday,
Speaker 2: May fourth, he said that he was taping the movie
Speaker 2: The Hunt for Red October and he was starting to
Speaker 2: watch it while it taped, and that during that movie
Speaker 2: he became concerned that Christina had not come home, and
Speaker 2: that's when he started looking for her.
Speaker 1: Let's take a step back.
Speaker 2: Let's track everyone who said they saw Christina Pipkin for
Speaker 2: sure that day, at least according to the police reports
Speaker 2: in the case file, after the family came back from
Speaker 2: their errands, Christina Pipkin was at her home on Doty
Speaker 2: Street by around four pm. That's when the Fords, the
Speaker 2: neighbors whose yard backed up to the Pipkins house, saw
Speaker 2: Christina playing out in her backyard. Shortly after that, Christina
Speaker 2: left the house to sell jewelry. She had her flyer
Speaker 2: showing the different types of jewelry people could buy with her.
Speaker 2: That's around when Elsie Liles, the Pipkins neighbor, and the
Speaker 2: person who sometimes babysat Christina, saw Christina and gave her
Speaker 2: a pickle as a snack. Christina ate the pickle and
Speaker 2: she left Elsie's house, telling Elsie she'd be back for dinner.
Speaker 2: Elsie said Christina never showed after leaving Elsie's. During that afternoon,
Speaker 2: Christina was walking around the area around the bear Cat
Speaker 2: in the bank.
Speaker 1: Again, this is a very small area.
Speaker 2: But a lot of people were coming through the main
Speaker 2: drag around then, because if you want to get cigarettes
Speaker 2: or snacks, the bear Cat was pretty much the only
Speaker 2: game in town.
Speaker 1: We know that.
Speaker 2: Around five forty five pm, the first cashier we spoke to,
Speaker 2: the one who was working the register for most of
Speaker 2: the day, said she he saw the stranger, the one
Speaker 2: who came into the store and looked a little like
Speaker 2: Richard Gear, the guy she later identified in a composite photo.
Speaker 1: She said that he came in to buy a pack
Speaker 1: of Warboro Reds.
Speaker 2: He parked his car, a brown sedan, not blue, as
Speaker 2: the police wrote in their report, way up on the sidewalk.
Speaker 2: Then he got in his car and left. The cashier
Speaker 2: said the stranger came and went just a few minutes
Speaker 2: after Christina and some other kids were walking through milling
Speaker 2: around the bear Cat grocery store. Christina was going to
Speaker 2: and from the area right around her house. At around
Speaker 2: five thirty, Ricky Dawson and his friend James Bashers, who
Speaker 2: were next door at the Moor's house, saw Christina on
Speaker 2: the porch of her house. By around six thirty, Christina
Speaker 2: was back at the bear Cat. That's when her math teacher,
Speaker 2: Miss Lamb, told police that she saw Christina and briefly
Speaker 2: talked to her sometime before dark, which was around eight pm.
Speaker 2: The other cashier, Umber two, the cashier we talked to
Speaker 2: who police never interviewed, said she saw Christina in the store.
Speaker 1: She said she knew for sure this happened before dark.
Speaker 1: She remembered the.
Speaker 2: Street lights were not on yet. Then Christina left. Frida,
Speaker 2: Christina's mom, told police she went to the Bearcat store
Speaker 2: at around seven thirty pm. She bought some groceries, hung
Speaker 2: around for a few minutes, and then went back home.
Speaker 2: After she got home and started cooking dinner. This is
Speaker 2: when James Pipkin said they started watching the movie The
Speaker 2: Hunt for Red October. They got worried that Christina hadn't
Speaker 2: come home, and Frida sent Christina's brother Adam out to
Speaker 2: look for her. When Adam came back and said he
Speaker 2: hadn't seen her, Frida left the house to look for her.
Speaker 1: But here's where it.
Speaker 2: Gets interesting, because James says in the police report quote,
Speaker 2: I got the VCR ready to tape the Hunt for
Speaker 2: Red October. The movie came on and I started taping it.
Speaker 2: I started getting worried that Christina had not come home yet,
Speaker 2: so we started looking for her. This was around eight
Speaker 2: pm end quote. This was one concrete time that we
Speaker 2: could sort of frame everything else around. So I got
Speaker 2: a little obsessed when figuring out what time this movie aired.
Speaker 2: Back in the nineties, before streaming services HBO and Cinemax,
Speaker 2: movies aired on a national schedule, it was broken into
Speaker 2: different time zones, but basically it was exactly the same
Speaker 2: air date around the country, so we should be able
Speaker 2: to verify that.
Speaker 1: There's just one problem.
Speaker 2: When I found the commercial for the movie on YouTube
Speaker 2: and an old.
Speaker 1: Guide for Red October.
Speaker 2: I found out that The Hunt for Red October aired
Speaker 2: in that region on Friday night, not Saturday, the day
Speaker 2: Christina went missing. So if that's true, James could not
Speaker 2: have been taping the Hunt for Red October on Saturday night.
Speaker 2: That movie aired on Friday night. He might have misspoken.
Speaker 2: He could have said he'd previously taped the movie and
Speaker 2: was watching it on Saturday. Maybe the police were wrong,
Speaker 2: But in that police statement he said a couple of
Speaker 2: times he was taping the movie, setting the VCR to
Speaker 2: tape it that night, he seemed to say he was
Speaker 2: watching the movie live as it aired. Now, maybe he's
Speaker 2: remembering Friday night instead of Saturday night.
Speaker 1: Getting mixed up again.
Speaker 2: Police did not interview James for several days after Christina
Speaker 2: went missing. But I do wonder and I would love
Speaker 2: to clear up that discrepancy. Frida went into the Bearcat
Speaker 2: store right before nine pm that night, and the second
Speaker 2: cashier who we heard from earlier said she vividly remembers
Speaker 2: Christina's mother walking into the store crying and saying she
Speaker 2: couldn't find her daughter.
Speaker 3: And then missus Pipton came in. She was crying and
Speaker 3: we said, well we go and put much set the
Speaker 3: registers down or they'll be glad to and said no,
Speaker 3: I just need to use the pay phone. The pay
Speaker 3: phone was like when you walked in the door, though
Speaker 3: you would make a right, direct right, and it was
Speaker 3: on the wall. There was a window, and then there
Speaker 3: was the pay phone, and then it started with the
Speaker 3: drinks and she ran to the phone and she called
Speaker 3: the police, and she didn't really That's when we heard
Speaker 3: or say my little girl's missing. I was like, oh
Speaker 3: my god, you know, we saw her just you know,
Speaker 3: a couple of hours ago. And I don't know why
Speaker 3: no one ever questioned me. Ever, at the time, I
Speaker 3: kept thinking mister Arnold would come and talk to me.
Speaker 3: No one ever questioned me.
Speaker 2: I find it shocking that there was no police interview
Speaker 2: with this cashier, this person who was one of the
Speaker 2: last people to see Christina alive. There's also no interview
Speaker 2: with the other cashier. The police report just said he
Speaker 2: had nothing of substance to offer the investigation.
Speaker 1: But I disagree with that.
Speaker 2: I think he could have seen something extremely important, even
Speaker 2: if he didn't realize what he was seeing at the time,
Speaker 2: and it's a shame we don't have a longer interview
Speaker 2: with him. So where do we go from here? There's
Speaker 2: still a lot of people who need to be checked
Speaker 2: out further. After speaking to Cashier number one, it seems
Speaker 2: very plausible that Robbie Tubbs could have been in Hickory
Speaker 2: Ridge that afternoon. A family member confirmed to me that
Speaker 2: Robbie does smoke Marlboro reds. We know that he drove
Speaker 2: a brown car, a sedan that matched the description of
Speaker 2: the one the cashier saw at the time, and most crucially,
Speaker 2: the cashier felt strongly that the photo of Robbie's she
Speaker 2: saw from back in the day looked like the composite
Speaker 2: drawing that she did with the police. Robbie Tubbs could
Speaker 2: have been the stranger who came into the bear Cat
Speaker 2: that night, but that's not enough for a definite ID.
Speaker 2: And even if it was, even if Robbie Tubbs was there,
Speaker 2: this is not proof that he did anything wrong.
Speaker 1: I want to be very clear about that.
Speaker 2: He absolutely could have been in that store for totally
Speaker 2: innocent reasons. We know that he had some ties to
Speaker 2: the area. He had his friend Jackie, who he went
Speaker 2: shelling with when he drove through there. He would often
Speaker 2: drop him in Waldenburg, which is near Hickory Ridge. At
Speaker 2: the time, Robbie and his wife Sandra lived near Pocahontas, Arkansas,
Speaker 2: and at the time Robbie had a girlfriend named Janetta.
Speaker 1: We've talked about that before.
Speaker 2: The route from Pocahontas to where Robbie went, Shelling passed
Speaker 2: right through Hickory Ridge. There's a route that would go
Speaker 2: right near his girlfriend's place and near the bear cat
Speaker 2: Robbie Tubb smoked, and there are not that many places
Speaker 2: to make a pit stop and buy cigarettes. I also
Speaker 2: wondered about the evidence. We've already talked a lot about
Speaker 2: everything that happened with the hair, the disastrous wrong testing,
Speaker 2: So now I'm wondering is there anything that police can
Speaker 2: do with the hair evidence that was so badly mishandled.
Speaker 2: We know forensic testing has improved a lot since nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety two. But then I take another look at the
Speaker 2: case file and I see a report dated March fifteenth,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three. In fact, it seems to be the
Speaker 2: only activity on Christina Pipkins case that's taken place in years,
Speaker 2: and it's not good news.
Speaker 1: According to the case file.
Speaker 2: In March of twenty twenty three, investigator Robert Scott of
Speaker 2: the Arkansas State Police contacted Dale Arnold, the original Arkansas
Speaker 2: State Police investigator on Christina's case. Robert Scott asked Dale
Speaker 2: Arnold about the hair sample Dale Arnold said he had
Speaker 2: already given testimony about it when the mistake was discovered.
Speaker 2: It seemed from reading the report like it wasn't something
Speaker 2: that Dale Arnold wanted to pursue further. Then, Robert Scott wrote, quote,
Speaker 2: Cross County Sheriff's Office investigator Boykinds pulled the case at
Speaker 2: my request and researched the evidence. Investigator Boykins was unable
Speaker 2: to find the hair recovered from the vehicle of mister
Speaker 2: Tubbs in the Cross County Sheriff's Office property room. Investigator
Speaker 2: Arnold stated he didn't know where the hair was.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I reviewed the case file on the custody of Cross County.
Speaker 2: No new information was developed. It is highly unlikely that
Speaker 2: the recovered hair could be used in a court proceeding
Speaker 2: due to the previous submission in the trial of mister
Speaker 2: Tubbs end quote.
Speaker 1: I knew it was a long shot.
Speaker 2: With this hair, but I can't help but feel devastated
Speaker 2: for Christina's family because what that means is that after
Speaker 2: that mistake at Robbie Tubbs's trial, the evidence, it seems
Speaker 2: was returned from the Arkansas State Police crime Lab to
Speaker 2: the Cross County Sheriff's Office, but it didn't stay there.
Speaker 2: Somehow it's missing. And this is where I really start
Speaker 2: to feel outraged, because it's not enough that they botched
Speaker 2: the testing. Now they've lost the hair, They've lost the
Speaker 2: one piece of physical EVA evidence that could be definitively tested.
Speaker 1: It's just shocking.
Speaker 2: Investigator Scott goes on to say that he and another
Speaker 2: investigator did reach out to Robbie Tubbs.
Speaker 1: Though they misspelled his name as Ronnie Tubbs.
Speaker 2: He said they have a last known address for Robbie
Speaker 2: at a motel in Sulfur Springs, Texas. I don't know
Speaker 2: if they don't want to find him or if they
Speaker 2: can't find him, but no further contact with Robbie Tubbs
Speaker 2: was recorded in the case file. I found Robbie Tubbs
Speaker 2: in about ten minutes. I saw on social media that
Speaker 2: he sometimes posts from his hotel room.
Speaker 1: And I really don't know.
Speaker 2: If the ASP don't feel they have enough evidence, they
Speaker 2: don't want to reach out, Maybe their jurisdictional issues, maybe
Speaker 2: they don't want to call Texas law enforcement with this.
Speaker 2: But either way, that recent report, plus the fact they've
Speaker 2: released the case file publicly tells us the police, in
Speaker 2: my opinion, are not actively investigating this case. After Christina's funeral,
Speaker 2: her parents, James and Frieda, moved away. Eventually they divorced again.
Speaker 2: I take no joy in re traumatizing anyone and digging
Speaker 2: up family trauma. But I believe that there are answers
Speaker 2: in this case that could be found, and they are
Speaker 2: not in this police case file.
Speaker 1: We have to find these people, We need to talk
Speaker 1: to them.
Speaker 2: We have to keep going back to that bear Cat
Speaker 2: convenience store on the night of May fourth, nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 2: and we have to zero in on the tiny little details.
Speaker 2: Now I'm zeroing in on one discrepancy. Christina's math teacher
Speaker 2: said when she spoke to Christina that Christina had her
Speaker 2: flyer for jewelry selling in her hand, but the cashier
Speaker 2: Cashier III, who saw Christina in the doorway of the
Speaker 2: bear Cat a little while later, said Christina did not
Speaker 2: have anything in her hands, and she remembered that because
Speaker 2: Christina kind of shrugged and she saw both of her
Speaker 2: hands go up and they were empty. So could Christina
Speaker 2: have left her flyer at home then come back to
Speaker 2: the store. If so, why was she coming back to
Speaker 2: the store if she was done selling her jewelry could
Speaker 2: she have seen someone she knew outside, maybe someone who
Speaker 2: offered her a ride, Maybe that person that already talked
Speaker 2: to Christina when the cashier saw her inside the door.
Speaker 2: Maybe their car was sitting outside right then.
Speaker 1: I am not giving up on this case.
Speaker 2: I'm going to work my way through the hundreds of
Speaker 2: messages I've received and keep reaching out and keep trying
Speaker 2: to get answers. I'm going to document every single interview
Speaker 2: that I have, and I'm going to turn over any
Speaker 2: helpful information I find to law enforcement and to the
Speaker 2: prosecutor's office.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to keep.
Speaker 2: Pushing for access to that autopsy report, and also to
Speaker 2: get any information that I can about Geneva Smith and
Speaker 2: Guardina Cross. Of course, we can never know exactly what
Speaker 2: will happen next, but I can promise, as always, I
Speaker 2: will keep working on this case in the background, and
Speaker 2: I will keep you posted. Most importantly, I'm gonna keep
Speaker 2: talking to people any one I can, because every time
Speaker 2: I do, with every new detail that I learned that
Speaker 2: was not in the case file or in any of
Speaker 2: the police reports, that potential window of time that someone
Speaker 2: had to kidnap and murder a little girl gets smaller.
Speaker 2: And smaller. We have to keep digging. 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.
Speaker 1: Music is by Ben Sale.
Speaker 2: Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Else Crowley.
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 n eight
Speaker 2: seven four four six one four five. Please don't forget
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