Speaker 1: School of Humans. Catherine Townshend, journalist, licensed investigator looking into
Speaker 1: the death of Rebecca Google that occurred in September around
Speaker 1: September twentieth, nineteen or twentieth, two thousand and four. I'm
Speaker 1: on the air with Gary Bridgeman, or as everybody around
Speaker 1: here calls him, Gary B. It's been about a month
Speaker 1: and we're getting the word out in a small town
Speaker 1: that means hitting local radio. Everybody listens to Gary B,
Speaker 1: including hopefully someone who knows something anything new about Rebecca's murder.
Speaker 1: In September of two thousand and four, twenty two year
Speaker 1: old Rebecca Gould was brutally murdered in a remote area
Speaker 1: of the Arkansas Ozarks. Fourteen years later, her killer is
Speaker 1: still out there. I've come back to Mountain View with
Speaker 1: one mission to get justice for Rebecca. I'm Catherine Townsend
Speaker 1: and this is Helen Gone. We're one month into our
Speaker 1: investigation and we've made a lot of headway. We've talked
Speaker 1: to Chris and JB, the guys who we've heard are
Speaker 1: the police's main suspects. But the physical evidence doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to point to a frenzied meth murder or to a
Speaker 1: sexual assault. The blunt forced trauma of the head indicates
Speaker 1: that someone killed Rebecca in a rage. The lack of
Speaker 1: defensive wound seems to indicate that there wasn't a fight beforehand,
Speaker 1: but the decomposition of her body could have hidden them.
Speaker 1: The one person we'd like to get in touch with, Jennifer,
Speaker 1: has left town for Florida, so we're back to looking
Speaker 1: for new potential leads. And that's why I'm sitting here
Speaker 1: in front of Gary B. Because if we can get
Speaker 1: the town talking, someone will say something that may give
Speaker 1: us the break we need. Catherine Township, Hello, Katherine. Hello.
Speaker 1: WRD Entertainment operates six radio stations covering everything from top
Speaker 1: forty to country and heavy metal, and Gary B plays
Speaker 1: on all of them, which means pretty soon everyone in
Speaker 1: town will hear this interview looking into the death of
Speaker 1: Rebecca Gould. Yes, Gary B has a silky, soothing voice
Speaker 1: that's made for radio. It matches his personality. He has
Speaker 1: a grandfatherly, caring and completely genuine manner that puts me
Speaker 1: instantly at ease. Even though the case we're discussing is
Speaker 1: disturbing as hell. I know things can get exasperating when
Speaker 1: you're investigating what kind of gets on your nerves about
Speaker 1: trying to follow up on a lead or something like that. Well, look,
Speaker 1: I think it's important to take a step back and
Speaker 1: remember that this is someone's daughter, someone's sister, someone's family member,
Speaker 1: and if it was your daughter's sister or someone in
Speaker 1: your life, you'd want someone to come home. If someone
Speaker 1: knew something, you would want them to come forth. I
Speaker 1: think that's a good way to look at absolutely absolutely,
Speaker 1: so that you know, the reluctance to come forward or
Speaker 1: kind of rock the boat has been a little bit difficult.
Speaker 1: And then also just the physicality just finding people, you know,
Speaker 1: as I said, I mean finding where they are, getting
Speaker 1: a hold of them. Also just getting them to understand
Speaker 1: that I'm not from here. I'm a journalist, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a female. It's just letting everyone know they can
Speaker 1: talk to me, and you know, I am here to help.
Speaker 1: She's here to help. She wants to talk to you.
Speaker 1: If you know something, or if you'd like to tell
Speaker 1: her something. Hopefully someone can come through that one piece
Speaker 1: of information that'll help solve it. And sometimes it only
Speaker 1: takes one piece that's right, that's right, so and you
Speaker 1: never know what that piece of information might be absolutely
Speaker 1: When a beautiful and popular local college student was murdered,
Speaker 1: it dominated the headlines, but as time passed with no
Speaker 1: new leads, the media coverage became scant. Rebecca's father, Larry,
Speaker 1: was determined to keep the case alive however he could.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and six, he was interviewed for an
Speaker 1: article written by George Jared and Ak Barnes that provided
Speaker 1: new details on the case. Several days after the story
Speaker 1: was published, an anonymous letter arrived at doctor Gould's house.
Speaker 1: Her father received a letter. He really thought it was
Speaker 1: the real deal. Yes, tell us a little bit about Dan.
Speaker 1: I have not seen the letter. I've heard about it.
Speaker 1: I know that someone claimed to have heard and in
Speaker 1: the college parking lot claimed to have overheard some people
Speaker 1: talking about murder. It's hard to say, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: hoping to see a copy, but based on what I've
Speaker 1: sort of seen and heard, it's really hard to say
Speaker 1: whether it's someone who was involved, or possibly maybe someone
Speaker 1: who was trying to stir something up, or you know,
Speaker 1: it's really hard to say. I can't really say too
Speaker 1: much because I haven't seen it. When I first showed
Speaker 1: up in town and started asking questions. A lot of
Speaker 1: people told me you're not the police, you have no power.
Speaker 1: In a way, they are right, But making people talk
Speaker 1: to you because you have a badge and making people
Speaker 1: want to talk to you two totally different skill sets.
Speaker 1: And I have always been good at getting people to
Speaker 1: tell me their darkest secrets. The radio station plays my
Speaker 1: interview three times in three days, and it doesn't take
Speaker 1: long for my Facebook and text messages to start lighting up. Dude,
Speaker 1: someone else anonymous text, gotta love it. What does it
Speaker 1: say if it's me? The woman who was on the
Speaker 1: radio today they replayed it again. Okay, I'm in love
Speaker 1: with the guys at Katieboozy Radio. They have been amazing.
Speaker 1: They got me on the radio, they made it a priority.
Speaker 1: They've replayed it three times now, Like I got to
Speaker 1: give them a big shout out. They're awesome. It's big
Speaker 1: news around here, and everyone knows people involved in this case,
Speaker 1: so it's like everyone's got a personal involvement. They've gone
Speaker 1: above and beyond, and they also put it in a
Speaker 1: slot that's like drive time when most people would hear it.
Speaker 1: And it's working. And I'm continuing to tell them, Hey,
Speaker 1: this is working. Because every single week we've gotten hits
Speaker 1: on that radio show, because it's right here in the
Speaker 1: community and everybody listens to it, and because it takes
Speaker 1: an hour to get anywhere in this town. Yeah, everybody
Speaker 1: in Melbourne Batesville area, like everyone in the morning is
Speaker 1: going somewhere. They're taking their kids to school or going
Speaker 1: to work. But the other fact that's been racing through
Speaker 1: my brain since the interview is that anonymous letter that
Speaker 1: has never been publicly released. It seems like a lead
Speaker 1: we need to follow, especially since it mentions a group
Speaker 1: of people who supposedly were talking about the murder of Rebecca.
Speaker 1: Could this be members of Rebecca's friend group or the
Speaker 1: female we've heard rumors about getting into fights with Rebecca.
Speaker 1: As I told Gary, I haven't seen the letter, but
Speaker 1: George Jarrett has. The letter came right after I had
Speaker 1: written a series. Actually i've written some see kind of
Speaker 1: the chronology was, you know, for the first little bit,
Speaker 1: maybe a year after she died, there was lots of
Speaker 1: media attention, even when I was in the backtor Bolton,
Speaker 1: I wrote about it, but then it just kind of
Speaker 1: went away, and then I was writing my book about
Speaker 1: the West Memphis three case, and I didn't know if
Speaker 1: I'd ever write more than one book, you know. And
Speaker 1: so the first editor, you know, who edited it, I
Speaker 1: was like, I included the Ford and he's like, this
Speaker 1: is a really good story, but it doesn't really belong
Speaker 1: with this this case that you're writing about. And I
Speaker 1: told him I don't care. I said, if I'm only
Speaker 1: going to write one book, I'm going to get this
Speaker 1: out one way or the other, because somebody, besides people
Speaker 1: who live in these three or four little counties in
Speaker 1: the middle of nowhere Arkansas, are going to find out
Speaker 1: about this case. And so I wrote the book and
Speaker 1: universally the comments I would get people would always ask
Speaker 1: me about that case. And then of course that led
Speaker 1: to me reconnecting with her dad, you know. And actually
Speaker 1: it happened right here in Hardy. I was at the
Speaker 1: library here, Jess mac come on do a book signing
Speaker 1: one Saturday. I was like, yeah, I'll come over there.
Speaker 1: I mean, I enjoyed doing them, you know, meet people.
Speaker 1: And this gentleman came up, you know. I pitched the
Speaker 1: book and at the very end I always pitched her story.
Speaker 1: And then I asked him, I said, did you want
Speaker 1: to buy one? He said yes, and I said okay,
Speaker 1: and he goes, well, I want to buy ten of them.
Speaker 1: I was like ten. Whatever I said to him, I
Speaker 1: need to say to everybody, you know. And as I
Speaker 1: folded over the first page, he took out a little
Speaker 1: ribbon with her face on it and he put it
Speaker 1: on the book and I had I hadn't seen him.
Speaker 1: I didn't recognize him. He was he had kind of
Speaker 1: had like a scruffy beard before. He's wearing a hat,
Speaker 1: you know, looking for his daughter. I mean, you understand,
Speaker 1: And I said, I know exactly who you are, and
Speaker 1: I got up. I shook his hand. Of course, we
Speaker 1: started hugging and started crying, but we reconnected and then
Speaker 1: we started really hitting hard. Doctor Glider received the letter.
Speaker 1: I believe he got it in a office. It was
Speaker 1: an anonymous letter. It had too it was either going
Speaker 1: to go to him or the return address was the
Speaker 1: FBI office in Little Rock. And in the letter, the
Speaker 1: person who wrote it claimed that they overheard a conversation
Speaker 1: at I believe it's ozarka college in Melbourne, between a
Speaker 1: couple of people, a female male, two or four people
Speaker 1: talking and you know, somebody said in quotes, we did
Speaker 1: that bitch, you know, and they were talking about Rebecca
Speaker 1: was pretty obvious. And then in the letter they gave,
Speaker 1: you know, some descriptions of what the people look like,
Speaker 1: and I didn't. I wrote about it, but I didn't
Speaker 1: include it in my latest book, and I didn't include
Speaker 1: it in the news stories. You know, the police are investigating,
Speaker 1: and you know that didn't want to tie it together,
Speaker 1: so I didn't want to impede their investigation in any way.
Speaker 1: It's important in investigations to not release every piece of
Speaker 1: information because you have to be able to compare and
Speaker 1: verify a new source. But I did want to make
Speaker 1: sure people knew that this letter was out there. And
Speaker 1: I read it, and I understand that the police think
Speaker 1: that it's it's a it's a false lead, But I
Speaker 1: read it. There was some sincerity in it. It looked
Speaker 1: like it had been written again. It looked like a
Speaker 1: woman had written it. It was uh, the grammar was good,
Speaker 1: you know, which you know, being a writer, you know,
Speaker 1: you just you see certain words put put together a
Speaker 1: certain way, and you and you can kind of tell
Speaker 1: the identity of the person writing it if you if
Speaker 1: you write every day, But it could be totally bogus.
Speaker 1: That's possible. It could be totally real. You know. I
Speaker 1: actually set him in the book. I said, if you
Speaker 1: wrote this, please identify yourself and come to the police
Speaker 1: and make a statement. I think that what happened was
Speaker 1: is this person who wrote the letter, if it's real,
Speaker 1: probably read a story somewhere that got out. I worked
Speaker 1: really closely with A. K. Barnes, the reporter over at
Speaker 1: Erowide Media. She's a really good friend of mine, really
Speaker 1: great human being by the way, and you know, we
Speaker 1: did stories together and we just hit it hard and
Speaker 1: then it just kind of died down again and at
Speaker 1: some point something it's just going to take one little crack.
Speaker 1: As it was so frustrating. I remember reading because I've meant,
Speaker 1: like a long time, I've done articles about it and stuff.
Speaker 1: And then and then when in twenty sixteen, whenever this
Speaker 1: your series of stories came out followed by the letter.
Speaker 1: When I read about the letter, I was like, thank God, like,
Speaker 1: maybe something will happen now, even if it's not real,
Speaker 1: maybe it'll get someone to talk, you know. But then yeah,
Speaker 1: and now nothing, and so now that no, we're here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're back, I mean literally, we're back. To where we
Speaker 1: were the day that they found our body. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's where we're at right now. It's becoming clearer and
Speaker 1: clearer to me that we need to find out who
Speaker 1: wrote this synonymous letter, and to do that, we need
Speaker 1: to see it for ourselves and mine it for any
Speaker 1: new clues. So we go back to Larry. I'm hopeful
Speaker 1: that now that we've gained his trust, he'll share it
Speaker 1: with us. Over the years, I would get things. I'd
Speaker 1: get phone calls here at my office. I would get
Speaker 1: some notes that were taken by my secretary on somebody
Speaker 1: that called about Rebecca's case, and then they'd scribbles some things.
Speaker 1: In some cases there would be a phone number and
Speaker 1: I could follow up. And in some cases I got
Speaker 1: written materials. So I'd get letters, or i'd get things
Speaker 1: sent to me. I can recall just offhand that I
Speaker 1: did receive a phone call, and I believe I talked
Speaker 1: to this girl and she was frightened. She wanted to
Speaker 1: get some information to me, and bits and pieces of
Speaker 1: that did get passed to me. Larry has several overflowing
Speaker 1: manila folders filled with notes from years of collecting tips.
Speaker 1: They are neatly laid out on the dining room table,
Speaker 1: next to his own murder board, and I see pictures
Speaker 1: of Rebecca with Justin Casey Chris, so much red string
Speaker 1: linking the various parties, And in one of those Manila
Speaker 1: folders we find the letter. Like George mentioned, it looks
Speaker 1: like it was written by a female. We won't read
Speaker 1: the entire letter in order to protect parts of the
Speaker 1: police investigation, but we can share parts that have already
Speaker 1: been made public. The writer claimed to have overheard a
Speaker 1: conversation at ozarka college in Melbourne between at least four
Speaker 1: people who were bragging about Rebecca's murder. The author said
Speaker 1: two women and a man approached another man with dirty
Speaker 1: blonde hair who was a student at the college. As
Speaker 1: they walked toward the parking lot. The writer said they
Speaker 1: overheard the mail student asking the other three did you
Speaker 1: get it. The three people told him that they killed
Speaker 1: her and dragged her through several rooms at the house.
Speaker 1: The alleged mail killer said blood was everywhere, and she
Speaker 1: put up a fight and screamed a lot. The letter
Speaker 1: contained specific descriptions of all of the people involved in
Speaker 1: the conversation. The letter writer apologized for not coming forward
Speaker 1: sooner and said they could identify those people. But because
Speaker 1: nobody has identified the writer, whatever knowledge they have remains
Speaker 1: a secret. If you just took that letter and spent
Speaker 1: some time on it, you'd probably be able to find
Speaker 1: the person that wrote it. And the person that wrote
Speaker 1: it definitely could have been able to and they even
Speaker 1: said that they could identify the people that just look
Speaker 1: at old pictures and probably put the faces to the
Speaker 1: description that was on there. I love to see somehow
Speaker 1: just get out to whoever wrote that one letter, if
Speaker 1: they could hear about it, and I mean possibly come forward.
Speaker 1: So what we've been doing is the Kat story got
Speaker 1: shared a lot, and it's all being shared people in
Speaker 1: that community, and then all these people are friending me.
Speaker 1: So it is becoming more hard to escape, I guess,
Speaker 1: you know, so I think so my point is, I mean,
Speaker 1: if there is someone who's a student, A lot of
Speaker 1: them were students at Ozarka too, So if there's if
Speaker 1: there are people who in that friend group a friend
Speaker 1: a friend, they're probably going to see it on Facebook.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's well, I think there's probably quite a
Speaker 1: few people that if they had access to that letter
Speaker 1: and that the description that that whoever wrote the letter provided,
Speaker 1: which was really well done. Yeah, that many people could
Speaker 1: probably say, oh, I know who this would have been. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and to come up with those individuals or maybe one
Speaker 1: or two that fit that description that would narrow it down.
Speaker 1: At one time, it's going to try to get into
Speaker 1: the people at Ozarka that were higher ups and try
Speaker 1: to get access to records. But then you're into areas
Speaker 1: where you're going to probably need some kind of permission
Speaker 1: or well, I'm sure I have a yearbook or a
Speaker 1: list of students. Yeah. Well, in the past, when certain
Speaker 1: things have been done to try to draw people out,
Speaker 1: a number of the people that I guess I would
Speaker 1: call suspicious or possibly suspects in my mind. Whether they
Speaker 1: are in law ENFORCEMNE, I don't know, but they would
Speaker 1: befriend the person that was out there. Yes, that's another complication.
Speaker 1: A lot of people will friend you for good reasons
Speaker 1: and some people will friend you to watch you. But
Speaker 1: either way it's good because then you can watch it's
Speaker 1: two ways, so you can see what they're doing too,
Speaker 1: and you can see who their friends are. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's good. I'm friending. I'm accepting all the
Speaker 1: friend requests right now. I can really feel the frustration
Speaker 1: in Larry's voice, and I can't say I blame him.
Speaker 1: Every time he gets a tip he is forced to
Speaker 1: go on an emotional roller coaster and reopen old wounds.
Speaker 1: I've heard from both George and Larry that the police
Speaker 1: think the letter is a red herring, but I can
Speaker 1: tell neither of them wholeheartedly believe that, and I'm not
Speaker 1: sure I do either. We'll be right back. It's the
Speaker 1: next day, and we tracked down Ak Barnes, who wrote
Speaker 1: the story that led to Larry getting a letter. I know,
Speaker 1: I'm not now. She works as a media teacher at
Speaker 1: the local high school. We meet in the hallway of
Speaker 1: the church she attends, and her son heads off to
Speaker 1: play in another room while we talk about Rebecca's murder.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, can you give me twenty minutes? Definitely? You
Speaker 1: always gotten closer than me. Ak is excited to talk
Speaker 1: to us. She believes in the power of media attention
Speaker 1: and thinks that this is the best way to bring
Speaker 1: Rebecca's killer to justice. Okay, so I started doing a
Speaker 1: cold case series at the paper. I've always been interested
Speaker 1: in in unsolved murders. I guess it's been watching Insolved
Speaker 1: mysteries growing up, perhaps, and so I was just asking
Speaker 1: around and I had done one on Sabrina Underwood in
Speaker 1: Fulton County. And then there's another lady who was actually
Speaker 1: Connie Townsend from I think israc County, Fulton County maybe
Speaker 1: was burn alive and her trailer. And then one of
Speaker 1: my coworkers had brought up George author George Jared, and
Speaker 1: brought that he had worked this Rebecca Gooul case, and
Speaker 1: they told me I should check it out, and so
Speaker 1: that all they knew was that the dad was a
Speaker 1: doctor in Mountain Home. So I just looked up Golden Out,
Speaker 1: Baxter County, Mountain Home, and I found him and left
Speaker 1: him a boy smiling, I kid you not like I
Speaker 1: think that was in the fall, and he did not,
Speaker 1: And I just wrote it off because I thought I'd
Speaker 1: never hear from again. And then Easter Sunday, the weirdest
Speaker 1: days ever for him to respond. He sent me this
Speaker 1: long text from Bora Bora about how he wants to
Speaker 1: work with me in this case and let me just
Speaker 1: hit the ground running, Bora Bora. I remind myself to
Speaker 1: ask Larry about that the next time we talk just
Speaker 1: the way that he has overcome so much, and how
Speaker 1: he's able to function. I don't know that I could
Speaker 1: function if I lost a child, let alone a child
Speaker 1: that was brutally murdered, and nobody will help me solve it.
Speaker 1: I don't know how he functioned. And you got this
Speaker 1: awesome story and then someone and then you know, then
Speaker 1: someone did write a letter. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Like he asked them to write a letter, and then
Speaker 1: someone wrote a letter, and we feel like we made
Speaker 1: such progress, Like that's the most progress we think we've made,
Speaker 1: just because all of us just finally got together and said, Okay,
Speaker 1: you know what, let's do this, let's solve this, and
Speaker 1: we got so far, and we were so hopeful when
Speaker 1: we got that letter. You can sense how hopeful she,
Speaker 1: George and Larry were when they got the letter. I
Speaker 1: still think someone it was a genuine letter. I don't know.
Speaker 1: George goes back and forth, but I think for the
Speaker 1: most part, we're pretty sure that was a genuine letter. Well,
Speaker 1: if I mean, if the letter is genuine, so who
Speaker 1: what do you think? I mean, do you have any
Speaker 1: theories about who killed Rebecca? What's your thoughts now? I
Speaker 1: think we all have our theories, and I think we
Speaker 1: all kind of speculate who did it, and I think
Speaker 1: the p I don't know. I do have my theories,
Speaker 1: don't I want to like say names, but I think
Speaker 1: I know who did it. AK like a lot of
Speaker 1: the town seems to think that there were multiple people
Speaker 1: involved in Rebecca's murder. She also seems sure that the
Speaker 1: letter is genuine, but I'm not convinced. It's just so
Speaker 1: hard because it's you just can't pinpoint one person because
Speaker 1: I think there were so many people involved in this.
Speaker 1: Especially in that letter really supports our theory that we
Speaker 1: already had. That's why it was so bizarre, because it
Speaker 1: was like totally backing the theory we already had. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the person is still anonymous. Do you have any theory
Speaker 1: about who wrote it or where they are? No? And
Speaker 1: we wish that they would come forward because it's not
Speaker 1: like we're gonna blast them to the press or blast
Speaker 1: them in the paper, like we just we just want
Speaker 1: to talk. I have so many people that it will
Speaker 1: tell me little hints or tell me something, and then
Speaker 1: I'm like, can you just meet with me and Larry
Speaker 1: and George for just a minute, and we don't even
Speaker 1: want to publish anything, and they're scared they won't do it. People,
Speaker 1: it's very hard, and you know, to get people to
Speaker 1: talk about this, and we just wish whoever wrote this
Speaker 1: would come forward. If anyone understands how hard getting people
Speaker 1: to talk about this case is, it's me. In many cases,
Speaker 1: we've had to just show up because if we call
Speaker 1: and ask, it's so much harder for people, or either
Speaker 1: we show up or we'll have to be introduced through
Speaker 1: a friend of theirs, because it's so hard when you
Speaker 1: call someone and just say you're from the press and
Speaker 1: you want to talk. It's like it's really hard, and
Speaker 1: people are scared. There's some scary people involved in this case,
Speaker 1: so especially since you don't know who it is, you
Speaker 1: don't really know who to trust and who not to
Speaker 1: trust because it could literally be anyone. And I'm sure
Speaker 1: we've seen them at this point and absolutely, and you
Speaker 1: know they're following your stuff, they're reading your stories, and
Speaker 1: they get spoofed out and then it's like a nope,
Speaker 1: contact order. They all just zip it. And I think
Speaker 1: we put some pressure on people, and I think people
Speaker 1: were starting to get scared because I would go through
Speaker 1: Sonic and people would make little comments be like you
Speaker 1: better be careful writing this article. I think the people
Speaker 1: who have done this are around or have ties here still,
Speaker 1: and they are still on their toes. I think they
Speaker 1: think it's died down, but it hasn't because now you
Speaker 1: guys are gonna bring it back up. Yeah, so now
Speaker 1: you're trying to fit some pressure on this story is
Speaker 1: like still my baby at the favor. So actually I
Speaker 1: could do an article on y'all. We totally you done
Speaker 1: to do it. We did some new stuff. We did
Speaker 1: a radio thing, I think because I feel like you
Speaker 1: guys made so much progress in breaking this and like
Speaker 1: and it's kind of everyone working together at this point
Speaker 1: because the more pressure we can put on these people, like,
Speaker 1: the better chance we're gonna have. I mean, I've had
Speaker 1: people who will give us enough information to kind of
Speaker 1: help us along. But I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: just want to be protected, and I think they don't
Speaker 1: want their name out there. I think they've tried to
Speaker 1: move on, which if somebody knows what happened, I don't care.
Speaker 1: If you are trying to move on, I don't care
Speaker 1: if you have recreated yourself this is your moral duty
Speaker 1: to come forward. But I mean at the same time
Speaker 1: I do. I stand by my word and I protect
Speaker 1: people when they want anonymity. There's a lot of people
Speaker 1: who know who did it, and that's what's just so
Speaker 1: crazy to me. I don't understand why this case can't
Speaker 1: get solved. I do not understand they spent twelve hours
Speaker 1: inside that trailer well, and in talking to these guys,
Speaker 1: it seems like we've heard a lot of stories. There
Speaker 1: are stories that make sense right, they fit together, and
Speaker 1: I don't understand they weren't able to piece this together
Speaker 1: when they have these people voluntarily talking to them. That's
Speaker 1: what I can't get. There's just so many also, that's
Speaker 1: been a big part of the challenge too, It's figuring
Speaker 1: out what's rumor and what's not. I think this little
Speaker 1: circle that did this, they have like this death pack
Speaker 1: and I've never seen anything like it. It's like the
Speaker 1: the bro Code or something. Nobody's breaking through this because
Speaker 1: they will not talk. Either they don't really know or
Speaker 1: they are just taking it to their grave. And I
Speaker 1: don't know. I'm just not built like that. I couldn't
Speaker 1: live with myself. This isn't the first time, I've heard
Speaker 1: rumors of an inner circle involved in Rebecca's death, a
Speaker 1: secret party, and a death pact. And if this group
Speaker 1: of killers does in fact exist, we're on their radar now.
Speaker 1: They're on my Facebook, they have my cell phone number,
Speaker 1: and they definitely know where I live. I know that
Speaker 1: I might be in danger, but I don't care. Am
Speaker 1: I crazy or just obsessed? It's probably a little bit
Speaker 1: of both. Do you get freaked out? Because when I
Speaker 1: was knee deep in these articles, like my imagination told
Speaker 1: me once, I was doing this on the Sabrina Underwood
Speaker 1: and I know who killed her in my mind, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, he's watching you right this through your window.
Speaker 1: He's gonna come kill you tonight. In my mind, I'm like,
Speaker 1: he's the murderer. Is onto me because I was putting
Speaker 1: all these articles out. You're looking at me like I'm crazy,
Speaker 1: Like you think they're following you or something they thought,
Speaker 1: And you know what, it's not entirely true. They all
Speaker 1: know where you live. I mean it's a small place.
Speaker 1: But what George saw me, he goes AKA, They're not
Speaker 1: gonna take you out, because if you're right in the
Speaker 1: middle of this case, they're done for and you're about
Speaker 1: to set you back in with you It's okay, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: We can all talk it out together. Yeah, if I
Speaker 1: can tell, like when you get into this one, I
Speaker 1: don't know what it is about this case. Ak is right,
Speaker 1: This case sucks you in. It's haunting that everyone thinks
Speaker 1: they know what happened, but they've reconciled themselves to just
Speaker 1: living near the killer. If we can find out who
Speaker 1: wrote this letter, we can get some insights about the
Speaker 1: leads it contains. We don't have many clues to go on.
Speaker 1: It's postmarked Little Rock. The return address was the FBI
Speaker 1: office in Little Rock, which seems like a pretty sophisticated move.
Speaker 1: As George pointed out, the letter had good grammar. It
Speaker 1: seems like the biggest clue as to the writer's identity
Speaker 1: is the handwriting itself. Reach out to a handwriting analyst,
Speaker 1: let me get your case. Okay. That's Nam Peterson. She
Speaker 1: specializes in graphology, which is identifying personality, traits, and other
Speaker 1: characteristics of a letter writer's personality through the strokes and
Speaker 1: patterns revealed by their handwriting. She looks over the letter
Speaker 1: to see if she can provide any details about who
Speaker 1: wrote it. I'm looking at where something you know, initial strokes,
Speaker 1: terminal strokes, placement on the page of word combinations, letter combinations,
Speaker 1: how they connect, spacing zone differences. You know, like this
Speaker 1: person they have a large mid zone. And what that
Speaker 1: means is like on the line paper, the lower case
Speaker 1: letters almost fill up. They're almost as large as the
Speaker 1: entire line, you know, between each line, there's not a
Speaker 1: lot of space between. I mean, it is true that
Speaker 1: when you're young, you have immaturity showing up in your handwriting.
Speaker 1: As you get older, you have graphic maturity, and then
Speaker 1: you decline. So with that being said, I see graphic
Speaker 1: maturity with this letter, with you know, this writing. But
Speaker 1: as to say age line, I just it's an adult
Speaker 1: as far as personality traits. To me, this is a
Speaker 1: person that is more immature than mature. They live in
Speaker 1: the moment. And that's because that mid zone is it
Speaker 1: is bubbly. Like you look at a teenager's handwriting, they're
Speaker 1: usually big and bubbly. And because they don't care about
Speaker 1: a year from now, they're looking at now Friday night.
Speaker 1: And so people that have this big, bubbly writing usually
Speaker 1: have money problems because they're never looking into the future
Speaker 1: because they're never planning for it. There's also the lower
Speaker 1: stem of the Y. See ow they're just straight, there's
Speaker 1: not a loop that goes back. That's usually a person
Speaker 1: that is very socially. They like to be by themselves.
Speaker 1: They don't really prefer a lot of company. They would
Speaker 1: prefer to be They're probably more introverted and large loops
Speaker 1: like in the D and the O. Like the OS
Speaker 1: are people are willing to take on more responsibility. So
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't see any efforts that the person
Speaker 1: did to disguise their writing. An adult but with the
Speaker 1: slightly immature personality more reminiscent of a team. Sounds like
Speaker 1: the letter writer could have been a student and money
Speaker 1: troubles in this part of the Ozarks that's nearly everybody.
Speaker 1: The handwriting tells us the writer wasn't trying to disguise
Speaker 1: their writing, which lends credence to the idea that the
Speaker 1: letter is genuine. But there are a few things about
Speaker 1: the letter that don't ring true. First of all, there's
Speaker 1: the timing. The letter was postmarked only a few days
Speaker 1: after the story came out, asking for help. This is
Speaker 1: really suspicious. July twenty first. That was the first article
Speaker 1: that came out, the one we just read where it said,
Speaker 1: you know, hey, please write me a letter at my office. Okay, Now,
Speaker 1: then a story comes out on August third saying they
Speaker 1: got a letter, right, I mean that's and I don't
Speaker 1: know what their deadline is either. It might even be
Speaker 1: like some of these papers are weekly. So you got
Speaker 1: to wonder if the story came out on August third,
Speaker 1: like when their deadline was. I mean that's literally like
Speaker 1: a couple days later they got a letter, you know,
Speaker 1: and the post office around here in exactly quick. So
Speaker 1: the two to three days it would take to get
Speaker 1: the letter, plus like the I don't know, it could
Speaker 1: be totally legit. Someone could have read that and been moved.
Speaker 1: But also what was the letter? July twenty first was
Speaker 1: the first and this is the story about the letter
Speaker 1: comes out on August the third. I wonder what day
Speaker 1: it actually. Let's find out, you know what, right while
Speaker 1: we're sitting here, let's find out when their deadlines are,
Speaker 1: so area wide media is published. It was a Thursday,
Speaker 1: all right. The story came out on August third, which
Speaker 1: was which was about two weeks later. In the story
Speaker 1: it says on Friday, which I guess will be the
Speaker 1: twenty ninth. George Jared, like Mark Hollingsworth, confirmed with George
Speaker 1: Jared that there was interest in the letter, so it
Speaker 1: had to be before. It had to be sometime that week,
Speaker 1: sometime between the twenty first and the following Friday at least,
Speaker 1: which is a pretty short period of time, literally right
Speaker 1: after the story came out that they sent it a
Speaker 1: day or two after. Secondly, the identification. The letter writer
Speaker 1: says that they recognized one of the people talking as
Speaker 1: a student at OZARKA. Now, if the author was organized
Speaker 1: enough to get this much detail and smart enough to
Speaker 1: figure out how to address a letter to the Arkansas FBI,
Speaker 1: it seems to me that on such a small campus
Speaker 1: they could have figured out that supposedly unknown student's name.
Speaker 1: It was said in the letter they were bragging about
Speaker 1: how they killed her and what she put up a fight,
Speaker 1: So she put up a fight, then that people would
Speaker 1: have marks on their faces on somewhere. Finally, and most crucially,
Speaker 1: the letter doesn't match the physical evidence found at the
Speaker 1: crime scene. The letter mentioned a knock down, drag out fight, which,
Speaker 1: from the limited knowledge we have so far, of the
Speaker 1: case does not seem to have occurred, so references to
Speaker 1: getting the stuff don't ring true. A small amount of
Speaker 1: marijuana and some money were left behind. Most importantly, we
Speaker 1: know from Danielle and Rebecca's friends that she was a
Speaker 1: spitfire who never backed down from a conflict. Now, I've
Speaker 1: replayed the morning of September twentieth, two thousand and four
Speaker 1: thousands of times in my mind, and in every scenario,
Speaker 1: no matter how afraid she may have been, if she
Speaker 1: saw people coming for her, Rebecca Gould would have gone
Speaker 1: down fighting. Trying to figure out what's real and what's
Speaker 1: not real is like a whole nother layer. It's really hard.
Speaker 1: It is really hard. Yeah, there's a lot that's hard
Speaker 1: about this. I mean one of the things that I
Speaker 1: was thinking about last night is the fact that you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm not a lawyer, but it's been very difficult
Speaker 1: because you're not allowed to say. There's never been a
Speaker 1: suspect named by the police. The police are giving out
Speaker 1: no information. They won't even really tell you who the
Speaker 1: people of interest are. I think they said a little
Speaker 1: bit about it at the time they named They said
Speaker 1: Casey was a person of interest at one point, but
Speaker 1: then it was very quickly reported that he was not
Speaker 1: a suspect, and then after that no official suspects were named.
Speaker 1: So it's difficult to even talk about the case because
Speaker 1: you don't want to get in trouble legally. And it
Speaker 1: really creates this just wall of silence. You can't talk.
Speaker 1: Everyone's whispering the names, everyone's texting me these names. You
Speaker 1: can't say they're a suspect, you can't say they're a
Speaker 1: person of interest. And it not only is bad for
Speaker 1: the investigation, it's also bad for these people because they
Speaker 1: never get charged, but they never get cleared either. And
Speaker 1: I feel like the investigation feels like it's at a
Speaker 1: real impasse. I feel like, you know, for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: the police have a very definite idea about who it is.
Speaker 1: Other people have a different idea. It just feels like
Speaker 1: it's at a place where it really might not get
Speaker 1: solved unless some radical new approach comes in. We've learned
Speaker 1: from the autopsy that there were no obvious defensive wounds
Speaker 1: on the body and no signs that she had been restrained.
Speaker 1: So who wrote this letter and why were they trying
Speaker 1: to help or to throw off the police? Could it
Speaker 1: have been written in an attempt to get media attention
Speaker 1: to support one of the other theories surrounding Rebecca's death,
Speaker 1: Or could it have been the killer stoking the town's
Speaker 1: rumor mill to continue to hide in plain sight. We'll
Speaker 1: be right back. Even after being on the case for
Speaker 1: a short period of time, I do sympathize with the
Speaker 1: police because just a week after being on the air,
Speaker 1: we're weeding through hundreds of texts, tips and false rumors.
Speaker 1: This is the one, the guy I talked to. I've
Speaker 1: recently heard some information you may be interested in Rebecca's
Speaker 1: Gould's boyfriend was my best friend since grade school. So
Speaker 1: this is the guy who was friends with Casey and
Speaker 1: called and said he again, I think he mentioned Chris
Speaker 1: and JB. And he said he knew someone at work
Speaker 1: who'd known them. Literally was one line, and it said
Speaker 1: it said look for a foot in a freezer in
Speaker 1: Israd County. That's all it said. It said, if you're
Speaker 1: looking into the Rebecca Gould case, look into a foot
Speaker 1: that's in a freezer in Israd County. And we pretty
Speaker 1: quickly discounted that because of course we'd seen the autopsy
Speaker 1: report and she was not missing. A foot. Yeah. There
Speaker 1: was also one of the things that Brian Bangs said,
Speaker 1: Brian kind of became my guy on the inside, and
Speaker 1: he kind of started interviewing people inside prison and was
Speaker 1: like asking people, Hey, have you heard about this murder?
Speaker 1: What do you know? And everybody seemed to have their
Speaker 1: own story, and Brian did mention, this is jail house gossip,
Speaker 1: and it clearly sounds like jail heu's gossip, because there
Speaker 1: was one that was like, yeah, somebody threatened to beat
Speaker 1: this guy up if he didn't keep his mouth shut
Speaker 1: because he found a toe and it was Rebecca's toe
Speaker 1: and again had all her toes. People told Brian that
Speaker 1: she had been held at a different location and like chained,
Speaker 1: chained up and held hostage on a mattress and all that. Anna,
Speaker 1: I really think that came from the very beginning of
Speaker 1: the investigation, because look, an expert looking from the outside
Speaker 1: reading an autopsy report, it's very obvious that whoever he
Speaker 1: hit Rebecca on the head and from the blood they
Speaker 1: found the scene, she was dead pretty quickly. She wasn't
Speaker 1: taken to a secondary location. None of the autopsy bears
Speaker 1: that out. But police said at the time that the
Speaker 1: mechanism of injury was created from the scene she had
Speaker 1: been forcibly removed from the residents. Of course, it wasn't
Speaker 1: her that was forcibly removed. It was her body that
Speaker 1: was forcibly removed. But with them saying that, I think
Speaker 1: people got ideas in their head that she might have
Speaker 1: been kidnapped. Tips are one of the things that make
Speaker 1: investigations so challenging. Some can contain a grain of truth
Speaker 1: while others are red herrings. But like I told Gary b,
Speaker 1: no piece of information is too small. Oh all right,
Speaker 1: just heard you on KWOZ with Gary and I just
Speaker 1: wanted to let you know that on that Saturday, on
Speaker 1: the weekend, Rebecca was killed. And not sure what time
Speaker 1: it was, but it was in the afternoon. There was
Speaker 1: a little dark blue car with a guy and a
Speaker 1: woman that came by and went up to the barn,
Speaker 1: right past the trailer. The guy got out, and I
Speaker 1: thought he was going to use the bathroom, but he
Speaker 1: went to the back of the car, put on like
Speaker 1: jogging pants and got a weedied her out and weeded
Speaker 1: it a little bit. Rebecca came out on the porch
Speaker 1: when they drove back by and stopped and she went
Speaker 1: to the end of the porch and said did you
Speaker 1: get it done? And he said yes, and they drove off.
Speaker 1: They had Texas tags on the car. Then a little
Speaker 1: while later, Rebecca came out to her car, opened the
Speaker 1: door and got something out and went back inside the trailer.
Speaker 1: She was wearing a gray tank top and a pair
Speaker 1: of gray sweatpants. We did tell the Arkansas State Police,
Speaker 1: and not sure it has anything to do with anything.
Speaker 1: It was just really strange because he only weedied for
Speaker 1: maybe about fifteen minutes or so, not long at all,
Speaker 1: and it was where the old barn is. Just thought
Speaker 1: it was strange. Never seen the guy before. He yet
Speaker 1: black hair and was young looking, couldn't really see the woman.
Speaker 1: So is this person lying? Is this the is this
Speaker 1: the killer? Or like what is trying to deter us?
Speaker 1: Like what is this? You know, it sounds the tip
Speaker 1: itself if you don't think about that part sounds kind
Speaker 1: of credible because it's why would you say, I mean,
Speaker 1: if you were trying to make something up, you'd say,
Speaker 1: you know, you got out of the back of the car,
Speaker 1: got a knife or whatever, but or you'd say you
Speaker 1: recognize somebody. But to say someone got out of the car,
Speaker 1: put on jogging pants and started weed eating. Seems like
Speaker 1: something random to make up. I did look into the
Speaker 1: Texas connection, and there are a couple cars with Texas
Speaker 1: plates owned by different members of Casey's family because some
Speaker 1: of them live there. So that's not necessarily weird. I
Speaker 1: mean it might be, you know, I get that it's Melbourne, Arkansas,
Speaker 1: and there's not that many out of state plates, but
Speaker 1: in his particular case, it doesn't seem that strange. And
Speaker 1: they said not sure I could pick him out. But
Speaker 1: his hair was short, black, and he was tan skin,
Speaker 1: not black or his span. It just looked tan. The
Speaker 1: lady was white, and she never got out. We had
Speaker 1: never seen that vehicle, and I just thought it was weird.
Speaker 1: And they had Texas tags. When Rebecca came out and
Speaker 1: asked if he finished whatever I think she means. When
Speaker 1: Rebecca came out of the house and asked if it
Speaker 1: was done, she acted like she knew him and seemed fine.
Speaker 1: You know what's weird about that, though, Taylor, do you
Speaker 1: remember the letter? So in the letter, remember how whoever
Speaker 1: wrote the letters said it was made a point of
Speaker 1: several times saying tan skin, which I thought was odd.
Speaker 1: A lot of people seemed absolutely sure it was Jennifer
Speaker 1: and possibly Justin. Probably just as many seemed absolutely sure
Speaker 1: it was Chris and JV. To sift through these tips
Speaker 1: and figure out our next steps, Taylor and I take
Speaker 1: another look at the murder board. There's an odd similarity
Speaker 1: between the person who wrote the letter and this tip.
Speaker 1: Could this tip be from the author of the letter,
Speaker 1: or is there a new person we need to be
Speaker 1: looking for with black hair and tan skin. As I said,
Speaker 1: the flood of tips is both extremely helpful and extremely frustrating.
Speaker 1: At this point, I think the letter is most likely bogus.
Speaker 1: The timing is it's just too convenient, and the description
Speaker 1: doesn't match what we know about the crime scene. I
Speaker 1: still want to talk to Jennifer, but the group theory
Speaker 1: is looking less and less likely, and according to Justin
Speaker 1: and the police, she had an alibi the day of
Speaker 1: the murder. According to what we've heard from several police sources,
Speaker 1: whoever killed Rebecca most likely knew her, someone she knew
Speaker 1: well enough to be comfortable hanging around in her underwear
Speaker 1: and pajama top. That's not likely in a group setting.
Speaker 1: It seems like it would be someone she trusted someone
Speaker 1: who was able to get close enough to her so
Speaker 1: that she never saw the first blow coming, someone who
Speaker 1: knew about the loose piano leg. We look over the
Speaker 1: murder board. The names on post its Rebecca, Chris, jb Justin, Jennifer,
Speaker 1: and Casey. I look at Casey's photo on the wall.
Speaker 1: He's the only person who has been officially ruled out
Speaker 1: as a suspect by the police. But at this point
Speaker 1: I can't eliminate anyone. We need to find Casey and
Speaker 1: figure out if his alibi for September twentieth, two thousand
Speaker 1: and four is really as errortight as the police say
Speaker 1: it is. I'm Catherine Townsend and this is Helen Gone.
Speaker 1: Helen Gone is a joint production between How Stuff Works
Speaker 1: in School of Humans. It is written and recorded by me,
Speaker 1: Catherine Townsend. Taylor Church is our producer and story editor.
Speaker 1: Audio editing and designed by Jonathan Sleeve Mix and Glenn Mattulo.
Speaker 1: Audio mixing and love by Tunewelders. Executive producers Brandon Barr
Speaker 1: and Else Crowley for School of Humans and Connell Byrne
Speaker 1: and Chuck Bryant for How Stuff Works. Our field producer
Speaker 1: is James Morrison. Our researcher is Sandy Klosterman. Themon original
Speaker 1: score by Ben Solee available wherever you get your music.
Speaker 1: To dig into the investigation, please visit helengonepodcast dot com
Speaker 1: or follow us on social media. School of Humans