Speaker 1: School of Humans. We're ever going to get the right person.
Speaker 1: Knowing where everyone was is getting to be really important,
Speaker 1: That's what I would say. So we have several issues
Speaker 1: we need to clear up with Casey's timeline. Exactly when
Speaker 1: did he leave work on Monday, how did he get home,
Speaker 1: and did he go home on Tuesday to change before work,
Speaker 1: and if he did, how did he miss the mess
Speaker 1: of the crime scene. If we're going to get to
Speaker 1: the bottom of this, we need to find some of
Speaker 1: the people who were working at Sonic on the Monday
Speaker 1: Rebecca disappeared. Taylor has been texting one of our local
Speaker 1: contacts who was working at the Sonic around the time
Speaker 1: Rebecca was killed. They mentioned a story we have also
Speaker 1: heard from multiple people that Casey had gone home between
Speaker 1: leaving work on Monday and returning to work on Tuesday.
Speaker 1: This person claims to be in communication with a couple
Speaker 1: of other people who allegedly spoke to Casey about this.
Speaker 1: If we could find a way to absolutely verify this information,
Speaker 1: it could be a game changer. His story was consistent
Speaker 1: in the beginning that he did not go home right,
Speaker 1: So if we can even if he did, even if
Speaker 1: we get him to admit, yeah, I went home to
Speaker 1: change shirts, or we find someone who can absolutely verify
Speaker 1: that he said that, that he mentioned going home to
Speaker 1: change shirts, or that the timeline was a little weird.
Speaker 1: That right there is enough to reopen the investigation because
Speaker 1: he was, by Charlie's own words, suspect number one. Charlie
Speaker 1: was the first officer on the scene. He was the
Speaker 1: one who found the blood in Casey's house, and the
Speaker 1: reason they ruled him out was because of his airtight alibi.
Speaker 1: If we could quite poke a hole in that, then
Speaker 1: they've got it. They got to take another look. They
Speaker 1: have to, like, I really just want to talk to
Speaker 1: these people who were working at Sonic. I just want
Speaker 1: to know how he got home, when he went home,
Speaker 1: and if he actually did go home. In September of
Speaker 1: two thousand and four, two year old Rebecca Gould was
Speaker 1: brutally murdered in a remote area of the Arkansas Ozarks.
Speaker 1: Fourteen years later, her killer is still out there. I've
Speaker 1: come back to Mountain View with one mission to get
Speaker 1: justice for Rebecca. I'm Catherine Townsend and this is Helen Gone.
Speaker 1: We're over two months into our investigation and Taylor and
Speaker 1: I stepped back to look at the whole murder board.
Speaker 1: So far, so many threads, so many dead ends, so
Speaker 1: many post it notes. As I trace the line spider
Speaker 1: webbing from picture to picture, I see many of the rumors, accusations,
Speaker 1: and same questions that the town won't let go of.
Speaker 1: We've followed a lot of leads and investigated a lot
Speaker 1: of the rumors that we've heard in town, and by
Speaker 1: following the evidence, we've eliminated a lot of them as
Speaker 1: likely sos JB, Chris, Jennifer, the group theory, hundreds of
Speaker 1: other names we've heard, but we're having a harder time
Speaker 1: with Casey. Ironically enough, the first and only person that
Speaker 1: the police have cleared. Like I said in the beginning,
Speaker 1: everyone in this case has at least two sides. Is
Speaker 1: Casey the sweet, caring boyfriend who is head over heels
Speaker 1: for Rebecca that his friends describe, or the care bear
Speaker 1: psycho that Danielle talked about. I get a call from
Speaker 1: someone who has been following the case and the podcast.
Speaker 1: He dated Rebecca shortly before her murder and had an
Speaker 1: interaction with Casey that he can't get out of his head.
Speaker 1: An ex boyfriend could have an ax to grind, so
Speaker 1: we have to check his story carefully, but a quick
Speaker 1: call with Danielle, Rebecca's sister, confirmed that he did date
Speaker 1: Rebecca and also confirmed a lot of the details. He mentions, well,
Speaker 1: and at a club, it's no longer open and fathful,
Speaker 1: and a girlfriend of mine introduced me and are together.
Speaker 1: We dated for I guess it was like three or
Speaker 1: four weeks. Probably it was like a month or two
Speaker 1: before she got killed. I thank our first date was
Speaker 1: pretty much like I went to we were going to
Speaker 1: go lix store, have a few trains, and you know,
Speaker 1: it was just hanging out and it was me and
Speaker 1: her and her sister and her sister at their house. Well,
Speaker 1: we left and we went to one liquor store and
Speaker 1: it was sposed, so we went to the other one
Speaker 1: and it was both. So we ended up just drinking
Speaker 1: what we had. I mean, because that's the others today. Back,
Speaker 1: I was like my backgrounds and drank beer. Like most
Speaker 1: of the men in Rebecca's life, he was smitten, but
Speaker 1: it didn't take him long to realize their relationship could
Speaker 1: not go further because there was someone causing drama in
Speaker 1: Rebecca's life, and that someone was Casey Casey was not
Speaker 1: like he was just apparently she had like slipped him
Speaker 1: one time and he just was like blisk and she
Speaker 1: just wanted to be friends. Well he had like showed
Speaker 1: up there just out of the blue, but he I
Speaker 1: ended up being like civil whipping and stuff. And at
Speaker 1: the end of the night we were all getting ready
Speaker 1: to like to go to bed and stuff, well he
Speaker 1: was just standing like he would not leave, just not leave.
Speaker 1: It was like very uncomfortable, and like they like went
Speaker 1: outside and talked for a second. Like he was just
Speaker 1: falling and crying and just like emotionally just straw over everything.
Speaker 1: Like I was fixing on leave. I was just like,
Speaker 1: screw this, I'm going back home. I ain't got time
Speaker 1: to deal with this trauma. And I was like, your
Speaker 1: boy out there is fixing the freak out and if
Speaker 1: he comes in there starting anything, then on the handle.
Speaker 1: And he's like, no, I'll take care of it. If
Speaker 1: he does, he'll be fine. I was like, here he is,
Speaker 1: you know, acting the pool. I'm like, look, man, I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna shut you down right now. Like if you
Speaker 1: can want to go, we can go. Otherwise you need
Speaker 1: to keep your mouth shut because you don't found me, Like,
Speaker 1: I mean, she was like all the time, he was
Speaker 1: like constantly showing up where she was, wanting to know
Speaker 1: where she was, Like I just wanted to know where
Speaker 1: she was at twenty four seven, just controlling, and I
Speaker 1: guess he had done that to a couple other people
Speaker 1: and they didn't really want to like put up with
Speaker 1: it or deal with it, so they just kind of
Speaker 1: like backed off. But every time we was together, he
Speaker 1: was constantly pulling her phone up, like messaging her like
Speaker 1: where are you at, what are you doing? Who you with?
Speaker 1: I mean, it was just it was just not very
Speaker 1: overly possessive of her for them just being friends, which
Speaker 1: I know she stayed with him on and off, but
Speaker 1: she would say there because it was close to where
Speaker 1: she worked and she didn't have to drive all the
Speaker 1: way backs nowt but there, I mean, he was just emotional,
Speaker 1: like just I mean he falled and cried like he
Speaker 1: or three times, you know that, not like once whenever
Speaker 1: he had got there and like found out that me
Speaker 1: and her was actually going out, you know, somewhere and
Speaker 1: doing something. And then at the end of the night,
Speaker 1: like when they went out by it was just he
Speaker 1: was just like falling in crime and just I mean
Speaker 1: I just kind of let it go and I was
Speaker 1: just like, Okay, you know, it was nice meeting you
Speaker 1: out talking with you. Things don't work out. A holler
Speaker 1: at me, and I just kind of left at the back.
Speaker 1: I was like a month or two later, you know,
Speaker 1: everybody had work knew that I me and her were
Speaker 1: somewhat dating. That was like, hey, you know her boyfriend
Speaker 1: and like her boyfriend like she was with Casey. I
Speaker 1: was like, that's our boyfriend. And she's like, well she's missing,
Speaker 1: and I'm like what. Just his demeanor and everything, like
Speaker 1: he's controlling. You can tell he's just really that sheid
Speaker 1: when she looked up to the way her dad was
Speaker 1: and like what he had and what he had accomplished,
Speaker 1: and like, you know, she's like, I want to be
Speaker 1: successful in my life. I want to do this, I
Speaker 1: want to do that. Like she had so much schedules
Speaker 1: and dreams and ambition. She was just stuck between that
Speaker 1: babe of like growing up and you know, actually accomplishing
Speaker 1: things and doing things that she wanted to do, and
Speaker 1: then being stuck into you know, being young dom and
Speaker 1: you know, having fun. As he talks about a relationship
Speaker 1: with Rebecca, a picture of what she was going through
Speaker 1: at the time of her murder begins to emerge. Rebecca
Speaker 1: was trying to play down her relationship with Casey. She
Speaker 1: thought of Casey as a friend with a crush. He
Speaker 1: was her past, not her future. He's also like very
Speaker 1: shy and timid, right, you know, like his personality, like
Speaker 1: I mean he's going to be loud about something like
Speaker 1: he was that night, and then once I shut him down,
Speaker 1: he was just like, Okay, I don't want to cross
Speaker 1: them lines because you know, I don't think he's in
Speaker 1: enough fire or anything whve either. And I mean I
Speaker 1: wasn't too worried about him because he was very you know,
Speaker 1: shining timid. You know, I deal with the ex strama
Speaker 1: before with you know, other people that I tell you,
Speaker 1: and I just wasn't really wanted to deal with that.
Speaker 1: I even think I went up to sing It one
Speaker 1: time after we started dating to talk to him, and
Speaker 1: he wouldn't come out and talk to me because the
Speaker 1: guys from Mark would go up there and eat and stuff.
Speaker 1: And I guess he had been up there running his
Speaker 1: mouth about me, saying he's going to beat my at
Speaker 1: and just done this and he was gonna have at
Speaker 1: and one day after work, I just went up there
Speaker 1: and I was like, hey, you in, we got a problem.
Speaker 1: He's like no, and he's just running right back inside.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just want to see something that I
Speaker 1: can't believe it's just gotten. I mean, it just kind
Speaker 1: of got very like you heard a lot about it
Speaker 1: when it first happened, like she was missing, everybody find her.
Speaker 1: And then once they found her, it's like everything just
Speaker 1: kind of went hush hush, like they didn't release no information.
Speaker 1: They didn't. Really. The only thing that I remember them
Speaker 1: releasing was that Casey had been clear. That's the only
Speaker 1: thing that's absensive as he was, is she left like
Speaker 1: he's supposed like they say he's supposedly she's supposedly left
Speaker 1: and went to college and he didn't hear from her,
Speaker 1: and he would be flipping out that night. He wouldn't
Speaker 1: be out partying and drinking. I' tell you that right now,
Speaker 1: just from his demeanor. He's not going to be out
Speaker 1: partying drinking and be like, oh you know, I mean
Speaker 1: because obviously he went home the next day, you know whatever.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's me, it's just don't it don't make sense.
Speaker 1: Wish you the best and just you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: just be careful of the people that you're around up there.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just a bunch. I mean, it's such
Speaker 1: a small town. I really wish I could get Casey
Speaker 1: to talk. We have two questions that need answering. One
Speaker 1: did Casey go home at any point between the murder
Speaker 1: and work the next day? And two, how did Casey
Speaker 1: get to his friend's house after work? We need to
Speaker 1: lock in what Casey was doing on the day Rebecca
Speaker 1: was murdered, because we're hearing conflicting stories about his timeline
Speaker 1: and his relationship with Rebecca. But one of his co
Speaker 1: workers must know something, so we focus on tracking down
Speaker 1: one of Casey's friends who also worked at Sonic, the
Speaker 1: same friend he was out all Monday night with Laren.
Speaker 1: He was pretty easy to find because it's not like
Speaker 1: Laren is a common name in the area. He suggests
Speaker 1: meeting at a Starbucks and Little Rock near where he lives.
Speaker 1: I didn't talked to him a couple of years. When
Speaker 1: my mom's always like, I saw Casey at the Dollar Story,
Speaker 1: and when I'm doing well, he's yeah, he's married now, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Laren is huge, six foot nine. When he smiles, he
Speaker 1: looks like the kind of guy I would want to
Speaker 1: have a beer with. But he's also very physically intimidating.
Speaker 1: And then once we started working together, me and Casey
Speaker 1: got real close. There's history there with basketball, and then
Speaker 1: music was what me and Casey were, you know, we
Speaker 1: really connected about right, he was what he was, but
Speaker 1: he was a great musician, and I love music, and
Speaker 1: you know, I wasn't so inclined at the time. But
Speaker 1: what we're Rebecca in Casey like was a couple of
Speaker 1: I'm a very lovely dovey, I'm very just sickening, you know,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing, like if you did yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and gosh they and it was, like we said, we
Speaker 1: were like be guarded because he seemed more in her
Speaker 1: than she wasn't him just being honest, you know, But
Speaker 1: she also seemed like she was just trying to start fresh,
Speaker 1: like she was trying to get away from all that shit,
Speaker 1: and she really was that they as a couple, they
Speaker 1: were just doinggether. I mean, I can't even that's what
Speaker 1: I sink. Trying thing yesterday too, Like my mind's been
Speaker 1: racing for the last twenty four hours trying to remember
Speaker 1: like little stuff, and you know, I can't. I couldn't
Speaker 1: remember how long they've been together when that happened. I
Speaker 1: can't remember. I can't remember when I was told that
Speaker 1: she had been murdered, like where I was or what
Speaker 1: we was doing. I remember the investigators and then I remember,
Speaker 1: you know, of course, you know, us trying to you know,
Speaker 1: minute by minute break down the day the day before.
Speaker 1: What did the investigators asked, Bess, you know, like, what
Speaker 1: what did you guys do? They were more interested and
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure having all of us sit down and
Speaker 1: went that night and telling them the story or make
Speaker 1: sure it wasn't something that we were blowing smoke or whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, because it took them a little while to
Speaker 1: get the camera and the receipts and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: They were more about the night, you know, wanting to
Speaker 1: know where case he was, did he ever leave at anytime?
Speaker 1: You know, did stuff like that? You know, and you know,
Speaker 1: obviously we all slept that night eventually, so I mean
Speaker 1: that was another thing. It's that I like, is it
Speaker 1: possible that I could have got up in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night, left my house and then come back
Speaker 1: in the amount of time that we were asleep, and
Speaker 1: I just don't think it was possible. All of us
Speaker 1: had pretty loud vehicles, and at my place, we'd like
Speaker 1: to be able to hear people coming and going. We
Speaker 1: were always praying touch and that's another thing. They were like,
Speaker 1: you do. They're like, look, we're like, just be transparent.
Speaker 1: We don't give a shit about weed. We're not trying
Speaker 1: to bunch a bunch of teenagers mo weed, like you know,
Speaker 1: obviously we're trying to you know. Yeah, we uh, we
Speaker 1: all had a good time together. But it was God.
Speaker 1: So I just one more time. That was so the
Speaker 1: day of the day was not happened Monday, So you
Speaker 1: guys left work that was on Monday. When we got home,
Speaker 1: we would have watch wrestling Man, so we would have
Speaker 1: probably been up a little later. See, wasn't with you guys?
Speaker 1: Then you wrote with Philip, I think so, I think
Speaker 1: because I don't think the car at the time. I know,
Speaker 1: I know, for whatever reason, he was without vehicle. Where
Speaker 1: was Casey's truck? And if Rebecca drove him to work,
Speaker 1: how was he planning on getting home? I remember specifically
Speaker 1: didn't have vehicle because when we got back home and
Speaker 1: he started saying like, man, I can't get ahold of Rebeck.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of worried about it. We were all like, dude,
Speaker 1: let's just go to bed. She's fine, because we would
Speaker 1: have had to taste, which we probably should have, or
Speaker 1: maybe we would have walked in and got murdering on it.
Speaker 1: Do you remember what time y'all went to bed that night?
Speaker 1: It seemed like we watched a normal like seven o'clock movie,
Speaker 1: came back when we probably did our things. We uh,
Speaker 1: probably midnight one. I mean, it's a normal night. I'd
Speaker 1: have to just guess on a normal night, because I
Speaker 1: you know, I was he like, he seemed totally normal
Speaker 1: that night or no, I don't think like because, like
Speaker 1: I said, it seemed like, see, this is the part
Speaker 1: where it's like I don't I'm just trying to remember
Speaker 1: it that way or if that's the way it was.
Speaker 1: But it seemed like there was like an understanding that
Speaker 1: she was about to have a confrontation that was gonna
Speaker 1: be something that she was that He was like, I
Speaker 1: hope it goes well. Something like that kind of looming, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, she had some things she had to take
Speaker 1: care of, that's why she had the truck, and she
Speaker 1: was gonna try to I don't know that, and I
Speaker 1: don't want to say that, and then that be you know,
Speaker 1: the off. But I feel like that's what I remember.
Speaker 1: Laren doesn't remember a whole lot. And to be fair,
Speaker 1: it has been fourteen years. In my experience as an investigator,
Speaker 1: people tend to remember specific detail around crucial events in
Speaker 1: their lives. But Monday started out. It's just an average day.
Speaker 1: There's no way I could say intelligently who worked No
Speaker 1: fair enough, I mean, is there any way like if
Speaker 1: one y'all wanted to take time off during the day,
Speaker 1: you could have I mean all the time, like hey
Speaker 1: I need to go run do something. I'm sure we
Speaker 1: were all really close. So if it was like I
Speaker 1: need to go do something, sure whatever. You know what
Speaker 1: time did Casey finish? Usually at some point he went
Speaker 1: to just days, like he didn't want to work nights anymore.
Speaker 1: But that was the nature of the store. Was like
Speaker 1: you sometimes like your schedule could look like this Monday,
Speaker 1: you could open at seven and get off at one
Speaker 1: or two. You could come in Tuesday eleven to four.
Speaker 1: You could go four to close on Wednesday, you could
Speaker 1: come back in six to sixty ten on. It was
Speaker 1: just always but Casey eventually got to where he just
Speaker 1: just worked days, you know, and he was you know,
Speaker 1: he was as far as Goods and Sonic go, and
Speaker 1: he was one of them. He was one of the
Speaker 1: best we had, you know, so we always had him
Speaker 1: in the prime times. Once we left the store, I
Speaker 1: know for a fact that he was never anywhere but
Speaker 1: with us, right and the moments leading up to that,
Speaker 1: which I'm pretty sure she dropped him off, but if she,
Speaker 1: if he worked that morning, she would have dropped him
Speaker 1: off that morning, yes, with his truck, and then he
Speaker 1: would have worked, and then he would have waited for
Speaker 1: one of us to go off work to roll out
Speaker 1: to my place, and then we would have went out.
Speaker 1: But I can't remember how he got to our house.
Speaker 1: And also I don't remember why we went back to
Speaker 1: my house, because we could have just left and went
Speaker 1: to walk, had hit to baseball. But it may have
Speaker 1: been a change small tunes. But I do know that
Speaker 1: for a fact we was wound up back at my place,
Speaker 1: then back to Batesville, and then back to my place,
Speaker 1: and he was with us, you know, the whole time.
Speaker 1: And then we slept and he got up the next
Speaker 1: morning and left. But uh, I don't want to say, Philip,
Speaker 1: I don't think I worked that morning. The next morning.
Speaker 1: For some reason, I seem to recall like watching him
Speaker 1: and leave. You know, I was excited when you called
Speaker 1: because I want to get, you know, closer to this.
Speaker 1: But that's how it's gonna happen, is now going back
Speaker 1: piece of things together, things that you didn't think were important,
Speaker 1: because when it happens, you know, you can't focus on
Speaker 1: I don't know, I watched too many shows. You've seen
Speaker 1: me a few people. It's a tough one. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: then when you allow yourself to be objective, like you know, moving,
Speaker 1: you know, going forward to remove myself from you know,
Speaker 1: Casey being one of my best friends ever, you start
Speaker 1: to think like wow, you know, and I mean that's
Speaker 1: it too. Is you got to know where that is
Speaker 1: to get to it. Have you ever been there? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you have. I mean, just driven Bob, and
Speaker 1: it's that was another thing that got me and I
Speaker 1: know we're chasing rabbits. I've got I've got all the
Speaker 1: time in the world. See. That was another thing was
Speaker 1: if you look at like if you know that area
Speaker 1: well enough, if you're if you're from Mountain View, why
Speaker 1: I go back through Melbourne to where they found your body?
Speaker 1: You know, Like I mean maybe like if they see
Speaker 1: me going through Mountaine they're gonna fuck with me because
Speaker 1: they always do. You know, maybe I'd rather go through
Speaker 1: Melbourne or you know, or is it because you know,
Speaker 1: like did they go through Mountain View and then come
Speaker 1: all the way back around because they're like, well, that's
Speaker 1: an obvious place. Honestly, like you said, have more, that's
Speaker 1: an obvious place to dump a body. The two towns
Speaker 1: Laren is referring to are Melbourne and Mountain View. What
Speaker 1: he is explaining is in order to dump the body,
Speaker 1: if the killer was from Mountain View, he or she
Speaker 1: was going out of their way. You never know. There's
Speaker 1: so many places out there that I can think of
Speaker 1: three or four different places that we partied on Highway nine,
Speaker 1: you know, just places that you wouldn't know unless you knew,
Speaker 1: you know, like old cabins off in the middle of
Speaker 1: nowhere then you know, but they so you think it
Speaker 1: wasn't a good spot to it. No, But I mean
Speaker 1: I'm from that area, said that's always like probing every
Speaker 1: gonna kill somebody. I've got them in the sharp mind
Speaker 1: of God. You know, I'm just saying, like there's there's more,
Speaker 1: says the River. Yeah they but that just I just
Speaker 1: I don't know. I find that weird that because I've
Speaker 1: always felt and had the belief that it was somebody
Speaker 1: from Mountainew, somebody from that old click. But yeah, but
Speaker 1: why I go back through Melbourne? You know? I mean,
Speaker 1: was you trying to get to that spot? I mean,
Speaker 1: if so, that's probably the quickest way. But if you're
Speaker 1: from Mountainew, everybody goes back to Mountain View through God,
Speaker 1: if you're on the Gune Road, yeah, it's quicker, it's
Speaker 1: more secluded. You know. I've just always looked at that
Speaker 1: and thought there might be something there, Like why go
Speaker 1: through Melbourne? Did they or you or anybody ever? Like
Speaker 1: party at Casey's house? No, actually see his dad I
Speaker 1: think was driving a truck or something. Yeah, Like I
Speaker 1: really didn't even know where he lived for like the
Speaker 1: longest time. So because he just didn't live, there was
Speaker 1: his dad's place, you know, so he would stay with
Speaker 1: Patrick or you know whoever. You know, And even to
Speaker 1: this day, I think I've been in that place one time,
Speaker 1: and it was the time that I met his dad,
Speaker 1: and I want to say that was before all that.
Speaker 1: Laren claims to have been one of Casey's best friends
Speaker 1: at the time and he didn't even know exactly where
Speaker 1: Casey lived at the same time. Like I said, it
Speaker 1: was kind of a rare thing for us to get
Speaker 1: him away, like like because he was so involved, you know.
Speaker 1: So I remember thinking like, all right, Casey's going out,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, now your own party. Since it was,
Speaker 1: you know, such a rare thing. Was it planned to
Speaker 1: be that way? You know, it's pretty shit think about
Speaker 1: it when start watching these shows, you know, yeah, so yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty clear he went through me, and that's pretty
Speaker 1: It's just the mystery is, like, who in the world
Speaker 1: would do that at someone else's house and then clean up?
Speaker 1: That's the really weird That's that's one of the weirdest
Speaker 1: things about it. Case they cleaned up, so I was
Speaker 1: left the miss and that's how they found out. Like
Speaker 1: if I'm telling this story to somebody, a friend of mine, now,
Speaker 1: I say she was murdered and they had a piano
Speaker 1: leg miss and I said that what we heard was
Speaker 1: that she was for the longest time is that she
Speaker 1: was beat to death so bad that there was enough
Speaker 1: blood that went through the mattresses, through the floorboards into
Speaker 1: the underpinning of the trailer, and that there was a
Speaker 1: piano leg missing and you could tell where somebody had
Speaker 1: drug a body out the door. And then later we
Speaker 1: heard that it was a gunshot that killed her out
Speaker 1: Oddly enough, this is actually the first I'm hearing of
Speaker 1: a gunshot. So like that's I was like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: that's what I tell my friends. I don't really know how,
Speaker 1: you know, how it all went down, but I said
Speaker 1: it was brutal whatever happened, you know. I mean, did
Speaker 1: case you ever talk to you about who you thought
Speaker 1: did it? I'm sure, like I'm trying to think, like,
Speaker 1: at some point it becomes something that we just didn't
Speaker 1: bring up because it was like it and it's not
Speaker 1: to be mean, but at some point it was like
Speaker 1: and you don't want to say, like, ghet over, but
Speaker 1: at some point, you know, you just get to be like,
Speaker 1: look and why bring it up if it's just going
Speaker 1: to be this thing, you know, this thing you know,
Speaker 1: And so it became this thing that nobody talked about,
Speaker 1: you know, because we just wanted Casey to feel you know,
Speaker 1: to feel better, like you know, we want him so
Speaker 1: bad for him to that's like why why Whenever you
Speaker 1: know he meant, we were like thank god, yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: But then now I'm glad he's with you. Yeah, that's good,
Speaker 1: that's great, it's great. It's just crazy how you can
Speaker 1: feel so passionately, but when someone's taken from me, it's different.
Speaker 1: But you can feel so passionately about somebody and then
Speaker 1: it just wind up not doing right. You know. Listen,
Speaker 1: thank you, no, no, please you. If you think of something,
Speaker 1: I want to run it by me and make me
Speaker 1: think it's more helpy. I find it odd the various
Speaker 1: ways Rebecca in Casey's relationship has been portrayed. I hear
Speaker 1: from her sister that she wanted to break up. I
Speaker 1: hear from his close friends they were inseparable. And I
Speaker 1: hear from a relatively neutral party that he was obsessed
Speaker 1: and couldn't leave her alone. You're listening to Helen Gone,
Speaker 1: We'll be right back talking with Laren. I find he's
Speaker 1: frustrated with how significantly the fourteen years has fogged his memory.
Speaker 1: But we keep talking shockingly, Laren tells me that he
Speaker 1: was never brought back in for questioning after Rebecca's body
Speaker 1: was found. It's also incredibly frustrating that in a case
Speaker 1: where everything hinges on an alibi, so many details of
Speaker 1: the timeline were vague. Since this interview, we've received the
Speaker 1: official police statements from some of Casey's friends who were
Speaker 1: with him on the day Rebecca was murdered, and since
Speaker 1: Laren was one of them, his statement helps us clear
Speaker 1: up some questions we have about the timeline. Casey's truck
Speaker 1: was parked in Batesville and they all drove Casey to
Speaker 1: pick it up, so we can reasonably believe that Casey
Speaker 1: had his truck on Monday night and into Tuesday morning.
Speaker 1: Laren also says that they left Sonic at around four pm.
Speaker 1: We know that Rebecca dropped Casey off that morning, and
Speaker 1: we had always heard that Casey told police she was
Speaker 1: planning on going back to school. That's why he went
Speaker 1: out with his friends that night and stayed out all night.
Speaker 1: But if that's the case, why was he telling his
Speaker 1: friends that Rebecca was supposed to pick him up and
Speaker 1: never showed. I also can't get the last sentence of
Speaker 1: Laren's statement, out of my head, it said, when we
Speaker 1: returned from Batesville, Casey used my phone. After he hung up,
Speaker 1: he stated that Rebecca was missing. That's when it really
Speaker 1: seemed odd that he didn't head straight out the door
Speaker 1: to find her. Taylor and I have both been working
Speaker 1: day and night to try to contact every single person
Speaker 1: who may have been at Sonic that day. Okay, So
Speaker 1: I just talked to Bruce and he confirmed that he
Speaker 1: was working at Sonic that day and Casey was a cook.
Speaker 1: And he said the cooks went on their shift between
Speaker 1: eight and nine am, and he remembered Rebecca dropping Casey
Speaker 1: off at work because he knew her. He said, he
Speaker 1: the last thing that happened, he dropped, she dropped, pulled in,
Speaker 1: Casey gets out, she drops him off. He said. She
Speaker 1: waved at him, and that's the last time I ever
Speaker 1: saw her. She drove off. And he said that Casey's
Speaker 1: shift would have ended at about one between one and two,
Speaker 1: but that means he could have left as early as one.
Speaker 1: Casey was on the early shift that Monday, which meant
Speaker 1: that his shift would have ended between one and two pm.
Speaker 1: But Larrence said that the group didn't leave Sonic until
Speaker 1: later at around four. Now, Bruce did say, you know,
Speaker 1: the cops came around, and he said, if he left,
Speaker 1: you would have had to clock out because you know
Speaker 1: where you clock in and out's right next to my desk.
Speaker 1: But then he went on to say, when I was
Speaker 1: asking how Casey got a ride home because he said Rebecca,
Speaker 1: he confirmed Rebecca dropped him off that day, and he's like, well,
Speaker 1: you know that town, everybody's friends, everybody gives everybody lifts.
Speaker 1: Like so if it's that easy to get in and
Speaker 1: out and you know, drive around, then yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: it would have been so easy for him to get
Speaker 1: a lift from anybody. I asked him the important questions
Speaker 1: about Casey. He didn't volunteer a huge amount. He did
Speaker 1: answer them. He didn't volunteer a huge amount. I know,
Speaker 1: they're really good friends, he said that. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: sure now, I'm sure this is going to get back
Speaker 1: to Casey. He will now he'll know that we're asking
Speaker 1: when he clocked in when he clocked out. According to police,
Speaker 1: Casey's alibi was air tight, but our investigation has poked
Speaker 1: some holes in that alibi. First, the timelines and the
Speaker 1: statements that Casey's friends gave to police were vague, so
Speaker 1: there could have potentially been missing time in the afternoon. Secondly,
Speaker 1: Bruce told me that he would have seen Casey if
Speaker 1: he clocked out, but Laren, Teresa, and other Sonic employees
Speaker 1: have all told me that Bruce went in and out
Speaker 1: all the time. Finally, Casey lived just a few miles
Speaker 1: away from Sonic, just a ten minute ride down the
Speaker 1: dirt road cutthrow we took, and Laren said that it
Speaker 1: was not uncommon for the employees to unofficially clock out
Speaker 1: to run errands. This means that there could potentially have
Speaker 1: been time unaccounted for in the morning. Well, I'm still
Speaker 1: kind of confused as to why she had to have
Speaker 1: been murdered around like ten am. Time of death. I'm
Speaker 1: not a pathologist, but just from like reading a lot
Speaker 1: of autopsies and the pathologists I talked to, I know
Speaker 1: time of death is very difficult to determine, even under
Speaker 1: the best circumstances when the body's found right away, and
Speaker 1: it's partly based on when the person was seen lest anyway,
Speaker 1: according to the auto occurring to the physical evidence, I
Speaker 1: just cannot believe he would have literally had to be.
Speaker 1: In order for him to be ruled out in this killing,
Speaker 1: he would have had to have every single moment of
Speaker 1: his day documented on camera from Monday morning and through
Speaker 1: to the next day. We've now talked to Teresa, a
Speaker 1: car hop who not only was a friend of Rebecca's,
Speaker 1: she knew Jennifer and Casey. We've talked to Bruce, the
Speaker 1: manager on duty that day, and Philip Laren's roommate. We're
Speaker 1: starting to get their individual stories and piece together the
Speaker 1: details from that day. As we do, we hear something
Speaker 1: we've never heard before. Someone mentions that they heard Casey
Speaker 1: dropped his truck off at Sonic on Sunday evening and
Speaker 1: drove home with Rebecca. This detail floors me. How the
Speaker 1: hell did his car get to Batesville and how did
Speaker 1: he get back? So, according to the official statements, Casey's
Speaker 1: friends drove him to pick up his car in Batesville
Speaker 1: on Monday afternoon. So if Casey's truck was at Sonic
Speaker 1: Monday morning, how did it get to Batesville by that afternoon.
Speaker 1: According to the police statements, Casey told his friends that
Speaker 1: his father drove his truck to Batesville. But we had
Speaker 1: always heard that his father, who was a trucker, was
Speaker 1: on the road that day. The mystery of the truck
Speaker 1: has like bothered all of us so much since the
Speaker 1: beginning because at the end of the day, even the
Speaker 1: question about where it was for the next few days
Speaker 1: has bothered me. Because Charlie said that Casey didn't have
Speaker 1: his truck at Sonic the next day. The whole reason
Speaker 1: he was ruled out is because he was supposedly had
Speaker 1: no transportation and was there all day. So the minute
Speaker 1: you start saying, okay, he wasn't there all day, and
Speaker 1: actually he did have transportation, and his transportation mysteriously, you know,
Speaker 1: was in Batesville by that afternoon unless someone drove his truck.
Speaker 1: This is a huge piece of the puzzle. According to
Speaker 1: the police, Casey was the prime suspect at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the case. He was only ruled out due to
Speaker 1: his air tight alibi. That alibi hinged on two factors,
Speaker 1: that he was at work all day and that he
Speaker 1: did not have transportation. If Casey had his truck at work,
Speaker 1: that changes everything. The more we dig into Casey's timeline,
Speaker 1: the more questions we have, and unfortunately Casey won't answer them.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. I'm shopping in Walmart, one of
Speaker 1: the few places in town with cell phone reception. When
Speaker 1: I get a text message. It's a potential witness. I'm
Speaker 1: looking at Turkey decoys and guns and people in camouflage
Speaker 1: gearing up for hunting season, and my hands are shaking
Speaker 1: as I read it. He says he knows Casey and
Speaker 1: has something he needs to tell me. When I get
Speaker 1: back to the car, I call him. Because he knows Casey,
Speaker 1: he doesn't want to be identified, so we've disguised his voice. Well,
Speaker 1: oh hi, I just got your textess, Catherine. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I mean, like I said, our whole I mean, we
Speaker 1: just want to find the person who did it. We're
Speaker 1: not you know what I mean. We're not. We don't
Speaker 1: care about anything else. This manam me and Casey and
Speaker 1: a Ghani probably tell you the same story. And I
Speaker 1: can be in prison right now. But and on like
Speaker 1: four different occasions were good. I mean I know four
Speaker 1: for sure. We were Casey were drinking too thanne and
Speaker 1: just bopen I mean not, I mean, not ligerant drunk,
Speaker 1: just crime blurderent. He he said that he killed her
Speaker 1: and and y'all didn't find the weapon. Fact, Well, the
Speaker 1: police haven't shared any information with me, but we've found
Speaker 1: a lot of you know, we've gotten a lot of information.
Speaker 1: Did he say where the weapon was? He said, he
Speaker 1: proved in the river on the way to the Highway
Speaker 1: nine from dying. And this happened like like I said,
Speaker 1: four times I can remember. And then one day he
Speaker 1: was just something that been wrong for three or four
Speaker 1: day yere and he just put in hisself and when
Speaker 1: he wasn't drunk this night and he said the same
Speaker 1: thing he said that his story was. And I didn't
Speaker 1: really think much about it until I heard. I didn't
Speaker 1: know that she's gonna it was a blunt ob check,
Speaker 1: like it was. I never knew any things. And she
Speaker 1: he said that pretty much that she was telling him
Speaker 1: that this would be the last time that he saw her,
Speaker 1: or she'd be last last time to see him. Look go,
Speaker 1: they were, I guess coming to him and I didn't
Speaker 1: know he didn't know her personally, but they got into
Speaker 1: it and she said some offensive thanks time. The way
Speaker 1: he said it, he just lost it and he said,
Speaker 1: next thing he knows, he's cleaning stuff up. And he
Speaker 1: said they almost had him, but they couldn't because they
Speaker 1: thought the timeline was different because he was supposedly at
Speaker 1: work when that happened. But he said they had the
Speaker 1: timeline mixed up on him. Did he say he went
Speaker 1: home from worker? He didn't know, man, he did not
Speaker 1: say that. I just didn't know if he was just
Speaker 1: blowing smoke. But it bothered me for a long time.
Speaker 1: But here the last few weeks because I saw that
Speaker 1: think something on Facebook, Thames who's killed her back and
Speaker 1: you come on the radio and it just kind of
Speaker 1: sitting back to him there. Well, listen, I mean, I
Speaker 1: so appreciate you doing it, and I know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm just been thinking about their in the mind. I'd
Speaker 1: probably want, you know, closure, and I know that he's
Speaker 1: your friend, and I know that it's got to be hard,
Speaker 1: and I really really appreciate it. I mean, if we
Speaker 1: do have to go to the police with us, would
Speaker 1: you be willing to come with us? I've got a
Speaker 1: bad history of the police here. I probably could in No,
Speaker 1: I mean, my dad is a really good guy and
Speaker 1: he's a deputy sheriff, and then there's the Arkansas stateful
Speaker 1: and you know, just so you don't have to go
Speaker 1: in in Melbourne, if they come down there and I
Speaker 1: had to. I mean, the thing that really got me
Speaker 1: was because I never knew. I didn't know how they
Speaker 1: killed it. I had no clue. Sure. And then somebody
Speaker 1: I was at my new job and they were talking
Speaker 1: about and they said if the cop said it was
Speaker 1: on an object, because I always thought case case, he
Speaker 1: was just bullshiting me. Never I thought he's you know,
Speaker 1: he's just just blowing smoke. And now when he said
Speaker 1: he hit her with it's a wooden object. I know
Speaker 1: that much. And it would or like a baseball bath,
Speaker 1: not not a baseball bath, but you know, stay logistics.
Speaker 1: He on his way, he stopped on the guying bridge
Speaker 1: and threw it out. Wow, I don't know how you
Speaker 1: prove it. I mean, I mean, I'm just saying. He
Speaker 1: said that more than once to this and like I said,
Speaker 1: it's bothered me for a while. Well now I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have to go to the police with it, just because
Speaker 1: I have to. I mean what I mean, I would
Speaker 1: really love it if we could go together. So that's
Speaker 1: why I mean I want to. I know he's your
Speaker 1: friend and know it's hard, but like I want to
Speaker 1: get you know, this person caught this man. All right,
Speaker 1: well listen, thank you so much. As investigators, we can't
Speaker 1: draw conclusions from a single witness. So this may not
Speaker 1: be the evidence that's needed to finally close this case,
Speaker 1: but it might be the evidence that blows it wide open.
Speaker 1: I'm Katherine Townsend and this is Helen Gone. Helen Gone
Speaker 1: is a joint production between How Stuff Works and School
Speaker 1: of Humans. It is written and recorded by me, Catherine Townsend.
Speaker 1: Taylor Church is our producer and story editor. Audio editing
Speaker 1: and designed by Jonathan Sleeve, mix engineer Glenn Mattulo, audio
Speaker 1: mixing and love by Tunewelders. Executive producers Brandon Barr and
Speaker 1: Else Crowley for School of Humans and Connell Byrne and
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant for How Stuff Works. Our field producer is
Speaker 1: James Morrison. Our researcher is Sandy Klosterman. Them and original
Speaker 1: score by Ben Solee available wherever you get your music.
Speaker 1: To dig into the investigation, please visit hellangonepodcast dot com
Speaker 1: or follow us on social media. School of Humans