Speaker 1: School of Humans.
Speaker 2: As a lot of you probably already know, While I've
Speaker 2: been working on the Christina Pipkin case, I've also been
Speaker 2: exploring other unsolved deaths in Arkansas. Right now, I'm looking
Speaker 2: at an article from the Commercial Appeal newspaper that came
Speaker 2: out on Thursday, June third, nineteen ninety three. The title
Speaker 2: of the article is Authorities wonder if six kids deaths
Speaker 2: in East Arkansas are related. Those children in the article
Speaker 2: referred to were Christina Pipkin, who as we know, went
Speaker 2: missing in May of nineteen ninety one, and also Steve Branch,
Speaker 2: Michael Moore, and Christopher Byers, the three eight year old
Speaker 2: boys who were murdered in West Memphis in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 2: It also includes sixteen year old Guardina Cross and thirteen
Speaker 2: year old Geneva Smith. Guardina and Geneva's bodies were found
Speaker 2: near Wynn, Arkansas, just a few miles from Hickory Ridge.
Speaker 2: To be honest, I haven't seen any obvious connections between
Speaker 2: these children in East Arkansas.
Speaker 1: As we've said.
Speaker 2: Before, these children were different ages, some were different races,
Speaker 2: and they had very different life circumstances. The boys in
Speaker 2: West Memphis and Guardina Cross had been brutalized, while in
Speaker 2: Christina's case, there didn't appear to be any outward signs
Speaker 2: of violence. So just on the surface, it does not
Speaker 2: seem like this was the work of a single serial killer.
Speaker 2: But there are a lot of weird coincidences in these cases.
Speaker 2: In fact, in three of the four cases, suspects were
Speaker 2: arrested but ultimately released. All of these children were found
Speaker 2: in or near bodies of water, and all of them
Speaker 2: are unsolved.
Speaker 1: I'm Catherine Townsend.
Speaker 2: Over the past five years of making my true crime podcast,
Speaker 2: Helling Gone, I've learned that there is no such thing
Speaker 2: as a small town where murder never happens. I've received
Speaker 2: hundreds of messages from people all around the country asking
Speaker 2: for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families,
Speaker 2: and their communities.
Speaker 1: If you have a case you'd like me and.
Speaker 2: My team to look into, you can reach out to
Speaker 2: us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven
Speaker 2: eight seven four four six one four five. That's six
Speaker 2: seven eight seven four four six one four five. This
Speaker 2: is Helen Gone Murder Line. I'm making my way through
Speaker 2: all these freedom of information requests I've done over the
Speaker 2: past few weeks. Obviously, we have Christina Pipkins case file,
Speaker 2: though there do appear to be some documents missing, including
Speaker 2: crime scene photos. The Arkansas State Police told me they
Speaker 2: believe the Geneva Smith case is still open, so they
Speaker 2: were not able to provide me with any information from
Speaker 2: that case file. And they weren't able to find Guardiana
Speaker 2: Cross's case at all. They said they had no record
Speaker 2: of it at the Arkansas State Police. Now, this could
Speaker 2: just mean that this case file is with the county.
Speaker 2: I filed a request in Cross County and I'll let
Speaker 2: you all know what happens. But even though the circumstances
Speaker 2: of all these children's deaths were so different, I want
Speaker 2: to take a look at some of the seemingly odd
Speaker 2: similarities in Christina Pipkins's case. Remembered there was a suspect,
Speaker 2: Robbie Tubbs. He was arrested years later in nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 2: and then he was later released due to some pretty
Speaker 2: catastrophic mistakes with the hair fiber evidence that was found.
Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety two, Geneva Smith was thirteen years old.
Speaker 2: She left home to get on the school bus and
Speaker 2: she never came back. A few days later, Her body
Speaker 2: was found floating in the Saint Francis River. Her remains
Speaker 2: were badly decomposed, so much that it was hard to
Speaker 2: identify her.
Speaker 1: I was struck by the fact that there.
Speaker 2: Is very little about Genevas Smith's murder out there. The
Speaker 2: theories about who killed her if you look on online forums,
Speaker 2: ranged from a serial killer to the KKK to a
Speaker 2: member of her extended family. Basically, it's a mixed bag
Speaker 2: and no one seems to have any real answers. There
Speaker 2: was an arrest in Geneva's case, but like in Christina
Speaker 2: pipk case, the arrest came years later.
Speaker 1: In November of nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 2: The same year when police were building a case against
Speaker 2: Robbie Tubbs for Christina Pipkins murder, two men named Johnny
Speaker 2: Key and Freddie Jones were arrested and charged with Geneva
Speaker 2: Smith's murder. Police did not say much at the time,
Speaker 2: but apparently the case depended on the cooperation of a
Speaker 2: key witness. I found this from a local newspaper back
Speaker 2: in the day. It read quote Freddy Jones, twenty six
Speaker 2: of Earl and Johnny Key thirty six of Parkin appeared
Speaker 2: before Judge Richard L. Proctor on Monday and were bound
Speaker 2: over to Cross County Circuit Court to stand trial on
Speaker 2: one count of capital murder. The article goes on to
Speaker 2: say Sheriff Ronnie Baldwin said Rinne page twenty two of
Speaker 2: when was also arraigned on a charge of hindering apprehension
Speaker 2: of a suspect in connection with the Smith case. She
Speaker 2: was being held in the Cross County jail Monday on
Speaker 2: unrelated charges when she was arrested in connection with the murder.
Speaker 1: End quote. So the newspaper.
Speaker 2: Brings up two male suspects and one female who they
Speaker 2: believed were involved in Geneva Smith's murder. The newspaper also
Speaker 2: talked to the sheriff, and the article mentioned that the
Speaker 2: sheriff said that he had worked with the Arkansas State
Speaker 2: Police investigator Dale Arnold. Remember that's the same investigator who
Speaker 2: also worked on Christina Pipkins's case. The sheriff said that
Speaker 2: he and Dale Arnold felt they finally had enough information
Speaker 2: to make some arrest and the article said that all
Speaker 2: three of these suspects, Johnny Key, Freddie Jones, and Irene Page,
Speaker 2: had all been interviewed by police back in nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 2: when Genevasmith originally went missing. Police seemed fairly confident that
Speaker 2: they had a case, but then something happened. Apparently their
Speaker 2: key witness had a change of heart. The sheriff, Ronnie Baldwin,
Speaker 2: later confirmed this. He told the newspaper the case had
Speaker 2: fallen apart when that witness backed out. So I'm wondering
Speaker 2: about the woman who was arrested. If she was the
Speaker 2: witness and was twenty two years old in nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 2: that would mean that she would have been around sixteen
Speaker 2: years old, just three years older than Geneva back when
Speaker 2: Geneva was killed. So now I'm wondering who was this woman?
Speaker 2: What was her connection to Geneva Smith? And it's been
Speaker 2: years since these suspects were questioned and later released. Is
Speaker 2: law enforcement planning on building that case any further? Have
Speaker 2: they developed any new suspects, Do they have any new
Speaker 2: leads at all? And if not, would they consider turning
Speaker 2: over this case file and making it public like they
Speaker 2: have with Christina Pipkin's case. I am not sure what
Speaker 2: the decision will be in Geneva Smith's case. I do
Speaker 2: know Arkansas has made new rules to classify cases as
Speaker 2: officially cold when they've been unsolved for two years or more,
Speaker 2: maybe they will release of the case file. I do
Speaker 2: hope they'll consider it because in Christina's case it has helped.
Speaker 1: I've only been.
Speaker 2: Working on this case for a few weeks, and even
Speaker 2: though it has been almost thirty years since Christina Pipkin
Speaker 2: went missing and her body was found, We've been able
Speaker 2: to find a lot of people who've never been interviewed
Speaker 2: by the police. We've also gotten a lot of names
Speaker 2: out of the case file, and we were able to
Speaker 2: find a lot of them. As a result of that,
Speaker 2: we are filling in the blanks. I would love to
Speaker 2: be able to do the same thing for Geneva Smith's case.
Speaker 2: So if someone out there knows someone who knew Geneva Smith,
Speaker 2: anyone in her family, her friends, or anyone who saw anything,
Speaker 2: I would love to hear from these people. I did
Speaker 2: some very preliminary online sleuthing to try and find the
Speaker 2: people who were charged with Geneva's murder and what happened
Speaker 2: to them. I found Freddy Jones. It wasn't too hard
Speaker 2: because he's now in prison. Freddie Jones has a fairly
Speaker 2: long criminal record, according to court records. In twenty seventeen,
Speaker 2: he was sentenced to forty years for aggravated robbery of
Speaker 2: a Valero gas station in Fayetvile. He also got an
Speaker 2: additional five years for carrying a firearm because he was
Speaker 2: a felon. According to court documents, this length of sentence,
Speaker 2: which does seem very long, was due to his status
Speaker 2: as an habitual offender. So let's go back to the
Speaker 2: newspaper article for a minute. The one I talked about
Speaker 2: at the top of the episode, the one that talked
Speaker 2: about potential connections in these child death cases. The reporter
Speaker 2: Rob Johnson talked about sixteen year old Guardina Cross, who
Speaker 2: was murdered in nineteen ninety two. Guardina was sixteen years
Speaker 2: old and in tenth grade at Wyn High School on
Speaker 2: October fourteenth, nineteen ninety two. She disappeared that same day
Speaker 2: on Moore Road, right outside of when a guy was
Speaker 2: collecting cans. When he found her body on the side
Speaker 2: of the road. Guardina was naked except for a bra.
Speaker 2: Her skull had been pierced and punctured with a small object.
Speaker 2: Police thought it could be some type of tool, maybe
Speaker 2: something like a screwdriver. Forensic testing later revealed that at
Speaker 2: the time of her death, Guardina was around five months pregnant,
Speaker 2: and then there were crickets. There was nothing more that
Speaker 2: I could find really ever reported about this case, but
Speaker 2: I think the reporter Rob Johnson got some crucial information.
Speaker 2: He went to interview Guardinia's great grandmother, Hattie Cross. He
Speaker 2: found out that Guardina already had a two year old daughter.
Speaker 2: That means that Guardinia's daughter must have been born around
Speaker 2: the time Guardinia was around fourteen years old. He was
Speaker 2: also the person who reported that she was five months
Speaker 2: pregnant at the time for death. Now, I don't want
Speaker 2: to rush to conclusions. The killer could have been a stranger.
Speaker 2: This could have been a random attack. But we also
Speaker 2: know that sadly, pregnancy can be one of the most
Speaker 2: dangerous times of a woman's life. One of the leading
Speaker 2: cause of death of pregnant women in America is homicide.
Speaker 2: So I want to know where that baby's father is,
Speaker 2: if that person was ever questioned, Maybe there was someone
Speaker 2: who was not happy about her pregnancy.
Speaker 1: And these are all things that we have to consider.
Speaker 2: Coming back to the Christina Pipkin case, I've been going
Speaker 2: through the case file and trying to reach out to
Speaker 2: people the police interviewed, and when I did, as you
Speaker 2: probably already know, there were a lot of discrepancies, not
Speaker 2: only that I saw something in this case I've never
Speaker 2: had happened before in anything I've ever investigated. One of
Speaker 2: the biggest issues we've had in trying to review this
Speaker 2: case file is the fact that basically none of the
Speaker 2: interviews were transcribed. Everything is just these brief, typed reports,
Speaker 2: So there are a lot of mistakes in those. I've
Speaker 2: seen errors and police reports before, but I've seen mistakes
Speaker 2: in Christina's case unlike anything I've ever seen. In our
Speaker 2: last episode, I talked to Donna King. Now in the
Speaker 2: case file, there is a police report where an investigator
Speaker 2: said he spoke to Donna King. She told them that
Speaker 2: on the night Christina Pipkin went missing, she saw Charles
Speaker 2: Cotton's wife, Rebecca Cotton, walking on the side of the
Speaker 2: road and that Charles Cotton was approaching her on a
Speaker 2: three wheeler. This was a very detailed description of what happened. Apparently,
Speaker 2: according to police, Donna said she observed Rebecca Cotton crying,
Speaker 2: looking annoyed at Charles and not getting on the three Wheeler.
Speaker 2: Then Charles Cotton apparently left and came.
Speaker 1: Back in a vehicle.
Speaker 2: This was a few minutes later, and he picked Rebecca
Speaker 2: Cotton up and they left together in the car. The
Speaker 2: only problem is Donna King said that this was absolutely
Speaker 2: not what she said to the police. She is insistent
Speaker 2: that she never saw Rebecca Cotton on the night Christina
Speaker 2: Pipkin went missing. Donna King said that part of the
Speaker 2: story was correct. She was out of town that day.
Speaker 2: She and her husband had gone to Memphis, but she
Speaker 2: said as soon as she got back in town, she
Speaker 2: met up with a friend of hers. The friend of
Speaker 2: Donna's who she met up with is actually someone else
Speaker 2: we've spoken to. There were two cashiers at the Bearcat
Speaker 2: who we've.
Speaker 1: Talked to so far.
Speaker 2: The woman i'll call cashier number one served the mysterious
Speaker 2: stranger who came in at around five forty five. She's
Speaker 2: the one who worked on the composite drawing with police.
Speaker 2: There was another cashier, we'll call her a cashier number
Speaker 2: two now cashier too was working in the back section
Speaker 2: of the store where the video rentals happened for most
Speaker 2: of the night, but between seven and nine pm she
Speaker 2: worked the main register. After Donna came back to town, she
Speaker 2: met up with Cashier number two. Together, they rode around
Speaker 2: and looked for Christina Pipkin, and they both confirmed each
Speaker 2: other's stories.
Speaker 1: They said they never saw Rebecca Cotton that night.
Speaker 2: When I asked Donna what she thinks happened, she believes
Speaker 2: that maybe the police officers got her story mixed up
Speaker 2: with someone else's. This sounds crazy, but it's actually not
Speaker 2: that hard to believe, because even more disturbing than the
Speaker 2: wrong information Donna said the police included in that report
Speaker 2: was what she said they left out. Donna said that
Speaker 2: the next day after Christina went missing, she saw a
Speaker 2: stranger in a brown car near the area where Christina's
Speaker 2: body was found. She is adamant, she said she described
Speaker 2: that person and that vehicle to the police, But there's
Speaker 2: no record of that brown car anywhere.
Speaker 1: In the case file. So the question is where did
Speaker 1: the police get.
Speaker 2: The information about the person who supposedly saw Rebecca Cotton
Speaker 2: on the side of the road that night, And if
Speaker 2: that person wasn't Donna King, who who was it. In
Speaker 2: the last episode, we talked about a couple of the
Speaker 2: names who keep coming up in this case and I
Speaker 2: want to give you all an update. We have gotten
Speaker 2: more information about a friend of Robbie Tubbs, the man
Speaker 2: named Jackie. The person who I referred to is Jackie
Speaker 2: question Mark in last week's episode. Because we didn't know
Speaker 2: his last name, we were able to get his last name.
Speaker 2: I've been exchanging messages with a couple of different young
Speaker 2: women who told me that Jackie was, in their words,
Speaker 2: creepy and that he made her and several other young
Speaker 2: women very uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: I wanted to track Jackie down.
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask him questions about Robbie Tubbs and
Speaker 2: about what went on around the time.
Speaker 1: When Christina went missing.
Speaker 2: I wanted to know word Jackie and Robbie in or
Speaker 2: near Hickory Ridge that day. But I found out that
Speaker 2: Jackie passed away in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1: Sadly, this is another dead end.
Speaker 2: The second cashier at the Bearcat who we talked to
Speaker 2: in the last episode, told us about the fear and
Speaker 2: panic that broke out in the town after Christina went missing.
Speaker 1: She described what the atmosphere was like the next day.
Speaker 3: I'm at work at twelve at Bearcat, and it was
Speaker 3: just horrific. Seeing it was horrific and how that awesome
Speaker 3: at the sun time that so many people we're there,
Speaker 3: we're on the street, we're in the parking lot, we're
Speaker 3: you know, gathered together to try to you know, set
Speaker 3: up teams. You know, the community really came together.
Speaker 2: And she noticed the same thing that I noticed. She
Speaker 2: noticed that Arles Cotton seemed to have been very involved
Speaker 2: in the search for Christina Pipkins. She also found it
Speaker 2: out she said he wasn't someone who appeared to know
Speaker 2: the family well, and James had said he just met
Speaker 2: Charles Cotton through his neighbors.
Speaker 3: She may un I mean, I thought, is he really
Speaker 3: trying to make an incrusion? And it was just like
Speaker 3: gloved to the family, it seemed like.
Speaker 4: And I was just like, you know, of course we
Speaker 4: were all wanting to search and look absolutely, but I
Speaker 4: mean then.
Speaker 3: I you know, Candles came down, there was a lot
Speaker 3: of publisty.
Speaker 4: And I just put it as you know, he was
Speaker 4: just wanting attention.
Speaker 3: And I didn't really, you know, think king much more
Speaker 3: about it.
Speaker 2: With help from some sources in town, I have mapped
Speaker 2: out the rest of Christina's neighborhood and there are other
Speaker 2: people who I would like to locate. I have verified
Speaker 2: through multiple sources who were living in the neighborhood at
Speaker 2: the time, that Charles Cotton and his family were, contrary
Speaker 2: to what his wife Rebecca told the police, living in
Speaker 2: a house just a couple of doors down from the Pipkins.
Speaker 2: There was also another young family there. They lived in
Speaker 2: a trailer, They had several children, and according to the neighbors,
Speaker 2: they were only there for a few months. Apparently the
Speaker 2: family was from around Beadeville, the area and near where
Speaker 2: Christina's body was found. Now people say this family was
Speaker 2: not around for a long time. They weren't sure of
Speaker 2: the exact dates. But I would like to know who
Speaker 2: those people were, and I would like to talk to
Speaker 2: them because if they left abruptly after Christina went missing,
Speaker 2: that's something we need to check out. We know from
Speaker 2: past cases that people who show up in town and
Speaker 2: leave shortly after a suspicious death need to be thoroughly vetted.
Speaker 2: And I want to go back and ask something that
Speaker 2: may seem obvious, But since part of this is investigating
Speaker 2: the investigation itself, we have to double check everything.
Speaker 1: We need to know.
Speaker 2: How can we be sure that Christina Pipkin drowned and
Speaker 2: how can we be sure that it was definitely not
Speaker 2: an accidental drowning. I want to take a step back
Speaker 2: for a minute, because there's been a lot of discussion
Speaker 2: during Christina's case about what we can learn from the
Speaker 2: limited facts we have without an autopsy report.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about drowning.
Speaker 2: According to report on NBC News, deaths by drowning are
Speaker 2: super challenging. They're among the hardest for investigators to prove.
Speaker 2: The way that medical examiners figure out that a death
Speaker 2: is by drowning is basically by the process of elimination.
Speaker 2: They have to rule out everything else. A lot of
Speaker 2: children drowned in the United States every year. According to
Speaker 2: a twenty twenty three article in The New Yorker, the
Speaker 2: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has listed drowning as
Speaker 2: the number one cause of death for young children, which
Speaker 2: they define is age one to four, and Arkansas has
Speaker 2: one of the highest rates of childhood drowning in the country,
Speaker 2: according to a study done by Quote Wizard, the third
Speaker 2: highest in the nation. Between twenty eighteen and twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: there were twenty five fatal drownings in Arkansas. Thirteen of
Speaker 2: those were children under the age of five. So how
Speaker 2: do we know if a body found in water did
Speaker 2: drown and if that drowning was intentional or accidental?
Speaker 1: In water, bodies tend to sink.
Speaker 2: First and then rise to the surface in warm, shallow
Speaker 2: water like at Cawlake Ditch as gases in the body
Speaker 2: accumulated from the decomposition process. This would have taken around
Speaker 2: seventy two hours. Christina's body was found three days after
Speaker 2: she went missing. Water investigations have come a long way
Speaker 2: in the past three decades. Now there are training seminars
Speaker 2: for investigators who are processing homicides that involve a body
Speaker 2: of water. There are a few different types of scenarios
Speaker 2: that can occur here. You have people who are killed
Speaker 2: on land and then dumped into the water as they
Speaker 2: are dead or dying, people who actually drowned in the
Speaker 2: body of water, and accidental drownings, and they all have
Speaker 2: some distinctive characteristics. We know that Christina could have accidentally
Speaker 2: drowned because she couldn't swim.
Speaker 1: That would have made sense.
Speaker 2: But the first question homicide investigators are told to ask
Speaker 2: is if the victim's location makes sense, and in Christina's case,
Speaker 2: it did not. It made zero sense that she would
Speaker 2: suddenly be miles away from home right before dark when
Speaker 2: she had been hanging around very close to her house
Speaker 2: all day. But even though crime scene investigation techniques are improving,
Speaker 2: killers can still have a lot of evidence in pools
Speaker 2: of dirty water. I use a textbook for all of
Speaker 2: my investigations. I carried it around everywhere with me, so
Speaker 2: at this point it's kind of falling apart. But it's
Speaker 2: called Practical Homicide Investigations. I've talked about it before. It's
Speaker 2: by a former NYPD homicide detective named Vernon Gabirth. It's
Speaker 2: become the textbook that a lot of police departments used
Speaker 2: to train their detectives. In this book, he describes a
Speaker 2: lot of staged crime scenes involving drowning, and he has
Speaker 2: a lot of examples summer cases where the victim was
Speaker 2: drowned elsewhere like a bathtub, and then taken and dumped
Speaker 2: into the body of water. Remember, a lot of people
Speaker 2: thought this was what could have happened to Christina Pipkin,
Speaker 2: But we know the evidence in Christina's case indicates the
Speaker 2: mud and water found in Christina's lungs did match.
Speaker 1: The water in cal Lake ditch.
Speaker 2: I've also talked to a family member and this person
Speaker 2: is attempting to access Christina's autopsy report. I hope that
Speaker 2: we can get access to that because there are a
Speaker 2: lot of things I think we could potentially learn. Among
Speaker 2: the questions I have are these. I want to know
Speaker 2: if there was any white foam present. It's called haemorrhagic
Speaker 2: edema fluid. This foam forms as a result of mucus
Speaker 2: from the throat mixing with water and blood. It's a
Speaker 2: major indication the person may have drowned, and we don't
Speaker 2: know from doctor Fawmi Malik the medical examiner's report if
Speaker 2: that was present.
Speaker 1: We do know.
Speaker 2: Doctor Malik said there were no signs of violence. He
Speaker 2: said he didn't find signs of a struggle, no bruising,
Speaker 2: no obvious signs of strangulation, nothing to show, for example,
Speaker 2: that someone held her head under water forcibly.
Speaker 1: But maybe there are other clues in the.
Speaker 2: Report, something that could tell us if she had less
Speaker 2: obvious signs, like the broken blood vessels, that could be
Speaker 2: indicative of strangulation.
Speaker 1: Also, I would love to know did Christina have anything
Speaker 1: in her hands.
Speaker 2: This could tell us if she was grabbing at something,
Speaker 2: for example, when she was in the water. If not,
Speaker 2: this could indicate she was unconscious when she went into
Speaker 2: the water. And I know that it's been a long time,
Speaker 2: but don't forget sometimes major breakthroughs can be made by
Speaker 2: a second look, even decades later. The NBC report had
Speaker 2: an example. The news channel talked about a case from
Speaker 2: Illinois where a woman had drowned in a bathtub and
Speaker 2: basically there was no sign of a struggle or forced entry.
Speaker 2: At first, it was ruled an accident, but eventually investigators
Speaker 2: brought a new pathologist in and that person found bruises
Speaker 2: on the victim's elbows, bruises that forensic testing had missed. Later,
Speaker 2: police focused on this woman's husband. They were able to
Speaker 2: find insurance policies that the husband had taken out and
Speaker 2: his wife.
Speaker 1: They eventually found.
Speaker 2: A motive, but they wouldn't have even looked for that
Speaker 2: motive if they had not first gone back over the forensics.
Speaker 2: This is what I'm trying to do, both with the
Speaker 2: autopsy report and with the case faul. But again, because
Speaker 2: the police reports were so vague, I've been really struggling
Speaker 2: with being able to verify concrete times in any part
Speaker 2: of this report, which brings me back to the very.
Speaker 1: Beginning of the case.
Speaker 2: One of the only things that we have a time
Speaker 2: for a definite time is that movie. And I've been
Speaker 2: thinking about that movie that James Pipkin was watching since
Speaker 2: this case started. In James's statement, he said on Saturday,
Speaker 2: May fourth, he said that he was taping the movie
Speaker 2: The Hunt for Red October and he was starting to
Speaker 2: watch it while it taped, and that during that movie
Speaker 2: he became concerned that Christina had not come home, and
Speaker 2: that's when he started looking for her.
Speaker 1: Let's take a step back.
Speaker 2: Let's track everyone who said they saw Christina Pipkin for
Speaker 2: sure that day, at least according to the police reports
Speaker 2: in the case file, after the family came back from
Speaker 2: their errands, Christina Pipkin was at her home on Doty
Speaker 2: Street by around four pm. That's when the Fords, the
Speaker 2: neighbors whose yard backed up to the Pipkins house, saw
Speaker 2: Christina playing out in her backyard. Shortly after that, Christina
Speaker 2: left the house to sell jewelry. She had her flyer
Speaker 2: showing the different types of jewelry people could buy with her.
Speaker 2: That's around when Elsie Liles, the Pipkins neighbor and the
Speaker 2: person who sometimes babysat Christina, saw Christina and gave her
Speaker 2: a pickle as a snack. Christina ate the pickle and
Speaker 2: she left Elsie's house, telling Elsie she'd be back for dinner.
Speaker 2: Elsie said Christina never showed after leaving Elsie's. During that afternoon,
Speaker 2: Christina was walking around the area around the bear Cat
Speaker 2: in the bank.
Speaker 1: Again, this is a very small area.
Speaker 2: But a lot of people were coming through the main
Speaker 2: drag around then, because if you want to get cigarettes
Speaker 2: or snacks, the bear Cat was pretty much the only.
Speaker 1: Game in town. We know that.
Speaker 2: Around five forty five pm, the first cashier we spoke to,
Speaker 2: the one who was working the register for most of
Speaker 2: the day, said she saw the stranger, the one who
Speaker 2: came into the store and looked a little like Richard Gear,
Speaker 2: the guy she later identified in a composite photo. She
Speaker 2: said that he came in to buy a pack of
Speaker 2: Warboro Reds. He parked his car, a brown sedan, not blue,
Speaker 2: as the police wrote in their report, way up on
Speaker 2: the sidewalk. Then he got in his car and left.
Speaker 2: The cashier said the stranger came and went just a
Speaker 2: few minutes after Christina and some other kids were walking
Speaker 2: through milling around the.
Speaker 1: Bear Cat grocery store.
Speaker 2: Christina was going to and from the area right around
Speaker 2: her house. At around five point thirty, Ricky Dawson and
Speaker 2: his friend James Bashers, who were next door at the
Speaker 2: Moor's house, saw Christina on the porch of her house.
Speaker 2: By around six thirty, Christina was back at the bear Cat.
Speaker 2: That's when her math teacher, Miss Lamb, told police that
Speaker 2: she saw Christina and briefly talked to her sometime before dark,
Speaker 2: which was around eight pm. The other cashier, cash or two,
Speaker 2: the cashier we talked to, who police never interviewed, said
Speaker 2: she saw Christina in the store.
Speaker 1: She said she knew for sure this happened before dark.
Speaker 2: She remembered the street lights were not on yet. Then
Speaker 2: Christina left Frida. Christina's mom told police she went to
Speaker 2: the Bearcat store at around seven thirty pm. She bought
Speaker 2: some groceries, hung around for a few minutes, and then
Speaker 2: went back home.
Speaker 1: After she got home and started cooking dinner.
Speaker 2: This is when James Pipkin said they started watching the
Speaker 2: movie The Hunt for Red October. They got worried that
Speaker 2: Christina hadn't come home, and Frida sent Christina's brother Adam
Speaker 2: out to look for her. When Adam came back and
Speaker 2: said he hadn't seen her, Frida left the house to
Speaker 2: look for her.
Speaker 1: But here's where it.
Speaker 2: Gets interesting, because James says in the police report quote,
Speaker 2: I got the VCR ready to tape the Hunt for
Speaker 2: Red October. The movie came on and I started taping it.
Speaker 2: I started getting worried that Christina had not come home yet,
Speaker 2: so we started looking for her. This was around eight
Speaker 2: pm end quote. This was one concrete time that we
Speaker 2: could sort of frame everything else around. So I got
Speaker 2: a little obsessed when figuring out what time this movie aired.
Speaker 2: Back in the nineties, before streaming services HBO and Cinemax,
Speaker 2: movies aired on a national schedule. It was broken into
Speaker 2: different time zones, but basically it was exactly the same
Speaker 2: air date around the country, so we should be able
Speaker 2: to verify that. There's just one problem. When I found
Speaker 2: the commercial for the movie on YouTube and an.
Speaker 1: Old guide for Red October.
Speaker 2: I found out that The Hunt for Red October aired
Speaker 2: in that region on Friday night, not Saturday, the day
Speaker 2: Christina went missing. So if that's true, James could not
Speaker 2: have been taping The Hunt for Red October on Saturday night.
Speaker 2: That movie aired on Friday night. He might misspoken. He
Speaker 2: could have said he'd previously taped the movie and was
Speaker 2: watching it on Saturday. Maybe the police were wrong, But
Speaker 2: in that police statement he said a couple of times
Speaker 2: he was taping the movie setting the VCR to tape
Speaker 2: it that night. He seemed to say he was watching
Speaker 2: the movie live as it aired. Now, maybe he's remembering
Speaker 2: Friday night instead of Saturday night.
Speaker 1: Getting mixed up again.
Speaker 2: Police did not interview James for several days after Christina
Speaker 2: went missing, But I do wonder and I would love
Speaker 2: to clear up that discrepancy. Frida went into the Bearcat
Speaker 2: store right before nine pm that night, and the second
Speaker 2: cashier who we heard from earlier said she vividly remembers
Speaker 2: Christina's mother walking into the store crying and saying she
Speaker 2: couldn't find her daughter.
Speaker 3: And then missus Pipton came in. She was crying and
Speaker 3: we said, well we go and pretty much set the
Speaker 3: registers down or they'll be glad to and said no,
Speaker 3: I just need to use the pay phone. The pay
Speaker 3: phone was like when you walked in the door though
Speaker 3: you would make a right, direct right, and it was
Speaker 3: on the wall. There was a window, and then there
Speaker 3: was the pay phone, and then it started with the drinks.
Speaker 3: And she ran to the phone and she called the
Speaker 3: police and she didn't really That's when we heard or
Speaker 3: say my little girl's missing. I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 3: you know, we saw her just you know, a couple
Speaker 3: of hours ago. And I don't know why no one
Speaker 3: ever questioned me. Ever, at the time, I kept thinking
Speaker 3: mister Arnold would come and talk to me. No one
Speaker 3: ever questioned me.
Speaker 2: I find it shocking that there was no police interview
Speaker 2: with this cashier, this person who was one of the
Speaker 2: last people to see Christina alive. There's also no interview
Speaker 2: with the other cashier. The police report just said he
Speaker 2: had nothing of substance to offer the investigation.
Speaker 1: But I disagree with that.
Speaker 2: I think he could have seen something extremely important, even
Speaker 2: if he didn't realize what he was seeing at the time.
Speaker 2: And it's a shame we don't have a longer interview
Speaker 2: with him. So where do we go from here? There's
Speaker 2: still a lot of people who need to be checked
Speaker 2: out further. After speaking to Cashier number one, it seems
Speaker 2: very plausible that Robbie Tubbs could have been in Hickory
Speaker 2: Ridge that afternoon. A family member confirmed to me that
Speaker 2: Robbie does smoke Marlboro reds. We know that he drove
Speaker 2: a brown car, a sedan that matched the description of
Speaker 2: the one the cashier saw at the time, and most crucially,
Speaker 2: the cashier felt strongly that the photo of Robbie's she
Speaker 2: saw from back in the day looked like the composite
Speaker 2: drawing that she did with the police. Robbie Tubbs could
Speaker 2: have been the stranger who came into the bear Cat
Speaker 2: that night, but that's not enough for a definite ID.
Speaker 2: And even if it was, even if Robbie Tubbs was there,
Speaker 2: this is not proof that he did anything wrong.
Speaker 1: I want to be very clear about that.
Speaker 2: He absolutely could have been in that store for totally
Speaker 2: innocent reasons. We know that he had some ties to
Speaker 2: the area. He had his friend Jackie, who he went
Speaker 2: shelling with when he drove through there. He would often
Speaker 2: drop him in Waldenburg, which is near Hickory Ridge. At
Speaker 2: the time, Robbie and his wife Sandra lived near Pocahontas, Arkansas,
Speaker 2: and at the time Robbie had a girlfriend named Janetta.
Speaker 1: We've talked about that before. The route from.
Speaker 2: Pocahontas to where Robbie went, Shelling passed right through Hickory Ridge.
Speaker 2: There's a route that would go right near his girlfriend's
Speaker 2: place and near the bear cat Robbie Tubb smoked, and
Speaker 2: there are not that many places to make a pit
Speaker 2: stop and buy cigarettes. I also wondered about the evidence.
Speaker 2: We've already talked a lot about everything that happened with
Speaker 2: the hair, the disastrous wrong testing. So now I'm wondering,
Speaker 2: is there anything that police can do with the hair
Speaker 2: evidence that was so badly mishandled. We know forensic testing
Speaker 2: has improved a lot since nineteen ninety two. But then
Speaker 2: I take another look at the case file and I
Speaker 2: see a report dated March fifteenth, twenty twenty three. In fact,
Speaker 2: it seems to be the only activity on Christina Pipkins
Speaker 2: case that's taken place in years, and it's not good news.
Speaker 1: According to the case file.
Speaker 2: In March of twenty twenty three, investigator Robert Scott of
Speaker 2: the Arkansas State Police contacted Dale Arnold, the original Arkansas
Speaker 2: State Police investigator on Christina's case. Robert Scott asked Dale
Speaker 2: Arnold about the hair sample. Dale Arnold said he had
Speaker 2: already given testimony about it when the mistake was discovered.
Speaker 2: It seemed from reading the report like it wasn't something
Speaker 2: that Dale Arnold wanted to pursue further. Then, Robert Scott wrote, quote,
Speaker 2: Cross County Sheriff's Office Investigator Boykinds pulled the case at
Speaker 2: my request and researched the evidence. Investigator Boykins was unable
Speaker 2: to find the hair recovered from the vehicle of mister
Speaker 2: Tubbs in the Cross County Sheriff's Office property room. Investigator
Speaker 2: Arnold stated he didn't know where the hair was Now.
Speaker 2: I reviewed the case file on the custody of Cross County.
Speaker 2: No new information was developed. It is highly unlikely that
Speaker 2: the recovered hair could be used in a court proceeding
Speaker 2: due to the previous submission in the trial of mister
Speaker 2: Tubbs end quote. I knew it was a long shot
Speaker 2: with this hair, but I can't help but feel devastated
Speaker 2: for Christina's family because what that means is that after
Speaker 2: that mistake at Robbie Tubbs's trial, the evidence, it seems,
Speaker 2: was returned from the Arkansas State Police crime Lab to
Speaker 2: the Cross County Sheriff's office, but it didn't stay there.
Speaker 2: Somehow it's missing. And this is where I really start
Speaker 2: to feel outraged, because it's not enough that they botched
Speaker 2: the testing. Now they've lost the hair, They've lost the
Speaker 2: one piece of physical EVAs that could be definitively tested.
Speaker 1: It's just shocking.
Speaker 2: Investigator Scott goes on to say that he and another
Speaker 2: investigator did reach out to Robbie Tubbs, though they misspelled
Speaker 2: his name as Ronnie Tubbs. He said they have a
Speaker 2: last known address for Robbie at a motel in Sulfur Springs, Texas.
Speaker 2: I don't know if they don't want to find him
Speaker 2: or if they can't find him, but no further contact
Speaker 2: with Robbie Tubbs was recorded in the case file. I
Speaker 2: found Robbie Tubbs in about ten minutes. I saw on
Speaker 2: social media that he sometimes posts from his hotel room.
Speaker 1: And I really don't know if the ASP.
Speaker 2: Don't feel they have enough evidence, they don't want to
Speaker 2: reach out, Maybe their jurisdictional issues, maybe they don't want
Speaker 2: to call Texas law enforcement with this. But either way,
Speaker 2: that recent report, plus the fact they've released the case
Speaker 2: file publicly tells us the police in my opinion, are
Speaker 2: not actively investigating this case. After Christina's funeral, her parents,
Speaker 2: James and Frida, moved away. Eventually they divorced again. I
Speaker 2: take no joy in retraumatizing anyone and digging up family trauma.
Speaker 2: But I believe that there are answers in this case
Speaker 2: that could be found, and they are not in this
Speaker 2: police case file.
Speaker 1: We have to find these people, We need to talk
Speaker 1: to them.
Speaker 2: We have to keep going back to that bear Cat
Speaker 2: convenience store on the night of May fourth, nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 2: and we have to zero in on the tiny little details.
Speaker 2: Now I'm zeroing in on one discrepancy. Christina's math teacher
Speaker 2: said when she spoke to Christina that Christina had her
Speaker 2: flyer for jewelry selling in her hand, but the cashier
Speaker 2: Cashier III, who saw Christina in the doorway of the
Speaker 2: bear Cat a little while later, said Christina did not
Speaker 2: have anything in her hands, and she remembered that because
Speaker 2: Christina kind of shrugged and she saw both of her
Speaker 2: hands go up and they were empty.
Speaker 1: So could Christina have left her flyer at home then come.
Speaker 2: Back to the store. If so, why was she coming
Speaker 2: back to the store. If she was done selling her jewelry.
Speaker 2: Could she have seen someone she knew outside, maybe someone
Speaker 2: who offered her a ride. Maybe that person had already
Speaker 2: talked to Christina when the cashier saw her inside the door.
Speaker 2: Maybe their car was sitting outside right then.
Speaker 1: I am not giving up on this case.
Speaker 2: I'm going to work my way through the hundreds of
Speaker 2: messages I've received and keep reaching out and keep trying
Speaker 2: to get answers. I'm going to document every single interview
Speaker 2: that I have, and I'm going to turn over any
Speaker 2: helpful information I find to law enforcement and to.
Speaker 1: The prosecutor's office. And I'm going to keep.
Speaker 2: Pushing for access to that autopsy report and also to
Speaker 2: get any information that I can about Geneva Smith and
Speaker 2: Guardina Cross. Of course, we can never know exactly what
Speaker 2: will happen next, but I can promise, as always, I
Speaker 2: will keep working on this case in the background, and
Speaker 2: I will keep you posted. Most importantly, I'm gonna keep
Speaker 2: talking to people any one I can, because every time
Speaker 2: I do, with every new detail that I learned that
Speaker 2: was not in the case file or in any of
Speaker 2: the police reports, that potential window of time that someone
Speaker 2: had to kidnap and murder a little girl gets smaller
Speaker 2: and smaller.
Speaker 1: We have to keep digging. I'm Catherine Townsend.
Speaker 2: This is Helen Gone murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line
Speaker 2: is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2: It's written and narrated by me, Catherine Townsend and produced
Speaker 2: by Gabby Watts.
Speaker 1: Music is by Ben Sale.
Speaker 2: Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and L. C.
Speaker 1: Crowley.
Speaker 2: If you have a case you'd like me and my
Speaker 2: team to look into, you can reach out to us
Speaker 2: at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight
Speaker 2: seven four four six ' one four five that eight
Speaker 2: seven four four six one four five. Please don't forget
Speaker 2: to subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to
Speaker 2: podcasts
Speaker 1: School of Humans