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Hell and Gone Murder Line: Taylor Barksdale Part 1 · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:08
Speaker 1: School of Humans.
0:12
Speaker 2: On September ninth, twenty twenty four, searchers on a property
0:17
Speaker 2: in Madison County in the area of Kingston, Arkansas, found
0:20
Speaker 2: female body parts. My source tells me that they found
0:24
Speaker 2: remains belonging to the same woman, including her torso elsewhere
0:28
Speaker 2: on the property.
0:30
Speaker 1: Police have shared.
0:31
Speaker 2: Almost no information about this investigation, and while Sheriff Ronnie
0:36
Speaker 2: Boyd at the Madison County Sheriff's Department has publicly denied this,
0:41
Speaker 2: some people in Madison County think that this body was
0:44
Speaker 2: discovered while the police were searching for Jason Lyrel. We
0:49
Speaker 2: did several episodes about that case. Forty one year old
0:52
Speaker 2: Jason Lerell was going through a divorce. His fourteen year
0:56
Speaker 2: relationship with his wife, Jamaica, had deteriorated. Jason had had
1:00
Speaker 2: issues with drugs in the past, and then sometime around
1:04
Speaker 2: the winner of teawenty twenty two, it seems he relapsed.
1:09
Speaker 2: In January of twenty twenty two, Jason Lerel was visiting friends.
1:13
Speaker 1: In Madison County.
1:15
Speaker 2: He was last seen at various residences in Huntsville, and
1:19
Speaker 2: then Jason disappeared. His abandoned car was found in the
1:23
Speaker 2: parking lot of a mall in Fayette, Arkansas. His car, keys,
1:27
Speaker 2: his motorcycle, and a lot of his other belongings were
1:30
Speaker 2: found in different places in Arkansas and in Missouri. Jason
1:36
Speaker 2: Lyrell was never seen alive again, which has had a
1:41
Speaker 2: lot of people asking what's going on in Madison County
1:45
Speaker 2: and if there could be a killer, maybe even a
1:48
Speaker 2: serial killer on the loose. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the
1:53
Speaker 2: past five years of making my true crime podcast, Helling Gone,
1:57
Speaker 2: I've learned that there is no such thing as a
1:59
Speaker 2: small town where murder never happens. I have received hundreds
2:04
Speaker 2: of messages from people all around the country asking for
2:07
Speaker 2: help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families,
2:10
Speaker 2: and their communities.
2:12
Speaker 1: If you have a case you'd like me and my.
2:14
Speaker 2: Team to look into, you can reach out to us
2:16
Speaker 2: at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight
2:19
Speaker 2: seven four four six one four five. That's six seven
2:23
Speaker 2: eight seven four four six one four five, or you
2:27
Speaker 2: can send us a message on Instagram at Hell and gonepod.
2:32
Speaker 2: This is Helen Gone Murder Line. When police found the
3:24
Speaker 2: remains in a field by a rural residence in Kingston,
3:28
Speaker 2: my sources said they were shocked to discover that those
3:31
Speaker 2: remains were not Jason Lyrell's. Instead, they found the body
3:36
Speaker 2: of a young woman. They figured out that that woman
3:40
Speaker 2: was thirty year old Taylor Barksdale, who had been living
3:43
Speaker 2: in Huntsville. A lot of Taylor's life is still a mystery.
3:47
Speaker 2: We don't even officially know when she went missing. We
3:50
Speaker 2: are trying to piece together what was going on in
3:53
Speaker 2: Taylor's life by talking to her family and friends. Taylor
3:57
Speaker 2: posted on social media that she worked at the Little
3:59
Speaker 2: Rock Airport at one point, but that was about ten
4:02
Speaker 2: years ago. In recent years, her family he tells me
4:06
Speaker 2: Taylor had become involved with drugs, and also, according to
4:10
Speaker 2: her family, the drug use had taken over her life.
4:13
Speaker 1: I called Taylor's.
4:15
Speaker 3: Aunt, Hello, oh had This is Catherine from Helen Gone.
4:21
Speaker 3: Nice to talk to you, which under circumstances I was
4:25
Speaker 3: gonna say, I'm so sorry it's under these circumstances, but
4:27
Speaker 3: I really do appreciate you talking to me. I appreciate
4:31
Speaker 3: you wanting to get involved in SODA's the rest of
4:33
Speaker 3: the family.
4:34
Speaker 2: The area where Taylor was found was in a very
4:37
Speaker 2: rural area of Kingston. Said that a woman she knows
4:41
Speaker 2: there lives next door to a property where she alleges
4:45
Speaker 2: that people manufacture, deal, and use drugs. Shortly after midnight
4:49
Speaker 2: on August fifth, she heard a woman screaming next door,
4:53
Speaker 2: so she called nine one one.
4:56
Speaker 3: She did not know Taylor, but she had seen Taylor
5:00
Speaker 3: the day before, so on August before, she saw Taylor
5:05
Speaker 3: on a property next to hers, which is a known
5:10
Speaker 3: drug area that drugs for being manufactured there. She has
5:16
Speaker 3: tried for three years to get this place shut down
5:19
Speaker 3: and no avail, many many calls and many emails and
5:23
Speaker 3: texts to the sheriff himself. She had made a nine
5:27
Speaker 3: one one call on August the fifth and told them
5:32
Speaker 3: that she could hear a woman screaming for help and
5:37
Speaker 3: that it sounded like she was being raped and tortured
5:41
Speaker 3: and or I'm not sure exactly which word, and or tortured.
5:47
Speaker 2: Went on to explain that the caller waited all night,
5:50
Speaker 2: but no one ever came to the residence.
5:53
Speaker 3: And I like, you're going to miss a police car
5:55
Speaker 3: coming exact fright road exactly. And if you have ANW
5:59
Speaker 3: one one call for a woman screaming for help, you
6:03
Speaker 3: should go with life blazing. Of course, it's an emergency,
6:07
Speaker 3: I mean absolutely you took an oath to serve and protect.
6:11
Speaker 3: So no, it was totally outragious. I mean, it's unbelievable.
6:16
Speaker 3: It's so unbelievable.
6:19
Speaker 2: As days and weeks passed with no communication from law enforcement,
6:23
Speaker 2: the nine to one one caller got more and more
6:25
Speaker 2: worried about the young woman, especially once she realized that
6:29
Speaker 2: since the day before she made the nine to one
6:31
Speaker 2: one call, since August fourth, she had not seen any
6:34
Speaker 2: trace of her. So I'm not sure exactly what the
6:38
Speaker 2: sequence of events is here. That's something I'm still trying
6:42
Speaker 2: to figure out, but it seems like the nine to
6:44
Speaker 2: one one caller went on social media and started googling
6:47
Speaker 2: missing people in Madison County. Then she saw a photo
6:51
Speaker 2: of Taylor Barksdale on an Arkansas missing person's page, and
6:55
Speaker 2: the date that Taylor was reported missing there was July twentieth.
6:59
Speaker 2: That's when she realized Taylor was the young woman that
7:02
Speaker 2: she had seen, and not only that, because this is
7:06
Speaker 2: a small town, she knew Taylor's aunt, so on September seventeenth,
7:12
Speaker 2: she reached out to.
7:14
Speaker 1: At the same time that this was all.
7:16
Speaker 2: Going on, there were rumors flying around that a woman's
7:19
Speaker 2: body had been found in Madison County, So the newspaper
7:23
Speaker 2: was asking the police for comment and doing foy requests.
7:27
Speaker 2: This was all happening at the same time. But when
7:30
Speaker 2: she talked to police, she said that they did not
7:33
Speaker 2: seem overly concerned about Taylor. Believes that they wrote Taylor
7:37
Speaker 2: off because she used drugs. Now, as I'm going to
7:40
Speaker 2: get into, as we get further into this case, when
7:43
Speaker 2: exactly Taylor went missing, who put her on that missing
7:46
Speaker 2: person's page, and why she was removed from the missing
7:50
Speaker 2: person's page at some point, or just some of the
7:52
Speaker 2: many mysteries around this case. Because police are not revealing anything,
7:58
Speaker 2: I talked to a source of mine who has spent
8:00
Speaker 2: countless hours trying to help Jason Lerell's family with their case.
8:04
Speaker 2: He's a former law enforcement officer who has worked in
8:07
Speaker 2: Madison County in the past. He knew Jason from high school,
8:11
Speaker 2: and he said that he started working on this case
8:13
Speaker 2: because he became very disillusioned with how things in Madison
8:17
Speaker 2: County were operating. He goes under the pseudonym Jay Brown.
8:22
Speaker 2: I reached out to him after I saw his posts
8:24
Speaker 2: on the website Jason Lerell Missing Persons that was set
8:28
Speaker 2: up by Jason's.
8:29
Speaker 1: Sister, Sarah Wood.
8:32
Speaker 2: He believes that Jason and Taylor's cases are connected.
8:36
Speaker 1: Could he be right?
8:38
Speaker 2: And could he also be right about Jason and Taylor's
8:42
Speaker 2: deaths being connected to as many as nine other deaths
8:45
Speaker 2: in Madison County, all of which he claimed were labeled
8:49
Speaker 2: accidental overdoses and never investigated by police. We're going to
8:54
Speaker 2: get more into these potential other cases in later episodes,
8:58
Speaker 2: but for now, I'll just say that they were all
9:01
Speaker 2: people who had a history with drug use. They were
9:04
Speaker 2: all found in the same area, and my source claims
9:08
Speaker 2: that many of the same people were involved in these cases.
9:11
Speaker 2: And he's asking why police don't seem to be prosecuting any.
9:15
Speaker 1: Of these people.
9:16
Speaker 2: If this is true, if these cases are connected, we
9:19
Speaker 2: need to go back to the beginning. We need to
9:22
Speaker 2: go back to Jason Lyrell's case. Some people in Madison
9:30
Speaker 2: County believe that Taylor Barksdale and Jason Lyrell's deaths are connected.
9:35
Speaker 2: So let's reinvestigate what happened to Jason. Remember, we talked
9:40
Speaker 2: to Sarah Wood, Jason's sister. She told us that in
9:43
Speaker 2: the fall of twenty twenty one, Jason had moved in
9:47
Speaker 2: with her into an apartment they shared and fayeateful. Jason
9:51
Speaker 2: started spending more and more time with old friends. Sarah
9:54
Speaker 2: believed that his friends were a bad influence, so she
9:57
Speaker 2: was worried about him, but there wasn't a lot she
9:58
Speaker 2: could do. He was with some of these friends on
10:01
Speaker 2: January twenty fourth, twenty twenty two, Sarah was leaving town
10:06
Speaker 2: for work. She expected Jason back at their apartment because
10:09
Speaker 2: he was supposed to dog sit for her, so they
10:12
Speaker 2: were texting back and forth. Jason said he was planning
10:15
Speaker 2: to be back at the apartment on January twenty fifth,
10:18
Speaker 2: but January twenty fifth came and Jason never showed up.
10:22
Speaker 2: Sarah did receive some text messages from Jason on the
10:25
Speaker 2: twenty fifth, but she told us that for various reasons,
10:30
Speaker 2: she does not believe that those texts were sent by Jason.
10:34
Speaker 2: She said they were misspelled, they were not written in
10:37
Speaker 2: a way that Jason had written his text messages, and
10:41
Speaker 2: she believed someone else had access to his phone. The
10:45
Speaker 2: last text she got from Jason's phone indicated that he
10:48
Speaker 2: was in Hinesville, Arkansas. Then, as we covered in previous episodes,
10:53
Speaker 2: Jason's car was found abandoned parked at the Fayetteville Mall.
10:58
Speaker 2: The car was out of gas, so the Fayetteville Police
11:02
Speaker 2: were in charge of the case for the first few
11:04
Speaker 2: days of the investigation. We filed a Foyer request and
11:07
Speaker 2: we got access to that police file. In my opinion,
11:11
Speaker 2: as I said before, it was very comprehensive. So from
11:15
Speaker 2: that police report, we learned that Sarah had started calling
11:19
Speaker 2: some of Jason's friends trying to find him. She found
11:22
Speaker 2: out that he had been spending time with some friends
11:25
Speaker 2: named Randall and Rachel. Apparently he stayed with him for
11:28
Speaker 2: a couple days. His Harley Davidson motorcycle was parked there,
11:32
Speaker 2: but then he left there on January twenty first, about
11:36
Speaker 2: three days before he disappeared. On the twenty first, he
11:41
Speaker 2: went over to another friend's house, a woman named Miriam Zulman.
11:46
Speaker 2: Miriam lived on a huge property that was owned by
11:50
Speaker 2: her family. It spanned over two hundred acres, and Miriam
11:54
Speaker 2: actually started speaking out about Jason. She talked to a
11:58
Speaker 2: podcast called Helen the Highlands. She posted a very detailed
12:02
Speaker 2: timeline of everyone who was at the house and and
12:06
Speaker 2: what Jason was doing during those days from her point
12:08
Speaker 2: of view. On social media, she said there were several
12:12
Speaker 2: people around on that property. There was a guy named
12:15
Speaker 2: Aaron and a guy named Don. There were also two
12:18
Speaker 2: other people, a couple named Troy and Charity. These were
12:22
Speaker 2: Miriam's friends and they had been staying on the property
12:24
Speaker 2: for a while. So for the first few days Jason
12:27
Speaker 2: was there, Miriam and Jason had a flirtation and they
12:31
Speaker 2: were all hanging out together. She admits that they were
12:34
Speaker 2: doing drugs and that those drugs included methamphetamine. At one point, though,
12:39
Speaker 2: things started to deteriorate. This happened, according to Miriam, after
12:43
Speaker 2: Jason and Don left her house together. She said when
12:46
Speaker 2: they came back, Jason was acting very strangely, almost like
12:50
Speaker 2: something traumatic had happened. She wrote on Facebook that Jason,
12:53
Speaker 2: in her opinion, was acting schizophrenic or like he was
12:56
Speaker 2: having some sort of mental breakdown. On her timeline, Miriam
13:00
Speaker 2: said Jason left her house but then came back on
13:03
Speaker 2: January twenty fourth, and that he was there that night.
13:06
Speaker 2: She said the next morning, on January twenty fifth, Miriam.
13:10
Speaker 1: And Charity went to Missouri.
13:12
Speaker 2: Now we went into this a lot in previous episodes
13:15
Speaker 2: in much more detail, but just to keep a long
13:17
Speaker 2: story short, they met another guy named Moses. They bought
13:21
Speaker 2: some meth from him. They got home at dark. Miriam
13:24
Speaker 2: was saying the last time she really saw Jason was
13:27
Speaker 2: on the night of the twenty fourth. She said that
13:29
Speaker 2: Jason spent the night with her on the twenty fourth,
13:33
Speaker 2: but then later she seemed to kind of equivocate. She
13:35
Speaker 2: said something along the lines of she had an impression
13:39
Speaker 2: that Jason was with her. She had felt him next
13:41
Speaker 2: to her in the bed, wrapped up in a blanket.
13:44
Speaker 2: On the twenty fifth, Miriam said that she left in
13:47
Speaker 2: the morning and by the time she got back from
13:49
Speaker 2: that outing to Missouri, Don and Jason were gone. Miriam
13:54
Speaker 2: said Don texted her at around four pm and said
13:56
Speaker 2: that he and Jason had left the house. So by
13:59
Speaker 2: the time she got back home from that outing to Missouri,
14:02
Speaker 2: Don and Jason were gone. Miriam got another man message
14:05
Speaker 2: from Jason's phone. It was a picture of a tree
14:09
Speaker 2: and some boots. Now we talked to Sarah who looked
14:12
Speaker 2: at that image. She said she did not recognize those
14:15
Speaker 2: boots as Jason. She believed someone else took that picture,
14:20
Speaker 2: and as we discussed in a previous episode, I believe
14:24
Speaker 2: that it looks like someone else who was holding Jason's
14:28
Speaker 2: phone took an accidental picture of their own feet, someone
14:33
Speaker 2: who potentially was trying to make it seem as though
14:35
Speaker 2: Jason was alive when he wasn't. Miriam and Don had
14:40
Speaker 2: conflicting stories because, according to the police report, Don told
14:44
Speaker 2: the police quote he meaning Don said Miriam told him
14:49
Speaker 2: Jason walked away from her residence and was not heard
14:52
Speaker 2: from again. So Don told the police Miriam was the
14:56
Speaker 2: last person to see Jason. Miriam said that Don left
15:00
Speaker 2: with Jason. These are two different stories, and Miriam said
15:04
Speaker 2: something else that was potentially very interesting. She said Don
15:07
Speaker 2: was bisexual and that she believed Don was sexually interested
15:12
Speaker 2: in Jason. She said Don was sexually aggressive with men,
15:16
Speaker 2: which Don completely denied. The police talked to Don, and
15:21
Speaker 2: Don claimed that he picked Jason up and that they
15:23
Speaker 2: went to his house, meaning that they went to Don's
15:26
Speaker 2: residence in Huntsville on January twenty fifth. Don said that
15:30
Speaker 2: he took a shower and while he was in the bathroom,
15:33
Speaker 2: Jason walked out of his house, and Don said he
15:36
Speaker 2: had not seen him. Since police issued a search warrant,
15:39
Speaker 2: they found some of Jason's clothing at Don's house. Don
15:43
Speaker 2: claimed that Jason left his stuff behind, But as I
15:46
Speaker 2: said before, I find Don's story totally unbelievable. Why would
15:50
Speaker 2: Jason leave any of his clothing behind? And more importantly,
15:54
Speaker 2: I question why he would leave his really nice, expensive
15:57
Speaker 2: leather bike stuff. His bike was precious to him. I
16:02
Speaker 2: don't think that's something he'd leave behind, no matter what
16:04
Speaker 2: the circumstance is. So the police did subpoena Jason's phone records.
16:12
Speaker 2: Verizon records showed Jason's phone last pinged on January twenty seventh,
16:17
Speaker 2: twenty twenty two. This ping was from a cell phone
16:20
Speaker 2: tower located on Highway twenty three in Carroll County. So
16:25
Speaker 2: this was an area where three counties, Benton County, Carroll County,
16:29
Speaker 2: and Madison County all converge, which of course adds another
16:32
Speaker 2: layer of complication to this investigation. But the area of
16:36
Speaker 2: the ping was close to Don's house and also to
16:39
Speaker 2: Miriam's house. These two residences were.
16:42
Speaker 1: Not far apart.
16:44
Speaker 2: So if Jason walked away from Don's home on January
16:48
Speaker 2: twenty fifth and was never seen again, what was going
16:51
Speaker 2: on between the twenty fifth and the twenty seventh. If
16:54
Speaker 2: something did happen to Jason on the twenty fifth, if
16:56
Speaker 2: someone's not telling the truth, who sent those text messages
17:00
Speaker 2: from Jason's phone? And if Jason was killed, where is
17:04
Speaker 2: his body? According to the police report, police had talked
17:11
Speaker 2: to a lot of people and heard a lot of
17:13
Speaker 2: theories about what could have happened to Jason Lyrel, and
17:15
Speaker 2: those theories include that he was murdered in dumped in
17:18
Speaker 2: beaver Lake, that he was burned and buried somewhere on
17:22
Speaker 2: Miriam's property or possibly Dons, or that he gave himself
17:27
Speaker 2: an accidental lethal hotshot of meth, walked away and froze
17:31
Speaker 2: in the woods. As we covered previously, I believe that
17:36
Speaker 2: it's very likely that something happened to Jason Lerell. In
17:38
Speaker 2: the early morning hours of January twenty fifth. There was
17:42
Speaker 2: another guy with Don and Jason and Troy and Charity
17:45
Speaker 2: of Miriam.
17:46
Speaker 1: His name was Erin. We talked about him before now.
17:51
Speaker 2: Miriam said Aaron and Jason were smoking meth together, also
17:54
Speaker 2: with Don and her on that first night. Later, Aaron's
17:58
Speaker 2: van was stolen. He claims the van was returned to
18:01
Speaker 2: him on January twenty fifth. Police went to Aaron's house
18:05
Speaker 2: and they found a pile of clothes on the porch.
18:08
Speaker 2: Jason's relatives said later that some of those clothes belonged
18:11
Speaker 2: to Jason. There was also a blanket for Miriam's house
18:14
Speaker 2: that had been on the bed when Jason stayed with her.
18:17
Speaker 2: There was reportedly blood on some of these clothes. When
18:20
Speaker 2: police asked Aaron where the clothes came from, he told
18:23
Speaker 2: police that the clothes had come from the van, the
18:26
Speaker 2: one that had been stolen, and he'd gotten back on
18:28
Speaker 2: January twenty fifth. So if that's true, that points to
18:33
Speaker 2: the crucial point in time, the crucial day in question
18:36
Speaker 2: being January twenty fifth, and then for months we have
18:41
Speaker 2: had radio silence on Jason Lyrel's case until there were
18:45
Speaker 2: reports of a body being found in Madison County. A
18:49
Speaker 2: lot of people believed this could be Jason Lerel. After
18:54
Speaker 2: the fact, though, the Madison County Sheriff's Department posted an
18:57
Speaker 2: update stating that the remains that were found had no
19:01
Speaker 2: connection to the Jason Lyrel case. As I said before,
19:05
Speaker 2: though a lot of people don't believe that police are
19:08
Speaker 2: claiming Taylor Barksdale's death had nothing to do with Jason's.
19:11
Speaker 2: My source is telling me that's just not true that
19:14
Speaker 2: police absolutely were looking for Jason's remains when they found Taylor's, which,
19:20
Speaker 2: if true, would seem to point to the theory that
19:22
Speaker 2: the cases are connected somehow. After Taylor Barksdale's body was found,
19:28
Speaker 2: the Madison County Sheriff's Department started to put two and
19:31
Speaker 2: two together. They figured out that the remains that they
19:34
Speaker 2: found may have been linked to that nine to one
19:36
Speaker 2: one call on August fifth, the one that reported a
19:39
Speaker 2: woman screaming and being tortured.
19:42
Speaker 1: So the sheriff asked the deputy Blake Castle.
19:46
Speaker 2: The only one who was on duty that night, if
19:49
Speaker 2: he had responded to that nine to one one call.
19:51
Speaker 2: Deputy Hassle said that he had, but later the sheriff
19:55
Speaker 2: admitted that this was a lie. So let's go back
20:06
Speaker 2: and take a detailed look at the timeline. On August
20:09
Speaker 2: fifth and the early morning hours, a nine to one
20:11
Speaker 2: to one caller contacted the Madison County Sheriff's Department and
20:14
Speaker 2: reported that they heard a woman screaming. This person contacted
20:18
Speaker 2: Taylor's aunt. Taylor was reported missing then on September ninth.
20:24
Speaker 2: Police found Taylor's remains on September eleventh, two days after
20:28
Speaker 2: the remains were found, the deputy Blake Castle resigned, and
20:33
Speaker 2: still nothing had been made public at all. Nothing was
20:37
Speaker 2: released to the media or the public, saying that there
20:40
Speaker 2: could be a serial killer out there. On September twelfth
20:45
Speaker 2: or the thirteenth, depending on who you ask, Taylor's remains
20:48
Speaker 2: were sent to the Arkansas Crime Lab for analysis. The
20:51
Speaker 2: local newspaper, the Madison County Record, has been covering this
20:54
Speaker 2: case since the beginning. They asked the Madison County Sheriff's
20:58
Speaker 2: office for comment. They filed a foyer request on September seventeenth,
21:03
Speaker 2: so then on September eighteenth, Sheriff Boyd released a statement
21:07
Speaker 2: to them. So it certainly seemed as though they were
21:11
Speaker 2: just reacting to getting called out by the newspaper rather
21:14
Speaker 2: than proactively releasing information to the public. In the statement,
21:18
Speaker 2: Sheriff Boyd explained that the delay in public communication was
21:22
Speaker 2: intended to protect the integrity of investigation. In that statement,
21:27
Speaker 2: Sheriff Boyd said there are rumors around Madison County that
21:31
Speaker 2: are impeding the ongoing homicide investigation. He also said that
21:36
Speaker 2: Taylor was rumored to be missing at the end of July. However,
21:40
Speaker 2: according to police, she was last seen alive on July
21:43
Speaker 2: twentieth by the Huntsville Police Department. But we know that's
21:47
Speaker 2: not true because we know we have someone who saw
21:50
Speaker 2: Taylor alive on August fourth. That release was posted on
21:54
Speaker 2: the Madison County Sheriff's office Facebook page on September twentieth.
21:59
Speaker 2: It seems like the police have been trying to shut
22:01
Speaker 2: down people in Madison County, people who were asking some
22:04
Speaker 2: very legitimate question questions, and they haven't been forthcoming with
22:08
Speaker 2: Taylor's family either. Sheriff Boyd did not even tell Taylor's
22:12
Speaker 2: family anything about the condition of her body.
22:17
Speaker 1: There were local rumors.
22:18
Speaker 2: Being posted on social media that Taylor's head had been
22:22
Speaker 2: found in a coyote den and her torso was separate
22:26
Speaker 2: from her body. The police did not tell Taylor's family
22:30
Speaker 2: anything about the condition of her body.
22:32
Speaker 1: That job was left.
22:35
Speaker 3: I think it was his place to have to tell
22:37
Speaker 3: the family, not mine, not mine, to have to make
22:40
Speaker 3: them face the reality that their loved one is coming
22:42
Speaker 3: back in pieces. So, yeah, oh, it's just horrible. It is,
22:47
Speaker 3: it is. It's ridiculous as what it is. So this
22:51
Speaker 3: friend of mine is the nine one one caller. She
22:54
Speaker 3: told me. She said they told me that they would
22:57
Speaker 3: file charges against me for hindering an open investigation if
23:02
Speaker 3: I talked. She said, I'm sorry, I'm not going to
23:04
Speaker 3: stop talking because she deserves justice. It's time for her
23:08
Speaker 3: family to know. And so I got the other sister
23:14
Speaker 3: and got with the dad and we talked, and of
23:17
Speaker 3: course the dad is not getting up bas like I
23:20
Speaker 3: feel like you should. I think it's your obligation to
23:23
Speaker 3: call him every day. I really do.
23:27
Speaker 2: At some point, admitt she and her husband and the
23:30
Speaker 2: rest of their family started feeling like the police just
23:33
Speaker 2: weren't interested in investigating this case, so they started asking
23:37
Speaker 2: questions themselves. They asked the nine to one one caller
23:42
Speaker 2: to keep an eye on that property, and they learned
23:46
Speaker 2: that there was a camper on that property, a camper
23:49
Speaker 2: that a few days after Taylor's murder was very abruptly
23:53
Speaker 2: moved in the middle of the night. They were worried
23:56
Speaker 2: that crucial evidence could get lost, so they decided to
23:59
Speaker 2: find that trailer themselves.
24:01
Speaker 3: It was moved on August the sixteenth, Yes, at like
24:06
Speaker 3: one point thirty in the morning. Yeah, that's very sustained.
24:09
Speaker 3: They exactly who moves to camper in the middle.
24:12
Speaker 2: Of the night when and her family asked the police
24:16
Speaker 2: about that trailer, they say they were dismissed by the
24:19
Speaker 2: sheriff's department. They were told that the sheriff's department had
24:22
Speaker 2: been out there and investigated. They don't believe this because's
24:27
Speaker 2: husband is adamant.
24:28
Speaker 1: That he never saw crime scene tape.
24:30
Speaker 2: He never saw the scene being secured, and if there
24:33
Speaker 2: is investigating going on, it's being done in secret. Not
24:37
Speaker 2: only are the police not being forthcoming with information, but
24:41
Speaker 2: the family says they have reason to question whether what
24:44
Speaker 2: police are saying is true at all, because again, the
24:47
Speaker 2: police keep saying Jason's and Taylor's deaths aren't related. The
24:51
Speaker 2: Madison County Sheriff's office wrote on a post on September twentieth,
24:55
Speaker 2: quote there is no connection to the Jason Lierl case
24:58
Speaker 2: end quote. Madison County Sheriff Ronnie Boyd said that on
25:03
Speaker 2: the evening of September fifth, the in County Sheriff's Office
25:06
Speaker 2: was notified that some people were concerned about Taylor Barksdale.
25:10
Speaker 2: And there's something else. There's another date that keeps coming up,
25:15
Speaker 2: July twentieth. Something happened with Taylor that day because the
25:19
Speaker 2: Madison County Sheriff's office is saying that on or around
25:23
Speaker 2: that day, she was involved in an argument in the
25:25
Speaker 2: Big Clifty area, which is a few miles away, and
25:28
Speaker 2: that her clothes were found scattered in a field. We
25:32
Speaker 2: need to find out what happened to Taylor around July twentieth,
25:36
Speaker 2: why that led to reports of her being reported missing
25:38
Speaker 2: then when we know she was seen much later. And
25:41
Speaker 2: we need to find out what happened to Taylor between
25:44
Speaker 2: July twentieth and August fifth, the last few weeks of
25:48
Speaker 2: her life before she was heard screaming and no one
25:54
Speaker 2: came to help. And I know that there's someone out
25:57
Speaker 2: there who knows something, but some people are scared and
26:03
Speaker 2: they have said that they will not talk to me
26:05
Speaker 2: unless I go down there and meet them in person.
26:08
Speaker 2: I'm told there's certain questions that can only be answered
26:11
Speaker 2: by going to Madison County, So that's where I'm headed next.
26:16
Speaker 2: I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen
26:21
Speaker 2: Gone Murder Line is a production of School of Humans
26:23
Speaker 2: and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me Catherine
26:27
Speaker 2: Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts and Miranda Hawkins. Special
26:31
Speaker 2: thanks to Amy Tubbs for her research assistance. Noah camer
26:34
Speaker 2: mixed and scored this episode. Our theme song is by
26:37
Speaker 2: Ben Sale, Executive producers of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and ELC.
26:41
Speaker 1: Crowley.
26:42
Speaker 2: Listen to Helen Gone idfree by subscribing to the iHeart
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Speaker 2: True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts. If you were
26:48
Speaker 2: interested in seeing documents and materials from the case, you
26:51
Speaker 2: can follow the show on Instagram at Helen gonpot. If
26:55
Speaker 2: you have a case you'd like me and my team
26:57
Speaker 2: to look into, you can reach out to us at
26:59
Speaker 2: our Helen Gone Murder line at six seven eight seven
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