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Hell and Gone Murder Line: Barbara Bryan (Archive Episode) · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:46
Speaker 1: School of Humans.
0:49
Speaker 2: Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold case murders in
0:53
Speaker 2: an effort to raise public awareness invite witnesses to come
0:56
Speaker 2: forward and present evidence that could potentially be further investigated
1:00
Speaker 2: by law enforcement. While we value insights from family and
1:03
Speaker 2: community members, their statements should not be considered evidence and
1:07
Speaker 2: point to the challenges of verifying facts inherent in cold cases.
1:12
Speaker 2: We remind listeners that everyone has presumed innocent until proven
1:15
Speaker 2: guilty in a court of law. Nothing in the podcast
1:19
Speaker 2: is intended to state or imply that anyone who has
1:22
Speaker 2: not been convicted of a crime is guilty of any wrongdoing.
1:26
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.
1:29
Speaker 3: On Friday, December twelfth, nineteen eighty, at approximately six forty
1:33
Speaker 3: five in the morning, the Mississippi County Sheriff's Department got
1:36
Speaker 3: a call about a female body lying on the side
1:39
Speaker 3: of the road. The location of the body was on
1:43
Speaker 3: Highway one't eight one, just south of Highway one fifty eight.
1:47
Speaker 3: The caller was a man named Arbora dal Watkins who
1:51
Speaker 3: lived nearby in Manila, Arkansas.
1:53
Speaker 1: He told police he had.
1:55
Speaker 3: Been en route to his job at the brown shoe
1:57
Speaker 3: factory in Osceola when he turned south on the highway
2:00
Speaker 3: and saw the body lying in the edge of a ditch.
2:03
Speaker 3: He went to a nearby business, the Reese Wholesale Furniture Outlet,
2:07
Speaker 3: in contacted the Arkansas State Police in Jonesborough, who then
2:10
Speaker 3: called the Mississippi County Sheriff's Office because the body was
2:13
Speaker 3: in their jurisdiction. Officer Richard Nash from the Mississippi County
2:18
Speaker 3: Sheriff's Department arrived at the scene at.
2:20
Speaker 1: Six fifty six am. He came to meet.
2:23
Speaker 3: The guy who had called police and to start processing
2:26
Speaker 3: the crime scene. The woman was dressed in a striped
2:29
Speaker 3: red colored dress and velveteen jacket. She was five foot five.
2:33
Speaker 3: She weighed around one hundred and fifteen pounds. The woman
2:37
Speaker 3: was carrying a reddish brown clutch bag under her right arm.
2:40
Speaker 3: Detectives were able to go into that bag and find
2:43
Speaker 3: her ID. That's when they knew who this woman was.
2:48
Speaker 3: Barbara and Bryan, a thirty year old mother of two
2:51
Speaker 3: from a Pontou, Arkansas. It was not hard to figure
2:55
Speaker 3: out the cause of death. Barbara had massive holes blown
2:59
Speaker 3: into her body by a shotgun. The shots were so
3:03
Speaker 3: violent that pieces of her hair and skull were found
3:06
Speaker 3: twenty feet away. So once again in rural Arkansas, we
3:12
Speaker 3: have a woman whose body was found in a ditch
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Speaker 3: near a highway and her car was found several miles
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Speaker 3: down the road. And just like in Amanda Tussing's case,
3:22
Speaker 3: which we discussed last week, there were suspicions that a
3:26
Speaker 3: police officer may have been involved, and Barbara's murder is
3:31
Speaker 3: also still unsolved. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past five
3:37
Speaker 3: years of making my true crime podcast, Helling Gone, I
3:40
Speaker 3: have learned that there is no such thing as a
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Speaker 3: small town where never happens. I have received hundreds of
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Speaker 3: messages from people all around the country asking for help
3:50
Speaker 3: with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and
3:53
Speaker 3: their communities. If you have a case you'd like me
3:56
Speaker 3: and my team to look into, you can reach out
3:58
Speaker 3: to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six
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Speaker 3: seven eight seven four four six one four five. That's
4:05
Speaker 3: six seven eight seven four four, six one four or five.
4:09
Speaker 3: This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Police had responded to
5:01
Speaker 3: a murder scene along the shoulder of the road. From
5:04
Speaker 3: there things happened fast. The county corner was contacted at
5:08
Speaker 3: seven fifteen am arrangements were made to move Barber's body
5:12
Speaker 3: so that it could be tested. At seven twenty one am,
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Speaker 3: Sergeant J. C. Brewer arrived on the scene. He noted
5:18
Speaker 3: the position of Barber's body. It was facing the west
5:22
Speaker 3: side of the road shoulder, her feet were facing the highway.
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Speaker 3: She had what appeared to be a large shotgun wound
5:30
Speaker 3: to the chest and part of her left hand had
5:33
Speaker 3: been shot off. They found casings and shotgun shells scattered around.
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Speaker 3: They also found buckshot, the casing from Barbara's watch, and
5:43
Speaker 3: some her parts of the watch were found several feet
5:45
Speaker 3: away from the body as well. In all, police found
5:49
Speaker 3: five shotgun shells and powder dividers, and two separate locks
5:53
Speaker 3: of blonde hair. All of the hairs they found were
5:57
Speaker 3: positively identified as Barbara's. Barbara had a large bloodstain and
6:01
Speaker 3: brain material under her head. It was obvious that these
6:05
Speaker 3: were catastrophic injuries. Police also noticed something else. They noticed
6:10
Speaker 3: a ring. It had a black center mounting with eight
6:13
Speaker 3: surrounding clear settings. The interesting thing about the ring was
6:17
Speaker 3: that it appeared to investigators that it had been cut
6:20
Speaker 3: into and peeled open. From the way they describe it,
6:23
Speaker 3: it's not totally clear, but it seems like someone used
6:26
Speaker 3: a tool or something to try and remove the ring
6:29
Speaker 3: from Barbara's finger, and in the end they couldn't do it.
6:33
Speaker 3: I can't be sure because the way the report is
6:35
Speaker 3: worded is slightly odd. In my opinion, it makes it
6:38
Speaker 3: sound like the center stone may have been missing. Now,
6:41
Speaker 3: this would be very interesting because that ring was on
6:45
Speaker 3: Barbara's ring finger, the fourth finger of her left hand,
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Speaker 3: the finger that's traditionally used for engagement rings and wedding bands.
6:53
Speaker 3: The body was taken to the Chickisa Album Morgue at
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Speaker 3: the request of the coroner, and then the investigation continued.
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Speaker 3: Investigators figured out Barbara had been shot at least twice,
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Speaker 3: possibly with a twelve or sixteen gage shotgun, the type
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Speaker 3: of shotguns that are used for hunting. Both of these
7:11
Speaker 3: gun sizes, by the way, are used for hunting deer
7:14
Speaker 3: and for hunting other types of game. The twelve gage
7:17
Speaker 3: is slightly larger, but both of these weapons packed serious firepower.
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Speaker 3: Barbara was shot at least twice at very close range.
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Speaker 1: From the position that she was in.
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Speaker 3: It seemed as though she was shot in the chest
7:31
Speaker 3: from behind on the left side. This severely damaged her
7:35
Speaker 3: lungs and would have been fatal. Then she was shot again.
7:39
Speaker 3: From the description of the autopsy report of the powder
7:42
Speaker 3: burns on Barbara's hands and the fact that part of
7:45
Speaker 3: her left hand was missing, it seems as though she
7:48
Speaker 3: may have had her hand near her neck when she
7:50
Speaker 3: was shot. The state medical examiner Dan Cook did find
7:55
Speaker 3: more wounds on Barber's head, but he said that they
7:58
Speaker 3: were most likely the result of the shotgun pellets rather
8:01
Speaker 3: than direct shots.
8:04
Speaker 1: So when people go hunting deer or other animals, they often.
8:08
Speaker 3: Do it with buckshot. That's literally what the ammunition is
8:10
Speaker 3: named for. The male deer, the buck. There are several
8:14
Speaker 3: large pellets that are packed into a shotgun shell. Now.
8:17
Speaker 3: According to Field and Stream, buckshot is ideal for quote
8:22
Speaker 3: close ranges inside fifty yards. Buckshot is lethal on thin
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Speaker 3: skin targets from bobcats to coyotes, to leopards to people.
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Speaker 1: End quote.
8:33
Speaker 3: When you use a shotgun and buckshot, it comes out
8:37
Speaker 3: in a burst rather than a single shot. Forensic testing
8:41
Speaker 3: determined that the bullets had entered Barbara's left shoulder at
8:44
Speaker 3: a forty five degree angle, so it would be reasonable
8:49
Speaker 3: for police to consider the possibility Barbara knew her killer.
8:53
Speaker 1: She was standing there talking to them.
8:56
Speaker 3: Then she might have turned around to walk away before
8:59
Speaker 3: her killer shot her. Remember, she had her purse under
9:04
Speaker 3: her right arm. Police found a chalky white substance on
9:09
Speaker 3: the front of Barbara's dress, just below her breast. They
9:12
Speaker 3: never really explained what that was. Now, this is just
9:15
Speaker 3: a guest since I'm not a gun expert. I do
9:18
Speaker 3: know they use buffering powder inside shotgun shells made of polyethylene.
9:22
Speaker 1: So that might have been what it was.
9:24
Speaker 3: It could have been something totally different, like a deodorant stain,
9:27
Speaker 3: for example, So I can't say for sure, but a
9:31
Speaker 3: buffer powder is more likely in my opinion, because the
9:33
Speaker 3: medical report did point out one of Barbara's wounds had
9:37
Speaker 3: powder burnt. What this means is that Barbara's killer shot
9:41
Speaker 3: her at very close range. The autopsy also mentioned Barbara
9:46
Speaker 3: was not wearing underwear. Now, this could have been a
9:49
Speaker 3: fashion choice, but we also have to consider the possibility
9:52
Speaker 3: that it might have been removed, possibly by the killer,
9:56
Speaker 3: maybe in an attempt to camouflage DNA if the killer
9:59
Speaker 3: had any type of sexual encounter with her, either consensual
10:03
Speaker 3: or not, before her murder. There were two shots fired,
10:08
Speaker 3: so It seems as though either Barbara's killer shot her
10:10
Speaker 3: in the back and then turned her over and shot her,
10:13
Speaker 3: or shot her and then fired the fatal shot as
10:17
Speaker 3: she tried to run away. Either way, this was an
10:20
Speaker 3: execution and it was brutal and judging by the way
10:23
Speaker 3: that her killer tried to wrench the ring from her finger,
10:26
Speaker 3: this was very personal. Barbara Brian's murder happened in the
10:36
Speaker 3: same general area as the murder of Amanda Tussing, the
10:39
Speaker 3: case that we discussed in a previous episode. As we mentioned,
10:44
Speaker 3: Amanda Tussing was making a forty mile drive from her fiance,
10:47
Speaker 3: Matt Irvin's home in Jonesboro to her parents house in Dell, Arkansas.
10:51
Speaker 3: It was raining hard that night and Amanda never made
10:54
Speaker 3: it home. Her car was found part just off Highway
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Speaker 3: eighteen near Monette. Her body was found days later in
11:02
Speaker 3: a ditch near Lake City. Like Barbara's, Amanda's murder is
11:06
Speaker 3: still unsolved, and even though the causes of death are different,
11:10
Speaker 3: Amanda may have been strangled and there were no gunshots involved,
11:13
Speaker 3: while Barbara was very obviously fatally shot, there are some similarities.
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Speaker 3: Both women were petite, both of their bodies were recovered
11:21
Speaker 3: miles away from their cars, and both bodies were found
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Speaker 3: in locations that made investigators believe the killer had to
11:28
Speaker 3: have a lot of local knowledge. A lot of people
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Speaker 3: in this neck of the woods have connected Barbara and
11:33
Speaker 3: Amanda's cases over the years.
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Speaker 1: One of the reasons why I was.
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Speaker 3: So fascinated by this case is because while there is
11:40
Speaker 3: a ton of information about Amanda Tossing, there is very
11:43
Speaker 3: little information out there about the life of Barbara and
11:46
Speaker 3: Armstrong Brian. What we do know is that she was
11:50
Speaker 3: born in Caraway, Arkansas, in Craighead County, to Fleming's Skinny
11:55
Speaker 3: Armstrong and Agnes Armstrong.
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Speaker 1: Barbara's dad, Skinny, was a farmer. She grew up in a.
12:00
Speaker 3: Baptist's household, like a lot of other kids in that region.
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Speaker 3: She had a brother named Gary, and again, very much
12:08
Speaker 3: like in Amanda Tussing's case, when police found Barbara's purse,
12:12
Speaker 3: it had her car, keys and all of her belongings
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Speaker 3: inside it. Barbara's nineteen seventy four brown Chevy Nova was
12:18
Speaker 3: parked five miles from where her body was found. All
12:21
Speaker 3: of the doors were locked, there was no sign of
12:24
Speaker 3: foul play inside the vehicle. Police found items inside the
12:29
Speaker 3: car personal items of Barbara's that did give investigators a
12:32
Speaker 3: clue about her movements right before she went missing. Inside
12:37
Speaker 3: the car, on the middle of the front seat, they
12:39
Speaker 3: found a white cloth jacket lying on top of a
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Speaker 3: green overnight case. Next to the overnight bag, there was
12:45
Speaker 3: an envelope that was addressed to Barbara.
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Speaker 1: So the investigator on the case, J. C.
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Speaker 3: Brewer, talked to Barbara's closest girlfriend, a woman named Joyce Langston.
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Speaker 3: Joyce told police she had been super close to Barbara
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Speaker 3: for a long time, but she said she had stopped
13:01
Speaker 3: running around with Barbara lately and these are her words
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Speaker 3: because Barbara was dating married men. Police continued to process
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Speaker 3: Barbara Brian's in nineteen seventy four Chevy Nova. They wondered
13:14
Speaker 3: about the location of the car versus the location of
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Speaker 3: her body. Why, if it was in fact Barbara driving,
13:21
Speaker 3: would Barbara park her car and stop there on that
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Speaker 3: deserted strip of road. They took the car to the
13:26
Speaker 3: Sheriff's department. Investigators wanted to check out the vehicle's condition.
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Speaker 3: They were thinking, maybe the car broke down, Maybe Barbara
13:33
Speaker 3: encountered a stranger, Maybe she stopped to pick someone up
13:36
Speaker 3: and he pulled a gun on her, or maybe she
13:39
Speaker 3: had someone with her in the car. The car broke down,
13:41
Speaker 3: something went wrong and they got into an argument. They
13:44
Speaker 3: had to consider all different types of scenarios. They saw
13:47
Speaker 3: that the gas gauge showed that the car was empty,
13:51
Speaker 3: but that was kind of a red herring because when
13:53
Speaker 3: police started the car up, it ran fine. Later they
13:57
Speaker 3: figured out the gas gauge itself was broken, but the
14:00
Speaker 3: car had plenty of gas in it. In the police
14:03
Speaker 3: report noted the vehicle exterior had dew on it, so
14:07
Speaker 3: they weren't able to lift latent prints. The vehicle was
14:10
Speaker 3: impounded to the Sheriff's department for further processing. But then
14:14
Speaker 3: I can't find anything more in this report about what
14:17
Speaker 3: happened to the car, whether they did take fingerprints. They
14:21
Speaker 3: got into her bag. They unzipped the carrier and found
14:24
Speaker 3: Barbara's stuff inside. They found a white pair of pants
14:26
Speaker 3: and maroon blouse, her makeup, her curling iron, all of
14:29
Speaker 3: the stuff that she would need to get ready, as
14:31
Speaker 3: well as two small plaster statues and an ankle bracelet.
14:36
Speaker 3: They also found photographs of two white men. So police
14:40
Speaker 3: got more information from Barbara's girlfriend, Joyce. She looked at
14:44
Speaker 3: the photos in Barbara's bag and said that one of
14:47
Speaker 3: them was Jerry Shaw. She said that Jerry Shaw and
14:50
Speaker 3: Barbara had been dating for several months and that things
14:53
Speaker 3: were going well. They found a greeting card inside and
14:56
Speaker 3: it was also written by Jerry Shaw. But then Joyce
15:00
Speaker 3: told them something shocking. Joyce said that for the past
15:04
Speaker 3: several years, Barbara had been dating someone else, a police
15:08
Speaker 3: officer named Johnny Williams. Johnny Williams lived in black Oak,
15:13
Speaker 3: which was a small town nearby by the way. This
15:17
Speaker 3: was very close to the area where Amanda Tussing's body
15:20
Speaker 3: was found. Johnny was born in nineteen forty six, so
15:24
Speaker 3: by two thousand, when Amanda Tussing was murdered, Johnny would
15:27
Speaker 3: have been fifty four years old. He served in the
15:30
Speaker 3: Navy in Vietnam and then after that was a police
15:33
Speaker 3: officer in black Oak, and he also worked in the
15:35
Speaker 3: neighboring county at the Craighead County Sheriff's office. At one
15:39
Speaker 3: point he was an Arkansas State trooper. We mentioned that
15:42
Speaker 3: he became a suspect and Amanda Tussing's death because of
15:45
Speaker 3: his alleged behavior Apparently he had a habit of following
15:49
Speaker 3: single women around in his police cruiser. But in nineteen eighty,
15:54
Speaker 3: Johnny Williams would have been thirty four, and now we
15:57
Speaker 3: find out that he was dating Barbara. Bryan Joyce told
16:01
Speaker 3: police that Johnny was not happy about the fact Barbara
16:05
Speaker 3: wanted to end things. Joyce told police Barbara had told
16:09
Speaker 3: her that Johnny Williams flew into jealous rages. On the
16:13
Speaker 3: night Barbara was shot, she had a date with Jerry Shaw.
16:16
Speaker 3: Jerry lived in Blible. That's why Barbara had her overnight bag.
16:21
Speaker 3: She had her stuff ready for a weekend with her boyfriend.
16:25
Speaker 1: Joyce said.
16:25
Speaker 3: Two weeks before Barbara was murdered, Barbara called her and
16:29
Speaker 3: told her she had a violent confrontation with Johnny. She
16:32
Speaker 3: said she had told Johnny she was dating another man,
16:35
Speaker 3: and that Johnny got extremely upset and beat on the
16:39
Speaker 3: dash of his car. Barbara told Joyce, according to the
16:42
Speaker 3: incident report, that Joe was extremely jealous. Last week, when
16:47
Speaker 3: we talked about Amanda Tussing's case, we talked about the
16:49
Speaker 3: blue light rapist. The blue light rapist impersonated a police
16:53
Speaker 3: officer and committed a string of sexual assaults in this area,
16:56
Speaker 3: but of course he had already been arrested and sent
16:58
Speaker 3: to prison by the time Amanda disappeared. A lot of
17:02
Speaker 3: people at that time talked about the possibility that Amanda
17:06
Speaker 3: Tussing might have pulled over for a real police officer,
17:10
Speaker 3: and that perhaps a real police officer had.
17:12
Speaker 1: Been the killer.
17:14
Speaker 3: Johnny Williams worked for the Tyronza Sheriff's Department. Tyron'sa is
17:18
Speaker 3: a small town in the northeast part of the state.
17:20
Speaker 3: The population is only around seven hundred people and there
17:23
Speaker 3: are not a ton of jobs. A lot of people
17:26
Speaker 3: who live there commute to larger cities nearby, including Memphis
17:29
Speaker 3: and Jonesboro.
17:30
Speaker 1: George Jared, who he worked with.
17:32
Speaker 3: On the Rebecca Gould case from season one of heleng Gon,
17:35
Speaker 3: wrote about Amanda Tussing's murder in his book Whispers in
17:38
Speaker 3: the Willows, and as part of that we mentioned the
17:41
Speaker 3: theories that Johnny Williams might have been involved in Barbara
17:44
Speaker 3: and in Amanda's murders. It seemed clear from what's out
17:47
Speaker 3: there in the public that the police suspected Johnny certainly
17:51
Speaker 3: in Barbara's death, but I had a lot of questions.
17:55
Speaker 3: It wasn't clear to me how much investigating they did,
17:57
Speaker 3: whether they ever questioned him. There was just nothing written
18:00
Speaker 3: in the media about it at all. Since Amanda's case
18:03
Speaker 3: is still open, police will not release.
18:06
Speaker 1: The case file.
18:07
Speaker 3: But I hoped if we could get some information on
18:10
Speaker 3: Barber's case, maybe we could figure out whether Johnny Williams
18:13
Speaker 3: was a viable suspect in her murder or possibly in others.
18:18
Speaker 3: We did a Foyer request and we were able to
18:20
Speaker 3: get a copy of the incident report on Barbara's death.
18:23
Speaker 3: We got that from Mississippi County, Arkansas, and it turns
18:26
Speaker 3: out there was a lot more detail on record about
18:29
Speaker 3: Barbara Brin's death, enough to make me really question why
18:33
Speaker 3: Johnny Williams was never arrested. I'll get back to that
18:37
Speaker 3: in a minute. Let's go back to the crime scene.
18:40
Speaker 3: Police were trying to figure out what Barbara was doing
18:43
Speaker 3: out there on that stretch of highway. They were looking
18:45
Speaker 3: for witnesses. Now, they knew from Barbara's friend Joyce, that
18:49
Speaker 3: Johnny Williams had been dating Barbara. They wanted to find
18:52
Speaker 3: out about his movements on December eleventh and December twelfth,
18:55
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty, and they pretty quickly found a lead I
18:58
Speaker 3: have actually never seen this happen before in a case
19:01
Speaker 3: that I can remember.
19:02
Speaker 1: They got a lot of.
19:03
Speaker 3: Information from a man named Clyde Eldridge. He told police
19:07
Speaker 3: that he would often sleep overnight at the Tyronsa Police Department. Now,
19:12
Speaker 3: Johnny Williams also had an office in the Tyrone'sa PD
19:16
Speaker 3: at that time. According to what I've been able to find,
19:19
Speaker 3: he was an Arkansas State Police trooper. Tyronza was in
19:23
Speaker 3: Poinsett County, not in Mississippi County. So once again we
19:28
Speaker 3: have a case that crossed county lines and all the
19:31
Speaker 3: potential complications that that entails. Police were trying to piece
19:35
Speaker 3: together where everyone was on the night of December eleventh.
19:39
Speaker 1: Apparently on that night.
19:41
Speaker 3: Clyde Eldridge was sleeping in the iron's A Police station.
19:45
Speaker 3: He told investigators he got to the police station at
19:48
Speaker 3: twelve fifteen am. Clyde said that Johnny Williams was there,
19:52
Speaker 3: that Johnny was sitting at his desk at the police
19:55
Speaker 3: department watching TV.
19:57
Speaker 1: Clyde said he sat.
19:58
Speaker 3: Around and talked to Johnny for a few minutes. Then
20:01
Speaker 3: he said he noticed a two tone leather gun case
20:05
Speaker 3: lying across Johnny's desk, but Clyde said he didn't really
20:08
Speaker 3: think anything about it, and I'm not surprised because it
20:11
Speaker 3: was super common to have guns in that neck of
20:14
Speaker 3: the woods. Johnny was a hunter like a lot of people.
20:18
Speaker 3: The report read quote Clyde had asked Johnny if he
20:20
Speaker 3: had been hunting. Johnny stated to Clyde that he had
20:23
Speaker 3: been to Brandywine Island. Clyde advised he thought brandy Wye
20:26
Speaker 3: Island was closed. Johnny Williams stated to him, if you
20:29
Speaker 3: know who to contact, you can go hunting there.
20:32
Speaker 1: End quote.
20:33
Speaker 3: So after they discussed Johnny's hunting plans, Clyde said that
20:36
Speaker 3: sometime around one or one fifteen am, Johnny was trying
20:40
Speaker 3: to make a phone call from the police department. Clyde
20:43
Speaker 3: said he'd he didn't exactly remember who the call was to,
20:46
Speaker 3: but he said that at around one fifteen am, it
20:49
Speaker 3: did seem like Johnny made contact with the person he
20:51
Speaker 3: was trying to call. Clyde said that after that he
20:54
Speaker 3: laid down on the couch in the office. He said
20:57
Speaker 3: he went to sleep. Sometime around two or two thirty am,
21:00
Speaker 3: he heard someone leaving the police station. He explained that
21:03
Speaker 3: when the front door is unlocked, it wakes him up.
21:05
Speaker 3: He stated he usually wakes up when someone opens the
21:07
Speaker 3: door and then gets up to see what they want.
21:10
Speaker 3: After he woke up, he walked to the front of
21:12
Speaker 3: the police department and looked outside. He noticed Johnny Williams
21:15
Speaker 3: was gone. Johnny williams jeep eagle was not parked in front.
21:20
Speaker 3: Clyde said he wasn't exactly sure of the time. He
21:22
Speaker 3: went back to sleep, and the next thing he remembered
21:25
Speaker 3: was at four forty five am, when the police chief,
21:27
Speaker 3: Floyd White, came into the police department and woke him up.
21:32
Speaker 3: This is almost like a movie about smalltown police, complete
21:36
Speaker 3: with people admitting to sleeping on their jobs at night
21:39
Speaker 3: and people crashing in the police station. Evidently, police were
21:45
Speaker 3: very suspicious of Johnny Williams because on the very next day,
21:49
Speaker 3: in December thirteenth of nineteen eighty, Johnny Williams was interrogated.
21:53
Speaker 3: Investigators gave him a lie detector test. The investigator's name
21:56
Speaker 3: was George Stewart. They administered the polygraph at the Mississippi
22:00
Speaker 3: County Sheriff's Department. The lie detector examiner said Johnny Williams
22:05
Speaker 3: had been deceptive, which means investigators concluded that Johnny Williams
22:09
Speaker 3: lied during that test. Again, I think we have to
22:12
Speaker 3: be very careful about putting too much faith into light detectors.
22:16
Speaker 3: We've talked about that a lot on this podcast. We
22:18
Speaker 3: know they're dependent on the skill of the person administering them. Also,
22:22
Speaker 3: there's a good reason why they're not admissible in court.
22:25
Speaker 3: But I do think it's really interesting that immediately the police,
22:29
Speaker 3: who sometimes people criticized for protecting one of their own,
22:32
Speaker 3: were suspicious of another officer, they do not hesitate to
22:35
Speaker 3: polygraph him. So this brings us to December fourteenth. Barbara
22:40
Speaker 3: Bryan's body has been found. Johnny Williams, who she's been
22:44
Speaker 3: dating on and off for three years, is immediately pretty
22:47
Speaker 3: much a prime suspect. On December fourteenth, they informed Johnny
22:51
Speaker 3: Williams that he had failed the light detector test, and
22:53
Speaker 3: he agreed to take a second test. This time it
22:57
Speaker 3: was administered by the Arkansas State Police, and once again
23:01
Speaker 3: Johnny Williams failed that polygraph test, So.
23:04
Speaker 1: Now he's zero for two.
23:07
Speaker 3: Police found other officers who had seen Johnny Williams that night.
23:11
Speaker 3: They found a man named James Miles, a police officer
23:15
Speaker 3: in La Ponto, He said he saw Johnny at around
23:18
Speaker 3: two thirty am on the morning of December twelfth. He
23:20
Speaker 3: said Johnny was traveling north on Highway one forty and
23:23
Speaker 3: one thirty five. He saw Johnny driving his Cheep Eagle.
23:28
Speaker 3: He recognized Johnny and he recognized the car. He said
23:31
Speaker 3: he did not see him again during his shift, which
23:34
Speaker 3: ended at three am. Investigators pulled the desklog from the
23:38
Speaker 3: Tyronsa Police department from the night of December.
23:41
Speaker 1: Twelfth, nineteen eighty.
23:43
Speaker 3: They searched Johnny Williams Jeep Eagle in the back seat
23:48
Speaker 3: on the left armrest. There was a small piece of
23:50
Speaker 3: reddish orange string entangled in the carpeting. This was entered
23:54
Speaker 3: into evidence and cataloged. Investigators also found a pair of
23:58
Speaker 3: green hip boots and a pair of camouflage coveralls on
24:02
Speaker 3: the back floorboard. There was a rust colored vest in
24:05
Speaker 3: the back of the car too that had several Western
24:07
Speaker 3: number six shotgun shells inside it, as well as a
24:11
Speaker 3: plastic container of rifle cartridges. They had found Johnny Williams
24:16
Speaker 3: hunting gear. Immediately after Barbara Bryne's body was found. According
24:27
Speaker 3: to the incident report, police identified the man she had
24:31
Speaker 3: been dating a police officer named Johnny Williams as a suspect.
24:35
Speaker 1: He admitted that he had been.
24:37
Speaker 3: In the Tyronza, Arkansas area, in the early morning hours
24:40
Speaker 3: of December twelfth. He said that the chief of police,
24:44
Speaker 3: Floyd White, could verify this. The problem with that was
24:48
Speaker 3: Chief White told police that he had seen Johnny between
24:51
Speaker 3: the hours of four thirty and five am, but not
24:53
Speaker 3: before that. Floyd White said that he came back to
24:57
Speaker 3: the police station at around seven am that morning. He
25:00
Speaker 3: said by that time Johnny was gone, but his jeep
25:03
Speaker 3: was still parked in a lot. Then Floyd said he
25:07
Speaker 3: left again and came back a second time at eight
25:09
Speaker 3: thirty am. He said by that time, both Johnny and
25:12
Speaker 3: his vehicle were gone. Floyd said that Johnny did carry
25:17
Speaker 3: a gun, a separate gun, presumably from a service revolver,
25:20
Speaker 3: in a brown carrying case. Johnny admitted that was his
25:24
Speaker 3: deer rifle. Police interviewed Johnny. They asked him about Barbara's death,
25:31
Speaker 3: and he openly admitted he knew that because he had
25:34
Speaker 3: dated Barbara that police considered him a suspect in the case,
25:37
Speaker 3: but Johnny completely denied having anything to do with her death.
25:40
Speaker 3: He said he had a close relationship with her. He
25:43
Speaker 3: said they had d for three years and that at
25:45
Speaker 3: one point they were very serious. He said he knew
25:48
Speaker 3: she was seeing Jerry Shaw. He knew she had a
25:50
Speaker 3: date with Jerry on the night she disappeared. Johnny said
25:54
Speaker 3: that on Thursday night he went to Barbara's home, and
25:57
Speaker 3: he said that's when he found out she had a
25:59
Speaker 3: Friday night date with Jerry.
26:01
Speaker 1: He said that on that.
26:02
Speaker 3: Thursday evening, prior to the homicide, he had gone to
26:05
Speaker 3: Barbara's house in an attempt to catch her coming in
26:08
Speaker 3: from work. He said he wanted to talk about their relationship,
26:11
Speaker 3: but he said he couldn't find Barbara, so he kept
26:14
Speaker 3: looking for her throughout the night. But his story was
26:17
Speaker 3: that he never connected with Barbara. This seems to conflict
26:20
Speaker 3: with him telling officers that he found out about the
26:23
Speaker 3: date with Jerry on Thursday night. I'm not exactly sure
26:26
Speaker 3: what the story there is if he's mixing up Thursday
26:28
Speaker 3: night and Friday night, but it doesn't seem to make
26:30
Speaker 3: any sense. However, he does not get called on it.
26:35
Speaker 3: Police were very suspicious of Johnny.
26:38
Speaker 1: He was jealous.
26:39
Speaker 3: He was seen driving around in the early morning hours
26:41
Speaker 3: of December twelfth, He admitted that he was in Laponto,
26:45
Speaker 3: the town where Barbara lived, at two thirty am Friday morning,
26:49
Speaker 3: looking for Barbara. You also have an officer from Laponto
26:52
Speaker 3: saying that he saw Johnny driving on Highway one forty
26:56
Speaker 3: in that area, and Johnny had an alibi another woman
27:02
Speaker 3: who apparently came to the police department and picked him up.
27:06
Speaker 3: He said that he spent the rest of the night
27:08
Speaker 3: with this other woman. This other woman's name was Gay Couch,
27:11
Speaker 3: and eventually Gay Couch became Gay Williams.
27:14
Speaker 1: She and Johnny Williams got married.
27:18
Speaker 3: We requested an officer fitness report on Johnny Williams and
27:22
Speaker 3: it came back clean. There is no suggestion that Gay
27:25
Speaker 3: knew anything, by the way, and even if for argument's sake,
27:28
Speaker 3: she did suspect something, because they were married, she probably
27:32
Speaker 3: could not be forced to testify against her own husband.
27:35
Speaker 3: There's nothing on Johnny Williams record, at least publicly, that
27:38
Speaker 3: would alert anyone to his fellow officer's suspicions about him. Eventually,
27:43
Speaker 3: Johnny Williams got cancer. He was sick for several years,
27:46
Speaker 3: fought back, but then a few months later he developed
27:49
Speaker 3: heart problems. He died in twenty ten. He was sixty
27:53
Speaker 3: three years old. In George Jared's book Whispers in the Willows,
27:58
Speaker 3: George mentions that he heard that on his deathbed, Johnny
28:02
Speaker 3: was questioned again about Amanda Tussing's murder, but denied having
28:06
Speaker 3: anything to do with it. After he left law enforcement,
28:10
Speaker 3: Johnny founded a company called Williams Trucking Company. And by
28:13
Speaker 3: the way, there are rumors Johnny was fired from law enforcement,
28:16
Speaker 3: but I can't find any official record of that. As
28:19
Speaker 3: we know from this podcast, there are a lot of
28:21
Speaker 3: instances where departments choose to quietly allow an officer to
28:26
Speaker 3: leave on his own terms so they can avoid the
28:28
Speaker 3: bad publicity. But to me, it's terrifying that these members
28:32
Speaker 3: of law enforcement, who have such an enormous amount of power,
28:36
Speaker 3: are out driving around and the public is completely unaware
28:40
Speaker 3: of any of these pretty terrifying suspicions that there fell
28:43
Speaker 3: officers have about them. Johnny and Gay eventually had children.
28:52
Speaker 3: They were still married when he died. From what I
28:54
Speaker 3: can find in public records, it seems as though Barbara
28:57
Speaker 3: Brian's parents and her brother Gary have all passed away.
29:01
Speaker 3: So what are we left with? Because there seemed to
29:04
Speaker 3: be a lot of missing pieces in this case file.
29:07
Speaker 3: For example, I never saw any mention of testing those
29:10
Speaker 3: fingerprints from the car.
29:11
Speaker 1: Again. I never found.
29:13
Speaker 3: Any interviews with Jerry Shaw, the man Barbara was dating.
29:16
Speaker 3: It seems like everyone kind of forgot about Barbara's case,
29:20
Speaker 3: but we haven't. I want to see if we can
29:23
Speaker 3: uncover more information about these police officers who may have
29:27
Speaker 3: thought their.
29:28
Speaker 1: Secrets were buried forever.
29:30
Speaker 3: Barbara Bran, Amanda Tussing, and all the other victims whose
29:33
Speaker 3: bodies were found along random strips of Arkansas roads deserve that.
29:38
Speaker 3: I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen
29:46
Speaker 3: Gone Murder Line is a production of School of Humans
29:48
Speaker 3: and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me Catherine
29:52
Speaker 3: Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts and Miranda Hawkins. Music
29:56
Speaker 3: contributed by Ben Solee. Special thanks to Amy Tubbs for
29:59
Speaker 3: her research assistance. Noah Camer mixed and scored this episode.
30:03
Speaker 3: Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Elsie Crowley.
30:07
Speaker 3: Listen to Helen Gone ad free by subscribing to the
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Speaker 3: iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts. You can
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Speaker 3: follow the show on Instagram at Helen Gone Pod. If
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Speaker 3: you have a case you'd let me and my team
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