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Hell and Gone Murder Line: Dorothy and Buddy Little · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

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Speaker 1: School of Humans.
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Speaker 2: Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold case murders in
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Speaker 2: an effort to raise public awareness invite witnesses to come
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Speaker 2: forward and present evidence that could potentially be further investigated
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Speaker 2: by law enforcement. While we value insights from family and
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Speaker 2: community members, their statements should not be considered evidence and
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Speaker 2: point to the challenges of verifying facts inherent in cold cases.
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Speaker 2: We remind listeners that everyone has presumed innocent until proven
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Speaker 2: guilty in a court of law. Nothing in the podcast
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Speaker 2: is intended to state or imply that anyone who has
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Speaker 2: not been convicted of a crime is guilty of any wrongdoing.
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Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.
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Speaker 3: On June seventh, nineteen eighty, deputies with the Pulaski County
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Speaker 3: Sheriff's Office arrived in a green, one story ranch style
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Speaker 3: home in southwest Little Rock. Inside, they would discover one
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Speaker 3: of the most brutal double homicides in Arkansas history. Fifty
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Speaker 3: six year old Lester Buddy Little and his wife, sixty
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Speaker 3: one year old Dorothy Little, were dead in their bedrooms.
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Speaker 3: They had been brutally beaten and their throats had been
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Speaker 3: cut from ear to ear. The house itself looked as
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Speaker 3: though it had survived a hurricane. The killer or killers
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Speaker 3: did not seem to have been careful to cover their tracks.
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Speaker 3: Furniture had been overturned and blood covered multiple rooms. The
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Speaker 3: violins inside that little rock home was not confined to
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Speaker 3: a single room. It was everywhere. There was blood in
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Speaker 3: the front room, the living room, and both bedrooms. Furniture
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Speaker 3: had been moved, and the killer had forced Dorothy's bedroom
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Speaker 3: door open. The house suggested that the murders started while
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Speaker 3: Buddy and Dorothy were in their separate bedrooms. Buddy was
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Speaker 3: found in his bed, Dorothy was found in hers, but
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Speaker 3: the scene did not look peaceful. Telephones had been ripped
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Speaker 3: from the walls. Investigators quickly realized that reconstructing the sequence
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Speaker 3: of events would become one of the most difficult aspects
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Speaker 3: of the case. What happened first, who was attacked first?
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Speaker 3: Had one victim witness the other's death? Or was the
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Speaker 3: killer in a frenzied panic, or had the killer moved
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Speaker 3: methodically through the house eliminating anyone who might survive. Investigators
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Speaker 3: hope the answers were buried beneath that blood, overturned furniture,
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Speaker 3: and destruction, and yet there were some anomalies in this
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Speaker 3: crime scene, like the fact that the couple's dog was
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Speaker 3: found in the home alive and unhurt. Investigators quickly concluded
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Speaker 3: that the little double homicide had not started out as
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Speaker 3: a burglary, at least not in the conventional sense, because
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Speaker 3: the house was a mess. But investigators know that most
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Speaker 3: burglars want to get in and get out pretty fast.
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Speaker 3: This scene looked more personal. There were signs of a struggle,
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Speaker 3: an indication that mood happened after the initial attacks, and
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Speaker 3: perhaps most importantly, there were also indications that whoever committed
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Speaker 3: these murders had remained inside that house longer than anyone
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Speaker 3: initially believed. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past eight years
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Speaker 3: of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've learned
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Speaker 3: that there is no such thing as a small town
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Speaker 3: where murder never happens. I've received hundreds of messages from
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Speaker 3: people all around the country asking for help with an
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Speaker 3: unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities.
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Speaker 3: If you have a case she'd like me and my
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Speaker 3: team to look into, you can reach out to us
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Speaker 3: at our Helen Gone Murder line at six seven eight
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Speaker 3: seven four four six one four five that's six seven
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Speaker 3: eight seven four four six one four five, or you
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Speaker 3: can send us a message on Instagram at Hell and gonepod.
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Speaker 3: This is Helen Gone Murder Line Lester b Buddy Little
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Speaker 3: was born in April of nineteen twenty four. By nineteen eighty,
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Speaker 3: he and his wife Dorothy were living at their home
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Speaker 3: at the intersection of Warren and Fairfield Drive in Little Rock.
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Speaker 3: Dorothy was older than Buddy. She was born in January
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Speaker 3: of nineteen nineteen, and there's not a ton of information
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Speaker 3: out there about what they're like together was like, either
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Speaker 3: from what I could find in newspaper articles or as
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Speaker 3: part of the case file. Buddy worked at quarter mill,
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Speaker 3: and on paper he looked like a regular guy with
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Speaker 3: a steady job, but the witness statement suggests something more layered,
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Speaker 3: because some people did see Buddy as hard working in private,
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Speaker 3: but others described long standing friction around him and Dorothy,
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Speaker 3: especially involving relatives, money, and the way certain family members
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Speaker 3: believed they had been treated. Specifically, several people mentioned conflict
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Speaker 3: between Buddy Little and his brother Gerald Little. Buddy and
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Speaker 3: Dorothy's marriage is not described in the case file in
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Speaker 3: emotional terms. There are no love letters, no close friends
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Speaker 3: talking about how happy.
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Speaker 4: They were together.
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Speaker 3: What the case file gives us instead is the house itself.
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Speaker 3: They were sleeping in separate bedrooms, they had separate telephone lines,
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Speaker 3: and the crime scene suggested that the killer had moved
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Speaker 3: through both of their private spaces. There are a lot
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Speaker 3: of reasons why Buddy and Dorothy could have been living
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Speaker 3: in separate bedrooms in nineteen eighty, and there are comments
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Speaker 3: in the case file about them not necessarily living as
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Speaker 3: a romantic couple, but we don't know that for sure.
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Speaker 3: My producer pointed out that back in the day, a
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Speaker 3: lot of older married couples slept in separate bedrooms, and
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Speaker 3: some of them do today. There are lots of reasons
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Speaker 3: for this. One person might be a snorer, they might
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Speaker 3: just enjoy their private space. In this case, does the
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Speaker 3: fact that they were sleeping in separate bedrooms give us
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Speaker 3: any clues about why they were murdered. Investigators documented each
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Speaker 3: room independently, each one became its own crime scene. No
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Speaker 3: one in the investigative file described the Littles as separated
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Speaker 3: or planning to divorce. Instead, what emerges is a portrait
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Speaker 3: of a long marriage that, like many long marriages, had
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Speaker 3: settled into its own routines, but the Pulaski County Sheriff's
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Speaker 3: Office case file, while incomplete, does give some details about
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Speaker 3: the crime scene. Buddy Little was lying in his bed.
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Speaker 3: His pants were found lying on a green upholstered chair,
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Speaker 3: as if he had taken them off before getting into bed.
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Speaker 3: The contents of his nightstand had been ransacked. There was
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Speaker 3: a telephone in his room and the receiver was off
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Speaker 3: the hook, sitting in another black leather chair in the room.
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Speaker 3: There was no sign of forest entry in either of
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Speaker 3: the entrances to the house, the front door or the
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Speaker 3: side door, or to Buddy's room from the information that
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Speaker 3: I can find, But Dorothy's room was a different story.
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Speaker 3: The killer took time to force Dorothy's door open. She
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Speaker 3: was also found lying on her bed, which was made
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Speaker 3: up in sheets that had a blue flower pattern. Her
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Speaker 3: telephone was also lying in the middle of the floor
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Speaker 3: and its.
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Speaker 4: Receiver was also off the hook.
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Speaker 3: There was a bloody palm print found on Dorothy's coffee table.
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Speaker 3: There was something else in that bedroom, a family photo
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Speaker 3: that was turned face down. Autopsys later showed that Dorothy
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Speaker 3: and Buddy were both feely beaten on their heads with
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Speaker 3: a blonde object. Dorothy had been hit on the head
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Speaker 3: forty three times and Buddy had been hit at least
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Speaker 3: eighteen times. The medical examiner said the weapon had not
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Speaker 3: been determined. Investigators did take several items from the residents,
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Speaker 3: including two pokers and a claw hammer and a hatchet,
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Speaker 3: but nothing in the case file indicates that they were
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Speaker 3: believed to have been the murder weapons. Later newspaper articles, though,
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Speaker 3: quoted police as saying that in addition to be brutally beaten,
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Speaker 3: Dorothy and Buddy were all so stabbed. Dorothy had been
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Speaker 3: stabbed at least eleven times and Buddy at least eight.
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Speaker 3: The medical examiner also noted that Buddy had been quote
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Speaker 3: in a struggle before he died, but Dorothy's body showed
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Speaker 3: no such injuries. So if that's the case, if Dorothy
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Speaker 3: wasn't fighting, then why was she stabbed so many times?
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Speaker 3: Was this staging or was this extreme rage? Was this
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Speaker 3: a stranger or was this a targeted hit. The more
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Speaker 3: people police talked to, the more it appeared as though
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Speaker 3: they believed it was the latter, because the killer took
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Speaker 3: the time to take the phones off the hook, cut
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Speaker 3: the phone cords, and murder both of these people in
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Speaker 3: their separate rooms. The killer had also ransacked Dorothy's bedroom,
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Speaker 3: and the case, while uses that exact word, it stated
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Speaker 3: that the killer had ransacked both Dorothy's headboard and her nightstand,
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Speaker 3: and yet nothing of real value had been taken. Dorothy
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Speaker 3: was a nurse, and former co workers remembered her as
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Speaker 3: capable and organized, and friends described her as independent.
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Speaker 4: So investigators were trying.
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Speaker 3: To figure out who would have wanted to brutally murder
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Speaker 3: this couple and why. If money wasn't the motive, what
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Speaker 3: was The clue might have been in an address book
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Speaker 3: that was found lying in the living room. It was open,
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Speaker 3: there were drops of blood on it, and there were
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Speaker 3: also drops of blood leading from the foyer into the
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Speaker 3: front room.
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Speaker 4: And then there.
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Speaker 3: Was the couple's dog, the dog that was still in
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Speaker 3: the home unhurt when detectives came in. This also seemed
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Speaker 3: to point to the intruder being someone who knew Dorothy
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Speaker 3: and Buddy, because who could walk into a house at
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Speaker 3: night and be let in and not cause the dog
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Speaker 3: to freak out? And the same person who brutally beat
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Speaker 3: Dorothy and Buddy and slashed their throats apparently had a
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Speaker 3: soft spot for the dog and left it alone. Why
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Speaker 3: police did have an early lead a guy named Eric Ashley.
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Speaker 3: He was across the street from the little House on
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Speaker 3: the night of the murders. He said that he saw
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Speaker 3: a four door brown Maverick pull up to the guard
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Speaker 3: rail near the little Home at around nine to fifteen pm.
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Speaker 3: Then Eric said he saw the driver do a U
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Speaker 3: turn in front of the little House. Then he said
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Speaker 3: the driver got out of the car and got something
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Speaker 3: out of it, either from the front seat or the floorboard.
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Speaker 3: Then he said this person had their right hand in
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Speaker 3: his pocket as he walked toward the house. The guy
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Speaker 3: in the brown Maverick was described as being around six
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Speaker 3: feet tall, medium built, with a large belly and heavy sideburns.
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Speaker 3: Tony Smith, another neighbor, said that around nine thirty pm,
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Speaker 3: he and his friend saw Dorothy come outside to get
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Speaker 3: her dog. Her dog was barking at them. They saw
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Speaker 3: Dorothy bring her dog back inside. Then a short time
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Speaker 3: later they saw a Maverick pull up to the house
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Speaker 3: and park in a way that they said block the driveway.
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Speaker 3: Tony described the car as a four door model brown
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Speaker 3: with a black stripe down the side. Tony said that
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Speaker 3: he saw a white male get out of that car
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Speaker 3: stop as if he was eating something out of the car,
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Speaker 3: then straightened up, and Tony said that this guy seemed
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Speaker 3: to put something under his arm before standing on the
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Speaker 3: porch of the little home for around fifteen seconds. Then
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Speaker 3: Tony said that the guy seemed to change his mind
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Speaker 3: and he started walking toward the chain link fence on
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Speaker 3: the side of the little house. After that, Tony said
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Speaker 3: that this man in the maverick went to the front
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Speaker 3: door and looked like he rang the bell again. Then
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Speaker 3: the porch light came on and Buddy opened the door
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Speaker 3: and let the man inside. Tony described this man as
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Speaker 3: five foot eleven to six feet tall and fat. Police
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Speaker 3: made a composite drawing of the man who the neighbors
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Speaker 3: had seen that night. They also began trying to track
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Speaker 3: down the vehicle. The problem was this was a very
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Speaker 3: general description. It led investigators in a lot of different directions.
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Speaker 3: They considered suspects, including family members, friends, co workers, neighbors,
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Speaker 3: and people who had worked in some capacity with either
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Speaker 3: Buddy or Doroth. This was a pretty long list. One
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Speaker 3: of the first family members investigators interviewed for help identifying
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Speaker 3: a suspect was Bill Massey, Dorothy Little's son from a
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Speaker 3: previous relationship. Bill told investigators he had reached the point
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Speaker 3: where he suspected everybody, but he didn't name one clear suspect.
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Speaker 3: He mentioned family tensions, including Buddy's brother, Jerald Little, but
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Speaker 3: he said from what he understood, most of those disagreements
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Speaker 3: had supposedly been settled. But Bill did bring something else up,
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Speaker 3: the issue of missing weapons. Bill said the rumor going
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Speaker 3: around his family was that there were weapons missing from
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Speaker 3: the home. He said he believed one or possibly two
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Speaker 3: pistols might be missing from Buddy and Dorothy's home. He
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Speaker 3: remembered Buddy having a large handgun, and he said Dorothy
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Speaker 3: had a small gun she kept as well. To the
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Speaker 3: best of his knowledge, He said she kept it either
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Speaker 3: in her purse by her bed or near her nightstand
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Speaker 3: or headboard. Police also asked Bill about people to interview.
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Speaker 3: He mentioned Dorothy's nurse friends, she had, coworkers from Baptist Hospital,
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Speaker 3: Memorial Hospital, and Missouri Pacific, and relatives on both sides
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Speaker 3: of the family. He suggested that if investigators were looking
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Speaker 3: for people who Buddy and Dorothy would have trusted enough
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Speaker 3: to let into the house. Those co workers and friends
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Speaker 3: should be considered, but there are no interviews with Dorothy's
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Speaker 3: colleagues in the case file, so from what we can see,
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Speaker 3: at least, it seems as though police went in another direction.
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Speaker 3: They seemed to be very focused on family members, at
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Speaker 3: least at first.
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Speaker 4: Bill said that.
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Speaker 3: Buddy and Dorothy had relationships with some family members that
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Speaker 3: he described as complicated. Bill remembered seeing Buddy with a
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Speaker 3: handgun on at least one occasion years earlier, when Buddy
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Speaker 3: answered the door carrying that particular weapon. Other people told
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Speaker 3: police they had seen Dorothy carrying a small handgun in
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Speaker 3: her purse, and some othernesses police talked to said Dorothy
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Speaker 3: kept that same small gun near her bed at night.
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Speaker 3: Investigators were trying to track down that lead. They were
15:52
Speaker 3: trying to figure out whether firearms had been removed from
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Speaker 3: the residents. If the killer took the guns, were they
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Speaker 3: taking them because they were valuable, or could one or
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Speaker 3: both of those guns have been used as a murder weapon.
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Speaker 3: Police talked to another witness who gave them a bizarre story.
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Speaker 3: They said that a young blonde male had turned up
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Speaker 3: at both Dorothy and Buddy's funerals and burials. Witnesses said
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Speaker 3: he seemed to be just kind of hanging around watching
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Speaker 3: what was going on, and no one seemed to know
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Speaker 3: him or know why he was there. So now police
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Speaker 3: were trying to figure out if the blonde stranger was
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Speaker 3: a mourner, a friend, or just somebody who was curious
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Speaker 3: about what was going on, or whether he could have
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Speaker 3: been involved in the double murders.
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Speaker 4: Investigators were working with the theory that.
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Speaker 3: Someone Buddy knew had come into the house that night,
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Speaker 3: that they had gotten into some kind of confrontation with him,
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Speaker 3: and that either because Buddy was armed, or because the
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Speaker 3: killer escalated things, violence erupted and the killer had to
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Speaker 3: take out Dorothy because she was a witness. By the
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Speaker 3: summer of nineteen eighty, investigators with the Pulaski County Sheriff's
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Speaker 3: Office had interviewed.
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Speaker 4: Dozens of people.
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Speaker 3: They had chased down leads about these missing guns and
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Speaker 3: family disputes.
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Speaker 4: They had followed up.
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Speaker 3: On the mysterious blonde man seen at the two funerals,
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Speaker 3: but those leads had not given them a concrete suspect
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Speaker 3: in this double homicide at the Little House, So it
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Speaker 3: doesn't seem as though detectives ever figured out who the
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Speaker 3: blonde mysterious stranger was, but according to police records, they
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Speaker 3: did have one name that kept coming up early in
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Speaker 3: the investigation, James William Curran. Friends of James's talked about
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Speaker 3: his behavior over the years, and multiple people described him
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Speaker 3: as unpredictable and violent and someone who actually enjoyed telling
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Speaker 3: stories about violence.
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Speaker 4: And this wasn't just violence in general.
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Speaker 3: Multiple people told police that James had spent years telling
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Speaker 3: people about how he.
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Speaker 4: Was a killer.
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Speaker 3: Some of what he said was so outrageous that people
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Speaker 3: thought it was almost unbelievable. Police were trying to figure
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Speaker 3: out whether those things were just idle threats or whether
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Speaker 3: on the night of June sixth, nineteen eighty, James had
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Speaker 3: had a reason to go over to the Little House. First,
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Speaker 3: they needed to know who was James current why did
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Speaker 3: so many people claim to fear him. People talked about
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Speaker 3: how he carried weapons and threatened people, and how he
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Speaker 3: claimed to have killed people. But as we know from
18:28
Speaker 3: this podcast, sometimes people do make wild claims for a
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Speaker 3: lot of reasons. Sometimes they want to make people afraid
18:35
Speaker 3: of them, sometimes they like to scare people.
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Speaker 4: Investigators needed to.
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Speaker 3: Know if these stories supposedly told by James, had any
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Speaker 3: true to them, So police tracked down James's former wife,
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Speaker 3: Sherry Horton, and Sherry had a lot to say about
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Speaker 3: James current in his temper. Sherry described a man who
18:54
Speaker 3: could become angry without any warning. Cherry said James carried weapons,
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Speaker 3: including knives and guns, and that he often threatened people
19:02
Speaker 3: and he enjoyed intimidating people. Cherry said she met James
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Speaker 3: while she was working at the Texico truck stop and
19:09
Speaker 3: married him in nineteen seventy one.
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Speaker 4: She said they stayed married for eight and a half years.
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Speaker 3: During this time, investigators did find something else, a concrete
19:18
Speaker 3: connection between James Curran and Dorothy and Buddy Little, because
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Speaker 3: James's ex wife, Sherry said that he had done work
19:28
Speaker 3: for Buddy and Dorothy. She also said James didn't like
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Speaker 3: Buddy and Dorothy because of the way they treated Gerald,
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Speaker 3: Buddy's brother, and Gerald's wife, who they called Little Jerry.
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Speaker 3: One of the odd jobs that James did for Buddy,
19:41
Speaker 3: she said, was building a fence for him. James often
19:45
Speaker 3: carried a gun with him, she told police, as well
19:48
Speaker 3: as a honey knife. Sherry said James had been violent
19:51
Speaker 3: with her, that he physically abused her and that he
19:54
Speaker 3: enjoyed it. She also claimed that he raped two of
19:57
Speaker 3: her sisters, including one of her sisters who was twelve
20:01
Speaker 3: years old at the time of this alleged sexual attack.
20:05
Speaker 3: Sherry said she only realized that he allegedly sexually assaulted
20:09
Speaker 3: her sisters years later, and then Sherry told investigators something
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Speaker 3: else that immediately got their attention. She told police James
20:18
Speaker 3: often talked about killing people as though it was simply
20:21
Speaker 3: another problem solving tool available to him. Sherry said James
20:26
Speaker 3: told her that he had connections in New York. He
20:29
Speaker 3: knew people who knew how to make problems, which she
20:32
Speaker 3: took to mean people disappear, and she wasn't the only one.
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Speaker 3: Several people who knew James said he often made those
20:39
Speaker 3: kind of threads. Now, it's important to point out Sherry
20:43
Speaker 3: obviously could have been a bias source. She admitted to
20:46
Speaker 3: police she hated James because of the circumstances of their divorce,
20:50
Speaker 3: when he left her for another woman who he later
20:52
Speaker 3: married and that woman became pregnant before their divorce was finalized,
20:56
Speaker 3: and also the alleged violence against her. In crimes, she
20:59
Speaker 3: said he committed against her and her family. But after
21:03
Speaker 3: Buddy and Dorothy Little were murdered, those stories that James
21:06
Speaker 3: had told his ex wife about killing people suddenly sounded
21:10
Speaker 3: very different. None of these statements proved anything, but then
21:15
Speaker 3: police interviewed James's new wife, Shawna Curran, who was twenty
21:19
Speaker 3: one years old at the time and had only been
21:21
Speaker 3: married to James for three weeks. The couple was living
21:24
Speaker 3: in Floyd, Arkansas. Shauna told detectives that she had partly
21:28
Speaker 3: married James because she was terrified of him. But Shawna
21:31
Speaker 3: said she had concrete information about the night of the
21:34
Speaker 3: murders because she claimed that on that night, James disappeared
21:39
Speaker 3: for hours, and she said when he came back covered
21:44
Speaker 3: in blood. Shauna, James's new wife, told police that on
22:02
Speaker 3: the night the Littles were murdered, that she remembered her
22:05
Speaker 3: husband disappearing for several hours. Shawna said she remembered James
22:09
Speaker 3: leaving the house. She said she was waiting up for
22:12
Speaker 3: him to come home, and then when he did come home,
22:15
Speaker 3: she claimed that he wasn't wearing the same clothes. Shawna
22:19
Speaker 3: told police he had been wearing a white shirt when
22:21
Speaker 3: he left the house. When he came home, he was
22:23
Speaker 3: wearing a red and blue checkered shirt that was Bizarren itself.
22:27
Speaker 3: But then investigators asked whether Shawna had seen the clothing before,
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Speaker 3: and she said no. She said she didn't recognize the
22:35
Speaker 3: shirt as one of his. Not only that that checkered
22:38
Speaker 3: shirt he had on was too small, and there was
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Speaker 3: something else. When James returned, Shawna said that James had
22:46
Speaker 3: blood on him. She told investigators that he had washed
22:49
Speaker 3: clean blood from his face and arms, but she remembered
22:53
Speaker 3: blood still visible on his chest. Investigators asked her if
22:58
Speaker 3: she was sure. She said yes, she was positive there
23:00
Speaker 3: was blood on James's chest on the night of the murders,
23:03
Speaker 3: but there was more because, according to Shawna's account, James
23:07
Speaker 3: eventually told her exactly what happened, but Shawna said he
23:11
Speaker 3: didn't confess in a dramatic way.
23:14
Speaker 4: He didn't cry or break down.
23:16
Speaker 3: According to what Shauna told police, James just told her
23:19
Speaker 3: straight up, I killed two people tonight. Then, she said
23:23
Speaker 3: they went to James's mother's house, where they had been staying.
23:26
Speaker 3: She said that during this time she was in a
23:28
Speaker 3: state of shock. Investigators would later describe their interview with
23:33
Speaker 3: Shauna as one of the most important moments in the
23:36
Speaker 3: entire Little Homicide investigation, because, according to Shawna, James didn't
23:41
Speaker 3: simply admit to killing Buddy and Dorothy. He told her
23:44
Speaker 3: about the alleged murder weapon and had her handle it.
23:48
Speaker 3: Shawna said that after they got to his mother's house,
23:51
Speaker 3: James allegedly handed her a sock that had two knots
23:54
Speaker 3: in it and a bar of soap inside.
23:56
Speaker 4: He told her to take it and.
23:58
Speaker 3: Then told her to put the soap in the bathroom
24:00
Speaker 3: and the sock and the dirty clothes. Shawna said she
24:03
Speaker 3: did that, and that when she undid the knots on
24:06
Speaker 3: that sock, she found the bar of soap inside of
24:09
Speaker 3: it and just finished doing what James told her to do.
24:13
Speaker 3: After that, she claimed that they were riding around in
24:15
Speaker 3: James's truck. He told her he was supposedly looking for
24:19
Speaker 3: some pills he had lost. She claimed that they pulled
24:22
Speaker 3: up in the little driveway to look for the bottle,
24:25
Speaker 3: but she said he didn't find them, and while this
24:27
Speaker 3: was going on, she asked him why he killed the people.
24:31
Speaker 3: He said something about owing people money and made a
24:34
Speaker 3: statement that he did it to protect his children and family. Then,
24:39
Speaker 3: Shauna claimed that James got a green bag out of
24:41
Speaker 3: the car and said, you might not want to see this.
24:45
Speaker 3: She said that she went to the bedroom for a
24:46
Speaker 3: minute and when she came back, James was getting a
24:49
Speaker 3: blue and white flowered pillowcase out. She said she could
24:54
Speaker 3: see blood showing through along with the blue flowers. She
24:58
Speaker 3: said his blue jeans were covered with blood and that
25:00
Speaker 3: his original shirt was also in the pillowcase.
25:03
Speaker 4: The white shirt he had.
25:04
Speaker 3: Been wearing when he went out now she said it
25:07
Speaker 3: had a big brown spot on it. Shawna said James
25:11
Speaker 3: laid the wadded up clothes out and then he started
25:14
Speaker 3: pulling other stuff out of this pillowcase, including a big
25:17
Speaker 3: jewelry box. Then he said, quote, I wanted the police
25:21
Speaker 3: to think that it was a robbery end quote. Shawna said,
25:24
Speaker 3: James was mumbling something else, and he opened that jewelry
25:27
Speaker 3: box and showed her a bunch of jewelry in there.
25:30
Speaker 3: Nothing fancy, she said, But there were a bunch of
25:33
Speaker 3: credit cards on top of the jewelry, and she said
25:37
Speaker 3: the cards.
25:38
Speaker 4: Had Buddy's name on them.
25:40
Speaker 3: Then, she said, while James was pulling out these credits,
25:43
Speaker 3: cards and pieces of jewelry. At that point, he pulled
25:46
Speaker 3: out a bloody knife. He told her to wash the knife.
25:50
Speaker 4: She said that she did.
25:53
Speaker 3: Now, there are a couple of details that stick out here.
25:55
Speaker 3: First of all, the blue flowered print sounds similar to
25:59
Speaker 3: Dorothy's bedding, but was it an exact match. Oddly, investigators
26:04
Speaker 3: never really mentioned that in the case file. Shawna said
26:07
Speaker 3: after James allegedly told her all this, he told her
26:11
Speaker 3: to keep their dog away from the area where they
26:13
Speaker 3: burn their trash. Then, she said that he put all
26:17
Speaker 3: of this stuff, jewelry, credit cards, everything in the burn
26:20
Speaker 3: pile and set it on fire. Shawna said James put
26:24
Speaker 3: a bunch of other stuff in a bag, then drove
26:27
Speaker 3: back towards Sirce. She claims that she helped him throw
26:31
Speaker 3: that bag off a bridge.
26:34
Speaker 4: When they went home.
26:35
Speaker 3: Shauna claimed that James took the knife Bnett with a
26:39
Speaker 3: pair of pliers and tried to break the handle off,
26:41
Speaker 3: but she said in the end he threw the weapon.
26:43
Speaker 3: Then the next morning off a wooden bridge close to
26:46
Speaker 3: their home. Shauna said she asked James again why he
26:50
Speaker 3: did this. She claims he said, so that my kids
26:53
Speaker 3: will be safe. She said that when she saw on
26:56
Speaker 3: the news about the brutal murders of the Littles, she
26:59
Speaker 3: knew it was him, and she said she was terrified.
27:02
Speaker 3: Shauna told investigators that James later gave her even more
27:05
Speaker 3: details about what allegedly went down on the night that
27:08
Speaker 3: Buddy and Dorothy were killed. He told her he went
27:12
Speaker 3: over there and was worried because he owed money to people.
27:16
Speaker 3: He said he knocked on the door that night and
27:17
Speaker 3: Buddy opened the door and let him in.
27:20
Speaker 4: By the way.
27:20
Speaker 3: Police asked Shauna if James said he was drinking that night.
27:24
Speaker 3: She said at some point James did say something like that.
27:27
Speaker 3: She said he showed her a plastic glass that was
27:29
Speaker 3: in his pocket and made a comment to her about
27:32
Speaker 3: one of the ways of not getting caught was taking
27:35
Speaker 3: everything you touched.
27:37
Speaker 4: She said.
27:37
Speaker 3: James told her he and Buddy were sitting around talking
27:40
Speaker 3: that Buddy made the mistake of saying something about some money.
27:44
Speaker 3: This seemed to have annoyed James, who then made a
27:47
Speaker 3: comment back about how Buddy owed people some money and
27:50
Speaker 3: that Betty didn't know anything about it, or something like that.
27:53
Speaker 3: Then James said Betty heard that comment and she got
27:56
Speaker 3: furious and grabbed a revolver. After that, James claimed that
28:01
Speaker 3: he went crazy. He said he attacked the couple. Police
28:05
Speaker 3: also asked Shauna about telephones if James had ever mentioned
28:09
Speaker 3: anything about phones, She replied, James told her after killing
28:13
Speaker 3: Buddy and Dorothy, he cut the telephone wires. Now this
28:16
Speaker 3: was important because the fact that the wires were cut
28:20
Speaker 3: was something that at that time police had not stated publicly.
28:24
Speaker 3: She said that at some point while they were driving around,
28:28
Speaker 3: James stopped near a service station around Baseline Road and
28:31
Speaker 3: Guyer Springs. She said she remembered that location because he
28:35
Speaker 3: did something unusual there. There was water on the pavement,
28:39
Speaker 3: there was an outside faucet that appeared to have been running,
28:42
Speaker 3: and that's where she claims he the blood off. So
28:45
Speaker 3: investigators were trying to match what Shawn had told them
28:48
Speaker 3: to the physical evidence. They started searching homes, vehicles, safety
28:52
Speaker 3: deposit boxes, and a lot of other places, and the
28:56
Speaker 3: deeper they investigated, the more convinced they became they had
28:59
Speaker 3: found their killer. But there were still problems with this
29:02
Speaker 3: case because there was no definite murder weapon, there was
29:05
Speaker 3: none found, and also the medical examiner couldn't definitively say
29:09
Speaker 3: for sure what had been used to beat Buddy and Dorothy.
29:12
Speaker 3: There was no DNA we're talking about nineteen eighty here.
29:16
Speaker 3: They didn't have a way to DNA test the shirt
29:19
Speaker 3: to get an exact match on the blood. So in
29:22
Speaker 3: some ways this case was not airtight. And it turned
29:26
Speaker 3: out that Eric Ashley, the witness, had also seen another
29:30
Speaker 3: vehicle on the night of the killings. At eleven PM.
29:34
Speaker 3: After seeing the man in the maverick, Eric said he
29:37
Speaker 3: heard a loud bang. He said around ten minutes later,
29:40
Speaker 3: a light green colored in Paula drove up to the
29:44
Speaker 3: little house and that a white male got out of
29:46
Speaker 3: that vehicle and walked toward the house. This man was
29:49
Speaker 3: described as being around six foot three inches tall, one
29:52
Speaker 3: hundred and seventy to one hundred and eighty pounds, wearing
29:54
Speaker 3: blue jeans and a white T shirt. Eric said this
29:58
Speaker 3: man quote walked like he was in a hurry. So
30:01
Speaker 3: who was this second person? James Curran was around five
30:05
Speaker 3: foot seven in weigh one hundred and seventy five pounds,
30:08
Speaker 3: so he didn't seem to match either description exactly. Was
30:13
Speaker 3: the witness mistaken or were these different people, or if
30:17
Speaker 3: one of them was James. Could there have been a
30:19
Speaker 3: second person involved? Investigators became particularly interested in the vehicle
30:24
Speaker 3: the Maverick scene near the Little residence. They wanted to
30:28
Speaker 3: find that Ford Maverick, so detectives tracked down factory diagrams.
30:32
Speaker 3: They looked at trim packages, they compared moldings. They were
30:35
Speaker 3: trying to figure out exactly what model the witness had seen.
30:40
Speaker 3: At the same time, they were searching properties connected to
30:43
Speaker 3: James Curran. On July eleventh, nineteen eighty, investigators obtained a
30:48
Speaker 3: consent to search from James Current in connection with the
30:51
Speaker 3: homicides of Buddy and Dorothy Little. Shawna had mentioned rings
30:55
Speaker 3: that James allegedly showed her that he had taken from
30:58
Speaker 3: the Little house. Those rings had been put into a
31:01
Speaker 3: safety deposit box at Twin City Bank. Investigators opened that
31:05
Speaker 3: safety deposit box and they found an oval shaped pinky
31:08
Speaker 3: ring with small silver circles around it, and an open
31:11
Speaker 3: disc about the size of a penny, inscribed nine oh
31:15
Speaker 3: one record in detail with an h at the bottom.
31:20
Speaker 3: James Curran was subsequently arrested and charged with the murders
31:24
Speaker 3: of Dorothy and Buddy Little. He was incarcerated in the
31:27
Speaker 3: Pulaski County Jail, and police felt confident about their case,
31:32
Speaker 3: they changed the case status to closed by arrest. The
31:36
Speaker 3: main evidence that investigators had was these witness statements describing
31:40
Speaker 3: a tan Or brown Ford Maverick near the Little Red
31:43
Speaker 3: Residents on the night of June sixth, nineteen eighty the
31:46
Speaker 3: statements from Shawna regarding James's activities after the murders, and
31:50
Speaker 3: statements from other witnesses concerning James's prior behavior and his
31:54
Speaker 3: relationship with Buddy and Dorothy. James Curran was set to
31:59
Speaker 3: be tried for the murders of Buddy and Dorothy. In
32:03
Speaker 3: March of nineteen eighty one, when the grand jury was unpaneled,
32:08
Speaker 3: James's lawyer asked for a dismissal of the indictment against
32:11
Speaker 3: him because the attorney claimed the composition of the grand
32:15
Speaker 3: jury was unfair. He said the panel was disproportionately composed
32:18
Speaker 3: of business executives, which he said would prejudice them against
32:22
Speaker 3: his client. The trial ended up moving forward, but by
32:26
Speaker 3: March twentieth, the case had reached final testimony and the
32:30
Speaker 3: jury was deadlocked. The prosecution suffered a major blow when
32:35
Speaker 3: the judge ruled that James's wife's statements could not be
32:38
Speaker 3: used against him, according to newspaper reports, So in the end,
32:43
Speaker 3: James Kerrn was acquitted of the murders of Dorothy and
32:47
Speaker 3: Buddy Little, even though James was set free. According to
32:52
Speaker 3: the case file, the police considered the case closed after
32:55
Speaker 3: James's arrest. There's no way to track James Curran down
33:00
Speaker 3: because he's dead, and according to police, this case is
33:04
Speaker 3: completely closed. They believed they had their killer. But I
33:07
Speaker 3: still have a lot of questions. First of all, there
33:10
Speaker 3: was no physical evidence against James. So was James the
33:14
Speaker 3: killer and this was just a case of police not
33:16
Speaker 3: having enough evidence to prosecute him. Is there a way
33:20
Speaker 3: to test this evidence today? And more definitively have answers
33:24
Speaker 3: in this case? Or could there be another suspect out there?
33:28
Speaker 3: The case file has some interesting leads. Bill Massey talked
33:32
Speaker 3: in his interview about someone else, someone who he described
33:35
Speaker 3: as big and strong and a little bit fat, someone
33:38
Speaker 3: who was one of the pallbearers at the funeral and
33:40
Speaker 3: who worked at one.
33:41
Speaker 4: Of the dealerships with Bill.
33:43
Speaker 3: This this guy might have fit the physical description of
33:45
Speaker 3: one of the people at the little home on the
33:47
Speaker 3: night of the killings. Also, this person supposedly traded his
33:51
Speaker 3: car right after the murders, and there was another neighbor,
33:55
Speaker 3: Missus Rosewood, who said she saw a light colored vehicle
33:58
Speaker 3: turn around in the little driveway. We're going to be
34:05
Speaker 3: including some materials from this case file on Instagram and
34:09
Speaker 3: at Catherine Townsend Investigates on Patreon. I want to warn
34:12
Speaker 3: people who come to look at these photos from the
34:14
Speaker 3: case file some of these materials are extremely graphic. I
34:20
Speaker 3: still wonder though, if the crime scene was evidence of
34:23
Speaker 3: extreme rage and overkill, or if the motive was something
34:27
Speaker 3: more cold blooded and calculated and the overkill was just
34:30
Speaker 3: to cover up. And most importantly, could there have been
34:34
Speaker 3: someone else involved with these murders and if so, is
34:38
Speaker 3: that person still out there? I'm Catherine Townsend. This is
34:42
Speaker 3: Helen Gone.
34:45
Speaker 4: Helen Gone.
34:45
Speaker 3: Murder Line is a production of School of Humans and
34:47
Speaker 3: iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend
34:51
Speaker 3: and produced by Etily's Perez Special thanks to Amy Tubbs
34:55
Speaker 3: for her research assistance and Sarah Burns for legal review.
34:58
Speaker 3: Noah Camer mixed and scored this episode. Our theme song
35:02
Speaker 3: is by Ben Sale executive producers of Virginia Prescott Brandon Barr,
35:06
Speaker 3: and L. C.
35:07
Speaker 4: Crowley. Listen to Helen Gone ad free by subscribing to.
35:10
Speaker 3: The iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts. If
35:14
Speaker 3: you're interested in seeing documents and materials from the case,
35:17
Speaker 3: you can follow the show on Instagram at Helen Gonepod.
35:21
Speaker 3: If you have a case she'd let me and my
35:22
Speaker 3: team to look into, you can reach out to us
35:25
Speaker 3: at our Helen Gone Murder line at six seven eight
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