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Hell and Gone Murder Line: Fred New Jr. · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:46
Speaker 1: School of Humans. Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold
0:52
Speaker 1: case murders in an effort to raise public awareness invite
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Speaker 1: witnesses to come forward and present evidence that could potentially
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Speaker 1: be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights
1:03
Speaker 1: from family and community members, their statements should not be
1:06
Speaker 1: considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts
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Speaker 1: inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone has
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Speaker 1: presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
1:17
Speaker 1: Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply
1:21
Speaker 1: that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime
1:24
Speaker 1: is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening.
1:29
Speaker 2: At one forty am on Saturday, September twenty eighth, nineteen
1:33
Speaker 2: seventy four, police got a call about a traffic accident
1:37
Speaker 2: on State Highway seventy seven in Crittenden County, Arkansas, three
1:41
Speaker 2: miles north of the Late David Overpass. When they got there,
1:45
Speaker 2: they found a nineteen sixty four Chevrolet which was stopped
1:49
Speaker 2: in the southbound lane of the highway. Near the abandoned
1:53
Speaker 2: car in a ditch, they found the body of thirty
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Speaker 2: five year old Fred Knew Junior, a married father of three,
2:00
Speaker 2: who worked the night shift at a local trucking company.
2:03
Speaker 2: Fred had been shot three times at very close range
2:07
Speaker 2: with a shotgun. He had been shot in the neck,
2:10
Speaker 2: the side, and the elbow. His shoes and socks had
2:14
Speaker 2: been removed, and he had no identification on him. Fred's
2:18
Speaker 2: pockets were turned out and the money he had on him,
2:21
Speaker 2: which according to his wife was around two hundred dollars,
2:24
Speaker 2: had been stolen. Police later said they believed that whoever
2:28
Speaker 2: killed Fred also took his wallet in keys. There was
2:33
Speaker 2: blood in the front of the car and Fred was
2:35
Speaker 2: lying in a pool of blood near the back of
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Speaker 2: the vehicle outside the car, so it seems like either
2:42
Speaker 2: his killer or killers threw him out of the car
2:45
Speaker 2: or he stumbled out after being shot and his killer
2:49
Speaker 2: could have fired the final shot or shots outside. Police
2:54
Speaker 2: got the call about Fred's car after another driver crashed
2:57
Speaker 2: into it as it was stalled on the highway, but
3:00
Speaker 2: that other driver fled the scene. They later found the driver,
3:05
Speaker 2: and they dragged the hit and run driver out from
3:07
Speaker 2: under a bed at a local motel. But that was
3:11
Speaker 2: just the beginning because near where Fred's body was found,
3:15
Speaker 2: police learned that a local gas station had been robbed.
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Speaker 2: So now police had a robbery, a hit and run,
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Speaker 2: and a brutal execution style murder, all in the same
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Speaker 2: night in the same small town. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over
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Speaker 2: the past seven years of making my true crime podcast,
3:34
Speaker 2: Telling Gone, I've learned that there's no such thing as
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Speaker 2: a small town where murder never happens. I've received hundreds
3:42
Speaker 2: of messages from people all around the country asking for
3:45
Speaker 2: help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families,
3:49
Speaker 2: and their communities. If you have a case you'd like
3:52
Speaker 2: me and my team to look into, you can reach
3:54
Speaker 2: out to us at our Helen Gone Murder line at
3:56
Speaker 2: six seven eight seven four four six one four five.
4:00
Speaker 2: That's six seven eight seven four four six one four five,
4:04
Speaker 2: or you can send us a message on Instagram at
4:07
Speaker 2: Helen gonepod. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. From the beginning,
4:57
Speaker 2: this seemed to be a confusing crime scene. Police had
5:01
Speaker 2: a possible car accident, a possible hit and run, a
5:04
Speaker 2: convenience store robbery, and a murder. Now law enforcement had
5:08
Speaker 2: to figure out how and if any of them were connected.
5:13
Speaker 2: This murder happened more than fifty years ago, but Fred
5:18
Speaker 2: New's family are still trying to figure out what really
5:20
Speaker 2: happened to him that night. According to Frednw's son, Jason,
5:25
Speaker 2: he doesn't remember much about the day his dad died.
5:27
Speaker 2: He was only three years old at the time, but
5:31
Speaker 2: over the years he has talked to his mom about
5:33
Speaker 2: his father and learned that Fred was a loner and
5:37
Speaker 2: that his family still doesn't know exactly what he was
5:40
Speaker 2: doing on the day he was shot. Fred New was
5:43
Speaker 2: born on September thirtieth, nineteen thirty eight. After graduating from
5:47
Speaker 2: high school, he served in the military. He worked for
5:50
Speaker 2: a trucking company in Memphis called Bowman Truck Lines and
5:54
Speaker 2: had had that job for about five years at the
5:57
Speaker 2: time he was fatally shot. Fred was just days away
6:00
Speaker 2: from his thirty sixth birthday. He was married. His wife
6:04
Speaker 2: worked as a respiratory therapist, and they had three children,
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Speaker 2: three year old Jason, one six year old daughter, and
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Speaker 2: another daughter, Kim, who was nine at the time. We
6:15
Speaker 2: spoke to Kim. She remembered a bit more about the
6:18
Speaker 2: day that her father was killed.
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Speaker 3: I just remember mother saying, there's been a horrible accident
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Speaker 3: and your daddy's been taken from us, is what she said.
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Speaker 3: And she didn't go into a lot of detail at
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Speaker 3: that point. You know, she just reassuring us how much,
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Speaker 3: how much she loved us, and that she would want us.
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Speaker 3: The kidntinued to be good little girls named Jason be
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Speaker 3: the little boy, and he wasn't coming home, and and
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Speaker 3: Jason said when willman and daddy be back? And she
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Speaker 3: of course said, baby, your daddy's not coming back.
7:00
Speaker 2: Police interviewed Buster Wyrick, the cashier at the gas station
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Speaker 2: who was working the night of September twenty seventh and
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Speaker 2: witnessed the robbery. Buster told police that two men came
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Speaker 2: into the gas station. He described the first one as
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Speaker 2: a white male, approximately twenty five years old, about six
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Speaker 2: foot two weighing around one hundred and eighty to one
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Speaker 2: hundred and ninety pounds, with brown shoulder length hair with
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Speaker 2: alongside burns. He described the second man as a smaller,
7:29
Speaker 2: white male, about twenty one to twenty two years of age,
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Speaker 2: around five foot four inches tall, with brown, medium length hair.
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Speaker 2: Buster said that the two men waited for the other
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Speaker 2: customers to leave, and then one of them asked for
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Speaker 2: change for a dollar. Said the larger suspect pulled out
7:45
Speaker 2: a twenty two caliber pistol a gun, which is sometimes
7:49
Speaker 2: referred to as a Saturday Night special, and told him
7:52
Speaker 2: to give him all his money. Buster said that the
7:55
Speaker 2: second man came around behind the counter at that point,
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Speaker 2: took the money he had on him and shoved him
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Speaker 2: down into a chair. That's when the second suspect saw
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Speaker 2: the twelve gage pump shotgun that they kept hidden behind
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Speaker 2: the counter with some shotgun shells. The two men ended
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Speaker 2: up stealing one hundred and seventy five dollars, which would
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Speaker 2: be a little over eleven hundred dollars in today's money.
8:18
Speaker 2: Buster told police that the two men took the money,
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Speaker 2: the shotgun, and the box of shotgun shells, and then fled.
8:25
Speaker 2: He said that he saw them running through a field
8:27
Speaker 2: located behind the service station. At this point, he said
8:31
Speaker 2: he saw a car, which he described as a light
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Speaker 2: colored nineteen sixty four Chevrolet. Buster said that the Chevy
8:38
Speaker 2: was parked on the service road near the Interstate Highway.
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Speaker 2: He told police he believed that this was the car
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Speaker 2: used by the robbers. After the robbers fled the scene,
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Speaker 2: Buster ran next door to the Penis service station. He
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Speaker 2: told the operator there to call the Sheriff's office to
8:54
Speaker 2: report the robbery. When he went back to the scene
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Speaker 2: of the crime, he found out that the phone lines
9:00
Speaker 2: at his service station had been cut. One of the
9:04
Speaker 2: things that's not immediately clear is the timing of the
9:07
Speaker 2: robbery and the homicide, which one happened first. There's no
9:12
Speaker 2: exact time on the police reports. One of the only
9:16
Speaker 2: clues to timing is the statement from Buster's nineteen year
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Speaker 2: old son, Terry, who worked at another nearby Fhena gas station.
9:24
Speaker 2: On the night Fred was killed. Terry told police he
9:27
Speaker 2: was out with some friends. The girls he was with
9:29
Speaker 2: had to be home by midnight, and on the way
9:31
Speaker 2: to drive them home, he said they stopped by his
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Speaker 2: dad's gas station at around eleven fifteen so that one
9:36
Speaker 2: of the girls could use the bathroom. Before they left,
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Speaker 2: he and his friends noticed a white car sitting outside
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Speaker 2: the gas station. He described it as a sixty three
9:46
Speaker 2: or sixty four Chevrolet White, but he didn't think anything
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Speaker 2: more about it at the time. After dropping the girls home,
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Speaker 2: Terry said that he passed by the station again, but
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Speaker 2: his dad wasn't at his gas station. He was at
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Speaker 2: the Phenis station next door. That's when Buster told Terry
10:03
Speaker 2: to get down that he had been robbed and that
10:05
Speaker 2: the men had guns. Given the distances driven and the timings,
10:09
Speaker 2: that should have put the robbery sometime around midnight. Police
10:13
Speaker 2: got the call about the body by the road at
10:15
Speaker 2: one forty am. So it seems like the robbery did
10:19
Speaker 2: happen before Fred was murdered, But since no one had
10:23
Speaker 2: cell phones back then, the people in the accident had
10:26
Speaker 2: to be driven to a phone to report this, there
10:29
Speaker 2: was a delay before police were called. These two events,
10:32
Speaker 2: the robbery and the shooting, happened very close together time wise.
10:37
Speaker 2: According to police documents, the robbery happened about forty five
10:41
Speaker 2: minutes before the discovery of Fred Knew body. But here's
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Speaker 2: where it got complicated. Buster and his son both said
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Speaker 2: they saw light colored nineteen sixty three or nineteen sixty
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Speaker 2: four Chevy, and that's the same description as Fred Newscar
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Speaker 2: So was Fred involved in the robbery? Were Fred's shooting
11:12
Speaker 2: and the convenience store robbery related? Early on in the investigation,
11:16
Speaker 2: there was a lot of confusion and misinformation was spread.
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Speaker 2: For example, Roy Akers, the Deputy sheriff of Crittenden County,
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Speaker 2: told a reporter that Fred had been shot in the
11:26
Speaker 2: side with a shotgun and in the neck with a pistol,
11:29
Speaker 2: but according to his autopsy report, that wasn't true. Only
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Speaker 2: one weapon was used, a four to ten gage shotgun,
11:37
Speaker 2: And then police made statements to local newspapers that indicated
11:41
Speaker 2: they thought that Fred news homicide in the gas station
11:44
Speaker 2: robbery were related. This happened because police were following a lead.
11:48
Speaker 2: They had a detailed description of the car at the
11:51
Speaker 2: scene of the service station during the robbery. Police told
11:55
Speaker 2: local media the description of that car matched the description
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Speaker 2: of Fred newscr. So at first police believed Fred had
12:04
Speaker 2: been one of the people who robbed the service station.
12:07
Speaker 2: According to police reports, Buster was shown a picture of
12:11
Speaker 2: Fred on September twenty ninth, and he identified Fred as
12:14
Speaker 2: one of the men who robbed him. In fact, he
12:17
Speaker 2: said that Fred was the man who held a gun
12:19
Speaker 2: on him, but it turned out that it was more
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Speaker 2: complicated than that. A later police report dated October twenty eighth,
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Speaker 2: nineteen seventy four, stated no identification could be made by
12:30
Speaker 2: Buster when it came to Fred being one of the
12:32
Speaker 2: people inside the stoor who robbed him that night. The
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Speaker 2: report stated Fred knew had good character and a steady job,
12:40
Speaker 2: and at some point it's not clear whether this was
12:43
Speaker 2: a misidentification by Buster or what happened next, but police
12:47
Speaker 2: apparently determined Fred Knew was not involved in the robbery.
12:52
Speaker 2: Crittenden County Sheriff David Doyle told the Son newspaper that
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Speaker 2: their investigation had determined that Fred Knew was not one
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Speaker 2: of the two men who had robbed the service station,
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Speaker 2: and over the years, Fred's son Jason told us the
13:06
Speaker 2: detectives have told him his father was not involved in
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Speaker 2: the robbery. So how did they figure that out? And
13:12
Speaker 2: what was police's working theory? There is a lot we
13:16
Speaker 2: just don't know. According to the article, police assumed that
13:20
Speaker 2: the robbery and Fred's homicide were connected just because they
13:22
Speaker 2: happened in close proximity to one another, and potentially because
13:26
Speaker 2: of Fred's vehicle having a similar description to the one
13:29
Speaker 2: used in the robbery. The sheriff also said at the
13:33
Speaker 2: time that police were doing quote a full scale investigation
13:36
Speaker 2: into Fred's murder. After Fred was killed and left in
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Speaker 2: the ditch, his car was abandoned and one crashed into
13:44
Speaker 2: that park car and fled the scene. Police tracked down
13:49
Speaker 2: the man who hit Fred's car. His name was Billy
13:52
Speaker 2: Joe Smith. They interviewed Billy on October fifteenth, nineteen seventy four.
13:57
Speaker 2: Billy said that on September twenty seventh, he got off
14:00
Speaker 2: work at around five pm. In the afternoon, he said,
14:03
Speaker 2: he went back to his place with his girlfriend. Then
14:06
Speaker 2: they went with a friend of his named Charles, to
14:08
Speaker 2: the Town and Country liquor store and bought two six
14:10
Speaker 2: packs of beer. The group went over to another friend's
14:13
Speaker 2: house while Charles's date and Billy's date got ready, Then
14:18
Speaker 2: they stopped for more beer. Billy said that at this point,
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Speaker 2: Charles was driving, and that as they were turning on
14:24
Speaker 2: to the service road of the I fifty five, they
14:27
Speaker 2: saw a man beside a white car waving them down
14:30
Speaker 2: to stop, which he said they did. Billy said that
14:33
Speaker 2: Charles asked the man what was wrong, and that the
14:35
Speaker 2: man said he was out of gas. The man asked
14:38
Speaker 2: if they had any and Charles told him no. He
14:40
Speaker 2: told the stranger there wasn't any place open at that point,
14:43
Speaker 2: so Charles told the man sorry, they couldn't help him.
14:47
Speaker 2: Billy also said that Charles asked the man where he
14:50
Speaker 2: was from, and the man said Caraway. Now Fred knew
14:54
Speaker 2: was from an area north of Caraway. But there's nothing
14:58
Speaker 2: in the police report to indicate that they exchanged names.
15:02
Speaker 2: After that, Billy said that he, Charles, and the two
15:05
Speaker 2: women went on to a local nightclub, the Starlight Club,
15:07
Speaker 2: at around nine thirty or ten pm. He said that
15:10
Speaker 2: he and his friends were dancing and drinking there for
15:12
Speaker 2: a while. He said they left around midnight, though Billy
15:16
Speaker 2: said he wasn't sure at the exact time. While they
15:19
Speaker 2: were driving home, Billy said his car broke. He said
15:23
Speaker 2: the shifting rod fell off and the vehicle jumped out
15:26
Speaker 2: of gear. He stopped to try and fix it or
15:29
Speaker 2: to slide it into fourth gear. Eventually, he said, he
15:32
Speaker 2: was able to drive away. They made their way toward home,
15:35
Speaker 2: and that's when they saw the glimpse of a car.
15:39
Speaker 2: It's not clear from the police reports that this was
15:43
Speaker 2: fred Knew car. There are indications in the notes that
15:47
Speaker 2: seemed to say that it might have been, but there's
15:49
Speaker 2: nothing in Billy's interview that confirms it, so it is
15:52
Speaker 2: a little bit confusing. Billy said that his car was
15:56
Speaker 2: out of control at that point and traveling around fifty
15:58
Speaker 2: miles an hour. He said he tried to miss the
16:01
Speaker 2: car that was on the side of the road, but
16:02
Speaker 2: his right front fender hit the left front fender of
16:05
Speaker 2: the stalled vehicle. He said that when they hit, he
16:09
Speaker 2: instinctively grabbed his girlfriend's head, but she had already hit
16:11
Speaker 2: the windshield and she was screaming about being in pain,
16:14
Speaker 2: so Billy said he jumped out of the car to
16:16
Speaker 2: make sure everyone was okay. Charles went to look at
16:20
Speaker 2: the car they hit, and when Charles walked back to
16:22
Speaker 2: their vehicle, Billy said that Charles told him you just
16:26
Speaker 2: killed a man. At some point, Billy said, two black
16:30
Speaker 2: men stopped and gave them a ride to be a
16:32
Speaker 2: nearby service station. Billy said once he got to the
16:36
Speaker 2: service station, he asked an employee there to call the police.
16:40
Speaker 2: Then at some point he walked to town and learned
16:43
Speaker 2: that the police had arrested Charles. Billy said he got scared,
16:47
Speaker 2: so somehow he ended up back at the motel where
16:50
Speaker 2: he had been staying. He said that's when someone came
16:52
Speaker 2: in and told him he was wanted, so he crawled
16:55
Speaker 2: under a bed to hide. The police found him, but
16:58
Speaker 2: after questioning Billy, they released him. Fred Knude didn't die
17:03
Speaker 2: from injuries from a car crash. He died from three gunshot.
17:07
Speaker 2: Winds police interviewed another man named Oscar Woods. Now Oscar
17:13
Speaker 2: Woods also stopped at the scene of the accident that night,
17:15
Speaker 2: but he was not one of the two men who
17:18
Speaker 2: gave Billy and Charles a ride. In fact, he told
17:21
Speaker 2: police when he stopped, they didn't seem concerned about getting
17:24
Speaker 2: a ride. They told him to get out of there.
17:27
Speaker 2: Oscar said. This would have been around one am. And
17:31
Speaker 2: it's interesting because Oscar said that when he stopped, he
17:34
Speaker 2: saw two or three white males. There's no mention of
17:37
Speaker 2: any women. And when he asked if everyone was okay,
17:40
Speaker 2: one of the men told him not really, someone was,
17:44
Speaker 2: and then he said the man said something odd and
17:47
Speaker 2: that the men were laughing. At this point, Oscar asked
17:51
Speaker 2: if they had called the police, and they said yes.
17:54
Speaker 2: After one of the men told him there was a
17:56
Speaker 2: dead man there, they asked Oscar if he had a flashlight.
17:59
Speaker 2: He said he always kept a pocket flashlight with him,
18:02
Speaker 2: so he got out his pocket flashlight and saw Fred
18:05
Speaker 2: lying there on the side of the road in a
18:07
Speaker 2: pool of blood. Oscar said, they reiterated that they had
18:12
Speaker 2: already called the police and suggested that quote the best
18:15
Speaker 2: thing that he could do is drive away from here
18:18
Speaker 2: end quote, and Oscar said that's what he did. He
18:21
Speaker 2: seemed to realize he might have walked into a very
18:24
Speaker 2: bad situation, and he got out of there fast. Now,
18:28
Speaker 2: this is a weird sequence of events. Billy hiding from
18:32
Speaker 2: the police seems a bit suspect, but then again, he
18:35
Speaker 2: could have been driving while intoxicated, and also he may
18:38
Speaker 2: have believed that he killed a man in that accident.
18:41
Speaker 2: This could explain why he hid from police. But if
18:45
Speaker 2: that's the case, why was he allegedly laughing. Police attempted
18:50
Speaker 2: to verify Billy and Charles's stories. One of the owners
18:53
Speaker 2: at the Starlight nightclub, who said she was collecting cover
18:56
Speaker 2: charges on September twenty seven, remembered that Charles Bardino and
19:00
Speaker 2: Billy Joe Smith came in at around ten pm with
19:03
Speaker 2: two women. This person told police that the four of
19:07
Speaker 2: them sat at a table and left at around eleven pm,
19:09
Speaker 2: and they did not return that night. So police seemed
19:14
Speaker 2: to be solving the mystery of the hidden run, but
19:16
Speaker 2: when it came to Fred's murder and the robbery, the
19:20
Speaker 2: police were stumped. There's no evidence in this case, Faule.
19:24
Speaker 2: The police ever tracked down the two women who were
19:27
Speaker 2: with Charles and Billy to get their stories. I would
19:30
Speaker 2: have had a lot of questions for them, what time
19:34
Speaker 2: the women went home, and also if Charles or Billy
19:37
Speaker 2: noticed the blood in the front seat of the car
19:40
Speaker 2: or the burnmarks on the driver's seat. Police also stated
19:45
Speaker 2: publicly after that that they did not believe that Fred
19:48
Speaker 2: was involved in the robbery, but that his vehicle may
19:50
Speaker 2: have been. So did Fred know the men involved in
19:53
Speaker 2: the robbery or was the shooting just a total coincidence.
19:57
Speaker 2: I wonder if they were related, but maybe not in
20:00
Speaker 2: the way police think, because we learned something else from
20:03
Speaker 2: Fred's son, Jason. Fred worked the night shift at the
20:07
Speaker 2: trucking company and he normally came home in the mornings.
20:11
Speaker 2: But on the morning of September twenty seventh, Fred Knew
20:15
Speaker 2: never came home. So where was he that day? According
20:31
Speaker 2: to police notes, Fred's father, Fred new Senior, believed that
20:34
Speaker 2: his son got off work at around eight fifteen am
20:37
Speaker 2: on the morning of September twenty seventh. Now, normally Fred
20:40
Speaker 2: would have come home after that, but on that Friday
20:43
Speaker 2: he did. Fred's father told police that other than a
20:47
Speaker 2: single DWI, Fred Junior had never had any problems with
20:51
Speaker 2: the law and had no criminal record. But Fred's son, Jason,
20:55
Speaker 2: said he's always wondered if his mother hid things from him,
20:59
Speaker 2: things about his father and what she believed his father
21:02
Speaker 2: may have been doing that day, possibly drinking or hanging
21:05
Speaker 2: out with other people or other women.
21:09
Speaker 4: That's stuff that as I got older, you know, I
21:11
Speaker 4: had more quizkis. I always thought she might have been
21:14
Speaker 4: hiding something till mean she was till I got opened
21:16
Speaker 4: with I remember when my grandmother on my mother's side died.
21:21
Speaker 4: You know, my grandpa was like Jason, if he would
21:25
Speaker 4: have been home, that wouldn't happen me.
21:30
Speaker 2: After the time when Fred would have gotten off work.
21:32
Speaker 2: On September twenty seventh, It's not clear what happened that day,
21:36
Speaker 2: but police did discover that at some point Fred was
21:39
Speaker 2: hanging out at Maudet's Diner and Joiner. Arkansas interviewed a
21:44
Speaker 2: waitress named Charlene Dixon. She said that around six pm,
21:48
Speaker 2: Fred came in and sat by himself in a corner booth.
21:52
Speaker 2: Police showed her a picture of Fred and she positively
21:55
Speaker 2: identified him. She said she knew the man is Fred,
21:58
Speaker 2: she didn't know his last name. She said that Fred
22:01
Speaker 2: didn't talk much and that quote he was pretty well
22:04
Speaker 2: drunk when he came in. She said that he drank
22:07
Speaker 2: about four cans of beer, played the jukebox a couple
22:10
Speaker 2: of times, and that at some point he hit on her.
22:13
Speaker 2: That he asked her to go out with him, and
22:15
Speaker 2: that she refused. Charlene said that Fred was wearing a
22:19
Speaker 2: check shirt with faded Levi jeans and that around eight
22:22
Speaker 2: thirty or nine pm, Fred left the diner and that
22:25
Speaker 2: he did not come back. One of her co workers
22:28
Speaker 2: also said she saw Fred at the dinner alone. Where
22:32
Speaker 2: did Fred go after he left the dinner? Nothing in
22:35
Speaker 2: the case fall indicates that police ever found out. Jason
22:40
Speaker 2: is still trying to figure out what his father did
22:43
Speaker 2: that day.
22:44
Speaker 4: He was supposed to have gotten off work Friday mornings,
22:47
Speaker 4: and he didn't come home. I think he'd been out drinking.
22:52
Speaker 4: There might even been maybe other women, you know, but
22:55
Speaker 4: a thief, a robber, you know, he was not. My
23:00
Speaker 4: dad was a loner, you know, he didn't run with
23:04
Speaker 4: many people.
23:06
Speaker 2: Jason said that even though his father's car matched the
23:09
Speaker 2: description of the vehicle seen near the scene of the robbery,
23:12
Speaker 2: he did not believe that his father would have ever
23:15
Speaker 2: purposely been involved in a robbery. He wondered if maybe
23:18
Speaker 2: something else happened, If maybe his father was the person
23:22
Speaker 2: who ran out of gas, who Charles and Billy had encountered,
23:25
Speaker 2: and then maybe the men who robbed the convenience store
23:29
Speaker 2: also saw him there and decided to rob him too.
23:32
Speaker 4: You know, I ex played it out in my head
23:34
Speaker 4: that somebody robbed the gas station and seen him and
23:37
Speaker 4: robbed him too.
23:40
Speaker 2: Maybe Fred New's car had a breakdown, maybe his kill
23:44
Speaker 2: flagged him down. Or could it be possible that Fred
23:47
Speaker 2: knew was in his vehicle with the men who robbed
23:50
Speaker 2: the service station. Did he hang out with those men
23:53
Speaker 2: or meet up with them and then somehow unwittingly get
23:56
Speaker 2: dragged into the robbery, or could he have been kidnapped
24:00
Speaker 2: or just stopped randomly to give them a lift. All
24:03
Speaker 2: of these were scenarios that the police probably considered. Then
24:07
Speaker 2: there was the state of Fred's vehicle. Investigator's notes indicated
24:11
Speaker 2: the driver's seat had been burned, that the car was
24:15
Speaker 2: completely out of gas, and that a line leading to
24:18
Speaker 2: the battery had been cut. This was never really explained
24:21
Speaker 2: because after an initial flurry of interviews, there were no
24:25
Speaker 2: more newspaper clippings, the case disappeared from headlines, and no
24:29
Speaker 2: one was arrested or charged. In December of nineteen seventy four,
24:34
Speaker 2: according to police records, the case was declared officially closed
24:38
Speaker 2: due to all leads being exhausted. And then one year
24:42
Speaker 2: later there was another, this time at the Penis service station.
24:47
Speaker 2: Another attendant was attacked and this time the robbery ended
24:52
Speaker 2: in murder. Terry Wyrick, the nineteen year old son of
24:56
Speaker 2: Buster Wyreck, the cashier on duty at the gas station
24:59
Speaker 2: that was robbed the same night Fred Knew was murdered,
25:02
Speaker 2: was working at the FeNiS service station when two men
25:05
Speaker 2: came in to rob that store. This robbery was brutal.
25:09
Speaker 2: After stealing the money, one of the men attacked Terry
25:13
Speaker 2: with a sledgehammer, the other one shot him. Terry survived
25:17
Speaker 2: the initial attack. He was rushed to the hospital but
25:21
Speaker 2: later died. In that case, police caught the perpetrators quickly.
25:26
Speaker 2: They questioned two men, Willie Fowler and Clarence Alexander. Clarence
25:31
Speaker 2: admitted to police that he and Willie planned the robbery
25:34
Speaker 2: in front of a friend of theirs named Edward Fowler.
25:36
Speaker 2: Edward Fowler confirmed that story. He told police Willy and
25:40
Speaker 2: Clarence told him they were planning to rob the David
25:44
Speaker 2: Exon station, but then they decided to rob the Phenis
25:47
Speaker 2: station instead. Edward told police he told his friends he
25:51
Speaker 2: did not want to participate in the robbery, so he
25:53
Speaker 2: asked Clarence and Willie to take him home. Clarence told
25:57
Speaker 2: police Willie hit Terry with a sledgehammer and Clarence shot him.
26:01
Speaker 2: He said that Terry tried to grab his arm and
26:04
Speaker 2: that he shot him again because Terry wouldn't turn him loose.
26:08
Speaker 2: Clarence and Willie ended up stealing around fifty dollars. Willie
26:13
Speaker 2: and Clarence were both arrested in charge with capital murder,
26:16
Speaker 2: and both were sentenced to life in prison without the
26:19
Speaker 2: possibility of parole. The fact that another robbery, this time
26:24
Speaker 2: with a murder, and the fact that the victim was
26:26
Speaker 2: the son of the robbery victim from one year earlier,
26:30
Speaker 2: made headlines. Some people wondered if the two cases could
26:34
Speaker 2: be connected somehow, but a very cursory examination of the
26:38
Speaker 2: case file shows that that could not be true, mainly
26:42
Speaker 2: because the men who robbed the store did not match
26:44
Speaker 2: the description of the men who robbed the mobile station
26:47
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy four. For one thing, Both men who
26:51
Speaker 2: robbed the Phenis station and killed Terry were black, while
26:54
Speaker 2: his suspects of the nineteen seventy four robbery were both white.
26:58
Speaker 2: Over the years, police followed multiple leads. At one point,
27:02
Speaker 2: they interviewed another potential suspect named Billy Woodard. Billy Woodard
27:07
Speaker 2: was arrested for another homicide in Craigshead County. The victim
27:11
Speaker 2: was also shot with a shotgun multiple times near Billy's vehicle,
27:16
Speaker 2: so there were some similarities to this murder and fred
27:19
Speaker 2: News murder. Billy admitted to police that he committed the murder.
27:23
Speaker 2: He told police he was driving the victim in his Volkswagen.
27:27
Speaker 2: Billy and his victim were driving down a secluded road
27:30
Speaker 2: when the Volkswagen ran out of gas. Billy told police
27:33
Speaker 2: he was pouring gas into a tank from a portable
27:36
Speaker 2: gas can. The victim said he was going to walk
27:38
Speaker 2: up the road to get some shade underneath a tree.
27:41
Speaker 2: At that point, Billy said he pulled a twelve game
27:44
Speaker 2: pump Revelation shotgun from the car and shot the victim
27:47
Speaker 2: in the back of the shoulder. Then Billy said he
27:50
Speaker 2: shot him in the head multiple times. Billy then drug
27:54
Speaker 2: the victim's body off and dumped it in the woods.
27:57
Speaker 2: Then he picked up the shell casings. Now, Billy admitted
28:00
Speaker 2: all this to law enforcement, but he also completely denied
28:03
Speaker 2: having any involvement in the homicide of Fred Knew. He
28:06
Speaker 2: said he was only in the area where Fred was
28:09
Speaker 2: shot once in his life, and it was long after
28:11
Speaker 2: the homicide. It seems as though this lead was dropped
28:14
Speaker 2: because despite the circumstantial similarities, there was no evidence that
28:19
Speaker 2: Billy Woodard was in any way involved in Fred's death.
28:23
Speaker 2: Kim said that over the years, her mother never gave
28:27
Speaker 2: up on getting answers about what truly happened to her husband.
28:31
Speaker 2: This included her mother revisiting the scene of the gas
28:34
Speaker 2: station robbery and going to the sheriff's office to talk
28:37
Speaker 2: to detectives about the investigation.
28:40
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, my mother. Her best friend even said,
28:43
Speaker 3: I'm worried to death that your mother is going to
28:45
Speaker 3: get her stuff killed because she was relentless on trying
28:49
Speaker 3: to find out what happened and who was responsible for it.
28:55
Speaker 3: I know there were multiple times that she went to
28:59
Speaker 3: the sheriff's office I know there were multiple times that
29:02
Speaker 3: she went out on her own to question people. I
29:06
Speaker 3: remember her going to that gas station time and time again,
29:11
Speaker 3: and probably not the smartest thing that she could do,
29:15
Speaker 3: that she was desperate to know. It tormented her, the
29:21
Speaker 3: fact of not knowing who was responsible, how it happened,
29:27
Speaker 3: and you know, like took his wallet so they knew
29:31
Speaker 3: who he was and where we lived, and as we
29:35
Speaker 3: were older. She said, it just petrified her to think
29:39
Speaker 3: that they might come to our house. She did not
29:43
Speaker 3: have a long high and she never got over.
29:47
Speaker 2: The Kim said, they've gotten very little information from detectives
29:57
Speaker 2: over the years, and there's very little physical evidence after
30:00
Speaker 2: all this time, but she does believe that there is
30:04
Speaker 2: some evidence that detectives could follow up on. There's the fingerprint.
30:08
Speaker 2: Police found a single latent fingerprint on the rear view
30:11
Speaker 2: mirror of Fred's vehicle. At first, it was identified as
30:15
Speaker 2: being possibly a match for Billy Joe Smith, the man
30:18
Speaker 2: who ran into Fred's car and fled the scene, which
30:22
Speaker 2: begged the question what would Billy Smith have been doing
30:25
Speaker 2: inside Fred's vehicle touching the rear view mirror. This seemed
30:29
Speaker 2: like a promising lead, but later more Advanced testing revealed
30:33
Speaker 2: Billy could not be a match for that print, so
30:36
Speaker 2: who else could have been in the vehicle. Kim also
30:40
Speaker 2: said police found other unidentified fingerprints that were move from
30:44
Speaker 2: the car, and that over the years, she heard that
30:46
Speaker 2: a woman who is now in a nursing home may
30:50
Speaker 2: have information about the murder.
30:52
Speaker 3: I mean, yes, I was like closure. I was loved
30:57
Speaker 3: for my mother to have that before she passed way,
31:01
Speaker 3: But wow, I would I just give anything for Jason
31:07
Speaker 3: as a closure.
31:11
Speaker 2: Jason said that he was grateful that we filed the
31:13
Speaker 2: Foyer request and got information that he said his family
31:17
Speaker 2: has not been able to access for decades. I would
31:21
Speaker 2: like to do more, and I know it's been fifty years,
31:24
Speaker 2: but I'm hoping that in such a small town, there
31:27
Speaker 2: may be someone out there who knows something, Someone who
31:30
Speaker 2: was at Maudet's diner that day, or driving along the
31:33
Speaker 2: highway that night, or in the Starlight club that night,
31:37
Speaker 2: someone who may have seen Fred New on September twenty seventh,
31:40
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy four. Someone who can help fill in those
31:44
Speaker 2: missing hours for his family.
31:50
Speaker 4: The worst part of losing somebody and not knowing what
31:55
Speaker 4: really happens. They left my dad on the side of
32:00
Speaker 4: the road like a piece of trash. That's the worst
32:04
Speaker 4: part of it. You can edit this habit, you need to,
32:08
Speaker 4: But for somebody to do that to my dad and
32:12
Speaker 4: have any chance of getting into heaven, I can't live
32:18
Speaker 4: with this that somebody on their deathbed should ask for
32:23
Speaker 4: forgiveness and and get that done. It is terrible. Somebody
32:31
Speaker 4: knows something whereas they're scared to say it. But I
32:34
Speaker 4: would like a little bit of closer, you know, That's
32:37
Speaker 4: what I would hope for.
32:42
Speaker 2: I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen
32:47
Speaker 2: Gone Murder Line is a production of School of Humans
32:49
Speaker 2: and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me Catherine
32:53
Speaker 2: Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts. Special thanks to Amy
32:57
Speaker 2: Tubbs for her research assistance and James Wheaton for legal review.
33:01
Speaker 2: Noah Kamer mixed and scored this episode. Our theme song
33:04
Speaker 2: is by Ben Sale. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr,
33:08
Speaker 2: and L. C. Crowley. Listen to Helen Gone ad free
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33:18
Speaker 2: materials from the case. You can follow the show on
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Speaker 2: Instagram at Helen Gonepod. If you have a case you'd
33:26
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