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Hell and Gone Murder Line: Billie Jean Phillips Part 1 · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:08
Speaker 1: School of Humans.
0:12
Speaker 2: This week, I'm going to talk about a murder story
0:15
Speaker 2: that would become probably the biggest murder mystery that Madison County, Arkansas,
0:20
Speaker 2: has ever seen, and I'll never forget. When I first
0:24
Speaker 2: read about this case, I read an article in the
0:28
Speaker 2: Arkansas Democrat Gazette and it had a pretty unforgettable opener.
0:33
Speaker 2: It read, quote, Billy Jean Phillips road life like a
0:37
Speaker 2: sexual jet ski death seemed to trail in her wake.
0:42
Speaker 2: That really struck me as a strange and pretty derogatory
0:47
Speaker 2: way to refer to her murder victim. At the same time,
0:50
Speaker 2: it did make me want to learn more about Billy
0:53
Speaker 2: Jean phillips life and to find out what happened to her.
0:57
Speaker 2: And apparently a lot of people feel that way, because
0:59
Speaker 2: I probably got more emails, messages, and calls about this
1:02
Speaker 2: case than any other case in Arkansas. I have had
1:06
Speaker 2: it in my folder for a long time. I've had
1:09
Speaker 2: people reach out to me wanting to talk about it.
1:11
Speaker 1: But there have been a few issues.
1:13
Speaker 2: Sometimes people back out, or someone will be connected to
1:16
Speaker 2: a member of the family who understandably might not want
1:19
Speaker 2: to relive the trauma of talking about this, all of
1:22
Speaker 2: which I totally understand, but I still hear about this
1:26
Speaker 2: case a lot, and I would still love to help
1:28
Speaker 2: answer some of the questions about what happened to Billy
1:31
Speaker 2: Jean Phillips. The story started back on Saturday, September third,
1:40
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four. A federal poultry inspector named Chick Phillips
1:44
Speaker 2: was taking his seven year old son, Mackenzie back to
1:47
Speaker 2: his mother's house. Mackenzie's mother and chick SAC's wife, was
1:51
Speaker 2: thirty five year old Billy Jean Phillips.
1:54
Speaker 1: Billy Jean lived in.
1:55
Speaker 2: Album, a small unincorporated area about six miles north of Huntsville, Arkansas.
2:01
Speaker 2: Even though Billy Jean and Chick had separated in nineteen
2:03
Speaker 2: ninety two, they still cope parent died well. Chick was
2:07
Speaker 2: dropping Mackenzie off for a scheduled visit. I found out
2:11
Speaker 2: while researching this case that Madison County has a weird nickname.
2:15
Speaker 2: They call it Booger County. I don't know what this
2:19
Speaker 2: really means. Some people say it's a reference to ghosts.
2:21
Speaker 2: Other people say it refers to moonshine. Some people say
2:25
Speaker 2: it's because people in the Ozarks are rough, like a
2:28
Speaker 2: booger on the inside of your nose. And I kind
2:31
Speaker 2: of get that because one thing I know about the
2:33
Speaker 2: people in this region is that, especially back in the
2:36
Speaker 2: day they were on their own, you had to be
2:38
Speaker 2: very tough to make it up there. Anyway, Billy Jean's
2:43
Speaker 2: son ran inside the house and walked back to her bedroom.
2:46
Speaker 2: That's when he saw his mother lying on the floor
2:49
Speaker 2: a few feet from her bed.
2:51
Speaker 1: She was dead.
2:52
Speaker 2: Her head was propped up against a wall. So Mackenzie
2:56
Speaker 2: ran back outside to the car and told his dad,
2:59
Speaker 2: mommy fell painting. Chick didn't really understand what was going on,
3:04
Speaker 2: so he put his son back in the truck and
3:05
Speaker 2: walked in, and that's when he found his former wife's body.
3:09
Speaker 2: He realized, to his horror that his son had thought
3:12
Speaker 2: that the blood that was spattered all over the bedroom
3:15
Speaker 2: was paint. Billy Jean was wearing a white T shirt,
3:20
Speaker 2: underwear and all of her jewelry. Chick ran back out,
3:24
Speaker 2: drove down the road and found Billy Jean's parents, Earl
3:26
Speaker 2: and Edna mckknight.
3:28
Speaker 1: They lived close by.
3:29
Speaker 2: Then from there they called the Madison County Sheriff's Office.
3:33
Speaker 2: The Sheriff's office got that call at eleven fifty eight
3:36
Speaker 2: am Now. Of course, the house immediately turned into a
3:39
Speaker 2: crime scene, and it was not long before the whole
3:42
Speaker 2: town heard what happened. Billy Jean had been brutally murdered.
3:49
Speaker 2: She had been beaten to death, and investigators believed the
3:52
Speaker 2: murder weapon was her son's tea ball bat. It was
3:56
Speaker 2: lying near her body, splintered into pieces. Now, a tea
4:00
Speaker 2: ball bat is pretty light and short, about half the
4:04
Speaker 2: size and weight of a regular bad Apparently it didn't
4:08
Speaker 2: finish the job, because after beating Billy Jean, her killer
4:12
Speaker 2: dragged her across the room and strangled her.
4:16
Speaker 1: There was a lot of blood.
4:17
Speaker 2: It was splashed up high on the walls, almost to
4:20
Speaker 2: the ceiling. In a town with fewer than two thousand people,
4:23
Speaker 2: I know, we always say everyone knows everyone, but really
4:28
Speaker 2: everyone in Madison County knew Billy Jean Phillips, or at
4:31
Speaker 2: least knew of her. She was beautiful, with really big
4:35
Speaker 2: eyes and blonde hair and just a really pretty smile.
4:40
Speaker 2: But she was also feisty. She had a lot of lovers,
4:43
Speaker 2: and she was not shy about speaking her mind, which
4:46
Speaker 2: can be a fatal combination in a tiny town. A
4:49
Speaker 2: lot of men loved her, and a lot of women
4:52
Speaker 2: hated her, and a woman who can inspire that kind
4:54
Speaker 2: of obsession made a lot of enemies. There was a
4:59
Speaker 2: long list of suspects, including a sheriff who was living
5:02
Speaker 2: a double life, the prosecutor and his who had both
5:06
Speaker 2: slept with the victim, and pretty soon the whole town
5:10
Speaker 2: was talking about conspiracy theories that included meth, caves, arson,
5:15
Speaker 2: and murder in Arkansas. So what really happened to Billy
5:21
Speaker 2: Jean Phillips. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past five years
5:25
Speaker 2: of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've learned
5:28
Speaker 2: that there's no such thing as a small town where
5:31
Speaker 2: murder never happens. I have received hundreds of messages from
5:35
Speaker 2: people all around the country asking for help with an
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Speaker 2: unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities.
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Speaker 1: If you have a case that you'd like me.
5:44
Speaker 2: And my team to look into, you can reach out
5:46
Speaker 2: to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six
5:49
Speaker 2: seven eight seven four four six one four five. That's
5:53
Speaker 2: six seven eight seven four four six ' one four
5:56
Speaker 2: or five. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. After Billy
6:54
Speaker 2: Jean was found dead Madison County Sheriff Randy Baker called
6:58
Speaker 2: the Arkansas State Police. He talked to an investigator named
7:01
Speaker 2: Doug Fogley. And this, by the way, is according to
7:04
Speaker 2: an amazing investigative article in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. When
7:08
Speaker 2: Sheriff Baker called the ASP investigator and told him that
7:11
Speaker 2: Billy Jean was dead, he said, quote, Rusty Kane has
7:15
Speaker 2: been fucking her. How do you keep the deputy prosecutor
7:18
Speaker 2: out of the crime scene. Sheriff Baker was referring to
7:23
Speaker 2: the fact that Rusty Kane, the deputy prosecutor for Madison County,
7:27
Speaker 2: had been having a very public affair with Billy Jean
7:30
Speaker 2: Phillips for several years. I talked to Terry Jones, the
7:34
Speaker 2: prosecutor for Madison County, Rusty Kane's boss. Terry Jones is
7:39
Speaker 2: the person who ended up prosecuting Billy Jean's case, and
7:42
Speaker 2: he said it is a case he will never forget.
7:46
Speaker 2: In fact, he later wrote a book called Mister Prosecutor,
7:50
Speaker 2: in which he discussed at length all the crazy twists
7:53
Speaker 2: and turns that happened in the case.
7:55
Speaker 3: I mean, we played with this for it seems like
7:59
Speaker 3: three years, and we went down and had all the
8:02
Speaker 3: top detectives in the state gathered down at a little
8:05
Speaker 3: roye in the state Police office, and brains stormed the
8:09
Speaker 3: defenses and the evidence. I mean, this case was looked
8:13
Speaker 3: at more than any case I ever had in my
8:16
Speaker 3: entire life.
8:26
Speaker 2: After the police were called, Billy Jean's parents called Billy
8:29
Speaker 2: Jean's sister. Her name was Una, and she was a nurse.
8:32
Speaker 2: So Una raced to the house and she walked in
8:35
Speaker 2: and saw what she described to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette
8:38
Speaker 2: as a horrible.
8:39
Speaker 1: Bloody scene.
8:41
Speaker 2: But because Una was a nurse, even though I cannot
8:44
Speaker 2: imagine how traumatic this must have been for her, she
8:47
Speaker 2: was from the beginning kind of looking at the scene
8:49
Speaker 2: with an investigative eye. She was noticing details that other
8:53
Speaker 2: people missed. It was clear that Billy Jean fought hard
8:57
Speaker 2: for her life. Two of her fingernails had been ripped
9:00
Speaker 2: completely out. Yuna actually found a piece of her sister's
9:03
Speaker 2: middle finger on the bed. She noticed that Billy Jean's
9:08
Speaker 2: body was stiff already in rigor mortis. Full rigor mortis
9:12
Speaker 2: can happen in around four to six hours, then the
9:15
Speaker 2: body remains stiff for twenty four to forty eight hours
9:18
Speaker 2: and then relaxes again. Using the physical evidence of the
9:23
Speaker 2: scene and after piecing together timelines, investigators were able to
9:27
Speaker 2: narrow down billy Jean's time of death to approximately between
9:30
Speaker 2: ten thirty pm and six thirty am the next morning.
9:34
Speaker 2: There was also a bedroom clock that had been ripped
9:37
Speaker 2: out of the wall at exactly three thirty five am.
9:43
Speaker 2: All hell was breaking loose at the Madison County Sheriff's
9:46
Speaker 2: office again because Billy Jean had been having an affair
9:50
Speaker 2: with the local deputy prosecutor, Rusty Kane. This was a
9:55
Speaker 2: major conflict of interest. Rusty was in charge of prosecuting
9:59
Speaker 2: the case, and now they needed to keep him out
10:01
Speaker 2: of the crime scene. Rusty Kane did show up at
10:04
Speaker 2: Billy Jean's house and a couple of police officers later
10:08
Speaker 2: signed statements that said that Rusty Caine had something on
10:12
Speaker 2: his shoes. They said they looked like it could be
10:14
Speaker 2: spots of blood. Those shoes were taken into evidence, but
10:18
Speaker 2: not until later that day. And to be honest, I've
10:21
Speaker 2: never found anything else in anything I've read about this
10:24
Speaker 2: case about what happened to those shoes. Yuna and her brother,
10:29
Speaker 2: Robert McKnight who was Billy Jean's baby brother and very
10:31
Speaker 2: close to Billy Jean, told The Democrat Gazette that Rusty
10:35
Speaker 2: looked disheveled, like he hadn't slept, and they believed he
10:39
Speaker 2: was acting strange. They immediately suspected him, and they weren't
10:43
Speaker 2: the only ones. But this case was tough because Rusty
10:47
Speaker 2: Caine was far from the only suspect here. He was
10:50
Speaker 2: not the only man in Billy Jean's life. Billy Jean
10:56
Speaker 2: Phillips was born Billy Jean Knight in nineteen fifty nine.
11:00
Speaker 2: Her parents, Earl McKnight and Edna McKnight, were successful. They
11:04
Speaker 2: ran several businusinesses in Huntsville, including a mini mall and
11:07
Speaker 2: a drive in movie theater. They also ran the Ozart Shop,
11:11
Speaker 2: a convenience store. Billy Jean worked there, which put her
11:14
Speaker 2: in contact with a lot of people.
11:18
Speaker 1: A lot of people love Billy Jean, but she also
11:20
Speaker 1: got into a lot of conflicts.
11:23
Speaker 2: Pretty Much every media report you read talks about how
11:26
Speaker 2: sexually precocious Billy Jean was, and I can imagine that
11:30
Speaker 2: would have caused Billy Jean a lot of friction at
11:33
Speaker 2: that time, and in that neck of the woods, I
11:36
Speaker 2: just want to read a quick passage from one of
11:38
Speaker 2: those articles. This is from an article in Ay magazine.
11:42
Speaker 2: And this article, by the way, is from twenty twenty three,
11:45
Speaker 2: and it reads, quote pack tight. In her thirty five
11:48
Speaker 2: years were three marriages, involvement in two deaths, and a
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Speaker 2: sex life that spanned Madison County from lawman to bad
11:53
Speaker 2: boys one of the Mgnite family. Billy Jean was a
11:56
Speaker 2: hard worker, just like her folks, but she wasn't interested
11:59
Speaker 2: in their church going ways. She had more than the
12:01
Speaker 2: Bible on her mind. That became evident when at age fifteen,
12:05
Speaker 2: Billy Jean was caught by her daddy in a state
12:07
Speaker 2: trooper's car, there being nothing lawful about the encounter between
12:11
Speaker 2: her and the older guy end quote.
12:18
Speaker 1: And that's referring to.
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Speaker 2: The same incident that the Democrat Gazette mentioned, which is
12:22
Speaker 2: that at age fifteen, Billy Jean was involved with a
12:25
Speaker 2: state trooper.
12:28
Speaker 1: I love the Democrat Gazette.
12:30
Speaker 2: I think they did a brilliant investigation, by the way,
12:32
Speaker 2: but I don't love the way that a sexually active
12:35
Speaker 2: young woman is referred to. I've talked about this before.
12:38
Speaker 2: I call it post mortem slut shaming. And I don't
12:42
Speaker 2: think it's right. I don't like the fact. For example,
12:44
Speaker 2: they used the phrase took her first lover about a
12:48
Speaker 2: fifteen year old and a grown man who was twenty
12:50
Speaker 2: three years old at the time. And since this happens
12:53
Speaker 2: a lot with this case, I'm going to keep calling
12:55
Speaker 2: it out. Billy Jean had three sisters and a brother.
13:01
Speaker 2: She was closest to her baby brother, Robert mc knight.
13:04
Speaker 2: They seem to have a really special bond. And when
13:07
Speaker 2: Robert mcnight developed a drug problem and got addicted to methamphetamines,
13:11
Speaker 2: Billy Jean was there for him.
13:13
Speaker 1: She would pay his drug debt.
13:14
Speaker 2: She let him sleep at her house and sometimes, and
13:17
Speaker 2: this is a little bit weird but becomes important later,
13:20
Speaker 2: he would crawl in through the window and sleep in
13:23
Speaker 2: her guest room. And everyone said that this behavior continued
13:27
Speaker 2: right up until the time when Billy Jean died. Billy
13:31
Speaker 2: Jean married young. While she was still a teenager. She
13:34
Speaker 2: married Randall Wayne Sharp, and they apparently said I do
13:39
Speaker 2: on the diving board of a swimming pool. Randall, Billy
13:46
Speaker 2: Jean's first husband, had a gambling problem, and they would
13:49
Speaker 2: get into violent arguments.
13:51
Speaker 1: Once the newspaper.
13:52
Speaker 2: Reported he tied her up and threw her into a
13:55
Speaker 2: closet while he went out with his friends. And again
13:58
Speaker 2: this went both ways. Because Billy Jean was not a
14:01
Speaker 2: shrinking violet, she had a temper. Eventually they set rated.
14:06
Speaker 2: Randall was twenty nine at the time, and he went
14:08
Speaker 2: to Alaska to work on a pipeline. Now during this time,
14:12
Speaker 2: according to Ay magazine, Billy Jean was having affairs, including
14:18
Speaker 2: some flings with members of law enforcement. Randall came back
14:23
Speaker 2: to town on December tenth, nineteen seventy nine. He checked
14:26
Speaker 2: himself into the Jan Ran Motel in Huntsville. He was
14:30
Speaker 2: there hanging out with a friend when Billy Jean and
14:32
Speaker 2: her brother Robert showed up. Now what happened next is
14:35
Speaker 2: still controversial, but a few minutes after Billy Jean and
14:39
Speaker 2: her brother arrived, Randall was dead. Randall's friend told police
14:51
Speaker 2: that at some point he and Billy Jean's brother Robert,
14:54
Speaker 2: went outside, leaving Billy Jean and Randall alone in that
14:58
Speaker 2: motel room, and then, apparently while she watched, Randall grabbed
15:03
Speaker 2: a Colt forty five he had in there and shot
15:05
Speaker 2: him mself in the head right in front of billy Jean.
15:09
Speaker 2: When police showed up, she was cradling his head in
15:11
Speaker 2: her lap and screaming, I love you. She seemed extremely distraught. Now,
15:17
Speaker 2: Randall's family have said over the years they do not
15:20
Speaker 2: believe that Randall took his own life. They believe either
15:23
Speaker 2: Billy Jean did it or that she somehow goaded him
15:25
Speaker 2: into shooting himself. Randall had been shot through the right
15:29
Speaker 2: temple and the gun was in his right hand, but
15:32
Speaker 2: randall Sharp's mother said Randall was left handed. She said
15:35
Speaker 2: he could not have shot himself with his right hand
15:37
Speaker 2: like that. Arkansas State Police criminal investigator Dug Fogley, who
15:42
Speaker 2: would investigate billy Jean's death much later, did test for gunpowder, residue,
15:47
Speaker 2: and metal on Randall's hands. Police said that billy Jean
15:51
Speaker 2: tested negative for residue. So police came to the conclusion
15:55
Speaker 2: that Randal did shoot himself, that he had been using
15:58
Speaker 2: both hands kind of wrapping one over the other. They
16:01
Speaker 2: believed that Randall and billy Jean were having an argument,
16:04
Speaker 2: things escalated and he may have done something like threatened
16:08
Speaker 2: to shoot himself or maybe try to fake her out,
16:11
Speaker 2: but he ended up somehow doing it for real.
16:15
Speaker 1: But over the.
16:15
Speaker 2: Years, rumors have persisted that the sheriff Ralph Baker, who
16:19
Speaker 2: by the way, was a friend of Billy Jean's, and
16:21
Speaker 2: some said more than a friend, but there was never
16:23
Speaker 2: any evidence of that had not looked too hard into
16:26
Speaker 2: Randall's death. On a side note, Sheriff Baker himself is
16:30
Speaker 2: a very controversial figure, and you can't really tell this
16:32
Speaker 2: story without going into some of the history in Madison County.
16:37
Speaker 2: We'll come back to that in a few minutes. Back
16:43
Speaker 2: to Billy Jean and Randall. Billy Jean was traumatized after
16:46
Speaker 2: Randall's death. She moved back in with her parents, and
16:48
Speaker 2: it wasn't long before Billy Jean met her second husband,
16:51
Speaker 2: a truck driver for Tyson Foods named Dale Harp. They
16:54
Speaker 2: got married in nineteen eighty one. Dale later talked to
16:58
Speaker 2: a journalist named Michael Whiteley, the writer who did this
17:02
Speaker 2: great investigative piece for the Arkansas Democrat. Zette. Dale said
17:06
Speaker 2: Billy Jean liked the finer things in life, she liked money,
17:09
Speaker 2: and he felt like he just never had enough for her.
17:12
Speaker 2: He also said they had gotten into violent arguments. He
17:16
Speaker 2: admitted to the journalists that one of their arguments ended
17:19
Speaker 2: with him holding a gun to Billy Jean's head. He said, quote,
17:23
Speaker 2: she could play me like a drum. She was good
17:26
Speaker 2: to look at, and she'd flirt around and make me jealous.
17:29
Speaker 2: She could cut you so low it would take a
17:30
Speaker 2: step ladder to climb onto a matchbox.
17:33
Speaker 1: End quote.
17:38
Speaker 2: Of course, I would never blame the victim. No one
17:40
Speaker 2: deserves to be physically abused. But we can see that
17:44
Speaker 2: there's this pattern where she's very confrontational. She has no
17:48
Speaker 2: problem getting up in people's faces, and when you combine
17:51
Speaker 2: that with someone with violent tendencies, you've got a very
17:54
Speaker 2: voutle situation. Billy Jean and Dale eventually divorced, and then
17:59
Speaker 2: she met Chick Phillips, the Federal Poultry plan inspector who
18:02
Speaker 2: became her third husband. Billy Jean and Chick were together
18:08
Speaker 2: for a few years, and over that time he was
18:11
Speaker 2: the one person who kind of seemed to be able
18:14
Speaker 2: to handle Billy Jean. She was still confrontational and she
18:19
Speaker 2: could be verbally abusive, but Chick was different. He would
18:21
Speaker 2: walk away or drive away in a four wheeler. They
18:25
Speaker 2: stayed together for eight years and had their son, Mackenzie.
18:29
Speaker 2: And it's also interesting to note that Chick is the
18:32
Speaker 2: one former partner of Billy Jean who, when he was
18:35
Speaker 2: contacted by journalists, said nice things about her. The rumor
18:43
Speaker 2: around town was that Billy Jean was dating Rusty Kane
18:46
Speaker 2: while she was still married to Chick, and that he
18:48
Speaker 2: knew about it. Eventually, Billy Jean and Chick's marriage broke up,
18:53
Speaker 2: and after they split, Billy Jean's affair with Rusty Kane
18:57
Speaker 2: heated up even more. She was pressuring him to leave
19:01
Speaker 2: his wife, Sharon Kane. The prosecuting attorney, Terry Jones, said
19:06
Speaker 2: that Billy Jean's love life made the murder difficult to
19:09
Speaker 2: investigate because there were a lot of pissed off people,
19:12
Speaker 2: including a lot of wives and girlfriends.
19:15
Speaker 3: She had a sexual contact with a lot of people,
19:19
Speaker 3: so there were a lot of suspects, people that might
19:21
Speaker 3: have had either had sex with her or whose husband
19:26
Speaker 3: may have been having sex with her. We had a
19:28
Speaker 3: couple of cases where she was having sex with a
19:32
Speaker 3: woman's husband and she'd call them on the damn phone,
19:35
Speaker 3: the wife while they were in the act, and so
19:39
Speaker 3: she had offended a whole lot of people in Madison County.
19:47
Speaker 2: Not only did Billy Jean know some of these men's
19:50
Speaker 2: sexual secrets, but she also knew a lot of their
19:54
Speaker 2: other secrets. Outside the bedroom, she reportedly told people that
19:59
Speaker 2: she had a briefcase with dirt on a lot of
20:02
Speaker 2: prominent men and prominent figures in town. Billy Jean was
20:07
Speaker 2: involved with another mysterious death. One night, she was partying
20:11
Speaker 2: with some friends, including a woman named Christy Box, the
20:14
Speaker 2: daughter of a local doctor. Billy Jean was at Christie's
20:17
Speaker 2: place with Christie's boyfriend, a guy named Thomas Garrett. Thomas
20:21
Speaker 2: worked at the Ozark shop with Billy Jean. While they
20:25
Speaker 2: were driving, there was a horrible car crash. Christie Box
20:29
Speaker 2: was killed. Both Thomas Garrett and Billy Jean were seriously injured,
20:33
Speaker 2: but when the police got to the scene of the accident,
20:36
Speaker 2: Billy Jean was nowhere to be found. The rumor around
20:40
Speaker 2: town was that Billy Jean was the person who was
20:42
Speaker 2: driving the car, but that was never proven. Instead, Thomas
20:47
Speaker 2: was prosecuted as the driver. He ended up getting four
20:50
Speaker 2: years probation and a fine, no jail time. Billy Jean
20:54
Speaker 2: was never charged with anything, and Rusty Kane was the
20:57
Speaker 2: prosecutor on that case, so not only did Billy Jean
21:02
Speaker 2: not have any criminal penalties? Apparently, Rusty Kane also got
21:06
Speaker 2: Billy Jean a twenty one thousand dollars settlement from Thomas's
21:09
Speaker 2: insurance company. The word around town was that Rusty had
21:14
Speaker 2: fixed that situation for Billy Jean. I'm guessing either because
21:17
Speaker 2: he loved her, or he was a little bit afraid
21:19
Speaker 2: of her, or maybe both. Leading up to the time
21:26
Speaker 2: of her death, we know Billy Jean potentially had a
21:29
Speaker 2: lot of enemies.
21:30
Speaker 1: But let's go back to the evidence.
21:32
Speaker 2: What was Billy Jean doing on September second, the last
21:35
Speaker 2: day she was alive. Police say Billy Jean spent that
21:39
Speaker 2: entire day with her mom, Edna. Billy Jean was buying
21:42
Speaker 2: Rusty Kane some presents. She went to Sam's Club and Dillard's.
21:46
Speaker 1: She was supposed to have a.
21:46
Speaker 2: Date with him that night, but according to Rusty Kane's
21:50
Speaker 2: former attorney, that date never really happened. Rusty had said
21:54
Speaker 2: he did stop at Billy Jean's house at around five pm.
21:57
Speaker 2: While he was there, he gave her two hundred dollars.
22:01
Speaker 1: Rusty told police.
22:02
Speaker 2: That Billy Jean gave him his gifts, but he said
22:04
Speaker 2: he wasn't going to be able to see her later
22:06
Speaker 2: because he had family in town. But investigators did find
22:10
Speaker 2: a card from Rusty Kane out on Billy Jean's kitchen counter,
22:13
Speaker 2: which seemed to indicate he had been there and they
22:15
Speaker 2: had exchange gifts. After Rusty left, Billy Jean drove to
22:20
Speaker 2: the Ozark shop, where she started her shift at six pm.
22:23
Speaker 2: She was closing up at ten pm when her mom
22:25
Speaker 2: stopped by. She and her mom just had a brief talk.
22:29
Speaker 2: Her mom said it was nothing out of the ordinary,
22:31
Speaker 2: but Edna did say that they did have a brief
22:35
Speaker 2: conversation about Billy Jean's safety deposit box. Now, apparently Billy
22:39
Speaker 2: Jean shared multiple safety deposit boxes with Rusty Kane, and
22:43
Speaker 2: she told her mother something a little bit strange. She
22:46
Speaker 2: had mentioned that she and Rusty had a safety deposit
22:49
Speaker 2: box that only had a single piece of paper in it.
22:53
Speaker 2: At some point after Billy Jean was done closing up,
22:56
Speaker 2: she apparently told her mom, you need to get out
22:58
Speaker 2: of here now, which her mom took to me, you
23:00
Speaker 2: need to head out. I've got to finish up, I've
23:02
Speaker 2: got plans. Billy Jean never told her mother what she
23:05
Speaker 2: was planning on doing. Now, there was someone else, another witness,
23:10
Speaker 2: someone who said Billy Jean left the Ozark shop at
23:13
Speaker 2: around ten forty five pm, and that billy Jean's car
23:16
Speaker 2: was driving behind this person's car for about fifteen minutes.
23:20
Speaker 2: Then this witness, who was familiar with Billy Jean and
23:23
Speaker 2: her car, saw Billy Jean turn off toward her house,
23:27
Speaker 2: which would mean, if that's accurate, that Billy Jean would
23:30
Speaker 2: have gotten home shortly after eleven pm.
23:35
Speaker 1: When the reporter for.
23:36
Speaker 2: The Democrat Gazette did his article, he did ask billy
23:39
Speaker 2: Jean's parents, Earl and Edna, about the safety deposit box,
23:42
Speaker 2: the one that supposedly had the single sheet of paper
23:44
Speaker 2: in it. Earl and Edna said they never found it.
23:47
Speaker 2: So what happened to that? I wonder was it never there?
23:50
Speaker 2: Could someone have removed it? Maybe someone in law enforcement.
23:54
Speaker 2: I do think it's strange. Why would Billy Jean say
23:56
Speaker 2: there was one piece of paper inside a box if
23:59
Speaker 2: there wasn't. During the investigation into Billy Jean's death, colleagues
24:07
Speaker 2: were noticing Rusty Kane's behavior started to get strange. Remember,
24:12
Speaker 2: he was not supposed to be involved. This was a
24:14
Speaker 2: conflict of interest.
24:15
Speaker 1: He was supposed to.
24:15
Speaker 2: Stay out of the case, yet a few days after
24:18
Speaker 2: billy Jean's murder, he called the state crime Lab to
24:21
Speaker 2: ask about progress. After that, his boss, Terry Jones, took
24:26
Speaker 2: Rusty off the case on September ninth.
24:29
Speaker 3: Rusty had called to try to find out what some
24:32
Speaker 3: of the medical evidence had been and so I fired
24:35
Speaker 3: it immediately. And we had all those leads, and we
24:38
Speaker 3: had people that all had theories about who killed her.
24:42
Speaker 3: I mean a lot of people had a theory that
24:44
Speaker 3: the sheriff had done it, Rusty had done it. I mean,
24:47
Speaker 3: there were just so many rumors flying around.
24:50
Speaker 2: At the same time, police were looking at other suspects,
24:54
Speaker 2: including Billy Jean's brother, Robert m knight. After Billy Jean
25:09
Speaker 2: Phillips murder, police were taking a closer look at her brother,
25:12
Speaker 2: Robert McKnight. When toxicology reports came back. They found Billy
25:17
Speaker 2: Jean had had methamphetamine in her system on the night
25:20
Speaker 2: she died, and Robert had a drug problem. One theory
25:25
Speaker 2: that law enforcement bounced around was that maybe Robert got
25:27
Speaker 2: into trouble, maybe he owed people money, maybe they came
25:30
Speaker 2: there to collect and things got ugly, But the more
25:33
Speaker 2: investigators studied the scene, the more they realized this looked
25:37
Speaker 2: like it had been staged. There was actually no sign
25:40
Speaker 2: of forest entry. There was a screen that had been
25:44
Speaker 2: taken off of Billy Jean's bedroom window, but the window
25:47
Speaker 2: sill had dust on it, so it looked like the
25:50
Speaker 2: windows sill hadn't been disturbed at all. Someone had just
25:54
Speaker 2: taken the screen out to make it look like someone.
25:56
Speaker 1: Got in that way.
25:58
Speaker 2: Someone also cut the screen to the living room doors,
26:00
Speaker 2: but the doors themselves were bolted shut and they were locked,
26:03
Speaker 2: so it seemed like the killer had gotten inside the
26:06
Speaker 2: house and then taken off those screens to perhaps make
26:10
Speaker 2: it look like a break in. Meanwhile, Billy Jean's sister, Una,
26:14
Speaker 2: who remember was a nurse, was also realizing more and
26:17
Speaker 2: more details that did not seem to add up. Billy
26:21
Speaker 2: Jean was wearing a gold necklace when she was found,
26:24
Speaker 2: and all of her jewelry, including an ankle bracelet and
26:27
Speaker 2: a ring that Rusty gave her now Yuna said Billy
26:31
Speaker 2: Jean only wore jewelry when she was expecting company or
26:34
Speaker 2: when she was going out. She never wore jelry to sleep,
26:37
Speaker 2: and there was three hundred and one dollars in Billy
26:40
Speaker 2: Jean's wallet, so surely a robber or drug dealer would
26:44
Speaker 2: have stolen that, and for that matter, would have stolen
26:46
Speaker 2: her jewelry. Then there was the murder weapon itself. Billy
26:49
Speaker 2: Jean had been hit with her son's tee ball bat.
26:52
Speaker 2: It seemed that the killer did not come over with
26:55
Speaker 2: the intention of murdering her, because that's not the weapon
26:57
Speaker 2: that you would choose. This was not a professional hit man.
27:00
Speaker 2: This seemed to be a crime of passion. There was
27:03
Speaker 2: also the bedroom clock, which been pulled out of the
27:06
Speaker 2: wall at exactly three thirty five AM.
27:09
Speaker 1: Law enforcement seemed to be conflicted on this.
27:12
Speaker 2: Some people believed it might be the time of death,
27:14
Speaker 2: but others wondered could this be another stage clue. Maybe
27:18
Speaker 2: the killer wanted everyone to think that had happened at
27:20
Speaker 2: three thirty five am so that he or she or
27:23
Speaker 2: they could manipulate the timeline. There were some other irregularities.
27:27
Speaker 2: According to the Democrat Gazette, there was a videotape taken
27:30
Speaker 2: of the crime scene, and apparently it showed there was
27:33
Speaker 2: a vacuum cleaner out like it had just been used
27:36
Speaker 2: to vacuum but the bag was missing. It wasn't in
27:39
Speaker 2: the trash, it wasn't anywhere, so who took the vacuum bag?
27:44
Speaker 2: There was also a black case that was visible in
27:46
Speaker 2: some of the photos according to the newspaper, but the
27:49
Speaker 2: family never saw that black case. Apparently it never made
27:53
Speaker 2: it into evidence. Could this have been the briefcase that
27:56
Speaker 2: Billy Jean was talking about, the one with dirt on
27:59
Speaker 2: the police inside it? And if so, what happened to it?
28:03
Speaker 2: And then there was the card, the one to Billy
28:06
Speaker 2: Jean from Rusty Kane. Now Euni said normally that was
28:09
Speaker 2: not the kind of thing that her sister would just
28:11
Speaker 2: leave lying out. Again, investigators wondered could someone have staged
28:16
Speaker 2: that to try and frame Rusty Kane. There was also
28:20
Speaker 2: other evidence that was never properly investigated, like an unmade
28:24
Speaker 2: bed upstairs in a room that people didn't really sleep in,
28:27
Speaker 2: but police apparently never took the sheets or anything else
28:30
Speaker 2: from that bed into evidence. The police analyzed the physical
28:36
Speaker 2: evidence from Billy Jean's body. They took skin from underneath
28:40
Speaker 2: Billy Jean's fingernails and they tested it. From that, they
28:43
Speaker 2: were able to exclude several suspects, including Billy Jean's brother,
28:48
Speaker 2: Robert McKnight and her son Mackenzie. Apparently they tested Billy
28:52
Speaker 2: Jean's son because she sometimes liked to scratch his back
28:56
Speaker 2: and they wanted to exclude him. So both Billy Jean's
29:00
Speaker 2: brother Robert and her son Mackenzie were ruled out, which
29:04
Speaker 2: meant that Robert mca was cleared. Now, I want to
29:10
Speaker 2: go back to Sheriff Baker and the good old boys
29:12
Speaker 2: system in Arkansas. In that neck of the woods, Sheriff
29:16
Speaker 2: Ralph Baker is definitely a love hate figure. So it
29:20
Speaker 2: turned out that Sheriff Baker, in addition to being a
29:23
Speaker 2: law enforcement.
29:24
Speaker 1: Officer, also had a criminal background.
29:27
Speaker 2: Back in the late nineties, when pseudo fedrin, the main
29:31
Speaker 2: ingredient in methamphetamine, was legal, you could pick up everything
29:35
Speaker 2: he needed at Walmart or the drug store to make
29:38
Speaker 2: a meth lab. So these local small meth labs were everywhere,
29:43
Speaker 2: and in Madison County, a lot of people claim that
29:46
Speaker 2: certain members of local law enforcement worked with the meth dealers. Again,
29:52
Speaker 2: the Arkansas Democrat Gazette did this massive investigation. They interviewed
29:56
Speaker 2: over one hundred people, including drug dealers, friends, family, and
29:59
Speaker 2: a lot of people who work in law enforcement, and
30:02
Speaker 2: they had some strong evidence that Sheriff Baker knew about
30:05
Speaker 2: the man dealing and that he allowed some of it
30:08
Speaker 2: to operate unchecked. Michael Whiteley wrote in the Democrat Gazette
30:12
Speaker 2: that Ralph Baker grew up in Madison County, and in
30:15
Speaker 2: addition to Sheriff Baker's criminal background, there were also allegations
30:20
Speaker 2: of voter fraud. Things took a darker turn in nineteen
30:29
Speaker 2: eighty seven. That's the year when Sheriff Baker in one
30:33
Speaker 2: of his colleagues arrested a nineteen year old mentally handicapped
30:36
Speaker 2: man who had been accused of stealing some baseball cards.
30:40
Speaker 2: They beat him, and the victim's family sued. A judge
30:44
Speaker 2: ruled that Sheriff Ralph had to pay just over one
30:47
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars to that victim's family. And there were
30:50
Speaker 2: other allegations that Sheriff Baker took drugs that had been
30:53
Speaker 2: seized as evidence and that he.
30:54
Speaker 1: Didn't really keep careful inventory.
30:58
Speaker 2: They talked about how he allegedly took cash from dealers
31:01
Speaker 2: who told the newspaper that they paid the sheriff so
31:04
Speaker 2: they could stay out of jail. Now of course, Sheriff
31:08
Speaker 2: Baker denied all these allegations, and a lot of people
31:11
Speaker 2: said good things about him in law enforcement. But the
31:14
Speaker 2: article in the Democrat Gazette pointed out Ralph Baker was
31:17
Speaker 2: paid a salary of thirty one thousand dollars per year,
31:20
Speaker 2: but somehow was able to buy two four hundred acres
31:24
Speaker 2: of land for a total of almost five hundred thousand
31:28
Speaker 2: dollars without taking out any mortgages. Sheriff Baker always denied
31:33
Speaker 2: any wrongdoing, but the stuff going on in the background
31:36
Speaker 2: when Billy Jean's murder happened fueled the local rumor mill
31:39
Speaker 2: and made the case even more complicated because they were friends.
31:45
Speaker 1: So let's go back to Billy Jean's case.
31:48
Speaker 2: Terry Jones has taken Rusty Caine off of the case
31:52
Speaker 2: and filtering out all the rumors. This appeared to be
31:55
Speaker 2: an unplanned attack. This was someone who flew into a rage.
32:00
Speaker 2: Everyone was suspicious of Rusty Kane, but we also have
32:03
Speaker 2: to look at the rest of the Caine family, especially
32:06
Speaker 2: once the community found out Billy Jean had sexual encounters
32:11
Speaker 2: with Rusty's son, Trey. An ASP investigator would later testify
32:17
Speaker 2: that Billy Jean groomed and had a sexual encounter which
32:21
Speaker 2: he described on the stand as seducing Trey when Trey
32:25
Speaker 2: was just twelve years old. Now, obviously this is shocking,
32:30
Speaker 2: and it's even more shocking because the very few media
32:33
Speaker 2: reports that I've seen about this just kind of casually
32:36
Speaker 2: throw that in there.
32:37
Speaker 1: Once again.
32:38
Speaker 2: I'm shocked and very saddened by this cycle of young
32:43
Speaker 2: people being preyed on by much older adults.
32:48
Speaker 1: All of this is obviously shocking.
32:50
Speaker 2: That she did this to Trey, and by the way
32:52
Speaker 2: that Trey's father, Rusty Kane, could continue to have a
32:56
Speaker 2: relationship with her after that. I'm wondering what did Rusty
33:00
Speaker 2: Kine know about Billy Jean and his son and when
33:03
Speaker 2: did he find out? But both Rusty and Trey Kine
33:08
Speaker 2: were given DNA tests and apparently they were not a match,
33:11
Speaker 2: so they were cleared. Then there was Rusty's wife, Sharon Kane.
33:18
Speaker 2: Sharon Kane was a music teacher and looked like just
33:21
Speaker 2: your average soccer mom. But as the affair between Billy
33:25
Speaker 2: Jean and her husband heated up, things were starting to
33:28
Speaker 2: get very ugly in the Caine household. Billy Jean wanted
33:32
Speaker 2: Rusty to leave Sharon, and she was not playing around again.
33:35
Speaker 2: She was very confrontational. According to the Democrat Gazette, the
33:39
Speaker 2: Christmas before she died, Billy Jean got a Christmas card
33:43
Speaker 2: from Sharon kin that said, go fuck somebody else's husband.
33:49
Speaker 2: And then just a few weeks before the murder, Billy
33:51
Speaker 2: Jean got into an argument with Sharon Kane when she
33:54
Speaker 2: showed up to the Caine home. On another day, Sharon
33:58
Speaker 2: caught Rusty and Billy Jean together in his car and
34:02
Speaker 2: hauled off and punched Rusty in the face. And in
34:05
Speaker 2: addition to Billy Jean's sleeping with her husband and being
34:09
Speaker 2: very public about it and unapologetic. I don't know if
34:13
Speaker 2: Sharon Kane knew about Billy Jean grooming her son at
34:18
Speaker 2: that point, but if she did know, I cannot imagine
34:21
Speaker 2: the anger and rage that she must have felt at
34:24
Speaker 2: that time. Sharon was questioned by detectives, but she claimed spousal.
34:30
Speaker 1: Privilege and took the fifth.
34:37
Speaker 2: Billy Jean's parents, Earl and Edna McKnight, offered a twenty
34:40
Speaker 2: five thousand dollars reward for any information that.
34:43
Speaker 1: Could help lead to her killer.
34:45
Speaker 2: Over the years, they did whatever they could to follow
34:47
Speaker 2: up on tips, They put up billboards, they even handed
34:50
Speaker 2: out bumper stickers with who killed Billy Phillips printed on them,
34:55
Speaker 2: And as it happens in so many of these cases,
34:57
Speaker 2: of course, these poor parents have had to deal with
35:01
Speaker 2: so many local rumors over the years, and they still
35:04
Speaker 2: have no answers about what I actually happened to their daughter.
35:07
Speaker 2: But finally, in two thousand and two, there was an
35:10
Speaker 2: arrest in Billy Jean's case.
35:13
Speaker 1: And it wasn't the.
35:14
Speaker 2: Sheriff or her brother or anyone else that people have
35:16
Speaker 2: been whispering about.
35:18
Speaker 1: In fact, this name shocked everyone.
35:22
Speaker 3: Well, we didn't suspect him at all. We didn't even
35:25
Speaker 3: know anything about him until we got the DNA evidence back.
35:30
Speaker 1: I'm Catherine Townsend.
35:32
Speaker 2: This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line
35:41
Speaker 2: is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts.
35:43
Speaker 2: It's written and narrated by me, Catherine Townsend and produced
35:46
Speaker 2: by Gabby Watts. Music is by Ben Sale. Executive producers
35:51
Speaker 2: are Virginia Presscott, Brandon Barr, and Elsie Crowley. If you
35:54
Speaker 2: have a case you'd like me and my team to
35:56
Speaker 2: look into, you can reach out to us at our
35:58
Speaker 2: Helen Gone murder line at six seven eight seven four
36:01
Speaker 2: four six one four five. That's six seven eight seven
36:05
Speaker 2: four four six one four five.
36:21
Speaker 1: School of Humans