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Hell and Gone Murder Line: Billie Jean Phillips Part 2 · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:08
Speaker 1: School of Humans.
0:11
Speaker 2: Sometime between the evening of September second and the early
0:14
Speaker 2: morning hours of September third, nineteen ninety four, thirty five
0:18
Speaker 2: year old Billy Jean Phillips was brutally beaten to death
0:21
Speaker 2: at her home in Alabama, Arkansas. This case very quickly
0:25
Speaker 2: became the biggest story in Madison County. Billy Jean had
0:28
Speaker 2: had several lovers, including, as we said last week, the
0:31
Speaker 2: deputy prosecutor named Rusty Kane and his son.
0:35
Speaker 1: And Rusty's son was just twelve.
0:38
Speaker 2: Years old when Billy Jean first made sexual advances toward him.
0:42
Speaker 2: There was also Billy Jean's younger brother, Robert McKnight, who
0:46
Speaker 2: had had some issues with drugs. Needless to say, there
0:49
Speaker 2: was a long list of potential suspects. Billy Jean was
0:53
Speaker 2: found wearing her white T shirt and underwear. She had
0:56
Speaker 2: been attacked and beaten with a weapon that split her scalp.
1:00
Speaker 1: Police believed it was her.
1:01
Speaker 2: Son's tea ball bat, since the bat was found splintered
1:04
Speaker 2: into pieces in the master bedroom. Then Billy Jean's killer
1:08
Speaker 2: strangled her. Billy Jean had fought hard, so hard that
1:14
Speaker 2: two of her fingernails ripped out police were looking hard
1:17
Speaker 2: at Rusty Kane, the deputy prosecutor, and several other suspects,
1:22
Speaker 2: but over the years, police took DNA from several of them,
1:27
Speaker 2: and Rusty Kane and his son and Billy Jean's brother
1:31
Speaker 2: were eliminated. None of the people that they took DNA
1:34
Speaker 2: samples for were a match to the DNA that had
1:37
Speaker 2: been found under Billy Jean's fingernails. Over the years, it
1:40
Speaker 2: was reported that police had tested at least fourteen people,
1:44
Speaker 2: none of them were a match. But in two thousand
1:48
Speaker 2: and two, there was an arrest in the Billy Jean
1:50
Speaker 2: Phillips murder case, one that would shock the community. I'm
1:54
Speaker 2: Catherine Townsend. Over the past five years of making my
1:58
Speaker 2: true crime podcast, Telling Gone, I've learned there's no such
2:02
Speaker 2: thing as a small town where murder never happens. I've
2:05
Speaker 2: received hundreds of messages from people all around the country
2:09
Speaker 2: asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them,
2:12
Speaker 2: their families, and their communities. If you have a case
2:15
Speaker 2: you'd like me and my team to look into, you
2:18
Speaker 2: can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder
2:20
Speaker 2: line at six seven eight seven four four six one
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Speaker 2: four five that's six seven eight seven four four six
2:27
Speaker 2: one four five. This is Helen Gone murder line. The
3:16
Speaker 2: guy who was arrested was named Clint Eugene Phillips. By
3:20
Speaker 2: the way, Clint was no relation to Billy Jean. That
3:23
Speaker 2: same last name was just a coincidence. Clint Phillips was
3:27
Speaker 2: never a suspect in the original police investigation. He was
3:31
Speaker 2: never even a person of interest. Initially, Clint was not
3:35
Speaker 2: arrested for Billy Jean's murder. He was arrested and charged
3:38
Speaker 2: with sexual assault against his girlfriend at the time. He
3:42
Speaker 2: was eventually convicted of that sexual assault, and after his arrest,
3:46
Speaker 2: law enforcement asked Clint to provide them with a blood sample,
3:50
Speaker 2: and when he did, the DNA was a match to
3:53
Speaker 2: the DNA that was found under Billy Jean phillips fingernails.
3:57
Speaker 2: Here's Terry Jones, the prosecutor on this case.
4:01
Speaker 3: Well, we didn't suspect him at all. We didn't even
4:04
Speaker 3: know about until we've got the DNA evidence back.
4:09
Speaker 2: This was kind of a shock because, again Clint Phillips
4:12
Speaker 2: was someone whose name never came up in the original
4:14
Speaker 2: investigation at all. But when Billy Jean's parents, Edna and
4:19
Speaker 2: Earle saw Clint on the news and saw the news
4:22
Speaker 2: reports about him being arrested for sexual assault. They remembered Clint.
4:27
Speaker 2: They remembered that he used to come into the Ozark
4:29
Speaker 2: shop where Billy Jean worked, and that he would talk
4:32
Speaker 2: to her while.
4:33
Speaker 1: She worked there.
4:34
Speaker 2: But Clint Phillips was just seventeen years old back in
4:37
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four, just a couple of days from his
4:39
Speaker 2: eighteenth birthday when Billy Jane was killed, so he was
4:43
Speaker 2: never really on the radar, And honestly, from the newspaper reports,
4:47
Speaker 2: it's not clear whether police decided to compare Clint's DNA
4:51
Speaker 2: to the DNA under Billy Jean's fingernails on their own,
4:55
Speaker 2: or whether it was Billy Jean's father who called them
4:59
Speaker 2: and kind of prompted them to do that. After law
5:02
Speaker 2: enforcement said they had a match, detectives started looking deeper
5:06
Speaker 2: into Clint Phillips and his background. They started talking to
5:12
Speaker 2: Clint's former girlfriends, and in total, three girlfriends testified that
5:16
Speaker 2: Clint had been abusive.
5:18
Speaker 1: His lawyers said that all.
5:20
Speaker 2: The abuse had happened after nineteen ninety seven, when Clint
5:23
Speaker 2: apparently became addicted to methamphetamine.
5:25
Speaker 3: We questioned ex girlfriends found out that he was kind
5:30
Speaker 3: of a rough lover. He liked to do violent things
5:33
Speaker 3: to the girls and that sort of thing, and then
5:35
Speaker 3: we found out he was in town that night.
5:39
Speaker 2: Clint's lawyer painted a picture of Clint in nineteen ninety
5:42
Speaker 2: four as a normal teenager who wanted to go into
5:45
Speaker 2: computer science, but the women who eventually testified against Clint
5:50
Speaker 2: told police a very different story. Clint's ex wife, who
5:53
Speaker 2: he married a few years after Billy Jean was murdered,
5:57
Speaker 2: testified that he kicked her, threw her on the ground,
6:00
Speaker 2: and punched her in the face. Another ex girlfriend testified
6:03
Speaker 2: that in two thousand and one, Clint had locked her
6:06
Speaker 2: in a room and stabbed her with her own keys,
6:09
Speaker 2: as well as beating her. One ex girlfriend testified that
6:14
Speaker 2: Clint Phillips drugged and raped her in two thousand and two.
6:17
Speaker 2: This was the sexual assault that Clint was eventually convicted of.
6:21
Speaker 2: This ex girlfriend told police this was a violent attack.
6:25
Speaker 2: She said Clint had punched her in the face and
6:27
Speaker 2: tried to choke her with a TV chord, and this
6:30
Speaker 2: attempted strangulation reminded a lot of people of what happened
6:35
Speaker 2: to Billy Jean. Phillips because she had also been strangled.
6:39
Speaker 2: But Clint did something after his arrest that could either
6:42
Speaker 2: be seen as really kind of naive or really shrewd
6:46
Speaker 2: and smart. What he did was he reached out to
6:49
Speaker 2: local reporters and right after he was arrested, he did
6:52
Speaker 2: an interview with a local TV station. From jail, Pete.
6:57
Speaker 3: Got to TV State. He told that story to the
6:59
Speaker 3: TV stations before we even had the.
7:01
Speaker 2: Trial, and in that interview, Clinton admitted he had known
7:06
Speaker 2: Billy Jean. He said he had hooked up with her
7:08
Speaker 2: on the night she was murdered, but he said it
7:11
Speaker 2: was totally consensual, and he said that it did not
7:14
Speaker 2: happen at her house the crime scene. His story, which
7:18
Speaker 2: was later told through his attorney in court, was that
7:21
Speaker 2: Clint had flirted with Billy Jean. He would go see
7:24
Speaker 2: her in the Ozark shop and they would be flirtatious,
7:26
Speaker 2: and then he said, right before she was killed, he
7:29
Speaker 2: had mentioned that he was going to turn eighteen in
7:31
Speaker 2: two days. Clint's attorney said Billy Jean asked him what
7:35
Speaker 2: he wanted for his birthday, and that she offered to
7:38
Speaker 2: give him a sexual encounter as a birthday present. Clint
7:42
Speaker 2: claimed that the DNA under Billy Jean's fingernails must have
7:45
Speaker 2: happened when they had a sexual encounter. He claimed that
7:49
Speaker 2: she was giving him oral sex and he scratched her,
7:53
Speaker 2: but he claimed that when he left her she was
7:55
Speaker 2: very much alive. Let's go back to the night of
7:59
Speaker 2: September second. Clint claimed that on that night he was
8:03
Speaker 2: arrested in charge with d w I. He was released
8:06
Speaker 2: from jail at around seven pm. At first, he told
8:10
Speaker 2: police that at some point that night, he couldn't quite
8:13
Speaker 2: remember when because he was drunk, he and Billy Jean
8:16
Speaker 2: had met on the side of the road somewhere and
8:18
Speaker 2: had oral sex in his truck. Now, remember, Billy Jean
8:22
Speaker 2: Phillips was working at the Ozark shop that night, so
8:24
Speaker 2: it's not clear whether this supposed encounter happened while she.
8:28
Speaker 1: Was at work or afterwards.
8:30
Speaker 2: But the witness who saw Billy Jean and saw her
8:33
Speaker 2: car drive toward her house said that they saw her
8:37
Speaker 2: car turn off toward her road at around ten forty
8:39
Speaker 2: five or eleven PM. The timeline becomes very important here
8:43
Speaker 2: because remember, police said that Billy jan was killed approximately
8:48
Speaker 2: sometime between ten thirty that night and the next morning
8:51
Speaker 2: at around six am. They couldn't narrow it down any
8:53
Speaker 2: more than that, and Clint did seem to have an
8:56
Speaker 2: alibi for that night, at least for part of it.
8:59
Speaker 2: His sister, Angela Head, and another friend named Heather Harp
9:04
Speaker 2: said Clint was with them at the Washington County Fair
9:07
Speaker 2: from around eleven PM on September second until two thirty
9:10
Speaker 2: am the next morning, But at the trial, an Arkansas
9:14
Speaker 2: State Police investigator named Steve Coffinger said both Heather and
9:18
Speaker 2: Angela had originally told him a different story and said
9:22
Speaker 2: that Clint was not with them at the fair that night.
9:25
Speaker 2: In September of two thousand and three, Clint Eugene Phillips
9:29
Speaker 2: went to trial.
9:39
Speaker 1: Clint Phillips was on trial.
9:40
Speaker 2: The charge that he was facing was capital murder, and
9:44
Speaker 2: a lot of attention was focused on the crime scene
9:47
Speaker 2: because this was a tough case to prove.
9:49
Speaker 3: There was just so many rumors going around Madison County
9:52
Speaker 3: that was very difficult impossible to get a conviction. We
9:56
Speaker 3: didn't have anyth that put him in that house the
9:59
Speaker 3: night that she was killed. That's a pretty big hole.
10:03
Speaker 2: As Terry pointed out, other than the DNA evidence under
10:06
Speaker 2: Billy Jean's fingernails that was apparently a match to Clint Phillips.
10:10
Speaker 2: There was no physical evidence tying Clint to that crime
10:13
Speaker 2: scene at all, and prosecutors also struggled with providing the
10:18
Speaker 2: jury with a motive for this crime, which isn't a
10:22
Speaker 2: requirement necessarily, but would help tremendously in a case where
10:26
Speaker 2: it seemed like there were so many people who were
10:28
Speaker 2: pissed off the victim, The prosecution leaned hard into the
10:33
Speaker 2: DNA under Billy Jean's fingernails. An ex girlfriend of Clint's
10:38
Speaker 2: testified that Clint did have scratches on him the day
10:40
Speaker 2: after the murder, but again Clint had a story for that.
10:44
Speaker 2: He said that those had been sex scratches, that they
10:47
Speaker 2: had happened during oral sex. Clint told police he had
10:51
Speaker 2: oral sex with Billy Jean in the church parking lot
10:54
Speaker 2: near her home. Clint did not take the stand in
10:57
Speaker 2: his own defense, but the jury was able to see
11:01
Speaker 2: video footage of that interview that Clint did with the reporter.
11:04
Speaker 1: In that interview, Clint.
11:05
Speaker 2: Said, quote, there's nothing in my background that makes me
11:09
Speaker 2: a murderer.
11:09
Speaker 1: Everyone knows that end quote.
11:13
Speaker 2: Clint also told local journalists that he had doubts about
11:16
Speaker 2: the authenticity of that DNA. Clint told the Madison County
11:19
Speaker 2: Record that the police asked him to give a blood sample.
11:23
Speaker 2: He said that he had given everything that the police
11:25
Speaker 2: asked for voluntarily, and he believed that someone could be
11:29
Speaker 2: trying to frame him. This sounds a little bit wild,
11:32
Speaker 2: but as we've seen in other cases, we have to
11:35
Speaker 2: consider this possibility. We have seen a lot of other
11:39
Speaker 2: mistakes made in the Arkansas State Crime Lab. Remember in
11:42
Speaker 2: Christina Pipkins's case, the wrong hairs were sent in for testing,
11:47
Speaker 2: and if the defendant had not had a really good lawyer,
11:51
Speaker 2: that mistake might never have been uncovered.
11:53
Speaker 1: So we know that mistakes can happen.
11:57
Speaker 2: By the time of Billy Jan Phillips trial, doctor Fami Mallek,
12:00
Speaker 2: the controversial medical examiner who had been so discredited after
12:04
Speaker 2: making so many mistake was gone and there was a
12:08
Speaker 2: new medical examiner, Charles Cocus.
12:11
Speaker 1: Doctor Cocus testified.
12:12
Speaker 2: That in his opinion, it was unlikely that the scratches
12:16
Speaker 2: on Clint Phillips could have happened from oral sex, but
12:20
Speaker 2: he had to admit he didn't know for sure. It
12:22
Speaker 2: was a possibility, but there's another possibility maybe Clint didn't
12:27
Speaker 2: kill Billy Jean Phillips, but maybe he was not telling
12:30
Speaker 2: the full truth about what happened that night. Remember, there
12:33
Speaker 2: were a lot of questions at the crime scene that
12:35
Speaker 2: were never answered, including the fact we still have no
12:38
Speaker 2: explanation for the unmade bed upstairs or who may have.
12:42
Speaker 1: Been sleeping in it.
12:44
Speaker 2: And then there was another very last minute witness, and
12:47
Speaker 2: this person was a friend of Clint's. According to the
12:50
Speaker 2: Arkansas Democrat Gazette, this person had talked to Clint after
12:54
Speaker 2: the murder, and the person told police that Clint had
12:57
Speaker 2: told them that he had been there for Billy Jean's murder,
13:01
Speaker 2: but that he had just watched it happen and he
13:03
Speaker 2: wasn't a part of it. So the real story, did
13:07
Speaker 2: Clint really have oral sex on the side of the
13:09
Speaker 2: road with Billy Jean or did he go over to
13:12
Speaker 2: her house that night to.
13:13
Speaker 1: Have sex with her and then attack her?
13:16
Speaker 2: Or could it have been someone else, Maybe someone else
13:19
Speaker 2: who walked in on them or waited for Clint to
13:21
Speaker 2: leave and came in to confront Billy Jean, Maybe another
13:24
Speaker 2: jealous lover. Because remember there were signs of a cleanup
13:28
Speaker 2: and a stage crime scene a lot of people wondered
13:30
Speaker 2: whether Clint, as a senior in high school, would have
13:33
Speaker 2: been sophisticated enough to do that. Now, a lot of
13:40
Speaker 2: the questions in the Billy Jean Phillips case could have
13:43
Speaker 2: been answered with better crime scene evidence. Unfortunately, the police
13:48
Speaker 2: screwed up a lot of it. There were other mistakes.
13:51
Speaker 2: There was the missing black suitcase that had been seen
13:53
Speaker 2: in the video and the missing vacuum bag from Billy
13:57
Speaker 2: Jean's vacum cleaner. There were the bed sheets from that
14:00
Speaker 2: unmade bed that were apparently sent in for forensic testing
14:03
Speaker 2: and then were inexplicably lost. And there were other hairs
14:09
Speaker 2: hairs that police said might have been from a perpetrator
14:13
Speaker 2: but ended up being Billy Jean's hairs. And the biggest
14:16
Speaker 2: mistake was, as we said in last week's episode, police
14:20
Speaker 2: believed the murder weapon may have been a tee ball
14:22
Speaker 2: bat that was found splintered by Billy Jean's body, But
14:26
Speaker 2: it came out in court that investigators thought that bat
14:29
Speaker 2: had been cleaned off, But there could have absolutely been
14:32
Speaker 2: microscopic evidence on it. If it had been properly tested,
14:37
Speaker 2: it could have been the one thing that could tie
14:39
Speaker 2: a killer to the crime scene at Billy Jean's house. Unfortunately,
14:44
Speaker 2: the tee ball bat was mistakenly destroyed by the crime lab,
14:49
Speaker 2: and the defense cast doubt on the idea that Clint Phillips,
14:52
Speaker 2: who weighed one hundred and thirty five pounds and was
14:55
Speaker 2: described in newspapers as scrawny. They wondered whether he would
14:59
Speaker 2: have been strong enough to beat Billy.
15:01
Speaker 1: Jean to death.
15:02
Speaker 2: Now, in my opinion, one hundred and thirty five pounds
15:05
Speaker 2: man would absolutely have been strong enough to beat a
15:08
Speaker 2: very small woman to death, no matter how feisty she was.
15:11
Speaker 2: But the defense also pointed out the screens had been
15:14
Speaker 2: taken off the windows, and there were signs of staging
15:17
Speaker 2: at the crime scene, and they wondered whether a drunk
15:20
Speaker 2: high school student would have had the sophistication to clean
15:23
Speaker 2: up that crime scene. And I agree with that assessment.
15:27
Speaker 2: I think that there are elements of this crime scene
15:29
Speaker 2: that make no sense. Parts of it seemed very disorganized,
15:33
Speaker 2: like the killing itself. It seems like someone flew into
15:35
Speaker 2: a rage, picked up the nearest weapon of opportunity, and
15:40
Speaker 2: killed Billy Jean. But then there are signs that the
15:44
Speaker 2: scene was cleaned up afterwards. So I wonder was this
15:47
Speaker 2: the same person who did these things, or could someone
15:50
Speaker 2: have come by later, maybe another one of Billy Jean's lovers,
15:54
Speaker 2: and decided they need to clean things up before police
15:56
Speaker 2: arrived and started their official investigation. These are things that
16:00
Speaker 2: I still wonder about today. And again we come back
16:05
Speaker 2: to that murder weapon, the.
16:06
Speaker 1: T ball bat.
16:08
Speaker 2: I asked Terry Jones about that. I wondered if anything
16:12
Speaker 2: that was that light and small could have been the
16:14
Speaker 2: only murder weapon. I know she was strangled, but I
16:17
Speaker 2: just wondered if, in his opinion, there could have been
16:20
Speaker 2: something else, something police didn't find. And this is what
16:24
Speaker 2: he said.
16:25
Speaker 3: I don't think it was the bad eventually, I think
16:27
Speaker 3: it was something else. You do, yeah, because you can't
16:33
Speaker 3: describe the bat completely clean. You just can't do it right.
16:38
Speaker 2: So there could be a second murder weapon out there,
16:40
Speaker 2: something police have never found. At the trial, defense used
16:49
Speaker 2: the other suspects in Billy Jean's murder to their advantage.
16:51
Speaker 2: In closing arguments, the defense attorney said police had suspected
16:56
Speaker 2: Rusty Kane, the deputy prosecutor and Billy Jean's lover, for
17:00
Speaker 2: a long time. And again I need to point out
17:03
Speaker 2: Rusty Kane was never arrested or charge with anything, but
17:06
Speaker 2: the suspicions and rumors over the years definitely worked to
17:10
Speaker 2: the defendant's advantage. Prosecutor Terry Jones had a theory for
17:16
Speaker 2: what happened that night. He said that he believed that
17:20
Speaker 2: Clint Phillips was drinking very heavily that night. We know
17:23
Speaker 2: that because he got a DWI. He said, Billy Jean
17:26
Speaker 2: was sexually ford she offered him this birthday gift. So
17:30
Speaker 2: Terry Jones believes that Clint did come to Billy Jean's
17:34
Speaker 2: house and that they started a sexual encounter, but his
17:38
Speaker 2: theory is that perhaps Clint could not perform sexually. The
17:42
Speaker 2: Democrat Gazette quoted Terry Jones as saying in court, quote,
17:46
Speaker 2: maybe Clint Phillips and Billy Jean had a date that night.
17:49
Speaker 2: He went to her house after the fair. Perhaps the
17:52
Speaker 2: alcohol had an effect. She teased him about it and
17:55
Speaker 2: that set him off. End quote. We'll probably never know
17:59
Speaker 2: for sure exactly what went down in Billy Jean's bedroom,
18:02
Speaker 2: but that would explain why Clint had scratches on his
18:06
Speaker 2: back that to the medical examiner appeared to come from
18:10
Speaker 2: some kind of sexual encounter that was not oral sex,
18:13
Speaker 2: but would perhaps also explain why the forensic evidence did
18:17
Speaker 2: not indicate that Billy Jean had had intercourse with anyone
18:20
Speaker 2: before her death. Terry Jones told me he was convinced
18:24
Speaker 2: that Clint Phillips was the right guy.
18:27
Speaker 1: He said he did his best. Again.
18:29
Speaker 2: He wrote a book called Mister Prosecutor about this case,
18:32
Speaker 2: and he said it's one of the few cases he lost.
18:34
Speaker 3: I think we had the right guy. I think we
18:36
Speaker 3: had plenty of evidence to convictim if there had been
18:39
Speaker 3: some will among the jury.
18:43
Speaker 2: But in the end, it seems like the jury just
18:45
Speaker 2: had too many doubts. The trial took three days. After
18:51
Speaker 2: six hours of deliberation, the jury came back with a verdict.
18:55
Speaker 2: They found Clint Phillips not guilty. Clint was crying in court.
19:00
Speaker 2: He visibly broke down and got emotional when that verdict
19:03
Speaker 2: was read.
19:04
Speaker 1: He walked out of the courtroom a free man.
19:06
Speaker 2: His family, who came to support him, said they always
19:09
Speaker 2: believed in his innocence. Billy Jean's parents, of course, were devastated.
19:15
Speaker 2: Earl McKnight, Billy Jean's father was in a wheelchair. Her mother,
19:20
Speaker 2: Edna was also very frail, and after the verdict was read,
19:23
Speaker 2: they kind of collapsed into each other's arms. Billy Jean's
19:27
Speaker 2: baby brother, Robert, the one she was super close to,
19:30
Speaker 2: carried his mother out to the car.
19:32
Speaker 1: Apparently it was just too much for her.
19:35
Speaker 2: Don Martinez, Billy Jean phillips uncle, told the Arkansas Democraticzette quote,
19:40
Speaker 2: the mcknights have been in this community for fifty years.
19:43
Speaker 2: They are good people. They are not vindictive, but a
19:47
Speaker 2: wound has been reopened here. Please pray for them.
19:51
Speaker 3: I think in the end, the father came back and
19:53
Speaker 3: thanked me for the efforts that we had done, and
19:56
Speaker 3: he said, we got the right guy. You know. He
19:59
Speaker 3: was not dissatisfied with what finally got done, except of course,
20:04
Speaker 3: for the verdict.
20:06
Speaker 2: Obviously, Billy Jean's family was devastated and the rest of
20:10
Speaker 2: the community was pretty divided. Was this an innocent man
20:14
Speaker 2: who had been railroaded or had local rumors about the
20:18
Speaker 2: prosecutor and the sheriff and Billy Jean's sex life stop
20:22
Speaker 2: justice from being served. Prosecutor Terry Jones said the verdict
20:34
Speaker 2: on Clint Phillips would, in his opinion, make it very
20:37
Speaker 2: difficult to prosecute anyone else in future. He said, everyone
20:41
Speaker 2: in town knew about the case. Everyone knew about Clint's
20:44
Speaker 2: DNA being under Billy Jean's fingernails. Another big question that
20:49
Speaker 2: I have is what happened to that physical evidence. Terry
20:53
Speaker 2: Jones says that along with the bat being destroyed and
20:57
Speaker 2: the bedsheets disappearing, and so many other pieces of evidence
21:00
Speaker 2: being mislaid, he was told all of the files had
21:04
Speaker 2: been destroyed in a flood. I told him that I
21:07
Speaker 2: was going to ask around and do my best to
21:09
Speaker 2: figure out what actually happened to those files and if
21:12
Speaker 2: any of them are out there somewhere, because it seems
21:15
Speaker 2: very strange to me that every single piece of evidence
21:19
Speaker 2: from such a crucial case is just gone. Billy Jean's father, Earl,
21:25
Speaker 2: passed away in two thousand and five. Edna died in
21:28
Speaker 2: twenty fourteen. These people died never knowing who killed their daughter.
21:34
Speaker 2: Remember Sheriff Ralph Baker, the one who was Billy Jean's
21:37
Speaker 2: friend and who ran Madison County and who, by the way,
21:41
Speaker 2: a lot of people believe ran the drug trade in
21:43
Speaker 2: Madison County. He became yet another person who died in
21:47
Speaker 2: a freak accident that happened in January of nineteen ninety eight. Apparently,
21:51
Speaker 2: Sheriff Ralph was in his patrol car trying to cross
21:54
Speaker 2: the White River. The cruiser started to flood, it flipped over,
21:59
Speaker 2: and he drowned. But some people believe this was not
22:02
Speaker 2: just an accident. Even though the sheriff's body was found,
22:06
Speaker 2: he became kind of like the Elvis Presley of Arkansas.
22:10
Speaker 2: There were rumors he had faked his own death and
22:12
Speaker 2: escaped somewhere, that he had taken a lot of cash
22:14
Speaker 2: with him, And even though this seems extremely far fetched,
22:18
Speaker 2: I can tell you there are rumors on Facebook and
22:20
Speaker 2: other places to that effect. One of the reasons why
22:24
Speaker 2: a lot of people seem to believe that Ralph Baker
22:27
Speaker 2: couldn't have died this way was because he had so.
22:29
Speaker 1: Much experience crossing the river.
22:31
Speaker 2: They believe he would have known that a bridge like
22:34
Speaker 2: that was not safe to cross, and they just don't
22:36
Speaker 2: believe he would have taken that chance in those conditions.
22:39
Speaker 2: They believe he would have known that that would be
22:41
Speaker 2: super dangerous. There were lots of Facebook comments on the
22:45
Speaker 2: post about the twentieth anniversary of Ralph's death. It's clear
22:48
Speaker 2: again he was a very polarizing figure. Some people absolutely
22:52
Speaker 2: loved him and others really hated him.
22:55
Speaker 1: One red quote.
22:56
Speaker 2: I remember when Ralph Baker took my dad down the
22:59
Speaker 2: riverbed and left him handcuffed, beat the hell out of
23:01
Speaker 2: him with a gun and a pistol and a flashlight
23:04
Speaker 2: and told him to run so he could shoot him
23:06
Speaker 2: in the back because he was from California.
23:09
Speaker 1: End quote.
23:10
Speaker 2: So the controversy over Sheriff Ralph Baker continues to this day. Then,
23:16
Speaker 2: in two thousand and nine, and this is just kind
23:18
Speaker 2: of a weird side note, but David Mack, the author
23:21
Speaker 2: of the expose on Sheriff Ralph Baker, the one that
23:24
Speaker 2: talked about Sheriff Baker's alleged involvement in the drug trade.
23:28
Speaker 2: David Mack was at a Walmart in Fayetteville. Police said
23:31
Speaker 2: they caught him shoplifting, so they put him in a
23:34
Speaker 2: holding area in the back of the store. Then they
23:36
Speaker 2: put the penknife he was carrying on the counter. Then,
23:40
Speaker 2: and this was the way it was reported. To everyone's horror,
23:44
Speaker 2: David Mack picked up his pen knife and slit his
23:46
Speaker 2: own throat. According to local news reports, he was still
23:50
Speaker 2: trying to stab himself while people were trying to subdue him.
23:54
Speaker 2: In the end, he was rushed to the hospital and died.
23:57
Speaker 2: There just one more strange death connected to Madison County.
24:03
Speaker 2: The mystery of Billy Jean Phillips continued. I'm hoping maybe
24:07
Speaker 2: one of you will hear something that I miss in
24:09
Speaker 2: all this. It reminds me of a game of clue.
24:12
Speaker 2: And I'm not saying that because I take it lightly
24:14
Speaker 2: at all. I'm saying that because I believe there are
24:16
Speaker 2: a lot of suspects out there. There's a lot of
24:19
Speaker 2: information floating around that's not necessarily relevant. But I feel
24:23
Speaker 2: like there are a lot of clues out there, and
24:25
Speaker 2: if we can put them together in the right order,
24:28
Speaker 2: I feel like this case maybe could be solved someday.
24:32
Speaker 2: A lot of people over the years have implied Billy
24:34
Speaker 2: Jean phillips murder was about drugs. I don't believe this
24:38
Speaker 2: was a straight drug murder. A drug dealer would have
24:40
Speaker 2: taken the money out of Billy Jean's wallet, and they
24:43
Speaker 2: probably would have stolen her jewelry and not bothered to
24:46
Speaker 2: stage the crime scene.
24:47
Speaker 1: They just would have bailed. What about an arranged hit.
24:51
Speaker 2: I've considered that, but I think at least right now,
24:54
Speaker 2: the evidence does not seem to back this theory up. Remember,
24:58
Speaker 2: there was no sign of forced entry. She was also
25:00
Speaker 2: wearing all of her jewelry, which she only wore when
25:03
Speaker 2: she was expecting company. And finally, we have to go
25:07
Speaker 2: back to what we do know from the physical evidence.
25:10
Speaker 2: For me, the biggest clue is the murder weapon, her
25:13
Speaker 2: son's tea ball bat. Even if it wasn't the only
25:15
Speaker 2: murder weapon, was definitely used. It was a weapon of opportunity.
25:20
Speaker 2: Someone flew into a rage and grabbed the first thing
25:23
Speaker 2: they saw, because a tee ball bat is not a
25:25
Speaker 2: logical murder weapon.
25:27
Speaker 1: Someone killed Billy.
25:28
Speaker 2: Jean in a rage, and then they or someone else,
25:32
Speaker 2: either someone close to them or perhaps someone totally unconnected
25:36
Speaker 2: to them, but with a lot to lose stage that
25:39
Speaker 2: crime scene. We've talked a lot about the Cane family, Rusty,
25:44
Speaker 2: his wife Sharon, and their son Trey. We know that
25:47
Speaker 2: Rusty and Billy Jean were supposed to have a date
25:49
Speaker 2: that night. They had met up and exchange gifts. But
25:52
Speaker 2: I wonder if he came back later. Maybe he got
25:56
Speaker 2: angry with Billy Jean and they got into an argument,
25:58
Speaker 2: or maybe Rusty Kane came in and discovered Billy Jean's body.
26:03
Speaker 2: Maybe him or another family member or someone else close
26:06
Speaker 2: to him helped clean it up. I still wonder about
26:10
Speaker 2: Billy Jean's closet. Remember that Euna, billy Jean's sister, said
26:15
Speaker 2: Rusty Kane had a whole rack of clothes. Basically he
26:19
Speaker 2: had his own, like half of Billy Jean's closet. But
26:23
Speaker 2: when Billy Jean's body was found, Yuna said that the
26:26
Speaker 2: side of the closet where Billy Jean had kept Rusty
26:29
Speaker 2: Kane's clothes was just bare hangers. So who if anyone
26:34
Speaker 2: took these clothes? Did someone come in and grab them
26:38
Speaker 2: out of that closet? And if so, was it the
26:40
Speaker 2: killer or was it someone else. Sharon and Rusty Kane
26:44
Speaker 2: divorced in two thousand and four, so her spousal privilege
26:47
Speaker 2: would presumably have ended then. I still wonder if she's
26:51
Speaker 2: ever talked to anyone about this murder. Rusty Kane survived
26:55
Speaker 2: the scandal. He eventually became the Huntsville City Attorney. Back
26:59
Speaker 2: in twenty fourteen, he was arrested and charged with driving
27:02
Speaker 2: while intoxicated. Then he got another du in twenty seventeen.
27:07
Speaker 2: At that time, his blood.
27:08
Speaker 1: Alcohol level was reportedly over twice the legal.
27:11
Speaker 2: Limit, and even after that he remained the Huntsville City attorney.
27:17
Speaker 2: I guess some things never changed in the good old
27:19
Speaker 2: boys system in Arkansas. There was one final clue, and this,
27:24
Speaker 2: by the way, is why I love investigative reporting. The
27:27
Speaker 2: Arkansas Democrat Cazette that did so much great reporting on
27:31
Speaker 2: this case tracked down a neighbor who lived near Billy
27:34
Speaker 2: Jean's house. Since this is a rural area, this person
27:38
Speaker 2: saw all the cars that would drive by to go
27:40
Speaker 2: to Billy Jeans, and also this being a rural area,
27:43
Speaker 2: they would notice who was driving what they knew everybody's car.
27:47
Speaker 2: So this neighbor went out to feed her chickens every
27:49
Speaker 2: day between five and six am. She stated that just
27:53
Speaker 2: before dawn on September third, she was out and heard
27:56
Speaker 2: a car passing by. She said she looked up, but
27:59
Speaker 2: she couldn't see any headlights, which means that this person
28:04
Speaker 2: knew the road well enough to be able to drive
28:06
Speaker 2: it in the dark. Was this the killer or killers
28:11
Speaker 2: or was this someone doing a cleanup? Terry Jones said
28:14
Speaker 2: that they had talked to that neighbor he said, they
28:16
Speaker 2: talked to a lot of people, and they spent years
28:18
Speaker 2: trying to solve this case. So could Terry Jones be right?
28:22
Speaker 2: Did they get the right guy but just not have
28:24
Speaker 2: enough evidence to win the case. I still wonder if
28:30
Speaker 2: Billy Jean's killer is out there. I've said before, murder
28:34
Speaker 2: investigations are like time travel. We get frozen in time
28:38
Speaker 2: at a moment when a horrific crime happens. Some part
28:41
Speaker 2: of our minds are always reliving that traumatic moment over
28:44
Speaker 2: and over. People focus on the larger issues of the case,
28:47
Speaker 2: or the drug trade or the wacky characters. All I
28:50
Speaker 2: can think about is Billy Jean phillips little son, who
28:53
Speaker 2: was just seven years old when he found his mother
28:56
Speaker 2: lying in a pool of blood on her bedroom floor.
29:02
Speaker 1: Clint Phillips is now fifty two years old.
29:05
Speaker 2: After the trial, his family said they were planning to
29:07
Speaker 2: move him out of Madison County because of all the
29:09
Speaker 2: bad publicity, but it seems like he didn't get very far.
29:14
Speaker 2: After Clint's trial, he became involved in drug dealing. He
29:17
Speaker 2: was arrested for methamphetamine charges, and over the years he
29:21
Speaker 2: did accumulate more of a criminal record. In October of
29:24
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three, he was arrested in Madison County after
29:28
Speaker 2: the Madison County Sheriff's Office seized approximately three hundred grams
29:32
Speaker 2: of methamphetamine, along with some other paraphernalia from Clint's residence.
29:37
Speaker 2: He was charged with trafficking and controlled substance distribution, theft
29:42
Speaker 2: of property, and possession of drug paraphernalia. Clint's criminal record
29:46
Speaker 2: includes arrests and convictions for drugs, domestic battery, and aggravated assaults.
29:51
Speaker 2: After the arrest for sexual assault in two thousand and two,
29:54
Speaker 2: he became a registered sex offender. He's been arrested a
29:58
Speaker 2: couple of times since then for failure to register as
30:01
Speaker 2: a sex offender.
30:03
Speaker 1: And very recently Clint.
30:05
Speaker 2: This name came up again in a very strange way
30:09
Speaker 2: in another case. In January of twenty twenty two, a
30:15
Speaker 2: forty one year old man named Jason Lerell disappeared. Now
30:19
Speaker 2: the exact date when Jason vanished depends on who you ask.
30:23
Speaker 2: It's been reported that there was a sighting of him
30:25
Speaker 2: on January twenty seventh, but there are conflicting reports about
30:29
Speaker 2: whether that sighting was valid or not. We're going to
30:32
Speaker 2: go a lot more in depth into Jason's case in
30:35
Speaker 2: next week's episode, but the last known contact that Jason
30:39
Speaker 2: had with anyone was on January twenty first. Then on
30:44
Speaker 2: February thirteenth, twenty twenty two, a few weeks after Jason disappeared,
30:49
Speaker 2: a deputy transported an inmate to the Barry County jail.
30:53
Speaker 3: Now.
30:53
Speaker 2: According to the arrest report, this man had blood on
30:56
Speaker 2: his hands and all over his clothing. He had been
31:00
Speaker 2: arrested on a totally unrelated charge, but he shot police
31:04
Speaker 2: when he said he had information about Jason Lerell's disappearance
31:08
Speaker 2: and that Madison County would want to talk to him
31:11
Speaker 2: about a capital murder. I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen
31:16
Speaker 2: Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line is a production
31:23
Speaker 2: of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and
31:26
Speaker 2: narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts.
31:30
Speaker 2: Music is contributed by Ben Sale. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon.
31:36
Speaker 1: Barr, and L. C. Crowley.
31:37
Speaker 2: If you have a case you'd like me and my
31:39
Speaker 2: team to look into, you can reach out to us
31:41
Speaker 2: at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight
31:44
Speaker 2: seven four four six one four five. That's six seven
31:48
Speaker 2: eight seven four four six ' one four or five.
32:09
Speaker 1: School of Humans,