Latest / Hell and Gone: Murder Line / Hell and Gone Murder Line: Jarrod Green Part 1

Transcript

Hell and Gone Murder Line: Jarrod Green Part 1 · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:08
Speaker 1: School of Humans.
0:18
Speaker 2: On September thirtieth, nineteen ninety four, twenty year old Jared
0:21
Speaker 2: Green was scared. His sister, Shannon, who was three years
0:25
Speaker 2: older than Jared, remembered her baby brother as the kid
0:28
Speaker 2: he was always laughing and smiling, who had a mischievous
0:31
Speaker 2: sense of humor. Jared's middle name was Devlin, so they
0:35
Speaker 2: called him the little devil.
0:37
Speaker 1: I've used this expression before. He was like light and
0:40
Speaker 1: life and laughter. He was always making jokes. He had
0:45
Speaker 1: a really infectious laugh. He was always getting into trouble.
0:50
Speaker 1: My mom called him like a little monkey because he
0:52
Speaker 1: was climbing on stuff when we were kids and he
0:55
Speaker 1: jumped off the top bunk bed knocked himself out. But
0:58
Speaker 1: he was constantly doing silly stuff like that. If there
1:02
Speaker 1: was a mischief to be had, he was going to
1:05
Speaker 1: be in the middle of it.
1:06
Speaker 2: But his humor was always fun, never cruel. Shannon said
1:11
Speaker 2: that Jared was always a little bit naive. He was
1:14
Speaker 2: someone who always trusted others and someone who would do
1:16
Speaker 2: anything for a friend. Jared had a high IQ, Shannon said,
1:21
Speaker 2: genius level, so he was always smart, but as a
1:25
Speaker 2: kid he struggled to focus. Jared was diagnosed with ADHD,
1:30
Speaker 2: so their parents put him on Riddlin. Though the Riddlin
1:34
Speaker 2: did seem to help Jared focus at school, his parents
1:37
Speaker 2: believed that it was stunning Jared's physical growth, which meant
1:40
Speaker 2: that Jared was always small for his age, so he
1:42
Speaker 2: ended up being held back a year at school. Even
1:45
Speaker 2: though Jared eventually caught up physically and grew to be
1:48
Speaker 2: almost six feet tall, he always had kind of a
1:51
Speaker 2: slim build. In every picture I see of Jared, he's
1:55
Speaker 2: got this boyish face. He's got brownish blonde hair, and
1:58
Speaker 2: blue green eyes. He's smiling in every single picture, which
2:02
Speaker 2: goes with what Shannon said about him. She said he
2:05
Speaker 2: was full of life and always the life of the party,
2:08
Speaker 2: just a joy to be around. Jared graduated from Sersey
2:11
Speaker 2: High School in nineteen ninety three, and because he'd been
2:14
Speaker 2: held back a year when he graduated, he was actually
2:17
Speaker 2: nineteen years old. He continued to live at home after
2:20
Speaker 2: high school. Eventually he moved out of his parents' house
2:23
Speaker 2: and started junior college in bb He got a job
2:26
Speaker 2: at the Walmart distribution center, but then in nineteen ninety four,
2:31
Speaker 2: Jared's problem started. He started using methamphetamines and his family
2:37
Speaker 2: says that within a shockingly short period of time, Jared
2:41
Speaker 2: was showing signs of serious addiction. Jared's dark time began
2:45
Speaker 2: some time after fall semester started at college.
2:48
Speaker 3: By the beginning of October, it was all over.
2:53
Speaker 2: I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past five years of making
2:56
Speaker 2: my true crime podcast, Talent Gone, I've learned that there's
3:00
Speaker 2: no such thing as a small town where murder never happens.
3:04
Speaker 2: I have received hundreds of men messages from people from
3:06
Speaker 2: all around the country asking for help with an unsolved
3:09
Speaker 2: murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities. If
3:13
Speaker 2: you have a case you'd like me and my team
3:16
Speaker 2: to look into, you can reach out to us at
3:18
Speaker 2: our Hell and Gone Murder line at six seven eight
3:21
Speaker 2: seven four four six one four five. That's six seven
3:25
Speaker 2: eight seven four four six one four or five. When
4:13
Speaker 2: I announced this new podcast, multiple listeners reached out to
4:17
Speaker 2: me about Jared Green's case.
4:19
Speaker 1: I'm just calling in for justice for Jared. You might
4:25
Speaker 1: have heard podcasts before, but.
4:28
Speaker 2: There was a group of us that already.
4:30
Speaker 1: I'm calling in about the case of Jared Green. He
4:34
Speaker 1: disappeared from Sarcy, Arkansas on September thirtieth, nineteen ninety four.
4:39
Speaker 2: I had actually heard from Jared's sister, Shannon Green, a
4:42
Speaker 2: while back, and I knew this was one of the
4:45
Speaker 2: first cases that I wanted to cover. At first, Jared's
4:49
Speaker 2: family wasn't exactly sure what was going on with them.
4:52
Speaker 2: Shannon said they were pretty clueless because she said her
4:55
Speaker 2: parents had never dealt with that type of drug abuse before.
4:58
Speaker 2: They did not know the signs to look for, and
5:01
Speaker 2: they didn't know how quickly this kind of thing could
5:04
Speaker 2: escalate or had to dangerous.
5:05
Speaker 1: It was not long after he graduated high school, when
5:09
Speaker 1: he was about nineteen, and that's when my mom found,
5:12
Speaker 1: like I think she found pot in his pants pocket
5:15
Speaker 1: that she was doing the laundry and she found it,
5:18
Speaker 1: and it was a really fast kind of transformation when
5:23
Speaker 1: he started doing that. That was when it was this
5:26
Speaker 1: deep decline and the change in him became just obvious.
5:31
Speaker 1: I dropped out of grad school and moved back home
5:35
Speaker 1: because my parents were kind of like, we don't know
5:37
Speaker 1: what to do, and I was so upset about it.
5:40
Speaker 1: He was over eighteen. We couldn't force him into a
5:43
Speaker 1: rehab It was terrible. We didn't know the extent really
5:46
Speaker 1: of what. We were just so naive. I've said this before,
5:49
Speaker 1: but like my parent you know, we were not exposed
5:52
Speaker 1: to anything. My parents they they went to church. We
5:55
Speaker 1: didn't drink, we didn't were We didn't you know, there
5:58
Speaker 1: was all this very kind of sheltered life. We didn't
6:01
Speaker 1: even know what was happening. I certainly had no idea
6:04
Speaker 1: of the depths of the corruption and the drug scene
6:08
Speaker 1: in Sursey. We had no idea about that at the time.
6:12
Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety four, Jared was living at home, working
6:15
Speaker 2: at the Walmart distribution center, and going to school.
6:18
Speaker 3: He quit his job at Walmart.
6:20
Speaker 2: Shannon said that at first his family thought this was
6:22
Speaker 2: because his job was interfering with school, but the truth
6:26
Speaker 2: was that Jared was using drugs and had gotten much
6:29
Speaker 2: more heavily into them. Jared moved out of his parents'
6:32
Speaker 2: house and in with a guy who lived down the
6:34
Speaker 2: street from his family. The apartment that he moved into
6:37
Speaker 2: was across the hall from a guy named Brandon Wheeler.
6:40
Speaker 2: Now Brandon Wheeler was someone Jared knew from high school.
6:44
Speaker 2: Living with Brandon Wheeler was his roommate Robert Webb. In
6:48
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four, Robert Webb was turning eighteen years old
6:51
Speaker 2: and still a senior at Sarcey High School, Jared, Robert,
6:54
Speaker 2: and Brandon all started hanging out. Brandon Wheeler was a
6:57
Speaker 2: big guy. He was white, around two hundred pounds and
7:00
Speaker 2: pretty stocky. Robert Webb was pretty much his physical opposite,
7:05
Speaker 2: a lightmail and much smaller, about five foot one and
7:08
Speaker 2: around one hundred and thirty five pounds. By the way,
7:11
Speaker 2: in case it's not obvious, I'm giving physical descriptions of
7:14
Speaker 2: these guys because they will become very important later when
7:16
Speaker 2: it becomes clear that some of the people in this
7:18
Speaker 2: case are using multiple aliases. These guys were all young,
7:24
Speaker 2: but they were already moving into drug dealing, and police
7:27
Speaker 2: suspected that Brandon and Robert were dealing drugs for some
7:30
Speaker 2: very dangerous people.
7:32
Speaker 1: Brandon was always like, he wasn't popular in school. He
7:36
Speaker 1: was everybody thought he was kind of odd. I had
7:39
Speaker 1: no idea until really when he moved into that apartment
7:43
Speaker 1: that like Brandon was involved in the drugs, And still
7:48
Speaker 1: we still didn't know what the drugs were like this
7:52
Speaker 1: was it was still a mystery at this point. My
7:56
Speaker 1: parents really still didn't know. I definitely didn't know what
7:59
Speaker 1: was going on. He didn't tell us. He would hint
8:03
Speaker 1: at some things. He would co about things, and my
8:08
Speaker 1: mom would try to talk to him, but he didn't
8:10
Speaker 1: want to tell us what would happen.
8:12
Speaker 2: Jared and his roommate got evicted from their apartment, so
8:15
Speaker 2: he moved back home with his parents. Robert and Brandon
8:19
Speaker 2: ended up renting another house together in Sirce, North, Little Rock.
8:23
Speaker 2: Brandon's parents lived in Surse, a few miles from while
8:25
Speaker 2: he was running the house with Robert. It's important to
8:28
Speaker 2: remember that when I talked to Shannon about her brother,
8:31
Speaker 2: she's telling this story in hindsight, so it comes in pieces.
8:35
Speaker 2: But one thing she does remember vividly is how fast
8:38
Speaker 2: this all happened.
8:39
Speaker 3: She says that.
8:40
Speaker 2: Once Jared started hanging out with Brandon Wheeler and Robert Webb,
8:44
Speaker 2: his descent into drug use was quick and extreme. What
8:49
Speaker 2: she didn't know at the time was that Jared had
8:52
Speaker 2: allegedly moved from just using drugs into helping Robert and
8:55
Speaker 2: Brandon deal them. She later heard that he might have
8:58
Speaker 2: been possibly involved in some other way, either in selling
9:02
Speaker 2: or possibly cooking.
9:04
Speaker 1: What I've heard is that Brandon and rob claimed that
9:08
Speaker 1: he owed them seventy five hundred dollars and that they
9:13
Speaker 1: would never let him pay them back. I do remember
9:18
Speaker 1: him saying that he could never be free because they
9:20
Speaker 1: would never let it be free. And I don't know
9:24
Speaker 1: what the money was for. I assume it was probably
9:27
Speaker 1: drugs that he was supposed to have either sold or
9:30
Speaker 1: transported for him. I don't think he actually, I don't
9:33
Speaker 1: think he ever dealt I don't know for sure. All
9:37
Speaker 1: I know is what people around him have told me
9:40
Speaker 1: that he didn't, but he was connected with people that
9:45
Speaker 1: were and I think that someone had mentioned that they
9:50
Speaker 1: were trying to introduce him because he was smart, that
9:53
Speaker 1: they thought, well, he could be a cook, and that
9:58
Speaker 1: that is, you know, one of the things that I've
9:59
Speaker 1: heard that that that's kind of what they were planning
10:03
Speaker 1: for him.
10:04
Speaker 2: When Jared came back home after getting evicted, Shannon said
10:07
Speaker 2: her brother had lost lots of weight. She also said
10:10
Speaker 2: he was extremely paranoid. She said that her brother was scared.
10:15
Speaker 2: Shannon describes how her brother's life started to fall apart
10:18
Speaker 2: once he moved back home.
10:21
Speaker 1: We could tell he was really like, he had lost
10:24
Speaker 1: a ton of weight, He didn't look right. He was
10:26
Speaker 1: extremely paranoid. I remember that one time I was on
10:31
Speaker 1: my way out the door to church, I had got
10:33
Speaker 1: a runner in my hose and I had to turn
10:35
Speaker 1: back into the house to go go change. And I
10:38
Speaker 1: came in like just busted to the front door, and
10:40
Speaker 1: Jared was standing at the top of the staircase with
10:42
Speaker 1: a gun drawn and like shaking because he was paranoid
10:46
Speaker 1: about somebody coming in after him. And so there was
10:50
Speaker 1: a lot of that where we were all kind of
10:53
Speaker 1: on tender hooks, like we didn't know where he was.
10:55
Speaker 1: He would go out and stay out until all hours,
10:58
Speaker 1: and I stopped sleeping because if I didn't hear our
11:02
Speaker 1: garage store open, I couldn't be comfortable because I was
11:05
Speaker 1: afraid something was going to happen. Like we didn't know
11:07
Speaker 1: what he was into. We didn't know what he was doing.
11:11
Speaker 3: Now.
11:11
Speaker 2: One of the most important questions in this case that
11:13
Speaker 2: came up later was how much of this paranoia was
11:17
Speaker 2: just the paranoia that goes with drug use, especially Matthews,
11:21
Speaker 2: and how much might have been legitimate fear for his life.
11:26
Speaker 2: That will become crucial later Jared asked his parents for help.
11:30
Speaker 2: He told them that he needed to get out of town.
11:33
Speaker 2: Then Shannon said, Jared did leave town for about a week. Now,
11:37
Speaker 2: where Jared went during that time remains a mystery, and
11:40
Speaker 2: it's something we're going to revisit. Shannon believed he was
11:43
Speaker 2: going to see about a job in Tennessee, but then
11:46
Speaker 2: after Jared came back, Shannon put a timeline together with
11:49
Speaker 2: her dad to try and track his movement, and later
11:52
Speaker 2: Shannon's dad found receipts from Jared's trip. They found out
11:56
Speaker 2: he had actually been gone longer, close to two weeks,
11:59
Speaker 2: and that he had actually visited Houston, Texas and Tuckerman,
12:03
Speaker 2: Arkansas to see family, had been around to several places
12:07
Speaker 2: they never knew about, and then one day, out of
12:10
Speaker 2: the blue, Jared said he was coming home. At that point,
12:14
Speaker 2: Shannon said he seemed to be more relaxed. He said
12:17
Speaker 2: that everything was okay. He had been telling family and
12:21
Speaker 2: friends that he owed Brandon and Robert a lot of money,
12:24
Speaker 2: But after he came home, according to Shannon, it seemed
12:27
Speaker 2: like whatever issues he had with these guys, he had
12:30
Speaker 2: worked them out and made things right. So Jared returned
12:34
Speaker 2: home after that trip out of town, but he wouldn't
12:38
Speaker 2: be home for long. So this brings us to September thirtieth,
12:46
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four, the day Jared disappeared. On that day,
12:50
Speaker 2: Shannon said, Jared woke up at around eight thirty am
12:53
Speaker 2: and left the house for a while. He came home
12:55
Speaker 2: later that afternoon and told his family that he had
12:57
Speaker 2: been shooting skeek, which Shannon said would not have been
13:00
Speaker 2: out of character for him. He brought back the skeet
13:03
Speaker 2: shooting thrower and the rifle that he used and left
13:06
Speaker 2: them at home. Then Jared made some phone calls that afternoon.
13:10
Speaker 2: He left the house at around eight pm. That night,
13:13
Speaker 2: he told his parents that he was meeting a friend
13:16
Speaker 2: at the Sarce Country Club. Then he walked out the door,
13:20
Speaker 2: out the driveway, got into his car, and drove off.
13:24
Speaker 2: That was the last time Jared's family ever saw him alive.
13:30
Speaker 2: Shannon later told reporter she has this flashback of Jared
13:33
Speaker 2: walking in front of a TV and walking out of
13:35
Speaker 2: the house, but she said that she was working at Hastings,
13:39
Speaker 2: a local grocery store, at the time, so she can't
13:41
Speaker 2: really remember whether the night she's thinking of was that
13:44
Speaker 2: night or possibly another night. Either way, Jared never came
13:49
Speaker 2: home for the next few days. His parents kind of
13:53
Speaker 2: agonized over what action to take because they were torn.
13:56
Speaker 2: They wanted their son home, but they were also worried
13:59
Speaker 2: that calling the police could bring Jared unwanted attention, maybe
14:03
Speaker 2: get him into trouble if it turned out he was
14:05
Speaker 2: holed up somewhere involved in drugs. And at that stage
14:08
Speaker 2: in Jared's life, it was not uncommon for Jared to
14:11
Speaker 2: leave for a couple days, possibly to go stay with friends.
14:15
Speaker 2: But when days went by and his family never heard
14:17
Speaker 2: from him, they began to suspect that something was very wrong.
14:22
Speaker 2: As you may know from listening to this podcast, one
14:26
Speaker 2: theme that I go over over and over again is
14:29
Speaker 2: the timeline, and in the beginning, police had very little
14:33
Speaker 2: information about Jared's timeline. We do know that he was
14:37
Speaker 2: planning on meeting his girlfriend that night. Now his girlfriend's
14:40
Speaker 2: name is also Shannon, so to avoid confusion with Shannon, Jared's.
14:44
Speaker 3: Sister, we're going to refer to his sister as.
14:46
Speaker 2: Shannon and Jared's girlfriend as s Jared's girlfriend later told
14:52
Speaker 2: police that she did talk to Jared that night. She
14:54
Speaker 2: said when they spoke on the phone, Jared seemed irrational
14:58
Speaker 2: and he wanted his girlfriend to leave town with him.
15:01
Speaker 2: She said he was disturbed because he was acting really
15:03
Speaker 2: out of character, so she told him that she was
15:06
Speaker 2: going out with some girlfriends instead. She said that Jared
15:10
Speaker 2: was super upset, crying, and that after she didn't go
15:14
Speaker 2: with him that night, she never saw or heard from
15:16
Speaker 2: him again. Over the next few days, Jared's family began
15:21
Speaker 2: to get more and more worried.
15:23
Speaker 1: So he went missing on September thirtieth, and he was gone.
15:27
Speaker 1: And like I said before, like he would he would
15:30
Speaker 1: go for overnight, go to Jonesboro, whatever, go stay with
15:33
Speaker 1: his girlfriend. He wouldn't come home. He was, you know,
15:36
Speaker 1: twenty years old, so he wouldn't always tell us he would,
15:39
Speaker 1: you know, he would usually call or he'd usually show
15:41
Speaker 1: up home the next day. So when he didn't come
15:44
Speaker 1: home the first night, we weren't we were scared because
15:47
Speaker 1: of what we knew was what was going on, but
15:49
Speaker 1: we weren't fannicked. But when when you know, the next evening,
15:55
Speaker 1: we don't haven't heard from him. And I was working
15:58
Speaker 1: at Hastings of the time, and his girlfriend and she
16:02
Speaker 1: hadn't seen or heard from him, and so that really
16:05
Speaker 1: that was really scary. It's like, okay, wait a minute,
16:07
Speaker 1: something is not right. So then we started calling people,
16:10
Speaker 1: you know, we called the Wheelers, called Brandon and he
16:14
Speaker 1: was like, no, we haven't seen Jared. Don't have any
16:16
Speaker 1: idea where he's at. The normal panic that you go
16:19
Speaker 1: through when someone goes missing, and you're like, okay, where
16:21
Speaker 1: could they be? Don't overreact, this is you know, he's
16:23
Speaker 1: an adult, He's probably somewhere. But when we still hadn't
16:27
Speaker 1: heard on that third day, the panic had started to
16:30
Speaker 1: set in. My parents were super scared because they didn't
16:33
Speaker 1: want to get Jared in trouble, and we're afraid that
16:35
Speaker 1: if they told the police what he was involved with,
16:38
Speaker 1: he would go to jail. And so they were debating,
16:42
Speaker 1: you know, what do we do. How do we best
16:45
Speaker 1: help our son? Do we call the police? But you know,
16:47
Speaker 1: they were just scared to death.
16:49
Speaker 2: Then a few days after Jared went missing, one of
16:52
Speaker 2: his friends, a guy named Mitchell Johnson, told Jared's family
16:56
Speaker 2: that he saw Jared's car at the Walmart supercenter. Jared's
17:00
Speaker 2: family had no idea that his car was sitting abandoned
17:03
Speaker 2: at the Walmart supercenter and that it had been there
17:06
Speaker 2: for days. Mitchell said that when he saw the car,
17:10
Speaker 2: he pulled up and waited twenty or thirty minutes to
17:13
Speaker 2: see if Jared would come out, but he said when
17:15
Speaker 2: Jared didn't come out, Mitchell left the parking lot.
17:19
Speaker 3: On October fifth, another.
17:20
Speaker 2: Friend of Jared's, a guy named Jason, came to the
17:23
Speaker 2: family home. Now Jason knew Jared from high school. Jared
17:28
Speaker 2: had started going to Sarcey High in the eighth grade,
17:30
Speaker 2: so he and Jason became friends. They also hung out
17:34
Speaker 2: with another guy named Greg. According to the case file,
17:38
Speaker 2: in the fall of nineteen ninety four, Jason was going
17:41
Speaker 2: to college in Jonesborough. He lived with he and Jason's
17:44
Speaker 2: mutual friend Greg, and during that time period they all
17:47
Speaker 2: hung out together. Jared would come over to their house
17:50
Speaker 2: and he would hang out with Jason and Greg pretty regularly.
17:54
Speaker 2: Jared shared with Jason the fact that he was scared
17:57
Speaker 2: of Brandon Wheeler and Rob Webb. He said he owed
18:01
Speaker 2: a lot of money to Brandon Wheeler. Now I have
18:04
Speaker 2: not seen the entire case file because technically this is
18:06
Speaker 2: still an open case. However, Jared's sister Shannon, was able
18:11
Speaker 2: to get some of the investigator's notes and she has
18:14
Speaker 2: shared some of those with me. So those are invaluable
18:17
Speaker 2: because I can see some of the steps that police
18:20
Speaker 2: took and how frustrated some of the investigators were when
18:23
Speaker 2: they were trying to make progress on this case. The
18:26
Speaker 2: investigators at the time talked to some of Jared's friends,
18:29
Speaker 2: and what they figured out was that Jared was telling
18:33
Speaker 2: people Brandon Wheeler gave him a pretty large quantity of meth,
18:37
Speaker 2: maybe around a kiloh to sell. But something went wrong
18:41
Speaker 2: with this drug deal. Either the sale got messed up
18:44
Speaker 2: or Jared did some of his own supply. Whatever the cause,
18:48
Speaker 2: the end result was that Jared owed Brandon Wheeler around
18:51
Speaker 2: seventy five hundred or eight thousand dollars and Jared couldn't
18:55
Speaker 2: pay it back. Jason said that Jared owed him money too.
19:00
Speaker 2: He said that he had given Jared around six hundred
19:02
Speaker 2: dollars so that Jared could score some drugs a few
19:05
Speaker 2: weeks earlier, but right before Jared went missing, Jason said
19:10
Speaker 2: he needed his money back. So this is interesting because
19:13
Speaker 2: we have yet another person who potentially was in a
19:16
Speaker 2: monetary dispute with the victim at around the time he
19:19
Speaker 2: went missing. Jason told Shannon, Jared's sister, that he started
19:24
Speaker 2: calling Jared and asking him for his money back. He
19:27
Speaker 2: said Jared didn't respond, and there was another crucial fact here,
19:31
Speaker 2: which is that when Jared borrowed that money from Jason,
19:36
Speaker 2: Jared gave Jason his gun as collateral and Jason was
19:39
Speaker 2: supposed to hold the gun for him. After weeks of
19:43
Speaker 2: not hearing back from Jared, Jason, who was still holding
19:46
Speaker 2: Jared's gun, said he got a call out of the
19:49
Speaker 2: blue on September thirtieth, the night Jared went missing. Jason
19:54
Speaker 2: was the friend who Jared met at the Sarce country Club.
19:59
Speaker 2: Jason later told police that he went to meet Jared
20:02
Speaker 2: at the country club because he was concerned about his friend,
20:05
Speaker 2: but also so understandably, he said he wanted to get
20:08
Speaker 2: his money back. At first, it seems like he thought
20:11
Speaker 2: Jared had called him because he wanted to return the money.
20:15
Speaker 2: They arranged to meet at the country club on September thirtieth,
20:18
Speaker 2: somewhere between around nine and ten thirty pm, but Jason
20:22
Speaker 2: told police that after he showed up, Jared admitted he
20:26
Speaker 2: didn't have his money, but he did tell Jason he
20:29
Speaker 2: needed his gun back. Jason said Jared was scared that night.
20:34
Speaker 2: He said Jared told him he was going to meet
20:36
Speaker 2: Brandon Wheeler. He knew that he owed Brandon money and
20:39
Speaker 2: he hoped to straighten situation out, but Jared told him
20:43
Speaker 2: he wanted that gun for protection, so Jason told police
20:47
Speaker 2: that he agreed to that. He said that he gave
20:49
Speaker 2: Jared's gun back to him and kept Jared's wallet as collateral.
20:54
Speaker 2: Jason said he continued to reach out to Jared over
20:56
Speaker 2: the next few days. Jason explained to Shannon that Jared
21:00
Speaker 2: told him that if he didn't have his money back
21:03
Speaker 2: in a certain amount of time, that he Jay could
21:05
Speaker 2: go to Jared's parents and ask them for the money.
21:08
Speaker 2: So he said, on October fifth, that's what he did.
21:11
Speaker 2: He showed up at Jared's family home and went in
21:14
Speaker 2: to talk to his parents about getting that money back.
21:17
Speaker 2: That same day was when Jared's father got the tip
21:20
Speaker 2: about Jared's car being the Walmart parking lot, so Jared's
21:24
Speaker 2: father drove over there to Walmart, and that's when he
21:28
Speaker 2: found Jared's car. The door was unlocked and there was
21:31
Speaker 2: no sign of foul play, but Shannon said her family
21:35
Speaker 2: knew immediately Jared never would have left his car just
21:38
Speaker 2: unlocked like that and walked away from it voluntarily. Over
21:42
Speaker 2: the next few days, Shannon said she and her family
21:45
Speaker 2: looked everywhere for Jared. They called all his friends, they
21:48
Speaker 2: called the Arkansas State Police, and they called the FBI.
21:51
Speaker 2: It turned out they had a relative who was in
21:53
Speaker 2: the Drug Enforcement Administration, the DEA. He told them the
21:57
Speaker 2: DEA authorities would not be looking very hard at a
22:00
Speaker 2: twenty year old who was a legal adult and had
22:03
Speaker 2: the right to voluntarily disappear. And unspoken in all this
22:09
Speaker 2: is the fact that because Jared was known to have
22:12
Speaker 2: a drug habit, that also played a role in the
22:15
Speaker 2: authority's decision not to look for him as hard as
22:18
Speaker 2: they would perhaps some others. Shannon described, while Jared sometimes
22:22
Speaker 2: would drop out a site for a couple days, he
22:24
Speaker 2: would never sever contact with his entire family. Jared also
22:28
Speaker 2: took pride in his car, so it made no sense
22:31
Speaker 2: the car would be left there abandoned like that.
22:34
Speaker 1: That is not like him. He did not walk away
22:36
Speaker 1: from that car, didn't leave it there like that. But
22:39
Speaker 1: of course that's when the police were like, whatever, you know,
22:42
Speaker 1: they really didn't. That's when the non investigation started.
22:47
Speaker 2: Just hearing this set of circumstances in which Jared's car
22:50
Speaker 2: was found. My instinct as an investigator is that someone
22:54
Speaker 2: probably staged this crime scene, that someone else drove the
22:58
Speaker 2: car there. Otherwise, why would Jared's keys be left there
23:01
Speaker 2: under the seat of the car. Do you think the
23:05
Speaker 2: car was driven there by somebody else?
23:08
Speaker 1: I think so, because number one, my brother would never
23:12
Speaker 1: ever leave his windows down his son news open. Ever,
23:16
Speaker 1: he didn't even do that in front of our house.
23:17
Speaker 1: Certainly weren't going to do that in the thing.
23:19
Speaker 2: But we don't know who whoever did wanted that car
23:23
Speaker 2: to be found in that parking lot.
23:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm certain, or they wanted somebody to take it.
23:28
Speaker 2: If Jared met someone in that parking lot and got
23:31
Speaker 2: into a car with them, either voluntarily or otherwise, the
23:35
Speaker 2: keys would not be stashed under the seat like that.
23:38
Speaker 2: They would be on him. And then after that, even
23:42
Speaker 2: stranger things started to happen after Jared's family found his car,
23:49
Speaker 2: Weird things started happening. On October ninth, Shannon's family got
23:53
Speaker 2: a strange phone call. A few days after Jared went missing.
23:58
Speaker 2: Someone called the police and pretended to be Shannon and
24:01
Speaker 2: Jared's dad. Shannon says the mystery caller told police they
24:05
Speaker 2: should stop investigating Jared's disappearance. This mystery caller said the
24:10
Speaker 2: family wanted to try and investigate on their own. Shannon
24:14
Speaker 2: said this never happened. She stresses her father never gave
24:17
Speaker 2: up on looking for Jared. She said her dad was
24:20
Speaker 2: constantly calling police to ask for case updates, as well
24:23
Speaker 2: as bringing in any new evidence that he found. By
24:26
Speaker 2: this point in the investigation, according to Shannon, pretty much
24:29
Speaker 2: everyone police talked to about the case mentioned these two names,
24:33
Speaker 2: Brandon Wheeler and Robert Webb. Police talked to Greg, Jason
24:38
Speaker 2: and Jared's mutual friend. He admitted that the story police
24:41
Speaker 2: had heard from some other people was true. He said
24:44
Speaker 2: he and Jared had gotten a kilo of meth from
24:46
Speaker 2: Robert and Brandon. Also, the name Mitchell Johnson came up again.
24:51
Speaker 2: Now remember he was the guy who found Jared's car
24:54
Speaker 2: abandoned at the Walmart supercenter. He told police that he
24:57
Speaker 2: had taken Jared to North Little Rock, supposedly to pick
25:01
Speaker 2: up a large quantity of drugs. He also said that
25:04
Speaker 2: he knew about the death. Jared had talked to his
25:07
Speaker 2: dad about Brandon Wheeler and Robert Webb, so Jared's dad
25:11
Speaker 2: told police the same thing. A lot of other people
25:13
Speaker 2: said that Jared was scared of these guys. He said
25:16
Speaker 2: Jared had told them a sort of cautionary tale about
25:19
Speaker 2: another guy who owed Brandon and Robert a lot of
25:21
Speaker 2: money and couldn't pay it back. Jared told his father
25:25
Speaker 2: that this person who owed the debt had been kidnapped
25:28
Speaker 2: and blindfolded and taken to a remote location and basically
25:32
Speaker 2: been beaten and tortured. Eventually, Jared said that person was released.
25:38
Speaker 2: I've gone through some of the case file documents that
25:41
Speaker 2: Shannon shared with me. I can't share everything, but with
25:44
Speaker 2: her permission, I'm going to go back through the events
25:47
Speaker 2: that followed September thirtieth, nineteen ninety four, the day when
25:50
Speaker 2: Jared went missing. I would invite Helen Gone listeners to
25:54
Speaker 2: listen closely because there are a lot of names here.
25:56
Speaker 2: We're going to move away from Jared and his family
26:01
Speaker 2: and go to North Little Rock to try and figure
26:04
Speaker 2: out what was going on with Brandon Wheeler and Robert
26:07
Speaker 2: Webb around the time when Jared went missing. On November ninth,
26:11
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety four. I can see from these case file
26:13
Speaker 2: notes that one of the officers from the task force
26:16
Speaker 2: was interviewing people connected to the house that Brandon and
26:19
Speaker 2: rob were renting together in North Little Rock. In my opinion,
26:23
Speaker 2: I think that that house is key to this case.
26:26
Speaker 2: The officers talked to a woman named Becky Alston, the housekeeper. Now,
26:31
Speaker 2: what she had to say was very interesting to me, because,
26:34
Speaker 2: as many of you might know, I really think that
26:37
Speaker 2: people who clean someone's houses are definitely clued into a
26:42
Speaker 2: lot of their darkest secrets. Becky had only been doing
26:45
Speaker 2: that job for a couple months. Robert Webb and Brandon
26:49
Speaker 2: Wheeler rented that house from their landlord, a guy named
26:51
Speaker 2: Larry Williford and North Little Rock. They asked their landlord
26:55
Speaker 2: if he knew of any good housekeepers, and he was
26:57
Speaker 2: the one who recommended Becky. At the time, this seemed
27:00
Speaker 2: like a win win for both parties. The guys got
27:03
Speaker 2: a good housekeeper at a very reasonable right, and for
27:06
Speaker 2: the landlord it's probably reassuring a trusted housekeeper can kind
27:10
Speaker 2: of keep an eye on the property and also make
27:12
Speaker 2: sure that two young guys living there won't completely trash it.
27:16
Speaker 2: Becky charged seventy five dollars a week, and she said
27:19
Speaker 2: Brandon and Robert would always give her a tip. Typically
27:22
Speaker 2: they would give her one hundred dollars, always in cash.
27:25
Speaker 2: Becky said she had a good relationship with these guys.
27:27
Speaker 2: She said Brandon and Robert were always very cordial and
27:30
Speaker 2: nice to her, But they were in an odd situation
27:35
Speaker 2: because two very young guys. Remember Robert Webb was only
27:39
Speaker 2: seventeen or eighteen years old, a senior in high school
27:42
Speaker 2: at the time when all this was going down. With
27:44
Speaker 2: a pile of cash would raise a lot of red flags.
27:48
Speaker 2: The story that Brandon and Robert told their landlord and
27:50
Speaker 2: Becky was that they were from wealthy families and they
27:53
Speaker 2: were studying to be lawyers in Little Rock. But then,
27:56
Speaker 2: of course Becky started to notice that Robert and Brandon
28:00
Speaker 2: never seemed to go to class, so she kind of
28:02
Speaker 2: was figuring out that their cover story wasn't true. This
28:06
Speaker 2: is all, by the way, pretty much verbatim from the
28:08
Speaker 2: investigative report from the case file. It was around August
28:12
Speaker 2: or September of nineteen ninety four when Becky said things
28:15
Speaker 2: were starting to change. She said that there was a
28:18
Speaker 2: crawl space in the upstairs area where the guys would
28:21
Speaker 2: throw dirty clothes in. She said sometimes she would get
28:25
Speaker 2: into that crawl space to pull the dirty clothes out
28:27
Speaker 2: so she could try to wash them, and when she did,
28:30
Speaker 2: she found a stash of guns up there, she told police.
28:35
Speaker 2: During this time, she was noticing more and more guns
28:38
Speaker 2: which the guys were obsessed with. Apparently they would sit
28:41
Speaker 2: around and watch videos of guns and people shooting all
28:44
Speaker 2: the time, and not just hunting guns. These were things
28:48
Speaker 2: like uzi's and semi automatic weapons, including one that Becky
28:52
Speaker 2: said had a silencerr Now, we don't know what they
28:56
Speaker 2: were doing with these guns, or whose they were, or
28:59
Speaker 2: if they were planning to sell them or keep them
29:01
Speaker 2: for that matter, but just using common sense, if a
29:04
Speaker 2: gun has a silence on it, that's not something these
29:07
Speaker 2: guys are going to use for deer honey.
29:09
Speaker 3: Becky said that.
29:10
Speaker 2: They always dressed very nicely, not like college kids. They
29:15
Speaker 2: were wearing suits that looked expensive. She said they would
29:19
Speaker 2: always carry concealed weapons when they left the house. There's
29:23
Speaker 2: something else that's a little bit unusual here. Becky said
29:26
Speaker 2: that she was the one who paid Brandon and Robert's
29:29
Speaker 2: utility bills for them, the electricity bill, the phone bill,
29:33
Speaker 2: the water, et cetera. Becky said typically the guys would
29:36
Speaker 2: give her cash and she would make the actual payment.
29:40
Speaker 2: From the interview with Becky, it seems like around September,
29:44
Speaker 2: Robert and Brandon started to become a little bit quieter,
29:48
Speaker 2: a little bit more paranoid. Both Robert and Brandon had
29:52
Speaker 2: cell phones. Remember this was back in nineteen ninety four.
29:56
Speaker 2: That was also something that was very unusual for a
29:59
Speaker 2: teenager to have at the time. They also had a
30:01
Speaker 2: landline phone. When Becky was discussing how paranoid they were
30:05
Speaker 2: with the pl she said, every time the landline would ring,
30:09
Speaker 2: they would look at the caller ID and then never answer.
30:12
Speaker 2: Then they would call the person back and demand to
30:14
Speaker 2: know who they were and why they were calling. It
30:17
Speaker 2: was just a very paranoid atmosphere. Then another really odd
30:21
Speaker 2: thing happened. In late September of nineteen ninety four. Becky
30:26
Speaker 2: said that she was cleaning the apartment and she saw
30:29
Speaker 2: a California driver's license with the name of Lance Wells,
30:33
Speaker 2: but it had Robert Webb's picture on it. She said,
30:37
Speaker 2: when she went back a few days later, the ID
30:40
Speaker 2: was gone. At this point, I should back up and
30:45
Speaker 2: we should explain a little bit more about what was
30:47
Speaker 2: going on at the time with methamphetamines in the state
30:49
Speaker 2: of Arkansas. At the time, meth was exploding in Arkansas
30:54
Speaker 2: and around the South and the rest of the country.
30:57
Speaker 2: A lot of the myth at the time was coming
30:59
Speaker 2: from these super labs in California. They were controlled mainly
31:02
Speaker 2: by the Mexican cartel In the earth only nineties, the
31:06
Speaker 2: drug selling operations in Arkansas were evolving. According to a
31:09
Speaker 2: report by the Department of Justice. Instead of drug dealers
31:13
Speaker 2: using eighteen wheelers and these really elaborate operations, they started
31:17
Speaker 2: using a lot of regular passenger cars that had hidden traps.
31:21
Speaker 2: They would put the drugs in gas tanks or they
31:24
Speaker 2: would have these hidden compartments. Then the dealers would use
31:27
Speaker 2: regular people to transport the drugs from California to Arkansas
31:31
Speaker 2: and beyond. So, thinking about these scenarios, Brandon and Robert
31:36
Speaker 2: would definitely fit the bill. Two young, ordinary looking guys
31:40
Speaker 2: who probably looked like they were on a road trip
31:42
Speaker 2: would be the perfect people to carry these drugs. When
31:47
Speaker 2: police were putting all this together, they showed Becky a
31:50
Speaker 2: picture of Jared Green, and Becky said she recognized Jared.
31:54
Speaker 2: She said she had seen him there in the apartment
31:56
Speaker 2: with Brandon and Robert at least three different times. Becky said,
32:01
Speaker 2: when Jared was at the house, and this is an
32:02
Speaker 2: exact quote from the statement, she said, quote observed numerous
32:07
Speaker 2: needle marks on his arm and stated that he was
32:09
Speaker 2: wearing blue jeans and a short sleeved shirt. He appeared
32:12
Speaker 2: to be very strung out and looking bad.
32:15
Speaker 3: End quote. So we know that.
32:19
Speaker 2: Jared Green owed Brandon Wheeler and Robert Webb money, potentially
32:23
Speaker 2: a lot of money, and that these guys, according to police,
32:25
Speaker 2: were drug dealers. But again, we have to go past
32:29
Speaker 2: local rumor and we have to figure out exactly what
32:32
Speaker 2: everyone was doing around the time Jared Green went missing.
32:35
Speaker 2: And this is where the timeline gets very interesting. On
32:38
Speaker 2: September twenty second, just over a week before Jared Green
32:41
Speaker 2: went missing, Becky said, Brandon Wheeler told her he and
32:44
Speaker 2: Robert Webb were leaving town. That they were going to
32:47
Speaker 2: check on Robert's father, who they told her lived in
32:49
Speaker 2: California and was really sick. Then, on the twenty seventh
32:53
Speaker 2: of September, Robert contacted Becky again. He said they were
32:57
Speaker 2: back in Little Rock. He asked if she could come
32:59
Speaker 2: over and clean the house. On the twenty eighth, of September.
33:02
Speaker 2: She went there on the twenty eighth and said neither
33:05
Speaker 2: Brandon or Robert were home at the time. On September
33:08
Speaker 2: twenty ninth, at around six am, Becky said she got
33:11
Speaker 2: another call, this time from Brandon Wheeler. He asked her
33:15
Speaker 2: to take care of their two dogs. Becky said that
33:18
Speaker 2: this was not uncommon. Brandon Wheeler and Robert Webb had
33:22
Speaker 2: two large dogs. When they were out of town. They
33:25
Speaker 2: kept their dogs in the garage. Normally, when the guys
33:28
Speaker 2: would take a trip, which normally they told her was
33:31
Speaker 2: to California, they would ask her to come in and
33:33
Speaker 2: give food and water.
33:34
Speaker 3: To their dogs.
33:35
Speaker 2: So presumably, if they're asking Becky to feed their animals
33:39
Speaker 2: on September twenty ninth, they were making a plan to
33:41
Speaker 2: leave town. Of course, we know September thirtieth, the next
33:45
Speaker 2: days when Jared went missing, and after that day, Becky
33:48
Speaker 2: said she never saw Brandon or Robert again. Becky also
33:53
Speaker 2: described the atmosphere at that house. She said she would
33:55
Speaker 2: see young women there, a lot young women who appeared
33:58
Speaker 2: to be from around late teens to early twenties. She
34:01
Speaker 2: said the guys would sit around and watch videos about guns,
34:03
Speaker 2: which they seemed to be obsessed with and that she
34:06
Speaker 2: saw other evidence of what could reasonably be construed to
34:09
Speaker 2: be drug use, things like alcohol paths with drops of
34:12
Speaker 2: blood on them. Police also talked to Larry Wilford, Robert
34:17
Speaker 2: and Brandon's landlord. The landlord said that when they wanted
34:22
Speaker 2: to become tenants, they gave him a similar story to
34:24
Speaker 2: the one they'd given Becky. They said they went to
34:27
Speaker 2: the University of Arkansas Little Rock, that they were going
34:29
Speaker 2: to be lawyers. They were from San Francisco, California, and
34:32
Speaker 2: they had wealthy parents. They wanted to pay in cash.
34:36
Speaker 2: Larry agreed to rent these guys the house for eleven
34:39
Speaker 2: hundred dollars a month, plus a fifteen hundred dollars deposit.
34:42
Speaker 2: He did get a little suspicious because when he went
34:44
Speaker 2: to do the tenantcy agreement, he wanted to talk to
34:47
Speaker 2: Robert's parents.
34:48
Speaker 3: He said.
34:49
Speaker 2: When he drew up the tenancy agreement, he faxed it
34:52
Speaker 2: over to someone who he was talking to, someone who
34:54
Speaker 2: was claiming to be Robert Webb's father. But the landlord
34:58
Speaker 2: said when he called that person back later with additional questions,
35:01
Speaker 2: he said he was never able to contact them again.
35:04
Speaker 2: So of course we can't be sit, but it seems
35:06
Speaker 2: almost certain this was not Robert Webb's father. Much more
35:09
Speaker 2: probably it was either Brandon or Robert or one of
35:12
Speaker 2: their friends pretending to be his dad so they could
35:15
Speaker 2: get into this apartment. I found something else on the
35:18
Speaker 2: report that may or may not be interesting, but I
35:20
Speaker 2: think is worth bringing up. So the landlord said Brandon
35:24
Speaker 2: and Robert paid two thousand dollars to have the pool repaired.
35:28
Speaker 2: They also had a satellite dish installed for around twenty
35:30
Speaker 2: two hundred dollars. They only ended up staying at the
35:33
Speaker 2: property for a few months, so I think the fact
35:36
Speaker 2: that they put all this money into it right away
35:40
Speaker 2: maybe should have been a red flag. The landlord said
35:44
Speaker 2: that things seemed to be going well for a while
35:47
Speaker 2: until late September. That's when the electricity got cut off
35:50
Speaker 2: because Brandon and Robert hadn't paid their bill now around
35:54
Speaker 2: that point, the landlord told police. Once the electricity got
35:59
Speaker 2: cut off, and because they were all so late in
36:02
Speaker 2: rent at that point, he started to get more concerned.
36:05
Speaker 2: In the first week of October, Brandon and Robert came
36:08
Speaker 2: to the landlord's house. They gave him a cashier's check,
36:12
Speaker 2: for twenty two hundred dollars and said that was to
36:14
Speaker 2: cover the rent for October and November. But at that
36:18
Speaker 2: point something seemed to have unsettled the landlord and he
36:20
Speaker 2: told them he was not going to rent to them anymore.
36:23
Speaker 2: The next time the landlord said that he heard from
36:25
Speaker 2: Robert was on October twenty first, when Robert called the
36:28
Speaker 2: landlord to say that he and Brandon were moving out
36:31
Speaker 2: and returning to California. Then the very next day, on
36:35
Speaker 2: October twenty second, nineteen ninety four, police raced to the
36:39
Speaker 2: scene of that rental house because it turned out that
36:43
Speaker 2: just hours after Robert and Brandon were evicted, the house
36:47
Speaker 2: was on fire. We'll have more on Jared Green's case
36:53
Speaker 2: next time on Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder
37:02
Speaker 2: Line is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts.
37:05
Speaker 2: It's written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced
37:08
Speaker 2: by Gabby Watts. Music is by Ben Solee, and this
37:12
Speaker 2: episode was scored and mixed by Miranda Hawkins. Executive producers
37:17
Speaker 2: are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Elsie Crowling. If you
37:21
Speaker 2: have a case you'd like me and my team to
37:23
Speaker 2: look into You can reach out to us at our
37:25
Speaker 2: Hellingonge Murder line at six seven eight seven four four
37:28
Speaker 2: six one four five. That's six seven eight seven four
37:32
Speaker 2: four six ' one four five
37:43
Speaker 3: School of Humans