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Hell and Gone Murder Line: Gail Vaught Part 1 · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:08
Speaker 1: School of Humans.
0:15
Speaker 2: On the morning of Friday, October seventeenth, nineteen eighty, a
0:18
Speaker 2: man was on his way to work. He was driving
0:21
Speaker 2: his truck down Highway sixteen, the East West highway that
0:24
Speaker 2: runs between Salom Springs, Arkansas, near the Oklahoma border, through
0:29
Speaker 2: Ozark National Forest and Enns in Sercey.
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Speaker 1: He was driving through the woods near.
0:34
Speaker 2: An area called Lake Weddington when he saw something out
0:37
Speaker 2: of the corner of his eye down a small dirt road.
0:40
Speaker 2: It looked like a person lying in the road, so
0:43
Speaker 2: the driver doubled back and looked again and saw to
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Speaker 2: his horror that it was a body, the body of
0:49
Speaker 2: a young woman lying rolled over on her right side.
0:53
Speaker 2: Her head and shoulders were face down. Her right hand
0:56
Speaker 2: was extended out, her left hand was near her face.
1:00
Speaker 2: The woman was very tall. She had a flannel shirt
1:03
Speaker 2: on and a blue Michelin jacket that had been her face.
1:07
Speaker 2: Her legs were slightly open. She was naked from the
1:10
Speaker 2: waist down except for a pair of torn and filthy
1:14
Speaker 2: white sox. The victim started out being a Jane Doe,
1:18
Speaker 2: but soon police had idd her as twenty one year
1:21
Speaker 2: old Gail Vaut. Gail lived nearby and worked on a
1:25
Speaker 2: road crew as a great operator.
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Speaker 1: She worked building Highway seventy one.
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Speaker 2: Friends said that everyone loved Gail. She was six foot two,
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Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty five pounds, lean fit, and a
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Speaker 2: very attractive and outgoing young woman. Even though she was
1:41
Speaker 2: beautiful on the outside. She was one of those people
1:44
Speaker 2: who could act like one of the guys when she
1:45
Speaker 2: was on the job, and she could also deal with
1:49
Speaker 2: what was considered back then and even today as being
1:53
Speaker 2: a man's job. Forensic testing showed that Gail had been
1:57
Speaker 2: run over by a car. There was a condom and
2:00
Speaker 2: condom wrapper nearby, so investigators believed that she had been raped.
2:05
Speaker 2: Sometimes people, well meaning people say, well, at least she
2:10
Speaker 2: felt no pain. But I'm an investigator and I have
2:13
Speaker 2: to face what are sometimes brutal realities. I promise to
2:18
Speaker 2: always tell people the truth. Investigators saw that her left
2:23
Speaker 2: foot had moved back and forth in the mud, creating
2:26
Speaker 2: a ridge. So, according to the evidence, whatever happened to
2:30
Speaker 2: Gail Vaught in those woods, she suffered. But there are
2:34
Speaker 2: a lot of questions about this case, like was she
2:37
Speaker 2: actually raped, was she sexually assaulted? Or could that condom
2:42
Speaker 2: have been staged? Could her death have connections to drug dealing,
2:46
Speaker 2: or domestic violence or something else. What really happened to
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Speaker 2: Gail Vauught. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past five years
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Speaker 2: of making my true crime podcast, Helling Gone, I have
3:00
Speaker 2: received hundreds of messages from people asking for help with
3:03
Speaker 2: an unsolved murder that's affected them and their community. Despite
3:08
Speaker 2: the numerous people who need help out there on each
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Speaker 2: season of Helen Gone, I've only been able to focus
3:13
Speaker 2: on one case at a time.
3:15
Speaker 1: But now that's going to change.
3:18
Speaker 2: If you have a case you'd like me and my
3:19
Speaker 2: team to look into, you can reach out to us
3:22
Speaker 2: at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight
3:25
Speaker 2: seven four four six one four five. That's six seven
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Speaker 2: eight seven four four six one four or five. This
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Speaker 2: is Helen Gone Murder Line. I first learned about this
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Speaker 2: case when I got a call from a private investigator
4:14
Speaker 2: in Arkansas named Marty. Even though Marty has a day job,
4:18
Speaker 2: he does investigations, including a lot of pro bono work
4:21
Speaker 2: on the side. A few years ago, he was contacted
4:25
Speaker 2: by Gail's sister, Teresa. He started working on Gail's case.
4:30
Speaker 2: It's been over forty years since Gaile's death. It's been
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Speaker 2: so long that the police, who do not always want
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Speaker 2: to share evidence, have turned over the case file making
4:40
Speaker 2: it public. This means they have gotten to what they
4:44
Speaker 2: believe is the end of their investigation. Marty told me,
4:48
Speaker 2: and I've discovered working on this case, that crucial physical
4:51
Speaker 2: evidence has been lost. And yet Marty did not want
4:55
Speaker 2: to give up on Gail's case. He believed and I
4:58
Speaker 2: believe too, there may be something, even decades later that
5:02
Speaker 2: the police have missed. One of the people Marty interviewed
5:08
Speaker 2: was the driver who found Gail's body. Now, this guy
5:12
Speaker 2: says that he was driving by when he happened to
5:15
Speaker 2: glance out his truck. He looked down an old road
5:18
Speaker 2: on the side of the highway. He said, and this
5:21
Speaker 2: is a quote from Marty's interview, that he looked in
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Speaker 2: his rear view mirror and saw quote, there was a
5:28
Speaker 2: truck behind me. It was a small red truck. There
5:30
Speaker 2: were two people in the truck, and they seemed to
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Speaker 2: be looking down the road also end quote. So it
5:36
Speaker 2: seemed like there was something weird down that road, and
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Speaker 2: people were noticing. The driver doubled back and pulled off,
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Speaker 2: and that's when he saw Gaial Vault. He said that
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Speaker 2: her jacket was over her head. He lifted the jacket
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Speaker 2: up to see if the person was still alive, and
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Speaker 2: he said he could tell by the color of her
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Speaker 2: face that she was already dead. So he went back
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Speaker 2: to his truck where he had a radio. Side note
6:00
Speaker 2: back then, I asked Marty, well, how did he call?
6:03
Speaker 2: Was this a car phone? I mean this this was
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Speaker 2: nineteen eighty and he told me that after the dukes
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Speaker 2: of Hazard, a lot of people had cbe radios in
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Speaker 2: their car. That was a big thing in Arkansas at
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Speaker 2: the time and around the country. Anyway, he picked up
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Speaker 2: his radio, called his office and asked them to call
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Speaker 2: the Sheriff's department. After Gail's body was found and she
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Speaker 2: was idd, her remains were sent to the state crime
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Speaker 2: Lab for an autopsy. We did a freedom of information
6:31
Speaker 2: request and Marty also shared some of the case fall
6:34
Speaker 2: information he acquired over the years. From that, we were
6:37
Speaker 2: able to view Gailee's autopsy report and also see some
6:41
Speaker 2: of the notes that the investigators had made at the scene.
6:45
Speaker 2: So we're trying to figure out what actually killed gailvaut.
6:49
Speaker 2: The initial report said there was no sign of stabbing
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Speaker 2: or other traumas and there were no visible gunshot wounds.
6:56
Speaker 2: But once investigators got the body to the next location,
6:59
Speaker 2: they realized something that they had missed at the original scene.
7:02
Speaker 2: There was a gunshot wound in Gail's head, hidden behind
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Speaker 2: her shoulder length brown hair. Gail had been shot with
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Speaker 2: a twenty two caliber weapon. It was a single gunshot
7:13
Speaker 2: wound to the back of the head, but the bullet
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Speaker 2: had fragmented and not penetrated her brain. This sounds strange,
7:20
Speaker 2: but it actually happens more often than you would think.
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Speaker 2: These are sometimes the kind of stories you hear where
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Speaker 2: someone was shot in the head and they ended up surviving.
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Speaker 2: Because when this happens, when someone is shot in the
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Speaker 2: head and the bullet does not penetrate the grain, sometimes
7:34
Speaker 2: people are able to survive. In Gail's case, her killer
7:38
Speaker 2: obviously wanted to make sure that did not happen, because
7:41
Speaker 2: the report stated Gail was shot and run over by
7:44
Speaker 2: a car. The immediate cause of death was listed as
7:47
Speaker 2: gunshot wound of the right rear of the head, accompanied
7:50
Speaker 2: with blunt trauma of the pelvis and in parentheses, run
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Speaker 2: over by a car. The report did not state which
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Speaker 2: one had come first. Was she shot in the head
8:02
Speaker 2: first or run over by the car. The autops then
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Speaker 2: listed the manner of death as homicide.
8:09
Speaker 1: As we said before, Gail was athletic.
8:12
Speaker 2: This was a woman who had played volleyball in high
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Speaker 2: school competitively. She worked on a road crew every day.
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Speaker 2: She knew how to handle herself, and there appeared to
8:23
Speaker 2: be no defensive wounds anywhere on her body. Investigators were
8:27
Speaker 2: trying to piece together what happened. They went to the
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Speaker 2: home that Gail shared with her boyfriend Ray. They found
8:34
Speaker 2: food sitting out on the stove, and to police, it
8:38
Speaker 2: appeared as though Gail had been in the process of
8:40
Speaker 2: cooking a meal. Police formed an early theory that Gail
8:44
Speaker 2: could have been kidnapped, possibly at gunpoint. As I mentioned before,
8:49
Speaker 2: police did find some other evidence at the crime scene,
8:52
Speaker 2: including a used condom and a condom box. The brand
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Speaker 2: was called Tickled Fancy. This is a brand I've never
9:00
Speaker 2: heard of, but I did a lot of research and
9:02
Speaker 2: apparently this was a brand that was popular in the
9:06
Speaker 2: Midwest in Arkansas, Missouri during this time. The front of
9:11
Speaker 2: the condom box is unlike any other one I've ever seen.
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Speaker 2: It has an illustration of a man and woman looking
9:18
Speaker 2: like they're about to kiss on the front. I am
9:21
Speaker 2: doing some investigating. I'm trying to figure out where those
9:25
Speaker 2: condoms were sold. So if anyone out there was alive
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Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty and sexually active and happens to remember
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Speaker 2: buying this brand of condoms, were they available in vending machines?
9:36
Speaker 2: That kind of thing I would love to hear from you.
9:40
Speaker 2: Investigators also found a roll of gray duct tape near
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Speaker 2: the body, which could have been another piece of evidence
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Speaker 2: potentially tied to their kidnapping theory. There was also an
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Speaker 2: empty gun box at the crime scene near Gale's body
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Speaker 2: that had held a twenty two caliber weapon. According to
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Speaker 2: the investigator's notes, this gun box was meant for a
10:01
Speaker 2: rom RG ten, which is a twenty two caliber revolver,
10:06
Speaker 2: but police did not find the murder weapon. There were
10:09
Speaker 2: also some fresh tire tracks in the mud near Gail's body.
10:14
Speaker 2: Investigators took picture of the tire tracks, and while they
10:17
Speaker 2: were working to process the crime scene, they started looking
10:20
Speaker 2: into Gail's personal life, and it didn't take long for
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Speaker 2: them to come up with a person of interest, Gail's boyfriend,
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Speaker 2: Ray Foreman. Gail and Ray lived together in a basement
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Speaker 2: apartment that was owned by a friend of theirs named
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Speaker 2: Barry Frizell.
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Speaker 1: Ray had a history.
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Speaker 2: A history of violence, and a history with the police.
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Speaker 2: Ray had split up with his wife Lynn a few
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Speaker 2: months before he met Gail. There were accusations of domestic
10:44
Speaker 2: violence in that relationship, and as we said, Ray was
10:48
Speaker 2: well known to police as a drug dealer.
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Speaker 1: According to Gail's friends, she didn't.
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Speaker 2: Really talk about where she lived, and she didn't seem
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Speaker 2: to want to give people directions to her house. Apparently
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Speaker 2: this was because of the fact that Ray dealt drugs.
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Speaker 2: Gail's body was on Friday, October seventeenth, and Gail had
11:08
Speaker 2: apparently been making weekend plans on that Friday. At first,
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Speaker 2: police believed Gail may have been hanging out with a
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Speaker 2: friend of hers named Sheila. Gail and Sheila did drugs
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Speaker 2: together and partied sometimes. Sheila later told police that occasionally
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Speaker 2: they would smoke some pot or drop acid together. Gail
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Speaker 2: had told Sheila to come up to see her that weekend,
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Speaker 2: and Gail had said not to worry about anything. She
11:33
Speaker 2: specifically told Sheila that she would pay for everything, meaning
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Speaker 2: the drugs they were going to buy. While police were
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Speaker 2: working to locate Sheila, and also trying to find anyone
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Speaker 2: else who Gail may have been planning to meet with,
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Speaker 2: and trying to figure out what was going on at
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Speaker 2: home between her and Ray. They were trying to process
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Speaker 2: the physical evidence. As we said before, police believed that
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Speaker 2: Gail had been raped, so they sent this used condom
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Speaker 2: off for some forensic testing. Now, remember this was back
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Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty This was before there was such a
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Speaker 2: thing as DNA testing at all. All police could do
12:09
Speaker 2: at the time with some much simpler testing, which apparently
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Speaker 2: they did. According to Gale's autopsy report, there were traces
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Speaker 2: of semen found inside her vagina and there was sperm
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Speaker 2: found inside that condom. The autopsy report clarified that cells
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Speaker 2: that came from Gale's vagina tested negative for sperm cells,
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Speaker 2: but positive for the possible presence of semen. I looked
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Speaker 2: into this discrepancy to see if we could explain it,
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Speaker 2: and it turns out that there is a reasonable explanation
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Speaker 2: for this because one of the tests they had at
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Speaker 2: the time was a simple test called an acid phosphate test. Now,
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Speaker 2: this test is a way to screen for possible semen,
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Speaker 2: but it's not exact. Apparently the investigators did that test
12:55
Speaker 2: first and it came up positive. Then they took some
12:57
Speaker 2: swabs from Gale's vagina and her anus and also her
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Speaker 2: mouth and sent those in for testing. So after that,
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Speaker 2: when they got the swap back, all of the swabs
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Speaker 2: tested negative for sperm cells. The report also clarified that
13:12
Speaker 2: the condom was the only thing that tested positive on
13:15
Speaker 2: both of those tests, the acid phosphate test and the
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Speaker 2: test for sperm cells. There are a couple of possibilities
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Speaker 2: that could explain this. Why Gail would have a trace
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Speaker 2: of what would appear to be semen in her vagina
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Speaker 2: but test negative for sperm cells. The seminal fluid, if
13:32
Speaker 2: it was present, could have come from her perpetrator, but
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Speaker 2: it also could have been a trace from consensual sex
13:39
Speaker 2: she had earlier. Ray, Gail's boyfriend, told police that they
13:43
Speaker 2: did have sexual intercourse on Wednesday night. I wondered if
13:47
Speaker 2: we could recover that condom and maybe find out for sure,
13:50
Speaker 2: because that could be a key.
13:52
Speaker 1: In this case.
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Speaker 2: Again, DNA testing was not a reality in nineteen eighty,
13:57
Speaker 2: but it is today. Maybe there is testing that could
14:00
Speaker 2: be done. Unfortunately, I found out this would not be
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Speaker 2: a possibility because the crime lab lost the condom. Marty
14:11
Speaker 2: went down a rabbit hole trying to figure out what
14:14
Speaker 2: happened to this crucial physical evidence. The truth is, in
14:18
Speaker 2: the eighties, there were no laws on the books about
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Speaker 2: preserving physical evidence the way there are now. Soil samples
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Speaker 2: from Gail's body and the condom and other evidence were
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Speaker 2: sent off to the crime lab. But in November of
14:29
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty a message was sent to Berwin Monroe, who
14:33
Speaker 2: was running the test on the physical evidence, and in
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Speaker 2: that message he was told that the state was experiencing
14:40
Speaker 2: an extreme backlog in testing. He asked him to limit
14:43
Speaker 2: testing to test that involve things like hair comparison and
14:47
Speaker 2: gunshot residue tests. Things got worse in nineteen eighty three.
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Speaker 2: According to an email Marty got years later, in nineteen
14:55
Speaker 2: eighty three, some of the evidence related to Gail's case
14:58
Speaker 2: was destroyed. This is not super surprising to me because
15:02
Speaker 2: at that time news articles were talking about the fact
15:05
Speaker 2: that the Arkansas State Crime Lab building and its testing
15:08
Speaker 2: methods were super outdated and drastically needed investment.
15:12
Speaker 1: And this is sad to say.
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Speaker 2: It seems like the more things change, the more they
15:15
Speaker 2: stay the same. Because this issue continues in Arkansas. Over
15:19
Speaker 2: forty years later, I will say things have improved now
15:24
Speaker 2: as of twenty twenty four, waiting periods for things like
15:27
Speaker 2: rape kits are reportedly down to around ninety.
15:30
Speaker 1: Days and they used to take years.
15:33
Speaker 2: But that crime lab continues to have issues. So back
15:37
Speaker 2: to Gail's case, the condom was a dead end. But
15:41
Speaker 2: what about the other forensic tests that were performed. Gail
15:45
Speaker 2: was tested for drugs. She tested negative for marijuana, alcohol,
15:49
Speaker 2: and LSD. Again, that's not hugely helpful because LSD and
15:54
Speaker 2: POTT leave.
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Speaker 1: The blood after around twelve hours.
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Speaker 2: It's not exact because it would depend on what the
16:00
Speaker 2: exact dosage she took was, if any. But if we
16:04
Speaker 2: know that the author topsy was conducted at around eleven
16:07
Speaker 2: thirty am on Friday, we're not exactly sure of the
16:10
Speaker 2: time of death, but it really doesn't even tell us
16:14
Speaker 2: if she took any drugs through all of Friday. We
16:17
Speaker 2: can't even rule out the possibility she might have taken
16:19
Speaker 2: drugs on Friday night, So those tests were not super helpful.
16:23
Speaker 2: Police started talking to people who Gail had talked to recently.
16:27
Speaker 2: They went through her phone records, which back then in
16:30
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty was her home land line. One of the
16:32
Speaker 2: people she'd been in contact with recently was a guy
16:35
Speaker 2: named William Craigdean. He said that he had been friendly
16:38
Speaker 2: with Gail, and he shed some light on Gail's relationship
16:43
Speaker 2: with a guy she had dated recently named Randall Wyman,
16:46
Speaker 2: who everyone called Randy. Randy's name kept coming up in
16:50
Speaker 2: this investigation. He was friends with Gail after they stopped
16:53
Speaker 2: seeing each other, and they worked together on the same
16:56
Speaker 2: road crew. William the friend, said that he had seen
17:00
Speaker 2: Gail and smoke some pot with her and Randy in
17:02
Speaker 2: March or April. Police needed to figure out out where
17:06
Speaker 2: Gail was on Thursday night, so they started taking a
17:08
Speaker 2: look at the days leading up to the weekend. They
17:11
Speaker 2: talked to another one of Gaile's coworkers, a supervisor named
17:14
Speaker 2: Joe Jones. He said he got a call from Gail
17:17
Speaker 2: on Thursday night around eight pm. So she was at
17:20
Speaker 2: home on Thursday night at eight pm and she was
17:23
Speaker 2: behaving normally, Joe said. During that conversation, Gail asked to
17:27
Speaker 2: see if they would be working the next morning, which
17:30
Speaker 2: would have been Friday, October seventeen.
17:33
Speaker 1: Now, it had been raining.
17:34
Speaker 2: Extremely heavily off and on for the twenty four hours
17:37
Speaker 2: before Gail went missing. So Joe said he told Gail
17:42
Speaker 2: they probably would not be working on Friday due to
17:44
Speaker 2: the heavy rains, but he said she could come by
17:47
Speaker 2: and pick up her paycheck because Friday would be payday.
17:50
Speaker 1: Gail said she would.
17:52
Speaker 2: Come by the next morning to pick up her check.
17:55
Speaker 2: During their interview with Joe, police obviously were trying to
17:58
Speaker 2: figure out if he could have had anything to do
17:59
Speaker 2: with this, like they were with everyone else. He said
18:03
Speaker 2: he didn't own a gun when they asked him if
18:04
Speaker 2: he owned any weapons. They asked him if he had
18:07
Speaker 2: changed his tires recently.
18:09
Speaker 1: He said no.
18:09
Speaker 2: He said he did have a red pickup truck it
18:12
Speaker 2: was park there and he had been driving one of
18:15
Speaker 2: his other bosses trucks. They talked to Mary Jones, Joe's wife,
18:19
Speaker 2: and she said on Thursday evening, she and Joe ate
18:21
Speaker 2: dinner together. She said after dinner he went out to
18:23
Speaker 2: work on one of the cars, but she said that
18:26
Speaker 2: she couldn't quite remember. He may have run to the
18:29
Speaker 2: store for ten or fifteen minutes, but other than that
18:31
Speaker 2: he had been home all night. He went to work
18:34
Speaker 2: the next morning at around six am, which he normally did.
18:39
Speaker 2: Joe Jones, like a lot of men on that crew
18:41
Speaker 2: had apparently made some comments about Gail about her being attractive,
18:46
Speaker 2: but it seemed like that was just work talk, especially
18:49
Speaker 2: back then, a lot of the guys made comments like that.
18:52
Speaker 2: Police also wanted to talk to Sheila Gail's friend, the
18:56
Speaker 2: friend that police thought Gail was going to be hanging
18:58
Speaker 2: out with, but it turned out this was another dead
19:01
Speaker 2: end because Sheila told police she wasn't even around that weekend.
19:06
Speaker 2: She told law enforcement she had known Gail for years.
19:09
Speaker 2: She said they had been friends since nineteen seventy seven
19:12
Speaker 2: and they were actually roommates in Fort Smith, but Gail
19:15
Speaker 2: said she had moved away from Fort Smith to Van
19:18
Speaker 2: Buren in April. Then she'd gone to Colorado for a
19:22
Speaker 2: few months on a job, so she said she hadn't
19:24
Speaker 2: actually seen Gail in months. She said that she was
19:27
Speaker 2: only in Arkansas because her mother called her and told
19:31
Speaker 2: her Gail had been murdered. She was shocked, and she
19:34
Speaker 2: came back immediately, and in what's kind of a strange twist,
19:38
Speaker 2: when Sheila went into her apartment in Van Buren, she
19:41
Speaker 2: actually found a letter from Gail. She took the letter
19:45
Speaker 2: to the police, and we've seen it. It's in the
19:47
Speaker 2: case file. She didn't see this letter from Gail until
19:50
Speaker 2: after Gail was dead. In that letter, Gail said she
19:53
Speaker 2: wanted Sheila to come to Fayetteville for the weekend. She
19:56
Speaker 2: said she wanted to see her. And it's weird because
20:00
Speaker 2: Gail was telling everyone that she was going to see
20:02
Speaker 2: Shila that weekend when they really.
20:03
Speaker 1: Had no confirmed plans.
20:06
Speaker 2: In the letter, Gail was basically trying to get Shila
20:09
Speaker 2: to come see her. She said she was going to
20:11
Speaker 2: get some acid, she was going to.
20:12
Speaker 1: Pay for everything. They should hang out.
20:15
Speaker 2: Sheila really couldn't give police any information about what Gail
20:18
Speaker 2: had been doing that weekend because she wasn't there, but
20:21
Speaker 2: she gave officers some more insight into Gail. She said
20:24
Speaker 2: Gail did take drugs occasionally. Mainly she smoked pot recreationally.
20:29
Speaker 2: Sometimes she liked to take acid, preferably a type of
20:32
Speaker 2: acid called purple micro dot. Sheila also said something else
20:36
Speaker 2: that I think is pretty important. She said Gail loved
20:39
Speaker 2: her jeep.
20:40
Speaker 1: She said that Gail.
20:42
Speaker 2: Quote would not go anywhere without her vehicle and always
20:45
Speaker 2: said that.
20:45
Speaker 1: If anyone walked, it would not be her. End quote.
20:49
Speaker 2: So Gail did not like being without her vehicle. She
20:52
Speaker 2: did not like being stuck anywhere, and she always stayed
20:55
Speaker 2: with her car.
20:55
Speaker 1: And this will become important in a minute.
20:57
Speaker 2: Sheila told police that in her opinion, this was one
21:00
Speaker 2: of the reasons why she believed Gail could have been abducted,
21:03
Speaker 2: because she said she believed that Gail would have put
21:07
Speaker 2: up a fight. She wouldn't have gone with anyone willingly.
21:10
Speaker 2: Police asked Sheila if Gail had any issues with anyone.
21:14
Speaker 2: She said not really, everyone like Gail, like a lot
21:18
Speaker 2: of people. Sheila said that Ray had a reputation for violence.
21:23
Speaker 2: She said she believed that Gail was somewhat afraid of Ray.
21:27
Speaker 2: She said that once there was an incident where she
21:29
Speaker 2: and Randy and Gail were hanging out. Sheila said that
21:33
Speaker 2: Randy kind of made a joke and said he was
21:35
Speaker 2: going to call Ray and tell him that Gail was
21:37
Speaker 2: there at the time, and at that point, Sheila said
21:41
Speaker 2: that Gail said.
21:42
Speaker 1: She was afraid of Ray.
21:43
Speaker 2: She was acting like she was really scared that Randy
21:45
Speaker 2: might do that, even though Randy was kind of only
21:47
Speaker 2: kidding around. Police talked to Randy and he told investigators
21:51
Speaker 2: that he had worked with Gail for the past few months.
21:54
Speaker 2: They were building the highway Highway seventy one in the
21:56
Speaker 2: Fayeteval area together. Randy said that Ray, Gail's boyfriend, didn't
22:02
Speaker 2: have a job, at least not doing anything legal. Randy
22:06
Speaker 2: said that after Ray was laid off and after he
22:08
Speaker 2: broke up with his wife that year, he and these
22:11
Speaker 2: are Randy's words, violently beat her and accused her of
22:15
Speaker 2: being unfaithful. So a lot of people believe that Randy
22:18
Speaker 2: had violently beat his ex wife and might have been
22:22
Speaker 2: threatening Gail. A few months after that breakup, Gail moved
22:26
Speaker 2: in with Ray, so it seemed like there was some
22:29
Speaker 2: beef between Ray and Randy because even though Randy was
22:34
Speaker 2: the person who introduced Ray to Gail, they didn't seem
22:37
Speaker 2: to be getting along. Randy told police this was over money.
22:41
Speaker 2: He said Ray had borrowed one hundred dollars from him
22:43
Speaker 2: and he was supposed to get it back. So he
22:46
Speaker 2: was talking to Gail about this, and Randy said Gail
22:49
Speaker 2: told him where Ray lived. Randy said he went there
22:52
Speaker 2: and he made Ray give him forty dollars right then
22:55
Speaker 2: and made him promise to pay back the rest and
22:58
Speaker 2: Randy said after that that Ray was extremely annoyed that
23:01
Speaker 2: Gail had given him that information about where he lived.
23:05
Speaker 2: Police interviewed another friend of Gaile's name Don. She talked
23:09
Speaker 2: about Gail and partying. She said that they had gone
23:12
Speaker 2: to a party at Randy's house on Tuesday, October fourteenth.
23:16
Speaker 2: Don said Gail showed up at that party by herself
23:18
Speaker 2: and was looking for some pot. But Don said that
23:21
Speaker 2: Gail couldn't find the type of pot she wanted, so
23:24
Speaker 2: at that point, she.
23:25
Speaker 1: Said, Gail left.
23:27
Speaker 2: According to Don, Gail appeared to be acting normally at
23:30
Speaker 2: that party. She said in general, Gail wasn't a partier.
23:34
Speaker 2: She would show up and get her drug of choice,
23:36
Speaker 2: whether that was LSD or pot or whatever, and then
23:39
Speaker 2: leave and go home or to a close friends and
23:41
Speaker 2: do it there. She said that Gail did not talk
23:45
Speaker 2: much about her personal life again, because her boyfriend was
23:49
Speaker 2: pretty heavy into drug dealing. Don did remember that on Wednesday,
23:53
Speaker 2: Gail made a comment to her about the weekend about
23:56
Speaker 2: she and her friend Sheila going to get some acid.
23:59
Speaker 2: She told Don that she should come to Gaile's house
24:02
Speaker 2: to party with them. Don said the last time she
24:06
Speaker 2: saw Gail was on Thursday, She said, Gail was driving
24:09
Speaker 2: her jeep on the way to talk to one of
24:11
Speaker 2: their bosses at that work site. Don and Gail talked briefly,
24:15
Speaker 2: and then Gail got back into her jeep and left.
24:18
Speaker 2: Don said she has not seen Gail since. Dawn also
24:22
Speaker 2: had some more insight into this altercation between Ray and Randy.
24:28
Speaker 2: She said Randy had showed Ray some marijuana plants, which,
24:32
Speaker 2: according to Dawn, Ray had stolen from Randy.
24:36
Speaker 1: A picture was starting to emerge of Ray.
24:39
Speaker 2: People said that he had a habit of getting violent
24:41
Speaker 2: when something set him off. We know that Gail was
24:44
Speaker 2: at home on Thursday night because she called Joe from there.
24:47
Speaker 2: So what happened when Ray got home that night? Did
24:50
Speaker 2: something set him off?
24:53
Speaker 1: Police talked to Ray.
24:55
Speaker 2: He told them that on Thursday night he was out
24:57
Speaker 2: all night selling drugs and hooking up with a woman,
25:01
Speaker 2: a woman who was not Gail. So what really happened
25:05
Speaker 2: on Thursday night? What happened on the night that led
25:09
Speaker 2: up to Gail being killed. We've said before that Ray
25:18
Speaker 2: dealt drugs. According to the case file, he dealt a
25:22
Speaker 2: lot of different kinds, including caffeine pills, and a lot
25:26
Speaker 2: of times he would do these deals with a guy
25:27
Speaker 2: named Jody, who was a friend of his side note
25:31
Speaker 2: here much later, one of the theories about Gail's murder
25:34
Speaker 2: involved Gail owing a lot of money for drugs, or
25:37
Speaker 2: about Ray being this big time drug dealer. But honestly,
25:40
Speaker 2: other than a patch of marijuana that Ray grew that
25:43
Speaker 2: the sheriff said he knew about, the only other drugs
25:45
Speaker 2: we hear about him dealing are caffeine pills. So in
25:49
Speaker 2: my opinion, this does not appear to go with the
25:51
Speaker 2: image of Ray being this big time drug dealer.
25:54
Speaker 1: We'll get back to that later.
25:55
Speaker 2: For now, Ray claimed that on Thursday night, he was
25:58
Speaker 2: at home getting ready to eat dinner. He said his
26:00
Speaker 2: friend Jody called him and said he had some buyers
26:03
Speaker 2: for pills he was selling, so needed him Ray to
26:06
Speaker 2: go pick Jody up and take him to make this
26:08
Speaker 2: drug deal. But Ray was having car trouble. He told
26:13
Speaker 2: police that he could not get his truck started, so
26:16
Speaker 2: Ray told police he waited for Gail to come home.
26:20
Speaker 2: He told them that he said to Gail he was
26:22
Speaker 2: going with Jody to do a deal. He said they
26:24
Speaker 2: tried jumping the car with jumper cables off Gail's jeep,
26:27
Speaker 2: but that didn't work, so he told police that he
26:30
Speaker 2: asked Gail if he could use her jeep. Now, Ray
26:33
Speaker 2: says that Gail told him yes, that was fine. I
26:37
Speaker 2: have questions about this because this is contrary to what
26:40
Speaker 2: we've heard about Gail, that she always was the one
26:43
Speaker 2: to drive her car. Honestly, it seems pretty odd to
26:46
Speaker 2: me that she would just be fine with lending it
26:49
Speaker 2: to Ray so that he could go out and make
26:52
Speaker 2: this drug deal. And as we will see, she and
26:55
Speaker 2: Ray had a pretty volatile relationship. Also, we know that
27:00
Speaker 2: Gail needed her car because she was planning to go
27:02
Speaker 2: to work the next day to pick up her paycheck.
27:05
Speaker 2: She had also told her friend Sheila, they would go
27:07
Speaker 2: buy this acid and that she would pay for stuff,
27:09
Speaker 2: so presumably she would need to go get her paycheck
27:12
Speaker 2: for all that to happen. And finally, we know, from
27:15
Speaker 2: what Sheila said to investigators, Gail did not like Ray's
27:19
Speaker 2: friend Jody, So again I have doubts about this story.
27:22
Speaker 2: That Ray told that Gail just handed him the car
27:25
Speaker 2: keys and said, go on out and do whatever, do
27:27
Speaker 2: your drug deal. But let's get back to Ray into
27:30
Speaker 2: where the night took him. Ray said that once he
27:36
Speaker 2: had Gail's jeep, he drove the car to Jody's house,
27:39
Speaker 2: which was near the Fayettlee Country Club at the time.
27:42
Speaker 2: He said he got there and picked Jody up at
27:44
Speaker 2: around nine thirty or ten pm. After that, Ray said,
27:48
Speaker 2: they went to get some beer at the Chuck Wagon
27:49
Speaker 2: liquor store and then they delivered their pills. After doing that,
27:54
Speaker 2: they went to Springdale, which was a few miles away,
27:56
Speaker 2: to buy some pot. But when they got there, Ray said,
27:58
Speaker 2: apparently their contact wasn't able to get what they wanted,
28:02
Speaker 2: so they started heading back down Highway seventy one south
28:05
Speaker 2: toward Fayetville. En route, they stopped at another liquor store,
28:09
Speaker 2: the wy Liquor Store. They bought some more beer, then
28:13
Speaker 2: drove the guys who they were doing the deal with
28:15
Speaker 2: back to their place and dropped them off. Now they've
28:18
Speaker 2: gone from a car full of guys to just Ray
28:20
Speaker 2: and Jody. Ray and Jody went back to Tammy's house.
28:24
Speaker 2: Now Tammy was this other woman, the woman who Ray
28:28
Speaker 2: was seeing on the side. After they got to Tammy's,
28:31
Speaker 2: Jody made a phone call and then Ray and Jody
28:34
Speaker 2: took the jeep again. They were looking for a guy
28:37
Speaker 2: they knew. They went looking for him a few minutes later.
28:40
Speaker 2: Now it's between eleven and eleven thirty. They're trying to
28:43
Speaker 2: buy some more drugs and they're successful this time. They
28:45
Speaker 2: bought some quay lutes. Then Jamie, Jody, and Ray all
28:49
Speaker 2: went back to Tammy's house. There were a few other
28:51
Speaker 2: people partying there already, a girl named Sherry, another girl,
28:55
Speaker 2: and another guy. So this group sat around partying, smoked
28:59
Speaker 2: some pot, and then Ray and Tammy went to bed together.
29:03
Speaker 2: Ray clarified they did up. They did have sex that night.
29:07
Speaker 2: He admitted he was there all night. Jody slept on
29:10
Speaker 2: the couch. The next morning, Friday, October seventeenth, Ray said
29:15
Speaker 2: that he and Jody left the house at around six
29:17
Speaker 2: or six thirty am. Ray said that he got home
29:21
Speaker 2: to the apartment that he shared with Gail just after
29:24
Speaker 2: seven am. This part of the story gets a little
29:28
Speaker 2: weird now. According to the case file documents, Ray said
29:34
Speaker 2: that he remembered this time because when he pulled up
29:36
Speaker 2: to the house in Gail's jeep, he saw that the
29:39
Speaker 2: door to his pickup truck was open. Apparently, the clock
29:43
Speaker 2: on the dash said seven to ten am. But he
29:47
Speaker 2: makes another comment later about this being an alarm clock,
29:50
Speaker 2: so I don't know whether he means the clock in
29:52
Speaker 2: the vehicle or another alarm clock that was sitting in there,
29:56
Speaker 2: which seems very strange. I don't know if he was
29:58
Speaker 2: trying to say that Gail had done that as some
30:00
Speaker 2: kind of a message about him not being home. Unfortunately,
30:04
Speaker 2: we only have Harshaal transcripts of these interviews. We have
30:07
Speaker 2: no audio, so we can't go back and ask him,
30:10
Speaker 2: and we don't know the context of those comments. We're
30:14
Speaker 2: gonna have to ask some more questions about that because
30:16
Speaker 2: it's a strange detail. It was just another unanswered question
30:19
Speaker 2: in a case that is already full of them. Anyway,
30:24
Speaker 2: after that, after he got home, Ray said he parked
30:27
Speaker 2: Gail's jeep, climbed into his own vehicle, his truck, and
30:30
Speaker 2: basically fell asleep. He said he passed out there for
30:33
Speaker 2: a few hours. This is also weird, the fact that
30:36
Speaker 2: he would go and sleep in his truck when his
30:39
Speaker 2: house was right there. So the officer asked him why
30:42
Speaker 2: he didn't go to sleep in the house. He said
30:45
Speaker 2: something about Gail, and Gail would have been more pissed
30:48
Speaker 2: off at him if she saw his vehicle and her
30:51
Speaker 2: jeep and he wasn't there, which doesn't seem to make
30:53
Speaker 2: any sense either. My theory is if Ray was telling
30:56
Speaker 2: the truth that when he got home he just didn't
30:59
Speaker 2: feel like facing her right at that moment, he had
31:01
Speaker 2: taken her car. He's been out all night with another woman.
31:03
Speaker 2: Now he's super hungover and he does not want to
31:05
Speaker 2: knock on that door. Maybe she locked him.
31:07
Speaker 1: Out, so Ray goes to sleep in the car. He
31:11
Speaker 1: said that he woke up.
31:12
Speaker 2: Around nine or nine thirty and had a headache, had
31:15
Speaker 2: a bad hangover. He said he noticed that the jeep
31:18
Speaker 2: was still there, and that's when he went inside the
31:20
Speaker 2: apartment and went to sleep. Ray said that he crashed,
31:24
Speaker 2: He slept for a while, and he woke up around
31:26
Speaker 2: twelve thirty or one. He saw Gail was still not
31:29
Speaker 2: there and the jeep was in the same spot.
31:32
Speaker 1: So what does Ray do?
31:34
Speaker 2: Does he call the police, start looking for his girlfriend,
31:36
Speaker 2: who was very responsible, or go to her work site. No,
31:39
Speaker 2: he doesn't do any of that. He called his other girlfriend,
31:42
Speaker 2: Tammy again. He said that by two or two thirty
31:45
Speaker 2: that afternoon, he had gone back to her house. Ray
31:48
Speaker 2: had some speed pills that he gave Tammy and for
31:52
Speaker 2: him that afternoon consisted of having some friends over to
31:55
Speaker 2: his house. They tried to get his truck started and
31:57
Speaker 2: weren't able to. Then he got his check cashed so
32:01
Speaker 2: he got paid, and then stayed that night at Tammy's
32:03
Speaker 2: house again, and now it's Saturday. Ray said that the
32:08
Speaker 2: first he heard about Gail being missing or something happening
32:12
Speaker 2: to her was when someone showed him a newspaper. He
32:15
Speaker 2: said he saw an item about a woman's body being
32:18
Speaker 2: found and the unidentified body wearing a Michelin jacket.
32:21
Speaker 1: Because remember, Gail was a Jane Doe.
32:23
Speaker 2: Before the police idd her, he said, when he saw
32:26
Speaker 2: that the body had been wearing a Michelin jacket, he said,
32:29
Speaker 2: right then he knew they had to be talking about Gail.
32:32
Speaker 2: He said he went home, and by the time he
32:34
Speaker 2: got there, the sheriff's police cruiser was parked outside his place,
32:39
Speaker 2: so the police took Ray in for questioning. He insisted
32:43
Speaker 2: he had nothing to do with Gail's disappearance. He seemed
32:46
Speaker 2: genuinely shocked. He told police the same thing that others
32:49
Speaker 2: had told them. He said she was well liked, she
32:51
Speaker 2: was a hard worker, He said she was one of
32:54
Speaker 2: the few women who could work in that man's atmosphere
32:56
Speaker 2: and deal with it. He said that men liked her
33:00
Speaker 2: and she got asked out a lot, but she was
33:01
Speaker 2: able to deflect that, and that people respected her. He
33:04
Speaker 2: mentioned Ray and who, as we said before, Gail dated
33:07
Speaker 2: in the past. He also said there was someone else,
33:10
Speaker 2: a superintendent at work, who had apparently made some sexual
33:12
Speaker 2: comments toward Gail, but really there was nothing at work
33:16
Speaker 2: that was alarming. Police zeroed in on Ray.
33:21
Speaker 1: As their suspect.
33:22
Speaker 2: They executed a search warrant for his apartment, the one
33:24
Speaker 2: he shared with Gail. They didn't really find anything of
33:29
Speaker 2: evidendiary worth. They found a roll of gray duct tape
33:32
Speaker 2: similar to the tape that was found at the crime scene,
33:35
Speaker 2: but that's also the same kind of tape that pretty
33:38
Speaker 2: much everybody has at home in a drawer.
33:40
Speaker 1: Again, nothing conclusive.
33:41
Speaker 2: The search warrant also showed they took a pair of
33:44
Speaker 2: Tony Rama brand Western brown cowboy boots size ten E
33:48
Speaker 2: from Ray's residence, from the gun box that was found
33:53
Speaker 2: at the crime scene, and the autopsy from the bullet
33:56
Speaker 2: from Gail's head wound. They knew that Gail had been
33:59
Speaker 2: killed with a twenty two caliber weapon, but police never
34:02
Speaker 2: found that murder weapon, and police ruled Ray out pretty
34:06
Speaker 2: quickly because he had this airtight alibi. According to law enforcement,
34:11
Speaker 2: there were lots of people who said Ray was out
34:12
Speaker 2: all night on Thursday and he didn't go home until
34:15
Speaker 2: Friday morning. Years later, Marty the private investigator talked to Tammy,
34:21
Speaker 2: Ray's other women at the time. Tammy said, yes, Ray
34:24
Speaker 2: did stay at her place that night. She admitted they
34:26
Speaker 2: were all into drugs and they were doing them and
34:29
Speaker 2: partying that night. Several people, including Tammy, confirmed that Ray
34:34
Speaker 2: was driving Gayle's cheap that night, and they said when
34:37
Speaker 2: he left Tammy's in the morning, he left in that jeep.
34:40
Speaker 2: Tammy said Ray was there all night. He may have
34:43
Speaker 2: left for ten or fifteen minutes to run an errand,
34:45
Speaker 2: but that was it. Tammy said she would love to
34:48
Speaker 2: see justice for Gail. She said police had forced her
34:51
Speaker 2: to look at the autopsy photos of Gail. She talked
34:54
Speaker 2: about how hard they were to see. Police did foul
34:58
Speaker 2: charges against Ray for possession of a controlled substance meeting marijuana,
35:02
Speaker 2: but in nineteen eighty three those charges were dropped without prejudice,
35:07
Speaker 2: meaning that charges could be refiled if new evidence ever emerged,
35:10
Speaker 2: but that never happened. The case went cold, and in
35:15
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety nine, Ray Foreman died. Randy Wyman has also
35:19
Speaker 2: passed away. In twenty twenty one, the Washington County Sheriff's
35:24
Speaker 2: Office closed out their case file.
35:26
Speaker 1: They said this was because of a lack of evidence.
35:29
Speaker 2: And they noted, quote, this case file has been microfeached
35:32
Speaker 2: and is very hard to read. Some of the pages
35:35
Speaker 2: on some of the interviews are missing. It is the
35:37
Speaker 2: recommendation of this reviewer that the case be classified as
35:40
Speaker 2: a cold case homicide until such time as new evidence
35:43
Speaker 2: is presented.
35:44
Speaker 1: End quote. In April of twenty twenty.
35:47
Speaker 2: Two, someone named David rose Grant reviewed the case file
35:51
Speaker 2: again and stated that the medical examiner said the victim
35:54
Speaker 2: had been shot behind the ear with a twenty two
35:56
Speaker 2: caliber weapon, but said the case file did not contain
35:59
Speaker 2: an autopsy report and pretty much left it at that.
36:03
Speaker 2: I'm not sure why he was unable to get the
36:05
Speaker 2: autopsy report, because I was unable to get it. But
36:08
Speaker 2: the reviewer's notes went on to state the victim was
36:11
Speaker 2: also run over by a vehicle, that there were a
36:13
Speaker 2: couple of suspects named in the case file, but not
36:16
Speaker 2: enough physical evidence to charge anyone. And that has been
36:18
Speaker 2: the story for the last forty years. So is there
36:22
Speaker 2: any way to figure out what happened to Gaile? And
36:25
Speaker 2: if so, what can we do next? A few years back,
36:36
Speaker 2: Marty reached out to former Washington County Sheriff Herb Marshall,
36:40
Speaker 2: who told Marty that he was always troubled by the
36:43
Speaker 2: fact that quote, it happened to my county on my
36:46
Speaker 2: watch end quote, And it's clear that it's a case
36:49
Speaker 2: that has always haunted the former sheriff, even though he
36:52
Speaker 2: left office shortly after Gale's body was found. The sheriff said, quote,
36:57
Speaker 2: I figured in my mind that she owed somebody money
36:59
Speaker 2: for drugs she wasn't paying for. My theory was Jody
37:02
Speaker 2: and Ray needed a ride that night, so they called
37:04
Speaker 2: her to come and get them, but he was out
37:06
Speaker 2: running around. That's why she didn't have any shoes on.
37:09
Speaker 2: She went and got into the jeep and went up
37:11
Speaker 2: and picked him and Jody up. They got into it
37:13
Speaker 2: because he wanted to drive her jeep. She would not
37:16
Speaker 2: let nobody drive her jeep.
37:18
Speaker 1: That's where I.
37:18
Speaker 2: Thought that he took her out there and killed her
37:21
Speaker 2: because she went and picked him up in quote, So
37:24
Speaker 2: the sheriff seemed to touch on one of the biggest
37:26
Speaker 2: mysteries of the case. There the fact that Gail was
37:28
Speaker 2: found wearing white socks, which by the way, were very
37:31
Speaker 2: dirty and torn on the bottom, but she had no
37:34
Speaker 2: shoes on, and her shoes, by the way, were never found.
37:38
Speaker 2: But the sheriff's theory does not seem to make sense
37:41
Speaker 2: because we know that Ray was driving Gail's jeep on
37:43
Speaker 2: Thursday night. Multiple people saw him driving her vehicle. He
37:47
Speaker 2: already had her vehicle, so Gail could not have gone
37:52
Speaker 2: and picked him up.
37:53
Speaker 1: She had no working.
37:54
Speaker 2: Vehicle and he already had her car, so the kidnapping
37:58
Speaker 2: theory makes less sense. And by the way, even in
38:01
Speaker 2: another scenario, if Ray had called her and asked for
38:04
Speaker 2: a ride, even if she raced to her car, this
38:07
Speaker 2: was a raining, muddy night, I don't believe she would
38:09
Speaker 2: have gone out and just socks with no shoes, So
38:15
Speaker 2: let's recap Basically, there are a few theories that are
38:18
Speaker 2: the main ones being talked about about what might have
38:21
Speaker 2: happened to gal Vatt.
38:23
Speaker 1: One was that her murder could have been.
38:24
Speaker 2: Connected to drug dealing, possibly the drug dealing of her
38:27
Speaker 2: boyfriend at the time, ray that Gail was kidnapped and
38:30
Speaker 2: killed to send a message, or that she owed people
38:33
Speaker 2: money for drugs.
38:34
Speaker 1: When Marty interviewed.
38:35
Speaker 2: Sheila years later, Sheila told him about a mutual acquaintance
38:39
Speaker 2: of theirs who said he heard Gail was unconscious when
38:42
Speaker 2: she was run over and that apparently her killer needed
38:45
Speaker 2: to run her over more than once. We're going to
38:48
Speaker 2: get a lot more into this in next week's episode.
38:50
Speaker 2: In part two, we need to figure out whether these informants,
38:54
Speaker 2: these people who were talking about rumors, are actually being truthful,
38:58
Speaker 2: if they're actually providing any information that wasn't given to
39:02
Speaker 2: the general public. Did they have information that on only
39:05
Speaker 2: the killer would know, or could they have just been
39:09
Speaker 2: spreading rumors, or could they have made up a story
39:12
Speaker 2: for their own reasons, maybe to get a better deal
39:14
Speaker 2: in exchange for a lighter sentence, or in.
39:17
Speaker 1: Some cases I've seen on many cases.
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Speaker 2: People who want to appear to be really tough will
39:23
Speaker 2: imply they've had something to do with an unsolved murder.
39:26
Speaker 2: And the way to figure out these truthful confessions from
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Speaker 2: the fake ones is to ask again, do they have
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Speaker 2: any information that only the killer would know and to
39:35
Speaker 2: really get into that, which we will next week. The
39:38
Speaker 2: second possibility police seemed to have considered is that it
39:41
Speaker 2: was some sort of a domestic violence incident gone wrong.
39:45
Speaker 2: We know Ray had a history of domestic violence. We
39:47
Speaker 2: know he abused his former wife. This is just a
39:51
Speaker 2: supposition on my part, but I feel like Gail wanted
39:55
Speaker 2: to be seen as this strong, resilient woman you could
39:58
Speaker 2: take care of herself. So she seemed like the type
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Speaker 2: of person who would perhaps be hesitant about reaching out
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Speaker 2: and admitting that they're was something going on at home that.
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Speaker 1: She was being abused.
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Speaker 2: Unfortunately, we know that even the strongest women can be abused,
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Speaker 2: and often people are hiding things at home and we
40:17
Speaker 2: only find that out afterwards. The third possibility is that
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Speaker 2: it was someone else, someone not connected to drug dealing,
40:24
Speaker 2: not connected to an intimate relationship with Gail. Maybe someone
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Speaker 2: the police have spoken to, looked at and even interviewed
40:31
Speaker 2: but it has never been arrested. Maybe someone who has
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Speaker 2: overlooked early on in the investigation.
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Speaker 1: So I went back. I looked at every.
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Speaker 2: Single document that we could get our hands on, and
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Speaker 2: everything that we could get connected to this case. In
40:45
Speaker 2: a lot of these interviews, the pages have been lost.
40:48
Speaker 2: We know the condom evidence has been lost, forensics are gone.
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Speaker 2: So I'm doing the best I can. I'm looking at
40:54
Speaker 2: forty four year old, faded documents, trying to make out
40:57
Speaker 2: the missing letters in these bleached out words. But among
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Speaker 2: all of them, I found something that I think is
41:03
Speaker 2: super interesting. I found an interview police did with a
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Speaker 2: potential witness in nineteen eighty, someone who said that he
41:11
Speaker 2: saw Gail hitchhiking. So on October seventeenth, nineteen eighty, hours
41:17
Speaker 2: after Gail's body was found, police interviewed a twenty nine
41:20
Speaker 2: year old man named laith Lane. He said that he
41:23
Speaker 2: saw a woman matching Gail's description hitchhiking on Highway seventeen
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Speaker 2: on Thursday morning. The report said that on Thursday morning,
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Speaker 2: just after seven am, laith Lane was driving south on
41:34
Speaker 2: Highway seventy one near the Ramada Inn when he saw
41:37
Speaker 2: a white female with brown shoulder lenked hair in her
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Speaker 2: early twenties. He said that she was around maybe five
41:44
Speaker 2: foot seven to five foot ten, with a medium build,
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Speaker 2: wearing a blue jacket with a light colored stripe on
41:49
Speaker 2: the sleeve.
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Speaker 1: He got a good look at her, and after.
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Speaker 2: Police showed him pictures of Gail, he said that he
41:55
Speaker 2: was pretty positive that it was Gaile Vauught and he
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Speaker 2: described her outfit perfectly Laithe said that he didn't pick
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Speaker 2: Gail up because he was traveling in the opposite direction
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Speaker 2: and thought it would be inappropriate to pick her up.
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Speaker 2: He told police he had never seen Gail before that
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Speaker 2: day or since. He said he saw her just that
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Speaker 2: one time when she was hitchhiking.
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Speaker 1: On that morning.
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Speaker 2: He said that he was on the road at around
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Speaker 2: six fifteen am. He and his wife were in the
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Speaker 2: car driving her to work in Springdale, which is about
42:26
Speaker 2: nine miles around twenty minutes away from where they lived.
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Speaker 2: He said that he did not see this mystery woman
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Speaker 2: when he and his wife were driving. He only saw
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Speaker 2: her on the way back. A couple of things strike
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Speaker 2: me as odd about this story. First, he could not
42:40
Speaker 2: have seen Gail on Thursday morning. Remember, we know from
42:43
Speaker 2: what Don said that on Thursday morning Gail was driving
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Speaker 2: her jeep. Don saw Gail driving to talk to one
42:50
Speaker 2: of their bosses and then getting back into her jeep
42:52
Speaker 2: and driving away from the job site. Don remembers that
42:56
Speaker 2: very well because it was the last time that she
42:58
Speaker 2: ever saw Gail, so I started thinking, what if the
43:02
Speaker 2: time of death is wrong. Police first said they thought
43:05
Speaker 2: Gail was killed on Thursday night, but the autopsy report
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Speaker 2: explains that rigor mortis was just beginning in Gail's face.
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Speaker 2: So the medical examiner estimated the time of death between
43:14
Speaker 2: eight and ten hours prior to when he examined her, which,
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Speaker 2: because he did the autopsyed around eleven thirty, would have
43:21
Speaker 2: been in the early morning hours. Parts of Gail's body
43:24
Speaker 2: were still warm to the touch. It takes about twelve
43:27
Speaker 2: hours before a body cools completely. And finally, there was
43:31
Speaker 2: the rain. It had been raining torrentially starting at around
43:34
Speaker 2: two am that morning. The rain ended in the early
43:37
Speaker 2: morning hours of October seventeenth, but the autopsy report specifically
43:43
Speaker 2: mentions Gail's clothes and hair were wet but not saturated
43:48
Speaker 2: with water, so it's very likely that she was killed
43:53
Speaker 2: after that torrential rain stopped. Also, finally, the tire tracks
43:58
Speaker 2: are fresh and they have a lot of detail in them.
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Speaker 2: If Gail had been killed prior to two am, they.
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Speaker 1: Would have been washed away in that soaking rental rain.
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Speaker 2: I think, based on what I've seen So far, the
44:09
Speaker 2: evidence points to the fact that the police's time of
44:12
Speaker 2: death was wrong, but we need to do more investigating
44:15
Speaker 2: to be sure. We need to ask more questions about
44:18
Speaker 2: the time of death and about the guy who said
44:20
Speaker 2: he saw Gail on the side of the road, especially
44:23
Speaker 2: since I noticed something else. Laith Lane was questioned on
44:27
Speaker 2: October seventeenth, hours after Gail's body was found. How was
44:31
Speaker 2: he able to describe exactly what she was wearing on
44:35
Speaker 2: the day she was found dead, down to the Michelin
44:37
Speaker 2: blue jacket. We also have to look back at Ray
44:41
Speaker 2: because one of the reasons why the case against Ray
44:44
Speaker 2: didn't go forward was reportedly because Ray had this airtight
44:47
Speaker 2: alibi for Thursday night. We know that Gail was pissed
44:51
Speaker 2: off at Ray if he stayed out all night with
44:54
Speaker 2: her jeep, Imagine how angry Gail must have been by
44:58
Speaker 2: Friday morning, and that would mean Ray's alibi for Thursday night,
45:02
Speaker 2: that supposedly airtight albi, would not clear him. If Gail
45:06
Speaker 2: died later, we have to ask ourselves, could he and
45:09
Speaker 2: Gail have gotten into a fight after he showed up
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Speaker 2: on Friday morning, or what if something else happened? What
45:16
Speaker 2: if Gail who woke up on Friday morning with no vehicle,
45:21
Speaker 2: decided she was going to go and get her paycheck
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Speaker 2: from the work site.
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Speaker 1: If Gail did decide to.
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Speaker 2: Hitchhike that morning, she might have just missed Ray coming home.
45:32
Speaker 2: So we have to ask could someone else have picked
45:35
Speaker 2: her up along that wooded road. I'm Catherine Townsend. This
45:41
Speaker 2: is Helen Gone Murder Line. Heleng Gong Murder Line is
45:48
Speaker 2: a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's
45:50
Speaker 2: written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced by
45:53
Speaker 2: Gabby Watts. Music contributed by Ben sale And this episode
45:58
Speaker 2: was scored and mixed by Jesse Niswanger. Executive producers of
46:02
Speaker 2: Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Elsie Crowley.
46:06
Speaker 1: If you have a.
46:06
Speaker 2: Case you'd like me and my team to look into,
46:09
Speaker 2: you can reach out to us at our Helen Gone
46:11
Speaker 2: Murder Line at six seven eight seven four four six
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