Latest / Hell and Gone: Murder Line / S1 Bonus: Case Update - Arrest Made
Transcript
- 0:08Speaker 1: School of Humans. Hello. Oh my god, dude, I'm digging
- 0:14Speaker 1: out my emergency pack of cigarettes right now. Oh jeez,
- 0:18Speaker 1: I am like on the edge of my seat, Like,
- 0:20Speaker 1: what is going on. I'm like I was supposed to
- 0:23Speaker 1: go to tennis today. I'm walking around just like pacing
- 0:26Speaker 1: like a caged animal. Hey, guys, I know that we're
- 0:32Speaker 1: in the middle of season three, but as many of
- 0:35Speaker 1: you may have already heard, after sixteen years, there has
- 0:39Speaker 1: finally been an arrest in connection with the murder of
- 0:42Speaker 1: Rebecca Gold. That's the case that we covered in season one.
- 0:47Speaker 1: For those of you who have been following the Hell
- 0:49Speaker 1: and Gone podcast, you'll remember that it all started in
- 0:53Speaker 1: a small town in the Ozarks just over two years ago.
- 0:58Speaker 1: I was sitting in Mountain View, Arkansas, in the satellite
- 1:01Speaker 1: office of the Arkansas State Police investigator, who was at
- 1:05Speaker 1: that time in charge of Rebecca's case. I looked at
- 1:09Speaker 1: the shelf and saw the binder with Rebecca's name on it.
- 1:13Speaker 1: There was literal dust on that case file. Rebecca was
- 1:17Speaker 1: twenty two years old when she disappeared on September twenty, two,
- 1:21Speaker 1: thousand and four. A week later, her body was found.
- 1:27Speaker 1: I've been obsessed with this case for years. My dad
- 1:30Speaker 1: and sister live in the area, and because my sister
- 1:34Speaker 1: and Rebecca's sister are close friends, I heard about the
- 1:38Speaker 1: murder shortly after it happened. Years dragged on, the case
- 1:43Speaker 1: remained cold, and I never could get past the fact
- 1:47Speaker 1: that in such a small town, no one was ever convicted.
- 1:52Speaker 1: This is the case that led me to get my
- 1:54Speaker 1: PI license and began my true crime obsession and ultimately
- 1:59Speaker 1: the first season of Hele Gone. We're still waiting for
- 2:03Speaker 1: the Arkansas State Police to reveal more details, but in
- 2:07Speaker 1: the meantime, we wanted to share what we know so far.
- 2:12Speaker 1: On November seventh, twenty twenty, the Arkansas State Police announced
- 2:16Speaker 1: that forty four year old William Miller was arrested in
- 2:19Speaker 1: connection to the two thousand and four murder of Rebecca Gould.
- 2:23Speaker 1: Law enforcement have stated that William or Billy, as he's
- 2:27Speaker 1: commonly known, was arrested in Lane County, Oregon, after the
- 2:31Speaker 1: State Police special agent assigned to the case learned that
- 2:35Speaker 1: he'd returned to his home following an extended stay in
- 2:37Speaker 1: the Philippines. The Arkansas State Police news release read quote
- 2:42Speaker 1: a Texas man visiting Izard County in two thousand and four,
- 2:46Speaker 1: has been arrested and charged with murder first degree in
- 2:49Speaker 1: connection with the death of Rebecca Christian Gould, whose body
- 2:53Speaker 1: was discovered sixteen years ago on a hillside off Arkansas
- 2:57Speaker 1: Highway nine south of Melbourne End quote. So, who is
- 3:02Speaker 1: Billy Miller? The police announcement regarding the US describes Billy
- 3:06Speaker 1: as a Texas man visiting Izzard County, which kind of
- 3:11Speaker 1: makes it sound like he was just passing through town.
- 3:14Speaker 1: But we quickly discovered that he does have a connection
- 3:17Speaker 1: to the area. Billy is Casey's cousin. Casey was Rebecca's
- 3:22Speaker 1: boyfriend at the time she went missing, and she was
- 3:25Speaker 1: staying at his house when she was murdered. His trailer
- 3:28Speaker 1: in a remote wooded area near Guyon was the crime scene.
- 3:32Speaker 1: I've had the chance to talk to some of Billy's
- 3:34Speaker 1: family members and coworkers and learned that around the time
- 3:38Speaker 1: of Rebecca's murder, he was living in Texas. He had
- 3:42Speaker 1: a family there and, according to reports, three children, but
- 3:46Speaker 1: Billy left the country shortly after Rebecca's murder. Several years ago.
- 3:51Speaker 1: He went to the Philippines, where he met a local woman,
- 3:54Speaker 1: got married and had a baby. On social media. There
- 3:58Speaker 1: are posts of him with his children. He appears to
- 4:01Speaker 1: have been living there ever since. For several years, he
- 4:05Speaker 1: worked on an offshore oil field platform off the coast
- 4:08Speaker 1: of Malay in Equatorial Guinea. Some of his coworkers and
- 4:13Speaker 1: family members have reached out to me. They said they
- 4:15Speaker 1: were shocked and I can't imagine what they must be
- 4:19Speaker 1: going through right now. Though some of his former coworkers
- 4:22Speaker 1: did describe him as odd. For example, he was caught
- 4:26Speaker 1: with a coworker's phone and, according to my source, was
- 4:30Speaker 1: allegedly going through their photos. It's the type of behavior
- 4:34Speaker 1: that can seem a little strange, but nothing that could
- 4:37Speaker 1: suggest the horror that would follow. We were told by
- 4:41Speaker 1: a source close to Billy that after COVID hit, the
- 4:44Speaker 1: borders to the Philippines shut down, so he came home
- 4:47Speaker 1: to where his mother lives in Cottage Grove, Oregon. He
- 4:51Speaker 1: is reportedly told co workers that he bought a ranch
- 4:54Speaker 1: in Oregon and that he wanted to move his wife
- 4:57Speaker 1: and family from the Philippines there. So maybe he thought
- 5:02Speaker 1: the case was over for good. When we started working
- 5:07Speaker 1: on Hell and Gone, our goal was always to try
- 5:11Speaker 1: to use the podcast as an investigative tool. We wanted
- 5:14Speaker 1: to help move the case forward in any way that
- 5:17Speaker 1: we could, and our only goal was to get justice
- 5:20Speaker 1: for Rebecca. As you know, the Arkansas State Police said
- 5:25Speaker 1: this was an open investigation, so we had zero access
- 5:28Speaker 1: to the case file. We had to create our own,
- 5:32Speaker 1: and in the beginning we had very little to go on.
- 5:35Speaker 1: Based on the evidence, we developed a working theory that
- 5:39Speaker 1: the killer was someone with a connection to the house.
- 5:43Speaker 1: For me, this wasn't just the fact that the killer
- 5:45Speaker 1: would know where the trailer was. As we discovered in
- 5:48Speaker 1: season one, this was an extremely remote location. Whoever was
- 5:53Speaker 1: involved with killing Rebecca knew where the cleaning supplies were
- 5:57Speaker 1: and felt brave enough, possibly in broad daylight, to stick
- 6:02Speaker 1: around and clean up the crime scene. But possibly the
- 6:05Speaker 1: biggest clue to me was the fact that the bloody
- 6:08Speaker 1: sheets were found in the washing machine. We're waiting to
- 6:12Speaker 1: see if the police release any more information that could
- 6:15Speaker 1: explain what Billy's connection to the home could be. Because
- 6:19Speaker 1: of the timeline, which we explored in depth in season one,
- 6:22Speaker 1: we also believed that there could have been more than
- 6:25Speaker 1: one person involved in the cleanup. So if Billy did
- 6:29Speaker 1: kill Rebecca and or clean up or move her body.
- 6:33Speaker 1: Why did he do it? No information has been released
- 6:36Speaker 1: at this time about a potential motive. We know from
- 6:41Speaker 1: Rebecca's autopsy that she was struck once or possibly twice,
- 6:46Speaker 1: something that we always believed suggested that someone was in
- 6:49Speaker 1: a rage and that this murder was deeply personal. Since
- 6:53Speaker 1: the ASP have made no comment on Billy's connection to
- 6:56Speaker 1: the murder, We don't even know if Billy and Rebecca
- 6:59Speaker 1: knew each other, but he may have popped up in
- 7:02Speaker 1: the podcast and the fifth thatp was of season one.
- 7:06Speaker 1: We talked to a source who told us that they
- 7:08Speaker 1: had seen a man with olive skin or a tan
- 7:12Speaker 1: and black hair around on the weekend before Rebecca disappeared.
- 7:17Speaker 1: Our source told us that they saw the guy drive
- 7:19Speaker 1: up to Casey's property with a woman in the car.
- 7:22Speaker 1: The guy then got out of the vehicle, which the
- 7:25Speaker 1: source described as a small blue car with Texas license plates,
- 7:29Speaker 1: and did some weed eating around the property. Our tipster
- 7:32Speaker 1: told us that Rebecca came out of the house and
- 7:35Speaker 1: briefly spoke to this unknown man, and that she seemed
- 7:38Speaker 1: fine and went back inside. We did try to locate
- 7:42Speaker 1: this person, and the general description did seem to match
- 7:46Speaker 1: Billy but it also matched several other people who knew Rebecca.
- 7:51Speaker 1: With nothing more to go on, we hit a dead end.
- 7:55Speaker 1: But now I wonder could the mystery man at the
- 7:58Speaker 1: trailer have been Billy. A new investigator has been assigned
- 8:03Speaker 1: to Rebecca's case, Mike McNeil of the Arkansas State Police.
- 8:08Speaker 1: Please contact Mike if you have any information about Rebecca's case.
- 8:13Speaker 1: He can be reached at Mike dot McNeil at ASP
- 8:18Speaker 1: dot Arkansas dot gov. That's m I k E dot
- 8:23Speaker 1: mc n e I l L at ASP dot Arkansas
- 8:29Speaker 1: dot gov. Since season one wrapped, we haven't stopped working
- 8:35Speaker 1: on this case, and there have been many others helping
- 8:38Speaker 1: with a fight to get justice for Rebecca, including local
- 8:41Speaker 1: journalists George Jared, who he worked with in season one
- 8:44Speaker 1: and who has been following and covering this case since
- 8:47Speaker 1: day one, and Jennifer Buckoltz, a private investigator who has
- 8:51Speaker 1: devoted countless hours to solving this case. So what happens next?
- 8:58Speaker 1: According to a local newspaper, The Baxter Bulletin, Billy is
- 9:02Speaker 1: fighting extradition to Arkansas. So now Arkansas officials need to
- 9:08Speaker 1: file a governor's warrant, also known as an extradition warrant
- 9:11Speaker 1: to facilitate his transfer back to Arkansas. This could take
- 9:16Speaker 1: some time, according to some estimates, between thirty and sixty days,
- 9:22Speaker 1: so once again we have to wait to see if
- 9:25Speaker 1: he eventually stands trial, to see what evidence the ASP have,
- 9:29Speaker 1: and to see if there will be more arrests. So
- 9:32Speaker 1: for now, me and the team, along with everyone else
- 9:36Speaker 1: including George, Jennifer and many other reporters who've worked on
- 9:39Speaker 1: this case, will continue to search for answers and work
- 9:43Speaker 1: together to reveal the full story. But until then, enjoy
- 9:48Speaker 1: the rest of season three and revisit season one if
- 9:51Speaker 1: you want to follow our complete investigation into Rebecca's murder
- 9:54Speaker 1: from the beginning School of Humans