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Hell and Gone Murder Line: James Escalante Part 3 · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:08
Speaker 1: School of Humans.
0:13
Speaker 2: Six bodies were found in Wonder Valley, California, between December
0:18
Speaker 2: of twenty nineteen and January of twenty twenty one. Some
0:22
Speaker 2: of the bodies in the desert, including the disappearance of
0:25
Speaker 2: thirty seven year old single mother Erica Lloyd, started to
0:29
Speaker 2: make local and then national news, but there were no
0:32
Speaker 2: national news reports about James Escalante. I've been talking together
0:37
Speaker 2: Escalante about this case, and she's been disheartened by how
0:42
Speaker 2: little James's case has been covered compared to the others
0:45
Speaker 2: in Wonder Valley.
0:47
Speaker 1: They ended up doing a news broadcast out there in
0:51
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one. I do believe it was, and they
0:54
Speaker 1: actually interviewed Detective Halloway, who was the detective that was
0:58
Speaker 1: assigned to James's missing person's key, and they were talking
1:02
Speaker 1: about the amount of people going missing out in the desert.
1:04
Speaker 1: They mentioned Erica Lloyd, they mentioned Lauren to they mentioned
1:07
Speaker 1: some couple that had gone missing out there. They never
1:10
Speaker 1: made the first mention of James. It's not like he
1:12
Speaker 1: didn't know about James. He was the detective on his caase.
1:14
Speaker 1: Like they've made it abundantly clear to me, they're not
1:18
Speaker 1: look in the case now. And they're not going to
1:21
Speaker 1: Nothing has really worked for us in this We could
1:25
Speaker 1: barely get anybody that wanted to cover his story. That's
1:27
Speaker 1: been I mean like nobody. If you look up Eric Alloyd,
1:32
Speaker 1: there's i mean countless coverage on her story all the
1:37
Speaker 1: way up you know, pretty high in news coverage world.
1:40
Speaker 1: You can't get anybody to want to touch James's face.
1:45
Speaker 2: We're going to dive into the missing Persons report and
1:47
Speaker 2: compare accounts from the last people who saw James to
1:51
Speaker 2: see if we can shed more light into what really
1:54
Speaker 2: happened out there in the desert on June twenty fifth,
1:57
Speaker 2: twenty twenty. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past five years
2:02
Speaker 2: of making my true crime podcast, Helling Gone, I've learned
2:05
Speaker 2: that there is no such thing as a small town
2:08
Speaker 2: where murder never happens. I have received hundreds of messages
2:12
Speaker 2: from people all around the country asking for help with
2:14
Speaker 2: an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities.
2:19
Speaker 2: If you have a case you'd like me and my
2:21
Speaker 2: team to look into, you can reach out to us
2:24
Speaker 2: at our Helen Gone Murder line at six seven eight
2:27
Speaker 2: seven four four six one four five. That's six seven
2:30
Speaker 2: eight seven four four six ' one four five, or
2:35
Speaker 2: you can send us a message on Instagram at Helen Gonepod.
2:39
Speaker 2: This is Helen Gone Murder Line. As we said last week,
3:31
Speaker 2: people go missing in the desert under a lot of
3:34
Speaker 2: different circumstances. One of the things that really stood out
3:37
Speaker 2: to me about James Escalante's case is that in Wonder Valley,
3:42
Speaker 2: a lot of the body discoveries haven't been made by
3:45
Speaker 2: the police at all, but by one man, a cave
3:48
Speaker 2: and mining expert named Doug Billings. Doug Billings was helping
3:52
Speaker 2: the family of thirty seven year old Eric Lloyd, who
3:55
Speaker 2: went missing nine days before James, and while he was
3:58
Speaker 2: looking for Erica's car, he found James's bike. But Heather
4:03
Speaker 2: said that not only did police know not find the bike,
4:06
Speaker 2: but that when Doug Billings told him about the bike,
4:09
Speaker 2: at first, they didn't seem to be interested.
4:13
Speaker 1: He had been helping search for Eric Alloyd and he
4:16
Speaker 1: had seen a bike out there and it has turned
4:18
Speaker 1: out to be recording the Sherry, the bike that James
4:21
Speaker 1: left on. It seemed out there twice. The first time
4:24
Speaker 1: he tried to report it to the police, they said
4:27
Speaker 1: they didn't think it was related. To Eric Alloyd's case,
4:29
Speaker 1: and of course James had not been reported missing yet
4:31
Speaker 1: at that point in time. Tops weren't interested at that
4:34
Speaker 1: point because at that point they were looking for Erica
4:37
Speaker 1: and a black car. You know, it didn't seem important
4:40
Speaker 1: to them at the time, so he did not take
4:42
Speaker 1: a picture at that time or anything like that. He
4:45
Speaker 1: again found it on it's still sitting out there on
4:48
Speaker 1: August ninth, so the day after the remains that turned
4:51
Speaker 1: out to be James's were found, because him and his
4:54
Speaker 1: team and went back out to that area. You know,
4:56
Speaker 1: it's at that time they clearly weren't sure if those
4:58
Speaker 1: were Eric Alloyd's remained and that's when he took a
5:01
Speaker 1: picture of the bike. He locked the coordinate. He notified
5:05
Speaker 1: the police again, but again, given the distance between where
5:08
Speaker 1: the bike was located and where James's remains were located,
5:11
Speaker 1: the police didn't think they were linked and left the
5:13
Speaker 1: bike there.
5:15
Speaker 2: Heather's family ran into Doug's team and got the picture
5:18
Speaker 2: of the bike from him and then sent that picture
5:21
Speaker 2: to James's girlfriend, Sherry. She said that, yes, that was
5:26
Speaker 2: the bike that James was riding the day he disappeared.
5:29
Speaker 2: Heather contacted law enforcement, and they finally went out to
5:32
Speaker 2: that intersection near Highway sixty two and Shelton Road and
5:36
Speaker 2: retrieved the red bike. But it was odd because when
5:39
Speaker 2: Heather talked to Sherry, Sherry said that they weren't able
5:43
Speaker 2: to go look for James because they didn't have a vehicle.
5:46
Speaker 2: But then she would tell Heather that they went out
5:48
Speaker 2: to talk to people, people who Heather said lived a
5:51
Speaker 2: lot further out than the intersection where James disappeared. So
5:55
Speaker 2: Heather was thinking, how could she get out there when
5:58
Speaker 2: she just told Heather she didn't have transportation. Heather has
6:03
Speaker 2: said multiple times that she's suspicious because over time, Sherry's
6:07
Speaker 2: story appeared to keep changing.
6:10
Speaker 1: Nothing she said had made sense. The stories have changed,
6:14
Speaker 1: Like the main story, you know, d he got stuck
6:17
Speaker 1: in the sand. James went out to get her this
6:19
Speaker 1: he called, you know from this intersection. That stuff has
6:22
Speaker 1: never changed. The times have changed. The description of the
6:25
Speaker 1: shoes he was wearing has changed. How long it took
6:28
Speaker 1: them to get to that intersection once he left, that's
6:30
Speaker 1: all changed. What he was wearing, you know, like accessories
6:34
Speaker 1: that he was wearing has changed. Things that he's owned this,
6:37
Speaker 1: you know, all those things keep changing right, which has
6:41
Speaker 1: been nothing but red flags for me.
6:43
Speaker 2: Heather said that Sherry had told her two versions of
6:46
Speaker 2: the story. They both started out the same, with James
6:49
Speaker 2: leaving to go help their friend D, but Heather said
6:53
Speaker 2: Sherry gave her different times. According to Heather, Sherry first
6:57
Speaker 2: said that James went out early in the morning, around
7:00
Speaker 2: eight thirty am, and later she said that it was
7:03
Speaker 2: around ten or ten thirty am. In both versions, James
7:08
Speaker 2: never reached their friend D. But in one version, according
7:12
Speaker 2: to the Missing Persons report, Sherry told someone else that
7:16
Speaker 2: James never reached D and took a ride to San
7:19
Speaker 2: Bernardino and went to rehab. Finding Sherry unreliable, Heather started
7:25
Speaker 2: talking to more people. A lot of these people are
7:28
Speaker 2: difficult to find. We've been trying to reach out to
7:31
Speaker 2: them in Wonder Valley and it's been challenging. A lot
7:34
Speaker 2: of them live off the grid, and a lot of
7:36
Speaker 2: them have changed numbers since then, and Heather found out
7:39
Speaker 2: that James's love life was a little bit more complicated
7:42
Speaker 2: than it seemed to be on the surface. Heather talked
7:45
Speaker 2: to D, the woman who got stuck in the desert
7:47
Speaker 2: and who called Sherry for help, and D told Heather
7:51
Speaker 2: something she hadn't heard before. The story that Sherry told
7:56
Speaker 2: was that d had gone out in the desert in
7:57
Speaker 2: the early morning hours of June twenty fifth to go
8:00
Speaker 2: rock Honting. That's when her car got stuck in sand.
8:03
Speaker 2: But D filled in some more details. She told Heather
8:06
Speaker 2: the reason she had gone out so early was because
8:09
Speaker 2: she had been hanging out at James and Sherry's house
8:12
Speaker 2: and they had started fighting, and she said they were
8:15
Speaker 2: fighting about Tank. Now, remember Tank is the friend of
8:19
Speaker 2: James and Sherry's who also lived on that same property
8:22
Speaker 2: with them. Tank and Sherry had a history. At some
8:26
Speaker 2: point they were romantically involved.
8:29
Speaker 1: She told me that basically Sherry was kind of bouncings
8:32
Speaker 1: back and forth between Tank and James, and that she
8:36
Speaker 1: had been hanging out with them and she was really
8:39
Speaker 1: tired of hearing James and Sherry fighting about that, and
8:43
Speaker 1: so she left in the middle of the night, got
8:45
Speaker 1: out there, got part, took a nap, and woke up
8:49
Speaker 1: with the intentions of looking for rocks and fossils and
8:52
Speaker 1: things like that. So she colected them. So that made
8:54
Speaker 1: a little bit more sense because I was like, he's
8:56
Speaker 1: going to go out where there's like no street lights
8:58
Speaker 1: changing at four four foot thirty in the morning to
9:00
Speaker 1: hunt Rock when you can't even really see them other
9:01
Speaker 1: than your headlights in the black light. Yeah, so that
9:04
Speaker 1: made it make a little more sense as to why
9:06
Speaker 1: she was out there at that hour. But apparently they
9:09
Speaker 1: were fighting and that's why it according her, that's why
9:12
Speaker 1: that she left. She got tired of hearing it.
9:15
Speaker 2: Heather tried to get the police to talk to more
9:17
Speaker 2: people about James's case, but she discovered that the police
9:22
Speaker 2: hadn't even canvassed people in the immediate area about James's disappearance.
9:26
Speaker 1: There's only like a handful of houses right there on
9:29
Speaker 1: that little stretch of Shelton, And I asked them specifically
9:33
Speaker 1: multiple times between September and January, like, Hey, have you
9:38
Speaker 1: guys gone out and questioned those people in those houses,
9:40
Speaker 1: like if they saw James around that time, they didn't
9:42
Speaker 1: have the bike ended up there anything. Oh, they've been questioned,
9:45
Speaker 1: They've been questioned. Finally I asked, I was like, Okay,
9:50
Speaker 1: who keeps saying they've been questioned? What questions did y'all
9:52
Speaker 1: ask them in relation to James. That's when it came
9:55
Speaker 1: out that oh, no, they had been questioned in relation
9:58
Speaker 1: to Erica Lloyd, And I said, okay, so you're telling
10:02
Speaker 1: me that y'all went out there knocking on these doors
10:05
Speaker 1: and asked them if they have seen a thirty something
10:07
Speaker 1: year old white girl in a black car. And you'd
10:11
Speaker 1: think that was sent to somehow spawn them to say no.
10:13
Speaker 1: But I saw this fifty something year old Indian man
10:15
Speaker 1: on a red bike. Like that's not even in the
10:18
Speaker 1: realm of the same thing. But I can tell you,
10:21
Speaker 1: like I have the missing person's file from James's case.
10:25
Speaker 1: It's nine pages, one sided, not too exited. Just the
10:30
Speaker 1: amount of information I provided to law enforcement should have
10:33
Speaker 1: been more than nine pages.
10:35
Speaker 2: So let's look at that missing person's report. When police
10:39
Speaker 2: talked to Sherry on October first, twenty twenty, according to
10:43
Speaker 2: the missing Person's report, the story she told them was
10:46
Speaker 2: again different from the one she told Heather. She said
10:49
Speaker 2: that d called between eight and eight thirty on the
10:51
Speaker 2: morning of June twenty fifth, and that d told her
10:54
Speaker 2: she was stuck in her truck, not that James actually
10:58
Speaker 2: went out at that time. Sherry told detectives that after
11:01
Speaker 2: that she called Gary, another friend of theirs, and Gary
11:04
Speaker 2: went out to get but Gary was unable to move
11:07
Speaker 2: D's vehicle, and then Gary and D both showed up
11:11
Speaker 2: at Sherry's house. She said James was there also. At
11:15
Speaker 2: some point D went back out to where her truck was.
11:18
Speaker 2: Then D called again at around one fifteen to one
11:21
Speaker 2: thirty in the afternoon. That's when James put air into
11:24
Speaker 2: the bike tires and went out to look for D.
11:27
Speaker 2: Now again, this is still according to Sherry. Several hours later,
11:31
Speaker 2: Tank showed up at their house. This was at around
11:33
Speaker 2: three thirty. Then, when they realized they hadn't heard from James,
11:37
Speaker 2: Tank went out to d to rescue her. This is
11:41
Speaker 2: a big difference. First of all, this would mean that
11:44
Speaker 2: instead of James going out at eight or eight thirty
11:46
Speaker 2: in the morning, this would mean he was out in
11:49
Speaker 2: the hottest part of the afternoon, and there appears to
11:52
Speaker 2: be a discrepancy of several hours. There's something else in
11:57
Speaker 2: the police report that Heather says is inconsistent. Sherry told
12:00
Speaker 2: detectives she had contacted several people about James being missing,
12:04
Speaker 2: including Heather Connie, who was James's legal wife, though they
12:08
Speaker 2: hadn't been in a relationship or lived together in a
12:10
Speaker 2: long time, and several other people. Meanwhile, none of these
12:14
Speaker 2: people said that Sherry had contacted them. Sherry told police
12:18
Speaker 2: that James was a heavy heroin user, that he would
12:21
Speaker 2: use thirty to thirty five CC's per day. She said
12:24
Speaker 2: that he used drugs to deal with various physical problems
12:27
Speaker 2: that he had, and it's certainly possible that something happened
12:31
Speaker 2: to James that did not involve foul play. Maybe he
12:34
Speaker 2: was doing drugs that day, maybe he accidentally overdosed. But
12:38
Speaker 2: if that's the case, Heather wants to know so that
12:41
Speaker 2: she and her husband, John, and the rest of their
12:43
Speaker 2: family can have some kind of closure. She does not
12:46
Speaker 2: believe that that should be the automatic assumption by police
12:50
Speaker 2: just because James had a drug habit. Police also talked
12:53
Speaker 2: to Tank. He said he was at work when he
12:56
Speaker 2: got a call about d being stuck that day. He
12:59
Speaker 2: said that he came to where he and James and
13:01
Speaker 2: Sherry lived. He said that he helped James fill up
13:04
Speaker 2: those by Sickles tires with air, and then several hours
13:08
Speaker 2: later D and Gary showed up in Gary's truck. Then
13:12
Speaker 2: he said they all three went out to the desert
13:14
Speaker 2: to pull D's truck out, that they were finally able
13:17
Speaker 2: to get it unstuck from the sand. D had a
13:20
Speaker 2: slightly different story. She told police she left home at
13:24
Speaker 2: around four thirty am to go rock hunting near Shelton
13:26
Speaker 2: Road in Highway sixty two. Then she said that around
13:30
Speaker 2: five thirty am, her truck got stuck on a barrier
13:33
Speaker 2: somewhere south of Highway sixty two. She described it as
13:36
Speaker 2: being two streets away from Shelton Road. Since it was
13:40
Speaker 2: still dark, she said she decided to wait it out.
13:42
Speaker 2: She took a nap in her truck, and then she
13:44
Speaker 2: woke up at six am. That's when she called Gary
13:48
Speaker 2: and Sherry for help. She said that Gary came out
13:51
Speaker 2: first and tried for around four hours to pull the
13:53
Speaker 2: truck out. He was there by himself, but he didn't
13:57
Speaker 2: have any luck. By this point, D said she was overheated,
14:01
Speaker 2: so she rode with Gary in his vehicle back to
14:04
Speaker 2: Tank's trailer to lie down, which was on the same
14:07
Speaker 2: property where James and Sherry lived. D said that Gary
14:10
Speaker 2: and Tank left there and went to pull her truck
14:13
Speaker 2: out without her. Now again, if you notice, it's the
14:17
Speaker 2: same general story, but if you look closer, some very
14:21
Speaker 2: important details have been changed because the story that D
14:26
Speaker 2: told the police was that she was calling Sherry at
14:29
Speaker 2: around one thirty that afternoon. Sherry did put her on
14:33
Speaker 2: with James. James said he would go out there to
14:36
Speaker 2: help her get the truck unstuck. But then the story
14:38
Speaker 2: seems to make even less sense because D said that
14:42
Speaker 2: on that three way call, she was honking her horn.
14:45
Speaker 2: She heard him say I hear the horn, but he
14:48
Speaker 2: never showed up, she said. She later assumed that James
14:51
Speaker 2: was angry, that he didn't want to deal with it anymore,
14:54
Speaker 2: or maybe he just got too hot and bailed out.
14:57
Speaker 2: But if that's true, then her others story about being
15:01
Speaker 2: taken back to Sherry's property to lie down can't be true.
15:06
Speaker 2: So which one is it? Where was D? Was she
15:09
Speaker 2: back at Sherry's trailer or was she back at her truck?
15:13
Speaker 2: And if so, who drove her there? These stories don't match,
15:17
Speaker 2: yet law enforcement did not seem to ask too many
15:20
Speaker 2: questions about these inconsistencies. Police reached out to Gary. His
15:25
Speaker 2: story is that he was at home that day. He
15:27
Speaker 2: said he lived near Sherry in Wonder Valley. He said
15:30
Speaker 2: he got the call between around eleven and noon. He
15:33
Speaker 2: said Sherry called him, not d. D drove a Champagne
15:38
Speaker 2: colored Ford Expedition. He went out to the desert and
15:41
Speaker 2: was unable to get the vehicle out, So by that
15:44
Speaker 2: point his story seems to match D's. He said she
15:47
Speaker 2: was super dehydrated. He took her to Sherry's house so
15:49
Speaker 2: that she could lie down. While he was at Sherry's house,
15:52
Speaker 2: he picked up Tank, who again lived there, in a trailer.
15:56
Speaker 2: They went back out to the vehicle and got it unstuck.
15:59
Speaker 2: So in Gary's version of the story, only he and
16:03
Speaker 2: Tank are out there with the truck. After they got
16:07
Speaker 2: it unstuck, He said, Tank drove D's car and he
16:10
Speaker 2: drove his own truck. He said when they got back
16:12
Speaker 2: to Sherry's it was around three to four pm. Gary
16:16
Speaker 2: said he never saw James that day. He said he
16:19
Speaker 2: never met James. He had no idea who he was,
16:21
Speaker 2: and he had no idea that James had gone out
16:24
Speaker 2: to assist D on a bike. Police executed a search
16:29
Speaker 2: warrant to get Sherry's phone records, but they hit a
16:32
Speaker 2: wall there because Sherry at that point no longer had
16:35
Speaker 2: the same phone or a phone plan. She told police
16:38
Speaker 2: the phone she had at the time James disappeared, was
16:41
Speaker 2: stolen from the Tortoise Rock Casino. That she had a
16:43
Speaker 2: new phone and no access to the old account, so
16:46
Speaker 2: it seems like police didn't pursue it any further. So
16:49
Speaker 2: the phone appeared to be another dead inn. But then
16:52
Speaker 2: Heather talked to Detective Halloway, the investigator in charge of
16:55
Speaker 2: the case. Detective Halloway was able to do a data
16:59
Speaker 2: dump of the calls and text messages for the month
17:02
Speaker 2: of June from James's phone logs, and we have seen
17:04
Speaker 2: a copy of those phone logs now. One thing to
17:08
Speaker 2: note is that almost all of the calls and texts
17:11
Speaker 2: on James's phone are incoming. When he has an outgoing text,
17:15
Speaker 2: it's usually one or two words, so Heather's comments about
17:18
Speaker 2: James being a man a few words appears to be true.
17:22
Speaker 2: Almost all of the calls are very short in duration,
17:26
Speaker 2: just a few seconds, maybe up to a minute. But
17:29
Speaker 2: we did notice something else, James was talking to other women.
17:41
Speaker 2: Heather said that Detective Holloway told her that he'd taken
17:45
Speaker 2: a look at the phone records and that Sherry's phone
17:48
Speaker 2: records basically matched James's. Another question I have is when
17:52
Speaker 2: did the detective actually see and compare those phone records,
17:56
Speaker 2: because I thought he told Heather that Sherry didn't have
17:59
Speaker 2: the account anymore. Heather said that she was told since
18:03
Speaker 2: everyone basically admitted to being out there in the desert,
18:06
Speaker 2: there was no need to subpoena any more phone records
18:09
Speaker 2: because it appeared on the surface that the story about
18:11
Speaker 2: the three way call was true. James's incoming text do
18:16
Speaker 2: show that shortly after nine am, James was receiving texts
18:20
Speaker 2: from Sherry, first a location at seventy six fifteen Shelton
18:24
Speaker 2: Road in twenty nine Palms. Then Sherry texted him I
18:28
Speaker 2: gave her your number for her to call you, so
18:30
Speaker 2: answer your phone. Then another one saying my location. The
18:35
Speaker 2: final incoming text came from D and Heather says that
18:40
Speaker 2: the address that she texted was not right at that intersection.
18:44
Speaker 2: It was the address of a private home. So what
18:49
Speaker 2: could D and potentially James have been doing at someone
18:53
Speaker 2: else's home and was that homeowner? Ever questioned? I took
18:57
Speaker 2: a look at James's phone logs from the days before
19:00
Speaker 2: he disappeared to try and understand what was going on
19:03
Speaker 2: in his life. The night before, on June twenty fourth,
19:07
Speaker 2: there was a text from Sherry just after ten PM,
19:10
Speaker 2: asking you planning on staying out all night. James replied no.
19:16
Speaker 2: Sherry also texted him earlier that day saying that Nancy
19:20
Speaker 2: James's X was trying to get a hold of him.
19:23
Speaker 2: She had been looking for him regarding James moving some
19:25
Speaker 2: of his stuff off of her property. So James did
19:29
Speaker 2: have some conflict in his love life. But on the surface,
19:32
Speaker 2: it does look like James was out in the desert
19:35
Speaker 2: looking for d James's phone records showed that he did
19:39
Speaker 2: get an incoming call from Sherry. The duration was twenty
19:42
Speaker 2: two seconds at nine to twenty three in the morning.
19:45
Speaker 2: Then there were three more calls from Sherry at nine
19:48
Speaker 2: twenty five, nine thirty five, and nine forty nine. None
19:51
Speaker 2: of them went through after that nothing. This would seem
19:55
Speaker 2: to be very out of character for James, just based
19:58
Speaker 2: on looking at this spreadsheet of his calls and texts
20:00
Speaker 2: and looking for patterns, because yes, most of James's calls
20:05
Speaker 2: were very shortened duration, but there were multiple incoming and
20:08
Speaker 2: outgoing calls every single day, the line's share of them
20:11
Speaker 2: were to Sherry, and then there was absolutely nothing at all. Also,
20:17
Speaker 2: the time when Sherry was calling James. That was much
20:21
Speaker 2: earlier than Sherry told detectives he went out. And also
20:24
Speaker 2: it's odd that there are absolutely no messages or calls
20:27
Speaker 2: after that, not one text asking where James is, Is
20:31
Speaker 2: he okay? When is he coming back? I feel weird
20:35
Speaker 2: about going through James's phone records because if someone has
20:39
Speaker 2: a complicated or messy love life, I really hate to
20:42
Speaker 2: invade their privacy. Unfortunately, it's really a crucial step in
20:46
Speaker 2: figuring out what's going on. We do know he was
20:49
Speaker 2: talking to women other than Sherry. One of them was
20:52
Speaker 2: an ex girlfriend named Nancy. Nancy told police she last
20:56
Speaker 2: talked to James in June when they argued about him
20:58
Speaker 2: moving a trailer off her property, and that matches what
21:01
Speaker 2: we've seen in the text and phone records. But there
21:05
Speaker 2: were other rumors going around after James disappeared. One was
21:09
Speaker 2: that someone had put a hit out on James, and
21:11
Speaker 2: that rumor intensified when something else was found on James's phone.
21:15
Speaker 2: Apparently there was an image on the phone. There was
21:19
Speaker 2: a woman who, according to Heather, is the girlfriend of
21:22
Speaker 2: a guy who knew James. This guy has a long
21:26
Speaker 2: criminal record. Police talked to this woman and She told
21:30
Speaker 2: investigators that she had seen James years ago, but that
21:33
Speaker 2: she had not seen him in a long time. She
21:36
Speaker 2: confirmed that the photos on the phone were hers. She
21:39
Speaker 2: said she had no idea why they were there, how
21:41
Speaker 2: they got there, or why you would have them. She
21:44
Speaker 2: said she did not know James like that a guess,
21:46
Speaker 2: meaning she didn't know him intimately. Police talked to another
21:50
Speaker 2: man who, according to rumors, had been asked by this
21:54
Speaker 2: woman's boyfriend to remove someone from a property, presumably meaning
21:59
Speaker 2: to take James out. But when this guy was questioned
22:02
Speaker 2: by police and asked if he had had anyone ask
22:05
Speaker 2: him to removed someone, he completely denied ever having any
22:08
Speaker 2: part in anything like that. There's something else that's interesting
22:13
Speaker 2: in this missing person's report because one of the people
22:16
Speaker 2: who police questioned was a guy named Christian. Remember Erica
22:20
Speaker 2: Lloyd wrote in her journal and told people she was
22:22
Speaker 2: camping in Joshua Tree with two men, James and Christian.
22:27
Speaker 2: Heather still wonders if these mystery men could have been
22:30
Speaker 2: James Esclante and his friend Christian, who was questioned by police.
22:35
Speaker 2: Detectives did talk to Christian, but it's just a couple
22:38
Speaker 2: of lines in the report. Police asked Christian if he
22:41
Speaker 2: had ever gone camping with James or Erica Lloyd. He
22:44
Speaker 2: said that he hadn't. There were a few more things
22:48
Speaker 2: found at that intersection other than the bike that could
22:51
Speaker 2: be potential clues. It turned out Doug Billings found more
22:55
Speaker 2: than a red bike out there at the intersection of
22:57
Speaker 2: Danby and a Boy Road, near where the bike was found,
23:01
Speaker 2: in less than a mile from where James lived. Doug
23:03
Speaker 2: found drug paraphernalia in straps that you use to tie
23:07
Speaker 2: off your arms to inject drugs, and a water bottle
23:10
Speaker 2: and a half full bottle of phana, And there was
23:13
Speaker 2: something else out there. There was a box for a
23:15
Speaker 2: digital scale, which a lot of drug dealers use. So
23:18
Speaker 2: I'm wondering what if James went out there to make
23:22
Speaker 2: a deal or saw a deal in progress and something
23:24
Speaker 2: went wrong. There were only thirteen photos taken of James's body.
23:29
Speaker 2: The pocket knife that the deputy found was entered into
23:32
Speaker 2: evidence in the Sheriff's department and booked into the property room,
23:36
Speaker 2: but according to Heather, it was never tested for fingerprints,
23:39
Speaker 2: and the mysterious stains that the deputy noted weren't tested either.
23:44
Speaker 2: James Escalante's case seems to be stalled. Heather wants to
23:49
Speaker 2: make sure that James is not forgotten. Meanwhile, Erica Lloyd's
23:53
Speaker 2: family is trying to do the same thing. David Krow
23:56
Speaker 2: and Tila Campbell were both arrested in charge with stealing
24:00
Speaker 2: Erica's car, which may have indirectly led to her death
24:03
Speaker 2: since they moved it from the spot where she probably wrecked,
24:06
Speaker 2: which meant that rescuers were looking in the wrong place.
24:10
Speaker 2: David made a plea deal, but Tela's case continues. Erica's mother,
24:15
Speaker 2: Ruth Lloyd, continues to post updates about the case. She
24:18
Speaker 2: wrote quote. Her initial bail was a million dollars back
24:21
Speaker 2: in June of twenty twenty one. Since then, she has
24:24
Speaker 2: had over twenty four scheduled court dates. The first several years,
24:28
Speaker 2: we had deputy district attorneys that were very familiar with
24:31
Speaker 2: Eric's case, but as the years slide by, our fears
24:35
Speaker 2: and concerns are that Eric's case will be lost in
24:38
Speaker 2: the mire of just another case out there, a candle
24:41
Speaker 2: in the wind end. Quote. Erica's family are asking people
24:45
Speaker 2: who want to help to write letters to the San
24:48
Speaker 2: Bernardino District Attorney's office. Heather Escalante and her husband John
24:52
Speaker 2: continue in their fight to understand what happened to James
24:56
Speaker 2: during what should have been a fifteen minute bike ride
24:59
Speaker 2: and whine no one reported him missing. Heather is no
25:02
Speaker 2: longer in contact with Sherry or d And and has
25:05
Speaker 2: been unable to speak to Tank or Gary, the other
25:08
Speaker 2: two people involved in the story. There's something else that
25:12
Speaker 2: haunts Heather. What Sherry said about James's ring.
25:16
Speaker 1: So one of the first things she said to my
25:18
Speaker 1: husband after apologizing profusely, was that she told my husband
25:23
Speaker 1: James gave me a ring and told me he wanted
25:26
Speaker 1: me to give it to you. She was like, I'm
25:28
Speaker 1: currently wearing it. I'm gonna wear it until I can
25:31
Speaker 1: give it you in person, and said she had some
25:34
Speaker 1: other personal belongings of James's to give this John and
25:37
Speaker 1: then said, you know, I'm so sorry. I'm the one
25:39
Speaker 1: who sent him out there to help her, which she's
25:42
Speaker 1: changed that as well later in multiple stories she said
25:45
Speaker 1: she didn't send him out there. The thing that struck
25:48
Speaker 1: me with the ring multiple things. One, if she didn't
25:51
Speaker 1: know us and we didn't know her prior to this,
25:53
Speaker 1: why would James give her anything to get to my husband?
25:56
Speaker 1: He had my husband's phone number, he could have easily
25:59
Speaker 1: just been like, Hey, John, I want to send you
26:02
Speaker 1: something fun. What's you know? Give me your address I
26:04
Speaker 1: can mail it to you. Not only that, but he
26:07
Speaker 1: was still in contact with my husband's ex and they
26:10
Speaker 1: had a son together who at that time was living
26:13
Speaker 1: with us, So we obviously had contact with her because
26:16
Speaker 1: of our son, and she was sending things out here
26:19
Speaker 1: pretty regularly for him, and James was aware of that.
26:22
Speaker 1: So if he was going to give it to anybody
26:24
Speaker 1: out there to give to John, I feel like it
26:25
Speaker 1: would have been her. Yeah. Like so nothing about that
26:29
Speaker 1: made sense, right, No, No, So that one automatically struck
26:33
Speaker 1: me as odd, and then the ring thing does get
26:36
Speaker 1: odder later shortly after there, we actually ended up leaving
26:41
Speaker 1: the next day. No one knew we were coming. My
26:43
Speaker 1: husband and I flew out to California and stay for
26:44
Speaker 1: a few days, trying to get some things through the
26:46
Speaker 1: coroner's office so that we could find out if a
26:49
Speaker 1: body that was found out there near that area on
26:52
Speaker 1: August eighth was James's, which it actually turned out it
26:55
Speaker 1: was his. But when we got there, we called her
26:58
Speaker 1: that same day and we're like, hey, we're in town.
27:01
Speaker 1: Can we meet with you so that we can get
27:03
Speaker 1: some things of James's out of histy things like that
27:06
Speaker 1: to meet her? And Tank met us out in the
27:08
Speaker 1: middle of the desert, said that they were having some
27:11
Speaker 1: car trouble and so Tank was going to need to
27:14
Speaker 1: get their vehicle back to their place. Could Marry just
27:17
Speaker 1: ride with us for lovely adventure? And I was like,
27:19
Speaker 1: oh yes, sure, lovely pop on it. And so, because
27:22
Speaker 1: you know, my husband and I are in our little
27:23
Speaker 1: rental car, he ends up at that time giving my
27:28
Speaker 1: husband this ring, and now he's got it in his possession.
27:30
Speaker 1: We still have it to this day now, mind you.
27:32
Speaker 1: In the beginning, I'd asked her like, well, was he
27:33
Speaker 1: wearing any jewelry? Oh no, which was to me weird
27:36
Speaker 1: because Dame's always word gerty. She said he wasn't, and
27:41
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, yes, maybe less than a rush. Sure, okay,
27:44
Speaker 1: Like I said, a few weeks after us to give
27:46
Speaker 1: the ring to my husband, I'm messaging with her because
27:48
Speaker 1: I found that if you asked her the same thing
27:50
Speaker 1: multiple times, multiple different ways, and it kind of space it apart.
27:53
Speaker 1: Her answer changes. So I was like, well, right again.
27:56
Speaker 1: So after her again, like, well, besides his clothes, And
27:59
Speaker 1: Sue was like, what was he wearing jeelry? Did he
28:02
Speaker 1: have anything his pockets? Like I need everything? You can
28:04
Speaker 1: give me this. Once she told me he was wearing jewelry,
28:07
Speaker 1: and we started going through pictures trying to figure out,
28:09
Speaker 1: like what story he was wearing. She tells me, oh,
28:13
Speaker 1: these are the rings he was wearing. I look, and
28:16
Speaker 1: one of the rings he claims he was wearing when
28:17
Speaker 1: he went missing is the one she gave my husband.
28:19
Speaker 2: In September, Heather said that she was floored when Sherry
28:32
Speaker 2: told her that the ring that she had given them
28:34
Speaker 2: was one that James had supposedly been wearing when he
28:37
Speaker 2: left the house on the day he disappeared. If that
28:40
Speaker 2: was true, then Heather wondered, how exactly did Sherry get
28:44
Speaker 2: that ring?
28:45
Speaker 1: So I was like, oh, okay, this is about to
28:49
Speaker 1: not go well. So that's kind of when her and
28:52
Speaker 1: I really started not getting along very well at that point,
28:55
Speaker 1: because I was like, wait a minute, no, so that
29:00
Speaker 1: can't be Yeah, you're going to have to make that
29:03
Speaker 1: make a lot more sense. So when I confronted her
29:05
Speaker 1: on it, he comes back and says, oh, I must
29:08
Speaker 1: have been mistaken about which ring it was that he
29:12
Speaker 1: was wearing. The ring I gave your husband is a
29:15
Speaker 1: ring that James had lost before he went missing, out
29:18
Speaker 1: on our property that we were living at. I found
29:21
Speaker 1: it after he went missing, and I sat in his
29:25
Speaker 1: favorite teir and asked him what shall I do? What
29:30
Speaker 1: shall I do with your ring? And James's spirit told
29:33
Speaker 1: her to give it to my husband. And I was like, uh, huh, okay,
29:40
Speaker 1: So that whole thing, clearly fighty senses were not right,
29:46
Speaker 1: they were opining. So that was all kind of the
29:49
Speaker 1: first stuff that I was like, Oh wait a minute,
29:51
Speaker 1: something's really off here with her story, with things being
29:54
Speaker 1: missing everything, something's really bad off.
29:57
Speaker 2: Heather thought that this was bizarre, and look, I can
30:00
Speaker 2: accept the fact some people may believe that they have
30:03
Speaker 2: some kind of psychic premonitions. Or Sherry may have believed
30:06
Speaker 2: that James was dead simply because he did have a
30:09
Speaker 2: drug habit, and we know that even without drugs that
30:13
Speaker 2: desert can be fatal. But what if something else happened?
30:17
Speaker 2: What if James stumbled on the wrong people out there,
30:20
Speaker 2: What if he overdosed, What if the area where he
30:23
Speaker 2: was found wasn't his last location? But a dump sight. Sherry,
30:28
Speaker 2: according to Heather, was talking about James in the past tense,
30:32
Speaker 2: as if he was definitely dead, when in her mind,
30:35
Speaker 2: he was just a missing person, a missing person who,
30:38
Speaker 2: by the way, had a history of going off alone.
30:40
Speaker 1: The other thing that really struck me in my husband's
30:44
Speaker 1: first conversation with her over the phone was that when
30:46
Speaker 1: they went to hang up that day, she said to
30:48
Speaker 1: him right before they hung up again, this is on
30:51
Speaker 1: September tenth, at the twenty of a missing person. He say,
30:56
Speaker 1: let me know when your father or when his services
30:59
Speaker 1: will be. I'd really like to attend if possible. What
31:03
Speaker 1: services he's a missing person.
31:07
Speaker 2: Heather wondered why, in her opinion, did Sherry seem so
31:11
Speaker 2: sure that James was dead. Does she know more than
31:14
Speaker 2: she's letting on. Heather doesn't want James to become just
31:18
Speaker 2: another cautionary tale of someone lost to the desert, written
31:22
Speaker 2: off because no one cared. Heather, John and the rest
31:26
Speaker 2: of James Escalante's family want justice. I'm Catherine Townsend. This
31:32
Speaker 2: is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line is
31:36
Speaker 2: a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's
31:39
Speaker 2: written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced by
31:42
Speaker 2: Gabby Watts. Special thanks to Amy Tubbs for her research assistance.
31:46
Speaker 2: This episode was sound designed and mixed by Noah Cameron.
31:50
Speaker 2: Our theme song is by Ben Sleek, Executive producers of
31:53
Speaker 2: Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and L. C. Crowley. Listen to
31:57
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Speaker 2: Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts. If you were interested
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Speaker 2: in seeing documents and material from the case, you can
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Speaker 2: follow the show on Instagram at Helen gonpot. If you
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