Latest / Hell and Gone: Murder Line / S1 UPDATE: Contaminated

Transcript

S1 UPDATE: Contaminated · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:08
Speaker 1: School of humans.
0:12
Speaker 2: I didn't tell I'll tell y'all, four guys. So Dennis
0:14
Speaker 2: is apparently a long haul truck driver, now.
0:17
Speaker 1: What Yeah, no, I tell you so, all right.
0:20
Speaker 2: So my brother in law he told me that Dennis
0:23
Speaker 2: is now a long haul truck driver and that he's
0:25
Speaker 2: really happy because he doesn't have to deal with people anymore.
0:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, he shouldn't be dealing with people, right, Well, maybe
0:32
Speaker 1: he was in the wrong job, you think.
0:33
Speaker 2: I mean, no, my, he's like, well, he's just had
0:39
Speaker 2: enough of all this and he just you know, he's
0:42
Speaker 2: he's he don't want to deal with people anymore.
0:43
Speaker 1: And I blame him.
0:44
Speaker 2: I'm like, he was in the wrong fucking job and
0:45
Speaker 2: he should have gotten out of it and not taking
0:46
Speaker 2: taxpayer money for twenty years anyway.
0:50
Speaker 3: Crimes, I'm not dealing with people cold.
0:53
Speaker 2: Cases, like, yeah, no, I mean anyhow, well, so just
0:59
Speaker 2: watch out because he might be you know, who knows,
1:01
Speaker 2: he could be passing the area. I saw Dennis Simons
1:07
Speaker 2: for the first time in a very long time at
1:10
Speaker 2: the pre trial hearing that I attended on October third.
1:14
Speaker 2: Dennis retired a couple years ago. In fact, in the hearing,
1:17
Speaker 2: when they asked Dennis how they should refer to him
1:19
Speaker 2: as a special agent or mister Simons or what he said.
1:24
Speaker 2: It used to be special agent, but now it's just nothing.
1:29
Speaker 2: Dennis was there to testify about his role as the
1:32
Speaker 2: lead investigator on Rebecca's case. He said that he worked
1:36
Speaker 2: the case for almost eighteen years. The stakes in this
1:40
Speaker 2: pre trial hearing were high. Part of the pre trial
1:43
Speaker 2: was Billy Miller's defense lawyers trying to get the case
1:46
Speaker 2: dismissed because of what they alleged was an intentional and
1:49
Speaker 2: reckless delay that they claimed was simply inertia on Dennis
1:53
Speaker 2: Simon's part. While Dennis was talking, he was asked several
1:57
Speaker 2: questions about the fact that he failed to act. Dennis
2:00
Speaker 2: insisted that Rebecca's case was an active investigation the entire time.
2:05
Speaker 2: But I keep thinking back to the very first time
2:08
Speaker 2: I saw Dennis Simons in the flesh. It was at
2:10
Speaker 2: his satellite office in the Stone County Sheriff's office. I
2:14
Speaker 2: remember seeing Rebecca's white case fall on the shelf covered
2:17
Speaker 2: in dust. In this episode, I'm going to do a
2:24
Speaker 2: deep dive into what doctor Larry Gould, Rebecca's father, calls
2:28
Speaker 2: the gray area. I want to go through some discoveries
2:32
Speaker 2: we've made about the police work on the case, and
2:35
Speaker 2: I'm still trying to make sense of the inconsistencies in
2:38
Speaker 2: William's confession, and it seems like every single day now
2:42
Speaker 2: we're hearing about more of them. I'm Catherine Townsend. This
2:46
Speaker 2: is hell and Gone. So a couple of very interesting
3:26
Speaker 2: things came out during the pre trial. First of all,
3:30
Speaker 2: Mike McNeil testified that the Arkansas State Police apparently now
3:34
Speaker 2: does have an official definition of cold cases. Mike said
3:38
Speaker 2: that this change happened very recently, from what I could gather.
3:43
Speaker 2: Instead of labeling every case an open and active investigation,
3:48
Speaker 2: they are working on an official designation of cold cases.
3:52
Speaker 2: I think they could be trying to get away from
3:54
Speaker 2: the limbo that a lot of these cases end up
3:56
Speaker 2: in for years, which is what happened in Rebecca's case,
3:59
Speaker 2: where they're labeled open investigations for years at a time.
4:03
Speaker 2: He didn't offer many more details on that, but I
4:06
Speaker 2: hope they are changing that system. From what I've seen
4:10
Speaker 2: of Mike McNeil, I believe that he has a more
4:13
Speaker 2: modern attitude towards solving cases, one that I believe will
4:16
Speaker 2: be invaluable to the Arkansas State Police. But it's been
4:19
Speaker 2: a good old boys system for a long time, and
4:22
Speaker 2: some things are very slow to change. Something else I
4:26
Speaker 2: found out during the pre trial hearing was what went
4:28
Speaker 2: down after the first season of Hele Gone aired in
4:31
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen. Now I'm mentioning this because that is crucial
4:35
Speaker 2: to our podcast. What happened was, if you'll remember from
4:38
Speaker 2: season one, we took a witness statement from someone who
4:41
Speaker 2: had information that was crucial to the case, and Dennis Simons,
4:45
Speaker 2: for lack of a better word, blew our witness off,
4:48
Speaker 2: even though this witness had information about Rebecca's murder that
4:51
Speaker 2: at that time had not been made public. Now, my
4:55
Speaker 2: dad does not work in law enforcement, but he is
4:57
Speaker 2: a volunteer Stone County Reserved Police Deputy. I got him
5:01
Speaker 2: to go with me to interview the witness. We took
5:03
Speaker 2: a recorded and written statement, and those statements became part
5:07
Speaker 2: of the official record at the case file. I then
5:10
Speaker 2: tried to file a complaint against Dennis Simon's because I
5:13
Speaker 2: believed that his inaction was actively harming the investigation into
5:17
Speaker 2: Rebecca's murder. Then I got that kind of irate call
5:20
Speaker 2: from Mark Collingsworth, who was Dennis's superior at the Arkansas
5:23
Speaker 2: State Police, Ann, who had also worked on Rebecca's case
5:27
Speaker 2: for a few months right before Dennis became lead investigator.
5:31
Speaker 2: Mark had me in for that crazy meeting where basically
5:35
Speaker 2: he told me investigations are grown up stuff and I
5:37
Speaker 2: should mind my own business. Well, after I left there
5:41
Speaker 2: and the podcast came out, we found out that Dennis
5:44
Speaker 2: Simons was basically ordered to reinvestigate the case, and that
5:47
Speaker 2: his reinvestigation consisted of sending other people's police statements back
5:52
Speaker 2: to them and asking them if they were still correct,
5:55
Speaker 2: rather than bringing them in for an in person interview.
5:58
Speaker 2: I said at the time that it seemed like Dennis
6:00
Speaker 2: was just kind of ticking boxes and that he appeared
6:04
Speaker 2: to be very obos pissed off at us. Well in
6:08
Speaker 2: the courtroom during the pre trial hearing, we found out
6:11
Speaker 2: that that's pretty much exactly what happened. Dennis testified that
6:15
Speaker 2: in twenty eighteen, he attended a case management meeting in
6:19
Speaker 2: Little Rock requested by Major Mark Collingsworth, his boss. Dennis
6:23
Speaker 2: said that he could not recall the last time that
6:26
Speaker 2: a meeting like that had ever happened, and it was
6:29
Speaker 2: really funny because when Dennis was asked what happened in
6:32
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen that had prompted that meeting.
6:34
Speaker 1: He looked like he was starting to get kind of nervous.
6:37
Speaker 2: Dennis testified that Rebecca's case was always an open and
6:41
Speaker 2: active case file, yet he couldn't seem to remember key
6:44
Speaker 2: names or dates. On the stand, he said that he
6:47
Speaker 2: tried to read the case file at least once a year,
6:51
Speaker 2: and he called the national attention that the case got
6:54
Speaker 2: during the last two years of his career, media attention
6:57
Speaker 2: by the way that was generated by the Hele Gone podcast,
7:00
Speaker 2: extremely disruptive to his career. In my opinion, he started
7:05
Speaker 2: to look really flustered, and that to me was very satisfying,
7:09
Speaker 2: because he should look flustered. He should be embarrassed about
7:12
Speaker 2: the fact that he doesn't know the key dates about
7:15
Speaker 2: a case that he was the lead investigator on for
7:17
Speaker 2: almost twenty years. We also discovered that the police knew
7:22
Speaker 2: about William Miller back in two thousand and four. We
7:25
Speaker 2: know that Billy's name came up very early in the
7:27
Speaker 2: investigation as someone who had been by Casey's trailer, but
7:31
Speaker 2: the ASP investigators didn't see red flags with him, so
7:34
Speaker 2: instead of traveling to Texas to question him. They made
7:38
Speaker 2: the decision to ask law enforcement in Texas to question Billy.
7:42
Speaker 1: When the Texas.
7:43
Speaker 2: Police questioned him, they mainly asked him questions about Casey.
7:47
Speaker 2: The police also questioned his mom, Linda, and his brother Jeremy.
7:51
Speaker 2: All of them denied knowing anything about Rebecca's murder. And
7:55
Speaker 2: after that, it appears that the whole thing was just dropped.
8:00
Speaker 2: After twenty eighteen, Dennis was taken off the case. I
8:03
Speaker 2: believe that that happened as a dire direct result of
8:06
Speaker 2: our podcast and of other people who were coming forward
8:09
Speaker 2: and other media stuff that was happening. After that, Mike
8:13
Speaker 2: McNeil took over the case. Mike said in the hearing
8:16
Speaker 2: that when he was assigned to Rebecca's case, he believed
8:19
Speaker 2: that it was Casey, or someone in Casey's family, or
8:22
Speaker 2: multiple people. He said that he was assigned Rebecca Gould's
8:25
Speaker 2: case officially in January of twenty twenty, if you remember,
8:29
Speaker 2: it was I believe late January or early February twenty
8:32
Speaker 2: twenty when Mike reached out to me and asked for
8:34
Speaker 2: all of the recordings that we had, and we shared
8:37
Speaker 2: that information with him, including things that were not ever aired.
8:42
Speaker 2: Mike got up on the stand, and I thought he
8:45
Speaker 2: was spectacular. You could tell that Mike was taking everything
8:48
Speaker 2: very seriously. It's pretty incredible when you think Mike only
8:52
Speaker 2: had the case for about eight months, Dennis Simons had
8:55
Speaker 2: it for almost sixteen years, and Mike was able to
8:58
Speaker 2: make an arrest. I am really proud of that. I
9:01
Speaker 2: think he did excellent work, and I'm also very proud
9:04
Speaker 2: that this podcast played a role in that. I've sent
9:11
Speaker 2: Billy Miller a letter, but so far I haven't heard
9:14
Speaker 2: back from him. I do know that he's been moved
9:16
Speaker 2: from Washitah to the East Arkansas Regional Unit also known
9:19
Speaker 2: as Brickey's. It's in Lee County, near Forest City, but
9:24
Speaker 2: it's only been a couple of weeks, and I know
9:26
Speaker 2: that in the past some of the letters I've sent
9:28
Speaker 2: were apparently loost in transit. So I'm going to keep trying.
9:32
Speaker 2: If he does communicate with me, I will respond. If
9:35
Speaker 2: he puts me on his visitors list, I'll head over
9:37
Speaker 2: there in person.
9:38
Speaker 1: To talk to him.
9:40
Speaker 2: In the meantime, I'm trying to address this gray area
9:43
Speaker 2: that Rebecca's daed doctor Larry Gould brought up when I
9:46
Speaker 2: saw him a few weeks ago.
9:48
Speaker 4: Definitely did it. But the gray area was not answered,
9:53
Speaker 4: and the gray area is was there somebody else?
9:56
Speaker 5: There?
9:58
Speaker 4: Is there somebody else help help with this. There's still questions,
10:03
Speaker 4: and hopefully there's you know, a way to get those answers.
10:09
Speaker 4: Because that gray area that I said, that, that gray
10:13
Speaker 4: haunts me. I'm hoping that there's a way to find
10:18
Speaker 4: a piece together that gray area.
10:26
Speaker 2: They're always gray areas and murder cases, no matter how
10:30
Speaker 2: many questions are answered, we will never know the whole
10:33
Speaker 2: truth about what happened. People keep telling me, well, sometimes
10:37
Speaker 2: you just have to accept the gray area. I already
10:40
Speaker 2: know that everybody lies in a murder investigation. Sometimes the
10:43
Speaker 2: lies are white lies, like the fact that somebody was
10:46
Speaker 2: actually standing outside rather than inside in their kitchen, but
10:49
Speaker 2: they don't want to tell the police that they were
10:51
Speaker 2: eavesdropping and being nosy. Then they're the more serious lies,
10:56
Speaker 2: lies about whether someone was sexually assaulted or not, Lies
11:00
Speaker 2: about what actually happened to the victim or whether someone
11:03
Speaker 2: else could have been involved. I really want to be
11:06
Speaker 2: able to mentally file Rebecca's case into a cold case, file,
11:09
Speaker 2: stamp solved on it, and move on move on to
11:12
Speaker 2: other families and other people who want and need my help.
11:17
Speaker 2: But a lot of the things about the confession don't
11:20
Speaker 2: make sense, like the fact that Billy first said he
11:26
Speaker 2: strangled Rebecca, then later told Larry that he didn't. He
11:30
Speaker 2: first said that the crime scene was in the bedroom,
11:33
Speaker 2: but later when the affidavit for arrest was written, it
11:35
Speaker 2: reads simply that he caused her death.
11:38
Speaker 1: All that detail was omitted.
11:40
Speaker 2: Billy is claiming he was in the area to help
11:42
Speaker 2: his family move back to Texas that weekend, but Jennifer
11:45
Speaker 2: Buckolts and others have pointed out over the years that
11:48
Speaker 2: Billy's brother Jeremy was unenrolled from school pretty suddenly. The
11:52
Speaker 2: family did not even bother to book their U hauls
11:54
Speaker 2: in advance, So was that move really pre planned or
11:58
Speaker 2: did they need to leave town quickly for other reasons.
12:03
Speaker 2: Billy did talk to one person after his arrest. She
12:06
Speaker 2: wrote an article and printed an excerpt from their interview
12:09
Speaker 2: in an online real estate magazine called next Door. That
12:13
Speaker 2: interview was apparently set up by one of Rebecca's older sisters.
12:17
Speaker 2: In the article, Billy told the reporter that his mother, Linda,
12:21
Speaker 2: was reunited with Casey's grandfather, Claude McCullough Senior, who was
12:25
Speaker 2: also her biological father when she was young. Billy was
12:30
Speaker 2: very close to his mother growing up, but his father
12:32
Speaker 2: was working far away from home, so as Billy grew up,
12:36
Speaker 2: he apparently was fascinated by Claude McCullough and was very
12:39
Speaker 2: close to Claude and his grandmother. Billy had told law
12:42
Speaker 2: enforcement that he went back to Casey's trailer twice on Sunday,
12:46
Speaker 2: but in the article there's even more detail. This time,
12:50
Speaker 2: he seems to say he went back to the trailer
12:51
Speaker 2: three times, once when Casey was there. That's the time
12:54
Speaker 2: when he saw Rebecca come out the door. Then Billy
12:57
Speaker 2: said he went back again but no one was home.
13:00
Speaker 2: And then he said he went back later that night
13:02
Speaker 2: to ask Casey if he could help load furniture. Hasey
13:05
Speaker 2: said he was busy. Billy said before that he parked
13:09
Speaker 2: his truck out in the woods to hide it, but
13:11
Speaker 2: in this interview he says he parked it behind the house. Now,
13:15
Speaker 2: this is the area where the back porches, cars and
13:17
Speaker 2: trucks could pull up there, so if Billy's truck was there,
13:22
Speaker 2: Rebecca could have seen the vehicle, so who was he
13:25
Speaker 2: hiding the vehicle from, from Rebecca or from people on
13:28
Speaker 2: the street. In the article, the writer explained that Billy
13:33
Speaker 2: seemed to be hiding things about family members, people who
13:36
Speaker 2: may have known about the murder. It reads quote a
13:39
Speaker 2: direct question such as when did your mother know?
13:41
Speaker 1: As deflected.
13:42
Speaker 2: When William asked to speak to his brother and mother,
13:45
Speaker 2: according to the article, Jeremy, his brother, was shocked, but Linda,
13:49
Speaker 2: his mother, had no reaction. In the article, it states
13:52
Speaker 2: that this is because he claimed that she was diabetic
13:55
Speaker 2: and was in a trance end quote. According to the article,
13:59
Speaker 2: when police contacted Linda Billy's mom in Oregon back in
14:02
Speaker 2: twenty twenty and asked if he was there, she said
14:06
Speaker 2: that Billy was out of the country, even though he
14:08
Speaker 2: was already in Oregon. Later, according to media reports, she
14:12
Speaker 2: claimed that this was because she wasn't sure if this
14:14
Speaker 2: was a legitimate officer. I find that very hard to believe,
14:20
Speaker 2: especially since after that phone call from the police, she
14:23
Speaker 2: then reportedly contacted Billy and told him that the situation
14:27
Speaker 2: needed to be dealt with. If she thought the officer
14:30
Speaker 2: wasn't legit, why bother to reach out? And then there
14:34
Speaker 2: are the cleaning supplies, the ones that were shown in
14:36
Speaker 2: the crime scene photos. According to this article, Linda bought
14:40
Speaker 2: those cleaning supplies at the request of Casey's father, which
14:43
Speaker 2: apparently was part of their usual routine. This seems incredibly
14:48
Speaker 2: odd to me. Why would Linda be buying all new
14:51
Speaker 2: cleaning products for the trailer? And again, if she bought
14:54
Speaker 2: them and took them inside, didn't she notice that there
14:57
Speaker 2: was blood everywhere? When I was in court for the
15:00
Speaker 2: pre trial hearing, Mike McNeil testified that Billy had communication
15:05
Speaker 2: with Casey and his mother, Linda, and others about the
15:08
Speaker 2: case and his arrest.
15:10
Speaker 1: He didn't go.
15:11
Speaker 2: Into more detail, unfortunately, But why would Billy specifically feel
15:15
Speaker 2: the need to reach out to those people in that moment?
15:18
Speaker 2: But if Billy didn't act alone, why would he insist
15:21
Speaker 2: that he did. Billy has been caught in several inconsistent
15:25
Speaker 2: statements so far that we know of, so why would
15:28
Speaker 2: law enforcement accept his confession even if it's not consistent
15:31
Speaker 2: with the crime scene photos. To get answers, I did
15:34
Speaker 2: some research into false confessions. It turns out that false
15:38
Speaker 2: confessions happen all the time for all kinds of reasons.
15:41
Speaker 3: People always say, well, why would somebody ever confess to
15:44
Speaker 3: a crime that they didn't do? And my comeback is, well,
15:49
Speaker 3: why would you confess to a crime that you did to?
15:51
Speaker 3: I mean, doing both is pretty stupid.
15:55
Speaker 2: This is Jim Traneum. He's a retired detective from the Washington,
15:58
Speaker 2: D C. Metropolitan Police Department, where he spent twenty seven
16:02
Speaker 2: years as a homicide detective, and now he's a consult
16:05
Speaker 2: in the police practices, especially in the area of interrogation
16:08
Speaker 2: and false confessions. I wanted to talk to him about
16:11
Speaker 2: false confessions, how they happen, and what we can do
16:14
Speaker 2: to prevent them.
16:16
Speaker 3: The interrogation practices that we've been using for well over
16:20
Speaker 3: forty years in this country have been very well established,
16:23
Speaker 3: have been accepted by the courts. But just because they're
16:26
Speaker 3: accepted by the courts doesn't mean that they're not problematic.
16:29
Speaker 3: But they're designed to convince you that your best path
16:35
Speaker 3: is to tell the detective what they want to hear.
16:39
Speaker 3: And we do that pretty much by convincing you that
16:44
Speaker 3: your conviction is going to be inevitable, that the judges
16:47
Speaker 3: are going to look at you very badly. People, they're
16:50
Speaker 3: not going to think very highly of you. You know,
16:52
Speaker 3: jurors are going to really look down. But if you confess,
16:55
Speaker 3: then you know, people will understand, people will be more sympathetic,
17:00
Speaker 3: and there's all other kind of benefits that are kind
17:04
Speaker 3: of insinuated in this process that makes the person believe
17:08
Speaker 3: that their best like I said, their best option is
17:10
Speaker 3: to tell the detective what they want to hear.
17:13
Speaker 2: Now.
17:13
Speaker 3: The thing about this process is that it's very very effective.
17:18
Speaker 3: It does get a lot of good confessions. The problem
17:22
Speaker 3: is is that it can also create the same mindset
17:26
Speaker 3: inside of an innocent person who believes that, oh my god,
17:29
Speaker 3: they're telling me that they have my fingerprints, where they
17:32
Speaker 3: have a bunch of witnesses who saw me do this,
17:36
Speaker 3: and that everybody's going to believe the witnesses and not me,
17:39
Speaker 3: and my only out is to tell the detective, you know,
17:43
Speaker 3: what they want to hear. Now, I've got to figure
17:45
Speaker 3: out what that is. And so that's where contamination comes in.
17:51
Speaker 3: As officers, we understand how contamination of physical evidence occurs
17:58
Speaker 3: very well, and we take a lot of steps to
18:00
Speaker 3: guard against that. However, when it comes to getting statement evidence,
18:04
Speaker 3: not only from suspect but also for witnesses, we have
18:07
Speaker 3: a very poor understanding of how to interview them in
18:11
Speaker 3: such a way that that we can show that the
18:13
Speaker 3: information is coming from them, it is not unintentionally being
18:17
Speaker 3: fit to them by us. You have to be able
18:20
Speaker 3: to show that that information came from the suspect and
18:25
Speaker 3: not from the detective or another source or the podcast. Right,
18:31
Speaker 3: I didn't that's what I'm interview.
18:32
Speaker 2: But you know, I'm sure I did some of that myself,
18:35
Speaker 2: and I'm trying to now figure out how to best
18:38
Speaker 2: handle that.
18:39
Speaker 3: Well, the thing about it is, especially in cases like this,
18:43
Speaker 3: the likelihood of the person having new information, and this
18:48
Speaker 3: is a goal standard. Does a person have new information
18:52
Speaker 3: that the detectives did not know prior to the interrogation
18:58
Speaker 3: that they could then go out and collaborate, such as
19:03
Speaker 3: the location of the murder weapon, things along that line. Now,
19:08
Speaker 3: physical cooboration is always the best. However, you could also
19:13
Speaker 3: sometimes coroborate it through witnesses. But the problem is, of
19:16
Speaker 3: course that they go back that might contaminate what they
19:19
Speaker 3: might say, Yeah, well just got confessed and this is
19:21
Speaker 3: what he said is just true? Oh yeah, that's true.
19:24
Speaker 3: You know, you see that happen a lot. You know,
19:27
Speaker 3: you could have a guilty suspect who gives a confession
19:32
Speaker 3: that matches all of such, but the contamination is so
19:35
Speaker 3: bad that you can't prove that it came from them,
19:39
Speaker 3: and it made the confession worseless.
19:42
Speaker 2: This stands out to me because Billy's confession about what
19:46
Speaker 2: actually happened to Rebecca had no details in it that
19:50
Speaker 2: could not have been found online. As I mentioned, we
19:53
Speaker 2: know that he was reading stuff on the unsolved Murder
19:55
Speaker 2: of Rebecca Gould community. We also know that he was
19:58
Speaker 2: reading books about the case, and he was listening to
20:00
Speaker 2: my podcast and other podcasts. Billy did have one new
20:05
Speaker 2: detail that police didn't have for years. We had been
20:09
Speaker 2: hearing that Rebecca had a black rolling suitcase and that
20:12
Speaker 2: it had been missing from the crime scene. Billy told
20:15
Speaker 2: investigators the location of that suitcase and then was able
20:19
Speaker 2: to lead them to the exact spot in Izard County
20:22
Speaker 2: where the suitcase was. So this does point to Billy
20:26
Speaker 2: being involved in Rebecca's murder, but other parts of Billy's
20:30
Speaker 2: confession don't make sense, especially when he talks about what
20:34
Speaker 2: actually happened to Rebecca inside that trailer. There were several
20:38
Speaker 2: inconsistencies in that confession, like the fact that Billy's timing
20:41
Speaker 2: was wrong. As Jennifer Buckletz pointed out, the law enforcement
20:45
Speaker 2: timeline has Rebecca driving Casey to work, then stopping at
20:48
Speaker 2: the Possum Trot to buy that breakfast sandwich, then driving
20:51
Speaker 2: the fifteen minutes back to Casey's trailer. Casey clocked in
20:55
Speaker 2: at eight twelve on Monday morning, so that would put
20:57
Speaker 2: Rebecca back at his place at around eight thirty. William
21:01
Speaker 2: claims he was there at eight am. So if police
21:04
Speaker 2: believed that Billy may have left details out of his confession,
21:08
Speaker 2: or if they knew that there were details that didn't
21:10
Speaker 2: make sense or fit the physical evidence, why would they
21:13
Speaker 2: accept the confession. We're dealing with a man who we
21:16
Speaker 2: know has been lined everyone for eighteen years, and who
21:20
Speaker 2: has already told at least two different stories about what
21:23
Speaker 2: really happened to Rebecca Gould. So Billy did provide law
21:27
Speaker 2: enforcement with details about the crime scene cleanup that weren't
21:30
Speaker 2: known before, but he didn't add any new details about
21:33
Speaker 2: Rebecca's murder that the police didn't already have. That, plus
21:37
Speaker 2: the fact that his confession doesn't match the physical evidence,
21:40
Speaker 2: that raises real doubts to me that Billy's confession has
21:44
Speaker 2: been contaminated in some way. One big question in our
21:51
Speaker 2: gray area is what's the exact relationship between Billy Miller
21:56
Speaker 2: and Casey McCullough.
21:57
Speaker 1: We know that they're first cousins.
22:00
Speaker 2: To get some more insight on Billy's family tree, I
22:04
Speaker 2: talked to Miranda Ward. She's an next girlfriend of Casey's.
22:07
Speaker 2: They started dating in twenty ten and went out for
22:10
Speaker 2: about a year and a half. The first time that
22:12
Speaker 2: I met Miranda was actually at Crime Con in Austin
22:15
Speaker 2: a few years back. She came to my talk where
22:17
Speaker 2: I mentioned Rebecca's case and she was sitting with George
22:20
Speaker 2: Jared and Jennifer Buckoltz. We all ended up going out
22:23
Speaker 2: to dinner and drinks, she told me at the time,
22:26
Speaker 2: and she still says she can't stop thinking about the
22:28
Speaker 2: fact that she was dating someone and completely trusted someone
22:32
Speaker 2: who she later suspected could have been involved in a
22:35
Speaker 2: brutal murder.
22:40
Speaker 1: What was Casey like? What was he like as a boyfriend?
22:45
Speaker 5: A was very very sweet and doting. You know, he
22:51
Speaker 5: paid attention, but you know, we only dated for like
22:54
Speaker 5: a year and a half, maybe maybe almost two. Her
22:57
Speaker 5: breakup was it was it's kind of weird. But I worked,
23:04
Speaker 5: you know, waiting tables at Applebee's and we were open
23:07
Speaker 5: until two in the morning, so that smoking area kind
23:09
Speaker 5: of turned into a little, you know, party spot, and
23:12
Speaker 5: you know, we closed down and he would hang out
23:15
Speaker 5: and you know it help helped me out at work
23:20
Speaker 5: or you know, just be there. Yeah. He was romantic,
23:23
Speaker 5: I guess the word is. And we were both you know,
23:26
Speaker 5: artsy people.
23:28
Speaker 2: And we got along really well.
23:30
Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, it's been an emotional roller coaster.
23:36
Speaker 2: Miranda has been active in Jennifer Bucklets and George Jared's
23:38
Speaker 2: Facebook group. She's actually the one that told them Billy
23:42
Speaker 2: Miller was Casey's cousin when he first joined the group.
23:45
Speaker 1: How did you figure out that William?
23:47
Speaker 2: I mean, did you know William's name already or how
23:49
Speaker 2: did you figure out he was Casey's cousin?
23:52
Speaker 5: Right? So Casey had told me he had cousins in Texas,
23:57
Speaker 5: in South Texas, right, because he told me he's from
23:59
Speaker 5: Baytown and he liked it there. It sounds like he
24:02
Speaker 5: really enjoyed it, yet he really liked his grandparents and yeah,
24:07
Speaker 5: so the obituary is where I started. You know, that
24:10
Speaker 5: was gold the twenty eighteen when Claude mcculloy passed away.
24:14
Speaker 5: So without the obituary, we wouldn't have been able to
24:17
Speaker 5: find Linda, right, Yeah, So I just started finding any
24:21
Speaker 5: obituaries I could, and then I would start at Casey's
24:25
Speaker 5: Facebook and go from there and just start matching. And
24:29
Speaker 5: then I finally found Linda. And I was looking for William,
24:34
Speaker 5: but I kept seeing Billy and neither. He didn't have
24:39
Speaker 5: his profile picture of him. He just had a cartoon character.
24:43
Speaker 5: I think it was a Martian man hit Ale of
24:45
Speaker 5: Goals and you know, weird kind of art stuff. Not
24:49
Speaker 5: a lot of I I want to say, there was
24:51
Speaker 5: maybe two or three actual pictures of himself. He had
24:55
Speaker 5: a couple. He has a couple, you know, one of
24:58
Speaker 5: them got shut down, which was his most active. But
25:01
Speaker 5: he had a couple of profiles and then you know,
25:04
Speaker 5: obviously it's interesting because he's in the Philippines and stuff.
25:07
Speaker 5: And then he gets on the Facebook page and Jennifer's like,
25:14
Speaker 5: you said, this name, who is this? Said it's a cousin.
25:17
Speaker 5: She said no. I said yes, And I have to
25:20
Speaker 5: like paint it out for her a couple of times
25:23
Speaker 5: and she's said, yeah, that makes sense, that makes sense
25:25
Speaker 5: no way, but you know, she's it's hard to believe.
25:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, so will you grow up together knowing each other?
25:34
Speaker 5: Yes, they knew of each other. You know, they were
25:36
Speaker 5: bury that's their William's grandparents. Also, they lived a couple
25:41
Speaker 5: of hours from each other on the close to Texas
25:45
Speaker 5: before Casey moved. And I want to say he was
25:49
Speaker 5: like seven eight when he moved, right, so, and then
25:55
Speaker 5: you know they would travel to hang out with him.
25:57
Speaker 4: I'm sure.
26:01
Speaker 5: You know if they were close in their teenage years.
26:03
Speaker 5: I don't know, but I have no doubts that they
26:05
Speaker 5: were tearing up that land on or something. You know, Yeah,
26:12
Speaker 5: you know, because not only is that their uncle and cousins,
26:15
Speaker 5: it's also grandparents.
26:17
Speaker 2: So appreciate you speaking to talking to me because I'm
26:20
Speaker 2: I'll pray I have more questions at some point. But
26:23
Speaker 2: it would make me feel a lot better if I
26:24
Speaker 2: believe that William did I have alone, because then I'd
26:26
Speaker 2: be like, Okay, it's done, it's over good.
26:28
Speaker 1: Because I don't care you know who did it.
26:31
Speaker 2: I just I just feel like this confession is just
26:34
Speaker 2: bullshit parts of it or bullshit, and I can't shake
26:36
Speaker 2: that feeling. And then yeah, I see the more it
26:39
Speaker 2: looks like it is. And you know, I'm just trying
26:41
Speaker 2: to figure out a way to get all.
26:43
Speaker 1: The answers to the best of my bility.
26:44
Speaker 5: Yeah. Absolutely, I couldn't shake it either. And I've never
26:49
Speaker 5: believed that who they, however this happened, anybody was alone.
26:54
Speaker 5: I don't believe anybody was alone. I originally believed that
26:58
Speaker 5: his family knew his immediate family, and enough there anyone
27:03
Speaker 5: involved in his family. They have figured out way to
27:07
Speaker 5: make it all work. I think that if they weren't
27:10
Speaker 5: warned that he would have been I don't think that
27:13
Speaker 5: he could have done any of this by himself.
27:15
Speaker 2: What I can't get is that that the physical evidence
27:17
Speaker 2: just doesn't match William's confession at all.
27:19
Speaker 1: And I can't figure out why they or not.
27:20
Speaker 2: I mean, I kind of know why they or not
27:21
Speaker 2: doing anything, but it's just crazy.
27:25
Speaker 5: The physical evidence is harder for me to understand. And
27:28
Speaker 5: I think that William got ahead of hisself, and like,
27:35
Speaker 5: I don't know, there's a family that I can compare
27:37
Speaker 5: them to in my mind, and it has not failed
27:39
Speaker 5: me so far. They're just very you know, as long
27:44
Speaker 5: as we've banded together, everything's.
27:46
Speaker 2: Going to be Okay, Yeah, that's true.
27:49
Speaker 5: Yeah, And you know, I could see him just getting
27:52
Speaker 5: into some shady stuff just because they think they can
27:54
Speaker 5: get away with it. And I wonder, I still wonder
27:59
Speaker 5: if William went and got his mom and got her involved,
28:04
Speaker 5: or she was already there and off. I can't wait
28:08
Speaker 5: to get the case filed.
28:11
Speaker 2: And that's the next big hurdle, and that's what we're
28:14
Speaker 2: you know, I know you followed a Foyer request, I
28:17
Speaker 2: did two, and you know, and Larry is supposedly talking
28:21
Speaker 2: to the prosecutors this week and we'll see what happens there.
28:27
Speaker 2: Rebecca's father, doctor Larry Gould, has a meeting set with
28:30
Speaker 2: the prosecutor Eric Cant on November thirtieth. As part of
28:34
Speaker 2: Billy Miller's plea agreement. Larry was asked if he had
28:38
Speaker 2: any requests. One of the conditions that Larry set was
28:42
Speaker 2: that Rebecca's case file be returned to him within a
28:45
Speaker 2: ten to thirty day period, and Eric Cant agreed to
28:48
Speaker 2: these terms. Larry's plan was to get the case file,
28:53
Speaker 2: thoroughly review it, and then at that meeting on November thirtieth,
28:57
Speaker 2: to ask Eric Cant some questions about inconsistencies but a
29:02
Speaker 2: few days before the scheduled meeting, right before Thanksgiving, Larry
29:07
Speaker 2: let me know that he does not yet have the
29:09
Speaker 2: case file. Apparently, the Prosecutor's office texted Larry. They said
29:13
Speaker 2: that they had not even gotten the case file back
29:16
Speaker 2: from the Arkansas State Police yet. They said that they're
29:18
Speaker 2: waiting for it and there's pretty much nothing they can
29:20
Speaker 2: do until they get it. I find myself getting very
29:25
Speaker 2: frustrated on Larry's behalf, especially when I see a message
29:28
Speaker 2: from Eric Hanson's assistant saying that he'll be out of
29:31
Speaker 2: the office all week and won't be checking or responding
29:34
Speaker 2: to emails. The tone in Larry's letters, while it has
29:39
Speaker 2: always been unfailingly polite and very kind, is also getting
29:43
Speaker 2: more frustrated. And I can absolutely understand why. This is
29:47
Speaker 2: a grieving father who has already waited twenty years to
29:50
Speaker 2: see justice done in his daughter's case. They promised him
29:54
Speaker 2: the case file within a certain timeframe, and now they
29:57
Speaker 2: appeared to be going back on that promise. Now they
30:01
Speaker 2: have said that the Arkansas State Police need to make
30:04
Speaker 2: redactions to the case case file, which presumably would involve
30:08
Speaker 2: blacking out certain information. My question is, in the age
30:12
Speaker 2: of redaction software. How long is this process supposed to take?
30:17
Speaker 2: Surely ten to thirty days should be an ample time frame.
30:22
Speaker 2: After eighteen years in a highly publicized case, I can
30:26
Speaker 2: understand why the ASP would want to make an arrest,
30:29
Speaker 2: take that confession, and close the case. And again, I
30:32
Speaker 2: believe Special Agent Mike McNeil did some great police work here,
30:37
Speaker 2: but I don't think it's over. As for my own
30:41
Speaker 2: personal gray area, I can accept that I may never
30:45
Speaker 2: know what Billy's true motives were, or if he meant
30:48
Speaker 2: to sexually assault Rebecca, or exactly what she said to him.
30:52
Speaker 1: But I can't.
30:52
Speaker 2: Accept the thought that there may have been other people
30:54
Speaker 2: involved in Rebecca's murder, or people who covered it up
30:58
Speaker 2: or even knew about it and did nothing, people who
31:02
Speaker 2: so far have escaped Justiceine Hounsend. This is Helen Gone.
31:11
Speaker 2: Helen Gone is a production of School of Humans and iHeartMedia.
31:15
Speaker 2: Our producer is Gabby Watts. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott,
31:19
Speaker 2: Brandon Barr and Els Crowley. Music is by Ben Sale
31:23
Speaker 2: Special thanks to season one producers Taylor Church and James Morrison.
31:37
Speaker 1: School of Humans. School of Humans