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Hell and Gone Murder Line: Brittany Phillips Part 2 · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:46
Speaker 1: School of Humans. Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold
0:52
Speaker 1: case murders in an effort to raise public awareness invite
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Speaker 1: witnesses to come forward and present evidence that could potentially
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1:03
Speaker 1: from family and community members, their statements should not be
1:06
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1:10
Speaker 1: inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone has
1:14
Speaker 1: presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
1:17
Speaker 1: Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply
1:21
Speaker 1: that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime
1:24
Speaker 1: is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening.
1:29
Speaker 2: On Monday, September twenty seventh, two thousand and four, eighteen
1:33
Speaker 2: year old Britney Phillips, a student at Tulsa Community College,
1:37
Speaker 2: went to her evening chemistry class with her friend Lydia.
1:41
Speaker 2: As we said last week, and Britney car pulled together.
1:45
Speaker 2: Lydia was driving, and it was just an ordinary night.
1:49
Speaker 2: They were happily chatting about Britney's nineteenth birthday, which was
1:52
Speaker 2: coming up in a few days, and their plans to
1:55
Speaker 2: hang out that weekend.
1:57
Speaker 3: After the test was over.
1:59
Speaker 2: They got out of class a little bit early and
2:01
Speaker 2: rode together back to Lydia's apartment. They arrived there at
2:05
Speaker 2: around eight pm, and Britney got into her car and
2:08
Speaker 2: said goodbye. She lived a short car ride away in
2:13
Speaker 2: an apartment complex near sixty fifth Street and Mingo Road.
2:17
Speaker 2: That was the last time that Lydia ever saw her
2:20
Speaker 2: friend alive. After Britney didn't show up for the next class,
2:25
Speaker 2: Lydia went into Britney's apartment and found the door unlocked,
2:29
Speaker 2: but after poking her head in, she told us that
2:32
Speaker 2: she heard Britney's cap me outing, got a creepy feeling
2:35
Speaker 2: and backed out. Then Lydia called her dad. After that,
2:40
Speaker 2: she called the authorities and asked for a welfare check
2:43
Speaker 2: on her friend. Investigators got there shortly after ten pm
2:48
Speaker 2: on September thirtieth, and they found Britney's body. Clothing was
2:53
Speaker 2: found scattered all around her in a haphazard way, and
2:57
Speaker 2: the balcony doors to her second floor apartment were open.
3:01
Speaker 2: Britney was found lying next to her bed, and investigators
3:05
Speaker 2: believed she had been dead for at least a couple
3:07
Speaker 2: of days. News reports said that Britney had been raped
3:12
Speaker 2: and strangled, but last week we saw the medical examiner's report,
3:16
Speaker 2: and in that report there was no definitive evidence of
3:20
Speaker 2: sexual assault. What happened to Britney Phillips after she went
3:24
Speaker 2: up to her dark apartment that night? Was she actually
3:27
Speaker 2: sexually assaulted? What's the status of the DNA that was
3:31
Speaker 2: found under her fingernails? And could her killer already be
3:35
Speaker 2: behind bars or still be out somewhere possibly looking for
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Speaker 2: more victims. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past seven years
3:47
Speaker 2: of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've learned
3:51
Speaker 2: that there's no such thing as a small town where
3:54
Speaker 2: murdered never happens. I have received hundreds of messages from
3:58
Speaker 2: people all around the country asking for help with an
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Speaker 2: unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities.
4:05
Speaker 2: If you have a case you'd like me and my
4:07
Speaker 2: team to look into, you can reach out to us
4:10
Speaker 2: at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight
4:13
Speaker 2: seven four four six one four or five. That's six
4:16
Speaker 2: seven eight seven four four six one four five, or
4:20
Speaker 2: you can send us a message on Instagram.
4:22
Speaker 3: At Helen gonepod.
4:25
Speaker 2: This is Helen Gone Murder Line. When we talked to
5:10
Speaker 2: Lydia last week, she told us that Brittany had recently
5:14
Speaker 2: started seeing someone. There were rumors that Brittany may have
5:18
Speaker 2: had a crush on someone in her building. Britney's mother,
5:21
Speaker 2: Maggie Ingman, said she didn't believe that was true, and
5:24
Speaker 2: Lydia clarified Britney's new boyfriend did not live in her building.
5:29
Speaker 2: Lydia told us that after she called for the welfare check,
5:32
Speaker 2: she called the restaurant where Britney's boyfriend worked. He came
5:36
Speaker 2: to meet her at Britney's apartment during the time when
5:38
Speaker 2: authorities were doing the welfare check. As paramedics and investigators
5:42
Speaker 2: entered Britney's apartment, we would love to talk to Britney's boyfriend.
5:47
Speaker 2: Lydia remembers talking to him, but unfortunately does not remember
5:51
Speaker 2: his name. She also doesn't remember where he worked, just
5:55
Speaker 2: that it was a coffee shop or restaurant that began
5:57
Speaker 2: with the letter B and had at least two locations
6:01
Speaker 2: in Tulsa at that time. She remembered him being very
6:05
Speaker 2: concerned during the welfare check and cooperative with police. I
6:09
Speaker 2: want to be very clear, we do not suspect that
6:12
Speaker 2: Britney's boyfriend had anything to do with Britney's murder. But
6:16
Speaker 2: because there's a lot we don't know about Britney's last
6:18
Speaker 2: few weeks, he might have important information, maybe information he.
6:24
Speaker 3: Doesn't even know he has.
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Speaker 2: So if you are out there, please reach out, or
6:28
Speaker 2: if you know this person, please send him our way.
6:32
Speaker 2: The next thing I wanted to try and shed some
6:34
Speaker 2: light on if we can, is the timeline. Police believe
6:38
Speaker 2: that when they found her body, Brittany had been dead
6:41
Speaker 2: for at least a couple of days. They believe she
6:44
Speaker 2: was killed sometime between the night of the twenty seventh,
6:47
Speaker 2: after she got home from her chemistry class in the
6:49
Speaker 2: morning of the twenty eighth. Other evidence also points to that.
6:54
Speaker 2: Last week we talked about the medical examiner's report. It
6:57
Speaker 2: stated lividity was fixed and blanched, which normally occurs around
7:02
Speaker 2: eight to twelve hours after death, and rigor mortis was absent,
7:06
Speaker 2: which normally only happened starting around twenty four hours after death. Also,
7:11
Speaker 2: no one saw or heard from Brittany at all between
7:15
Speaker 2: the night of the twenty seventh and the time her
7:17
Speaker 2: body was found. Brittany's body was naked from the waist down.
7:21
Speaker 2: She was wearing a white shirt with loral print. The
7:25
Speaker 2: same shirt that Lydia had seen her wearing when she
7:27
Speaker 2: last saw her, and Brittany had a dried used hampon
7:31
Speaker 2: next to her body. Now, the fact that Brittany was
7:35
Speaker 2: wearing the same top that Lydia last saw her in
7:37
Speaker 2: on September twenty seventh isn't conclusive, but it does, in
7:42
Speaker 2: my opinion, point to Brittany being killed shortly.
7:45
Speaker 3: After she got home. But then there was the stamp.
7:49
Speaker 2: Last week, Maggie told us that Brittany's father contacted her
7:53
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty three. He showed her a card that
7:56
Speaker 2: Brittany had forwarded to him to mail to her grandfather
7:59
Speaker 2: for his birthday, and the postmark on that stamp was
8:02
Speaker 2: September twenty ninth, two thousand and four. Now, Maggie considered
8:06
Speaker 2: the possibility maybe Brittany dropped the letter into a mailbox
8:09
Speaker 2: before her class, and that the letter could have sat
8:12
Speaker 2: in the back of the mailbox for a couple days.
8:14
Speaker 2: But later she said she had discovered that the stamp
8:17
Speaker 2: was printed either from a post office or from a
8:21
Speaker 2: kiosk on September twenty ninth.
8:24
Speaker 3: The stamp was a mystery.
8:25
Speaker 2: Because if Brittany had printed the stamp and mailed the
8:29
Speaker 2: letter on the twenty ninth. That would mean that the
8:31
Speaker 2: police's entire timeline could be off by at least twenty
8:35
Speaker 2: four hours, which would mean, presumably that police would have to.
8:39
Speaker 3: Talk to everyone again.
8:41
Speaker 2: Could there be another explanation for the posthumous postmark. One
8:48
Speaker 2: of the big things that we revealed last week was
8:51
Speaker 2: that Britney's apartment was much easier to access than had
8:54
Speaker 2: been initially reported. Maggie told us she believed that the
8:58
Speaker 2: killer could have been waiting in her apartment when she
9:00
Speaker 2: got home. Britney's killer could have accessed her apartment in
9:04
Speaker 2: multiple ways, through the building shared attic, from Britney's second
9:09
Speaker 2: floor balcony that was open, or through Britney's front door,
9:13
Speaker 2: which was unlocked when Lydia went into check on her.
9:17
Speaker 2: Lydia also mentioned that Britney's apartment was in the back
9:19
Speaker 2: of the complex, so it would have been a place
9:22
Speaker 2: where someone could have gotten into more easily without being seen.
9:26
Speaker 3: We looked through a ton of old.
9:28
Speaker 2: Cases to find out if there were any similar attacks
9:31
Speaker 2: to Britney's one where the killer gott into someone's apartment
9:35
Speaker 2: to rob or sexually assault them.
9:37
Speaker 3: It turned out there were a lot.
9:39
Speaker 2: Of attacks in Tulsa during that time, including several high
9:42
Speaker 2: profile cases, or the killers were not caught for a
9:45
Speaker 2: long time. In October of two thousand and five, news
9:50
Speaker 2: headlines in Tulsa stated that a serial rapist was terrorizing
9:54
Speaker 2: the town and he was very active between two thousand
9:57
Speaker 2: and four and two thousand and five, the same time
10:01
Speaker 2: period when Brittany was murdered. This assailant hadn't killed anyone,
10:13
Speaker 2: at least not anyone that police knew of, but NBC
10:17
Speaker 2: News reported the man had been breaking into holmes for
10:20
Speaker 2: two years and raping young women and girls. There were
10:24
Speaker 2: seven victims that authorities knew about at that time, but
10:28
Speaker 2: they estimated there could be more. His youngest victim was
10:32
Speaker 2: only two years old. The rapist mo was breaking into
10:36
Speaker 2: homes that were unlocked. The Tulsa Police Chief day Ben
10:40
Speaker 2: told news outlets that the rapist had gotten into the
10:43
Speaker 2: two years old home by climbing in through an unlocked
10:46
Speaker 2: bedroom window, all while her mother slept in the next room.
10:51
Speaker 2: Last week, we talked to Britney's friend, Lydia. She told
10:54
Speaker 2: us that over the years she has spoken to detectives
10:57
Speaker 2: multiple times. She has tried to the best of her
11:01
Speaker 2: ability to help figure out what happened to her friend.
11:04
Speaker 2: She said she does remember hearing rumors about a serial
11:08
Speaker 2: rapist in Tulsa back around the time when Britney was murdered.
11:12
Speaker 4: I've talked to detectives throughout the years, and I've booked
11:15
Speaker 4: the pictures and I never really noticed anybody or anything.
11:19
Speaker 4: And for some reason, I remember hearing that at the
11:22
Speaker 4: time there might have been a serial rapist in the area.
11:26
Speaker 4: That it's been a long time agoing out remember ifoun
11:28
Speaker 4: was ever true.
11:30
Speaker 2: Police did find a lead on at least one Tulsa rapist.
11:34
Speaker 2: In that NBC interview, police confirmed that the Tulsa rapist
11:38
Speaker 2: DNA matched victims from crime scenes from February of two
11:41
Speaker 2: thousand and four and May of two thousand and four. Police
11:45
Speaker 2: described the man as a white male with brown hair,
11:47
Speaker 2: approximate age early twenties to early thirties, with a stocky
11:51
Speaker 2: build five foot seven inches to six feet tall, and
11:55
Speaker 2: in February of two thousand and six, Tulsa police arrested
11:58
Speaker 2: a suspect.
11:59
Speaker 3: His name was Gary Graham.
12:02
Speaker 2: Through DNA technology, they were eventually able to link him
12:06
Speaker 2: to twelve different attacks, and he was hit with over
12:08
Speaker 2: forty felony charges, including first degree rate rate by instrumentation,
12:14
Speaker 2: attempted rate, lewd molestation, kidnapping, forcible sodomy, sexual battery, burglary,
12:21
Speaker 2: and possession of child porn. Gary Graham pleaded no contest
12:25
Speaker 2: to thirteen of the charges and the rest were dismissed.
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Speaker 2: In return, he got two life sentences to run consecutively,
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Speaker 2: plus another one hundred and eighty years in prison. After
12:37
Speaker 2: his sentencing, one of his victims, Catherine Hall, talked about
12:40
Speaker 2: how when she was fifteen years old, she woke up
12:43
Speaker 2: to find Gary in her room. He put a knife
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Speaker 2: to her throat and told her that if she wasn't quiet,
12:49
Speaker 2: he would kill her, and then he sexually assaulted her.
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Speaker 2: There were some similarities between Gary Graham's crimes and Britney's attack,
13:01
Speaker 2: but there were also some differences. For one thing, the
13:04
Speaker 2: Tulsa rapist seemed to choose the path of least resistance.
13:07
Speaker 2: He did not beat his victims. Instead, he either selected
13:10
Speaker 2: victims who were young enough to subdue, or used a
13:14
Speaker 2: knife or other weapon to keep them quiet too terrified
13:17
Speaker 2: to move. Brittany was also not beaten. In fact, there
13:22
Speaker 2: were basically no defensive wounds on her body. So it's
13:25
Speaker 2: possible that her killer did use a weapon and attempted
13:28
Speaker 2: to sexually assault her, and then maybe something made him stop.
13:33
Speaker 2: Maybe it was the fact that she was having her period,
13:35
Speaker 2: or maybe he heard a noise, maybe there was some
13:38
Speaker 2: other sort of interruption.
13:39
Speaker 3: We just don't know.
13:41
Speaker 2: It's also possible, by the way, that she was sexually assaulted,
13:45
Speaker 2: so we can't be sure. Gary Graham talked to a
13:48
Speaker 2: reporter from News on six, and in that interview, he
13:51
Speaker 2: completely denied any involvement in the serial rape cases. He
13:56
Speaker 2: told the reporter quote, I didn't do this. I don't
13:59
Speaker 2: look like that guy. I wouldn't do this. I have
14:01
Speaker 2: two kids of my own. I would kill somebody if
14:04
Speaker 2: they touched either of my kids.
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Speaker 3: End quote.
14:07
Speaker 2: Gary insisted that the whole thing was a set up
14:10
Speaker 2: by the police and that he was being framed. He
14:13
Speaker 2: even mentioned true crime shows to News on six, saying, quote,
14:18
Speaker 2: how do you take a swab Monday night and get
14:20
Speaker 2: it back Wednesday?
14:21
Speaker 3: That's impossible.
14:23
Speaker 2: I watched Discovery Channel in Court TV, and those big
14:26
Speaker 2: labs in California don't get it back that fast end quote.
14:30
Speaker 2: Gary was convicted of the assaults, and in two thousand
14:32
Speaker 2: and seven he was sentenced to two consecutive life terms
14:36
Speaker 2: in prison plus one hundred and eighty years. That's where
14:39
Speaker 2: he remains to this day. He was never officially linked
14:43
Speaker 2: Totney's case. We found another case that was similar to Britney's.
14:48
Speaker 2: This one occurred years later in twenty seventeen, but some
14:53
Speaker 2: of the circumstances were similar to what happened with Britney. Also,
14:58
Speaker 2: this case we're going to talk about in my opinion
15:00
Speaker 2: highlights the problems in Oklahoma with DNA testing delays, which
15:05
Speaker 2: was also an issue for Britney's case. In twenty seventeen,
15:09
Speaker 2: a nineteen year old named Kelsey Tenant was killed when
15:12
Speaker 2: a man brutally attacked her in her apartment. Kelsey lived
15:17
Speaker 2: near sixty fifth Street in Mingo, right across the street
15:21
Speaker 2: from Britney Phillips apartment complex. We've spoken to Kelsey's mother
15:25
Speaker 2: and she told us that on the day she was murdered,
15:28
Speaker 2: Kelsey had been at work at Metro Appliances and more.
15:32
Speaker 2: She got a break around three pm and went home
15:34
Speaker 2: to watch some reruns of Friends, but when she got
15:37
Speaker 2: inside her apartment. Police believe someone was waiting for her.
15:42
Speaker 2: Her attacker was in the process of robbing her apartment.
15:46
Speaker 2: Kelsey's mother, Michelle, said that her killer was throwing things
15:49
Speaker 2: into a trash bag. After Kelsey walked in and interrupted
15:53
Speaker 2: the burglary, he viciously turned on her.
15:56
Speaker 3: He beat and strangled her.
15:59
Speaker 2: Kelsey's mother said that Kelsey's killer used a lamp chord
16:02
Speaker 2: to strangle her. Then as she lay there dying, he
16:07
Speaker 2: continued gathering up her stuff and throwing it into the
16:10
Speaker 2: trash bag.
16:12
Speaker 5: There were just several items in a trash bag and
16:14
Speaker 5: a shoe that had blood.
16:15
Speaker 6: On it that she had been wearing in the little lamp.
16:19
Speaker 5: He used the cord for it. The strangler, so it
16:22
Speaker 5: was in the bag, and just random items like that
16:25
Speaker 5: that had any kind of evidence that there had been
16:27
Speaker 5: a struggle.
16:29
Speaker 6: He had it in a trash.
16:30
Speaker 5: Bag and he had actually tossed it out onto the patio.
16:35
Speaker 2: At some point, Kelsey's boyfriend, Riley Allen, got worried because
16:40
Speaker 2: she wasn't answering his calls, so he went to her
16:42
Speaker 2: apartment to check on her and walked into a horrific scene.
16:46
Speaker 2: Kelsey was laying motionless on the floor and the killer
16:50
Speaker 2: was still inside the apartment. The killer then turned on
16:53
Speaker 2: and attacked Riley and strangled him as well, this time
16:57
Speaker 2: with his hands. Riley passed out and the killer fled
17:01
Speaker 2: the scene. Riley recovered soon after and called for help.
17:06
Speaker 2: He and Kelsey were both rushed to the hospital. Riley
17:10
Speaker 2: miraculously ended up with only minor injuries, but Kelsey was
17:14
Speaker 2: another story. By the time she got to the er,
17:17
Speaker 2: she was already in critical condition. She was brain dead,
17:21
Speaker 2: and she was pronounced officially dead a few hours later.
17:25
Speaker 2: Riley helped police identify the killer, and it turned out
17:28
Speaker 2: that even though this man was a stranger to Kelsey,
17:31
Speaker 2: he was not a stranger to her neighbors at the
17:33
Speaker 2: apartment complex. His name is Gregory Eperson. He was homeless
17:38
Speaker 2: at the time and was staying with a friend who
17:40
Speaker 2: lived in the apartment right next door to Kelsey's. Later,
17:45
Speaker 2: Kelsey's mother said police had discovered that Kelsey's attacker had
17:48
Speaker 2: been friends with that neighbor, and that this friend had
17:51
Speaker 2: been allowing him to crash at her apartment. Kelsey's mom, Michelle,
17:55
Speaker 2: also told us Kelsey had seen Gregory around the apartment
17:59
Speaker 2: complex and that he gave her the creeps.
18:03
Speaker 6: So the neighbor's store at Kelsey's store were both in
18:06
Speaker 6: an alcove together. Now the apartment complex security cameras did
18:12
Speaker 6: not have security on her particular building.
18:16
Speaker 5: That he was seen.
18:17
Speaker 6: Going around checking doors throughout the complex, and Kelsey had
18:22
Speaker 6: crossed house with him a few times because he did
18:25
Speaker 6: frequent that apartment and told a friend that.
18:29
Speaker 3: He gave her the creeps, Michelle said.
18:33
Speaker 2: The neighbor testified in court that she and Kelsey shared
18:36
Speaker 2: an air conditioning unit, and Michelle also told us Kelsey
18:40
Speaker 2: had been having issues with her air conditioning unit. Michelle
18:43
Speaker 2: said that one possibility that police had considered was that
18:47
Speaker 2: perhaps Gregory could have posed as a maintenance man and
18:50
Speaker 2: use that as an excuse to try and access apartments.
18:54
Speaker 2: Kelsey's murder, according to law enforcement, seemed to be completely
18:58
Speaker 2: a crime of opportunity at the time. Tulsa Police Sergeant
19:03
Speaker 2: Dave Walker described the horrific attacks and murder as being
19:07
Speaker 2: due to an interrupted burglary to Tulsa World Daily, there's
19:11
Speaker 2: not much information out there on Gregory Eperson. He was
19:14
Speaker 2: forty one years old when he was arrested for Kelsey's murder,
19:17
Speaker 2: and he had a criminal history. He had previously been
19:20
Speaker 2: convicted of second degree burglary, driving under suspicion, obstructing an officer,
19:24
Speaker 2: and transporting an open container, but no serious felonies. He
19:29
Speaker 2: was described as a father of two who seemed to
19:31
Speaker 2: be between places to live. We did do some research
19:35
Speaker 2: and we found out Gregory was living in Tulsa in
19:39
Speaker 2: two thousand and four at.
19:40
Speaker 3: The time of Britney's attack.
19:42
Speaker 2: He was linked to an address about a ten minute
19:44
Speaker 2: drive away from Brittany's, but since he appears to have
19:47
Speaker 2: led a pretty transient lifestyle, to be honest, it's hard
19:51
Speaker 2: to pinpoint exactly where he was. But shockingly, it came
19:56
Speaker 2: out later that Kelsey's murder was not the first time
19:59
Speaker 2: that Gregory Eperson had been connected with the murder in Tulsa.
20:03
Speaker 2: In September of two thousand and eight, Gregory's landlord, Ray
20:06
Speaker 2: Johnson Junior, disappeared. Ray Johnson Junior ran a used car
20:11
Speaker 2: shop at six thousand North Peoria. His vehicle was found
20:14
Speaker 2: in front of his workplace, and there was blood inside
20:17
Speaker 2: the trunk of the car, blood that investigators said the
20:20
Speaker 2: trunk had been.
20:21
Speaker 3: Cleaned with bleach.
20:23
Speaker 2: Even though this homicide happened in two thousand and eight.
20:27
Speaker 2: Charges weren't filed against Gregory until July tenth, twenty fifteen.
20:32
Speaker 2: At that time, Tulsa Police Sergeant Dave Walker put out
20:36
Speaker 2: a wanted notice for Gregory Epperson, and shortly after that,
20:39
Speaker 2: Gregory turned himself in. He was arraigned on July seventeen,
20:43
Speaker 2: twenty fifteen, and charged with first degree murder. In court,
20:48
Speaker 2: police said they believed Gregory Epperson had shot and killed
20:52
Speaker 2: Ray Johnson, thrown his body into the trunk of a car,
20:55
Speaker 2: and dumped the body into a creek. However, Ray Johnson's
20:59
Speaker 2: body was never found. According to an affidavit, police had
21:04
Speaker 2: a witness. This witness claim they had gone over to
21:07
Speaker 2: Gregory Eperson's house sometime in September of two thousand and eight.
21:10
Speaker 2: The witness said when he got there, he said that
21:13
Speaker 2: Gregory was holding a bucket of bleach, that there was
21:16
Speaker 2: blood on the ground and a body on the side
21:18
Speaker 2: of Gregory's house. The witness said that Gregory was hosing
21:22
Speaker 2: down his driveway to get rid of the blood. Then
21:25
Speaker 2: he claimed Gregory put a gun to his head and
21:28
Speaker 2: forced him to help put the body in the trunk.
21:31
Speaker 2: But then in January of twenty sixteen, the DA dropped
21:36
Speaker 2: the charges against Gregory Eperson. Later media reports said this
21:41
Speaker 2: was due to the fact that investigators never found Ay
21:43
Speaker 2: Johnson's body. They said there was a lack of evidence.
21:48
Speaker 2: News Channel nine interviewed Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Coonsweiler.
21:53
Speaker 2: He said, quote, the prosecution of Gregory Jerome Eperson for
21:57
Speaker 2: the death of Ray Johnson was discontinued due to significant
22:01
Speaker 2: concerns about the lack of corroborating evidence to convict him.
22:04
Speaker 3: End quote.
22:06
Speaker 2: One problem was DNA, one newspaper said, quote DNA checks
22:10
Speaker 2: to connect that blood and hair took a while to
22:13
Speaker 2: come back, so charges were dropped end quote. That's the
22:17
Speaker 2: line I've read a few times, and I wonder why
22:20
Speaker 2: did it take over seven years to get DNA back
22:24
Speaker 2: on this case. There were also no eyewitnesses to the
22:27
Speaker 2: actual death. The DA said the witness was a convicted felon,
22:31
Speaker 2: and that that witness had only told the story about
22:33
Speaker 2: Gregory Eperson after he was arrested for another crime.
22:37
Speaker 3: Another issue the DA said they.
22:39
Speaker 2: Had was that the witness's story about finding the body
22:42
Speaker 2: and being forced at gunpoint to help dispose of it
22:44
Speaker 2: couldn't be corroborated by any other witnesses or by any
22:48
Speaker 2: other evidence, So in twenty sixteen, Gregory Eperson walked away
22:54
Speaker 2: a free man. After the news broke about Kelsey Tenants
22:58
Speaker 2: murder in twenty seventeen and news organizations started looking around
23:02
Speaker 2: into Gregory Eperson's past, they learned that neither Kelsey's brutal
23:07
Speaker 2: killing nor the disappearance of Ray Johnson were the first
23:10
Speaker 2: time that Gregory Eperson had been suspected of murder. Police
23:14
Speaker 2: also stated Gregory Eperson was the suspect and yet another murder,
23:18
Speaker 2: a third murder of his landlord, John Baker, who was
23:21
Speaker 2: reported missing in twenty ten. John Baker's body was found
23:26
Speaker 2: a few months later by Lake Keystone. Tulsa Police homicide
23:30
Speaker 2: Sergeant Dave Walker told news reporters that the last person
23:34
Speaker 2: known to have talked to John Baker was Gregory Eperson,
23:38
Speaker 2: who at the time was living in one of John's
23:40
Speaker 2: rental houses. But by the time investigators found John baker
23:43
Speaker 2: body at that lake, the physical evidence had deteriorated, so
23:47
Speaker 2: in the end, they did not find enough usable evidence
23:50
Speaker 2: to charge Gregory Eperson with anything, which meant that Gregory
23:55
Speaker 2: Epperson could have very possibly gotten away with murder twice
23:59
Speaker 2: by the time he broke into Kelsey Tenant's apartment, and
24:02
Speaker 2: he was already in his forties. Could he have committed
24:05
Speaker 2: other crimes or other murders over the years. After Gregory
24:10
Speaker 2: was charged with Kelsey Tenant's murder and the attack on
24:12
Speaker 2: her boyfriend Riley, the prosecution announced that they were seeking
24:16
Speaker 2: the death penalty in connection with Kelsey's murder. This would
24:19
Speaker 2: have been the first case in Oklahoma where someone was
24:22
Speaker 2: charged with murder and could receive the death penalty in
24:25
Speaker 2: many years, and Kelsey's mother, Michelle, said that the family
24:29
Speaker 2: got a shock when they showed up for their court
24:32
Speaker 2: hearing before the scheduled trial and discovered that Gregory Eperson,
24:35
Speaker 2: who had previously denied any involvement in Kelsey's murder, was
24:39
Speaker 2: pleading guilty.
24:41
Speaker 5: We were set to start the jury trial in December,
24:45
Speaker 5: and I believe that it was late September early October
24:50
Speaker 5: when we went for the court hearing. We're a couple
24:54
Speaker 5: of hours away, So when we got there, we went
24:57
Speaker 5: to the floor for families of victims and met our
25:02
Speaker 5: advocate and I used the restaurroom Brokswick and when I
25:06
Speaker 5: came out, she said, the dasis called, he's decided.
25:09
Speaker 6: To plead guilty.
25:10
Speaker 5: We need to get the family down there. So we
25:12
Speaker 5: went down to the courtroom and he fled guilty. The
25:15
Speaker 5: judge made him answer a bunch of questions, so he
25:20
Speaker 5: answered the questions. The judge asked him if he did it,
25:23
Speaker 5: and he asked me if he had anything else you said,
25:25
Speaker 5: He said no. They looked at me to see if
25:28
Speaker 5: we wanted to do a victim statement, and I think
25:32
Speaker 5: I was just since that thought that he was actually
25:35
Speaker 5: admitting to it, and I didn't know what I would say,
25:39
Speaker 5: so I just shook in my head.
25:41
Speaker 6: No.
25:42
Speaker 2: The death penalty was taken off the table when he
25:45
Speaker 2: pled guilty. Gregory Epperson was sentenced to life in prison
25:49
Speaker 2: without the possibility of parole. Kelsey's mother said that, in
25:53
Speaker 2: addition to never expressing remorse, Gregory didn't answer any questions
25:58
Speaker 2: at all, either for Kelsey's family or the judge about
26:01
Speaker 2: her brutal murder, but he may have talked to other
26:04
Speaker 2: people behind bars. According to media reports, Gregory Eperson bragged
26:09
Speaker 2: to a fellow inmate that he had already beaten two
26:12
Speaker 2: murder charges. To my knowledge, no one has ever connected
26:17
Speaker 2: Gregory Epperson to Britney's case, But now that he's been
26:20
Speaker 2: convicted of Kelsey's murder and his DNA's in the system,
26:24
Speaker 2: I absolutely believed that the DNA from under Britney's fingernails
26:28
Speaker 2: should be tested against his and the other millions of
26:31
Speaker 2: DNA profiles of convicted felons in Cotis And I also
26:36
Speaker 2: wonder could Gregory have committed other crimes that he was
26:40
Speaker 2: never charged with over the years. Remember that last week
26:51
Speaker 2: we talked to doctor Maggie's Ingman, Britney's mom, who has
26:54
Speaker 2: been crusading for justice for her daughter for over two decades. Now.
26:58
Speaker 2: You may remember that the original DNA profile that was
27:01
Speaker 2: sent off for testing was taken from blood and semen
27:03
Speaker 2: that was found in Britney's apartment. From that DNA profile,
27:08
Speaker 2: Parabond created a composite photo of a white male with
27:11
Speaker 2: brown or blonde hair and blue or green eyes. That
27:15
Speaker 2: was the profile police used to search for Britney's killer
27:19
Speaker 2: for fifteen years. However, we also learned that in twenty nineteen,
27:24
Speaker 2: after police got an exact DNA match, they learned that
27:28
Speaker 2: the man who was the DNA match to the blood
27:30
Speaker 2: and seamen was not their suspect.
27:33
Speaker 3: He was someone who had dated a friend of Britney's.
27:35
Speaker 2: They had spent the night at Britney's apartment recently, so
27:39
Speaker 2: that's why police said there was a tiny bit of
27:41
Speaker 2: blood and there was semen on britney sheets. We talked
27:45
Speaker 2: to Maggie again about the other DNA found at the scene,
27:48
Speaker 2: the DNA that was found under Britney's fingernails. Police told
27:52
Speaker 2: Maggie that the parabond DNA composite was completely off. The
27:57
Speaker 2: DNA under Britney's fingernails was from a different contributor, and
28:02
Speaker 2: that this DNA indicated that Britney's assailant was not a
28:06
Speaker 2: white male. Maggie wasn't sure by what the detective said
28:10
Speaker 2: if they meant the person was mixed race or Asian
28:13
Speaker 2: Native American Black. There are a lot of possibilities, but
28:17
Speaker 2: the original DNA composite was the wrong race. This new
28:21
Speaker 2: information did prompt us to go back and expand our search.
28:25
Speaker 2: We wanted to look at attacks in the same area
28:27
Speaker 2: where Britney was murdered.
28:29
Speaker 3: We were focusing on.
28:30
Speaker 2: One robberies and attacks that may not have been centered
28:34
Speaker 2: on rape or sexual assault, or where sexual assault didn't
28:37
Speaker 2: appear to be the primary motive, and two crimes where
28:41
Speaker 2: the assailant was a non white man, and we're still
28:45
Speaker 2: in the process of doing that. So what's next for
28:48
Speaker 2: Britney's investigation. I believe that the numerous towels and item
28:53
Speaker 2: of clothing that were found adjacent to Britney's body could
28:56
Speaker 2: point to someone disorganized, someone who had access the apartment
29:00
Speaker 2: and was in the process of robbing it when Brittany
29:03
Speaker 2: walked in, or who surprised her outside her car or
29:08
Speaker 2: ambushed her on the way into her apartment. The killer
29:11
Speaker 2: may have tried to sexually assault Brittany. The fact that
29:14
Speaker 2: she was on the floor and naked from the waist
29:17
Speaker 2: down with her tampon removed dow seemed to point to that,
29:20
Speaker 2: but again, there was no definitive proof of sexual assault
29:23
Speaker 2: in the medical examiner's report. In fact, the report said
29:27
Speaker 2: there was no sign of external genital trauma and no
29:30
Speaker 2: mention of semen being found. I do question why there
29:35
Speaker 2: was not a more extensive sexual assault kit run. Even
29:38
Speaker 2: though DNA does start to deteriorate after a few days,
29:41
Speaker 2: it had been at most three days, and traces of
29:44
Speaker 2: seamen could have been found maybe that could have provided
29:48
Speaker 2: more definitive answers about whether or not Britney was sexually assaulted.
29:56
Speaker 2: Maggie continues to drive around the country in her caravan
29:59
Speaker 2: to catch killer, talking to other families, interviewing experts, and
30:03
Speaker 2: talking to anyone and everyone she thinks could potentially help
30:07
Speaker 2: shed light on her daughter's case. The main thing that
30:11
Speaker 2: needs to happen now is that the Tulsa Police need
30:14
Speaker 2: to tell Maggie whether or not they have been able
30:17
Speaker 2: to test the DNA under Britney's fingernails and what the
30:20
Speaker 2: status of those tests is now. The fingernail DNA and
30:24
Speaker 2: any other relevant DNA needs to be run through CODIS since,
30:28
Speaker 2: as we've discussed, a lot of killers have been caught
30:31
Speaker 2: since then, maybe that DNA will be the key to me.
30:36
Speaker 2: The investigation keeps coming back to Britney's apartment, as her
30:41
Speaker 2: friend Lydia said, it was in the back of the
30:43
Speaker 2: apartment call complex and dark and isolated, and Britney's balcony
30:47
Speaker 2: windows were open when her body was found, and the
30:49
Speaker 2: door was unlocked, and I keep coming back to something
30:52
Speaker 2: else that Lydia said that Britney's car window was rolled down.
30:56
Speaker 2: This may have been just a random oversight, But it
30:59
Speaker 2: seems to me that leaving a window down is not
31:02
Speaker 2: something that a young woman living on her own would
31:05
Speaker 2: normally do when locking her car at night. According to
31:09
Speaker 2: a two thousand and four article in The Oklahoma Tulsa
31:12
Speaker 2: experienced a rise in crime in two thousand and four,
31:14
Speaker 2: including a rise in armed robberies and gang violence. In
31:18
Speaker 2: many cases, victims were fatally shot during robberies even after
31:22
Speaker 2: complying with the robbers. It was reported at the time
31:25
Speaker 2: that the Justice Department was sending federal agents to Tulsa
31:29
Speaker 2: and fourteen other cities that had a dramatic rise in
31:32
Speaker 2: violent crime. Given that, it seems even more unlikely that
31:36
Speaker 2: Britney would choose to leave her window down.
31:39
Speaker 4: It's a situation where she was getting out of her car,
31:42
Speaker 4: she was alone. It would start She's walking behind the
31:46
Speaker 4: building by herself.
31:49
Speaker 6: I don't know.
31:50
Speaker 4: I don't know if it was that timing to someone
31:53
Speaker 4: just saw her and she was just amazing target what
31:56
Speaker 4: Because they said that there was no sign of forced injury,
31:59
Speaker 4: So maybe the person just literally followed her upstairs.
32:07
Speaker 2: There's also the possibility, as Tulsa police have stated that
32:11
Speaker 2: there are people out there who know something, Maybe even
32:14
Speaker 2: people in or around Britney's apartment complex or neighborhood who
32:18
Speaker 2: know something or saw something. Even though it's been over
32:23
Speaker 2: twenty years, I'm hoping that someone will come forward and
32:26
Speaker 2: help this mother who's been trying to get justice for
32:29
Speaker 2: over two decades.
32:30
Speaker 3: Find some answers.
32:32
Speaker 2: Britney's killer could still be out there and he may
32:35
Speaker 2: have killed again. If you have any information about the
32:39
Speaker 2: murder Britney Phillips, please call Tulsa Crime Stoppers at night
32:44
Speaker 2: five nine six cops or email Homicide at Cityfoftulsa dot org.
32:52
Speaker 3: I'm Katherine Townsend.
32:54
Speaker 2: This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line
32:59
Speaker 2: is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts.
33:02
Speaker 2: It's written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced
33:05
Speaker 2: by Gabby Watts.
33:07
Speaker 3: Special thanks to Amy.
33:08
Speaker 2: Tubbs for her research assistance and James Wheaton for legal review.
33:12
Speaker 2: Noah Camer mixed and scored this episode. Our theme song
33:15
Speaker 2: is by Ben Sale, Executive producers of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr,
33:20
Speaker 2: and LC Crowley. Listen to Helen Gone ad free by
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Speaker 2: subscribing to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts.
33:27
Speaker 2: If you're interested in seeing documents and materials from the case,
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Speaker 2: you can follow the show on Instagram at Helen gonepod.
33:34
Speaker 2: If you have a case you'd like me and my
33:36
Speaker 2: team to look into, you can reach out to us
33:39
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