Latest / Hell and Gone: Murder Line / Hell and Gone Murder Line: Justin Gaines (Archive Episode)
Transcript
- 0:46Speaker 1: School of Humans.
- 0:49Speaker 2: Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold case murders in
- 0:53Speaker 2: an effort to raise public awareness invite witnesses to come
- 0:56Speaker 2: forward and present evidence that could potentially be further investigated
- 1:00Speaker 2: by law enforcement. While we value insights from family and
- 1:03Speaker 2: community members, their statements should not be considered evidence and
- 1:07Speaker 2: point to the challenges of verifying facts inherent in cold cases.
- 1:12Speaker 2: We remind listeners that everyone has presumed innocent until proven
- 1:15Speaker 2: guilty in a court of law. Nothing in the podcast
- 1:19Speaker 2: is intended to state or imply that anyone who has
- 1:22Speaker 2: not been convicted of a crime is guilty of any wrongdoing.
- 1:26Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.
- 1:31Speaker 3: It was Thursday night, November one, two thousand and seven.
- 1:34Speaker 3: An eighteen year old Justin Gaines was getting ready for
- 1:37Speaker 3: a night out with his friends at Wild Bills, a
- 1:40Speaker 3: club in Duluth, Georgia. Justin was a freshman college He
- 1:44Speaker 3: had just started at Gainesville State, which was about an
- 1:47Speaker 3: hour away from where his family lived his mom, Erica Wilson,
- 1:51Speaker 3: his stepfather, Stephen Wilson, and his siblings. Justin was fairly
- 1:56Speaker 3: newly single. He had broken up with his girlfriend of
- 1:59Speaker 3: two years pretty recently, but according to Atlanta magazine they
- 2:03Speaker 3: were still friends. In fact, Justin talked on the phone
- 2:06Speaker 3: to his ex shortly before he went out that night.
- 2:09Speaker 3: This was a close blended family. When Justin's mom and
- 2:13Speaker 3: his stepfather married, they each brought their own children to
- 2:16Speaker 3: the relationship. There were seven kids in all, and apparently
- 2:19Speaker 3: they all got along. Justin also had a good relationship
- 2:23Speaker 3: with his stepdad, Stephen, who worked at a roofing company.
- 2:27Speaker 3: Sometimes Justin would do odd jobs for Stephen to pick
- 2:30Speaker 3: up some extra cash. Justin was handsome five foot eleven
- 2:35Speaker 3: two hundred and thirty pounds. He was muscular and fit.
- 2:39Speaker 3: He had blue eyes and short brown hair that he
- 2:41Speaker 3: wore in a buzz cut. On the Thursday night, Justin
- 2:45Speaker 3: was wearing a gray Abercrombie and Fitch long sleeve shirt
- 2:49Speaker 3: and rip blue jeans. He also had a pair of
- 2:52Speaker 3: diamond stud ear rings that he sometimes wore. That night,
- 2:55Speaker 3: he was wearing a single diamond stud in his left ear.
- 2:58Speaker 3: On thirsty Thursdays at Wild Bills, you only had to
- 3:02Speaker 3: be eighteen years old to enter the club, but Justin
- 3:05Speaker 3: did have a couple of fake id's with him so
- 3:07Speaker 3: that he could buy drinks at the bar. He used
- 3:10Speaker 3: the names Brad Allen and Brad's Shoe. His mom, Erica,
- 3:14Speaker 3: later clarified on web slue that technically these weren't fake IDs,
- 3:19Speaker 3: they were the IDs of some older friends that Justin
- 3:21Speaker 3: would use. I relate to this because I did a
- 3:25Speaker 3: lot of that when I was younger, old enough to
- 3:27Speaker 3: get into the club, but too young to drink. So
- 3:30Speaker 3: Justin didn't take a wallet out with him that night.
- 3:33Speaker 3: He had no credit cards, just cash, his fake IDs,
- 3:37Speaker 3: and his cell phone. His stepfather told Atlanta Magazine, which
- 3:41Speaker 3: by the way, did a really long and in depth feature
- 3:44Speaker 3: on this case, that he remembered that night very well
- 3:48Speaker 3: because apparently, right before he went out, Justin was joking
- 3:51Speaker 3: around with Stephen about what shirt he should wear to
- 3:54Speaker 3: impress the ladies. Justin was a big, very fit guy.
- 3:59Speaker 3: He could take care of himself. He was also charming
- 4:02Speaker 3: and confident and, according to his mother, very social, someone
- 4:06Speaker 3: who had no trouble talking to anyone, including strangers. He
- 4:10Speaker 3: was a regular at Wild Bills. He knew the bartenders,
- 4:13Speaker 3: and apparently he also knew some people who were going
- 4:16Speaker 3: to be there that night. Justin had a car, but
- 4:20Speaker 3: he wasn't driving. He left his car at his mom
- 4:22Speaker 3: and stepdad's house. He caught a ride with a friend
- 4:25Speaker 3: of his named Chris Byers and Chris's girlfriend, Amanda. According
- 4:29Speaker 3: to Atlanta Magazine, Chris and Justin had been friends for
- 4:32Speaker 3: a long time, ever since high school. They were now
- 4:35Speaker 3: college roommates. Chris and Amanda picked Justin up at his
- 4:39Speaker 3: house and they headed to Wild Bills. Along the way,
- 4:42Speaker 3: they stopped at a gas station where Justin mixed some
- 4:44Speaker 3: vodka and gas station energy drink in one of those
- 4:47Speaker 3: big fountain cups. Again, I used to do this all
- 4:50Speaker 3: the time as a team. It's an easy way to
- 4:53Speaker 3: save money. Later at the bar, Wild Bills is huge.
- 4:57Speaker 3: This club could hold thousands of people. It's closed now,
- 5:01Speaker 3: but back in the day they had seven different bars
- 5:04Speaker 3: and each bar had kind of a different vibe. They
- 5:06Speaker 3: even had a tiki bar in there, and they would
- 5:09Speaker 3: host all different kinds of events. They would host phone parties,
- 5:12Speaker 3: sometimes mma fights, and they had line dancing nights. Most
- 5:18Speaker 3: of their nights tended to have a country theme, but
- 5:20Speaker 3: on Thursday Thursdays, the mechanical bull and cowboy boots were
- 5:24Speaker 3: replaced with girls dancing on platforms and a DJ who
- 5:27Speaker 3: would spend R and B mixed with hip hop. Thursdays
- 5:31Speaker 3: were also apparently the only night where eighteen year olds
- 5:35Speaker 3: could go into the club. So Chris, Amanda, and Justin
- 5:38Speaker 3: got to the bar and were ready to party. They
- 5:42Speaker 3: were aiming to get there by eleven pm, but they
- 5:45Speaker 3: were a few minutes late, and this twist of fate
- 5:49Speaker 3: being a few minutes late changed everything because after eleven pm,
- 5:53Speaker 3: Wild Bills had a cover charge. It went from being
- 5:57Speaker 3: free to ten dollars per person. Justin saw someone in
- 6:01Speaker 3: line who he knew, so he was able to get
- 6:03Speaker 3: a pass to get in for free, but Chris and
- 6:06Speaker 3: Amanda could not, and they did not want to pay
- 6:08Speaker 3: the cover charge, so they left Wild Bills and Justin
- 6:12Speaker 3: went in on his own. He said that it was
- 6:15Speaker 3: no problem, he would find a ride. This was something
- 6:18Speaker 3: that he did often. Again, he was this big, strong
- 6:22Speaker 3: guy who could handle himself. A while later, in the
- 6:26Speaker 3: early morning hours of November two, two thousand and seven,
- 6:30Speaker 3: Justin walked out into that parking lot in Duluth and
- 6:33Speaker 3: no one ever saw him again. I'm Catherine Townsend. If
- 6:40Speaker 3: you have a case you'd like me and my team
- 6:42Speaker 3: to look into, you can reach out to us at
- 6:44Speaker 3: our Helen Gone Murder line at six seven eight seven
- 6:47Speaker 3: four four six one four or five. That's six seven
- 6:51Speaker 3: eight seven four four six one four or five. This
- 6:55Speaker 3: is Helen Gone Murder line. The disappearance of Justin Gaines
- 7:32Speaker 3: became a big story in Atlanta because no one could
- 7:35Speaker 3: figure out how this guy just walked out into the
- 7:39Speaker 3: night and never showed up again. So remember this was
- 7:43Speaker 3: two thousand and seven. Instagram had just launched, and even
- 7:47Speaker 3: though pretty much everyone had a cell phone then people
- 7:51Speaker 3: weren't constantly shooting video all the time like they do today.
- 7:56Speaker 3: There were cameras at Wild Bills, so there was some
- 7:59Speaker 3: surveillance footage, but according to Justin's mom, Erica, most of
- 8:04Speaker 3: the cameras were focused on areas that handled money, like
- 8:07Speaker 3: the register and the front and back doors. Erica did
- 8:11Speaker 3: an interview with a podcast called Unfound, and in that
- 8:15Speaker 3: interview she explained that an FBI agent who was a
- 8:20Speaker 3: friend of her, someone she knew, had come in to
- 8:22Speaker 3: unofficially help her with the case, and the FBI agent
- 8:26Speaker 3: was able to pull some of that surveillance footage. The
- 8:29Speaker 3: footage showed that at the club, Justin had some drinks,
- 8:32Speaker 3: he was on camera talking to a female bartender who
- 8:35Speaker 3: he knew. Later, that bartender talked to Erica and told
- 8:39Speaker 3: her that Justin seemed normal, like he was having a
- 8:41Speaker 3: good time, and she said he did not appear to
- 8:44Speaker 3: be super intoxicated. He apparently even made a comment to
- 8:48Speaker 3: this bartender about not getting too smashed. While he was
- 8:52Speaker 3: in the club, Justin made a couple of phone calls
- 8:55Speaker 3: to friends of his who he believed were inside. We're
- 8:58Speaker 3: not sure exactly what Justin was doing the whole time
- 9:01Speaker 3: he was in the club because we only have a
- 9:03Speaker 3: few moments on camera, but at one point he apparently
- 9:07Speaker 3: did start talking to a girl. Later in some media reports,
- 9:12Speaker 3: some reporters asked questions about what they called a minor
- 9:15Speaker 3: altercation over a woman who Justin was apparently dancing with. Apparently,
- 9:21Speaker 3: this woman had a boyfriend, and Justin and the guys
- 9:23Speaker 3: who were with this woman exchanged a few words. Some
- 9:27Speaker 3: of these details came from a private investigator who was
- 9:30Speaker 3: later hired by Erica Justin's mom, but the PI said
- 9:34Speaker 3: he could never nail down a description of the two
- 9:37Speaker 3: guys who Justin was supposedly talking with. There are a
- 9:41Speaker 3: lot of moments from Justin's time inside the club and
- 9:44Speaker 3: afterward that are missing. But Justin was there for a
- 9:48Speaker 3: while after he talked to this girl. He seemed to
- 9:50Speaker 3: be in good spirits and he was chatting to people. Then,
- 9:55Speaker 3: at around one point thirty he got ready to leave.
- 9:58Speaker 3: Justin walked outside the club at one thirty eight am.
- 10:01Speaker 3: You can see that on the security footage. He started
- 10:05Speaker 3: calling friends trying to find a ride home. Again, remember
- 10:09Speaker 3: this was a time before ride shares became a huge thing.
- 10:12Speaker 3: Uber didn't come on the scene until around twenty ten.
- 10:16Speaker 3: There were taxis, but it's never been reported how much
- 10:20Speaker 3: cash Justin was carrying, So I wondered did he have
- 10:24Speaker 3: a big wad of cash or just enough to cover drinks.
- 10:27Speaker 3: He may not have had enough money to call a cab,
- 10:30Speaker 3: and even if he did, some of his friends said
- 10:32Speaker 3: he wasn't really a person who had a habit of
- 10:34Speaker 3: calling taxis. He would hit up his friends for rides instead.
- 10:38Speaker 3: His mother, by the way, made it clear that he
- 10:41Speaker 3: could have called home at any time and she or
- 10:44Speaker 3: her husband would have come to get him. She told
- 10:47Speaker 3: Atlanta Magazine quote, I think he didn't call Stephen because
- 10:50Speaker 3: he didn't want to disappoint us, and that haunts me,
- 10:53Speaker 3: you know, because nothing the kids do would ever disappoint me.
- 10:57Speaker 3: End quote. I find myself really feeling for Justin again here.
- 11:03Speaker 3: He just wanted to go home. He made a ton
- 11:05Speaker 3: of calls, but no one was able to come get him.
- 11:08Speaker 3: And I can relate to this part too. He probably
- 11:11Speaker 3: didn't want his parents to know he'd been drinking again.
- 11:14Speaker 3: As a fit guy, he probably thought he could take
- 11:17Speaker 3: care of himself. Often a person's size, especially a man's size,
- 11:23Speaker 3: will give them a false sense of security. Most guys
- 11:27Speaker 3: I know, especially young ones around this age, just don't
- 11:30Speaker 3: feel that they're in danger in the same way in
- 11:32Speaker 3: general as young women would. Plus, this was a safe area.
- 11:37Speaker 3: Over the next half hour or so, Justin made twenty
- 11:40Speaker 3: four calls to eleven different people, none of them could
- 11:44Speaker 3: come get him. Justin's last call was to Chris, the
- 11:48Speaker 3: friend he rode with to Wild Bills. He made that
- 11:51Speaker 3: call at two two am. Chris later told Atlanta Magazine
- 11:56Speaker 3: that Justin had called him and he was kind of
- 11:57Speaker 3: half asleep. He remembered Justin asking for a ride, but
- 12:02Speaker 3: Chris said he had borrowed his girlfriend's dad's car. He
- 12:05Speaker 3: said he couldn't really go out at that time of night,
- 12:07Speaker 3: and asked for the car again. He thought that Justin
- 12:11Speaker 3: would be fine, and later of course, said that if
- 12:14Speaker 3: he had had any idea that his friend was in trouble,
- 12:16Speaker 3: he would have gone and gotten him instantly. After that
- 12:19Speaker 3: phone call nothing. At first, Erica wasn't worried when Justin
- 12:26Speaker 3: didn't come back home the next morning. She knew he
- 12:29Speaker 3: was going out to party and he's an eighteen year
- 12:31Speaker 3: old guy. But then the weekend went by. She didn't
- 12:35Speaker 3: hear from him on Saturday, and on Sunday morning, she
- 12:37Speaker 3: started calling his friends. He never came home to get
- 12:41Speaker 3: his wallet or to pick up his car, and on
- 12:44Speaker 3: Monday morning, November fifth, she became seriously alarmed because he
- 12:48Speaker 3: never showed up to give Chris a ride back to school.
- 12:51Speaker 3: Remember they were roommates. Erica told Dateline that at that
- 12:54Speaker 3: point she logged onto Justin's online school portal, which she
- 12:58Speaker 3: had access to. That's when she saw that he had
- 13:01Speaker 3: not turned in some homework, and she knew that that
- 13:03Speaker 3: was completely out of character. She reported Justin missing friends,
- 13:08Speaker 3: family and volunteers started trying to retrace his last steps.
- 13:14Speaker 3: The police did a search as well, but Erica said
- 13:17Speaker 3: that it really took about two weeks for police to
- 13:20Speaker 3: start seriously searching. Everyone was trying to retrace Justin's steps.
- 13:25Speaker 3: They were trying to figure out from that parking lot
- 13:28Speaker 3: what his next move would be. Several people came forward
- 13:32Speaker 3: and said that they had seen him sitting on a
- 13:34Speaker 3: bench in the back parking lot on his cell phone.
- 13:37Speaker 3: We know that he was making a ton of calls
- 13:40Speaker 3: during that time. Shortly after two two am, Justin's phone
- 13:45Speaker 3: pinged one more time, and then the phone appeared to die.
- 13:51Speaker 3: Erica said that he had a habit of sometimes letting
- 13:53Speaker 3: his phone die. So did the battery die or did
- 13:56Speaker 3: someone shut it off? Did Justin get tired of waiting
- 14:00Speaker 3: for a ride, did he decide to try to walk
- 14:03Speaker 3: toward home or could someone have picked him up there.
- 14:08Speaker 3: In the weeks following Justin's disappearance, some news outlets checked
- 14:12Speaker 3: Justin's court history. They saw that Justin had a public
- 14:16Speaker 3: intoxication charge on his record from the summer of two
- 14:18Speaker 3: thousand and seven. It happened after he fell asleep in
- 14:22Speaker 3: the backseat of his car with an open bottle of
- 14:24Speaker 3: vodka in there. He got caught with the open container
- 14:28Speaker 3: and a fake ID. So some people suggested that maybe
- 14:32Speaker 3: Justin had left voluntarily to avoid going to court on
- 14:35Speaker 3: November twenty first. But this seemed extremely far fetched right
- 14:40Speaker 3: from the beginning, and his family immediately dismissed this theory.
- 14:43Speaker 3: They knew it wasn't plausible. Also, these were not serious charges.
- 14:49Speaker 3: There was no reason for Justin to have left on
- 14:52Speaker 3: his own. And by the way, if he was leaving,
- 14:54Speaker 3: why would he leave his wallet with his real ID
- 14:57Speaker 3: and everything else behind. Justin's family did everything they could
- 15:04Speaker 3: to help the search. Erica turned her home garage into
- 15:07Speaker 3: an office. She started printing up flyers. The family put
- 15:10Speaker 3: billboards up on Highway I eighty five. This tidbit was
- 15:14Speaker 3: in the Atlanta magazine article. By the way, and it's
- 15:16Speaker 3: so heartbreaking to me, because I've heard this before in
- 15:19Speaker 3: Rebecca Gould's case and in some others. According to the article,
- 15:24Speaker 3: people called Justin's stepfather to report buzzard sightings, and he
- 15:29Speaker 3: would take his four wheeler out to look and see
- 15:32Speaker 3: if there was a body out there, but he never
- 15:36Speaker 3: found anything other than animal carcasses. Of course, police talked
- 15:40Speaker 3: to Justin's friends. There were rumors early on that Chris
- 15:44Speaker 3: wasn't being super helpful to law enforcement. Apparently, Chris believed
- 15:49Speaker 3: that police were too hard on his girlfriend, Amanda, but
- 15:53Speaker 3: Erica later clarified on a web sluse forum that after
- 15:57Speaker 3: some initial friction, all of Justin's friends had been cooperative
- 16:01Speaker 3: and police confirmed Chris and Amanda were at home in
- 16:04Speaker 3: bed when Justin went missing. Erica told the Unfound podcast
- 16:10Speaker 3: that she does not believe that Justin walked out of
- 16:12Speaker 3: that parking lot. It was late, but not super late.
- 16:16Speaker 3: There were people around, and Justin was in the back
- 16:19Speaker 3: parking lot, which was less busy than the front parking lot,
- 16:23Speaker 3: but it wasn't deserted. In fact, it was somewhere where
- 16:25Speaker 3: in the past Justin had hung out and had some
- 16:28Speaker 3: drinks with friends again Wild Bills was in a safe area,
- 16:32Speaker 3: pretty much in the middle of suburbia. Erica believes that
- 16:37Speaker 3: if Justin decided to walk along the highway toward home,
- 16:41Speaker 3: she believed someone would have seen him, and I think
- 16:44Speaker 3: she's right. A big guy like that probably would have
- 16:47Speaker 3: been spotted on a camera somewhere or by some witnesses,
- 16:51Speaker 3: which means that Justin almost certainly got picked up in
- 16:56Speaker 3: that parking lot, So the question is who picked him up.
- 17:03Speaker 3: Police have said they believe that Justin may have been
- 17:07Speaker 3: picked up by a blonde woman, possibly driving a black car.
- 17:11Speaker 3: They got this information from a friend of Justin's named James. Now.
- 17:15Speaker 3: According to Erica, James, who knew Justin from college, saw
- 17:20Speaker 3: him getting into a car with a blonde woman wearing
- 17:22Speaker 3: a black dress. Unfortunately, James has since passed away. So
- 17:28Speaker 3: who is this mystery woman? Was it someone who knew
- 17:32Speaker 3: Justin before or a stranger who lured him into the car?
- 17:36Speaker 3: Was she alone or was she with people? Could this
- 17:39Speaker 3: have been some kind of robbery set up. Justin did
- 17:43Speaker 3: not seem to have any enemies, but the Atlanta magazine
- 17:47Speaker 3: reporter did talk to a friend of Justin's. This person
- 17:50Speaker 3: wasn't named, but they told the reporter that he and
- 17:53Speaker 3: Justin would occasionally break into cars that were unlocked around
- 17:56Speaker 3: their off campus apartment. Basically, what they do is just
- 18:00Speaker 3: pull the handle of the car see if it was unlocked,
- 18:02Speaker 3: and if it was, they would go in and take money.
- 18:05Speaker 3: The friends said there was a drug dealer living there.
- 18:08Speaker 3: Apparently Justin thought that this person might have a lot
- 18:10Speaker 3: of cash in his car, so they went up to
- 18:13Speaker 3: the car, but they said the drug dealer was standing
- 18:15Speaker 3: right there on the porch, so in the end they
- 18:17Speaker 3: didn't go to the car and there was no confrontation.
- 18:23Speaker 3: But it did get me thinking if he had a
- 18:26Speaker 3: habit of pulling on car doors, could he have opened
- 18:28Speaker 3: someone's car or maybe tried to sleep in someone's car
- 18:31Speaker 3: if he couldn't find a ride in his battery was dead.
- 18:33Speaker 3: Stranger things have happened. According to Justin's mother, Erica, one
- 18:39Speaker 3: very early name that came up to her was Dustin
- 18:43Speaker 3: Dylan Glass, a career criminal and gang member. Now apparently
- 18:47Speaker 3: Dustin showed up at a pawn shop in the early
- 18:50Speaker 3: morning hours of November two. Police have found surveillance footage
- 18:54Speaker 3: that pawnshop and there is an image of Dustin. He's
- 18:57Speaker 3: wearing a diamond studd in his ear that looked very
- 19:00Speaker 3: much like the one that Justin had been wearing that night.
- 19:04Speaker 3: I'm not clear on why police first got tipped off
- 19:07Speaker 3: to him, but once Dustin's name was mentioned, police continued
- 19:11Speaker 3: to track him. Time went by with no arrest and
- 19:15Speaker 3: no sign of Justin and no body. Tips started coming
- 19:18Speaker 3: in from everywhere, everything from random sightings of Justin that
- 19:22Speaker 3: would turn out to be bogus to psychics who said
- 19:26Speaker 3: that they believed that he was in a body of
- 19:27Speaker 3: water somewhere, which is, by the way, what psychics always
- 19:30Speaker 3: seem to say. It drives me crazy. Side note there.
- 19:35Speaker 3: The Walton County Sheriff's Department cold case investigator Michael Rising,
- 19:39Speaker 3: who is now in charge of the investigation, told Dateline
- 19:41Speaker 3: in twenty twenty three that police had investigated a couple
- 19:44Speaker 3: of different theories early on. One that Justin could have
- 19:48Speaker 3: been flirting with a girl who had a boyfriend and
- 19:50Speaker 3: that there was some kind of altercation, and the other
- 19:53Speaker 3: theory was that someone targeted Justin for a robbery based
- 19:56Speaker 3: on his clothes and his diamond earring. On the Wild
- 19:59Speaker 3: Bill's website back in two thousand and seven, there was
- 20:02Speaker 3: a statement about Justin being missing and it read quote
- 20:06Speaker 3: last scene walking toward a car that he called his ride,
- 20:09Speaker 3: with two men standing by the car. Reports also say
- 20:13Speaker 3: he was seen in the parking lot of Barnacles another
- 20:15Speaker 3: bar with these same two men end quote. Now this
- 20:19Speaker 3: is just a rumor. It's unconfirmed, and honestly, I can't
- 20:23Speaker 3: find that information anywhere else. I don't know if it's
- 20:26Speaker 3: just something someone posted, or if it was a legitimate tip,
- 20:30Speaker 3: and I wonder who first said it. There does seem
- 20:34Speaker 3: to be more than one source saying that Justin was
- 20:37Speaker 3: talking to some men that night. Again, it wouldn't have
- 20:40Speaker 3: been out a character for him to talk to people.
- 20:42Speaker 3: His mom and his friend say he talked to strangers
- 20:45Speaker 3: all the time. But for a while, those two police
- 20:49Speaker 3: theories appeared to just be dead ends. Over the next
- 20:52Speaker 3: few years, justin moms Erica said openly she struggled. Even
- 20:57Speaker 3: though she was printing up flyers and stickers and talking
- 21:00Speaker 3: to the media, there were days where she found it
- 21:02Speaker 3: hard to get out of bed, and the family had
- 21:05Speaker 3: another setback in twenty eleven when one of Justin's brothers died.
- 21:09Speaker 3: But even when she was going through dark times herself,
- 21:12Speaker 3: Erica never stopped trying to get media coverage of this case.
- 21:17Speaker 3: Police looked in a lot of different directions. They really
- 21:19Speaker 3: didn't have anything to go on. They looked into rumors
- 21:22Speaker 3: that could have been the National Forest serial killer Gary Hilton,
- 21:25Speaker 3: but there was absolutely no evidence of that, and of course,
- 21:29Speaker 3: every single time an unidentified body was found in the area,
- 21:32Speaker 3: the family would have to go through the agony of waiting.
- 21:35Speaker 3: None of them were Justin. As we said before, Erica
- 21:39Speaker 3: hired a private investigator named Bob Pulno. He started his
- 21:44Speaker 3: investigation in two thousand and eight and basically he's never stopped.
- 21:49Speaker 3: According to Atlanta Magazine, Bob is retired now, but this
- 21:52Speaker 3: is one of those cases he can't let go of.
- 21:55Speaker 3: Bob did lots of interviews and in two thousand and
- 21:57Speaker 3: eight he said he identified several people of interest. He
- 22:01Speaker 3: also looked into theories that Justin could have been extremely
- 22:04Speaker 3: intoxicated or drugged. The PI also tried to track down
- 22:10Speaker 3: everyone who Justin talked to on the phone that night,
- 22:13Speaker 3: and he found a pattern. No one felt that Justin
- 22:16Speaker 3: was behaving out of the ordinary. It's the same story
- 22:20Speaker 3: with the video surveillance footage. Eric has said. And if
- 22:23Speaker 3: you look online, you can see Justin walks out of
- 22:26Speaker 3: the club. He's calmly walking forward, not stumbling. He has
- 22:31Speaker 3: his phone pressed to his ear. He looks like he's
- 22:33Speaker 3: walking with purpose, and he's talking on the phone. Seven
- 22:36Speaker 3: years after Justin disappeared, a local news station WXIA broadcasts
- 22:41Speaker 3: some additional footage that was taken from inside the club
- 22:44Speaker 3: that night. This footage showed Justin walking out the door
- 22:48Speaker 3: toward the back parking lot. Right after him, a group
- 22:51Speaker 3: that looked like three girls and a guy walked outside
- 22:54Speaker 3: the club. Justin seems to kind of veer left, and
- 22:57Speaker 3: they look like they're veering right, but there are also
- 23:00Speaker 3: a couple of other guys standing outside in that parking lot.
- 23:04Speaker 3: A few minutes later, two men and a woman enter
- 23:06Speaker 3: the club. They come from the same direction Justin was
- 23:10Speaker 3: seen leaving. Another couple leaves. This woman has long, dark
- 23:14Speaker 3: hair and jeans on. You can only see the guy
- 23:17Speaker 3: from the back, but he's wearing a number twenty two
- 23:19Speaker 3: jersey that the news anchor pointed out as pretty distinctive.
- 23:23Speaker 3: There are also two guys and white shirts. They look
- 23:26Speaker 3: like they're going into the club, but then they turn
- 23:28Speaker 3: around after Justin passes them. They don't go in, and
- 23:32Speaker 3: then when footage is shown from a few minutes later,
- 23:35Speaker 3: you can see them entering the club. Now, I'm not
- 23:38Speaker 3: saying that any of these people had anything to do
- 23:40Speaker 3: with Justin's disappearance, but they may have seen something, even
- 23:45Speaker 3: something small, that could help crack this case. Again. Wild
- 23:50Speaker 3: bills can hold thousands of people. It was a crowded night.
- 23:53Speaker 3: It is mind boggling that no one saw anything. In
- 23:57Speaker 3: September of twenty fifteen, seemingly out of nowhere, there were
- 24:01Speaker 3: two arrests and someone said they knew exactly what happened
- 24:05Speaker 3: to Justin Gaines. That it went down at a dark
- 24:08Speaker 3: garage at a house in Snellville. This person said Justin
- 24:12Speaker 3: had been lured to that residence and then when he
- 24:15Speaker 3: walked in, he was attacked, robbed, beaten, and murdered. In
- 24:30Speaker 3: September of twenty fifteen, after a long period of silence,
- 24:33Speaker 3: there were two arrests in connection with the disappearance and
- 24:36Speaker 3: now police believed death of Justin Gaines. In two thousand
- 24:39Speaker 3: and seven, the police's original person of interest was Dustin
- 24:44Speaker 3: Dylan Glass. He had been arrested for distributing methamphetamines, among
- 24:48Speaker 3: other things, and was facing some serious charges, according to
- 24:51Speaker 3: the arrest warrant. After he was arrested, he started cooperating
- 24:56Speaker 3: with police. He told police that he and another man,
- 24:59Speaker 3: fifty seven year old Martin Leonard Wilkie, had assaulted Justin
- 25:03Speaker 3: and robbed him. He said that this assault and robbery
- 25:06Speaker 3: of Justin had ended with Justin being fatally shot. Dustin
- 25:11Speaker 3: told police that he took the earring from Justin, but
- 25:14Speaker 3: said that Justin was alive when he left him. The
- 25:17Speaker 3: detective who talked to reporters later said he believed Dustin
- 25:20Speaker 3: was saying this to kind of confess in a roundabout way,
- 25:23Speaker 3: and it seemed to me the detective believed Dustin was
- 25:26Speaker 3: kind of taunting the detective. Martin Wilkee was arrested and
- 25:30Speaker 3: charged with concealing a death. Then a woman backed up
- 25:34Speaker 3: Dustin's story. She said she had participated in helping get
- 25:38Speaker 3: rid of the body. And the crazy part was that
- 25:40Speaker 3: this woman was Dustin's own mother, Alma Ruth Below. Let
- 25:48Speaker 3: me back up for a minute, because I was trying
- 25:50Speaker 3: to make sense of this story and how everything went down.
- 25:52Speaker 3: So of course I went back through hundreds of pages
- 25:55Speaker 3: of court records, and I found out that after Dustin
- 25:59Speaker 3: got arrested, so of course he's in custody. Of course
- 26:02Speaker 3: he had a residence that he wasn't staying at because
- 26:04Speaker 3: he was in jail. Well, it turns out that during
- 26:07Speaker 3: this time police were doing surveillance on Dustin's house. They
- 26:12Speaker 3: were there on August twenty eighth, and they saw Thelma
- 26:14Speaker 3: Dustin's mother and some other men carrying white bags, which
- 26:18Speaker 3: they later determined had been stolen from a local concrete company.
- 26:22Speaker 3: Thelma confessed that she'd strip some copper wire and stolen
- 26:25Speaker 3: some supplies for the company and was hoping to seldom
- 26:28Speaker 3: on she was arrested on burglary charges in Walton County.
- 26:32Speaker 3: She told the authorities she helped Martin Wilkee and her
- 26:35Speaker 3: son Dustin get rid of Justin Gaines's body. She said
- 26:39Speaker 3: they disposed of Justin's remains in the High Shoals area
- 26:42Speaker 3: near the Appalachi River, Walton County. Thelma led investigators to
- 26:46Speaker 3: a well there, and police searched different wells for several days,
- 26:51Speaker 3: but in the end they found nothing. Thelma later told
- 26:54Speaker 3: police that she had lied in order to get out
- 26:57Speaker 3: of trouble. After that, Thelma was charged with making a
- 27:01Speaker 3: false statement to police. So after this happened, After Thelma
- 27:06Speaker 3: was arrested and charged with lying, it seemed like police
- 27:09Speaker 3: and the district attorney were split over whether or not
- 27:12Speaker 3: she was at all credible. Some of the detectives seemed
- 27:15Speaker 3: to believe that, yes, Thelma and Dustin had lied about
- 27:18Speaker 3: some stuff, but they thought there were grains of truth
- 27:21Speaker 3: in what they were telling the authorities, while the Gwinette
- 27:25Speaker 3: County District Attorney, Danny Porter, said he thought the whole
- 27:28Speaker 3: thing was a dead end. He told Fox five, quote,
- 27:32Speaker 3: I think they are following up on an unproductive lead
- 27:35Speaker 3: that has already been investigated end quote. He basically went
- 27:39Speaker 3: on to say that Thelma and Dustin would come up
- 27:41Speaker 3: with a different story every time they got arrested to
- 27:44Speaker 3: try to get police to cut them a brake on
- 27:45Speaker 3: other charges. In two thousand and seven, there was more news.
- 27:51Speaker 3: Authorities told WSBTV Channel two that they believed that Justin
- 27:56Speaker 3: was robbed and killed, and that his body was taken
- 27:59Speaker 3: to Lake Lanier in a white van and dumped. It
- 28:03Speaker 3: seemed as though they were now disclosing more details of
- 28:07Speaker 3: the story that Thelma had told the police. The lead
- 28:10Speaker 3: investigator on the case at the time, Detective Simms, said
- 28:13Speaker 3: that he believed that Justin got a ride from a
- 28:16Speaker 3: blond woman, that the woman took him to a house
- 28:19Speaker 3: in Snellville, and that he was attacked there and robbed,
- 28:21Speaker 3: then killed, and his body was dumped in Lake Lanier.
- 28:25Speaker 3: Then a few days later, on November fifth, Justin's body
- 28:30Speaker 3: apparently floated up to the surface. After that, police say
- 28:33Speaker 3: they believe his killers panicked, put the body into a
- 28:36Speaker 3: black metal toolbox and carried it to another location, eventually
- 28:41Speaker 3: dumping it in a well. At the time, Detective Sims
- 28:45Speaker 3: said they had a vehicle of interest. He said, right
- 28:48Speaker 3: after Justin went missing, the nineteen eighty four Chevy white
- 28:52Speaker 3: work van that belonged to Thilma's boyfriend at the time
- 28:55Speaker 3: also went missing. Police tried to locate it, but never
- 28:59Speaker 3: found that vehicle. Detective Sims also talked about Justin's earring.
- 29:05Speaker 3: He said, quote, this is a photograph of Justin Dillon
- 29:09Speaker 3: Glass the day after Justin Gaines went missing, wearing an
- 29:12Speaker 3: almost identical earring. Of course, the photos aren't that great,
- 29:15Speaker 3: but if you look at it like this and compare them,
- 29:18Speaker 3: you're gonna see this earring is pretty much the same
- 29:20Speaker 3: as this earring. Dylan Glass has told me and has
- 29:24Speaker 3: confessed in his own way. He said that he took
- 29:26Speaker 3: that earring out of Justin's ear the night that he
- 29:29Speaker 3: was killed. End quote. Police did try to run down
- 29:33Speaker 3: the lead on this earring. They did go to the
- 29:35Speaker 3: pawn shop and eventually they found the earring, but Erica
- 29:38Speaker 3: said when they tried to run a DNA test on it,
- 29:41Speaker 3: apparently there was no trace of DNA. So in the
- 29:44Speaker 3: end police had a kind of confession, but they had
- 29:49Speaker 3: no trace of Justin. The people who were talking to
- 29:52Speaker 3: them had their own reasons why they could be lying
- 29:55Speaker 3: to police so and they already felt like they'd wasted
- 29:57Speaker 3: a lot of time on these searches. Eventually, a couple
- 30:00Speaker 3: months after his arrest, the charges against Martin Wilkie were dismissed,
- 30:05Speaker 3: and Martin Wilke has always denied he had anything to
- 30:08Speaker 3: do with Justin's disappearance or his death. Over the next
- 30:12Speaker 3: few years, occasionally stories would come up about things being
- 30:16Speaker 3: dragged up from the one hundred and sixty foot depths
- 30:18Speaker 3: of Lake Lanier. In twenty seventeen, a house boat named
- 30:23Speaker 3: six Pack Sally, which was kind of a local legend
- 30:25Speaker 3: because the boat was a wreck that had apparently been
- 30:27Speaker 3: sold for a six pack of beer, was slowly sinking,
- 30:30Speaker 3: and the news story about this boat sinking was interesting
- 30:34Speaker 3: to me because it talked about how many houseboats have
- 30:37Speaker 3: gone to the bottom of the lake. It got me
- 30:39Speaker 3: wondering what else was down there. It's also interesting because,
- 30:43Speaker 3: according to Erica, the theory that the police believe is
- 30:47Speaker 3: credible is that Justin's body was taken out and dumped
- 30:51Speaker 3: in Lake Lanier, that it was done on a houseboat,
- 30:56Speaker 3: and they also confirmed that Thelma's boyfriend at the time
- 31:00Speaker 3: owned a houseboat and a home on that lake. In
- 31:04Speaker 3: twenty nineteen, human remains were found near Lake Lanier again,
- 31:08Speaker 3: though they were not connected to Justin. Erica also said
- 31:13Speaker 3: in an interview that Thelma's boyfriend at the time owned
- 31:16Speaker 3: the white van, the one police were unable to find.
- 31:19Speaker 3: So we have this person out there who allegedly owns
- 31:22Speaker 3: a houseboat, a house on the lake, and a van
- 31:26Speaker 3: of interest. But this person was never charged with anything,
- 31:30Speaker 3: and unfortunately, according to reports I've read, this person has
- 31:35Speaker 3: also passed away. Since Justin went missing. In twenty twenty two,
- 31:40Speaker 3: a new investigator came on the case. We've talked about
- 31:42Speaker 3: him a little before. His name is Michael Rising. He
- 31:45Speaker 3: works with the Walton County Sheriff's Department and he's a
- 31:48Speaker 3: cold case investigator. He has stated he's following several leads
- 31:52Speaker 3: and theories that Justin may have been interested in someone
- 31:54Speaker 3: else's girlfriend or may have been targeted for a robbery.
- 31:57Speaker 3: So this is kind of what police have said before.
- 32:01Speaker 3: Of course, we don't have access to the whole case file,
- 32:04Speaker 3: but I find myself wondering what if it was both?
- 32:08Speaker 3: What if Justin met an attractive woman who he was
- 32:11Speaker 3: talking to and she lured him into that vehicle in
- 32:16Speaker 3: order to set him up for a robbery. Through the years,
- 32:21Speaker 3: Erica has kept going, even through the false sightings, all
- 32:24Speaker 3: the tips, and even people leaving her messages with their
- 32:27Speaker 3: theories about the brutal ways in which they said that
- 32:31Speaker 3: Justin was murdered, including someone who told her that he
- 32:34Speaker 3: had been put through a wood chipper. Erica told Atlanta
- 32:37Speaker 3: Magazine she had heard it all, but she kept doing
- 32:39Speaker 3: media interviews and getting the word out there. Justin's family
- 32:42Speaker 3: once answered, but their priority is bringing him home. So
- 32:48Speaker 3: let's go back and take a closer look at Dustin
- 32:51Speaker 3: Dillon Glass because police, even though they believe that he
- 32:56Speaker 3: was lying about certain details, seem to still have his
- 32:59Speaker 3: name on their radar after all these years, and when
- 33:02Speaker 3: they do make statements to the media, they continue to
- 33:04Speaker 3: refer to the story that was told by Dustin and Thelma.
- 33:08Speaker 3: So I wanted to know more. I've seen some references
- 33:11Speaker 3: to Dustin being a gang member. Well, it turns out
- 33:14Speaker 3: that this is more than just a rumor. I did
- 33:17Speaker 3: a deep dive into this guy, and Dustin is a
- 33:19Speaker 3: member of a very notorious gang in Atlanta called the
- 33:22Speaker 3: Ghost Face Gangsters. I've seen Dustin's mugshot, and his entire
- 33:29Speaker 3: face is covered in tattoos. I highly doubt that Justin,
- 33:33Speaker 3: even if he was super intoxicated, which people say he
- 33:36Speaker 3: was not, would have gotten into a car with a
- 33:38Speaker 3: stranger whose face is covered in gang tattoos. So a
- 33:43Speaker 3: little background on the Ghost Face Gangsters or GfG. They
- 33:47Speaker 3: started around the year two thousand inside a Georgia prison,
- 33:51Speaker 3: and basically the GfG is a white supremacy prison gang,
- 33:55Speaker 3: but it's spread to the streets and it's now apparently
- 33:58Speaker 3: the largest gang in Georgia. It has thousands of members,
- 34:03Speaker 3: and these gang members have been responsible for huge crime waves.
- 34:07Speaker 3: They've also since spread out to other states too. According
- 34:11Speaker 3: to a twenty twenty two report by the Anti Defamation
- 34:13Speaker 3: League on white supremacist gangs in prison, the Ghost Face Gangsters,
- 34:18Speaker 3: while they're definitely racist, are not as overtly white supremacist
- 34:23Speaker 3: as some other groups. Apparently the ghost face gangster's loyalty
- 34:28Speaker 3: is to making money, so they do have racist beliefs,
- 34:32Speaker 3: but for example, they will form alliances outside prison with
- 34:35Speaker 3: gangs that have primarily black members. And I also learned
- 34:38Speaker 3: today that there are white gangs, even white supremacist gangs
- 34:42Speaker 3: that sometimes have Hispanic members. Again not to say that
- 34:46Speaker 3: these groups aren't racist. Their loyalty is to the crimes
- 34:50Speaker 3: they're committing and money above any sort of racial loyalty.
- 34:54Speaker 3: Within the GfG, the seven original members are called the Pillars.
- 34:59Speaker 3: New members are all supposed to have bloodlines they're supposed
- 35:01Speaker 3: to trace back to one of those original founding members,
- 35:05Speaker 3: and over the years they have been involved in a
- 35:07Speaker 3: tremendous number of crimes, including drugs, murder, kidnapping, assaults, and
- 35:13Speaker 3: obviously witness intimidation. There have been many high profile busts
- 35:18Speaker 3: of the GfG in recent years, but in two thousand
- 35:21Speaker 3: and seven, when Justin disappeared, this gang was not really
- 35:25Speaker 3: making headlines yet. In twenty fifteen, after Dustin Glasses meth charges,
- 35:30Speaker 3: mushroomed into a federal indictment for racketeering and conspiracy commit murder.
- 35:35Speaker 3: He pleaded guilty to multiple counts of conspiracy commit murder,
- 35:39Speaker 3: aggravated assault, violation of the Street Gang Terrorism Act, and
- 35:43Speaker 3: possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony.
- 35:46Speaker 3: So he was facing some serious federal charges. In the end,
- 35:52Speaker 3: Dustin Glass was sentenced to sevent ten year sentences, but
- 35:55Speaker 3: they're running concurrently, so actually it's not seventy years. This
- 36:00Speaker 3: guy got just over fourteen years in federal prison instead
- 36:03Speaker 3: of being behind bars for the rest of his natural life.
- 36:06Speaker 3: I tried to find all the documents on this case.
- 36:09Speaker 3: Some of them are sealed, so I really wonder what
- 36:12Speaker 3: information he gave prosecutors to cut a deal like that.
- 36:16Speaker 3: So now we go back to Justin's case. We have
- 36:19Speaker 3: a lot of pieces and theories. We have the earring,
- 36:22Speaker 3: we have Dustin's gang affiliation and the story that he
- 36:25Speaker 3: told about being there when his alleged accomplice fatally shot
- 36:28Speaker 3: Justin and then they all allegedly disposed of Justin's body.
- 36:33Speaker 3: But there's no physical evidence. There's no body, and the
- 36:37Speaker 3: people of interest are liars and not credible. So police
- 36:41Speaker 3: seem to be saying they're not going to believe these
- 36:43Speaker 3: people unless there's actual evidence to back them up, and
- 36:46Speaker 3: also if there is not a lot of evidence. Then,
- 36:50Speaker 3: even if they did bring charges against Dustin or anyone
- 36:54Speaker 3: else right now, there's a very high possibility that that
- 36:58Speaker 3: person could get acquitted and then the charges could never
- 37:00Speaker 3: be brought again. They need evidence. The prevailing theory now
- 37:10Speaker 3: seems to be Justin Gaines was at the wrong place
- 37:14Speaker 3: at the wrong time, and that while he was outside
- 37:17Speaker 3: on that bench, a little bit tired, a little bit
- 37:19Speaker 3: buzzed with a dying foam battery, and desperately in need
- 37:22Speaker 3: of a ride, someone saw his nice clothes and diamond
- 37:25Speaker 3: earring and targeted him. I do believe that someone lured
- 37:30Speaker 3: him into the car. Was it the two men or
- 37:34Speaker 3: was it the mystery blonde woman or both or someone
- 37:37Speaker 3: completely different? I should say that on my deep dive
- 37:41Speaker 3: into the Ghost Faced Gangsters, I saw all that while
- 37:44Speaker 3: women aren't allowed to be full members, they do play
- 37:46Speaker 3: a crucial role in recruiting members, smuggling contraband into prisons,
- 37:51Speaker 3: and luring targets to be robbed and sometimes murdered. The
- 37:55Speaker 3: gang very often works in groups of several guys and
- 37:59Speaker 3: one or two girls. Erica also told the Unfound podcast
- 38:04Speaker 3: something else that I think was very interesting. She talked
- 38:07Speaker 3: about the last time when Justin's phone pinged right before
- 38:12Speaker 3: it died. It turned out that just after two am
- 38:15Speaker 3: when the phone pinged, it pinged in the opposite direction
- 38:19Speaker 3: of his house, a few miles toward Lake Lanier. So
- 38:25Speaker 3: where was he going? Was he afraid at that point?
- 38:29Speaker 3: Did these people kidnap him? Or did someone ask him
- 38:32Speaker 3: if he wanted to go to a party, And if
- 38:34Speaker 3: it was a woman, did she know what was going
- 38:37Speaker 3: to happen to him? Or could it, As my friend
- 38:39Speaker 3: Derek Levasso brought up when he discussed this case on YouTube,
- 38:42Speaker 3: could this have been some sort of accident, like she
- 38:45Speaker 3: thought he was cute and then took him to a
- 38:47Speaker 3: party and the men who saw Justin there were jealous
- 38:50Speaker 3: or intimidated by him and jumped him. Now, let me
- 38:54Speaker 3: say there's no evidence that the GfG is connected to
- 38:57Speaker 3: Justin's disappearance, but just knowing about some of the people
- 39:00Speaker 3: who have talked to police and their affiliations, knowing more
- 39:03Speaker 3: about the gang, I think that if Justin's disappearance turns
- 39:07Speaker 3: out to in any way be connected to the gang
- 39:10Speaker 3: or anyone like that, the accidental theory becomes less likely
- 39:14Speaker 3: because anyone who knew these guys would have to know
- 39:19Speaker 3: that any interaction that Justin has with these men is
- 39:23Speaker 3: probably going to end in disaster. This is the same
- 39:26Speaker 3: gang who in twenty eighteen orchestrated a prison break and
- 39:30Speaker 3: the men who escaped murdered to corrections officers. Another gang
- 39:34Speaker 3: member was arrested separately in twenty eighteen after police found
- 39:38Speaker 3: the body of his six month old baby in a
- 39:40Speaker 3: motel freezer. Reading the list of crimes that the GfG
- 39:46Speaker 3: have committed and looking at their mugshots is like watching
- 39:49Speaker 3: a real life horror movie. The gang made headlines again
- 39:52Speaker 3: when several members went to the home of someone they
- 39:54Speaker 3: didn't like. Their intention was to steal guns and beat
- 39:58Speaker 3: him up, but he wasn't home. Unfortunately, his fourteen year
- 40:01Speaker 3: old daughter was. When she saw these ghost Face Gangsters
- 40:05Speaker 3: members coming to her door, she grabbed a BB gun
- 40:08Speaker 3: and tried to defend herself. They started shooting, and this
- 40:12Speaker 3: fourteen year old girl was killed. After the fatal shooting
- 40:16Speaker 3: of the fourteen year old girl and the corrections officers,
- 40:19Speaker 3: the federal and state authorities accelerated their crackdown on the gang.
- 40:23Speaker 3: In July twenty nineteen, it was announced Operation Vanilla Gorilla.
- 40:27Speaker 3: By the way, they always have the craziest code names
- 40:29Speaker 3: for these things. Just a side note there resulted in
- 40:32Speaker 3: the arrest of forty three defendants. In twenty twenty one,
- 40:35Speaker 3: seventy seven Ghost Face Gangsters members were arrested. So they
- 40:40Speaker 3: are cracking down on these gangsters. But authorities still say
- 40:45Speaker 3: that the Ghost Face Gangsters is the fastest growing white
- 40:48Speaker 3: gang in the country and the most dangerous and violent
- 40:51Speaker 3: gang in the state of Georgia. And Dustin Dillon Glass,
- 40:55Speaker 3: one of the police's primary people of interest, is a
- 40:58Speaker 3: member of this gang, and yet I've never seen that
- 41:02Speaker 3: affiliation mention anywhere on the news. Officially, police have said
- 41:08Speaker 3: they're treating Justin's case as a kidnapping and presumed homicide.
- 41:13Speaker 3: They have said a number of Walton County residents are
- 41:16Speaker 3: witnesses to Justin's disappearance and possess knowledge of the incident
- 41:19Speaker 3: that would be of great value to the investigation. This
- 41:23Speaker 3: mystery blonde woman, who by the way, may not be
- 41:26Speaker 3: blonde anymore, seems to be the key. Is she connected
- 41:30Speaker 3: to Dustin or one of his associates. Is she someone
- 41:34Speaker 3: totally random? We need to find out. I know that
- 41:40Speaker 3: a lot of people have posted on social media that
- 41:43Speaker 3: the police have been unresponsive. I think it might be
- 41:46Speaker 3: because there was some confusion about who was handling the case.
- 41:49Speaker 3: It spanned two counties. But the investigator to contact now
- 41:53Speaker 3: we can confirm is Michael Rising at Michael that's m
- 41:58Speaker 3: I C H A E L dot Rising R I
- 42:01Speaker 3: S I N G at CO dot Walton dot g
- 42:06Speaker 3: A dot us. You can also text seven seven zero
- 42:11Speaker 3: three five four eight three four. I've never talked to
- 42:15Speaker 3: Michael Rising, but I've seen where he has gone on
- 42:18Speaker 3: Facebook and personally responded to comments with his contact information.
- 42:23Speaker 3: So please, if you know something, if you were in
- 42:27Speaker 3: the parking lot that night, if you know who this
- 42:28Speaker 3: woman is, please reach out. In twenty seventeen, Erica talked
- 42:34Speaker 3: to eleven Alive about how much Justin was missed by
- 42:37Speaker 3: his family. He miss seeing his family members grow up,
- 42:40Speaker 3: He missed seeing his nieces and nephews born. He missed
- 42:43Speaker 3: graduating from college and all the milestones that his proud
- 42:47Speaker 3: parents should have been able to share with him. I'm
- 42:50Speaker 3: Katherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone
- 42:57Speaker 3: Murder Line is a production of School of Humans and
- 42:59Speaker 3: iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend
- 43:03Speaker 3: and produced by Gabby Watts. Music is contributed by Ben Sale.
- 43:08Speaker 3: Jesse Niswonger scored and mixed this episode. Executive producers of
- 43:12Speaker 3: Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and L. C. Crowley. If you
- 43:16Speaker 3: have a case you'd like me and my team to
- 43:18Speaker 3: look into, you can reach out to us at our
- 43:20Speaker 3: Helen Gone Murder line at six seven eight seven four
- 43:23Speaker 3: four six one four five. That's six seven eight seven
- 43:26Speaker 3: four four six' one four.
- 43:28Speaker 1: Five school Of humans