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From the Party to the Parking Lot · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

0:08
Speaker 1: School of Humans, Gabby and our field producer Miranda have
0:19
Speaker 1: been driving around Searcy County trying to get people to
0:22
Speaker 1: talk about Janie's case. Knocking on people's doors without warning
0:27
Speaker 1: is the last thing we wanted to do. As we
0:31
Speaker 1: talked about in season one, this can be dangerous for us.
0:35
Speaker 1: We also run the risk of having a witness shut
0:37
Speaker 1: down completely and be unwilling to talk. But in a
0:43
Speaker 1: place where a lot of people have unlisted phone numbers
0:46
Speaker 1: and addresses that don't show up on GPS, sometimes a
0:50
Speaker 1: last resort is all we have. Hey, I stop to
0:57
Speaker 1: call you. Well, we just went by Kim's house, met
1:01
Speaker 1: her husband and gave a gave him the phone, and
1:06
Speaker 1: then she called and said, don't talk to me, don't
1:10
Speaker 1: call me, leave me alone. So Kim definitely not. We
1:18
Speaker 1: went and saw Jamie yesterday and he seemed like, yeah,
1:24
Speaker 1: Jamie seemed just kind of like, uh that thing again,
1:27
Speaker 1: like I think he's He said something like I've turned
1:30
Speaker 1: over every rock that I could and could never find
1:33
Speaker 1: out anything, just like we found in season one. It
1:36
Speaker 1: takes a long time for people in small towns to
1:39
Speaker 1: trust an outsider, but in Marshall, we've had some additional
1:44
Speaker 1: challenges Because there has been so much work done on
1:47
Speaker 1: the case over the years, many people are reluctant to
1:50
Speaker 1: talk unless they can be assured that there will be
1:53
Speaker 1: progress in the case. Otherwise they see no benefit to
1:57
Speaker 1: digging the case up again. Everyone you've heard about so far,
2:02
Speaker 1: Jay Kim, Ron Rose, Gary Do. All of those people
2:07
Speaker 1: who were at the party have been interviewed multiple times
2:10
Speaker 1: over the thirty years since Jane died. They've been legally
2:13
Speaker 1: obliged to show up for depositions served to them by
2:16
Speaker 1: prosecutors and lawyers. They've been interviewed by journalists. They've had
2:21
Speaker 1: articles written about them across Arkansas, and in two thousand
2:24
Speaker 1: and nine, ABC broadcast their forty minute episode of Primetime
2:29
Speaker 1: about Janie's death, bringing everything about her case to the
2:33
Speaker 1: national stage. And so, when you have another group of
2:36
Speaker 1: outsiders asking questions, what would you do? Would you want
2:41
Speaker 1: to relive the same night thirty years ago again and again,
2:45
Speaker 1: especially if you were being accused of her murder. I'm
2:50
Speaker 1: Catherine Townsend and this is hell and Gone. It's two
3:26
Speaker 1: thousand and four, fifteen years after Jane died, and after
3:30
Speaker 1: a second autopsy, doctor Harry Bennell has determined that Jane's
3:34
Speaker 1: death was a homicide. He found blunt force trauma to
3:38
Speaker 1: the face and said her next snap back, her spinal
3:43
Speaker 1: cord had been torn. She had fractures in her vertebra.
3:47
Speaker 1: The second autopsy was meant to provide clarity, but it
3:50
Speaker 1: ended up causing even more chaos. The Arkansas Crime Lab
3:54
Speaker 1: is reviewing doctor Burnell's autopsy. Doctor Fami Malick is long
3:58
Speaker 1: gone from the crime lab, and doctor Charles Cox is
4:01
Speaker 1: the chief medical examiner. He gives a scathing review of
4:04
Speaker 1: doctor Burnell's He writes, as there is no gentle or
4:09
Speaker 1: diplomatic way to say this, I will be quite blunt.
4:12
Speaker 1: Doctor Burnell's report, as far as its defects and observation,
4:15
Speaker 1: documentation and conclusions are concerned, is grossly substandard. I am
4:20
Speaker 1: frankly aghast at the numerous departures from standard forensic medical practice.
4:25
Speaker 1: On the basis of a few poorly described autopsy findings
4:29
Speaker 1: and five photographs, he would have the reader believe a
4:32
Speaker 1: murder had taken place. I do not believe his report
4:35
Speaker 1: should be given any serious consideration. Doctor Cokex's main point
4:40
Speaker 1: is that the autopsy report is full of insufficient descriptions
4:44
Speaker 1: and documentation. He says that's particularly important in this case
4:47
Speaker 1: because it's challenging for even the most experienced forensic pathologists
4:51
Speaker 1: to make a determination after a body has been previously autopsied, embalmed,
4:56
Speaker 1: and buried. You have to be able to discern evidence
4:59
Speaker 1: of the injuries that happened before death and figure out
5:02
Speaker 1: which ones happen post mortem. It's also particularly importan or
5:06
Speaker 1: when you rule a death of homicide where someone can
5:08
Speaker 1: be convicted. Doctor Cox isn't convinced by any of doctor
5:12
Speaker 1: Burnell's determinations. Doctor Coke says that the discoloration on Jannie's
5:17
Speaker 1: skin is more likely from post mortem changes and not
5:21
Speaker 1: contusions or abrasions from an injury to the face. Doctor
5:24
Speaker 1: Burnell also says there is an extensive hyper extension injury,
5:28
Speaker 1: but he doesn't document any hemorrhaging in that area, specifically
5:31
Speaker 1: around the third and fourth vertebrae, which he said were fractured.
5:35
Speaker 1: Doctor Burnell provided five photographs in his autopsy, all of
5:39
Speaker 1: the body from a distance, and none of the actual injuries.
5:43
Speaker 1: By comparing Benell's autopsy to the photographs in the original autopsy,
5:47
Speaker 1: doctor Cox writes these injuries simply do not exist. Doctor
5:53
Speaker 1: Cox also talks about the X ray. Remember, both doctor
5:56
Speaker 1: Burnell and the pathologist who reviewed doctor Malix's autopsy said
6:00
Speaker 1: the side view of Janey's X ray looked like a
6:02
Speaker 1: male skull. Doctor Cox writes much has been written about
6:07
Speaker 1: this death, both the mainstream media and on the Internet.
6:10
Speaker 1: Much has been written that is simply and categorically false.
6:13
Speaker 1: The most egregious example here is the purported switching of
6:16
Speaker 1: Jane Ward's autopsy X rays with those of a male.
6:20
Speaker 1: As part of this review, we compared photos of X
6:23
Speaker 1: rays taken at the time of the nineteen eighty nine
6:25
Speaker 1: autopsy with X rays of the exumbody examined in two
6:28
Speaker 1: thousand and four. There is no doubt that the two
6:31
Speaker 1: individuals are one and the same. I can't wrap my
6:35
Speaker 1: head around this. I've read over both doctor Malick and
6:38
Speaker 1: doctor Burnell's autopsies dozens of times, and neither one of
6:42
Speaker 1: them present enough evidence to answer the question what actually
6:46
Speaker 1: happened to Janie's spine. The two pathologists who reviewed doctor
6:50
Speaker 1: Malik's work in nineteen ninety two weren't even convinced as
6:53
Speaker 1: spinal injury was present, but the spinal cord has become
6:57
Speaker 1: central to what people think killed Jane. During his autopsy,
7:01
Speaker 1: doctor Malik removed part of Janie's spine. He provided color
7:05
Speaker 1: photographs of the portion of the spine that he removed,
7:09
Speaker 1: with an arrow pointing to the hemorrhaging that indicated an injury.
7:13
Speaker 1: These are the same photographs that doctor Mallet gave Ron
7:16
Speaker 1: Ward when he visited the crime lab. Both Awards and
7:20
Speaker 1: Mike have placed a huge amount of emphasis on the
7:23
Speaker 1: fact that doctor Mallick gave ron those photos. They believe
7:27
Speaker 1: that these photos show that the spinal cord is torn.
7:30
Speaker 1: Here's Mike and he had sent them color photographs of
7:35
Speaker 1: his autopsy, and one of those photographs was of the
7:38
Speaker 1: spinal canal opened and in the center of it was
7:42
Speaker 1: the spinal her spinal call on. Her spinal cord torn,
7:47
Speaker 1: not cut, you could say its shredded. It is torn,
7:50
Speaker 1: which was obviously the fatal injury. That's why she couldn't
7:54
Speaker 1: move and she fell out in the yard. She just
7:55
Speaker 1: laid there until she just couldn't breathe, and that's what happened.
8:00
Speaker 1: Respiratory system shuts down and you're done. The fact that
8:04
Speaker 1: the spinal cord word was torn according to Mike, means
8:07
Speaker 1: that Janey suffered a catastrophic injury to her spine that
8:11
Speaker 1: night at the party. The spinal cord being cut would
8:14
Speaker 1: indicate that it was an artifact of the autopsy, something
8:17
Speaker 1: that doctor Malak had cut in order to remove a
8:19
Speaker 1: portion of the spine. We're going to come back to
8:22
Speaker 1: this later, but we need to figure out if there
8:24
Speaker 1: is any way of determining exactly what happened to that
8:27
Speaker 1: spinal cord. We'll be right back. The news of the
8:41
Speaker 1: second autopsy spreads throughout Arkansas with the help of Mike
8:44
Speaker 1: Masterson's weekly columns, ABC also sends people down to Arkansas
8:48
Speaker 1: to start following the case. Over four years, they developed
8:53
Speaker 1: their research into a forty minute program called Primetime. The
8:56
Speaker 1: case is making national headlines. That's when the Wards held
9:00
Speaker 1: a two hundred person rally at the Capitol that we
9:02
Speaker 1: talked about in the first episode. People started someting hundreds
9:06
Speaker 1: of tips to the Justice for Janeye Forum and in Marshall,
9:09
Speaker 1: the crusade between Jerry and Sarah and the Wards split
9:13
Speaker 1: the town. Some people think that Sarah or someone else,
9:17
Speaker 1: or multiple people killed Jane with a baseball bat. One
9:21
Speaker 1: user even claims that Jane didn't even die at the party.
9:25
Speaker 1: They said she was six miles away from the cabin
9:28
Speaker 1: down at the Buffalo River, a popular party spot for
9:31
Speaker 1: young people in Marshall. There was an altercation, she was
9:34
Speaker 1: hit in the face, she was unconscious, and she was
9:37
Speaker 1: drowned to make sure she was dead. She was then
9:40
Speaker 1: brought to the cabin where the story was made up
9:43
Speaker 1: about the fall. After that, she was taken to the
9:46
Speaker 1: car wash to remove evidence and dressed in different clothes.
9:51
Speaker 1: A lot of the wilder theories presented on the forum
9:54
Speaker 1: can be dismissed just by looking back at the evidence.
9:57
Speaker 1: Investigator Bill Beach interviewed more than thirty people who were
10:01
Speaker 1: at the party. All of them said that they saw
10:04
Speaker 1: Janeye there, alive and well. In episode two, we found
10:09
Speaker 1: discrepancies in the timeline and the witness interview that was
10:12
Speaker 1: the biggest outlier was the one from police dispatcher Harold Young.
10:16
Speaker 1: He said that Ron Rose had passed by the Sheriff's
10:19
Speaker 1: office and alerted him to Janeye in the back of
10:21
Speaker 1: the truck. He said that that was around six thirty pm,
10:26
Speaker 1: but no one in the truck said that happen. Most
10:29
Speaker 1: of the witnesses said that Jane fell closer to seven thirty,
10:33
Speaker 1: even if Harold was slightly off on the time. I
10:36
Speaker 1: can't help thinking that every stop that ron Rose made
10:39
Speaker 1: meant that minutes were ticking by as Jane lay dying
10:42
Speaker 1: in the back of his truck, Minutes that could have
10:44
Speaker 1: been used to save her life. A lot of people
10:47
Speaker 1: witnessed Janie lying on the ground and saw her getting
10:50
Speaker 1: loaded in the truck. This illustrates an important investigative principle.
10:56
Speaker 1: It is suspicious if witness accounts are too divergent, but
10:59
Speaker 1: it's also suspicious if witness accounts are too similar, because
11:03
Speaker 1: they can sound rehearsed. In Janie's case, investigators concluded that
11:08
Speaker 1: the witness accounts were similar and dissimilar enough to indicate
11:13
Speaker 1: that people were telling the truth. In ron Ward's recordings,
11:17
Speaker 1: we find a tape of ron and Mona talking with
11:19
Speaker 1: prosecutors and investigators about the witness statements. One of the
11:23
Speaker 1: officers there explains this idea about the witness statements in
11:28
Speaker 1: this particular case. It is my recollection that the that
11:33
Speaker 1: the witnesses are the people who were there at the
11:36
Speaker 1: party were interviewed something like three times and I believe
11:41
Speaker 1: that I look back over this myself many times to
11:44
Speaker 1: satisfy myself. That's good. But if you've got a bunch
11:49
Speaker 1: of people who all tell you wildly divergent stories basically,
11:56
Speaker 1: well how about I know. But what I'm saying is
12:00
Speaker 1: if you'd have a bunch of people that they all
12:02
Speaker 1: tell wild and divergent stories, you know before out there
12:05
Speaker 1: any other com well somebody's mistaken, okay. Or if you
12:11
Speaker 1: have a bunch of people and they all tell you
12:12
Speaker 1: exactly the same story, I think you got a round
12:16
Speaker 1: in this. The statements that were given all of two
12:22
Speaker 1: to be basically consistent in the main but they if
12:29
Speaker 1: they did her in just those ways that you might
12:33
Speaker 1: suspect the statements to differ. If you had a bunch
12:36
Speaker 1: of people standing around, everybody game became pretention. We bring
12:43
Speaker 1: this up because these outlier theories like that Janie was
12:46
Speaker 1: not at the party and was struck elsewhere, are highly
12:49
Speaker 1: unlikely because there's a consensus of witnesses. So what we
12:53
Speaker 1: know is that Jane was at the party at some point,
12:57
Speaker 1: she collapsed, she was on the ground, and when she
13:01
Speaker 1: was loaded into the pickup truck she was still alive.
13:04
Speaker 1: But by the time time she was in the bank
13:06
Speaker 1: parking lot, she was dead. So what happened between the
13:11
Speaker 1: party and the bank parking lot We talked to someone
13:14
Speaker 1: who tried to figure that out. His name is Richard Walter.
13:18
Speaker 1: The Wards found him through Parents of Murdered Children, along
13:22
Speaker 1: with a second opinion service that led to doctor Bonell's autopsy.
13:26
Speaker 1: That organization also hosts support groups for parents and has
13:29
Speaker 1: an annual conference. The Wards attended one and that's where
13:33
Speaker 1: they met Richard Walter. He's the founder of the Vidock
13:36
Speaker 1: Society in Philadelphia. The VEDOC consists of a group of
13:40
Speaker 1: investigators and forensic scientists who meet once a month to
13:43
Speaker 1: discuss unsolved cases. He's an expert in forensic psychology and
13:48
Speaker 1: he's been involved in multiple high profile cases. Ron and
13:52
Speaker 1: mon Aneu instantly they needed to talk one on one
13:55
Speaker 1: with Richard in the hopes he could help with Janie's case.
13:58
Speaker 1: I also belonged years ago to the National Board of
14:04
Speaker 1: Parents and Children, and so I was at one in
14:08
Speaker 1: the meetings, and I would go and I would give
14:09
Speaker 1: a little chat to the parents, and this and that,
14:12
Speaker 1: and the words were there. They took a liking to me,
14:17
Speaker 1: and particularly as to what I had to say, and
14:20
Speaker 1: they felt that I was an honorable guy, apparently, and
14:24
Speaker 1: then they told me their case about Damy and it
14:27
Speaker 1: sounded and many parents will they blame law enforcement, and
14:31
Speaker 1: they blame this, and they blame that or whatever else,
14:34
Speaker 1: and sometimes it's not so I thought, well, I went
14:39
Speaker 1: to beat On and said to them, this is their tale.
14:43
Speaker 1: Law enforcement there apparently is not willing to come here
14:46
Speaker 1: and discuss the case in chief, and so I would
14:50
Speaker 1: like to go there and have a look. See. In
14:53
Speaker 1: November of two thousand and one, Richard went down to
14:56
Speaker 1: Marshall to see if he could shed any new light
14:59
Speaker 1: on the case, and he ended up having a really
15:02
Speaker 1: bizarre experience. I then obviously saw the wards, and then
15:08
Speaker 1: a state trooper showed up who liked the words, amongst
15:13
Speaker 1: other things. We became quick friends. And that's a damn
15:17
Speaker 1: good thing, because I found the environment extremely hostile and
15:22
Speaker 1: the only place that I could rent allegedly before my
15:26
Speaker 1: week stay of three days day or whatever, it was Okay,
15:29
Speaker 1: it was a house inside a wald environment. It was
15:34
Speaker 1: a citadel inside a wald environment. They just didn't want
15:38
Speaker 1: me there. One person in particular stood out to Richard
15:41
Speaker 1: gary Don. He was the one who provided the beer
15:45
Speaker 1: and the booze for the party, and the story Richard
15:48
Speaker 1: said he got from gary Don is completely different than
15:50
Speaker 1: what we read in the police file. The two drove
15:53
Speaker 1: up to the cabin and in a private conversation, gary
15:57
Speaker 1: Don told Richard there was some sort of conflict between
16:00
Speaker 1: Sarah and Janey that then got out of hand, and
16:02
Speaker 1: there was a conflict. She went off the porch. Uh,
16:06
Speaker 1: then somebody decided that they should call the police, and
16:09
Speaker 1: so the police. Now then they got into panic, and
16:12
Speaker 1: everybody was trying to hide their drugs and do all
16:14
Speaker 1: these other sorts of things. Okay, So they decided then
16:18
Speaker 1: to get rid of Jane, and from that then they
16:24
Speaker 1: put her in the back of the pickup. He then
16:27
Speaker 1: told me that she was none verbal, but she was groaning.
16:30
Speaker 1: She was moaning. She was doing all these other sorts
16:32
Speaker 1: of things instead of going the shortest way back to
16:36
Speaker 1: town and to the hospital and whatever else. If you
16:39
Speaker 1: are exiting the party place and you turned left, that
16:44
Speaker 1: was the fastest way back to town. They turned right,
16:47
Speaker 1: and we turned right, and they then took me through
16:52
Speaker 1: Hilldale Valley, muddy spots and this and that. Then you
16:59
Speaker 1: also had. We also had to forge a creek that
17:02
Speaker 1: ran across across the road. It was suggested be because
17:06
Speaker 1: of the crawdads and the other sorts of things that
17:08
Speaker 1: were found in their clothing and hair and whatever. Okay,
17:12
Speaker 1: that she had been further beaten. She wasn't dead when
17:17
Speaker 1: she left the party. Somewhere before she got back to town, though,
17:22
Speaker 1: she was dead, and it was believed that they stopped
17:27
Speaker 1: along the way at the creek, put her in the creek,
17:31
Speaker 1: beat the hell out of her, send me far off,
17:34
Speaker 1: and from that then go into town. Allegedly, then the
17:39
Speaker 1: driver of the vehicle of the pickup then drove through
17:44
Speaker 1: a car wash with her in the back, and then
17:48
Speaker 1: they called the police. Going back to the paramedics and
17:51
Speaker 1: to what ron Ward saw in the morgue, they all
17:54
Speaker 1: agreed that Janey was covered in sand. She even had
17:58
Speaker 1: sand under her clothes and stuck in her bra strap.
18:01
Speaker 1: It was also stated in their affidavit that she was
18:04
Speaker 1: covered in Beggar's life. Beggar's life is a plant that
18:08
Speaker 1: has little hooks that very easily get attached to fur, clothes,
18:11
Speaker 1: or in this case, hair, and Ron said it's often
18:15
Speaker 1: found near the creek beds in Marshall, but there was
18:17
Speaker 1: no mention of crawdads. This theory would help explain why
18:22
Speaker 1: Jane's hair and body were wet and why witnesses said
18:26
Speaker 1: there was a puddle of water under Ron Rose's truck
18:28
Speaker 1: in the bank parking lot, But again, in any official
18:32
Speaker 1: police record, no one in the truck mentioned taking this route,
18:36
Speaker 1: nor did Gary dah ever give this explanation to police.
18:40
Speaker 1: In the end, Richard told Ron that he couldn't do
18:44
Speaker 1: anything to help him get justice for his daughter, and
18:46
Speaker 1: so ultimately, then I said one, I said, I hate
18:50
Speaker 1: to hear myself say this. Then I'm going to tell
18:53
Speaker 1: you what as a friend, and when we're else, I
18:58
Speaker 1: believe you. I believe that your daughter was murdered, and
19:02
Speaker 1: I believe that we know the story. But it is
19:06
Speaker 1: so corrupt in Marshall, Arkansas that it will never, never,
19:13
Speaker 1: never come to fruition unless a miracle takes place. That said,
19:17
Speaker 1: I'd love to see it all, but I said, I gotta,
19:20
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, I just have to. I just
19:22
Speaker 1: had to drop out now, I said, I'll be back
19:24
Speaker 1: in a heartbeat. They're good to back to another investigation.
19:28
Speaker 1: You need me I'll be there, but until you can
19:30
Speaker 1: get the poond things sorted out by spinning my wheels
19:35
Speaker 1: and I can't do that, We'll be right back. This
19:40
Speaker 1: theory that Richard presents also says that Janey was at
19:44
Speaker 1: the party and that something happened there, but that something
19:47
Speaker 1: also happened in the truck en route from the party
19:49
Speaker 1: to the bank parking lot. So we need to find
19:52
Speaker 1: out which direction the truck took. From reading witness reports,
19:57
Speaker 1: we had been assuming that the truck went the most
19:59
Speaker 1: direct route, which would be to the left out of
20:02
Speaker 1: the driveway. The three people in the truck, Ron Rose,
20:06
Speaker 1: Sherry and Kim All said that they didn't make any
20:10
Speaker 1: stops between the cabin and the bank parking lot. Anne
20:14
Speaker 1: that they went there because of its proximity to the
20:16
Speaker 1: ambulance service. But in the mayhem of leaving the party,
20:21
Speaker 1: there was a car accident reported. We read about it
20:24
Speaker 1: first in Sherry's statement. She had actually left the party
20:27
Speaker 1: with another Marshall High School student named Brian, and Brian
20:31
Speaker 1: apparently ran his truck into a tree while leaving the cabin.
20:35
Speaker 1: He had gone to the left out of the driveway,
20:37
Speaker 1: and other people leaving had to help him pull his
20:40
Speaker 1: car out of the way. This road is narrow and
20:43
Speaker 1: it was blocking the rest of the people who were
20:45
Speaker 1: trying to leave. Mona and Cristel heard that Brian was
20:49
Speaker 1: so upset on the night of the party that he
20:51
Speaker 1: had to be sedated by his father, who was a
20:53
Speaker 1: doctor in town. We need to know if Richard's theory
20:57
Speaker 1: is plausible and if they went by the creek bed
21:01
Speaker 1: or ended up driving down Rockier roads. Was the truck
21:04
Speaker 1: diverted to the right or was this another delay in
21:07
Speaker 1: getting Jennie to help Ron Ward continues to call and
21:12
Speaker 1: talk to people on the phone about the case. On
21:14
Speaker 1: the night Janie died, it was Ron's cousin, Steve, who
21:17
Speaker 1: came and picked Moan and Ron up to take them
21:20
Speaker 1: to the police station, where they got the news about Jane.
21:24
Speaker 1: Stephen Ron grew up together. They were close, but over
21:28
Speaker 1: the years their relationship grew tense. Steve owned the cabin
21:32
Speaker 1: his son Jay through the party. Ron accused Steve of
21:36
Speaker 1: not being truthful early in the investigation, which is revealed
21:40
Speaker 1: in one of the conversations that Ron had with investigator
21:42
Speaker 1: Bill Beach. Tell me that she had some more names.
21:48
Speaker 1: Oh yes, sir, I do okay. I was like, you're
21:52
Speaker 1: very important. Have Steve war not other than that first night?
22:00
Speaker 1: But not good quurtion me, how did he act? So
22:05
Speaker 1: that was just the first night that I was down there, Ron,
22:07
Speaker 1: that was the first night that it happened at that
22:09
Speaker 1: particular time. You know, they only think Steve said was
22:14
Speaker 1: that he hadn't been there, that he was at his
22:16
Speaker 1: home in Delphunt and he didn't have any idea what
22:18
Speaker 1: had happened. You know that Jamie was the one that
22:21
Speaker 1: had the use of the house, and that was basically it. Well,
22:25
Speaker 1: just the way Steve's actually we came to us. Ron
22:30
Speaker 1: is saying that Steve has told him plenty of ideas
22:32
Speaker 1: about what happened to his daughter, but she choked on
22:35
Speaker 1: an orange piel and suffocated, that she tripped and felt
22:39
Speaker 1: that she was drunk. Ron is also not clear on
22:42
Speaker 1: where Steve was that night. It made stir telling us
22:45
Speaker 1: there's no fell play, that he was not there, that
22:47
Speaker 1: he was home sick in bed with the sore throat,
22:50
Speaker 1: and then his wife tells us that he was at
22:54
Speaker 1: a party at Mass Merchandise. Fifteen hundred people can swear
22:58
Speaker 1: up and down, and his whole attitude for it since
23:02
Speaker 1: Stephen I was real quot for lot brothers. You know,
23:08
Speaker 1: my respact that helped you build the very house up
23:12
Speaker 1: there for this ancident to flee. And then he just
23:16
Speaker 1: completely turns one hundred and eighty degrees away from me.
23:22
Speaker 1: The people here at the house we tell him he's
23:24
Speaker 1: lying to you, be lying to you, And I told him,
23:28
Speaker 1: I said no, I said he wasn't lie to me.
23:31
Speaker 1: It didn't come tinned out. Everything he told us was
23:34
Speaker 1: a law. Ron said everything he told us was a lie.
23:39
Speaker 1: But Steve has also been trying to figure out what
23:41
Speaker 1: happened and had an emotional phone call with Ron. I
23:44
Speaker 1: wasn't there, Ronnie. I'm not saying you only know what
23:49
Speaker 1: I think has happened in a speculations from what I've
23:55
Speaker 1: told you, has only led up the hardship. And I
23:59
Speaker 1: don't want that no more. I'm tired of it. I
24:01
Speaker 1: don't want to know the truth like you do, and
24:04
Speaker 1: I don't want you to accuse me nothing, and I'm
24:07
Speaker 1: not I'm excused you with now thing in your mind.
24:12
Speaker 1: The only thing I said was that you knew what happened. No,
24:16
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, I honestly don't have no
24:20
Speaker 1: idea that this world what happened. Steve proposes another theory.
24:26
Speaker 1: Jannie was at the party and after the chaos of
24:29
Speaker 1: the party line call an announcement that the police were coming,
24:33
Speaker 1: Jane was pushed into a post that was on the porch.
24:36
Speaker 1: Steve thought that the force of that could have bruised
24:39
Speaker 1: Jannie's face and body. She then fell onto the ground.
24:43
Speaker 1: Steve suggested that Sarah might have been the one who
24:45
Speaker 1: ran into Jannie, or another Marshall High School student who
24:48
Speaker 1: was fleeing the scene to avoid the cops. Brian, the
24:51
Speaker 1: kid who crashed the truck is another possibility. Running out
24:55
Speaker 1: of the house and she is standing there by the
24:57
Speaker 1: cag fit and get her a bear, and somebody run
24:59
Speaker 1: over and shoved her into that post. And they said,
25:03
Speaker 1: when she turned around, I heard a When they turned around,
25:06
Speaker 1: she read chapter grabs the post and she sprung around
25:10
Speaker 1: and fell off the porch. That ain't nobody took him
25:13
Speaker 1: from the river or done nothing else to her. This
25:16
Speaker 1: phone call between ron and Steve is charged. Whenever Ron
25:20
Speaker 1: starts speculating, Steve implores him to stop. Ronnie my honest
25:25
Speaker 1: opinion was, I'm sorry to say that it was a
25:28
Speaker 1: pure accident and nobody could help it, or somebody wouldn't nobody.
25:34
Speaker 1: It wasn't no good. It was in an accident, But
25:38
Speaker 1: it didn't happen at when I'm saying I did. It
25:42
Speaker 1: had to you couldn't have. Janie was there at the party.
25:46
Speaker 1: She went out there with Ronnie and them, and she
25:49
Speaker 1: was there. She probably went out behind the house. Steve
25:52
Speaker 1: suggests that the debris that Janie was covered in either
25:56
Speaker 1: came from his yard or from the bed of ron
25:58
Speaker 1: Roses truck, and he pleads with ron to believe it
26:01
Speaker 1: was totally accidental and that everyone was doing the best
26:04
Speaker 1: they could help his daughter. Remember that doctor Burnell said
26:08
Speaker 1: that Jane's spine was broken, and he confirmed the injuries
26:12
Speaker 1: Ron had seen on Jane the night she died, a
26:15
Speaker 1: broken nose and bruising on the face. Steve's theory that
26:19
Speaker 1: Jannie ran into a post matches these injuries. After doctor
26:23
Speaker 1: Burnell's autopsy, the ward's petition to change the manner of
26:28
Speaker 1: death on Janie's death certificate from undetermined to homicide. People
26:35
Speaker 1: across Arkansas are now thoroughly invested in the case. It
26:39
Speaker 1: appears on local news stations and everyone is waiting to
26:42
Speaker 1: see what will happen. Mike Huckabee is governor at the
26:45
Speaker 1: time and gives ten thousand dollars to hire a special
26:48
Speaker 1: prosecutor to work on the case. The case is reopened
26:53
Speaker 1: and a new investigation begins. All statutes of limitations have
26:57
Speaker 1: run out, all statutes except homicide. I'm Catherine Townsend and
27:04
Speaker 1: this is Helen Gone. Helen Gone is a joint production
27:09
Speaker 1: between School of Humans and iHeartRadio. It is written and
27:12
Speaker 1: recorded by me. Katherine Townsend. Taylor Church and Gabby Watts
27:17
Speaker 1: are our producers and story editors. Executive producers are Brandon Barr,
27:22
Speaker 1: Brian Lavin, and L. C. Crowley for School of Humans
27:25
Speaker 1: and Connell Byrne and Chuck Bryant for iHeart. Our field
27:29
Speaker 1: producer is Miranda Hawkins. Theme and original score are by
27:33
Speaker 1: Ben Sale, available wherever you get your music. Please visit
27:37
Speaker 1: us at Helen gonpodcast dot com or follow us on
27:41
Speaker 1: social media. School of Humans