December 14, 2022 • 31 mins
Catherine learns new information about the Arkansas State Police's investigation and explores the concept of contamination in confessions.
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
School of humans.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I didn't tell I'll tell y'all, four guys. So Dennis
is apparently a long haul truck driver, now.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
What Yeah, no, I tell you so, all right.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
So my brother in law he told me that Dennis
is now a long haul truck driver and that he's
really happy because he doesn't have to deal with people anymore.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Yeah, he shouldn't be dealing with people, right, Well, maybe
he was in the wrong job, you think.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I mean, no, my, he's like, well, he's just had
enough of all this and he just you know, he's
he's he don't want to deal with people anymore.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
And I blame him.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I'm like, he was in the wrong fucking job and
he should have gotten out of it and not taking
taxpayer money for twenty years anyway.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Crimes, I'm not dealing with people cold.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Cases, like, yeah, no, I mean anyhow, well, so just
watch out because he might be you know, who knows,
he could be passing the area. I saw Dennis Simons
for the first time in a very long time at
the pre trial hearing that I attended on October third.
(01:14):
Dennis retired a couple years ago. In fact, in the hearing,
when they asked Dennis how they should refer to him
as a special agent or mister Simons or what he said.
It used to be special agent, but now it's just nothing.
Dennis was there to testify about his role as the
lead investigator on Rebecca's case. He said that he worked
(01:36):
the case for almost eighteen years. The stakes in this
pre trial hearing were high. Part of the pre trial
was Billy Miller's defense lawyers trying to get the case
dismissed because of what they alleged was an intentional and
reckless delay that they claimed was simply inertia on Dennis
Simon's part. While Dennis was talking, he was asked several
(01:57):
questions about the fact that he failed to act. Dennis
insisted that Rebecca's case was an active investigation the entire time.
But I keep thinking back to the very first time
I saw Dennis Simons in the flesh. It was at
his satellite office in the Stone County Sheriff's office. I
remember seeing Rebecca's white case fall on the shelf covered
(02:17):
in dust. In this episode, I'm going to do a
deep dive into what doctor Larry Gould, Rebecca's father, calls
the gray area. I want to go through some discoveries
we've made about the police work on the case, and
I'm still trying to make sense of the inconsistencies in
(02:38):
William's confession, and it seems like every single day now
we're hearing about more of them. I'm Catherine Townsend. This
is hell and Gone. So a couple of very interesting
(03:26):
things came out during the pre trial. First of all,
Mike McNeil testified that the Arkansas State Police apparently now
does have an official definition of cold cases. Mike said
that this change happened very recently, from what I could gather.
Instead of labeling every case an open and active investigation,
(03:48):
they are working on an official designation of cold cases.
I think they could be trying to get away from
the limbo that a lot of these cases end up
in for years, which is what happened in Rebecca's case,
where they're labeled open investigations for years at a time.
He didn't offer many more details on that, but I
hope they are changing that system. From what I've seen
(04:10):
of Mike McNeil, I believe that he has a more
modern attitude towards solving cases, one that I believe will
be invaluable to the Arkansas State Police. But it's been
a good old boys system for a long time, and
some things are very slow to change. Something else I
found out during the pre trial hearing was what went
down after the first season of Hele Gone aired in
(04:31):
twenty eighteen. Now I'm mentioning this because that is crucial
to our podcast. What happened was, if you'll remember from
season one, we took a witness statement from someone who
had information that was crucial to the case, and Dennis Simons,
for lack of a better word, blew our witness off,
even though this witness had information about Rebecca's murder that
(04:51):
at that time had not been made public. Now, my
dad does not work in law enforcement, but he is
a volunteer Stone County Reserved Police Deputy. I got him
to go with me to interview the witness. We took
a recorded and written statement, and those statements became part
of the official record at the case file. I then
tried to file a complaint against Dennis Simon's because I
(05:13):
believed that his inaction was actively harming the investigation into
Rebecca's murder. Then I got that kind of irate call
from Mark Collingsworth, who was Dennis's superior at the Arkansas
State Police, Ann, who had also worked on Rebecca's case
for a few months right before Dennis became lead investigator.
Mark had me in for that crazy meeting where basically
(05:35):
he told me investigations are grown up stuff and I
should mind my own business. Well, after I left there
and the podcast came out, we found out that Dennis
Simons was basically ordered to reinvestigate the case, and that
his reinvestigation consisted of sending other people's police statements back
to them and asking them if they were still correct,
rather than bringing them in for an in person interview.
(05:58):
I said at the time that it seemed like Dennis
was just kind of ticking boxes and that he appeared
to be very obos pissed off at us. Well in
the courtroom during the pre trial hearing, we found out
that that's pretty much exactly what happened. Dennis testified that
in twenty eighteen, he attended a case management meeting in
(06:19):
Little Rock requested by Major Mark Collingsworth, his boss. Dennis
said that he could not recall the last time that
a meeting like that had ever happened, and it was
really funny because when Dennis was asked what happened in
twenty eighteen that had prompted that meeting.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
He looked like he was starting to get kind of nervous.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Dennis testified that Rebecca's case was always an open and
active case file, yet he couldn't seem to remember key
names or dates. On the stand, he said that he
tried to read the case file at least once a year,
and he called the national attention that the case got
during the last two years of his career, media attention
by the way that was generated by the Hele Gone podcast,
(07:00):
extremely disruptive to his career. In my opinion, he started
to look really flustered, and that to me was very satisfying,
because he should look flustered. He should be embarrassed about
the fact that he doesn't know the key dates about
a case that he was the lead investigator on for
almost twenty years. We also discovered that the police knew
(07:22):
about William Miller back in two thousand and four. We
know that Billy's name came up very early in the
investigation as someone who had been by Casey's trailer, but
the ASP investigators didn't see red flags with him, so
instead of traveling to Texas to question him. They made
the decision to ask law enforcement in Texas to question Billy.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
When the Texas.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Police questioned him, they mainly asked him questions about Casey.
The police also questioned his mom, Linda, and his brother Jeremy.
All of them denied knowing anything about Rebecca's murder. And
after that, it appears that the whole thing was just dropped.
After twenty eighteen, Dennis was taken off the case. I
(08:03):
believe that that happened as a dire direct result of
our podcast and of other people who were coming forward
and other media stuff that was happening. After that, Mike
McNeil took over the case. Mike said in the hearing
that when he was assigned to Rebecca's case, he believed
that it was Casey, or someone in Casey's family, or
multiple people. He said that he was assigned Rebecca Gould's
(08:25):
case officially in January of twenty twenty, if you remember,
it was I believe late January or early February twenty
twenty when Mike reached out to me and asked for
all of the recordings that we had, and we shared
that information with him, including things that were not ever aired.
Mike got up on the stand, and I thought he
was spectacular. You could tell that Mike was taking everything
(08:48):
very seriously. It's pretty incredible when you think Mike only
had the case for about eight months, Dennis Simons had
it for almost sixteen years, and Mike was able to
make an arrest. I am really proud of that. I
think he did excellent work, and I'm also very proud
that this podcast played a role in that. I've sent
(09:11):
Billy Miller a letter, but so far I haven't heard
back from him. I do know that he's been moved
from Washitah to the East Arkansas Regional Unit also known
as Brickey's. It's in Lee County, near Forest City, but
it's only been a couple of weeks, and I know
that in the past some of the letters I've sent
were apparently loost in transit. So I'm going to keep trying.
(09:32):
If he does communicate with me, I will respond. If
he puts me on his visitors list, I'll head over
there in person.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
To talk to him.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
In the meantime, I'm trying to address this gray area
that Rebecca's daed doctor Larry Gould brought up when I
saw him a few weeks ago.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Definitely did it. But the gray area was not answered,
and the gray area is was there somebody else?
Speaker 5 (09:56):
There?
Speaker 4 (09:58):
Is there somebody else help help with this. There's still questions,
and hopefully there's you know, a way to get those answers.
Because that gray area that I said, that, that gray
haunts me. I'm hoping that there's a way to find
a piece together that gray area.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
They're always gray areas and murder cases, no matter how
many questions are answered, we will never know the whole
truth about what happened. People keep telling me, well, sometimes
you just have to accept the gray area. I already
know that everybody lies in a murder investigation. Sometimes the
lies are white lies, like the fact that somebody was
actually standing outside rather than inside in their kitchen, but
(10:49):
they don't want to tell the police that they were
eavesdropping and being nosy. Then they're the more serious lies,
lies about whether someone was sexually assaulted or not, Lies
about what actually happened to the victim or whether someone
else could have been involved. I really want to be
able to mentally file Rebecca's case into a cold case, file,
(11:09):
stamp solved on it, and move on move on to
other families and other people who want and need my help.
But a lot of the things about the confession don't
make sense, like the fact that Billy first said he
strangled Rebecca, then later told Larry that he didn't. He
(11:30):
first said that the crime scene was in the bedroom,
but later when the affidavit for arrest was written, it
reads simply that he caused her death.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
All that detail was omitted.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Billy is claiming he was in the area to help
his family move back to Texas that weekend, but Jennifer
Buckolts and others have pointed out over the years that
Billy's brother Jeremy was unenrolled from school pretty suddenly. The
family did not even bother to book their U hauls
in advance, So was that move really pre planned or
did they need to leave town quickly for other reasons.
(12:03):
Billy did talk to one person after his arrest. She
wrote an article and printed an excerpt from their interview
in an online real estate magazine called next Door. That
interview was apparently set up by one of Rebecca's older sisters.
In the article, Billy told the reporter that his mother, Linda,
was reunited with Casey's grandfather, Claude McCullough Senior, who was
(12:25):
also her biological father when she was young. Billy was
very close to his mother growing up, but his father
was working far away from home, so as Billy grew up,
he apparently was fascinated by Claude McCullough and was very
close to Claude and his grandmother. Billy had told law
enforcement that he went back to Casey's trailer twice on Sunday,
(12:46):
but in the article there's even more detail. This time,
he seems to say he went back to the trailer
three times, once when Casey was there. That's the time
when he saw Rebecca come out the door. Then Billy
said he went back again but no one was home.
And then he said he went back later that night
to ask Casey if he could help load furniture. Hasey
said he was busy. Billy said before that he parked
(13:09):
his truck out in the woods to hide it, but
in this interview he says he parked it behind the house. Now,
this is the area where the back porches, cars and
trucks could pull up there, so if Billy's truck was there,
Rebecca could have seen the vehicle, so who was he
hiding the vehicle from, from Rebecca or from people on
the street. In the article, the writer explained that Billy
(13:33):
seemed to be hiding things about family members, people who
may have known about the murder. It reads quote a
direct question such as when did your mother know?
Speaker 1 (13:41):
As deflected.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
When William asked to speak to his brother and mother,
according to the article, Jeremy, his brother, was shocked, but Linda,
his mother, had no reaction. In the article, it states
that this is because he claimed that she was diabetic
and was in a trance end quote. According to the article,
when police contacted Linda Billy's mom in Oregon back in
(14:02):
twenty twenty and asked if he was there, she said
that Billy was out of the country, even though he
was already in Oregon. Later, according to media reports, she
claimed that this was because she wasn't sure if this
was a legitimate officer. I find that very hard to believe,
especially since after that phone call from the police, she
(14:23):
then reportedly contacted Billy and told him that the situation
needed to be dealt with. If she thought the officer
wasn't legit, why bother to reach out? And then there
are the cleaning supplies, the ones that were shown in
the crime scene photos. According to this article, Linda bought
those cleaning supplies at the request of Casey's father, which
apparently was part of their usual routine. This seems incredibly
(14:48):
odd to me. Why would Linda be buying all new
cleaning products for the trailer? And again, if she bought
them and took them inside, didn't she notice that there
was blood everywhere? When I was in court for the
pre trial hearing, Mike McNeil testified that Billy had communication
with Casey and his mother, Linda, and others about the
(15:08):
case and his arrest.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
He didn't go.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Into more detail, unfortunately, But why would Billy specifically feel
the need to reach out to those people in that moment?
But if Billy didn't act alone, why would he insist
that he did. Billy has been caught in several inconsistent
statements so far that we know of, so why would
law enforcement accept his confession even if it's not consistent
with the crime scene photos. To get answers, I did
(15:34):
some research into false confessions. It turns out that false
confessions happen all the time for all kinds of reasons.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
People always say, well, why would somebody ever confess to
a crime that they didn't do? And my comeback is, well,
why would you confess to a crime that you did to?
I mean, doing both is pretty stupid.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
This is Jim Traneum. He's a retired detective from the Washington,
D C. Metropolitan Police Department, where he spent twenty seven
years as a homicide detective, and now he's a consult
in the police practices, especially in the area of interrogation
and false confessions. I wanted to talk to him about
false confessions, how they happen, and what we can do
to prevent them.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
The interrogation practices that we've been using for well over
forty years in this country have been very well established,
have been accepted by the courts. But just because they're
accepted by the courts doesn't mean that they're not problematic.
But they're designed to convince you that your best path
is to tell the detective what they want to hear.
(16:39):
And we do that pretty much by convincing you that
your conviction is going to be inevitable, that the judges
are going to look at you very badly. People, they're
not going to think very highly of you. You know,
jurors are going to really look down. But if you confess,
then you know, people will understand, people will be more sympathetic,
(17:00):
and there's all other kind of benefits that are kind
of insinuated in this process that makes the person believe
that their best like I said, their best option is
to tell the detective what they want to hear.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Now.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
The thing about this process is that it's very very effective.
It does get a lot of good confessions. The problem
is is that it can also create the same mindset
inside of an innocent person who believes that, oh my god,
they're telling me that they have my fingerprints, where they
have a bunch of witnesses who saw me do this,
(17:36):
and that everybody's going to believe the witnesses and not me,
and my only out is to tell the detective, you know,
what they want to hear. Now, I've got to figure
out what that is. And so that's where contamination comes in.
As officers, we understand how contamination of physical evidence occurs
(17:58):
very well, and we take a lot of steps to
guard against that. However, when it comes to getting statement evidence,
not only from suspect but also for witnesses, we have
a very poor understanding of how to interview them in
such a way that that we can show that the
information is coming from them, it is not unintentionally being
fit to them by us. You have to be able
(18:20):
to show that that information came from the suspect and
not from the detective or another source or the podcast. Right,
I didn't that's what I'm interview.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
But you know, I'm sure I did some of that myself,
and I'm trying to now figure out how to best
handle that.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
Well, the thing about it is, especially in cases like this,
the likelihood of the person having new information, and this
is a goal standard. Does a person have new information
that the detectives did not know prior to the interrogation
that they could then go out and collaborate, such as
(19:03):
the location of the murder weapon, things along that line. Now,
physical cooboration is always the best. However, you could also
sometimes coroborate it through witnesses. But the problem is, of
course that they go back that might contaminate what they
might say, Yeah, well just got confessed and this is
what he said is just true? Oh yeah, that's true.
(19:24):
You know, you see that happen a lot. You know,
you could have a guilty suspect who gives a confession
that matches all of such, but the contamination is so
bad that you can't prove that it came from them,
and it made the confession worseless.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
This stands out to me because Billy's confession about what
actually happened to Rebecca had no details in it that
could not have been found online. As I mentioned, we
know that he was reading stuff on the unsolved Murder
of Rebecca Gould community. We also know that he was
reading books about the case, and he was listening to
my podcast and other podcasts. Billy did have one new
(20:05):
detail that police didn't have for years. We had been
hearing that Rebecca had a black rolling suitcase and that
it had been missing from the crime scene. Billy told
investigators the location of that suitcase and then was able
to lead them to the exact spot in Izard County
where the suitcase was. So this does point to Billy
(20:26):
being involved in Rebecca's murder, but other parts of Billy's
confession don't make sense, especially when he talks about what
actually happened to Rebecca inside that trailer. There were several
inconsistencies in that confession, like the fact that Billy's timing
was wrong. As Jennifer Buckletz pointed out, the law enforcement
timeline has Rebecca driving Casey to work, then stopping at
(20:48):
the Possum Trot to buy that breakfast sandwich, then driving
the fifteen minutes back to Casey's trailer. Casey clocked in
at eight twelve on Monday morning, so that would put
Rebecca back at his place at around eight thirty. William
claims he was there at eight am. So if police
believed that Billy may have left details out of his confession,
or if they knew that there were details that didn't
(21:10):
make sense or fit the physical evidence, why would they
accept the confession. We're dealing with a man who we
know has been lined everyone for eighteen years, and who
has already told at least two different stories about what
really happened to Rebecca Gould. So Billy did provide law
enforcement with details about the crime scene cleanup that weren't
(21:30):
known before, but he didn't add any new details about
Rebecca's murder that the police didn't already have. That, plus
the fact that his confession doesn't match the physical evidence,
that raises real doubts to me that Billy's confession has
been contaminated in some way. One big question in our
(21:51):
gray area is what's the exact relationship between Billy Miller
and Casey McCullough.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
We know that they're first cousins.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
To get some more insight on Billy's family tree, I
talked to Miranda Ward. She's an next girlfriend of Casey's.
They started dating in twenty ten and went out for
about a year and a half. The first time that
I met Miranda was actually at Crime Con in Austin
a few years back. She came to my talk where
I mentioned Rebecca's case and she was sitting with George
Jared and Jennifer Buckoltz. We all ended up going out
(22:23):
to dinner and drinks, she told me at the time,
and she still says she can't stop thinking about the
fact that she was dating someone and completely trusted someone
who she later suspected could have been involved in a
brutal murder.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
What was Casey like? What was he like as a boyfriend?
Speaker 5 (22:45):
A was very very sweet and doting. You know, he
paid attention, but you know, we only dated for like
a year and a half, maybe maybe almost two. Her
breakup was it was it's kind of weird. But I worked,
you know, waiting tables at Applebee's and we were open
(23:07):
until two in the morning, so that smoking area kind
of turned into a little, you know, party spot, and
you know, we closed down and he would hang out
and you know it help helped me out at work
or you know, just be there. Yeah. He was romantic,
I guess the word is. And we were both you know,
artsy people.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
And we got along really well.
Speaker 5 (23:30):
Yeah. Yeah, it's been an emotional roller coaster.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Miranda has been active in Jennifer Bucklets and George Jared's
Facebook group. She's actually the one that told them Billy
Miller was Casey's cousin when he first joined the group.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
How did you figure out that William?
Speaker 2 (23:47):
I mean, did you know William's name already or how
did you figure out he was Casey's cousin?
Speaker 5 (23:52):
Right? So Casey had told me he had cousins in Texas,
in South Texas, right, because he told me he's from
Baytown and he liked it there. It sounds like he
really enjoyed it, yet he really liked his grandparents and yeah,
so the obituary is where I started. You know, that
was gold the twenty eighteen when Claude mcculloy passed away.
(24:14):
So without the obituary, we wouldn't have been able to
find Linda, right, Yeah, So I just started finding any
obituaries I could, and then I would start at Casey's
Facebook and go from there and just start matching. And
then I finally found Linda. And I was looking for William,
but I kept seeing Billy and neither. He didn't have
(24:39):
his profile picture of him. He just had a cartoon character.
I think it was a Martian man hit Ale of
Goals and you know, weird kind of art stuff. Not
a lot of I I want to say, there was
maybe two or three actual pictures of himself. He had
a couple. He has a couple, you know, one of
them got shut down, which was his most active. But
(25:01):
he had a couple of profiles and then you know,
obviously it's interesting because he's in the Philippines and stuff.
And then he gets on the Facebook page and Jennifer's like,
you said, this name, who is this? Said it's a cousin.
She said no. I said yes, And I have to
like paint it out for her a couple of times
(25:23):
and she's said, yeah, that makes sense, that makes sense
no way, but you know, she's it's hard to believe.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yeah, so will you grow up together knowing each other?
Speaker 5 (25:34):
Yes, they knew of each other. You know, they were
bury that's their William's grandparents. Also, they lived a couple
of hours from each other on the close to Texas
before Casey moved. And I want to say he was
like seven eight when he moved, right, so, and then
(25:55):
you know they would travel to hang out with him.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
I'm sure.
Speaker 5 (26:01):
You know if they were close in their teenage years.
I don't know, but I have no doubts that they
were tearing up that land on or something. You know, Yeah,
you know, because not only is that their uncle and cousins,
it's also grandparents.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
So appreciate you speaking to talking to me because I'm
I'll pray I have more questions at some point. But
it would make me feel a lot better if I
believe that William did I have alone, because then I'd
be like, Okay, it's done, it's over good.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Because I don't care you know who did it.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
I just I just feel like this confession is just
bullshit parts of it or bullshit, and I can't shake
that feeling. And then yeah, I see the more it
looks like it is. And you know, I'm just trying
to figure out a way to get all.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
The answers to the best of my bility.
Speaker 5 (26:44):
Yeah. Absolutely, I couldn't shake it either. And I've never
believed that who they, however this happened, anybody was alone.
I don't believe anybody was alone. I originally believed that
his family knew his immediate family, and enough there anyone
involved in his family. They have figured out way to
(27:07):
make it all work. I think that if they weren't
warned that he would have been I don't think that
he could have done any of this by himself.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
What I can't get is that that the physical evidence
just doesn't match William's confession at all.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
And I can't figure out why they or not.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
I mean, I kind of know why they or not
doing anything, but it's just crazy.
Speaker 5 (27:25):
The physical evidence is harder for me to understand. And
I think that William got ahead of hisself, and like,
I don't know, there's a family that I can compare
them to in my mind, and it has not failed
me so far. They're just very you know, as long
as we've banded together, everything's.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Going to be Okay, Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 5 (27:49):
Yeah, And you know, I could see him just getting
into some shady stuff just because they think they can
get away with it. And I wonder, I still wonder
if William went and got his mom and got her involved,
or she was already there and off. I can't wait
to get the case filed.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
And that's the next big hurdle, and that's what we're
you know, I know you followed a Foyer request, I
did two, and you know, and Larry is supposedly talking
to the prosecutors this week and we'll see what happens there.
Rebecca's father, doctor Larry Gould, has a meeting set with
the prosecutor Eric Cant on November thirtieth. As part of
(28:34):
Billy Miller's plea agreement. Larry was asked if he had
any requests. One of the conditions that Larry set was
that Rebecca's case file be returned to him within a
ten to thirty day period, and Eric Cant agreed to
these terms. Larry's plan was to get the case file,
thoroughly review it, and then at that meeting on November thirtieth,
(28:57):
to ask Eric Cant some questions about inconsistencies but a
few days before the scheduled meeting, right before Thanksgiving, Larry
let me know that he does not yet have the
case file. Apparently, the Prosecutor's office texted Larry. They said
that they had not even gotten the case file back
from the Arkansas State Police yet. They said that they're
(29:18):
waiting for it and there's pretty much nothing they can
do until they get it. I find myself getting very
frustrated on Larry's behalf, especially when I see a message
from Eric Hanson's assistant saying that he'll be out of
the office all week and won't be checking or responding
to emails. The tone in Larry's letters, while it has
(29:39):
always been unfailingly polite and very kind, is also getting
more frustrated. And I can absolutely understand why. This is
a grieving father who has already waited twenty years to
see justice done in his daughter's case. They promised him
the case file within a certain timeframe, and now they
appeared to be going back on that promise. Now they
(30:01):
have said that the Arkansas State Police need to make
redactions to the case case file, which presumably would involve
blacking out certain information. My question is, in the age
of redaction software. How long is this process supposed to take?
Surely ten to thirty days should be an ample time frame.
(30:22):
After eighteen years in a highly publicized case, I can
understand why the ASP would want to make an arrest,
take that confession, and close the case. And again, I
believe Special Agent Mike McNeil did some great police work here,
but I don't think it's over. As for my own
personal gray area, I can accept that I may never
(30:45):
know what Billy's true motives were, or if he meant
to sexually assault Rebecca, or exactly what she said to him.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
But I can't.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Accept the thought that there may have been other people
involved in Rebecca's murder, or people who covered it up
or even knew about it and did nothing, people who
so far have escaped Justiceine Hounsend. This is Helen Gone.
Helen Gone is a production of School of Humans and iHeartMedia.
(31:15):
Our producer is Gabby Watts. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott,
Brandon Barr and Els Crowley. Music is by Ben Sale
Special thanks to season one producers Taylor Church and James Morrison.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
School of Humans. School of Humans
School of humans.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I didn't tell I'll tell y'all, four guys. So Dennis
is apparently a long haul truck driver, now.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
What Yeah, no, I tell you so, all right.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
So my brother in law he told me that Dennis
is now a long haul truck driver and that he's
really happy because he doesn't have to deal with people anymore.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Yeah, he shouldn't be dealing with people, right, Well, maybe
he was in the wrong job, you think.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I mean, no, my, he's like, well, he's just had
enough of all this and he just you know, he's
he's he don't want to deal with people anymore.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
And I blame him.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I'm like, he was in the wrong fucking job and
he should have gotten out of it and not taking
taxpayer money for twenty years anyway.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Crimes, I'm not dealing with people cold.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Cases, like, yeah, no, I mean anyhow, well, so just
watch out because he might be you know, who knows,
he could be passing the area. I saw Dennis Simons
for the first time in a very long time at
the pre trial hearing that I attended on October third.
(01:14):
Dennis retired a couple years ago. In fact, in the hearing,
when they asked Dennis how they should refer to him
as a special agent or mister Simons or what he said.
It used to be special agent, but now it's just nothing.
Dennis was there to testify about his role as the
lead investigator on Rebecca's case. He said that he worked
(01:36):
the case for almost eighteen years. The stakes in this
pre trial hearing were high. Part of the pre trial
was Billy Miller's defense lawyers trying to get the case
dismissed because of what they alleged was an intentional and
reckless delay that they claimed was simply inertia on Dennis
Simon's part. While Dennis was talking, he was asked several
(01:57):
questions about the fact that he failed to act. Dennis
insisted that Rebecca's case was an active investigation the entire time.
But I keep thinking back to the very first time
I saw Dennis Simons in the flesh. It was at
his satellite office in the Stone County Sheriff's office. I
remember seeing Rebecca's white case fall on the shelf covered
(02:17):
in dust. In this episode, I'm going to do a
deep dive into what doctor Larry Gould, Rebecca's father, calls
the gray area. I want to go through some discoveries
we've made about the police work on the case, and
I'm still trying to make sense of the inconsistencies in
(02:38):
William's confession, and it seems like every single day now
we're hearing about more of them. I'm Catherine Townsend. This
is hell and Gone. So a couple of very interesting
(03:26):
things came out during the pre trial. First of all,
Mike McNeil testified that the Arkansas State Police apparently now
does have an official definition of cold cases. Mike said
that this change happened very recently, from what I could gather.
Instead of labeling every case an open and active investigation,
(03:48):
they are working on an official designation of cold cases.
I think they could be trying to get away from
the limbo that a lot of these cases end up
in for years, which is what happened in Rebecca's case,
where they're labeled open investigations for years at a time.
He didn't offer many more details on that, but I
hope they are changing that system. From what I've seen
(04:10):
of Mike McNeil, I believe that he has a more
modern attitude towards solving cases, one that I believe will
be invaluable to the Arkansas State Police. But it's been
a good old boys system for a long time, and
some things are very slow to change. Something else I
found out during the pre trial hearing was what went
down after the first season of Hele Gone aired in
(04:31):
twenty eighteen. Now I'm mentioning this because that is crucial
to our podcast. What happened was, if you'll remember from
season one, we took a witness statement from someone who
had information that was crucial to the case, and Dennis Simons,
for lack of a better word, blew our witness off,
even though this witness had information about Rebecca's murder that
(04:51):
at that time had not been made public. Now, my
dad does not work in law enforcement, but he is
a volunteer Stone County Reserved Police Deputy. I got him
to go with me to interview the witness. We took
a recorded and written statement, and those statements became part
of the official record at the case file. I then
tried to file a complaint against Dennis Simon's because I
(05:13):
believed that his inaction was actively harming the investigation into
Rebecca's murder. Then I got that kind of irate call
from Mark Collingsworth, who was Dennis's superior at the Arkansas
State Police, Ann, who had also worked on Rebecca's case
for a few months right before Dennis became lead investigator.
Mark had me in for that crazy meeting where basically
(05:35):
he told me investigations are grown up stuff and I
should mind my own business. Well, after I left there
and the podcast came out, we found out that Dennis
Simons was basically ordered to reinvestigate the case, and that
his reinvestigation consisted of sending other people's police statements back
to them and asking them if they were still correct,
rather than bringing them in for an in person interview.
(05:58):
I said at the time that it seemed like Dennis
was just kind of ticking boxes and that he appeared
to be very obos pissed off at us. Well in
the courtroom during the pre trial hearing, we found out
that that's pretty much exactly what happened. Dennis testified that
in twenty eighteen, he attended a case management meeting in
(06:19):
Little Rock requested by Major Mark Collingsworth, his boss. Dennis
said that he could not recall the last time that
a meeting like that had ever happened, and it was
really funny because when Dennis was asked what happened in
twenty eighteen that had prompted that meeting.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
He looked like he was starting to get kind of nervous.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Dennis testified that Rebecca's case was always an open and
active case file, yet he couldn't seem to remember key
names or dates. On the stand, he said that he
tried to read the case file at least once a year,
and he called the national attention that the case got
during the last two years of his career, media attention
by the way that was generated by the Hele Gone podcast,
(07:00):
extremely disruptive to his career. In my opinion, he started
to look really flustered, and that to me was very satisfying,
because he should look flustered. He should be embarrassed about
the fact that he doesn't know the key dates about
a case that he was the lead investigator on for
almost twenty years. We also discovered that the police knew
(07:22):
about William Miller back in two thousand and four. We
know that Billy's name came up very early in the
investigation as someone who had been by Casey's trailer, but
the ASP investigators didn't see red flags with him, so
instead of traveling to Texas to question him. They made
the decision to ask law enforcement in Texas to question Billy.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
When the Texas.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Police questioned him, they mainly asked him questions about Casey.
The police also questioned his mom, Linda, and his brother Jeremy.
All of them denied knowing anything about Rebecca's murder. And
after that, it appears that the whole thing was just dropped.
After twenty eighteen, Dennis was taken off the case. I
(08:03):
believe that that happened as a dire direct result of
our podcast and of other people who were coming forward
and other media stuff that was happening. After that, Mike
McNeil took over the case. Mike said in the hearing
that when he was assigned to Rebecca's case, he believed
that it was Casey, or someone in Casey's family, or
multiple people. He said that he was assigned Rebecca Gould's
(08:25):
case officially in January of twenty twenty, if you remember,
it was I believe late January or early February twenty
twenty when Mike reached out to me and asked for
all of the recordings that we had, and we shared
that information with him, including things that were not ever aired.
Mike got up on the stand, and I thought he
was spectacular. You could tell that Mike was taking everything
(08:48):
very seriously. It's pretty incredible when you think Mike only
had the case for about eight months, Dennis Simons had
it for almost sixteen years, and Mike was able to
make an arrest. I am really proud of that. I
think he did excellent work, and I'm also very proud
that this podcast played a role in that. I've sent
(09:11):
Billy Miller a letter, but so far I haven't heard
back from him. I do know that he's been moved
from Washitah to the East Arkansas Regional Unit also known
as Brickey's. It's in Lee County, near Forest City, but
it's only been a couple of weeks, and I know
that in the past some of the letters I've sent
were apparently loost in transit. So I'm going to keep trying.
(09:32):
If he does communicate with me, I will respond. If
he puts me on his visitors list, I'll head over
there in person.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
To talk to him.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
In the meantime, I'm trying to address this gray area
that Rebecca's daed doctor Larry Gould brought up when I
saw him a few weeks ago.
Speaker 4 (09:48):
Definitely did it. But the gray area was not answered,
and the gray area is was there somebody else?
Speaker 5 (09:56):
There?
Speaker 4 (09:58):
Is there somebody else help help with this. There's still questions,
and hopefully there's you know, a way to get those answers.
Because that gray area that I said, that, that gray
haunts me. I'm hoping that there's a way to find
a piece together that gray area.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
They're always gray areas and murder cases, no matter how
many questions are answered, we will never know the whole
truth about what happened. People keep telling me, well, sometimes
you just have to accept the gray area. I already
know that everybody lies in a murder investigation. Sometimes the
lies are white lies, like the fact that somebody was
actually standing outside rather than inside in their kitchen, but
(10:49):
they don't want to tell the police that they were
eavesdropping and being nosy. Then they're the more serious lies,
lies about whether someone was sexually assaulted or not, Lies
about what actually happened to the victim or whether someone
else could have been involved. I really want to be
able to mentally file Rebecca's case into a cold case, file,
(11:09):
stamp solved on it, and move on move on to
other families and other people who want and need my help.
But a lot of the things about the confession don't
make sense, like the fact that Billy first said he
strangled Rebecca, then later told Larry that he didn't. He
(11:30):
first said that the crime scene was in the bedroom,
but later when the affidavit for arrest was written, it
reads simply that he caused her death.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
All that detail was omitted.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Billy is claiming he was in the area to help
his family move back to Texas that weekend, but Jennifer
Buckolts and others have pointed out over the years that
Billy's brother Jeremy was unenrolled from school pretty suddenly. The
family did not even bother to book their U hauls
in advance, So was that move really pre planned or
did they need to leave town quickly for other reasons.
(12:03):
Billy did talk to one person after his arrest. She
wrote an article and printed an excerpt from their interview
in an online real estate magazine called next Door. That
interview was apparently set up by one of Rebecca's older sisters.
In the article, Billy told the reporter that his mother, Linda,
was reunited with Casey's grandfather, Claude McCullough Senior, who was
(12:25):
also her biological father when she was young. Billy was
very close to his mother growing up, but his father
was working far away from home, so as Billy grew up,
he apparently was fascinated by Claude McCullough and was very
close to Claude and his grandmother. Billy had told law
enforcement that he went back to Casey's trailer twice on Sunday,
(12:46):
but in the article there's even more detail. This time,
he seems to say he went back to the trailer
three times, once when Casey was there. That's the time
when he saw Rebecca come out the door. Then Billy
said he went back again but no one was home.
And then he said he went back later that night
to ask Casey if he could help load furniture. Hasey
said he was busy. Billy said before that he parked
(13:09):
his truck out in the woods to hide it, but
in this interview he says he parked it behind the house. Now,
this is the area where the back porches, cars and
trucks could pull up there, so if Billy's truck was there,
Rebecca could have seen the vehicle, so who was he
hiding the vehicle from, from Rebecca or from people on
the street. In the article, the writer explained that Billy
(13:33):
seemed to be hiding things about family members, people who
may have known about the murder. It reads quote a
direct question such as when did your mother know?
Speaker 1 (13:41):
As deflected.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
When William asked to speak to his brother and mother,
according to the article, Jeremy, his brother, was shocked, but Linda,
his mother, had no reaction. In the article, it states
that this is because he claimed that she was diabetic
and was in a trance end quote. According to the article,
when police contacted Linda Billy's mom in Oregon back in
(14:02):
twenty twenty and asked if he was there, she said
that Billy was out of the country, even though he
was already in Oregon. Later, according to media reports, she
claimed that this was because she wasn't sure if this
was a legitimate officer. I find that very hard to believe,
especially since after that phone call from the police, she
(14:23):
then reportedly contacted Billy and told him that the situation
needed to be dealt with. If she thought the officer
wasn't legit, why bother to reach out? And then there
are the cleaning supplies, the ones that were shown in
the crime scene photos. According to this article, Linda bought
those cleaning supplies at the request of Casey's father, which
apparently was part of their usual routine. This seems incredibly
(14:48):
odd to me. Why would Linda be buying all new
cleaning products for the trailer? And again, if she bought
them and took them inside, didn't she notice that there
was blood everywhere? When I was in court for the
pre trial hearing, Mike McNeil testified that Billy had communication
with Casey and his mother, Linda, and others about the
(15:08):
case and his arrest.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
He didn't go.
Speaker 2 (15:11):
Into more detail, unfortunately, But why would Billy specifically feel
the need to reach out to those people in that moment?
But if Billy didn't act alone, why would he insist
that he did. Billy has been caught in several inconsistent
statements so far that we know of, so why would
law enforcement accept his confession even if it's not consistent
with the crime scene photos. To get answers, I did
(15:34):
some research into false confessions. It turns out that false
confessions happen all the time for all kinds of reasons.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
People always say, well, why would somebody ever confess to
a crime that they didn't do? And my comeback is, well,
why would you confess to a crime that you did to?
I mean, doing both is pretty stupid.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
This is Jim Traneum. He's a retired detective from the Washington,
D C. Metropolitan Police Department, where he spent twenty seven
years as a homicide detective, and now he's a consult
in the police practices, especially in the area of interrogation
and false confessions. I wanted to talk to him about
false confessions, how they happen, and what we can do
to prevent them.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
The interrogation practices that we've been using for well over
forty years in this country have been very well established,
have been accepted by the courts. But just because they're
accepted by the courts doesn't mean that they're not problematic.
But they're designed to convince you that your best path
is to tell the detective what they want to hear.
(16:39):
And we do that pretty much by convincing you that
your conviction is going to be inevitable, that the judges
are going to look at you very badly. People, they're
not going to think very highly of you. You know,
jurors are going to really look down. But if you confess,
then you know, people will understand, people will be more sympathetic,
(17:00):
and there's all other kind of benefits that are kind
of insinuated in this process that makes the person believe
that their best like I said, their best option is
to tell the detective what they want to hear.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Now.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
The thing about this process is that it's very very effective.
It does get a lot of good confessions. The problem
is is that it can also create the same mindset
inside of an innocent person who believes that, oh my god,
they're telling me that they have my fingerprints, where they
have a bunch of witnesses who saw me do this,
(17:36):
and that everybody's going to believe the witnesses and not me,
and my only out is to tell the detective, you know,
what they want to hear. Now, I've got to figure
out what that is. And so that's where contamination comes in.
As officers, we understand how contamination of physical evidence occurs
(17:58):
very well, and we take a lot of steps to
guard against that. However, when it comes to getting statement evidence,
not only from suspect but also for witnesses, we have
a very poor understanding of how to interview them in
such a way that that we can show that the
information is coming from them, it is not unintentionally being
fit to them by us. You have to be able
(18:20):
to show that that information came from the suspect and
not from the detective or another source or the podcast. Right,
I didn't that's what I'm interview.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
But you know, I'm sure I did some of that myself,
and I'm trying to now figure out how to best
handle that.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
Well, the thing about it is, especially in cases like this,
the likelihood of the person having new information, and this
is a goal standard. Does a person have new information
that the detectives did not know prior to the interrogation
that they could then go out and collaborate, such as
(19:03):
the location of the murder weapon, things along that line. Now,
physical cooboration is always the best. However, you could also
sometimes coroborate it through witnesses. But the problem is, of
course that they go back that might contaminate what they
might say, Yeah, well just got confessed and this is
what he said is just true? Oh yeah, that's true.
(19:24):
You know, you see that happen a lot. You know,
you could have a guilty suspect who gives a confession
that matches all of such, but the contamination is so
bad that you can't prove that it came from them,
and it made the confession worseless.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
This stands out to me because Billy's confession about what
actually happened to Rebecca had no details in it that
could not have been found online. As I mentioned, we
know that he was reading stuff on the unsolved Murder
of Rebecca Gould community. We also know that he was
reading books about the case, and he was listening to
my podcast and other podcasts. Billy did have one new
(20:05):
detail that police didn't have for years. We had been
hearing that Rebecca had a black rolling suitcase and that
it had been missing from the crime scene. Billy told
investigators the location of that suitcase and then was able
to lead them to the exact spot in Izard County
where the suitcase was. So this does point to Billy
(20:26):
being involved in Rebecca's murder, but other parts of Billy's
confession don't make sense, especially when he talks about what
actually happened to Rebecca inside that trailer. There were several
inconsistencies in that confession, like the fact that Billy's timing
was wrong. As Jennifer Buckletz pointed out, the law enforcement
timeline has Rebecca driving Casey to work, then stopping at
(20:48):
the Possum Trot to buy that breakfast sandwich, then driving
the fifteen minutes back to Casey's trailer. Casey clocked in
at eight twelve on Monday morning, so that would put
Rebecca back at his place at around eight thirty. William
claims he was there at eight am. So if police
believed that Billy may have left details out of his confession,
or if they knew that there were details that didn't
(21:10):
make sense or fit the physical evidence, why would they
accept the confession. We're dealing with a man who we
know has been lined everyone for eighteen years, and who
has already told at least two different stories about what
really happened to Rebecca Gould. So Billy did provide law
enforcement with details about the crime scene cleanup that weren't
(21:30):
known before, but he didn't add any new details about
Rebecca's murder that the police didn't already have. That, plus
the fact that his confession doesn't match the physical evidence,
that raises real doubts to me that Billy's confession has
been contaminated in some way. One big question in our
(21:51):
gray area is what's the exact relationship between Billy Miller
and Casey McCullough.
Speaker 1 (21:57):
We know that they're first cousins.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
To get some more insight on Billy's family tree, I
talked to Miranda Ward. She's an next girlfriend of Casey's.
They started dating in twenty ten and went out for
about a year and a half. The first time that
I met Miranda was actually at Crime Con in Austin
a few years back. She came to my talk where
I mentioned Rebecca's case and she was sitting with George
Jared and Jennifer Buckoltz. We all ended up going out
(22:23):
to dinner and drinks, she told me at the time,
and she still says she can't stop thinking about the
fact that she was dating someone and completely trusted someone
who she later suspected could have been involved in a
brutal murder.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
What was Casey like? What was he like as a boyfriend?
Speaker 5 (22:45):
A was very very sweet and doting. You know, he
paid attention, but you know, we only dated for like
a year and a half, maybe maybe almost two. Her
breakup was it was it's kind of weird. But I worked,
you know, waiting tables at Applebee's and we were open
(23:07):
until two in the morning, so that smoking area kind
of turned into a little, you know, party spot, and
you know, we closed down and he would hang out
and you know it help helped me out at work
or you know, just be there. Yeah. He was romantic,
I guess the word is. And we were both you know,
artsy people.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
And we got along really well.
Speaker 5 (23:30):
Yeah. Yeah, it's been an emotional roller coaster.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Miranda has been active in Jennifer Bucklets and George Jared's
Facebook group. She's actually the one that told them Billy
Miller was Casey's cousin when he first joined the group.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
How did you figure out that William?
Speaker 2 (23:47):
I mean, did you know William's name already or how
did you figure out he was Casey's cousin?
Speaker 5 (23:52):
Right? So Casey had told me he had cousins in Texas,
in South Texas, right, because he told me he's from
Baytown and he liked it there. It sounds like he
really enjoyed it, yet he really liked his grandparents and yeah,
so the obituary is where I started. You know, that
was gold the twenty eighteen when Claude mcculloy passed away.
(24:14):
So without the obituary, we wouldn't have been able to
find Linda, right, Yeah, So I just started finding any
obituaries I could, and then I would start at Casey's
Facebook and go from there and just start matching. And
then I finally found Linda. And I was looking for William,
but I kept seeing Billy and neither. He didn't have
(24:39):
his profile picture of him. He just had a cartoon character.
I think it was a Martian man hit Ale of
Goals and you know, weird kind of art stuff. Not
a lot of I I want to say, there was
maybe two or three actual pictures of himself. He had
a couple. He has a couple, you know, one of
them got shut down, which was his most active. But
(25:01):
he had a couple of profiles and then you know,
obviously it's interesting because he's in the Philippines and stuff.
And then he gets on the Facebook page and Jennifer's like,
you said, this name, who is this? Said it's a cousin.
She said no. I said yes, And I have to
like paint it out for her a couple of times
(25:23):
and she's said, yeah, that makes sense, that makes sense
no way, but you know, she's it's hard to believe.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yeah, so will you grow up together knowing each other?
Speaker 5 (25:34):
Yes, they knew of each other. You know, they were
bury that's their William's grandparents. Also, they lived a couple
of hours from each other on the close to Texas
before Casey moved. And I want to say he was
like seven eight when he moved, right, so, and then
(25:55):
you know they would travel to hang out with him.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
I'm sure.
Speaker 5 (26:01):
You know if they were close in their teenage years.
I don't know, but I have no doubts that they
were tearing up that land on or something. You know, Yeah,
you know, because not only is that their uncle and cousins,
it's also grandparents.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
So appreciate you speaking to talking to me because I'm
I'll pray I have more questions at some point. But
it would make me feel a lot better if I
believe that William did I have alone, because then I'd
be like, Okay, it's done, it's over good.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Because I don't care you know who did it.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
I just I just feel like this confession is just
bullshit parts of it or bullshit, and I can't shake
that feeling. And then yeah, I see the more it
looks like it is. And you know, I'm just trying
to figure out a way to get all.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
The answers to the best of my bility.
Speaker 5 (26:44):
Yeah. Absolutely, I couldn't shake it either. And I've never
believed that who they, however this happened, anybody was alone.
I don't believe anybody was alone. I originally believed that
his family knew his immediate family, and enough there anyone
involved in his family. They have figured out way to
(27:07):
make it all work. I think that if they weren't
warned that he would have been I don't think that
he could have done any of this by himself.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
What I can't get is that that the physical evidence
just doesn't match William's confession at all.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
And I can't figure out why they or not.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
I mean, I kind of know why they or not
doing anything, but it's just crazy.
Speaker 5 (27:25):
The physical evidence is harder for me to understand. And
I think that William got ahead of hisself, and like,
I don't know, there's a family that I can compare
them to in my mind, and it has not failed
me so far. They're just very you know, as long
as we've banded together, everything's.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Going to be Okay, Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 5 (27:49):
Yeah, And you know, I could see him just getting
into some shady stuff just because they think they can
get away with it. And I wonder, I still wonder
if William went and got his mom and got her involved,
or she was already there and off. I can't wait
to get the case filed.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
And that's the next big hurdle, and that's what we're
you know, I know you followed a Foyer request, I
did two, and you know, and Larry is supposedly talking
to the prosecutors this week and we'll see what happens there.
Rebecca's father, doctor Larry Gould, has a meeting set with
the prosecutor Eric Cant on November thirtieth. As part of
(28:34):
Billy Miller's plea agreement. Larry was asked if he had
any requests. One of the conditions that Larry set was
that Rebecca's case file be returned to him within a
ten to thirty day period, and Eric Cant agreed to
these terms. Larry's plan was to get the case file,
thoroughly review it, and then at that meeting on November thirtieth,
(28:57):
to ask Eric Cant some questions about inconsistencies but a
few days before the scheduled meeting, right before Thanksgiving, Larry
let me know that he does not yet have the
case file. Apparently, the Prosecutor's office texted Larry. They said
that they had not even gotten the case file back
from the Arkansas State Police yet. They said that they're
(29:18):
waiting for it and there's pretty much nothing they can
do until they get it. I find myself getting very
frustrated on Larry's behalf, especially when I see a message
from Eric Hanson's assistant saying that he'll be out of
the office all week and won't be checking or responding
to emails. The tone in Larry's letters, while it has
(29:39):
always been unfailingly polite and very kind, is also getting
more frustrated. And I can absolutely understand why. This is
a grieving father who has already waited twenty years to
see justice done in his daughter's case. They promised him
the case file within a certain timeframe, and now they
appeared to be going back on that promise. Now they
(30:01):
have said that the Arkansas State Police need to make
redactions to the case case file, which presumably would involve
blacking out certain information. My question is, in the age
of redaction software. How long is this process supposed to take?
Surely ten to thirty days should be an ample time frame.
(30:22):
After eighteen years in a highly publicized case, I can
understand why the ASP would want to make an arrest,
take that confession, and close the case. And again, I
believe Special Agent Mike McNeil did some great police work here,
but I don't think it's over. As for my own
personal gray area, I can accept that I may never
(30:45):
know what Billy's true motives were, or if he meant
to sexually assault Rebecca, or exactly what she said to him.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
But I can't.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Accept the thought that there may have been other people
involved in Rebecca's murder, or people who covered it up
or even knew about it and did nothing, people who
so far have escaped Justiceine Hounsend. This is Helen Gone.
Helen Gone is a production of School of Humans and iHeartMedia.
(31:15):
Our producer is Gabby Watts. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott,
Brandon Barr and Els Crowley. Music is by Ben Sale
Special thanks to season one producers Taylor Church and James Morrison.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
School of Humans. School of Humans
Hell and Gone News
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