June 20, 2019 • 33 mins
iO takes Rebecca on a trip 37 years in the making.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi there, um. I'm calling because I'm trying to track
down some information about my mother's partner who died in
two My mom has been waiting thirty seven years to
say goodbye to Billy. I guess my questions she They
(00:20):
called her to identify the body. She came back back
in the summer of nine two. My mom says after
she went to identify Billy's body, she learned that without
her permission, he'd been sent to a cemetery where people
are buried in mass graves by the city and they said, oh,
we send him to a potter's field. She never knew where.
So I'm on the phone with the Office of the
(00:41):
Chief Medical Examiner here in New York. Under what circumstances
would a body be sent to a potter's field? From you, guys,
if we were unable to contact any family members or friends,
or no one came forward to make arrangements for a person,
or if we did reach someone and they made the
(01:02):
request to have the person buried at the city cemetery
on Hart Island, Hard Island. So Hard Island is the
potter's field for the city of New York. According to
the Medical Examiner's Office, Billy has to be buried on
Hart Island. The only problem is when I searched the
(01:24):
city's Heart Island database, Heightsman nothing, William Heightsman nothing. There
is no William Heightsman. But then what's going on? What
it's the Hard Island look Up Service. Look Heightman, William
thirty seven years old. Date of death June two at
(01:47):
Cabrini Medical Center. He's buried at plot number one thirty six.
I just fucking found Billy Heightman. There's no z and
that's why we haven't been able to find him this
(02:07):
whole time. Oh my god, this whole thing was just
a misspelling. I fucking found Billy today on the show
Heart Island from Crime Town. I'm io till it right,
(02:30):
and this is the ballad of Billy Balls. I got
the number of the Potter's Field and on the other
end it was the Great Diggers, and I says, where
(02:54):
is the body of William Heitzman? And they laughed, they laughed.
I remember just the raw feeling of the fucking pain
of I agree, and I would like to not remember
(03:15):
that feeling. Quiz. The only thing this stopped it was
you being born? All right, We're gonna find that, We're
gonna find Okay, okay, Chapter eleven, there's someone under this ground. Well,
(03:53):
not too far away from the bright and dazzling lights
of Times Square in the New York City skyline lines
one of America's darkest secrets. Almost one million people buried
here since the eighteen hundreds on just over one d acres.
Potter's failed on. Heart Island is a small patch of
land in the easternmost parts of the Bronx. Can you
(04:15):
describe physically what Heart Island looks and feels and sounds like? Oh,
it's it's the least developed part of New York City, right,
so it's truly this rural landscape. Melinda Hunt is an
artist and the founding director of the Heart Island Project,
(04:38):
a nonprofit working the catalog and tell the stories of
the people buried there. She spent a lot of time
on the island. There aren't any markers, so it doesn't
feel like what we call a traditional cemetery private cemetery, right,
because there aren't all these markers. So it's just it's
a bird sanctuary. There's herds of de here, as these
(05:01):
red raccoons. It's just all this wildlife there because people
aren't there very much, and you're out in the Long
Island Sound that sailboats going by, and it's just this
really meaningful place because so many people are buried there.
It's actually the country's largest natural burial ground, and it's
(05:22):
a very sustainable ecological system of burials, except that it's
managed by the penal system, which isn't very interested in ecology.
Heart Island is run by the Department of Correction, the
agency best known for overseeing the city's prisons. Over the years,
(05:44):
it was home to a missile base, an insane asylum,
and a tuberculosis hospital, but the island only housed abandoned
buildings and dead bodies. So when a body leaves a
hospital and goes to Heart Island, who buries it? How
(06:05):
is How does it get there? What is the process
of entry? For a billy. The body is put in
the pine box at the morgue and loaded into a
refrigerator truck and driven to Heart Island, And the moment
that vehicle drives onto Heart Island, all of those bodies
(06:31):
become property of the Department of Correction, And so they
drive to the grave site and a bus of prisoners
arrives at the grave site. They dig these gigantic trenches
where you put people in an organized trench. It's a grid.
(06:53):
So that's how it's done. Inmates from Rikers Islands, a
nearby jail, did the trenches and bury the bodies. I
was in five months in Hot Island and I buried
well over seven hundred bodies. And that's not even you're
gonna say babies. This is a former Riker's inmate who
(07:16):
Melinda interviewed for a documentary she made called Heart Island
is an American Cemetery. We were like the elite crew
and there would be people that would get on that,
you know, on that detail, and they would show up
one day and they would quit, Uh, just say they
(07:37):
couldn't do it, you know, because it wasn't so easy,
you know, took a lot of you know, I mean,
they were dead people. It's inherently shameful to have prisoners burying.
(07:58):
The dad Melinda say, is that because the Department of
Correction or d C is in charge of Heart Island,
there's a shroud of shame around it and the people
buried there. That's the purpose of the penal system. It's
a deterrent based on shame, and so the shame creates
(08:20):
um stigma. You can't celebrate a life if it's tainted.
You're not going to go out say oh, this person
is such a great person, and yeah, they were buried
by the d C. It's just that those two things
don't go together. Let's say you're in the position of
my mother. You are the long term life partner but
(08:40):
not legally recognized life partner of someone. Can you walk
us through the process of what would have happened and
like kind of what she would have encountered. Um, Well,
if she went to identify she was providing a service
to the city and then told well, but you have
no further rights, and my mother would not have had
(09:03):
the right to claim his body, not in n Basically,
the city would have tried to find it next of kin,
and they probably already tried to do that when he
was at Cabrini. We have a theory about how this
might have gone down. I asked Billy's daughter Amanda about
(09:23):
it the first time we met. She did say, which
I think is a really important big clue, but the
Morgue did call her grandma when Billy died because Amanda
is technically the next of kin. She was seven, so
the grandma didn't want anything to do with it and
(09:44):
told him to funk off. As her legal guardian. Amanda's
grandmother did have the right to make the decision that
sent Billy to Heart Island. My mom, as Billy's longtime girlfriend,
didn't have egal rights to him in and based on
the Heart Island rules, I'm not sure she has the
(10:06):
right to visit him today near Kitty Department of Corrections,
Hart Island either. Um. I'm calling because my mother is
the long term partner of somebody who we believe is
buried on Heart Island, but they were not legally married. Um,
and I'm trying to figure out how I can get
her onto the island to finally say goodbye to him.
(10:30):
She can just or you can request for visit. We
don't ask for proof and friends do visit, Oh their friends,
you know. Not to discredit her. God, that's so humane,
that's so and so unexpected from the DC to me
(10:53):
scheduling a physic she was more like his wife if
they were together for a long time, So I would
definitely schedule her for family or loved one type visit
where she would just go and actually stand where he
or she is in grieve and mourn in that way.
And that's just a call that you're able to make,
right exactly. We have to trust that there was a
(11:17):
relationship and that she would want to be clothed. Wow. Okay,
what is your name? Mrs Calvert? Wow? Ms Calvert? Thank
you a million times over. Thank you, thank you, thank you,
No problem. You guys have a great day too. Wow.
(11:37):
Whoa dude? What? I cannot believe what just happened. I
can't believe what has happened. You realize what this means, right?
This means there's no obstacle to my mother getting to
say goodbye to the love of her life, which she
has been waiting to do for thirty seven fucking years.
(12:01):
What are we doing right now? Where are we going?
We're walking to my mom's house, where I'm going to
tell her that I found Billy's body and that she
can go visit him with no restrictions. Today is just
about telling my mom that we found Billy. I'm not
going to hit her with the police report or push
her for any information. I just want to give her
(12:21):
a chance to process this. It's big I'm away. I'm
so happy to see you, Mark Mine. Look at you
a little pastel colors. Oh god, my mom doesn't know
why I'm here. I asked her to sit down, but anyway, goad, um,
(12:45):
well I have I have some some news. Yes, I
found Billy's body. Oh my god. She clenches my hand
as she closes her eyes and puts her head down.
(13:06):
He's on hard Island. I'm like, having what kinds of
just take it very fucking slow. Yeah. Yeah, you can
go see him many time you want see. We'll visit
(13:30):
his area. It's great. Okay, Okay, you're squeezing my hand
really tight right now, Oh my god. Yeah, okay, mm hmm. Yeah.
(13:55):
If something's open forever and nothing is ever final, eyes
or or people don't come together to go through this
ritual and the ceremony thing, something's just not right. Maybe
it's kind of on a metaphysical plane. I don't know
(14:18):
how to fucking talk about it, but something's been eating me,
and that's what it is. It's just one of those things.
You gotta do it, that's all you feel like. Maybe
it will let you and us close the chapter and
start something new. Probably, I hope so I'm ready to go.
(14:44):
My bag is fucking packed for a few years now,
you know. So I'm sorry what you heard? What I says?
Where are you going? I'm need to go to where wherever?
We're gonna go next. Next we're going to Heart Island.
(15:20):
That's after the breaks. Oh there she is right there. Okay.
Hold on a hazy spring morning Austin, My fiance Rachel
(15:40):
and I picked my mom up at her apartment. Hey,
my boy, Hey mama, We're about to drive to the
Bronx to catch a ferry to Heart Island. It's nice
as being her. My mom's dressed all in black with
big sunglasses covering her face. She's wearing her nicest pants,
high heels, and a knee length coat. Jasha looks good. Mom. Wow,
(16:11):
it's a foggy days creepy it just got off Yeah wow,
Oh my god, it's total London fog. After a half
hour drive, we find ourselves at a place called City Island.
(16:33):
The ferry to Heart Island leaves from here. Salt Air.
Nice it is, huh. It's basically like a suburban fishing town.
It's a quaint little village vibe, but everything is covered
(16:54):
in mist. My mom carry is with her a white
envelope that she plans to bring to Billy. I'm smuggling possible.
They're worry. We walked towards a dock that's fenced off
and locked, and there's a big Department of Corrections badge
(17:19):
logo and it says restricted area. It also has a
big sign that says end the fucking end of the line. Man,
Oh God, hold my hand, my body. The mist is
(17:40):
so thick we can't see anything past the dock. A
man in a city uniform approaches from the other side
of the fence. Good morning. The fence slides open and
we walk onto an old dock with wide wooden planks.
(18:02):
We sign in for the visit as the sky brightens. Yeah,
oh wow, wow. The fog just cleared, and the island
is suddenly like I could probably throw a baseball to it.
The mist starts to rise and we see Heart Island
for the first time, a narrow strip of land covered
in barren trees. How how are you doing? Mom'm fucked up?
(18:26):
What do you think? You know? It's the look at
these weird little islands and you want to swim there,
you know, I don't want to swim to that place. Uh,
what once you have to do with the recording device? Please?
Is please? Now Austin has to put his mic back
(18:52):
in the car. But I'm wearing a wire, I'm sure
not sending it off. To put it off, we walk
onto an industrial looking fairy with a crowd of about
fifteen other people visiting loved ones. The boat inches towards
(19:12):
the island. I just can't believe how horror movie esque
it is. An island of dead people, hundred feet away
from an island of living people, all abandoned, and it's
literally coated and missed. It's just like I imagined that.
(19:35):
In just a few minutes, we've arrived. The dock workers
secure the ferry. We were all said, folks get Dotting
the shoreline are little Catholic statues, baby angels, and a
Virgin Mary, all painted white, stare at us as we disembark.
(19:57):
My mom is silent. She's flanked herself with my fiance
Rachel and me and clutches both of our hands. Ahead
is a big white bus with corrections stamped along the side.
Got to get on the corrections the white bus. Wow,
(20:19):
wherever you want a cup? The island is devastating around
us or half crumbled brick and plaster buildings. An old
boat sits rotting, a crow has nested on top of
a dilapidated shed. Everything feels dead except the animals that
(20:40):
run wild here you do. Canadians on the island are
Canadian geese, so you can see them. She's a nesting season.
They get quite aggressive. The bus creeps forward. It's the
north end of the island and got it. The trees
look like tim Burton trees the like reach out in
(21:00):
every direction, rounding a corner. We come to an open
field with little white concrete blocks placed every twenty ft
or so marking a rudimentary grid. We're here. What do
you want, mom? You want us to go with you?
(21:21):
You want to go in her? You want us to
go with you? Right? Yeah, mama, Okay, this was a
(21:42):
surprisingly gentle corrections officer leads us off the bus and
into a muddy field. It sits just next to a
rocky beach where large pieces of trash, plastic bins, and
wooden crates have washed up. You're going to be good
with those heels in the soft earth. I don't know
I got your flip pops if you need them. My
(22:03):
mom's heels sink into the ground as the officer consults
a cemetery diagram and settles on a spot. He says,
Billy is roughly in this area, under the patchy grass
right there. Is it this way or that way? So
he's right here. Thank you, thank you. He says he
(22:30):
thinks Billy's head is pointing in the direction of the water.
He apologizes for our loss and ambles towards the beach,
leaving us in privacy. Rachel and I clear the bottle
caps and trash that the tide has washed up over Billy.
My mom stares at the mulchy earth so um roll
(22:53):
that there's someone under this ground and you would never
know it. And her She takes out that white envelope
she smuggled in. It's filled with seeds or planting some
(23:13):
some flowers. Break them up. Okay, the season, you know
you gotta break them like this. Okay. She bends over
at the waist and starts ripping back the grass. My
mom is digging with her fingers into the earth. Not
(23:34):
more and more and more. You want to give me
some more? Yeah, just cover cover, cover him with flour.
My mom is digging with her fingers. It looks as
though she's caressing Billy's chest and she's digging right on
(23:58):
top of where they said his chest would be. She's
digging with her fingers. I feel like I could just
keep going in there. He's gonna be right there. The birds,
(24:25):
and I say, it sounds as the birds you want
to leave you alone for a minute with them. Yeah,
you could leave me alone for just a few minutes. Maybe.
I love your mama. I love you too, Go too far,
We'll be right here. I've been around bird why it
(24:57):
was all my life when I was drawing up my brother.
Birds always really mostly harmless. Will birds are all over?
Where do you keep a whispers? Isn't bad pronounced aviary?
(25:43):
I'm just calling me owhere? Okay, I don't know. I
don't I don't know. M Are you happy with cane um?
(26:06):
I guess it's just something that you gotta do. You know,
I wish he wasn't fucking dead. If what he is,
he's dead, you know? Yeah, Oh, this is so so creepy.
(26:33):
You feel like this puts an end to something, knowing
where he is, having found him, and I don't know,
it's just creepy. I I don't know what to say.
I can't talk about it. I don't know the answer
to anything. Okay. In fact, I woke up today realizing
(26:57):
that I'm completely still food and that I don't know
the answer to anything. What are you talking about? I
don't know. Don't ask me any more questions. That's what
I'm talking about. I always said he could just count
(27:17):
with that. Yeah. Ah, he wants to go with us
till his spirit let's go. Okay, how you know, my mom?
(27:47):
I feel worse than ever now. Ah, like my gouts
are being scraped off from the inside. I don't know.
I told you, just don't ask me anything. I don't
know anything. I'm sorry you feel that my mom suity
(28:12):
don't great? All right? Bye? Bye? Heavy sick. It was
(28:42):
horrible when she cried. Is it? Is it feeling like
the your mom's reaction is different than than what you
had thought it would be. Hearing her cry like that
in the back seat, like that's raw. Ship, m I
(29:02):
don't know how to do the right thing for her.
I thought that taking her to Hart Island was it.
Ship and movies is so neat, you know, go to
the grave and you lay the flowers and it fades
to black, and everybody just feels satisfied and reconciled. But
real life isn't like that. Even if you can find
(29:26):
the grave, it might not scratch the itch of reconciling
that somebody was killed. When I started this whole thing,
I thought that this day taking my mom to say
goodbye to Billy would be the end of the story.
(29:49):
But it's clearly not. My mom still feels like there
was an injustice against Billy, that he was wrongfully killed.
When I was younger, I started making a list, a
list of questions I would ask the cop who shot
(30:09):
Billy if I could ever find him. I thought there
was no way I would ever get the chance. I
was wrong. Austin talked to me for a sec. Yes, Hello, Okay,
that's good. That's good. Okay, I'm gonna call Mr Holy
sh It next week. The undercover Cop Crimetown is Zack
(30:53):
Stewart Pontier and Mark Smirling. The Ballad of Billy Balls
is hosted by me I Oh Till It Right and
made in partnership with Kaden's thirteen. You can find me
on the Internet. Umio loves you on everything. Say Hello,
and if you want to know more about my story,
you can pick up my memoir Darling Days. We also
(31:15):
want to hear from you. We have a voicemail set
up for you to call us. Here's Candice. I have
this family story that I've always wanted to look into,
and it involved a sister I don't know, and my
mom was supposed to give up her child. But I'm
terrified to ask my mom more questions because of the
emotional impact it might have on her. And I just
(31:36):
want to know any advice you might have for breaking
the ice. It's sort of always doing the thing I've
really really wanted to look into, and I think a
lot of people have a similar story. Thanks for that, Candice.
You know my best advice is to just take it
really slow and approach it with a lot of compassion
and tenderness. And anybody else, if you have a family
(31:58):
mystery solved or unsolved, we'd love to hear about it.
Call us and leave us a voicemail at five seven
oh three nine to nine zero, seriously, call right now.
You can also get into our discussion forum on our website,
The Ballad of Billie Balls dot com, and that the
(32:19):
show is produced by me, Kevin Sheppard, and Ryan Swigert.
Our senior producer is Austin Mitchell. Editing by Zack Stewart
Contier and Mark Smirling. Fact checking by Jennifer Blackman. This
episode was mixed by Kenny Qcack. Music and sound designed
by Kenny qcac two. Our title track is Dark Allies
(32:39):
by Light Asylum. Archival research by Brennan Reese. Thanks to
Daniella Aria, my Fiance Rachel, Emily Wiederman, Green Card Pictures,
Alessandro Sentauro, Bill Clegg, Ben Davis, Orn Rosenbaum, and the
team at Cadence thirteen, and special thanks to Mrs Calvert
at the e o C for honoring love and of
(33:02):
course my mom, without whom none of this would be possible.
M
Hi there, um. I'm calling because I'm trying to track
down some information about my mother's partner who died in
two My mom has been waiting thirty seven years to
say goodbye to Billy. I guess my questions she They
(00:20):
called her to identify the body. She came back back
in the summer of nine two. My mom says after
she went to identify Billy's body, she learned that without
her permission, he'd been sent to a cemetery where people
are buried in mass graves by the city and they said, oh,
we send him to a potter's field. She never knew where.
So I'm on the phone with the Office of the
(00:41):
Chief Medical Examiner here in New York. Under what circumstances
would a body be sent to a potter's field? From you, guys,
if we were unable to contact any family members or friends,
or no one came forward to make arrangements for a person,
or if we did reach someone and they made the
(01:02):
request to have the person buried at the city cemetery
on Hart Island, Hard Island. So Hard Island is the
potter's field for the city of New York. According to
the Medical Examiner's Office, Billy has to be buried on
Hart Island. The only problem is when I searched the
(01:24):
city's Heart Island database, Heightsman nothing, William Heightsman nothing. There
is no William Heightsman. But then what's going on? What
it's the Hard Island look Up Service. Look Heightman, William
thirty seven years old. Date of death June two at
(01:47):
Cabrini Medical Center. He's buried at plot number one thirty six.
I just fucking found Billy Heightman. There's no z and
that's why we haven't been able to find him this
(02:07):
whole time. Oh my god, this whole thing was just
a misspelling. I fucking found Billy today on the show
Heart Island from Crime Town. I'm io till it right,
(02:30):
and this is the ballad of Billy Balls. I got
the number of the Potter's Field and on the other
end it was the Great Diggers, and I says, where
(02:54):
is the body of William Heitzman? And they laughed, they laughed.
I remember just the raw feeling of the fucking pain
of I agree, and I would like to not remember
(03:15):
that feeling. Quiz. The only thing this stopped it was
you being born? All right, We're gonna find that, We're
gonna find Okay, okay, Chapter eleven, there's someone under this ground. Well,
(03:53):
not too far away from the bright and dazzling lights
of Times Square in the New York City skyline lines
one of America's darkest secrets. Almost one million people buried
here since the eighteen hundreds on just over one d acres.
Potter's failed on. Heart Island is a small patch of
land in the easternmost parts of the Bronx. Can you
(04:15):
describe physically what Heart Island looks and feels and sounds like? Oh,
it's it's the least developed part of New York City, right,
so it's truly this rural landscape. Melinda Hunt is an
artist and the founding director of the Heart Island Project,
(04:38):
a nonprofit working the catalog and tell the stories of
the people buried there. She spent a lot of time
on the island. There aren't any markers, so it doesn't
feel like what we call a traditional cemetery private cemetery, right,
because there aren't all these markers. So it's just it's
a bird sanctuary. There's herds of de here, as these
(05:01):
red raccoons. It's just all this wildlife there because people
aren't there very much, and you're out in the Long
Island Sound that sailboats going by, and it's just this
really meaningful place because so many people are buried there.
It's actually the country's largest natural burial ground, and it's
(05:22):
a very sustainable ecological system of burials, except that it's
managed by the penal system, which isn't very interested in ecology.
Heart Island is run by the Department of Correction, the
agency best known for overseeing the city's prisons. Over the years,
(05:44):
it was home to a missile base, an insane asylum,
and a tuberculosis hospital, but the island only housed abandoned
buildings and dead bodies. So when a body leaves a
hospital and goes to Heart Island, who buries it? How
(06:05):
is How does it get there? What is the process
of entry? For a billy. The body is put in
the pine box at the morgue and loaded into a
refrigerator truck and driven to Heart Island, And the moment
that vehicle drives onto Heart Island, all of those bodies
(06:31):
become property of the Department of Correction, And so they
drive to the grave site and a bus of prisoners
arrives at the grave site. They dig these gigantic trenches
where you put people in an organized trench. It's a grid.
(06:53):
So that's how it's done. Inmates from Rikers Islands, a
nearby jail, did the trenches and bury the bodies. I
was in five months in Hot Island and I buried
well over seven hundred bodies. And that's not even you're
gonna say babies. This is a former Riker's inmate who
(07:16):
Melinda interviewed for a documentary she made called Heart Island
is an American Cemetery. We were like the elite crew
and there would be people that would get on that,
you know, on that detail, and they would show up
one day and they would quit, Uh, just say they
(07:37):
couldn't do it, you know, because it wasn't so easy,
you know, took a lot of you know, I mean,
they were dead people. It's inherently shameful to have prisoners burying.
(07:58):
The dad Melinda say, is that because the Department of
Correction or d C is in charge of Heart Island,
there's a shroud of shame around it and the people
buried there. That's the purpose of the penal system. It's
a deterrent based on shame, and so the shame creates
(08:20):
um stigma. You can't celebrate a life if it's tainted.
You're not going to go out say oh, this person
is such a great person, and yeah, they were buried
by the d C. It's just that those two things
don't go together. Let's say you're in the position of
my mother. You are the long term life partner but
(08:40):
not legally recognized life partner of someone. Can you walk
us through the process of what would have happened and
like kind of what she would have encountered. Um, Well,
if she went to identify she was providing a service
to the city and then told well, but you have
no further rights, and my mother would not have had
(09:03):
the right to claim his body, not in n Basically,
the city would have tried to find it next of kin,
and they probably already tried to do that when he
was at Cabrini. We have a theory about how this
might have gone down. I asked Billy's daughter Amanda about
(09:23):
it the first time we met. She did say, which
I think is a really important big clue, but the
Morgue did call her grandma when Billy died because Amanda
is technically the next of kin. She was seven, so
the grandma didn't want anything to do with it and
(09:44):
told him to funk off. As her legal guardian. Amanda's
grandmother did have the right to make the decision that
sent Billy to Heart Island. My mom, as Billy's longtime girlfriend,
didn't have egal rights to him in and based on
the Heart Island rules, I'm not sure she has the
(10:06):
right to visit him today near Kitty Department of Corrections,
Hart Island either. Um. I'm calling because my mother is
the long term partner of somebody who we believe is
buried on Heart Island, but they were not legally married. Um,
and I'm trying to figure out how I can get
her onto the island to finally say goodbye to him.
(10:30):
She can just or you can request for visit. We
don't ask for proof and friends do visit, Oh their friends,
you know. Not to discredit her. God, that's so humane,
that's so and so unexpected from the DC to me
(10:53):
scheduling a physic she was more like his wife if
they were together for a long time, So I would
definitely schedule her for family or loved one type visit
where she would just go and actually stand where he
or she is in grieve and mourn in that way.
And that's just a call that you're able to make,
right exactly. We have to trust that there was a
(11:17):
relationship and that she would want to be clothed. Wow. Okay,
what is your name? Mrs Calvert? Wow? Ms Calvert? Thank
you a million times over. Thank you, thank you, thank you,
No problem. You guys have a great day too. Wow.
(11:37):
Whoa dude? What? I cannot believe what just happened. I
can't believe what has happened. You realize what this means, right?
This means there's no obstacle to my mother getting to
say goodbye to the love of her life, which she
has been waiting to do for thirty seven fucking years.
(12:01):
What are we doing right now? Where are we going?
We're walking to my mom's house, where I'm going to
tell her that I found Billy's body and that she
can go visit him with no restrictions. Today is just
about telling my mom that we found Billy. I'm not
going to hit her with the police report or push
her for any information. I just want to give her
(12:21):
a chance to process this. It's big I'm away. I'm
so happy to see you, Mark Mine. Look at you
a little pastel colors. Oh god, my mom doesn't know
why I'm here. I asked her to sit down, but anyway, goad, um,
(12:45):
well I have I have some some news. Yes, I
found Billy's body. Oh my god. She clenches my hand
as she closes her eyes and puts her head down.
(13:06):
He's on hard Island. I'm like, having what kinds of
just take it very fucking slow. Yeah. Yeah, you can
go see him many time you want see. We'll visit
(13:30):
his area. It's great. Okay, Okay, you're squeezing my hand
really tight right now, Oh my god. Yeah, okay, mm hmm. Yeah.
(13:55):
If something's open forever and nothing is ever final, eyes
or or people don't come together to go through this
ritual and the ceremony thing, something's just not right. Maybe
it's kind of on a metaphysical plane. I don't know
(14:18):
how to fucking talk about it, but something's been eating me,
and that's what it is. It's just one of those things.
You gotta do it, that's all you feel like. Maybe
it will let you and us close the chapter and
start something new. Probably, I hope so I'm ready to go.
(14:44):
My bag is fucking packed for a few years now,
you know. So I'm sorry what you heard? What I says?
Where are you going? I'm need to go to where wherever?
We're gonna go next. Next we're going to Heart Island.
(15:20):
That's after the breaks. Oh there she is right there. Okay.
Hold on a hazy spring morning Austin, My fiance Rachel
(15:40):
and I picked my mom up at her apartment. Hey,
my boy, Hey mama, We're about to drive to the
Bronx to catch a ferry to Heart Island. It's nice
as being her. My mom's dressed all in black with
big sunglasses covering her face. She's wearing her nicest pants,
high heels, and a knee length coat. Jasha looks good. Mom. Wow,
(16:11):
it's a foggy days creepy it just got off Yeah wow,
Oh my god, it's total London fog. After a half
hour drive, we find ourselves at a place called City Island.
(16:33):
The ferry to Heart Island leaves from here. Salt Air.
Nice it is, huh. It's basically like a suburban fishing town.
It's a quaint little village vibe, but everything is covered
(16:54):
in mist. My mom carry is with her a white
envelope that she plans to bring to Billy. I'm smuggling possible.
They're worry. We walked towards a dock that's fenced off
and locked, and there's a big Department of Corrections badge
(17:19):
logo and it says restricted area. It also has a
big sign that says end the fucking end of the line. Man,
Oh God, hold my hand, my body. The mist is
(17:40):
so thick we can't see anything past the dock. A
man in a city uniform approaches from the other side
of the fence. Good morning. The fence slides open and
we walk onto an old dock with wide wooden planks.
(18:02):
We sign in for the visit as the sky brightens. Yeah,
oh wow, wow. The fog just cleared, and the island
is suddenly like I could probably throw a baseball to it.
The mist starts to rise and we see Heart Island
for the first time, a narrow strip of land covered
in barren trees. How how are you doing? Mom'm fucked up?
(18:26):
What do you think? You know? It's the look at
these weird little islands and you want to swim there,
you know, I don't want to swim to that place. Uh,
what once you have to do with the recording device? Please?
Is please? Now Austin has to put his mic back
(18:52):
in the car. But I'm wearing a wire, I'm sure
not sending it off. To put it off, we walk
onto an industrial looking fairy with a crowd of about
fifteen other people visiting loved ones. The boat inches towards
(19:12):
the island. I just can't believe how horror movie esque
it is. An island of dead people, hundred feet away
from an island of living people, all abandoned, and it's
literally coated and missed. It's just like I imagined that.
(19:35):
In just a few minutes, we've arrived. The dock workers
secure the ferry. We were all said, folks get Dotting
the shoreline are little Catholic statues, baby angels, and a
Virgin Mary, all painted white, stare at us as we disembark.
(19:57):
My mom is silent. She's flanked herself with my fiance
Rachel and me and clutches both of our hands. Ahead
is a big white bus with corrections stamped along the side.
Got to get on the corrections the white bus. Wow,
(20:19):
wherever you want a cup? The island is devastating around
us or half crumbled brick and plaster buildings. An old
boat sits rotting, a crow has nested on top of
a dilapidated shed. Everything feels dead except the animals that
(20:40):
run wild here you do. Canadians on the island are
Canadian geese, so you can see them. She's a nesting season.
They get quite aggressive. The bus creeps forward. It's the
north end of the island and got it. The trees
look like tim Burton trees the like reach out in
(21:00):
every direction, rounding a corner. We come to an open
field with little white concrete blocks placed every twenty ft
or so marking a rudimentary grid. We're here. What do
you want, mom? You want us to go with you?
(21:21):
You want to go in her? You want us to
go with you? Right? Yeah, mama, Okay, this was a
(21:42):
surprisingly gentle corrections officer leads us off the bus and
into a muddy field. It sits just next to a
rocky beach where large pieces of trash, plastic bins, and
wooden crates have washed up. You're going to be good
with those heels in the soft earth. I don't know
I got your flip pops if you need them. My
(22:03):
mom's heels sink into the ground as the officer consults
a cemetery diagram and settles on a spot. He says,
Billy is roughly in this area, under the patchy grass
right there. Is it this way or that way? So
he's right here. Thank you, thank you. He says he
(22:30):
thinks Billy's head is pointing in the direction of the water.
He apologizes for our loss and ambles towards the beach,
leaving us in privacy. Rachel and I clear the bottle
caps and trash that the tide has washed up over Billy.
My mom stares at the mulchy earth so um roll
(22:53):
that there's someone under this ground and you would never
know it. And her She takes out that white envelope
she smuggled in. It's filled with seeds or planting some
(23:13):
some flowers. Break them up. Okay, the season, you know
you gotta break them like this. Okay. She bends over
at the waist and starts ripping back the grass. My
mom is digging with her fingers into the earth. Not
(23:34):
more and more and more. You want to give me
some more? Yeah, just cover cover, cover him with flour.
My mom is digging with her fingers. It looks as
though she's caressing Billy's chest and she's digging right on
(23:58):
top of where they said his chest would be. She's
digging with her fingers. I feel like I could just
keep going in there. He's gonna be right there. The birds,
(24:25):
and I say, it sounds as the birds you want
to leave you alone for a minute with them. Yeah,
you could leave me alone for just a few minutes. Maybe.
I love your mama. I love you too, Go too far,
We'll be right here. I've been around bird why it
(24:57):
was all my life when I was drawing up my brother.
Birds always really mostly harmless. Will birds are all over?
Where do you keep a whispers? Isn't bad pronounced aviary?
(25:43):
I'm just calling me owhere? Okay, I don't know. I
don't I don't know. M Are you happy with cane um?
(26:06):
I guess it's just something that you gotta do. You know,
I wish he wasn't fucking dead. If what he is,
he's dead, you know? Yeah, Oh, this is so so creepy.
(26:33):
You feel like this puts an end to something, knowing
where he is, having found him, and I don't know,
it's just creepy. I I don't know what to say.
I can't talk about it. I don't know the answer
to anything. Okay. In fact, I woke up today realizing
(26:57):
that I'm completely still food and that I don't know
the answer to anything. What are you talking about? I
don't know. Don't ask me any more questions. That's what
I'm talking about. I always said he could just count
(27:17):
with that. Yeah. Ah, he wants to go with us
till his spirit let's go. Okay, how you know, my mom?
(27:47):
I feel worse than ever now. Ah, like my gouts
are being scraped off from the inside. I don't know.
I told you, just don't ask me anything. I don't
know anything. I'm sorry you feel that my mom suity
(28:12):
don't great? All right? Bye? Bye? Heavy sick. It was
(28:42):
horrible when she cried. Is it? Is it feeling like
the your mom's reaction is different than than what you
had thought it would be. Hearing her cry like that
in the back seat, like that's raw. Ship, m I
(29:02):
don't know how to do the right thing for her.
I thought that taking her to Hart Island was it.
Ship and movies is so neat, you know, go to
the grave and you lay the flowers and it fades
to black, and everybody just feels satisfied and reconciled. But
real life isn't like that. Even if you can find
(29:26):
the grave, it might not scratch the itch of reconciling
that somebody was killed. When I started this whole thing,
I thought that this day taking my mom to say
goodbye to Billy would be the end of the story.
(29:49):
But it's clearly not. My mom still feels like there
was an injustice against Billy, that he was wrongfully killed.
When I was younger, I started making a list, a
list of questions I would ask the cop who shot
(30:09):
Billy if I could ever find him. I thought there
was no way I would ever get the chance. I
was wrong. Austin talked to me for a sec. Yes, Hello, Okay,
that's good. That's good. Okay, I'm gonna call Mr Holy
sh It next week. The undercover Cop Crimetown is Zack
(30:53):
Stewart Pontier and Mark Smirling. The Ballad of Billy Balls
is hosted by me I Oh Till It Right and
made in partnership with Kaden's thirteen. You can find me
on the Internet. Umio loves you on everything. Say Hello,
and if you want to know more about my story,
you can pick up my memoir Darling Days. We also
(31:15):
want to hear from you. We have a voicemail set
up for you to call us. Here's Candice. I have
this family story that I've always wanted to look into,
and it involved a sister I don't know, and my
mom was supposed to give up her child. But I'm
terrified to ask my mom more questions because of the
emotional impact it might have on her. And I just
(31:36):
want to know any advice you might have for breaking
the ice. It's sort of always doing the thing I've
really really wanted to look into, and I think a
lot of people have a similar story. Thanks for that, Candice.
You know my best advice is to just take it
really slow and approach it with a lot of compassion
and tenderness. And anybody else, if you have a family
(31:58):
mystery solved or unsolved, we'd love to hear about it.
Call us and leave us a voicemail at five seven
oh three nine to nine zero, seriously, call right now.
You can also get into our discussion forum on our website,
The Ballad of Billie Balls dot com, and that the
(32:19):
show is produced by me, Kevin Sheppard, and Ryan Swigert.
Our senior producer is Austin Mitchell. Editing by Zack Stewart
Contier and Mark Smirling. Fact checking by Jennifer Blackman. This
episode was mixed by Kenny Qcack. Music and sound designed
by Kenny qcac two. Our title track is Dark Allies
(32:39):
by Light Asylum. Archival research by Brennan Reese. Thanks to
Daniella Aria, my Fiance Rachel, Emily Wiederman, Green Card Pictures,
Alessandro Sentauro, Bill Clegg, Ben Davis, Orn Rosenbaum, and the
team at Cadence thirteen, and special thanks to Mrs Calvert
at the e o C for honoring love and of
(33:02):
course my mom, without whom none of this would be possible.
M
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