Episode 336

John Daly here. You know what day it is? Neither do I. I live life daily. That's why I only spend on Modo Casino. Modo's got daily free bonuses, daily tournaments, new slots added daily, and the best part, guaranteed daily jackpots. You can't beat that. So today's the day you grip into spending with me on Modo, America's social casino. Play for free on Modo.us. Modo Casino is a social casino where you're prohibited, no purchase necessary. Visit Modo.us for more details. Download the Modo Casino app today. Must be 21 plus. Modo Casino. America's social casino. Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. Listen, man. You know, I'm telling you, you know, I'm confessing to you. I'm telling you that I did it. Would you arrest me? Welcome to Season 13, Episode 336 of Sword and Scale. A show that reveals that the worst monsters are real. You know, the show gets a lot better when you stop complaining and just enjoy it. I'm not going to start talking like you do in, I don't know, Northern Michigan or West Appalachia or, God forsaken, Ohio. You're not going to be able to get me to talk exactly how you talk in your little specific local town. So just stop. You can't control everything. Just stop trying to control everything. You're probably saying it wrong anyway. It's usually a word that comes from a different language and shit. Y'all saying it in Ohioan. The Social Casino Board will prohibit it. No purchase necessary. Visit moto.us for more details. Must be 21 plus. Moto Casino. American Social Casino. In a small newsroom in Batesville, Arkansas, George Jared was a brand new 20-something-year-old journalist. It was September of 2004. He was still learning the rhythm of leads, stories, and deadlines. Most reporters expect stories to come and go. That's the nature of the job. Research it, write about it, and move on. Maybe go get a peppermint latte from Starbucks before they take them off the menu. But every so often, a case, doesn't let go. Or maybe there's just something about a certain personality type that just can't let it go. For George, that case arrived just as his career began. I'd been there maybe seven months. I was just out of college. And, you know, most of the stuff I would cover would be like school board meetings and, you know, city council stuff. And, you know, I'd get to do features at local schools and whatnot. And then one, I remember very vividly, it was a Wednesday morning. Phone rings at my desk. Pick it up. And a woman was on the phone and she said, my niece is missing and we can't find her. And I said, really? George jumped in his car and drove straight to where the woman said she was calling from. The Izzard County Sheriff's Office. And then I walked over to some family members and Rebecca's mother handed me a missing poster that I still have to this day. It's sitting in the other room. The missing girl was 22-year-old Rebecca Gould. And so immediately I start talking to Rebecca's mother and one of her sisters. And I just flipped the missing poster over on its other side and I put it up against the building. And I just started taking notes on the back. And those notes are still there. And then I walked over to her father, Dr. Larry Gould, and he was standing with another one of his daughters. And that's how I first met him. And I just, I was out with them the whole week that she was missing. That's how it started. Apparently, Rebecca had arrived in the small town of Melbourne, Arkansas on Saturday, September 18th, to visit her boyfriend, Casey McCullough. She was on break from college, but it wasn't unusual for her to take a few days off to see friends. Rebecca's mother told George she'd talked with her daughter on the phone just the day before. But during their call, Rebecca realized she was about to run out of minutes. So she told her mom she'd call back. That call never came. When police searched Casey's house, everything looked fairly normal until they reached the back bedroom, the room Casey and Rebecca would sleep in. Inside, they found a blood-soaked mattress that had been stripped and propped up against the wall. The box springs remained, and it, too, was stained red. The bedclothes were spinning around in the washing machine, wet fabric mixed with bleach and blood. Interestingly, any fingerprints on the washing machine had been wiped away, probably with the brand-new cleaning supplies that sat on the kitchen counter. Back in the bedroom again, sections of carpeting had to be cut up and taken in for evidence. The amount of blood was so extreme it had seeped into the subfloor. At this point, detectives knew they'd be searching for a dead body, not an alive Rebecca. The police were not able to find a suspect. The police were unable to find a suspect. to the office that night and i stayed till four o'clock in the morning writing it and it was the the newspaper office was this old creaky building a huge building and if the wind blew you know you hear all these creaking sounds and i was just sitting there with her missing poster sitting on my desk and i wrote about i've written about this before i've never every single resume that i've ever submitted after this attached that resume was a story i wrote about her case and she never left me it was in my soul after that everyone's focus shifted to finding rebecca's killer while the medical examiner did the autopsy investigators turned their attention to the trailer where she had last been seen she was on it she had an on again off again boyfriend named casey mccullough and she would come back you know she was living up in northwest arkansas at this point she'd come back and see him on the weekend she'd stay at his house they were just kind of on again you know how it is when you're that age you know 22 and you know you're dating someone you know and he obviously was not a long-term thing for her there's she was quite a catch for him i guess i'll just put it that way and he was obsessed with her he was totally in love with her but weirdly when she vanished he didn't spend one second looking for her and tim how did you come to know rebecca uh we worked at sonic together and very first day that she worked at sonic i thought she's the most beautiful creature i've ever seen so yeah that's when we started talking how long did you live with rebecca for about two two months okay and after that uh just a relationship uh did y'all split up or what what took place um well we did split up we decided that you know it'd be better for just stay friends and that's what we did we still spent an awful lot time together she would live with certain people at certain times um you know and she kind of bounced around a little bit but then she finally decided to leave and she was like i'm gonna leave for a little while and then she decided that she wanted to go into pharmaceutical sales and so she um she had a sister that was already going to school up in fayetteville which is about i don't know three hours or so from melbourne so she moved up there and she moved in with her sister into an apartment and she started attending a local community college and she started taking classes and so she was 22 and she was just trying to get her life together the previous spring rebecca and casey's relationship had been pretty serious casey's relationship had been pretty serious casey was head over heels for her which brought out the controlling side of him that didn't work well with rebecca's fiery personality by the end of the summer things had become a little messy on her drive from northwest arkansas to melbourne rebecca told her sister that this would be her final trip she told her sister she's like i'm done this is it and then they stop off at their dad's house he gives them each a hundred dollar bill um on their way to melbourne and she tells her father she says i'm done with casey it's over we're done detectives often use an investigative strategy called canter and larkin's circle theory it's a fancy way of saying that most offenders don't stray far from home when they commit a crime they stick to what they know neighborhoods they've been in routes they're comfortable with places that feel familiar so investigators start looking close to the victim family partners roommates roommates then they widen the lens to include friends co-workers casual acquaintances and if that still turns up nothing only then do they start to consider strangers with this in mind you'd think the first person in the hot seat would be the boyfriend it's always the boyfriend right arkansas state police didn't think so instead they zeroed in on an old friend of rebecca's the main suspect for the crime was a man named rebecca who was a friend of rebecca's friend for years and years and years and years was chris cantrell and he was just this guy who was involved in a local you know kind of drug scene you know he um i don't think he sold a lot of drugs but he consumed them he'd get in trouble for it and this guy i mean you're not talking about somebody who has the sophistication probably to you know wipe their own dna from a crime scene or get rid of all their fingerprints and all this other stuff because the story was is that he he drugged that like now i'm talking like 40 which was really weird because she had at least that much money in her possession when she was killed so if that was the motive why didn't he take some of her stuff or her cash or and the second problem with it was was that you know i've written about assassinations you know where somebody is you know you're you're you're involved in the drug trade and we're going to get rid of you and that involves something very simple they come with a gun they shoot you in the head they leave they don't do anything else and they walk away rebecca's autopsy report remained unreleased for years even today only a few people have a copy of it the report suggests that she was likely bludgeoned it's hard to tell if there were any defensive wounds she'd been exposed to the elements for a week and her body was very badly decomposed rebecca had two clear blunt force injuries one to the left side of her head and one that was a direct hit on the center of her face experts and medical professionals who have read and analyzed the report say that neither of those injuries would have killed her immediately in fact it's very possible that rebecca was alive for hours after the killer hit her even worse she could have been alive when her body was dumped down the embankment as for the weapon the autopsy pointed to something long thin and heavy something like a tire iron or a bat and in the house where rebecca disappeared police noticed something strange the piano yeah there was a piano the piano was missing one of its legs this story that this guy shows up at this house out in the middle of nowhere that he's never been before doesn't bring a weapon he's like i wonder if the piano leg will come off of this piano over here okay whoa here we go yeah i mean it was just this ridiculous stupid like are you kidding me story like come on a guy named dennis was the arkansas state police detective working the case this man was hell-bent on pushing the chris cantrell story and he wouldn't give up ego is a hell of a drug well dennis was a narcotics officer um they had a working theory that drugs were somehow involved in this even though no drugs were found in her system that they could find and he had he had dealt with chris in the past and i've always said this about dennis um it's one of my favorite sayings you know um if you're born a hammer every problem in the world has to be a nail there's no other it can't be a screw it can't be a you know attack it's got to be a nail so that's what he turns his case into dennis gets the case i think in november december and then he starts to focus in on chris cantrell and it was pretty widely known by like june july of 2005 that they were focusing on chris i mean that was that was out in the public people talked about it there were other suspects along the way and people in town gossiped about the possibility that rebecca's boyfriend casey was the real killer but this detective wouldn't hear any of it he refused to look into any tips or reanalyze any of the existing evidence but a lot of it pointed straight to casey mccullough i mean i spent you know uh years just befuddled by the detective because you know you automatically assume that they know more than you know because they've got the case file and there must be i had there had to be something in there that was really pointing them away from him george didn't get his hands on the case file until years later but by the time he'd read it this detective decided to pay him a surprise visit armed with all the original evidence this turned out to be a perfect opportunity for george to ask dennis to talk to him about the case file and to ask him about the evidence why he was so focused on the wrong suspect and i'm not kidding you this guy this detective snuck into a book signing of mine one time and he's cut off daisy duke looking shorts cut off flannel shirt i mean like i'm not gonna notice this dude coming in here i pitch him the book because i didn't recognize him at this point and then um as i said do you want to buy a book he's like he's like no i'm special agent dennis simons with the arkansas state police he pulls out his badge and i looked at him i'm like okay dennis i'm not gonna notice this dude coming in i haven't seen you in years but you know come on and he tells me i can't i told him i said i i don't understand something here why would he clean up the mess why wouldn't he just take a match and torch the place and he said george if you had the case file you'd know exactly why it this person did this thing and i'm like okay well we have the case file now and it's even more incomprehensible this dennis character should sure does remind me of lieutenant jim dangle from reno 911 can you picture it life imitates art i guess rebecca's case swirled around in george's mind for years and all the while it had become a closed loop he wrote articles about the case and about various theories but law enforcement was holding all the information under lock and key they held no press conferences and gave no updates 14 years ago. years passed with no progress. When Rebecca's father tried to request a copy of her autopsy report, officials denied it, citing the case was still active. George kept writing articles. Web sleuths discussed the case to death, and by 2018, a woman named Catherine Townsend hoped to put even more eyes on this mystery by doing a podcast. Rebecca was murdered in this woman's hometown, so she traveled back there, lived in the community for six months, and did her own investigation. I first heard about a podcast called Hell and Gone in late 2018. This is Jen Buchholz. She's a former U.S. Army counterintelligence agent who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. She now teaches forensic science at American Military University and works as a cold case investigator for Colorado's El Paso, California. And it was my content editor at the university who we would go back and forth sometimes about new podcasts and cases, and sometimes I'd write about different cases. And she's like, you really should listen to Hell and Gone. I think you're going to find that case really interesting. Maybe you want to write about it. And so, of course, she was correct. And I binged it. And George was featured in several of the episodes. So I thought, well, I'll reach out to this George guy. He clearly knows the case really well. And so I very carefully crafted this email to him. And I said, well, I'm going to write about this case. And he said, well, whatever I wrote, which I don't totally remember now, it caught his attention because he called me pretty much right away. And then we ended up on the phone for three hours and 22 minutes, I believe, our first conversation. And so it was like, oh, yeah, we're going to work on this case, I think. I don't know. We had very similar mindset was the behaviors that this killer took and the importance of understanding those behaviors and what they meant about the relationship between the killer and victim. Very clear that the detective at the time was not a killer. He was had no idea about criminal profiling or behavioral analysis. And it was really being overlooked. And that was like one of my key points in reaching out to George. And as you'll hear, he had the same thoughts through the years. Jen Buchholz spent years working as a private investigator before stepping into her current role in cold case investigations. Now embedded within a police department, she sees a sharp divide, maybe even a distrust between law enforcement and civilian investigators. In many cases, police simply won't accept outside help. Again, ego is a hell of a drug. Rebecca's father, Dr. Larry Gould, learned that the hard way. He spent thousands on private investigators over the years, but law enforcement never seemed interested in what they uncovered. Here's Dr. Gould. The law enforcement officers that to me are truly the real professionals are the ones that reach out to the public and they ask for help. The ones that reach out and say that they don't use their ego. They say, I'm the officer. I'm in charge of this case. Help me. Now there's somebody I respect. And there's no reason to not be that way, especially nowadays. There's a lot of unsolved murders that the public can get involved with. There's a lot of the public that loves to get involved with these types of cases because they feel sincerely like they can help and that they can help. And I think that's one of the things that we can offer somebody. And this is where the internet proves it's worth to some degree. Perhaps. I can't believe I just said that. In case after case, it's not a detective who breathes new life into a forgotten file. It's a podcast. It's a subreddit. It's a web forum or a Facebook group or even a TikTok channel where some web sleuth, usually a middle-aged woman, I might add, that has so much time on their hands and so much empathy in their heart that they have to do something with it. So they focus on their favorite hobby. They dig into parts of a cold case that no one ever seemed to be able to uncover. Not even Lieutenant Jim Dank. I mean, Dennis. It's a lesson learned by us that can be passed on to other, not just private investigators or citizens, but law enforcement agencies too. Keep an eye on social media sites for your victim. See if any of your sus specs are in there. Like, I do it at work. Because sometimes the killer does come back to the scene of the crime. Only in Rebecca's case, the scene was now virtual. Welcome to Moto Casino, where the excitement never ends. With thousands of the hottest free-to-play social casino games, fastest payouts, and the best promotions in the industry. No tricks or gimmicks. Owned and operated in the USA. Moto Casino is a free-to-play social casino. 21 plus to play. Void where prohibited. Sign up today for a generous welcome bonus. Moto Casino. Download the Moto Casino app today. For more information, visit www.moto.com. It's a public group. Anybody can find it, but you have to request to join. Because we always want to keep track of who's joining. So, you know, one of our goals, and I guess subconsciously one of our goals in making the group was to lure the killer in there or somebody who knew something. The Facebook group grew quickly. At this point, neither the police's case file nor Rebecca's autopsy had been made available to the public yet. This meant that the host of the Hell and Gone podcast had to piece the story together using rumors and gossip from people in town. By the time Catherine Townsend aired the final episode of season one, the narrative had shifted away from small-town gossip and toward a deeper, darker truth. This was never about random drifters or drug deals. This looked like a crime of passion and a cleanup that took time and work. Here's the thing about this case. We don't have a definitive time of death for Rebecca. This is the working theory, the prosecutorial theory about what happened. On that Monday morning, Rebecca takes Casey to work because his father had borrowed Casey's truck the night before. Casey needed a ride, so she drops him off at the Sonic that morning. Then she goes back to his house to collect up all her things. She had a little Pomeranian dog and she had her clothes and she brought two big suitcases because she had told her father and her sister, Danielle, that this was going to be the last time that she came to Casey's house. And so she brought an extra suitcase because she had some personal items over there at the house. And so it's during this time frame that morning when she's collecting up all this stuff, that's when the police and the prosecutors think that she was murdered. And so I will say this, there is absolutely no proof of life on Monday morning. There's none. And for years, we were led to believe that there was a video at a convenience store that she stopped off and got a coffee and a breakfast sandwich. And so we thought there was all this evidence, you know, that she was there. The problem is, is that none of that stuff was true. So there's no proof of life Monday morning, but that's the official story. Just to fill in some gaps, the day Rebecca went missing, Casey's father had borrowed his truck. So he was carless and needed transportation to and from work. He worked at Sonic, by the way. We know Rebecca's plan was to quietly pack her things and dump his ass that day. But Casey was clueless about this. Or was he? Did he find out? Was there a subsequent altercation? This is where things get really suspicious and a little messy. group of four friends, people that he was friends with. They were going to go to the movies that night. They were going to go see the movie Resident Evil 2. And so he asked them if he could ride with them. And they were all kind of surprised by it because he was kind of a recluse. He didn't like to hang out with anybody. And so he went down to Batesville that night. They watched the movie. They go into some stores. He was clearly trying to make himself available to cameras that were in, you know, like they went to a Walmart to look at Halloween decorations. And they went to some other places. And it was clear that he was trying to make himself visible on these cameras. And then at one point in the night, he gets a call. And during this call, he used his friend's phone to make this call, by the way. He didn't use his own phone. After he hangs up, he tells all four of these friends that Rebecca is missing. He used his friend's phone to call his own voicemail. So he didn't actually talk to anybody. He listened to his messages, whatever they were, and then got off the phone and told his friends that Rebecca is missing. Now, here's the problem. She wasn't reported missing until the next morning at 830 in the morning by her mother. The second part of it is all four friends and all four of their statements to police said that he was obsessed with her. And I'm paraphrasing this, that he was obsessed with her. And they were all shocked that he wasn't running out the door to go and find her. And so what he did instead is he went to his friend's house, smoked some marijuana, played some video games and fell asleep on the couch. Are you suspicious? Are you suspicious yet? Fellow web sleuth. So she dropped you at work just a little past 8? Mm-hmm, a little past 8. And all I remember is saying bye and smiling at each other and waving. And that's the last time I saw Rebecca. Okay. Did you have any contact with her by telephone? No, sir. I tried. Have you talked with her since Monday morning at 8 o'clock? That was the last time I talked to her. You haven't seen her since then? I haven't seen her since then. So did you plan on seeing her before she went back? Yes. She was supposed to come. She was supposed to come back and pick me up from work to go pick up my truck from Batesville. And did she show up? No, sir, she didn't. What time was she supposed to pick you up? 4. And then you came back to Oxford. And any time since you left there, did you go back to your house at any time that night? No, sir. Did you ever go back there to get some clothing items or shirts or pants, anything like that? No, sir. Never went back to the house? That night. Oh. No. No, sir. What time did you leave Oxford, that house, and come to work the next morning? About 7.30. You get to work at 8. And how long did you stay at work? I stayed there for about 10, 15 minutes. I called Rebecca's mom to see if she had heard from Rebecca, because, you know, I haven't yet. And she said she sounded really worried and freaking out. And so I asked my manager, Daniel, if I could go down to the house and see if she was there. Tim, what do you find when you get to your house? I drive up, and I see her car. So I'm thinking she's there, and she's safe inside. And I walk in, and I see her dog, which gives me a little bit more, what's the word I'm looking for, insurance. What's significant about the dog being there? That if she's there, then Rebecca's got to be there, because Rebecca goes nowhere without that dog. I walked in, and I checked our room. I'm going to call it our room, because it is. Whoa, did you catch that? Tell me you caught that. We walked into our room. I call it our room, because it is. That's what he said. No need to be so defensive there, buddy. We weren't questioning your relationship status. No sheets on the bed. Nobody's in there. And I thought it was very odd. No sheets on the bed, because she just washed them the week earlier. And I wouldn't say we washed them again. I looked through the whole house. And again, double-backed in every room, and I didn't see anything. And I was, well, it appeared to me I thought I was on the clock, because I posted in, because that thing doesn't work all the time. And so I took off back towards Sonic. Okay, was her car there? Her car was there. Okay, did you see anything like her slippers or anything like that in the house? Yes, I saw her pink slippers. These are all clips from Casey's first interview with police. He tells them that he never went back to the house that day. Rebecca went missing. It was the next morning that he said he drove back home by himself to search the trailer for clues. One day I was driving through Melbourne, and I saw him outside smoking a cigarette in the parking lot. This is probably eight or nine months after the murder. And so I just pulled my truck in, got out, and I just confronted him. I said, so tell me what happened. And he told me that he never went back to his house before he went with the police. And so he lied. And when we get the case filed, not only did he not notice that his room, and I don't think I'm exaggerating, it looked like a tornado had gone through his room. I mean, there was stuff broken everywhere. I mean, it was a mirror off kilter, off the closet. There were bloody pillows in plain sight. He admitted in his first interview with the police that he did go to the washing machine, open it up, and it's full of bedding with blood all over it. What's that thing, the agitator? There was bloody water in there, like the bleach dispenser thing. It was completely caked, caked with blood. And he just puts the lid down, gets in his truck, and drives back to work like nothing happened. Did you subsequently go back after your house with the deputy? I asked him, I said, do you just want to follow me? And he just followed me all the way there. And when you got there, the police looked in your house? Yes, I let him freely walk through the house. I showed him. I showed him that her belongings were still there and how it's very odd that she really never, ever leaves without it. And he walked into the back room, checked under the mattress, and found some blood. And I really didn't know where it came from. That's when I started getting really scared. Didn't know what to think. Then after we checked the mattress, he turned around and checked the washer. When we checked the washer, we saw just a little bitty film of something red. We didn't know if it was blood or not. But we noticed, and we tried to put two and two together, that, you know, the sheets were on the bed. Let me ask you this, Casey. What do you think has happened to Rebecca? I think she was killed. I don't know who did it. So Monday night is when he tells his friend she's missing and whatever. So Tuesday morning, he had spent the night at his friend's house. He hadn't gone home. Tuesday morning, he goes to work for a shift at Sonic. Well, for some reason, he didn't have his Sonic shirt, even though he worked the day before. So his boss is like, you got to go home and get a Sonic shirt. You got to be in uniform. So he was forced to go home Tuesday morning to his residence. And he walks in, you know, her car's there, her purse, her dog. The mattress is flipped. There's bloody sheets in the washer. All this stuff. I mean, broken ashtrays, broken mirrors. And he grabs a shirt and just goes back to work. And then later on said he didn't notice that anything, you know, was amiss, which is impossible. I mean, you can't. After we got the crime scene photos. You're like, yeah, there's no way you could. Like, how would you go in your room? And his bed was moved to cover a big blood stain on the carpet. Like, you can't tell me you didn't notice your bed's in a different position in the room and it's been stripped and all this stuff. You already said the night prior she's missing and you go home to this mess. Why aren't you immediately calling police? You know. If the lies, the changing timeline and Casey's strange behavior weren't bad enough. Just wait. It gets worse. Well, it's even more suspicious because he confessed. They're hurting her. He in, let's see, April of 2010 or 2011. They're not quite sure what year. And so he was working on like these towers. He was climbing towers. And he was one night he and two other people were in a hotel room. One one of them is Tad Hickerson. And he signed us one affidavit to this. But they're all in a hotel room. They're drinking. He starts crying. And tells them that he hurt Rebecca, that he had hit her with some type of a wooden object, that he had hurt her. And they were, of course, they were thought he was just, you know, full of it. They're like, well, the police have cleared you. You know, how could this be possible? And he said that the reason that he was getting away with it was because their timeline was off. But they couldn't figure that out. So the next day, Tad still thinks, you know, he was just drunk and crying and feeling guilty and all this other stuff. Well, now they're sober. And so Tad asked Casey, he said, so tell me what happened. And he said that she said something to him, like said something like mockingly to him, like laughed at him or scoffed at him. And he just flew into a rage, hit her twice. He said he threw the wooden object, which, you know, we believe could be a piano leg. That's, you know, obviously missing that he threw it in the White River. And that he said, well, what mistake did you make? And he said, cleaning up. By when exactly was the evidence cleaned from the trailer? According to police, Rebecca was killed sometime on Monday, September 18th, after she dropped Casey off at work. And Casey had an alibi for that time period. He was working at Sonic all day, then was seen on camera hanging out with friends in the evening. So because of that, he, Casey was cleared because they assumed she wasn't. alive Monday morning and he was accounted for at work. during the hours that they thought she was killed. So he, I mean, Dennis Simons, the detective who was on it for 14 years that botched it, he did publicly clear him, which is always a mistake. You don't clear anybody. But he did publicly clear Casey. So Casey fell off the radar for most people, I think, from that point forward. It was open and shut. Sherlock and Daisy Dukes had nailed the timeline. Or did he? Jen and George certainly didn't think so. They think Rebecca may have been killed much earlier, perhaps that morning, giving someone plenty of time to erase what couldn't be explained. And that changed everything. If the murder didn't happen when police thought it did, then Casey's alibi wasn't airtight. So fast forward to the year 2019, when fans of the Hell and Gone podcast are in a frenzy, obsessively discussing, all these suspicions, day and night. Y'all are relentless, I'll tell ya. Well, all this chit-chat attracts attention to anyone who's interested. And also their cats. Do I know my audience, or do I know my audience? The Facebook forum continues to grow and grow. And all of a sudden, a new name starts leaving comments in the forum. A guy by the name of William Miller. And he. He was one of the first people to join our Facebook page when we created it in October of 2019. And there's a girl on our crowdsourcing team who's really good at, like, genealogy. You know, like, she's good at putting family trees together. And as soon as he joined our page, and her name is Miranda, and she immediately told us. She said, Hey, this guy's the first cousin of Casey's. And we're like, well, okay. We didn't think anything of it, because he lived in the Philippines, and I think Jen had done a little research on him and figured out pretty quickly that he lived in the Philippines. And he ran his past Texas. You know, so we didn't think anything of it. And he was, you know, postulating theories on how she died. And he was very active on the page. And we just thought he was a mole for the family, you know, because what had happened previously, you know, when Hell and Gone came out is these Facebook pages formed. And a bunch of family members got on there, and people would get into these huge fights, and they would say all this stuff. And so we just thought, okay, they don't want to join and get into these, you know, brouhaha's. And so they're just going to send in this first cousin, you know, he's kind of, you know, kind of a weirdo anyway. You can just tell that from his messages and stuff like that. But he's living in the Philippines. He's working on oil rigs all over the world, you know. He flies all over the place. He's a very world traveler, and he made a lot of money too. And then I, this may be a coincidence, but I just can't believe that it's a coincidence. Casey's birthday is January 16th. So on January 16th of 2020, right before the pandemic starts, William Miller, starts sending private DMs to Jen. Now, he had sent me one or two, but I never responded because, I mean, he was Casey's first cousin, so I'm just like, you know, who cares? Of course, Jen is a much more thorough investigator than I am, so she started responding to him and asking him questions. At first, William Miller seemed like any other dedicated member of the group. Curious, passionate, maybe a little too invested. But as Jen talked to him, the tone shifted. The conversations were often long, back-and-forth dialogues. Sometimes William rambled and didn't make much sense. In one message, he claimed he was being targeted by other group members trying to stir up drama. I am being attacked by a few people. They took pics and sent them to Dennis, and he was one of them to blow up on me. He got more paranoid, even defensive. At one point, he wrote, Now he talks shit to me. I'm sorry to talk like that, but about to block the guy, if he keep it up. Hate to be a grammar Nazi here, but anybody know English these days? Anyway, this guy William seemed like he wanted to be helpful. He wanted to be part of the team. He insisted, Sorry if I sound like I am on Casey's side. Maybe I come across that way, but am not. But behind the scenes, Jen was already putting the pieces together, William wasn't just engaging with the case, he was circling it, fixating on details like gloves, DNA and forensics. No fingerprints, no DNA. First thing pops in my head is, did he have gloves? Jen's goal was to find out why William was so interested in this case, or at least to see what kind of answer he would give. They knew he was Casey's cousin, and they knew he was going to be the guy that he was going to be talking about. They knew he was going to be talking about. was sitting right next to his mother. listening to her lie to the detective about his whereabouts during this call. Just a little bit later, probably after having a team meeting with her sons, Linda called the detective back. Hello, this is Linda Miller. Hey, Linda, how are you? Pretty good. I think we got everybody coordinated. We've needed all three of us at one time. Oh, really? Yeah. I've been busy. Well, when's Billy coming back in? He'll be here November 7th. That's when we want to have our meeting with you. Okay, November the 7th. Linda Miller and her two sons believed they were heading into just another round of questioning. What they didn't realize was that every word they spoke would be used to dismantle the lie they'd been upholding for 16 long years. Hi, Uncle Laser here. America's built on fast cars, fast food, and even faster women. Photo Casino's built in America. You know what they're fast at? Fast cash. Surprise. Redemption. You see, only Moto is U.S.-owned and operated. Moto. It's American-made. That's who we are, and that's who we care about. Play for free at Moto.us. Moto Casino's, the social casino board, will prohibit it. Must be 21+. Moto Casino. By the fall of 2020, almost exactly 16 years after her murder, there was a Facebook group rife with theories on Rebecca Gould's case. One of the people offering up ideas was a man named William Miller. Jen Buchholz and George Jarrett, the two investigators who had taken a personal interest in Rebecca's story, realized pretty quickly that William was Casey McCullough's son. At first, they thought the McCullough family had sent him in as a spy. Someone who could figure out just how much the public knew. But the more that William talked, the higher he moved up their suspect list. Coincidentally, Arkansas State Police were coming to the same conclusion in parallel. On November 7, 2020, detectives finally got William into an interview room. His mother and brother, sat in the room next door. First off, let me tell you, this is called a non-custodial interview, okay? You probably never heard of such a thing. But what that means is, you came up here voluntarily. You're not being detained. You're free to go at any time. That door is not locked. You know, I'm going to tell you what I told the police down in Texas when they came and stuff. Yeah. And I'm going to be honest with you and truthful with you on everything. You know, maybe I saw something that maybe you'd be a key factor in something there and all that stuff. Right, right. So you're an oil field worker. I've been in the work in the oil field for 23 years. Right. I remember moving mom up there and then she was moved into that little house. It was a couple miles down the road from Grandpa's property. Yeah. And you're right. That was about your mom's house. My mom's house was about two or three miles from the McCullough trailer where this happened. Okay. So I've been in that home and all that stuff. And prior to the homicide. Yes. How many times have you been in that trailer? Do you think? Maybe two, three times. Maybe two or three times. Two or three times and stuff. So she was, Rebecca was killed in September of '04. When was the last time you were in that trailer? Do you think? It was the way before that. Months. Yeah. William goes on to explain that back in September of 2004, his mother asked him to help her move to Texas with William's younger brother. So he drove up to Arkansas and arrived on Sunday, the same day Rebecca had gotten into town. So in the information that was provided to Texas in '04, you said that whenever you showed up in Melbourne, that you went and visited family in the small town. So that made it sound like that you were with your mom and that you visited family in the small town. So do you remember going to the grandparents' house on Sunday? Because that's what you told investigators in '04. I don't, I can't remember and all that stuff. Yeah. Do you think that probably if you said it in '04, that that would probably be more accurate than-- It would probably be more accurate because it was said, went in, went in, went in, and then-- Because I know that when I came up, I remember going and asking Casey if he could give me a hand. Helping you move? Helping mom move. Helping mom move the stuff into the house. And he was like, hey, I'm too busy. Is that whenever you showed up to Casey's trailer on Sunday? No. OK. Well, when did you have that conversation? When mom moved up there three or four months before. OK. Yeah. William claimed that this interaction happened months before. But now that we have Casey's original interview from September of 2004, we can look back and see that Casey told police something different. Your cousin, what's his name? His name is Billy. We call him Little Billy. And it's Billy Miller. Where does Billy live at? He lives in Texas, and I'm not for sure where. What was he doing up here? He was coming up here to move his-- mom and his brother back to Texas. So has he already gone back, do you know? Yes, he's already gone. I'm pretty sure. OK. And so I guess he came up and spoke with you just a short period of time that night? Yes, sir. That would've been Sunday evening? Mm-hmm. OK. So how long did he stay? About 10, 15 minutes tops. We just really talked about all the tops and stuff. Did he come into your house? No, sir. He stayed outside. He never came in the house, but Rebecca was on the front porch. He saw Rebecca on the front porch. Did he know that you and Rebecca dated in the past? Yes. Did he know that y'all were living together? He knew that she visited on the weekends. He stayed. Remember, Rebecca arrived at McCullough's trailer on Saturday, September 18. The police originally thought she was alive on Monday morning. Jen and George think she was actually killed before that. OK. So they're going to have to find out. I think they're going to have to find out. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, would you be okay with taking a polygraph? I'll just ask you. Yeah, I don't have a problem with it. You don't have a problem with it? You want me to go to Arkansas and take one? No, I tell you what, let me holler. I'll call a sergeant up here to see. They may have a polygrapher in town. You know, it's a shot in the dark. Actually, it was the furthest thing from a shot in the dark. This detective had his polygrapher locked and loaded. All right. And so, we're going to review in great detail all the questions that are going to be on the exam. We're going to administer the tests. We're going to give you the tests. They'll be done in several phases. And then I'm going to evaluate the exam results, and I'll tell you how you did before you leave today. Okay? What do they want to know? They want to know if you caused the death of Rebecca. Cool. How would you answer that question? How would I answer that? Yes. That, you know, how can you do something? Then when you're in another location. Okay. Perfect. So, if they were to ask you that on the exam, what would your answer be? No. Okay, perfect. And are you 110% positive? Yes. Perfect. You know, you're not going to have a problem passing the test if, you know, if you didn't do it, you didn't do it. And then let's go through the process, and that's what they want to know, right? William sat like a statue in his chair for the duration of the test, answering yes and no questions confidently. When it was over, he didn't have to wait very long to get his results. Did I think you did? I don't know. Okay. So, the results on the exam were deception indicated, right? So, it's to the questions of did you, you know. How did I make it by then? Cause, you failed the test. I failed the test. Yes. Yes. And so. My heart really felt like it was just beating out of my chest. Yeah. You know, we've talked about your DNA being at the crime scene. And you've tried to get an. An explanation as to why your DNA would be at the crime scene. Because your mom gave Claude furniture. Yeah, furniture and all that stuff. And bedding. And you even said that it would be reasonable for your DNA to be on the bedding, which is absolutely absurd. No, I didn't say that. Okay. I just said that mom gave furniture and all that stuff. Okay. Alright. This is a washcloth that was under the bed. That the killer used to clean up. It was watered up in a ball. Okay. We've got. We've got the killer's DNA on that washcloth. Okay. Okay? Would there be any reason for your DNA to be on that washcloth? No, it shouldn't be on there. It shouldn't be. It shouldn't be on there. Are you ready to have your mind blown? The detective is lying. His DNA was not on the washcloth. This is. Is just one of the tools in a seasoned detective's tool belt that's used to get a reaction and possibly a confession out of a suspect when there's little else to go on. They were baiting him. He got tricked. And it was a gutsy move. I'll give Mike McNeil credit. He got tricked. He got tricked into thinking that his DNA was on a rag that they had found. They were going to do some DNA testing. And then he also got tricked into thinking that we're baiting him. - No, that's the whole, We'll get there. I know that, but it doesn't happen the way you want it to happen. It just doesn't take me to Arkansas, do this, do that. It doesn't happen that way. Here's the thing. In the state of Arkansas, you can't, and this is true in a lot of states, you cannot just have a confession. You have to have some other piece of evidence that ties the person to the crime. The problem for William is that there was a piece of evidence that did tie him to the crime, and that's the missing suitcase. When police arrived the day that Rebecca vanished, there were three things missing, one of her suitcases, the piano leg, and her. Okay, but I need to know what you did with Rebecca. Where did you put her before you dumped her? I need to know all that stuff. And I know that's not easy to talk about, but we've got to have that conversation. Where did you keep her? In the truck. Where? In the truck. The back end of the truck. Okay. What was she in? She was in a shirt and a money. No. Did you put her in a trash bag? No, I didn't put her in that. No. What did you put her in? There was a blanket and all that stuff. Okay. What was used to cause her injuries? We'll go to Arkansas, and I'm going to point out something to you. And then you'll find some certain things that you might be looking for. All right. So you're telling me right now, in November of 2020, there is still physical evidence that has not been found? Yeah. Let's go to Arkansas. That will nail it in the coffin. Would it? Well, no, I'm telling you, you know, unless somebody picked it up and thought it was trash. But it should be where it's at. It should be where it's at. Well, that's helpful. Ain't it weird how humans can do inhuman things but not talk about them afterwards? Words too violent for you, Billy? We are a strange society. We are a strange species, indeed. For, you know, 16 years, they were trying to find this suitcase. Well, William told them where to find the suitcase, and it was in proximity to his mom's old house when she was living in Guyon. And it took them about, the search we estimate was about three to four hours. But they found the suitcase. The suitcase is weird, though. And there's a reason why it's weird. William says he took it. And William's a, he's not tall, but he's a big, stocky guy. You know, he weighed over 300 pounds. He was only like 5'6". And so he took this suitcase, and he said he launched it from the highway, and it landed like 30, 40 yards away or something like that. And so when it's found, it's open, and all of the bedding, and there's some bedding, and there's some clothes. They're all in a pile over here, and there were some CDs in there and all this other stuff. So Jen is at my house one night after we get the pictures of this suitcase. And it was confirmed, you know, it was her suitcase, her stuff. There's only one problem. Think about the physics of throwing a suitcase. Okay, if it's all zipped up, you throw it, no problem. But if it was open, then all that stuff would have been scattered all over the place, and all of the clothing type items would have long been gone, deteriorated into nothing. They weren't faded. You could see the, this is how we know it was, came. From Casey's house is because the plaid on the sheet matches that that was in his washer. And we've actually done our own suitcase experiment. We, one of the local residents in Melbourne went to Goodwill and got two black suitcases. And her backyard, it has a very similar landscape to where this suitcase was found with the same types of trees and leaves and obviously the same weather pattern. And so what we did is we had her put sheets in one suitcase and zip it closed and just put it out like that. And then the other one, we had to put it in another suitcase. And then we had her put the suitcase like Rebecca's was found with it unzipped open and the sheets, they're not in a neat pile, but they're very close to the suitcase and just laying on top of the leaves. And so she put those sheets out there. This started in December of 2023. And within a few months, those sheets were like unrecognizable, deteriorated, and now they're just basically gone. So that's how we know like Rebecca's suitcase could not have been laying open like this. And so we've been working like that for 16 years and the sheets look pretty new. So somebody opened that suitcase, but we haven't figured out who yet. What would you say to Rebecca's mom? I'm truly sorry. I'm totally sorry. I know that I can't bring her back. But tell her you did. I know that I, if there was times that I wanted to go to her house, I would go to her house. I would go to her house. I would go to Dr. Gould's office, go to his office and hand him a gun and tell him that I did. But that was too chicken shit to do that. Like he gave this confession, gave really no reason as to why Rebecca, you know, he killed her. But then at his sentencing, he agrees to meet with Dr. Gould afterwards. And he tells a completely different story about how he gave her, that he hit her, but then he gave her CPR. And if they find his DNA on her shirt, it was because he was crying. He keeps telling all these crazy stories that don't make any sense. But like with anybody who's lying, there's grains of truth in there and you've got to somehow try to mine them out. Of course, now he claims he had nothing to do with it in case he did all of it. And for listeners who want to waste 11 hours of their life, they can watch his entire interview, polygraph, confession, everything on YouTube. William was arrested for Rebecca's murder and eventually took a plea deal that landed him four years in prison. 40 years in the Arkansas Department of Corrections. And like George said, these days, William has changed his story yet again, as you might suspect. He and Jen have been in contact with him since his arrest. And he now says that Casey murdered Rebecca. He just helped clean up the scene. And fun fact, the cleaning supplies that were used to clean up the crime scene were delivered by Linda. And that's verified. She delivered those cleaning supplies. Now, she claims that her brother, that he asked her to pick up certain items for the house. And they were all cleaning items that were used by the killer or killers to clean up the mess in the house. No one knows for sure just how much Linda Miller knew about the situation. But it warrants some serious speculation. Rebecca's murder wasn't the only secret her son had been keeping, though. The same day he took the polygraph. The same day he took the polygraph test, failed it, and confessed to the murder. He also confessed to five others, too. That's right. William could be a serial killer. What happened was, is he confessed to Rebecca's murder. And of course, then, you know, the detectives are trying to press him like, hey, we know this wasn't your first rodeo. And so then he confesses to five other murders, but he doesn't give the names of the victims. He didn't give specific details, though, about how he kidnapped one of these people. He didn't give specific details about how he kidnapped one of these victims from, she was like at a payphone at a convenience store late night. And he gave specific details about how he would, you know, trick them. He said it was, some of them were sex workers. You know, they would think they were about getting ready to have a sexual encounter. And sometimes he would have a strap underneath his, somewhere in his truck that he could just grab it and wrap it around their neck and strangle them. I am almost 100% confident that he's a serial killer and he's done this many times. I just believe it. And still wavers on whether she agrees with George on this one. But she is 100% sure that William was somehow involved in the murder and disposal of Rebecca Gould. I just, and this, this is the, the tragedy of it in a way is that if only the state police had shared a little bit with us and we had known William had been in the state of Arkansas the weekend of the murder. I mean, everything would have been so different from our side the whole time. And then him joining the group. I mean, it, that was a golden opportunity. They're lucky that we're smart and like, I'm used to running sources and stuff and we know how to interview or what to say and not to say because we could have totally screwed the whole thing up and scared him off. And he never would have gone to that interview and confessed, but they also could have used us to try to get information from him. If only they would have communicated with us, you know, and that's just what so frustrating to me about this case. And we're not here to defend. William, I am a hundred percent confident he was involved in this whole thing and maybe others. But there are just aspects of the investigation and that, and his confession that weren't vetted enough. For instance, his timeline on this murder Monday morning, and they didn't challenge him on any of those details. And just to clarify for listeners, William's DNA and prints were never found in that residence. I'm not saying they're not there. I'm sure his DNA was there. somewhere But they did not have anything else on him except his confession, which had parts that cannot be true. And there's actually a lot of DAs that would not approve an arrest warrant on this. It's no wonder this case has held the attention of so many for nearly two decades. It's not just the brutality of what happened to Rebecca. It's the sheer scale of what we don't know. The conflicting timelines, the recycled alibis, the parade of rumors, false leads, and players who still haven't been entirely ruled out. William Miller is serving a 40-year sentence for a murder he now insists he falsely confessed to. He continues to beg Jen and George to uncover new evidence that will put Casey or someone else in prison for this crime instead of him. But that shouldn't be the case. The ship has sailed. He took a plea deal. He confessed. He volunteered evidence. And in doing so, he gave up almost any chance of appeal. So I've been to visit him three times. And George actually got to interview him and take video of it because he's an official, you know, journalist or what is it, George? A media member, I guess, that got you in. And so I'm just, if he's willing to keep talking to us. I'm not going to give up because I feel compelled to not only try to get the truth about Rebecca's case, but also try to figure out if he has other victims. And so I told him this last time. This is just a couple of months ago when I went with Jeremy. I said, dude, we're about the same age and barring some major catastrophe or me getting cancer, like we're going to be alive for about the same amount of time and I'm not going to stop talking to you. And in the absence of official help, it's civilians like you and me who are stepping up and finding Williams other potential victims, not ego driven cops and short shorts, regular people like you and me with a moral compass, a strong sense of right and wrong and a need for justice. People who will not stop asking questions, even when officials have long forgotten the case and told you to shut up. Web sleuths like this. Have already been combing through other cold cases across every state William ever set foot in, trying to make sense of what he vaguely blurted out during his police interview. So we can't do it by ourselves. And so we started this project several months ago and I just called it Operation Rebecca because I didn't know what else. I couldn't come up with anything better. But I have an official sign up form. I have a video on our YouTube channel explaining the process of what we're doing. And I just asked. So if you're one of those volunteers, if to fill out the form, it's only four questions. Sign up for a state and then watch the video and then email me once you watch the video and I'll send you the links to the Google Drive folder that has all the information you need. We'll post a link to Jen's info in the show notes at swordandscale.com so you too can join the investigative fun. Now, where did I put that magnifying glass again? Anyway, I think this case proves justice doesn't always wear a badge. It looks like a true crime podcast enthusiast with a search tab open at 3 a.m. and way too much coffee in their digestive system. Get 20% off at strongcoffeecompany.com with promo code sword, by the way. But as I was saying, sometimes justice looks just like you and just like me. Sometimes it requires a hive of citizens to stand up for justice and collectively uncover what a single mind cannot. Or will not. It's kind of amazing to see it happen in real time. And next time, maybe, just maybe, you'll be the reason someone's story doesn't end in silence. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.