Family Ties | Chapter 5

This podcast is intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is advised. The frustrating part about this case and the thing that really continues to bother me or to bother me as an investigator is that I picked up the case. It obviously had a lot of moving parts. It was kind of convoluted. There were theories that had been going around, everything with the Dylan Glass all the way up to Chino, I've heard everything in the world as it relates to Justin coming up missing. But as you start to look at and interview the people that are involved, there's certain things that made sense and then there's certain things that didn't. I'll start with Dylan Glass and this is the frustration. It was Blue's son, Dylan Glass, who first came forward with information about being involved in the game's case. Glass is a self-professed gang member who is now doing federal time on drug charges. He could look at you straight in the face, lie to you and not flinch, and body language is 80/85% of communication. So when a guy has the ability to actually mask his body language and to lie straight through you, that makes it very difficult to kind of figure out which way he's going and why. Former Gwyneth County investigator Colonel Carl Simms intricately knows the game's case. He was lead investigator. Though he didn't work the case until several years after Justin's disappearance, he's very knowledgeable about all that's transpired and has personally interviewed several of the key witnesses and suspects involved, including Dylan Glass. This is the man Glass is accused of coercing witness statements to implicate him. I came in when he came into custody on a drug charge, a federal drug charge. He gave up a lot of information and then decided that he was going to confess. That's kind of where I picked up the case and started running hard with it because several of the things that he said made perfect sense. One thing is that is that Dylan had actually went to a trailer park and spoke with a couple of people that morning and the news media had not even reported or nobody had reported that Justin Gaines was missing. Nobody even knew he was missing at that time, but Dylan Glass shows up and making an emotional plea of confession to a couple of people and he had just hurt somebody or murdered somebody. Where did that come from and why? That was one of the biggest things that was motivating that Dylan may have had something to do with it. He wasn't looking for strict credibility as some of the theories were because there wasn't a strict credibility because the kid hadn't been missing, he hadn't even been reported missing, so that was concerning. Simms speaks quickly and with conviction. He's intelligent and polite and welcomed me into his home when we spoke, which is decked out in a kind of posh western theme. Simms told me that he came into this case with no preconceived theories and without assuming guilt on anyone at first, contrary to what Glass believes. Simms' own findings would lead him to believe Glass was involved in Justin Gaines' demise. One key witness in this case that strengthens that belief for Simms is Dylan's own mother, Tammy Ballot. One of the biggest things that really kind of drove me that Dylan Glass had something to do with it was that after interviewing his mother, Tammy, a lot of the things that Dylan had said were actually cooperated with her. Now keep in mind Dylan and Tammy had been estranged for years. Tammy was a hardcore meth head, moved up to the Augusta area, been out of the loop for a while. And really had not had the opportunity, in my opinion, to actually set down and create a fabricated story with Dylan Glass. Not to the detail that it was, because while some things were vague, other things were very locked in that they were there that night in Andy Pickens' basement. And that something did happen there. From WaveLan, I'm Sean Kite, and this is Drowning Creek. I've talked with Dylan Glass numerous times on the phone now, but I've also spent a lot of time speaking with investigators in the case, witnesses and informants. I've been told by many that Glass is a cunning liar and manipulator of the highest caliber. Most of what I've learned so far points to Dylan being involved in Justin Gaines' disappearance and possibly in his death. So my guard's been up. In our conversations, I've allowed Dylan to tell me his story, things from his perspective. I've not pushed back very hard yet. I've just allowed him to tell me what I believe he wants me to hear. Dylan seems to have an answer for everything. Simple answer. I lied. They lied. I've also heard a recording of his friend Shane saying, Dylan's innocent. And I've yet to find anything concrete that ties Dylan Glass to Justin Gaines. But I can't ignore the multitude of statements that put the two together that night. In all, I'm told there are 14 people that claim Dylan Glass made statements to them concerning his role in Justin's death at one point or another. Several of those statements related to the time period before Justin's disappearance hit the news. And some before he was even reported missing. I feel that Dylan Glass isn't being completely honest with me. One of the most powerful witnesses investigators have here is Dylan's mother, Tammy Beloo, because of statements she made in 2015. At first, she wasn't willing to talk to police and it was actually Dylan's brother, Justin Glass, who convinced her to confess what she knew. Once we talked to him, he was trying to, at that time in his life, he was trying to get his self back. He had just got out of prison. He was trying to get himself back or get life started in a way that it was not going to send him back to prison. And so he agreed to talk. His motivation was for us to try to help him get back into the mainstream of life. So he talked to his mother and she agreed to talk to us and he actually took us up to a little toilet part just outside of a guest at where she was living. Even with Justin Glass' help, Tammy was initially hesitant to speak on the matter. Her son urged her to cooperate by saying things like, "Come on mom, tell them what happened. Tell them what you told me." And she did. It was a major break in the case. Took a little bit of convincing but she said, "Yeah, okay, I'll tell you." And she regurgitated basically the same. She was there in the basement. Everything that was told to us, she laid out completely what was happening. It appeared to be unrehearsed. It appeared to be very, and this is one of the first times I actually got excited about this case. I mean, this may be a solvable case now because she actually started to. And if you ever saw Tammy, if you see the interview of this, it's something else. I've not seen this recorded interview because neither Gwynett County PD nor Walton County Sheriff's concurrently find the video. It was in a dingy little rap trap trailer in the middle of, I mean, it was horrible. The conditions of the interview, which she actually laid everything out to the point where you ask if you believe something and you read body language. At this point, I felt there was a lot of truth to what she was saying because everything she was saying was kind of clicking into what we had hypothesized may have happened that night with everything with Andy Pickens and her living there and naming the names and the people and the night and the gunshots and everything that she saw was very articulate. It was just there. Tammy told Sims and another investigator what happened that night. She was in Andy Pickens' house where she lived at the time and that Justin Gaines quote "came back" later that night, leaving everyone to believe Gaines had been there earlier in the evening on November 1st. And remember, Justin's whereabouts have been unaccounted for for nearly four hours prior to him arriving at wildbills. Is it possible that he had been at Pickens' home earlier that evening? And if so, why? In her confession, Tammy described in detail seeing Leon Choke Justin as he fought with Martin Wilkie in Pickens garage, seeing him wrapped up in painter's plastic and loaded into Pickens van. And she described hearing a gunshot soon after. I'll read directly from the transcript of one of several interviews with Carl Sims and Tammy Blue. Were you present in Andy Pickens' garage the night that Justin Gaines was killed? Yes, sir. Did you hear the gunshot that killed Justin Gaines? Yes, sir. Was Dylan Glass there? Briefly. Tammy discussed Gaines being taken to the houseboat and placed in Lake Linear, but water level dropping days later, his body being moved and finally being placed in a well. And she was even more specific in her story about how there was a bloody handprint on the ceiling of the houseboat where someone had steadied themselves while carrying Justin inside. She told of blood on an inner tube and other objects and that Justin's bloody shoes were taken. Tammy shared that when Justin's body was retrieved from the lake and put in a small cargo hold on Andy Pickens' speedboat, they could see investigators walking around near the houseboat. Though a warrant was never obtained to search the interior so they eventually left, never to return. Again, from the transcript. Sims asks, "But the body was, at one point, placed in Lake Linear, is that correct?" Yes. It was taken out of Lake Linear Y. The water was being lowered, or the core of engineers were emptying it, and something floated. Some part of the body floated up? I believe so, because Marty, meaning Martin Wilkie, he came back with the jet ski and said it was coming up and had to be moved. Okay, did you hear him say this? Yes, sir. Justin Gaines' lifeless body was then transported to a well in the back of Martin Wilkie's truck. Tammy went so far as to note the wretched stench emanating from the toolbox Gaines was in. The confession was shocking. This was the most significant lead of this case. Tammy Blue had nothing to gain and everything to lose by telling this story to police. I'm told that she answered questions directly and without pausing to think of answers, and that at times she was overcome with emotion and would begin to cry. So, I got excited. I said, "Look, I can't let you go." I mean, you're not under arrest, but I can't let you go. I need you to come back to Gwinnett County with me. Well, I'm afraid she really didn't want to come. And we went through the whole gamut of emotion and all this stuff. Finally, her son, Justin, talked her into coming back to Gwinnett County. Convincing Tammy Blue to come back to the station to give a formal interview in front of other officers and make a statement was a massive break in the case. Now it was real. And for the first time in nearly eight years since Justin's disappearance, investigators began to feel that they might be able to finally close this case. Homicide investigators at Gwinnett County PD weren't as excited about Tammy's confession as Carl Sims. They'd recently received similar statements from Dylan, but when authorities asked him to produce Justin's body, he couldn't, or wouldn't. He was written off as unreliable and trying to use the system to get time off of his federal sentence. But to Sims, Tammy Blue's confession was legitimate. When she recounted her story again for Gwinnett County investigators at the police station, it was a tearful telling of a young boy who had been robbed of his possessions and of his life. And it was Dylan, Tammy's son, who had played a role in it. She was heartbroken. But even with these confessions, police still needed a body to make an arrest and prosecute. She sat there and she said, "Okay, I'll show you where the body is." Got everybody. We got a search team together. She took us right to where allegedly what this well was. We spent almost two days with her directing us where she remembered where this body went to, going into day two. She said she needed to talk to the sheriff and went over there and she goes, "I'm lying. The body ain't here." In the transcript of an interview conducted on September 2, 2015, Tammy is asked numerous times if she was being truthful, if anyone had promised her anything in exchange for her statements. Reading directly from the transcript, Tammy speaks with Carl Sims. "Are you lying to get Dylan out of trouble? No, sir. You're not lying to get yourself out of trouble. No, sir." Everything you're going to tell me is going to be 100% true. Yes, sir. Are you going to testify to everything in court? Yes. As a formality, Tammy was first read her rights and told she didn't have to provide this information if she didn't want to. But still, she proceeded to tell police details about Justin Gaines being removed from Lake Lanier and placed in a well. And her story did have details. Tammy then tells police where Justin's body supposedly was. She described how Martin Wilkie backed his truck up to the well with Justin's body in the toolbox in the bed of the truck. She details the surroundings, the noises she heard as Wilkie and another man, named Randy, placed the box in the well, twigs snapping, thuds and thumps, even the headlamp and flashlights the two men used in the darkness while she waited nearby. Once more from the transcript. They got out. He told me to watch for any traffic. And him and Randy took the container into the patch. I could hear them, the wood crackling, and then some beating. It seemed like they were back there forever. But when they came out, Marty said, "Let's get the fuck out of here." And Randy was wiping his hands. We get in the vehicle and tear out. Marty is talking to Andy that, you know, it's done. We're on our way. She said the three men left in a hurry, cranked the radio up and didn't speak of it again that night. If Tammy Blue made all this up for whatever reason, and she's one hell of a storyteller, or an incredible liar. You've been doing this a long time. I have. You're sitting in front of somebody. You've had people lie to you enough. Do you feel that she was telling the truth? Yes. At that time, I truly believed it. At that time, it to be the truth. And I still believe there's a lot that she told us the truthful. But now, in hindsight, because of the way she led us, later she led us down to, again, right down it, and then pissed backwards on me. How much did she lie up front and how much is still, how much is true? She's going to protect Dylan at all costs, and she would not let us find that body. If we found any trace of Justin's body, that would kind of close the case on everybody. She wasn't going to let that happen. It's so frustrating. So frustrating. After two days of searching Wells in Barrow County, Tammy Blue walked back her confession. She said she had lied. Tonight, a woman is in jail and she's charged in connection with the case. This is the first time we are seeing criminal Tammy Blue. He is charged with lying to investigators about Justin Gaines remains and basically leading them on a wild goose chase. Martin Wilkie was also arrested. The arrest of Martin Wilkie on concealing a death charge as investigators scoured high shows in Walton County looking for Gaines remains. Wilkie's charges for concealing a death would later be dropped, but Sims is still convinced that Tammy's confession was real, at least most of it. There was no reason for her to take us and move us in that direction. She had nothing really over-degamed by lying to us at that time, but I think she just realized that if they find this body and I take them to the right spot. That's it. I'm done. And she realizes that she is an absolute material witness and/or accessory to this murder and that she would probably get indicted as well. She knew that the Dylan would never see the lie today or maybe see the death penalty. I have been trying to reach Tammy for months with no luck. I've called and emailed every number and address I can find. And I've even sent letters to the physical addresses I could find. I want to see what she says now. While working to track her down, I had a little stroke of luck. One day, I got a call from a number I didn't recognize. I didn't answer thinking it's probably a spam call. And a minute later, a voicemail notification pops up. I had a good birthday. I was told you to be a call about Dylan. It's a birthday call that. And remember, Bridget is the younger who Dylan claimed was the sole reason his name was ever brought up in Justin Gaines' disappearance. He said she was a crackhead. It was looking for a reward and nothing more. It was Dylan who insisted I needed to talk with her. I've been trying for weeks to get her to speak with me, but no luck. That is until the day she unexpectedly called me. Hello. Hey, Bridget. Hey. What if a call woman to get a hold of? I've been told. Bridget was very skeptical of me, giving short direct answers. And really she was asking most of the questions at first. How did you come about like to even like finding Dylan to like talk to him about everything? What have you been told like as far as like with my name, like what have you like heard? It does like a lot, which I think is her being nervous. Bridget seemed more concerned about what I knew initially. But as we chatted, she became more comfortable with me and that's when the interview really got interesting. I asked her about the Myspace message that she sent to her brother on January 11th, 2008, claiming Dylan had killed Justin Gaines. She knew exactly what I was talking about. It is when a first happens. I've seen it on the news. One of the things Dylan tells me about when I asked him about this, he said she was looking for a reward. I had nothing to do with that. I grew up not having money, so money ain't, I don't care about the money. When I first seen it on the news, I don't know, it was just a spill and I got. And that's when Leon comes about and you know, things were, you know, said. Like what, what things? Just that they're not going to find them. This message that you sent to your brother and that you're telling me that you sent that because you were hearing these rumors and you had a feeling, can you remember what made you get that feeling that Dylan could have been responsible for this, you know, for Justin Gaines's death or disappearance? The conversation got brought up with the boy being missing or whatever and that's when the comment was, you know, made that he wouldn't be found. Bridget and I discussed the things that she was hearing shortly after Justin's disappearance hit the news. She was a part of Dylan's click, which also included Leon, Shane, Andy Pickens, and a host of others. She told me, flat out that she was never interested in a reward. This makes sense to me because, again, if it was about money, she likely would have at least tried a little harder, and she would have told someone other than her younger teenage brother. He also made him promise not to repeat what she told him, so press her for more information. The thing she began to tell me actually seemed to match up with what I'd heard from Dylan, like when I asked if he'd ever been to Wild Bill's that she knew of. Dylan was adamant that he never went to clubs. I began to wonder, could there be truth in what Dylan Glass was telling me, or was Bridget just covering for him? Would you say things to protect him? I don't know, I can't really speak on that. I would have done anything back then to stand by Dylan and defend him, you know? I can say that I'm not hiding anything to help him. I found out that Dylan had spoken to Bridget after he and I first discussed her. Actually, I found out he had reached out to a few people we talked about before I could get in touch with him. Was he prepping these people, what to say? With me, he didn't reach out to me, it just didn't happen, I was around someone he was on the phone with. He didn't even tell me what to say, what not to say. The Bridget told me, Dylan, just casually mentioned that I might be calling her. Could this entire interview now be tainted? To find out, I had one last ace up my sleeve. I could tell that Bridget cared about Dylan greatly, she told me as much herself. But my interview with her felt very guarded. Many of her answers weren't very straightforward and she seemed to beat around the bush a bit. But a doubted Bridget knew the things Dylan was telling me about her. I wondered if her answers would change if she knew the things he was saying. So I read her word for word, the transcript of this interview with Dylan. I wish he could be on the call of this. I've always known that Dylan used me for situations, so it doesn't surprise me that said about me. I mean, it hurts my feelings, but. Things changed in my conversation with Bridget after she heard this. I could tell that she was hurt by what he had said, and slowly she began to divulge more information. I could also tell that she still cares for Dylan. She married his brother Justin Glass, who's also in prison, and has intimate knowledge of the rough upbringing the two men had. I asked Bridget outright the question I really came to get answered. Do you think Dylan played any role in Justin Gaines' disappearance or death? At first, no, not really, but then. I mean, at this point Dylan's, you know, admitted to it, but of course, I guess they can't charge him because they don't have a body, but. Well, and he's now saying that his confession was alive. Hmm, that's weird. Too much adds up, you know? Just from what I've been told after it happened, supposedly, like, it really felt like Dylan's head, and he would, like, that guy, Andy Powell, though, like, I guess it was, like, downstairs kind of off the. maybe the garage. They said Dylan would just, like, sit in that room and just kind of, like, be lost in space because of what happened. Who said that? Shane. Do you think Shane had some role in this? Maybe, I'm honest, yeah. Then again, Shane's name enters the picture. I have a feeling this guy could be more important to solving this case than I thought. When investigators learned that Dylan was in Shane's truck, when the two were allegedly looking for a place to hide out and at the pawn shop, they wanted to search it to see if Justin had ever been inside. By the time this information about Dylan and Shane came to light, though, Shane was in a local jail and his truck had disappeared, but Bob Polnow was determined to track it down. I got a tip that he was being let out of jail on a certain day, so I waited for him and followed him to his vehicle. At old-fashioned P.I. work is what gave Bob the jump on Shane. You heard some of the interview in the last episode. In the conversation, Shane tells Bob that he has no knowledge of Justin Gaines or what happened to him. He sticks up for Dylan and says he's absolutely innocent. After his encounter with Shane, Bob learned he no longer owned that truck and that had been salvaged, called intuition, but this stood out as very odd to Bob. Knowing that Andy Pickens' van and Houseboat were both M.I.A., Bob knew finding this truck was extremely important, and after extensively searching, he found the man that bought the truck at an auction. The title listed the truck as having been total. It was very suspicious because I don't know why an insurance company, and the new owner of that truck said he had no idea how it was ever told. He said essentially there was nothing wrong with a truck. He said he had some dents, and Shane told me when I asked him about the dents and the truck are totally of it, he said he had a deer and he had a mailbox. Finding this vehicle was a small victory for investigators. If there was any evidence that proved Justin Gaines had been in it, case closed, the truck was towed to Gwyneth County Police headquarters and forensically processed, but there was no evidence Justin had been in the vehicle. Why did these people all get rid of their vehicles and even a houseboat immediately after Justin disappeared? How many coincidences can we look past? From what I'm told, Shane is a pretty rough and tumble kind of guy, even though he sounded like a frightened kid in the audio we heard. He's 6'4", 300 pounds, he's been in and out of jails for years on various drug, battery, and burglary charges. Bob will know previously told me that when Shane was being interviewed in the early days of the investigation, he seemed to get emotional when Justin's mother Erica was mentioned, and I've heard recordings that seemed to reinforce that, but that was years ago, and law enforcement was coming down hard on him and Dylan, that's enough to intimidate almost anyone. But when I spoke to Carl Simms recently, he told me a similar story regarding Shane's show of emotion. I've been retired almost three years now, so about a year after I retired, after I left Gwyneth County, I was actually in Walton County, in civilian clothes, in the home depot, shopping for something. As I was in the aisle, I felt somebody standing next to me staring at me, you know, you just get that thing, and I knew, but I turn to look, and initially, I knew I knew him, but I didn't recognize him, and it's been a while. Carl Simms, do you remember me? I said, "Well, of course I do now that you, of course, Shane, I remember you." I just wanted to tell you I was sorry. I said, "What are you sorry for, Shane?" He says, "I just wanted to be sorry that I couldn't help." I said, "Well, could you help? Can you help?" Tears came in his eyes, and he started crying. He says, "I can't." I said, "I don't understand what that means." I said, "You can't?" Or, "You won't." He says, "I just can't." And I said, " Shane, you look like you want to say something." I said, "You know I'm retired. I'm not even on the case anymore." I said, "You just want to get something off your chest. You want to talk to me?" And he just looked at me and he goes, "Maybe one day I will." We left each other in the home depot, and I've heard a word from him again. There just had to be something more to Shane. Why does his name keep coming up? Why did he get so emotional after all this time discussing Justin Gaines? Now he's being deceitful, and you know he's being deceitful, but why is he being deceitful? So I never could pin Shane down. Suddenly I'm struck with a dose of reality. If an experienced investigator like Carl Sims can't get much out of someone like Shane, what hope do I have? It astounds me that so many people in this case could be a part of a crime like this and not have talked, given themselves or someone else up, or flat out just made a stupid mistake big enough to result in an arrest for murder. How is this possible? The question you just asked me is the reason I didn't want to talk to you. So because whether you want to accept this or not, myself and the other investigators involved in this case were human. Now that I'm talking about this again, you just pulled the scab off the wound. You know, now it's back in my mind again. I'm re-living that investigation. I'm re-living the part of the answers I don't have answers to. The part that's puzzling you about. wine is the part that kicked me in the gut every day for several years while I was chasing the story. It would have been so much easier just for me to write off the fact that these were a bunch of liars and Dylan Glass was not involved in this and he was playing the hero and doing street creds, but I couldn't turn it loose because there's too much credibility attached to it. And then the fact that I couldn't prove it and the fact that Shane would never confess and the fact that Liam wouldn't talk and the fact that Tammy drove us right to where I thought the body may be and then piss backwards on me, those emotions are up and down. I have no clue, Sean. I have no clue why these people would, why Andy Pickens would lie about his van. It's his van. It's his livelihood. It's his work. It's what he went every day and drove to work. And then that night it shows up at the lake and now it's never seen again. It's logged in with Lake Lanier being dropped, all coincidence? I don't know. It's a hell of a coincidence if it is. But as an investigator, it eats at you. It eats at you because you can't tie it together. Time goes by and then you retire and then you put it behind you until some guy sets there and rips the scab off of it because you don't understand. Like Justin's family, investigators like Sims and Bob Pulnell have been worn down little by little by this case. The emotional strain of being so close, yet still so far from solving this case, eventually takes its toll. There would be so many nights in a row after chasing these people from hell in high water just to find them to talk to them, to get them to give you this much and then you lay at bed at night and then your family goes, "What's wrong with you? What are you thinking about?" And I thought, "I'm good." "No, you're not good." "No, you're not good." These cases become a part of you. I wouldn't know the answers, too. I'd really like to know. And it's frustrating because you're given the responsibility as the investigator as the lead on this case to try to find it. And you feel like you're so close, you're just so close, and then it walks away. The biggest question of all, to me, is one that I often find slowly creeping into the back of my mind, is this case even solvable anymore? I can't be more adamant about this. Somebody abducted/killed/disposed/somebody knows, and this case is not so old that that person doesn't live with it. Just like I live with it, trying to solve it, that person, if they're human at all, lives with the fact that they know. They may not have done it, and they may not have been the one directly that had a direct involvement with Justin's disappearance, but they know who did. And they've got the answer, and they've got the clue that will pull all this together. So yes, it's solvable, 100% solvable. But just as things seem more bleak and confusing than ever, I spoke to Erica Wilson about Justin and the case as a whole. Through the course of our talk, she can fight it in me something, that she had been recently given a new lead on a possible location of her son's body. My head, a gentleman, reached out to me and said he spoke with someone that used to date Martin Wilkie, and this guy said he asked the girl, "Hey, what about Justin Gaines?" And the girl says, "Yeah, everyone knows, they put them in the toolbox, and they moved him to this location, and they gave me a specific location." The lead Eric is talking about pointed to a particular cove at Lake Leneer, the lake on which both Andy Pickens and Martin Wilkie's house both sat, and where we're told Justin was submerged after being placed in a toolbox. So much of this case revolves around this particular lake, and now we have a lead on an exact spot. The worst thing that could happen if we follow this lead is we spend a little time and money and find nothing. But what if we find the black box, still submerged there in the murky waters of Lake Leneer? What then? It's a gamble I'm willing to take. So that cove is where I'm headed. Drowning Creek is an original production of Waveland. I wrote and created the series and the original score. Executive producer is Jason Hoke, associate producer is Leo Culp, sound engineering by Shane Freeman, special thanks to Erica Wilson and her family. If you have any leads on this case, please contact me at [email protected], and if you love the series, please leave a review and tell your friends. Follow Waveland on Instagram @wavelandmedia for more on this series and upcoming new shows, and you can also find me on social media at www.shonkipofficial or www.shonkip.com. As always, thanks for listening.