This podcast is intended for mature audiences. Listen to discretion is advised. (waves crashing) - Where am I? (gentle music) - Were you at Wild Bills that night? Regardless of whether you were getting into this car with Justin or not, were you even there? - No. - Had you ever met Justin Gaines? - No. I was 17 at that time, so I was, you know, not able to get into a club like that for one, for two, I didn't get my driver's license, so I was 18, so I definitely wasn't there driving. My hair was a blonde at that time and nor did I have these tattoos at that time. - Do you remember when, what year you got those tattoos? - I would say I was about 18 and a half. - The woman in the black dress. I was told by Bob Pullman months ago that he was fairly confident a woman in question was Heather, but hasn't been able to confirm beyond all doubt, which is the reason the woman is still a bit of a mystery. I was told her identifying marks were two sunflower tattoos, one on either shoulder, but when looking at the still image taken from Wild Bill's security footage, while you can clearly make out what appears to be a tattoo on the right shoulder of the woman, you cannot with any certainty say it's a sunflower. The footage is just too poor quality. You also have no way of knowing that there's a matching tattoo on our left shoulder, which you can't see on camera because of the angle. Not only is the still image very blurry and grainy, but the tattoo appears to be slightly lower on the woman's arm and looks more square and shaped than Heather's tattoos. Though Bob did have two informants, I.D. the woman as Heather, I'm not convinced, nor is Mike Rising, and even Bob Pullno has come to question if it's Heather. Recently, Heather reached out to me. (gentle music) (dramatic music) - From Wavelin, I'm Sean Kite, and this is Drowning Creek. (gentle music) - My main thing is I just want to clear my name from anything I'm not involved, don't know anything. I have leveraged, so if I did, I would have definitely said something. I even provided photos of my tattoos and told I was eliminated as anyone of interest. - Heather was interviewed by police several times over the years, and recently by Mike Rising due to her affiliation with Leon. She expressed her wish that this case would be solved and that Erica Wilson would have closure finally, and also expressed a level of regret about the circles she used to run in when she was younger, and although she told me she was only 17 in 2007 and couldn't get into the club, I learned from the case file that someone close to her said she had a fake ID at the time, so who knows? But in our conversation, Heather mentioned having leveraged. - So Leon and I have been going through a custody battle for the last couple of years, and I did tell Mike, I said, "Look, if I had any information at all to give you on this matter, I would gladly help you because that would be an opportunity for me to get my children back, ultimately." And I would definitely would share any information that I had for that matter. But unfortunately, I don't know anything of good information. It's all here, say, it's all this or that, nothing's solid. And I have a son as well, so this hits home for me, my son was out, missing, I would definitely want someone to come forward. I wouldn't care who called me a snitch or whatever, those are my children. - Most people would do anything for their kids, but if Heather didn't have any information of value about Leon regarding this case, as she said, there was one question she could hopefully answer for me. It's regarding the polygraph that Leon failed, which I have confirmed through investigators. This might give a little insight into his state of mind after taking the test. When he came home, when you spoke to him after that, I mean, what did he say anything that he just, did you guys discuss that? - He came home and he told me that he failed. And, you know, he was extremely upset and he was crying for like two or three days. I mean, I think he was scared. - I think he was scared of what was gonna happen to him because he failed it, not because I am telling the truth that they said I failed, it wasn't like that. It was more like, oh shit. - Right. - Oh shit. Again, polygraphs aren't the end all be all. People can tell the truth and fail or lie and pass. We know that. And there are several factors that come into play, but typically the average person isn't going to be capable of purposefully manipulating the results. I've tried to make contact with Leon to hear his side of this with no success. And I have heard through the grapevine though that he said he does not want to speak with me or Mike Rising. Imagine that. So for now, I just have to revert back to the information in the case file. Statements provided in official witness interviews, even if they've since been recanted. You've heard me talk so much about the alleged confessions of Dylan Glass and his mother Tammy. And though neither was a confession of murder on the part of Dylan, both did place Dylan in the same location as Justin Gaines when he was allegedly killed. I've relayed what has been told to me from Bob Polno, former and current members of law enforcement, and I've read from transcripts in the case file. I've been able to secure the audio from these interviews. And now, for the first time, you're going to hear from the actual taped interviews of these people. And you can judge for yourself. I'm going to now focus on their mention of Leon, as he's the one I feel we know least about in this story, though he's been accused of choking out just in that night. Some have discounted the credibility of Tammy and Dylan's statements, but true or not, it's certainly worth looking into why they both named Leon as a guilty party. Tammy describes being in Andy Pickens' house that night and hearing a commotion downstairs in the garage. When I finally hang downstairs, because Andy went down, and was going to see what was going on without notice, he heard the yelling loud. I was the downstairs in the house. OK. I looked out the window, because I had to be up right now. I looked out the thing is, is cramped up. OK. The truck I've been was running. I couldn't say no I could be up. I couldn't sit for downstairs, because I didn't come my back up, and it got louder. And I could tell it moved to the garage, because it's a way I could be up in the floor. OK. And so when I come out, and if you can this door, you stand by the other one, the garage doors up. When you go to the store here, the garage doors right here, you get the parking lot right there. Maybe that car here, the garage, I'm going to come in. OK. Everything's OK on it. Tammy says when she entered the garage, it was chaotic. She saw three people. Me neither. Just in the morning. Remember, Marty's the man who would eventually be charged with concealing in death, but have those charges later dropped. Tammy's then asked if Justin is talking at this point, meaning was he conscious. This, according to Tammy, is when Leon allegedly had Justin in a chokehold. Even if it wasn't talking to you, it was trying to get loose. Or the milk, the milk, the milk to the mouth. The milk isn't it. And that's why New York didn't come around. He is. When Leon was going down with him, that I was chunking him. I don't know. Oh, come around. Maybe it wasn't talking about the road. Run it up in the past. The band's called him. Tammy's very emotional later. And at points, it might be hard for you to hear or understand her. But she states that when she walked into the garage to see what the commotion was, Justin was fighting with Marty, then being choked from behind by Leon, because Justin was getting the best of Marty. While struggling to get free, Leon then went down to the ground with Justin hard in Tammy's words to break his neck. Then, Dylan in New York came into the garage from around the side of the house, and New York says to roll him up in the plastic. And when you pay the house, the roads kept a huge, to get the big roads.
and the other's temple, and the garage didn't need to work. When asked who helped Leon roll Justin up in the plastic, through tears, Tammy says, "My son and morning." My son and Marty. Tammy says Andy Pickens had gone to get a gun and watched as Justin was rolled up in the plastic, telling her to go back upstairs. And as she slowly made her way back up and out of the garage, she says Dylan and Leon went through Justin's pockets. Marty was in Leon's steel and Dylan went in and went in his pocket. He took it zero and he was fighting with Leon. They all come out of his pockets and they don't know what else it was. When I say, "When is his pocket or what have you?" I didn't literally see him in his pocket. What I sing over was Dylan over. Dylan and Leon got the head and worked. As Marty and Leon still trying to do all this here, and they come and Dylan to come on and help him. York's cussing him out and Dylan's cussing him out. As he's going out in his pocket and goes around the corner, I was already hitting my cuss stairs, didn't I? I heard him leave, shoved the van doors, and he ran into his upstairs at this time, and then I heard something. I thought it was a shot. Again, throughout this part of the interview, Tammy is clearly anxious and emotional. When asked if she could be sure that the person rolled up in the plastic as she described was, in fact, Justin Gaines, she states, "You've never been by there before. I can sing more and get him in there by the door before. He was lying to be more. He was up in there. Like you worked out and stuff. We talked about players, something was changed." This is where Tammy had said she'd met Justin before, that he'd been by the house before to buy dope. Tammy goes on to describe to investigators that the van left with Justin headed for the houseboat, and that Leon and New York left separately, though she didn't believe they were going to the houseboat. She tells of how she and Randy, the same man she would later describe as helping to dispose of Justin's body, were instructed to clean up the garage and remove any evidence. She also says that she would be instructed by Andy to clean up the houseboat a few days later, and was told to use a black light to look for any blood on the interior, so nothing was missed. "Black and blue get you on the houseboat. That's what happened around the house at the walls. And the water's three finger fingers on the scene. And he said, "Just mark the floors. I'm getting done anyway. He had every floor stripped out of there and replaced with a hard wood. He didn't wash it. I put him on the cover there. He did the right thing. And he took the black light thing and he could go in there, and then you could see stuff blown." She also states that a pair of bloody boots and a jacket with blood on it were kept. Though I find this odd as Justin wasn't wearing a jacket that we know of, and he was wearing tennis shoes. But Tammy also does mention tennis shoes in her interview, so maybe when she said boots, she was nervous or misspoke. She talks about the van being crushed, evidence being disposed of in a dumpster, and Marty burning clothing that he was wearing that night. Tammy tells much more than this in the two-hour interview, but you get the idea. She does seem to get less sure of what happened after Justin was allegedly taken to the houseboat, but she openly stated that she wasn't there at the time. So all she could go on was the little she was told or over her later on. Her son, Dylan's statements, even in the hours leading up to Justin's disappearance, also put Leon square in the crosshairs. As we already know, Tammy Blue wasn't the only one who discussed Leon's alleged role in this. Dylan glass himself put Leon in the mix with his statements to police back in September of 2011, when he was questioned about Justin's disappearance. It's my understanding that Dylan is the one who initiated this conversation with investigators. But remember, true or not, Dylan has since stated to me that he made up everything you're about to hear. You'll immediately notice that the Dylan you hear in this interview sounds vastly different than the Dylan you hear speaking with me. I'm tired of being like that, I'm tired of feeling like that. Now, what I like to say is like, I want to know what I gotta do. Like, I want to bring a man to found a piece when he said none of my, I want to, I want to, I want to see you behind me, and I want to bring his family piece. I believe Leon did that, but I'm a whore. This sounds like something Dylan has said to me, that he wants to bring Justin's family piece. He says throughout his particular interview that he's not involved in Justin's disappearance in any way, but as you heard, says he feels Leon is responsible, but gives no solid evidence of that. I haven't, my behavior, my lifestyle, everything, they've been saying I've been a naïve a lot. I'm wrong person, if seven drugs are wrong, I know it is, I'm still drugs, I'm life fighting, but I ain't no killer man, I ain't never killed nobody in my life man. If you watch Leon, if you watch your behavior, everything in heaven, your man just, all of a sudden he did disappear, he did, he didn't hang with nobody, he's a whole different person system. In a 2011 interview with investigators, Dylan Glass talks about meeting up with Leon and several others in the parking lot of a Walmart, which I talked about in previous episodes. Just over three minutes into the conversation, an officer asks Dylan if he feels confident that he knows what happened that night. At some video, Cam, they already knew that he wanted to go to a club. I stole a handphone to cope from and do running tomorrow. I tell myself, shit, but I'm going to clubs. I initially, I could take, I, I wanted to take a polygraph to a four-stop cylinder to show that was down and that it wasn't me that whole time. Again, Dylan states he didn't go to clubs, something that has been told to me by several people who know him well. He says he declined the offer that night, and that he just wanted to go party with Leon and the girls he was with anywhere else. But he says that Leon was acting weird with him that night. Dylan says Leon told him he had something lined up, a lick, meaning someone they could rob. In a 2014 interview with detectives, Dylan says later that night he went to Andy Pickens' house and got a gun out of the safe. Dylan then tells about Leon, New York, and an unidentified, even to him, blonde girl pull up to Andy's house late at night in Leon's trailblazer. He says Justin Gaines was in the car. Some of the audio here is hard to understand, so I'll clarify where needed. You hear the girl's voice in the background? I didn't ever see no girl. There was a girl in that truck. I don't have your life. I know when we put the air duct tape in the light. I tell you, I know boys, this person never, I don't know. In the trailblazer? Yeah, there was a female in there fucking call with the folks, man. When he pulled up, how do you know that? You see them? Okay, I see. I had to see bad air with him. With Justin Gaines. Dylan says when they pulled up, Justin Gaines was in the back seat with the blonde girl. Everything appeared to be fine at that point. New York's a fun path scene in the house in the drive scene. Like they were kidding. Like when they go and I went that wrong, you should have said, well they pulled back up. That's the neighborhood right behind my house. You take the light. Dylan tells investigators that New York and Leon went just down the road from Andy's house to a dead end street. Their intention was to rob Justin. Dylan says he watched what unfolded from the corner of the street. When we go put strap on, put it in there. I didn't land up. It was straight. I had to pay with Tom Tom. Like you could see the girl talking.
I'm gonna drive C. She goes in line and get me drive C. Like, I am like, I will have to go back up, but like, I'll stand on the corner street. Like, I look, I always see. I know I want back to the garage. See, I ain't never want to say that shit because I didn't want to fall. I didn't want to, I mean, I didn't want to bust you. We just fought over and I mean, they put up the most harassment. When they returned shortly after, Justin was being choked by Leon in the back seat. Dylan describes Justin at this point. This is a different story than we previously heard in Tammy's audio. I'm going to drive New York. You know what I mean? You'll go, I'll tell Andy what I'll be back. I'll guide him. I'll guide him. I'll tell Andy I'll guide him. He'll actually come on. So they better go buy it up. Be honest with you. They fought it all. They tried to take Andy's van. It's all right, man. No one doesn't know that. They tried to take it. I want out that accident. Like, he wasn't going for that shit. He was like, yeah, he was going for that shit. I want to leave with him. Can I start freaking out on him, you know what I mean? It's like, man, fuck that. We all got into it. He says that New York wanted to use Andy's van at this point, but Andy refused. Andy Lee and King were left in what? The trailblaver. Andy screwed up throughout. They were on the mayor box over the other day. And got an official. They pull out and go to the right on Pablo Road. He's going to pull a 124. All right. So I'm kidding. It's a way she's going on up. But I don't see people get lost all the thumbs on it. I don't know if she wants to take it. I know what I need on this board ship. I know I have a lot of work. I don't know if you've ever done that. Man, what are people like? No, no, I need shit. It's a draw. It doesn't ship. Like it only. Therefore, it gets a board ship like that. Someone admitted that he's used to seeing people get robbed, so it wasn't a big deal to him initially. But he had no idea how far this particular robbery was going to go. And it scared him. He then says the car left with Justin. That Tammy was upset and crying, and that Andy was furious and yelling. And Dylan couldn't stay at Andy's that night, so he called Shane for a ride to go look for Leon, as all of his calls to him were going to voicemail. Dylan later makes it to what I assume is Leon's house. It's hard to tell, and speaks with him and New York wanting to hang out for a while and find out what happened. But it's told that he can't stay. He says that Leon looked crazy, and New York told him, "Shit's rough right now. You gotta go." He says Leon gave him $300, but he didn't know why, and that Leon wouldn't even take drugs for the money. We can only assume if this is a true story, it might be what was taken from robbing Justin. Dylan and Shane eventually make it back to Andy's house because they had nowhere else to go. And Dylan says that out of curiosity, he checks out the area where Leon and New York had allegedly robbed Justin on that dead end street nearby. It's a little hard to determine the timeline in Dylan's interview, but after this, he and Shane took a ladder and a few other things stolen from Andy's house and took them to the pawn shop where Dylan was seen wearing the earring appearing to match the one Justin wore. That was at 205 PM. Dylan's then girlfriends stated that he and Shane arrived back at the house around 12 PM, leaving a couple hours later. Again, this story varies from Tammy's, but if this is all made up as Dylan now says it is, he is one hell of a storyteller. It's hard to know what to make out of Dylan's interviews. On one hand, he seems to provide a lot of detail, an experiential memory. On the other hand, not only does Tammy's confession differ from some of Dylan's statements, but he basically has two different accounts of what happened. In the interview from 2011, he says something similar to what he's told me recently. It bridge it was the reason for his name being brought into the case in the first place, because she was looking for a reward. Mainly, he points a finger at Leon in that interview, though he doesn't come out right and say that he killed him or choked him. He also says that Leon changed immediately after Justin's disappearance and the two stopped associating. Leon is vehemently denied any role in Justin's disappearance or death. Leon would say in one of his interviews with police that he stopped associating with Dylan because Dylan told him he shot someone. Leon said he was scared and wanted nothing more to do with that lifestyle. In that same 2011 interview, when questioned about New York's possible role, Dylan initially says that despite him being a dangerous man, he doesn't believe that he had anything to do with Justin's death. I mean, Dylan provides the statements you just heard telling of New York and Leon killing Justin that night, and now he's taking all that back. So what are we to believe? From what I've heard in the hours of audio, it doesn't appear that anyone pressured him to speak. In fact, it seems it was his idea to speak on the case and he was more than willing to be helpful. He said repeatedly, "I want to help y'all." But let's say that Dylan is telling me the truth now. I've asked what could make anyone admit to taking a part in a murder if they were innocent, while everyone knows that false confessions are real. They happen. But why? What's the reason behind it? Approximately 15% of all wrongful convictions are caused by false confessions, and the Innocence Project said that of 258 DNA exonerations they have handled, nearly 30% involved a false confession. In an interview with the American Psychological Association, world-renowned professor of psychology, Saul Cassin, discussed several reasons why false confessions occur and the psychology behind it. Cassin states that there are three different types of false confessions. The first is a voluntary confession. Someone who just willingly walks into the police station and says, "I did it." This usually happens with a very high-profile public case. Think, killing a notable person or celebrity. These instances often include some type of delusion of grandeur associated with the person making the confession. Not likely the case here. The second two deal with tactics used by law enforcement to obtain a confession. One, being internalization, whereby a person comes to truly believe they committed a crime, although they're really innocent. This is more common in people with intellectual impairments and in young children. The third type of false confession is obtained through relentless interrogation, hammering down again and again on the suspect until they eventually confess, believing that they will help themselves more by actually confessing to a crime they didn't commit. The problem with these confessions, according to Cassin, is that when the pressure of the confession is lifted, they recant. Now that part sounds familiar here, but again, I don't hear one instance of anyone pressuring Dylan. Nonetheless, Dylan was compelled to share with me a video made by Bridget for his attorney regarding officers allegedly trying to get witnesses to lie about his guilt in Justin's disappearance. Dylan did not know that we're just in games.
That's not the type of person that he would associate with. Them Polis, the investigators, they have harassed me so much, they have took so much my time, my life. They wanted not just me, but multiple people to tell lies, "Oh Dylan, they wanted us to admit to something that he didn't do just so he could present for it." They wanted to see him, "Don't." In all of Dylan's interviews, he doesn't place the blame for Justin's death on himself, but instead on New York or Leon, depending on which interview you're listening to. So you're left to wonder which, if any, version of Dylan's statements are factual. Has he put the blame on everyone but himself in an effort to remove himself from something that could land him a murder charge? Or is it possible that he's just scared of New York and the people he associates with, like those with cartel connections as I'm told? Law enforcement knows New York's real identity, as well as monies, chinos, and a whole host of other people believed to be much more dangerous than Dylan Glass or Leon. I feel that the truth is buried somewhere in all of these things we've heard, at least in part. It's extremely difficult, though, to pick out all the facts from the monumental number of lies and rumors that have been told over the past 16 plus years. And while we've heard that several people have taken and failed polygraphs, some of these people, like Bridget, Routineagers, and likely scared to death, that could have possibly affected the results. That could hold true with Leon in his test, as well. And while Dylan has told me repeatedly that he took numerous polygraphs and passed, I've found that not to be true, as far as I can tell. Mike Rising checked with the GBI, and they have no record of him ever taking a polygraph. Pass or fail. When you hear the final part of Dylan Glass's interview with investigators, I want you to listen carefully. Not just to what he says, but how he says it, you make the decision for yourself. Is he telling the truth that he was a scared young kid who made this stupid decision to fuck with the cops, for whatever reason? Or was he there when Justin Gaines' body was discarded in the most inhumane of ways? Somebody's phone got a picture with that boy with New York Squad right beside him. Who took the picture? I did. Where is that picture? I don't know who is on New York's phone. Whatever he did, whatever he did, whatever he did, whatever he did, whatever he did, I wanted him. There was a picture of New York and there was a man right there. He squatted down. He said like that. Looking dead at him, we're sweating over. Looking dead at him. He wasn't Justin Gaines' head up. I don't know. Like I'd be alive. I ain't no seeing him. You know. What for? I don't think about like that, bro. You see some shit like that. The first thing you're mad on your heart. You want to leave. You don't want to be alive. You know what kind of shit is he had up? He was missing a shit at a cruise just in my life, man. What are you doing to him? Like he shot a deer or something instead of a human being. Shit, look, it's so weird. Home don't look dead. He does not look dead, man. He's like a gang. He's like a joke. Like a motherfucker posing. Was he swelled up or anything? What's he saying? Look at the fucking thing. Had his eyes open still. He looked dead at that farmer. But he never moved his eyes. He never moved. He was dead. He had to be. I ain't alive, bro. I threw up. I ain't no seeing no shit like that. 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 @shonkypeofficial or @shonkype.com. As always, thanks for listening.
PodcastTranscript AI