School of Humans. We're ever going to get the right person. Knowing where everyone was is getting to be really important, That's what I would say. So we have several issues we need to clear up with Casey's timeline. Exactly when did he leave work on Monday, how did he get home, and did he go home on Tuesday to change before work, and if he did, how did he miss the mess of the crime scene. If we're going to get to the bottom of this, we need to find some of the people who were working at Sonic on the Monday Rebecca disappeared. Taylor has been texting one of our local contacts who was working at the Sonic around the time Rebecca was killed. They mentioned a story we have also heard from multiple people that Casey had gone home between leaving work on Monday and returning to work on Tuesday. This person claims to be in communication with a couple of other people who allegedly spoke to Casey about this. If we could find a way to absolutely verify this information, it could be a game changer. His story was consistent in the beginning that he did not go home right, So if we can even if he did, even if we get him to admit, yeah, I went home to change shirts, or we find someone who can absolutely verify that he said that, that he mentioned going home to change shirts, or that the timeline was a little weird. That right there is enough to reopen the investigation because he was, by Charlie's own words, suspect number one. Charlie was the first officer on the scene. He was the one who found the blood in Casey's house, and the reason they ruled him out was because of his airtight alibi. If we could quite poke a hole in that, then they've got it. They got to take another look. They have to, like, I really just want to talk to these people who were working at Sonic. I just want to know how he got home, when he went home, and if he actually did go home. In September of two thousand and four, two year old Rebecca Gould was brutally murdered in a remote area of the Arkansas Ozarks. Fourteen years later, her killer is still out there. I've come back to Mountain View with one mission to get justice for Rebecca. I'm Catherine Townsend and this is Helen Gone. We're over two months into our investigation and Taylor and I stepped back to look at the whole murder board. So far, so many threads, so many dead ends, so many post it notes. As I trace the line spider webbing from picture to picture, I see many of the rumors, accusations, and same questions that the town won't let go of. We've followed a lot of leads and investigated a lot of the rumors that we've heard in town, and by following the evidence, we've eliminated a lot of them as likely sos JB, Chris, Jennifer, the group theory, hundreds of other names we've heard, but we're having a harder time with Casey. Ironically enough, the first and only person that the police have cleared. Like I said in the beginning, everyone in this case has at least two sides. Is Casey the sweet, caring boyfriend who is head over heels for Rebecca that his friends describe, or the care bear psycho that Danielle talked about. I get a call from someone who has been following the case and the podcast. He dated Rebecca shortly before her murder and had an interaction with Casey that he can't get out of his head. An ex boyfriend could have an ax to grind, so we have to check his story carefully, but a quick call with Danielle, Rebecca's sister, confirmed that he did date Rebecca and also confirmed a lot of the details. He mentions, well, and at a club, it's no longer open and fathful, and a girlfriend of mine introduced me and are together. We dated for I guess it was like three or four weeks. Probably it was like a month or two before she got killed. I thank our first date was pretty much like I went to we were going to go lix store, have a few trains, and you know, it was just hanging out and it was me and her and her sister and her sister at their house. Well, we left and we went to one liquor store and it was sposed, so we went to the other one and it was both. So we ended up just drinking what we had. I mean, because that's the others today. Back, I was like my backgrounds and drank beer. Like most of the men in Rebecca's life, he was smitten, but it didn't take him long to realize their relationship could not go further because there was someone causing drama in Rebecca's life, and that someone was Casey Casey was not like he was just apparently she had like slipped him one time and he just was like blisk and she just wanted to be friends. Well he had like showed up there just out of the blue, but he I ended up being like civil whipping and stuff. And at the end of the night we were all getting ready to like to go to bed and stuff, well he was just standing like he would not leave, just not leave. It was like very uncomfortable, and like they like went outside and talked for a second. Like he was just falling and crying and just like emotionally just straw over everything. Like I was fixing on leave. I was just like, screw this, I'm going back home. I ain't got time to deal with this trauma. And I was like, your boy out there is fixing the freak out and if he comes in there starting anything, then on the handle. And he's like, no, I'll take care of it. If he does, he'll be fine. I was like, here he is, you know, acting the pool. I'm like, look, man, I'm just gonna shut you down right now. Like if you can want to go, we can go. Otherwise you need to keep your mouth shut because you don't found me, Like, I mean, she was like all the time, he was like constantly showing up where she was, wanting to know where she was, Like I just wanted to know where she was at twenty four seven, just controlling, and I guess he had done that to a couple other people and they didn't really want to like put up with it or deal with it, so they just kind of like backed off. But every time we was together, he was constantly pulling her phone up, like messaging her like where are you at, what are you doing? Who you with? I mean, it was just it was just not very overly possessive of her for them just being friends, which I know she stayed with him on and off, but she would say there because it was close to where she worked and she didn't have to drive all the way backs nowt but there, I mean, he was just emotional, like just I mean he falled and cried like he or three times, you know that, not like once whenever he had got there and like found out that me and her was actually going out, you know, somewhere and doing something. And then at the end of the night, like when they went out by it was just he was just like falling in crime and just I mean I just kind of let it go and I was just like, Okay, you know, it was nice meeting you out talking with you. Things don't work out. A holler at me, and I just kind of left at the back. I was like a month or two later, you know, everybody had work knew that I me and her were somewhat dating. That was like, hey, you know her boyfriend and like her boyfriend like she was with Casey. I was like, that's our boyfriend. And she's like, well she's missing, and I'm like what. Just his demeanor and everything, like he's controlling. You can tell he's just really that sheid when she looked up to the way her dad was and like what he had and what he had accomplished, and like, you know, she's like, I want to be successful in my life. I want to do this, I want to do that. Like she had so much schedules and dreams and ambition. She was just stuck between that babe of like growing up and you know, actually accomplishing things and doing things that she wanted to do, and then being stuck into you know, being young dom and you know, having fun. As he talks about a relationship with Rebecca, a picture of what she was going through at the time of her murder begins to emerge. Rebecca was trying to play down her relationship with Casey. She thought of Casey as a friend with a crush. He was her past, not her future. He's also like very shy and timid, right, you know, like his personality, like I mean he's going to be loud about something like he was that night, and then once I shut him down, he was just like, Okay, I don't want to cross them lines because you know, I don't think he's in enough fire or anything whve either. And I mean I wasn't too worried about him because he was very you know, shining timid. You know, I deal with the ex strama before with you know, other people that I tell you, and I just wasn't really wanted to deal with that. I even think I went up to sing It one time after we started dating to talk to him, and he wouldn't come out and talk to me because the guys from Mark would go up there and eat and stuff. And I guess he had been up there running his mouth about me, saying he's going to beat my at and just done this and he was gonna have at and one day after work, I just went up there and I was like, hey, you in, we got a problem. He's like no, and he's just running right back inside. I mean, I just want to see something that I can't believe it's just gotten. I mean, it just kind of got very like you heard a lot about it when it first happened, like she was missing, everybody find her. And then once they found her, it's like everything just kind of went hush hush, like they didn't release no information. They didn't. Really. The only thing that I remember them releasing was that Casey had been clear. That's the only thing that's absensive as he was, is she left like he's supposed like they say he's supposedly she's supposedly left and went to college and he didn't hear from her, and he would be flipping out that night. He wouldn't be out partying and drinking. I' tell you that right now, just from his demeanor. He's not going to be out partying drinking and be like, oh you know, I mean because obviously he went home the next day, you know whatever. I mean, it's me, it's just don't it don't make sense. Wish you the best and just you know, I mean, just be careful of the people that you're around up there. I mean, it's just a bunch. I mean, it's such a small town. I really wish I could get Casey to talk. We have two questions that need answering. One did Casey go home at any point between the murder and work the next day? And two, how did Casey get to his friend's house after work? We need to lock in what Casey was doing on the day Rebecca was murdered, because we're hearing conflicting stories about his timeline and his relationship with Rebecca. But one of his co workers must know something, so we focus on tracking down one of Casey's friends who also worked at Sonic, the same friend he was out all Monday night with Laren. He was pretty easy to find because it's not like Laren is a common name in the area. He suggests meeting at a Starbucks and Little Rock near where he lives. I didn't talked to him a couple of years. When my mom's always like, I saw Casey at the Dollar Story, and when I'm doing well, he's yeah, he's married now, Yeah, Laren is huge, six foot nine. When he smiles, he looks like the kind of guy I would want to have a beer with. But he's also very physically intimidating. And then once we started working together, me and Casey got real close. There's history there with basketball, and then music was what me and Casey were, you know, we really connected about right, he was what he was, but he was a great musician, and I love music, and you know, I wasn't so inclined at the time. But what we're Rebecca in Casey like was a couple of I'm a very lovely dovey, I'm very just sickening, you know, that kind of thing, like if you did yeah, yeah, and gosh they and it was, like we said, we were like be guarded because he seemed more in her than she wasn't him just being honest, you know, But she also seemed like she was just trying to start fresh, like she was trying to get away from all that shit, and she really was that they as a couple, they were just doinggether. I mean, I can't even that's what I sink. Trying thing yesterday too, Like my mind's been racing for the last twenty four hours trying to remember like little stuff, and you know, I can't. I couldn't remember how long they've been together when that happened. I can't remember. I can't remember when I was told that she had been murdered, like where I was or what we was doing. I remember the investigators and then I remember, you know, of course, you know, us trying to you know, minute by minute break down the day the day before. What did the investigators asked, Bess, you know, like, what what did you guys do? They were more interested and I'm pretty sure having all of us sit down and went that night and telling them the story or make sure it wasn't something that we were blowing smoke or whatever, you know, because it took them a little while to get the camera and the receipts and all that stuff. They were more about the night, you know, wanting to know where case he was, did he ever leave at anytime? You know, did stuff like that? You know, and you know, obviously we all slept that night eventually, so I mean that was another thing. It's that I like, is it possible that I could have got up in the middle of the night, left my house and then come back in the amount of time that we were asleep, and I just don't think it was possible. All of us had pretty loud vehicles, and at my place, we'd like to be able to hear people coming and going. We were always praying touch and that's another thing. They were like, you do. They're like, look, we're like, just be transparent. We don't give a shit about weed. We're not trying to bunch a bunch of teenagers mo weed, like you know, obviously we're trying to you know. Yeah, we uh, we all had a good time together. But it was God. So I just one more time. That was so the day of the day was not happened Monday, So you guys left work that was on Monday. When we got home, we would have watch wrestling Man, so we would have probably been up a little later. See, wasn't with you guys? Then you wrote with Philip, I think so, I think because I don't think the car at the time. I know, I know, for whatever reason, he was without vehicle. Where was Casey's truck? And if Rebecca drove him to work, how was he planning on getting home? I remember specifically didn't have vehicle because when we got back home and he started saying like, man, I can't get ahold of Rebeck. I'm kind of worried about it. We were all like, dude, let's just go to bed. She's fine, because we would have had to taste, which we probably should have, or maybe we would have walked in and got murdering on it. Do you remember what time y'all went to bed that night? It seemed like we watched a normal like seven o'clock movie, came back when we probably did our things. We uh, probably midnight one. I mean, it's a normal night. I'd have to just guess on a normal night, because I you know, I was he like, he seemed totally normal that night or no, I don't think like because, like I said, it seemed like, see, this is the part where it's like I don't I'm just trying to remember it that way or if that's the way it was. But it seemed like there was like an understanding that she was about to have a confrontation that was gonna be something that she was that He was like, I hope it goes well. Something like that kind of looming, Like, you know, she had some things she had to take care of, that's why she had the truck, and she was gonna try to I don't know that, and I don't want to say that, and then that be you know, the off. But I feel like that's what I remember. Laren doesn't remember a whole lot. And to be fair, it has been fourteen years. In my experience as an investigator, people tend to remember specific detail around crucial events in their lives. But Monday started out. It's just an average day. There's no way I could say intelligently who worked No fair enough, I mean, is there any way like if one y'all wanted to take time off during the day, you could have I mean all the time, like hey I need to go run do something. I'm sure we were all really close. So if it was like I need to go do something, sure whatever. You know what time did Casey finish? Usually at some point he went to just days, like he didn't want to work nights anymore. But that was the nature of the store. Was like you sometimes like your schedule could look like this Monday, you could open at seven and get off at one or two. You could come in Tuesday eleven to four. You could go four to close on Wednesday, you could come back in six to sixty ten on. It was just always but Casey eventually got to where he just just worked days, you know, and he was you know, he was as far as Goods and Sonic go, and he was one of them. He was one of the best we had, you know, so we always had him in the prime times. Once we left the store, I know for a fact that he was never anywhere but with us, right and the moments leading up to that, which I'm pretty sure she dropped him off, but if she, if he worked that morning, she would have dropped him off that morning, yes, with his truck, and then he would have worked, and then he would have waited for one of us to go off work to roll out to my place, and then we would have went out. But I can't remember how he got to our house. And also I don't remember why we went back to my house, because we could have just left and went to walk, had hit to baseball. But it may have been a change small tunes. But I do know that for a fact we was wound up back at my place, then back to Batesville, and then back to my place, and he was with us, you know, the whole time. And then we slept and he got up the next morning and left. But uh, I don't want to say, Philip, I don't think I worked that morning. The next morning. For some reason, I seem to recall like watching him and leave. You know, I was excited when you called because I want to get, you know, closer to this. But that's how it's gonna happen, is now going back piece of things together, things that you didn't think were important, because when it happens, you know, you can't focus on I don't know, I watched too many shows. You've seen me a few people. It's a tough one. Yeah. And then when you allow yourself to be objective, like you know, moving, you know, going forward to remove myself from you know, Casey being one of my best friends ever, you start to think like wow, you know, and I mean that's it too. Is you got to know where that is to get to it. Have you ever been there? Yeah, I'm sure you have. I mean, just driven Bob, and it's that was another thing that got me and I know we're chasing rabbits. I've got I've got all the time in the world. See. That was another thing was if you look at like if you know that area well enough, if you're if you're from Mountain View, why I go back through Melbourne to where they found your body? You know, Like I mean maybe like if they see me going through Mountaine they're gonna fuck with me because they always do. You know, maybe I'd rather go through Melbourne or you know, or is it because you know, like did they go through Mountain View and then come all the way back around because they're like, well, that's an obvious place. Honestly, like you said, have more, that's an obvious place to dump a body. The two towns Laren is referring to are Melbourne and Mountain View. What he is explaining is in order to dump the body, if the killer was from Mountain View, he or she was going out of their way. You never know. There's so many places out there that I can think of three or four different places that we partied on Highway nine, you know, just places that you wouldn't know unless you knew, you know, like old cabins off in the middle of nowhere then you know, but they so you think it wasn't a good spot to it. No, But I mean I'm from that area, said that's always like probing every gonna kill somebody. I've got them in the sharp mind of God. You know, I'm just saying, like there's there's more, says the River. Yeah they but that just I just I don't know. I find that weird that because I've always felt and had the belief that it was somebody from Mountainew, somebody from that old click. But yeah, but why I go back through Melbourne? You know? I mean, was you trying to get to that spot? I mean, if so, that's probably the quickest way. But if you're from Mountainew, everybody goes back to Mountain View through God, if you're on the Gune Road, yeah, it's quicker, it's more secluded. You know. I've just always looked at that and thought there might be something there, Like why go through Melbourne? Did they or you or anybody ever? Like party at Casey's house? No, actually see his dad I think was driving a truck or something. Yeah, Like I really didn't even know where he lived for like the longest time. So because he just didn't live, there was his dad's place, you know, so he would stay with Patrick or you know whoever. You know, And even to this day, I think I've been in that place one time, and it was the time that I met his dad, and I want to say that was before all that. Laren claims to have been one of Casey's best friends at the time and he didn't even know exactly where Casey lived at the same time. Like I said, it was kind of a rare thing for us to get him away, like like because he was so involved, you know. So I remember thinking like, all right, Casey's going out, you know, you know, now your own party. Since it was, you know, such a rare thing. Was it planned to be that way? You know, it's pretty shit think about it when start watching these shows, you know, yeah, so yeah, it's pretty clear he went through me, and that's pretty It's just the mystery is, like, who in the world would do that at someone else's house and then clean up? That's the really weird That's that's one of the weirdest things about it. Case they cleaned up, so I was left the miss and that's how they found out. Like if I'm telling this story to somebody, a friend of mine, now, I say she was murdered and they had a piano leg miss and I said that what we heard was that she was for the longest time is that she was beat to death so bad that there was enough blood that went through the mattresses, through the floorboards into the underpinning of the trailer, and that there was a piano leg missing and you could tell where somebody had drug a body out the door. And then later we heard that it was a gunshot that killed her out Oddly enough, this is actually the first I'm hearing of a gunshot. So like that's I was like, I don't know, that's what I tell my friends. I don't really know how, you know, how it all went down, but I said it was brutal whatever happened, you know. I mean, did case you ever talk to you about who you thought did it? I'm sure, like I'm trying to think, like, at some point it becomes something that we just didn't bring up because it was like it and it's not to be mean, but at some point it was like and you don't want to say, like, ghet over, but at some point, you know, you just get to be like, look and why bring it up if it's just going to be this thing, you know, this thing you know, And so it became this thing that nobody talked about, you know, because we just wanted Casey to feel you know, to feel better, like you know, we want him so bad for him to that's like why why Whenever you know he meant, we were like thank god, yeah, you know. But then now I'm glad he's with you. Yeah, that's good, that's great, it's great. It's just crazy how you can feel so passionately, but when someone's taken from me, it's different. But you can feel so passionately about somebody and then it just wind up not doing right. You know. Listen, thank you, no, no, please you. If you think of something, I want to run it by me and make me think it's more helpy. I find it odd the various ways Rebecca in Casey's relationship has been portrayed. I hear from her sister that she wanted to break up. I hear from his close friends they were inseparable. And I hear from a relatively neutral party that he was obsessed and couldn't leave her alone. You're listening to Helen Gone, We'll be right back talking with Laren. I find he's frustrated with how significantly the fourteen years has fogged his memory. But we keep talking shockingly, Laren tells me that he was never brought back in for questioning after Rebecca's body was found. It's also incredibly frustrating that in a case where everything hinges on an alibi, so many details of the timeline were vague. Since this interview, we've received the official police statements from some of Casey's friends who were with him on the day Rebecca was murdered, and since Laren was one of them, his statement helps us clear up some questions we have about the timeline. Casey's truck was parked in Batesville and they all drove Casey to pick it up, so we can reasonably believe that Casey had his truck on Monday night and into Tuesday morning. Laren also says that they left Sonic at around four pm. We know that Rebecca dropped Casey off that morning, and we had always heard that Casey told police she was planning on going back to school. That's why he went out with his friends that night and stayed out all night. But if that's the case, why was he telling his friends that Rebecca was supposed to pick him up and never showed. I also can't get the last sentence of Laren's statement, out of my head, it said, when we returned from Batesville, Casey used my phone. After he hung up, he stated that Rebecca was missing. That's when it really seemed odd that he didn't head straight out the door to find her. Taylor and I have both been working day and night to try to contact every single person who may have been at Sonic that day. Okay, So I just talked to Bruce and he confirmed that he was working at Sonic that day and Casey was a cook. And he said the cooks went on their shift between eight and nine am, and he remembered Rebecca dropping Casey off at work because he knew her. He said, he the last thing that happened, he dropped, she dropped, pulled in, Casey gets out, she drops him off. He said. She waved at him, and that's the last time I ever saw her. She drove off. And he said that Casey's shift would have ended at about one between one and two, but that means he could have left as early as one. Casey was on the early shift that Monday, which meant that his shift would have ended between one and two pm. But Larrence said that the group didn't leave Sonic until later at around four. Now, Bruce did say, you know, the cops came around, and he said, if he left, you would have had to clock out because you know where you clock in and out's right next to my desk. But then he went on to say, when I was asking how Casey got a ride home because he said Rebecca, he confirmed Rebecca dropped him off that day, and he's like, well, you know that town, everybody's friends, everybody gives everybody lifts. Like so if it's that easy to get in and out and you know, drive around, then yeah, I mean, it would have been so easy for him to get a lift from anybody. I asked him the important questions about Casey. He didn't volunteer a huge amount. He did answer them. He didn't volunteer a huge amount. I know, they're really good friends, he said that. I mean, I'm sure now, I'm sure this is going to get back to Casey. He will now he'll know that we're asking when he clocked in when he clocked out. According to police, Casey's alibi was air tight, but our investigation has poked some holes in that alibi. First, the timelines and the statements that Casey's friends gave to police were vague, so there could have potentially been missing time in the afternoon. Secondly, Bruce told me that he would have seen Casey if he clocked out, but Laren, Teresa, and other Sonic employees have all told me that Bruce went in and out all the time. Finally, Casey lived just a few miles away from Sonic, just a ten minute ride down the dirt road cutthrow we took, and Laren said that it was not uncommon for the employees to unofficially clock out to run errands. This means that there could potentially have been time unaccounted for in the morning. Well, I'm still kind of confused as to why she had to have been murdered around like ten am. Time of death. I'm not a pathologist, but just from like reading a lot of autopsies and the pathologists I talked to, I know time of death is very difficult to determine, even under the best circumstances when the body's found right away, and it's partly based on when the person was seen lest anyway, according to the auto occurring to the physical evidence, I just cannot believe he would have literally had to be. In order for him to be ruled out in this killing, he would have had to have every single moment of his day documented on camera from Monday morning and through to the next day. We've now talked to Teresa, a car hop who not only was a friend of Rebecca's, she knew Jennifer and Casey. We've talked to Bruce, the manager on duty that day, and Philip Laren's roommate. We're starting to get their individual stories and piece together the details from that day. As we do, we hear something we've never heard before. Someone mentions that they heard Casey dropped his truck off at Sonic on Sunday evening and drove home with Rebecca. This detail floors me. How the hell did his car get to Batesville and how did he get back? So, according to the official statements, Casey's friends drove him to pick up his car in Batesville on Monday afternoon. So if Casey's truck was at Sonic Monday morning, how did it get to Batesville by that afternoon. According to the police statements, Casey told his friends that his father drove his truck to Batesville. But we had always heard that his father, who was a trucker, was on the road that day. The mystery of the truck has like bothered all of us so much since the beginning because at the end of the day, even the question about where it was for the next few days has bothered me. Because Charlie said that Casey didn't have his truck at Sonic the next day. The whole reason he was ruled out is because he was supposedly had no transportation and was there all day. So the minute you start saying, okay, he wasn't there all day, and actually he did have transportation, and his transportation mysteriously, you know, was in Batesville by that afternoon unless someone drove his truck. This is a huge piece of the puzzle. According to the police, Casey was the prime suspect at the beginning of the case. He was only ruled out due to his air tight alibi. That alibi hinged on two factors, that he was at work all day and that he did not have transportation. If Casey had his truck at work, that changes everything. The more we dig into Casey's timeline, the more questions we have, and unfortunately Casey won't answer them. We'll be right back. I'm shopping in Walmart, one of the few places in town with cell phone reception. When I get a text message. It's a potential witness. I'm looking at Turkey decoys and guns and people in camouflage gearing up for hunting season, and my hands are shaking as I read it. He says he knows Casey and has something he needs to tell me. When I get back to the car, I call him. Because he knows Casey, he doesn't want to be identified, so we've disguised his voice. Well, oh hi, I just got your textess, Catherine. Yeah, no, I mean, like I said, our whole I mean, we just want to find the person who did it. We're not you know what I mean. We're not. We don't care about anything else. This manam me and Casey and a Ghani probably tell you the same story. And I can be in prison right now. But and on like four different occasions were good. I mean I know four for sure. We were Casey were drinking too thanne and just bopen I mean not, I mean, not ligerant drunk, just crime blurderent. He he said that he killed her and and y'all didn't find the weapon. Fact, Well, the police haven't shared any information with me, but we've found a lot of you know, we've gotten a lot of information. Did he say where the weapon was? He said, he proved in the river on the way to the Highway nine from dying. And this happened like like I said, four times I can remember. And then one day he was just something that been wrong for three or four day yere and he just put in hisself and when he wasn't drunk this night and he said the same thing he said that his story was. And I didn't really think much about it until I heard. I didn't know that she's gonna it was a blunt ob check, like it was. I never knew any things. And she he said that pretty much that she was telling him that this would be the last time that he saw her, or she'd be last last time to see him. Look go, they were, I guess coming to him and I didn't know he didn't know her personally, but they got into it and she said some offensive thanks time. The way he said it, he just lost it and he said, next thing he knows, he's cleaning stuff up. And he said they almost had him, but they couldn't because they thought the timeline was different because he was supposedly at work when that happened. But he said they had the timeline mixed up on him. Did he say he went home from worker? He didn't know, man, he did not say that. I just didn't know if he was just blowing smoke. But it bothered me for a long time. But here the last few weeks because I saw that think something on Facebook, Thames who's killed her back and you come on the radio and it just kind of sitting back to him there. Well, listen, I mean, I so appreciate you doing it, and I know, I mean, I'm just been thinking about their in the mind. I'd probably want, you know, closure, and I know that he's your friend, and I know that it's got to be hard, and I really really appreciate it. I mean, if we do have to go to the police with us, would you be willing to come with us? I've got a bad history of the police here. I probably could in No, I mean, my dad is a really good guy and he's a deputy sheriff, and then there's the Arkansas stateful and you know, just so you don't have to go in in Melbourne, if they come down there and I had to. I mean, the thing that really got me was because I never knew. I didn't know how they killed it. I had no clue. Sure. And then somebody I was at my new job and they were talking about and they said if the cop said it was on an object, because I always thought case case, he was just bullshiting me. Never I thought he's you know, he's just just blowing smoke. And now when he said he hit her with it's a wooden object. I know that much. And it would or like a baseball bath, not not a baseball bath, but you know, stay logistics. He on his way, he stopped on the guying bridge and threw it out. Wow, I don't know how you prove it. I mean, I mean, I'm just saying. He said that more than once to this and like I said, it's bothered me for a while. Well now I'm gonna have to go to the police with it, just because I have to. I mean what I mean, I would really love it if we could go together. So that's why I mean I want to. I know he's your friend and know it's hard, but like I want to get you know, this person caught this man. All right, well listen, thank you so much. As investigators, we can't draw conclusions from a single witness. So this may not be the evidence that's needed to finally close this case, but it might be the evidence that blows it wide open. I'm Katherine Townsend and this is Helen Gone. Helen Gone is a joint production between How Stuff Works and School of Humans. It is written and recorded by me, Catherine Townsend. Taylor Church is our producer and story editor. Audio editing and designed by Jonathan Sleeve, mix engineer Glenn Mattulo, audio mixing and love by Tunewelders. Executive producers Brandon Barr and Else Crowley for School of Humans and Connell Byrne and Chuck Bryant for How Stuff Works. Our field producer is James Morrison. Our researcher is Sandy Klosterman. Them and original score by Ben Solee available wherever you get your music. To dig into the investigation, please visit hellangonepodcast dot com or follow us on social media. School of Humans

School of Humans. We're ever going to get the right person. Knowing where everyone was is getting to be really important, That's what I would say. So we have several issues we need to clear up with Casey's timeline. Exactly when did he leave work on Monday, how did he get home, and did he go home on Tuesday to change before work, and if he did, how did he miss the mess of the crime scene. If we're going to get to the bottom of this, we need to find some of the people who were working at Sonic on the Monday Rebecca disappeared. Taylor has been texting one of our local contacts who was working at the Sonic around the time Rebecca was killed. They mentioned a story we have also heard from multiple people that Casey had gone home between leaving work on Monday and returning to work on Tuesday. This person claims to be in communication with a couple of other people who allegedly spoke to Casey about this. If we could find a way to absolutely verify this information, it could be a game changer. His story was consistent in the beginning that he did not go home right, So if we can even if he did, even if we get him to admit, yeah, I went home to change shirts, or we find someone who can absolutely verify that he said that, that he mentioned going home to change shirts, or that the timeline was a little weird. That right there is enough to reopen the investigation because he was, by Charlie's own words, suspect number one. Charlie was the first officer on the scene. He was the one who found the blood in Casey's house, and the reason they ruled him out was because of his airtight alibi. If we could quite poke a hole in that, then they've got it. They got to take another look. They have to, like, I really just want to talk to these people who were working at Sonic. I just want to know how he got home, when he went home, and if he actually did go home. In September of two thousand and four, two year old Rebecca Gould was brutally murdered in a remote area of the Arkansas Ozarks. Fourteen years later, her killer is still out there. I've come back to Mountain View with one mission to get justice for Rebecca. I'm Catherine Townsend and this is Helen Gone. We're over two months into our investigation and Taylor and I stepped back to look at the whole murder board. So far, so many threads, so many dead ends, so many post it notes. As I trace the line spider webbing from picture to picture, I see many of the rumors, accusations, and same questions that the town won't let go of. We've followed a lot of leads and investigated a lot of the rumors that we've heard in town, and by following the evidence, we've eliminated a lot of them as likely sos JB, Chris, Jennifer, the group theory, hundreds of other names we've heard, but we're having a harder time with Casey. Ironically enough, the first and only person that the police have cleared. Like I said in the beginning, everyone in this case has at least two sides. Is Casey the sweet, caring boyfriend who is head over heels for Rebecca that his friends describe, or the care bear psycho that Danielle talked about. I get a call from someone who has been following the case and the podcast. He dated Rebecca shortly before her murder and had an interaction with Casey that he can't get out of his head. An ex boyfriend could have an ax to grind, so we have to check his story carefully, but a quick call with Danielle, Rebecca's sister, confirmed that he did date Rebecca and also confirmed a lot of the details. He mentions, well, and at a club, it's no longer open and fathful, and a girlfriend of mine introduced me and are together. We dated for I guess it was like three or four weeks. Probably it was like a month or two before she got killed. I thank our first date was pretty much like I went to we were going to go lix store, have a few trains, and you know, it was just hanging out and it was me and her and her sister and her sister at their house. Well, we left and we went to one liquor store and it was sposed, so we went to the other one and it was both. So we ended up just drinking what we had. I mean, because that's the others today. Back, I was like my backgrounds and drank beer. Like most of the men in Rebecca's life, he was smitten, but it didn't take him long to realize their relationship could not go further because there was someone causing drama in Rebecca's life, and that someone was Casey Casey was not like he was just apparently she had like slipped him one time and he just was like blisk and she just wanted to be friends. Well he had like showed up there just out of the blue, but he I ended up being like civil whipping and stuff. And at the end of the night we were all getting ready to like to go to bed and stuff, well he was just standing like he would not leave, just not leave. It was like very uncomfortable, and like they like went outside and talked for a second. Like he was just falling and crying and just like emotionally just straw over everything. Like I was fixing on leave. I was just like, screw this, I'm going back home. I ain't got time to deal with this trauma. And I was like, your boy out there is fixing the freak out and if he comes in there starting anything, then on the handle. And he's like, no, I'll take care of it. If he does, he'll be fine. I was like, here he is, you know, acting the pool. I'm like, look, man, I'm just gonna shut you down right now. Like if you can want to go, we can go. Otherwise you need to keep your mouth shut because you don't found me, Like, I mean, she was like all the time, he was like constantly showing up where she was, wanting to know where she was, Like I just wanted to know where she was at twenty four seven, just controlling, and I guess he had done that to a couple other people and they didn't really want to like put up with it or deal with it, so they just kind of like backed off. But every time we was together, he was constantly pulling her phone up, like messaging her like where are you at, what are you doing? Who you with? I mean, it was just it was just not very overly possessive of her for them just being friends, which I know she stayed with him on and off, but she would say there because it was close to where she worked and she didn't have to drive all the way backs nowt but there, I mean, he was just emotional, like just I mean he falled and cried like he or three times, you know that, not like once whenever he had got there and like found out that me and her was actually going out, you know, somewhere and doing something. And then at the end of the night, like when they went out by it was just he was just like falling in crime and just I mean I just kind of let it go and I was just like, Okay, you know, it was nice meeting you out talking with you. Things don't work out. A holler at me, and I just kind of left at the back. I was like a month or two later, you know, everybody had work knew that I me and her were somewhat dating. That was like, hey, you know her boyfriend and like her boyfriend like she was with Casey. I was like, that's our boyfriend. And she's like, well she's missing, and I'm like what. Just his demeanor and everything, like he's controlling. You can tell he's just really that sheid when she looked up to the way her dad was and like what he had and what he had accomplished, and like, you know, she's like, I want to be successful in my life. I want to do this, I want to do that. Like she had so much schedules and dreams and ambition. She was just stuck between that babe of like growing up and you know, actually accomplishing things and doing things that she wanted to do, and then being stuck into you know, being young dom and you know, having fun. As he talks about a relationship with Rebecca, a picture of what she was going through at the time of her murder begins to emerge. Rebecca was trying to play down her relationship with Casey. She thought of Casey as a friend with a crush. He was her past, not her future. He's also like very shy and timid, right, you know, like his personality, like I mean he's going to be loud about something like he was that night, and then once I shut him down, he was just like, Okay, I don't want to cross them lines because you know, I don't think he's in enough fire or anything whve either. And I mean I wasn't too worried about him because he was very you know, shining timid. You know, I deal with the ex strama before with you know, other people that I tell you, and I just wasn't really wanted to deal with that. I even think I went up to sing It one time after we started dating to talk to him, and he wouldn't come out and talk to me because the guys from Mark would go up there and eat and stuff. And I guess he had been up there running his mouth about me, saying he's going to beat my at and just done this and he was gonna have at and one day after work, I just went up there and I was like, hey, you in, we got a problem. He's like no, and he's just running right back inside. I mean, I just want to see something that I can't believe it's just gotten. I mean, it just kind of got very like you heard a lot about it when it first happened, like she was missing, everybody find her. And then once they found her, it's like everything just kind of went hush hush, like they didn't release no information. They didn't. Really. The only thing that I remember them releasing was that Casey had been clear. That's the only thing that's absensive as he was, is she left like he's supposed like they say he's supposedly she's supposedly left and went to college and he didn't hear from her, and he would be flipping out that night. He wouldn't be out partying and drinking. I' tell you that right now, just from his demeanor. He's not going to be out partying drinking and be like, oh you know, I mean because obviously he went home the next day, you know whatever. I mean, it's me, it's just don't it don't make sense. Wish you the best and just you know, I mean, just be careful of the people that you're around up there. I mean, it's just a bunch. I mean, it's such a small town. I really wish I could get Casey to talk. We have two questions that need answering. One did Casey go home at any point between the murder and work the next day? And two, how did Casey get to his friend's house after work? We need to lock in what Casey was doing on the day Rebecca was murdered, because we're hearing conflicting stories about his timeline and his relationship with Rebecca. But one of his co workers must know something, so we focus on tracking down one of Casey's friends who also worked at Sonic, the same friend he was out all Monday night with Laren. He was pretty easy to find because it's not like Laren is a common name in the area. He suggests meeting at a Starbucks and Little Rock near where he lives. I didn't talked to him a couple of years. When my mom's always like, I saw Casey at the Dollar Story, and when I'm doing well, he's yeah, he's married now, Yeah, Laren is huge, six foot nine. When he smiles, he looks like the kind of guy I would want to have a beer with. But he's also very physically intimidating. And then once we started working together, me and Casey got real close. There's history there with basketball, and then music was what me and Casey were, you know, we really connected about right, he was what he was, but he was a great musician, and I love music, and you know, I wasn't so inclined at the time. But what we're Rebecca in Casey like was a couple of I'm a very lovely dovey, I'm very just sickening, you know, that kind of thing, like if you did yeah, yeah, and gosh they and it was, like we said, we were like be guarded because he seemed more in her than she wasn't him just being honest, you know, But she also seemed like she was just trying to start fresh, like she was trying to get away from all that shit, and she really was that they as a couple, they were just doinggether. I mean, I can't even that's what I sink. Trying thing yesterday too, Like my mind's been racing for the last twenty four hours trying to remember like little stuff, and you know, I can't. I couldn't remember how long they've been together when that happened. I can't remember. I can't remember when I was told that she had been murdered, like where I was or what we was doing. I remember the investigators and then I remember, you know, of course, you know, us trying to you know, minute by minute break down the day the day before. What did the investigators asked, Bess, you know, like, what what did you guys do? They were more interested and I'm pretty sure having all of us sit down and went that night and telling them the story or make sure it wasn't something that we were blowing smoke or whatever, you know, because it took them a little while to get the camera and the receipts and all that stuff. They were more about the night, you know, wanting to know where case he was, did he ever leave at anytime? You know, did stuff like that? You know, and you know, obviously we all slept that night eventually, so I mean that was another thing. It's that I like, is it possible that I could have got up in the middle of the night, left my house and then come back in the amount of time that we were asleep, and I just don't think it was possible. All of us had pretty loud vehicles, and at my place, we'd like to be able to hear people coming and going. We were always praying touch and that's another thing. They were like, you do. They're like, look, we're like, just be transparent. We don't give a shit about weed. We're not trying to bunch a bunch of teenagers mo weed, like you know, obviously we're trying to you know. Yeah, we uh, we all had a good time together. But it was God. So I just one more time. That was so the day of the day was not happened Monday, So you guys left work that was on Monday. When we got home, we would have watch wrestling Man, so we would have probably been up a little later. See, wasn't with you guys? Then you wrote with Philip, I think so, I think because I don't think the car at the time. I know, I know, for whatever reason, he was without vehicle. Where was Casey's truck? And if Rebecca drove him to work, how was he planning on getting home? I remember specifically didn't have vehicle because when we got back home and he started saying like, man, I can't get ahold of Rebeck. I'm kind of worried about it. We were all like, dude, let's just go to bed. She's fine, because we would have had to taste, which we probably should have, or maybe we would have walked in and got murdering on it. Do you remember what time y'all went to bed that night? It seemed like we watched a normal like seven o'clock movie, came back when we probably did our things. We uh, probably midnight one. I mean, it's a normal night. I'd have to just guess on a normal night, because I you know, I was he like, he seemed totally normal that night or no, I don't think like because, like I said, it seemed like, see, this is the part where it's like I don't I'm just trying to remember it that way or if that's the way it was. But it seemed like there was like an understanding that she was about to have a confrontation that was gonna be something that she was that He was like, I hope it goes well. Something like that kind of looming, Like, you know, she had some things she had to take care of, that's why she had the truck, and she was gonna try to I don't know that, and I don't want to say that, and then that be you know, the off. But I feel like that's what I remember. Laren doesn't remember a whole lot. And to be fair, it has been fourteen years. In my experience as an investigator, people tend to remember specific detail around crucial events in their lives. But Monday started out. It's just an average day. There's no way I could say intelligently who worked No fair enough, I mean, is there any way like if one y'all wanted to take time off during the day, you could have I mean all the time, like hey I need to go run do something. I'm sure we were all really close. So if it was like I need to go do something, sure whatever. You know what time did Casey finish? Usually at some point he went to just days, like he didn't want to work nights anymore. But that was the nature of the store. Was like you sometimes like your schedule could look like this Monday, you could open at seven and get off at one or two. You could come in Tuesday eleven to four. You could go four to close on Wednesday, you could come back in six to sixty ten on. It was just always but Casey eventually got to where he just just worked days, you know, and he was you know, he was as far as Goods and Sonic go, and he was one of them. He was one of the best we had, you know, so we always had him in the prime times. Once we left the store, I know for a fact that he was never anywhere but with us, right and the moments leading up to that, which I'm pretty sure she dropped him off, but if she, if he worked that morning, she would have dropped him off that morning, yes, with his truck, and then he would have worked, and then he would have waited for one of us to go off work to roll out to my place, and then we would have went out. But I can't remember how he got to our house. And also I don't remember why we went back to my house, because we could have just left and went to walk, had hit to baseball. But it may have been a change small tunes. But I do know that for a fact we was wound up back at my place, then back to Batesville, and then back to my place, and he was with us, you know, the whole time. And then we slept and he got up the next morning and left. But uh, I don't want to say, Philip, I don't think I worked that morning. The next morning. For some reason, I seem to recall like watching him and leave. You know, I was excited when you called because I want to get, you know, closer to this. But that's how it's gonna happen, is now going back piece of things together, things that you didn't think were important, because when it happens, you know, you can't focus on I don't know, I watched too many shows. You've seen me a few people. It's a tough one. Yeah. And then when you allow yourself to be objective, like you know, moving, you know, going forward to remove myself from you know, Casey being one of my best friends ever, you start to think like wow, you know, and I mean that's it too. Is you got to know where that is to get to it. Have you ever been there? Yeah, I'm sure you have. I mean, just driven Bob, and it's that was another thing that got me and I know we're chasing rabbits. I've got I've got all the time in the world. See. That was another thing was if you look at like if you know that area well enough, if you're if you're from Mountain View, why I go back through Melbourne to where they found your body? You know, Like I mean maybe like if they see me going through Mountaine they're gonna fuck with me because they always do. You know, maybe I'd rather go through Melbourne or you know, or is it because you know, like did they go through Mountain View and then come all the way back around because they're like, well, that's an obvious place. Honestly, like you said, have more, that's an obvious place to dump a body. The two towns Laren is referring to are Melbourne and Mountain View. What he is explaining is in order to dump the body, if the killer was from Mountain View, he or she was going out of their way. You never know. There's so many places out there that I can think of three or four different places that we partied on Highway nine, you know, just places that you wouldn't know unless you knew, you know, like old cabins off in the middle of nowhere then you know, but they so you think it wasn't a good spot to it. No, But I mean I'm from that area, said that's always like probing every gonna kill somebody. I've got them in the sharp mind of God. You know, I'm just saying, like there's there's more, says the River. Yeah they but that just I just I don't know. I find that weird that because I've always felt and had the belief that it was somebody from Mountainew, somebody from that old click. But yeah, but why I go back through Melbourne? You know? I mean, was you trying to get to that spot? I mean, if so, that's probably the quickest way. But if you're from Mountainew, everybody goes back to Mountain View through God, if you're on the Gune Road, yeah, it's quicker, it's more secluded. You know. I've just always looked at that and thought there might be something there, Like why go through Melbourne? Did they or you or anybody ever? Like party at Casey's house? No, actually see his dad I think was driving a truck or something. Yeah, Like I really didn't even know where he lived for like the longest time. So because he just didn't live, there was his dad's place, you know, so he would stay with Patrick or you know whoever. You know, And even to this day, I think I've been in that place one time, and it was the time that I met his dad, and I want to say that was before all that. Laren claims to have been one of Casey's best friends at the time and he didn't even know exactly where Casey lived at the same time. Like I said, it was kind of a rare thing for us to get him away, like like because he was so involved, you know. So I remember thinking like, all right, Casey's going out, you know, you know, now your own party. Since it was, you know, such a rare thing. Was it planned to be that way? You know, it's pretty shit think about it when start watching these shows, you know, yeah, so yeah, it's pretty clear he went through me, and that's pretty It's just the mystery is, like, who in the world would do that at someone else's house and then clean up? That's the really weird That's that's one of the weirdest things about it. Case they cleaned up, so I was left the miss and that's how they found out. Like if I'm telling this story to somebody, a friend of mine, now, I say she was murdered and they had a piano leg miss and I said that what we heard was that she was for the longest time is that she was beat to death so bad that there was enough blood that went through the mattresses, through the floorboards into the underpinning of the trailer, and that there was a piano leg missing and you could tell where somebody had drug a body out the door. And then later we heard that it was a gunshot that killed her out Oddly enough, this is actually the first I'm hearing of a gunshot. So like that's I was like, I don't know, that's what I tell my friends. I don't really know how, you know, how it all went down, but I said it was brutal whatever happened, you know. I mean, did case you ever talk to you about who you thought did it? I'm sure, like I'm trying to think, like, at some point it becomes something that we just didn't bring up because it was like it and it's not to be mean, but at some point it was like and you don't want to say, like, ghet over, but at some point, you know, you just get to be like, look and why bring it up if it's just going to be this thing, you know, this thing you know, And so it became this thing that nobody talked about, you know, because we just wanted Casey to feel you know, to feel better, like you know, we want him so bad for him to that's like why why Whenever you know he meant, we were like thank god, yeah, you know. But then now I'm glad he's with you. Yeah, that's good, that's great, it's great. It's just crazy how you can feel so passionately, but when someone's taken from me, it's different. But you can feel so passionately about somebody and then it just wind up not doing right. You know. Listen, thank you, no, no, please you. If you think of something, I want to run it by me and make me think it's more helpy. I find it odd the various ways Rebecca in Casey's relationship has been portrayed. I hear from her sister that she wanted to break up. I hear from his close friends they were inseparable. And I hear from a relatively neutral party that he was obsessed and couldn't leave her alone. You're listening to Helen Gone, We'll be right back talking with Laren. I find he's frustrated with how significantly the fourteen years has fogged his memory. But we keep talking shockingly, Laren tells me that he was never brought back in for questioning after Rebecca's body was found. It's also incredibly frustrating that in a case where everything hinges on an alibi, so many details of the timeline were vague. Since this interview, we've received the official police statements from some of Casey's friends who were with him on the day Rebecca was murdered, and since Laren was one of them, his statement helps us clear up some questions we have about the timeline. Casey's truck was parked in Batesville and they all drove Casey to pick it up, so we can reasonably believe that Casey had his truck on Monday night and into Tuesday morning. Laren also says that they left Sonic at around four pm. We know that Rebecca dropped Casey off that morning, and we had always heard that Casey told police she was planning on going back to school. That's why he went out with his friends that night and stayed out all night. But if that's the case, why was he telling his friends that Rebecca was supposed to pick him up and never showed. I also can't get the last sentence of Laren's statement, out of my head, it said, when we returned from Batesville, Casey used my phone. After he hung up, he stated that Rebecca was missing. That's when it really seemed odd that he didn't head straight out the door to find her. Taylor and I have both been working day and night to try to contact every single person who may have been at Sonic that day. Okay, So I just talked to Bruce and he confirmed that he was working at Sonic that day and Casey was a cook. And he said the cooks went on their shift between eight and nine am, and he remembered Rebecca dropping Casey off at work because he knew her. He said, he the last thing that happened, he dropped, she dropped, pulled in, Casey gets out, she drops him off. He said. She waved at him, and that's the last time I ever saw her. She drove off. And he said that Casey's shift would have ended at about one between one and two, but that means he could have left as early as one. Casey was on the early shift that Monday, which meant that his shift would have ended between one and two pm. But Larrence said that the group didn't leave Sonic until later at around four. Now, Bruce did say, you know, the cops came around, and he said, if he left, you would have had to clock out because you know where you clock in and out's right next to my desk. But then he went on to say, when I was asking how Casey got a ride home because he said Rebecca, he confirmed Rebecca dropped him off that day, and he's like, well, you know that town, everybody's friends, everybody gives everybody lifts. Like so if it's that easy to get in and out and you know, drive around, then yeah, I mean, it would have been so easy for him to get a lift from anybody. I asked him the important questions about Casey. He didn't volunteer a huge amount. He did answer them. He didn't volunteer a huge amount. I know, they're really good friends, he said that. I mean, I'm sure now, I'm sure this is going to get back to Casey. He will now he'll know that we're asking when he clocked in when he clocked out. According to police, Casey's alibi was air tight, but our investigation has poked some holes in that alibi. First, the timelines and the statements that Casey's friends gave to police were vague, so there could have potentially been missing time in the afternoon. Secondly, Bruce told me that he would have seen Casey if he clocked out, but Laren, Teresa, and other Sonic employees have all told me that Bruce went in and out all the time. Finally, Casey lived just a few miles away from Sonic, just a ten minute ride down the dirt road cutthrow we took, and Laren said that it was not uncommon for the employees to unofficially clock out to run errands. This means that there could potentially have been time unaccounted for in the morning. Well, I'm still kind of confused as to why she had to have been murdered around like ten am. Time of death. I'm not a pathologist, but just from like reading a lot of autopsies and the pathologists I talked to, I know time of death is very difficult to determine, even under the best circumstances when the body's found right away, and it's partly based on when the person was seen lest anyway, according to the auto occurring to the physical evidence, I just cannot believe he would have literally had to be. In order for him to be ruled out in this killing, he would have had to have every single moment of his day documented on camera from Monday morning and through to the next day. We've now talked to Teresa, a car hop who not only was a friend of Rebecca's, she knew Jennifer and Casey. We've talked to Bruce, the manager on duty that day, and Philip Laren's roommate. We're starting to get their individual stories and piece together the details from that day. As we do, we hear something we've never heard before. Someone mentions that they heard Casey dropped his truck off at Sonic on Sunday evening and drove home with Rebecca. This detail floors me. How the hell did his car get to Batesville and how did he get back? So, according to the official statements, Casey's friends drove him to pick up his car in Batesville on Monday afternoon. So if Casey's truck was at Sonic Monday morning, how did it get to Batesville by that afternoon. According to the police statements, Casey told his friends that his father drove his truck to Batesville. But we had always heard that his father, who was a trucker, was on the road that day. The mystery of the truck has like bothered all of us so much since the beginning because at the end of the day, even the question about where it was for the next few days has bothered me. Because Charlie said that Casey didn't have his truck at Sonic the next day. The whole reason he was ruled out is because he was supposedly had no transportation and was there all day. So the minute you start saying, okay, he wasn't there all day, and actually he did have transportation, and his transportation mysteriously, you know, was in Batesville by that afternoon unless someone drove his truck. This is a huge piece of the puzzle. According to the police, Casey was the prime suspect at the beginning of the case. He was only ruled out due to his air tight alibi. That alibi hinged on two factors, that he was at work all day and that he did not have transportation. If Casey had his truck at work, that changes everything. The more we dig into Casey's timeline, the more questions we have, and unfortunately Casey won't answer them. We'll be right back. I'm shopping in Walmart, one of the few places in town with cell phone reception. When I get a text message. It's a potential witness. I'm looking at Turkey decoys and guns and people in camouflage gearing up for hunting season, and my hands are shaking as I read it. He says he knows Casey and has something he needs to tell me. When I get back to the car, I call him. Because he knows Casey, he doesn't want to be identified, so we've disguised his voice. Well, oh hi, I just got your textess, Catherine. Yeah, no, I mean, like I said, our whole I mean, we just want to find the person who did it. We're not you know what I mean. We're not. We don't care about anything else. This manam me and Casey and a Ghani probably tell you the same story. And I can be in prison right now. But and on like four different occasions were good. I mean I know four for sure. We were Casey were drinking too thanne and just bopen I mean not, I mean, not ligerant drunk, just crime blurderent. He he said that he killed her and and y'all didn't find the weapon. Fact, Well, the police haven't shared any information with me, but we've found a lot of you know, we've gotten a lot of information. Did he say where the weapon was? He said, he proved in the river on the way to the Highway nine from dying. And this happened like like I said, four times I can remember. And then one day he was just something that been wrong for three or four day yere and he just put in hisself and when he wasn't drunk this night and he said the same thing he said that his story was. And I didn't really think much about it until I heard. I didn't know that she's gonna it was a blunt ob check, like it was. I never knew any things. And she he said that pretty much that she was telling him that this would be the last time that he saw her, or she'd be last last time to see him. Look go, they were, I guess coming to him and I didn't know he didn't know her personally, but they got into it and she said some offensive thanks time. The way he said it, he just lost it and he said, next thing he knows, he's cleaning stuff up. And he said they almost had him, but they couldn't because they thought the timeline was different because he was supposedly at work when that happened. But he said they had the timeline mixed up on him. Did he say he went home from worker? He didn't know, man, he did not say that. I just didn't know if he was just blowing smoke. But it bothered me for a long time. But here the last few weeks because I saw that think something on Facebook, Thames who's killed her back and you come on the radio and it just kind of sitting back to him there. Well, listen, I mean, I so appreciate you doing it, and I know, I mean, I'm just been thinking about their in the mind. I'd probably want, you know, closure, and I know that he's your friend, and I know that it's got to be hard, and I really really appreciate it. I mean, if we do have to go to the police with us, would you be willing to come with us? I've got a bad history of the police here. I probably could in No, I mean, my dad is a really good guy and he's a deputy sheriff, and then there's the Arkansas stateful and you know, just so you don't have to go in in Melbourne, if they come down there and I had to. I mean, the thing that really got me was because I never knew. I didn't know how they killed it. I had no clue. Sure. And then somebody I was at my new job and they were talking about and they said if the cop said it was on an object, because I always thought case case, he was just bullshiting me. Never I thought he's you know, he's just just blowing smoke. And now when he said he hit her with it's a wooden object. I know that much. And it would or like a baseball bath, not not a baseball bath, but you know, stay logistics. He on his way, he stopped on the guying bridge and threw it out. Wow, I don't know how you prove it. I mean, I mean, I'm just saying. He said that more than once to this and like I said, it's bothered me for a while. Well now I'm gonna have to go to the police with it, just because I have to. I mean what I mean, I would really love it if we could go together. So that's why I mean I want to. I know he's your friend and know it's hard, but like I want to get you know, this person caught this man. All right, well listen, thank you so much. As investigators, we can't draw conclusions from a single witness. So this may not be the evidence that's needed to finally close this case, but it might be the evidence that blows it wide open. I'm Katherine Townsend and this is Helen Gone. Helen Gone is a joint production between How Stuff Works and School of Humans. It is written and recorded by me, Catherine Townsend. Taylor Church is our producer and story editor. Audio editing and designed by Jonathan Sleeve, mix engineer Glenn Mattulo, audio mixing and love by Tunewelders. Executive producers Brandon Barr and Else Crowley for School of Humans and Connell Byrne and Chuck Bryant for How Stuff Works. Our field producer is James Morrison. Our researcher is Sandy Klosterman. Them and original score by Ben Solee available wherever you get your music. To dig into the investigation, please visit hellangonepodcast dot com or follow us on social media. School of Humans