This podcast is intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is advised. Were you at Wild Bill's 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 not able to get into a club like that. For one. For two, I didn't get I had a driver's license while I was 18, so I definitely wasn't there driving. My hair wasn't 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 Polno months ago that he was fairly confident the 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 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 her 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 in shape than Heather's tattoos. Though Bob did have two informants ID the woman as Heather, I'm not convinced, nor is Mike rising, and even Bob Polnot has come to question if it's Heather. Recently, Heather reached out to me.

From Waveland, I'm Sean Kuype, and this is Drowning Creek.

My main thing is I just want to clear my name from anything. I'm not involved, don't know anything. I have leverage, 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 leverage.

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. I definitely would share any information that I had. For for that matter. But unfortunately, I don't know anything of good information. It's all here for say. It's all this or that. Nothing solid. I have a son as well, so this hits home for me. If 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 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, did he say anything? Did you guys discuss that?

He came home and he told me that he failed, and he was extremely upset, and he was crying for two or three days. I think he was scared.

I think he was scared of what was going to happen to him because he failed it, not because... I am telling the truth, but they said, I failed. It wasn't like that.

It was more like, 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. 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 Polnoh, 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 Justin 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 came downstairs because Andy went down and was going to see what was going on with all the ruckets. The yelling, the loud, the... I was to stay upstairs in the office. I looked out the window because I heard a vehicle running. I look out. The van is crunked up. The truck, I believe, was running. I couldn't see no other vehicle. I commenced to go downstairs because the engine didn't come right back up, and it got louder. I could tell it moved to the garage because of the way it connected the floor. When I come out and I go to this door instead of the other one, the garage door is up. When you go to this door here, garage door is right here, and you got the parking lot right there. Then you got the car here, the garage. When I come in, everything was chaotic.

Tammy says When she entered the garage, it was chaotic. She saw three people.

Leon, Justin, and Marty.

Remember, Marty's the man who would eventually be charged with concealing a 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.

He wasn't talking to you. He was trying to get me in a joke. He was joke in the mouth trying to break his neck. And that's when New York, and then Dylan come around. He is. And he I came back for the gun. When Leon was going down with him, and I was trying to get him. Then Dylan come around and then Dylan, and he went for the gun. When Leon was going down with him, and I was trying to get him. Then Dylan came around and then Dylan, and he was talking about? Roll it up. Roll it up in the place. The band's gone down.

Tammy's very emotional here, and at points, it might be hard for you to hear or understand her. But she states that 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 Tommy's words, to break his neck. Then Dylan and New York came into the garage from around the side of the house, and New York says to roll him up in the plastic.

When you paint a house, the rolls kept. He used to get the big rolls, and he always kept him in the garage and the airplane.

When asked who helped Leon roll Justin up in the plastic, through tears, Tammy says, My son and Marty. 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. 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 still and Leon was still. Dylan went in his pocket. He took his ear in and he was fighting with Leon. They were coming out of his pocket, the dope and the I don't know what else it was. When I say went in his pocket or what have you, I didn't literally see him in his pocket. What I seen was Dylan over leaning over cussing Leon. Dylan and Leon got to have in words as Marty and Leon still trying to do all this here. They're telling Dylan to come on and help, and New York's cussing him out, and New York's cussing them out as he's going out. In his pocket and goes around the corner. I was already heading back upstairs then. I heard him when they shut the van doors and me and Randy was upstairs at this time. 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, He had been by there before.

I had seen him. He had been there by the dope before. He was wide, he was a big boy. He was a big boy. He worked out and stuck. Off the ball player or something. He was huge.

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 house boat, 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.

I was in the bedroom on the houseboat, splattered around the closet, the walls, and there was three fingers on the seat.

He said, Just mop the floors. I'm getting them done anyway. He had every floor stripped out up there and replaced with hard wood. But he didn't have a watch. I'll just put another coat on there. Get the though light. And you take the black light thing and you go in there and then you could see stuff, blood.

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 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 overheard 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.

I wanted to speak to you all. I'm tired of my life being like that. I'm tired of laying that feeling like I feel sorry for that boy's family. I don't know if it's helpful to you all or not, but I want to help you all.

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 scared, man. I have people looking at me like that. I ain't that person, man. Yeah, I might have tattoos on my face. I had a boy show on my neck, but that's been there way before that situation ever even happened. I'm not that person anymore, man. I'm tired of being like that. I'm tired of feeling like that. Now, what I like to say, I want to know what I got to do. I I want to bring him, man, family peace. When he said, I don't mind, I don't see anybody, man. I want to bring his family peace. I believe Leon did that, man. But I'm going to halt him.

This sounds like something Dylan has said to me, that he wants to bring Justin's family peace. He says throughout this 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 know you all. I know they've been watching me. I know I've been investigated since everything been happening. I know people watch me. You all aren't stupid. You all aren't intelligent people. I already know this. Well, if you notice, ever since that happened, My behavior, my lifestyle, everything has been the same. I'm not going to lie. I'm a wrong person. If selling drugs is wrong, I know it is. I sell drugs, I might fight. But I ain't no killer, I never killed nobody in my life, man. If you watch Leon, if you watch his behavior, everything that happened, the man just all of a sudden, he just disappeared. He don't hang with nobody no more. He's a whole different person since then.

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 feels confident that he knows what happened that night.

Truthfully, that night, I met Leon at a Walmart. It's on video camera. They already knew that he wanted to go to a club. I stole a half I'm to cope from a dude right here in Monroe. I told him I said, Shit, why don't go to clubs? Honestly, I want to take a polygraph to him for us all, said and done, to show that was family, that it wasn't me that whole time.

Again, Dylan states he didn't to 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.

They were acting shady to me. I was trying to do dope with him. I was trying to get geeked up with him and part of him, and I'm not allowed. But that night, he told me, he was acting real funny. He said he were going up there. So I told him, I said, Shit. I said, Cool. What are you going to do after that? I said, Let me come with you. I said, Let's just go to your daddy's house and boy. He's like, No, no, no. I got something going on.

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 of how 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 a girl's voice in the background. I didn't ever see no girl. There was a girl in that truck. I don't, I'll be a lie. I know what we put in. I'll tell you. I'll tell you, I know. Oh, it's this person in there. I don't know. Probably. Yeah. There was a female in that fucking car with the folks, man. When they pulled up. How do you know that? He seen him. Okay, I see. All right. She's back there with him. With Justin Gaines.

Dylan says when they pulled up, Justin Gaines was in the back seat with a blonde girl. Everything appeared to be fine at that point.

He was in the front path seat. The Lyon's in the drive seat. They were kicking it. What's that going on? What's that wrong? You feel what I'm saying? They pulled back there. There's a neighborhood right behind my mom's house. You tell me right.

Dylan tells investigators that New York and Lyon 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 you're going to put the strap on right in there, I didn't land up. For the street? Mm-hmm. Leon had it. They would talk to him. Like, you could see a girl talking in the driver's seat. She goes around getting me driver's seat. I ain't going to lie. I was finna go back there, but I was standing on the corner of the street. I looked, I was like, Oh, a seat. I ain't. The main thing I know, I run back to the garage. See, I ain't ever want to say that shit because I didn't want to fuck Andy anymore. You know what I mean? I didn't want a bunch of people to get fucked over. You know what I mean? They put up in the mom's garage, man. Being in the back seat with him. He was in the front seat, got to piss him off. That girl driving that car. I don't know who she is, man. He was like, Yeah, he alive. Leon choked him.

When they return shortly after, Justin was being choked by Leon in the back seat. Dylan describes Justin at this point.

He was coming out of his mouth and shit in the back seat. Okay. Like his face was red as hell. But he was awake. He was not dead. He was awake.

Now, this is a different story than we previously heard in Tammy's audio.

He's going to drive in New York. He's going like this. You know what I'm saying? I'll tell Andy, why be back? I got him, man. I got him. Tell Andy, I got him. He's like, Shit, come on, come on. So they got it about it up. To be honest with you, it fucked up. But they tried to take Andy's van. It's a white van. No windows in the back. They tried to take me. I went up there and asked him. He wasn't going for that shit. He was like, No, you all are getting up. I'm sick. He started yelling and shit. I wanted to leave with them because he started freaking out on me. You know what I mean? So I'm like, Man, fuck that. We all got into it. So she had my mama crying and shit. So I go down upstairs, go through the goddamn basement.

He says that New York wanted to use Andy's van at this point, but Andy refused.

They leave. They were kicking him. Left in what? They're trailblazer. They were traveling. They didn't leave. Skirt out, dry out. They were having them on a mailbox of an souvenir, that thing. I had to go out there and fix it. They'd pull out. They go to the right on Parkwood Road, going to a 124. They So I'm kicking. I knew some weird shit going on now, but I don't see people get raw before, you feel what I'm saying? So this shit wasn't much to me. I know we were going to lay down this bullshit, man. I know I have a lot of work to call police. You know what I'm saying? I might have robbed a lot of people, man. Not like this. Shit, just dropped them for shit, man. They don't lead that far. They don't get to bullshit like that.

Dylan 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 is told that he can't stay. He says that Leon looked crazy, and New York told him, Shit's rough right now. You got to 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 back to Andy's house because they had nowhere else to go.

Dylan says that out of curiosity, he checks out the area where Leon in New York had allegedly robbed Justin on that dead-end street nearby.

I will not to you, Mike. I walked back to you, man. I walk back into that neighborhood, where that shit was going on. I don't know what I did, man. I just wanted to look. I really want to know what's going on out there. I walk back there. There's an earring on the ground. It was a pack of Marlborough Reyes. Right there, probably about two-foot feet from each other. I'm going to lie to you, man. I peed the earring, I'm going to put it on. He started in the middle.

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 02:05 PM. Dylan's then-girlfriend stated that he and Shane arrived back at the house around 12:00 PM, leaving a couple of 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 and 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, that Bridget 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.

If I had these stories from people telling you all about me with truth, I would have been about that one, man. Something terrible wrong with Leon, man. He had no reason to change like that. He ain't dead. What the hell he changed for? Well, I heard. I think Leon killed that boy, man. Leon put that boy somewhere, but he won't tell nobody, man. Leon is a very aggressive person, man. He ain't what he makes himself out to be. Leon ain't innocent like people think he is. He's been very aggressive, man.

Leon has 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.

New York do a lot of evil things. Now, he'll kill him. I don't believe he had nothing to do with Justin Gaines.

But in 2014, 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 you 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? Well, 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. The Innocence Project said that of 258 DNA exonérations they have handled, nearly 30% involved a false confession. In an interview with the American Psychological Association, world-renowned professor of psychology, Saul Kassin, discussed several reasons why false confessions occur and the psychology behind it. Kassin 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 grandeour 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 Kassin, 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 boy Justin James. That's not the type of person that he would associate with. Them police, them investigators, they have harassed me so much. They have took so much of my time, my life. They wanted not just me, but multiple people to tell lies. All done. They wanted us to admit to something that he didn't do just so he could go to prison for it. They wanted to see him gone.

In all of Dylan's interviews, he doesn't place the blame for Justin's death on himself, but instead on New York or Lyon, depending on which interview you're listening to. 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 Money's, Chino's, and a whole host of other people believe 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, were teenagers 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 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, New York squad right beside him. Who took the picture? I did. Where is that picture? I don't know who. It's on New York's phone. Whatever he did with that phone, whoever he gave that phone to. There was a picture of New York and that boy laying right there. He squatted down, sitting like that, looking dead at him, with a sweat on, man. Looking dead at you. You're Justin Yates, though. I don't know. I'd be a lot. I ain't going to see that. You know what I'm thinking about like that, bro? You see some shit like The first thing in your mind or in your heart, you want to leave. You don't want to be there. You know what shoes he had on? When he was missing a shoe. Out of crazy, I seen him alive, man. What are you doing? You see that? Like he shot a deer or something instead of a human being. But shit look so weird. Home don't look dead. He does not look dead, man. It's like a game. It's like a joke. Like Shit, like a motherfucker pose. Was he swelled up or anything?

No. Looked the same. Look the fucking same. Had his eyes open still. He looking dead at the down phone, man. But he never moved his eyes. He never moved. He was dead. He had to be. I ain't a lot, bro. I ain't never seen 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 Kolp. 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 info@shaunkype. Com. 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. You can also find me on social media @shawnkipofficial or at shaunkype. Com.hawnkip. Com. As always, thanks for listening.