somequestions, I agree with you and wondered the same thing regarding the "mud" found on the car. I had posted in the now inaccessible original thread #3, a picture of the car at the location it was found on Herring Avenue. Instead of caked on mud it looks like normal road dirt to me but I think the soil could still offer possibilities and help rule out other locations. Looking at Google Maps, the soil at the ice plant at the end of Depot Lane kind of looks similar to what is on the car, light, sandy colored. Other posters have said that there is often ice left out to melt at the ice plant and that could be the origin of the dirt on the car. I know there is mention of dirt on one or both of the girls pant legs and at there is a picture of one of their legs in the trunk but I can't locate it now. I'm not sure if anyone has indicated if the soil on the car was comparable to what was on their pant legs. I'm attaching a shot of the car also.
AL AL - J.B. Beasley, 17, & Tracie Hawlett, 17, Ozark, 31 July 1999 #3
- Thread starter Jimb
- Start date
- Status
somequestions, I agree with you and wondered the same thing regarding the "mud" found on the car. I had posted in the now inaccessible original thread #3, a picture of the car at the location it was found on Herring Avenue. Instead of caked on mud it looks like normal road dirt to me but I think the soil could still offer possibilities and help rule out other locations. Looking at Google Maps, the soil at the ice plant at the end of Depot Lane kind of looks similar to what is on the car, light, sandy colored. Other posters have said that there is often ice left out to melt at the ice plant and that could be the origin of the dirt on the car. I know there is mention of dirt on one or both of the girls pant legs and at there is a picture of one of their legs in the trunk but I can't locate it now. I'm not sure if anyone has indicated if the soil on the car was comparable to what was on their pant legs. I'm attaching a shot of the car also.
TedMac
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2014
- Messages
- 1,699
- Reaction score
- 4,645
Both girls pants were wet from their knees down and there was mud on Tracie's new New Balance shoes. There was also mud on JB's car. LE took mud and dirt samples from at least one location that I am aware of, but have never made the results public.
morf13
Ver. Insider Golden State Killer & Zodiac Killer
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2007
- Messages
- 945
- Reaction score
- 2,539
I saved all of this from the old threads, hope it helps:
1. ON THE WAY TO A BIRTHDAY PARTY
At approximately 10:00 p.m. on the night of Saturday, July 31, 1999, Northview High School incoming seniors J.B. Hilton Green Beasley, 17, and Tracie Jean Hawlett, 17, left their hometown of Dothan, Alabama, together in Beasley’s 1993 black Mazda 929. It was Beasley’s 17th birthday, and the friends were headed to a “field” party for her at the rural home of Beasley’s friend and fellow dancer Janna Hare in Headland, about 10 miles north of Dothan.
Earlier that evening Tracie Hawlett had finished her shift in the menswear department at J.C. Penney, left work shortly after 9:00 p.m., and went home to change clothes before Beasley, of 205 Woodleigh Road in Dothan, arrived to pick her up sometime between 9:45 and just past 10:00 at her house in the Hickory Hill Drive/Rock Spring Road neighborhood in Dothan.
The girls never arrived at the party. Carol Roberts, Tracie Hawlett’s mother, said, “They never found the party. They just couldn’t understand the directions.”
2. LOST
Beasley and Hawlett were spotted in Headland at about 10:30 p.m. Police records show that they stopped at a BP gas station near the intersection of Routes 173 and 431 in Headland, where they used one of two side-by-side pay phones to call friends, probably to get clearer directions to the party or possibly to tell friends they wouldn’t be able to make it: Hawlett’s curfew that night was 11:30 p.m., giving the girls a relatively short night out given their departure time, made all the shorter by their becoming lost.
One hour later, just after 11:30 p.m., Beasley and Hawlett turned up in Ozark -- more than 20 miles northwest of Dothan -- at the Big/Little convenience store-Chevron station located at 763 East Broad Street. The store had closed for the evening. Beasley and Hawlett encountered a woman, Marilyn Merritt, and her daughter, who had stopped to buy a soda; the girls asked for and were provided directions to U.S. Highway 231, which would take them the 20 miles southeast to Dothan. Merritt and her daughter later told police that Beasley’s car was spotless, the girls were clean and nothing seemed awry.
Using the pay phone at the far right end of the store front, Tracie Hawlett then called her mother to say they had gotten lost and wound up in Ozark but had gotten directions and were on their way home. Carol Roberts stated, “Nothing was wrong in Tracie’s voice. It was ‘Mom, I love you. Be home soon.’”
Merritt and her daughter then saw Beasley and Hawlett pull out of the parking lot and turn right toward the highway, as directed. It was the last time Beasley and Hawlett were seen alive.
3. THE NEXT MORNING
Exhausted from a double shift as a nurse's aide at Wesley Manor nursing home, Carol Roberts fell asleep after the call from her daughter. When she awoke at 5:00 a.m., Tracie had not returned. Of Tracie’s failure to return that night, Roberts stated, “Tracie’s never late. I knew that something beyond her control was keeping her from getting home.”
At 8:00 that morning, August 1, 1999, Roberts called Dothan police. Officers started to search for a possible car wreck.
At almost that exact moment, Ozark police officers found Beasley's black Mazda 929 just before 8:00 a.m., parked along Herring Avenue, about 30 yards from the James Street intersection, less than a mile from the pay phone Hawlett had used the night before. Though a residential street, the stretch of Herring Avenue where the car was found is houseless, flanked by dense woods on both sides. It is dark in the daytime and near pitch-black at night.
4. THE CAR
According to police, when the car was initially found, there were no outright signs of foul play. Police say why the girls stopped remains a mystery. They say it doesn't look like someone forced the girls off the road, since there was no damage to the car.
Though undamaged, the car was muddy and almost out of gas despite a fill-up the day before. When police found the car, the driver's side window was rolled down a few inches and the door was unlocked. J.B. Beasley’s driver's license was on the dashboard. The girls' purses were inside the car. It appeared only the car keys were missing.
5. "SOMETHING ABOUT THIS FEELS FUNNY."
Lieutenant Rex Tipton, the chief of detectives with the Ozark Police Department, was contacted by a sergeant at the Herring Avenue scene and told about the discovery.
“I don't know why I'm bothering you," the sergeant said, "but something about this feels funny.”
Tipton told the sergeant to keep an eye on the car, figuring that teenagers may have left it there after a night of partying, which would not have been unusual. The sergeant ran the car's license plates and discovered that it was registered in Dothan, the region's largest city with just under 60,000 people. He contacted police there.
The Dothan police told Tipton they were just then taking a missing person's report from Tracie's parents.
Tipton reiterated his order to keep an eye on the car.
“At that point," Tipton said, "I didn't think about popping the trunk. There was nothing to indicate anything was wrong.”
6. INSIDE THE TRUNK
Hours passed with no sign of the girls. By lunchtime, Tipton had become worried. Dothan police sent an investigator, who planned to have the car towed back to Dothan. As officers waited for a tow truck, the Dothan investigator noticed that he could open J.B.'s trunk with an inside lever; the missing keys weren't needed.
Six hours had passed since the discovery of the car. It was nearing 2:00 p.m. when he popped the trunk:
J.B. Beasley and Tracie Hawlett were inside, each dead from a single 9mm gunshot wound to the head.
7. CRIME SCENE DETAILS
They were clothed and showed few signs of struggle. Hawlett's arm was scratched, her pants had briars, and the $95 New Balance tennis shoes she had bought the week before were covered in mud. First into the trunk, she had been shot once in the temple.
Beasley had been shot once in the cheek. She was noticeably dirty; her shoes were muddy.
Both girls’ pants were wet below the knee.
A single 9mm shell casing rested precariously on Hawlett’s leg.
Robbery was quickly ruled out as a motive when it was confirmed that not only the girls’ purses but also their jewelry, money, and credit cards were all found inside the car.
The only known missing item is Beasley’s key chain, which holds the car’s keys. It is described as having white blocks with black letters that have a heart on one and spell out “HARD2GET.”
An autopsy revealed that the girls had not been raped and had no alcohol or drugs in their bodies.
Authorities were able to determine that the girls had not been murdered where the car was parked on Herring Avenue.
A palm print was recovered from the trunk lid.
More than two months after the crime, a stunning revelation came from state forensics examiners: They found semen on J.B. Beasley’s bra, panties, and skin. Authorities consider this discovery the key to the unsolved murders.
"You have to assume it's a sex offense, or at least came out of a sex offense," said David Emery, the district attorney of Dale and Geneva counties. "If we could find who donated that semen, I think we'll have the killer.”
8. THE STRANGE CONFESSION OF JOHNNY WILLIAM BARRENTINE
At 11:30 p.m. on the night of July 31, 1999, at the same time Tracie Hawlett called her mother from the Big/Little Store pay phone, 28-year-old part-time mechanic Johnny William Barrentine told his young wife that he was headed out to buy milk for the couple’s 2-year-old son.
Barrentine didn’t return home until shortly before 1:00 a.m., and, according to his wife, when he came in he was visibly upset. When asked, he told her his car had been “hit by a black truck with a Dothan tag near Herring Avenue.”
In the days that followed, Barrentine would confide in others that he knew something about the murders of the two teens found on Herring Avenue . “He just said he thought he might know who did it,” said Avalyn Murphy, whose boyfriend, Leon Jordan, encouraged Barrentine to go to authorities and collect the reward.
Barrentine finally took the advice.
On September 1, exactly one month after the bodies of J.B. Beasley and Tracie Hawlett were found, Johnny Barrentine met with police for a four-hour, videotaped interview, ultimately offering six different stories and sometimes placing himself at the scene of the crime.
According to Ozark Police Chief Tony R. Spivey, Barrentine first said that on the night of the killings he'd seen a black truck speeding away from the area where the girls were found.
As the interview wore on, Barrentine changed his story several times, finally telling investigators that he'd picked up a “tattooed man” he didn't know, and the two drove by the Big/Little Store. Barrentine said the man he'd given a ride got into a car with two girls -- who Barrentine identified as “the dead girls” -- and told him to follow. He said they ended up on Herring Avenue. The man got the girls out of the car. Barrentine said he soon heard two gunshots and the man returned. Barrentine gave the man a ride away from the scene, then went home.
In another version, Barrentine confessed to investigators that the man he’d picked up and given a ride home wasn’t unknown to him at all -- it was his neighbor. Alarmingly, Barrentine lived just eight-tenths of a mile from where police found the bodies.
Police arrested Barrentine then and there, naming him the prime suspect and charging him with two counts of capital murder.
But there were problems with his account. He never mentioned sexual activity that would account for the semen found on Beasley. The neighbor he implicated had an alibi for the evening and, like Barrentine, did not match the DNA samples.
Barrentine, whose police mug shot makes him look like he might have just been startled from a slumber, immediately said he'd fabricated the whole story in hopes of scoring some quick cash.
“I didn't see anything,” he later told a grand jury. “I made up everything to get the reward money.”
“He says he was there,” Police Chief Spivey said, explaining what made Barrentine a suspect. “He relayed to us about getting the girls out of the car. One of the girls ran. The girls were combative. The individual placed the girls in the trunk. Two shots were fired. The gunman comes back to the car. Something is in his hand. He drove the gunman outside the city. He returned home.”
In a September 21 preliminary hearing, Alabama Bureau of Investigation agent Charles Huggins testified that Barrentine was able to describe the girls’ clothing and other items consistent with the girls and the crime.
Police Chief Spivey said the district attorney, who was present during the September 1 interview, instructed police to arrest Barrentine. When Barrentine’s arrest was announced at a September press conference, Spivey said police were confident they had arrested the right man.
"What do you do?" Spivey would say later. “If you don't charge him, maybe you just let a killer walk out the door. You're between a rock and a hard place.”
Barrentine was held without bond in the Dale County jail from his September 1 arrest on. In an October 18 bond hearing before Circuit Judge P.B. McLauchlin, Barrentine denied he was involved in the killings, though he had made the earlier statements to police that he watched the two 17-year-olds shot to death by an acquaintance of his who had “tattoos all over his arms.”
Barrentine told McLauchlin that he never picked up a tattooed man and that he didn't see anything the night of the murders. He said he simply went to the BP at about 11:00 p.m. to get milk for his little boy.
Barrentine was denied bond by McLauchlin, who then appointed 36-year veteran lawyer Bill Kominos to represent Barrentine.
Barrentine's friends and family stood by him, professing his innocence to anyone who would listen. “He did not do it,” his mother, Faye Barrentine, adamantly told reporters the day after her son's arrest. "He's not capable of doing it. He has a two-year-old son, and he is not capable of doing anything to hurt a child.”
Kominos would go on to say his client had obviously stumbled into a situation with investigators he wasn't capable of handling. “As a lawyer, you need to take what your client says with a grain of salt sometimes,” he said, speaking in slow, measured tones, his hands held together almost as if he were praying. “But I had a feeling from the very beginning, in viewing the car, in viewing the evidence, I said to myself, ‘No. Johnny Barrentine could not have done this.’”
The police were under intense pressure to make an arrest, Kominos contended. And that pile of reward money kept growing. It grew enough to lure Barrentine in, Kominos said.
“Well, they started. They questioned. And questioned. And questioned. Four hours,” the lawyer said, punctuating each sentence with a moment of silence. “It's all on video and the questions turn from questions to accusations. From accusations to suggestions.”
Barrentine, who had lived in Ozark for several years and was residing at 110 Young Avenue with his wife and son, said he first went to Spivey several days after the murders to tell him of a rumor. He gave Spivey a name and was told that police had already checked out the rumor and that the man Barrentine named was not a suspect.
Also several days after the murder, Barrentine reportedly said, he and his wife and brother-in-law went to the scene on Herring Street where the Beasley car was found. Barrentine said they were looking for something that might help the police solve the case.
Barrentine said he was tired when he told the story to police in the September 1 interview at the police station. He said he was interviewed for more than four hours and was not told he could go to the bathroom or could leave at any time.
Barrentine said police "tricked me" into telling the story.
At one hearing, it was reported that Barrentine finished the seventh grade and a portion of the eighth grade, and that he was in special education courses.
Daleville lawyer Joe Gallo said he didn’t believe police, who were under intense pressure to solve the case, would drop charges against Barrentine if they believed he was remotely involved. Yet Gallo offered no explanation for Barrentine's stories, except to say Barrentine suffered mild mental retardation. "You've got me," he said.
Barrentine's DNA was compared to that of the semen found on J.B. Beasley’s body.
It did not match.
A judge then approved Barrentine's bond request. He was released from jail on Friday, December 17. In January, a Dale County grand jury declined to indict Barrentine.
“Barrentine is living in Daleville now,” Kominos said at the time, “and is trying to pick up the pieces.” Kominos said no physical evidence exists that links Barrentine to the murders.
Police still consider him a suspect, Spivey said, noting that Barrentine is also alleged to have made a jailhouse confession.
Police have said Barrentine could be charged later if new evidence points to him.
9. OTHER SUSPECTS
The Man from Michigan: A man from Michigan who was at a party the night of the murders near where the car was found is also a "very viable" suspect, Chief Spivey said, even after tests failed to match the man's DNA to that found on J.B. Beasley’s clothing. The man, whom Spivey would not name, left town within days of the murders, the chief said, adding that investigators have traveled to Michigan three times to interview him. The man cannot account for three or four hours of his time on the night of the murders, and later made "suspicious" statements to people, Spivey said. He would not elaborate on what he meant by suspicious.
The Driver of the Small White Pickup Truck: A video surveillance camera inside the Big/Little Store caught a grainy, poor quality image of what appears to be a small white pickup truck at the gas pumps at the same time that J.B. and Tracie were at the outside phone calling Tracie's mother. The store had closed, and there was no record of a gas purchase being made at the pump by credit card or debit card at that time, Chief Spivey said. The video never reveals anyone getting out of the truck, and never clearly shows the driver. After releasing a photo of the truck to the media a month into the investigation, no one had come forward to say it was him in the truck. The truck -- and its driver -- seem to have disappeared. “So that may be the key,” Spivey said.
The Man from Mississippi (Presumably ruled out - DNA): In early March 2000, it was reported that a DNA sample taken from a Jones County, Mississippi, man was being compared to samples taken from the body of J.B. Beasley, but Chief Spivey said no factual evidence known at the time linked the man to the brutal murders of Beasley and Hawlett. Spivey said the man, who was extradited from Jones County, had been arrested there on an outstanding warrant for possessions of drug paraphernalia issued in Ozark. The man had been staying in Ozark with relatives but left two days after the murders. Spivey said investigators wanted to question him in connection with the case. “He has been extensively interviewed and DNA samples have been obtained and sent to the forensics lab," Spivey said at the time. "But at this time we do not have any factual information to connect him to this case. We just want to be double sure that he's not involved.”
10. ABOUT THE VICTIMS
J.B. Hilton Green Beasley was born Saturday, July 31, 1982 in Troy, Alabama, to Hilton Lanier Beasley and Cheryl Stout. In 1984, her family moved to Dothan.
J.B. was an All-American Cheerleader in the 8th grade at Carver Middle School. She was active in dance for ten years and was the recipient of numerous dance trophies and awards. She was a member of the First United Methodist Church in Dothan.
Despite its brutal ending, that final Saturday evening began on a festive note. It was J. B. Beasley's 17th birthday, and there was much to celebrate. She was an up-and-coming high school senior. Her future was promising, even if her past had not been trouble-free. Her relationship with her mother was admittedly strained, and her dance instructor had become her legal guardian. Even now, Cheryl Stout-Burgoon describes her daughter as rebellious and manipulative -- albeit very smart. But others considered her spirited, including her pastor, Lawson Bryan, who called her an “extremely vivacious, friendly, outgoing person.”
Tracie Jean Hawlett was born Wednesday, March 3, 1982. She was a second-year majorette at Northview High School, as well as a beauty contest finalist. [I've had a hard time finding facts on Ms. Hawlett. I'm hoping someone can help me here. —DD]
11. INVESTIGATION: DEVELOPMENTS
Police were stumped almost from the beginning. When state and county detectives joined the hunt, more than 50 investigators were working on the case in a city with just 45 officers on its force.
An FBI suspect profiler was brought in. But the profile revealed nothing dramatic, Chief Spivey said. The profiler said the killer most likely was a young male who could be described as a loner.
2008-2009: Ozark Police Chief Tony Spivey says they have investigated new leads over the past year and a majority of those leads have taken them out of Alabama. They’ve interviewed about a dozen people according to the Chief, some in Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, Michigan, Arkansas and South Carolina. But he says they’ve come up empty-handed. Chief Spivey says it is personally frustrating that they have not found the killers but the department continues to work with the Attorney General’s Cold Case Unit and the Alabama Bureau of Investigation.
12. AGENCIES INVOLVED IN THE INVESTIGATION
Ozark Police Department
Alabama Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Alabama State Troopers
Dale County Sheriff’s Department
Daleville Department of Public Safety
Wiregrass Violent Crime/Drug Task Force
FBI Violent Crimes Task Force
Dothan Police Department
Houston County Sheriff’s Department
Alabama Department of Game and Fish
Dale County District Attorney’s Office
Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences
Attorney General’s Cold Case Unit
Richard Walters, Cold Case Investigator
Attorney General Troy King’s Cold Case Commission
13. TELEVISION COVERAGE
Summer 2000: Spivey contacts America’s Most Wanted. The FOX network television show had helped Ozark police catch two suspects in a 1989 murder case.
July 28, 2007: AMW airs a segment on the Beasley-Hawlett murders.
August 15, 2007: CourtTV’s Haunting Evidence “Wiregrass Murders” (Beasley-Hawlett murders) episode airs.
14. A WITNESS
Since the day police discovered the bodies, they have said that J.B. and Tracie were shot while inside the Mazda's trunk. And, they've said, they believed the actual shooting happened somewhere other than where the car was found.
Yet, months into the investigation, police couldn't say where that somewhere else was.
Then, in March 2000, a woman who lived just south of town reported that she heard screams and what sounded like two gunshots on the night of the murders.
The woman didn't report the information sooner because she "didn't want to get involved," Chief Spivey said.
The area, next to what neighbors said is a now-vacant house, is surrounded by trees and has two World War II-era buildings on the property. The spider-web-encrusted buildings -- wooden structures that appear to be a barn and a half-collapsed garage -- sit about 100 feet off the roadway.
With FBI help, Spivey said, crime scene specialists and investigators combed the area and found a spent 9mm shell casing, the same caliber casing found in the trunk with the bodies.
Police sent the casing and a soil sample from the area to the state forensics lab, where they still sit. [July 2000]
Tipton said forensics experts will compare the dirt from that location with dirt found on J.B.'s and Tracie's clothing.
He said they will also examine the unique "extraction marks" left on the two casings by the gun that ejected them.
Because investigators are still awaiting those test results from the forensics lab, they don't know if the scene south of town is the actual murder scene.
15. PHOTOS
http://www.freewebs.com/sunflowersparadise/beasley.jpg
J.B. Beasley ID Photo
http://www.freewebs.com/sunflowersparadise/hawlett.jpg
Tracie Hawlett ID Photo
http://www.freewebs.com/sunflowersparadise/car1.jpg
J.B. Beasley's Car
http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...ksKeyChain.jpg
Similar to J.B.'s "HARD2GET" keychain?
Did the killer keep the keychain as a souvenir to his crime?
16. SOURCES
Google Groups
Alabama news links: 11 years later, possible new developments in murder of Wiregrass teens; Elba man dies in wreck
Haunted Evidence, J.B. Beasley & Tracie Hawlett Part 1
Double murder suspect released on bail
The Tuscaloosa News - Google News Archive Search
Hawlett-Beasley Murder Case
http://bit.ly/Ws8L7h
http://bit.ly/Ya1jbf
http://bit.ly/13DB2dA
http://bit.ly/WFBCzU
http://bit.ly/XPS8R9
http://bit.ly/ZcABzq
http://bit.ly/Ya1xze
http://bit.ly/W1usZn
http://bit.ly/13DBrwm
http://bit.ly/12qoN4c
http://bit.ly/12qoNRV
http://bit.ly/YrrwoJ
http://bit.ly/WK1KPD
http://bit.ly/YrrVY9
http://bit.ly/YSjCns
http://bit.ly/13DC1KD
http://bit.ly/XIXn4j
http://bit.ly/12qpASM
http://bit.ly/14nCoEN
http://bit.ly/13DCgFJ
http://bit.ly/PoUE8S
http://bit.ly/ZZTzvs
http://bit.ly/13C6kRM
http://bit.ly/YSl1ud
I did compile a chapter on rumors but I chose to omit it from my post in the interest of focusing on and discussing known facts. After spending a lot of time reading about the case on local message boards, I found there were a few rumors in particular that are still holding strong all these years later, so, while I carefully noted them, I'm wary of contributing to the perpetuating of these rumors as fact.
That said, I did come across quite a lot of detailed information on the rumor you mentioned, including names and talk of a suicide note that contained a confession, which, along with the idea of a massive cover-up that among other things denies the victims' families any form of closure, I find to be preposterous. In my humble opinion, of course.
As with other popular — and, in my humble opinion, ridiculous — rumors, including the idea that one of the girls was dating an Ozark police officer, was threatening to tell his wife, and was thus silenced, there were instances of friends and acquaintances on both sides of the story who came forward to post that there's no way these things could be true.
I think the following excerpt from a January 20, 2000, article that appeared in The Birmingham News does a good job of getting to the heart of why rumor has filled the void left by a lack of known facts in this case:
Quote Originally Posted by killarney rose View Post
Something happened- someone got those girls to stop from the time they were last seen leaving the Big/Little Store.....
"Also...ladies...when you were 17 what is the one thing that would have gotten you to stop if you were driving around?"
This is probably what I think about most when it comes to this case. Though J.B.'s car was low on gas when found, the tank wasn't empty. So the girls did not run out of gas, which would have left them vulnerable. And there was absolutely no damage to the car, so there's no evidence that they were forced off the road by another vehicle.
It is exactly 2 miles from the Big/Little Store location to U.S. Highway 231 via Route 27 (East Broad Street/East Andrews Avenue). This is the route the girls took, according to the witnesses at the Big/Little Store. It is a direct route. If the girls had only reached 231, they would have been home safe and sound half an hour later.
What stopped them? What happened somewhere on that 2 mile stretch of road, and how did the girls — headed west in a car that had plenty of gas and no reported history of being unreliable — end up a half-mile directly south of the Big/Little Store on Herring Avenue, the opposite direction they would have been traveling to safety?
Again and again I've returned in my mind to the question of management of vehicles. If the killer acted alone, isn't it likely that he would've had to leave a car — probably his own but possibly J.B.'s — parked along Route 27 while he took the girls, the three of them traveling in the same vehicle, to some unknown location, made at least J.B. undress to her underwear, deposited semen on her body and clothes, let her get dressed, then made the girls climb into the trunk of J.B.'s car where he shot them before finally driving J.B.'s car to Herring Avenue where he left it?
This all would have taken time. Was the killer's vehicle parked along Route 27 while all of this was going on, and did the killer have to walk back to his vehicle after the murders? Doesn't this seem like risky behavior? A witness could've noticed and later reported seeing the killer's vehicle pulled off the side of the road that night. Any moment a police officer on his rounds could've driven up and noted this vehicle abandoned at the side of the road. This brings up another question I constantly grapple with: Was the killer intelligent or just lucky? I'll get back to this.
So the killer somehow gets the girls to pull over on Route 27; he forces his way into their car or forces them into his vehicle — either way leaving a vehicle conspicuously parked for an extended period of time at the side of Route 27. There were no reports of witnesses driving along that stretch of Route 27 that night and seeing any vehicles pulled to the side of the road. So how did the killer manage to keep both the vehicle he was driving and J.B.'s car out of sight during the abduction and murders?
Here are some possibilities:
The killer was on foot.
The killer lived in the immediate area.
The killer somehow managed to pull the girls over in an area secluded enough that no one would notice the abduction taking place yet residential enough that no one would find an abandoned vehicle at the side of the road conspicuous.
There were two (or more) persons involved.
The victims knew — and were possibly traveling in tandem with — their killer(s).
Put yourself in the killer's place. If you are acting alone, how do you manage both vehicles without being caught?
As to the question of how the killer may have gotten the girls to pull over, so far to me there are a couple of strong possibilities:
-The killer was on foot.
-The killer lived in the immediate area.
-The killer somehow managed to pull the girls over in an area secluded enough that no one would notice the abduction taking place yet residential enough that no one would find an abandoned vehicle at the side of the road conspicuous.
-There were two (or more) persons involved.
-The victims knew — and were possibly traveling in tandem with — their killer(s).
-The killer posed as a police officer. The fact that J.B.'s driver's side window was down (according to different reports, the window was down a few inches to halfway to all the way down) coupled with the fact that her driver's license was found on the dashboard, as if she'd pulled it out to show someone, makes this a very strong theory. Family members have stated that there's no way the girls would have stopped for "anything other than a blue light." Did the killer often drive around late at night with a blue light at the ready, perhaps on his passenger seat or on the floor, to be thrown up onto the dashboard should he happen upon the perfect victim in the perfect location? He would only have to display the flashing blue light for a matter of seconds to convince a motorist to pull over before turning it off and putting it away. [It should be noted, in regard to the window being down, that the low temperature in Ozark on the night of July 31, 1999, was a pleasant 69 degrees — though I have so far been unable to find info on the humidity level that night. Apparently Tracie's passenger side window was not down. It is unknown whether J.B.'s car had functioning air conditioning.]
-The killer flagged the girls down, as seen in the CourtTV Haunting Evidence "Wiregrass Murders" episode. Though this particular theory belongs to the visions of two psychics on the show (their scenario can be watched here starting at about 2:05 http://bit.ly/WNh1iB), it's certainly feasible. The killer fakes an accident, stands in the middle of the road, and waves for the girls to stop. Even if they had no intention of getting out of the car to help the man, his presence in the center of the road may have been enough to get them to slow down or stop just long enough for him to pull a firearm.
So on the question of the killer's intelligence: based on the evidence, does this crime look planned? And if so, was it well-planned and carried out? I tend to lean toward the killer in this case being a) impulsive, b) not very intelligent, or both. He left his DNA all over one of the victims. He left a palm print on the trunk lid. He made no attempt to conceal, alter, or destroy the car or the bodies.
On the other hand, a defense attorney familiar with the case was quoted in one article as saying, "There is one thing about it. The killer was very careful. Whoever did it, this was not the first time." Was the killer, in fact, intelligent? Was he aware that his DNA and prints were not in the system, and so could not be used to link him to this crime? Had he been cruising around the Wiregrass area, prowling around in the night with a blue flashing light and a gun, waiting patiently for the right opportunity to come along? Was he a serial killer just passing through? Was he military, stationed at nearby Fort Rucker, and about to soon be deployed or PCS, enabling him to disappear completely in the wake of these horrendous murders?
To go to the extreme end of the killer being intelligent, I'll pose one of what I call my "out there" questions:
Is Herring Avenue a clue? As in red herring? Were the car/bodies left on Herring Avenue intentionally, not only/so much for its somewhat dark and secluded state at that end of the avenue near the intersection with James Street, but for the street’s name itself?
According to Wikipedia: Red herring is an English-language idiom that commonly refers to a type of logical fallacy in which a clue is intentionally or unintentionally misleading or distracting from the actual issue. It is also a literary device employed by writers that leads readers or characters towards a false conclusion, often used in mystery or detective fiction.
This is probably giving the killer(s) way too much credit, especially considering that the evidence left behind (semen on Beasley’s clothes and skin; palm print on trunk lid; no attempt to conceal, alter, or destroy the car or the bodies) seems to point to the killer not being especially intelligent in his movements/this being an impulse crime and not something that was well-thought out and planned in advance (aside from perhaps the killer(s) driving around with a blue light in order to pose as a police officer/carrying a gun and prowling around in the night looking for an opportunity).
But let’s say the killer is more intelligent than that — after all, he has never been caught. Let’s assume that Herring Avenue is indeed a red herring selected by the killer as a dump site. In what way could Herring Avenue/the dump site be a red herring? What could the dump site be distracting law enforcement from? What about the dump site/scene seems to have been intentionally staged/set up to point to what is in actuality a red herring?
For one thing, the appearance (driver’s side window down/Beasley’s license out on dashboard/console) that the girls were pulled over by a police officer. Did the killer intentionally leave the scene looking like the girls had been pulled over by a cop, who then sexually assaulted and murdered them? In this way, the killer not only posed as a police officer for J.B. and Tracie (as a way to get them to pull over), but he has also posed himself as a police officer after the fact for all to see. Did the killer have a hatred of police officers?
Quote Originally Posted by killarney rose View Post
"I had never heard of the woman reporting the gun shots and the possible crime scene being found. Have you heard any more on this?"
I can't say for sure if this is the same location, but one article briefly mentioned an investigation of Depot Lane in Ozark as the possible crime scene.
A couple of other facts I've found that I wanted to be sure to share:
The car was spotted on Herring Avenue as early as 3:00 a.m., but preliminary autopsy results placed the girls' time of death at 12:30 a.m. to 2:00 a.m.
Hawlett's family said they believe the killer may have taken the girls somewhere before Herring Avenue. Other stops could explain why the car was almost out of gas and how mud got on the victims during a summer dry spell, they said.
1. ON THE WAY TO A BIRTHDAY PARTY
At approximately 10:00 p.m. on the night of Saturday, July 31, 1999, Northview High School incoming seniors J.B. Hilton Green Beasley, 17, and Tracie Jean Hawlett, 17, left their hometown of Dothan, Alabama, together in Beasley’s 1993 black Mazda 929. It was Beasley’s 17th birthday, and the friends were headed to a “field” party for her at the rural home of Beasley’s friend and fellow dancer Janna Hare in Headland, about 10 miles north of Dothan.
Earlier that evening Tracie Hawlett had finished her shift in the menswear department at J.C. Penney, left work shortly after 9:00 p.m., and went home to change clothes before Beasley, of 205 Woodleigh Road in Dothan, arrived to pick her up sometime between 9:45 and just past 10:00 at her house in the Hickory Hill Drive/Rock Spring Road neighborhood in Dothan.
The girls never arrived at the party. Carol Roberts, Tracie Hawlett’s mother, said, “They never found the party. They just couldn’t understand the directions.”
2. LOST
Beasley and Hawlett were spotted in Headland at about 10:30 p.m. Police records show that they stopped at a BP gas station near the intersection of Routes 173 and 431 in Headland, where they used one of two side-by-side pay phones to call friends, probably to get clearer directions to the party or possibly to tell friends they wouldn’t be able to make it: Hawlett’s curfew that night was 11:30 p.m., giving the girls a relatively short night out given their departure time, made all the shorter by their becoming lost.
One hour later, just after 11:30 p.m., Beasley and Hawlett turned up in Ozark -- more than 20 miles northwest of Dothan -- at the Big/Little convenience store-Chevron station located at 763 East Broad Street. The store had closed for the evening. Beasley and Hawlett encountered a woman, Marilyn Merritt, and her daughter, who had stopped to buy a soda; the girls asked for and were provided directions to U.S. Highway 231, which would take them the 20 miles southeast to Dothan. Merritt and her daughter later told police that Beasley’s car was spotless, the girls were clean and nothing seemed awry.
Using the pay phone at the far right end of the store front, Tracie Hawlett then called her mother to say they had gotten lost and wound up in Ozark but had gotten directions and were on their way home. Carol Roberts stated, “Nothing was wrong in Tracie’s voice. It was ‘Mom, I love you. Be home soon.’”
Merritt and her daughter then saw Beasley and Hawlett pull out of the parking lot and turn right toward the highway, as directed. It was the last time Beasley and Hawlett were seen alive.
3. THE NEXT MORNING
Exhausted from a double shift as a nurse's aide at Wesley Manor nursing home, Carol Roberts fell asleep after the call from her daughter. When she awoke at 5:00 a.m., Tracie had not returned. Of Tracie’s failure to return that night, Roberts stated, “Tracie’s never late. I knew that something beyond her control was keeping her from getting home.”
At 8:00 that morning, August 1, 1999, Roberts called Dothan police. Officers started to search for a possible car wreck.
At almost that exact moment, Ozark police officers found Beasley's black Mazda 929 just before 8:00 a.m., parked along Herring Avenue, about 30 yards from the James Street intersection, less than a mile from the pay phone Hawlett had used the night before. Though a residential street, the stretch of Herring Avenue where the car was found is houseless, flanked by dense woods on both sides. It is dark in the daytime and near pitch-black at night.
4. THE CAR
According to police, when the car was initially found, there were no outright signs of foul play. Police say why the girls stopped remains a mystery. They say it doesn't look like someone forced the girls off the road, since there was no damage to the car.
Though undamaged, the car was muddy and almost out of gas despite a fill-up the day before. When police found the car, the driver's side window was rolled down a few inches and the door was unlocked. J.B. Beasley’s driver's license was on the dashboard. The girls' purses were inside the car. It appeared only the car keys were missing.
5. "SOMETHING ABOUT THIS FEELS FUNNY."
Lieutenant Rex Tipton, the chief of detectives with the Ozark Police Department, was contacted by a sergeant at the Herring Avenue scene and told about the discovery.
“I don't know why I'm bothering you," the sergeant said, "but something about this feels funny.”
Tipton told the sergeant to keep an eye on the car, figuring that teenagers may have left it there after a night of partying, which would not have been unusual. The sergeant ran the car's license plates and discovered that it was registered in Dothan, the region's largest city with just under 60,000 people. He contacted police there.
The Dothan police told Tipton they were just then taking a missing person's report from Tracie's parents.
Tipton reiterated his order to keep an eye on the car.
“At that point," Tipton said, "I didn't think about popping the trunk. There was nothing to indicate anything was wrong.”
6. INSIDE THE TRUNK
Hours passed with no sign of the girls. By lunchtime, Tipton had become worried. Dothan police sent an investigator, who planned to have the car towed back to Dothan. As officers waited for a tow truck, the Dothan investigator noticed that he could open J.B.'s trunk with an inside lever; the missing keys weren't needed.
Six hours had passed since the discovery of the car. It was nearing 2:00 p.m. when he popped the trunk:
J.B. Beasley and Tracie Hawlett were inside, each dead from a single 9mm gunshot wound to the head.
7. CRIME SCENE DETAILS
They were clothed and showed few signs of struggle. Hawlett's arm was scratched, her pants had briars, and the $95 New Balance tennis shoes she had bought the week before were covered in mud. First into the trunk, she had been shot once in the temple.
Beasley had been shot once in the cheek. She was noticeably dirty; her shoes were muddy.
Both girls’ pants were wet below the knee.
A single 9mm shell casing rested precariously on Hawlett’s leg.
Robbery was quickly ruled out as a motive when it was confirmed that not only the girls’ purses but also their jewelry, money, and credit cards were all found inside the car.
The only known missing item is Beasley’s key chain, which holds the car’s keys. It is described as having white blocks with black letters that have a heart on one and spell out “HARD2GET.”
An autopsy revealed that the girls had not been raped and had no alcohol or drugs in their bodies.
Authorities were able to determine that the girls had not been murdered where the car was parked on Herring Avenue.
A palm print was recovered from the trunk lid.
More than two months after the crime, a stunning revelation came from state forensics examiners: They found semen on J.B. Beasley’s bra, panties, and skin. Authorities consider this discovery the key to the unsolved murders.
"You have to assume it's a sex offense, or at least came out of a sex offense," said David Emery, the district attorney of Dale and Geneva counties. "If we could find who donated that semen, I think we'll have the killer.”
8. THE STRANGE CONFESSION OF JOHNNY WILLIAM BARRENTINE
At 11:30 p.m. on the night of July 31, 1999, at the same time Tracie Hawlett called her mother from the Big/Little Store pay phone, 28-year-old part-time mechanic Johnny William Barrentine told his young wife that he was headed out to buy milk for the couple’s 2-year-old son.
Barrentine didn’t return home until shortly before 1:00 a.m., and, according to his wife, when he came in he was visibly upset. When asked, he told her his car had been “hit by a black truck with a Dothan tag near Herring Avenue.”
In the days that followed, Barrentine would confide in others that he knew something about the murders of the two teens found on Herring Avenue . “He just said he thought he might know who did it,” said Avalyn Murphy, whose boyfriend, Leon Jordan, encouraged Barrentine to go to authorities and collect the reward.
Barrentine finally took the advice.
On September 1, exactly one month after the bodies of J.B. Beasley and Tracie Hawlett were found, Johnny Barrentine met with police for a four-hour, videotaped interview, ultimately offering six different stories and sometimes placing himself at the scene of the crime.
According to Ozark Police Chief Tony R. Spivey, Barrentine first said that on the night of the killings he'd seen a black truck speeding away from the area where the girls were found.
As the interview wore on, Barrentine changed his story several times, finally telling investigators that he'd picked up a “tattooed man” he didn't know, and the two drove by the Big/Little Store. Barrentine said the man he'd given a ride got into a car with two girls -- who Barrentine identified as “the dead girls” -- and told him to follow. He said they ended up on Herring Avenue. The man got the girls out of the car. Barrentine said he soon heard two gunshots and the man returned. Barrentine gave the man a ride away from the scene, then went home.
In another version, Barrentine confessed to investigators that the man he’d picked up and given a ride home wasn’t unknown to him at all -- it was his neighbor. Alarmingly, Barrentine lived just eight-tenths of a mile from where police found the bodies.
Police arrested Barrentine then and there, naming him the prime suspect and charging him with two counts of capital murder.
But there were problems with his account. He never mentioned sexual activity that would account for the semen found on Beasley. The neighbor he implicated had an alibi for the evening and, like Barrentine, did not match the DNA samples.
Barrentine, whose police mug shot makes him look like he might have just been startled from a slumber, immediately said he'd fabricated the whole story in hopes of scoring some quick cash.
“I didn't see anything,” he later told a grand jury. “I made up everything to get the reward money.”
“He says he was there,” Police Chief Spivey said, explaining what made Barrentine a suspect. “He relayed to us about getting the girls out of the car. One of the girls ran. The girls were combative. The individual placed the girls in the trunk. Two shots were fired. The gunman comes back to the car. Something is in his hand. He drove the gunman outside the city. He returned home.”
In a September 21 preliminary hearing, Alabama Bureau of Investigation agent Charles Huggins testified that Barrentine was able to describe the girls’ clothing and other items consistent with the girls and the crime.
Police Chief Spivey said the district attorney, who was present during the September 1 interview, instructed police to arrest Barrentine. When Barrentine’s arrest was announced at a September press conference, Spivey said police were confident they had arrested the right man.
"What do you do?" Spivey would say later. “If you don't charge him, maybe you just let a killer walk out the door. You're between a rock and a hard place.”
Barrentine was held without bond in the Dale County jail from his September 1 arrest on. In an October 18 bond hearing before Circuit Judge P.B. McLauchlin, Barrentine denied he was involved in the killings, though he had made the earlier statements to police that he watched the two 17-year-olds shot to death by an acquaintance of his who had “tattoos all over his arms.”
Barrentine told McLauchlin that he never picked up a tattooed man and that he didn't see anything the night of the murders. He said he simply went to the BP at about 11:00 p.m. to get milk for his little boy.
Barrentine was denied bond by McLauchlin, who then appointed 36-year veteran lawyer Bill Kominos to represent Barrentine.
Barrentine's friends and family stood by him, professing his innocence to anyone who would listen. “He did not do it,” his mother, Faye Barrentine, adamantly told reporters the day after her son's arrest. "He's not capable of doing it. He has a two-year-old son, and he is not capable of doing anything to hurt a child.”
Kominos would go on to say his client had obviously stumbled into a situation with investigators he wasn't capable of handling. “As a lawyer, you need to take what your client says with a grain of salt sometimes,” he said, speaking in slow, measured tones, his hands held together almost as if he were praying. “But I had a feeling from the very beginning, in viewing the car, in viewing the evidence, I said to myself, ‘No. Johnny Barrentine could not have done this.’”
The police were under intense pressure to make an arrest, Kominos contended. And that pile of reward money kept growing. It grew enough to lure Barrentine in, Kominos said.
“Well, they started. They questioned. And questioned. And questioned. Four hours,” the lawyer said, punctuating each sentence with a moment of silence. “It's all on video and the questions turn from questions to accusations. From accusations to suggestions.”
Barrentine, who had lived in Ozark for several years and was residing at 110 Young Avenue with his wife and son, said he first went to Spivey several days after the murders to tell him of a rumor. He gave Spivey a name and was told that police had already checked out the rumor and that the man Barrentine named was not a suspect.
Also several days after the murder, Barrentine reportedly said, he and his wife and brother-in-law went to the scene on Herring Street where the Beasley car was found. Barrentine said they were looking for something that might help the police solve the case.
Barrentine said he was tired when he told the story to police in the September 1 interview at the police station. He said he was interviewed for more than four hours and was not told he could go to the bathroom or could leave at any time.
Barrentine said police "tricked me" into telling the story.
At one hearing, it was reported that Barrentine finished the seventh grade and a portion of the eighth grade, and that he was in special education courses.
Daleville lawyer Joe Gallo said he didn’t believe police, who were under intense pressure to solve the case, would drop charges against Barrentine if they believed he was remotely involved. Yet Gallo offered no explanation for Barrentine's stories, except to say Barrentine suffered mild mental retardation. "You've got me," he said.
Barrentine's DNA was compared to that of the semen found on J.B. Beasley’s body.
It did not match.
A judge then approved Barrentine's bond request. He was released from jail on Friday, December 17. In January, a Dale County grand jury declined to indict Barrentine.
“Barrentine is living in Daleville now,” Kominos said at the time, “and is trying to pick up the pieces.” Kominos said no physical evidence exists that links Barrentine to the murders.
Police still consider him a suspect, Spivey said, noting that Barrentine is also alleged to have made a jailhouse confession.
Police have said Barrentine could be charged later if new evidence points to him.
9. OTHER SUSPECTS
The Man from Michigan: A man from Michigan who was at a party the night of the murders near where the car was found is also a "very viable" suspect, Chief Spivey said, even after tests failed to match the man's DNA to that found on J.B. Beasley’s clothing. The man, whom Spivey would not name, left town within days of the murders, the chief said, adding that investigators have traveled to Michigan three times to interview him. The man cannot account for three or four hours of his time on the night of the murders, and later made "suspicious" statements to people, Spivey said. He would not elaborate on what he meant by suspicious.
The Driver of the Small White Pickup Truck: A video surveillance camera inside the Big/Little Store caught a grainy, poor quality image of what appears to be a small white pickup truck at the gas pumps at the same time that J.B. and Tracie were at the outside phone calling Tracie's mother. The store had closed, and there was no record of a gas purchase being made at the pump by credit card or debit card at that time, Chief Spivey said. The video never reveals anyone getting out of the truck, and never clearly shows the driver. After releasing a photo of the truck to the media a month into the investigation, no one had come forward to say it was him in the truck. The truck -- and its driver -- seem to have disappeared. “So that may be the key,” Spivey said.
The Man from Mississippi (Presumably ruled out - DNA): In early March 2000, it was reported that a DNA sample taken from a Jones County, Mississippi, man was being compared to samples taken from the body of J.B. Beasley, but Chief Spivey said no factual evidence known at the time linked the man to the brutal murders of Beasley and Hawlett. Spivey said the man, who was extradited from Jones County, had been arrested there on an outstanding warrant for possessions of drug paraphernalia issued in Ozark. The man had been staying in Ozark with relatives but left two days after the murders. Spivey said investigators wanted to question him in connection with the case. “He has been extensively interviewed and DNA samples have been obtained and sent to the forensics lab," Spivey said at the time. "But at this time we do not have any factual information to connect him to this case. We just want to be double sure that he's not involved.”
10. ABOUT THE VICTIMS
J.B. Hilton Green Beasley was born Saturday, July 31, 1982 in Troy, Alabama, to Hilton Lanier Beasley and Cheryl Stout. In 1984, her family moved to Dothan.
J.B. was an All-American Cheerleader in the 8th grade at Carver Middle School. She was active in dance for ten years and was the recipient of numerous dance trophies and awards. She was a member of the First United Methodist Church in Dothan.
Despite its brutal ending, that final Saturday evening began on a festive note. It was J. B. Beasley's 17th birthday, and there was much to celebrate. She was an up-and-coming high school senior. Her future was promising, even if her past had not been trouble-free. Her relationship with her mother was admittedly strained, and her dance instructor had become her legal guardian. Even now, Cheryl Stout-Burgoon describes her daughter as rebellious and manipulative -- albeit very smart. But others considered her spirited, including her pastor, Lawson Bryan, who called her an “extremely vivacious, friendly, outgoing person.”
Tracie Jean Hawlett was born Wednesday, March 3, 1982. She was a second-year majorette at Northview High School, as well as a beauty contest finalist. [I've had a hard time finding facts on Ms. Hawlett. I'm hoping someone can help me here. —DD]
11. INVESTIGATION: DEVELOPMENTS
Police were stumped almost from the beginning. When state and county detectives joined the hunt, more than 50 investigators were working on the case in a city with just 45 officers on its force.
An FBI suspect profiler was brought in. But the profile revealed nothing dramatic, Chief Spivey said. The profiler said the killer most likely was a young male who could be described as a loner.
2008-2009: Ozark Police Chief Tony Spivey says they have investigated new leads over the past year and a majority of those leads have taken them out of Alabama. They’ve interviewed about a dozen people according to the Chief, some in Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, Michigan, Arkansas and South Carolina. But he says they’ve come up empty-handed. Chief Spivey says it is personally frustrating that they have not found the killers but the department continues to work with the Attorney General’s Cold Case Unit and the Alabama Bureau of Investigation.
12. AGENCIES INVOLVED IN THE INVESTIGATION
Ozark Police Department
Alabama Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Alabama State Troopers
Dale County Sheriff’s Department
Daleville Department of Public Safety
Wiregrass Violent Crime/Drug Task Force
FBI Violent Crimes Task Force
Dothan Police Department
Houston County Sheriff’s Department
Alabama Department of Game and Fish
Dale County District Attorney’s Office
Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences
Attorney General’s Cold Case Unit
Richard Walters, Cold Case Investigator
Attorney General Troy King’s Cold Case Commission
13. TELEVISION COVERAGE
Summer 2000: Spivey contacts America’s Most Wanted. The FOX network television show had helped Ozark police catch two suspects in a 1989 murder case.
July 28, 2007: AMW airs a segment on the Beasley-Hawlett murders.
August 15, 2007: CourtTV’s Haunting Evidence “Wiregrass Murders” (Beasley-Hawlett murders) episode airs.
14. A WITNESS
Since the day police discovered the bodies, they have said that J.B. and Tracie were shot while inside the Mazda's trunk. And, they've said, they believed the actual shooting happened somewhere other than where the car was found.
Yet, months into the investigation, police couldn't say where that somewhere else was.
Then, in March 2000, a woman who lived just south of town reported that she heard screams and what sounded like two gunshots on the night of the murders.
The woman didn't report the information sooner because she "didn't want to get involved," Chief Spivey said.
The area, next to what neighbors said is a now-vacant house, is surrounded by trees and has two World War II-era buildings on the property. The spider-web-encrusted buildings -- wooden structures that appear to be a barn and a half-collapsed garage -- sit about 100 feet off the roadway.
With FBI help, Spivey said, crime scene specialists and investigators combed the area and found a spent 9mm shell casing, the same caliber casing found in the trunk with the bodies.
Police sent the casing and a soil sample from the area to the state forensics lab, where they still sit. [July 2000]
Tipton said forensics experts will compare the dirt from that location with dirt found on J.B.'s and Tracie's clothing.
He said they will also examine the unique "extraction marks" left on the two casings by the gun that ejected them.
Because investigators are still awaiting those test results from the forensics lab, they don't know if the scene south of town is the actual murder scene.
15. PHOTOS
http://www.freewebs.com/sunflowersparadise/beasley.jpg
J.B. Beasley ID Photo
http://www.freewebs.com/sunflowersparadise/hawlett.jpg
Tracie Hawlett ID Photo
http://www.freewebs.com/sunflowersparadise/car1.jpg
J.B. Beasley's Car
http://i1131.photobucket.com/albums/...ksKeyChain.jpg
Similar to J.B.'s "HARD2GET" keychain?
Did the killer keep the keychain as a souvenir to his crime?
16. SOURCES
Google Groups
Alabama news links: 11 years later, possible new developments in murder of Wiregrass teens; Elba man dies in wreck
Haunted Evidence, J.B. Beasley & Tracie Hawlett Part 1
Double murder suspect released on bail
The Tuscaloosa News - Google News Archive Search
Hawlett-Beasley Murder Case
http://bit.ly/Ws8L7h
http://bit.ly/Ya1jbf
http://bit.ly/13DB2dA
http://bit.ly/WFBCzU
http://bit.ly/XPS8R9
http://bit.ly/ZcABzq
http://bit.ly/Ya1xze
http://bit.ly/W1usZn
http://bit.ly/13DBrwm
http://bit.ly/12qoN4c
http://bit.ly/12qoNRV
http://bit.ly/YrrwoJ
http://bit.ly/WK1KPD
http://bit.ly/YrrVY9
http://bit.ly/YSjCns
http://bit.ly/13DC1KD
http://bit.ly/XIXn4j
http://bit.ly/12qpASM
http://bit.ly/14nCoEN
http://bit.ly/13DCgFJ
http://bit.ly/PoUE8S
http://bit.ly/ZZTzvs
http://bit.ly/13C6kRM
http://bit.ly/YSl1ud
I did compile a chapter on rumors but I chose to omit it from my post in the interest of focusing on and discussing known facts. After spending a lot of time reading about the case on local message boards, I found there were a few rumors in particular that are still holding strong all these years later, so, while I carefully noted them, I'm wary of contributing to the perpetuating of these rumors as fact.
That said, I did come across quite a lot of detailed information on the rumor you mentioned, including names and talk of a suicide note that contained a confession, which, along with the idea of a massive cover-up that among other things denies the victims' families any form of closure, I find to be preposterous. In my humble opinion, of course.
As with other popular — and, in my humble opinion, ridiculous — rumors, including the idea that one of the girls was dating an Ozark police officer, was threatening to tell his wife, and was thus silenced, there were instances of friends and acquaintances on both sides of the story who came forward to post that there's no way these things could be true.
I think the following excerpt from a January 20, 2000, article that appeared in The Birmingham News does a good job of getting to the heart of why rumor has filled the void left by a lack of known facts in this case:
Quote Originally Posted by killarney rose View Post
Something happened- someone got those girls to stop from the time they were last seen leaving the Big/Little Store.....
"Also...ladies...when you were 17 what is the one thing that would have gotten you to stop if you were driving around?"
This is probably what I think about most when it comes to this case. Though J.B.'s car was low on gas when found, the tank wasn't empty. So the girls did not run out of gas, which would have left them vulnerable. And there was absolutely no damage to the car, so there's no evidence that they were forced off the road by another vehicle.
It is exactly 2 miles from the Big/Little Store location to U.S. Highway 231 via Route 27 (East Broad Street/East Andrews Avenue). This is the route the girls took, according to the witnesses at the Big/Little Store. It is a direct route. If the girls had only reached 231, they would have been home safe and sound half an hour later.
What stopped them? What happened somewhere on that 2 mile stretch of road, and how did the girls — headed west in a car that had plenty of gas and no reported history of being unreliable — end up a half-mile directly south of the Big/Little Store on Herring Avenue, the opposite direction they would have been traveling to safety?
Again and again I've returned in my mind to the question of management of vehicles. If the killer acted alone, isn't it likely that he would've had to leave a car — probably his own but possibly J.B.'s — parked along Route 27 while he took the girls, the three of them traveling in the same vehicle, to some unknown location, made at least J.B. undress to her underwear, deposited semen on her body and clothes, let her get dressed, then made the girls climb into the trunk of J.B.'s car where he shot them before finally driving J.B.'s car to Herring Avenue where he left it?
This all would have taken time. Was the killer's vehicle parked along Route 27 while all of this was going on, and did the killer have to walk back to his vehicle after the murders? Doesn't this seem like risky behavior? A witness could've noticed and later reported seeing the killer's vehicle pulled off the side of the road that night. Any moment a police officer on his rounds could've driven up and noted this vehicle abandoned at the side of the road. This brings up another question I constantly grapple with: Was the killer intelligent or just lucky? I'll get back to this.
So the killer somehow gets the girls to pull over on Route 27; he forces his way into their car or forces them into his vehicle — either way leaving a vehicle conspicuously parked for an extended period of time at the side of Route 27. There were no reports of witnesses driving along that stretch of Route 27 that night and seeing any vehicles pulled to the side of the road. So how did the killer manage to keep both the vehicle he was driving and J.B.'s car out of sight during the abduction and murders?
Here are some possibilities:
The killer was on foot.
The killer lived in the immediate area.
The killer somehow managed to pull the girls over in an area secluded enough that no one would notice the abduction taking place yet residential enough that no one would find an abandoned vehicle at the side of the road conspicuous.
There were two (or more) persons involved.
The victims knew — and were possibly traveling in tandem with — their killer(s).
Put yourself in the killer's place. If you are acting alone, how do you manage both vehicles without being caught?
As to the question of how the killer may have gotten the girls to pull over, so far to me there are a couple of strong possibilities:
-The killer was on foot.
-The killer lived in the immediate area.
-The killer somehow managed to pull the girls over in an area secluded enough that no one would notice the abduction taking place yet residential enough that no one would find an abandoned vehicle at the side of the road conspicuous.
-There were two (or more) persons involved.
-The victims knew — and were possibly traveling in tandem with — their killer(s).
-The killer posed as a police officer. The fact that J.B.'s driver's side window was down (according to different reports, the window was down a few inches to halfway to all the way down) coupled with the fact that her driver's license was found on the dashboard, as if she'd pulled it out to show someone, makes this a very strong theory. Family members have stated that there's no way the girls would have stopped for "anything other than a blue light." Did the killer often drive around late at night with a blue light at the ready, perhaps on his passenger seat or on the floor, to be thrown up onto the dashboard should he happen upon the perfect victim in the perfect location? He would only have to display the flashing blue light for a matter of seconds to convince a motorist to pull over before turning it off and putting it away. [It should be noted, in regard to the window being down, that the low temperature in Ozark on the night of July 31, 1999, was a pleasant 69 degrees — though I have so far been unable to find info on the humidity level that night. Apparently Tracie's passenger side window was not down. It is unknown whether J.B.'s car had functioning air conditioning.]
-The killer flagged the girls down, as seen in the CourtTV Haunting Evidence "Wiregrass Murders" episode. Though this particular theory belongs to the visions of two psychics on the show (their scenario can be watched here starting at about 2:05 http://bit.ly/WNh1iB), it's certainly feasible. The killer fakes an accident, stands in the middle of the road, and waves for the girls to stop. Even if they had no intention of getting out of the car to help the man, his presence in the center of the road may have been enough to get them to slow down or stop just long enough for him to pull a firearm.
So on the question of the killer's intelligence: based on the evidence, does this crime look planned? And if so, was it well-planned and carried out? I tend to lean toward the killer in this case being a) impulsive, b) not very intelligent, or both. He left his DNA all over one of the victims. He left a palm print on the trunk lid. He made no attempt to conceal, alter, or destroy the car or the bodies.
On the other hand, a defense attorney familiar with the case was quoted in one article as saying, "There is one thing about it. The killer was very careful. Whoever did it, this was not the first time." Was the killer, in fact, intelligent? Was he aware that his DNA and prints were not in the system, and so could not be used to link him to this crime? Had he been cruising around the Wiregrass area, prowling around in the night with a blue flashing light and a gun, waiting patiently for the right opportunity to come along? Was he a serial killer just passing through? Was he military, stationed at nearby Fort Rucker, and about to soon be deployed or PCS, enabling him to disappear completely in the wake of these horrendous murders?
To go to the extreme end of the killer being intelligent, I'll pose one of what I call my "out there" questions:
Is Herring Avenue a clue? As in red herring? Were the car/bodies left on Herring Avenue intentionally, not only/so much for its somewhat dark and secluded state at that end of the avenue near the intersection with James Street, but for the street’s name itself?
According to Wikipedia: Red herring is an English-language idiom that commonly refers to a type of logical fallacy in which a clue is intentionally or unintentionally misleading or distracting from the actual issue. It is also a literary device employed by writers that leads readers or characters towards a false conclusion, often used in mystery or detective fiction.
This is probably giving the killer(s) way too much credit, especially considering that the evidence left behind (semen on Beasley’s clothes and skin; palm print on trunk lid; no attempt to conceal, alter, or destroy the car or the bodies) seems to point to the killer not being especially intelligent in his movements/this being an impulse crime and not something that was well-thought out and planned in advance (aside from perhaps the killer(s) driving around with a blue light in order to pose as a police officer/carrying a gun and prowling around in the night looking for an opportunity).
But let’s say the killer is more intelligent than that — after all, he has never been caught. Let’s assume that Herring Avenue is indeed a red herring selected by the killer as a dump site. In what way could Herring Avenue/the dump site be a red herring? What could the dump site be distracting law enforcement from? What about the dump site/scene seems to have been intentionally staged/set up to point to what is in actuality a red herring?
For one thing, the appearance (driver’s side window down/Beasley’s license out on dashboard/console) that the girls were pulled over by a police officer. Did the killer intentionally leave the scene looking like the girls had been pulled over by a cop, who then sexually assaulted and murdered them? In this way, the killer not only posed as a police officer for J.B. and Tracie (as a way to get them to pull over), but he has also posed himself as a police officer after the fact for all to see. Did the killer have a hatred of police officers?
Quote Originally Posted by killarney rose View Post
"I had never heard of the woman reporting the gun shots and the possible crime scene being found. Have you heard any more on this?"
I can't say for sure if this is the same location, but one article briefly mentioned an investigation of Depot Lane in Ozark as the possible crime scene.
A couple of other facts I've found that I wanted to be sure to share:
The car was spotted on Herring Avenue as early as 3:00 a.m., but preliminary autopsy results placed the girls' time of death at 12:30 a.m. to 2:00 a.m.
Hawlett's family said they believe the killer may have taken the girls somewhere before Herring Avenue. Other stops could explain why the car was almost out of gas and how mud got on the victims during a summer dry spell, they said.
TedMac
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2014
- Messages
- 1,699
- Reaction score
- 4,645
Yes, JB Beasley's sister is a member of Websleuths. Also, the AL Attorney General's Cold Case Investigator currently assigned to the case is a member here.
TedMac
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2014
- Messages
- 1,699
- Reaction score
- 4,645
This is in response to your posts 43# & #44. I didn't want to repost it since it takes a lot of space!
I have done a lot of research on this case and want to say thank you for all your work and time you have put into this case. Yours is a great post!
The semen found on Beasley...I don't know how "good and preserved" the semen was that was discovered on JB. It wasn't discovered until the autopsy was being done. It was found on her bra, panties and skin. It was used to clear, Barrentine, the "Michigan Man" and the "Mississippi Man". Later in the investigation, some of the investigators came to believe that the semen was not related to the murders and may have been the result of a consenual act JB did earlier. I tend to support this, but it is just my opinion based on my research.
I certainly don't know for sure.
The Little/Big Store...was closed when the girls arrived, yet Ms. Merritt and the mysterious white truck were both there and it is where Tracie made her phone call to her mom at 11:38 pm telling her they had gotten lost and were on their way home. Ms. Merritt and her daughter actually gave JB directions on how to get back to Dothan from where they were. I have never read anywhere concerning how long Ms. Merritt was at the store after the girls drove off. She did say that while she was there, the truck did not follow the girls.
Beasley's car...was found on Herring Ave and was low on gas even though it was filled up the previous day. But, not a lot is known about where she went prior to picking up Tracie. It is known that she had dinner with some friends. The car was actually seen parked at the location it was found at 3:00 am by someone driving on Herring Ave. Concerning the window being partially down and JB's licnese on the dash, someone in her family said that her car's air conditioner was broken. Also, the Police later reported that they had placed her license on the dash to photograph it.
The girls' clothes...Both girls pants were wet below the knee and Tracie's week-old New Balance shoes had a lot of mud. Tracie's pants had briars in them and she had a scratch on her arm. Several conclusions were drawn from this. I can't help but think that they either were marched at gun point through a creek or made a desperate attempt to escape and ran thru a creek, briars, etc. One of Barrentine's stories was that one of the girls broke away and ran, but was recaptured. Both girls were fully clothed and according to the autopsies, neither girl was raped and their systems contained no alcohol or drugs.
The witness who came forth later...Several months after the murders, a woman came forward and told investigators that she had heard a gunshot, a scream and another gunshot near an old unused barn in Ozark. Police took samples of the soil there and attempted to match it with that found on the girls clothes. It has never been made public if it was a match or not.
Rumors...It is not uncommon for rumors to swirl around an unsolved murder. The most common one had JB dating a married police officer and he killed her to shut her up after she threatened to tell his wife. There has been no proof that either girl was dating a married police officer or any police officer for that matter. While it is possible, it probably is just rumor. Then there was the story of the judge's son was involved in the murders and left a note to that effect after he committed suicide. That rumor was wrong on all counts. It wasn't the son of a judge, but a grandson and he died of an accidental overdose. Thus, there was no suicide note. Other rumors had the girls being snitches for the police and even involved ina drug ring. None of that is true either.
So, what did happen and who killed them? I certainly don't know. One thing that needs to be considered...JB had ties to Ozark from her dance class. She knew some people in Ozark. I believe the girls planned to make a stop in Ozark and then return home to Dothan. When they made the stop, they were captured by either someone one or both of the girls knew and never suspected would hurt them or they were cornered by someone who had seen them in Ozark. If the latter is the case, the killer is someone from that area or at a minimum was familiar with the area.. I also believe the killer left the vehicle where he did on Herring Ave. because he either lived near there, was staying with someone near there or had a vehicle parked near there.
I have done a lot of research on this case and want to say thank you for all your work and time you have put into this case. Yours is a great post!
The semen found on Beasley...I don't know how "good and preserved" the semen was that was discovered on JB. It wasn't discovered until the autopsy was being done. It was found on her bra, panties and skin. It was used to clear, Barrentine, the "Michigan Man" and the "Mississippi Man". Later in the investigation, some of the investigators came to believe that the semen was not related to the murders and may have been the result of a consenual act JB did earlier. I tend to support this, but it is just my opinion based on my research.
I certainly don't know for sure.
The Little/Big Store...was closed when the girls arrived, yet Ms. Merritt and the mysterious white truck were both there and it is where Tracie made her phone call to her mom at 11:38 pm telling her they had gotten lost and were on their way home. Ms. Merritt and her daughter actually gave JB directions on how to get back to Dothan from where they were. I have never read anywhere concerning how long Ms. Merritt was at the store after the girls drove off. She did say that while she was there, the truck did not follow the girls.
Beasley's car...was found on Herring Ave and was low on gas even though it was filled up the previous day. But, not a lot is known about where she went prior to picking up Tracie. It is known that she had dinner with some friends. The car was actually seen parked at the location it was found at 3:00 am by someone driving on Herring Ave. Concerning the window being partially down and JB's licnese on the dash, someone in her family said that her car's air conditioner was broken. Also, the Police later reported that they had placed her license on the dash to photograph it.
The girls' clothes...Both girls pants were wet below the knee and Tracie's week-old New Balance shoes had a lot of mud. Tracie's pants had briars in them and she had a scratch on her arm. Several conclusions were drawn from this. I can't help but think that they either were marched at gun point through a creek or made a desperate attempt to escape and ran thru a creek, briars, etc. One of Barrentine's stories was that one of the girls broke away and ran, but was recaptured. Both girls were fully clothed and according to the autopsies, neither girl was raped and their systems contained no alcohol or drugs.
The witness who came forth later...Several months after the murders, a woman came forward and told investigators that she had heard a gunshot, a scream and another gunshot near an old unused barn in Ozark. Police took samples of the soil there and attempted to match it with that found on the girls clothes. It has never been made public if it was a match or not.
Rumors...It is not uncommon for rumors to swirl around an unsolved murder. The most common one had JB dating a married police officer and he killed her to shut her up after she threatened to tell his wife. There has been no proof that either girl was dating a married police officer or any police officer for that matter. While it is possible, it probably is just rumor. Then there was the story of the judge's son was involved in the murders and left a note to that effect after he committed suicide. That rumor was wrong on all counts. It wasn't the son of a judge, but a grandson and he died of an accidental overdose. Thus, there was no suicide note. Other rumors had the girls being snitches for the police and even involved ina drug ring. None of that is true either.
So, what did happen and who killed them? I certainly don't know. One thing that needs to be considered...JB had ties to Ozark from her dance class. She knew some people in Ozark. I believe the girls planned to make a stop in Ozark and then return home to Dothan. When they made the stop, they were captured by either someone one or both of the girls knew and never suspected would hurt them or they were cornered by someone who had seen them in Ozark. If the latter is the case, the killer is someone from that area or at a minimum was familiar with the area.. I also believe the killer left the vehicle where he did on Herring Ave. because he either lived near there, was staying with someone near there or had a vehicle parked near there.
morf13
Ver. Insider Golden State Killer & Zodiac Killer
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2007
- Messages
- 945
- Reaction score
- 2,539
Just to point out, I am not the original poster of this content, I had simply copied and pasted info that I was interested in from the old threads before they went down
TedMac
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2014
- Messages
- 1,699
- Reaction score
- 4,645
Yes, I am aware of that. The original poster is Dime Detective and he is great. He has brought a lot of good info to light in this case.
somequestions
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2015
- Messages
- 1,410
- Reaction score
- 6,349
Like I wrote I think that most likely law enforcement probably checked out the mud samples. I am not a mud expert, but it would be kind of cool to know the test results of the mud found on the car and J.B. Beasley and Tracie Hawlett.
In my opinion, the mud on the car tires does not actually look like mud. It looks like gravel puddle mud. One time I drove through a gravel parking lot and had the same type of mud pattern on my car's tires. This of course is from trying to look at a photograph like yours without a closer examination. So did the mud have limestone or some other stone element to it?
The mud on Tracie Hawlett's shoes, again, from the Haunting Evidence episode, which may not even be accurate, is interesting too. I have seen that same type of pattern as well. In my opinion, that looks like wet grass mud. It looks like the type where a person is walking on grass that is saturated with water. This creates the type of spray pattern seen on Tracie's white shoes. So when she walks on it, her shoe does not really sink but creates so of a pressure that forces the mud to go up and little pieces land on her shoes.
Of course this is coming from someone on Websleuths and not an actual forensic expert. I would defer to them. Until we know the same information as the police, mud samples for example, it is difficult to come to any general conclusions about where J.B. Beasley and Tracie Hawlett were before they were murdered. But I understand why police keep information secret. If they published information, such as the mud info, and it turns out there is gravel or limestone in the mud, people would probably start reporting every person who seems suspicious that has a gravel driveway.
So I get it, but it would still be kind of cool to know the information.
Thanks for describing the mud spray found on the shoes/pants somequestions. As an Alabama native I fully understand your description and have experienced the phenomenon myself.
All we have is conjecture from the evidence that is available to the public. I understand law enforcement keeping some things to close to the vest. It's just frustrating that after all these years results that may provide clues have not been revealed like the soil samples, palm print found on the trunk, or even if the semen sample is from one of now deceased suspects. Some of this information could help rule out some theories.
All we have is conjecture from the evidence that is available to the public. I understand law enforcement keeping some things to close to the vest. It's just frustrating that after all these years results that may provide clues have not been revealed like the soil samples, palm print found on the trunk, or even if the semen sample is from one of now deceased suspects. Some of this information could help rule out some theories.
somequestions
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2015
- Messages
- 1,410
- Reaction score
- 6,349
There was one thing I forgot to write about the mud. If you look at the Haunting Evidence picture of Tracie Hawlett's shoes, the mud looks like it surrounds other material. It actually looks like cut grass wet mud. So, in my opinion, the mud on Tracie Hawlett's shoes looks like someone who was walking in an area with wet grass. Simply put, like she walked across a wet lawn that had just been mowed. Bits and pieces of particulate flew up on her shoes. This was covered in mud. None of this proves anything. Since I think July 31, 1999 was a Saturday someone in Ozark, AL may have mowed their lawn that day. Or maybe they were in a public area like a park or rest stop and walked across the grass? Whatever grass it was it seems very small. Most of the time when I get muddy shoes, I find large pieces of grass, leaves that get picked up in mud, etc, but Tracie Hawlett's shoes do not look like that. The shoes match up with the mud on the wheels, like they were in an area that was muddy but not that muddy. I know that does not make a lot of sense.
SavageMarkIII
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Oct 17, 2016
- Messages
- 196
- Reaction score
- 576
I feel the same as TedMac. The DNA may be a red herring. Unfortunately, it may have been used to erroneously exclude suspects.
For me, the party near Herring Ave is an interesting prospect. People leave parties all the time for more food, alcohol, cigs or party favors. Did some people leave the party and see JB and Tracie driving alone that late at night? maybe.
And I also feel, while Barrentine may not have pulled the trigger or knew those who did, I think he may have really seen something that night. He was out driving around "looking for milk".
For me, the party near Herring Ave is an interesting prospect. People leave parties all the time for more food, alcohol, cigs or party favors. Did some people leave the party and see JB and Tracie driving alone that late at night? maybe.
And I also feel, while Barrentine may not have pulled the trigger or knew those who did, I think he may have really seen something that night. He was out driving around "looking for milk".
morf13
Ver. Insider Golden State Killer & Zodiac Killer
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2007
- Messages
- 945
- Reaction score
- 2,539
I think that they should still track down the person that deposited that DNA. Then question him and rule him out. If it was a young man that had consensual sex, that's one thing, at least rule him out. But if such a guy is out there, why wouldn't he have come forward long ago? Makes me think it could be the killer's
TedMac
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 22, 2014
- Messages
- 1,699
- Reaction score
- 4,645
I don't know for sure, but I suspect the person may have come forward early (in the first year) in the investigation. But, not before LE at used the DNA to clear some suspects. Again, I don't know this for sure, but I can't help believe this is what has happened.
morf13
Ver. Insider Golden State Killer & Zodiac Killer
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2007
- Messages
- 945
- Reaction score
- 2,539
Then it may be possible that the DNA is or is not his, they should go back to him and get his DNA
Again this is all speculation on my part but if the motive was sexual why is semen only found on her bra and chest? The killer(s) has two young women presumably at gunpoint and only (I apologize if too graphic) ejaculates from either oral sex or masturbation? If the perpetrator(s) had opportunity wouldn't he or they have done more? It's possible that J.B. had some sort of encounter with a male friend before she picked up Tracie and left Dothan. I think LE zeroed in on the semen too soon and other leads/evidence was neglected or forced to fit the DNA angle.
morf13
Ver. Insider Golden State Killer & Zodiac Killer
- Joined
- Jan 1, 2007
- Messages
- 945
- Reaction score
- 2,539
Who knows what the scenario was. The killer could have been interrupted, one of the girls could have made a break for it, etc. The mission should be to ID that DNA, match it to somebody then see what their story is and if they can be ruled out
I completely agree with you morf13, law enforcement should continue to try to match the DNA. My point was that I think LE quickly made the assumption that the semen was left by the perpetrator(s) and their focus turned to a sexual crime when that may not have been the situation at all.
somequestions
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jun 27, 2015
- Messages
- 1,410
- Reaction score
- 6,349
I do not think law enforcement was wrong to assume J.B. Beasley and Tracie Hawlett's murder case motive is probably sexual. If they were not robbed and if the DNA cannot be matched up to any of the guys J.B. Beasley knew, what other motive could there be, besides conspiracy motives?
I think the biggest piece of evidence I have to look at is Tracie Hawlett's white shoes on the Haunting Evidence episode. The mud pattern on her shoes looks so unique to me. So maybe that is not an actual picture of her shoes on the Hauting Evidence episode, but those particular shoes they showed in the episode looked rather clean to me. The shoe laces are not very dirty at all. Police are probably never going to release any information about mud or anything else as long as this is an active investigation.
We can only make assumptions because we do not know what happened to them or where it happened to them, but I think it has to be a wide open place seeing as how it was night and the murderer would want to see what he was doing.
I would want to do whatever I could to try to recreate the mud pattern on Tracie Hawlett's shoes. Or see if anyone else recognizes the pattern. I think that could lead to where they went the night they were murdered.
I think the biggest piece of evidence I have to look at is Tracie Hawlett's white shoes on the Haunting Evidence episode. The mud pattern on her shoes looks so unique to me. So maybe that is not an actual picture of her shoes on the Hauting Evidence episode, but those particular shoes they showed in the episode looked rather clean to me. The shoe laces are not very dirty at all. Police are probably never going to release any information about mud or anything else as long as this is an active investigation.
We can only make assumptions because we do not know what happened to them or where it happened to them, but I think it has to be a wide open place seeing as how it was night and the murderer would want to see what he was doing.
I would want to do whatever I could to try to recreate the mud pattern on Tracie Hawlett's shoes. Or see if anyone else recognizes the pattern. I think that could lead to where they went the night they were murdered.
- Status
DNASolves
Staff online
-
TriciaManager Websleuths.com -
CarlK90245UID Moderator
Online statistics
- Members online
- 224
- Guests online
- 2,644
- Total visitors
- 2,868